he had an opinion of flavor and enjoyability over balance. the balance issues is what he gets flack for, but some of the most interesting mechanics and rune designs came out during his era, and honestly I can't think of a time I enjoyed playing pox more. pre-soe was good as well though, but that was a different game pretty much.
Sok was awesome too. I was thinking more about it, though, and I dont think Crups gets flack for balance. Acctually, he was very quick to buff/nerf things over the line. The heat he gets is due to powercreep and multi roles, and even then it has more to do with speedcreep than anything. But for me, that was also the time I enjoyed playing Pox more. Things just felt more "under control" back then.
well the game usually did achieve a balanced meta, since after he would release crazy broken things, he would then nerf them pretty quickly sometimes into the ground which people hated. "Here's the amazing new shiney mid term.....okay now that you've bought it I'm going to turn it into a turnip....see you next week for the brand new shiney!" he became known for that as well, still the things that got through the release then nerf cycle were quite interesting and dynamic. and yes he power creeped the hell out of things, but he did have bi-weekly shoebox buffes which would bring things back from the past, I didn't really mind. speed creep was annoying though but I believe that was because corpse wanted game to be over in 10-15 minutes, not 30-60 as it was in the soe era.
- Thankfully you posted this...so people can stop romanticizing this whole thing about corpse (hero or villain is wrong). Its just not reality. If sok was the point man we'd be saying the same stuff. Its the era (the state of the game in general) more then the person.
This was a good idea. However the level of power creep used made old runes obsolete faster so even with this policy, he basically only broke even. I'm not surprised he's a decent person (though I did see him do some things that were less than professional). I enjoyed some of the design work, but I do take issue with a lot of it as well -- especially because there was a fair amount of lazy design. I've also been pretty public about disliking "balance by counter", which seemed to happen more when he was designer. That may be a more personal philosophy conflict, but that's part of the reason for my annoyance. Once some more revamp updates go through, I think things will get better.
Everyone was all, "CorpsE sucks! BURN THE WITCH!" And then he was gone and then we got Soko and everyone was like, "HOORAY!" until they were "Soko sucks! BURN THE WI- Oh. He's leaving? Already?" And then everyone was like, "POX DEAD! Sky falling! RUNNNNN!" And then they were like, "HOORAY! DoG'z!" And now they're like, "WORST EVER, WARE CRUPZ?" Love you guys.
This. Exactly. I bet KTC could find some archived posts where Burnpyro and other rioters were demanding CorpsE's removal. Bleh. w/e Its what I have been saying all along though. This is the game now and we have to help them make it better or there won't be a Pox. Insulting the devs IS NOT a good direction. EDIT: For the record I didn't like CorpsE's plan. You HAD to purchase the newest expansion to compete or does no one remember this?
Yep, I am baffled people want CorpsE back. His powercreep madness was incredibly annoying and drove the game into the ground.
CorpsE really follow that "buy shinny the nerf" dynamic. I disliked that a lot. He did the Maljara revamp which was awesome too. I remember he proposing having rune expansion cycles before that... we *****ed a lot about it, and rightfully imho. Sok was great. He introduced new races, enhanced theme decks, balanced the game quite well. This new revamp is going to be awesome, I still think so. But it shouldn't take forever, we need to get it done and then focus on an expansion and all the other things pox is lacking.
Im baffled why people are saying Corpse Era was the most fun the game has been. Was it more fun than now? Sure! We're recovering from a huge revamp, so things take time. During that time we should show support and patience. New runes are coming, hold on a little longer. Sok Era was the most aware i think i ever was. The Cacutar crate, his involvement in the forums, his presence in the Rune Ideas Section, his transparency was refreshing. Sok was piggy backing off what Corpse did and saw the harm but didn't want to burn it all to the ground and start fresh. Im sure he was under some pressures from SOE as well as the community and he found a way to balance it to apease both sides. That only lasted awhile before the angry mob that is the Pox community scapegoated him. Alot of our problems were from Corpse Era that Sok didn't nuke and was passively trying to curb. Others were from SOE and their hold on the game. To take on the enormous endeavor of revamping all the runes is daunting and admirable. Its what we've been asking for. Yet because it isn't being done in the way we expected we're getting uneasy. WE ARENT EVEN DONE! Non Champ runes are still being looked at and we're trying to balance everything and let them settle in. Instead of sweeping nerfs, buffs, every week that may have to be retro'd once other things are nerfed/buffed. There are alot of QoL things we want that are being put on the back burner because the revamp takes so much effort and time. Along with relaunching for steam that we're all skeptical and wary about. As we should with the success of the last. Thats why we feel the QoL things are more important because we feel it will retain more players. Have faith. Let them work. Lets see where we end up. Sure some of us think we have better idea's or a better vision on the future for the game. But guess what. None of us are taking any risk. Its easy to sit here and give advice and criticize when none of your money, time, effort is being spent. We don't have to balance all that when we are making demands and bias observations. Sure it'll be sad if the game suffers due to the direction its going in. Im sure alot of people will "I told ya so, you shoulda done X, its all because of..." But at the end of the day, its their game to lose should they fail. Unless you're a developer/engineer wishing to volunteer your services or an angel investor, you need to be patient and constructive. Back to Corpse Era being the most fun... i disagree. It was cool, i'll give you that. Everything was coming out so fast and the runes had a dozen abilities each. The runes were cool and i enjoyed playing them. However the state of the game was in chaos and games were very one sided and powercreep was awful. I enjoyed my runes more, hate the game more. To me the most fun the game has been was pre SoE and pre limitations on Champion upgrades. Octopi did it best. Which is why i still have hope and am being patient. Give it till Ronin guys!
More an indictment of the whole rather than an individual. It's just funny how peeps be. I know I wasn't the biggest crupz fanny but I've come to realize there were a lot of great things about Pox during his tenure as lead dev. It wasn't a perfect game, but it was really fun, and dependable in its own powercreepy way. Everything is messy right now because there's no stability yet and hasn't been for a long time. We barely adjusted to Soko as lead dev, much less got a complete transition, before he was gone. I say reevaluate if Pox sucks or not in, like, 6 months.
