EPTI don't play starcraft 2 anymore, I have about 8 friends who used to watch SC2, hell, a few of us went to 2 barcraft events, we'd meet up at my place and watch MLG, but fuck, literally every single person I played with got bored with it, and I'm one of them. Some are old time BW fans like me and they won't buy the expansion - I know I will, but I'm not hyped at all... and it absolutely sucks. I hope Blizzard will listen to these ideas, because I miss my Starcrafts, man.
Steven 'Destiny' Bonnell II's Blog Article - Page 5
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
I don't play starcraft 2 anymore, I have about 8 friends who used to watch SC2, hell, a few of us went to 2 barcraft events, we'd meet up at my place and watch MLG, but fuck, literally every single person I played with got bored with it, and I'm one of them. Some are old time BW fans like me and they won't buy the expansion - I know I will, but I'm not hyped at all... and it absolutely sucks. I hope Blizzard will listen to these ideas, because I miss my Starcrafts, man. | ||
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robopork
United States511 Posts
And there are new players on the ladder all the time. I see a player with less than 100 career wins almost every time I ladder. Monotizing this shit would make blizzard money, hands down. But I'm not sure the development team can get past the red tape. Blizzard is really, really behind the times. | ||
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
It's nice to think that they'll give LOTV all the support it deserves but I don't see any reason to expect legitimate effort going into revitalizing that game's long term competitive sustainability. It would be nice if Blizzard surprises us (and I'm sure LOTV will be a fun expo at the very least) but after years of relative passivity I don't think there is any logical foundation to believe that SC2 will be redesigned as a modern esport with a modern business model. | ||
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Tuczniak
1561 Posts
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fruity.
England1711 Posts
On December 17 2014 00:16 -Archangel- wrote: Destiny forgot that adding skins for SC2 units is not as easy. These skins would influence FPS of players. In game option: ENABLE ADDITIONAL SKINS? Enabling this may cause FPS issues on older hardware. | ||
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Chaggi
Korea (South)1936 Posts
On December 17 2014 02:32 fruity. wrote: In game option: ENABLE ADDITIONAL SKINS? Enabling this may cause FPS issues on older hardware. We don't have the technology for that yet. | ||
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Chaggi
Korea (South)1936 Posts
On December 17 2014 02:23 Erik.TheRed wrote: Regardless of what blizzard PR reps say, the signs have been clear for a long time what blizzard intends to do with their money & with regards to esports. heroes of the storm so far looks like it will be their real push into "big" contemporary esports, as they have completely shaken up the monetization scheme from their traditional games. It's nice to think that they'll give LOTV all the support it deserves but I don't see any reason to expect legitimate effort going into revitalizing that game's long term competitive sustainability. It would be nice if Blizzard surprises us (and I'm sure LOTV will be a fun expo at the very least) but after years of relative passivity I don't think there is any logical foundation to believe that SC2 will be redesigned as a modern esport with a modern business model. And you really gotta wonder why they're doing this. LoL and Dota 2 make up the vast majority of the MOBA games, while SC2 is basically the only competitive RTS game that's being played. I guess they're going by the strategy that 5% of a 40million+ player base is better than 500k-1million players of a genre they basically created. Just depressing for us RTS fans. | ||
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Jarree
Finland1004 Posts
That's also one of the main reasons cs:go has been patched so many times, while sc2 not. Good job guys, you kept your higher moral ground. Unfortunately it didn't help the game. | ||
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fruity.
