HC5 – The Wishlish

[Lightmeup]

First off: Huge congratulations to team T90 for a well executed HC4. So many highlights, good moments and wholesome things. What a tournament. I am not sure this is the right place for this thread, but here is goes

What do we want to improve for HC5? Let's make the ultimate idea thread so T90 has a great setoff for the next tournament. At this point, when AoE2 is actually a bigger game and there are some tweaks that can be done.

1. How Civ and Maps pick work
   The screen where the players ban and pick civs and maps are not very understandable, even for frequent viewers. It properly should be more clear what "sniping" a civilisation is.
   
   
2. Map drafting reworked
   My personal biggest issue with this tournament. I don't like the home map advantage if you lose, that in the end can give you the victory. I believe in a draft system (pick one, ban one, pick one) and then a fixed order for those maps. The current system might lead to unfair situations and it is not very understandable. The draft can also be made visually interesting. It follows more hero picks from Dota 2, which leads to interesting and dynamic situations – and easier to counterpick etc.
   
   
3. No new maps shortly before tournament
   Overall I am also not sure if the quality is lower when introducing new maps weeks before. I think I prefer when they are more practiced from everyone – due to better AoE2.
   
   
4. Interactive start of games
   I believe the drafting, civ picks and everything – could be an obvious area for creating some extra stuff. I do also understand it adds to the time and makes it longer.
   
   
5. More casters
   Huge respect to T90 for going through this tournament casting all the games. I think it's reasonable to explore a way where he can skip some games and get rest in between – it would properly lead to more a high energy level throughout everything. It's a shame they are a bit "burned out" for the finals.
   

Congrats on an amazing tournament and really good co-casters this time around. All the AoE2 love to T90.

 

[OLADUSHEK]

Hidden Score option!

 

[alex89]

I would really love a mirror stream on Youtube for example like with the redbull tournaments.
I understand there are many reasons to keep the official stream on one platform, but from Friday to Sunday Twitch for me was a mix of buffering for bit, buffering having to refresh and buffering in the commercial after the reload. And it looked like I was definitely not the only one.

 

[Qualdrion]

Disagree on some of your points - I like the idea of new maps shortly before the tournament, since it rewards innovation and creative new strats on maps with an undefined meta. Also think the map drafting is fine, with the exception of the 3-1 home map split possibility that happened in the semis - other than having each player have 2 guaranteed home maps I see no issues here.

 

[Jarvin]

I would really love a mirror stream on Youtube for example like with the redbull tournaments.
I understand there are many reasons to keep the official stream on one platform, but from Friday to Sunday Twitch for me was a mix of buffering for bit, buffering having to refresh and buffering in the commercial after the reload. And it looked like I was definitely not the only one.

As a twitch partner T90 is forbidden from streaming gaming-related content on other platforms
agree with you though still

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

That's how I see it :
a ) The hidden aspect - participants should play behind the closed doors for as long as possibile so that they won't be able to figure out in the semifinal ( like it happened this time ) who and what ( strategically wise ) they are facing
b ) Better maps - > to me it's unthinkable that agression doesn't get rewarded at all. Few closed maps are ok but introduce something where you actually have the ability to make the damage to your opponent who sits behind his walls with a mangonel. And remove fooken Islands ridiculous map
c ) The settings - > Viper clearly got robbed of his home map because of the awful unfair settings ( and perhaps final victory ). This needs to be fixed.

I think that's it from the biewer's perspective. Technical aspects seemed fine.

 

[Memeluke]

Maybe something has to be done for the players training together? It's always very easy to guess the GL guys because they all train together A LOT, so they draft the same way, they play the same builds etc. Maybe it would be better to have different map pools for different areas of the bracket?

So that Admiral Yi couldn't get bypass in his games like Ivaylo and play the same strategy with turks giving away that they trained together.

