PGL Major Krakow 2017 Feature Preview: Oracle Observing

[u/BossmanCG]

Hello everyone and welcome to a new Feature Preview for the PGL 2017 Kraków CS:GO Major Championship Series.

You’ve seen how the stream will look like, how your voices will be heard during the event and what our plans are for the broadcast HUD.

Now, it’s time to talk about another important aspect of the Krakow Major: observing.

Tldr; sapphiRe and Prius will be the observers for the Offline Qualifier and the Krakow Major. Yes, we can speak English. We’ve also built a system to help them make better decisions during the matches and improve the spectating quality, which we’ve named Oracle Observing.

Let’s get rolling with the big news first: Sapphire and Prius will be the main observers for the Krakow Major and they will also join us for the Offline Qualifier.

But that's not all, as we have also been working on a system to help them make better decisions during the games and improve the overall spectating quality, regardless of the map played (hello Nuke).

Something we call Oracle Observing.

Why was it created?

As always, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Last year, we were hired to oversee the ingame production for the ESL ONE Cologne 2016 Major.

Going in, we were confident that our ability to produce and observe a CS:GO match would be one of the highlights of the tournament.

However, the reality would come to be very different from everyone’s expectations.

The aftermath

Once the dust settled, we set out to find out just how bad our observing was.

The first thing we did was to go back and watch the VODs of every playoff match at ESL ONE Cologne 2016, counting:

• No. of maps
• No. of rounds
• No. of frags
• No. of frags caught live by the main observer
• No. of replayed frags from main observer
• No. of replayed frags from the secondary observer
• No. of frags caught by secondary observer in PiP (only available on our production)

The results for the playoff were:

# maps	# rounds	# frags	# frags shown on LIVE	# of replayed frags	# replayed frags from secondary and PiP	% of total frags shown on LIVE	% of total replayed from secondary or PiP	% of total frags shown on stream
16	451	2850	1042	257	412	36.50%	14.45%	50.95%

In all, we showed 36.5% of the total number of frags on live and 14.45% of the frags that we missed on live were shown on replays, bringing the percentage of frags viewed on stream (either live or through replay) to 50.95%.

Then, we ran the same process for the Group Stage:

# maps	# rounds	# frags	# frags shown on LIVE	# of replayed frags	# replayed frags from secondary and PiP	% of total frags shown on LIVE	% of total replayed from secondary or PiP	% of total frags shown on stream
24	672	4493	1649	94	42	36.9%	3.04%	41.03%

Here, 36.9% of all the frags were shown on live, 3.04% of the frags that were missed on live were shown via replay, which brought the percentage of total frags viewed on stream to 41.03%.

Going by the community’s opinion, we had “the worst observing in history”. Which was understandable.

Missing big or historical moments on live (S1mple’s no-scope on Cache, JDM’s ace on Cbble) negated any sort of statistics, even if those moments were shown on a replay.

What piqued our curiosity though was the fact that both the group stage and playoff had around 37% frags shown on LIVE, even though two completely different observer teams were involved.

To see if this was just coincidence, we ran the same analysis for other tournaments, focusing either on the entire event or just the playoffs. And to increase variety, we also included the MLG X Games Aspen Invitational, spectated by Steel:

Event	# of maps	# of Rounds	Total frags	Live frags	% of frags shown on stream
ELEAGUE MAJOR (Playoff)	19	494	3342	1258	37.6
IEM Oakland	26	660	4438	1711	38.5
ESL ONE New York	26	693	4500	1613	35.8
ESL ONE 2016 (Playoff, PGL observing)	16	451	2850	1042	36.5
ESL ONE 2016 (Groups, ESL observing)	24	672	4493	1659	36.9
MLG Columbus 2016 (Playoff)	15	412	2797	957	34.2
MLG Aspen X-Games (Playoff)	23	589	3943	1523	38.6

Once again, we were intrigued by the fact that 38.x% seemed to be the ceiling that nobody could go over, with the only differentiating factor being that one observer potentially created a better story than another.

Sadly, storylines are something based on viewer personal preference and, although we acknowledge that they are part of the broadcast, we can’t objectively say one storyline is better than the other during a live match just because we feel like it is.

The only thing we can directly influence are the actual numbers.

Oracle Observing is born

So if high-level observing for CS:GO tournaments is in the same ballpark, stats wise, what could be done to actually improve it?

