On October 26 2014 07:43 xDaunt wrote: How many developers really listen to the players? I can't think of one off the top of my head that does who made a game of any significance.
Well, the DotA 2 devs (programmers more I guess) seem to make half their non-balance patch changes based upon complaints on reddit. Sometimes with pretty quick turnaround, sometimes not.
I think GGG and even the new Diablo 3 devs also do so.
Blizzard definitely listens to players. Unfortunately, that advice is largely based on the morons and chuckleheads at bnet forums, and is taken with more than the proverbial grain of salt. We complain a lot, but they've changed plenty of things based on complaints. Chat channels, carriers, warhounds, close positions, map selection, the artifact system, and just about everything about D3. We remember them being slow on this stuff, and they often are too slow, but they've been remarkably reactive to player concerns as AAA game companies go. Heck, the extended patch history of all Blizz games alone goes to show a more serious concern for players than you get with other AAA companies.
Don't get me wrong, Blizz has plenty of problems, but in their field, they aren't half bad at responsiveness.
On October 26 2014 04:24 KeksX wrote: Actually they never tried to make SC2 an eSports game. At least officially, so unless you have some inside information I'm gonna stick with "not true".
Others addressed this ready, but if you want definitive official proof, here you go--from Dustin Browder himself:
The first money quote on this point is around 2:30:
"It all comes back to esports, weirdly. It all circles back to this one value that we have to make this a game that not only do you want to play, but you might want to watch it as well."
He even does a section about how designing primarilyfor esports affected the single player and the story of the campaign.
The journey of StarCraft 2 described in this talk, probably has echoes in the development of Heroes today (and Hearthstone, where the motive for esports came not from within Blizzard itself, but from the player community). But, I haven't followed the development of Heroes as close as I did StarCraft--is it as esports-centric as this? Or is it like Hearthstone, where the primary motivation for esports comes from the community?
Weird, I'm pretty sure that when Dustin Browder talked about stuff like unit movement fixes, his reasoning was that they focus on making a good game first and then let the community do the eSport part, and changing movement to make it "worse" doesn't go well with their philosophy of making fun games.
Players can typically see when there is an issue, but from my experience, they are really bad at coming up with solutions that fixes the fundamental issue. They have a tendency to make the mistake of assuming correlation is equal to casaution. So in many situations when there is a part of the game they don't like, then rather than trying to understand the underlying factors which makes the game play out the way it does, they just look at the differences between that game and a game they like, and then assume that this is the reason why the game isn't fun to play.
So the job of the game-designer is really to get feedback from playtesters, and then try and identifiy what the real issue is and come up with a solid solution that most people are satisfied with. That's obviously not very easy, and I believe the Sc2-dev team too a large extent failed in this regard as many of Blizzard's solution really weren't very good. That said, I am pretty sure the proposed solutions from the majority of "angry" community members would have been a lot worse.
I think there is a significant percentage of players which makes the causation=correlation-error when assessing Heroes of the Storm as well. They play some HOTS, have constant teamfight action and then assume that that its the teamfights that makes the game more fast-paced and "easier" than LOL/DOTA. I disagree with that assertion, as I think it actually increases the learning barrier when you need to coordinate everything with your teammembers. I believe that it's instead a combination of (1) lower DPS values/easier to get away that makes the game more forgiving, (2) no last-hitting, (3) less snowball-effect, (4) no items/masteries/runes/summoning-spells, which makes the game easier to play as a new player.
In terms of esports, I think there is a big downside to the higher focus on teams, as it it's so hard for viewers to spot individual skills. When you watch 10 heroes in a battle casting 5-10 abilities per second, it's almost impossible for a casual viewer to know what's going on. However, when you have fewer heroes in a battle (2-4), then you can see how each player tries to dodge the skillshots of his enemy while trying to go into a postion himself where he can do a lot of damage. This way it becomes easier to identiify good micro-plays, and it becomes more enjoyable for viewers. As an example, watch Bjergsen just outplay opponents by avoiding all of the skillshots of his enemy in the below clip:
As a "real-world"-example, in "normal sport" you can look at both teams and indiviudals seperately. Fans can have their favourite players and favourite teams. This adds an important "behind-the-scenes"-factor, and makes the game more interesting to follow. I believe Heroes lacks this at the moment, and it's not just due to lack of pro's playing it.
