Esports
The new PUBG leagues may be great for the best in the world, but they could make breaking into the pro scene harder. That's where FACEIT come in.
The pro PUBG scene is about to see significant changes. Starting in 2019, regional leagues supported by PUBG Corp look set to become the main competition for the best teams in the world. Three stages across the year will feature weekly competitions and lead into global LAN events. Think along the lines of what the LCS has been for League of Legends over the past few years.
It’s a change that's much needed, especially with PUBG Corp wanting to get heavily involved in the esports scene around their game. Up until now, the scene has seen a very Valve-like approach with third-party tournament organisers hosting individual events. However, unless you're as hands-off as Valve, that system doesn’t tend to work too well in the long run. Now with these new regional leagues that boast significant prize pools and a year long structure, the structure is finally coming in, and that’s great news for the top teams in the world.
As we’ve seen with other scenes that have made a transition to a more publisher-controlled system, or even to a franchised model, making things more stable for those at the top often reduces the chances for up-and-comers to quickly rise to the top. This new system has feeder leagues to help teams make it to the top level in a short space of time, but compared to the old system, where almost every event had some kind of open qualifier, the chances of new players climbing the ladder all the way to the top will significantly drop.
That’s where FACEIT come in. Working with PUBG Corp, they've added PUBG to the FACEIT system, allowing anyone to play in a competitive match of PUBG alongside 99 other players that are looking for the same thing. It’s similar to the systems they’ve had for years in games like CS:GO, but this time there are 100 people playing in a match and not just 10.
“The PUBG system offers the features that made it so popular with other games, starting with seamless integration,” explains Alessandro Avallone, co-founder and chief gaming officer of FACEIT. “Players are able to compete in the likes of FACEIT leagues, tournaments, hubs and so on, all complemented by a clear progression system, but the competition mechanics differ a bit in order to cater to battle royale.”
So far the system has been well received by the PUBG community. Despite only being a few weeks old, many of the biggest names in the game have already spent a lot of time playing on FACEIT, and thousands of amateur players have also joined them, making it the best place to find a competitive style game of PUBG should you so fancy it. There’s even the chance to win some cash and prizes on the system should you be able to compete with the best, but ultimately that’s just a side note to the real reason to play on FACEIT.
“The FACEIT experience is not solely about prizes, despite the fact that they now amount to several millions per year,” says Avallone. “While prizes are certainly a component, our mission is to offer the best possible competitive environment for players to play in. It’s about joining a community of like-minded players that want to improve and progress in the competitive scene. This includes having a controlled environment, competition mechanics that reward skill and that make it easy to spot new talent.”
Making your way into the top echelons of the in-game leaderboards is certainly one way to get noticed in the world of PUBG. It’s fair to say, though, that matchmaking is a very different experience to competitive play, and even in the pre-FACEIT days probably wasn’t enough alone to get you a spot in the hallowed pro player scrims. But with FACEIT offering a community of people who want to play like the pros do, it instantly becomes an easy place to show off your skills and, if you're good enough, to start to get your name out there.
“We've seen this in multiple games on our platform, being a competitive environment with a mix of amateur and professionals coming together, the platform is the perfect place for upcoming talent to get scouted based on their dedication and skill,” says Avallone. “In PUBG we're already aware of professional esports teams that are planning to monitor the activity on our platform to look for new talent.”
It’s still early days for PUBG on FACEIT, but there’s no doubt that with fewer opportunities to play against the big names in open qualifiers, thanks to the new regional leagues, up-and-coming players will try to make a name for themselves on FACEIT. If you have aspirations to be the best PUBG player in the world, FACEIT is where you need to start. Rise through the ranks, get playing against and with the biggest names in the scene and eventually you might just get a chance to try out for a pro team, or form one of your own that's good enough to make it to some of the top events.
In other games on the FACEIT platform an invite-only league for pros and the very best players on the platform, known as FPL, has become almost an automatic path to pro. If you manage to get good enough to get into FP,L it often feels like it’s a matter of time before you make it into a top team. Just look at Robin 'ropz' Kool from CS:GO, who two years ago was accused of cheating on the platform (because he was unstoppable) and is now a key member of Mousesports, with multiple top-level LAN victories to his name. We could soon be hearing similar stories in the world of PUBG if FACEIT do pull the trigger on an FPL for the game.
“Our goal is to support the competitive community and to give them the tools they need to be discovered and enter the pro scene. We already have a lot of interest from pro and semi-pro players. FPL is one of the many ways we can do that. We’ll keep talking with the players and be open to any possible model to achieve that goal.”
The PUBG scene is changing, but fortunately all of the changes seem to be for the better. There's clearly already a solution in place for what many thought would be the biggest issue with the new system. Rising through the ranks is never an easy thing to do, but breaking into the pro scene is notoriously hard in some games. Now with FACEIT supporting PUBG, the top organisations have a great scouting ground for new talent.
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