England1711 Posts
On December 16 2014 21:54 PharaphobiaSC2 wrote: It is a shame that valve is not making any RTS. Dota 2 has patches very often, some of them to improve the performance. I have not seen any patch in sc2 that improves the fps of the game. On December 16 2014 21:49 xuanzue wrote: Because Valve devs said they have no idea how to make rts game.. regardless to fact that their servers rts games like AoE2HD sucks ass :D... My sarcastic side says well valve couldn't make it any worse. Broodwar was left unpatched by Blizzard for like 6-7 odd years, entirely up to the community with map design to try and balance. When you view things from this angle, how they seem to wait too long to patch - terran dominance in wol, broodwar/infestor in early hots, buffing widow mines and nerfing blink, then nerfing widow mines.. I'm begin to wonder if blizzard know what they're doing too. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
Destiny's theory is that Blizzard should adopt a business model based on microtransactions -> this gives Blizzard a financial incentive to continue developing the game. I'm not sure if this makes sense, because for Blizzard to change business models they require financial incentive to begin with. I'm assuming that Blizzard's management is aware of the success of MOBAs & CS:GO (Heroes of the Storm takes many lessons from those games), and the reason that SC2 doesn't use a F2P model is because it's not a good fit / the game is too old. So it's really too much for Destiny to start ranting at Blizzard and accusing them of ignorance. | ||
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fruity.
England1711 Posts
On December 16 2014 22:25 Wildmoon wrote: It may become popular again but not in the form of traditional RTS we know and love for sure. If RTS is going to survive this, it needs to adapt itself to not be fundamentally demanding as it is now. Are you ok with that? Also, a game can be really fun when you can actually play it at decent level but it won't be popular because of its inaccessible nature. I see your point here. But the answer lies in match ups. New players and those of less skill playing only against (guess what!) New players and those of less skill. Having diamond players playing against bronze to gold levels (either because they are douche bags or the MMR system isn't promoting them fast enough) Is a big part of this issue. The skilled / Hardcore gamers get match ups vs. skilled / hardcore. Problem solved (maybe). | ||
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KaiserJohan
Sweden1808 Posts
On December 16 2014 19:31 Clonester wrote: Destiny making friends again... Thank god he is. Although it's bizare, back in WOL the whole community was saying "give it time; pro gamers will figure it out", "balanced fixed with maps" or "small changes please, blizzard!". It's like a 180 today. Of course, it was years ago and things change. | ||
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MstrJinbo
United States1251 Posts
On December 17 2014 02:48 Grumbels wrote: There is something about this whole campaign for F2P which confuses me, I can't quite place it. Destiny's theory is that Blizzard should adopt a business model based on microtransactions -> this gives Blizzard a financial incentive to continue developing the game. I'm not sure if this makes sense, because for Blizzard to change business models they require financial incentive to begin with. I'm assuming that Blizzard's management is aware of the success of MOBAs & CS:GO (Heroes of the Storm takes many lessons from those games), and the reason that SC2 doesn't use a F2P model is because it's not a good fit / the game is too old. So it's really too much for Destiny to start ranting at Blizzard and accusing them of ignorance. While I would love to have capes for my banelings I don't see the lack of micro transactions to be SC2s main problem. The main problem is that it emphasizes the 1v1 ladder which is is perceived as being too difficult or intimidating for your average gamer. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
Honestly, all the glorious HoTS (and now LoTV) stuff and "radical redesigns" are changes that could be just one in a series of monthly patches, it's not really such a rocket science as everyone wants it to seem and it's exactly what dota has - steering stuff constantly, now and then. PS: And when it comes to monetizing, I had recently a groundbreaking idea: Who doesn't love winning right? So let's make it pay2win (oh.....), but in a different sense - keep the game fair, but allow people to pay for easier opponents in matchmaking. Hardcore competitive players won't do it (and won't really be affected much by it), while the low leagueres will end up overbidding each other unless they want to lose 75% of games to people who paid more than them  ) | ||
Falling
Canada11349 Posts
