Please take a look at the following updated rules. They apply from now on:
§2.1 Clans with 20% or more of the maximum ranking points may not refuse clanwars (not ladder matches) against lower-ranked clans who have got at least 50% or more of the challenged clan's ranking points and who have not yet played a clanwar with the clan in question during the current season (it does not matter which clan sent the challenge).
§5.1 When a clan reaches 200 points, the ladder ranking will be frozen, meaning that no more ladder matches may be played nor clanwar challenges be made while the clan stays at 200 points or above. Players may only play CW matches for the clan they are a member of at that point until the final matches have finished. Clanwars or challenges made before the moment when 200 points was reached still have to be played, mutually cancelled or rejected (with the appropriate punishments) off-season, however.
§5.1.1 Any ladder matches played while the season is frozen will be invalid. If there is a chance of multiple clans being able to freeze the ladder simultaneously by a single match, the clan who finished their victorious ladder match/clanwar (or tied ladder match if it yields enough points to reach 200) first will be favored regarding this. It does not matter which match gets submitted first, as long as there is clear evidence of which match was finished first.
§5.1.2 If the clan that reached 200 points first falls below 200 points as a result from a CW loss, the season unfreezes and ladder matches may be played (and clanwars challenges be made) again until a clan reaches 200 points.
§5.2 Once all off-season clanwars (if any) have been dealt with without the top ranked clan falling below 200 points, the two highest ranked clans will be invited to participate in the season final, and the 3rd and 4th clan will be invited to the bronze final. They shall start as soon as possible. The clans may accept the invitation on the basis that they will be able to play their final match within 1 month from the day the invitation phase ends. They also acknowledge that if they fail to schedule their final match within 2 weeks from the end of the invitation phase, the JJnet crew will schedule the game as they see appropriate.
TL;DR: If a clan falls below 200 points after freezing the ladder as a result from a lost clanwar, the ladder will be unfrozen and the ladder season will function as normally.
Also, to prevent infinite loops of clans challenging each other while competing for the first place, each clanwar matchup can be forced only once during the current season, meaning that a clan may refuse a clanwar against a lower ranked clan without consequences IF they already played a mutual clanwar during the current season. The clan still cannot refuse clanwars against other clans which they did not have a clanwar with and who have met the requirements to challenge for a forced clanwar.
If it were to happen that two or more clans would be able to reach 200 points somewhat simultaneously, the clan who finished their match (victory or tie if it yields enough points) will be favored. Playlogs and such may be used for evidence.
please note the changes to the following rules which apply for the ladder from now on:
§5: Winning a season and the final rankings
§5.1.1 Once all off-season clanwars have been dealt with, the two highest ranked clans will be invited to participate in the season final, and the 3rd and 4th clan will be invited to the bronze final. They shall start as soon as possible. The clans may accept the invitation on the basis that they will be able to play their final match within 1 month from the day the invitation phase ends. They also acknowledge that if they fail to schedule their final match within 2 weeks from the end of the invitation phase, the JJnet crew will schedule the game as they see appropriate.
§5.1.2 If 2 or more clans are tied for the same position (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th) the mutual rankings will be decided by forced clanwars by a round robin system (each clan plays vs. each other once). This does not apply if the clans in question are at 0 ladder points. In such case the remaining top-4 positions will be given to the fastest clans to sign up for them.
§10: Who may play
§10.1 Only players who are registered for their clan on jazzjackrabbit.net and have not played clanwars for another clan DURING THE SAME SEASON may play in clanwars for their current clan. Meaning that players who join a new clan during the season may play in clanwars as long as they didn't play any of those for their previous clans. Otherwise, if the players already played in a clanwar for their former clan, they will have to wait until the next season to play in clanwars. Clanwars also include any final matches and play-offs.
§10.2 Because of the more spontaneous nature of regular ladder matches, players who join new clans are allowed to play ladder matches after 24 hours of registering themselves in the new clan on jazzjackrabbit.net.
TL;DR: The clans who are tied in ladder points at the end of the base season now have to settle their mutual ranking by forced clanwars.
Also players may only play clanwars for one clan per season to discourage "player borrowing for clanwars". Players must also register in their new clan's squad list 24 hours prior to their first ladder match in the clan.
Wohoo! After almost 2 months of no ladder matches, the JJnet ladder shall return once again!
What's new this time? Well, first off, we have 3 brand new levels included in the mappool, which were chosen by the judges of the previously announced level contest, for which you can find the results below this newspost.
Also don't forget that the JJnet Duel Tournament v5.0 is still ongoing and its results will also influence the ladder rankings by rewarding clans with points.
