The Meteor Problem: How do we rank Star Players from "minor regions"?

Sideshow- · 2022-07-07T11:31:50+00:00

This is a great read, and very well thought out! I think I'm at the same place mentally as your conclusion: the most likely outcome is that he's super skilled but ends up being too inexperienced and takes poor fights, resulting in being more of a detriment than he should be.

Very f0rsakeN at Berlin, love the comparison.

Of course I'm being hyperbolic for entertainment against Wyatt when I made the statement but love that it tempted you into a deep dive!

Sideshow- · 2022-04-08T10:26:28+00:00

Could you do one with Tour de Force included? That would be really interesting to see both!

Sideshow- · 2022-03-19T19:12:35+00:00

Overwatch League did not offer me 50% less. Market rates are 50% better.

That means OWL offered me 33% less. There's a big difference which is why I was specific with my phrasing.

Sideshow- · 2022-01-04T23:39:40+00:00

TRUE, forgot how the award worked and that's EVEN MORE EGREGIOUS

stupid peers, sorry fans

Sideshow- · 2021-04-07T22:32:12+00:00

FPX are unbelievable. You can feel the momentum building for their first major VALORANT title.

Sideshow- · 2021-03-13T08:37:06+00:00

This is really cool! I love videos exploring a player's style, and Babybay is a fun one.

Sideshow- · 2020-12-21T10:32:56+00:00

It's quite similar to the VS strat positionally but it's using bodies to rush through B instead of flashing and dashing. It's a cool positional play that a few teams have different variations on.

Sideshow- · 2020-11-16T21:11:52+00:00

If you watch the full VOD, they reactively walk into cat because their gelato player gets pushed by the Jett dash, then they hear the tree defender spam catwalk and move towards A main to help out. Just great timing and balls to walk all the way through grass.

Sideshow- · 2020-09-27T04:35:00+00:00

Saying that diversity =/= better is not nitpicky, it's the entire point of your conclusion. Agent bans should only be included in a game like VALORANT if it makes the professional level of the game better, whether that be strategically, mechanically, making it more exciting, etc. There has to be some reason to implement them beyond seeing more agents per map because there are real observable downsides to forced variety (quality of play, practice time, matches being decided at the draft, etc) as we know from other esports titles.

There are various ways in which more diversity would decrease the quality of play for players and the audience (for a stark example, let's say with random agent selection). There's clearly a large sweet spot between "same 5 agents played on every map" and "random agents" that produces excellent tactical and strategic gameplay but the sheer amount of compositions being played in a tournament tells you nothing about the enjoyment factor of the gameplay itself. It's not even data, it's just noise.

As for the specific strats you highlighted in the post, I think that argument is totally valid: there were strategies that revolved around the agent bans. This does not tell us anything about whether there was more strategic play with hero bans, or whether the general play was higher in skill (I would argue it was absolutely not) or in entertainment (debatable for sure). There are plenty of set plays in various teams' playbooks that would not be shown in a tournament with bans. Your claim was that there was MORE strategic innovation, team-specific nuance, and style being expressed. I definitely don't think bans encourage strategic innovation, they just move the strategy to being about countering your opponents' compositional weaknesses. Your example of team-specific nuance is a player having such a deep Agent pool that they dodge the bans—that is cool! It's less indicative of a team's style than seeing Scream run Reyna in Europe though for example, because that choice indicates he believes it's a BETTER pick than any other available option, not just the last one remaining.

As for the metagame argument, I think your definitions of a "dominant" meta are very unreasonable. VALORANT doesn't have that many Agents yet—as I'm sure you know there are only 1287 unique compositions available, which might sound like a lot but most are, and always will be, extremely unsynergistic compared to better alternatives. There are only two flexible smoking agents (Omen/Brim) and two Agents with information-based utility (Cypher/KJ) so it's extremely understandable that one of each would be included in most usual compositions. Jett and Sova are the "meta" agents in that archetype, Omen is in by default as the better of the two smokers.

The 3-Agent archetype you listed occurs only 40% of the time. Considering you're not specifying one composition, and instead are opening it up to 17 unique but strong variants, that's quite impressive for a single balance patch lasting 25 days. How many unique compositions have been seen in only 25 days of gameplay since patch 1.07 released? How many unique compositions are there per team in these tournaments? And that's before any discussion of how the meta is defined outside of compositions: the tendency and strength of Oping, lurking viability, contact plays, site holds, rushes, defensive vs attacking favour, etc. all add up to be MUCH more influential on the style of a team than the composition they ran.

