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Blizzard just recently announced that they are changing the UI and adding more Stats.
The 1.5 patch we released a couple months ago was a major update that included several changes to the menus and the addition of the new Arcade experience. What you might not know is that many of the changes in 1.5 were actually slated to be a part of the Heart of the Swarm expansion. We felt that several features, including Arcade, would be of immediate benefit to players, and decided to release them earlier in the 1.5 patch. Since we weren’t done with the rest of Heart of the Swarm yet, we had to compromise in some areas of the menus to support these features. We weren’t really happy with how this added additional complexity to the menus.
Since then, we’ve continued to work on Heart of the Swarm, and we’ve made some big changes to improve the overall user experience. With the release of the next major Heart of the Swarm beta patch, we'd like to give you an advance look at those changes. These updates will become available to both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players once the expansion is live.
About the Stats
STATS
We’ve heard your desire for more stats, and we couldn’t agree more. With Heart of the Swarm we are adding more stats to help you track your play.
To start, we have included a racial stats tab so you can view your play stats against each race in ranked games.
There’s also now a map stats tab, so you can see how you perform on your most played maps. The new performance tab on the score screen will display your performance against opponents and Battle.net will track your career averages as you play games throughout the season.
And finally, now that we have added unranked play as an option, we’ve returned full stats (including losses) for all leagues back into the profile summary and ladder pages. Players who play competitively on the ladder can now better track their progress regardless of which league they’re in. And those players that would like to enjoy the benefits of matchmaking, but are not interested in the pressure of being ranked can now use the unranked play mode.
Full thread: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/6298733/Heart_of_the_Swarm_-_UI_Update-19_10_2012
Finally our prayers have been answered, we are getting more stats that we need :D, also a new UI improvement does not sound to bad either. As a player who can't get into Masters I really love these changes.
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Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random?
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One day after #SaveHOTS and all this gets implemented. Programming so ez pz.
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On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random?
According to what I've heard it should place you against someone with similar MMR.
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On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random?
it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two.
I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care.
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I won't lie I am kinda excited for this. I can finally look at my win % vs a certain race and know what my worst one is statistically, can look at my map statistics to. About time they add some good features again, hopefully they add a lot more by release like replay sharing, clan support, etc.
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On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care.
and there in lies the problem.
with each new hots beta wave, ive experienced players who literally dont even give a shit about actually testing the hots units, just getting high on ladder as if they playing wol. ive been pool rushed, pylon blocked, and some guy even cannon rush. then of course theres those protoss players that just do the normal 2 base all ins, zergs who have baneling busted me, the list goes on.
anyways, the point is most of those games i just quit instead of wasting of my time, because being unranked, it doesnt matter shit to me regarding a loss. but then those players are ranked, and they get points for me quitting.
so basically the entire ladder will become a clusterfuck and have absolutely zero meaning.
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Still lots of dead space in the main menu. Looks pretty but is it enough?
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Wow that looks amazing...
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Thank god they are finally listening. I hope when Bliz meets with the players like they said on SOTG even better changes happen!
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The win rate vs. race and on specifics maps looks so incredibly helpful... a bit shocking that it took so long for something so easy to put in but I'm just glad we're getting it at all!
Also in the picture with party chat it looks like some of those players have clan tags on them, a not so subtle confirmation that clan support is inbound and most likely they'll officially confirm that in another update.
If they add auto-tourneys and replay sharing all my dreams will have come true!
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"Remember, these are only some of the changes we have coming in Heart of the Swarm. There’s even more to come, so stay tuned for further updates!"
I really hope so.
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There is still far too much null space on the screen. The stats the Party system and all of what you have added are great but you can do a lot more with the screen. Have tournament information on the front page, have a stream tab, integrate things better for a much more smoother experience and not the same thing rehashed and not done well. Add unit information for new players to read counters to units or what they do like a link to Liquipedia. Show new custom games instead of on the launcher that starts the game. There is still a lot to be done.
What I commented on the post
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On October 19 2012 10:48 Mastazaka wrote:
There is still far too much null space on the screen. The stats the Party system and all of what you have added are great but you can do a lot more with the screen. Have tournament information on the front page, have a stream tab, integrate things better for a much more smoother experience and not the same thing rehashed and not done well. Add unit information for new players to read counters to units or what they do like a link to Liquipedia. Show new custom games instead of on the launcher that starts the game. There is still a lot to be done.
What I commented on the post
They said they left so much null space so they COULD make those changes further down the line.
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On October 19 2012 10:49 ShiroKaisen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:48 Mastazaka wrote:
There is still far too much null space on the screen. The stats the Party system and all of what you have added are great but you can do a lot more with the screen. Have tournament information on the front page, have a stream tab, integrate things better for a much more smoother experience and not the same thing rehashed and not done well. Add unit information for new players to read counters to units or what they do like a link to Liquipedia. Show new custom games instead of on the launcher that starts the game. There is still a lot to be done.
What I commented on the post They said they left so much null space so they COULD make those changes further down the line.
I know, I'm just stating what they could do with it.
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Yes! Improvements! See how many people are happy already? The community are your friend Blizzard, we're not trying to screw you over, we want this game to be beautiful just like you do I'm sure. We're trying to help!
Don't stop now Blizzard! You have, and still can create amazing things!
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Wait a second, they changed the order back to 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4.
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So, on the main screen, instead of Kerrigan, give us a big general chat that everyone enters into when they launch the game and, hurray! SC2 becomes a much more social game. Make whatever chat you're in automatically minimize into a window as soon as you leave the initial screen.
I don't know, I just feel that it would help make SC2 become more social overall.
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new GUI looks much more better than 1.5.0 O_O COOL
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On October 19 2012 10:48 Mastazaka wrote:
There is still far too much null space on the screen.
They're leaving it there so that Browder can give you a new PNG of rocks every day, like the Bing splash page of geology
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still need clan support and tournament menu .
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Good Job Blizz you seem to finally be moving in the right direction
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On October 19 2012 10:35 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care. and there in lies the problem. with each new hots beta wave, ive experienced players who literally dont even give a shit about actually testing the hots units, just getting high on ladder as if they playing wol. ive been pool rushed, pylon blocked, and some guy even cannon rush. then of course theres those protoss players that just do the normal 2 base all ins, zergs who have baneling busted me, the list goes on. anyways, the point is most of those games i just quit instead of wasting of my time, because being unranked, it doesnt matter shit to me regarding a loss. but then those players are ranked, and they get points for me quitting. so basically the entire ladder will become a clusterfuck and have absolutely zero meaning.
I don't think you understand beta testing. Circlejerking will all the new units can be fun but its not the whole purpose of the beta. You still have to see their interactions with WoL units/builds. You're probably doing more damage to the beta testing than people using WoL builds....
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The new Main Menu UI looks like Call of Duty. I like it. Simpler, easier.
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Are they sure I can handle being able to see my losses. I might get discouraged and just quit, even though the MMR system pretty much ensures that almost everyone will end up within a few percent of 50-50.......
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Canada13389 Posts
I still really want to see some sort of improved incentive system to simply play the game. For people to stay hooked.
Valve has randomized presents and skin like changes for units.
LoL has champions and IP.
SC2 should have something you can trade in for new portraits or entry fee to a monthly tournament with a prize. Personally, small Team banners or decals placed on your main building would be great. Imagine a small TL horse right on the top of the CC or on the side of the nexus/hatch? Would be pretty cool.
Tiny little graphical flair (much like the CE edition skin for Thor or that battle report HotS Queen) would be nice to get as well.
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Liking the changes so far. Glad that all this is getting added to the game.
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Looks good... But still no clan/team or tournament support.
That worries me.
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They should offer good money to Dakota Fanning and include SC2Gears in SC2, maybe a lite version inside the game showing the most important stuff, and the full version as a separate program that you can launch from SC2 launcher.
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Yes! Finally! Now I can get my hands on some actual numbers!
To be frank, hiding losses was a terrible idea in the first place. It doesn't help with ladder anxiety at all like they wanted it to.
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Wow, either an amazing timing attack or a panic move by Blizz.
Either way I'll take it!
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I like the unranked, mainly because it will promote a ladder where people (hopefully) don't just cheese to victory and it allows for improvement. I am in masters, but it gets old seeing the same boring cheese every game (although every once in awhile you get a good game). Great Changes Blizz!
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Well that's a good start. Keep at it blizz
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On October 19 2012 11:26 shizaep wrote:New main menu screen: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NSssx.jpg) + Show Spoiler [MORE IMAGES] +Here are some pics, should prolly edit them into the OP just for convenience.
wait.
Whats the point of having Arcade and Custom games?
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Did anyone notice that there are levels displayed on each of the portraits?
Is this their division rank or something new?
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^ I think arcade hast mods where as custom games are more 1v1 stuff?
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On October 19 2012 12:00 MasterCynical wrote:wait. Whats the point of having Arcade and Custom games?
I think custom games is like melee games with custom settings, arcade is like "non melee" games. I'm pretty sure WoL has a "custom games" option in the "starcraft" section after patch 1.5 which is used for melee games.
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Omg have they put in clan tag things....
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On October 19 2012 12:00 MasterCynical wrote:wait. Whats the point of having Arcade and Custom games?
Custom games are the melee and team game maps.
Arcade games are all the crazy UMS games.
I think it's a good idea to keep them separate so that serious players won't have to sift through pages of UMS to get to the actual melee maps.
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On October 19 2012 12:03 shizaep wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:00 MasterCynical wrote:On October 19 2012 11:26 shizaep wrote:New main menu screen: + Show Spoiler [MORE IMAGES] +Here are some pics, should prolly edit them into the OP just for convenience. wait. Whats the point of having Arcade and Custom games? I think custom games is like melee games with custom settings, arcade is like "non melee" games. I'm pretty sure WoL has a "custom games" option in the "starcraft" section after patch 1.5 which is used for melee games.
It should be called "Custom Melee". "custom games" and "arcade" in the same list makes it seem very confusing.
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On October 19 2012 12:07 MasterCynical wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:03 shizaep wrote:On October 19 2012 12:00 MasterCynical wrote:On October 19 2012 11:26 shizaep wrote:New main menu screen: + Show Spoiler [MORE IMAGES] +Here are some pics, should prolly edit them into the OP just for convenience. wait. Whats the point of having Arcade and Custom games? I think custom games is like melee games with custom settings, arcade is like "non melee" games. I'm pretty sure WoL has a "custom games" option in the "starcraft" section after patch 1.5 which is used for melee games. It should be called "Custom Melee". "custom games" and "arcade" in the same list makes it seem very confusing.
In the end, it's all just semantics that shouldn't that big of a concern, and I think people will get used to it over time.
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China6330 Posts
What does that number on the portrait do? Looks like some kind of level system to me.
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On October 19 2012 12:07 MasterCynical wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:03 shizaep wrote:On October 19 2012 12:00 MasterCynical wrote:On October 19 2012 11:26 shizaep wrote:New main menu screen: + Show Spoiler [MORE IMAGES] +Here are some pics, should prolly edit them into the OP just for convenience. wait. Whats the point of having Arcade and Custom games? I think custom games is like melee games with custom settings, arcade is like "non melee" games. I'm pretty sure WoL has a "custom games" option in the "starcraft" section after patch 1.5 which is used for melee games. It should be called "Custom Melee". "custom games" and "arcade" in the same list makes it seem very confusing.
It's not just melee in fact. There are unit tester and your recent played games. So calling it melee is also confusing. IDK. Custom Games are inside multiplayer menu in WOL for a reason.
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On October 19 2012 10:35 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care. and there in lies the problem. with each new hots beta wave, ive experienced players who literally dont even give a shit about actually testing the hots units, just getting high on ladder as if they playing wol. ive been pool rushed, pylon blocked, and some guy even cannon rush. then of course theres those protoss players that just do the normal 2 base all ins, zergs who have baneling busted me, the list goes on. anyways, the point is most of those games i just quit instead of wasting of my time, because being unranked, it doesnt matter shit to me regarding a loss. but then those players are ranked, and they get points for me quitting. so basically the entire ladder will become a clusterfuck and have absolutely zero meaning.
I will cheese based on scouting, if I have a opportunity I will take it. Its not a real good test if you are trying to be greedy to get to the mid game point to use new units. The game needs to flow there naturally for a good test.
Otherwise make a custom map that has both sides at 10 minutes in with 2-3 bases.
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well the buttons look prettier but they're no substitute for features and sensible chat windows. At least theres room now should they decide to listen to the feedback this time.
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This is pretty awesome. While originally thought unranked might be a little useless to me, if you have an MMR in unranked, that could be very useful for working out builds or off-racing with out trashing your rank.
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Holy sht.. Blizzard! Good job !
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oh god, yes. this update honestly makes me have faith in humanity, and blizzard, once again. this is a TON of stuff we have been asking for, and I'm really excited to see more new UI. soper pumped for hots now :D blizz is DEFINITELY gona keep delivering.
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Excited about there potentially being a leveling system too!
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I hope they didn't mock this up in paint in a panic at the weeks happenings...
I'm starting to think they may have...
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On October 19 2012 11:32 mtn wrote:
Looks good... But still no clan/team or tournament support.
That worries me.
Not true, see the clan tag in this picture.
![[image loading]](http://bnetcmseu-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/E0INEPTZ2SP91350607870435.jpg?v=0)
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On October 19 2012 12:41 kevinmon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 11:32 mtn wrote:
Looks good... But still no clan/team or tournament support.
That worries me. Not true, see the clan tag in this picture. + Show Spoiler +
I'm sure a blizzard dev have already announced that they are actively working on clan/team support for hots.
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On October 19 2012 12:13 digmouse wrote:
What does that number on the portrait do? Looks like some kind of level system to me.
It might just be division rank, but when Cloaken was asked about it on Reddit, he said:
Coming soon! (like more info next week)
So they might be rewarding players for actually PLAYING, instead of just winning.
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It certainly looks like a huge improvement over what we have right now. It makes a little more sense why the UI for all the non-arcade parts actually got worse with the patch now.
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This is what I'm talking about, now I just want to buy cooler skins for my armies and the my opponent can turn them off in his vision if he doesn't want to see the bad ass ness of my army
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United States7483 Posts
On October 19 2012 10:35 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care. and there in lies the problem. with each new hots beta wave, ive experienced players who literally dont even give a shit about actually testing the hots units, just getting high on ladder as if they playing wol. ive been pool rushed, pylon blocked, and some guy even cannon rush. then of course theres those protoss players that just do the normal 2 base all ins, zergs who have baneling busted me, the list goes on. anyways, the point is most of those games i just quit instead of wasting of my time, because being unranked, it doesnt matter shit to me regarding a loss. but then those players are ranked, and they get points for me quitting. so basically the entire ladder will become a clusterfuck and have absolutely zero meaning.
It's actually a good thing to have players like that in a beta, because you need to match people doing cheesy strategies against people doing heart of the swarm style builds to see how things match up. Let's say you play protoss, ordinarily do a FFE against zerg, and decide to do a 1 gateway expand with a fast mothership core and chronoboosted zealots to defend speedling aggression. If your opponent doesn't do a roach/ling all-in or a baneling bust etc., you'll never know how the mothership core helps in those situations (or doesn't).
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On October 19 2012 12:52 TheLunatic wrote:
This is what I'm talking about, now I just want to buy cooler skins for my armies and the my opponent can turn them off in his vision if he doesn't want to see the bad ass ness of my army
Paid skins and decals that otherwise can drop, akin to TF2's hats would be amazing to get the casual to play more. Doesn't matter if they play customs, arcade, or ladder. Some may be tied to achievements, that would be cool too.
On the UI, I really hope they make use of that negative space that Kerrigan is taking up. Maybe some sort of event calendar or twitch.tv/owned.tv integration.
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A lot of people may like the idea of it but i don't think just dragging a bunch of tired pro gamers to a conference with Dustin and David is the answer. We need a variety of different contributors, from the community to spear head this, not just the pros. We need casual gamers, casters, coaches, sponsors, and especially personalities that are, sort of, all over the spectrum (such as Destiny Day[9], Totalbiscuit or JP) they need to hear all this #SaveHOTS... (strike that, at this point it should be #SaveSC2) stuff from EVERYONE, including the pros, of course, but EVERYONE. Thanks for listening to my rant guys!
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On October 19 2012 12:57 RifleCow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:52 TheLunatic wrote:
This is what I'm talking about, now I just want to buy cooler skins for my armies and the my opponent can turn them off in his vision if he doesn't want to see the bad ass ness of my army Paid skins and decals that otherwise can drop, akin to TF2's hats would be amazing to get the casual to play more. Doesn't matter if they play customs, arcade, or ladder. Some may be tied to achievements, that would be cool too. On the UI, I really hope they make use of that negative space that Kerrigan is taking up. Maybe some sort of event calendar or twitch.tv/owned.tv integration.
Yeah I'd give them a fiver for one of those gundam thors. They've got all those mercenary unit models from the campaign already, sell us those!
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I feel like they wanted to release this info bomb on us with some other stuff but were forced to release these updates right now because of all the hate threads recently. But the updates are looking good =]
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On October 19 2012 12:57 RifleCow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:52 TheLunatic wrote:
This is what I'm talking about, now I just want to buy cooler skins for my armies and the my opponent can turn them off in his vision if he doesn't want to see the bad ass ness of my army Paid skins and decals that otherwise can drop, akin to TF2's hats would be amazing to get the casual to play more. Doesn't matter if they play customs, arcade, or ladder. Some may be tied to achievements, that would be cool too. On the UI, I really hope they make use of that negative space that Kerrigan is taking up. Maybe some sort of event calendar or twitch.tv/owned.tv integration.
Gift boxes that randomly appear on maps, the first to get it has the gift  .
