Competitive or Casual: Outro

 

Crucible is shutting down. Some guessed this would happen from the start and some hoped it wouldn’t; but most aren’t surprised. I’ve been concerned for a while now about the direction the game was headed. Though the delineation between “competitive and casual” isn’t perfect I see it as a way to make sense of what’s gone down. Little, and big, decisions were driven by these two ideas but when they were at odds with one another appealing to new players and retaining them took precedence. This isn’t surprising considering more players playing more often would ideally lead to more profit. But it backfired. 

The other issue was that they often shot themselves in the foot when it came to foresight. A long line of little missteps added up and it’s easy to look back and point these out. They developed a great game but it felt like there was a lack of online gaming sense. Let’s start at the beginning. 

Communication: The backlash started with the lack of in-game coms. No voice chat, no text chat, and a minimal ping system shocked players on release. It wasn’t that people couldn’t figure out the game or how to work together it was the fact that these features are standard in online games. How did they not see this coming, especially as a MOBA style game where teamplay is crucial? They put their efforts into adding voice chat though competitive players were already using Discord if they really felt the need. 

Objectives: Originally there were all sorts of cool objectives. Essence eruption and “the football” were my favorite. Stomper herds and stomper “hordes” used to spawn randomly around the map which was a decent way to farm essence and get back in the game. They completely dropped these at some point which forced everyone to brawl over harvesters usually when one team already had an XP advantage. With the last patch they put one objective in the middle of the map. This took away from the play/counterplay of capturing one or the other objective and if it was a damage, regen, or upgrade amp you were kinda screwed. Luckily they reintroduced stompers (and dropped early kill XP) but they were now in fixed locations. Having unchanging respawn points, objectives, and only one hive up at a time did make it easier to figure out what was going on but, to me, it took away from the “chaos and unpredictability” Crucible promised.

 User Interface: UI went from too little, to too much, to just right. At “too much” there were icons everywhere. They were intended to make all the information accessible but it muddied the waters maybe even making it more confusing. The mini-map was a point of contention for the same reason coms were; again, a lack of foresight that players would expect it. They got that working but it seemed like a minor detail when you could already pull up a big map by pressing one button quickly. Of course it helped competitive players but it mostly seemed like it catered to the critics.

Matchmaking: Whatever algorithm they were using for matchmaking was at worst useless and at best frustrating. It seemed like account level was never factored in. Four 200 account level players would get matched against four 50 account level players repeatedly. What was annoying was that it looked like teams could be evened out by putting some of the veterans with the brand-new players. It’s wasn’t fun being the “stomper,” dare I say, nor is it fun to be on the other end. This was the nail in the coffin for competitors and casuals alike. Smurfs started to pop up which put more kinks in the system. Real smurfs, like, people would give up or not even play against them if they knew it was them (you know who you are 😉). At the same time there was as much anonymity in clicking “hide player name” as there was in creating second accounts, being such a small community.

 The “Feel” of the Game: Bugs are to be expected while games are being developed but successful games feel fun to play despite the bugs. Crucible was close here, and got better over time, but abilities remained clunky and hit registration seemed off even with my “great” aim. Getting slowed felt like an interrupt as you’d stuttered more than transitioned to being slower. In the words of Billy Madison the game needed some “conditioner” to make it “silky smooth.” Cool skins and cosmetics are great but if the game doesn’t have a good foundation voicelines won’t keep someone around. Marketing won’t work either. I’m a proponent of the idea that if you have something great it will sell itself but no amount of advertisement can sell a product that falls short when you try it. Crucible was attractive from the outside but felt funky once you were in it.

 Other Mentionables: The answer to the AFK problem was the introduction of the surrender system. They didn’t take into account though that people would die in the first fight and not know the game well enough to see the comeback potential. Sometimes it was needed when the game snowballed but you could literally surrender two minutes into the game. They changed it to something like seven minutes (or earlier if you had an AFK, which was really helpful) but I just don’t get how they didn’t see that problem coming. Fixed drop-ins with healing spawn bubbles set up camping and the strategy of hiding and healing. It’s easy to say there’s a million other ways they could have done it but it didn’t even seem like they took abuse of these mechanics into consideration. They just wanted to make it easier to know where you were going.

Have I been scathing? Yes. Have I expressed unpopular opinions? Sure. Have I captured the whole story? Absolutely not. The lens of “competitive or casual” and “foresight” is my take on Crucible. It’s how I’ve tried to make sense of losing a game that I truly enjoy.