Thought I would make a topic about the WCS qualification system as it bothers me quite a bit and there seems not to be too much debate regarding it. I should mention that I think WCS is an amazing tournament and it is in my mind the first legit world championship tournament in SC2. Thus it annoys me that the system for qualifying to WCS world final is far from ideal.
The Issue The fact that neither Ukraine nor Sweden had a player qualified for the world final bothers me as these two nations are frequently mentioned when discussing which nation is the strongest behind South Korea (and yes I am from Sweden, every one get angry now and then we move on with the topic). This is of course to a big extent because the players from these nations did not play good enough but also partially a result of an unfair qualification system. If you on the other hand look at US they have 6 players qualified. If China or another Asian country takes one spots in the Asian qualifier there will be as many US players as Koreans in the world final. I am sorry US, but that is just straight up retarded.
My argument would thus be that skill should have a greater role in the seeding/qualification process. Then of course the first thing that comes to mind is why Korea doesn’t get like 20-25 of the 32 seeds. Well first off it would not be a world final with 75% of the players coming from one nation. Second will Korea have probably around 6-7 players represented regardless. I agree that Korea should probably have a few more “seeds”, but still with 6-7 players of the caliber of Creator and Seed Korea have more than a realistic chance to bring home the title regardless.
There are a number of things that annoys me with the qualification system. First I think that the direct qualifications for the winners of some nations qualifiers should be removed. It is just completely unfair and does not reflect the SC2 level of the countries. They only country I possible could think off that should have one is China, as it is kind of unfair that they have to compete against the Koreans already in their continental final. Korea does not need it, they will roll over the Asian qualifiers regardless. And besides Korea does no other country “clearly” deserves one, thus should there not be a arbitrary selection of some countries that have direct qualification.
Second the distribution of seeds over the globe is debatable to say the least. Oceania and SA qualifiers could be discussed. I think for instance giving 2 seeds to Oceania is questionable as they neither have the population nor the SC2 level to make that argument imho. The main thing though is of course NA. NA should not have 9 slots. Okay there are good players in NA and there are many viewers there, but 9 slots? If NA had 7 slots I think it would have served the same purpose without being mind-numbingly unfair against the rest of the world. Having 9 seeds for NA also makes for an overall less interesting world final and some of these “privileged” qualifiers will get stomped once they run into the Koreans.
Finally the same thing for the continental finals. Germany should for instance not have gotten 4 seeds in EU final+ a direct qualification spot. While Ukraine on the other hand got two seeds. The 4th player from Germany, Krass, had I never heard of before and it turns out his most notable achievement is a second place in a zotac tournament. While players such as Naniwa, Sase, Morrow, Fraer, Kas and Dimaga are standing on the side line? I am sorry but at this moment there is no way in hell I could see Krass being a better representative for EU compared to the 6 other players mentioned.
You could also make an argument that it is poor from for a nation perspective. Due to the fact that most strong countries are European. It sound a little weird since Korea is so completely dominating but it is still true that out of the 15 best SC2 countries I would about 11 are in EU. With to the current system 5-6 strong EU countries are guaranteed to not have a represent for the nation in the world final. Or you could also say it like that out of the best 15 countries 33-40% will not have a player in the world final.
While US due to a pure number game US is likely to have 4-6 players and Australia 2.
Maybe it is just me but when I think of an ideal world championship tournament, I think of a battle between the top Koreans against the best players of the world that culminates in a nail biting competition between Korea and the world. I think this is what majority off all the viewer’s actually want. I we want to achieve this the best players must have a decent chance of qualifying.
The current qualification seeds
National winner qualifiers 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 China 1 Taiwan 1 South Korea 1 USA 1 Canada
Continental qualifications seeds NA 7 Asia 6 EU 6 SA 3 SEA 2
My suggestion
National winner qualifier 1 China
Continental qualifications seeds Asia 10 EU 10 NA 7 SA 3 SEA 1
Simpler and better adapted to bring the top players from the world to the final, while at the same time (most probably) increase the number of Korean players attending.
Finally my main point is not that it should be exactly this way, just that the current system is kind of shit imo ^.^
National qualifiers won't go away any time soon. Blizz wants to foster the SC2 scene in individual countries as to reduce it's reliance in the Korean market.
So from what I gathered, please correct me if I'm wrong OP, but the number of seeds offered should be by current skill level and tournament performance rather than number of sales of sc2 in that country. Makes sense. /signed
On September 17 2012 18:53 Incomplet wrote: So from what I gathered, please correct me if I'm wrong OP, but the number of seeds offered should be by current skill level and tournament performance rather than number of sales of sc2 in that country. Makes sense. /signed
Why does that make sense? As the OP pointed out if we used nothing but that metric Korea should hold ~25 seeds of the 32 seed tournament.
Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
I think the NA and SA should be combined like the Europe tournament and 6 seeds given total. The quality in both regions is really quite low compared to Asia/eu.
I think: 8 Asia 8 Eu 6 Am 2 SEA And 8 national qualifiers
On September 17 2012 19:03 MateShade wrote: I think the NA and SA should be combined like the Europe tournament and 6 seeds given total. The quality in both regions is really quite low compared to Asia/eu.
I think: 8 Asia 8 Eu 6 Am 2 SEA And 8 national qualifiers
Would be a well rounded way to do it
I agree, but others do not, so unless our opinion is somehow better than that of others.... using the license metric is the most objective way to go about things.
i like the wcs in its current form a lot, even if they would get rid of the german seed, in terms of pure skill this tournament would have 30 koreans, we have that one already (the GSL) imo blizzard did really well if you think about it, of course they cannot imitate a true world championship like football for example, but focused on their game, where its played etc, their idea of the wcs comes pretty close. so i respectfully disagree OP, i find blizzards approach really good, and who could objectively dare to give seeds according to skill of region? that would mean 30 koreans as well btw, blizzards approach is solid, no gut feeling involved.
No mvp no mc no nestea no need watch that tournament ,no just kidding but still i miss them in this tourney i think all gsl winners have to be there to purely and only after this will be pure result who is better in world. Now i can cheer only for grubby and creator others i dont know or not that cool ,maybe sen will show something but still world champion will be not that pure god of sc2 title without beating long run best koreans as mc nestea seed and mvp is....
On September 17 2012 18:57 Douillos wrote: Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
Well to be honest I am not the biggest Naniwa fan but regardless yeah the fact that no Swedish player qualified defently contributed to me making this post. Cause it made me even more annoyed about the current system. My personal motives for making the post is however irrelevant in the assessment of the current system is ideal or not.
And yes I am well aware how the current system work, my post however makes an argument that it is shit if you try reading it. I think for instance that very few viewers could with an honest heart say that US deserve to have 5 players in the world final. Theoretically they might be tied with Korea for most seeds, or potentially be the second well most represented country by some margin.
On September 17 2012 18:53 Incomplet wrote: So from what I gathered, please correct me if I'm wrong OP, but the number of seeds offered should be by current skill level and tournament performance rather than number of sales of sc2 in that country. Makes sense. /signed
Yeah to be fair it is an compromise between giving the best players a good chance of attending while at the same time prevent the world final from having 75% of all the players from South Korea, which in my mind would make for much less interesting tournament.
I still think that numbers of licenses could play a small role in qualification system but to a much smaller degree then it is in the current system.
National winner qualifiers 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 China 1 Taiwan 1 South Korea 1 USA 1 Canada
Continental qualifications seeds NA 7 Asia 6 EU 6 SA 3 SEA 2
New system: National winner qualifiers Remove Taiwan, Canada and Korea Add Sweden, Spain and Ukraine 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 Sweden 1 Ukraine 1 Spain 1 USA 1 China
Continental qualifications seeds NA gets 12 seeds to both Americas continentals SA gets 4 seeds to both Americas continentals 6 seeds to world finals.
China gets 8 seeds to Asia continentals SEA gets 4 seeds to Asia continentals Taiwan gets 2 seeds to Asia continentals Others 2 seeds for other Asia countries(qualification process like Europe combined qualifiers) 4 seeds to world finals.
Korea has their own qualifiers 8 seeds to world finals.
Europe has their own qualifiers 6 seeds to world finals.
Final result: Europe 13 seeds. Korea 8 seeds. Americas 7 seeds. Asia(except Korea): 5 seeds.
