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Past and Present
Once upon a time, I remember playing against NaVi in the group stage of starladder, with every kill I had goosebumps, and when we won my team was screaming, it made me happy. I don't remember exactly how many hours I spent watching replays, and preparing for that game. My confidence, excitement, and stress levels changing as I prepared. The hours I spent talking to S4 about the upcoming match. And this was all for a qualifier game.
Nowadays for the same type of match I spend 5-15 minutes looking at the draft, I don't watch any enemy replays, nor do i feel any energy coming from my teammates. If I win I feel content, and when I lose I tell myself whatever. Usually I'll have a rematch soon in a separate tournament anyway.
Sometimes I would look back and feel really disappointed with myself. Don't get me wrong, I rather be the player/person I am today than of the past, but there's one thing missing now that I had before. Although I was an even bigger moron, and tunnel visioned everything, I always had fire in my eyes, I was always chasing something. Whenever I won I would look forward to continuing my streak, and when I lost I felt so bitter, I wanted revenge but I knew I had to wait awhile before our next encounter. I would never forget my bitterness, using that as motivation till I met the same opponent again.
But this isn't something that's only related to myself. From talking to other pros, viewers, and personalities, it seems to be a problem that has become quite common. And we believe that the main culprit is that there are too many DotA 2 Tournaments.
Congratulations Arteezy you’re right, I've changed.
Disclaimer
Like all my previous blogs, this ones gonna be long (really long) and I'm a shit writer sorry ><. I'm basically just gonna rant A LOT, I didn't write this blog to attack individuals or tournaments because I understand how its actually natural for these problems to occur with how DotA is. I just want solutions and we’ll start by identifying the problems first.
Interest in Tournaments
First off THERE ARE TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS SO NO ONE GIVES A FUCK. Honestly if even the pros don't give a fuck about their match, how can the viewers? Remember that time coL beat EG? Me and RTZ had a conversation regarding that match it went like this:
EternaLEnVy: How'd you lose to complexity?
Arteezy: LMFAO wHo cAREAS HAHA Xd
Honestly this is a really shitty situation. Winning a bo3 2-0 against a top team of the world should mean something. It should mean that coL is a new rising team, and viewers should be excited. And that they should be really happy with their team's progress. But instead we just get a situation where its hard to tell whether the match had any meaning.
We (the pros) definitely deserve blame for this but it really isn't easy. How could we try when we have a bo5 the day right after travelling for 50 hours in less than two weeks (Starladder Season 9 to DH Bucharest Invitational to BO5 versus Fnatic in ESL Frankfurt Qualfiier). TT finished Starladder Season 11 and for some reason had 2 games on the same day they travelled followed by 2 more games the next day and DH Bucharest to prepare for in a few days (they ended up losing every match and not qualifying for Summit 2 playoffs).
Playing officials is like having tests or exams. And when you have multiple every single day and you include travel fatigue as well its impossible to try your hardest.
You just end up yoloing everything and playing with regrets.
Tournament Ranting~!
Why did it become like this? Who is to blame? I'm not really sure, probably everyone. Our game is really popular, we should be happy about that. But because of DotA's potential people are rushing in to be part of the $ pie.
When players feel like they thought of something new and awesome, they rush to try it out and it might turn into a disaster. Just look at my Slardar. Ya fuck you too.
I feel like many tournaments are taking this approach, they rush to get the tournament going, and things become chaotic. Look at ESL NY, their item chest wasn't ready when the tournament was about to start and the community/pros were both confused on what was to happen. They changed the schedule of the tournament last minute, and when teams arrived at the event we didn't know who we were suppose to contact or if there was anything scheduled for us to do. Many teams had to scramble themselves back to the venue in order to do photo shoots that we didn't know about.
Honestly I feel like some tournament organizers don't respect the players enough. I mean how could they though, look at me. Look at Bone too. lol. Though in all seriousness this is probably true and they usually are very cheap as well. The official reason to why Secret couldn't attend WEC was due to "visa issues," but that's bullshit. They decided not to attend because WEC booked EVERY secret player flights with 12-24 hour layovers. How do organizers even think this is even acceptable? In general when organizers book teams flights they book really shitty flights with multiple stops and multiple hour layovers. When they instead give a travel stipend to the teams, the stipend is usually based on the shitty flights.
When we got ddosed at DH (it was my fault xD skype), instead of pausing the game and switching IPs and solving the problem first before we started playing again. We were told to try again and get ddossed again and then one more time before they finally realized that things needed to be changed. Thankfully we couldn't lose that game so we were calm but if it was a close game we would have lost our shit for sure. They basically treated us like a bunch of dumb kids who didn’t know whether we were getting ddossed or not.
Well DH was a mess in general, they kept hidden the hotel/rooming situation till right before the tournament started, and then we were told that we would have 3-4 people per room. lol.
At both WEC and WCA there were a multitude of games where it was hosted as either AP or FP/Side was given the wrong team and every player left the game. The lobby was never hosted and I would have to get up and walk up to the referee who was either surfing the net or doing other random stuff and tell them that there is a problem. Funny thing is, they would repeat the same mistake for a second time on the same game.
It's usually extremely frustrating to solve these simple problems at Chinese events because of incompetence and language. I feel like half the people working at the event don't play the game, and we have basically no way of communicating. At WCA instead of hiring proper translators they get volunteers from local universities who took english courses.
The volunteers basically speak no english, and they don’t play the game so communication is impossible. They weren’t treated that well by the organizers and although they barely spoke english they tried really hard. It actually made me sad dealing with the situation. PieLieDie was just annoyed xD.
Usually in Chinese LANs Xiituzi’s the only legit translator. There are usually three foreign teams so she has to run around helping all three teams even though she's never been paid. At WEC/WCA all three teams would sometimes play at the same time and at WCA one particular day lasted more than 14 hours because of problems during the NaVi vs LGD games. Luckily Kellymilkies speaks Mandarin so things were a bit easier. iLeague isn’t going to have any translators so were currently in negotiations to hire Xiituzi for the event, China without being able to speak the language is hell.
As the captain of the team, and someone who's attended like 10 LANs, I've started to grow a sense of distrust with tournament staff. At the Summit 2 for each BO5 series you had to flip two coins. When I won the first coin toss, i asked Starladder Andrey (the admin) whether we would flip a coin again for the 5th game, then when he confirmed it, I asked him again to confirm again. I feel worried that the admins don't know their own rules. Andrey's actually the most legit admin I've dealt with so far so sorry!
I don't have any negative feelings towards The Summit 2 (except for our play/results) but looking back the tournament was actually a disaster. I know the EG boys are pretty mad. The computers used there were awful, although they kept switching them out and the disconnecting issues were fixed, the FPS issues were always present. There were only 17 computers in the house and 10 were always used for matches, leaving only 7 computers for the other 4 teams to practice on. The audio for EG were leaked in two separate occasions and things like this is extremely stressful for teams.
In general schedules for tournaments are not very well thought out and don't factor in delays. Using The Summit 2 as an example, Vici had to play the last game on the first day which got delayed 4-5 hours and had to play the first match next day. I don't remember exactly but I believe there were only around 9 hours of time between the tag-team finals and the EG match the following morning. The EG boys who were jet lagged from DH weren't happy about that.
I just had this random flash back of arguing for the right to use the washroom at ESL Frankfurt because apparently it wouldn't fit the schedule and we would only be allowed to use the washroom once per series.
Why does it surprise tournament organizers when I say I want a computer to practice on? Is it so much to ask?
Why are the casters laughing about random shit when a team is on the verge of tears as they get eliminated from a tournament?
Why are they insulting the players about things they don't know anything about with their arrogant looks?
DSIFHSDFSKDFfjsdAFHJADEGSDOJIKGaskldasfgnjkafFds
Alright I need to stop raging but seriously though its ridiculous the things tournaments are able to get away with.
We are just a bunch of stressed out, sick, and jet lagged boys, trying to play DotA 2 to our full potential.
The Ticket System
Right now I feel like the current system does not support high level competitive play. There are too many tournaments so players can’t try their best for most of them. There are too many games for the casters to cast so they don’t try for most of them. And the viewers aren’t using their money to support high level dota but to buy item bundles.
Although the player’s association will try to fix some issues, this mess is actually quite worrisome to me and I don’t really know how to solve it. I’m just gonna go over what I feel like is happening in DotA 2 and maybe we can solve this together ><.
I truly believe that the amount of care for matches have decreased even though the viewer base has increased. Last year with less than half my twitter followers I would get much more tweets about the matches I play than I do now. My viewers which would be half of what I have now would be talking about my games on twitch chat much more so.
But why are there so many matches?
The primary problem is the $/Ticket system in DotA 2. Viewers want their purchases to be worthwhile so tournaments will jam in as much as they possibly can into a bundle. It’s not only items, compendiums, battle point boosters, fucking who knows what they are jamming in but also games.
The more games a tournament has the more worthwhile it is to buy the ticket. Thus, tournaments have all started having long group stages so that people would find more value in their ticket. Tournaments like DH/MLG who used to invite teams to their tournaments now all have qualifiers. Some tournaments like ESportal have taken it to the next level having multiple tournaments, and who knows what might come next?
All of these tournaments are gambling that the top teams will qualify anyway, and even though they want these teams to qualify they won’t directly invite them. It was in discussion that EG could maybe be invited to the LAN finals but this idea was dropped. Honestly I feel like Starladder should have just invited them, it would of meant having more twitch viewers for the event but they wouldn’t lose out much in prize pool contribution.
I’m confident that the prize pool contribution wouldn’t be affected much by EG’s lack of playing in the NA qualifiers because honestly the # of games in a bundle doesn’t really matter that much. The only thing that truly matters are the item sets associated with the tournament.
I talked to Luminous before DH and he believed that as long as the production value and the tournament is run well, that people will support the tournament. But that doesn’t make any sense, as production value is shown on stream not on DotA TV, and no matter how good your production is, the only cost is bandwidth to watch the stream. Although the tournament was DreamHack and every top western team except Secret participated, only 15k was raised. And thats with a special ticket only for DH that doubled the prizepool than normal tickets.
Another example would be i-League and Starladder Season 11 because of particles not working and a battle point booster that was not delivered the prize pool increase rate is incredibly low in comparison to the previous seasons.
In the past D2CL and MLG the first ever crowd funded tournaments succeeded because of the hype/teams that played. These tournaments contained every top team in the west and MLG even had one of the top Chinese teams. This was amazing back then and people would purchase the ticket just to support these teams and the tournament.
Nowadays something like this isn’t special anymore. D2L/Starladder/DH/The Summit 2/iLeague, 5 tournaments within 1.5 months all had the same thing as in the past. They all had the same concept of having all the teams of one region and some slots for the top teams of another region.
Ok so one might ask, wouldn’t things be better if the teams rally up and only play certain tournaments? Ya probably, but its not that easy.
The first major problem is that every tournament has a qualifier. And these qualifiers aren’t easy. Teams are worried that they might not qualify to tournaments, so they end up playing a bunch of qualifiers for more chances. Team Secret I think would be one of the only teams that could select a tournament and expect to qualify. EG doesn’t count because they are in NA and C9 has ping issues so we could easily lose.
The second problem is because of the International. By playing more tournaments and trying to place high in any of them teams are paving their way for a TI invite. So if some of the top teams don't play a tournament, the other teams will really want to play in order to secure a TI slot.
With these issues, even if there are 32943294 tournaments with 43439249 qualifier matches, teams aren’t really in a position to not play.
Quality of Casts
Disclaimer xD: What I’ll talk about here is my own personal opinion. From talking to other pros, some viewers, and other dota personalities they seem to agree with me but I might just be talking out of my ass.
Ok.
It’s not only DotA Pros and Viewers that don’t give a fuck even the casters have stopped caring. I mean how could they? Matches are being rescheduled non-stop (because theres TOO MANY n things start clashing), no one knows what the fuck is happening. A team wakes up one morning and is like oh, I guess I don’t have a game today or tomorrow. A caster goes oh i guess I’m casting a different game?
It’s hard to look for co-casters when things are so chaotic. There was a time where I would be like oh hey cool Fogged and LD are gonna cast a game together! Where JD, BTS, Ayasee or whoever would actively look for pro co-casters. Sometimes I tune in just to hear a new pro player cast. Nowadays I don’t even know if pros are co-casting anymore.
It’s also really hard for casters to care when they have so many games to cast. As much as casters bullshit in their casts (and trust me they do a lot!), they can’t bullshit hype too much when its non-existent even from the players.
Alright real talk, I think the cast quality in DotA on average is quite low in comparison to other competitive games. Casters in DotA have a low understanding of the game and not only that but of the gaming situation as well.
It makes me so angry when I know the casters have a hang-over or are drinking, and they are laughing/talking about random shit while I watch a team on the verge of tears getting eliminated from a tournament.
The level of professionalism is low as well. I understand a fun cast here and there but casts nowadays are in general way too casual. Although I talked about how its really difficult to try our best, players can still be trying really hard. The stress from dealing with your own state of mind/play and your team can be insane. When teams win matches they get really pumped up and motivated, and dream of bigger things. When players play bad or teams don’t go well, they disappear from the scene, are kicked from their team, flamed by the community, flamed by themselves, their teammates, and in general its such a shitty situation.
Competitive DotA is like a kill or be killed situation. It’s not just a bunch of kids playing a game. Friends are broken apart, players become broken, and there’s hope and despair every week. We joke about when teams have roster changes (me too ><) but its honestly such a sad situation. But we deal with all this shit because 1) we don’t want a real job and 2) because we want to fucking win.
And I know the casters can’t give a damn as much as we do but at least try.
Closing Thoughts
DotA this year has been a real mess, and from the looks of things its setting up to be another messy year. I hope that one day the viewers will remember what its like to support a tournament not only because of an item set but because of the players in the tournament. For some reason I actually have faith, players are starting to gather up and brain storm ideas to saving DotA 2. I hope the casting quality will start improving again, as it’s been halted for the last year. Also it seems like tournament organizers all want to kill each other, so the players will help you with that ^_^.
Shoutout to the Players Association, @Xiituzi and @PPDdota for inspiring me to write this.
Also shoutout to @Luminousinverse
Also shoutout to Cyborgmatt, Puppey, and Charlie for helping me with my information.
Big Shoutouts to @Kellymilkies for looking out for me and Conrad @QuantumPope for being an awesome Manager!
Also random shoutout to Andrey from starladder your actually so legit GOD DAMN
I took way too long to write this blog I’m so bad at life
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Thanks for the blog.
We (the viewers who understand the bigger picture) will keep watching Dota 2, we'll keep supporting tournaments and do our part if the resources are available to us. I believe we're all in this together: the fans, the players and the show runners. I think for the most part it's become apparent that the state of things have become a bit rough, and this was some good insight; but I believe in our resilient community and in this game, and I am hoping that the people who can improve upon the things that you mentioned will do their part to improve it!
The quality is - for the most part - as you mentioned, but I think we still all have hope that things will improve and we certainly still have a lot of fucking fun with this game. I am starting to see a rise in standards too, which is great.
Well, good luck with everything in ＤｏｔＡ ２, Envy.
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broken boys 
gonna finish reading but I hope c9, and other teams, are able to put themselves in a position where they can passionately play their best.
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Just boys trying to play dota =(
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Hope dota doesnt end up like SC2.
LETS GO JACKY MAO 2015
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Really nice to read a player's perspective and narrative about how tournaments are handling events. I still enjoy watching C9 and will continue to support teams as before. Good luck envy!
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Thanks for the blog EE - always great to get a pro's perspective on things.
Though in regards to there being "too many tournaments", why isn't the solution to the problem just for pro-teams to sign up for less events? Or is it just financially necessary to sign up for every tournament possible and risk the burn-out issues?
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Alright real talk, I think the cast quality in DotA on average is quite low in comparison to other competitive games. Casters in DotA have a low understanding of the game and not only that but of the gaming situation as well.
This for me is the worst thing. I stopped casting because I just didnt enjoy it anymore, but I took pride in watching replays of teams that I was going to cast to know what they did, how they played and everything else about them. The worst part was I believe during the Summit 1 Qualifiers and Merlini said "Who is CNB?". How do you just ask that was a Caster when its your job to be explaining that question to the viewers. My casts may not have been the most professional and I definately did some shit EE said, but I took pride in talking about the teams and what they do, not about how my day was at work or some stupid shit.
It sucks going to LANs to watch when you see people saying the wrong things and you can say shit, it really does.
But Good Read none the less, Hope something happens with the Influx of Tournaments and Casters, lowering the value of the players and the community as a whole, Really do hope something changes. Also I'll still cheer for you EE, you have been playing better and bette revery tournament, but so has every other team, just keep it up!
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Definitely deserves a full read. BibleThump
User was warned for this post
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we might need to reread this cuz EE forgot the SC2 comparisons.
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Did you read Kennigit's statement re: tournaments? You may want to check it out.
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2p9bx4/can_we_get_a_statement_from_mlg_and_esl_why_they/cmujexx
Other than that, great read. I do think there needs to be full round table discussion between players, team personnel tournament organizers, and even casters re: DotA future as an esport. Then again this might be what Valve wanted in the first place because they are completely hands-off the competitive scene outside TI, patches and tickets.
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So where does dumping water unto a caster mid-cast fall in this spectrum of professionalism?
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Completely agree with you - I made a blog awhile ago about how I think there's an oversaturation of tournaments, and as a viewer how that drains me and how I dont' care about it. Its hard to imagine from a player perspective, but the overall feeling is that it just makes things chaotic, yet dulled.
Agreed with most of your points here.
We need a change.
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Sanya12364 Posts
It's true English casts are generally worse. The Chinese casts are far more analytical, even apples to apples. As for the numbness of the professional scene, that's professional sports. It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
The treatment by tournaments is bad though. They all are about cutting costs and exploiting willing individuals.
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On December 16 2014 14:14 Akari-Akaza wrote:Did you read Kennigit's statement re: tournaments? You may want to check it out. http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2p9bx4/can_we_get_a_statement_from_mlg_and_esl_why_they/cmujexxOther than that, great read. I do think there needs to be full round table discussion between players, team personnel tournament organizers, and even casters re: DotA future as an esport. Then again this might be what Valve wanted in the first place because they are completely hands-off the competitive scene outside TI, patches and tickets.
I'd take Kennigit's statement with a grain of salt. ESL Frankfurt had an issue of not allowing players to even go take a bathroom break. That is ridiculous.
The blog itself is very enlightening on some issues and I'm a big fan of you EE. Hope this year you'll do well.
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Agreed
the last tournament i was hyped to watch was MLG
now it's just another day another tournament
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And the viewers aren’t using their money to support high level dota but to buy item bundles.
Viewers only support high level dota when it comes to The International which is the validation of our scene. Otherwise the are paying for entertainment value. Why would Frank 2kMMR Jones would care about high level dota? he couldnt understand half of the craps happening in the fights.... What he want to see is entertainment which, sometimes, does translate to high level competition but not always.
Best example is dota cinema CD tournament: pros dont give a crap but fans do. They like the fun entertaining games and unique heroes pool. Thus the big money which translate to pros interest.
But that doesn’t make any sense, as production value is shown on stream not on DotA TV, and no matter how good your production is, the only cost is bandwidth to watch the stream.
I do see where you coming from. But its not like there is no room to improve: Audio quality, casting quality, compendium contents delivering(comparing the summit 2, Dreamleague compendium is a fucking joke)... People do support good quality production. And if they are like me, they would have the stream muted while watching using the DotATV and tab whenever needed.
Though I do see an integration with possibly twitch is necessary for contents creators to push ticket sale furthers.
Alright real talk, I think the cast quality in DotA on average is quite low in comparison to other competitive games. Casters in DotA have a low understanding of the game and not only that but of the gaming situation as well.
Incredibly subjective here. I dont know how much esports you have watched and follow recently but I have been active seen 2009 and I think DotA casters are one of the better out there. Things has gotten sloppier in the last 3-4 months or so but lets not disregard things happen before TI. And yes, the newer blood are dragging the average quality down but just like Tobi in 2009, i would give them a bit time to observe their growth speed before make a call.
With the exception of starcraft which has been around for decades, the other esports are much much younger thus dont have the benefit of "retired" pros becoming casters. Right now we are looking at Maelk, 7uckingmad, merlini for our scene but thats about it. Most of the starlegends like Loda, PPY, KKY who have years of experience in competing are STILL competing. You cant simply demand a raise in quality without considering the fact that we have 0 casting talent pool. Those who are so smart to understand the game would be PLAYING wouldnt they?
And dont fucking shoutout to Lumi after you rant about casting quality... 2014 clearly marked the guy's downfall. His cast has been horrible. His edge used to be great analytical and understanding of the meta, is no longer there. Now he is making stupid questions and self-depreciating jokes about his english... Worse, he didnt even play dota for a whole damn month....
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On December 16 2014 14:21 TanGeng wrote:
It's true English casts are generally worse. The Chinese casts are far more analytical, even apples to apples. As for the numbness of the professional scene, that's professional sports. It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
The treatment by tournaments is bad though. They all are about cutting costs and exploiting willing individuals.
#facepalm I can't even force myself to agree.
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On December 16 2014 14:21 TanGeng wrote:
It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
.
Is it though?
On game day, most athletes give it their all (well, maybe not in baseball).
On December 16 2014 14:24 NB wrote:
And dont fucking shoutout to Lumi after you rant about casting quality... 2014 clearly marked the guy's downfall. His cast has been horrible. His edge used to be great analytical and understanding of the meta, is no longer there. Now he is making stupid questions and self-depreciating jokes about his english... Worse, he didnt even play dota for a whole damn month....
To be fair, the entire dreamleague casting team is a joke.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On December 16 2014 14:24 xiituzi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 14:21 TanGeng wrote:
It's true English casts are generally worse. The Chinese casts are far more analytical, even apples to apples. As for the numbness of the professional scene, that's professional sports. It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
The treatment by tournaments is bad though. They all are about cutting costs and exploiting willing individuals. #facepalm I can't even force myself to agree.
Which part?
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That was a great blog.
I wonder what a future, potentially more stable version of Dota 2 would look like?
It makes me think about how I like AFL (Australian Football) but I don't support a team. I love watching the great games be played well, but I have no investment in a specific team or story. There's nothing I can engage with story-wise in a culture which involves binge-drinking, racism and the like yet I respect the skill and effort which players display at the peak of the sport.
In Dota it's completely different. I love watching great games, but I also support Na'vi. Even when they play 'badly' - in a slump. Even now I'm checking DotaCinema daily to see the brackets be announced for the XMG 2.0. I want to see them win but there are so many games happening that sometimes I'll find a game which they played yesterday or a week ago and think 'when did this happen and how was it important'.
Too many games, that's for sure. One could keep track of them all but not with a full time job and obsession. I don't have the time for that or the wherewithal. I hate finding out that my favourite team played a game that I never heard was happening. It could certainly be easier to keep track of than it is and the freaking LiquidDota calender does a better job of hyping up games than an oversaturated scene does.
Cheers EE - Your rad post makes me want to follow your team more ^^
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Nice blog. Just wanna play some Doto.
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Am I weird if I think an overbearing organization like kespa would be good for dota?
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Sanya12364 Posts
On December 16 2014 14:24 Comeh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 14:21 TanGeng wrote:
It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
. Is it though? On game day, most athletes give it their all (well, maybe not in baseball).
Basketball & Baseball & Hockey
As well as swimming, running, cycling, and rowing.
There are some days that are just down. And you grind through it with the idea of peaking at the right time.
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I think that this year the Pro scene in dota "increased too much too fast" thousands and thousands tournaments happened and the community couldn't follow. The amount of tickets in store is too high, so the only way to make the players buy and support the tournament was adding bundles with it. At first it was "okay", but the numbers of tournaments kept growing.
it created a huge problem not only for the pros but also for casters and the community as well. Why?
It's simply there is too many games, players can't get time to rest or do whatever they want between tournaments, they always have to get a flight or prepare to the next tournament. Casters can't follow the number of matches is very tiring ( they literally have to talk 40-50 minutes per match, maybe more).
Tickets and Tournaments
There is too many tournaments, Okay nothing new. So how I convince the players to buy my tournament ticket? with dota items, and that is a HUGE problem. Because buying tickets you rise the tournament price pool, so players can't rely on the price pool, because no one knows how much it will be, maybe one hundred thousand maybe six hundred thousand, example the d2l had a huge price pool but the last one had a lower price pool. or think about TI, TI 3 had 2,6 million dollars price pool, the TI 4 had about 10 million, no one knows if TI5 will have 10 millions or 2 millions because it all depends in community, and nowadays the community don't really care about supporting the teams, we all want itens and that's it. Volvo is guilty too, they accept all tournaments too have a bundle with the tickets, so they get more $$.
How I think it could be fixed
I think that it could be fixed by changing how tournaments are. Following the soccer tournaments with "Divisions" the number of games would be less for each team, and will be not necessary the high number of qualifiers.
Dividing the teams in 2 sections
Tier 1 teams go to 1° division and Tier 2 teams go to 2° division.
How it works
in tournaments the 1° division teams fight each other to the first place and reclaim the prize pool. The bottom teams of the tournament in 1° division will drop to the 2°division.
The teams in 2° division fight each other to climb to the first division so every edition will have at least 2 new teams from the 2° division.
That way other tournament doesn't have to have their own qualifier because they can use the divisions and just invite the teams. And the pro players can use it, to know how much they have to practice and if they will be or not invited to a tournament.
Casting and Community
The casting always was a problem with DotA. Our casters doesnt really understanding the mechanics and strategies ( I'm not a pro or a 6k MMR player) but I can realize it. And because the number of matches we have they dont have to be better than the other, because it's only him casting the match. That way they get too much "casual" and the cast that already was "meh" get even worst. Fine, some casual cast it's fine ( I laugh my ass out when n0tail casted the game during the summit 1 and 2 flamming RTZ "so smart"). But the casters now are too cocky and it's not fun to watch a game anymore.
Back in the days was funny and cool to watch EG vs C9 or Na'Vi vs Empire but it is getting too often and the match quality isn't the same.
I hope you guys can reply this post with your opinion ( don't flame Kappa) EE I really apreciated your post and I hope you read this and say what you think <3
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Jacky Mao is just a Dota 2 boy T_T
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Well I found this blog was just made while a girl is reading it like slowly on SingSing's stream.
I made a post 2 weeks ago commenting on the Tobi Wan post about tournaments and I think I will just repost it (hidden) below
+ Show Spoiler +Firstly, if I were a pro player in all of this I would be asking myself where are the breaks in between? Yes maybe they do like this game so much and play it 24/7 as their dream job, but ANYONE who experiences too much of something will always need a break or you will get burnt out on it, and this game is one that will really get to you (speaking strictly from solo queue pub experience). Imagine now also not just worrying about the online portion (scrims plus official games plus your own practice for probably a good majority of your day), but the offline portion (Travel, PR meeting fans, the tournament itself)... really don't know how these people have the energy physically and mentally for all of this day in and day out
Secondly, look at a tournament like D2L. If I remember they announced it while there were already a bunch of tournaments going on and upcoming. D2L looked decent with EVERY top and mid tier team invited, but we all know the top teams are the ones that draw in the big numbers. Low and behold, Secret and C9 both arguably the top 5 western teams atm withdrew due to scheduling conflicts which I think really hurt this tournament badly. Meanwhile, at the end of Starladder X, Starladder XI gets announced and is immediately starting and I'm like thinking "holy shit maybe you want to chill out for a month or 2, or even after New Years before starting this?". I don't know, I just think as a spectator while it was enjoyable the last few months with 6.82 and all, it's become to the point where especially after DH this weekend I've seen enough for a while, and again I can't imagine the players not feeling burnt out as well
Funny how a lot of what I wrote are echoed in vast detail by EE... I mean even in real sports there's an off season or breaks in between. It seems like DOTA 2 (and a lot of e-sports) just don't know how to take it easy and at the end of the day players and to a lesser extent casters pay the price for it
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I agree with the overall point of your statement Envy: The over saturation of Dota 2 tournaments as a whole is hurting the scene and we are seeing a trickle down effect of that take place.
I enjoy playing dota as much as I did when the beta came out. Watching Dota? I'd have to say there was certainly a dip after the beginning of 2014. Casting dota is still hella fun though. I don't fully agree with the thoughts on casters, but casters that have much less games to cast will certainly put more time/effort/research into those casts.
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On December 16 2014 14:15 Talesavo wrote:
So where does dumping water unto a caster mid-cast fall in this spectrum of professionalism?
Thinking back at this incident I have to agree, Envy with the way you sometimes behave you're not doing yourself any favors trying to discuss on how to be better professionals when it's coming from you. You could lead an example of acting a little more professional while still being who you are.
I agree with all your points otherwise.
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On December 16 2014 14:28 Comeh wrote:
Am I weird if I think an overbearing organization like kespa would be good for dota?
no. technically kespa is supposed to be a players organization, but is much stronger than that compared to real sports which have players, teams, and then the leagues.
dota2 is about where it is where a player organization steps in and decides the structure of the beast. china has ACE, but they are always half-assed
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On December 16 2014 14:21 TanGeng wrote:As for the numbness of the professional scene, that's professional sports. It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
I think that's a very holistic view of player's view of the game, and I don't believe that's true for everyone.
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Too many endless qualifiers, qualifiers for qualifiers, etc. Some people are really against invites for whatever reason though.
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I never really noticed it much but it really made more sense when I read through what u wrote. There's really too much saturation that I just couldn't care about a lot of it anymore as a viewer. I remember back in the day I would watch like D2L season 3 (or was it 2? - nth era), and I would stay up all night to watch the games or download every replay of that tournament and watch it just to watch my fav teams/players duking it out while learning more and more about the game.
But now, there's just not much time for me to do so any more. I haven't even managed to watch the C9 vs EG game at The Summit 2 yet even though people say it was a good series. Just as you said, there will be other tournaments soon enough where they would meet each other again so maybe that's why I didn't bother to really watch it pronto. I dunno , but something really needs to change indeed.
About the casters part, maybe you could put in examples of casted games that showed they don't really "care". I mean, I can see what your trying to say but pointing it out in general seemed to have infuriate most of the casters around.
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I totally get what you're saying....
The stress from dealing with your own state of mind/play and your team can be insane
people dont always recognize the amount of concentration and effort it takes to play consistently at a high level. I also am totally with you on your point about casters and how tournaments are attempting to sell their tickets, not the tournament itself (and the teams!). The motivation thing is tough.
Good luck and go c9!
頑張ってee-sama!!
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This post makes you look extremely whiny and unprofessional.
Grow up, EE.
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I don't think EE's personal mistakes are relevant to what he is writing, the points should be evaluated on their own and not disregard them because the person writing them isn't "professional" himself or whatever.
I fully agree with a lot of what was written. I've written on the oversaturation topic in some other thread so I won't go back to it here, but specifically the tournament stories jumped out to me. The level of organization and planning in many events seems to be pretty embarrassing.
The caster thing seems to be gathering some debate over Twitter, but personally I agree with it fully. In my opinion the level of research and preparation casters showcase is extremely low in dota. There would be a lot of interesting things to talk about in how teams draft against each other, bring up the context of their previous games, how they play against each other, what each team is concentrating on, what actually happens in a game and why it happens. A lot of it may not be easy to talk about, but I often don't really even see the effort. Perhaps it is because they are very busy casting a lot of games and doing other work, perhaps it is because the games don't really matter, or perhaps it is because noone is setting the bar high enough for people to look up notice a clear difference.
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I feel like the best solution to Too Many Qualifiers is the TI approach - tournament hosters should invite approximately half the teams, and have the remaining slots go to top qualifiers. That way there's a good mix of new blood and old, and hype will be higher for the teams that already have proved their mettle.
This also gives pro players control of which tournaments they show up at. I think that's really important. If we're going to raise the bar for standards, T1 teams should make a point of only showing up at T1 tournaments. Don't bother with tournaments that have a history of treating you poorly! Leave those tournaments for T2 and T3 teams.
And players should all be communicating to not get screwed, with each other and the community. I know you were apologizing for bitching about layovers and accomodations, but you shouldn't. If organizers treated you like shit, if organizers aren't paying you, don't be shy about letting the community know. With how many tournaments are trying to get our money, it's good to have a metric other than LOL COMPENDIUM!! and EXCLUSIVE HATS!! to figure out who to throw money at.
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Well, in short, he is right.
With this amount of tournaments, DotA will choke on itself someday.
Can you imagine your favorite football/basketball team playing in a different major tournament every 2-3 day? I would actually stopped following my favorite team if that was the case. That goes for e-sports too.
When there is just too many games and too many tournaments and so much drama, some things lose their meaning.
TLDR; Quality over quantity.
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Envy, this will be an equally long response (and hopefully as worthwhile)
Major sporting leagues have had similar issues in their early expansion history. Perhaps the two best examples of this are baseball and the NCAA. In baseball's case they have come away with the strongest union in the history of man and in the NCAA, the players are drained of every last cent.
I bring these two up because the latter serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen to e-sports in general. Let's be real; the income that tournaments source from sponsors, twitch, and ticket sales is astronomical compared to the prize pool. Now, I don't want to turn it into a "the players are paid too little" discussion, as in sure someone with organizing experience might refute it (though I doubt it) but I want to bring it up because e-sports has the magical quality of costing nothing and making a lot of money.
Think about it, what does the group stage of tournaments cost the organizers? Nothing. Internet streaming is peanuts in 2014. Yet, regular seasons are much longer by comparison than the playoffs. Organizers use this period to try and drive up ticket sales for (practically) free. Smart people look to e-sports as the next big thing in part due to the popularity, but also because of the RoI margin.
On towards solutions...
I brought up the baseball players union because they have done collective bargaining correctly. They represent their members while expanding the game and making sure both sides are benefitting.
This is the first I hear about a player's union but it doesn't seem particularly strong (don't write me off as ignorant just yet) if you're having so many issues.
I ask that you find the spirit of what I'm suggesting instead of quickly finding only flaws. What if there were regional representative unions that could deal with the tournaments in their region? I would look to strong leadership from the multi-game teams like EG, C9, Na'Vi in this issue as you seem to operate in a much more corporate manner across the organization than teams that only have one game. Perhaps it is that strong business mindset that needs to be at the forefront of dealings.
Yes, this would mean that the more marquee names are better represented, but that comes with the territory of aggressive expansion. I'll bet a good amount of money that the problems faced aren't just Dota centric but are rather reflected across e-sports. I know that players may not like each other in games or whatnot but I feel you may share solidarity outside of it. Perhaps it's time to make it official in more than just feelings and words.
A union based on multi-game team leadership like this would cause less tournaments to be scheduled in, because dealing with a strong union means that the dealings slow down the output of competitions due to their combative nature. Standards are to be set by players and executives beforehand (length of season, teams per region, quality of admits, etc.)
Sidebar: remember the Na'Vi CEO saying that he's scheduling less tournaments for his squad? It mightve come off as posturing or delusional but that's exactly what I sense would contribute to a bit more merry for players.
Perhaps not all tournaments get to be policed (after all, gaming is a crowd funded endeavor) but you can expect to influence any tournament that hopes to draw the top teams of each region. Imagine if Starladder refused your terms and no one from the top 8 competed. Lajons vs BBC final. Kappa.
There's two ways to make money in tournaments. Win a lot of small tournaments or place in TI. Imagine what the prize fund per tournament would be if there were only four major ones each year.
A union like this would need to understand the need for up and coming teams and provide solutions to represent and promote their rise also, but that's a completely different point.
You're at a point where you influence the landscape now, but more importantly you're here before the big boom. You'll get to make the rules for the game. Abstaining from making a move against or with the organizers and money bags isn't noble, or in accordance to some introverted nature. Not making a move IS a move. All the players, managers, and executives are in this now and by not making a move they give somebody else their power: the same out of touch people you just described.
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Sanya12364 Posts
This is definitely stream of consciousness, which is what Blitz did in a blog way back.
Over-saturation isn't terrible.
Player burnout is.
If anything players have to understand their own limits and pare back the competitive load accordingly. Yet at the same time, they can't expect to be excited about every single game, every single match. There are going to be grinds and professionals will play through the grind.
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B L O G B O Y S A R E B A C K
User was warned for this post
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Lol, the DreamLeague/hack or GDStudio guys are a fucking joke. I think it was Capital that had a go at them during that whole TI qualifier stuff and was spot on.
I think EE also makes some good points about too many tournaments. You saw it happen in Starcraft II if you watched. It got boring quick having so many tournaments and on top of that those daily $100 micro tournaments. It sort of picked up with the BlizzCon WCS having certain tournaments add points to qualify for BlizzCon finals but still too much content. What makes the NHL, or any other professional sport good is the anticipation between seasons.
I think Valve needs to step in. They have the rights to the game and they can enforce a limited amount of tournaments to be played by not letting people broadcast it. I just don't think there's enough money in it for them to be bothered to run a professional eSports organisation around DotA2.
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Why don't teams start cherry picking tournaments to join? Tournaments that are actually worth their while. Wouldn't this create an environment where "natural selection" ends up determining which tournaments are T1 and the "not so premier" tournaments would be the ground for up-and-coming teams to participate in?
Every tournament organizer wants the best teams to participate in, so they throw in money. I'd say to the players, take a stand and just refuse to participate. The top teams determine which are the premier tournaments, not the organizers, or the money involved.
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Playing officials is like having tests or exams. And when you have multiple every single day and you include travel fatigue as well its impossible to try your hardest.
You just end up yoloing everything and playing with regrets.
This is pretty much the reason i suck at school.I m too lazy to study and when i have too many sexams or tests i just yolo
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Overall, esports is still too niche and undercapitalized to support robust professional structures and institutions. If esports ever reaches mainstream levels of attention and money, the players now will be looked at as pioneers in the Wild West, who perhaps were the victims of unfortunate timing.
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On December 16 2014 14:57 TanGeng wrote:
This is definitely stream of consciousness, which is what Blitz did in a blog way back.
Over-saturation isn't terrible.
Player burnout is.
If anything players have to understand their own limits and pare back the competitive load accordingly. Yet at the same time, they can't expect to be excited about every single game, every single match. There are going to be grinds and professionals will play through the grind.
One of the issues right now is that there is no end to the grind, and the only end in sight is TI, and that ends rather quickly (and hype will fade if there is no build up to it, and right now there is only fading enthusiasm in the game).
Oversaturation is terrible, as it leads to player burnout. It leads to caster burnout. Tournament burnout. Viewership burnout. It can kill games.
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On December 16 2014 15:04 malcram wrote:
Why don't teams start cherry picking tournaments to join? Tournaments that are actually worth their while. Wouldn't this create an environment where "natural selection" ends up determining which tournaments are T1 and the "not so premier" tournaments would be the ground for up-and-coming teams to participate in?
Every tournament organizer wants the best teams to participate in, so they throw in money. I'd say to the players, take a stand and just refuse to participate. The top teams determine which are the premier tournaments, not the organizers, or the money involved.
He explained why it's hard to not participate. Every tournament has a qualifier, and the qualifiers are running at the same time. If you drop out of events to begin with, you risk not making it to any LANs. In addition, if you then don't participate in many events, you lose chances to show that you are worthy of an invite to TI. Valve's policy of inviting teams to TI isn't transparently tied to other events, so teams scramble to play everything in order to get good results. If you play only a few tournaments, you take a big risk that having a bad day will cost you dearly because you opted to have only those few chances to prove your worth.
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If only sponsors are more obligated to collectively fund major tournaments on a quarterly basis and not this plethora of small to medium tournaments which is truly confusing.
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thanks for a sobering perspective
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Well this is very entertaining.
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ee's openness is quite refreshing in a scene where a lot of players are unwilling to bring these issues to light
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I think the reason why tickets are bought for items is simply because there is very little differentiating factors between tournaments. Each tournament have a qualifier stage and then a lan finals. The teams competing are pretty much the same. So why would I care about this new tournament when its no different from the others?
Dotacinema showed how being different affects ticket sales positively. Add that captains draft is a legitimate tournament mode that can be played at a high level. Reverse captain mode and ardm tournaments will not do well because they will always be viewed as a joke/showmatch tournament with little seriousness. But captains draft has potential to be an alternative tournament mode. The next step is to make teams take the tournament more seriously, and of course remove EG if the tournament is predominantly EU.
I think tournaments should now just invite top teams and leave qualifiers for the others. Top teams are not that worries for ti invite, but the fringe teams are. I don't see a reason why eg c9 or secret should be playing in qualifiers. The problem though is to know and dare to drop them from auto invites if they start sucking and invite others that have been doing well. And of course not invite shitty navi or tinker based on reputation.
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Yo EE and others, you need some Chinese -> English translation help in China (Shanghai) give me a buzz. I know how frustrating it must feel being lost in translation here.
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On December 16 2014 15:09 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:04 malcram wrote:
Why don't teams start cherry picking tournaments to join? Tournaments that are actually worth their while. Wouldn't this create an environment where "natural selection" ends up determining which tournaments are T1 and the "not so premier" tournaments would be the ground for up-and-coming teams to participate in?
Every tournament organizer wants the best teams to participate in, so they throw in money. I'd say to the players, take a stand and just refuse to participate. The top teams determine which are the premier tournaments, not the organizers, or the money involved. He explained why it's hard to not participate. Every tournament has a qualifier, and the qualifiers are running at the same time. If you drop out of events to begin with, you risk not making it to any LANs. In addition, if you then don't participate in many events, you lose chances to show that you are worthy of an invite to TI. Valve's policy of inviting teams to TI isn't transparently tied to other events, so teams scramble to play everything in order to get good results. If you play only a few tournaments, you take a big risk that having a bad day will cost you dearly because you opted to have only those few chances to prove your worth.
Getting direct invites is definitely nice and all. But there are still qualifiers. Everyone has bad days, but if you are confident in your abilities. I'd say taking part in fewer tournaments benefit you more than taking part in so many tournaments/qualifiers in a month.
Taking part in lesser tournaments hype you up more. Spectators won't get bored of watching you. You prepare better for those that you choose to take part in.
In fact, I don't think most of the current top teams would be risking their TI spots if they took part in lesser tournaments.
Look at Team Secret. I think they are looking good for a TI direct invite at the moment. And they've only participated in 3 major events. ESL, SL X and TS2. They've shown good games and of course have "star power". But my point stands. They don't have to be taking part in D2L or Join Dota League or all the other 20 tournaments going on. Just show up at the right ones and smash face.
@Duck,
Tournament organizers won't stop inviting top teams. The sponsors want the eyeballs, and the eyeballs are what follow the top teams. Top teams are the ones that need to start making the decision of declining tournies to join.
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TI4 marked the end of my interest in watching dota, it was incredibly messy and convoluted and after TI the tournaments just felt like they didn't even matter, especially when they've been run so atrociously.
The thing about casters is most definitely a huge problem, dota has no casters who are the quality of tastosis; There needs to be 10 pros who just flat out stop and go to casting to fix this kind of shit.
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On December 16 2014 15:39 malcram wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:09 spudde123 wrote:On December 16 2014 15:04 malcram wrote:
Why don't teams start cherry picking tournaments to join? Tournaments that are actually worth their while. Wouldn't this create an environment where "natural selection" ends up determining which tournaments are T1 and the "not so premier" tournaments would be the ground for up-and-coming teams to participate in?
Every tournament organizer wants the best teams to participate in, so they throw in money. I'd say to the players, take a stand and just refuse to participate. The top teams determine which are the premier tournaments, not the organizers, or the money involved. He explained why it's hard to not participate. Every tournament has a qualifier, and the qualifiers are running at the same time. If you drop out of events to begin with, you risk not making it to any LANs. In addition, if you then don't participate in many events, you lose chances to show that you are worthy of an invite to TI. Valve's policy of inviting teams to TI isn't transparently tied to other events, so teams scramble to play everything in order to get good results. If you play only a few tournaments, you take a big risk that having a bad day will cost you dearly because you opted to have only those few chances to prove your worth. Getting direct invites is definitely nice and all. But there are still qualifiers. Everyone has bad days, but if you are confident in your abilities. I'd say taking part in fewer tournaments benefit you more than taking part in so many tournaments/qualifiers in a month. Taking part in lesser tournaments hype you up more. Spectators won't get bored of watching you. You prepare better for those that you choose to take part in. In fact, I don't think most of the current top teams would be risking their TI spots if they took part in lesser tournaments. Look at Team Secret. I think they are looking good for a TI direct invite at the moment. And they've only participated in 3 major events. ESL, SL X and TS2. They've shown good games and of course have "star power". But my point stands. They don't have to be taking part in D2L or Join Dota League or all the other 20 tournaments going on. Just show up at the right ones and smash face. @Duck, Tournament organizers won't stop inviting top teams. The sponsors want the eyeballs, and the eyeballs are what follow the top teams. Top teams are the ones that need to start making the decision of declining tournies to join.
You shouldn't be posting if you didn't bother to read the opening post. EE covered absolutely every little thing you've said in both of your posts.
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Wow, you make me scared to try to be a competitive player.
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On December 16 2014 15:09 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:04 malcram wrote:
Why don't teams start cherry picking tournaments to join? Tournaments that are actually worth their while. Wouldn't this create an environment where "natural selection" ends up determining which tournaments are T1 and the "not so premier" tournaments would be the ground for up-and-coming teams to participate in?
Every tournament organizer wants the best teams to participate in, so they throw in money. I'd say to the players, take a stand and just refuse to participate. The top teams determine which are the premier tournaments, not the organizers, or the money involved. He explained why it's hard to not participate. Every tournament has a qualifier, and the qualifiers are running at the same time. If you drop out of events to begin with, you risk not making it to any LANs. In addition, if you then don't participate in many events, you lose chances to show that you are worthy of an invite to TI. Valve's policy of inviting teams to TI isn't transparently tied to other events, so teams scramble to play everything in order to get good results. If you play only a few tournaments, you take a big risk that having a bad day will cost you dearly because you opted to have only those few chances to prove your worth.
They have also began selectively dropping out of tournaments
anyhow great blog EE; proud to be your fan
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" And the viewers aren’t using their money to support high level dota but to buy item bundles. "
Honestly, I buy tickets to support the scene but the bundle is a nice thing to get when you have no fucking clue when a game will actually be played.
A lot of the points have merit while some are just because of the way the DOTA scene is right now. Some things can be easily fixed. Others take people working together but that probably won't happen because well esports.
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On December 16 2014 13:50 EternaLEnVy wrote:
Too many games, too low quality.
I think all you wrote comes down to one thing: there are too many games.
Too many games to care for players/casters/viewers alike...
Too many games for the quality to be top notch (jetlag/burnout etc.)...
..., but you have one misconception in your thoughts!
YOU CAN CHANGE THIS or more precise the players in general have the biggest power to change things.
The problem is, as you said yourself in your writing, players and teams are the most important for the tournaments. The teams that play bring in the crowd, if Secret plays against EG people will be watching and it doesn't matter for the viewers if the play just for pride or 100000$!
That means that YOU (the players) have the might! If you dislike the organization of a tournament, don't play in it. If you didn't get paid or proper hotel rooms, you don't play in that same tournament next time if you think they didn't change.
