IT'S PLAYOFFS TIME!
Well, at least for Premier, Main and Open it is. That's right, as these divisions have only five rounds in the regular season, their playoffs start earlier than High and Intermediate. Playoff matches have been generated, please feel free to reach out to your division administrator with any or all issues, or make use of our Discord support channels.
Your top four teams from each division are below. Keep an eye on our #casts channel in the ozfortress Discord for cast coverage of the playoffs!
Premier
Main
Open
Voting Nominations
Voting Nominations will release at the same time for all divisions, in two weeks' time. These will work the same as previous seasons, however the Award Voting may be run differently this time. We are currently looking at implementing it via a Google Form, which aims to make it easier for teams to submit their votes, and more efficient for us to process without error.
Infraction Threshold reached
This player has accrued a total of 70 ozfortress infraction points. As such, the player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 1 year, after which they will be serving 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. Their ban duration will be extended if they are found ban evading during their prohibition.
Infraction Threshold reached
This player has accrued a total of 70 ozfortress infraction points. As such, the player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for 1 year, after which they will be serving 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. Their ban duration will be extended if they are found ban evading during their prohibition.
Should any teams in any ozfortress competitions be found housing the listed players, the team will be permanently removed from our competitions and all members involved will face severe penalties.
We've heard of some confusion from players regarding the LAN Break and how that affects Match Scheduling, so we wanted to clarify some of those questions in this post. There is also some speculation around a potential upcoming game update, so we wanted to let you all know how teams may need to approach their matches post-update if there are any issues.
LAN Break
Since before the season started, we've had a note in both Key Dates pages for Sixes and Highlander that we would be having a week break to allow LAN players to not have to worry about playing their match for that week - these dates have not changed, but we want to clarify a bit of confusion surrounding them.
We used the word "break" literally, as we initially planned for teams to not even be allowed to play their match during the break, and even scheduled the rounds accordingly. However, we will now be allowing teams to play their post-LAN rounds (Round 5 for Sixes and Round 4 for Highlander) early via an extension, which both teams will need to agree to and seek administrator approval for.
Match Scheduling
Round 3 of Highlander has already ended, and Round 4 of Sixes will end this Thursday, so both should be unaffected by LAN. If you were planning on asking for an extension for Round 4 of Sixes this week however, please note we will not be allowing any that clash with LAN unless no one on the core roster is attending LAN, but considering the overlap this is fairly unlikely to happen. Round 4 matches for Sixes will be allowed to seek an extension into the LAN break, but again the match cannot be extended into days overlapping LAN unless both teams have no one on their core roster attending LAN.
To be clear, we do not expect nor require teams to play during the break, it is after all a break. However, we wanted to make it clear that teams who want to schedule their post-LAN matches to be played earlier can if they wish. This does not mean however that rounds after Round 5 of Sixes and Round 4 of Highlander can be scheduled earlier than the dates found in each seasonal league's Key Dates page.
Please note, Rounds 2-7 for all divisions of Sixes were linked to the wrong Key Dates page under the Match Details heading, this has been fixed. The Key Dates button at the top of the Match Notice was always linked to the correct page.
Game Update Speculation
As you have probably seen from your favourite TF2 youtubers, there may be an update coming very soon. Please note this is pure speculation, but it is believed that there may be more in this update than what was originally expected, part of that being potential weapon changes. In the event of any weapon changes, we will meet and discuss the changes with admins and respected players, and if need be test any changes made and whether or not those weapons should remain in season.
We previously added a rule to our Global Ruleset (1.14. Game Client Updates) dictating what players may need to do if their matches are interrupted by update issues.
We Need You!
We're often looking for, and happy to bring aboard new staff members. In that spirit, we added a "Join us" page to our docs which may help you understand who we are looking for. All open roles are there, and please let us know if you have any questions. We'll endeavour to get back to as many applicants as we can.
Support
As always, you can reach out to us via our Discord's Support category, however, we may be looking to trial more effective support systems in the coming months, and when we do we hope to hear from you! But for now, if you have questions regarding anything in this post, please reach out via #sixes-support, #highlander-support or #ticket-support.
