The Hephaestus Challenge Divisions and Schedule

[Sammy B. T.]

Hephaestus Challenge

We are proud to present to you, for the start of the Hephaestus Challenge, the finalized divisions:

Hammer Division		Anvil Division
Mad Hatters		The Art of Warfare
Glowwater Thralls		Sacrilege
DeadPool’s Army		Zill’s Merry Men
Overwatch		Black Flight Squadron
Museosaurs		Cake
The Clamour		Sky Invading Rhinos
Rydr		Holy Roman Army

Our casting team of The Rob and Dan Show and Imagine42 will be running the weekly streams.
The Rob and Dan Show will be broadcasting matches from the Hammer Division.
Imagine42 will be broadcasting matches from the Anvil Division.

The full schedule is available here.

The matches are predetermined as shown for the rest of the season.
Map rolls will be released by 1pm EDT Wednesday each week. Can't let you know everything at once!


The way the matches work is that in the next 8 weeks you play 7 games. 6 of these games are in your own division and one is against a team from the other division. The top two teams from each division will advance to the Golden Playoffs and the rest will slug it out in Silver Playoff. As always, feel free to message any of us with any thoughts, questions or concerns. We are so excited to get this thing going!

[Urz]

Do the "Team 1" and Team 2" columns correlate to "Red" and "Blue" in regard to spawn sides?

[redria]

Ah, I knew we missed something. My apologies. We will get rolls for spawns and update accordingly by 1pm Edt. So no, they do not currently accurately represent spawns.

[Hunter.]

I'd like to point out a mistake in the group's.. it seems that we are not in the same group as the Thralls! You're ruining tradition!

[redria]

Spawns randomized and schedule updated. Sorry for the confusion.
If anyone has any other comments/concerns (sorry Hunter ) feel free to let us know.

[RearAdmiralZill]

I'm gathering the answer to my question from the extended rules, but I'm going to ask anyway:

So regardless of how long matches before you last, the match times are set in stone, and there is no fluctuating? Ex. Match 1 at 4:00pm EDT on takes 15 min. Match 2 is still scheduled at 4:45pm EDT, and it will not start earlier then that.

[Sammy B. T.]

Correct, we set this up so you know exactly when you will need to be ready to start and the latest you possibly have to stay.

[redria]

As you may have noticed, I just posted 14 new threads.

Each team now has a thread in this sub-forum.

Currently all threads are practically identical. If your team wants it to be adjusted to look differently, I will adjust the page as desired on request.

Competing members is just the list of members provided during sign-ups. Members do not have to compete, and I will add to the list every week if new people play for your team. If certain members are regularly playing between teams, I can make a Mercenary thread to honor those individuals.

The intent is to provide an easily accessible page for you to share with friends who may have an interest in just your team. They can see when and who you will be playing, along with interesting information about your team.

I will continue to update them as the season progresses.

[RearAdmiralZill]

You have MM's first match on Dunes, but the first thread says Duel at Dawn.

[redria]

You have MM's first match on Dunes, but the first thread says Duel at Dawn.

Fixed. Too many threads. Too much copy-paste. Thank you for catching that.

[Tanya Phenole]

Sorry for flood,

just wanted to thank redria.

for those threads,

because I am glad team logos are used somewhere outside sign-ups thread!

[Squidslinger Gilder]

How bout we not run this anymore till Muse fixes the freaken hit markers problem, spawning off the ship problem, and heavy rubber banding. Freaken bullshit how everything rides on not getting these game ending bugs which are far too common atm.

[Skrimskraw]

I don't agree with that Gilder.

these bugs have been going on for some time now, and muse is working hard on them witht he new netcode and all.
A fix should be around the corner.

However here is my argument as to why we cannot pause the competitive scene.

1.
these bugs happen to every team in the game, it's something that most of us have realized now, and we know they can happen at anytime. It's a risk, but so far I have not seen a team lose a game based on this. bugs happen in this game, unfortunately and it sounds harsh, but there is nothing to do about it. Competitve rules cannot be made around random bugs happening.

2.
The competitive scene cannot wait for these fixes.
There is no ETA on the fixes. this means that a pause is indefinite.
When Urz stopped CeSports the competitive scene entered a insecure position where a lot of teamleaders were left to trying to keep it going.
This is where we saw Sammy, puppy and redria started hephaestus, and velvet and me startedthe sunday skirmish.
Why did we do it? and why couldn't we wait for somone to do it?

As a teamleader you have to find practice and scrimmages, it is important for your team's survival that you keep it active. No competitive scene means no drive.

As to inter-team scheduling there is absolutely no guarantee that your opponent will show up, as they might cancel 1 hour prior due to not enough signups. This leaves a distrust between the teams, and scheduling between teams rests on the basis of trust and promises.
This is where the competitive scene prevails. It controls the teams, gives them a guarantee of play time.

Hephaestus does this through tight schedule and sanctions against teams that does not show up.
the skirmish gives a guarantee because it doesn't matter if a team no-shows, because the schedule can be changed in last second.
In the end its about keeping the team active. - if there are no competitive scene we might as well just not play.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

I have been personally assured they have found the source of the issues and aree working on it last week, and after testing the new netcode in the dev app events  end of this work-week I'm confident that most common issues will be fixed very soon.

[Alistair MacBain]

*sad*