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On January 31 2015 15:51 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I write articles, so once i made one based on the three biggest esports at the time (sc2, dota2 and lol) and if sc2 was really dying. Based on the available official data from riot/blizzard/valve, and data from other sites (sc2ranks, kind of like hotslogs) and came to the conclution that around 2.6% of all sc2 active players watched sc2 tournaments at their peak viewer (that is, if the WCS got 200k viewers, i used that number to calculate the percentage, so i compared the 200k viewers that sc2 got at the time to the 400k league of legends got the last tournament). You actually imply that Sc2 had 7.6M active players, but that's closer to total copies sold. If you look at those who log on monthly, the discrepancy between the viewer/players ratio is much much higher for Sc2 than for League of Legends. One thin to take into account is that LOL is slightly more of a casual game and those has more players with a relaxed attitude that isn't interested in following esports - regardless of the game. But without a doubt, Sc2 is also an easier game to appreciate. The thing about LOL is that you need to be interested in the teams or the personalities to watch the game. While most Sc2 fans can appreciate skilled players, regardless of whether they are unknowns or not. Moreover, it's also worth to remember that Sc2 has had an incredibly stale meta for a while while Riot shifts balance around quite frequently. I wonder what LOL viewer numbers would look like if there only were 30 champions which were viable for the last 2 years. TLDR: It's easier to appreciate skill in an RTS than a MOBA, which makes it a better viewer-experience. MOBA's are more reliant on viewers being personally interested in the teams/players.
I find myself having the opposite opinion.
When it comes to SC2, I'd say the viewing experience is pretty poor in general. Lots of macro-intensive moments (read: periods where players just manage their economy, and hence, nothing obvious or flashy happens) and a lot of deathball clashes. We all know how those feel.
On the other hand, you have heroes with a given set of abilities, and even a non-initiate can somewhat grasp what is going on when those abilities go off. If you watch a hero fire off a bolt of lightning or whatever, see it landing on another hero and watch as the latter is unable to move or act, you'll likely understand the ability in question was a stun of sorts. Relatively, you'll also understand what happens if you see the same situation repeat itself, only to see the targeted hero use one of his own abilities to dodge the stun.
Generally speaking, I'd say Dota 2 or LoL are more viewer-friendly than SC2 is. Which is not to say that SC2 is deprived of any action or cool moves, but those other two games often offer a lot more of them during the course of your average game. I'd say the interest in specific players and teams comes later.
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Now which is the better esport? LoL, Dota 2, or HotS and why
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On January 31 2015 16:16 GinyuSC wrote:
Now which is the better esport? LoL, Dota 2, or HotS and why
so you are basically asking which is the better sport? Basketball, football or baseball. and why.
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When it comes to SC2, I'd say the viewing experience is pretty poor in general. Lots of macro-intensive moments (read: periods where players just manage their economy, and hence, nothing obvious or flashy happens) and a lot of deathball clashes. We all know how those feel.
Well everyone can have their different opinions, but while more action often correlates with a better viewing experience, I don't believe it causates it. I see the reason for why the average Sc2 player watches more Sc2 content than the average DOTA/LOL player is because it's typically easier to identify impressive skill-performance by the players.
When the mechanical skill-ceiling in the game is relatively low, it can be difficult to understand as viewer why this player or team is doing anything better than what your doing. If we compare this to normal sports, the mechanical skill-ceiling should be compared to the technical aspects of soccer/football/basketball.
One of the most awesome viewermoments in soccer is when someone dribles his enemies and/or does an impressive finish for a long range. The skill-ceiling here is basically infinitive, and you can make similar analogies to all other popular sports.
But when teamcoordination and strategy are the only real deciding factors, the game in it self becomes less interesting for the average viewer.
In my opinion, CS GO might be the best esports in the sense that it does an absolute fantastic job of allowing individuals to shine. It's very easy to identify skill in that game, even if you aren't a high level player your self. Sc2 obviously has downtimes where nothing happens, but it's still takes up a shorter period of the time than the farming fest in League of Legends.
Another issue with MOBA's is that a game typically can snowballl out of control, but while this also exists in Sc2, the game will typically end 2-3 minutes after the snowball phase has begun. In MOBA's this can drag on for 10-25 minutes, and it can be quite boring to watch a game where you know the outcome with like 98% certainty.