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Russian Federation23 Posts
wow. Its great news. Really. Tnx Blizzard.
now waiting f2p ladders games )
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On October 19 2012 13:23 Seiniyta wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:57 RifleCow wrote:On October 19 2012 12:52 TheLunatic wrote:
This is what I'm talking about, now I just want to buy cooler skins for my armies and the my opponent can turn them off in his vision if he doesn't want to see the bad ass ness of my army Paid skins and decals that otherwise can drop, akin to TF2's hats would be amazing to get the casual to play more. Doesn't matter if they play customs, arcade, or ladder. Some may be tied to achievements, that would be cool too. On the UI, I really hope they make use of that negative space that Kerrigan is taking up. Maybe some sort of event calendar or twitch.tv/owned.tv integration. Gift boxes that randomly appear on maps, the first to get it has the gift .
Only in ranked games  would encourage more laddering and active scouting lol!
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Much more still needs to be fixed and implemented, but this is a start. A very good start. I'm honestly surprised that Blizzard even did this much as far as stats go. It gives me hope that they will do more for HOTS.
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Great that it's happening, and I will be buying HOTS. Just wished that it woulda happened earlier to preserve some more of the lost playerbase 
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This is fantastic. It looks really well done.
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On October 19 2012 12:57 RifleCow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:52 TheLunatic wrote:
This is what I'm talking about, now I just want to buy cooler skins for my armies and the my opponent can turn them off in his vision if he doesn't want to see the bad ass ness of my army Paid skins and decals that otherwise can drop, akin to TF2's hats would be amazing to get the casual to play more. Doesn't matter if they play customs, arcade, or ladder. Some may be tied to achievements, that would be cool too. On the UI, I really hope they make use of that negative space that Kerrigan is taking up. Maybe some sort of event calendar or twitch.tv/owned.tv integration.
A twitch.tv ingratiation would be so sick. Imagine if when you load up the main screen it puts you in a full screen general chat like everyone wants. Then on another tab (just like the tab over to ladder) they have the twitch home page were you can watch streams as if you were on twitch.
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Not enough, Clan support Cross server play, Bnet tournmanets, Better hosting for custom games, Having parties bigger then 2 make a 2 player map and have one automatically go to observer. Really blows my mind that these things were in retail... for WoL
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A step forward! Good job blizzard!
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Amazing changes! Thanks for taking the time to implement this Blizzard.
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I'm so keen for all these changes... having unranked play alongside ranked play sounds like an awesome idea... ladder anxiety can finally go away.. for those days when you're feeling uncompetitive etc
stats too! YES!
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They need to have XvX win rates by map too.
I want to know what maps I play TvZ well on, and what maps I suck at TvZ on. Still very glad to see this implemented.
Like, I know that my TvZ win rate on Ohana when going mech is really good. Playing bio TvZ or marine/tank on ohana, I lose a lot more. Conversely, I know I lose a lot with mech on Condemned Ridge, and go ~50/50 playing bio or marine/tank.
Being able to see win rates vs race by map would be a huge help for me personally. If I see that I struggle with a matchup by map, I can look at what styles I'm playing on the map or how I'm playing the map in general.
Just my thoughts!
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On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random?
It's MMR based and ranked/unranked is the same queue.
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We're getting closer, GJ blizz.
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On October 19 2012 14:48 papaz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? It's MMR based and ranked/unranked is the same queue.
After Excalibur_Z and I had a discussion about this last week, he decided to take the question of how unranked matchmaking works to the source.
Ranked and unranked are the same queue and can be matched against each other. However, there are SEPARATE MMRs for ranked and unranked play. When you first play an unranked match, it will pick up your existing MMR for it, but then if you use your unranked games to try a bunch of risky things that you're not doing in your ranked games and lose a lot of them, you'll play against worse players when unranked.
Hoping Excalibur_Z is cool with me quoting his email exchange with his contact at Blizzard. I'd assume that they wouldn't comment if it weren't OK to make public, however.
Edit: This wasn't a conversation. Excalibur_Z sent a list of questions and these are the answers.
Blizzard: Every player has both a ranked and unranked MMR that changes separately. The initial value of the MMR is copied from whichever one you played as first.
Excalibur_Z: Do players searching "unranked" play against "ranked-queued" players? If so, how does MMR change for each player?
Blizzard: Yes, they play against each other. MMR changes like usual, but each player has a ranked and unranked MMR.
Excalibur_Z: Does MMR ever change for players searching "unranked"? If so, does this MMR value update the player's "ranked" MMR?
Blizzard: Yes, a player's "unranked MMR" changes after every match if they queue unranked. If you queue ranked, your "ranked" MMR changes.
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yay! This is great news. I most excited about the win % vs the races and on maps. I will now see on paper exactly how bad my TvP is
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On October 19 2012 14:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote:
Not enough, Clan support Cross server play, Bnet tournmanets, Better hosting for custom games, Having parties bigger then 2 make a 2 player map and have one automatically go to observer. Really blows my mind that these things were in retail... for WoL
Clan support is already teased in one of the pictures, and it is already confirmed to be on the way.
Global play is also confirmed.
Bnet tournaments is desired but not confirmed despite being in WC3, so you have a point there.
One of Blizzard's community managers already confirmed on Reddit that more info is going to be released next week about more changes. Plus, at least these additions are also planned to be implemented for WoL as well.
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Anyone knows what the number on the bottom left of the profile says?
Also: Awesome job (even though it should have been done like 3 years ago)
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A sign that our whining have been useful. Keep it up we might have a real BW successor one day! :D
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On October 19 2012 15:14 Tppz! wrote:
Anyone knows what the number on the bottom left of the profile says?
Also: Awesome job (even though it should have been done like 3 years ago)
More info to be relased next week 
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Come on gives us army skins we can but pretty please
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i am not sure if i like the fact that you can play ranked against unranked.
think of it.
if all ranked players would win their games against unranked players, because it doesnt moatter to unranked and they would just leave after some minutes, then the ranked payers would all be promoted to masters after some time.
to prevent this, the system has to adjust these wins for the players winning ranked vs non-ranked, making it less valuable.
its not the point here that not every ranked vs unranked game is won by the ranked player, the point is that it could happen and this shows a design flaw. you could adjust it by giving ranked players better opponents from the unranked rooster, but that would lead to frustration, its then only "if he plays serious he will surely kill me with ease, if he is bored and disconnects i have a freewin." people will just ask every game at start if the opponent plays ranked or unranked.
from a mathematical point of view this will screw up the ladder and things will get a bit more random.
i guess they just want to do something, even when its not properly thought through. dont really know though why they're not just separate ranked and unranked. makes absolutely no sense.to me.
it feels like there are people in charge at blizzard that cant think straight.
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On October 19 2012 15:23 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 15:14 Tppz! wrote:
Anyone knows what the number on the bottom left of the profile says?
Also: Awesome job (even though it should have been done like 3 years ago) More info to be relased next week
thanks a lot!
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On October 19 2012 15:30 cari-kira wrote:
if all ranked players would win their games against unranked players, because it doesnt moatter to unranked and they would just leave after some minutes, then the ranked payers would all be promoted to masters after some time.
to prevent this, the system has to adjust these wins for the players winning ranked vs non-ranked, making it less valuable.
...
from a mathematical point of view this will screw up the ladder and things will get a bit more random.
You are assuming, as I have, that overall the MMR rankings of players are, on average, zero-sum (i.e. that a player's lost points for a loss are the same as the points they would have won for a win.)
If that's the case, then yes, unranked players probably will wind up with lower average MMRs than ranked players. However, ranked vs. unranked games will tend to ensure that they are all kept on the same MMR scale, on average.
If you don't have ranked players play unranked players, then the MMRs between the two groups won't be comparable. If you do have ranked vs. unranked matches, the MMRs will, over the long run, be on the same scale. If introducing unranked play makes overall average play quality decrease, then yes, ranked MMRs are likely to increase as a result, but I'm not sure that's certain to be the case.
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On October 19 2012 15:39 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 15:30 cari-kira wrote:
if all ranked players would win their games against unranked players, because it doesnt moatter to unranked and they would just leave after some minutes, then the ranked payers would all be promoted to masters after some time.
to prevent this, the system has to adjust these wins for the players winning ranked vs non-ranked, making it less valuable.
...
from a mathematical point of view this will screw up the ladder and things will get a bit more random. You are assuming, as I have, that overall the MMR rankings of players are, on average, zero-sum (i.e. that a player's lost points for a loss are the same as the points they would have won for a win.) If that's the case, then yes, unranked players probably will wind up with lower average MMRs than ranked players. However, ranked vs. unranked games will tend to ensure that they are all kept on the same MMR scale, on average. If you don't have ranked players play unranked players, then the MMRs between the two groups won't be comparable. If you do have ranked vs. unranked matches, the MMRs will, over the long run, be on the same scale. If introducing unranked play makes overall average play quality decrease, then yes, ranked MMRs are likely to increase as a result, but I'm not sure that's certain to be the case.
i see no problem with complete separate MMRs and matchmaking.
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On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care.
Thx 4 the explanation
You are right with your last argument, although et could also get the other way around some times:
To concquer my ladder fear I will play many try-out games (with random race) in "unranked" mode, so it doesn't hurt rank or MMR.
But moreover I will finally start playing my main race again and try to bring the builds I have to maximum efficency before I ladder again. And these improved standard games will be the big part of the games.
Although I don't think i will not give 100% in every of these games, since they have no consequences. So maybe it could also decrease my skill cause i get lazy or ragequit more.... on the other hand it could mean more players are plaing in a honest way there - because they play because of the fun - not just to allin you to increase their rank. Of course it's part of the game, but u can't tell me making a banelingbust the 20th time a day or a dt rush or a 1-1-1 is so much fun - when u got no variety.
I welcome these changes very much. Especially the Win-Loss ratio comeback. I never figured out why it wasn't at least visible to ME how MY stats are
On October 19 2012 10:35 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care. and there in lies the problem. with each new hots beta wave, ive experienced players who literally dont even give a shit about actually testing the hots units, just getting high on ladder as if they playing wol. ive been pool rushed, pylon blocked, and some guy even cannon rush. then of course theres those protoss players that just do the normal 2 base all ins, zergs who have baneling busted me, the list goes on. anyways, the point is most of those games i just quit instead of wasting of my time, because being unranked, it doesnt matter shit to me regarding a loss. but then those players are ranked, and they get points for me quitting. so basically the entire ladder will become a clusterfuck and have absolutely zero meaning.
Oh you're right. Didn't see it this way yet.
Well true, it will effect the Ladder system, cause I could pull off an Idra and ragequit after one misclick cause i am disappointed that that perfect match from me is now impossible. This would decrease the overall ladder skill.
On the other hand WHEN I am laddering then, I do it with 100% focus and play it to the end.
In worst case scenario this means I get a WO in a lot of games cause players quit, or I get opponents that trained a lot and are clearly better than me... or more cheese? Who knows, we will see
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On October 19 2012 12:46 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 12:13 digmouse wrote:
What does that number on the portrait do? Looks like some kind of level system to me. It might just be division rank, but when Cloaken was asked about it on Reddit, he said: So they might be rewarding players for actually PLAYING, instead of just winning.
that will be awesome but i think what would be even more better is to have your league icon right next to your portrait instead. , some times when i wanna see someone's rank i don't feel like clicking on their profile , its just be cool to see it right then in there and who wouldn't wanna showcase that sexy gold GM star next to their name =)
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Well, this will of course make the game better again. Just hope there comes a little more, like they say. Although i think many things, which they want to implement, will be left out until Legacy of the Void.
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This is great news if you didn't know about SC2Gears but thank you Blizzard, for putting it in especially the return of the losses
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On October 19 2012 11:14 Sirrush wrote:
So, on the main screen, instead of Kerrigan, give us a big general chat that everyone enters into when they launch the game and, hurray! SC2 becomes a much more social game. Make whatever chat you're in automatically minimize into a window as soon as you leave the initial screen.
I don't know, I just feel that it would help make SC2 become more social overall.
huh, i was about to make the exact same post. I absolutely agree.
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A step in the right direction!
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Great to hear they are actually listening to the community on these issues. Might actually pick the game back up with these changes and stop playing so much dota2.
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For everybody watching this from the screenshot we get:
- Clan System (tags in chat)
- Chat moderation? (gear icon next to minimize of chat)
- Leveling system similar to WC3? (levels)
- Bigger Parties
- Additional Information on Replay functionality? (post on reddit)
I hope they fix finally that you can join a 1v1 map with >2 players in a party. They also could use a lot of the white space on the main screen for announcements or other stuff.
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Did anyone notice that they have four people on a 2v2 team?
Either a mistake, or they're allowing you to create larger teams much like WoW arena.
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I love the new interface a lot more than the actual one, but I agree with most ppl in the fact that they should connect you directly to a general channel like in the old bnet.
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I consider this a step into the right direction! Thanks especially for bringing losses back!
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I wonder what the gold and silver/blue frames are on the party portraits in the bottom left of...
this picture
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Good news
I'm very happy about those additions. Sure theres sc2gears, but it's always nice to be less dependant on third party tools.. Hopefully blizz continues like this, much <3 to them for now.
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On October 19 2012 16:47 XenoX101 wrote:
I wonder what the gold and silver/blue frames are on the party portraits in the bottom left of...
this picture
Probably their league.
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Wow! Great news! It looks really great thus far! Like that they are listening somewhat to the community!
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Kerrigan in SC2 is one of the ugliest video game characters of all time. Looks like something from Jersey Shore got infected by zerg.
The UI is a huge step up. Feels irrelevant if the game is bad, though. Hopefully they will listen more to the pro gamers than their own game designers (they aren't very good).
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On October 19 2012 10:35 a176 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 10:27 emc wrote:On October 19 2012 10:25 FinestHour wrote:
Does unranked play have an mmr system so you play against people of your level, or is it random? it's MMR and ranked/unranked are matched against each other, it was confirmed by Blizzard. However, this can change once the game is released because right now, unranked doesn't have enough of a player pool to justify splitting them up in two. I actually like it this way, because then I know exactly the kind of skill level I will be playing when I'm ready to check the box for ranked games. However, there is a chance that a ranked player could be matched with an unranked player and take an easy win because the unranked player just doesn't care. and there in lies the problem. with each new hots beta wave, ive experienced players who literally dont even give a shit about actually testing the hots units, just getting high on ladder as if they playing wol. ive been pool rushed, pylon blocked, and some guy even cannon rush. then of course theres those protoss players that just do the normal 2 base all ins, zergs who have baneling busted me, the list goes on. anyways, the point is most of those games i just quit instead of wasting of my time, because being unranked, it doesnt matter shit to me regarding a loss. but then those players are ranked, and they get points for me quitting. so basically the entire ladder will become a clusterfuck and have absolutely zero meaning.
Why woul dyou test something like units against as random player?
You need a controlled methodological situation to do that.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
What? Stats? Sc2? It's not April 1st?
Wow. Maybe we're finally getting somewhere.
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On October 19 2012 16:27 Narfinger wrote:
I hope they fix finally that you can join a 1v1 map with >2 players in a party.
I second this.
And give us the category "standard ladder maps" when sorting maps for a custom game.
its really difficult to open a custom game on a standard ladder map, especially when you play no a localized client and only know the english map names. and even then there show up 50 different versions of the maps when you search for the names.
actually i cant believe how long it takes for bliz to fix some of these things.
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So basically they changed the whole UI with patch 1.5.0, and that worked out so well they decided to drop it after what, 2 months?
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On October 19 2012 17:19 Z_DartH wrote:
So basically they changed the whole UI with patch 1.5.0, and that worked out so well they decided to drop it after what, 2 months?
Did you even read the bnet post? The changes made in 1.5.0 were going to be made anyway, they just chose to implement it earlier. They did extra work in order for the customer to gain additional benefits. Are you seriously going to question that?
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On October 19 2012 17:19 Z_DartH wrote:
So basically they changed the whole UI with patch 1.5.0, and that worked out so well they decided to drop it after what, 2 months?
Nah a lot of the assets are still there, the graphics are still the new sleeker version and the Arcade is still there, the menus are the main thing they scrapped from the Arcade, but that chopping and changing always happens when UIs are under development.
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On October 19 2012 10:25 SarcasmMonster wrote:
One day after #SaveHOTS and all this gets implemented. Programming so ez pz.
rofl was thinking the exact same thing. blizzard is a international company with about 5 billion $ revenue so they are able to implement whatever they want IF THEY WANT TO. so we have to really keep them pressuring about fixing the things we want to have fixed and they will be able to fix it if they decide to listen to the community.
i think they start to realize in times of LoL and Dota 2 that there are other games out there with lots of fans and that HOTS wont be a superhit just because its the only good game out there and therefore start to listen more and more to peoples suggestions which is awesome.
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On October 19 2012 17:24 Fragile51 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 17:19 Z_DartH wrote:
So basically they changed the whole UI with patch 1.5.0, and that worked out so well they decided to drop it after what, 2 months? Did you even read the bnet post? The changes made in 1.5.0 were going to be made anyway, they just chose to implement it earlier. They did extra work in order for the customer to gain additional benefits. Are you seriously going to question that?
Yes I did read it, I'm talking about aesthetic changes, I'm not arguing about the whole arcade/custom games hub thingy. The thing is, 1.5 changed the whole UI's looks from the original, and now they're changing it again, completely.
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On October 19 2012 17:19 Z_DartH wrote:
So basically they changed the whole UI with patch 1.5.0, and that worked out so well they decided to drop it after what, 2 months?
Their line of thinking was:
"1.5.0 is what we absolutely need in WoL, everything else is what we can save for HotS to make it a better game."
EDIT: Nevermind.