On December 17 2014 00:30 Hider wrote: I mostly agree with this. In addition to that, I think that skins fits a lot worse into an RTS for two reasons: (1) You feel less attached to your units in Sc2 than to your hero in a MOBA and (2) Skins fits worse into a game where there are lots of units as it easily can make it more confusing. Destiny keeps believing that you can just turn around Sc2 by making it F2P and adding in microtransactions. But what he imo doesn't get is that you just can't turn around this type of game. Lots of people have tried it and quitted it. It has super high learning barriers and if the RTS genre is going to be popular in the future, it needs to reform it self. The underlying issue here isn't as much the business model, but rather the easiness of learning the game as a new player. Free multiplayer would be pretty bad as a big part of the target audience is paying $40 for the multiplayer only (probably around 500k). If you gave them multiplayer for free, Blizzard would lose a big chunk of money without any monetization to back it up. Definitely agree with #2. If the skins are anything but really conservative changes, you will likely increase the learning curve a multiple times over if skins are accessible to low level players. Starcraft is successful in that it has fewer units with fairly unique looks (compared to Supcom that has three tiers of factories each with four vaguely similar looking units.) A massive amount of skin changes affects rapid identification and interupts learning the game- perhaps causing even issues at higher levels. On the micro level, there are some skins in LoL that I have to think really hard what some of the heroes are because I don't play quite enough to immediately some of the crazier skins- especially ones that change the predominant colours. I'm not saying monetizing skins is necessarily a bad idea in Starcraft, but I do think it has a greater impact on learning the game because you are dealing with entire armies that can be changed in different ways rather than just at most 10 heroes having different skins. | ||
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clickrush
Switzerland3257 Posts
And by casual players i don't mean the one who linger around hc forums like teamliquid and watch every tournament they can. We are a bit of a special demographic in that regard. We will allways be big fans of this game. - skins and other visual customization - having alot of ways to play the game or parts of it with friends such as archon mode and 2v2 - achievable goals such as the league colors - less mechanically demanding ways to play the game Alot of causal players do not appreciate the fact that sc2 is mechanically demanding. Yes the game would be much less complex if it wasn't because there are alot of little things and decisions that set apart the great from the good. But from a casual players perspective they don't even think of sc2 as a strategy game because they don't actually strategize. The only and biggest ways for them to improve is to train mechanics and other fundamentals. Things that casual players don't like (some even think these shouldn't be in an RTS!): - mechanically demanding micro, especially with multiple units - multitasking - macro management Things they like: - being rewarded regularly and obviously - having visual things to stand apart and feel unique - humor - making big decisions - simple / dumbed down strategy (this shouldn't sound like an insult but it's true in its core) This is why "UMS" / "funmaps" / "arcade" was allways the thing ppl played alot and loved. Those often feature dumbed down strategy, a clear focus on the main screen without switching it around alot and less mechanically demanding control. The subgenres of RTS like Moba, TD, Thug wars emerged because of exactly this reason. They all extracted one of the fun parts of RTS (esp blizzard RTS) and made it the main focus while simplifying control and the strategic aspect. To be honest I think skins and voice packs can be very successful for sc2 and the players will love it but the game itself has to offer more playable modes and maps. Another list: Things that causal players like/love about sc2 and lotv so far from what I hear and read: - archon mode! - achievements, portaits and the few unit models sc2 allready has. they love this shit. really. - in WoL there where these micro training challenges. I have alot of friends who would play things like these on and on. Its a cool and rewarding way to improve parts of the game and getting better at them. The achievement rewards are also crucial to this. Look at skillvideos / speedruns from other games. This is similar. Also what they like about other blizzard games are periodic events! WoW's server events and daily quests where a huge fun factor and kept the player base fresh and active for a long time. Same goes for Wc3 weekly tournaments, the Hearthstone challenges etc etc. Those periodic events and challenges keep the game fresh and intersting. How about a weekly micro challenge? or Multitask challenge? Hosted by blizzard and rewarded with cool visual stuff so you can show off. These are the kinds of things that make the hearts of the dirty casual masses pumping! And these are the features that sc2 needs more of. Hell blizzard thought of them since WoL. They made the control easier, they made all those little fun maps and challenges, they made the skins and the portraits, the levels and so on but we laughed at them for doing so. Now finnaly everyone realizes how important and successful these things are. They only need to do more of those! On December 17 2014 02:57 MstrJinbo wrote: While I would love to have capes for my banelings I don't see the lack of micro transactions to be SC2s main problem. The main problem is that it emphasizes the 1v1 ladder which is is perceived as being too difficult or intimidating for your average gamer. This is very true! 1on1 is super intimidating for them. My flatmate for example really likes to watch sc2 with me and also watches me play. But when I ask him for 1on1 practices he declines. But he's a guy who plays the shit out of every single player challenge and he really loves well made arcade games and stuff like that. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
