07
June
misc
League of Legends Pro Picks: E-sports Equipments
Like a tennis racket or a set of
clubs, good equipment does more than simply facilitate play, it is the key to
mastering the craft, and familiarity with the different pieces needed to play
the game is necessary to consistently perform at a high level.
In e-sports, your tools are just as critical. Rather than cleats or bats,
players' tools for most e-sports can be counted down to a handful of key
components: the mouse, mouse pad, keyboard and headset.
Wiktor "Taz" Wojtas, a member of Virtus.Pro's Counter-Strike: Global
Offensive team, stresses the necessity of each piece in a succinct manner.
"In Counter-Strike, you need to have good movement, which is your
keyboard. You need to have good aim, which is your mouse and mouse pad,"
Wojtas says. "And then, in order to actually move on the map and
understand what is going on, you need to have a good headset."
Equipment check
In all discussions with players in
games like League of Legends, the importance of the mouse was emphasized. In
League of Legends, the mouse is your key to controlling the in-game action,
managing the many different movement and action commands your hero needs to
execute.
The crucial aspects of the mouse aren't found in numbers. Statistics like DPI,
detail the sensitivity of a mouse. A higher DPI means that sensitive, minute
adjustments with your mouse are better detected and translated to in-game
actions. It's an appealing statistic, but many high-level players don't look to
those "box-quote" numbers, instead opting for feel and reliability.
For Counter-Strike players like Alex "LeX" Deily of Winterfox, the
mouse is as much a mark of personal identity and preference.
"If you're showing up to an event and you need to have one thing that
nobody else has that is yours and yours alone, that's a mouse”. "Having a
mouse that can be reliable and isn't going to disconnect randomly. Something
that you know is going to perform the same way on any different computer you
have."
Even tiny aspects -- like how the mouse conforms to the way your hand grips --
can mean the difference in matches. But he also emphasizes the importance of
understanding the specs -- and more importantly -- what the top players are
using and why.
"It's easy to go to a shop and pick a mouse that's a good-looking one, or
your hand fits on perfectly," Wojtas says. "But it doesn't end
there."
And while the mouse is critical as the most direct form of input for many
esports, what can affect the performance of that tool is its counterpart: the
mouse pad. Acting as a catalyst for the mouse's sensor, the mouse pad helps
ensure reliable and accurate information is transmitted from the mouse to the
game, providing a consistent surface for the big swipes and snap movements key
to games like League of Legends.
That familiarity carries over to the
keyboard as well, as every game has critical inputs mapped to the keys. Whether
it's inputting your Exhaust in League of Legends or managing several different
groups of units in Starcraft, having quick and responsive keystrokes means an
advantage over less dexterous opponents.
LeX details many of the specific aspects Counter-Strike players look for.
Although there's no control-grouping or complicated shift-queuing of inputs,
all movement in CS is input through the keyboard. Mechanical keyboards are the
most common, as they allow for the use of customizable switches. Consisting of
a base, stem and spring, switches allow you to set each key's pressure, often
reducing the amount you have to press on a key to activate and deactivate that
specific input. MX Cherry Reds were the repeated gold-standard, but more
important to LeX is "having light presses, not super-clicky keys."
This comes into factor when executing a move like "peeking" in
Counter-Strike, where you pop out from behind a corner and back to cover, to
either scout the opposition or to take a few potshots at enemies. For LeX, the
minute factors of key sensitivity and the individual feel of the keyboard make
a world of difference.
"If I'm peeking a corner in Counter-Strike, I'm rapidly pressing my
left-strafe and right-strafe keys. The movement is, a lot of the time, based on
how sensitive my keyboard keys are," Deily says. "If I switched to
another keyboard or if you just handed me one on the spot here, those peeks
that were previously very consistent and tight, would be wide and
inconsistent."
