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What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

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Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#61

Post by bsder »

dleslie wrote: post #3

IMHO, the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butter. And still, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Planetary Annihilation et al were not so long ago. And OpenRA itself has been somewhat of a success. BTW, C&C has a Red Alert reboot coming out before too long. It will be classic in design.

> IMHO, the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports

I would argue that they bifurcated into "optimized for esports" and "optimized for whale revenue".

I have played quite a few RTS-like games on mobile which were cool and neat and it was fun to optimize for not spending money. Of course, when whales get beat by players with skill, the whales get angry. So, the games optimize out skill except at the pro levels--which very quickly makes for a really crappy game experience for the rank and file.

> And still, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Planetary Annihilation et al were not so long ago.

Planetary Annihilation is an abomination that does not belong in that list. And PA is a prime example of trying to optimize for e-sports and forgetting that you need a decent game at the core.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#62

Post by nitwit005 »

dleslie wrote: post #3

IMHO, the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butter. And still, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Planetary Annihilation et al were not so long ago. And OpenRA itself has been somewhat of a success. BTW, C&C has a Red Alert reboot coming out before too long. It will be classic in design.

You seen to either get games where the multiplayer scene is non-existent, or hyper competitive like SC2, where you feel a bit brutalized.

One reason I think I was drawn to the warcraft/starcraft custom games when I was younger was that it just seemed too much effort (and kind of tedious) to get "good" at the main game. Goofing about with strange maps seemed more attractive.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#63

Post by bsder »

defertoreptar wrote: post #24
dleslie wrote: post #3

IMHO, the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butter. And still, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Planetary Annihilation et al were not so long ago. And OpenRA itself has been somewhat of a success. BTW, C&C has a Red Alert reboot coming out before too long. It will be classic in design.

> the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butter. Out of curiosity, in what ways in particular did they do this?

Everything in SC2 is about the RUSH. Turtlers are not welcome.

I put SC2 down and never picked it back up after playing the third timed mission in a row.

Supreme Commander dealt with this by having genuinely large maps and resource flow rather than a fixed amount of resources. If you tried to "rush" someone or go after their resources, you generally ran into units a level higher and got annhilated.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#64

Post by rangibaby »

diydsp wrote: post #54
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked TA much more than RA. The strategy felt deeper, plus I liked the idea of the Commander unit representing you on the battle field. Sending him into battle was a risky move. The D-Gun made him extremely powerful, but if he died, you lose. The nukes in RA were also just plain pitiful and not really worth the time to build.

we used to play TA at lunch...but cut it off abruptly after an hour.. . so we'd spend 55 minutes building up epic armies then send them to apocalypse for the last 5 minutes :) I tried to fire up my TA disk in a Win7 machine a few years ago, but the graphics came out all wrong :( any suggestions for reviving it?

Try this patch: https://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43735

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#65

Post by 314 »

dchuk wrote: post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

Take a look at They Are Billions. It’s a mixture of city-building, RTS and tower defense. Very good fun.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#66

Post by AndyMcConachie »

eihli wrote: post #43
pmoriarty wrote: post #40

The last RTS I really enjoyed was Total Annihilation, but recently I gave Factorio a try and got pretty addicted. Great game.

Have you tried Supreme Commander? It's the spiritual successor to TA and is amazing. There's a community lobby, Forged Alliance Forever, that has a solid number of active players.

I've never actually played Supreme Commander Forged Alliance or any of the Supreme Commander titles. But I love watching gameplay of it.

Gyle's channel on Youtube has some of the best replays around if you're like me and just like watching competitive RTS gaming.

https://www.youtube.com/user/felixlighta

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#67

Post by sshagent »

_bxg1 wrote: post #12
dchuk wrote: post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

Bloons, despite the goofy aesthetic, is probably the most balanced and polished tower-defense game I've ever played, and mobile/tablet is its primary platform

i came here to say this. More along the lines of kingdom rush, but an excellent game. For me personally i spent ages trying to research a mobile game i could just buy and play and not be harassed for micropayments. Bloons is where i ended up. Yes, of course you can show them with extra monies but it really isn't needed at all. Excellent fun game, where you can see your progress over playing it.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#68

Post by dnautics »

chanon wrote: post #60
brunoTbear wrote: post #51

The fact that Homeworld wasn't mentioned until the last paragraph was a major case of "they had us in the first half not gonna lie" for me. Cannot wait for the sequel. I spent so many hours playing HW1. Great balance of macro and micro strategy.

Loved Homeworld too. There really was nothing like it when it came out.

there isn't anything quite like it still. There's something about it being 2.75D that makes it approachable even though it's 3-D, and the attention to the art was a big deal, too.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#69

Post by b0rsuk »

I think it boils down to four things:

- RTS games, since the first C&C, used an interface for selecting rectangles and pointing them at a single target. It scales extremely poorly. Innovations in this area have failed to catch on. Keyboard used for shortcuts only. Come on, we can do better than that. We have Vim. Action, range(movement key). Alternatively, the Kakoune way: selection first, action second. Either way games lack a fast way to select only certain types of units, and especially - to point them at targets of certain types. Harvest: Massive Encounter is a low budget tower defense games which allows you to set targetting priorities for each type of your tower, but RTS games need much, much more systems like that.

Meanwhile Starcraft has been busy embracing and glorifying primitive user interfaces. It has its caveman charm, but - by design - it scales only by clicking faster.

- RTS games were popular at a time when computers were predominantly used by nerds. RTS games appeal mostly to people willing to get better at a game. Publishers discovered less demanding games sell better.

- RTS games are highly demanding to make from technical point of view. You get all the joys of pathfinding at large scale. Optimizations are very important.

- RTS games are not that immersive. This is true for all "topdown" perspective games.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#70

Post by Kiro »

eihli wrote: post #43
pmoriarty wrote: post #40

The last RTS I really enjoyed was Total Annihilation, but recently I gave Factorio a try and got pretty addicted. Great game.

Have you tried Supreme Commander? It's the spiritual successor to TA and is amazing. There's a community lobby, Forged Alliance Forever, that has a solid number of active players.

Should I play 1 or 2?
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