You might recognize me as the person who put out the last community attitudes questionnaire that wasn't a collection of strawpolls. You can find the TL thread on that here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/492649-community-questionnaire-about-macro-mechanics
Now that the changes are live, and we've had a couple of days to mess about with new Legacy of the Void, I want to see how community opinion has shifted.
To take the survey, hit up the following link!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6HRPRS3
The survey will be open for a few days--or until we hit the limit where Survey Monkey is going to start charging me per-response--so that I can get a good read on community attitudes towards these sweeping changes. There are some additional questions to last time, but you will see a lot of the same items.
As usual, I'll be back with some analysis later! Hit me with questions, suggestions, or any particular analyses you would like to see from the finished product.
Updated with Results
edit: Copied the analysis from page 2! Enjoy!
Alrighty, guys, let's get cracking on some analysis!
As a reminder, this survey was released into the wild shortly after the change to remove macro mechanics had gone live. A lot of these data are thus immediate reactions to Blizzard's decision, and should be considered as such. This is not necessarily a well considered, deliberate set of decisions and feelings, but rather, this is the kneejerk reaction and initial impression of a drastic design decision. The survey was live during the 20-25 August.
For all of these graphs, I have removed the players who have said that they have not tested the changes at all in Void.
Some composite analysis:
Summary:
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The sample was quite top heavy, with a lot of diamond+ players responding. Protoss was slightly underrepresented. More people are specializing in Void compared to last survey, and the vast majority of the respondents are at least interested in improvement.
The only real things the community agreed on are that balance will be skewed. There were a lot of extreme opinions regarding how this removal would affect desire to play the game, but they were so many that they virtually cancelled each other out.
While not many respondents said that they didn't care about the direction the game was taking due to these changes, the overall results suggest the community is neutral about the future based on these changes.
The change to reintroduce weaker macro mechanics is probably the best possible scenario that Blizzard could have gone with, at least looking at initial impressions. I would have suggested that Blizzard do that, but that's apparently what they're doing, so that's cool.
There was a BIG majority who said that original Void was too fast, and that Swarm is too slow. If there is a way for Blizzard to have a game whose speed is somewhere in the middle, that would make a lot of people happy, I think. Maybe a slightly reduced starting worker count (9 or 10?) in combination with the diminished macro mechanics?
The only real things the community agreed on are that balance will be skewed. There were a lot of extreme opinions regarding how this removal would affect desire to play the game, but they were so many that they virtually cancelled each other out.
While not many respondents said that they didn't care about the direction the game was taking due to these changes, the overall results suggest the community is neutral about the future based on these changes.
The change to reintroduce weaker macro mechanics is probably the best possible scenario that Blizzard could have gone with, at least looking at initial impressions. I would have suggested that Blizzard do that, but that's apparently what they're doing, so that's cool.
There was a BIG majority who said that original Void was too fast, and that Swarm is too slow. If there is a way for Blizzard to have a game whose speed is somewhere in the middle, that would make a lot of people happy, I think. Maybe a slightly reduced starting worker count (9 or 10?) in combination with the diminished macro mechanics?
Details!
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League status:
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We have a skewed distribution, with higher level players overrepresented. This is to be expected, given that we are soliciting players who are posting on third-party message boards!
Race stats:
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Terran and zerg are roughly equal, with protoss underrepresented. A surprising portion of the sample plays Random, though!
Activity:
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As compared to last time, more players are devoting more time to Void.
Seriousity: Instead of posting the graph, I'm just going to say that about 37 players voted below 4 on a 7 point scale asking about how seriously they took the game. There were 431 responses to this question.
Time testing:
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Note that this illustrates that I cut out players who answered "none" to this question. At the point that this survey went live, the macro mechanics patch was quite recent. That there were so many players who had done such extensive play is quite impressive.
The meaty parts:
First spoiler is the graph, second spoiler is the chart.