I just solved this issue. If Blizzard wants to buy my idea they can PM me.
Actually, I am more bothered by the location of the world final than the number and amount of seeds given to different nations and continents. Sure, as a German i consider it ridiculous that we get a seed at the world finals when none of our players has been good enough to attain a seed by playing on the european level. All of them are mediocre at best. With Socke being our seed for the world finals despite him playing on an underwhelming level for the last couple of months. But like you said if the goal had been to make a tourney with the most skillful players of the world, Korea should have gotten three quarters of all seeds. But they tried to include some players with regard to the huge playerbase of those countries.
But why in the fucking name of the devil and Kthulu did they decide to let the world finale take place in China? WHY? China is completely irrelevant for Starcraft, the chinese playerbase is tiny. I would have understood if they had decided to do in the United States considering the fact that Blizzard is an american company after all and the playerbase is quite big in the States. Europe would have been fine as well, biggest playerbase of all regions. South Korea is considered to be the mecca of Esports by many, another good choice.
Fuck China. I guess they are trying to attract some attention for Starcraft in China but its not even going to work. The chinese will stick to Dota anyways. Just such a waste to make the tourney in China if you ask me .
On September 17 2012 19:31 LennoxPM wrote: The current qualification seeds
National winner qualifiers 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 China 1 Taiwan 1 South Korea 1 USA 1 Canada
Continental qualifications seeds NA 7 Asia 6 EU 6 SA 3 SEA 2
New system: National winner qualifiers Remove Taiwan, Canada and Korea Add Sweden, Spain and Ukraine 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 Sweden 1 Ukraine 1 Spain 1 USA 1 China
Continental qualifications seeds NA gets 12 seeds to both Americas continentals SA gets 4 seeds to both Americas continentals 6 seeds to world finals.
China gets 8 seeds to Asia continentals SEA gets 4 seeds to Asia continentals Taiwan gets 2 seeds to Asia continentals Others 2 seeds for other Asia countries(qualification process like Europe combined qualifiers) 4 seeds to world finals.
Korea has their own qualifiers 8 seeds to world finals.
Europe has their own qualifiers 6 seeds to world finals.
Final result: Europe 13 seeds. Korea 8 seeds. Americas 7 seeds. Asia(except Korea): 5 seeds.
I just solved this issue. If Blizzard wants to buy my idea they can PM me.
#ninja edit, yes it is copyrighted
What will the groups/brackets look like with 33 players?
I'd remove the national qualifiers completely, reduce US seeds and run with:
7 seeds Europe 9 seeds Asia 6 seeds NA 4 seeds SA 2 seeds SEA 4 seeds to be awarded at blizzards discretion similar to code S seeds in GSL <- not many complaints about these
It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
I agree, I mean four seeds for Germany in WCS finals? I mean if there would be more spots overall I would agree, but I mean you can argue that there are quite some top player from Germany (Socke, Hasu, TLO, Darkforce,..), but I mean not seeing Dimaga, Kas from Ukraine or Nani, Sase and Morrow or Cytoplasm made me kinda sad.
And also 9 seats for US, I mean lets face it, there are not 9 player who really can compete in finals (besides others who will get crushed nontheless), but thats not the real point, because this event should represent as many countries as possible right? So why so many US-player? Ok the only US player I can think of whould have a chance are Huk and Idra (sry Incontrol but no^^) (and also player like scarlett, vibe and so on... I mean no not rly), so give like 6-7 spots to NA and like 1 more for east EU and 1 direct for china (which I think is a really great idea).
On September 17 2012 19:31 LennoxPM wrote: The current qualification seeds
National winner qualifiers 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 China 1 Taiwan 1 South Korea 1 USA 1 Canada
Continental qualifications seeds NA 7 Asia 6 EU 6 SA 3 SEA 2
New system: National winner qualifiers Remove Taiwan, Canada and Korea Add Sweden, Spain and Ukraine 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 Sweden 1 Ukraine 1 Spain 1 USA 1 China
Continental qualifications seeds NA gets 12 seeds to both Americas continentals SA gets 4 seeds to both Americas continentals 6 seeds to world finals.
China gets 8 seeds to Asia continentals SEA gets 4 seeds to Asia continentals Taiwan gets 2 seeds to Asia continentals Others 2 seeds for other Asia countries(qualification process like Europe combined qualifiers) 4 seeds to world finals.
Korea has their own qualifiers 8 seeds to world finals.
Europe has their own qualifiers 6 seeds to world finals.
Final result: Europe 13 seeds. Korea 8 seeds. Americas 7 seeds. Asia(except Korea): 5 seeds.
I just solved this issue. If Blizzard wants to buy my idea they can PM me.
#ninja edit, yes it is copyrighted
What will the groups/brackets look like with 33 players?
Europe 12 seeds. T.T i misscalculated. Now my system is worth even more money.
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Not much to say spain, france and belarus took over the lead in europe in sc2. But atleast they still lose in the amount of pros. Quantity also matters hehe. I guess they had sweden and ukraine on low priority because they gave them high chance of making it without a direct seed from the national qualifier. The system really doesn't bother me alot, as europe sends a good lineup off different countries. And not being in it is maybe a big motivation to get better.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
The problem is that every "better system" is entirely subjective. The fairest system in terms of skill is going to have the worst representation of different countries because it would be almost exclusively Koreans so every system has to be in a balance between the two. Every World Championship works this way, look at soccer, it would be 90% European and South American teams if the qualification was skill-based, but since FIFA wants to appeal to as many people as possible, they try to maintain a balance where there is at least some representation for every continent. (Aside from this, the easiest solution is to root for players for their play or personality instead of reducing another sport to nationalism.)
I really think any direct seeds from national qualifiers are a mistake, especially when it's given out in a kind of random way (Some said it was amount of copies but that is not a good excuse).
I think 9 EU 9 NA 9 Asia 3 SA 2 SEA
This is pretty even, sure there might be more koreans, but unless you do it like WCG with it going national > global, you will always have koreans dominate the majority of asian qualifiers, with maybe 1 or 2 other from asia making it in every year.
As long as they keep National > Continental > Global, then the representation per country at the global finals will always be oddly balanced.
Remove direct seeds except maybe one slot for the hosting nation as they skew the qualification system in a single or double elimination style tournament. Maybe the only special exception should be separating Koreans and rest of Asia to grow/support the Non-Korean Asian scene.
Everything else suggested introduces (more) bias into the system and benefits players "who people think are good" against "who are actually good". And only little bias can change the outcome of tournaments greatly as SC2 is a very fickle game. If we ran the tournament again next week, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a completely different Top 8 (except for Stephano being on top). VortiX and Lucifron looked above the rest of the pack in the last weekend, but bombed out only one (or two) weeks before in the EPS open.
I think the qualification system stands on two (imho sensible) pillars: Support local scene and allow the qualification for everyone. This means as a consequence: 1) well-organized regional qualifiers run as an outstanding event and 2) slot distribution according to active player base (NOT pro player base).
There is no way on earth that if you're doing it on merit of progaming skill that EU should have more spots than Asia.
Direct seeds should go all together I think although they would need to do something about the fact that Taiwan and China would have no players in the finals otherwise.
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
On September 17 2012 19:43 DKR wrote: I'd remove the national qualifiers completely, reduce US seeds and run with:
7 seeds Europe 9 seeds Asia 6 seeds NA 4 seeds SA 2 seeds SEA 4 seeds to be awarded at blizzards discretion similar to code S seeds in GSL <- not many complaints about these
National qualifiers were the best thing about WCS, probably more interesting than the continentals.
Especially the Canadian, UK, Australian and German tournaments were great.
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
I am not sure where you read all this, but yeah Swedish players did not do great. I agree.
That the swedish players failed of course makes it completely reasonable that Germany and Taiwan have direct qualifications to the world final and that US might have equal amount of players as Korea. Cause as your post suggest those two things are tightly linked with one another.
I agree that giving direct seeds to nations is a stupid and ultimately unfair idea. However, your example of KrasS getting in is a little unfair tbh. It could have just as well been Socke, HasuObs, DarkForce and TLO (or Goody) in the top4, but KrasS made it. So, that argument is a little weak if it wasn't for the fact that a rather unknown player made it.
