H2H8 / H2H8 Rules & Regulations

RULES & REGULATIONS

What is Head to Head?

H2H is a team contest featuring six teams and sixty players. Each team has a captain who is in charge of managing the team's performance. Your team competes against all other teams in five rounds, with mini parks made by up to three players. After each round's deadline, both parks of the matchup are posted on the forums for the public to vote on their favourite. The creators are kept anonymous until the vote has ended. The winning park is the one with more votes. After the Round Robin, The Top 4 teams then go forward into the Playoffs to fight for the title.

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Please note that failure to follow any of the following rules will result in the respective park, player or team being disqualified.

A. H2H Referee

(1) A to be appointed referee will oversee the contest by observing all teams.
(2) The H2H referee is in charge of all aspects of the contest and has final say on all matters.

B. Player Lineup

(1) Every player on a team must be used at least once during the round robin.
(2) No park can be built on by more than 3 players in the round robin and the semi-finals.
(3) Final parks cannot be built on by more than 5 players.
(4) Each park a team submits must be built by a unique set of people throughout the whole contest, with the exception of the finals. No two people can work together twice, except for in the final.
(5) No player can build more than three times, including playoffs. So be careful how you use certain players. This is to ensure that everyone on the team gets their chance to participate.
(6) No more than one solo park allowed during the season, including playoffs. Use it wisely if you choose to do so.
(7) From the two players picked last during the draft, captains can choose one player to get a 'floating' status, meaning that said player can build on any of the team's parks, free of Rules B2, B4 and B5. Trading a player will not change the draft round in which that player was picked.
(8 ) If a floating player drops out, the floating status can be transfered to either the other player that was picked in the last two rounds, or to a replacement. If this is a replacement that signed up after the draft, this must be approved by the other captains.

C. Captains

(1) No captain can replace a player unless a player drops out, where they will choose a player off the Replacement List.
(2) Players will be allowed to join the replacement list after sign-ups.
(3) A captain must not add a player's name to a park that he did not participate in.
(4) At the start of the contest, each team must appoint a vice-captain. The vice-captain will step in when a captain cannot fulfill his role anymore.

D. Park Construction & Submission

(1) There is no official bench for H2H8, but the database has plenty of existing workbenches to choose from. Map sizes must consist of a total amount of tiles that must be no more than 3600 and no less than 1600 during the round robin, and no more than 4900 and no less than 2500 during the playoffs.
(2) Any player may create or provide a bench or custom scenery for his team. This will not turn him into a creator of any park. To be classed as a park creator a player must physically build on the park. Performing small hacks by non-creator team members will be tolerated as long as there's not creative input involved. People who are not part of the contest are also allowed to create custom scenery on request, but Rules B4 and B5 must be strictly followed.
(3) Park construction can't begin until after the team draft. Therefore, recycling old unfinished projects is not allowed. Recycling smaller elements like a layout, a building or an idea will be tolerated on the condition that is hasn't been advertised before.
(4) It's strictly forbidden to describe, show screens or stream your team's work to anyone other than your team mates and the referee until the park in question has been released. For reviewing purpose, screens and streams are allowed inbetween the release and the match-up conclusion, as long as the park creators are not revealed or hinted at.
(5) Parks must be anonymous, meaning you must not identify which player(s) has/have built the park. This includes staff names, mosaic signs, underwater land coloring or any clever way of putting your name in the park. You may put names of team mates in the park (e.g. everyone from your team) as long as there is no revelation or indication of the real creators.
(6) All parks must be submitted to the submission database before their respective deadline (11:59PM GMT). This is the only instance when the creator's names can and must be revealed.
(7) An 800x600 screen must be submitted alongside the park. This is to be used to give a preview of the park as aerials will not be provided.
(8 ) A forfeit is ruled if no park is submitted and possibly if a park is not submitted on time. Creators that were working on that round do not count towards Rule B1.
(9) If a park is submitted after the deadline or not submitted at all, the captain of the respective team may PM trav a link to a post in his forum where an attachment of the park can be found. If the timestamp of this post is prior to the deadline then this version of the park may be entered into the competition.
(10) All Teams receive the chance of a one-time deadline extension of 3 days. This counts for the entire contest. The captain of the team has to create a written record in order to make use of this option. It has to be dated before the respective deadline.

