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1) bo3 finals should not exist, every finals should be at least a bo5. Bo3 is too short, and is no different from the other matches. I think it should have a bigger stake. Feels very anti climatic when a team loses twice and that's it for the finals. Plus, making it a 1 day main event....
2) bo1's only place is in round robins. Dotapit's lower bracket was so stupidly uninteresting. Esl's gsl group stage first round was lazy. If you're gonna make teams fly all the way to your event, only to eliminate them early, at the very least let them play more games. Doesn't feel nice when a team gets eliminated after playing just 1 bo1 and 1 bo3.
I actually like the round Robin in MDL. Every team plays so many games against different opponents, so you have a variety of matchups. I didn't feel sad that more than half of the teams were eliminated, because we could see enough of them. Moreover, it was not confirmed which teams would progress or be eliminated until late 2nd day. You could also feel that the top 4 teams deserved it. Tie breakers may be an issue though.
3) I hate 1 day main events. What's the draw of a lan tournament if you're only seeing teams on stage on just 1 day. Also, though you can probably squeeze 2 bo3 semi and 1 bo5 finals, it doesn't feel fair to both finalists. One has more rest than the other. I don't like loser finals and grand finals in same day too, but you could always take the rest as the winner bracket representative's advantage.
Then it brings the issue that spreading potentially 11 games over 2 days is a waste. So much downtime that it becomes boring. My solution is the bo5 semis and fresh day bo7 finals. I still don't understand why tournament organisers have not tried this format. One full day for bo7 finals leaves organisers with plenty of room to put in show matches etc. I don't buy into the idea that teams get burnout from a bo7. You already have loser finalists potentially playing 8 games almost consecutively. It's not like every series is bo7 that it is draining. The only issue is how you schedule breaks that will not disrupt momentum...
4. All majors should have more than 8 teams. You promise a bigger prize pool, you jolly well make the tournament bigger and harder to win. It's sad to see so little differentiation among tournaments.....
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Hopefully this will improve for 2018 tournaments, it felt like most of the 2017 tournaments got forced to use the same format because they were already planned without the circuit rules in mind
Next major is already confirmed to be 16 teams, hopefully the rest of them will be as well. Plus stuff like the summits unique format should break up the monotony
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On December 11 2017 04:01 tehh4ck3r wrote:
Hopefully this will improve for 2018 tournaments, it felt like most of the 2017 tournaments got forced to use the same format because they were already planned without the circuit rules in mind
Next major is already confirmed to be 16 teams, hopefully the rest of them will be as well. Plus stuff like the summits unique format should break up the monotony
Sometimes I feel it has nothing to do with the last minute introduction of the pro circuit. ESL planned for hamburg to have a gsl group stage with round 1 bo1s, as well as a bo3 grand finals. Major minor or not, this format is terrible and should never be used in the first place. Tournament organisers need to put more effort and pride in their product.
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The issue with longer series is the variance of the time required. Bo1 is realistically around 30~40mins gametime, drafts etc included its about an hour, and then desk analysis and such and you can quite safely schedule a match every 90mins or even every 75mins and the schedule will hold pretty well. Bo3 has first the issue of are we playing 2 or 3 games, counting an hour each on average, and then on the top of that is the variance of individual game length. Playing 2 extremely short games is not good, nor is 3 ~60min slugfests either. It has lead to some abysmal tournament rules like time limit per game (can't remember which tourney it was but it was some lan event last spring I think?) after which the game would be paused and called for the team that was ahead or shit like that. Bo5 makes it even worse, are you done in 3 hours or 6? Can't really plan around that level of variance. And Bo7 obviously amps this even more.
This is not only a logistical problem of production, casting, host and analysis, venue staff and services, but also an issue for viewers I'd argue. It is much easier to make time and the commitment to participate in a LAN event when you know approximately how long the matches are and when everything starts and stops. And same goes for stream viewers. Watching a bo5 or even a bo3 series that ends super quick and then waiting for the next series to start is probably one of the worst things in terms of viewer numbers, people tune out and go watch/do something else. How does an event sell itself to the sponsors? Through exposure, viewer numbers and tickets sold and if the format makes it more difficult to follow and keep up stable numbers it is quite likely that organizers pick some other format instead.
I do agree that bo3 finals for LAN events can feel underwhelming, but bo7 is also probably too much. Even for the fastest series (4-0) you have to reserve at least 6 hours time I'd say. And then it can take much longer than that too. The only(?) bo7 finals done so far was the http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/2013_WPC_ACE_Dota_2_League finals that ended up in DK reverse sweep after an hour long lunch break at 3-0 lead for IG. In interviews afterwards at least some of the DK players were saying that there was no chance they could have won without the break, as it allowed them to rest and refresh but also broke the IG momentum.
I'm not fan of the bo7 idea personally, I think if team wins 3 games vs an opponent, that already means that they are the better team that day. Bo5 finals, at least for the Pro Circuit should be the standard. As for group stages, if the even is long enough, I'm a huge proponent of the 2-game series in group stages. Easiest to plan around, and rewarding points as; 3 for win, 1 for tie and 0 for a loss, should keep need for tiebreakers relatively limited.