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On October 19 2012 17:34 Z_DartH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 17:24 Fragile51 wrote:On October 19 2012 17:19 Z_DartH wrote:
So basically they changed the whole UI with patch 1.5.0, and that worked out so well they decided to drop it after what, 2 months? Did you even read the bnet post? The changes made in 1.5.0 were going to be made anyway, they just chose to implement it earlier. They did extra work in order for the customer to gain additional benefits. Are you seriously going to question that? Yes I did read it, I'm talking about aesthetic changes, I'm not arguing about the whole arcade/custom games hub thingy. The thing is, 1.5 changed the whole UI's looks from the original, and now they're changing it again, completely.
They didnt "completely" change it, they added some different textures for the buttons and added a bunch of extra screens. That's peanuts as far as programming work goes and could probably be done in a week or less by any team of competent UI programmers. Aesthetic changes are not a big deal.
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This should have been here since day one.
I get the feeling Blizzard are pulling their heads out of their asses and are finally listening to us. I get this feeling from a lot of the other beta changes as well.
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Amazing !! Thanks blizzard :D
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Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction...
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On October 19 2012 17:42 crow_mw wrote:
Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction...
UI guys and gameplay guys work in different teams. You cannot reinnforce the gameplay team with UI guys, and even if you could; adding more manpower doesn't always help to get better or faster results.
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On October 19 2012 17:42 crow_mw wrote:
Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction...
Wait really? People have been begging for this for ages, obviously if it impedes on the total output Blizzard supplies for the new expansion we will get angry, but this is by no means a bad thing.
Blizzard do something which the community is asking for and there are people who still treat it like it's a bad situation...
Grow up!
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You guys are seriously happy about these changes? THEY STILL HAVENT FIXED ANYTHING! Do you guys not remember broodwar? For god sakes even broodwar a 15 year old game had free name changes a friend system and you were able to FIGHT people from any where around the world............ this is nothing... Small changes like this shows how blizzard is in a state of panic, there is really no new content. How bout this, why not make it so you can mod your units change your name when ever you want, why not get points to buy skins and such SO WE ACTUALLY HAVE A reason to play this isnt even hard hard to do, how about being able to change your own UI in map size where the map goes and background such?. Even with those change i listed it wont save the game there has to be so much more work done but they wont put in the time. I dont think the devs even play there own game, its a doomed game.
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On October 19 2012 17:42 crow_mw wrote:
Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction...
They're changing gameplay every damn week.
This is the first meaningful UI change since 1.5.0 (LOL), and it's a huge improvement. In order to keep this game alive, it needs a solid playerbase. The UI is probably more important to fielding and retaining a playerbase than any new unit or gameplay mechanic you could possibly add. Those things are just going to appease the people who are already hooked. Don't get me wrong, I eagerly await every single balance patch, but even I know the implications of a better B.Net.
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On October 19 2012 17:36 Fragile51 wrote:
They didnt "completely" change it, they added some different textures for the buttons and added a bunch of extra screens. That's peanuts as far as programming work goes and could probably be done in a week or less by any team of competent UI programmers. Aesthetic changes are not a big deal.
I think you're judging it from Bliizzard's perspective, or from the technical side anyway. Yes it may not be that difficult to change how it looks, but it has a much bigger impact on the public, even if the programming required is not that difficult.
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On October 19 2012 17:49 Crawdad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 17:42 crow_mw wrote:
Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction... They're changing gameplay every damn week. This is the first meaningful UI change since 1.5.0 (LOL), and it's a huge improvement. In order to keep this game alive, it needs a solid playerbase. The UI is probably more important to fielding and retaining a playerbase than any new unit or gameplay mechanic you could possibly add. Those things are just going to appease the people who are already hooked. Don't get me wrong, I eagerly await every single balance patch, but even I know the implications of a better B.Net.
People are just getting annoyed that Blizzard aren't doing a keep re haul of the game like they did with sc1 broodwar. What people forget is that sc1 was a completely imbalanced game and had to be redone =/
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Canada16217 Posts
Thank you Blizzard, keep it up.
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Maybe I'm just a whiny bitch or something, but for me it feels like
'hey, let's give them this STATS so they forget about clan system and other more important things for few months'
A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career.
Yeah... over all it's a step in right direction, but seriously it feels so lackluster. It's not even thread worthy.
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Stats just make me happy!!!
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Oh sweet UI! Minimalistic, sleek and without all the fluff <3
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On October 19 2012 18:08 DrGreen wrote:
Maybe I'm just a whiny bitch or something, but for me it feels like
'hey, let's give them this STATS so they forget about clan system and other more important things for few months'
A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career.
Yeah... over all it's a step in right direction, but seriously it feels so lackluster. It's not even thread worthy.
These things are all steps of the big picture, but you should know that Blizzard won't release something unless it's (nearly) finished. Patience... all you need.
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On October 19 2012 18:14 Aelonius wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 18:08 DrGreen wrote:
Maybe I'm just a whiny bitch or something, but for me it feels like
'hey, let's give them this STATS so they forget about clan system and other more important things for few months'
A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career.
Yeah... over all it's a step in right direction, but seriously it feels so lackluster. It's not even thread worthy. These things are all steps of the big picture, but you should know that Blizzard won't release something unless it's (nearly) finished. Patience... all you need.
But the sole fact that they make a big announcement (or a blog post) about a minor UI change is worrisome. Changes like this should be just silently implemented in patches. We need a major updates, LAN, replay watching with friends, cross-region play, clan and tournament system. Not 2 win rate 'stats'.
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On October 19 2012 18:08 DrGreen wrote:
Maybe I'm just a whiny bitch or something, but for me it feels like
'hey, let's give them this STATS so they forget about clan system and other more important things for few months'
A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career.
Yeah... over all it's a step in right direction, but seriously it feels so lackluster. It's not even thread worthy.
Look at the pictures, you'll notice a certain clan tag in a couple of them
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I want to know what that general chat button does? I guess you just... join the general chat? Also, I think it's pretty much ok now, you just open a chat channel, move the window and resize it to cover kerrigan and that's it, when you log in you see the chat window, they've pretty much addressed that issue
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No wonder everybody is playing LoL
Blizzard is too far from the community and that is their problem. Pure greed,
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Good changes, but around 2 years later than they should have been made. Still, here's hoping that they build on this moving forward in the beta.
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On October 19 2012 18:25 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 18:08 DrGreen wrote:
Maybe I'm just a whiny bitch or something, but for me it feels like
'hey, let's give them this STATS so they forget about clan system and other more important things for few months'
A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career.
Yeah... over all it's a step in right direction, but seriously it feels so lackluster. It's not even thread worthy. Look at the pictures, you'll notice a certain clan tag in a couple of them
Where? All I can see is a league-colored border with a rank in your division
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On October 19 2012 17:42 crow_mw wrote:
Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction...
TIL only 3 people work on hots
david kim, browder, and the intern who gets them both coffee. Surely they don't have a bunch of teams comprised of a bunch of people working on individual aspects of the game, that would cost fortunes!
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On October 19 2012 18:48 Fragile51 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 17:42 crow_mw wrote:
Wow, this is terrible news. Instead of working on the actual gameplay they introduce changes to UI and winrate statistics. What is even worse is that the community reply is six pages of people cheerfully congratulating Blizzard and claiming that things are heading the right direction... TIL only 3 people work on hots david kim, browder, and the intern who gets them both coffee. Surely they don't have a bunch of teams comprised of a bunch of people working on individual aspects of the game, that would cost fortunes!
Just wondering what those different teams did through the last 2 years? DB and DK did well enough on balance and rocks, but all the other teams?
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You guys are seriously happy about these changes? THEY STILL HAVENT FIXED ANYTHING! Do you guys not remember broodwar? For god sakes even broodwar a 15 year old game had free name changes a friend system and you were able to FIGHT people from any where around the world............ this is nothing... Small changes like this shows how blizzard is in a state of panic, there is really no new content. How bout this, why not make it so you can mod your units change your name when ever you want, why not get points to buy skins and such SO WE ACTUALLY HAVE A reason to play this isnt even hard hard to do, how about being able to change your own UI in map size where the map goes and background such?. Even with those change i listed it wont save the game there has to be so much more work done but they wont put in the time. I dont think the devs even play there own game, its a doomed game.
Treat SC2 as a game, not as successor to BW. Comparing something to a similar product which was released 15 years ago is not the way to go, there are many factors that were not present then.
I am pretty sure that blizzard is not at all in a state of panic. They are doing just fine.
Name change seems pretty pointless to me, as long as you don´t have problems with your identity, you should be able to do fine with just one name. Clan tags on the other hand would surely be an improvement, mainly to top tier players where the clan acutally matters.
I don´t understand what you are trying to say regarding "change your own UI in map size where the map goes and background such?"...
A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career.
A lot of players, a lot of games, a lot of numbers. Of course you can come up with a lot of useless stats, but they mostly don´t matter. Knowing that you are the guy who built the most drones in the world, doesnt make you a good player. If you are really interested in that kind of stuff, just load up sc2gears and enjoy.
No wonder everybody is playing LoL
Blizzard is too far from the community and that is their problem. Pure greed,
Just no. Blizzard is not too far from the community. The community thinks, it has to be closer to blizzard, which is wrong in my opinion. If you are ordering food at a restaurant, you assume that the chef knows his job, you don´t go into the kitchen, look at what he is doing and tell him what you would do different if you were the chef.
Let blizzard do it´s job and do your own part, which is _playing_ the game... not thinking about your gosu ideas regarding interface improvements. If you don´t feel "social" due to interface problems, you are doing something wrong.
Overall, good changes imho.
Now to contradict my statement above:
+ Show Spoiler +Gosu idea: Map selection and enemy race selection for unranked games, just for convenience if your practice buddies are not available.
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On October 19 2012 18:54 myk3 wrote:Show nested quote +You guys are seriously happy about these changes? THEY STILL HAVENT FIXED ANYTHING! Do you guys not remember broodwar? For god sakes even broodwar a 15 year old game had free name changes a friend system and you were able to FIGHT people from any where around the world............ this is nothing... Small changes like this shows how blizzard is in a state of panic, there is really no new content. How bout this, why not make it so you can mod your units change your name when ever you want, why not get points to buy skins and such SO WE ACTUALLY HAVE A reason to play this isnt even hard hard to do, how about being able to change your own UI in map size where the map goes and background such?. Even with those change i listed it wont save the game there has to be so much more work done but they wont put in the time. I dont think the devs even play there own game, its a doomed game. Treat SC2 as a game, not as successor to BW. Comparing something to a similar product which was released 15 years ago is not the way to go, there are many factors that were not present then. I am pretty sure that blizzard is not at all in a state of panic. They are doing just fine. Name change seems pretty pointless to me, as long as you don´t have problems with your identity, you should be able to do fine with just one name. Clan tags on the other hand would surely be an improvement, mainly to top tier players where the clan acutally matters. I don´t understand what you are trying to say regarding "change your own UI in map size where the map goes and background such?"... Show nested quote +A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career. A lot of players, a lot of games, a lot of numbers. Of course you can come up with a lot of useless stats, but they mostly don´t matter. Knowing that you are the guy who built the most drones in the world, doesnt make you a good player. If you are really interested in that kind of stuff, just load up sc2gears and enjoy. Show nested quote +No wonder everybody is playing LoL
Blizzard is too far from the community and that is their problem. Pure greed, Just no. Blizzard is not too far from the community. The community thinks, it has to be closer to blizzard, which is wrong in my opinion. If you are ordering food at a restaurant, you assume that the chef knows his job, you don´t go into the kitchen, look at what he is doing and tell him what you would do different if you were the chef. Let blizzard do it´s job and do your own part, which is _playing_ the game... not thinking about your gosu ideas regarding interface improvements. If you don´t feel "social" due to interface problems, you are doing something wrong. Overall, good changes imho. Now to contradict my statement above: + Show Spoiler +Gosu idea: Map selection and enemy race selection for unranked games, just for convenience if your practice buddies are not available.
For gods sake read before you actually comment, we are talking about the service Battle.Net and not the actual game. And I won't even talk about the rest of your post since its.... not really.. I mean you say that he can't compare SC:BW with SC2 (which again, we aren't since we are talking about Battle.Net) but at the same time you think its okay to compare this to a fast food restaurant? Holy shit dude, at least follow your own logic that you impose on other people while debating.
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On October 19 2012 18:54 myk3 wrote:Show nested quote +A win ratio per MU and maps? Is that really all stats they could come up with? There is so much potential here, like tracking APM, unspent money, even worker lost per game or how many units have you killed/produced in your career. A lot of players, a lot of games, a lot of numbers. Of course you can come up with a lot of useless stats, but they mostly don´t matter. Knowing that you are the guy who built the most drones in the world, doesnt make you a good player. If you are really interested in that kind of stuff, just load up sc2gears and enjoy. ... Now to contradict my statement above: + Show Spoiler +Gosu idea: Map selection and enemy race selection for unranked games, just for convenience if your practice buddies are not available.
That's the whole point! Casual players love useless stats. A lot of sc2gears features should be in game as a default features.
All those upcoming 'soon' changes make the game what it should be a long time ago, we need way more to bring and keep people in game. Yes, that's a good start, but in that pace we will get to it when it's already too late. HotS needs MORE.
If HotS isn't a success than LotV is doomed as well.
And yes, choosing race for unranked is a good idea.
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For gods sake read before you actually comment, we are talking about the service Battle.Net and not the actual game. And I won't even talk about the rest of your post since its.... not really.. I mean you say that he can't compare SC:BW with SC2 (which again, we aren't since we are talking about Battle.Net) but at the same time you think its okay to compare this to a fast food restaurant? Holy shit dude, at least follow your own logic that you impose on other people while debating.
I did read.
Since sc2 and battle.net are connected in a way that doesn´t allow sc2 to exist on its own, talking about bnet ui and sc2 for me are the same thing. I never said anything about the actual gameplay, I was just commenting on interface changes and stated my opinion regarding importance of certain changes/improvements.
I dont know where you got the "fast", and I don´t know why you chose the least meaningful part of the post to criticize my statement. Actually you missed all the points I made in your response.
Sorry about my food analogy. I just like food and I don´t think it takes <insert number of esports fans> cooks (guys with some ideas) to boil an egg (develop a game).
+ Show Spoiler +Edit: It just struck me that I fell for a troll. Bad, bad, me. ^^
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I personally love the new UI update! I think it makes the game look neat and tidy and I'm all for that. Anything which is more user accessible automatically is given the thumbs up by me. I know how frustrating games can be with UIs which just loop everywhere and are poorly designed. It reflects badly on the game.
So, to sum up, I'm really looking forward to the changes! AND STATS OMG!! :D
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I still don't get why this wasn't there from the start... It's basically the same now as it was in wc3.
But: Yeah, it looks much better than now.
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On October 19 2012 11:14 Sirrush wrote:
So, on the main screen, instead of Kerrigan, give us a big general chat that everyone enters into when they launch the game and, hurray! SC2 becomes a much more social game. Make whatever chat you're in automatically minimize into a window as soon as you leave the initial screen.
I don't know, I just feel that it would help make SC2 become more social overall.
I agree. How a game treats noobs is VITAL to a sense of community. In BW, I was a total noob but it didnt matter cos when I loaded it up I was instantly talking to fellow noobs and more experienced players alike.
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lol @ people think the #savehots thing is what triggered this. chances are this was already in development and would've been revealed with the next beta patch release anyways, but the #savehots thing probably just pressured their PR team to beg the devs to throw them a bone to release to help. Features like this don't just pop up out of their assholes because 1 day of 'omg sc2 esports is dying' creeped up in reddit.
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It's getting there ! It just shows that blizzard was well aware of all the complain highlighted the past days. I really hope they implement replay sharing and all the changes they promised (cross server play amongst other) for the extension soon.
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On October 19 2012 19:27 Hubble wrote:
I still don't get why this wasn't there from the start... It's basically the same now as it was in wc3.
But: Yeah, it looks much better than now.
they rebuilt the entire platform from scratch on a new framework. people can hate on battle 2.0 (0.2 by haters), but from a development standpoint it wasn't like they could just copy/paste code from bnet 1.0 into bnet 2.0 and be done with it. Realize that part of the complexity of battle.net 2.0 was the universal profile they created with it, allow you to link up all of your friends lists across all bnet 2.0 games (wow first, then sc2, then d3, and moving forward). This also allowed them to slowly integrate their consumer base into their cloud platform, which would eventually lead to things like the RMAH, easy digital downloads of WoW:MoP, and ultimately their early stated goal for the sc2 arcade, a means for map makers and custom game creators, to get repaid at least somewhat for their hardwork.
yes battle.net 1.0 had features battle.net 2.0 didn't have, but 2.0 had tons of shit 1.0 didn't have either, it's just people gloss over them because they don't look at it from the larger picture the way blizz had to.
I am glad they're implementing more stuff, and are continuing to work hard to make more changes. Blizzard has been hiring for their battle.net team at a rapid rate (i know, i applied and interviewed and they told briefly told me about their staffing goals), so don't think for a second that blizzard has given up on its games, or that it's just letting esports die. This is all just chaos speak from people who thrive on the chaos and hysteria more than those who genuinely care about the community and the further development of the game.
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Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago.
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On October 19 2012 20:05 Kazeyonoma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 19:27 Hubble wrote:
I still don't get why this wasn't there from the start... It's basically the same now as it was in wc3.
