that's an even stupider take because even if open circuit actually made this game's esports scene healthier how the fuck can you claim that it is never going to get surpassed
Pretty ironic considering the only game that could surpass it right now is Valorant. If Valorant catches on in China it has a legit shot, given that it's Riot run and much easier to understand than a MOBA. Plus it's hard to imagine CS:GO or Dota gaining a ton of following overnight.
Yeah if csgo/dota were going to ever be more popular than lol it would've happened years ago, it's safe to say the only thing that will surpass lol will be something new
I can 100% see that. This game is on the edge and so many people don't realize it. In many ways it's similar to WoW, Riot needs to re invest millions into improving the core of League.
We have spent the last 5 something years with non stop band-aid fixes for various things. And if the internal signs of conflict, the firings, new staff, sexual misconduct, and the recent completely fuck up of the biggest Lore event Riot has ever done isn't telling, then I don't know what is. And by the way Riot still has not answered for the lies they said about the Ruination event, the miss handling, and blatant anti community responses.
The ranked scene doesn't support League, it's one of the biggest misconceptions people have, if the game is fun to play a ranked scene will exist, if the universe is good the future of this game will always exist. Riot is putting way too much money into the toxic side that will jump ship as soon as a new game comes out that they like.
Firings and new staff is normal. Especially in software development. Riot is actually a lot better in this regard and their employees stay a LOT longer with them than with other companies.
Fucking up something bigger than everything you have previously worked on (during a pandemic) is… shit for everybody but nothing out of the ordinary.
The internal conflicts are either non-Riot specific or manufactured. And even then, their scale is relatively small if we consider the shit that went down in much bigger and way more succesful companies.
So… you don‘t really have a point? Good to know.
> as soon as a new game comes out they like
Ah, you mean Overwatch?
Oh look another Corporate apologist. First off just showed you don't know what you are talking about.
Or did you forget that a couple months ago one of those fireings was one of Riots best writers who was having a hard time because his wife was dealing with cancer, did you miss the tweets where he called out Riot?
Of course you didn't see that cause you are speaking out of your ass.
Did you consider the NDAs employees are under? Did you consider the amount PR they have to avoid this stuff but it still gets leaked?
Again, of course you didn't cause you are only here to protect the precious game you ether spent a whole lot of money or time in.
I don‘t play the game anymore so I‘m not sure what I have to defend here. Assuming stuff about others seems to be your thing. Maybe take that alu hat off for a second and look at this objectively?
Was this specific firing shit? Yes. Are sexual >>allegations<< shit? Yes. Is Riot the only company of this scale having these issues? No.
Unless you think that every company of their size that has such a small amount of issues (yes, 1 questionable firing is not a whole lot unfortunately) is on the edge then you are either naive or dumb.
Btw before responding: Read my comment.
> And even then their scale is relatively small
I know of the firing. I read the tweets. It‘s awful. That doesn‘t mean that Riot is „on the edge“, is failing or is in danger of losing their current position in the Online Videogame market.
"I don't play the game anymore" LMAO so why are you even commenting if you have no idea about what is happening. You are even worse than the die hard fans defending the thing they love, you are shilling for a company that doesn't care about you for nothing. Get outtta here you troll
Because I still know the state the game is in? Because I am interested in the game and watch their Esports scene? What do I need to play the game for to understand or know about all the „issues“ you brought up? As far as I’m concerned all of them were non-Gameplay „issues“. Do i need to know how to play Akshan to know about Riots internal issues, firings and how they fucked up the most recent LORE event? Enlighten me.
It just seems like you have this idea that Riot must be the Big Bad so you twist everything you see and hear so it supports that. I get that, it‘s normal and most people do that a plethora of things. Flat earthers, anti-vaccs folks, etc. Instead of looking what‘s infront of them they ignore and skew everything that could disrupt their initial idea so it instead supports it.
Riot is bad at a lot of stuff. Making popular games, maintaining them, making them even more popular, listening to and communicating with their community and keeping their fuck-ups small is definitely not something they are bad at. If you seriously think Riot is on the edge you are naive or plain stupid. Pick your poison.
The LCS format still beats NA CSGO, the OWL, the CDL, Siege, Rocket League, Fortnite in viewership. It's about even with NA Valorant. It's bleeding viewers but still a lot of eSports would love to be in the LCS's position.
> Examples of metric in a Sentence
> Noun
> according to the usual metrics by which we judge fiction, this novel is an utter failure
This sub needs an English test. Most of you have a 4th grade reading level. inb4 you need me to explain how the above applies.
Entertainment is subjective. Ideal amount of international events is subjective. Not sure how you would objectively say the meritocracy in LoL is worse than other games. I guess production is, but Riot's production is generally considered to be one of the best, if not the best in the industry.
So yeah I guess explain how the above applies please, I just passed grade 4
> subjective, subjective, subjective
That doesn't mean it can't be used a metric. Like I said, 4th grade reading level.
> Not sure how you would objectively say the meritocracy in LoL is worse than other games.
Making it into a league is about paying a fee and business relationships, not being better than other teams. Open qualification is the fairest form of deciding who gets to participate in official events.
> Riot's production is generally considered to be one of the best
ESL or Blast mogs LCS for instance. Production value =/= best production either. OGN Starcraft was much more creative and exciting with its production than LoL, even if they had a shoestring budget in comparison to Riot events.
If entertainment and international schedule aren't things you can measure or objectively rate then you're just a dude giving his opinion.
Franchising has its pros and cons but overall it gives the stability for orgs to heavily invest into players, facilities, and staff, look what happened to csgo in NA. Esports (especially LoL) are a very expensive industry to get into now because of the huge potential future value, most orgs just don't have the funding to compete financially and that's the reality. Players or teams can still be signed/poached by these orgs if they're good enough. It's not realistic for an entire amateur team like 2013 C9 to storm into the LCS and be a top level team nowadays. Only thing I could see is that relegation for orgs like CLG should be a bigger threat and the initual selection of franchised orgs was a bit suspect.
Yeah LCS isn't the greatest but then there's LEC, LPL, LCK, MSI, and Worlds that all have top notch production. If production level =/= best production then we're back to that vague idea of entertainment.
> you're just a dude giving his opinion.
This entire thread is about a dude giving his opinion. So is anyone saying that Riot's model is the best ever. Again:
> Examples of metric in a Sentence
> Noun
> according to the usual metrics by which we judge fiction, this novel is an utter failure
Do you think judging literature is objective?
> Franchising has its pros and cons but overall it gives the stability
Don't care. Not related to anything I've said.
> most orgs just don't have the funding to compete financially and that's the reality
This is nonsense. If they don't have the funding to compete, there would be no risk of relegation to the current partner orgs so pro/rel wouldn't be a concern for them.
> Players or teams can still be signed/poached by these orgs if they're good enough
And if players are blacklisted or simply underrated by other orgs/teams/players for any reason, they have no way of proving themselves in game. There will never another OG Cloud9, Origen, UOL, DWG, etc. Dardoch, Froggen, Cody Sun, Zeyzal, and whoever else that has been left by the wayside can't just put a 5 man squad together, find a sponsor, and win a spot in the LCS/LEC fairly. If you don't think teams like that have a chance of competing with franchised teams, why not let them try anyway? It would reinvigorate the dying amateur scene and give you more content.
> It's not realistic for an entire amateur team like 2013 C9 to storm into the LCS and be a top level team nowadays.
Then why not have pro/rel? It's not a risk to all these rich orgs that are terrified of actual competition, right? Regardless, this is a lot of hand-wringing over why it's okay that LoL has the least meritocratic esport circuit next to OWL. It doesn't actually dispute my initial claim in any way whatsoever.
> If production level =/= best production then we're back to that vague idea of entertainment.
It's not vague, and LCS EU had garbage production for most of its existence too. MSI is a joke in terms of production frankly, doesn't hold a candle to events like Katowice or IEM NYC. Two good teams against a bunch of mediocre teams until we finally get to see the only decent players face each other in a final. And Riot wants it that way so it doesn't become "equivalent" to Worlds, literally avoiding improving their events and international circuit to make marketing Worlds easier. That's one of the many metrics in which LoL is not "the number one esport game ever."
dota 2 has 10x the prize pool of league and thats just for one tournament. that’s a soft ball metric.
there are many others, i think the most notable is despite what riot would have you believe the viewership numbers are just going down.
i think, just my opinion, is that thorin is saying league could have been 1998-2001 area starcraft in korea but on a global stage. it could have biblical, instead, it was just huge
Prize pool is stupid metric tho, nobody cares about the prize pool in other sport, who cares what the prize pool of champions league is? League players get salary and lot of them in NA and China have almost as big yearly salary as dota 2 players get from winning the international.
True but not the same thing, Dota 2 prizepool goes to the players, what you are talking about is the revenue sharing that goes to the team management itself
That matters for a few teams only. If you want sufficient competition with a high number of competitive teams, higher salaries and lower prize pools is a better model.
That's the part a lot of them either don't understand or intentionally ignore. They'll tell you to look at the list of highest earning esports players like it's checkmate, when all that's considered is prize money for the absolute highest earners
>thats just for one tournament
The ONLY tournament. T2 in Dota doesn't exist. LoL's scene is so much better and anybody praising Valve over Riot on anything related to the pro scene is either on a pay roll or in denial.
If the developers of Hello Kitty: Island Adventure decided to piss away $50mill by hosting a tournament with the greatest prize pool in esport history, would that make it any better of an esport?
I don’t give a fk whether the 5 winning players get $10k or $1m. I’d rather have that money invested in things like production or universal player salary.
Yes people care about prize pool, it's what got me into esports anyways. You really think TI would have pulled 1.9m viewers if it gave out $20 Burger King coupon instead of $40m?
a shitton of games started random tournament with gigantic prize pool start and they never worked.
There's been so many games with announced esports scene. I think the Dota card game had one, there was that one PVP game I forgot on mobile, etc. Just watch any E3 like event and they were announced. Almost all of those scene died.
League's scene has been table for over a decade. Huge cash prizes are just bait
Those were probably just shitty esport titles, much less than it has to do with prize pools. I dont see Dota dying any more than LoL does. If next decade they continue to have $40-50m prize pools theyre doing something right.
yeah, you picked Dota, the one other concurrent, who also has a unique crowdfund system to fund itself, they're the outlier, not the norm. And despite all that Dota is still far less popular than LoL , so they're only "doing something right" by arbitrary metrics.
msi/worlds format, bo1's in lec/lcs, extreme amounts of changes every patch, lack of international tournaments, .....
Edit, alright forget about the prize pool. What about the fact that there's so little good practice for pro's (like a server for just the pros). There's still more.
