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What sort of formal or informal discussions has the Blizzard design team had with pros and community stakeholders (e.g., casters, streamers) as it develops LOTV? Has Blizzard formally reached out to people in the community to solicit their ideas? And if so, what does that interaction look like?
I would assume that Blizzard uses events like Blizzcon to hold roundtables with various stakeholders, where it shares its design ideas and solicits feedback. Of course, they could also do this online. I assume such conversations occur behind the scenes to protect the creative process from the free-for-all that is the public square... But it seems fairly obvious that Blizzard would want the informed opinions of people with knowledge and experience and a vested interest in the game's success as an esport.
I ask this question because I see many great threads here where posters are discussing the possible changes to improve the game. Ideas of changing the SC2 economy, unit micro potential, etc. are not revolutionary. And my guess is that the folks most likely to be in position to share those ideas with Blizzard (pros, casters, etc.) have done so. So really I'm just curious if anyone with insight can confirm or deny my assumptions... thanks.
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On November 25 2014 05:25 gh0st wrote: What sort of formal or informal discussions has the Blizzard design team had with pros and community stakeholders (e.g., casters, streamers) as it develops LOTV? Has Blizzard formally reached out to people in the community to solicit their ideas? And if so, what does that interaction look like?
I would assume that Blizzard uses events like Blizzcon to hold roundtables with various stakeholders, where it shares its design ideas and solicits feedback. Of course, they could also do this online. I assume such conversations occur behind the scenes to protect the creative process from the free-for-all that is the public square... But it seems fairly obvious that Blizzard would want the informed opinions of people with knowledge and experience and a vested interest in the game's success as an esport.
I ask this question because I see many great threads here where posters are discussing the possible changes to improve the game. Ideas of changing the SC2 economy, unit micro potential, etc. are not revolutionary. And my guess is that the folks most likely to be in position to share those ideas with Blizzard (pros, casters, etc.) have done so. So really I'm just curious if anyone with insight can confirm or deny my assumptions... thanks.
Cloaken Psione regularly responds in the community forums. As by some comments from Rotterdam, Nathanias etc every now and then, they do communicate somewhat.
They're open to feedback, and whilst it might not appear like it on first look sometimes, they are in touch with the community.
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I think it would be awesome if Blizzard would open up the design and balance process, with iterations of changes followed by feedback. The game can only profit from that.
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On November 25 2014 13:22 Freeborn wrote: I think it would be awesome if Blizzard would open up the design and balance process, with iterations of changes followed by feedback. The game can only profit from that.
Maybe not the balancing process since everyone will bitch that their race sucks while the other race is OP. But I do think if they open up the design process the community can help them come up with some pretty cool units or warn them ahead of time if something is completely retarded. With balance I think it is best to create a well designed unit first while stats and OP the unit is can be tweaked afterwards.
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On November 25 2014 05:27 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2014 05:25 gh0st wrote: What sort of formal or informal discussions has the Blizzard design team had with pros and community stakeholders (e.g., casters, streamers) as it develops LOTV? Has Blizzard formally reached out to people in the community to solicit their ideas? And if so, what does that interaction look like?
I would assume that Blizzard uses events like Blizzcon to hold roundtables with various stakeholders, where it shares its design ideas and solicits feedback. Of course, they could also do this online. I assume such conversations occur behind the scenes to protect the creative process from the free-for-all that is the public square... But it seems fairly obvious that Blizzard would want the informed opinions of people with knowledge and experience and a vested interest in the game's success as an esport.
I ask this question because I see many great threads here where posters are discussing the possible changes to improve the game. Ideas of changing the SC2 economy, unit micro potential, etc. are not revolutionary. And my guess is that the folks most likely to be in position to share those ideas with Blizzard (pros, casters, etc.) have done so. So really I'm just curious if anyone with insight can confirm or deny my assumptions... thanks. Cloaken Psione regularly responds in the community forums. As by some comments from Rotterdam, Nathanias etc every now and then, they do communicate somewhat. They're open to feedback, and whilst it might not appear like it on first look sometimes, they are in touch with the community.
Yeah I've seen Psione respond to posts, and I'm sure they monitor TL and other forums as well as their own. I guess I would just be surprised if they didn't enlist the help of pros, casters, etc. in a formalized way. It would boost community confidence in the game if Blizzard said "hey, not only do we follow the forums, but we have actively sought out the input of community leaders. Here's how."
It sounds like this happens to some degree. It'd just be cool to know how involved community leaders like Day9 or Incontrol (or whoever) have been and in what capacity. It'd also be neat to know who Blizzard has tapped to serve as "consultants" and what those conversations have been like. Some concrete evidence is what I'm looking for.
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they included a "progamer" forum for hots but they didnt listen to the pros advice anyway. almost everyone was against swarm hosts but blizz added them anyway.
