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WoW was hard, and subtle, and highly complex. Most fights were almost impossible to win without perfect execution from 40 people. But membership kept dropping off, so they dumb if down and it goes back up, the. I drops again, so they dumb it down and it goes back up. Rinse and repeat. It's not a case of self fulfilling prophecies--it's literally what they've had to do to keep a market presence.
I'm not saying I agree with it--but if you've ever tried pub raiding you'd see that all people want is loot and not complex execution. Join random pubs and you will see the demographic blizz has to keep happy.
I'm saying it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to Starcraft. WoW is a MMORPG, Starcraft is an RTS. You can't really compare neither the SP nor the MP portion of an RTS to an MMORPG, it's an entirely different gameplay experience. MMORPG is basically a hamsterwheel, so you need to cater the gameplay to suit the hamsterwheel mentality - keep it simple and give only the illusion of progress.
What people expect from SP RTS is two things - good, engaging story and well-crafted missions. In other words, your goal should not be to tailor the experience in such a way to keep the player playing that campaign indefinitely - you want him to do just one (or perhaps few) playthroughs, but make it a great, memorable experience. And HotS truly miserably fails here - while the missions and the gameplay are somewhat enjoyable, story-wise there's truly nothing really memorable (I'm pretty sure future generations will not in 10 years or so fondly reminiscent about that time when Raynor and Kerrigan finally smooched, nor when they needed to feed giant turtles, nor when some weird russian mutant who was supposed to be known to them asked them to cause havoc, nor even when they were "cathartically" skewering Mengsk while spouting hammy lines about vengeance).
So yes, I still think that saying "let's apply WoW mentality to Starcraft because if WoW folks want their extra helping of dumb then for sure Starcraft fans want the same thing, too" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not necessarily want the dumb, we just get stuck with it because it was expected from us to want it, and since we apparently readily paid to get our dumb the first time over well then here's an expansion pack with 150% more dumb, bon apetit.
So TL;DR If Blizzard decides to keep this up, by the time "the cult of the dumb" rightfully explodes in their face, the situation may just be insalvagable. At least for the portion of their fanbase who aren't into MP that much (and whom I think may have already jumped ship after Diablo 3 and HotS).
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On March 22 2013 22:05 johnny123 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 21:56 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
i hope blizzard doesn't read much into this garbage thread. The story has to be told in a way to get a wide variety of missions.E.g in op's post he is complaining about duran and a battle for hadokens and destroying temples.. But ignores the gameplay it offers..
The mission is trying to encourage you to act fast. I was certainly disppointed in the infested marines abilities as i found them lackluster.But story has to be driven that way to make sense of all the missions. If they kept a stereotypical "kerrigan is already strong enough and just go to korhal and kill mensk in the first 3 missions".You would have never even heard of the original home world of the zerg or meet abathar for reasons why zerg needs to evolve or that the zerg was a tool of AMON.
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story when its tailored to support a wide variety of missions
To be brutally honest i would have preferred it sc1 style where all 3 races where in each campaign and playable. But for what it is, i found HOTS alot better than WOL. You have it backwards. The story should determine the mechanics. If the mechanics are bland, it's because the story is bland. It makes sense that she would bee line her way to mengst. It also makes sense that she would get her ass handed to her, losing too many Zerg or feeling bad about killing too many civilians. Maybe abather gets good of a female ghost and starts infesting her and Kerrigan freaks out and turns the whole Zerg army away.she realizes she's too weak/human to kill so many people and decides that the only way to achieve her goal is to lose her humanity. Those transitions are the important parts of storytelling. Without them, we spend cutscene after cutscene being given exposition instead of being shown narrative. and what makes you think that way you explained is a better way to tell the story? i bet anything that if blizzard told the story you said it should be, it would be RIPPED to pieces just like how this is. Its a fucking b-movie fantasy story. Get over it . Nothing will ever make sense.. The story was good for what it was. She turned back into queen of blades because she thought raynor was dead and that was her only reason to stay human to begin with. She had nothing but vengeance on her mind and it showed threw the story telling that she was sacrificing the zerg for her own agenda . Even the zergs were asking why should they care about killing menghsk or sparing humans when they should be going after the real threat, amon. That makes more sense to me why she went back to being queen of blades than you saying "she realizes she is to human to kill many people". Your story telling would be quite frankly horrible.
