This is a topic of contention for many new, and even some experienced teams. Roster Locks give us a way of locking all Active Rosters within a desired league / season. It's primary use case is to prevent the removal or addition of players after a certain point (typically around Week 7). Once Rosters have been locked, no team leader is able to transfer players without express permission and approval from the entire Respawn League staff team. Roster Lock also helps prevent removing a player prior to Playoffs to stop a specific person from getting a badge, or removing a player out of spite.

Under no circumstances, will we approve a transfer because you are a "friend" of a staff member, I'm surprised this was ever asked as it's fairly obvious it wouldn't happen. We will not approve transfers post Roster Lock either.

There are some situations / emergency statutes that allow for the replacement of a team member, but this is limited specifically to each case. We ask that you come to us with these matters and we will decide whether to allow or disallow them. You will always have the option to use Mercenaries, but they will require staff approval during Playoffs.

Yup, it's that time again. We would like to congratulate the Top 4 teams who have made it into the Asia 4v4 Season 1 Playoffs. As always, the schedule for playoffs can be a bit hectic, but we have done our best to make the schedule easy to follow and spread over the four weeks in a better way for participating teams. If you have not made it to playoffs, we would like to congratulate you and thank you for your efforts this season. All badges will be distributed at the completion of the season.

Schedule

The below schedule is used to illustrate what matches are played each week, with the allowed days also being listed under the image. As you have made it to playoffs, we expect that you ensure you and your team's availability for these days, as matches will be tightly scheduled and closely monitored by each Sub-League's Manager (see our staff list here).

Playable Match Days for each set of matches:

Week 1: Upper Bracket Round 1 (BO1): Monday - Saturday
Week 2: Upper Bracket Semifinals (BO1) & Lower Bracket Round 1 (BO1): Monday - Saturday
Week 3: Lower Bracket Round 2 (BO3): Monday - Saturday
Week 4: Upper Bracket Grand Finals (BO3): Monday - Saturday

The BO1 & BO3 matches are marked with BO1 or BO3 in the above schedule.

Map Pool

koth_maple_ridge_b6
koth_airfield_b7
koth_cascade_rc1a
cp_warmfrost_rc1
koth_stallone_b2
koth_product_rc9
koth_brazil
koth_bagel_rc2a

Picks & Bans

Picks & Bans are different for Best of 1 Map and Best of 3 Map matches. BO1 matches are played with two halves, BO3 matches are 1 half for each map. The order of Picking and Banning can be seen in the below lists:

Best of 1 Map

Home Team Bans
Away Team Bans
Home Team Bans
Away Team Bans
Home Team Picks

Best of 3 Maps

Home Team Bans
Away Team Bans
Home Team Picks
Away Team Picks
Away Team Bans
Home Team Picks

Bracketing and Seeding

For an example of which seed is matched with the other, please refer to the line below.

1v4, 2v3.

If you are still unsure, perhaps a screenshot of the internal Challonge page may help.

Match Coverage

All requests to cast from unapproved Casting Organizations or Entities need to be run by the Sub-League's Manager. For official coverage of matches, follow our Twitch channel. If you wish to seek approval, please read this thread first.

Current Staff List | Competitive Ruleset | Match Casting

These are a long time coming, and are not all of the fixes that will be released. Please find a short, simplified list of the changes made so far below:

- Updated Competitive Rules page with all necessary information.
- Updated Community Rules, Staff List, Map Schedule and Credits pages.
- Updated About and Help pages.
- Removed Highlander Guide and replaced with Website Guide which will be coming shortly.
- Server Guide has been moved to the forums for easier updating.
- Fixed SourceTV Demos link.
- Added Forums back to the left sidebar / navbar.
- Fixed some scalability and responsiveness issues.
- Added Steam Group link to the right sidebar (check our Steam Group out!)

There are more changes to come, more content and better features. Some of the upcoming changes and features can be found below (but not limited to):

- Entire page dedicated to further explaining the Swiss System and Bracketing.
- Pugs Guide

Bookable Server Providers

Current Bookable Providers:

• Qixalite (AU/NZ, SEA & AS)
• PURE (AS)

Servers will be distributed by the provider's booking method, be it through their IRC, Discord Bot or through a web interface. To set up the server ready for your match, you must execute the following commands in the in-game console:

rcon_password (password here) - Use the rcon_password supplied by the provider.
rcon changelevel pl_upward - Substitute pl_upward with the map you are playing.
rcon exec respawn_hl_koth - Pick the right one for the map you are playing.
rcon exec respawn_hl_stopwatch - Without the brackets (or whats in them).
rcon exec respawn_hl_standard - Without the brackets (or whats in them).

Logs are provided at the provider's logs.tf Uploads page. If you participated in the game, it will come up in your Matches tab on your logs.tf profile. STV Demos will be stored for download by most providers, who will usually have methods of getting them. If you want to keep any of these SourceTV Demos, you will need to download them. We cannot guarantee how long they will be available.

Self Hosting vs Dedicated Servers
We do not recommend, nor allow the use of Self Hosted Game Servers. These tend to be very unreliable due to ping, internet issues, and poor setup. We also prohibit the use of these servers as they run on a residential connection, meaning your connection could be attacked by a Denial of Service attack (DOS). Dedicated Server providers, be it a Game Server or VPS / Dedicated Box, are typically sufficient for use within our league however, they must follow the below expectations:

• Official Respawn League Configs & Whitelist MUST be used.
• The server should have adequate bandwidth and routing to properly serve all clients.
• The server must have the exact versions of the maps used in Regular Season play.
• The server must have Logs.TF installed, along with recorded SourceTV Demos. There are enough tutorials for each and every one of these requirements, please do not come straight to us with a problem on your server.