E. Voting

(1) The parks will be voted on anonymously. The players will be revealed at the end of the voting.
(2) All matches will have a three day limit (72 hours) after they are posted for voting to occur. If the voting is tied after the three day limit, the voting will remain open until a winning vote is received.
(3) In the event of a forfeit or disqualification, the park that was submitted will receive the average relative winning percentage of all winning entries to be used in the event of a tie and the contest statistics. The team forfeit will receive 0% for this round in calculation of their average relative vote percentage.
(4) Players will not be allowed to vote in their own team's matchups.

F. Play-Offs

(1) When the round robin has come to an end, all teams will be ranked primarily on their win/loss record, and secondly on their average relative vote percentage. The Top 4 teams advance to the playoffs.
(2) The play-offs consist of two semi-finals between the first and fourth ranked team, and the second and third ranked team. The winner of each semi-final advances to the grand final.

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We have tried to cover all areas of the contest but feel free to ask questions about remaining unclarities.

H2H has always been a Summer contest, but this is a very early start... please tell me that this is still a Summer contest and we can have much longer amounts of time to build? I think that would be great. 

Current timeline is equivalent to H2H7.  However delays are always possible, as with H2H7.  Keep in mind there will likely be two weeks minimum before the draft occurs, so you still have time.  Playoffs and Finals will likely still take place in June and July.

That floating player rule seems very interesting. Nice updates. Looking forward to this!

Yeah the floating player rule is great

Here are all the notable changes.

(2) No park can be built on by more than 3 players in the round robin and the semi-finals.
(3) Final parks cannot be built on by more than 5 players.
(7) From the two players picked last during the draft, captains can choose one player to get a 'floating' status, meaning that said player can build on any of the tea's parks, free of Rules B4 and B5.

(4) At the start of the contest, each team must appoint a vice-captain. The vice-captain will step in when a captain cannot fulfill his role anymore.

Teams are no longer a captain and nine players, there will be an official vice-captain, and a floater indeed. Final round is less restricted than the other rounds.

Below is my H2H expert feedback on all the rules for this season. I am a bitch on rules and I think this is the best time to be a bitch about them. No reason why they should not be open to changes right now.

 

I think the main thing to consider is the first thing you guys say when you introduce H2H. It's a TEAM contest. There need to be some limits, but in every season there have been an amount of limits that make it hard to get parks done and have fun building with teammates. 

 

Last season was pretty good until the 3-way final call. My team (and other teams) structured our whole season around needing a playoff park and a finals park. So you guys flipped that on our heads and still didn't allow lighter builder rules. It was a bullshit end to the season. I really hope that does not happen in H2H8.

 

 

RULES & REGULATIONS

What is Head to Head?

H2H is a TEAM contest featuring six teams and sixty players. Each team has a captain who is in charge of managing the team's performance. Your team competes against all other teams in five rounds, with mini parks made by up to three players. After each round's deadline, both parks of the matchup are posted on the forums for the public to vote on their favorite. The creators are kept anonymous until the vote has ended. The winning park is the one with more votes. After the Round Robin, The Top 4 teams then go forward into the Playoffs to fight for the title.
 

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Please note that failure to follow any of the following rules will result in the respective park, player or team being disqualified.

