HexPrimal Immortal Championship Series Tournament #2 Feedback

Great stream, I really enjoyed it!

One thing that would be nice for tournaments like this is that you have each player's overall standing listed on the screen. That would be helpful info to add context to the decks we're seeing.

One other thing I can suggest is that when you're having raffles to please announce the winner out loud because a lot of us are either doing other things at the same time we are watching, or have the video full screen.

Thanks for hosting the tournament!

First of all: Kudos for the nice stream. Replay feature helps a lot to make things more interesting.

#1: small giveaway countdown somewhere on the edges, i agree the giveaway should not be centerstage, but a small indicator would go a long way.
#2: maybe a small section where a developer (if one is available) can comment on the state of the immortal format and maybe a small Immortal centric Q&A to spice
things up in between matches.
#3: maybe a section with most common immortal achetypes (not too much in detail, only featuring the centerpieces) and the rough gameplan of those decks.
#4: Focus a little more on standings in between matches, so the is more of a tournament vibe (maybe a separate graphical overview, because ingame overview is too convoluted).

Really appreciated you guys hosting this and the effort that went into it. I wasn't able to tune in all that much to the stream itself since I decided to stream part way through the tournament but from what I saw the production value was pretty darn good. Snake & TM were doing a great job of analysis whenever I was listening.

My two pieces of feedback are:
-TM was having a strong echo from his mic and that took away from things. Not sure how to fix this without knowing the specifics of the setup but perhaps him turning his mic down on his end and then whoever was receiving the call could turn him up from their end? That might solve things but I really don't know too well.
-Also I could have done with a little more banter. At times the commentary was so focused on the play and analysis that the stream itself felt a bit dry. It's a tough balancing act and it is easy to overdo it on the banter, but a tad more would have gone a long way for me.

Me again!

After putting more thought into stuff, and reading the posts that are here, there are a few more things that I want to say/add.

1. Not having a visual overlay for Giveaways is a good thing. They do distract from the gameplay AND for people that are watching vods they are useless information. Plus keeping them in chat makes for more interaction between the people watching.

2. Taking a screenshot of the standings (Multiple screenshots if need be) and splicing them together for an overlay between rounds would help. Since you generally are about 1 round behind due to having to let the round mostly play out before you can shoutcast this shouldn't be too much of an issue as you have all of the round to take the screen shot.

3. I don't recall precisely when or where, but there are times when the chat answers a question for you and you give them a shoutout for assisting. I like that but sometimes it's not explained in the video. The reason I point this out is for VOD purposes. I don't know if you are posting these on youtube at all or anything but instead of just nodding to the chat expounding or stating the thing chat said would allow those viewers to understand it as well and such.

4. As some people have said here the back and forth between the shoutcasters should be worked on. Others have said something along the lines of Caster 1 takes Hand 1/Player Caster 2 Takes Hand 2/Player 2 and in between matches you can openly discuss misplays/what happened together and maybe for game 2 you switch players etc.

5. Deck Techs are a great idea overall. I know that decks aren't submitted openly to be viewed and such beforehand so talking about the specific decks in the tournament is not likely to happen. However, talking about let's say the Top 8-12 most played decks from the last tournament and using those as filler while waiting for round 1 to be about 1/4 through, while waiting for top 8 to start and anytime you guys just need a break, would be good for the viewers AND for the casters as a whole so they can grab a snack or what not.

6. I agree that some comedy or lightheartedness is needed in the stream. There were times when it was dry or when there was a play one was excited about and the other didn't chime in to agree/disagree with it and such.

7. The Motivation did have a pretty bad echo. I'm not sure if that's his mic, the room he's in, or the settings. I know that usually when he streams he doesn't have that echo so not sure if it's on his end or on the end of what I'm assuming is Skype/Discord for the joint voice chat.

8. Also, if possible, maybe have another person join in so you can rotate the casters. The reason for this is to keep the perspectives fresh, give a caster a break and so that the audience can get excited about another opinion on the games and such.

While I know most of the above was said in one way or another, I was trying to put my own words to reasons and such for things. I hope it helps you guys somewhat to improve future casts and future vods of this tournament. You guys did great overall and the things listed above are improvements that can be done/technical issues rather than things that were wrong with the stream and the cast as a whole.

