ESL Announces ET:QW Ruleset

Update - There is a poll on these rules at http://www.esl.eu/eu/etqw/poll/16974/

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars has been released today throughout Europe, and ESL can announce the ruleset which we will be using for our upcoming tournaments and ladders. The ladders will be open this weekend and the first matches of our Opening Cup will start next Sunday (7th October)!

With one of the first tournaments in European ET:QW being the ESL Major Series with a 2000 € prizefund, we have been working with a number of teams in order to develop the following ruleset. We can also announce that the EMS will have a number of national qualifiers, with the winners being invited to the EMS.



1) No aircraft
The tormentor, anansi and bumblebee are not allowed to be used.

2) Maximum 1 heavy vehicle
If both vehicles exist at the same spawn a team must decide which vehicle to use and stick with that vehicle until you reach another spawn. Choosing Cyclops over Desecrator means you can't use Desecrator at all until you reach a spawn which has one or both vehicles and then you choose again. You must choose one and must NOT swap between the 2.

3) It is only allowed to use heavy and medium vehicles from the frontline or nearest possible spawnpoint.
The heavy vehicle must be taken from the frontline spawn location which can be selected via the limbo menu. If the front line spawn has no heavy vehicles, you are allowed to take 1 heavy vehicle from the forward most spawn point which contains a heavy vehicle

4) Maximum 1 medium vehicle.
Only 1 hog or apc may be used. If there are multiple of these vehicles, you must choose which one you use, and you may NOT swap between the 2. The second vehicle should not be used.

5) No vehicles allowed indoors.
Unless the indoor area clearly has a path made for vehicles, such as a road, vehicles are not allowed to be taken indoors. This includes icarus'.

6) No heavy vehicles during the last objective
Once the penultimate objective has been completed, it is not allowed to continue to use heavy vehicles. If you are in a heavy vehicle, you must leave it immediately.

7) Maximum of 1 sniper rifle / railgun per team.
It is only allowed to have 1 covert ops using the sniper rifle or infiltrator using the railgun. The number of players playing this class (Covert Ops / Infiltrator) is however unlimited.

8) Maximum of 1 deployable per class and team.
Only 1 of each class may place a deployable on each team. This means that there may only be 1 radar, 1 field ops / opressor deployable, 1 engineer turret at any one time on each team. This means that if you place an Anti-Vehicle Turret, you are not allowed to place an Anti-Artillery turret.

Heavy vehicles include: Cyclops, Desecrator and Titan.
Medium vehicles include: Hog and APC.[/hide]

Maplist:[/b]]
Area22
Island
Refinery
Salvage
Sewer
Volcano


ESL Announcement
Comments
116
I can make these rules much simplier and better

1) No vehicles

.
33% of the maplist is already no vehicles at all.
Parent
This game seems to get better and better! Maybe in a half year when there will be some competitive mod, ill give it a try!
Parent
now gogo do mod:D
Even if i would be dumb enough to play QW competitively i would leave it after seeing that you need to memorize 8 rules before you can actualy play the game...

5) No vehicles allowed indoors.
Unless the indoor area clearly has a path made for vehicles, such as a road, vehicles are not allowed to be taken indoors. This includes icarus'.

LOL
not really when you tried playing the game. Most of this stuff will be done in a server or comp mod.
Parent
theres no comp mod, so you have to memorize all that.
Parent
i said will be done. SDK is not even released yet so how would you make it??
Parent
Sever config to some extent would limit/get rid of some of the rules.
Parent
was etpro released immediately when ET came out?
Parent
indd, in et you have only 1 rule, dont track tru the walls
Parent
need quarry :O
yeah refinery is a guess, might not work. Maps that could replace it ark or quarry imo.
Parent
quarry is tripple docrun at the same time :/ might be too random
Parent
Refinery sucks ass, rly :D
It's fueldump in ET :p

