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I want to add two sources into this thread so that we have some facts to talk about:
Gamemeca ranks StarCraft 2 at #14, Brood War at #17 for the last week:
http://www.gamemeca.com/popup/ranking.php?scode=O
Multiclick lists StarCraft 2 at #15, Brood War at #7 right now(18:29 CEST) http://multiclick.co.kr/sub/gamepatch/gamerank.html
Multiclick is definitely the more interesting source as it is pretty much a live ranking(pc bangs/at home). We can see that StarCraft 2 has a market share of 0.72%, with the median of this list being at 0.09%. Brood War is sitting comfortably at 2% - however Overwatch and League of Legends toegether make up >55% of the market share.
Two games heavily dominate the Korean market right now. Every other game tries to just find its niche, including Brood War. Granted Brood War has a bonus here because it once was "that game" making up a huge percentage of the market share, so naturally there will be a ton of nostalgia and old fans around.
But if anything kills korean StarCraft, it's Overwatch and League, since those games caused the biggest loss for Brood War as they share a similar audience.
A solution would be to make the game more interesting than both of these games. I don't think thats possibly with the current gaming trend.
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LoL is a kiddy version of Dota, Overwatch is a pretty version of TF2. I guess that's what sells?
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how is Overwatch share a similar audience?
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On October 09 2016 06:30 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:
how is Overwatch share a similar audience?
Well there are people who just wanna play competitive multiplayer games. I would argue a lot of people posting on this very forum are like that. Looking at new games and see if the game pushes the right buttons.
Personally OW didn't do it for me, but a lot of other people love playing that game (both in the west and in korea specifically: http://gametrics.com/ ; Apparently the new OW league in korea had the biggest OGN qualifier EVER)
I think people in general overvalue the importance of "favorite genre" quite a bit. I am sure that most people here can enjoy other genres than RTS
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On October 08 2016 08:14 The_Red_Viper wrote:
What does "good design" even mean. Design needs a goal, i guess in the case of games it should be "fun". How do we actually meassure that though? The number of people playing the game? There are a lot of factors which are important for that, simply saying Game A has more players therefore it is the "better" (designed) game is flawed imo.
Tasks you have to do in rts games aren't fun for most people. It's fun for some though. I don't think you can make an rts game which is very close to starcraft like rts games and be really successful (lol, dota2, csgo) at the same time if we only look at multiplayer numbers (i feel that is the main topic here, no?)
The general trend in gaming (and other forms of entertainment) seems to be that the easier it is to get into something, the less effort you have to put in, the more successful it is.
Decide for yourself it that means it is "well designed" (i guess if we look at it the most basic way the success proves it is)
Same here. It's so easy for anyone to claim "i know what good design is, you all are just clueless". Because noone really knows what this actually means. It's like listening to a fortune teller. Everyone knows it's all bluff, but there is always that argument: "i can see somthing you can't". I read dozens of articles/interviews/threads about what makes a "good design" and you know what, to summ it all up a "good designer" could just state: i made a popular game = im good. instead of wasting our time with pathetic explanations of imaginary things pretending he figured out the "system". There is no "system" in design. I can't quote correctly, but as far as i recall it was François de La Rochefoucauld, who said something like: "a man who invented/innovated/created something great (really outstanding) always tends to explain his success as a consequence of some well calculated plan while truth is he was just lucky".
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It is now time for game designers to take over. We don't need more useless pro feedback that is so narrowed down on certain meta situations that it loses the sight of the whole.
This is where the argument should end. This is the single most valid point. This whole post is filled with valid arguments but this is the biggest thing that wraps up everything. Whatever Blizzard's thought process is behind adjusting the game for pro scenes or individual players they are swayed too often by people outside their departments usually to be faced by the worse outcomes than not.
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As long as Blizzard is finally listening, I figured I'd put in my two cents.
