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On December 17 2014 10:15 Orchest wrote:This will be a crosspost, I will post it on its own elsewhere as I hope for it to be properly discussed. Why EE is wrong:EE's post is riddled with implicit and explicit errors. 1. Interest in tournaments:a. Why are people interested in tournaments, what creates interest and maintains interest?i. People are interested in tournaments because they enjoy watching DotA. The reason there are more tournaments is because there’s more demand for DotA content. The additional DotA content increases general interest and stimulates more demand. The market grows. ii. The variable here is the amount of interest. EE’s problem is that he views the talent as a constant. b. Is interest a zero sum game?i. Interest is not a zero sum game. The total amount of interest in the scene and value put into it increases with the number of fans and how much those fans care about the scene. There is not a constant number of fans spread between an ever growing number of tournaments, there is a growing number of tournaments and a growing number of fans. This is most importantly reflected in the growing amount of money this industry is generating. c. Is talent a zero sum game?i. No. This is where EE comes unstuck. EE views talented players as a constant – that there is a small and finite number of top level players who will not grow with the scene. If the number of tournaments is growing, and the number of fans is growing, and with that the amount of money is growing, why does EE think the number of professional players will not grow? ii. This is where we come to the crux of EE’s error. There is, for all practicable purposes, an infinite number of players at or able to reach EE’s level of skill. As the monetary compensation for play increases, we will see more players invest the time and effort required to reach peak professional play, to feed the growing number of fans and tournaments. iii. EE believes he should be a protected species, in a trade union for players, to insulate him from upcoming talent. 2. Do tournament organisers adequately respect players?a. What is a professional player?i. A professional player is a player who has taken DotA up as a profession – whose primary source of income is DotA. b. What level of respect should a professional player receive?i. A professional in any market receives the amount of respect he needs to continue in the profession. This respect takes the form of money, social status and fringe benefits, among other things. The amount of “respect” any wage earner receives is in proportion to their value. c. What level of respect do professional players receive?i. None of them have quit citing lack of respect – be it status, remuneration or fringe benefits. ii. It is therefore reasonable to assume that EE overvalues himself and other professional players. He is whinging. 3. Are there too many tournaments?a. Number of tournaments vs number of teams vs number of viewers:i. All else being equal, these things have stayed more or less in balance. What has changed is the workload for top teams, who have chosen to commit to too many tournaments. b. “The player’s association will try to fix some issues…”i. EE is joining a player’s union headed by a shady individual to try to protect players from market forces. c. The ticket system creates too much value, which creates too many tournaments, which devalues the whole thing?i. Baw. ii. You are deriving your livelihood from it, directly and indirectly. 4. The International:a. The major problem is that every tournament is a qualifier for TI, because TI dwarfs the scene.i. This is actually an important point that needs to be addressed properly, because it’s the point where the greatest risk of EE fucking the scene in the arse exists. ii. What does TI actually do at the moment? + Show Spoiler +1. TI creates an informal season around DotA, where TI itself is the finals, the period before it is the season and the season after it is the transfer window.
2. The money and attention brought by TI filters into the rest of the year by creating legitimacy around the year and providing unquantified importance to smaller tournaments, attracting players and viewers.
3. Since invites are primarily based on performance, TI clearly creates a perception by certain literally minded players that they must participate in every tournament to be a chance. iii. What are the alternatives? + Show Spoiler +1. Assuming you want TI to happen, I’ve seen dozens of suggestions for how to change TI. Most of them are really bad. Here are the two most popular at the moment:
a. Adopt a formal qualifier format:
i. This is bad because all you’re doing is formalising a process that already exists. This will simply create a “boys club” worse than what already exists because breaking from second and third string tournaments to the first string TI qualifiers would be virtually impossible. The reason this is attractive to certain pro players is because it allows them to minimise their workload by protecting themselves from needing to compete in robust competition.
ii. This would destroy the growing industry in minor tournaments by creating the “eagle in a chicken coup effect” where the best teams would most likely game one another to enter smaller tournaments just to collect the prize money.
iii. This would destroy any hope of upcoming teams improving because it would deny them the ability to frequently test their skills against top teams in a dynamic continuum of skill.
iv. If you want to see what these solutions look like various model forms, look at WCS or how ACE ran their tournaments in the lead up to TI3. It doesn’t work. It’s fucking bad.
b. Break TI into a number of smaller tournaments to spread the load throughout the year:
i. The current format of a big TI has the positive effect of informally structuring the year as discussed above. This model would almost certainly destroy that. The 2-4 mini-Tis would just be more tournaments in a year totally without structure.
ii. Additionally, TI would not be TI without Valve’s care and attention. Valve’s personal interaction with the community is what TI is and Valve is not an event hosting company. I would posit that Valve probably already considers that it spends more time than it really should organising and participating in TI.
