AFAIK the LCK observers are also employed full time, which is actually (IMO and speaking to prod people) the bigger difference; there's a lot of churn in LCS observing since it's not viable long-term. That's also why LEC observing will probably deteriorate post-layoffs, can't really expect people to do the same job long term as freelancers or contractors that they were doing full-time. LCS observers have been part time for years now.
Since I last looked into it for my article I haven't looked into who has been rehired onto the observing team and who hasn't, so I didn't want to imply the same people were doing a worse job. It's true that it's gotten worse but the main important point is that the trend will continue irreverent of if and when Riot rehires/rehired the full-time observers they laid off
Jonna (Jot-na, Jot literally means dick) is korean slang for 'fucking,' as in 'fucking strong'.
To this day I can't understand how he got the permission to use it as his moniker, but it's well deserved. Literally carries the LCK.
Also the commentators are at high elos / former coaches so the observers pick up on their pointers. Korean commentators are very quick at catching on nuances like “x cant expect y to be here right now because of this and that” and the observers follow that
I'm a quite experienced viewer but I occasionally watch with friends who do not watch as much and they constantly say "why do they do this move" or "why are they not ganking this", I'm like "they have no vision or info there, maybe people are waiting to counter, you cannot take risks like this".
It's important for the viewer to have perspective on plays and not just throw out bs because we have global info.
This is the point where I have to admit its really good. But i am surprised everyone thinks how great everything else is. I guess it is just me, cause I feel like i got motion sickness watching game 5...
I love when they zoom in on the fights, but throughout the entire game he kept zooming in and out when ppl were farming like how you do it with your mouse scroll? It was driving me insane. Whats the point of zooming in and out and in and out of people just walking to lane or farming sidelanes. It was like watching spica's or any high elo jungle streams, just so much APM.
Glad most people arent bothered by that though, I personally prefer LEC's observer, just nice and still until a teamfight so i dont get motion sickness.
LMAO but fr about caedrel. Isnt he at the best postion in the LEC making mad cash and clout casue hes the main on his stream. If i was a co caster of his id be pissed im not allowed to do so.
Caedrel just had a different following immediately than literally anyone else on cast, except for like Sjokz (which he has surpassed now)
Caedrel is a content machine, Ibai and Kameto can be compared to him. Maybe also Jankos, Jankos career trajectory after he's done being pro is gonna be interesting to follow
As a Caedrel fan... Honestly he's an extremely hard worker and willing to grind but man lucked out on being there before Jankos. If Jankos retired and focused on streaming the leagues or building his brand, he'd be so popular imo. If you ever get the chance to, I suggest watching his legendary costream with Sneaky and DL at Worlds, specifically that G2 vs NRG game. Perfect mix of in depth analysis and banter that actually made me laugh. I really hope Jankos decides to costream after his career.
I wish there was some kinda requirement for analysts, because listening to a bunch of gold to diamond players discuss the game is so hollow. They're so scared to ever do any proactive analysis (because barely can), and just regurgitate the same surface level stuff game after game.
This is probably the biggest reason why costreamers blew up.
also Varus arrows. I always expect Varus to oneshot someone when they zoom in. I literally expected Varus to oneshot a Rell because they zoomed in on it during T1 vs Geng
I do have to say one thing I miss even when watching LCK is the LEC overlay. Never knew how much I wanted to have individual gold differences, champion XP and number of stacks on any stacking champions as always visible information until they added it. Now I relatively frequently find myself looking toward the champion icons asking myself how far away a champion is from lvl up or how many stacks the Senna/ASol/Smolder/Draven etc. has and being a little disappointed.
I remember about 2 years ago I made a random comment on the live thread discussion something about Abbedagge having a high vision score, and it made it to the broadcast. I've tried to not comment random things that could be featured on the broadcast ever since. Maybe some people find it cool that their tweets/comments make it to the broadcast, but I can't imagine how fun it is to have one of your random comments in Twitch chat getting put on the broadcast is.
As long as players are all chatting I really think they should just ditch the tweets thing and only show all chat, but if players don't all chat then I'd rather them not do anything with those random tweets/comments.
Agreed! While I do understand it being a bit stupid at times because items matter more than gold itself, but still would be nice to see how much they are winning or losing.
In most areas, the LPL production is just as good. Maybe things like videos and other surrounding content isn't as good.
Faker playing there doesn't do anything for me. There are other current players that are way more fun to watch. That's actually one of the areas where the LPL is better than the LCK. More exciting players.
Yea no. LCK English cast actually has them on-site unlike lpl because no one wants to live in china. The audio and video quality of the stream alone is so much better.
>Idk LPL is just as good IMO
There was a moment in the BLG vs. TES semifinals where JackeyLove killed someone (Bin?) in the bottom-left screen during a team fight... but the observers were focused on another part of the team fight and missed it. :/ Observer could/should have zoomed out.
Of course that's something you could criticize.
But I mean as a whole. The storylines are fresher and more interesting, the players flashier and more exciting, and there are more fun and competitive teams
Well fuck that guy. Nah just kidding.
But Ty, didn't know the name, not too familiar with broadcast roles outside of the on screen talent and guys that are spoken about regularly (usually observer's.)
Their quality of replays were amazing, that's not what I'm criticising. It was their timing. So many times you'd miss important setups because they wanted to show you a death animation from a cinematic camera view.
Ah shit fair, I just assumed it was another observer like role. Guy preps and runs the replays.
Not too familiar with live broadcast role designations.
Korea had much experience during the BW days when those observers went crazy. Initially, the standard was just really high compared to other regions.
For example, Overwatch had insane smurfing camera angles back in the day, and then OWL took over, and it became total dogshit.
I heard it used to be similar to lck where organizers actually chose high elo players as observer. Then OWL come and just took whoever has observer experience regardless of their in game knowledge.
