How to Vote
We've reformatted our voting threads to better enable captains in correctly formatting and submitting their votes to us. Take a look, and let us know if you run into any issues.
1. Putting your votes together
Captains shall select three options from the Nominated Players heading and put them in order of highest vote to lowest vote using the following template. The first name will receive three votes, the second will receive two votes and the third will receive one vote. Voting for your own teammates is not allowed, regardless of the award (this includes Best Caster).
Important formatting - you must copy-paste your vote EXACTLY, and separate votes using commas. Again we are using an automated script to process these votes, and incorrectly imputed votes may not be counted!
Your team name:
Your team division: OpenBest Scout: first-place vote, second-place vote, third-place vote
Best Soldier:
Best Pyro:
Best Demoman:
Best Heavy:
Best Engineer:
Best Medic:
Best Sniper:
Best Spy:
Friendliest Team:
Most Improved Player:
Most Improved Team:
Most Valuable Player:
Best Dressed Team:
Best Caster:
Your completed template should look like this (with the correct players on their classes, the same players have been used for each award in this example for simplicity) without the point allocations after each player name:
Your team name: Your Team Here
Your team division: Your Division HereBest Scout: /dev/zero (3 points), wiggin (2 points), obla (1 point)
Best Soldier: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Pyro: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Demoman: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Heavy: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Engineer: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Medic: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Sniper: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Spy: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Most Improved Player: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Most Improved Team: Atomic Affinity, Red Pandas, Musos Deluxe
Friendliest Team: Atomic Affinity, Red Pandas, Musos Deluxe
Best Caster: catfish, core, obla
Remember: Voting for your own teammates is not allowed.
Nominated Players
The following players and teams are nominated for awards:
Best Scout: Ramsp, Dede, FIN, LuigisBigMac, Sirgy, gluglug, Eagle, astral
Best Soldier: Sly Samuel, phee, Kou, Peepo, Gregory, Sour Duh, Pewdekz, archie
Best Pyro: June (she/her), aibee, froglvvr, Mercicrux, StarGazer, Cantrip, Ness, Maeveanic
Best Demoman: juliangonzales2009@yahoocom, ara, ALittleSilly, Dupiter, SwaySway, Doc, Don, proton
Best Heavy: Pablo 62, c r a k i d, x32, Mr. Venom, Frosted, Johnston Fiddlestick, Zoe, Diavolo Diablo
Best Engineer: Azure, punda, Sev, ItKickedMeOutOfMyLast[JOLLY], Allison, Raina, Bjam, kafka1920
Best Medic: 0nkee, juna, Hindenpeter, MR_MEOWY, Plumsy, bambina, good small horce, bobb0
Best Sniper: Dight a blight, rice, Aristotel, ÅɞîD, Yeeting Baby, hugh cumber, midside, Haste
Best Spy: theatreTECHIE, TTV TheFizzOCE, gamer juice, Char Aznable, Captain Sigma, sully, Harrison, james16
Most Improved Player: juliangonzales2009@yahoocom, ara, randomcat, Dupiter, Frosted, bambina, Harrison,
protonMost Improved Team: Fat Fortress, lana del rey fan club, Rent's Due, Nik-6 (Plus 3), rat gaming, funny people,
Fatpoggers Highlander, FELLOWSHIP OF THE SANDVICHFriendliest Team: Fat Fortress, lana del rey fan club, Rent's Due, Nik-6 (Plus 3), rat gaming, funny people,
Fatpoggers Highlander, FELLOWSHIP OF THE SANDVICHMost Valuable Player: Ramsp, Dede, FIN, LuigisBigMac, Sirgy, gluglug, Eagle, astral, Sly Samuel, phee, Kou, Peepo,
Gregory, Sour Duh, Pewdekz, archie, June (she/her), aibee, froglvvr, Mercicrux, StarGazer, Cantrip, Ness, Maeveanic,
juliangonzales2009@yahoocom, ara, ALittleSilly, Dupiter, SwaySway, Doc, Don, proton, Pablo 62, c r a k i d, x32,
Mr. Venom, Frosted, Johnston Fiddlestick, Zoe, Diavolo Diablo, Azure, punda, Sev, ItKickedMeOutOfMyLast[JOLLY],
Allison, Raina, Bjam, kafka1920, 0nkee, juna, Hindenpeter, MR_MEOWY, Plumsy, bambina, good small horce, bobb0,
Dight a blight, rice, Aristotel, ÅɞîD, Yeeting Baby, hugh cumber, midside, Haste, theatreTECHIE, TTV TheFizzOCE,
gamer juice, Char Aznable, Captain Sigma, sully, Harrison, james16Best Dressed Team: Fat Fortress, lana del rey fan club, Rent's Due, Nik-6 (Plus 3), rat gaming, funny people,
Fatpoggers Highlander, FELLOWSHIP OF THE SANDVICHBest Caster: turris, tal, Dave, Harry, Rainy, Freaky, Sperkle
2. Submitting your votes
The votes must be sent through to the following administrators via direct message or via pinging them within your team's channel in the ozfortress Captain's Discord;
- pulse (@bigpulsey)
- woozy (@w.oozy)
Votes need to be submitted to one of the admins listed above by the Thursday the 1st of May at 11:59pm AEST. Failing to do this will prevent your votes from being counted and will make your team in-eligible for in-game medals.
