Azael's continued anti-FLY bias is crazy. Thanatos didn't even play last split because Siwoo was straight better yet Quad, who had the highest CSD@15 IN THE WORLD for Mids may have trouble adjusting? His takes are absolutely baffling every Dive. Just wrong every time.
Gotta call out Meteos real quick. You showed up to co-host the dive and didn’t watch the 8-minute commissioner video ahead of time????? C’mon man, it’s eight minutes. You can be more professional than that. If I were that lackadaisical about my current job, I would be out of a job pretty quick. EDIT: Lots of comments saying, "it's just his style." . . . It's cringe. I love Meteos as a commentator and a host on the podcast. Also, not prepping for the leading segment of the show is cringe. It just is. Azael and Kobe always show up prepared and ready to go, like professionals.
On the topic of the $500 skin, I think the price tag would be fine if it was some random, cool skin. I think the issue is that it is tied to Faker and his induction into the hall of legends. The hall of legends seems like it should be a celebration of what players like Faker have done for the League scene, but now it instead seems like a profit-generating mechanism. I think connecting the two has cheapened the honor; it feels like Riot is trying to squeeze more money out of Faker’s name rather than genuinely celebrating what he’s done for the game.
I DO NOT think the price would be fine if it was some random skin. It's ridiculous in any context. But I agree it's especially bad given your other points
Oh, I mean, I agree it is ridiculous and would never buy it, but if someone wants to pay that much for a skin, to me that’s their business. Except in this case Riot has made it everyone’s business by associating it with Faker.
@@kokobo690 Also making it only available for a short time to generate maximum FOMO is a HUGE problem imo. The Hall of Legends Skins should be available for a longer time. If they want to make it available for a restricted time, why not only on specific dates, like Fakers first game or his birthday?
The other problem is who’s gona pay $500 for the next player’s skin that gets introduced? I don’t think anyone pulls nearly as much interest as faker does. So what does riot do next year? Only charge $200 for the next player’s skin? It’s a weird situation placing a value on celebrating someone’s legacy
@@guevara148 crazy that you think the majority of the profits from this skin are going to to be reinvested into the LoL ecosystem and not to fund another billionaire's yacht.
I think with regards to 100 thieves, the fact this split will be Bo3 is going to have them looking exactly the same as playoffs in Spring but now it'll be Summer split where they rack up all these losses. Definitely felt like a pure Bo1 team.
The most heartfelt interview I saw with Bwipo was him calling someone else an NPC, then getting caught looking at his minimap. I couldn't care less about him
Kobe summed up the LCS perfectly in the first 2:30 minutes. Teams are upset about Bo3's because they won't have enough time to make memes. That's the LCS in a nutshell.
While I agree that voting with your wallet is the best course of action, the justification of the skin being $500 is "everyone does it" is so bad. Just because it exists everywhere does not mean its a good thing, like literally mentioned later with selling early access in games.
The difference in those genshin comparisons is that it takes advantage of the literal mental disorder that gamblers have. "A lot of people do it" so its fine when the people doing it literally cannot control themselves cannot be a serious argument. Like thats dumb af. Its similar, tho not the same, but people aren't making smart choices when they buy these skins. Its taking advantage of people who are literally too stupid for their own good. I can't blame riot for that, but i 100% can judge them for it
Yeah, I gave up on gaming community for actually acknowledging mental illness that is addiction and/with gambling need sto empathised with and not to be encouraged by. and prayed upon.
I hate when Twitch streamers complaining about people not gambling enough channel points too! I even left a LENGTHY and (probably too) harsh comment on a YT upload of a replay once and then proceeded to stop watching that channel! Though the worst part of those aren't the streamers I guess, it's Twitch itself having created it! It's a gamble that someone can do but it has no real downside to losing, you spent some points that don't do ANYTHING anywhere else, but an addict will think: "Well that one didn't go sideways! Perhaps I can go make a 'real' bet and that won't go sideways either?"
Each player picks 3 champs, the teams ban 1 of the three and then you get to pick one of the remaining two for game or something like that could be an interesting draft idea
Money matches aren't an infrastructure thing. The reason why money matches are hype in the FGC is because I say I'm better than you and I'm willing to bet 1500 (example) to prove it. It's a personal investment and at the same time is dramatic. Can also settle beef. LoL doesn't have the individual personality to money match, much less a team betting x amount of their own money against another team. This is just a prize dictated by the NACL for winning a match. It's not a money match.
Its gross that riot decided to make their "flex good" using fakers good name. Charging triple digit price tags for cosmetics in games should not be normalized period.
