UI still sub-par 2 years later. Why don't we care? - Page 13
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Gheed
United States972 Posts
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Djeez
543 Posts
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decaf
Austria1797 Posts
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willkillson
United States123 Posts
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Lann555
Netherlands5173 Posts
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humblegar
Norway883 Posts
But I think many of us forget all the crap that we had to endure in brood war. - Ever tried getting a friendly 2v2 going with 3 newbie friends on battle.net? I hope you and your friends have a degree in networking, firewalls and/or hamachi. So many of our attempts of playing 2v2s and 3v3s simply ended in frustration and us giving up, or the veterans amongst us playing 1v1s in stead. - Want to play ICCUP? You need to use a launcher, and change your gateway, enjoy the "D+++++ msg me you host no <race here>" spam. At least now I can ask a friend to play and he can install, press the "find match" button and that's it. And I can make a game and invite him or her without grinding my teeth hoping he can type in the right game and password. Since we talk on skype or mumble we are as much of a community as we have always been. I don't know how good the WC3-UI was, but I do remember the annoying chains | ||
Kira__
Sweden2672 Posts
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Omsomsoms
Croatia194 Posts
On February 03 2012 21:08 humblegar wrote: I think many of these things are very real complaints, and I lke the OP although it has all been said many times before But I think many of us forget all the crap that we had to endure in brood war. - Ever tried getting a friendly 2v2 going with 3 newbie friends on battle.net? I hope you and your friends have a degree in networking, firewalls and/or hamachi. So many of our attempts of playing 2v2s and 3v3s simply ended in frustration and us giving up, or the veterans amongst us playing 1v1s in stead. - Want to play ICCUP? You need to use a launcher, and change your gateway, enjoy the "D+++++ msg me you host no <race here>" spam. At least now I can ask a friend to play and he can install, press the "find match" button and that's it. And I can make a game and invite him or her without grinding my teeth hoping he can type in the right game and password. Since we talk on skype or mumble we are as much of a community as we have always been. I don't know how good the WC3-UI was, but I do remember the annoying chains It really wasn't that hard to set up your firewalls/router to host WC3 (or anything really), as long as your ISP let you do it, there were and are detailed guides for setting it up. I'd definitely take WC3's system over anything else, even with the comparatively complex setup time. | ||
Gheed
United States972 Posts
On February 03 2012 21:08 humblegar wrote: I think many of these things are very real complaints, and I lke the OP although it has all been said many times before But I think many of us forget all the crap that we had to endure in brood war. - Ever tried getting a friendly 2v2 going with 3 newbie friends on battle.net? I hope you and your friends have a degree in networking, firewalls and/or hamachi. So many of our attempts of playing 2v2s and 3v3s simply ended in frustration and us giving up, or the veterans amongst us playing 1v1s in stead. - Want to play ICCUP? You need to use a launcher, and change your gateway, enjoy the "D+++++ msg me you host no <race here>" spam. At least now I can ask a friend to play and he can install, press the "find match" button and that's it. And I can make a game and invite him or her without grinding my teeth hoping he can type in the right game and password. Since we talk on skype or mumble we are as much of a community as we have always been. I don't know how good the WC3-UI was, but I do remember the annoying chains I'm pretty sure all you had to do was go into your router's settings and open port 6112 or something. Regardless, they could still have server side hosting/map sharing and a non terrible UI. Just have to hope HotS brings some improvements. | ||
[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On February 03 2012 19:57 Shockk wrote: I don't need to memorize names like "Orkzzzzzz" (and count how many 'z' he used.)1) Sorry, but I could instantly message anyone in WC3, be it a buddy, a stranger, my whole clan or even my whole friends list. And unless someone had a name filled with ridiculous special characters, it was never a problem. How is SC2 an improvement in any way? On February 03 2012 19:57 Shockk wrote: 2) It is unfair, because the system is completely open to any form of abuse. You've already mentioned chat and voice tools; then there's the issue of people signing up for 3vs3 RT with an 2vs2 AT team (or 3vs3 for 4vs4) which completely bypasses the matchmaking. And then there's the dubious methods of the matchmaking itself, which will often "balance" games by pairing a good player with an awful one to create an "even" team. Just take a look at the win percentages of "top" master league teams. It's completely broken. It is not unfair because the system matches teams versus teams of similar MMR. If the system would only match RT vs RT and AT vs AT, the issue would get worse. Because the pool of either teams is smaller, so to find a team with the approximate same strength takes longer or you are matched versus a team with a greater difference