|
For a better competition, to help the scene grow and to prevent stagnation.
Let me explain why and please forgive me if I sound rude giving you specific examples.
I do this to explain my point and not to diss any player, we all know that they are still among the pro-players elite.
Invitational
Pros: invitationals let people see the fan favourites. That's ok.
Cons: being a fan favourite doesn't necessarly mean being a high tier player.
While it may not necessarly be a bad thing in itself, imo it is when said players are paired against GOOD players.
They insta-lose and by doing this they prevent better players to get their deserved recognition by proving themselves in front of the public.
Open
Pros: if well done (well organized bo3s, delayed streaming if casted, no observers except for those designated), they let only the more deserving players in.
Cons: sometimes a famous pro doesn't manage to get in and sometimes people get to watch an unknown player.
As if it was bad.
TSL3 and  ThorZaIN, anyone? Unless you were a Wc3 fan, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have given him a penny.
Now, a tournament as example.
Let's say Shoutcraft, maybe not the best example of the world since the tournament was intended exactly to let the fan-favourites players clash, but I'm sure you'll consider more the point that I want to explain rather than the example in itself.
Everything can be extended to Dreamhack, or other tournaments as well!
It's just to have some numbers and facts.
Shoutcraft3 (or tournament X, again) features: a solid prizepool, good first prize and everyone gets some money so no one will waste time and efforts.
Also a balanced race pool, known casters, stable streaming, it's played live... shit, what else could you wish for?
Well, I'm greedy and say "check the players lineup".
I apologize if I sound rude, but back at then didn't you found predictable (if not obvious) that  Destiny, TLO and  Tyler were about to lose every single match unless paired against each other?
By my standards, they aren't bad. At all.
But compared to the majority of the professionals?
And that's my point: not all the pro players are equal, but among the mid/low tier ones there are some who keep getting invited in big tournaments regardless of their results.
Meanwhile, all the emergent/potentially good players are stuck in the unknown limbo.
It's a vicious circle: A is a good player but he's not invited because he is not famous.
Yet, to be famous he should be play in major tournaments.
But to play in a big tournament he has to dominate neverending qualification brackets and then risk to be paired against a random IMMvp on the first round, to return into oblivion immediately after.
If Thorzain would have lost in TSL3 first round, how many minor tournaments would have he needed to win before being recognized?
You know, Satiini doesn't even have a fan club... but check liquipedia!
Open invitationals for big tournaments: 180 players for one single spot.
No matter how A is good, he will have to face B, C, D and E who are equally skilled and equally unknown to most of the community.
While in the meantime, Y gets a free spot since he is on a famous team that can hype him well, or has a famous streaming channel where he sings and makes funny jokes, etc.
It's not a cohincidence that Y isn't anywhere to be seen in open tournaments final brackets: he struggles to compete against the others.
Titan. Orly. StarEagle. Cytoplasm. Gatored. NightEnD. Naama. Satiini.
Do you know them?
Gatored managed to beat both Axslav and GanZi at MLG Providence.
Check who was the one who had to stop him.
Do you think that they can't play on the same ground of let's say, Machine or iNcontroL?
Is HasuObs unworthy of playing in big events unless he destroys an invitational? And he's already lucky since he's on a famous team, so people get to know him better.
IEM Guangzhou: he gets invited thanks to Mana not attending, and he shows he can play against DIMAGA and other top players, he even gets a game out of Puma who should be a TvP specialist.
He didn't won, but you can say that he played well.
Jinro got invited and didn't even come out of the pool play, for example.
My suggestions:
1) Big events organizers, take a look at the various Zotac, Gosc, Sennheiser cups!
There are some skilled people out of there, don't blindly invite the usual people who come just because they are supposed to be the very best.
New players can be refreshing and interesting.
1b) Fan favourite players who aren't necessarly top tier can still play in showmatches!
I'm sure they will bring you money and viewers in any case, test it!
2) TL users, don't look only at the usual names: seeing Idra ragequitting for the millionth time and watching TLO's beard grow from one tournament to another is great indeed, but these aren't the only good players around.
