So we've all seen the "Aphelios one shots an enemy from across the map with sentry Calibrum" or "Aphelios deletes someone from 3000 range with no warning" or "200 YEARS EXPERIENCE" clips that hit the front page. I've played a fair bit of him and have identified the problems in Aphelios' design and kit that allow these clips to exist, along with his underlying issues that cause his > 200% ban rate. To demonstrate the problem with Aphelios' numbers and interactions I also decided to code up a program that shows exactly how much damage a certain combo does from Aphelios (pro tip, it's a lot more damage than you and Riot thought). This is a long post so I'll give a TL;DR now for those that don't want to read.
TL;DR: Riot forgot that Calibrum marks, Sentry with Calibrum marks and Calibrum Ulti all apply FREE AUTO ATTACKS. Calibrum Q already has good base damage+ratios and then gives a FREE AUTO. Sentry with Calibrum can give anywhere up to 3-4 FREE AUTOS GLOBALLY on top of the autos the turret performs. The Ultimate already performs a FREE AUTO, and a Calibrum Ultimate gives not only a free auto but then an extra super empowered FREE BONUS AUTO AGAIN. The problem is exemplified by the fact that with as little as 6 Crescendum Chakram all of Aphelios' attacks do double damage before crit, which means he can crit up to a 4x (4.5x with inf. edge) crit. Calibrum-Crescendum also ignores the penalties of Crescendum which requires close quarters combat. Aphelios does way more damage than you think at over 1400 range.
First, the numbers. I love numbers, simulating scenarios to quickly produce formatted results and writing programs, so I created a console line program that simulates an Aphelios with his items and levels, along with Gathering Storm and Adaptive Runes to choice (all other runes ignored, only wanted to focus on AD changes). This simulated Aphelios can perform any combo with Calibrum-Crescendum, with the assumption that you consume all Calibrum marks immediately and put points into AD as a priority. The sentry can attack up to any number of times, and the ultimate can hit any number of champions.
I ran 3 different Mid-Game builds in 3 different scenarios. The builds varied from:

Weak mid game (behind on gold and xp)
Moderate (average performance)
strong (up in farm, kills and gold+xp for mid game)

The Scenarios are:

Single target Combo. Calibrum Q -> Calibrum Ult
Sentry Attacks. Sentry attacks 3 times with Calibrum offhand
Full Combo. Sentry triple attack -> Calibrum Q -> Calibrum Ult

For each scenario the program estimates roughly how much Pre-Mitigation damage should be done, with lower and upper bounds accounting for Critical strike randomness. The program also gives the minimum range away that Aphelios must be to perform the combo (it's very far for all the scenarios). This gave the following results in the following format ~Expected (Minimum-Maximum) or just ~Expected for 100% crit.

DAMAGE	Single Target	Sentry Attacks	Full Combo
Weak Build	~1984 (1563-2498)	~2700 (1786-3815)	~5373 (3827-7263)
Moderate Build	~2324 (1600-2565)	~3396 (1833-3916)	~6578 (3924-7462)
Strong Build (100% crit)	~2850	~4360	~8308

Full Images of program output with item builds can be found here. Every combo could be performed at over 1450 range, with Sentry combos being completely global based on sentry position. Notice that Aphelios was never even close to attack range for all of this damage, it's like Caitlyn on steroids. Keeping in mind that while these numbers are pre-mitigation, they are hilariously high for an ADC at mid game. Even a behind Aphelios can put out well over 2000 damage with a few long range abilities. Three sentry autos can do 3400 damage on a moderate build Aphelios, that's insane. Even I think these numbers are higher than what we see in actual gameplay, but this is what the maths says. Factor in PTA, Coup de Grace and item effects like Energized or Runaan's AOE and you even more utility and damage.
The program can simulate any ability combo at any level and item combination, if there are different items+combos you want to see just let me know. If I actually knew css and JS I'd made this into a website for everyone to test, but since I don't the best I can do is put the source code up on github if people wanted it. Guinsoo's is not implemented yet, neither is energized effects and some other obscure things that I thought didn't matter too much.
Some problems.

Too many free autos. It seems Riot forgot that Calibrum can perform free auto attacks when they gave his ult a free auto attack. They didn't put a cooldown on how often the sentry can mark someone, allowing for mutliple global attacks. They gave his Calibrum Q (Moonshot) a decent base damage and ratio before allowing it to perform a free empowered auto. Calibrum Ulti also performs a super empowered free auto, totaling 2 free autos from one super long range ability. Granted that Moonshot and Ulti are skillshots and you won't always have Calibrum up, but these are still super strong abilities for one weapon, let alone his entire other kit.
The Crescendum damage multiplier. Looking at the wiki for the stats on Crescendum Chakrams, it stacks up very quickly into over double damage on all crescendum autos. 6 stacks is all that's required to get double damage on all autos, which multiplies into crits giving 4x or higher critical strikes (4.5x with inf. edge). This is a massive damage increase which can be performed somewhat globally with Calibrum or just with any weapon at point blank range. Infernum can stack Crescendum up almost instantly on a good minion wave, you could start these Calibrum-Crescendum combos at 10 chakram stacks if you play it right. The bonus damage is insane, it's Phantom Assassin level for those who played Dota.
Calibrum bypasses Crescendum's supposed weaknesses. Crescendum is supposed to be an up close and personal weapon, so why can Sentry apply multiple Calibrum marks which apply Crescendum attacks at massive range with no penalties. Calibrum marks allow Crescendum to function both as a close range weapon and as a long range champion deleter. Each mark stacks a chakram as well which further boosts the damage. Due to the nature of how well Calibrum abuses Crescendum, Crescendum seems impressively underwhelming for virtually any other scenario. This issue needs to be addressed so Crescendum can be fixed.
The Gangplank problem. Gangplank used to have a core problem in his kit which was a exacerbated form of the key problem with critical strike. Back when Gangplank was 100% pick-ban, with triforce and IE it was as simple as "if he crits, you die". This means that although his critical strike chance may be low, you cannot risk the fight as you cannot plan for the randomness of his crits. It would be too devastating to lose someone to a random crit so don't risk it at all. Play as if he had 100% crit chance. This has tapered off with Gangplank but has risen in other champions like Caitlyn or Jhin somewhat, and it's now being exploited by Aphelios. If he crits the Calibrum Q auto you die. If he crits the Infernum RFC Auto, you all die. Now as an ADC Aphelios is more likely to have 75-100% crit chance, but even at first or second item you still have to play as if he could accidentally delete you without meaning it. Critical chance seems to have this concept of being an overall damage increase, where the crits and non-crits average out into a consistent DPS increase, but it's actually creating credible one shot threats that shouldn't exist. The concept of Critical Strikes needs a rework.
He's just better than any other ADC. He does just so much damage at any point in the game, with no glaring weakness besides no mobility and little CC. Most ADC's can be put so far in the ground by the jungler and mid laner that they will never be a problem in the game. You can basically turn the game into a 4v5 by camping bot and sending rift herald into their tower. Aphelios is never out of the game, he will always pump damage by just standing far away and using Calibrum-Crescendum.

A problem that isn't actually a problem.

"I don't know what his kit does, it's too complicated". Go and learn it. Look at the wiki. Watch some gameplay of him. Play him if you have him. Just read what his kit does and how it functions. It's not that complicated, honestly. The difference between the good players and the bad players is that good players make the conscious effort to learn what they are playing against and how the champions and interactions work. Did you know Ornn has 4 passives, have you learnt up on all of them? I bet you know at least 2 of them just from games with him. Go and learn.

Solutions. These are just some solutions I have come up with but different solutions exist and some of them are probably better than mine.
Less free autos, or reduce base values where free autos exist. The Ultimate should not perform a delayed auto attack on everyone hit, just do the base explosion damage and then apply weapon effects. Calibrum Q should not have 60% bonus AD as a bonus ratio, it should just do flat damage and then the empowered auto.
Timer on Sentry applying Calibrum marks or the sentry should only apply a mark to the first champion hit ONCE. You should only get one free auto with this ability, the sentry already does enough damage as it is. The Sentry should probably have reduced attack range as well, it's incredibly hard to avoid and most champions can't kill it before stepping in range and eating a ton of damage.
The weapons actually need weaknesses. Jinx has to trade attack speed for range and splash with Q. Aphelios has no weakness for using any weapon, only strengths. Infernum does too much splash damage. Crescendum should have abysmal attack speed at max attack range. Severum should have minor reduced attack range in general as the in-lane sustain is huge. Gravitrum just sucks so I guess it's fine. Calibrum has increased range so probably trade some attack speed for it. Caitlyn has reduced attack speed by default for having so much range, so should Calibrum.
Crescendum bonus damage probably shouldn't be able to crit. It's overwhelming at the moment with the long range. Either the long range Crescendum attacks go or the bonus damage goes. Can't have both at the same time and long range attack is somewhat fundamental to Calibrum marks as a concept.
Rework crit. It's been a controversial statistic in virtually any competitive game, it's about time to get rid of it for something more predictable. This benefits everyone, from the person with crit to the person trying to face someone with crit.
Conclusion. Aphelios isn't poorly designed, he just doesn't have well defined weaknesses and his strengths can be ridiculous, especially when shown in the form of one shotting someone from across the map. These strengths must be toned down and weaknesses placed into his weapons, much like Jinx and her choice between minigun and rockets. Naturally some combo of weapons will always be stronger than others, it's up to Riot to try and bring them as close as possible and to eliminate points of abuse like Infernum Ulti and Calibrum-Crescendum one shots.
Too many free autos and bonus AD ratios where free autos already exist. He's an interesting and really fun champion to play, I'd rather see him balanced than gutted to Kalista levels. Until these core problems have been addressed (instead of the shitty cooldown nerf they gave him), Aphelios will remain as a super high pickban champion that will dominate the ADC meta.
Extras. If you crunch the numbers and get to different damage values from my program, let me know. I've used values straight from the wiki and have tried to keep it as accurate as possible. Nothing annoys me more than when I do my maths wrong and get incorrect conclusions.
I'm just a code monkey, I'm not a game designer let alone champion designer. There are people out there far more skilled than me at identifying problems in games and game concepts, this is just my attempt to shed some light on what I think the problems are using maths. They're not easy numbers to crunch so sometimes an idiot with little sleep and plenty of time to waste on coding a program can identify the severity of problems that were thought to be minor.

MEGA GUIDE to The International 2019 in Shanghai, China!

Comprehensive Guide for Shanghai TI9 Visitors

Heya /dota2, your resident bilingual Dota fan here, who brought you Chinese memes and interview translations over the past few TI's. With the advent of The International 9, many fans who are looking to attend the event live but have never visited Shanghai would understandably have many questions and concerns regarding the city. This guide was painstakingly written by yours truly to give ya'll an idea of what to expect during your visit and answer some common questions and concerns. Be warned that this is a REALLY long guide (9k words, no biggie) aimed towards first timers in Shanghai, if you’re a ticket holder and this is your first time visiting, make sure to read the whole thing as a fair few parts are interconnected.

If you have any specific questions that this guide doesn’t cover, feel free to ask any questions in the comments section or via the Shanghai TI9 Discord.

Introduction

Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of more than 24 million. Situated along China’s eastern coastline, Shanghai has a warm temperate climate, with July and August being our hottest months averaging 25-35 degrees Celsius. Rainy season usually ends by late June so we would expect typical hot summer weather during the event period, so dress accordingly.

Air pollution in Shanghai has seen a drastic reduction since 2010 in an effort to improve the city's image. Despite this improvement, it is still considered fairly polluted by global standards, and sensitive people might experience respiratory irritation, though if you’re from a developed city you probably won’t notice much difference. Also, indoor smoking has been recently banned in Shanghai, so smoking is only allowed in open-air environments or designated smoking areas.

In terms of commodity costs, China isn't as cheap as it used to be, and Shanghai’s definitely on the pricey end of the scale. That being said, you can always find a good deal on accommodation and food if you’re resourceful enough, though you might need a local friend to help you with that.

Compared to other parts of China, Shanghai has one of the highest overall prevalence of English speakers. Younger generations have at least a rudimentary grasp of English, and there’s a fairly large number of proficient users. Communication for basic things like directions and purchases shouldn’t be an issue.

One thing to note is that Shanghai isn’t just a tourist location for you, it’s a tourist hotspot for the rest of China as well. There’s easily a couple million domestic tourists in Shanghai on any given day, and to them, YOU are a tourist attraction, so try not to be bothered by the looks and attention. People in China are generally very welcoming and friendly towards foreigners, so if you’re in a pinch, just ask for help from passer-bys (particularly younger folk).

Preparations

1. Visa
Before one books a flight to Shanghai, first thing you will need to do is look up the Visa application process to obtain a tourist visa to China. China’s visa application process is pretty straightforward without any particular hurdles, just fill up the relevant forms and attach the required documents. The main items you will need to prepare for the application would be your flight itinerary and hotel booking. Please note that in some countries, you may have to submit the application form in person or via mail to specific visa application centers, so make sure you do your research on the due process beforehand.

[Cost]
Visa cost may vary between countries, usually ranging between USD$90 – 110, though I’ve seen some places pricing it at 150. Agency fees will apply if you apply through a travel agent, but that may be preferred to simplify the process if you find it hard to navigate through the embassy resources.

[Duration]
Officially, visa processing time is slated to be 10-14 days, but it can often be processed as quickly as 2-3 days, depending on how busy the embassy is. Again, check with your country’s authorities, you may have to return to the visa application center to pick-up your passport/visa.

[Misc]
Singapore, Brunei and Japan passport holders can enter China without a visa for a stay no more than 15 days. For those of you from countries with powerful passports, you may be unused to the paperwork to fill out, but it’s pretty simple to handle and shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes of your time.

2.Flight
For flight booking, simply use your preferred website, skyscanner, booking, etc, to find the lowest fare available.
Shanghai is a cosmopolitan city so there wouldn’t be any problems booking flights there, Pudong Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world. Note however that there are two airports in Shanghai, Pudong International Airport (PVG) and HongQiao International Airport (SHA). Nowadays, HongQiao Airport is mostly for domestic flights, but if you’re flying from Eurasia, your flight may transit via another major inland city in China, which will possibly land you in HongQiao. If you’re travelling with friends via different flightpaths, make sure everyone’s booking to the right airport, because the two airports are pretty far apart on opposite ends of the city.

Should the air tickets to Shanghai be in short supply, alternative flight routes include flying to Hangzhou or Nanjing and taking a high speed rail to Shanghai. The high speed rail service in China is world-class and easy to navigate (do inquire if you’re going for this option, I’ll add another section if it’s in high demand), and it’s less than 2 hours travel time via the rail to Shanghai. If you wish to take this chance to tour around China a bit, this would be a good choice as you can visit multiple cities and see their unique history, culture and attractions (such as West Lake in Hangzhou).