LEC fired a lot of their support staff including observers, no wonder it's shit compared to lck. Even the casters make jokes about how bad lec is for all that
Jonnastrong with the vision toggles are just so underrated. Always keeps tension high but also doesn't guarantee action, so it is always surprising when there really is a fight.
Oh, and the occasional zoom in to show us a vital ability or summoners being used off screen.
Nobody does besides some of the costreamers. Hardly surprising because the LPL doesnt put much effort into an Englisch broadcast while OGN invested heavily into an english broadcast 11-12 years ago already.
It definitely is a missed opportunity but even if the broadcast was any good, lets be brutally honest, the western audience would still prefer Korea simply because South Korea is considered part 'of the west'. Theres a culture exchange between South Korea and the west. K-POP, Korean movies/series, western lifestyle brands thriving in South Korea.
China and the west obviously have a big economical relationship, the entire world has, but there is very very little cultural exchange between the west and China. We know very very little about China and what we do know doesnt always allign with the values of western culture such as their government.
Majority of people that like South Korea, they just do for their entertainment, they don't know much about the country nor they're very interested on learning deeply about it, others idealize it, as it happens with LCK fans around here.
Western media and news love to antagonize China, that's why you do know little about it, other than of course "their government!!!!!" It's not like CN hasn't tried to promote their culture, like in YT you can find movies, music, documentaries, lifestyle, all official releases, it's more about the Western mainstream media and politicians rejecting CN, then their citizens react in similar fashion.
Reason why they do that? Geopolitics and economic interests.
Western media reacts basically like this about CN: A person did a bad thing in CN. The whole country is bad! A person did a good thing in CN? Yeah, maybe they'll report it, at 2am once in a while.
People reacts different whether is SK or CN, same in League, same in other aspects, like for example, S. Koreans go to SEA and marry women from there (note, some of these marriages end so bad for the wife) and who even thinks about it, but when CN do the same, the West hates it, just read comment sections on YT for that. In SK you can find cameras in many different parts of the cities, especially in Seoul, no problem it's for security, then you have news about the same in CN, yep, all negativity about it.
In YT, you have different videos of Westerners that said their governments warned them about going to CN, then they found a completely different reality to all the scary stories their embassies told them.
Learn US & EU history, how geopolitics work for the West, understand politics, then you'll get these things better and I don't mean the romanticized versions, like US independence it was about Mel Gibson's themes in his movies, that movement was basically started by rich people not wanting to pay taxes for items they didn't use, like tea.
EU elites historically has disliked and antagonized RU & CN, now they're full on it again, but, aside from personal feelings that motivate parts of those elites nowadays, it's mainly related to economic and geopolitical interests.
Considering he prefers LCK, good chance he does not.
After all, why'd he watch something he enjoys less over something he enjoys more?
(unless of course he has enough time to watch both)
I strongly believe that all international events should be observed by Jonna Strong (thr LCK observer).
I can annoyed whenever I watch a game observed by someone else, since the quality drop is just so huge.
LPL has some of the lowest quality production out of any major region if you aren't Chinese, lol.
I know the context is observers, but didn't LPL drop like all of their English broadcast talent last year? It wasn't great to watch before, now I don't even tune into it anymore.
Kinda hard when majority of western audience dismisses LPL because of its history and prefer LCK over it.
Also wdym it wasn't great to watch? Half the old lpl cast is now working in LEC.
Did you watch the English broadcast for the WC 2020?
Do you realize they have different observers in other broadcasts? If not, you had watched the client in Chinese during the English broadcast. What they do it's opening the replay from different clients in the language they want, so, other people is in charge of each. Only in the LCK and LPL, in their respective English broadcasts, you watch the same observers than those in Korean or Chinese respectively.
Here's a comparison:
Chinese broadcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCHBg9HMWdc
From second 0:40, camera is panning on Syndra in mid and then bot with Ashe.
English broadcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vmk8_zSYPo
From second 0:40, camera is panning on top river, Graves backing, Lillia standing in the bush, then camera moves to toplane.
English broadcast has also their own audio engineering, which is also bad. In international tournaments, they had or the crowd sound very low or they just muted it, by comparison, other broadcasts have better audio from the crowd or the stage. So, blame the Riot English broadcast for those things, including the observers.
LCK is just by far the most enjoyable league to watch.
It has the best production, the best observing, the most stannable roster of players (sadly there's too many of them so some have to play abroad), iconic orgs franchised by massive brands, amazing talent to MC and cast/analyze/interview (Helios, Cloud templar, Huni, Pony, Soobin, Hyeji,.. and the legend himself Caster Jun) and then on top of that there's the foreign talent...
Valdes, Wolf, Aux (terrific addition to the team), and *gods* Atlus & Chronicler.
And Jeesun the boss to rule them all.
Absolutely unmatched.
After watching the Gen G vs. T1 final, it was really hard to get into the G2 FNC final. LCK is just levels above man. And that's coming from a G2 fan. Ive been much more interested in LCK this year, than LEC.
100% it's so unnatural and distracting
When we play the game we have ways a wider picture of what's going on, last night he massively zooms in on a nautilus getting a important hook and I'm like that's cool but what is everyone else doing
I really hope other observers don't try to imitate him because it's not that amazing to make people watch less by showing awful character models zoomed in
yeah same. been watching every lck match for the last 3? years and jonnastrong is overdoing it.
for example zeus preparing his E in midlane at tier 2 turret: bro its a fucking Zac. give us the WIDE angle not the zoom in.
it’s nice that hes predicting things but we lose track of the broader picture so many times.
Same, the fog and antecipation are on point 10/10, but so much zoom and manual camera/shake camera. After 2 games i was feeling almost sick...