Also I enjoyed HC1 and HC2 because more players memed around faking being vivi or something (probably because the prizepool was smaller), maybe give a big prize to somebody who hides his identity very well? Like the one who gets the highest percentage of votes saying that he is Tatoh but he actually isn't...
I would have enjoyed the tournament more if the spanish question mark wasn't typed by a spanish player for example, or if the players tried to communicate with taunts/broken english on purpose

 

[Jarvin]

Maybe something has to be done for the players training together? It's always very easy to guess the GL guys because they all train together A LOT, so they draft the same way, they play the same builds etc. Maybe it would be better to have different map pools for different areas of the bracket?

So that Admiral Yi couldn't get bypass in his games like Ivaylo and play the same strategy with turks giving away that they trained together.

Also I enjoyed HC1 and HC2 because more players memed around faking being vivi or something (probably because the prizepool was smaller), maybe give a big prize to somebody who hides his identity very well? Like the one who gets the highest percentage of votes saying that he is Tatoh but he actually isn't...
I would have enjoyed the tournament more if the spanish question mark wasn't typed by a spanish player for example, or if the players tried to communicate with taunts/broken english on purpose

This was the first of all Hidden Cups where there was a sizeable group of people who nailed all 16 player identities. In the past there were some flashy, easily recognizable players aswell(Viper in HC1 and HC2, Hera in HC3, MbL in.. all hidden cups except for maybe the 1st) but beside that most of the players were usually almost more often gotten wrong than not.

Even for this particular Hidden Cup I'd argue that the only people who actually got everything right were the folks with years of veterancy in this community who went to great lengths to actually figure out who is who and.. isn't that kind of the point? To guess who is who?
Reminder that during the semis and finals you still had people in the chat spamming that Admiral has to be Viper or dogao or.. a ton of other people

 

[megalopolis]

Yeah, the fixed map setup was really unfair. I think it would have been more fair just to have 7 maps in total if we want to make sure all of them get time in the sun by the semifinals. A lot of the maps were barely used at all anyways - which is sad, because a lot of time probably went into design and balance.

It's also frustrating that the player showcases were on the same people. Yes, DauT, Viper, MbL, and Hera are some of the most popular, memable, and iconic players, but what about giving some of the qualified players a shoutout - especially considering that one of them blew expectations out of the water and made the finals? Surely Vinch, with his unique picks and strategies, would have made a great profile? And what about Mr. Yo, an undisputed Top 5 player?

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

It's also frustrating that the player showcases were on the same people. Yes, DauT, Viper, MbL, and Hera are some of the most popular, memable, and iconic players, but what about giving some of the qualified players a shoutout - especially considering that one of them blew expectations out of the water and made the finals? Surely Vinch, with his unique picks and strategies, would have made a great profile? And what about Mr. Yo, an undisputed Top 5 player?

They won't get views

 

[Brlr716]

My feeling about the HC4 is really mixed. The balance between the "hidden" nature and competitive aspect should be carefully balanced as HC4 has such a high prized pool.

Very Good side:
1. The game itself, don't need to explain. So many classic games!
2. CA run really well this time in game.
3. Interesting guessing session and interaction elements in the game.

Can-be-improved side (good enough but could be better):
1. T90 is such a beast, full respect, but I can feel T90 and Dave this duo are quite tired casting for 9-10 hours almost non-stop. Is it necessary though? There are so many good casters out there.
2. I think NAC3 has better production quality overall, such as how to show "highlight" in game, Dave sometimes just shoutout something happened another side and T90 just missed it. It is quite messy tbh.
3. Presentation showing B/P is a bit unclear.
4. I think the new maps are interesting but quite "boom" and "defensive" oriented.

Not-so-good side
1. Presentation - the b/p session is so unclear. Again I think NAC3 is much straight forward and clearer.
2. I have a little doubt about the random seed though. I think double elimination could be introduced? It is so unfair to Tatoh for example. Its so much money on the line.
3. The fixed map? Why the hell is that?

I hope HC5 can be transited to more influential and more competitive tournament. No offence T90 and all the crews done hell of a job already

 

[Memeluke]

An obvious solution to the random seeding would be a swiss system tournament, but it has been proven unpopular.