I'm not suggesting to change the story. I'm suggesting we need for her character to remain consistent within the confines of the story blizz has. If she wanted to come after mengst she should fucking come after mengsk. If mengsk is too strong and that's the reason she goes to zerus--show mengsk being too strong before going to zerus. Right now she gets mad about Raynor--so she flies to zerus, when asked why, she says its because of mengsk. When she gets to mengsk she prattles about Amon.
Stick the part if the narrative your already in. When she's upset at mengsk--focus on mengsk. When she's not strong enough to fight mengsk--show that. When she needs to power up--show that. Don't jumble it like they did.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
On March 22 2013 08:42 antelope591 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 08:35 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 08:06 antelope591 wrote:
I voted the campaign as average...not to great but not too terrible either. As usual there's people on both sides exaggerating the badness/goodness of the story when the truth is somewhere in the middle. Take the example of the "good post" in the OP. Why doesn't Kerrigan just waltz into Korhal and kill that random guy Mengsk without seeking more power? Srsly? Mengsk the emperor of the Terran Dominion which is the strongest its ever been and owns a whole system of fortified planets. Human Kerrigan and one leviathan is enough to take on the whole dominion now? Is that A+ posting?
I did have my own issues, major being the Duran storyline had an extremely shitty conclusion considering he was my fav char from the first games. Hopefully there's some mention of him in the next game. And Stukov coming back was stupid as hell. But even with these issues the game still kept me engaged and wanting to see what happens next. And the starcraft lore/universe is still more interesting that 99% of anything else out there video game wise. This new phenomenon on harping and complaining about every single issue in a videogame is extremely annoying with big name games. Its perfectly reasonable to assume that mengsk is strong. But don't tell us that, show us that. She spent half the game telling us "I need to be stronger" but she never actually did anything. She attack mengst troops twice before leaving for zerus. And she beat them handily both times. Why would we ever feel like shes weak when the only time she's shown as weak was when her friend died. What you do during player controlled missions is a terrible way to assess strength. The same way you could say your little group of rag tag Terrans in WoL went to Char and crushed/held off the entire swarm on the way to reverting Kerrigan back to human form. Does that mean that the Zerg were really weak as hell the whole time and can't hold off even a small Terran fleet? Of course your player controlled character is gonna win every battle otherwise you're not gonna make much progress through a campaign.
lol this. We have to win and therefore missions have to be made so we can win. Calling the enemy retards is so stupid because otherwise nothing would ever happen and nothing could be achieved >.> <.<
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On March 22 2013 19:25 baba44713 wrote:
What truly bothers me is the utter lack of criteria of the kids for whom the story is supposedly tailored to.
I mean, it used to be that the best media forms made for, ok, "younger" folks was the one that didn't actually desperately try to aim for that particular demographic but rather make a product of universal quality. I mean, I was a kid in 80's and 90's and yes, my criteria were lower, but I could still see the difference between something that was actually really good and something kinda crappy (even though that yes, I would still watch and enjoy the crappy stuff too). And yes, I enjoyed games like Diablo and SC1, I thought they had amazing cutscenes and really enjoyable stories and if anything I understood those games didn't treat you like an idiot.
So I must say that sorry, I apologize, but SC2 (as far as the storyline and its presentation goes) *does* treat you like an idiot. Everything is spelled out and often repeated as if the player has the attention span of a goldfish and would forget who and what is being shown to him unless being constantly reminded of it. There's unnecessary eye candy galore, from Kerrigan's bodysuit and thong to gratuitous Michael Bay explosions and choreographed fight scenes that just jump out of nowhere and do nothing for the story except for amusing the player so he wouldn't get bored by the expository dialogue that immediately follows it. And the worst culprit of course being total disrespect for the characters of the original game whose appearances are changed, whose personalities are rewritten, whose backstories are retconned, and who are all too often resurrected only to serve as a token "old character cameo" even though the role they have is either pointless or does not suit the character at all. This is not a case of stuff being bad because the creative team isn't good, this is stuff being bad BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY AND METICULOUSLY MADE SO - in another words, you are being served this crap because Blizzard story team thinks this is the only type of content you are able to enjoy.
