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I have been playing, and paying for your games for over 15 years now.
I feel the need to express my frustration with your games and the attitude you show towards your customers and loyal fans.
Starcraft BW, was a huge success as was WoW and Diablo 2. Most of us played these games in our childhood. Sometimes I like to revisit those games and I just feel like there was a lot more thought put into those games on many parts.
Now, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 get a lot of hate for beeing bad sucsessors to those great games. Up to now, I have been more or less defending these games, they are different and its impossible to compete with childhood memories of a bunch of nerds.
This text isnt about that however, Its about how I just cant understand the decisions you are making anymore and quite frankly im sick of the cocky attitude you show towards the community.
Examples of things the community has complained about countless times
I want to bring up some of the points the community has brought up countless times, and while your argument is *there are people who love these things* i cant see a huge forum presence of people arguing for these things. I just want to bring a few arguments of controversial things that have been discussed in reasonable and thought out forum posts.
Dont get me wrong, I agree that these things arent all good ideas, but an attempt at trying to fix these things is all we ask for. Bring out a radical beta build on the new custom map feature and just go *see? this was a stupid idea*,
Example Starcraft 2
The sentry - this unit, while I guess at the core a good idea, has recieved recieved a lot of criticism.
It highly limits the map makers choices, gets completely useless after the midgame and is the resoning the gateway units need to suck so much. Many people DONT enjoy the sentry as much as you make it out to be, and I for instance am glad the mothership core has removed the need to make them.
Mothership core The defensive unit that basically removes the early game from protoss and the opponent. Also used in countless frustrating blink all ins. Its also a 1x unit, and those just suck.
Colossus Target of unfathomable hate.
Tempest + BroodlordBroodlord wasnt a great design choice. The way broodlings fuck up the pathing makes many of these unbeatable as protoss ground. In WOL these caused a huge problm, so You implement the hardest possible counter = the tempest. Now protoss has the highest ranged unit, a flying, slow and stupidly ugly unit.
Other examples I dont want to go into any more details, as these are generally known complaints.
Unit clumping
Microability of units
Deathballs
Volatility of the game
Lets look at some of the HOTS goals from blizzcon
1) Make the BC viable, and make mech viable (lol tempest vs both of these)
2) counter deathballs by giving protoss something that doesnt add to the deathball. (lol Tempest and MSC)
3) Force engagements with Swarmhost (promotes some of the most boring 2hour games)
[u]The casuals beeing catered to, where are they?[/u]
A lot of the arguments made against these changes is something along the lines of "actually a lot of players love these things, we want to appeal to the casual players too"
How do you know what casuals really want? You dont even give some of these things reasonable thought. Most of these things would improve the game immensely.
The SC2 MOD Starbow is something that tries to incorporate a lot of the things the community constantly complains about and its mostly played by casuals.
Its just frustrating to see our concerns dismissed and ignored. The way you handle the community feedback feels like beeing spat in the face. (aKa > how the fuck do you know anything, are you designing this game? We shit gold, if you dont like it its your problem!)
How would I fix this?
Well, one of the biggest things is just TRYING to show us that you care. Bring out a test map with the colossus replaced by something you think can work. Scrap the idea 2 weeks later and tell us you didnt like it. Thats fine. You ARE designing this game, not us but it lets us feel involved.
Maybe a little more hit and miss would be appreciated, and see what is liked by everyone.
End
The not listening, and not responding to the community, used to be OK when the games you produced were accepted to be the best of every genre they were in, but when you have huge complaints about everything try to listen more and especially give reasonable answers as to why you dont want to do it.
We arent stupid, all we want is to feel like you are taking our concerns seriously. And you are actually trying some of the ideas we try. I feel like a lot of the problem is just bad communication.
  
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You're a bit late to the party. All the girls are gone, so is the booze. All you're left with is some shitty pseudo intellectual debate with a stoned nerd in the kitchen.
Forget Blizzard. They're long gone from trying to make the best game to trying to make the most successful (profitable) game.
There's some alternatives, if you loved D2 then you will like Path of Exile. Not sure about a good MMO (Star Citizen looks awesome but might take ages to be finished), the RTS genre seems pretty dead right now, mobas are everywhere.
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This seems like a moderate balance whine blog. Besides that, it's a bit foolish to claim this game has no soul or not in the category of other Blizzard games simply because they're not making the changes YOU want them to.
The constant game updates, enacted and proposed balance changes, as well as explanations to those changes does show that Blizzard does care about supporting the game and the community...it's just not what YOU wanted. It seems cocky to say "Blizzard doesn't care about us" simply because Blizzard didn't make nor want to make the changes YOU wanted.
