Friendly cups and cups organised within feds have been a part for Hattrick for a long time. But the ability to play against your friends in a truly competitive way where you can use your best players has not really been possible. Until now! So it really feels great for me to present our new feature Tournaments to you today, particularly as it's been a common wish for a long time.
With Tournaments, we are also adding a missing piece to the Hattrick world. Claiming that this gives the game a whole new dimension may sound like big words, but it really isn't an exaggeration at all. Tournaments enable so many things in the game, and open up a whole new type of competition. A competition where you play against the people you want, where the natural rivalry and social interaction potentially adds a whole lot of spice to your Hattrick experience.
But let's get to the point and tell you how this new feature works:
Basic RulesTournament matches are played once a week, on Mondays, and you can participate in one tournament at a time. The cup format is a league with playoffs for either 4 or 8 teams. It takes four weeks to complete a tournament for 4 teams, and five weeks for a tournament with 8 teams.
If you're knocked out of the tournament, you're free to join another tournament.
Creating and joining a tournamentYou can find Tournaments in the “My Club” section, under "Senior Team". You have to be a Supporter to create a tournament. The creator decide sat what time matches will be played, along with the trophy size and name for the tournament, and then invites other managers to join. Supporters can join in for free, and non-Supporters can also join in, at a cost of 2 credits.
When the tournament is full, it will start automatically and a forum for the tournament will also be created.
However, if the tournament is not full by Friday, the start day will be postponed one week to the following Monday. This is to allow all participants in the tournament a fair chance to submit match orders for the first round.
Also included in this first version is support for restarting a tournament (starting a season 2 for the same tournament), making it possible for your tournament to become persistent.
Please note that there are no "open" slots in tournaments, it's invitation-only. To participate in a tournament you either have to receive and accept an invitation, or create a tournament yourself (and invite managers to it). If you want an invite to a tournament or need someone to invite, you can check out your national forum (where you’re likely to find a dedicated thread for this).
MatchesMatches are played on neutral grounds and they don't give you any income from spectators. Moreover, there are no injuries in tournament matches, so it's totally safe to use your best players.
Tournament matches use the same match data as regular matches. Your players' current form, skills, experience, injury status etc on the match day will be used. There are three exceptions though: tournaments have their own card status, and team spirit and team confidence are set to a fixed value - see below for further details. Because of this you don't have the option to set your team attitude before a match; you can only play "normal".
Effects after matchTournament matches have no effect on your team or your players after matches. Players don't get any training or experience from these matches, nor do matches have any effect on formation experience, team spirit and so on. Simply put, nothing is saved to "normal" Hattrick after a tournament match.
DetailsI’ve already mentioned most of the details, but a run-down might be helpful anyway:
Team spirit: Team spirit is set to a fixed level (content) in tournament matches.
Team confidence: Confidence is set to a fixed level (wonderful) in tournament matches.
Injuries: No injuries will occur in tournament matches, but any player currently injured in "normal" Hattrick will not be able to play.
Cards: Tournaments have their own card status, and have a completely different system of red / yellow cards from 'normal' Hattrick. As such, any card received in a tournament match will only count for the matches that are part of the tournament. Equally, should a player be red carded in normal Hattrick, he will still be able to play in a tournament match.
Training: Players don't get any training from tournament matches.
Experience: Player don't gain any experience from playing tournament matches.
Formations: Your current formation experience in "normal" Hattrick is also used for tournament matches. However, you do not gain any formation experience from tournament matches.
Tournament history: The final standings will be saved and archived, but the matches will be deleted after two seasons.
Included in SupporterThe basic version of Tournaments (which is the version we're releasing today) is included in Supporter. The only restrictions are that you may only be in one tournament at a time, and you must retain supporter for the full duration of the tournament
Future versionsBefore you start exploring this new feature, I just want to say a few words about the future of Tournaments. Our aim with this first version has been to create a good basic version; something that we can develop further and add new features and options to. This is exactly what we intend to do - in fact we've already started planning for the next version, which we hope to release in the next few months. This version will include more cup formats and sizes, open tournaments (no invitation required), and an option for the creator to pay for the whole tournament. And perhaps something more as well, we'll see.
Last but not least I want to thank all our officials and Stage users for testing this, finding bugs and giving us valuable feedback – thanks a lot!
Now I'm done. So, please go ahead and play some tournaments. I'm sure you'll have a blast.
Psst, if you want to check out how a tournament looks like when matches are going on, Hattrick Press is hosting a
special promo tournament for 8 editors. They will play one match each day starting today at 20.00 HT-time.