Tournament Director:
- [TBD]
Assistant Tournament Directors:
- [TBD]
- [TBD]
The Tournament Directors are the sole arbiter and court of last resort for all disputes. Their decisions are final and cannot be appealed.
The Tournament Directors reserve the right to impose any sanction on any competitor or individual player at their sole discretion as circumstances may warrant.
Staff may participate in the tournament. Where there may be an appearance of a conflict of interest, a Tournament Director will yield to a counterpart if possible.
Official communication will take place via the Discord server.
This is an International tournament consisting of two sections.
A match may consist of:
- Two games where each team chooses the server for one game. The winner is determined by the total score from both games (this is referred to as "Home/Away"), OR
- One game on a neutral server chosen by mutual agreement during match scheduling.
If the teams cannot agree on a neutral server, they will use the Home/Away system.
See Section 4: Servers and Section 5: Match schedule for more guidance on server selection and the scheduling process.
The first section will be a Swiss System tournament of [TBD] rounds. A match win will score 1 point, a tie scores a half point, and a loss or forfeit scores 0 points.
At the beginning of a Swiss round, each team will be paired at random against others with the same record of Won : Lost games.
There will be no eliminations from the Swiss section due to poor results or lost games.
Under no circumstances will two competitors face each other more than once during the Swiss section.
If an uneven number of participants are paired in a round, a bye is awarded to the lowest ranked participant in the lowest score group. A bye scores a full point.
The following criteria break ties, descending:
- Median Bucholz
- Cumulative
- Direct Encounter: if two teams played against each other directly then the winner of that encounter is given the higher placement.
- Sonnenborn-Berger
Forfeits distort the results by unbalancing the tiebreakers. Moreover, they disappoint other competitors who have joined the tournament to participate in the competition.
If you wish to withdraw from the tournament, please tell one of the Tournament Directors by [TBD].
If your team forfeits any match, you MUST ask to be paired in the next round, or you will be removed from the tournament without notice.
For information on the Swiss System, you can review the following links:
Because the scores from the previous round determine Swiss pairings, the next round cannot be paired until all the results of the previous round have been reported. Under no circumstances whatsoever will extensions be granted.
The number of Swiss rounds is determined mathematically using the number of teams participating in the tournament. Therefore, the organizers cannot predict how many rounds will be scheduled for the Swiss section until registration has closed.
- Suicide Blitz 2
- Dead Center
- Passifice
- The Parish
- Diescraper Redeux
- Hard Rain: Downpour
Once the first section is completed, [TBD] teams will move on to the playoffs. The playoffs section will be a double-elimination knockout tournament.
"Veto" rounds will use mapban.gg to select the map.
The higher (better) playoff seed chooses who bans first. Each team takes turns banning maps until two maps are left. Then, mapban.gg will decide the map randomly. (Use the option "Ban until 1 maps left").
"Veto" rounds will use mapban.gg to select the map. The lower playoff seed chooses a map to ban first.
On 4-chapter campaigns (such as Dead Center or Swamp Fever), Chapter 4 will always be played.
On 5-chapter campaigns, unless there is clear, documented agreement between both teams on whether to play Chapter 5, then:
- In a neutral server match, Chapter 5 will be played.
- In a Home/Away match, Chapter 5 will not be played.
You may register to participate in the tournament by [TBD]. Follow the instructions in the pinned messages.
The deadline for registrations is [TBD]. After this date, new entries and requests for roster changes are invalid.
A player may register for only one team in the tournament.
Any player with an indefinite ban on the SirPlease sourcebans may not participate in the tournament with their banned account, nor with any alternate account. Any match played with a banned player is a forfeit loss, and their team may be suspended from the tournament.
You may review the public ban list here.
Each team must have 4 or more players on the roster, and no more than 6.
There is no requirement that any participant meet any threshold for the number of hours they have logged in Left 4 Dead 2.
There is no limit on the number of teams that may register and play in the first section of the tournament.
Game servers will be selected according to the following criteria:
- The server will be dedicated and hosted by a reputable hosting company.
- The server will have an up to date and working installation of the configuration and plugins.
- Servers will have enough slots for up to two casters, two camera operators, and an administrator.
- Servers with tickrate greater than or equal to 100 will be preferred, unless both teams agree to another tickrate.
- Servers with DoS Protection are preferred.
The tournament is an international format. Therefore, the following rules apply:
Each team's home server will be a server that satisfies these criteria and provides the best average ping for the members of their team.
Due to restrictions placed on internet traffic at the internet backbone level, home servers will not be located inside mainland China, or otherwise behind "The Great Firewall".