The thing with weighing nations and areas correctly is that it is extremely hard to do and that skills shift constantly. I don't think Ukraine is that strong currently. A couple months ago, Dimaga, White-Ra and Strelok were amongst the very best players of their respective race, at least in Europe. Now? Not so much imo and while there are "new" very strong players in Ukraine now, I don't think they are as good as the guys mentioned earlier were in their prime.
On September 17 2012 21:25 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:58 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
I am not sure where you read all this, but yeah Swedish players did not do great. I agree.
That the swedish players failed of course makes it completely reasonable that Germany and Taiwan have direct qualifications to the world final and that US might have equal amount of players as Korea. Cause as your post suggest those two things are tightly linked with one another.
Taiwan having a seed makes sense, because otherwise Korea will just take every Asian spot every time.
Your post is ridiculous because you're saying the seedings should reflect the quality of your pro scene and then somehow come to this absurd conclusion that EU deserves more spots than Korea, which is laughable.
Either it's done based on community size and 'everyone gets a chance' like it is now or it's pure merit of how many good players you have and Korea gets 25 spots in a 32 man tournament.
Germany, France and Russia probably shouldn't have got a spot but that's pretty minor and not the real reason Swedes and Ukrainians didn't qualify, they didn't qualify because they played badly when the time came to step up.
You can't have it both ways. EU is not as good as Korea and do not deserve more spots in a merit system.
So god damn retarded that France and the UK got 3 spots and Sweden only got 3 spots. It's silly tbh, and France got a seed into the WCS finals and Sweden didn't? Like I said, silly. It's all about the money I guess.
On September 17 2012 21:43 Mandalor wrote: I agree that giving direct seeds to nations is a stupid and ultimately unfair idea. However, your example of KrasS getting in is a little unfair tbh. It could have just as well been Socke, HasuObs, DarkForce and TLO (or Goody) in the top4, but KrasS made it. So, that argument is a little weak if it wasn't for the fact that a rather unknown player made it.
The thing with weighing nations and areas correctly is that it is extremely hard to do and that skills shift constantly. I don't think Ukraine is that strong currently. A couple months ago, Dimaga, White-Ra and Strelok were amongst the very best players of their respective race, at least in Europe. Now? Not so much imo and while there are "new" very strong players in Ukraine now, I don't think they are as good as the guys mentioned earlier were in their prime.
There's definitely a case of the massive overrating of certain players.
Strelok for example has no history of winning or placing well at major tournaments but he's been around a long time and tries to qualify for everything so he's a well known player.
White Ra hasn't been relevant as a player for over a year now.
Dimaga is the most inconsistant player in Europe so no surprise at all he managed to mess up in a system where you need to consistantly win to get anywhere.
For Swedes:
Naniwa might be considered a top foreigner but his pedigree at EU Tournaments is really poor and it's the norm for him to come to foreign LAN's and lose early to players he and most of the community considers him better than.
Sase is another player with huge hype on the back of a few good tournaments runs, a lot of bad tournament runs and losing in Code A/Code B a lot. If you put most high EU GM players on Quantic and flew them to every tournament going they'd sooner or later beat a Korean player too but Sase's never won anything big and he's far more likely to disappoint than he is to succeed.
Thorzain is usually good for winning one tournament a year, playing well in 2-3 tournaments and then playing really poorly in about 10 of the other tournaments he plays in. Another player who is wildly inconsistant so no surprise he struggles when you need to keep on winning in order to progress.
The problem with Sc2 is that unlike tennis and golf most players don't play in most tournaments so people's perspectives of who is good and who isn't is extremely skewed and often not at all in touch with reality.
On September 17 2012 21:43 Mandalor wrote: I agree that giving direct seeds to nations is a stupid and ultimately unfair idea. However, your example of KrasS getting in is a little unfair tbh. It could have just as well been Socke, HasuObs, DarkForce and TLO (or Goody) in the top4, but KrasS made it. So, that argument is a little weak if it wasn't for the fact that a rather unknown player made it.
The thing with weighing nations and areas correctly is that it is extremely hard to do and that skills shift constantly. I don't think Ukraine is that strong currently. A couple months ago, Dimaga, White-Ra and Strelok were amongst the very best players of their respective race, at least in Europe. Now? Not so much imo and while there are "new" very strong players in Ukraine now, I don't think they are as good as the guys mentioned earlier were in their prime.
Well to put it short Germany had more qualifications seeds then any other country in addition to having a direct qualification seed. If the system was based on SC2 skill level this would suggest that Germany is the best EU SC2 country with some margin. I am sorry but there is no way that this is justified. If Germany had equal chances to Sweden or Ukraine I would considered it a pretty generous offer for Germany.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the German players rather privileged.
Theres any easy way for Sweden to get more slots in the next European WCS (and a direct seed to the world WCS)... encourage everyone you know to buy HOTS.
Blizzard are there to sell games and this tournament reflects that.
On September 17 2012 21:50 M7Jagger wrote: So god damn retarded that France and the UK got 3 spots and Sweden only got 3 spots. It's silly tbh, and France got a seed into the WCS finals and Sweden didn't? Like I said, silly. It's all about the money I guess.
From the play of the Swedish players this weekend, they probably only deserved 1 spot.
On September 17 2012 21:43 Mandalor wrote: I agree that giving direct seeds to nations is a stupid and ultimately unfair idea. However, your example of KrasS getting in is a little unfair tbh. It could have just as well been Socke, HasuObs, DarkForce and TLO (or Goody) in the top4, but KrasS made it. So, that argument is a little weak if it wasn't for the fact that a rather unknown player made it.
The thing with weighing nations and areas correctly is that it is extremely hard to do and that skills shift constantly. I don't think Ukraine is that strong currently. A couple months ago, Dimaga, White-Ra and Strelok were amongst the very best players of their respective race, at least in Europe. Now? Not so much imo and while there are "new" very strong players in Ukraine now, I don't think they are as good as the guys mentioned earlier were in their prime.
Well to put it short Germany had more qualifications seeds then any other country in addition to having a direct qualification seed. If the system was based on SC2 skill level this would suggest that Germany is the best EU SC2 country with some margin. I am sorry but there is no way that this is justified. If Germany had equal chances to Sweden or Ukraine I would considered it a pretty generous offer for Germany.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the German players rather privileged.
And your original post is so contradictory. Basically you want 'skill' to be the determining factor for the EU spots. But in the global distribution, you want EU to be the same as Asia because otherwise, Korea would get 'too many' spots. So you are proposing 2 different standards.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the NA/EU players rather privileged.
On September 17 2012 21:25 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:58 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
I am not sure where you read all this, but yeah Swedish players did not do great. I agree.
That the swedish players failed of course makes it completely reasonable that Germany and Taiwan have direct qualifications to the world final and that US might have equal amount of players as Korea. Cause as your post suggest those two things are tightly linked with one another.
Taiwan having a seed makes sense, because otherwise Korea will just take every Asian spot every time.
Your post is ridiculous because you're saying the seedings should reflect the quality of your pro scene and then somehow come to this absurd conclusion that EU deserves more spots than Korea, which is laughable.
Either it's done based on community size and 'everyone gets a chance' like it is now or it's pure merit of how many good players you have and Korea gets 25 spots in a 32 man tournament.
Germany, France and Russia probably shouldn't have got a spot but that's pretty minor and not the real reason Swedes and Ukrainians didn't qualify, they didn't qualify because they played badly when the time came to step up.
You can't have it both ways. EU is not as good as Korea and do not deserve more spots in a merit system.
So much anger here. Well no Korea deserves more seeds, the system that I suggested would give them more then they have now. But I think most people agree that you cannot have a world final with 25 out 32 players coming from one nation. That would just be another GSL tournament with some additional foreigners being thrown in which is not the point of the event. Even with only 8 players attending Korea would still be the favorite by a hugh margin towards any other country.
Regardless is that irrelevant in the case that NA for instance have 9 seeds for the world final. I think you will have a hard time finding any none NA person thinking that it is a good idea.
Anyway, yes I think I can have it both ways, it is called a compromise. You should try it sometime.
On September 17 2012 21:47 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 21:35 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 21:25 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:58 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
I am not sure where you read all this, but yeah Swedish players did not do great. I agree.
