EPTHas online-only competition during the pandemic changed your enjoyment of pro SC2?
Has online-only competition during the pandemic changed yo…
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TL.net Bot
TL.net134 Posts
Has online-only competition during the pandemic changed your enjoyment of pro SC2? | ||
Waxangel
United States33553 Posts
When you look at the changes in their totality (formats, scheduling, production, atmosphere, etc), have they affected your enjoyment of pro StarCraft II? | ||
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phodacbiet
United States1740 Posts
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ploguidice
United States233 Posts
On June 30 2021 01:36 Waxangel wrote: The non-Korean StarCraft II scene had to make massive changes to its tournaments during the pandemic, most notably moving to all-online formats. When you look at the changes in their totality (formats, scheduling, production, atmosphere, etc), have they affected your enjoyment of pro StarCraft II? I've become significantly more invested in the regional events than I was in regional challenger stuff pre-pandemic, but I've become less interested in the season finals compared to the pre-pandemic championship open LANs. I think I'm turned off by the fact that by that they're sort of EU versus KR events by design. It's always fun when a player from a less prominent region makes a big dark horse run, but the distribution of seeds feels like it almost precludes that possibility. | ||
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zumpy
United States122 Posts
also while I've loved seeing Clem improve over the pandemic, the lack of in studio victories and having the playing with higher ping for international tourneys makes it harder to truly rate him as a player. I've also felt that Serral has been underperforming since the start of the pandemic partially due to the fact that he was usually one to perform better in a studio rather than online, which is tough to see as a fan overall enjoyment is still very high but there is no replacement for in studio international events | ||
Poopi
France12908 Posts
But for sure I didn’t enjoy as much international matches played on cross-server compared to live play, both because of pings and timezones. I am still thankful for EU being the primary target, and thus the competitions are at good hours compared to for example BlizzCon of the past that finished at like 4-5am in France. Players webcam kits is a nice addition. | ||
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Haku
Germany550 Posts
Player cams help a lot! They are really appreciated and made me love events way more than ones without. Lost interest in multiple matches because they just felt like another better EPT Cup when there were no cams. Really want offline competition back... | ||
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JustPassingBy
10776 Posts
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Serimek
France2274 Posts
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renaissanceMAN
United States1840 Posts
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 30 2021 01:36 Waxangel wrote: The non-Korean StarCraft II scene had to make massive changes to its tournaments during the pandemic, most notably moving to all-online formats. When you look at the changes in their totality (formats, scheduling, production, atmosphere, etc), have they affected your enjoyment of pro StarCraft II? I stopped watching SC2, but I have no idea if it's because of the decreasing quality, staleness or change to all online. Probably all of the above. So yeah, unfortunately it did. Edit> Is this a closed poll? As it seems I can't vote, just wondering, no big deal, already stated my point :D | ||
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Waxangel
United States33553 Posts
On June 30 2021 03:24 deacon.frost wrote: I stopped watching SC2, but I have no idea if it's because of the decreasing quality, staleness or change to all online. Probably all of the above. So yeah, unfortunately it did. Edit> Is this a closed poll? As it seems I can't vote, just wondering, no big deal, already stated my point :D nah I just started moving the poll discussion threads to the SC2 general forum, but u can still only vote by scrolling down on the front page :[ | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 30 2021 03:28 Waxangel wrote: nah I just started moving the poll discussion threads to the SC2 general forum, but u can still only vote by scrolling down on the front page :[ I see! Thanks. | ||
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Karis Vas Ryaar
United States4396 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33553 Posts
 Also, the normalization of player cams is something that will help online tournaments feel more weighty even when/if we get back to a 'normal' DreamHack Open style circuit. I really hope that we'll continue to have significant online-only events going forward :0 | ||
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neptunusfisk
2286 Posts
Looking forward to Clem and Reynor facing some top koreans in an offline event with an audience. 😎 | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16118 Posts
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lost dedicated
41 Posts
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Ctone23
United States1839 Posts
Production value is 100x better than what it was a couple years ago, so that's been impressive. I just don't get the same enjoyment from online only SC2. | ||
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Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
I'm ambivalent on the WCS/ESL kind of tournament. I have great memory of those, but if I also remember half full chairs on day 2 of a Dreamhack at 10 AM with a stage that feel way to big as everyone just goes through the motion of the various segment of interview-desk-caster-break that take considerably longer on lan, I don't especially look forward to those, I've always found it a bit depressing. The interview have been more to my taste too, I mean absolutely no disregard to Simx, but it's nice that there's a lot more chance for casters to ask questions about more intricate SC2 stuff and the players seems a lot more wiling to open up at home. And I also feel that there's a lot more volatility online and the foreign scene was in desperate need of that for a good while. But online play has definitely made it a bit harder to differentiate one tournament from the next. I miss having the caster together a lot, I miss the player goofing with each others between games (or just seeing them really) and I miss those late stage playoff bracket in front of a crowd, on a whole probably more positive than negative to going "back" offline. | ||
