Game Development Giant

Of course, many people hold this view.

They felt that if Blizzard had released a DOTA game based on Blizzard's game characters in 2010, then there would certainly not have been the bad things that happened later.

The key to saying this is that they didn’t understand one thing, that is, in 2010, this kind of DOTA or MOBA games were just stupid in the eyes of Blizzard. They thought such games were boring. In that era, It is simply impossible for them to develop such a game and seize the so-called market. In short, in essence, this is not a game they think players will like at all.

In fact, it can be seen from the gameplay of this game that Blizzard has made this game from the beginning to the end completely different from the traditional hero pushing tower game. I don’t need to last hits, I don’t need equipment, I don’t use the economic system, I don’t use eyes... I don’t use the already perfect system that your tower pushing games have spent ten years perfecting, I just make my own set of other things.

It has never been Blizzard's characteristic to create something unique. Blizzard's characteristic is that it likes to learn from successful things and make them more successful than the original ones.

But they are completely unique in Heroes of the Storm. Maybe this is their natural pride.

They are unwilling to imitate something they once looked down upon.

The game Heroes of the Storm is actually a completely different game with a completely different design approach from traditional DOTA games. It pursues a pure shortcomings theory, that is to say, can you succeed in this round? Whether you win or not and whether you can have fun depends entirely on whether the worst player in your lineup is more cheating than the worst player in the opponent's lineup.

Because of the lack of personal income setting, a master lacks one-to-many strength when operating heroes. In other similar push-him games, masters can make up for the team's shortcomings through personal income, so that they can Balance the battle. Let a game no longer be a purely short-board game, it is no longer about how much water a bucket can hold, and it is no longer the shortest board that plays a decisive role.

This is why this game is so criticized.

It's true that Heroes of the Storm is a very team-oriented game. Moreover, after the game started, tactics emerged one after another, and the scenes were very exciting. He also had very high requirements for each player. Every game can even be summarized by the art of war.

For example, the upper and lower roads of Dragon Town are lost. Then contain the middle road, so as to attack the enemy in the coming and going. Every time I watch the video, I feel that it is really a pleasure to solve the storm according to the art of war. There are too many encirclements to support, psychological confrontation, the desire is limited, the guerrilla warfare is transferred, and the position is killed. Knock, another example is Black Heart Bay, where you have to pay the coins after taking them. I don’t know how many times better than the design of making money by taking the dragon. Rolling a snowball and making it difficult to roll a snowball are all ever-changing choices, as well as 'judgment' when making different choices, so those who are good at planning may not be good at making decisions. Naturally, there are situations in the storm. A certain choice feels right when watching the video, but at the time, the decision was made poorly. I was left alone and out of the group. I was hesitant to divide my troops when it was time to make a move, and I didn't dare to rush in when it was time to make a wave. You shouldn't be reckless...

There are so many variables, so many choices, and so many coordination points that other MOBAs can't hold their own.

But here's the thing. The prerequisite for experiencing the essence of this game is that you must have four teammates with similar strength to you - this condition has stumped countless people. In today's fast-paced society, who has time? There are so many like-minded teammates with similar levels to play the game with, and now people like to play games that take five minutes to get started and ten minutes to play. What I like is a game that can be played by one person.

Strong teamwork is not a weakness of a game. Logically speaking, it should be a shortcoming of a game. But when the teamwork is so strong that it ignores the impact of individual abilities on the battle situation, then this is the biggest shortcoming.

For example, football, basketball, etc., don't they have a strong team spirit?

Of course not. In these team sports, the team is always greater than the individual. Just like what the legendary Liverpool coach Paisley said, the name on the chest is always more important than the name behind. However, these sports will be ignored because they place too much emphasis on the team. Does personal ability have a decisive impact on the situation of the battle?

Human beings, no matter which country they are from, all have a heroic complex, which is why there are stars.

The design idea of ​​Heroes of the Storm is to prevent the emergence of heroes, this kind of anti-human setting - of course, Blizzard's explanation for this is that there is no me, only us, which was the promotional slogan of Storm at the time. , from the slogan above, he is infinitely improving the importance of this game to the team, but the problem is that it is really not fun for an individual player.

But Blizzard excluded individual players from the game from the start.

Perhaps Blizzard means that it wants single-player players to actively find teammates and experience the fun of this game with their teammates. But the problem is that this is not the era of WOW anymore, and Storm is not a game that can defeat players every second. A must-play game.

The more important point is actually not here.

Even if Blizzard defines the design ideas and target groups of this game as team players and team gameplay, they have not done enough in this regard. Since the gameplay and game methods are completely in accordance with the default game, both sides only You can only experience the end of this game when you work with a team that has a tacit understanding. Why is it not reflected in the game's battle system?

The simplest thing is that the community system that has been talked about since the beginning of the game has not been added to the official operation for half a year. The matching system that is like shit has never been improved. The disconnection and reconnection that is worse than shit has always been ignored.

Since a game is constantly clamoring that what we want is the team, it’s us and not me, why not take this step further?

Instead, he wandered back and forth between us or me?

If the design idea is clear, then the design team should be decisive, abandon all unrealistic fantasies, and clarify their target audience. Since 'I' are not welcome to play the game, then they should completely turn to 'us'. We should not continue to please people who like single player, but let people who like team play have unparalleled glory. This is the direction of the development of this game.

