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United Kingdom12010 Posts
Hello everyone and welcome to a short roundup/feedback thread for STPL Season 3. This was the shortest season we've had so far and arguably the one with the most issues team wise if you don't count the first 15 month season as one thing (which at this point I don't given how insanely long it was). We had plenty of ups and downs; lost one of our better teams and had another team have to hobble their way to the finish line, but we made it!
In Season 3 due to some incredible contributions by Liquipedia, esport.fund and the community had the largest prize pool yet and I think possibly the largest prizepool outside of Korea for a teamleague possibly ever which I am so incredibly grateful for. To begin with, let's sum up the prizepool.
SouL Gaming - $902 iRk - $402 NetWars - $202
The remaining $202 went towards admin costs which will mostly be distributed in the upcoming months in the Map Contest tournaments that should be happening later in September.
Qikz's Roundup
I'm going to be writing something a bit more detailed in the longer term to round up our finals and possibly the season itself, but that's going to come down to when I find time to do it. I really, really enjoyed Season 3. The games were amazing and personally I feel in spite of the issues we had with teams dropping out and other various internal issues we had some of the best games of the STPL so far. We had many upsets and I felt the map pool worked out great in terms of giving us really action packed games.
The one thing I did struggle with this season and I'm not sure if it's due to how everything was going in my personal life was that I was really finding it hard to find motivation to improve on what I already had. Before Season 3 I spent tens of hours on trying to rebuild the overlay system from the ground up in terms of graphics and some coding and while I think it looked ok throughout the season I definitely felt incredibly burned out.
With everything happening with a certain co-caster and me removing him from my life I was casting everything solo, which while I enjoy it also felt a little bit daunting as on top of my full time job which had been a little bit crazy over the last few months that there were some times when I felt way too tired to cast and I'm hoping that that never really came across because regardless of how tired I felt before the games always seemed to wake me up.
Running STPL is a lot of work for me and it is a lot of time, but I do it because I enjoy it. Any financial help that I receive through the STPL Patreon is a huge amount of help for me as it means I can buy things to help improve the stream or help improve my personal situation to make streaming a lot easier. If I had more time and say didn't need to work my full time job I'd be putting a lot more time into running more tournaments, but given for everyone in the Broodwar scene that's very unlikely to happen I'll always do the best I can with the time I have. Thank you to anyone who has supported the tournaments or myself and your support means the world to me.
With Season 3 the support we had went up a crazy amount, viewers almost doubled that of Season 2 and there was a lot more fan interaction (much of this was faliciated by the wonderful Lucky_Noob so thanks to him!). It felt chat was more alive and it really felt there was a lot more support around for the teams. I want to build on this for Season 4 and I'm going to be trying to make a lot of new videos to really make the tournament feel more alive and 'real' which is what I started doing with the cheerful videos, so expect more of that.
I'm going to mess around with the patreon system as well to hopefully give people more of a reason to support and a slightly cheaper way of supporting as well if possible. If anyone has any ideas of things they would want on patreon to sub for, maybe physical goods then please let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Special Thanks
This feels a little corny, but a huge shoutout to our sponsors: Liquipedia esportfund Matcherino
A shoutout to the community who have contributed via Matcherino Patreon Twitch
and of course a shoutout to all of the viewers who watched the streams, many of you I saw alongside me on every single stream chatting and it really felt like there was a community building up around the STPL.
Finally and most importantly a big shoutout to our teams, their captains and all of their players for playing over the course of this 16 week tournament. Without them I wouldn't ever have anything to do.
Finally, much like the BSL thread let's have a poll to see how you guys would rate this season out of 5. (1 being highest, 5 the lowest) and please explain or give any feedback below!
Poll: How would you rate this season of STPL?1 (Highest) (11) 38% 2 (11) 38% 3 (1) 3% 4 (0) 0% 5 (Lowest) (6) 21% 29 total votes Your vote: How would you rate this season of STPL? (Vote): 1 (Highest) (Vote): 2 (Vote): 3 (Vote): 4 (Vote): 5 (Lowest)
I'm also very open to any suggestions for Season 4 so throw them at me. The signup thread for Season 4 will be coming up at some point over the next 2 weeks and we already have esport.fund locked in as a sponsor!
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I am giving the VERY HARSH rating of 2 (if 1.5 was an option I would've picked it instead). I thought about this long and hard.
Some teams dropped out (not your fault but it does impact the season sadly).
Again not your fault but finals were a bit one sided...
Season 2 thumbnail - this is your fault. ; D
SOME of the cheerfuls couldve been better - MY fault here.
I don't think ANYONE in their right mind can give a rating other than 1 or 2 (some1 trolled with a 5... TYPICAL).
Suggestions:
A 2v2, a 3v3, a 4v4 (probably logistical nightmares) but would be fun.
Team melee, FFA, melee... ANYTHING weird really Im up for. As long as the teams are cool with it ofc. Could be like 1 bonus point to the winner's team or a tiebreaker... IDK surprise me!
