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There are some good things with Lotv compared to hots, but there are still big design decisions that I don't like. I think I would play starbow if it had an active ladder. I tried to get in to broodwar but it was to much of a hassle with portfoward and lag issues.
So yeah right now I am just waiting for the meta to settle in Lotv to see if it will be any good before I decide if I will play it while keep on with the wishful thinking for a matchmaker in the game for mods.
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I suppose all those people who voted "I would not want to play a mod" agree with the opinions that have been stated in this thread? Or are there any other arguments against mods?
Do you guys think that there are too many mods being developed in parallel? Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact?
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On September 22 2015 07:18 RoomOfMush wrote: Do you guys think that there are too many mods being developed in parallel? Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact? Not necessarily to the former. Absolutely yes to the latter. It doesn't matter how many small mods there are that can be used to experiment and learn about how the game can be changed with certain tests. But there would indeed need to be an officially endorsed TL or r/starcraft balance or design mod pushed forward for there to be any level of success.
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No one plays mods seriously to gather useful data. Its a waste of time.
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On September 22 2015 07:18 RoomOfMush wrote: Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact?
No. Too many cooks spoil the soup. Mods do better when they have a small, focussed design team of people who share a single vision and know what they're doing. The more you open it up to community input, the worse it's going to get, if you don't have a really skilled lead designer who knows how to vet the good ideas from the bad.
As much bashing as Blizzard gets for ignoring the community too much, the game would actually be a thousand times worse if they had LISTENED too much. The vast majority of the community does not actually know jack about game design.
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On September 21 2015 05:59 tokinho wrote: Well the main game has buffed warp gate with 2 second warp ins and has the silliest pylon overcharge idea. The trailer highlighted a pylon and warp ins, 2 of the things that i hate most about the beta. At least there is a way to slow down warp gate, sniping the warp prism, but its so hard to kill the stupid thing and it too easy to win games with protoss at the moment. I don't understand why blizzard is so obsessed with having mass armies warp in to someone's base while building mass aoe armies. There is absolutely no reason to play the other races at the moment. Preventing banking so much chrono doesn't change much. Blizzard gives feedback now which basically says, we'd prefer to stick to what didn't work in the past. (I.e. we(blizzard) believe the changes took away from the core design of the races and didn't want to change) What was the point of showing us something that people liked, only to take it away and say we don't care if you liked it. I was having fun and preordered LOTV only to cancel my preorder after being so frustrated with the big FU they gave us in the most recent community feedback.
I have no friends that play starcraft and I have in the past few days lost nearly all interest in playing it as the redesign of the protoss race did not happen. The tournament games now are all gimmicky protoss wins like lilbow, rain, classic, hero, MC. It is not going to change. I don't see many players coming back/staying with the game. That is the biggest problem i have with making mods in sc2. I would prefer that the mods be made in the valve hammer environment. I would definitely try them there and I feel that the map making community would be dumb to make mods in here, that Blizzard would not support, and in contrast Valve would be willing to support.
Gimmicky protoss? Rain??? herO??? Are you sure you watched sc2 games? Those two play almost exclusively macro.
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On September 22 2015 08:57 SmileZerg wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2015 07:18 RoomOfMush wrote: Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact? No. Too many cooks spoil the soup. Mods do better when they have a small, focussed design team of people who share a single vision and know what they're doing. The more you open it up to community input, the worse it's going to get, if you don't have a really skilled lead designer who knows how to vet the good ideas from the bad. As much bashing as Blizzard gets for ignoring the community too much, the game would actually be a thousand times worse if they had LISTENED too much. The vast majority of the community does not actually know jack about game design. I wouldnt be too sure about that. The Blizzard developement team did not really convince me of their knowledge and skills. We are talking about people who gave Zealots +30 attack damage after charge on top of the 16 damage they already do. This is something I could see in a mod but not from people who get paid for this.
Of course you always have to filter good ideas from bad ideas, but I think a quick developement cycle with well documented tests and design decisions could lead to many positive results. Imagine some kind of system where community ideas could be upvoted, implemented by somebody and uploaded to BNet, tested, with videos on youtube showcasing the change and any benefits they may have. Then a small team of elected members could make the decision of adding the change to the mod or not. That would be 10 times better then what blizzard does with their "we tested it internally and we didnt like it" replys.