But: Yeah, it looks much better than now. they rebuilt the entire platform from scratch on a new framework. people can hate on battle 2.0 (0.2 by haters), but from a development standpoint it wasn't like they could just copy/paste code from bnet 1.0 into bnet 2.0 and be done with it. Realize that part of the complexity of battle.net 2.0 was the universal profile they created with it, allow you to link up all of your friends lists across all bnet 2.0 games (wow first, then sc2, then d3, and moving forward). This also allowed them to slowly integrate their consumer base into their cloud platform, which would eventually lead to things like the RMAH, easy digital downloads of WoW:MoP, and ultimately their early stated goal for the sc2 arcade, a means for map makers and custom game creators, to get repaid at least somewhat for their hardwork.
No one gives it shit about 99% of these things. They aren't needed.
Cross game chat is pretty much the only good thing to come out of it.
Digital download via B.net account? WTF. Seriously? Because, the most important thing is how the game is installed. Because, Blizzard invented digital downloads.
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I've think I'll ladder more hots now compared to how much wol I've laddered. Not a day too late.
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Looks like a real step forward. Hell it's about time though
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Finally they got rid of the 4:3 window that everything is currently shoved in.
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On October 19 2012 18:54 myk3 wrote:If you don´t feel "social" due to interface problems, you are doing something wrong.
That is so, so, so incorrect.
An interface has to do more than just make an activity possible. It has to communicate the intended functionality of the device to the user.
When WoL fires up, it screams 'single player'. The screen is dominated by campaign art, whilst multiplayer and social components are buried in the corners or behind multiple mouse clicks. When I finally figure out I need to click on 'StarCraft' to achieve anything, I get a bunch of equal-sized buttons with pretty but kind of meaningless artwork.
I'm reserving judgement on the new interface until I get my hands on it, but here's the kind of thinking I'd apply if I were designing it (this is a starting point only, so I'm not being too picky):
Front page would have three prominent buttons along the bottom labelled Watch, Play, and Compete, plus a large chat window that defaults to a 'Welcome to StarCraft' channel when you first run, and a 'community news' panel.
Watch would bring up a page with a live stream (ideally a tournament) and a selection of other live streams to choose from (maybe some kind of 'gold tier' subscription to have a stream associated with your account and featured). Since Blizzard know what race you're playing and which league you're in, it's easy for them to filter the streams according to what the user wants to watch.
Play would take you to another screen where you can start the campaign, go for unranked quick matches in the popular formats, as well as setting up custom games with your friends and sampling the Arcade.
Compete would take you to the Ladder and Tournament page where you do everything from 1v1 ladder to enter automated tournaments to win Blizzard dollars.
This is just an outline of course, but it tells the user loud and clear: Here are the ways you can enjoy Starcraft: you can watch it, you can play casually, you can compete, and you can chat with other fans of the game.
As an aside, never underestimate the power of embarrassment. In tests, most people will sit in a room with smoke billowing under the door and do absolutely nothing if there are stooges in the room who have been instructed to ignore it. Such is the fear of doing something wrong in public. Tacitly giving people permission to watch SC2 by giving it equal prominence in the UI would do a lot to shake off the impression that watching people game is something nerdy and socially unacceptable.
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On October 19 2012 20:00 Kazeyonoma wrote:
lol @ people think the #savehots thing is what triggered this. chances are this was already in development and would've been revealed with the next beta patch release anyways, but the #savehots thing probably just pressured their PR team to beg the devs to throw them a bone to release to help. Features like this don't just pop up out of their assholes because 1 day of 'omg sc2 esports is dying' creeped up in reddit.
you mean they didn`t redo the entire UI in one day?
Also I agree entirely with your other post regarding the development time required. People always complain about not having everything without realizing it takes quite a bit of time to get these things implemented, tested and approved. It is not like Blizzard is completely ignoring some features but rather there were other things of higher priority that needed to be done. I wish people would be a little more patient with things.
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still no clan-system?
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To start, we have included a racial stats tab so you can view your play stats against each race in ranked games.
i almost can not believe my eyes
finaly
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On October 19 2012 21:03 Gipetto wrote:still no clan-system?
Screenshots suggest there is one.
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On October 19 2012 21:03 Gipetto wrote:still no clan-system?
That's one of the features coming in HoTS
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On October 19 2012 20:00 Kazeyonoma wrote:
lol @ people think the #savehots thing is what triggered this. chances are this was already in development and would've been revealed with the next beta patch release anyways, but the #savehots thing probably just pressured their PR team to beg the devs to throw them a bone to release to help. Features like this don't just pop up out of their assholes because 1 day of 'omg sc2 esports is dying' creeped up in reddit.
Hah, beat me to posting this. They announced -all- of these changes months ago, and there remains several changes they announced that are still to come. The bnet forums have been railed by these same suggestions for the past two years. No one has really said anything new in these apocalyptic depictions of SC2's future.
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On October 19 2012 21:14 Umpteen wrote:Screenshots suggest there is one.
Please show me where, cause I see no such thing.
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Last Screenshot, look at the names. They have standard "clan tag"-like names "[ZED] Sarah Schutz".
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On October 19 2012 21:29 Narfinger wrote:
Last Screenshot, look at the names. They have standard "clan tag"-like names "[ZED] Sarah Schutz".
[ZED] is a nickname - Blizzard guys can have characters like [*&^ etc in names, Sarah Schutz is real ID
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Oh my god. These changes are fucking orgasmic.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Please move MENU button to the left corner and bring back clocks! So we will have an imitation of OS
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This is a step in the right direction. Hope they keep it up and continue improving the bnet UI <3
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On October 19 2012 21:39 DrGreen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 21:29 Narfinger wrote:
Last Screenshot, look at the names. They have standard "clan tag"-like names "[ZED] Sarah Schutz". [ZED] is a nickname - Blizzard guys can have characters like [*&^ etc in names, Sarah Schutz is real ID
Well the same argument does not hold some place down with: "[Act2] jackson". And notice that all are marked as ready for some game where ZED is still downloading the map. This looks like clan tags for me.
Oh and Sarah Schutz is the one who made the screenshot. Does current BNet show your nickname in the chat?
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On October 19 2012 21:39 DrGreen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 21:29 Narfinger wrote:
Last Screenshot, look at the names. They have standard "clan tag"-like names "[ZED] Sarah Schutz". [ZED] is a nickname - Blizzard guys can have characters like [*&^ etc in names, Sarah Schutz is real ID
So what about [act2] jackson?
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why are those features costing 59.99 when I wouldve expected them to be included with the launch of WOL in 2010??
why??
WHYYYYYYY???
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On October 19 2012 22:13 Kevin_Sorbo wrote:
why are those features costing 59.99 when I wouldve expected them to be included with the launch of WOL in 2010??
why??
WHYYYYYYY???
Because they cost you 0$. Read the article: "These updates will become available to both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players once the expansion is live."
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miles better than the 1.5 changes, but still leaves something to be desired
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On October 19 2012 22:13 Kevin_Sorbo wrote:
why are those features costing 59.99 when I wouldve expected them to be included with the launch of WOL in 2010??
why??
WHYYYYYYY???
Why do you take the effort to pull random numbers out of your ass (59,99 for an expansion pack? seriously?) and then not even read the fucking post? It's coming to WoL. In fact, i'd say that this is going to be the new WoL interface come launch of HOTS, because i think the HOTS interface will definitely have a different color scheme.
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On October 19 2012 20:20 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 20:05 Kazeyonoma wrote:On October 19 2012 19:27 Hubble wrote:
I still don't get why this wasn't there from the start... It's basically the same now as it was in wc3.
But: Yeah, it looks much better than now. they rebuilt the entire platform from scratch on a new framework. people can hate on battle 2.0 (0.2 by haters), but from a development standpoint it wasn't like they could just copy/paste code from bnet 1.0 into bnet 2.0 and be done with it. Realize that part of the complexity of battle.net 2.0 was the universal profile they created with it, allow you to link up all of your friends lists across all bnet 2.0 games (wow first, then sc2, then d3, and moving forward). This also allowed them to slowly integrate their consumer base into their cloud platform, which would eventually lead to things like the RMAH, easy digital downloads of WoW:MoP, and ultimately their early stated goal for the sc2 arcade, a means for map makers and custom game creators, to get repaid at least somewhat for their hardwork. No one gives it shit about 99% of these things. They aren't needed. I give a shit about most things. Your argument is invalid.
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On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago.
That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things.
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On October 19 2012 22:15 Narfinger wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 22:13 Kevin_Sorbo wrote:
why are those features costing 59.99 when I wouldve expected them to be included with the launch of WOL in 2010??
why??
WHYYYYYYY???
Because they cost you 0$. Read the article: "These updates will become available to both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players once the expansion is live."
Even though it will be free with Wings of Liberty everyone will just have hots by then. Honestly, if its close to finish already, why wait for the hots release to give these features to the community.
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On October 19 2012 22:55 PhoenixLight wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 22:15 Narfinger wrote:On October 19 2012 22:13 Kevin_Sorbo wrote:
why are those features costing 59.99 when I wouldve expected them to be included with the launch of WOL in 2010??
why??
WHYYYYYYY???
Because they cost you 0$. Read the article: "These updates will become available to both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players once the expansion is live." Even though it will be free with Wings of Liberty everyone will just have hots by then. Honestly, if its close to finish already, why wait for the hots release to give these features to the community.
They probably want all the new stuff beta tested before it's final.
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On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things.
LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems.
What did SC2 get?
A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook.
The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in.
Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired?
Why is it so shit?
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On October 19 2012 22:57 SarcasmMonster wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 22:55 PhoenixLight wrote:On October 19 2012 22:15 Narfinger wrote:On October 19 2012 22:13 Kevin_Sorbo wrote:
why are those features costing 59.99 when I wouldve expected them to be included with the launch of WOL in 2010??
why??
WHYYYYYYY???
Because they cost you 0$. Read the article: "These updates will become available to both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players once the expansion is live." Even though it will be free with Wings of Liberty everyone will just have hots by then. Honestly, if its close to finish already, why wait for the hots release to give these features to the community. They probably want all the new stuff beta tested before it's final.
It's just weird that fixes to Wings of Liberty UI are finally address when it will probably no longer be relevant. Seems like it's more of poor scheduling or laziness than the need for more time testing.
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I'm happy with the direction they are going in, more stats makes me want to play more!
Although, I keep having issues with my language pack even where I have an EU and US installation of the game.
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On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things.
spare us the bullshit please. It's a company with deadlines and with competition. DOTA2 manages everthing just fine and has a 1000 times better UI. If they can, blizzard (another multimillion company) should be able to as well.
The changes look great and I commend them for that, but I won't be satisfied or happy till the moment we have stuff like streams in game,...
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Yesss, they are getting closer to Warcraft 3 level BattleNet :D
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The reason I think League of Legends keeps players playing: because every 2-3 weeks something new is released such as a new Champion. Also, every 2-3 weeks there is a balance patch, fixing and making the game more balanced (or completely fucking up a viability of a champion)
People want new things constantly, and it's going to be hard to keep a player base without patches every so often and new units/features every so often. I mean from the Starcraft 2 standpoint we can say new strategies come out, but for a player like me who cannot execute a strategy perfectly, it just does not appeal. Like how damn long does it take to fix a simple unit (carrier?). I mean people can say it took a few years to get the Champion Evelynn to be viable, but at least Riot got around to fixing this champion instead of leaving it in the dust like Blizzard did to the Carrier. (Why even transfer the unit from SC1 then?)
I think Starcraft 2 would be more interesting if they had objectives in the game, such as if you capture a Generator Field, it increases the income you get from minerals. Leading people to fight over the Generator Field instead of first to destroy each others buildings, I mean that is still the main goal of the game, but have other goals of the game as well.
In League of Legends people can turtle all day to protect their base, or people can force team fights over objectives such as Dragon, Baron and even Turrets. I just think it would be interesting to have other things to fight over, I know there is Xel'Naga watch towers to fight over, but adding even more would bring interesting concepts and strategies to the game.
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really like it, but get rid of these Buttons and get something like this green circle ( on the right cheek).
For WOL it's blue and for HOTS purple. As you hover over it with your mouse it will display different options like Ranked, Arcade and so on.
If you then leave with your mouse, it will turn back to the circle.
And also reduce the size of the letters in the chat. A lot of people can fill those small windows way to quickly.
And to help socialising open the standart chat channel automatically in the right botton corner (disable in menu if you desire) so everyone sees some other players as they log in, as it was the case in WC3 and BW.
On October 19 2012 23:54 skrzmark wrote:
I think Starcraft 2 would be more interesting if they had objectives in the game, such as if you capture a Generator Field, it increases the income you get from minerals. Leading people to fight over the Generator Field instead of first to destroy each others buildings, I mean that is still the main goal of the game, but have other goals of the game as well.
In League of Legends people can turtle all day to protect their base, or people can force team fights over objectives such as Dragon, Baron and even Turrets. I just think it would be interesting to have other things to fight over, I know there is Xel'Naga watch towers to fight over, but adding even more would bring interesting concepts and strategies to the game.
This is the reason, why Company of Heroes is so popular and recieved these good reviews
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I think one really cool feature Blizzard could add is a reward system to encourage better play that isn't directly connected to winning.
For instance, there could be 'grindy' long-term reward systems for:
- Building workers
- Taking expansions
- Researching upgrades
The list is more or less endless, and I get the funny feeling a lot of people who struggle to remember to build probes and pylons when they're trying to win would probably remember a lot better if they were trying to earn some sort of trinket or customisation reward.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On October 20 2012 00:57 Umpteen wrote:
I think one really cool feature Blizzard could add is a reward system to encourage better play that isn't directly connected to winning.
For instance, there could be 'grindy' long-term reward systems for:
- Building workers
- Taking expansions
- Researching upgrades
The list is more or less endless, and I get the funny feeling a lot of people who struggle to remember to build probes and pylons when they're trying to win would probably remember a lot better if they were trying to earn some sort of trinket or customisation reward.
Great idea, but they will never do that, maximum is new achievement progress, or something similar.
But again, it can be great, if we will see Challenge throughout big number of multiplayer matches.
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finallly!! this is actually amazing. glad they listened! (after however long...)
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what's up with all the random hate in the blizzard comments with people screaming for free name changes and other random crap? reminds me why I always steer clear of official blizzard forums. what a god awful place.
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On October 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things. LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems. What did SC2 get? A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook. The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in. Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired? Why is it so shit?
This is exactly the type of post I don't understand. Either people don't play the other games they praise or they hold SC2/Blizzard to a much higher standard for some reason.
LoL? Have you even played that game? It's a fun game and I enjoy playing it... but comon from a technical standpoint it's complete garbage. The launcher is terrible with numerous bugs (both display and functional) and issues since beta. There are bugs in the client that affect gameplay that go untouched for months/years. The servers constantly have issues affecting both normal players and tournaments from playing the game. The chat constantly goes down... etc. etc.
DotA has very good system, no argument there.
WC3, how is it so much better than SC2 outside of the automated tournaments and clan system? It's not.
WoW... what? What 'online system' are you even talking about? It has a chat box and a friends list.
And more on topic, these changes look really nice. Definitely thought 1.5.0 had a temporary feel to it.
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On October 19 2012 10:56 LOLItsRyann wrote:
Yes! Improvements! See how many people are happy already? The community are your friend Blizzard, we're not trying to screw you over, we want this game to be beautiful just like you do I'm sure. We're trying to help!
Don't stop now Blizzard! You have, and still can create amazing things!
Basically this ^
No reason for blizzard to stop and leave it the way it is. For instance they should be looking at LAN despite it being unlikely, but little changes like this will keep the community happy and the game will grow again.
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so awesome used to track my stats with the Excelsheet that is out there on TL for about 2 months.
A unique ranking for evry race would be uber awesome so u could be like Diamond Terran Plat Zerg and Masters Toss this would also encourage people to play different races competitively.
But I'm completly happy with what they did i know u could always ask for more.....
Am I Mistaken or did Blizz also say they would enable global play for HOTS so u could create an NA or KR account with ur existing EU acc for example?
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On October 20 2012 01:32 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things. LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems. What did SC2 get? A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook. The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in. Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired? Why is it so shit? This is exactly the type of post I don't understand. Either people don't play the other games they praise or they hold SC2/Blizzard to a much higher standard for some reason. LoL? Have you even played that game? It's a fun game and I enjoy playing it... but comon from a technical standpoint it's complete garbage. The launcher is terrible with numerous bugs (both display and functional) and issues since beta. There are bugs in the client that affect gameplay that go untouched for months/years. The servers constantly have issues affecting both normal players and tournaments from playing the game. The chat constantly goes down... etc. etc. DotA has very good system, no argument there. WC3, how is it so much better than SC2 outside of the automated tournaments and clan system? It's not. WoW... what? What 'online system' are you even talking about? It has a chat box and a friends list. And more on topic, these changes look really nice. Definitely thought 1.5.0 had a temporary feel to it.
I don't know about LoL. I don't play it. But I hear a lot of good and positive things about it. I have a lot of experience with the others.
Dota 2 has some pretty amazing features, like being able to jump in to watch games live, being able to search any replay, being able to stream live tournaments with commentary in the client, being able to reconnect to a game, etc.
WC3 has a global ladder, lots of stats, clans and automated tournaments, it has /slash commands. WoW has the most advanced and customizable chat interface in any game, it has amazingly detailed character profiles and statistics.
And what does SC2 have? Absolutely nothing new, except Facebook. Features were removed, and now, after more than 2 years, they're slowly being added back in. In SC2, you can't even /whisper.
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On October 20 2012 01:43 CarlosOmse wrote:
so awesome used to track my stats with the Excelsheet that is out there on TL for about 2 months.
A unique ranking for evry race would be uber awesome so u could be like Diamond Terran Plat Zerg and Masters Toss this would also encourage people to play different races competitively.
But I'm completly happy with what they did i know u could always ask for more.....