The thing is, if bad tournaments don't get the big teams to buff up their line up they won't get the exposure to keep things up and may change or vanish.
Obviously this is not only on the players, because viewers themself can do the same (just don't watch tournaments were you know shit is going on!), but viewers are way more diverse and can't be organized in any way, so the easiest way to change how tournaments do stuff lies at the players. You are the ones in the best position.
Why do you think the chinese ACE exists, it is to organize the players and safeguard them against shitty tournaments abusive sponsors and the kind (not that everything they do is good, but the principle is!).
As i said before:
We (as a community) are now big enough to cut some slag. We don't need more tournaments. We should cut out the rotten parts of the apple that is professional DotA 2 instead of getting bigger and bigger without any quality control.
Quality control lies in the hands of the organizations, players and viewers, but the one with the biggest impact on the cutting knife are the players. You just have to understand it and use your power!
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Anyway, as for my post...
I really like EE's honesty. He doesn't come off extremely eloquently, but he recognizes that. He raises good points, which are very important, and they are point I agree with.
There needs to be some central agency that protects the players, the integrity of the game, etc, etc. Sadly, with video games, the only agencies that are able to do that is the game developer, or the government itself. In terms of BW, Kespa was a government organization, and what they said went, went. Blizzard is doing something similar in SC2, and while it's success is questionable, it did bring stability into the scene.
At the end of the day, over-saturation is a thing. Many people don't acknowledge it, but I've been in esports since 2007, and I've seen first hand what impacts having too many tournaments does. It happened in SC2, and while it's not identical to what's happening in Dota for a multitude of reasons, we can see it having detrimental effects. Every esport thus far has been doomed to fail if it were not for a government agency or game developer, or a body that is given power by Valve for example... I hope to see that happen in the near future.
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eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands.
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burnout is the biggest threat to professional gaming
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the solution to having a lot of tournaments isnt to ask them to host less its to choose which ones u want to play better
the idea of players asking for less tournaments blows my god damn mind
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On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands.
Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen.
If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par)....
or
Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate.
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On December 16 2014 15:55 Liquid`ixmike88 wrote:
the solution to having a lot of tournaments isnt to ask them to host less its to choose which ones u want to play better
the idea of players asking for less tournaments blows my god damn mind
Ixmike, I think most players are fine with many tournaments... More money in your guys' pockets. But EE is looking at it also from the healthiness of the game perspective, and sees the issues that arise. He's discussing the viewing and casting experience more so than the playing experience... Which I'd agree, quality wise has been lackluster recently.
Tournament conditions are not good according to EternalEnvy, and honestly, the viewing experience has been such shit recently. Every tournament having technical difficulties and delays, computers having to be switched out on a daily basis, etc, etc.
And of course, when every week I have 50 games of Secret vs Navi quality, I couldn't even bother to waste a minute watching EG vs VP or something. What has been going on has been hurting the esport scene as a whole.
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I loved it!Great points!Especially the rant about casting and caster.Its spot on with what I feel the situation is been going for months now.
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I think that this year the Pro scene in dota "increased too much too fast" thousands and thousands tournaments happened and the community couldn't follow. The amount of tickets in store is too high, so the only way to make the players buy and support the tournament was adding bundles with it. At first it was "okay", but the numbers of tournaments kept growing.
it created a huge problem not only for the pros but also for casters and the community as well. Why?
It's simply there is too many games, players can't get time to rest or do whatever they want between tournaments, they always have to get a flight or prepare to the next tournament. Casters can't follow the number of matches is very tiring ( they literally have to talk 40-50 minutes per match, maybe more).
Tickets and Tournaments
There is too many tournaments, Okay nothing new. So how I convince the players to buy my tournament ticket? with dota items, and that is a HUGE problem. Because buying tickets you rise the tournament price pool, so players can't rely on the price pool, because no one knows how much it will be, maybe one hundred thousand maybe six hundred thousand, example the d2l had a huge price pool but the last one had a lower price pool. or think about TI, TI 3 had 2,6 million dollars price pool, the TI 4 had about 10 million, no one knows if TI5 will have 10 millions or 2 millions because it all depends in community, and nowadays the community don't really care about supporting the teams, we all want itens and that's it. Volvo is guilty too, they accept all tournaments too have a bundle with the tickets, so they get more $$.
How I think it could be fixed
I think that it could be fixed by changing how tournaments are. Following the soccer tournaments with "Divisions" the number of games would be less for each team, and will be not necessary the high number of qualifiers.
Dividing the teams in 2 sections
Tier 1 teams go to 1° division and Tier 2 teams go to 2° division.
How it works
in tournaments the 1° division teams fight each other to the first place and reclaim the prize pool. The bottom teams of the tournament in 1° division will drop to the 2°division.
The teams in 2° division fight each other to climb to the first division so every edition will have at least 2 new teams from the 2° division.
That way other tournament doesn't have to have their own qualifier because they can use the divisions and just invite the teams. And the pro players can use it, to know how much they have to practice and if they will be or not invited to a tournament.
Casting and Community
The casting always was a problem with DotA. Our casters doesnt really understanding the mechanics and strategies ( I'm not a pro or a 6k MMR player) but I can realize it. And because the number of matches we have they dont have to be better than the other, because it's only him casting the match. That way they get too much "casual" and the cast that already was "meh" get even worst. Fine, some casual cast it's fine ( I laugh my ass out when n0tail casted the game during the summit 1 and 2 flamming RTZ "so smart"). But the casters now are too cocky and it's not fun to watch a game anymore.
Back in the days was funny and cool to watch EG vs C9 or Na'Vi vs Empire but it is getting too often and the match quality isn't the same.
I hope you guys can reply this post with your opinion ( don't flame Kappa) EE I really apreciated your post and I hope you read this and say what you think <3
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On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate.
are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year
or multiple wimbledons a year
or even annual wc
just because they're profitable?
yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality.
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On December 16 2014 16:02 andyrau wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate. are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year or multiple wimbledons a year or even annual wc just because they're profitable? yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality.
Honestly, yes.
If you run two superbowls per year, you probably will make more money this year and the next year. But the problem arises in that 5 years down the road, popularity and interest will drop and you'll be making less money.
The thing is, esport organizers have this mentality of as much as possible while it's still profitable, leave the game once it dries up, and move on to the next one. The NFL doesn't have another game to just go jump on, but ESL and MLG do, they have many and many in fact.
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@FiWiFaKi
I did read the OP.
No need to be so hostile.
I practically said what ixmike said, albeit with a little more detail, and your difference in reply is amusing to say the least.
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On December 16 2014 16:05 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 16:02 andyrau wrote:On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate. are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year or multiple wimbledons a year or even annual wc just because they're profitable? yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality. Honestly, yes. If you run two superbowls per year, you probably will make more money this year and the next year. But the problem arises in that 5 years down the road, popularity and interest will drop and you'll be making less money. The thing is, esport organizers have this mentality of as much as possible while it's still profitable, leave the game once it dries up, and move on to the next one. The NFL doesn't have another game to just go jump on, but ESL and MLG do, they have many and many in fact.
Also another thing of note, for your example of the Superbowl... If possible, another organization would run in, and run a huge american football tournament, but this doesn't happen. Why? Because the teams and players are bound by contracts to only play in this league. Right now, no organization is large enough to say "Hey, to play in our league, you must sign an exclusivity agreement to play in these leagues only".
Thus it's really a free for all, and each different organizer is trying to milk what we have right now as much as possible, with no consideration of where we will be at in 2 or 3 years.
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I think there is a need to organize tournaments for the lower tier teams AND only them can participate. Otherwise, all the pro teams joins in no way they can ever earn themselves a title. Champions of these tournaments will than get to join a tournament of larger scale?
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On December 16 2014 16:08 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 16:05 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 16:02 andyrau wrote:On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate. are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year or multiple wimbledons a year or even annual wc just because they're profitable? yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality. Honestly, yes. If you run two superbowls per year, you probably will make more money this year and the next year. But the problem arises in that 5 years down the road, popularity and interest will drop and you'll be making less money. The thing is, esport organizers have this mentality of as much as possible while it's still profitable, leave the game once it dries up, and move on to the next one. The NFL doesn't have another game to just go jump on, but ESL and MLG do, they have many and many in fact. Also another thing of note, for your example of the Superbowl... If possible, another organization would run in, and run a huge american football tournament, but this doesn't happen. Why? Because the teams and players are bound by contracts to only play in this league. Right now, no organization is large enough to say "Hey, to play in our league, you must sign an exclusivity agreement to play in these leagues only". Thus it's really a free for all, and each different organizer is trying to milk what we have right now as much as possible, with no consideration of where we will be at in 2 or 3 years.
Well, the only organization that could do it is Valve, but they've made it clear repeatedly that them taking over the scene a-la LCS is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
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On December 16 2014 16:12 RaveN95 wrote:
I think there is a need to organize tournaments for the lower tier teams AND only them can participate. Otherwise, all the pro teams joins in no way they can ever earn themselves a title. Champions of these tournaments will than get to join a tournament of larger scale?
How do you organize that?
Who would organize a tournament with only Tier 2/3 teams? There will be few viewers, where will these players feed to?
You need a regulating body to oversee everything if you want to make something like that work any way you slice it.
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On December 16 2014 15:39 malcram wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:09 spudde123 wrote:On December 16 2014 15:04 malcram wrote:
Why don't teams start cherry picking tournaments to join? Tournaments that are actually worth their while. Wouldn't this create an environment where "natural selection" ends up determining which tournaments are T1 and the "not so premier" tournaments would be the ground for up-and-coming teams to participate in?
Every tournament organizer wants the best teams to participate in, so they throw in money. I'd say to the players, take a stand and just refuse to participate. The top teams determine which are the premier tournaments, not the organizers, or the money involved. He explained why it's hard to not participate. Every tournament has a qualifier, and the qualifiers are running at the same time. If you drop out of events to begin with, you risk not making it to any LANs. In addition, if you then don't participate in many events, you lose chances to show that you are worthy of an invite to TI. Valve's policy of inviting teams to TI isn't transparently tied to other events, so teams scramble to play everything in order to get good results. If you play only a few tournaments, you take a big risk that having a bad day will cost you dearly because you opted to have only those few chances to prove your worth. Look at Team Secret. I think they are looking good for a TI direct invite at the moment. And they've only participated in 3 major events. ESL, SL X and TS2. They've shown good games and of course have "star power". But my point stands. They don't have to be taking part in D2L or Join Dota League or all the other 20 tournaments going on. Just show up at the right ones and smash face.
As EE wrote, they originally were going to WEC and only didn't go because of the terrible arrangements organizers had made. Then there was WCA, and Kuroky for example publicly talked on twitter wishing that there was a qualifier for it. So they likely wanted to attend that as well. Then they played at ESL and at SL. Later they failed to qualify to Dreamleague, so again they wanted to participate, and finally they played the Summit. And this is while playing DC Captains Draft and Dotapit online. The only tournaments they have really opted not to play in have been (as far as I can tell) D2CL and D2L. Even Secret, who as EE said are probably pretty safe in assuming they would make it to LANs and pretty deep there, have either played or would have liked to play almost everything.
It's easier now in the spring season for teams like Secret, EG or c9 not to play all events, because they have shown that they are worthy of an invite, and probably are also confident that they will make it pretty deep in any event they attend. But understandably the situation is not the same right after roster changes when nothing is guaranteed.
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On December 16 2014 16:13 tehh4ck3r wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 16:08 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 16:05 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 16:02 andyrau wrote:On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate. are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year or multiple wimbledons a year or even annual wc just because they're profitable? yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality. Honestly, yes. If you run two superbowls per year, you probably will make more money this year and the next year. But the problem arises in that 5 years down the road, popularity and interest will drop and you'll be making less money. The thing is, esport organizers have this mentality of as much as possible while it's still profitable, leave the game once it dries up, and move on to the next one. The NFL doesn't have another game to just go jump on, but ESL and MLG do, they have many and many in fact. Also another thing of note, for your example of the Superbowl... If possible, another organization would run in, and run a huge american football tournament, but this doesn't happen. Why? Because the teams and players are bound by contracts to only play in this league. Right now, no organization is large enough to say "Hey, to play in our league, you must sign an exclusivity agreement to play in these leagues only". Thus it's really a free for all, and each different organizer is trying to milk what we have right now as much as possible, with no consideration of where we will be at in 2 or 3 years. Well, the only organization that could do it is Valve, but they've made it clear repeatedly that them taking over the scene a-la LCS is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
I think if they truly see their game suffering, they would do something. They haven't had to do anything yet, as their game has been thriving - but their hand might be forced.
I don't think the LCS style is necessarily best, but it has some good things to learn from as well. It really unifies the viewer base, runs in a very robust structure, and people don't get sick of it.
WCS and SC2 is another way it can be approached, Blizzard is the leader of the scene, but tournament organizers have freedoms so long as they adhere to Blizzard policy. And WCS points loosely hold the scene together and semi-centralized.
Valve doesn't have to take either of these two routes, but can learn from what has happened in the past, to make a model that works for Dota. A free market with no overseeing body doesn't work in the economy, and it wont work in Dota either.
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Good post, interesting.
What shocked me most is how organizers are bad. TS2 was enjoyable, but yeah it was badly organized (the summit 1 too). But it's on the players too, like you said you installed skype and had dreamhack be ddosed and you're directly responsible of a multiple hours delay. Don't act like a kid if you don't want organizers treat you like a kid.
That being said, I still think that your points are valid ; when Puppey (and other pros) is casting a game for instance it adds so much value to the game, pro casts in the summit showed that. It's like having tastosis cast a sc2 game, even if the game is bad it's still an enjoyable moment.
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On December 16 2014 16:08 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 16:05 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 16:02 andyrau wrote:On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate. are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year or multiple wimbledons a year or even annual wc just because they're profitable? yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality. Honestly, yes. If you run two superbowls per year, you probably will make more money this year and the next year. But the problem arises in that 5 years down the road, popularity and interest will drop and you'll be making less money. The thing is, esport organizers have this mentality of as much as possible while it's still profitable, leave the game once it dries up, and move on to the next one. The NFL doesn't have another game to just go jump on, but ESL and MLG do, they have many and many in fact. Also another thing of note, for your example of the Superbowl... If possible, another organization would run in, and run a huge american football tournament, but this doesn't happen. Why? Because the teams and players are bound by contracts to only play in this league. Right now, no organization is large enough to say "Hey, to play in our league, you must sign an exclusivity agreement to play in these leagues only". Thus it's really a free for all, and each different organizer is trying to milk what we have right now as much as possible, with no consideration of where we will be at in 2 or 3 years.
no they wouldn't
even if it's for profit. actually, especially if it's for profit.
the demand isn't inelastic
if it was then we'd have a super bowl every 3 months but we don't. valve knows this too or else we'd have an international every month with a lower prize pool.
please don't act dense.
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On December 16 2014 16:20 andyrau wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 16:08 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 16:05 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 16:02 andyrau wrote:On December 16 2014 15:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 16 2014 15:51 andyrau wrote:
eesama literally saving Ｄ Ｏ Ｔ Ａ ２
i agree with the caster especially, 'analysts' are actually awful these days. I'm not sure if it's burnout on their part or just because they can not give a fuck and still get paid and viewership, maybe a bit of both.
as for the oversaturation of tournaments, I think it might be better for tournaments run their events less. One one hand, I kind of like having something to watch almost whenever I want, but on the other hand it also causes me to not care about watching it or reviewing the vods because, like ee says, there's going to be plenty more chances to watch a particular team in the near future.
I've noticed there's a lot less hype for tournaments as well, and I guess part of that is viewer fatigue. there used to be LR threads that got bumped like 10 times a minute during games between lesser known teams, but now many of them outside of big name matchups stagnate. and they're not even small tournaments, d2l in particular is literally antihype for the amount of teams participating and the amount of time it's been running. obviously that may be in part due to c9 and secret dropping, but I think my point still stands. Running less tournaments isn't really an option. Why would they? These companies want to make money... This is done by running tournaments. It's like me telling you to only work 10 hours a week so we lower unemployment. Maybe in some ideal case, but there is no invisible hand to make that happen. If a tournament can be profitable, it will occur. Thus, many organizers get on board, and churn out as many tournaments as possible while being in the green as possible. Either someone with authority tells the organizers they cannot host this many tournaments (especially when not up to par).... or Some player association forms between many top teams, and whether the teams will play in a certain tournament will have to go to that association. And thus shitty tournaments wont get any top names, and will completely flop. But again, when people are looking at their interests, that is difficult to orchestrate. are you really saying it'd be more profitable for the nfl to run multiple super bowls per year or multiple wimbledons a year or even annual wc just because they're profitable? yes i know they're not analagous but you completely missed the point. it's not about tournament organizers running it for profit, we're talking about quality of your tournament and how well it's represented, because atm it's quantity over quality. Honestly, yes. If you run two superbowls per year, you probably will make more money this year and the next year. But the problem arises in that 5 years down the road, popularity and interest will drop and you'll be making less money. The thing is, esport organizers have this mentality of as much as possible while it's still profitable, leave the game once it dries up, and move on to the next one. The NFL doesn't have another game to just go jump on, but ESL and MLG do, they have many and many in fact. Also another thing of note, for your example of the Superbowl... If possible, another organization would run in, and run a huge american football tournament, but this doesn't happen. Why? Because the teams and players are bound by contracts to only play in this league. Right now, no organization is large enough to say "Hey, to play in our league, you must sign an exclusivity agreement to play in these leagues only". Thus it's really a free for all, and each different organizer is trying to milk what we have right now as much as possible, with no consideration of where we will be at in 2 or 3 years. no they wouldn't even if it's for profit. actually, especially if it's for profit. the demand isn't inelastic if it was then we'd have a super bowl every 3 months but we don't. valve knows this too or else we'd have an international every month with a lower prize pool. please don't act dense.
Demand has a higher elasticity long term, but short-term, is quite inelastic, especially for free or very cheap goods. Because NFL foresee themselves running the NFL in 50 years, they will not raise profits for two years, and sabotage themselves for the 48+ others.
The future of every esport is very uncertain, nobody really knows what will happen in two years, hell, 2 months before TI nobody knew what would happen with the prize pool. Everyone knows that Hockey wont magically disappear in the next 20 years however. I am not acting dense, and I hope you see some points I'm trying to make. I might not be using the nicest of speech, but nothing I say is meant to be a personal attack or anything towards you - I'm trying to express my perspective in a logical manner.
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EE makes a good point that TI overshadows everything. If valve was clearer on how they determined invites - for example the SC2 WCS system with defined points - teams wouldn't feel the need to sign up for everything. They could know that concentrating on 3 tournaments and placing decently would be enough to reach whatever bar to get an invite, or at least reach the lower bar to get invited to the qualifiers. Or if valve could make it clear that they are looking at win percentage/some sort of rating like the gosugamers ELO in trying to determine the best x teams that year instead of total number of accomplishments, teams could focus on playing quality matches when they do play.
Edit: It's perfectly logical by the teams too, because TI could represent 80% of a team's winnings that year. So skipping a tournament doesn't just leave you out of that 10k you might win, but could decrease you chances at that million dollar payout.
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Agree with pretty much everything. The tone is a bit too harsh and whiny though. Being a pro gamer is such an amazing dream job, not enough pros take a step back and realize that. You bring up issues but don't put propose solutions. It's not your job to do so, and you might not know what to do, but it would help your argument.
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One thing about a centralized body, it will never work. Unless it's Valve.
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One thing of note: Tournament organizers have to treat players better. Don't spoil them, don't let them be divas, but get a translator for each team and fix their flights/accommodations in a way that their condition will be the best for when they play the game.
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The only way to really solve this is to drop out en mass. I think that the amount of money you can win will increase too. More demand for a tournament -> more money raised from compendium. I dont honestly need to watch navi vs alliance everyday, thats boring. But twice a month? I'll make sure to be there.
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Viewers only support high level dota when it comes to The International which is the validation of our scene. Otherwise the are paying for entertainment value. Why would Frank 2kMMR Jones would care about high level dota? he couldnt understand half of the craps happening in the fights.... What he want to see is entertainment which, sometimes, does translate to high level competition but not always.
This. This is one of the BIG problems regarding casters. Frank2k should learn stuff from watching a game, he should have a grasp of why certain things are done that way and the mentally behind a play. Im not talking here about some retarded ass TI noob cast, i mean having actually analytical casters, but honestly thinking about it there are only 3 people like that in the entire scene : Merlini , Draskyl and GoDz, and maybe to some extent F4L. Why are people like LD, Zyori, Sheever, Luminous or Shane even allowed next to the mic when it comes to giving input regarding the game; what fucking insight can someone that is 4000 or LOWER MMR provide? They dont even understand the game they are casting, their mechanical knowledge sucks and if anything it fucks with lower tier players that think watching progames will help them improve.
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I wonder what rank would EE score on harodihg's list.
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Well, it will be interesting to see whether Adam Smith's invisible hand will rear its invisible face (palm?) and eventually pop DotA 2's tournament scene bubble, or if something else will happen. Maybe eventually viewers will just get sick of the inundation of low-stakes games and jump ship until we get back to a point where individual tourneys are meaningful again.
Envy makes a pretty compelling case, though. And it's possible that the teams, players, and even big-name tournament organizers will start pushing for changes sooner rather than later. I mean look at the fact that EG withdrew from Starladder. Seems to me like the inevitable outcome of what Envy's talking about---of course, Evil Geniuses, the Yankees of Esports, don't need the prize money as much as some of the up-and-coming teams, but still, it's money they had a real shot at winning, and they turned their nose up at it. That's EG making a statement that the scene is overcrowded, and it's one that organizations like Starladder are probably going to take pretty seriously. After all, once EG jumps ship, what's to stop their fellow tier 1 teams from following? How long can you maintain your viewership targets in that kind of situation? I'm curious to see whether any organizers try to tackle the issue, and if they do, how.
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On December 16 2014 16:33 Caladbolg wrote:
One thing of note: Tournament organizers have to treat players better. Don't spoil them, don't let them be divas, but get a translator for each team and fix their flights/accommodations in a way that their condition will be the best for when they play the game.
Yeah, knowing people who work with performers, it sounds to me like tournaments treat their players pretty terribly. And honestly, they could do worse than spoiling the players---if you've ever glanced over a hospitality rider for even a not-that-well-known band, you've likely seen some pretty ridiculous requests (those hot meals had better be served on actual china plates). If the players then decide not to respect the tournament and miss their matches or whatever, don't invite them back.
Edit: woopsies, double posted
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Nice to hear your thoughts EE.
So I take it from the blog, that a dota 2 players association is in the works. Great to hear. I hope Valve is in on it.
With the numerous tournaments going on. I'm surprised that there aren't any up and coming new teams and players in the in the Western scene. The Chines seems to be doing a decent job of getting new blood with teams like CDEC, LV gaming. I think this qualifiers for qualifiers are to blame. Organizers should just invite established, up and coming teams, previous winners to tournaments and let new bloods prove themselves by fighting thru the grueling qualifiers. It reduces players and viewers fatigue considerably.
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On December 16 2014 16:35 i.exies wrote:Show nested quote +Viewers only support high level dota when it comes to The International which is the validation of our scene. Otherwise the are paying for entertainment value. Why would Frank 2kMMR Jones would care about high level dota? he couldnt understand half of the craps happening in the fights.... What he want to see is entertainment which, sometimes, does translate to high level competition but not always.
This. This is one of the BIG problems regarding casters. Frank2k should learn stuff from watching a game, he should have a grasp of why certain things are done that way and the mentally behind a play. Im not talking here about some retarded ass TI noob cast, i mean having actually analytical casters, but honestly thinking about it there are only 3 people like that in the entire scene : Merlini , Draskyl and GoDz, and maybe to some extent F4L. Why are people like LD, Zyori, Sheever, Luminous or Shane even allowed next to the mic when it comes to giving input regarding the game; what fucking insight can someone that is 4000 or LOWER MMR provide? They dont even understand the game they are casting, their mechanical knowledge sucks and if anything it fucks with lower tier players that think watching progames will help them improve.
Because traditionally sports casts have a color commentator (a retired player) along with a well spoken/interesting/entertaining/whatever main commentator.
The game is too young, and the pay is too bad for most retired players to consider going into casting. And how many casters do you think make more than minimum wage for their work? Someone who just got a degree in radio broadcasting isn't going to want to be a dota caster, there just simply isn't enough money in dota casting for it to draw truly talented people, so we get the caster's that put in the time and effort, but simply might not have a talent for it.
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On December 16 2014 16:30 molecu wrote:
One thing about a centralized body, it will never work. Unless it's Valve.
I agree, it's very hard to make work.
But remember, Kespa achieved it in BW (albeit they took control only in their country).
Looking for solutions, steps to take, compromises... It's about making the steps in the right direction for the healthiness of the game we love. It takes an effort from everyone, and while it's something that'd occur overnight, I think some form of governing body can occur.
SC2 had that ESF that had limited success in a free market system, it's not impossible.
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Pro athletes train harder and play more.
Sry EE-chan but your thesis is pretty bad.
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I think a big part of the whole oversaturation leading to player(and caster) burnout is exacerbated by how the international is run. EE mentioned that if teams choose to not participate in specific tournaments, that other teams will feel an urge to jump on the opportunity to post a result. If not simply for the prizepool where a tough opponent is no longer competing, but also because of a huge amount of pressure to continually prove themselves worthy of an eventual TI invite.
On the other hand starcrafts WCS point system definitely has its own huge flaws, but having specific parameters to gauge whether a team gets a direct ticket to the next international one of the few ways to actually lessen the issue of teams feeling pressure to compete in every single tournament that pops up.
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I'm relieved that someone was able to articulate the reason for the loss of passion in the scene before it got too hopeless.
My only regret is not being able to share this with more people.
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I respect you EE, but I wonder if your issue isn't with your own management on some of this. Also the bashing of casters is pretty unfair on a few levels. There's a lot of NA casters that bust their ass to improve. I don't know about the other scenes but I'm sure they give a shit too. It's rare that I agree with ixmike, but I think he's right that it's on the teams to sink or swim the tournaments through being selective rather than blame them for you being burned out after going hard on dota for months on end.
Most viewers don't give a damn about effort behind wins or losses. A small fraction of dota2 players read forums or twitter. I saw EG lose to coL and I thought EG played like shit, and coL showed promise. This is all to say that it's your reputation on the line without any excuses that most will see/know about. If you can't keep up with the schedule, that's a player's union issue with management being short-sighted and not the tournaments, yet I didn't see a paragraph highlighting that problem.
The only big point I see out of all of this is the endless qualifiers and cold-war style 1-upping of longer seasons being an issue. I guess a players union might work for that. Good fucking luck having any kind of leverage in chinese tournaments with tournament prep standards. If western teams say they won't attend, they couldn't care less, and no chinese team is going to prioritize any kind of union when ACE and stricter contracts have them.
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One thing thing EE is right about though. People are burnt out. While I don't consider myself as a hype follower, I started following the scene pre-Hype(which is 2013-2014 I believe) and played for longer even more(started in 2009), I can feel the hype has left the building. I believe the hype left for CS:GO.
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On December 16 2014 16:57 lolnoty wrote:
I respect you EE, but I wonder if your issue isn't with your own management on some of this. Also the bashing of casters is pretty unfair on a few levels. There's a lot of NA casters that bust their ass to improve. I don't know about the other scenes but I'm sure they give a shit too. It's rare that I agree with ixmike, but I think he's right that it's on the teams to sink or swim the tournaments through being selective rather than blame them for you being burned out after going hard on dota for months on end.
The only big point I see out of all of this is the endless qualifiers and cold-war style 1-upping of longer seasons being an issue. I guess a players union might work for that. Good fucking luck having any kind of leverage in chinese tournaments with tournament prep standards. If western teams say they won't attend, they couldn't care less, and no chinese team is going to prioritize any kind of union when ACE and stricter contracts have them.
im glad somebody finally actually did some caster bashing though, what dreamleague did with their english casts is just inexcusable and its influence seeped into the rest of the dota2 casting. while there are a lot of english casters who bust their ass to get better, there are a lot who don't. i find it hilarious that Lumi started this discussion since he was almost always the one that never bothered to keep up with BTS-covered league results on BTS...
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I don't really post on TL and every time I do I get warned but for real tho fuck the scene right now.
I used to get excited for matches I actually watched a bunch of Dota and played a lot, I was actually pretty excited about the Red Bull Lan thing but I watched the stream and it was just LD being a fucking clown so I closed it.
I recently watched a SC2 league qualifier(GSL) and I decided to watch a community stream instead of the official one, the caster actually did his homework on some of the players at the venue, during breaks he was actually talking about potential strategies he might use in specific matchups and certain timings that will leave his opponent vulnerable it was really entertaining to watch and I felt like I got some kind of insight before the game began.
You know how usually when you play games like Dota or Starcraft you listen to music because you need some background noise... that what I feel the casters for Dota 2 are like these days same routine, they say the same shit every time it's so fucking repetitive. Now I don' t mean to talk shit about all the casters, I haven't watched many casts recently I've mainly watched BTS because they were everywhere so I guess this only applies to BTS, don't know about other casters but hey they pander to reddit and twitch chat so they're cool le memes xD.
I don't even know where I'm going with this, I've just had this on my mind for a while and I needed a place to vent.
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On December 16 2014 16:57 lolnoty wrote:
I respect you EE, but I wonder if your issue isn't with your own management on some of this. Also the bashing of casters is pretty unfair on a few levels. There's a lot of NA casters that bust their ass to improve. I don't know about the other scenes but I'm sure they give a shit too. It's rare that I agree with ixmike, but I think he's right that it's on the teams to sink or swim the tournaments through being selective rather than blame them for you being burned out after going hard on dota for months on end.
Most viewers don't give a damn about effort behind wins or losses. A small fraction of dota2 players read forums or twitter. I saw EG lose to coL and I thought EG played like shit, and coL showed promise. This is all to say that it's your reputation on the line without any excuses that most will see/know about. If you can't keep up with the schedule, that's a player's union issue with management being short-sighted and not the tournaments, yet I didn't see a paragraph highlighting that problem.
The only big point I see out of all of this is the endless qualifiers and cold-war style 1-upping of longer seasons being an issue. I guess a players union might work for that. Good fucking luck having any kind of leverage in chinese tournaments with tournament prep standards. If western teams say they won't attend, they couldn't care less, and no chinese team is going to prioritize any kind of union when ACE and stricter contracts have them.
He highlighted some of the reasons why it is difficult to decide to just drop out of events. And imo even if top teams drop out of some events, the fact still remains that tournament structures are such that some matchups happen all the time and there rarely are cases where top teams meet in a final for example and then the speculation and hype intensifies until the next time they meet in a high stakes match. Instead it's diluted with 5 random online or group stage games in between.
I think the caster point was presented a bit harshly. I don't think anyone can deny that BTS people or whoever don't work hard when they cast for god knows how long every day. But the problem is that with the number of events (and possible other duties), few casters showcase constant interest towards researching pro teams, how certain teams match up against each other, how the drafting stage works in a matchup, how the games have been. It's not only about working hard though, it's simply impossible to prepare properly if you have to cast almost every day for god knows how many games. And this preparation is in addition to being expected to play yourself at a pretty high level so that you can give decent analysis during a game after you've first represented the context for the game and the possible storylines well. But when I watch Summit LAN finals, and there is noone on the couch who can present accurately the history between EG and c9 or the history between c9 and VG, it becomes annoying for me and doesn't give the impression that the people on the stream care about representing the game at hand well to the viewers. And the GD Studio is another matter entirely.
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i really dont like envy at all but holy shit, his tournament rant is exactly the same i did in the bts day 1 thread. it feels so good to be right, lol.
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Hey EE, I agree with you and I've stopped watching pro Dota cause there's just too many games to keep up with. It's only inherent that the overall quality of games from the player view/spectator view decreases as the quantity of games increases. It's just absolutely absurd to able to see to compete in multiple tournaments on the same day. The main problem is that their are too many tournaments and I think the first step to fixing the current Dota2 scene is have Valve or some reputable dota organization to step up and make sure tournaments don't overlap and are well-spaced apart. Once that is settled, everything else such as player/caster professionalism will follow suit and increase. Teams will not try to qualify all over the place since there are fewer tournaments and will have to try much harder to get qualified, which only makes each tournament that much better as well as improving the game as a spectator sport. Most if not all of the problems EE pointed out solve itself as soon as the number of tournaments decrease.
On December 16 2014 13:50 EternaLEnVy wrote:
But we deal with all this shit because 1) we don’t want a real job and 2) because we want to fucking win.
Start treating it like a real job? That's gotta happen if you want the scene to improve.
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Pro-players like EE need to appreciate that what they do is actually very rare and they should cherish it. It's an opportunity that a lot of people would want and even trade places with.
All jobs have their downsides to it... This is no different from any office job with issues of its own.
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On December 16 2014 17:28 trinxified wrote:
Pro-players like EE need to appreciate that what they do is actually very rare and they should cherish it. It's an opportunity that a lot of people would want and even trade places with.
All jobs have their downsides to it... This is no different from any office job with issues of its own.
There being issues doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to address them. In this case it seems that there are quite a lot of players who are not satisfied with a bunch of things in the scene, whether it is tournament structures, scheduling, Valve's non transparent TI invite policies, how LANs are organized, how are players are treated there etc. Someone may have to publicly talk about it so that it gets attention and either Valve will look to take a more active role in some of this, or maybe it will push tournament organizers to set the bar higher.
Sometimes giving your feedback through private channels may be better, but also in some cases people only look to act when there is public pressure on them to do better. If it's done entirely privately it's easier to just dismiss it and the general audience won't know a thing.
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People being treated bad and tournaments having shitty schedules/computers/formats etc seems like a pretty important issues. But he's wrong about the casters.
The casters aren't there for him. The casters are there for the viewers. The viewers dictate what is good casting and bad casting. As much as he feel the commentary is low level and is annoyed when casters joke about players losing, if thats what the viewers want to hear, then thats what the casters should be doing. If 50k watch a caster talk about his poop while 5k watch another caster doing high level analysis, the first caster is doing the better job.
Also, he's probably as excited to play a random qualifier game as Im excited to go to the office every morning. Welcome to the world of working. He says he doesn't want a "real" job, but real or not, his current feelings towards dota2 is probably very well in line with most of us random workers feelings towards our jobs.
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On December 16 2014 17:35 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 17:28 trinxified wrote:
Pro-players like EE need to appreciate that what they do is actually very rare and they should cherish it. It's an opportunity that a lot of people would want and even trade places with.
All jobs have their downsides to it... This is no different from any office job with issues of its own. There being issues doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to address them. In this case it seems that there are quite a lot of players who are not satisfied with a bunch of things in the scene, whether it is tournament structures, scheduling, Valve's non transparent TI invite policies, how LANs are organized, how are players are treated there etc. Someone may have to publicly talk about it so that it gets attention and either Valve will look to take a more active role in some of this, or maybe it will push tournament organizers to set the bar higher. Sometimes giving your feedback through private channels may be better, but also in some cases people only look to act when there is public pressure on them to do better. If it's done entirely privately it's easier to just dismiss it and the general audience won't know a thing.
Well what I meant is that pro-players need to accept that there are downsides to what they're doing. Whatever he says here could be very well translated to issues that happen at a "normal or real" workplace.
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Lowering tournaments would hurt the scene more than help. Lowering qualifier amounts, season/league lengths, and getting better coordination between events so there's not 2-3 tournaments a month is a much better idea.
I still feel like it's silly to think you HAVE to play in every single fucking tournament that comes along. Sorry, but that's shitty career planning and team management. This is a multi-layered issue you're talking about, and I feel like I need to keep bringing up management as a large part of that problem that wasn't highlighted.
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Hilarious read, and the comments of people agreeing are even better.
He had me at: "We don't want a real job."
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What Dota2 needs is a regulatory authority that decides what tournaments will be held next season and for what level. Organizers can then bid and present their plans and the authority can simply chose the best one. That way you will actually have worthwhile and decent tournaments in a season and the number can be kept down too. Plus a regulatory authority can also draft rules like punishments for players involved in 322 incidents and such.
I agree with EE. Honestly, i dont buy tickets anymore because there's no more real hype. Rather just buy the international ticket every year.
And im from Pakistan and we dont have the luxury of top class internet speeds here, me and my friends watch tournaments inside dotaTV so the issues that EE raised are compounded even more.
Hopefully the pros will band together and do something about this. Like actually choosing their tournaments and giving it their all.
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On December 16 2014 17:48 Laurens wrote:
Hilarious read, and the comments of people agreeing are even better.
He had me at: "We don't want a real job."
Not sure how one manages to take out one random ass comment and turn it into something negative.
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On December 16 2014 17:48 Laurens wrote:
Hilarious read, and the comments of people agreeing are even better.
He had me at: "We don't want a real job."
Because playing games is still considered by majority of population as something special.
When they talk about "real jobs" they talk about doctor, accountants, cashiers, assistants, etc.
When EE says he does not want real job, it means he does not want to have a regular mainestream job, not that he does not appreciate he can play dota2 for money.
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All in all, in my opinion the most important fact of the whole thing is this:
The International is the only important thing for players.
They don't know what specific requirements there are to get invite for The International.
So, no surprise the scene is a chaos when the only thing that matters does not have proper rules.
Personally, I don't give a crap about 99% of matches played in last 6 months. I have been watching dota tournaments since 2005 and currently it is the lowest point of excitement from watching them.
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When there's too many games viewers stop giving a shit. Players stop trying their hardest because there's no prestige or whatever winning a LAN when one comes up every month.
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Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
RE: Caster professionalism
One aspect of note is that in contrast to WCS, LCS, OGN and so on, majority of casting in English DotA2 tournaments is outsourced. I.E. SL get BTS to cover the english broadcast. These outsourced casters will naturally and understandably, be less invested in the quality of their cast. Their livelihoods aren't directly tied to their casting performance, whereas inhouse casters do have to work hard for their salaries and to not-get-fired. Also, I would imagine for outsourced casting that there's nobody to metaphorically breathe down their necks. Sometimes I even wonder if tournament organizers even bother to tune in and check out the non-main-language casting to see what the level's like.
But that's neither here nor there. I'm of the mind that the onus is on tournament organizers to push for a level of professionalism. I mean, nobody would think of (excessively) goofing off at TI/Worlds, because the event culture there dictates a certain level of restrain and effort. Perhaps other tournaments could look to cultivate and push for something similar.
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On December 16 2014 17:59 R3IGN wrote:
What Dota2 needs is a regulatory authority that decides what tournaments will be held next season and for what level. Organizers can then bid and present their plans and the authority can simply chose the best one. That way you will actually have worthwhile and decent tournaments in a season and the number can be kept down too. Plus a regulatory authority can also draft rules like punishments for players involved in 322 incidents and such.
I agree with EE. Honestly, i dont buy tickets anymore because there's no more real hype. Rather just buy the international ticket every year.
And im from Pakistan and we dont have the luxury of top class internet speeds here, me and my friends watch tournaments inside dotaTV so the issues that EE raised are compounded even more.
Hopefully the pros will band together and do something about this. Like actually choosing their tournaments and giving it their all.
The amount of headache, planning, impossible cooperation, and confusing rules needed to create a regulatory body to dictate what happens is monumental.
Compare that to teams just not playing in tournaments and making the reasons they're not entering well known, and getting the same result. Let the tournaments sink or swim using your own presence (literally what makes money through views) as leverage.
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Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI?
No. None of you take that bet because C9 getting invited is practically guaranteed. As is Secret, as is EG, VG, IG, LGD etc etc etc etc.
If you're burned out from playing too much, play less. Are there too many (premier) tournaments? Maybe. But don't feed BS about how you HAVE to play them. Most teams don't even practice so these tournament matches are essentially their practice. Dear lord.
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On December 16 2014 17:59 R3IGN wrote:
What Dota2 needs is a regulatory authority that decides what tournaments will be held next season and for what level. .
Thats the most stupidest thing ever. Having a dictator ship to regulate something means shit will be produced even more and someone out of dota2 scene will get rich.
Teams need to realize that they don't need to play every tournament, they don't need to increase their chances by improving quantity over quality.
What Envy here is doing is talking against himself, if you play too much, you turn into "i don't care", means you will be only choosing quantity over quality.
Now imagine sir Envy, you are participating only few tournaments and to make sure you win qualifers you will be motivated to learn the opponent, to analyze replays and so on, because you have to do it, just like in "old" days.
If you choose to participate as many tournaments as possible (in hopes of raising your chances to qualify) - things turn what you just said they turn into - loss of motivation, over saturation etc which in the end decreases your chances to actually qualify for a tournament or play dota2 at all.
Secret has it right, look they even have time for matchmaking and streaming! Every team has to realize that!
And - with so many tournaments you can even choose where the participation vs skill rate is lower than yours and cash in some easy prize money. In the end - you will be probably invited to TI anyway where the "real showdown" happens.
So tl;dr?
Over saturation of tournaments is good - more money to more teams, if only teams would start looking it that way and not bite more they can chew.
(Allthough what my analyze/discussion is not taking into account is the paycheck players get)
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I appreciate what you're trying to do, but honestly (with your history as selfish/uncompromising on matters that affect you) this just come across as very whiny. You're criticizing people without giving any credit where due. The scene in itself has growth issues as it's gone from tiny to huge in no-time. Stop playing yourself to death, and set aside time together with other pros and fix it? It's either that, or you'll eventually force Valve into becoming Riot.
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If there weren't so many tournaments, you wouldn't have been able to get 9 second place finishes this year.
But on a serious note, is it really the number of tournaments that's a problem?
2-3 LAN finals seems fair enough for something that is someone's job. The problem seems more all the online games that lead up to those.
Why can't tournaments just use team's recent performance from other tournaments for seeding and half the qualifier spots?
http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/rankings#team
Have Newbee and VG play vs each other for a spot. C9 and EG for another. Secret and whoever else is top in europe for another.
Then let everyone else play in qualifiers if they want instead of making those teams play 7-15 matches.
Starladder is like 3 or 4 times a year now, isn't it? Why don't they just reinvite the top 3 teams from last season?
The problem is all the pointless qualifier and seeding matches people have to play.
Why does c9 need to play EG for seeding 3 times for 3 different tournaments in the same month? It's just silly, and makes watching top teams play less exciting when you see them in all these pointless qualifier or seeding matches.
Online seeding matches just shouldn't be done most of the time. On LAN they can be nice.
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On December 16 2014 18:16 ItsMeDomLee wrote:
Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI?
No. None of you take that bet because C9 getting invited is practically guaranteed. As is Secret, as is EG, VG, IG, LGD etc etc etc etc.
If you're burned out from playing too much, play less. Are there too many (premier) tournaments? Maybe. But don't feed BS about how you HAVE to play them. Most teams don't even practice so these tournament matches are essentially their practice. Dear lord.
I don't think this is the case. If we look at TI4, there were 6 European teams present: c9, NaVi, Alliance, mouz, Empire and Fnatic. After TI4 everyone had roster changes, and then we have new teams for all of these organizations (except Mouz) as well as Secret and Team Tinker, and some potential challengers. With c9's online playing conditions their qualification to events from EU qualifiers isn't always guaranteed: they've even failed to qualify to SL (though got in after Chinese teams dropped out) and Summit (got in through the redemption vote). If you originally make the decision to just skip a bunch of events, you also take the risk that you either don't qualify partly because of your ping issues, or that you just play poorly at the LAN or have bad bracket draw, and suddenly your results are few and extremely mediocre.
It's easy to say now that EG, Secret and c9 have been the top3 western teams after TI and they can afford to skip events. How about TT? Or NaVi? Or VP.P? Or VP? Or Empire who seems to have won a few games the last few days? How do you separate these teams from one another? They all want to prove themselves. Right after TI nothing was guaranteed for c9 either, they had to play events so that they guarantee they get the results they need.
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United States47024 Posts
On December 16 2014 15:09 Comeh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 14:57 TanGeng wrote:
This is definitely stream of consciousness, which is what Blitz did in a blog way back.
Over-saturation isn't terrible.
Player burnout is.
If anything players have to understand their own limits and pare back the competitive load accordingly. Yet at the same time, they can't expect to be excited about every single game, every single match. There are going to be grinds and professionals will play through the grind. One of the issues right now is that there is no end to the grind, and the only end in sight is TI, and that ends rather quickly (and hype will fade if there is no build up to it, and right now there is only fading enthusiasm in the game). Oversaturation is terrible, as it leads to player burnout. It leads to caster burnout. Tournament burnout. Viewership burnout. It can kill games.
See, I don't really quite agree with the causal relationship you're implying here.
Oversaturation is a phase. It's the culmination of a "wild west" phase of the game's competitive growth, where there's sufficient interest from many parties to be involved in the game, but no structure in their interactions, so every team and every tournament is just kind of doing their own thing. Eventually the game needs to move past this. Teams need to get together and figure out what's best for themselves as a whole, tournaments need to step up and meet the needs of the teams and players.
If a game dies in this phase, it's not because of the oversaturation--that part is fundamentally necessary--it's that the game failed to grow out of this phase because the involved parties didn't find a way to build something constructive out of the chaotic state.
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Alright real talk, I think the cast quality in DotA on average is quite low in comparison to other competitive games. Casters in DotA have a low understanding of the game and not only that but of the gaming situation as well.
Real talk. EE is correct. Most casters in Dota 2 don't really get what is going on in the game other than X is rotating/ganking oh wow hes dead yay. They don't ask or explain why a player is prioritizing X item. Why they use X skill build. Why they are doing what they are doing in a lane. The bottom line is that casting in Dota 2 has hit a plateau where most casters are content with casting what they see but not casting what they know. Merlini is an exception because of his career as a player. But he also has to cast in the backseat because there better play by play casters out there like LD. The other issue is that dead time that could be spent talking about strategy to make the game more intersesting is instead filled with JOKES and BANTER which is interesting to the caster but not the viewer in general. They just don't know how to make the game seem more interesting by explaining what's going on and instead fill it with the stuff that they think makes themselves interesting. See the problem here?
Other esports. Starcraft 2 casting at the highest tier know exactly why the player is doing X build and how it applies to the map. CSGO casters usually know what strategy is being run by the team and mix that into the casting as well as how weapons are being applied effectively or economy is being prioritized.
League however suffers from similar issues that EE pointed out (that many have pointed out but sadly the fanboying of casters drowns the crap out of critics on Reddit). In league, the casters are usually shoutcasting/color casting just like Dota 2, so the casting level is similar to Dota 2 in that sense, They aren't telling you in depth how league strategy is utilized as much as they should, why items are being built, why they drafted that composition.
I don't know why people defend casters other than they are fans because of the Dota Personality. EE is right. Casting can improve by miles and it has slowed down greatly since several months before TI4. They either are too content with their dota celebrity status or simply don't know that they could be better.
Both 2GD Studio and BTS have casters who are just clueless at times. Their "5k" mmr some of their casters brag about don't seem to match their actual game knowledge.
