Bye Bye amigo šŸ‘‹ @Battlepass

Ugh, this feels really familiar.

In before semc adds 100 more lvls to it

1 Like

Yeah that is all true (Especially the terrible casual MM which is a huge con rn), but I do believe SEMC could adapt VG to the PC market if, again, they get their act together. This is me being optimistic at least

2 Likes

If you watched the dev stream after update 4.0 release you would understand semc more , they mentioned that when games are pc based and move to mobile , the mobile players get flamed as there is no comparison , so they want to create a real cross platform game , they want to reach a point that people can switch without any problem and play with any device they want .

So they arenā€™t trying to be better than the PC mobas , they are trying to be everywhere and providing the same quality , and make the game cross platform and competitive .

I both watched the dev stream and read the article. :slight_smile:

SEMC may want and say a lot of things, but the reallity is different.

5 Likes

Occasionally I look at Google Trends to try to get some sense as to the health of the game, at least as far as overall interest goes. Obviously, this method has plenty of flaws, but the Google Trends data matches what Iā€™ve seen from other sources, so letā€™s just assume that itā€™s relevant in a general sort of way.

Here are the trends for VG, League, and DotA 2 over the last 90 days:

VG is barely a blip compared to the other two, which shows what an uphill battle SEMC is fighting. Now, that of course does NOT mean they canā€™t be successful, because itā€™s not at all clear that the MOBA market is saturated. And thatā€™s what SEMC is betting the company on, it seems: that thereā€™s an audience for another MOBA.

I found these maps showing the geographic distribution of searches for each game to be very interesting as well:

vglast90geo
leaguelast90geo
dotalast90geo

4 Likes

For me, this is just an indicator, and itā€™s no surprise, that the vast majority of ā€œgamersā€ still prefer console/PC. I donā€™t think many ā€œhardcore gamersā€ look to their mobile devices to play.

While I consider myself a skilled and experienced MOBA player, I donā€™t think Iā€™ll invest or prioritize a gaming console or PCā€¦ Like ever again, ha! I dig VG and what itā€™s allowed me to do with a mobile device.

I wonder how the comparison would look with VG versus other mobile MOBAs and mobile games in general. I imagine it becomes much more favorable for VG.

It doesnā€™t, though. VG trails both AoV and especially ML by huge margins. The graph is messed up by the fact that Google added AoV and ML as topics instead of search terms just a few weeks ago. (VG has been a topic for a long time.) So only the far right side of the graph is valid:

(The change from search terms to topics is great, though, because topics include related searches; e.g., AoV now includes Honor of Kings, which wasnā€™t included in the trend data previously.)

3 Likes

Yeah, this is far more accurate. ML and AOV are close and competitive one to another, VG isā€¦ well, at the buttom. :slight_smile:

4 Likes

I find VG is a niche for everything, they cant pick up casuals since its way too hard for newer players to learn without having effort and when its mobile ppl want it to be fast. On PC ppl will atleast have more effort to learn the game atleast, its just the game is in a market where it doesnt suit any so growing it is like gonna take a lot of work.

Itā€™s astonishing how determined they seem to make their game as uninteresting as possible. I have to remind myself to play every couple of days and even then Iā€™m only really interested when thereā€™s an event going on. Since they deleted BR there hasnā€™t been anything besides Blitz that I really play (rumble is meh). I was actually considering buying the Battle Pass if it would get me to play more but Iā€™d be lying if I said I wouldnā€™t have to force myself to grind to just level 50. It just seems like thereā€™s nothing to do. I checked out that thread by Xhaos about guild events and I realize I would love to play that VG, not whatever we have right now. I hope whatever SEMC does next it at least sticks; Iā€™m kind of sick of all the restructuring in the past couple seasons. I donā€™t think itā€™s all been for the better really.

5 Likes

This is really the core issue. There is very little incentive for casual players to keep playing regularly.

2 Likes

To be honest I was with vainglory decision to be friendly with casual players when they started closing the forum and made a lot of decisions made the game easier to learn , ignoring esport , adding joystick , but I think they realized that the casual market is hard to compete with and the decisions were late , so what they did right now is something inbetween we are not going to compete with the casual mobile or the skilled PC , letā€™s just be inbetween and make the game playable in all devices , and to perfect this challenge you need to make it ranked and esport , because cross platform casual any company can do they already doing it .

2 Likes

When I am new and will pick competitive moba, I will invest into the massively popular and big esport ones like dota 2 and lol. One is the successor of the first moba, the other a more easy (still 10 times more complex than VG) contender. Wonā€™t go and play a mobile game that is working on the PC, does not have big community, no esports, no nothing. I am confused why some people here even compare them as I can type over 9000 words post why the new, all, hardcore and even casual PC players would (and frankly, should) pick lol or dota 2.

Even the casuals enjoys esports and to watch pro players/competitive play. Also when you have such a type of game, esports will make the casuals stick and develop into decent players that plays more and potentially become really good.

1 Like

I understand and thatā€™s probably what semc was thinking when they made the game easier because semc had a lot of feedback about people trying to make their friends play vainglory but they canā€™t because of the touch screen , semc want that casual players to come and play but as I said itā€™s probably too late , so the cross platform is their thing .

And letā€™s be clear here , semc wanted to be unique with the 3v3 Moba then they added the ā€œperfected for touchā€ , so they are looking for something unique and different , thatā€™s why I think they went for the cross platform but not just cross platform they wanted competitive in all devices together.

Casual players are Important for all the games , but what semc going for is targeting the competitive players , a challenge to be competitive and play with any device you want .

Iā€™m being annoying, I know, but itā€™s actually not. From what I can recall, AoS (Aeon of Strife), a custom map game from StarCraft back in the early 00s was the first MOBA game that involved 3 lanes, 5v5, auto generated troops, and objectives. Then it was DotA on WCIII Reign of Chaos which then expanded over to DotA All-Stars on Frozen Throne. People often forget about AoS :slightly_smiling_face:

You are correct about AoS being the original. It actually predates the DotA mod for Warcraft by 5 years. The difference (and why most people probably think of DotA as the first true MOBA) is that AoS only had 1 team of players going up against a team of AIs. DotA had 2 teams of players fighting each other.

2 Likes

This old man sometimes says smart things. I will say, I do feel a small sense of nostalgia/prideā€¦ Not really sure what. I had no idea as a teen that I was playing a style of game (literally a custom map game in what was supposed to be a strategy/build your village type game) that would become itā€™s own game genre and grow to have such a large market. Itā€™s so fun to see how far MOBA has come!

1 Like

I played a lot of custom warcraft 3 maps that had a tower based gameplay. Single team, towers, heroes with different abilities and vs AI waves of enemies. This was also before the DOTA betas (that I was a part of). As @hazeleyes said, for me/most MOBA is 2 teams fighting each other and not the SC 1 team vs AI (played that as well) or WC3: 1 team vs AI.

3 Likes