So, I'm an avid player of MOBA games, HoN and Dota 2 mostly, I can't stand LoL.
And one of the things that keeps me playing, is the fact that the games get updates often.
New heroes, new cosmetic stuff, skills balance, total reworks, new items, and a long etc+.
I went back Torchlight 2 after some months of not playing it, and after seeing the amazing mod Synergys, and I tell you, if one* guy can do something like that.. a well paid group of people should do way better, I kind of started to ask to myself repeated times, why in the hell can't Blizzard do the same?.
So, I try to understand why Blizzard is not doing something like that, I mean, not one update every week of course, but, I don't know, 1 patch with some skills balance every 1.5-2 months?, maybe put there some new legendaries?, something, to keep the game alive.
And I failed, I can't come up with a good explanation except the simplistic and dull: "this is not an MMO" that we all heard so much in the last 10+ months.
Is this a pure marketing thing?, or this is just some kind of AAA ARPG paradigm which I don't understand?, what would be the disadvantage of giving the players something shinny and new to refresh the dull (IMO) experience that we all have right now?.
No one plays the game right now, so a trickle of content isn't in their best interest. The game needs something big to draw players back in. That something big is the huge amount of changes they've been working on that will come in a free patch and the RoS expansion.
Perhaps once they've fixed the glaring issues, they can start to goof off with neat updates every few weeks or so. But right now, this game isn't in cruise control in the way a successful MOBA is.
Also, it's hard to look at all the data-mining and say, "These guys haven't been doing anything!"
No one plays the game right now, so a trickle of content isn't in their best interest. The game needs something big to draw players back in. That something big is the huge amount of changes they've been working on that will come in a free patch and the RoS expansion.
Perhaps once they've fixed the glaring issues, they can start to goof off with neat updates every few weeks or so. But right now, this game isn't in cruise control in the way a successful MOBA is.
Also, it's hard to look at all the data-mining and say, "These guys haven't been doing anything!"
I don't buy it.
There is no reason to not release some of the changes step by step, instead of what we have right now. Hell, even some of the changes that the console version has already implemented will make a nice contribution to the state of the game.
So, I ask again, why not?.
Loot 2.0 is a big change, it really is, but what about all of the unused broken skills that I would say all of the heroes have?, why not touching them?, how can that interfere with a new/improved loot system?.
I mean, why this huge gap of nothingness?, doesn't make sense honestly.
There isn't really an answer to this thread, to be honest.
We'd all love to get more content every few weeks from Blizzard, but that's just not how they operate. Especially for a game that's not an MMO. Or more cynically: they already have your money.
Bottom line is that your guess is as good as any. We could sit here coming up with reasons for days while you categorically disagree with each and every one of them.
Also, it's hard to look at all the data-mining and say, "These guys haven't been doing anything!"
Really this is the end of the discussion.
They CLEARLY have been working on a lot - and it's pretty obvious the launch date isn't going to be Q3 2014 like some people were whining about 4-6 weeks ago. Between RoS and the associated updates, there's no way to say they haven't been hard at work. It's simply a case of a big gap with no patch and a massive amount of updates at the end, or a trickle of very small updates every week or two.
Blizzard has NEVER done the "small updates every other month" method.... so it shouldn't be shocking that they're not approaching D3 that manner.
We could sit around and ask why it took them 12+ months to fix runewords in D2... why they didn't fix it immediately, or why they didn't have a patch every 3 weeks to address it. We all know why that didn't happen, though. It's just not how Blizzard has ever operated.
I'm not saying they are right or wrong. But I am saying that acting shocked over it is really disingenuous. And I can say that I understand why all these particular changes are all lumped together. Doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the timeframe... but I can see why it's a big package deal.
Please don't make me re type the extensive list of what's coming in RoS. This ignorant thinking that Blizzard isn't doing anything, when there's cold hard proof of ALL the shit they are doing for pre exp patch and RoS just blows my mind.
I get it, you want some more content. However, it doesn't make sense to release it little by little. ESPECIALLY when they all syngergize with each other. You're just going to have to wait.
First of all, there are several changes that don't really need to be packaged together like you say. Sure, the big ones, like itemization and removal of the AH probably need and should to be launched together, but several others are completely independent, like Paragon 2.0 and skill balance.
On the other hand, your main counter argument is "Blizzard never operated like that" is just not valid. It could explain the situation, but, it's not a counter-argument, at all. It's like saying "it is what it is".
I, as a player, would appreciate a responsive patching system instead of having to deal with obvious bad designs for ages (id-all says hi) because they just simply don't work like that.
Edit: Bleu42 the proof (which is not really a proof, they are strings, but let say it's a proof) that there is a lot being worked on, is actually helping my point. And no, they don't ALL synergize between them, just a few.