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I share your general feel. After Blizzard pulled that bullshit with D3 being made for consoles I've pretty much given up hope. They will also never listen.
The most effective thing you can do at this point is to pull a Ron Fucking Swanson, become an exec of Blizzard so that you "can bring all of this crumbling to the ground."
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Considering how big Blizzard is , they do a great job listening to the community and being aware of what is going on "on the ground level".
Blizzard's changes to SC2 via HotS were really good.
Blizzard's changes to D3 from 05/12 to 05/13 were also great.
Blizzard is not a "perfect company" but over all they do a great job.
Every $ i've spent on them..has been money well spent.
Considering how dead the RTS genre is... RTS fans (me included) are damned lucky to have a great game maker like Blizzard still willing to invest in the genre.
Also, note, David Kim and Dustin Browder have received promotions since the WoL beta.
Blizzard is obviously very happy with Browder and Kim. I think they've both done great.
SEE YOU BLIZZCON!
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Blizzard actually have answered your questions a few times and some people have answered some of your concern too:
clumping for example, better player always spread their units out.
templar flanks, vikings poke, bio spread, worker spread against hellions etc.
in tvz this is here the concept of clumping really shines, you don't clump when there are ultras, infestors and banelings, but you clump when there is mostly lings.
you clump your muta in harass and spread when you are engaging the thors and bio
micro potential, answered not long ago by blizzard
it's just not what you wanted/accepted and demanding more which blizzard is unwilling to provide and is more than happily that you make your own maps, such as starbow.
and starbow is played mostly by masters, I really won't call them casual.
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I agree with most of your post, weikor. Thank you for remembering and bring up what Blizzard wanted to do to change the Broodlord with Infestor problem in Wings of Liberty. Blizzard, I think were looking for a solution and since Heart of the Swarm was soon, we got the Tempest which I don't mind and personally think is a unit that looks great. I also remember they wanted to make the Battlecruiser viable. However, in my opinion, this is more complicated than at first appears as they'd have to make changes to the other race's units too.
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Honestly, Sc2 is gone. The game isn't going to change, Blizzard isn't interested in "fixing it", all the hype has died and most of the community has moved on. The people left are the people who like it or haven't accepted the fact that Blizzard isn't going to come to the rescue. This was 2011 talk and nothing happened nor should you expect it too.
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They still have deathballs? I thought Lando Calrissian destroyed the last one at the Battle of Endor.
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On February 03 2014 10:58 ninazerg wrote:
They still have deathballs? I thought Lando Calrissian destroyed the last one at the Battle of Endor.
nope and he left the ewoks alive as well  That traitor.
I dont really how many people are working in the balance/design-team of sc2 at the moment. Sb. guessed that it is a small team of 5-10 people at max, so they cant bring big changes, and i am starting to think the same. All changes aside from the betas were small numerical changes that need a programming time of 5 minutes at max (more like 5 seconds). The only exception was fungal, for which they created a projectile, so we saw the graphic-designer at work. I am not sure if fungal and storm are/were coded as incredibly fast projectiles (without animation) or if they had to recreate fungal entirely.
And why should they bring the like 100 programmer together, the basic player doesnt give them any more money. The only thing they profit financially from is probably the tournament-scene, but most pros value stability higher than permanent changes. I would as well if i made a living with sc2.
Also until starbow gets their own tournaments i wouldnt be convinced either that that's what the viewer want. The BW scene is pretty dead after all.
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I agree with the stuff you said. But I feel like this stuff has been said before. Blizzard doesn't actually listen to the community. I mean you guys remember WoL had no chat rooms right? It took them forever to get chat rooms into the game. Why do I bring this up? Because it is an example that blizzard doesn't listen.
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All thats left is hoping that Valve suddenly feels the urge to create an RTS...
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Huh that's weird, this guy didn't have any complaints about Terran in all of sc2's history and hates protoss a lot.
If and when there's another RTS that has the support, polish, and international renown and adoption that starcraft has, I'm sure we'll all try it. How many years as it been since starcraft became, and retained throughout its expansions and sequels, the undisputed title of most successful RTS? Where are the other RTS games?
The fact is that RTS games are just as hard to make as they are to play. They are not the low hanging fruit of "multiplayer online battle arena". WC3 was a simplified BW, and Dota was an even more simplified WC3, and now here we are today in an era where simple apps and games are all the rage. The general public doesn't want complexity, they want it to just work.