I cant wait to see how full fearless does in NACL. I would love to see that make it to the LCS next year, its so refreshing to see more champions used in a game that has so many to offer.
I also think it would be good for the NACL players to be forced to play a variety of champions. So that there are less one tricks coming from NACL into the LCS. If they had Fearless when Apa was in Challenger, would he be a one trick that can be easily pinched in ban phase? Probably not. Either he would be able to play more champions because of Fearless or Fearless would have exposed him in Challenger and he wouldn't be in LCS. (just one example, there have been plenty of other one tricks that have this problem its not just him)
I think forcing fearless upon LCS and LEC will benefit them because as we have seen LCK & LPL just outclassed the west on traditional picks. G2 has been the only team able to compete with the East because of their creativity. So forcing these leagues to get at least a little creative could help push them internationally
I think C9 would have been better off keeping Fudge and getting a top half LCK support. Vulcan has played his entire career in the LCS with top ADCs. He's had Zven, peak Danny, Prince, and Berserker. People have seemingly always referred to him as one of the top supports in NA, but I've never seen it. His mistakes outweigh his good plays. To me Berserker played last split like he didn't trust his support. He would flash in trying to get kills, and it felt like he had the mindset that he needed to solo carry games. Not saying thats entirely Vulcans fault, but the synergy was never there.
Man, I was saying before they switched to BO3s that BO2 double round robin was the way to go. I'm hoping they consider it for next year. And don't get me wrong, I'll still take the bo3s, but single round robin feels weird.
- I disagree with Uzi being the next inductee because if the votes are based off of international success and domestic titles, the next person inducted should be Bengi. He has the next most world championship wins and the next most lck titles.
Man, I hard disagree with Azael's take on some early access games. Especially in the case of like Super Giant and Larian who support the hell out of their games and listen to feedback from supporters. Development takes such a long time, and for devs to stay independent that support throughout the dev process is necessary.
I think people are talking about two different types of early access. (1) you pay for the game early and play while it's still being developed, or (2) you pay extra beyond the normal game purchase price to play a fully developed game a bit earlier than its official release date. Azael is arguing against (2).
1:14:00-ish "There is no right way to play league".... except lane swaps, apparently that's bad. I loved the lane swap meta and would love to see teams flexing with new lane swap ideas and showing that hey, we can put one palyer behind and be greater as a whole. I'd rather watch a lane swap than watch a clearly bad bot lane matchup that was basically Rock,Paper,Scissors. Lane swap is a great reaction in game to losing the draft phase. Give me more
It's fine if lane swaps are sometimes a viable strategy, as a counter to certain compositions and such; it's not fine if they're so strong that they're the only viable strategy most of the time.
If Americas and LEC want to compete internationally they need to be playing the same formats as the East and the tournaments which are ALL BO3 and BO5.
"Dude we have 170 champions!" And it's been the same 20-30 champs rotating in and out of meta for the last 5+years. Fearless is a gimmick, but at least it would change things up for once.
Yeah! I LOVED the Worlds(2022?) when there was like 100 unique champs that were played! I saw Champs I didn't even know existed! I don't play League very often(almost none) and have only been watching competitive play for a handful of years! I had a hole left by HotS getting canned and League felt like the best option to try and fill that hole!
I wonder what the alt draft versions that got cooked up were like. I always wondered whatd itd be like if teams voted on a pool of champs that were perma-banned through a patch. Or vote in 60 champs and its a limited pool. Almost like MTG standard vs modern.
Well at least you can have that thought and not be completely insane! As a Bears fan I scream from the hilltops when they win week one because for at least one week they are UNDEFEATED!!! It usually ends after week two, I have to take what I can get!!!
3:39 You know what else brings in the crowd who doesn't like b03s, when your region starts becoming competitive vs other regions because of playing best of series.
@BB-ze3by expecting to compete with them at all is ridiculous. Like I seriously don't understand why yall think worst regions SHOULD be beating the best teams in the world.
Great episode!! Did y'all end up sharing the individual power rankings at the end..? Maybe I missed it, and if so, someone please reply with a timestamp. 🙏 But I also thought maybe they just forgot to add that in... Still, I'm super hype for more Dive episodes and also for a BANGER LCS SUMMER SPLIT 2024, WOOOOO!!!! WE STILL BETTER THAN EUROPE 🦅🦅🦅🇺🇲🎆🍔🗽🦅🦅🦅
Making the NACS prosper is the most important thing for NA to ever have any hope at being good. If you don't have a system for players to learn to play the game then you get the league we have now. All three top regions, CN, KR, EU, all have strong, established minor leagues.
have none of them seen an LCK? why are they so confused about game score? there is a reason why people were much more positive of the Nongshim 3/15 then Bros 2/16 and it was the game score (and the eye test)
1:26:24 The teams have all the power? If these players are as good as is said... they should have multiple teams offering them spots. If they want them, they should have a deadline the player can set. If it's delayed or late, the player should take other offers. The players should have the most power when it comes to their choices no?