FINAL PLACEMENTS
It's Highlander time gamers, Highlander Season 4 to be exact! You can find the Player Restrictions now updated and linked as a button at the top of the Highlander Season 4 league page.
Seedings are listed in order, with all divisions making of our previously trialled repeating Round Robin, used in Intermediate in Highlander Season 3. Division administrators have been updated and can be found on the Administrators page linked via a button at the top of the league page. Matches will be generated once we feel team's have had enough time to dispute their seedings.
If you have any issues, questions or concerns, please visit our Discord's support category.
PREMIER
IFMD
rascals
Musos Deluxe
peepBURGER
INTERMEDIATE
GARDEN OF EDEN APPLE PICKERS' UNION
Anna and the Gripmunks
godsquad ๐๐๐๐๐
Ducks in the Park
MAIN
lipSnoT
Significant Otter
TOWEL ANIMALS
dilf hunters
OPEN
Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads
Boykissers
with steven
Milo Fortress 2 - Miloheads
Weapon Whitelist Update
One change of note that was missed in our Seasonal League Changes & Ruleset Updates post was the update made to our whitelist. After considering the poll feedback on weapons, we've opted to ban the Darwins Dangershield for Highlander Season 4. We will be looking to reintroduce weapon-specific poll questions in the post-season polls to properly collect data on the weapon bans and unbans players are looking for.
FINAL PLACEMENTS
We hope you're ready for Sixes Season 37! You can find the Player Restrictions now updated and linked as a button at the top of the Sixes Season 37 league page.
Seedings are listed in order, with all divisions except Intermediate making use of our standard Round Robin, with Intermediate using Swiss. Division administrators have been updated and can be found on the Administrators page linked via a button at the top of the league page. Expect matches to be generated very soon.
If you have any issues, questions or concerns, please visit our Discord's support category.
PREMIER
Round Robin
xcx
Taoyuan Leopards
Ascension
en passant
laissez-faire
HIGH
Round Robin
mcsalad
fever kids
BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD
east meets west
soundcloud.com/2345y
Seal Team Six
Terrible Tactics
:3 coalition
INTERMEDIATE
Swiss
guckOW
beggars cant be choosers
Salt Free Gaming.
TOWEL ANIMALS
Bulgarian Odyssey
DLLM
Insisting on a Phisting
Avo's Cados
Should Be Studying
MAIN
Round Robin
SEAL TEAM SUX
Spare No Opps
Drake & Drive
Boykissers
emgee and the egirls
Ownage + 5
OPEN
Round Robin
fking hl mains
G7
Left 4 bread
Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads
Famous Last Words
Check out our previous Final Placements post
While the seedings posted in it are no longer accurate, the post contains a small update on our plans for Sixes moving forward, along with a teaser for our multi-week tournament in the next off-season!
Upcoming Docs Improvements
It's been a bit since we've made any docs updates, but we have more to come! For now, however, you can see the main changes below, separated into Headline Changes, Smaller Changes and Miscellaneous Changes/Fixes. We're always looking to improve the docs, and we feel a big part of that is the integrity of them. In the spirit of this, we are looking into potential forms of Update Tracking or Version Control, allowing players to see what has changed with each update. We feel this will go a long way to give everyone peace of mind when it comes to the integrity of our rulesets.
Poll Results
If you have not already seen the poll results, we'll link both below. We urge you to give them a look and give this post a read as well as there are changes here that players have been asking for.
Headline Changes
- (Global) Forward/Backward and Resupply Binds are now fully legal within ozfortress.
- This update was really a long time coming, as it was not consistently enforced in previous seasons. Whilst this only largely affects Sixes, this change is universal and under our Global Ruleset.
- This change does not take into account the current state of whatever you are playing, meaning that if you have sticky traps set, any medigun charge, or engineer buildings placed, you can still use your bind.
- (Global) Remedied the Sticky Trap rule under 6.1.2. Game Mechanic Exploits to the following:
- Hiding sticky grenades (AKA "stickies") or engineer buildings inside of props or geometryย where they cannot be destroyed by normal meansย (any class, out of the map, etc.) due to differences in their visual and physical collisions isย considered an exploit. - This now means that as long as the trap can be cleared by normal means, it is legal.