iii. Logistical concerns aside, the idea that the solution to solving there being too many tournaments by increasing the number of tournaments is silly. The idea that you make unimportant tournaments seem more important by making important tournaments less important is similarly backwards. ***** I have to be extremely clear here. Player unions and formal regulators have damaged scenes in the past. You only need look to the ACE catastrophe to see how central control of these resources leads to corruption, nepotism, failure to innovate and a failure to grow talent and depth in competition. You only need look to KESPA to see how these organisations fail to enforce ethical standards. The only people these moves favour are the current crop of top string players – everyone else loses so they can win more. ***** 5. Reduced standard of casting:a. Randoms casting.i. Yep, outsourced labour was how brands dealt with the increased amount of tournaments. For the most part, outsourced casters are very good, though there are some exceptions. But, shit, if you have a problem with Lysander and don’t have an issue with Zyori, you’re probably beyond hope anyway. But tuk muh juhbs! b. Casters don’t adequately organise cocasters.i. The market will move to better casters who have better cocasters. Let it sort itself out. c. Casters don’t express emotion the same way EE does or would like them to.i. Baw. ***** The elephant in the room:Betting. E-Sports rigging. Throwing. 322. There is a reason that EE doesn't want to specifically address this, which is that it doesn't suit is narrative of "Oh, but pity us because of all these tournaments." Conclusion:If EE doesn't like it, he should leave. If he doesn't, it's ample evidence that his current respect and remuneration is adequate. EE appears to be a statist with no understanding of the foibles of bureaucracy. He should consider a career in politics on the left somewhere or as a trade unionist, as it suits his fantastic misunderstanding of markets and optimism that explicit rules are better than implicit market solutions. He seems to vastly overestimate his long term value, and if these rumours of a player union are true, they are really, really bad news for DotA in the medium and long term because they will primarily serve current high level players to the exclusion of the dozens of other important stakeholders in the equation.
Very good post!
Though as an EE fanboy I believe he only has a tendency towards statism, and isn't one by far. People in general tend towards statism whenever there's an issue because... well... monkey see, monkey do, right? ;p
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what you really mean to say is there's too many ridiculously small prize pools in badly-run tournaments that often can't even afford to pay the winners after it's over.
riddle me this: if, somehow, there were 25 TI's in 2015 each paying $10m USD, think anyone would be complaining about finding motivation to play them all?
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On December 17 2014 23:57 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 10:15 Orchest wrote:This will be a crosspost, I will post it on its own elsewhere as I hope for it to be properly discussed. Why EE is wrong:EE's post is riddled with implicit and explicit errors. 1. Interest in tournaments:a. Why are people interested in tournaments, what creates interest and maintains interest?i. People are interested in tournaments because they enjoy watching DotA. The reason there are more tournaments is because there’s more demand for DotA content. The additional DotA content increases general interest and stimulates more demand. The market grows. ii. The variable here is the amount of interest. EE’s problem is that he views the talent as a constant. b. Is interest a zero sum game?i. Interest is not a zero sum game. The total amount of interest in the scene and value put into it increases with the number of fans and how much those fans care about the scene. There is not a constant number of fans spread between an ever growing number of tournaments, there is a growing number of tournaments and a growing number of fans. This is most importantly reflected in the growing amount of money this industry is generating. c. Is talent a zero sum game?i. No. This is where EE comes unstuck. EE views talented players as a constant – that there is a small and finite number of top level players who will not grow with the scene. If the number of tournaments is growing, and the number of fans is growing, and with that the amount of money is growing, why does EE think the number of professional players will not grow? ii. This is where we come to the crux of EE’s error. There is, for all practicable purposes, an infinite number of players at or able to reach EE’s level of skill. As the monetary compensation for play increases, we will see more players invest the time and effort required to reach peak professional play, to feed the growing number of fans and tournaments. iii. EE believes he should be a protected species, in a trade union for players, to insulate him from upcoming talent. 2. Do tournament organisers adequately respect players?a. What is a professional player?i. A professional player is a player who has taken DotA up as a profession – whose primary source of income is DotA. b. What level of respect should a professional player receive?i. A professional in any market receives the amount of respect he needs to continue in the profession. This respect takes the form of money, social status and fringe benefits, among other things. The amount of “respect” any wage earner receives is in proportion to their value. c. What level of respect do professional players receive?i. None of them have quit citing lack of respect – be it status, remuneration or fringe benefits. ii. It is therefore reasonable to assume that EE overvalues himself and other professional players. He is whinging. 3. Are there too many tournaments?a. Number of tournaments vs number of teams vs number of viewers:i. All else being equal, these things have stayed more or less in balance. What has changed is the workload for top teams, who have chosen to commit to too many tournaments. b. “The player’s association will try to fix some issues…”i. EE is joining a player’s union headed by a shady individual to try to protect players from market forces. c. The ticket system creates too much value, which creates too many tournaments, which devalues the whole thing?i. Baw. ii. You are deriving your livelihood from it, directly and indirectly. 4. The International:a. The major problem is that every tournament is a qualifier for TI, because TI dwarfs the scene.i. This is actually an important point that needs to be addressed properly, because it’s the point where the greatest risk of EE fucking the scene in the arse exists. ii. What does TI actually do at the moment? + Show Spoiler +1. TI creates an informal season around DotA, where TI itself is the finals, the period before it is the season and the season after it is the transfer window.
