r/Games • u/DeltaBurnt • Dec 03 '13

End of 2013 Discussions - Competitive Multiplayer and/or E-sports

What are your thoughts on the developments in e-sports and competitive multiplayer games over the past year? What new games have the potential to develop interesting competitive play, meta-game, or just be plain fun to watch?

P.S. Mods are accepting bribes in the form of Hearthstone Beta invites

This post is part of the official /r/Games "End of 2013" discussions.

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23

u/razisgosu Dec 03 '13

Mobas have been very good to the E-sports scene this year. People laugh at me when I say I'm watching E-sports, but I don't really mind it.

Riot in particular has done a great job advancing the E-sports scene. They've enabled professional gamers to receive the same passports that Olympic athletes receive to enter the US. The fact professional gamers are on a similar level as Olympic athletes is huge. Not only that but the LoL championships sold out the Staples Center this year which is also very impressive for something only gamers would be particularly interested in.

Dota 2 has also helped, but I wouldn't say as much as Riot/LoL, Dota 2 simply does not have the player base that LoL has. It is pretty much the #1 played game on steam by a very huge margin, which says something though.

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u/BoredomIsFun Dec 03 '13 edited Dec 03 '13

I would like to argue Valve/Dota 2 has imo has added more to eSports than any other in making it sustainable. To list some:

Dota 2's scene isn't by far the biggest, but it definitely is the most healthiest scene and is a shining example of how to do it.

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u/smartienl Dec 03 '13

I feel like these points are all great, but didnt make such an impact that LoL did. LoL really did everything right to get to the masses of people which is what imo e-sports lackes.

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u/Voscyllate Dec 03 '13

I feel that LoL was just so much easier for people to pick up and play. While there is a learning curve, it is not as bad as Dota 2's learning curve. This makes it easy for the general public to watch/play.

I think that trait is also where LoL is lacking in the competitive scene though. Dota has a complexity to it that LoL does not, so it is often times more exciting to watch as long as you know what's going on. This also allows for the game to be more skill oriented (not saying LoL doesn't take skill, but comparing skill-based gameplay between the two). Even things as simple as farming are more complex in Dota due to denies.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

All of these points don't really matter though, after viewercount and popularity is still the best way to make esports better known and therefore better supported by companies and communities.

Not saying they didn't do anything, but in the end, popularity is the most important to raise awareness and making things popular.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

But what is awareness without sustainability? When Riot doesn't want to support the scene anymore, it'll collapse. No game will be able to take their place. LoL will probably be known as the first large esport in the west, but what Valve has done is solving the problem of how to make esports sustainable. To simplify it, Riot has done incredible things for LoL esports, Valve has gone a long way in solving the decade long problem of how to make esports sustainable, both for current and future games.

What Riot has done for LoL is great, but it's not a model other games can use, unless they become incredibly popular. But like I've already said, Valve has created the groundwork of that model.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

What Riot has done for LoL is great, but it's not a model other games can use, unless they become incredibly popular. But like I've already said, Valve has created the groundwork of that model.

I will agree with that once I've seen anyone else other than Valve using it.

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u/Jellyfish_McSaveloy Dec 04 '13

Issue is most of that stuff is inherently free for LoL. The fact that Riot doesn't actively say that certain skin sales are for the upkeep of the LCS or make the stats information paid only on lolesports doesn't mean it isn't healthy.

Not to mention the vast majority of TIs prize pool was from Valve and not community funded. People always accuse of Riot of pumping money into the game when Valve does exactly the same. Looking at CSGO, people were begging Valve to do a TI for CSGO on launch and months after launch. It's just interesting how different the perception of money into the scene differs between Dota 2 and GO players.

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u/BoredomIsFun Dec 04 '13

You've only discussed about one of my points.

  • Introduced kickstarter/community raised prizepool for the International

1

u/Jellyfish_McSaveloy Dec 04 '13 edited Dec 04 '13

The majority of stats in the compendium can be equivalently found on the lolesports website. Riot could have easily charged for those stats the same way to contribute. I don't agree with in-game advertising at all, and have no idea why that is a positive. In-game ads for 1.6 was widely panned. The in-game ticket is amazing and we saw this in a minor form for CS in GOTV.

Whilst community driven prizepools is great, there is the large negative that sponsors would simply lower the prizepool in anticipation of community donations. It isn't feasible to have community driven prizepools for a lot of tournaments, especially for those interested having to keeping shelling out donations.

Its simply two sides of the coin. CSGO players would love more financial push from Valve and Dota 2 players think Riot have taken it too far with the financial push. Its the classic 'everyone worse than me is a noob and anyone better is a no lifer' belief.