 

[Freezing_Point]

Honestly, it seems like the most reliable way to shield your identity wouldn't be to fake being a different player with a very distinct style and mannerisms, but to play standard meta with a standard degree of speed and micro. A lot of people, myself included, had trouble distinguishing Dogao, Nicov and Villese because they weren't overly descript, not because they gave off strong vibes of being someone specific.

 

[polyomavirus]

My main wish is that Hidden Cup 5 will exist, bigger and better than ever.

If I were being nitpicky:

1. Space the main event across two weekends. Many of us work/study on weekdays, and four 10+ hour days is just not possible to keep up with!

2. Have some diversity in player showcases. Echoing the above - I think it’s been TheViper, DauT, Hera, and MbL for both HC3 and HC4. I’d really love a showcase based on Dogao, for instance - why did so many players think they played him on first round? Or Barles - why did ACCM and Jordan confuse him and MbL? If it can only be done for three or four auto-qualified players due to timing, could we at least rotate out one of them for Mr. Yo? He’s been in the top 8 for ages!

3. A single stream/video for player hints. If the player showcases are too much work for too little viewership, it’d be nice to have a single more casual stream/video where it’s just a few pointers per player, kinda like an official version of the thread on AoEZone. Doesn’t even need to have clips - just talking would be fine, as long as the video is easy to find. I think it could get decent views (since it’d include everyone), and help hype and garner investment from more casual viewers. I know I felt a bit lost this year since I didn’t follow the field as much, and something like that would have helped me get more into the matches I was watching.

 

[Memeluke]

yeah but that's boring... just play bad get eliminated instantly in 3 games and nobody can easily guess you... I feel it would be more fun if the prize was not for "almost nobody got nicov right" but for "a LOT of people thought nicov was actually TheMax" @Freezing_Point

Also a small problem to fix, aoe2.net leaked ACCM's identity before the games were even casted because the account "Warwolf" appeared with a vietnamese flag for a couple of days before getting removed.

 

[megalopolis]

They won't get views

Maybe not on single players then, but at least a profile that shouts out the guys who fought through the qualifiers? Or all of them? Idk, if you wanted to get a glimpse, you had to sit through the talk show - and even then, not all players were really covered in nearly the same depth. I get that it is what it is, but if you're a newcomer, I think it'd be really informative to have a quick highlight of what some of these guys are known for, rather than extra minutes of talking about boar laming, quickwalls, and failed castles.

Surely there's three simple things that can be highlighted from each player with a clip - i.e. Vinch with mega-intense micro, unique civ picks, frequent feitoria play (he did that a lot in Terra Nova); Mr. Yo with the map control, expert Meso play, and 7-0 meme; Jordan with the years of experience, desire to prove himself / comeback, and superb Islands play. I admit this would be a lot of work but I'm sure it could get plenty of views, and it would also provide some easily replayable clips after the polls during each match (you all voted for these players - quick recap of who they are while we wait for the next game).

 

[covaccino99]

Agree with the length of games. 10 hours is too much, and I think casting quality as well as viewer numbers were impaired by that. I like the idea of a packed weekend of aoe though, and here is my suggestion.

Is it possible to have two t90official channels operating at the same time? Football quarterfinals aren’t played one after another, and there must be financial reasons behind that. Why not have two channels broadcasting the games at the same time? The combined viewer numbers could definitely not be lower, and it could also create hype (“as this game is decided we switch over to the very intense 3-2 game between John the Fearless and Ivalyo! on stream 2!”). And then you have 10 minutes of recap from the games before the final, preferably by someone else than the casters while casters rest.

amazingly done t90, this tournament was really something else. My feedback shouldn’t be taken as criticism but merely suggestions for pushing the production quality even further.

