Well, I think I have a few things I want to say. Most of it will be in response to the top comment and additional stuff I have in mind.
Iâve been playing for 3-4 years and it feels like it is dying to me. I have 400+ people on my friendsâ list. I probably see 10% of them ever online and only have a handful of people I actually want to party with. It used to take less than a minute to get into a match of Battle Royale. Now it takes at least 3 to 5 mins - even more with multiple re-queues from people not accepting the match or dodging.
I played roughly the same amount of time. More precisely, I downloaded Vainglory when it came to Android on Jun 29, 2015; just a few days after my birthday. So, itâs been 3 years and 5 months.
Do note that my original account with my forum username has been abandoned a few years back in favor of a new account that I now use exclusively.
In contrast to the commenter, my friendsâ list has and will always be sparse. I purge them from time to time and rarely ever accept friend requests. The ones I do accept are Guild Members, players Iâve known and good players from good matches Iâve played.
Iâm not one for partying. I fly solo 99% of the time and canât be bothered to plays with a party because of the dreaded expectations that my party members may have and the stress of having to converse and plan on a mobile keyboard while waiting for a match to start.
Iâve also found it odd that the commenterâs queue time for Battle Royale to be odd. I barely take one minute to queue up normally, and it doesnât take even 3 minutes to get another queue running if someone dodges.
To me, this means that the queues I play are decently populated for my server and, though generally of varied skill prowess, matches donât feel too off (minus ones where RNG and Talents screw me over, lol.).
Each update has made me enjoy the game less and less. The drastic balance changes constantly make me feel like I donât know what to do. I have no idea what heroes are good, what abilities I should max, or what items I should buy. I have such little faith in this game that I have no interest in learning the new meta because they change too much too often.
Iâm generally indifferent to updates. Iâm neither excited nor perturbed by what SECM does.
I will react to something if I find it too egregious to not notice.
Drastic balance changes overall will always leave people in a state of learning and confusion. I would just suggest âtryâ to adapt, but if one canât, thatâs ok.
I used to love SEMC. They did a great job of making the players feel like they had a voice. It felt like we were one big community back when PlayOffBeard and Zekent were doing their streams. The update days used to be something I looked forward to and would text my friends about. We would often watch the live streams together and theorycraft on what we should build on the new heroes. The skins were new and exciting and had a great card system to them that made it feel like I was working towards something. Now I dread every update because it makes me feel even more lost and confused. It took me months to get back into the game after they made all the changes to the gold and minion miners. Those original jungle changes are what swore me off of standard 3v3 games and made me stick to brawl modes because I didnât want to relearn the jungle rotation.
Iâm not one to express love freely. Especially not to things I donât know and have never come into contact directly. Loving things from afar is ok and can happen, but it requires both parties to communicate often and understand one another overtime.
To me, those dev streams that SEMC does/did/do are ok, but gives a false sense of communication in my opinion. It gave the impression that they were communicating, but to be fair, they are only really talking to players that tune into the dev streams and only answer questions that could catch in the fast-paced and spammy toxic chat the Twitch chat tends to be.
I have an ok bunch of cosmetics in my account, but I have not real attachment to most of them other than the ones I can use on the heroes I main and like as well as the ones that can be used across the board such as hats and Social Pings.
To me, the Blueprint system is ok because it altered skins in terms of âquality.â I never liked the Tiered skin idea. It was a good grind, yes, but the quality of the skins in a set was overall meh to me. It became worst and worst as time went by in my opinion. Just look at Supersonic Skye.
By getting rid of the crafting system, theyâre freed from having to introduce âa set of skins for one heroâ per patch, to âany skin of any rarity for any number of heroesâ per patch.
But, I cannot fault players for liking the old system. The artwork of the cards was nice and it was kind of a collect-o-ton style which people subconsciously like. The number of cards required was high enough that duplicates were rare compared to how Materials and Blueprints are now.
All I can say is, think about it and move on. Complaining and harping for the return of card system is unlikely to happen simply because the amount of assets that have to be made for the good amount of skins already in the game is absurd and SugarVenomâs lore can no longer be applied through the cards as well.
I stopped caring about the skins because of the terrible blueprint system. I have 200k+ essence but no use for it. The chance of finding one of the blueprints I donât own is so minuscule itâs maddening. I hate how the majority of events and sales are based on blueprints. At least when I got duplicate skins in the past it would convert them to opal. While opal didnât have a use for a long time, they eventually made it useful with the 5v5 invite chest and now they can be used for hats. Now I get duplicate blueprint drop after duplicate blueprint drop and they get converted to more useless essence that I will never have a use for.
To be honest, I hate Opals. Not because they are rare or limited to being used for certain things, no.
I hate how they came into existence and the circumstances that pervaded their coming.
As people probably remembered and know, there are skins we cannot get any more - the original LEâs that were made a few years back, starting with Gift-Wrapped Fortress (Shiba Inu LE).
Iâm not going to elaborate and recount the drama that ensued, but all I want to say is: Who thought it was a good idea to make LE skins?
I get if itâs for a very special event (such as Worlds or anniversary and to a certain extent, seasonal ranking rewards), but other than that, those assets are wasted.