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On September 22 2015 09:32 RoomOfMush wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2015 08:57 SmileZerg wrote:On September 22 2015 07:18 RoomOfMush wrote: Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact? No. Too many cooks spoil the soup. Mods do better when they have a small, focussed design team of people who share a single vision and know what they're doing. The more you open it up to community input, the worse it's going to get, if you don't have a really skilled lead designer who knows how to vet the good ideas from the bad. As much bashing as Blizzard gets for ignoring the community too much, the game would actually be a thousand times worse if they had LISTENED too much. The vast majority of the community does not actually know jack about game design. I wouldnt be too sure about that. The Blizzard developement team did not really convince me of their knowledge and skills. We are talking about people who gave Zealots +30 attack damage after charge on top of the 16 damage they already do. This is something I could see in a mod but not from people who get paid for this. Of course you always have to filter good ideas from bad ideas, but I think a quick developement cycle with well documented tests and design decisions could lead to many positive results. Imagine some kind of system where community ideas could be upvoted, implemented by somebody and uploaded to BNet, tested, with videos on youtube showcasing the change and any benefits they may have. Then a small team of elected members could make the decision of adding the change to the mod or not. That would be 10 times better then what blizzard does with their "we tested it internally and we didnt like it" replys. I won't say it's not worth a try, but I do think it's going to have serious problems the more you open it up to larger crowds. There has to be a single person in charge who makes the final calls and they have to have a serious knowledge of game design theory and a coherent vision of what the game "should" be.
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Playing StarBow here, but the problem with Mods is the lack of in-game-ladder for the Arcade...
If Blizz put a Ladder in there, I can be sure there will be a huge amount of players with different versions of SC2, way more balanced and with most of the changes people ask for.
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Signed it. Honestly, if they added matchmaking to customgames, it would change the playing field immensely. No ladder is pretty much the main reason I havent given starbow, or any mod, a real try. It feels pointless without a ladder to me, it doesn't scratch the itch.
edit: I wouldn't mind this thread being highlighted. I think this is pretty much a feature TL for once can unanomously get behind, and that's fucking rare seeing how divided we generally are. Such a powerful engine / editor, but the backbone sucks.
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On September 22 2015 09:32 RoomOfMush wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2015 08:57 SmileZerg wrote:On September 22 2015 07:18 RoomOfMush wrote: Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact? No. Too many cooks spoil the soup. Mods do better when they have a small, focussed design team of people who share a single vision and know what they're doing. The more you open it up to community input, the worse it's going to get, if you don't have a really skilled lead designer who knows how to vet the good ideas from the bad. As much bashing as Blizzard gets for ignoring the community too much, the game would actually be a thousand times worse if they had LISTENED too much. The vast majority of the community does not actually know jack about game design. We are talking about people who gave Zealots +30 attack damage after charge on top of the 16 damage they already do That was confirmed to be a bug, because they were noticing that the regular attack wasn't actually connecting since they implemented the 30 charge damage, and then said bug was fixed after the balance changes were finalized for that patch, leading to the ridiculous scenario of Zealots dealing 46-52 damage on charge impact. It was intended to be roughly equal to just 2 attacks, similar to the 1.5 attacks that it is about equal to in the current patch.
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Honestly, I don't see how a petition could lead to a ladder for arcade ? Even if Blizzard stated that they would do that, it's easy to say that X signatures is not enough. It's easy to ignore a big petition if it doesn't bring money.
Imo we should find another way, but i don't know how.
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On September 22 2015 10:13 Pontius Pirate wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2015 09:32 RoomOfMush wrote:On September 22 2015 08:57 SmileZerg wrote:On September 22 2015 07:18 RoomOfMush wrote: Does anybody believe that if we all joined in a big "Team Liquid Community Mod" we could make a bigger impact? No. Too many cooks spoil the soup. Mods do better when they have a small, focussed design team of people who share a single vision and know what they're doing. The more you open it up to community input, the worse it's going to get, if you don't have a really skilled lead designer who knows how to vet the good ideas from the bad. As much bashing as Blizzard gets for ignoring the community too much, the game would actually be a thousand times worse if they had LISTENED too much. The vast majority of the community does not actually know jack about game design. We are talking about people who gave Zealots +30 attack damage after charge on top of the 16 damage they already do That was confirmed to be a bug, because they were noticing that the regular attack wasn't actually connecting since they implemented the 30 charge damage, and then said bug was fixed after the balance changes were finalized for that patch, leading to the ridiculous scenario of Zealots dealing 46-52 damage on charge impact. It was intended to be roughly equal to just 2 attacks, similar to the 1.5 attacks that it is about equal to in the current patch. Thats a cheap excuse. Picking a number like 30 is not a bug, its a conscious decision. Somebody must have decided to try 30 damage. Somebody must have written that down. Somebody must have published that number on the patch notes. And nobody ever thought: "Hey, 30 damage sounds a little bit high. It does, like, 1 shot marines and zerglings now...".