- (Global) Added 3.4.1. Team Starting Side rule dictates that in Regular Season matches the Away team will decide the team colour they want to play. In Playoffs matches, the team who did not pick the map will be able to pick their team colour to start on. This is in an attempt to make Playoff matches fairer by further eliminating any advantage in the Pick/Ban order.
- (Global) Added 1.7.1 Claiming a Forfeit rule (finally) which dictates the process to claim a forfeit when in an official match.
- (Sixes) The results of the Sixes Post-Season Poll indicated players wanted to see the 24-hour Playoffs Pick/Ban completion requirement. Since Highlander was already using the same rule, it has now been applied globally to seasonal leagues.
- (Sixes) Updated Sixes Pick/Bans for BO5 and corrected the unneeded ban mistake.
- (Highlander) Per the results of the Highlander Post-Season Poll, the Playable Match Days for Highlander have moved to Wednesday - Sunday, as opposed to the Tuesday - Saturday match days of the past. With this change, the Default Match Day that we may default matches to in the event of failure to schedule is now Saturday. Additionally, the deadline for scheduling is now Thursday 11:59PM AEST/AEDT. For Transfer dates, see the Transfer Windows linked on the league page.
- Updated the Highlander scheduling everywhere.
- 44.4% of people who voted in the poll favoured matches being played from Wednesday to Sunday with only 25% of participants wanting to keep matches being played from Tuesday to Saturday.
- (Highlander) Pick/Ban order in the ruleset is now properly updated to reflect what was run last season and will be run this season. Pick/Bans are remaining the same as last season as over 50% of players voted to keep it the same.
- (Highlander) Added Stopwatch ABBA to the rules under 1.4, along with which divisions are required to play ABBA by default. All divisions can opt into the opposite of their default if both teams agree.
- We are aware that there was some confusion around playing matches with the ABBA rule in effect last season, so we want to make it as clear as possible to avoid any confusion this season.
- Premier and Intermediate: For both Premier and Intermediate, the ABBA rule is on by default.
- Main and Open: For both main and open the ABBA rule is off by default.
- We are aware that there was some confusion around playing matches with the ABBA rule in effect last season, so we want to make it as clear as possible to avoid any confusion this season.
Smaller Changes
- New/updated docs.ozfortress.com pages:
- Added a "Join Us!" staff recruitment page which details some of the base expectations for us and for you, what roles we're looking to fill and more.
- LAN Downunder Ruleset is now visible and updated ready for LAN Downunder 2023. For those attending, we hope you have a great time!
- Updated Transfers page for Highlander schedule changes.
- Updated the Server Configs page to include BBall, and updated it to reference the Improved Round Timer plugin.
- Updated the Self-Managed Servers guide to link to all of the required plugins.
- Infractions Changes:
- Not necessarily a change, more of a clarification. Added a notice regarding when an Infraction becomes active, which is from when it is issued, not when a report against an offender was made.
- Added two disclaimers regarding evidence for reports:
- Evidence in reports should be hosted on links or file-sharing services that will not expire. If you are concerned about storage on personal file-sharing services, reach out to the Head of the Behaviour Panel or the General Head Administrator to ask if you are safe to free up that space.
- Infraction Evidence Expiry Window - This is something we've always observed, but we're making it clear publicly on the ruleset page that we will only act on reports containing evidence within the last six months. This affords possible offenders an opportunity to change in the long run. Please note, we can make exceptions if need be, but exceptions in the past have been exceedingly rare.
- Repeated delays in Match Organisation infraction has been updated to now include the 24-hour Playoffs Pick/Ban completion requirement which was in the Sixes Post-Season Poll and has already been in Highlander for some time now.
- Failing to complete Playoff match Pick/Bans 24 hours prior to the scheduled match time/day
- Please note: As per the stipulation of the base infraction, this infraction will only be used in repeated cases of this behaviour from teams.
- Failing to complete Playoff match Pick/Bans 24 hours prior to the scheduled match time/day
- Other changes:
- 3.2. Organisational Responsibilities updated:
- All official matches from now on require either a captain or a player nominated to act in a captaincy capacity by a captain. We've done this to ensure all official matches have a point of contact and someone to take the lead and responsibility over the team that match night. Please note, this does not mean they are fully liable for their team in a match.