btw the maps in the game and the campaigns look like the onces from ET :/
Parent
nice one :)
NO VALLEY???????
So if im reading this correctly you are not allowed to do these things but it's not restricted in some way or another? ...
Refinery and Area22 are more like 8on8 maps :<
Area is nice in 6v6, really nice, but haven't played Refinery, which is the map most likely to change.
Parent
We played Area22 10on10 at the Tweakers ET:QW pre release party and it really sucked :P
Parent
That was 10v10 with no rules!
Parent
Come on, the 16v16 battles around the Slipgate core were lovely. ;p
Parent
Looking for an ET:QW team!
Why, honestly... I've had more fun playing Halo 3 online with absoloute nubs than I have playing ETQW wars.
Parent
Refinery should be replaced by Ark.
Refinery is allright, should stay in it. Whats wrong with Ark atm? Have played it a bit but i dont know it entirely yet. Quarry is funny but well... maybe a bit random
need flying vehiclesXDDD!
We could make our own 2on2 heli league!! :o (with only one team slot, so we would basicly just fly around)
Parent
Bad analogy.
This is ridiculous.. all going just like in ET - removing EVERYTHING what annoys or what can't handle "top" clans.. \o/

PUSSIES!
fucking nice rules !
So basically, all you can is shoot but only if you have binded that to mouse2 instead of mouse1?

Great idea to remove everything that might infulence the gameplay! Totally worth the 50$ you have to pay for QW.
You can do many of 'these' things easily or by mistake in game, doping is not accidental in most cases. Best case is when people use mg when there not supposed to, because they used the wong config etc.
The engineer restriction are overdone.
I mean what can we do with 1 AVT/APT. that's nothing. limit that to 2 or something.

The rest seems fine...but that wasn't a secret ;p
I don't agree with some of these rules (such as Engi turrets), however there were 10 clans who have spoken about these rules and all of them were happy with this ruleset. Some of these teams were ones who have not played closed beta.
These are in no way "my rules", in fact there are none which I wrote, however overall I do like them.
I'd personally say these rules are a bit overly restrictive for the launch of the game. I'd suggest just playing a season with far less restrictions then looking it again for next season. But it should work anyway, so long as you do actually reexamine every rule next season and look at what needs to be added and removed.

As a side note, I HATE MY COMPUTER. I buy ETQW and my DVD drive promptly dies. FFS.
just torrent it + load in deamon tools - no need for crack and legal :)
Parent
This will be very handy to play funscrims, like with no referee and no specs, really handy!
it worked for over 100 games on beta and demo and demo recording is demanded.
Parent
Notice the 'FUN' in funscrims... -_-
Parent
you can make ur own rules in scrims, scrims are no ESL matches :>
Parent
You can buy ET:QW?
In Europe since friday :)
Parent
Great rules, but lies saying only clans made these rules :( im just slutty and got my say as well!
Dude this made me laugh so hard I shit my pants: "we have been working with a number of teams in order to develop the following ruleset."

And what exactly is this number of teams? Two, or maybe even three? Funny how you managed to set the rules for every single map in just one day. You also had very many teams as your participants to create the rules and test them, right? I mean, ofcourse you did, otherwise you wouldn't get an average opinnion of different teams around the globe, now would you?

Quote by MyselfIf we really are going to play with these current rules on every single map, soon clanwars are turning into rulewars. Every team has their own covert ops, couple of soldiers, medics, engineers and ofcourse the SCOUT. Don't forget him. It's the new very important class wich is used to literally scout the enemies way of playing trough his binoculars and make sure the other team follows the rules exactly how they are supposed to.

And remember, if you even breath towards that cyclops one second before the objective has changed, you're forced to give your opponent a forfeit win.

I can tell you this is how the matches will be played in the future. I've faced numerous problems with rules before in Battlefield 2 and that game didn't even have any restrictions, so think how much is the amount of problems going to raise when you restrict the game this much?

If the majority of gamers don't like to play the game as it's meant to be played then I think the source of this problem is obvious. The developers. If they fail to make the game balanced in the beginning, then I think it's nonsense to make us gamers do that for them.