So, ok, SC2 is apparently not tailored for me since I am over 18. But to everyone for whom this story is supposedly tailored... man, you should be insulted. I'm not saying you should not be a fan of this new Starcraft, or that you shouldn't be enjoying the lore or even the new setting, but geez, at least recognize when somebody is treating you like you're an idiot. Acknowledge that creative directors show an amazing disregard for your intelligence and that YOU DESERVE SOMETHING BETTER. Stop settling for this mediocrity because that's the best you can hope for in the future - had the backlash for what WoL story did to Starcraft been greater I'm sure HotS would have been at least a tiny fraction better. Now we have what we have, and the chances of the final part actually being good (or at least acceptable) have never been lower.
I agree with this. Back in the SC1 days, I'm sure that most people at Blizzard were college kids who just graduated and wanted to put their geek fantasies to life. When you're at that age, the last thing you care about is trying to satisfy a "core demographic" or satisfy a profit margin so your CEO will be happy. No, all you care about is writing cool, geeky stuff. That's one of the reasons why a lot of older games share a lot of universal appeal and remain as recognizable brands. Writers just wanted to make cool stuff, and not obsessively worry about the casual market.
With the Blizzard of today, I can definitely tell that they worry a lot more about profits and demographics than they did decades ago, which is ironic because often times the best way to appeal to casuals is to not obsessively worry about them so much. Games should have universal appeal, not casual. Companies THINK that what casuals like is to dumb things down, when what's really important is to create something with a lot of depth but find simple ways to ease customers in. You can easily tell that Blizzard has dumbed down the story in a lot of respects because they want the "grandma" gamers. The "multiple factions battle for dominance" story of SC1 turns into "basic love story with ancient evil" in SC2. Dialogue is kept basic to the point of spelling things out because they want kids to understand it better. The backstory is filled with retcons galore, but Blizzard gives no fucks because they know that the only people who care are the core gamers, and not the casuals they want to appeal to. That's the overall attitude of old Blizzard vs. new Blizzard. Old Blizzard was "let's tell this cool story the absolutely best way we can, even if technology limits us" whereas new Blizzard is "we have this cool story, but let's tone it down here and there because kids might not like it".
Obviously the newer generations of gamers won't mind these changes too much because they never played SC1, and the SC2 gameplay and production values are good enough for them to overlook it, but it DOES have an effect on the core/hardcore demographics. You can definitely tell that the Blizzard brand name doesn't cause the massive nerdgasms that it used to, which is sad because Blizzard could have easily appealed to all types of gamers with the story, but deliberately chose not to because they fall into the common trap of thinking that they have to alienate core gamers to appeal to casuals.
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On March 22 2013 22:16 baba44713 wrote:Show nested quote +
WoW was hard, and subtle, and highly complex. Most fights were almost impossible to win without perfect execution from 40 people. But membership kept dropping off, so they dumb if down and it goes back up, the. I drops again, so they dumb it down and it goes back up. Rinse and repeat. It's not a case of self fulfilling prophecies--it's literally what they've had to do to keep a market presence.
I'm not saying I agree with it--but if you've ever tried pub raiding you'd see that all people want is loot and not complex execution. Join random pubs and you will see the demographic blizz has to keep happy.
I'm saying it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to Starcraft. WoW is a MMORPG, Starcraft is an RTS. You can't really compare neither the SP nor the MP portion of an RTS to an MMORPG, it's an entirely different gameplay experience. MMORPG is basically a hamsterwheel, so you need to cater the gameplay to suit the hamsterwheel mentality - keep it simple and give only the illusion of progress. What people expect from SP RTS is two things - good, engaging story and well-crafted missions. In other words, your goal should not be to tailor the experience in such a way to keep the player playing that campaign indefinitely - you want him to do just one (or perhaps few) playthroughs, but make it a great, memorable experience. And HotS truly miserably fails here - while the missions and the gameplay are somewhat enjoyable, story-wise there's truly nothing really memorable (I'm pretty sure future generations will not in 10 years or so fondly reminiscent about that time when Raynor and Kerrigan finally smooched, nor when they needed to feed giant turtles, nor when some weird russian mutant who was supposed to be known to them asked them to wreck a prison, nor even when they were "cathartically" skewering Mengsk while spouting hammy lines about vengeance). So yes, I still think that saying "let's apply WoW mentality to Starcraft because if WoW folks want their extra helping of dumb then for sure Starcraft fans want the same thing, too" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not necessarily want the dumb, we just get stuck with it because it was expected from us to want it, and since we apparently readily paid to get our dumb the first time over well then here's an expansion pack with 150% more dumb, bon apetit. So TL;DR If Blizzard decides to keep this up, by the time "the cult of the dumb" rightfully explodes in their face, the situation may just be insalvagable. At least for the portion of their fanbase who aren't into MP that much (and whom I think may have already jumped ship after Diablo 3 and HotS).
