RULES / OVERVIEW

[Mythril]

TWDT Operator: Henry Saari
TWDT Operator: Mythril
League Op Team: Vys, Qan, Wirah

Regular Season Schedule:

January 13 -- Draft 3PM EST
January 20 -- Game 1/2
January 27 -- Game 3/4 (FA Draft, 1:30PM EST)
Friday, February 1st - Trading Deadline (3:00PM EST)
February 3 -- Games 5/6
February 10 -- Games 7/8
February 17 -- Games 9/10
February 24 -- Semi-Finals
March 3 -- Finals

Teams will compete against every other team twice in each league throughout the regular season.

Regular Season Timeslots:

TWDT-D-- 3:00PM EST
TWDT-D-- 3:30PM EST
TWDT-J -- 4:00PM EST
TWDT-J -- 4:30PM EST
TWDT-B-- 5:00PM EST
TWDT-B-- 5:30PM EST

TWDT Lineup Restrictions:

TWDT-D: Not to exceed 40* total per lineup. Any lineup added that is 40* or below is valid.
TWDT-J: Not to exceed 40* total per lineup. Any lineup added that is 40* or below is valid.
TWDT-B: Not to exceed 67* total per lineup. Any lineup added that is 67* or below is valid.
Note: Terriers have a 9* rating cap on the draft sheet to increase the quality of base games.

These lineup restrictions apply at all times. You are not allowed, at any point of a live match, to exceed the maximum * total per lineup. This will apply to subs as well. If a player dies out in TWDT-D/J, his or her star value remains as part of your team's total. Captains should advise themselves and their assistants to have a calculator ready and to have valid substitutions mapped out before matches begin.

If there is an honest mistake such as subbing two players in quick succession and going over the cap for a short moment before quickly fixing it, you must have reasonable evidence that the player who made the lineup invalid did not impact the game (i.e. shoot, repel, attach, burst), for as long as the lineup was invalid. If an appeal is proposed about this error and the captain is unable to absolve himself with evidence, he will be forced to forfeit the game 50-0 or 15:00-0:00.

Do not make these mistakes. There are resources online for captains and assistants to practice their rudimentary math.

Borrowing in the Regular Season:

TWDT-D/TWDT-J:

• Only players already rated in the draft are eligible to be borrowed.
• Teams are permitted ONE 7* or below borrow per game if they're unable to field a valid lineup from their own roster.
• A borrowed player must be confirmed by a League Op before he's considered eligible to play. If a player is not confirmed eligible for borrowing, the team who added the ineligible player will forfeit the match 50-0. Captains and League Ops should always have ?log running to verify a borrow agreement in the case of potential appeals.
• Borrowed players are only eligible before the start of the game. Subbing in a borrowed player is not permitted and will result in a forfeit.

TWDT-B:

• Only players already rated in the draft are eligible to be borrowed.
• Teams are permitted TWO 7* or below borrows per game if they're unable to field a valid lineup from their own roster.
• Borrowed players must be confirmed by a League Op before they're considered eligible to play. If a player has not been confirmed for borrowing and is added, the team borrowing the ineligible player(s) will forfeit the match 15-0. Captains and League Ops should always have ?log running to verify the agreement in case of potential appeals.
• Borrowed players are only eligible before the start of the game. Subbing in a borrowed player is not permitted and will result in a forfeit.

Borrowing in the Playoffs:

• The same borrowing rules apply from the regular season, but the pool of potential borrows will be limited to rated players who have been eliminated from playoff contention.

Trading Players:

For the first few weeks of the tournament, trading will be open from Sunday at 7:00PM EST until the next Friday at 3:00PM EST. This allows 48 hours for league ops to approve or deny proposed trades before the matches begin the following Sunday.

The final trading deadline will be Friday, February 1st at 3:00PM EST.

Each captain will have a maximum of four trades before the deadline. A single transaction has no maximum amount of players per trade. Each successful trade, no matter how many players involved, will count as one transaction for each captain.

Trading FA picks will be possible, but the value of the potential pick will be determined by the quality of player(s) who are expected to be available at the specific drafting position. It will also count as one of a captain's four trades per season.

Before being official, all trades must be proposed on the forums under the TWDT Winter 2019 Trades thread and must be approved by the TWDT League Op team.

We will be using the trade calculator, but with the new lineup caps, if there's an argument for teams trading each other equal value (relative to each roster) despite total * disparity, they may still be considered valid trades. League Ops also have the right to veto any trades that are obviously one-sided or questionable due to malicious reasons (i.e. sabotaging their own team.)