2. The money and attention brought by TI filters into the rest of the year by creating legitimacy around the year and providing unquantified importance to smaller tournaments, attracting players and viewers.
3. Since invites are primarily based on performance, TI clearly creates a perception by certain literally minded players that they must participate in every tournament to be a chance. iii. What are the alternatives? + Show Spoiler +1. Assuming you want TI to happen, I’ve seen dozens of suggestions for how to change TI. Most of them are really bad. Here are the two most popular at the moment:
a. Adopt a formal qualifier format:
i. This is bad because all you’re doing is formalising a process that already exists. This will simply create a “boys club” worse than what already exists because breaking from second and third string tournaments to the first string TI qualifiers would be virtually impossible. The reason this is attractive to certain pro players is because it allows them to minimise their workload by protecting themselves from needing to compete in robust competition.
ii. This would destroy the growing industry in minor tournaments by creating the “eagle in a chicken coup effect” where the best teams would most likely game one another to enter smaller tournaments just to collect the prize money.
iii. This would destroy any hope of upcoming teams improving because it would deny them the ability to frequently test their skills against top teams in a dynamic continuum of skill.
iv. If you want to see what these solutions look like various model forms, look at WCS or how ACE ran their tournaments in the lead up to TI3. It doesn’t work. It’s fucking bad.
b. Break TI into a number of smaller tournaments to spread the load throughout the year:
i. The current format of a big TI has the positive effect of informally structuring the year as discussed above. This model would almost certainly destroy that. The 2-4 mini-Tis would just be more tournaments in a year totally without structure.
ii. Additionally, TI would not be TI without Valve’s care and attention. Valve’s personal interaction with the community is what TI is and Valve is not an event hosting company. I would posit that Valve probably already considers that it spends more time than it really should organising and participating in TI.
iii. Logistical concerns aside, the idea that the solution to solving there being too many tournaments by increasing the number of tournaments is silly. The idea that you make unimportant tournaments seem more important by making important tournaments less important is similarly backwards. ***** I have to be extremely clear here. Player unions and formal regulators have damaged scenes in the past. You only need look to the ACE catastrophe to see how central control of these resources leads to corruption, nepotism, failure to innovate and a failure to grow talent and depth in competition. You only need look to KESPA to see how these organisations fail to enforce ethical standards. The only people these moves favour are the current crop of top string players – everyone else loses so they can win more. ***** 5. Reduced standard of casting:a. Randoms casting.i. Yep, outsourced labour was how brands dealt with the increased amount of tournaments. For the most part, outsourced casters are very good, though there are some exceptions. But, shit, if you have a problem with Lysander and don’t have an issue with Zyori, you’re probably beyond hope anyway. But tuk muh juhbs! b. Casters don’t adequately organise cocasters.i. The market will move to better casters who have better cocasters. Let it sort itself out. c. Casters don’t express emotion the same way EE does or would like them to.i. Baw. ***** The elephant in the room:Betting. E-Sports rigging. Throwing. 322. There is a reason that EE doesn't want to specifically address this, which is that it doesn't suit is narrative of "Oh, but pity us because of all these tournaments." Conclusion:If EE doesn't like it, he should leave. If he doesn't, it's ample evidence that his current respect and remuneration is adequate. EE appears to be a statist with no understanding of the foibles of bureaucracy. He should consider a career in politics on the left somewhere or as a trade unionist, as it suits his fantastic misunderstanding of markets and optimism that explicit rules are better than implicit market solutions. He seems to vastly overestimate his long term value, and if these rumours of a player union are true, they are really, really bad news for DotA in the medium and long term because they will primarily serve current high level players to the exclusion of the dozens of other important stakeholders in the equation. Very good post! Though as an EE fanboy I believe he only has a tendency towards statism, and isn't one by far. People in general tend towards statism whenever there's an issue because... well... monkey see, monkey do, right? ;p
I disagree completely. The post reeks of someone who has a very black and white view in terms of value of work and a free market system.