Hard ore gamers will buy sc2 because of things like MLG and GSL. Blizz knows this and so they don't bother aiming multiplayer for that demographic. Their experience with casual gamers is that the more hand holding the better. And so they're sticking to that plan.
Diablo 3 and Sc2 gets released. Sc2 gets big, d3 not as much. Overall, their plan worked.
That's not some self fulfilling prophecy that is market predictions that has made them more money than not.
Do I think it's a bad plan? Yes, I do. But it's not out of disrespect to the audience intelligence. They just realize that the audience who doesn't care too much but might play 1-2 missions a week needs a lot of coddling.
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
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On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 22:16 baba44713 wrote:
WoW was hard, and subtle, and highly complex. Most fights were almost impossible to win without perfect execution from 40 people. But membership kept dropping off, so they dumb if down and it goes back up, the. I drops again, so they dumb it down and it goes back up. Rinse and repeat. It's not a case of self fulfilling prophecies--it's literally what they've had to do to keep a market presence.
I'm not saying I agree with it--but if you've ever tried pub raiding you'd see that all people want is loot and not complex execution. Join random pubs and you will see the demographic blizz has to keep happy.
I'm saying it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to Starcraft. WoW is a MMORPG, Starcraft is an RTS. You can't really compare neither the SP nor the MP portion of an RTS to an MMORPG, it's an entirely different gameplay experience. MMORPG is basically a hamsterwheel, so you need to cater the gameplay to suit the hamsterwheel mentality - keep it simple and give only the illusion of progress. What people expect from SP RTS is two things - good, engaging story and well-crafted missions. In other words, your goal should not be to tailor the experience in such a way to keep the player playing that campaign indefinitely - you want him to do just one (or perhaps few) playthroughs, but make it a great, memorable experience. And HotS truly miserably fails here - while the missions and the gameplay are somewhat enjoyable, story-wise there's truly nothing really memorable (I'm pretty sure future generations will not in 10 years or so fondly reminiscent about that time when Raynor and Kerrigan finally smooched, nor when they needed to feed giant turtles, nor when some weird russian mutant who was supposed to be known to them asked them to wreck a prison, nor even when they were "cathartically" skewering Mengsk while spouting hammy lines about vengeance). So yes, I still think that saying "let's apply WoW mentality to Starcraft because if WoW folks want their extra helping of dumb then for sure Starcraft fans want the same thing, too" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not necessarily want the dumb, we just get stuck with it because it was expected from us to want it, and since we apparently readily paid to get our dumb the first time over well then here's an expansion pack with 150% more dumb, bon apetit. So TL;DR If Blizzard decides to keep this up, by the time "the cult of the dumb" rightfully explodes in their face, the situation may just be insalvagable. At least for the portion of their fanbase who aren't into MP that much (and whom I think may have already jumped ship after Diablo 3 and HotS). Hard ore gamers will buy sc2 because of things like MLG and GSL. Blizz knows this and so they don't bother aiming multiplayer for that demographic. Their experience with casual gamers is that the more hand holding the better. And so they're sticking to that plan. Diablo 3 and Sc2 gets released. Sc2 gets big, d3 not as much. Overall, their plan worked. That's not some self fulfilling prophecy that is market predictions that has made them more money than not. Do I think it's a bad plan? Yes, I do. But it's not out of disrespect to the audience intelligence. They just realize that the audience who doesn't care too much but might play 1-2 missions a week needs a lot of coddling. David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
That statistic could also be a result of the story not being as good or appealing, not necessarily a "casuals are bad" argument. It's odd how every time statistics like that crop up, people and companies think that the ONLY possible answer is "it's too hard", rather than "the game wasn't good enough".