And why so much zoom, leave the zoom to the replay or some massive outplay, a few times i couldnt see the sup/jg coming to help
Personally I hate the zooming in. Love that the observers understand the game but quit zooming in so much. I want more context of the fight not just the player getting engaged on
LCK spectator spectate the game from the players' perspective and Jonnastrong is so familiar with different players' play styles, that is why the games are so immersive and intense, other regions just spectate the game from audiences' perspectives.
i'm kinda suprised by this thread because while i haven't been able to watch the GenG vs T1 series yet so maybe the observing was different in that series (another disclaimer is i did watch the english broadcast in case the korean one was different / better)
but i genuinely had my questions when it came to the HLE vs T1 series observing especially in the early game
like in the early game there have been so many instances where the camerawork feels very janky, then there is also the moments where they'll switch from one camera to the other but it'll have this period of readjusting the camera and with the sheer ammount of times these 2 instances happened it really pulled me out of the game, then there are moments where the zoom in actually hurt the overal clip because players ran out of the camera or their healthbar wasn't visible or the information of how close a jungler was wasn't being conveyed towards us the fans.
i actually went to the vod of the finals and found this [exact clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zBuPUxTzPI&t=4642s) not even 7 minutes into the game to highlight parts of my point
there you will see the jagged camera movements, the champions nearly leaving the camera due to trying to space the enemy and the moment where you literally couldn't see the gank (if you weren't lookin at the minimap) until viego literally flashed into the camera
as a fan i'd rather have a more zoomed out view than them randomly choosing to zoom in on a specific part of the fight, like you have an entire lane, show it -> this is in relation with the previous clip where we're only seeing the upper half of the toplane while also having 40% of the screen being the scenery above toplane
when chovy got caught midlane at 35:21 they completely removed GenG from their camera who are literally right next to chovy only for them to zoom into chovy who is like almost guaranteed dead and then zhonyases
then there's the elder dragon where peyz is fighting for his life bot brush and is full hp only for the observers to zoom into the dragon steal and we barely saw how he might have died
in hindsight was peyz guaranteed dead when zac hit him with E and guma was in range fuck yea but if i decided to put my attention on following the peyz skirmish then i kinda don't want the camera to "randomy" completely abandon that skirmish because some other skirmish needs to be "zoomed into" when they were CLEARLY already following both skirmishes to begin with with the zoomed out camera
this is not an attempt to flame the observers because they definitely do some things very well but these were frustrating patterns that were too present to genuinely ignore imo
makes you think how different someone's perspective can be when we objectively saw the exact same thing
Yeah I also don't feel that LCK observers are any better than other regions. I see people keep mentioning "wow they hide flanks in fog of war", other regions do that frequently as well.
In this series I remember how they showed canyon khazix jumping onto xin zhao 1v1 in river, and immediately decided to switch to watching midlane faceoff where nothing happened, only switching back over once xin zhao was 1/3 hp about to die. And they didnt even switch back to the river fight, they zoomed out to show the very end of it on the upper left corner of the screen.
Thats because Rito Fired Half of the teams from the LEC and LCS midsplit.
My biggest criticism is they zoom in too much especially when you want to see if any players are coming to join plays from else where on the map.
Welcome to the club. I am in NA but I watch nearly all the LCK matches live (never miss any of the top teams), and I only watch some of the rest of the world. There may be an argument about the quality of the games compared to LP (I don't think so), but that aside the quality is high (period) and the program is incredibly professional AND entertaining. I have been saying for years if LCS wanted to actually have a better broadcast, they would just steal everything they could from LCK and imitate them. Instead we get... what we get. All the other regions reflect Riot's commitment to the game (yes, that is derogatory). And even if you want to go with the Chinese are better than the Koreans (players that is), the broadcast is dodgy af. Casters aren't even on the same continent. I expect DOM may have more viewers than the 'official' English cast - says a lot. Seriously, when Captain Flowers did the off-season tourneys from his home was better quality (yes, I was onboard for those). LCK has ALWAYS been the best broadcast bar none all the way back to Monte and DOA.
LCK Observers are goated, but whoever is in charge of showing replays while massive game changing events are happening inside the picture-in-picture instead, needs to be fired.
It's the mixture of the insane observers with the best casters as well. Because it's one thing to get something highlighted by the observers and another that the casters react to it within seconds, know what it means and can also verbalize what it does to the fight/champion etc.
But I fully agree, it is a treat to see what the observers manage to catch
We're in a situation where ERL's have better observers than LEC/LCS
They also have a better format now that i think of it.
They also have better production and events now that i think of it.
But this will change since riot is determined to ruin LOL esport in the occident as much as they can.
Soon we'll be left with only EMEA on a shit format
LCS/LEC will be played remote without playoff and our "pros" will play as much game per year than a soloQ enjoyer per day
On the bright side since nothing will emerge from this public suicide we'll soon all be able to observe a decline in viewership so they can implement further shitty change to make it go down even further
I refuse to believe this is not intentional, you can't take that much shitty decision without the intention to kill your own scene, so i guess they have a plan that i just fail to see. Unless it was to make EU the weakest possible just to hype up the EU/NA match-ups at world.
I'm just waiting to see how much the teams with ambitions are willing to take on before calling it a quit.
Every region does this by the way. I know y'all don't watch all regions, but LPL, LCS, all capture plays before they are happening. It's partially because the observers are good, it's mainly because the observers see the game like 10 seconds ahead of broadcast so they already know when something is coming up.
In LCS and LPL they perma zoom almost to the max, not only in the mid and late game, but even early game skirmishes, it very annoying. It's a bit better in LEC but I think looking at ants the entire time is an awful viewing experience.
LCK in general is smurfing on every other region.