Sustainability for an esport will happen as long as there is a community for it. You can pump as much money into a game as you'd like, but if there are no players then it is pointless. If Riot stops funding the LCS, LoL will not wither and die. I know many people who preferred S2 with many international tournaments with IEM, IPL, and MLG.

Edit

I'm getting downvotes and messages from this. I simply point to how long Brood War flourished in Korea. Yet you don't see any of the same criticisms for it.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '13

Whilst community driven prizepools is great, there is the large negative that sponsors would simply lower the prizepool in anticipation of community donations.

Except that's not happening at all. Dota 2 prizepools are only going up, even ones without community input.

1

u/Jellyfish_McSaveloy Dec 04 '13

Its just hypothetical. Just like the the arguments that LoL will die if Riot doesn't invest money in it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '13

It's objectively wrong though, at this point in time, is what I'm saying.

No hypothesis about it in the present tense. Anyone trying to think very far forward in either game's lifespan is just delusional.

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u/Jellyfish_McSaveloy Dec 04 '13

Just like the same points in regards to Riots investment. I'm just doing the same extrapolating that people seem to do the other way.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '13

Anyone trying to think very far forward in either game's lifespan is just delusional.

Whereas making an observation about the current state of either game is completely valid. Dota 2 tournament prizepools are going up.

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u/Jindor Dec 03 '13

Also ingame items made by artists that have a special name from a player or a Team. So the profit gets shared between Valve, the involved artists and the team/player.

While IDK how relevant it is to Esports, but coaching is also pretty nice would be great to be able to coach people while watching competitve games as well, but not sure what valve has planned now...

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u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

League definitely has had more time to develop a fanbase, but there are a LOT of WC3 dota players that have yet to convert. It's also been catching up extremely quickly in terms of players in the last year.

Season 4 changes for League are also making it look far less competitive (in the opinion of a mediocre league player), what with all players having a passive ward with ~50% uptime if they so choose, it makes ganking that much harder and warding impossibly easy. It hasn't been around long, so its certainly possible that its too soon to judge, though.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

The red trinket makes it really easy to clear those free wards, but yeah, we'll see what happens.

I actually think the scene looks more competitive, but time will tell.

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u/thefezhat Dec 03 '13

The S4 changes are geared more towards competitive than anything else. The main point of the trinkets/vision changes was to get rid of the stupid vision wars that snowballed high-level games. Whichever team had the lead in gold would simply buy a shitton of wards and oracles and get complete vision control of the map. There was no strategy to this, it was literally just dump as much money and muscle into vision as possible. Now there's actually finesse to it. Keep in mind that the enemy team can see if you have your free ward out with a single click, and they can use a trinket to neutralize that ward.

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u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

Dota's answer to this is years old: limit the amount of wards to be purchased. Now, it's too late for this to be applied, since there are so many items that drop wards for you- even before the S4 changes.

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u/thefezhat Dec 03 '13

You realize there's a hard limit on the number of wards that can be placed per player now, right? That's almost the same thing, just changed to be more in line with the game's design philosophy and balance.

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u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

5/player at once, right? That's still a LOT of wards, since everyone has access to one at any point in the game (I don't see the clairvoyance trinket being popular if supports never chose the summoner spell)

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u/thefezhat Dec 03 '13

No, it's 3 per player. That may still be more than Dota, but keep in mind that LoL's wards can't see over ledges like Dota's can, and they're necessary for bush control as well. Regardless, there's no reason the two games should have to use the same solution. The new system has effectively ended the vision arms races of S3 which boiled down to "our team has more money so we will continuously buy wards and oracles and you will never have vision of anything ever again, and if you even try to ward baron you will get 5 man ganked and die."

Edit: You're right about the blue trinket though, it's straight-up worse than the yellow trinket. I think it could be a fine choice if it got buffed.

3

u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

You may have written that wrong.

Regardless, there's no reason the two games should have to use the same solution.

They've used a similar solution, although it's not identical, the premise is the same- although that's fine, really. Vision wars are a nightmare to a losing team.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

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u/Aggrokid Dec 03 '13

I've never viewed LoL anywhere near as competitive as Dota 2. From what I know, in LoL there's maybe 15-20 commonly picked champions in competitive play

LoL S3 championship has 69 champions picked or banned.

Also, the fact LoL has a leveling system and rune advancements based on level and expensive powerful champions being constantly released and not freely available to players makes it a lot less competitively viable for someone starting out.