All trades must be approved/denied within 48 hours by the league op team with an explanation of their reasoning behind the decision.

Bans:

Players are subjected to bans or other punishments, to be decided by league ops on a case-by-case, common sense basis. Some cases will absolutely not be tolerated or negotiated:

• Trading names without notifying league ops or logging on someone else's name during a match is an auto-ban from participating in TWDT for a minimum of (2) seasons.
• Playing under an alias that is immune to proper alias checking while not providing your real alias. The league team can only properly rate a player if they've been identified. Overpowered players who abuse this will forfeit their opportunity to participate with a season long ban.
• Threatening a captain prior to the draft of not showing or refusing to play for them after being picked will constitute an immediate warning. If the behavior continues, the player will be banned for a minimum of (2) seasons. Be an adult and ask for a trade. If that doesn't work, be a bigger adult and soldier through for the sake of the community and your future in TWDT.

Appeals:

Every captain will have a maximum of three appeals per league throughout the regular season. Every playoff match will be eligible to be appealed.

Appeals must be submitted within 48 hours of the incident on the TW forums. A detailed account of the situation and the argument for the appeal should be provided in the thread. Failure to submit an appeal within 48 hours will deem the appeal invalid and the results of the game in question will be considered final.

The league op team will respond to appeals within 72 hours after the appeal was posted with a verdict and an explanation of their reasoning behind the decision.

If an appeal is granted, the game will be replayed at an agreed time that works for both teams involved. If the opposing team is unwilling to reschedule their match at a reasonable date, they will forfeit the replay.

Note: If something unforeseen happens that isn't accounted for in the rules or has no precedence, league ops are responsible for coming up with a common sense, rational, and fair ruling on the situation.

Emergency Scenarios:

In the unlikely event that something catastrophic or completely unforeseen happens that has the potential to ruin the season, the league operators will do their best to solve the issue with the best interest of the TWDT season as a whole in mind. TWDT captains will all be consulted and play a role in handling such a critical decision.

TWDT Playoffs:

• The four teams with the most total wins throughout the regular season will qualify for the playoff bracket in all leagues
• Although the four teams qualify for all leagues, seeding will be determined by win totals in each league.
• The team with the most warbird wins will be the #1 seed in TWDT-D. The team with the least amount of warbird wins will be the #4 seed. The team with the second most javelin wins will be the #2 TWDT-J seed and play against the team with the 3rd most javelin wins as the #3 seed. This will apply for all leagues.

Example: (Wins are in WB/Jav/Base order.)

Thunder 8/7/5, Legio XI 6/8/4, Power 5/9/7, Terrorist 3/6/9

Warbird playoffs would be: 1. Thunder vs 4. Terrorist, 2. Legio XI vs 3. Power
Javelin playoffs would be: 1. Power vs 4. Terrorist, 2. Legio XI vs. 3. Thunder
Base playoffs would be: 1. Terrorist vs 4. Legio XI, 2. Power vs. 3. Thunder

• Tiebreaks: Head-to-head record, then plus-minus overall (all per league)
• Star Cap Limits remain in place for the playoffs
• Only players who have been eliminated from playoff contention are eligible to be borrowed
• Borrowed players who play a full game in the Semis or Finals earn a medal for their contributions.
• Playoffs Format is is a Best of 3 in TWDT-D, TWDT-J, and TWDT-B. All warbird and javelin games are to 50, and all basing games are to 15 minutes.

Playoff Schedule

To account for the best of three format, TWDT-D matches will begin an hour early and TWDT-J matches will begin 30 minutes early.

TWDT-D-- 2:00PM EST
TWDT-J -- 3:30PM EST
TWDT-B-- 5:00PM EST

The Main Draft:

The draft will take place on January 13th, at 3:00PM EST. The picking order will be generated live using an online randomizer one hour before the draft. Once the picking order is randomized, the draft will snake until the last player is selected.

Round 1: 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6
Round 2: 6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1
Ad infinitum

Free Agency Draft:

The FA draft will take place on January 27th, at 1:30PM EST. The picking order will be reversed from round one of the main draft and will snake after the first round.

Round 1: 6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1
Round 2: 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6
Ad infinitum

Signing up to participate in this season's TWDT:

Players must sign up by 1PM EST on Sunday, January 13th before the draft to be eligible for selection in the main draft.

All signups after 1PM EST on January 13th will be added to the FA draft pool.