Minor stuff aside, the biggest issue I take with this post is the author's stance that any criticisms top players have can be dismissed if they haven't quit the scene. How naive and unrealistic is that? You expect players to completely burn every bridge to prove a point? I would imagine many adults on this forum may have had issues with their jobs in terms of working conditions but staying was still preferable to unemployment. That doesn't mean they waived their right to speak out and try to change their situation because they chose not to take the nuclear option.
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On December 17 2014 08:50 Targe wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 08:46 Talyk wrote:
IS ANYONE WATCHING THIS DOTAPIT GAME? TT vs VP?
Theres so many disconnects they aren't bothering with pausing and just playing 4/3v5...Literally exactly what EE said...The casters have no idea what to say and are obviously holding back saying what they are thinking.
This is really embarrassing...Especially when EE just posted about this.
Sure it's over 10 minutes of Dotapits rules. But VP don't even seem that bothered anyway... no im not, i didnt even realise the two were playing
I think this is an excellent highlight of the problem. And the absolute mess of massive group stages of many different tournaments makes it even more awkward. Lets actually do this right now. As I'm typing this the current "Live Event" is as follows:
StarSeries
EU Group Stage
PR vs HellRaisers - 15:15
xGame.kz vs Lajons - 1h 10m
VP.Polar vs Lajons - 2h 25m
VP.Polar vs GOOMBA - 3h 40m
GOOMBA vs Lajons - 4h 55m
Ok, so I recognise PR, HellRaisers and VP.Polar. I don't know any of the rest but this is a group stage so its the "long format" part of the tournament, I'm assuming online, ahead of the LAN.
To the Live Events page. I didn't know there was a StarSeries group stage thing going on today because...surprise surprise...I've not been following it particularly. Why not? Look at today alone. Today there's StarSeries, i-League, joinDOTA Masters, DOTA Pit League and a showmatch. For StarSeries today's schedule includes EU Group Stage matches, an Americas group stage match and the SEA playoffs. Today there are fifteen scheduled matches alone. Some of them being multiple games and fourteen of them being official matches for some tournament or other. Its pretty much impossible to watch all of that to truly keep up with the scene.
Ok ok, not all matches are the same level, right? I mean its like football. There are probably thousands of football matches going on on weekends but most people look to the Premier League ones and they're the "key" ones to follow unless you have a specialist interest, right?
Except it doesn't work out that way. Here virtually every single tournament going on has key teams in it. Newbee, EG and LGD are just the very tip of a mix of top-level mid-to-high-quality teams here that you "should" know what's going on with if you follow the scene.
I mean just look at poor VP.Polar's schedule as an example . Its a 16 team group stage format and as a result they're playing two games against teams I'm not familiar with at 17:45 and 19:00. Oh and they're playing EG in the DOTA Pit League semi-finals at...18:00...wait what? How is that even going to work?
I can't watch today? Not a problem. They're playing StarSeries tomorrow at 14:00 and 15:15. And in a different tournament Grand Final at 16:00. Not tomorrow either? Friday then. Three StarSeries games at 17:45, 19:00 and 20:15. Weekend? Saturday at 16:30 and Sunday at 17:45. Away this week? That's ok because they're on next Monday at 21:30.
That's ONE TEAM. One team is playing twelve official matches in six days across three tournaments (though the bulk is down to the StarSeries group stage). Two of which are apparently going to happen simultaneously later today which should be entertaining, I wonder if they'll play with their feet in one and hands for the other. On reflection VP.Polar isn't the best example here because they're at a rather extreme end of the equation but the point remains.
If I were a huge VP.Polar fan where do I stand here? I have other things to do. Why should I care about any particular match here? EG vs VP.Polar should be a must-watch but largely because EG aren't actually playing in anything else right now and because they're playing so well; and there's a Grand Final match so I'd probably make time for that. But any of this group stage stuff...what reason is there for me to even watch it? I can watch a game with exactly the same stakes on the line against similar quality opposition on any given day until Monday.
Hell, I see a lot of caster bashing here but think about it. Lets say I was casting for the finals of "random DOTA2 tournament number 598" with a $50k prize pool on Christmas Day. Ignore who you think would be in the finals and for the sake of argument its NaVi vs Alliance. Between them they'll have played thirty recent games (one against each other) in StarSeries alone. Alliance also played in DOTA Pit League, that's another 7 games. They also both played in The Summit 2 for a total of another 22 games (again, with one against each other).
So if I was going to get a proper feel for the two teams just from three tournaments I'd have to watch fifty seven games. If I'm a caster who can't afford to live off casting then that's an insane amount of free time to have to find, even if you don't watch every game in full. If I AM a caster who can afford to live off it then its probably still insane, because if I'm doing that I'm probably casting multiple games every day already so where is the time to review all of this to give a proper commentary on "where these teams are at lately".