The deals are so much worse than they ever were and get worse with each passing month. They are quite frankly insulting compared to what we used to have. Take black friday and cyber monday for example. Apart from the standard three weekly deals in the market tab being slightly better than they have been of late (but still much worse than years back), there was not a single deal in the featured tab that even showed up for me. All of them were for skins I already owned and from what i heard, the deals for those skins were horrible. Some like the mall santa reim cost more than they typically do. Letâs compare that to last years black friday where there were constantly new and exciting deals that were worth anywhere from 3 times to 7+ times the value in ice.
Of course deals will be worse the more items you have. Itâs just the way the world works.
Prices changes with the years, so Iâm not surprised that the deals may feel less worth it than the deals that were give in the past.
People have to make ends me with the struggling economy nowadays anyway.
It honestly feels like there isnât a person in charge at SEMC who thinks âWill this make the player happy?â before putting things in the game. I no longer feel like a member of a community playing this game. I feel like we are treated as âusersâ conditioned to buy microtransations now instead of âplayersâ.
If they donât care for playerâs âhapinessâ, we wouldnât have had Opals coming into existence in the place.
Being part of a community to me means having an open mind and engaging with all aspects of it, be it toxic, good, bad or downright weird.
If the commenter feels like a user conditioned to buy microtransactions⌠well, that user fell for the business tricks.
SEMCâs monetization is sketchy, yes; but there are way worse things out there.
Break in Section, Not A Quote
Now, things I have in mind that were not stated.
I donât think a game would ever die if the community is there to support it even if the server are closed. I know a few game communities that still thrive even when their game is long gone from public access and use. Some even took the reigns into their own hands and make the game their own work, with support from the community in general.
Vainglory I think is on a decline with its interaction with the community in general, slowly trying to distance themselves from the community that is slowly but surely turning against them.
Queue and player base wise, I canât say they are on a decline. My matches regardless of quality have been fine throughout this year.
The one thing I can definitively say is dying is the retention of expansive lore and world building. SugarVenom has her job reduced to mainly just the voice manager, and she still slips in bits of lore like stuff into the voice lines. I would be lying if I say I donât want the lore back, but I think it is the best that it is on hiatus until someone can revamp the lore.
SugarVenom to me doesnât seem healthy, given her condition; and I was worried for her at one point a month or two ago when I see almost daily postings of her drinking alcoholic drinks on her Twitter. That has been reduced somewhat at least.
E-sport of Vainglory in my opinion is the one that truly âdied.â Itâs on hiatus for now and awaiting proper resucitation to ensure that they get it right this time and not waste money as well as screw relationships with e-sports people.
- Vaingloryâs Face for the Community and the Game.
I think Vainglory lacks a person that they can associate with.
Nivmett I think was the closest I think that can be considered as the face of SEMC for the community. He did well during his time with the company I think, placating the community somewhat decently and overall appearing like the nice guy.
PlayOffBeard, while nice, I think was off-putting. I consider him to be lacking in likeability and not someone who seem approachable. This is the impression I have from watching streams, so donât take it as one you would experience in real life. Iâm sure heâs a nice guy too in real life.
Now, we donât have any and I think it is best SEMC not to push someone into the spot that Nivmett has vacated.
Zekent isnât the best and ShinKaigan is needed elsewhere. Plus, they are kind of hard to listen to because their English isnât as succint on stream in my opinion.
The next bit is a âface for gameâ which Iâm sure some of you have been wandering what Iâm talking about.
Well, you know Vaingloryâs app icon is the âStorm Queenâ, no? Now, ask that to a random new player who doesnât read the lore or has seen the Storm Queen when she was the one on display.
I think SEMC needs to design a waifu or male waifu (I donât know the equivalent term, sorry) hero to be the face of Vaingloryâs app.
That hero has to be likeable and has a design thatâs likeable and not overcomplex or simple.
Only then would VGâs app icon truly be fitting for whatâs found in game.
Have your ever saw VGâs icon and wonder âWow, this looks cool. I want to play her in-game!â, only to be dissapointed soon after?
- Community Created Stories (Short and Long), Explicit, Humorous and Animated Content.
I know there are a lot of beutiful and amazing âartworksâ for VG made by its community. Iâm fine with that.
But I feel that in order for VG to be ingrained, there must be some more of the other stuff mixed in there.
Iâve seen a few, but they are all relegated to forums and not on sites such as FanFiction and Archive of Our Own sites as well as YouTube and other NSFW sites.
Being too pure isnât really good in the long run in my opinion. You gotta have the toxicity flourish in making funny and explicit stuff that can grab the attention of some of our more mature players.
I would stop here because Iâm sure you know what Iâm talking about already.
I think they should make heroes that are generically used in other MOBAs too. Sure, we kind of have some, but I simply think it is best if we have more so that it can attract more players that like that kind of generic design.
My own desire is for an awesome werewolf hero. Maybe a jungler or assassin since heroes in these classes are not really to my liking currently.
End Text Wall of Opinions.
Hope you all enjoyed that!
I canât even tell if itâs optimism or white knight stupidity, itâs THAT much of an echo chamber