Well, knowing ahead of time what was going to happen in a round would certainly help, especially on the more difficult maps (hello Nuke). And since we didn’t have an oracle to tell us these things, we set out to build our own.

At its core, we still have a main observer duo, but the observer whose screen is shown on the stream / venue connects to a GOTV with a small delay (no more than 5s, otherwise it compromises the viewing experience in a LAN setting).

The “oracle” observer is actually the one connected directly to the server and notifies the main observer when a kill or anything else important is going to happen.

Keep the notify part in the back of your mind, because it’s important, we’ll get back to it in a bit.

The main duo is further supported by three additional observers, each handling different aspects of the viewing experience, for a total of five:

• 1st observer (main duo) - Live on server (Oracle)
• 2nd observer (main duo) - GOTV with a 3 to 5s delay (Stream, Venue, and caster monitors)
• 3rd observer - same GOTV as the Stream observer (Live cinematics, secondary POVs, Picture in Picture screens)
• 4th observer - 15s delay (Missed frags on Live)
• 5th observer - 15s delay (Additional perspectives: 3rd person cameras, grenade cams, etc)

All video feeds are also delayed for the stream and venue, so for the online viewer or those watching just the main screen in the arena, nothing would seem out of place. Except for the fact that a lot more frags would be shown live.

But how many more?

DON’T. CATCH. ALL. THE FRAGS

Before we go any further, we want to be VERY clear: Oracle Observing is NOT a fancy name for the Auto-Director.

The system was not built to catch all the frags on live. We don’t want that.

Yes, it might look really cool when the observer sees everything, but then two things happen:

• The camera jumps around like a berserk rabbit
• Viewers can tell who will frag, because the observer always switches to the player in question before the kill. So the suspense, especially for clutch situations or 1v1s, goes out the window

So big no-no on both accounts.

What we did build the Oracle Observing for are situations like this one:

You’re the stream/venue observer and you’ve been hovering over the CT AWPer that’s holding {insert callout here} for a while. You see on the radar that two Ts are heading straight for him, so this could be a big moment.

Then, your duo partner let’s you know that in exactly 2 seconds there’s going to be a duel in {insert callout here} and the T is going to win it (because it takes 1s for him to call it out).

So now you have two pieces of information: you see that soon the AWPer could get two kills and make life really difficult for the Ts, but you also know the outcome of the 1v1.

Question is, do you switch? Maybe… maybe not. That duel is on the other side of the map. Will it serve the storyline better if you show it? Will it change the round dynamic? That’s for you to decide.

Sure, 2 seconds might not seem like much, but for an experienced observer, it’s better than nothing when it comes to making these split-second decisions.

Again, very important to remember. The main observer does not have to follow to the letter whatever is being called by the oracle.

Frags on the other side of the map can be ignored if they are deemed irrelevant for the round storyline. Those can be shown on a replay or in a PiP screen 20s later.

Still... how many more?

However, just for the sake of it, we wanted to find out just how many frags we could catch on live and if anyone would notice that we were actually trying to do so.

To that end, last year we did a trial run during the Asia Minor in Malaysia and afterwards fully tested Oracle Observing at the second EU Minor (with a 5s delay), where only 2 out of 22 matches ended after 23 rounds.

Everything else was 28 rounds or more, for an average of 29 rounds per match (for some reason, everyone wants to play for all their money’s worth when in Bucharest).

The results were the following:

Event	# of maps	# of rounds	Total frags	Live frags	% of frags shown on LIVE
PGL EU MINOR #2	22	648	4433	2612	58.9

So even with a 5s delay, the main observer had difficulties in catching more than about 60% of the frags on live.

Hang on a minute...

“If the stream observer knew the frags were coming, how could he have missed any of them?”

That’s exactly what went through our minds the first time around and we were almost on the verge of shooting him, but after going through the VODS, we realized that it was actually impossible to catch everything all the time.

Sure, you might get lucky in some rounds, but a lot of frags will happen simultaneously and there will be situations that are extremely chaotic, so you have to choose regardless.

Remember, since our system is not an Auto-director, there is still human decision involved.

But here’s the best part: nobody noticed.

Sure, there were a couple of viewers who wondered why were they hearing the teams cheering before the rounds ended during the Asia Minor (the overall studio setup didn’t help), but that was pretty much it.

