NSL Grand Finals - General Feedback
Hypergrip
SuspectGermany Join Date: 2002-11-23 Member: 9689Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
SuspectGermany Join Date: 2002-11-23 Member: 9689Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
First of all I want to thank everyone involved for a very entertaining evening. I had a lot of fun watching the matches and I'm really looking forward to the next big event.
However, there were quite a couple of things that could be improved - and some that I personally really disliked. In this thread I'd like to compile some feedback.
Sound Problems / echo
Well, it was fixed before the first round started, so no hard feeling here...
I guess this will be double-checked next time.
Casters / Commentators
The chemistry between the casters was good. Personally I think James Carrol did a very nice job. He mixed a couple of things up here and there, but he had definitly done his homework and seemed to have enjoyed casting. On the twitch chat some people were complaining they'd rather having a "true" NS2 caster insted of "some SC guy", but this event was not only aimed at the current players but also a big chance to get new players interested in NS2. With one of the casters having a different background I feel that more of the basic stuff is explained during the games, making it easier for potential new players to understand what's going on.
Ingame Camera
I'll make it short: I know the top down perpective is best for casters to see what's going on, and everytime you switch to first person you risk missing stuff going on somewhere else. However switching to first person cam or having the camera howering in a room with much action make the action more intense. Also, potential new players get a better look at what the gameplay actually looks like.
Recap & Statistics
It's easy for viewers to see that NS2 is a tactical game, but it's hard to see (at first glance) that NS2 is a full fledged RTS-system where things like teching up, disrupting the enemy "economy", etc. are as vital as having foor FPS skills. [insert obvious Fane-Tane-Pain-Train / round 4 comment here]. In previous events NS2Stats were used in the "recap". I really missed that this time. For experienced players it provides some nice little details, while showing other viewers that this game has some serious strategic depth.
Trailers & Fillers
As said before this event is not only great entertainment for the current players but also a promo event to get viewers interested in buying NS2 (and I do hope we'll see some new "greens" on the servers because of it). So I can completely understand that you'd show as much promotional material as possible; and the trailers do look awesome...
However, after hearing "be right back after this short video" for the 3rd or 4th time it got... well, boring. It felt like a filler, simply there to streatch the event as much as possible (more on that later), not to provide the viewers with "useful" information.
I would have rather seeing
More Fillers...
If you watched the stream on the NS2 twitch channel you will most likely have seen the chat being flooded with something like "this is embarrassing. Interview players or show matches!" some time after the 4th round, when Hugh got his face painted...
I, too, was a bit annoyed at that point, because all the stuff happening on the stream felt more and more like a desperate attempt to stretch the event as much as possible. And the stuff the time between the matches was filled got silly to a point that was borderline-embarrassing, at least in my view (more on that later). When there is a longer "gap" between the matches, please make sure to referr to it every now and again. Tell your viewers that - for example - the wait is because the players need it, and not because you definitly had to put in sumo wrestling casters somewhere before the last round.
That said, I'm merely speculating here. I think the pauses were there because the players needed some time to rest, talk strategy, etc., but I could be completely wrong. Maybe someone involved can shed some light on the "inner workings" there.
Interviews
I was a bit underwhelmed by the interviews to be honest. The interview(s) with Charlie would have been a great opportunity to highlight/focus on the things that make NS2 a fun game to play.
Yes, the art and and the maps are a big part of NS2, those guys are doing a great job, now please stop booing for a second and hear me out!!
When you talk to friends about NS2, what are the things you tell them to make them become interested? At least for me its:
From funny to silly?
I like Hugh. I like his casting and I think his extrovert and a bit over-the-top attitude really conveys the positive kind of passion for the game that most of its players have and want potential new players to see. Same goes for Wasabi. It worked quite well (imho) in the PAX East videos, however I missed some sort of "counterweight" during the event, for example at the part where the "social media girl" was supposed to ask Hugh questions and he basically hijacked it. And the Exo-Onos duel -> sumo wrestling -> Onos (-ish) makeup stuff went from funny to silly extremely fast. Maybe it's just me being a sad, grumpy German. Maybe everybody else loved it. Maybe it was the timing (in the middle of what felt as a very forces stretch of the event). Usually Hugh's "antics" support the coverage of NS2, this time it somehow felt that "The Hugh Show" distracted from the game too much during the later parts of the event? I really don't know, it just bugged me.
All that said...
.. I enjoyed it. Some parts more, some parts less. But I had my fun and I'm looking forward to the next big event.