I think Azaels point on the viewership is a valid concern i will say with less teams and most of the teamps ramping up im a lot less worried about the "lower tier" teams not getting viewership because even Dig is looking exciting Immortals is kinda the team nobody looks forward to seeing but whoever their facing we may be excited about!
The skin controversy just highlights how SO many people are entirely money driven. I don't care if other games have more expensive skins and gatcha mechanics (they shouldn't). That doesn't make it right or okay. It is a massive waste of money to purchase the $250+ skins. And if you think you can "flex" with a league skin or 2k hoodie like Meteos mentioned, you're a massive fool. It leaking into League sets a bad precedent and could enable more scummy pricing and FOMO tactics from Riot. Nothing good long term comes of it, wales shouldn't be catered to, and they are part of the problem (for a normal person and not a business).
I get it. This show is Riot affiliate, we can't talk down too much on the skin. But there's no defending the 500 dollar price tag. Doesn't matter what you get from it. At the end of the day, it's aesthetics. So we all want to celebrate Faker. And we were told there is "Something for everyone." That base Ahri skin should be 20 dollars. Honestly, there should probably be a free version of the skin, I wouldn't even mind if it was a Chroma recolor of another base skin. Since it's faker maybe it should just be BASE Ahri, with an ornament of Faker's attached to her. Now THAT would be celebrating the GOAT. But I guess that idea only comes to you when you want to be inclusive, and you aren't thinking with dollar signs.
To Azael's point about audiences not wanting to watch bad teams play a bo3; I hate that the LCS thinks every fan should watch every game. No one does that for any sport. No one watches EVERY NFL game, or NBA, NHL, EU "football". I get that there are only 8 teams in the LCS but that doesn't change the fact that people don't watch teams that they don't enjoy watching, it doesn't matter how many games are being played.
"vote with your wallet" doesn't work in this situation. Even if all of Europe and America and other regions vote with their wallets, I am 100% sure that China and Korea with their culture of flexing super expensive skins will win back any losses. So why should I, as a consumer and long-term fan of the league, suffer from the fact that some Asian on the other side of the globe can eat instant noodles in order to save up to buy pixels in the game? And yes, I am one of those who can be called a whale (100% of available skins on the account and many unavailable) but even for me this is too much. Moreover, we are no longer talking only about a one-time incident, it looks like now you will need to prepare 200-500 dollars several times a year. No, in this situation I will most likely stop collecting cosmetic items in the league and take the money elsewhere.
I've always been pro-whale content. I'm fine with the Chibis in TFT, fancy boards, $500 skin, sure. But my issue is connecting it with Faker and Hall of Legends. Thankfully I'm not a huge Faker fan but I view it as being predatory, where someone with a deep connection to Faker who doesn't really have that much money to spend is put in a compromised position. And Riot offering loans on the RP is even more predatory. There's a big difference between a standard luxury item and playing on a person's emotions.
My problem with skin isn't that its expensive, its that it seems like a bad strategy to make money. Lets do some math, the top tier of the Ahri skin cost $500, so lets say to top 0.5% of the entire lol player base buys the top tier, which is about 500000 give or take. That is a production of $250 Million. But say you sell the top tier to say $50, thus opening up customer access to say 25% of the player base, roughly 25,000,000 players. That would be a production of $1.25 Billion in sales which would mean more money to faker, more money to Riot and more money to the teams. I don't understand the point of creating a high ticket Item like this when the sentiment is that it will make less money because of its higher price.
I understand your points on the faker skin and I mostly agree with your thoughts. The only sticking point I have is it's faker. You said it yourself, how lucky we are to have someone like Faker in the game, and this is the way he is celebrated? It's disrespectful. It's like only selling a Tom Brady Jersey for the first time and charging $500 for it. I'm personally getting the battlepass, and it's nice that him and the team get some reveanue, but it feels really disrespectful towards Faker after what he's done for the game. It sucks to make a skin this cool this is the price point needed.
Inspired has always been super toxic. Even when he was winning, he would unnecessarily flame teammates. He's a good player, but he's definitely not as good as his ego thinks he is. I enjoyed FlyQuest in Spring, and I think Jensen was a big part of that success. I don't think Inspired was truly performing at his highs and I think it's idiotic how he talks about teammates in interviews, there's literally no reason for it.
