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DotaCinema's very successful second Captain's Draft is behind us, and while the amazing growth in its prize pool is as much due to good business decisions as the quality of the competition, few will argue that it was not a very enjoyable tournament thanks in great part to its format. As the tournament progressed toward its conclusion, one of the main attractions - seeing heroes played competitively that were not available in Captain's Mode - saw some attrition, with more and more non-CM heroes being added. But the other part of this, the forcing of unusual drafts, maintained its appeal, as some of the scene's most formidable captains saw their exit.
The overall success of this tournament, and the Summit 2 before it, each with unique aspects to their format - and very successful ARDM all-star matches - should lead one to ask: what is a non-standard tournament format that could be equally as entertaining and successful?
Big stadium LANs with big crowds and big money will always stand out, but what formats of competition we aren't currently seeing would you like to see? How would you balance it competitively? How would you attract top teams? Even if you don't have these things figured out, put your idea down and maybe the board can help flesh out your idea.
I have two concepts:
1) Drafter-focused tournament
I think we all know one of the problems with pro Dota right now is that there is a dearth of really talented drafters. So how about a tournament that rewarded this particular skill? The idea I have is to have a qualification stage where teams would round-robin but the drafters would round-robin in parallel. Each would be scored individually and qualify for a standard-style final tournament.
What I haven't figured out about this:
a) How do you ensure the drafters are conducting the draft without the help of the team's captain without forcing them to draft without knowing what players they are drafting for?
b) How do you simultaneously motivate pro teams to play seriously without also putting them in a situation where they are angry at an amateur drafter for giving them a bad draft they lose money over?
If you could work these out, in my ideal scenario, the drafters draft, then have a standard pause at the beginning of the game to explain to the team the strategy of the draft. The drafter then disconnects and the team is left to execute the draft with their usual in-game leadership.
2) ARDM League
ARDM is obviously a pretty fun format. What if there was real money on the line? How would you balance it? How would you get your best pros interested in playing it?
My idea: points-based ARDM league ending with a grand final where the top two players draft from the next eight for their teams and duke it out in a Bo5. In this concept individual players would play the season with some system of rotating players around.
What I haven't figured out about this:
a) What the best system to use for points would be. Temporary teammates will be competing with each other for seeding, so both KDA and wins could be open to exploitation towards the end of the season. We'd like to think players would not do that but you never want to pervert incentive structures when you can avoid it.
b) What kind of system would work best for grouping players for a game.
So, what are your ideas?
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I feel like what I am about to say goes off topic but I think its something you might want to clarify for this thread which is what are your goals and intentions? (perhaps you have none and this is just merely for discussion sake).
Personally I was quite surprised with the amount of money raised by the DC tournament especially it being in the Captains Draft format. Perhaps with a different game mode it offers a fresh alternative to the mainstream -CM mode tournaments that people really enjoy.
However, my personal concern is for the growth of Dota2 as a mainstream sport/esport. And to do that, we need an universally agreed upon way of playing competitive Dota which I think -CM fits the bill very much. Whilst modes like -ARDM and captains draft might encourage the usage of heroes who are otherwise deemed useless in the current meta/patch, they still lack the flexibility and strategic possibilities that -CM provides with its larger pool of heroes to choose from.
Sorry for going off topic. This is a great discussion topic and I am very keen on hearing the thoughts of the community. Personally I know too little about the financial side of organizing tournaments or even have any experience so I'm just looking to learn.
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Well for the most part I'm disregarding the financing aspect here and going with the assumption that the tournament will have a reasonably decent prize pool (although someone might have a format idea that actually centers around financing, that would be interesting to hear). There are a lot of things DC did right with regards to raising a big pool, lessons I think future tournaments will take from them. This thread really isn't about that (although it's definitely an interesting discussion).
I do agree that CM is the best mode for mainline competition. Additionally, I'm of the opinion that double elimination is overwhelmingly the best bracket system, although the question of what to do with grand finals (winners bracket advantage) is an active debate.
So let's say once the scene settles a bit there are a few big mainline tournaments you can expect high-level international competition. TI, maybe this new Asia Championship will take off and be a regular seven-digit tournament, and then you have something like ESL and a couple other major, big-dollar LANs.
All those would run in CM and they would be where top teams put on their super-tryhard hats and high-level competition is the rule of the day. As has been pointed out, there are only so many LANs of this type it's realistic to get excited for every year, or realistic to expect there will be a lot of money on the line for (thus creating competitive tension).
If Valve straightens out their invite situation for TI in a manner similar to what I suggested in the EE thread, T1 teams will only focus on a few such tournaments a year, and there will still be plenty of room for more competition, but who wants to just do a bunch more tournaments with the same teams and same style? That's where having some more fun tournaments that highlight different skill sets and/or give different viewer experiences have room to keep competitive Dota interesting in the spaces between.
It would also be welcome by many top players who love Dota as a game, not only a profession, but get worn down by the grind of constant CM. I think it's obvious we need more creative tournaments like DC's, but what?
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I totally loved the very beginning of Dota, where it was Radiant vs Dire (Sentinel vs Scourge). You could not rely on many synergies and thus it was easier to sneak in some nearly uncounterable heros at the end if the Drafter wasnt up to his game. I d love to see that return.
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EPT