From www.arcane6.com
they made the game for 12v12 not 6v6 and a servermod will surely be made so you wont have to use rules.
Parent
this game unlike bf (i suppose you come from it) have demo recordings, amazing feature, isnt it?
Parent
BF2 have also demorecording...
Parent
sorry, after seeing that it doesnt have spectator mode, my opinion on it is......not good
Parent
Its 3rd person all the time, no rewind, a pain to watch.
Parent
if you like a static vehicle rapeing the same spawn for whole the last objective well then you dont like these rules.
These rules try let you have heavy vehicle at objectives were you can have a fair armor/armor battle.
No limits well 3/4 man in a vehicle all the time and i dont find that fun, competitive or good for spectators.
He got a valid point but i just dont see no limits ever working.
most of these teams have played the game for months. and atm its almost only the people that havnt played enough that is complaining.
about no heavy vehicles at last objective:

Salvage
Sewer > would fix the rape with titan, and the offensive cyclops
Island > would stop the raping titan
Volcano
Area22 > would stop the raping cyclops/going in with titan
Refinery > would stop back entrance rape
go buy a console if you still dont have one, would suit you!
halo3?

and dont say whine about gaming blabla

i dont care about random joe/fdj playing on pubs with planes and tanks

i care about *competitive* gaming, you obviously don't
Why don't you stop posting here aswell? Go to gamespy console forums and chat there how amazing this game is and how superb are vehicles n stuff?
please die
i don't understand some of the rules tbh...
why totally forbid aircrafts?
why only one defense turret?

all in all i would just restrict the heavy vehicles to one per team...
because it's 6o6, not some public with 24 players.
Parent
i know...
but why restrict everything in the beginning?

restrict it to 2 def turrets... so its still not impssible...
Parent
After having spend more time on Area22 I have to change my opinion about it, its a great map which looks very competition worthy.
no duh!

it's bestest for 4v4 too ;p
Parent
the indoor vehicle rule is totally confusing and should be removed
no vehicles at last stage = intense reviving and a test of aiming skills, I think that this rule is for the excitement (especially QWTV), not just to piss people off.
I agree completely with FlyingDJ. The point is, we are going to kill the competitive development of ETQW right from the start, because newcomers who are willing to give ETQW in the competitive area a shot will bitterly face the fact, that essential ETQW-features are in fact missing or even better(irony), forbidden. You want to cut the throat of a developing community right from the start?

The blade of your knife seems to be sharp enough.
I like these rules, less spam, less randomness and more competitive gaming imo. A step in the right direction.
The rules have been made by people from the beta fraction. However, not with the retail release a lot more players are going to play ETQW and might disagree as a majority with your(our) rules.

I just do not know whether we(dudes from forum) got even the right to decide for a whole community.
The community can have their say also, posting either here or on the ESL news is the best way for that.
Parent
What about this one: just allowing current spawn vehicle and watching how the game improves ;)
whats the point with the beta experience if we're not going to put it to use and spare ourself from months of spamonly and poor gameplay?
Parent
maybe let people try the rules in some scrims and wait a couple of day with the poll? :)
Parent
The poll closes on Wednesday. Will be interesting to see "first impressions" and then I will run another to see what teams think after playing with them for a while.
Parent
I like you so not going to argue bigtime :p, I see your point and agree to some extent, (atleast in theory) but here lots of people have been playing the game for many months and gained lots of experience and Im 100% sure this is what the whole/new parts of the community gona want in 2 months. Same evolution happened with wolf:et through restrictions and etpro :)
Germans can vote in Europe also, the rules will be the same I think
I think that on Island there shouldnt be a vehicle restriction for the first objective (except for de bumblebee). 1 APC and 2 Boats just suck...

And I think there should be more turrets allowed.

For the rest I think it's ok :)
Hey, can i fire all 40 bullets from my GDF gun or is there a restriction to number of bullets per second for each stage?
Hmm at first i totally agreed with the rules, however after thinking about it some more and reading the comments, i think maybe the rules are influenced to much by the beta maps. Having the same restrictions for all maps is maybe the easiest, but i dont think its the best. At Sewers for example, the rape on the last objective was not inevitable and added a bit more depth i think.