Hasn’t viewership decreased significantly over the past few years with Bo1s? Why do people make it seem like casual viewers will just hate bo3 and viewership will suffer because of it. As someone who use to watch a lot more, I stopped watching as much because it felt like the quality was just getting worse and bo1s just felt coin flippish which is lame and super boring imo.
I think forcing fearless upon LCS and LEC will benefit them because as we have seen LCK & LPL just outclassed the west on traditional picks. G2 has been the only team able to compete with the East because of their creativity. So forcing these leagues to get at least a little creative could help push them internationally
I just don’t see how c9 improves without a clear shot caller still. Zven was very evidently that for them. Unless fudge was somehow just disagreeing with Blaber, jojo and Vulcan then I don’t see how just 1 player fixes the issues they had. It wasn’t just top side at all.
Gotta say I'm disappointed that they're justifying whaling because 'everyone else is doing it' or 'don't buy it if you don't like it'. Azael has been my favorite caster because he's always been down to earth, but that whole monologue made me think how much Riot is paying him.
in the same episode Azael says Riot doing the hall of legends / skin thing is just "good business" and smart business, and simultaneously that it's "really messed up" for the business (teams) to place their interests over the player in roster situations, so the teams cannot operate with their business interests at the forefront but Riot can/should? The teams have gotten shit on the most in the NA LoL ecosystem especially, after paying $10 to get in😂
I feel like the conversation around the 500 dollar skin is missing a really important piece of nuance. The massive amounts of layoffs at riot, alongside the "cancellation" of the MMO and other current events make having a 500 dollar skin released feel super slimy. Like its a dollar for every employee that was laid off.
Its great to have the Dive back, another enjoyable episode, the only part I didn't like was the Ahri skin discussion, feels like the missed the whole point on why people aren't happy, but hey, no one is perfect!Looking forward to the LCS, looks like this split is gonna be competitive.
@rhedde1 the disconnect between Thanatos his skill and the community perception is absurd. Guy gets passed over for Canna, Kingen and Siwoo, but surely he's Zeus 2.0. Only thing these two have in common is a cool name.
As far as the BO3 change goes, for less popular teams and viewership being down on days they play, well... that's on those teams/orgs. It is their job/goal to build hype and a fanbase, not the LCS's
I get not supporting games like wow with pay to play early. I think completely skipping it is a mistake. Hades 2 being the example is kinda crazy because it already has more content than the entirety of Hades 1. It also helps a lot of smaller devs as they build their games. End of the day you do you.
Why are they comparing the skin to other skins in games....it should be compared to athlete gear. I can go buy basketball shoes or football boots that a pro uses for less than 500, or a jersey. It's about faker not riot. How is that hard to understand. It's punishing fans of the esports hall of famer.
Why is the podcast only on Spotify? That service iss too expensive/they keep raising their prices & I don't wish to use that service anymore, nor do I like watching RU-vid videos.
When the Halls of Legends is only about "what name can sell this overprices skin", it loses most of its credibility. But hey, when people are irresponsible with their money, Riot would be stupid to leave it in their pockets.
BO3 is needed for our region. We need the best teams from our region talent wise at international events. And in BO3 the cream rises to the top. Not the fluke teams that luck/hot streak their way to play ins and make our region look like trash.
I actually really dislike the preshow spoilers. I assume it helps with view retention but it genuinely detracts from the enjoyment of the episode for me
C9 shouldn’t be getting this much love. They looked terrible last split. I like the team structure but they keep getting rid of good talent. Should be like 4th or 5th
The narrative of viewership should be a mute point. It doesn't matter st this point. It was already going down. You can't sit on your hands doing jack shi
There is no doubt Inspired is an amazing player AND I doubt teams do well with him as it’s hard to believe there is any space on a team when his ego fills a whole room
REMEMBER THAT NA IS THE WORST REGION IN THE LOL HISTORY, 0 INTERNATIONAL TROPHIES, MOST OF PLAYERS ARE IMPORTED FROM EU AND KR, ONE OF THE LOWEST AVERAGE VIEW RATE FROM MAJOR REGIONS, LCS PLAYERS PLAY FOR MONEY NOT FOR WIN
I loved TL vs SKT. Great games, even the last one. Sure it went side ways fast but they knew it and just threw the kitchen sink in that game. It was fun.
Casual audiences not sticking around is what ever. Why even pander to people who dont really care that much over people who have been keeping up with the league for years
Even if you dont want to be mad at riot for making a "smart business decision" you dhould absolutely be mad at the for being predatory by making it fomo.