The headset is the last component, and while less important than the mouse and
keyboard, it is still your audible window in-game. Having a good headset means
having good communication with your teammates, as well as having another sense
beyond sight to rely on for contextual information. It's also one of the places
that was highlighted as having room for improvement, according to Warren
"Hades" Rettich, a Counter-Strike player for Winterfox. "There's
only a couple headsets out there that are really good. And even those ones,
they're not great, or at least not great for Counter-Strike," he says.
"The directional sound in this game is pretty poor. If there were a
headset that came out that made all the directional sounds way better, that
would be a pretty big game-changer," he adds.
Making the grade
These four tools form the necessities
of competitive e-sports, at least across the computer-based games like League
of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Companies like Razer,
Kingston, Logitech and SteelSeries all work in this space, creating gear for a
growing market of PC-playing, e-sports loving enthusiasts.
Travis Hezel, global director of partnerships for SteelSeries, says that
"They're [players] looking for the best possible performance out of their
product, so that way nothing's holding them back when they're playing their
game of choice," Hezel says.
SteelSeries works with teams to develop designs. Hezel describes an open
dialogue between the teams and manufacturer that goes beyond sponsorship.
Players help the engineers and designers at SteelSeries to create equipment
that competitive-minded players will both benefit from and want to use.
It especially comes in handy when pros can test the equipment, finding issues
that others might not. Hezel explains the development of the Rival series of
mice, and how players would come in and test it. While playing with the mouse,
some of the players noticed an issue with lift-off distance. Because most
competitive mice use laser optics, the laser will detect and transmit
information as long as it has a surface underneath it to do so. While executing
the wide sweeps common to Counter-Strike, they immediately identified the
lift-off distance as creating problems for their play.
"They [players] need to make sure that they can whip that [mouse] around
and be able to have consistent feedback over and over again with the mouse
tracking in order to actually move properly," Hezel says. "Otherwise,
if a mouse goes into a tailspin because it's getting too much data too quickly
because they're moving it too fast, you can't play like that."
These kinds of partnerships have led to the rise of player-endorsed equipment
and "signature" lines. Much like Nike and LeBron James, players and
teams are getting their own branded versions of mice, mouse pads, keyboards and
headsets.
Even now, development has progressed to even grander designs. As Tori Pugliese
Beebe, SteelSeries' global PR director tells, modular upgrades are becoming a
new way for companies to vary their offerings and provide new avenues for
aspiring competitors looking for their next piece of hardware. Aspects like
optic lenses, laser sensors, track wheels and macro buttons could be swapped
out and upgraded on a single mouse body.
"Instead of having to completely
upgrade your mouse again or buy another $100 or $200 mouse, you have the option
to swap out or upgrade your sensor," Beebe says.
For players, the question is a little more ambiguous. Some brought up minute
improvements, while others had more sweeping ideas. Deily brings up wireless as
an avenue for improvement, as it would solve many issues raised with cord
management. As many pros mentioned travel as a factor when considering
equipment, wireless is appealing, but certain aspects like battery life and
portability haven't been improved enough to make competitors consider cutting
the cord.
"I know it's already there as far as performance [latency] goes, which is
most important to me," Deily says. "But there is a stigma attached to
those kinds of products that players do worry about."
No matter what, it seems manufacturers are not content to simply stand idle and
rest on laurels. Hezel relates the story of SteelSeries' inception. In 2001,
when Quake and early Counter-Strike were king, trackball mice were the go-to
option for competitive play. Jacob Wolff-Petersen noticed players becoming
frustrated with the cloth mouse pads, common for the time, and how individual
fibers would get caught in the trackball. He invented a small glass mouse pad
that replicated the feel without the cloth, and founded IceMat. There's always
room, Hezel feels, for new innovations to surface.
A fighting chance
After clearing all the specifics and talking shop about the state of current
and future hardware, the conversation always turned back to whether it's
necessary to buy into the equipment. Standard mouse and keyboard combinations
are available, ones not labelled as "gaming peripherals," so how
needed is the higher-level hardware?