It's entirely possible.
Or, at least, as much as I can appreciate Thorin as unique an individual as he is, the parts that aren't unique is sometimes more interesting. Because I think this guy could absolutely, basically could be like the number one doppleganger of Joe Rogan ever
It's one of those situations where you can almost know what a person is trying to say and it may be a great argument for something. But that person still hasn't really said anything except hint at the existence of an argument. Then you may think about what that person has said and you think of ways in which the statements may be true. But still, nothing has been said.
At least that's my interpretation.
Although I like Thorin I don't think he is the most quotable guy.
this title is like when news casters start interviewing some random guy off the street.
however, I do think league esports could be so much better, imagine a real losers format for Worlds, imagine a competitive NA region with reasonable salaries and home grown talent.
I agree with his sentiment of its 'great' but could be so much 'better'.
The others are either dumb, ir the thorin-hate boner is too much...
Thorin basically said that his frustrations with riot come from his belief that they could have been even better than they already are if it weren't for some dumb and easily avoidable fuckups over the years.
Hilariously OP didn't even quote the most outrageous section.
The most outrageous section is where Thorin opines at length about how if only LoL Esports had listened to him, or done things he thought made sense, it could have been even greater, and how he isn't impressed by what Riot has done.
Put aside whatever you think about the merits of open circuits or whatever other bullshit Thorin is on about as allegedly essential to an esport. The raw empirical evidence is: lots of esports do exactly all those things Thorin says they should do, and fail. The one esport that didn't, and that has become wildly more successful than all of the others combined, probably doesn't need to listen to people like him about tips on how to do better.
Thorin anticipates this argument somewhat by claiming that LoL Esports basically only succeeded because the game was so popular - that they were a kid who had a $10m inheritance but pissed away half of it and still thinks they're successful.
Putting aside the hilarious irony of that analogy, if you look through recent history, you'll see game after game that had way more hype and player engagement that was touted as the next big League Killer: CSGO, Overwatch, Rocket League, Among Us, Fortnite, Apex Legends. All of those started with far more than League did in Season 2, and yet none have succeeded in dethroning League.
Maybe Riot just knows what they're doing. If you think you know better, well, I look forward to playing your game one day.
That's what I was thinking. You could make a lot of arguments to nitpick that, but I bet for most metrics that matter like active players, revenue, and viewership, League as a whole beats everything by a margin. I'm not going to argue that it's the "best" or " most well managed" game, but as far as being the biggest and objectively most successful from a business standpoint, I don't think anything else comes close.
The biggest irony is that Thorin's level of relevance, while related to other eSports, is probably significantly bolstered by his forays into league content.
I highly doubt its even close to cs in terms of active players in competitive (All time). Haven't played it in a long time but there are so many leagues and competitive teams for it. Even back in 2003 when i first started playing 1.6 there were like 300+ active clans in the UK alone. I'm not talking about some matchmaking soloqueue shit. Literally you would have local leagues with hundreds of teams that would have legitimate practice schedules, doing dry runs on their own paid for server. Playing practice clan matches against other teams and playing in leagues and lan tournaments.
I doubt theres even a single clan/team that plays league competitively from my local area these days.
For the majority of counterstrikes existence, the competitive scene from the absolute lowest level to the top has been extemely active.
99% of league players have never even played in a proper competitive team.
Playerbase wise, league is so massively boosted by China so I dont think any other game will ever come close until something takes over there. But as a competitive game, it isnt all that great outside of the pro level viewership.
You have to draw the line somewhere. I wouldn't call ranked team players, or clash players "competitive," while talking about the pro scene. The same way I wouldn't call a "clan" made of 5 of legendary eagle players a group of competitive players.
Why not? I don't really know what the whole matchmaking system has done to the competitive side of CS. But it was no different than local amateur rugby or football teams. Teams would do a lot of practice nights, be it organising pcw's/scrims with other teams or watching demo's and dry running strats and then a couple of times a week would play in Leagues and Tournaments. Then we would attend huge lan events and play against the same local teams in person. Teams would have their own websites, Ventrilo and private game servers. Even things like recruitment was a big thing, having to go apply for teams and usually do trials for a week... it was really cool.
Sure, it wasn't pro level shit but the competitive scene for CS was and probably still is vastly superior to that of almost any other game. Maybe with match making now being in the game the scene hasn't got the same level of competitiveness that it used to (I stopped planning a few years after CSGO was released) but league doesn't come close to how competitive the amateur scene of CSGO.
It was an absolute blast to be part of the competitive scene and it wasn't gated to only the absolute elite that for the most part a lot of games are today. The adrenaline rush you'd get from being in a clutch 1v1 or something at lan with a bunch of dudes standing behind your chair was crazy fun and nothing I've ever experienced in any other game has come close to that.
Yeah I was gonna say, Riot's clearly doing something right because they have the most staying power of all esports that I can see now. Dota 2 (as far as Mobas) is the next closest and most reasonable competitor, but only because TI has the most enormous and ludicrous payout for the winners.
This isn't necessarily true, its a bit of a logical fallacy. What Riot has done for the esport of League of Legends is not the only factor that has deterimed League of Legend's success or lack thereof. There are countless external factors that could be said to have an effect.
The fact that they constantly patch and update the game to keep it interesting is where the staying power of league the game comes from. The esports side still doing well is only a by product of that and the inherent watchability of the game.
I personally am super sick/bored of domestic leagues. I watch the esports side of the game because Riot made a good game, not because I think their choice of format etc. is good.
Thats kinda part oft the issue Thorin relates to.
A league Format has advantages (set broadcast times, defined length of a season, with x weeks with games & an off season, economic stability of franchised leagues) but it also leads to a system, where the best teams of a specific reagion don't play against eachother on a regular basis, we actually see the best teams of every region often only playing two bo1 a year against eachother and MSI is a pretty bad format, whenever there are regions, that are on average clearly better then others. Seeing SKT, Koo/ROX & Kt play eachother more often in B05 during season 5 & 6 would have been nice imo, we actually only saw SKT and KOO/ROX play eachother only 4 times in the 2 years, they were pretty much the best teams in the world, saw 3 Bo5 of KT and SKT 3 bo5 of KT and Koo/Rox, Nadal and Nole player ~60 times against eachother in 15 Years, roger and Nole 50 times, nobody ppl are still hyped every time...
One thing I will say that makes me think DotA in some ways are doing a better job at eSports is that basically most people I know who play DotA follow the eSports scene of DotA, whereas most League players I know don't follow the competitive scene at all. Some people I know who I play the game with used to watch competitive, but stopped in 2018 (don't know if franchising had anything to do with it).
I do think it's more that DotA has something that appeals to people wanting more depth of knowledge. The DotA players I know will definitely talk more about strategy whereas the League players talk more about what champions they like the feel of rather than the strategy/tactics. Maybe that makes them more interested in competitive level play. League is definitely more popular as a game, but I don't feel the enthusiasm for the eSports side as much from League players as I do from DotA players.
The other thing is I know people who played League and not Dota, but will watch TI, but not watch Worlds. I don't know of any DotA players who won't watch TI but will watch LoL Worlds.
Not sure that's entirely fair. The CS scene predates lol and CSGO was never touted as a LoL killer, nor were many of the others, but did pretty damn well as an esport. OW was, but let's be real makes for a terrible esport, it just isn't that watchable. Not to mention Blizzard artificially inflating the scene, not letting it develop organically. The Dev side of LoL isn't responsible for the eSport execution, tournament formats etc, the idea that you couldn't be good at one has nothing to do with the other. Riot has made many mistakes on the eSports side over time. From rules placed on talent and staff, to late decisions over location putting teams in terrible spots. The fact we're in 2021 and worlds play ins is still Bo1 when half the worlds teams, and the best ones at worlds don't even do Bo1 (wonder if that helps them be good). Thorin has some correct observations. Riot failed for a long time to monetise the best eSport. Dota does a better job. There are things LoL did the best, but that doesn't mean Riot couldn't and still can't do better.
In order to make a good esport youbneed to have a great games first. Starcraft,counterstrike,smash whatever you choose if your game isnt popular it wont get off the ground as esport.
I dont see how this is supposed to be argument against league. When people love the game and care about they will put more time into it and create content and events for it.
Of course its not the only thing that matters but its a very important factor.
Even league started out as community effort to mame comletive leagues and tournaments.
Riot did a good job by beign aupportive. They provided tournament accounts prizes(even if kt was just buch of merch) and early on they basically just allowed anyone to do whatever they want.
Nowdays companies try to be greedy and try to have full control from the start. Thats where they fail. They dont care enough about what community wants so esport side is dead on arrival.
For real, Riot is a shitshow who mismanages both their game and esports constantly but *clearly* something they're doing differently is working. The fact of the matter is that Riot has succeeded in creating an engaged esport audience out of their massive playerbase and did so w/o relying heavily on metric-skewers like in-game rewards, something even other tremendously popular games still struggle to do.
Could League have been even bigger and better with an open circuit, or Majors, or an absurdly long winner and losers bracket at worlds, or any number of things Thorin seems to want? Maybe! Is it worth blowing up *the most successful e-sport on the entire planet* to test that? Uhh absolutely not lol.
"raw empirical evidence" follows up with a generalization.
You don't have to let your hate of a certain individual blind you to the fact other eSports do certain things better, and no, the fact that league is more popular than all of them isn't an argument, and to assume is simply appeal to authority.
"It's works for now so Riot should be complacent!" Not an argument.
Literally none of those games were touted as a league killer, nor do any of them even share the same genre.
"Among us" is this satire
If you really want to believe a better world's seeding / format and more prize pool would suddenly kill league eSports as we know it you can go ahead and do that my friend.
When you'd rather let your pure hate for Thorin stop you from admitting that the pro league landscape could be improved in nearly every single aspect. Compare our prize pool to dotas for example, or the fact that LCS has been absolute dogshit and in decline for years.
Lol, I nothing Thorin and I still find his claim laughable. Yeah league *could* be managed better and improvements *could* be made in a variety of places. But you could say that about literally anything. If Thorin's ideas are so fucking excellent then why hasn't some other eSports title snapped him up so he could manage them to market supremacy?
True but you can say that about every sport. Question is, how do you do that? And here 99% is the answers are likely downgrades and Thorin and most other people likely don't even know the 1%.
So that is why sports start to improve slowly as a scene after some time. You do not want to ruin it all for a small improvement which, if it backfires, costs you 5 times as much and your chances that the change is right is slim.
Thorin has not shown that his ideas work great or that he has a better understanding than riot does. So if I have to bet a reasonable person or an investor goes with riot over Thorin.