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On November 25 2014 14:26 Terranist wrote: they included a "progamer" forum for hots but they didnt listen to the pros advice anyway. almost everyone was against swarm hosts but blizz added them anyway.
Does anybody have screenshots lying around by chance? I remember lalush talking about how they ignored everybody in that forum, but nobody else ever mentioned it.
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also destiny said when he was in contact with them, every suggestion he made was answered with " stop comparing us to valve, we dont have the manpower to implement this"
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Looks like a big fat "No" is your answer. Not that most people are surprised. Only the insistently optimistic naive fanboys manage to continue to give Blizzard the benefit of the ever growing doubt. Even when they did things like that in the past, it's just for the appearance of working with players or the rest of the community. I don't recall ever seeing or hearing about results of people being listened to - but I have a great idea of just how much obviously has not been listened to. Glad to see this post - whether it's your intention or not, it helps.. not to keep Blizzard honest, because there is no us in Blizzard, and I don't think there ever will be. But it helps the community to stay in touch with how honest Blizzard is.
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I feel this thread already got derailed into a lets diss Blizzard thread. Not even page 2.
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On November 25 2014 15:50 Kazahk wrote: I feel this thread already got derailed into a lets diss Blizzard thread. Not even page 2.
Sorry, we'll try to keep our on-topic remarks to ourselves, favoring only responses from pros/casters talking about their largely inexistent dealings with Blizzard, so that Kazahk doesn't have to deal with witnessing anyone who doesn't think Blizzard is perfect.
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My point was there is a difference between feedback and whining. Also I hope you realize NONE of blizzards games were perfect from the get go. Not even your precious BW. + Show Spoiler + The community has a bigger impact on the game than blizzard and toxic whining and bitching never helps.
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On November 25 2014 15:50 Kazahk wrote: I feel this thread already got derailed into a lets diss Blizzard thread. Not even page 2.
Haters, haters everywhere
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On November 25 2014 16:57 Kazahk wrote:My point was there is a difference between feedback and whining. Also I hope you realize NONE of blizzards games were perfect from the get go. Not even your precious BW. + Show Spoiler +The community has a bigger impact on the game than blizzard and toxic whining and bitching never helps.
Yeah, my intent was not to open another avenue of complaint. My assumption is that Blizzard takes reasonable steps to solicit informed opinions about their game and how to improve it--and that they do it in a structured and professional way. It is disheartening to think otherwise. But I can't really find any evidence to suggest they do it. It's bad PR, if nothing else, not to engage stakeholders and publicize the fact.
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On November 26 2014 07:09 gh0st wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2014 16:57 Kazahk wrote:My point was there is a difference between feedback and whining. Also I hope you realize NONE of blizzards games were perfect from the get go. Not even your precious BW. + Show Spoiler +The community has a bigger impact on the game than blizzard and toxic whining and bitching never helps. Yeah, my intent was not to open another avenue of complaint. My assumption is that Blizzard takes reasonable steps to solicit informed opinions about their game and how to improve it--and that they do it in a structured and professional way. It is disheartening to think otherwise. But I can't really find any evidence to suggest they do it. It's bad PR, if nothing else, not to engage stakeholders and publicize the fact. Considering most pros got beta access to HotS and we saw some changes based on their experience (perhaps not a specific piece of feedback). I assume we'll see the same with LotV.
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On November 25 2014 13:22 Freeborn wrote: I think it would be awesome if Blizzard would open up the design and balance process, with iterations of changes followed by feedback. The game can only profit from that.
I trust Blizzard more with that process than the community.
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They do in a very general sense, saying that if you see 20 threads all about how OP Carriers are, they will probably start thinking about analyzing games or data to validate or ignore those claims.
The problem with changing SC2's design is that it's a game that molds so much over a long period of time while balance or mechanics were never changed. Look at how much BW changed over time despite basically no balance changes, and you could even say the same about a game like SSB: Melee. For the most part, they want to keep the game interesting and not over-compensate due to community feedback that is rooted in impatience, because often people have severely overreacted about things that came out in the wash as the metagame evolved.
It's also hard to know whose feedback is actually credible. Plenty of progamers could easily vouch for buffs or nerfs that help them earn more money, so filtering out agendas and still trying to get good feedback from them I'm sure has it's own caveats. Even analyzing that particular pro's strengths and weaknesses (or knowledge/proficiency in matchups) has its own pitfalls - Parting complaining about imbalances in PvT would be a lot different than somebody like JYP complaining about it, since Parting's PvT has always been top-tier while JYP just never got the hang of it.
It's also impossible to quantify what people find fun based on personal preference, and whether something is good for the game in the long-term after people took a year to learn how to abuse a mechanic that they didn't anticipate.