FAQ
How is Voting calculated?
We will use instant runoff voting to calculate the results.
Will we receive in-game medals if we fail to submit our votes?
No, as we believe that every player should have the chance to be voted for.
How long will it take for Awards to be released?
The release of Awards often varies, but you can expect it usually within a week or two of Voting closing.
Thank you based Valen for their work to improve our scripts used for nominations and voting!
How to Vote
We've reformatted our voting threads to better enable captains in correctly formatting and submitting their votes to us. Take a look, and let us know if you run into any issues.
1. Putting your votes together
Captains shall select three options from the Nominated Players heading and put them in order of highest vote to lowest vote using the following template. The first name will receive three votes, the second will receive two votes and the third will receive one vote. Voting for your own teammates is not allowed, regardless of the award (this includes Best Caster).
Important formatting - you must copy-paste your vote EXACTLY, and separate votes using commas. Again we are using an automated script to process these votes, and incorrectly imputed votes may not be counted!
Your team name:
Your team division: IntermediateBest Scout: first-place vote, second-place vote, third-place vote
Best Soldier:
Best Pyro:
Best Demoman:
Best Heavy:
Best Engineer:
Best Medic:
Best Sniper:
Best Spy:
Friendliest Team:
Most Improved Player:
Most Improved Team:
Most Valuable Player:
Best Dressed Team:
Best Caster:
Your completed template should look like this (with the correct players on their classes, the same players have been used for each award in this example for simplicity) without the point allocations after each player name:
Your team name: Your Team Here
Your team division: Your Division HereBest Scout: /dev/zero (3 points), wiggin (2 points), obla (1 point)
Best Soldier: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Pyro: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Demoman: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Heavy: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Engineer: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Medic: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Sniper: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Spy: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Most Improved Player: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Most Improved Team: Atomic Affinity, Red Pandas, Musos Deluxe
Friendliest Team: Atomic Affinity, Red Pandas, Musos Deluxe
Best Caster: catfish, core, obla
Remember: Voting for your own teammates is not allowed.
Nominated Players
The following players and teams are nominated for awards:
Best Scout: monolith, sterzun, Corn, seiran, Klebs, Evelynn, Rain
Best Soldier: Zando, sarc, shadi, shneersh, Matty, indy and her jones, Psyco
Best Pyro: Cryo, ziah, yons, ¿Valeyard?, Kha, Bree, goblxn
Best Demoman: mort, wolfy, akim, MonsterGunner0v0, Rainy, silent, thethingy
Best Heavy: Amatorii, stubby, akari, lillybit_0, SpicyHipJesus, reeee.vol 2, TUX
Best Engineer: Sulu, melvin, brownie, Content, Verydarklord, Mirage, art 1992
Best Medic: olivergeeoz, scarlllyyy, Tenous, april, Peer, arbabf, bobo
Best Sniper: J, spoyo, fraggerung, dezi, Zort, noemie, skai
Best Spy: AJ, Cha1r, Wergy, chiddy, Karly, Classy Doctor, hiccups
Most Improved Player: mort, sarc, fraggerung, ¿Valeyard?, Matty, Classy Doctor, goblxn
Most Improved Team: Metaphorical Idioms, SYDNEY'S REALEST, Rich and Grainous, spentagon fever,
MAINAZUMA9, Paws of Steel, Stimulate Elderly ReactionFriendliest Team: Metaphorical Idioms, SYDNEY'S REALEST, Rich and Grainous, spentagon fever, MAINAZUMA9,
Paws of Steel, Stimulate Elderly ReactionMost Valuable Player: monolith, sterzun, Corn, seiran, Klebs, Evelynn, Rain, Zando, sarc, shadi, shneersh, Matty,