3.Venue:
Before we get to the hotel and accommodations, the venue needs to be looked at since I’m sure a lot of you will be looking to stay somewhere nearby. First off, here’s a google map of the venue and its surroundings.
The stadium is conveniently located right beside a Metro station, China Art Museum Station. You will see the iconic Mercedez Benz Arena (MBA) building immediately when you step out of the station via exit 4 (I've personally verified it), and it is a mere 30 second walk to the stadium.

Located along the bank of the Huangpu River, the MBA is part of the expo grounds developed during the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. It boasts spectacular views of the city and the river, has a gorgeous park right next to it where you can go for a leisurely stroll, stunning architecture in every direction and rows upon rows of restaurants available in the adjacent River Mall Area 5. The entire area was developed for event purposes and its facilities are specifically constructed to cater to those needs.

HOWEVER, this also means that there are no hotels or residences within the immediate vicinity, since the district was entirely purposed as exhibition grounds. The nearest available accommodation would be budget hotels approximately 1km away, with decent hotels (4-stars) at least 1.5km away. Given how efficient the Shanghai Metro is, it is strongly recommended that you widen your hotel search radius and take advantage of the Metro system.

Please also note that food and drinks are not allowed to be brought into the Arena. While there is some leeway for small finger foods and mineral water, it is up to the discretion of the organizers/guards (i.e. if the venue ends up being a mess on day 1, they might enforce a stricter ban day 2 onwards. Keep the venue clean everyone!). Things like a Mcdonalds takeout bag are definitely not allowed. Food and drinks are available for sale inside the Arena, but at a hefty premium compared to standard local retail prices. For reference, a bottle of water sold inside would be about 15-18 rmb (2.50 USD), a grilled sausage is 10rmb (1.50 USD) etc.

4. Hotels/Accommodation
In a city of 24 million, hotels are aplenty around Shanghai, with options available across all prices. As a reminder, your passport is mandatory for checking into any public accommodation in Shanghai, be it hotels or AirBnB. Also, while AirBnB is rising in Shanghai, unless you have a local friend helping you out, you may encounter communication issues with due processes during your stay, hence I would recommend sticking to hotels where formality is assured.
[Edit] I've been informed that due to the new recycling laws enacted in July, budget and mid-range hotels no longer provide bathroom amenities by default, but are available on request. Please remember to ask for them before flaming them!

[Location Selection]
The main priority you would have when choosing a hotel for the TI event would be the ease of commute to the venue. It is highly recommended that you search for a hotel that is close to a Metro line. To recap for those who skipped straight to this section, it is due to these main reasons:

The Arena is located in a special use district, with no hotels in the immediate vicinity
The closest hotels are approximately 1km away, and higher grade hotels even further.
With almost 18,000 spectators leaving the venue at the close of each day, you’ll face massive wait times for Uber. Public Transportation is your best bet. Check the transportation section for guidelines on how to access and navigate the metro.

The Arena’s station lies on Line 8 (blue line), which runs vertically through the city. You can reduce the hassle of changing lines by selecting accommodation solely along this metro line, but it would limit your options. I recommend that you use the map view when booking your hotels on your booking site of choice and try to find hotels within walking distance of a metro station (which honestly isn't hard because of the extensive metro coverage - see transportation section).
The main locations where hotel prices are higher would be in the strip stretching from People’s Square to LuJiaZui (highlighted in yellow in the above link), due to their premium location in the heart of Shanghai’s iconic tourist hotspots. Beyond these areas, hotel prices are generally fairly uniform across the city.

[Hotel Grades & Chains]
i.Budget hotels (USD 35-70)
While there are even cheaper options, I would not recommend them as they run the risk of being sketchy motels or hostels with nothing but a bed. Most of them likely won’t have English-speaking staff either, and honestly you likely won’t find them on international booking sites, so don’t worry.
There are a few budget hotel chains in Shanghai, such as HANTING and JINJIANG. These are typical budget hotels offering a simple room with standard utilities and daily room service, but likely do not include breakfast nor any sort of catering service (they might on the upper price end). Note that even within the same hotel chain, the quality of the hotel may vary significantly, so keep an eye on the photos when booking. In some low-budget cases, the room might not have an exterior window, but gaming addicts don’t need sunlight anyway.

ii.Midrange Hotels (USD 70-120)
This is where you’ll find some international brands like Holiday Inn. These hotels are generally 3-4 star caliber, and would match international standards in terms of room quality. Typical hotels, not much to comment about them.

iii.Luxury Hotels (USD 120+)
As a cosmopolitan city, Shanghai sports luxury hotels from all international hotel chains, such as Mariott, Ascott, Intercontinental etc. Beyond the luxuries these hotels offer, they are usually situated in shopping hubs or tourist hotspots, and you can be assured that they would have staff proficient in English. A personal recommendation I would make is the Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel, which is absolutely stunning and located right next to Metro line 7, taking a mere 25 minutes to arrive at the Mercedes-Benz Arena.

If you have any queries or questions about the hotel you’re booking, feel free to ask on Discord where Shanghai locals (myself included) will be able to answer you.

5.VPN and Data Plans
Due to censorship laws and the Great Firewall of China, many commonly used social media platforms and search engines are blocked and/or throttled in China. Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube are all completely blocked. Google translate and maps are usable (via its Chinese platform translate.google.cn and maps.google.cn), Whatsapp is kinda-sorta banned but messages do go through occasionally (pictures and media definitely can’t). Reddit’s in the same boat, it’s banned but… sometimes it’s not? Anyway, bottomline is, if you want to access the internet as you do back home, there are two options:

Your home country’s local carrier has global roaming, and you’re fine with coughing up the dough for usage abroad. Check with your service provider to see if this is available. If you’re visiting for a short duration (i.e. main event only), this would be a good choice and price would vary based on your mobile plan. Because you’re using the network provided by your own country’s carrier, the global roaming is NOT subject to the firewall and you’d retain full access to the internet, which saves a lot of hassle.
If you use a network in China, such as connecting to local wifi/using a local sim card you purchased, you will have to utilize a VPN to access the blocked content. Contrary to popular belief, VPNs are NOT illegal to use in China. (What is illegal is if you sell a VPN service as a corporate entity without approval granted by the authorities). There are tons of VPNs available on the market, however the GFW is no slouch and do periodic banwaves that kills of a bunch every now and then. Make sure you do careful research on which ones are reliably usable before purchasing; the free ones tend to be either shady (data selling) or unreliable (unusable/poor connection). If you use a VPN service, make sure to install and ensure that it is working first before arriving in Shanghai, as those service providers’ websites might be blocked.

Google Translate: Your best buddy if mandarin is basically moonrunes for you. Helps with basic communication which should cover most things you’ll encounter on your trip.
Pleco: Your second best buddy to help with communication, comes with voice functions, optical character recognition functions (when you see a signboard and have no clue what it means and you can’t type it out either), handwriting input (you can draw moonrunes into it) and many other functions that helps you overcome the language barrier
Didi: Basically Chinese Uber. Allows foreign credit card payment so one of the rare few apps that foreigners can work with. Visa/Mastercard/UnionPay only, not sure about AMEX.
Wechat: Chinese Whatsapp and Facebook rolled into one, you should set it up beforehand. This is THE most used app in China, just about everyone uses it and it is an essential means of communication. If you meet anyone you want to stay in touch with, add them through Wechat and you’re good to go. Perhaps someday you might even discover the fabled meme trove of China that is Wechat Stickers…

7.Money
This warrants a special section because Shanghai has a unique case of being an essentially “Cashless” city. E-commerce is the predominant form of transaction in Shanghai, with virtually everyone making payments and transfers via wallet apps such as Alipay and Wechat. This has resulted in much lower amounts of circulated cash, and oftentimes small retails and cabbies may not hold enough spare change since barely anyone uses cash these days. While highly convenient, this becomes a challenge for foreign visitors as the process for linking the wallet app to a credit card requires verification from a local bank.
There are a few ways one can make payments in China:

Domestic payment platforms such as Wechat/Alipay, if you are able to complete the verification process. This may be possible for some SEA nations with banks that are partnered with Unionpay.
Some international payment platforms such as ApplePay, SamsungPay are also accepted at larger chains (Starbucks, Mcdonalds etc)
Credit Cards are accepted at most large retail outlets, stores and restaurants, but some cards may not be accepted (Visa/Mastercard/Unionpay are fine)
Cash – ATM’s around the city do cater to foreign cards but there are transaction costs and withdrawal limits, I believe it’s around 2000 RMB per transaction (300USD) for foreign cards.

See also the section on transportation below for further information regarding travel payments.

Arrival in Shanghai

Once you have made the necessary preparations for your trip to Shanghai, next comes the part where you plan what to do while you’re here.

1.Airport Services
There are a few things to take note of when you arrive at the Shanghai Airport. Security is pretty standard per international standards, and you won’t be subjected to TSA-style unsolicited colonoscopies. You may be requested to open your bags for a brief inspection, so please do not attempt to smuggle contraband (see section on China Law). If the border officer asks the purpose of your visit and doesn’t understand e-sports, just tell them you’re here to attend an exhibition.
PSA due to recent bs on worldnews: No, you will NOT be asked to hand over your phone or electronic devices. No, you will not have any bullshit spyware forcibly installed on your phones, apple/google already did that for you. No, security doesn’t give a shit if you have porn on your devices. These measures are only applied to specific border crossings in one specific part of western China that is prone to conflict, and do not apply to 99% of China’s ports.
Once you leave the gates, there might be a swathe of tourist peddlers asking if you need a cab, do make sure to ignore them and just follow the signs to the public transport facilities. The information desks at the airport all have English assistance so you can look to them for help. There are 3 main transportation options from Pudong Airport to the city – Cabs, Metro and the Maglev, as follows:
1. Cabs/Uber: The fare from Pudong Airport to the venue is approximately 150RMB (22USD), subject to variation based on time (night rate, peak hour jams etc). Depending on where your hotel is, you can approximate what your fare would likely be. I recommend that you print out the hotel address (In Chinese characters) for easy navigation with the driver.
2. Metro: Metro lines are available in both HongQiao and Pudong Airports, and easily accessed after exiting the gates. This is by far the cheapest option, costing a mere 3 – 5 RMB a trip (45-75 cents), though you will likely be facing a rather packed train. If you’re looking to minimize costs or if your hotel is near a metro line, this is the recommended way, though you will have to navigate your way through the metro map to the right station.
3. Maglev: The Shanghai Magnetic Levitation Rail, available only in Pudong Airport, is a short-distance rail that takes you from the Airport to Longyang Station, a transport hub close to the city. Costing 40 RMB (6 USD) for a ticket, the Maglev is a state-of-the-art transport that goes up to 430+ kph, covering the 30+ km (19miles) between stations in 7 minutes (which the metro line would otherwise take 40 minutes to traverse). If this is your first time in Shanghai, I highly recommend taking it at least once for the experience, not just for the speed but also that surreal /futurology moment when the magnets hum to life and you feel the train levitating.

2.Currency Exchange
Next thing you might worry about is currency exchange. In the case that you did not prepare local currency, there is a currency exchanger in the airport; however the airport rates tend to be pretty pricey. In China, currency exchange is government controlled, which means there are no private retail currency exchangers as one might find in other countries. Instead, all currency exchange are performed through the banks. The bank’s rates all uniformly follow the central bank’s rate, which is highly competitive, and in most cases the exchange rate will likely be far better than in your own countries due to regulations against banks placing a premium on currency exchange. You may have to bring your passport to prove your identity, but beyond that you won’t need to worry about any procedural obstacles. A yearly exchange cap of US$50,000 per person applies for foreign cash exchange (does not apply to credit card transactions), but I don’t think that would apply to most of us attending the event.

3.Transport
A. UbeDiDi
Didi, which is basically Chinese Uber, is the go-to app in Shanghai for vehicular transport. There are other alternative apps but Didi is the most integrated in terms of english availability and, more importantly, allows use of international visa/mastercard credit payment.
While Didi is a very convenient mode of transport around Shanghai, do note that it may not be the best choice for the event, as you’re looking at over 15,000 people leaving the venue at the close of each day, of which a sizable portion will be hailing private fares. If you rely on Didi/Uber, you might find yourself placed 200+ in the queue with an estimated wait time of over 2 hours… which is why I recommend seeking public transport to the venue.

B. Public Transport – Metro
The Shanghai Metro is the most convenient form of transport in the city. With a huge network spanning across the city, there are few places in the metropolitan area that are beyond a 15 minute walk from any given station. One of the most efficient systems in the world, the Metro runs at intervals of approximately 3 minutes, down to 30 seconds during peak hours (commuters wanted more but safety concerns limited the frequency), so you don’t have to worry about missing one. Most lines operate between 5am to 11pm, with Line 2 (which connects to the airports/railway stations) running as late as 1.30am. During the late hours though, taxis/didi would be your only option.

All stations have signs in both English and Mandarin so you shouldn’t have many issues navigating your way around, though you should take note of which exit you want to take as some major stations can have over 20 exits and span a long distance. The metro can be really packed during peak hours – while not at Japan levels of sardine packing, you may find yourself queueing and missing a few trains before being able to board one yourself. Peak hours is usually 8am-9:30am and 5pm-6:30pm.

To use the Metro, you will need to purchase a Public Transport Card which looks like THIS. The card can be purchased at any metro station including the airport and costs 20 RMB (3 USD) that can be refunded upon return. You can then top up the card with whatever value needed. Do note that the Public Transport Card is usable across all official public transport (Metro, Buses, Official Taxis, Maglev) which makes it particularly convenient as you won’t have to worry about spare change, you can pay by just scanning the card, so keep that in mind when topping it.
When refunding the card at the station upon leaving the country, do note that there will be a 5% surcharge on refunds above 10 RMB when returning the card.

C. Public Transport – Taxi
There are a few different taxi companies in Shanghai, but the main reputable ones are 大众 (Cyan colour), 强生(Yellow or Red colour). The main taxi companies are affiliated with the Department of Transportation, allowing them to accept payment via the public transport card as described above. It is highly recommended to obtain a card for this purpose as many Taxi drivers might not keep much spare change for cash transactions, given the cashless city phenomenon. You can also book a taxi directly using Didi, which may sometimes be faster than finding a dedicated driver.

Change Taxi's if the taxi does not have a meter or if the driver asks to keep the fare off-meter. Do note however that it is customary for the driver to not activate the meter immediately out of courtesy to the passenger – they usually activate it after driving a few meters or after completing a u-turn, so don’t be alarmed. You shouldn't have to bargain for your fare, and never pay up-front. Some drivers may prefer not to pick up foreigners due to bad experiences with past passengers (drunken fare-skipper incidents etc) and many cabs are pre-booked via booking apps, so don’t be surprised when an empty cab appears to ignore you.