Even better would be an actual league format, maybe say 12 teams that play each other twice in 2-game series, whether there is some LAN final playoffs event at the end is up for debate, but I think league formats haven't been explored well enough in dota yet. Dreamleague is doing a good job but even for them the league feels like stretched out qualifiers to a LAN rather than a meaningful league. Obviously this would have its own issues around roster changes, scheduling around teams travelling and whatnot but to me it seems that it should be explored a bit more at least.
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Doesn't that same variance exist in tennis? The difference between a short victory (say 6-0, 6-1, 6-0) and a long match (14-12 in the fifth set after four tiebreaks for instance) has to be really large as well.
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Keep in mind that both Bo7 finals ever tried were widely agreed upon as among the worst series of all time by viewers and participants.
Please stop suggesting it. Not only is it terribly awkward from an organizational standpoint to have one series that could be anywhere from 3-8 hours, it's also simply not a good format for players or viewers either. It's just bad, and it's been tested and proved to be so.
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I thought there were many that loved the dk IG series. So far I think it's quite divided
Basically my main push is to have a fresh grand finals day for single elimination brackets. Makes no sense logistically to allocate a day just for a bo5 because the maximum duration is still relatively short.
I don't think logistically speaking, bo7 is too long. Organisers are already squeezing 2 bo3s before a bo5 finals, so there's no way that bo7 can't fit a schedule, especially when I'm proposing a fresh grand finals day. One full day to fit a maximum 7 games, how is that impossible.
Again I also don't buy into the idea that pros can't handle bo7. Loser bracket finalists play a bo3 and bo5 back to back with a little break in between. Bo7 would likely have a break too for meals, so the issue is how to minimize momentum disruption. Furthermore pros have a night's rest to condition themselves for the marathon.
Of course preferably this format does not become the norm. Make it for something prestigious. A tournament with an enormous prize pool should be difficult to compete in and win. Maybe pros can be choosy and whiney if they have to do bo7 for a relatively meaningless ROG masters finals. But for TI or the old majors? They'd probably do anything it takes to win it.
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On December 11 2017 22:17 Oukka wrote:The issue with longer series is the variance of the time required. Bo1 is realistically around 30~40mins gametime, drafts etc included its about an hour, and then desk analysis and such and you can quite safely schedule a match every 90mins or even every 75mins and the schedule will hold pretty well. Bo3 has first the issue of are we playing 2 or 3 games, counting an hour each on average, and then on the top of that is the variance of individual game length. Playing 2 extremely short games is not good, nor is 3 ~60min slugfests either. It has lead to some abysmal tournament rules like time limit per game (can't remember which tourney it was but it was some lan event last spring I think?) after which the game would be paused and called for the team that was ahead or shit like that. Bo5 makes it even worse, are you done in 3 hours or 6? Can't really plan around that level of variance. And Bo7 obviously amps this even more. This is not only a logistical problem of production, casting, host and analysis, venue staff and services, but also an issue for viewers I'd argue. It is much easier to make time and the commitment to participate in a LAN event when you know approximately how long the matches are and when everything starts and stops. And same goes for stream viewers. Watching a bo5 or even a bo3 series that ends super quick and then waiting for the next series to start is probably one of the worst things in terms of viewer numbers, people tune out and go watch/do something else. How does an event sell itself to the sponsors? Through exposure, viewer numbers and tickets sold and if the format makes it more difficult to follow and keep up stable numbers it is quite likely that organizers pick some other format instead. I do agree that bo3 finals for LAN events can feel underwhelming, but bo7 is also probably too much. Even for the fastest series (4-0) you have to reserve at least 6 hours time I'd say. And then it can take much longer than that too. The only(?) bo7 finals done so far was the http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/2013_WPC_ACE_Dota_2_League finals that ended up in DK reverse sweep after an hour long lunch break at 3-0 lead for IG. In interviews afterwards at least some of the DK players were saying that there was no chance they could have won without the break, as it allowed them to rest and refresh but also broke the IG momentum. I'm not fan of the bo7 idea personally, I think if team wins 3 games vs an opponent, that already means that they are the better team that day. Bo5 finals, at least for the Pro Circuit should be the standard. As for group stages, if the even is long enough, I'm a huge proponent of the 2-game series in group stages. Easiest to plan around, and rewarding points as; 3 for win, 1 for tie and 0 for a loss, should keep need for tiebreakers relatively limited. Even better would be an actual league format, maybe say 12 teams that play each other twice in 2-game series, whether there is some LAN final playoffs event at the end is up for debate, but I think league formats haven't been explored well enough in dota yet. Dreamleague is doing a good job but even for them the league feels like stretched out qualifiers to a LAN rather than a meaningful league. Obviously this would have its own issues around roster changes, scheduling around teams travelling and whatnot but to me it seems that it should be explored a bit more at least.
Long days should not be a concern. 1 day to fit 2 bo5 is plenty of time. 1 day to fit 1 bo7 is more than enough time. It's the possible short days that is tricky, due to the said variance.
