So initially this was supposed to be a reply to this topic https://www.reddit.com/r/LoLTwistedTreeline/comments/clzrhb/in_defense_of_the_treeline_a_poorly_substantiated/
However it became so big I decided to make it's own thing.
Before we jump into it I would like to thank you all for your help and games in the past.
Because I apparently ended up writting an essay (sorry about that and now I doubt anyone will read this) have a TLDR.
TLDR:
This whole annoucement thing is a damage control piece that tries to deflect as much responsability as possible. They were already messing things up long before what the video says and never offered anything but delayed life support. This mode was already dead from a developing perspective and prolly even limiting what they can do. Reworking is prolly the only option, but it does not fit with the current company direction, so rather pull the plug as discretely as they can and not even bother giving a proper farewell.
And now the reply I was going to post in the first place.
Some more topics to add since this only goes back to the Echo patch. I don't expect anyone to do anything about this but I need to vent.
A bit of POV history to fill in the gap before the video:
I loved TT until the year they released the SR rework, with the major screw up around SR Rework release being that one drop too much. So as an old ass, grumpy TT casual player, here's my POV from back then:
Support wasn't much, and sometimes they did some weird stuff but that was ok, it showed they were trying some things and shake things up. Couple of times we would get the game a bit broken, and we would get a bit mad but it was still leagues better than having to go for SR. Eventually we started getting tired of it, but still held on, thinking it's just a problem of being second class citizens, and having such a small dev team working on it when they had gaps. If anything I thought that these small group of devs still cared and were probably even more frustrated than us at times.
At this point I was mainly jungler (and at this point a casual player) that lacked the will to adapt to the Support+Carry meta. We would still play TT from time to time, but mostly to grab IP for upcoming Champions. Additionally, I was already frustrated with Riot on multiple levels: as a Jungler, as a TT player and as an old ignore player. I was unhappy with each announcement or patch notes, so me and my mates decided to jump over to Dawngate/HOTS as our main games.
And then it happened, SR rework was released and TT was broken to a point it was just unplayable. "This is it... This is the nail in the coffin... This is what happened to Dominion all over again. They got a bug on the queues, lost players and then when Riot finally fixed it, it was too late... More than a day has passed and they still haven't patched this... The quick temp fix should not take more than a day... TT is dead." Eventually a fix came out but it was so much more. Can't recall the pecularities but the Carry and support meta got even stronger and it was clear that at that point in time our interests simply did not align.
After that I kept checking on the game to try and jump back, specially since some champions got really sweet and other new ones were pretty darn awesome. I wanted in, but things in the map were still the same so I couldn't pull my friends with me, which was a critical aspect. "Maybe next time..." After watching this video I know the why.
It's now four years later, I get the news from a newer friend who still happened to play ARAMs that TT is dying and I just shrugged. I told him "I mean they never fully supported it, if anything tried making it more like SR instead of embrancing it and with TFT and the new temporary modes it was a matter of time until they pulled a Dominion. If anything this might be a good mercy kill that allows them to embrace other ventures or someone else to try their hand at the 3v3 pie." And then I checked the news. All I could find was a dev post, a bit weird, but maybe they're using this to give some context. After reading it I was red, furious, disappointed and even surprised that I could still care about this game this much. Now I'm here... Having watched this video and realizing that in these past 4 years things got even worse O_O
RANT TIME:
Riot can have all the numbers backing them up from a business decision, this does not justify them LYING and/or manipulate facts to drive the story the way they did. To break it down:
Treeline has always suffered from low queue sizes, even in times when we added new items, map-specific champion balance...
Those updates albeit not always good still brought more ups and activity than not having them. Was it as much as you or we wanted? HELLL NOOOO. But you are professionals consumer oriented product devs, YOU KNOW that in order for a game or in this case even a mode to be sucessfull you need to promote it. Patch notes are not enough! You hold the biggest tournament, and afaik not a single time did you even bother to showcase TT over there. EVEN FREAKING MAGMA CHAMBER SAW MORE ACTION!
...and even the Twisted Treeline redesign waaayy back in 2012...
This was a turning point for TT. Unlike any other game mode you've ever done, you replaced an already existing map with another one that played differently enough. Some players jumped ship, some remained, a lot started looking into it, some even jumping into the fray. This was an exercise where your expectations were not met on the short term and you gave up. There was a lack of training, a lack of preparation, a lack of shapping the current user minds towards this new reality. Was it an hard endeavour? Absolutely! Did you miss the mark? Yes! But that shouldn't be a problem, after all this wasn't back in the cartridge games era. Pity that did not happen though...