Unfortunately, most taxi drivers will not understand the slightest bit of English, so if you don't speak Mandarin, it's very useful to have a 'taxi card'. Most hotels will provide you with one, which contains the hotel's address for your return trip. It's best to keep small bills or change for taxi's, as taxi drivers won't usually have change. Taxi drivers do not expect a tip, nor will they ask for one, but they do appreciate if you round up the bill / forego the change.

D. Relevant Traffic laws and customs:
Shanghai is notorious for its cutthroat driving etiquette where many drivers don’t use blinkers and the right of way goes to whoever gives less fucks. While the traffic culture has improved over the years with increased traffic police oversight, there are still many things that may take visitors for a surprise. If in doubt, stick to a crowd and you’ll be fine.
First off is the right-turn rule in China, where cars can do a right turn (small turn) on a red light. So if you’re at a traffic junction, don’t assume safety of passage once the pedestrian light turns green, take note of your surroundings for ignorant drivers to ensure it is safe to cross. Alternatively, stick to a crowd and you’ll be fine.
Secondly, there are a lot of cyclists/scooterists in Shanghai, and they have a tendency to think themselves above traffic laws with their maneuverability. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a close shave with some asshole on a scooter blatantly ignoring a red light. There are bicycle lanes on most roads around Shanghai, so keep an eye out there when crossing roads, or just stick to a crowd and you’ll be fine.

4.Food
Being a cosmopolitan city, Shanghai caters to all sorts of tastes and preferences when it comes to food. Local signature dishes include steamed soup dumplings, pan-fried buns, soysauce braised pork, baked sweet potato, drunken chicken and many others, while also sporting some of the best hotpots around. There are also innumerable restaurants serving foreign cuisines, ranging from Japanese, Korean, Western, Indian and various Southeast Asian cultures. There are restaurants that cater to vegetarians and halal requirements, and if all else fail, we have the bastions of American nutrition, McDonalds/KFC/Burger King.

[Food Hygiene and Sanitation]
One might be understandably concerned about the sanitary conditions of food in China. Shanghai’s town council has aggressively tightened hygiene regulations over the past years, particularly after major food scandals which pretty much killed the street food business due to public fear (unethical assholes ruining things for everyone as usual). While there are definitely seedy places out there with questionable sanitation, you would be perfectly safe sticking to larger establishments. As a rule of thumb, find places with a decent crowd and you’re good to go. Largefancier restaurants are very safe as they do have a reputation to maintain, and most expat/tourist areas are closely vetted; generally if the restaurant has a budget for English menus it’s pretty safe.

[Water]
Tap water in Shanghai needs to be boiled before consumption. Your hotel should have complementary drinks (you can always ring the reception for more, though budget/midrange hotels might limit it at two per day) and there is no shortage of convenience stores across the city where you can purchase drinks.

[Exotic Foods]
Shanghai’s on the moderate end of the scale when it comes to exotic foods, so you won’t be finding some of the more extreme foodstuffs that shows up on fear factor. If you’re feeling adventurous during your stay however, you can try some of the local delicacies which oftentimes involve parts considered unusual in western culinary cultures. Braised chicken feet (called Phoenix Claws) is a hugely popular dish, along with pork liver, blood pudding, pork ears, ox tail soup and many more. China has a rich culinary culture with many recipes passed down over innumerable generations, and many dishes have some sort of background story behind them.

[Tipping]
Some restaurants refuse tips, mostly because they’re unused to it and are accustomed to fully returning your change. However, tipping is becoming more common in the city, but mainly in high-end restaurants where a 10-15% service charge may be added to the bill. Elsewhere it is not expected.

[Misc]
While food in Shanghai’s metropolitan area is quite clean by international standards, it is recommended that visitors bring some diarrhea medication along just in case of upset stomachs. For allergies, there are over-the-counter medications available in local pharmacies, but anything with adrenalin or corticosteroid (epipens etc) will require a doctor’s prescription at the hospital. (See section on Medical Services)
For street food/small eateries, unless you have a Chinese E-wallet app, you will likely have to use cash payments as vendors may not have SWIFT payment available, so keep some loose change on you.

5.Alcoholic Beverages
The legal drinking age in China is 18, and the Chinese are no strangers to the world’s favorite poison. Most restaurants serve beers which tend to be local brews like Tsingtao pale lager, priced around USD$1.5-3 a bottle. If you prefer western drinks, there are also several western bars in Shanghai, usually clustered around expat areas. A quick google search of shanghai bars will give you a rough idea of where they are, these places tend to be streetfront and very popular so you don’t have to worry about seedy joints. Keep in mind though that imported drinks will have a hefty premium tagged on them if you’re buying from a bar, so don’t expect cheap prices in this regard.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try the local Baijiu (White Wine or Chinese Vodka), which is a spirit typically around 52% alcohol content (though some brands go as low as 38 and as high as 64). Keep in mind that Baijiu has a different “role” compared to western liquor - despite also being served in small glasses (about half a standard shot), it is usually consumed during a meal, as a complement to your course rather than a standalone beverage, though it also can be consumed that way.

Buyers beware, however, as Baijiu comes in many different varieties and grades, ranging from thousands of dollars a bottle to 4 dollars for a 5 Litre drum. Just like how vodka’s cheaper than water in Russia, some of the lower end brands are ridiculously cheap. However you get what you pay for, and I honestly cannot recommend the cheap brands in good faith, as they’re considered “fake wine” by locals (just a shitty alcohol mix, not a savory brew), so unless you’re really motivated to abuse your body and taste buds, I’d advise to stick to the more mainstream brands recommended by your Chinese peers or stores. For reference, a decent bottle would typically have a retail price of around 400+ RMB (60+USD), with more popular brands going past 800 RMB (120USD).

6.Sightseeing
Shanghai, being a highly developed city, has a skyline predominantly filled with skyscrapers and vast expanses of concrete jungle, so sightseeing here is a pretty similar experience to say, New York City. I’ll briefly list a few popular tourist hotspots here – there are already many tourist guides out there for Shanghai that gives you a wealth of information, so I’ll keep this section simple.

The Bund - Pretty much the iconic heart of Shanghai, a must-see.
Lu Jia Zui/Oriental pearl Tower – The financial center on the opposite coast of the Bund, with most of Shanghai’s iconic skyscrapers and buildings.
Nanjing Road – The quintessential shopping avenue, stretching from the Bund to People’s Square (Note: You can directly take the metro from the Mercedez Benz Arena to People’s Square, then tour via People’s Square – Nanjing Road – The Bund. It’s a easily navigated path following one main road, and particularly beautiful at night. Highly recommended.)
Yu Garden – Classical Chinese Garden and tourist hotspot
Shanghai Museum / Shanghai Science and Technology Museum
Shanghai Wild Animal Zoo – I highly recommend a visit if you can spare the time, as they feature a safari-like experience where you travel in a bus directly through an open pasture where tigers roam freely. Oh and you can purchase a live chicken to feed the tigers with.
Zhujiajiao* – A classical old Chinese town with traditional Dynasty-era architecture. A fair distance away from the city center but worth a visit.
SheShan* – A thematic tourist area with a huge park, golf courses, and the recently opened Intercontinental Wonderland Hotel – the hotel that is built within an abandoned quarry, featuring a unique “pit” environment as well as underwater rooms. Highly recommended for Underlord spammers.

*: As these places are fairly far from the city center, it is recommended that you seek a tour guide or tour group when visiting, if only to help with communication and navigation.

7.Chinese Law
This is probably the section that will attract the most memetic responses so I’ll keep it straight and simple – please be a responsible adult, as you would be when visiting ANY country. You’re here to attend an Esports event and have a good time watching some top-notch dota with the rest of the world. This enjoyment is similarly shared by everyone in the stadium regardless of race, country or culture. Everyone is here to celebrate something we all enjoy in equal measure, so please don’t let any political or cultural disagreements get in the way, because it doesn’t belong here.
That being said, there are certain laws that a visitor should keep in mind:

1. Drugs & Contraband
All narcotic substances are a BIG no-no here in China, and this includes marijuana. China has a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs after being subjected to massive narco-terrorism campaigns by colonial powers, which inflicted grievous damage to the nation and resulted in deep social and cultural enmity towards substance abuse. Please do not attempt to bring any narcotics into the country, even if they are legal in your home country. If caught in possession of drugs, you will be arrested on the spot, with penalties ranging from 15 days imprisonment (smoking weed) to capital punishment (trafficking heroin). This is the one line you REALLY do not want to fuck around with while in China, so don’t do it.

2. Censorship of politically sensitive topics
I’ll first clarify one thing: It is NOT illegal to engage in discussions about certain politically sensitive topics in China, unlike what popular opinion on /worldnews claims. However, broadcasting it would put you at risk of getting in trouble with authorities (looking at you edgelords who wants to put dumb political discourse on camera at a Dota event), as it can be considered public disruption or even instigating public unrest, which may get you detained for a couple days while your embassy sorts you out.
If you are particularly concerned about this for some reason, the below links provides a pretty good picture of what you can expect when discussing sensitive topics in China:
Link 1 Link 2

If it is your first time in Shanghai, you may well find the local populace to be very different from your preconceived notions, especially for younger generations who are generally more connected and well-informed of international news. I recommend that you keep an open mind coming into this beautiful city, and enjoy some awesome dota with the local fans.

[Cont]Nightlife/Safety/Police/Hospital

Due to hitting the 40,000 character cap on reddit, the remaining sections are posted in the link above. Please make sure to read them as well!

Again, if you have any questions, you can ask me in this thread or via PM, or through the Shanghai TI9 Discord where several locals are available constantly to answer any queries you have. You can also find more information through a quick google or youtube search, there are many resources that explains things you might encounter on a visit to Shanghai. One thing though, don’t ever use /China as a source of info, it’s a heavily biased (if not openly racist) cesspool.

To close things off, I hope this guide would be helpful to those of you visiting Shanghai, and it wasn't too much of a bore to read. This guide ended up being far lengthier than I predicted when I started it as a voluntary work, but it'd be worth it if it can help dota fans who are coming over from all around the world enjoy TI9 just a bit more. Shoutout to David from Newbee for keeping me on track over the past weeks and Icefrog for nerfing Doom to the point that I stopped playing Dota and could actually pump this guide out. Can you unnerf him now please?
P.S. If any team orgs would like assistance in setting up a social media presence in China on chinese platforms (to perhaps connect with and build up your chinese fanbase), do drop me a message via reddit DM!

Destinys design faults is death by a thousand cuts.

I want to start off this post (its gonna be long) to first make it clear that I absolutely love Destiny. Everytime I put this game down and eventually find myself coming back to it I'm reminded of just how perfect minor (albeit important) pockets of the game are.
The Art, the music, the controls, the surrounding lore of this vast in game universe.
It has the swagger of a game that knows it nails the fundamentals, it plays well and looks amazing at the same time. Its "game feel" is second to none for first person shooters and to have it wrapped up in a FPSRPG, a genre known to sacrifice its feel for function, is incredible.
To put it simply it FEELS GOOD to play the game and it leaves you wishing there were not 1001 other issues stopping you from enjoying the game at its purest form.
With that said lets get into it.
So I titled this post "Destinys design faults is death by a thousand cuts" and my complaints are quite literal. So many of these issues seem like minor things that just leave you scratching your head wondering why they havent been addressed but the vast quantity of these piling issues lead to massive frustration.
I'm gonna start off with a really overlooked issue just so its clear my complaints are not "give me more free stuff" and is more of a question of just the odd ineptitude of certain decisions.

Eververse

Okay so lets talk about this.
Destiny is a GaaS title, it survives by producing content that brings in regular income on a persistent basis (or should in theory) just like most F2P games like Overwatch/Dota2/Warframe/Path of Exile/ect., you get the idea.
Most of these games collect this consistent revenue through purely microtransactions with no sale of actual content (Fortnite is an obvious example of this) whereas some others collect this revenue through selling said added content (The Sims for example) with some microtransactions on the side if the game makes sense for it.
Destiny is one of the latter games, it sells its content releases and also has a very robust microtransaction shop and a game model that supports it.
So Destiny should be swimming in money then right? A popular game that has you paying for all the content AND sells you the costumes and superficial items to dress up your digital avatars with, its a easy homerun.
But with Activisions release of the franchise we know this isn't the case. Though it may be profitable we know it isn't making the money usually expected of a cash cow model like this.
So why is that? Well simply put their microtransactions make no sense to buy.
Really the ideal only question the consumer should have with regards to purchasing a microtransaction is "does this appeal to me?".
Because in reality art is subjective and when selling cosmetics its hard to have everyone agree on what is good enough to buy.
But Destiny doesnt achieve this, instead there are multitude of questions that arise that are so numerous it is almost impossible to justify spending money.
Wanting to buy the Eververse only armor sets? Good luck gambling for the specific perks you want on the armor you want from them. So not only does Destiny need to sell you on the art design of this armor for a premium cost over just wearing regular Destiny armor for free but now it also has to sell you on having you buy box after box after box looking for the correct perks for your preferred loadout. Then even if you do get the entire set with the perks you want it is still being outperformed by Raid only perks and activity specific perks that leave you constantly taking it off. Even if you dont need those raid enhanced or activity enhanced perks like Gambit armor you still might just end up taking the armor off when you simply switch to another loadout that doesnt utilize the same perks. For example, have perks all for light arms? Now you are using Rifles and those perks no longer work.
Compare this to other games that sell cosmetics like Overwatch, like Dota 2, like Path of Exile.
These games I can purchase a costume and its done, I dont need to fish in boxes for the correct perks and I dont have to worry about not using said purchased skin because its not optimal. The only question I have about whether I want to use a cosmetic armor in these games is "do I like how it looks?".
Now you might be saying well some of those games like Overwatch, like Dota are not games with persistent gear stat systems and you are right but there are plenty of games (Warframe/PoE/WoW) that are stat gear games that accomplish selling you cosmetic only items. Most of these games achieve this via a cosmetic only tab which sets the look of your character that ignores the look of your currently equipped items. And you may be saying that its not realistic to expect Destiny to be able to achieve the same thing.
But they already have.
Ornaments are this system and they need only make eververse type cosmetics global ornaments that can be outfitted on any piece of gear.
Now there might be more to this but the point remains this is a significant hurdle to them selling something as basic as cosmetic armor in a game like this which they pump a significant amount of their art assets and money into yet clearly have shown they have not fleshed out the basic necessities for accommodating said sale.
"Thats it, your done with Eververse problems right?"
No, it just keeps going.
So I'm going to condense these last points because yes I understand it could literally go forever so here are some rapid fire issues with the rest of eververse.

