"Why so serious?" A Serious All-Stars that Lacked Entertaining Picks and Matches Google Docs Link Raw Link
The cartoon above is about the dead-serious 2017 League of Legends All-Stars.
The 2017 All Stars came to a close. They are show matches to signal the end of another year, but this year’s All Stars had a stark contrast from the others. The matches that should have been filled with laughter and smiles were replaced with a grim atmosphere. Casual events such as the tandem mode were omitted. Excluding the 1 on 1 matches, this year’s All-Stars event was basically a nation wars.
Many fans speculate that Riot wanted to continue on the hype train created by the Rift Rivals earlier this year. However, unlike Rift Rivals, All-Stars had no prize pool, and thus became an iffy tournament where players picked based on popularity played games based on skill.
Of course, a serious All-Stars had a significant meaning in that it gave a more tense viewing experience, and demonstrated skills not displayed during the Rift Rivals. Although a significant number of fans were enthusiastic about this, it also raises a question. Was this the image want for the All-Stars, previously seen as a time of event and festival?
Perhaps we have grown too used to seeing the vibrant and cheerful All-Stars that came after months of grueling tournaments where everything was fight to the death. It is undeniable that a big part of the All-Stars viewing experience was the entertainment picks and wild strategies that pros came up with. Another thing that viewers looked for was the ‘enemies of the past laughing and playing together as allies’, something that could only be found in the great tournament of unity known as All-Stars. Viewers could get a piece of the sentiment during the Garen 1v1s between Pray and Rekkles.
It is fun watching tightrope matches like this year’s Nation Wars. And it is also true that All-Stars has been criticized due to its lack of meaning. However, to fans who were anticipating a lighthearted match where mistakes didn’t matter, the new competitive path All-Stars is taking doesn’t seem all that great. Both styles have their pros and cons- how will All-Stars change? There is still a whole year left, but I am already eager to hear Riot’s next announcement.
//Sorry this was late- I completely forgot to post it here //Basically column of All-Stars recap, there was a lot of controversy surrounding how tryhard it was this year.
I don't watch fun events (skipped the last two All-Stars) but I agree that Riot shouldn't try to keep this event in "both worlds". Either make it a serious fully tryhard tournament, or keep it casually fun and drop the tryhard elements entirely. Currently, the average viewer doesn't know what to expect from All-Stars, so you get a lot people skipping something they could enjoy or watching it and feeling like they wasted their time.
On December 16 2017 22:52 Sent. wrote: I don't watch fun events (skipped the last two All-Stars) but I agree that Riot shouldn't try to keep this event in "both worlds". Either make it a serious fully tryhard tournament, or keep it casually fun and drop the tryhard elements entirely. Currently, the average viewer doesn't know what to expect from All-Stars, so you get a lot people skipping something they could enjoy or watching it and feeling like they wasted their time.
Either way they take it is fine with me, I do feel this all stars was a bit on the fence, which was hardest to pull off as it will mean Riot will nail the "Best of both worlds" between serious and fun/casual. Hopefully Riot makes it a learning experience.
I think the LoL schedule right now needs a whole overhaul. There's no fluidity to it, and so many tournaments lack either structure, meaningfulness, prize pool or a combination of all 3.
Yeah. I’d like to see them use it as a vacation reward for players. Hold it somewhere nice, like Hawaii, and set it up to not be tryhard. Maybe have open or closing matches be hardcore, but also give the players a bunch of silly things to do that they don’t need to prep for. Like playing everyone off role for a match, or nemesis draft.
In general I think players need more down time and all stars should be partially a paid vacation.
Overall, given the timing of the event, it cant be even kind of serious because it is at the end of the season (a WAYYYY TOOO LONNNG season), so it should probably be casual with each of the 5 major regions sending 4 players, and them playing occasional 5v5s (based on lottery draws) with fun festivities in between.
Example of a day of a multi day all stars:
Opening Ceremony Lottery where toplaners get their teammates for G1 Fireworks G1a Cosplay Event G1b D1 Gimmick (like Jatt vs. Kobe 1v1s) D1 Closes
On December 21 2017 08:51 Amui wrote: One of the best fun formats I remember seeing is actually from dota, where you can only ban or pick a champion once in any given series.
All-stars should be a showcase of off-meta flashy picks, or soloq style picks and so on. I want to see the Yasuo's and riven's and shaco's.
Would certainly make Bo5's much more interesting.
I agree with this format. Honestly I kind of want to see it during the regular season too. Like you have the full pool of champs and it dwindles as the season goes.
There is an interesting Hotline League interview with Azael (the NA LCS caster) on All-Stars and it explains some of the reasoning behind the format changes:
Basically, here is the gist of the reasoning behind the changes, according to Azael:
All-Stars was too long in previous years and the viewership numbers suffered because of this.
There were players who tryharded anyways in the fun events (e.g. picking Evelynn or Twitch in the tandem mode which means that 1 member of the duo does basically nothing).
I think that the above statements are true but I don't agree with the conclusion that Riot Games came to, which is to make a serious tournament. If 4 days is really too long, wouldn't the solution be to condense the event, not keep it the same length and inviting more teams while removing the fun modes in order to accommodate the increase in 5v5 games? And if players are divided between tryharding and having fun, why did they choose to make it 100% serious instead of 100% fun, especially in a tournament in the offseason with 0 prizepool? They could force this by forcing nemesis draft or whatever...
So that makes me think that the real reason why they chose to transform the All-Stars event this year into another serious competition was because fans were clamoring for more international tournaments, especially after the cancellation of LoL IEM tournaments. I hope they see that their experiment failed and that they won't hijack the All-Stars instead of giving us a real new international tournament with actual teams and prize pools next year...
On December 22 2017 07:26 starkiller123 wrote: Wish they could make it something like homestory cup somehow
Travis and MarkZ actually propose this in the video I linked. It would be nice to have a tournament in a laid back setting but I don't think Riot Games would be up for it since they want to maintain a certain level of standard in their production.