I can understand why people look at the casting and think its lazy or bad or whatever because of lack of familiarity or professionalism, but I absolutely can sympathise because there is literally no feasible way to do the prep properly or keep the energy up. Even if you were to deliberately keep up to date then you're frequently still looking at reviewing multiple games per day on top of your other commitments to actually cast stuff and trying to remember all of that for use in future games. And if you're casting five hours a day every day with the same or similar teams every time then you're going to eventually run out of things to say and start goofing around.
In fairness I think a great deal can be blamed on the expansion of the scene. Which is good, getting bigger is good, but its causing growing pains and a lot of problems with oversaturation because there's no attempt to coordinate or organise. Look at the aforementioned Dota Pit League if you don't believe me. I don't mean to pick on anyone here, but look at it. Season 1 was a small $3k prize pool tournament containing a ton of teams I've flat out never heard of before. It was a good small tournament for new up-and-coming teams to get into with a couple of better known teams. Still not exactly Team Secret but recognisable enough. Season 2 is a $75k minimum monster containing the usual suspects including C9, EG and so on.
The tournament grew in stature. But now that means its "yet another tournament" on the long list of tournaments containing the biggest teams. Who feel they HAVE to compete in anything and everything to try and get Valve's attention because the TI5 invites are so important and so nebulous in how they're awarded. I'm not saying the tournament doesn't deserve it or even that it was bad for them (hell, I'm sure they get a lot more viewers now), its been great for them; but for the scene as a whole its another addition to the chaos.
Honestly I think with more structure along the lines of the WCS system towards The International a lot of these problems would go away. I largely dislike the WCS system for SC2, I think its hugely flawed for that game because "the WCS final" was never THE big tournament so it completely changed how the tournament scene was. But TI has always been THE big tournament for DOTA2 and the game is largely already centred around it, its just not official, so relatively little would change with reorganising and making explicit rules for it.
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Teams need to be more selective in what they play, someone somewhere has to realise that the more=better philisophy is capitalistic bullshit thinking that will blow in the face of the people who love Dota the most. The "make as much money as we can now even though we're raping the product" is so sad to see, especially with esports as I'd like to believe there's more thinkers and idealists.
Can't the teams with salaried players put a quota on the amount of tournaments they will play? Forcing the tournaments to compete, get better, thin out the field. Hype is the most powerful force in any esport, teams just have to realise that more exposure of their players isn't better when no-one gives a fuck. Bring back da hype!
Als Liquid get a team plx, bring back Korok!
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On December 17 2014 18:57 Oktyabr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2014 15:14 spudde123 wrote:On December 17 2014 13:56 Oktyabr wrote:
The issue isn't that there's too many tournaments; it's that pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there. They brought this fatigue on themselves, and tbh it's clear by now that top teams like secret, eg and c9 would be invited to TI5 anyway. It's a pretty lame excuse to say that they can't afford to not play in every single tournament in order to prove that they deserved an invite for TI - c9 got their invite last year with only a few top finishes.
If they can't find the passion or the motivation to try their hardest in every tournament, they should play selectively and let t2 teams have a chance to shine - think BU, Leviathan, HR. This way they can try their hardest in the remaining games they are playing and convince themselves that they need to go all out, and they can also spend more time watching replays, having a break etc. Having more tournaments ALWAYS benefit the rest of the scene, the top teams need to stop thinking solely from their perspective and decline invites if they feel they can't play in all of them instead of requesting organizers to cater only to them.
