Yes, hello. It is me, again. Dredged up - again - because the HOTS devs did a thing that I also wanted to do, except they did it differently, and several very persuasive individuals wanted to know my expanded thoughts on it. Except, for some reason, sharing these thoughts in private or in other communities was not enough for them - instead, they wanted me to post on the official forums (as if doing so mattered).
I’m not in the mood to write up detailed feedback and put a bunch of effort into something that I know is going to get ignored, so I’m just going to repost my thoughts on the Gazlowe Rework that I have shared in other communities or in private discussions:
my favorite part about HOTS is the endless turnover at blizzard slowly but surely removing anyone who actually understands the goals of the projects they’ve been assigned to, leading to a constant erosion of unified vision and resulting in heroes that represent their characters in name only despite the entire core premise and selling point of the game being that you get to play as those specific characters
gazlowe, the one-man wrecking crew, designed after the goblin tinker (who was the only fully siege-oriented hero in warcraft 3), is currently not even in the top ten most effective at siege in HOTS
The change to Xplodium makes it exist outside of Grav-O-Bomb and team combos, which is good. The Scrap/Turret rework is also good, and goes a long way towards trimming down edge cases that make him impossible to deal with at lower levels.
The changes to Laser and Robo-Goblin are ing awful, though. Laser used to feel super satisfying and was great for clearing waves, but now it’s… a weird teamfight poke tool? And then there’s Robo-Goblin, which has gone from “a combination of Hardened Shield and Sprint” to “it’s Cleanse, off”.
There are very clearly some good ideas in the rework, but overall it missed the mark by cutting out unique mechanics and further reducing Gazlowe’s ability to do things outside of PvP.
[12:04 PM] Kith: newzlowe is much easier to play but lacks the je ne sais quoi that oldzlowe has
[12:05 PM] Kith: oldzlowe has no trouble with engaging at range because deth lazor has chromie-level reach and has no trouble zoning folks out with Bigg Bomzz
[12:06 PM] Kith: newzlowe can’t zone worth a and has nowhere near as much siege capacity that oldzlowe does
[12:06 PM] Kith: this is not a good trade
[12:07 PM] Kith: because while newzlowe is more viable in general, he’s yet another melee bruiser in a game full of them
[12:07 PM] Kith: and the rework does this in such a way that it removes the things that made oldzlowe stand out
[12:07 PM] Kith: without removing the things that held oldzlowe back
In fairness, you can tell people who brought you here that you don’t want to be. Stand up for yourself, yanno?
You put it into good words though. His operative range became very bruiser, down to Lazor being roughly Imperius W length and width. Now, he doesn’t feel nearly as unique.
I can agree. Although I personally had fun with new Gaz, the old one, while niche, had a unique playstyle that some people enjoyed. Now that’s gone, and those players lost something valuable to them. I wish they tried to preserve what made Gazlowe special before, instead of reworking him entirely… Just look at how much they nerfed his turrets to compensate for his other buffs.
The next best thing is Probius I guess, but you already know they’re gonna rework him too.
seems pretty silly to complain about secret individuals and use that as an excuse to bemoan the rest of the game and community.
But oh boy, another “i left, but Im an expert at impulsive contributions” that pretty much just reads as the same generic backhanded replies that are upset anything changes at all in a genre defined by perpetual change.
I could’ve, but then they exploited my weak point by asking nicely.
Yeah. I appreciate how much smoother/intuitive some parts are, but they really botched the overall.
Probius needs it, though. At this point, anything is better.
Lead Designer for NOTD yes, along with many other mods and standalone games. Terrain designer for most Warcraft 3 mods no - while I made a lot of WCIII maps, I was nowhere near prolific enough to have my hands in “most” WCIII maps.
I’ve been gone, chief. Only reason I’m posting right now is because I was asked to, and I have every intention of fading right back into obscurity after this thread has run its course.
I never said I wasn’t silly.
I’ve been doing game design for over ten years and have worked on multiple extremely popular mods and several successful games. I’m not all-knowing, but yes - I am actually widely regarded as an expert on this specific kind of design among my peers because of the quality and success of my work.
That said, you’ve completely missed the point of this thread - I don’t think change is bad (and if you knew anything about me or my work, you would understand that). What I have an issue with is inappropriate change: losing track of a design’s intended role and making something into something it isn’t supposed to be, like if Kael’thas was made into an Auto-Attacking Assassin or if Lucio was made into a Tank. The Gazlowe Rework is fine in a vacuum for a generic MOBA with perfectly spherical generic characters, but in the context of Gazlowe’s prior incarnations and the Goblin Tinker source material, it’s a complete failure.
It’s flattering to hear that I’m missed, but I don’t think I’m very valuable since I basically haven’t posted for a year.
I see millennials killed the “Boomers understanding jokes” industry too. For your reference, I’m playing up the “crotchety old man” angle because I said I would only post again if I was allowed to grouse about it, and I was told “you can grouse as much as you want.” Ergo, there was much grousing - that’s what the note at the bottom of the post is about.
But your execution defeats the point of the post, and even in jest, it’s a bunch of ignorable fluff; you convey you’re convinced it lacks value, so you don’t give it value, and enjoy your secret conversations to which, some of the tone is unspoken, and people generally aren’t going to read into that, or at least you expect as much, as assume that in some of the replies. Accordingly.
At the end of the post, you clearly gave into peer pressure and schools are supposed to teach people not to get into that! Gosh geez and gewillakkers. Next someone is gonna post that you got into an unmarked van lured in by something like sounds like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIqsHd0l8rU&ab_channel=TextTones-Topic
and promised candy/iced creams or something similar. Only to abscond with some stranger and not be given the implied prize.
ah yes the “oh someone posted something I didn’t like, so i’m going to make personal attacks, work up some lies to myself on what they’ve posted and attempt to go on a back and forth that derails a topic into a spot over ignorance”
Yell ya what, do everyone else a favor and since you’re just going to pretend what any reply to you is going to be, just make a new topic and reply to yourself enough times in the next hour to compensate for all the off-topic fluff you want in several topics into just one of your own.
That way you’ll have something you’ve contributed that you can be proud of and point back to your magical refrigerate art with all the magical sprinkles, glitter, grade and emoji stickers that you can imagine.
I mean, if you’re going to play make-believe and revel in ignorance statements, then you might as well make something to show for it.
Do yourself and everyone a favor and read things before you reply. It’s a basic internet courtesy and the whole point of having a written forum. In fact, the whole “kith has made contributions” stems from reading them, so if you haven’t, you’re showboating and going off the claims of the OP instead of having sincere contributions.
So for yourself and apply that magical sense of reading comprehension cuz anything less than that isn’t worth replying to, let alone reading.
ing awful, though. Laser used to feel super satisfying and was great for clearing waves, but now it’s… a weird teamfight poke tool? And then there’s Robo-Goblin, which has gone from “a combination of Hardened Shield and Sprint” to “it’s Cleanse,
for yourself and apply that magical sense of reading comprehension cuz anything less than that isn’t worth replying to, let alone reading.