Developers Posting Patch Notes on Forums Prior to Patch Release

[Dietdrpepper]

I made this suggestion in another thread that I don't think was ever responded to from any of the developers. I would like to suggest that the developers try posting the beta patch notes in the forums with explainations as to why certain items or characters are being changed. This would allow both the Pub and IH community to voice their opinions and also make the developers defend their opinions. A classic example would be the new UI minimap. I realize that we now have flip interface (thanks Wrath). I am ok with the new UI now, although I still prefer the old one. That said, the minimap issue could have been solved prior to release if the developers published the beta patch notes on the forums and explained the reasoning behind why they wanted to move the minimap. It doesn't stop there. There are so many changes that happen and even the IH community (NA) cannot understand why. Maybe this is because the developers seem to prefer EU now but that is another topic for another day. When it is all said and done, I cannot see a reason to not post the patch notes and get feedback from the community prior to release. Just my 2 cents.

[lOvOl]

You want more "logic and reason" based on false assumptions and ignorance?

 

They actually did this already with the new UI and instead of the devs taking everyone's criticisms seriously, it instead appeared obvious the only purpose of the exercise was to get a handful of people to agree with them and then make grandiose claims about how everyone likes the UI after a few games of adapting, meanwhile attacking the arguments made against the changes with every logical fallacy in the book.

 

And then when it is proven to them objectively why their changes were terrible in terms of usability and cognitive load on the user, they just pretend those are non-issues or else get surrogates to defend them with made up on the spot design goals that their new UI does not even address in a competent way.

 

Really, if they wanted to have an honest discussion, before proposing anything they should of said "hey guys we are thinking about changing the UI to address X, Y, and Z design goals and before we do anything we would like to hear some of your ideas and come up with a plan based on participatory democracy".

 

Of course, that is the opposite of what happens each and every time, hence why you get such terrrrible decisions because elitism is provably inferior to democracy in terms of solving complex problems.

[IMBrew]

They used to run a beta test lobbies in organized by RedHydra ( where is he? ). Was good shap.

[akanna]

Not gonna lie they do post stuff at times but it never really goes anywhere, there is always a bunch of people arguing diff sides, but usually there is little to no feedback from above about what is said or whether it will be used or not.

 

Like the garamond balance blog, where we filled up 3+ pages with rework suggestions and even came to an overall consensus of sorts but no further actions were taken even though we asked the devs to chime in with a proposed rework based off our suggestions for us to discuss further....(although they have been really busy with new heros and UI so I cant really blame them)

 

The UI change was also put in dev notes and we went on for days about it, Wrath was kind enough to impliment flip interface after the fact, after it became clear from polls that no one really liked mini map on right (unless you are toss).

 

Thanks to flip interface though, most people are happy and the new UI is actually a huge improvement in terms of visibility and usable screen area, sure there are some ways it could be made better, but its still a huge step up from what it once was.

 

Most balance changes are discussed ahead of time in IH etc as far as I know, or spawned based off forum discussions on OP UP, and new heros are usually tested in beta games before release, and balanced based off feedback in forums etc afterwards if proved to be too weak / strong. The main reason changes are discussed after the fact most of the time, is that its tough to really know the effect of most changes till you play a bunch of games with them.

 

I agree with you that it would be nice to have more input come from forums for sure though, I see so many good suggestions on here, and it would be great to know if devs had even read or considered any of them. Plus I would love to know what is under works and is coming or about to be changed, and have a chance to chime in before it happens. So overall I support this idea, even though I am making a point to point out they are starting to do this already with "massive" changes, and general balance changes are pretty hard to see the results of in advance.

 

Personally I am glad they take the time to make changes at all :)

[Azrael]

@OWL: Democracy itself is a fail concept, you cannot pretend that there is "Democracy" in the decision making process. Still that doesn't mean that peoples opinion should be disregarded or not taken into account.

 

@dietdrpepper: Don't get it wrong, Red and Ecko are always paying atention to the forums and they do take time to read (Most of) the posts, another thing is that they don't answer or respond to them. Still, as OWL said, the IH community has too much power in terms of "balancing" the game and they tend to disregard a lot of opinions that come from the public game players, this is the reason why the game is balanced toward "UP" instead of tunning it "Down".

Also, like akana said, for a long time, most of the patches were made public trough ecko's comment in mumble, all you had to do was go into mumble and take a look at it. These days i have no idea about what is going on because am not playing actively :p.

If i am not mistaken, on the old site had a whole section regarding patches and updates :p, that was pretty cool.

[EterNity]

Beta patchnote are always available on the mumble.