Similarly, Hearthstone also suffers from a lack of analytical insightful casting but then again its a card game with variable strategy and lots just depending on draw.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. EE, am I being to harsh? Casting isn't easy but they don't seem to realize they're at this fork in the road where either casting can be a big time gig (way bigger than what it is now) or it can be the not very professional inconsistency that it is right now.
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On December 16 2014 16:52 Steveling wrote:
Pro athletes train harder and play more.
Sry EE-chan but your thesis is pretty bad.
And he's in a team that most people would consider top 3, at least top 5 in the world. Surely that's a problem? If he was in a tier 2 team then sure.
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After reading such a post it feels like after decades of professional esport development resulting in huge esports events, price money and organizations who can generate profit based on that, the one group of persons which did not evolve are the professional players.
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Thanks for some insight.
Most of what he said already applies to T2-3 level couz even there are million of tournaments ;D
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On December 16 2014 18:44 loklok wrote:
After reading such a post it feels like after decades of professional esport development resulting in huge esports events, price money and organizations who can generate profit based on that, the one group of persons which did not evolve are the professional players.
I'm sure some of the players are grateful with the situation they're in. EE is just a spoiled kid.
"oh no, I have to travel around the world too much to play videogames in front of thousands of fans, woe is me."
There's hundreds or even thousands of people on this site who would love to be in EE's position. Let's make a blog and tell them how bad my life is.
I have very little sympathy for his rant, totally on ixmike's side here.
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On December 16 2014 18:16 ItsMeDomLee wrote:
Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI?
Would anyone here have bet 1000 dollars that EG wouldn't get a direct invite for TI3 six months before the invites were handed out?
If you don't play a couple of tournaments and then flop in one or two that you DO play, yes, your TI invite may very well be jeopardized.
On December 16 2014 18:51 Laurens wrote:
There's hundreds or even thousands of people on this site who would love to be in EE's position. Let's make a blog and tell them how bad my life is.
No, there's thousands of people who have fantasies about being in EE's position, but are completely out of touch when it comes to the reality of the whole experience and just how shitty it can get.
I'd bet you anything you want that if those thousands were given a chance to live the "progamer dream" (lol) for a few weeks, at the end pretty much all of them would say "yeah fuck this shit".
Progaming is a shitty career with shitty payout and shitty conditions for the vast majority of players. It's pretty much constant stress and grind, the game doesn't feel as fun any more, and the team game dynamic and inter-personal relationships make it even harder.
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Thats some real talk about everything worth reading
also i hope @luminus stop slacking off his butt and get his shit together cuz after his trips on the summer he is so lost in the new patch hope to get better , also i think nowdays the best caster that doesnt slack or watches lot of games and know is Draskyl the man who denied TI4 invitation to cast as he said to leave it to the pros .
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I'd take that bet any day.
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On December 16 2014 19:06 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 18:16 ItsMeDomLee wrote:
Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI? Would anyone here have bet 1000 dollars that EG wouldn't get a direct invite for TI3 six months before the invites were handed out? If you don't play a couple of tournaments and then flop in one or two that you DO play, yes, your TI invite may very well be jeopardized.
Well thats kind of the nature of a competitive environment. If a team is active and showing good results then it should be preferred over a team which doesn't. Success kind of implies that you get burned out, otherwise you would not be able to distance yourself from the mass. If you lack motivation then you should not be in a top tier team in the first place.
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On December 16 2014 19:13 Laurens wrote:
I'd take that bet any day.
if being in his position is so easy, why havent you done it yet
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On December 16 2014 19:16 Kraznaya wrote:if being in his position is so easy, why havent you done it yet
It requires balls of steel to give up on education/job and go pro dota. Alas I don't have them. I respect EE a lot for making the jump and going pro. I do not respect him for this blog.
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I feel like I am too old to comment stuff happening in computer games, but since I happen to play almost every night and instead of falling asleep while watching TV, I recently started to just watch a stream while falling asleep, because I find TV too bad, I feel like I should say something.
About the tournaments - Hell yeah, there is a tournament going at almost every given time, WTF is that ? The way that the SC2 system works is much better, although not perfect. Trying to use a system that is already used in some sport is probably the best way to organize the messed world of DotA. Basketball or Soccer(Football) systems with a league going throughout the year is not applicable, because of the amount of different organizations trying to host events, so basically the best type of system to use is the one used by the ATP(Tennis). Just like in the world of tennis, DotA has events in different parts of the world, with different organizations(The Summit, i-League). The events should be divided in tiers - tier 1 event, tier 2, etc, just like are the events in tennis - Wimbledon, Rolland Garros, AO and USO and there are the secondary events ATP1000 tournaments, ATP500, ATP250 and challengers. The players themselves should decide and stood their ground what events they should play in and what they should not, just like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal cant play all tournaments in tennis, most of the teams shouldnt be able to play in each event(EG and Starladder). There need to be 3 or 4 BIG events throughout the year, not as big as the International, but big enough to have larger prize pools and pro casters, that take time and preparation from the teams and that will actually make the players want the championship. Now it is a bunch of tournaments that you either win some money or not. Starladder, Dota Pit, XMG Captains Draft, i-League, masters there are numerous events and qualifiers. In those 3-4 events all teams should gather and find out who the best is atm, just like it is in tennis and one big tournament to end it as The International. Having some tournaments where there is only west teams or east teams is just pointless, the hype is not there anymore, things are starting to blend and as EE said - no one gives a fuck. There is nothing wrong with small tournaments, let them, but let 3-4 BIG ones + The International be the main events. Also the other main thing that ruins the game for me is that the teams are constantly playing each other. Its like watching Real Madrid - Barcelona everyday, will it be fun ? No ! We start to know the teams better than they know themselves. With all the content going on, things will be burnt out quickly and DotA as an esport is getting ruined.
About the casters, they are ubelievably unprofessional at times, I dont have a lot of games of DotA and I know a lot more about it than them. It is good to be prepared guys put some more effort in the thing that you are doing.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
I have to agree on the ticket system and the amount of matches too, BTS was a great event and my god I love BTS but the qualifier stage was excruciatingly long.
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this is definitely a really stupid opinion to have EE. you've made more money in a year than most people by playing games and going to different places. yes there may be pressure to perform well to go to TI5 so perform well and don't flop. don't choke like you do. don't throw like you do.
casting is a valid point; casters can definitely be better. people like sunsfan are funny but have almost zero analytical value. that's okay but probably should try and balance the banter with solid casting a bit better.
look overall; more tournaments is good for the scene in general. there is a balance of supply and demand and soon enough the number of tournaments will reach a roughly stable schedule and number. fans will spend less money per tournament and they will begin to reconsider their strategies and priorities. you're complaining way too early and way too much.
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On December 16 2014 19:18 Laurens wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 19:16 Kraznaya wrote:On December 16 2014 19:13 Laurens wrote:
I'd take that bet any day.
if being in his position is so easy, why havent you done it yet It requires balls of steel to give up on education/job and go pro dota. Alas I don't have them. I respect EE a lot for making the jump and going pro. I do not respect him for this blog.
The reason it requires balls of steel is because having a solid education and a job is so much better than going pro dota.
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Hey dude,
I wish I could see you guys play with the same passion as before. It used to motivate me so much knowing that there were people who were so dedicated to something they love that they'd practice 3 hours a day just to become the best. That made me so motivated to get better at shit I had to deal with in life as well as Dota. Now it's just kinda sad to watch how you guys view the game and don't really have motivation. I could give my opinion on what you guys could do but it would honestly mean nothing since I'm not in any position to say such but I hope you guys find motivation soon.
Honestly, you and Arteezy were my favourite players for a long time just because of the insight and passion you guys brought into the game. I mean seeing your original post, I was pretty skeptical, as I imagine a lot of people were. But as I saw you play in more tournaments, I realized just how much devotion you had to the game. Just how far you were willing to go and how much you put into the game. It was pretty inspiring because honestly it made me think of how I could never do something like that and I wish I could. I admired your tenacity and your courage to pursue something you dreamed of and believed in.
I hope you guys find a solution soon (other than TI5 coming up... I'm sure that's enough motivation once that hits haha). It'd be nice to see you guys tweet about more inspiring shit than just the usual meme shit.
- A fan
P.S. I never buy tournament tickets, because honestly I am poor university student, but I bought the compendium to vote for you guys, and so did many people. Fans are always going to be there as long as you be yourself.
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When will teams start picking their battles and not join every single tournament they can possibly squeeze in into their schedule? That is the biggest problem with the Dota2 scene right now
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Though EE makes some fair points, notably: the casting, he does come off as an entitled bratty kid with this post. He could use a solid dose of pragmatism and someone to bring him back to this planet.
Dota is constantly developing, this year was trashy (also due to meta game), but the amount of money up for grabs between all these tournaments is, in the least, respectable. And should be more than enough to stimulate a healthy professional scene. Unfortunately, though the money is here, the know-how and experience is not.
E-sports in general suffers from a bit of a stigma from other mainstream sports and tv. At the same time its been monopolized by a small elite of people who managed to worm themselves into the scene, and not because they produce quality content, or posses any analytical ability, its more of a right place, right time thing (talking about casters here).
All those casters develop some kind of ego because 50-100k ppl are watching them, so they think they must be saying something good (their not). And now you get tournaments cast by 5 people, analyzed by another 4, presented by another two, just stoopid.
I think a start would be to standardize tournament formats, (like in tennis all the grand slams follow the same seeding, and fixture systems), there can still be difference in tournament set-up.
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Northern Ireland22207 Posts
i dont see how because ee is in a "privileged" position of earning money for playing games, he isn't entitled to air his concerns about his job
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I think its kinda bullshit. There are never enough tournaments, pro's should just stop whining about that. Dont be too greedy and just sign up for less tournaments, maybe then you will care if you win or loose. You are acting like you deserve to be part of every pricepool in dota2 and thats ridiculous.
If the teams decide to not sign up out of greed for every freaking tournament, all the facts stated in this blog would not have happened. Dont redraw reality envy, the only ones that can change almost all of it are the teams themselves.
Edit, small example : Why would almost all the top western teams participate in a mediocre prizepool tournament like dota pit league? http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Dota_Pit_League/Season_2
Only answer is freaking greed, so stop crying.
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You're not forced to participate in X tournaments per year.
In fact smaller and upcoming teams would appreciate if T1 teams pulled out of more tournaments and focused on the biggest ones.
As for casters, yeah, they should read patch notes more and analyse teams better. I think Tobi did it best. Tobi can predict drafting sometimes better than his (pro) co-casters.
Also, a heads up - it's not going to get easier for anyone. If more LGDs, VGs and so on participate in western tournaments, good luck.
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I think Valve's hands-off attitude is starting to show issues, but it doesn't necessarily cause them any more trouble than if they continued to do nothing
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Huge props for throwing it out there, and getting the discussion started.
To those people who say, "Just play in fewer tourneys"--it's not that simple. Entering a tournament is like getting a ticket in a lottery, where the prize is money or exposure. From the team's perspective, it makes sense to participate in as many as possible (since it doesn't cost money). But the PLAYERS and the SCENE suffer as a result.
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On December 16 2014 20:00 WindWolf wrote:
When will teams start picking their battles and not join every single tournament they can possibly squeeze in into their schedule? That is the biggest problem with the Dota2 scene right now
Cause it's a matter of money. The western scene probably doesn't have salaries for players comparable to that of league players competing in LCS. Prize money remains their livelihood. Each tournament they play in represents a possible payday. And, even then, tournament winnings are not just split 5 ways. There's income tax that must be paid, a portion that may be paid out to the team organization, and a separate share that would go to the manager. That $75k that C9 just won at the Summit 2? You're looking at maybe just over take-home of 10k a player, assuming a 20% tax on the gross, and C9 taking 10k for paying the manager and providing various services to the team. You also have to consider that C9 didn't even qualify either - and would have been paid nothing for the month of games in qualifiers they had to play.
With such a top heavy prize distribution, you can't rely on placing 1st in the tournaments you do pick to participate in if you're not by-far-and-far the best.
And for those complaining about how much they get paid: EE lives in Toronto - not a cheap city by any stretch of the word.
Oh, and here's the kicker: Without TI proping them up, C9's winnings this past year, so far, has been about 380000. Sounds like a lot. Again, let's apply 20% tax, 10% of remaining gets paid to organization (and manager), and suddenly, each player is only receiving 55k per year - certainly better than some people, but in the grand scheme of things, not a whole lot either (considering they should be considered near the top!)
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You have rly good points in this blog, but, for the fuck, Envy, you are playing fucking game and rising money. For now you have much more $ then someone of us will have for all his life. WE are going on REAL job every day, doing everything to subsist. Then we coming home after hard day and reading smth about prize money. R u fucking ego or what? Tournament prizepools big enough for your salary and you complaining here about it is not enough for you? Complaining about viewers need to buy more tickets for your fat ass and etc. And what we will eat doesnt care. Pro players the most important thing in life. And fucking yes - $10 in our country too fucking huge number to spend it on nothing helpful for us, especially several times a month. Just fuck yourself, bro.
User was warned for this post
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I agree with govie and zdfgucker that it would be good for the scene if T1 teams pulled out of smaller tournaments but as long as nobody knows how Valve decides who to invite to TI I can't blame anybody. Is every tournament worth the same "points" -> playing every tournament and collecting every 1st to 3rd place is extremely valuable even if you get a few group stage exits in other tournaments.
With 1 standout tournament each year you can't expect pros to willingly lower their chances of getting there.
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On December 16 2014 20:26 Mirray wrote:
You have rly good points in this blog, but, for the fuck, Envy, you are playing fucking game and rising money. For now you have much more $ then someone of us will have for all his life. WE are going on REAL job every day, doing everything to subsist. Then we coming home after hard day and reading smth about prize money. R u fucking ego or what? Tournament prizepools big enough for your salary and you complaining here about it is not enough for you? Complaining about viewers need to buy more tickets for your fat ass and etc. And what we will eat doesnt care. Pro players the most important thing in life. And fucking yes - $10 in our country too fucking huge number to spend it on nothing helpful for us, especially several times a month. Just fuck yourself, bro.
You didn't even read the blog, he's not complaining about prizepool at all, but the conditions he and all the players are facing
Someone just ban this raging kid or something
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Saying the quality of casting in Dota2 is way below other esports is pretty ridiculous, honestly. First I will acknowledge that there are a lot of casters who are less knowledgeable than we would like. But I watch a lot of different esports and most of the casting is either overhyped trash ("WOW! SUCH PLAY! AMAZING! FANTASTIC! HOLY SHIT!" about totally mundane stuff) which is the result of certain interested parties controlling the scene, or at least as ignorant as some of the more prominent examples you get in Dota2 (or a combination of the two).
When Dota2 casters are knowledgeable, they tend to either be boring or, in their supreme knowledge of the game, say total nonsense that is quickly shown to not be the case. Prime example? You, Envy-kun. You're a highly experienced player with a huge amount of game knowledge in your head, but your in-game analysis - the synthesis of all these facts you impressively bring up - is frequently crap. Most pros are like this. It is extraordinarily rare that casters are knowledgeable AND interesting to listen to AND not consistently fucking wrong in their analysis.
And it's super neat, as someone who makes six digits, to lean back and go "yeah, the casters sure aren't doing an adequate job," but how much are they getting paid? How much of their real-cost-of-labor is being paid instead of to them, to you? Have you ever even bothered to find out?
Live broadcasting is very difficult. There's a reason that people get paid quite a lot for it when they are good at it. And guess what? The Dota2 scene, mostly, isn't doing that right now, either from lack of available money or lack of available give-a-fucks.
The pro player scene is maturing to the point that it is supporting a good number of players with real money. Casting, on the other hand, is still very much in the "love of the game" stage. So go flame someone else for "not caring." Casters are there for us, the fans, not for you. Judge them on that basis. They're getting paid a lot less to show up a hell of a lot more consistently than many of you "top" teams.
And for those complaining about how much they get paid: EE lives in Toronto - not a cheap city by any stretch of the word.
Sorry but if you make most of your money online or in locations you are flown to you get zero sympathy for living in an expensive city.
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Pointless question - why is EE's hero set to lich? (like, did it default to that or did he actually set it to lich?)
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On December 16 2014 20:24 dizzy101 wrote:
Huge props for throwing it out there, and getting the discussion started.
To those people who say, "Just play in fewer tourneys"--it's not that simple. Entering a tournament is like getting a ticket in a lottery, where the prize is money or exposure. From the team's perspective, it makes sense to participate in as many as possible (since it doesn't cost money). But the PLAYERS and the SCENE suffer as a result.
it doesn't cost money but it isn't free either, exactly because it takes up a lot of time. They could instead use this time to relax and prepare better for the more important tournaments and thereby increase their expected share of the prize money. There is clear scientific evidence that being overworked reduces overall performance and productivity.
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Lalalaland34486 Posts
On December 16 2014 20:40 Nevuk wrote:
Pointless question - why is EE's hero set to lich? (like, did it default to that or did he actually set it to lich?)
People are randomly assigned heroes at the beginning and EE probably hasn't changed it.
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Well besides his point about whining or what not, I think the biggest problem is just the simple fact that it's exhuasting as a viewer to follow all the tournaments.
That point really gets lost between everything else
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On December 16 2014 20:45 Firebolt145 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 20:40 Nevuk wrote:
Pointless question - why is EE's hero set to lich? (like, did it default to that or did he actually set it to lich?) People are randomly assigned heroes at the beginning and EE probably hasn't changed it.
Yeah, that's what I assumed. Just thought it was funny as I don't think I've ever even heard of him playing lich.
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Awesome read. Gets right to the point of it.
Thanks for sharing
EDIT: I think personally I would enjoy top-tier teams playing less because it increases the excitement factor. Over the past 2 months I watched a shitton of pro dota due to illness and I barely ever got really into it. The closest was the summit 2 (having players as casters helped a lot), but I never felt that 'holy shit this is going to be awesome' feeling
I am very down with reducing the amount of tourneys pro players have to play and allowing pro players to take a more focused approach to the game, not only does this produce higher quality games, but also showcases a more cerebral side of DotA in which strategies become more intricate.
That would be cool
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DIRECT SEEDING is really an important partial solution to some of these troubles.
Some tournaments already do that, but more should do it. Starladder and Dreamhack and ESL etc. should just directly invite the best 2 or 3 teams, and hold qualifiers for the other teams. Complexity and Balkan Bears and Basically Unknown should have to play in these qualifiers, and not EG or C9 or Secret.
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Football from a swedes perspective:
World Championships
European Cahmpionships
Swedish Chamionships
Champions League
On top of this, there's each national league if you care to follow it.
None of these collide, and if they do, the teams are in different leagues so it wont matter for the teams. It's sad for the viewer but that's a minor issue. Too much footie is'nt bad is it?
Dota from a swedes perspective:
The International
BTS
WEC
Starseries
Dotapit
Dota2 league
Dreamleague
... just to mention a few.
The International (WC if u will), is played once a year compared to footie's once every 4 years.
Most of the other tournaments collides and many teams attend to most of them. This is the biggest issue i believe.
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With a lot of people talking about "you are not forced to participate in every tournament", I started wondering whether the number of LANs even is really the issue. I feel the problem may be more with every LAN having a long qualifier, and hence all the top teams that actually make it to the LAN have to play official games almost the very next day they get back. There is no time to cool off for the teams nor the fans of these teams after a big LAN.
Having watched Thorin's video on the matter, I think a proper seeding system could easily solve many issues. Let's take the Summit case as an example. Because EG won the first Summit, they invited them directly to the second one. Why don't more events do this sort of thing? Why should EG, the team that won the previous SL and a bunch of other events this fall, be forced to play the qualifiers again to get to SL LAN? The teams that consistently travel the most are the ones who are some of the most successful, and their schedule would be far easier if their good success in one tournament would be rewarded with a direct invite to the LAN of the next iteration of the event. Sadly because many LANs are pretty small in terms of the number of teams, it's hard to expand this to more than 2 teams per event (in a 16 team event one could comfortably invite 4 or more and still have a lot of room for qualifiers).
But if tournament sizes would allow it, a simple invite system based on previous performances for a part of the spots would solve a bunch of issues. The top teams wouldn't clash all that often online so there is more hype left for the LANs. There is actual excitement in the qualifiers to see who is going to take it instead of now that it's more if the favorites play, they also qualify. Or at least if you put teams through qualifiers, does it really have to be a round robin where everyone plays everyone? Why can't it be a properly seeded bracket where the top seeded teams only join the qualifier in later rounds? Because of their success in actually getting to the LAN and placing well (and then being forced to travel), they are awarded with getting some time off and only joining the qualifier in the later rounds against the teams that won the more open portion.
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On December 16 2014 20:28 smr wrote:
but as long as nobody knows how Valve decides who to invite to TI I can't blame anybody. Is every tournament worth the same "points" -> playing every tournament and collecting every 1st to 3rd place is extremely valuable even if you get a few group stage exits in other tournaments.
With 1 standout tournament each year you can't expect pros to willingly lower their chances of getting there.
Thats why blizzard and riot setups for a proscene are superior to dota's setup, because dota's ticketsystem doesn't favor these kind of "a monopolist is guiding the season kinda setups". If valve openly states the ti-points for tournaments, it would affect the worth of a ticket in the stores directly, valve can never do that as it would kill their own marketplace.
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On December 16 2014 20:49 spudde123 wrote:
With a lot of people talking about "you are not forced to participate in every tournament", I started wondering whether the number of LANs even is really the issue. I feel the problem may be more with every LAN having a long qualifier, and hence all the top teams that actually make it to the LAN have to play official games almost the very next day they get back. There is no time to cool off for the teams nor the fans of these teams after a big LAN.
Having watched Thorin's video on the matter, I think a proper seeding system could easily solve many issues. Let's take the Summit case as an example. Because EG won the first Summit, they invited them directly to the second one. Why don't more events do this sort of thing? Why should EG, the team that won the previous SL and a bunch of other events this fall, be forced to play the qualifiers again to get to SL LAN? The teams that consistently travel the most are the ones who are some of the most successful, and their schedule would be far easier if their good success in one tournament would be rewarded with a direct invite to the LAN of the next iteration of the event. Sadly because many LANs are pretty small in terms of the number of teams, it's hard to expand this to more than 2 teams per event (in a 16 team event one could comfortably invite 4 or more and still have a lot of room for qualifiers).
But if tournament sizes would allow it, a simple invite system based on previous performances for a part of the spots would solve a bunch of issues. The top teams wouldn't clash all that often online so there is more hype left for the LANs. There is actual excitement in the qualifiers to see who is going to take it instead of now that it's more if the favorites play, they also qualify. Or at least if you put teams through qualifiers, does it really have to be a round robin where everyone plays everyone? Why can't it be a properly seeded bracket where the top seeded teams only join the qualifier in later rounds? Because of their success in actually getting to the LAN and placing well (and then being forced to travel), they are awarded with getting some time off and only joining the qualifier in the later rounds against the teams that won the more open portion.
Seems delusional like envy if you ask me, haha (joke ofc) 
Less matches, means less ticketsales, means lower prizepools means EE blog whining about prizepools.
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On the subject of caster quality, I do personally feel that Dors2-casts in general are miles ahead of FGC casts. I can't think of any FGC cast that actually explains what really happens in the game, they always assume that you know exactly how everything works. For example, I can't think of a single Killer Instinct cast that explains (for new players) how combo breakers and counter breakers works or what each character's instinct does. To mention a few.
Dota casts in general do a good job of explaining what's happening
On December 16 2014 20:24 accophox wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 20:00 WindWolf wrote:
When will teams start picking their battles and not join every single tournament they can possibly squeeze in into their schedule? That is the biggest problem with the Dota2 scene right now Cause it's a matter of money. The western scene probably doesn't have salaries for players comparable to that of league players competing in LCS. Prize money remains their livelihood. Each tournament they play in represents a possible payday. And, even then, tournament winnings are not just split 5 ways. There's income tax that must be paid, a portion that may be paid out to the team organization, and a separate share that would go to the manager. That $75k that C9 just won at the Summit 2? You're looking at maybe just over take-home of 10k a player, assuming a 20% tax on the gross, and C9 taking 10k for paying the manager and providing various services to the team. You also have to consider that C9 didn't even qualify either - and would have been paid nothing for the month of games in qualifiers they had to play. With such a top heavy prize distribution, you can't rely on placing 1st in the tournaments you do pick to participate in if you're not by-far-and-far the best. And for those complaining about how much they get paid: EE lives in Toronto - not a cheap city by any stretch of the word. Oh, and here's the kicker: Without TI proping them up, C9's winnings this past year, so far, has been about 380000. Sounds like a lot. Again, let's apply 20% tax, 10% of remaining gets paid to organization (and manager), and suddenly, each player is only receiving 55k per year - certainly better than some people, but in the grand scheme of things, not a whole lot either (considering they should be considered near the top!)
That might be true, but on the other hand, will the scene be healthy in the long run bt having teams signing up for every single tournament, even those who they can't fit into their schedule?
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On December 16 2014 20:57 govie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 20:49 spudde123 wrote:
With a lot of people talking about "you are not forced to participate in every tournament", I started wondering whether the number of LANs even is really the issue. I feel the problem may be more with every LAN having a long qualifier, and hence all the top teams that actually make it to the LAN have to play official games almost the very next day they get back. There is no time to cool off for the teams nor the fans of these teams after a big LAN.
Having watched Thorin's video on the matter, I think a proper seeding system could easily solve many issues. Let's take the Summit case as an example. Because EG won the first Summit, they invited them directly to the second one. Why don't more events do this sort of thing? Why should EG, the team that won the previous SL and a bunch of other events this fall, be forced to play the qualifiers again to get to SL LAN? The teams that consistently travel the most are the ones who are some of the most successful, and their schedule would be far easier if their good success in one tournament would be rewarded with a direct invite to the LAN of the next iteration of the event. Sadly because many LANs are pretty small in terms of the number of teams, it's hard to expand this to more than 2 teams per event (in a 16 team event one could comfortably invite 4 or more and still have a lot of room for qualifiers).
But if tournament sizes would allow it, a simple invite system based on previous performances for a part of the spots would solve a bunch of issues. The top teams wouldn't clash all that often online so there is more hype left for the LANs. There is actual excitement in the qualifiers to see who is going to take it instead of now that it's more if the favorites play, they also qualify. Or at least if you put teams through qualifiers, does it really have to be a round robin where everyone plays everyone? Why can't it be a properly seeded bracket where the top seeded teams only join the qualifier in later rounds? Because of their success in actually getting to the LAN and placing well (and then being forced to travel), they are awarded with getting some time off and only joining the qualifier in the later rounds against the teams that won the more open portion.
Seems delusional like envy if you ask me, haha (joke ofc) Less matches, means less ticketsales, means lower prizepools means EE blog whining about prizepools.
Is "number of matches" actually a selling point that works? Honest question, my personal views on what is interesting and what should sell in my perfect world are probably pretty different from reality.
But if that is actually the case, then I feel the teams have to go to a direction where they simply show that they prefer events that are concentrated on well executed LAN events, and drop events with a 2 month long online qualifier that sells itself to viewers by having 200 matches played. As is obvious they simply can't play many tournaments that have that kind of a structure, whereas LAN concentrated events with short qualifiers (or invites for the better teams) are probably far easier.
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off season?
trading window with roster locks?
private (no spectating) pro-team mm ladder with TI invites on the line?
stop the players from changing their names all the time...
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On December 16 2014 20:49 govie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 20:28 smr wrote:
but as long as nobody knows how Valve decides who to invite to TI I can't blame anybody. Is every tournament worth the same "points" -> playing every tournament and collecting every 1st to 3rd place is extremely valuable even if you get a few group stage exits in other tournaments.
With 1 standout tournament each year you can't expect pros to willingly lower their chances of getting there. Thats why blizzard and riot setups for a proscene are superior to dota's setup, because dota's ticketsystem doesn't favor these kind of "a monopolist is guiding the season kinda setups". If valve openly states the ti-points for tournaments, it would affect the worth of a ticket in the stores directly, valve can never do that as it would kill their own marketplace.
Is that why SC2 is rapidly declining in success and the other Blizzard Esport titles and meh at best? It's widely known who the best western teams are, even if C9 only participated in, say, 4 major tournaments in 2014 instead of ~10.
Player conditions can be improved by having someone represent the players, yeah. But managers are not powerless either. Communicate and if needed, boycott a certain tournament. Or several.
Artificially controlling tournaments, especially by Valve, seems stupid. Teams should choose their tournaments better and openly give feedback or boycott. If you don't do that, then that's your own fault and you're not in any position to complain.
stop the players from changing their names all the time...
Good point, actually. Player names often are VERY immature also. Just thinking of all these anime waifu names from EE makes me cringe.
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Well it's difficult... I don't think there are too many tournaments. But the qualifier for all of them can be a problem. For example we saw that for DH! But also sometimes I don't think tournament organizers are really taking other tournaments into account. Maybe it is really the grab for a pice of the (money)pie! Even now Valve with their TI5 are getting into this with their June qualifiers!
While I'm not really against multiple tournaments at the same time, the teams should split up a little ... but then maybe it's a thing about money again: If there are (example) two tournaments at the same time. Does a team only try to qualify (sic) for one of them - maybe usually the one where you could get more money - or both, if you don't manage to get the cut for the "first" (because other Tier1 teams are competing)? If you try for both it can happen, that you are in on both and then you have very little time for all your games or even have to drop out of one - which makes this system crazy stupid!
I never see such things in some rules, so I have to ask: How is it, if a team drops out "without reason" ("... sorry, we have to go to the finals of another tournament!"). I, as an organizer would put in my rules, that the teams/players have to play or have to pay a kind a serious fine! (if there are true reasons, like a player is in a car crash, broke an arm and can't play for a month, this is dropped of course). So teams have to think a little bit more before joining a tournament!
Some teams already are starting to select more! maybe this turns all out ok by itself!
The other thing about the casters. Yeah ... recently I often think two things:
1. ah, those casters again... do they everything? and 2. who and what is this crap?
So basically I'm bored or annoyed! Seriously: The community (or whoever) made so much fuzz about Sheever and because of that "today" she is rarely seen and if then as "host" but not as a caster. But if I compare her to some of the people casting high-priced tournaments ... I really would like her back! I actually never understood the troubles; she has a nice voice and I like listening to her! Maybe she is not that deep into the details ... but who cares, which is maybe the problem EE says: Yes, casters know not that much; or let's say, most of them. But that is not the real problem!
If I may switch games for a moment, my favourite caster-duo is probably "Tastosis" (Tastless and Artosis for you SC ignorant  ). And I like them, because they work so well together! While both were quite good players themself - so they know stuff! - one (Tasteless) is the entertainer and one (Artosis) is the analyst! And if EE adresses the thing with Pros casting with casters (how that sounds), he wants something like that! And it is true: There are few real knowledgable casters, that really could need a Pro on their side; but as already mentioned, not every pro is "caster material". Maybe they know better but can't explain it or talk "in front of a crowd". If I can switch to SC one more time: One pro player that could do that was/is actually IdrA (now playing heroes of the storm)! He was rare on casting duties but even his haters hat to admit his cool, direct, analysis were incredible!
But who is there in DotA? I didn't really follow "The Summit 2" with all those players on the microphone. Who stood out as great caster material!?
Ok, this getting too long... maybe later more...
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I don't have any real disagreement with Envy. The scene is obviously over-saturated.
I do have to side with the "casting really is exhausting" side of things though. I do think some casters aren't performing to their optimal levels, but the same could be said for some players. In solo-casts filling dead-air; 30 seconds or longer without hearing someone tends to make people think there isn't even a caster, even if there really isn't anything going on in the game that's worth commenting on - it's why you hear strange tangents in solo casts and duo casts. Duo casts have gotten a bit off-topic more-so than normal recently, probably the saturation effect.
In duo casts it's already come up in the thread, when there is a lack of synergy between two people. Even if you know someone fairly well outside of casting when they do a cast nerves can make them act a little wonky. Most casters also do their own observing, splitting the effort merely between the observing in a hectic game without making viewers ill is a skill that has to be learned and casting is a gargantuan effort. Part of the attraction of a duo-cast is that it mitigates this a bit by letting one person speak less and observe the map more. There's also the differentiation between the drafting phase casting and in-game phase - it's two separate knowledge bases. A lot of the dumbest things casters say are during the drafting phase where a pro could rapidly correct them, but it comes back to the dead-air thing. If a team takes their maximum time on their second ban then there's really not a ton to talk about while the timer counts down, but generally speaking people want to hear some analysis (especially if they paid for a ticket for a tournament that has said it has casters).
To properly cast a high level game you have to be familiar with every t1 player in the scene (because of frequent stand-ins, this has to be known more than just overall team stuff. hell, even knowing who the common stand-ins are is useful), their idiosyncracies, specific habits, hero builds/trends, etc. There are tools now that help with this but it's one thing to look at datdota and notice that venge is getting picked a lot and another to know if the higher priority of picking VS is affecting the draft early or late into the draft. If illidan's team drafts him dragon knight I'm going to sit around puzzled when he doesn't skill breathe fire unless I know that that's his standard personal build (which everyone and their mother has criticized so I think he doesn't play DK at all anymore). Now, all of that research and effort is negated when you cast the same team 15x in a row (as I'm sure has occurred at certain tournaments, or even without being a specific tournament. I know casters have gone from casting the same teams playing two bo3 in a single day one after another for separate tournaments with the same casters). After the fifth game you probably aren't going to be wondering who their mid is.
If I were a caster I would probably be pretty awful. I'm not someone who hypes very well, I don't watch every pro-game ever, have a bad habit of letting dead-air occur, my play by play is weak and I am probably notoriously difficult to synergize with. And my camera work leaves plenty to be desired.
(I did very briefly do casting a long time ago for TL IH for a short while after ti1, when tl ih were actually a thing- my voice is decent but there's no pay and wasn't really any incentive and in that case RL took over - I would love to cast but I'm probably going to be evicted if I don't find a job in a week so it's basically more of pipe dream fantasy than normal and I've just been bounced from this situation to the next situation like it for the past four years).
On players changing their name all the time, Valve seems to already have a system being moved into place to deal with that, where you can only change names every two weeks officially and it appends sponsor names etc. to your profile.
I have heard negative rumors that lumi was told NOT to do research after he moved studios as part of why dreamleague was so bad, but eh. Just rumors to my knowledge.
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On December 16 2014 20:35 Hds wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 20:26 Mirray wrote:
You have rly good points in this blog, but, for the fuck, Envy, you are playing fucking game and rising money. For now you have much more $ then someone of us will have for all his life. WE are going on REAL job every day, doing everything to subsist. Then we coming home after hard day and reading smth about prize money. R u fucking ego or what? Tournament prizepools big enough for your salary and you complaining here about it is not enough for you? Complaining about viewers need to buy more tickets for your fat ass and etc. And what we will eat doesnt care. Pro players the most important thing in life. And fucking yes - $10 in our country too fucking huge number to spend it on nothing helpful for us, especially several times a month. Just fuck yourself, bro. You didn't even read the blog, he's not complaining about prizepool at all, but the conditions he and all the players are facing Someone just ban this raging kid or something
As u can see not only one subject affected in this post. So you may just gtfo if you are a mindless parrot.
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I understand the majority of what he's saying here, but I really think he should have avoided the caster bashing. The casters have to be under a similar level of pressure with the increased amount of coverage they have to provide. Is the quality of casts lower? I couldn't really say, but I think it's a bit disingenuous to assume that the casters and casting studios aren't experiencing the same pressure of competition and workload as the players.
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On December 16 2014 18:37 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 18:16 ItsMeDomLee wrote:
Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI?
No. None of you take that bet because C9 getting invited is practically guaranteed. As is Secret, as is EG, VG, IG, LGD etc etc etc etc.
If you're burned out from playing too much, play less. Are there too many (premier) tournaments? Maybe. But don't feed BS about how you HAVE to play them. Most teams don't even practice so these tournament matches are essentially their practice. Dear lord. I don't think this is the case. If we look at TI4, there were 6 European teams present: c9, NaVi, Alliance, mouz, Empire and Fnatic. After TI4 everyone had roster changes, and then we have new teams for all of these organizations (except Mouz) as well as Secret and Team Tinker, and some potential challengers. With c9's online playing conditions their qualification to events from EU qualifiers isn't always guaranteed: they've even failed to qualify to SL (though got in after Chinese teams dropped out) and Summit (got in through the redemption vote). If you originally make the decision to just skip a bunch of events, you also take the risk that you either don't qualify partly because of your ping issues, or that you just play poorly at the LAN or have bad bracket draw, and suddenly your results are few and extremely mediocre. It's easy to say now that EG, Secret and c9 have been the top3 western teams after TI and they can afford to skip events. How about TT? Or NaVi? Or VP.P? Or VP? Or Empire who seems to have won a few games the last few days? How do you separate these teams from one another? They all want to prove themselves. Right after TI nothing was guaranteed for c9 either, they had to play events so that they guarantee they get the results they need.
i think valve should make the invitation process more transparent so that teams have some kind of security where they stand. they dont need to enclose everything, but an official statement on how many teams of each region are going to the next(!) years international and when the invites are handed out would help a lot. the last years the TI always had a 7/7 split with one additional seed for the last years winner. it was always 2 NA/SEA teams and 5 EU/China and i will bet my ass of that this wasnt a coincidence.
if valve would publicly anounce that the best 5 european teams will be invited and the evaluation period is from this years international until the first week of may the next year when the invites are handed out, teams have a pretty solid picture of how their chances are. C9, VG, EG are so far ahead of everyone else in terms of achievments compared to the other teams in their region that they really dont have to play anything at all and they would still be invited, because there isnt any american team that can surpass EG and there arent 5 european teams that can surpass c9 in the upcoming 6 month. But there is a lot of uncertainty and because TI is so big, i can understand when teams dont want to take the risk.
the oversaturation thing i still dont really see as a threat. it will solve itself automaticly over time one way or another, either with a lot of dying tournaments or with a diversification of the tournaments in regards to prestige. what kills a lot of hype though is that the quality of tournaments has not developed at all in the last two years. the tournaments are better off financially now than they were back in 2012. teams dont have to cover their own travel costs which leads to a lot of international tournaments, less last minute drop outs and less "i have never heard of these BYOC-teams, but they go 0-3 anyway" teams. but the quality hasnt improved one bit, not from the organisations perspective (day 1 issues, terrible fantasy scheduling, no pre-prepared content for waiting times) and not from the casters as well. the BTS casting at the summit was no different from any online match they did in the last year except for the rare occasions where they had a good pro insight, but that wasnt always the case and even less on the first day.
lan tournaments completely fail to distinguish themself from one another and they fail to deliver storylines. you dont create a storyline by putting two guys in front of a desk and let them talk about this random dota match that is going to happen right now in LA/Frankfurt/New York/ Jönköping. what they really should do is capture the drawn out online qualifiers in nice, short clips to see what the teams at the finals went through to be there. add interviews about the hopes and fears of the players and then create something of value in your tournaments.
dont rent a venue, dont do shit before the first game starts, pray to gaben that everything went well and call it a massive success even though no one is gonna remember your shitty event except for the one reason it really stands out: it was shitty as fuck and couldnt even compare to a preschool play.
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On December 16 2014 19:06 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 18:16 ItsMeDomLee wrote:
Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI? Would anyone here have bet 1000 dollars that EG wouldn't get a direct invite for TI3 six months before the invites were handed out? If you don't play a couple of tournaments and then flop in one or two that you DO play, yes, your TI invite may very well be jeopardized.
Are you insinuating that Dota 2 is a game of chance? That's what it sounds like. It's not, "Oh, we did poorly in this tournament and ended up not qualifying; thank God we're playing in two more that we can get decent results in!" Dota isn't like that. The good teams that matter (read: top 8 at TI) will be consistently good and near the top.
EG chose to (because of personnel issues that have been well documented by now) not practice before any lans whatsoever while also withdrawing from certain tournaments. The result? They tanked and lost everything that they played in. They didn't get invited because they weren't good enough and it showed in the qualification matches when they couldn't get through. It's not a coincidence that Demon STILL can't find a team despite being one of the more talented NA players.
Also, by playing in less tournaments, C9 should naturally care more about the ones that they DO play in and do better as a result. EE's argument is that they don't care about the games that they play because they play too many. The obvious way to fix that is to play in less tournaments and care about the games that you do play. I don't see how this is debatable.
Edit: On the subject of casting, the reason why certain casters who are knowledgeable about the game don't go full hard on "Everyone look at me and bask in my knowledge" is because a lot of the times that will just make you look stupid. Take for example Envy casting during the phase 2 mini-lan portion of DH in one of Alliance's games where he made himself look like the biggest jackass by managing to be 100% wrong about the entire game while essentially foaming at the mouth at how Alliance were giving up on the game and not playing properly. Although I could understand some of the points he was trying to get across, he was far too patronizing of the players and the strategies that they used and only managed to predict everything wrong and look stupid.
I don't disagree that more insight could be shown in certain timing windows of lineups and the way that teams approach the game but I honestly don't think the BTS studio is that bad. Godz and LD typically do an acceptable job in most of the games that they cast.
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Imo the problem is more that all tournaments look the same, the tournaments for which I was the most hyped was the captain's draft and I believe it was the same for a lot of us. Many tournaments is not a bad thing if it's not some copy pasted tournaments. The scene is not really pyramidal, it looks more like there is an horizontal top made of teams we see in every tournaments. A kespa/blizzard/riot system would be better but valve does not want it this way, it happened naturally when sponsors could not pay too much travel expenses back then. There is no real solution atm.
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EE-sama speaks the truth.
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On December 16 2014 21:51 ItsMeDomLee wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 19:06 Talin wrote:On December 16 2014 18:16 ItsMeDomLee wrote:
Just don't play in as many tournaments then. Envy's "reasoning" for why teams are forced to play is complete bullshit. Would anyone here bet 1000 dollars that C9 won't get a direct invite if they only play in 50% of the upcoming tournaments leading up to TI? Would anyone here have bet 1000 dollars that EG wouldn't get a direct invite for TI3 six months before the invites were handed out? If you don't play a couple of tournaments and then flop in one or two that you DO play, yes, your TI invite may very well be jeopardized. Are you insinuating that Dota 2 is a game of chance? That's what it sounds like. It's not, "Oh, we did poorly in this tournament and ended up not qualifying; thank God we're playing in two more that we can get decent results in!" Dota isn't like that. The good teams that matter (read: top 8 at TI) will be consistently good and near the top. EG chose to (because of personnel issues that have been well documented by now) not practice before any lans whatsoever while also withdrawing from certain tournaments. The result? They tanked and lost everything that they played in. They didn't get invited because they weren't good enough and it showed in the qualification matches when they couldn't get through. It's not a coincidence that Demon STILL can't find a team despite being one of the more talented NA players. Also, by playing in less tournaments, C9 should naturally care more about the ones that they DO play in and do better as a result. EE's argument is that they don't care about the games that they play because they play too many. The obvious way to fix that is to play in less tournaments and care about the games that you do play. I don't see how this is debatable. Edit: On the subject of casting, the reason why certain casters who are knowledgeable about the game don't go full hard on "Everyone look at me and bask in my knowledge" is because a lot of the times that will just make you look stupid. Take for example Envy casting during the phase 2 mini-lan portion of DH in one of Alliance's games where he made himself look like the biggest jackass by managing to be 100% wrong about the entire game while essentially foaming at the mouth at how Alliance were giving up on the game and not playing properly. Although I could understand some of the points he was trying to get across, he was far too patronizing of the players and the strategies that they used and only managed to predict everything wrong and look stupid. I don't disagree that more insight could be shown in certain timing windows of lineups and the way that teams approach the game but I honestly don't think the BTS studio is that bad. Godz and LD typically do an acceptable job in most of the games that they cast.
At TI4 there were 5 Chinese teams in top8. So that leaves 3 western teams. I can now be captain hindsight and say that it is clear that these 3 are EG, Secret and c9 this year, but was this something the teams could count on when they formed their lineups? What if the the top3-7 turned out to be relatively close this year in the west? Imo not skipping events right from the start is completely understandable because of this uncertainty for starters. And if we go below the top3, qualifying for a lot of LANs gets a lot more difficult, so participating in everything in the hopes of succeeding a few times to get to LAN and prove your worth is even more vital. Qualification for a LAN can be a question of winning one bo1 or one bo3, and there simply are uncertainties involved when we are talking about these sorts of situations.
I also maintain that there is a pretty clear difference in games the teams actually want to play, and the games tournaments make them play. Whether one team is better than another should be measured on LAN, where both teams have the same conditions and there often is hype through the live audience. Playing these games for the players is also very different from playing group stage game #99. I think teams may be willing to participate in a certain number of LANs per a few months, but it becomes a problem when to get to each of these LANs they have to play long qualifiers. There are no seeding systems in dota that help with this sort of thing, allowing the more successful teams to skip at least a part of the qualifiers so that they get their time to be in the dark, rest or practice and build hype for future encounters.
Concerning the casting, I don't think the level of game analysis is even the biggest thing. I feel with good research to set the basis for the matchup at hand you can go a long way. You can tell the viewers how the matchup has ended previously (often casters don't even know this correctly or don't even talk about this sort of thing at LAN finals, which I can't really comprehend), what sort of trends there are in the drafts for the individual teams and specifically when facing each other, whatever else there may be. I start getting annoyed when we have a LAN final and people can't properly present the context for the game, and any game analysis after that is sort of secondary. I feel for a casual viewer the general context for the game is also far more important, as it's easier to relate to some general storylines over specific tactical aspects inside the game. Of course I understand that for online games it's a bit too much to expect casters to do a lot if they cast 8 straight games every day or whatever, but for LANs I would really appreciate some visible preparation.
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it is pretty crazy for the amount of money that is in play every year that there is no formalised union/association. i guess it is bit difficult given the teams are global and variations in law. but still...god damn. players have so little power and influence
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i fully agree with you Envy.
you took time to stand up and voice up for things that were painfully obvious.
amongst too many tournaments (SHITTY ADMINS)
too many useless casters just farting snorting nonsense filling air with sideshow jokes instead of real knowledge
2015. time to clean up the dota scene.
as for me. i couldn't care less about dota2 anymore. i'm bored of it. it's retarded. meta's retarded. 6.83 is meh.
everyone needs a break to clear themselves up.
and if it comes down to it. i rather support the actual players themselves.
to me the players are the most important. and treatment of players most important.
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Good Blog
I would love to see a Blog like this written by an oldschool gamer, a men whos in the pro scene since always
like puppey
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'Why are they insulting the players about things they don't know anything about with their arrogant looks?"
To be honest, this is the case in most sports. Casters have to have an opinion, and sometimes (often) it will be wrong, but thats what the analyst is there for. And even if they both get it wrong, they at least get you thinking about this or that item choice / build order / strategy etc...
That's what casting is about: entertaining, yes, but most importantly provoke a discussion, a debate. This is why play by play on its own is so god damn useless.
I can understand how from a player's point of view it can be frustrating to be criticized by a person that supposedly knows less about the game, but if that person wasn't there stating his opinion, most of us wouldn't even think about all these small details
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Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong.