Gratulations to Nexzil and Archaea. Enjoy your time in Germany
/Hyper
However, there were quite a couple of things that could be improved - and some that I personally really disliked. In this thread I'd like to compile some feedback.
Sound Problems / echo
Well, it was fixed before the first round started, so no hard feeling here...
I guess this will be double-checked next time.
Casters / Commentators
The chemistry between the casters was good. Personally I think James Carrol did a very nice job. He mixed a couple of things up here and there, but he had definitly done his homework and seemed to have enjoyed casting. On the twitch chat some people were complaining they'd rather having a "true" NS2 caster insted of "some SC guy", but this event was not only aimed at the current players but also a big chance to get new players interested in NS2. With one of the casters having a different background I feel that more of the basic stuff is explained during the games, making it easier for potential new players to understand what's going on.
Ingame Camera
I'll make it short: I know the top down perpective is best for casters to see what's going on, and everytime you switch to first person you risk missing stuff going on somewhere else. However switching to first person cam or having the camera howering in a room with much action make the action more intense. Also, potential new players get a better look at what the gameplay actually looks like.
Recap & Statistics
It's easy for viewers to see that NS2 is a tactical game, but it's hard to see (at first glance) that NS2 is a full fledged RTS-system where things like teching up, disrupting the enemy "economy", etc. are as vital as having foor FPS skills. [insert obvious Fane-Tane-Pain-Train / round 4 comment here]. In previous events NS2Stats were used in the "recap". I really missed that this time. For experienced players it provides some nice little details, while showing other viewers that this game has some serious strategic depth.
Trailers & Fillers
As said before this event is not only great entertainment for the current players but also a promo event to get viewers interested in buying NS2 (and I do hope we'll see some new "greens" on the servers because of it). So I can completely understand that you'd show as much promotional material as possible; and the trailers do look awesome...
However, after hearing "be right back after this short video" for the 3rd or 4th time it got... well, boring. It felt like a filler, simply there to streatch the event as much as possible (more on that later), not to provide the viewers with "useful" information.
I would have rather seeing
- Map previews. Fly through the empty map that will be played in the next 2 rounds, giving some strategic information to the viewers (choke points, etc. that they will recognise later during the actual match) as well as showing off the work of the mappers and artists and the capabilities of the Spark engine.
- Team/Player profiles. Short videos showing the teams in action, giving some background information on where they are from, how long they play, key players, etc.
- Highlights from the teams' matches during the tournament ("Road to the finals"). We saw some awesome games during the tournament, I would really have like to see a montage for each of the teams. This not only shows the kind of action NS2 can be, it also would have shown that (as ARC put it during the "award ceremony") Nexzil "did not lose. They defeated a lot of great teams on their way to the finals".
More Fillers...
If you watched the stream on the NS2 twitch channel you will most likely have seen the chat being flooded with something like "this is embarrassing. Interview players or show matches!" some time after the 4th round, when Hugh got his face painted...
I, too, was a bit annoyed at that point, because all the stuff happening on the stream felt more and more like a desperate attempt to stretch the event as much as possible. And the stuff the time between the matches was filled got silly to a point that was borderline-embarrassing, at least in my view (more on that later). When there is a longer "gap" between the matches, please make sure to referr to it every now and again. Tell your viewers that - for example - the wait is because the players need it, and not because you definitly had to put in sumo wrestling casters somewhere before the last round.
That said, I'm merely speculating here. I think the pauses were there because the players needed some time to rest, talk strategy, etc., but I could be completely wrong. Maybe someone involved can shed some light on the "inner workings" there.
Interviews
I was a bit underwhelmed by the interviews to be honest. The interview(s) with Charlie would have been a great opportunity to highlight/focus on the things that make NS2 a fun game to play.
Yes, the art and and the maps are a big part of NS2, those guys are doing a great job, now please stop booing for a second and hear me out!!
When you talk to friends about NS2, what are the things you tell them to make them become interested? At least for me its:
- Unique asymetrical gameplay with tactial depth.
- Renouncement of "modern" and "gamified" stuff like XP, Ranks/Levels (global), Unlocking weapons/skills, premium subscription stuff, etc. -> Focus on the game, not some artificial meta-progression stuff.
- Modding support, free tools, a developer that embraces its community's creativity.
- The community. Friendly, helpful, and just fun to play with (mostly).
From funny to silly?
