GGL FAQ
The Good Games League (GGL) is GrifballHub’s recreational Grifball league. While other leagues and events at GrifballHub are labeled as “competitive”, the GGL is focused on one thing: Having fun!
In the GGL, players form their own teams and sign up to play their Grifball games at a specific time of the week. For example, if your team is available to play on Monday nights, you can register for the Mondays at 8:00PM EST division.
The league administrators make the divisions and the schedule, so all you need to get is get online at your time and play.
Come gametime, two teams enter a custom game lobby together for a 4v4 game of Grifball. The host of the lobby loads the map and gametype and starts the game. After the match is over, the winner reports the results at GrifballHub.
Teams play two games per week for a total of ten games. After five weeks, the regular season draws to a close and the top teams advance to the playoffs.
GGL registration opens three times per year. During the registration week, you can sign up your team for the next season. Games begin the week after registration closes.
GGL teams are made up of four to ten players who choose to play together. While league administrators won’t force strangers to play together, we do have resources available to help free agents find a team.
The GrifballHub forums are the first place to look. Sign up for the forums and post in the Welcome Wagon forum.
Make a new thread in the Free Agents forum, too, to let people know you are looking for a team. Look through the Looking for a Player forum and see if any teams are currently seeking a new teammate.
Keep an eye on the Events forum and play in any upcoming mixers or tournaments. Check in the chatbox on the forums if anyone is playing any pick-up games.
Finally, tune in to Wednesday Night Grifbrawl and Thursday Night Grifbrawl every week at Twitch.TV/GrifballHub. Ask the viewers if they would like to play, and stick around for Grifball After Hours, our weekly live-streamed pick-up game on Thursday nights at 10:00PM EST. We invite the audience to play on the stream and you are welcome to join us.
Remember that you don’t need to be picked up by a team to play. You can also find three teammates and captain your own team!
First, you need to identify your division, under Leagues->GGL->Divisions in the menu above. Find out when you play and who you play against. Send an Xbox Live friend request to all of the other captains in your division.
Then, check out the schedule for your division, under Leagues->GGL->Schedule in the menu above. Identify which week you’re in and identify which two teams (and their captains) you are to play this week. Your team will play two games, back-to-back, every week for five weeks.
Before you hop in the lobby, the first thing you need to do is download the Grifball map and gametype. We will have an official gametype and map for the league for you to use.
If you’d like, you can play other maps and gametypes as well, as long as your opponents agree.
When game time rolls around, get on Halo and make sure you have four players for your team for the game. If you are stuck with fewer than four people, you can invite anyone in the league to play on your team for the night, as long as the other captain approves of the sub. The chatbox on the forums is a good play to ask for a spare player.
Start a custom game lobby and select your map and gametype. Then send an invitation to the first team captain you are to play that night. He should join soon with his party of four.
Once everyone is there and both captains say they are ready, go ahead and begin the game. Enjoy your game of Grifball!
After the match, the winning captain must report the results of the game.
Once your first game of the night is over, and your first opponents leave, it’s time to move on to the second. Invite the second team you are to play by inviting their captain to the lobby. After the match, report it just like the first one. You must also submit any Achieveables you completed for credit.
Should something happen during the game, such as unplayable lag or a player dropping out, have your whole team take a knee by crouching. Both teams must stop play and allow the two captains to meet and discuss what action to take to make the game playable again. You can re-invite the lost player, restart the game with or without the same score, swap out players, reschedule, etc. It’s up to the two captains to come to an agreement.
Forfeits and no-shows happen in online gaming leagues. Try as we might, we can’t force people to play Grifball.
Sometimes conflicts arise and the other team can’t make it. Sometimes it’s a last-minute emergency, and they can’t even send off a message to their fellow captains. Sometimes they just forget.
If that’s the case, remember that you were online when you should have been. If a game goes unplayed one week, the teams are to make up the game later in the season. Because all the teams in your division were grouped based on their availability, you know that both teams should be free to play the following week at the same time. You should try to reschedule for the next week, and play three games instead of your normal two.
