What got you into TFT? For me it’s the same as any other game. I started playing it for fun of course. I didn’t start playing it to play it professionally but after playing it more I realized I enjoy the game a lot and that’s what matters the most. I’m not sure if it’s the strategy, the random units fighting, the aspects of luck, or something else but I really enjoy the game so I tried to play the game more and more and got quite good at it. I hit rank 1 in NA eventually and I thought I enjoy this game and I play it a lot so why not try to become a pro player. One other thing I really like is that Riot takes care of this game a lot. When I played SC2, it’s a different game but there weren’t really that many patches, especially in the recent days. You have to wait for half a year or so for another patch but in TFT they patch it practically every other week. This means if there are any problems or anything really overpowered they try to fix it immediately. It makes the game more enjoyable to play and I think it makes the game have more longevity.
I found it interesting when I read this part, especially about his thoughts on patches, I don't want to be misleading so I put the whole part up
I think it s good that they aren t patching stuff imideatly. The meta takes quite long to settle, because it s quite complicated game and not every build is figured out imideatly. Sometimes the meta changes significantly without any NEW Patches or maps. Also blizzard has probably way way less Manpower dedicated to sc2, as it s quite bit older.
Obviously not fixing the nydus before BlizzCon last year was bad. But other stuff got nerfed to quickly before. So overall I think the amount of patching is somewhat reasonable looking at the while picture.
Also Polt was saying he was waiting for a new Patch, that was more T favored to come Back to SC2, when 3 of 4 GSL Semifinalists were T in GSL S1, so yeah...... I think he was a great Player Back in the day, Who couldn t adapt to the new playstile required today. I m glad, that he found something he s very good at again, thouh.
I often felt he was overrated after bis comeback and while find him quite a nice guy on his stream, was pretty anoyed with his Fanboys. So pls take my Statements with a grain of Salt.
Hard to compare MOBA with RTS. In most MOBA games, new characters, abilities and items are added/changed quite frequently. Hence, patching is more necessary.
On July 01 2020 14:22 RKC wrote: Hard to compare MOBA with RTS. In most MOBA games, new characters, abilities and items are added/changed quite frequently. Hence, patching is more necessary.
TFT a moba or more of a card game? Idk, but I do agree moba need morr patches
Blizzard's mishandling of their esports products is notorious. I just like SC2 too much to leave. I just hope the next big esports RTS is made by a different company
On July 01 2020 14:22 RKC wrote: Hard to compare MOBA with RTS. In most MOBA games, new characters, abilities and items are added/changed quite frequently. Hence, patching is more necessary.
TFT a moba or more of a card game? Idk, but I do agree moba need morr patches
definately more line up between autobattlers and card games. I think in those games because of the internet so much is just figuring out whats strongest and optimizing. (could be wrong about tft I think I've heard it has good depth). If you don't frequently patch the games I think they get stale relatively fast as people find out what's best and then try to just get good luck. SC2 is so complicated and technical I think frequent patches would create a lot of problems. I mean it might be exciting to see players trying to constantly adapt but I the games would be a lot messier and more like WOL where someone just figures out a broken/really good strategy and wins a tourney with it then everyone starts doing it.
Also with autobattlers card games and mobas your constantly introducing new units/cards that are inherently going to fundamentally change balance constantly or at least somewhat often.
I think Polt would have been fine if he decided to keep playing SC2 I just didn't see him back long enough to really adjust and acclimate to the new game. Taeja when he came back took a while to start being really good and Bomber is still struggling to do more than just qualify for code s sometimes.
On July 01 2020 15:21 shadow4723 wrote: Blizzard's mishandling of their esports products is notorious. I just like SC2 too much to leave. I just hope the next big esports RTS is made by a different company
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
I mean, look at Broodwar, a game which has lacked any true patch for years. The only variable is the map rotation. Yet, it is the competitive game with the most longevity!
But Polt is a good dood. I watch him play TFT despite hating the game!
To a 25y/o boomer like me TFT is Warcraft 3's DLC The Frozen Throne which obviously has even less patches than Sc2 lel, made things confusing. Apparently it's a game made by Riot i've never heard about. Interesting. I agree with Polt's view but the Sc2 community and especially the pros are so conservative that Blizzard patching the game every other week would create butthurts of biblical proportions. Just always keeping the map pool fresh by changing the maps every month (because Sc2's maps are rarely so difficult to figure out that you need more than a month to come up with the best possible strategies to play each of them) would cause such massive outcries that I can't imagine what would happen if they touched the actual balance of the game lmao
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
The game has been dying for 80% of its lifespan, kind of tragic actually
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
The game has been dying for 80% of its lifespan, kind of tragic actually
We Humans start dying, as our cells start to reproduce slower than they die of, when we are 25 and can get 100 years old, so that s kind of normal I gues
No siriously, this dEad GAmE meme has to die. SC2 is doing pretty good, in comparision to any other 10 year old game right now. Or in comparison with any other RTS game. Live sicles of video games are way shorter now, than they were in the 1990s due to less competition.
