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Interview with Valorant observer Yehty (part 2): Transition to in-game director

In the second part of Fragster’s conversation with Valorant observer Nicholas “Yehty” Tesolin, he discusses his transition to being... Pedro | 15. July 2022

In the second part of Fragster’s conversation with Valorant observer Nicholas “Yehty” Tesolin, he discusses his transition to being an in-game director, working with his colleagues, and his personal growth as an observer.

Transition to being an in-game director

Pedro Romero: As you continued working in Valorant, you eventually rose to the role of in-game director. How did that move go about from being an ordinary observer to receiving the responsibility of an in-game director?

Yehty: The role itself was never something that was established from the beginning. There wasn’t this idea as soon as Valorant came out that an in-game director was going to be a thing. I did some POV observing, but I didn’t have the best internet connection at home to reliably send feeds remotely. When I upgraded my internet provider, I wanted to take that responsibility from the director and put it on myself because I felt I could make more accurately timed decisions. This wasn’t something that was pre-planned. I just saw issues with how certain productions were and where I felt they could be more efficient.

I ended up pitching this observing format to various productions. One of the first occasions I brought it up was for Nerd Street who asked me to work a broadcast and they were open to the idea of having that as the main structure. I did that and the Valorant pro circuit all the way up until Iceland where I then pitched the same setup for that LAN event. I guess that’s been the standard format for a lot of broadcasts that you see within Valorant since then, with some minor variations depending on the region.

Considering how you introduced various ideas to the current format in which observers are currently using, would it be fair to describe you as a pioneer in this regard?

I think the only reason why I’d say yes is that I was one of the first to be here. A lot of the concepts for observing that are out there right now aren’t such that I solely would have come up with. I think a lot of the top Valorant observers right now all would eventually arrive to the same conclusions that I did, whether it was through me or not.

Working with colleagues

Another dimension that comes with that responsibility is communicating ideas to your colleagues. For Challengers 2 Playoffs, you worked with Heather “sapphiRe” Garozzo and David “prius” Kuntz, both of whom are major figures in the FPS observing scene. Did you encounter difficulties in communicating your ideas?

I don’t think there are too many issues. When I propose an idea, I bring up good reasoning as to why doing something in a certain way might be the best way. We all know the end goal is making sure the product is the best it can be. We want the viewers to have the best visual experience possible with what we can provide them. You mentioned DJ and Heather, people who have multiple years of CSGO. In past CSGO broadcasts, it’s been one sole observer doing everything, so them having to transition into working with another person adds something that they might have to adjust to. Ultimately, the adjustment became easier and I don’t think there’s ever really been an issue at all.

Yehty in Copenhagen with producer Michael “Imppulse” Di Giovanni and caster Mimi “aEvilcat” Wermcrantz. Credit: Yehty/Twitter.

One example of the observer team working well together during the tournament happened in a video you posted of a projectile being thrown and how everyone had to coordinate their movements simultaneously to present the play in a fluent manner. How did that particular event transpire from your point of view?

It was a molly being thrown to counter a Killjoy ultimate. It’s a common one we see a lot on Ascent. Previously, when it comes to working free cam and as an in-game director, I would identify those moments and make sure it’s captured. But in terms of communicating it with my colleagues, the reason why we’ve focused on pinpointing those elements is because it adds fluidity which makes it feel like you’re watching a cohesive product.

When we show a Breach preparing to Fault Line over a site, we might want to start in his perspective to see where he’s setting up. Then the question now becomes what is that ult doing, so we cut to a free cam to show it swoop over a site and see how many get hit. We can then transition back to what is the follow-up on that ult, so we cut to POV again and show the entry fragger coming into the site and getting kills. That sequence of events creates something that’s easy to understand, and in a game like Valorant where a lot of utility can be overwhelming, that’s one of the biggest problems we face as observers. It’s about making all of those things understandable to the viewers.

Helping viewers understand plays

I understand what you mean by trying to capture every moment of the action in a series. It’s become a meme within the community that makes it difficult for outsiders to understand what type of game Valorant is when they see many players use their abilities simultaneously, and that’s on top of helping fans understand how a given round is transpiring in chronological order.

It’s definitely difficult because I remember I had a feeling that it was going to potentially head down a route similar to Overwatch, where we’re seeing a lot of utility combos or people doing multiple things multiple times. The Overwatch League made progress towards that and one of the biggest ones was how they implemented their free cam observer to help provide contextual shots of all the abilities happening. That was one of my number one goals in Valorant from the get-go. I need to make sure that whatever I do as an in-game director, even if it’s 10 pieces of utility being launched at one moment, I need to try to make sense of that.

At this point in time, do you feel you’ve made progress in that regard?

With most Tier-1 Valorant pro players, it becomes easier to see how all the coordination and the pacing is going. The biggest example of this is the A site on Haven being one of the most intense settings for retakes in the game. It’s the one site where I feel all 10 players are still alive once the spike has gone down. Moments happening there are often where my perspective as a free-cam observer can add a lot of understanding what is currently happening when that retake comes about.

There are certain things viewers are seeing for the first time that we as observers are also seeing for the first time and can’t be proactive in. A lot of those moments might be more difficult to showcase. We have made steps in utilizing our replay operators to help make sense of that. If you watch NA VCT, the replay operator might grab my free cam and show the full rundown of the site to clearly interpret what just happened in the moment. We definitely made huge improvements there compared to the first year of Valorant, but it’s definitely not perfect just yet.

What constitutes perfect for you?

It’s really hard to quantify because what would be ideally perfect is a viewer having a complete understanding of what happened in each round. But at the same time, it’s hard to quantify because I don’t know exactly what every single viewer’s perspective of a round was. Something that I show might make sense to some viewers but not to every observer. I guess the idea would just be: we’re always striving for perfection even if perfection isn’t obtainable. We just want to get as close as we can.

What’s the most important piece of advice that you’ve received as an observer that you can give to other prospective observers for their own improvement?

The biggest advice I can give to any observer out there is to keep a strong mental fortitude. Don’t get hung up on mistakes that you’ve made because, in reality, we’re never going to be perfect. There’s always going to be kills that will be missed and strats we won’t be able to show in time. We’re gonna have good rounds and we’re gonna have bad rounds, but the best thing you can do is continue looking forward and not hold on to things from the past.