Clash: August 2018 update

In our last update, we promised to keep you up to date on our path to launching Clash. We’ve made some progress since we last spoke, so we’re happy to announce we’re heading back to PBE. These tests might be a little buggy and won’t represent the full tournament experience, so as we work to get Clash ready for a full release, your contribution by participating and giving us feedback is invaluable!

In the past, a large number of issues were caused by many systems working behind the scenes and not communicating well with each other. The PBE tests will let us know how well our proposed fixes and mitigations work, and we’re looking to test three major improvements over the course of September. Here’s what they are and how to get to get involved:

How to play Clash on PBE

September 5th - Staggered scouting phase

We’ll be testing a staggered scouting phase, which allows us to extend the length of the scouting phase for some games, meaning fewer games will start simultaneously. This should significantly reduce load on the systems that are part of the champ select flow and allow you to get into games more reliably.

To test the variable scouting phase, create your teams and wait for the lock-in time. Once locked in, you’ll get matched and play as normal. This should be a pretty straightforward tournament, with 4 teams in each bracket, so your team will play 2 games.

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September 11th - Game flow changes

We’ve tightened our backend flow to break out some of the systems that work together when starting games. Much like before, if our fixes prove out, this should be a regular 4-team bracket with 2 games, and if everything works as expected, you shouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

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September 19th - Clash recovery tool

One of issues we saw quite early in previous Clash tests is that when stuff goes wrong, it’s hard for Clash to recover. This meant that we often had to blow up tournaments completely, disband existing teams and start another tournament which we know was painful for everyone. We’ve now made our recovery tools more robust and capable of assisting if one part of Clash falls over.

With this new tool, we’ll be able to more easily edit tournament details such as tier calculations, SMS verification, voice chat settings, Honor restrictions, ticket bids and rewards. If there’s an issue with locking in, we’ll be able to take everyone out and restart. Also, if there’s truly an unsolvable issue with Clash, we’ll be able to cancel tournament days without wrecking the whole weekend.

After these tests have completed we’ll let you know how they went over on the PBE boards. Sign up for a PBE account to participate in these tests!