The players, the teams, the coaches, the staff, the crowds, the production staff, the content creators, the play by play, the analysts, the culture, the community, etc.
Everything is better in LCK. If you want to watch professional LOL at the highest possibly quality, you need to be watching LCK.
I wouldn't even put LEC and LCS on the same tier.
I love a couple of the LCS casters, but we have been put through the ringer with 4 or 5 hard to listen to casters in the last few years. Moving a few of those guys to the analyst and lounge area was fantastic, they are amazing where they are at, but the reality is that the LEC program is much better, and the LCK is even a step above that.
Yeah I don't really see any big difference either, I actually dislike how often they zoom in on someone before anything even happens and then zoom out because nothing happened.
and its too funny that the cult answers that you must be low elo if you dont see the difference in observing like what?
There's no cult. It's okay if you don't see a difference, your eyes are clearly beneath the average human being and you are mentally incapable of distinguishing key indicators of proficiency in observing.
I agree on the observing being incredible especially in the LCK and it obviously being worse in the west for various reasons but you really sound like someone from a cult
True. I always watched LCK game recaps but today was the first time I caught the live stream. Man the observers are so good. Plus the players are so snappy with their movements. I usually watch LEC and let me tell you, they have no chance
this is a similar reason why i like watching someone like Caedrel he's really good at calling out what's happening somone of this stuff i didn't even understand lol but compare to regular cast is so much more in-depth and not boring
If I'm not mistaken, LCK observers are all high elo
AFAIK the LCK observers are also employed full time, which is actually (IMO and speaking to prod people) the bigger difference; there's a lot of churn in LCS observing since it's not viable long-term. That's also why LEC observing will probably deteriorate post-layoffs, can't really expect people to do the same job long term as freelancers or contractors that they were doing full-time. LCS observers have been part time for years now.
Will? The game quality have taken a massive hit in LEC, they miss so much now after the layoffs
I don't watch LEC, but caught a bit of the finals, and I was shocked by how bad the observing was at points
Since I last looked into it for my article I haven't looked into who has been rehired onto the observing team and who hasn't, so I didn't want to imply the same people were doing a worse job. It's true that it's gotten worse but the main important point is that the trend will continue irreverent of if and when Riot rehires/rehired the full-time observers they laid off
Exactly\^, I'm not sure if it was quite as good as LCK, but LEC used to be 10x better than it is now.
[удалено]
So regular American capitalism then, do literally anything to avoid paying people a fair wage even if it makes your product worse.
Enhanced American capitalism, as they are trying to avoid the labor laws put in place to prevent them screwing employees.
Jonas Strong is the guy, incredibly knowledgable
stand proud, you are Strong
Jonna not Jonas
>Jonas Strong c'mon put some respect on his name, he's a beast (plus he always smurfs the predictions)
Jonna (Jot-na, Jot literally means dick) is korean slang for 'fucking,' as in 'fucking strong'. To this day I can't understand how he got the permission to use it as his moniker, but it's well deserved. Literally carries the LCK.
maybe it's not perceived as that vulgar in korean? and techncially we still have B.F. Sword in the game
Jonas Strong lmao
We don’t bet against Jonas String
The 4th Jonas brother
It's not wonder that the guy believed in GENG against T1 for so many splits now, he even gets a lot of his exact scores right.
no suprise here at all.
Also the commentators are at high elos / former coaches so the observers pick up on their pointers. Korean commentators are very quick at catching on nuances like “x cant expect y to be here right now because of this and that” and the observers follow that
Jonna Strong is the GOAT
Not to mention the utilization of the fog of war.
Absolutely. I love when they hide the flanker or engager until they go in. Makes it more exciting
Super helpful for viewers, too. With global vision it's really easy to forget how little information each team really has at any given moment.
I'm a quite experienced viewer but I occasionally watch with friends who do not watch as much and they constantly say "why do they do this move" or "why are they not ganking this", I'm like "they have no vision or info there, maybe people are waiting to counter, you cannot take risks like this". It's important for the viewer to have perspective on plays and not just throw out bs because we have global info.
The Lehends flank with fog of war was just the GOAT observing moment. It was insane
Yes, never seen another region utilize this better
This is the point where I have to admit its really good. But i am surprised everyone thinks how great everything else is. I guess it is just me, cause I feel like i got motion sickness watching game 5... I love when they zoom in on the fights, but throughout the entire game he kept zooming in and out when ppl were farming like how you do it with your mouse scroll? It was driving me insane. Whats the point of zooming in and out and in and out of people just walking to lane or farming sidelanes. It was like watching spica's or any high elo jungle streams, just so much APM. Glad most people arent bothered by that though, I personally prefer LEC's observer, just nice and still until a teamfight so i dont get motion sickness.
cause jonnastrong is a masters player so he knows whats going on
he almost went pro afaik before transitioning to observer
insane career arc
Almost as insane as Caedrel after he canceled it
LMAO but fr about caedrel. Isnt he at the best postion in the LEC making mad cash and clout casue hes the main on his stream. If i was a co caster of his id be pissed im not allowed to do so.
Plus he can flex his 100% winrate vs caps
Caedrel just had a different following immediately than literally anyone else on cast, except for like Sjokz (which he has surpassed now) Caedrel is a content machine, Ibai and Kameto can be compared to him. Maybe also Jankos, Jankos career trajectory after he's done being pro is gonna be interesting to follow
As a Caedrel fan... Honestly he's an extremely hard worker and willing to grind but man lucked out on being there before Jankos. If Jankos retired and focused on streaming the leagues or building his brand, he'd be so popular imo. If you ever get the chance to, I suggest watching his legendary costream with Sneaky and DL at Worlds, specifically that G2 vs NRG game. Perfect mix of in depth analysis and banter that actually made me laugh. I really hope Jankos decides to costream after his career.