And i think more turrets should be allowed, because this is just to restricted (not possible to deploy anti artillery + apt for example). During the beta the unlimited turrets never really bothered me, and it leaves the way open for different game styles.

"5) No vehicles allowed indoors.
Unless the indoor area clearly has a path made for vehicles, such as a road, vehicles are not allowed to be taken indoors. This includes icarus'." <=== another weird and unnecessary rule imo.
Jesus christ, the cluelessness...

Fact) Clans that support these rules: Kompaniet, Team Dignitas, Ocrana, GROF, Copenhagen-eSport, Junk52, Team Samurai, wArning, Point-Blank (sorry if I missed anyone).

Fact) Most of these clans have played the game _a long_ time, personally I've played it for 6 months and some even since January.

Fact) These rules have been discussed with both clans and admins of tournaments to create the best possible competitive scene until SD releases StopWatch scripts or a mod arrives. We want to make it as easy as possible but also playable, competitive and fun.

Fact) Remembering these rules isn't any harder than learning a map or how the game works. If you think so or cry for more engineer turrets or for the option to have 3 icarus flying around inside Sewer constantly spamming choke points or block entrances and doorwarys with vehicles; get the necessary experience, take a deep breath and think before talking.

Fact) Checking if someone made a mistake or intentionally broke one or more of the rules is very easy by watching demos which will be recorded for every game that has these rules. Demos are not hard to skip through and check quickly either.

Fact) Unless you have played scrims and official matches in ETQW, be silent and trust those that have. Don't base your oppinion on your own experience from public servers. If you're a veteran of ETQW and STILLl disagree with the rules; stop taking LSD (at least while typing shit on the internets).

SD be cursed and slapped for creating this fucked up situation instead of focusing more on the clan scene and just letting people join servers and play without rules being necessary.

I sure as hell won't be playing any tournaments that allow everything in, I don't want 50-75% of my team sitting in vehicles nor be the victims of imbalances in the map designs.

Get this; the game is optimized and 99% focused on PUBLIC GAMEPLAY and DOES NOT work for competitive gameplay out-of-the-box!
Let's pick a certain map..let's say..Refinary!

What do you get?

First Stage -> MCP Stage.

Strogg is going to use:

1. Flier (Tormentor)
1. Cyclops from the main base
1. Desecrator from the main base
1. Desecrator from the frontline objective
1. Takes one of the many HOGS available
1. Infantry or HOG

In the meanwhile all vehicle whores are engineers which will plant AVT's, which means like 4 AVT's
Then you can have 2 Opressors with 2 plasma mortars.

You think that will be fun?
Where is the infantry?
it's only 6v6...that's not working right.

I hope I answered most of your questions.
No not exactly else we would have already made it inf only. None of these teams wants that
For which team do you play for in ET:QW FlyingDJ?

Edit - And I don't want a game to be "playable", I want it to be entertaining to play.
I really think the reason why you are pissed is because noone asked your opinion :/
I think that is the one thing that we can all agree on is that we want a competative success.
I also know that you do a show on GIGA, however I haven't seen you playing this game in competition. What do you think makes a cast exciting, or even why is the most popular games in the world for spectating CSS and COD2. Because they are exciting to watch, with fast-paced infantry fragging. Speccing a good infantry player in eyes in ETQW in fast firefights will be entertaining, what isn't entertaining is a slow, boring campfest whilst one team completes all the objectives (like on Sewer). I think that is as important if not moreso than a large community - look at Quake4 for example.
QuoteCSS and COD2 ... exciting to watch, with fast-paced infantry fragging.


...what?

edit: quote tags!
Parent
When has been ET:QW been fast infantry game? never and it never should. Wtf if cod2 and cs:s are "fast infantry playing" in your eyes, ET:QW isnt and it should not be made as one.