in skill. It may look like an abuse to use combined arranged / random teams but you still get matched versus teams of similar MMR. That means the "abuse factor" is already included once you played some games and got your MMR ranking higher. Very high 1v1 players also have a win rate higher than 50%, this is not especially a team play issue. In WC3, an AT required you to invite your friend any game again. In SC2 you can create a party. On February 03 2012 19:57 Shockk wrote: 3) Please elaborate why you think it wasn't good. The game lobby, host options, customization, naming games and of course no ridiculous popularity system were all reasons why WC3's system worked well and SC2's version is failing, hard. The custom scene kept WC3 alive for a very long time, it's equivalent in SC2 is pretty much dead. The list of available custom games constantly refreshed in WC3, forcing you to scroll down again. When an open custom game needed more players, the host needed to close all slots and open them to refresh its position in the list. To get a friend enter the game you needed to whisper him the exact game name. Since some names used space characters, it was often hard to figure the exact game name out. And when the host left the lobby, the game was closed for anybody. On February 03 2012 19:57 Shockk wrote: And kicking usually happened when you were downloading maps which were several MB large, which is perfectly fine. At the end it was generally accepted that large maps had to be dl'ed beforehand; people usually tolerated the DL of small maps or even set up "empty" games just for the sake of downloading. All those worries are gone with Battlenet 2.0. It is easier to find the custom game you want to play and the game starts faster. | ||
mango_destroyer
Canada3914 Posts
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McGregsen
Germany110 Posts
On February 03 2012 21:36 [F_]aths wrote: I don't need to memorize names like "Orkzzzzzz" (and count how many 'z' he used.) It is not unfair because the system matches teams versus teams of similar MMR. If the system would only match RT vs RT and AT vs AT, the issue would get worse. Because the pool of either teams is smaller, so to find a team with the approximate same strength takes longer or you are matched versus a team with a greater difference in skill. It may look like an abuse to use combined arranged / random teams but you still get matched versus teams of similar MMR. That means the "abuse factor" is already included once you played some games and got your MMR ranking higher. Very high 1v1 players also have a win rate higher than 50%, this is not especially a team play issue. The list of available custom games constantly refreshed in WC3, forcing you to scroll down again. When an open custom game needed more players, the host needed to close all slots and open them to refresh its position in the list. To get a friend enter the game you needed to whisper him the exact game name. Since some names used space characters, it was often hard to figure the exact game name out. And when the host left the lobby, the game was closed for anybody. All those worries are gone with Battlenet 2.0. It is easier to find the custom game you want to play and the game starts faster. Nobody says the features have to be copied exactly like they were. For difficult names you could still have a list of people you played with last and being able to copy and paste a name from there. Host migration for custom games should also be doable using the old host system. The idea is to take the old stuff that worked. Tweak and polish it to the year 2012 were it still had flaws but don't invent something new which hardly has any new good features but removes all the old good features. | ||
Shockk
Germany2269 Posts
On February 03 2012 21:36 [F_]aths wrote: I don't need to memorize names like "Orkzzzzzz" (and count how many 'z' he used.) It is not unfair because the system matches teams versus teams of similar MMR. If the system would only match RT vs RT and AT vs AT, the issue would get worse. Because the pool of either teams is smaller, so to find a team with the approximate same strength takes longer or you are matched versus a team with a greater difference in skill. It may look like an abuse to use combined arranged / random teams but you still get matched versus teams of similar MMR. That means the "abuse factor" is already included once you played some games and got your MMR ranking higher. Very high 1v1 players also have a win rate higher than 50%, this is not especially a team play issue. In WC3, an AT required you to invite your friend any game again. In SC2 you can create a party. The list of available custom games constantly refreshed in WC3, forcing you to scroll down again. When an open custom game needed more players, the host needed to close all slots and open them to refresh its position in the list. To get a friend enter the game you needed to whisper him the exact game name. Since some names used space characters, it was often hard to figure the exact game name out. And when the host left the lobby, the game was closed for anybody. All those worries are gone with Battlenet 2.0. It is easier to find the custom game you want to play and the game starts faster. I notice that all of your responses revolve around being being more comfortable - not having to memorize names, easily joining a custom game. I beg you to actually take a close look as to how much functionality we have lost, and how little improvement SC2's menu has brought. This has not been worth the little comfort gained through the few points you have mentioned. Especially not in the custom scene; the whole system as it is has effectively killed any potential that SC2 maps had. It's good if you're fine with how it is, but you can't honestly say that - especially compared to it's predecessors - SC2 has a fantastic interface. Not when so much has been removed for so little gained. Also, please re-read my initial comments regarding the AT/RT issue; you have completely neglected to adress the possible abuse of the system and only commented on the MMR part. | ||