That said, League still does a reasonable job of allowing individuals to differentiate them selves through skill. This makes it easier for viewers to also become emotionally interested in a team or player as they are more likely to become fans of someone who plays a champion fantastically.
HOTS does a good job of both reducing the farming-party and the snowball-element so more games are generally close and actionpacked. However, it does an exceptionally bad job of making it easy for viewers to identify skills. A game can be close and intensive, but why should you as the viewer care for these 2 teams if you can't actually understand why you should be impressed?
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Mexico2170 Posts
I don't want to talk about my article but you make me do it lol. That article was actually called "Broodwar 2013" in which I speculled about what would happen if blizzard released an HD version of BW on December 2013, and then went on to compare how the other exports were doing and if bw would do better. Idk why you are saying that about the 7.2 million copies? Did you do the math? Probably I don't remember correctly the percentages. In my article I made different comparisons one with total accounts/games sold and another one with active players, but at the end the percentages weren't 100% correct since I didn't have all the info, just approximations, except with riot games where they had just released an info graphic about lol. But what I noted at the end is that even if the percentages weren't 100% exact, no matter how you did the math ofr which operations did you use StarCraft 2 always came up with the biggest viewers per player. Not scientific, but more statistic i think.
Anyway where I want to go with this is that for a game to be a successful export is to have a big player base, that's why being free to play is important, and then how much fun is to watch, because as long as its not terrible to watch if the game is the most played in the world it will be the biggest export too. Or alternatively, be super ridiculously fun to watch so a higher oercentage or players watch the game, but then you would also need to factor other things like how casual or competitive the a players alre.
Edit: tough I also agree that individuality is a big part of that and that it is the biggest problem of this game right now. Even if its a team game and all that I know more than one who don't play it cause they don't feel important enough or like they can shine.
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Idk why you are saying that about the 7.2 million copies? Did you do the math? Probably I don't remember correctly the percentages
1/2.6%*200K = 7.6 millions
Anyway where I want to go with this is that for a game to be a successful export is to have a big player base, that's why being free to play is important, and then how much fun is to watch, because as long as its not terrible to watch if the game is the most played in the world it will be the biggest export too. Or alternatively, be super ridiculously fun to watch so a higher oercentage or players watch the game, but then you would also need to factor other things like how casual or competitive the a players are.
I think it's important to differentiate between two metrics here.
(1) Playerbase
(2) Viewer numbers/playerbase-ratio
The latter benefits from F2P and low learning curve, while the latter increases if the following conditions are met:
(1) Lots of action
(2) Easy to identify skill
(3) Games are close
(4) Difficult to predict who is gonna win untill the very end/anything can happen.
(5) The community and/or the game makes it easy for the viewer to be emotionally invested in teams/players.
So theoretically a game could be played by millions, but if it had not action, difficult to identify skill and be extremely snowbally and drawn out, then it would still have almost no viewers.
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On January 31 2015 16:16 GinyuSC wrote:
Now which is the better esport? LoL, Dota 2, or HotS and why
Better question, who cares? Watch what you enjoy.
So theoretically a game could be played by millions, but if it had not action, difficult to identify skill and be extremely snowbally and drawn out, then it would still have almost no viewers.
World of Tanks is a good example, Massive playerbase, comparatively no viewership.
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Mexico2170 Posts
Yeah but it works the other way around too, even if a game has a high Viewer count per player base ratio, if the player base is small, the number of viewers will be smaller which is exactly what happens(ed) to starcraft 2. It would need to be a ridiculously high percentage for it to have more viewers than say, lol, and From what I've seen, I don't think there's a game where more than 3% of the player base watch it (that is without taking into account things like Korean TV which for us is impossible to measure).
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On January 31 2015 16:49 [SXG]Phantom wrote:
Yeah but it works the other way around too, even if a game has a high Viewer count per player base ratio, if the player base is small, the number of viewers will be smaller which is exactly what happens(ed) to starcraft 2. It would need to be a ridiculously high percentage for it to have more viewers than say, lol, and From what I've seen, I don't think there's a game where more than 3% of the player base watch it (that is without taking into account things like Korean TV which for us is impossible to measure).