The infantry fightning will never bring the game as funny to observe, becouse the guys will just always respawn back. That is the most critical difference between ET:QW and cod2 or cs:s. For observer, it does not matter, if its infantry or a tank/flyer what keeps defending strong and unbeatable, its still boring becouse NOTHING CHANGES. Thats also a reason why we should add everything we can to the game, to make new tactical ways to the game which may unlock the blocks what defending team is having, not just "our clan is better inf than your clan"

If you want to play a game like cod2 and cs:s are, maybe you should go and play them, instead of turning this good game into that same mould of fps fightning.
Parent
i'm figuring you didn't just click the wrong reply button, but actually directed that to me, amirite? if that's the case, you completely misread my post, and certainly didn't read baldrick's

for the record, i personally think a lot of the balancing that's actually required should be done through tweaking respawn times in a mod.
...instead of, say, completely disallowing a whole class of vehicles by "agreement"
Parent
thx for the laugh

"5) No vehicles allowed indoors.
Unless the indoor area clearly has a path made for vehicles, such as a road, vehicles are not allowed to be taken indoors."

most of them are funny, but this one is great

if you want to reinforce that,
i sugest u release a list of all buildings in all maps where vehicles are allowed/not allowed

(tbh if you can get a vehicle in, then it CLEARLY has a path in made for vehicles)
This rule was suggested due to alot of reasons but it has since then been removed because we want as few rules as possible.
Removed from the community rules that is.

Unless you've played the game without rules, with some rules and with these rules and compared the game yourself from that you can laugh all you want. In reality it's the veterans that laugh at you for being so clueless about the game and how it actually plays in competitions.
Parent
you say 'we', so i assume u have something to do with the rules or the esl
i have played with and without rules

you dont want a lot of rules? sorry, but the stated ruleset really doesnt look like that

with the no vehicle indoors rule u want to prevent specific situations, like 2 icarus spamming an entrance from safe distance, or the eg the gdf having the tank underground on area 22.
BUT:
it's never a locked situation and can be solved with tax and teamplay (have a look at the qcon final, team hot)
AND:
stopwatch balances everything, because both teams have to deal with these things
Parent
What you failed to realize was what it says on this site, they are rule suggestions and thus subject to change, some have been agreed upon by ALL clans and admins that took part in the process and some are uncertain and under discussion.
The vehicle indoors rule has since then been removed.

The reason my tone has been a bit harsh and appeared arrogant is since I read everything that people say about these rules and 9 out of 10 times when someone complains about them it's because they either don't play competitively at all or haven't played enough to come to the same conclusion. People don't seem to listen to concrete arguments or basically not listen at all and become all "OMG IT'S ALL LAUGHABLE!!1" about it which pisses me off :/.

The rules aren't hard to follow, just remember what I wrote in the FAQ about what you need to think about. Most if not all things that are of importance and can be overpowered and imbalanced is limited by 1.
Parent
Yeah, a pointless post. If the person in question hasn't played without rules and then tried some rules in actual matches he can complain all he wants. People and clans will do anything to win! Use exploits and various methods to make the game boring and random. If you don't have rules the competitive side of ETQW will die pretty fast and you will only have casual clans that promote 12vs12 playing it.

Why is it so hard to believe and trust those with more experience? Do you go to the doctor and tell him his diagnosis is wrong because you know better too? Bad analogy but don't you think it would be a shame to waste all the experience the clans and players that thought this up has?
Parent
QuotePeople and clans will do anything to win! Use exploits and various methods to make the game boring and random.
...
Why is it so hard to believe and trust those

derrrr
Parent
It's BECAUSE of the new players and the GOOD of the scene that these rules have been agreed upon. Sigh. The game will fail big fucking time if there are no rules to make it playable, spectator-friendly and fun.
Why not trust those that have played the game for the longest time and try them in a prac BEFORE you speak about them?
Why disrespect all the work and debates that the clans and betatesters have put in and come to a reasonable conclusion about?

And you speak of arrogance...
why remove aircraft and keep heavy ground vehicles?
Slightly excessive rule set imo, some limits are fine but others are a bit too 'soft', reducing the tactical options in the game. The no heavy vehicles on the last objective just seems like an easy option for teams who can't defend whilst the limit of just 1 engi turret per team is laughable, 1 of each type would have been much better without being hugely game adjusting.

