I dunno about the scene itself given that they do put a fair bit of work into the whole WCS structure. But with the game, absolutely, and that's been a huge problem in the past but especially this year. Blizzard allowed a clearly broken metagame - arguably the worst era the SC2 pro scene has ever had - continue for months after last year's Blizzcon, and it has done significant damage to both the streaming numbers and the active game population. Their hands-off approach to balance during those ~7 months allowed Protoss to win premier tournament after premier tournament riding on the back of absolutely broken units and abilities. That said they have finally released a string of patches to address things and the numbers have stabilized. Streaming numbers actually increased in July which was nice to see. However the game will probably stay fairly low until Legacy of the Void, assuming they get that game right. I think too many people have been put off by the major problems Heart of the Swarm has had and Blizzard's slow recognition of them. RTS will probably always be a niche genre, but the scene can still be a hell of a lot more healthy than it is today.
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Polygon: Riot Games isn't worried about Valve's $10M Dota 2 prize pool, here's why
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
SteveWinwood
Member
I think a large part of it was blizzard just doesn't move very quickly and a lot of stuff is just stuck in the past. The client was kind of junky and battle.net 2.0 took forever to even come close to par with the first iteration just on messaging and usability.
They did a poor job on custom games just with discoverability which destroyed what could have been amazing as the tools were amazing and the people were talented.
The game was fun for a long while for me, but after a long time I just got bored, while modern balance changing in league or dota for instance is more rapid and less iterating. There was only so long that I could sit there practicing pool timings before I just wanted some different viable strategy because a lot of this had been mathed out (or thought to have been, but that was probably a community issue). I have other issues but I don't know enough about the actual balancing to say them confidently.
I think they did poor supporting the pro scene, which was tons of fun in the beginning.
Also, and what may have been the biggest nail in the coffin, is that this came out right before all this free to play stuff was exploding. The multiplayer client should be free. Get as many people playing as possible.A 60 dollar entrance fee is too much, compounded with the fact that they announced the fun 2 expansions at 60 dollars each... That I don't blame them for not seeing ahead of time, but reacting to it definitely should have happened. Also the mention of this stuff taking FOREVER to come out goes here. Valve is a cheetah compared to blizzard sometimes.
Also, and this is fairly asinine, but they sort of failed on a lot of the more cosmetic fun larger client meta stuff. More portraits that were easier to get, more of the insignias, more cosmetic bullshit to keep people interested. Yes I'm asking for building hats. I also don't blame them for not seeing that, but they should have reacted. A lot of people love that stuff and it can really help you keep a larger casual audience.
So it's a multi faceted issue with no one simple reason why it's floundering.I don't believe it's just cause rts isn't cool anymore, but hey that might be the reason I dunno.
I don't envy Blizzards position at all.
They did a poor job on custom games just with discoverability which destroyed what could have been amazing as the tools were amazing and the people were talented.
The game was fun for a long while for me, but after a long time I just got bored, while modern balance changing in league or dota for instance is more rapid and less iterating. There was only so long that I could sit there practicing pool timings before I just wanted some different viable strategy because a lot of this had been mathed out (or thought to have been, but that was probably a community issue). I have other issues but I don't know enough about the actual balancing to say them confidently.
I think they did poor supporting the pro scene, which was tons of fun in the beginning.
Also, and what may have been the biggest nail in the coffin, is that this came out right before all this free to play stuff was exploding. The multiplayer client should be free. Get as many people playing as possible.A 60 dollar entrance fee is too much, compounded with the fact that they announced the fun 2 expansions at 60 dollars each... That I don't blame them for not seeing ahead of time, but reacting to it definitely should have happened. Also the mention of this stuff taking FOREVER to come out goes here. Valve is a cheetah compared to blizzard sometimes.
Also, and this is fairly asinine, but they sort of failed on a lot of the more cosmetic fun larger client meta stuff. More portraits that were easier to get, more of the insignias, more cosmetic bullshit to keep people interested. Yes I'm asking for building hats. I also don't blame them for not seeing that, but they should have reacted. A lot of people love that stuff and it can really help you keep a larger casual audience.
So it's a multi faceted issue with no one simple reason why it's floundering.I don't believe it's just cause rts isn't cool anymore, but hey that might be the reason I dunno.
I don't envy Blizzards position at all.
SneakyStephan
Banned
@Steve Yeah, all factors as well. I think the bottom line is they weren't proactive enough in a lot of areas; balance, and all those you mentioned too. Perfect example of the terrible battle.net 2.0 UI: they just held a contest for people to design games for the arcade, and the winning games are nowhere to be seen on the arcade page in-game. If you didn't go to their web page you wouldn't even know there was a contest. So nobody plays them.