Yeh my point by seperating these two factors is to make it obvious that it's not just one element that defines whether it will be a succesful esport or not. Regardless, your percentages still seem to be way off.
Let's look at Sc2. Assume that peak viewer numbers during a big tournaments (but not something that is annual like WCS global finals) is around 60K. EU + US active player numbers = 120K. (Source: Nios.kr)
Thus, roughly a 50% ratio between active players and peak viewer numbers.
I actually can't find playernumbers for League of Legends, but I remember it being around 6M for EU west, Eu Nordic/est and US combined for last season. Let's just take that as being around 2.5M having played the game over the last month (as that makes it comparable to SC2 ladder statistics).
Twitch peak viewer numbers for a big tournament = 400K --> 16%
For Dota, I don't have any information on how many players come from the west vs East, and I don't trust chinese streaming numbers to make a comparison.
CS GO typically has around 150K-400K concurrnet players on Steam. Let's assume that there are like 3M different players over the last 1-2 months.
Tournament viewers for a major tournament = 400K --> 13.3%
Then you can start discussing whether the numbers are comparable (hint: they are not) as there are more casuals playing CS GO which reduces the ratio.
But for Heroes of the Storm, I would probably expect a low ratio of around 10% as I don't believe that the viewing experience is good and it will have lots of casual players.
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On January 31 2015 16:16 GinyuSC wrote:
Now which is the better esport? LoL, Dota 2, or HotS and why
broodwar,quake
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On January 31 2015 16:16 GinyuSC wrote:
Now which is the better esport? LoL, Dota 2, or HotS and why
The one you prefer.
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On January 31 2015 16:16 GinyuSC wrote:
Now which is the better esport? LoL, Dota 2, or HotS and why
Nobody took the bait haha.
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Quake was the most amazing esport to watch :p
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Why do we care again what % of playerbase follows eSports. If the absolute amount of viewers and community is enough to produce a scene then its fine because then you don't have to rely on stuff like SC2 has to.
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On January 31 2015 14:42 ref4 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 14:07 ROOTiaguz wrote:On January 31 2015 13:34 ref4 wrote:On January 31 2015 12:13 [SXG]Phantom wrote:
lol
Sorry. I couldnt help bit laugh. StarCraft isn't as big not because it isn't entertaining, cause its the most entertaining of all and the viewer/playerbase relation is the biggest for sc2 of all the big exports,meaning that more people watch the game pero player. (Idk how to explain that I hope it's clear enough ". The reason SC isn't as big is because it's played base isn't as big and because it has too Mich complexity. I want to know where you get that number from. SCBW was more complex than SC2 and was bigger than SC2 at their respective peaks. It's not complexity. Dota and league are very much complex games, if you define complex as 'pieces in the game that you need to learn'. There's shitloads of items, abilities, heroes and units and other stuff you need to learn and that's before we even start with concepts like laning, ganking, hero roles, team fighting, item and skill builds. I think that in these terms Starcraft is a much less complex game. It's easier to learn what everything does and get a good feel for the units. But Dota and League are fucking enormous and sc2 isn't. Why is that? Well, plenty of reasons but here's probably the biggest one. What makes Starcraft unique among games is the enormous mechanical skill requirement. Even with it's easier UI, SC2 is still so incredibly difficult to start playing. I remember back in 2010, Destiny began laddering a new account from bronze upwards where he would only make Queens, drones and overlords, and see how many people he could beat with just his mechanics. He made it to platinum league as I recall. It's like if you started playing a Dota account in which you never bought items on your heroes or laddering Hearthstone with only the premade basic decks, it's such a severe handicap. But thanks to his mechanics he was able to beat a lot of people with the least effective attacking unit in the game. My point is this. There's a certain amount of mechanical skill one needs to develop before you start playing a game properly, when you can start learning about gameplay concepts. In a moba it's once you learn how to control a single hero and figure out which keys on your keyboard are the QWER ones. It's not hard. In an FPS you learn WASD and how to shoot and you're ready. In hearthstone you spend 15 minutes on the tutorial and bam, you now know everything you need to start learning the actual game. In Starcraft, this doesn't begin until Diamond league. Anyone who is platinum league or lower doesn't have to concern themselves almost at all with learning the various matchups because their execution simply isn't there for it to matter. The most common advice to new players is just "develop mechanics", because