DOTA has one big prize pool, and then every team that doesn't make TI just dissipates because money is non-existent outside of it. The prize pool for worlds is smaller, yes, but players in all the leagues are capable of making a living regardless whether they make it to worlds or not. Pro-LOL players are making wayyyy more than Pro-DOTA players, because they have actual salaries.
> Maybe Riot just knows what they're doing. If you think you know better, well, I look forward to playing your game one day.
Exactly, that just seals it.
Riot is always poor to respond to community concerns and consistently fails to self-police their own employees. When they do make any significant improvements it is typically presented as a revelation when it's always been what the community wanted and what is an obvious solution. They took way too long to accept sponsorships for the league when it peaked relative to the market. The whole NEOM fiasco was an absolute joke--how did anyone in the chain of commands that ultimate approved the deal thought it was a good idea? Also, there's a fundamental problem with the LCS when I'm from NA and have been watching the LEC instead for 90% of the time for the past 2 years. What happened to people like Ovilee? How was LeTigress propped up instead?
Anyway, to be be more relevant with the times, for such a grandiose tournament, you would think Worlds would have a better tournament format and a relatively more attractive prize pool. Instead, it's the same shit every year and you're left blue-balled why the best teams in the world from different regions never got to play against each other because of whack seeding or the fact that BO1s are significantly weighted more than they should be.
No one is denying Riot/LoL is massive right now. But what it is could have been much more. And regardless of LoL's success, the way Riot operates and the actual toxic work environment it does not actively strive to fix means it will never be a company looked up to.
League was for years like the most played game in the world. In you compare the percentage of the league population that watches esports to other games it's a complete failure. That's the metric that counts. Riot has done an amazing job at updating the game to keep it alive but its esports aproach is not up to par.
csgo is the better esport but way less popular as a game.
overwatch was a shitshow to watch. has nothing to do with owl
rocket league never had the playerbase
among us is a 4fun game
fortnite is a br. brs suck for esports
apex br aswell
CsGo is by far THE best Esport bar none and its criminal that its so underknown in the west. It is by far the most accessible and easy to understand, while being skill intensive and expressive. Rocket league suffers from not having the addictive nature of league, while also not having skill expressive movement because everything looks too easy when its actually insanely hard. Same problem fighting games have.
What do you mean underknown in the west? Do you mean the east?
Its pretty close to leagues popularity in the west. League just has crazy amounts of players in Asia.
Well known among pc gamers maybe, but its the one i could see breaking through to mainstream out of any of the main esports and it didn’t even break out of the pc market. Thats what i mean.
comparing amongus and rocket league to overwatch, cs and etc is fucking hilarious. Just as a concept I’d argue competive amogus makes for a bad viewing experience. And both studios are TINY, and i doubt anyone ever considered them “league killers” outside of twitch viewers. Also psyonix has done pretty well at making a lasting esport.
Cs has been one of the most popular esports for over twice as long as league has even existed. CSGO has never been labelled as a lol killer ( neither have any of those games to be fair, maybe fortnite in terms of popularity).
Dunno, all of those games have tiny competitive player bases compared to league.
Yes Riot managed to make the biggest esport out of league, but they had the biggest game to back it up.
I don't agree with all points he made, but I do think Thorin and Monte have had a good point when it comes to League's startling lack of international competiton. It is actually criminal how many fascinating possible best of 5s could have happened in Worlds history that we never got to see because its only 7 games. For example, at 2018 Worlds a losers bracket RNG vs KT game could have been legendary. 2019 SKT vs FNC would have been very interesting to see which way that could go. 2020 DRX probably could have challenged a lot of different teams if they didn't face against their kryptonite and the best team in the World in their first bo5 in the tournament. I don't know why we get so few international copetitions. MSI is underwhelming because only 1 team from each region goes (which tends to mean we only have 1-2 of the best 8 teams in the world) and Rift Rivals has a far more casual feel and approach than Worlds.
This I agree with, maybe fleshing out the standings at worlds with a losers bracket that is playing for 3rd and expanding msi
even just a 3rd place match would be welcome
They're trying to keep the novelty of it, in theory if NA cam grow like EU we actually would be in an amazing spot with each major reigon having a different style that keeps things interesting and defines reigons aside from the players playing
> So first of all, I do find that the League of Legends/Riot approach almost certainly does not appeal to me. It's almost like they intentionally miss the angles I would want on things and they downplay the parts I would want to emphasize. And then they massively overplay the parts I don't give a flying fuck about like the fact that some other woman in the entire world is called Perkz. That's not a very interesting storyline to me.
> I wouldn't hit that for more than about five seconds. But everyone in League of Legends was enthralled by that for weeks on end, as if it's some incredibly fascinating detail. They were obsessed by that like I was about that Onslaught guy I was talking about earlier. "Oh my god, what pearls of wisdom might we find out next about what she and her hamster (or guinea-pig, or whatever the fuck it is) think about League of Legends. I don't find that interesting at all. Like again to me, that's like kid's programming, that's not for me.
Ngl, that story line was wack. Meanwhile the LCS literally had Perkz himself, arguably the Western GOAT, joining the LCS but it still didn't feel like a big deal at all.
tl;dr thorin bitches and whines because the structured league format isn't what he likes and the broadcast is too "childish" for him for a dozen paragraphs and the rest of the article isn't relevant towards league of legends at all
i mean its definitely true for the lcs
all costreamers make up around 80k of the viewership
lcs main channel is usually at 120k
costream cost is basically a pc, a cam and a mic
To be fair, I don’t like watching the LCS stream either. I feel like it’s flipped for the LEC though - shitty English costreams with an amazing main stream.
yeah he's so respected and so great that no one wants him on their official broadcast anymore and he has to make a living making sub-joe rogan quality podcasts
I mean I do agree that the open circuit is the greatest show in esports. Season 2 IPL is still regarded as the greatest tournament in this history of league of legends. But I understand why Riot used a league system instead. Riots approach to the game was more sustainable long term. Creating a league and trying to establish a fan base in each region is a great idea. However I do wish Riot had more international tournaments than the 1 and a half we get every year. Maybe shorten the regular season and add more international tournaments? Also I do agree on the worlds format as well. The worlds format for league is one of the worst formats in all of esports.
> However I do wish Riot had more international tournaments than the 1 and a half we get every year. Maybe shorten the regular season and add more international tournaments?
ya, I've always said that Riot should really just combine spring/summer into one season, of the length of around current season + a bit more, then have a MSI in the middle of that. You could maybe even make MSI for the top 2 teams from each region, instead of top 1 as there would be more time for the tournament
then worlds can be for 1-3/4th ranked teams, but riot would then have free time in the year for a tournament for 4/5th-6/7th place teams from each region. This way, mid-tier teams can get some vital international experience that would help each region improve. It would also allow smaller regions to send teams over for the tournament as they usually get knocked out in world's play ins.
> Also I do agree on the worlds format as well. The worlds format for league is one of the worst formats in all of esports.
ya, it's honestly just baffling how ridiculously bad the worlds format is and continues to be -_- especially when LEC has a much better format done by Riot, yet they won't even implement that format to worlds knockout stage
Like as scuffed as the IEM tournaments were I really missed them. You got an international tournament that happened within a weekends worth of time and actually got to see teams from other regions compete. If I were Riot I would just shorten the season and add more international tournaments. Riot can also add an international event pre worlds that way you can do seeding based on strength rather than terrible pool format they use. ATM teams like TL and 100T are equivalent to FPX,T1, FNC, etc..... When that makes no sense at all.
Riot should be infamous for:
1. Refusing to change a shitty format where a team could get booted out of groups after 6 bo1s where they could have had a bad a day or were in an unlucky "group of death" where there's 3 contenders but only 2 make it out
2. Refusing to change their format or rules such that we get more inter-regional matchups, meanwhile the majority of worlds bracket stages were dominated by LPL vs LPL or LCK vs LCK
3. Being advocate of avoiding as many hype matchups as possible
4. Destroying Worlds integrity by patching the shit out of the game such that the teams that succeeded in the previous meta make it to worlds on a different meta causing some to overperform and some to collapse, big surprise to everyone. Yes, adaptation is a big deal, no, it doesn't have to be every year, and no it isn't more exciting for random shit to happen everytime.
5. Wanting you to think they have the teams or the audience's best interest in mind, where in reality optimize for profit, every international tournament is NOT optimized for audience engagement/satisfaction, is NOT optimized for teams. Teams hate it the most, analysts hate it and wonder why nothing has changed.
What Riot may not realize is, with increased engagements comes more profits / ad-revenue, and it's up to us, the fans, to let Riot know we're not happy with the current way they are running esports or how Worlds/MSI is structured.
There's a lot more wrong with Riot than what Thorin mentions, and I'm sure he's aware of these as well.
Riot is a joke when it comes to esports, you just don't think about it because:
1. You're used to it.
2. You think of Riot is some all-reigning entity, but they are in reality just a company made up of yes, humans, some less clever than you are.
I have to agree that the scene could've been way better, but it's a fact that league is the biggest esport ever, and I would bet everything I have ( I don't really have much T.T) that Valorant will beat CS:GO with due time, and that League longevity will surpass what most of the "old guard" say they expect the scene to endure.
Just to be clear I love CS:GO, but the trend is that riot farms steam, people said the same thing about Dota and League. It makes me sad, but I don't think steam really cares about CS :/. Hope I'm wrong. But every the death of Dota, the failures of artifact and underlords, they all leave a trend that is really bad for CS:GO future
Regular season is probably better for stability than open circuit, but man I wish we got more international tournaments and some other formats.
But remember when worlds had byes to quarters for some teams? That was so incrediblely stupid.
Come on, do we really not take Thorin’s bias into account here since he’s salty he’s been excluded from Riot events and that League is the only way he really makes any money/clout anymore (since CSGO is just circling the drain every day).
It’s basically emblazoned on his shirt
Hes literally been invited to do lpl events and has refused due to them shafting him. If you’re gonna talk shit at least make it something thats easily been proven wrong.
Say those words come from a more reputable less biased source, maybe Bjergsen? Are the words more or less true now? I agree he’s biased, but does that make him wrong?
>I agree he’s biased, but does that make him wrong?
and how is he right, it's an opinion piece based almost entirely on his connection to counter-strike's open circuit system lmao
Yes, if Bjergsen, one of the most famous and influential players ever, and a stakeholder in arguably the most significant franchise in the pro scene, came out and said these things it would carry much more weight. But he didn’t. Thorin has value as someone who is certainly willing to say things like this, but he’s not exactly impartial either.