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QOGQOG
834 Posts
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vyzion
308 Posts
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blooblooblahblah
Australia4163 Posts
But overall, Europe regionals has been amazing IMO, and at least as engaging as the old offline WCS events, if not more. But that could obviously be due to the emergence of better storylines within that region. Being online doesn't bother me that much when the production value is solid and it's same-server play. Level of play has been excellent which does help. The cross-server international events aren't as engaging for me. In theory the matchups are great, but the conditions aren't ideal for any of the players whenever they play cross-server, and the time of day seems pretty rough for the Koreans. It's not bad enough that I wouldn't watch them, but I find myself more engaged by the Europe Masters than the actual Championships each season. | ||
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AirbladeOrange
United States2574 Posts
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washikie
United States752 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany7071 Posts
On June 30 2021 03:13 Serimek wrote: It feels like there is more SC2 lately, and it's amazing. BUT tourneys feel more alike than before to me. Interesting point that I wholeheartedly agree on. Also with offline events I enjoyed the banter between games, and some nice shots of the venue and all sorts of things. Nowadays I mainly skip through it and just watch the games | ||
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Aeceus
United Kingdom1278 Posts
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MockHamill
Sweden1798 Posts
A larger problem is the lack of patches. It makes the meta more stale so I tend to watch less now since I more or less know what to expect. | ||
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ReachTheSky
United States3294 Posts
As far as casting goes, it's gotten worse. Casters don't seem to understand how to project believable excitement with there voice and instead insist on carrying their voice like borderline conversational hypnotists. I think that's the biggest flaw out of every production. When you look at the major sports commentators(nba, nhl, nfl) or even the wwe commentators or aew's jim ross, they command excitement with their voice. It's believable, it feels like passion and it commands my attention in a positive way. Some of the sc2 casters here are completely monotone and sound like they don't even want to be casting let alone commanding excitement. Sometimes the cast just sounds like a giant run on sentence with the caster often using the same phrases multiple times within a 3 minute span of time. Maybe it's slightly offtopic but this paragraph is probably why viewership is down/doesn't grow/stagnated. My 2 cents in under 2 minutes~ | ||
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Furaha
Germany271 Posts
... Why do I suddenly feel bad now? LOL XD~ | ||
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tigera6
3458 Posts
And I dont mean to be a dick about this, but why the HELL TSL had to end 1 DAY before code S group stage start? Dark could have been in a bad position where he had to play in the Final until 6am and then start the GSL group at 6pm on the same day. | ||
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buzz_bender
445 Posts
On June 30 2021 23:19 tigera6 wrote: Its not even about the time of the Tournament within the day that is bad for the KR, but also the duration of the Tournament overlapping with the GSL. ESL has CLEARLY planned the tournament base on their own DH schedule, so the non-KR players mostly never have to worry about their tournament clashing. Meanwhile KR player has to prepare for the GSL matches while doing those other matches. And I dont mean to be a dick about this, but why the HELL TSL had to end 1 DAY before code S group stage start? Dark could have been in a bad position where he had to play in the Final until 6am and then start the GSL group at 6pm on the same day. I've been saying this for ages, but nothing has been done about it so far.  | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On July 01 2021 02:50 buzz_bender wrote: I've been saying this for ages, but nothing has been done about it so far. Insert obligatory Koreans are fine with that as they didn't speak up. | ||
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ploguidice
United States233 Posts
On June 30 2021 23:19 tigera6 wrote: Its not even about the time of the Tournament within the day that is bad for the KR, but also the duration of the Tournament overlapping with the GSL. ESL has CLEARLY planned the tournament base on their own DH schedule, so the non-KR players mostly never have to worry about their tournament clashing. Meanwhile KR player has to prepare for the GSL matches while doing those other matches. And I dont mean to be a dick about this, but why the HELL TSL had to end 1 DAY before code S group stage start? Dark could have been in a bad position where he had to play in the Final until 6am and then start the GSL group at 6pm on the same day. There's three main StarCraft regions America, Europe, and Asia, and realistically if you're having a global online event the schedule is going to fuck over one region pretty hard. You can do a schedule that works well for Europe and Asia but fucks America, a schedule that works for Europe and America but fucks Asia, or a schedule that works for America and Asia but fucks Europe. Aside from whatever money came from the initial Blizzard contract, viewership is the only revenue driver for these events. So of course ESL is going to structure their events in a way that maximizes viewership, and that means choosing a schedule that caters to American and European audiences while shafting Asian audiences. The EPT circuit is also obviously going to be based around it's own internal cadence and not GSL's. Afreeca also made a production decision to have a significantly longer season than the EPT regional tournaments which makes it significantly harder to plan around. TLDR: ESL is going to schedule their events in a manner that maximizes viewership, and Afreeca's decision to run GSL seasons twice as long as foreign events basically guarantees that ESL can't plan around GSL even if they wanted to. | ||
