Last year Valve implemented their Major
Championship Series, hosting three, three million dollar
events as a supplement to The
International. Valve's
intention seemed to be to enforce a semblance of order and
consistency on Dota's competitive scene while improving the quality.
Initially a few critics expressed concern that the Major season would
eliminate other cherished tournaments, but by the conclusion of TI6
these fears were gone. The lingering worry was with the tight
schedule between all four events, and for 2016/2017 season Valve has
reduced the Majors to two, winter and early spring events.
It was with great surprise, Valve
announced the winter Major would be in the United States. Since The
International is in Seattle every year, it had been supposed the
Majors would be spread across the globe to allow each region to host
a series (Europe, Russia, China, and South East Asia). But the
Boston Major occurred live at the Wang theatre (a location I used to
see the Nutcracker when I was younger) from December 7th through the
10th. Living twenty minutes away, I bought a ticket ($29 for a 10am
to 10pm event) for Friday's quarterfinal and arrived around three.
Compared to the International's unusual playoffs (an upper and lower
bracket, where losing in the upper knocks a team to the lower, and a
loss in the lower results in elimination) Boston's was a common
best-of-three single elimination.
Prior to the four day live event, the
sixteen teams had been split into four groups and each team played
the other members of the group. This was called the Group Stage, and
its purpose was to seed the playoffs, but Valve needs to choose a
better method. Even if talent is equally spread across the groups,
playing three opponents is not an effective manner of determining
positions in a bracket. Fans understand there is only so much time
to be spent in pre-playoff games, but if Valve isn't going to change
its format, it should be transparent about how it creates groups.
Currently they do not publish how they determine the teams in a
group. It seems unlikely they use a random determination, but
undoubtedly fans would like to know.
This insufficient format produced a
disturbing result. With most teams playing only four or five games,
a few strong teams under-performed, and found themselves third in
their group. In one corner of the bracket (four of the sixteen
teams) resided three teams with a significant chance of victory at
the Major; Wings (2016 TI winners), Virtus Pro (the hot team), and
Evil Geniuses (perennial favorite). Expanding to include the entire
left side of the Bracket (half of the sixteen teams), would add OG,
two time Major winner, and favorite entering TI6. Prior to the group
stage (whose sample size is insufficient to producing accurate
results), these four teams would have been considered to be the top 5
teams. The right side included only two strong teams, Newbee and
Digital Chaos.
For those wondering whether going to a game is different than watching online, the experience is similar to professional sports like baseball or football.
Standing at the top of the aisle, one's
greeted by the mixture of sounds; fans cheering, announcers, and the
game itself. Everyone's acting as if it's a party. Tickets for the
event were general admission, and people are spread across the room,
not concentrated near the stage. Some viewers are relaxing in the
rear seats, talking and joking with friends, while there are still a
sprinkling of open seats even in the front row. The Wang is full but
not packed, with about every tenth seat open at 3pm on a Friday. A
mammoth screen, with a resolution which puts my 1980 x 1080 to shame,
stretches from stage left to stage right. After standing
unconsciously, but upon reflection, awkwardly, in the middle of the
aisle, staring, I slump into an open seat. After another moment, the
eyes slide from the screen to the two, ten foot high boxes on stage.
Inside each of these soundproof (or at least word-proof), sit five
young (oldest player was 27, average age 21), men. One of these
teams is going to take home one million dollars to split between
them. And finally, in the orchestral pit sit three duos, casting
(commenting) the game in English, Russian, and Chinese (The theatre
can only hear the English, but the others are for viewers online).
As sight settles into a semblance of
reality, the ear begins to rehear the jumble of sound as individual
parts. While the whole experience, sight and sounds, incredible, the
single thump of Omniknight's
hammer hitting a creep stands out. The simplest sound, and
yet the most stirring aspect of the event. It seemed to reverberate
throughout the theatre, a thump as if it was the most solid object in
the universe smacking into firm resisting flesh. In a strange way
there's isn't anything which better represents the quality of the
Boston Major.
The games themselves, NP vs Digital
Chaos and Ad Finem vs LGD Forever Young, were satisfactory. One
wouldn't expect them to be the best match-ups (only DC was considered
a champion contender), but I had higher expectations for NP then they
were able to uphold. Their series was the quickest of the bracket,
the most one-sided of the playoffs. The Ad Finem/LGD series was
significantly better. Though Ad Finem won the first match easily,
and LGD beat Ad Finem without much difficulty in the second, the
third was a contentious back and forth.
In between matches (half an hour
between sets, fifteen minutes between games) analysts, commentators,
and entertaining personalities kept the talk flowing. The screen was
always occupied by someone of reasonable entertainment value
(assuming you'd want to be at one of these events to begin with).
I was glad to go, especially as I doubt
I'll have the opportunity again. Boston is an unlikely location to
receive a second visit. And considering the life of any individual
video game I would be surprised if Dota 2 survives another five
years.
A quick note on the patch which came
out today. The main impact, aside from reinventing the map, is the
introduction of the talent tree. In addition to the normal
abilities, each hero now receives bonuses at level 10,15, 20, and 25.
The unique twist is that at each of these plateaus, the player can
choose from one of two options. This adds decision and diversity to
the game. Players will ask themselves questions such as, “Would
having more health or quicker movement as Wraith Kinghelp against the
enemy?”
The overall effect will be to make
heroes more deadly (while a few will have greater survivability).
The problem is: though the developer has reduced the amount of
experience necessary to reach each level, support players are going
to suffer a double disappointment. Support players are strong early
in the game, but by the ten minute mark fall behind cores in both
items and levels. At minute ten, some supports will be lucky enough
to have reached level six, but cores will be around eight or nine.
As soon as enemy heroes reach level ten, they will experience a surge
in power. When they reach fifteen, another boost, even stronger than
the first. Some supports will have finally reached ten when the
cores are fifteen, some not. Supporting heroes will be weaker,
comparatively then they are now. Maybe cores will adapt to allow
supporting heroes to gain levels quicker, but if you've ever played
public games, you'll understand why this idea is unlikely.
The other factor is more of a
disappointment, than a weakness. Supports will never reach level 25,
never unlock the last upgrade. And this is frustrating, because each
heroes level 25 upgrade is the best one. All the other traits boost
health, or damage, or move speed, or some general trait. But the
level 25 upgrades boost the abilities. They are the personalized
traits. And supports (even with the lower exp cost) will never get
there, so they're more for show than use.
At least this is my intial impression,
and I hope I'm wrong.
Titan Souls next Monday.
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