How PvP Tournament Season One Works

PvP Tournament Season One starts on December 20 and runs for a month, culminating in an Invitational Event on the weekend of January 17, 2015. This article explains the basic structure of the season and how you can compete to earn an invitation to the Invitational.

American and European Seasons
In order to have players playing on nearby servers, we have decided to run both American and European Tournament Seasons. Everything in this article can be assumed to run in duplicate across the two seasons/continents, including the final Season One Invitational Events. Tournaments will run at appropriate times for the timezone of their continents.

Because the two Seasons have separate Season Point totals, it's possible to play on both if you want to try for two sets of Alternate Art Unique Items. Players should expect to win less while playing on servers outside of their continent due to the increased latency.

Standard and Hardcore
Each Tournament Season contains both Standard and Hardcore events. These events are not at the same time, so a player with both a Standard and Hardcore character can play in all events.

Blitz Events
Blitz tournaments are a series of rapid-fire duels where you're quickly matched against a new opponent as soon as your last round finishes. Your goal is to get as many victories as possible within the time limit.

In addition to 1v1 Blitz events, we support two types of 3v3 Blitz events. In Team Blitz, you bring a specific three-person party that you will play with for the entire tournament. In Random Team Blitz, you are given a random team each match and are scored as an individual.

Blitz events are run as both level 28 and open (no level restriction) events.

Free-For-All Events
Free-for-all tournaments take place in the Sarn Arena. They're a massive brawl where you get a point per player kill. If you die, you're sent to a new arena to continue the massacre.

Free-for-all events are run as both level 28 and open (no level restriction) events.

Capture the Flag Events
We'll be running 3v3 and 6v6 Capture the Flag events. These use Swiss matchmaking to control their match structure.

Capture the Flag events are run as both level 28 and open (no level restriction) events.

Competitive Swiss Events
On the weekends we'll be running the most competitive of the event types - tournaments with Swiss Matchmaking. These run in a regimented series of matches, where victory is about defeating your opponent at any cost rather than winning rapidly.

There are four Swiss tournaments run each weekend - a Standard and Hardcore on America and the same on Europe.

In Season One, all of the Swiss events are comprised of a series of level 28 1v1 duels. The winner of each of these Swiss tournaments will be invited to the Invitational at the end of the Season.

PvP Points and Prizes
Like our Race events, each of these PvP Events awards you with Season Points for ranking highly, completing milestones or certain events (like First Blood).

The Season Points contribute towards a set of Alternate Art Unique Items that are awarded in a similar way to our race rewards. The Standard and Hardcore ladders of points are separated (so that you can compete to have the most), but there's a combined total that is used for the awarding of the Alternate Art items. Top competitors in the Standard and Hardcore points ladders are awarded an Alternate Art Talisman of the Victor Unique Item (which is like a Demigod item).

Our sponsors have provided some awesome gaming prizes that we'll ship to the winners. Check them out here!

Ratings for general queues
In addition to adding Tournament Seasons, we've overhauled the existing matchmaking queues. They now track player PvP Ratings on a per-character basis and apply matchmaking based on this rating.

These ratings start at 800 and increase/decrease based on your win record and the quality of opponents you face. Beating a better opponent is worth more rating than beating a worse opponent.

Having a very high rating can get you invited to the Season One Invitational event! PvP Ratings will be reset back to 800 at the end of PvP Tournament Season One.

The Invitational
On the weekend of January 17-18, we'll be running special double-elimination tournaments for both America and Europe. Like much of the rest of Season One, matches in the invitational tournament will also be level 28 1v1 duels.

Each of these invitationals consists of 8 Standard players and 8 Hardcore players playing to establish a winner from the two leagues. The winning Standard and Hardcore players then play each other in a grudge match.

The 8 slots consist of the following, in this order:

• The top player in each of the four weekend Swiss tournaments.
• The top two players measured by Season Points.
• The top two players measured by level 28 1v1 PvP Rating.

To play in the invitational, the player must be available at the appropriate time. If players are unable to attend or already have an invite from another entrance criterion, then the next player in that group will be invited. For example, if the top PvP Rating player isn't available and the second place one already has an invite from winning a Swiss tournament, then the next two players will be invited from the PvP Rating ladder.

Note that these invitationals occur on both America and Europe. There are 32 players in total who win invitations.

FAQQ:

What about Australia and other Countries outside of America and Europe?
PvP requires a certain population of players. We easily achieve this on the American and European servers, but the Australian servers are far smaller. For at least this first season, Australian players will play in the US events. Other places around the world should choose the server that they are closest to.

What about Challenge Leagues?
Season Two takes place in the Torment and Bloodlines challenge leagues! Start collecting your items now (well, next week).

What about Open (no level restriction) PvP?
While our schedule for Season One and Two contain a fair number of Open Events, it’s not until Season Three that it’s the primary focus of a Season.

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ilenoc wrote:

Once it was told that GGG will allow players to create lvl 28 characters to participate in PvP events. How does level 28 characters obtain their items?

You can equip them with existing items.

(As a secret reveal, we're actually working on having the PvP-only characters start off with some default basic items that can't be traded, so that they can be used even if you don't have a stash full of PvP stuff ready.)