On December 17 2014 03:05 Falling wrote: Definitely agree with #2. If the skins are anything but really conservative changes, you will likely increase the learning curve a multiple times over if skins are accessible to low level players. Starcraft is successful in that it has fewer units with fairly unique looks (compared to Supcom that has three tiers of factories each with four vaguely similar looking units.) A massive amount of skin changes affects rapid identification and interupts learning the game- perhaps causing even issues at higher levels. On the micro level, there are some skins in LoL that I have to think really hard what some of the heroes are because I don't play quite enough to immediately some of the crazier skins- especially ones that change the predominant colours. I'm not saying monetizing skins is necessarily a bad idea in Starcraft, but I do think it has a greater impact on learning the game because you are dealing with entire armies that can be changed in different ways rather than just at most 10 heroes having different skins. Yeah, I like the fact that Starcraft 2 multiplayer is very clean: only three races, with a small set of units per race. If the game was better and more accessible everyone would be happy. People are so influenced by the examples around them that they can no longer think for themselves. Five years ago everyone was being lyrical about how SC2 would be the new chess(simple, focus on gameplay), but now that MOBA games are popular all of a sudden there is this demand for a cluttered game with constant updates and incessant advertisements for all sorts of obnoxious skins and party hats. It will change nothing, the core game is still the same, you'll just have a few more distractions. Btw, case in point: four years ago I made a post along the lines of that Blizzard should add a secondary female ghost model to the game, just like the two versions of the dark templar, and the response was overwhelmingly negative because supposedly it would only add clutter. I'm sure the same idea would receive better response today. | ||
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clickrush
Switzerland3257 Posts
I can think of alot of different kinds that ppl would play the shit out of. - any kind of micro challenge with increasignly harder to pull of combos (tons of possiblities) - defense challenge with periodic attacks you have to survive, possible with stages where you have to expand as well - they even like and heavily appreciate spreading creep such as in the campaign - "make the right composition vs this"-challenge etc. It would be even better if those things would be periodic, like monthly / weekly or w/e to keep it fresh and exciting. They could also make them compare the scores and whatnot with friends and pros which is super fun as well. They just have to appear important and the rewards and points have to be visible and prominent. | ||
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SharkStarcraft
Austria2225 Posts
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Ovid
United Kingdom948 Posts
On December 17 2014 01:33 johnbongham wrote: Blizzard is literally a shadow of its former self, or maybe they just haven't evolved and their business model is outdated and expired. They seem so clueless about how to develop games their fans want in a timely manner. What are their most recent offerings? A card game? YEAH no. Not going to bother with that. A moba? Um yeah ok a little late for that. More WoW? You would think that they would have realized after having success with WoW that they would find a way to monetize all the games that came afterwards but instead they didnt and then the game suffers because blizzard didnt find a way to make it profitable for them to continue diligent work on it. Diablo 3? Wow was that game terrible upon release. The most promising thing blizz has goin for it is overwatch which to be honest could crash and burn miserably. My only thought is that blizz is going to monetize overwatch the way valve did with csgo and then make it f2p. They just dont have the leadership they need AKA someone to put their foot down, present the issues, and have them addressed promptly and completely. Hearthstone was/is a massive hit they really hit the nail on the head with it and probably made a shit ton of money doing so. Blizzard are doing lots of things right, main things are more micro to be input in the game (lotv doing this) so it's easy for newer players to see that the pro players are really good. A better community system, they need people to be put into groups based on language have one main community section a part where you can voice chat amongst a group (getting rid of the skype need) like the guy said a couple posts up, 1vs1 can be/is lonely, it's fun but you can get cut off and when something makes you tilt you don't have a good medium for venting it (unless it's going at the other player which makes the community seem "toxic") Automated tournaments (blizzard doing this) Decrease the price for the game, make it like £10 and input things like different HUDs and mainly different voices ingame no skins or capital building only skins, just small things that aren't units and are easy to distinguish. | ||
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