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Wall of text inc
+ Show Spoiler +I think there's a lot we can learn from the LoL scene regarding our oversaturation, and I think Valve is partially responsible for the lack of a solution. As EE said, the reason we don't see T1 teams protesting smaller tournaments like Dotapit and arguably even DL is the fact that they need to prove themselves for TI. It still dominates the year, and players will do anything to attend.
In Riot's system (LCS?), the top teams only compete in their system, leaving tournament like MLG available for T2 teams to make a name for themselves. This would be analogous to Complexity's win turning them into a team that can try to get into the T1 scene. Instead, it's just another game lost in a massive ocean of other games.
I think part of the answer relies on how the rest of the year is all just a prelude to TI. Since there's already clear schedule conflicts (evident by all the LANs EE mentioned in the last 50 days and all of the withdrawals from tournaments by teams), Valve should select a few major tournament brands (ESL, MLG, Starladder, WPC, maybe one or two more) and say "these are the tournaments that factor into TI invitations", then the top teams won't have to burn out from playing in other leagues, making room for T2 teams to prove themselves in other arenas and giving certain leagues more gravity than others for the T1's.
The abundance of tickets and bundles makes me upset, but honestly it's not that big a deal if organizers ticket buyers aren't concerned with watching thousands of qualifier matches. Like EE said, viewers are more interested in cosmetics and goodies than they are watching 102314 games per tournament. The TI4 compendium made it pretty clear that hats are what we want most.
I get that Valve has been hands off and wants the scene to build itself up, but they're really underestimating how the drive to make TI is killing some of these teams, and how every small tournament is able to force the attention of top teams because of the desire to get invited. Until another tournament or organization can match the importance of TI, they need to narrow down the ocean of tournaments that can factor into an invite into a more manageable size
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On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong.
Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby.
The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty.
But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons.
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![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/dwX3N/7b886747f0.png)
rtz response
relevant shit i think
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
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On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong.
I don't think anyone said that casters should have pro level knowledge. Imo the big practical problem for casters as well is that their schedules are often very chaotic. With taking care of your business, casting a lot of games, doing tournament admining, handling sponsors, whatever you may do, expecting them to do research on team matchups, drafts, study games thoroughly, and also play themselves quite a bit so that their intuitive understanding of the game is on a good level is a lot to ask. Especially when they are casting online games, but in LANs I feel more preparation would be more feasible. This doesn't mean that the level is satisfactory, but there are just some issues with the number of casters used and the number of games having to be casted (and other work to be done).
And another thing is that I don't think there really is an "analyst" in dota who is established and setting the bar high for others to follow. If we even talk about the research part which doesn't require you to have pro level understanding of the game itself, I don't think I've ever seen a dota cast where I've been really impressed by someone who knows what has happened between these two teams before, how exactly have they performed recently, how have their drafts been, etc. Sure, casters or panelists may at times talk about some of this, but pretty much always either vaguely, not accurately providing the full information, or just plain incorrectly.
Personally I feel that if you do preparation for your casts, give accurate information about the teams, you can often easily draw storylines for viewers to follow throughout the series. Whether your analysis during a game is excellent is almost secondary after you as a caster set the stage for viewers to enjoy the matchup. But for me if the caster screws up the beginning, no amount of reasonable game analysis is going to save the lost opportunity.
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I think EE's points are mostly good, especially I agree with his points to casters these days (feels like BTS casts everything and most of the time its not godz or LD who i personally like)
But in oversaturation I agree with Thorin way more, video+ Show Spoiler + , and is a problem that should solve itself with players declining to participate and players shouldn't feel bad about declining a tournament (even if a team wants exposure etc). Unfortunately I totally understand the opinion about how teams are afraid of not getting invited to The International, which valve should make more clear.
Anyways, nice read!
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First off this to me seems like a normal issue to have. The scene has a lot of potential and a lot of money pumped into it which means there is an unsustainable bubble building at the moment. The bubble will burst and then (hopefully) the scene will settle. Keep in mind that this is not a given when the SC2 bubble burst the scene collapsed to some extent.
To me the answer is tier 2 teams and the solution is the big name teams. EE points out there are too many tournaments , you can't prepare for them all and most are not exactly fantastically organized. Then stop going to them , pick the ones that fit your schedule and treat you well and attend those. The rest , well that's where the T2 teams come in , let them play on a big stage. It gives them exposure to the fanbase and it allows them to compete for good money which will promote stability. Yes that tournament won't have the highest viewing numbers and the prizepool will be smaller but that's ok it's fine to have tournaments which are smaller , at the moment you either have small regional leagues or tournaments with tier1 teams , where is our second division ? Starladder has made this attempt , at having 3 divisions with teams going up or down between them , and it would work , if it was only Starladder. This isn't a pretty solution in the sense that some tournaments will over stretch and fail but that's the bubble bursting and it's unavoidable. The answer has to be with the T1 organizations not just signing up to every tournament imaginable.
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On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons.
I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals).
The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2.
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On December 16 2014 22:31 VelJa wrote:
Good Blog
I would love to see a Blog like this written by an oldschool gamer, a men whos in the pro scene since always
like puppey
Part of the way that Puppey keeps his public profile is to not post like this. I respect the guy and it's a different approach.
Puppey's whole players association and Secret's early dropping of tournaments is indicative of how he actually supports EE's view
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On December 16 2014 23:14 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons. I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals). The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2.
In sports you wont see a player passing by the commentators as he leaves the field. It's not really a useful comparison at all. If a player passed by a commentators desk and heard him talk about how he underperformed, or the coach heard how he should have done things differently, etc. they wouldnt react well at all.
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On December 16 2014 23:14 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons. I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals). The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2.
That's fine, I would just rather they call out specific events or incidents or handle it in private. I hate the vague, "casters said mean stuff or don't care". I get where he is coming from, but the casters first duty is to entertain the audience(clearly casting while hung over maybe isn't great). Its just my personal thing about "calling out" entire professions, rather than trying to deal with specific incidents. It just leads to everyone assuming it wasn't them and it was some other guy who performed some shit casting.
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It's sad a player has to come out and say all this. The tournaments in Dota 2 are so bad I've basically stopped watching. The scheduling, casting, everything is so lazy and awful, and they seem to have such a terrible attitude towards any kind of improvement.
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On December 16 2014 22:55 Targe wrote:yeah rtz's posts were really good edit: + Show Spoiler +
they are decent but thats about it.
newbee participated in more tournaments prior to ti4. they won the marstv tournament right after the qualifiers without dropping a single game. after that they got 3rd in WPC, lost to lgd in the esl one qualifier and to vg in the summit1 qualifier. you could say that they were kinda lucky and had more time to prepare. but you could also say that arteezys points i stupid and that vg participated in every tournament and still finished 2nd
edit: the shoutout for lumi in a post that flames casters is really funny. he casting was decent a long time ago
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maybe, but then you could say vici was clearly impacted by playing every tournament. they didn't have time to practice more than one thing and ended up one-dimensional when it counted.
I don't know if any BTS staff have said anything about the PC issues at their tournament, but somewhere along the way I got the impression (cobbled together from a few sources) that the PCs provided by cyberpower (or whoever it was) had really bad heat dissipation issues. If that is the case, I don't think it's really BTS's fault per se. Maybe they could have done better testing, but in essence that's still on cyberpower's shoulders for the bad design or bad heatsink/fan/paste installation.
It's still awful that it happened and it ruined the first day of the tournament.
Not having the practice PCs (like they apparently did last time) is less forgivable.
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On December 16 2014 23:41 theqat wrote:
maybe, but then you could say vici was clearly impacted by playing every tournament. they didn't have time to practice more than one thing and ended up one-dimensional when it counted.
newbee did not change the way that they played in a drastic way. they played the same style that they used at ti4 at the marstv tournament
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EE is right. I haven't watched any tournament aside from the summit because there are too many of tournaments atm.
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On December 16 2014 23:50 Fwizzz wrote:
EE is right. I haven't watched any tournament aside from the summit because there are too many of tournaments atm.
and whats wrong with that? did you watch every single onlinecup back in the day?
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I’m your fanboy from China. I didn’t miss any C9’s matches, no matter it begins at Mid-night or even later. For Instance, today I got up at 3:00 am and watched your DPL’s quarter-finals. However, what I saw was you picked a Storm spirit and performed like a Doraemon with a take copter. OK, never mind, even though you lost, I still support C9, but after reading your blog, I felt disappointed and wanted to say something.
Firstly, it is no doubt to complain the tournaments are too much, but what is professional player? As a professional player, it is an obligation to join a tournament and present the most wonderful matches for our fans, but what you care about are your stream and 7K MMR.
Secondly, you said we only care about tournaments’ item sets, but how can you let us support you guys after being tortured with a 122 minutes’ match. Moreover, teams’ boring draft is also a factor to affect viewers’ passion and sometimes casters’ quality. In WEC, I was amazed by your wrath king and Warlock, In Starladder 10, your amazing chaos and Fata’s Bristleback destroyed VP and EG respectively, but after that, I never saw such amazing pick again, every time is Puck, TB, and Brewmaster.
Anyway, I do really hope C9 can win this times’ i league, I will cheer for you at the scene.
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SoCal8907 Posts
EE's points are definitely valid and im glad he went public with certain things.
the question is, what will actually be done?
E: casting has been shit as of late too. too much casual BS.
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On December 16 2014 23:23 SKC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 23:14 bagels21 wrote:On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons. I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals). The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2. In sports you wont see a player passing by the commentators as he leaves the field. It's not really a useful comparison at all. If a player passed by a commentators desk and heard him talk about how he underperformed, or the coach heard how he should have done things differently, etc. they wouldnt react well at all.
Except players call out commentators all the time. First Take (crappy american ESPN show) is literally a hotspot for pros to pop off and flame. If anything, ingame commentators for pro sports (not the after the game analysis) are extremely cognizant of this fact and rarely explicitly criticize players during the game/match
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I definitely agree with what ixmike has been writing on twitter.
Pro players definitely lack a ton of professionalism and should probably become far better at picking what tournaments they play in, just look how common it is for a top tier team to drop out midway throughout any given tournament. Why even sign up there to begin with?
I do agree that tournaments should stop with qualifiers for qualifiers and shit like that, just begin inviting top tier teams more and just seed them high into the tournament.
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On December 16 2014 23:24 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 23:14 bagels21 wrote:On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons. I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals). The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2. That's fine, I would just rather they call out specific events or incidents or handle it in private. I hate the vague, "casters said mean stuff or don't care". I get where he is coming from, but the casters first duty is to entertain the audience(clearly casting while hung over maybe isn't great). Its just my personal thing about "calling out" entire professions, rather than trying to deal with specific incidents. It just leads to everyone assuming it wasn't them and it was some other guy who performed some shit casting.
if you check his twitter, he's been really good about responding to the BTS guys. It's actually a lot more reasonable than people have been making it out to be between them
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On December 17 2014 00:02 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 23:23 SKC wrote:On December 16 2014 23:14 bagels21 wrote:On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons. I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals). The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2. In sports you wont see a player passing by the commentators as he leaves the field. It's not really a useful comparison at all. If a player passed by a commentators desk and heard him talk about how he underperformed, or the coach heard how he should have done things differently, etc. they wouldnt react well at all. Except players call out commentators all the time. First Take (crappy american ESPN show) is literally a hotspot for pros to pop off and flame. If anything, American ingame commentators (not the after the game analysis) are extremely cognizant of this fact and rarely explicitly criticize players during the game/match
Then you are talking about a fairly small portion of sports commentators. It's really common to see them being critical of players, teams or coaches. Plus what is the diference between being critical during or after the game? The subject wont watch it until later anyway.
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Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled.
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On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled.
Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it.
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On December 17 2014 00:06 SKC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:02 bagels21 wrote:On December 16 2014 23:23 SKC wrote:On December 16 2014 23:14 bagels21 wrote:On December 16 2014 22:54 Plansix wrote:On December 16 2014 22:42 govie wrote:
Assuming that you have to have knowledge at prolevel to be able to cast i believe is wrong. Players publicly bitching about casters dates back to SC2 and players need to take it up with the caster that does it. I get so tired of the "This caster doesn't know the game as well as me, why is he saying things I don't like" on twitter/blogs and then expecting the players fan base to take the caster to task. Just go to the caster directly and stop being a passive aggressive baby. The rest of the stuff I agree with. There are to many events right now and when players stop caring about specific matches because they play so many, its just a shitty product for everyone. Flying all over the globe is taxing and when its 4 people to a hotel room, thats pretty shitty. But its up to the teams collectively to talk about it and maybe some of this sit out events. Still good to get the information out there so when C9 maybe decides to sit out the next big EU event, the fans are aware of the reasons. I think EE is more annoyed at the European casters who have flamed him and memed him pretty hard; moreso than the rest of the casting community. The whole in tears game was that match at ESL Frankfurt where they lost in an excruciating way, most times in sports, you would not see a commentator doing that in an incredibly tense game (imagine a commentator doing that at the World Cup or Champions League Finals). The caster bash in general could be handled better but teams like GD studio prove that he's not wrong. Just compare Bruno at DH and Bruno at the summit 2. In sports you wont see a player passing by the commentators as he leaves the field. It's not really a useful comparison at all. If a player passed by a commentators desk and heard him talk about how he underperformed, or the coach heard how he should have done things differently, etc. they wouldnt react well at all. Except players call out commentators all the time. First Take (crappy american ESPN show) is literally a hotspot for pros to pop off and flame. If anything, American ingame commentators (not the after the game analysis) are extremely cognizant of this fact and rarely explicitly criticize players during the game/match Then you are talking about a fairly small portion of sports commentators. It's really common to see them being critical of players, teams or coaches. Plus what is the diference between being critical during or after the game? The subject wont watch it until later anyway.
It's not about being critical though, it's more about the way in which they do it. As a C9 fan I might be biased, but commentators (especially the Euro ones IMO) have flamed and made fun of Envy/C9 a lot moreso than you would even see with other teams. I don't think Envy's annoyed at all about criticism. He admits that he likes seeing procasts, and that's where a lot of the critical casts come from.
The difference is that the audience during the game will typically be a lot bigger than after the game or during some analysis show. A lot of time the subjects don't bother watching the smaller stuff, but you can bet they'll likely watch the in-game portion
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On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it.
and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself
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On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself
It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up.
A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though...
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On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it.
Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right!
Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them!
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On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself
I don't know, providing his fans with information and issues that the team is having seems valuable. That way when C9 decides to a future sit out an event, people will already know why. It also gives events a heads up when planning "maybe we should sent our world wide LAN in Easter Europe one weekend after the World Wide LAN in the Western USA. There is a chance teams might not attend due to reasons."
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On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them!
Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait
Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out
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On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though...
dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating)
imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites!
edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final
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There are not too many Tournaments.
There are too many tournaments with long qualifiers even for Topteams.
And the organisation of about any Dota event till today has been a joke and i have no clue how these people are still in business.
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On December 17 2014 00:28 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them! Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out
ok let me compose myself for a second then and be less hostile. My issue with this blog is not the oversaturation of tourneys. It's his claim that it's oversaturated.
There are more orgs this year, and the year before that. We can't stop that from happening, because the game is growing at a fast rate. People are going to start throwing money at dota because they've seen it work and profit. But instead of having foresight and common sense to decline invites with conflicting schedules with other tourneys, THEY DO THE OPPOSITE. And then act like the orgs pointed a gun to their heads to accept, so it's their fault they are burning out rofl do you see how absurd it is?
So say no. Whatever happens to the tourneys they declined, happens. Maybe they lose money because of the lesser viewership. Or maybe some tier 2 team gets the chance to shine and pave the way to more viewers. But stop acting like spoiled children that had no say to this outcome, when in fact you had every oppurtunity to prevent it.
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On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final
I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are increasing qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins
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WALL OF TEXT INCOMING.
I'm sorry but is anyone reminded of Starcraft 2 a few years back?
I remember watching an episode of "State of the game" some time around the start of 2012/2013 (i can't remember which). For those of you who don't know, it was a video were casters and players got together and discussed the current state of things. Meta-game, tournaments, prize-pools, up and coming players etc etc. What I remember them commenting on was how in the previous year there were so many tournaments for Starcraft, it got messy and there were loads of upsets which, as EE mentioned, weren't really intended but seemed down to fatigue and just not caring. What ended up happening was fans not becoming as interested, views went down, prize pools went down and the number of tournaments plummeted hugely. Tournaments actually started CANCELLING their whole program because there were clashes and it just split the viewers up so much it wasn't worth it.
I'm not saying DotA is going to dry up so suddenly like Starcraft did, DotA 2 has a much larger following and all the frills of the shop and items to go with it. But it's something to learn from for the next tournies. We're at a dangerous time in DotA (and eSports in general), a place between seriously being an absolutely huge and common thing amongst the general public and just being massive in the gaming / media world.
I could sit here and rant about the same things everyone else is. Too many tournaments, viewers being split up, item sets taking over, formats and sloppyness all around. But i'd rather make some suggestions.
Before I do. Consider this as TL;DR. The current patch is a huge issue, games are so ridiculously long at the moment, and often very painful to watch. Sure it's a problem. But tournaments need to be identifying that games take longer so technical issues are all the more important to identify.
1) Tournament organizers, teams captains, players, production. There needs to be more communication clearly, when are tournaments being held, is there a reasonable gap between them, can players make it between these events with a reasonable amount of practice / down time before being pushed in to the next games. What to do in the even of technical issues, can we host this event should those issues happen? Judging by your post, and a couple of others, I get the feeling there's too many people taking a backseat and just trying to let the money flow in, as well as nobody seeming to know who is dealing with a problem or why there is a problem in the first place. If there are going to be this many tournaments, then communicating between the two damn organisers so that your events don't land on the same day as 3 others, that's pretty damn important!
2) Quite obviously, there's money distribution issues. Tournament organisers need to have a long hard think about amalgamating two tournaments into one if there's doubt they can't do it on their own to a HIGH standard. What sounds better to you guys? Two tournaments with jet-lagged players hopping between the two competing for lower money, fewer views and not much in the sense of content besides the game and an item set. OR One larger tournament with a much higher prize pool, more players and teams, more staff on hand to help out with production and by pooling their resources, more organisation, planning and involvement in areas that need it.
3) Branch out on recruitment. I've got multiple friends who speak multiple languages and love dota. Hell i'm learning Japanese, French and Chinese, I'd love to hop on for a ride! I've got friends who are working in sound design / stage production / lighting who would be more than happy to work in the eSports industry. You don't need to recruit that one guy who just graduated from uni for a full time job, neither should you be making one professional translator run around the entire place trying to make sure messages are going too and from people, they are a translator, not an organiser. Balance these two things, if you've got one professional Steve Aoki, get in a graduate and they can work together and build a larger pool of available people. Set out to actually cover things like translation cause it's the interviews, players from different languages being able to talk through a translator to throw a bit of smack talk at each other (or respectful words if you will), and generally more involvement from and between players to a crowd / stream. It's these things that that add to tournaments without the pathetic addition of item sets as a selling point.
4) Take advantage of the other matchmaking systems. That recent game ( i think it was BTS?) were they had a bunch of people play random deathmatch, That was brilliant! The main content is great, items are cool (for those who like it) but add more stretch goals besides items. If the prize pools hitting 15K add a goal for a show match, or some 1v1's or the like. This shouldn't just be limited to after the Ti when we have one crazy thing happen and that's it.
5) It's not all the tournament organizers fault. Much of the community only seems to think about the items and has become very self-centered since this selling model came about. People seriously need to pull this betting greed out of their virtual back-gaps and get back to enjoying the damn games. Tournaments need to consider their current payment model, because all it's doing is generating a complete focus on money making and sales.
6) New casters. Okay so there's a few questionable casters around at the moment, but there needs to be work done from:
The casters themselves: Decide what they are good at, are they a hype builder, an analyser, a mechanical explainer? Pick what you want to be doing and build that image. Once they have, do their homework. If you want to be a caster, show for it just like any job you want.
Organizers: Start paring casters together properly. Having two hype casters is often going to result in little more than this splat of shouting. Put them together so they bounce of each other and fill in the other persons weakness.
Also, where the hell are the stats-men? Chat trivia's are nice little touches, especially in this damn meta of standard 1 hour games.
7) Advertising? Is it just me or is a lot more needed (not rhetorical, i'm genuinely asking.)
8) Physical community involvement. Day9 does this a lot, invite people from the community to come and join in with more relaxed joking games. Set it as a stretch goal? Great! More smaller stretch goals that add to the experience a long the way make those prize pools worth increasing, not just for the sake of buying an item.
Is everything I said professional? No. But I think it's clear, even if they aren't my changes, that some changes need to happen.
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On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins
I recommend re-reading what EE said
Thus, tournaments have all started having long group stages so that people would find more value in their ticket. Tournaments like DH/MLG who used to invite teams to their tournaments now all have qualifiers.
in other words, EE is complaining that tournaments are adding qualifiers, not getting rid of them.
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I really hope this gets some real attention, I feel the same way as a viewer. I can't bring myself to care about qualifiers for any tournament anymore, because there's so many of them and it's nearly impossible to keep track of. How can we expect the players to put their heart and soul into every game when there's another game against another team in a different tournament 2 hours after this one? And again 3 hours after that? I would say I'm surprised teams aren't just playing official matches all day every day, but I know that is actually happening quite frequently, as EE-sama confirms.
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On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins
wat? who is forced to withdraw?!
and you dont have to get rid of them completely. just have one or two qualifier spots. the na and sea region need a qualifier but you could invite less teams to play in it. or use a different tournament system instead of round robin
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On December 17 2014 00:48 Krishan.bif wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:28 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them! Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out ok let me compose myself for a second then and be less hostile. My issue with this blog is not the oversaturation of tourneys. It's his claim that it's oversaturated. There are more orgs this year, and the year before that. We can't stop that from happening, because the game is growing at a fast rate. People are going to start throwing money at dota because they've seen it work and profit. But instead of having foresight and common sense to decline invites with conflicting schedules with other tourneys, THEY DO THE OPPOSITE. And then act like the orgs pointed a gun to their heads to accept, so it's their fault they are burning out rofl do you see how absurd it is? So say no. Whatever happens to the tourneys they declined, happens. Maybe they lose money because of the lesser viewership. Or maybe some tier 2 team gets the chance to shine and pave the way to more viewers. But stop acting like spoiled children that had no say to this outcome, when in fact you had every oppurtunity to prevent it.
They aren't talking about how the "tourneys forced them" if anything EE has mentioned how he wanted to play in as many officials as possible since he was trying to get better and build a reputation. Most of the new money as he mentions, is from people who want the bundled items, the actual discussion of tournament matches outside of big lan finals has decreased if anything.
EE is not complaining about too many tournaments, he's complaining about how the system works right now. Teams know they have to perform well to get to TI so they play in as many tournaments as possible to boost their odds. Tourneys now have huge qualifier schedules that make it so that they're playing officials all day.
Even though I dislike both teams, I can admit that people got really hype when old Alliance v Na'Vi happened since "el clasico" was a relatively rare occasion. That's what EE is trying to point to when he mentions how people used to view pro matches
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On December 17 2014 00:54 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins wat? who is forced to withdraw?! and you dont have to get rid of them completely. just have one or two qualifier spots. the na and sea region need a qualifier but you could invite less teams to play in it. or use a different tournament system instead of round robin
Teams in a lot of tourneys are force to withdraw since, it's difficult to play in all tournaments if they need to play qualifiers for all of them. Hell 4ASC had to do that with Dreamleague vs. Dota Pit League
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On December 17 2014 00:53 Sn0_Man wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins I recommend re-reading what EE said Show nested quote +Thus, tournaments have all started having long group stages so that people would find more value in their ticket. Tournaments like DH/MLG who used to invite teams to their tournaments now all have qualifiers. in other words, EE is complaining that tournaments are adding qualifiers, not getting rid of them.
Mispoke, I edited my post, my bad
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On December 17 2014 00:55 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:54 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins wat? who is forced to withdraw?! and you dont have to get rid of them completely. just have one or two qualifier spots. the na and sea region need a qualifier but you could invite less teams to play in it. or use a different tournament system instead of round robin Teams in a lot of tourneys are force to withdraw since, it's difficult to play in all tournaments if they need to play qualifiers for all of them. Hell 4ASC had to do that with Dreamleague vs. Dota Pit League
ah and i thought my english sucked :D
i said that qualifiers are the problem. so we kinda agree eh?
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On December 17 2014 00:54 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins wat? who is forced to withdraw?! and you dont have to get rid of them completely. just have one or two qualifier spots. the na and sea region need a qualifier but you could invite less teams to play in it. or use a different tournament system instead of round robin
Yes, the endless qualifiers need to end. I can accept that EG, Navi, C9 and Secret + a few other teams will be invited. These teams shouldn't' be played 30 matches just to qualify to play another 15-30 matches.
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On December 17 2014 00:57 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:55 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:54 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:50 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:41 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:20 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. and how does that matter? dont complain about having to play too many tournaments and star choosing the ones you want to attend -> the whole "issue" solves itself It's more that a lot of the responses in this thread have been making fun of EE or attacking his personal character instead of focusing on the issues he brings up. A big problem when a lot of these teams drop out is that viewership is going to decline and it'll be harder to sustain t2 tournaments. We're already beginning to see this when Chinese teams don't attend these bigger lans. It's the actual question we have to ask since it's simple for teams to drop out. We don't yet know what the side effects may be though... dont you think the viewership is declining anyways? alot of people are already writing that they dont follow alot of tournaments because its too much (even with topteams participating) imho the problem is not the amount of tournaments but the amount of qualifiers and/or round robin games. sl, summit,d2l are mainly responsible for that (just take a look at the teamprofiles at gg.net). good teams deserve invites! edit: what sl could do is invite a different chinese team every season to see how they perform. you dont need vg or newbee at every lan final I agree and EE mentions this qualifiers point. The problem remains that these tourneys are getting rid of qualifiers and so they're forced to withdraw and nobody wins wat? who is forced to withdraw?! and you dont have to get rid of them completely. just have one or two qualifier spots. the na and sea region need a qualifier but you could invite less teams to play in it. or use a different tournament system instead of round robin Teams in a lot of tourneys are force to withdraw since, it's difficult to play in all tournaments if they need to play qualifiers for all of them. Hell 4ASC had to do that with Dreamleague vs. Dota Pit League ah and i thought my english sucked :D i said that qualifiers are the problem. so we kinda agree eh?
Yeah i strongly agree with you. I haven't actually watched an online western qual in a long time. I've watched a few eastern matches and only the Lan western matches
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On December 17 2014 00:54 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:48 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:28 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them! Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out ok let me compose myself for a second then and be less hostile. My issue with this blog is not the oversaturation of tourneys. It's his claim that it's oversaturated. There are more orgs this year, and the year before that. We can't stop that from happening, because the game is growing at a fast rate. People are going to start throwing money at dota because they've seen it work and profit. But instead of having foresight and common sense to decline invites with conflicting schedules with other tourneys, THEY DO THE OPPOSITE. And then act like the orgs pointed a gun to their heads to accept, so it's their fault they are burning out rofl do you see how absurd it is? So say no. Whatever happens to the tourneys they declined, happens. Maybe they lose money because of the lesser viewership. Or maybe some tier 2 team gets the chance to shine and pave the way to more viewers. But stop acting like spoiled children that had no say to this outcome, when in fact you had every oppurtunity to prevent it. They aren't talking about how the "tourneys forced them" if anything EE has mentioned how he wanted to play in as many officials as possible since he was trying to get better and build a reputation. Most of the new money as he mentions, is from people who want the bundled items, the actual discussion of tournament matches outside of big lan finals has decreased if anything. EE is not complaining about too many tournaments, he's complaining about how the system works right now. Teams know they have to perform well to get to TI so they play in as many tournaments as possible to boost their odds. Tourneys now have huge qualifier schedules that make it so that they're playing officials all day. Even though I dislike both teams, I can admit that people got really hype when old Alliance v Na'Vi happened since "the clasico" was a relatively rare occasion. That's what EE is trying to point to when he mentions how people used to view pro matches
?
this is exactly wrong
ee was saying that he can't care about official matches when he plays 1-3 per day. So pro's don't care about matches anymore. And he wishes he had less officials to play so that he cared about them more.
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On December 17 2014 01:01 Sn0_Man wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:54 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:48 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:28 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them! Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out ok let me compose myself for a second then and be less hostile. My issue with this blog is not the oversaturation of tourneys. It's his claim that it's oversaturated. There are more orgs this year, and the year before that. We can't stop that from happening, because the game is growing at a fast rate. People are going to start throwing money at dota because they've seen it work and profit. But instead of having foresight and common sense to decline invites with conflicting schedules with other tourneys, THEY DO THE OPPOSITE. And then act like the orgs pointed a gun to their heads to accept, so it's their fault they are burning out rofl do you see how absurd it is? So say no. Whatever happens to the tourneys they declined, happens. Maybe they lose money because of the lesser viewership. Or maybe some tier 2 team gets the chance to shine and pave the way to more viewers. But stop acting like spoiled children that had no say to this outcome, when in fact you had every oppurtunity to prevent it. They aren't talking about how the "tourneys forced them" if anything EE has mentioned how he wanted to play in as many officials as possible since he was trying to get better and build a reputation. Most of the new money as he mentions, is from people who want the bundled items, the actual discussion of tournament matches outside of big lan finals has decreased if anything. EE is not complaining about too many tournaments, he's complaining about how the system works right now. Teams know they have to perform well to get to TI so they play in as many tournaments as possible to boost their odds. Tourneys now have huge qualifier schedules that make it so that they're playing officials all day. Even though I dislike both teams, I can admit that people got really hype when old Alliance v Na'Vi happened since "the clasico" was a relatively rare occasion. That's what EE is trying to point to when he mentions how people used to view pro matches ? this is exactly wrong ee was saying that he can't care about official matches when he plays 1-3 per day. So pro's don't care about matches anymore. And he wishes he had less officials to play so that he cared about them more.
"Ok so one might ask, wouldn’t things be better if the teams rally up and only play certain tournaments? Ya probably, but its not that easy.
The first major problem is that every tournament has a qualifier. And these qualifiers aren’t easy. Teams are worried that they might not qualify to tournaments, so they end up playing a bunch of qualifiers for more chances. Team Secret I think would be one of the only teams that could select a tournament and expect to qualify. EG doesn’t count because they are in NA and C9 has ping issues so we could easily lose.
The second problem is because of the International. By playing more tournaments and trying to place high in any of them teams are paving their way for a TI invite. So if some of the top teams don't play a tournament, the other teams will really want to play in order to secure a TI slot.
With these issues, even if there are 32943294 tournaments with 43439249 qualifier matches, teams aren’t really in a position to not play. " - EE
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He's explaining why he has to play so many not that he thinks they are good or that he wants to play more
literally the paragraph before he says having this many officials sucks. Then in ur quote he explains why his team opts to sign up for so many tournaments when they obviously don't have to.
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I don't really see the solution though. Everybody wants to watch Secret play C9, not many give a fuck about SNA vs. HR. Hell, half of you probably took a couple seconds to figure out who HR even are, and I doubt 1 in 10 could tell me their roster. And this is those interested enough in Dota to be reading comments on a pro blog, not the average fan.
Tournaments want lots of games featuring the big teams in order to compete with the other tournaments with lots of games featuring the big teams. I don't see how that's fixed.
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On December 17 2014 01:05 Sn0_Man wrote:
He's explaining why he has to play so many not that he thinks they or good or that he wants to play more
Yeah, my point was that originally he wanted to play in as many officials as possible (this was pre 2014) remember when he was on Kaipi/Speed couldn't even get into certain tourneys? Every single pro who has played with EE knows that he's a dotafiend and plays a shit ton
My 2nd point was more why they weren't dropping out and kept playing
I'm against more officials lol
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It is actually really disgusting to hear how some organizers treat players. The human greed is really big factor here...
I'll give my 2cents to the organisers:
1.If you want to host a BIG tournament, make it look like it. I know that the prize pool numbers are important for advertising. But if you cut some of the proffits, and some of the prize pool to make sure the players have a proper hotel rooms, decent flights, and most importantly VERY good computers to play and practice on. It will make them to want to come back next time, and it will avoid the very unpleasant wainting time on pause to "fix things". I mean i do this for living(i assemble and repair computers), and i can not understand how computers that are supposed to be new or at least tested for stability keep crashing on almost any big lan event... If you wan't to make money from you business you have to constantly invest at least half of your profit so it will keep growing.
2. Make the players feel special - stolen idea from valve for example: Send a limo to pick up your champions... it shouldn't cost more than a few hundred bucks and it will make everyone feel better, you can also make ad from it...
3. Make sure you know what DDOS is and how to protect yourself from it.
4. Most importantly do not get greedy. It is better to make one event several times with decent profit, and happy community than to make it once or twice and cut all the expenses(increasing the profits for the oranisers) but leading to "Don't worry guys the issues will be resolved any second now" to be the most used phrase by the casters.
5. Most of the dota2 players are not kids, this is not SC2, nor is the biggest part of the community. There is a huge difference between the expectations of a 16 year old person and a 25 year old one, and most of the players and the community are closer to 25 than to 16...
There really are too many tournaments at the moment, and because we don't want to follow sc2, we all (players, organizers, fans) have to do something about it. Trust me when the leading goal is to host a really good tournament so everyone will enjoy it, than to win a lot of money, your tournament will last, people will like it, and the money will come with that.
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On December 17 2014 01:05 FuzzyJAM wrote:
I don't really see the solution though. Everybody wants to watch Secret play C9, not many give a fuck about SNA vs. HR. Hell, half of you probably took a couple seconds to figure out who HR even are, and I doubt 1 in 10 could tell me their roster. And this is those interested enough in Dota to be reading comments on a pro blog, not the average fan.
Tournaments want lots of games featuring the big teams in order to compete with the other tournaments with lots of games featuring the big teams. I don't see how that's fixed.
the problem with this statement is that it wont stay that way. that why we have these discussions and blogposts...even if your favorite team is playing in every tournament or qualifier its not possible to follow everything
it fixes itself with time. tournaments will have to build their brand around the teams that are available..
do you watch csgo? take ESEA lan as an example. you have some european teams and more american teams. there is not other tournament that features that many american teams and luckily for the americans alot of upsets happened in the last few seasons
edit: SL could focus alot more on the eastern european and russian teams and give away a few lan invites to chinese, european and/or american teams
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I will always follow you Envy, no matter where you go i will support you, anime 4 lyfe!
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This blog entry will be remembered for a very long time, as a cornerstone for the end of Dota2 or the rebirth of Dota2.
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try and win a few tournaments before talking.
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On December 17 2014 01:36 calippo wrote:
try and win a few tournaments before talking.
LoL, coming from a random dota 2 fan who as never qualified for anything dota related.
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On December 16 2014 15:43 Headnoob wrote:
TI4 marked the end of my interest in watching dota, it was incredibly messy and convoluted and after TI the tournaments just felt like they didn't even matter, especially when they've been run so atrociously.
The thing about casters is most definitely a huge problem, dota has no casters who are the quality of tastosis; There needs to be 10 pros who just flat out stop and go to casting to fix this kind of shit.
there is plenty of caster duos with 1 good guy and 1 awful guy, just like tastosis
User was warned for this post
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Help Thorin is making a lot of sense to me.
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On December 17 2014 01:40 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 01:36 calippo wrote:
try and win a few tournaments before talking. LoL, coming from a random dota 2 fan who as never qualified for anything dota related.
hehe sarcasm
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On December 17 2014 00:48 Krishan.bif wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:28 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them! Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out ok let me compose myself for a second then and be less hostile. My issue with this blog is not the oversaturation of tourneys. It's his claim that it's oversaturated. There are more orgs this year, and the year before that. We can't stop that from happening, because the game is growing at a fast rate. People are going to start throwing money at dota because they've seen it work and profit. But instead of having foresight and common sense to decline invites with conflicting schedules with other tourneys, THEY DO THE OPPOSITE. And then act like the orgs pointed a gun to their heads to accept, so it's their fault they are burning out rofl do you see how absurd it is? So say no. Whatever happens to the tourneys they declined, happens. Maybe they lose money because of the lesser viewership. Or maybe some tier 2 team gets the chance to shine and pave the way to more viewers. But stop acting like spoiled children that had no say to this outcome, when in fact you had every oppurtunity to prevent it.
Hmm Tourney A and Tourney B would have their LAN playoffs held on back-to-back weekends. It should be an easy decision just to choose to do one right? But oh wait thy're both 4 months away and there's 3 months worth of qualifiers so I guess the only responsible decision is to play both in case we don't qualify for one. And well we can't jeopardize our TI invite when all these other teams are playing in both.
Why are these teams playing in tournaments they don't want to? Because it's a pretty simple game theory Nash equilibrium. Many decisions adults have to make about making a living are going to be the lesser of two evils. It's like having someone tell you to "why don't you just move and get a new job" if something is going wrong at your current place of work. It's never that simple. You can't fuck yourself over just to prove a point.
For people who have never had to make these kinds of decisions, try to be grateful and grow up a little.
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Never thought I'd see the day where I agree with you, EE. Most Dota casters are shamefully bad and don't even try to improve. People like Ayesee and Zyori for instance, they bring nothing at all to a cast. I mean I guess Ayesee has a nice voice and a lot of fake hype, but Zyori just shits things up wherever he goes. People like Pyrion Flax or Sunsfan I can at least forgive, because they try to steer clear of serious games and don't try to hide that they are just 'for fun' casters, even if I don't personally care for them. It's a shame that BTS is such a joke, since they are as large as they are. I feel they are mostly to blame for the overall low quality of casters.
I also entirely agree with you on there being a huge over saturation with tournaments. Every tournament wants to be top dog (after TI of course) and it just makes all of them lose impact entirely. The last non-TI tourney I genuinely gave a crap about was like, Starladder IX maybe? I wish there would be more tournaments that aim at amateur or lower tier teams instead. Maybe then we could see more people actually coming into the scene, instead of having one tournament a week with the same 6 - 10 teams.
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On December 17 2014 01:25 Lightlycan51 wrote:
I will always follow you Envy, no matter where you go i will support you, anime 4 lyfe!
Contender for best 1st post on LD
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On December 17 2014 01:43 OmniEulogy wrote:Help Thorin is making a lot of sense to me.
Thorin is an asshole, doesnt like debate.
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On December 17 2014 02:00 Dysisa wrote:
Never thought I'd see the day where I agree with you, EE. Most Dota casters are shamefully bad and don't even try to improve. People like Ayesee and Zyori for instance, they bring nothing at all to a cast. I mean I guess Ayesee has a nice voice and a lot of fake hype, but Zyori just shits things up wherever he goes. People like Pyrion Flax or Sunsfan I can at least forgive, because they try to steer clear of serious games and don't try to hide that they are just 'for fun' casters, even if I don't personally care for them. It's a shame that BTS is such a joke, since they are as large as they are. I feel they are mostly to blame for the overall low quality of casters.
I also entirely agree with you on there being a huge over saturation with tournaments. Every tournament wants to be top dog (after TI of course) and it just makes all of them lose impact entirely. The last non-TI tourney I genuinely gave a crap about was like, Starladder IX maybe? I wish there would be more tournaments that aim at amateur or lower tier teams instead. Maybe then we could see more people actually coming into the scene, instead of having one tournament a week with the same 6 - 10 teams.
I feel the caster issue applies to a lot of games, i have never really been happy with casters in any game i play myself and have decent understanding about. Too bad its fuckin impossible to get yourself into the scene as a new caster when its almost the same 10-12 ppl casting every single event
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Thorin spot on on pretty much everything.
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On December 17 2014 01:46 hariooo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 00:48 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:28 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:24 Krishan.bif wrote:On December 17 2014 00:17 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 00:06 Krishan.bif wrote:
Rofl l2sayNO, jacky.
OMG I said yes to too many tourneys to win the most amount of money, and I did cause all those second place finishes pay out didntuknowthat, but now what am I going to do because I'm burnt out of course it's all the orgs's fault someone HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE
Jesus ixmike is right, you babies are spoiled. Except, EG/VG/Secret/NB have all been doing this and have expressed the same view on tournaments they just haven't explicit said it. Oh I'm sorry. So four of the most successful teams are complaining that they're playing too many games and are reeeeeaallly uncomfortable about it? Holy shit guy, you are absolutely right! Let's just give them all the wins, god forbid that they learn the werewithal to actually decline a tourney when their mortal bodies start to fail them! Alright, I'll respond to this even though it's obvious flamebait Take D2L for instance. It's previous 2013-14 iteration had the great Fnatic + Aui/Demon LAN run as well as a pretty good build up and good Chinese teams(VG and the last tourney of old LGD). It's current iteration lacks all 5 of these top teams (outside of contractually obligated EG) and you can see the huge viewership declines. On Reddit/LD/other dota forums, you rarely get any mention of the matches, even though Ayesee has improved and Tralf is a good co-caster. I think it's pretty indicative of what will happen to a lot of the t2 tourneys when these teams start sitting out ok let me compose myself for a second then and be less hostile. My issue with this blog is not the oversaturation of tourneys. It's his claim that it's oversaturated. There are more orgs this year, and the year before that. We can't stop that from happening, because the game is growing at a fast rate. People are going to start throwing money at dota because they've seen it work and profit. But instead of having foresight and common sense to decline invites with conflicting schedules with other tourneys, THEY DO THE OPPOSITE. And then act like the orgs pointed a gun to their heads to accept, so it's their fault they are burning out rofl do you see how absurd it is? So say no. Whatever happens to the tourneys they declined, happens. Maybe they lose money because of the lesser viewership. Or maybe some tier 2 team gets the chance to shine and pave the way to more viewers. But stop acting like spoiled children that had no say to this outcome, when in fact you had every oppurtunity to prevent it. Why are these teams playing in tournaments they don't want to? Because it's a pretty simple game theory Nash equilibrium. Many decisions adults have to make about making a living are going to be the lesser of two evils. It's like having someone tell you to "why don't you just move and get a new job" if something is going wrong at your current place of work. It's never that simple. You can't fuck yourself over just to prove a point.
as i have already said earlier, if valve would disclose how many teams get invited from each region a lot of pressure on the top teams would be lifted. the issue right now is that teams dont now how good compared to the rest they have to be to get invited. if we take a look at last year, c9 was probably the 5th invite for europe and their results between ti3 and ti4 werent really outstanding. they got 5-8th place most of the time and a few second places in smaller tournaments. that was enough to secure an invite for ti.
its mostly on valves side that teams dont know where they stand, but i am 99% sure (and so should be the players) that there will be 5 invites for the western scene, so the only thing you have to achieve as a team is be among the 5 best teams. you dont need to prove in every single small tournament that you are top 2, just get consistent top 5 placements in tournaments and you are good to go. even if you fail the qualifier, you might end up being the 4th. best european team which is still enough for a ti invite.
so while valve can (and has to) clear the mist on how you have to perform to get invited, the teams, especially the successfull teams, have to look on the whole thing from a much calmer, much more logical perspective.
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I really would like to hear some of the Chinese and CIS perspective on this, especially the CIS teams since no one seems to ever give a flying fuck about them in the English-speaking DotA community. I hope they start broadcasting their feelings are well.
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Fuckin right EnVy, fuckin right! I agree with everything u say. As a player trying to break into the scene, its very stressful and I fully understand all that u are going through. especially with the tourney organisation bullshit
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I agree with everything you say but the part about the casters joking around when you are on the verge of elimination I don't think you should take personally. It's sad but it is what it is, it's nothing against you I don't think.
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I can't care for a "big" tournament every week or even every 2 weeks. Players suffer even more from than a viewer like me.
Possible we need an intervention on this. Like football/soccer having one master class league, or tennis having a big tournament circuit that matters.
While pro teams could vote with their participation, by only attending tournaments with high quality organization, EE-sama makes sense that they can't really do that if they want to get in on the next TI.
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Thorin didn't make a lot of sense actually
He's pretty articulate but he's also completely impractical and ill-informed.
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I think the only way you can improve tournaments for the players, is for the players or management to tell the tournaments their issues. If there aren't improvements and the players are still dissatisfied, drop out. If the tournaments have no incentive to improve or treat the players better, they won't.
Many tournaments don't necessarily hurt the scene but when you have them one after another, the results become meaningless. You're only a champion for a week before the next champion is crowned. This also hurts players because they have less time to review, strategize and refine their play. This might be why the game seems so stale because no one has the time to practice anything different (and also the fact that it wins).
Another issue is most teams are shit. There are only a handful of teams that can win and the rest of the teams are like watching a pub. You can predict the teams, score, and draft for every tournament's finals in the next couple months with ease. When the top teams don't even practice and still win all tournaments, it should show you how bad the scene is. When the results are expected and not exciting it hurts the viewership. It's happened for many game when a team goes on a winning streak and it's no different for Dota. Teams need to step up and get better or disband.
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I agree that there are way to many tournaments going on. You can't watch all matches since there are so many, and you don't really want to either since you don't really think any special tournament is important when there are so many of the
exact same format.
Right now:
1. VP vs mYi are playing in joinDOTA masters
2. VP.Polar vs Empire in D2L
3. Natasha vs Secret in StarSeries
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
I can understand where he's coming from, but a lot of the problems kind of stem from how much more important TI is to everything else.
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Since when do people care about accommodation provided by tournaments? If you're staying in a hotel on somebody else' dime, be grateful you have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. I've had to sleep on two chairs side by side numerous times at tournaments.
I'm sure nobody forgets the time of traveling to a tourny for a prize pool of £400 yet spending more just getting there and paying for your stay.
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I mean, the bottom line for me is that, as a viewer, I am beginning to feel some fatigue at the sheer volume of games that are happening. None of them mean enough on their own for me to care what happens; I watch for 2 minutes and tab out.
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On December 17 2014 03:06 Dorner wrote:
Since when do people care about accommodation provided by tournaments? If you're staying in a hotel on somebody else' dime, be grateful you have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. I've had to sleep on two chairs side by side numerous times at tournaments.
I'm sure nobody forgets the time of traveling to a tourny for a prize pool of £400 yet spending more just getting there and paying for your stay.
"things were once bad" is not a reason to stick with the status quo
likewise "accommodations exist" is not a reason to not worry about accommodations. These players are supposed to be the best in the world, if we expect them to perform to that standard in tournament after tournament they need decent (not crazy nice) accommodations. not everyone has to provide to Valve's TI levels but not requiring players to share beds should be some basic shit.
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On December 17 2014 03:16 theqat wrote:
"things were once bad" is not a reason to stick with the status quo
likewise "accommodations exist" is not a reason to not worry about accommodations. These players are supposed to be the best in the world, if we expect them to perform to that standard in tournament after tournament they need decent (not crazy nice) accommodations. not everyone has to provide to Valve's TI levels but not requiring players to share beds should be some basic shit.
I'm sorry but if you want your own bed after traveling to a competition as a team, then pay for your own bed. That's just common sense man, why would any tournament give a flying fuck about how many people is in your room when they're already forking out thousands of dollars in prize money.
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On December 16 2014 14:26 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 14:24 xiituzi wrote:On December 16 2014 14:21 TanGeng wrote:
It's true English casts are generally worse. The Chinese casts are far more analytical, even apples to apples. As for the numbness of the professional scene, that's professional sports. It's supposed to be a grind and like a job.
