Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883
Page 539
…
In the afternoon, Pei Qian wore a mask and arrived at the GPL Spring Competition venue.
The pre-season competition was held last month. Several newly formed teams had already appeared. Some of the problems in the competition had been fixed and improved. Some solutions for possible emergencies had already been planned ahead.
Today’s opening battle was arranged between H4 and SHG. The former was the world champion while the latter was a team established by Shenhua.
SHG had received a lot of attention ever since the establishment of their SHG team. After all, Shenhua’s results in football were very good. Using the gameplay of football to play eSports could be seen as a dimensional reduction attack. Many people were looking forward to their performance.
SHG had also appeared a few times in the pre-season competition. Their performance was not bad. After a period of preparation and practice, the main team had been confirmed and improved very quickly. In the end, Zhang Yuan decided to let them play the opening battle according to the situation in the mock competition. It would also give the team a better chance to be exposed.
Chapter 806 - Outstanding Hardheadedness
The opening ceremony of the GPL’s Spring Competition was relatively simple. First, it broadcasted the promotional video of the extremely enthusiastic Spring Competition on the big screen. Then, the captains of each team took to the stage, and the host introduced the clubs and celebrity players to the audience one by one.
The captains of the sixteen teams corresponded to the sixteen war flags in the stadium, and also corresponded to the sixteen heroes dressed up in the promotional video CG.
The audience in the venue were all old-timers. They were very supportive, clapping and cheering continuously.
After that, the competition officially began.
Strictly speaking, the GPL’s Spring Competition was lacking when compared to the IOI World Finals. They were not on the same level after all. The IOI World Competition was held in a large stadium that could accommodate 20,000 people. It was definitely much more grand than the GPL’s Spring Competition.
However, the advantage of the GPL’s Spring Competition was that the details were better done.
From the initial GOG Global Invitational Competition to the pre-season competition, GPL’s entire operations team had accumulated rich experience.
On one hand, the rules were clear and the various contingency plans were very detailed. The probability of problems appearing was very low. Even if there were problems, it could be resolved quickly without causing too serious broadcast accidents.
On the other hand, they had already gotten a good grasp of the audience’s preferences. They would try their best to do the parts that were necessary and cut off all the unnecessary parts.
It was just like how many E-Sports competitions liked to have cosplay or singing and dancing performances at the opening ceremony. However, most audiences did not feel much about it, so the GPL completely cut off such unnecessary segments, bringing the audience the purest viewing experience.
Therefore, in the view of the audience, the GPL venue was relatively small, but it was done very formally in all aspects. From the details, it could be seen how much effort was put into preparing for the competition. Thus, it would not appear to be degrading.
Soon, the competition officially began.
SHG was a new team but they performed very well. They dared to fight but they finally still lost against H4 Club after three rounds.
Even so, SHG’s performance won applause from the audience. Some eye-catching decisions and operations caused a heated discussion on the forum.
Pei Qian was satisfied watching the live-stream. He took out his cell phone and opened the live-stream to see the netizens’ reactions.
However, some discordant voices appeared on the bullet screen.
“Is this the standard of the H4 World Champion? They are playing so badly against a newly formed team?”
“This shows the value of GOG’s international invitational tournament. Everyone knows it.”
“With H4’s ability, they can still beat foreign teams. I don’t have to say much about the quality of the foreign teams they hired, right?”
“I already said that GOG’s competitiveness is bad. The so-called ‘dominance’ of domestic teams is only because no one plays it overseas!”
“What’s so great about spending money to get someone to spar with them?”
“Entertain yourself, entertain yourself…”
A group of people of unknown origins were crazily 'self-entertaining” in the live-stream, belittling the value of GPL and GOG’s international invitational tournament.
This was the same strategy as the previous post about “domestic eSports started late, had a weak foundation, and had to continue working hard”. It kept using the wrong logic to brainwash the audience: GOG had tortured foreign teams because no one played overseas, so it was not very valuable; IOI lost to foreign teams because the local players were not good enough, so it was very valuable.
The final conclusion was that IOI was far superior to GOG.
This argument had already been raised once before. Now that the GPL competition had started, it was brought up once again. Obviously, these people with ulterior motives were trying to fight the popularity of the GPL spring competition and promote IOI’s global finals.
Many gamers of GOG were furious. They argued with the gamers in the live-stream and forum, but it was useless.
These people were all professional haters. They would pretend that they did not see you when you put the facts and reason with them. They would only use their own twisted logic to harass you endlessly. They would even attack you in a strange and personal manner. Once you went up against them, you would fall into their trap.
The bickering between the two groups of people caused the GPL’s live-stream to become foul. The competition was originally very exciting, but no one discussed the contents of the competition. They were all fighting, which greatly affected the feeling of watching the competition.
Pei Qian was not angry at all. Instead, he was very happy.