It is not acceptable to choose a home server on the basis that it would provide poor latency for the opposing team. The staff will deal with attempts at gamesmanship in server choice.
The use of server-side "fakelag" is permitted with mutual agreement of both teams.
Pairings and brackets for each round will be posted weekly on Monday.
Schedule your matches promptly. Begin negotiating the schedule early; delinquent scheduling will result in a double forfeit.
Any player on the roster may perform scheduling duties.
Submit results, with a screenshot, by the following Sunday at midnight (timezone [TBD]). Failure to report weekly round results before the deadline will result in a double forfeit. Under no circumstances whatsoever will extensions be granted.
To report match results, post in the #results channel as outlined in the
pinned messages. Include a screenshot of the final scores. Results will not be
accepted via any other means.
A match schedule consists of two elements:
- The date and time, with the time zones, when the match will begin.
- The number of games that will be played in the match.
Competitors are strongly urged to post their complete match schedules to avoid any possibility of miscommunication or dispute about these details at match time.
Any team may request that a staff member be present at their match. The staff will honor reasonable requests where they can, weighing conflicting personal obligations, the significance of the match to the tournament results, and the seriousness of concerns about improper behavior that may take place.
Aside from tournament staff and authorized casters, no spectators will be allowed in the server during match play.
Each team has 15 minutes after the scheduled time to have 4 players in the server and readied up. The standard penalty for failure will be a forfeit loss of the match.
A defining characteristic of a championship team is the capacity to field a team for a match at the agreed upon date and time. Therefore, both teams must agree to allow ringers, or ringers will not be allowed.
No registered player may ring for another team.
Each team must field at least three (3) rostered players in each match, regardless of consent from the opponent.
Ringers are not allowed in the playoff phase of the tournament, regardless of consent from either team.
To maintain public trust in the legitimacy of the competition, it is required that each participant record their match play.
Players must record and save demos of their match play. Store demos until the end of the tournament, and submit them to a Tournament Director on request. A live stream is not a substitute for a demo.
To record a demo, open the console and type record <demoname>. It is not
necessary to re-record after a map change, but it is necessary to re-record
after disconnecting from the server for any reason.
Each team may pause once per round to request screenshots. Players must take a screenshot whenever asked by anyone in the server.
Players are never required to give demos to anyone except the staff. Although there is no basis for an expectation of privacy, they will be shared only for asking second opinions of skilled and trusted players, or to expose wrongdoing to the community.
It is each player's individual responsibility to record demos and screenshots, un-corrupted, and submitted timely.
Failure to submit demos or screenshots on the request of the staff will result, at minimum, in a zero score for any round for which they were not submitted.
The participants agree that the matches may be casted according to the usual process.
In a Home / Away match, you must use the same 4 players in both games.
Do not intentionally exploit AI pathing by moving to an area that causes NPC infected (such as common infected, or the witch) to stop attacking. However, it is permitted to exploit AI pathing in a way that causes infected to climb over obstacles repeatedly.
If an AI tank stops advancing for any reason, the survivors must be notified in a reasonable time. Do not intentionally position a tank so that it cannot advance when under AI control.
Do not use the !spectate command excessively or in a way that gains an unfair
advantage.
Historically, accepted uses of the spectate command have been:
- A player is out of bounds or has become stuck in an object and cannot move or attack the survivors.
- A player-controlled SI is not being killed by the survivors in a reasonable time (for example, instead of killing a spitter, the survivors are m2ing it repeatedly).
- The server crashed and spectating is necessary to guarantee a proper tank rotation.
Do not exploit "stuck spots" by intentionally becoming stuck in or between entities.
As infected, do not clip through a brush or other obstruction by spawning while passing through it in "ghost mode".
As infected, do not attack the survivors in any way from out of the normal map bounds.
Do not skip the elevator holdout event on c4m2_sugarmill by any means that
allow the player to safely enter the sugar cane field without riding the
elevator or being incapacitated or killed by fall damage.
You many not cross the ruined bridge on c11_m1 without climbing a ladder. If
you find yourself on the far side of the bridge and you did not climb a ladder,
you must go back and climb a ladder before progressing.
As infected, you may not move gas cans on c1m4_atrium by punching or
scratching them.
Intentionally positioning a boomer so that cans are moved when it is popped is allowed.
In the event of a finale rescue vehicle glitch (most common on Swamp Fever, but also possible on Dark Carnival and Hard Rain) the half will be replayed following a restart round. If necessary the final scores will be calculated manually.
