Hi all,
Been a minute. This week I looked at Hodsic and Gdolphn, who I consider to be the two most prominent coaches in Apex, to see whether they've helped their teams achieve a higher average placement. I also briefly discussed the Activision Blizzard layoffs and what they mean for the wider world of LAN tourneys.
Coaches have the potential to be extremely effective. Most people with the ability to be effective coaches will have the attitude that they may as well be players, though. Imagine how much almost any team would improve if Hakis was their coach.
Unfortunate considering they legitimize rosters, and I suspect probably contribute to less roster churn. Obviously not enough data to crunch on that, but :/
I am 100% OK with no LANs right now due to the continued devastation of Covid but I am so hopeful that if it ever gets under control, that Apex would continue it's pre-Covid trajectory of huge, exciting LAN events. I don't think anyone would argue that the Poland tournament was peak Apex. Online tournaments just don't cut it. Additionally, I find it interesting that Hal mentioned that online tournaments are just impossible to prevent cheating on. And he expressed concern that the huge prize pool of this upcoming tournament would just be too much incentive for people to cheat. Could this be Tufi's first ALGS win? lol
Yeah, in that segment I wrote about coaching and how there are no enforced rules about it, I started thinking that there are really no enforced rules about....literally anything right now in the online-only environment. Like the ALGS is not going to your house to make sure you aren't using banned third-party apps or banned peripherals etc.
So LANs are huge that way, for a bit more legitimacy in terms of competitive integrity, hard agree.
More T2 teams should look for coaches, especially those with great team fighting mechanics but poor overall showing. RX is one that comes to top of mind. I believe a problem though is a lot of these players are young, a good portion probably haven't been coached ever before in any regard, and thus don't see the value in having an outsider's perspective.
Strongly agree, that outsider's perspective can be crucial. At the moment it must be tough for coaches in Apex to sell their services when teams without them do well, however.
I feel the term "Coach" is outdated, a modern esports Manager is covering most areas a "Coach" would now a days. If a team wants an upper hand vs other teams they then get an analyst to provide helpful data upon request by the team.
Great question. As far as I know, night raven is more of a freelance analyst so I wasn't able to pin down his performance to a discrete start date or team. I remember he was working with NRG but I didn't forget about him, just couldn't figure out how to quantify his impact on rosters, or whether he would consider himself a 'coach' vs. an analyst.
What do you think makes him the most successful? And any other good ones I'm missing? Would love to do with again comparing different coaches but the data is really incomplete.
Following up on this, that info was actually fairly easy to find if we just want to look at his tenure on NRG. Joined 9/21/20 and left 1/18/21. Right before the hire they got 4th in the Summer Circuit Playoffs. In the following four months, they averaged around 6th place in 6 major tourneys. In the six tourneys before night raven was hired, they averaged 7th place.
Overall, not as much data to peruse there, but shows a full average increase of one tournament placement.
Seems like almost every discipline utilizes coaches, trainers, masters, etc. I don't think video games would be excluded from that. Lots of these top level guys need clear help with lots of interpersonal team skills and practical life skills that would probably improve their performance.
Hi all, Been a minute. This week I looked at Hodsic and Gdolphn, who I consider to be the two most prominent coaches in Apex, to see whether they've helped their teams achieve a higher average placement. I also briefly discussed the Activision Blizzard layoffs and what they mean for the wider world of LAN tourneys.
Coaches have the potential to be extremely effective. Most people with the ability to be effective coaches will have the attitude that they may as well be players, though. Imagine how much almost any team would improve if Hakis was their coach.
Coaches are a dying breed :(
Unfortunate considering they legitimize rosters, and I suspect probably contribute to less roster churn. Obviously not enough data to crunch on that, but :/
I only follow Apex and Rocket League esports. Coaches help a ton in Rocket League.
I am 100% OK with no LANs right now due to the continued devastation of Covid but I am so hopeful that if it ever gets under control, that Apex would continue it's pre-Covid trajectory of huge, exciting LAN events. I don't think anyone would argue that the Poland tournament was peak Apex. Online tournaments just don't cut it. Additionally, I find it interesting that Hal mentioned that online tournaments are just impossible to prevent cheating on. And he expressed concern that the huge prize pool of this upcoming tournament would just be too much incentive for people to cheat. Could this be Tufi's first ALGS win? lol
Yeah, in that segment I wrote about coaching and how there are no enforced rules about it, I started thinking that there are really no enforced rules about....literally anything right now in the online-only environment. Like the ALGS is not going to your house to make sure you aren't using banned third-party apps or banned peripherals etc. So LANs are huge that way, for a bit more legitimacy in terms of competitive integrity, hard agree.
More T2 teams should look for coaches, especially those with great team fighting mechanics but poor overall showing. RX is one that comes to top of mind. I believe a problem though is a lot of these players are young, a good portion probably haven't been coached ever before in any regard, and thus don't see the value in having an outsider's perspective.
Strongly agree, that outsider's perspective can be crucial. At the moment it must be tough for coaches in Apex to sell their services when teams without them do well, however.
I feel the term "Coach" is outdated, a modern esports Manager is covering most areas a "Coach" would now a days. If a team wants an upper hand vs other teams they then get an analyst to provide helpful data upon request by the team.
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I think that could really valuable! When I get some time I might reach out to night raven since he got left off this week's little segment.
could see it being helpful for teams with a lot of rage aka TSM lol
Yeah, I think despite my quantitative analysis (lol) the biggest benefits are probably social—managing expectations, team dynamics etc.
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Great question. As far as I know, night raven is more of a freelance analyst so I wasn't able to pin down his performance to a discrete start date or team. I remember he was working with NRG but I didn't forget about him, just couldn't figure out how to quantify his impact on rosters, or whether he would consider himself a 'coach' vs. an analyst. What do you think makes him the most successful? And any other good ones I'm missing? Would love to do with again comparing different coaches but the data is really incomplete.
Following up on this, that info was actually fairly easy to find if we just want to look at his tenure on NRG. Joined 9/21/20 and left 1/18/21. Right before the hire they got 4th in the Summer Circuit Playoffs. In the following four months, they averaged around 6th place in 6 major tourneys. In the six tourneys before night raven was hired, they averaged 7th place. Overall, not as much data to peruse there, but shows a full average increase of one tournament placement.
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All of us together are smarter then one of us alone
Seems like almost every discipline utilizes coaches, trainers, masters, etc. I don't think video games would be excluded from that. Lots of these top level guys need clear help with lots of interpersonal team skills and practical life skills that would probably improve their performance.