Contractors - Rules - VR Master League

League Member Code of Conduct
1. Play fairly and within the rules of the VR Master League.
2. Treat your fellow gamers, teammates, competitors, spectators, and League officials with respect and dignity.
3. Discriminatory language, hate speech, threats, doxxing, and other forms of harassment or unlawful behavior will not be tolerated.
4. Accusations of impropriety or foul play are taken seriously and should be brought to the attention of the League Moderators.
5. Team Captains may be held responsible for their team's behaviour.
6. Accusations of impropriety or foul play are taken seriously and should be brought to the attention of the League Moderators.
Matches Organization
1. The League will generate match-ups each week of the regular season.
2. The matches are generated on Mondays.
3. Teams are responsible for scheduling their matches.
4. Players must reach out to the other teams using DISCORD to schedule their matches.
5. Teams must schedule their match by Friday 1600 UTC of the week it is to take place. A reminder will be sent if teams are late to schedule.
6. The scores must be submitted as soon as the game is over.
7. Teams will play a minimum of 1 match per week during the season (subject to the following rules).
8. Once per season, a team may elect to become inactive for one week (greyed-out in standings) without penalty. On subsequent inactivity (not necessarily consecutive weeks), said team shall receive a recurrent MMR percentage penalty until it becomes active again.
  - The only effects of this inactive status is that a team will not be assigned matches on Monday and will not receive their allotment of challenges for that week. Inactive teams can still complete matches that have already been assigned.
9. Once per season, when scheduling is deemed to be excessively difficult or impractical, a team can postpone a match without penalty. That match will have to be scheduled the following week.
10. Once per season, when both teams have scheduled and attempted to play a match which was frustrated by a significant event or circumstances outside of their control (e.g.: game is broken), they can both postpone it.
11. When a match is scheduled between parties, IT MUST BE PLAYED. No postponements are possible.
12. In the event that a team becomes inactive or drops out before playing any matches in the current season, and a match was created for that team, the match is cancelled (not forfeited). The players on the team which dropped out will be on cooldowns for 2 weeks.
Challenges
1. The league offers a "Challenge" option which allows players to play an additional match in a given week. Limit of 1 challenge per week.
  - Those challenges can be scheduled at any time. The website limits it from being scheduled too far in the future.
  - Challenges can be rejected without penalty.
  - The website determines home/away side based on team history. Whoever initiated the challenge is irrelevant.
2. Barring special circumstances, a team, in order to be able to challenge, must have been active when the weekly matches were generated.
3. In the event that the League is unable to assign a weekly league match to a team, that team will be permitted additional challenge(s) for that week until it reaches the same number of allowed matches as the other teams.
Matches Format
1. The official game-mode of league matches is Competitive Control.
2. A match consists of 2 maps played 2 times each. All 4 rounds must be played as the overall scores affect traded MMR outcome.
3. The officially supported map pool is listed below. Other maps can be played only if both teams fully agree:
  - Arctic
  - Hideout
  - Lumber
  - Urban City
  - Wildland
4. The Maps will be predetermined on a weekly basis by the League Moderators.
5. Each map will be played twice, with teams taking turns playing from each side.
6. Side selection:
  - On map 1, home team will start as Team 1.
  - On map 2, away team will start as Team 1.
7. Region selection:
  - If both teams are registered in the same region, all maps will be played on that region.
  - If the teams are registered in different regions, map 1 wil be played on the home team's region and map 2 will be played on the away team's region.
8. The official player count is 5v5.
  - When scheduling for their match, teams can mutually decide to play the match 3v3 or 4v4. No teams are obligated to lower their player count for any match.
  - 5v4 can be played if the team with 4 couldn't find a reservist in time.
  - 4v3 can be played if the team with 3 couldn't find a reservist in time.
  - 5v3 is an automatic forfeit.
  - When both teams need a reservist, no reservist should be used at all. E.g.: A team that was fortunate enough to get a reservist for their match (making it 5 total) cannot play their match against a team of 4 (missing a reservist). In such a case, the match should be played 4v4.
  - In all cases, a team will be ineligible to play its match where it has fewer than 3 rostered players present.
9. External 3rd party communications are allowed.
10. A player's microphone should never be muted (to gain a silent advantage in-game).
Scoring System
1. Teams enter the score themselves (or ask an admin). Both teams need to submit the score for the match to be compiled.
2. The score is 1 point for a map-win and 0 for a map-loss. E.g.: 4-0, 3-1, 2-2
3. The website requires users to enter the score for each map individually.
4. The team winning the most maps is the winning team.
Matches Forfeits
1. Teams have a 20 minutes buffer from the scheduled match start time to be in the game lobby with their team members.
2. If a team is waiting for another team, the waiting team must write down a message in Discord (tagging their opponent) or show proof to League Moderators that they were indeed ready at their scheduled time.
3. Once the 20 minutes buffer has elapsed, the team that is not ready (or responsible for the delay) forfeits the first map.
4. If a further 20 minutes elapses without match commencement, the offending team is officially declared a 'no-show' and a score of 4-0 (total) will be awarded to their opponent.
5. Between rounds, a team may call a timeout for any reason.
6. Where a team is delaying a round for more than 2 minutes, the opposing team may notify their counterpart that they are forcing them to use a timeout (said 2 minutes counts toward total timeout).
  - Teams are allotted 2 timeouts each per match.
    