Participants have a duty to conform to the generally accepted standards of fair play. Deviation from those standards is cheating, and threatens the legitimacy of the competition as a whole. Therefore, everyone will be held to a strict standard of competitive integrity.
The minimum penalty for a breach of competitive integrity is a match loss by forfeit. There is no maximum penalty, which may include team expulsion from the tournament, forfeiture of already played matches, and forfeiture of team eligibility for any prizes.
After the match begins, players will not obtain information from any web casts, streams, etc., that show match play, until the match is concluded.
The following modifications are PERMITTED:
- All modifications to the Left 4 Dead 2 user interface that do not alter, nor interact with the in-game user experience nor provide additional information about the game state (e.g. ZoneMenu, menu music, menu fonts, menu shortcuts, console fonts, etc.) are allowed.
- Modifying, removing, or adding HUDs, crosshairs (including overlay crosshairs), and pain pointers is allowed.
- Modifying or removing gun models and animations is allowed.
- Modifying or removing "tank music" including altering the volume is allowed.
- Modifying or removing music played at the end of the round after a wipe, saferoom door closed, or player death is allowed.
- Modifying or removing the blue tint while spawning special infected in "ghost
mode" via
left4dead2\materials\correction\ghost(.pwl)is allowed. - Modifying or removing the red tint that appears while spawned as special
infected or tank via
left4dead2\materials\correction\infected(.pwl)is allowed. - Source engine configuration files and console scripts that do not exploit
cheat-flagged cvars and do not circumvent blocks on cvars blocked by the
competitive configuration (e.g.
mat_hdr) are allowed. - All launch options that do not exploit nor allow the player to exploit cheat-flagged cvars are allowed.
- Any configuration setting that can be altered using the standard in-game GUI menu options is allowed.
- Modifying materials and sounds that are related to weapons or items that are banned in the competitive configuration (which may include: "Tier 2" weapons, chainsaw, M60, throwables, etc) is allowed.
Aside from the above, no modifications to game files or materials, nor use of third-party software and applications that affect gameplay will be allowed, without the public, prior, and written authorization of the Tournament Director(s). This includes but IS NOT LIMITED to:
- Any changes whatsoever to the stock survivor or infected models, map textures, skyboxes, props, or other materials and files used for rendering the in-game environment are forbidden.
- Any changes whatsoever to game sounds are forbidden.
- Any third-party applications, programs, or macros that read or modify memory to affect gameplay, or to provide information about the game state to the player while the game is running, are forbidden.
After the ready-up for the first half of each map, changing the following cvars is forbidden until both halves of the round are complete:
cl_interpcl_interp_ratiocl_lagcompensation
Each participant is expected conduct themselves respectfully toward others at all times. Abusive, harassing, disrespectful, or otherwise unsportsmanlike conduct will not be tolerated -- neither during a tournament match, nor in any other context.
Any competitor who, in the judgment of a staff member, has not committed to winning the match is guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct.
Repeated or lengthy use of the pause function disrupts the normal flow of the match and frustrates the expectations of the spectators and other players. Therefore, extensive pausing is unsportsmanlike conduct if it is judged by staff to be excessive, regardless of the reason.
Use of all-talk (messagemode1 in console, also known as "mm1") will be held
to the strictest standard of sportsmanlike conduct during match play.
The game engine frequently causes player entities to play vocalizations in certain circumstances automatically and involuntarily. Voluntarily triggered vocalizations can taunt, harass, annoy, or confuse other players. Therefore, vocalizations that are triggered by the player in any way (radial menus, console commands, media buttons on some keyboards, etc.) are strongly discouraged. This includes but IS NOT LIMITED to:
- Survivor laughter or coughing vocalizations
- Survivor death sounds, or other vocalizations associated with player state or health (such as incapacitation or being “black and white”)
- Triggered vocalizations or sound effects associated with director events (such as the rescue vehicle’s arrival, etc.)
- Special infected vocalizations
Do not use sprays that imitate or resemble environmental objects, such as: weapons, NPC or player models, props, or any other recognizable in-game entity.
Do not use sprays or steam avatars that are grotesque, violent, obscene, or depict other disturbing or offensive imagery such as sexually suggestive or explicit content, racist logos, or “shock” images.
Server hosts invest time and money to provide and maintain servers at no charge to anyone using them. This competition, and competitive play in general, depends on their continued generosity. Therefore, do not break server rules at any time when using someone else's server.
An entire team may be held responsible for the unsportsmanlike conduct of any team member. Team captains are advised to consider this fact when composing their rosters.
Copyright (C) 2014-2023 by Ryan Delaney.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
You should have received a copy of the license along with this work. If not, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.