I think if you had a map where there was a higher focus on individual play - perhaps through more seperated lanes - for the first 5-10 minutes you would only see a small increase in the average game lenght, while actually reducing the learning barrier and increasing the watchability of the game. At least just putting one map out there, and then adding in a veto-system so you give players the option of what to play would be ideal for me. Also please note that I am not talking about implementing heroes that can just kill 2-5 enemy heroes in seconds, I am glad that Heroes got rid of that, but what I am talking about is to have more 1v1, 2v2, 1v2 and 2v1 engagements as this makes it easier for viewers toe appreciate the skill level of the indivudal players.
I don't know whether Blizzard tweaked its matchmaking or whether it's just because of this week's free hero rotation, but man, I have had some really awful team comps this week. One game after another where my team is loaded with squishies.
On October 26 2014 01:35 Diamond wrote: You really think Blizz isn't going to reveal and use draft at Blizzcon? Plz......
No way Blizzcon is blind pick.
I don't know what they're gonna use. The only indication is the game they've made and it's blind pick. Even customs have no draft mode -- it's just players emulating it manually via chat. Maybe someone who follows all of Blizzard's forum posts, tweets, announcements, etc, can inform me if they've ever said the game is intended to be played with a draft. If not, I don't see why you think this thing that the players have artificially imposed on the game is likely to be used for an official event. As I said before I think it ought to be used and it'd be better for the tournament if it was used, but Blizzard isn't a slave to players' opinions, as they've already demonstrated with Heroes patches.
Go to game mode and click on it. You have Practice, Cooperative, Versus, Draft, and Custom.
It says that Draft is not available in alpha. They're working on it. Would Blizzcon be a good time to reveal it? Probably.
On October 26 2014 01:35 Diamond wrote: You really think Blizz isn't going to reveal and use draft at Blizzcon? Plz......
No way Blizzcon is blind pick.
I don't know what they're gonna use. The only indication is the game they've made and it's blind pick. Even customs have no draft mode -- it's just players emulating it manually via chat. Maybe someone who follows all of Blizzard's forum posts, tweets, announcements, etc, can inform me if they've ever said the game is intended to be played with a draft. If not, I don't see why you think this thing that the players have artificially imposed on the game is likely to be used for an official event. As I said before I think it ought to be used and it'd be better for the tournament if it was used, but Blizzard isn't a slave to players' opinions, as they've already demonstrated with Heroes patches.
Go to game mode and click on it. You have Practice, Cooperative, Versus, Draft, and Custom.
It says that Draft is not available in alpha. They're working on it. Would Blizzcon be a good time to reveal it? Probably.
That's just a piece of the interface. Drafts have never been in the game. They even go out of their way with an awkward phrasing just to cover their ass "not available for alpha" doesn't imply that it will be available in the future. If they were working on it and definitely planning to add it, then there's a lot better language they would have used there.
On October 26 2014 01:35 Diamond wrote: You really think Blizz isn't going to reveal and use draft at Blizzcon? Plz......
No way Blizzcon is blind pick.
I don't know what they're gonna use. The only indication is the game they've made and it's blind pick. Even customs have no draft mode -- it's just players emulating it manually via chat. Maybe someone who follows all of Blizzard's forum posts, tweets, announcements, etc, can inform me if they've ever said the game is intended to be played with a draft. If not, I don't see why you think this thing that the players have artificially imposed on the game is likely to be used for an official event. As I said before I think it ought to be used and it'd be better for the tournament if it was used, but Blizzard isn't a slave to players' opinions, as they've already demonstrated with Heroes patches.