I would just like to add that games such as LoL and DotA2 need to pump out content regularly. That's how they make their money. In the case of LoL, people buy skins and other cosmetic stuff. Making new champions is an investment. In the case of DotA, I haven't followed them that much after spending 7 years on it. In their case, they need to keep balancing the game and keep the game fresh. They need to attract a lot of players and they need to retain as many as possible. With a lot of players come with "a lot of viewership" (etc) in tournaments. The more people watches your game through Twitch or whatever service there is, the more money you can make from ads (etc).
First, to clarify, Synergies is not just one person. It's a pretty massive undertaking and collaboration between several mod authors. In fact, before steamworks got integrated Synergies contained a lot of other mods put together in a 'package' deal.
The problem here really is trying to compare a Free to Play DotA clone to a retail ARPG. They don't have the same business model let alone the same gameplay type. Putting together a new Champion or a new skin is a little different from changing drop spawns and radomization procedures or even skills in any serious maner other than number tweaking. For a Free to Play game releasing constant content to get people to pay for it is your life blood. For Blizzard, releasing new content agressivly like a F2P is not cost effective as they don't see immediate return on their investment. On top of that Blizzard has a notorious QA process where every little change has to be put through localization and tests. Not that their QA catches everything, but even wording changes have to go through localization QA to update all the other languages.
The truth is they have constantly updated and adjusted the game, it's just been stagnant lately due to their work on RoS. We're not going to see anything happen until they're ready to put out the pre-expansion patch. Things like Paragon 2.0 are part of the RoS 'package' as it were. They're also itirating on it still (read: it's not done) so saying it could come out early is kind of wishful speculation.
The same goes with the skill changes. If you look at the datamined changes they're moving numbers around as well as changing how skills function so it's going to be a pretty big undertaking. Many of the changes will probably be based on the inclusion of new skills, items, and passvies so you really can't look at the changes in a vacuum. Heck, even some rune functionality is changing so it's not something simple as numbers they can change in a small monthly patch.
I admit I've been upset that we hadn't seen any updates for quite some time, but once RoS got announced I understood why. We see this all the time from Blizzard, they are putting all their resources on making massive changes which they see as being more useful than making small 'band-aid' type fixes. They had even stated multiple times in the past they wanted to make functionality changes to skills but they needed the time, tech, and resources to make it happen which is exactly what the time just before an xpack provides.
For a Free to Play game releasing constant content to get people to pay for it is your life blood.
doomslayers essentially made the same point, but it's pretty obvious.
Runic doesn't have weekly, semi-monthly, or even monthly updates to TL2. Why? Because TL2 isn't a F2P game and F2P versus pay-up-front is just a completely different business model.
It should be obvious that most F2P games have a much more aggressive patching schedule (and usually feature much smaller updates that sometimes are nothing more than new microtransactions) than pay-up-front games. It's why GGG has miniscule patches that have a handful of bugfixes, sometimes a new skill gem or two, some new things to buy, and implementation of the unique items/monsters that people have purchased and designed. The actual "content" patches are much fewer and further between.
Adding new skills randomly causes people to reroll (by making new builds possible), which basically forces people to remain interested, possibly buy more stash tabs, more character slots, etc. Why? Because if they don't do that, GGG literally has no revenue. They *have* to do that. It's not from the goodness of their hearts. It's not because that's what customers want. It's because of money. And, I find that almost ironic, because so many people rally against Blizzard as some evil money-grubbing corporation, yet they don't comprehend why F2P games have aggressive patching procedures.
It's not charity. It's just how they keep you interested so you buy more microtransactions.
I think they are changing so many numbers throughout the game, that a lot of the skill changes are made with that in mind, so pushing them through to today's game might not make much sense.
"in a F2P/MOBA game, the constant updates are key to the survival of the game". And I completely agree, I was just giving an example.
However, you are not saying why this is not valid for a game like D3, where there are several aspects of the game that scream for a fix, let alone any new content, just fix what we already have, tweak numbers, launch a PTR if you want.
Didn't know about the Synergys mod, since I always saw the same guy posting I thought that it was only one guy behind the mod, thanks for the clarification.
There really is no reason as to why they haven't been releasing some mid-term patches. I mean, actually there is.
The "cost" of it. For us, it's just like "meh, 2 small changes anda couple skill balances", for them there is a ton of work that goes under the curtains. Really, we take that for granted too much, but they have to coordinate patch launches on multiple regions, work with translation (for new content), do Q&A (you also underestimate how much work this is), publish news about it (coordinate with the website team), prepare to receive and analyse feedback, maybe do a PTR (if some changes can harm the state of the game).