I think the variance issue applies to all sports that's sets based, rather than time based, more commonly seen in tennis. Such downtime is unfortunate, but I think the industry has to grow towards accomodating this if it strives to become a mainstream sport. Have a schedule, and stick to the schedule even if the first series ended early, just like how most other sports do.
And if we're going to be so concerned about time and pros welfare, why is there no talk about the idiots that thought 4 bo3 in a day is feasible. Several Lan events have run past midnight due to delays or max series, and expect affected pros to still compete the following day. Doesn't take a genius to flag out the possibility. An average 1 hour 15 min for each series for maximum 12 series mean 15 hours tournament. Start at 10am and you end the day at 1am. Already very optimistic and not even accounted for delays. Thankfully we haven't seen such scheduling in a while..
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you've been mentioning a separate bo7 finals day for quite some time.
we also had a thread where we listed all our preferences and most of the scheduling possibilities.
i still think BO7 is unreasonable, but a full day devoted to a Major level grand final BO5 is workable.
the format of a major tournament has a trickle-down effect on what minors and below can do to attract the best teams.
i can't imagine what a lot of these guys getting paid to organize and admin tournaments have to consider exactly, but i do think some of these tournaments are somewhat forced to invest more into their prize pool to meet the min. valve contribution.
this influences a whole range of things including how long they can rent a venue for the mainstage event, who will pay for tickets for multiple days, and also how much pro teams care about attending and practicing for the different levels of events. who will actually care about anything lower than a minor?
and who will go to the trouble of attracting sponsors and businesses for an event priced right below a minor (worth zero qualification points) only for teams to drop out during qualification. obviously to protect themselves, they'll have teams sign on which then leaves a reaction of "why bother?".
there are 27 other tournaments in the year much more worth the time and effort.
the events must be quite even, and it makes sense that they've gone with this format to start the year with. it will only improve with time and feedback.
for this patch and layout (facilitated by valve) BO5 semis, and BO5/7 GF is still a little too much.
eventually you'll meet a point where the meta is quite stagnant (akin to League) due to the sheer amount of games being played at the top level in the case of DotA.
"series" refers to the entire set of games. four BO3 series is 12 games.
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Yea was typing on phone. I meant 12 games.
Ultimately I don't really care if my idea of bo5 semi and bo7 finals doesn't happen. I think what's more important is that bo1s don't exist in brackets, bo3 finals never appear again and grand finals for SE formats be on a fresh day.
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On December 12 2017 20:55 DucK- wrote:
Yea was typing on phone. I meant 12 games.
Ultimately I don't really care if my idea of bo5 semi and bo7 finals doesn't happen. I think what's more important is that bo1s don't exist in brackets, bo3 finals never appear again and grand finals for SE formats be on a fresh day.
If you’re lucky the only one of these things you’ll get is no bo3 finals
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I don't think anybody disagrees with murdering bo1s in brackets and bo3 finals, but as long as valve rubber stamp any tournament that has the money for minor/major status and run bo1s themselves in the lower bracket at TI, I don't think we'll see them disappear entirely
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On December 13 2017 02:58 Sn0_Man wrote:
I don't think anybody disagrees with murdering bo1s in brackets and bo3 finals, but as long as valve rubber stamp any tournament that has the money for minor/major status and run bo1s themselves in the lower bracket at TI, I don't think we'll see them disappear entirely
Actually I'm a little OK with bo1 for first round lower brackets if there's a group stage prior in which every team has played a meaningful amount of games, like round robin formats. There's enough games for teams to prove themselves.
The thing about TI lower bracket though is that the bottom half all has to go through it, so teams that borderline failed to make it to top 8 go through the exact same bo1 as the last place team. Feels unfair. Haven't given much thought about it, but if there's a format that only makes the bottom 4 go through bo1, then I think I'm fine with it. After all it's their punishment for not doing well enough in group stages.
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anyway, i agree with you duck-
more games, makes for a more exciting and more skilled latter half of the tournament.
teams will show up with something more stylized, and live/die by it which makes for good overall storylines for major tourneys.
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You are right, it's bullshit.
Is not cs where maps can define ton of shit
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Best of seven finals...
The stream-time without the modern panel ("dead air / music stream instead of panel, not shown in the VoDs) and the hour-long break of the WPC ACE 2013 match was 337 minutes according to BTS Youtube. Add 60 minutes break (was actually around 2h45m) and the modern panel desk (as said, no dead time displayed in VoDs)... 1x60 minutes lunch and 5x10 minute panels + 10 minute intro is another 120 minutes. 457 minutes. Game average was around 35 minutes this tournament.
If I like DotA and want to watch the finals of a tournament, ensuring that I can watch all of it (finals only, nothing else) should it go to seven games requires me to book eight hours to watch a final game on my computer or TV. That's like watching Super Bowl, except we have 11 majors + TI this year. So like 11 Super Bowls and one even more hype bowl.
Tl;dr - fuck Bo7 finals.
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EPT
