Match Types - General Information

As the difference between the types of matches is not always completely clear, here is a guide on what qualifies as a practice, an unofficial and an official match. The determined match type must match these criteria (it usually does, but ever so often there are matches that don't completely qualify as "official" matches).

Practices
- Not being reffed.
- Maps if wished.
- No whitelist.

Unofficials
- No ref required but possible.
- Maps set.
- Whitelist if wished.
- Teams can be uneven if agreed on or if no sub can be found in a reasonable amount of time. The team with less players than planned is then at a self-inflicted disadvantage.
- Rules can be announced by a ref, otherwise it is the duty of the team reps to make sure rules are clear and kept.

Officials
- Ref needed.
- Maps set.
- Whitelist mandatory.
- Teams should be as even as possible. Being one player off is no biggie but try to keep anything more than that at a minimum. If one team cannot meet the required amount of players, either a sub has to be found, the other team may put off one player, or the match is postponed. If the player amount is even but way under the originally announced count, the match may be postponed or made unofficial.

The ref makes the call on when a player count difference is too high. For example, 7v10 can be alright, 6v10 would be too little. Aim at around 2/3 of the larger team as absolute minimum. ​

- Rules are announced by the ref. The ref makes sure the rules are kept.


Last updated: 7/20/2016

~ Happy capping!

 

Usually it means players cannot be removed from the server if a practice is going on. The reason behind this is that it's a server open to everyone, not just players that put their name on a spreadsheet. Plus, there are too many practices going on to ensure that only people meant to be on the server are on it. It's in the decision of the mod to kick or don't kick people from it though, we'll have to discuss that further.

 

It still happens games don't have enough players on one side although it was thoroughly discussed and agreed on prior, and the subs just don't show up in time. The guide is supposed to help to tell the difference between unofficials and officials, since both are on a match server and mostly reffed. We've already sort of enforced this, by noting in officials that a player is missing on one team (or a team has a player too much). Usually it sorts itself after a few minutes because of a random disconnect or a sub kicks in, but we've halted the timer between games shortly to let the missing player join back on (not too much that it breaks the flow of the game though). In other large online game contests it's mandatory to have even teams as well just to keep it fair and of a high quality. We just don't want officials to be played that were announced 10v10 but end up being 9v7. There is still the option to put down a player if the other team agrees (from 10v9 to 9v9) or to turn it into an unofficial game where the player count doesn't matter as much.

On the practices: There are quite a lot of practices on the match server over the week. Whitelisting those is difficult because a mod might not be there. They would have to stay around after whitelisting too, since often a person is forgotten and wants to be added to the server, or a name was spelled incorrectly or the user changed his name recently. Practices aren't recorded in a match history either (well, not as much as unofficials and officials are). The match server is hidden from the general random players as they don't really understand the concept of CTF matches, through practices are more spontaneous events from the teams that would like to play without randoms interfering.

I'll have a chat about kicking players from the match server if they are not wished (presuming the practice is listed on the spreadsheet), though whitelisting practices would be too much of an effort for a minor gain.

 

There might be something to do against people disrupting practices, gotta speak to nom for that.