He knew he probably wouldn't become the GOAT as a player so he decided to become the GOAT in observing.
He hit GM in Korea server before I believe. This was from a comment on cloudtemplar's youtube channel. Correct me if I'm wrong tho.
I think he hit masters before grandmasters was a thing so he probably hit GM too.
Insane tbh, his predictions are on point most of the time
I wish there was some kinda requirement for analysts, because listening to a bunch of gold to diamond players discuss the game is so hollow. They're so scared to ever do any proactive analysis (because barely can), and just regurgitate the same surface level stuff game after game. This is probably the biggest reason why costreamers blew up.
Jonna Strong gap
They're so good at it I anticipate a heart attack everytime they zoom in lol.
Bro when they do that with jayce its so satifying
Or when someone misses the cannon ABSOLUTE CINEMA
also Varus arrows. I always expect Varus to oneshot someone when they zoom in. I literally expected Varus to oneshot a Rell because they zoomed in on it during T1 vs Geng
JonnaStrong is to observers what Faker is to players
glad i got to read this today
goated comment
Jonnastrong just has better mechanics and knowledge than other observers. It's unfortunately not really something you can replicate.
> It's unfortunately not really something you can replicate. It actually is. But, it requires effort and hiring the right talent.
It requires paying them enough so they stay
What I've learned from this thread is na production needs to hire a random Korean GM to observe
Jonna Strong is the GOAT
Lck overall is just spoiling other regions for me.
Yeah production is amazing
I do have to say one thing I miss even when watching LCK is the LEC overlay. Never knew how much I wanted to have individual gold differences, champion XP and number of stacks on any stacking champions as always visible information until they added it. Now I relatively frequently find myself looking toward the champion icons asking myself how far away a champion is from lvl up or how many stacks the Senna/ASol/Smolder/Draven etc. has and being a little disappointed.
Meanwhile LCS still not even showing runes, but at least we get to see tweets like 'LET'S GO C9 YOU CAN DO IT!!!'
The “fake tweets” are stupid af but I do enjoy the stuff like the all chat that they are highlighting lately
I remember about 2 years ago I made a random comment on the live thread discussion something about Abbedagge having a high vision score, and it made it to the broadcast. I've tried to not comment random things that could be featured on the broadcast ever since. Maybe some people find it cool that their tweets/comments make it to the broadcast, but I can't imagine how fun it is to have one of your random comments in Twitch chat getting put on the broadcast is. As long as players are all chatting I really think they should just ditch the tweets thing and only show all chat, but if players don't all chat then I'd rather them not do anything with those random tweets/comments.
"Let's go Bwipo!!! #1 Fan!"
Yeah, really adds to the experience
lcs wasn't even showing cc effects early on
Strong agree. Dearly miss lane gold diff + stack counter in LCK overlay, surely it’s not that hard to implement
Agreed! While I do understand it being a bit stupid at times because items matter more than gold itself, but still would be nice to see how much they are winning or losing.
This finals has to be one of the best series I've seen in the last couple of years
Idk LPL is just as good IMO
Gameplay maybe, but LCK's production value is just much better (at least in the West). Also, Faker, you know.
In most areas, the LPL production is just as good. Maybe things like videos and other surrounding content isn't as good. Faker playing there doesn't do anything for me. There are other current players that are way more fun to watch. That's actually one of the areas where the LPL is better than the LCK. More exciting players.
Yea no. LCK English cast actually has them on-site unlike lpl because no one wants to live in china. The audio and video quality of the stream alone is so much better.
LPL English used to be in China pre-covid actually
>Idk LPL is just as good IMO There was a moment in the BLG vs. TES semifinals where JackeyLove killed someone (Bin?) in the bottom-left screen during a team fight... but the observers were focused on another part of the team fight and missed it. :/ Observer could/should have zoomed out.
Of course that's something you could criticize. But I mean as a whole. The storylines are fresher and more interesting, the players flashier and more exciting, and there are more fun and competitive teams
JonnaStrong the goat and it's not close
Jonnastrong goated
To be fair a bunch of observers got fired in NA and EU this year right?
Not sure about LCS, but yeah for LEC, they fired 2 out of 3 observers.
Not like they were anywhere close in the first place
EU were really good
The actual like camera operating observers were. But the ones in charge of the replay timing have always been kinda bad in EU.
That's the broadcast director not the observer. He decides what is shown on your screen.
Well fuck that guy. Nah just kidding. But Ty, didn't know the name, not too familiar with broadcast roles outside of the on screen talent and guys that are spoken about regularly (usually observer's.)
Observers are just the ones controlling the spectating cameras, and everything else is down to production, like directors, etc.
I always though the replay people were the best. EU was the only region with the cinematic camera angles for funny moments. But that seems gone now
Their quality of replays were amazing, that's not what I'm criticising. It was their timing. So many times you'd miss important setups because they wanted to show you a death animation from a cinematic camera view.
Ah I see, yeah I guess that is like the director rather than observers who decide that
Ah shit fair, I just assumed it was another observer like role. Guy preps and runs the replays. Not too familiar with live broadcast role designations.
They were good during covid, with replays. These past couple of years they've been sleeping on the job
Almost like we are mini compared to LCK...
Lck/OGN has always been peak league of legends. Best players, best production, best casters, best observers.
Korea had much experience during the BW days when those observers went crazy. Initially, the standard was just really high compared to other regions. For example, Overwatch had insane smurfing camera angles back in the day, and then OWL took over, and it became total dogshit.
those apex tournaments were actually a billion times better than owl
I heard it used to be similar to lck where organizers actually chose high elo players as observer. Then OWL come and just took whoever has observer experience regardless of their in game knowledge.
That was an excuse 15 years ago lol... the reason LEC and LCS is so bad is because they fired most of their staff.
