New Update 11/19/2014: New Blood Games Format!

[Nate]

Greetings Pit Masters!

This update is HUGE! As such, if you find anything that you think is strange, please let me know, I tried to make sure everything worked as intended but the huge amount of new code and changes means it is possible.

Now, on to the update!

New Blood Games Format
This update brings a new Blood Games format and accessibility for each bracket! The new format is one week long and the top 32 gladiators from each bracket get an invite. At the start of the Blood Games the 32 gladiators from each bracket are sorted into four buckets of eight gladiators (for each bracket):

Bucket #1: Top 8 gladiators from the top 32 who got an invite
Bucket #2: Top 8 Rage gladiators from the top 32 who got an invite (not already in Bucket #1)
Bucket #3: Top 8 War gladiators from the top 32 who got an invite (not already in Bucket #1)
Bucket #4: Top 8 Theatrics gladiators from the top 32 who got an invite (not already in Bucket #1)

The arena officials then randomly select one gladiator from each bucket to make eight groups of four gladiators each. It might be the case that buckets 2, 3 and 4 don't have exactly eight gladiators and if that happens the bucket with more gladiators will simply be used more often to complete the groups. Once this is done each bracket will have eight groups of four gladiators each (groups A-H). Each gladiator will fight the other three gladiators in their group one time with the top two gladiators from each group advancing to the Round of 16 knockout stage.

Group Stage points are calculated using the following:

Win = 3 points
Loss = 0 points
Kill = 1 point
Death = -1 point

After each fight the Arena Officials score the fight based on how dominant of a win it is and assign the winner a maximum of 5 points. The loser is awarded the same amount of points but negative (for example, 3 points to the winner, -3 points to the loser). The Fight Score (FS) is used to break ties in the event multiple gladiators has the same amount of Points in their group.


To build the knockout stage brackets the winner from group A will be pitted against the #2 gladiator from group B and the winner from group B will fight the #2 gladiator from group A and so on until eight brackets have been populated. Each bracket will fight and the winners will continue to the Quarter-Finals and the losers will go home and drown their sorrows at the tavern. The Quarter-Finals will consist of the remaining eight gladiators who again will be matched up according to how the brackets are set and the winners will advance to the Semi-Finals and the losers will join the defeated at the tavern. The Semi-Finals have four remaining gladiators who will be matchup up into two fights with the winners of those fights going to the Finals and the losers will advance to the 3rd place fight. The Finals now have just two remaining gladiators and the winner of that fight will win the #1 prize, the loser will get the #2 prize and the winner of the 3rd place fight will get the #3 prize.

Each gladiator fights once per day and the new Blood Games structure looks like this:

Day 1: Group Fights
Day 2: Group Fights
Day 3: Group Fights
Day 4: Round of 16
Day 5: Quarter-Finals
Day 6: Semi-Finals
Day 7: Finals & 3rd Place (begin registration for the next Blood Games which will start the following day)

As before, gladiators in the Blood Games can not be sold or retire, however, once they are knocked out of the Blood Games they can. Best case your gladiators will be "locked" for three days, worse case scenario they'll be "locked" for seven days.

Starting with next week's Blood Games everyone will have a 24 hour window to drop out of the Blood Games if you don't want to compete and the next highest ranked gladiator in that bracket will get an invite.


New Arena Brackets
In addition to the new Blood Games, I've consolidated the arena brackets from 15 down to 9. There will be three "Tier 1" brackets, three "Tier 2" brackets and three "Tier 3" brackets. At this time nothing will be any different than it is now other than their being fewer brackets, however, later down the road the three tiers might be different.

Achievements for the deprecated brackets have been grandfathered, so if a gladiator already earned it, he keeps it.

Along with new brackets comes an easier way to view each one's results. Instead of one big list for the entire arena, you can now select the bracket you are interested in and view just those results.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Pit Lord]

I'm glad the Pit Lords bracket was removed. The existence of such bracket in low levels was embarrassment for me .

[Nate]

There seems to be a small issue with displaying all the gladiators in the bracket for some brackets on the arena rankings page. I'll be looking into that soon.

[Nate]

I'm glad the Pit Lords bracket was removed. The existence of such bracket in low levels was embarrassment for me .

Haha! I'm glad I could help!

[Nate]

For the Grand Opening of the new Blood Games the arena officials have agreed to award trophies to all the winners in addition to awesome gear! Check out the rules and prizes page for more info.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Dainoji]

After Thunder Lips didn't make the cut to the round of 16 I was bummed out. After seeing Zippy was matched up with one of the SOTC's pirates in the round of 16 I felt doubly bummed. After having both my glads knocked out of the tournament and my hope of winning dashed I shed a tear. The fact I keep checking back each day to see the results tells me this new format is awesome! Well done Nate, I'm already looking forward to next week's blood games.

[Apoca1ypse]

After Thunder Lips didn't make the cut to the round of 16 I was bummed out. After seeing Zippy was matched up with one of the SOTC's pirates in the round of 16 I felt doubly bummed. After having both my glads knocked out of the tournament and my hope of winning dashed I shed a tear. The fact I keep checking back each day to see the results tells me this new format is awesome! Well done Nate, I'm already looking forward to next week's blood games.

I agree. I'm excited to see the results each day, and while I'm sad that most of my guys have been knocked out, It's only a short wait to try again

[Nate]

It turns out in my haste I made a mistake on the starting date for the new Blood Games this week. I started them one day early and as a result tonight's Finals will be postponed until tomorrow. The delay is needed so the Finals and new invites line up with the end of week results in the Blood God's bracket. Sorry for the any inconvenience this may cause.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Nate]

After Thunder Lips didn't make the cut to the round of 16 I was bummed out. After seeing Zippy was matched up with one of the SOTC's pirates in the round of 16 I felt doubly bummed. After having both my glads knocked out of the tournament and my hope of winning dashed I shed a tear. The fact I keep checking back each day to see the results tells me this new format is awesome! Well done Nate, I'm already looking forward to next week's blood games.

I agree. I'm excited to see the results each day, and while I'm sad that most of my guys have been knocked out, It's only a short wait to try again

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I'm happy you both are enjoying it, it's a lot of fun for me as well to see how the tournaments play out. Thanks again!

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Seventhunderz]

I like this set up. I like less brackets with more gladiators in the daily set up too.