The deadline for signing up for the FA Draft will be Friday, January 25th at 11:59PM EST. Free agents are immediately eligible to play upon being drafted.

Message from the League Op Team:

Thanks for participating in the premier league of Trench Wars, the Winter 2019 Season of TWDT.

There are several new changes to the format this season, as we've gotten rid of the old lineup restrictions and replaced them with a new lineup cap system to promote more parity and flexibility across the league. Trades are now possible for one more week than usual to provide even more avenues for captains to build a championship team. The rules for appeals are now more thoroughly defined. The playoff seeding will now be on a per-league basis (although the four teams with the most total wins will still qualify for the playoffs). Everything else should feel familiar if you've played TWDT in recent memory.

We're lucky to have six qualified elite multi-league captains running the show this season. Ease, Zidane, myself, Spezza, Dreamwin, and Commodo have all volunteered to help this season run successfully.

As a player, it's expected you conduct yourself like an adult throughout your time in the league. You're playing with a community full of other adults with jobs, social lives, families, and other commitments outside of trench wars. Acting childish and throwing temper tantrums, while not a bannable offense, will not go unnoticed by the community. Do not waste other people's valuable time with unnecessary bullshit. Learn to play with other people, it's really not that difficult.

If you're interested in contributing to TWDT in any way, reach out to myself or Henry Saari. We are looking for all the help we can get. If you enjoy creating content or want to help out with league work or staff duties, we would gladly use your services to help make this season as enjoyable as possible.

We also appreciate the recent herculean effort by the community that brought this game back to life. It's because of that effort that we're able to run another season of TWDT.

Welcome back, good luck and thanks for participating.

TWDT 2019.

[Rab]

Great job on the rules Myth. I like the changes and I especially like the thoroughness. I didn't spot any mistakes or oversights.

Subbing

These lineup restrictions apply at all times. You are not allowed, at any point of a live match, to exceed the maximum * total per lineup. This will apply to subs as well. Captains should advise themselves and their assistants to have a calculator ready and to have valid substitutions mapped out before matches begin.

If there is an honest mistake such as subbing two players in quick succession and going over the cap for a short moment before quickly fixing it, you must have reasonable evidence that the player who made the lineup invalid did not impact the game (i.e. shoot, repel, attach, burst), for as long as the lineup was invalid. If an appeal is proposed about this error and the captain is unable to absolve himself with evidence, he will be forced to forfeit the game 50-0 or 15:00-0:00.

Do not make these mistakes. There are resources online for captains and assistants to practice their rudimentary math.

As a dev, my first thought is why not build this validation into the bot so an invalid lineup can't be used?
Caps are high quality players so will certainly be playing, the logistics around finding out how many stars you have available and what the stars of available subs are is too much to deal with while playing. The punishment for mistakes is harsh but this arrangement makes mistakes likely.
"assistants" - is this a defined role like in twd, or do you just mean anyone the cap asks to help? Who can actually issue the !sub command to the bot?
We've had discussions before about neeting a centralised set of ratings, yet we keep making new ratings for each event.
Stick the ratings in the database and maintain them there, then the bot can access them to do a quick validation check at the start of the match and when a sub is requested.
Also - if the database contained the list of players with rating, it may as well have their team, so that can be validated too, and so they can !myfreq without begging staff, and then may as well assign [C] and [A] to players so [A] can do stuff with the bot.
I know the response will be lack of dev time before the season starts, but TWDT is the most successful league we do in TW these days, so we may as well do it properly at some point.

Playoff Schedule

Playoff Schedule

To account for the best of three format, TWDT-D matches will begin an hour early and TWDT-J matches will begin 30 minutes early.

TWDT-D-- 2:00PM EST
TWDT-J -- 3:30PM EST
TWDT-B-- 5:00PM EST

Just making sure people notice this, as there's always issues with this, but afaik this is still the least-worst way of doing it.

[Mythril]

As a dev, my first thought is why not build this validation into the bot so an invalid lineup can't be used?
Caps are high quality players so will certainly be playing, the logistics around finding out how many stars you have available and what the stars of available subs are is too much to deal with while playing. The punishment for mistakes is harsh but this arrangement makes mistakes likely.
"assistants" - is this a defined role like in twd, or do you just mean anyone the cap asks to help? Who can actually issue the !sub command to the bot?
We've had discussions before about neeting a centralised set of ratings, yet we keep making new ratings for each event.
Stick the ratings in the database and maintain them there, then the bot can access them to do a quick validation check at the start of the match and when a sub is requested.
Also - if the database contained the list of players with rating, it may as well have their team, so that can be validated too, and so they can !myfreq without begging staff, and then may as well assign [C] and [A] to players so [A] can do stuff with the bot.
I know the response will be lack of dev time before the season starts, but TWDT is the most successful league we do in TW these days, so we may as well do it properly at some point.