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
I think polt still ladders for fun. There are some relatively new (1-2 months old) vids of him playing on his youtube channel.
Not sure about that one. A couple of month ago, when you put !SC2 in his Chat it was stating, he was waiting for the next patch. Now it says, that he s concentrating on TFT.. Also I ve never seen him stream SC2 since forever it feels. But maybe he plays SC2 in non-EU friendly times only...
Was extremely disappointed to tune into his stream and find he hadn’t switched games to WC3 The Frozen Throne though.
They occasionally err too much on either side of caution or haste, I like Blizz’s approach to patching the game and not bending to whoever balance whines the hardest.
It also really helps new players and returning veterans (in theory myself) that the churn isn’t too hardcore.
I can still reasonably easily find guides and builds that are still solid in the current meta, which is nice (and thanks to some TLers for those)
If it’s constantly changing who’s going to bother writing decent guides?
I think it's so hard to compare RTS to other kind of games. Constant patching would make the game feel new but you need to give every patch iteration some time if you want to get something remotely close to an interesting meta. I'm okay with the way the game is being patched / balanced right now, even if the design ideas and actual recent patches aren't that good.
I restarted watching Polt when he started restreaming SC2, and left when he started streaming other games more, but it is good to know that he is playing the game he enjoys the most. He did say on stream that he was looking to move away from SC2 and more of being a general gamer streamer, but whatever it is he is streaming, I wish the best for him.
I don't blame him - he lost multiple years from his peak period due to the horrendous queen patch back in 2012. Blizzard increased the range of queens by 2 AND increased overlord speed. As a result, Zerg was significantly stronger in the early game, allowing them to more easily transition to BL-infestor compositions.
Blizzard never bothered fixing it ever. They just waited until HotS, leaving countless non-Zerg progamers to languish while undeserving patchzergs like JohnnyRecco, Sniper, benefited.
Anecdotally speaking, this really hurt the eSports scene. I had a group of friends who I used to watch tournaments with back in 2011, and I saw the group numbers dramatically dwindle because none of us wanted to watch a bunch of ZvZs in the semis and finals of every tournament
People keep saying RTS cant be patched as often, but I don't agree. Look at AOE2 DE its being patched once a month and people love that it's keeping the meta fresh.
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
The game has been dying for 80% of its lifespan, kind of tragic actually
But it literally is dying.... Well the Korean scene is. Soon the next GSL is going to start with round of 16. Look how bad the round of 24 games are already.
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
The game has been dying for 80% of its lifespan, kind of tragic actually
But it literally is dying.... Well the Korean scene is. Soon the next GSL is going to start with round of 16. Look how bad the round of 24 games are already.
Having some poor games is a shame, but its not the best way to know if a game is dying is it? The number of sc2 games being played per day atm is double of what it was in 2016-2017 which is partly due to corona I admit.
Online there are more tournaments being organised than ever. (Big) teams are still picking up players left right and centre. Tons of pro's are still able to play the game fulltime while the GSL viewership has been great. Wardiii has now overtaken Basetradetv in the online department and just pretty much everything sc2 he shows on his stream gets atleast 3000 viewers while his channel is still groing rapidly.
Hell after 10 years multiple pro's are even producing content for youtube and Harstem is the most recent succes that shows tons of people still love to consume sc2 content with Lowko and SC2HL being some of the top channels raking in tens of thousands of views per video. The game and the scene in general is in a very stable place, and it looks like it will remain so for atleast the next couple of years.
I see that there are a few variables to consider when talking about how often the game can be patched and how influential each patch can be.
Total amount of different possible units
Average amount of different units used in a game
Amount of the same unit in a game at any moment
If the first variable is high then there are likely units that aren't used and can be changed while affecting current meta to a lesser degree. If the second variable is low, then the subset of units that need to be considered at the same time for a meta is smaller allowing experimentation with units knowing that all of them will not be played at the same time. If the third variable is high then there are units, that are part of the core of the game and really impactful to the game, and any change to them is easily massive to the game.
For SC2 the first variable is not that high while the second is relatively high and third is high. This leads to a situation were most changes can impact the game greatly. Other games that have any draft or mechanism, that limits the second variable, leads easily to a meta, which is only about a certain subset of units, allowing trying to only change things outside of it if wanted. Also, if the meta gets bad, changes to the current subset easily force totally different subset.
On July 02 2020 02:09 Legan wrote: I see that there are a few variables to consider when talking about how often the game can be patched and how influential each patch can be.
Total amount of different possible units
Average amount of different units used in a game
Amount of the same unit in a game at any moment
If the first variable is high then there are likely units that aren't used and can be changed while affecting current meta to a lesser degree. If the second variable is low, then the subset of units that need to be considered at the same time for a meta is smaller allowing experimentation with units knowing that all of them will not be played at the same time. If the third variable is high then there are units, that are part of the core of the game and really impactful to the game, and any change to them is easily massive to the game.