That the swedish players failed of course makes it completely reasonable that Germany and Taiwan have direct qualifications to the world final and that US might have equal amount of players as Korea. Cause as your post suggest those two things are tightly linked with one another.
Taiwan having a seed makes sense, because otherwise Korea will just take every Asian spot every time.
Your post is ridiculous because you're saying the seedings should reflect the quality of your pro scene and then somehow come to this absurd conclusion that EU deserves more spots than Korea, which is laughable.
Either it's done based on community size and 'everyone gets a chance' like it is now or it's pure merit of how many good players you have and Korea gets 25 spots in a 32 man tournament.
Germany, France and Russia probably shouldn't have got a spot but that's pretty minor and not the real reason Swedes and Ukrainians didn't qualify, they didn't qualify because they played badly when the time came to step up.
You can't have it both ways. EU is not as good as Korea and do not deserve more spots in a merit system.
So much anger here. Well no Korea deserves more seeds, the system that I suggested would give them more then they have now. But I think most people agree that you cannot have a world final with 25 out 32 players coming from one nation. That would just be another GSL tournament with some additional foreigners being thrown in which is not the point of the event. Even with only 8 players attending Korea would still be the favorite by a hugh margin towards any other country.
Regardless is that irrelevant in the case that NA for instance have 9 seeds for the world final. I think you will have a hard time finding any none NA person thinking that it is a good idea.
Anyway, yes I think I can have it both ways, it is called a compromise. You should try it sometime.
On September 17 2012 21:47 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 21:35 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 21:25 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:58 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
I am not sure where you read all this, but yeah Swedish players did not do great. I agree.
That the swedish players failed of course makes it completely reasonable that Germany and Taiwan have direct qualifications to the world final and that US might have equal amount of players as Korea. Cause as your post suggest those two things are tightly linked with one another.
Taiwan having a seed makes sense, because otherwise Korea will just take every Asian spot every time.
Your post is ridiculous because you're saying the seedings should reflect the quality of your pro scene and then somehow come to this absurd conclusion that EU deserves more spots than Korea, which is laughable.
Either it's done based on community size and 'everyone gets a chance' like it is now or it's pure merit of how many good players you have and Korea gets 25 spots in a 32 man tournament.
Germany, France and Russia probably shouldn't have got a spot but that's pretty minor and not the real reason Swedes and Ukrainians didn't qualify, they didn't qualify because they played badly when the time came to step up.
You can't have it both ways. EU is not as good as Korea and do not deserve more spots in a merit system.
So much anger here. Well no Korea deserves more seeds, the system that I suggested would give them more then they have now. But I think most people agree that you cannot have a world final with 25 out 32 players coming from one nation. That would just be another GSL tournament with some additional foreigners being thrown in which is not the point of the event. Even with only 8 players attending Korea would still be the favorite by a hugh margin towards any other country.
Regardless is that irrelevant in the case that NA for instance have 9 seeds for the world final. I think you will have a hard time finding any none NA person thinking that it is a good idea.
Anyway, yes I think I can have it both ways, it is called a compromise. You should try it sometime.
Exactly, if you have WCS europe which has a bigger Swedish representation, and less UK, Germany. Wouldn't that just be like another Dreamhack/Asus ROG? That is not the point of WCS.
We have plenty of regional tournament that are merit based(MLG/IPL in NA, DH and ROG in European, IEMs, GSL/OSL in Korea) WCG and WCS are the exceptions which happens once a year. I think we should keep them unique.
honestly if we want to base it on skill, there should be 27 koreans, 5 of any non-korean race, cuz lets be honest, nothing compares to koreans except for a few players
On September 17 2012 21:43 Mandalor wrote: I agree that giving direct seeds to nations is a stupid and ultimately unfair idea. However, your example of KrasS getting in is a little unfair tbh. It could have just as well been Socke, HasuObs, DarkForce and TLO (or Goody) in the top4, but KrasS made it. So, that argument is a little weak if it wasn't for the fact that a rather unknown player made it.
The thing with weighing nations and areas correctly is that it is extremely hard to do and that skills shift constantly. I don't think Ukraine is that strong currently. A couple months ago, Dimaga, White-Ra and Strelok were amongst the very best players of their respective race, at least in Europe. Now? Not so much imo and while there are "new" very strong players in Ukraine now, I don't think they are as good as the guys mentioned earlier were in their prime.
Well to put it short Germany had more qualifications seeds then any other country in addition to having a direct qualification seed. If the system was based on SC2 skill level this would suggest that Germany is the best EU SC2 country with some margin. I am sorry but there is no way that this is justified. If Germany had equal chances to Sweden or Ukraine I would considered it a pretty generous offer for Germany.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the German players rather privileged.
And your original post is so contradictory. Basically you want 'skill' to be the determining factor for the EU spots. But in the global distribution, you want EU to be the same as Asia because otherwise, Korea would get 'too many' spots. So you are proposing 2 different standards.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the NA/EU players rather privileged.
Yes I know. I do have 2 different standards. Because we have a situation were the current system is bad and at the same time we have a problem that one nation happens to be completely dominating the scene. Thus if you only use skill as a parameter it would make for really boring event as Korea would almost by default take the title. As such a large number of players would be Koreans.
This however does not mean that the current system with NA being privileged and some arbitrary countries getting direct qualifications are good. Thus is it a compromise between the two. But well as I said repeatedly my main message was that the current system is bad and that people should react towards it as everything else is to accept it. It was not that have the ultimate solution for the issue.
My suggestion was mainly an idea adapted to get the best representation of the foreign scene possible while still giving a large number of seeds to Koreans. I simply removed one seed from SEA and two from NA an added one seed to Asia and two to EU. Maybe would have been better to just remove two from NA and add one to EU and one to Asia. Regardless if you do not agree with this it is fine as it was not meant to be the main message of the post.
On September 17 2012 21:47 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 21:35 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 21:25 Play Crack The Sky wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:58 4ZakeN87 wrote:
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
Swedish players just played badly and dropped the ball on home turf. This is the fault of Naniwa and Sase for messing up in qualifying and Thorzain, Sortof and Seiplo for playing so poorly this weekend.
It's not Blizzard's fault Swedish players played poorly, stop trying to cheat the system to compensate for their failings.
I am not sure where you read all this, but yeah Swedish players did not do great. I agree.
That the swedish players failed of course makes it completely reasonable that Germany and Taiwan have direct qualifications to the world final and that US might have equal amount of players as Korea. Cause as your post suggest those two things are tightly linked with one another.
Taiwan having a seed makes sense, because otherwise Korea will just take every Asian spot every time.
Your post is ridiculous because you're saying the seedings should reflect the quality of your pro scene and then somehow come to this absurd conclusion that EU deserves more spots than Korea, which is laughable.
Either it's done based on community size and 'everyone gets a chance' like it is now or it's pure merit of how many good players you have and Korea gets 25 spots in a 32 man tournament.
Germany, France and Russia probably shouldn't have got a spot but that's pretty minor and not the real reason Swedes and Ukrainians didn't qualify, they didn't qualify because they played badly when the time came to step up.
You can't have it both ways. EU is not as good as Korea and do not deserve more spots in a merit system.
So much anger here. Well no Korea deserves more seeds, the system that I suggested would give them more then they have now. But I think most people agree that you cannot have a world final with 25 out 32 players coming from one nation. That would just be another GSL tournament with some additional foreigners being thrown in which is not the point of the event. Even with only 8 players attending Korea would still be the favorite by a hugh margin towards any other country.
Regardless is that irrelevant in the case that NA for instance have 9 seeds for the world final. I think you will have a hard time finding any none NA person thinking that it is a good idea.
Anyway, yes I think I can have it both ways, it is called a compromise. You should try it sometime.
He's absolutely right, you introduce your idea based on the absurdity that NA doesn't match up to the rest of the countries in skill level and therefore needs fewer seeds.
You follow by dismissing the idea that Korea should get more seeds based on skill level, because that doesn't help your argument.
You conclude, essentially, with switching around NA and EU with no real reason except "Because Europe"
it gives smaller countries a leg up, which wouldn't normally otherwise have an opportunity to take part in such a wonderful event.
it also doesn't deny major regions another big tournament, which by all accounts has been a roaring success.
think of it like the world cup. sure, south america and europe have better nations, but it wouldn't be as much fun if you didn't get to see senegal shit on france or watch italy choke vs south korea (insert any other minnow upset here).