I have the skill to beat SC2 on brutal, but I never did because I didn't find the campaign as appealing due to the questionable storyline decisions they made. A key part of a long lasting game is being high quality enough that it encourages casuals to turn into hardcore gamers. If WoL had a fantastic story, you can bet your ass that I would have played it obsessively. But since the story made me roll my eyes so much, I turned to multiplayer and abandoned single player the moment I beat it on normal. A good book is read once. A great book is read a hundred times.
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On March 22 2013 22:37 Spawkuring wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 22:16 baba44713 wrote:
WoW was hard, and subtle, and highly complex. Most fights were almost impossible to win without perfect execution from 40 people. But membership kept dropping off, so they dumb if down and it goes back up, the. I drops again, so they dumb it down and it goes back up. Rinse and repeat. It's not a case of self fulfilling prophecies--it's literally what they've had to do to keep a market presence.
I'm not saying I agree with it--but if you've ever tried pub raiding you'd see that all people want is loot and not complex execution. Join random pubs and you will see the demographic blizz has to keep happy.
I'm saying it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to Starcraft. WoW is a MMORPG, Starcraft is an RTS. You can't really compare neither the SP nor the MP portion of an RTS to an MMORPG, it's an entirely different gameplay experience. MMORPG is basically a hamsterwheel, so you need to cater the gameplay to suit the hamsterwheel mentality - keep it simple and give only the illusion of progress. What people expect from SP RTS is two things - good, engaging story and well-crafted missions. In other words, your goal should not be to tailor the experience in such a way to keep the player playing that campaign indefinitely - you want him to do just one (or perhaps few) playthroughs, but make it a great, memorable experience. And HotS truly miserably fails here - while the missions and the gameplay are somewhat enjoyable, story-wise there's truly nothing really memorable (I'm pretty sure future generations will not in 10 years or so fondly reminiscent about that time when Raynor and Kerrigan finally smooched, nor when they needed to feed giant turtles, nor when some weird russian mutant who was supposed to be known to them asked them to wreck a prison, nor even when they were "cathartically" skewering Mengsk while spouting hammy lines about vengeance). So yes, I still think that saying "let's apply WoW mentality to Starcraft because if WoW folks want their extra helping of dumb then for sure Starcraft fans want the same thing, too" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not necessarily want the dumb, we just get stuck with it because it was expected from us to want it, and since we apparently readily paid to get our dumb the first time over well then here's an expansion pack with 150% more dumb, bon apetit. So TL;DR If Blizzard decides to keep this up, by the time "the cult of the dumb" rightfully explodes in their face, the situation may just be insalvagable. At least for the portion of their fanbase who aren't into MP that much (and whom I think may have already jumped ship after Diablo 3 and HotS). Hard ore gamers will buy sc2 because of things like MLG and GSL. Blizz knows this and so they don't bother aiming multiplayer for that demographic. Their experience with casual gamers is that the more hand holding the better. And so they're sticking to that plan. Diablo 3 and Sc2 gets released. Sc2 gets big, d3 not as much. Overall, their plan worked. That's not some self fulfilling prophecy that is market predictions that has made them more money than not. Do I think it's a bad plan? Yes, I do. But it's not out of disrespect to the audience intelligence. They just realize that the audience who doesn't care too much but might play 1-2 missions a week needs a lot of coddling. David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is. That statistic could also be a result of the story not being as good or appealing, not necessarily a "casuals are bad" argument. It's odd how every time statistics like that crop up, people and companies think that the ONLY possible answer is "it's too hard", rather than "the game wasn't good enough". I have the skill to beat SC2 on brutal, but I never did because I didn't find the campaign as appealing due to the questionable storyline decisions they made. A key part of a long lasting game is being high quality enough that it encourages casuals to turn into hardcore gamers. If WoL had a fantastic story, you can bet your ass that I would have played it obsessively. But since the story made me roll my eyes so much, I turned to multiplayer and abandoned single player the moment I beat it on normal. A good book is read once. A great book is read a hundred times.
Agreed.
