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So initially I wanted to answer to the thread "Ladder hurting SC2?" but realized the point I want to make deals with the exact opposite:
The Custom Game System in StarCraft2
People who want to perform well on Ladder want to practice certain matchups or certain maps, but
1. The current Custom Game System does not allow efficient practice.
And since Custom Games are not only for practice but also for the underestimated fun game/obs Community I want to add two further statements:
2. The current Custom Game System kills fun maps that don't immediately succeed while being featured
and
3. The current Custom Game System makes finding games to observe unneccessarily complicated (Chat Channels)
The current state:
Practicing
The StarCraft 2 Ladder in itself is great. Matchmaking works good,
it's the Custom Map System that fails - Leviance, 2011
And because of that, training to perform better on the ladder is hard to pull off without a lot of B.Net friends that are your level of play.
Why did Blizzard make it so hard for people practicing on certain maps or a certain matchup with practice partners at your level!?
Why isn't at least matchmaking applied to Custom 1v1s? Why do I end up with either a silver player who isn't near my level or a Master who rapes my ass joining my game most of the time and there's not even a fucking chance to leave the lobby without logging out because the fucking game starts as soon as two players are in the lobby!? Why is there no way to train a specific matchup with even skilled people I'm not friends with (plus they have to be online and available and willing to play at that time) What the fuck? What were they thinking?
Observing
So I just wanna obs a few games, need to get into a Chat Channel, but which one? Teamliquid? Custom Games? TlObs? Oh right I can only join 2 at a time. So lets try: "Can I obs anyone? Master game to obs?" times goes by... finally an invite. Hm PvP on Steppes. Ah well.
Fun Maps
Blizzard kills great fun maps with this horribly stupid popularity system.
I'm sick of having to play the same fun maps over and over again because they are the only ones people join because they are on top of Blizzard's list and because the other (great) ones are at the bottom no one joins them because they know no one joins them. A vicious circle. Raynor Party is great but after 10 times in a row I would be glad to get some variety - Hey let's play PartyCraft, the Mini Game map no one knows. Hmm okay after sitting 10 minutes in an empty lobby ... let's join Raynor Party again -.-
The simple Solution to all of life's problems the 3 issues
The only thing needed to fix most of the issues is a Custom Games Corner where players can create custom games with a title that other players can see. It's as simple as that. Like "1v1 Metalopolis Diamond ZvT I'm Z" or "Blood Marathon come join". or "2v2 Twilight Platinum obs allowed" - Exactly as in BW days.
TL;DR
All they need is a Custom Game System that allows players to create a Custom Game with a title. It would be the solution to all practice problems and the fungame community would also benefit so much from that.
"Shakuras 1v1 Gold PvT you T" will get you the exact practice you want in maybe 8/10 games, Creating a 1v1 on Shakuras right now will in 7/10 cases result in 2 players with a skill difference so high that neither of them would benefit.
"TronCraft Funmap come join" would get people that wanna play a fungame but don't know the unpopular ones (how should they? no one ever joins) to join and get to know fun games which noone ever joined before because the game is there, created, and visible for all.
"1v1 Metalopolis Master obs" will get thankful people who like observing games into games they wanna observe without all this time wasting procedure of joining 2 chat channels and hope for the best.
Edit:
So for all people who don't read all posts in a thread, some answers to criticism:
On February 14 2011 22:45 Morfildur wrote:
Oh yes... we need titles like "1v1 Bronze/noobs only" so we can be sure that when we join, we will play against another noob... or do we?
You can see the creator's profile?
There are lots of ways to find practice partners and several communities that form around obsing, i think the main problem is just that people are too lazy to use those ways.
You don't get the point. Of course it is possible. Why not make it easier accessible? Simplifying it saves you time and energy. What would life be like today if everything you could do hadn't been improved because there is already a way to do it!? You can use a horse to travel. It works fine. Using obs channels to find obs games will often result in 100 people wanting to obs and a few wanting to play that aren't of the high level you want to obs.
Oh, and what many forget, the new system is quite nice since it prevents "hacked" maps. You can always be sure that everyone plays the same version of a map without any resource triggers or anything, which as a side-effect also means no more "DOTA 123.4.5.6" where you get flamed because you aren't using the much better "DOTA 123.4.5.7".
this is easy to fix because in 1v1 mode there are no triggers. terrain changes/ changed start posis can be seen on the minimaps.
It's been a while, but weren't BW and WC3 limited to _one_ channel?
Yes? But you could see Custom Games and didn't need a channel to arrange one? And why am I not allowed to critize something just because it improved slightly to how it used to be in the year-olds BW and WC3 ?
