Winter is coming, pandemic still pandemicing and the community chat still annoying as fuck. But I don’t want to let this year come to an end, without a third FML event. Let’s try something new!
Team Battle Deluxe #1
Dec 1 - Dec 30 (starting times vary from 19 to 22 CET)
Fixed schedule with 20-30 matches (up to one per day)
Mostly normal FFAs, potentially some random hero and other stuff
All matches will be played with up to 8 players and anonymous accounts
We need up to eight teams with up to four players each
Players can sign up in teams or individually (and I assign them to teams)
Matches will start no later than five minutes after the scheduled time
We try to fill up with subs to an even player number, but may also consider to start as 7- or 5-way
I want to keep FFA alive, but don’t want to spend my entire December dealing with drama, scheduling or chasing players. If there is something you don’t like about it, don’t sign up for it! The details above may get adjusted before Dec 1, depending on the number of players and teams that signed up.
If you are open for something new and want to spend some fun hours throughout December with FFA, post your name into this thread by Nov 29. Due to the shared accounts, registration is only open to known members of the community.
Regards, HighTac
GL HF
Update (Nov 25): I guess it makes sense to decrease the number of teams to four if we don't see much more sign ups. In that case, we may use subs to get some 6-way going.
After a slow start with just one win out of 12 matches, Ravenclaw went nuts, winning 18 of the remaining 33 matches since July 26. Congratulations to the TBR5 winners and thank you all for taking part. With the few unexpected leavers and the packed schedule, it wasn't always easy to find players. Therefore, also kudos to our four captains.
Feel free to post your congrats and feedback in here. We don't know what the next event is going to be. Maybe another TBR in winter? I dunno. Unless the other admins want to launch something, it's probably going to take a bit of time. Would be great if we'd see a bit more activity on the ladder again. On that note, take care!
As turbulent as June began for FFA, as quickly it calmed down. Ladder activity might return, but maybe it's not the worst thing to leave some of the drama behind. W3C is a great thing, but even the best ladder can't replace our FML family events. It's time for Team Battle Royale again. Yay! This is the thread to sign up and here are some of the details.
Since many of you don't seem to read stuff anyway, I try to keep it short and simple
TBR will take place from July 18 until August 16
It's an event with different FFA modes (4-way Standard, Random Hero, Team FFA and more)
Four pre-defined captains (they already know) will draft their teams from all signed up players. If we have more sign ups than expected, we consider a fifth team
This TBR will have 45 games per team, which is more than previously
Probably, there will be team cards again, no more preteam mode and more standard FFA
We will try to make TBR games anonymous as in the past by using shared accounts. If you are willing to help sponsoring them, please let me know!
We only accept players that are known to admins, due to the risk that comes with shared accounts
There will be a soft cap (no points) and a hard cap (can't play) for matches per player this TBR, to avoid some of the discussions we had in TBR4
If you want to participate, please post your name, nationality, race that you will play during TBR and why the captains shall draft you. Sign up deadline is probably going to be July 12.
After three months and an intense final on Frozen Marshlands, we crown Shave as the king of Season 31. Congratulations! I'm afraid your trolling might become even more annoying now. You deserve the title and I hope you finally realize that a new computer could be worth it to follow your digital dreams with a bit less FPS pain.
Thanks everyone for participating and making this an easy and fun season for all of us. Not much drama, plenty of scheduling effort and action-packed games. I hope we will see many active players on w3champions and there are further events in the making (smaller cups and potentially something in relation with the ladder). The next longer event will most likely not start before August, since I need a bit of a break.
I hope you enjoyed the season and feel free to post some feedback in here or via pm.
It's final time!!!! Congrats to Neytpoh and Junker for winning their semis and joining Qwest and Shave in the final of season 31. The game is going to be played in the upcoming 10 days (hopefully) on a map that Qwest is going to pick.
We are really fortunate to being featured on Back2Warcraft and the overall feedback is much much better than I would've expected in my wildest dreams.