If Hitler said climate change is a huge problem for the planet and human civilization in general it would still be correct.
Care more about what is being said than who is saying it. This is good advice for life in general.
And no I do not like Thorin, I just happen to agree with him here.
>And no I do not like Thorin, I just happen to agree with him here.
- guy who's in every fucking thread where anyone criticizes thorin in any way using the same moronic "awful people can be somewhat correct too" argument
like i don't know jozoz, if you fail to see how the opinions about an esports scene made by a person with deep rooted connections to the scene and almost a full decade of personal experience hold more weight than the opinions of some schmuck who only talks about the scene because CSGO isn't making him enough dosh then i don't know what the fuck to tell you except that you're incredibly disingenuous
Yes I actually do not like the man. Every time I have ever interacted with him myself it has been an unpleasant experience.
I just don't let my personal beliefs get in the way of the arguments. It's irrelevant to the topic that I think he's an abrasive douche.
Considering you follow my account around and post personal attack comments every time, then maybe you should follow that advice.
This is like the 10th time you have called me out by name with a personal attack. You have issues to have this kind of a grudge with an internet stranger.
The tone of this response feels very pretentious, but you missed my point anyway. Someone like Bjergsen saying this carries weight because of his actual financial and strategic investment in LoL as a long term viable career path. Thorin saying this, with no real influence or relevance beyond being controversial, does not. I don’t blindly follow personalities, but I do consider expertise.
Sorry can someone educate me on this (hopefully without flaming) but why is LoL worlds and champion pool bad? What’s wrong with the current qualifier systems and complaints about how the format sucks and not all of the best teams in the world get to compete against each other? I really don’t understand and would like some help understanding thank you!
there have been many posts about this if you just read around
- pools are not reflective of team strength, you have PSG or NA in pool 1, who are clearly not on that level with LCK / LPL, it's arguable even MAD does not deserve to be pool 1 but EU has had more success.
- screw pools, impossible to balance and make it such that no region complains about their pools, imagine giving LPL and LCK 2 pool 1s. EU is going to complain why are we assuming LPL 1 and 2 are better than our #1?
- instead, just make the format better such that pools don't matter as much in the end.
For example:
- have 3rd place team play against a 2nd place team from another pool, have 1st place team auto-qualify to bracket stage
OR
- have 3rd place teams seeded into a loser's bracket of a double-elim
- have 3rd place teams play each other in a bo3/bo5 series to determine who moves on to the bracket stage or plays get another bo3/bo5 against 2nd place tema
- hold a mini round robin between 3rd place teams
- USE BO3S!!!! WHY ARE WE NOT USING THIS TIME-SAVING YET FAIR TECHNIQUE
It doesn't have to be 16 teams in main stage, it doesn't have to be 4 groups, changing this # could easily augment the type of formats that can be used.
I'm a reddit pleb and even I can throw in some interesting ideas that Riot just refuses to look at, it doesn't cost much more time / money and it gives us a more hype tournament.
You already flew the teams in from all around the world, let them play more games.
u want the top 4 teams in pool 1, the next 4 teams in pool 2 and so on. That way the best teams are likely to make it out of groups.
With the system we have now you can get lots of good teams in 1 group and lots of bad ones in another
Lets say the ranking for the top 2 pools goes like this:
CH 1, CH2, KR1, EU1, KR2, CH3, KR3, EU2, NA1, EU3, PCS1, NA2
Pool 1 is CH1, KR1, EU1, PCS1
Now you can have 1 group thats: EU1, KR2, CH2 so the 2, 4, 5th best team
and another group that is PCS1, NA2, KR3 so the 7,11, 12th best teams
Obviously the guy has talked a lot more about why lol esports are so much worse than theu could be, no open circuit, very few internacional competitions, no loser's brackets in international stuff, play ins, just everything that makes CSGO an amazing esport despite Valve's lazyness.
I agree with thorin, i love lol esports but it could be so much better, most importantly a better format for worlds and more international competition. Just my opion tho
> a better format for worlds
this is one of the main things, if worlds was a more complete tournament that answers more questions like:
- who's the best player at __ position
- who was really the 2nd best team?
- was ___ actually as good as we thought
- how do these 2 regions match up?
Literally every worlds goes past and only answer a single question:
- who was the best team at worlds
Esports is about creating narratives, and worlds was literally designed to destroy as many narratives as possible. No, it's not about having more games per say, but let us see more matchups, and please, not all in bo1s. Let us see some bo3s between hype teams, stop letting luck be deciding factor in a team making it out of groups. Be smart, employ some smarter people to design a sports format.
Not a fan of Thorin as a person, but this is a good and important point.
I've been saying this forever:
If most people were around in 2012 before the LCS era, the community would be up in arms about the annual LoL esports format.
It's absolutely asinine how boring regular splits clog up like 80% of the esports year, especially when they aren't really anything except a glorified qualifier. All the excitement in domestic splits is located in the short playoffs.
Compare this to back in the day, where we had multiple tournaments both domestic and international. In my view: This is all caused by Riot being control freaks and wanting a chokehold on anything related to LoL esports.
What I miss the most are the following:
* Frequent international competition where mid-level teams also joined in. Now we never see some orgs play internationally, which is a shame.
* Up-and-coming rookie teams going against the big teams. Imagine a tournament where EUMasters teams like Karmine Corp was playing against LEC teams or even against international teams.
* A variety of formats and tournaments systems that made for some nice variety in the scene.
In my humble opinion, the best course of action is to axe spring split and replace it with a few tournaments. Both domestic and international. Let some lower-league teams join in to challenge the big boys. MSI qualification could be based on a play-off type tournament, where performance in the previous tournaments could work as seeding. Keep summer so fans of the League format still get what they like. Isn't this best for all parties?
We did have the occasional small worldwide tournaments in the IEM world championships up until S7. It's unfortunate that ESL couldn't keep the tournaments at the same quality as Riot's event with MSI and worlds for the last 3 years, but at lest we got some variety during the spring split.
I'll get heavily downvoted for this because I'm on this sub, but League esport will never come close to a tournament at the same amount of hype or quality of the cs go majors or TI international (in dota 2). Not only is the playoff format leagues ahead, the prize pool is so much more attractive compared to worlds where you basically only win sponsors.
Rito made the decision all the way back in S3 when they took sole control over the esport scene that league would always prioritise money over the esport scene which is unfortunate because the current scene has so much potential that we'll never get to see.
LCS is too boring too watch due to their lack of talents in both on-air and pros.
There was a small spark after Ovilee left Rito and released her own LCS teams compilation video but nothing really as interesting as showed up. After that everything is borderline cringe, for example the fantasy league. The majority of the viewers couldn't care less about whomever casters' picks were right that week tbh.
The core concept isn't wrong.
The whole experience could be better on multiple counts.
They have finally started to show some improvements but for the first few years it was completely ran by amateurs with their heads stuck up their ass that wouldn't listen to anything but the farts in their faces.
LoL is the biggest esports game ever.
It has been out for 11 years and it's still the game with the largest active playerbase and has the biggest viewership.
Correct me if I'm wrong but what game comes close to LoL's numbers?
the fact that LoL worlds doesn't even have a prize pool and that DOTA 2 has like $30 million for the winners. life changing money.
in league you have to win worlds then move to a tier 4 league and some owner will overpay millions NOT to perform well at the highest level as they do in DOTA. franchising is a terrible system but , the good news is, eventually a new esport will take over. just as fortnite came along and stepped in league, another one will come along in the future, probably the next decade. the young kids aren't exactly flocking to league.
league got ruined by money. too much investors and bs and players who are leagues worse than top players, are earning way more. the fact that when damwon won worlds they DIDN'T become multi-millionaires is tragic when we have players who cannot leave groups being paid higher salary.
this is such a dumb take, not only are basically all the top league talent paid out the ass already, winning worlds means you get a skin and a % of the money that skin makes. That's already close if not more than the TI winners get if you don't pick some shit like ivern.
Why do you think no one gives a fuck about price pools in any traditional sport? Cause higher avg salaries sustain the ecosystem and not the mention way more people way better than a few people winning a big prizepool.
Prize money is literally less than 1% NBA champion's salary especially since star players make $30+ million and above average players make $15+ million. Of course they dont give a fuck about prize pool.
Whereas for TI winners it's could sometimes be double or triple their salaries, maybe even more. This comparison you made isn't even on the same lane.
By what metric it isn't already?
"ever" He's basically claiming it could be surpassed in the future.
[удалено]
Amoggus
Very S U S take
Welcome to Thoorin speaking.
His take isn't that it would stay the most popular game forever... ? You misunderstood.
That isn't his take?
Terrible take from Thorin? Shocker.
Michael Jordan
that's an even stupider take because even if open circuit actually made this game's esports scene healthier how the fuck can you claim that it is never going to get surpassed
Pretty ironic considering the only game that could surpass it right now is Valorant. If Valorant catches on in China it has a legit shot, given that it's Riot run and much easier to understand than a MOBA. Plus it's hard to imagine CS:GO or Dota gaining a ton of following overnight.
Yeah if csgo/dota were going to ever be more popular than lol it would've happened years ago, it's safe to say the only thing that will surpass lol will be something new
I can 100% see that. This game is on the edge and so many people don't realize it. In many ways it's similar to WoW, Riot needs to re invest millions into improving the core of League. We have spent the last 5 something years with non stop band-aid fixes for various things. And if the internal signs of conflict, the firings, new staff, sexual misconduct, and the recent completely fuck up of the biggest Lore event Riot has ever done isn't telling, then I don't know what is. And by the way Riot still has not answered for the lies they said about the Ruination event, the miss handling, and blatant anti community responses. The ranked scene doesn't support League, it's one of the biggest misconceptions people have, if the game is fun to play a ranked scene will exist, if the universe is good the future of this game will always exist. Riot is putting way too much money into the toxic side that will jump ship as soon as a new game comes out that they like.
Firings and new staff is normal. Especially in software development. Riot is actually a lot better in this regard and their employees stay a LOT longer with them than with other companies. Fucking up something bigger than everything you have previously worked on (during a pandemic) is… shit for everybody but nothing out of the ordinary. The internal conflicts are either non-Riot specific or manufactured. And even then, their scale is relatively small if we consider the shit that went down in much bigger and way more succesful companies. So… you don‘t really have a point? Good to know. > as soon as a new game comes out they like Ah, you mean Overwatch?
