With Orc Blades Of Steel,
I just purchased the WC3 Reforged Beta tonight 
What I’d like to see the most from my investment, either now or in the future, is a solid multi-player experience.
Background: Both in childhood, in youth, and as adult, I’ve enjoyed Blizzard games, including, but not limited to: SC1/SC2, Diablo 1/2/3, Heroes of the Storm, WC3 ROC/TFT, and Hearthstone. As a casual player, RTS was one genre that always appealed to me, I always liked trying a variety of strategies, and trying to improve on them Yes, there is much strategy in single-player, but multi-player, particularly quick team-matching system (4v4, 3v3, 5v5, 2v2v2v2, etc) always appealed to me better. It has elements of unknown, team aid, team defenses, coordination of attacks and forces, surprise, variety, just trying your best etc, adapting, and to me it was more fun and more challenging. I hope multiplayer is implemented well and will have plans to continue to improve I’ve also enjoyed creating in the world editor, having released custom multi-player games for both WC3 and Starcraft II.
I remember back when TFT and ROC were new, being able to quickly find a new game, and seeing the levels of people you were up against, and your numeric level climb (even if slowly climbing) was rewarding. I liked how there was an instant multiplayer match and every game was another fresh try and you could refine and adapt strategy. Present day, similarly, I like how in Hearthstone Standard, that each game starts from scratch, is matched quickly, and I can adapt my strategy, say add/remove cards, from any dust I earn from salvaging.
As I mentioned in opening, is what I’d like to see the most from my investment, either present or in future, is a good multi-player experience. To me, one thing a good multi-player experience encompasses (1 of many) is: short-to-no wait times. Players should not have to wait many minutes, and hours, to find a game. If a long-wait is ever the case, there could be a notice to players saying, “hey we detect low activity right now, but this is your estimated wait, and here is a day and time that might be best for you, based on our gathered data and AI”. Players shouldn’t have to log in and out of servers to find the most active one. I feel the game should pull from as much of the player pool as possible to match too.
I enjoy playing in a random team the most, especially as a casual player looking to try out new strategies or get better at existing ones, though arranged teams are fun too, and I’d imagine many players prefer those. As a random team player, I didn’t mind playing against arranged teams, it just usually meant had to pump out T1 units, instead of other strategies I more preferred trying. It was worth the challenge though. Best when my team won, though still fun when lost.
I think rewards (progression, even if slowly) and fast solid smooth gameplay experience (even if losing) can help retain players and keep new players arriving and interested I’m not expecting these things instantaneously… I believe the focus was on graphics and gameplay parity with the original, and ironing out bugs and getting a good baseline… but with time, I’m sure there are many casual players, who like me, want the game’s built-in matchmaking multiplayer experience to to be prime focus I haven’t ran the Beta yet, so don’t know what the experience is currently, but I know there is always room for improvement.
Custom games in TFT were fun as well as multi-player back when there was no waiting. Start with a good base multiplayer experience. This leads to good competative game. If the core game is good and new players become familiar with the basic mechanisms first, this is one way they can expand to custom games and creation, like I did at TFT, and continue to grow community and interest.
Though I haven’t had time yet to try Beta, good multiplayer on WC3 reforged, to me, would also include handling a variety of the tricky scenarios that can and do occur in TFT like: [disconnects, idle players, bugs, lag, trolls/abuse, etc]. So those all should be accounted\planned for in future. I’m repeating a little, but what will retain a lot of warcraft reforged players I feel, new, or casual, or veteran alike, is a good multiplayer experience: sturdy, fast, bug-free, fair, competative, rewarding, fun, sense of progression and improvement, fresh start and new challenge to every game Also sense of humor, like hearthstone
I liked that in the original game the new icons you unlocked Maybe this time around it is new unit sound effects you unlock too In reforged and new systems, progression should be important. That progression could be level numbers, or win count, or league advancement, or AI recognizing unique gameplay, or AI that can look at players chat and reward randomly to veteran players who help their team do their best, or unlocked cut scenes, or earned unlocked unit sound effects, or whatever other ideas might be considered and implemented. In my opinion its all about doing your best and having fun. All players like to improve, strategize, etc. And to survive and prevail (especially in custom games). And feel powerful. Hero’s with their items make the WC3 RTS a totally distinct type of fun. There could be advanced AI that could even offer optional tips in a replay recording (e.x. “here is one specific spot in the replay where the AI has detected you contributed the most in this game”, “here is one specific spot where the AI has detected you could improve”)
As for un-even matching, maybe there could be a mechanism where in the first one minute of the game, if one of the many things that could go wrong happened: [someone didn’t join correctly, or was dropped, or crashed/bugged, or lagged, or was afk, etc] you’d have the option to have the game not count towards the other players stats or no longer be ranked, and play could still continue in an unranked fashion for fun. There could even be rewards for game completion, such as in hearthstone when you get gold for winning. Anyways, these are just some ideas to consider
Another idea is having new types of multiplayer matchmaking that support uneven teams (of different skills) or paired FFA’s So if you like team games like 4v4s and 3v3s but want additional flexibility to match players of different skill bases, there could be (4vs2 or 3v3v2 or such) that was built into the search for games feature . From my experience releasing a custom game, I discovered most people like and want even teams, though. But that’s not to say there could be a matchmaking challenge mode where once you reached a certain pro level, you could face off 1v4 casual players, and get a reward This could solve a challenge of high level players waiting… I’ve also supported paired FFA (e.x.2v2v2v2), which had a lot of people joining at the time, cause it was different, so this would be a fun mode to support, where in-it, arranged teams could join, and also solo players could be matched with a random partner too, for players that would like to try FFA with a team-twist. But before tackling other modes though, I just think 4v4 would be good to nail down solid though. Haven’t had a chance to play yet, so don’t know what’s been done or not already. I’m sure there’s cool stuff that will surprise me. Looks great from what I’ve seen! But am looking forward to the release and when I get a chance to play. Thanks. Great job tackling everything you have so far and good job and keep it up. P.S. Go Orcs! Work Work. Attack! For the Horde!
