I have watched several KPL and LPL playoffs recently. To be honest, version changes have a greater impact on the rhythm of the game than the player status. The assassin jungler returns, the refresh time of jungle resources has been changed, and the entire tactical system has to be reconstructed. This reminds me of a strategy mobile game I've been playing recently called "Three Kingdoms World". Although I haven't seen it have an official e-sports event, based on the current gameplay framework, I think it actually has e-sports potential.
Let me give you an intuitive feeling first. "Three Kingdoms World" is not a card game where pure numerical values collide. You develop cities, hoard resources, and arrange troops, all of which are very demanding on the operational pace. Especially in the early stage of land reclamation, when to upgrade technology, when to recruit troops, when to go out to fight, whether the rhythm is well controlled will directly affect the situation in the next half hour. This is actually the same idea as the early stage laning and river grabbing in MOBA games.
Recently, the mobile game e-sports circle has been talking about the issue of "tactical diversity." For example, some versions put too much emphasis on snowballing, and the disadvantaged side can only rely on defensive counterattacks to catch mistakes, which makes the game less enjoyable to watch. In "Three Kingdoms World", I saw another possibility, which is to create natural strategic depth through functional differentiation of city buildings and restraint of arms. Your main strategy is to develop the economic flow, relying on accumulation to fight in the later stage; he uses the fast attack flow, and the explosive cavalry directly suppresses your mineral points in the early stage; others play the trick flow, placing suspicious soldiers all over the map to trick you into dividing your troops for defense, and then steal your main city with the main force. This kind of game is more about overall perspective and on-the-spot judgment than pure operation.
Of course, it's too early to say it will host a competition. Because the most important thing about mobile game events is the viewing experience. The map of "Three Kingdoms World" contains a lot of information. If the live broadcast of the event is unclear about which side has the upper hand, ordinary viewers will easily be confused. I have to praise KPL's current broadcasting ideas on this point. They are very good at using economic curves and vision suppression to explain the situation to the audience. If there is a "World of Three Kingdoms" game in the future, I think we can refer to this "data visualization" method and make indicators such as city durability, resource output ratio, and troop loss rate into real-time panels so that the audience can see them clearly at a glance.
In addition, the issue of balance cannot be avoided. I observe that in the current version of "Three Kingdoms World", the advantage of archers when defending a city is a bit obvious, which leads to many times when people would rather retreat than take the initiative to attack, which is a negative for the enjoyment of the game. But having said that, the balance adjustment of competitive games is a long-term process. For example, in "Honor of Kings", several strong heroes will be weakened every once in a while, and everyone is used to it. As long as the officials are willing to listen to player feedback and make frequent adjustments, the game's vitality will not be bad.
In general, although "Three Kingdoms World" is not an e-sports product in the traditional sense, its gameplay of multiple people on the same map and real-time gaming is actually quite suitable for a strategic event. If the "Three Kingdoms World League" is really organized in the future, I would like to live stream it every day to see how the big players in each server use their routines to defeat their opponents. I hope the official can see players' expectations for competitiveness and don't waste this good foundation😄