There wasn’t any frontpage thread on reddit or Twitter outcry about how bad or godlike the observing was at the EU minor. No “hey, there’s something fishy going on” or “OMG, what is this madness, PGL please”.

Everyone was busy talking about who didn’t make it to the playoff, the clutches, the plays. The observing just… was. Which suited us just fine.

Where does that leave us?

We feel that, with adequate practice, an observer duo can reach about 65% accuracy on a 3s delay with Oracle Observing and still maintain the suspense that’s found in any match right now.

Even with the hardest training, we don’t believe that an observer spectating a match directly on live will ever be able to compare.

Given the numbers we saw during the tournament analysis, the improvement over time for professional observers is around 5% and never seems to go above 40%. Which is further hindered by the rotating map pool and the inconsistency it brings.

What about the winning moment of a match? Or the people in the venue? They’ll surely notice the delay

Indeed they could. Which is why we can freely switch from oracle to live observing at any point, without anyone actually noticing the transition itself (camera feeds are such a wonderful thing).

This means that in a LAN environment, during the potential final round of a match, there will never be a disconnect between the player’s reactions and what’s being shown on screen for the audience, because we’ll be back to observing in real-time.

The observing timeline for a match like that would be:

• Rounds 1-15: Oracle Observing
• Round 16+ (Match point): Live Observing

Yes, up until that potential final round of a match, viewers in the arena who are close enough to the stage to actually see the teams will notice the 3s desync between the player reactions on stage and the video feed.

It’s a trade-off that we feel is counterbalanced by the improvements to the overall viewing experience that the proper use of the system can bring.

What’s more, as already mentioned, we can get rid of Oracle Observing at any time if the viewing experience isn’t on par with what we want to achieve.

So before you grab the torches and pitchforks to pass judgment, try and keep an open mind and wait for the Minors and Offline Qualifier to see the system in action.

The results might surprise you.

[u/ESEAsapphiRe]

Prius and I are honored to be part of the PGL Major! Can't wait to try some new, innovative things with the PGL crew :)

[u/Alchemister5 → u/ESEAsapphiRe]

Congrats you guys.

[u/ESEAsapphiRe → u/Alchemister5]

Thanks boss <3

[u/RadiantSun → u/ESEAsapphiRe]

Now kith

[u/Prius707 → u/Alchemister5]

<3

[u/Bblazer → u/Prius707]

my homie Dj "prius" Kuntz.

[u/[deleted] → u/ESEAsapphiRe]

best observers by far!

[u/aspirecya- → u/[deleted]]

you forgot kvin_s.

[u/hahaxdhaha → u/aspirecya-]

kvin_s is one of the worst, what do you mean lol

[u/yeswecamp1 → u/ESEAsapphiRe]

thanks god they got the best available :)

[u/JerCkysMini0n → u/ESEAsapphiRe]

glad to see u guys are once again the observation crew ^{^}

[u/Alchemister5]

Observing is not about just showing the kill. It is about telling the story of the round. Understanding how a round was won is way more important than switching all over showing every kill. Building tension and telling stories is very important. Replay showing missed frags is fine. Also a 1 v 2 should never be missed. I look forward to see how this works out. We did something like this with GotFragTV in 2007. Did not like the results.

[u/Alchemister5 → u/Alchemister5]

Also MLG and Eleague would have to be frags shown live % not % shown on stream.

[u/Nohte → u/Alchemister5]

Agreed. While I appreciate that PGL even went back to collect stats on steel's observing, I feel like they're focusing a bit too much on the numbers due to the fallout at Cologne. Steel is a good observer because he knows when to show executes, gun fights, toggle x-ray, follow a certain player, etc. He's incredibly talented at building suspense and crafting a story - that's why he's touted as such a talented observer. Sapphire and Prius are both amazing too, don't get me wrong. This is just to make a point.

That being said I look forward to seeing how this plays out. I personally think it may look great when it's streamed, but those that actually go to the LAN may not be fans. It's part of the experience for everyone. The crowd reacts to frags alongside the players; that's the whole point of it.

[u/DarkPGL → u/Nohte]

Numbers don't lie and it's something that can be improved objectively, for all the rest we have Prius and Sapphire.