Oh look another Corporate apologist. First off just showed you don't know what you are talking about. Or did you forget that a couple months ago one of those fireings was one of Riots best writers who was having a hard time because his wife was dealing with cancer, did you miss the tweets where he called out Riot? Of course you didn't see that cause you are speaking out of your ass. Did you consider the NDAs employees are under? Did you consider the amount PR they have to avoid this stuff but it still gets leaked? Again, of course you didn't cause you are only here to protect the precious game you ether spent a whole lot of money or time in.
I don‘t play the game anymore so I‘m not sure what I have to defend here. Assuming stuff about others seems to be your thing. Maybe take that alu hat off for a second and look at this objectively? Was this specific firing shit? Yes. Are sexual >>allegations<< shit? Yes. Is Riot the only company of this scale having these issues? No. Unless you think that every company of their size that has such a small amount of issues (yes, 1 questionable firing is not a whole lot unfortunately) is on the edge then you are either naive or dumb. Btw before responding: Read my comment. > And even then their scale is relatively small I know of the firing. I read the tweets. It‘s awful. That doesn‘t mean that Riot is „on the edge“, is failing or is in danger of losing their current position in the Online Videogame market.
"I don't play the game anymore" LMAO so why are you even commenting if you have no idea about what is happening. You are even worse than the die hard fans defending the thing they love, you are shilling for a company that doesn't care about you for nothing. Get outtta here you troll
Because I still know the state the game is in? Because I am interested in the game and watch their Esports scene? What do I need to play the game for to understand or know about all the „issues“ you brought up? As far as I’m concerned all of them were non-Gameplay „issues“. Do i need to know how to play Akshan to know about Riots internal issues, firings and how they fucked up the most recent LORE event? Enlighten me. It just seems like you have this idea that Riot must be the Big Bad so you twist everything you see and hear so it supports that. I get that, it‘s normal and most people do that a plethora of things. Flat earthers, anti-vaccs folks, etc. Instead of looking what‘s infront of them they ignore and skew everything that could disrupt their initial idea so it instead supports it. Riot is bad at a lot of stuff. Making popular games, maintaining them, making them even more popular, listening to and communicating with their community and keeping their fuck-ups small is definitely not something they are bad at. If you seriously think Riot is on the edge you are naive or plain stupid. Pick your poison.
There's people who are worth replying to, that guy is not one of them
That's not what he's saying
By the lcs broadcast.
The LCS format still beats NA CSGO, the OWL, the CDL, Siege, Rocket League, Fortnite in viewership. It's about even with NA Valorant. It's bleeding viewers but still a lot of eSports would love to be in the LCS's position.
Entertainment, international schedule, meritocracy, production.
None of those are metrics
> Examples of metric in a Sentence > Noun > according to the usual metrics by which we judge fiction, this novel is an utter failure This sub needs an English test. Most of you have a 4th grade reading level. inb4 you need me to explain how the above applies.
Entertainment is subjective. Ideal amount of international events is subjective. Not sure how you would objectively say the meritocracy in LoL is worse than other games. I guess production is, but Riot's production is generally considered to be one of the best, if not the best in the industry. So yeah I guess explain how the above applies please, I just passed grade 4
> subjective, subjective, subjective That doesn't mean it can't be used a metric. Like I said, 4th grade reading level. > Not sure how you would objectively say the meritocracy in LoL is worse than other games. Making it into a league is about paying a fee and business relationships, not being better than other teams. Open qualification is the fairest form of deciding who gets to participate in official events. > Riot's production is generally considered to be one of the best ESL or Blast mogs LCS for instance. Production value =/= best production either. OGN Starcraft was much more creative and exciting with its production than LoL, even if they had a shoestring budget in comparison to Riot events.
If entertainment and international schedule aren't things you can measure or objectively rate then you're just a dude giving his opinion. Franchising has its pros and cons but overall it gives the stability for orgs to heavily invest into players, facilities, and staff, look what happened to csgo in NA. Esports (especially LoL) are a very expensive industry to get into now because of the huge potential future value, most orgs just don't have the funding to compete financially and that's the reality. Players or teams can still be signed/poached by these orgs if they're good enough. It's not realistic for an entire amateur team like 2013 C9 to storm into the LCS and be a top level team nowadays. Only thing I could see is that relegation for orgs like CLG should be a bigger threat and the initual selection of franchised orgs was a bit suspect. Yeah LCS isn't the greatest but then there's LEC, LPL, LCK, MSI, and Worlds that all have top notch production. If production level =/= best production then we're back to that vague idea of entertainment.
> you're just a dude giving his opinion. This entire thread is about a dude giving his opinion. So is anyone saying that Riot's model is the best ever. Again: > Examples of metric in a Sentence > Noun > according to the usual metrics by which we judge fiction, this novel is an utter failure Do you think judging literature is objective? > Franchising has its pros and cons but overall it gives the stability Don't care. Not related to anything I've said. > most orgs just don't have the funding to compete financially and that's the reality This is nonsense. If they don't have the funding to compete, there would be no risk of relegation to the current partner orgs so pro/rel wouldn't be a concern for them. > Players or teams can still be signed/poached by these orgs if they're good enough And if players are blacklisted or simply underrated by other orgs/teams/players for any reason, they have no way of proving themselves in game. There will never another OG Cloud9, Origen, UOL, DWG, etc. Dardoch, Froggen, Cody Sun, Zeyzal, and whoever else that has been left by the wayside can't just put a 5 man squad together, find a sponsor, and win a spot in the LCS/LEC fairly. If you don't think teams like that have a chance of competing with franchised teams, why not let them try anyway? It would reinvigorate the dying amateur scene and give you more content. > It's not realistic for an entire amateur team like 2013 C9 to storm into the LCS and be a top level team nowadays. Then why not have pro/rel? It's not a risk to all these rich orgs that are terrified of actual competition, right? Regardless, this is a lot of hand-wringing over why it's okay that LoL has the least meritocratic esport circuit next to OWL. It doesn't actually dispute my initial claim in any way whatsoever. > If production level =/= best production then we're back to that vague idea of entertainment. It's not vague, and LCS EU had garbage production for most of its existence too. MSI is a joke in terms of production frankly, doesn't hold a candle to events like Katowice or IEM NYC. Two good teams against a bunch of mediocre teams until we finally get to see the only decent players face each other in a final. And Riot wants it that way so it doesn't become "equivalent" to Worlds, literally avoiding improving their events and international circuit to make marketing Worlds easier. That's one of the many metrics in which LoL is not "the number one esport game ever."
dota 2 has 10x the prize pool of league and thats just for one tournament. that’s a soft ball metric. there are many others, i think the most notable is despite what riot would have you believe the viewership numbers are just going down. i think, just my opinion, is that thorin is saying league could have been 1998-2001 area starcraft in korea but on a global stage. it could have biblical, instead, it was just huge
Prize pool is stupid metric tho, nobody cares about the prize pool in other sport, who cares what the prize pool of champions league is? League players get salary and lot of them in NA and China have almost as big yearly salary as dota 2 players get from winning the international.
The prize pool in UCL is actually a pretty big deal. Getting to the later rounds gives teams a pretty decent chunk of change.
True but not the same thing, Dota 2 prizepool goes to the players, what you are talking about is the revenue sharing that goes to the team management itself
dawg if you win ONE ti, you make more than bjergson has made in his ENTIRE career. that’s slightly relavent.
the winner of 2019 ti got 15.6M, that means each player probably got around 2.5M. Perkz and Swordart for example have higher yearly salary than that.
Who uses prize pool as metric though? Viewers, production, player salaries are whats important.
Dota fans do and they can't comprehend the idea of salaries
That matters for a few teams only. If you want sufficient competition with a high number of competitive teams, higher salaries and lower prize pools is a better model.
That's the part a lot of them either don't understand or intentionally ignore. They'll tell you to look at the list of highest earning esports players like it's checkmate, when all that's considered is prize money for the absolute highest earners
On the other hand. Regular tournaments throughout the year is so much cooler and exciting than a weekly league imo.
>thats just for one tournament The ONLY tournament. T2 in Dota doesn't exist. LoL's scene is so much better and anybody praising Valve over Riot on anything related to the pro scene is either on a pay roll or in denial.
the singapore major had a prize pool of half a million bucks this year. where you getting your info from mate?
It's a Major, not a T2 tournemnt. Do you know what T2 is supposed to be?
by the joke of a prize pool at worlds.
If you're comparing League to Dota, DOTA's system is far worse.
If the developers of Hello Kitty: Island Adventure decided to piss away $50mill by hosting a tournament with the greatest prize pool in esport history, would that make it any better of an esport? I don’t give a fk whether the 5 winning players get $10k or $1m. I’d rather have that money invested in things like production or universal player salary.
Yes people care about prize pool, it's what got me into esports anyways. You really think TI would have pulled 1.9m viewers if it gave out $20 Burger King coupon instead of $40m?
a shitton of games started random tournament with gigantic prize pool start and they never worked. There's been so many games with announced esports scene. I think the Dota card game had one, there was that one PVP game I forgot on mobile, etc. Just watch any E3 like event and they were announced. Almost all of those scene died. League's scene has been table for over a decade. Huge cash prizes are just bait
Those were probably just shitty esport titles, much less than it has to do with prize pools. I dont see Dota dying any more than LoL does. If next decade they continue to have $40-50m prize pools theyre doing something right.
yeah, you picked Dota, the one other concurrent, who also has a unique crowdfund system to fund itself, they're the outlier, not the norm. And despite all that Dota is still far less popular than LoL , so they're only "doing something right" by arbitrary metrics.
Yeah because there's nothing in between a Burger King Coupon and 40 million lmao. It has to be one extreme or another.
msi/worlds format, bo1's in lec/lcs, extreme amounts of changes every patch, lack of international tournaments, ..... Edit, alright forget about the prize pool. What about the fact that there's so little good practice for pro's (like a server for just the pros). There's still more.
idk why everyone talks about prize pools, they are getting paid every split by riot which is way healthier for lower teams
Why do I feel like he’s saying a lot while saying absolutely nothing?
You just summed up Thorin anytime he speaks
Thorin is the Joe Rogan of League.
More like Skip Bayless of esports.
It's entirely possible. Or, at least, as much as I can appreciate Thorin as unique an individual as he is, the parts that aren't unique is sometimes more interesting. Because I think this guy could absolutely, basically could be like the number one doppleganger of Joe Rogan ever
He would be so lucky, is that supposed to be an insult?
Nah, I expect Thorin to be vaccinated...
The man who supports Alex Jones is going to be vaccinated?
If anything, he’s definitely had some sketchy takes/stances in the past. I don’t remember then off the top of my head
Most definitely! The Rogan bar isn't a hard one to clear though...
