Why eSports on Old Patch?
I understand there are reasons to use the older patches, but I really wish matches were on current patch. Who really wants to watch play on an old patch (especially MSI).
5 Comments
I think it's because usually patches come out on Wednesdays, and most of the E-Sports take place during the later part of the week (Thursday-the weekend) so that does not give the Pro players enough time to get a feel for the patch changes in time.
If matches were on current patch, there would exist numerous cases in which pro players would not be adjusted to whatever changes may have come to said patch. Certain leagues also start before the intended patch cycle. Take LCK, which would start on Tuesday. It would be inconsistent for Tuesday to play one patch then the next day to play that one if were even deployed at that time. And even then the point above would still exist. And not every pro relies on PBE to get that 2 week in advance prep or so.
Now the matter of why a Riot Tournament patch is so far back is a result of using an intended patch where consistency is key. Which gets to the cons. It wouldn't be as irrelevant as you think. It's not like a new champion (as that'd probably be disabled if too close to the tournament) or an overhaul of items (which usually happens during the off seasons of a year). As for bad practice, also not necessarily. We're not talking some mass rearrangement of itemization, pathing, and macro strategy for multiple champions. As a pro ppayer at the top of the ladders as they should be, their practice simply comes from keeping their mechanics sharp. Patches rarely demolish that balance a player is capable of having.
-Tournaments are always kept on the same patch so that the meta doesn't change mid-tournament. So Playoffs/MSI/Worlds ends up a few patches behind, typically. It starts on the live patch, but it lasts long enough to get patches behind.
-At most, a regular season game will be 1 patch behind, and that only for a week or so. That's to make sure that no game-breaking OPs or bugs are there for exploit purposes before hotfixes can come into play. That's also why new champs are disabled from the start.