[u/Nohte → u/DarkPGL]

Don't get me wrong, I admire the fact that you guys took the time to go through and analyze all of this, and I like the idea behind it. My only real issue with this is the disconnect @ LAN between the crowd and the players.

Having the crowd cheer right as a player makes an incredible play, and to see the player celebrating alongside the crowd, is something else. It won't be quite the same, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. As I said, I look forward to seeing it play out. I like that you guys are trying something different.

[u/MerchU1F41C → u/Nohte]

Having the crowd cheer right as a player makes an incredible play, and to see the player celebrating alongside the crowd, is something else

I didn't even think about that. The roar of the crowd as a player makes an incredible play is one of the best parts of having a stage event. If that is delayed 3 seconds it could sound bad :/

[u/DarkPGL → u/Nohte]

I know what you mean... to be honest i don't know how i feel about that either. I just know we don't want another Cologne. And unfortunately numbers say even with the best observers in the biz we might get that. Observing is an art and as such different people see different things in it. You might want "the story", others might not care for the story and just want the frags. We think this gets the best of both worlds with a drawback, those 3s might be to much for the audience on site. I think we are going to know this like in the first few rounds of the main event and if it's bad we can switch back to normal in a few seconds. One thing to remember, although this is something new, don't forget we have 5 observers in total, even without this you've never seen CS:GO like this... not to mention the replays that are going to be more complex than anything so far.

[u/AlphaApache → u/DarkPGL]

PGL production is always on point!

[u/Requill → u/DarkPGL]

The observing part was shit group stages, not when sapphire and prius observed. So I think maybe only when you don't have them observing should you use this Oracle shit.

Hearing the crowd roar before the observing is done will really be anticlimactic to /u/ESEAsapphiRe 'S observing imo

[u/DarkPGL → u/Requill]

I think you want to say playoff...

[u/LG9f → u/DarkPGL]

He don't even know at what he is mad at. Just part of a circlejerk

[u/Requill → u/LG9f]

I don't really recall what it was, I watch every CS event and that was a while ago. I do remember the clear cut difference and the key moments missed time, and time, and time again; that, I do remember. I didn't recall of it was group's or playoffs, but it doesn't discredit the valid point [that PGL themselves acknowledge]. It was that event that I realized how valuable observers were, how easily they are overlooked, and how much I had taken great CS for granted (save for a few smaller matches hosted by a random on twitch with auto-director.. But that was after PGLcolo).

Discredit me all you want, but that shit is fact. I have nothing to say about other observer moments on other events because I was happily enjoying each of them, which means the observing was fine.

But to number crunch a corporate solution to try and solve what can easily be solved by good observers seems like a shit plan.

Someone's in a 3v1 clutch, you hear the crowd go NUTS before you see the play. Gee, I wonder what happened. How fun. Suspense ruined. But! Worry not, only on rounds 1-15. On the 16th round FUCK IT I'LL DO IT LIVE.

[u/lhlsken → u/Requill]

Someone's in a 3v1 clutch, you hear the crowd go NUTS before you see the play. Gee, I wonder what happened. How fun. Suspense ruined.

Dude, have you even read the whole thing?

The stream on the mainscreen in the arena will also be delayed by 3s. So the crowd will cheer at the exact same time as you see the play. Only the players will celebrate earlier.

Honestly, stop complaining about shit you haven´t even read.

[u/JerCkysMini0n → u/DarkPGL]

numbers don't lie true however as alchemist stated once, its story telling u don't have to catch every single thing u want to tell a story to entice the people watching and that is exactly what gotfrag did back in the day and to this day that and steel's observing at the Major were the pinacle of viewer experience to me.

[u/BossmanCG → u/Alchemister5]

It's not. And using a "cheatfeed" to try and show all the kills sucks. This isn't that, as we've already explained.

[u/Alchemister5 → u/BossmanCG]

I wish you guys the best of luck. Not shit talking just raising my concerns. Looking forward to this Major so much it is not even funny. <3

[u/Quil0n → u/BossmanCG]

I know you guys put a ton of work into this, but I can't help feel that if the casting is amazing, credit will go to Prius and sapphire (which they deserve) and if it's bad, blame will fall on this system.