For SC2 the first variable is not that high while the second is relatively high and third is high. This leads to a situation were most changes can impact the game greatly. Other games that have any draft or mechanism, that limits the second variable, leads easily to a meta, which is only about a certain subset of units, allowing trying to only change things outside of it if wanted. Also, if the meta gets bad, changes to the current subset easily force totally different subset.
On July 01 2020 16:38 SC-Shield wrote: Has he stopped playing SC2? I've not come across an article yet.
Yes he quit SC2. And can we really blame him? The game has been dying for years now, and soon there will be no one to play because the pros are retiring without any replacements, Blizz does not care about SC2 anymore
The game has been dying for 80% of its lifespan, kind of tragic actually
But it literally is dying.... Well the Korean scene is. Soon the next GSL is going to start with round of 16. Look how bad the round of 24 games are already.
Having some poor games is a shame, but its not the best way to know if a game is dying is it? The number of sc2 games being played per day atm is double of what it was in 2016-2017 which is partly due to corona I admit.
Online there are more tournaments being organised than ever. (Big) teams are still picking up players left right and centre. Tons of pro's are still able to play the game fulltime while the GSL viewership has been great. Wardiii has now overtaken Basetradetv in the online department and just pretty much everything sc2 he shows on his stream gets atleast 3000 viewers while his channel is still groing rapidly.
Hell after 10 years multiple pro's are even producing content for youtube and Harstem is the most recent succes that shows tons of people still love to consume sc2 content with Lowko and SC2HL being some of the top channels raking in tens of thousands of views per video. The game and the scene in general is in a very stable place, and it looks like it will remain so for atleast the next couple of years.
Who are these big teams that you're talking about? I don't see any of the CS:GO or LoL teams picking up progamers. Mad Lions is out of the game. Fnatic, G2, Vitality, 100T, Complexity, and EG for example are all big e-sports organizations but they don't have any SC2 progamers.
I don't think we can use Wardii as an example of SC2 viewership either. A lot of people watch streams because that specific person is entertaining, not necessarily because of the game being alive. I've been watching a lot of CS:GO and while we have the same teams playing against each other at the highest level, some streams are more popular than others for reasons I cannot explain. The viewership numbers for CS Summit has honestly been disappointing compared to anything hosted by ESL or Dreamhack in my opinion. Don't think I've ever seen it past 50k viewers on the main stream.
Looking at the patch cadence from his best years in 2013~2015, it's true that there were more frequent patches. But they tended to be more small changes and tweaks, not really comparable to the constant big changes we see in Riot games like LoL, Runeterra, TFT. So while I think he has an interesting point, im not sure that it's based in an entirely accurate recollection of the past.
I don't like the idea of frequent patches but I also think Blizzard takes that mindset to too much of an extreme sometimes. Last year it was a joke that Zerg wasn't nerfed months earlier. Swarmhosts during HotS and BL/Investor during WoL also took too long to fix. I guess it's mostly Zerg that they don't nerf quickly enough. When T/P is overpowered they usually get nerfed fast.
On July 02 2020 11:44 JJH777 wrote: I don't like the idea of frequent patches but I also think Blizzard takes that mindset to too much of an extreme sometimes. Last year it was a joke that Zerg wasn't nerfed months earlier. Swarmhosts during HotS and BL/Investor during WoL also took too long to fix. I guess it's mostly Zerg that they don't nerf quickly enough. When T/P is overpowered they usually get nerfed fast.
It's really wired how balance patches often come after terran and protoss's domination, and never really after zerg's. zergs often got something big nerfed at the end of the year while protoss and terran could have something big changed in the middle of the year. Maybe zerg is mostly a defensive race take part in this, but I think there're also other reasons beside this.
On July 01 2020 15:21 shadow4723 wrote: Blizzard's mishandling of their esports products is notorious. I just like SC2 too much to leave. I just hope the next big esports RTS is made by a different company
The balance of Starcraft is very different from Team Fight Tactics and similar games.
Simply look at the ammount of units that can be at play at any point in time in an starcraft match, all the different stats they have like all the abilities, atack speed, range, IA. Then their relationships with other units from both allies and enemies, taking into accout that it all happens in real time and not in turns, and then multiply that for 3 races.
Then, add the impact of macro, if you fast expand, if you tech, if you rush and their consequences. Then the maps, some big some small, very different pathways that favor different team comps.
Starcraft simply has too many variables. If they start patching for the sake of mixing things up they could end up with something terrible really quickly.
Though to be fair, Blizzard has taken too much time to take action in some cases. I'll never forget all the time BL-Infestor was left rampant and how it hurt the game,
I’ve not been keeping up with the scene - can someone explain what’s happening? I understand that Polt is seriously involved with a new game now. Has he said that he’s no longer going to be involved in professional sc2?
EPT
Patches