    1st timeout 15 minutes
    
    2nd timeout 10 minutes
  - Once the timeout expires, the match must proceed.
  - 2 timeouts cannot be called in succession.
  - In the event a team has no more timeouts remaining and is facing another delay of more than 2 minutes, they must decide immediately to play the round with the players they have or forfeit the match.
  - Failure to abide by this rule can result in League Moderators reviewing and issuing a penalty to the offending team up to and including forfeiting the match.
7. In the case of a forfeit, the "forfeit" option should be selected from the dropdown box under "map" when submitting scores.
Matches Defaults
1. Where teams miss the match scheduling deadline, but the match is organised and played subsequently, a warning will be given to the teams. League Moderators may impose a penalty on one or both of the teams depending on the facts.
2. In the event that a match has not been played during the allotted time frame, the League Moderators will review the circumstances and allocate the match points accordingly. Example resolutions may include the following:
  - Where neither team made any arrangement efforts, the match will be considered cancelled;
  - A score of 3-1 may be awarded by default with the 'win' attributed to the team determined to have been available on the most days with a higher weighting given to weekend availability;
  - A score of 4-0 may be awarded to a team where their opponent has made little/no effort or been objectively determined to have frustrated the organisation of the match; or
  - Where facts do not permit a clear determination, a 2-2 tie will be attributed.
3. League Moderators may remove an inactive team from the League where they have defaulted on 2 or more occasions and have good cause to believe this will continue.
Teams & Players
1. Players and teams must play using their registered VRML name. One must not hide their identity under another alias.
  - Player names, player logos, team names or team logos are forbidden if they:
    - Are protected by copyrights/royalties/third-party rights and the user has no written permission;
    - Resemble or are identical to a brand/trademark no matter whether it's registered or not;
    - Resemble or are identical to a real person other than themselves;
    - Resemble or are identical to a VRML representative (excluding the VRML representatives themselves using the name);
    - Are deemed too hard to read, distinguish, interpret or have multiple unecessary characters;
    - Are nonsense
  - In addition to the above, any player names, player logos, team names or team logos that are defamatory, pejorative, offensive, vulgar, obscene, anti-Semitic, inciting hatred, or offending against good manners are forbidden. Using alternative spelling, gibberish or wrong spelling in order to avoid the requirements mentioned above is prohibited.
  - Team names must be unique and are first come, first served. Alternative spellings or otherwise attempting to use a name already taken by an active or otherwise occupied team by changing a small detail, whether intentional or incidental, is not permitted, enforceable at Moderator discretion.
  - The League Moderators reserve the right to suspend or ban the non complying player or team.
2. Players acknowledge and follow Contractors guidelines on age restrictions.
3. Players acknowledge and follow their headset's regulations. For example: Oculus Terms of Use and Vive Terms of Use.
4. Players acknowledge and follow Discord Terms of Use.
5. Additional regional regulations or guidelines, based on your location, may apply.
6. The maximum number of players per team is 8.
7. Substitute players from other teams are prohibited in standard or challenge matches.
8. Only Official Reservists authorised by the League can be used to fill empty slots in a team.
  - When a team needs a Reservist, they must visit the Official Reservists page in order to validate which Reservists are available to them according to their team rank.
9. Official Reservists can not play for the same team more than twice per season.
10. Sister teams are not encouraged. However, an individual can be in a team Discord and not be on the official roster for counseling/friendship/coaching purposes.
11. Where a player leaves a team for any reason, that player will be subject to a "cooldown" period for the next 2 VRML-weeks (that is the 2nd Monday if a player leaves a Monday-Tuesday and 3rd Monday if a player leaves Wednesday or after). During this period, the player may become a member of the reservists group or another team, but shall be prohibited from participating in a league match.
  - This rule is inactive during the off-season.
  - When a team disbands, the cooldowns of the players may, upon request, be waived. League Moderators have complete discretion and may, depending on the situation, decide not to waive said cooldowns
12. Teams rosters, on the website, cannot change during a match.