Ornaments for weapons and armor that may or may not be useful

Rather than do what most games do (cosmetics limited to weapon classes for example 2 handed weapons can only use 2 handed cosmetics) they go several layers deeper and limit them to incredibly specific weapons and armor meaning that if that isn't part of your loadout (and the hundreds of items in the games library almost guarantees its not) it has no value whatsoever as a consumer even if you actually like the art and want to purchase the cosmetic. There simply is no sensible reason to purchase it because you either wont use said item or you actively limit yourself doing so.

Ghosts that may or may not have the intrinsic perk you want

Doesnt have guiding light and cant roll it at all? Might as well not even exist.
Why is Bungie giving me reasons not to buy the cosmetics that their amazing art team slaves over?

Sparrows that are 150 speed

Why do these even exist? Again WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME REASONS NOT TO WANT SOMETHING?

Shaders/Transmat effects

Why are these on use? Their cost to get more is so insignificant that it doesnt even matter except to swindle new players and instead leads to people never experimenting with shaders/transmats because their "finite" usage leads people to fear wasting them and thus never using them.
Simple stuff.
In reality the Ships/Projections/Emotes are the only things that actually work within the shop and even those have their own issues.
But you know what the biggest issue of all of this is?
Obsolescence.
You see these other games sell cosmetics for 60$ and people actually buy them because they know that the purchase isn't a rental, its a purchase that they can still be using in a relevant game 10 years from now whether they pay into it or not.
The same Dota 2 skins I bought in 2013 are still usable in the game today, same goes for the WoW mount I bought in 2008, still works today in the current version of the game.
Destiny does not have this, when Destiny 2 launched all the money spent on cosmetics for your character or flair or what have you went completely in the trash and people are already preparing themselves for the same farewell to their current collection for when Destiny 3 launches.
This simply doesnt work in a model like this and you best believe it hurts Bungies ability to sell cosmetics knowing their consumers think its not a purchase but simply a rental til the next game ships.
Okay I think I bitched enough about cosmetics, but for my final word on them I want everyone to know I dont mind them. Microtransactions are just a part of gaming at this point and I've accepted that but my beef isn't that they exist in Destiny its that they are just squandered so much and it just seems like a colossal waste of Bungies time creating all these assets to fund their game only to have no one buy them because of all the things surrounding them.
So what next?
Lets talk about....

Strikes

For the majority of games like Destiny strikes would be the absolute bread and butter of its repeatable content.
Here we have small group instanced pve content in a variety of areas, against a variety of bosses/enemies, in a variety of different engagements.
So whats wrong? Why is nobody doing this content they spent all this time making?
The loot pool is incredibly limited and the content is snore levels of easy. So if its not fun, and its not rewarding, then why play it at all? Why does it even exist? And what is the solution to this if there is one at all?
The answer is Nightfall.
What? You may be saying to yourself, but yes, Nightfall.
You see there are other games that ran into this same exact issue, I'm going to use one of them as an example (since its the one I know best) and how they solved the issue.
Introducing WoW Mythic+ dungeons.
You see in WoW there too was an issue with dungeon difficulty and lack of rewards. In previous years/expansions after the initial post max level phase of dungeon grinding dungeons were all but obsolete to the majority of the playerbase. The content simply sat abandoned and wasted with no incentive at all for players to return to them.
Enter Mythic+ dungeons.
Now some super smart guy at Blizzard decided he had an idea on how to fix this issue of having so much development time and effort be completed so quickly and thrown away. His solution was an ever scaling dungeon difficultly alongside scaling rewards (capped at a certain point) with an emphasis on random selections of dungeons (so as to not have the fastest/easiest dungeons farmed each time) and to have multiple variables introduced per week to spice up the difficulty (think NF mission modifiers except you didnt select them and they changed weekly). These alternating variables made it so one week ranged might be the preferable damage dealers or Priests might be the preferable healers, either way it created new challenges for your group of players per week as you attempt to progress into the higher keys (Mythic+ dungeons were tied to keystones that chose the dungeon and the difficultly for you) for better rewards.
This worked fabulously.
Now instead of Joe Rogue hitting max level and being done with all dungeon content in a week he is instead finding reasons to be running dungeons INDEFINITELY if he so desired for better and better rewards. Even players well into Mythic Raids (the hardest content in the game and the most rewarding) had reasons to run at least a few per week.
Now how does this relate to Destiny and Nightfall?
Well, Nightfall is Mythic dungeons....or at least a form of it.
Variable modifiers, repeatable dungeons, scaling difficulty... its all there waiting to be utilized.
Instead we get nothing, complete 1 NF a week for 2 powerful pieces of gear and thats it, your done.
Its just completely wasted potential sitting in their laps and rather than work the content to fix it into being a viable way to gear your character and spend time in game they instead leave it to rot wasting their time creating another horde mode activity....
No wonder they dont want to give us any more strikes in this season pass, they think its completely wasted content since its not "repeatable" in their current iteration of it.
But lets move on, plenty more to cover and I thank anyone still bothering to stick with my rant at this point.
Lets get into my favorite part of the game and where I have easily spent the most time in game.

Crucible

Lets begin.
So first off let me say that I fucking love the Crucible, I love the dynamics of this games PvP and even with all its massive shortcomings (P2P/Matchmaking/Lack of modes) I still love the hell out of it as it offers a type of gameplay that exists nowhere else as this psuedo Halo/CoD arena shooter with Overwatch lite abilities.
That said...
Its horrible.
Lets start off with a thing most people can agree on, comp is not a fun experience. But why?
Well the issue is multifaceted, lets start with the ranking system itself. The game simply does not separate players into the correct skill tiers so players in the higher end of the skill spectrum are often placed within the low end of the skill bracket and it ends in a horrible experience for players on said lower end.
Now this happens in a lot of games.....initially.... this is due to the fact that the game simply doesnt have enough data on said player to place them accordingly in their skill bracket. In most games ranked mode where there are new seasons (as there are in Destiny) they will have placement matches at the start of every new season to determine how much different your ranking should be from the previous season if any change needs to occur at all. This means GM Overwatch players will remain in GM (or roughly around their original rating) the following season since its clear they shouldnt be playing with Bronze players based on their previous ranking.
This is not how Destinys ranking system works.
Instead a 5500 Unbroken top 500 player is sent back to the bucket bracket with every other player and the ranking bracket calibration is needed yet again to eventually get this player facing the correct skill players and no longer stomping on players that have absolutely no chance.
Its just complete nonsense and its completely counter to the point of the mode which is to have it be COMPETITIVE, I can tell you right now from personal experience that I dont enjoy going through the lower bracket and making lower skilled players get worked over and I bet they dont enjoy being worked over by a person who doesnt belong in their bracket at all either.
And this lack of a sensible system bleeds into a bunch of other issues within the mode.
Long queues/bad matchmaking connections/4man vs randoms, these issues all stem from a lack of a playerbase playing the mode but the mode is so poorly designed that it actively discourages people from playing it which as I just highlighted leads to these other issues.
Then there is the issues within the mode itself, a 4v4 mode in a game exclusively cut to groups divisible by 3, an emphasis on team play with no real communication methods available to non pre made teams, gamemodes like countdown that dont fit very well with the gameplay of Destinys crucible (this isn't CS, not all FPS modes work just by importing them).
And then there is a lack of overall rewards, what value is there in playing comp for a player who already has Not Forgotten? There is no end of season rank reward like an emblem or cosmetic armor. What about people who wont be getting any of the pinnacle weapons or comp exclusives? What are you doing to keep them playing? You need reasons for every type of player to keep playing this mode because when they dont have reasons to play they stop queuing and the whole mode suffers for the lack of a healthy playerbase.
The most frustrating thing about all of this is they've done it better before.... This is Bungie for Travelers sake, they had the first working automated online ranking system I had ever interacted with and refined it through their other releases.
Now here we are 15 years after they released a completely functional ranking system in Halo 2 and they can't even match that let alone follow along with other better versions in online gaming like the often used ELO system used in games like League/Dota/Overwatch/ect.
Okay good lord I spent enough time on that, what about the rest of crucible?
Uhh not much really to complain about here, maybe some basic features like map/mode voting, obviously better matchmaking in general but again they need the playerbase to accomplish that.
I do have a tie in complaint to my earlier bitching about Eververse, here we have a multitude of opportunities for Bungie to make an easy buck selling us stuff like taunts/player intros/victory poses and they miss out on it completely.
And again its something they've already done better elsewhere, I'm not talking about using the Trials of the Nine 20 minute intro with dances and what not but maybe instead of everyone standing around whilst you plant a flag and the game does a slow flyby of the map it instead puts you into a Gambit like room for you to taunt the opposing team in.
And how about they steal their "MVP" idea from Halo (I know thats from Halo 5 but they had a similar system in their own games I just like 5s presentation of it better for my example).
You sell people taunts and flourishes for MVP poses at the end of games and hell it even helps sell the other eververse cosmetics like armor since people will want to show off in the window with their gear as well.
Here is a fantastic example mocked up by blankscientist to give you an idea of it in Destiny. It even incentivizes those "taunts/cosmetics" even more for people to purchase for their character since it is used to taunt nemesis players and you dont need to be MVP to show it off.
You get the idea.
I can speak more of issues like Iron Banana or the stagnation of balance metas but we'll move on.
So ok what else can I bitch about?
How about.....

Raids

Or more specifically, forming raids.
So guiding games eh? Thats your attempt?
Look we know what systems work, we've been using them for years now via the apps and websites, this isn't really a code that needs to be cracked. All that really needs to be done is finding a way to implement those group creation curation tools in game and you are done.
WoW (I know, I'm using it again) accomplishes this via a window in game that lets player pick specific activities to either form groups for or find groups for and has a very clean UI for giving descriptions to group creators or players looking to join a group on what the expectations of said group and who is actually applying to said group.
Data is given like what their light level is, what class they are, what spec they are.
Its simple but incredibly effective and all these websites that have cropped up over the years are some version of said window allowing group leaders the tools to curate a group themselves to complete the content and allowing players the ability to find groups for activities they want to do. Its not "automated" but it gives enough structure to allow these groups to take form and tackle content at a much faster pace than randomly messaging every max level player in the Tower.
The fact that the game doesnt have a functional tool like this in game despite its requirement (as seen by the rampancy of its usage in outside forms) is an enormous failure only compounded by the fact that they wasted so much time with the complete dumpster fire that is Guided Games instead of making a functional in game version of the tool everyone else is already using and knows works.
This post is getting entirely too long and as I continue to type I'm finding it harder and harder to keep my points coherent so for now I'll leave it on the issue that bugged me enough to start this rant in the first place.

Not fast enough updates

So we got some nerfs coming yeah? Heard we are all sorts of upset about this. Personally I dont mind as I've seen this song and dance a hundred times before, balance is a seesaw and sometimes your WAY UP and sometimes you are WAY DOWN.
But you know what makes these nerfs so hard to stomach in a game like this? The fact that we all know how long the next set of imbalances will be around.
You see in games like this quick updates are the lifeblood that keeps the game going. We need constant tweaks and changes and we pay a premium to the developer via microtransactions (or season passes) with the expectation that they happen frequently.
After all it is a "living game" and just like in life, changes come often.
But they dont in Destiny do they? We often spend 6 months staring at obvious issues and imbalances knowing something (ANYTHING!) needs to be done to rectify these issues minor and major just waiting for Bungie to even acknowledge the issue let alone issue their idea of a fix. And I'm completely open to Bungie not taking our word for it and simply trying their own idea of solutions first to these problems. The issue is that when they miss on the fix its like your life has ended, 6 months go by and this is what we get? We may not even see another pass on this issue until a sequel is released and that might involve a whole new slew of issues.
It feels awful and really highlights the compounding issue with all of Destiny, that problems pile up rather than cycle out. Because updates and changes are so infrequent it almost seems like things will never get fixed. Minor issues stick around for so long that they become major problems, systems that get submitted as drafts (Guided Games/Ranked Crucible) never see refinement and thus never work to their full potential. These systems stagnate and because they are always working on the next content release we never see real fixes or improvements despite the fact that a strike rework likely has more potential staying power as far as content goes than anything included in these DLC releases.

Thanks for reading

I might have more to add on to this later but I feel thats enough to make my point and to help foster some kind of discussion, I appreciate anyone who actually read through this colossal bitch fest. I love Destiny and hope it gets to be as good as a whole experience as its foundation has always been.

[Updated] Shanghai Visitors' Mega Guide for TI9

Comprehensive Guide for Shanghai TI9 Visitors [UPDATED]

With TI9 less than 2 weeks away, there are some who are still ironing out their travel plans, hence I have reposted this mega guide as an effort to reach more audiences who may have missed the first iteration. For those who have read the first one, give this version a skim as well as a few new sections that have been added, based on feedback and suggestions from the previous thread.

Heya /dota2, your resident bilingual Dota fan here, who brought you Chinese memes and interview translations over the past few TI's. With the advent of The International 9, many fans who are looking to attend the event live but have never visited Shanghai would understandably have many questions and concerns regarding the city. This guide was written by yours truly to give ya'll an idea of what to expect during your visit and answer some common questions and concerns. Be warned that this is a REALLY long guide (9k words, no biggie) aimed towards first timers in Shanghai, if you’re a ticket holder and this is your first time visiting, make sure to read the whole thing as a fair few parts are interconnected.

If you have any specific questions that this guide doesn’t cover, feel free to ask any questions in the comments section or via the Shanghai TI9 Discord.

Introduction

Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of more than 24 million. Situated along China’s eastern coastline, Shanghai has a warm temperate climate, with July and August being our hottest months averaging 25-35 degrees Celsius. Rainy season usually ends by mid July so we would expect typical hot summer weather during the event period with occasional light rain. Note that rainy days in Shanghai can cause a sharp rise in humidity due to its coastal proximity, so dress accordingly.

Air pollution in Shanghai has seen a drastic reduction since 2010 in an effort to improve the city's image. Despite this improvement, it is still considered fairly polluted by global standards, and sensitive people might experience respiratory irritation, though if you’re from a developed city you probably won’t notice much difference. Also, indoor smoking has been recently banned in Shanghai, so smoking is only allowed in open-air environments or designated smoking areas.

In terms of commodity costs, China isn't as cheap as it used to be, and Shanghai’s definitely on the pricey end of the scale. That being said, you can always find a good deal on accommodation and food if you’re resourceful enough, though you might need a local friend to help you with that.

Compared to other parts of China, Shanghai has one of the highest overall prevalence of English speakers. Younger generations have at least a rudimentary grasp of English, and there’s a fairly large number of proficient users. Communication for basic things like directions and purchases shouldn’t be an issue.

One thing to note is that Shanghai isn’t just a tourist location for you, it’s a tourist hotspot for the rest of China as well. There’s easily a couple million domestic tourists in Shanghai on any given day, and to them, YOU are a tourist attraction, so try not to be bothered by the looks and attention. This is particularly prevalent when you go to common tourist attractions such as Disneyland Shanghai where the predominant demographic are domestic Chinese tourists, some of whom may be a bit rowdier than the norm. Overall though, people in China are generally very welcoming and friendly towards foreigners, so if you’re in a pinch, don’t be afraid to ask for help from officials or passer-bys (particularly younger folk).