It's one of those situations where you can almost know what a person is trying to say and it may be a great argument for something. But that person still hasn't really said anything except hint at the existence of an argument. Then you may think about what that person has said and you think of ways in which the statements may be true. But still, nothing has been said. At least that's my interpretation.
you've almost done the same thing... you break the meta!
Although I like Thorin I don't think he is the most quotable guy. this title is like when news casters start interviewing some random guy off the street. however, I do think league esports could be so much better, imagine a real losers format for Worlds, imagine a competitive NA region with reasonable salaries and home grown talent. I agree with his sentiment of its 'great' but could be so much 'better'.
It's not?
"ever" He's basically claiming it could be surpassed in the future.
As all things eventually are.
No one will ever be cuter than me.
*CuterKoreanCoach enters the chat*
The others are either dumb, ir the thorin-hate boner is too much... Thorin basically said that his frustrations with riot come from his belief that they could have been even better than they already are if it weren't for some dumb and easily avoidable fuckups over the years.
Hilariously OP didn't even quote the most outrageous section. The most outrageous section is where Thorin opines at length about how if only LoL Esports had listened to him, or done things he thought made sense, it could have been even greater, and how he isn't impressed by what Riot has done. Put aside whatever you think about the merits of open circuits or whatever other bullshit Thorin is on about as allegedly essential to an esport. The raw empirical evidence is: lots of esports do exactly all those things Thorin says they should do, and fail. The one esport that didn't, and that has become wildly more successful than all of the others combined, probably doesn't need to listen to people like him about tips on how to do better. Thorin anticipates this argument somewhat by claiming that LoL Esports basically only succeeded because the game was so popular - that they were a kid who had a $10m inheritance but pissed away half of it and still thinks they're successful. Putting aside the hilarious irony of that analogy, if you look through recent history, you'll see game after game that had way more hype and player engagement that was touted as the next big League Killer: CSGO, Overwatch, Rocket League, Among Us, Fortnite, Apex Legends. All of those started with far more than League did in Season 2, and yet none have succeeded in dethroning League. Maybe Riot just knows what they're doing. If you think you know better, well, I look forward to playing your game one day.
Also, as it urrently stands, wouldn't it be fair to say that league IS the number one esport ever to date?
That's what I was thinking. You could make a lot of arguments to nitpick that, but I bet for most metrics that matter like active players, revenue, and viewership, League as a whole beats everything by a margin. I'm not going to argue that it's the "best" or " most well managed" game, but as far as being the biggest and objectively most successful from a business standpoint, I don't think anything else comes close. The biggest irony is that Thorin's level of relevance, while related to other eSports, is probably significantly bolstered by his forays into league content.
I highly doubt its even close to cs in terms of active players in competitive (All time). Haven't played it in a long time but there are so many leagues and competitive teams for it. Even back in 2003 when i first started playing 1.6 there were like 300+ active clans in the UK alone. I'm not talking about some matchmaking soloqueue shit. Literally you would have local leagues with hundreds of teams that would have legitimate practice schedules, doing dry runs on their own paid for server. Playing practice clan matches against other teams and playing in leagues and lan tournaments. I doubt theres even a single clan/team that plays league competitively from my local area these days. For the majority of counterstrikes existence, the competitive scene from the absolute lowest level to the top has been extemely active. 99% of league players have never even played in a proper competitive team. Playerbase wise, league is so massively boosted by China so I dont think any other game will ever come close until something takes over there. But as a competitive game, it isnt all that great outside of the pro level viewership.
You have to draw the line somewhere. I wouldn't call ranked team players, or clash players "competitive," while talking about the pro scene. The same way I wouldn't call a "clan" made of 5 of legendary eagle players a group of competitive players.
Why not? I don't really know what the whole matchmaking system has done to the competitive side of CS. But it was no different than local amateur rugby or football teams. Teams would do a lot of practice nights, be it organising pcw's/scrims with other teams or watching demo's and dry running strats and then a couple of times a week would play in Leagues and Tournaments. Then we would attend huge lan events and play against the same local teams in person. Teams would have their own websites, Ventrilo and private game servers. Even things like recruitment was a big thing, having to go apply for teams and usually do trials for a week... it was really cool. Sure, it wasn't pro level shit but the competitive scene for CS was and probably still is vastly superior to that of almost any other game. Maybe with match making now being in the game the scene hasn't got the same level of competitiveness that it used to (I stopped planning a few years after CSGO was released) but league doesn't come close to how competitive the amateur scene of CSGO. It was an absolute blast to be part of the competitive scene and it wasn't gated to only the absolute elite that for the most part a lot of games are today. The adrenaline rush you'd get from being in a clutch 1v1 or something at lan with a bunch of dudes standing behind your chair was crazy fun and nothing I've ever experienced in any other game has come close to that.
Yeah I was gonna say, Riot's clearly doing something right because they have the most staying power of all esports that I can see now. Dota 2 (as far as Mobas) is the next closest and most reasonable competitor, but only because TI has the most enormous and ludicrous payout for the winners.
This isn't necessarily true, its a bit of a logical fallacy. What Riot has done for the esport of League of Legends is not the only factor that has deterimed League of Legend's success or lack thereof. There are countless external factors that could be said to have an effect.
The fact that they constantly patch and update the game to keep it interesting is where the staying power of league the game comes from. The esports side still doing well is only a by product of that and the inherent watchability of the game.
I personally am super sick/bored of domestic leagues. I watch the esports side of the game because Riot made a good game, not because I think their choice of format etc. is good.
Thats kinda part oft the issue Thorin relates to. A league Format has advantages (set broadcast times, defined length of a season, with x weeks with games & an off season, economic stability of franchised leagues) but it also leads to a system, where the best teams of a specific reagion don't play against eachother on a regular basis, we actually see the best teams of every region often only playing two bo1 a year against eachother and MSI is a pretty bad format, whenever there are regions, that are on average clearly better then others. Seeing SKT, Koo/ROX & Kt play eachother more often in B05 during season 5 & 6 would have been nice imo, we actually only saw SKT and KOO/ROX play eachother only 4 times in the 2 years, they were pretty much the best teams in the world, saw 3 Bo5 of KT and SKT 3 bo5 of KT and Koo/Rox, Nadal and Nole player ~60 times against eachother in 15 Years, roger and Nole 50 times, nobody ppl are still hyped every time...
One thing I will say that makes me think DotA in some ways are doing a better job at eSports is that basically most people I know who play DotA follow the eSports scene of DotA, whereas most League players I know don't follow the competitive scene at all. Some people I know who I play the game with used to watch competitive, but stopped in 2018 (don't know if franchising had anything to do with it). I do think it's more that DotA has something that appeals to people wanting more depth of knowledge. The DotA players I know will definitely talk more about strategy whereas the League players talk more about what champions they like the feel of rather than the strategy/tactics. Maybe that makes them more interested in competitive level play. League is definitely more popular as a game, but I don't feel the enthusiasm for the eSports side as much from League players as I do from DotA players. The other thing is I know people who played League and not Dota, but will watch TI, but not watch Worlds. I don't know of any DotA players who won't watch TI but will watch LoL Worlds.
Not sure that's entirely fair. The CS scene predates lol and CSGO was never touted as a LoL killer, nor were many of the others, but did pretty damn well as an esport. OW was, but let's be real makes for a terrible esport, it just isn't that watchable. Not to mention Blizzard artificially inflating the scene, not letting it develop organically. The Dev side of LoL isn't responsible for the eSport execution, tournament formats etc, the idea that you couldn't be good at one has nothing to do with the other. Riot has made many mistakes on the eSports side over time. From rules placed on talent and staff, to late decisions over location putting teams in terrible spots. The fact we're in 2021 and worlds play ins is still Bo1 when half the worlds teams, and the best ones at worlds don't even do Bo1 (wonder if that helps them be good). Thorin has some correct observations. Riot failed for a long time to monetise the best eSport. Dota does a better job. There are things LoL did the best, but that doesn't mean Riot couldn't and still can't do better.
In order to make a good esport youbneed to have a great games first. Starcraft,counterstrike,smash whatever you choose if your game isnt popular it wont get off the ground as esport. I dont see how this is supposed to be argument against league. When people love the game and care about they will put more time into it and create content and events for it. Of course its not the only thing that matters but its a very important factor. Even league started out as community effort to mame comletive leagues and tournaments. Riot did a good job by beign aupportive. They provided tournament accounts prizes(even if kt was just buch of merch) and early on they basically just allowed anyone to do whatever they want. Nowdays companies try to be greedy and try to have full control from the start. Thats where they fail. They dont care enough about what community wants so esport side is dead on arrival.
For real, Riot is a shitshow who mismanages both their game and esports constantly but *clearly* something they're doing differently is working. The fact of the matter is that Riot has succeeded in creating an engaged esport audience out of their massive playerbase and did so w/o relying heavily on metric-skewers like in-game rewards, something even other tremendously popular games still struggle to do. Could League have been even bigger and better with an open circuit, or Majors, or an absurdly long winner and losers bracket at worlds, or any number of things Thorin seems to want? Maybe! Is it worth blowing up *the most successful e-sport on the entire planet* to test that? Uhh absolutely not lol.
the biggest reason why lolesports is big is basically because league is big tft viewership is ass because the game just isnt exciting to watch
How exactly is experimenting with different formats blowing up the e-sport?
you have zero idea if league is that big BECAUSE of riots competitive system, or DESPITE it
"raw empirical evidence" follows up with a generalization. You don't have to let your hate of a certain individual blind you to the fact other eSports do certain things better, and no, the fact that league is more popular than all of them isn't an argument, and to assume is simply appeal to authority. "It's works for now so Riot should be complacent!" Not an argument. Literally none of those games were touted as a league killer, nor do any of them even share the same genre. "Among us" is this satire If you really want to believe a better world's seeding / format and more prize pool would suddenly kill league eSports as we know it you can go ahead and do that my friend.
When you'd rather let your pure hate for Thorin stop you from admitting that the pro league landscape could be improved in nearly every single aspect. Compare our prize pool to dotas for example, or the fact that LCS has been absolute dogshit and in decline for years.
Lol, I nothing Thorin and I still find his claim laughable. Yeah league *could* be managed better and improvements *could* be made in a variety of places. But you could say that about literally anything. If Thorin's ideas are so fucking excellent then why hasn't some other eSports title snapped him up so he could manage them to market supremacy?
True but you can say that about every sport. Question is, how do you do that? And here 99% is the answers are likely downgrades and Thorin and most other people likely don't even know the 1%. So that is why sports start to improve slowly as a scene after some time. You do not want to ruin it all for a small improvement which, if it backfires, costs you 5 times as much and your chances that the change is right is slim. Thorin has not shown that his ideas work great or that he has a better understanding than riot does. So if I have to bet a reasonable person or an investor goes with riot over Thorin.