Gheed
United States972 Posts
On February 03 2012 21:36 [F_]aths wrote: It is not unfair because the system matches teams versus teams of similar MMR. If the system would only match RT vs RT and AT vs AT, the issue would get worse. Because the pool of either teams is smaller, so to find a team with the approximate same strength takes longer or you are matched versus a team with a greater difference in skill. It may look like an abuse to use combined arranged / random teams but you still get matched versus teams of similar MMR. That means the "abuse factor" is already included once you played some games and got your MMR ranking higher. Very high 1v1 players also have a win rate higher than 50%, this is not especially a team play issue. I understand what you are saying that it evens out. Two lower level players who have a preplanned strategy and voice chat are likely to be able to beat two random higher level players. So the lower level team will raise its MMR to a point above where either player would have gotten individually were they with random teammates. But it's still a terrible system. RT in WC3 was stupid, but once you carried enough teams, your level rose and you started getting really fun games. Eventually, if you played at the same time every week, you started getting some of the same people. It was a nice atmosphere. RT in SC2 is polluted by tryhards who queue as an arranged 3s team and rush someone on your team. Even if I win the next game, and thus it was "even," the games are still boring. Part of it is just how bad SC2 is for team games, I suppose. WC3 was fun because heroes generally prevented someone from just dying at the start and SC1 was fun because people's mechanics were so bad that the games generally dragged on for longer. | ||
Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
Between WOW, SC2, Diablo 3 and probably other projects, Blizzard has a lot a stuff that frankly, has to take priority over "non-essential" Bnet functions. Also, bnet is a long term project for Blizzard, not just a SC2 WoL platform. You can think of the current Bnet as a "BETA" system. It does the most important things very well, but is a long way from becoming complete. Slowly but surely (i hope), the platform will grow. | ||
bOneSeven
Romania685 Posts
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Shockk
Germany2269 Posts
On February 03 2012 21:54 Sapphire.lux wrote: It's a matter of priorities. The main function of battlenet is to offer very good, fast, accurate match-making, and it does that superbly. Between WOW, SC2, Diablo 3 and probably other projects, Blizzard has a lot a stuff that frankly, has to take priority over "non-essential" Bnet functions. Also, bnet is a long term project for Blizzard, not just a SC2 WoL platform. You can think of the current Bnet as a "BETA" system. It does the most important things very well, but is a long way from becoming complete. Slowly but surely (i hope), the platform will grow. Exactly the same arguments were used when everyone in the Beta was puzzled as to why chat was missing. When release drew near and there still wasn't any sign of chat being implemented, even the most die-hard Blizzard defenders got grumpy and questioned the decision. You're obviously right regarding other projects and the matter of priorities. But SC2 has shown that Blizzard will not eventually fix things (at least not in a timely manner) unless the community actually does something about it. Had the forums stayed silent, we'd now have real names on the official forums and no chat functionality except for the horrible system the Beta started with. Most people are blinded by nostalgia and overly trusting in Blizzard - thinking that things will get done eventually, because Blizzard has never failed to deliver in the past. This is no longer the same company that has developed WC3 and SCBW, and how they deal with community issues is a great reminder for this sad fact. | ||
Deadeight
United Kingdom1629 Posts
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NeThZOR
South Africa7387 Posts
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IskatuMesk
Canada969 Posts
On February 03 2012 04:56 Shockk wrote: The vocal criticism of the ridiculous limits on map developer freedom have died down because most developers have stopped developing and caring. I worked with Blizzard games for 11 years, making total conversions, maps, and campaigns. I stopped with Starcraft 2. Between the editor and battle.net 2.0, I had finally reached the limit in how much garbage I was willing to swallow. Diablo 2 had neither an editor shipped with it nor native custom content multiplayer support, but it was leagues easier to play around with, debug, and far more enjoyable to make this kind of material for. Will they fix it? No. It's not in their best interests to care about a minority. The editor is there for that feature bulletpoint on the box, not for people like me. | ||
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