There are people who are giving their best out of there, and will probably quit before surprising you just because they didn't have a chance.
Or because that chance was blocked for the seventh time in a row by a 1 out of 250 players qualifier while all the other tournament spots were already occupied by the usual suspects.
3) What about a tournament where the organizer invites, for example, 2 famous players according to their results and makes a qualifier for the remaining 6 spots?
Natural selection allows the strongest to survive and improve, let's see who the fittest are instead of cuddle some old priviledged.
The whole sc2 scene will take benefits from this since we will all get more quality games.
I'd like to know your opinions.
Especially those of the supposed minor players!
|
The fans are the ones paying, the customers. If they want to give a chance to now Code B player X and Z or whoever, then that's fine. Showmatches? It feels artificial, "whatever", "matchfix".
If player Y games lead to cheese and boring and low audiance games, then that makes sense that I won't invite him. I think it is easy to understand that logic.
But regardless, the world is huge enough to embrace both tournament styles, you can help paying for the tournaments you think are the best and everyone else will do the same. I will pay for the one that have the players that I like, if they kick Coca and Coca is the only player I love, then I won't pay anymore etc. If boxer is the only player I love and now he is "code B", too bad, I won't watch neither pay! See? You can't ignore your audience...
Edit: we can have a "skill only" tornament, an "invite" only tournament and a "mixed" one. MLG is open, so anyone can register there, no big. GSL is skill only basicly. Which tournament are you talking about then? Some random invitational? Let them be, really.
|
If I were to guess, I think a big part of the reason for invites still being common is that the tournament organizers strike deals with the players' teams so that the teams cover part of the travel expenses.
|
It's not exactly as big of a deal as you're making it. MLG Providence had what, 256 Spots? The "Open bracket" is what could be considered a qualifier. The players who were invited into the Championship bracket were not invited on fame, they were invited on the point system.
Edit: As with the guy two spots above me I'd like to know which tournaments you're talking about.. For the life of me I can't think of any big travesty regarding player invites and recent tournaments.
|
New players are refreshing and interesting. Its even better if their breakthrough is happening in a big tournament (thorzain example).
This means qualifiers are a good thing.. But it would suck if it was only qualifiers for every tournament.
Playing in minor tournaments doesent give you the recognition deserved. This is true to some extent... But the variable factor is how hard we look. Saladin in ipl mapmaker tournament made a name for himself and had a huge step forward in becoming well known.
conclusion, its fine the way it is. Mixing qualifier and invitational is ideal, brings fan favorites, potential for another cinderella story.
But there are so many tournaments so its not really an issue what technique they use to assemble players. In fact i feel it gives the tournament a niche in that regard also.
|
On November 25 2011 00:07 SDream wrote:
The fans are the ones paying, the customers. If they want to give a chance do now Code B player X and Z or whoever, then that's fine.
If player Y games lead to to cheese and boring and low audiance games, then that makes sense that I won't invite him. I think it is easy to understand that logic.
But regardless, the world is huge enough to embrace both tournaments style, you can help paying for the tournaments you think are the best and everyone else will do the same. I will pay for the one that have the players that I like, if they kick Coca and Coca is the only player I love, then I won't pay anymore etc. If boxer is the only player I love and now he is "code B", too bad, I won't watch neither pay! See? You can't ignore your audience...
Edit: we can have a "skill only" tornament, a "invite" only tournament and a "mix" one. MLG is open, so anyone can register there, no big. GSL is skill only basicly. Which tournament are you talking about then? Some random invitational? Let them be, really.
I agree with the first statement, where I watch a sport to follow a team or player I know. I know his story, I know his struggles, and as a spectator, this gets me entertained.
Something missing from your OP is an actual look at the current tournaments. Does MLG, IPL, Dreamhack, NASL answer your inquiry? If not, what should be changed in those tournaments?
MLG : Has a huge open pool play.
Dreamhack Winter : Contains a lot of a newcomers.
IPL : Does offline qualifiers.
