This is gonna be about burnout, the less matches thing, and t2 scenes in general.
Gonna start this off by saying I have no expectation for this to happen(quickly). When riot starts doing things they already have a plan to follow.
Also I have a lot of region-specific experience/perspective in this, I'd rather people talk about the nuances of other regions than flaming me saying what I'm talking about might not be correct everywhere.
Out the gate, the best(consistently) performing team in the world, 2023 FNATIC, SHOULD FEEL BURNOUT. They are the best team, if they are comfy something is wrong. That does not mean we should dismiss what they feel and what players need to stay both in form and mentally stable. HOWEVER, the real issue lies in the rest of the teams that AREN'T making every event have nothing else to do! There is no extra grind to go work through shortcomings and theory craft creative solutions/comps. Now having even LESS MATCHES on top of that pre-existing issue, they need to enable non-circuit tournaments/matches for the teams that are left behind.
"How would that even work? What if the players need a break? Who would lead the tournaments?"
There are 2 concurrent coversations that have the same solution here from my perspective. Riot doesn't want organizations to feel profitable hovering in tier2. The community doesn't like this but its pretty simple to understand the approach. HOWEVER, the system for the players in t2 still mostly functions as if the opposite were true. Tier2 players losing contracts bc there isn't anything reputable to play after their season ends is just unnecessary. If they suck and deserve to be cut-IT WILL HAPPEN.
"WHAT IS THE SOLUTION ALREADY?!!??!?"
SHOWCASE TOURNAMENTS EITHER BEFORE or AFTER CAPSTONE EVENTS(Masters, champs, LCQs).
Franchise players that deserve to be in the league are capable of figuring out their issues, but most players need matches to really see what people will do to counter them. And need the reps to actually CHANGE their bad habits/plays that lead to those important losses. [Region]scrims.exe
Tier2 Players that deserve to be in franchising deserve an opportunity to prove that. That does not consist of stomping on other tier2 players. I'm sure this point will be more appreciated by analysts/team level players: It is an entirely different game between tier 2 and tier1. Both sides need the experience to improve their game. I understand the embarassment of a franchise team losing to a tier2 team and why riot doesn't want that to happen a lot. HOWEVER, I know for a fact yall hate player recycling. You give players an opening to show they understand the level of tier1 play those teams will notice.
I also believe its good for storylines especially with the state of most casting(sry its not yalls fault but this change would also help yall practice as well); people don't know who any of these "new" players are.
Let's use C9 Oxy as an example. He's been shitting on pros in ranked for ages now. 100% deserves his spot on the team and its clear as day even from the first matches. But it feels weird that the first time we're really seeing a professional-franchise duelist prodigy type play against another franchise duelist in a match setting, is once hes signed. The guy would have been shitting on the same people, back on g2, that he is right now on c9. But thats BRUTALLY obvious. What about all the other roles that being amazing at doesn't necessarily mean you look flashy and exciting and you just nuke everything in the server? They don't get shit, you need impeccable scouting. MCE was great at this, as much as there is to say about the previous iteration of c9 and blah blah; when I saw jakee getting picked up I was like, aight that makes sense he should be fine in t1. But for a lot of people, they just hear a caster say he was collegiate player and THATS IT. Like ???? And even then, jake farmed his games and ranked. There are playstyles that don't necessarily enable yourself to farm kills-but setup all of your teammates for success.
And thats necessary to the game. 5 isolated star players from each role put onto 1 team would very likely not succeed, at least quickly. Players have to make sacrifices all the time in order for the team to win.
I trust Riot to eventually get things right don't get me wrong, as much as they get hate for everything they do, esports is in a fucking horrible spot-lets be honest with ourselves. Rocket League is dying, Counter-strike is scrambling a bit, Apex is that whole thing, Overwatch.exe
Riot carries their pride in with the decisions they make, and a portion of that is deserved. I'm not expecting trolls to stop making shitposts but I think a lot of people with an audience don't comment on things as much bc they don't want to think past "well this is how it feels for me."
They have the motivation to make the game successful bc they make money from it. Its a pretty powerful motivator.
We have the motivation to make the game successful bc WE PLAY IT. Let's try to figure out how to get on the same page here and sync up some goals/expectations.
Riot wants a good form of control over the public image of their game and its very easy to prevent any tarnishing of that by not allowing 3rd party anything. Personally approved tournaments are not counter-evidence to this point. "I want my company's flagship FPS title to look good." is not a crazy concept.
(Final point)
HOWEVER, we need more in the scene. If we aren't going to get demos then we need more matches. I'm personally ok with what I can get from mapstaring vods and replaying rounds till I see everything that happened. Some riot employee is reading this rn saying "but you never answered who would run it!" I am not a billion dollar company. Yall have the resources to figure out how to make this work and honestly it would make more money. People buy skins when they get hyped. We'd have more hype. We'd have comparative gameplay from tier2 to tier1 and be able to truly see HOW MUCH BETTER a team playing in masters or Champs is vs a team playing in challengers. People just see kills and don't really have an opportunity to see more than that.
TL;dr
Riot if you can find a way that everyone plays a more equal amount of matches-while also enabling players in both t1 and t2 to prove that they each, deserve to be where they are at-and deserve to be higher than where they are at. Burnout is important to keep in mind but there won't ever be a good system that the best team in the world gets to sit back and chill for longer than a week or 2 after a masters event.
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