I like the concept a lot but I think there should be direct seeds to the world finals for more countries.
Don't necessarily need to cut slots from continental finals to add more direct seeds either. Could just make the world final groups 5 people groups instead of 4 and there would be 8 more slots for direct seeds.
Why would they do it based off of some random, unjustifiable, unmeasurable, "Well, these countries are better than this country" rubric? No one would ever agree with who they said was the better country, and thus deserved the most slots. And beyond that, they have to change it every year based off of super secret Blizzard memos or something equally stupid. Not to mention the fact that Korea will definitely always hold the highest power base, so WCS will just turn into GSL with Stephano and Scarlett. What a great WORLD FINALS, trololol. And you can't qualify "Well, we'd only give Korea 7 or so," because then it's not a true "Based off merit" system, like you claimed you wanted.
Oh, and I'm surprised I have to say this, but can people stop saying "The US has 9 seeds"? Cuz we don't. NA does. That includes Mexico and Canada. I'm surprised the United States citizen has to make that correction, but for some reason I do. The Europeans are usually so much more on top of shitting on us and reminding us that HuK isn't really American, because he's half Canadian or something equally insulting.
The current license idea is the best because it's the most subjective. I'm sorry Naniwa and Thorizain didn't play well enough to qualify, you'll just have to support another fellow, maybe one of the 7 Europeans who qualified?
On September 17 2012 21:43 Mandalor wrote: I agree that giving direct seeds to nations is a stupid and ultimately unfair idea. However, your example of KrasS getting in is a little unfair tbh. It could have just as well been Socke, HasuObs, DarkForce and TLO (or Goody) in the top4, but KrasS made it. So, that argument is a little weak if it wasn't for the fact that a rather unknown player made it.
The thing with weighing nations and areas correctly is that it is extremely hard to do and that skills shift constantly. I don't think Ukraine is that strong currently. A couple months ago, Dimaga, White-Ra and Strelok were amongst the very best players of their respective race, at least in Europe. Now? Not so much imo and while there are "new" very strong players in Ukraine now, I don't think they are as good as the guys mentioned earlier were in their prime.
Well to put it short Germany had more qualifications seeds then any other country in addition to having a direct qualification seed. If the system was based on SC2 skill level this would suggest that Germany is the best EU SC2 country with some margin. I am sorry but there is no way that this is justified. If Germany had equal chances to Sweden or Ukraine I would considered it a pretty generous offer for Germany.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the German players rather privileged.
And your original post is so contradictory. Basically you want 'skill' to be the determining factor for the EU spots. But in the global distribution, you want EU to be the same as Asia because otherwise, Korea would get 'too many' spots. So you are proposing 2 different standards.
The system is however not based on skill but number of SC2 licenses, thus are the NA/EU players rather privileged.
Yes I know. I do have 2 different standards. Because we have a situation were the current system is bad and at the same time we have a problem that one nation happens to be completely dominating the scene. Thus if you only use skill as a parameter it would make for really boring event as Korea would almost by default take the title. As such a large number of players would be Koreans.
This however does not mean that the current system with NA being privileged and some arbitrary countries getting direct qualifications are good. Thus is it a compromise between the two. But well as I said repeatedly my main message was that current system is bad not that have the ultimate solution for the issue.
My suggestion was mainly an idea adapted to get the best representation of the foreign scene possible while still giving a large number of seeds to Koreans. If you do not agree with this it is fine as it was not meant to be the main message of the post.
I think the problem is you are trying to make this into a MLG/IPL/Dreamhack which is not what WCS is meant to be. We have plenty of foreigner vs Korean tournaments.
Korea should definitely have more seeds than it got. Aside from that, I don't really think that giving NA 9 seeds makes any sense. Giving seeds by game license is pretty dumb if the WCS is supposed to be about crowning the world champ, not about doing market research. A decent compromise would be to give Korea its own category, or to give it half of the Asian seeds, or something. It's pretty moronic that the WCS Korea players, who could probably sweep the entire upper bracket at the globals, still need to play out some more to see who qualifies.
I think Blizzard's method of basing the seeds on the SC2 playerbase population is the best. For one thing it's objective, and the subjectivity involved in OP's method would just cause major backlash from the community because everyone would have a different opinion. It's also just a sensible way of running a world championship because you're accurately representing the SC2 playerbase.
On September 17 2012 18:39 4ZakeN87 wrote: Thought I would make a topic about the WCS qualification system as it bothers me quite a bit and there seems not to be too much debate regarding it.
First off I think WCS is an amazing tournament and it is in my mind the first legit world championship tournament in SC2. Thus it annoys me that the system for qualifying to WCS world final is far from ideal. The fact that neither Ukraine nor Sweden has a player in the world final bothers me as these two nations are frequently mentioned when discussing which nation is the strongest behind South Korea. This is of course to a big extent because the players from these nations did not play good enough but also partially a result of an unfair qualification system (imo). If you on the other hand look at US they have 5 players qualified. If China or another Asian country takes two spots in the Asian qualifier there will be as many US players as Koreans in the world final. I am sorry US, but that is just straight up retarded.
My argument would thus be that skill should have a greater role in the seeding/qualification process. Then of course the first thing that comes to mind is why Korea doesn’t get like 20-25 of the 32 seeds. Well first off it would not be a world final with 75% of the players coming from one nation. Second will Korea have probably around 6-7 players represented regardless. I agree that Korea should probably have a few more “seeds”, but still with 6-7 players of the caliber of Creator and Seed Korea have more than a realistic chance to bring home the title regardless.
There are a number of things that annoys me with the qualification system. First I think that the direct qualifications for the winners of some nations qualifiers should be removed. It is just completely unfair and does not reflect the SC2 level of the countries. They only country I possible could think off that should have one is China, as it is kind of unfair that they have to compete against the Koreans already in their continental final. Korea does not need it, they will roll over the Asian qualifiers regardless. And besides Korea does no other country “clearly” deserves one, thus should there not be a arbitrary selection of some countries that have direct qualification.
Second the distribution of seeds over the globe is debatable to say the least. Oceania and SA qualifiers could be discussed. I think for instance giving 2 seeds to Oceania is questionable as they neither have the population nor the SC2 level to make that argument imho. The main thing though is of course NA. NA should not have 9 slots. Okay there are good players in NA and there are many viewers there, but 9 slots? If NA had 7 slots I think it would have served the same purpose without being mind-numbingly unfair against the rest of the world. Having 9 seeds for NA also makes for an overall less interesting world final and some of these “privileged” qualifiers will get stomped once they run into the Koreans.
Finally the same thing for the continental finals. Germany should for instance not have gotten 4 seeds in EU final+ a direct qualification spot. While Ukraine on the other hand got two seeds. The 4th player from Germany, Krass, had I never heard of before and it turns out his most notable achievement is a second place in a zotac tournament. While players such as Naniwa, Sase, Morrow, Fraer, Kas and Dimaga are standing on the side line? I am sorry but at this moment there is no way in hell I could see Krass being a better representative for EU compared to the 6 other players mentioned.
Also the current system based on the amount of licenses of SC2 is just weird. Imagine the Olympics being based on population numbers, India would have had almost 20% of all the “seeds” in the Olympics. Would be more fair right? Too bad it would not make any whatsoever sense from a competition view point. Also I am not even sure that the viewers from the countries with advantageous qualifications will in the end favor the system. As once the world tournament start reality will kick in and a large percentage of the “advantageously” qualified players will be decimated which is not that entertaining.
Maybe it is just me but when I think of an ideal world championship tournament, I think of a battle between the top Koreans against the best players of the world that culminates in a nail biting competition between Korea and the world. I think this is what majority off all the viewer’s actually want. I we want to achieve this the best players must have a decent chance of qualifying.
The current qualification seeds
National winner qualifiers 1 Germany 1 France 1 Russia 1 China 1 Taiwan 1 South Korea 1 USA 1 Canada
Continental qualifications seeds NA 7 Asia 6 EU 6 SA 3 SEA 2
My suggestion
National winner qualifier 1 China
Continental qualifications seeds EU 11 Asia 9 NA 7 SA 3 SEA 1
Simpler and better adapted to bring the top players from the world to the final, while at the same time (most probably) increase the number of Korean players attending.