A Pimpest Plays leaderboard? Radley for Pimpest President!
Any intermission with BW audio and Takeshi's Castle video.
All time personal contributions ranking. Special thanks to Anonymouse
I might edit this if anything else comes to mind.
<3 <3 <3
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I *love* the STPL. From Hirmu who shows up every week and tries his hardest, to Radley the raddest nuker, to the Polish recall, to the exciting map pool, etc. etc. it's a lovely rotating cast of characters with their own unique playing style and flaws that makes for a BW tournament like no other.
Shout out to Qikz for running the show; it's a lot of work, and he does it with a smile on his face.
Suggestions:
More discipline on scheduling/marketing/posting - some weeks the Tweet went out as you were going live, some weeks there was no Tweet at all, some weeks there was no update on the Pylon show, sometimes it takes weeks to post VOD's to YouTube, and some weeks there wasn't any notice you were taking a week off. It's hard to have a consistent live audience without a consistent marketing campaign and schedule. I get it; you are one person, and life gets in the way, but it holds the tournament back.
Explore a handicap system for SouL - the skill gap is just too large, especially with White Clan gone. While some of the most thrilling moments are watching an upset, when you have a team with a 90%+ win rate (I'm guessing), it's too lopsided. Maybe they start with one less worker, or have to play an off race, or they have to win 4-1 or 4-0, or something else to make the series more competitive.
Update all the "Season 2" interstitials! I lose sleep over "toss a coin to your content creator"...
Perhaps offer 2 time frames to play games to reduce walkovers?
Promote The_Lucky_Noob to co-caster after a thorough background check .
I look forward to Season 4!
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On August 18 2020 00:18 anonymouse91801 wrote:I *love* the STPL. From Hirmu who shows up every week and tries his hardest, to Radley the raddest nuker, to the Polish recall, to the exciting map pool, etc. etc. it's a lovely rotating cast of characters with their own unique playing style and flaws that makes for a BW tournament like no other. Shout out to Qikz for running the show; it's a lot of work, and he does it with a smile on his face. Suggestions: More discipline on scheduling/marketing/posting - some weeks the Tweet went out as you were going live, some weeks there was no Tweet at all, some weeks there was no update on the Pylon show, sometimes it takes weeks to post VOD's to YouTube, and some weeks there wasn't any notice you were taking a week off. It's hard to have a consistent live audience without a consistent marketing campaign and schedule. I get it; you are one person, and life gets in the way, but it holds the tournament back. Explore a handicap system for SouL - the skill gap is just too large, especially with White Clan gone. While some of the most thrilling moments are watching an upset, when you have a team with a 90%+ win rate (I'm guessing), it's too lopsided. Maybe they start with one less worker, or have to play an off race, or they have to win 4-1 or 4-0, or something else to make the series more competitive. Update all the "Season 2" interstitials! I lose sleep over "toss a coin to your content creator"... Perhaps offer 2 time frames to play games to reduce walkovers? Promote The_Lucky_Noob to co-caster after a thorough background check . I look forward to Season 4!
Hahahahaha https://www.youtube.com/user/prolltarodies go to my channel to check yoself... ; D <3 <3 <3
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Really enjoyed watching every vod as it came out (i only saw a few live). I honestly really enjoy STPL much more without that one said caster, you do really well and are getting better at casting every season!
Very excited for the map contest and new maps for Season 4. I think this is a big opportunity for different BW scenes to have life, thank you.
I agree that SouL is imba for STPL and kind of unfair the skill gap between players. I never watch the SouL vods. What if they only could use one or two top korean amateur/progamers per match?
I agree with LuckyNoob; a 2:2 and a 3:3 would be fun to mix into a league. It could really add some fun games into the mix.
4x1:1 1x2:2 1x3:3 1xACEMATCH ^ would be really exciting to see in the foreign community!
P.S. if team play is ever contemplated, I know some really nice team play maps that would host epic games. 2:2 Comptetive: http://www.panschk.de/mappage/comments.php?mapid=4519 3:3 Competitive: http://www.panschk.de/mappage/comments.php?mapid=4487
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I think people rating with 5 are getting confused... And they think the are giving the highest rating.
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3v3 would be a total mess, but adding a 2v2 would be a really cool idea imo
set 1 = 1v1 set 2 = 1v1 set 3 = 2v2 set 4 = 1v1 set 5 = 1v1
this season was really great, even with the teams dropping out and a lot more walkovers that I was expecting
mappool worked great, games were interesting and the commentary was top notch
you don't really need to improve on the overlay and graphics imo because they are already super impressive and atmospheric. Don't touch that please.
Team SouL being incredibly imbalanced is a BIG problem but it was a problem from Season 1.. idk how to battle it honestly but I think something needs to be done - the league would benefit from this. Both from the players and viewers perspective.
Glad we have something like this on the scene and I really hope you will be able to keep up the good work, Qikz.
Much appreciated, congrats to all the podium teams these seasons and cheers!