Preparations (If you haven’t done these preparations yet, HURRY UP!)

1. Visa
Before one books a flight to Shanghai, first thing you will need to do is look up the Visa application process to obtain a tourist visa to China. Costing approximately USD$90-110, China’s visa application process is pretty straightforward, just fill up the relevant forms and attach the required documents. The main items you will need to prepare for the application would be your flight itinerary and hotel booking. Please note that in some countries, you may have to submit the application form in person or via mail to specific visa application centers, so make sure you do your research on the due process beforehand.

Officially, visa processing time is slated to be 10-14 days, but it can often be processed as quickly as 2-3 days, depending on how busy the embassy is. Again, check with your country’s authorities, you may have to return to the visa application center to pick-up your passport/visa.

Singapore, Brunei and Japan passport holders can enter China without a visa for a stay no more than 15 days. For those of you from countries with powerful passports, you may be unused to the paperwork to fill out, but it’s pretty simple to handle and shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes of your time.

2.Flight
For flight booking, simply use your preferred website, skyscanner, booking, etc, to find the lowest fare available.
Shanghai is a cosmopolitan city so there wouldn’t be any problems booking flights there, Pudong Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world. Note however that there are two airports in Shanghai, Pudong International Airport (PVG) and HongQiao International Airport (SHA). Nowadays, HongQiao Airport is mostly for domestic flights, but if you’re flying from Eurasia, your flight may transit via another major inland city in China, which will possibly land you in HongQiao. If you’re travelling with friends via different flightpaths, make sure everyone’s booking to the right airport, because the two airports are pretty far apart on opposite ends of the city.

Should the air tickets to Shanghai be in short supply, alternative flight routes include flying to Hangzhou or Nanjing and taking a high speed rail to Shanghai. The high speed rail service in China is world-class and surprisingly easy to navigate (do ask on discord if you want more information about this, where other locals can help you), and it’s less than 2 hours travel time via the rail to Shanghai. If you wish to take this chance to tour around China a bit, this would be a good choice as you can visit multiple cities and see their unique history, culture and attractions (such as West Lake in Hangzhou).

3.Venue:
Before we get to the hotel and accommodations, the venue needs to be looked at since I’m sure a lot of you will be looking to stay somewhere nearby. First off, here’s a google map of the venue and its surroundings.
The stadium is conveniently located right beside a Metro station, China Art Museum Station. You will see the iconic Mercedez Benz Arena (MBA) building immediately when you step out of the station via exit 4 (I've personally verified it), and it is a mere 30 second walk to the stadium.

Located along the bank of the Huangpu River, the MBA is part of the expo grounds developed during the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. It boasts spectacular views of the city and the river, has a gorgeous park right next to it where you can go for a leisurely stroll, stunning architecture in every direction and rows upon rows of restaurants available in the adjacent River Mall Area 5. The entire area was developed for event purposes and its facilities are specifically constructed to cater to those needs.

HOWEVER, this also means that there are no hotels or residences within the immediate vicinity, since the district was entirely purposed as exhibition grounds. The nearest available accommodation would be budget hotels approximately 1km away, with decent hotels (4-stars & above) at least 1.5km away. Given how efficient the Shanghai Metro is, it is strongly recommended that you widen your hotel search radius and take advantage of the Metro system.

Please also note that food and drinks are not allowed to be brought into the Arena. While there is some leeway for small finger foods and mineral water, it is up to the discretion of the organizers/guards (i.e. if the venue ends up being a mess on day 1, they might enforce a stricter ban day 2 onwards. Keep the venue clean everyone!). Things like a Mcdonalds takeout bag are definitely not allowed. Food and drinks are available for sale inside the Arena, but at a hefty premium compared to standard local retail prices. For reference, a bottle of water sold inside would be about 15-18 rmb (2.50 USD), a grilled sausage is 10rmb (1.50 USD) etc. Given that the tournament is a full-day event, you would presumably be allowed to leave the venue for lunch and return back to the arena, but whether its single entry or multiple entry hasn’t been announced yet.

4. Hotels/Accommodation
In a city of 24 million, hotels are aplenty around Shanghai, with options available across all prices. As a reminder, your passport is mandatory for checking into any public accommodation in Shanghai, be it hotels or AirBnB. Also, while AirBnB is rising in Shanghai, unless you have a local friend helping you out, you may encounter communication issues with due processes during your stay, hence I would recommend sticking to hotels where formality is assured. Please also note that due to the new recycling laws enacted in July, budget and mid-range hotels no longer provide bathroom amenities such as toothbrushes by default, but are available on request. Please remember to ask for them at the service desk before flaming them!

[Location Selection]
The main priority when choosing a hotel for the TI event would be the ease of commute to the venue. It is highly recommended that you search for a hotel that is close to a Metro line. To recap for those who skipped straight to this section, it is due to these main reasons:

The Arena is located in a special use district, with no hotels in the immediate vicinity
The closest hotels are approximately 1km away, and higher grade hotels even further.
With almost 18,000 spectators leaving the venue at the close of each day, you’ll face massive wait times for Uber. Public Transportation is your best bet. Check the transportation section for guidelines on how to access and navigate the metro.

The Arena’s station lies on Line 8 (blue line), which runs vertically through the city. You can reduce the hassle of changing lines by selecting accommodation solely along this metro line, but it would limit your options. I recommend that you use the map view when booking your hotels on your booking site of choice and try to find hotels within walking distance of a metro station (which honestly isn't hard because of the extensive metro coverage - see transportation section).
The main locations where hotel prices are higher would be in the strip stretching from People’s Square to LuJiaZui (highlighted in yellow in the above link), due to their premium location in the heart of Shanghai’s iconic tourist hotspots. If this is your first time in the city and you don’t mind forking out a little more, I highly recommend staying in these districts as they offer a much more immersive experience of the city’s attractions. Beyond these areas, hotel prices are generally fairly uniform across the city.

[Hotel Grades & Chains]
i.Budget hotels (USD 35-70)
While there are even cheaper options, I would not recommend them as they run the risk of being sketchy motels or hostels with nothing but a bed. Most of them likely won’t have English-speaking staff either, and honestly you likely won’t find them on international booking sites, so don’t worry.
There are a few budget hotel chains in Shanghai, such as HANTING and JINJIANG. These are typical budget hotels offering a simple room with standard utilities and daily room service, but likely do not include breakfast nor any sort of catering service (they might on the upper price end). Note that even within the same hotel chain, the quality of the hotel may vary significantly, so keep an eye on the photos when booking. In some low-budget cases, the room might not have an exterior window, but gaming addicts don’t need sunlight anyway.

ii.Midrange Hotels (USD 70-120)
This is where you’ll find some international brands like Holiday Inn. These hotels are generally 3-4 star caliber, and would match international standards in terms of room quality. Typical hotels, meals and standard services fully available.

iii.Luxury Hotels (USD 120+)
As a cosmopolitan city, Shanghai sports luxury hotels from all international hotel chains, such as Mariott, Ascott, Intercontinental etc. Beyond the lavish facilities these hotels offer, they are also usually situated in shopping hubs or tourist hotspots, and you can be assured that they would have staff proficient in English.

If you have any queries or questions about the hotel you’re booking, feel free to ask on Discord where Shanghai locals (myself included) will be able to answer you.

5.VPN and Data Plans
Due to censorship laws and the Great Firewall of China, many commonly used social media platforms and search engines are blocked and/or throttled in China. Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube are all completely blocked. Google translate and maps are usable (via its Chinese platform translate.google.cn and maps.google.cn), Whatsapp is kinda-sorta banned but messages do go through occasionally (pictures and media definitely can’t). Bottomline is, if you want to access the internet as you do back home, there are two options:

Your home country’s local carrier has global roaming, and you’re fine with coughing up the dough for usage abroad. Check with your service provider to see if this is available. If you’re visiting for a short duration (i.e. main event only), this would be a good choice and price would vary based on your mobile plan. Because you’re using the network provided by your own country’s carrier, the global roaming is NOT subject to the firewall and you’d retain full access to the internet, which saves a lot of hassle.
If you use a network in China, such as connecting to local wifi/using a local sim card you purchased, you will have to utilize a VPN to access the blocked content. Contrary to popular belief, VPNs are NOT illegal to use in China. (What is illegal is if you sell a VPN service as a corporate entity without approval granted by the authorities). There are tons of VPNs available on the market, however the GFW is no slouch and do periodic banwaves that kills of a bunch every now and then. Make sure you do careful research on which ones are reliably usable before purchasing; the free ones tend to be either shady (data selling) or unreliable (unusable/poor connection). If you use a VPN service, make sure to install and ensure that it is working first before arriving in Shanghai, as those service providers’ websites might be blocked.

Protip: If you’re a University student, look up your university’s tech resources to see if they have a uni-access VPN for students abroad, particularly if your university has a strong Asian demographic. Given the large number of Chinese students abroad and the endemic problem of being unable to access University resources whilst on holidays back home, many Unis have set up official VPNs for use by their Chinese students, which you can make use of in this instance. Most US/CA/UK/AU institutions have this function and you can look it up.

Purchasing a Sim Card for local use:
If you wish to purchase a Sim card from a local carrier (China Telecom or China Unicom), there are retailers present in the airports for convenient access. Sim cards plans are generally quite cheap, ranging around 6-15 USD a month, and usually with unlimited data. Might be a little more expensive for short-term prepay usage. Also, do note that passport identification is necessary for purchasing a number, so make sure to bring your passport along.
6. Apps to prepare

Google Translate: Your best buddy if mandarin is basically moonrunes for you. Helps with basic communication which should cover most things you’ll encounter on your trip.
Pleco: Your second best buddy to help with communication, comes with voice functions, optical character recognition functions (when you see a signboard and have no clue what it means and you can’t type it out either), handwriting input (you can draw moonrunes into it) and many other functions that helps you overcome the language barrier
Didi: Basically Chinese Uber. Allows foreign credit card payment so one of the rare few apps that foreigners can work with. Visa/Mastercard/UnionPay only, not sure about AMEX.
Wechat: Chinese Whatsapp and Facebook rolled into one, you should set it up beforehand. This is THE most used app in China, just about everyone uses it and it is an essential means of communication. If you meet anyone you want to stay in touch with, add them through Wechat and you’re good to go. Perhaps someday you might even discover the fabled meme trove of China that is Wechat Stickers…

Domestic payment platforms such as Wechat/Alipay, if you are able to complete the verification process. This may be possible for some SEA nations with banks that are partnered with Unionpay.
Some international payment platforms such as ApplePay, SamsungPay are also accepted at larger chains (Starbucks, Mcdonalds etc)
Credit Cards are accepted at most large retail outlets, stores and restaurants, but some cards may not be accepted (Visa/Mastercard/Unionpay are fine)
Cash – ATM’s around the city do cater to foreign cards but there are transaction costs and withdrawal limits, I believe it’s around 2000 RMB per transaction (300USD) for foreign cards.

As visitors likely won’t go through the trouble to set up e-commerce for a short trip, you will have to stick to cash and credit card payments. Just keep note of my comment above regarding low amounts of circulated cash, so if you’re predominantly using cash, try to keep a fair bit of spare change on you to avoid issues. See also the section on transportation below for further information regarding travel payments, as you will be using a metro card to pay travel fares.

Arrival in Shanghai

Once you have made the necessary preparations for your trip to Shanghai, next comes the part where you plan what to do while you’re here.

1.Airport Services
There are a few things to take note of when you arrive at the Shanghai Airport. Security is pretty typical of international standards, and you won’t be subjected to TSA-style unsolicited colonoscopies. You may be requested to open your bags for a brief inspection, so please do not attempt to smuggle contraband (see section on China Law). If the border officer asks the purpose of your visit and doesn’t understand e-sports, just tell them you’re here to attend an exhibition. Make sure to follow the signs for foreign visitors prior to the immigration checkpoint, as you will have to fill out an entry card and register your fingerprint scans as part of due process.
PSA due to recent bs on worldnews: No, you will NOT be asked to hand over your phone or electronic devices. No, you will not have any bullshit spyware forcibly installed on your phones, apple/google already did that for you. No, security doesn’t give a shit if you have porn on your devices. These measures are only applied to specific border crossings in one specific part of western China that is prone to conflict, and do not apply to 99% of China’s ports.
Once you leave the gates, there might be a swathe of tourist peddlers asking if you need a cab, do make sure to ignore them and just follow the signs to the public transport facilities. The information desks at the airport all have English assistance so you can look to them for help. There are 3 main transportation options from Pudong Airport to the city – Cabs, Metro and the Maglev, as follows:
1. Cabs/Uber: The fare from Pudong Airport to the venue is approximately 150RMB (22USD), subject to variation based on time (night rate, peak hour jams etc). Depending on where your hotel is, you can approximate what your fare would likely be. I recommend that you print out the hotel address (In Chinese characters) for easy navigation with the driver.
2. Metro: Metro lines are available in both HongQiao and Pudong Airports, and easily accessed after exiting the gates. This is by far the cheapest option, costing a mere 3 – 5 RMB a trip (45-75 cents), though you will likely be facing a rather packed train. If you’re looking to minimize costs or if your hotel is near a metro line, this is the recommended way, though you will have to navigate your way through the metro map to the right station.
3. Maglev: The Shanghai Magnetic Levitation Rail, available only in Pudong Airport, is a short-distance rail that takes you from the Airport to Longyang Station, a transport hub close to the city. Costing 40 RMB (6 USD) for a ticket, the Maglev is a state-of-the-art transport that goes up to 430+ kph, covering the 30+ km (19miles) between stations in 7 minutes (which the metro line would otherwise take 40 minutes to traverse). If this is your first time in Shanghai, I highly recommend taking it at least once for the experience, not just for the speed but also that surreal /futurology moment when the magnets hum to life and you feel the train levitating.

2.Currency Exchange
Next thing you might worry about is currency exchange. In the case that you did not prepare local currency, there is a currency exchanger in the airport; however the airport rates tend to be pretty pricey. In China, currency exchange is government controlled, which means there are no private retail currency exchangers as one might find in other countries. Instead, all currency exchanges are performed through the banks. The banks’ rates uniformly follow the central bank’s rate, which is highly competitive, and in most cases the exchange rate will likely be far better than in your own countries due to regulations against banks placing a premium on currency exchange. You may have to bring your passport to prove your identity, but beyond that you won’t need to worry about any procedural obstacles. A yearly exchange cap of US$50,000 per person applies for foreign cash exchange (does not apply to credit card transactions), but I don’t think that would apply to most of us attending the event.