I might as well respond to the fact that I gave EU more seeds then Asia here. From a skill point of view Asia should have most seeds, but then again Asia≈Korea. With 9 seeds Korea is likely to grab around 8. This will still make them by far the most represented country in the world final with 25% of all players. No other country is likely to have more than 3 players. If you give Korea more seeds it will become more and more a game of numbers and make for an overall less interesting event imho.
Finally my main point is not that it should be exactly this way, just that the current system is kind of shit imo ^.^
Yes both nations have very strong players, but this is nothing like the WCG where every country gets a representative.
You have to earn your spot.
You have a point thought with regards to the auto-seeds for the winners of other nations though. I know a lot of players didn't like how the brackets were arranged either (namely HuK).
Ofc your post was biased. No need to point it out man and I understand your frustration because there are a lot of good players missing but that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
Hai hai, seems people like this system and I agree that vthree has a point regarding it should not be another Dreamhack. I however think that there is different degrees of this "truth".
Still it surprises me people like this system. Well people do not think that we arbitrarily should say that one country is better then the other but... really US having 5 players while UK, Sweden and Ukraine have none? You would have to be pretty hardcore US patriot to not say that the system is not heavily screwed into the favor of US. Last TSL4 NA/EU qualifier these 3 countries had 10 participants while US had 0.
And then Germany, France and Russia getting direct qualifications? In addition to Germany getting 4 seeds already, while countries such as Poland and Ukraine gets two seeds?
I cannot believe that the consensus is that it is a good system. Well I do not like it one bit but I guess it will continue then.
On September 17 2012 22:50 4ZakeN87 wrote: Hai hai, seems people like this system and I agree that vthree has a point regarding it should not be another Dreamhack. I however think that there is different degrees of this "truth".
Still it surprises me people like this system. Well people do not think that we arbitrarily should say that one country is better then the other but... really US having 5 players while UK, Sweden and Ukraine have none? You would have to be pretty hardcore US patriot to not say that system is not heavily screwed into the favor of US. Last TSL4 NA/EU qualifier these 3 countries had 10 participants while US had 0.
And then Germany, France and Russia getting direct qualifications? In addition to Germany getting 4 seeds already, while countries such as Poland and Ukraine gets two seeds?
I cannot believe that the consensus is that is a good system. Well I do not like it one bit but I guess it will continue then.
I'm not a huge fan of it either and I understand why Blizzard is outsourcing because they honestly have very little experience with running their own shit.
I just accept it for what it is and the reality is this. A lot of the tournaments we currently have. Whether they be a major or not is bush league crap when it comes to their formats and system.
This goes for everything including the GSTL, PL hybrid format, MLG, etc.
It's a bunch of crap and they'll keep changing it too.
Ideally I would like to have one world circuit and one team league where all the pro's come out to play. Got to package it altogether.
On September 17 2012 18:57 Douillos wrote: Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
Well to be honest I am not the biggest Naniwa fan but regardless yeah the fact that no Swedish player qualified defently contributed to me making this post. Cause it made me even more annoyed about the current system. My personal motives for making the post is however irrelevant in the assessment of the current system is ideal or not.
And yes I am well aware how the current system work, my post however makes an argument that it is shit if you try reading it. I think for instance that very few viewers could with an honest heart say that US deserve to have 5 players in the world final. Theoretically they might be tied with Korea for most seeds, or potentially be the second well most represented country by some margin.
No Swedish player qualifies, complains that Sweden should get more seed based on their skill.
I dont think there is much wrong with the way WCS was setup, the only thing i didn't really like is for exmaple the way the setup the bracket this weekend. We saw to many players from the same country eliminating each other to early in the tournament, when you play a tournament based on countries that shouldn't happen.
And the direct seeding has to disappear, it's ridiculous and not fair. You can do that but then you cant let those players enter a qualifier, they have a edge.
Other then that it's pretty good i think, you can discuss the amount of seeds a continent gets but when you setup a tournament around country's/continents you never get the strongest line-up, we see this in all kinds of sports where the WC is not the primary title for players.
On September 17 2012 18:57 Douillos wrote: Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
Well to be honest I am not the biggest Naniwa fan but regardless yeah the fact that no Swedish player qualified defently contributed to me making this post. Cause it made me even more annoyed about the current system. My personal motives for making the post is however irrelevant in the assessment of the current system is ideal or not.
And yes I am well aware how the current system work, my post however makes an argument that it is shit if you try reading it. I think for instance that very few viewers could with an honest heart say that US deserve to have 5 players in the world final. Theoretically they might be tied with Korea for most seeds, or potentially be the second well most represented country by some margin.
No Swedish player qualifies, complains that Sweden should get more seed based on their skill.
:4ZakeN87:
I wonder if there would still be complaints from him if the US had the best players outside Korea? Then their seeds would be justified in his world and he would have nothing to complain about, right?
On September 17 2012 18:57 Douillos wrote: Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
Well to be honest I am not the biggest Naniwa fan but regardless yeah the fact that no Swedish player qualified defently contributed to me making this post. Cause it made me even more annoyed about the current system. My personal motives for making the post is however irrelevant in the assessment of the current system is ideal or not.
And yes I am well aware how the current system work, my post however makes an argument that it is shit if you try reading it. I think for instance that very few viewers could with an honest heart say that US deserve to have 5 players in the world final. Theoretically they might be tied with Korea for most seeds, or potentially be the second well most represented country by some margin.
No Swedish player qualifies, complains that Sweden should get more seed based on their skill.
:4ZakeN87:
Yeah I realized that I would get these responds before I posted it, I think you are something along the fifth in the line. Thus I mentioned it already in the OP that I was influenced by the fact no Swedish player qualified. I also mentioned that my personal motives are not relevant regarding if the system is good or not.
It is however pointless to respond to this because if this thread continues there will be 25 more of these responds and I cannot bother to respond to all 25.
On September 17 2012 18:57 Douillos wrote: Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
Well to be honest I am not the biggest Naniwa fan but regardless yeah the fact that no Swedish player qualified defently contributed to me making this post. Cause it made me even more annoyed about the current system. My personal motives for making the post is however irrelevant in the assessment of the current system is ideal or not.
And yes I am well aware how the current system work, my post however makes an argument that it is shit if you try reading it. I think for instance that very few viewers could with an honest heart say that US deserve to have 5 players in the world final. Theoretically they might be tied with Korea for most seeds, or potentially be the second well most represented country by some margin.
No Swedish player qualifies, complains that Sweden should get more seed based on their skill.
:4ZakeN87:
Yeah I realized that I would get these responds before I posted it, I think you are something along the fifth in the line. Thus I mentioned it already in the OP that I was influenced by the fact no Swedish player qualified. I also mentioned that my personal motives are not relevant regarding if the system is good or not.
It is however pointless to respond to this because if this thread continues there will be 25 more of these responds and I cannot bother to respond to all 25.
The fact that you mentioned that does not make that true. The logical fallacy here is obvious, you complain that your country didn't do good enough in a skill based tournemant, and say that they should get more seeds based on their skills. The only country that has a merit for asking for more players in Spain, because, if not for Stephano (the obvious best European player) they would've had their only two seeds as the top two players, thus they should obviously get more seeds. If anything, Sweden should get two seeds next time, so that Spain can have three.
On September 17 2012 18:57 Douillos wrote: Admit it, your just mad cause Nani/Sase didnt get in
Not really thread worthy, they had to distribute the seeds, they used a valid idea with the number of sc2 licenses. Imagine if they would have started another NA/EU war over who's better.
Shitfest Inc!
But really, its funny, cause we all know youre just mad Naniwa's not in :D
Well to be honest I am not the biggest Naniwa fan but regardless yeah the fact that no Swedish player qualified defently contributed to me making this post. Cause it made me even more annoyed about the current system. My personal motives for making the post is however irrelevant in the assessment of the current system is ideal or not.
And yes I am well aware how the current system work, my post however makes an argument that it is shit if you try reading it. I think for instance that very few viewers could with an honest heart say that US deserve to have 5 players in the world final. Theoretically they might be tied with Korea for most seeds, or potentially be the second well most represented country by some margin.
No Swedish player qualifies, complains that Sweden should get more seed based on their skill.