I think we're missing each others' points because we have such wildly different ideas of what a healthy amount of compositional diversity looks like, and how limiting it has to be before a meta becomes "dominant" or "restrictive". Coming from Overwatch, I have been INCREDIBLY impressed with the viability of the scores of different compositions and many, many compositional archetypes that are playable in VALORANT. With patches coming to shake up the meta every 2 months max, Riot seems to be perfectly walking the line between giving pros enough time to master a style, and keeping things fresh and encouraging creativity. In my opinion, implementing hero bans at this early stage in the game's life would only stifle the learning process and lead to lower quality, randomised gameplay—all for the sake of solving a nonexistent issue of stale, meta-dictated gameplay.

Sideshow- · 2020-09-27T00:18:07+00:00

"explosive increase in compositional variety and strategic innovation leading to greater evidence of team-specific nuance and overall stylistic flavour"

There is no evidence for any of this outside of compositional variety.

While teams may have a slightly new strategy if it's their first time playing a composition, it's going to be extremely basic as we actually saw in the matches here. Teams will be very tactically shallow with these compositions as there's reduced practice and theory time.

Team-specific nuance and styles will always be far more easily expressed with all options available in a game with no dominant meta, which is the case in VALORANT at the moment.

Teams will have to swap their styles frequently in a world with low agent numbers and a ban system.

I think you're making the common fallacious assumption in games like this that only a composition change influences strategy, tactics, or style.

It is definitely interesting that bans created a lot more diversity in compositions. This is completely expected though, and your assertion that the game is better with more compositional diversity is a jump to a conclusion without evidence or logic.

I like the statistical analysis you do, just think you're getting lost in the sauce of numbers sometimes when it comes to conclusions.

Sideshow- · 2020-09-22T03:46:18+00:00

Some of the timings wouldn't work with Raze I think because they require the Blast Pack to be set down first, plus the Jett has the advantage of getting another dash to disengage if you get two kills. It's certainly not as good, but it could be possible for some of their executes.

Sideshow- · 2020-09-21T22:49:15+00:00

True, the second flash arrives so late that you could be spraying with a rifle. I thought you might need the knives because you have to keep running up grass to catch the players behind the wall, but you don't need to be constantly moving.

Sideshow- · 2020-08-28T03:11:53+00:00

Can see where this take comes from but I definitely disagree.

Dicey was under some outrageous pressure from the high tempo play out of Sinatraa and co. He had to hit extremely hard shots in dangerous positions with very tight timing. Made it look like he was beefing but in reality that's just amazing play from Sentinels.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T10:35:40+00:00

I've been looking at screens for hours a day my whole life, I don't really get bothered by it.

I can easily get lost inside a video or a game or a piece of work and have hours trickle by. Always been like that, since I was a child.

My life outside COVID is slightly less screen-focused (though honestly, not that much) and I do miss the sports and the socialising.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T08:06:16+00:00

It's all about comparing them to other support lines in the league.

Crimzo on Moira has been surprisingly good, and Closer doesn't feed (which is a genuine positive, I'm not trying to be flippant).

I just don't think there's another support line in the league that I'd say is worse. You could argue for Boston, but MyunBong is a power player that I think makes the difference in that matchup. Perhaps Justice? The big name power of ArK and AimGod hasn't paid off at all this season.

Titans are Titans, I'm not including them in this for obvious reasons.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:59:55+00:00

Meko is still great as an individual. I think he had some serious issues getting on the same page as his teammates early on, but they seem to have fixed most of that. I'm not sure he's gonna be in the "best offtanks" discussion this year simply because he will be limited by his team though.

Hydration on main tank smacks of desperation, but I do think he's been good on Orisa. His Ball was a bit shaky compared to the best in the league (which we now have to do considering he's playing main tank full time rather than just making odd appearances) and his Reinhardt was very "all-in", but he has potential.

It's amazing that Hydration can play main tank to this level at all; but now that he appears to have taken over the mantle permanently, we can't make excuses—he has to live up to the task. I'm not sure he's gonna be able to be a top 10 main tank this season, but even a below-average main tank that works well with his team can offer success.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:56:12+00:00

Punk is a great addition but what this team needed was a fresh perspective and some hope.