3.Transport
A. UbeDiDi
Didi, which is basically Chinese Uber, is the go-to app in Shanghai for vehicular transport. There are other alternative apps but Didi is the most integrated in terms of english availability and, more importantly, allows use of international visa/mastercard credit payment.
While Didi is a very convenient mode of transport around Shanghai, do note that it may not be the best choice for the event, as you’re looking at over 15,000 people leaving the venue at the close of each day, of which a sizable portion will be hailing private fares. If you rely on Didi/Uber, you might find yourself placed 200+ in the queue with an estimated wait time of over 2 hours… which is why I recommend seeking public transport to the venue.

B. Public Transport – Metro
The Shanghai Metro is the most convenient form of transport in the city. With a huge network spanning across the city, there are few places in the metropolitan area that are beyond a 15 minute walk from any given station. One of the most efficient systems in the world, the Metro runs at intervals of approximately 3 minutes, down to 30 seconds during peak hours (commuters wanted more but safety concerns limited the frequency), so you don’t have to worry about missing one. Most lines operate between 5am to 11pm, with Line 2 (which connects to the airports/railway stations) running as late as 1.30am. During the late hours though, taxis/didi would be your only option.

All stations have signs in both English and Mandarin so you shouldn’t have many issues navigating your way around, though you should take note of which exit you want to take as some major stations can have over 20 exits and span a long distance. The metro can be really packed during peak hours – while not at Japan levels of sardine packing, you may find yourself queueing and missing a few trains before being able to board one yourself. Peak hours is usually 8am-9:30am and 5pm-6:30pm. Do note that there are baggage scans in every station, and anything larger than a purse will have to be scanned.

To use the Metro, you will need to purchase a Public Transport Card which looks like THIS. The card can be purchased at any metro station including the airport and costs 20 RMB (3 USD) that can be refunded upon return. You can then top up the card with whatever value needed. Do note that the Public Transport Card is universally usable across all official public transport in Shanghai (Metro, Buses, Official Taxis, Maglev) which makes it particularly convenient as you won’t have to worry about spare change, you can pay by just scanning the card, so keep that in mind when topping it.
When refunding the card at the station upon leaving the country, do note that there will be a 5% surcharge on refunds above 10 RMB when returning the card.

C. Public Transport – Taxi
There are a few different taxi companies in Shanghai, but the main reputable ones are 大众 (Cyan colour), 强生(Yellow or Red colour). The main taxi companies are affiliated with the Department of Transportation, allowing them to accept payment via the public transport card as described above. It is highly recommended to obtain a card for this purpose as many Taxi drivers might not keep much spare change for cash transactions, given the cashless city phenomenon. You can also book a taxi directly using Didi, which may sometimes be faster than finding a dedicated driver.

Change Taxi's if the taxi does not have a meter or if the driver asks to keep the fare off-meter. Do note however that it is customary for the driver to not activate the meter immediately out of courtesy to the passenger – they usually activate it after driving a few meters or after completing a u-turn, so don’t be alarmed. You shouldn't have to bargain for your fare, and never pay up-front. Some drivers may prefer not to pick up foreigners due to bad experiences with past passengers (drunken fare-skipper incidents etc) and many cabs are pre-booked via booking apps, so don’t be surprised when an empty cab appears to ignore you.

Unfortunately, most taxi drivers will not understand the slightest bit of English, so if you don't speak Mandarin, it's very useful to have a 'taxi card'. Most hotels will provide you with one, which contains the hotel's address for your return trip. It's best to keep small bills or change for taxi's, as taxi drivers won't usually have change. Taxi drivers do not expect a tip, nor will they ask for one, but they do appreciate if you round up the bill / forego the change.

D. Relevant Traffic laws and customs:
Shanghai is notorious for its cutthroat driving etiquette where many drivers don’t use blinkers and the right of way goes to whoever gives less fucks. While the traffic culture has improved over the years with increased traffic police oversight, there are still many things that may take visitors for a surprise. If in doubt, stick to a crowd and you’ll be fine.
First off is the right-turn rule in China, where cars can do a right turn (small turn) on a red light. So if you’re at a traffic junction, don’t assume safety of passage once the pedestrian light turns green, take note of your surroundings for ignorant drivers to ensure it is safe to cross. Alternatively, stick to a crowd and you’ll be fine.
Secondly, there are a lot of cyclists/scooterists in Shanghai, and they have a tendency to think themselves above traffic laws with their maneuverability. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a close shave with some asshole on a scooter blatantly ignoring a red light. There are bicycle lanes on most roads around Shanghai, so keep an eye out there when crossing roads, or just stick to a crowd and you’ll be fine.

4.Food
Being a cosmopolitan city, Shanghai caters to all sorts of tastes and preferences when it comes to food. Local signature dishes include steamed soup dumplings, pan-fried buns, soysauce braised pork, baked sweet potato, drunken chicken and many others, while also sporting some of the best hotpots around. There are also innumerable restaurants serving foreign cuisines, ranging from Japanese, Korean, Western, Indian and various Southeast Asian cultures. There are restaurants that cater to vegetarians and halal requirements, and if all else fail, we have the bastions of American nutrition, McDonalds/KFC/Burger King.

[Food Hygiene and Sanitation]
One might be understandably concerned about the sanitary conditions of food in China. Shanghai’s town council has aggressively tightened hygiene regulations over the past years, particularly after major food scandals which pretty much killed the street food business due to public fear (unethical assholes ruining things for everyone as usual). While there are definitely seedy places out there with questionable sanitation, you would be perfectly safe sticking to larger establishments. As a rule of thumb, find places with a decent crowd and you’re good to go. Largefancier restaurants are very safe as they do have a reputation to maintain, and most expat/tourist areas are closely vetted; generally if the restaurant has a budget for English menus it’s pretty safe.

[Water]
Tap water in Shanghai needs to be boiled before consumption. Your hotel should have complementary drinks (you can always ring the reception for more, though budget/midrange hotels might limit it at two per day) and there is no shortage of convenience stores across the city where you can purchase drinks.

[Exotic Foods]
Shanghai’s on the moderate end of the scale when it comes to exotic foods, so you won’t be finding some of the more extreme foodstuffs that shows up on fear factor. If you’re feeling adventurous during your stay however, you can try some of the local delicacies which oftentimes involve parts considered unusual in western culinary cultures. Braised chicken feet (called Phoenix Claws) is a hugely popular dish, along with pork liver, blood pudding, pork ears, ox tail soup and many more. China has a rich culinary culture with many recipes passed down over innumerable generations, and many dishes have some sort of background story behind them.

[Tipping]
Some restaurants refuse tips, mostly because they’re unused to it and are accustomed to fully returning your change. However, tipping is becoming more common in the city, but mainly in high-end restaurants where a 10-15% service charge may be added to the bill. Elsewhere it is not expected.

[Misc]
While food in Shanghai’s metropolitan area is quite clean by international standards, it is recommended that visitors bring some diarrhea medication along just in case of upset stomachs. For allergies, there are over-the-counter medications available in local pharmacies, but anything with adrenalin or corticosteroid (epipens etc) will require a doctor’s prescription at the hospital. (See section on Medical Services)
For street food/small eateries, unless you have a Chinese E-wallet app, you will likely have to use cash payments as vendors may not have SWIFT payment available, so keep some loose change on you.

5.Alcoholic Beverages
The legal drinking age in China is 18, and the Chinese are no strangers to the world’s favorite poison. Most restaurants serve beers which tend to be local brews like Tsingtao pale lager, priced around USD$1.5-3 a bottle. If you prefer western drinks, there are also several western bars in Shanghai, usually clustered around expat areas. A quick google search of shanghai bars will give you a rough idea of where they are, these places tend to be streetfront and very popular so you don’t have to worry about seedy joints. Keep in mind though that imported drinks will have a hefty premium tagged on them if you’re buying from a bar, so don’t expect cheap prices in this regard.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try the local Baijiu (White Wine or Chinese Vodka), which is a spirit typically around 52% alcohol content (though some brands go as low as 38 and as high as 64). Keep in mind that Baijiu has a different “role” compared to western liquor - despite also being served in small glasses (about half a standard shot), it is usually consumed during a meal, as a complement to your course rather than a standalone beverage, though it also can be consumed that way.

Buyers beware, however, as Baijiu comes in many different varieties and grades, ranging from thousands of dollars a bottle to 4 dollars for a 5 Litre drum. Just like how vodka’s cheaper than water in Russia, some of the lower end brands are ridiculously cheap. However you get what you pay for, and I honestly cannot recommend the cheap brands in good faith, as they’re considered “fake wine” by locals (just a shitty alcohol mix, not a savory brew), so unless you’re really motivated to abuse your body and taste buds, I’d advise to stick to the more mainstream brands recommended by your Chinese peers or stores. For reference, a decent bottle would typically have a retail price of around 400+ RMB (60+USD), with more popular brands going past 800 RMB (120USD).

6.Chinese Law
This is probably the section that will attract the most memetic responses so I’ll keep it straight and simple – please be a responsible adult, as you would be when visiting ANY country. You’re here to attend an Esports event and have a good time watching some top-notch dota with the rest of the world. This enjoyment is similarly shared by everyone in the stadium regardless of race, country or culture. Everyone is here to celebrate something we all enjoy in equal measure, so please don’t let any political or cultural disagreements get in the way, because it doesn’t belong here.
That being said, there are certain laws that a visitor should keep in mind:

1. Drugs & Contraband
All narcotic substances are a BIG no-no here in China, and this includes marijuana. China has a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs, after a ugly period of being subjected to massive narco-terrorism campaigns by colonial powers, which inflicted grievous damage to the nation and resulted in deep social and cultural enmity towards substance abuse. Please do not attempt to bring any narcotics into the country, even if they are legal in your home country. If caught in possession of drugs, you will be arrested on the spot, with penalties ranging from 15 days imprisonment (smoking weed) to capital punishment (trafficking heroin). This is the one line you REALLY do not want to fuck around with while in China, so don’t do it.

2. Censorship of politically sensitive topics
I’ll first clarify one thing: It is NOT illegal to engage in discussions about certain politically sensitive topics in China, unlike what popular opinion on /worldnews claims. However, broadcasting it would put you at risk of getting in trouble with authorities (looking at you edgelords who wants to put dumb political discourse on camera at a Dota event), as it can be considered public disruption or even instigating public unrest, which may get you detained for a couple days while your embassy sorts you out.
If you are particularly concerned about this for some reason, the below links provides a pretty good picture of what you can expect when discussing sensitive topics in China:
Link 1 Link 2

If it is your first time in Shanghai, you may well find the local populace to be very different from your preconceived notions, especially for younger generations who are generally more connected and well-informed of international news. I recommend that you keep an open mind coming into this beautiful city, and enjoy some awesome dota with the local fans.

[Cont]Sightseeing/Nightlife/Safety/Police/Hospital

Due to hitting the 40,000 character cap on reddit, the remaining sections are posted in the link above. Please make sure to read them as well!

Again, if you have any questions, you can ask me in this thread or via PM, or through the Shanghai TI9 Discord where several locals are available constantly to answer any queries you have. You can also find more information through a quick google or youtube search, there are many resources that explains things you might encounter on a visit to Shanghai. One thing though, don’t ever use /China as a source of info, it’s a heavily biased (if not openly racist) cesspool.

To close things off, I hope this guide would be helpful to those of you visiting Shanghai, and it wasn't too much of a bore to read. This guide ended up being far lengthier than I predicted when I started it as a voluntary work, but it'd be worth it if it can help dota fans who are coming over from all around the world enjoy TI9 just a bit more. Shoutout to David from Newbee and everyone who has contributed suggestions to make this guide more complete. I look forward to seeing you all at TI9!

[D] CSGO Newbie Investing Guide (2019)

This is the first iteration of a new Newbie Guide to Investing in CSGO, covering most basic issues. Some subjects are in the work and will be added at a later date.

Before we start, THIS is a fantastic overview of CSGO Market History (until April 2019) and a must-have, including timeframes for regular and operation drops, many important events and lots of useful info, made by steamfrag

Which items can be invested in?

Introductionary Note: Discontinued consumables (cases, stickers and basically all containers) are better items for long term investment than non-consumables, since consumables get deleted from the market when used, thus reducing their quantity over time, unlike skins which are only deleted if a user gets banned or if the skins are used in trade-up contracts. Specific skins/knives/gloves could be profitable to invest and to hold long term, if you know exactly what you are doing. But generally skins are better suited for frequent trading and not long term investing, or if you want skins to play with and more or less hold their value with some potential to go up in price. As an example, Here is a video from TDM HeyJesus from last year explaining what I mean. If you are more interested in trading with others, nice knives and gloves, etc. and not mid/long term investing, visit /GlobalOffensiveTrade

Discontinued Cases: You could buy 3 cent cases (or less, depending on your currency from steam market, or 1 to 2 cents from cashout sites) when they get discontinued from the active drop pool and are moved to rare drops. This usually happens when a new case is released, the oldest case from active drop pool moves to rare drops. Active drop pool usually consists of 5 cases. Be aware that cases with high volume on market will take a very long time to rise in price. You could also invest in cases at a later time, for instance after few years of being 3 cents, lower quantities on market and upwards price trend, you could jump in or even at an earlier stage when they are still as active drop but anticipated to be the next case to move to rare drops, if you're in it for the very long haul, and if you can get the cases for extremely cheap prices in bulk (1 cent or less). Some cases are much older and/or rarer than others and therefore cost more, for example Operation Bravo case. Sometimes unexpected things happen with cases, for instance Valve decided to make the Hydra Case a rare drop as soon as Operation Hydra ended, even though most people were expecting the Hydra Case to become a common drop after end of the operation and to become 3 cents for a long time. Instead, they went up in price very quickly and very high. So if you invested in hydra cases during the end of operation for 10 cents, you could have made a lot of money by now. But note that the more cases are released, the more options case openers have to chose from. Therefore the rise in price of cases might slow down during time and take longer, as more and more cases are released. This can only be countered by increasing number of players and case openers (natural demand). Last but not least, the popularity and prices of the skins in the cases will influence the price development of discontinued cases (and vice versa).
UPDATE: Lately Valve has done some weird things like dropping a large number of older cases such as Shadow cases, Chroma 2 cases, etc. for non prime accounts. So the old system isn't that reliable anymore

List of all CSGO Cases in Chronological Order:

Case Name	Release Date	Rare or Active Drop
CSGO Weapon Case	14. August 2013	Confirmed Rare
eSports 2013 Case	14. August 2013	Confirmed Rare
Operation Bravo Case	19. September 2013	Confirmed Rare
CSGO Weapon Case 2	08. November 2013	Confirmed Rare
eSports 2013 Winter Case	18. December 2013	Confirmed Rare
Winter Offensive Weapon Case	18. December 2013	Confirmed Rare
CSGO Weapon Case 3	12. February 2014	Confirmed Rare
Operation Phoenix Weapon Case	20. February 2014	Confirmed Rare
Huntsman Weapon Case	01. May 2014	Confirmed Rare
Operation Breakout Weapon Case	01. July 2014	Confirmed Rare
eSports 2014 Summer Case	10. July 2014	Confirmed Rare
Operation Vanguard Weapon Case	11. November 2014	Confirmed Rare
Chroma Case	08. January 2015	Confirmed Rare
Chroma 2 Case	15. April 2015	Confirmed Rare
Falchion Case	26. May 2015	Confirmed Rare
Shadow Case	17. September 2015	Confirmed Rare
Revolver Case	08. December 2015	Confirmed Rare
Operation Wildfire Case	17. February 2016	Confirmed Rare
Chroma 3 Case	20. April 2016	Confirmed Rare
Gamma Case	15. June 2016	Confirmed Rare
Gamma 2 Case	18. August 2016	Confirmed Rare
Glove Case	28. November 2016	Confirmed Rare
Spectrum Case	15. March 2017	Confirmed Rare
Operation Hydra Case	23. May 2017	Confirmed Rare
Spectrum 2 Case	14. September 2017	Active
Clutch Case	15. February 2018	Active
Horizon Case	02. August 2018	Possibly Rare (needs more data)
Danger Zone Case	06. December 2018	Active
Prisma Case	13. March 2019	Active
CS20 Case	18. October 2019	Active
Shattered Web Case	19. November 2019	Active

CSGO Major Stickers and Sticker Capsules: Usually at the end of each Tournament, Valve offers a sticker sale (between 50% and 75% off normal price) in-game store. You could buy stickers and capsules during that sale and either sell shortly after the sale ends, for a small quick profit (not guarantied but happened almost every time till now), or wait longer (usually over a year) for a possibly much larger profit. For instance if you bought Atlanta Legend Capsules 2 years ago, you would have 20x your money as of today! As more tournaments are being held and more stickers are released, it is difficult for most stickers to distinguish themselves among the huge mass of other stickers. Only invest and hold on to stickers that you think are promising. The profit from stickers depends on how nice they look, how popular they are, how well the teams perform in the future and how many people invested in them (basically a combination of all these factors). Sometimes teams disband, players quit or become successful, teams/players get banned, etc. which sometimes drive up the price of the related stickers.