:4ZakeN87:
Yeah I realized that I would get these responds before I posted it, I think you are something along the fifth in the line. Thus I mentioned it already in the OP that I was influenced by the fact no Swedish player qualified. I also mentioned that my personal motives are not relevant regarding if the system is good or not.
It is however pointless to respond to this because if this thread continues there will be 25 more of these responds and I cannot bother to respond to all 25.
The fact that you mentioned that does not make that true. The logical fallacy here is obvious, you complain that your country didn't do good enough in a skill based tournemant, and say that they should get more seeds based on their skills. The only country that has a merit for asking for more players in Spain, because, if not for Stephano (the obvious best European player) they would've had their only two seeds as the top two players, thus they should obviously get more seeds. If anything, Sweden should get two seeds next time, so that Spain can have three.
What? No it is actually a fact that my personal opinion is irrelevant to if the system is good or not. To say otherwise would mean that the system would improve or become worse depending on my personal thoughts about the system.
I have a very hard time to see how that theoretically could happen so no, it is actually true. Otherwise it would mean I was divine or something along those lines.
On September 17 2012 19:55 Luisa_2 wrote: I agree, I mean four seeds for Germany in WCS finals? I mean if there would be more spots overall I would agree, but I mean you can argue that there are quite some top player from Germany (Socke, Hasu, TLO, Darkforce,..), but I mean not seeing Dimaga, Kas from Ukraine or Nani, Sase and Morrow or Cytoplasm made me kinda sad.
And also 9 seats for US, I mean lets face it, there are not 9 player who really can compete in finals (besides others who will get crushed nontheless), but thats not the real point, because this event should repesent as many countries as possible right? So why so many US-player? Ok the only US player I can think of whould have a chance are Huk and Idra (sry Incontrol but no^^) (and also player like scarlett, vibe and so on... I mean no not rly), so give like 6-7 spots to NA and like 1 more for east EU and 1 direct for china (which I think is a really great idea).
Erm, you do realize Scarlett won WCS Canada and NA which put her above Idra and Huk, and that she has more recent wins against code-S regulars than both of them combined? Right?
My point is you can't fail to include her in a list of those deserving of a seed regardless of how you design the system
On September 17 2012 22:27 Mauldo wrote: Why would they do it based off of some random, unjustifiable, unmeasurable, "Well, these countries are better than this country" rubric? No one would ever agree with who they said was the better country, and thus deserved the most slots. And beyond that, they have to change it every year based off of super secret Blizzard memos or something equally stupid. Not to mention the fact that Korea will definitely always hold the highest power base, so WCS will just turn into GSL with Stephano and Scarlett. What a great WORLD FINALS, trololol. And you can't qualify "Well, we'd only give Korea 7 or so," because then it's not a true "Based off merit" system, like you claimed you wanted.
Oh, and I'm surprised I have to say this, but can people stop saying "The US has 9 seeds"? Cuz we don't. NA does. That includes Mexico and Canada. I'm surprised the United States citizen has to make that correction, but for some reason I do. The Europeans are usually so much more on top of shitting on us and reminding us that HuK isn't really American, because he's half Canadian or something equally insulting.
The current license idea is the best because it's the most subjective. I'm sorry Naniwa and Thorizain didn't play well enough to qualify, you'll just have to support another fellow, maybe one of the 7 Europeans who qualified?
I think Blizzard has the right idea, basing the number of seeds on the player base in each region. We already have enough tournaments that reward raw talent/skill. The WCS is to give local talent a chance to compete. We all know that some code B Korean could have come to the NA WCS and won it. But that isn't the point. NA has a very large player base, but before WCS had no incentive to really try hard as they would simply get their pocket picked by random Koreans or even Europeans. Now there is at least one tournament where NA players have a chance. This is good, as it gives this large player base more incentive to get better rather than pwning in 4v4s.
The WCS is supposed to be like a World Cup. So there is a wide distribution of players from all over the World. That is what they have done. In the FIFA World Cup, some football teams from Asia and NA are present despite being objectively worse than some European and SA teams who miss out. Some regions have harder qualification processes than others due to the intensity of competition/places available. This has to occur in order to have a truly global event. The WCS is using this model and will also be a global event.
The main flaw is that Africa and the Middle East is completely ignored. Not even one tournament for people from these regions. If you are a quality player but were from South Africa or Dubai then you don't even get a chance to qualify anywhere. Maybe WCS could have had online qualifiers for people from these areas and then perhaps had one LAN tournament for the qualified players to feed into one place at the Euro Continental Finals. We are talking about regions of almost 1.4 Billion people being overlooked. For a global event that should be addressed in the future.
Anyway, we should probably wait and see how the Asian Continental Finals and the World Championships actually go before we start attempting to judge the success or not of WCS.
On September 18 2012 00:10 revel8 wrote: The main flaw is that Africa and the Middle East is completely ignored. Not even one tournament for people from these regions. If you are a quality player but were from South Africa or Dubai then you don't even get a chance to qualify anywhere. Maybe WCS could have had online qualifiers for people from these areas and then perhaps had one LAN tournament for the qualified players to feed into one place at the Euro Continental Finals. We are talking about regions of almost 1.4 Billion people being overlooked. For a global event that should be addressed in the future.
PandaTank from South Africa took part in the WCS Combined EU Qualifier (because South Africans play on EU server).
If they did it by skill level rather than current system, it would be 31 players from Korea, 1 player from Europe. That wouldn't exactly be a world championship. The current one is only objective way to get players from every region.
(And why do you say it should be done by skill and then give more seeds to Europe than Asia in your suggestion?.........)
Qualifying directly for worlds is pretty silly though directly from national qualifiers
On September 18 2012 00:44 Scarlett` wrote: If they did it by skill level rather than current system, it would be 31 players from Korea, 1 player from Europe. That wouldn't exactly be a world championship. The current one is only objective way to get players from every region.
(And why do you say it should be done by skill and then give more seeds to Europe than Asia in your suggestion?.........)
Qualifying directly for worlds is pretty silly though directly from national qualifiers
Yeah I think I will go and change that in the opening post as it was not my intent to have the discussion focused around that. The only reason I did that was because I thought it was boring to have more Koreans in the tournament when they with system I suggest already have 7-9 players. Which gives them a far better representation then any other nation.
So it is not really based on skill, it is just a little bit more based on skill then the previous system. But I am happy you agree about the national qualifiers. My intent is to create a debate regarding the current system, which so far have not gone that well x)
On September 17 2012 19:43 PiGStarcraft wrote: It's not about skill it's about growing the scene across all countries not just those already thriving.
SC2 is so new that building it up is just as important as rewarding those at the top.
You talk about how it needs to be interesting so not just being all korean but instead suggest "All Korean and all where I'm from, Europe" and even suggest more spots for Europe then Asia. If you want to follow the approach of let's put the highest skilled and most deserving players in it HAS to be 90% Koreans you can't just say "we'll put more koreans then other countries, but not as many as is worth their skill". You can't pick and choose like that either it's all skill or all based on something else like promoting eSports in regions based on games sales.
Well I guess my suggestion was a little bit biased but then if you look at it from a country perspective there is no doubt that most skilled countries are in EU and thus is the current system not giving the best representation of the foreign scene. But yeah I agree there is an conflict about scenes growing and the current skill level and removing one seed from SEA might have been a little harsh.
Regardless as I finished my post, my point is not that I have come up with a perfect solution, just that I think that the current system is bad and there are better options. As I think have been suggested by several posts already. It is not that hard to suggest a system that is better then the current one imo ^.^
It's not harsh to remove one of the SEA seeds as much as I don't like that idea being part of SEA! If it was based on skill alone SEA would only have 1 spot I agree. As it stands though I really like the way this tournament was all about promoting growth in neglected eSports communities as well as those that were already thriving.
I agree that some countries like Sweden and Korea could perhaps recieve a few more spots for their fantastic eSports scenes and high number of skilled players.
On another note I think people find it hard to see their heroes not perform so well and in a harsh tournament like this you get very few chances. That being said I absolutely love the way these formats give few chances to all and as such there are many upsets. Players like Ziktomini, Sortof and Vortix have exploded in popularity and exposure around the times of WCS and it's cool to see the exposure get shared to some new faces
It's about numbers of viewers man. More NA players, more of them advance, more NA viewers. NA is already one of the biggest viewerships, might as well capitalize.