- 2.3. Team Eligibility Requirements updated:
- Minimum rostered players required in the server lowered from seven to six to reflect mercenary rules.
- Added 1.14. Game Client Updates - This is just purely for peace of mind and provides some structure for what to do in the event of a game update affecting matchplay.
- Added 4.1.1. POV Demo storage requirements - Players need to keep their personal POV Demo files for at minimum two seasons after their recorded date for the purpose of Demo Checking, outlined in 4.1.2. Demo Checking. Failure to do so will result in a Fail to provide POV Demo files penalty, incurring a 2-Round Match Ban.
- Added 4.1.2. Demo Checking - Whilst the entire contents of this rule already existed, we just wanted to collate this into the same area.
- Added disclaimer to Page Playoff section of the Global Ruleset to let players know that some teams do end up playing more matches in Page Playoffs (teams who do not win Upper Page for example), because of this the ladder isn't accurate in this situation. All match generation for Playoffs goes off the match order of Page Playoffs, rather than relying on the ladder. If you win Upper Page, you will always proceed to Grand Finals.
- Removed the duplicate Spectators rule in the Global Ruleset, leaving only an updated 4.2. Spectators rule.
- Updated 4.3. Pausing rule to properly reflect how we treat the Pausing rule, for example changing the wording to "Pauses during a match are allowed for any reason teams see fit excluding the following scenario", that scenario being pausing at the beginning of a match to get a player in after readying up without that player.
- Added 2.2.1. Game Client Eligibility, which for now only contains the maximum client interp (interpolation) setting allowed on servers running the StAC/Steph's AntiCheat plugin. This maximum value is set at 0.100ms.
- Updated the Mercenary Manipulation section of the Mercenary rules in the Global Ruleset to make our intentions when judging mercenary requests during disputes. All requests should be taken seriously, as such all requests will be taken seriously by administrators.
- Updated Mercenary Validity & Requirements rule to stipulate that any mercenary requested to fill in for a player needs to be within 150 ping, same as any in-region ozfortress player.
- Transfer Window Limits added to the Global Ruleset. Transfer Window Limits were trialled in past seasons and are now finally being added to the ruleset. There is no limit on transferring out players, nor will it count towards the limit of transferring in players, which is set at two for Sixes, and three for Highlander.
- Updated 1.10. Out-of-Region Teams and Players to stipulate that out-of-region teams have to fall under the Ping Limit.
- Added 4.1. Map Gamemode Standards to both the Sixes and Highlander rulesets, which lists the win conditions, requirements and what each gamemode is.
- Updated the Class Limits for both the Sixes and Highlander rulesets to be clearer than they originally were.
- 3.2. Organisational Responsibilities updated:
- Updates to Game Modifications & Game Mechanic Exploits sections:
- Updates regarding the Sticky Trap/Engineer buildings rule and Respawn-related scripts can be found under Headline Changes.
- Added Removal/minimization of weapon sounds or particles (eg. transparent flame particles).
Miscellaneous Changes/Fixes
- Fixed broken Bans link on Community Guidelines page.
- Removed Discord reporting references on our Support page to remove any more confusion.
- Fixed the "Learn how to make a report" button on the Infractions ruleset page.
- Updated 2.8. Exclusions to the correct infractions ruleset link.
- Fixed list formatting throughout the docs website where it may have been broken previously (eg. the Game Modification & Game Exploits sections).
FINAL PLACEMENTS
We hope you're ready for Sixes Season 37! You can find the Player Restrictions now linked as a button at the top of the Sixes Season 37 league page.
Seedings are listed in order, with all divisions making use of our standard Round Robin. Division administrators will be updated before match generation and can be found on the Administrators page linked via a button at the top of the league page. Expect matches to be generated tonight.
If you have any issues, questions or concerns, please visit our Discord's support category.
Please note, updated Final Placements and Restrictions can be found on our most recent news post.
PREMIER
xcx
Taoyuan Leopards
Ascension
en passant
laissez-faire
HIGH
mcsalad
fever kids
BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD
east meets west
soundcloud.com/2345y
Seal Team Six
Terrible Tactics
:3 coalition
INTERMEDIATE
guckOW
beggars cant be choosers
Salt Free Gaming.
