Let's rewind time a little, let's look at three days ago …
At midnight on the 30th of August, Tournament for the Best S2's' Team Member Change 'function was closed.
At the same time, the specific starting time and rules for S2's' Preliminary Mode 'were published on the Dream Company's official website.
That night was destined to be a sleepless one …
When it was close to midnight, a large number of players were already sitting in front of their computers. They opened the forums and websites, eagerly waiting for first-hand information.
When the clock struck midnight and the relevant information was announced, the forum welcomed about three minutes of silence … Then, there was an unprecedented wave of outbursts.
Even though there was a dedicated discussion area, even though the photon computer was involved in the selection and management of the posts, the forum still fell into a state of 'explosion' one hour after midnight.
Obviously, the players were very excited. Everyone had their own unique opinions about the detailed rules that were announced, and they wanted to share them as soon as possible.
However, Brother Jue did not pay attention to this that night. He calmly led his friends from Underworld Frontline to clear two scenarios before going offline to sleep.
This was because … he had already predicted this situation on the forum, so he chose to ignore it. After all, the announcement was on the official website, and there was still time to read it the next day. It was not like it would disappear if he was late, so there was no point in joining in the fun.
Therefore, it was not until the next morning that Feng Bujue returned from his morning training and finished his breakfast that he slowly opened his computer to read the rules …
…
This time, Tournament for the Best S2 was split into three stages, the 'Preliminary Round', the 'Semi-Finals', and the 'Finals'. The Preliminary Round was officially called 'Gathering of the Heroes'. The format of the competition was a 'completely random' team battle. The overall rules were similar to practice mode — two teams of five would engage in a 4v4 battle.
The Preliminary Round was based on a point system, and the cycle was to complete thirty-six matches within fifty days. The point system was similar to that of a soccer league, which was three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss.
At this point, someone would definitely ask, 'What is a draw?' Let's first explain how the "tie" came about … ….
Generally speaking, there were three situations that could lead to a draw.
Firstly, if the members of the two teams "died together" or "died at the same time" in a very short period of time (less than or equal to ten seconds), then no matter what the cause of this result was, and no matter which team member contributed to this result, this match would be regarded as a "draw".
For example, in a certain match, there was only one person left in Team A and three in Team B. At this time, the person from Team A rushed into the middle of the three from Team B and self-destructed. As a result, all four of them died in a short period of time. This result could be considered a draw.
However, if after the explosion, a member of one side … was still alive for more than ten seconds after all the members of the enemy team were determined to be "dead," then, regardless of whether he was still alive in the eleventh second, his team would be considered the "winner."
Secondly, the two teams stayed in the scenario for a very long time, but neither team managed to kill all the members of the enemy team. Instead, they entered a stalemate that was similar to the three-move cycle in China's Chinese Chess. In other words, the first team to change their moves would be at a disadvantage …
Under the premise that the above conditions were met, the system would propose a "draw agreement" to the captains of the two teams. If the captains of the two teams agreed, the game would end in a draw. However, if one side disagreed, then the disagreeing side would have to actively change their moves to break the stalemate, or else it would be considered an AFK-like game. Similarly, if both sides disagreed, then both sides would have to 'change their moves'.
Thirdly, even though the probability was very low, there was still the possibility of a draw … something like an atomic bomb. Even if both players were wiped out by a third party's large-scale attack in the scenario, then it would still be considered a draw.
However, to be honest, it was harder to play that kind of game than to win …
…
Then … let's stop talking about the draw and move on to the competition system.
As a game, if the players had to do something on time every day for a period of fifty days … it would undoubtedly cause psychological pressure and a certain degree of disgust. Therefore, Dream Company used a similar strategy to S1's preliminaries. They used the rule of 'playing N matches in N days' to allow the players to allocate their time freely.
In S2's preliminaries, the teams that had not finished could only play one match in a natural day. The matches that started before midnight and lasted until the next day would be considered as the matches that had been played the day before.
As for the "finished" teams that had already played thirty-six matches, the above rule was no longer applicable. These teams could play as many matches as they wanted in a day, but regardless of whether they won or lost, they would not gain any points. However, if they won, they would get the same clear reward as Nightmare Difficulty Team Mode.
