Grab a plate and dig in with the Stadium team as they explore Season 18’s big, beefy update.
Suspect the draft process won’t be well received.
33 Likes
“Since Stadium launched, the most popular request from the community has been a quicker, more streamlined Stadium experience with less pressure than Competitive. More importantly, you wanted to queue up with friends across different platforms!”
That’s simply a flat out lie.
Since before it was even launched the number one request was 5 rounds instead of 7. Quick play being added, and making each of the 5 rounds slightly longer/more meaningful. At no point did anyone ask for quick play as an option. They wanted those things in stadium period. Creating them but only in a quick play format is a slap in the face. Don’t worry though I kept the receipts from the playtest.
The was about day 3
"We did a TON of testing to arrive at 7. To achieve the strategy and power curve we thought felt best, 7 in general worked the best.
For example, we tried best of 5 for Junkenstein’s Lab for this exact reason, to see whether that would fit for Stadium, and while it was a lot of fun and matches were quick, the degree to which the chaos ramped in best of 5 was simply TOO jarring to sustain a permanent mode. That’s not to say there won’t be adjustments further based on feedback, to be clear! But that’s how we got to where we are. Appreciate your perspective on this a huge amount 
"
You had minimum 80% of the testers tell you this and yet “it was decided and you already did testing” so what was the beta test then?
It was a case of what “you felt was best” what "you enjoyed " vs what the majority of the players wanted. We asked for cross play because the sunt assist really didn’t matter at all in stadium. We asked for less between round time and more play time wanting 5 longer rounds instead of 7 very short rounds. You said no. But you did say you would keep looking at it.
Instead of updating it to what we wanted you are adding a lesser mode of what people want still forcing them to play what is less enjoyable as a whole if they want rewards.
Now you are restricting it even more with a draft, which is 2 more minutes of not playing and potentially more time of being locked out of who you want to play.
So since long before the game mode was released you knew what people wanted and you insisted you knew better because you always know better than your customers. It’s in your DNA to decide that over and over.
So now we will have a split queue, a bad version of what we want. The exact version of what you want that no one else really wants but so long as we are willing to put up with it the team will decide it was right. Slowly driving people to annoyance and avoidance until it’s too late to fix. So over the next couple months while you’re changes slowly make people leave the mode you will insist it isn’t because of these changes but because that’s just how games work. You don’t want us to have what we want you want is to tolerate what you want.
It’s bonkers that they let these people make decisions.
21 Likes
I’m just happy to see a commitment to the need to flex in this game. I’ve always felt that it’s the most important skill in the game, but most changes take us further from it. This is an interesting change back in that direction for at least one mode.
3 Likes
Normally I’d agree with you on the importance of flexibility, but I think it may be a bit too much for this mode. If you’re a dps or support, you will need to know how to play four characters. No biggie, right?
Not quite. Because you’ll also need to know how to build all four characters, know multiple builds depending on your team comp and enemy comp, and know how to adapt builds on the fly to adjust to enemy strategies.
That’s a big ask. Especially with how imbalanced the mode can be. There’s going to be a lot of games lost at the character selection screen.
27 Likes
Okay, but let’s not with the drafts & mirror bans. With the addition of QP, there is zero reason to NOT run this proposed change as an experimental stadium card first. I know it’s too late to revert the change due to console approval processes, but still. Not a good move, and the feedback on it ever since it’s announcement last week has been 99% negative. Respectful, but negative. And you guys aren’t listening to that feedback at all, despite saying you are. Your lead stadium developer, the one whose idea it was for drafts in the first place, literally got off of social media due to the negative backlash because he couldn’t handle the feedback and that people didn’t like his ideas.
24 Likes
Dude, what are you talking about with the 80% of playtesters stuff? The biggest complaint during playtesting was about the mercy rule needing adjustment (which they did), not about the length of the game. I can’t remember anyone being really vocal about the games being too long, and I was pretty active in the playtest
6 Likes
I think this change will mean fewer games where this happens, because it already does through pure luck of the draw. For example, sometimes I just want to play Queen, so I take a chance and get matched against Orisa/Zarya, pocket hitscan, Junk, and Zen/Kiri. Then it’s “Ok, guess I’ll just die then”. With drafts, luck will play less into the equation.
5 Likes
Oh boy. I sure hope Stadium will be fixed and playable for everyone. It would be really nice to properly play Stadium for the first time without seeing other players teleport through the floor and around my screen. Please fix Stadium.
-_-
2 Likes
“One important note about Draft Mode: mirror matchups won’t be allowed”
I beg you guys to reconsider this. People want to play the hero they want to play.
26 Likes
Really hoping the draft isn’t in the stadium qp mode! Don’t want to have to deal with that and want to play my favorite hero so hoping it’s only in comp and can be avoided.
5 Likes
I’m pretty sure they said it’s only for competitive in the latest developer update video.
2 Likes
Echoing the sentiment that a lot of people have already said:
PLEASE do not go forward with the mirror match restriction. The draft mode itself is nice, but having your favorite hero stolen from you, and then seeing them play your favorite hero while you’re forced onto a different one, just sucks
14 Likes
That would be amazing, I’ve been looking forward to the stadium qp a lot. Thank you 
I will see if I can find the video
2 Likes
I’m talking about the literal closed playtest. There was a discord and everything. It was mostly non stop people asking for that to the point that that response from Dylan that I pasted was here that you are responding to was needed.
It was requested so much and so frequently that he literally posted that in the private testing discord in response. I’m not sure how active you could have been in it if you don’t remember that. No one mentioned mercy rules at all I don’t even think they existed at that point yet to give feedback on. This was before the game mode was released or I think even announced. There were NDCs and everything. It was by far the biggest criticism outside of how bad 3p felt at the time.
1 Like
It’s a welcome change for me. Gives more strategy to picking rosters
Aaron Keller said the same thing in an interview last season, as a response to a Bo7 complaint.
I think Bo7 might be a better choice in terms of length, but only if the mode is really well thought out and fully cooked, which is not the case.
They really should’ve started with Stadium as a fast pace, relatively short game mode that is fully packed with action and wackiness.
Then once the game mode earns a good reputation and keeps getting improved, they can switch to a more serious Ranked mode.
1 Like
Right and that’s the issue. It isn’t best of 7 itself that’s inherently bad. It’s that it then when they want to deal with match length have to make each round too short to feel meaningful.
I think that’s a format issue and role design issue.
I understand that drafts might be a necessary evil. That evil would not be needed in the first place if heroes are not as limited as they are now.
If you look at something like Deadlock, anybody can pretty much beat anybody else. Everyone does their own thing. There are no auto-losses based on the picks.
Stadium should’ve been the mode that offers that type of experience, instead of a more intensified Regular mode where weaknesses and contrasts become even more pronounced.
1 Like
How can the playtest, which happened before Stadium launched, have any bearing on a statement about the feedback received after it launched. They are completely different points in time.
“Since Stadium launched,” is a comment about feedback from the entire stadium playerbase. I can’t speak for everyone else but I know I did see people hoping for a QP version, at least.