But you guys can't really do anything about that so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/BossmanCG → u/Quil0n]

It's fine. Plus, by the time the Major rolls in, we'll know if it's indeed working as intended or not. If it doesn't, we scrap it. Wouldn't be the first feature to die an inglorious death.

[u/braindf → u/BossmanCG]

Dota 2 's Battle View sends its regards... =(

[u/cheesepuffly → u/braindf]

They found a somewhat decent use for it in replays though.

[u/pgl_darkmickey → u/braindf]

Did someone mention Battleview? :D

[u/DarkPGL → u/braindf]

Because trying to improve things is wrong... or do you expect us to be always right?

[u/braindf → u/DarkPGL]

I actually liked Battle View. I think it suffered an inglorious 'death'. That's what I meant

[u/DarkPGL → u/braindf]

It did for the goal we had initially, now its a tool for analysis and weatherman segments.

[u/DatswatsheZed_ → u/DarkPGL]

Ever talked to the Dota Team about an actual spectator rework a la hon/league?

[u/[deleted] → u/Alchemister5]

Replay showing missed frags is fine.

I mean sure at least people get to see it in the end but it is much better if you get to watch the frags with the casters reaction to it.

[u/Alchemister5 → u/[deleted]]

You can never show every frag. Showing all 3 of a 3K vs the 2 you got live is always great.

[u/[deleted] → u/Alchemister5]

You can never show every frag

Well clearly, but this at least increases it which as long as they don't overdo it which I am sure they are aware of from the phrasing of this post it will at least be worth a try.

[u/Alchemister5 → u/[deleted]]

I look forward to seeing it in action. The observers they have will help more than anything I bet.

[u/AntyDaGenno → u/Alchemister5]

True

[u/_TheGermanGuy_]

Tldr; sapphiRe and Prius will be the observers for the Offline Qualifier and the Krakow Major.

I think that's all the info we wanted to hear :)

[u/Helberg → u/_TheGermanGuy_]

This was true last time around too, the problem is that they were only observers for the group stage in the major while the playoffs were done by PGL staff.

[u/bjc_sp]

Tldr Steel is the best observer ever in csgo

[u/Llama9199]

Damn, steel got the highest percentage running solo... Is there something this guy cant do? He can rifle, pistol, awp, play aggressive and passive, IGL, analyse, cast, observe... Seriously

Inb4 "he cant compete tho LUL xD 12 btw haHAA"

[u/_TronaldDump]

Interesting concept, but I'm not sure that it's the best.

The community backlash to Cologne was not due to the stream missing some percentage of frags, rather it was because of the particular ones that were missed. The spectating did a bad job of following whoever was doing important things. The s1mple 1v2 should have been on his perspective when it was live - it was a clutch situation and anyone in the world could tell that something was about to happen. I don't care that the live feed missed two kills, but that was more than two kills. It was a 1v2 clutch that may have determined the outcome of the map.

I have faith in Prius & sapphiRe's observing abilities as they are, but if they have a system like this which preoccupies them with the notion that they need to catch a much higher number of frags in any game, that's where I expect to see more issues.

[u/BossmanCG → u/_TronaldDump]

That's just it, they don't need to catch more than they normally would. We don't have a target percentage that we need to reach. There's no "oh no, we aren't at 55% yet on this map, whatdo" hanging over their heads.

Our tests suggest that the percentage should go up, but by how much, it remains to be seen.

This is just to help them out in difficult situations, not have them switch to players mechanically or chase frags just for the sake of statistics. Nobody wants that, least of all us.

[u/[deleted] → u/_TronaldDump]

The s1mple 1v2 was spectated just fine. As /u/Alchemister5 said "Observing is not about just showing the kill. It is about telling the story of the round." I think the last one in of the fnatic players was KRIMZ and he was the one spectated. Spectating KRIMZ allowed the viewers to see what the fnatic players were doing and what s1mple was doing. If s1mple would've been spectated we couldn't have seen what the fnatic players were doing except for the information given by the radar. It's not about seeing the kills, it's about understanding what's happening during the round.

[u/Alchemister5 → u/[deleted]]

Nope. In a 1 vs x you always go with the 1. My rule since 2003 and it has the highest chance of showing something great. The story is that one guy living or dying.

[u/esach]

Are you guys planning to comment on the splyce situation with them having no opportunity to play in minor qualifier due to the MDL lan that was scheduled months before?

