Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Flip-flopping

I generally respect Blizzard as a developer, and I enjoy WoW immensely. I just thought I might establish that before I start QQing.

What is going on? Seriously. I mean, I get the whole "you don't want to watch the sausage being made" thing, but when sausages are being recalled left and right for quality issues, it's hard to imagine they have a firm grasp of what they're putting into them to begin with.

I remember Yahtzee in his Portal 2 review saying that Valve playtests everything to a fault; that if a player so much as looked at a wall for too long they painted a big sign on it saying "STOP LOOKING AT THIS WALL." This is the impression I get of Blizzard recently. It's like they're trying less to create a game than to create increasingly creative methods of firmly nudging players into the small parts of the game Blizzard thinks they should be playing.

Yes, I know I've been over this before. There are no new arguments. Every time I got to type something else I realise I've said it before.

What I want to see is some kind of obvious and consistent concept of the value of Valor Points. Something that gives me the impression that getting ten people together and downing four bosses in the Firelands is "worth" more in the game than doing four Random Zandalari Heroics in a row. That downing a Heroic-mode T11 raid boss is "worth" more than a Random Heroic dungeon.

Something that gives me the impression that the Valor Point system isn't completely designed around placating noobs.

So to be constructive, I will offer my own advice on what can be done about the Valor Point inflation caused by the Zandalari Heroics: Make tier-12 cost more. Pants for 4400VP; gloves for 3300VP; and so on. Maybe increase the weekly Valor Cap in proportion. I call this concept "scaling", and I feel it to be pretty revolutionary. I should apply for a job as a game designer.

Blizzard needs to grow some fucking balls, seriously. Design the game around being a good game, not around retards who are trying their hardest not to enjoy it.

This blog post is over.

No comments:

Post a Comment