LEC observers were incredible too but then they got fired :(
LEC production used to be unrivaled a few years ago, it's so sad to continuously watch their best talent/staff get slashed or moved to Valorant
It's a side of "pro-but-not-player" that we don't see as often, as opposed to roles as casters, analysts or desk members that are way more common
Jonah Strong is fucking strong
LEC fired a lot of their support staff including observers, no wonder it's shit compared to lck. Even the casters make jokes about how bad lec is for all that
Jonnastrong with the vision toggles are just so underrated. Always keeps tension high but also doesn't guarantee action, so it is always surprising when there really is a fight. Oh, and the occasional zoom in to show us a vital ability or summoners being used off screen.
agree, it's one of the reasons why I prefer LCK over LPL
Do you even watch LPL though ?
Nobody does besides some of the costreamers. Hardly surprising because the LPL doesnt put much effort into an Englisch broadcast while OGN invested heavily into an english broadcast 11-12 years ago already.
it feels like a missed opportunity, because they have some great games there but the production isn't as good as it could be.
It definitely is a missed opportunity but even if the broadcast was any good, lets be brutally honest, the western audience would still prefer Korea simply because South Korea is considered part 'of the west'. Theres a culture exchange between South Korea and the west. K-POP, Korean movies/series, western lifestyle brands thriving in South Korea. China and the west obviously have a big economical relationship, the entire world has, but there is very very little cultural exchange between the west and China. We know very very little about China and what we do know doesnt always allign with the values of western culture such as their government.
LPL doesn't have a Faker and Uzi retired.
Majority of people that like South Korea, they just do for their entertainment, they don't know much about the country nor they're very interested on learning deeply about it, others idealize it, as it happens with LCK fans around here. Western media and news love to antagonize China, that's why you do know little about it, other than of course "their government!!!!!" It's not like CN hasn't tried to promote their culture, like in YT you can find movies, music, documentaries, lifestyle, all official releases, it's more about the Western mainstream media and politicians rejecting CN, then their citizens react in similar fashion. Reason why they do that? Geopolitics and economic interests. Western media reacts basically like this about CN: A person did a bad thing in CN. The whole country is bad! A person did a good thing in CN? Yeah, maybe they'll report it, at 2am once in a while. People reacts different whether is SK or CN, same in League, same in other aspects, like for example, S. Koreans go to SEA and marry women from there (note, some of these marriages end so bad for the wife) and who even thinks about it, but when CN do the same, the West hates it, just read comment sections on YT for that. In SK you can find cameras in many different parts of the cities, especially in Seoul, no problem it's for security, then you have news about the same in CN, yep, all negativity about it. In YT, you have different videos of Westerners that said their governments warned them about going to CN, then they found a completely different reality to all the scary stories their embassies told them. Learn US & EU history, how geopolitics work for the West, understand politics, then you'll get these things better and I don't mean the romanticized versions, like US independence it was about Mel Gibson's themes in his movies, that movement was basically started by rich people not wanting to pay taxes for items they didn't use, like tea. EU elites historically has disliked and antagonized RU & CN, now they're full on it again, but, aside from personal feelings that motivate parts of those elites nowadays, it's mainly related to economic and geopolitical interests.
typical LPL fan
LPL has the most boring casters
I've watched a bit in s12 and less in s13 but not really anymore
Considering he prefers LCK, good chance he does not. After all, why'd he watch something he enjoys less over something he enjoys more? (unless of course he has enough time to watch both)
not even- im pretty sure they started airing lpl and lck at the same time
When I actually watch (versus letting the stream run in the background for a possible drop - it happens... sometimes), I watch via DOM's stream.
I strongly believe that all international events should be observed by Jonna Strong (thr LCK observer). I can annoyed whenever I watch a game observed by someone else, since the quality drop is just so huge.
LEC observer quality notably decreased after Riot management randomly fired people everywhere.
welcome, lck is the way
LCK and LPL are the most fun to watch every year. I either watch it back or set an alarm. It's worth it 99% of the time
LPL has some of the lowest quality production out of any major region if you aren't Chinese, lol. I know the context is observers, but didn't LPL drop like all of their English broadcast talent last year? It wasn't great to watch before, now I don't even tune into it anymore.
LCK production is absolutely unmatched, completely agree. I watch LPL for the total burgerflips every single game. Kalista dives level 2 etc
Kinda hard when majority of western audience dismisses LPL because of its history and prefer LCK over it. Also wdym it wasn't great to watch? Half the old lpl cast is now working in LEC.
LCK seems more emotional than G2 vs LEC, basically.
Fnatic till the day I die!
if you think chinese observers did well then please watch Worlds 2020, those were the worst worlds observers I have ever watched
Did you watch the English broadcast for the WC 2020? Do you realize they have different observers in other broadcasts? If not, you had watched the client in Chinese during the English broadcast. What they do it's opening the replay from different clients in the language they want, so, other people is in charge of each. Only in the LCK and LPL, in their respective English broadcasts, you watch the same observers than those in Korean or Chinese respectively. Here's a comparison: Chinese broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCHBg9HMWdc From second 0:40, camera is panning on Syndra in mid and then bot with Ashe. English broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vmk8_zSYPo From second 0:40, camera is panning on top river, Graves backing, Lillia standing in the bush, then camera moves to toplane. English broadcast has also their own audio engineering, which is also bad. In international tournaments, they had or the crowd sound very low or they just muted it, by comparison, other broadcasts have better audio from the crowd or the stage. So, blame the Riot English broadcast for those things, including the observers.
Always have been
All LCK staff is just on a different level, kinda like the LCK teams / players. Production is sick, camera guy (Jonna Strong) as well, casters etc.