Am I Mistaken or did Blizz also say they would enable global play for HOTS so u could create an NA or KR account with ur existing EU acc for example?
I like your idea,and for most of the people do,but I would wish even more: Three differente ladder for each race is OK.It would be better if we could choose our MUs
.Imagine custom game where you can choose which Lobby to enter: TvP,ZvP or TvT? It will be really good tool for training.Nowadays if you wanna play 20 PvTs in row you must hope for custom games and to have luck to find only the enemy you are looking for.Not only that:you must hope,if you are Gold,to find someone not much worse or better than you such as another Gold or Platinum.Blizzard could divide the custom games in kind of MUs and divisions.There can be the Gold Lobby,the Diamond lobby and everyone divided in PvT,PvZ,TvT...
The actual Lobby is pretty bad.IF you enter and want to face Protoss,but there is Terran,the only way to quit in "Logoff".How is this possible?Why no "quit" button"?And why only 10s wait time?There wasnt time in BW.You enter,chat and start game when the "Host" decides.Why do they change this for SC2???
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cant really load site at work, but can you do race and map? Or just either or? I think Race and Map is very important too.
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On October 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things. LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems. What did SC2 get? A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook. The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in. Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired?
A couple things:
1) Greg Canessa did not get fired. He's now the head of mobile platform development for Activision.
2) Everything that [F_]aths said is exactly right. However, Battle.net 2.0 definitely had some significant project management problems.
The decision to design and implement what we ended up getting for Battle.net 2.0 for SC2 probably came later than it should have. The original software team for the unannounced MMO project got pulled off that around the end of 2009 to go into immediate crunch time to implement the first version of Battle.net 2.0. They threw what released with the game together in a very short period of time, starting from basically zero. Because of this accelerated schedule, a lot of desired features got cut or delayed to be able to arrive at a stable UI that allowed people to play the game.
Then, of course, while work on the UI has certainly proceeded, since the game was released, the Battle.net 2.0 team was drawn down again, since maintaining a full-size team is something they prefer to do with a new project. Because of this, the bigger changes (including under-the-hood changes that we really don't see much of, some of which have been patched into WoL by now) have had to wait until HOTS development ramped up.
There are obviously some disconnects with the community about the desirability of certain specific features, but many of the things people have suggested or asked for have probably just not been possible due to the staffing of the team.
None of my comments are excuses for them making choices that aren't best for the UI or the community feel of the game, but a little understanding of how things came to be the way they are can help put it in perspective, I think.
3) LoL and DOTA2 are certainly driving Blizzard's feature choices as much as anything. WC3's UI is really nothing to be particularly proud of -- it has some nice features but some things people remember warmly may not have been as actually successful at the time. WoW has a much, much larger UI team than any other Blizzard project.
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On October 20 2012 02:57 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things. LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems. What did SC2 get? A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook. The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in. Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired? A couple things: 1) Greg Canessa did not get fired. He's now the head of mobile platform development for Activision. 2) Everything that [F_]aths said is exactly right. However, Battle.net 2.0 definitely had some significant project management problems. The decision to design and implement what we ended up getting for Battle.net 2.0 for SC2 probably came later than it should have. The original software team for the unannounced MMO project got pulled off that around the end of 2009 to go into immediate crunch time to implement the first version of Battle.net 2.0. They threw what released with the game together in a very short period of time, starting from basically zero. Because of this accelerated schedule, a lot of desired features got cut or delayed to be able to arrive at a stable UI that allowed people to play the game. Then, of course, while work on the UI has certainly proceeded, since the game was released, the Battle.net 2.0 team was drawn down again, since maintaining a full-size team is something they prefer to do with a new project. Because of this, the bigger changes (including under-the-hood changes that we really don't see much of, some of which have been patched into WoL by now) have had to wait until HOTS development ramped up. There are obviously some disconnects with the community about the desirability of certain specific features, but many of the things people have suggested or asked for have probably just not been possible due to the staffing of the team. None of my comments are excuses for them making choices that aren't best for the UI or the community feel of the game, but a little understanding of how things came to be the way they are can help put it in perspective, I think. 3) LoL and DOTA2 are certainly driving Blizzard's feature choices as much as anything. WC3's UI is really nothing to be particularly proud of -- it has some nice features but some things people remember warmly may not have been as actually successful at the time. WoW has a much, much larger UI team than any other Blizzard project.
O_o, do you work for blizzard, sure sounds like it.... did you interview me! lol
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On October 19 2012 10:36 Ethoex wrote:
I hope when Bliz meets with the players like they said on SOTG even better changes happen!
you should listen again, Mr. Bitter said something different!
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On October 20 2012 02:57 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things. LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems. What did SC2 get? A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook. The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in. Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired? A couple things: 1) Greg Canessa did not get fired. He's now the head of mobile platform development for Activision. 2) Everything that [F_]aths said is exactly right. However, Battle.net 2.0 definitely had some significant project management problems. The decision to design and implement what we ended up getting for Battle.net 2.0 for SC2 probably came later than it should have. The original software team for the unannounced MMO project got pulled off that around the end of 2009 to go into immediate crunch time to implement the first version of Battle.net 2.0. They threw what released with the game together in a very short period of time, starting from basically zero. Because of this accelerated schedule, a lot of desired features got cut or delayed to be able to arrive at a stable UI that allowed people to play the game. Then, of course, while work on the UI has certainly proceeded, since the game was released, the Battle.net 2.0 team was drawn down again, since maintaining a full-size team is something they prefer to do with a new project. Because of this, the bigger changes (including under-the-hood changes that we really don't see much of, some of which have been patched into WoL by now) have had to wait until HOTS development ramped up. There are obviously some disconnects with the community about the desirability of certain specific features, but many of the things people have suggested or asked for have probably just not been possible due to the staffing of the team. None of my comments are excuses for them making choices that aren't best for the UI or the community feel of the game, but a little understanding of how things came to be the way they are can help put it in perspective, I think. 3) LoL and DOTA2 are certainly driving Blizzard's feature choices as much as anything. WC3's UI is really nothing to be particularly proud of -- it has some nice features but some things people remember warmly may not have been as actually successful at the time. WoW has a much, much larger UI team than any other Blizzard project.
Point 2 is very interesting. Do you have the source(s)?
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I do not work for Blizzard.
On October 20 2012 03:57 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Point 2 is very interesting. Do you have the source(s)?
The fact of the unannounced MMO team moving over to work on Battle.net 2.0 in 2009 is described here, albeit with a positive spin:
http://slouken.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-i-left-blizzard.html
(After that post, the author of that blog moved on to 38 Studios, which famously flamed out due to financial issues over the summer, and now works at Valve Software.)
Very important note: I have known Sam personally for fifteen years but I have NOT NOT NOT spoken to him about any confidential information related to his time at Blizzard, ever, not once. I have also not spoken to him about this particular issue. I have just read his blog.
The fact that features were planned and then significantly delayed is a matter of looking at the Battle.net 2.0 described at the Blizzcon 2009 Battle.net session and comparing it against the schedule of its actual release, plus similarly comparing blue posts on the Blizzard forums saying they've planned or worked on certain features that either have not yet arrived or arrived much later than expected.
Worth noting is that in a software development scenario like this, the most common reason a planned feature is ever delayed is that there isn't enough time to get the work done at a given staffing level. My comments about the relationship of those delays to staffing and schedule are an inference, but well-informed by my own experience working in related fields.
Regarding the relationship of pace of UI updates to Blizzard's product cycle, it's clear historically and in the case of SC2 that they have a pattern of continuing to support their released games with patches and updates over time. As the Blizzard blog post linked in the OP points out, however, the biggest SC2 UI patch so far came out of HOTS development. This is more confirmation that rate of feature development tracks with staffing.
(link here, for convenience) http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/7634957/Heart_of_the_Swarm_UI_Update-10_18_2012
So, while I presented that as a narrative, it's a healthy mixture of my own inference with what has come out of various Blizzard people's mouths in public forums. I may be wrong about some of the minor details, and my opinion that the project had management issues is entirely my own (not an opinion stated by anyone I know at Blizzard) but I'm pretty confident about the overall picture that I presented being fairly accurate.
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On October 20 2012 03:34 Kazeyonoma wrote:
O_o, do you work for blizzard, sure sounds like it.... did you interview me! lol
No sir, if I worked for Blizzard there's no way in hell I would be posting on the internet about it. That's one rule they take very, very, very seriously.
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i love the addition of the performance tab. i believe this change will help a lot of currently low ranked players move up in the ladder better now as they will be able to better see where there strengths and weaknesses lie. awesome work.
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I wish I could say I was excited but outside of Blizzard games, being able to track your losses is a really standard feature. It was a standard feature 10 years ago too.
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There wasnt a single improvement I didnt like from the orriginal battle.net post. After saying that, there are a few improvements I think are needed:
There needs to be a clock on the UI at all times just like WoL and other Blizzard games. Its a feature I really like, and would hate to lose. I would also like to see unlockable backgrounds for the main page to go along with some achievements. Not 4 or 5, more like 30 to 40+. And finally, use Tricia Helfer (Kerrigan) as a voiceover for anything and everything possible; I will never get tired of her.
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Lysenko, I really appreciate your speculation on the development of Battle.net 2.0. I think it's the most enlightening read about its development that I've seen yet, and it really makes sense given the timing of everything.
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Finally those of us who can't get into Masters will finally have our loss count back!
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I'm not trying to be negative here but the UI still looks so clunky and amateur hour.
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On October 20 2012 05:05 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 03:34 Kazeyonoma wrote:
O_o, do you work for blizzard, sure sounds like it.... did you interview me! lol
No sir, if I worked for Blizzard there's no way in hell I would be posting on the internet about it. That's one rule they take very, very, very seriously.
wow thank you for sharing this info. i wish blizz was more open about the whole process. then i wouldnt have spent 2+ years thinking their devs are complete idiots. its just the managers :p.
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On October 20 2012 11:37 MadProbe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 05:05 Lysenko wrote:On October 20 2012 03:34 Kazeyonoma wrote:
O_o, do you work for blizzard, sure sounds like it.... did you interview me! lol
No sir, if I worked for Blizzard there's no way in hell I would be posting on the internet about it. That's one rule they take very, very, very seriously. wow thank you for sharing this info. i wish blizz was more open about the whole process. then i wouldnt have spent 2+ years thinking their devs are complete idiots. its just the managers :p.
That is a double edge sword, sadly. The more open they are, the more people demand information and take information and distort it. The community it not entirely rational on some subjects and completely irrational on others. The most recent comment on the Blizzard forums shows this:
Rational response
I like Blizzard when they are listening to us, but not responding to every little thing. Shouting at the rain is not productive.
All the stuff about the UI is super interesting. I know people want changes quickly, but the SC2 was released when there was Twitch.tv was still Justin.tv. A lot has changed in 2 years and Blizzard couldn't have known what their UI would need to look like in 2 years. Hell, Dota 2 likely wasn't even in development when SC2 was released.
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Really looking forward to this. Menus to me are important lol I'm not even kidding haha I wish they would do it windowed mode, cool windowed mode
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Nice ! The example images they have there look fresh. I expected this, but I'm still looking forward to it.
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I wish there was something other than "Very Easy AI" to practice against
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On October 20 2012 02:57 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 19 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 19 2012 20:13 Tomasy wrote:
Those changes look great !
But I think that most of them should be allready in when game launched 2 years ago. That is not as easy as one thinks. I currently develop an overclocking tool for GeForce cards. Even though is uses a very simplistic UI, you as a user will have no idea how hard it was to implement it and how complex the interactions are behind the UI just to offer a consistent experience. The Bnet UI is much more complex than my tool and even though the Bnet looks quite simplistic, too; behind it you have complex interactions.You cannot just come up with a perfect solution instantly. And when you have a working solution, it gets harder every time to change even small things. LoL, DotA2, WC3 and WoW don't seem to have any problems with designing good online systems. What did SC2 get? A massive devolution, B.net 0.2, with absolutely nothing new (other than Facebook integration). NOT ONE SINGLE new idea, except Facebook. The most basic features gutted, which have only slowly been re-added back in. Blizzard's track record on the new B.net is abysmal. It's only recently that B.net and B.net changes in HotS are finally moving in the right direction. Is it because Greg Canessa finally got fired? A couple things: 1) Greg Canessa did not get fired. He's now the head of mobile platform development for Activision. 2) Everything that [F_]aths said is exactly right. However, Battle.net 2.0 definitely had some significant project management problems. The decision to design and implement what we ended up getting for Battle.net 2.0 for SC2 probably came later than it should have. The original software team for the unannounced MMO project got pulled off that around the end of 2009 to go into immediate crunch time to implement the first version of Battle.net 2.0. They threw what released with the game together in a very short period of time, starting from basically zero. Because of this accelerated schedule, a lot of desired features got cut or delayed to be able to arrive at a stable UI that allowed people to play the game. Then, of course, while work on the UI has certainly proceeded, since the game was released, the Battle.net 2.0 team was drawn down again, since maintaining a full-size team is something they prefer to do with a new project. Because of this, the bigger changes (including under-the-hood changes that we really don't see much of, some of which have been patched into WoL by now) have had to wait until HOTS development ramped up. There are obviously some disconnects with the community about the desirability of certain specific features, but many of the things people have suggested or asked for have probably just not been possible due to the staffing of the team. None of my comments are excuses for them making choices that aren't best for the UI or the community feel of the game, but a little understanding of how things came to be the way they are can help put it in perspective, I think. 3) LoL and DOTA2 are certainly driving Blizzard's feature choices as much as anything. WC3's UI is really nothing to be particularly proud of -- it has some nice features but some things people remember warmly may not have been as actually successful at the time. WoW has a much, much larger UI team than any other Blizzard project.
Thanks for the info.
But I'm not impressed.
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On October 20 2012 13:57 paralleluniverse wrote:
Thanks for the info.
But I'm not impressed.
Sorry, not sure what you're getting at. My point was to make clear that it wasn't an ignorant or lazy development team that led to the battle.net 2.0 that we have today. Making software is about resources, time and people, that determine how much can be done and how well. Those are things controlled by management (like Greg Canessa was) and their bosses. Also that during the HOTS development cycle the situation may well be different than before, in which case the UI may get farther in less time than for WoL.
Or not, since we have no idea what is going on internally regarding SC2 UI.
Edit: Your angry comment in that closed thread about Blizzard "finally admitting" that hiding losses was to avoid making people feel bad was off the mark, btw. They made that clear when they made that change midway through WoL beta.
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I don't know about you guys, but the new UI looks good. I like the menu screen, though the background (with Kerrigan) still looks plain. Just give us back the full screen chats, without the stupid 100 people restriction, invite the trivia bots and all is forgiven.
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On October 20 2012 14:40 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 13:57 paralleluniverse wrote:
Thanks for the info.
But I'm not impressed. Sorry, not sure what you're getting at. My point was to make clear that it wasn't an ignorant or lazy development team that led to the battle.net 2.0 that we have today. Making software is about resources, time and people, that determine how much can be done and how well. Those are things controlled by management (like Greg Canessa was) and their bosses. Also that during the HOTS development cycle the situation may well be different than before, in which case the UI may get farther in less time than for WoL. Or not, since we have no idea what is going on internally regarding SC2 UI. Edit: Your angry comment in that closed thread about Blizzard "finally admitting" that hiding losses was to avoid making people feel bad was off the mark, btw. They made that clear when they made that change midway through WoL beta.
My point is, excuses aside, B.net 2.0 was absolute trash when it first launched. It's amazing that they've utterly failed and completely screwed up B.net when WC3, WoW, Dota 2 had great online and social systems.
They raved that B.net 2.0 was going to be the greatest thing ever, so good that you won't want to play on LAN. So good that there wasn't even one single new idea, other than Facebook. You've talked about how the project was horribly managed. I would add that in addition, the project was visionless.
On Blizzard hiding stats, you've got the timeline all wrong. Stats weren't hidden as part of the WoL beta. It happened way after the game was launched. As far as I've seen, they've never stated the reason was ladder anxiety and hurt feelings, but now they've inadvertently admitted it.
The official reason was that win ratios were meaningless, except at the top. This is true. But it also meant that useful stats, like win ratios by race or map, will never be shown unless the decision was reversed. So it was glaringly obvious all along that this wasn't the real reason, and now we have confirmation.
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I'd say its hard to know what their vision was if they didn't have the resources to execute it. Also, that Greg Canessa moved on might well have slowed things down as his successor got up to speed on what was going on. I don't know.
As for what they said when they removed the loss display for sub-Master players, yes, they said it was a meaningless number in lower leagues, but the underlying problem was always that they didn't want people discouraged by it.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2267600441
And yeah, it happened several months into release in patch 1.3, I had misremembered.
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Lol! It only took them 2 1/2 years to do something from WC3.
Simply amazing.
Who knows, maybe by LoV they will 'discover' the magical technology to give us LAN.
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On October 20 2012 16:55 Lysenko wrote:I'd say its hard to know what their vision was if they didn't have the resources to execute it. Also, that Greg Canessa moved on might well have slowed things down as his successor got up to speed on what was going on. I don't know. As for what they said when they removed the loss display for sub-Master players, yes, they said it was a meaningless number in lower leagues, but the underlying problem was always that they didn't want people discouraged by it. http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2267600441And yeah, it happened several months into release in patch 1.3, I had misremembered.
The whole thing would have gone down better if they admitted that B.net 2.0 sucked and what they were going to do about it. But they pretended it was the best thing since sliced bread and that everything turned out as planned. It was planned that there were no chat channels, for example. Remember when they ask if we really wanted chat channels?
It was obvious from the very beginning that what they wanted B.net 2.0 to be was a platform where you could interact with friends and absolutely no one else. It was obvious.