I'm pretty much a RTS veteran, yet I didn't finish WoL on Brutal until long after I bought the game. I played it through on Hard, then went to Multiplayer, stuck there for a good while before thinking hmm... I might do with a little break from this by replaying the campaign. Only then did I bother finishing it on Brutal.
Had I been a casual player, I would have most probably chose the normal setting (estimating that one was the supposed one to take), I would have finished the game...and then realized I didn't find it engaging enough to play through again, not with so many other games I could be playing. Inferring that me not sticking around was definitely because the game was too difficult or that a story was too complex would be like saying I decided against going to that pizza place again because I've found their pizzas too rich and tasty for my underdeveloped "casual" taste buds.
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On March 22 2013 21:53 johnny123 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 21:44 McBengt wrote:On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story.
What a strange sentiment. Storytelling is a key element of single player, many would say the most important. If the storytelling is bad, the single player is bad. For many, single player is a huge part of the game and a primary motivation for buying it. We complain about multiplayer all the time and it's (rightfully so) considered perfectly reasonable. Complaining about the quality of the story should not be any less taboo. As i said, the story was not bad, and it had to be written in a way to get a wide variety of missions. I was pointing out to the OP where he said why does kerrigan even need to evolve into this primal zerg to defeat mengsk when the zerg swarm is strong enough already as if its stupid story telling. When i try to say the story has to be written in a way to make sense of the missions. Blizzard could easily have proposed such an idea and just kill menghsk off within the first 3 missions without any need for going to zerg homeworld to kill prime pack leaders or any off the other stuff they put into the game. But that wouldnt be any fun would it? I dont have any quims with the story telling.. Well i do but its not anything to do with whats being mentioned here. My only problem with hots story is that Kerrigan fought really hard to get Jim freed from the capture and all jim seemed to care about is complaining about why she turned back into queen of blades. No hug? no kiss'es? thats my only gripe.
The thing is, I, and many others judgning by this thread, disagree with you. We do in fact think the story was bad. And here we are trying to explain why and how. That is the purpose of a forum. If you have another opinion that's fine, but just because you said the story was good enough for you does not make it true for others. There are a myriad options for how to improve the storytelling without having gameplay suffer, and blizzard with some of the best designers in the world can certainly make it happen. The current plot arch and hollow story is intentional, and we think that is a bad thing.
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As much as I didn't care for the story (I loved the fight between Nova and Kerrigan, though) I did like most of the campaign missions even though some of them made absolutely no sense.
I had great fun playing through the single player despite the story.
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I couldn't finish WoL campaign because it was so bad, so I'm going to have to pass on the HotS campaign.
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On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
Not really surprising when you consider how many 'casual' players there are, plus smurfs (you're not going to do the campaign again on a second account), plus people who have no interest in the campaign at all.
Would be more interesting to know the difference percentage of people who have 50% brutal completion and 100% brutal completion.
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On March 22 2013 23:06 Nekovivie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
Not really surprising when you consider how many 'casual' players there are, plus smurfs (you're not going to do the campaign again on a second account), plus people who have no interest in the campaign at all. Would be more interesting to know the difference percentage of people who have 50% brutal completion and 100% brutal completion.
I don't disagree with anyone on the possible reasons why most people have not beaten brutal. Personally I got bored and just wanted to finish the missions. But all number crunchers have are statistics like that. If you were told that 90% of the buyers didn't finish your product--how would you treat your next product?
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On March 22 2013 23:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 23:06 Nekovivie wrote:On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
Not really surprising when you consider how many 'casual' players there are, plus smurfs (you're not going to do the campaign again on a second account), plus people who have no interest in the campaign at all. Would be more interesting to know the difference percentage of people who have 50% brutal completion and 100% brutal completion. I don't disagree with anyone on the possible reasons why most people have not beaten brutal. Personally I got bored and just wanted to finish the missions. But all number crunchers have are statistics like that. If you were told that 90% of the buyers didn't finish your product--how would you treat your next product?
"Not finishing" and "not finishing on highest difficulty" are two separate things.
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I had fun with the campaign even though the storyline was completely horrible and non-sensical.
The makeout scene between Raynor and Kerrigan was so cheesy and lame that I was truly embarassed.
I don't remember any fight scenes between Nova and Kerrigan, am I missing something? Or you mean the Dominion's attack at the beginning? Because there were no direct engagement betwen them.