The treatment by tournaments is bad though. They all are about cutting costs and exploiting willing individuals. #facepalm I can't even force myself to agree. Which part?
"The Chinese casts are far more analytical" >< I've muted Chinese casters for years with exception of maybe LaNm but ex-pro players really lack in camera control in terms of for the audience and besides from the game analysis the commentating is quite dull. (BUT THAT'S JUST ME! ;D)
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On December 17 2014 03:06 Dorner wrote:
Since when do people care about accommodation provided by tournaments? If you're staying in a hotel on somebody else' dime, be grateful you have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. I've had to sleep on two chairs side by side numerous times at tournaments.
I'm sure nobody forgets the time of traveling to a tourny for a prize pool of £400 yet spending more just getting there and paying for your stay.
lol cos everything is still the same
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On December 17 2014 03:23 Dorner wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 03:16 theqat wrote:
"things were once bad" is not a reason to stick with the status quo
likewise "accommodations exist" is not a reason to not worry about accommodations. These players are supposed to be the best in the world, if we expect them to perform to that standard in tournament after tournament they need decent (not crazy nice) accommodations. not everyone has to provide to Valve's TI levels but not requiring players to share beds should be some basic shit. I'm sorry but if you want your own bed after traveling to a competition as a team, then pay for your own bed. That's just common sense man, why would any tournament give a flying fuck about how many people is in your room when they're already forking out thousands of dollars in prize money.
The relevant EE quote here is Well DH was a mess in general, they kept hidden the hotel/rooming situation till right before the tournament started, and then we were told that we would have 3-4 people per room. lol.
In other words, they probably would have booked their own accomodation but DH said "nope it's covered" then when they showed up it was shitty as fuck. Keep in mind that these players are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, why should they be sleeping 4 people in a crowded hotel room with likely 2 beds?
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On December 17 2014 03:23 Dorner wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 03:16 theqat wrote:
"things were once bad" is not a reason to stick with the status quo
likewise "accommodations exist" is not a reason to not worry about accommodations. These players are supposed to be the best in the world, if we expect them to perform to that standard in tournament after tournament they need decent (not crazy nice) accommodations. not everyone has to provide to Valve's TI levels but not requiring players to share beds should be some basic shit. I'm sorry but if you want your own bed after traveling to a competition as a team, then pay for your own bed. That's just common sense man, why would any tournament give a flying fuck about how many people is in your room when they're already forking out thousands of dollars in prize money.
Musicians get all kinds of ridiculous stuff for playing at concerts and music festivals. Not only are they getting paid, but they get beds and hot meals, and they usually specify what kinds of hot meals they want in the hospitality riders of their contracts, as well as what kind of refreshments they want between meals, and what kinds of towels they want to use. It's standard practice in the live music industry. Just because tournaments are paying out money to the top finishers does not mean that paying for players' accommodations is an outrageous proposition, especially considering that without the players, the tournament doesn't happen.
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@sn0
Then book another hotel room holy shit they get paid enough don't they? This blog post covers lots of important points and he's right about most of it but why bitch about your accommodation if you're not willing to find a solution yourself.
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On December 17 2014 03:29 Dorner wrote:
@sn0
Then book another hotel room holy shit they get paid enough don't they? This blog post covers lots of important points and he's right about most of it but why bitch about your accommodation if you're not willing to find a solution yourself.
Why would that be possible in a city where dreamhack is going on
even if it weren't very likely that nearly all hotel space in the city were booked for DH, it shouldn't be the teams' job to take care of something they were told would be handled for them.
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On December 17 2014 03:23 Dorner wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 03:16 theqat wrote:
"things were once bad" is not a reason to stick with the status quo
likewise "accommodations exist" is not a reason to not worry about accommodations. These players are supposed to be the best in the world, if we expect them to perform to that standard in tournament after tournament they need decent (not crazy nice) accommodations. not everyone has to provide to Valve's TI levels but not requiring players to share beds should be some basic shit. I'm sorry but if you want your own bed after traveling to a competition as a team, then pay for your own bed. That's just common sense man, why would any tournament give a flying fuck about how many people is in your room when they're already forking out thousands of dollars in prize money.
As a result, top tier teams are not gonna attend these tournaments. EG and C9 has already rejected many tournaments. Newbee and VG are losing qualifier game son purpose. Still doesnt care? Tournaments are the ones making money off these teams.
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So Envy is entitled for wanting to sleep in a bed at night because some amateur loser who's tricking himself out for $100 tournaments had to sleep on a couple of chairs.
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On December 17 2014 03:23 Dorner wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 03:16 theqat wrote:
"things were once bad" is not a reason to stick with the status quo
likewise "accommodations exist" is not a reason to not worry about accommodations. These players are supposed to be the best in the world, if we expect them to perform to that standard in tournament after tournament they need decent (not crazy nice) accommodations. not everyone has to provide to Valve's TI levels but not requiring players to share beds should be some basic shit. I'm sorry but if you want your own bed after traveling to a competition as a team, then pay for your own bed. That's just common sense man, why would any tournament give a flying fuck about how many people is in your room when they're already forking out thousands of dollars in prize money.
The team flies their players over to another country (hundreds maybe thousands of dollars) and stay at a hotel for a few days (hundred of dollars) for the CHANCE at making some money. If you can't win, you would only lose money going to tournaments. The risk would be enormous for any small or mid team. Of course a tournament has every right to provide you with some shit rooms but when they're making thousands off of the teams, players, and brands you expect a little better treatment than one hotel room.
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When you are getting paid minimum 300k average a year. I am talking about playing for teams like VG EG Newbee C9. Tournament organizers has to do their part to interest these players. Not the other way around. As esports grow. These pro could sign million dollar contract like NFL NBA NHL MLB. NBA is like 100 years old. Esport is only 10.
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I agree with the volume. Just to catch up I've spent all my time skimming vods. It's less enjoyable now.
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C9 can just lower the volume of tournaments they enter and allmost all the players problems are solved. C9.Eternal Scrooge if you ask me, hows that for christmas spirit!
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You guys all getting up on your high horse because I pointed out a simple solution to a simple problem. This forum is too funny.
Everything else EE has said makes sense, cut down tournaments that are literally replicas of one another with just a different venue and name on the door and maybe start taking the players in to consideration because you can't expect a professional footballer to play in his slippers, why would you ask a DotA player to use a terrible PC.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
dorner its ok, we understand you have no concept of money
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Tournament accomondations: Assuming an 8 team tournament: that's 40 players and with managers at least 50 people.
Are teams fine with a tournament removing 25k$ from the price money to use 500$ per person for better travel/sleeping conditions?
It's something the players have to communicate clearly to the organizers - and I doubt it happened.
On December 17 2014 02:32 TheTenthDoc wrote:
I really would like to hear some of the Chinese and CIS perspective on this, especially the CIS teams since no one seems to ever give a flying fuck about them in the English-speaking DotA community. I hope they start broadcasting their feelings are well.
NS made a reddit thread ~2weeks ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2nsu7l/a_large_number_of_tournaments_on_dota_2_reduces/
The thread was the reason for the Tobi post.
On December 17 2014 03:04 bloodwhore~ wrote:
I agree that there are way to many tournaments going on. You can't watch all matches since there are so many, and you don't really want to either since you don't really think any special tournament is important when there are so many of the
exact same format.
Right now:
1. VP vs mYi are playing in joinDOTA masters
2. VP.Polar vs Empire in D2L
3. Natasha vs Secret in StarSeries
So what if you cannot watch all matches? Every weekend there are 9 Bundesliga and 9 2nd Bundesliga matches going on. I don't have the time to watch them all, so I decide which games I watch. And I definitely care about the matches that I watch.
It's actually something which I wondered about a lot: running games in parallel. Especially in qualifiers. It would reduce possible conflicts between different tournaments, and viewers can still watch VODs if they are interested in games at the same timeslot. Of course having multiple casting teams available might be a problem.
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Looking forward to the day Arteezy grows the fuck up a bit. That comment about Summit2 "going full sellout mode" can just jump off a cliff. Where the fuck does he think the money in his bank account and that which pays for his travel and accommodations comes from?
This isn't top tier music industry. It's not New York television. This is a scene still getting on its feet with lots of instability for everyone. It's hard enough to have everything that players want all at once without then also complaining about how you managed to pay for things. Yeah, The Summit could have in-house PCs, but the money put into that would come out of someplace else. I'm sure if they could get Alienware sponsorship they could. But they made choices, and they chose to take a chance on this PC sponsor and it worked out poorly. Meanwhile everyone's airfare was taken care of, no one complained about hotels, everyone had nice places to relax, food was served, and generally the casters did their best (and overall did a pretty good job). And EVERYONE GOT PAID. Even the team that couldn't clear their visas. EVERYONE GOT PAID.
Have some fucking perspective.
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Long story short, "this city needs more workers"...
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Well how often does Munich play Dortmund in a year? It's probably not dozens of times. And I promise you Schweinsteiger doesn't have to stress about if he should slum it for the chance to win a bit more prize money.
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On December 17 2014 03:29 Dorner wrote:
@sn0
Then book another hotel room holy shit they get paid enough don't they? This blog post covers lots of important points and he's right about most of it but why bitch about your accommodation if you're not willing to find a solution yourself.
Spending minimum $1k on a room for a tournament (remember, DHDL was almost 2 weeks long) where the minimum prize ($2k, minus 20%, split 5) is not even enough to cover half of it. Yeah. Not happening.
Also, when you have shit like this going on - http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2pfso6/eternalenvys_new_blog_my_perspective_on_ｄｏｔａ_２/cmwaqnk
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On December 17 2014 04:49 Murogahyouma wrote:
Long story short, "this city needs more workers"...
Not really, more like this city need more industry/tourists. As long as there is work. People would bust their ass off to apply.
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Speaking of professional casting can get Zyori and Xyclopz the fuck out of here. That is NOT DOTA FUCKING 2. On that note I really looked forward to the days of Starladder 8 and 9 where LD and Godz casted a lot more, that was the single greatest combo of play by play and analysis. These days they just throw on some random ass no good caster like Zyori who doesn't know how to spell Defense of the Ancients Two and as much as I like Kotlguy because I think he tries really hard, he just isn't a great caster. Those were the days anyway I'm glad you said this really seems to hit home
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On December 17 2014 05:14 Red_fajita wrote:
Speaking of professional casting can get Zyori and Xyclopz the fuck out of here. That is NOT DOTA FUCKING 2
Sometimes I wish I had subtitles for when Xyclopz is casting but thankfully there is always the mute button.
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Such is the nature of esports.
What made you feel the rush consisted, as far as I can tell, in part of exploration and in part of anticipation. It's with everything - once something becomes a habit, it's just that, no matter how exciting or engaging it was in the beginning. Practice is one thing, but you do it because you believe it will pay off - with excitement, fulfillment, fame, you name it. And it did, years back, because winning a tournament, in any game, meant something. Nowadays there's just a ton of tournaments, because people think hype is a limitless resource. It's not. People don't get it from the get go, because a lot of them are unable to realize their minds' ways of answering repetition and draw conclusions, so you have this kind of situations repeat themselves over the years. Like it is with any kind of fads, they shall die out and I can bet with you the popularity of the game among people who don't commit themselves to it (I can't really relate this to anything without someone getting angry about it, so just take it as you want) will stagnate fairly rapidly, sooner or later, probably once another title comes along. You can think it's natural, but, for example, there aren't many regular sports I can think of which came into popularity, stayed there for a few years and became mostly forgotten shortly afterwards.
And for all it's worth, ESPORTS are all about popularity and money. It's a business and making gaming a business is the Average Joe's way of bringing all the truly passionate gamers back to his own level. If you do it for the money, chances are it will turn into something you find hard being passionate about. Don't let it happen man.
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I got to attend the Capcom Cup last weekend. It was really fantastic. I didn't realize it was going to be in SF (I live in the Bay) until a couple of weeks before it happened so I only got balcony seats - which were ~$7.50 with fees. It was fucking amazing. The fighting game community is awesome, the casters are great, the players are great, the competition is great. We had the best players from around the world sweating their balls off over a $50,000 prize pool.
And I don't mean "ah man they were playing hard" I mean guys who have been competing for many years were observed to be totally on edge at this competition by other guys who have been competing for many years. Some of these guys have been competing since Artour and Jacky were in grade school - or even before they were born.
At the end of the tournament it was announced that, in partnership with Sony (FULL SELLOUT MODE!!!!111) the prize pool for the next Capcom Cup was going to be $500k. Think about that in Dota2 terms and then understand that all of the top fighting pros were utterly floored. The Warfield went nuts.
The thing is, taken individually, a lot of what Envy says here has merit. But as presented, and holistically, it comes off as a bunch of whining with no perspective. Oh, you want everything to be right all at once? Yes, you are definitely not being spoiled by the current state of the scene. There's just so much money in Dota2 right now, definitely no one has been front-loading losses or making major sacrifices to make these things happen so the players at the top who are even in a position to give a fuck how many people are in their hotel room can have these chances to compete. 10-year fighting pros would shit themselves for the kinds of conditions guys who have been professional Dota2 players for 2-3 years already have. And Dota teams that aren't on top? Well fuck their perspective, this is about how hard it is to be a top-tier team with no self-control right now.
And what if there were fewer tournaments to enter, rather than just choosing to enter fewer tournaments? What then, suddenly you're not worried about bad placement for TI invites? No, it's the same shit. The only thing that changes is that there are fewer teams scoring top-three pots and keeping the dream alive.
Speaking of professional casting can get Zyori and Xyclopz the fuck out of here.
Xyclopz owns.
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Man the caster bash is real in this thread.
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The community gets exactly what they worked for all the time. Only hype top teams, top casters, top tournaments, etc.
No space for new things, new faces, new teams, nothing. Everything he describes happens when only 3-4 organisations hold the entire marketshare in their hands. Who gives a damn about viewer feedback, quality casts and other mentioned things when you are having a secure share anyway? The only solution is given the entire scene a chance to get new people in, may it be players, casters, teams, organisations.
As long as Starladder can be casted by Xyclops, BETTING being the only way to get viewers and new promising talents getting insulted as T5 trash this won't get better. Not everything is Na'vi vs Alliance allover again...we destroy ourself if we eat the next generation alive.
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On December 17 2014 05:32 Heflamoke wrote:
The community gets exactly what they worked for all the time. Only hype top teams, top casters, top tournaments, etc.
No space for new things, new faces, new teams, nothing. Everything he describes happens when only 3-4 organisations hold the entire marketshare in their hands. Who gives a damn about viewer feedback, quality casts and other mentioned things when you are having a secure share anyway? The only solution is given the entire scene a chance to get new people in, may it be players, casters, teams, organisations.
As long as Starladder can be casted by Xyclops, BETTING being the only way to get viewers and new promising talents getting insulted as T5 trash this won't get better. Not everything is Na'vi vs Alliance allover again...we destroy ourself if we eat the next generation alive.
yo dude hate to say it actually not at all but that fucker can't speak english in an english cast
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On December 17 2014 05:33 Red_fajita wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 05:32 Heflamoke wrote:
The community gets exactly what they worked for all the time. Only hype top teams, top casters, top tournaments, etc.
No space for new things, new faces, new teams, nothing. Everything he describes happens when only 3-4 organisations hold the entire marketshare in their hands. Who gives a damn about viewer feedback, quality casts and other mentioned things when you are having a secure share anyway? The only solution is given the entire scene a chance to get new people in, may it be players, casters, teams, organisations.
As long as Starladder can be casted by Xyclops, BETTING being the only way to get viewers and new promising talents getting insulted as T5 trash this won't get better. Not everything is Na'vi vs Alliance allover again...we destroy ourself if we eat the next generation alive. yo dude hate to say it actually not at all but that fucker can't speak english in an english cast
A lot of people love his casting. Deal with it.
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I'm extremely upset that players are losing their love of the game. I've been watching it since TI1 and it has became worse, and it saddens me knowing that it may not change. I want to see that love of dota in EE and other pro players eyes. I want to see the teams enjoy it and bathe in the glory, and try their hardest to win.
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On December 17 2014 05:34 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 05:33 Red_fajita wrote:On December 17 2014 05:32 Heflamoke wrote:
The community gets exactly what they worked for all the time. Only hype top teams, top casters, top tournaments, etc.
No space for new things, new faces, new teams, nothing. Everything he describes happens when only 3-4 organisations hold the entire marketshare in their hands. Who gives a damn about viewer feedback, quality casts and other mentioned things when you are having a secure share anyway? The only solution is given the entire scene a chance to get new people in, may it be players, casters, teams, organisations.
As long as Starladder can be casted by Xyclops, BETTING being the only way to get viewers and new promising talents getting insulted as T5 trash this won't get better. Not everything is Na'vi vs Alliance allover again...we destroy ourself if we eat the next generation alive. yo dude hate to say it actually not at all but that fucker can't speak english in an english cast A lot of people love his casting. Deal with it.
probably dumbasses like you that think he's funny and don't actually care about quality or having a good game casted like FD and Rave was today
User was warned for this post
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On December 17 2014 05:36 Red_fajita wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 05:34 FHDH wrote:On December 17 2014 05:33 Red_fajita wrote:On December 17 2014 05:32 Heflamoke wrote:
The community gets exactly what they worked for all the time. Only hype top teams, top casters, top tournaments, etc.
No space for new things, new faces, new teams, nothing. Everything he describes happens when only 3-4 organisations hold the entire marketshare in their hands. Who gives a damn about viewer feedback, quality casts and other mentioned things when you are having a secure share anyway? The only solution is given the entire scene a chance to get new people in, may it be players, casters, teams, organisations.
As long as Starladder can be casted by Xyclops, BETTING being the only way to get viewers and new promising talents getting insulted as T5 trash this won't get better. Not everything is Na'vi vs Alliance allover again...we destroy ourself if we eat the next generation alive. yo dude hate to say it actually not at all but that fucker can't speak english in an english cast A lot of people love his casting. Deal with it. probably dumbasses like you that think he's funny and don't actually care about quality or having a good game casted like FD and Rave was today
I can understand a game of Dota when I watch it. An entertaining cast, especially of fairly low-impact games, is far more important to me than some jerkoff making wrong analysis of the game.
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On December 17 2014 05:38 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 05:36 Red_fajita wrote:On December 17 2014 05:34 FHDH wrote:On December 17 2014 05:33 Red_fajita wrote:On December 17 2014 05:32 Heflamoke wrote:
The community gets exactly what they worked for all the time. Only hype top teams, top casters, top tournaments, etc.
No space for new things, new faces, new teams, nothing. Everything he describes happens when only 3-4 organisations hold the entire marketshare in their hands. Who gives a damn about viewer feedback, quality casts and other mentioned things when you are having a secure share anyway? The only solution is given the entire scene a chance to get new people in, may it be players, casters, teams, organisations.
As long as Starladder can be casted by Xyclops, BETTING being the only way to get viewers and new promising talents getting insulted as T5 trash this won't get better. Not everything is Na'vi vs Alliance allover again...we destroy ourself if we eat the next generation alive. yo dude hate to say it actually not at all but that fucker can't speak english in an english cast A lot of people love his casting. Deal with it. probably dumbasses like you that think he's funny and don't actually care about quality or having a good game casted like FD and Rave was today I can understand a game of Dota when I watch it. An entertaining cast, especially of fairly low-impact games, is far more important to me than some jerkoff making wrong analysis of the game.
he made wrong everything whats wrong with you
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From a spectator's point of view, Dota isn't that fun to watch anymore for me either. If the players are already feeling burnt out playing the game, it would follow that viewers won't get that much enjoyment from seeing the players because they are not giving their best at all times.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
who the fuck is xyclopz
and if were talking casters here, they need to stop trying to predict what players are going to do and dont say what they should be doing, youre there to say whats going on not lord over the match as if youre some dota god.
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On December 17 2014 05:26 FHDH wrote:https://twitter.com/TheMaelk/status/544946864110731264I got to attend the Capcom Cup last weekend. It was really fantastic. I didn't realize it was going to be in SF (I live in the Bay) until a couple of weeks before it happened so I only got balcony seats - which were ~$7.50 with fees. It was fucking amazing. The fighting game community is awesome, the casters are great, the players are great, the competition is great. We had the best players from around the world sweating their balls off over a $50,000 prize pool. And I don't mean "ah man they were playing hard" I mean guys who have been competing for many years were observed to be totally on edge at this competition by other guys who have been competing for many years. Some of these guys have been competing since Artour and Jacky were in grade school - or even before they were born. At the end of the tournament it was announced that, in partnership with Sony (FULL SELLOUT MODE!!!!111) the prize pool for the next Capcom Cup was going to be $500k. Think about that in Dota2 terms and then understand that all of the top fighting pros were utterly floored. The Warfield went nuts. The thing is, taken individually, a lot of what Envy says here has merit. But as presented, and holistically, it comes off as a bunch of whining with no perspective. Oh, you want everything to be right all at once? Yes, you are definitely not being spoiled by the current state of the scene. There's just so much money in Dota2 right now, definitely no one has been front-loading losses or making major sacrifices to make these things happen so the players at the top who are even in a position to give a fuck how many people are in their hotel room can have these chances to compete. 10-year fighting pros would shit themselves for the kinds of conditions guys who have been professional Dota2 players for 2-3 years already have. And Dota teams that aren't on top? Well fuck their perspective, this is about how hard it is to be a top-tier team with no self-control right now. And what if there were fewer tournaments to enter, rather than just choosing to enter fewer tournaments? What then, suddenly you're not worried about bad placement for TI invites? No, it's the same shit. The only thing that changes is that there are fewer teams scoring top-three pots and keeping the dream alive. Show nested quote +Speaking of professional casting can get Zyori and Xyclopz the fuck out of here. Xyclopz owns.
I love the FGC and I agree with your overall sentiment(also your statement about age is a bit hyperbolic. EE's like 23 lol), but you cannot say that Envy is whiney overall. Envy's the same guy who had the balls to post a public blog about going pro and then did it even as half the scene was flaming him saying there wasn't enough money and he was wasting his time. He tried his damn best to make it and he did.
He's basically posting a blog that summarizes what all the top teams think but have not publicly said. Just look at what the top 5 teams in the world have done lately.
As for the FGC comment, the FGC hates "esports" money and part of why they've remained small is that they've refused to take a lot of outside money. There's a ton of cultural and historic reasons as to why they aren't anything like the PC gaming community. It's nothing like Dota2 and it's not a fair comparison at all to make. Most of the top fgc guys had full-time jobs until very recently and never saw games as their "profession"
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In my humble opinion i think that every tournament should have things that the viewer can buy, be it a customized set with a good plays signature that is only sold in that tournament, or any other idea that would work.
All the money that goes into this should be split equally among the teams, the casters should get some of it, and the teams participating should decide if the tournament holder is going to see any of that money.
And because of this we would need a union for the teams and the casters, the union itself is directly responsible for the well being of the casters and the teams. If a situation occurs during a tournament the team can contact the union, and the union then makes a public appearance letting people know what happened, and they also contact the tournament holder with what happened and that this is not an ok way to deal with things.
This would make the union responsible to only support some tournaments since those tournament holders that behaves badly would in turn make the union look less effective. It would also make the tournament holder to do their outmost for a good tournament for all teams, and it would split the power between the union and the teams that are in it, and to some degree the tournament holders.
It would reduce the number of tournaments since the tournament holder is only maybe going to see the money they generate from viewers, and this would reflect how well the teams felt the experiance was going to that tournament.
The union would also need to set a minimum requirement on the tournament itself that would either give them "none, partial, or full" compensation for holding the tournament.
This is my idea, im not saying that its great, or the only way, but its my idea, let me know what you guys think about it please.
best wishes and a happy holiday /Smallpenis
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On December 17 2014 05:49 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 05:26 FHDH wrote:https://twitter.com/TheMaelk/status/544946864110731264I got to attend the Capcom Cup last weekend. It was really fantastic. I didn't realize it was going to be in SF (I live in the Bay) until a couple of weeks before it happened so I only got balcony seats - which were ~$7.50 with fees. It was fucking amazing. The fighting game community is awesome, the casters are great, the players are great, the competition is great. We had the best players from around the world sweating their balls off over a $50,000 prize pool. And I don't mean "ah man they were playing hard" I mean guys who have been competing for many years were observed to be totally on edge at this competition by other guys who have been competing for many years. Some of these guys have been competing since Artour and Jacky were in grade school - or even before they were born. At the end of the tournament it was announced that, in partnership with Sony (FULL SELLOUT MODE!!!!111) the prize pool for the next Capcom Cup was going to be $500k. Think about that in Dota2 terms and then understand that all of the top fighting pros were utterly floored. The Warfield went nuts. The thing is, taken individually, a lot of what Envy says here has merit. But as presented, and holistically, it comes off as a bunch of whining with no perspective. Oh, you want everything to be right all at once? Yes, you are definitely not being spoiled by the current state of the scene. There's just so much money in Dota2 right now, definitely no one has been front-loading losses or making major sacrifices to make these things happen so the players at the top who are even in a position to give a fuck how many people are in their hotel room can have these chances to compete. 10-year fighting pros would shit themselves for the kinds of conditions guys who have been professional Dota2 players for 2-3 years already have. And Dota teams that aren't on top? Well fuck their perspective, this is about how hard it is to be a top-tier team with no self-control right now. And what if there were fewer tournaments to enter, rather than just choosing to enter fewer tournaments? What then, suddenly you're not worried about bad placement for TI invites? No, it's the same shit. The only thing that changes is that there are fewer teams scoring top-three pots and keeping the dream alive. Speaking of professional casting can get Zyori and Xyclopz the fuck out of here. Xyclopz owns. I love the FGC and I agree with your overall sentiment, but you cannot say that Envy is whiney overall. Envy's the same guy who had the balls to post a public blog about going pro and then did it even as half the scene was flaming him saying there wasn't enough money and he was wasting his time. He tried his damn best to make it and he did. He's basically posting a blog that summarizes what all the top teams think but have not publicly said. Just look at what the top 5 teams in the world have done lately. As for the FGC comment, the FGC hates "esports" money and part of why they've remained small is that they've refused to take a lot of outside money. There's a ton of cultural and historic reasons as to why they aren't anything like the PC gaming community
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. The top five are the least of my concerns right now and they need to realize that the real danger to the Dota2 scene isn't their problems, but the problems of the next 20 teams.
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I used to watch a ton of pro dota. The best pro dota days for me was WDC 2010. The Yaphets blink raze show. Then all the TI obviously. Even TI 4 was pretty hype despite VG choking. RTZ in Kaipi days was fun. Who is this kid beating S4 and Dendi mid with 200 ping? Now days. I don't even watch any pro games outside of LAN finals. Nothing is happening, every team is playing the same meta. Same stuff happening over and over. Occasionally I watch some C9 game. (Thats coming from someone who has played and followed this game from 2005 dota 1). I rather play the game than watch now.
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On December 17 2014 04:51 hariooo wrote:
Well how often does Munich play Dortmund in a year? It's probably not dozens of times. And I promise you Schweinsteiger doesn't have to stress about if he should slum it for the chance to win a bit more prize money.
It's funny that you mention football, especially Munich. You do remember the "shitstorm" a few months back?
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On December 17 2014 05:53 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 05:49 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 05:26 FHDH wrote:https://twitter.com/TheMaelk/status/544946864110731264I got to attend the Capcom Cup last weekend. It was really fantastic. I didn't realize it was going to be in SF (I live in the Bay) until a couple of weeks before it happened so I only got balcony seats - which were ~$7.50 with fees. It was fucking amazing. The fighting game community is awesome, the casters are great, the players are great, the competition is great. We had the best players from around the world sweating their balls off over a $50,000 prize pool. And I don't mean "ah man they were playing hard" I mean guys who have been competing for many years were observed to be totally on edge at this competition by other guys who have been competing for many years. Some of these guys have been competing since Artour and Jacky were in grade school - or even before they were born. At the end of the tournament it was announced that, in partnership with Sony (FULL SELLOUT MODE!!!!111) the prize pool for the next Capcom Cup was going to be $500k. Think about that in Dota2 terms and then understand that all of the top fighting pros were utterly floored. The Warfield went nuts. The thing is, taken individually, a lot of what Envy says here has merit. But as presented, and holistically, it comes off as a bunch of whining with no perspective. Oh, you want everything to be right all at once? Yes, you are definitely not being spoiled by the current state of the scene. There's just so much money in Dota2 right now, definitely no one has been front-loading losses or making major sacrifices to make these things happen so the players at the top who are even in a position to give a fuck how many people are in their hotel room can have these chances to compete. 10-year fighting pros would shit themselves for the kinds of conditions guys who have been professional Dota2 players for 2-3 years already have. And Dota teams that aren't on top? Well fuck their perspective, this is about how hard it is to be a top-tier team with no self-control right now. And what if there were fewer tournaments to enter, rather than just choosing to enter fewer tournaments? What then, suddenly you're not worried about bad placement for TI invites? No, it's the same shit. The only thing that changes is that there are fewer teams scoring top-three pots and keeping the dream alive. Speaking of professional casting can get Zyori and Xyclopz the fuck out of here. Xyclopz owns. I love the FGC and I agree with your overall sentiment, but you cannot say that Envy is whiney overall. Envy's the same guy who had the balls to post a public blog about going pro and then did it even as half the scene was flaming him saying there wasn't enough money and he was wasting his time. He tried his damn best to make it and he did. He's basically posting a blog that summarizes what all the top teams think but have not publicly said. Just look at what the top 5 teams in the world have done lately. As for the FGC comment, the FGC hates "esports" money and part of why they've remained small is that they've refused to take a lot of outside money. There's a ton of cultural and historic reasons as to why they aren't anything like the PC gaming community Yeah, I think that's exactly it. The top five are the least of my concerns right now and they need to realize that the real danger to the Dota2 scene isn't their problems, but the problems of the next 20 teams.
Until recently Na'Vi was a top 5 team too lol, but that's besides the point. In reality, the top5 matter because the bulk of the money, attention, and funding will be from the top 5 teams. This is how dota is and how it'll always be due to the instability of the next 20 as well as how casual fans attach themselves to teams and players.
The things EE point out to would actually help those next 20 teams as well (tournament structure, tournament support, how TI currently affects the proscene)
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Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
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On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them.
They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament
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On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
How could you read all of that and not think that the tourney organizers are messing up a lot lately? Over-saturation would not be a problem if a lot of their issues were addressed (direct invites for some to limit crowding, more discussion to keep the schedules separate, better travel support, better conditions at LANs)
On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
You can just see Kefka's interview:
I think having too many tournaments can overwhelm the average viewer with the amount of games, therefore making the viewers less interested in them. I think this is a problem that needs to be addressed. When several big tournaments are run at the same time the excitement to watch your favorite team play gets lowered because there are just too many games to keep track of.
For me as a player it’s both good and bad; more tournaments would mean the chance of me winning money is bigger but also the amount of attention me and my team gets is lower which can be a problem as well.
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This is community news now? Whoa!
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Nice to read an honest blog with some info on what's happening behind the scenes.
I've actually taken a break from watching Dota 2 games since after The summit 2, neither Dreamhack nor The summit 2 got me excited watching. It's the first time since Dota 2 released I don't feel like watching, not even games between top teams. I can't put my finger on why it's not fun to watch right now but I used to be really hyped for matches between top teams and now it's just meh...I don't really care atm.
At Dreamhack I watched some Dota 2 but mostly I was watching the CSGO matches and the hype is definitely there in CSGO much more than in Dota 2 for me right now.
Maybe it's just because I'm bored with the game in general atm but I feel like the meta has been really stale lately. It's always fun to see teams try out a new hero or play a hero in an unusual role but it feels very rare these days. I don't go into the games excited about the picks and wondering how are they gonna pull it off with those picks, instead I usually go into the games after the picks feeling "same old picks again...ZzZz".
The games I've enjoyed watching the most lately are those from the XMG captains draft cup because there you get to see teams playing something different at least. I don't know beforehand how the game will play out since I haven't seen those picks many times lately.
Some of the most fun tournaments to watch for me were in Warcraft Dota, the first clashes between Asia and the West on LAN at ESWC and SMM. Those days LAN tournaments between top teams were very rare so when it finally happened the excitement was through the roof. I often watched the games in the middle of the night on Garena or through Waaaghtv without commentators and between games you went to forums and discussed the games. Those days the scene was much smaller but it felt more like you were part of a community, I spent a lot of time on Gosugamers discussing various things and pro players would often post there as well. These days the only Interraction I have with the community is through Twitch chat and while that can be fun it's just not the same.
Anyway Dota 2 is a really awesome game and I've followed the Dota scene since early in Warcraft Dota, I'm sure I'll get back the excitement of watching games.
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Well, thats mildly ironic because pick diversity is absurd these days.
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On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff
You have to factor in the possibility that you don't qualify for everything you sign up for. It's like tournaments adapting their schedules to factor in delays... I'm sorry but teams need to have months, if not an entire year planned out. Obviously things are subject to change, but there needs to at least be an effort to make a realistic plan. In traditional sports coaches and management have the responsibility of resting players and ensuring that they stay healthy and performing. Same as in Esports, management needs to plan out their teams schedule accounting for rest periods and with the mindset that you won't win every game. Teams that are more effective at planning out their schedules and win the games that matter will end up being more successful. If that sounds harsh then I guess yea, that's just the nature of a competitive environment.
As for TI forcing teams to play every tournament imaginable, that's just BS. Not knowing if you're gonna make it through every qualifier isn't an excuse to sign up for every tournament and then complain that you're overworked. Picking a realistic schedule and allowing yourself enough practice/downtime to effectively win the games that matter is a sign of a strong team. In other sports, teams that don't do well during the regular season don't make the playoffs. That's pretty simple. They don't get to run off and play 10 other tournaments to try and regain their status.
With all that said, I'm operating on the assumption that tournaments readily provide the teams with scheduling information way in advance. In reality, I'm sure the scheduling is way harder than I realize. And I'm not sure about EE being that hungry, he literally said in his blog post that he cared less/lost his fire somewhat/etc.
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Do we feel it is time to have more LAN events with 2-4 teams invited? Or maybe seed deserving teams into the qualifier playoffs?
The events need those top 10 teams to come for the views it provides their sponsors, but if teams have to play to qualify for each tournament they have no time to improve or rest.
I understand teams feel compelled to play in everything at the moment because numerous good placements will get you into THE ONLY TOURNAMENT THAT MATTERS (TI), but at some point do we accept that quality of successful events is more important than quantity?
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On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament
you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On December 17 2014 06:59 EnumaAvalon wrote:
This is community news now? Whoa!
its exploded on every dota related site and twitter, its bigger than tl
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On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before.
I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more
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On December 17 2014 07:05 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff You have to factor in the possibility that you don't qualify for everything you sign up for. It's like tournaments adapting their schedules to factor in delays... I'm sorry but teams need to have months, if not an entire year planned out. Obviously things are subject to change, but there needs to at least be an effort to make a realistic plan. In traditional sports coaches and management have the responsibility of resting players and ensuring that they stay healthy and performing. Same as in Esports, management needs to plan out their teams schedule accounting for rest periods and with the mindset that you won't win every game. Teams that are more effective at planning out their schedules and win the games that matter will end up being more successful. If that sounds harsh then I guess yea, that's just the nature of a competitive environment. As for TI forcing teams to play every tournament imaginable, that's just BS. Not knowing if you're gonna make it through every qualifier isn't an excuse to sign up for every tournament and then complain that you're overworked. Picking a realistic schedule and allowing yourself enough practice/downtime to effectively win the games that matter is a sign of a strong team. In other sports, teams that don't do well during the regular season don't make the playoffs. That's pretty simple. They don't get to run off and play 10 other tournaments to try and regain their status. With all that said, I'm operating on the assumption that tournaments readily provide the teams with scheduling information way in advance. In reality, I'm sure the scheduling is way harder than I realize. And I'm not sure about EE being that hungry, he literally said in his blog post that he cared less/lost his fire somewhat/etc.
Stuff like MLG just gets announced, same with ESL Frankfurt 2 etc. They have been trying to plan and Chinese teams are doing this (at the expense of tournaments). Change is slow, but it is happening. I for one am glad EE is telling us this in a blunt way (though Puppey has been hinting at it in the last few weeks in oblique ways)
Valve is not "forcing teams" but it is imperative to have good results. (EG in 2013 is proof that you just can't sit on your ass)
The thing is that even when he finds the game less fun, he probably puts in more effort than 90% of the scene. All the C9 guys are obsessive about dota and EG has ppd and several other guys who fiend dota really hard.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
the oversaturation thing is more to do with the fact that every single tournament is the same as every other tournament with the exception of brand and name, give the tournaments a difference between them and then the points about choosing tournaments means something
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On December 17 2014 07:14 Targe wrote:
the oversaturation thing is more to do with the fact that every single tournament is the same as every other tournament with the exception of brand and name, give the tournaments a difference between them and then the points about choosing tournaments means something
Not really. Every tournament is a chance for teams to compete. This is valuable in terms of experience, showing results, and collecting pots. But there are only so many ways you can run a tournament that are good for competition, or helpful to teams who are there in a large part to refine their competitive edge in preparation for the big show.
As such this expectation that we can have a wide variety of tournaments is just misplaced. If anything, many teams find something like DCCD to be a diversion because it's nothing like the mainline competition they are trying to improve at. Would I like to see more varied tournaments? Yes. But the bulk still need to be something along the lines of the standard format, because that is the purpose they serve.
So-called "oversaturation" is mostly an issue of poor administration, both on the parts of many TO and many teams. You don't need every top team to be at every LAN (obviously) so there are benefits to many of the things EE is complaining about that would be mitigated by teams being - as individual teams - more selective, and TOs being better about planning.
It is not surprising to hear this out of C9 who have participated in every goddamned tournament under the sun for reasons no one can fathom, whatever excuse Envy wants to put out there.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
i mean each tournament is identical to the viewer
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On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more
Tournaments don't suddenly just die because 1 or 2 top teams drop out and they lose some viewers. If they really close shop after one such incident then obviously their budget was fucking terribly planned out. Yes, some tournaments will be relegated to "tier 2", probably the more poorly run ones. Those smaller tournaments will still exist for the T2 teams. A player like Kefka probably wouldn't even be able to call himself a pro if there wasn't oversaturation. Look at the league scene, if you're not in an LCS team or a team vying for an LCS spot then you are nothing. There's no independent tournament to make your name. You either are either on a top 10 (or w/e) team in your region, make decent money streaming, or you are nothing.
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On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more
well, if that is the case the dota2 scene isnt strong enough to support T2 teams. that would be sad (and i dont believe it, but that is something to debate), but couldnt be changed. you can not expect the top teams to play an unhealthy amount of games, especially lan games all over the world, just so that less successfull teams can live the life of progamers.
oh and you keep mentioning EG back in 2013. with EG back then it is a bit different than with EG/C9 today. first, they werent really all that dominant. they were a strong team and probably the strongest in NA, but dignitas and liquid were somewhat close by. but the most important part was that EG stopped playing for months. they didnt play less like dropping out of a few tournaments, they werent playing at all until it was relatively late and then they werent ahead of liquid and dignitas any longer.
if you want to compare it to today, EG had to stop playing until mid april and at the same time another NA teams rises to power and wins multiple international tournaments and places top3 in all others. that is very unlikely.
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While I feel like EE brought up some really valid points in this blog, I also feel like this video is absolutely spot on.
Liked the analysis and the solutions he's giving. Seems to me like there are parallels to be drawn with pretty much every single job out there and that esport has to walk that path too.
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Is it just me or did the scene begin to stink after Ti4? Like before that there were medium to large scale tournaments every fortnight or month or so, but nothing too oversaturated; after ti4 and the great chinese reshuffle I feel like I'm either always watching the same teams over and over (c9, EG, secret, tinker) or tier 2 teams I never even heard of before. Before Ti4 my friends and I would be like "Oh my gosh, VG is playing tomorrow! i'm gonna stay up for it!" but now it's more like "oh EG tomorrow again? who cares, we'll have another EG game the day after".
Feels like this chinese reshuffle just totally decimated the chinese scene too. It's so difficult to catch chinese tournaments with all of the big names, because most of the teams just seem to be in shambles and I can't even imagine who is in which team anymore.
I agree with most of EE's points. I hate to caster bash (I really love some of them like LD, gotta give that guy points for sincerity) but it's true that casters seem to care a lot less too with the tournament oversaturation.
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On December 17 2014 07:47 hfglgg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more well, if that is the case the dota2 scene isnt strong enough to support T2 teams. that would be sad (and i dont believe it, but that is something to debate), but couldnt be changed. you can not expect the top teams to play an unhealthy amount of games, especially lan games all over the world, just so that less successfull teams can live the life of progamers. oh and you keep mentioning EG back in 2013. with EG back then it is a bit different than with EG/C9 today. first, they werent really all that dominant. they were a strong team and probably the strongest in NA, but dignitas and liquid were somewhat close by. but the most important part was that EG stopped playing for months. they didnt play less like dropping out of a few tournaments, they werent playing at all until it was relatively late and then they werent ahead of liquid and dignitas any longer. if you want to compare it to today, EG had to stop playing until mid april and at the same time another NA teams rises to power and wins multiple international tournaments and places top3 in all others. that is very unlikely.
I don't get what you're arguing lol? I fundamentally agree with you, but you seem to ignore all the people who are saying explicitly that oversaturation doesn't exist or in the case of ixmike that EE is an idiot and that more prize money is good.
The point about EG is not an apples to apples comparison to the current scene. It is more that teams are incredibly cognizant of the results they need to put up to make it to TI. Every tournament combined would not equal the TI prizepool and so obtaining more high finishes will certainly help you make it into TI. It's not like Valve hasn't rejected the hot team of the moment from even getting a TI qualifier invite amirite 
On December 17 2014 07:31 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more Tournaments don't suddenly just die because 1 or 2 top teams drop out and they lose some viewers. If they really close shop after one such incident then obviously their budget was fucking terribly planned out. Yes, some tournaments will be relegated to "tier 2", probably the more poorly run ones. Those smaller tournaments will still exist for the T2 teams. A player like Kefka probably wouldn't even be able to call himself a pro if there wasn't oversaturation. Look at the league scene, if you're not in an LCS team or a team vying for an LCS spot then you are nothing. There's no independent tournament to make your name. You either are either on a top 10 (or w/e) team in your region, make decent money streaming, or you are nothing.
Teams like 4ASC and VPP gain a lot more playing C9/EG/Secret than the other way around. I hope T2 tourneys don't die out but you have stuff like Dota Pit League/Synergy League etc. that are high paying lan tournaments and don't get much buzz on any dota site
League has a really structured ladder system where the top 5 stacks are moved up into the challenger division (think of EPL or La Liga with lower division teams that get promoted). The winners then move up into LCS and replace the lowest finishing teams in LCS. League if anything, is the most structured and has the least tournaments. It's much simpler to get noticed in League because there is only 1 way of developing and it's confined to whatever region your team is based in. It's also relatively fair and quite transparent as to how to get into the "pro circuit" (though it has been taken advantage by Chinese b-teams lol)
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Speaking from my personal opinion, it really pisses me off when casters are like "What is he doing?!" when they think someone's doing something stupid (LD is guilty of this.... OOOH SHIT IM CALLIN U OUT, jk I love u ld but it's pretty rude to do that). The players KNOW they're being watched by THOUSANDS of people, they don't wanna lose, and they're under the stress of the shit-show rooming conditions EE talked about. They should be allowed to do stupid shit.
Another thing most casters don't seem to keep in mind is that players don't have map-wide view like they do. So saying "Why is he tping right there... blahblahblah" is also pretty fucking rude, they don't KNOW that there is a player hunting them (they might, but still).
Also, as EE pointed out, the casters aren't actually at professional level either. They don't necessarily understand what players are doing as well as they probably should.
Onto the lack of viewer support. I feel that tournaments abuse the ticket feature. EVERY tournament has a ticket feature that you HAVE to purchase to watch in-game. But, why watch in-game for $5 when I can watch it for free (sort of, bandwidth costs) on Twitch? Exactly, nothing. While Twitch may attract viewers, they're still doing it knowing that we have no potential reason to purchase the ticket based solely on increasing the prize pool by 2 whopping dollars.
This brings me on to another point. Tournaments are way to fucking greedy. We're charged $5 to watch in-game for EVERY tournament, and only $2.50 of that ACTUALLY goes to the prize pool. Yeah I get it, production costs, other stuff, blah blah blah. But we (as players) don't really give a fuck about the price that it costs to point a camera at your face and tell us about the game, and not go into the game until 2 picks and bans have already happened. We want to help the players, don't get me wrong, but what the hell is $2.50 gonna do to a prize pool? All I've managed to do is give about 70% to the winning team, and who knows how much to the rest. What if I wan't to contribute to my favorite team's chunk of money?
To you, the professional players, if there's too many tournaments, make the games fun to watch then. Pick fun heroes, that aren't game losing. Pick heroes that haven't even been considered, like Crystal Maiden (jk ee). People pick Skywrath because he has a silence that makes extra magic damage apply, so why isn't Pugna being picked up? Skywrath is COMPLETELY countered by BKB, but so is Leshrac, why isn't he being picked up? He has a stun, hits towers, and has an AOE toggleable ult. He offers MUCH more than Skywrath does in my opinion.
To the people who run tournaments, why the hell are you giving Dota 2 Lounge and Esportsbets.com all the betting fun? I see a pretty fucking good revenue with sites like that. Just let people bet on the stuff from your tournament, and take a percentage of the losing sides bets, and distribute the rest among the winning betters, fairly of course. It'd take some math to do, but you'd just have to get a ratio for how much the person wins back per dollar spent (conversions SHOULD apply. 1 euro does NOT equal a dollar). Then take half of the percentage you took, and apply it to the prize pool... FOR EVERY GAME. Viewers are enticed to bet because they can win money, and in turn, you make money.
Also to people who run tournaments, more teams and more games does not increase viewership. We want to see GOOD teams play against each other in such a way that it is EXCITING. If we watch C9 vs EG 6 times in 3 days, we don't wanna watch game 4, or 5, or 6. Maybe not even the first 3 games. Another thing, SPACE THE TOURNAMENTS OUT. There's literally like 34013414018 tournaments in the Winter, and oh shit come January and we have like 3 between then and TI. A tournament in March or April will most definitely not ruin the upcoming TI, and who knows you might attract viewers for being the only tournament happening in Spring (now that I said that inb4 104192130129 tournaments in Spring, sorry pros).
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I'm very curious about the player association thing. Seeing how OP describes the situation in DotA2 for top tier players in DotA2 right now, i can see it really working if they truly all rally together and start to demand for real things.
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i got to be honest, i only watch EG games in any and all tournaments.
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Jacky Mao is just a boy trying to play Dota 2 T_T
All he wants is a private hotel room so he can play VNs at night.
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IS ANYONE WATCHING THIS DOTAPIT GAME? TT vs VP?
Theres so many disconnects they aren't bothering with pausing and just playing 4/3v5...Literally exactly what EE said...The casters have no idea what to say and are obviously holding back saying what they are thinking.