A. H2H Referee

(1) A to be appointed referee will oversee the contest by observing all teams. Fine
(2) The H2H referee is in charge of all aspects of the contest and has final say on all matters. Fine, but also use captains and admins to help make key calls

B. Player Lineup

(1) Every player on a team must be used at least once during the round robin. Yes
(2) No park can be built on by more than 3 players in the round robin and the semi-finals. Why not, it's a team contest right? I suggest you allow 4-5 players on all parks.
(3) Final parks cannot be built on by more than 5 players. Again, if H2H is a team contest and you already alter a number of rules for the finals park, why not let everyone have a part in it? No reason to exclude half the team from the most important park!
(4) Each park a team submits must be built by a unique set of people throughout the whole contest, with the exception of the finals. No two people can work together twice, except for in the final. Okay, but I would say no more than 2x during the season for a certain combo.
(5) No player can build more than three times, including playoffs. So be careful how you use certain players. This is to ensure that everyone on the team gets their chance to participate. 3x is okay, 4x would be better.  
(6) No more than one solo park allowed during the season, including playoffs. Use it wisely if you choose to do so. A solo should never be used in H2H unless you have an insane ass of parkmaker no one can stand to work with... shotguns
(7) From the two players picked last during the draft, captains can choose one player to get a 'floating' status, meaning that said player can build on any of the tea's parks, free of Rules B4 and B5. Cool!

C. Captains

(1) No captain can replace a player unless a player drops out, where they will choose a player off the Replacement List. Actually... quite a few reasons to replace someone, like if they vanish for 2 weeks, refuse to show their work on a park or a vast majority of the team wants them out for a good reason. 
(2) Players will be allowed to join the replacement list after sign-ups. Fine
(3) A captain must not add a player's name to a park that he did not participate in. Fine
(4) At the start of the contest, each team must appoint a vice-captain. The vice-captain will step in when a captain cannot fulfill his role anymore. I like it, but would rather a vice/new captain is picked when it's needed rather than at the start. A lot can change in a few months.

D. Park Construction & Submission

(1) There is no official bench for H2H8, but the database has plenty of existing workbenches to choose from. Map sizes must consist of a total amount of tiles that must be no more than 3600 and no less than 1600 during the round robin, and no more than 4900 and no less than 2500 during the playoffs. Fine
(2) Any player may create or provide a bench or custom scenery for his team. This will not turn him into a creator of any park. To be classed as a park creator a player must physically build on the park. Performing small hacks by non-creator team members will be tolerated as long as there's not creative input involved. People who are not part of the contest are also allowed to create custom scenery on request, but Rules B4 and B5 must be strictly followed. Fine
(3) Park construction can't begin until after the team draft. Therefore, recycling old unfinished projects is not allowed. Recycling smaller elements like a layout, a building or an idea will be tolerated on the condition that is hasn't been advertised before. Fine
(4) It's strictly forbidden to describe, show screens or stream your team's work to anyone other than your team mates and the referee until the park in question has been released. For reviewing purpose, screens and streams are allowed inbetween the release and the match-up conclusion, as long as the park creators are not revealed or hinted at. Fine
(5) Parks must be anonymous, meaning you must not identify which player(s) has/have built the park. This includes staff names, mosaic signs, underwater land coloring or any clever way of putting your name in the park. You may put names of team mates in the park (e.g. everyone from your team) as long as there is no revelation or indication of the real creators. Fine
(6) All parks must be submitted to the submission database before their respective deadline (11:59PM GMT). This is the only instance when the creator's names can and must be revealed. Fine
(7) An 800x600 screen must be submitted alongside the park. This is to be used to give a preview of the park as aerials will not be provided. Fine
(8 ) A forfeit is ruled if no park is submitted and possibly if a park is not submitted on time. Creators that were working on that round do not count towards Rule B1. Fine
(9) If a park is submitted after the deadline or not submitted at all, the captain of the respective team may PM Louis a link to a post in his forum where an attachment of the park can be found. If the timestamp of this post is prior to the deadline then this version of the park may be entered into the competition. Fine
(10) All Teams receive the chance of a one-time deadline extension of 3 days. This counts for the entire contest. The captain of the team has to create a written record in order to make use of this option. It has to be dated before the respective deadline. Fine

