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On May 23 2010 22:42 lolaloc wrote:
Let's just not buy the "Blizz for ESPORTS" thing anymore. If SC2 is indeed designed for ESPORTS, we should have gotten:
- LAN
- Chat channels
- Host tournament (w/ grids and stuff)
- Global ladder
- No divisions
The achievements shouldn't even be at its current state. The achievements IMO aren't supposed to be "I Win" or "Zerg Solo Streaker". It should be something like "Blizzard SC2 League S1 Champion" or something like that.
hope blizz reads this and takes it seriously
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Good post. I rarely bother reading so long threads, but this was well worth it.
It really is a problem as you said. I'm very worried about what Blizzard is turning into. It feels like they are more concerned about making money rather than making a good game.
They really need to delay the release date if anything.
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On May 23 2010 23:16 ReachTheSky wrote:
Sick and tired of seeing posts like this. have a problem? GO STRAIGHT TO THE BLIZZARD FORUMS!!!
I agree, these posts needs to be put up on Blizzards forums. I would even put them in a email and send it off or submit feedback to blizz.
If enough of these posts get fowarded to them someone from blizz has got to see it.
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On May 23 2010 23:13 aznhockeyboy16 wrote:
I'm pretty sure win/loss ratio is the best way to determine the skill between players... a player winning 70% of their matches and a little bit lower in rank is going to be better than a person with a 50% win ratio and a higher rank...
if the players play enough games (and most players will play enough games, because the resets will stop in the final version) this is complet bullshit. in the long run EVERYBODY (exept maybe the best 2%) will have 50% win ratio. so the question is, against what opponents they played which is equal with their points (again after enough games).
you guys should read the thread which explains who the ranking is working, and not just guess a lot of stuff. mass gaming DOES NOT give you more and more points. and the bonus pool DOES NOT give you extra points in the long run.
u state that this system would reward mass gaming (which is wrong) but you didnt complain about the icc system? this is strange, icc system was a lot more about mass gaming and abusing.
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I agree.
I think that part of the problem is that the metric for success of a video game these days is skewed by subscription-based games (MMOs and the like). For these games, and viewing game development as a business, the 'most successful' ones are the ones that keep people subscribed the longest and therefore make the most profit. So then the question of how to make a successful game (not neccessarily a goo game even) is to simply make a very long one, or simply put, make the longest game of things people dont hate doing.
To this end, achievements must seem like a god send - your average gamer tends to like customisation, character development (or as is often manifest, profile development), and also the ability to show just how awesome they are at the game in question (good old epeen).
The problem is when this same strategy gets applied to a non-subscription based game. Yes, you can add achievements, and yes you can therefore get people playing your game for longer than any other, but it will be for entirely the wrongs sorts of reasons. And for what? you have already sold the game, what does it matter if the customer plays it for 1 hour or for 6 hours a day? At the end of the day the only thing you want is for the person to think "yeah, this game was good [however any individual defines this] and so next time that company release a title i'll consider buying it".
Hell, I would even argue that by adding so much to do in a game as achievements can sometimes make it seem, you are actually deflating your future markets by making your game more like a chore and less like a relaxing/fun activity.
I think there is something *very* fundamentally wrong about trying to lengthen a game by the addition of an achievement system. I am not saying not to include one neccessarily, but make them small, not a list of 1000 things to do that will take you 3 years of effort.
Take original starcraft (and BW) as an agreed standard of a great game (I doubt ill find argument about that here). Well, I think to date that I have played them through 3-4 times since their release, and probably will again. And each time I do so, its not because I am going for a new high score, nor some hard to gain achievement or title (or any other 'epeen enhancer'). It Would be because of the simple wish to replay something that in my memory was an awesome game with much fun to be had.
Now to the subject of ladders and their seemingly decipherable rankings.
Here too I agree with the OP. There needs to be a more or less unambiguous way in which to compare the abilities of two players if a ladder system if to have any meaning whatsoever. Sure, the most simple of these is a simple numerical ranking from 1 (best) to 9999... (worst). I think it is a pretty weak excuse not to do this if you are afraid people will reject the system if they can't attain a high ranking. People who choose to engage in such a system will generally do so regardless of if they are an awesome player or a complete novice - most probably wish to at least find out which they are by their very participation.
