Esports Today 8/4/15: Looking to TI5, Predicting the LCS Playoffs

[robotslave]

Soon enough for what, though?  That's my point here.  Any well-run event of this size would have copious information available three months before the gates open.  So which is it going to be?  A poorly-run event, or no event until six months from now, at minimum?

 

Valve's "everyone just works on whatever they feel like working on that day" approach to running a business might be fantastic for software development, but it's total disaster when the product is event planning.

[Twig]

I understand what your point is. Obviously I don't have an answer for you, and even if I did I doubt it would satisfy your cravings. I've already offered some details and they weren't enough. Shrug.

 

But they will talk about it soon.

 

As to your second paragraph, you're grossly underestimating the amount of effort Valve puts into Dota 2 and in particular the competitive scene. It's very important to a significant number of people at the company. Your problem might be that they're a small company.

 

Just have a little patience, geez. TI5 was great. It had some problems, but it was fucking great. It's still a growing thing. Just have a little patience.

[Badfinger]

No. Planning for TI6 should have started as soon as the people responsible for TI5 knew that it was working. I know we've talked about it before, but I cannot possibly imagine that the event planners and project managers for their on the ground events have the carte blanche to do the casual work on whatever that we often assign to Valve's design aesthetic.

 

I don't even particularly have any investment in the dotes, but imagine if, when you have your largest possible audience including casual and interested observers, you announce and roll out your major tournament schedule? Someone who knows nothing about DOTA then has a firm date on their calendar to check back in. Boom, you built an audience. Now all the important details are going to be buried on Liquipedia until it's actually happening and you, the DOTA fan, nudge me in the ribs to remind me.

[Twig]

Who says planning hasn't started? EDIT: Or is that what you meant? I think that's what you meant... NEVERMIND!!!!

 

...

 

Anyway, as an aside, one of the biggest problems I have with these kinds of conversations is people comparing Riot to Valve. They're not the same company, so they'll never do the same thing, and, frankly, I don't want what Riot's doing in the Dota 2 scene. Whatever Valve does with the majors will (please, I hope!) not be nearly as structured or overly-strict as what Riot does with their leagues.

 

Then again, at one point in history, Valve said they wanted to stop hosting tournaments and let the community take full control while they just built tools for said community. I think they wanted TI3 to be their last one. But for some reason (money?! community failing to pick up the slack?), they never did. Which is a shame, because that would've been the best solution. Also strange, because the competitive community outside of Valve's tournament has, at this point, grown a lot. So they've basically done a 180.

[Badfinger]

Anyway, as an aside, one of the biggest problems I have with these kinds of conversations is people comparing Riot to Valve. They're not the same company, so they'll never do the same thing, and, frankly, I don't want what Riot's doing in the Dota 2 scene. Whatever Valve does with the majors will (please, I hope!) not be nearly as structured or overly-strict as what Riot does with their leagues.

 

Well, the reason people (or at least, me) compare them is they're the only two things that are particularly comparable. I'm curious what you don't like about their structure. I would like to discuss it! I don't like all of it, but the parts I do like are things like "hey, this has literally any fucking structure thank god", but I like sports and sports leagues and so competition in my mind is inherently structured. I believe you also have more faith in the community than I do, because TI is literally the only DOTA thing I know anything about. I am pretty pessimistic that community-run events end up with any cohesion or structure rather than dying on the vine. Plus, DOTA isn't represented at IEM or ESL is it? Do they have DOTA at DreamHack?

[Twig]

Yes, Dota is at IEM and ESL and Dreamhack. And a lot of other things. The only reason you, as a non-dota person, don't hear about it, is because it's not The International. If TI didn't exist, other junk would be at the forefront. But TI exists and its prize pool is 18million. DAC had a prize pool of 3 million (also crowd-funded like TI): http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Dota_2_Asia_Championships. 3 million is big, but it's significantly less than 18 million! There is a lot of good stuff in the competitive scene as it is. It's just simultaneously overshadowed and overcrowded. The former is Valve's fault (though not intentionally, I believe). The latter is Dota's massive increase in popularity causing temporary problems.