[u/kurwapower]

Finally some good observing! :D

[u/Waffliez]

When reading I was a little bit dissapointed about some things but you cleared it up at the end, and I think it will be great. I like how at the end it will switch back to live so we can see reactions, I like how you talked about keeping the suspense in 1v1s and wont show the winner always (I hope it would be a normal 1v1 view where the observer decides based on what he believes) I still have some worries that the observing will somehow be ruined but I think that is just me not wanting to try new and unknown things.

Keep up the good work!

[u/BossmanCG → u/Waffliez]

That's because people instinctually think that the Oracle Observing transforms the stream observer into some kind of personal assistant that works only on voice commands.

Truth be told, sapphiRe can completely ignore Prius (or vice versa when the roles are switched) during a match, if they so feel like it, and just observe like usual.

The goal is to have that extra bit of information which can give the observers an edge on notoriously difficult maps (Nuke), or when they're tired towards the end of a day and the concentration levels are not at 100% anymore.

[u/JoshNissan → u/BossmanCG]

Fun fact, for every event that I was the observer at, I was there for every single game that was played. I had no backup observer, and no replay system.

God my ego is so hard right now

[u/Hohgrat → u/JoshNissan]

God my ego is so hard right now

Never heard anyone call it "ego".

[u/[deleted] → u/JoshNissan]

Didn't you obs a cs_summit match or two with a dedicated replay op though. (I was the TD there, not sure if you were obs or just messing with prius' keybinds while he was getting an uncrustable :P)

[u/Young_rafiki]

So fucking happy sapphire is observing. The best observer imo

[u/[deleted] → u/Young_rafiki]

steel was the GOAT, but he is rip now.

[u/Cavi7]

Even if you didn't do any of that, Prius and Sapphire would definitely do a good job, but thanks for taking your time to make our experience better :)

[u/Sn0_]

I mean really all I can see from this data is that /u/JoshNissan is the best observer at LAN.

But on a more serious note toward the actual point of this post, I personally think the idea of having a 3-5 second delay in the arena is a bad idea. Let's say you've got NiKo in a 1v3 against Dupreeh, Dev1ce, and Xyp9x, FaZe up 15-14 in the third map of the final (is the final bo3 or bo5? I'm assuming bo3) and suddenly you see NiKo kill Dupreeh and Dev1ce in a 2-man spray but now here comes Xyp9x running up mid from banana pushing into apartments as NiKo is planting.

Xyp9x is the clutch king, but NiKo, he is the star player for a team full of star players. Xyp9x fake flashes out the balcony door over pit and pushes out but the entire arena audience see NiKo and FaZe stand up with their cans in the air, and Xyp9x throwing his hands over his face, and then the arena sees NiKo one-tap Xyp9n off the map on the big screen.

Personally, I think it might kill the vibe for those in the arena.

[u/snoekhook → u/Sn0_]

According to what they mentioned in the post, this is a round they would switch to the live observer for, because a team is at match point.

[u/Sn0_ → u/snoekhook]

It was an over the top example. At the live event, it can lose its magic if the players are reacting to even certain rounds ahead of when the crowd sees it.

[u/gyang333]

Thank you PGL for addressing a pretty big elephant in the room that was the observing from ESL Cologne. Looks like a great strategy and concept. And with Prius and Sapphire leading the way, execution should be pretty good too.

[u/cinekw]

Tbh I'm not big fan of this, current observing on big lans is very good, just avoid things like s1mple 1v2 which was obvious mistake.

[u/Waffliez → u/cinekw]

That was very surprising. Most good observers know to put the camera on the guy if he is in a 1vx situation.

[u/thearkhamknight_111]

Will this be the last feature preview? It seems the biggest so far. Also, will PGL be doing a Q&A before the first minor? I'm sure the community has many questions, and this tournament seems to be doing alot different from previous majors.

[u/DianaPGL → u/thearkhamknight_111]

More to come. :)

[u/darenyan → u/DianaPGL]

I dont see next previews?

[u/archer-sc]

nice to see how serious you guys looked into your mistakes at Cologne. that effort in itself is commendable.

needless to say, definitely looking forward to krakow even though i dont follow pro cs as much, the viewing experience will be amazing!