However, here I am also willing to make a concession in my argument. If you wish to divide your ladder into divisions (platinum, gold, silver, bronze and copper), and further subdivide these (with the number of the division), this is fine. In my opinion it is even of slight benefit as it more easily shows players who they are directly competeing with. But if you do this, you have to still allow people to compare two players and estimate their relative skills. It must be possible to decide whether a Gold div 140 rank 2 player is a fair match vs a plat div 238 rank 78 player or not. Even if the process for sucha determination is slightly convoluted, it still must be possible and within the player base's knowledge of how to do so.
After all, anyone participating in a ladder of any type is already someone who has bought the game.
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ELO is / should be the only means of comparing 2 players. If ELO in a given League is not indicative of skill/ability/level then the ELO system is flawed and needs to be corrected.
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I don't see what you're crying about.... blizzard is adding those community, and extras to target people who appreciate that sort of thing.
As far as ladder goes, I don't see what you're crying about that either, if you want competition just wait for release. It wont be long till ladders like iCCUP get going.
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If anyone at blizzard reads this it will most likely be the people with stupid bosses who have stupid company executives, who will then shoot down every idea they might have to make the game better even if they read this and try to fix it.
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On May 23 2010 23:31 JreL209 wrote:
I don't see what you're crying about.... blizzard is adding those community, and extras to target people who appreciate that sort of thing.
As far as ladder goes, I don't see what you're crying about that either, if you want competition just wait for release. It wont be long till ladders like iCCUP get going.
I think the OP is more a general rant towards the trend of adding `features´ such as facebook, easy/unavoidable(free) achievements. 'Casual vs. hardcore'; in black/white terms.
Good read.
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On May 23 2010 22:21 joolz wrote:
So before patch 13, divisions were just numbered. This was kind of useful since people liked to misleadingly advertise themselves as "top 10 in my division." Well, turns out a top 10 player from platinum div 1 is probably much, MUCH better than a top 10 player from platinum div 30.
The problem is that this isn't true. Division number was more a case of when you played your placement matches or if someone from an early division had dropped out recently so there was an open space. The early divisions did tend to contain more really good players since they were more likely to play their placements quickly as they played more. If the division number mattered, there would need to be someway to change the numbered division as you got better which noticeably doesn't happen. If anything this proves why changing to names was a good thing because people confused this number of the division as meaning something.
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I agree with the basic sentiment of the post.
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Very good OP. I almost completely agree.
On May 23 2010 22:21 joolz wrote:
Well, I GUARANTEE the next Blizzard game will have EVEN MORE of those things because people bought Starcraft 2 and Starcraft 2 had a lot of that crap in it so hey it must be good right?
I won't buy Starcraft 2, because of the issues you mentioned and because of the overall strategy that Blizzard seems to be headed. It's a shame considering what great quality we were used to get from Blizzard games we have liked so much and played for such a long time.
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On May 23 2010 23:34 Sayam wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 22:21 joolz wrote:
So before patch 13, divisions were just numbered. This was kind of useful since people liked to misleadingly advertise themselves as "top 10 in my division." Well, turns out a top 10 player from platinum div 1 is probably much, MUCH better than a top 10 player from platinum div 30.
The problem is that this isn't true. Division number was more a case of when you played your placement matches or if someone from an early division had dropped out recently so there was an open space. The early divisions did tend to contain more really good players since they were more likely to play their placements quickly as they played more. If the division number mattered, there would need to be someway to change the numbered division as you got better which noticeably doesn't happen. If anything this proves why changing to names was a good thing because people confused this number of the division as meaning something.
That's exactly what i thought, but i was not sure, thanks for bringing this up and answer the question in my former post.
-Kerm
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In the hour I have been following this thread the common theme of a lot of questions is based around the correlation (or lack thereof) between division number and player ability.