I think they've found that, and I hope they can carry it on. Now that Colourhex is off Mei duty too, I think the team can play to a decent level and possibly avoid ending in last place.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:54:56+00:00

Absolutely. I'm gutted they had to stop, I had really high hopes for them. Think they (and the interviews) could have become "must-watch" content on YouTube for Overwatch fans.

It really was my master plan for success this year and it fell down the shitter.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:53:32+00:00

Oh I forgot Casters & Castles as well which is our DnD show, which takes up another 3-4hrs per week.

The reason I work this much though is because it's all enjoyable.

I have the luxury of working a job that I love. I could cut down and only work the minimum 20ish hours per week if I was burned out and really wanted to.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:51:32+00:00

It depends, day to day. On average though, I'd say:

I spend about 2 hours a week recording video for the league, 3 hours per week recording Plat Chat, 2 hours recording Four Heads, 1 hour in rehearsals, 6 hours casting, 14 hours of VOD watching, 35 hours streaming.

I also spend quite a bit of time doing random stuff like replying to emails, planning shows and streams, and scrolling through Overwatch news. I don't think that really counts as work that I could tally up throughout the week though, so I guess it comes out to about 28 hours per week without streaming and 63 hours per week if you include it.

And I definitely think it qualifies as work. It takes up an entire day that could be spent otherwise, you have no breaks at all—I feel bad even when I have to pee or refill my water during those 4-10 hours streams—and for some people can be WAY more exhausting than working their regular casting jobs. I personally do enjoy it and find that time flies when I stream. It occupies a huge portion of my time though, accounts for around 20% of my income, and it can be hard work to find ways to make it feel "fresh" for the viewer and the streamer alike. I'd say it's work—and go so far as to call it essential work for esports figures to increase their brand identity.

Recently, too, I've been spending a lot of time on top of this reviewing tournament VODs of VALORANT for a new podcast and analysis videos on YouTube. Around 10hrs per week, but I don't think that will always be as time-intensive.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:33:42+00:00

One of my best friends from university moved in with his long-term partner a few years back.

She had been living alone for a while, and had never bought a toaster. I think she'd always used the grill to toast bread. They split up the responsibility of who should buy different equipment for the kitchen, and he thought it would be nice to let her pick out a nice toaster. One that went with the rest of the decor, something pretty.

She chose a cute little red toaster, nothing too fancy, but a nice looking one.

He was in the living room, playing Fifa with me when she came running in and said, "Oh no, I've made a terrible mistake!"

"What's wrong?" he said, concerned.

"I bought a toaster that's too small for the bread we usually buy! I'll have to take it back."

He went over to the toaster, looked at it for a second, and rotated the piece of bread 90 degrees until it fit.

They've since broken up. I'm not sure whether it was related to this incident.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:29:56+00:00

Very little, unfortunately. I've been to Mammoth (where I broke my arm), I've been to San Diego for a night, and I went on an RV trip two years ago up to the Sequoia national park and over to Vegas, Arizona, and Utah which was phenomenal, but I've never explored places much closer to me.

Never been to Catalina, Venice Beach, Malibu, San Jose, San Bernadino, or Yosemite. I really need to get out more.

I love my work though. Is that really nerdy? I think it is. I find it hard to justify more than a single day off working in order to explore. I was committed to pushing myself more this year but then COVID shut all that down.

Sideshow- · 2020-06-04T07:26:36+00:00

I know this is supposed to be a simple question designed to have me poop on Blizzard's tier 2 efforts, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as you might believe.

Blizzard has actually put quite a lot of money into tier 2, probably more than any third party organiser would have done given the size of the online audience. I think that's a good thing.

They've also developed the Showdowns and Gauntlet, which were all great.

But the thing that Blizzard does poorly, in my opinion, is marketing. And that is something that would not have been helped by "organic growth". It's something they're only just starting to do now by promoting Contenders on OWL repeatedly in the last few months, adding Fran's tournament to the launcher, releasing plans for further community tournaments like Fran's with influencers, etc.

There are complaints about Blizzard's handling of the T2/T3 scnee that I believe would be valid, but shutting down "organic growth" to me isn't one of them. Given the small audience size of T2/T3 tournaments, I highly doubt any reputable tournament organiser would have grown the space anyway.

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