indy and her jones, Psyco, Cryo, ziah, yons, ¿Valeyard?, Kha, Bree, goblxn, mort, wolfy, akim, MonsterGunner0v0, Rainy,
silent, thethingy, Amatorii, stubby, akari, lillybit_0, SpicyHipJesus, reeee.vol 2, TUX, Sulu, melvin, brownie, Content,
Verydarklord, Mirage, art 1992, olivergeeoz, scarlllyyy, Tenous, april, Peer, arbabf, bobo, J, spoyo, fraggerung, dezi, Zort,
noemie, skai, AJ, Cha1r, Wergy, chiddy, Karly, Classy Doctor, hiccupsBest Dressed Team: Metaphorical Idioms, SYDNEY'S REALEST, Rich and Grainous, spentagon fever, MAINAZUMA9,
Paws of Steel, Stimulate Elderly ReactionBest Caster: turris, tal, Dave, Harry, Rainy, Freaky, Sperkle
2. Submitting your votes
The votes must be sent through to the following administrator via direct message or via pinging them within your team's channel in the ozfortress Captain's Discord;
- redja (@redja)
Votes need to be submitted to one of the admins listed above by the Thursday the 1st of May at 11:59pm AEST. Failing to do this will prevent your votes from being counted and will make your team in-eligible for in-game medals.
FAQ
How is Voting calculated?
We will use instant runoff voting to calculate the results.
Will we receive in-game medals if we fail to submit our votes?
No, as we believe that every player should have the chance to be voted for.
How long will it take for Awards to be released?
The release of Awards often varies, but you can expect it usually within a week or two of Voting closing.
Thank you based Valen for their work to improve our scripts used for nominations and voting!
How to Vote
We've reformatted our voting threads to better enable captains in correctly formatting and submitting their votes to us. Take a look, and let us know if you run into any issues.
1. Putting your votes together
Captains shall select three options from the Nominated Players heading and put them in order of highest vote to lowest vote using the following template. The first name will receive three votes, the second will receive two votes and the third will receive one vote. Voting for your own teammates is not allowed, regardless of the award (this includes Best Caster).
Important formatting - you must copy-paste your vote EXACTLY, and separate votes using commas. Again we are using an automated script to process these votes, and incorrectly imputed votes may not be counted!
Your team name:
Your team division: PremierBest Scout: first-place vote, second-place vote, third-place vote
Best Soldier:
Best Pyro:
Best Demoman:
Best Heavy:
Best Engineer:
Best Medic:
Best Sniper:
Best Spy:
Friendliest Team:
Most Improved Player:
Most Improved Team:
Most Valuable Player:
Best Dressed Team:
Best Caster:
Your completed template should look like this (with the correct players on their classes, the same players have been used for each award in this example for simplicity) without the point allocations after each player name:
Your team name: Your Team Here
Your team division: Your Division HereBest Scout: /dev/zero (3 points), wiggin (2 points), obla (1 point)
Best Soldier: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Pyro: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Demoman: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Heavy: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Engineer: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Medic: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Sniper: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Best Spy: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Most Improved Player: /dev/zero, wiggin, obla
Most Improved Team: Atomic Affinity, Red Pandas, Musos Deluxe
Friendliest Team: Atomic Affinity, Red Pandas, Musos Deluxe
Best Caster: catfish, core, obla
Remember: Voting for your own teammates is not allowed.