It's not all about the perspective of EE and whoever else in his position, but the effect the current situation has on viewers is very real imo. It's not only "pro teams want to compete in every tournament out there", it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event. There are no real tiers of competition in dota, outside of TI which is above everything. This makes it hard to build hype around an individual event, when the next similar one is happening right around the corner. From the player perspective when you think about signing up, you don't know how the event will be as a lot of the events may have new organizers, new venues, whatever. You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy. If we look at Dreamleague for example, a big number of people seemed to be very underwhelmed by even the LAN portion, just because "EG vs c9 final with EG winning was obvious from the start". It's not easy to make events that don't have all the top tier teams work. If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily. Imo it's not as straightforward as "having more tournaments always benefits the rest of the scene", if the tournaments can't exist because they can't get the teams that bring all the hype to play. I'm not talking about small budget online leagues, but proper LAN tournaments with decent prize pools that in theory would allow more players to make a decent living out of the game. A key difference to a lot of other sports is that in dota you can essentially watch everything if you have the time. It's not like some other sport where you only get to see things live when it happens near your home town, and you may watch on tv whenever broadcasts are available to you, which isn't a daily thing at all in many sports. In dota there are LANs, and a huge amount of online games from different tournaments available day and night right in your home. By not having any sort of structure for the scene (where a few major events around the year are clearly separated so viewers know that these I want to watch and the rest I can skip), one is also assuming that viewers are able to pace themselves and not get bored by watching too much dota. "it's also that every tournament wants to have the same teams in their event" That's why TOP teams actually have many choices when it comes to participation, and they can afford to be selective unlike tier 2 teams who have to slog through every qualifier just to get noticed. By virtue of invitation, they can also decline participation if they feel that their schedule it's packed. Top teams need to learn to manage themselves and work with the time they have. This is like some obese kid complaining that there's too much food on the table and he can't help himself from not eating because there is still some food that he hasn't tried yet. "You also don't know what the prize pool will be because of how tickets work. You will only find out much closer to the event. How do the teams make informed decisions in this sort of a situation? " There is always a base price pool to work with. Top teams are actually way more experienced when it comes to LAN events and I'm sure they're pretty familiar with the arrangements and distribution of the prize pool for recurring LAN events, especially those which has so many seasons already - D2L, D2CL, SL, DH, DL. "And if they do start dropping out, then we may have a stream of diluted events with 1-2 top teams with no clear "majors" outside of TI which the viewers can really enjoy." Would you rather have this situation or have every other event actually resembling TI so closely, so much so that the hype for the actual TI becomes meaningless? Again, the issue now is that virtually every event is similar in terms of participation from the top teams, and that viewers won't even look forward to the next C9/EG showdown since it happens too frequently. That period of qualifiers for DL had a ton of C9/VP games across different tournaments - how would you expect both teams to treat their games seriously when they're playing for so many different stakes within such a short time frame? Having lesser of such events isn't necessarily bad. "If the top teams don't play, viewership and interest in the event goes down heavily." The only logical conclusion that follows from this would be organizers seeing viewership or profits drop, and hence reduce the frequency of the tournaments they put up, pull out entirely, or cooperate to create an even bigger event. The scene would actually correct itself and reduce oversaturation. Isn't this the result they all want in the first place? My point is that there's never too much dota competitions to be held, regardless of whether they are LAN events or online leagues. You can bet that there are a ton of tier 2 teams out there who would try out for every qualifier just so that they can place decent and get noticed for TI. EE didn't have this gripe back when he was in Kaipi pre-TI3 when Valve didn't invite them for the qualifiers - he was dying for some way to prove his team worthy of at least being in the qualifiers. Top teams which have placed well up to the end of this year don't face this problem, and they definitely don't experience a lack of competitive dota to play.
Concerning top teams being experienced with events and knowing the prize pools, one would think that but it isn't that simple. First season of Dreamleague was 240k, second season was barely over 100k. Difference is entirely from ticket sales with the same base prize pool. Last season of SL was 274k, current season is around 90k (though still time to grow but it has been much slower as far as I know), again difference only from the ticket sales. Summit 2 had a good base prize pool of 100k, but due to ticket sales it rose up to over 300k making it the most significant event since TI. It would be much easier to predict if ticket sales were driven by the actual level of competition at the event (especially the LAN), but instead there are a lot of other factors that drive sales.
Still top teams can make choices, it's not like they have to be able to 100% optimize their income by playing in the right events. The problem here isn't even only that the top teams should be at an event for it to matter, but it's that one random dota event at some point in the year really doesn't matter for me as a viewer. If the competition is extremely important (let's say a TI qualifier), it doesn't really matter to me if the top teams are not there, I still find it very entertaining to watch due to the stakes. But even if top teams drop out of events, the problem for me as a viewer remains the same. Why would I care about an event when the next similar one happens right after? This event doesn't really lead to anything, it doesn't have any lasting importance, it's only one event among others where players can make money. There are no events that are clearly important over others in the scene outside of TI, and hence the only thing that brings some excitement to me is if an event has a good lineup of teams. Maybe teams dropping out would eventually make the tournament scene sort itself out and move towards having tournaments spaced out better as you said, but it's hard to predict the future.
If I compare the situation to the csgo scene, I feel that having 4 majors spread around the year brings a far more clear viewing experience. These are the events that really matter, both for the players and the viewers. I don't watch cs that closely nowadays, but I still get hyped for the really big events. It's similar to me not being all that interested in tennis in general, but yet I can enjoy watching Roland Garros or Wimbledon later rounds when I know this is the time of the year that counts and every player dreams about.