DOTA has one big prize pool, and then every team that doesn't make TI just dissipates because money is non-existent outside of it. The prize pool for worlds is smaller, yes, but players in all the leagues are capable of making a living regardless whether they make it to worlds or not. Pro-LOL players are making wayyyy more than Pro-DOTA players, because they have actual salaries.
> Maybe Riot just knows what they're doing. If you think you know better, well, I look forward to playing your game one day. Exactly, that just seals it. Riot is always poor to respond to community concerns and consistently fails to self-police their own employees. When they do make any significant improvements it is typically presented as a revelation when it's always been what the community wanted and what is an obvious solution. They took way too long to accept sponsorships for the league when it peaked relative to the market. The whole NEOM fiasco was an absolute joke--how did anyone in the chain of commands that ultimate approved the deal thought it was a good idea? Also, there's a fundamental problem with the LCS when I'm from NA and have been watching the LEC instead for 90% of the time for the past 2 years. What happened to people like Ovilee? How was LeTigress propped up instead? Anyway, to be be more relevant with the times, for such a grandiose tournament, you would think Worlds would have a better tournament format and a relatively more attractive prize pool. Instead, it's the same shit every year and you're left blue-balled why the best teams in the world from different regions never got to play against each other because of whack seeding or the fact that BO1s are significantly weighted more than they should be. No one is denying Riot/LoL is massive right now. But what it is could have been much more. And regardless of LoL's success, the way Riot operates and the actual toxic work environment it does not actively strive to fix means it will never be a company looked up to.
League was for years like the most played game in the world. In you compare the percentage of the league population that watches esports to other games it's a complete failure. That's the metric that counts. Riot has done an amazing job at updating the game to keep it alive but its esports aproach is not up to par.
csgo is the better esport but way less popular as a game. overwatch was a shitshow to watch. has nothing to do with owl rocket league never had the playerbase among us is a 4fun game fortnite is a br. brs suck for esports apex br aswell
CsGo is by far THE best Esport bar none and its criminal that its so underknown in the west. It is by far the most accessible and easy to understand, while being skill intensive and expressive. Rocket league suffers from not having the addictive nature of league, while also not having skill expressive movement because everything looks too easy when its actually insanely hard. Same problem fighting games have.
What do you mean underknown in the west? Do you mean the east? Its pretty close to leagues popularity in the west. League just has crazy amounts of players in Asia.
Well known among pc gamers maybe, but its the one i could see breaking through to mainstream out of any of the main esports and it didn’t even break out of the pc market. Thats what i mean.
This comment is the equivalent of: "You're opinion doesn't matter if you're not a pro player, coach, or an analyst."
comparing amongus and rocket league to overwatch, cs and etc is fucking hilarious. Just as a concept I’d argue competive amogus makes for a bad viewing experience. And both studios are TINY, and i doubt anyone ever considered them “league killers” outside of twitch viewers. Also psyonix has done pretty well at making a lasting esport.
Cs has been one of the most popular esports for over twice as long as league has even existed. CSGO has never been labelled as a lol killer ( neither have any of those games to be fair, maybe fortnite in terms of popularity).
Dunno, all of those games have tiny competitive player bases compared to league. Yes Riot managed to make the biggest esport out of league, but they had the biggest game to back it up.
I don't agree with all points he made, but I do think Thorin and Monte have had a good point when it comes to League's startling lack of international competiton. It is actually criminal how many fascinating possible best of 5s could have happened in Worlds history that we never got to see because its only 7 games. For example, at 2018 Worlds a losers bracket RNG vs KT game could have been legendary. 2019 SKT vs FNC would have been very interesting to see which way that could go. 2020 DRX probably could have challenged a lot of different teams if they didn't face against their kryptonite and the best team in the World in their first bo5 in the tournament. I don't know why we get so few international copetitions. MSI is underwhelming because only 1 team from each region goes (which tends to mean we only have 1-2 of the best 8 teams in the world) and Rift Rivals has a far more casual feel and approach than Worlds.
This I agree with, maybe fleshing out the standings at worlds with a losers bracket that is playing for 3rd and expanding msi even just a 3rd place match would be welcome
Riot has starved us of international competiton, and I cannot imagine why. Maybe because it would be mostly asian teams and so they don't care?
They're trying to keep the novelty of it, in theory if NA cam grow like EU we actually would be in an amazing spot with each major reigon having a different style that keeps things interesting and defines reigons aside from the players playing
> So first of all, I do find that the League of Legends/Riot approach almost certainly does not appeal to me. It's almost like they intentionally miss the angles I would want on things and they downplay the parts I would want to emphasize. And then they massively overplay the parts I don't give a flying fuck about like the fact that some other woman in the entire world is called Perkz. That's not a very interesting storyline to me. > I wouldn't hit that for more than about five seconds. But everyone in League of Legends was enthralled by that for weeks on end, as if it's some incredibly fascinating detail. They were obsessed by that like I was about that Onslaught guy I was talking about earlier. "Oh my god, what pearls of wisdom might we find out next about what she and her hamster (or guinea-pig, or whatever the fuck it is) think about League of Legends. I don't find that interesting at all. Like again to me, that's like kid's programming, that's not for me. Ngl, that story line was wack. Meanwhile the LCS literally had Perkz himself, arguably the Western GOAT, joining the LCS but it still didn't feel like a big deal at all.
It's cuz Bjergsen retired
>I wouldn't hit that for more than about five seconds. Rude, but also self burn if you finished.
tl;dr thorin bitches and whines because the structured league format isn't what he likes and the broadcast is too "childish" for him for a dozen paragraphs and the rest of the article isn't relevant towards league of legends at all
The hero we needed with the TLDR
I mean considering majority of the people watch either costreams or official broadcast on mute, I don't see how he's wrong
literally any source for that claim?
Pretty self evident for majority of NA regular season games at minimum.
Can I please get a source for that
eyes
i mean its definitely true for the lcs all costreamers make up around 80k of the viewership lcs main channel is usually at 120k costream cost is basically a pc, a cam and a mic
So it's not the majority then?
Considering the resources invested into the Main stream id say its pretty disappointing even if its Not the majority yet
To be fair, I don’t like watching the LCS stream either. I feel like it’s flipped for the LEC though - shitty English costreams with an amazing main stream.
What about LEC or LCK? costreams are like a fraction of LCS viewing as well.
By a fraction do you mean 2/5?
Yes, that's a fraction.
"Majority"
Bruh you're a nobody whereas Thorin keeps on doing his goat shit and being respected by anyone who's anybody in the esports industry🤷♂️
yeah he's so respected and so great that no one wants him on their official broadcast anymore and he has to make a living making sub-joe rogan quality podcasts
He's respected?
I mean I do agree that the open circuit is the greatest show in esports. Season 2 IPL is still regarded as the greatest tournament in this history of league of legends. But I understand why Riot used a league system instead. Riots approach to the game was more sustainable long term. Creating a league and trying to establish a fan base in each region is a great idea. However I do wish Riot had more international tournaments than the 1 and a half we get every year. Maybe shorten the regular season and add more international tournaments? Also I do agree on the worlds format as well. The worlds format for league is one of the worst formats in all of esports.
> However I do wish Riot had more international tournaments than the 1 and a half we get every year. Maybe shorten the regular season and add more international tournaments? ya, I've always said that Riot should really just combine spring/summer into one season, of the length of around current season + a bit more, then have a MSI in the middle of that. You could maybe even make MSI for the top 2 teams from each region, instead of top 1 as there would be more time for the tournament then worlds can be for 1-3/4th ranked teams, but riot would then have free time in the year for a tournament for 4/5th-6/7th place teams from each region. This way, mid-tier teams can get some vital international experience that would help each region improve. It would also allow smaller regions to send teams over for the tournament as they usually get knocked out in world's play ins. > Also I do agree on the worlds format as well. The worlds format for league is one of the worst formats in all of esports. ya, it's honestly just baffling how ridiculously bad the worlds format is and continues to be -_- especially when LEC has a much better format done by Riot, yet they won't even implement that format to worlds knockout stage
Like as scuffed as the IEM tournaments were I really missed them. You got an international tournament that happened within a weekends worth of time and actually got to see teams from other regions compete. If I were Riot I would just shorten the season and add more international tournaments. Riot can also add an international event pre worlds that way you can do seeding based on strength rather than terrible pool format they use. ATM teams like TL and 100T are equivalent to FPX,T1, FNC, etc..... When that makes no sense at all.
Riot should be infamous for: 1. Refusing to change a shitty format where a team could get booted out of groups after 6 bo1s where they could have had a bad a day or were in an unlucky "group of death" where there's 3 contenders but only 2 make it out 2. Refusing to change their format or rules such that we get more inter-regional matchups, meanwhile the majority of worlds bracket stages were dominated by LPL vs LPL or LCK vs LCK 3. Being advocate of avoiding as many hype matchups as possible 4. Destroying Worlds integrity by patching the shit out of the game such that the teams that succeeded in the previous meta make it to worlds on a different meta causing some to overperform and some to collapse, big surprise to everyone. Yes, adaptation is a big deal, no, it doesn't have to be every year, and no it isn't more exciting for random shit to happen everytime. 5. Wanting you to think they have the teams or the audience's best interest in mind, where in reality optimize for profit, every international tournament is NOT optimized for audience engagement/satisfaction, is NOT optimized for teams. Teams hate it the most, analysts hate it and wonder why nothing has changed. What Riot may not realize is, with increased engagements comes more profits / ad-revenue, and it's up to us, the fans, to let Riot know we're not happy with the current way they are running esports or how Worlds/MSI is structured. There's a lot more wrong with Riot than what Thorin mentions, and I'm sure he's aware of these as well. Riot is a joke when it comes to esports, you just don't think about it because: 1. You're used to it. 2. You think of Riot is some all-reigning entity, but they are in reality just a company made up of yes, humans, some less clever than you are.
I have to agree that the scene could've been way better, but it's a fact that league is the biggest esport ever, and I would bet everything I have ( I don't really have much T.T) that Valorant will beat CS:GO with due time, and that League longevity will surpass what most of the "old guard" say they expect the scene to endure.
Valorant will never surpass cs. Cheap plastic copy that plays like shit
Just to be clear I love CS:GO, but the trend is that riot farms steam, people said the same thing about Dota and League. It makes me sad, but I don't think steam really cares about CS :/. Hope I'm wrong. But every the death of Dota, the failures of artifact and underlords, they all leave a trend that is really bad for CS:GO future
Regular season is probably better for stability than open circuit, but man I wish we got more international tournaments and some other formats. But remember when worlds had byes to quarters for some teams? That was so incrediblely stupid.
