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"shoveling elephant shit"
^
This sir is the best analogy ever....
But on a more serious note I completely agree with the OP. The UI is clogged with so much useless and unnecessary garbage and the sad things is the time could have been well spent fixing/creating much more important things than this bs. This isn't something Blizzard is going to magically fix come launch day. I predict things will be shit. Everyone scrambling to patch and play the game overloading the servers. Lag, crashes, bnet down for ungodly amount of time. Its no way to release a game especially something as highly as anticipated as SC2... I'd rather they postpone the release date to fix things however Blizzard doesn't seem to think anything is broken.
Just my .02 cents...
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Why would a division 1 plat be better than some other division? Arent divisions just made as people join the game? The only thing division 1 means then is that you started playing early. Well done. I bet the reason they removed the numbered divisions was because people for some reason thought they had some kind of meaning to them.
In SC1 there wasnt even a ladder. For anyone not extremely hard core the ladder score will be a sufficent way to measure someones skill. The pros will be in their own pro league anyway. Some people need to relax a bit and understand that gaming is evolving and is not only for hardcore players anymore, but for a much wider mass of gamers. I dont care that much about achievements, but I think they will be fun, and you can just ignore them if they somehow ruin your gaming experience.
I kind of feel like you are the one being narrow minded here, sticking to the elitist "I played Brood War alot so Blizzard should prioritize my wishes" route.
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On May 24 2010 04:41 Stargazer wrote:Show nested quote +What this basically comes down to is a reflection of Blizzard's (Activision's?) new multiplayer gaming philosophy: "players are children and we should hold their hands as much as possible and try to satisfy everyone at the same time." Why? Because having players spam games played and feel good about their rank/rating means more money for the company. Toss in some easy mode achievements/rewards (they nerfed the solo/team crusher achievements... LOL) and just keep the pacifiers in their mouths.
In the end, players are really experiencing only a superficial level of challenge/reward from Blizzard's new games. They try so hard to make it impossible to lose that winning just means so little. Outside of tournaments, exhibitions, and in-house games (which are currently impossible to set up thanks to the bnet 2.0 geniuses and god damn FACEBOOK), you just don't get that much satisfaction out of winning. Sure it's nice to win games against random strangers, but after a while you realize that beating those random opponents has diminishing returns. Achievements, portraits, decals, rank, and rating all lose their worth when everyone can get them. This is a troubling trend of video games in the last several years. It seems like for whatever reasons, whether companies figure its more profitable to keep people into the game by giving them continual pats on the back or whether that's a reflection of our American culture, which promotes an "everybody wins" mentality at the expense of no real risk or sense of accomplishment. Here's a funny link to what I'm sort of getting at; hopefully if any of you read cracked you've read it before: How karate kid ruined the modern world
I feel it's a bit more sinister than that. The achievement system uses a series of methods that are frighteningly close to methods of operant conditioning. Have a quote:
In operant conditioning, organisms associate their own actions with consequences. Actions followed by reinforces increase; those followed by punishers decrease.
Achievements are a method of reinforcing the behavior of playing video games. Dispensed intermittently, they reinforce the act of gaming by rewarding the player for playing. It doesn't matter what the player is doing, so long as they are playing the game. Did you die five hundred times? It's okay, have an achievement. By giving players an artificial reward for playing games, developers are training gamers to play more games, which in turn leads to sales in video games.
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Sorry OP but you've made a bunch of assumptions based on previous games / rating systems and have failed to understand the way the SC2 system actually works.
Basically it's like a normal ELO system except that your first 50 - 100 games are skewed a bit in an effort to try and get you to your "actual" rating. So when you win you gain more rating than what you lose when you lose. It's also a way to make players feel better about themselves I guess. But you'll notice that the more games you play the more evened your rating gains / losses become.
So theoretically someone with rating 2000 and wins losses 300-300 will be just as good as someone with rating 2000 and wins losses 50-10. But it's hard to compare those players because the second guy hasn't really played enough games to cement his skill level whereas the first guy has found his skill level and is 50/50 with other people at his skill level.
Another reason win loss ratio is not a reliable way of rating a player is because it depends on how that player was originally placed. If he drops a couple placement games due to connection issues then he's going to rip his way through gold / platinum on his way to diamond so he'll have a 20 - 5 rating or something but won't necessarily be as good as someone with that ratio who got placed straight into diamond league.
In saying that my favourite rating system was the one used in Age of Empires 2 which was just straight up ELO. So the average rating of every player was centered around the starting rating - 1600.
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On May 24 2010 05:00 Grend wrote:
In SC1 there wasnt even a ladder.
Yes there was. I stopped playing for quite awhile, so I'm not exactly sure when they removed it, but I distinctly remember there being a ladder. Your ratings used to show on the icon next to your name in chat channels.
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On May 24 2010 05:20 Okiesmokie wrote:Yes there was. I stopped playing for quite awhile, so I'm not exactly sure when they removed it, but I distinctly remember there being a ladder. Your ratings used to show on the icon next to your name in chat channels.