Nominated Players
The following players and teams are nominated for awards:
Best Scout: HUNGRY.4.EGGS, maz, Susu, strawbunny, Miffy, dante
Best Soldier: takeyon, mashiro, sarkreez, jdn, jd, Sephyr
Best Pyro: matt, brodie escobar, Styxs, bluemmy, peep, vanabanana
Best Demoman: robor, turris, doge.exe has stopped working, Glitchy, doctrine, durp
Best Heavy: wils, typo., JP, mean bug, trash, vonixyy
Best Engineer: silvo, redja, Square Bread, Train Smash, Mikcow, eden
Best Medic: lau, remorse, song, Pulse, gogen, Emily The Goldfish
Best Sniper: daz, Flow, Time, Titan, skyhigh, sphilliz
Best Spy: cowche, Andyroo, Speedy, Winterpizza850, henwe, lillia
Most Improved Player: wils, mashiro, Susu, Glitchy, trash, DANTE
Most Improved Team: Leap of Faith Deluxe, crunch cats, oh crab !, BRIANLANDER, Mates Rates,
Where no ability meets no effortFriendliest Team: Leap of Faith Deluxe, crunch cats, oh crab !, BRIANLANDER, Mates Rates,
Where no ability meets no effortMost Valuable Player: HUNGRY.4.EGGS, maz, Susu, strawbunny, Miffy, dante, takeyon, mashiro, sarkreez, jdn,
jd, Sephyr, matt, brodie escobar, Styxs, bluemmy, peep, vanabanana, robor, turris, doge.exe has stopped working,
Glitchy, doctrine, durp, wils, typo., JP, mean bug, trash, vonixyy, silvo, redja, Square Bread, Train Smash, Mikcow, eden,
lau, remorse, song, Pulse, gogen, Emily The Goldfish, daz, Flow, Time, Titan, skyhigh, sphilliz, cowche, Andyroo, Speedy,
Winterpizza850, henwe, lilliaBest Dressed Team: Leap of Faith Deluxe, crunch cats, oh crab !, BRIANLANDER, Mates Rates,
Where no ability meets no effortBest Caster: turris, tal, Dave, Harry, Rainy, Freaky, Sperkle
2. Submitting your votes
The votes must be sent through to the following administrator via direct message or via pinging them within your team's channel in the ozfortress Captain's Discord;
- Sperkle (@sperkle)
Votes need to be submitted to one of the admins listed above by the Thursday the 1st of May at 11:59pm AEST. Failing to do this will prevent your votes from being counted and will make your team in-eligible for in-game medals.
FAQ
How is Voting calculated?
We will use instant runoff voting to calculate the results.
Will we receive in-game medals if we fail to submit our votes?
No, as we believe that every player should have the chance to be voted for.
How long will it take for Awards to be released?
The release of Awards often varies, but you can expect it usually within a week or two of Voting closing.
Thank you based Valen for their work to improve our scripts used for nominations and voting!
Long time no chat! We hope everyone's Autumn '25 seasons are progressing nicely. With Autumn '25 now being half way through we'd just like to take the time to remind you all about General Feedback Forms and their importance. On top of these forms, we'd also like to make another call to arms for community members to apply for a position within one of our ozfortress staff teams.
ozfortress General Feedback Forms
General Feedback Forms are our way of collecting feedback from our seasonal competitions instead of waiting until the end of the season when the feedback may have been forgotten. Ideally, these forms will also help us shape future map pool, whitelist alteration and rule change polls via our discord server for a more streamlined way of voting for changes.
These General Feedback Forms are for bringing up anything you're unhappy with; whether it pertains to Sixes, Highlander or the league as a whole, if you have complaints we want to hear them. Simply moaning about something out of our site won't create the change you want to see. However, bringing whatever issue you have to our attention will at the bare minimum force us (league staff) to look at what your issue(s) is.
You can find the links to both the Sixes and Highlander General Feedback Forms below so please don't shy away from telling us what you think.
• Highlander General Feedback Form
• Sixes General Feedback Form
Staff Wanted:
At the tail end of the Autumn '25 season, we'll be looking to bring on some new staff to fill in roles across all groups of the ozfortress staff team. League Admins, Advisors, Developers, the works - we want you! All we ask is that you're considerate, and motivated to put in the work to help ozfortress thrive in future seasons.
The applications matters people. We don't just go off of what we know about you, or a vibe, so please put some effort into your application, it is very telling how committed someone will be by just glancing at their application.
League Administrators
League Administrators (or Admins) are responsible for the running of seasonal leagues as well as many of the off-season events within ozfortress. Seeding teams and applying player restrictions, generating rounds on the ozfortress website and in the captain's discord, handing out league penalties and leasing between players when issues arise are core responsibilities of Admins.
While it may sound like a lot of work the responsibilities are even distributed amongst admins with additional leeway being given to first-season admins who have the title of 'Trial Admin' before progressing to a 'League Admin' once they pass probation.
Advisors
Advisors are broken up into different categories depending on their overall knowledge and assist the Admin teams in seeding teams and restricting players before the start of each season, as well as providing thoughts on future transfers and assisting in making other decisions made during the season. We have three advisor teams for; Sixes, Highlander and out-of-region players.