If all five weeks pass, though, and the game is still unplayed, we have a special make-up week built in to the schedule. After week five, we take a one week break to play any previously unplayed games before playoffs begin. You can reschedule for any day during the week, but all teams are expected to be available on their regularly assigned day at the normal time to make up missed games.
If, at the end of the entire season and the make-up week the game is still unplayed, then the team that was available when the game should have originally been played can submit a form for a “forfeit win.” Forfeit wins are treated just the same as normal wins, and your team gets full credit for showing up and “winning” the game.
Teams are not to submit any forfeit wins until the make-up week. Teams are to make a reasonable effort to get any missed games played.
One more thing: After week two, we will be eliminating from the schedule any teams that were no-shows. If a team doesn’t show up for the first four games, they will be removed from the schedule for weeks three, four, and five, and the schedules for the teams that are actively participating will change. So forfeit factories will get the boot, and you’ll get to play more Grifball!
That’s okay! Just be sure to send each of your opponents a message on Xbox Live, telling them your team won’t be there. Try to reschedule as soon as you can.
The best times to reschedule are for the following week at your usual game time, or during the make-up week at the end of the regular season.
Yes! If you don’t have four players online at gametime, you can opt to use one or more substitute players for the match. Substitutes can be anyone, except for any player on your opponent’s roster or any player suspended from the league.
There is one major catch, however: Every substitute must be approved by your opponent before the game. The opposing team’s captain can veto any and all substitutes for any reason. Be sure to send your opponent a message before the game, telling them that you are short a player and giving them the name of who you would like to use as a substitute. You need the opposing team’s captain’s approval before you can use your sub.
“Achieveables” are unofficial Xbox Achievements for Grifball. Your team can attempt to complete them during your GGL games to receive credit.
Each Achieveable is worth a certain number of GrifPoints. The total number of GrifPoints your team has won is called your GrifScore.
Achieveables are not tracked by Xbox Live and do not impact your real Gamerscore. They are manually tracked at GrifballHub.
Achieveables are also entirely voluntary. You can try to do all of them, or you can ignore them completely. It’s all up to you and your team.
What’s more, unlike Xbox Live Achievements, Achieveables are all team-based. Your team earns them together. There is no such thing as an individual Achieveable. While some Achieveables require only one person on the team to complete a feat, they all count towards your team’s GrifScore.
Almost all the Achieveables will make it more difficult to win the game. They are usually some kind of challenge that will hurt your team or help your opponents. For example, one Achieveable requires your team to have an overall negative Kill/Death spread, yet still win the game. So if you’re doing too well, you have to let your opponents kill you to rack up some deaths!
No Achieveables will require you to stat-pad. They will never be tied to earning killing sprees or Killionaires. In fact, griefing the other team while in pursuit of Achieveables is strictly prohibited and will be punished accordingly.
So what good are Achieveables? Because they are an additional challenge, they are deserving of a reward: At the end of the season, the teams with the highest GrifScore will make the playoffs, regardless of their record!
At the start of the season, we will release a list of Achieveables worth 1000 GrifPoints in total. Most of the Achieveables will be doable on the court, during your games. You can get any of the Achieveables during any of your regular season games. Achieveables must be submitted by the team captain for the team to each credit.
The one Achieveable that you can do off the court is simple: For every highlight (up to five) that your team submits to the GGL season highlight reel, you will earn 40 GrifPoints for a Hollywood Achieveable! If you submit five highlights from league games during the season, you will unlock the Xbox Record That Achieveable, good for even more GrifPoints!
The GGL has two different types of divisions: Classic and Veteran.
The “Classic” divisions are the ones outlined in this FAQ: You are placed in a division with other teams with your same availability, you play two games each week, both on a single night, and you play 10 games during the regular season.
The “Veteran” divisions are for teams who have played in the GGL before. These teams can opt to play more games during the season and will play on various nights of the week. The schedule is a little more hardcore, so teams need some experience before signing up for the Veteran Divisions.
At the end of the season, teams from all divisions will be fed into the same playoff bracket, yielding one ultimate champion.
If you have any other questions, please contact us.
See you on the court!