-Chadahelmsley aka Yukito5254 on Twitch

Where would I find the stream if I am interested in watching it?

twitch.tv/videos/152498396

Shazzam!

Also available on YouTube:

I want to focus on the commentary itself. Many things have already been stated so I will keep it brief.
In terms of production value and so on the cast def. is quite good already. Can always be improved but its not my focus of critizism whatsoever.

The cast felt a bit boring at times. Part of that might be because of the nature of the replay function. With the replay function right now not allowing for pauses etc. I would strongly prefer having an emphasis on streamed matched. It always is in general more interesting knowing that the match is yet undecided (live vs. with in hindsight).

There was/is too much focus on retelling what just happened in the game. You have it backwards imo. You dont need to retell everything that happened (snakes part) all the time. Its fine to do that as kind of summarazitation but it shouldnt be the main focus and you dont need to retell every single play. The main focus should be on exploring the different lines the players have. In this cast it seemed like the focus was on snakes part more than anything elese.
We had very little of line-exploring and I dont think we had a single spot of "I think I would have preferred play Y" or "I think that was a mistake". You probably need someone to talk to about that as well as a co-commentator. Also banters make a cast fun. Look at all the casts of HS events. The most entertaining ones are the ones where a group of players explore the different lines and try to come up with the best play. Also you have banter and small talk (or even smack talk) at times.

I agree with a lot of what Metro said. I only watched very briefly, but something that stuck out was when the decklists were posted, Snake was literally just rattling off what we saw on the screen itself like "OK user X's deck has 4 Arcane Focus, 4 Transmogrifade etc etc.

This isn't a knock on Snake, as I think he is excellent as a caster and respect the amount of time and effort he puts into these things.

It does feel too much like the cast is tailored as if you were listening to it on the radio without a glimpse at the game itself. There really should be a lot more subjective talk and have one of the announcers in more of a "heel" role, being a bit more critical of certain plays and drum up some drama amongst the other commentators or something to engage the viewers watching and give them something to chat about.
As I said back when casters were being picked for the 100k tourney, I personally would have loved to see someone like Neo or Fridged at the time who would have no problem playing more the role of a villain to liven up the broadcast.

I get that it is hard to do and everyone is still learning and improving, but in terms of constructive criticism I do think what Metro wrote was worth echoing as I feel he is spot on with his analysis.

Regardless, keep up the great work and know we do appreciate what you guys are doing for the growth of the game!

Every story needs a villain.

Again..look at the HS casts. Three players debating which line to take are the best ones imo. They are not afraid of being wrong and they certainly arent afraid of coming across as arrogant and they also arent afraid calling out another player when they think he made a mistake. Those situations make for great entertainment ("omg...he just punted away the game"; "omg..he missed lethal..lol"). If a commentator is wrong and embarasses himself thats actually part of the entertainment ("lol...that commentator didnt see x"). What you idealy have is 3 commentators where at least 2 constantly debate what to do in a given turn while someone on occasion sums up the board state and the grand scheme of things.

Quick feedback from my side, which repeats some of the points before:

• Overall improvement from last time, I had more fun watching the stream (replays are great]
  
• Replay review tends to skip decision making process that would be happening during restreaming and just retells the story of games which can be boring compared to standard stream
  
• A lot of same blank spaces during breaks (and reserves) - I would suggest displaying random interesting decklists (without names), standings or even have some interesting additional content instead of some of the break screens (e.g. challanges - what would you do? would you mulligan this hand?)
  
• Overall I would loved more content that was specifically tailored for immortal (deck tech commentary, some kind of meta breakdown, etc.
  

I know those suggestion take a lot of time to make, but they would spice up the cast a lot. I'm also sorry if you had some of the listed stuff during the tourney, I had the stream as background when doing something else

for reference to what I mean watch the seatstory cup this weekend:

twitch.tv/taketv

Its mostly players sitting on the couch. There are no real ground rules. They just analyze and sometimes make jokes in between. If someone says something wrong he gets corrected (like "he already played 2 swipes this game"). They even smacktalk their fellow competitors at times. Thats just entertaining and the opposite of boring. They also laugh quite often . When commentating a TCG there needs to be time to make a joke and laugh at times.