Oops. My bad then. I just assumed there was not due to the lack of matchmaking, making it kind of pointless. (Probably was matchmaking too, and me just being a skilless bnet user.)
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I agree with this post.
Right now I don't give a shit about any of the achievements or rewards. A new picture?? Great!! Does that increase my actual skill playing this game? No?? Awwww.......
The achievements right now are so easy to get that I don't even care one bit about them. I previously had the 50 zerg win achievement but I still went with the baneling picture just because it looked the coolest. If you start putting portraits at 1 or 2 thousand wins to get then I would actually respect someone that had that, but right now achievements and portraits don't mean anything.
Also I want to know how I rank against everyone in the US and then also how I rank against everyone in the world. Being a higher rank than everyone else in the world is greater than even an achievement that took a thousand wins to get.
Actual skill > achievements and rewards
Starcraft IS NOT WoW!!! In WoW a great majority of the game was just collecting items to show to other people (Rare mounts, legendary weapons, etc) that don't take very much to get other than time. Starcraft is different; starcraft is about game skill.
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Much of this anti facebook polemic, invariably thrown in there alongside the Blizzard hates Esports, honestly confuses me
I see so many comparisons to actual sport, but the one thing actual sports have over esports, is extremely large fanbases (global sports at least). People get into sports and following sports via family and friends, how do people get into esports? Currently I'm scratching my head, yet the money has to come from somewhere, put yourselves in the 'casual's' shoes for a moment. The forums are covered with 'Bliz-don't-give-a-fuck just take the casuals' money and let them sod off.' mentality. How exactly do you expect esports to develop without a fanbase any other successful competitive past time has developed?
While it may not be the solution, or even close, and has quite possibly not even crossed the peripherals of Blizzards thought process with facebook integration, development of a larger fanbase for a game like Starcraft 2 has to start somewhere if there is going to be enough money for a reasonably sized scene. Online social network, online 'sport'...hmmmm, take out the online part there and it sounds like something more traditional.
While I completely agree its hard to picture - my friends know I play games, they're fine with it, they just aren't interested because it's not something they do, so I don't impose the fact - the potential for 'casuals' to enjoy Starcraft, enjoy playing it with their friends, using facebook, joining groups, competing with each other and eventually trying to get one up on their friends, in effect legitimizing the whole process in the eyes of the wider community, is something I think may well be being overlooked. Even the mentality of buying a game largely to play it online is a huge huge switch from 10 years ago, and this is something I think Blizzard is actively trying to encourage with Starcraft 2, whether they have implemented it correctly so far or not.
Yes there are a lot of basic functionality issues with Bnet 2.0, and it does, in my eyes, currently, suck. But the whole idea that pandering to casuals in some respects is necessarily a bad thing is just myopic and this whole anti facebook argument is just hyper-cynical. Imo people are being far too subjective about the whole issue.
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On May 24 2010 04:21 Cheezy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 04:06 Pking wrote:
sheesh. It's been TWO DAYS, there have been basicly no severe problems in the beta until the last patch and you are whining about the house burning down?
And Impossible to play badly? You basicly need the same skills as in starcraft 1, the game mechanics are almost identical. Perhaps even harder than starcraft 1 because of the hard counters.
And plz stop whining about facebook integration already.
Starcraft 2 is far from "harder than SC1" "The game mechanics are almost identical". Saying that would almost be an insult to SC1 veterans. How much have you even played Starcraft 1?
I've played plenty of Starcraft 1, at the time where things like build-orders, scouting, microing and macroing where advanced concepts for the average player (if you where good you knew about attack-move and target focusing). Today these are considered basic skills and if you are new to Starcraft 2 you need to learn them to have any chance of competing. I feel the game is faster paced and I feel you need to multitask more (with the chrono boost, inject larva and mules etc.) to not fall behind. Moreover, you are more prone to get harassed by units such as reapers, void rays, banshees and dark templars. Hard counters makes scouting vital and even with a superior army, having the wrong unit composition can get you crushed. Overall I find it harder than SC1, perhaps veterans will disagree, but I'm speaking for myself.
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On May 24 2010 05:24 Grend wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 05:20 Okiesmokie wrote:On May 24 2010 05:00 Grend wrote:
In SC1 there wasnt even a ladder. Yes there was. I stopped playing for quite awhile, so I'm not exactly sure when they removed it, but I distinctly remember there being a ladder. Your ratings used to show on the icon next to your name in chat channels. Oops. My bad then. I just assumed there was not due to the lack of matchmaking, making it kind of pointless. (Probably was matchmaking too, and me just being a skilless bnet user.)
There was no matchmaking AFAIK, there was just a ladder option for game type, and people made games like "1800+ Lost Temple"
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My biggest problem with the ladder the way it is is that it is impossible to track improvement. You can't tell if you're doing better than you did last week or if you're more or less as bad as you were before. Also, it's always nice to be able to see who the best players at the moment are. People are saying that ICCUP was such a good ladder, but I think also ICCUP fell into the trap of trying to make everyone feel like winners with maps of the week and more points for winning than losing at lower levels. I also think the ladder reset had a detrimental effect on the ranking, but perhaps not as bad as letting inactive players rule the top of the ladder. I genuinely hope that Blizzard in the end decide to implement a ladder that is transparent, persistent and fair. People are able to handle seeing their rating or rank bob up and down depending on how good they are.
