I used to highlight this problem in this subreddit all the time but was always shouted down. Maybe now I can talk about it without people jumping down my throat.

Fact is EPIC repeatedly showed that they had no solid idea what they were trying to make.

Legacy: Paragon's first incarnation was when the vision was most clear. Obviously. They wanted to make a strategic resource extraction game. Games could run a long time. Huge map. Dunking orbs. And what I think was their most intelligent mechanic: travel mode.

And while there were loads of complaints about travel mode. I want to take a moment to highlight how smart and subtle a mechanic this was. Travel mode wasn't just a way to reduce the time it took to traverse the map. What travel mode did was add a unique element to fights. It raised the skill cap of the game and allowed skilled players to differentiate themselves easier. It forced you when initiating to think about when you started to fight. A bad player would run into range and immediately attack. Smarter players would know that being in range wasn't enough. You had to get physically on top of your opponent before you started to engage. This meant to escape, your enemy would have stop attacking, turn around and then start to run before they could start their travel mode escape. It rewarded patient and intelligent attackers.

On the defence. It rewarded players that could quickly judge when to fight and when to run. Game sense made you less killable. On top of that, knowing all an enemy's spells and how to juke them meant that you would gain travel mode during them attacking, giving you a headstart. Skill and knowledge were rewarded. Even the buffed version (no stun travel) permitted this. Travel mode in Legacy was a legitimately intelligent piece of design.

The important thing to note here is that Legacy was a true MOBA

However as time went on, the game became less and less MOBA-driven. The thing a common problem with western game design is the desire to make the player feel powerful. We're all guilty of this. We love to feel powerful. We want big spells. We want to wipe a team, solo. We want instant action. And in a drive to make Paragon more "popular", EPIC started to appeal to this desire. The map got smaller, last hitting became less important, towers got nerfed into oblivion and there was an openly admitted focus on reducing match time.

And that last point is important. It's a great example of tail-wagging-the-dog. EPIC weren't designing their game in a way that was fun or internally logical. They wanted to make their game fun. But instead of making it fun. They were making it short. Because people enjoy short games. They were not asking themselves if the game needed to be short. They weren't doing things because they needed to be done. They were just adding anything that was common in popular games. Their game wasn't driving development. Popular games (that had nothing to even do with their genre) were.

And this highlights the first contradiction. They were building a deathmatch designed game, on top of a slow strategic game. These 2 do not mesh. You can not make a game that appeals to people that want to play an RTS and who want to play CoD. These appeal to completely different desires. So long standing players started lamenting the things that had been taken away. And new players enjoyed the action but hated how much they work for a fight. If players don't belong in your game, you shouldn't court them.

And I want to be clear. I am not saying try to introduce people to new things. What I am saying is, do it in a way that doesn't compromise your design. Some people like CoD. Some people like Battlefield. That's fine. CoD can having bigger maps to pull battlefield players. But it shouldn't start using genuine projectiles for bullet calculations and bullet drop. And Battlefield can have smaller maps for more intense action. But it probably shouldn't be adding killstreaks. These designs are contradictory to each other.

So EPIC doubled down. They started more and more trying to make the game action oriented. And I want to be clear: There's nothing wrong with creating action. But you need to create it within the context of your game. V.42 was the death knell. EPIC went whole hog into making unreal tournament the MOBA.

To this day the changes to Muriel's and Sparrow's face represents the dumbest thing I have ever seen. And should have been a massive alarm to everyone. There was literally a conversation at EPIC that went along the lines of: "Hey our game needs to be more popular", "I know, let's give a robot blusher and the ethnic looking chick make-up"

And I don't want to be harsh. I really don't. I am a game dev myself and I know the criticism stings. But that was honestly pathetic. The idea that you need to make your characters more generically beautiful to be successful... That shit is honestly sad.

What this game needed was:

Ranked solo queue - so that people could play within their skill bracket. Have a balanced and enjoyable experience. Not against 4-5 stacks that would rofl-stomp you/

Tutorial mode - so EPIC could take sometime to decide and define what the gameplay experience should be. And then say to new players: "Hey, if you don't like this. Then this game probably isn't for you". But without that introduction being brutally punishing

Elaborate and fleshed-out lore - Yea I know Shinbi is a kpop star and I know where she's from. What I do not know is why I should give a shit beyond "hey she looks cool". Investment and context matters. Total War without Grand Campaign is fucking boring. I can have an epic battle but I don't really care. I care when I have to hold the forts of Denmark because otherwise my kingdom will collapse. I can have the exact same fight as from the battle simulator in Grand Campaign. But I will always care more in Grand Campaign because I have context. I am invested. And that may seem trivial, But I assure you it matters. DotA and LoL would have NEVER gotten off the ground were they not built upon the ashes of Warcraft. Warcraft gave people a reason to come to those initial mods in the first place. The quality of patches kept people there. And time made them into the franchises they are today. But none of the subsequent things happen without the context at the start.

Balancing - Not just patches. I mean consistent and design oriented balancing that pushes the game towards a singular direction. You can't start by saying "I want to be like DotA" and end by saying "I want to be like league". You can't start by building a gameplay loop about acquiring resources. Then build a player experience around character brawling. You can have these elements but you have to deliver them in such a way that they all push towards a single goal.

Decide on what you want to make and make it. Don't change your mind 3 times on the way through. Be open to discussion, listen to the community and player voices but always do it in such a way that it contributes to your vision. That way if you fail, you can hold your head up and say that you gave it your best shot. Instead of trying to make a horse via a committee and at the end realising that you've made a donkey.

Rant over.