Congratulations to La Famiglia for winning TBR 8, led by Godfather and carried by Lelu’s 67 points. Your names will live on in the Hall of Fame forever.
Some concluding thoughts
56 is an impressive number of players, especially considering the player drought in TBR 7, where it was 20 less.
The overall skill level has improved in recent years and it’s great to see new faces. Also glad to see so many different people who are willing to stream.
With 12 penalized rule violations this TBR had more than all previous TBRs combined. It would put admins in a much easier spot if players would read the rule book in advance.
As always, some team channels were more active than others. It would be nice to see more guidance of new players overall, but maybe it happened via dm or in Russian and that’s why I couldn’t see it.
Huge thanks to Ponty, rulaZ and massmoretankz for all your admin work and to Kovax and Kage without whom this event would not have been possible.
Please feel free to provide feedback below this post.
Congratulations to Sheik for winning his first FML title. In his third consecutive final, he finally made it happen. And what a victory it was. He won basically every fight and ended up with 31 hero kills in two hours. Scower and Deuce still got back into the game somewhat, but in the end, weren't able to kill Sheik's buildings efficiently.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this season and now, let's make our way to new TBR shores!
I wouldn't say that this is the most motivated I've ever been, but I can't deny, that setting up FFA events brings some joy to me. Thus, I allowed you to push me into some Team Battle Royale 8 shenanigans. We all love TBR and while it can be super stressful, I just hope it'll be like the last one, which wasn't.
What is TBR? It's a team event, where all participating players are being drafted into their teams by four team captains. Throughout the month of September, teams seat their players for the daily FFA games scheduled. While the majority of matches will be regular FFAs, we also include other modes (e.g. random hero, no chat, random spell, team ffa etc.). Every team has access to two shared Battle.net accounts, so matches are played anonymously.
When: Sep 8 - Oct 15, 2024 (tbd)
Please sign up via the tbr-8-sign-up channel in Discord. We reserve the right to decline players that are unknown to the community or do not meet the trustworthiness threshold.
Remarks: As you may remember, we hosted the vast majority of TBR 7 matches via Flo. Due to some drama around the visible lobby ping, we transitioned to Battle.net for crunch time matches. We have yet to decide how to handle hosting in TBR 8
We may not be able to host via W3C due to visible ping in lobby and the map pool.
It's always a bit tricky to maintain "map pool hygene" in TBR. As usual, I will provide the map file subfolders before the event and hope everyone can paste it into their folder pathes.
...Leluaami, aka The Evil Kid. With three victories in the regular season and an unforgettable performance in the grand final, the young Finn reached the pinnacle of FFA. He's the third FML winner from Finland, following Rain and J33. Hopefully, for FFA and Back2Warcraft viewers, Lelu does not retire.
Thank you to all participants, to rulaZ and Ponty for all the admin work and to all the streamers (Neo, Ghost, ToD, Ponty, etc). All in all, this season went really well. I wish there'd been fewer subs, and in retrospect, we should have been more strict when it came to registrations and no-show disqualifications. It was the first time we took the TBR approach to FML scheduling. From an admin perspective, it was a full success, considering how much work and headache comes with scheduling threads usually. Matches were fun overall and especially the playoffs delivered.
I mentioned before, that I don't enjoy the Discord chat on most days. It's fine to use it as a stress relief valve from time to time, but having non-stop flaming or feuds is tiring. If you don't like other community members, block them, if FFA stresses you too much, take a walk outside or reconsider your mental approach to the game. Also, we saw multiple occasions in the last two months, where players approached admins with requests á la "you can't allow this player to sub", "you must implement this rule", blabla. Very often, decisions aren't as easy as they may seem to the outside. Sometimes, it's not black and white, but a grey area and repercussions must be thought through. Admins do their best and we ask everyone to respect and accept decisions.
Regardless of what I wrote above, this certainly won't be the last FML event I organize. I will go on a hiatus for some time though, to focus on real life duties. It seems that many community members need a bit of a break, but as we know, FFA always returns. RulaZ and Neo will continue their weeklies and hopefully the ladder will remain somewhat alive.
It's time for a regular FML Season, starting on August 24th and concluding in the last week of September. We will try to run it a bit differently this time, to avoid the scheduling mess. As this might be the last FML event for some time, we hope for many sign ups and exciting matches. If you want to participate, please submit the following form:
Season 34 will have four rounds and every player will play one match per round. Every round will last around one week.
The regular FML scoring (20+3/12/12/10) applies and the three players with most points qualify for the grand final. Players ranked 4-7 will play a semi-final for the last grand final slot.