Operation Pass: Sold by Valve in-game in order to get access to an operation. After the operation, all it does is give you access to a coin which you can display (which some players like to collect). You can buy passes during operation (or possibly during a sale of the pass at the end of the operation) then hold on to them and sell at a later date. There were few exceptional circumstances such as Vanguard pass which sold well as it didn't reach as low a discount as people were expecting and wasn't on sale for a long time, so not many were bought. Furthermore, Valve stopped selling the Vanguard Pass before the operation ended, which caused players who wanted to complete the missions to buy it from the market. Similar things happened to the Wildfire Pass. The Wildfire pass didn't even go on sale which caused its price to tripple in a single day when it got removed, then rose in price even more during time.

Viewer Pass: Introduced with the Katowice 2019 Major, a Viewer Pass was a purchasable in-game item which gave purchasers exclusive access to an upgradeable Event Coin, Souvenir Packages, The Major Pick'Em Challenge and Unlimited team graffiti for the duration of the Major. Similar to Operation Pass, all it does now is to give you a collectible coin. The Katowice 2019 Viewer Pass went on sale for 50% for few days during the last days of the major (before the sticker sale!). Some people bought them at 50% off but some people were expecting it to become even cheaper during the sticker sale (75% off), which didn't happen, instead it got removed, thus causing those investors to panic buy. I expect that Valve will use the Viewer Pass System in the next majors too (speculative opinion), as it was probably a big financial success and a lot of passes were sold in addition to a lot of major stickers.

Souvenir Packages: Drops in matches during majors. Research the different packages and their skins. Cobblestone is the most desirable due to the very desired and expensive Souvenir Dragon Lore. Also Cobblestone was removed from the map pool and replaced by Dust 2 in April 2018 and was not available in London 2018 and Katowice 2019 majors, thus increasing its price even more. Recently Vertigo replaced Cobblestone in March 2019. During the tournaments, the supply of souvenir packages will obviously be the highest, but also the interest in them is the highest. Try to buy them as cheap as possible and simply wait. Generating profit with souvenir packages might be a very slow process depending on the souvenir packages you have and the volume which was dropped in the majors. Note: as of Katowice 2019 major, only Viewer Pass owners were eligable to receive Souvenir Packages and Souvenir Packages no longer dropped during matches, but Pass owners could chose a match of their choice and get the Souvenir Package for it. This caused an equilibrium in prices, since most people chose the popular new 2018 Nuke and Inferno packages and the Overpass Package, causing their quantities to be much higher than other less popular packages in the major.

Sticker Capsules 1 and 2 and Community Sticker Capsule: These capsules were common drop for a long time, opened with sticker capsule keys and pretty much worthless (just like cheap cases), then they got discontinued and rose to high prices reaching a peak in May 2016. Probably with a June 2016 patch, they became rare drops which increased their quantity and crashed their prices (combined with the inevitable crash after the crown foil hype). However, after an initial crash they slowly rose in price again and sticker capsule 2 is at its all time high right now (as of May 2019). I assume its also just a hype correlated to the now second Crown Foil sticker hype which could crash back again. At these price levels, invest very cautiously. Also look at specific stickers in these capsules, such as Flammable foil, headhunter, crown foil, etc. At the right prices, these might be interesting items.

Gift Packages: Around christmas time Valve sold gift packages for $1. If you open a gift package on a server, it awards a random player a random regular skin drop. In the past players who opened the most packages were displayed on a leader-board in the beginning of every game of every Valve NA CSGO server. This has been exploited for advertising. In 2013, people didn't anticipate that the Gift Packages are limited to the Winter months and in the following year, CSGO exploded in popularity. This multiplied the price of these packages until they were sold again in 2014. In 2014, many people expected the same thing to happen, so the supply of Gift Packages increased. CSGO exploded again, but this time the price of gift packages increased much more because gambling sites started to boom and they competed for advertising. Fast forwards, Valve eventually removed the leaderboard feature a long time ago. For a long time gift packages were even below the in-game price. Recently though (since around end of 2018) the supply seams to dry up slowly and the price is climbing again (this time probably due to natural demand from people who actually just want to gift). We can see a similar trend with pallet of presents (which gives up to nine people in the user's match a random item). There is also the Audience Participation Parcel which drops up to 25 gifts randomly to viewers, but this item hasn't done anything interesting price wise yet.

Skins from Cases: Unlikely to be more profitable than consumables and it is more risky, unless you really know what you're doing. Sometimes Valve changes the design or details of a skin, which could also affect the prices. Also nerfs and buffs for a specific weapon tend to change the prices of skins for that gun (depending on how severe the buff/nerf is), for instance the AUG skins experienced a rise in price after Valve lowered the price (in game!) to $3.150 in Oct. 2018 and pro players used the AUG in the major. Skins which are used as trade up fodder tend to go up in price, whenever a new case or collection is released. There are a lot of other factors which determine the price development of skins which can't be all covered here

Skins from Collections Exclusive to Operations: skins which only drop during operations tend to rise when the operations end. However, the more operations they have been through, the higher the total supply on market and thus the longer it usually takes for them to go up in price during the breaks between operations. The following collections were dropped during the last 3 Operations (Bloodhound, Wildfire and Hydra). Operation Hydra was the last operation we had and it did end on November 13, 2017, which is more than a year ago! Note that these skins only dropped for those who owned the operation pass for the operation. Those who didn't own the pass, got their drops from the regular active collections.

The Cache Collection
The Chop Shop Collection
The Cobblestone Collection
The Gods and Monsters Collection
The Overpass Collection
The Rising Sun Collection

The Danger Zone Collection: the Danger Zone Collection was basically just one skin, the MP5 Lab Rats. Players could get the skin by reaching Prime Status after CSGO went F2P in December 2018. The skin was available for a few weeks. A lot of the CSGO playerbase got the skin, which makes it a questionable investment since there are probably a LOT out there and the gun/skin isn't that popular. Could be a long term investment nonetheless, if you start to see quantities lowering over time and some stable price action.

Skins from Inactive or Retired Collections: The following collections are either inactive for now or completely retired. But some of them could be reintroduced in the future.

The Assault Collection
The Aztec Collection
The Baggage Collection
The Dust Collection
The Inferno Collection (The Old One)
The Militia Collection
The Mirage Collection
The Nuke Collection (The Old One)
The Office Collection
The Vertigo Collection

Skins from Active Collections: The following collections are current active collections which drop skins in-game. Usually It is not recommanded to invest in any active collections (though some old skins which are suitable as fodder for certain trade-ups see occasional spikes whenever new cases and collections are released). Also the new Nuke and Inferno Collections are popular and people use skins from them to trade-up to better skins of these collections.

The 2018 Inferno Collection
The 2018 Nuke Collection
The Bank Collection
The Dust 2 Collection
The Italy Collection
The Lake Collection
The Safehouse Collection
The Train Collection

Knives: If you know what you're doing and are familiar with patterns, etc. you can make some profit. But as mentioned knives are better suited for frequent trading and simply as play skins, even though some knives like the Butterfly Knife experienced significant price rise in the past, it is usually not a good idea to use knives as investment items. For instance the same amount of money you paid for a knife 3 years ago spent in specific stickers, would have generated much more profit in the same timeframe.

Gloves: see knives

Graffitis: Since Valve offered free graffiti for the duration of the major (since Katowice 2019 major and now in Berlin 2019 major), but none for sale, it is an option to invest in all previous major graffitis. The quantities for some old team graffitis could go down significantly and thus increase the price (which it has already done).

CSGO Keys: CSGO keys have a fixed price in game of $2.50 and are used as currency amoung traders, and of course to open cases. Investing in keys is pointless, unless you want to park your money, or trade or cashout, or unless you can buy keys at a cheaper rate than one normally could (currency issues). There is a special situation going on with the Hydra key which crashed significantly in price after the Operation Hydra Case became a rare drop and became an expensive case. There are different opinions as how the Hydra Key price will develop in the future. Some say it will crash even more, some say it will more or less stablize at the current price levels (1 Euro), others even invest in it right now and say the price will go up again, as soon as the old supply is dried out. For this guide, I remain neutral and leave it up to you to make up your own mind about this specific key. Note: currently this key is not accepted by most traders. There are other keys tied to expensive cases such as Winter Offensive keys which are also not accepted by many traders, though they are low in supply and thus still hold a stable price on market.
IMPORTANT KEY UPDATE: Valve made newly bought keys in shop non marketable and non tradable as of Nov. 2019. Older existing keys are not affected and can still be traded and listed on steam market. Read more here https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2019/10/26113/

Banned/Removed Skins:

M4A4 Howl (removed due to copyright violation) - The only Contraband item in CSGO
Dual Berettas Retribution (removed due to artist ban)
P90 Desert Warfare (removed due to artist ban)
CZ75-Auto Poison Dart (removed due to artist ban)
MAC-10 Curse (removed due to artist ban)
USP-S Orion (removed due to artist ban)

Note: Some skins were banned from a case, but can be traded up to with trade-up contracts

Banned/Removed Stickers:

Sticker Howling Dawn (removed due to copyright violation)
Sticker King on the Field (removed due to artist ban)
Sticker Winged Defuser (removed due to artist ban)
Sticker Harp of War (Holo) (removed due to artist ban)

Removed and Reintroduced Stickers: there were a lot of other old stickers which were offered in the in-game shop of Valve and which were discontinued in the past and went up in price really high, but were reintroduced in 2016 to the in-game shop and remained there till today as random coupon offers, which caused their price crash back to around 1 Euro for normal stickers (more for the holos/foils). These sticker were the community series stickers (1,2,3,4 and 5) and the Halloween 2014 series. It is an option to buy these stickers in-game whenever you get a coupon offer and hope that some day they will be removed again, but this is a gamble. Also since these were available for a fixed price for so long in the shop, some investors might have had the same idea and stocked up on them. And the quantities might be too high for significant gains in the future. Also most of them aren't that popular anymore.

Current in-game Coupon Offers: each player has a coupon offer section with 4 slots with some items (sticker capsules, music kits, pin capsules, single stickers) offered. You could buy these items in-game and hold with the idea that at some point some of these items might get removed, but this is a gamble and impossible to predict and pretty much dead money until something happens. Note that whenever you buy an item from this section, the slot which you bought the item gets automatically refilled with another offer. This was not always the case. In the past after you bought all your 4 offers, you had to wait for new offers. But Valve always comes up with new ideas to make bank.

StatTrak™ Swap Tool: these tools are sold as a 2-pack in-game for a fixed price. People bought this, used one and sold the other one on the market. For the longest time these tools were around 10 cents on steam market which is quite a big difference to what they logically should be (half the price you pay in game). Recently they have gone up in price and reached that level. So right now, its pointless to do anything with them. If they ever go back down to those previous lows, you might want to consider them if you can get them very cheap. But keep in mind that there is max. cap of what they can rise up to obviously, and that there are better investment options out there

Other ways to profit on the market than long/mid term investing

Flipping Items in Coupon Section from in-game Store: You could buy stickers, sticker capsules, pins capsules and music kits when you get a coupon offer in-game. Check the price on steam market and if the price you pay in-game + steam tax is still lower than the lowest steam market price, then simply buy in-game and instantly sell on steam market for few cents quick profit. Mostly there is no or just a few cents to be made, but sometimes some offers give you better instant profit. Note: with the introduction of the EZ4ENCE music kits, Valve added a "new releases" category, which enabled users to buy as many of these music kits as they wanted as long as these were sold in this category. This means that potential investors could have stocked up on these items.

Trade-up Contracts: Determine if a certain skin can be traded up to profitably (consider Steam tax). If so, buy the lower level skins (either through buy orders at steam market, external cashout sites, or trading sites), and sell the traded-up skin on the market until it becomes unprofitable. This is already being done by bots and many other users. Note that the float value of the traded-up-to weapon is a function of the average float value of the traded-up-from skins. For more information and good trade-up contracts, visit the youtube channel of TDM Heyzeus. But remember that whenever a video is posted, a lot of people copy and paste the trade-ups shown in the videos making them unprofitable instantly, so it might be wise to revisit older trade-ups or come up with your own trade-up ideas. Use the trade-up calculator of csgo exchange to double check. Remember to switch the formula to calculate odds to new theory "based on outcome" (the old theory was incorrect).

Wide Daily Seasonality: Some items peak every day at around noon and tank after midnight (EST). If the difference tends to offset the Steam tax (15%), it can be taken advantage of. Usually, this requires a large volume to be reasonably profitable. If you engage in this technique, keep in mind that there is a scalability limit for the profitability.