I like Hugh. I like his casting and I think his extrovert and a bit over-the-top attitude really conveys the positive kind of passion for the game that most of its players have and want potential new players to see. Same goes for Wasabi. It worked quite well (imho) in the PAX East videos, however I missed some sort of "counterweight" during the event, for example at the part where the "social media girl" was supposed to ask Hugh questions and he basically hijacked it. And the Exo-Onos duel -> sumo wrestling -> Onos (-ish) makeup stuff went from funny to silly extremely fast. Maybe it's just me being a sad, grumpy German. Maybe everybody else loved it. Maybe it was the timing (in the middle of what felt as a very forces stretch of the event). Usually Hugh's "antics" support the coverage of NS2, this time it somehow felt that "The Hugh Show" distracted from the game too much during the later parts of the event? I really don't know, it just bugged me.
All that said...
.. I enjoyed it. Some parts more, some parts less. But I had my fun and I'm looking forward to the next big event.
Gratulations to Nexzil and Archaea. Enjoy your time in Germany
/Hyper
Comments
Next time just let her stand there and smile. Think, Vanna White.
Namely I would have really liked to see more "meat" and less "fluff" in the filler times. You have two full teams there live with you in the studio and there were no interviews with them between matches? Also as Hypergrip mentioned I think in-depth match analysis with NS2 stats would have been much more informative than watching wrestling matches (though that was funny...).
In the end I felt the focus was on making the event an entertainment spectacle with the higher level gameplay and strategy analysis taking a back seat. Would like to see more of the latter next time.
"The Hugh Show" (lol) ran a bit out of control on this one.
Or have her show something the viewers actually wanted to see. She was clearly only there for the added T&A factor anyway.
The casting was OK. I don't follow SC so I don't know who that guy was but he did an alright job with minimal mistakes. I would've preferred to have blind casting but maybe he just wanted to watch the event. I didn't bug me that much that UWE brought in people from outside the NS2 community because it was a major advertising event, but I wasn't a big fan of the host guy and the girl didn't seem to know anything about NS2. The SC caster at least did his homework, can't say the same for them.
I understand that it's difficult to kill time when you have four hours and it's clearly just a stomp and not going to last more than 5 games, but some of the stuff they did was just too silly. I'm a big fan of Hugh normally but it did feel like he was perhaps trying a bit too hard. I didn't watch it live (bad timing for East Coast US) so I was able to skip some of the more fillerish bits. I agree that they could've done more as far as interviews go to fill the time better.
On the whole, though, I enjoyed the event. UWE did a good enough job with it, especially when you consider just how small this company really is. Like I said, Arc is always a treat to watch because they're just amazingly skilled. Nexzil is a great team too, and I give credit to them for giving it their all against Arc. I'm looking forward to the next big event.
it's a particularly difficult task to fill the voids when you have scheduled ~4 hours of air time. ideally you would have the semi-finals, third place match and the grand final taking place at such an event, but unfortunately ns2 doesn't (yet) have the profile where these events begin to pay for themselves.
personally i'm most bored by watching the in-game duels. imo ns2 is not really exciting or suited for 1v1. if the duels must happen, please stick to wrestling or street fighter :P
The casters spent a lof of time talking on non NS2 related topics. Be funny, but stick to discussion about the game.
More interviews with NS2 designers and compeitors would be appreciated.
I would have preferred more statistical breakdowns and analysis.
More use of the first person mode would be appreciated.
I was really looking forward to the event and found it mostly unwatchable.
Sorry, if I sound so negative. I'm happy the event happened and I think supporting the competitive scene will make NS2 be more popular.
I'm pretty sure the last thing anyone wants to do at a LAN event is interviews inbetween maps. Would completely detract from a teams focus and momentum. Might be more entertaining for spectators, but it would be horrific for the players.
I would like to hear from the players who were there what they think about this.....to me, it looked like they were completely bored between rounds and would have welcomed a distraction.
As for the stream i didn't watch live so i could skip much of the silly filler, some bits were entertaining though, what i don't get is why like 95% of the game is commander view, it feels like you're missing out on a lot of the action because you can't see it well, doesn't help that the stream quality was poor, people want to see action up close so this seemed a bit odd to me, was still fun to watch but id try to makes some improvements if they're that serious about it.
I agree with your entire post. Especially the quoted part. I really like how Hugh catches the action with first person view. And you really don't lose track of the strategic part that is going on elsewhere for this few seconds. So no problem there.
The awkwardness of the stretching-stuff was really not necessary. You named really good ideas what could have been send instead. But I don't blame it on Hugh. In fact people should give him a break. "He is the punching ball of the team!" Dafuq? Show some respect! I felt really sorry for him. Say "it was all joking around" as long as you want. I felt it was way to much. Take yourself back a second and look at you. Do you really need to bully him the WHOLE time? He did a great job in keeping the show running despite how awkward it got.
