Howdy Pika here,
with a little info regarding the upcoming winter GST!
During the summer we had a blast hosting GST for you guys, and despite the setbacks most people had a good time so were excited to bring GST back this winter with a few new changes!

Team Size

While we had a great time watching players gather there friends together to form there own teams, one thing that kept coming up was the amount of teams being allowed in. After all the more the merrier right? So we have decided to try something new and bump the amount of teams from 8 to 16 teams! In an effort to make it a little easier on players to gather enough people as well, we are going to decrease the size of teams from 8 and 2 subs (10 total) to 6 and 2 subs ( 8 total).

Gun Changes

With this GST were going to be making a change to the available weapon pool. In an effort to keep things fresh, we are going to be removing the shotgun and adding in a bow type to fill in the hole the shotgun would be leaving. It was evident last GST that shotguns held quiet a lot of power so were hoping to shift things a bit away from the spray and pray cover fire the shotgun brings and hopefully go into a new direction! In addition to the shotgun changes, we are going to be re-balancing all of the guns available in an effort to give each archetype a unique feel with more well defined strengths and weaknesses. Stay tuned for more updates on the gst guns!

Arena Redesign

We receieved alot of positive feedback about the interchanging arenas throughout the rounds. But one thing we both can agree on is NOT all maps were created equally . Arena #2 in particular caused quiet a few issues and was just generally very poorly regarded! So keeping that in mind We want to just let you guys know that were going to be doing some changes to the arenas designs to allow for new approaches and strategies to be born!

New Features

One of the most requested features we were asked for was some kind of "MVP" after the game and/ or match system. After all who doesn't want to brag about how great they did in that round? SO were excited to announce that we will be adding in such a system for all the viewers to cheer on there favorites and for individual players to keep their eyes out for!

That's all we have to share with you today! Were excited to get this out to you guys soon, and We'll do our best to keep you guys up to date with any new developments! Good luck in qualifiers!

 

Good changes. Hopefully this time its a lot better with fewer mistakes. Good luck for those participating.

Hopefully another video like this wont be needed.  

Howdy! This is an update regarding winter GST 2021.
We hope to give you guys some more information about the event itself and how its going to go down.

Rule Clarification

Last GST was a learning experience we got a lot of great feedback, and we both can admit that there was a bit of confusion over the rules and some of the judgment calls we had to make. Were hoping to clarify some of the more popular rulings now.

Q: "What happens if My team isnt online when its our turn to spar"?

A. If your team isn't ready when it is YOUR turn to spar, you will forfeit the round.
-One of the first points of contention was one of the teams being late, We have made a ruling now on the situation. In order to respect the time of all parties involved we will give a 5 min timer to the guild that isn't ready. If your guild is still unavailable to spar after the grace period, then they will forfeit the round.

Q: If we don't have enough members when the timer goes off can we compete 4 v 6?
A: If the timer is up and u don't have the full team requirement we will still let u compete in the match outnumbered, if your teammate comes online during the match if you haven't lost the 2 out of 3 requirement , they can join in the next round.

Q "Coin Toss meta?"
A: Coin flip OP had to be nerfed. In all seriousness though we apologize for that decision and we have a better solution to let the matches to be decided in a more fair manor.

any further clarifications may come up in a later post!

The End Game!
Speaking of more fair outcomes, im sure you seen the preview of the shrinking arena that imagic posted on graalians. Heres a brief explanation.
- As the match starts to approach the designated end time a Safe Circle will fade into the map. Players will need to make there way to the safe circle , if they fail to do so they will take continuous lethal ticking damage. The idea is to create a much tighter sudden death scenario instead of cutting to the end of an intense match right at the 5 minute point.

Arena Changes
In addition to the Safe zone end game in order to better balance for the size of the new teams we plan on shrinking the arenas by about 1/3. This change was made in order to hopefully decrease the amount of stall time and create more exciting plays. We hope to have previews of the new Arenas soon.

And So Goes The Bows
As fun as watching sprays of shotgun bullets fly across the arena, we wanted to try something different this gst and introduce a new gun type the bow, more information about its stats and the other guns stats will be released soon but here's a preview of the bow and the new winter skins we choose a light blue because it is winter time.


What you all have been waiting for
The date for this GST will be January the 8th. I know its a bit of distance away. However we want to make sure we get this as well tested as possible, we also have a few more ideas we want to test out and trial and this extra time will allow us to do that, and also produce winter content without having to sacrifice the quality of either!
In addition we know alot of players have been asking us to lower the amount of people to make it easier to practice so were lowering the amount of players needed t o gang spar to 3 per team, we have some plans to make it even easier in the future we will update you on later.