Server Configs
You can find our up-to-date configs and whitelist on the link below:
https://github.com/coretf/respawn_server_configs GitHub Repository

The order of maps below are the weeks of each Regular Season (from 1-7) and are in the Playoffs Map Pool.

W1: Badwater, Ashville
W2: Ashville, Swiftwater
W3: Borneo, Cascade
W4: Cascade, Upward
W5: Upward, Vigil
W6: Vigil, Product
W7: Badwater, Steel

Please note: koth_ashville_rc2b, koth_product_rcx, koth_cascade_rc1a, pl_badwater_pro_v13_b1 are custom maps. If you don't already have these installed, please click the links above to download them, and then move them to your ...\Team Fortress 2\tf\download\maps directory.

Maps: Upward, Badwater Pro, Swiftwater, Borneo, Steel, Product, Cascade, Ashville and Vigil.

MAP DOWNLOADS

Head Administrator

core

Administrators

bird
Clari-tea
Eternal
Gale
Kodyn
max
Michael
omni

Discord Moderators

Rias

Contributors

Liam (Artist [v3 Respawn Logo])
Jen (Artist [v2 Respawn Logo])
Bizink (Artist & Badge Concepts)
EmperorFaiz (Artist & Badge Modeller)
catfish (Cool Dude)
obla (Cool Dude)
Fozzlm (Cool Dude)
fwishy (Cool Dude)
winter (PURE Servers)
DeDstar (PURE Servers)

Over the last few weeks we have noticed an emerging and alarming behaviour of teams constricting what days can be played in a week for the opposing team. So we will clarify what the match days are below, and state our expectations regarding organization, along with how the rules engage it.

ANZ - Monday - Saturday
Asia - Tuesday - Sunday

This alarming behaviour we have been noticing is stemming from the belief that teams and team captains don’t have to conform to our rules. Keep trying this and we’ll see how that goes. There are some rule changes that teams need to note:

• Each team is now REQUIRED to have a minimum of four playable
  match days per match week. This is non-negotiable, if you cannot
  have these days along with proof that your team can make these days,
  then you will be looked past when resolving a dispute between you and
  a team that does have those days.

• Match Ransoming is getting an update - failure to present viable
  reasoning for why your team cannot play prior to the Match
  Organization deadline will result in penalty. If a team does not
  produce this evidence upon request from the opposing captain, they
  can contact an administrator.

All match negotiations, along with the time and day of when the match will be played, will be complete prior to the times below for each region, or captain’s will start to see accruing penalties.

ANZ - Tuesday 11:59PM AEDT
Asia - Wednesday 11:59PM AEDT

This does NOT mean that matches need to be played by then. This means that all match details other than a server are organized and sorted prior to this time. First offenses will be left to admin discretion depending on the situation, however a second offense will be a defaulted match loss for your team’s next match. We will not stand for the poor behaviour and sportsmanship that has been present so far. We recognize this is something we have dropped the ball on so far, and we feel this is an important first step to rectifying this.

This addressed to all players, captains and wider community members. We will no longer tolerate toxicity inside and outside of matches, we will no longer tolerate witch hunts targeted at someone you feel “may” be using a third party program, and we will no longer tolerate poor behaviour at any level of play.

There seems to be a general ignorance for rules surrounding our league, and we would like to clear some things up:

To claim a forfeit due to the other team not readying up 15 minutes after your own team has readied, you must seek an online staff member. We will then mediate the process between both captains. It is your responsibility to respectfully make the other captain aware that you have contacted a staff member regarding this.

“How you use the pauses are up to you, but cannot in any circumstances be used within the first 10 minutes of the match” this rule is overly vague, we understand that. The rule still stands, if you have started a match without all of your players, you cannot use a pause to get them in for the first 10 minutes of a match. If you lose a player within this time then of course you can use your pause. In fact, you can use 3 pauses per match, with each not lasting any longer than 5 minutes, and combined cannot be over 10 minutes.

If you are unsure about any rules, refer to our rules page or ask in #admin-support. Please be aware some rules have been amended since and still need to be updated on the rules page.

Now to the topic that way too many people are now aware of. When you come across a suspected “cheater”, there is a certain process to follow. In fact, this process is almost the same for every league. The funny part about it being the same, is that typically the opposite is also true. For example, there is no point publicly pointing the finger at someone you suspect to be cheating, this will just force them to become smarter about how they play with their clients.

A post originally by madjacks and obla on the ozfortress forums perfectly sums up what we have seen so far, and what the expectations are.

(a small exert for those who are too lazy to click the link)
Sourced from: https://warzone.ozfortress.com/forums/threads/104
I highly suggest reading the rest of their post, it sums up our feelings right about now.

I think by now you should be getting the point on both of these subjects. Now something I do want to make sure everybody is on the same page about is the punishments. We have never tried to introduce an environment where we sweep this behaviour under the rug, and this behaviour is not acceptable in any public medium, anywhere. For the people who have involved themselves, and for anyone else who knows what situations have occurred for this post to be made, then please also be aware that if you are caught throwing fuel to the fire so to speak, you won’t be around for much longer.