Behaviour Panel
The Behaviour Panel is a mostly anonymous panel of individuals who review community behaviour reports to determine if our behavioural rules have been breached. The Behaviour Panel is always accepting applications!
Anti-Cheat Team
The Anti-Cheat Team is responsible for upholding competitive integrity through reviewing community Anti-Cheat reports. The team is always looking for anyone with significant game experience, knowledge of third-party cheating clients, game modification exploits, cheat development, etc. Similar to the Behavior Panel, this team is anonymous.
Development Team
The Development Team is currently on the hunt for Ruby on Rails and Python developers but those of any other development backgrounds are welcome to apply. The team primarily works on streamlining ozfortress operations like the Captain's Discord as well as making improvements to the website.
If any of these positions have piqued your interest, apply via the links below. Please don't shy away we're always looking for new staff!
- Apply for League Administrator, Advisor or Developer teams here
- Apply for the Behavior Panel here
- Apply for the Anti-Cheat Team here
Final Seedings, Player Restrictions & Match Generation
We haven't made any changes to the initial Seedings listed in our first Seedings Post on Sunday. However, we have made some minor changes to our Player Restrictions. We believe that the divisional spilt we crafted in the previous post as well as our approach for Player Restrictions is fair and within reason. Below you can view our modifications that have been made to player restrictions:
FIN Scout Restriction lifted.
Wergy Scout Restriction lifted.
We intend to generate Round 1 of Autumn '25 Highlander tonight so please ensure that if you're a Captain of any participating teams that you have joined our ozfortress Team Captain's Discord.
Map Pool Modification
We have reverted the Map Pool to it's first iteration, returning Product and Swiftwater to Round 5, with Eruption and Proot returning to Round 6. This makes it so that Premier will play all the maps in their 5-week Regular Season where as prior to this change they would of missed out on playing Swiftwater. You can find the full Map Pool schedule here.
LDU Qualifiers, Season Break & Playoffs Dates
After Round 1 of Highlander and Round 2 of Sixes there will be on a one week hiatus to ensure teams and players have ample time to prepare for the Lan Down Under Qualifiers set to occur from the 21st - 23rd of February! If you need are confused at all you can still find the full season's set of dates including the break for LDU Qualifiers on the respective Highlander '25 and Sixes '25 Key Dates.
Please also keep in mind that this season's Grand & Bronze Final dates fall on the Easter long weekend. So please plan accordingly.
PRELIMINARY SEEDINGS
What's 9+10?
21! That's right! 21 teams have signed up to compete in our 9th season of ozfortress Highlander! Making it not only the biggest season in ozfortress history but also the largest season of competitive Highlander in the AU/NZ region since the days of UGC. We'd like to thank you all for joining us and helping us achieve this monumental milestone; we're looking forward to seeing the competition unfold over the coming weeks.
Below you can find our initial seedings for Autumn '25. If you have any issues with these or with any of the accompanying player restrictions, please reach out to any of our Highlander Administrators or via our help and feedback channel/support ticket system in the ozfortress Discord.
PREMIER
INTERMEDIATE
OPEN
Return to 3 Divisions
For the first time in over a year, Highlander will be returning to 3 divisions. In the previous years' seasons, we haven't had the signup volume and skill divisions needed to justify a seasonal competition with more than 2 divisions. However, with an influx of new blood as well as our reliable Highlander enthusiasts, we have been able to accommodate what we feel are 3 very impressive and healthy divisions.
As listed above, the divisions this season will be Premier, Intermediate and Open. The Premier division will feature our most established teams whose players have competed in multiple seasons at the highest level. While the players in the 5th and 6th seeded teams have less overall experience than the teams seeded 4th and above, we believe that their recent performances in high divisions of 6's and Highlander warrant them being placed in Premier rather than the division below with teams that lack experience at these high levels of play.
The Intermediate division is a step down from the Premier division but still has many talented players within its ranks. Teams in this division, while not being at the same level or having as much experience as those in Premier, are a cut above a lot of the players in the lowest division. Even teams seeded 7th and 8th have players too strong to compete within the bottom division, as restricting said players would result in compromised rosters that would need substantial reworking.
Finally, the Open division is our last and largest division. This division is mostly comprised of players with minimal amounts of experience (1-2 seasons) or players who are completely new to competitive Team Fortress 2 and Highlander. If you are apart of the latter, welcome! We hope you enjoy your time here. Thus, this division is acting as a sort of "Newbie Division" and serves as an ideal entrance to organised competitive TF2!
