Battlerite Pro League Season 3 is here and the end of the year is coming upon us. We’ve got some changes coming with this Season, some bumps in the road, and the future of Battlerite esports to go over in this Dev Update.
Stream and Schedule
First up – when the games going to be played.
The schedule will be different for Season 3, accounting for the fact that we’re going to be changing up the format for this season as well.
We discussed the format with current participating players and the feedback we were given led us to believe that the Group Stage took too long and that playing two maps per week was not engaging enough to the players. A preference for a double elimination was also expressed for the Playoffs. From our own analysis, we found that the gap between the top four and bottom four often resulted in one-sided games that were not compelling enough for viewers.
As a result, we’ll be adopting a double elimination format for the Playoffs. The Group Stage is currently being played off stream. The Playoffs are scheduled to stream at twitch.tv/battlerite on December 1st and 2nd.
BPL Predict
As a result of the changes to the format for Season 3, we will only have predictions available for games that will be streamed on December 1st and 2nd.
We also experienced a tech problem and lost some data pertaining to participant’s accumulated points. The latest backup we have is from early Season 2, which isn’t too helpful, but we were able to recover a list of the Top 100 on the leaderboard, which we will be using to figure out who has the possibility of reaching the 200 point mystery prize.
Because of this tech mishap, and because participants will only be making predictions on the top 4 matches for each region, matches will now reward 5 points each in order to make up for the potential maximum point difference from previous seasons, providing a maximum of 90 points if participants are 100% correct.
For those that were top 100 on the leaderboard (and thus likely to hit the 200 point threshold) we will add any points you get this season to your previous points, and give out the 200 point prize if you manage to reach that total.
Regarding the individuals that were close to getting to the 100 point threshold – we cannot deduce how close you were. So this means we cannot apply a similar logic to you as we did to the top 100. Because of this we will be changing the 100 point Mystery prize to be given out at 55 points, making it possible to reach it this season with an above average bet success rate.
An additional thing we will be doing is giving everyone a chance to get the 200 point mystery prize if you manage to attain a 90%+ bet success rate this season, meaning even if you weren’t on the top 100 list from previous seasons you still have a chance to obtain this reward.
We apologize for this, but hopefully everyone who would have got a prize this season will still get the one they deserve.
Map Rotation
At the moment we have sixteen maps in the pool. Due to player feedback, we’ll be trimming that down to use eleven of them. This should give a narrowed number of maps for players to practice and focus their efforts.
The maps being used will be:
- Orman Temple Night
- Sky Arena Night
- Mount Araz Day & Night
- Blackstone Arena Day & Night
- Dragon Garden Day & Night
- Daharin Battlegrounds Day & Night
- Meriko Summit Night
The Future of Battlerite Pro League
While the concept of a league was considered positively when discussed with players in early 2018, in practice it didn’t meet players and our own expectations. For example, players reported that being locked into a team for five weeks was discouraging if things weren’t going well right from the start and that the league format wasn’t as satisfying as a tournament format. We also received feedback that the group stage was too slow, and that the difference in skill between teams resulted in very one-sided matches.
With this in mind, and with 2019 closing in, we realize that we will have to take a step back from esports and reevaluate how we want to pursue global competition within Battlerite in the future. This isn’t the end for esports in Battlerite as a whole – this is a reevaluation of our resources, what we have available, and overhead. We still need time to tell what the future holds for the competitive scene and how we can manage our resources around it.
For this reason, BPL Season 3 will not have a LAN final to crown a World Champion. Dreamhack Summer 2018 was an amazing and truly unique experience for all involved, and we are glad that the competitors and community wanted to have another go. We know this is disappointing for our competitive community, and we share their sentiment.
We also want to state that, while we are rethinking how we approach esports, this does not in any way mean that we are cutting back in development for Battlerite.
With that said, we hope that you will enjoy Battlerite Pro League Season 3, and we’ll see you in the Arena.
The Stunlock Team