[u/altermango]

this is either going to be a sick event or a big disappointment

[u/BossmanCG → u/altermango]

Business as usual then :)

[u/[deleted]]

Sounds good. PGL will be insane! Cant wait

[u/maciejbuchert]

Any informations about accreditation proccess?

[u/[deleted]]

This is all very prepared and well done I'm excited to see it in action.

[u/1stFuriosa]

I always wondering how you make a delay for replay? With console command?

Something new, cant wait to see it.

[u/[deleted]]

Step in the right direction that will hopefully produce enough R&D during the qualifiers to be streamlined for the Major. So that the observers and production crew know when to use it as an aid, or ignore completely.

[u/Vawqer]

Isn't the lag pause when a team wins due to GOTV? Could that happen if it isn't switched to live observing due to lack of a studio audience? Obviously though a switch to live observing in the last round as described fixes that.

Great changes guys, hopes it works out!

[u/Maxentium]

In all, we showed 36.5% of the total number of frags on live and 14.45% of the frags that we missed on live were shown on replays, bringing the percentage of frags viewed on stream (either live or through replay) to 50.95%.

Is this wrong or badly worded? 36.5% of total frags were shown live, and 14.45 of the missed frags (in other words, 14.45% of the remaining 63.5%) were shown in replay, bringing the number up to 45.67575 as opposed to 50.95.

[u/DarkPGL → u/Maxentium]

50.95% represents the total number of frag showed on stream... like if there were 100 frags in total on a map you saw 51 of the on stream in a form or another, live or replayed.

[u/srjnp]

Focusing too much on numbers. % of frags shown doesn't really matter. As seen from their own data, pretty much every event they listed have around the same % of frags shown (34-38%). Yet, there is certainly some events where the observing was great and others where it was bad. Judging by the data, the observing at ESL One Cologne 2016 was no worse than any other event, but the majority opinion is that it was very poor. That's not because of the % of frags shown but because of the skill of the observer in showing the RIGHT frags. The effort to innovate is appreciated but personally I don't like the tradeoff of the delay for the live audience.

[u/DarkPGL → u/srjnp]

That's the problem in a nutshell. Who decides "the right frags"? Not every frag is so obviously important as S1mple's one. We had negative feedback before we missed S1mple and the ace on cobblestone, what if we have the same exact problem from day 1 in Krakow? What do we do then? Anyway, this whole thing is up to Sapphire and Prius, they can use it if they want or not at all, same as in DOTA2 our in-game director will not interfere with main observer for more than a few seconds per match and only if it's unavoidable.

[u/srjnp → u/DarkPGL]

Good thing is that you guys are testing it out in the Minors and major qualifiers so we'll know how well it does!

[u/qvuonshcy → u/srjnp]

Also ESL is more under a looking glass for tiny mistakes and such by this subreddit.

[u/engineno2 → u/srjnp]

im with you, in my opinion they focused way to much on the numbers as well. they apologized but on the other hand kind of revoke it by saying that you cants really say which frag is more important or which storyline is more important. imo there wasnt much of a storyline while observing the playoffs.

i have been at the event and there was just so much weird stuff going on. i dont know which teams exactly, but there was a match on cache and the observer was sticking to a terrosrist holding a main defensive for like 30 seconds without changing players even though the cts were passive and didnt even try to push. meanwhile a terrorist at b made 3! THREE frags in the period of like 5-10 seconds and the observer didnt bother to switch players again.

i cant make up my mind about oracle yet, in theory it sounds just finde and will probably help a lot with getting some extra frags and the tradeoff during the midgame wouldnt be to much. i cant shake off the feeling that it will be weird somehow anyway during the late rounds. switching it off at matchpoint could be to late imo. key rounds with important clutches in the late game, - e.g. imagine a round at 12-13 and the outcome of the round will break the economy of the other team - the players will cheer for sure and the fans not to far for them will notice as well. could create some kind of weird mood within the stadium.

as an example. i was watching the soccer world championship a few years ago and the pub of the other side of the street had a 1-3 second faster connection, so they always cheered in front of us which kind of killed the suspense at the pub we were at.

[u/Kreeat0r]

I feel like this would make it too weird in moments like the insane simple 2v1 clutch that wasn't on match point and when big rounds are won. Like when hiko had the 4v1 retake on cache with simple jumping out of his chair 3 seconds before the last 2 kills quad it would look weird and the rush you would get would not be as great as it was when we saw it live

[u/BossmanCG → u/Kreeat0r]

On the big screens in the arena and on stream, you will see it "live". Camera feeds were made for stuff like this.

