Good morning! I’d like to formally request that we modify coop to allow full utilization of all 180 possible points if we’ve earned at least 180 levels. It’s a nice reward for the work, it doesn’t fundamentally disrupt or harm any play in the mode.
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Good afternoon! I’d like to formally tell you that there won’t be any more major changes for Co-op. The exploit was fixed, unintentionally, and it will stay that way.
The exploit was unintentional, and it harms balance as no commander was balanced with all 180 points in mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s PvE, balance is still a relevant factor. More than that, intentional design trumps balance and especially trumps fun (especially if unintended).
Thanks for your input. Your attitude in the other thread was pretty forceful and opinionated. Derogatory even towards dissenting opinion. I’m not interested in that.
I disagree with the notion that developers have a static idea of what “intended” is, and even more that their definition of “fun” is the right one. Customers dictate that. Makers are often too close to their creations to be an effective barometer. See many of the books, coursework or studies on this and the thriving consumer research industry for proof.
I do agree with you that exploits aren’t good. I’m glad they fixed an issue with data security, and kept the playing field even. The exploit may have exposed an unintended validation that players enjoy greater power fantasy with their commanders. Shifting points, in theory, supports customized commander behavior or replay ability. However many of the uses of the points is so slanted in favor of one strategy that the other side is rarely used.
Therefore- let’s collect or share data. Developers, not you, decide if something is worth it. Major. Needs balancing. Any of that. Stifling discussion is counter to the idea of a forum.
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My attitude in the other thread was representative of fact. Other than the very end, I spoke descriptively, not prescriptively. (What is the case instead of what should be the case).
There’s no point in asking or even discussing updates for co-op if we know for a fact that no intended changes will happen again.
However many of the uses of the points is so slanted in favor of one strategy that the other side is rarely used.
Yes, but that’s intended in the need to choose. You’re not asking for buffing of those options (and even that would be worthless discussion because of no updates), you’re asking for the removal of that choice, and that most certainly won’t happen. That’s a balance issue, but they’ve been left in an imbalanced state.
Edit: Missed this originally:
I disagree with the notion that developers have a static idea of what “intended” is, and even more that their definition of “fun” is the right one. Customers dictate that. Makers are often too close to their creations to be an effective barometer. See many of the books, coursework or studies on this and the thriving consumer research industry for proof.
The developers have the ONLY correct idea of what intended is, as they are the sole arbiter of their own intent for their own creation. When I make changes for my arcade map, I am the sole person who can decide those changes. Community input helps, and it’s not irrelevant, but they cannot force changes. Therefore, while you’re correct in principle, “as a matter of fact” the customers cannot do anything to force the developers to do anything. I.E. no matter how many “180 mastery points” threads are made, there won’t be a reversion of the bug fix NOR an intentional 180 mastery point allowance.
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I mean why bother clicking those points if you’re just gonna max them out anyway. Might as well unlock these buffs at lvl 1000 and remove masteries altogether. It kinda defeats the purpose of tweaking the numbers and masteries in the first place.
Blizzard doesn’t care about fun any more. And apparently neither do the people on the forums. It’s a dead game.
There’s plenty of other games to play on Steam.
Fun? It would be one thing if the 180 points was intended and was taken away. But it wasnt, it was an exploit.
And dead game? Near instant queues in versus and coop, 1000’s of custom lobbies a month. No, not dead. That’s just a goto cliche people run to when they don’t like something.
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See how people are missing the point. I talk about fun, and people change the subject to intent.
It’s essentially saying “you’re having fun wrong. You must have fun in these intended ways.”
It’s like people have forgotten that the purpose of a game is to have fun.
And coop was never balanced. And it doesn’t have to be, because it’s not a competitive mode. Which is what part of its charm was.
It never really mattered if some commanders were just inherently more powerful, or if people could wipe the map with ease. I mean, is the AI of Amon’s forces going to complain about losing due to imbalance?
It only mattered whether playing as each commander was fun in its own ways.
But I don’t think Blizzard even knows the meaning of the word fun any more. All the old employees who used to care about making good games no longer work for Blizzard, and now it’s just another soul-less corporation coasting on its dwindling reputation.
And it doesn’t help to be in denial about the state of Blizzard’s games. I remember when SC2 was new, and it was basically the game that made Twitch what it was. It was that popular. Now, it’s barely a blip on Twitch’s radar, or even on Blizzard’s radar if we’re being honest.
Not as a pvp, but it is pve. There is an opponent which necessitates some balance, some intent.
No, it’s more that some players think they should be able to play outside the rules so it can be fun for them.
So it sounds like if you find a way to cheat in a sport and the cheat is fun, you’d try to argue that they took your fun away when you’re stopped?
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I feel like we are a bit off base here.