This said, beside the first match it was boring. But you can't change this. This is how the teams are skilled. Maybe think about why one team can overpower every other existing team this hard and how you could tweak the game to lessen the effect. (Slippery slope anyone?)
Anyway. Thanks for the event. You did a lot of things right and it sure was a big pile of work.
Why not interview both of them before the matches? Ask them why they got into the game. Ask them what they like the most. Ask them what previous competitive experience they have. Ask them something!
Then, just insert these in when the gaps come up.
The OP makes mention of the teams perhaps needing time. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but Garfu logged into Twitch and said "we've been ready for 20 minutes".
I loved the tournament and I loved the final. However, a lot more planning could be put into it. I don't want to get the planners down because without it wouldn't have happened at all, but much improvement could be made.
Having that Shannon lady just made it look like a bad Eurovision song contest spin off. What was she there for? I felt bad for her when someone mentioned the size of her bosom, which I thought was very unthoughtful and malicious, but we all know she was there because she's hot. She didn't seem interested in the game in the slightest. It was like watching an "adult entertainment" star exasperate over the significant size of a clearly undersized anatomical part of the male physique.
So the biggest improvement could be pre-game interviews that could be slotted in as fillers between matches. A more daring one would be to have the 3rd place playoff played before the event and perhaps those rounds stuck in as fillers (I don't know if this would work but it's a mere consideration).
In place of fan art to win a graphics card, how about telling people to sign up to the forums and make an OP about why they liked the look of the game. Whoever gets the most agrees (or whatever - maybe allow it to be chosen by some people in the studio in case of vote abuse which I doubt would occur anyway) gets a free copy of the game. Something like that - it involves more people in the community which is more conducive to the game's success.
So some pros and cons. Good luck with the next event.
Edit: There were a lot of negatives I thought could be ironed out but I didn't want the post to look too negative. It's easy to point out the mistakes and ignore the positives when looking to improve. :S
The casting was alright. The camerawork frustrated me in many situations but it's been problem for a long time.
But the fillers really made me think if I want to continue watching anymore. Especially the wrestling and facepainting parts were just terrible.
Also Charlie's interview, Hugh's Q&A were both a disappointment. I was really looking forward for some gameplay analysis and showcasing the game, teams and the players.
I am embarrassed forever that i recommended watching the event to my friends.
The filler was cringe-inducing. It had to happen, but didn't have to be so ridiculous. Next time let's have some map fly throughs, load up ns2stats and go over the last round thoroughly, and I have no idea how this was missed but they should have brought in blind for post-match analysis each time (or someone who actually understands the competitive game). That would have added to the experience tremendously.
Show the comms! This was a huge misstep. Their stage has 10 spots, I understand. You made almost no mention of the comms, rarely showed their faces and had zero comm footage. I don't think I ever even heard Virsoul speak. And I'm quite certain I did not see their setups, wherever they were.
What happened with the teamspeak? I looked forward to that all day and it didn't happen. Great idea, shame some tech fell through (I'm guessing).
I hated the esl folks, but not sure you could do anything about them. Unprofessional, uninformed, unpolished work like theirs (We'll just wing it! It's a game! Who cares?) is what kills e-sports. No one watching will ever take it seriously with that kind of work ethic.
The Interview at half-time is a feature of almost every sport. Generally coaches. Let the comm/captain speak for 5 minutes during whatever you want to classify as half-time.
The 1v1 silliness might have been a funny gag, but we had lots of potential rookie players asking "is this the real game? Is this what it is?" I think a better idea next time is an online "all-star" game with members of other clans from the cup. Bring in the best player from each team. Ideally EU vs NA but without nxzl players this wouldn't be much fun. Play one (online) match over half-time maybe and cast it with another caster (reddog?). No hard work on your end, just making sure the stream goes through to your site.
Overall I thought the event was a success. The matches were a little bit of a letdown, but that happens in every sport worldwide. It's not pretty when regular sporting events are a stomp, either. The announcers do their best to fill the time and give background information, and I know it's hard to do. Next one you have to prove you learned from this.
Also it would have been really cool to pull some players like us into a chat or something and have us give our input on the matches, heck I would have loved to talk to the stream and I'm sure many of the other players would have too; nothing cooler than involving the community
But all in all I had a blast watching the Stream.
if NS2 wants to have a bigger fan base on ppl watching, they need to start to take this games professional.
Use NS2 stats .... buildorder discussions.
Pregame tactic dicussion, what could archea go for in Tram/Descent/Veil.