Go to game mode and click on it. You have Practice, Cooperative, Versus, Draft, and Custom.
It says that Draft is not available in alpha. They're working on it. Would Blizzcon be a good time to reveal it? Probably.
That's just a piece of the interface. Drafts have never been in the game. They even go out of their way with an awkward phrasing just to cover their ass "not available for alpha" doesn't imply that it will be available in the future. If they were working on it and definitely planning to add it, then there's a lot better language they would have used there.
That makes no sense at all.
Why have an option there. right at the interface if they aren't going to add it?
I said that i didn't think they would implement it some posts before, but i stand corrected now.
BTW has anyone here tried arthas? is he good? I tried him in the store and seemed cool, but i want to know if he is good in a real game.
On October 26 2014 01:35 Diamond wrote: You really think Blizz isn't going to reveal and use draft at Blizzcon? Plz......
No way Blizzcon is blind pick.
I don't know what they're gonna use. The only indication is the game they've made and it's blind pick. Even customs have no draft mode -- it's just players emulating it manually via chat. Maybe someone who follows all of Blizzard's forum posts, tweets, announcements, etc, can inform me if they've ever said the game is intended to be played with a draft. If not, I don't see why you think this thing that the players have artificially imposed on the game is likely to be used for an official event. As I said before I think it ought to be used and it'd be better for the tournament if it was used, but Blizzard isn't a slave to players' opinions, as they've already demonstrated with Heroes patches.
Go to game mode and click on it. You have Practice, Cooperative, Versus, Draft, and Custom.
It says that Draft is not available in alpha. They're working on it. Would Blizzcon be a good time to reveal it? Probably.
That's just a piece of the interface. Drafts have never been in the game. They even go out of their way with an awkward phrasing just to cover their ass "not available for alpha" doesn't imply that it will be available in the future. If they were working on it and definitely planning to add it, then there's a lot better language they would have used there.
That makes no sense at all.
Why have an option there. right at the interface if they aren't going to add it?
I said that i didn't think they would implement it some posts before, but i stand corrected now.
BTW has anyone here tried arthas? is he good? I tried him in the store and seemed cool, but i want to know if he is good in a real game.
Arthas is one of the strongest tanks at the moment, very strong chasing ability, very hard to kill, a nightmare to deal with in teamfights
On October 27 2014 05:35 TheHumanSensation wrote: Just at the point with almost enough gold to buy my first 7000 hero, might wait for 10000. Who's a hero with a lot of really divergent playstyles?
Tassadar and Tyrael come to mind immediately. On the tankier side, maybe Arthas and Anub, but I don't have much experience with them.
Draft is coming for 100% sure and based on common sense it will be used @ Blizzcon for the tournament.
Isnt the blizzcon tournament justa show thing anyway? Because it has just some known LoL or Dota players but not the best HOTS teams. That is at least what I heard.
Draft is coming for 100% sure and based on common sense it will be used @ Blizzcon for the tournament.
I bet this button will be filled by Blizzcon too. I mean competitive HS is literally one million times more popular than competitive HotS, common sense says they will add tournament mode by Blizzcon, or spectator mode, or some way other than "stream from two devices and add opponents to your friends list to play against them" to do competitions. Right? Common sense.
Again, this is Blizzard. It makes 100% sense there will be a draft mode, but your concept of "common sense says it will be done by x time" makes me wonder how much experience you have with them.
remember chat channels in sc2? people were asking for it since the beginning of beta, on every blizzcon/blizzard interview and we got shitty auto scrolling chat after a year from release!
On October 27 2014 05:35 TheHumanSensation wrote: Just at the point with almost enough gold to buy my first 7000 hero, might wait for 10000. Who's a hero with a lot of really divergent playstyles?
I've got around 14k gold right now, but i will wait until the next free rotation comes this tuesday. I want to buy Arthas buy if he is free the next week, i might buy another hero and buy arthas when he is no longer free.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/w4sfbKo.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/H18VZzf.png)