NASL : Does offline qualifiers.
|
There is room in the SC2 scene for both types of tournaments. Everyone is different some people prefer to see players that they connect with on an emotional level. Some want to see the very tip top competition. Some absolutely love team vs team.
There are so many tournaments that each one has to find it's niche, and if inviting popular pro's to the tourny provides that niche then more power to them.
SC2 is such a young game that anything that gets people to tune in is fine by me, and not every game needs to be on the bleeding edge of skill.
For the unsung heroes of SC2, I think they will all get their shot. If they are good enough people will notice them, and more importantly competitive teams will notice them. I envision a future in SC2 where teams actively scout and sign upcoming talent. Not every NBA fan follows college basketball, but every NBA team has scouts that do. The cream always rises to the top.
|
I think invitational tourneys are already less dominant than they were. There were somewhat too many of them about 6-12 months ago, especially when IPL1, NASL S1, part of TSL lineup were invitational. What do we have now? IPL4 has qualification tournaments all over the world, NASL lineup gets rotated mostly from open tournaments, Dreamhack Winter while partly based on invitation-based qualifiers, has some slots filled by open qualifications.
You give example of MLG with Incontrol and Machine, but it wasn't the case of invitations (only maximum of 4 koreans per event had an invitation to group stage)
There are still a few invitation-based tournaments, but it's a matter of tournament organisers having or not having a possiblity and qualification to hold a big open tournament. In past, very few organisation could manage that, but these days this is much more common
|
Not a tournament in particular, but I noticed that most of them have a HIGH difference between qualifiers seed and invitational ones.
MLG is a sort of exception (without talking about the pool system, but I hope that they will fix them next season) since it's a 3 days straight tournament that rewards, more than the actual ability (the koreans seems to be an exception but we are talking about specific individuals already completely trained by the best teams in the world) the physical resistance of a player.
The MLG invitational was already a step of what should be 'the right direction'. At least imo.
The ASUS rog not that much.
A good tournament of course, but if everyone would do like that we could just keep 15 players in total and let them compete everywhere.
@TidusX.Yuna
Maybe my tone is too dramatic, but it was not my intention: I'm not saying that there's a conspiracy in the esports world (no wait, it's ALWAYS a conspiracy), but rather suggesting a method to diversify the player pool and let more people the chance to prove themselves.
|
Without saying too much - I'm working on holding an open cup with quite a nice prize pool... more info within this coming month!
|
I'm not a fan of group stages as opposed to the regular tournament format, but for LANs where people are traveling across the world for only a few days it's somewhat necessary and a better format in that context. People expect these guys to play and have a bit less volatility when it comes down to who makes it in the later stages.
|
On November 25 2011 00:28 MavivaM wrote:
Not a tournament in particular, but I noticed that most of them have a HIGH difference between qualifiers seed and invitational ones.
MLG is a sort of exception (without talking about the pool system, but I hope that they will fix them next season) since it's a 3 days straight tournament that rewards, more than the actual ability (the koreans seems to be an exception but we are talking about specific individuals already completely trained by the best teams in the world) the physical resistance of a player.
The MLG invitational was already a step of what should be 'the right direction'. At least imo.
The ASUS rog not that much.
A good tournament of course, but if everyone would do like that we could just keep 15 players in total and let them compete everywhere.
What about IPL, NASL, DH?
MLG rewards continuously good ranking and participation. You are taking about physical resistance but are suggesting Zotac, Gosc and Sennheiser. Aren't those tournaments an exact form of physical resistance? It's extremely compact (over the course of one day) where you play an absurd amount of games.
|
I don't see the problem.
Thorzain was unknown before TSL3 and made a name there, that he confirmed afterward
Naniwa was not well known before winning MLG Dallas (was is Dallas ?) then going into TSL3 final, he remained one of the best protoss player after that
Virtually none was really talking about Stephano before he won IPL3, but he confirmed since then and retain crowd's attention.
Elfi beats Nada once ? None cares. Elfi beats other good player again and again (like huk in ASUS RoG), then people are interested in him. Simple.