 

[Freezing_Point]

yeah but that's boring... just play bad get eliminated instantly in 3 games and nobody can easily guess you... I feel it would be more fun if the prize was not for "almost nobody got nicov right" but for "a LOT of people thought nicov was actually TheMax" @Freezing_Point

Maybe so, but that approach is probably still more compatible with playing to win than trying to do stuff that your average pro probably couldn't execute as effectively as Vivi does...to say nothing of the fact that Vivi himself doesn't have nearly as much success as he used to.

 

[rmcoo]

Agree with the length of games. 10 hours is too much, and I think casting quality as well as viewer numbers were impaired by that. I like the idea of a packed weekend of aoe though, and here is my suggestion.

Is it possible to have two t90official channels operating at the same time? Football quarterfinals aren’t played one after another, and there must be financial reasons behind that. Why not have two channels broadcasting the games at the same time? The combined viewer numbers could definitely not be lower, and it could also create hype (“as this game is decided we switch over to the very intense 3-2 game between John the Fearless and Ivalyo! on stream 2!”). And then you have 10 minutes of recap from the games before the final, preferably by someone else than the casters while casters rest.

amazingly done t90, this tournament was really something else. My feedback shouldn’t be taken as criticism but merely suggestions for pushing the production quality even further.

Two streams at the same time is good if all players are known so viewers can choose which players they wanna watch. In hidden cup it kinda loses it's purpose, not to mention I've not heard of something like this in any eSports, and it's hard to compare esports to real sports in structure of events.

 

[megabomberman]

Biggest improvement from my perspective would be to have the entire tournament as recs. The final being "live" did not add anything to my enjoyment. Semi finals taking place on Saturday gave players full knowledge of who they were up against and gave them opportunities to come with counter strats to the out of the box stuff appearing in the first two rounds.

 

[BoD_Afraid]

I dont know if this is posible but maby you can write a mod to nickname the Servers Like
Server 1
Server 2
.
.
.
The players can get a better Server without getting information about the Opponent.
So the ping issue is no problem anymore.

And pls no fixed Maps
cause Player will chose them more often as Home map cause they trained them more.
Without Fixed maps we will see more diffrent maps like Goldrush and Querry and we will not see as often the fixed maps

 

[nimanoe]

HC4 overall was great, watched almost every game (on a second screen). Some things I think were great and would love to see in HC5:

• Highlight video of the Qualifiers (by @K1_ ) I really hope there will be one of the Main event as well. Perhaps you could make vids about highlights from previous hidden cups as well to show in the breaks.
• CaptureAge was amazing, really improved on their previous versions. The stats page and the playback mode are sick! The extra information also makes it a lot more user-friendly.
• I liked most of the new maps and I think it was a good decision to not let all of them get played until the Main Event. I was a bit worried that it would result in maps that weren't play-tested enough and would result in unfair civ matchups or had unfair generations, but that wasn't the case, so well done!
• Stats on the overlay were fun as well as the fanzone and pro players predictions (well done @dux )
• Hidden Cup Guessing videos were very well produced as usual, but I agree that we've seen the same four or five players in pretty much every Hidden Cup. I would love to see more videos like the boar luring one where it shows new or inexperienced viewers some insight in how to guess the players. I think you could do something similar for farm placement and autofarm/queue farm in mill (would fit well with the t90Farms meme) and other small stuff like that.
• Casting was great! Hallis and slam showed great insight, Dash is always great to have on a broadcast and Nili didn't show any rust. Dave is the best cocaster for a reason and made listening to T90 bearable
• Guessing form worked flawless. I would suggest to make it public a bit earlier though. After all Ro16 sets have been played and we've seen each player, why not make it public? Now you're excluding people who weren't able to watch the Grand Finals, even though they watched everything else. Maybe it's still in the works, but I think it's also good to share the results or let people know where they can see how many people they guessed correct. The data is also interesting and if the form is open earlier you could maybe show it before semi's and grand final (according to 19% of the viewers we're watching Jordan vs Hera here).
• The qualifiers showed a great level and on it's own could warrant a tournament. My only complaint is that the map pool was a bit small due to some maps being saved for the Main Event.