Stukov's appearance was entirely absurd and pointless.
Was Duran and Narud actually the same person?
One thing I still don't understand: Valerian Megsk's role. First question when it comes to him: how can he be trusted? He's the son of the snake himself. How can he operate outside of his father's supervision? How can he own a scientific research project, a fleet, an army? Is there a point when he and his father become enemies? In fact, I don't remember any particular scene where Mengsk mentions his son. Like, is he really his son, just because he tells so? My bet is that in Legacy of the Void it will be revealed that he is a Xel Naga agent or Amon himself.
In HoTS after changing back Kerrigan, suddenly the Dominion can launch a full scale attack on them, and the rebels' only option is to flee. Wasn't in WoL, that they have almost won the revolution against Mengsk? How could they become so weak suddenly?
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On March 22 2013 23:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 23:06 Nekovivie wrote:On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
Not really surprising when you consider how many 'casual' players there are, plus smurfs (you're not going to do the campaign again on a second account), plus people who have no interest in the campaign at all. Would be more interesting to know the difference percentage of people who have 50% brutal completion and 100% brutal completion. I don't disagree with anyone on the possible reasons why most people have not beaten brutal. Personally I got bored and just wanted to finish the missions. But all number crunchers have are statistics like that. If you were told that 90% of the buyers didn't finish your product--how would you treat your next product?
How can you expect everyone to complete the game on the highest difficulty, but not expect complaints about how easy it is? Obviously people vary in skill, so while some people might find normal difficulty challenging, others might find brutal easy. If you then expect the former to keep playing until they beat brutal as well, you're clearly making a mistake.
I played through HotS on hard, because I thought that'd be enough of a challenge, obviously the first few levels are easy but I expected the difficulty to scale up. It didn't, or at least not enough, so now I completed the campaign on hard while I thought it was too easy. I'm not going to replay all the levels again on brutal just for an achievement or even a feeling of satisfaction, the missions were fun but not enough to play them all over again. In this case, I can hardly complain about the difficulty, because I chose not to play at the hardest level, but does that mean I didn't finish the product? Do only people who gain every achievement finish the product? So do not agree with you that the amount of people that beat the hardest difficulty should be taken into account at all.
Also I can't see how someone can justify complaining about a game being too hard while there are easier settings then brutal, but I can totally understand people complaining the game being to easy if there is no option for a harder difficulty. I don't understand why everyone should be able to beat the game at the hardest difficulty.
Ideally (in my opinion) the plot of people who completed the game at a certain difficulty against said difficulty should be a gaussian function, There is no need for everyone to be the best, in fact, the only way to get a high percentage is by making the game ridiculously easy. But obviously as long as there are achievements and points to be won, the incompetent will complain, and I can sort of understand that when this group is big enough, a producer will cater to that market. I just wish it wasn't so.
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How can you expect everyone to complete the game on the highest difficulty, but not expect complaints about how easy it is?
few people are going to complain loudly about a game being too easy, but lots of people will complain very loudly if its too hard
WoW's a good example lots of people complained raids were too hard so they dumbed then down and added hard modes
people complained they couldnt see end game so they amde the end game raids get easier nearer the end so more could
people still complained they couldnt see end game so they added raid finder
but few people complained about the above changes
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On March 22 2013 23:49 baba44713 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 23:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 23:06 Nekovivie wrote:On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
Not really surprising when you consider how many 'casual' players there are, plus smurfs (you're not going to do the campaign again on a second account), plus people who have no interest in the campaign at all. Would be more interesting to know the difference percentage of people who have 50% brutal completion and 100% brutal completion. I don't disagree with anyone on the possible reasons why most people have not beaten brutal. Personally I got bored and just wanted to finish the missions. But all number crunchers have are statistics like that. If you were told that 90% of the buyers didn't finish your product--how would you treat your next product? "Not finishing" and "not finishing on highest difficulty" are two separate things.
It was during an interview. He was asked about WoL being too easy, he said 90% hast beaten brutal. Which means that the only people who found it too easy was a fraction of 10% of the population.
That's what a number cruncher sees, that is what a number cruncher has to play off of.
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What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists.
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On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists.
I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw.
If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison.
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On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game.
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EPT
