ozfortress Sixes Season 34

artwork by soda (@Sodaboop on Twitter)

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The ozfortress seasonal league returns with OZF 34! Returning from Ultiduo 16 in the off-season, we have been hard at work introducing changes to the rulesets and documentation on our website, as well as bringing in fixes and changes for Season 34.

You can sign up for ozfortress season 34 from Sunday the 1st of May, up until Wednesday the 11th of May. We aim to have seeding out by the 14th of May (at the latest, hopefully on the 13th of May) with the season starting on the 15th of May. This gap between the closing of signups and the start of the season is to give the administration team time to seed teams with community input. ozfortress season 34 will begin on Sunday the 15th of May.

[Sign Up!]

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Map Pool & Divisions

The map pool for OZF 34 will again be comprised of nine maps and certain maps will be played once during the regular season with other maps being played twice. This season the map pool will see some significant changes, namely in the removal of Product. We've decided to include Prolands over Product, and trial running two KOTH maps that are not Product for this season. We are sticking with both Clearcut and Bagel as our two KOTH maps this season. As you'll see with the version number of Granary Pro, a newly updated Granary Pro has been released. This version of Granary features further competitive viability changes along with fixes map-wide. Going into future seasons we will be putting much more focus on providing better ways of collecting map feedback on the polls for map authors, and ensuring those results are forwarded to authors.

There will be four skill divisions in OZF 34. The brackets we will feature are Premier, Intermediate, Main and Open! Premier will have a Round Robin group stage while the Intermediate, Main and Open divisions will use the Swiss System. All brackets will continue using the Page Playoffs format. Grand Finals for Premier shall be played as a no-advantage best of five, while all other division's Grand Finals will be a best of three. Depending on the number of signups we receive for OZF 34, we may adjust the number of skill divisions after signups have closed.

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Competitive Ruleset updates, changes and clarifications

Returning with Season 34, we've been hard at work updating the documentation across ozfortress.com. We now have the competitive ruleset amongst other documentation displayed in PDF format, allowing us to more quickly make updates without needing to wait. We're hoping between this and a general drive to ensure what we have within our rulesets and docs is what we truly agree with and enforce going forward.

We are open to suggestions, feedback and concerns regarding any of the content on ozfortress.com. We want to continue our push to ensure our community feels represented within our decision making, and we hope going forward that it shows.

One thing that has been in the back of our minds when considering and working on changes for this season, was that we should be able to get behind and enforce any and all rules within our ruleset with 100% confidence. We have split the list below into two categories; Changes and Clarifications. We are providing some clarification on specific rules that players raised concerns or queries with last season.

Changes & Additions

• Mercenary usage in a Playoff match no longer requires the team requesting the mercenary to seek administrator approval. This has been a rule for many years, but as of the last year or so we have noticed an uptick in the number of captains either forgetting or neglecting to seek approval for their mercenary, so for Season 34 we have decided to remove this requirement. Teams and captains can still deny specific mercenaries, and can still request administrators review mercenary requests.

• Broadcasts of a player’s POV outside of a casted setting where STV delay is enforced, a minimum observable
  delay of at least ten (10) seconds is required. We define “observable delay” as a combination of personally set
  stream delay (for example in OBS) and standard Twitch/YouTube streaming delay. We have made this addition to the ruleset to safeguard teams against stream sniping / players using low delay player POV streams to their advantage. In the past we considered this to be on the player streaming, but feel by instituting a clause for it in the ruleset, it will add further consistency to POV and match streaming.

• Players being requested for transfer must have either a public profile or be reachable (on the friends list of an administrator and have their profile set to friends only), private profiles we cannot verify during the transfer process will be denied and will need to be re-requested in the following window, and meeting the same criteria.

• The sale of in-game ozfortress medals (and any other medals) is strictly PROHIBITED. Valve has a strict policy that league and tournament runners do not sell Medals/Promotional items for any currency (in-game, monetary or otherwise), and this policy is also passed on to those who wish to receive said Medals/Promotional Items (meaning you, the player). Selling a slot on an active roster for in-game items or money is also strictly prohibited. Individuals or parties caught selling/trading for medals will be reported directly to Valve. We feel the clause here outlines our stance on this perfectly, but this is a restriction and expectation placed on tournament runners by Valve.

Clarifications

• Teams can only make use of mercenaries within four official matches per season. This has been inconsistently enforced in the past, but for Season 34 and beyond we are committed to enforcing this rule, and tracking mercenary usage as a whole.

We hope that players understand we are making strides to ensure consistency within our competitive ruleset, and make meaningful changes that players are rallying for. We have some exciting news coming up and we hope you are just as excited for them too!

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Season 34 plugin updates

OZF 34 will feature two new fixes from twiikuu's TF2 Comp Fixes, namely Empty active ubercharges when the medigun is dropped, and Projectiles Ignore Teammates. We are introducing these fixes/changes to prevent medics from being able to make use of two versions of the same exploit, and to trial run projectiles ignoring teammates. All plugins used for OZF 33 will remain.

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Bookable Servers

Server booking can be done via the ozfortress discord once again, praise be to the almighty Reginald. Simply join the #bookings channel in the ozfortress Discord and type /book and details of your server booking will be PM'd to you. To view more commands, type /help in the #bookings channel.

Qixalite provides free and paid bookable server solutions for the community, and we would like to thank them for continuing to do so not only for doing so for so many years, but for their dedication to maintaining, building and expanding upon the Australian TF2 community, and the competitive scene at large. You can find out how to use their bookings system and more from their discord.

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How to; Create a Team, Join a Team, and Sign up!

On the ozfortress website, captains can create Teams using the "Start Team" button on the Teams page. Once created, captains can invite players to the team. Team invites are shown on a player's profile, which can be accessed by clicking on your name next to the bell on the top right-hand corner of your screen. Teams provide a pool of players that can be signed up for a tournament. Players may be in the pool for multiple teams but only one active roster for any given tournament. Captains may sign up a roster for tournaments under the league page.

If you're new and not sure how to get started, don't fret! Check out the #recruitment section of the ozfortress Discord where you can express your interest in joining a team, or peruse potential players to form a team of your own. Teams are normally comprised of one Medic, one Demoman, two Soldiers and two Scouts. If you're new to the competitive scene, click here for an introduction to ozfortress!

Once you've signed up your team or have joined one, your part is done. Don't worry if you didn't find or join a team in time, you can always be transferred onto a team in one of the Transfer Windows. See the Transfers link for more info on Transfers, and the Transfers Window link for info on when these windows are, both links can be found at the bottom.

Please ensure you have enough backups to last the season; teams are allowed a maximum of ten players rostered on for any single tournament.

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Reminders

• During OZF 34 we plan on conducting random demo checks to ensure players are recording demos. Please ensure that you are recording match demos in order to avoid punishment.
• Transfers will continue to be completed on a bi-weekly basis referred to as "Transfer Windows". This system will allow those reviewing them more time to review and accept transfers. Please refer to the Transfer Window page here for more information.
• If you are unsure on whether or not something is considered a game exploit, contact a League Administrator for clarification. Ignorance is not an excuse.

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Helpful Links

[Map Pool] [Key Dates] [Unlocks] [Administrators] [Player Restrictions]
[Transfers] [Transfer Windows][Server Configuration] [Sixes Ruleset] [Patreon]