Hi everyone, Award nominations are now open for both Sixes and Highlander for the Autumn '24 Season. At the bottom of this thread you will find links explaining how to submit your team's award nominations. If you need any assistance in this process please reach out to your Division Administrators for help. Award Nominations will close on Sunday the 7th of April at 11:59pm AEST 2024.
If this is your first time submitting Award Nominations there are some guidelines and information below to keep in mind:
- Only one of the captains on your roster needs to submit your team's nominations. We expect most teams usually discuss who they want to nominate for what award. Please note, you can only nominate your teammates for an award, voting will come after all nominations are submitted.
- Failure to submit nominations is pretty severe - failing to submit nominations will result in your team not receiving any in-game badges/medals. Whilst we do not require everyone to vote on awards, we require that all teams submit nominations, to give everyone on your roster a fair shot at winning one of the end-of-season awards! If you have any issues with this ruling, please feel free to reach out and exclusions can be discussed.
Award Nomination threads
This thread is for nominating your team's players for the best-in-class awards for Sixes Autumn '24 (S39). This thread will be used by us to collect the rosters of each team for voting, which go live once all nominations have been submitted.
Captains are asked to respond to this thread with the completed template below by Sunday the 7th of April at 11:59pm AEST 2024 Please save replies for nominations only, and not discussion. Only one reply per team.
Failure to submit nominations will result in you and your team being unable to receive any awards or be eligible for in-game medals. While this may seem harsh, we do this so every player has a chance to be voted for. If you wish to be excluded for a specific reason, please reach out to your division administrator.
Strictly follow the format below, as we will be using an automated script to process this data.
Team Name:
Division (Premier/Main):
Best Scout:
Best Soldier:
Best Pyro:
Best Demoman:
Best Heavy:
Best Engineer:
Best Medic:
Best Sniper:
Best Spy:
Most Improved Player:
This thread is for nominating your team's players for the best-in-class awards for Sixes Autumn '24 (S39). This thread will be used by us to collect the rosters of each team for voting, which go live once all nominations have been submitted.
Captains are asked to respond to this thread with the completed template below by Sunday the 7th of April at 11:59pm AEST 2024 Please save replies for nominations only, and not discussion. Only one reply per team.
Failure to submit nominations will result in you and your team being unable to receive any awards or be eligible for in-game medals. While this may seem harsh, we do this so every player has a chance to be voted for. If you wish to be excluded for a specific reason, please reach out to your division administrator.
Strictly follow the format below, as we will be using an automated script to process this data.
Team Name:
Division (Premier/High/Intermediate/Main/Open):
Best Combo Scout:
Best Flank Scout:
Best Pocket Soldier:
Best Roaming Soldier:
Best Medic:
Best Demoman:
Best Utility:
Most Improved Player:
Feedback and moving forward
After putting out our initial seedings yesterday we've received feedback from players expressing their own opinions about both seedings and player restrictions. The following is the thoughts around the decisions made:
SEEDINGS & DIVISIONS
We have received multiple enquiries about our return to a two division league which was last seen in Season 2 of ozfortress Highlander and Season 10 of RSL Highlander. Taking into account other factors relative to the administration of the league and the skill groupings seen, a two division league which has been successfully run in these seasons past has been our best compromise. A 3 Division league has been discussed while seedings and restrictions were being considered. It is, unfortunately not feasible given the signups of Autumn ’24.
Ahead of each season, feedback from the end-of-season poll is reviewed including comments made regarding a number of aspects of league management, which does partially form the basis for decisions made in future seasons. One aspect criticized through the poll was the perception of 4-team divisions, first introduced with partial success in Season 4, and retained in the Premier division in Spring ’23 (Season 5). There was a upward trend towards a preference of larger divisions from 30% to 39% between the most recent polls. This coupled with the inherent risks of a team disbanding and wide skill gaps within small divisions reduces our confidence in small team divisions for the ongoing health of the league.
The value of playoffs being minimized when four team divisions occur has also been raised, as a guaranteed playoffs match has been cited as a reason to ‘care less’ or provide less effort over the season until the playoff matches themselves. It is hoped to bring back an in-season level of competitive play and value to weekly matches, with each week able to be played against a different team in-season to broaden the match experiences. The return to a two-division league is not a permanent fixture, and it is recognized that the presents of an Intermediate division has been very healthy for the competition in the league for a good number of seasons. An intermediate division will be absolutely be returned to in future if the skill divisions and signups allow us.
A common theme brought up is that the teams seeded at the top of the main division are much better than teams seeded towards the bottom. With smaller divisions, the potential skill range is inherently smaller, and returning to wider divisions does mean a wider skill range in a division becomes more permissible. While we could move the top teams up into a 'middle' division with the 5th and 6th seeded teams in the current Premier division, this still causes new issues to arise. To produce a 3 division league, two teams would be removed from the Premier division and the upper teams of the current Main division would retained; In this case this does not necessarily represent the middle seeded teams based on administrative challenges related to these teams.
