A long answer for @BK201_R6S 's question and my concerns with Siege

There is no TL:DR



I've posted little tidbits on the main thread but a full answer takes paragraphs, it really does. 144 Characters will do no justice for a well thought out response. There's so much to do with this game in terms of players leaving their own teams in search of bigger and better. It's not all about the teams disbanding either, the whole picture is MUCH, MUCH bigger.



I will be discussing BK201's question and I will be going even further than that to discuss all of Sieges flaws right now.



Again, this is not just about BK201's question. I go into every detail as to why siege is pretty bleh right now.



I am writing very, very bluntly - be warned.



So here goes:



1. The Shuffle



The Shuffle has just finished throughout EU, with teams mainly moving around to same-language teams. These were the main movements and now that it's settled I predict less movement between the teams because there is no language barrier for most of them - this eases tension on the players because they're no longer forced to learn other languages along side the strats and teamwork. It's easier to work together if you all speak the same language.

This means less teams at the higher level will fully disband or swap around massively. The most it will be is one player being swapped out for performance issues.

However, this will not effect Tier 2 Teams and lower. They will constantly flip around rosters and players all the time as they strive for a strong line up which would be able to compete on a Pro Level. This is because at this moment in time there is only Pro League to aim for. There is only one way into Pro League, which is to qualify. If you fail to qualify, then you're team simply wasn't good enough and because these players aren't under contract, they aren't really friends, they're on a work-relationship, so they disband in search of something better for next time.

Challenger league will help with this issue, so long as Challenger league will allow people potential entry into the pro league in the next season or at least a direct chance to qualify for it (invited to the close/final qualifier).



2. Time and Money for individual players



I could work a regular 9-5 Job at Minimum wage and earn roughly 4x as much money as I've earned upto now, taking into account all of my winnings and my salary. If your team doesn't perform, then you can't sustain the lifestyle of a full time pro gamer. At the moment, this game can not support an independent person financially. Some people simply don't have the time to invest in the game, so they look for a team which is good enough to get into Pro League with little time invested. The team fails and people look for a new team. This is also the case for current Pro Players. Some people don't have jobs, so they look for successful teams and join those. People want to make a career out of this game, but it can't happen yet because the money isn't there. Only those living at home with parents, students, people with jobs who don't like sleep or those with special circumstances can realistically support themselves during their time as a Pro Player. Not everyone fits the bill, so they jump around until they find a team that works. It then fails down the road and they jump again. This is Tier 2&3 teams and a few pro players in a nutshell.

Also this game has a small prizepool, with a high amount of time needed to get to a position where your payout will be significant (basically, you have to make it to LAN).



3. This fucking 3/5 Rule



The 3/5 rule is dumb. There is no other way to argue this. If you're under a structured organisation, the players should certainly NEVER hold the rights to a Pro League spot. Going forward, I would recommend Organisations who offer good contracts, that they should word in their contracts that the players hand the spot in Pro League over to the org, so long as ESL/Ubi are okay with this.

Reminder to the players - You don't have to sign a contract you don't want to sign. You're not forced to give up your spot, just don't sign with the team.

You will never have power-house organisations entering this game because there is no security for their position as a Pro Team in Rainbow 6 Siege. Ignore the fact that this game isn't profitable for them, just for one minute:



If 3/5 players leave the team for any reason, (Kicked, Cheated, Going Inactive, Replaced, ect) and they form a new team together, they are in their FULL RIGHTS to take the Pro League spot away from the Organisation. Playing Ducks have experienced this first-hand, unfortunately, leaving myself, Lacky and z1ronic without a spot in Pro League.



All players need full security of their spot. Not 3/5 players, not 4/5 Players, 5/5 players, end-of. No one wants to get screwed out of their Pro League spot because of other peoples shady choices.



And if you expect this game to feature big names like FNATIC or TSM or C9 or any of the big Organisations, whilst this rule is still in place, then you're either high or fucking delusional.



The 3/5 Rule should only be in effect for teams who haven't signed a contract, who aren't currently part of an Organisation and for those who've just joined the league under their own banner.

I read a comment saying that if Pro League spots are to go with the Organisations, that only the best/biggest Organisations should be in those spots. Well, news flash, we don't have any super big Organisations in this game. If FNATIC want a Pro Team, they'll just buy out the Pro Players contracts and the Pro League spot - it's really that simple.



This segways decently into my next comment:



4. Big Organisations



Good luck getting big names into Siege. The game at this moment in time isn't profitable for these Organisations. The viewership numbers are starting to get there, however holding the 6 Invitational on Super Bowl Weekend, an IEM Kato CSGO Tournament and the LCS NA: TSM vs [Doesn't Matter] was viewership suicide. A terribly timed tournament for Siege. One week later or earlier and we could've seen MUCH higher viewership numbers. I don't know who scheduled the dates, but they should get a slap on the wrist for not doing their homework.