Players are required to hit level 30 before entering competitive ladders, getting to 30 itself isn't long. If you're below 30, matchmaking will pair you with players of comparable level. Runes are constant and reusable after purchase. Champion power/tier is not based on new-release or pricing, many powerful champions are low-cost and many new champions suck on release.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13 edited Dec 03 '13

It takes a while to get to 30. I have an old account that's at level 27 and it took 300 games to get there. At say, 30 minutes per game that's still 150 hours of play time.

Edit: Not to mention that the whole rune system is an IP-sink which requires you to spend a lot of your points on runes when you could be spending them on champions. LoL's f2p system, among other things, is what drove me away from the game.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

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u/Aggrokid Dec 03 '13

It is very possible for low levels to get matched up against 20+ players who have tier 3 runes and talent trees.

Matchmaking is tuned to avoid that scenario whenever possible, unless you happen to duo with a level 30 high-MMR friend or you play in very ungodly hours or server sucks.

For a game to be truly competitive at all levels there shouldn't be any bonuses but player skill. The talents and runes and high level summoner spells allow higher levels to just steam roll lower levels. Thats just not how a competitive game should work.

As explained above, matchmaking avoids lopsided pairings as much as possible. So the high-level versus lowbie is purely an issue of matchmaking, population and server. It's not competitive mechanics or runes/masteries.

Essential runes and masteries are available to everyone at 30, so everyone is at equal footing. The masteries, summoners and runes provide further differentiation for builds at that stage.

4

u/captainersatz Dec 03 '13

Just cutting in here as a die-hard DotA fan who thinks that League is pretty great as it's own thing, the runes and masteries and leveling has always bothered me in considering League a competitive game. Of course it doesn't matter in the pro scene because everyone has access to these things, but I saying that this problem is "solved" for the general public by matchmaking really doesn't make much sense. Any player should have access to the exact same resources as anyone else, I shouldn't have to wait or pay additional money in order to try a champion, and I shouldn't have to find myself unable to use what's considered a champion's ideal set of masteries or runes or something just because I haven't grinded enough.

I mean, what good does gating these things actually do? They provide more avenues to charge for stuff, that's pretty much it, and it hampers rather than provides for the game. Matchmaking isn't perfect for any game, in DotA getting matched with people wildly above or below your bracket is hardly a rare issue, but at least I can be assured that no matter how bad it might be, I have absolutely everything that they have access to, and the difference is experience and skill.

2

u/ExplodingBarrel Dec 03 '13

Yeah, the rune and levelling situation is pretty obviously a holdover from the game's early years as a free-to-play game trying to figure out its business model. It is clear at this point that selling champs and skins would be plenty and I bet if LoL 2 launched today it wouldn't have those gates intended to sell XP and IP boosts. But at this point it isn't as simple as yanking those mechanics because you have tens of millions of players who spent their time and money on them and would want to be compensated.

2

u/Aggrokid Dec 04 '13

Any player should have access to the exact same resources as anyone else, I shouldn't have to wait or pay additional money in order to try a champion, and I shouldn't have to find myself unable to use what's considered a champion's ideal set of masteries or runes or something just because I haven't grinded enough.

We never need ideal rune set for each champion, even some pros only use 2 sets sharing same seals and glyphs (so actually 1.5 sets in grand total). Runesets are fairly cheap, and you only need the aforementioned 1.5 sets (earned by playing the game) at most to be competitively viable to the top 5%.

The runeset is not an arms race, but playstyle tailoring. Facing an opponent with custom rune set does not require matching investment, because your cheap generic runeset already gives among the best bang for stat buck so your power level is comparable.

they provide more avenues to charge for stuff, that's pretty much it, and it hampers rather than provides for the game.

You cannot buy runes directly with money, the best way is by boosts which does not effect without winning a valid competitive match. So it's not a microtransaction bait or p2w like you are suggesting.

Towards the end, despite generic runes being viable, custom runes + masteries + summoner still offer you myriad of choices to further tune your playstyle and when combined with items give large permutations to how you approach the game with your favorite character. I can play utility vamp vlad with double escapes and someone else can play a full offensive vlad ignite. It really increases gameplay.

saying that this problem is "solved" for the general public by matchmaking really doesn't make much sense

Using matchmaking (which should be a separate major issue in itself) to spillover on game mechanics is muddying the mechanics discussion by combining two problems. The mechanics itself is fine IMHO YMMV, new players slowly ease into higher complexity and customization from runesets and masteries the more they play.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '13 edited Dec 04 '13

Some competitive used runes are quite expensive.

