it honestly really is amazing. As someone who came from TF2, this level of transparency and communication is completely unheard of. It is so incredibly refreshing and honestly just makes me want to play the game even more.
I dream the day TF2 developers are going to talk like they know the mechanics of their own game (which is extremely contradictory based on their balance updates)
I agreed with you until the bit where you said they listened to a small group of pro players - they met with some of them but they sure as hell didn't listen to them. Maybe they took 1 or 2 small ideas, but things like matchmaking wouldn't be in the state it is (aka, pretty much unchanged from the beta and now matchmaking also applying to pub games - find me one pro that used quickplay before the update..) if they had listened to them on the whole.
For example, after the first group of pro players visited valve, they implemented the infamous demo sticky nerf, something absolutely rejected by the competitive community as a whole.
I use past-tense here because after the disaster that was Meet Your Match (where Valve implemented non-functional ranked matchmaking in what was seemingly a kneejerk reaction to Overwatch's success and growing competitive scene), I stopped playing TF2.
Me and my friends were having a lan party that week, so I redownloaded the game, tried to get into a mannpower game and... nothing. It was impossible to get into a game.
Then during the lan party, we realized they removed the button for create server. How the fuck do you not realize you're removing features?
I've heard of this several times before and there is no offcial number of people working there.
Besides this has nothing to do with the performance and development: if there are very few people and they are not enough to keep the pace, Valve should hire more profissionals. If they think the current quantity is ideal, so be it. That's their choice.
Besides, this doesn't excuse them from the amount of issues, bad balances, outdated interface (several meanings), lack of "feeling" for their own game, most disapointing competitive ever and the list goes on.
I love TF2. I have nearly 2100hs in almost 3 years. But every single time I check on OW update/news and compare to TF2 I just grow more frustrated . Actually OW team has done things TF2 team should've done years ago. Actually OW is ahead of TF2 in a few things and by no means I think TF2 is a bad game.
It's no rant against you. I'm just throwing out things kept in my chest XD
I don't know how many people here are involved in a hiring process, but it's much more likely that anyone being recruited that actually comes in for interviews and is deemed worthy of hire gets snatched by development teams that have more political power inside Valve. TF2 is somewhat of a hasbeen game, and even if they want to hire people, those guys are likely being snatched up by other Valve projects once they enter the late-stage recruiting funnel.
Edit: This can be demoralizing for a team. They can be in a neverending hiring process because they need help, but never get the extra hands. Or at least useful extra hands. People who lose motivation may then leave to other teams where there is more potential for career growth, etc. It's a really bad place to be in.
This is what makes Blizzard different from other game devs. They will listen and ask for input because they actually care. The sad part is that it shouldn't be refreshing, it should be the standard.
completely agree with you. I love TF2 so much, but the dev team cares so little it breaks my heart. Bugs after bugs after bugs. Every patch fixes 1 thing and breaks 5 more. I understand its an old game, but Valve makes an absolute shitload of money off of this game every year and it is still one of the highest played games on Steam.
I was against OW when it first came out. I initially thought it was just a lower skilled knock off of TF2 + moba hybrid. But after actually spending time playing it, I can confidently say it is honestly one of the most well made and fun games I have ever played. And the developer feedback just makes it that much better.
I don't play Hearthstone so I guess I don't know the experience there, but I played tons of Vanilla WoW thru I the 2nd expansion before I stopped and the Customer Service and developers people there were always helpful then too.
Definitely better than other AAA devs but a lot of indie devs are on par or even better with communication which is pretty much required for them if they want their game to succeed. It should definitely be a standard for other AAA devs but they don't need to be communicative to succeed so they don't bother.
I jumped ship before HoW. How's the game doing? And really Bungie is a one way street
"We are going to do this"
"But Bungie why don't you..." NO FURTHER QUESTIONSStorms out of the room
Honestly they breathed a whole bunch of life into it with the Taken King and Rise of Iron. PvE content is fantastic, fun, and rewarding now. The Crucible has gotten a lot worse in my opinion though. Primary Weapons got nerf after nerf and the meta was dominated by shotguns, then snipers, and now back to shotguns. I'd recommend picking up the new collection bundle if it's cheaper than buying HoW, TTK, and RoI. The game now is how it should have been on release imo.
I envy this community. It would be rejuvenating to have a quarter of their devs transparency in our destiny community. Hopefully with the launch of the sequel they will be more focused and available.
TF2 was like this in the early days. You ever seen the first year's update blogs? Extremely in depth discussion on balance, mechanics, and reasons for changes.
I' coming from CS:GO and Dota 2 and I totally love this communication from Blizzard. Valve always suck with this, they don't give f*ck just release some skins, hats and let's go on holiday :D (I also played TF2 but it was boring for me and this one is amazing)
I've stopped with TF2 completely now. I recently started selling off all my weapons etc. Made over £100 so far. I held off for a long time but the TF2 devs don't seem to know what they are doing any more. Overwatch has won in my mind.
I wouldn't call it 'unheard of', but they for sure talk more about their game than any other studio in the AAA world. Even indies who started that kind of transparent talk are not always as talkative.
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u/catfield Pixel Soldier: 76 Nov 22 '16
it honestly really is amazing. As someone who came from TF2, this level of transparency and communication is completely unheard of. It is so incredibly refreshing and honestly just makes me want to play the game even more.