that really is the most important part. And as much as mechanics are fun I kinda think this is a bit of a turnoff for a lot of people. The other big reason I think is just how nasty losing can feel sometimes, especially to very small things that very quickly decide the entire game. Didn't see that proxy? No turret and there's DT's in your base? Oracle showed up? Didn't think you needed that extra bunker? Weren't looking at your marines for a few seconds and suddenly banelings? Weren't looking at your probes for a few seconds and suddenly widow mines? Well fuck you search again fucker. You can have tons of complexity in games, they just need to start from a very simple place. Starcraft kinda doesn't. Mobas kinda do. EDIT- I'll also add that those two points I've mentioned are two things Heroes addresses really well. For starters there's a good tutorial for this game as well as a small free hero pool. I initially disliked the idea of a small hero rotation because I play dota 2 and that game gives you all of them for free. But then I realised that if you're new to this game then it's best to start off with a small hero pool that gradually adds in more heroes as you go. You don't want to be seeing 10 different heroes every game that's going to confuse the fuck out of you. I kinda respect this choice (though I massively disrespect the pricing structure to get new heroes but that's a different post). Secondly it's incredibly difficult to snowball in this game. Sure a team that gets ahead stays ahead but that's because they're stronger players and not because their lead is insurmountable. I've had plenty of games where one side caught up on experience despite being plenty of kills behind and currently my biggest comeback result ended with a score of 15-40. This game kills you in a very slow gentle manner and I respect that a lot. I'm kinda thinking of doing a massive write up of all my thoughts about this game but most of it's accessibility stuff is really good. Kudos to Browder and co. MOBAs are complex in their knowledge. SCII/SCBW are complex in their mechanical execution. Well BW more so because you are fighting against the shitty UI half the time.
A couple of issues I'd add for SC2. Firstly even when you do have a mechanical grounding and even though game length can be similar to a typical HoTS match I think it is a much more demanding game to have as the one you devote your gaming time to - in other words, you can't play SC2 casually. Even for returning players, to dive back in not only do I have to get my mechanics back, but to get back where I was I'd have to also study/watch a load of it to get up with the latest builds and the meta, much more so than a MOBA where you can still play your hero without being terrible pretty quickly. You also have the issue that it's an entirely 1v1 game. I don't know anyone who plays SC2 so I'd just be logging on to play ladder against a bunch of randoms and then logoff again, contrast with the MOBAs where ok there are some awful people but it also forces you to get a bunch of teammates who are around your skill level and are not complete dicks to avoid going mad, which helps keep interest in the long run. HoTS particularly encourages this with friend XP which is a really clever touch and has made me build up some teammates much more quickly than in DOTA2 for example. Its difficult to play SC2 casually - it is brutally obvious how terrible you are when unpracticed - and it's extremely difficult for new players to get in to.
I don't know how you solve this and it's a shame because RTS is one of my favourite genres, perhaps some additional game modes for newbies to learn the ropes or a bit more emphasis on the team aspect would be a sensible start.
On Heroes specifically a couple of questions for a still new person.
Presumably all your heroes etc. will be wiped upon release, has this been confirmed?
Are there any talents that are completely useless on all heroes? I find myself drawn to health/mana regeneration master just as I like the idea of it building up over the game but I'm worried they suck. For example on Tychus I take it as the others seem quite bad except maybe his 20% + damage to his Overkill (please correct me herE  ) Are all the first aid and stoneskins pretty much mandatory - I see them getting praise often - or just strong choices for certain builds?
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Just played my first game on sky temple, watched the cutscene and noticed the game has started without me lol
the map is quite refreshing but also kinda messy in a way, still, very fun :D
The thing that I still don't like HotS is that the maps sort of ruin the backstory for all the blizzard characters, who the hell is ka??
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On February 01 2015 00:25 ETisME wrote:
Just played my first game on sky temple, watched the cutscene and noticed the game has started without me lol
the map is quite refreshing but also kinda messy in a way, still, very fun :D
The thing that I still don't like HotS is that the maps sort of ruin the backstory for all the blizzard characters, who the hell is ka??
From my limited experience i find that sky temple is the most interesting map at the moment, as it discourages constant 5 maning which is a big problem in my low level games.