Expansion and Contraction: After a popular game/operation/case/tournament/Steam-sale/market-bug is introduced, players try to dump their items on the market to buy whatever is hot. At the same time, buyers tend to also go for what's hot. Old investment supplies increase, and demand lessens. It is usually wise to do the opposite of the general market behavior and buy on these market crashes. When you want to sell something, it's usually best to wait until the market has fully recovered. Further, during some crashes, it might be better to wait until the end to buy-in as many investors try to buy in early.

Tournament Sticker Capsule Opening Arbitrage: During a period of time of some Major sticker sales, it was profitable to buy capsules from the market, open them, and then resell the stickers on the market (in the average case). Examine the EV carefully.

Wide Bid/Ask Spreads: take advantage if the daily bid/ask spread is larger than the Valve tax. Buy commodities that are being demanded at a much lower price than they are being listed at, then sell them back. Don't do this en masse before an expected downturn.

Grinding Weekly Drops: When a new case is released it can be worthwhile to accumulate in-game time in order to get the new highly-priced case.

Hunting for sub-variations of items: Some items on various markets have specific sub-patterns/properties that are more valuable than the usual ones (ex., 5-7 Case Hardened blue pattern and other desired knive patterns, specific signature Souvenir Packages, skins with expensive stickers, etc.) and they are sometimes undervalued (especially during market downturns).

Currency Arbitrage: If a particular conversion is highly skewed and Valve's adjustment is slow, it can become profitable for users in a certain country to buy items in the store or Community Market and resell them off the community market to another country. Note that using VPN to fake your place of residency is against Valve TOS and bannable

Listing High, Hoping for a Market Bug: List items for a higher price than their market value and hope that a Steam bug will occur where sellers temporarily won't be able to create new listings, while buyers can still buy the items, or hope that someone decides to buy heavily in one of your items and buys a lot at once

FAQ

How many items can I hold in my inventory?
Officially, 1000. You can list excess items on the steam market (for high unrealistic prices) and basically use the steam market as extra space. Note that the price of your listed items on market + your steam wallet cannot exceed $2000 at any given time. You can increase the number of items in your inventory and the amount of steam wallet money through some tricks. It is however recommanded that instead you simply make extra accounts and prepare them for usage as extra space and as storage accounts, if you need more space.

How much is the Tax/Fee on Steam Community Market?
Approx. 13%-15% total for most.
Here is one in Euro by donbernie and Here is one for items under $1 by HwanZike
Yes, if you want to make Gaben really happy, sell for 3 cents and give him 2

What are some real-money marketplaces for CSGO items?
Use all external sites at your own risk

www.bitskins.com (UPDATE: Bitskins seams to have new owners since Oct 2019, though still unknown who they are and how the site will develop from here)
www.skinbaron.de
www.skinbay.com
cs.deals
lootbear

I've personally used skinbaron and skinbay and had no problems so far. There are others out there like cs deals. Update (Oct 2019): I used Bitskins before they changed ownership in Oct. 2019. I am waiting to see who the new owners are (still unknown) and how the site develops, before using them again.
Also note that the most popular one, OPSkins was BANNED by Valve in 2018. Do not use OPSkins if you want to cash out from or cash in to Steam anymore. Their so called VGO Skins aren't actual CSGO skins, even though they look similar. Update (Oct. 2019): OPSkins apparently made a comeback with a P2P system without using Bots. Proceed with caution, because Valve basically sent them a cease and desist letter in the past letting them know that they aren't allowed to be associated with CSGO and use any intellectual property of Valve on their websites at all anymore.

What is the most efficient way to cash out?
Sell the items directly at Bitskins, Skinbaron or another trustworthy site. Depending on the items, this can take a while. As an alternative you can exchange your investments into liquid items (popular skins for frequently used weapons, certain knives, case keys, sticker keys, nametags etc. - spend some time to determine which item gives you the best rate) and sell those liquid items on external cashout sites. The latter method will increase the speed at which you get money but will lose you a larger percentage. Keep in mind that BitSkins/Skinbaron take a percentage (5% to 15%), Paypal takes a percentage (~2%), and that the item values on external sites (real money value) are always lower than in the Steam Community Market. Also, every transaction on the Steam Community Market takes away 15% already. Occasionally the items on external sites are so cheap compared to SCM that it becomes worth it to sell them on SCM instead, buy keys from the in-game store, and then sell those keys on external sites again. When selling on SCM it almost always is correct to sell with an order that's higher than the highest buy order and higher than the lowest sell order if the lowest sell order is lower than recent trends display.

What is the most efficient way to buy in?
Buy items (not necessarily CSGO only) from trustworthy external cashout sites or from highly reputable sellers with high cash rep if they offer a better deal (you can find some on /GlobalOffensiveTrade) and sell the items on the Steam Community Market. Spend some time to determine which item gives you the best discount compared to Steam Market Price. Be aware that some items such as souvenir skins, certain Stattrak knives, etc. might have a very high discount, but are very very hard to resell back on steam market, avoid these items and stick to popular items. There is a reason why they have such a high discount. Also be aware that some items might be manipulated on steam market, thus showing a very high discount on 3rd party sites when compared, avoid these items and check their market history to be sure. http://csgo.steamanalyst.com/hotdeals is one of the tools that can help you with good deals, or the deals section at BitSkins. The general rule is also the cheaper the items, the higher the possible discount. For instance you could buy very cheap stickers for sometimes 50% off, and resell on steam market. But the downside is that it takes a lot of time and effort than a single expensive item, but gives you more steam wallet money at the end. Make sure that after steam tax, you always get more money than if you deposit the money directly to Steam, otherwise this whole process becomes completely pointless.

What are the case opening odds?

	Normal	StatTrak
Knives and Gloves	0.26%	0.026%
Covert	0.64%	0.064%
Classified	3.20%	0.32%
Restricted	15.98%	1.598%
Mil-Spec	79.92%	7.992%

Why did item X increase/decrease in price?
Possible reasons: CS:GO updates/balance changes/game changes/market changes (e.g., Tradeup Contract), new cases/operations (both short-term, due to opening frenzies, and long-term, due to increased supplies of skins), a famous streameyoutuber hypes an item, someone tries to manipulate the market, a AAA game is released, a tournament is taking place (CS:GO, DOta 2 etc.), a Steam-sale like Summer sale is going on, a market-bug is ongoing, the ingame drop rate was increased/decreased, legal issues about things related to the CSGO market (e.g., betting/gambling), etc.

If I create a new Steam account, how do I transfer items to that account? How long does this take?
Create a new account, log in (via the thick client), set up your profile, enable Steam Guard, wait 15 days, and transfer the items to the account from your main (double check that it is your account). If you intend to use the thin client (e.g., via Chrome), make sure that you log in from there as well because Steam will impose a 7 day trade restriction on your account when you attempt to create a new transaction from a new device (a device meaning a new browser). Also, if you do not have mobile authentication enabled on the alt account, there will be a 3 day delay for trades. You can use the same phone number & email address for many Steam accounts. Also, Gmail forwards emails addressed to your account even if dots (.) are added in between the username characters of your email address.

If I create a new Steam account, how do I use the Community Market? How long does this take?
Same steps as above, but you need to purchase a game that costs at least $5 or deposit $5 into your Steam wallet (and wait a month) before being able to use the Community Market. Keep in mind that using a new payment method will trigger a weeklong community market cooldown on your account.

After buying a CSGO item from the Steam Community Market, how long do I have to wait until I can sell/trade it?
They are sellable immediately on the Market. You need to wait 7 days until you can trade them to another account. Note that items from some other games, have the 7 days cool down both for trading AND steam market (like Rust).

How do buy orders work?
When you place a buy order, the market first looks for all the cheapest items that can fulfill your order. Then the oldest listing (i.e. the seller who has waited the longest) is selected and purchased. If the items are listed in multiple currencies, the amounts are first converted into your currency before being selected (i.e. a 0.03 RUB listing has no priority over a 0.03 USD listing). If multiple buy orders satisfy a new market listing, the oldest matching buy order will be selected. It used to be different in the past, but was changed in 2017.

How do I create multiple listings at once on Steam Market?
You could use one the addons listed in the "useful sites and tools" section of this guide down below. The current most secure way (since no external extensions are used) is a solution suggested by u/soldture . Simply copy this link: https://steamcommunity.com/market/multisell?appid=730&contextid=2&items[]=Falchion%20Case
Change Falchion%20Case to your desired item name. This solution only works with commodity items. This also works with other games (you have to change the appid and replace it with the appid of that game, for instance Rust is 440.

Item X hyped and is going to moon. Should I Buy?
Usually parabolic moves are followed by a crash (not always but most of the time). It is almost never a good idea to buy when something is mooning because of a video, some news, manipulation, mass hysteria and hype or whatever else. Buy the rumour, sell the news.

Item X is crashing hard. The Market is crashing. I am shaking and panicking. Should I Sell?
Stay calm, take a deep breath and find out what is really going on and what you really think about it. As an example: there was a huge panic when gambling sites were being banned. Many people panicked and sold their items for ridiculously low prices. People were telling eachother that the skin market will crash and never recover if there is no gambling and the world is going to end. And here we are in 2019, and almost everything (including skins) is at its all time high. However, sometimes you just need to sell fast. Let's say you have a skin from a collection which was inactive for a long time, making the prices of the skins go very high, and then suddenly the collection became active again for whatever reason. Or Gaben officially tells us that he is going to do something crazy with the market which will inevitably crash everything. In that case yes, sell fast (just an example)

Useful sites and tools

Use all external sites, tools and addons at your own risk, some are risky to use, some old and not updated

https://db.csgofloat.com/ item database with over 100 million skins
http://www.steamanalyst.com/ - Moving averages
http://csgostash.com/ - All items categorized and visualized
http://steam.tools/itemvalue/ - Value of inventories
http://csgo.exchange/ - Value of inventories, item prices and quantities, database. trade up calculator
http://steamcharts.com/app/730 - CSGO Player Base Stats
http://www.hltv.org/ - CSGO news
http://blog.counter-strike.net/ - Official CSGO blog
https://www.csgostickersearch.com/ - search market for skins with stickers
Software: Steam Market Watchlist - Track investments
Automatic Account Creation - old post, use software at own risk
Steam Desktop Authenticator - for mass confirming (very risky, defeats the purpose of mobile auth)
WinAuth - for mass confirming (very risky, defeats the puporse of mobile auth)

Chrome addons:

Steam Inventory Helper - mass listing, WARNING READ THIS before deciding to use or not
Steam Wizard - mass listing (some other functions don't work anymore or are outdated)
CSGOFloat Market Checker - float value, paint seed, and screenshots of CS:GO items
Better Buy Orders - see all the buy orders of an item in the Steam Community Market
Steam Enhancer

Useful Youtube Channels

TDM HeyZeus - CSGO Market and Trade-up Contracts
eSports Talk - CSGO News
3kliksphilip - CSGO Updates, Skins, etc.
TheWarOwl - CSGO Updates, Maps, etc.

Credits
Helicobacter: FAQ 2.0 (huge shoutout, copied a lot of stuff from this FAQ, sometimes word by word)
Steamfrag: Very useful graphs and market data

Disclaimer: The information offered here is not financial advice. We, the mod team, are just a bunch of gamers and hobby investors. Do your own due dilligence before investing any real money in to a game and do it at your own risk! Use all external links, sites, tools, addons, etc. at your own risk! Any information in this thread may be outdated at any given time. You should be mentally prepared to lose everything invested in virtual items. Valve could change the rules affecting the market anytime. Third party cashout and trading sites and their BOTS could be banned anytime. External events such as successful lawsuits against Valve, new state laws, new country laws, etc. could also affect the market anytime by forcing Valve to take measures (for instance case opening is now restricted in Belgium and Netherlands, OPSkins got banned, Gambling sites were banned, etc.). Also note that all of your items legally belong to Valve, even if you paid for them.

Suggestions and potential corrections to this guide are always welcomed and will be added if necessary and approved by the mod team. I will try to keep this guide updated.

Last updated: Nov. 2019

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They can safely buy items from Steam and then link their account with a website such as Dota 2 Wage and Dota 2 Lounge. The Safety of Dota 2 Item Betting. To help facilitate any bets, sites like the Dota 2 Lounge use an escrow system. An automated account is created for every transaction that only the site has access to. It is a good DOTA 2 betting site for real money because of its extensive coverage of DOTA 2 tournaments and events. It also has some of the highest odds and betting options available for the game. GG.Bet also has excellent customer support, a sleek website, and many more features that make it highly rated. CSGOBestYolo - CS:GO Dota 2 items bet website. Predicts in world's best eSports tournament Dota 2 is an online multiplayer game in the MOBA genre and it was developed by Valve Corporation. It is free to download on the Steam platform. Most popular Steam game. In a standard game of Dota the player’s objective is to destroy the main enemy construction called the Ancient, which is located inside their base. CS.MONEY is the best site CS:GO Trading Bot, that lets you exchange, buy and sell skins fast, safely and efficiently. You can trade, sell and buy skins, keys, stiсkers, knives, items, cases for real money Choosing the Best Sites for Skin Betting on DOTA 2 Before you settle on a particular online platform for gambling DOTA 2 skins, here are a few things to look out for. The Website must be reputable and hold a license from an esports gambling authority. If you want to bet on Dota 2, you will come across multiple Dota 2 betting sites. However, Dota2-bets.com has everything you need for that successful bet! Our website is the only website which allows users to create raffles and take all the profit from it, which is guaranteed. This is something you probably didn't see before on any other dota 2 gambling website. Other websites create raffles themselves and take ~10%-25% more then the item's worth. We will be looking at some of the best sites for DOTA 2 betting that you should check out in 2019. Dota2Lounge. Dota2loungeis a platform where users can bet with their skins on professional DOTA 2 matches and tournaments. The site is one of the oldest in the Dota 2 betting industry, having almost no glitches. DOTABUFF.com is the best platform currently available for any kind of DotA 2 player. Essential for improving your skills regardless if you want to get out of Herald or go pro from Divine. More information on their About page. liquipedia. liquidpedia.net is another must-know website for learning new stuff. The Dota 2 encyclopedia has every ...

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MEGA GUIDE to The International 2019 in Shanghai, China!

Comprehensive Guide for Shanghai TI9 Visitors

Introduction

Preparations

Arrival in Shanghai

Destinys design faults is death by a thousand cuts.

Eververse

Strikes

Crucible

Raids

Not fast enough updates

Thanks for reading

[Updated] Shanghai Visitors' Mega Guide for TI9

Comprehensive Guide for Shanghai TI9 Visitors [UPDATED]

Introduction

Preparations (If you haven’t done these preparations yet, HURRY UP!)

Arrival in Shanghai

[D] CSGO Newbie Investing Guide (2019)

Which items can be invested in?

Other ways to profit on the market than long/mid term investing

FAQ

Useful sites and tools

Useful Youtube Channels

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