13. If teams have decided to play a match and either one has a roster with fewer than the other (or fewer than standard player team count), any roster changes must result with an even player number count in each team or with the same number of players that was agreed to play the match on. In other words, teams sizes during a match, shouldn't change to become even more unbalanced than it was.
14. In the event that a team changes the majority of its roster (3/5, 4/6, 4/7, 5/8), within 2 weeks, that team, when ready to continue playing, can, upon request, have its MMR recalculated by averaging each Player-MMRs. In order to prevent abuse (notably when a championship is about to start), that recalculated MMR cannot be higher than what it was before the players had left the team.
15. In the event that a group of players decide to create a new team from scratch, and most of them are considered "veteran" players, the new team will start with a higher MMR than would normally be attributed. That MMR initialization bonus follows the Player-MMR logic. Note that, like every new team, they will still have to do their mandatory three placement matches before officializing their MMR in the standings.
Streaming & Media
1. The League Moderators may, subject to having good cause, require a particular player to stream or record their matches until such a time as specified by the League Moderators.
Bugs & Resets
1. In the event that a game update introduces major bugs experienced by the majority of players, the league may decide to extend the week to play the match.
2. Sometimes the devs may provide a distinct build to be used by the league. The League Moderators will indicate which default build the matches should be played on. In all cases, when the teams agree to play on a certain build, they cannot change idea 6 hours prior to their match (to allow enough time for everyone to re-download another build).
Cheating, Exploits & Breaches
1. Any cheating, exploiting, or contravention of the foregoing rules must be brought to the attention of the League Moderators who have complete discretion on how to impose a penalty. Examples of penalties are: round forfeit, map forfeit, match forfeit, player suspension or team suspension.
2. Cheating is intended to include the intentional or reckless manipulation of the game and its code in such a way as to confer an unfair advantage on one side or the other.
3. The term exploit is intended to include the intentional or reckless triggering of code, attribute or function in game that is otherwise not envisaged as a legitimate feature of the game.
4. Non-exhaustive examples include:
  - Going outside of map boundaries;
  - Clipping inside solid objects/floors (using room-scale or not);
  - Body glitching (body not following player's viewpoint);
  - Peeking through solid walls;
  - Using external communication systems (except to declare a bug (ex: in-game voice not working, game crash to Windows, etc));
  - "Push To Talk" mode shouldn't be used to communicate or to mute communication;
  - Kicking a teammate from the game to gain an advantage on a situation;
  - Use VPN or any other network manipulation;
  - Any other imaginative cheats
Decisions & Sanctions
1. Contravention of any of the foregoing rules shall be sanctionable on review by League Moderators.
2. League Moderators reserve the sole right to:
  - Void or change scores for any match or challenge after it has been played;
  - Enact disciplinary procedures for any alleged or perceived player misconduct;
  - Draft, publish and interpret the rules of the league;
  - Settle disputes and issue rulings.
3. Formal disputes amongst league teams and their members are to be lodged directly with League Moderators via Discord.
  - Unfounded and baseless accusations against players via any public medium are considered to be an act of misconduct.
4. The League Moderators shall, with regard to developer input, decide issues on the balance of probabilities based on the relevant facts and giving due consideration to the accounts of those involved. Amongst these considerations, the League Moderators shall give the most weight to the presence/absence of indicting or exculpatory evidence (e.g. in game footage, chat logs, etc..).
5. League Moderators will issue decisions via the Situation Room Discord channel and occasionally via #league-general Discord channel.
6. Failure to comply with a request for match VODs, stream links or any other item covered in the above rules will disqualify a player or team from participating in any further League events until they are deemed compliant by the League Moderators.
7. In relation to any of the above rules, when a majority of the League Moderators reach the conclusion that conduct unbecoming of the league has occurred, the League Moderators have complete discretion to administer the appropriate sanction.
8. In the event of a conflict of interest, affected League Moderators shall recuse themselves from deciding or otherwise commenting on an issue in their capacity as league officials.

Last updated by DaKinMan @ 2020-08-09 08:00 UTC

1st timeout	15 minutes
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