Now the dota situation is such that there is TI, and outside of that every event follows pretty much the same pattern. Long online season, a few teams from different parts of the world at the LAN finals. For me I don't even think the problem is that there are too many LANs, it's the way events are structured which makes it problematic. There's so much online content that it's tough for viewers to follow, and a lot of matchups happen all the time. And it doesn't stop in the online portion, even LANs may have a round robin at first (often full of matches with very low importance), so we see the potential finals matchups 2 days before the final in a match which really doesn't matter. And for a lot of players it's tough not to participate in everything when you don't know what LANs you get to. You want to play dota on LAN, and you want to make decent money. It's not like the old Dreamhack where 16 teams play on LAN, but nowadays it's 4, 6 or 8 more often that not. Even c9 (a team that you say can afford to drop out of events), didn't originally make it to SL or Summit LANs. But even with all the LANs they've attended, I don't think LANs are even the problem. It becomes worse when the teams that are successful are not rewarded at all in the planning of the next tournaments (if LAN final is big enough, some teams can be easily invited straight to the LAN - if not, then more successful teams could be seeded deeper into the qualifier), so they have to play pretty much the very next day they come back.
The hype for TI will never become meaningless because the event is so much above everything else. I just hope that there would be some more events around the year that actually mean something, both for the viewers and the players. I think both sides can help this: players can be a bit more selective in the tournaments they play (and also communicate with tournaments about their concerns about schedules and structures), and tournaments can improve on how the formats of the tournament work. For me ideally the scene would have a very competitive LAN every two months or so (not sure about the ideal spacing, but I don't think the current amount of LANs is that bad either), with the online content in between being concentrated on which medium tier teams manage to claw their way into the big LANs, and perhaps some smaller LANs with decent competition. I really don't want to see online content being concentrated on people watching Secret or EG go through online qualifiers.
Also the talk about EE not having this gripe before is pretty silly, considering this situation only really became apparent late this year. Before TI3 the situation wasn't even remotely similar. Top teams were comfortable playing pretty much all events because LANs were few and far between (and noticeably these LANs then marked clear events that are important and viewers should care about), and the rest you could play comfortably from your own home.
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This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example.
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Yeah everyone loves this because EE but I felt this was a pretty uninsightful OP. I don't think anything novel was really added to the discourse here.
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On December 18 2014 03:34 govie wrote:
This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example.
Except it's not.
EE is delivering some hard truths that aren't just his opinions, but the frank and honest views of most top-tier players. It is about the tournaments, not the game itself. DotA 2 is amazing but the volume of tournaments is a cash-grab, as demonstrated by:
- Shitty computers or no computers at all
- Constant, unwarranted technical issues that no self-respecting organization would put up with
- Poor scheduling that puts players under duress and hurts their competitive chances
- A serious lack of professionalism from tournament organizers and staff
----- Failure to payout players who win [Arteezy]
----- Casters cracking jokes and using meme-speak as a team's dreams are crushed
----- Ambivalent casters who don't truly give a fuck about the results and/or don't even know wtf they are talking about
----- Terrible amenities. Players being denied bathroom breaks...
Don't even get me started about casting that takes place in a dirty kitchen with people snacking in the background, and casters with their socks and shoes off lounging out in pajamas...
And say what you will about Ayesee's deep understanding of the game, but at least the man can put a fucking suit on and be a professional. DotA2 casters need to take a serious lesson from other sports casters in this regard.
Not all casters can be as professional as Merlini, and not all tournaments can be as well-run as TI, but these issues are paramount and they need immediate attention. The players' hands are tied, because this is their JOB and they have to make a LIVING off of this.
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put a fucking suit on and be a professional
Everyone raise your hands if you want Dota2 casting to start looking like League casting
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On December 18 2014 04:05 See.Blue wrote:
Yeah everyone loves this because EE but I felt this was a pretty uninsightful OP. I don't think anything novel was really added to the discourse here.
Obviously everyone doesn't "love it", in fact a lot of people seem pretty divided. But even EE said that he doesn't know how to solve a bunch of the things he talked about, so in that way it was not very insightful. I believe the point was simply to provide a blog of how the current situation feels for players and make people talk about it and look for solutions.
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Not going to quote the whole post saying why he's wrong but that post is wrong because it states that there is a potentially infinite level of high level players. This is not necessarily false, but fans only want to watch the highest level of players. If, say, the number of teams that were at the very top level of skill were to multiply by 10, then only 10% of top teams would qualify for tournaments. The other 90% are suddenly no longer top teams, and receive significantly less fan attention. These 90% of teams are now supposed to do what, scramble against each other in the smaller prize pool tournaments? That's silly. The point he's making is that each tournament needs to be bigger in itself. Instead of every sponsor who's trying to get in just making his own tournament and throwing $10,000 at it, it would be better for the scene if that $10,000 was added to existing tournaments. Fewer tournaments that were worth more would be better. Assuming that fans are going to care about the spillover tournaments that don't contain all of the very top level players is a fallacy.
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I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D
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Off-topic: why do people finish aggressive statements with smiley faces?