Look at how they kept selling Real ID, integrated Facebook into B.net, how no chat channels were planned, how there's a section in your profile to track your friends division rank, how it was near impossible to search for anyone's profile that wasn't on your friends list, how it was impossible to even talk to anyone that's not on your friends list (still not possible, unless you're in the same chat channel), and so on. It was designed as an online system where you can easily play SC2 with you're already established friends, and that's it. So it wasn't just for a lack of resources that the end result was shit.
The idea was to strip everything out that wasn't related to interacting with your existing friends. When B.net 2.0 was released, that's exactly what we got. As far as we could tell from what they said, they designed exactly what they wanted. They were blank on new and innovative ideas and at first, completely dismissive of what made the old B.net great. EVERYTHING revolved around friends. And everything else? Fuck it.
B.net is finally on the right track, and by the time HotS launches it looks like it will be quite good. The changes that have been announced are awesome. But you cannot rewrite history. B.net 0.2 has been utter shit since the WoL beta.
Also, the statement about hiding stats that you link says that win-loss got removed because they were meaningless. That's what I said that they said.
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Regarding the link, if you actually read everything he says, he describes a scenario where losses pile up as someone learns the game. It's 100% obvious that not discouraging people is the message.
The reason I'm scratching my head at your arguing this is that they had always made clear that retaining players was the core of their goals with bnet. The idea that they were somehow being deceptive about this change makes no sense. The linked quote didn't emphasize it, but it was nevertheless crystal clear.
Chat channels are a different case than the rest of bnet's issues. During the chat channel debate over D3 it became clear that they were having some kind of internal issue over the workload associated with enforcing the TOS in chat. In particular, the game developers were saying "sure we'll have chat channels" while the customer service folks (specifically Bashiok, who works for them) said "it's too expensive to support" and then walked that back a few days later. I'm quite sure that the issue there was providing a WoW level of support without subscription fees. (While the pre-WoW games had chat channels, WoW set high expectations about players being able to report misbehavior and expect a response.)
Obviously they belatedly changed their mind on this, but it's certainly a special case feature due to that requirement of CS support.
Edit: Bashiok's walked- back post did state that support was the issue with chat channels.
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Probably not enough UI changes. Unless they completely trash this X-Box GUI and restart everything, nothing will ever be enough.
That said, I'm glad they're working a bit more on adding UI info and stats. Some big things that they need to add:
• More relevant end-game stats. As far as I remember even SC1 had one or two relevant stats that SC2 didn't have, and SC1's stats were terrible.
The major scores mentioned don't show the complete breakdown which is stupid; it's possible for a person to have a higher score than their opponent in all the breakdown categories but still have a higher overall score for that major score.
Some really important stats are things like: Army [value] produced, army [value] destroyed. This is in contrast with stupid stats like "units produced/lost" which is completely pointless since some units have more value (resource cost) than others (some are even free)
• They can also improve a bit on the replay GUI stats.
The most important stat to see who's winning in a game is net worth [minus unspent resources]. Including other stats such as total mined resources, and efficiency (net worth divide by total mined resources) are also extremely useful to easily/quickly understand how the game is progressing in general, as well as to spot different players' play styles. These are certainly useful stats to have for the game over screen as well.
• One of the best things to add more flavor to the game and maybe renew a bit of interest in achievements is having little descriptor phrases identifying certain aspect of a player's play style during the game. What I'm talking about may be the most well known from Goldeneye 007 for N64 —called awards— where characters were given various judgements on their play such as "most cowardly", "mostly harmless", "most professional". There could be stats (generated over time, or at least in team games) based on stats like having low/high average energy on casters when losing them, winning the game with a higher/lower economy than allies/opponent(s), most/least casters used, most/least maintained scouted area on the map (perhaps biased for zerg though), average game length, most/least diverse army (probably hard to calculate and balance though), and other things like that
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On October 20 2012 17:17 paralleluniverse wrote:
The whole thing would have gone down better if they admitted that B.net 2.0 sucked and what they were going to do about it. But they pretended it was the best thing since sliced bread and that everything turned out as planned. It was planned that there were no chat channels, for example. Remember when they ask if we really wanted chat channels?
...
B.net is finally on the right track, and by the time HotS launches it looks like it will be quite good. The changes that have been announced are awesome. But you cannot rewrite history. B.net 0.2 has been utter shit since the WoL beta....
Yeah agreed. Aside from agreeing that SC2 was in terrible shape, I also think that with HotS coming out, the games finally starting to feel like what SC2 was supposed to be.
The map editor is more useable now (a bit less bugs, a bit more features work now), open games now exist, resume from replay is coming (as well as shared replays I think?), uhh... what else? Well, regardless, things are... nicer, for sure.
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On October 20 2012 17:53 Lysenko wrote:
Regarding the link, if you actually read everything he says, he describes a scenario where losses pile up as someone learns the game. It's 100% obvious that not discouraging people is the message.
The reason I'm scratching my head at your arguing this is that they had always made clear that retaining players was the core of their goals with bnet. The idea that they were somehow being deceptive about this change makes no sense. The linked quote didn't emphasize it, but it was nevertheless crystal clear.
Chat channels are a different case than the rest of bnet's issues. During the chat channel debate over D3 it became clear that they were having some kind of internal issue over the workload associated with enforcing the TOS in chat. In particular, the game developers were saying "sure we'll have chat channels" while the customer service folks (specifically Bashiok, who works for them) said "it's too expensive to support" and then walked that back a few days later. I'm quite sure that the issue there was providing a WoW level of support without subscription fees. (While the pre-WoW games had chat channels, WoW set high expectations about players being able to report misbehavior and expect a response.)
Obviously they belatedly changed their mind on this, but it's certainly a special case feature due to that requirement of CS support.
Edit: Bashiok's walked- back post did state that support was the issue with chat channels.
Here's what the old statement said:
Even for someone who starts pretty strong, win/loss numbers should still settle around 50/50 anyway. That doesn't feel good, but worse, those numbers also don't accurately reflect your current level of skill or progress anyway.
So, what's the problem with displaying win/loss anyway? It was not an accurate method of tracking skill, improvement or progress. Really, it wasn't. It was ultimately just misleading players, and causing them to judge themselves and others against what amounts to useless information.
Where in the post does it say anything about ladder anxiety? It doesn't. The closest it gets is saying that having the matchmaker push people towards a 50% win ratio "doesn't feel good". But guess what, that hasn't changed, the matchmaker still pushes people towards a 50% win ratio. So if this was the real reason for removing losses, why are they suddenly coming back?
Their stated reason is because win-loss is meaningless. They stressed this point four times in that post. Four.
And here's the statement in the recent UI update:
And finally, now that we have added unranked play as an option, we’ve returned full stats [and players who] are not interested in the pressure of being ranked can now use the unranked play mode.
Stats are back because the REAL reason they were removed, the "pressure" of laddering, is fixed by having unranked play. It was about ladder anxiety and the fact playing the ladder can hurt people's feelings. And this was obvious all along, despite their transparent attempts to scapegoat the win ratio as being meaningless.
If they really wanted to solve the problem of people being discouraged to play and ladder anxiety, they should have also removed past season data. Having a permanent, unchangeable marker of how (possibly) bad you've done in past seasons is clearly a much more significant factor to ladder anxiety than showing losses that will converge to wins in the long run anyway.
The shitness of B.net 2.0 isn't just about chat channels (which are pretty good now). It was the whole thing:
Look at how they kept selling Real ID, integrated Facebook into B.net, how no chat channels were planned, how there's a section in your profile to track your friends division rank, how it was near impossible to search for anyone's profile that wasn't on your friends list, how it was impossible to even talk to anyone that's not on your friends list (still not possible, unless you're in the same chat channel), and so on. It was designed as an online system where you can easily play SC2 with you're already established friends, and that's it. So it wasn't just for a lack of resources that the end result was shit.
The idea was to strip everything out that wasn't related to interacting with your existing friends. EVERYTHING revolved around friends. And everything else? Fuck it.
As for the chat channel thing. Don't blame it on PR. Not only is the moderation argument a terrible one, and has never stopped any good online game from making chat channels, but the infamous "Do you really want chat channels?" quote came from Frank Pearce, one of the execs at Blizzard, not some random PR guy. It's indicative of the whole direction of B.net 2.0 originally -- it's not just project management and staffing, they were completely out of touch.
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Seems like league/rank on portraits for me. One of the portraits has a brown frame (Bronze?), a few of them have a dark-blue one (Masters?), one of them has a golden one (Gold), some a greyish one (Silver/Plat?), and there's one with a crystal-blue (Diamond, probably).
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On October 19 2012 20:05 Kazeyonoma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2012 19:27 Hubble wrote:
I still don't get why this wasn't there from the start... It's basically the same now as it was in wc3.
But: Yeah, it looks much better than now. they rebuilt the entire platform from scratch on a new framework. people can hate on battle 2.0 (0.2 by haters), but from a development standpoint it wasn't like they could just copy/paste code from bnet 1.0 into bnet 2.0 and be done with it. Realize that part of the complexity of battle.net 2.0 was the universal profile they created with it, allow you to link up all of your friends lists across all bnet 2.0 games (wow first, then sc2, then d3, and moving forward). This also allowed them to slowly integrate their consumer base into their cloud platform, which would eventually lead to things like the RMAH, easy digital downloads of WoW:MoP, and ultimately their early stated goal for the sc2 arcade, a means for map makers and custom game creators, to get repaid at least somewhat for their hardwork. yes battle.net 1.0 had features battle.net 2.0 didn't have, but 2.0 had tons of shit 1.0 didn't have either, it's just people gloss over them because they don't look at it from the larger picture the way blizz had to. I am glad they're implementing more stuff, and are continuing to work hard to make more changes. Blizzard has been hiring for their battle.net team at a rapid rate (i know, i applied and interviewed and they told briefly told me about their staffing goals), so don't think for a second that blizzard has given up on its games, or that it's just letting esports die. This is all just chaos speak from people who thrive on the chaos and hysteria more than those who genuinely care about the community and the further development of the game.
100% this, these things take a long time and despite all the criticism, Bnet 2.0 is better than 1.0 in many ways. To put it simply, here are some of the things that Bnet 2.0 added on Bnet 1.0.
- Quick and easy to view global friends list across all Blizzard franchises
- Player status and current game (e.g. SC2) being played of friends on friends list
- Easy simultaneous chat with multiple friends in separate friend windows
- Party system /w auto-join when party joins a game
- Able to be in simultaneous chat channels and party chat
Of course there is plenty more room for improvement, which is what all this talk is about, but it's silly to claim that they've spent all this time working on nothing, when there are clear benefits to Bnet 2.0. And as far as why they haven't improved things so far, well all of the Esports development and explosion of the SC2 scene was most unprecedented, streaming was such a niche before the release of SC2 and esports was nowhere near the scale that it is today (to the extent that people are complaining about too many tournaments). It will take a long time before the kind of changes necessary to accomodate the large SC2 community can be conceptualized, designed and implemented within the existing Bnet framework. But I will remind people that Blizzard have addressed past concerns and said they are slated for HOTS, so given this attitude I feel it is just a matter of time before the other UI concerns are addressed.
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Still want there to be chat channels for all the main things and I want it to display your league in chat channels.
3rd times the charm rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl
Still doesnt fix the game.
A reason people are loosing interest is cuz sc2 isnt as fun to watch anymore.
The main thing wrong with the game is that it doesnt appeal to casuals nor does it appeal to competitive people.
Its too hard/boring for casuals to play but its too EZ to make them exited to watch it. And the game is also to EZ for competitive people to stay interested in playing it.
I think the best thing to do is to give the casuals custom games, team games and more exiting game to watch through a more harder 1v1 game, in which competitive players would stay intrested.
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Every day without a blue post is a sad day. Was hoping for a bit more details on Friday
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On October 20 2012 23:55 SarcasmMonster wrote:Every day without a blue post is a sad day. Was hoping for a bit more details on Friday
I think there's no beta patch either because next week's beta patch is large. And that they're also reworking the Oracle. Not to mention that today Blizzard is having a 12 hour playing games for charity. At least the Diablo III Quality Assurance Team is.
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Hey all -
Just confirming that we are pushing the balance update to next week as we're still working on a few of the changes.
-Cloaken, Community Manager
Shouldn't surprise anyone.
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Very interested to see what "we’ve made some big changes to improve the overall user experience. With the release of the next major Heart of the Swarm beta patch, we'd like to give you an advance look at those changes." includes. Could just be a rejumbling of the buttons or actual dearly needed features. Hope its the later!
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On October 19 2012 11:14 Sirrush wrote:
So, on the main screen, instead of Kerrigan, give us a big general chat that everyone enters into when they launch the game and, hurray! SC2 becomes a much more social game. Make whatever chat you're in automatically minimize into a window as soon as you leave the initial screen.
I don't know, I just feel that it would help make SC2 become more social overall.
Pls not, I fucking hate general chats..its allways full of awful people talking shit about stuff they simply have no clue of or just bullshitting all the time about everything, everyone... it wouldn't make the game more social...
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this should have been implemented when WoL was released...
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On October 21 2012 01:08 SarcasmMonster wrote:Show nested quote +Hey all -
Just confirming that we are pushing the balance update to next week as we're still working on a few of the changes. -Cloaken, Community ManagerShouldn't surprise anyone.
Probably because they're planning on doing a complete overhaul of the Oracle and not necessarily due to any UI changes. And by the way, as good as the new UI looks, it still looks like a WIP and will probably go through some polish before being released.
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Looking over the list of changes, it looks like possibly they might be implementing the WC3 ladder system. If you look at this picture: ![[image loading]](http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/L0WENI0U9HFX1350606257037.jpg?v=0) you will see numbers by the portrait. Could this be levels similar to WC3? If so, I hope they use the current match making system, but the pre 1.14 WC3 rank system.
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On October 21 2012 07:15 StreetWise wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Looking over the list of changes, it looks like possibly they might be implementing the WC3 ladder system. If you look at this picture: you will see numbers by the portrait. Could this be levels similar to WC3? If so, I hope they use the current match making system, but the pre 1.14 WC3 rank system.
I thought it was their rank, of course if that were true they'd need to add leagues somehow.
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On October 20 2012 19:50 paralleluniverse wrote:
Where in the post does it say anything about ladder anxiety? It doesn't. The closest it gets is saying that having the matchmaker push people towards a 50% win ratio "doesn't feel good". But guess what, that hasn't changed, the matchmaker still pushes people towards a 50% win ratio. So if this was the real reason for removing losses, why are they suddenly coming back?
The link I quoted to you contained this, from a blue post on the SEA forums, from around the Spring of 2011. Relevant parts highlighted:
We had a pretty strong rationale for removing losses from the records of players below Master's League. Essentially, prior to that level of play, the losses you've sustained aren't particularly meaningful. Please allow me to explain:
Let's say that you're new to StarCraft II and you play (and lose) a ton of games. You've racked up dozens of losses and a handful of wins, and things look grim. Instead of giving up, you get better, learn effective strategies, and you start playing much more skillfully. Pretty rapidly, the matchmaking system starts pitting you against tougher opponents - but because of the very nature of the matchmaking system, and even though you're making progress and facing tougher opponents, your win/loss rate stays at around 50%. In a scenario like this, it means that your wins will probably never surpass your losses, even though you've become a better player and your wins have become more meaningful than those early losses. Even for someone who starts pretty strong, win/loss numbers should still settle around 50/50 anyway. That doesn't feel good, but worse, those numbers also don't accurately reflect your current level of skill or progress anyway.
Now, back to your post:
Stats are back because the REAL reason they were removed, the "pressure" of laddering, is fixed by having unranked play. It was about ladder anxiety and the fact playing the ladder can hurt people's feelings. And this was obvious all along, despite their transparent attempts to scapegoat the win ratio as being meaningless.
They've been perfectly up-front that loss counts and loss ratios make people feel bad. They've also been up-front that they're meaningless. They are COMPLETELY meaningless with a good matchmaking system except at the high and low end of the scale because deviations from 50% are nothing more than a historical record of where one's been since the last reset.
I'm not sure why you're so keen to find a conspiracy here. When they rolled out Battle.net 2.0 in 2009 at Blizzcon, they were very clear right then that they weren't showing MMRs because they wanted to reward playing more than improvement. That message was crystal clear. Nobody thought that removing losses was for any reason other than (a) keeping people from feeling bad in lower leagues and (b) because the win/loss ratio don't tell you anything useful.
Those two reasons are interrelated. That's why they always talk about both in the same sentences.
Not only is the moderation argument a terrible one,
I agree it's not enough reason from a product quality standpoint to avoid having chat channels in a game. However, you have to admit that the VP of customer service (whoever that is) at Blizzard probably looks at the problem differently than you do.
As I pointed out in the post to which you were responding, chat channels were obviously a different issue than the stuff which project management and staffing would have affected. Not sure why you didn't get that from my post, since I was explicit about it.
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What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them. I could understand if they rolled out an updated that said: "Hey, losses are no longer shown unless you enable them." Then, in Gameplay (I suppose) you could have "don't show," "only show for me," "only show friends" (?), "show globally." This way, it's up to the user, not up to Blizzard. I suppose their rationale for just removing them altogether would be that it wouldn't solve the self-esteem issue they were trying to protect users from, as they could circumvent Blizzard's change and wallow in their own pity.
I dunno, I just shake my head and wonder why software creators don't give options to their users instead of stripping away features and such.
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On October 21 2012 09:30 Scootaloo SC2 wrote:
What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them
My guess is that it's just work they didn't find they had time to do.
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On October 21 2012 09:38 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 09:30 Scootaloo SC2 wrote:
What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them My guess is that it's just work they didn't find they had time to do.