This year in a whole has been so weak in terms of changes (compared to last year, at least in my book) that if RoS does not deliver, not even someone as positive and as fanboyish as me will be able to defend them anymore.
The way I see it, they're going ALL IN on RoS. AKA focus 110% of their personel on discussing, designing, implementing and testing the "game changing content" that we all expect. Instead of "wasting time" doing Q&A for minor patches (in their view).
Is that a good decision? We will only be able to tell a couple months into RoS. But is is their decision, and they have all the rights to do that. AND we have all the right to be angry at them right now, and be even angrier if they don't deliver!!!
I don't really agree with either "side" on this. I just think it's a matter of choice and perspective.
I admit I've been upset that we hadn't seen any updates for quite some time, but once RoS got announced I understood why. We see this all the time from Blizzard, they are putting all their resources on making massive changes which they see as being more useful than making small 'band-aid' type fixes. They had even stated multiple times in the past they wanted to make functionality changes to skills but they needed the time, tech, and resources to make it happen which is exactly what the time just before an xpack provides.
Also, I really like KageKaze's post.
I find the underlined part (and specially the word "ALL") very spot on and in line with what I think of this matter.
And one of the things that keeps me playing, is the fact that the games get updates often.
New heroes, new cosmetic stuff, skills balance, total reworks, new items, and a long etc+.
I went back Torchlight 2 after some months of not playing it, and after seeing the amazing mod Synergys, and I tell you, if one* guy can do something like that.. a well paid group of people should do way better, I kind of started to ask to myself repeated times, why in the hell can't Blizzard do the same?.
So, I try to understand why Blizzard is not doing something like that, I mean, not one update every week of course, but, I don't know, 1 patch with some skills balance every 1.5-2 months?, maybe put there some new legendaries?, something, to keep the game alive.
And I failed, I can't come up with a good explanation except the simplistic and dull: "this is not an MMO" that we all heard so much in the last 10+ months.
Is this a pure marketing thing?, or this is just some kind of AAA ARPG paradigm which I don't understand?, what would be the disadvantage of giving the players something shinny and new to refresh the dull (IMO) experience that we all have right now?.
*not sure if one, but it seems that's the case
Perhaps once they've fixed the glaring issues, they can start to goof off with neat updates every few weeks or so. But right now, this game isn't in cruise control in the way a successful MOBA is.
Also, it's hard to look at all the data-mining and say, "These guys haven't been doing anything!"
I don't buy it.
There is no reason to not release some of the changes step by step, instead of what we have right now. Hell, even some of the changes that the console version has already implemented will make a nice contribution to the state of the game.
So, I ask again, why not?.
Loot 2.0 is a big change, it really is, but what about all of the unused broken skills that I would say all of the heroes have?, why not touching them?, how can that interfere with a new/improved loot system?.
I mean, why this huge gap of nothingness?, doesn't make sense honestly.
We'd all love to get more content every few weeks from Blizzard, but that's just not how they operate. Especially for a game that's not an MMO. Or more cynically: they already have your money.
Bottom line is that your guess is as good as any. We could sit here coming up with reasons for days while you categorically disagree with each and every one of them.
Really this is the end of the discussion.
They CLEARLY have been working on a lot - and it's pretty obvious the launch date isn't going to be Q3 2014 like some people were whining about 4-6 weeks ago. Between RoS and the associated updates, there's no way to say they haven't been hard at work. It's simply a case of a big gap with no patch and a massive amount of updates at the end, or a trickle of very small updates every week or two.
Blizzard has NEVER done the "small updates every other month" method.... so it shouldn't be shocking that they're not approaching D3 that manner.
We could sit around and ask why it took them 12+ months to fix runewords in D2... why they didn't fix it immediately, or why they didn't have a patch every 3 weeks to address it. We all know why that didn't happen, though. It's just not how Blizzard has ever operated.
I'm not saying they are right or wrong. But I am saying that acting shocked over it is really disingenuous. And I can say that I understand why all these particular changes are all lumped together. Doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the timeframe... but I can see why it's a big package deal.
Short and simple, that's just not how they work.
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I get it, you want some more content. However, it doesn't make sense to release it little by little. ESPECIALLY when they all syngergize with each other. You're just going to have to wait.
On the other hand, your main counter argument is "Blizzard never operated like that" is just not valid. It could explain the situation, but, it's not a counter-argument, at all. It's like saying "it is what it is".
I, as a player, would appreciate a responsive patching system instead of having to deal with obvious bad designs for ages (id-all says hi) because they just simply don't work like that.