Long Yu Corporation and Boss Zhao were finally working. How touching!
He would be able to watch FV Club’s competition at five in the morning. If FV Club lost, the internet would definitely be very lively!
While Pei Qian did not think that this bit of public opinion would affect the GPL league’s profits, it was better than nothing!
Pei Qian decided to rest early tonight. He would wake up at 5 AM tomorrow to watch FV Club’s competition.
…
…
Los Angeles Time, 7th, 1pm. Jingzhou Time, 8th, 5pm. The IOI International Finals’ quarterfinals officially began!
There were a total of four matches in the quarterfinals, played on Saturday and Sunday Los Angeles time. FV Team would be the first to fight against the European club CEM Team, which had previously slaughtered domestic teams in the group stages.
CEM was also a veteran European and American team that was similar to FRY. They showed extremely strong dominance in the group stages and made it in the group stages with a result of 4-0. That domestic team in the same group could not even lift their heads.
The staff of FV Club were all waiting backstage. Wu Yue and Manager Lu looked slightly nervous.
While they completely trusted the strength of their players, the outcome of an E-Sports competition was not that absolute. The other party was not a weak team, and FV Club did not have a 100% chance of winning.
What’s more, this was an offline tournament. The European and American teams were considered the home team. It was hard to say if the players would lose their mentality and perform abnormally because of their opponents’ cheers.
“It’s time to take the stage!”
Someone shouted, and everyone looked at the screen backstage.
At the same time, thunderous applause and cheers came from the venue!
The CEM was
the first to take the stage. The five members were all smiling confidently and waving at the audience, enjoying the applause and cheers.
Next was FV Club. The audience was also very supportive. The cheers were lower than CEM Team’s but they were also very passionate.
FV Club had persevered in tweeting and frequently interacted with the major clubs after all. Thus, it had obtained quite a good reputation among foreign players.
However, the netizens on foreign live-streaming platforms were not so kind. There were overwhelming comments about “3: 0” and “cn ioi noob”.
Obviously, most foreign audiences only felt that FV Club was very capable in their performance but did not acknowledge their competitiveness.
In the eyes of the majority of the audience, this would be a competition without any suspense. FV Club would probably not even be able to score any point.
The members of FV Club could not see the bullet screen comments so of course, they were not affected. They just enjoyed the cheers and applause from the audience to their heart’s content, waiting to use their performance in the competition to conquer the 20,000 audience.
The top eight and quarter finals were not that fancy. The competition soon entered the BP segment.
…
At the same time, Pei Qian had just woken up.
He switched on the television, took out his chips and coke, and sat on the sofa. He happened to see the BP[1.’BP’ refers to Ban Pick]segment of the two teams.
The bullet screen comments were still very chaotic. The players were fighting.
Some of them were mocking GOG for their own entertainment, some kept spamming comments like ‘swim back’, some cheered for FV Team, and some kept spamming meaningless numbers to block the screen. It was simply a sightless competition.
Obviously, the fake reviewers hired by Long Yu Corporation at GOG’s opening battle yesterday had angered GOG’s players. Today, GOG’s players had also come to IOI to fight back.
In the end, the bullet screen comments of both competitions could no longer be seen.
Pei Qian was speechless. However, he saw a string of question marks floating across the screen just as he was about to close the bullet screen.
“????”
“The FV is so hard headed? They are giving up Chaos Misfortune?”
“The four rounds in the group stage have all been played badly. Why are you still playing?”
“Could it be that FV Club doesn’t know how sick this hero is because they did not go through mock competition? That’s not right. Even if they did not play mock competitions, they should have at least watched the group stages, right?”
“I understand now. Maybe FV thinks that since it was 3: 0 anyway, they could still find an excuse to give up Chaos Misfortune, to make it seem like they did not lose because they were noobs but because of the BP problem. This wave, this FV is on the fifth level!”
“You can turn off the live-stream now. Go have breakfast and come back to watch the second game in 30 minutes!”
“I really have to give it to you, FV!”
“I’ve already read the following script. Chaos Misfortune will grow up and emerge in twenty minutes and end the competition in three waves.”
“Who is the coach of FV Club? He can even think of such a tactic. Is his brain flooded with water? Or is his accommodation in Los Angeles too good? Is his brain rusty?”
“Coach seems to be… Old Zhou? Holy sh*t, isn’t that the original support player of DGE Club?”
“Huh? Someone who played GOG came over to be the head coach? That’s f*cking ridiculous. No wonder he played Chaos Misfortune! He’s not playing GOG, brother!”
Previously, a few groups of people had been arguing non-stop in the bullet screen comments were repeatedly attacking each other, just like a battle royale. However, after the BAN ended and CEM directly snatched the hero, ‘Chaos Misfortune’, the comments on the bullet screen content immediately unified.