And honestly, 10 NA players vs 3-4 Korean players sounds pretty fair in terms of odds
(I mean shit, if it's 1 Korean, who's the right Korean, on their game, 10 vs 1 sounds good).
On September 18 2012 00:10 revel8 wrote: The main flaw is that Africa and the Middle East is completely ignored. Not even one tournament for people from these regions. If you are a quality player but were from South Africa or Dubai then you don't even get a chance to qualify anywhere. Maybe WCS could have had online qualifiers for people from these areas and then perhaps had one LAN tournament for the qualified players to feed into one place at the Euro Continental Finals. We are talking about regions of almost 1.4 Billion people being overlooked. For a global event that should be addressed in the future.
PandaTank from South Africa took part in the WCS Combined EU Qualifier (because South Africans play on EU server).
I know this discussion is about changes for future WCS Championships, but is there actually any word on whether there will be one every year or is this a one-off? I am guessing that the chances of it being repeated annually is how profitable or not the event is overall. Can anyone comment on how profitable or not this WCS thing will by Blizzard? Is it going to make massive losses and is Blizzard happy to take the hit as it promotes their game? I know some folks are arguing about a different distribution of seeds but the reality is that making the event more global and making it appeal to a bigger potential audience increases it's chances of being profitable and thus being repeated. If it makes a profit then it will almost certainly happen every year and that is a fantastic thing.
Personally I would prefer WCS to be a teamleague instead of individual league. Makes more sense to have 5-7 top players from each country (drafted through individual tournaments) to go through a proleague (non-all kill) format. It resolves a lot of seeding issues and we get to see more time/variety of each top players.
World Championship should be like the olympics. Jamaica has the best, for example, sprinters. But we only see like 2-4 of them in each event (because there are limitations). I am sure if it was just by pure speed, then every preliminary heat would be filled with almost all Jamaicans, and that would be pretty stupid to watch for the purpose of the olympics. Even though other countries may suck, its nice to see all those random guys for small countries, even though they lag 2-3 seconds behind the top runners, still have a chance to sprint with the best in the world
World Championships are supposed to be about bringing representatives with talent from all over the world together in one spot to compete. If it was only about koreans, it would suck because it doesnt bring the world together for esports...
I think it is fine the way it is. The skill system is basicly giving 75% to koreans so no I dont want that. While everything else is a compromise and there is no telling what split would be fair.
they only real way to do it would fairly would be many massive online open qualifiers for each server with each server getting a number of seeds proportional to size of participants, or or game owners, hmm actually my idea could be flawed as well, seems like a difficult thing to do absolutely objectively...
if you want to go by skill then just put abunch of koreans in there. The game sold alot of copies in the US which is why it gets that many seeds not to mention americans made the damn game.
Its harder to qualify in europe cause theres alot better players, just like its harder in korea. Doesnt really matter its not our fault what region you are born in.
On September 18 2012 04:35 Nouar wrote: Soooo hmmm you complain Ukraine and Sweden don't have a world final spot, and then advise to remove nearly all national seeds ? :D
If anything, I'd have given a few more to countries known to have good players..
Well it make sense, as in reality EU had 9 seeds. Just that out of those 9 where 3 dedicated for players from Russia, France and Germany. Thus only leaving 6 spots for the rest of EU to compete for and with these 3 countries still having possibilities to take more spots.
Thus does the national qualifiers make it harder for all other countries to have players attending. My guess for why Blizzard have them is that it ensures that countries with high populations (and SC2 users) will have representative at the world final, contributing for more viewers. Sadly is it illogical from a competition viewpoint and just over all unfair.
So to answer the 5 other posts about "He is swedish bla bla bla". No I do not think that Sweden should have a direct qualification seed. Because Sweden is not clearly stronger then many other EU countries. As there is no clear dominating country in EU is the choice of having a few "chosen" countries retarded, well Blizzard think it will get them more viewers but otherwise is it stupid.
But if you would ask me if I think Sweden would have deserved a direction qualification more then say Germany? Yes I do.
I think the majority of seeds should be for EU and Korea.
NA/SEA/SA etc. can maybe all get 1 seed each or something. From a spectator's point of view it isn't fun watching (comparable) trash getting wrecked by actually good players, so I'd like to keep that at a minimum. This way there will still be some neat national qualifiers to watch without having them lower the quality of the grand finals too much.
let's be serious, the only two people in NA that realistically have a chance vs. Koreans are Major & Scarlett. Let's give the other 7 NA seeds to Europe.
On September 18 2012 06:12 ref4 wrote: let's be serious, the only two people in NA that realistically have a chance vs. Koreans are Major & Scarlett. Let's give the other 7 NA seeds to Europe.
And honestly, Major is questionable with that...
But to be fair, there AREN'T 7 more people in eu who can beat Koreans.
If we're giving the 7 spots away, send them to Korea
I'm loving this tournament because of how national and international it is at the same time. I really do hope that it is helping to build local/national esports scenes.
On September 18 2012 06:12 ref4 wrote: let's be serious, the only two people in NA that realistically have a chance vs. Koreans are Major & Scarlett. Let's give the other 7 NA seeds to Europe.
I love that those are the two you mention, not long ago there would be other names on that list and you would have been laughed at for including either MajOr or Scarlett'
Think of Huk, IdrA, NonY, Sheth, Illusion and all the rest of the players who have, for however long, been toured as the best the Americas have to offer.
I think that you could look at it from a country perspective rather then population/continental perspective.
NA only have 3 countries. To this you can add that Mexico essentially boils down to one player (Major). With US having 16 players qualifying to the NA final is it almost statically granted that US will to have 2-3 players qualifying (as Canadians l and Mexican will also knock each other out). Also if you look at countries that play SC2 almost the same could be said for Asia. We have South Korea, China, Taiwan and... Singapore I guess? :O
In EU on the other hand are countries like Poland, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Ukraine, Finland, Spain and 15 other countries with no direct qualification seed have to fight over 6 seeds. Thus in opposite to the NA qualifiers will several strong SC2 countries almost per definition not have a player representing there country in the world championship. In this case it was mainly Ukraine, Sweden, UK and Finland. Poland just barely made it with Nerchio grabbing the last seed.
So while it is almost literary impossible for US/Canada to not have 2-3 players represented is it at the same time almost guaranteed that several strong EU countries will per definition draw the short stick. Which to me begs the question why EU do not have more seeds then NA? Or at least can anyone give one good argument to why NA have 9 seeds compared to say 5-8? Hell give a seed to Africa and the Mideast for that matter if you do not like the idea of EU having more seeds.
US and Canada will almost 100% have players represented regardless, only slightly fewer. The only way this would not be the case would be if the players from one country would massively fuck up there play simultaneous. In which maybe, just maybe, that country would not deserve to actually have a spot in the world final.
as much as I love the idea, i think you're forgetting that gamer population of KR/TW is relatively small.
Also, It is goal of wcs to represent korea as a strong nation, but is not a goal of wcs to represent korea as world's best no matter what.
Foreign vs Korea scene is developing as always, and I think 6-7 players out of 32 representing 1/5 of gaming population might be enough to make things more interesting(although I wouldn't mind asia getting 10, and korea 2 seeded instead of 1)
With Suppy replacing Ostojiy US have now 6 slots in the world final x) China have 1, Ukraine 0, Sweden 0 and US have 6? Blizzard should give Avilo a direct seed while there at it so US can have their full top line roster represented at the world final.
Then US and Korea would have 7 players each to. Would make for great battle between US and Korea. We could have Avilo going up against Rain in the final.
Bahh.. I find it it unreal that people like this system, obviously there are better solutions then this.
One of the most retarded things was that Italy(?!?!?!?!?) got 2 seeds to EU finals and UK got 3. But for example Finland got one seed. That was just...dumb. I mean really. Italy and UK got more seeds to the EU finals. Who have got the better pros again?
On October 19 2012 20:50 Luolis wrote: One of the most retarded things was that Italy(?!?!?!?!?) got 2 seeds to EU finals and UK got 3. But for example Finland got one seed. That was just...dumb. I mean really. Italy and UK got more seeds to the EU finals. Who have got the better pros again?
I completely agree, I think same with Ukraine that only got two seeds. Out of the 30 best players in EU are probably around 5 Ukrainians.
EPT
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