Background:
I played BW from 2001ish up through 2007 off and on, and watched the pro scene religiously. During the development of SC2, I would be lying if I said SC2 wasn't my single most anticipated game in my entire life. I voiced many concerns between 2007 and 2011 during the SC2 development cycle and was disappointed when it was clear that Blizzard wasn't listening. They were taking the great decisions made by their predecessors and throwing them in the trash, and as much as we were speaking out, we were being ignored. What a frustrating time that was. Still, I played SC2 throughout WoL before realizing that I my concerns would never be addressed and quitting for good.
On fundamentals:
I was quite worried about the following problems: MBS (multiple building selection) and unlimited unit selection. These features weren't in the previous RTS games from Blizzard, and for good reason, they dumb down the game. They make it easier for lesser skilled players to take games off of better skilled players. I would remove both of these from SC2, return to single building selection and make the maximum number of units in a control group supply-based and capped at 24 supply per control group. This means late game you'd need about 6 control groups to move your entire army, which feels right to me.
On units:
A lot of what is boring about SC2 comes down to hard unit counters and poorly designed units in general. Roaches, Immortals and Marauders come to mind. I would just take them all out. Some units added by the expansions suffer the same problem: uninspired design leading to boring or frustrating battles. Ravagers, Swarm Hosts, Liberators, Cyclones, Void Rays, Tempests and Adepts all need to be removed and replaced with something else, or not replaced at all. Frankly, SC2 doesn't need a wide array of units. Early in development they decided to cap the units per race at 13, and frankly I think that was too many. 10 each would be fine. In BW, so many units were unused that there were basically only 10 per race anyway, and it was fine.
BW was great because that game was based around soft counters. This is because the damage system was reductive rather than additive. No units gained bonus damage vs. certain types, but they did get reduced damage against certain types. Blizzard needs to redo their entire damage system to remove the bonus damage and replace it with a reduced damage soft counter system, and it would make the game much less punishing. I remember one of the first games I played of SC2, I went rax -> bunker into factory -> siege tanks. My opponent walked into my base with 1 immortal and 5 zealots and wrecked me. I understand that is what they intended to happen, but that intention is shit: hard counters should be avoided under most circumstances.
Carriers, Battlecruisers and Ultralisks are all extremely lackluster, especially Carriers. They need to behave like they do in BW: all interceptors should exit at once and they should have a leash range that is longer than their initial attack range, to give players better control over the carriers themselves. Basically, they should move and attack until they are leashed back to the carriers due to range. Even then, carriers suffer from the problem of being hard countered by cheap, easily massable units: Vikings and Corruptors. You see carriers and in 2 minutes you have a composition that can counter them. This is extremely disappointing.
Colossus are less rewarding to play with and more frustrating to play against than Reavers. They should remove Colossus and add Reavers.
Warp gates remove defenders advantage and completely inverse traditional RTS dynamics. I really hate warp gates and they ruin an entire race singlehandedly. They would be fine as a late, late game tech (fleet beacon tech).
Sentries force early protoss units to be too weak. Give Zealots and Stalkers +50 HP and remove sentries. Force Field is a stupid spell. I understand that it's needed right now but it shouldn't be, protoss t1 units should be beefy as hell. Same goes with the MSC and photon overcharge. In BW protoss units were house, now they feel like glass.
Thors are stupid units, similar to Colossus. They have ridiculously high ground single target attack damage and a weak splash air attack, it should be reversed.
Siege tanks have been in a sorry state, I understand that recently they got buffed, but I fear that it's too little too late. Siege tanks were the single most iconic unit in BW and allowed Terran, the race with the weakest units otherwise, to secure positional advantage. In SC2 Terran has the strongest units otherwise and seige tanks are effectively useless because of it.
On economy:
SC2 was designed to be played on small maps and with low economy, as was evidenced by the initial release of Wings of Liberty and the maps that came with it. Blizzard has done a lot to attempt to address this issue in the past but I think that their attempts have fallen short. They should make it so expanding is much more rewarding with fewer workers, and diminish the income logarithmicly with the number of workers mining them. This would make expansions less risky to take and renew the incentive to take positions on the map earlier in the game. I loved BW because it felt like a game of Go: you establish your initial location, and as long as the game doesn't end early, both players look to establish positions on the map far from their starting locations to secure those resource potentials. SC2 needs this dynamic to add options to the midgame.