All of them were criticizing FV Club!
It was only then that many people noticed that the coach on stage was Zhou Pengyuan.
As a former GOG star, Zhou Pengyuan had not appeared in public since he came to Los Angeles.
This was the first time he had gone on stage for BP. In the end, they did not ban Chaos Misfortune for the purple side, which was publicly recognized as the heroes that should be banned. It could be said to be an amazing feat.
Pei Qian was a little curious. He searched for the hero ‘Chaos Misfortune’ on Qiandu.
This was a new hero that had only appeared recently in IOI. It looked like a dark cloud. It was a long-range hero but its shooting range was only slightly higher than close combat. Its strength was that it had good team control ability in the mid to late stages. It was also a good tank and could be an offensive. Once it entered the team battle stage, it would almost certainly win.
There were a total of four rounds in the group stages. The teams that were released were all smashed without exception.
Everyone thought that this hero should have stayed in BAN and would never appear in the elimination rounds. They did not expect FV Club to release him immediately.
Pei Qian could not help but feel invigorated. FV Club was good, they did well!
This style reminded Pei Qian of the legendary game where they did not ban the strongest heroes. They stood out because they were hardheaded and did not want to win.
Pei Qian munched on his chips as he watched the competition.
Chapter 807 - 3: 0 Violent Beating
In the lounge backstage of FV Club, Min Jingchao, Bao Xu, Wu Yue, and the others were also paying attention to the competition.
The audience felt that releasing Chaos Misfortune was ridiculous, but the people in the lounge did not think so.
That was because these were all pre-arranged tactics.
The hero Chaos Misfortune was very good at team battles when it was growing up, but as long as they chose a strong hero with range in the early stages and a strong jungler who could cross the tower, they would be able to pass through the time. The Chaos Misfortune who could not grow would be a free gift to themselves instead.
Previously, the teams in the group stages could not defeat Chaos Misfortune mainly because their thoughts were unclear and they were not ruthless enough. They would always let it develop to twenty minutes and then would not be able to defeat it.
The members of FV and SUG had already practiced many rounds against this playstyle. They had also considered how to counterattack on the side of Chaos Misfortune. Obviously, the other party was not mentally prepared for this. FV was very confident.
The competition officially began. FV Club was like a sophisticated machine, executing every segment according to the tactics that Zhou Pengyuan had designed previously.
At the beginning, he had been keeping track of the opponent’s jungler’s movements. After their jungler leveled up by two levels, they had rushed straight to the top lane. At the same time, their long-range heroes on the top lane had pushed the line crazily the moment they came up. After suppressing Chaos Misfortune to the bottom of the tower, the jungler had arrived just in time. The two of them had carried the tower perfectly and killed Chaos Misfortune directly!
The junglers had already left before the enemy’s junglers changed their routes and rushed over.
The player who controlled Chaos Misfortune was obviously stunned. After reviving, he only dared to farm wretched under the tower. He was criticized severely by their own long-range hero.
The CEM team was stuck in a dilemma. If they did not help, Chaos Misfortune would be pressed under the tower and rubbed against them crazily. They would not be able to play with the hero’s restraint and the one-hit advantage. If they helped, they would explode together once they were thumbed down by the opponent. The entire game would be over!
Everyone in the backstage lounge heaved a sigh of relief when they saw that the game could continue playing according to the script that they had planned. Their t
ense hearts relaxed completely.
Min Jingchao sighed. “I overestimated the other party. I thought that they would be on guard when they saw us choose this lineup. In the end, they were not vigilant at all. Perhaps they were still confused when they saw our chosen lineup?”
Wu Yue had not participated in daily training before, so he was a little surprised to see that his team’s tactics were executed so perfectly. “Choosing a solo suppressing hero plus a jungler who can pass the tower in the early stages can infinitely target Chaos Misfortune. Since that’s the case, why can’t the other teams think of it?”
Min Jingchao smiled. “Boss Wu, it’s not that simple.”
“A complete battle strategy is very complicated. It is not as simple as a simple restraint like the one in Jungle. The key is in the details and calculation of data whether a certain battle strategy is just talk on paper or can produce miraculous effects.”
“First of all, the two heroes that we chose to play in the jungle are cold bench heroes. The previous appearance rate was very low, and many teams that are superstitious about strong heroes would not consider them. Secondly, we made a lot of early preparations around tactics, including studying the opponent’s farming route, making preparations in advance to detect the opponent’s jungler’s movements, frequently charging the health of the minions to ensure that the conditions for the tower crossing were created, and so on. Lastly, in order to make it easier for the jungler to pass the tower, we let the jungler bring a special defensive engraving, just enough to escape with low health and not be beaten into one.”
“The hero Chaos Misfortune is very weak in the early stages. He is helpless even if he is under the tower. We would definitely not choose to cross the tower if it were other heroes.”