 

When I am reading this post, I feel like someone is saying that "Why does library not able to bring the book to my home instead!?"

 

Instead of expecting other people explain every reason behind every change. I'd rather trying to go keep and figure out myself.

 

Also, beta changes on a daily basic so posting every single changes will not be possible.

 

The point of real-time discussion is to make and address concerns fast and leaving discussions on the forums simply is not effective enough.

[lOvOl]

Democracy (as in direct democracy not the sham democracy we have in the United States) is a failed concept? I suppose you have never heard of the concept "wisdom of the crowds".

[Dietdrpepper]

I think people are missing my point, which may be my fault for not explaining. I fully realize that the beta patch notes are available on mumble. I also know that balance is based more on IH than on pubs (which I agree with). What I am suggesting is not just posting patch notes but posting explainations as to the reasons why changes are being made. I feel like this would at least give the community some basis as to why changes are being made. In addition to that the community can give feedback and counter-arguements. That being said, I think there is another underlying problem which is becoming more and more apparent - Lack of feedback from the developers (Red / Eckol). If you are going to have a forum, and the developers truely do read it, then they need to give more feedback on forum posts. Especially those that are trying to help progress the game. I understand that they only have so much time. I also understand that they dont need to waste time on replying to each and every forum post on how boros is op, etc. I do feel that there are certain threads (such as the pyre thread Tukey made) that the developers should be ever present in the discussion. I realize that RedHydra responded to Tukey's thread but there has been comments since then that should be addressed. The new UI is another example of where the developers should be giving feedback on user comments and concerns. The list goes on and on. I just feel like developer presence could be increased especially on hot button items.

[Aellectris]

Democracy (as in direct democracy not the sham democracy we have in the United States) is a failed concept? I suppose you have never heard of the concept "wisdom of the crowds".

 

I suppose you've never heard the phrase "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

 

 

Also, most pub players aren't on mumble. You seem to think that you're the voice of the pub players, but that's not the case.

[lOvOl]

I suppose you've never heard the phrase "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

 

 

Also, most pub players aren't on mumble. You seem to think that you're the voice of the pub players, but that's not the case.

 

People are dumb when led (which is not democracy), but when you average out all of the independent minded answers of a crowd you almost always come close to the optimal case for a given solution provided the people in the crowd are knowledgeable about the given subject. Also assuming you do not allow organized political factions and partisanship to occur in the first place (i.e. no political parties or organized mobs), PEOPLE are far smarter than any individual person and that has been something proven over and over again in psychological studies. It is similar to how capitalism is supposed to work where if everyone competes equally against each other, then everyone benefits but once you have collusion and monopolies things break down because the process of acquiring wealth is no longer about how to create it invidivually, but rather how to game the system with a stronger army so that one side can enslave everybody else to their rules which favor them.

 

Of course a lot of people don't like the idea of direct democracy because these are the same people who always consider themselves above average or even exceptional in just about everything, when in fact they are actually pretty average themselves. I am guessing you might be in that camp.

 

And about mumble and pub players, I have never even had close to any sort of delusion that I am the voice of the "pub player", even though you think I think so, merely I just make my own personal observations about what positively or negatively impacts the pub environment because that is where my playing experience lies and where 99% of the games are played as is the case with many other pub players who post on these forums. If you or any other inhauser does not like the plebes telling you that you are wrong about something, then you are just gonna have to keep dealing with it.

[Hogwarts]

eko once said in mumble

 

" you guys are the developers you guys make the changes"

[doxthefox]

I thought we had a meeting and appointed destroyer as the voice of the pubs since he plays the most and probably has the highest rating by now. Unless peons has returned from his hiatus but he's the worst asian correspondent since eternity... so definitely destroyer.

[Azrael]

People are dumb when led (which is not democracy), but when you average out all of the independent minded answers of a crowd you almost always come close to the optimal case for a given solution provided the people in the crowd are knowledgeable about the given subject. Also assuming you do not allow organized political factions and partisanship to occur in the first place (i.e. no political parties or organized mobs), PEOPLE are far smarter than any individual person and that has been something proven over and over again in psychological studies. It is similar to how capitalism is supposed to work where if everyone competes equally against each other, then everyone benefits but once you have collusion and monopolies things break down because the process of acquiring wealth is no longer about how to create it invidivually, but rather how to game the system with a stronger army so that one side can enslave everybody else to their rules which favor them.

 

Of course a lot of people don't like the idea of direct democracy because these are the same people who always consider themselves above average or even exceptional in just about everything, when in fact they are actually pretty average themselves. I am guessing you might be in that camp.