...At present, it falls short of even the numbers we saw at the end of Nexus Blitz’s second run...
Way back when Riot Lyte was still employed by you guys, you made it pretty clear that you track every single damn thing you can on this game. We understand this is a business decision and this is the "scapegoat" for this murder. Kinda wish you had used all that knowledge/power you've had since at least 2012 to actually help the game mode. (unless TT had shit support for that on the backend as well :P)
...This small population leads to long queue times, poor matchmaking, and ultimately an unsatisfying PvP experience for many of the players who do queue up for Treeline...
We already discussed that you could have done far more towards helping those numbers. Additionally, the community was indeed small but it was damn well dedicated! Heck we had to do nearly all the work for you, and whenever we asked for your help your defense was always "We don't have enough players to allocate resources". We all KNEW that actually meant: "SR is our cash cow, it's easier and we rather do any maintenance work on it. It's also easier (from a community perspective) to do some more different throwaway fun stuff that might more easily pop some eyes". I have to admit though you got really good on that and from a business perspective you did well.
...Outside of the player population, Twisted Treeline’s art, map design, and even game pacing don’t meet today’s current quality bar and player needs...
AFAIK it's been four years since you made any relevant changes to the map. You know back when the SR rework came out... The community is not to blame for that one, but you're also deflecting it and not fully owning it. If anything I'm actually wondering if you are telling the world that we are ok with it? Because I sure as hell ain't ! I still remember having a bug with (old) Cho'gath Rapture and Feral Scream abilities where the visual indicators, animation and actual effect area did not align in any way. We also kept being promised performance updates and truthfully can't recall if we got them, since they took so long I eventually got a new pc... So if anything you were the only ones happy enough with it to satisfy not needing and big visual work. Oh and not to mention all those progress related updates that were SR exclusive for months at end...
...We debated on whether an ARAM-esque level of support would bring it up to standard, but the lack of growth from the previous efforts...
An ARAM level of support at this point in the game is not enough. That should've happened earlier, now it's probably easier to just throw the whole thing away and start over. And don't tell me that you gave support in the past... Having a team working on it when they have gaps in their schedule is only one kind of support. LIFE SUPPORT. I'm sorry but despite all the kudos those guys gathered for doing this sort of stuff, it wasn't enough.
It's still perplexing how in the months of development with so many DEVS, TESTERS and whatever other employees/resources in the fray, you managed to unknowingly release the SR rework which broke the Towers in TT... We either believe in you letting this one completely go by unnoticed (which highlights your shameful lack of support in your dev processes towards TT) or you knew about it, made an assessment and the outcome was being able to tolerate it since "It's TT lol... We need this out so we can go home and sleep for the next 24 hours". Either option does not translate well, the later could be acceptable if you had the courage to at least recognize it and assure/explain to the players the reality. We all saw how that went down...
...but the lack of growth from the previous efforts we mentioned led us to the conclusion that it just wouldn’t be enough to make Treeline a healthy long-term mode. So at the end of this season, we will be retiring Twisted Treeline.
From a developer perspective this thing is right down toxic. Barely anyone in the company should be able to still work on it. I doubt all the efforts you've done in the past towards the other game modes were just barely translated to TT (when possible). I can sympathize that at this point this would probably be a major rework, currently it's just making things look nasty on your end and maybe even limiting what you can/cannot do on other game modes. You don't want to go down this rabbit hole again so that's why you decided to kill it.
Say what it is on you dev blog, don't try to suggest that the problem is because WE did not grow. You are feeding these news through this medium on a such a filtered and watered down note because this is all you intend to say and on a as discrete vehicle as possible. It's also the lowest level medium where you can touch on this subject while still hidding it away in the middle of other content more geared towards you main audience. And if you truly felt ashamed, you would have done either a grandiose and honorful goodbye for your first non 5v5 game mode or also feed us with a detailed post mortem where you assume and tell us what all this was for. Instead you hide and resign to simply employ damage control tactics.
Just when I thought I was far removed from the game, you still managed to surprise me, make it personal and hurt me one more time. I felt insulted, I felt mocked, I felt anger, I felt disappointed and now I'm simply sad.
So here, let me start by doing what you didn't do and give the proper honors. Might as well keep doing your job...
Thank you for my memories of the good times!
Thank you for your techblog posts (which I intend on following)!
Thanks to those who tried, both the community and the small dev team!
Goodbye.
Submitted August 14, 2019 at 02:10AM by twosevenska https://ift.tt/2KHFDoJ
No comments:
Post a Comment