However, the most important changes are:
- The ladder season freezes once a clan hits 200 ladder points instead of 100 ladder points - Each ladder match win now yields 3 ladder points to the winning clan instead of 2 (ties and losses still reward the same points as before)
Dear all, the level contest results are finally here! The contest entries were judged by 6 chosen judges, from which 5 were the representatives from each active clan (Me, Laro, Loon, JellyJam and Ragnarok). PurpleJazz was a neutral (no-clan) guest judge to bring extra depth to the results.
The winning entries were to be chosen by having each judge vote for exactly 3 levels which they would like to see in the mappool for ladder season 16. Also each judge would be to give their own feedback for the judged entries. The votes were sent to me privately to avoid judges influencing each other too much.
And of course to keep things fair, Laro, Loon, JellyJam and PurpleJazz were not allowed to vote for their own level.
The top-3 levels to receive the most votes by the judges were the ones to be added into the mappool. At last, here are the RESULTS!
Congratulations to PurpleJazz and Warren who made the ultimate levels to tie for the first place in the contest! Your levels truly impressed the judges! Also congratulations to JellyJam and his level Byzantine Blues, which ran up to 3rd place!
Finally, I want to thank everyone who participated in the contest and made new playable levels for the community! Also, even if your level didn't make it to the mappool this time, it may still make it there for the future seasons through time and improvements.
Also, as promised, the judges are to give feedback to all the entries (except the ones they made themselves ofc), which they will send separately in their own posts following this post. Meanwhile, below are the votes per judge in literal form:
10:36 PM] PurpleJazz: my rankings: (will write feedback later)
#1 ragnarok
#2 byzantine blues
#3 ftl starship (only counted the first 3, the rest were optional)
#4 riparius ridge
#5 percolator
#6 snowland
#7 time's up
10:39 PM] Jelly Jaм: Alright, the maps I vote for are ezgale, xlmrag and ezstar, in no particular order
[10:39 PM] Jelly Jaм: All of which can be playable in 2v2 imo
11:34 PM] SJ: OK, I shall give you my votes in return: Galeloch Castle, Byzantine Blues and FTL Starship
11:04 PM] Ragnarok: votes =
[11:04 PM] Ragnarok: (in no particular order)
[11:04 PM] Ragnarok: star, gale, riparius
[11:05 PM] Ragnarok: star to be 2v2/3v3, gale 2v2/3v3, riparius 3v3only
4:32 PM] Hammel: ok my votes are in random order
bb, gale and star
[4:34 PM] Hammel: my fourth place would have gone to riparius, however i think these maps have the best potential in being played during a cw/laddermatch
12:49 AM] DigitalRonin: Loon's, Jelly's and PJ's are probably my sets to get ellected (later confirmed to be the final votes)
Congratulations to [GpW] for its 3rd season victory of the ladder. It is their first victory since around 7 years (2012). Honorful mention goes also to -t3> and CC for their silver and bronze medals respectively.
The next season is just behind the door, but before opening the door, we will attempt to judge the level contest results so that we can already put new additions into the mappool before the season begins. Also, don't forget that the duel tournament is still ongoing, so remember to keep dueling while laddering as well!
The ladder season 16 is expected to begin on November 1st for now. Stay tuned!
Finally, here are the final standings:
...and some statistics regarding the base season statistics (not counting off-season clanwars and final matches). As you see this season featured a big number of unique map picks:
The group stage of JJnet Duel Tournament v5.0 has concluded and the top 4 players in each of the 4 groups have advanced to the final (double elimination) stage. Click here to see the final stage brackets!
Remember that each player is allowed to change/add their own vetoes before playing their first match in the final stage. Also map picks are now reset, so players may again pick maps which they already picked in the group stage.
The deadline for playing your first duel of the final stage is October 27th at 20:59 GMT. Remember that these are strict deadlines to ensure that the tournament finishes on time during the upcoming ladder season. You may also proceed with your next stage duels as soon as you know your opponent for them.
The duels are played in the same way as in the group stage, except that the following settings need to be enabled:
/overtime on /otlimit 30 (maximum is 30, reset if needed. If the overtime continues past 15 minutes(half), you(or a neutral referee) are supposed to turn on insta gib with /instagib on as the default case.).
Also remember that the duels are ROUND-BASED. In the final stage no round can end in a tie either. Here is an excerpt from the tournament rules:
If round wins are tied at 1-1, a tiebreaker round is needed. The player that wins the tiebreaker round progresses.
In the event of a tie, players are to determine the tiebreaker map by doing a veto-race; maps will be vetoed by each player in turn, until only one map remains. That remaining map will be used for the tiebreaker round.
NOTE that regular vetoes do not apply for tiebreaker rounds, but can be vetoed during your veto-race.