After game discussion. How could Nxzl losse the Tram round as Marins.
Stuff like this .... would be much better.
Agree with OP's observations and suggestions, though. I haven't had a chance to watch the stream yet, but there were a lot of long delays between some of the rounds that didn't make much sense to me. As far as I know, all the "content" was planned beforehand and none of the long breaks were because either of the teams needed them.
Please tell me the facepainting and wrestling wasn't planned beforehand. Please.
Congrats too, Arc's play was the one thing that was good.
Of course it was planned before hand. Why would you have face paints at an ESL studio. :P
I understand the schedule is 4 hours that compensates for maximum possible games. That doesn't mean you must use up all 4 hours. If it ends 1-2 hours shorter so what? Keep it short and sweet, and that goes for fillers too. Then everyone can call it a day. Unless you really must take all 4 hours?
ESL Team
I thought Sean Charles was hilarious. Yes there was a little bit of dominance over Hugh. Though we can give Hugh some material to use against him next year! Besides that I thought Sean was a good natural host and was probably the least awkward to watch.
Shannon Ellison was a nice touch. I looked forward to her parts because yes she did bring certain appeal to the event, but her segments are relatively short and easy to enjoy.
Fillers
These are acceptable but should really be kept to a minimal. In depth analysis post-match are difficult for NS2. There isn't a feature for replay examination except for fraps which will only catch what was recorded. It's no where close to the flexibility of SC2 replay feature. One solution would be to have multiple spectators, and a team jotting down strats to be mentioned afterwards for Hugh to explain in between matches. Other than possible analysis and shannon segments, just wrap it up already!
lol no, that would be like interviewing roger federer after every tennis game interval.
"so roger, you're still serving strongly this afternoon... what does any murray need to change to come back in this match?"
the specific match/strategy discussions are incredibly awkward and obvious. not to mention difficult to answer, because there's always a massive gap between comp team's perspective and the layman caster/observer :P
what would be nice is some segments of brief pre-recorded interviews with the players. asking them what it means to them to be playing in the live final, about their competitive gaming background and giving a little insight into the player behind the handle etc.
I suspect you could have gotten Fana, Scrajm, Bitey, or Virsoul to talk between rounds on various subjects. Besides the before and after matchup interviews we didn't hear from any of the actual players.
Besides that, wp Archaea.. still showing they are the best NS players for how many years now?
Kaelaris did a great job, just like the ESL casters from last time. I thought the commentary was pretty solid all round actually. Of course you want someone with knowledge of how a 6v6 match actually works to bounce off of but all things considered it was fine.
First person spec was a waste of time. It seemed to be more reflective of player input though, maybe due to LAN. However whenever we entered this view it was usually at the end of the engagement, very pixelated, atmospheric lighting etc etc cluttering the screen and also made the viewers miss other important engagements else where.
The Insight graphs are a bit much to discuss in the middle of a game so I'm glad they weren't brought up much. And is it me or are the bars backwards? Marines lose 16 RTs so their blue bar is bigger?
As far as the filler goes, I didn't mind it simply because I was doing laundry and other stuff for class in between the matches. ALTHOUGH--Rantology's MAC v. Drifter and the Gorge Washington fanart totally kicked ass.
In terms of the commentary, I honestly think Kaelaris did fine. His voice/cadence is appealing for eSports and, imo, was made for play-by-play--but the problem is, he was paired with Hugh, another play-by-play announcer. They should have had Hugh moderate the in-between stuff, with Kaelaris doing commentary with Wasabi and Blind, who are both great color commentators, rotating each round. That way, we would have gotten much more insight into the possible strategies that both teams were employing. In all honesty, Kaelaris handled it better than Hugh (no offense, I'm sure you were just stoked/excited as hell to be casting this), because Hugh constantly referred to lerks as fades, incorrectly stated that Arc could still drop fade/onos eggs when they only had one hive, and said that Nxzl could beacon to north tunnels with the obs there. I'm sure most people forgot about these flubs, and new viewers were just too confused to really understand, but irregardless, it was still misinformation given out during NS2's biggest cast ever.
I also agree--we had a TON of the NS2 EU community in attendance, why not have some quick scrims/gathers in between rounds? I'm not sure how much of a stranglehold ESL had on the event content since they were sponsoring it, but good lord, if they had seen what was already planned, I think anything involving MORE competitive NS2 would have been a hands-down suitable alternative.
But in any case, if I could change ONE thing about this, it would have to have been more interviews with the players.
it really should be used more often, because to truly appreciate the skill level you need to view from their perspective. it's much more exciting cycling player to player like: