Talk:Battlerite

Latest comment: 5 years ago by Hellknowz in topic Cannot be considered a MOBA.

Cannot be considered a MOBA. edit

Needs creeps, towers, barracks or other such means of indirect factors affecting victory conditions to be considered a MOBA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erquint (talkcontribs) 17:03, 14 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Please refer to what reliable sources say about the game. If they call it MOBA, then we will report it as MOBA, regardless if we think it's accurate. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 22:27, 14 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Alright then, be it your way — I'll have you reliable sources. You can stop reading here but I will allow myself a bit of a rant now.

This falls under common sense. One isn't required to prove the evident.
Games of the same mechanics have been present long ago before the emergence of the term "MOBA".
Is Smash Bros now a MOBA too because there are unique characters with abilities? Or is Awesomenauts now not a MOBA, because it's not top down?

There's a clear trend between the games that are truly MOBA — nobody questions them being a MOBA.
As experience proves, if there are any doubts — it's not a MOBA. I am your doubt, aside from countless doubts all over Internet.

And from my own personal, and, granted, subjective, observations, nobody doubts a game being a MOBA when there are clear dynamic elements present external of direct PvP confrontation, representing current power-balance by proxy which the players can have an effect on, by pushing, or gain personal benefit from, perhaps by way of farming, which ultimately decides the outcome of a match separate from direct inter-player interactions.
Here's a very traditional example: in most MOBAs a match can't end until the creeps have breached a base and thus made it vulnerable, completely regardless of how many PvP kills have been scored in a given match, but as a result of symmetry, the creeps can only achieve this due to players affecting them)

You can't be defending it being a MOBA when the official website makes a point of not calling it that:
Screenshot of the official website.

I'm editing it again and you can have a reliable source this time.

P.S. Calling Kotaku "reliable" figuratively hurt my brain really hard. I suggest doing a bit of a research on their integrity online.
Who even considers Kotaku a reliable source? In fact, its "Controversy" and "Criticism" sections are woefully outdated and need populating...
Erquint (talk) 13:42, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Kotaku is a reliable source as per editor consensus at Video game source review. Official website, Steam store page or any like that are primary sources and not acceptable for anything but most straight-forward facts. But if there are any discrepancies, then we will use what secondary sources say. You absolutely cannot use wording like "controversy", "dubious claims" or "not to be confused with community tags" without reliably sourcing this. And "reliable" means what Wikipedia considers reliable. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 17:01, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
I would like to humbly present my unbaised opinion to prevent this from turning into a small edit war. I believe the main issue of whether Battlerite is a MOBA stems from the vagueness of the term itself. Battlerite certainly is a "Multiplayer" "Battle Arena" game that is played "Online." Lets take a look at the article for MOBA. "...in which a player controls a single character in a team who compete versus another team of players." Sounds fine so far. "The objective is to destroy the opposing team's main structure with the assistance of periodically spawned computer-controlled units that march forward along set paths." Certainly not, as Erquint correctly pointed out. "MOBA games are a fusion of action games, role-playing games and real-time strategy games, in which players usually do not construct either buildings or units." Sure, I think all of this is fair. So we can see it mostly agrees with the definition, but it is lacking the units and structures. Does this mean it is not a MOBA? If so that might be a problem because "MOBA" is one of the most popular user-defined tags for this game on Steam! I agree with Hellknowz's compromise: this game should be called MOBA-esque or based on MOBA elements. PC Gamer calls this game "MOBA-esque". Finally, if you disagree with the "reliable" status of Kotaku then I would recommend you start a new discussion in the link above; that sort of discussion is not really appropriate in any one article, it needs to be decided on its own. Derek M (talk) 19:09, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

See, now Hellknowz is just being stubborn for the sake of it, going as far as even leaving the page in an inconsistent badly-formatted state in defense. MobyGames — a mainstay of Wikipedia's own Video Games WikiProject with its own template appearing on most videogames articles — states "Genre: Action" but Hellknowz apparently knows better than the most complete catalog specialized on video games on the entirety of Internet.

How do you not consider the basic genre of the game being a "straight-forward fact". It is basic catalogable data such as name, date of release, platforms and other such set by the developer. If some outlet calls this game "Fightright" — will you also change the title "because they said so"?
The developers designed and set the genre of the game to be what it is and you deny them their right of designating their own game!?
Straight-forward fact here is: this game was not developed, released or advertised as a MOBA and you'll have trouble finding any people that could intelligently argue it ending up as one.

Is it not a purpose of Wikipedia articles, in particular, to warn of common misconceptions?
Battlerite is as much of a MOBA as Quake Champions is. Have you even played a MOBA in your life? Are you trying to muddy the waters for the rest of us?
You are leeching off of the fact that this game has received a limited media coverage, among which, only Kotaku talks about it being a MOBA in the headline.

I made an edit that gives credit to this myth as a compromise and you ripped it out, because..?
If are going to deny there being such a controversy, I can flood you with a torrent of links disproving you.

Your only point (other than the quickly disproven "personal opinion" cop out) can be summed up by "if somebody famous said it — it must be true" and that is quite honestly, ridiculous. False factoids do not deserve the main stage on Wikipedia even when they are from supposedly "reliable" sources. No matter how reliable it is — there is a human factor and a mistake can be made by any outlet. My self-appointed job as a Wikipedia community editor is to weed out such mistaken information from the articles. "Because they said so" is not a sufficient reason to mislead visitors. I myself was mislead by this page at one point.
This is ultimately not about you, it's about misleading visitors into believing this game is what it isn't and was never advertised to be by either the developer or the platform it was published on. But your stubbornness is what may influence their buying decision. Thus I am interested what are you trying to accomplish?

Many outlets have described the game as "the teamfight part of a MOBA game" which to me strongly implies it not containing the full set of characteristics of a MOBA game, only the "teamfight part" which in itself does not constitute a MOBA.

I don't get what's so hard to get about telling visitors the truth. I know this is a lie because nobody would doubt a MOBA, Derek M knows this is a lie because it doesn't line up with the definition of a MOBA even of this here Wikipedia itself, others out there know this is a lie as evident by the controversy, the developers know this is a lie since that is not what they designed or ever advertised and, most importantly, you know this is a lie by this point. Why perpetuate a lie? Please, explain your basis for insisting on doing so. Is it just plain bureaucracy?
Is bureaucracy above the truth? I don't think so!

P.S.
"You absolutely cannot use wording like […] "not to be confused with community tags""
Did I read that right? You just forbid me from making a disambiguation?! You outlaw clarity now?! This has got to be some kind of joke!
Or are you not aware that genres have been present on Steam product pages since conception and community tags have only been introduced recently separate from genres? On a sidenote, have you not heard of community tags often being abused and misleading as a result of lack of curation?
Erquint (talk) 22:28, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Please read Wikipedia's core policies first, primarily verifiability and no original research, which clearly explain why you cannot make the kind of statements that you wrote in the article. We report only what independent reliable secondary sources say, not what the developer claims or what anyone believes or concludes to be true. If you disagree further, you can take it to the project's talk page and invite other experienced editors. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 23:27, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
You absolutely have to familiarize yourself with this important caveat to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Have you no moral standards?
I have presented you with more than enough arguments pleading to common sense and you are acting in a destructive way so blindly bureaucratic — it harms Wikipedia as a reliable source of information of its own.
I have to admit, this is high up in the top of the most egregious occasions I've been disgusted by bureaucracy online.
I will never accept objectively false information being the only presented on a page without even a warning of misleading regardless of whether the lies have sources.
I repeat: you exploit the lack of discussion on this topic in the "sweet zone" of sources, since you dismiss primary sources, community consensus, Wikipedia's own definitions as well as common sense.
Erquint (talk) 07:19, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
I've never heard of this game but I just looked up some gameplay videos. It looks and plays like a MOBA to me. If it's the lack of creeps that's hanging you up, lots of MOBAs have arena deathmatch modes these days. Does that make them no longer MOBAs? Axem Titanium (talk) 07:38, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Secondary modes do not represent the genre of the core gameplay. You can play all sorts of Tower Defense, Hack and Slash and RTS "modes" in Dota2, for example, there are probably hundreds of them already in Dota2 alone. Both custom and official events.
Has nothing to do with the core game.
If there were modes of different genres in Battlerite — I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of listing several.
To illustrate with a cleaner example: Fortnite has exactly two modes of completely different genres. They even have separate pages on Wikipedia
Furthermore, "looks like" might not be a sufficient argument depending on whether you base it on looks or mechanics.
In fact, this is precisely the root of this whole controversy — we can't just label anything vaguely resembling a MOBA in looks or a couple of mechanics as such.
Otherwise I would be on an editing spree, retroactively changing genres of hundreds of such "looks like a MOBA" games to "MOBA".
That wouldn't be wise.
Even such trite game as For Honor is closer to being a MOBA than Battlerite.
P.S.
No, it's not just "creeps" it's the general lack of any direction: there is nothing to destroy or defend, nowhere to go, hide or farm, there are zero options other than just simply fighting. Player characters are just dropped in a tiny arena and for a victory condition you have a dumb scoreboard which puts it at the same level of complexity as CS dang it GO.
MOBA games are absolutely about picking your fights — that's the first thing you learn to "stop feeding", they're about getting the hell away as soon as any danger comes your way. And even in a teamfight: it is important to disengage properly when things aren't going your way.
There are no such options in Battlerite! And it doesn't need such an option, because it's not a MOBA. It's a fun brawler, almost a party game where you just dive carelessly(compared to a MOBA) into a fight without much consequences, while MOBAs are all about those consequences.
Erquint (talk) 08:12, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
[1]: "free-to-play MOBA" -IGN
[2]: "I was pleasantly surprised by Battlerite in this crowded sea of arena/MOBA games" - Destructoid
[3] "Steam is obsessed with this MOBA" - Polygon
[4] "Battlerite is a True MOBA" - Kotaku
[5] "Battlerite is bite-sized MOBA mayhem" - PC Gamer
Plenty of reliable sources call it a MOBA, so we do too. Can you share reliable sources that argue it is not a MOBA? If not, we are done here. TarkusABtalk 09:41, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
My opinion in short: Agree with TarkusAB. My additional thoughts: This article is a stub, and there's much more useful things that could be done than arguing about the genre, such as writing a gameplay section (if you're so concerned with whether the genre label fits), development, and reception. -- ferret (talk) 12:50, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply


Plenty or one, you're still gonna argue against factual correctness and common sense in favor of blindly citing any available sources...
But if we look at it, of all presented news articles, only Kotaku makes a big point of arguing it being a MOBA, IGN only makes one small remark on that topic and the rest use the term in passing as a throwaway placeholder.
What now? Point me to a policy that states complete irrelevancy of context. "Haha, you're a real journalist now..!"
If so, let me present a counter-argument here: this reliable source uses the word "MOBA" describing the game "For Honor".
Are you about to suggest I ignore context and common sense and go edit the For Honor page and add MOBA to it or even get rid of all the rest genre tags in favor of this one, just as is the case with this Battlerite page?
Alright, I got it, as it have been pointed out and demonstrated enough times to me, objective facts don't matter to majority of currently active editors nor does reason. You're just gonna overpower me with numbers, ignore any Wikipedia guidelines that don't support your personal or collective desires or interpret them in your favor, getting away with it due to your authority, pretend Wikipedia was always intended to be a rigid one-sided purposeless book of citations instead of an encyclopedia (gee-whiz, sounds suspiciously like mere Wikiquote to me).
Keep misleading.
Keep prompting regretful purchasing decisions.
Keep disrespecting authorial intent of those whose titanic work you merely describe. "Who would ever guess that making games is hard..?"
Keep ruining it for everybody.
Nothing I can do to save this catastrophe of bureaucracy gone wrong. I wash my hands.
Erquint (talk) 16:55, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Really? Using a single genre that you personally don't agree with is "ruining it for everyone"? Please, tone down the melodrama. No one will take you seriously with this sort of hyperbole. Sergecross73 msg me 18:35, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Agree with Tarkus. If reliable sources (especially multiple) call it a MOBA, call it a MOBA. If sources (especially multiple) call it another genre, mention that too. If sources call it "not a MOBA", maybe even include that somewhere. But there's no valid reason for outright removal. Sergecross73 msg me 18:35, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply


@Landingdude13: Why we can't mention that developer categorize the game as "team arena brawler"? (here) I made this change into the article but it got reverted because of "Primary sources are not suitable when multiple secondary offer better description" - I understand and agree that main genre for Battlerite is MOBA but "team arena brawler" is a good short description for the game and we should include it too. QueenToF7 (talk) 17:21, 22 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

We don't decide what description is or isn't good. Wikipedia's content is based on aggregating reliable sources. Majority of sources call it a "MOBA" and not a "team arena brawler". Developer's own description is not a reliable source, because they--by definition--are not independent of the subject. They could call it a "MOBA" or a "visual novel", but we would still use reliable sources. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 19:21, 22 April 2019 (UTC)Reply