Yah, they are busy adding in different types of destructible debris.
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On October 21 2012 11:55 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 09:38 Lysenko wrote:On October 21 2012 09:30 Scootaloo SC2 wrote:
What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them My guess is that it's just work they didn't find they had time to do. Yah, they are busy adding in different types of destructible debris.
I laughed, but in reality it's not the same people doing the work!
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On October 21 2012 11:56 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 11:55 phodacbiet wrote:On October 21 2012 09:38 Lysenko wrote:On October 21 2012 09:30 Scootaloo SC2 wrote:
What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them My guess is that it's just work they didn't find they had time to do. Yah, they are busy adding in different types of destructible debris. I laughed, but in reality it's not the same people doing the work!
Keep in mind, it takes a much longer time to clean up a mess than it does to actually make one.
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Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit.
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On October 21 2012 21:57 StreetWise wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 11:56 Lysenko wrote:On October 21 2012 11:55 phodacbiet wrote:On October 21 2012 09:38 Lysenko wrote:On October 21 2012 09:30 Scootaloo SC2 wrote:
What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them My guess is that it's just work they didn't find they had time to do. Yah, they are busy adding in different types of destructible debris. I laughed, but in reality it's not the same people doing the work! Keep in mind, it takes a much longer time to clean up a mess than it does to actually make one.
True point. Designing slick, useful UI is an iterative process and takes time. You can't just build a really good UI, you need to make a good one, let people use it, see how they use it and then refine. It takes a ton of time and years to get right. It also requires really good feed back that goes beyond, make it better. I like the new design. Now, if only they will let me run chrome in it as well.
I think the main reason that the UI has been lack luster for so long is simply Blizzard was releasing other games. If you think about it, UI programmers(yes, there are people who specialize in this, look at Apple) were likely working on the other two major releases and were unable to refine the WoL UI as much at Blizzard would have liked to. Sadly, unlike Riot and Valve, Blizzard's income is based on sales of new games, rather than a online store, or skins and champions.
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Lol at the 200 UI menu apm comment in the article
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On October 21 2012 09:30 Scootaloo SC2 wrote:
What I don't get, in regards to the original removal of losses, is why they removed the choice of showing them.
Probably because one could get flamed if one disables the losses display (like 'Bro, are you afraid to show you losses? Lulz.') Or because people think that the loss count has something to do with their performance while in reality it only tells how good the match making works. Or because people have this fantasy of needing >50% win ratio which could lead to quitting the game if one fears that one is not able to keep a current 51% ratio.
On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit.
It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay.
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I've got an idea.
Basically there is a levels'system and you need to be level 20 or whatever to play ranked games (similiar to lol). What di u think ?
I hope blizzard is going to do something like that since they're adding levels
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On October 21 2012 07:15 StreetWise wrote:Looking over the list of changes, it looks like possibly they might be implementing the WC3 ladder system. If you look at this picture: you will see numbers by the portrait. Could this be levels similar to WC3? If so, I hope they use the current match making system, but the pre 1.14 WC3 rank system.
It's their rank on 1v1 ladder. look at the borders on the portraits and you'll notice it's the same colors as Bronze - Diamond League. Although I could be wrong.
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On October 22 2012 08:07 Diceman45 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 21 2012 07:15 StreetWise wrote:Looking over the list of changes, it looks like possibly they might be implementing the WC3 ladder system. If you look at this picture: you will see numbers by the portrait. Could this be levels similar to WC3? If so, I hope they use the current match making system, but the pre 1.14 WC3 rank system. It's their rank on 1v1 ladder. look at the borders on the portraits and you'll notice it's the same colors as Bronze - Diamond League. Although I could be wrong.
well that does sound quite logical, either way, its a great improvement to either have a new level system or easily access peoples 1v1 ranks, both sound quite cool.
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This is crazily cool and what we've all been waiting for: One question though, or suggestion, I'd like to see it zerg based like WOL right now is terran based, and maybe that you can switch between the looks? Wouldbe wicked.
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On October 22 2012 08:33 Thalandros wrote:
This is crazily cool and what we've all been waiting for: One question though, or suggestion, I'd like to see it zerg based like WOL right now is terran based, and maybe that you can switch between the looks? Wouldbe wicked.
The HotS beta contains that option in the options menu, but changing it to Zerg has no effect atm. So I guess that they might alter a few things for that like the borders of the popup windows like the ladder or stats window. Maybe it's changing the color scheme for the glassy looking bottom social panel... we will see...
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Great! I also hope they change the colors of UI
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 07:15 StreetWise wrote:Looking over the list of changes, it looks like possibly they might be implementing the WC3 ladder system. If you look at this picture: you will see numbers by the portrait. Could this be levels similar to WC3? If so, I hope they use the current match making system, but the pre 1.14 WC3 rank system.
This looks really neat. I'm not familiar with how WC3 ranking / matchmaking worked, but Im interested in anything that might attract more players to the game.
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit.
It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay. [/quote]
Well blizz seems to be listening to the community. But the changes are coming so slowly, (Could it be bad programming ahem ahem? Ie. Cutting corners in programming originally, just to save money and speed up the release date etc.)that i'm afraid a lotta core/community players will walk away from sc2 by the time ALL the changes have been implemented (which means by the time the Void expansions is ready.)
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On October 22 2012 16:30 SoniC_eu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit. Show nested quote +It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay. Well blizz seems to be listening to the community. But the changes are coming so slowly, (Could it be bad programming ahem ahem? Ie. Cutting corners in programming originally, just to save money and speed up the release date etc.)that i'm afraid a lotta core/community players will walk away from sc2 by the time ALL the changes have been implemented (which means by the time the Void expansions is ready.)
I think you underestimate the complexity of a project like SC2. There is no point to go into any details because if you programm yourself (and more complex things than a calculator in Delphi) and if you have experience in projects which are programmed by a team, you wouldn't think of "bad programming".
Overall, Blizzard games seems to be quite good programmed. It was possible to include an option to reduce CPU load in Starcraft 1 and to allow different zooms resolutions for D2 many years after the development. This is only possible with a well-documented, readible source code. I guess that Blizzard enforces strict policies to write, document and maintain the source code. If a lead programmer quits, they need to be able to continue the support of the project. It is vital for the success of Blizzard, they are not a bunch of amateurs.
Any Blizzard games runs on a wide range of computers with almost no issues. Other games I have played are often plagued by graphical artifacts, sudden crashes to desktop, freezes when saving a game and so forth. (With the exception of Max Payne 1 and 2, those games are outstandingly stable!)
The Bnet UI was overhauled several times. The WoL Beta UI looked very strange, it was polished several times. Then we had some small changes after the launch, then the big change with 1.5 and now we get an even bigger update with HotS. This would be virtually impossible if the programming was bad.
SC2 was the first Bnet 2.0 game, so there was a great undiscovered country. Now when they are more experienced with implementing an Bnet 2.0 UI, they can offer a more streamlined, yet powerful UI.
The Bnet 2.0 integration lead to a delayed launch by some months, this is no indication of a rushed programming.
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In most cases, from what I understand, slow progress is the result of implementing, trying, and ruling out many options internally before announcing a change or pushing it out for testing on beta or PTR servers.
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On October 22 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2012 16:30 SoniC_eu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit. It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay. Well blizz seems to be listening to the community. But the changes are coming so slowly, (Could it be bad programming ahem ahem? Ie. Cutting corners in programming originally, just to save money and speed up the release date etc.)that i'm afraid a lotta core/community players will walk away from sc2 by the time ALL the changes have been implemented (which means by the time the Void expansions is ready.) I think you underestimate the complexity of a project like SC2. There is no point to go into any details because if you programm yourself (and more complex things than a calculator in Delphi) and if you have experience in projects which are programmed by a team, you wouldn't think of "bad programming". Overall, Blizzard games seems to be quite good programmed. It was possible to include an option to reduce CPU load in Starcraft 1 and to allow different zooms resolutions for D2 many years after the development. This is only possible with a well-documented, readible source code. I guess that Blizzard enforces strict policies to write, document and maintain the source code. If a lead programmer quits, they need to be able to continue the support of the project. It is vital for the success of Blizzard, they are not a bunch of amateurs. Any Blizzard games runs on a wide range of computers with almost no issues. Other games I have played are often plagued by graphical artifacts, sudden crashes to desktop, freezes when saving a game and so forth. (With the exception of Max Payne 1 and 2, those games are outstandingly stable!) The Bnet UI was overhauled several times. The WoL Beta UI looked very strange, it was polished several times. Then we had some small changes after the launch, then the big change with 1.5 and now we get an even bigger update with HotS. This would be virtually impossible if the programming was bad. SC2 was the first Bnet 2.0 game, so there was a great undiscovered country. Now when they are more experienced with implementing an Bnet 2.0 UI, they can offer a more streamlined, yet powerful UI. The Bnet 2.0 integration lead to a delayed launch by some months, this is no indication of a rushed programming.
As someone who works on complex UI's for a living this is total nonesense. The changes thus far have been mostly cosmetic and fairly small. If the UI programming was good or the team was of reasonable competance this changing of layouts is at the very most a man-weeks work (even that assumes lots of changing and trying things out). It's still lacking basic features from ye olde battlenet, they've done a whole lot of nothing.
That the engine is relatively stable doesn't change this. (and you only have to look back a few patches to see lots of issues with crappy performance and crashes on different architectures, it used to give <30fps on high end AMD/Radeon based rigs that could max out more demanding games without issues.) A lot of geometry artifacts tend to occur most when things are moving towards the clip plane which isn't really an issue in an RTS, and lets not pretend SC2 looks like cryengine3, its not ugly but its not next generation.
I think the pedestal you choose is too high. SC2 is brilliant but they obviously haven't got much of a team on battlenet.
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Come on blizz please put in custom army skins we can buy pretty please
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On October 22 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2012 16:30 SoniC_eu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit. It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay. Well blizz seems to be listening to the community. But the changes are coming so slowly, (Could it be bad programming ahem ahem? Ie. Cutting corners in programming originally, just to save money and speed up the release date etc.)that i'm afraid a lotta core/community players will walk away from sc2 by the time ALL the changes have been implemented (which means by the time the Void expansions is ready.) I think you underestimate the complexity of a project like SC2. There is no point to go into any details because if you programm yourself (and more complex things than a calculator in Delphi) and if you have experience in projects which are programmed by a team, you wouldn't think of "bad programming". Overall, Blizzard games seems to be quite good programmed. It was possible to include an option to reduce CPU load in Starcraft 1 and to allow different zooms resolutions for D2 many years after the development. This is only possible with a well-documented, readible source code. I guess that Blizzard enforces strict policies to write, document and maintain the source code. If a lead programmer quits, they need to be able to continue the support of the project. It is vital for the success of Blizzard, they are not a bunch of amateurs. Any Blizzard games runs on a wide range of computers with almost no issues. Other games I have played are often plagued by graphical artifacts, sudden crashes to desktop, freezes when saving a game and so forth. (With the exception of Max Payne 1 and 2, those games are outstandingly stable!) The Bnet UI was overhauled several times. The WoL Beta UI looked very strange, it was polished several times. Then we had some small changes after the launch, then the big change with 1.5 and now we get an even bigger update with HotS. This would be virtually impossible if the programming was bad. SC2 was the first Bnet 2.0 game, so there was a great undiscovered country. Now when they are more experienced with implementing an Bnet 2.0 UI, they can offer a more streamlined, yet powerful UI. The Bnet 2.0 integration lead to a delayed launch by some months, this is no indication of a rushed programming.
This mans speaks the truth. UI is one of the hardest things to create in programming. Look at any major piece of software and you will see how much effort must go into UI. Microsoft word, outlook, IOS, Mac OS all have gone through endless iterations in an effort to make them better. Iteration is the key to good UI and no one can create a great UI in a vacuum. If you look at companies who do great things with UI, they did not create great things out the gate. Apple has released a new version of their Iphone UI every year since release.
Also, UI has only become the focus of the SC2 community since Dota 2 raised the bar with their awesome features, such as tournament tickets, in client viewing, social features and pennant system. Mind you, none of us knew we wanted this stuff until Valve made it. I didn’t know I wanted to buy tickets to tournaments though the client, or pennants. Now we are look at SC2 and wanting the same or more. But we forget that Valve spent 6 months to a year creating these features, all built off the backend of Steam. They got to watch SC2 release, watch Esports grow and then release a UI in their beta after 2 years of growth. During that time, Blizzard released two retail box games that solid millions of units each.
The other parts about SC2 are 100% correct as well. It a stable game, with good net code that rarely lags. Dropping games always causes the player who dropped to get the loss, which was not the case for RTS games I played 1 year before SC2 release. The game runs on a ton of PCs, scales well and has snappy controls and interface in game. SC2 itself is solid from a programming stand points and it is impressive how good it is. When I play other RTS games, I get so mad at how swimmy the controls are.
Blizzard has some big things they need to do, but people need to understand that Valve and Riot are creating features two years after SC2 was released. It’s not a problem in quality, rather than people are being shown awesome stuff and we want that for SC2.
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Fuck yeah, it looks great! (the visuals too!)
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In game map win rates and race win rates is much needed.. thank you Blizzard for listening to the community.. and please continue to do so!
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On October 22 2012 16:30 SoniC_eu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit. Show nested quote +It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay.
Well blizz seems to be listening to the community. But the changes are coming so slowly, (Could it be bad programming ahem ahem? Ie. Cutting corners in programming originally, just to save money and speed up the release date etc.)that i'm afraid a lotta core/community players will walk away from sc2 by the time ALL the changes have been implemented (which means by the time the Void expansions is ready.) [/QUOTE]
From lots of evidence, i think it's clear that they simply don't have a big team working on SC2. Same with D3. They have 2 unnanounced titles coming out, and also WoW to maintain, which gives much more income than SC2.
However, i do think that the people working on SC2 (dustin, david, etc.) are very passionate, as you can see they do communicate often and listen (despite how many times people may ignorantly claim against), but they are just slow because they probably have a very small team.
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If that's the problem then Blizz should hire me
I'm an amazing developer and I have the mind of a Grandmasters player (if only my hands could keep up)
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On October 23 2012 01:51 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2012 22:43 [F_]aths wrote:On October 22 2012 16:30 SoniC_eu wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 21 2012 22:29 SoniC_eu wrote:
Activision PUMP MORE MONEY into BLIZZ plz. You are killing sc2! I guess they dont care, as long as they can sell something and gain a profit. Its just painful to watch such a epic game get worse and worse, all in the name of profit. It's not just money or size of the teams.
Blizzard is willing to make the beta as long as required instead of targeting a certain launch date to grab the money. The expansion, in earlier days released about a year after the original game, is now over two years due. They don't just sell out the franchise to make fast profit.
Look at the development of Wol:
- They brought a graphics option for indirect shadows even though this only affects campaign settings.
- They added an option for antialiasing which required changes in the 3D engine.
- They created new low-textures to allow for better detail on low settings.
That means, after purchase, high-end user get better graphics (with indirect shadows) as well as low-end users (with the new textures) and mid-range users (who now can afford to use antialiasing which is way faster than antialiasing forced through the driver.)
Blizzard supports SC2, with no expansion required to buy and no monthly fee to pay. Well blizz seems to be listening to the community. But the changes are coming so slowly, (Could it be bad programming ahem ahem? Ie. Cutting corners in programming originally, just to save money and speed up the release date etc.)that i'm afraid a lotta core/community players will walk away from sc2 by the time ALL the changes have been implemented (which means by the time the Void expansions is ready.) I think you underestimate the complexity of a project like SC2. There is no point to go into any details because if you programm yourself (and more complex things than a calculator in Delphi) and if you have experience in projects which are programmed by a team, you wouldn't think of "bad programming". Overall, Blizzard games seems to be quite good programmed. It was possible to include an option to reduce CPU load in Starcraft 1 and to allow different zooms resolutions for D2 many years after the development. This is only possible with a well-documented, readible source code. I guess that Blizzard enforces strict policies to write, document and maintain the source code. If a lead programmer quits, they need to be able to continue the support of the project. It is vital for the success of Blizzard, they are not a bunch of amateurs. Any Blizzard games runs on a wide range of computers with almost no issues. Other games I have played are often plagued by graphical artifacts, sudden crashes to desktop, freezes when saving a game and so forth. (With the exception of Max Payne 1 and 2, those games are outstandingly stable!) The Bnet UI was overhauled several times. The WoL Beta UI looked very strange, it was polished several times. Then we had some small changes after the launch, then the big change with 1.5 and now we get an even bigger update with HotS. This would be virtually impossible if the programming was bad. SC2 was the first Bnet 2.0 game, so there was a great undiscovered country. Now when they are more experienced with implementing an Bnet 2.0 UI, they can offer a more streamlined, yet powerful UI. The Bnet 2.0 integration lead to a delayed launch by some months, this is no indication of a rushed programming. This mans speaks the truth. UI is one of the hardest things to create in programming. Look at any major piece of software and you will see how much effort must go into UI. Microsoft word, outlook, IOS, Mac OS all have gone through endless iterations in an effort to make them better. Iteration is the key to good UI and no one can create a great UI in a vacuum. If you look at companies who do great things with UI, they did not create great things out the gate. Apple has released a new version of their Iphone UI every year since release. Also, UI has only become the focus of the SC2 community since Dota 2 raised the bar with their awesome features, such as tournament tickets, in client viewing, social features and pennant system. Mind you, none of us knew we wanted this stuff until Valve made it. I didn’t know I wanted to buy tickets to tournaments though the client, or pennants. Now we are look at SC2 and wanting the same or more. But we forget that Valve spent 6 months to a year creating these features, all built off the backend of Steam. They got to watch SC2 release, watch Esports grow and then release a UI in their beta after 2 years of growth. During that time, Blizzard released two retail box games that solid millions of units each. The other parts about SC2 are 100% correct as well. It a stable game, with good net code that rarely lags. Dropping games always causes the player who dropped to get the loss, which was not the case for RTS games I played 1 year before SC2 release. The game runs on a ton of PCs, scales well and has snappy controls and interface in game. SC2 itself is solid from a programming stand points and it is impressive how good it is. When I play other RTS games, I get so mad at how swimmy the controls are. Blizzard has some big things they need to do, but people need to understand that Valve and Riot are creating features two years after SC2 was released. It’s not a problem in quality, rather than people are being shown awesome stuff and we want that for SC2.