Now onto some things that I'd love to see improved in HC5:

• The homemaps situation. It shouldn't be possible for one player to have 3 homemaps, while the other one has just one.
• Set maps. I don't think they're needed as players will prepare for the tournament with a prizepool this high. It can also be a bit unfair to a player who's naturally more gifted in one type of map (Arabia for some, Islands for others)
• Invitations. I don't think it makes much sense to invite the top 8 from this tournament to the next tournament, especially given how competitive the scene is right now. I think it would be better to look at the result of the latest tournaments instead of just looking at Hidden Cup.
• Finals played live. It's not going to be fair if one player has to play at a really late or early time, while the other is used to play at that time or is less affected by playing at a weird time. Considering that the rest of the tournament uses recorded games, I don't think people will really complain if you do the same for the finals. It also makes people try to eliminate people by looking at who's in the Twitch chat or who's online on Steam etc. On top of that there's probably less delay between games, so you can finish a bit faster and will have less people leave in the downtime.

 

[dave_hun]

I wish some of the maps were less boom-oriented.

I was really intrigued by Bypass at first, seemed like a different version of hideout with more room for offense. Turns out it is actually a much more defensive version of hideout, attacking through the 5 tile-wide gap in the middle that can be pre-walled in dark age is completely impossible.
I was totally hyped for Vinchester's organ gun -> fast imp feitoria play, because that strategy can be extremely effective on Arena. But this strat against a decent reaction will never work, because there is no way to deny the resources on the side, and it's also very easy to delay with additional stone walls.
M@a towers are not an option because 1 tower denies your entire aggression, and you have nowhere else to go. On hideout there are 3 angles to attack from, and you will most likely deny at least 1 crucial resource with towers. Attacking from the sides on Bypass is completely impossible because the distance is abnormal.

Quarry seems like an interesting concept at first, maybe it's slightly better than Bypass due to having hunt in the middle, so the player having control of the mid will benefit from the extra food. But again, scouting the sides is very easy, you can't sneak through. Stonewalling the sides then camping the base until imp with britons to win the game, not a large plethora of strategies I must say.

Players like to hate on Arena for being too boomy, while on both of these maps it's 5 times more difficult to pull off any aggression. On Arena there are many strategies to punish a no-army 3TC boom, such as full monk rush, siege pike, forward castles to actually deny res from opponent since they can't expand, fast imp arbalest, fast imp monk treb, UU+siege, and so on. You won't see any of this work on Bypass and Quarry.

As much as I don't enjoy Islands, it makes sense to have 1 pure water map in the mappool, and there were some interesting strats shown with the landings. I think it should stay.

I was skeptical of Mudflow at first, but it developed some really interesting games. Giving up map control will hurt you a lot, there is a lot of room for feudal aggression and the mix of water makes it more tough to decide the opening. Big thumbs-up.

 

[Comet777]

My feeling about the HC4 is really mixed. The balance between the "hidden" nature and competitive aspect should be carefully balanced as HC4 has such a high prized pool.

Very Good side:
1. The game itself, don't need to explain. So many classic games!
2. CA run really well this time in game.
3. Interesting guessing session and interaction elements in the game.

Can-be-improved side (good enough but could be better):
1. T90 is such a beast, full respect, but I can feel T90 and Dave this duo are quite tired casting for 9-10 hours almost non-stop. Is it necessary though? There are so many good casters out there.
2. I think NAC3 has better production quality overall, such as how to show "highlight" in game, Dave sometimes just shoutout something happened another side and T90 just missed it. It is quite messy tbh.
3. Presentation showing B/P is a bit unclear.
4. I think the new maps are interesting but quite "boom" and "defensive" oriented.

Not-so-good side
1. Presentation - the b/p session is so unclear. Again I think NAC3 is much straight forward and clearer.
2. I have a little doubt about the random seed though. I think double elimination could be introduced? It is so unfair to Tatoh for example. Its so much money on the line.
3. The fixed map? Why the hell is that?

