Feel free to correct me on what I am about to say and discuss further.
There was a tournament discussion post made recently and users brought up many good points, but there was rarely any discussion. It was just people throwing out their personal ideas. This post is kinda like that except I want you guys to have an actual discussion and expand on what I am proposing. Also this post is about the tournament format, not the settings. The current tournaments are great and they bring up some really good games. Although often it feels that maybe there isn't that much motivation going on among star players, viper not playing much, jordan out, daut out before quarters, etc. The fact that two finalist in Arabia Invitational was a fresh face who wanted to prove himself and a Chinese who are always motivated and give all in tourneys proves it a bit. The main two reasons I believe motivation is down is
- Most AoC pro are now grown men now with good jobs that pay very well, they hardly need the money from AoC. When you're teenager it feels really great to win cash from playing games but not so when you're grown man with good jobs.
- The pressure to give it all or get nothing. Most money is given to winner and some trickle down to second place, so pros have pressure to practice a lot for upcoming tournament and if they can't spend enough time then they either don't participate or just do it half-heartedly.
Here is what I believe is worth a try.
We should make a Super league tournament, 1v1 or TG in which entry would be allowed through rigorous qualification but once you're qualified you will get a little salary per fixture(can be 3-5 games per fixture), every player, doesn't matter if you win or lose, may be a bit bonus if you win but its not necessary.
Let's say we make league of 8 teams with 4 players each so that's 36 players. A league of 8 teams will have 28 matches if all have to play each other once. If we give every team $50 for each week worth of league matches that will be $2800
which will be $200 less than Arabia Invitational prize money.
This is like Football where players are in a club and they get fix salary.
Here is how such system fix some of the issues.
Since salary is guaranteed even if you just participate in the league, many of the good players would try their best in the game to win qualification into the super league. They will feel that their work is not going in vain if they lose.
Player will be more motivated to play and scheduling because now each fixture will earn them money. They would be more motivated to have little hassle in the scheduling process as money is on line for everyone involved. They will take each fixture more seriously.
Since even if you are not good enough to win, you can still earn the money, A lot of the new players would also practice hard because now you don't have to be number 1 to win cash but just in the top 36.
Pros won't have the pressure to give their all each game or risk elimination since its a league, they can actually enjoy the tournament and make guarantee cash.
Since its a salary based tournament, the moderators won't have to generate all of the cash at once, they can start tournament with just $500, a salary enough for 5 fixtures and continue to raise money as the tournament goes on. Right now they have to wait for all of the money to be raised first before announcing tournaments.
I believe doing this in 1v1 would be better as it will save money and there won't be further division of salary.
Now you'll think if we spend all money on salary, what will be give to the winner?
As I mentioned before AoC pros are now all grown man and doesn't need that much money. Most are not professional gamers and play AoC for fun. It's the thought that counts. The military used to give out cash for soldiers performing splendid on their duties, but when they started to ran out of funding, they created the concept of Medals, to the soldiers all that matter was the bragging rights and pride, not the state of prize if its cash or medal. May be we should do that for AoC too, create a super cool CUP trophy that would be shipped out the winner. I am sure many pros would love to have a tangible evidence in their room of their prowess of AoC and to also show others, rather than just say that they won some cash in some tournament in a one and a half decade old game. We should hype everyone about the trophy and make it beautiful, this would save us money and also this will make tournament more interesting. Everyone would want to see a AoC themed trophy, cash prize gets boring.
The examples I gave are just theoretical, there can be many possibilities to create such tournament, use your imagination.
There was a tournament discussion post made recently and users brought up many good points, but there was rarely any discussion. It was just people throwing out their personal ideas. This post is kinda like that except I want you guys to have an actual discussion and expand on what I am proposing. Also this post is about the tournament format, not the settings. The current tournaments are great and they bring up some really good games. Although often it feels that maybe there isn't that much motivation going on among star players, viper not playing much, jordan out, daut out before quarters, etc. The fact that two finalist in Arabia Invitational was a fresh face who wanted to prove himself and a Chinese who are always motivated and give all in tourneys proves it a bit. The main two reasons I believe motivation is down is
- Most AoC pro are now grown men now with good jobs that pay very well, they hardly need the money from AoC. When you're teenager it feels really great to win cash from playing games but not so when you're grown man with good jobs.
- The pressure to give it all or get nothing. Most money is given to winner and some trickle down to second place, so pros have pressure to practice a lot for upcoming tournament and if they can't spend enough time then they either don't participate or just do it half-heartedly.
Here is what I believe is worth a try.
We should make a Super league tournament, 1v1 or TG in which entry would be allowed through rigorous qualification but once you're qualified you will get a little salary per fixture(can be 3-5 games per fixture), every player, doesn't matter if you win or lose, may be a bit bonus if you win but its not necessary.
Let's say we make league of 8 teams with 4 players each so that's 36 players. A league of 8 teams will have 28 matches if all have to play each other once. If we give every team $50 for each week worth of league matches that will be $2800
which will be $200 less than Arabia Invitational prize money.
This is like Football where players are in a club and they get fix salary.
Here is how such system fix some of the issues.
Since salary is guaranteed even if you just participate in the league, many of the good players would try their best in the game to win qualification into the super league. They will feel that their work is not going in vain if they lose.
Player will be more motivated to play and scheduling because now each fixture will earn them money. They would be more motivated to have little hassle in the scheduling process as money is on line for everyone involved. They will take each fixture more seriously.
Since even if you are not good enough to win, you can still earn the money, A lot of the new players would also practice hard because now you don't have to be number 1 to win cash but just in the top 36.
Pros won't have the pressure to give their all each game or risk elimination since its a league, they can actually enjoy the tournament and make guarantee cash.
Since its a salary based tournament, the moderators won't have to generate all of the cash at once, they can start tournament with just $500, a salary enough for 5 fixtures and continue to raise money as the tournament goes on. Right now they have to wait for all of the money to be raised first before announcing tournaments.
I believe doing this in 1v1 would be better as it will save money and there won't be further division of salary.
Now you'll think if we spend all money on salary, what will be give to the winner?
As I mentioned before AoC pros are now all grown man and doesn't need that much money. Most are not professional gamers and play AoC for fun. It's the thought that counts. The military used to give out cash for soldiers performing splendid on their duties, but when they started to ran out of funding, they created the concept of Medals, to the soldiers all that matter was the bragging rights and pride, not the state of prize if its cash or medal. May be we should do that for AoC too, create a super cool CUP trophy that would be shipped out the winner. I am sure many pros would love to have a tangible evidence in their room of their prowess of AoC and to also show others, rather than just say that they won some cash in some tournament in a one and a half decade old game. We should hype everyone about the trophy and make it beautiful, this would save us money and also this will make tournament more interesting. Everyone would want to see a AoC themed trophy, cash prize gets boring.
The examples I gave are just theoretical, there can be many possibilities to create such tournament, use your imagination.