 

I don't like the way Riot restricts its players. I've seen those contracts. That's actually my main beef. Also people pretend the salary is anything significant, but it's not. Besides player junk, I don't like structure that prevents things from existing outside that structure. I much prefer an open system. 

 

I don't give a shit about sports. I like watching individual sports events, but most of the time the massive league systems of the various sports is just incredibly off-putting. 

[Badfinger]

Well, no. I incidentally hear about CS, and Hearthstone, and Starcraft and even like Warcraft 3 and I would not consider myself an "X" person for any of those. Does DOTA maybe have an issue where it's insular and you almost MUST be a DOTA person to be able to invest yourself in the competitions? For reference, I looked up IEM, ESL, and DreamHack results and DOTA 2 results were ONLY listed for DreamHack (on wikipedia, the lazy person's reference). Maybe it's possible that my brain rolls past those competitions because it takes more cognitive effort to invest in DOTA than it does for a couple casual rounds of CounterStrike?

 

Oh, I feel like the contracts are quite restrictive and potentially very bad, although one of the slight positives is that Riot can put the clamps down on some of the real shitheels that get into gaming. It's worth pointing out as well that the contracts are per season, and not per year. It's not millions of dollars, but if the salaries are being split fairly and you are employed for an entire year that is a very comfortable salary. Should they be paid more? If the market will bear their salaries they should make as much as they can! I think that contracts are a different conversation than competition structure completely, though.

 

What does an "open system" look like? What is off putting about league systems? The things I like about them are they give a necessary structure to competition that allows me to follow it and gives insight into how competition is progressing. It attempts to determine who the best competitors are over time, as well as indicate an overall winner at the end of the proceedings. One of the biggest positives about having structure is that I know when the goddamn events are actually happening so I can follow them.

 

Ok, serious request: please explain how the teams for TI were selected. I have tried to look it up and I can't figure it out. The website sure as hell did nothing at all to explain it.

[Twig]

I have not heard of a CS or Hearthstone or Starcraft or Warcraft 3 tournament in the past year. The last time I heard about a specific CS tournament, it was because of cheating. The last time I heard about a specific Hearthstone tournament, it was because they didn't allow female players to compete against male players, or something like that. The last time I heard about a specific Starcraft tournament was I don't even remember, but it was a long time ago. Maybe when that female player started and everyone was like "they only picked her cause she's female" or something? I've never heard of a Warcraft 3 tournament! Although I guess now that you mention it, of course there were/are WC3 tournaments.

 

In other words, you're right, Dota 2 tournaments never get massive press! Neither does anything else besides League, and that's because Riot is very very very good at letting everyone know that they exist. And TI because giant prize pool every time.

 

I do think they should be paid more, at least a livable salary (last time I checked it was really low? maybe I was lied to!), although I do understand that winnings are supposed to compensate. But that just makes me think of tipping which I hate. I don't think contracts are as separate from competition structure as you imply, though. Ostensibly, they maybe should be, but because of how Riot does it, those players are locked into the league, if I'm not mistaken? Like, they're not allowed to compete anywhere else? That's bad. I dunno. This isn't "Real Sports", so why do we have to try to become "Real Sports".

 

I don't know what an "open system" looks like, because we don't have one, but I'd imagine it'd just be tournaments organically growing and dying instead of the scene always being stuck in the same loop year after year. Leagues are off-putting to me because they're long. I know that's not a real meaningful criticism, but I don't follow sports like other people do. I watch every now and then and it's completely sporadically. I always watch TI, and then I pick like one or two other tournaments to watch.

 

The thing I like about them, though, (and in particular what Valve claims they want to do with their thing) is that teams are encouraged to be more stable. But honestly that's all I care about. I just want to know that the players I like will be on the same team for the whole year instead of shuffling around for half a year until the big tournament starts up and they realize oh shit we need to make a real team now. I mean, that's an exaggeration of what happens, but it's not far off. I follow players, not teams, though, so I'm weird. It's just annoying never knowing where they're going to end up. I imagine it's just as annoying for people who follow teams, though, never knowing if that team is even going to exist next year, or if it does if it'll have ANY of the same players.

 

Teams were picked through a combination of invites (for stable teams that have consistently done well) and wildcards (for all teams, I think??? I don't know). This isn't a question I can really answer because it's the kind of detail I honestly don't care about.

[sclpls]

I'm with Twig on this. I get how people that follow other e-sports get frustrated with DOTA 2's more free-for-all structure, but I think it is the best thing for the game. I think if you have a system that's strictly regulated the way Riot structures tournaments and teams then you don't see things like the wild card teams that made such an impressive showing at the International, and you don't see teams like Team Secret that decided to go out on their own without the typical backing you see in an e-sports organization. I think we'd all be worse off without teams like that. What the Majors will look like is anyone's best guess, but hopefully it finds some nice middle ground between the scene as it currently exists and the more heavily structured environment.

[jennegatron]

Well, no. I incidentally hear about CS, and Hearthstone, and Starcraft and even like Warcraft 3 and I would not consider myself an "X" person for any of those. Does DOTA maybe have an issue where it's insular and you almost MUST be a DOTA person to be able to invest yourself in the competitions? 

 

 

http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/02/visual-mapping-of-twitch/

 

Twitch says yes.

 

Also as Twig mentioned above there were teams directly invited and some wild cards. Those wildcards were one of 2 different categories: direct invite to qualifying tournaments, open qualifier tournaments. So there were tournaments for mostly 2nd tier teams that were invited to compete for an invite to TI, and then there was an open qualifier where anyone could sign up and try and play into an invite.

[Badfinger]

^^^^ Whoa, really interesting!

 

So, looked up what a League LCS salary is. It's literally half what I thought it was ($12.5k per split, and I thought it was $25k). That's no good at all. Do not like that. No, I wasn't counting tournament winnings and sponsorships. Just thinking about what the worst guy on the last place team would be guaranteed to earn. This is unfortunate to learn, really shitty. Now, at the top of the standings, players are almost certainly being paid salaries through the team on top of that Riot-specific stipend. It's how they've recruited top pros from other leagues. But the bottom tier guys are probably getting the butt-end.

 

Teams were picked through a combination of invites (for stable teams that have consistently done well) and wildcards (for all teams, I think??? I don't know). This isn't a question I can really answer because it's the kind of detail I honestly don't care about.

 

That's genuinely funny, because those are the sorts of things I care about a great deal (I mean, if I didn't care I wouldn't have looked it up).

 

Incidentally sclpls, Team Secret is almost exactly the story of Team Origen in the EU LCS. Guys from Fnatic, including S1 World Champion xPeke left their team. xPeke and SOaz formed a super team, smashed their way through the Challenger Series, and finished 2nd in the group stages with the playoffs upcoming this weekend (2nd to new Fnatic, an amazing basically completely remade upstart team in their own right, first undefeated split in professional LoL). It's definitely possible to have results like that in a playoff environment. I can also say you are almost certainly seeing the best teams and best organizations compete, because the poor challenger teams come in and either are instantly Cloud 9/Origen split winning good, engineered to compete, or get smashed because they're good enough to make it to the show but not enough to hang.

 

The environment in Korea and especially China is completely different. Riot has the rights to broadcast those leagues, but the LPL in China is a billionaire's playground and poached players for literal million dollar salaries from Korea at a rate that it was dubbed the Korean Exodus over the winter.

