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Experimental Cup Information

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Pre-Experimental Cup Survey Results

Below you can find summarized information collected from the Pre-Experimental Cup Survey. The information was gathered from 51 responses.

King of the Hill Map Votes

Stopwatch Map Votes

Control Point and other game types Map Votes

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Key Dates

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Signups & Seedings Dates

Monday 19th of August 2024: Cup Announcement/ Signups Open
Wednesday 11th of September 2024: Signups Close, Rosters Locked for Seedings
Thursday 12th of September 2024: Seedings Released

Weekend 1

Saturday 14th of September 2024

Round 1: 7:00pm AEST pl_summercoast_rc8e
Round 2: 8:00pm AEST koth_daenam_b12
Round 3: 9:00pm AEST cp_croissant_final

Sunday 15th of September 2024

Round 1: 7:00pm AEST cp_sultry_b8a
Round 2: 8:00pm AEST pl_problitz_rc2
Round 3: 9:00pm AEST koth_proplant_v8

Weekend 2: Playoffs BO3

Saturday 21st of September 2024

Quarter Finals: 7:00pm AEST
Semi-Finals: 9:00pm AEST

Sunday 22nd of September 2024

Grand Finals: 8:00pm AEST
Bronze Match: 8:00pm AEST

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Player Restrictions

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Division 2

CHINESE DRAGON POWER

Susu Restricted off Scout & Sniper
hef Restricted off Demoman
bubsdoge Restricted off Scout

Where no ability meets no effort

v4na Restricted off Scout, Soldier & Sniper
HASHFAN Restricted off Heavy
durc Restricted off Soldier & Demoman
john the asain Restricted to Engineer & Medic
gingacharma Restricted off Spy

kimchi sensation

bananice Restricted off Sniper
Vampyr Restricted off Heavy
Log Restricted off Spy

Natascha Enjoyers

Jdn Restricted off Scout
oLae!™ Restricted off Demoman
song Restricted to Medic

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Division 3

item shop

Cobra Restricted off Scout Soldier, Demoman & Sniper
hive Restricted off Pyro & Demoman
bree Restricted off Pyro

Grainy Ridden

seiran Restricted off Sniper

Unhinged

mean bug Restricted off Scout
zen Restricted off Soldier
quay Restricted off Scout
inStinct Restricted off Scout & Soldier

at least we all had fun :/

mashiro Restricted to Medic
bambi Restricted to Pyro & Medic
jyydn Restricted off Scout
eunsoo Restricted off Scout, Soldier & Spy

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Division 4

chess in the park

indy and her jones Restricted off Soldier
Relz Restricted off Pyro & Demoman
Annabelle Restricted off Scout, Soldier, Heavy & Sniper
Evelynn Restricted off Sniper
dezi Restricted off Demoman
skratchle Restricted off Scout, Soldier & Demoman
a festive fish Restricted off Scout

Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads

h0tSnack Restricted off Scout, Soldier & Demoman
Posse & Almonds Restricted off Scout, Soldier & Demoman

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Experimental Cup Administrators

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For Experimental Cup 3 we will be using the Captain's Discord. Team Captains will be invited after the conclusion of Signups. Highlander Administrators will be able to assist Teams and Players prior to the beginning of the cup. The list of admins available for each day of the cup will be listed below.

HIGHLANDER HEAD ADMINISTRATOR

• Sperkle

HIGHLANDER ADMINISTRATORS

• Sperkle
• Kai
• redja
• woozy

ROUND 1 (14/9)

• Sperkle
• Kai

ROUND 2 (15/9)

• Sperkle
• Kai

PAGE PLAYOFFS (21/9)

• Sperkle

FINALS (22/9)

• Sperkle
• Kai

To see our complete list including Discord handles, see our Staff page here.

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Experimental Cup 3 - Map Pool

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5 Control Point (5CP)

• cp_croissant_fix_b1
• cp_sultry_b8a

King of the Hill (KOTH)

• koth_proplant_v8
• koth_daenam_b12

Stopwatch/Payload (PL)

• pl_summercoast_rc8e
• pl_problitz_rc2

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Please note: koth_proplant_v8, koth_daenam_b12, pl_summercoast_rc8e, pl_problitz_rc2, cp_croissant_fix_b1 and cp_sultry_b8a are custom maps. If you don't already have these installed, please click the links above to download them, and then move them to your ..\Team Fortress 2\tf\download\maps directory.

The following commands can be used to change maps to the correct version. Type or copy these commands into your console to change to that map, as long as you have the correct rcon password.

rcon changelevel summercoast
rcon changelevel problitz
rcon changelevel daenam
rcon changelevel proplant
rcon changelevel sultry
rcon changelevel croissant

Alternatively, you can use the following commands for the corresponding game type.