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Great season, fantastic games, splendid caster! ;-)
I think there should be a rule of let's say only 1 Korean (recognizable?) per line up to both address the skill gap and lag issues.
Exception could be if an only-korean team wants to play, as I think that deservers recognition (and a lot of effort from them anyway due to administration, difficult time to play etc.). Example could be WHITE, an absolutely stacked team but dropping a lot of games as it is difficult for Koreans to play in a foreign league.
Casting wise I think you should be careful of totally losing the grip over the game. It is a bit too often you end up being clueless on basic build orders or what players are doing and end up with a very different read of the game than it actually is. Make sure to focus on the game from beggining to end and chat with viewers between games, as it usually happens when you get into a 2 minute argument with someone in chat or you get stuck talking about a minor detail of the map.
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United Kingdom12010 Posts
On August 18 2020 20:41 kogeT wrote: Great season, fantastic games, splendid caster! ;-)
I think there should be a rule of let's say only 1 Korean (recognizable?) per line up to both address the skill gap and lag issues.
Exception could be if an only-korean team wants to play, as I think that deservers recognition (and a lot of effort from them anyway due to administration, difficult time to play etc.). Example could be WHITE, an absolutely stacked team but dropping a lot of games as it is difficult for Koreans to play in a foreign league.
Casting wise I think you should be careful of totally losing the grip over the game. It is a bit too often you end up being clueless on basic build orders or what players are doing and end up with a very different read of the game than it actually is. Make sure to focus on the game from beggining to end and chat with viewers between games, as it usually happens when you get into a 2 minute argument with someone in chat or you get stuck talking about a minor detail of the map.
I appreciate your feedback, I think the casting focusthing was something I got better at as the season went on at least I felt it did? I know I was getting a lot more distracted early on, lots of people bought it up with me. I think part of it was lethargy for sure though. Some days after work recently I've just been really tired.
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Good season, caster and organizer, nothing to say about the stream quality and qikz your work is so good.
About the teams, its kinda dissapointing to be playing vs Koreans that are like 2700 MMR (Korean MMR), we're not getting better by playing vs them, and to be honest its a bit discouraging, for us specially, its really annoying to be playing 1 hour before the normal time vs this koreans, to loose in 10 mins or we, we're playing these series at 10 am in our country, but afterall its no about the time, its about them.
I know that you qikz really wanted to bring us a challenge to play agaisnt the best players, but to be honest in this 3 seasons, there were no teams able to win the league (other than soul and their amateurs gosu players).
After the [WHITE] exit there were no real challenge for them, i mean iRk did GREAT, but still we're (as foreigners) not even close to their skills, said this, i think it could be a good change to limit the korean presence in the line ups to 1 per CW (not the ace match or only the ace).
Your league is great, i really like the concept but the skill difference in this already 3 seasons is just too much, and im not speaking only about SouL (i mean them without the koreans still have a really strong good line up), this season the Wico team joined under the vT tag and then some of them left but they qualified to the playoff still (thanks to wico players), that was a bit dissapointing too.
Im pretty sure if you remade the rules or make a new system like a division or w/e a lot of new teams would love to join your league, i mean, look at BWCL, there are like 20 teams.
We're never going to get closer to the koreans level, we work, we're old (as players), and we dont have a "career" as starcraft players.
PS. sorry about my bad english, hope you understand my point.
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I agree with some of the above!
As much as I love to see all these koreans gosus in STPL, it's also annoying that the korean team get a handicap every season. They have the same time to keep in mind every weekend. While us foreigners need to make sure our players know if they have to play at 16:00 or 18:00CEST. Can't even imagine the workload on the SA/NA teams with -9 hours players to make sure they get up at 7am-9am on a sunday. I also need book my players for half a sunday to play two CW's with a gap of 2,5hours inbetween (when we play vs koreans).
The administration load is way higher for foreign teams, and in the end 9 teams don't get anything for making a very big effort just to be a punching bag for half a year.
If the teams with koreans will still have the advantage with 16:00CEST default time every week, I'll consult with my players if we should play at that time every week as well.
Also with the one korean per lineup suggestion. I don't think that part should be controlled, but at the same time it's sad that there are alot of really good foreign players that don't see the light in this league due to being in teams with koreans. And to be fair, it's not like we got 10 000 viewers watching the cast every week because it's so interesting to see a 2700mmr korean beating a 1400mmr foreigner in a bo1.
I love the STPL casts, alltho i rarely have time to see them live nowdays, I always watch them the day after at work. And the quality is top notch. As Koget said above, less interaction with the chat during the games, and more of that inbetween.
You're doing a great job with this league and all it's contents, Qikz, but if you want the foreign teams to play every week, at least let us have the same default time every week.
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Just had a random thought to spice things up:
Have one match be the "cheese" match - one player must win within 10 minutes or the game ends in a draw. You could then have another "macro" match - no bloodshed for X minutes
Just examples - but maybe having the "winner" need to meet conditions other than smashing the opponent into oblivion would spice things up a bit.
I can't wait for Season 4.
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