I think comp clans need to learn the maps a little better first before applying so many rules.
rules have been updated some since this was posted and talk is still ongoing (on internal forums)

if ESL is going to use the updated once i dont know but here are whats discussed:

- no vehicles indoors (removed)
- 1 of each engi turret (probably)
- some kind of RL limit (probably)

who are 'we'?

check bottom of this post for a listing of whos behind those rules. http://www.kompaniet.nu/index.php?site=forum_topic&topic=39&type=ASC&page=1
why only 1 sniper? because they kill with one shot, omfg.
77% of objectives with current ruleset and maprotation are complete infobjectives. As this is much more than infantry only game, its quite alot.

Just destrict to
1 desce and 1 cyclops
1 apc and 1 titan
1 anansi/1tormentor.
1 hog
1 field ops / oppressor

Becouse using the vechiles efficiently need as much skill as infantry does. Like I said in previous reply of mine, spectating the game will be fun when theres happening something in the game, not just jamming in one objective. Spectator couldnt care less if attacks are blocked by infantry geek or vechile.

Oh and that last objective heavy vechile rule, are you seriously so weak that you cant keep even your spawn clear from titan/whatever raping it? Ofc it might take some of your precious seconds, but hell.. dont get to that situation then.
Quote 1 anansi/1tormentor.

Aircraft is pointless. You can hardly destroy one enemy vehicle with it. But if opponent have also anansi/tormentor they would just fight against each other. And then it's only 5vs5 on the ground.

QuoteOh and that last objective heavy vechile rule, are you seriously so weak that you cant keep even your spawn clear from titan/whatever raping it? Ofc it might take some of your precious seconds, but hell.. dont get to that situation then.


Oh do you mean that we should keep whole match one man defending main base with rocket launcher? :D

You are whining because there isnt good infantry players in your clan. And you cant use your lame turret defence anymore.
Parent
If the aircraft is pointless, why not just allow using it then? I think you are saying this becouse there isnt anyone good in flyers in your clan. Yes, this was sarcastic comment, but question remains.

If you want so, you can keep whole match one man defending mainbase, whatever, but it will be stupid, its your own choice if you see it needed.

Im not whining becouse we dont got good infantry players in our clan, we have never used "lame turrent defence" which would suck anyways, I've always said that 6 turrents is a lot easier to cope with than 6 violators. We do whine becouse this is not plain infantry game and it should not be made as one, especially with that kind of imagination and intelligence what a guy like you have.

So how about stopping to make these assuminations and try to have proper answers or dont answer at all.
Parent
stop the "you just limit this and that because you are not good at it" already. Its alot easier being good with vehicles since you offen get control once and then hold it pretty much the rest of the map or objective. With no restrictionsthat is.
Parent
you just limit this and that because you are not good at it
Parent
nice logic.
Parent
After some fightning in irc

My outcome for rules would be, restrict to:
1 tormentor vs anansi
1 cyclops vs titan
1 desce vs apc
1 fop building.

That would put 3 guys in vechiles and 3 guys in infantry. 50/50. And as long as we remember 77% of objectives with current maplist are still unreachable by vechiles, so you couldnt sit all the time in your vechile.

I dont see engineer turrets restricted any good reason, becouse the truth of them, is that they suck ass. If some team decides to put 6avt on me, as tanker I would be happy, just becouse they sacrifice all other gameplay to one freaking tank, the have lost the match already. On MCP it might be different thing, but luckily we dont have those in the maplist, except one.

The flyers could bring speed to the game, adding difference in strategies. Flyers could also re-balance the vechiles, since apc is a lot more useful agnaist flyers than descerator.

And as last, but not least, it would save the game as it is and wouldnt try to change it to anything else. Gaming should be having freedoms, not just putting all clans to same mould and force them to do all same way.

And no, we dont want to play without restrictions. We want restrictions what make clanplaying possible and fun, but still makes us feel that we are actually playing Quakewars, wich isnt only inf based game.

After these restrictions, I see no other rules are necessary. Just put a mod to restrict the vechiles for you and after it, you are allowed to do anything what you are capable for.
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