 

And about mumble and pub players, I have never even had close to any sort of delusion that I am the voice of the "pub player", even though you think I think so, merely I just make my own personal observations about what positively or negatively impacts the pub environment because that is where my playing experience lies and where 99% of the games are played as is the case with many other pub players who post on these forums. If you or any other inhauser does not like the plebes telling you that you are wrong about something, then you are just gonna have to keep dealing with it.

Owl, don't be a slave of your dreams/ideals.

[Destroyer]

I thought we had a meeting and appointed destroyer as the voice of the pubs since he plays the most and probably has the highest rating by now. Unless peons has returned from his hiatus but he's the worst asian correspondent since eternity... so definitely destroyer.

 

Your slow, I've had the highest rating since I was at 12k. (24k atm.... I play to much.)

 

Also as I do get on mumble sometimes, I probably would be ineligeble to be the voice of the pubs.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Destroyer

[lOvOl]

Your slow, I've had the highest rating since I was at 12k. (24k atm.... I play to much.)

 

Also as I do get on mumble sometimes, I probably would be ineligeble to be the voice of the pubs.

 

Ahhh you finally surpassed me at some point. GJ! Last time I played against you mine was 3K higher. That was about 10000 rating points ago though when I played a lot more (right now I am not playing at all obviously).

[Destroyer]

The last time I saw you, you were at 11k and I was at 12k. You've either dropped or quit every game i've seen you in since then. Also, my brother uses my account most of the time as I've started to move toward Dota 2 and the hours I work.

One last thing, that was probably a different dest, as there are 3-4 of them on the Na server lol.

[doxthefox]

I quit 10 months ago! Yay. I just remember when we did that troll ih game 3 months ago where we were on different teams and in the same channel (Totally professional) and someone brought up your rating. The pubs have no voice, only a forum that no one reads except for rage/troll comments.

[lOvOl]

The last time I saw you, you were at 11k and I was at 12k. You've either dropped or quit every game i've seen you in since then. Also, my brother uses my account most of the time as I've started to move toward Dota 2 and the hours I work.

One last thing, that was probably a different dest, as there are 3-4 of them on the Na server lol.

 

Well you either have me confused with someone else or else that is an outright lie because my cable connection is fine and I rarely drop (I had one night where things acted up and I dropped 3 straight games, but that is once in the last 3 months) and I don't quit ever and everyone knows this. If anything I annoy people by not surrendering when my whole team rage quits and I probably should surrender at that point. You and anyone else could also just look at my stats to see how many wins plus losses I have relative to played games. You are not the first person to make up stories like this on this forum as there seem to be a lot of pathological liars like Eternity who will even post replays of similarly named players ragequitting to discredit me (some guy named OvO I am told), but whatever people who have played me in games know better and can just look at my record for objective evidence.

 

I am sad to see you are making stuff up since I don't even play anymore.

[doxthefox]

Its true... owl took a good raping like a boss about 1.5 years ago. No complaints. It wasn't until prozac pointed out that he was an actual owl from his name that i ever noticed him though. He's no wukewuke upinsmoke peons or SUPERMANA.

[Destroyer]

Well figuring the person who droped/dced/quit was complaining that the team I was on was a premade and that "I don't want to deal with a premade" I figure it was you. Hell even the games I've played against you you complained that we were a premade. That was right about 50% of the time ahah.

[lOvOl]

Well figuring the person who droped/dced/quit was complaining that the team I was on was a premade and that "I don't want to deal with a premade" I figure it was you. Hell even the games I've played against you you complained that we were a premade. That was right about 50% of the time ahah.

 

Leaving a lobby is different than leaving a game. If I don't feel like playing a carry hero, playing a support hero is pointless in a random team against a 5 man crew, so sometimes I will leave a lobby and find another game. Odds are you were on a premade. I have played enough games to know who rolls with who in pub games, so dont take it personally.

[EterNity]

Its true... owl took a good raping like a boss about 1.5 years ago. No complaints. It wasn't until prozac pointed out that he was an actual owl from his name that i ever noticed him though. He's no wukewuke upinsmoke peons or SUPERMANA.

 

LOL supermana yo.

 

He's one of the best pubstar out there!

 

Better than Destroyer ofcoz

[BestPlayer]

Leaving a lobby is different than leaving a game. If I don't feel like playing a carry hero, playing a support hero is pointless in a random team against a 5 man crew, so sometimes I will leave a lobby and find another game. Odds are you were on a premade. I have played enough games to know who rolls with who in pub games, so dont take it personally.

You're really growing on me, I guess with the inkreasing detashment I feel to this game and its inhouse kommunity, the more objektiwely I kan look upon posts here.