Whatever your ideal balance for starcraft is, I guarantee they could patch it in tomorrow and it wouldn't change a damn thing. You'd have a better viewing experience, and someone else would have a worse one. And there would be no popularity gained because there's a limited pool of people who like extremely complex hobbies. Just like tabletop Warhammer will never be more popular than other, simpler tabletop games that receive faster and wider adoption. There will never be some revolution where suddenly your mom and all your friends moms care about starcraft, or warhammer for that matter. But they'll always be down for a game of monopoly or cards. You gotta accept that you have a niche hobby, and the numbers are lower than other games not because of poor design philosophy but because there is almost no market demand for RTS anymore.
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On February 03 2014 22:17 darkscream wrote:
If and when there's another RTS that has the support, polish, and international renown and adoption that starcraft has, I'm sure we'll all try it. How many years as it been since starcraft became, and retained throughout its expansions and sequels, the undisputed title of most successful RTS? Where are the other RTS games?
....
You gotta accept that you have a niche hobby, and the numbers are lower than other games not because of poor design philosophy but because there is almost no market demand for RTS anymore.
you bring up some good points.
it is interesting to note that is was very rare for any other company to offer the kind of post sales support Blizzard has for its RTS games.
even during the height of the RTS genre's popularity.
Relic may have come close with CoH.
Looking at RTS genre from a historical perspective it appears that the "most commercially successful RTS not made by Blizzard" was Red Alert 2. Was support for it at Blizzard levels? Nah, not even close.
And, Westwood is long gone.
All that is left of Red Alert 2 is some smiling bald guy who screams "terrible terrible damage" in his sleep.
EA may never make another RTS game again. And. the biggest and most successful non-Blizzard RTS universe, C&C, is now basically dead.
You hear people whining and screaming.. ."SC is dead".
and then i go over to the C&C community... and i think... these clowns don't know what "dead" is.
u wanna see "dead"... check out any C&C game.
RA2 is alive and well on pirated Chinese servers.
All these flashy graphic C&C games EA pumped out... and RA2 is out-living them all.
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To me, it seems that the root cause of many of the frustrations for people surrounding Blizzard is that individuals believe it is the same company today that made the beloved games that were such a great part of our youth. Sadly, this could not be further from the truth. So with all the Blizzard hate running rampant everywhere, I think its important to remember that this is Blizzard in name only. When the games don't turn out the way you want or reflect the awesome nature of their predecessors, it is not because they aren't listening. It is because they are long gone.
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To be fair, Westwood also made a lot more sequels. The 2 companies goals for their respective franchises just were diffrent from very start.
Btw:
The fact is that RTS games are just as hard to make as they are to play. They are not the low hanging fruit of "multiplayer online battle arena". WC3 was a simplified BW, and Dota was an even more simplified WC3, and now here we are today in an era where simple apps and games are all the rage. The general public doesn't want complexity, they want it to just work..
This is so dumb, incredibly DUMB.
There are pretty much exactly 2 ARTS/MOBAs that are truely succesfull and have any real competetive scene to speak off. PLENTY of companies tried to create their own ARTS and basically just failed.
Since the « creation » of ARTS/MOBA’s there were a grand total of 3 ARTS/MOBAS truely worth mentioning and only 2 are actually „BIG“ enough to even have some fame among casual players.
I also liked SC/BW way more than WC3… But calling WC3 a dumbed down version of Broodwar ist just retarded… It’s like calling 100m Sprint a dumbed down version of Marathon.
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On February 03 2014 23:03 Velr wrote:To be fair, Westwood also made a lot more sequels. The 2 companies goals for their respective franchises just were diffrent from very start. Btw: Show nested quote + The fact is that RTS games are just as hard to make as they are to play. They are not the low hanging fruit of "multiplayer online battle arena". WC3 was a simplified BW, and Dota was an even more simplified WC3, and now here we are today in an era where simple apps and games are all the rage. The general public doesn't want complexity, they want it to just work.. This is so dumb, incredibly DUMB. There are pretty much exactly 2 ARTS/MOBAs that are truely succesfull and have any real competetive scene to speak off. PLENTY of companies tried to create their own ARTS and basically just failed. Since the « creation » of ARTS/MOBA’s there were a grand total of 3 ARTS/MOBAS truely worth mentioning and only 2 are actually „BIG“ enough to even have some fame among casual players. I also liked SC/BW way more than WC3… But calling WC3 a dumbed down version of Broodwar ist just retarded… It’s like calling 100m Sprint a dumbed down version of Marathon.
You missed him calling Dota a "dumbed down version of wc3".
And of the topic of EA and C&C-
I will never associate their name with C&C. They pretty much killed the franchise and the studio. All the good C&C titles were before they got their greedy hands on westwood.