I hope HC5 can be transited to more influential and more competitive tournament. No offence T90 and all the crews done hell of a job already

I understand that Tatoh has a huge following, however even in fair seeding he is consistently knocked out in ro16 or ro8 (granted he is probably more consistently top 8 on hybrid, but he hovers in the 8-12 spot generally). I think the only unfortunate random seeding was for Leirry and Hera as you had two clear top 4 players in the same quarter final.... yet Hera still made the most of it.

 

[andae23]

Since this seems to be the unofficial feedback thread, I wanted to collect some of my thoughts here.

First off, I love the hidden cups. Each edition seemed to be better than the previous one in pretty much every way, and HC4 was no exception.

The addition of the civ drafting made the games a lot more interesting and it made the guessing game a lot more difficult, which was nice.

Overall the maps were really good, a lot of variety. I don't mind that the map pool was so large that there was even a map that was never played, it more or less reinforces the idea of "home maps", a map that the player considers his home turf. I loved the addition of four new maps a couple days before the first matches were played, you could see that players had very different approaches on Bypass and Mudflow for example.

The only map I really disliked was Islands. I think it's good to have one map in the map pool that is mostly about water control, but the winning condition "turtle up and make your opponent run out of recourses first" should not be a part of this game. I guess it should be possible to design a new map with all the characteristics of islands (water control being key, possibility to land for feudal age aggression) but make it impossible to win by turtling up for an hour (Rooster and Sealed Islands come to mind).

A lot has already been said about the home map situation in the Ivaylo and John the Fearless set, I don't think I need to add anything.

So those are all individual details, but I also want to look at the bigger picture. I think what AoE2 misses at the moment is a true "world championship", some recurring 1v1 RM tournament with mixed maps that ranks the players from best to worst. Currently, the major recurring tournaments all have something that makes them unique: Hidden Cup is with hidden identities and random seeding, KotD is only on Arabia, Red Bull Wololo is on Empire Wars etc. The event that probably comes closest is NAC, which obviously can't happen right now because of COVID.

When you go to any twitch chat or any aoe2 forum, the inevitable question that comes up is: who do you think is the best player? Which players are in your top 5? I'm convinced that there is a demand (almost a need) for a large tournament with a big prize pool that settles the ranking order.

If you would compare it to chess for example, there are many large tournaments with huge prize pools, but because the format is slightly different each time they are not always won by the same person over and over again. However, every two years there is a world championship, with a qualifier tournament that precedes it. The winner is then considered the best chess player for the next two years, which is a fair title because of how meticulous the format is.

Coming back to Hidden Cup, I think because there is no such tournament in AoE2, the people in this community want titles such as "Winner of HC4" or "Winner of KotD3" to have a bigger meaning than perhaps it should. Player X won HC4, but does that make him the best player in the world? And because of primarily the random seeding, but also the hidden aspect that hampers the players' training approach, Hidden Cup is objectively unfair.

Is that a bad thing? Well, not necessarily if you want to have a compromise between organising a competitive tournament and giving the audience a viewer experience that is completely unique to this tournament. But because of the huge prize pool and the lack of a true world championship, anything that appears to be unfair from a competitive point of view is blown up: the home map situation with TheViper, 4 players out of what many people consider the top 5 being in the same half of the bracket, Tatoh losing in round 1 because he was unfortunate enough to match up against the eventual tournament winner. To me, that is part of Hidden Cup, but that's not how everyone sees it.

So to summarise my thoughts, I think the format of Hidden Cup is fantastic, but in the context of the competitive AoE2 scene it just has a really odd place. The prestige and prize pool to me seem disproportionate to the unfairness that naturally comes with the format. In my opinion, a solution would be to reduce the funding for Hidden Cup somewhat, and put it towards a strictly competitive 1v1 RM tournament with mixed maps, either online or -eventually- as a LAN event. Perhaps even a collaboration between multiple major tournament organisers would be amazing. I know that there are a lot of factors and interests that will make it very difficult to organise, but one can dream I guess.