 

e: oh man, I'm doing a lot of longposting. :[ Sorry about that. I am genuinely interested and want to learn stuff! Especially from people I want to interact with and sources I trust! I still feel like whenever I pop in and ask questions about The Dotes I get kind of ephemeral answers. "Dota's like, all around you, man. The invocation of the planets determined the wild cards. You just have to FEEL it." and I want brackets and structures and data and that's way less important to other people here. That's completely valid, but it must be frustrating to have a conversation with me when we're very nearly speaking different languages. I watched a bunch of TI this weekend, and I'm excited EG won, but I literally don't know how they made it into the tournament.

[jennegatron]

@Badfinger, so part of the problem is that valve as a whole is super opaque with the decision making process. So EG got invited directly by valve to compete in the international. Valve doesn't really say what qualifies you for an invite, but we know what they value based on who they do and don't pick. They value roster stability, so if you kick someone from your roster in like the month leading up to the tournament you're going to get your invite de-graded (like going from a direct invite to invite to the qualifiers) They value performance in other tournaments throughout the year. (For example EG won the largest non-TI tournament of the year with their current roster)

Dota fans (and valve fans in general) are always oddly zen about the lack of information, which baffles me.

 

Also 100% of Dota knowledge comes from just pure proximity. I don't play Dota, I have no desire to play Dota. I'm comparable to a football fan who literally only watches the Super Bowl, but understands the structure of the playoffs and thinks some of the boys are cute. I don't understand plays, but I do understand rules. I don't understand move pools, but I do understand vaguely what the positions are. 

[Twig]

That's genuinely funny, because those are the sorts of things I care about a great deal (I mean, if I didn't care I wouldn't have looked it up).

 

Haha, yeah, I'm aware I'm a very strange observer of the competitive scene. I do not enjoy it in the way that is typical of most fans!

 

I believe EG was directly invited.

 

CDEC, however, was from the wild cards, and came out of nowhere. Which is why a lot of people were so excited to see them keep winning and winning. That was talked about a lot during the tournament, which is how I learned about it.

[Twig]

For the record, Liquipedia is the best source for info on the competitive Dota 2 scene, at least as far as I know: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/The_International/2015#Invited_Teams

[sclpls]

Yeah there were direct invites, there were teams from different regions that had to qualify in regional qualifiers, and then there was the free for all competition to make it into one of the two wild card slots. Which was all cool, but the downside is I think there were too many teams this year. Especially when some of the games had significant delays this resulted in pretty brutal 13 or 14 hr days sometimes.

[Twig]

I don't know if there were too many teams, but they definitely shouldn't have brought them all to the main event and made it last six days. I mean, I didn't come last year, but holy shit I was worn out after six days of sitting in a stadium.

[Twig]

On the topic of What The Fuck Is Happening With Dota: https://twitter.com/ixmike88/status/630774936500486145

 

"only 3 weeks until roster locks what the hell"

 

Um well okay then that's rough! (I could've sworn ixmike88 quit pro dota, though. Also I dunno exactly what he's referring to.)

[ewokskick]

http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/02/visual-mapping-of-twitch/

 

Twitch says yes.

 

Also as Twig mentioned above there were teams directly invited and some wild cards. Those wildcards were one of 2 different categories: direct invite to qualifying tournaments, open qualifier tournaments. So there were tournaments for mostly 2nd tier teams that were invited to compete for an invite to TI, and then there was an open qualifier where anyone could sign up and try and play into an invite.

 

The best part of this to me is how much more hardcore World of Tanks players are than all the rest of us.

[osmosisch]

I think if you have a system that's strictly regulated the way Riot structures tournaments and teams then you don't see things like the wild card teams that made such an impressive showing at the International, and you don't see teams like Team Secret that decided to go out on their own without the typical backing you see in an e-sports organization.

The second part already got addressed (Origen), but re: the wildcards, the Worlds for League explicitly always has a couple of wildcard teams that are determined via play-ins clustered per region. Last year one of those wildcards (Kabum e-sports) even ended up playing spoiler for Alliance which I found endlessly amusing.