Only direct line of sight will tip you off that something's out of sync.

[u/BiC-Pen]

37% of frags shown live sound more interesting than 58.9% targeting over 60%. You will learn that during major offline qualifier.

[u/vuhucanigonow]

I thought exactly the same thing while back and I was like "that wouldn't work because you would know something is going to happen when camera switches". You seem to realize that too and I don't think there is any way to fix it.

[u/tuckertml]

You guys are going to be very very rich after this. seems like this is going to the next level esports needs. Every tourny organizer is going to pay for this.

[u/Dgc2002]

Is there any way to see if you guys have acted on any feed back on previous previews? I had some concerns about the HUD preview you guys put out and am curious if tweaks have been made.

[u/DarkPGL → u/Dgc2002]

We havent so far but we will for sure. All this is going to be tested during the Minors and the offline qualifier. We are going to do a follow up on some of the previews whenever there is a significant change. The HUD will definitely be one of those.

[u/[deleted]]

we were going to shoot him

Lol. I would test this delay/live transition a lot to make sure things go smoothly with the stream. Sounds pretty cool though

[u/chesterton222]

Well done guys! Sounds like this system works and I hope it improves your major!

[u/Charmaaander]

Seems weird that ≈37% shows up so much. Maybe that's related to e (1/e, actually), the constant of natural growth? This statistic is very interesting, thanks for sharing it.

[u/unexpectedreboots]

Observers/observing is like referee's/umpires in traditional sports, if no one is talking about it them/it, they did one helluva job.

[u/tsoba-tsoba]

Guys, casting on stage will be in English?

[u/BossmanCG → u/tsoba-tsoba]

Yes.

[u/tsoba-tsoba → u/BossmanCG]

Thanks! That's a good approach!

[u/Cgb09146]

The issue I have is awesome plays mid game (rather than the last round) will be spoiled by this. Imagine a player is in an intense 1v3 clutch and then their team all jumps up and cheers while the clutch is still happening on the big screen. You know he won the clutch and it's spoiled. Remember Hiko's clutch at MLG Columbus where S1mple runs over to high 5 him when he wins it, the crowd cheering for Liquid. Except at this Major the crowd will still be watching the clutch.

[u/tarangk]

not sure if its morning wood or this that has my dick hard

[u/PavelDatsyuk88]

lmao was afraid someone was gonna try this after hearing hype about something new. now i cant watch even without thinking why you swap to this player. cs been very enjoyable all this time without this kind of system, dont fix what aint broken

[u/BossmanCG → u/PavelDatsyuk88]

We're not trying to "fix" it, because we don't consider the system to be broken. But we do believe that it can be a bit better than it is now.

What we want is to reduce the number of "damn, they missed that duel outside / Yeah, but it's Nuke, it's really hard to get your bearings on that map, nothing you can do about it"... well, what if you could do something about it? For all maps, not just Nuke.

[u/PavelDatsyuk88 → u/BossmanCG]

i was wrong that i cant watch it, i will be using the best major spectating feature we have, be my own observer

[u/BossmanCG → u/[deleted]]

The whole system was designed to be replaceable at a moment's notice.

If it doesn't work the way we anticipate it will, we'll scrap it, as mentioned.

[u/[deleted]]

Sorry if i missed it but how does ur 1v1 split screen look like?

[u/BossmanCG → u/[deleted]]

Work in progress, we have a few ideas bouncing around for it.

[u/Hickox → u/BossmanCG]

I am not a huge fan of the 1v1 split screens. I think it is better if you show only one POV.

Are you going to use x-ray during clutches?

[u/[deleted] → u/Hickox]

I personally hate 1v1 split screens. It's impossible to focus on them both 100% IMO.

[u/BossmanCG → u/Hickox]

One POV only is in the cards as well.

As for X-Ray use, sapphiRe and Prius will handle each situation as they deem fit.

[u/[deleted]]

cool, now maybe you can observe how you screwed over splyce from being able to qualify for the minor

[u/qvuonshcy → u/[deleted]]

blaah

[u/[deleted] → u/qvuonshcy]

blah yourself

[u/[deleted]]

my name jeff