[donatj]

I don’t really get esports or regular sports for that matter, but this seems like overkill? How much of an advantage could they really get from someone yelling at them in the audience? With a decent audience they are rarely going to hear anything other than a din anyway.

Doesn’t seem like much more of an advantage than people yelling things at baseball players?

Seems like it could just be part of the calculation of the competition rather than working so hard to avoid it.

[Forge36]

Enough to give pause. In StarCraft there was a trap set and a fan favorite was about to walk right into it. The audience went wild. And then he stopped all units, and retreated. When interviewed he said he'd stopped because the audience went wild when they shouldn't have. (They cleared the stadium for the next match)

Baseball isn't a game of hidden knowledge. The audience mood can give away details about the other team.

Think poker. If another player bluffed and the audience gasps, you know something notable happened.

[Forge36]

I did some more digging and found this post

https://tl.net/forum/brood-war/40832-starcraft-audience#12

[nivaldoh]

A yelling crowd can be a dead giveaway that the other team is about to make a risky play under the fog of war, and give the defending team enough time to prepare.

For instance, if certain characters from one team are not showing on the map for the opponents and they suddenly hear a crowd yelling, they could anticipate that the character is about to do a surprise gank, attempt to solo Roshan, etc, and shut down the attempt more easily.

It can be heavily bias the decisions that players might make under certain circumstances, so it makes sense that Valve would go to great lengths to prevent that.

[andy81]

The noise is a common giveaway in pro League of Legends despite similar efforts.

Usually when a player is walking up to a hidden enemy the crowd changes in a noticeable way, even on the stream. It's not an individual shout so much as the overall noise.

[donatj]

And what I am saying is why is this a bad thing. Just make it part of the competition, seems way more fun.

[dillydogg]

My thought as to why that isn't good is because the game you play to get to the International (often online and in smaller venues) is a different game than the one you would play in the finals. As a viewer, I think they should be playing a higher stakes version of the game I can play, not one with different rules because of the crowd. Either way, I don't care so much, but I fall on the side of the sound proofing being good.

[Aachen]

The competition is about playing the game they came there to compete on, not a different metagame. If you find that fun, that's okay but your tournament is in another castle

[ufo]

A baseball analogy would be if sign-stealing were allowed.

[ufo]

Dota is a game of imperfect information with "fog of war". There is a large playing field but each team can only see the area immediately surrounding their characters. Players will try to ambush the enemy, or group with their team to sneak in a side-objective while the enemy doesn't notice. Audience noise can disrupt this.

[OhSoHumble]

Dota players have ears that are trained for keywords. For example, the game has a minimap. Players can buy items to keep the minimap revealed and to see the movement of enemy players. The enemy team can buy an item to make it so that they aren't revealed on the minimap while they move around. This is known as "smoking" - as the item is a smoke that explodes over the team before they make their movement.

If a caster yells out "they're smoking" and the entire audience hushes in anticipation then one team knows that the other is trying to make a play and can either group up or avoid the fight.

The International is a tournament where the prevailing team wins millions and millions of dollars. Sound isolation is really important to provide an even playing field.

[doikor]

> Doesn’t seem like much more of an advantage than people yelling things at baseball players?

The baseball equivalent would be the crowd knowing signals between the pitchers and catcher and yell them out so the batter always know what pitch is coming. (this is pretty much the only hidden information in baseball)

That would pretty much ruin the game (in some players/fans mind at least). And in fact this is something the MLB is actively trying to solve by providing encrypted signal communication devices so players don't have to rely on finger/etc signals that can be decrypted by the opposing team.

[spatulon]

Two problems that have occurred in recent times when Dota tournaments have not used booths:

- the crowd whistling to tell their favourite team that the enemy team is making some kind of secret play (e.g. taking Roshan, or using a smoke).

- clearly hearing the play-by-play commentary that's being played to the crowd over the arena's loudspeakers, which can also give away information about what the enemy team's doing.