I’m curious to see how would you make those 3v3 players play 5v5 if you decide to do that strategy. Otherwise, the amount of players you are risking is way too big.
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Speaking of which, if they were to go the 3v3 route and abandon 5v5, I think there are several things they should do to make Vainglory as a whole feel nice to play and experience.
[Note: Some of my suggestions for “what if they go full on 5v5” will be here as well.]
[Disclaimer: Beware of things that might trigger you.]
- Map.
The 3v3 map to me is clearly had more design behind it, both gameplay and aesthetic wise.
The changes I want to make are simple - give it fog of war, give it dynamic shadow lighting, streamline and optimise the map’s polygons and such to minimise space and graphical demands the game imposes on devices.
Other than that, more seasonal map skins please!
- Gameplay and Time.
Again, I think the gameplay should be shorter. Sure, it’ll feel as if it’s a Brawl mode, but with the hectic and fast paced life style people have nowadays, I think it is for the best it is so.
I would shorten it so that the game can end at around 7 to 10 minutes, with the Kraken spawning at 10 minutes so the game can end at 15 minutes tops.
Of course, exp and gold scaling are increased to speed up the pace overall.
- Gamemodes.
I would make 3v3 the main mode, then I would make another map for it. Something a bit different but at least feels part of the Halcyon Fold. If anyone gazes at the background of 3v3, you can see many a few places that looks nice if they were to make it into a new map.
Then there would be a seasonal game mode every 3 months that uses either of these two maps.
Cuts queues to just three, narrowing the number of queues we have to fill.
- Talents.
Get rid of them I will. Compensate players, I shall.
- Other stuff.
- No SE and LE skins. Only Rare, Epic and Legendary skins.
- No Blueprint system or any crafting system.
- Ranked reward each season is a Free Ticket for any Legendary skin of the player’s choice. Can be stockpiled.
- Only Rare skins can be obtained via free grinding. Use Glory to purchase at a high price.
- Only Glory and ICE as currencies in Vainglory.
- ALL items can be purchased using ICE.
- Hats, Emotes and Social Pings can be purchased by using Glory as well. Part of the free grinding but also at a high price.
- Quest reworked to give Glory and occasionally very small amounts of ICE only.
- Adds give only Glory and a very small amount of ICE, with two rewards being a one hour Double Glory Booster. Adds reset at a certain time of the day regardless whether the limit of adds being watched or not has been reached.
- Rework U.I. to a better version of the old one prior to 5v5.
- Rework/Rebalance heroes that are not geared or too strong for 5v5
- Get rid of the rank display (as well as the ICE spender and 5v5 icons). The first triggers people and is inaccurate anyway. I’m tier 6 Bronze and it still displays tier 4 Silver.
- Get rid of Guilds. They’re clearly not working as intended.
- Improve Friend List U.I. and system.
- Improve Gameplay Recording and Replay Camera controls for Touch.
What else I wonder can be suggested for a 3v3 experience? A push the pay load game mode?
Why would they even do that? IMO, the way to go is focus on 5v5, don’t abandon 3v3 but make players who currently don’t enjoy 5v5 enjoy it, so that at some point you can change the 3v3 mode. The reason why currently I don’t want them to abandon it is because they would be risking a lot of players that like me hate 5v5.
They need to get the 5v5 experience to a really solid place in my opinion. This is not everyone, but the main thing 3v3 players (that I have talked to) dislike about 5v5 are the flaws with the meta. 3.8 handled the itemization problems - every damage and defense item now has a place and is viable - as well as finalized the mid lane and captain positions which now feel complete.
Just an aside, the main reason I prefer 5v5 is because I am a captain main. The amount of impact I can have with proper itemization, rotations, and shot calling (even in solo Q), is so much higher than 3v3. Everytime I play 3v3 it feels like I have training wheels on, the potential is gone.
People who play picks that generally go in the side lanes, and most importantly jungle players have a much worse experience, while captains and mage players usually love 5v5. By 3.10 I’d expect the jungle role be a true solo jungle, which really opens up the map for jungle players to get the true 5v5 experience, and by definition balances out the side lanes to give the bruiser, sniper, and duelist player the space they need to have the 1v1 showdowns in the side lanes.
Everyone will never love 5v5, but even right now where it’s only exhibiting a shadow of it’s potential it’s still the preferred game mode for the majority of players. A ‘complete’ 5v5 mode I think would justify taking on the mantle of the main competitive mode, and 3v3 could be relegated to a quicker non brawl experience, ideally with 10-15m matches.
Hum… right now it’s already the main mode though.
By competitive I don’t mean Esports, competitive just means players looking for a serious experience. You can be a competitive player in tier 6, as long as your goal is to improve at and master the game. A large portion of competitive players still focus their attention on 3v3.
Oh. I agree, it what I mean is that until that point, they can’t just kill 3v3 as that would make a lot of players leave. They need to make 5v5 attractive to play for those players. I wish I actually enjoyed 5v5… 
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As a jungle main… i hate 5v5, when i first try it before the official release i was like: Oh! i finish this camp and i go to that lane, so they have to defend their turret and then i go to mid… but reality was more like babyshitting the lane just being a second roam, and most of the jungle heroes coudnt be played, only tank ones. The fact that the creeps were for the laners too, leaving junglers just with the ambient gold was frustrating. More things i cant stand: You can win your lane, rotate, help your mates and still loose just because people doesnt know how to play the game. My second game was with a grumpjaw with a skill tier of 8… that just bought as first item BS, and he got it at level 12. My experience in 5v5 is too bad, i have tried over 10 times and i just cant get fun from that gamemode, so once 3v3 die, i’ll just leave the game.
edit: i actually play more captain than jungle, and still enjoy way much 3v3 than 5v5; but i consider my self a jungle main.