Edit: Bleu42 the proof (which is not really a proof, they are strings, but let say it's a proof) that there is a lot being worked on, is actually helping my point. And no, they don't ALL synergize between them, just a few.
The problem here really is trying to compare a Free to Play DotA clone to a retail ARPG. They don't have the same business model let alone the same gameplay type. Putting together a new Champion or a new skin is a little different from changing drop spawns and radomization procedures or even skills in any serious maner other than number tweaking. For a Free to Play game releasing constant content to get people to pay for it is your life blood. For Blizzard, releasing new content agressivly like a F2P is not cost effective as they don't see immediate return on their investment. On top of that Blizzard has a notorious QA process where every little change has to be put through localization and tests. Not that their QA catches everything, but even wording changes have to go through localization QA to update all the other languages.
The truth is they have constantly updated and adjusted the game, it's just been stagnant lately due to their work on RoS. We're not going to see anything happen until they're ready to put out the pre-expansion patch. Things like Paragon 2.0 are part of the RoS 'package' as it were. They're also itirating on it still (read: it's not done) so saying it could come out early is kind of wishful speculation.
The same goes with the skill changes. If you look at the datamined changes they're moving numbers around as well as changing how skills function so it's going to be a pretty big undertaking. Many of the changes will probably be based on the inclusion of new skills, items, and passvies so you really can't look at the changes in a vacuum. Heck, even some rune functionality is changing so it's not something simple as numbers they can change in a small monthly patch.
I admit I've been upset that we hadn't seen any updates for quite some time, but once RoS got announced I understood why. We see this all the time from Blizzard, they are putting all their resources on making massive changes which they see as being more useful than making small 'band-aid' type fixes. They had even stated multiple times in the past they wanted to make functionality changes to skills but they needed the time, tech, and resources to make it happen which is exactly what the time just before an xpack provides.
It's not perfect, but it's how they do things.
doomslayers essentially made the same point, but it's pretty obvious.
Runic doesn't have weekly, semi-monthly, or even monthly updates to TL2. Why? Because TL2 isn't a F2P game and F2P versus pay-up-front is just a completely different business model.
It should be obvious that most F2P games have a much more aggressive patching schedule (and usually feature much smaller updates that sometimes are nothing more than new microtransactions) than pay-up-front games. It's why GGG has miniscule patches that have a handful of bugfixes, sometimes a new skill gem or two, some new things to buy, and implementation of the unique items/monsters that people have purchased and designed. The actual "content" patches are much fewer and further between.
Adding new skills randomly causes people to reroll (by making new builds possible), which basically forces people to remain interested, possibly buy more stash tabs, more character slots, etc. Why? Because if they don't do that, GGG literally has no revenue. They *have* to do that. It's not from the goodness of their hearts. It's not because that's what customers want. It's because of money. And, I find that almost ironic, because so many people rally against Blizzard as some evil money-grubbing corporation, yet they don't comprehend why F2P games have aggressive patching procedures.
It's not charity. It's just how they keep you interested so you buy more microtransactions.
Off-topic, but may I ask what you don't like about LoL? It's my favorite moba.
"in a F2P/MOBA game, the constant updates are key to the survival of the game". And I completely agree, I was just giving an example.
However, you are not saying why this is not valid for a game like D3, where there are several aspects of the game that scream for a fix, let alone any new content, just fix what we already have, tweak numbers, launch a PTR if you want.
Didn't know about the Synergys mod, since I always saw the same guy posting I thought that it was only one guy behind the mod, thanks for the clarification.
@miles the minimap is on the right.
Haha, fair enough.
The "cost" of it. For us, it's just like "meh, 2 small changes anda couple skill balances", for them there is a ton of work that goes under the curtains. Really, we take that for granted too much, but they have to coordinate patch launches on multiple regions, work with translation (for new content), do Q&A (you also underestimate how much work this is), publish news about it (coordinate with the website team), prepare to receive and analyse feedback, maybe do a PTR (if some changes can harm the state of the game).
This year in a whole has been so weak in terms of changes (compared to last year, at least in my book) that if RoS does not deliver, not even someone as positive and as fanboyish as me will be able to defend them anymore.
The way I see it, they're going ALL IN on RoS. AKA focus 110% of their personel on discussing, designing, implementing and testing the "game changing content" that we all expect. Instead of "wasting time" doing Q&A for minor patches (in their view).
Is that a good decision? We will only be able to tell a couple months into RoS. But is is their decision, and they have all the rights to do that. AND we have all the right to be angry at them right now, and be even angrier if they don't deliver!!!
I don't really agree with either "side" on this. I just think it's a matter of choice and perspective.
I find the underlined part (and specially the word "ALL") very spot on and in line with what I think of this matter.