5 Control Point: rcon exec ozfortress_hl_5cp
KOTH: rcon exec ozfortress_hl_koth
Stopwatch: rcon exec ozfortress_hl_stopwatch

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FINAL SEEDINGS

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It wouldn't be an ozfortress season with out a few complications would it. Unfortunately due to one team dropping out prior to the start of the season we're back down 16 teams. Typically in a 16 team season we'd have two even divisions of 8 teams each. However, when looking into this we found that the skill difference between the 7th seeded Premier Division Team 50,000,000 Doctrine Fans Can't Be Wrong and the 1st seeded Main Division Team CONNECTICUT KIA BOYZ is too great and bring the Main team up into the Premier Division wouldn't be a positive fix. Thus, we have decided to keep the 9 Team Main Division and have a 7 Team Premier Division.

With this in mind we still intend to generate all the Premier Division matches as Round Robin. This means all teams in the Premier Division will have 1 bye week this season. As for Main nothing has changed and the season will still be generated as SWISS. Below is the Final Placement's for Highlander Winter '24.

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PREMIER

Atomic Deluxe
BRIANLANDER
crylander
EVIL RASCALS
Significant Otter
good pug
50,000,000 Doctrine Fans Can't Be Wrong

MAIN

CONNECTICUT KIA BOYZ
goblin deez
Scurvy Ridden
Sharon Keast
Tuah Previously, Where no ability meets no effort
Should Be Studying
Dispensers
rat gaming
monosodium glutamate

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Additional Restriction

We have added an additional soldier restriction to yons on CONNECTICUT KIA BOYZ. You can find the full list of player restrictions here.

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Division Administrator Changes

Finally, we will be swapping our Division admins around slightly. hive will be moving to admin the Premier division and woozy will now be a Main Division administrator.

If you have any issues with any of this new information please contact one of our Division Admins or reach out via a support ticket in our Discord. Matches will be generated with in the next few hours.

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PRELIMINARY SEEDINGS

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It's the biggest Highlander Season in 2 years! With a whopping 17 teams, we're keen to get the action underway next week. But first, we have released our Seedings as well as all the current Player Restrictions we plan on implementing for the Winter '24 Highlander season. Below you can find the current list of Player Restrictions as well as our Seedings for the Premier and Main divisions. If you have any issues with either please do not hesitate to reach out to one of our Division Admins or preferably via our support channel in Discord.

Player Restrictions can be found here.

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PREMIER

Atomic Deluxe
BRIANLANDER
crylander
EVIL RASCALS
Significant Otter
good pug
50,000,000 Doctrine Fans Can't Be Wrong
Team Wahoo!

MAIN

CONNECTICUT KIA BOYZ
goblin deez
Scurvy Ridden
Sharon Keast
Where no ability meets no effort
Should Be Studying
Dispensers
rat gaming
monosodium glutamate

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Why two divisions?

This season we intend to run two divisions like we did last season. We believe that an eight-team Premier division and a nine-team Main division will provide the best competition with the least amount of skill divide possible.

The Premier Division this season houses eight teams, all of which we believe will be of similar/equal skill to one another. We feel the biggest gap in skill is likely between the 5th and 6th-seeded teams. Furthermore, we think that placing any of these eight teams in the division(s) below wouldn't be beneficial as their skill level is currently far greater than that of any of the remaining teams even with harsh or scrutinised class restrictions.

The Main Division for this Highlander season will have nine teams. While nine teams isn't ideal for a season that will only run for a maximum of 7 weeks (not including 3 weeks of Playoffs for a total of 10 weeks) we believe this will have the best competition for the remaining teams outside of Premier. We are aware that there is a sizeable skill gap between the 6th and 7th-seeded Main teams but we don't believe that restricting players on the higher-seeded teams in the division or splitting the division up into two divisions would resolve this issue. Splitting Main into two divisions (for a total of three divisions) would result in a bottom division of four teams with match repeats, which we feel would not result in good or enjoyable competition as regardless of any restrictions that would be implemented, the higher seeded team could be far better than the three seeded below them.

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Season Progression

For Winter '24 both the Premier and Main Divisions will have a 7-week regular season with the entire Map Pool being played. With this in mind, the Premier Division will be using the Round Robin match system, with all matches being generated at the start of the season. However, due to the number of teams in the Main division, Main will be making use of the Swiss System - meaning matches will be generated weekly.

Please keep in mind that ABBA will be played in Week 4 of the Regular Season for both divisions. The map (only map) being played during that week will be the newest version of Upward.