I could spend hours and write a whole paper on my suggestions for this game but I just don't think it's worth it. There's no way Blizzard will smother their ugly baby and start over. I just hope they look at these failures and implement fixes in their next RTS, should they ever choose to return to that genre.
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This incoherent and absurd post generated 11 pages of discussion. Help. Blizzard had game designers; they designed what was probably the second-best RTS of all time. There are a lot of things about it that are frustrating and not fun, but it was still great. It's probably not going to have the legacy of BW. Things die. SC2 doesn't need conspiracy theories or carpet blame on people who had no real control over the IP to explain its death.
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United States33503 Posts
Was TL always an echo chamber of terrible posts, or did I just notice it recently?
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On October 09 2016 09:07 Waxangel wrote:
Was TL always an echo chamber of terrible posts, or did I just notice it recently?
I think that there used to be a lot of bad posts but there was also a lot of good news and general updates because there was a lot of stuff going on. Now, there's relatively little activity to report on, but the number of self-indulgent nonsense posts seems to be roughly the same as it was before.
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The truth is (as far as I can see) is that the last planned expansion for this game is almost a year old allready. People get bored and move over the other things. Instead of trying to find out who's responsible for the downfall or whatnot, rather appreciate the game for what it is/has been/and will continue to be... A great RTS.
Looking at the current stats and seeing that only 220k people are registered as active 1v1 players is just another reminder that this game is not what it used to be. (especially if you think about the amount of copies sold in 2010)
It's a shame that SC2 is dying and I don't know why people don't like this game anymore but what the heck. As long as I can find opponents for 1v1 I'll probably stick around for many more years.
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On October 09 2016 09:35 Jan1997 wrote:
The truth is (as far as I can see) is that the last planned expansion for this game is almost a year old allready. People get bored and move over the other things. Instead of trying to find out who's responsible for the downfall or whatnot, rather appreciate the game for what it is/has been/and will continue to be... A great RTS.
Looking at the current stats and seeing that only 220k people are registered as active 1v1 players is just another reminder that this game is not what it used to be. (especially if you think about the amount of copies sold in 2010)
It's a shame that SC2 is dying and I don't know why people don't like this game anymore but what the heck. As long as I can find opponents for 1v1 I'll probably stick around for many more years.
Actually the number of ranked players in 1v1 is going up again for the first time this year
http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sx=a&sy=c
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On October 09 2016 09:56 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 09:35 Jan1997 wrote:
The truth is (as far as I can see) is that the last planned expansion for this game is almost a year old allready. People get bored and move over the other things. Instead of trying to find out who's responsible for the downfall or whatnot, rather appreciate the game for what it is/has been/and will continue to be... A great RTS.
Looking at the current stats and seeing that only 220k people are registered as active 1v1 players is just another reminder that this game is not what it used to be. (especially if you think about the amount of copies sold in 2010)
It's a shame that SC2 is dying and I don't know why people don't like this game anymore but what the heck. As long as I can find opponents for 1v1 I'll probably stick around for many more years. Actually the number of ranked players in 1v1 is going up again for the first time this year http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sx=a&sy=c
All it needs now is to recover those 100k + lost players.
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On October 09 2016 10:50 Probe1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 09:56 KeksX wrote:On October 09 2016 09:35 Jan1997 wrote:
The truth is (as far as I can see) is that the last planned expansion for this game is almost a year old allready. People get bored and move over the other things. Instead of trying to find out who's responsible for the downfall or whatnot, rather appreciate the game for what it is/has been/and will continue to be... A great RTS.
Looking at the current stats and seeing that only 220k people are registered as active 1v1 players is just another reminder that this game is not what it used to be. (especially if you think about the amount of copies sold in 2010)
It's a shame that SC2 is dying and I don't know why people don't like this game anymore but what the heck. As long as I can find opponents for 1v1 I'll probably stick around for many more years. Actually the number of ranked players in 1v1 is going up again for the first time this year http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sx=a&sy=c All it needs now is to recover those 100k + lost players.