Restrictions
As always, the restrictions listed on our Player Restrictions page are not final until the season begins. However, we feel it is worth mentioning that we have tried to take a minimal approach to restrictions this season, within reason, which comes as a side effect of having these 3 divisions. While we still are restricting players in the Intermediate and Open divisions who we feel would be too strong on particular classes, we have also allowed leeway for certain players that in past seasons haven't had this option. For example, some players in the Intermediate division would normally be restricted off particular classes in a 2-division season of Highlander and are now being "allowed to cook" as the kids say. The same can be said for players in Open, as only the ones who fall outside the classification of minimal experience have been restricted.
Season Progression, Rounds & Season Break
For the Premier Division, the regular season will be 5 rounds long with each team playing each other once. Then, Page Playoffs will be played, resulting in an 8-round season. As for the Intermediate and Open Divisions, the regular season will be 7 rounds long with each team playing each other once, after which Page Playoffs will commence for a total of an 11-round season. The only key difference between the Intermediate and Open seasons is that the Intermediate division will have 1 bye week per team, while the Open division will play all 7 rounds without byes being required.
With the shorter season, Premier will only have 3 transfer windows, locking rosters from round 4 and beyond, whereas Intermediate and Open will have the standard 5 transfer windows. You can view additional information transfers on the Key Dates & Transfer Windows section of our league page.
Round 1 of Autumn '25 Highlander will begin on Wednesday, the 12th of February, and will conclude on Sunday, the 16th of Febuary. After this, Round 2 will be delayed by a week and will begin on Wednesday, the 26th of February, to accommodate for the Lan Down Under Qualifiers that will be held between the 21st and 23rd of February.
Highlander Autumn '25 Changes!
The following are changes that will debut in Highlander Autumn '25.
Fresh Meat (New Admin)
Please welcome Pulse, our newest Trial Highlander Administrator, who will be joining the team this coming season! Pulse has been an active member of our Highlander community over the last few seasons and has provided us with excellent feedback and opinions over said seasons. We're very pleased to bring him onto the ozfortress staff team, and we know he'll do great things this coming season.
Map Pool
Below, you'll find the Autumn '25 Map Pool.
Highlander Autumn '25 Map Pool:
Upward
Swiftwater
Vigil
Eruption
Steel
Product
Ashville
Proot
Similar to last season, we're sticking with a total of 8 maps for Autumn '25. We have also stuck to our mission of rotating a minimum of one map out a season to add variety alongside the maps we all know and enjoy in our Highlander competitions. A detailed Map Schedule will be released in the coming days.
So Long Summercoast
Just like the season it was named after, Summercoast's time has come to an end. Upon reviewing our post-season surveys, it was clear that players didn't enjoy playing Summercoast in the Spring '24 Highlander season. This was further reflected in a follow-up map vote with the map receiving minimal votes to its contemporaries, Eruption and Borneo. Although we intended to keep Summercoast in for a minimum of 2 regular seasons to give players a chance to learn and enjoy the map, the outcry for its removal was too large to ignore, and thus Summercoast will be removed from the season for the foreseeable future.
I Am Proot
With our initial idea to keep Summercoast in for a minimum of 2 seasons, Proot was meant to be on the chopping block for replacement. However, after making the decision to drop Summercoast in favour of another Stopwatch map, we have opted to leave Proot in for another season. The map wasn't overwhelmingly disliked like Summercoast and had a positive reception from players, thus justifying our decision to leave it in for another season.
Eruption > Borneo
Like the legendary guitar solo of the same name, Eruption is here to leave its mark! With Summercoast being removed, 2 candidates were front runners for inclusion in the Autumn '25 Highlander season. Borneo and Eruption were both highly requested in our Post-season survey, so we decided to poll both maps in a recent Discord poll. To our shock, both maps tied with a total of 76 votes each. This is the second time that Borneo and Eruption have tied in our map vote. The first time this happened, we chose to include Borneo in the map pool, where it lagged significantly behind other maps in it's post-season reception. After careful consideration and feedback from the community, we’ve decided to go with Eruption for this season, given its recent updates and positive reception from players.
