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Games that center around deathball play even at the highest level. Who doesn't remember the PvZ moment where the entire 30 minutes were gambled on an archon toilet, or a some sort of positioning error that should have been punished but simply ended the game because your units evaporated to a 200/200 deathball.
Archon toilet hasn't been in the game for over 3 years so I think that analogy is moot but HotS still can be said to be too reliant on deathball mechanics though there has been huge steps to crush this type of gameplay in LotV and if you've watched any games the "deathball" doesn't really exist in the same fashion anymore.
Battle.net has the social atmosphere of a morgue. Custom game changes and clan support made the problem worse.
Agree 100% and maybe the best metaphor I've ever heard for how dead b.net can feel. B.net needs social features and custom game swapped back to an open list so the community controls the arcade instead of blizzard.
Game mechanics limited micro due to overkill and dps of death-balls. Making the game less interesting to play and watch.
This kind of just covers the same thing as your first question as deathball mechanics can make the game less fun to watch and play in some cases, again LotV has really made steps to increase micro and reduce deathballs
The fundamental economy changes from BW to sc2
All I kind of read here is how you don't like the changes from BW to SC2 and there isn't really any reasoning to why aside from it feeling "uncomfortable". The economy changes needed to happen since BW's economy was based on a terrible AI and SC2 was a new game in a different direction so there was no way it would have the exact same system as BW. Even so it took years before the economy became as stale as it is today (WoL was full of 1/2 base play while we were figuring this game out). LotV has already addressed the economy issue and if it doesn't work out they aren't going to revert it to HotS but find something else that works so I think this point won't be a worry in a few months.
Lack of moving shot and micro limiting mechanics from unit design, left a very rock paper scissor feel that has destroyed countless RTS's.
There is a lack of noticeable micro for some units and more noticeable counters but saying SC2 is rock paper scissors between units is completely wrong as there were counters and hard counters in BW too and imo the most rock, paper, scissors like feeling I've ever gotten from Starcraft was ZvZ in BW (literally 9 pool > 12 hatch > 12 pool > 9 pool) while in SC2 I might get countered I still never feel like I've lost the game off of an unscoutable build order or something uncontrollable.
Overall balance approach wildly skewed towards creating a statistical 50% win-rate while ignoring the actual entertainment of watching and playing a game.
Creating balance should be the first priority as the E-sport aspect would die immediately if there was an elongated period of unbalance (we already get way more than enough balance whining now). If SC2 had noticeable unbalance while it still had amazing game play we would either end up with people quitting because their race is under powered or switching to the best races since guess what, it really isn't fun to lose especially if its obviously easier for your opponent to win compared to you. WoL Beta Terran would be a great example of something that a lot of fun to play but was also unbalanced, winning ~60% of its games, which ruins the game for other races and even Terran became dull when its TvT all day everyday.
Catering to low level players had the opposite effect. Low level players look up to pro's and high level players for entertainment value. (top down approach, not bottom up)
Sorry I honestly don't get how Blizzard has catered to low level players at all in SC2 as all I ever hear is how people are afraid still to start playing because of the notoriety starcraft has for being a game that is extremely unforgiving and caters to hardcore players.
Race Specific Issues
Zerg - It isn't the same type of swarmy playstyle as in BW where you always had more units but the remaxing style does still fit into the Zerg style as its endless units crashing into the opponent until you win. The one thing I'd say between BW and SC2 is that Zerg lost it's aggressiveness as I feel like I sit back as Z in SC2 while in BW I was constantly on the attack
Protoss - Warpgates can cause a problem and they should be changed so they aren't so abusive (which is happening in LotV) but you don't really bring up any points as to why they are a problem aside from issues in WoL and the fact that you obviously hate them.
Terran - I don't understand you point here at all as Terran Mech is one of the scariest deathballs and the issue I see with bio isn't facing deathballs it is more of a lack of late game viability to it or transitioning out of it in the late game. Designing a new unit or fixing others (looking at you ghost) would be great. I don't see how the economy changes punished Terran in anyway (Imo the easiest macro mechanic of the three).
I feel like your post is lacking in a lot of explanation as to why you feel the way you do and you just kind of expect everyone to feel the same way you do and agree while you lack understanding of how the game has changed in HotS and consequently might not understand how the game is going to change in the future as well. You bring up some good points it's just hard to understand or agree with you unless you provide more information.
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Battle.net has the social atmosphere of a morgue. Custom game changes and clan support made the problem worse.
-UI issues as well as lack of customization of clan and chat channels, friend and clan discover features, ect
-you can only view popular games rather than finding a fun custom you like. This ruins the very organic process of new custom games becoming popular or being able to discover and old custom and play it with random people
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^ Honestly this is the biggest issue, everything else is secondary imo
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The social aspect of sc2 is nuts.
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These things have been discussed thousands of times, people here and at Blizzard are well aware of these issues but you have to understand Blizzard isn't gonna change its game from the ground up. Period.
Path finding isn't gonna change, deathballs aren't gonna change, micro isn't gonna change. The only things that could be still modified are Arcade and clan settings, but like I said, it's been discussed plenty of times, what's the point of starting a new thread on this topic?