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Of course whatever you do is your choice, but 5v5 is evolving constantly. It’s a very different game from what it was on release, hell a very different game from a month ago.
The goal is to make the jungle a solo jungler that can roam around the map clearing and ganking. They just have worked on other issues first. By the time 3v3 dies, which I don’t expect it to within the next couple of months, 5v5 jungle will almost certainly be done, as we know SEMC plan is to fix it in 3.9-3.10.
If the mode just does not click for you of course that down to each persons experience. But if it’s the meta and how the map is played don’t consider that even remotely permanent.
i tried the patch before man, and i dont expect it to change soon. I will try it in the future, i will tried until i have to move to an other game. I get fun for watching 5v5, but not for playing, but i will try, i only hope 5v5 enjoys me before 3v3 dies
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True but not paying adequate dividends to the investors is financial suicide, given that they will pull funding. Mobile apps are rarely given second chances after that, especially with a decreasing playerbase in a saturated market
Well, you can’t actually “pull funding” – they can certainly decide not to participate in a future funding round, of course. But VCs make money by taking a share of the profits of a company or (commonly) when a startup is acquired, not via “dividends” or interest.
Here’s a pretty good article on how VC funding works:
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My mistake, meant future funding.
I honestly think they gave up on 3v3 too easily, rushing to do 5v5 when 3v3 could have still been improved to at least a shorter game mode instead of being increased to be too long. What I wished they did; worked on 3v3 more and hold off jumping to 5v5, make brawl modes rotate even tho they only ever made 3 I’m sure they wanted to spew out more and if they did that rotate it in/out, it’d be better then keeping them all there.
Can wish for shit to happen in vg all I(anyone) wants, it’s only seems to be getting worse in it’s quality. Like they’d ever touch 3v3 again anyway, I bet the only new thing they’d do with 3v3 now would be remove it.
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Out of curiosity, I wonder how to determine the player base Vainglory may have.
There’s no clear way to determine it, but I did find this:
https://developers.google.com/games/services/android/stats
It’s an API guide on how to determine some statistics of players.
Some other related links that I found interesting:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3423625?hl=en
2.8 would be better, before the HP changes and when all heroes were viable. They just need to balance the new heroes. The problem is that the people responsible in large (hi @Nivmett) for the 2.8 3vs3 balance are no longer working in SEMC, so not so sure it can be reverted even.
All other things you say are so much true.
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How it’s acceptable to sit infront your phone in your little free time you got (we mostly are not 16 years old that don’t work, have a significant one, things to care of and so on)? How it feels to wait 30m to start a match when I am only t10 bronze where basically are ALL of the average, to good to great players? Only to get unbalanced one !75%! of the time? Because this is happening and I play quite a lot to know it objectively. Not only I wait, sitting there in my living room and watching my phone screen “finding match” for minutes, dealing with declines, dodges, insults in chat between players, last player dodge after everyone took all the timers time before doing something (that’s basically 3-5m in draft!)… yeah and they said games are wasting of time, them what’s to sit and do nothing? 
Not commenting playing outside, even if it was 3vs3 and 15-20m match time + under a minute que times - I almost never played 3vs3 outside. Only a few BR/blitz when they were fun to play. Played it in home were I have a quite capable gaming computer and that should tell you something how much I liked the game. RIght now I play mainly because of insane money/time invested into it… that’s the truth. It’s taking so much to start playing, it’s 1/10 of the fun it once was and not balanced in MM at all thus not fair.
It’s a F mobile game… and while 15-17m per match and no que times was OK compromise for the deep/fun/fast/fair gameplay - the nowdays 15m to start the match + 25m to finish it + unbalanced matches that are sometimes so much that it’s mind blowing + skyrocking toxicity and great chance of someone trolling - this is not acceptable.
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Its not okay to wait that long in low and mid tiers cause its mostly casual players who just wanna play the game. Idk about you but when someone spends hundreds of hours reaching the highest tiers in the game they’re no longer casual mobile gamers, when you reach this point in any game it doesn’t matter what device you’re using what matters the most to you is competition. So yeah most high tiers players would gladely wait 10-15 minutes if they’re guaranteed that the game will be fair.
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this is your view, I don’t share it and I am soloq 2500 elo player, i.e. “high skill” (if you ask me, only 20 people are real high tier and ofc I am not one of them, but w/e), but I can synergy quite well with the top players + have a lot of wins vs top5. Waiting for that much time is insane. I have a life you know… all day at work, coming home, gf, duties and so on. All my free minutes are a lot of more value vs when I was a kid. Why would I sit and drain my battery waiting for a match instead of firing up my PC and lol/dota or w/e I want? The gameplay was what used to take my attention - gameplay, fun, passable 15-20m matches, no que time. Now mostly the insane amount of money and time is what keep me to this game.
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the games are not fair. Even when the que times were 10-15m to find a match - it was a disaster and unbalanced games almost 90% of the time.
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right now it’s even worse as the player base shrieked a lot.
The solutions are two and only one is “a little” bit more realistic:
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return to 2.8 in every possible way + UI that is inspired of the old VG one, not the MM/AOV. Also return the previous more fair monetisation, but with a little bit less “free stuff” and more things to draw people to the game like custom voice packs from sugarvenom (to be consistent with the lore that is ofc returned too) and custom recall animations per hero, individual for every hero - lore based too, to his individuality. That kind of content, not hats.
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remove 3vs3 so atleast there are more players in the 5vs5 mode for a little bit better MM
The first one will never come to fruit, I think it’s not necessary to explain why. The second one is highly doubtful to come to fruit + even if it does, it will be the “final stage” before stopping the development and servers. I think it’s not necessary to explain that one too, as it’s kinda obvious.
But none of them are viable. At least not yet.