Two years of application development for competitive scouting

Preamble

This article will describe what I’ve been up to for the last 2 years. As a data analyst, it can be difficult to show off and be proud of your work outside of the few who recognise your efforts internally. As well as giving myself an opportunity to collate and appreciate what I’ve achieved, I also wanted to create a window into how Tier 1 esports organisations may handle competitive scouting.

Acknowledgements

Being able to spend time doing something you love, with people you like, while being paid, is not an opportunity that comes along often. Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I’d like to shout out a few people out here for positively influencing my last two years in esports.

• Nick Phan - Nick is the reason I was at FlyQuest at all. I greatly appreciated the open application process to give opportunities to people not already in the “inner circle” of Tier 1 esports. Additionally, his (and Michael’s) effort to make me feel included when I joined them in Chicago last year was amazing, and I doubt I’ll ever feel so part of something again, at least in this industry.
• Joseph Pomroy - Many of the functionalities you’re about to witness were requested and tested by Joseph. His feedback was quick and helpful, and he respected my opinion too (something that is oft amiss in this space). I’m very thankful he gave me a second chance during my application process, and again he is a core reason I was at FLY at all.
• **Brendan Schilling** - Alongside Joseph, Brendan was beyond helpful in his feedback and suggestions for improvements to the app across both years. I again felt respected and appreciated even as a Tier 1 n00b coming into the space because of him. May the Analyst Kingdom live on.
• ZJ - Many of the features and implementations you’re about to see (especially on the front end) were coauthored alongside ZJ. His ability to fill my gaps in knowledge (particularly around design) was imperative to the app looking as good as it did in its final stage.

If you weren’t mentioned here, but we spoke more than once or twice, it’s likely you were a positive influence—I seldom interact with people when I don’t like them!

Why now?

Well, the obvious answer is because I’m now allowed to—but the more nuanced answer is that things have changed. Over the last two years, the availability of competitive data has bred large amounts of self-made applications by budding professional Data Analysts. When I started in 2018, it was unlikely you ever heard a peep of the things other analysts were working on, never mind visibility into the complete workflow they provided.

Now, however, if the space wants to grow, then collaboration needs to take place in one way or another. Recently, Beora shared his entire portfolio on stream to do just this! Inspiring each other to add and change relatively similar tools should advance usability and helpfulness.

Remarks

• Not accruing tech debt over a two-year project is near impossible. Some parts of the tracker as a whole became woefully outdated by the time I left—this was near unavoidable.
• This version of the (front-end) application was developed in the last 8 or so months, with myself and ZJ working part-time. If it was our sole focus during working hours, I can imagine things would be far more developed/polished!

Part 1: The Data

How can we possibly collate all scouting data into something meaningful?

I think many people who first look at “the scouting problem” think it’s easy enough.

You’ve got four domains where games may originate from (SoloQ, Scrims, Competitive, ChampionsQ). You’ve got their respective data sources. How hard can it be?