Not even three months and we made it to the playoffs. An exquisite selection of elite players can sharpen their pencils to update their CVs. What an achievement! Both semi-finals will be played with chat and hopefully by May 10, on maps picked by Seksi and Alien (by May 5).
Two players don't even have to bother with semis, since they stand at the top of their respective brackets. Congrats to Shave and Qwest for their tickets to the final.
We are getting closer to the final battle of Season 31. While Shave and Qwest are still at the very top of their brackets, anything can happen still.
In Round four, we will see some of the great maps from the FML Map Contest. I hope everyone embraces the effort that ten map makers spent to create them.
The first half of season 31 is accomplished and we can kick off round 3. I'd like to see some predictions as in round 1 again.
An additional note on the controversy of match 14 and 16. We like chaos and FFA is not supposed to be strictly symmetrical. However, in order to make competitive FFA work, we rely on some level of impartiality at the beginning of each game. If we all know who is going to attack who, no matter what, it's not going to work out. Admins will keep an eye on "intentional teaming" early in matches and a warning goes out to SuperCumulo and Qwest.
RoboGoblin and I are organizing an 8-way random hero cup on April 4. We would be pleased to see a lot of participants from FFA Masters. If you struggle to register on GoodGame.ru, please check out these instructions.
Round 1 has been a blast. Thanks for the games and reliable scheduling. We did witness upsets, chaos and a few freewins. Let's heat it up for round 2 with some more unconvential maps to choose from. Good luck have fun everyone! Predictions were great. More of that please!
As you may know, Pad (creator of w3arena and w3booster) has managed to create a ladder for 1on1, called w3champions. I am in close contact with him to see how and when we can get FFA into it.
Due to the high workload, Pad will not get to FFA before mid of April. Therefore, we have some time to gather feedback within our community. We need to keep in mind that w3champions ladder will only work with roughly 100-200 active FFA players per day. It seems doable to me, even if we would have no true matchmaking with that player base still. Should still be much better than the current Bnet Versus mode, as the average skill level will be higher.
Two ideas that I have could maybe help to make it even more attractive:
We can use the "anonymity trigger" of RoboGoblin in all map files, so it is partially anon again (at least after the loading screen).
Two of the ten maps in the map pool could be random hero. So if you don't want to play random hero, you just veto the two maps and else you'll play random hero every now and then
Update2: FFA succeeded in the poll. In order to support Pad and compensate for the programming hours, I would like to raise 500€ for the implementation of FFA into w3champions. Since this is what I agreed with Pad, I would try to collect the money via PayPal (hightacelf@gmail.com). If you want to add something to it (F10EX, Mage and me provide 150€ combined), I will make sure your name is on the donator list and will handle the money with care. Thank you all!
This contest was shared on the Hive Workshop and within the melee map maker community. Every regular FML player will be able to act as a judge if he (or she) is willing to invest the time to look at each submitted map indepth. More details to follow.
Amazing to see that we have 46 signed up players for season 31. New school, old school and everything in between. The scheduling threads are ready for your availability posts. As usual, you have 48 hours until you lose your scheduling rights. Please state more than just one or two available days/times.
As usual, the FML Rule Book applies. Some paragraphs were adjusted to suit Reforged
Islands are allowed in Season 31, but no island may have more than one building on it
As the server assignment in Reforged is still bugged, I randomly assigned the round 1 matches between players from "close" regions. Maybe we see a decent patch until round 2, kappa
We hope that all players are able to play with classic graphics to reduce the risk of desync. For the same reason, we restrict observing to streamers, casters and admins
Due to the uneven number of signups, one semi-final slot was transferred from the Standard to the No Chat Bracket
Every player votes for one map from the map pool in his scheduling thread. The map with most votes will be played. If there is a tie (within 48h of scheduling thread creation), I flip a coin.
It's a tradition that people post predictions into the announcement thread for each round and I hope to see many in here.