The reason Dream Company added this setting was to prevent teams from not being able to finish the competition due to 'not being able to find an opponent' before the end of the preliminaries. For example … some teams still had one match left on the last night, and there were not many similar teams left in the queue. To prevent this from happening, Dream Company used the reward system to encourage those teams that had 'finished the competition' to stay in the queue and act as opponents for those teams that had 'not finished the competition'.
For the former, this was a win-win situation. If he won, he would be able to obtain a generous reward and prevent a team that might pose a threat to him in the future from obtaining any points. If he lost, he would just lose some game time. He would just treat it as a practice match.
For the latter, no matter whether the team they met was a team that had finished the competition or not, they had to win, so there was no difference.
Of course … even so, it was inevitable that some teams would not be able to finish the competition within fifty days due to various reasons. Regarding this, Dream Company had already come up with a solution. After the fifty-day period, they would choose a time to give the teams that had completed thirty-five matches a chance. They would put these teams together for an extra round. If the number of these teams was an odd number, they would send a GM team to make up the numbers. (The actual situation later was an even number, so the GM team did not appear.)
However, if they did not even complete thirty-five matches in fifty days, then sorry. It looked like their team lacked the ability to finish the competition, so they could not blame others for not being able to enter the semi-finals.
…
Then, let's talk about the competition ranking.
After all the matches in the preliminaries ended, the system would pick the top 256 teams with the highest points to enter the semi-finals.
If the points were the same, the system would look at the 'small points', which meant who had more 'wins'. If the number of wins was the same, it would calculate the difference in the number of deaths between one's side and the enemy's side in the thirty-six matches. If even this number was the same … the system would calculate the percentage of Life Points lost in each match.
In any case, the ranking had to be reasonable. To avoid being eliminated when the points were the same, the way was to play every match seriously and pay attention to every detail. Perhaps the accumulation of these details … would allow one's team to squeeze out the others and advance to the next round.
…
Next, it was time to look at the prizes.
There were 256 teams that passed the preliminaries, but only the top 100 teams would receive the prizes.
As for the contents of the prizes, as mentioned earlier, they were:
Top 100 — Every member of the team will receive 1000000 Game Coins and a limited edition T-shirt.
Top 50 — Every member of the team will receive 2 random excellent quality equipment that corresponds to their level and the chance to experience the new expansion of Thriller Paradise, Ragnarok, for a limited time of 48 hours.
Top 10 — The members of the team who had not reached the middle level will be instantly upgraded to the max level, and every member will receive a perfect equipment.
It was worth mentioning that the announcement on the 30th of August specifically pointed out that … the prizes for the preliminaries could be 'stacked'.
In other words, the top 50 teams, other than the prizes for themselves, could also receive the prizes for the top 100 teams. As for the top ten teams, they would be able to obtain all the rewards of the three tiers.
This arrangement … would undoubtedly raise the competition in the preliminaries to a horrifying level, and this … was the situation that the Dream Company wished to see the most.
The gaming company hoped that the players would give it their all in every match. Even the teams that queued after the competition would work hard to suppress the points of the other teams that did not finish the competition.
…
The last thing to talk about … was the time of the competition.
Based on the announcement on the 30th of August, the matching system for Gathering Heroes would open at midnight on the 5th of September and close at midnight on the 25th of October. During this period of fifty days, the players could join the queue at any time.
Of course, during the first thirty-six days, all the teams could only queue for one match per day. If they wanted to queue for two matches, they could consider queuing at midnight. That way, after the first match, they would have to wait until the next day.
…
Overall, these rules were reasonable, and they were within Feng Bujue's expectations.
In the short term, there was not much that needed to be planned. Based on Brother Jue's estimation, as long as Underworld Frontline followed the rhythm of the practice mode, they would definitely enter the semifinals.
As for the rules of the semifinals, the Dream Company had yet to announce them. However, based on the number of teams that made it through the preliminaries, it was not hard to guess that the semifinals would be a knockout system.
Feng Bujue speculated … if there were no surprises, the semifinals would be four rounds (the top 16) to five rounds (the top 8). There was also the possibility of three rounds, but thirty-two teams entering the finals seemed a little too many.
As for how far Underworld Frontline could go in S2, the semifinals were the key … this was also the main stage where Feng Bujue's analysis and planning skills would be put to good use.
Under the point system, the teams that made it to the semifinals were not to be trifled with. Therefore, the possibility of strong teams meeting each other was very high. If the semifinals were to be a 'one-match knockout', then these few rounds … might be more dangerous and difficult than the finals …
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