I agree with points about balance. We’ve probably all played a slower commander when a lone wolf Tychus wipes the map and we feel sort of pointless and under stimulated, right?
I also agree exploits aren’t right- because it subverts level playing fields and makes players question how they should ask.
I disagree with the idea we shouldn’t discuss the merits of enhancing commander strength overall, adding additional unlock-able potential, and whether that can make the play experience more fun. These things don’t have to be positioned mutually exclusively or in a combative way, or in a way demeaning the state of the game!
Take abathur- I love playing as him. However I dislike the aggressive biomass optimization that has become expected for optimal play. If I adopt a more passive play style I then am under pressure from teammates , which isn’t fun. One way that is mitigated is with more early biomass that doesn’t sacrifice army strength. Another way- which requires mechanics changes and is probably less likely (I always hold out hope changes could come!) would be what the Asian server super coop maps do- which is spawn a pool which auto collects biomass after a period of time (I think you lose some too for the convenience). This is a super nice QoL change.
I’m not a “typical” SC2 player. I’ve never played PVP. I just don’t enjoy it. I play it more like someone would play a RPG with power scaling. I expect to win, and want to enjoy the process of doing it. It’s an agency thing.
why should anyone discuss changes in coop when we know for a fact it wont be touched. the game is out of devopment and has been since 2020. were lucky if we even get balance patchs for regular ladder at this point. and you all think that blizzard will apoint devs to the game just to give you all more mastery points. why would they. that cost money.
this whole topic is utterly laughable.
This is why I said it’s a dead game.
Not only are they never going to listen, but there are even people defending the fact that they won’t, while being disingenuous doing it. Which is born out of the fact that they don’t want to admit Blizzard “don’t you guys have phones?” has mis-managed the game and consistently failed to read the room, and they want to think everything is fine. You can’t really argue against people who do this.
I could see the decline happening for a long time. It wasn’t one thing, and certainly wasn’t just this. It was lots of small decisions they made along the way. And each time, there was always someone to rationalize it away.
Out of development and a “dead game” aren’t remotely similar. They refer to two different things.
No, Knowbody. No one is defending. No one is saying it’s a good thing, or that Bliz is right in ending development, or anything else that passes approval on any of it. All that been said is an explanation of the situation.
You have a propensity to use cliche, non relevant words in attempt to evoke a false response to supports your narrative.
Trouble is, rationally thinking folks see through it. Anyone who’s played this game recently knows it’s not dead. Anyone reading your posts knows there’s no defending going on.
All your doing is damaging your credibility when you attempt such things.
no its not, there are more new players daily thanks to free to play, unfortunatly.
why would anyone listen to someone who claims the game is dead just cause its out of developement and not being worked on. you make yourself a laughable npc, so why would people listlen to you let alone a multi billion dollar company.
secondly no ones defending blizzards actions, where simply stating the facts of what is happening in the games life. if you dont like facts, go cover your head with a pillow so you cant hear them.
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I just said they won’t listen. And this isn’t going to get better. The slow attrition and decline will keep happening no matter what. Even if some people still haven’t accepted it. Of course you’ll never convince them otherwise. They will have to realize it on their own. The sunk cost fallacy has set in.
For Blizzard, Starcraft 2 is no longer a game for people to have fun in. It’s just an IP they happen to own, which they just allowed to wither away.
Well since we’ve ended up on the topic of the future support of the game in general…
We have blizzcon coming up, we’ve had some recent fixes on the server, we know Blizzard needs to make money…
For better or worse creativity these days is somewhat constrained by finance people wanting to mitigate risk. This often means building on existing IP rather than creating something original. Never discount the fact the one day the company may say it would be less risky to make a new StarCraft game than do something else. And if they think that- they may dust off this game with some QoL changes. Who knows- maybe a DLC for a quick buck?
But I’d sure love if they come looking around to go, “I see some people would love beefier commanders! Let’s do that!”
you keep wishing bud, aint gonna happen.
Sure, we can discuss CO balance changes. At this point, we’re well aware that dollars to donuts, we won’t get any new updates nor content (at least I wouldn’t bet money on it). But we should do that by starting a new thread (ideally, one per prestige we’d like to discuss) because bringing back the 180 exploit doesn’t seem to be the way to go about that.
I would just use his P1 then. There’s no pressure to go in-depth, 100 biomass with him, when there are no UE to push for. You can just freely collect bm without any intensive micro, and many of your combat units will reach 125 bm eventually.
I guess it’d be nice if there were an automated way to sort bm to be in-depth. However, I mostly avoid his non-P1 prestiges and just call it a day
There isn’t much point to discuss anything pertaining to any changes, as changes won’t happen. Same thing with “Favorite commander/prestige?” threads, but I digress.
For me, they’re more so for entertainment. Discussions could otherwise lead to tips, tricks, BO, etc.