E. Voting

(1) The parks will be voted on anonymously. The players will be revealed at the end of the voting. Fine
(2) All matches will have a three day limit (72 hours) after they are posted for voting to occur. If the voting is tied after the three day limit, the voting will remain open until a winning vote is received. Fine, tho don't forget the 24 hours to DL the parks before the poll goes live.
(3) In the event of a forfeit or disqualification, the park that was submitted will receive the average relative winning percentage of all winning entries to be used in the event of a tie and the contest statistics. The team forfeit will receive 0% for this round in calculation of their average relative vote percentage.Fine
(4) Players will not be allowed to vote in their own team's matchups. Fine

F. Play-Offs

(1) When the round robin has come to an end, all teams will be ranked primarily on their win/loss record, and secondly on their average relative vote percentage. The Top 4 teams advance to the playoffs. Fine
(2) The play-offs consist of two semi-finals between the first and fourth ranked team, and the second and third ranked team. The winner of each semi-final advances to the grand final. Or there will just be a last minute choice to change everything and make it a three-way final... 

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We have tried to cover all areas of the contest but feel free to ask questions about remaining unclarities.

 

Overall I think these rules are solid, but could provide more flexibility to allow more fun during the contest. 

 

Thank you for keeping H2H going! 

Can you guys add some documentation on:

 

1) Multiplayer: Rules for hosting servers, cannot be public, must be password-protected, etc.

2) Vanilla Compatibility: Do all RCT2 parks have to be compatible with vanilla, or is OpenRCT2 only fine?

 

We discussed some of these briefly on Discord, but they should be detailed fully here.

 

Thanks!

1) Multiplayer: Rules for hosting servers, cannot be public, must be password-protected, etc.
2) Vanilla Compatibility: Do all RCT2 parks have to be compatible with vanilla, or is OpenRCT2 only fine?

1 is covered here:

 

"(4) It's strictly forbidden to describe, show screens or stream your team's work to anyone other than your team mates and the referee until the park in question has been released. For reviewing purpose, screens and streams are allowed inbetween the release and the match-up conclusion, as long as the park creators are not revealed or hinted at."

 

It's your own responsibility to control access to your information and creations.

Vanilla compatibility is not required, as it is not required for submissions to NE.

Below is my H2H expert feedback on all the rules for this season. I am a bitch on rules and I think this is the best time to be a bitch about them. No reason why they should not be open to changes right now.

I think the main thing to consider is the first thing you guys say when you introduce H2H. It's a TEAM contest. There need to be some limits, but in every season there have been an amount of limits that make it hard to get parks done and have fun building with teammates.

Last season was pretty good until the 3-way final call. My team (and other teams) structured our whole season around needing a playoff park and a finals park. So you guys flipped that on our heads and still didn't allow lighter builder rules. It was a bullshit end to the season. I really hope that does not happen in H2H8.

Here is some H2H expert feedback on your H2H expert feedback. It's H2H expert H2H expert feedback feedback!

I think we have different definitions of fun. I'm not saying your proposal isn't fun, but restrictions and limits can actually be fun, because they spark thinking outside the box and problem solving, in other words, creativity. Part of the reason for the restrictions is also... tradition. If we allowed the whole team to work on every park, would it still be H2H? Or would it be something else? In either case, I think the parks would be a disaster. Too many cocks in the hen house. Harder to retain ownership of ideas.

These restrictions in H2H have been getting looser and looser with every H2H... From allowing three builders in H2H5, to being allowed in consecutive rounds in H2H7, and allowing four builders in play-offs, things have been getting easier since the Kumba era ironically. I believe that the new rule changes, with the floating builder and allowing five people unrestricted in the final will ensure even less unfinished parks than before. We keep experimenting, but always within the spirit of the game, which is a team sending forward 2 or 3 people every round with the rest of the team cheering them on. A team's H2H season is like a jazz band jamming along, with band members taking turns playing solos for a while. It will still be a band and a band effort.