I mean one kan agree with you or no, you're still getting so mush unwarranted hate that it's ridikulous, not only that, but you strike me as more sertainly more intelligent than the majority of the people I hawe enkountered playing this game.

 

I know it's hardly on topik, but it's getting really fuking tiring reading these old stories about how you're a noob, know nothing, are delusional, an idiot, or some other bullshap like that; so I thought I would attempt to weigh in on the other side.

 

I mean taking this as an eksample. I kan't blame you at all. I wouldn't want to fuking play against a premade when soloqueing. That shap happens in DotA 2 pub all the time, lukily I almost always queue with friends myself, but sinse we mess around a lot of the time, the "tryhard premades" kan be a big fuking annoyanse anyway.

EDIT:

That being said, I don't dodge games, I just may get frustrated and try again - adding to it, it isn't really that big of a deal when you mowe to higher matshmaking, as your teammates will know what to do without your help.

Sinse that's not a solution in AoS, as there is no matshmaking, I kan't blame you at all. The worst games I'we played resently are against random premades in EU pub, regardless of wether we win or lose, me and shob just went in the game to see the new UI, the new hero, ets. and immediately they are feeding off of our three random players and me and shob basikally hawe no shanse of winning.

Konsidering we don't really kare about the game anymore, we just leawe when the game isn't fun - we hawe DotA 2 anyway, that we kan enjoy, so we don't need to play AoS pubs to kompletion, and sertainly not kare about rating.

I think that's what a lot of people here fail to understand. They are inhouse players, to them, pub means nothing, rating means nothing and "pubbers" mean klose to nothing. To a "pubber" that's all they hawe: Their rating, and their publik games. They are arguing from a kompletely different perspektiwe. A little empathy would go a long way in dismantling this konflikt of inhouse ws pub.

[lOvOl]

You're really growing on me, I guess with the inkreasing detashment I feel to this game and its inhouse kommunity, the more objektiwely I kan look upon posts here.

I mean one kan agree with you or no, you're still getting so mush unwarranted hate that it's ridikulous, not only that, but you strike me as more sertainly more intelligent than the majority of the people I hawe enkountered playing this game.

 

I know it's hardly on topik, but it's getting really fuking tiring reading these old stories about how you're a noob, know nothing, are delusional, an idiot, or some other bullshap like that; so I thought I would attempt to weigh in on the other side.

 

I mean taking this as an eksample. I kan't blame you at all. I wouldn't want to fuking play against a premade when soloqueing. That shap happens in DotA 2 pub all the time, lukily I almost always queue with friends myself, but sinse we mess around a lot of the time, the "tryhard premades" kan be a big fuking annoyanse anyway.

 

Yah tryhard premades are especially annoying cause they always talk smack and whether I like it or not a lot of people think beating me on a random team is some major life accomplishment. Against one premade I asked them why they picked the gayest hero combos at the time (Boros, Rory, Micro, Nova, and I forget what the other hero was) and they said it was cause they didn't want to lose to me. That game I played Jackson of course and with my luck my teammates were really bad and I had never seen them before which probably meant they were new as well. So yah tryhard premades are pretty annoying and lame but not as lame as inhouse players allegedly pubstomping with 4 or 5 man crews because they say they are "bored", then of course pick the same lame hero combos as if pub games are supposed to be serious.

[BestPlayer]

Yah tryhard premades are especially annoying cause they always talk smack and whether I like it or not a lot of people think beating me on a random team is some major life accomplishment. Against one premade I asked them why they picked the gayest hero combos at the time (Boros, Rory, Micro, Nova, and I forget what the other hero was) and they said it was cause they didn't want to lose to me. That game I played Jackson of course and with my luck my teammates were really bad and I had never seen them before which probably meant they were new as well. So yah tryhard premades are pretty annoying and lame but not as lame as inhouse players allegedly pubstomping with 4 or 5 man crews because they say they are "bored", then of course pick the same lame hero combos as if pub games are supposed to be serious.

 

Not going to argue with you there. but as I added in my EDIT abowe, the main problem is the lak of matshmaking.

Using DotA 2 as an eksample, plenty of pros go "tryhard staks" in pubs, and they still lose, bekause either they're playing other pro players, or simply players good enough to be in the same matshmaking as the pro players.

They get shallenged ewen when they go for the "same lame hero kombos" as they would in a skrim or kompetitiwe game. I hawe played against, and beaten a number of pro players in DotA 2 matshmaking. And my friends sush as shob or PuMA, or ewen mentioning Brew or Poison, play against many more, as I am not as aktiwe anymore.

 

...Whereas the low tier player in DotA 2 will play against somewhat equally skilled players.