I started playing this game with a bunch of people I became close to, and within the past few months, most of them stopped playing the game but still remain in the community. Specific parts of the Vainglory community aren’t that bad, and there are some really neat people here.
It’s true that lots of people just love to complain to SEMC about everything, and I agree that they don’t deserve all of it, though I believe they need to put more effort into their game. There are a ton of major bugs (which I can’t name all from the top of my head) such as the early access chest bug, which could’ve been easily fixed if they checked over their coding, but they didn’t. Most other games would’ve gave compromises for their mistakes, but we only received an apology. Perhaps all the controversy that started then would have toned down if so.
I remember seeing an unnecessary post about how SEMC should’ve worked on their game instead of making an April Fool’s joke. I disagree completely and actually thought they should’ve worked harder on their joke. Compared to other games that got hidden Easter eggs, I thought the hero spotlight wasn’t that interesting as it never did anything inside the game. I really liked the Halloween map two years ago, where there were lots of small yet interesting details such as the gravestones. I even posted a thread on the old forums where I found a handprint on a tent. I believe if SEMC was more creative, people would have been more interested in playing.
I myself haven’t been able to enjoy this game as I have before. An example would be patch 1.24 where I played Flicker continuously since I loved how he didn’t need an ability to become stealthed, and I could steal enemy farm easily. Patch 1.9 got me very excited for Petal’s rework, and it was when I got my first handcrafted skin (T1 Petal), and it actually got me into the game again after I quit. Maybe it’s just because I love animals, but there needs to be more heroes not only for balancing the meta, increase hero roster for ranked 5v5, but to have something new so people can experience and enjoy them. I expected two heroes to be released in patch 3.0 as it was when 5v5 was going to be released and there needed to be more heroes, but alas, there were none. They also promoted false hype for patch 2.0. Rarely anything changed apart from the app icon, jungle, and a few new items yet apparently it was considered to be “2.0” which got me really confused. I thought there was something else that wasn’t in the patch notes, and of course, there wasn’t.
I try out other mobile MOBAs for a fresh experience. After a while, things would get boring which is why I believe lots of people leave our game. “Wow, there’s an Elder treant now… I should really play some 3v3 to test that out!” I really doubt that someone would think that and then still be excited the next day. There are games I’ve tried out and liked such as AoV and Paladins Strike (when it was in beta). I really liked how I could try out the heroes, some drastically different than ones in Vainglory. I liked trying to find the best places to set up an ambush and what hero suited me the best. It was as if I was a new player again and I enjoyed that experience. If the effect remains in our game by adding new and interesting things each patch, I think I would enjoy Vainglory more.
I know everyone thinks Blitz is a bad gamemode as it has talents and whatnot, but I enjoy it a lot because it’s usually fast-paced and is just a quick game in your day. I play it a lot actually, and I think the matchmaker and rank is just plain dumb. I’ve been stuck around 2000 to 2100 for the longest time, and it creates more frustration than joy. We can no longer see the Blitz rank of other players and although this may reduce toxicity since you couldn’t tell if someone’s rank is lower than yours, I also think that there wouldn’t be any toxicity anyways if the matchmaker paired you up with players with similar skill to yourself which doesn’t look like it to me right now. I can’t really speak about ranked 5v5 draft chat as I’ve only played twice and it was in a full party who were just joking around.
I think toxicity in this game is actually better than some other games with in game chat such as AoV. There have been instances where I made someone AFK because I told him to not rush into the frontline as a squishy mage. In Vainglory, the only thing that’s really common when someone is trolling is pinging which I sinply press the mute button to stop, or just farming jungle and never participate in any teamfights to avoid getting killed, allowing teammates extra gold, and getting a warning for AFKing. They would be fine and just troll the next game, or just instalock SAWport. The enemies would just thumb him up since they won and never pay attention to how he trolled the entire game.
Vainglory is a good game, and can become a great game if more work was put into it. I’m thankful to it as I’ve made so many wonderful friends from its community, although it’s sad that barely any of them still play. It was fun spamming pings at each other or creating art with scout traps in practice mode. I especially loved playing minigames such as sniper wars or foxhunt. I just wish that this game can be returned to its glory!
Sorry for the long post, and no tldr.