TOWEL ANIMALS
DLLM
Avo's Cados
MAIN
Bulgarian Odyssey
Insisting on a Phisting
Should Be Studying
SEAL TEAM SUX
emgee and the egirls
Ownage + 5
OPEN
Spare No Opps
G7
fking hl mains
Drake & Drive
Boykissers
Left 4 bread
Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads
Famous Last Words
Reintroducing High
For Sixes Season 37, we are introducing a division; High. If you haven't seen it before, High sits between Premier and Intermediate, with Main and Open still in their standard order. During our initial seedings meeting, we felt there was a clear distinction between the levels of teams we have placed in each division, and that the more traditional four division you've seen wasn't as suited, thus we reintroduced High. We will be hyper-focused on ensuring we collect enough feedback in the post-season poll for this season and will be working to iterate on the poll throughout the season to better discern what you want to be changed, what you like, and what you don't.
Regular Season Length
As you may notice, some divisions have less than eight teams (Premier with five teams, Intermediate and Main with six teams) which when using Round Robin where you can only play each team once, means that there are less rounds - five rounds in this case. We'll update the schedule to reflect this, however, it does mean that Playoff rounds in those divisions are ahead two weeks than the current schedule. As with the reintroduction of High, we will be polling for player feedback on the shorter season length for these divisions, as that feedback will directly influence potential format changes in the next couple of seasons.
Sixes Seasonal League Format Changes
Way to bury the lede much. To be 100% clear and transparent, we do not intend to make any changes without extensive feedback and polling, nor do we have anything concrete to present to you as of now. But what has become clearer in the last few seasons are the gaps in overall skill groups within ozfortress, especially at the top, which is much of what pushed us towards reintroducing High as a division. There is no one fix to this issue, but we are hoping that with a series of changes we can address what we feel may be potential pain points for some, and reach a better normal for everyone overall. While anecdotal, we have heard the following from some players, which we hope we may be able to address with any potential format changes:
- Committing to a ten-week total season can be tiring, especially for teams that scrim consistently. After discussing season length with them, we noted most agreed that around two weeks less per season would be ideal. This is something we want to poll, but we've found in the past that the most effective feedback comes after players have the opportunity to try whatever it is we wanted to ask in the poll. As such, we felt this season was the perfect opportunity, and it will give you and your team the chance to try a snippet of what may be coming in future seasons.
- When talking to a potential sponsor, the question of the season's overall length came up, and while we don't ever want to make changes to cater to a sponsor, it did bring up the question again and that is why we asked players for their thoughts on a shorter season.
NA Round Timer Trial Tournament
There is a bonus to shorter seasons. That bonus is larger and more frequent off-season tournaments. You may have seen our 2023 schedule graphic which indicated there would be a multi-week tournament after this season. This is still the plan, but we figured we would drop a little teaser! We're looking to trial the version of the round timer plugin used by RGL in North America, aptly named the "Progressive Ruleset Timer". If you haven't seen what's different, we'll send you to their YouTube for a VOD, but it aims to further eliminate stalemates, waiting down the clock and encourage comebacks. Typically this version of the plugin results in longer overall map playtime, which is why we were initially hesitant to make use of it. While it won't be the only thing we experiment with in the tournament, it will be the headline feature.
We hope to hear from you!
We will be working closely with experienced players in multiple divisions over the coming months to begin to poll potential changes and solutions, and we hope to hear from you too!
Infraction Threshold reached
This player has accrued a total of 60 ozfortress infraction points. As such, the player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for a period of 1 year, after which they will be serving a 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. If they are found ban evading during their ban, their ban duration will be extended.
Infraction Threshold reached
This player has accrued a total of 60 ozfortress infraction points. As such, the player has been banned from ozfortress.com, the community's competitions, and all other ozfortress properties for a period of 1 year, after which they will be serving a 12-month probation, in which any reoffence will double the severity of the penalty. If they are found ban evading during their ban, their ban duration will be extended.
Should any clans in any ozfortress competitions be found housing the listed players, the team will be permanently removed from our competitions and all members involved will face severe penalties.
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