That's the way it works, sure Naama, Gatored or Nightend are very good players, but were are the consistent results ? Aside from online cups i mean. They've got the attention they deserve, and will get more if they go farther than beating a good player one time.
And yes there might be players who are not much skilled than those ones that do get attention, but that's because they are involved in the community in some other way than just competing. I think that's fair.
|
you are quite right in essence but your examples are REALLY bad
satiini isnt a great player (+hes a huuge whiner  )
hasuobs gets invited to most of the trounaments and sometimes he even has to decline an invitation (for example dreamhack this weekend)
another point that would be a benefit of an open tournament system is that players with less offline tournament can get more experience befor playing the more experienced "BIG NAMES"
|
Well when I watch pros play those online cups it doesn't seem as stressful as MLG, if not only because you are at home and can rest from one match to another.
Unless you are playing against Goody, win and then have another opponent immediately right after.
When I read about Thorzain's post about MLG open bracket conditions I felt a different vibe.
IPL rocks.
NASL seems quite conservative about the players, I guess that if it continues for some other seasons I could be proven wrong.
DH should be 45 invites vs 21 qualified if I'm not mistaken.
Not that bad, if I see it now.
Well, just look at my OP as a consideration.
Thanks for the replies.
|
Esports is about money, not promoting new players. TLO, Jinro or InControl are getting invites because they bring attention of their huge fan bases. That's also the main reason they even are still parts of their teams. Do you think TL pays TLO or Jinro because they hope for their results? Nope, it's just an insane amount of people who visit this site and support TL because of them. How many fans would abandon TL if they kicked out TLO and Jinro? A lot. And it's not only TL but all foreign pro teams. It's pure bussiness.
|
I agree with your sentiment, but I also feel it is right that current unknowns should have to prove themselves more than the average player to get noticed and get on a team/invited. Esports is a business, concerned mostly with marketing/viewer counts, and players have to market themselves by showing big results or by being a personality, they can't just expect invites and opportunities to land on them because they have moderate skill alone.
There are a bunch of GSL Terrans who have stayed in Code S or Code A a few seasons, beat some mid tier people in unexciting games, and are probably top ~40 in the world. But they get no recognition and no fans because they haven't done the extraordinary, don't put themselves out there. And thus their teams don't really benefit from having them despite their skill.
|
I can't disagree with the argumentation here, however on a personal note I feel SC2 is still incredibly volatile and has mechanically better players losing to (much) worse ones on a fairly regular basis. Ultimately I would still rather watch players in whose ability I am confident and whose play I can admire than mediocre players who managed to upset them in a BO3 or even a BO1 qualifier.
I don't want to see queuing, supply blocks, ladder-level macro augmented by badly executed cheesy builds in a televised game, it brings me physical pain and disappointment in everything SC2. I can just ladder for myself instead of watching that. But the truth is, players who play like this can and do still win against better players.
Results are incredibly inconsistent and unreliable in SC2 and with the exception of a very small number of top players are not a clear indicator of a player's skill level. They probably will be in 3 or 4 years once the metagame stabilizes - but they are certainly not now.
Ultimately if you actually PLAY really good, you're bound to get noticed and attract interest both from big teams and tournaments. DongRaeGu was initially considered a monster based on his stream alone (this was before he was on MVP and even got noticed in Code A qualifiers).
|
On November 25 2011 00:49 MavivaM wrote:
Well when I watch pros play those online cups it doesn't seem as stressful as MLG, if not only because you are at home and can rest from one match to another.
Agreed, playing from home is a lot less stressful (a known environment). Although, it still feels to me that MLG mimics the same approach. The only difference is that you're not playing from home, which, in the end, is a trait that differentiate a good player from the better player (being able to play under pressure, not from your cozy place at home).
|
United Kingdom14464 Posts
Yes. I would muuuuch prefer a more meritocratic tournament system. Dreamhack's invite policy (that and it's terrible prize structure) are what really put me off the tournament.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
