[Markus Heinsohn]

Hey guys,

last week I promised a more detailed development update on the PT Tournaments feature. As probably many of you know, we initially listed April as the planned release date for tournaments when we announced the game back in February. But, as software development sometimes goes unfortunately, several unexpected difficulties lead to a delay and hence we're still working on the feature. But, we are making good progress every single day. The plan is to have a public beta as soon as everything is functioning properly, then work out the last kinks and do some tweaking and then launch it officially. I do not know when exactly that will be, but as always we'll keep you in the loop.

Here's an updated version of the description I posted back in May:

General Overview

Tournaments in PT will be available in all sorts of shape and sizes.

To enter a PT tournament, a user does not have to pay some sort of buy-in, it’s free for all PT users. Users can enter up to three tournaments at the same time.

Most tournaments ("Quick Tournaments") will start play immediately once the number of teams who have signed up reach the limit of the tournament , at which time this particular tournament starts and another identical one will open for sign-up. Some tournaments will have a fixed daily start date (eg 6 PM ET), other (bigger) tournaments will have a weekly start time, eg. Tuesdays at 8 PM ET. We will probably have some tournaments which cater to the Asian and the European market in terms of start time.

Tournaments will have a quicker pace of play, we are currently thinking about having most of them simulate once every 10 minutes. Some tournaments will likely have a slower, or even quicker pace, we’ll probably experiment here and evaluate the user feedback to see what works best.

Tournaments do NOT pay out PP for achievements. The winner of a tournament (or the top 2 or 4 teams, depending on size) receive a reward in the form of either Perfect Points, exclusive cards, exclusive card packs or regular card packs.

Users can access the list of available and signed-up tournaments from the OOTP start screen. You can easily sign up (or cancel) via a click of a button, and once a tournament has started, you can access the tournament via a "PLAY" button which will download the tournament files and enter the PT area, just like regular PT league play.

Tournament Types

We have the possibility to offer tournaments of many different sizes and shapes, eg. normal elimination best-of-1 tournaments, round robin tournaments, or typical MLB playoff style tournaments, or custom ones (for example 32 teams, eliminations style, best-of-3 for each series).

Many tournaments are without restrictions, meaning anyone can sign up and all cards can be used. We call them the “Open Tournaments”.

Some tournaments are with certain restrictions on the cards that can be used. We call them “Restricted Tournaments”. There are two types of restirctions, roster restrictions and card restrictions. Roster restrictions are for example only cards rated 69 (Bronze) or lower are allowed on the active roster, or a total card value "salary cap" of X total value (i.e. 1750, so 70 on average).

Here are the roster restrictions available:
NONE // no restriction, open tournament
IRON // only iron
BRONZE // only bronze or lower
SILVER // only silver or lower
GOLD // only gold or lower
DIAMOND // only diamond or lower
CARD_VALUE // total card value on active roster

Here are the card restrictions, which dictate which cards can be on the active roster:
NONE // no restriction
LIVE_ONLY // live only
HISTORICAL_ONLY // historical only
NONLIVE_ONLY // non-live (ie. historical + special)

So, having handled the restrictions, let's get to the different tournament modes. We have 11 different modes, and we have tournament sizes of 8 up to 128 teams. Maybe later we'll have even more, if we figure out how to keep download sizes small. Here are the different modes:
SINGLE_ELIMINATION = 0, // best of 1, do-or-die
SINGLE_FBO3_ELIMINATION, // best of 1, finals best of 3
BO3_ELIMINATION, // best of 3
BO3_FBO5_ELIMINATION, // best of 3, finals best of 5
BO5_ELIMINATION, // best of 5
BO5_FBO7_ELIMINATION, // best of 5, finals best of 7
BO7_ELIMINATION, // best of 7
RR_ELIMINATION, // Round-Robin, groups of 4 teams
RR_FB3, // Round-Robin, finals B3
2RR_ELIMINATION, // Double-Round-Robin, groups of 4 teams
2RR_FB3, // Double-Round-Robin, finals B3
DEL_ELIMINATION, // Double-Elimination
DEL_FB3, // Double-Elimination, finals B3

We will also have different tournaments play in a different era / year, for example the Dead Ball era, which results in some interesting strategic decisions and a different statistical output than regular PT league play. Some tournaments will have a DH rule, others won't.

Examples

So, putting it all together, there is an almost infinite number of possible tournaments. There will be plenty of available tournaments at all times, except when we make the transfer to the new season on Monday morning ET. During that time (about 4 hours) there will be no tournaments available while we complete the transition and live card updates (during regular season).

Each tournaments has a name and an ID, so the displayed name (for reference in lists) could be something like “Q-Open-DoD-T64-ID351“, which would be a quick tournament, no restrictions, 64 teams, do-or-die mode (best-of-1 series) with the ID 351.

For starters, we will have between 50 to 100 tournaments available for sign up at all times, here are a few examples:
Q-Silver-Historical-Bo7-T32-IDXXX = A quick (starts as soon as full) tournament, only Silver cards or lower on active roster, Best-of-7 series, 32 Teams.
Q-Cap1900-Live-RRF3-T64-IDXXX = A quick tournament, salary cap of 1900 total card value on active roster, Round-Robin mode with Best-of-3 finals, 64 Teams.
D-Gold-Bo5F7-T128-IDXXX = A daily tournament, only Gold cards or lower on active roster, Best-of-5 Series with Finals Best-of-7, 128 Teams
Q-Open-Live-DoD-T8-IDXXX = A quick tournament, only Live cards, Do-or-Die (Best-of-1 series), 8 Teams, No DH
W-Open-Historical-2RR-T64-IDXXX = A weekly historical cards-only tournament, Double-Round-Robin mode, Deadball Era settings, No DH, 64 Teams

Rewards

The bigger the tournament and the more games & rounds, the more precious the final price. For the Weekly Open we will most likely have super rare exclusive Perfect Cards (which can only be won in tournaments and not be pulled from packs) as the price, while small regular tournaments will reward PErfect Points or a Regular, Gold or even Diamond Pack(s) to the winner, for example. We will also reward super rare cards in tournaments which have a “salary cap”, so that teams from lower league levels get a chance to win these cards, too. These cards can be sold at the Auction House, of course. Some tounaments will pay out rewards to the 2nd place finish and some even for 3rd & 4th place (so when you make the semi finals).

History

The manager history will track tournament participation and results, and for the big tournaments we’ll probably have little icons for the winners in the team & manager screen, which winning teams can show off proudly.

Future Development

We will continue to work on tournaments for future versions, improving this feature with many new modes and tournament types, for example Qualifying Tournaments for really big events which only run once every two weeks or even monthly. We’re just getting started!

Here are a couple of screenshots how to access tournaments from the Main Screen.