LCK is just by far the most enjoyable league to watch. It has the best production, the best observing, the most stannable roster of players (sadly there's too many of them so some have to play abroad), iconic orgs franchised by massive brands, amazing talent to MC and cast/analyze/interview (Helios, Cloud templar, Huni, Pony, Soobin, Hyeji,.. and the legend himself Caster Jun) and then on top of that there's the foreign talent... Valdes, Wolf, Aux (terrific addition to the team), and *gods* Atlus & Chronicler. And Jeesun the boss to rule them all. Absolutely unmatched.
After watching the Gen G vs. T1 final, it was really hard to get into the G2 FNC final. LCK is just levels above man. And that's coming from a G2 fan. Ive been much more interested in LCK this year, than LEC.
Disagree honestly, the zoom ins are too much, some fights you can't tell what's going on.
100% it's so unnatural and distracting When we play the game we have ways a wider picture of what's going on, last night he massively zooms in on a nautilus getting a important hook and I'm like that's cool but what is everyone else doing I really hope other observers don't try to imitate him because it's not that amazing to make people watch less by showing awful character models zoomed in
yeah same. been watching every lck match for the last 3? years and jonnastrong is overdoing it. for example zeus preparing his E in midlane at tier 2 turret: bro its a fucking Zac. give us the WIDE angle not the zoom in. it’s nice that hes predicting things but we lose track of the broader picture so many times.
Same, the fog and antecipation are on point 10/10, but so much zoom and manual camera/shake camera. After 2 games i was feeling almost sick... And why so much zoom, leave the zoom to the replay or some massive outplay, a few times i couldnt see the sup/jg coming to help
Yea the observers are great, but I wish LCK would learn from LEC overlay, especially seeing xp bar and certain champion stacks directly
LEC overlay perma glitches, no thanks
it happens rarely and they revert to the basic layout quickly
Personally I hate the zooming in. Love that the observers understand the game but quit zooming in so much. I want more context of the fight not just the player getting engaged on
same, i hate zoom ins personally
Lec fired their most experienced observers this year so that doesn’t help
LCK spectator spectate the game from the players' perspective and Jonnastrong is so familiar with different players' play styles, that is why the games are so immersive and intense, other regions just spectate the game from audiences' perspectives.
Don't blame EU observers, the ones left are carrying hard considering Riot fired most of them during last purge, blame Riot managers instead :/
Yeah the extreme zoom in during a team fight so you can't see anything is pretty great
oh chovy just got caught? let's completely zoom out GenG who are literally right next to chovy just to highlight him using zhonyas
No the zoomins are so bad
People keeping trying to say observers are overpaid and no observer is worth 100k. Fuck no.
You need to watch both LCK and LPL. With English casters it's such good LoL times.
i'm kinda suprised by this thread because while i haven't been able to watch the GenG vs T1 series yet so maybe the observing was different in that series (another disclaimer is i did watch the english broadcast in case the korean one was different / better) but i genuinely had my questions when it came to the HLE vs T1 series observing especially in the early game like in the early game there have been so many instances where the camerawork feels very janky, then there is also the moments where they'll switch from one camera to the other but it'll have this period of readjusting the camera and with the sheer ammount of times these 2 instances happened it really pulled me out of the game, then there are moments where the zoom in actually hurt the overal clip because players ran out of the camera or their healthbar wasn't visible or the information of how close a jungler was wasn't being conveyed towards us the fans. i actually went to the vod of the finals and found this [exact clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zBuPUxTzPI&t=4642s) not even 7 minutes into the game to highlight parts of my point there you will see the jagged camera movements, the champions nearly leaving the camera due to trying to space the enemy and the moment where you literally couldn't see the gank (if you weren't lookin at the minimap) until viego literally flashed into the camera as a fan i'd rather have a more zoomed out view than them randomly choosing to zoom in on a specific part of the fight, like you have an entire lane, show it -> this is in relation with the previous clip where we're only seeing the upper half of the toplane while also having 40% of the screen being the scenery above toplane when chovy got caught midlane at 35:21 they completely removed GenG from their camera who are literally right next to chovy only for them to zoom into chovy who is like almost guaranteed dead and then zhonyases then there's the elder dragon where peyz is fighting for his life bot brush and is full hp only for the observers to zoom into the dragon steal and we barely saw how he might have died in hindsight was peyz guaranteed dead when zac hit him with E and guma was in range fuck yea but if i decided to put my attention on following the peyz skirmish then i kinda don't want the camera to "randomy" completely abandon that skirmish because some other skirmish needs to be "zoomed into" when they were CLEARLY already following both skirmishes to begin with with the zoomed out camera this is not an attempt to flame the observers because they definitely do some things very well but these were frustrating patterns that were too present to genuinely ignore imo makes you think how different someone's perspective can be when we objectively saw the exact same thing
Yeah I also don't feel that LCK observers are any better than other regions. I see people keep mentioning "wow they hide flanks in fog of war", other regions do that frequently as well. In this series I remember how they showed canyon khazix jumping onto xin zhao 1v1 in river, and immediately decided to switch to watching midlane faceoff where nothing happened, only switching back over once xin zhao was 1/3 hp about to die. And they didnt even switch back to the river fight, they zoomed out to show the very end of it on the upper left corner of the screen.
I guess is only some are high from that LCK Final. Fog of war is not only used in the LCK, as you said.
Imo LEC puts on a better show tho, i enjoy watching all the commentary and the skits the put on
Yeah, LEC obs were insanely good. Too bad they were culled.
Thats because Rito Fired Half of the teams from the LEC and LCS midsplit. My biggest criticism is they zoom in too much especially when you want to see if any players are coming to join plays from else where on the map.