I would just like to say that the very fact that there seems so much confusion about this issue (ie no one seems to unequivocally know one way or the other) is a bad thing. Players want to be able to know how good they are relative to other players. This is true of playing just about any sport (if i can liken video games to sport) at just about any level: whether you are a world champion or just playing in your local area's social competition (ie hardcore vs casual gaming) doesn't matter - I believe both sorts of people strive to win and be competitive, just at different absolute levels.
To this end if you want to disguise player comparissions with division colours, division numbers and then a division rank, as opposed to just a global rankings list of every player is fine, so long as there is a way to get from the former to the latter. Then people who want to know (your stereotypical hardcore gamer) can do the calculations and find out, and the stereotypical casual gamer who doesn't care can go on be pleased about being ranked 5th in division happy dog simling face omega..or whatever they are called now.
Edit: Spelling.
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Good read. But you know, as FA said, as soon as we the community come up with an alternative (like with pgt and iccup) i'm off that thing anyway. I dont trust Blizzard to handle the competitive market anyway and i'm hugely annoyed that they want to have their hands in everything.
If they can't make it, we break it, and recreate it.
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Okay first of all I want to state that I do agree with some of this. But really most of this is just plain wrong.
If you do work in the videogame industry, you should know that "the 50 people working on achievements", cannot be working on game balance or whatever. You should know that there are different kind of employees in a video game company as well as any other company. Some are coders, some art designers and other lore writers and whatnot, so the 50 people working on achievements are not qualified to work on game balance anyways.
I'm a player that plays the games for the game content itself. I want a good and polished game. But if I have to be honest I like the idea of achievements and portraits. It is not the reason I play the game, but it gives me some "bonus fun". And really I expect these kind of thing from a title of the caliber of Starcraft. I know that this is not and have never been Blizzards main priority when developing the game. Blizzards main focus is of course the game play itself.
The statement that games get easier and easier doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It might be that single player games lately have had a tendency to get easier, but this is a multiplayer game. How do blizzard make this easy? Isn't the difficulty level of a multiplayer game defined by the skill level of the people playing it? And some people might think they are good because they earn a lot of money shoveling shit, or that they have a lot of achievement point, but what do you care? You know that this isn't true. You know what defines the skill level of a player, the amount of points the person have. Same thing goes for the fact that some people think that the division rank is defining of your skill level. Why should you care? You know it is not. And honestly it isn't Blizzards fault that people think this anyways, people should be able to understand the system and realize that division rank doesn't say anything about your skill level.
Anyways do agree with OP in many ways. I do think that there should be a global ladder, but many of your arguments seems none legit to me.
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On May 23 2010 22:42 lolaloc wrote:
Let's just not buy the "Blizz for ESPORTS" thing anymore. If SC2 is indeed designed for ESPORTS, we should have gotten:
- LAN
- Chat channels
- Host tournament (w/ grids and stuff)
- Global ladder
- No divisions
The achievements shouldn't even be at its current state. The achievements IMO aren't supposed to be "I Win" or "Zerg Solo Streaker". It should be something like "Blizzard SC2 League S1 Champion" or something like that.
great OP, and this pretty much sums it up
maybe post the thread on battlenet forums?
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What bothers me the most is that we are considered too childish by Blizzard to know the rules. I'm not gonna try to compete in a ladder with hidden rules, what's the point to play if you don't know like "ok, if I win 3 more games I'm gonna be promoted to this league". This whole bnet 2.0 is a huge huge fail.
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I couldn't agree more. Well said dude. Imo you should make this post at battle.net forums too.
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The engineers are all human and they have stupid bosses who have stupid company executives who like your money and know how to cut costs & development to maximize profits. That's just how it works. Sorry...
I've been saying this forever but constantly get flamed by Blizzard fan boys who think everyone at their company is their best friend. It usually goes something like this:
"Oh, I went to the company HQ and everyone there was so cool."
Well yea of course their PR reps and everyone else they have deal with the public are going to come off like saints, but like every other company in the world they want more than anything to get money. If this means adding in useless features like easy achievements and Facebook sync then they are gunna cut development time and work on it so that more casual people will buy it. This is the same reason the game wont be truely balanced for years... after most people have already bought the game, then they can focus on creating a proper ESport and thus continue the revenue flow.
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EPT