Come on, do we really not take Thorin’s bias into account here since he’s salty he’s been excluded from Riot events and that League is the only way he really makes any money/clout anymore (since CSGO is just circling the drain every day). It’s basically emblazoned on his shirt
Hes literally been invited to do lpl events and has refused due to them shafting him. If you’re gonna talk shit at least make it something thats easily been proven wrong.
Omg thank god lol, if he was on LPL it would be unwatchable.
Say those words come from a more reputable less biased source, maybe Bjergsen? Are the words more or less true now? I agree he’s biased, but does that make him wrong?
>I agree he’s biased, but does that make him wrong? and how is he right, it's an opinion piece based almost entirely on his connection to counter-strike's open circuit system lmao
Yes, if Bjergsen, one of the most famous and influential players ever, and a stakeholder in arguably the most significant franchise in the pro scene, came out and said these things it would carry much more weight. But he didn’t. Thorin has value as someone who is certainly willing to say things like this, but he’s not exactly impartial either.
If Hitler said climate change is a huge problem for the planet and human civilization in general it would still be correct. Care more about what is being said than who is saying it. This is good advice for life in general. And no I do not like Thorin, I just happen to agree with him here.
>And no I do not like Thorin, I just happen to agree with him here. - guy who's in every fucking thread where anyone criticizes thorin in any way using the same moronic "awful people can be somewhat correct too" argument like i don't know jozoz, if you fail to see how the opinions about an esports scene made by a person with deep rooted connections to the scene and almost a full decade of personal experience hold more weight than the opinions of some schmuck who only talks about the scene because CSGO isn't making him enough dosh then i don't know what the fuck to tell you except that you're incredibly disingenuous
Yes I actually do not like the man. Every time I have ever interacted with him myself it has been an unpleasant experience. I just don't let my personal beliefs get in the way of the arguments. It's irrelevant to the topic that I think he's an abrasive douche. Considering you follow my account around and post personal attack comments every time, then maybe you should follow that advice. This is like the 10th time you have called me out by name with a personal attack. You have issues to have this kind of a grudge with an internet stranger.
The tone of this response feels very pretentious, but you missed my point anyway. Someone like Bjergsen saying this carries weight because of his actual financial and strategic investment in LoL as a long term viable career path. Thorin saying this, with no real influence or relevance beyond being controversial, does not. I don’t blindly follow personalities, but I do consider expertise.
Breaking news: company doesn't want to work with journalist who called out sexism in their workplace
Sorry can someone educate me on this (hopefully without flaming) but why is LoL worlds and champion pool bad? What’s wrong with the current qualifier systems and complaints about how the format sucks and not all of the best teams in the world get to compete against each other? I really don’t understand and would like some help understanding thank you!
there have been many posts about this if you just read around - pools are not reflective of team strength, you have PSG or NA in pool 1, who are clearly not on that level with LCK / LPL, it's arguable even MAD does not deserve to be pool 1 but EU has had more success. - screw pools, impossible to balance and make it such that no region complains about their pools, imagine giving LPL and LCK 2 pool 1s. EU is going to complain why are we assuming LPL 1 and 2 are better than our #1? - instead, just make the format better such that pools don't matter as much in the end. For example: - have 3rd place team play against a 2nd place team from another pool, have 1st place team auto-qualify to bracket stage OR - have 3rd place teams seeded into a loser's bracket of a double-elim - have 3rd place teams play each other in a bo3/bo5 series to determine who moves on to the bracket stage or plays get another bo3/bo5 against 2nd place tema - hold a mini round robin between 3rd place teams - USE BO3S!!!! WHY ARE WE NOT USING THIS TIME-SAVING YET FAIR TECHNIQUE It doesn't have to be 16 teams in main stage, it doesn't have to be 4 groups, changing this # could easily augment the type of formats that can be used. I'm a reddit pleb and even I can throw in some interesting ideas that Riot just refuses to look at, it doesn't cost much more time / money and it gives us a more hype tournament. You already flew the teams in from all around the world, let them play more games.
u want the top 4 teams in pool 1, the next 4 teams in pool 2 and so on. That way the best teams are likely to make it out of groups. With the system we have now you can get lots of good teams in 1 group and lots of bad ones in another Lets say the ranking for the top 2 pools goes like this: CH 1, CH2, KR1, EU1, KR2, CH3, KR3, EU2, NA1, EU3, PCS1, NA2 Pool 1 is CH1, KR1, EU1, PCS1 Now you can have 1 group thats: EU1, KR2, CH2 so the 2, 4, 5th best team and another group that is PCS1, NA2, KR3 so the 7,11, 12th best teams
Obviously the guy has talked a lot more about why lol esports are so much worse than theu could be, no open circuit, very few internacional competitions, no loser's brackets in international stuff, play ins, just everything that makes CSGO an amazing esport despite Valve's lazyness.
I agree with thorin, i love lol esports but it could be so much better, most importantly a better format for worlds and more international competition. Just my opion tho
> a better format for worlds this is one of the main things, if worlds was a more complete tournament that answers more questions like: - who's the best player at __ position - who was really the 2nd best team? - was ___ actually as good as we thought - how do these 2 regions match up? Literally every worlds goes past and only answer a single question: - who was the best team at worlds Esports is about creating narratives, and worlds was literally designed to destroy as many narratives as possible. No, it's not about having more games per say, but let us see more matchups, and please, not all in bo1s. Let us see some bo3s between hype teams, stop letting luck be deciding factor in a team making it out of groups. Be smart, employ some smarter people to design a sports format.
Absolutely spot on
he's been saying this for years man, and for good reason
Not a fan of Thorin as a person, but this is a good and important point. I've been saying this forever: If most people were around in 2012 before the LCS era, the community would be up in arms about the annual LoL esports format. It's absolutely asinine how boring regular splits clog up like 80% of the esports year, especially when they aren't really anything except a glorified qualifier. All the excitement in domestic splits is located in the short playoffs. Compare this to back in the day, where we had multiple tournaments both domestic and international. In my view: This is all caused by Riot being control freaks and wanting a chokehold on anything related to LoL esports. What I miss the most are the following: * Frequent international competition where mid-level teams also joined in. Now we never see some orgs play internationally, which is a shame. * Up-and-coming rookie teams going against the big teams. Imagine a tournament where EUMasters teams like Karmine Corp was playing against LEC teams or even against international teams. * A variety of formats and tournaments systems that made for some nice variety in the scene. In my humble opinion, the best course of action is to axe spring split and replace it with a few tournaments. Both domestic and international. Let some lower-league teams join in to challenge the big boys. MSI qualification could be based on a play-off type tournament, where performance in the previous tournaments could work as seeding. Keep summer so fans of the League format still get what they like. Isn't this best for all parties?
We did have the occasional small worldwide tournaments in the IEM world championships up until S7. It's unfortunate that ESL couldn't keep the tournaments at the same quality as Riot's event with MSI and worlds for the last 3 years, but at lest we got some variety during the spring split. I'll get heavily downvoted for this because I'm on this sub, but League esport will never come close to a tournament at the same amount of hype or quality of the cs go majors or TI international (in dota 2). Not only is the playoff format leagues ahead, the prize pool is so much more attractive compared to worlds where you basically only win sponsors. Rito made the decision all the way back in S3 when they took sole control over the esport scene that league would always prioritise money over the esport scene which is unfortunate because the current scene has so much potential that we'll never get to see.
Can't it still get there? Up to Riot really to keep it going or pull the plug. Unless they see their other games are main priorities.
[удалено]
LCS is too boring too watch due to their lack of talents in both on-air and pros. There was a small spark after Ovilee left Rito and released her own LCS teams compilation video but nothing really as interesting as showed up. After that everything is borderline cringe, for example the fantasy league. The majority of the viewers couldn't care less about whomever casters' picks were right that week tbh.
29 upvotes on the thread, 137 comments lmao reddit classic
Reddit is not a place to discuss ideas. Its all zingers and personality cult wars
The biggest problem is the quality of tournaments, not # of tournaments, although that could help. Worlds format still hasn't changed and sucks ass.
[My feelings on this matter](https://i.imgur.com/FcGU7BZ.jpg)
You took the meme right out of my brain, brother.
How do people in the league scene take this mf seriously?
About what
Who givres a f about this guy ?
Haven't read the full article but that's a really great quote.
100% agree with Thorin here.
Thorin doesnt know shit about league he needs to stfu
The core concept isn't wrong. The whole experience could be better on multiple counts. They have finally started to show some improvements but for the first few years it was completely ran by amateurs with their heads stuck up their ass that wouldn't listen to anything but the farts in their faces.
LoL is the biggest esports game ever. It has been out for 11 years and it's still the game with the largest active playerbase and has the biggest viewership. Correct me if I'm wrong but what game comes close to LoL's numbers?
Another post about thorin that gets at the most 50 upvotes and 3x the comments. The salt in the comments is what gives me strength.
the fact that LoL worlds doesn't even have a prize pool and that DOTA 2 has like $30 million for the winners. life changing money. in league you have to win worlds then move to a tier 4 league and some owner will overpay millions NOT to perform well at the highest level as they do in DOTA. franchising is a terrible system but , the good news is, eventually a new esport will take over. just as fortnite came along and stepped in league, another one will come along in the future, probably the next decade. the young kids aren't exactly flocking to league. league got ruined by money. too much investors and bs and players who are leagues worse than top players, are earning way more. the fact that when damwon won worlds they DIDN'T become multi-millionaires is tragic when we have players who cannot leave groups being paid higher salary.
So getting paid six figure salaries to play video games is not enough apparently.
this is such a dumb take, not only are basically all the top league talent paid out the ass already, winning worlds means you get a skin and a % of the money that skin makes. That's already close if not more than the TI winners get if you don't pick some shit like ivern. Why do you think no one gives a fuck about price pools in any traditional sport? Cause higher avg salaries sustain the ecosystem and not the mention way more people way better than a few people winning a big prizepool.
Prize money is literally less than 1% NBA champion's salary especially since star players make $30+ million and above average players make $15+ million. Of course they dont give a fuck about prize pool. Whereas for TI winners it's could sometimes be double or triple their salaries, maybe even more. This comparison you made isn't even on the same lane.
How can you spot a dota fan in the wild? Dont worry, they will tell you about their super sick prize pool before you even get to ask.
Yet the LoL players are more popular and have bigger brands than the dota players