Eruption's recent balance updates as well as play in other regions, compared to Borneo's lack there of as well as their respective playtime in the global Highlander ethos outside of ozfortress also cemented our decision. Furthermore, Eruption has only seen 1 full season of league play in ozfortress back in Spring '23/ Season 5 where players weren't opposed to playing the map again in future seasons, whereas Borneo has been played in 4 seasons, constantly in a state of 'in and out.'. We're hoping that players and teams will be able to form more concrete opinions about Eruption over the next 2 seasons after they've had time to learn the map and explore it further.
Playoffs
Returning to Page Playoffs
Last season we experimented with a new playoffs concept in 'Expanded Playoffs' which allowed the top 6 teams from each division to progress into playoffs opposed to the usual top 4 teams progressing forward that is found in Page Playoffs. Unfortunately, after reflecting on its inclusion in Spring '24, we can't justify using it again in future regular seasons, as it has flaws that don't allow teams to be accurately ranked from 1st to 4th at the end of playoffs. Expanded playoffs may return in future off-season competitions that take place over shorter time frames, as a key strength of the format is its use of double elimination. We intend to return to our tried-and-true Page Playoffs system this season, which is only single elimination and flows better come playoffs.
Bronze Final Continuation
After its introduction in Experimental Cup 3 and its regular season debut in Spring '24, the Highlander Bronze Finals have been a huge success, with the majority of players liking the idea of a final match between 3rd and 4th place. Thus, we will be keeping bronze finals going for all divisions for Autumn '25 Highlander and beyond.
Tiebreaker Measures: Round Win Rate Method of Calculation
Come playoffs, if teams are tied and their correct standing can't be determined via our first and second tie-breaker measures (being Map Points and Direct encounter, respectively), then a Round Win rate calculation will be performed. Moving forward we'll be listing the formulas used to make this calculation in our rules alongside our other Tiebreaker Measures on our docs in the coming days, as there is no reason for this information to not be public in the first place.
If you have any questions about the way this calculation is performed, please reach out to its creator and fellow Highlander admin, redja on Discord via @redja.
Rule Changes
There will be a News Post detailing all upcoming changes that will affect both Sixes and Highlander coming out in the following days. This Post will list changes we're making, such as how we deal with teams playing with cheaters, map play order, and more.
Signups Close Soon!
Don't forget that signups close next Wednesday, February 5th, at 11:59pm AEDT. If you require any assistance, such as finding a team, finding players, or any other sort of help, please reach out to our Highlander Admins or, alternatively, open a support ticket in our Discord.
(art by dezi)
Highlander Flood
It's raining down in ozfortress, must mean it's Highlander time again. Welcome to the start of our 2025 Highlander run beginning with our 9th season, Autumn '25.
Signups
You can sign up for Highlander Autumn '25 from today (Thursday the 16th of January) up until Wednesday the 5th of February at 11:59pm AEDT. With this in mind we'll aim to have seedings out by Sunday the 9th or Monday the 10th of February at the latest with the Season starting on Wednesday the 12th of February.
SIGNUP NOW · SEASON PAGE
Season Changes On The Way
While we aren't ready to share any of the changes we'll be implementing in the coming season as of right now, another post will be released in the coming days once we've established and finalized all changes that are set to occur this season. If you haven't already, make sure you check out our Post-season Surveys that we've released in the previous Highlander Spring '24 - Winners & Award Recipients post. Feedback from these surveys will help shape future seasons so get it quick before they're gone forever... On that note...
Autumn '25 Feedback Form
For the time being we intend to move away from doing end of season surveys. They simply don't yield enough meaningful responses to justify doing them season after season. In their place we will be implementing a General Feedback Form which can be filled in at any point throughout the season. This form will then be looked at with all the submitted feedback, criticism and ideas at the end of each season and wiped going into the start of the next. Any other important data points from our previous Post-season Surveys such as map votes and whitelist changes will be moved to discord polls to incentivize responses in a simpler setting.
New Admins Wanted!
For this coming season we're looking to pick up 2 more Highlander Administrators to join the team. You can apply to join via the aforementioned Post-season Surveys or via our Staff Applications section on our forum. The position of Highlander Admin revolves around the smooth running of all highlander leagues, matches and competitions within ozfortress. This includes, but isn't limited too; settling match disputes, generating match pages on the website and match communication channels in the ozfortress captain's discord, discussing the internal progression and changes of seasons and events and spectating matches as a referee. If any of this interests you, Kai, redja, woozy and myself (Sperkle) would love to have you on our team.
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