These are great ideas. I agree with you on the harsh punishment. Preferably, human error shouldn't even be possible here if we could program the lineup caps and rosters into the bot. Qan has been on extended vacation since I started looking at things, so these rules had to be written while assuming we'd be using ancient technology. But I think it's almost necessary at this point to program these into the bots. I'll see what's plausible.

Centralized ratings is another great idea. We'll no doubt be using these ratings for the majority of leagues in the future. Would make life easier to have a centralized database that could be updated when required and was connected to the league bots.

Re: Assistants. This is another undefined gray area that should be further explained in the rules and tinkered with on the dev end. From what I know, TWDT bots essentially function the same as wbduel/javbots once captains are selected for each team. They can only have one captain assigned per team, and that captain is the only person who can command the bot.

This is problematic for several reasons, and I know from firsthand experience with my experience capping last season. The "assistant" thing is a very unofficial tag. If I was playing in a match, I'd try to have the host transfer my powers to a designated person to handle subs in spec. That request was rarely even noticed, so I was put in the strange position of trying to figure out who on my team was sucking while also being a high star player trying to win a match.

Also, if a cap doesn't show, who's taking control? RaCka couldn't make the FA draft last season so we pretty much just told Trasher to handle it last second. Captains should designate maybe 3-5 assistants on their team in case they can't show. But even if they show, there should definitely be commands like !assist <name> to TWDT bots that will grant powers to whoever a captain wants handling subs throughout a game.

This is all good stuff. Thanks for going over it Rab. I think Qan returns soon, so we'll see what we can do. And just got confirmation from method that we'll be using the TWDT website again for this season.

[Mythril]

Ease and Claus brought to my attention the potential abuse of having two captains agree on a borrowed player. Fixed it so league ops are required to confirm each borrow instead of relying on the opposing captain not cherry picking his opponent.

[Mythril]

Commodo found a loophole and offered his fix under the lineup cap rules for TWDT-D/TWDT-J.

If a player dies out, his or her star value remains as part of your team's total

This prevents captains from abusing the lineup cap by subbing in overvalued players after people die out.

Should be handing out pub bux for people who find errors in the rules. Let us know of anything else that needs to be fixed. Let's try to make as much sense as possible this season.

[Wirah]

Can we get a sticky SCHEDULE thread similar to this https://forums.trenchwars.com/forum/...dule#post48578

Once we have that I can input all the data into the new site too (coming as soon as the schedule is ready)

[Dreamwin]

Will there be games on super bowl sunday? (Feb 3rd)

[Mythril]

Will there be games on super bowl sunday? (Feb 3rd)

Right now we're planning on still running TWDT that Sunday. Kickoff is at 6:30, which does make it difficult for basers who plan on going to super bowl parties etc. If enough people speak up about needing a postpone, we could consider it.

[Tiny]

postpone now. could be last season ever. no need to hurry.

[ogron]

play it out imo

[Rab]

Seems too basic to be missed that I'm doubting myself, but I can't see any specific rules on specials in basing? Am I being special?

[MHz]

TWDT Playoffs:

• The four teams with the most total wins throughout the regular season will qualify for the playoff bracket in all leagues
• Although the four teams qualify for all leagues, seeding will be determined by win totals in each league.
• The team with the most warbird wins will be the #1 seed in TWDT-D. The team with the least amount of warbird wins will be the #4 seed. The team with the second most javelin wins will be the #2 TWDT-J seed and play against the team with the 3rd most javelin wins as the #3 seed. This will apply for all leagues.

Example: (Wins are in WB/Jav/Base order.)

It should be clarified how - in the eventuality that teams are tied on total points - playoff spots are determined. I think this is one for Qan, seeing as captains and players may have a vested interest in pushing for certain criteria now that we have 3 weeks' worth of results.

[ogron]

The top 4 teams make it on wins overall, with head-to-head record, then +/- overall as tiebreaks.


Those 4 teams are then re-seeded by wins per-league (WB/Jav/Base). If two teams are tied in TWDT-D, you just look at the head-to-head record then plus-minus in their WB games, using the same tiebreaker.

Tiebreaks: Head-to-head record, then plus-minus overall (all per league)

Seems clear? What's the issue?