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On January 31 2015 23:37 Immersion_ wrote:Presumably all your heroes etc. will be wiped upon release, has this been confirmed? Are there any talents that are completely useless on all heroes? I find myself drawn to health/mana regeneration master just as I like the idea of it building up over the game but I'm worried they suck. For example on Tychus I take it as the others seem quite bad except maybe his 20% + damage to his Overkill (please correct me herE ) Are all the first aid and stoneskins pretty much mandatory - I see them getting praise often - or just strong choices for certain builds?
nope, blizz said, that they aren't planning on any hero wipe in the future. they announced that after their last hero wipe in alpha.
for tychus, the 20% dmg on overkill is way better than regeneration master. the mana regen trait, esp. on healers, is way more often picked, because it lets you stay longer in the fight without tp back.
i sometimes pick the vampiric attacks @ lvl 4 if i need the early heal, but generally first aid/stoneskin should get you through the game.
e: 100% more damage against creeps/buildings for the grenade is the other choice for lvl4
can't comment on the other question.
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Man Abathur is in a pretty rough spot. I don't think he's necessarily a bad hero in his current shape but I feel his level 10 ults need some love or better scaling. Clone got so castrated I'm not sure it is really viable at the moment and his monstrosity is nothing more than a passive split push which is pretty easily dealt with at the moment. I do like the double hats at 20. The locust nest seems a bit underwhelming but I haven't taken it going full locust build, either.
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United States12235 Posts
On January 31 2015 16:02 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 15:51 Hider wrote:I write articles, so once i made one based on the three biggest esports at the time (sc2, dota2 and lol) and if sc2 was really dying. Based on the available official data from riot/blizzard/valve, and data from other sites (sc2ranks, kind of like hotslogs) and came to the conclution that around 2.6% of all sc2 active players watched sc2 tournaments at their peak viewer (that is, if the WCS got 200k viewers, i used that number to calculate the percentage, so i compared the 200k viewers that sc2 got at the time to the 400k league of legends got the last tournament). You actually imply that Sc2 had 7.6M active players, but that's closer to total copies sold. If you look at those who log on monthly, the discrepancy between the viewer/players ratio is much much higher for Sc2 than for League of Legends. One thin to take into account is that LOL is slightly more of a casual game and those has more players with a relaxed attitude that isn't interested in following esports - regardless of the game. But without a doubt, Sc2 is also an easier game to appreciate. The thing about LOL is that you need to be interested in the teams or the personalities to watch the game. While most Sc2 fans can appreciate skilled players, regardless of whether they are unknowns or not. Moreover, it's also worth to remember that Sc2 has had an incredibly stale meta for a while while Riot shifts balance around quite frequently. I wonder what LOL viewer numbers would look like if there only were 30 champions which were viable for the last 2 years. TLDR: It's easier to appreciate skill in an RTS than a MOBA, which makes it a better viewer-experience. MOBA's are more reliant on viewers being personally interested in the teams/players. I find myself having the opposite opinion. When it comes to SC2, I'd say the viewing experience is pretty poor in general. Lots of macro-intensive moments (read: periods where players just manage their economy, and hence, nothing obvious or flashy happens) and a lot of deathball clashes. We all know how those feel. On the other hand, you have heroes with a given set of abilities, and even a non-initiate can somewhat grasp what is going on when those abilities go off. If you watch a hero fire off a bolt of lightning or whatever, see it landing on another hero and watch as the latter is unable to move or act, you'll likely understand the ability in question was a stun of sorts. Relatively, you'll also understand what happens if you see the same situation repeat itself, only to see the targeted hero use one of his own abilities to dodge the stun. Generally speaking, I'd say Dota 2 or LoL are more viewer-friendly than SC2 is. Which is not to say that SC2 is deprived of any action or cool moves, but those other two games often offer a lot more of them during the course of your average game. I'd say the interest in specific players and teams comes later.
I actually disagree. I think that from the perspective of a completely uninformed viewer, SC2 requires less intimate knowledge of the game to understand. You see that players are building things, those things produce units, those units control the map. In games like Dota stuff is a lot more nuanced and the concepts of "farm" and what a hero's abilities are and what items do and how things interact with each other are more diffcult to grasp. You basically have to be a player with invested knowledge to truly appreciate those kinds of games.
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EPT