And for the record, the three-way final was not ideal, not for anyone. It wasn't more convenient for any team's roster. What it did however was ensure that we had playoffs in which we would actually see some competition, and not a bunch of wins by forfeit. H2H4 had a shit finale, H2H5 had a win by forfeit, H2H6 was hardly even with the Replacements park being half a park. For the first time since H2H3 we had a final that was actually a good match (aside from the format) and that made it worth it. And again, I hope we never have to repeat it. I 100% agree with you on that.

Now about the rules, what isn't covered by the above:

A. Referee
(2) The H2H referee is in charge of all aspects of the contest and has final say on all matters. Fine, but also use captains and admins to help make key calls

B. Player Lineup
(3) Final parks cannot be built on by more than 5 players. Again, if H2H is a team contest and you already alter a number of rules for the finals park, why not let everyone have a part in it? No reason to exclude half the team from the most important park!
(4) Each park a team submits must be built by a unique set of people throughout the whole contest, with the exception of the finals. No two people can work together twice, except for in the final. Okay, but I would say no more than 2x during the season for a certain combo.
(5) No player can build more than three times, including playoffs. So be careful how you use certain players. This is to ensure that everyone on the team gets their chance to participate. 3x is okay, 4x would be better.

C. Captains
(1) No captain can replace a player unless a player drops out, where they will choose a player off the Replacement List. Actually... quite a few reasons to replace someone, like if they vanish for 2 weeks, refuse to show their work on a park or a vast majority of the team wants them out for a good reason.
(4) At the start of the contest, each team must appoint a vice-captain. The vice-captain will step in when a captain cannot fulfill his role anymore. I like it, but would rather a vice/new captain is picked when it's needed rather than at the start. A lot can change in a few months.

E. Voting

(2) All matches will have a three day limit (72 hours) after they are posted for voting to occur. If the voting is tied after the three day limit, the voting will remain open until a winning vote is received. Fine, tho don't forget the 24 hours to DL the parks before the poll goes live.

A2 - Of course!
B3 - It was one of the ideas we discussed, to have the final park being a group park, but in the end we decided against it because could foresee it resulting in more unfinished and messier parks. It used to be 2 restricted, now it's 5 unrestricted. It'll be fine.
B4 - You want to lift this restriction to allow the same people to work together twice? That's pretty much the same thing as ditching the entire rule, because not many people work on more than two parks anyway. It would be boring your way, sorry.
B5 - Why would 4x be better? Who is going to build four times without working with the same people twice? Who wants that!? I would hate to see four out of six parks being built on by the same person.
C1 - There are various reasons why people can drop out, you should know that. Disappearing being the most frequent reason. No point in stating as many reasons as possible in the rules.
C4 - I don't think it'll be set in stone. If the captain wants to make someone else vice-captain, or if the vice-captain becomes unavailable, I see no reason to not allow that. No worries, if there is a problem, tell the referee and there will be solution.
E2 - Of course!

Overall I think these rules are solid, but could provide more flexibility to allow more fun during the contest.

Thank you for keeping H2H going!

Thanks for the feedback! Better to get your thoughts out now than during the contest itself.

(7) From the two players picked last during the draft, captains can choose one player to get a 'floating' status, meaning that said player can build on any of the tea's parks, free of Rules B4 and B5.

 

When does this status have to be assigned?

 

If a replacement is used, can that player be given "floater" status?  Assuming the 8th or 9th drafted player has not yet built (or only built on 1 park).

Just to be clear, the only rules that really apply to the finals park are:

       1 - A maximum of 5 players can build

       2 - None of those players may have already build on 3 parks

Except the floater could have built on more than 3 parks.

I thought about something today: When having a discord acc, you shouldn’t name your park, because then others can see the name of it, right?

sound logic.

Or you can name your park to throw people off

All my teams parks will be named "fuck nin".

Disney's Fuck Nin. Universal Fuck Nin. Six Flags Fuck Nin. Sea World Fuck Nin. Happy Valley Fuck Nin.

Happy Valley Fuck Nin.

 

 

Why have we never seen a Happy Valley Rct2 park??