Firstly, with fewer teams in Premier the competition does become more stale with the 1st and 2nd seeded teams having greater levels of skill comparative to those seeded 3rd and 4th seed. However, via including the 5th and 6th seeded teams the 3rd and 4th seeded teams have better competition and more variety in their matches. The impact on the Premier division would be a 4 team division still retaining significant skill disparity, and which has lead to a significant loss of skilled player base over both seasons in which it has been present.
As for the other end, if we were to take the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th seeded teams in main and pushed them into an 'open' division, even with extreme restrictions, the 6th and 7th seeded teams would be greatly out matched due to the overall experience of the 4th and 5th seeded teams. If we looked to bring down the 1st, 2nd and 3rd seeded teams in main and gave them harsh class restrictions in an open division the same issue would present as their skill would greatly outweigh those in the 6th and 7th seed. Conversely, the impact on the open division would lead to significant restrictions on intended core players of the 1st seeded roster with other restrictions on intended core players within the division. We aim not to restrict players off their core intended classes but instead adjust seedings so teams may play as they intend to. However this can become necessary in both 6’s and Highlander when a division is considered specifically to cater to newer players.
This season we do have some newer teams competing in the main division. Both Maddie's House Highlander and rat gaming have a variety of newer players who will be playing in our league for the first time. In future seasons, if we have enough teams sign up comprised of newer players, the goal would absolutely be to facilitate competitive growth and development between these teams. Unfortunately with the low number of team sign ups this season this is not possible for the Autumn competition. But until that point these teams will be playing in competitions with players with more experience. We understand this will be challenging for them but we hope with the support of the community as well that of our staff and mentors that they will grow and enjoy competitive tf2 as much as the rest of us do.
PREMIER
Main
PLAYER RESTRICTIONS
Due to feedback from the last season of Highlander we have changed our approach to player restrictions. While we will still be restricting players who would be far too great in skill to play certain classes in the main division (including locking to medic players competitive in high premier HL who are on lower seeded rosters), we also want to provide players opportunities to learn and improve on classes they may have otherwise not played or played much of in highlander. A common issue we face is the dreaded sixes players... We want to allow these players to learn Highlander on classes that we think their mechanics would not be overly oppressive on in the Main division. Even so, if a player could compete in the Premier division on a class without being significantly worse than those who are currently rostered on teams in said division then that is where we have/will restrict players.
AMENDED AND ADDITIONAL PLAYER RESTRICTIONS
You can find the full list of player restrictions here
Wergy Added Scout Restriction
If you have any questions or need any support please reach out via our Discord's support channel #admin-support.
Post authored by Sperkle & Kai.
Preliminary Seedings
The initial Seedings for Autumn '24 Highlander are here! This season we're opting to return to the classic 2 divisions popular in days of old to create competition that players and teams will hopefully find more dynamic and engaging.
PREMIER
Main
PLAYER RESTRICTIONS
For this season, we will be introducing a Restricted Players Limit of 5 to all rosters in the Main division. This means teams can no longer have more than 5 restricted players on their roster at any one time. If a team would like a player transferred into their roster who may get restricted in the Main division, but the roster already has 5 restricted players, they will need to remove a restricted player to make space for the new player.
Throughout the season there will be 5 Transfer Windows, allowing for teams to transfer in a maximum of 6 players into their roster this season (capped at 3 inbound transfers per window).
Player Restrictions
The following players have been restricted off/to classes in the Main Division;
maz Restricted TO Medic
jennierubyjane Restricted off Soldier
Exquizit Restricted off Scout & Heavy
Striker Restricted TO Pyro & Medic
kaldoz Restricted off Scout, Heavy, Engineer & Sniper
angus Restricted off Scout & Sniper
Pipelin12 Restricted off Scout, Soldier & Sniper
big maurice Restricted off Soldier
gingacharma Restricted off Spy
scandalous Restricted TO Medic
Doctrine Restricted TO Medic
kbn Restricted off Scout
eunsoo Restricted off Spy
monti Restricted off Scout
noemie Restricted off Sniper
Rayno Restricted off Scout, Demoman, Heavy & Sniper
mira Restricted off Sniper
Proot Map Update
A small update has been made to the King of the Hill map Proot. You can find the new version (koth_proot_b6c-alt2) on the Map Pool page. This version will be played this season so please ensure you have it installed and ready for play.
If you have any questions or need any support please reach out via our Discord's support channel #admin-support.
Congratulations to the Spring '23 Highlander Champions Musos Deluxe, Team Wahoo! and goblin deez!
This time around we've tried something a little different with the awards. Thanks to the very talented dezi, this graphic has been created to eloquently display all award winners from Spring '23 Highlander. You can still read the full list of award recipients via the link below.
As for our Highlander team, we're working towards having signups for Autumn '24 (S6) open on Wednesday the 24th of January. With sign-ups opening soon, we'll be bringing you more information about the upcoming season, such as new rules coming into effect, staff changes and more.
Congratulations to all the award winners, all participants of the last season. We'll see you very soon for the first season of Highlander in 2024!