On February 14 2011 22:38 FarbrorAbavna wrote:
youre points are valid and implementing a way to name you custom game is a big step towards a solution with the problems that custom games are facing right now, but I fail to see how this is anything new from the threads on this matter that already exist on tl.net
The idea isn't new. But there is nowhere a compilation of collected points that summarize the benefits for Praticing / Obsing / Fungames (Basically every type of game there is), so it's a thing that just had to be outspoken at once. The idea of the thread is to speak out, write it down, discuss everything at once in a short essay, get attention, point out how simple it is to change major flaws, not to bring a brilliant new idea. While the points aren't hard to understand, few people realize how simple the solution is or just didn't think of it at all. Maybe even blizz people. That is my intention.
On February 15 2011 07:54 JoeSchmoe wrote:
Your "solution" is just old bnet. What you essentially end up with are thousands of games with ridiculous/misleading titles that end up wasting your time anyways.
No, in the old bnet you saw only the titles. I imagine that you see the titles, the host (with link to profile), map preview + description when you click on the title, basically u could get any information before you actually join the game by just clicking on the title.
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The custom game system is definitely weak and the fact that people only seem to like the custom games that Blizzard makes themselves are worrying symptoms (since they obviously can cheat the popularity system). I played alot of ladder in wc3, but i did spend at least half my time playing in different custom games, like TDs and hero arena. In SC2 however i dont think i even played 10 games total since beta.
It's very easy in theory to fix the custom system, just revert it to the wc3 system, that's what everyone wants.
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The only solution is a real custom lobby, but that itself is going to have problems of its own.
The main problem would be port forwarding, that everyone with a router is going to have to do in order to host games. If Blizz decides to use this system, it may be similar to wc3 where people who dont port forward are forced to wait until someone hosts a map they want to play.
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I really have no clue why Blizzard didn't implement this in the first place. I mean, first of all this is nothing new and second I don't see any disadvantages for Blizzard.
Can someone enlighten me?
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well you say nothing new or special. but you are 100% right and evryone will agree on that.
its not a question if we need real custom games. its just a question if blizz will listen and change/add it.
now that chat channels are out its one of the biggest issues for me. its soooo frustrating when you just want to do a chill game against a somewhat equal opponent but spend 15 minutes with people that instaleave when they see my rank. esp with the autostart i have to let the map load. and when i finally get a game going and ask my opponent for the rank (since i would be the one leaving if the guy is sub diamond) quite often they lie and i waste another 10 minutes playing a save style vs some scrub that i couldve worker rushed out of the game. it actually really makes me rage and throw curses at blizzard quite a ton. currently more then anything else.
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On February 14 2011 22:29 Qweasdzxc wrote:
The only solution is a real custom lobby, but that itself is going to have problems of its own.
The main problem would be port forwarding, that everyone with a router is going to have to do in order to host games. If Blizz decides to use this system, it may be similar to wc3 where people who dont port forward are forced to wait until someone hosts a map they want to play.
Why would it have to be like that? Games could be "hosted" as you can host now already vie B.Net 2.0, just with a title added and a Custom Games Section where people can see the titles/open games.
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On February 14 2011 22:30 Ragoo wrote:
I really have no clue why Blizzard didn't implement this in the first place. I mean, first of all this is nothing new and second I don't see any disadvantages for Blizzard.
Can someone enlighten me?
The reason they changed it is so it's gonna need minimal use of the keyboard. See, the creator of this is the creator of Xbox live. U can do anything in bnet 2 without the keyboard, but of course that limits it alot aswell. No slash commands, no names and passwords on games, no chats (until now). Bnet is created to fit console players. (Yes, it's retarded.)
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On February 14 2011 22:32 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
well you say nothing new or special. but you are 100% right and evryone will agree on that.
its not a question if we need real custom games. its just a question if blizz will listen and change/add it.
Would this be worth posting on the B.Net forums? I think I will do this now, it's worth a try. Unlikely, that they change it tho :D
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Sweden4856 Posts
youre points are valid and implementing a way to name you custom game is a big step towards a solution with the problems that custom games are facing right now, but I fail to see how this is anything new from the threads on this matter that already exist on tl.net
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On February 14 2011 22:33 cnas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 22:30 Ragoo wrote:
I really have no clue why Blizzard didn't implement this in the first place. I mean, first of all this is nothing new and second I don't see any disadvantages for Blizzard.
Can someone enlighten me? The reason they changed it is so it's gonna need minimal use of the keyboard. See, the creator of this is the creator of Xbox live. U can do anything in bnet 2 without the keyboard, but of course that limits it alot aswell. No slash commands, no names and passwords on games, no chats (until now). Bnet is created to fit console players.
true. and incredibly sad.
i will never understand why they fucked up bnet 0.2 so bad by copying console platforms when atm 100% of their games are PC and the PC will always be blizzards main platform.it just makes no sense.
its a plain retarded business decision. knowing that the guys responsible for that most likely get shittons of money just hurts even more.