Admins provide a Google form for each round in which all potential game slots are listed. Players submit the form with their availabilities. Admins will seat players on a "first come, first served" basis.
During the regular season, there will be matches with chat and without chat. Players will be assigned in accordance with their preferences, if possible.
Maps will be randomly assigned to each match. The map draw will happen once a week
We made it through five weeks of intense FFA and crowned the Harmless Simps as our Team Battle Royale 7 Champion. Congratulations to the winning team. Your glorious name will be immortalized in our Hall of Fame. Your path was smooth early on, but turned more and more rocky throughout July. After Ravenclaw tied points in match 33, we witnessed four tense tie breaker matches that you had to play with your captain sayso being absent. You kept calm and held together as a team.
Kudos also to Team Ravenclaw, which made an incredible comeback and almost sealed title number five. Thank you to all players and captains for making TBR 7 possible.
Conclusion
While not reflected by the participant count, TBR 7 felt more exciting than the previous TBRs. It might be, because FFA is more popular these days thanks to many streamers, an active W3C ladder and Back2Warcraft. But also the meta seems to have changed and we see a lower share of boring sit and chat fests. Eventually, and I repeat myself, it's up to the players to play FFA in a way that attracts viewers and new rookies. Having that said, the level of drama spiked too unfortunately. I admit that some feuds and emotions are interesting, but it shouldn't cross a line and overshadow the fun. The line can be difficult to draw at times, but some community members like to test it more than others.
Reflection
The three biggest points of criticism were:
1. Player Guessing / Revealing 2. Tie Breaker Format 3. Excessive Toxicity
The player guessing situation felt most annoying to me. No case was like another and they were all facilitated by rule book gaps and the general issue of visible pings on Flo. Uncertainty is a bit of a lose-lose-situation from an admin standpoint and we'll try to avoid it in the future.
The tie breaker format was not ideal, but I also accepted that there is no perfect two-team tie breaker in FFA. The preteam one in TBR 6 was great, but required many players to be available, which was not the case this time. In retrospect, we should have just gone for regular no-chat FFA without the race aspect that allowed teams to know who is who. This was an oversight on my side that shouldn't have happened. Prior to the tie breaker, RulaZ came up with a timer / micro arena / custom map format that I vetoed. I'm not a big fan of custom maps or "1v1 FFA" and was sceptical if we could come up with workable map files on short notice. I felt bad for not liking this idea and think we may want to give it a try in the future, if there is time to prepare and test maps prior.
The toxicity one leaves me a bit clueless. I do think that every few days there are insults in Discord that clearly cross a line. No admin has the capacity to constantly track 3-5k rows of chat per day. Most community members should be mature enough to know when enough is enough. Still, some players have polarizing play styles or character traits that make them a frequent target and in the end, everyone has a different opinion about acceptable insults. We activated the time out feature in our Discord and will make use of it to calm things down.
Outlook
Last year I thought TBR 6 might be my last event, as I expected not to have any spare time after becoming a father. Extending my parental time helped to run TBR 7. While TBR 7 was more exhausting and time consuming than TBR 6, I am willing to run one more FML season, before I have to get back to work. I hope we can feed off the current activity level. However, I do not have the motivation, nor time for endless discord discussions and to moderate each line of chat. If you have a problem with that or can't respect admin decisions, please don't sign up.
Update: Deadline to sign up for TBR is June 25th. We reserve the right to accept additional players until draft night (at some point next week), but won't guarantee it
Hi everyone,
Pleased to see another activity spike in FFA, the mode that never dies. Although parental duties are keeping me busy, I'm willing to organize another Team Battle Royale. TBR 6 was great and while I think it'd also be time for another FML season, I simply can't cope with the scheduling aspect. So I hope everyone is excited for TBR 7 and willing to try hard as always.
What is TBR? It's a team event, where all participating players are being drafted into their teams by four team captains. Throughout the month of July, teams seat their players for the daily FFA games scheduled. While the majority of matches will be regular FFAs, we also include other modes (e.g. random hero, no chat, random spell, team ffa etc.). Every team has access to three shared Battle.net accounts, so matches are played anonymously.
When: July 1 - Jul 30, 2022
Please sign up by posting your name and if you would be willing to be a team captain into this thread. Feel free to add some details about your motivation and availability throughout July! Only known community members that proved to be reliable and know FFA basics will be permitted.
Remarks:
We may not be able to host via W3C due to visible ping in lobby and the map pool.
