What is the point of having less franchised orgs?
People get so excited when orgs they don't like failed to make it, but won't it be boring not being able to hatewatch them?
I really don't understand the point of taking an already small product and shrinking it.
well the main idea behind it is that non partnered teams get a lot more chance to actually do something in valorant, as opposed to getting stuck in tier 2.
but for now, kickoff isnt really doing that as much as people hoped it would.
non-partnered teams get FUCKED.
Riot is giving partnered teams millions of upfront cash and a gigantic recruiting advantage
non partner teams get benefits too, the problem is they only do if they get far enough
They get the benefit of some nice cash from the tourney then all their players get poached bc they're non-franchising and they have to build from scratch
back in ascension you could win a game and become partnered. They removed the ladder.
i think non-partner orgs are gonna see who goes on a run in open quals and then sign players to at least season-long contracts. yes partner orgs can try to poach them but at the end of the day if they have a season-long contract with that org its not like they can just be snatched up.
I'd be surprised if agents will let their players sign long contracts to non-partner teams
i mean a lot of the talent that comes out of open quals isn't going to be established players with agents and stuff. signing a contract with a non-partner team will be there launching point to start actually making money from this game. agents are expensive. i mean if you think of other sports there are young players who are 5 times better than veteran talent on good teams yet they make 10x less on their rookie contract with a bad team. they have to finish out their contract and grind so that they have the chance of getting signed by a better team for a significantly better salary. its about proving yourself even when you are not getting paid what your skill reflects in the current moment.
so we dont see shit like c9 being at every regional and going 0-5
define regional
if you mean regular season or kickoff, C9 certainly doesn't go 0-5
regular season. but c9 was an exaggeration. its more like that shit teams dont stay at t1 and cracked 5 stacks find their way into the scene
c9 isn't an exaggeration they got kicked to the curb because of the new shrunken format
it is never beneficial to viewers to have less teams.
people dickride the new format bc of open qualifiers
that's literally it
it's literally just ascension if you couldn't ever become a franchising team
what's the point
if u qualify for cups and international events u get more MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
W money then because you're non-partnered all of your players get poached ASAP and you're back to poverty
i mean
if a team keeps developing talent and they continue getting poached that's just an infinite money glitch
I'm sure that will drive a ton of fans and jersey sales. Being the t1 orgs little player farm
Imagine Team like GE could have farmed insane money, given how their ex-players have done so much good in current teams. But NO, they choose to become AI slop studio now.
thats just how any sport work this would happen with or without the partner system
with the old system teams could ascend and become franchised
this is not the case anymore
this also isn't how any sport works. Look at the premier league for example. With a decent cash injection and some good management a t2 (division 1) team can climb up to tier 1 (EPL)
they didnt become franchised they got a skin and thats it
if they go far enough to the equivalent of being ascended they will win prizes with the cup (probably as much as they did with skins)
and on premier league rich teams poach from smaller teams the entire time thats exactly why its always the same five teams rotating on who wins it (even when leicester won they got players poached)
One of the five teams rotating you're mentioning has been a division 1 team within the last 30 years (man city)
Also true... however they did at least get a couple years in the franchising format and a cash injection, along with a strong likelihood of being partnered if they invested enough (g2)
there's now almost no chance for that to happen.
Man City was always a big club and got a external cash injection on the 21th century. They are the goliath on this situation who poach other teams
the cash injection from ascension prob isn't that much bigger than what you can make per split if you go well on OQ's. you basically have the equivalent of three ascensions per year in this format except you probably have to play one of the partner teams (and even if you lose you can make it depending on the format)
Crystal Palace is another great example
Anyways the cash injection from ascension is absolutely more than tournament results. There’s a reason multiple T2 orgs are leaving the scene
With the previous system, skin sales for the teams were probably very one-sided, and some teams perhaps were more diluted in sales because they weren't performing too well and weren't making too much of an effort on social media to garner attention. That's the business standpoint I can see coming out of "fewer teams": you will have a closer-knit competition for sales.
I imagine that from a competitive standpoint, open qualifications will mean a wider variety of teams can compete to get to a Masters or even Champs rather than suffer in Tier 2. There will be a lot more competitive crossover between Tier 1 and former Tier 1 orgs, as well as what we knew as Tier 2 orgs.
This direction for VCT might go horribly if the franchised teams don't do very well and if the opens have limited slots for each regional stage. I much prefer CS2's Major format where you have 32 teams because more teams give more opportunity for a team we haven't seen much of to rise out of nowhere.
Also once a team reaches CHamps, thhey gain fair amount of money from the Champs Bundle sale rightr ?
Oh absolutely, the current mix of open and franchise formats will mean that we are more likely to see a massive difference in financial gain and incentive.