Only in this way can this game have a way out.

Because as a player. If you ask me to choose a suitable lineup and coordinate beautifully with four players I don’t know at all, it will be very difficult. But if you ask me to play with four friends who know each other well, it will become more and more enjoyable. Great game played. Even if you lose, you won't be too upset - of course, being abused or abused can be considered an exciting game.

If you win a game alone, your teammates will only remember you for a few dozen minutes, but if you win with familiar teammates, the memories will always be in the storm experience. The team reward system shows that Blizzard encourages players to form teams, but why has it not introduced a guild system?

Moreover, there are too many ways to play in the guild system. Don’t build heroic things like personal ladders, because Blizzard or the design team of Heroes of the Storm have despised this kind of gameplay from the beginning. If you want to do it, just build ladder guilds.

The top three guilds on the ladder have exclusive guild badges. In addition to adding points to the guilds by winning the team league, there is also a guild challenge system. The challenge level does not exceed the 5th level of the guild ranking.

For example, if two presidents want to be online at the same time, the challenging president clicks on the challenge application. If the guild leader agrees to challenge, the presidents of both sides will decide the time of the game, the number of 5 players and 5 reserve players, and the number of guild points as spoils of the game.

When both parties agree, the game information will be published in the battle information section, and after the game is over, it will also be published in the battle information section.

Such a setting can completely set all the guilds on fire and fight for the highest honor union in the Time and Space Warp. The guild points will be cleared every season, and the top three guilds in each season will always be recorded on the Storm Guild Honor List, and even There are even bigger moves. For example, the top three members of the guild who have made the most contributions each year can qualify for the carnival.

Of course, this is just an immature idea. If Blizzard's designers want to pay more attention to the team experience, they may have better ideas.

What this game needs now is a clear direction, otherwise it will continue to be confused. Then wait for the end of this game - death is inevitable. Even if it is bad, this game can still be used as a core electronic figure collection game to defraud diehard fans of their money, but this is the only way it can go on. , but Jester firmly believes that Blizzard, which is called born proud, will never let this game continue to decline like this.

When the original D3 had such a bad reputation, Blizzard was able to withstand the pressure and rely on expansion packs to save everything. This time there is no reason not to trust Blizzard's subsequent improvements to a game.

But just relying on different maps and new heroes cannot change the current situation of this game at all. Doing so can only deceive others. What this game needs is a major innovation in the gameplay. Blizzard must be clear about its target players. Which part is it? Whether it is to continue to focus on team players or focus on individual players, the mechanics of this game must be drastically changed.

Generally speaking, it is difficult for an individual player to experience the fun in this game.

In fact, this has a lot to do with the development team, because games like DOTA are based on the economic system based on WAR3, the positive and negative system, the highland vision, and the heroic skills. Suppression, the equipment suppression system, and the development team of Heroes of the Storm are the people from SC2. Although the StarCraft series and the Warcraft series are both the best RTS games in history.

But these two types of games are actually completely different.

StarCraft pays more attention to the control of maps, resources, and battle rhythm. What he pays more attention to is actually control.

This feature has also been perfectly inherited into Heroes of the Storm.

But the development team overlooked one thing, and that is the one-on-one game of StarCraft 2, while Heroes of the Storm is a five-on-five game. It is natural for one person to achieve harmony and unity, because He is a whole in himself. It is very difficult for five people to achieve harmony and unity, and to have highly unified thinking and actions.

Of course, Jester can only use this game as a reference for negative teaching materials. There is no way to use it as a textbook game development case like the improvement of Diablo 3 from the original version to the expansion pack. For reference and study, because when he first traveled through time, he didn't know what kind of performance it would be like in the next carnival that was related to the future fate of this game.

In fact, there is another way to bring this game back to life, and that is to release a map editor-since Blizzard doesn't know how to do it well, let's teach this important task to the players.

Believe that the player's wisdom is infinite.

I don’t know how many outstanding games in history have MODs first and official games later. From “Team Fortress” to “Counter-Strike”, it is still like this. In fact, even “DOTA” is still like this. Players are sometimes no worse than designers.

Never think you are always right.

Jester suddenly took out a pen and wrote this sentence on the paper. After thinking about it, after analyzing the cases and modifications of many Blizzard games, the biggest conclusion he got was that you should never feel that you Be smarter than the players, and don't think that you are always right. Blizzard will always be led astray by their 'natural pride' characteristics.

They always think they are right and the player is wrong.

The one that impressed Jester the most was about the changes to the core card of the slave war in Hearthstone, Warsong Commander. This change almost completely destroyed what was originally a very outstanding and very technical deck. Almost exhausted.

This even made the most famous Hearthstone player in the country, ‘Xiaoyuyu Daxianren’, extremely angry.

I directly wrote a long article to criticize Blizzard’s thinking mode of ‘I am right and you are wrong’.

This long article also received support from a large number of players.

At the time, Jester himself was unintentionally shocked when he learned the news. He really couldn't imagine why such an outstanding deck like Slave War, which had been perfected with the efforts of so many players, would be weakened. At that time, Jester's I thought to myself that there were a thousand grass~mud~horses rushing past, and I could only curse that the blizzard was always SB. (~^~)