EPTFrom his twitlonger.
TL;DR Version: - Just gonna back away from SC2 until LoTV comes out since there is no competitive ladder and there are some balance issues, gonna keep streaming hearthstone and DoTA 2.
Hello guys and grills, just wanted to let you know that i'll be taking a break from SC2 for now.
This doesn't mean I am retiring, nor does it mean that ROOT is shifting its focus away from the game, I've been playing and streaming the game almost non-stop since it came out, and I really do love it.
What I've been up to:
I know I haven't been streaming too much lately. I've been really busy with ROOT management stuff, we got a few more sponsors coming up soon which I'm thrilled about, I've also been playing DOTA and HearthStone off-stream mostly, I enjoy both of those games and I like to stay "up to date" with their Meta and what goes on, not only because I enjoy them very much but also because ROOT Gaming has squads in HearthStone and Dota, so I also enjoy watching it and cheering for my teammates.
Why take a break now?:
I feel like right now is a good time for a break from competitive StarCraft for me, I lost WCS in Challenger and that means that there are little to no tournaments/events to prepare or improve for me personally. Also playing Heart of the Swarm isn't as fun for me anymore, especially after playing LOTV which I think is a more fun and exciting game. It feels almost pointless to play Heart of the Swarm, the viewership isn't great as I'm sure you're all aware of and there's nothing for me to prepare for like I said before
Why not just stream LOTV?
As fun as LOTV is, it has a lot of issues - as any game during the beta period would. There's still a lot of things that need changing. Balance is poor at the moment and tbh I wish blizzard developers opened more channels to communicate with players and community members before making changes. I do understand they take and listen to feedback, but there are things that could be handled better, there's plenty of ideas from people who want LOTV to be the best game possible and if some of these suggestions are not feasible for whatever reason, it would still be nice to hear reasoning from Blizzard representatives.
I am financially and emotionally invested in StarCraft, so I want the game to be the best it can be and help it grow as much as possible. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the game is bad, I think it's miles better than HOTS already and HOTS is one of the greatest games ever created, but playing a beta and trying to be competitive in it just doesn't feel right - there is no ladder yet, for example - something that I feel would help motivate me and my competitive spirit. Right now despite the top 20% getting beta invites the player quality on average is very low - and without a ranking system it's hard to feel good or bad about a victory to me, it just feels empty.
So at least until ladder is implemented and the game has been tweaked/balanced a bit more - i'll be taking a step back.
What will I be doing?
I'm not really going anywhere, I'll be playing and streaming Dota2, HearthStone and SC2. I just won't be playing tons of hours of sc2, or necessarily every day, even. Of course I have other duties as well with ROOT but I've always had those. This should be a nice break for me and I hope to come out of it "revitalized". I'll still be watching tournaments reading reddit and supporting sc2 through the team, so this isn't a good bye, just an update.
To my subscribers: I really appreciate your support, although I'm not sure if this will be a 1, 2 or more month "break" I understand that you subscribe to my stream to watch StarCraft - and I greatly appreciate your support, but I will of course understand if you can't continue to support me while I am not actively playing StarCraft every day.
-CatZ
no worries!