The point I would agree to is that Blizzard are not EA. EA are the assborn child of Satan and Hitler that has destroyed dozens of great independent studios, and the day can't come soon enough where all their shitty buying up studios and franchises and sucking the soul out of them for money catches up with them and the red numbers they've been writing for years finally kill them off.
Blizzard are just not the cool, young, innovative studio that put quality before profits and revolutionized/ created several genres anymore. But they're nowhere near EA.
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On February 03 2014 22:17 darkscream wrote:
Huh that's weird, this guy didn't have any complaints about Terran in all of sc2's history and hates protoss a lot.
If and when there's another RTS that has the support, polish, and international renown and adoption that starcraft has, I'm sure we'll all try it. How many years as it been since starcraft became, and retained throughout its expansions and sequels, the undisputed title of most successful RTS? Where are the other RTS games?
Well, theres a pretty big list of things people have been complaining about. Terran has its own problems, Ravens (has never worked) and Mech in general are 2 of the issues that come to mind.
The thing isnt so much about them beeing a more money oriented company - Thats fine. I also understand that they wont rework the game just because I told them to. Thats also not what Im trying to say.
This game IS the best in its genre, thats why we play it.
I just dont understand some of the decisions that they make today.
For example we have awkward solutions people to problems that have Fail written all over them and people can call them out way before they are implemented.
the 0.1+ attackspeed buff to siege tanks was obviously not going to "fix" mech or anything. The tempest beeing the highest range unit in the game was also widely known to be a silly fix as it wasnt needed in the other 2 MUs (and changed TvP)
The newest thing is the Hydra change where everyone agrees on it beeing a bad idea.
How can they as game designers not see these things themselves, at least a little better?
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Hellooo OP, I don't agree with most of your protoss criticism.....I mean, this isn't WOL beta.... People have learned to deal with all the problems that you mentioned. The only balance problem of any real significance right now is in TvP where Terran's pressure and macro is limited by the strength of blink + mothership core all-in and photon overcharge.
Personally, I think the core of the problems that you mentioned, is that Blizzard doesn't prioritize the Sc2 esports scene as an important revenue source. It is only a helpful "community building platform" and that's why we feel that Sc2 is not getting the support and feedback that it deserves. TBH what they did with WCS in 2013 was pretty detrimental to the professional scene.
I agree with you that it feels like Blizzard is not providing enough feedback or response, but the sad truth is that their focus is not on sc2 anymore. They are developing a MOBA and CARD game for god's sake....
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On February 05 2014 02:44 weikor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2014 22:17 darkscream wrote:
Huh that's weird, this guy didn't have any complaints about Terran in all of sc2's history and hates protoss a lot.
If and when there's another RTS that has the support, polish, and international renown and adoption that starcraft has, I'm sure we'll all try it. How many years as it been since starcraft became, and retained throughout its expansions and sequels, the undisputed title of most successful RTS? Where are the other RTS games?
Well, theres a pretty big list of things people have been complaining about. Terran has its own problems, Ravens (has never worked) and Mech in general are 2 of the issues that come to mind. The thing isnt so much about them beeing a more money oriented company - Thats fine. I also understand that they wont rework the game just because I told them to. Thats also not what Im trying to say. This game IS the best in its genre, thats why we play it. I just dont understand some of the decisions that they make today. For example we have awkward solutions people to problems that have Fail written all over them and people can call them out way before they are implemented. the 0.1+ attackspeed buff to siege tanks was obviously not going to "fix" mech or anything. The tempest beeing the highest range unit in the game was also widely known to be a silly fix as it wasnt needed in the other 2 MUs (and changed TvP) The newest thing is the Hydra change where everyone agrees on it beeing a bad idea. How can they as game designers not see these things themselves, at least a little better?
The changes to MSC (planetary nexus time cut down, cost of time warp increased) are great given TvP vs. PvP. It would be great for Terran if planetary nexus was even shorter, but then PvP all-ins become way more dangerous and the matchup becomes coinflippy in the early game. The hydra change is retarded, I agree, and probably the Tempest one as well, although I see the rationale behind it.
I don't see how tempests significantly affected TvP other than Terran having another reason to not go battlecruisers. I believe the original thought was the 200/200 stalemate where Protoss and Terran keep positioning their armies around each other while the game can't really progress anywhere interesting. ZvP tempests are for the brood lords, yes, but it's also great in PvP as it stops the matchup from becoming "who can get more colossus faster". Tempests counter themselves which is also a very interesting dynamic.
Tanks can now get two shots on banes on creep. It's a minor change, but does make tanks a lot more powerful against ling/bane/muta armies.
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EPT