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Sniper Crouch Exploit

When a Sniper crouches whilst scoped in, his head moves slightly to the right instead of straight down. This means while crouching near a wall or large object, a Sniper can conceal up to, or sometimes more than 50% of their character model - often obfuscating where the head hitbox is. Because of this issue, an enemy sniper abusing this issue can often have a mostly uninterrupted line of sight, but with their character model being significantly covered. In a Sniper dual, a Sniper crouching close enough to a wall can likely negate a headshot from an opposing Sniper whilst still being able to shoot unobstructed.

From Winter '24 of Sixes and Highlander onward, we will be classing purposeful abuse of this issue as game mechanic exploitation. We understand that this is potentially difficult to police, however, it will often be very clear when someone is intentionally abusing this mechanical oversight. We will be reviewing each reported case of this behaviour individually, and not blanket banning any instance that could be purposeful exploitation.

This will be touched on again in an upcoming post (titled: Demo Recording Rule Change, Docs Updates, Infractions Ruleset Changes & Game Server Bans), but for now is not live in the ruleset.

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Winter Is Here, And So Is Highlander

Welcome back everyone! We hope you're all well rested and are ready to jump back into the action with our seventh season of ozfortress Highlander. During the off-season we've been working hard behind the scenes to bring you a great Winter experience! Below we have a list of changes that will be implemented in the upcoming season as well as some updates to our staff.

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Staff Updates

After 5 seasons of hard admin work and providing servers to the community Oldcustard will be stepping down as a Highlander Admin. Oldcustard has been an internal voice of reason throughout his time on the ozfortress staff team. Always remaining level headed and calm regardless of what was being discussed and always provided a genuine and well thought out perspective on all matters. We can't thank him enough for all he's done for the ozfortress Highlander scene and we wish him nothing but the best in all his future endeavors.

With Oldcustard's departure we will be bringing on two new individuals who will be adopting the role of Trial Admins. Trial Admins will be shadowing our current admin team of Kai, hive, Rainy and myself over the course of the Winter Season and assisting where possible. Our two new Trial Admins for this season will be redja and woozy both of which have been active in our scene over the past couple of years. Despite one of them not bringing the AUS to ozfortress, we feel both will make a great addition to our team this season and we're look forward to seeing them in action.

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Changes, Rule Modifications and Additions

The following are a list of changes and additions that are being made to ozfortress that will either change of effect how the Winter '24 Highlander league is run and will progress.

Secondary Match Days:
- Secondary Match Days will no longer be in effect. If teams are unable to play their match between Wednesday - Sunday then they will need to be granted an extension via their division admin to play on Monday or Tuesday (Previously secondary days).

King of the Hill (KOTH) Scoring:
- For the Winter '24 Highlander Season King of the Hill maps will now be scored as 1 - 0 in the winning teams favor. This change has been implemented to combat an issue our website has when it comes to calculating scores correctly. Meaning, this change may only be temporary as our developer team is looking into the issue.

New Point Tiebreaking Measures:
- With the introduction of the new way of scoring King of the Hill maps we have introduced a series of tiebreaker metrics that will be used upon a potential tie in points come end of the regular season.
Tiebreaker Measures
1. Team will have all their KOTH rounds they've won throughout the regular season tallied with the highest total being the winner of the tied teams.
2. If the above fails, the direct encounter will be used with the winner of said match being the winner of the tied teams.
3. If the above fails, a Best of 3 tiebreaker match will need to be played. This match will feature the two maps from the direct encounter match with the final map being determined after each team bans 2 maps each. (Teams need to play on opposite sides they started on in the direct encounter).

ABBA week in Regular Season:
- During the Winter '24 Highlander Season Teams all divisions will be playing one week of ABBA in the regular >season. The week in question will only feature one map of Upward. The first team to win 2 rounds of this map will win >that week's match. If you are not familiar with our ABBA works or what it is you can find more information here

Map Pool Reduction:
- This season's map pool will be reduced down to 7 maps. You can find all the maps and the versions being used here

Roster Size Reduced During Sign-ups.:
- Rosters may only sign up to the season with a maximum of 12 players. During the first transfer window the roster size will be increased back up to 15 and will then remain at that number for the rest of the season.

Transfer Windows:
-This season transfers will be processed near fortnightly with the first transfer window being in week one and the following being ever subsequent fortnight. There will be a total of three transfer windows throughout the season with their dates subject to change based on how long the season will be.

Pick/ban Time Requirement
- For this season the Pick/ban process in playoffs need to be completed by 7pm AEST the day before the match is scheduled to be played. This is to give teams a chance to scrim the maps being played if they so choose.

Pick/ban Process Changes
- This season the Pick/ban process will be changed to accommodate to the new map pool size. The new Pick/ban process will be as follows:
Home-Ban, Away-Ban, Home-Pick, Away-Pick, Away-Ban, Home-Pick

Note: Rule changes may not be updated on the websites docs. We will have them modified and updated prior to the season's start.