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My biggest problem with the ladder the way it is is that it is impossible to track improvement.
Wouldnt moving up rank wise, or getting into a higher league indicate improvement? Granted it does not indicate improvement compared to all other players, but it still indicates whether you improve or not.
A complete ranking as an alternative would be sweet though. Looking around at SCRankings is alot of fun.
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Did they make the starcraft2 ladder work the same way as the WoW ladder now? With the hidden ELO "matchmaking" rating?
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SC2 is going in a direction that does not look good for the competitive scene.
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i do not see the problem with having some so called useless stuff in a game, i do not work in the game industry but is it not the goal of a game development company to make a game that will get you the greasiest amount of profit possible? in order to do such thing you need to design for more than just one group of people, you can not just make a game for hardcore players because this group of people is the lowest number group of gamers that there are, you need to make a game that the average every day joe will want to buy and play as well as a hardcore player, and this is what it seems to me that blizzard is trying to do.
yeah there is going to be hand holding for the average player, but really there is hand holding in just about every game out there now games are not as hard as they use to be because most people do not want to have to play a game for 5 hours a day for 3 week in order to beat it.
the achievements help give people who need a goal to shoot for something to shoot for it will keep them playing the game longer thus giving them the justification of paying 60$ for the game, which is something that i am sure just about everyone wants if they just forked out 60$ for anything.
and the game is just in the beta phase, other people have said it before and i guess ill say it also it took blizzard 10 years to get StarCraft to where it is now so i think it will take them few years to fix the problems, and of course you can not please everyone, hardcore players will complain about the game being made for casual players but they will still play the game and just deal with it until blizzard makes the competitive part of the game as balanced as they can.
eventually most of the casual players will move on and all will be well with the world.
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/signed completely
... omg i am just not able to express how greatly you just formulated all my feelings.
I have to admit i played WoW for quite a while after release and got absolutly disappointed and scared off by everybody-is-a-winner-shit. Since i quit i remembered my time playing Wc3. I was no hero in this game and in fact my stats were not great, but there was this simple motivation to overcome my mistakes and just get better at the game. I so far enjoyed the Sc2 beta very much. Read forums, watched streams and played myself. I can not tell how shocked i am since this -copper +diamond change; feels like the WoW-Virus i was escaping from just caught me.
I - am - scared . . .
Oh btw. please please post this article on the Blizzard forums, too. It somehow seemed they pay some attention to teamliquids forum 
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On May 24 2010 05:49 Grend wrote:Show nested quote +My biggest problem with the ladder the way it is is that it is impossible to track improvement. Wouldnt moving up rank wise, or getting into a higher league indicate improvement? Granted it does not indicate improvement compared to all other players, but it still indicates whether you improve or not. A complete ranking as an alternative would be sweet though. Looking around at SCRankings is alot of fun.
The bonus pool causes your points to inflate slightly, so they are not an accurate meassure of skill which can change incredibly gradually. If you are moving quickly up rankwise or changing leagues, it's not because you are improving, it's because you haven't reached a rank where you are stabilized so that you on average lose and gain the same amount of points over time. It's the same way a progamer doesn't go from D to A because he is improving. He was A to start with, the ladder just didn't know it.
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On May 24 2010 05:46 stenole wrote:
My biggest problem with the ladder the way it is is that it is impossible to track improvement. You can't tell if you're doing better than you did last week or if you're more or less as bad as you were before. Also, it's always nice to be able to see who the best players at the moment are. People are saying that ICCUP was such a good ladder, but I think also ICCUP fell into the trap of trying to make everyone feel like winners with maps of the week and more points for winning than losing at lower levels. I also think the ladder reset had a detrimental effect on the ranking, but perhaps not as bad as letting inactive players rule the top of the ladder. I genuinely hope that Blizzard in the end decide to implement a ladder that is transparent, persistent and fair. People are able to handle seeing their rating or rank bob up and down depending on how good they are.
Iccup did the opposite. You had to be pretty fucking manly to keep trainng to get to D+ if you are on 30% winrate. Yeah, maybe this rewarded spamming cheese games too much on the lower levels, because going 10-5 in 3 hours was way better than going 4-1 in 2 hours, but still, the winrate was the deciding factor. Now, no matter how hard you suck you can't have a winrate below 50%.
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yo can someone please answer my question:
On May 23 2010 23:11 d_so wrote:
nice rant and all but is there really a correlation between division number and the skill level of the players? can't get myself to read more with this question lingering in my mind.
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On May 24 2010 06:25 d_so wrote:yo can someone please answer my question: Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 23:11 d_so wrote:
nice rant and all but is there really a correlation between division number and the skill level of the players? can't get myself to read more with this question lingering in my mind.
No.
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EPT