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The questions:
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CasualAppeal - The removal of macro mechanics will help the game appeal to more casual players
Insulted - The removal of macro mechanics makes me feel insulted
NewMeta - The removal of macro mechanics will allow players to focus more on other aspects of the game, letting the meta develop in exciting new ways
SkewBalance - The removal of macro mechanics will drastically skew the game balance somehow
BetterView - The removal of macro mechanics will make the game more interesting to watch
Abrupt - The removal of macro mechanics is sudden, and I am surprised to see Blizzard do it so abruptly
OtherChanges - The testing of the removal of macro mechanics bothers me as no other drastic design changes were tested
PlayLess - The removal of macro mechanics is likely to make me want to play Legacy of the Void less
PlayMore - The removal of macro mechanics is likely to make me want to play Legacy of the Void less
Means - 4 is the midpoint, and expresses neutrality towards the statement given. A quick way to check and see how the community leans is to measure the absolute difference above or below 4.0 in the mean. For example, the community somewhat disagrees that the removal of macro mechanics is insulting (.8 below 4.0), and agrees about as much that the removal makes things better for casual players (.79 above 4.0). Means are of course skewed more by extreme values, so keep that in mind.
Distribution - Looking at the shape of the distribution tells us more about how intensely the community feels about a particular issue. For example, in the "I want to play Void less because of the removal..." item, something like 68% of the sample said either "1" or "7," so there are a lot of very strong opinions about that.
Does the removal suggest good things or bad things about Void?
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Holy hell, that is a weird distribution. It's similar to a uniform distribution (each choice has an equal likelihood of being selected) except that virtually no one was neutral. So uh, the mean is basically Neutral. No one thinks "Eh, doesn't matter," but that's the consensus of the community. I kept the descriptives here just so you could see that.
Would you like to see macro mechanics reinstated?
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Generally, yes. Probably weaker, to make more people happy (read: less people unhappy).
Game speed: Swarm vs OG Void vs something in the middle
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OG Void is too fast, Swarm is too slow. This is an absolutely resounding consensus.
Racial comparisons!
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The meat!
Graphs!
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Numbers!
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Interpretation!
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Design ramifications
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Interpretation:
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MM Reinstatement:
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Interpretation:
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Game Speed:
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Graphs!
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Numbers!
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Interpretation!
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Terran is generally pissed off about the patch, in pretty much every measurable way.
Zerg and protoss both feel like this helps casual appeal, terran definitely doesn't. Oddly terrans feel more insulted by the removal of MM, which is odd considering the community generally thinks that MULEs are the most forgiving. Maybe this has something to do with the viability of bio after the patch?
The community in general felt like balance would be skewed, but terran thought it would be fucked. In general, zerg and protoss both felt more optimistic about these changes, and that they would positively affect the game.
Zerg and protoss both feel like this helps casual appeal, terran definitely doesn't. Oddly terrans feel more insulted by the removal of MM, which is odd considering the community generally thinks that MULEs are the most forgiving. Maybe this has something to do with the viability of bio after the patch?
The community in general felt like balance would be skewed, but terran thought it would be fucked. In general, zerg and protoss both felt more optimistic about these changes, and that they would positively affect the game.
Design ramifications
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Interpretation:
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Terran: FUCK THIS GAME
Zerg: I guess this is pretty good maybe?
Protoss: ??????
Zerg: I guess this is pretty good maybe?
Protoss: ??????
MM Reinstatement:
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Interpretation:
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WE REALLY WANT MULES BACK, DAVID!!!!
Zerg and protoss have similar proportions for wanting MM back, but holy shit that terran MULE passion.
It feels like the diminished macro mechanics is a good choice for a future direction, based on this feedback.
Zerg and protoss have similar proportions for wanting MM back, but holy shit that terran MULE passion.
It feels like the diminished macro mechanics is a good choice for a future direction, based on this feedback.
Game Speed:
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Thanks to everyone for stopping by! If you have questions, feel free to ask!
edit: Added text of questions in "the meat." Thought that was there; whoops!