Sure, there was a bug and they were testing with wrong values, but that doesnt mean they suddenly lost common sense. As I said, this is something I could expect from modders, "testing things out and seeing what happens". But we are talking about a team of people who are getting paid for this, and they have been working on it, presumably, for over 5 years.
I am just saying that Blizzard employees are no gods of game developement. They are, in no way, better then some of our community members. Just because they work for a big company does not enlarge their brains.
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#Custom/Arcade ladders required! Edit: There is no cow level. Blizzard will lose interest in a year or two and then we can really have a weight into what can be done or what is to be sc past LotV hype/then fail. Until then it is like a two base versus a one base all in.. just hold!
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The main problem is how obscenely bad the custom games system is in Battle.Net 0.2. As long as there is not an easy method to find anonymous opponents anytime you want within the client (registering on external sites is annoying for lots of people), there is no hope. Instead of that, the current system promotes a “rich get richer” philosophy; see for instance how Desert Strike is the top gun in the Arcade for the 478th consecutive year.
The other problem with mods is that they change rules directly instead of indirectly. In money maps like BGH or Fastest maps, units/structures/races are unchanged, only the terrain and the economy are modified. Changing units/values/etc. directly adds a small barrier which can discourage (conservatist) people. Depending on what the mod does, it can be a completely new game to learn, so people are not going to play it unless there's already an active player base… But there is precisely no such thing. GG checkmate.
Since LotV will quickly become a graveyard of players after its release, there will surely be some demand for alternative forms of SC2. But for any kind of mod to have lasting success, the two following things are needed: (a) The old hosting system from SC1/War3 simply needs to come back. Far superior and straightforward. Anyone should be able to publicly host the custom game of his choice with a visible title, which will then appear on a public list that anyone can consult after pressing 2 buttons at most. And voilà… With modern features like automated hosting/start and a simple ELO system to keep track of statistics if need be, there would be the possibility to try to build a durable player base.
(b) In this stupid world, getting exposure is far more important than the actual quality of the content, so without some goddamn “hype” from whoever the high priests of SC2 are, well… I didn't pay attention to the development of StarBow, but I read on the wiki page that:
Popularity exploded on January 10th 2014 when the popular YouTube personality and commentator TotalBiscuit released a shoutcasted game between Axiom progamers Ryung and Impact. I mean, everything is said there. It probably barely matters how good mod X or Y is, as long as a big name hasn't sanctified your existence you'll remain an outsider.
Oh well, you can still play mods with friends… Ups, all friends stopped SC2 months/years ago. GG
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The real problem is the community, the players. BW had no matchmaking and still does not have at least none that is completely automatic. It still lived for a long time having also a BGH, Fastest Possible and other custom map playerbases beside from normal BW. Players had no problem with chats and talking/writting to get a game going. To be honest i think it was quite the opposite. The chat and the not existant automatic ladder was the reason for a great community. Nowadays people want to ladder... ladder and ladder even more. They do not care about clanleagues, clans, nationwars etc. As long as the people do not change their mindset, Mods are doomed from the start.
(b) In this stupid world, getting exposure is far more important than the actual quality of the content, so without some goddamn “hype” from whoever the high priests of SC2 are, well… I didn't pay attention to the development of StarBow, but I read on the wiki page that:
Popularity exploded on January 10th 2014 when the popular YouTube personality and commentator TotalBiscuit released a shoutcasted game between Axiom progamers Ryung and Impact.
I mean, everything is said there. It probably barely matters how good mod X or Y is, as long as a big name hasn't sanctified your existence you'll remain an outsider.
This...
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On September 23 2015 10:31 TheDwf wrote: (b) In this stupid world, getting exposure is far more important than the actual quality of the content, so without some goddamn “hype” from whoever the high priests of SC2 are, well… I didn't pay attention to the development of StarBow, but I read on the wiki page that: Show nested quote +Popularity exploded on January 10th 2014 when the popular YouTube personality and commentator TotalBiscuit released a shoutcasted game between Axiom progamers Ryung and Impact. I mean, everything is said there. It probably barely matters how good mod X or Y is, as long as a big name hasn't sanctified your existence you'll remain an outsider. I would think that one and the other go hand in hand. Good quality will increase your chance to get popular. If a popular person endorses your project you get popular, but if the popular person doesnt like your project because of a lack of quality this wont happen ever. On the other hand, popularity brings play testing and feedback which will, in turn, improve the quality.
So right now the biggest problems seem to be the missing match-making / the broken SC2 arcade popularity system and getting popular persons to show case the mod so a broader audience has a chance to see it. Is that correct?
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Fully agree with TheDwf ("and have been saying this needs to change")
The custom/arcade system of finding/hosting games needs a change! Matchmaking is possible but overall I don't think it's as good an option as just being able to host (and advertise) a proper lobby.
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