Wojtas, once again, sums it up neatly.
"If you want to be the worst player on the server, you buy a bad mouse pad
and a bad mouse," he says. Other players echo this sentiment, as it's not
just the options and premium tools they're looking for. More than bells and
whistles, it's about the consistency and reliability, as well as not being
limited by a peripheral's performance.
For LeX, it isn't even about form factor or appearances. As Deily puts it,
"performance is paramount." "Some equipment out there, my god,
is it hideous to look at," Deily says. "[But] if it was a fine enough
product, I wouldn't worry about anything like comfort, even."
Their focus isn't even completely on the equipment; LeX relates the importance
of having a proper computer able to run the actual game itself at "a
respectable FPS [frames per second]." Many of these aspects are important
to competitive play, and LeX notes the difference it makes in allowing players
to elevate their game.
"These are things that a casual player will overlook and not necessarily
consider to be paramount on the necessities list for playing [their] game,
because they're trying to have fun," Deily says. "Fifteen-year-olds
that are rising and getting on these pro teams, I guarantee you at some point
they realize, 'hey, I'm pretty good at this game, and I'd like to take it to
the next level. And they invested and bought
competitive gaming-grade products."
Fortunately, with the rise of e-sports
and the culture surrounding it, these higher-level pieces of hardware don't
require financially significant investment anymore. Players from multiple teams
and sponsorship backgrounds spoke to me about the Rival 100, SteelSeries'
entry-level mouse, as one they've seen frequently used at tournaments and which
retails for $39. Hades also noted, in terms of features and what is necessary
for competitive gaming, the especially higher-end products aren't worth it for
those looking to make their break into the scene.
"Once you reach a certain quality level, it's all usable," Rettich
says. "I don't think spending $100 is going to necessarily benefit you more
than spending $50."
When it came to the question of whether the mice could make the player, Wojtas
makes the distinction between having the facilities to execute top-level play
and actual ability to do so. Taz brings up tennis rackets as an example to illustrate
the usefulness of a premium mouse: though a tool needs to be useful, you still
have to master the connection between yourself and your tool to get the true
effect you want. According to Taz, the top level of players aren't looking
toward their equipment for improvement.
"Nowadays, you don't have time to think about it. When you're a player on
the top level, you don't think about what else [you] need to improve,"
Wojtas says. "You're thinking about what you can improve with what you
have."
League of Legends Pro team players picks
Team SoloMid (TSM)
Logitech G710+ Keyboard, Logitech G35 Headset, Logitech G303 Mouse, Logitech
G640 Mouse Pad. All team members use the previous equipments. Exceptions are
noted below.
“Bjergsen” – Logitech G502 Mouse
“Dyrus” –
Logitech G500S Mouse, Logitech G35 Headset
Counter Logic Gaming (CLG)
Team – HyperX Cloud II headset
“Aphromoo” and “HuHi”
– Razer Deathadder, Razer Blackwidow Tournament
Stealth, Razer Goliathus pad, Razer BlackShark headset
“Darshan” and “Xmithie”
– Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth, Razer
Deathadder
Team G2 eSports
“PerkZ” – Logitech G502 Mouse, Razer Blackwidow Ultimate Keyboard, Sennheiser
PC363D Headset
“Kikis” –
Deathadder Chroma Mouse, Razer BlackWidow Chroma Keyboard, Razer Goliathus
Mousepad, Sennheiser Game Zero Headset.
SK Telecom T1
“Duke” – Razer Black Widow Ultimate, Logitech G100
“Bengi” –
Razer Taipan, Razer Black Widow Ultimate Stealth
“Faker” –
Black Widow Ultimate Stealth, Razer Deathadder Chroma
“Wolf” –
Black Widow Ultimate Stealth, Razer Ouroboros
“Bang” –
Black Widow Tournament, Razer Deathadder Chroma