Not sure what you're referring to, highest in 2016 is 251k, we're at 223k atm.
If you're referring to older times, well ... there were many more lost, not just 100k.
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On October 09 2016 10:56 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2016 10:50 Probe1 wrote:On October 09 2016 09:56 KeksX wrote:On October 09 2016 09:35 Jan1997 wrote:
The truth is (as far as I can see) is that the last planned expansion for this game is almost a year old allready. People get bored and move over the other things. Instead of trying to find out who's responsible for the downfall or whatnot, rather appreciate the game for what it is/has been/and will continue to be... A great RTS.
Looking at the current stats and seeing that only 220k people are registered as active 1v1 players is just another reminder that this game is not what it used to be. (especially if you think about the amount of copies sold in 2010)
It's a shame that SC2 is dying and I don't know why people don't like this game anymore but what the heck. As long as I can find opponents for 1v1 I'll probably stick around for many more years. Actually the number of ranked players in 1v1 is going up again for the first time this year http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sx=a&sy=c All it needs now is to recover those 100k + lost players. Not sure what you're referring to, highest in 2016 is 251k, we're at 223k atm. If you're referring to older times, well ... there were many more lost, not just 100k.
2015 and 2014 from the same link provided.
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On October 08 2016 16:09 Nazara wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 09:48 PharaphobiaSC wrote:
With posts like this it's has been more than 3 years since something constructive and original came to the spot... post are these are just opportunity for little rant from the same nicknames all over again. It's getting boring tbh How do you expect anything original when same problems from 3 years ago are still there to be addressed?
Well since nothing from those 3 problems was changed it almost looks like it's an voice of 5 CombatEXs on random forum post  (read as irrelevant)
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Reasons for the downfall? Was it ever big in Korea?
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TLADT24920 Posts
I think the reason it failed in KR is because it was pushed onto the KR audience. The Kespa lawsuit, removal of BW which was considered a national sport from PL to replace with SCII etc... disgruntled BW fans and caused a strife between fans of both games. For me, when SCII was released, it was a fun game. I've been watching Blizzard website since either 2007 or 08 constantly for updating and as I played the game, expectations never really lined up with reality.
I enjoyed the game when it was first released because it was still new. I liked the graphics, liked the units overall etc... I had a hard time playing protoss (read: didn't enjoy) but I thought playing as terran and zerg was fun, however, several years into WoL and all my games turned out the same. Regardless of whatever map I played on, the compositions in all matchups were the same. I moved up to high plat, neared diamond in WoL then the game stopped being fun and so I stopped.
Still watched some tourney though even into HoTS's life but stopped somewhat fully when Jaedong won ASUS RoG (followed him for most of 2013 and in WCS NA where he lost to theognis lol). Since then, I only saw KT vs SKT PL finals where KT swept SKT 4-0 (flash scv pulled parting, TY 2 rax bunkered Classic who just won a championship recently). The game imo took a turn for the worst.
HoTS didn't have much new changes. Widow mines were boring to play with and none of the other changes were enticing. LoTV took it a step further, made the game worse imo. Removed the early game which was a terrible idea and forced the player to constantly expand due to lowered mineral count inbase. So, basically, forced transition and a game that went downhill with each expansion is the reason for SCII downfall in KR.
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On October 09 2016 08:25 mikedebo wrote:
This incoherent and absurd post generated 11 pages of discussion. Help. Blizzard had game designers; they designed what was probably the second-best RTS of all time. There are a lot of things about it that are frustrating and not fun, but it was still great. It's probably not going to have the legacy of BW. Things die. SC2 doesn't need conspiracy theories or carpet blame on people who had no real control over the IP to explain its death.
As long as Total Annihilation was the First 
It's kinda depressing to see how low sc2's audiences are in Korea...
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EPT