If you face issues with the registration on this website, please contact hightac#9730 in Discord or send an email to hightacelf@gmail.com
Reforged arrived and it’s time for another FML Season. I know that we may struggle with the stability and ping of the new Battle.net, but we will find a way to deal with it. Several new players discovered the beauty of FFA in Team Battle Royale 4 and it takes less than a minute to find ladder matches. Let’s take the opportunity to have some fun and play competitive FFA. In order to avoid admin burnout and endless drama, we kindly ask you to respect rules and admin decisions.
If you want to take part in season 31, please post your name, country, race and preferred bracket into this thread by March 7. In case you haven’t played in any of the previous five FML seasons, please let us know about your FFA experience.
Structure
This season will be played in three separate brackets, if enough players sign up.
Standard Bracket: normal rules and open to all players with competitive FFA experience
No Chat Bracket: no ingame chat and open to all players with competitive FFA experience. If less than 12 players sign up for this bracket, it will be merged into the standard one.
Rookie Bracket: We want to give new players the chance to compete in this league. One experienced mentor player will be assigned to each rookie. If less than 8 players sign up, we may consider to host them as published matches.
The highest ranked player of both, the standard and the no chat bracket, will proceed to the final. In order to determine the other two final players, we will have two semi-finals. Each semi-final will take place with three players from the standard/no chat brackets and one from the rookie bracket.
Schedule
Round 1 (Mar 9 – Mar 22)
Round 2 (Mar 23 – Apr 5)
Round 3 (Apr 6 – May 3)
Round 4 (May 4 – May 17)
Playoffs (May 18 – May 31)
Points
Update: We will go for the usual point structure (20/12/12/10), but the player with top score gets +3 points
Maps
Admins will provide three potential maps for each match (in the scheduling thread). Each player can vote for one of these maps and whatever map gets most votes will be played.
If there is a tie, where two maps get two votes, whatever map had two votes first will be played. If all four players have posted their votes within the first 24 hours after the scheduling thread was created, admins will flip a coin to decide which of the two maps gets played.
Scheduling
Each player has to help scheduling his match, by posting his availability (at least 3 dates) in the forum within 48 hours after the respective scheduling thread was created. If he does not, he loses scheduling rights. The 48 hours do not only apply for initial posts, but also for all subsequent scheduling thread discussions (e.g. if three players agree on a time and the fourth player fails to respond within 48 hours, he also loses his scheduling rights). Whatever was discussed in other communication channels (e.g. Discord) needs to be logged in the thread as well, in order to be valid from an official standpoint.
Congratulations to Iron Necks, led by TomToast, for winning Team Battle Royale 4 and carving their name into the Hall of Fame of FFA Masters. After team Cumulo Brothers managed to break away from the peloton early on, Iron Necks caught up by winning eight of their ten matches right before Christmas. Thank you for participating and especially to our five voluntary captains for putting in the effort.
We hope that most of you enjoyed this TBR, no matter if your team was successful or not. It was the entry point for several new joiners and our community felt fully alive again after a very silent summer. As always, there are things that we can and will improve. It’s frustrating if certain controversies overshadow the event, which is supposed to be a celebration of FFA, the mode we all fell in love with. No admin ever pretended to be perfect, but if you honestly think our decision-making was biased and we ruined the event, it’s saddening. There are rarely easy decisions and we do our best listening to all parties before making them. It’s part of the charm that many here take FFA seriously, but it’s supposed to be fun still.
I personally don’t need praise for the admin work, but obviously motivation shrinks if I face a certain type of chat on a daily basis. Also, at least as long as I’m admin here, racism and fascism stay the fuck out of this community!
Ponty may run another short event or league in January (Vote here!) until we know how Reforged is going to look like on January 28. After that, we will see what’s going to come next. One FML season before summer I guess.
If you want to provide TBR feedback, you can do it in this thread or private a private message to admins. We will store it and take it into consideration for Team Battle Royale 5.
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Leluaami
Reinforcement
Ena
zTsoso
qwest
You deserve the title and I hope you finally realize that a new computer could be worth it to follow your digital dreams with a bit less FPS pain.
tbd