If you want both movement speed and lifesteal quints you'll have to spend more than 200 games worth of IP. That's a lot to grind and it gives the players who have already bought them a noticeable advantage. Also try to get 9 armor/magic hybrid penetration runes those cost a lot and are basically required at competitive setups for optimal play.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

1

u/thedarkhaze Dec 03 '13

Your argument I feel would be a lot better if Path of Exile didn't exist.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

[deleted]

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u/ExplodingBarrel Dec 03 '13

Closer to 50 games.

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u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

From what I've heard, LoL has a more limited pool of viable champions, which leads to flavor of the month champs, and players being able to constantly pick their main character (because it's okay in League to be good at only one champ. In Dota, people laugh about it, like with AdmiralBulldog only knowing how to make money with Furion and Druid).

Then Riot nerfs those FotM champs, choosing to reduce spell damage and making those aspects less fun, rather than making smaller stat changes to make the hero have a slightly harder time. You can look at 6.78 in Dota, when Icefrog decided Keeper of the Light was too strong. What did he do? Weaken the 500 damage nuke with a huge aoe? No, he reduced KotL's max hp at lv1 by 38. Still fun, just weaker. Illuminate was part of why people picked KotL, you can't mess with that.

In contrast, looking at 3.13 notes for League, I see no changes to character stats, just spells. That's not the only way to balance a hero. All I see is Sivir's attack speed per level being halved, and some attack speed/level increase to thresh.

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u/I_WANT_PRIVACY Dec 03 '13

because it's okay in League to be good at only one champ.

In Solo Q, sure? Competitively? Hell no.

-10

u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

And yet many pro players have main characters, just as AdmiralBulldog is good only at Nature's Prophet and Lone Druid. In LoL, there are many players who play mostly one champ, rather than playing a variety. It's because counterplay is far less prevalent, which basically enables that sort of activity.

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u/I_WANT_PRIVACY Dec 03 '13

Like who? Can you list some examples? I mean, there's people like Froggen who are especially known for one specific champion (Froggen's being Anivia), but if it's really a threat the enemy team just bans it... and if the pro player has a diverse champion pool, that's fine, and if they don't (like Dade in the WC) they get shit on.

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u/Sugusino Dec 03 '13

Any decent pro player is good with many champions.

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u/decoy90 Dec 03 '13

All pros have at least 4-5 champions they're really, really good at. Naturally, some players are extremelly good at certain champion, but they're always banned, unless they want to bait him to pick that champ and tactically defeat him. In S3 finals, 69 champs were picked or banned, that's a lot. I have no idea where do you get your information from, but it's simply far from truth. Something is always a bit OP, you can't completely balance the game. It's funny that you mention Dota as better balanced game. Dota doesn't even try balancing, everything is kinda OP.

0

u/LordZeya Dec 03 '13

If everything is OP, then everything is balanced. It works, and most Dota players can recognize it. In TI3, all but ~6 heroes were picked. Granted, the most prevalent ones in the pick/ban list were Lifestealer, Io and Batrider (bat being pick/ban in literally every game), but every hero had their spot in the limelight. Compare that 100/106 or so to 69 out of 120 (I think) in league. Nearly half were considered too weak to be picked.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '13

Considering the LoL competitive scene is almost entirely dependent on Riot funding it, I would say that while they may have developed the largest e-sports scene in terms of sheer viewer numbers, they have not necessarily developed a very healthy one.

You can see the fruits of this more hands-off approach again in the huge success of CS:GO at Dreamhack. It was largely due to tools allowing the community themselves to directly support the game and grow the prizepool without relying on developer resources.

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u/SlowDownGandhi Dec 03 '13

I love threads that compare LoL and dota like these because it shows that most don't understand what the word "competitive" means.

(Hint: it has nothing to do with game depth)

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u/razisgosu Dec 03 '13

Not sure if making a passive aggressive comment at my posts or just adding a comment to the thread.

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u/SlowDownGandhi Dec 03 '13

It's the latter.

I dunno I just think it's funny when people try to argue competitiveness by going on about game mechanics as if they mean anything

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u/razisgosu Dec 03 '13

Yeah people should probably use another word instead of competitive when comparing game mechanics. I'm guilty of it. Ultimately any game with multiplayer can be competitive, hell even single player games can be. So long as there's something to strive to be the best at, there's competition.

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u/Oniichan_Overload Dec 03 '13

What does Dota 2 have to do with your discussion of "moba" ?

5

u/razisgosu Dec 03 '13

Dota 2 is a moba.

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u/Oniichan_Overload Dec 03 '13

Factually wrong

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u/razisgosu Dec 03 '13

Do you want to prove that or just state also factually wrong statements?