Basically, all I'm saying is that taking in community feedback is a massive juggling act. I'd say the influencing factors of their decisions for balance/design come from their own analysis of noteworthy games first, data or trends second, community upheaval third, and finally input from selective sources last.
When they are coming up with new ideas or they want to maybe break ties among their own debate circles, they might reach out to pros or noteworthy people to get their opinion. It's hard to say when and how this happens though, cause sometimes they might just ask general questions to see what people are talking about or what they are interested in.
This isn't any sort of inside information though, this is just how I would approach it from a game designer's point of view. It's a pretty rare dynamic to have an entire community constantly talking about changing your game, because in the past you would just release it and it was what it was - the game's lifespan was determined by sales and flexibility of the IP, rather than how the game molded because of the way people played it.
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On November 26 2014 08:25 Magnet wrote: They do in a very general sense, saying that if you see 20 threads all about how OP Carriers are, they will probably start thinking about analyzing games or data to validate or ignore those claims.
The problem with changing SC2's design is that it's a game that molds so much over a long period of time while balance or mechanics were never changed. Look at how much BW changed over time despite basically no balance changes, and you could even say the same about a game like SSB: Melee. For the most part, they want to keep the game interesting and not over-compensate due to community feedback that is rooted in impatience, because often people have severely overreacted about things that came out in the wash as the metagame evolved.
It's also hard to know whose feedback is actually credible. Plenty of progamers could easily vouch for buffs or nerfs that help them earn more money, so filtering out agendas and still trying to get good feedback from them I'm sure has it's own caveats. Even analyzing that particular pro's strengths and weaknesses (or knowledge/proficiency in matchups) has its own pitfalls - Parting complaining about imbalances in PvT would be a lot different than somebody like JYP complaining about it, since Parting's PvT has always been top-tier while JYP just never got the hang of it.
It's also impossible to quantify what people find fun based on personal preference, and whether something is good for the game in the long-term after people took a year to learn how to abuse a mechanic that they didn't anticipate.
Basically, all I'm saying is that taking in community feedback is a massive juggling act. I'd say the influencing factors of their decisions for balance/design come from their own analysis of noteworthy games first, data or trends second, community upheaval third, and finally input from selective sources last.
When they are coming up with new ideas or they want to maybe break ties among their own debate circles, they might reach out to pros or noteworthy people to get their opinion. It's hard to say when and how this happens though, cause sometimes they might just ask general questions to see what people are talking about or what they are interested in.
This isn't any sort of inside information though, this is just how I would approach it from a game designer's point of view. It's a pretty rare dynamic to have an entire community constantly talking about changing your game, because in the past you would just release it and it was what it was - the game's lifespan was determined by sales and flexibility of the IP, rather than how the game molded because of the way people played it.
True enough; it's difficult to decide who is qualified, though I would think you could easily enough select people who (a) are objectively good at the game (pros); (b) know a lot about the game and what makes it entertaining to watch (casters); and (c) are invested in the game's long-term success (the leagues, tournament organizers, popular streamers).
As far as I can tell, only the pros have a financial stake in buffs to a particular race. So if we're concerned about self-interest, I think you take pro feedback with a reasonable helping of salt. Maybe give more weight to those suggestions that might actually hurt the pro in competition (e.g., a terran who says nerf marines for the good of the game or something). And certainly, the players can offer valuable insight as to why the meta is what it is, to the extent Blizzard wants gameplay to change.
But yeah, I don't see someone like Apollo or Day9 having a dog in the hunt (I'm not saying they're who Blizzard should necessarily contact, but seems reasonable to me). To your broader point, though, I think you're right that Blizzard will probably design the game they want to make. We'll get a chance to weigh in during the beta, and that's what we'll have. It would make more sense to me include stakeholders in the pre-beta process when you're brainstorming new ideas, testing old assumptions, etc. I think that would be beneficial in terms of producing a better game but also in boosting community confidence in the game... There would be a lot less negativity if they actively sought out ideas and made the process more transparent, even if they don't allow the mob to dictate gameplay or implement every suggestion.
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On November 26 2014 08:18 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2014 13:22 Freeborn wrote: I think it would be awesome if Blizzard would open up the design and balance process, with iterations of changes followed by feedback. The game can only profit from that. I trust Blizzard more with that process than the community.
I agree. It's a common mistake to forget how a hard job it is to make a really good really balanced game like this. Common guys sc2 is the king of rts.
Don't forget that progamers are not designers. They can describe their experience on the top level of play but when it comes down to actual solutions that can be implemented then you really need the guys from Blizzard (or any Team on their mastery level) to do this.
Also alot of ppl make suggestions which is cool for them or makes their life easier or more fun. This is very apparent when it comes to balance related stuff. Another indicator of that is the fact that in suggestion threads you almost never find actual discussion. Everyone ignores all the other suggestions and just puts their own in without knowing how many times something similar had been mentioned!
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