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On December 18 2014 04:06 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 03:34 govie wrote:
This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example. Except it's not. EE is delivering some hard truths that aren't just his opinions, but the frank and honest views of most top-tier players. It is about the tournaments, not the game itself. DotA 2 is amazing but the volume of tournaments is a cash-grab, as demonstrated by: - Shitty computers or no computers at all - Constant, unwarranted technical issues that no self-respecting organization would put up with - Poor scheduling that puts players under duress and hurts their competitive chances - A serious lack of professionalism from tournament organizers and staff ----- Failure to payout players who win [Arteezy] ----- Casters cracking jokes and using meme-speak as a team's dreams are crushed ----- Ambivalent casters who don't truly give a fuck about the results and/or don't even know wtf they are talking about ----- Terrible amenities. Players being denied bathroom breaks... Don't even get me started about casting that takes place in a dirty kitchen with people snacking in the background, and casters with their socks and shoes off lounging out in pajamas... And say what you will about Ayesee's deep understanding of the game, but at least the man can put a fucking suit on and be a professional. DotA2 casters need to take a serious lesson from other sports casters in this regard. Not all casters can be as professional as Merlini, and not all tournaments can be as well-run as TI, but these issues are paramount and they need immediate attention. The players' hands are tied, because this is their JOB and they have to make a LIVING off of this.
You are making a big deal out of the smallest details in EE's OP.
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On December 18 2014 04:40 govie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 04:06 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 03:34 govie wrote:
This blog is the world upside down. If you believe dota2 has to many tournaments atm then simply start helping the scene grow by playing less tournaments as c9 and set an example. Except it's not. EE is delivering some hard truths that aren't just his opinions, but the frank and honest views of most top-tier players. It is about the tournaments, not the game itself. DotA 2 is amazing but the volume of tournaments is a cash-grab, as demonstrated by: - Shitty computers or no computers at all - Constant, unwarranted technical issues that no self-respecting organization would put up with - Poor scheduling that puts players under duress and hurts their competitive chances - A serious lack of professionalism from tournament organizers and staff ----- Failure to payout players who win [Arteezy] ----- Casters cracking jokes and using meme-speak as a team's dreams are crushed ----- Ambivalent casters who don't truly give a fuck about the results and/or don't even know wtf they are talking about ----- Terrible amenities. Players being denied bathroom breaks... Don't even get me started about casting that takes place in a dirty kitchen with people snacking in the background, and casters with their socks and shoes off lounging out in pajamas... And say what you will about Ayesee's deep understanding of the game, but at least the man can put a fucking suit on and be a professional. DotA2 casters need to take a serious lesson from other sports casters in this regard. Not all casters can be as professional as Merlini, and not all tournaments can be as well-run as TI, but these issues are paramount and they need immediate attention. The players' hands are tied, because this is their JOB and they have to make a LIVING off of this. You are making a big deal out of the smallest details in EE's OP.
I mean, maybe haha, but I think that the "too many tournaments" problem becomes moot if the quality of most them is awesome.
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I finally watched Thorin's video and agree with it very much. I'm not familiar with him so I have basically no preconception about who he is but his thoughts basically match my own, overall.
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On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D
The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process.
Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2.
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On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2.
Valve doesn't want to be involved in which tournaments become popular or are considered important. They would rather let the community decide and it seems like the community is deciding only TI matters.
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On December 18 2014 05:46 zzdd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2014 05:17 Rybka wrote:On December 18 2014 04:33 FreakyDroid wrote:
I pretty much stopped watching Dota since TI4 for the same reasons Envy outlined in his post. Now I only tune in for grand final games and even those dont feel anything special anymore.
The culprit for this is the International. As Envy says, they really have no option but to participate or their TI invite might not come in their mailbox, tournament organizers know this and take advantage of the situation. I dont blame tournaments though, its just the nature of the beast, though I do blame them for having so much more funds than before and still provide shitty environment for the players.
TI in its current form needs to go away imo and be replaced by something akin to what LoL and SC are doing. Invites need to go away, ranking system to be in place, prize money spread out across the season, get a fucking player or esports organization already, your situation will suck even more if you dont wake up and do this YESTERDAY. :D The International itself isn't the problem, it's the invite process. Valve should just do what the FGC does, and simply call out the tournaments that will be qualifiers. Win the tourney and you're in. It works for EVO, it would work for DotA2. Valve doesn't want to be involved in which tournaments become popular or are considered important. They would rather let the community decide and it seems like the community is deciding only TI matters.
I get that, and it's a mistake.
Besides, the FGC is as grassroots as it gets when it comes to tournaments. Setting specific qualifiers for EVO hasn't hurt the FGC one bit. If anything it's helped, and the smaller tourneys haven't been hurt one bit.
When you run a massive Ultra-Tournament like EVO or TI - a.k.a. a world championship for a game - there has to be a clear path to get into that championship. Not just "oh yeah, this team is one of the best of course they're in!"
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EPT