I don't think anyone doubts the polish that SC2 has in its engine. Its the fact that SC2 has so much untapped potential, and yet Blizzard isn't letting the game live up to what its capable of. As you mentioned the game has great netcode, and even great pathing from a technical standpoint. Its not that it lacks in quality, but in substance.
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From lots of evidence, i think it's clear that they simply don't have a big team working on SC2. Same with D3. They have 2 unnanounced titles coming out, and also WoW to maintain, which gives much more income than SC2.
However, i do think that the people working on SC2 (dustin, david, etc.) are very passionate, as you can see they do communicate often and listen (despite how many times people may ignorantly claim against), but they are just slow because they probably have a very small team.
I agree that the Blizz dev team is very passionate, but they're often very slow at responding to community requests. This isn't always a bad thing, for example, I think the devs frequently make the right decision by not rushing to implement community balance suggestions. In my opinion, it's better to let the metagame evolve rather than making knee-jerk changes to the race/unit/etc. that the community has deemed the OP flavor of the month.
That said, it's pretty clear that that ARE understaffed and nonresponsive in problematic ways, as evidenced by their failure to respond in a reasonable timeframe to non-balance issues. The extent of this problem is obvious by their failure to implement long-standing and simple community suggestions *cough* paid name changes *cough.* Furthermore, I feel that, unlike balance issues, UI changes are something where Blizzard really couldn't go wrong being overly responsive to community suggestions. If the majority of the community wants a feature, then they'll probably still want it several months from that time -there is no metagame which can change regarding the UI.
I'm very happy with the HOTS UI changes overall, but they're barely scratching the surface of what the community wants. Furthermore, these UI changes may have taken quite a while to implement, Blizz devs have stated elsewhere that the UI changes were NOT in response to the recent community outcry, the release of this information days after everyone complained was mere coincidence.
What is says to me is simple: don't except UI changes for HOTs beyond what was just previewed. Personally, I think that sucks, since some of the major UI concerns are still unaddressed. For example, the UI still looks barren, and still feels empty (although I'm hoping the promised clan support will change that).
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On October 23 2012 06:51 Series7 wrote:
That said, it's pretty clear that that ARE understaffed and nonresponsive in problematic ways, as evidenced by their failure to respond in a reasonable timeframe to non-balance issues. The extent of this problem is obvious by their failure to implement long-standing and simple community suggestions *cough* paid name changes *cough.* Furthermore, I feel that, unlike balance issues, UI changes are something where Blizzard really couldn't go wrong being overly responsive to community suggestions. If the majority of the community wants a feature, then they'll probably still want it several months from that time -there is no metagame which can change regarding the UI.
SC2 UI and battle.net features like paid name changes (and probably some of the stuff in the OP) are almost certainly more difficult to execute than in-game changes, because there's a separate Battle.net team involved. In the case of paid services like name changes, there are probably other groups involved too, like whoever does billing IT support, whoever handles the web account interface, etc. etc. That kind of thing can make those features a lot more complicated, because no one developer has the knowledge or ability to make all the necessary changes to implement the feature.
Plus, you know, the SC2 game dev team might say to all the other parties "hey we need paid name changes" but they all have to fit a tiny piece of that implementation into their otherwise full schedules, not all may assign it the same priority, and it relies on having someone really standing up for that feature to drive getting it done with everyone involved. It's an organizational challenge more than a development challenge.
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On October 23 2012 06:51 Series7 wrote:Show nested quote +From lots of evidence, i think it's clear that they simply don't have a big team working on SC2. Same with D3. They have 2 unnanounced titles coming out, and also WoW to maintain, which gives much more income than SC2.
However, i do think that the people working on SC2 (dustin, david, etc.) are very passionate, as you can see they do communicate often and listen (despite how many times people may ignorantly claim against), but they are just slow because they probably have a very small team. I agree that the Blizz dev team is very passionate, but they're often very slow at responding to community requests. This isn't always a bad thing, for example, I think the devs frequently make the right decision by not rushing to implement community balance suggestions. In my opinion, it's better to let the metagame evolve rather than making knee-jerk changes to the race/unit/etc. that the community has deemed the OP flavor of the month. That said, it's pretty clear that that ARE understaffed and nonresponsive in problematic ways, as evidenced by their failure to respond in a reasonable timeframe to non-balance issues. The extent of this problem is obvious by their failure to implement long-standing and simple community suggestions *cough* paid name changes *cough.* Furthermore, I feel that, unlike balance issues, UI changes are something where Blizzard really couldn't go wrong being overly responsive to community suggestions. If the majority of the community wants a feature, then they'll probably still want it several months from that time -there is no metagame which can change regarding the UI. I'm very happy with the HOTS UI changes overall, but they're barely scratching the surface of what the community wants. Furthermore, these UI changes may have taken quite a while to implement, Blizz devs have stated elsewhere that the UI changes were NOT in response to the recent community outcry, the release of this information days after everyone complained was mere coincidence. What is says to me is simple: don't except UI changes for HOTs beyond what was just previewed. Personally, I think that sucks, since some of the major UI concerns are still unaddressed. For example, the UI still looks barren, and still feels empty (although I'm hoping the promised clan support will change that).
Nice point regarding the UI, that it's something that will make everyone happy (the only negative part is taken away now with unranked matches, so that you have a way to practice without worrying about stats).
I wonder if it really was a coincidence, but either way I'm happy.
Also, wow, i totally forgot about the paid name changes X).
I agree that they can take a long time to talk back to the community about things (like the recent statement regarding the oracle), but I also understand why (especially if they are understaffed), since constantly posting public statements (in which they are pressured to write with exceptional quality to prevent misconceptions and such) can be very time consuming, while simply reading feedback is much faster and still benefits them the same way.
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I think it has more to do with the fact the project manager for bnet 0.2 was original group leader for xbox live, ex popcap games designer.
xbox live arcade ... battle.net arcade?
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On October 23 2012 07:23 a176 wrote:
I think it has more to do with the fact the project manager for bnet 0.2 was original group leader for xbox live, ex popcap games designer.
xbox live arcade ... battle.net arcade?
Really? That coupled with a game designer from command and conquer... Makes me think whoever put this team together has made some questionable decisions.
All the authorititively stated "you don't understand, programming UI's is really hard" posts are making me sad in my little programmers heart. The mechanisms for the UI are there and work fine. All the "hard" work is done. Unless its a software design clusterfuck moving and adding content around on them isn't that difficult.
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On October 23 2012 22:33 mostevil wrote:
All the authorititively stated "you don't understand, programming UI's is really hard" posts are making me sad in my little programmers heart. The mechanisms for the UI are there and work fine. All the "hard" work is done. Unless its a software design clusterfuck moving and adding content around on them isn't that difficult.
The disconnect between you and the people saying that is that the programming for a good UI (particularly a flashy, responsive UI like Blizzard wants for SC2) is not the hard part. What's hard is the specification, and to a lesser degree the art production.
Edit: The difference between a good UI and a horrible UI is a subtle one, and the code used to make it is usually not the problem. This is why people make entire careers out of being human interface designers with only limited coding.
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This guy is right, my wife is currently getting a masters in user interface and usability design and doesn't know shit about coding
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Wait does this mean that we can have more than 5 people parties now? I fuckin hope so.
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On October 24 2012 09:15 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2012 22:33 mostevil wrote:
All the authorititively stated "you don't understand, programming UI's is really hard" posts are making me sad in my little programmers heart. The mechanisms for the UI are there and work fine. All the "hard" work is done. Unless its a software design clusterfuck moving and adding content around on them isn't that difficult. The disconnect between you and the people saying that is that the programming for a good UI (particularly a flashy, responsive UI like Blizzard wants for SC2) is not the hard part. What's hard is the specification, and to a lesser degree the art production. Edit: The difference between a good UI and a horrible UI is a subtle one, and the code used to make it is usually not the problem. This is why people make entire careers out of being human interface designers with only limited coding.
Sure, but that hasn't changed that much, there are some nice new renders on a couple of the buttons but the buttons themselves are the same design. The overall navigation looks like an improvement, but house styles not changed. I'd hope its not the product of months worth of work by a UI designer/team.
The exception to that is probably the arcade and customs interfaces which are really awkward. We'll have to see the latest incarnation that to see if they've really worked something out on the UI design front.
Battlenets problems run much deeper and are those of missing features, not navigation and look and feel. I'm not saying its a bad step, but it's a dissapointingly small one.
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I love the looks of the new UI. Looks much more polished. We'll see how it turns out, but I think it's a good sign. Maybe the old UI was also bad programmed/hard to expand. This one seems to me like a complete overhaul. (not like the pre 1.5 -> 1.5 patch)
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On October 21 2012 07:24 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 19:50 paralleluniverse wrote:
Where in the post does it say anything about ladder anxiety? It doesn't. The closest it gets is saying that having the matchmaker push people towards a 50% win ratio "doesn't feel good". But guess what, that hasn't changed, the matchmaker still pushes people towards a 50% win ratio. So if this was the real reason for removing losses, why are they suddenly coming back? The link I quoted to you contained this, from a blue post on the SEA forums, from around the Spring of 2011. Relevant parts highlighted: Show nested quote +We had a pretty strong rationale for removing losses from the records of players below Master's League. Essentially, prior to that level of play, the losses you've sustained aren't particularly meaningful. Please allow me to explain:
Let's say that you're new to StarCraft II and you play (and lose) a ton of games. You've racked up dozens of losses and a handful of wins, and things look grim. Instead of giving up, you get better, learn effective strategies, and you start playing much more skillfully. Pretty rapidly, the matchmaking system starts pitting you against tougher opponents - but because of the very nature of the matchmaking system, and even though you're making progress and facing tougher opponents, your win/loss rate stays at around 50%. In a scenario like this, it means that your wins will probably never surpass your losses, even though you've become a better player and your wins have become more meaningful than those early losses. Even for someone who starts pretty strong, win/loss numbers should still settle around 50/50 anyway. That doesn't feel good, but worse, those numbers also don't accurately reflect your current level of skill or progress anyway. Now, back to your post: Show nested quote +Stats are back because the REAL reason they were removed, the "pressure" of laddering, is fixed by having unranked play. It was about ladder anxiety and the fact playing the ladder can hurt people's feelings. And this was obvious all along, despite their transparent attempts to scapegoat the win ratio as being meaningless. They've been perfectly up-front that loss counts and loss ratios make people feel bad. They've also been up-front that they're meaningless. They are COMPLETELY meaningless with a good matchmaking system except at the high and low end of the scale because deviations from 50% are nothing more than a historical record of where one's been since the last reset. I'm not sure why you're so keen to find a conspiracy here. When they rolled out Battle.net 2.0 in 2009 at Blizzcon, they were very clear right then that they weren't showing MMRs because they wanted to reward playing more than improvement. That message was crystal clear. Nobody thought that removing losses was for any reason other than (a) keeping people from feeling bad in lower leagues and (b) because the win/loss ratio don't tell you anything useful. Those two reasons are interrelated. That's why they always talk about both in the same sentences. I agree it's not enough reason from a product quality standpoint to avoid having chat channels in a game. However, you have to admit that the VP of customer service (whoever that is) at Blizzard probably looks at the problem differently than you do. As I pointed out in the post to which you were responding, chat channels were obviously a different issue than the stuff which project management and staffing would have affected. Not sure why you didn't get that from my post, since I was explicit about it.
What you've highlighted is basically explaining why losses are meaningless. They've repeated 4 times in that post that it was removed because it was meaningless.
You write:
Nobody thought that removing losses was for any reason other than (a) keeping people from feeling bad in lower leagues and (b) because the win/loss ratio don't tell you anything useful.
You're wrong. Here's Excalibur_Z back in 2011:
And the reason why he read the statement as saying losses were removed, not because of ladder anxiety, but because they are meaningless, is because that's exactly what the statement says, and how any rational person would read it.
Too bad that he was wrong because Blizzard lied.
Also, why are you randomly talking about MMR and the VP of customer service? These things are completely irrelevant to the discussion. Frank Pearce isn't VP of customer service. He's management, and management manages the whole project.
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On October 27 2012 02:40 paralleluniverse wrote:
Too bad that he was wrong because Blizzard lied.
First off, the statement I quoted (written by community manager Daxxari) included first the argument that it made people feel bad, then stated the meaninglessness argument and said it was "worse." Yes, it emphasized the meaninglessness argument, but the boldfaced parts in my quote clearly demonstrate that he talked about both reasons.
That doesn't feel good, but worse, those numbers also don't accurately reflect your current level of skill or progress anyway.
The recent statement, by Alan Dabiri, Lead Software Engineer for SC2, mentioned the pressure of laddering in the context of bringing back the losses.
Now, you may have no idea how things work as far as CMs and developers, but it's relevant. The CMs work for Blizzard's customer service organization, which also handles other kinds of end-user support. When the CMs want to offer an answer to a question, they go to the developers and ask, get some info, then write it up in a way that's suitable for putting on the forums.
Suppose Daxxari spoke to, say, Dustin Browder, and got one answer. If he'd talked to Alan Dabiri, he might have gotten the same facts but with a different emphasis. He then rewrites what he's told in his own words. Maybe he heard things a certain way. Maybe the individual with which he spoke sympathizes more with one argument than the other, but both arguments were what achieved consensus on the dev team. Maybe he's choosing to emphasize one or the other based on what he thinks will carry the most weight with players. Regardless, he's put both reasons in his answer and emphasized the meaninglessness for some reason.
Meanwhile, two years later, Alan Dabiri makes a post in which he mentions "pressure" on the players in passing. Maybe he doesn't remember the full discussion that led to the original change very well. Maybe he felt more strongly about the other reason than Daxxari had. Maybe he just wanted to explain that the Unranked mode taking away ONE of the reasons was enough to put the feature back in, and meaninglessness wasn't enough on its own. Regardless, what he didn't do is catalog all Blizzard statements made on all forums, ever, to make sure he was being consistent, before saying what he said. That's ok, he's a software developer and writing blog posts is probably a secondary part of his job.
The point being that these differences just don't mean anything. They mean that two different people (real human beings, remember) were talking. I work in an environment where I interact with dozens of people doing my job, and if someone took a poll on how some team decision two years before (or ten minutes) had been made, you'd get a different answer for each person. That's not lying, that's just how working in a large team works.
Also, why are you randomly talking about MMR and the VP of customer service? These things are completely irrelevant to the discussion. Frank Pearce isn't VP of customer service. He's management, and management manages the whole project.
Their statements on the display of MMR establish that they've always been concerned about not discouraging players on the ladder. That that had come before is the big reason I didn't read any of this the way that Excalibur_Z did. He spends a lot more of his time than I do reading tea leaves from scraps thrown him by CMs and developers, but the exact statement you quoted I never would have said I agreed with.
When I mentioned the hypothetical "VP of Customer Service," I was not talking about Frank Pearce's comments. I was referring to an incident in which Bashiok (a CM, works for the customer service department) indicated that costly customer service was the reason for not including chat channels in Diablo 3. A day or so later, the Game Director for Diablo 3, Jay Wilson, came out and said "Oh no, there will be chat channels in Diablo 3." Shortly thereafter, Bashiok walked back his comments.
Years ago, I worked in software engineering for mass market products. Customer service input, and particularly the limiting of the number of support calls, often resulted in products being rendered less functional in various ways. Because Bashiok works for the customer service organization at Blizzard, and Jay Wilson works in development, it's clear from that entire episode that Bashiok originally got (from somewhere, probably from within his own customer service organization) a story about why chat channels weren't in D3. Then, Jay Wilson, one of the few development people authorized to speak to the public, directly contradicted him, and after a period of time, Bashiok backed off.
It doesn't take much reading between the lines to realize that there was internal discussion about the feature surrounding all of this. Whether the actual VP of customer service (whoever that is) was involved, or whether Bashiok's initial statement was just an assumption because he knew that cost was a consideration, the whole episode demonstrates that chat channels are a matter of some push/pull between development and customer service.
I mean, come on. The developers play these games, and they absolutely want chat channels in. Meanwhile, customer service has their own reasons for wanting them out. That's the only explanation for two games in a row having "they're in"/"they're out"/"they're in" back-and-forth. I was just assuming that Bashiok's initial statement in the D3 case was because his boss's boss's boss had said "OVER MY DEAD BODY" and the development staff had said "SCREW YOU WE'RE GOING PUBLIC WITH THIS AND PUTTING THEM IN." Or something less dramatic.
Frank Pearce's comments (made early in SC2's lifespan) were just expressing one of those sides in the argument. How he came to make that statement (rather than being on the other side) is a mystery. Maybe he was trying to put a (to him) good spin on a decision he didn't like? Maybe he personally found the cost argument compelling but thought that saying "You don't really want chat channels do you?" would come off as less annoying than laying out the cost argument?
But, the fact that the cost argument explicitly found a voice during D3's beta with Bashiok is iron-clad proof that it's been a big part of the back-and-forth over chat channels.
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EPT
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