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On February 14 2011 22:33 cnas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 22:30 Ragoo wrote:
I really have no clue why Blizzard didn't implement this in the first place. I mean, first of all this is nothing new and second I don't see any disadvantages for Blizzard.
Can someone enlighten me? The reason they changed it is so it's gonna need minimal use of the keyboard. See, the creator of this is the creator of Xbox live. U can do anything in bnet 2 without the keyboard, but of course that limits it alot aswell. No slash commands, no names and passwords on games, no chats (until now). Bnet is created to fit console players. (Yes, it's retarded.)
This is 100% correct. Battle.net 2.0's first priority is looking slick and bubbly and web 2.0. Its right there in the name even. Functionality took a back-seat to aesthetics for sc2 multiplayer and it seems unlikely that blizzard-activision will ever add in BW style custom games.
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On February 14 2011 22:40 Dental Floss wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 22:33 cnas wrote:On February 14 2011 22:30 Ragoo wrote:
I really have no clue why Blizzard didn't implement this in the first place. I mean, first of all this is nothing new and second I don't see any disadvantages for Blizzard.
Can someone enlighten me? The reason they changed it is so it's gonna need minimal use of the keyboard. See, the creator of this is the creator of Xbox live. U can do anything in bnet 2 without the keyboard, but of course that limits it alot aswell. No slash commands, no names and passwords on games, no chats (until now). Bnet is created to fit console players. (Yes, it's retarded.) This is 100% correct. Battle.net 2.0's first priority is looking slick and bubbly and web 2.0. Its right there in the name even. Functionality took a back-seat to aesthetics for sc2 multiplayer and it seems unlikely that blizzard-activision will ever add in BW style custom games.
the good thing about the current system is that you can practically join any popular custom game and expect it to start within a minute or less upon joining it.
if you had custom games there would be too much competition for rooms eg. wc3 refreshing of rooms in order to 'bump' it to the top.
the only good thing that can come about from this is hosting custom maps for obs like OP mentioned. but theres a reason why chat channels are implemented.
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On February 14 2011 22:38 FarbrorAbavna wrote:
youre points are valid and implementing a way to name you custom game is a big step towards a solution with the problems that custom games are facing right now, but I fail to see how this is anything new from the threads on this matter that already exist on tl.net
The idea isn't new. But there is nowhere a compilation of collected points that summarize the benefits for Praticing / Obsing / Fungames (Basically every type of game there is), so it's a thing that just had to be outspoken. The idea of the thread is to speak out, write it down, discuss everything at once in a short essay, get attention, point out how simple it is to change major flaws, not to bring a brilliant new idea. While the points aren't hard to understand, few people realize how simple the solution is or just didn't think of it at all. Maybe even blizz people. That is my intention.
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Oh yes... we need titles like "1v1 Bronze/noobs only" so we can be sure that when we join, we will play against another noob... or do we?
There are lots of ways to find practice partners and several communities that form around obsing, i think the main problem is just that people are too lazy to use those ways.
Oh, and what many forget, the new system is quite nice since it prevents "hacked" maps. You can always be sure that everyone plays the same version of a map without any resource triggers or anything, which as a side-effect also means no more "DOTA 123.4.5.6" where you get flamed because you aren't using the much better "DOTA 123.4.5.7".
It would be nice to be able to host a map and set a filter for joining though.
EDIT:
On February 14 2011 22:12 Leviance wrote:
Observing
So I just wanna obs a few games, need to get into a Chat Channel, but which one? Teamliquid? Custom Games? TlObs? Oh right I can only join 2 at a time. So lets try: "Can I obs anyone? Master game to obs?" times goes by... finally an invite. Hm PvP on Steppes. Ah well.
It's been a while, but weren't BW and WC3 limited to _one_ channel?
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On February 14 2011 22:43 Qweasdzxc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 22:40 Dental Floss wrote:On February 14 2011 22:33 cnas wrote:On February 14 2011 22:30 Ragoo wrote:
I really have no clue why Blizzard didn't implement this in the first place. I mean, first of all this is nothing new and second I don't see any disadvantages for Blizzard.