You can view the full Highlander Spring '23 awards here.
Congratulations Premier winners Musos Deluxe!
Placements
- Musos Deluxe
- DANDENONG DINGERS ⚾🧢🔴
- rascals
Grand Final Map Scores
Gullywash: 5 - 0
Steel: 2 - 0
Match
Awards
Note: The Premier division saw three-way ties in all best-in-class award categories due to low team count, therefore we won't be including these awards.
We would like to acknowledge the players on DANDENONG DINGERS ⚾🧢🔴 and rascals for achieving 2nd and 3rd place respectfully. Congratulations to Musos Deluxe for winning the division and becoming your spring ‘23 highlander champions.
We would also like to congratulate Andyroo, maz and strongman for receiving the MVP awards as the vote wasn’t affected by the smaller division size. Furthermore we’d like to congratulate freaky, foodeater, strongman and tal who received the best caster(s) awards which were also not impacted in the voting process. We will be looking to improve voting in smaller divisions for future seasons, as losing one team means the complete destabilization of this process.
Congratulations Intermediate winners Team Wahoo!
Placements
- Team Wahoo!
- Significant Otter
- PEEPLINGS !
Grand Final Map Scores
Eruption: 2 - 0
Steel: 0 - 2
Proot: 3 - 0
Match
Awards
Best Scout: bill & eunsoo
Best Soldier: strawbunny
Best Pyro: Styxs
Best Demoman: multi
Best Heavy: oLae!™
Best Engineer: Trash
Best Medic: hobo
Best Sniper: TUX
Best Spy: Speedy
Most Improved Player: TUX
Most Valuable Player: multi
Most Improved Team: Team Wahoo!
Friendliest Team: Silent Tennis
Best Dressed Team: Team Wahoo!
Best Caster: freaky & turris
Congratulations Open winners goblin deez!
Placements
- goblin deez
- worms on a string
- Shark Attack :3
Awards
Best Scout: a festive fish
Best Soldier: Annabelle
Best Pyro: fléchette
Best Demoman: hive
Best Heavy: ash & mothhman
Best Engineer: eden & Train_Smash
Best Medic: Miss Squidge
Best Sniper: manglemonster
Best Spy: hiccups
Most Improved Player: Train_Smash
Most Valuable Player: a festive fish
Most Improved Team: worms on a string
Friendliest Team: Norb Fortress 2 - Norbheads & worms on a string
Best Dressed Team: worms on a string
Best Caster: freaky
Highlander Staff Updates
While our staff team will remain mostly the same as last year, there will be a few changes moving into the first season of the year. To start, we would like to welcome our newest Highlander admin hive. He has played on a variety of teams at varying skill levels. From winning intermediate to creating and leading a new highlander team in open this past season we believe his experience and insight will be of great benefit to our admin team.
Unfortunately, it comes with a heavy heart that bird, will be stepping down as the Highlander Head Administrator and Member of the Staff Team for ozfortress. Bird has been the Head Highlander Administrator since the format was brought over to ozfortress in 2022. Prior to this she was the Head Admin for RSL for its last season with years of administration work with in the league prior. Without her input, impact and commitment over the years the format would not be were it is today. Thank you for your service bird and best wishes for the future. o7
From Autumn '24 (S6), I (Sperkle) will be stepping into the role as the Head Highlander Administrator and look forward to continue contributing to the league.
New Rules Coming into effect
You can find the full thread of changes here if you're curious. However, the ones below specifically pertain to Highlander and will be coming into effect as of this season.
Secondary Match Days:
- Secondary Match Days fall on Monday and Tuesday for Highlander. These days are now considered playable match >days if both teams agree to play on them and do not need any admin approval as would be needed for an extension. >However, teams are not required to play on these days and may select to prefer the primary days (Wednesday - >Sunday).Class Restriction Limit:
- We haven't yet to decide if we will implement a Class Restriction Limit for rosters outside of Premier. However, once > seedings are finalized we will retroactively add a Class Restriction Limit if need be.Individual Player Transfer Limit:
- A player may only be allowed to change roster twice during an active season.Reasonable Mercenary Requests:
- A player who is completely unrestricted in a division below that in which a match is being played is considered a
reasonable mercenary request and should be approved without any restrictions.Reasonable Mercenary Requests:
- The class restrictions of a player still apply when accepted as a mercenary. They are prohibited from playing those > restricted classes in divisions below where the restriction was set.Minimum Players in Matches:
- Teams are expected to play with a full roster (9 players).Out-of-Region Players:
- In-game ping limit for out-of-region players has been reduced to 180. Stipulations apply.Class Restriction Non-Compliance:
- Players playing as a class they are restricted on during a match will receive a Tier 2 infraction.Inbound Transfer Limit Per Season:
- Rosters may only transfer in a maximum of 6 players during the season.
Join our Discord
Follow us on Twitter
Support us on Patreon
Subscribe to us on YouTube
Join our Steam Group
Like us on Facebook