This is really embarrassing...Especially when EE just posted about this.
Sure it's over 10 minutes of Dotapits rules. But VP don't even seem that bothered anyway...
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On December 17 2014 08:46 Talyk wrote:
IS ANYONE WATCHING THIS DOTAPIT GAME? TT vs VP?
Theres so many disconnects they aren't bothering with pausing and just playing 4/3v5...Literally exactly what EE said...The casters have no idea what to say and are obviously holding back saying what they are thinking.
This is really embarrassing...Especially when EE just posted about this.
Sure it's over 10 minutes of Dotapits rules. But VP don't even seem that bothered anyway...
no im not, i didnt even realise the two were playing
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While EE does have a strong point in tournament over-saturation I feel it ultimately goes down to the team's decision to attend every StarLadder, MLG, DreamHack, etc. I can't tell you how many tournaments are going on right now and the feeling of being overwhelmed makes it nearly impossible to follow every storyline and team. At the same time, as a team if you feel you need to space out, make that decision rather than take the greedy path and attend all of them.
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100% agree with Thorin.
Top Tier 1 teams need to pick and choose. Let the lesser team take some amount of the $ prize
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Just adding my 2 cents, the players/teams should take responsibility for their own schedule and losses due to whatever - fatigue, ping, etc. If they think its unfair then don't play and risk the TI invite or play a few and make sure you win.
Not caring about the game is their own problem, and the more they lose the bigger the risk their reputation and invite to TI becomes. Casters should also take pride and ownership of their own casts, if they don't care bout the games or teams have other lesser known casters cast it. Over-saturation is not an issue, viewers watch what they want. End of the day its just competition and the best survive.
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So you bitch about casters being unprofessional (which is bad) while you say that you dont care about the games you play (which is unprofessional, especially when you say it out loud) and your team (i dont know if it was Aui2000 or Bone7) said at BTS2 that you do everything to win and bitching about handwarmers is part of it (which is hypocritical).
And if its too many tournaments, why not be restrictive? If teams dont want to play in that many tournaments fewer will pop up.
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On December 17 2014 08:01 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 07:47 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more well, if that is the case the dota2 scene isnt strong enough to support T2 teams. that would be sad (and i dont believe it, but that is something to debate), but couldnt be changed. you can not expect the top teams to play an unhealthy amount of games, especially lan games all over the world, just so that less successfull teams can live the life of progamers. oh and you keep mentioning EG back in 2013. with EG back then it is a bit different than with EG/C9 today. first, they werent really all that dominant. they were a strong team and probably the strongest in NA, but dignitas and liquid were somewhat close by. but the most important part was that EG stopped playing for months. they didnt play less like dropping out of a few tournaments, they werent playing at all until it was relatively late and then they werent ahead of liquid and dignitas any longer. if you want to compare it to today, EG had to stop playing until mid april and at the same time another NA teams rises to power and wins multiple international tournaments and places top3 in all others. that is very unlikely. I don't get what you're arguing lol? I fundamentally agree with you, but you seem to ignore all the people who are saying explicitly that oversaturation doesn't exist or in the case of ixmike that EE is an idiot and that more prize money is good. The point about EG is not an apples to apples comparison to the current scene. It is more that teams are incredibly cognizant of the results they need to put up to make it to TI. Every tournament combined would not equal the TI prizepool and so obtaining more high finishes will certainly help you make it into TI. It's not like Valve hasn't rejected the hot team of the moment from even getting a TI qualifier invite amirite Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 07:31 SupLilSon wrote:On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more Tournaments don't suddenly just die because 1 or 2 top teams drop out and they lose some viewers. If they really close shop after one such incident then obviously their budget was fucking terribly planned out. Yes, some tournaments will be relegated to "tier 2", probably the more poorly run ones. Those smaller tournaments will still exist for the T2 teams. A player like Kefka probably wouldn't even be able to call himself a pro if there wasn't oversaturation. Look at the league scene, if you're not in an LCS team or a team vying for an LCS spot then you are nothing. There's no independent tournament to make your name. You either are either on a top 10 (or w/e) team in your region, make decent money streaming, or you are nothing. Teams like 4ASC and VPP gain a lot more playing C9/EG/Secret than the other way around. I hope T2 tourneys don't die out but you have stuff like Dota Pit League/Synergy League etc. that are high paying lan tournaments and don't get much buzz on any dota site League has a really structured ladder system where the top 5 stacks are moved up into the challenger division (think of EPL or La Liga with lower division teams that get promoted). The winners then move up into LCS and replace the lowest finishing teams in LCS. League if anything, is the most structured and has the least tournaments. It's much simpler to get noticed in League because there is only 1 way of developing and it's confined to whatever region your team is based in. It's also relatively fair and quite transparent as to how to get into the "pro circuit" (though it has been taken advantage by Chinese b-teams lol)
which hot team of the moment was rejected by valve ? if you say kaipi, i am just gonna laugh
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On December 17 2014 09:59 Churrass wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 08:01 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:47 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more well, if that is the case the dota2 scene isnt strong enough to support T2 teams. that would be sad (and i dont believe it, but that is something to debate), but couldnt be changed. you can not expect the top teams to play an unhealthy amount of games, especially lan games all over the world, just so that less successfull teams can live the life of progamers. oh and you keep mentioning EG back in 2013. with EG back then it is a bit different than with EG/C9 today. first, they werent really all that dominant. they were a strong team and probably the strongest in NA, but dignitas and liquid were somewhat close by. but the most important part was that EG stopped playing for months. they didnt play less like dropping out of a few tournaments, they werent playing at all until it was relatively late and then they werent ahead of liquid and dignitas any longer. if you want to compare it to today, EG had to stop playing until mid april and at the same time another NA teams rises to power and wins multiple international tournaments and places top3 in all others. that is very unlikely. I don't get what you're arguing lol? I fundamentally agree with you, but you seem to ignore all the people who are saying explicitly that oversaturation doesn't exist or in the case of ixmike that EE is an idiot and that more prize money is good. The point about EG is not an apples to apples comparison to the current scene. It is more that teams are incredibly cognizant of the results they need to put up to make it to TI. Every tournament combined would not equal the TI prizepool and so obtaining more high finishes will certainly help you make it into TI. It's not like Valve hasn't rejected the hot team of the moment from even getting a TI qualifier invite amirite On December 17 2014 07:31 SupLilSon wrote:On December 17 2014 07:12 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 07:06 hfglgg wrote:On December 17 2014 06:45 bagels21 wrote:On December 17 2014 06:38 SupLilSon wrote:
Envy brings up valid points, but in all honesty the problem seems to lie in his own hands, not the tournament organizers or community's. If you're being overworked then that is your own fault and the fault of C9 management. No one is forcing you to play every single DotA 2 tournament in existence. Citing external pressures such as the desire to qualify for TI is a weak excuse. Teams and their management need to actually take time to plan out their schedules. These are things that are just par for the course in normal jobs. Envy is like a fat kid complaining that he ate too much cake and his stomach hurts.
The casting situation I agree on. The casting at Dreamleague was atrocious. Waga and Draskyl did all they could to salvage the casting but overall it was next to unbearable. Half the time there was some 3k fool talking over them. Casters should not be drunk, especially when their grasp on dota 2 is shaky to begin with. Overall, I think there are some really great casters out there who don't get enough credit (Draskyl for example), and some really poor casters who need to reevaluate what their role in the dota 2 community is (Pyrion for example).
I hope teams and players start to realize that they are the ones most invested in this scene. Sure, I love DotA and think about it/play/watch it every day. But if DotA2 somehow disappeared tomorrow my life would continue mostly unharmed. If you think there are TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS then tell your management to avoid certain events. Don't sign up for starladder if it's going to kill your schedule and leave you exhausted. Let the tier 2 teams who are struggling to find tournaments and net results play in the more grueling events. It just seems so backwards to me that players are now starting to complain that theres TOO MUCH MONEY AND INTEREST in DotA2. Yea it's fucking messy, it's disorganized, it's chaotic but that's because there's been a boom in interest and money. Like damn, EE you came from almost nothing and now that you're near the top you forgot where you came from. Maybe I'm just a dumbass forum poster who has no fucking idea what goes on in the mind of a top player but I'd really like to hear what some tier 2 players think about this situation. I want to hear what the dota 2 scene is like from someone who is still hungry.
How do you plan out a schedule for tournaments you aren't sure you're going to the LAN for? Furthermore, going to TI is not an external pressure, it is THE external pressure. Every pro in the world wants to go to TI and that's the goal of every team in the world. It's hardly trivial. I doubt anyone in the world is more hungry than these top teams because if they were, they'd be beating them. They have also been dropping out lately. The problem is that when the top teams drop out, viewership falls off a cliff, which in turn jeopardize future iterations and prize pools of the tournament you can not complain about oversaturation and at the same time want every terrible run tournament to stay alive for all eternity. when the viewership drops it will be decided wether the dota scene is large enough to support lower tier tournaments on an equally professional level. (as if any tournament is run by professionals, LOL). if that is the case, great, dota is on a really good way to stay for years to come. if it is not, its also fine because dota will be cut down to a healthier state and will continue the same as it did before. I'm not a fan of every terribly run tournament, but I'm just pointing out how all the "more tournament good" bulls are wrong in saying that these top teams should just drop, because if they did; this tournaments would die and T2 teams (the ones they claim to be in support of) would be hurt even more Tournaments don't suddenly just die because 1 or 2 top teams drop out and they lose some viewers. If they really close shop after one such incident then obviously their budget was fucking terribly planned out. Yes, some tournaments will be relegated to "tier 2", probably the more poorly run ones. Those smaller tournaments will still exist for the T2 teams. A player like Kefka probably wouldn't even be able to call himself a pro if there wasn't oversaturation. Look at the league scene, if you're not in an LCS team or a team vying for an LCS spot then you are nothing. There's no independent tournament to make your name. You either are either on a top 10 (or w/e) team in your region, make decent money streaming, or you are nothing. Teams like 4ASC and VPP gain a lot more playing C9/EG/Secret than the other way around. I hope T2 tourneys don't die out but you have stuff like Dota Pit League/Synergy League etc. that are high paying lan tournaments and don't get much buzz on any dota site League has a really structured ladder system where the top 5 stacks are moved up into the challenger division (think of EPL or La Liga with lower division teams that get promoted). The winners then move up into LCS and replace the lowest finishing teams in LCS. League if anything, is the most structured and has the least tournaments. It's much simpler to get noticed in League because there is only 1 way of developing and it's confined to whatever region your team is based in. It's also relatively fair and quite transparent as to how to get into the "pro circuit" (though it has been taken advantage by Chinese b-teams lol) which hot team of the moment was rejected by valve ? if you say kaipi, i am just gonna laugh
the wink was a kaipi joke but realtalk potm bottom got jobbed for TI2. I'm 100% sure they would have finished higher than any western team outside of Na'Vi (and maybe original EG) they were first or second every tourney for like 2-3 months and iG practiced the most with them lol
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This will be a crosspost, I will post it on its own elsewhere as I hope for it to be properly discussed.
Why EE is wrong:
EE's post is riddled with implicit and explicit errors.
1. Interest in tournaments:
a. Why are people interested in tournaments, what creates interest and maintains interest?
i. People are interested in tournaments because they enjoy watching DotA. The reason there are more tournaments is because there’s more demand for DotA content. The additional DotA content increases general interest and stimulates more demand. The market grows.
ii. The variable here is the amount of interest. EE’s problem is that he views the talent as a constant.
b. Is interest a zero sum game?
i. Interest is not a zero sum game. The total amount of interest in the scene and value put into it increases with the number of fans and how much those fans care about the scene. There is not a constant number of fans spread between an ever growing number of tournaments, there is a growing number of tournaments and a growing number of fans. This is most importantly reflected in the growing amount of money this industry is generating.
c. Is talent a zero sum game?
i. No. This is where EE comes unstuck. EE views talented players as a constant – that there is a small and finite number of top level players who will not grow with the scene. If the number of tournaments is growing, and the number of fans is growing, and with that the amount of money is growing, why does EE think the number of professional players will not grow?
ii. This is where we come to the crux of EE’s error. There is, for all practicable purposes, an infinite number of players at or able to reach EE’s level of skill. As the monetary compensation for play increases, we will see more players invest the time and effort required to reach peak professional play, to feed the growing number of fans and tournaments.
iii. EE believes he should be a protected species, in a trade union for players, to insulate him from upcoming talent.
2. Do tournament organisers adequately respect players?
a. What is a professional player?
i. A professional player is a player who has taken DotA up as a profession – whose primary source of income is DotA.
b. What level of respect should a professional player receive?
i. A professional in any market receives the amount of respect he needs to continue in the profession. This respect takes the form of money, social status and fringe benefits, among other things. The amount of “respect” any wage earner receives is in proportion to their value.
c. What level of respect do professional players receive?
i. None of them have quit citing lack of respect – be it status, remuneration or fringe benefits.
ii. It is therefore reasonable to assume that EE overvalues himself and other professional players. He is whinging.
3. Are there too many tournaments?
a. Number of tournaments vs number of teams vs number of viewers:
i. All else being equal, these things have stayed more or less in balance. What has changed is the workload for top teams, who have chosen to commit to too many tournaments.
b. “The player’s association will try to fix some issues…”
i. EE is joining a player’s union headed by a shady individual to try to protect players from market forces.
c. The ticket system creates too much value, which creates too many tournaments, which devalues the whole thing?
i. Baw.
ii. You are deriving your livelihood from it, directly and indirectly.
4. The International:
a. The major problem is that every tournament is a qualifier for TI, because TI dwarfs the scene.
i. This is actually an important point that needs to be addressed properly, because it’s the point where the greatest risk of EE fucking the scene in the arse exists.
ii. What does TI actually do at the moment?
+ Show Spoiler +1. TI creates an informal season around DotA, where TI itself is the finals, the period before it is the season and the season after it is the transfer window.
2. The money and attention brought by TI filters into the rest of the year by creating legitimacy around the year and providing unquantified importance to smaller tournaments, attracting players and viewers.
3. Since invites are primarily based on performance, TI clearly creates a perception by certain literally minded players that they must participate in every tournament to be a chance.
iii. What are the alternatives?
+ Show Spoiler +1. Assuming you want TI to happen, I’ve seen dozens of suggestions for how to change TI. Most of them are really bad. Here are the two most popular at the moment:
a. Adopt a formal qualifier format:
i. This is bad because all you’re doing is formalising a process that already exists. This will simply create a “boys club” worse than what already exists because breaking from second and third string tournaments to the first string TI qualifiers would be virtually impossible. The reason this is attractive to certain pro players is because it allows them to minimise their workload by protecting themselves from needing to compete in robust competition.
ii. This would destroy the growing industry in minor tournaments by creating the “eagle in a chicken coup effect” where the best teams would most likely game one another to enter smaller tournaments just to collect the prize money.
iii. This would destroy any hope of upcoming teams improving because it would deny them the ability to frequently test their skills against top teams in a dynamic continuum of skill.
iv. If you want to see what these solutions look like various model forms, look at WCS or how ACE ran their tournaments in the lead up to TI3. It doesn’t work. It’s fucking bad.
b. Break TI into a number of smaller tournaments to spread the load throughout the year:
i. The current format of a big TI has the positive effect of informally structuring the year as discussed above. This model would almost certainly destroy that. The 2-4 mini-Tis would just be more tournaments in a year totally without structure.
ii. Additionally, TI would not be TI without Valve’s care and attention. Valve’s personal interaction with the community is what TI is and Valve is not an event hosting company. I would posit that Valve probably already considers that it spends more time than it really should organising and participating in TI.
iii. Logistical concerns aside, the idea that the solution to solving there being too many tournaments by increasing the number of tournaments is silly. The idea that you make unimportant tournaments seem more important by making important tournaments less important is similarly backwards.
*****
I have to be extremely clear here. Player unions and formal regulators have damaged scenes in the past. You only need look to the ACE catastrophe to see how central control of these resources leads to corruption, nepotism, failure to innovate and a failure to grow talent and depth in competition. You only need look to KESPA to see how these organisations fail to enforce ethical standards. The only people these moves favour are the current crop of top string players – everyone else loses so they can win more.
*****
5. Reduced standard of casting:
a. Randoms casting.
i. Yep, outsourced labour was how brands dealt with the increased amount of tournaments. For the most part, outsourced casters are very good, though there are some exceptions. But, shit, if you have a problem with Lysander and don’t have an issue with Zyori, you’re probably beyond hope anyway. But tuk muh juhbs!
b. Casters don’t adequately organise cocasters.
i. The market will move to better casters who have better cocasters. Let it sort itself out.
c. Casters don’t express emotion the same way EE does or would like them to.
i. Baw.
*****
The elephant in the room:
Betting. E-Sports rigging. Throwing. 322. There is a reason that EE doesn't want to specifically address this, which is that it doesn't suit is narrative of "Oh, but pity us because of all these tournaments."
Conclusion:
If EE doesn't like it, he should leave. If he doesn't, it's ample evidence that his current respect and remuneration is adequate.
EE appears to be a statist with no understanding of the foibles of bureaucracy. He should consider a career in politics on the left somewhere or as a trade unionist, as it suits his fantastic misunderstanding of markets and optimism that explicit rules are better than implicit market solutions. He seems to vastly overestimate his long term value, and if these rumours of a player union are true, they are really, really bad news for DotA in the medium and long term because they will primarily serve current high level players to the exclusion of the dozens of other important stakeholders in the equation.
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On December 17 2014 07:06 Targe wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 06:59 EnumaAvalon wrote:
This is community news now? Whoa! its exploded on every dota related site and twitter, its bigger than tl
Nice. As a community, we should also be able to help out. Simply not buying tickets or bundles of tourneys that are not good isn't the way tho.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you.
The hype for TI2 and TI3 were so real but it has since dropped off since then... I believe there needs to be fewer (and since the game has a huge community, more rewarding) tournaments for higher competition. I believe in the need for lots of tournaments at a low level so people can get stepping stones into the professional scene. In sports there is usually 1, 2, maybe 3 big leagues/ tournaments that teams compete in - I feel this is how Dota should aim to be (maybe 2 international leagues and 1 regional give or take a couple).
Like you said, tournament organizers all want to make money off of such a competitive video game, but the sponsors that are funding these events should manage their investments better and promote larger tournaments.
Thanks EE!
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Hello, I hope you get to read this EE it wont take too long and its something no one probably has come up to at the moment.
I am a South American player. My business here is not bashing you or contradict many of your points stated in the thread. You have a right for being mad and its totaly legit and I respect that.
Tournaments here in this region dont even exist at the scale you guys get to play (as constant as you say you do) and prize pools are miserable. Example: 1st place $500 and nothing for the rest in a week tournament. Most people including the US and Europe dont even have the chance of getting into a plane. Not even one with infinite stops. Culture in south america is years away from the first world countries or regions such as NA or EU. Im not saying that we are starbing, I dont want you to think Im some kind of caretaker for the poor. Cause we are not, we do have pcs, good internet conections and pretty much the same technology anyone can get.
My point is: In 4 years not a single s.a. team has get as far as Not Today did in the last Summit (I am not perubian btw) and they got crushed. We are in a different lvl and I believe the point of doing a large amount of tournaments (during this year and prob next as you say) is to see more people in participate in it. In a few lines, what you might consider a bad plane trip, a bad schedule, a bad prizepool (15k 1st place) is 15 or more times better than living in this situation, where we are 4 years late, 4 years unexperienced late. Im not saying you should be confortable with what you've acomplished, you always have to aim higher. But just consider that whether you like it or not, you (the pros) are a minority and the game is ment to be played by everyone.
Im really sorry if anything I say here will get you even madder. Im just trying to state a point and my only intention is for you to consider it and learn from this reality. Im sorry for the bad english, again, this is one of the million things that are hard to learn here.
Andy
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On December 17 2014 10:46 PsionicLord wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
The hype for TI2 and TI3 were so real but it has since dropped off since then...
Nope nope nope nope
nope
nope nope nope.
The hype for TI4 was IMMENSE. It just stumbled in a couple of areas and had a very disappointing final. But don't act like there was not a huge surge of excitement for it; that just isn't true.
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On December 17 2014 11:50 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 10:46 PsionicLord wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
The hype for TI2 and TI3 were so real but it has since dropped off since then... Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. The hype for TI4 was IMMENSE. It just stumbled in a couple of areas and had a very disappointing final. But don't act like there was not a huge surge of excitement for it; that just isn't true.
Tbh I think this is a pretty knew thing, and viewers may feel like there's been a lot of similar events for a long time when in reality the situation hasn't been like this for all that long. Just last year there were high tier teams playing Joindota's Eizo Cups or whatever to compete for 1k and to get some decent competitive games. There were a bunch of online leagues that actually had some sort of prestige because there were not that many LANs. Not surprising that in a situation like this the hype for TI would be huge as well.
After MLG showed what can be done with crowd funding, the amount of tournaments that try to do the same thing has grown. Every organizer wants the top teams in their event. There is no clear distinction between a lot of events, where some events would really be profiled as the majors and some others as medium tier events with some top teams and some other teams getting a chance, and the rest being where purely t2 teams compete. As a player there are the TI concerns that EE brought up, but also you don't know which tournaments will be well run, you don't know how high the prize pool will get in each tournament because of crowd funding, etc. Although some people shout that "just don't play as many events", making the choices is not all that simple in the current situation. TI is still so far above everything that I think the hype for TI5 will be huge once again, but I do feel that the excitement for a lot of these events recently is a bit lacking.
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On December 17 2014 11:50 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 10:46 PsionicLord wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
The hype for TI2 and TI3 were so real but it has since dropped off since then... Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. The hype for TI4 was IMMENSE. It just stumbled in a couple of areas and had a very disappointing final. But don't act like there was not a huge surge of excitement for it; that just isn't true.
this revisionist shit about TI4 is disgusting
everyone was excited as fuck to see DK/NB/IG/EG finals
but VG ruined it hehe
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Yeah I can definitely agree that I personally don't look forward to tournaments that much anymore. Perhaps it was because I was new to watching competitive Dota but it seems that the hype has taken a real nose dive since this time last year.
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The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
If they can't find the passion or the motivation to try their hardest in every tournament, they should play selectively and let t2 teams have a chance to shine - think BU, Leviathan, HR. This way they can try their hardest in the remaining games they are playing and convince themselves that they need to go all out, and they can also spend more time watching replays, having a break etc. Having more tournaments ALWAYS benefit the rest of the scene, the top teams need to stop thinking solely from their perspective and decline invites if they feel they can't play in all of them instead of requesting organizers to cater only to them.
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i think the issue is the west is now tied with the east in terms of skill. there's no more of that "china vs. the world" mentality. especially since china isnt in any tournaments anymore except Ti basically
bring back china as a titan powerhouse, and bring back the passion and hype from a western team beating them. that'll spark interest right away.
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the top teams need to stop thinking solely from their perspective
Yep. Reducing the number of tournaments is a benefit to a very small number of players.
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On December 17 2014 14:21 gulati wrote:
i think the issue is the west is now tied with the east in terms of skill. there's no more of that "china vs. the world" mentality. especially since china isnt in any tournaments anymore except Ti basically
bring back china as a titan powerhouse, and bring back the passion and hype from a western team beating them. that'll spark interest right away.
What? This is.. like 8 kinds of absurd.
At TI4 only the Chinese teams managed to eliminate other Chinese teams. Of the top 6, 4 of them were Chinese. Also we're seeing more of China than we have ever before. 2014 has been nothing but tournaments where we get the best teams we can. China not coming to Dreamhack and Starladder doesn't mean much at all as they still went to ESL and The Summit. I imagine next season will be similar with Chinese teams (read: Vici/Newbee) coming over to the big lans and playing against the best of the West.
I mean seriously... what are you on about?
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On December 17 2014 13:56 Oktyabr wrote:
The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
If they can't find the passion or the motivation to try their hardest in every tournament, they should play selectively and let t2 teams have a chance to shine - think BU, Leviathan, HR. This way they can try their hardest in the remaining games they are playing and convince themselves that they need to go all out, and they can also spend more time watching replays, having a break etc. Having more tournaments ALWAYS benefit the rest of the scene, the top teams need to stop thinking solely from their perspective and decline invites if they feel they can't play in all of them instead of requesting organizers to cater only to them.
It's not all about the perspective of EE and whoever else in his position, but the effect the current situation has on viewers is very real imo. It's not only "pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there", it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event. There are no real tiers of competition in dota, outside of TI which is above everything. This makes it hard to build hype around an individual event, when the next similar one is happening right around the corner.
From the player perspective when you think about signing up, you don't know how the event will be as a lot of the events may have new organizers, new venues, whatever. You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy. If we look at Dreamleague for example, a big number of people seemed to be very underwhelmed by even the LAN portion, just because "EG vs c9 final with EG winning was obvious from the start". It's not easy to make events that don't have all the top tier teams work.
If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily. Imo it's not as straightforward as "having more tournaments always benefits the rest of the scene", if the tournaments can't exist because they can't get the teams that bring all the hype to play. I'm not talking about small budget online leagues, but proper LAN tournaments with decent prize pools that in theory would allow more players to make a decent living out of the game.
A key difference to a lot of other sports is that in dota you can essentially watch everything if you have the time. It's not like some other sport where you only get to see things live when it happens near your home town, and you may watch on tv whenever broadcasts are available to you, which isn't a daily thing at all in many sports. In dota there are LANs, and a huge amount of online games from different tournaments available day and night right in your home. By not having any sort of structure for the scene (where a few major events around the year are clearly separated so viewers know that these I want to watch and the rest I can skip), one is also assuming that viewers are able to pace themselves and not get bored by watching too much dota.
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On December 17 2014 14:48 Jinxed wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 14:21 gulati wrote:
i think the issue is the west is now tied with the east in terms of skill. there's no more of that "china vs. the world" mentality. especially since china isnt in any tournaments anymore except Ti basically
bring back china as a titan powerhouse, and bring back the passion and hype from a western team beating them. that'll spark interest right away. What? This is.. like 8 kinds of absurd. At TI4 only the Chinese teams managed to eliminate other Chinese teams. Of the top 6, 4 of them were Chinese. Also we're seeing more of China than we have ever before. 2014 has been nothing but tournaments where we get the best teams we can. China not coming to Dreamhack and Starladder doesn't mean much at all as they still went to ESL and The Summit. I imagine next season will be similar with Chinese teams (read: Vici/Newbee) coming over to the big lans and playing against the best of the West. I mean seriously... what are you on about?
yooooo
there was one non chinese team that eliminated a chinese team
Team Liquid.
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On December 17 2014 13:56 Oktyabr wrote:
The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
This is what I have been trying to say the whole time. If you enter more tournaments than you can handle, fatigue and schedule clashes will happen sooner or later
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I genuinely don't think Dota2 will end up like SC2 because the patches actually tend to be good for the most part. I hope the next International is the best one yet however or I have fears for Dota has a whole ;_;
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WAAAAHHHHH!!! I PLAY GAMES FOR A LIVING!!!
WAAHAAAHHH!!!! DOTA 2 IS GROWING TOO FAST!!!!! TOO MANY TOURNAMENTS!!
But real talk though, I do agree with the casting feeling more casual than professional. And it really would be great for the tournament organizers to be more accommodating to the players. Players not worrying about out of game lan issues = better matches = MORE HYPE = better tournament = MORE HYPE = DOTA 2 growing.
But then again, sounded like EE was complaining about Dota 2 growing to fast so... WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!
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On December 16 2014 23:55 brown0317 wrote:
I’m your fanboy from China. I didn’t miss any C9’s matches, no matter it begins at Mid-night or even later. For Instance, today I got up at 3:00 am and watched your DPL’s quarter-finals. However, what I saw was you picked a Storm spirit and performed like a Doraemon with a take copter. OK, never mind, even though you lost, I still support C9, but after reading your blog, I felt disappointed and wanted to say something.
Firstly, it is no doubt to complain the tournaments are too much, but what is professional player? As a professional player, it is an obligation to join a tournament and present the most wonderful matches for our fans, but what you care about are your stream and 7K MMR.
Secondly, you said we only care about tournaments’ item sets, but how can you let us support you guys after being tortured with a 122 minutes’ match. Moreover, teams’ boring draft is also a factor to affect viewers’ passion and sometimes casters’ quality. In WEC, I was amazed by your wrath king and Warlock, In Starladder 10, your amazing chaos and Fata’s Bristleback destroyed VP and EG respectively, but after that, I never saw such amazing pick again, every time is Puck, TB, and Brewmaster.
Anyway, I do really hope C9 can win this times’ i league, I will cheer for you at the scene.
EE, you should read it seriously. This guy create an acc to answer you.
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On December 17 2014 15:14 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 13:56 Oktyabr wrote:
The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
If they can't find the passion or the motivation to try their hardest in every tournament, they should play selectively and let t2 teams have a chance to shine - think BU, Leviathan, HR. This way they can try their hardest in the remaining games they are playing and convince themselves that they need to go all out, and they can also spend more time watching replays, having a break etc. Having more tournaments ALWAYS benefit the rest of the scene, the top teams need to stop thinking solely from their perspective and decline invites if they feel they can't play in all of them instead of requesting organizers to cater only to them.
It's not all about the perspective of EE and whoever else in his position, but the effect the current situation has on viewers is very real imo. It's not only "pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there", it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event. There are no real tiers of competition in dota, outside of TI which is above everything. This makes it hard to build hype around an individual event, when the next similar one is happening right around the corner. From the player perspective when you think about signing up, you don't know how the event will be as a lot of the events may have new organizers, new venues, whatever. You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy. If we look at Dreamleague for example, a big number of people seemed to be very underwhelmed by even the LAN portion, just because "EG vs c9 final with EG winning was obvious from the start". It's not easy to make events that don't have all the top tier teams work. If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily. Imo it's not as straightforward as "having more tournaments always benefits the rest of the scene", if the tournaments can't exist because they can't get the teams that bring all the hype to play. I'm not talking about small budget online leagues, but proper LAN tournaments with decent prize pools that in theory would allow more players to make a decent living out of the game. A key difference to a lot of other sports is that in dota you can essentially watch everything if you have the time. It's not like some other sport where you only get to see things live when it happens near your home town, and you may watch on tv whenever broadcasts are available to you, which isn't a daily thing at all in many sports. In dota there are LANs, and a huge amount of online games from different tournaments available day and night right in your home. By not having any sort of structure for the scene (where a few major events around the year are clearly separated so viewers know that these I want to watch and the rest I can skip), one is also assuming that viewers are able to pace themselves and not get bored by watching too much dota.
"it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event"
That's why TOP teams actually have many choices when it comes to participation, and they can afford to be selective unlike tier 2 teams who have to slog through every qualifier just to get noticed. By virtue of invitation, they can also decline participation if they feel that their schedule it's packed. Top teams need to learn to manage themselves and work with the time they have. This is like some obese kid complaining that there's too much food on the table and he can't help himself from not eating because there is still some food that he hasn't tried yet.
"You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? "
There is always a base price pool to work with. Top teams are actually way more experienced when it comes to LAN events and I'm sure they're pretty familiar with the arrangements and distribution of the prize pool for recurring LAN events, especially those which has so many seasons already - D2L, D2CL, SL, DH, DL.
"And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy."
Would you rather have this situation or have every other event actually resembling TI so closely, so much so that the hype for the actual TI becomes meaningless? Again, the issue now is that virtually every event is similar in terms of participation from the top teams, and that viewers won't even look forward to the next C9/EG showdown since it happens too frequently. That period of qualifiers for DL had a ton of C9/VP games across different tournaments - how would you expect both teams to treat their games seriously when they're playing for so many different stakes within such a short time frame? Having lesser of such events isn't necessarily bad.
"If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily."
The only logical conclusion that follows from this would be organizers seeing viewership or profits drop, and hence reduce the frequency of the tournaments they put up, pull out entirely, or cooperate to create an even bigger event. The scene would actually correct itself and reduce oversaturation. Isn't this the result they all want in the first place?
My point is that there's never too much dota competitions to be held, regardless of whether they are LAN events or online leagues. You can bet that there are a ton of tier 2 teams out there who would try out for every qualifier just so that they can place decent and get noticed for TI. EE didn't have this gripe back when he was in Kaipi pre-TI3 when Valve didn't invite them for the qualifiers - he was dying for some way to prove his team worthy of at least being in the qualifiers. Top teams which have placed well up to the end of this year don't face this problem, and they definitely don't experience a lack of competitive dota to play.
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It's really alarming that so many people are calling for regulations and central planning. Yes, there are some problems right now but it's a fast-growing and dynamic market, so that is to be expected. Thorin is absolutely spot on in both his analysis and his suggestions, top-tier players are a powerful force in this market and they should start acting accordingly instead of whining.
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I would honestly say that the amount of tournaments that are trying to fit in did wear me out to the point I stopped watching (and even playing) DotA. Here in Aus I would look at the jD ticker and see there would be a hyped match like Na'Vi vs Alliance at 4am and I would set an alarm for it. Now in 2014, not the same teams of course but you will see the same kind of match over and over and over it gets to the point where it's not exciting to see the outcome of anymore because 'oh there'll be another chance in this other tournament'.
I think there can never be too many tournaments but maybe too many tournaments with the same teams over and over without diversity of any upcoming teams which waters it down. TI4 was the first ever TI where it got to a point where I stopped caring about watching and just woke up to check results every day. I do still care for DotA but trying to keep up with all the results wore me out a lot.
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On December 17 2014 15:53 WindWolf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 13:56 Oktyabr wrote:
The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
This is what I have been trying to say the whole time. If you enter more tournaments than you can handle, fatigue and schedule clashes will happen sooner or later
If I was 95% likely to get invited to TI I think I would still enter every tournament just to close that 5% gap. It's not worth the risk.
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On December 17 2014 10:15 Orchest wrote:This will be a crosspost, I will post it on its own elsewhere as I hope for it to be properly discussed. Why EE is wrong:EE's post is riddled with implicit and explicit errors. 1. Interest in tournaments:a. Why are people interested in tournaments, what creates interest and maintains interest?i. People are interested in tournaments because they enjoy watching DotA. The reason there are more tournaments is because there’s more demand for DotA content. The additional DotA content increases general interest and stimulates more demand. The market grows. ii. The variable here is the amount of interest. EE’s problem is that he views the talent as a constant. b. Is interest a zero sum game?i. Interest is not a zero sum game. The total amount of interest in the scene and value put into it increases with the number of fans and how much those fans care about the scene. There is not a constant number of fans spread between an ever growing number of tournaments, there is a growing number of tournaments and a growing number of fans. This is most importantly reflected in the growing amount of money this industry is generating. c. Is talent a zero sum game?i. No. This is where EE comes unstuck. EE views talented players as a constant – that there is a small and finite number of top level players who will not grow with the scene. If the number of tournaments is growing, and the number of fans is growing, and with that the amount of money is growing, why does EE think the number of professional players will not grow? ii. This is where we come to the crux of EE’s error. There is, for all practicable purposes, an infinite number of players at or able to reach EE’s level of skill. As the monetary compensation for play increases, we will see more players invest the time and effort required to reach peak professional play, to feed the growing number of fans and tournaments. iii. EE believes he should be a protected species, in a trade union for players, to insulate him from upcoming talent. 2. Do tournament organisers adequately respect players?a. What is a professional player?i. A professional player is a player who has taken DotA up as a profession – whose primary source of income is DotA. b. What level of respect should a professional player receive?i. A professional in any market receives the amount of respect he needs to continue in the profession. This respect takes the form of money, social status and fringe benefits, among other things. The amount of “respect” any wage earner receives is in proportion to their value. c. What level of respect do professional players receive?i. None of them have quit citing lack of respect – be it status, remuneration or fringe benefits. ii. It is therefore reasonable to assume that EE overvalues himself and other professional players. He is whinging. 3. Are there too many tournaments?a. Number of tournaments vs number of teams vs number of viewers:i. All else being equal, these things have stayed more or less in balance. What has changed is the workload for top teams, who have chosen to commit to too many tournaments. b. “The player’s association will try to fix some issues…”i. EE is joining a player’s union headed by a shady individual to try to protect players from market forces. c. The ticket system creates too much value, which creates too many tournaments, which devalues the whole thing?i. Baw. ii. You are deriving your livelihood from it, directly and indirectly. 4. The International:a. The major problem is that every tournament is a qualifier for TI, because TI dwarfs the scene.i. This is actually an important point that needs to be addressed properly, because it’s the point where the greatest risk of EE fucking the scene in the arse exists. ii. What does TI actually do at the moment? + Show Spoiler +1. TI creates an informal season around DotA, where TI itself is the finals, the period before it is the season and the season after it is the transfer window.
2. The money and attention brought by TI filters into the rest of the year by creating legitimacy around the year and providing unquantified importance to smaller tournaments, attracting players and viewers.
3. Since invites are primarily based on performance, TI clearly creates a perception by certain literally minded players that they must participate in every tournament to be a chance. iii. What are the alternatives? + Show Spoiler +1. Assuming you want TI to happen, I’ve seen dozens of suggestions for how to change TI. Most of them are really bad. Here are the two most popular at the moment:
a. Adopt a formal qualifier format:
i. This is bad because all you’re doing is formalising a process that already exists. This will simply create a “boys club” worse than what already exists because breaking from second and third string tournaments to the first string TI qualifiers would be virtually impossible. The reason this is attractive to certain pro players is because it allows them to minimise their workload by protecting themselves from needing to compete in robust competition.
ii. This would destroy the growing industry in minor tournaments by creating the “eagle in a chicken coup effect” where the best teams would most likely game one another to enter smaller tournaments just to collect the prize money.
iii. This would destroy any hope of upcoming teams improving because it would deny them the ability to frequently test their skills against top teams in a dynamic continuum of skill.
iv. If you want to see what these solutions look like various model forms, look at WCS or how ACE ran their tournaments in the lead up to TI3. It doesn’t work. It’s fucking bad.
b. Break TI into a number of smaller tournaments to spread the load throughout the year:
i. The current format of a big TI has the positive effect of informally structuring the year as discussed above. This model would almost certainly destroy that. The 2-4 mini-Tis would just be more tournaments in a year totally without structure.
ii. Additionally, TI would not be TI without Valve’s care and attention. Valve’s personal interaction with the community is what TI is and Valve is not an event hosting company. I would posit that Valve probably already considers that it spends more time than it really should organising and participating in TI.
iii. Logistical concerns aside, the idea that the solution to solving there being too many tournaments by increasing the number of tournaments is silly. The idea that you make unimportant tournaments seem more important by making important tournaments less important is similarly backwards. ***** I have to be extremely clear here. Player unions and formal regulators have damaged scenes in the past. You only need look to the ACE catastrophe to see how central control of these resources leads to corruption, nepotism, failure to innovate and a failure to grow talent and depth in competition. You only need look to KESPA to see how these organisations fail to enforce ethical standards. The only people these moves favour are the current crop of top string players – everyone else loses so they can win more. ***** 5. Reduced standard of casting:a. Randoms casting.i. Yep, outsourced labour was how brands dealt with the increased amount of tournaments. For the most part, outsourced casters are very good, though there are some exceptions. But, shit, if you have a problem with Lysander and don’t have an issue with Zyori, you’re probably beyond hope anyway. But tuk muh juhbs! b. Casters don’t adequately organise cocasters.i. The market will move to better casters who have better cocasters. Let it sort itself out. c. Casters don’t express emotion the same way EE does or would like them to.i. Baw. ***** The elephant in the room:Betting. E-Sports rigging. Throwing. 322. There is a reason that EE doesn't want to specifically address this, which is that it doesn't suit is narrative of "Oh, but pity us because of all these tournaments." Conclusion:If EE doesn't like it, he should leave. If he doesn't, it's ample evidence that his current respect and remuneration is adequate. EE appears to be a statist with no understanding of the foibles of bureaucracy. He should consider a career in politics on the left somewhere or as a trade unionist, as it suits his fantastic misunderstanding of markets and optimism that explicit rules are better than implicit market solutions. He seems to vastly overestimate his long term value, and if these rumours of a player union are true, they are really, really bad news for DotA in the medium and long term because they will primarily serve current high level players to the exclusion of the dozens of other important stakeholders in the equation.
Very good post!
Though as an EE fanboy I believe he only has a tendency towards statism, and isn't one by far. People in general tend towards statism whenever there's an issue because... well... monkey see, monkey do, right? ;p
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what you really mean to say is there's too many ridiculously small prize pools in badly-run tournaments that often can't even afford to pay the winners after it's over.
riddle me this: if, somehow, there were 25 TI's in 2015 each paying $10m USD, think anyone would be complaining about finding motivation to play them all?
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On December 17 2014 23:57 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 10:15 Orchest wrote:This will be a crosspost, I will post it on its own elsewhere as I hope for it to be properly discussed. Why EE is wrong:EE's post is riddled with implicit and explicit errors. 1. Interest in tournaments:a. Why are people interested in tournaments, what creates interest and maintains interest?i. People are interested in tournaments because they enjoy watching DotA. The reason there are more tournaments is because there’s more demand for DotA content. The additional DotA content increases general interest and stimulates more demand. The market grows. ii. The variable here is the amount of interest. EE’s problem is that he views the talent as a constant. b. Is interest a zero sum game?i. Interest is not a zero sum game. The total amount of interest in the scene and value put into it increases with the number of fans and how much those fans care about the scene. There is not a constant number of fans spread between an ever growing number of tournaments, there is a growing number of tournaments and a growing number of fans. This is most importantly reflected in the growing amount of money this industry is generating. c. Is talent a zero sum game?i. No. This is where EE comes unstuck. EE views talented players as a constant – that there is a small and finite number of top level players who will not grow with the scene. If the number of tournaments is growing, and the number of fans is growing, and with that the amount of money is growing, why does EE think the number of professional players will not grow? ii. This is where we come to the crux of EE’s error. There is, for all practicable purposes, an infinite number of players at or able to reach EE’s level of skill. As the monetary compensation for play increases, we will see more players invest the time and effort required to reach peak professional play, to feed the growing number of fans and tournaments. iii. EE believes he should be a protected species, in a trade union for players, to insulate him from upcoming talent. 2. Do tournament organisers adequately respect players?a. What is a professional player?i. A professional player is a player who has taken DotA up as a profession – whose primary source of income is DotA. b. What level of respect should a professional player receive?i. A professional in any market receives the amount of respect he needs to continue in the profession. This respect takes the form of money, social status and fringe benefits, among other things. The amount of “respect” any wage earner receives is in proportion to their value. c. What level of respect do professional players receive?i. None of them have quit citing lack of respect – be it status, remuneration or fringe benefits. ii. It is therefore reasonable to assume that EE overvalues himself and other professional players. He is whinging. 3. Are there too many tournaments?a. Number of tournaments vs number of teams vs number of viewers:i. All else being equal, these things have stayed more or less in balance. What has changed is the workload for top teams, who have chosen to commit to too many tournaments. b. “The player’s association will try to fix some issues…”i. EE is joining a player’s union headed by a shady individual to try to protect players from market forces. c. The ticket system creates too much value, which creates too many tournaments, which devalues the whole thing?i. Baw. ii. You are deriving your livelihood from it, directly and indirectly. 4. The International:a. The major problem is that every tournament is a qualifier for TI, because TI dwarfs the scene.i. This is actually an important point that needs to be addressed properly, because it’s the point where the greatest risk of EE fucking the scene in the arse exists. ii. What does TI actually do at the moment? + Show Spoiler +1. TI creates an informal season around DotA, where TI itself is the finals, the period before it is the season and the season after it is the transfer window.
2. The money and attention brought by TI filters into the rest of the year by creating legitimacy around the year and providing unquantified importance to smaller tournaments, attracting players and viewers.
3. Since invites are primarily based on performance, TI clearly creates a perception by certain literally minded players that they must participate in every tournament to be a chance. iii. What are the alternatives? + Show Spoiler +1. Assuming you want TI to happen, I’ve seen dozens of suggestions for how to change TI. Most of them are really bad. Here are the two most popular at the moment:
a. Adopt a formal qualifier format:
i. This is bad because all you’re doing is formalising a process that already exists. This will simply create a “boys club” worse than what already exists because breaking from second and third string tournaments to the first string TI qualifiers would be virtually impossible. The reason this is attractive to certain pro players is because it allows them to minimise their workload by protecting themselves from needing to compete in robust competition.
ii. This would destroy the growing industry in minor tournaments by creating the “eagle in a chicken coup effect” where the best teams would most likely game one another to enter smaller tournaments just to collect the prize money.
iii. This would destroy any hope of upcoming teams improving because it would deny them the ability to frequently test their skills against top teams in a dynamic continuum of skill.
iv. If you want to see what these solutions look like various model forms, look at WCS or how ACE ran their tournaments in the lead up to TI3. It doesn’t work. It’s fucking bad.
b. Break TI into a number of smaller tournaments to spread the load throughout the year:
i. The current format of a big TI has the positive effect of informally structuring the year as discussed above. This model would almost certainly destroy that. The 2-4 mini-Tis would just be more tournaments in a year totally without structure.
ii. Additionally, TI would not be TI without Valve’s care and attention. Valve’s personal interaction with the community is what TI is and Valve is not an event hosting company. I would posit that Valve probably already considers that it spends more time than it really should organising and participating in TI.
iii. Logistical concerns aside, the idea that the solution to solving there being too many tournaments by increasing the number of tournaments is silly. The idea that you make unimportant tournaments seem more important by making important tournaments less important is similarly backwards. ***** I have to be extremely clear here. Player unions and formal regulators have damaged scenes in the past. You only need look to the ACE catastrophe to see how central control of these resources leads to corruption, nepotism, failure to innovate and a failure to grow talent and depth in competition. You only need look to KESPA to see how these organisations fail to enforce ethical standards. The only people these moves favour are the current crop of top string players – everyone else loses so they can win more. ***** 5. Reduced standard of casting:a. Randoms casting.i. Yep, outsourced labour was how brands dealt with the increased amount of tournaments. For the most part, outsourced casters are very good, though there are some exceptions. But, shit, if you have a problem with Lysander and don’t have an issue with Zyori, you’re probably beyond hope anyway. But tuk muh juhbs! b. Casters don’t adequately organise cocasters.i. The market will move to better casters who have better cocasters. Let it sort itself out. c. Casters don’t express emotion the same way EE does or would like them to.i. Baw. ***** The elephant in the room:Betting. E-Sports rigging. Throwing. 322. There is a reason that EE doesn't want to specifically address this, which is that it doesn't suit is narrative of "Oh, but pity us because of all these tournaments." Conclusion:If EE doesn't like it, he should leave. If he doesn't, it's ample evidence that his current respect and remuneration is adequate. EE appears to be a statist with no understanding of the foibles of bureaucracy. He should consider a career in politics on the left somewhere or as a trade unionist, as it suits his fantastic misunderstanding of markets and optimism that explicit rules are better than implicit market solutions. He seems to vastly overestimate his long term value, and if these rumours of a player union are true, they are really, really bad news for DotA in the medium and long term because they will primarily serve current high level players to the exclusion of the dozens of other important stakeholders in the equation. Very good post! Though as an EE fanboy I believe he only has a tendency towards statism, and isn't one by far. People in general tend towards statism whenever there's an issue because... well... monkey see, monkey do, right? ;p
I disagree completely. The post reeks of someone who has a very black and white view in terms of value of work and a free market system.