It's always a bit tricky to maintain "map pool hygene" in TBR. As usual, I will provide the map file subfolders before the event and hope everyone can paste it into their folder pathes.
Congratulations to Team Ravenclaw for winning TBR 6. With their impeccable performance yesterday, Ravenclaw achieved a 66% win rate, not only in tie breakers, but also in TBRs overall. Titles of TBR 1, 3, 5 and 6 all held by the famous Hogwarts house.
I repeat myself, but thanks to all of you who participated, captained, streamed and hosted. TBR used to require so much effort and nerves that it was hard to fully enjoy the matches. TBR 6 was different and after a few too many freewins early on, we witnessed many close endings in the second half of the season.
I'll be on parental hiatus for some time now, but will keep you up-to-date. Really happy to see how the love for FFA brings people together, even in 2022
I got convinced to organize another Team Battle Royale, before going on a parental hiatus. Historically, TBR always required a lot more admin work, compared to FML seasons. For that reason and because the general hosting environment changed since 2020, a few compromises will be necessary, especially when it comes to anon, modes and maps. You find further details below and some parts will have to be worked out in the next few weeks.
What is TBR? It's a team event, where all participating players are being drafted into their teams by four team captains. Throughout the month of September, teams seat their players for the FFA games scheduled.
When: Aug 28 - Sep 30, 2022
Please sign up by posting your name and if you would be willing to be a team captain into this thread. Feel free to add some details about your motivation and availability throughout September! Only known community members that proved to be reliable and know FFA basics will be permitted.
Remarks:
We may not be able to host via W3C due to visible ping in lobby and the map pool
I will try to reactivate our Bnet shared accounts. However, if they still require every single player to be authentificated via email code, we may not use them
Finding subs is a huge pain in TBR. Therefore, we will reject players that missed a lot of matches in the past and reserve the right to cancel matches instead of finding subs.
It's always a bit tricky to create the map pool for TBR and ensure that the correct map files are being hosted. This is even more of an issue since we got zoom triggers. Therefore, we may stick to "regular" maps for the most parts
Congratulations to @qwest for finally winning a long-deserved FML trophy. With four wins in five matches, he's the first (full-time) undead player that takes the title since Tyrant did in 2015. His macro and tactical genious seemed unmatched this season and the final map pick proved to be clever.
Thanks to all the participants and the admin team. After my hiatus, I really enjoyed to see some high-level FFA again and I was positively surprised by the absence of drama. Using Discord for orga and scheduling may have led to a bit more confusion every now and then, but it cut the effort for admins in half, in my opinion. Definitely something we'll do again.
A bit prematurely, I stated some weeks ago that I'd be willing to run a Team Battle Royale this summer. With us approaching the middle of July, I'm not so sure anymore. While I enjoy many things about TBR, it's also way more challenging from an admin perspective. Furthermore, we got some additional hurdles (not all map files with zoom trigger, Blizzard deactivated shared accounts, etc. etc.). As I'm not the only admin, I don't want to rule it out entirely, but my real life obligations prevent me from playing a key role in it. Another FML Season that starts in Q3 seems more realistic.
Last but not least, I don't want to leave unmentioned how much worse the FML Discord Chat has become in my eyes. I stated before that I don't enjoy it and I'm not willing to moderate it anymore. Still, in order for FML to be somewhat welcoming to fun people and new players, I kindly ask you to scale back sexism and toxicity.
Thanks everyone for signing up. We are good to go for round 1, which will last until April 14th. As announced, scheduling will take place in Discord. Therefore, please check your respective scheduling channel in the FML server.
Not gonna lie, it has been a relaxing year without FML. But since I'm getting tired of Legion TD, I guess I need some FFA to observe. Therefore, it's time for FML Season 33 and it'll launch on April 1st. You can sign up by posting your name into this thread until March 31. We'll accept any non-smurfing players that are known to the community or manage to win an inhouse game.
As it is a pain in the ass to manage scheduling and results via this website, I came up with a plan to manage scheduling via separate Discord channels and match result posting via a Google Form. I think it'll work much better for all of us.
With this season being run mostly by me, I kindly ask you to respect my decisions and don't be stupid! I don't have the desire to moderate a freaking Discord kindergarten, but if I see something I don't like, I will not hesitate to ban you. This includes heavy insults, racism and posting real life pics of other people. I spent a lot of time in other communities and not a single one was as lax in terms of rules as this one. Same applies to ingame decisions. In the past, I was willing to discuss and explain everything. It did not prevent people from accusing me of being biased one way or the other. So be prepared for me not responding to your Discord text walls. It's self protection.
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