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I don't think you can bring back the lost playerbase, they have moved on to other games, even games of a different genre. I first bought WOL because my friends played it, none of them play HOTS anymore and I haven't played in ages. Couple of different units, balance, deathballs etc aren't going to change anything. I think it's better to try to please the remaining ones.
edit: if anyone here plays planetside 2, it is struggling with the exact same problem. If you think sc2-developers are bad, trust me, some games have much worse.
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Same boat! I never brought HotS. Too frustrated with all those issues you said and more.
The game is far from perfect yet every patch day the notes had more reasons for not changing anything than changes with the footnote "we're watching closely". Not wanting to mess with pro careers and obtaining a 50% win rate with all races has caused it to become stale. I don't know why at the end of a season on a specific date we can't see some major reworks, why do we have to wait for an expansion?
Death ball, AOE and ForceField were my biggest issues with the game. Now its pretty much the lack of care from Blizzard.
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Blizzard, if you want players like me and I know many more other than myself, you need to fix or at least put some effort into these issues the community has been frustrated with for years.
Blizzard is a company that is looking for profit. They want your money, plain and simple. In fact, the more people that buy their game and then dont play it, the higher the profit gap grows as they ahve less costs in servers.
Broodwar did not have this problems as the game was hosted on the pc of the player who made the game, but SC2 is a far more resource hungry beast.
Id like to add that Unit counters are far too powerful.
Tier 2 units beat tier 1 units too hard.
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for what it's worth, lotv fixed at least half of this stuff
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I remember how much fun I used to have playing WoL. I remember how much I hated HotS. And I know that I do not enjoy LotV. At all. Solution? I started playing WoL again. Yes, in 2016. And I have so much fun again! Surprisingly enough people still play this, so finding a game is not an issue.
But to comment on the topic. I have a feeling (conspiracy theory?) that Blizzard has absolutely no reason to make SC2 a good game at this point. It is not producing any revenue anymore. Since BW and WoL, e-sport has changed. Nowadays f2p games are most popular and creating most money in the industry/e-sport. Blizzard needs to focus on other productions. SC2 became inconvenient. They cannot abandon it completely (it would be bad for the image of the company), but also they do not want to invest into it anymore. Times of RTS games are over. Simply, it probably might be even better for Blizzard if SC2 dies naturally. They could move on completely to other projects. I really hope I am just paranoid whinny asshole about it, but this is my feeling about what is happening with SC2 and e-sports in general.
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Honestly, I don't think Blizzard is interested in trying to regain this "lost playerbase" (read: you) Because you simply want BW back. (I know you have stated that this is not what you want, but your post is chock-full of BW bias, so that really tells another story)
Blizzard is making a new game, not redoing an old one. As someone who never played too much BW, due to the poor pathing and crappy AI, I can safely say that a lot of these "fixes" you have come up with, would ruin the game for me.
Half your points are kind of invalid, due them being fixed in LOTV, such as deathballs, they occur way less, and rarely do we see players turtling until a 200/200 death clash like in the WOL/HOTS era.
And in fact, Blizzard already catered a little more to the BW fans with LOTV, rapid expanding and focus on multi pronged aggression is really what comes to mind. In almost every GSL cast Tastosis will voice this, and I'm pretty sure they now BW and SC2 better than you.
The only point i somewhat agree with is that B.net 2.0 feels dead, however I think it mainly comes from the fact that people aren't as eager for the whole "social experience" as they were back in the B.net 1.0 days.
I mean, just look at other big multiplayer titles. In the MOBA's, people literally send death threats on a daily basis. and in CS:GO 50% of the voice-chat is either flaming or people bashing other people for not speaking their language.
Back in B.net 1.0, people were genuinely still rather amazed that communication, not to mention gaming, were possible in an online manner, so naturally it was used way more constructive. Now people are used to it, and use it as means to be anonymous for worse rather than better, it's hard to cultivate a good "social experience" based on that.
I'm so tired of all the complaining posts, Blizzard is not going to redo the entire SC2 game because there are some nostalgic people who liked BW, but have realized how outdated their old friend feels by todays standard.
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how do you define BW bias in this case Kaeque? the points OP made are super accurate, rather than BW bias it is accurate perception of SC2/WoL flaws thanks to experience of better games. Sure some things have been improved in SC2 since 2010 - some things have also been lost. Anyway, even if we don't expect Blizzard to redo SC2 into the great game we wish it would be, anyone is free to voice their opinion and explain why they - and others - have left, and I find it interesting and useful regardless. I think OP is really on point because everything he wrote are all reasons why I left SC2 really quickly (within the first few months), it's very accurate. With LoTV SC2 still does have a lot of these flaws, some of them diminished, others worsened.. imo it may well be a bit better than WoL overall, but still not something I would come back to play in the long run (or buy).
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The article from thedwf is quite good and I find myself agreeing with a lot of it.
However there's something a little off, I can't quite put my finger on it.
I really genuinely enjoy playing LOTV, I think
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Germany25641 Posts
Lets not discuss something that is incredibly outdated now.
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