Whichever player scored more points in total in the previous 2 maps played will have to choose the first veto. In the event of scores being tied, group-stage results will be considered. Whichever player has performed better in the group stage will have to choose the first veto (from the current mappool).
NOTE player performance from the group stage will be determined by comparing stats in the group-stage standings column, starting from the W-T-L column, left to right. This process continues until an uneven comparison is met.
If the score of any round is tied after 10 minutes, the round continues in overtime, where the player to make the next score wins the round.
JJnet Duel Tournament v5.0 has now officially started. The organizers are me and Lahm.
A total of 20 players signed up for the tournament. This means that the first stage of the tournament will be a group stage, where the players are divided into 4 groups of 5 players. From each group, 4 players advance to the next stage, the final stage which features double elimination. The players have been divided into different groups by random, but also based on the clan they signed up with, so that players of the same clan went into different groups (for the most part).
In the group stage, you play against each opponent in your group once. You can play the opponents in any order.
To submit your matches, you can either report your matches in Challonge (if you have a Challonge account) or report them to me or Lahm. Remember to take screenshots and submit them with your reports.
The most important rules however are related to the match settings, vetoes and map picks:
Each player may only pick a certain map 2 times during the group stage and 2 times during the elimination stage. So when a player advances to the elimination stage, the previous map picks do not count anymore and the player can again pick the map 2 times during the elimination stage.
Each player is entitled to 2 vetoes in each stage. The players need to announce their vetoes (if any) either in the comment section of this newspost or send a private message to me or Lahm. The players need to announce their vetoes before their first match and cannot add/change them later, until the elimination stage begins. Before playing their first match in the elimination stage, players are allowed to change/add their vetoes.
The match settings are as follows for the group stage (the rest are as default set by the game):
/autostop on /timelimit 10 /maxscore 5 /overtime off /allowmouseaim off
Finally, the deadline for playing ALL your group stage matches is October 20th at 20:59 GMT so you have a little less than 3 weeks for getting your duels played.
It has been now one year since the last JJnet level contest ended. Thus, the rise of interest has slowly increased towards yet another contest. Well, we just happen to be here to present you another level (map) contest for the ladder mappool for season 16!
The mappool got a big bunch of new (and old) maps for the last season. However, there is still only a limited number of older maps that are suitable for the ladder mappool, which is why we are looking for new, fresh maps as well. In this contest the best three maps (as long as there are three maps that meet our quality-standards) as selected by the admins will be added to the mappool for the next season.
What are we looking for especially? Mostly the same things as in most level making contests.
These are the rules:
-We are looking for CTF levels
-Only new levels will be accepted. Edits of existing levels will not. If a level was started/finished before this contest began, it can however be entered if it was never officially published before.
-Only one entry per person. Collaborations are allowed, but they will count as a whole entry for each collaborator. This is meant to encourage people to focus all their effort on one level, rather than rush many. Quality over quantity.
-As long as the contest stays open, you are allowed to edit/fix/remake your entry as much as you want even after you have submitted it.
-Upload your level to Jazz2Online once you are finished, in order to make it easily available to everyone. Be sure to announce that its your entry for this contest either here, in the title or description.
-If there are minor improvements that you wish to make to the level after the contest has ended, you may do so upon the JJnet crew's approval. The applied changes need to be reported clearly.
Aside from the rules, there are some additional guidelines (if you don’t follow them you’re not likely to get very far):
-Important! Try to keep your level optimal in performance so that the FPS-rate shouldn't drop too much from the usual when playing the level with slower computers. Avoid excessive graphics or other features that may have an impact on this.
-The level should be playable in both 2on2 and 3on3 (It may be also accepted as a 3v3 only level if it is decent otherwise)
-The main focus should be on the gameplay, but the visual side shouldn't be ignored. Most importantly the level should look nice to the eye and there should be no distracting visual decorations.
-The level should be balanced. You do not need to make the level 100% symmetrical, but try to keep no team significantly advantaged over the other.
-All characters should be playable in the level (Lori too.) Flow differences between characters do not matter, but all characters should be able to reach all objects and areas without the need to use tricks like walljumps.
-Try to make the level spacious enough so that there is room for players to dodge bullets, but not too open, as that will increase the "lag-factor", e.g. lots of long linear paths where players usually get "airhit" from afar (especially if the level contains a lot of seekers).
-Try to balance the amount of open and closed areas. Don't make it too easy to camp in the level. Try to design base areas with care.
-Originality is a nice bonus, but we are not looking for full gimmick-levels. Use of AngelScript is allowed, but again, try to not draw the gameplay too far from classic CTF.
You have until October 25nd 17:00 GMT to finish and upload your entry, which is roughly 4 weeks from now. A team of judges will be selected to pick the winning maps shortly after the contest finishes. The maps will be added to the ladder mappool immediately after.