If you do an "open format" but have a super large amount of partnered teams, how can anybody realistically compete? It's worse to have the current 8 + M80/SR/FLY etc because then how can an outsider ever enter? They just want the line to be drawn straight after them and pull the ladder up behind them
This way there is at least four guaranteed non-partner teams every single stage
Larger number of partnered teams would at least have more parity, now all of the talent will be condensed into superteams
however the fundamental issue is the removal of ascension. There is no benefit to investing in tier 2 teams. All of those "outsider" orgs you mention will just become talent farms, paying the players like shit so they have the opportunity to get scouted by franchising teams. It's impossible to field a competitive non-franchising roster and be profitable. This is why m80 is leaving the scene for example.
Then it’s simple, don’t sign a team until you know they’re good. Im dead this guy said ascension was better than having the chance to play for something meaningful throughout the whole year 😭🍟
Ascension gave an org the chance to make it big
Now they just compete to have a chance at being mollywhopped by rich superteams and then have their best players stolen
Do you know how open qualifiers work? And it’s up to the players if they want to stay with the team they think is good or play for money
do you seriously think the players will stay with a non-franchised team?
That’s up to them? The partnered teams only skip open quals for kickoff, a good free agent or non partnered team can absolutely beat a partnered team(as we saw with play ins)
you are deluding yourself if you think there will be a significant amount of players choosing to stay with non-franchised teams.
Okay let’s say instead of 4 partnered teams it was 0 you don’t think someone signed to EG still wouldn’t be tempted to join a bigger org like SEN if they got the opportunity anyway?
we saw this exactly play out with Oxy
More potential of new teams and insane talented players joining the scene instead of recycling washed "pros" over and over again throughout the years.
Take EG and C9 for example, complete useless besides 2023 EG.
fym more potential of new teams and insane talented players joining
on what teams????? This will stamp away opportunities by removing roster spots
Yep. That's how it goes. Then get replaced by better younger ones in the future.
Overall still better than seeing Xeppaa in C9 for years not winning anything or Supamen in EG paycheck stealing for thousands of years in VCT.
There are less spots for better younger ones
you are seeing less talent objectively.
franchise = tier 2 is either half dead or actually dead
new format defenders come
What is the point of having less franchised orgs?
This is 2 different issues. I thinik new format is great, but in same time we should have expand to 12 instead of reduce to 8. (And I think 12 teams in cups is a stupid number and it shouild be 16 with a swiss system), and make every subregion having 1 team (Sad for LAN, OCE, MENA and india)
But the point of 8 partner team instead of 10 is to give more chance to non-partner teams to go to cups (At least for will be T2), so thats ensure to have sucessfull success story for non-partner.
They're 2 separate issues, but they're both issues with the new format
the bankrolling from riot removes the "Even playing field" and reduces all but 4 NA orgs to talent factories
only 4 NA orgs franchised is genuinely ridiculous.
The 2 point you bring is about number of partner, no problem with format right ?
If yes, I was in favor of a 6-3-2-1 model for Amer, I see no prob with going into 12 team per region
format sucks for multiple reasons
sucks because too few teams
sucks because tier 2 doesn't get a real shot
sucks because tier 2 doesn't get a real shot
What ? We will have 4 at least non partner team in every cups next year probably even more sinee how the format is based
It's 12 team in cups like 2026, so i dont get it
I Mean how many slots you want for na?Korea only got 2
i fail to see how this is any different from partnership outside of having less legs while allowing other smaller orgs to have a chance to qualify
The argument about ascention (Semi-closed) versus open+partnership (Semi-open), is that an Ascention is on an equal foot with partner team, meaning everyone can be on equal foot versus Partner team. While in the semi-open, they will never be on an equal foot, and will never be allowed to have a skin
i think cutting partnered teams from 12 to 8 just means all the good players will end up on those 8 teams
then the same few teams will dominate everything
an underdog run? they’ll just get poached by better orgs, and it’s obviously gonna be a partnered team 💀
Instead of paying a stipend to the 4 extra teams in each region you can allocate those funds for the qualification to cups and global events
You're buying into the arguments of influencers who are doing their job, influencing.
Esports organizations were in the decline in the VCT and could not survive without the support of Riot. Why should Riot keep these companies alive at their expense? What level of contribution were these orgs making in terms of helping VCT and Riot extend their influence? The relationship was not balanced. The competition these orgs were providing were being criticized daily. What effort did they put into fixing it? A 100x tweets saying "Oh we'll get em next time, sorry fans."
Have you seen most esports orgs YouTube channels? They're doing viral marketing from 2 years ago. Most esports organizations twitter accounts, while entertaining, are liabilities. And what support did the orgs give the players outside of a paycheck? Outside of a coach who could not deliver?
They all had their chances. They all decided to stick with the failing strategy of nepotism.
Maybe 5 friends who think they can make can do all of this better than a parasite trying to leech off revenue streams without providing actual effort.
My only problem with next season's format is that it's online and there are going to be so many teams who can't make it unless they employee cheaters. I hope they move it to offline events in the middle of the season. But I have low levels of confidence in anything Riot related.
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