Minor stuff aside, the biggest issue I take with this post is the author's stance that any criticisms top players have can be dismissed if they haven't quit the scene. How naive and unrealistic is that? You expect players to completely burn every bridge to prove a point? I would imagine many adults on this forum may have had issues with their jobs in terms of working conditions but staying was still preferable to unemployment. That doesn't mean they waived their right to speak out and try to change their situation because they chose not to take the nuclear option.
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On December 17 2014 08:50 Targe wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 08:46 Talyk wrote:
IS ANYONE WATCHING THIS DOTAPIT GAME? TT vs VP?
Theres so many disconnects they aren't bothering with pausing and just playing 4/3v5...Literally exactly what EE said...The casters have no idea what to say and are obviously holding back saying what they are thinking.
This is really embarrassing...Especially when EE just posted about this.
Sure it's over 10 minutes of Dotapits rules. But VP don't even seem that bothered anyway... no im not, i didnt even realise the two were playing
I think this is an excellent highlight of the problem. And the absolute mess of massive group stages of many different tournaments makes it even more awkward. Lets actually do this right now. As I'm typing this the current "Live Event" is as follows:
StarSeries
EU Group Stage
PR vs HellRaisers - 15:15
xGame.kz vs Lajons - 1h 10m
VP.Polar vs Lajons - 2h 25m
VP.Polar vs GOOMBA - 3h 40m
GOOMBA vs Lajons - 4h 55m
Ok, so I recognise PR, HellRaisers and VP.Polar. I don't know any of the rest but this is a group stage so its the "long format" part of the tournament, I'm assuming online, ahead of the LAN.
To the Live Events page. I didn't know there was a StarSeries group stage thing going on today because...surprise surprise...I've not been following it particularly. Why not? Look at today alone. Today there's StarSeries, i-League, joinDOTA Masters, DOTA Pit League and a showmatch. For StarSeries today's schedule includes EU Group Stage matches, an Americas group stage match and the SEA playoffs. Today there are fifteen scheduled matches alone. Some of them being multiple games and fourteen of them being official matches for some tournament or other. Its pretty much impossible to watch all of that to truly keep up with the scene.
Ok ok, not all matches are the same level, right? I mean its like football. There are probably thousands of football matches going on on weekends but most people look to the Premier League ones and they're the "key" ones to follow unless you have a specialist interest, right?
Except it doesn't work out that way. Here virtually every single tournament going on has key teams in it. Newbee, EG and LGD are just the very tip of a mix of top-level mid-to-high-quality teams here that you "should" know what's going on with if you follow the scene.
I mean just look at poor VP.Polar's schedule as an example . Its a 16 team group stage format and as a result they're playing two games against teams I'm not familiar with at 17:45 and 19:00. Oh and they're playing EG in the DOTA Pit League semi-finals at...18:00...wait what? How is that even going to work?
I can't watch today? Not a problem. They're playing StarSeries tomorrow at 14:00 and 15:15. And in a different tournament Grand Final at 16:00. Not tomorrow either? Friday then. Three StarSeries games at 17:45, 19:00 and 20:15. Weekend? Saturday at 16:30 and Sunday at 17:45. Away this week? That's ok because they're on next Monday at 21:30.
That's ONE TEAM. One team is playing twelve official matches in six days across three tournaments (though the bulk is down to the StarSeries group stage). Two of which are apparently going to happen simultaneously later today which should be entertaining, I wonder if they'll play with their feet in one and hands for the other. On reflection VP.Polar isn't the best example here because they're at a rather extreme end of the equation but the point remains.
If I were a huge VP.Polar fan where do I stand here? I have other things to do. Why should I care about any particular match here? EG vs VP.Polar should be a must-watch but largely because EG aren't actually playing in anything else right now and because they're playing so well; and there's a Grand Final match so I'd probably make time for that. But any of this group stage stuff...what reason is there for me to even watch it? I can watch a game with exactly the same stakes on the line against similar quality opposition on any given day until Monday.
Hell, I see a lot of caster bashing here but think about it. Lets say I was casting for the finals of "random DOTA2 tournament number 598" with a $50k prize pool on Christmas Day. Ignore who you think would be in the finals and for the sake of argument its NaVi vs Alliance. Between them they'll have played thirty recent games (one against each other) in StarSeries alone. Alliance also played in DOTA Pit League, that's another 7 games. They also both played in The Summit 2 for a total of another 22 games (again, with one against each other).
So if I was going to get a proper feel for the two teams just from three tournaments I'd have to watch fifty seven games. If I'm a caster who can't afford to live off casting then that's an insane amount of free time to have to find, even if you don't watch every game in full. If I AM a caster who can afford to live off it then its probably still insane, because if I'm doing that I'm probably casting multiple games every day already so where is the time to review all of this to give a proper commentary on "where these teams are at lately".
I can understand why people look at the casting and think its lazy or bad or whatever because of lack of familiarity or professionalism, but I absolutely can sympathise because there is literally no feasible way to do the prep properly or keep the energy up. Even if you were to deliberately keep up to date then you're frequently still looking at reviewing multiple games per day on top of your other commitments to actually cast stuff and trying to remember all of that for use in future games. And if you're casting five hours a day every day with the same or similar teams every time then you're going to eventually run out of things to say and start goofing around.
In fairness I think a great deal can be blamed on the expansion of the scene. Which is good, getting bigger is good, but its causing growing pains and a lot of problems with oversaturation because there's no attempt to coordinate or organise. Look at the aforementioned Dota Pit League if you don't believe me. I don't mean to pick on anyone here, but look at it. Season 1 was a small $3k prize pool tournament containing a ton of teams I've flat out never heard of before. It was a good small tournament for new up-and-coming teams to get into with a couple of better known teams. Still not exactly Team Secret but recognisable enough. Season 2 is a $75k minimum monster containing the usual suspects including C9, EG and so on.
The tournament grew in stature. But now that means its "yet another tournament" on the long list of tournaments containing the biggest teams. Who feel they HAVE to compete in anything and everything to try and get Valve's attention because the TI5 invites are so important and so nebulous in how they're awarded. I'm not saying the tournament doesn't deserve it or even that it was bad for them (hell, I'm sure they get a lot more viewers now), its been great for them; but for the scene as a whole its another addition to the chaos.
Honestly I think with more structure along the lines of the WCS system towards The International a lot of these problems would go away. I largely dislike the WCS system for SC2, I think its hugely flawed for that game because "the WCS final" was never THE big tournament so it completely changed how the tournament scene was. But TI has always been THE big tournament for DOTA2 and the game is largely already centred around it, its just not official, so relatively little would change with reorganising and making explicit rules for it.
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Teams need to be more selective in what they play, someone somewhere has to realise that the more=better philisophy is capitalistic bullshit thinking that will blow in the face of the people who love Dota the most. The "make as much money as we can now even though we're raping the product" is so sad to see, especially with esports as I'd like to believe there's more thinkers and idealists.
Can't the teams with salaried players put a quota on the amount of tournaments they will play? Forcing the tournaments to compete, get better, thin out the field. Hype is the most powerful force in any esport, teams just have to realise that more exposure of their players isn't better when no-one gives a fuck. Bring back da hype!
Als Liquid get a team plx, bring back Korok!
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On December 17 2014 18:57 Oktyabr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 15:14 spudde123 wrote:On December 17 2014 13:56 Oktyabr wrote:
The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
If they can't find the passion or the motivation to try their hardest in every tournament, they should play selectively and let t2 teams have a chance to shine - think BU, Leviathan, HR. This way they can try their hardest in the remaining games they are playing and convince themselves that they need to go all out, and they can also spend more time watching replays, having a break etc. Having more tournaments ALWAYS benefit the rest of the scene, the top teams need to stop thinking solely from their perspective and decline invites if they feel they can't play in all of them instead of requesting organizers to cater only to them.
It's not all about the perspective of EE and whoever else in his position, but the effect the current situation has on viewers is very real imo. It's not only "pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there", it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event. There are no real tiers of competition in dota, outside of TI which is above everything. This makes it hard to build hype around an individual event, when the next similar one is happening right around the corner. From the player perspective when you think about signing up, you don't know how the event will be as a lot of the events may have new organizers, new venues, whatever. You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy. If we look at Dreamleague for example, a big number of people seemed to be very underwhelmed by even the LAN portion, just because "EG vs c9 final with EG winning was obvious from the start". It's not easy to make events that don't have all the top tier teams work. If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily. Imo it's not as straightforward as "having more tournaments always benefits the rest of the scene", if the tournaments can't exist because they can't get the teams that bring all the hype to play. I'm not talking about small budget online leagues, but proper LAN tournaments with decent prize pools that in theory would allow more players to make a decent living out of the game. A key difference to a lot of other sports is that in dota you can essentially watch everything if you have the time. It's not like some other sport where you only get to see things live when it happens near your home town, and you may watch on tv whenever broadcasts are available to you, which isn't a daily thing at all in many sports. In dota there are LANs, and a huge amount of online games from different tournaments available day and night right in your home. By not having any sort of structure for the scene (where a few major events around the year are clearly separated so viewers know that these I want to watch and the rest I can skip), one is also assuming that viewers are able to pace themselves and not get bored by watching too much dota. "it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event" That's why TOP teams actually have many choices when it comes to participation, and they can afford to be selective unlike tier 2 teams who have to slog through every qualifier just to get noticed. By virtue of invitation, they can also decline participation if they feel that their schedule it's packed. Top teams need to learn to manage themselves and work with the time they have. This is like some obese kid complaining that there's too much food on the table and he can't help himself from not eating because there is still some food that he hasn't tried yet. "You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? " There is always a base price pool to work with. Top teams are actually way more experienced when it comes to LAN events and I'm sure they're pretty familiar with the arrangements and distribution of the prize pool for recurring LAN events, especially those which has so many seasons already - D2L, D2CL, SL, DH, DL. "And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy." Would you rather have this situation or have every other event actually resembling TI so closely, so much so that the hype for the actual TI becomes meaningless? Again, the issue now is that virtually every event is similar in terms of participation from the top teams, and that viewers won't even look forward to the next C9/EG showdown since it happens too frequently. That period of qualifiers for DL had a ton of C9/VP games across different tournaments - how would you expect both teams to treat their games seriously when they're playing for so many different stakes within such a short time frame? Having lesser of such events isn't necessarily bad. "If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily." The only logical conclusion that follows from this would be organizers seeing viewership or profits drop, and hence reduce the frequency of the tournaments they put up, pull out entirely, or cooperate to create an even bigger event. The scene would actually correct itself and reduce oversaturation. Isn't this the result they all want in the first place? My point is that there's never too much dota competitions to be held, regardless of whether they are LAN events or online leagues. You can bet that there are a ton of tier 2 teams out there who would try out for every qualifier just so that they can place decent and get noticed for TI. EE didn't have this gripe back when he was in Kaipi pre-TI3 when Valve didn't invite them for the qualifiers - he was dying for some way to prove his team worthy of at least being in the qualifiers. Top teams which have placed well up to the end of this year don't face this problem, and they definitely don't experience a lack of competitive dota to play.
Concerning top teams being experienced with events and knowing the prize pools, one would think that but it isn't that simple. First season of Dreamleague was 240k, second season was barely over 100k. Difference is entirely from ticket sales with the same base prize pool. Last season of SL was 274k, current season is around 90k (though still time to grow but it has been much slower as far as I know), again difference only from the ticket sales. Summit 2 had a good base prize pool of 100k, but due to ticket sales it rose up to over 300k making it the most significant event since TI. It would be much easier to predict if ticket sales were driven by the actual level of competition at the event (especially the LAN), but instead there are a lot of other factors that drive sales.
Still top teams can make choices, it's not like they have to be able to 100% optimize their income by playing in the right events. The problem here isn't even only that the top teams should be at an event for it to matter, but it's that one random dota event at some point in the year really doesn't matter for me as a viewer. If the competition is extremely important (let's say a TI qualifier), it doesn't really matter to me if the top teams are not there, I still find it very entertaining to watch due to the stakes. But even if top teams drop out of events, the problem for me as a viewer remains the same. Why would I care about an event when the next similar one happens right after? This event doesn't really lead to anything, it doesn't have any lasting importance, it's only one event among others where players can make money. There are no events that are clearly important over others in the scene outside of TI, and hence the only thing that brings some excitement to me is if an event has a good lineup of teams. Maybe teams dropping out would eventually make the tournament scene sort itself out and move towards having tournaments spaced out better as you said, but it's hard to predict the future.
If I compare the situation to the csgo scene, I feel that having 4 majors spread around the year brings a far more clear viewing experience. These are the events that really matter, both for the players and the viewers. I don't watch cs that closely nowadays, but I still get hyped for the really big events. It's similar to me not being all that interested in tennis in general, but yet I can enjoy watching Roland Garros or Wimbledon later rounds when I know this is the time of the year that counts and every player dreams about.
Now the dota situation is such that there is TI, and outside of that every event follows pretty much the same pattern. Long online season, a few teams from different parts of the world at the LAN finals. For me I don't even think the problem is that there are too many LANs, it's the way events are structured which makes it problematic. There's so much online content that it's tough for viewers to follow, and a lot of matchups happen all the time. And it doesn't stop in the online portion, even LANs may have a round robin at first (often full of matches with very low importance), so we see the potential finals matchups 2 days before the final in a match which really doesn't matter. And for a lot of players it's tough not to participate in everything when you don't know what LANs you get to. You want to play dota on LAN, and you want to make decent money. It's not like the old Dreamhack where 16 teams play on LAN, but nowadays it's 4, 6 or 8 more often that not. Even c9 (a team that you say can afford to drop out of events), didn't originally make it to SL or Summit LANs. But even with all the LANs they've attended, I don't think LANs are even the problem. It becomes worse when the teams that are successful are not rewarded at all in the planning of the next tournaments (if LAN final is big enough, some teams can be easily invited straight to the LAN - if not, then more successful teams could be seeded deeper into the qualifier), so they have to play pretty much the very next day they come back.
The hype for TI will never become meaningless because the event is so much above everything else. I just hope that there would be some more events around the year that actually mean something, both for the viewers and the players. I think both sides can help this: players can be a bit more selective in the tournaments they play (and also communicate with tournaments about their concerns about schedules and structures), and tournaments can improve on how the formats of the tournament work. For me ideally the scene would have a very competitive LAN every two months or so (not sure about the ideal spacing, but I don't think the current amount of LANs is that bad either), with the online content in between being concentrated on which medium tier teams manage to claw their way into the big LANs, and perhaps some smaller LANs with decent competition. I really don't want to see online content being concentrated on people watching Secret or EG go through online qualifiers.
Also the talk about EE not having this gripe before is pretty silly, considering this situation only really became apparent late this year. Before TI3 the situation wasn't even remotely similar. Top teams were comfortable playing pretty much all events because LANs were few and far between (and noticeably these LANs then marked clear events that are important and viewers should care about), and the rest you could play comfortably from your own home.
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This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example.
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Yeah everyone loves this because EE but I felt this was a pretty uninsightful OP. I don't think anything novel was really added to the discourse here.
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On December 18 2014 03:34 govie wrote:
This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example.
Except it's not.
EE is delivering some hard truths that aren't just his opinions, but the frank and honest views of most top-tier players. It is about the tournaments, not the game itself. DotA 2 is amazing but the volume of tournaments is a cash-grab, as demonstrated by:
- Shitty computers or no computers at all
- Constant, unwarranted technical issues that no self-respecting organization would put up with
- Poor scheduling that puts players under duress and hurts their competitive chances
- A serious lack of professionalism from tournament organizers and staff
----- Failure to payout players who win [Arteezy]
----- Casters cracking jokes and using meme-speak as a team's dreams are crushed
----- Ambivalent casters who don't truly give a fuck about the results and/or don't even know wtf they are talking about
----- Terrible amenities. Players being denied bathroom breaks...
Don't even get me started about casting that takes place in a dirty kitchen with people snacking in the background, and casters with their socks and shoes off lounging out in pajamas...
And say what you will about Ayesee's deep understanding of the game, but at least the man can put a fucking suit on and be a professional. DotA2 casters need to take a serious lesson from other sports casters in this regard.
Not all casters can be as professional as Merlini, and not all tournaments can be as well-run as TI, but these issues are paramount and they need immediate attention. The players' hands are tied, because this is their JOB and they have to make a LIVING off of this.
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put a fucking suit on and be a professional
Everyone raise your hands if you want Dota2 casting to start looking like League casting
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On December 18 2014 04:05 See.Blue wrote:
Yeah everyone loves this because EE but I felt this was a pretty uninsightful OP. I don't think anything novel was really added to the discourse here.
Obviously everyone doesn't "love it", in fact a lot of people seem pretty divided. But even EE said that he doesn't know how to solve a bunch of the things he talked about, so in that way it was not very insightful. I believe the point was simply to provide a blog of how the current situation feels for players and make people talk about it and look for solutions.
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Not going to quote the whole post saying why he's wrong but that post is wrong because it states that there is a potentially infinite level of high level players. This is not necessarily false, but fans only want to watch the highest level of players. If, say, the number of teams that were at the very top level of skill were to multiply by 10, then only 10% of top teams would qualify for tournaments. The other 90% are suddenly no longer top teams, and receive significantly less fan attention. These 90% of teams are now supposed to do what, scramble against each other in the smaller prize pool tournaments? That's silly. The point he's making is that each tournament needs to be bigger in itself. Instead of every sponsor who's trying to get in just making his own tournament and throwing $10,000 at it, it would be better for the scene if that $10,000 was added to existing tournaments. Fewer tournaments that were worth more would be better. Assuming that fans are going to care about the spillover tournaments that don't contain all of the very top level players is a fallacy.
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I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D
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Off-topic: why do people finish aggressive statements with smiley faces?
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On December 18 2014 04:06 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 03:34 govie wrote:
This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example. Except it's not. EE is delivering some hard truths that aren't just his opinions, but the frank and honest views of most top-tier players. It is about the tournaments, not the game itself. DotA 2 is amazing but the volume of tournaments is a cash-grab, as demonstrated by: - Shitty computers or no computers at all - Constant, unwarranted technical issues that no self-respecting organization would put up with - Poor scheduling that puts players under duress and hurts their competitive chances - A serious lack of professionalism from tournament organizers and staff ----- Failure to payout players who win [Arteezy] ----- Casters cracking jokes and using meme-speak as a team's dreams are crushed ----- Ambivalent casters who don't truly give a fuck about the results and/or don't even know wtf they are talking about ----- Terrible amenities. Players being denied bathroom breaks... Don't even get me started about casting that takes place in a dirty kitchen with people snacking in the background, and casters with their socks and shoes off lounging out in pajamas... And say what you will about Ayesee's deep understanding of the game, but at least the man can put a fucking suit on and be a professional. DotA2 casters need to take a serious lesson from other sports casters in this regard. Not all casters can be as professional as Merlini, and not all tournaments can be as well-run as TI, but these issues are paramount and they need immediate attention. The players' hands are tied, because this is their JOB and they have to make a LIVING off of this.
You are making a big deal out of the smallest details in EE's OP.
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On December 18 2014 04:40 govie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 04:06 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 03:34 govie wrote:
This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example. Except it's not. EE is delivering some hard truths that aren't just his opinions, but the frank and honest views of most top-tier players. It is about the tournaments, not the game itself. DotA 2 is amazing but the volume of tournaments is a cash-grab, as demonstrated by: - Shitty computers or no computers at all - Constant, unwarranted technical issues that no self-respecting organization would put up with - Poor scheduling that puts players under duress and hurts their competitive chances - A serious lack of professionalism from tournament organizers and staff ----- Failure to payout players who win [Arteezy] ----- Casters cracking jokes and using meme-speak as a team's dreams are crushed ----- Ambivalent casters who don't truly give a fuck about the results and/or don't even know wtf they are talking about ----- Terrible amenities. Players being denied bathroom breaks... Don't even get me started about casting that takes place in a dirty kitchen with people snacking in the background, and casters with their socks and shoes off lounging out in pajamas... And say what you will about Ayesee's deep understanding of the game, but at least the man can put a fucking suit on and be a professional. DotA2 casters need to take a serious lesson from other sports casters in this regard. Not all casters can be as professional as Merlini, and not all tournaments can be as well-run as TI, but these issues are paramount and they need immediate attention. The players' hands are tied, because this is their JOB and they have to make a LIVING off of this. You are making a big deal out of the smallest details in EE's OP.
I mean, maybe haha, but I think that the "too many tournaments" problem becomes moot if the quality of most them is awesome.
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I finally watched Thorin's video and agree with it very much. I'm not familiar with him so I have basically no preconception about who he is but his thoughts basically match my own, overall.
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On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D
The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process.
Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2.
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On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2.
Valve doesn't want to be involved in which tournaments become popular or are considered important. They would rather let the community decide and it seems like the community is deciding only TI matters.
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On December 18 2014 05:46 zzdd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2. Valve doesn't want to be involved in which tournaments become popular or are considered important. They would rather let the community decide and it seems like the community is deciding only TI matters.
I get that, and it's a mistake.
Besides, the FGC is as grassroots as it gets when it comes to tournaments. Setting specific qualifiers for EVO hasn't hurt the FGC one bit. If anything it's helped, and the smaller tourneys haven't been hurt one bit.
When you run a massive Ultra-Tournament like EVO or TI - a.k.a. a world championship for a game - there has to be a clear path to get into that championship. Not just "oh yeah, this team is one of the best of course they're in!"
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Well there are TI qualifiers that are "win and in"
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Good blog by EE. He's stating the problems that are right now.
Some thoughts from reading some of the comments.
No, even if tournaments were perfectly run having the top teams meet basically every week with the same stakes doesn't make for exiting games. Most successful sports are successful in one out of two ways.
1. The top athletes/players doesn't meet often (boxing best example, football (soccer) another good one). This makes for insane hype when they actually do meet.
2. Top athletes/players meet often but in a ranking system where every competition counts to the overall score leaving a season champion at the end of the season (crosscountry skiing good example). They do not compete much outside this system in a season (they don't have time).
It's interesting that many post bring up Alliance vs Navi as an example (of anything). I don't think this is a coincidence. The string of grand finals Alliance and Navi fought last year after TI3 was where things started to go in the wrong direction. The third or fourth time they met in a grand final the magic was lost and it became just another weekend.
Don't make the mistake of SC2. They went for option nr 2. But they failed to realize that any successful international sport under this system also has restrictions of nationality. This is to promote multinational competition and therefore grow the sport. It isn't fair, but it makes for a hell of a lot more exciting competition when people from many countries competes for the win. SC2 allowed Korea to become the only competing nation. Which unsuprisingly lead to it being only interesting to koreans and some die hard western fans.
Most tournament organizers fall for the false market/economic idea that bigger is better. In truth most successful growing companies grow because they offer something unique. Take away the uniqueness and they stop growing and soon disappear in the crowd. The same goes for tournaments. This arguements is very simplified but it stands if you make it complex too. It would just make this post as long as EEs.
Personal experience as a viewer.
The best SC2 tournament I ever saw was the 2012 WCS European finals. It featured only "second rate" european players (with the exception of Stephano) but it was a smashing success tournament wise with great games, great production and lots of excitments. Because of the complete disaster that followed this tournament at the World Finals in Shangai, this tournament style was dropped. A damned shame because as a European I really want to know which is the best European player/team (In SC2 this was more interesting to me than who the best player in the world is).
Since TI3 and the direct aftermath the only tournaments that's actually made me want to see more Dota games was the Captains Draft tournament (which has completely different rules) and the Summit (because of it's layedback style). Why these two? Because they were unique. Not like every other weekend tournament. I won't even mention TI4. Enough has been said about that.
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On December 18 2014 05:46 zzdd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2. Valve doesn't want to be involved in which tournaments become popular or are considered important. They would rather let the community decide and it seems like the community is deciding only TI matters.
Of course only TI matters. Getting 8th out of a field of 16 will net you more prize money than getting top 8 results the rest of the year combined. The community isn't really deciding anything they're just reacting to the situation as reasonably as possible.
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re-read the post, its about whether Valve should give some non-TI tournaments qualifier-status
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On December 18 2014 06:22 Sn0_Man wrote:
Well there are TI qualifiers that are "win and in"
True. I just like the way the FGC does it because there is an entire series of "Road to EVO" tournaments that generate insane hype. Some of these qualifier stops are relatively small events with limited budgets and little to no corporate backing, yet they are very well run and highly professional, and the impact of an EVO invite gives them weight and significance.
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On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2.
The problem with that approach, and what a lot of people, I think, fail to appreciate about the Dota2 scene when suggesting this kind of solution, is that there is no parallel to something like EVO in Dota2. Or rather, TI IS the EVO of Dota2.
If The International had not been the genesis of major Dota2 tournaments, and had instead come along after the tournament scene had grown organically (Valve did the right thing here, I'm just speaking hypothetically), they could choose for qualifying "majors" events which had organically rose to prominence, with organizations which had shown a consistency of quality Valve would feel comfortable associating their main event with.
I agree that the invite system is fucked up. I also agree that it should actually be eliminated as-is even though I think it has made sense up to a point (inviting teams by human examination of a chaotic scene).
The basic parameters of a good International lineup:
1) No region underrepresented - any region with a developed Dota2 scene should be guaranteed some representation proportional to the total number of slots
2) No region overrepresented - the guaranteed slots per region should not exceed the point that each region will contribute reasonably competitive teams in its guaranteed slots.
3) As a corollary to 1 & 2, highly-competitive teams from stacked regions should not be unable to attend because too many slots were given to less-competitive regions. However, depending on regional imbalance, this may be unavoidable past a certain point. It should be accepted that on a regular basis, regional guarantees will put in at least one team that is lower quality than a team from another region that couldn't get in.
Why is this important?
International interest in TI is good not only for the event but the growth of the game and sport. Even if the same two regions keep winning the event for the foreseeable future, any region with a developed interest in the sport should get to see their top team(s) head to the main event every year, even if they get manhandled.
How does Valve approach minimum regional seed assignment?
There are two ways: have a consistent format across regions and determine regions based on their capability of fielding that number of guaranteed teams (eg, 2 slots per region).
Advantages: Simple, likely slower to change, lends itself to consistent primary qualifiers worldwide.
Disadvantages: Less adaptable. Regions need to be large enough to justify taking guaranteed slots from dominant regions.
The other is to set the number of slots based on a region's expectations and set regions based on how many regions Valve would like to see at least one representative from (such as adding a region for CIS, or South America, or maybe Africa in some glorious future or something). This evaluation should be made reasonably early in the cycle, with the opportunity to evaluate both TI performance per region and the regional events in the months that follow.
Advantages: Adaptable. Reasonable to declare a new Dota region as soon as you think it can field at least one team worth giving a slot to on an annual basis. It is less negative to reduce slots for a region than to eliminate it entirely. Also creates the opportunity to directly pump a sub-region's scene through the qualifier process. In addition, a scene which is both highly competitive and geographically centralized resists subdividing for consistently-allotted slots.
Disadvantages: Declaring a new region - such as subdividing Americas into NA and SA or SEA into Korea and SEA, or Europe and CIS (not something that should be done now, but could be possible in the future) should be seen as a commitment to continue giving that region at least one slot and a qualifying event. If the region tanks competitively, Valve is put in a bad position. This is less of a problem for larger regions likely to produce at least one competitive team.
How should those guaranteed slots be assigned?
Whichever approach you want to take - larger regions with consistent guaranteed slots, or smaller regions with region-specific guarantees - the answer is pretty clearly...wait for it...
HOST MAJOR REGIONAL LANS
Let the results of each LAN determine who gets a guaranteed slot. Top one? Top two? Top four? Whatever is deemed appropriate. The top X teams from each region now have a slot.
Important: Have a prize pool for this LAN. No one who qualifies for TI should just not get paid. Not ever again.
You now have guaranteed regional representation. Now you need to go after the other end: making sure good teams from highly competitive regions have a chance to fight over the remaining slots. Now, you have an international play-in tournament. Take X teams from below the qualifying threshold in each region, put them in a LAN, and let them duke it out for the remaining spots. X should be directly proportional to the region's guaranteed spots. If you have two slots per region, then maybe two play-in slots. Or four. Whatever works. If you have four for China and one for SA, then maybe China gets four play-in slots and SA one. Etc. The logic that sets guaranteed slots applies to play-in slots as well.
"Wow. this sounds an awful lot like the current system."
Well it does, but there are substantive differences.
First, the qualifiers have really lacked the excitement of a LAN so far. As much as people act like LANs have become NBD the viewership for most has told a different story. Apparently China had a LAN for their qualifiers and I didn't even know about it. These things should be regional events, not just something that happens mostly online that has varied levels of interest by region. An event center of appropriate size should be rented out and filled up in every region.
Secondly, NO MORE SHADOW INVITES. The way to get into TI will be 100% clear for everyone. Even if Valve wants to do some kind of invites they can simply invite teams to the regional tournaments. Likely a play-in series for these tournaments will be conducted online, like with most tournaments, but there is no reason a team which is clearly top one or two in its region should have to participate in that. If there are such teams, you invite them to the LAN, and then they have to show they are the best in the region to guarantee their slot. And if they lose? Then they have a second shot with the international play-in pool. If they can't make it from either of those, did they deserve a direct invite?
Third, this gives Valve the opportunity to do something it has not been able to do before. While casters have "competed" for spots at TI, tournament organizers have only been overshadowed by TI. The easiest way for Valve to have these regional LANs is to have regional tournament organizers do the administration (in partnership with Valve, including some basic standardization of rules).
Suddenly, tournament organizers have a reason to compete for a reputation as the best in their region. This maintains Valve's philosophy of a lassaiz-faire tournament scene while creating a major incentive for TOs to not only make money but be seen as an organization Valve would want to be associated with in hosting a regional tournament. This also raises the prestige of a particular organization without taking a given tournament that is not organic to TI and rising it above the rest. It also gives Valve, and the personnel who will be administrating the main event, the opportunity to be involved in multiple practice-runs more similar to TI before the event itself, and to learn from those TOs anything which may be useful (while, obviously, being there to provide direct support to the tournament).
In addition, this approach to qualifiers amends a great injustice of previous TIs: players not getting paid. I heard people say "oh well if you didn't at least get X place at TI why should you get any prize money." Um, hello? How do you fucking think they got there? Well in some cases they were invited. OK. They were invited for a reason, for one thing, and for another that's a lot of work to get zero dollars for. But many others got there by playing their asses off in a system that didn't pay them. That's bullshit. If you win or place at a LAN to just get IN to TI, no one is going to argue you shouldn't get paid. Or they might, but they definitely wouldn't argue against having a prize pool at the qualifying LAN, because people have inconsistent internal logic.
I care a lot about this point, and that is why I keep bringing it up.
"OK, that was a shitton of text, what's the fucking point? What does that have to do with EE Spirit Bomb Senpai's post?"
Well, at the heart of EE's complaint about exhaustion through too many tournaments - and this point is debatable even as things stand but debatable, not explicitly wrong - is the stress of not knowing how to get a direct invite to TI. So get rid of direct invites. Make players play in. But also make sure they have a shot of getting in that is more relative to their skill and less relative to their region. The only way you can do this without turning Dota2 into a league - which comes with its own stresses - is to have a major tournament structure.
Now, the part of the year not dominated by TI is a time teams can choose their tournaments based on their need to compete, need to get exposure for sponsors, and desire to pursue pots.
Now, tournament organizers will be more motivated to make players happy so Valve will select them for that year's regional qualifiers (or whatever length of contract Valve wants to go with). ESL Presents The European? Etc.
All of this without killing the current tournament scene. Teams will be selective about the tournaments they attend, but few tournaments past a certain level of quality/prize-pool will fail to get participation by top-tier teams. But no tournament will be considered "mandatory" by anyone. None. So TOs will have multiple reasons to try and put on a good event.
TL;DR
1) Get rid of direct invites to TI
2) Partner with TOs who have proven themselves to host major regional LANs as the foundation of TI slots, ensuring each Dota2 region is represented - direct invites to qualifying LANs is fine as they may have a pre-qualifier. Have a prize pool for these LANs. Make them a big regional deal!
3) Precipitate further play-in from the LAN - similar to current regional system but larger - in a secondary international LAN tournament for the remaining slots. This could be in Seattle right before the tournament like it was, or hosted elsewhere, say a month before the event so everyone has time for visas. Maybe. Hopefully. Have a prize pool for this LAN.
4) Everything is better for everyone, not just the top-tier teams. Top-tier teams don't have to sweat shadow invites, only qualifier tournament performance. Everyone can choose LANs based on the parameters that are important to them as a team. TOs now have multiple reasons to do their best to put on a good show and treat players well. Everyone is getting paid. The smaller tournament scene is allowed to flourish, giving smaller teams an opportunity to compete and win money. Everything is better.
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On December 18 2014 07:52 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2. The problem with that approach, and what a lot of people, I think, fail to appreciate about the Dota2 scene when suggesting this kind of solution, is that there is no parallel to something like EVO in Dota2. Or rather, TI IS the EVO of Dota2. If The International had not been the genesis of major Dota2 tournaments, and had instead come along after the tournament scene had grown organically (Valve did the right thing here, I'm just speaking hypothetically), they could choose for qualifying "majors" events which had organically rose to prominence, with organizations which had shown a consistency of quality Valve would feel comfortable associating their main event with. I agree that the invite system is fucked up. I also agree that it should actually be eliminated as-is even though I think it has made sense up to a point (inviting teams by human examination of a chaotic scene). The basic parameters of a good International lineup:1) No region underrepresented - any region with a developed Dota2 scene should be guaranteed some representation proportional to the total number of slots 2) No region overrepresented - the guaranteed slots per region should not exceed the point that each region will contribute reasonably competitive teams in its guaranteed slots. 3) As a corollary to 1 & 2, highly-competitive teams from stacked regions should not be unable to attend because too many slots were given to less-competitive regions. However, depending on regional imbalance, this may be unavoidable past a certain point. It should be accepted that on a regular basis, regional guarantees will put in at least one team that is lower quality than a team from another region that couldn't get in. Why is this important?International interest in TI is good not only for the event but the growth of the game and sport. Even if the same two regions keep winning the event for the foreseeable future, any region with a developed interest in the sport should get to see their top team(s) head to the main event every year, even if they get manhandled. How does Valve approach minimum regional seed assignment?There are two ways: have a consistent format across regions and determine regions based on their capability of fielding that number of guaranteed teams (eg, 2 slots per region). Advantages: Simple, likely slower to change, lends itself to consistent primary qualifiers worldwide. Disadvantages: Less adaptable. Regions need to be large enough to justify taking guaranteed slots from dominant regions. The other is to set the number of slots based on a region's expectations and set regions based on how many regions Valve would like to see at least one representative from (such as adding a region for CIS, or South America, or maybe Africa in some glorious future or something). This evaluation should be made reasonably early in the cycle, with the opportunity to evaluate both TI performance per region and the regional events in the months that follow. Advantages: Adaptable. Reasonable to declare a new Dota region as soon as you think it can field at least one team worth giving a slot to on an annual basis. It is less negative to reduce slots for a region than to eliminate it entirely. Also creates the opportunity to directly pump a sub-region's scene through the qualifier process. In addition, a scene which is both highly competitive and geographically centralized resists subdividing for consistently-allotted slots. Disadvantages: Declaring a new region - such as subdividing Americas into NA and SA or SEA into Korea and SEA, or Europe and CIS (not something that should be done now, but could be possible in the future) should be seen as a commitment to continue giving that region at least one slot and a qualifying event. If the region tanks competitively, Valve is put in a bad position. This is less of a problem for larger regions likely to produce at least one competitive team. How should those guaranteed slots be assigned?Whichever approach you want to take - larger regions with consistent guaranteed slots, or smaller regions with region-specific guarantees - the answer is pretty clearly...wait for it... HOST MAJOR REGIONAL LANSLet the results of each LAN determine who gets a guaranteed slot. Top one? Top two? Top four? Whatever is deemed appropriate. The top X teams from each region now have a slot. Important: Have a prize pool for this LAN. No one who qualifies for TI should just not get paid. Not ever again. You now have guaranteed regional representation. Now you need to go after the other end: making sure good teams from highly competitive regions have a chance to fight over the remaining slots. Now, you have an international play-in tournament. Take X teams from below the qualifying threshold in each region, put them in a LAN, and let them duke it out for the remaining spots. X should be directly proportional to the region's guaranteed spots. If you have two slots per region, then maybe two play-in slots. Or four. Whatever works. If you have four for China and one for SA, then maybe China gets four play-in slots and SA one. Etc. The logic that sets guaranteed slots applies to play-in slots as well. "Wow. this sounds an awful lot like the current system."Well it does, but there are substantive differences. First, the qualifiers have really lacked the excitement of a LAN so far. As much as people act like LANs have become NBD the viewership for most has told a different story. Apparently China had a LAN for their qualifiers and I didn't even know about it. These things should be regional events, not just something that happens mostly online that has varied levels of interest by region. An event center of appropriate size should be rented out and filled up in every region. Secondly, NO MORE SHADOW INVITES. The way to get into TI will be 100% clear for everyone. Even if Valve wants to do some kind of invites they can simply invite teams to the regional tournaments. Likely a play-in series for these tournaments will be conducted online, like with most tournaments, but there is no reason a team which is clearly top one or two in its region should have to participate in that. If there are such teams, you invite them to the LAN, and then they have to show they are the best in the region to guarantee their slot. And if they lose? Then they have a second shot with the international play-in pool. If they can't make it from either of those, did they deserve a direct invite? Third, this gives Valve the opportunity to do something it has not been able to do before. While casters have "competed" for spots at TI, tournament organizers have only been overshadowed by TI. The easiest way for Valve to have these regional LANs is to have regional tournament organizers do the administration (in partnership with Valve, including some basic standardization of rules). Suddenly, tournament organizers have a reason to compete for a reputation as the best in their region. This maintains Valve's philosophy of a lassaiz-faire tournament scene while creating a major incentive for TOs to not only make money but be seen as an organization Valve would want to be associated with in hosting a regional tournament. This also raises the prestige of a particular organization without taking a given tournament that is not organic to TI and rising it above the rest. It also gives Valve, and the personnel who will be administrating the main event, the opportunity to be involved in multiple practice-runs more similar to TI before the event itself, and to learn from those TOs anything which may be useful (while, obviously, being there to provide direct support to the tournament). In addition, this approach to qualifiers amends a great injustice of previous TIs: players not getting paid. I heard people say "oh well if you didn't at least get X place at TI why should you get any prize money." Um, hello? How do you fucking think they got there? Well in some cases they were invited. OK. They were invited for a reason, for one thing, and for another that's a lot of work to get zero dollars for. But many others got there by playing their asses off in a system that didn't pay them. That's bullshit. If you win or place at a LAN to just get IN to TI, no one is going to argue you shouldn't get paid. Or they might, but they definitely wouldn't argue against having a prize pool at the qualifying LAN, because people have inconsistent internal logic. I care a lot about this point, and that is why I keep bringing it up. "OK, that was a shitton of text, what's the fucking point? What does that have to do with EE Spirit Bomb Senpai's post?"Well, at the heart of EE's complaint about exhaustion through too many tournaments - and this point is debatable even as things stand but debatable, not explicitly wrong - is the stress of not knowing how to get a direct invite to TI. So get rid of direct invites. Make players play in. But also make sure they have a shot of getting in that is more relative to their skill and less relative to their region. The only way you can do this without turning Dota2 into a league - which comes with its own stresses - is to have a major tournament structure. Now, the part of the year not dominated by TI is a time teams can choose their tournaments based on their need to compete, need to get exposure for sponsors, and desire to pursue pots. Now, tournament organizers will be more motivated to make players happy so Valve will select them for that year's regional qualifiers (or whatever length of contract Valve wants to go with). ESL Presents The European? Etc. All of this without killing the current tournament scene. Teams will be selective about the tournaments they attend, but few tournaments past a certain level of quality/prize-pool will fail to get participation by top-tier teams. But no tournament will be considered "mandatory" by anyone. None. So TOs will have multiple reasons to try and put on a good event. TL;DR1) Get rid of direct invites to TI 2) Partner with TOs who have proven themselves to host major regional LANs as the foundation of TI slots, ensuring each Dota2 region is represented - direct invites to qualifying LANs is fine as they may have a pre-qualifier. Have a prize pool for these LANs. Make them a big regional deal! 3) Precipitate further play-in from the LAN - similar to current regional system but larger - in a secondary international LAN tournament for the remaining slots. This could be in Seattle right before the tournament like it was, or hosted elsewhere, say a month before the event so everyone has time for visas. Maybe. Hopefully. Have a prize pool for this LAN. 4) Everything is better for everyone, not just the top-tier teams. Top-tier teams don't have to sweat shadow invites, only qualifier tournament performance. Everyone can choose LANs based on the parameters that are important to them as a team. TOs now have multiple reasons to do their best to put on a good show and treat players well. Everyone is getting paid. The smaller tournament scene is allowed to flourish, giving smaller teams an opportunity to compete and win money. Everything is better.
Long but good post. This is probably the solution many of us want, it's just too similar to LCS and not "free-market" enough for some of the Valve/current approach supporters.
It's kinda funny, but your solution is much more similar to something EE and his supporters would want than the other way around.
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On December 18 2014 08:13 bagels21 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 07:52 FHDH wrote:On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2. The problem with that approach, and what a lot of people, I think, fail to appreciate about the Dota2 scene when suggesting this kind of solution, is that there is no parallel to something like EVO in Dota2. Or rather, TI IS the EVO of Dota2. If The International had not been the genesis of major Dota2 tournaments, and had instead come along after the tournament scene had grown organically (Valve did the right thing here, I'm just speaking hypothetically), they could choose for qualifying "majors" events which had organically rose to prominence, with organizations which had shown a consistency of quality Valve would feel comfortable associating their main event with. I agree that the invite system is fucked up. I also agree that it should actually be eliminated as-is even though I think it has made sense up to a point (inviting teams by human examination of a chaotic scene). The basic parameters of a good International lineup:1) No region underrepresented - any region with a developed Dota2 scene should be guaranteed some representation proportional to the total number of slots 2) No region overrepresented - the guaranteed slots per region should not exceed the point that each region will contribute reasonably competitive teams in its guaranteed slots. 3) As a corollary to 1 & 2, highly-competitive teams from stacked regions should not be unable to attend because too many slots were given to less-competitive regions. However, depending on regional imbalance, this may be unavoidable past a certain point. It should be accepted that on a regular basis, regional guarantees will put in at least one team that is lower quality than a team from another region that couldn't get in. Why is this important?International interest in TI is good not only for the event but the growth of the game and sport. Even if the same two regions keep winning the event for the foreseeable future, any region with a developed interest in the sport should get to see their top team(s) head to the main event every year, even if they get manhandled. How does Valve approach minimum regional seed assignment?There are two ways: have a consistent format across regions and determine regions based on their capability of fielding that number of guaranteed teams (eg, 2 slots per region). Advantages: Simple, likely slower to change, lends itself to consistent primary qualifiers worldwide. Disadvantages: Less adaptable. Regions need to be large enough to justify taking guaranteed slots from dominant regions. The other is to set the number of slots based on a region's expectations and set regions based on how many regions Valve would like to see at least one representative from (such as adding a region for CIS, or South America, or maybe Africa in some glorious future or something). This evaluation should be made reasonably early in the cycle, with the opportunity to evaluate both TI performance per region and the regional events in the months that follow. Advantages: Adaptable. Reasonable to declare a new Dota region as soon as you think it can field at least one team worth giving a slot to on an annual basis. It is less negative to reduce slots for a region than to eliminate it entirely. Also creates the opportunity to directly pump a sub-region's scene through the qualifier process. In addition, a scene which is both highly competitive and geographically centralized resists subdividing for consistently-allotted slots. Disadvantages: Declaring a new region - such as subdividing Americas into NA and SA or SEA into Korea and SEA, or Europe and CIS (not something that should be done now, but could be possible in the future) should be seen as a commitment to continue giving that region at least one slot and a qualifying event. If the region tanks competitively, Valve is put in a bad position. This is less of a problem for larger regions likely to produce at least one competitive team. How should those guaranteed slots be assigned?Whichever approach you want to take - larger regions with consistent guaranteed slots, or smaller regions with region-specific guarantees - the answer is pretty clearly...wait for it... HOST MAJOR REGIONAL LANSLet the results of each LAN determine who gets a guaranteed slot. Top one? Top two? Top four? Whatever is deemed appropriate. The top X teams from each region now have a slot. Important: Have a prize pool for this LAN. No one who qualifies for TI should just not get paid. Not ever again. You now have guaranteed regional representation. Now you need to go after the other end: making sure good teams from highly competitive regions have a chance to fight over the remaining slots. Now, you have an international play-in tournament. Take X teams from below the qualifying threshold in each region, put them in a LAN, and let them duke it out for the remaining spots. X should be directly proportional to the region's guaranteed spots. If you have two slots per region, then maybe two play-in slots. Or four. Whatever works. If you have four for China and one for SA, then maybe China gets four play-in slots and SA one. Etc. The logic that sets guaranteed slots applies to play-in slots as well. "Wow. this sounds an awful lot like the current system."Well it does, but there are substantive differences. First, the qualifiers have really lacked the excitement of a LAN so far. As much as people act like LANs have become NBD the viewership for most has told a different story. Apparently China had a LAN for their qualifiers and I didn't even know about it. These things should be regional events, not just something that happens mostly online that has varied levels of interest by region. An event center of appropriate size should be rented out and filled up in every region. Secondly, NO MORE SHADOW INVITES. The way to get into TI will be 100% clear for everyone. Even if Valve wants to do some kind of invites they can simply invite teams to the regional tournaments. Likely a play-in series for these tournaments will be conducted online, like with most tournaments, but there is no reason a team which is clearly top one or two in its region should have to participate in that. If there are such teams, you invite them to the LAN, and then they have to show they are the best in the region to guarantee their slot. And if they lose? Then they have a second shot with the international play-in pool. If they can't make it from either of those, did they deserve a direct invite? Third, this gives Valve the opportunity to do something it has not been able to do before. While casters have "competed" for spots at TI, tournament organizers have only been overshadowed by TI. The easiest way for Valve to have these regional LANs is to have regional tournament organizers do the administration (in partnership with Valve, including some basic standardization of rules). Suddenly, tournament organizers have a reason to compete for a reputation as the best in their region. This maintains Valve's philosophy of a lassaiz-faire tournament scene while creating a major incentive for TOs to not only make money but be seen as an organization Valve would want to be associated with in hosting a regional tournament. This also raises the prestige of a particular organization without taking a given tournament that is not organic to TI and rising it above the rest. It also gives Valve, and the personnel who will be administrating the main event, the opportunity to be involved in multiple practice-runs more similar to TI before the event itself, and to learn from those TOs anything which may be useful (while, obviously, being there to provide direct support to the tournament). In addition, this approach to qualifiers amends a great injustice of previous TIs: players not getting paid. I heard people say "oh well if you didn't at least get X place at TI why should you get any prize money." Um, hello? How do you fucking think they got there? Well in some cases they were invited. OK. They were invited for a reason, for one thing, and for another that's a lot of work to get zero dollars for. But many others got there by playing their asses off in a system that didn't pay them. That's bullshit. If you win or place at a LAN to just get IN to TI, no one is going to argue you shouldn't get paid. Or they might, but they definitely wouldn't argue against having a prize pool at the qualifying LAN, because people have inconsistent internal logic. I care a lot about this point, and that is why I keep bringing it up. "OK, that was a shitton of text, what's the fucking point? What does that have to do with EE Spirit Bomb Senpai's post?"Well, at the heart of EE's complaint about exhaustion through too many tournaments - and this point is debatable even as things stand but debatable, not explicitly wrong - is the stress of not knowing how to get a direct invite to TI. So get rid of direct invites. Make players play in. But also make sure they have a shot of getting in that is more relative to their skill and less relative to their region. The only way you can do this without turning Dota2 into a league - which comes with its own stresses - is to have a major tournament structure. Now, the part of the year not dominated by TI is a time teams can choose their tournaments based on their need to compete, need to get exposure for sponsors, and desire to pursue pots. Now, tournament organizers will be more motivated to make players happy so Valve will select them for that year's regional qualifiers (or whatever length of contract Valve wants to go with). ESL Presents The European? Etc. All of this without killing the current tournament scene. Teams will be selective about the tournaments they attend, but few tournaments past a certain level of quality/prize-pool will fail to get participation by top-tier teams. But no tournament will be considered "mandatory" by anyone. None. So TOs will have multiple reasons to try and put on a good event. TL;DR1) Get rid of direct invites to TI 2) Partner with TOs who have proven themselves to host major regional LANs as the foundation of TI slots, ensuring each Dota2 region is represented - direct invites to qualifying LANs is fine as they may have a pre-qualifier. Have a prize pool for these LANs. Make them a big regional deal! 3) Precipitate further play-in from the LAN - similar to current regional system but larger - in a secondary international LAN tournament for the remaining slots. This could be in Seattle right before the tournament like it was, or hosted elsewhere, say a month before the event so everyone has time for visas. Maybe. Hopefully. Have a prize pool for this LAN. 4) Everything is better for everyone, not just the top-tier teams. Top-tier teams don't have to sweat shadow invites, only qualifier tournament performance. Everyone can choose LANs based on the parameters that are important to them as a team. TOs now have multiple reasons to do their best to put on a good show and treat players well. Everyone is getting paid. The smaller tournament scene is allowed to flourish, giving smaller teams an opportunity to compete and win money. Everything is better. Long but good post. This is probably the solution many of us want, it's just too similar to LCS and not "free-market" enough for some of the Valve/current approach supporters. It's kinda funny, but your solution is much more similar to something EE and his supporters would want than the other way around.