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buzz_bender
445 Posts
On June 30 2021 22:35 Furaha wrote: I personally do prefer offline events. From my own experience, with online games only, many progamers have a second person sitting next to them. I know this, because I often was one of this second person. Which means, 4 eyes see more. There is no way "fair play" can be controlled if it is an online-only-competition. And even if you believe a second person sitting next to a player is useless, youre wrong. And this is something that I think needs to be addressed more, but it just seems that it's a taboo topic as no one would even hint at discussing/talking about it. I brought this up (cheating) right at the start of the online events, but no one wanted to talk about it. It's surprising to me since there is so much money involved in these tournaments. | ||
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5525 Posts
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QOGQOG
834 Posts
On July 02 2021 04:17 jimminy_kriket wrote: I enjoy it more. Now that everything is online we get to see more korean vs foreigner games which are the most enjoyable for me. If those games weren't at 4am with lag they might be enjoyable... As is though it doesn't usually feel like players can really bring their best. | ||
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DiMano
Korea (South)2066 Posts
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On July 02 2021 06:37 DiMano wrote: Season finals enraged me Zest lost 2 archons and Trap lost void rays due to laggs, how can it be enjoyable? And it is just yesterday’s example, I watch games and I do not understand when players lose due to laggs or skills. Foreigners are winning? For the foreigner fans online events are great because the time slots favor foreigners but everyone pretends that Koreans are used to it. | ||
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buzz_bender
445 Posts
On July 02 2021 05:57 QOGQOG wrote: If those games weren't at 4am with lag they might be enjoyable... As is though it doesn't usually feel like players can really bring their best. You can tell by the end that Zest was getting frustrated with lag issues, and given that it's 4.30am, he probably had enough and hence the early GGs. Trap was noticeably affected by lag as well. And that is precisely why we cannot put too much stock into online competitions, as much as that's all we can do now. It's just not the same. | ||
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SirKibbleX
United States479 Posts
Dreamhack Atlanta? Anybody know of any others that are already scheduled? | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19306 Posts
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Captain Peabody
United States3128 Posts
That all has more to do with conditions for players, though, not my experience as a viewer. Apart from GSL, which has been more or less the same, players casters and organizers have all done a really good job of keeping up a good rhythm of content, hyping up online events, and playing their hearts out at even at weird times and in non-ideal conditions. There's plenty to watch and the scene feels more alive and fervent and competitive than it has in years imo, which I think has more effect on viewer enjoyment than tournament conditions. | ||
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_fool
Netherlands681 Posts
In fact, these days I use the Twitch viewer numbers to see if a match is important  So all in all, quality of casts and matches is perfect, but I miss the overview | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26242 Posts
For the audience atmosphere I feel this really is only a factor with big audiences, where a little of the audience sound is mixed into the broadcast. I feel that particular combo does add to my hype and investment, if it’s not an audience we can hear I don’t think it makes much difference, at least as a home viewer. Homestory Cup is obviously a big, big loser if it’s held remotely given its unique selling point. | ||
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Mummy callin
1 Post
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Big-t
Austria1350 Posts
This is also the reason why I can totally understand players who don’t want to play with a webcam since it increases ping. As long as they turn it on for the interviews I am happy All I want are two pros playing against it each other with the best possible conditions. | ||
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Akio
Finland1838 Posts
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StasisField
United States1086 Posts
Also, every time I see this thread title I initially think it's talking about Has and I hate it lol | ||
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SiegfriedSC
9 Posts
While I will probably still watch the events because of the good sc2 action, I won't remember the majority of them because I haven't been given any reason to. I'd love to see a more cohesive narrative built around ESL's events, because right now I just don't really care if Reynor or Clem wins yet another tournament, why would another win be unique, or meaningful aside from the money? | ||
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muppet70
Sweden72 Posts
a) It brought player cams, that was just main stage games offline. b) less delay, offline tournaments can drag out because of logistics. With that said, its ofc bad for ping reasons, no audience and such. The time zone and playing at night/early morning can be bad but jet lag can be just as bad when travelling far to an offline event. | ||
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KT_Elwood
Germany1112 Posts
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Ayub1
1 Post
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WeddingEpisode
United States356 Posts
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ElMakac
20 Posts
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