The prize money is abysmally low for a game which wants to go big. Paladins, the Overwatch "clone", their first tournament ever stated a prizepool of $200,000. H1Z1 KOTK has a $300,000 tournament coming up very soon - That game isn't even trying to get a Pro Scene going. They're just throwing some money at it. Meanwhile, Siege has only just reached a $100,000 Prize Pool after one year of competition. Don't give me the $200,000 bullcrap, this money was split between xbox and PC and was merely an inflated number to try bring more viewership.



Here is a bucket of cold water to wake everyone up - If you want big Organisations in your game, then you have to step up to the plate and swing for the fences. Go big, or go home. It's an investment of Ubisoft and ESL's time and money to help bring:



* Better marketing for Viewship - A terrible popup in game for the tournament isn't going to make people watch the game. Right now the casual player base has absolutely NO interest in Pro League or R6S as an eSport. Try get the casuals to watch the games. Look at Counter Strike, all their casual player base likes their Pro League or Pro Players. In Rainbow 6 Siege, the casuals hate the Pro League and the hate the Pro Players. We constantly get accused of cheating or no life or other stupid things. You need to get the teams a bigger fan base. Bigger fan base = more exposure for sponsors = bigger Organisations get interested.

The popup which told me about the 6 Invitational, i personally closed it immediately, not realising it was an advert for the tournament. If I did it accidentally, how many other people did it too?

For other games, you're able to watch the match inside of your client. Whether it be an embedded stream for the Twitch Channel or actually spectating the game as a whole. Something needs to be done to help the marketing of Pro League. Right now there's so very little which is making no impact at all. Viewership numbers could be SO much higher.



* Bigger Prizepools - Organisations which join the game are investing their own money and time into the players. If the players are competing but only winning a collective $30k (1st Place or there abouts), on a 90/10% split contract, the Organisation only earns $3000 from their team. That's nothing. It's pennies for them. The Organisation is actually most likely losing money on salary and gear. What kind of Organisation would willingly lose money on their investments? This is a huge reason why we don't see big Organisations in this game. I'm sorry, but $100,000 is nothing in the grand scheme of things and please don't give me the "we're growing, we've only just started, we need to get bigger" excuses. I debunked those before with Paladins and H1Z1.



* 3/5 Rule - See above for this.



With big Organisations in the picture, fully drafted and decent contracts for players will appear which will bind them and their teammates together. This will almost completely remove the aspect of teams disbanding, because they have an Organisation behind them to support them when they need it. There's a reason why in CSGO, players leaving and joining new teams is a BIG deal which is seen rarely.



5. ESL, Ubisoft and the flow of information



People aren't being informed of things to come. People aren't being told what's going on. It's a huge guessing game. Yes, we know we have another year of siege competition, but beyond that, we know fucking nothing. We aren't being told vital information to help us prepare.

In fact, the flow of information from Ubisoft & ESL is so hilariously slow, it's actually becoming a MASSIVE problem. The fact that people had 4 days time to prepare for the Open Qualifiers was a fucking joke. The fact that the two invited teams haven't been announced for the Closed Quals or their seeding, so they don't know who's seed 1 or seed 2 making it really hard to prepare (WHEN ARE WE GETTING THE BRACKETS FFS, I WANNA KNOW WHO'S VODS TO START WATCHING?!).

We are being denied the most important information, making it look like ESL and/or Ubisoft are really incompetent and that they themselves don't know whats going on. One of the biggest complaints Pro League Players have is that ESL members are slow. They take forever to do things, to announce things, to show you things, to help with your support tickets, to get an answer for your protests. Everything is slow and ALL of the pro players have voiced their concerns against ESL at some point of another.



6. The Bugs



It can all be described in one face :(



It's not good. It's not good for the game. It's not good when bugs happen in tournaments. It's really not good in streamed tournaments to over 50,000 people, where you have to rehost several times over. It's reaaaaaallly not good in streamed tournaments to over 50,000 people, where you have teams leave to force a rehost because they think they're victims of a bug and not a cool counter-play. No disrespect to GiFu though, I can fully understand why you thought it was a bug. We should never be in a situation like that ever again. We should've never been in that situation in the beginning.

All the bugs make the game look really bad and unpolished. I'm all in favour of pausing new content and just fixing everything that's wrong with this game. 2 New shiny operators are cool but what's cooler is fixing Hibana's charges. Fixing the ranked no-elo gains because of Leave abusers. Fixing glass so that it breaks when you shoot it. There's so many. The thread on reddit was a fucking nightmare to read.



Here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rainbow6/comments/5vimx6/frequently_updated_current_211_buglist/



There is so much more I could waffle on about for hours at a time. I could go back into every point I made and add so much more to it. There is so much wrong with this game right now (there is still quite a lot that is right about this game too, don't get me wrong here).

I love this game, I have invested an entire year of my life out of work into this game. I really want it to succeed, but right now I can see it's slipping slowly. Ubisoft, ESL and everyone else needs to grasp onto it tightly and give it the fixes it needs, or I fear it'll disappear after this year into just-another obscure, unplayed game.



Thanks for reading,



meepeY



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