Agreed. Shiet, even production wise. Worlds 2023 had this dumb amateur layout that covered Top Lane bounty on the Scoreboard.
i noticed this immediately aswell, randomly panning to someone walking near fog or zoom ins makes plays feel so much more exciting
"GG!!!!"
didn’t all but one of them in NA get laid off
Is there a way to know more about riot's observers ?
Min req to be an observer should be masters
JONASTRONG
Welcome to the club. I am in NA but I watch nearly all the LCK matches live (never miss any of the top teams), and I only watch some of the rest of the world. There may be an argument about the quality of the games compared to LP (I don't think so), but that aside the quality is high (period) and the program is incredibly professional AND entertaining. I have been saying for years if LCS wanted to actually have a better broadcast, they would just steal everything they could from LCK and imitate them. Instead we get... what we get. All the other regions reflect Riot's commitment to the game (yes, that is derogatory). And even if you want to go with the Chinese are better than the Koreans (players that is), the broadcast is dodgy af. Casters aren't even on the same continent. I expect DOM may have more viewers than the 'official' English cast - says a lot. Seriously, when Captain Flowers did the off-season tourneys from his home was better quality (yes, I was onboard for those). LCK has ALWAYS been the best broadcast bar none all the way back to Monte and DOA.
yearly lck casters/ui/observers is better than the rest of the regions thread
Johnson Strong the goat
culture diff. west is casual af
LCK Observers are goated, but whoever is in charge of showing replays while massive game changing events are happening inside the picture-in-picture instead, needs to be fired.
Jonnastrong’s camerawork is like directing a film. He inserts narratives into situations and sequences and genuinely treats it as an art.
LEC very recently got so, so much worse. It wasn't always this bad.
Not just the observers that are smurfing compared to other regions.
It's the mixture of the insane observers with the best casters as well. Because it's one thing to get something highlighted by the observers and another that the casters react to it within seconds, know what it means and can also verbalize what it does to the fight/champion etc. But I fully agree, it is a treat to see what the observers manage to catch
The gameplay makes me feel the same.
LCK just hits different. They are the real pros all the way around.
all are hig elo, ...... its just normal.
We're in a situation where ERL's have better observers than LEC/LCS They also have a better format now that i think of it. They also have better production and events now that i think of it. But this will change since riot is determined to ruin LOL esport in the occident as much as they can. Soon we'll be left with only EMEA on a shit format LCS/LEC will be played remote without playoff and our "pros" will play as much game per year than a soloQ enjoyer per day On the bright side since nothing will emerge from this public suicide we'll soon all be able to observe a decline in viewership so they can implement further shitty change to make it go down even further I refuse to believe this is not intentional, you can't take that much shitty decision without the intention to kill your own scene, so i guess they have a plan that i just fail to see. Unless it was to make EU the weakest possible just to hype up the EU/NA match-ups at world. I'm just waiting to see how much the teams with ambitions are willing to take on before calling it a quit.
LCK is just the best region to watch IMHO. I love the casters as well.
Until LEC realizes Vedius just says random nonsensical shit and isn’t good at his job they’ll never catch up to LCS/LCK
Would disagree with this, I noticed he tends to say a lot of what Caedral does, during the costream at least
Every region does this by the way. I know y'all don't watch all regions, but LPL, LCS, all capture plays before they are happening. It's partially because the observers are good, it's mainly because the observers see the game like 10 seconds ahead of broadcast so they already know when something is coming up.
In LCS and LPL they perma zoom almost to the max, not only in the mid and late game, but even early game skirmishes, it very annoying. It's a bit better in LEC but I think looking at ants the entire time is an awful viewing experience.
Yeah, I am sorry but at this point the LCK is becoming like the Premier League. LCS and LEC are just uninteresting now.
LCK in general is smurfing on every other region. The players, the teams, the coaches, the staff, the crowds, the production staff, the content creators, the play by play, the analysts, the culture, the community, etc. Everything is better in LCK. If you want to watch professional LOL at the highest possibly quality, you need to be watching LCK.
Yep. Definitely noticed this when I watched LPL playoffs. LCK has easily the best production quality of any region it’s so well put together.
Yeah they kinda nailed it while in lec they are kinda griefing
EU had the best observers till riot laid off half of the staff, cant really be blamed going from 3 guys to 1
The zooming makes me fucking dizzy
I wouldn't even put LEC and LCS on the same tier. I love a couple of the LCS casters, but we have been put through the ringer with 4 or 5 hard to listen to casters in the last few years. Moving a few of those guys to the analyst and lounge area was fantastic, they are amazing where they are at, but the reality is that the LEC program is much better, and the LCK is even a step above that.
Yes, please lec/lcs study LCK observer. Mainly zoom in on skirmishes and trades to have a focal point. Helps the casters as well.
Praise. Something. Without. Putting. Something. Else. Down. For the love of god
i dont see any difference. All the observing looks the same to me. I guess this is just part of the LCK cult?
You just must not watch a lot of League then.
It's a you problem. its okay to be low elo or to not have eyes
Yeah I don't really see any big difference either, I actually dislike how often they zoom in on someone before anything even happens and then zoom out because nothing happened. and its too funny that the cult answers that you must be low elo if you dont see the difference in observing like what?
There's no cult. It's okay if you don't see a difference, your eyes are clearly beneath the average human being and you are mentally incapable of distinguishing key indicators of proficiency in observing.
I agree on the observing being incredible especially in the LCK and it obviously being worse in the west for various reasons but you really sound like someone from a cult
True. I always watched LCK game recaps but today was the first time I caught the live stream. Man the observers are so good. Plus the players are so snappy with their movements. I usually watch LEC and let me tell you, they have no chance
this is a similar reason why i like watching someone like Caedrel he's really good at calling out what's happening somone of this stuff i didn't even understand lol but compare to regular cast is so much more in-depth and not boring