Maybe. But I think it all could be done over one quarter of the year, with at least one major gap a major summer LAN could comfortably fit inside. That leaves nine months a year for everyone else to rock out. I don't visualize this process requiring more than 4-6 weeks more from beginning-to-end and would only add 1-2 weeks more commitment for top teams (depending on how they do overall).
I think most players would like this system over the current, EE included.
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On December 18 2014 08:19 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 08:13 bagels21 wrote:On December 18 2014 07:52 FHDH wrote:On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2. The problem with that approach, and what a lot of people, I think, fail to appreciate about the Dota2 scene when suggesting this kind of solution, is that there is no parallel to something like EVO in Dota2. Or rather, TI IS the EVO of Dota2. If The International had not been the genesis of major Dota2 tournaments, and had instead come along after the tournament scene had grown organically (Valve did the right thing here, I'm just speaking hypothetically), they could choose for qualifying "majors" events which had organically rose to prominence, with organizations which had shown a consistency of quality Valve would feel comfortable associating their main event with. I agree that the invite system is fucked up. I also agree that it should actually be eliminated as-is even though I think it has made sense up to a point (inviting teams by human examination of a chaotic scene). The basic parameters of a good International lineup:1) No region underrepresented - any region with a developed Dota2 scene should be guaranteed some representation proportional to the total number of slots 2) No region overrepresented - the guaranteed slots per region should not exceed the point that each region will contribute reasonably competitive teams in its guaranteed slots. 3) As a corollary to 1 & 2, highly-competitive teams from stacked regions should not be unable to attend because too many slots were given to less-competitive regions. However, depending on regional imbalance, this may be unavoidable past a certain point. It should be accepted that on a regular basis, regional guarantees will put in at least one team that is lower quality than a team from another region that couldn't get in. Why is this important?International interest in TI is good not only for the event but the growth of the game and sport. Even if the same two regions keep winning the event for the foreseeable future, any region with a developed interest in the sport should get to see their top team(s) head to the main event every year, even if they get manhandled. How does Valve approach minimum regional seed assignment?There are two ways: have a consistent format across regions and determine regions based on their capability of fielding that number of guaranteed teams (eg, 2 slots per region). Advantages: Simple, likely slower to change, lends itself to consistent primary qualifiers worldwide. Disadvantages: Less adaptable. Regions need to be large enough to justify taking guaranteed slots from dominant regions. The other is to set the number of slots based on a region's expectations and set regions based on how many regions Valve would like to see at least one representative from (such as adding a region for CIS, or South America, or maybe Africa in some glorious future or something). This evaluation should be made reasonably early in the cycle, with the opportunity to evaluate both TI performance per region and the regional events in the months that follow. Advantages: Adaptable. Reasonable to declare a new Dota region as soon as you think it can field at least one team worth giving a slot to on an annual basis. It is less negative to reduce slots for a region than to eliminate it entirely. Also creates the opportunity to directly pump a sub-region's scene through the qualifier process. In addition, a scene which is both highly competitive and geographically centralized resists subdividing for consistently-allotted slots. Disadvantages: Declaring a new region - such as subdividing Americas into NA and SA or SEA into Korea and SEA, or Europe and CIS (not something that should be done now, but could be possible in the future) should be seen as a commitment to continue giving that region at least one slot and a qualifying event. If the region tanks competitively, Valve is put in a bad position. This is less of a problem for larger regions likely to produce at least one competitive team. How should those guaranteed slots be assigned?Whichever approach you want to take - larger regions with consistent guaranteed slots, or smaller regions with region-specific guarantees - the answer is pretty clearly...wait for it... HOST MAJOR REGIONAL LANSLet the results of each LAN determine who gets a guaranteed slot. Top one? Top two? Top four? Whatever is deemed appropriate. The top X teams from each region now have a slot. Important: Have a prize pool for this LAN. No one who qualifies for TI should just not get paid. Not ever again. You now have guaranteed regional representation. Now you need to go after the other end: making sure good teams from highly competitive regions have a chance to fight over the remaining slots. Now, you have an international play-in tournament. Take X teams from below the qualifying threshold in each region, put them in a LAN, and let them duke it out for the remaining spots. X should be directly proportional to the region's guaranteed spots. If you have two slots per region, then maybe two play-in slots. Or four. Whatever works. If you have four for China and one for SA, then maybe China gets four play-in slots and SA one. Etc. The logic that sets guaranteed slots applies to play-in slots as well. "Wow. this sounds an awful lot like the current system."Well it does, but there are substantive differences. First, the qualifiers have really lacked the excitement of a LAN so far. As much as people act like LANs have become NBD the viewership for most has told a different story. Apparently China had a LAN for their qualifiers and I didn't even know about it. These things should be regional events, not just something that happens mostly online that has varied levels of interest by region. An event center of appropriate size should be rented out and filled up in every region. Secondly, NO MORE SHADOW INVITES. The way to get into TI will be 100% clear for everyone. Even if Valve wants to do some kind of invites they can simply invite teams to the regional tournaments. Likely a play-in series for these tournaments will be conducted online, like with most tournaments, but there is no reason a team which is clearly top one or two in its region should have to participate in that. If there are such teams, you invite them to the LAN, and then they have to show they are the best in the region to guarantee their slot. And if they lose? Then they have a second shot with the international play-in pool. If they can't make it from either of those, did they deserve a direct invite? Third, this gives Valve the opportunity to do something it has not been able to do before. While casters have "competed" for spots at TI, tournament organizers have only been overshadowed by TI. The easiest way for Valve to have these regional LANs is to have regional tournament organizers do the administration (in partnership with Valve, including some basic standardization of rules). Suddenly, tournament organizers have a reason to compete for a reputation as the best in their region. This maintains Valve's philosophy of a lassaiz-faire tournament scene while creating a major incentive for TOs to not only make money but be seen as an organization Valve would want to be associated with in hosting a regional tournament. This also raises the prestige of a particular organization without taking a given tournament that is not organic to TI and rising it above the rest. It also gives Valve, and the personnel who will be administrating the main event, the opportunity to be involved in multiple practice-runs more similar to TI before the event itself, and to learn from those TOs anything which may be useful (while, obviously, being there to provide direct support to the tournament). In addition, this approach to qualifiers amends a great injustice of previous TIs: players not getting paid. I heard people say "oh well if you didn't at least get X place at TI why should you get any prize money." Um, hello? How do you fucking think they got there? Well in some cases they were invited. OK. They were invited for a reason, for one thing, and for another that's a lot of work to get zero dollars for. But many others got there by playing their asses off in a system that didn't pay them. That's bullshit. If you win or place at a LAN to just get IN to TI, no one is going to argue you shouldn't get paid. Or they might, but they definitely wouldn't argue against having a prize pool at the qualifying LAN, because people have inconsistent internal logic. I care a lot about this point, and that is why I keep bringing it up. "OK, that was a shitton of text, what's the fucking point? What does that have to do with EE Spirit Bomb Senpai's post?"Well, at the heart of EE's complaint about exhaustion through too many tournaments - and this point is debatable even as things stand but debatable, not explicitly wrong - is the stress of not knowing how to get a direct invite to TI. So get rid of direct invites. Make players play in. But also make sure they have a shot of getting in that is more relative to their skill and less relative to their region. The only way you can do this without turning Dota2 into a league - which comes with its own stresses - is to have a major tournament structure. Now, the part of the year not dominated by TI is a time teams can choose their tournaments based on their need to compete, need to get exposure for sponsors, and desire to pursue pots. Now, tournament organizers will be more motivated to make players happy so Valve will select them for that year's regional qualifiers (or whatever length of contract Valve wants to go with). ESL Presents The European? Etc. All of this without killing the current tournament scene. Teams will be selective about the tournaments they attend, but few tournaments past a certain level of quality/prize-pool will fail to get participation by top-tier teams. But no tournament will be considered "mandatory" by anyone. None. So TOs will have multiple reasons to try and put on a good event. TL;DR1) Get rid of direct invites to TI 2) Partner with TOs who have proven themselves to host major regional LANs as the foundation of TI slots, ensuring each Dota2 region is represented - direct invites to qualifying LANs is fine as they may have a pre-qualifier. Have a prize pool for these LANs. Make them a big regional deal! 3) Precipitate further play-in from the LAN - similar to current regional system but larger - in a secondary international LAN tournament for the remaining slots. This could be in Seattle right before the tournament like it was, or hosted elsewhere, say a month before the event so everyone has time for visas. Maybe. Hopefully. Have a prize pool for this LAN. 4) Everything is better for everyone, not just the top-tier teams. Top-tier teams don't have to sweat shadow invites, only qualifier tournament performance. Everyone can choose LANs based on the parameters that are important to them as a team. TOs now have multiple reasons to do their best to put on a good show and treat players well. Everyone is getting paid. The smaller tournament scene is allowed to flourish, giving smaller teams an opportunity to compete and win money. Everything is better. Long but good post. This is probably the solution many of us want, it's just too similar to LCS and not "free-market" enough for some of the Valve/current approach supporters. It's kinda funny, but your solution is much more similar to something EE and his supporters would want than the other way around. Maybe. But I think it all could be done over one quarter of the year, with at least one major gap a major summer LAN could comfortably fit inside. That leaves nine months a year for everyone else to rock out. I don't visualize this process requiring more than 4-6 weeks more from beginning-to-end and would only add 1-2 weeks more commitment for top teams (depending on how they do overall). I think most players would like this system over the current, EE included.
Yep, it plays out very similarly to an LCS season (LCS Summer lol since it's a buildup to TI/Worlds)
The only concern is that the tournaments for the remaining 6-9 months (post-TI break included) will likely be seen as tuneups for this crucial period of time. It would be harder to generate the kind of hype MLG Columbus, Starladder 9, or older iterations of DH got during this time.
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LCS has the same problem where no one tries (at least outside of Korea) until at the very end.
when your hobby becomes your job everything changes. i really doubt less tournaments are going to bring back "the passion" EE had when he first started playing. having just TI as the only tournament is a bad idea too. i don't think the players want to deal with the stress of having just 1 TI as the sole source of income for the year.
maybe players should try interacting with their fans while they're traveling instead of huddling into the lounge at the end of every match.
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If casters and teams be more picky about what they cast/play, problems are solved.
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On December 18 2014 18:04 govie wrote:
If casters and teams be more picky about what they cast/play, problems are solved.
Pretty sure neither can afford to.
For the casters...firstly I doubt its paying millions per casting gig (if it even pays at all) so those who are trying to make a living off it need the work. Secondly I would imagine there's considerable pressure to pick up jobs offered in order to stay "relevant" as someone in the scene and get exposure.
For the players, its been explained numerous times around here that teams seem to live in perpetual uncertainty or even fear over whether they will get invited to The International or not which is a huge deal. So the top teams feel pressured into HAVING to enter everything just to keep their name up there for Valve.
As a somewhat-relevant analogy given the author of this blog: Valve is senpai and the teams desperately want senpai to notice them.
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On December 18 2014 19:21 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 18:04 govie wrote:
If casters and teams be more picky about what they cast/play, problems are solved. Pretty sure neither can afford to. For the casters...firstly I doubt its paying millions per casting gig (if it even pays at all) so those who are trying to make a living off it need the work. Secondly I would imagine there's considerable pressure to pick up jobs offered in order to stay "relevant" as someone in the scene and get exposure. For the players, its been explained numerous times around here that teams seem to live in perpetual uncertainty or even fear over whether they will get invited to The International or not which is a huge deal. So the top teams feel pressured into HAVING to enter everything just to keep their name up there for Valve. As a somewhat-relevant analogy given the author of this blog: Valve is senpai and the teams desperately want senpai to notice them.
If they cant afford too then valve giving ti-points per tournament isnt helping either.
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Imho they should just "copy" Tennis:
You have diffrent categories of tourneys (ie. Grandslams - Majors - and smaller ones). Only the Grandslams feature all the best players and these players get automatically seeded based on their ranking. At the end of the year there is the Masters where only the Top 8 are allowed to Play.
TI = Masters: No qualifiers nothing. Just let the best of the best duke it out.
Grandslams: Starladder / ESL One or whatever tournaments are important.
Majors: "Smaller" tourneys.
What isn't needed are Group/League-Phasse before every tournament... By all means, have qualifiers for T2/3 Teams, but just seed the topteams into the later rounds of the tournament.
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On December 18 2014 19:23 govie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 19:21 -Celestial- wrote:On December 18 2014 18:04 govie wrote:
If casters and teams be more picky about what they cast/play, problems are solved. Pretty sure neither can afford to. For the casters...firstly I doubt its paying millions per casting gig (if it even pays at all) so those who are trying to make a living off it need the work. Secondly I would imagine there's considerable pressure to pick up jobs offered in order to stay "relevant" as someone in the scene and get exposure. For the players, its been explained numerous times around here that teams seem to live in perpetual uncertainty or even fear over whether they will get invited to The International or not which is a huge deal. So the top teams feel pressured into HAVING to enter everything just to keep their name up there for Valve. As a somewhat-relevant analogy given the author of this blog: Valve is senpai and the teams desperately want senpai to notice them. If they cant afford too then valve giving ti-points per tournament isnt helping either.
Except that means that the top teams can actually focus on the tournaments that give "TI points" or whatever? Hence reducing the need for EVERY top team to go to EVERY reasonably high level tournament? They can't afford to be selective and not go to tournaments because any one of those tournaments might be crucial to their TI5 invite. If the "critical" tournaments are explicitly spelled out and teams can know if they're going to get invited or not they can then afford to not play in everything going.
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're getting at.
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On December 19 2014 02:18 -Celestial- wrote:
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're getting at.
TI points dont solve any big issue Envy pointed out.
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Envy splashed intermittent well formed thoughts into a sea of childish poor writing and ridiculous complaining. Most offensive was his slamming of BTS - he is obviously still bitter about finishing second yet again, and seems to have a personal vendetta against some of the casters that were there. He complained about the blandness of an over-saturated Dota 2 tournament schedule, yet managed to slam one of the tournaments that is most unique, enjoyable and exciting for the fans to watch. EE is a great pro, a great player and an intelligent strategist, but he is a terrible writer, and like most of us involved in Dota 2, still has a lot of growing up to do.
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On December 19 2014 09:07 utcraigo14 wrote:
Envy splashed intermittent well formed thoughts into a sea of childish poor writing and ridiculous complaining. Most offensive was his slamming of BTS - he is obviously still bitter about finishing second yet again, and seems to have a personal vendetta against some of the casters that were there. He complained about the blandness of an over-saturated Dota 2 tournament schedule, yet managed to slam one of the tournaments that is most unique, enjoyable and exciting for the fans to watch. EE is a great pro, a great player and an intelligent strategist, but he is a terrible writer, and like most of us involved in Dota 2, still has a lot of growing up to do.
While I disagree with EE on a lot of his points. I'd have to say that his The Summit 2 rant was on point. Great for the fans does not equal great tournament. That's just one aspect
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I really feel the pros players but as there are so much tournies some of us really have financial issue to buy ticket and watch them.
I hope one day people would come together to make a fun tourny for everyone to play and watch.. or cast..
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On December 19 2014 10:49 EnumaAvalon wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2014 09:07 utcraigo14 wrote:
Envy splashed intermittent well formed thoughts into a sea of childish poor writing and ridiculous complaining. Most offensive was his slamming of BTS - he is obviously still bitter about finishing second yet again, and seems to have a personal vendetta against some of the casters that were there. He complained about the blandness of an over-saturated Dota 2 tournament schedule, yet managed to slam one of the tournaments that is most unique, enjoyable and exciting for the fans to watch. EE is a great pro, a great player and an intelligent strategist, but he is a terrible writer, and like most of us involved in Dota 2, still has a lot of growing up to do. While I disagree with EE on a lot of his points. I'd have to say that his The Summit 2 rant was on point. Great for the fans does not equal great tournament. That's just one aspect
Nah it was actually pretty weak shit. Complaining about the both the quantity and quality of the computers...this subject is so beat to death I have no desire to relitigate it. I agree they should take steps to improve this aspect (I have specific solutions in mind, call me LD~) but there are obviously reasons they went for the sponsorship deal and resources are not infinite. They also all knew what they were going to - why did he think there was going to be a bank of computers for them to practice on at a fucking house? This is the SECOND SUMMIT, THERE IS NO SURPRISE THAT IT'S JUST A HOUSE.
He brought up the thing about the coin flip but that never went anywhere, just him talking about how he asked someone multiple times about something. OK dude.
Then saying the schedules are not made with delays in mind. There is a maximum amount of delay you can build into a schedule and thanks to the PC sponsors failing hard they exceeded the reasonable amount. Did anyone ask about favorable scheduling changes or opting out of superfluous events, or are we just marking the times things happened and complaining about it?
I know the EG boys are pretty mad.
Least convincing supporting evidence in the entire Dota2 world. The Summit is explicitly a tournament that is supposed to have good competition without all the usual trappings of a major LAN. Complaining about the shit he complained about is like complaining that DC's tournament has heroes you don't practice because they aren't in CM. It's just childish whiny bullshit and it dilutes any legitimate points he has (of which there are many!).
Summit2:
1) Flew, fed, and accommodated everyone
2) Gave everyone a relaxing environment to hang out in
3) Had a 300k prize pool
4) Paid EVERY QUALIFYING COMPETITOR
5) Was a great show for the fans
The issue with PC quality was the only legitimate complaint you can make and it is understandable as long as they do not make the same mistake twice (trusting a crappy sponsor). If you as a competitor cannot deal with other aspects that are, quite frankly, perfectly well-advertised, in light of all these positive aspects, you don't deserve your position in esports, from a grand cosmic perspective. You should go do something that actually sucks.
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On December 19 2014 11:27 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2014 10:49 EnumaAvalon wrote:On December 19 2014 09:07 utcraigo14 wrote:
Envy splashed intermittent well formed thoughts into a sea of childish poor writing and ridiculous complaining. Most offensive was his slamming of BTS - he is obviously still bitter about finishing second yet again, and seems to have a personal vendetta against some of the casters that were there. He complained about the blandness of an over-saturated Dota 2 tournament schedule, yet managed to slam one of the tournaments that is most unique, enjoyable and exciting for the fans to watch. EE is a great pro, a great player and an intelligent strategist, but he is a terrible writer, and like most of us involved in Dota 2, still has a lot of growing up to do. While I disagree with EE on a lot of his points. I'd have to say that his The Summit 2 rant was on point. Great for the fans does not equal great tournament. That's just one aspect Nah it was actually pretty weak shit. Complaining about the both the quantity and quality of the computers...this subject is so beat to death I have no desire to relitigate it. I agree they should take steps to improve this aspect (I have specific solutions in mind, call me LD~) but there are obviously reasons they went for the sponsorship deal and resources are not infinite. They also all knew what they were going to - why did he think there was going to be a bank of computers for them to practice on at a fucking house? This is the SECOND SUMMIT, THERE IS NO SURPRISE THAT IT'S JUST A HOUSE. He brought up the thing about the coin flip but that never went anywhere, just him talking about how he asked someone multiple times about something. OK dude. Then saying the schedules are not made with delays in mind. There is a maximum amount of delay you can build into a schedule and thanks to the PC sponsors failing hard they exceeded the reasonable amount. Did anyone ask about favorable scheduling changes or opting out of superfluous events, or are we just marking the times things happened and complaining about it? Least convincing supporting evidence in the entire Dota2 world. The Summit is explicitly a tournament that is supposed to have good competition without all the usual trappings of a major LAN. Complaining about the shit he complained about is like complaining that DC's tournament has heroes you don't practice because they aren't in CM. It's just childish whiny bullshit and it dilutes any legitimate points he has (of which there are many!). Summit2: 1) Flew, fed, and accommodated everyone 2) Gave everyone a relaxing environment to hang out in 3) Had a 300k prize pool 4) Paid EVERY QUALIFYING COMPETITOR 5) Was a great show for the fans The issue with PC quality was the only legitimate complaint you can make and it is understandable as long as they do not make the same mistake twice (trusting a crappy sponsor). If you as a competitor cannot deal with other aspects that are, quite frankly, perfectly well-advertised, in light of all these positive aspects, you don't deserve your position in esports, from a grand cosmic perspective. You should go do something that actually sucks.
Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event. Despite it being a house, having more computers is not impossible. Of course this is a matter of prioritization. EE wants to prioritize players being able to play dota (and seemingly other competitors did as well), and BTS had something else in mind.
And as you said the computer issue has been beat to death, LD has admitted it was a disaster. It doesn't mean that players should say "well alright, as long as you thought it was bad as well!". It's understandable if they are not happy about it.
The coin flip was not a complaint towards the Summit at all, it was an example of how because of all the fuck ups in different tournaments he can't fully trust admins and instead is now used to having to double check everything. In fact he even complimented the guy admining at the Summit.
The scheduling issue was not only about the Summit and only used it as an example. It isn't good practice to have the same team play the last game of the previous day and the first game of the next day, and you clearly can easily change that if you wish to do so. Not sure why that is again something that has to be discredited.
I have no idea how any of this can be said to be "childish whiny bullshit". And to the other guy who said that EE is "whining" because he is bitter about being 2nd place again…. I mean come on. That line of thinking is actually embarrassingly silly. A tournament being a nice spectator experience overall doesn't mean that it is above criticism. It was the most recent event the players were at, so it isn't surprising he would use that as an example if he is talking about issues at tournaments.
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Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event.
How many more? As Envy pointed out, they were accommodating 6 teams. Surely they didn't have 30 last time? Because that's a lot. For a house. So what number between 17 and 30 was it which was acceptable at the first Summit?
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On December 19 2014 19:48 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event. How many more? As Envy pointed out, they were accommodating 6 teams. Surely they didn't have 30 last time? Because that's a lot. For a house. So what number between 17 and 30 was it which was acceptable at the first Summit?
I'm not sure about how many, but I'm pretty sure they had the room where they now had the lounge stream filled with computers. Actually I'm not sure whether they had the room which was the 3rd player room now also filled with computers then, so in the end the number of computers in total may have been approximately the same. Of course it is absolutely impossible to fit a "personal practice computer" for every player in the house, but every additional computer you can fit in would be helpful for the players. There are two issues I think that players would want fixed, not sure how often each of these were an issue at the Summit 2.
Firstly, there were some situations where none of the teams playing in one match played in the next one. What this leads to is that one team gets to go to the 3rd player room to warmup well in advance, while the other team has to sit and wait without being able to set up in advance and warmup. If there were additional computers in the house, at least they could get the chance to warmup if they wanted to although they still have to switch their gear to the player room once the previous teams have finished.
Secondly, I imagine teams generally want to warmup and play some dota before their games if they start later on. If the team doesn't have a game, they can't access the player rooms at all. There may not be time to travel to an outside lan center to do this.
Between their actual games I doubt all players want to play games constantly, so you don't need a computer for everyone. But 2 computers outside of the player rooms which are constantly in use is not ideal. I don't think the lack of free computers is "tournament ruining" or anything at all, it's just not ideal. Some of it is definitely due to where the event is and it's simply impossible to fit a bunch of free computers there, and some of it is BTS prioritizing something else over having additional computers set up for players to use. I don't think it's the biggest thing, and EE didn't write about it for that long either. It seemed to be one of the things in his list of things that either went wrong or were not ideal from a player perspective. I think it's one of those things where a player thinks about it from his perspective and what are good conditions for the players, while tournament organizers may think about other factors (either making a tradeoff between accommodating the players and other concerns, or just forgetting what players hope for) and use additional space for some other purpose.
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On December 19 2014 19:48 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event. How many more? As Envy pointed out, they were accommodating 6 teams. Surely they didn't have 30 last time? Because that's a lot. For a house. So what number between 17 and 30 was it which was acceptable at the first Summit?
I'm noticing that you're not interesting in responding to the point why Envy shouldn't be mad that the computers that they did have were shit.
So far it sounds like Envy complaining means he should retire and find a real job whereas BTS admitting they shit the bed is "understandable" in your own words.
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On December 19 2014 23:07 hariooo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2014 19:48 FHDH wrote:Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event. How many more? As Envy pointed out, they were accommodating 6 teams. Surely they didn't have 30 last time? Because that's a lot. For a house. So what number between 17 and 30 was it which was acceptable at the first Summit? I'm noticing that you're not interesting in responding to the point why Envy shouldn't be mad that the computers that they did have were shit. So far it sounds like Envy complaining means he should retire and find a real job whereas BTS admitting they shit the bed is "understandable" in your own words.
Well, you are entitled to your interpretation of what I've said.
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And to the other guy who said that EE is "whining" because he is bitter about being 2nd place again…. I mean come on. That line of thinking is actually embarrassingly silly. A tournament being a nice spectator experience overall doesn't mean that it is above criticism.
Are you telling me that if c9 won $140,000 @ BTS, EE would have included such a rant in his post?
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On December 19 2014 20:18 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2014 19:48 FHDH wrote:Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event. How many more? As Envy pointed out, they were accommodating 6 teams. Surely they didn't have 30 last time? Because that's a lot. For a house. So what number between 17 and 30 was it which was acceptable at the first Summit? I'm not sure about how many, but I'm pretty sure they had the room where they now had the lounge stream filled with computers. Actually I'm not sure whether they had the room which was the 3rd player room now also filled with computers then, so in the end the number of computers in total may have been approximately the same. Of course it is absolutely impossible to fit a "personal practice computer" for every player in the house, but every additional computer you can fit in would be helpful for the players. There are two issues I think that players would want fixed, not sure how often each of these were an issue at the Summit 2. Firstly, there were some situations where none of the teams playing in one match played in the next one. What this leads to is that one team gets to go to the 3rd player room to warmup well in advance, while the other team has to sit and wait without being able to set up in advance and warmup. If there were additional computers in the house, at least they could get the chance to warmup if they wanted to although they still have to switch their gear to the player room once the previous teams have finished. Secondly, I imagine teams generally want to warmup and play some dota before their games if they start later on. If the team doesn't have a game, they can't access the player rooms at all. There may not be time to travel to an outside lan center to do this. Between their actual games I doubt all players want to play games constantly, so you don't need a computer for everyone. But 2 computers outside of the player rooms which are constantly in use is not ideal. I don't think the lack of free computers is "tournament ruining" or anything at all, it's just not ideal. Some of it is definitely due to where the event is and it's simply impossible to fit a bunch of free computers there, and some of it is BTS prioritizing something else over having additional computers set up for players to use. I don't think it's the biggest thing, and EE didn't write about it for that long either. It seemed to be one of the things in his list of things that either went wrong or were not ideal from a player perspective. I think it's one of those things where a player thinks about it from his perspective and what are good conditions for the players, while tournament organizers may think about other factors (either making a tradeoff between accommodating the players and other concerns, or just forgetting what players hope for) and use additional space for some other purpose.
You actually missed the entire point of The Summit. It is modeled after HomeStory Cup for SC2, where they televise the pros playing poker and hanging out. The Summit is supposed to be about the part of Dota 2 we all love: that it's a game and is meant to be taken a little more lightly once in a while. That EE is a pro that cannot do this is a testament to his competitive spirit, but also the side of him that comes off as "whiny and childish." EE would probably be the first to admit this.
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On December 20 2014 07:44 Sn0_Man wrote:
of course he would have
I think this is even worse (that EE would have still complained even if c9 won). The conditions were the same for all teams, and this shows why I love iceiceice more than EE. There's a pro that can get into the spirit of what The Summit was all about, and is probably part of why he performed so well there, was able to deal with the type of environment better, and helped VG to the win.
I really think that EE should have kept The Summit out of his post. If EG were going to complain, let them do it.
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Well the conditions certainly weren't the same for EG who had their audio leaked twice for example.
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Just to rewind this a few steps, I was originally responding to the statement "I'd have to say that his The Summit 2 rant was on point."
I mean, it was a rant. And it contained true things that happened in it. But you know what separates a rant from professional criticism? When you rant you just list everything that bothered you. When you make professional criticism you factor in mitigating circumstances, either choosing to omit certain items or tie them in to an overall narrative that recognizes the perspective of the other party. Because part of being an adult - what to speak of a professional - is being able to view things holistically, and seeing things from another person's perspective.
This is where Arteezy saying shit like "BTS went full sell-out mode" is so goddamned childish. Nice that you only have to play Dota and people pay you. But the entire infrastructure of professional Dota2 is people running businesses and having to make choices. In this case, they chose a PC sponsor, that PC sponsor precipitated basically every problem there was, other than Summit House being Summit House which is as predictable as you could ask for.
If you're a professional, you recognize that, and you treat others as professionals until they prove themselves otherwise. So you don't use Summit2 as an example of a poorly-thought out schedule - you say man, the schedule got fucked hard because of PC delays, this is hard on players. Etc.
Sorry, but his Summit rant was just that: a rant. Rants don't deserve the same respect as professional criticism. Much of his post is a rant. That is why people are dissecting it. It doesn't have a cohesive narrative or constructive criticism. It's just a laundry list of peeves, many of them totally discardable.
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On December 20 2014 07:59 utcraigo14 wrote:I think this is even worse (that EE would have still complained even if c9 won). The conditions were the same for all teams, and this shows why I love iceiceice more than EE. There's a pro that can get into the spirit of what The Summit was all about, and is probably part of why he performed so well there, was able to deal with the type of environment better, and helped VG to the win. I really think that EE should have kept The Summit out of his post. If EG were going to complain, let them do it.
You do realize that EE is on good terms with most of the BTS guys(LD is his favorite caster for pete's sake)? That he's casted with them a lot back in the day? That he's probably helped out BTS more than icex3 has lol? It's not like EE performed poorly lol, they got 2nd for a reason.
I'm going to ignore what Arteezy said as he's always had a penchant for saying some weird stuff that can't be taken fully serious especially since he's not even a legal adult (the sell-out comment for instance), but EE and LD have talked about the summit since the tourney ended. (Whatiship has a pretty good video on twitch)
If anything, it's better than he mentioned the summit 2 because he can actually talk to the BTS guys and work on improving it vs. any other tourney (dreamleague for instance) because they probably wouldn't give a shit.
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On December 20 2014 08:07 FHDH wrote:
Just to rewind this a few steps, I was originally responding to the statement "I'd have to say that his The Summit 2 rant was on point."
I mean, it was a rant. And it contained true things that happened in it. But you know what separates a rant from professional criticism? When you rant you just list everything that bothered you. When you make professional criticism you factor in mitigating circumstances, either choosing to omit certain items or tie them in to an overall narrative that recognizes the perspective of the other party. Because part of being an adult - what to speak of a professional - is being able to view things holistically, and seeing things from another person's perspective.
This is where Arteezy saying shit like "BTS went full sell-out mode" is so goddamned childish. Nice that you only have to play Dota and people pay you. But the entire infrastructure of professional Dota2 is people running businesses and having to make choices. In this case, they chose a PC sponsor, that PC sponsor precipitated basically every problem there was, other than Summit House being Summit House which is as predictable as you could ask for.
If you're a professional, you recognize that, and you treat others as professionals until they prove themselves otherwise. So you don't use Summit2 as an example of a poorly-thought out schedule - you say man, the schedule got fucked hard because of PC delays, this is hard on players. Etc.
Sorry, but his Summit rant was just that: a rant. Rants don't deserve the same respect as professional criticism. Much of his post is a rant. That is why people are dissecting it. It doesn't have a cohesive narrative or constructive criticism. It's just a laundry list of peeves, many of them totally discardable.
I agree with you, but I think EE's comments about the Summit weren't nearly as mean as RTZ's. The "rant" section comes down much harder on Chinese tournaments
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Having too many tournaments going on at the same time is the main reason that I stopped watching Dota. I wish I could start caring again like in the past.
Very informative blog. Thanks.
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thks man! Where my Dota 2 to years ago?
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On December 20 2014 07:54 utcraigo14 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2014 20:18 spudde123 wrote:On December 19 2014 19:48 FHDH wrote:Firstly as far as the amount of computers go, as far as I'm aware the 1st Summit had more computers for people to play on. This time they put the lounge stream instead of having extra computers for people to actually play dota on in a dota event. How many more? As Envy pointed out, they were accommodating 6 teams. Surely they didn't have 30 last time? Because that's a lot. For a house. So what number between 17 and 30 was it which was acceptable at the first Summit? I'm not sure about how many, but I'm pretty sure they had the room where they now had the lounge stream filled with computers. Actually I'm not sure whether they had the room which was the 3rd player room now also filled with computers then, so in the end the number of computers in total may have been approximately the same. Of course it is absolutely impossible to fit a "personal practice computer" for every player in the house, but every additional computer you can fit in would be helpful for the players. There are two issues I think that players would want fixed, not sure how often each of these were an issue at the Summit 2. Firstly, there were some situations where none of the teams playing in one match played in the next one. What this leads to is that one team gets to go to the 3rd player room to warmup well in advance, while the other team has to sit and wait without being able to set up in advance and warmup. If there were additional computers in the house, at least they could get the chance to warmup if they wanted to although they still have to switch their gear to the player room once the previous teams have finished. Secondly, I imagine teams generally want to warmup and play some dota before their games if they start later on. If the team doesn't have a game, they can't access the player rooms at all. There may not be time to travel to an outside lan center to do this. Between their actual games I doubt all players want to play games constantly, so you don't need a computer for everyone. But 2 computers outside of the player rooms which are constantly in use is not ideal. I don't think the lack of free computers is "tournament ruining" or anything at all, it's just not ideal. Some of it is definitely due to where the event is and it's simply impossible to fit a bunch of free computers there, and some of it is BTS prioritizing something else over having additional computers set up for players to use. I don't think it's the biggest thing, and EE didn't write about it for that long either. It seemed to be one of the things in his list of things that either went wrong or were not ideal from a player perspective. I think it's one of those things where a player thinks about it from his perspective and what are good conditions for the players, while tournament organizers may think about other factors (either making a tradeoff between accommodating the players and other concerns, or just forgetting what players hope for) and use additional space for some other purpose. You actually missed the entire point of The Summit. It is modeled after HomeStory Cup for SC2, where they televise the pros playing poker and hanging out. The Summit is supposed to be about the part of Dota 2 we all love: that it's a game and is meant to be taken a little more lightly once in a while. That EE is a pro that cannot do this is a testament to his competitive spirit, but also the side of him that comes off as "whiny and childish." EE would probably be the first to admit this.
How on earth did anything I wrote indicate that I "missed the entire point of The Summit"? The main attraction of the event is having pro players cast games on the couch and seeing them interact there, not the secondary lounge stream. Sure it had its fun moments, and I hinted at that by saying BTS thought about other factors than having the optimal practice conditions for the players.
Also you can say that dota "is meant to be taken a little more lightly" at times, but fact is that whether they wanted or not the Summit was the most significant dota event after TI because of how large its prize pool got. In some other post you also mentioned that "icex3 can get to the spirit of what the event is all about". You mean the icex3 that didn't participate in the main stream a single time during the entire event and just preferred to concentrate on his own games?
And how is it better or worse to complain depending if you won or ended up 2nd? The tournament conditions were the same anyway, so if you thought there were things that were not handled well you obviously should have the same opinion either way.
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but fact is that whether they wanted or not the Summit was the most significant dota event after TI because of how large its prize pool got
This is the subtext to a lot of the arguments against the format but the fact is that the prize pool was driven by the fans. BTS does not have an obligation to make the event moar srs based on the money becoming serious, they merely have an obligation to ensure the integrity of competition. Same applies to Captain's Draft which quickly raised a prize pool rivaling Summit2. A lot of this is driven by items, yes, but it's also driven by fan excitement for the event. If anything both of these organizations, and the pros who wish to compete over the prize pool, owe the fans the event they paid for.
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On December 20 2014 21:25 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +but fact is that whether they wanted or not the Summit was the most significant dota event after TI because of how large its prize pool got This is the subtext to a lot of the arguments against the format but the fact is that the prize pool was driven by the fans. BTS does not have an obligation to make the event moar srs based on the money becoming serious, they merely have an obligation to ensure the integrity of competition. Same applies to Captain's Draft which quickly raised a prize pool rivaling Summit2. A lot of this is driven by items, yes, but it's also driven by fan excitement for the event. If anything both of these organizations, and the pros who wish to compete over the prize pool, owe the fans the event they paid for.
I didn't say anything against the format. I also am not saying anywhere that BTS should make the event more serious, I'm questioning whether they can make it better. My point there was simply that from the player perspective the event is hardly casual competition wise or to be taken lightly, and they obviously want computers to work properly, enough computers for them to play on, whatever it may be. It doesn't have to take anything away from the viewer experience and having players cast and stuff.
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On December 20 2014 21:34 spudde123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2014 21:25 FHDH wrote:but fact is that whether they wanted or not the Summit was the most significant dota event after TI because of how large its prize pool got This is the subtext to a lot of the arguments against the format but the fact is that the prize pool was driven by the fans. BTS does not have an obligation to make the event moar srs based on the money becoming serious, they merely have an obligation to ensure the integrity of competition. Same applies to Captain's Draft which quickly raised a prize pool rivaling Summit2. A lot of this is driven by items, yes, but it's also driven by fan excitement for the event. If anything both of these organizations, and the pros who wish to compete over the prize pool, owe the fans the event they paid for. I didn't say anything against the format. I also am not saying anywhere that BTS should make the event more serious, I'm questioning whether they can make it better. My point there was simply that from the player perspective the event is hardly casual competition wise or to be taken lightly, and they obviously want computers to work properly, enough computers for them to play on, whatever it may be. It doesn't have to take anything away from the viewer experience and having players cast and stuff.
Well by "the format" I mean the event holistically, which is inclusive of things like the lounges etc. However I think it is reasonable to say, if you can have 17 PCs you can have 20 (two compete sets, two practice sets) + a couple of spares with some redirected resources, and that's a pretty reasonable middle ground given the event is explicitly one that eschews the trappings of a traditional LAN.
And my point is not directed at you, but more something you mentioned, which is that with that much money on the line players are going to take the competition seriously. But they have to accept the fact that that money is there to a large degree because people like the event the way it is, and therefore accept the fact that they do not get to go full tryhard mode when they go to Summit House, and lock themselves in a closet with a bank of PCs.
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On December 20 2014 23:07 FHDH wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2014 21:34 spudde123 wrote:On December 20 2014 21:25 FHDH wrote:but fact is that whether they wanted or not the Summit was the most significant dota event after TI because of how large its prize pool got This is the subtext to a lot of the arguments against the format but the fact is that the prize pool was driven by the fans. BTS does not have an obligation to make the event moar srs based on the money becoming serious, they merely have an obligation to ensure the integrity of competition. Same applies to Captain's Draft which quickly raised a prize pool rivaling Summit2. A lot of this is driven by items, yes, but it's also driven by fan excitement for the event. If anything both of these organizations, and the pros who wish to compete over the prize pool, owe the fans the event they paid for. I didn't say anything against the format. I also am not saying anywhere that BTS should make the event more serious, I'm questioning whether they can make it better. My point there was simply that from the player perspective the event is hardly casual competition wise or to be taken lightly, and they obviously want computers to work properly, enough computers for them to play on, whatever it may be. It doesn't have to take anything away from the viewer experience and having players cast and stuff. Well by "the format" I mean the event holistically, which is inclusive of things like the lounges etc. However I think it is reasonable to say, if you can have 17 PCs you can have 20 (two compete sets, two practice sets) + a couple of spares with some redirected resources, and that's a pretty reasonable middle ground given the event is explicitly one that eschews the trappings of a traditional LAN. And my point is not directed at you, but more something you mentioned, which is that with that much money on the line players are going to take the competition seriously. But they have to accept the fact that that money is there to a large degree because people like the event the way it is, and therefore accept the fact that they do not get to go full tryhard mode when they go to Summit House, and lock themselves in a closet with a bank of PCs.
Well that I can largely agree with. But I feel at the Summit 2 players participated on the stream far more than they did at the Summit 1 (and in addition there was the lounge stream if people watched that). Of course there were a lot of players that didn't really want to cast, but also a bunch of them were happy to do it (funnily enough all of c9 spent time casting games despite the "tryhard" reputation). Players also provided decent entertainment on the allstar match, which has been somewhat of a talking point in the past (players not being interested in playing and just making it a worthless game despite fans buying enough tickets to meet the stretch goal).
I feel the main complaints that made EE talk about the Summit were the quality of the computers and the audio leak. The number of extra computers is something that definitely can't be ideal given the location, but there may be some room to make it better. The scheduling thing (VG playing last game of one day and the first one the next day) wasn't Summit specific, and it was a bigger issue than it needed to be because of all the computer problems .
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Instead of trying to change the incentive system built into DOTA2, it seems like it'd be easier to modify your own behavior. Be more selective in the tournaments you participate in. Stop trying to attend every single one. Why is it the tournament's fault that your team overbooked and is flying 50+ hours a week? Make your manager research and earn his keep by coming up with the best tournament strategy (attends ones that fit your schedule, give you adequate rest and the highest chances of winning).
Issues like tournament organizers treating players badly go away. Vote with the power you already have and don't attend the next Dreamhack, go play somewhere else. The good news now is there will be an alternative.
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On December 21 2014 12:50 vvt wrote:
Instead of trying to change the incentive system built into DOTA2, it seems like it'd be easier to modify your own behavior. Be more selective in the tournaments you participate in. Stop trying to attend every single one. Why is it the tournament's fault that your team overbooked and is flying 50+ hours a week? Make your manager research and earn his keep by coming up with the best tournament strategy (attends ones that fit your schedule, give you adequate rest and the highest chances of winning).
Issues like tournament organizers treating players badly go away. Vote with the power you already have and don't attend the next Dreamhack, go play somewhere else. The good news now is there will be an alternative.
EE has like half a page of writing answering your point: "Ok so one might ask, wouldn’t things be better if the teams rally up and only play certain tournaments? Ya probably, but its not that easy. ..."
And I definitely agree with what he's saying. The Dota2 viewing experience has definitely been diluted for me.
I remember those fucking golden Toby + Puppey casts. I remember blessed Lumi + LD + Godz casts. I remember I'd be excited a couple of days in advance for "big" matches.
Now there's a steam of games seemingly 24/7. Except most of it is tier 2 teams and tier 2 casters. Tobiwan is seemingly dead. GD studio casts one tourney a year. LD most only comes out for LANs. Can'be be fucking to sit through these countless qualifier games anymore.
Even when the LAN finals comes around, you've missed the whole buildup of the tourney. And with so many of them (like three in a month or some shit like that) I get tired to watch all this Dota.
There's more Dota than ever but I've never felt more disconnected from the pro scene.
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I'm somewhat confused by the sentiment of this thread. EE talks about himself and other pros feeling there is an over saturation of tournaments, and in this thread there is a bunch of viewers all agreeing with him.
You'd think supply and demand would dictate that if nobody liked watching these tournaments then viewer numbers would drop and it would be unprofitable for these tournaments to be run. This would only be compounded by pros deciding to stop playing in the tournaments with lower prize pool to effort ratios, meaning that they would be filled with B grade teams and up-and-coming teams that would further discourage viewing, until they actually just became small tournaments meant for up and coming teams that successful and established teams didn't care about (which would consequently mean that winning them didn't really mean all that much in the grand scheme of things), or just cease to exist altogether.
Maybe supply is just lagging a bit behind demand and it will take a while before the most optimum number and size of tournaments are held.
Incidentally I do agree with the sentiment of this thread, in that I have limited time to watch pointless games featuring nobody teams, and would much prefer to watch more streamlined, hyped events. But I also haven't put much money into tournaments/tickets outside of the international, (where I forked out good money for both TI3 and TI4) so at least I'm putting my money where my mouth is.
I also agree a lot with Orchest's post (most of it anyway).
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I really don't understand people lamenting there being tournaments and exposure for T2 teams. That's necessary for the growth of the sport, and no one is making you watch them.
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Did you even read the thread?
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On December 23 2014 10:05 writer22816 wrote:
Did you even read the thread?
If you're talking to me...did you? Because I don't think you did if that's the case.
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On December 23 2014 03:39 FHDH wrote:
I really don't understand people lamenting there being tournaments and exposure for T2 teams. That's necessary for the growth of the sport, and no one is making you watch them.
Yeah. The whole oversaturation thing is stupid argument.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jLfF8x8.png)