Can someone enlighten me? The reason they changed it is so it's gonna need minimal use of the keyboard. See, the creator of this is the creator of Xbox live. U can do anything in bnet 2 without the keyboard, but of course that limits it alot aswell. No slash commands, no names and passwords on games, no chats (until now). Bnet is created to fit console players. (Yes, it's retarded.) This is 100% correct. Battle.net 2.0's first priority is looking slick and bubbly and web 2.0. Its right there in the name even. Functionality took a back-seat to aesthetics for sc2 multiplayer and it seems unlikely that blizzard-activision will ever add in BW style custom games. the good thing about the current system is that you can practically join any popular custom game and expect it to start within a minute or less upon joining it. if you had custom games there would be too much competition for rooms eg. wc3 refreshing of rooms in order to 'bump' it to the top. the only good thing that can come about from this is hosting custom maps for obs like OP mentioned. but theres a reason why chat channels are implemented.
never had problems in bw/wc3 with games starting in time.also this is a really small thing compared to what we lose.
we cant play melee games at all cause there is a huge chance that the opponent will be off a totally different skill level.
we cant play any real ums cause we cant tell/decide the matchup .( like " 3v3 dota -arem")
chat channels are a bandaid fix that can help. but most of the time you still will waste tons of time to get a group together or find a fitting opponent.
if they love their current system so much fine. keep it. but add another games list with real named custom games. i dont care if its hosted by the creator(old bnet style) or blizz servers (HoN style). but we NEED it.
There are lots of ways to find practice partners and several communities that form around obsing, i think the main problem is just that people are too lazy to use those ways.
this can take ages , is unreliable, you expose your desire to a TINY number of people and you cut out the ability to join/create the game they want for a giant part of the playerbase that simply wont know about all those communities,channels etc.
take me as a pretty damn well informed TL guy. if i wanted to play a match of marine arena (or any other random map) the only options i have are joining a random game or asking in the public blizz custom game channel (good luck with that). maybe there is a channel for people that play that map or customs in general. i have no freakin clue. how is mr random sc2 guy supposed to find those channels/people when he never looked at a sc forum/site before?
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On February 14 2011 22:45 Morfildur wrote:Oh yes... we need titles like "1v1 Bronze/noobs only" so we can be sure that when we join, we will play against another noob... or do we? There are lots of ways to find practice partners and several communities that form around obsing, i think the main problem is just that people are too lazy to use those ways. Oh, and what many forget, the new system is quite nice since it prevents "hacked" maps. You can always be sure that everyone plays the same version of a map without any resource triggers or anything, which as a side-effect also means no more "DOTA 123.4.5.6" where you get flamed because you aren't using the much better "DOTA 123.4.5.7". It would be nice to be able to host a map and set a filter for joining though. EDIT: Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 22:12 Leviance wrote:
Observing
So I just wanna obs a few games, need to get into a Chat Channel, but which one? Teamliquid? Custom Games? TlObs? Oh right I can only join 2 at a time. So lets try: "Can I obs anyone? Master game to obs?" times goes by... finally an invite. Hm PvP on Steppes. Ah well.
It's been a while, but weren't BW and WC3 limited to _one_ channel?
There are flaws with the old system of course, but they deal breaker for me was when nexus wars 0.2 was in top5 for more than a month, and when you searched for nexus wars in Create Game you'd find that there were like 5 updates to the map, but they couldn't get popular. That's the definition of a weak system in my opinion.
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People have been saying this before and it makes perfect sense. Im guessing blizzard will implement this new feature in the future (ability to name games or something)
But for now...this makes too much sense but blizzard wants to be innovative.
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On February 14 2011 22:45 Morfildur wrote:
Oh yes... we need titles like "1v1 Bronze/noobs only" so we can be sure that when we join, we will play against another noob... or do we?
You can see the creator's profile?
There are lots of ways to find practice partners and several communities that form around obsing, i think the main problem is just that people are too lazy to use those ways.
You don't get the point. Of course it is possible. Why not make it easier accessible? Simplifying it saves you time and energy. What would life be like today if everything you could do hadn't been improved because there is already a way to do it!? You can use a horse to travel. It works fine. Using obs channels to find obs games will often result in 100 people wanting to obs and a few wanting to play that aren't of the high level you want to obs.
Oh, and what many forget, the new system is quite nice since it prevents "hacked" maps. You can always be sure that everyone plays the same version of a map without any resource triggers or anything, which as a side-effect also means no more "DOTA 123.4.5.6" where you get flamed because you aren't using the much better "DOTA 123.4.5.7".
this is easy to fix because in 1v1 mode there are no triggers. terrain changes/ changed start posis can be seen on the minimaps.
It's been a while, but weren't BW and WC3 limited to _one_ channel?
Yes? But you could see Custom Games and didn't need a channel to arrange one? I feel you just wrote all this without thinking
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Agree with everything said in this post but this :
So I just wanna obs a few games, need to get into a Chat Channel, but which one? Teamliquid? Custom Games? TlObs? Oh right I can only join 2 at a time.
You can join as many chat channels as you want , can't you?
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On February 14 2011 22:59 SpiZe wrote:Agree with everything said in this post but this : Show nested quote +So I just wanna obs a few games, need to get into a Chat Channel, but which one? Teamliquid? Custom Games? TlObs? Oh right I can only join 2 at a time. You can join as many chat channels as you want , can't you?
Only two. If you try to join more, it tells you to leave one channel first.
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EPT
