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The Future of RTS

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Re: The Future of RTS

#101

Post by nindalf »

jiggawatts wrote: post #53
pmoriarty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would be really interested in playing an RTS that focused much less heavily on variety of combat, and much more heavily on variety of logistics." You've basically just described Factorio , which is all about logistics. I strongly encourage you to give it a try, not only because of this, but because it is one of the greatest games ever made -- especially when played with mods, which make it 100 times better than th…

What mods do you recommend for Factorio?

If you want Steam achievements, don’t play with any mods. I played with just one - bottleneck. It adds a tiny icon on each building to show you if it’s bottlenecked or not.

Re: The Future of RTS

#102

Post by qznc »

noxvilleza wrote: post #11

Whilst I certainly have huge respect for HuK, I feel that either his use of the categories in the article as perhaps a bit simplistic. Many of the points he mentions are really intertwined - most importantly balance vs variety: it's very hard to score highly on both. SC2 has 3 very distinct races (he gives it a 8.8 for variety), hence there are just 6 possible matchups. AoE 2 (DE) has 35 (he gives it a 3), making ove…

In my opinion those matchup counts are a red hering in game design. It is nice for the theme and visuals but adds nothing to the core game loop. It is more extreme in fighting games like Street Fighter or MOBAs like League of Legends. It splits the meta-mini-game of race/character selection out of the main game. The downside is that it makes balancing nearly impossible.

As an alternative, a game could use positions for unit select. Kinda: Conquer the eastern flank to build Zerg units or conquer the western flank to build Protoss units.

Re: The Future of RTS

#103

Post by Laremere »

on_and_off wrote: post #20

my hot take on RTS : I like the genre (or rather used to like, the last one I loved was SupCom) but I wish somebody would make an RTS with no/minimal macro. Controlling the builder/peons units is a chore at best and I would love to see it streamlined a lot. For example just ask for a building to be built instead of finding/assigning builders to the task and micromanaging what they will do next. Dungeon Keeper comes t…

Consider trying http://www.toothandtailgame.com/

It's designed to be playable with a controller, and uses a player character who commands the army and builds buildings. (Units autoproduce to a limit per building.) It removes APM from the equation, and also adds a new resource as a result: Position and focus of your commander.

Re: The Future of RTS

#104

Post by qznc »

Iv wrote: post #64

I think RTS can evolve, but I don't think you can compete with SC2 in the style where it excels, after more than a decade of balance patches. You can make games with a different focus though. SC2 is a short (~10-20 minutes) 1 on 1 APMs contest. (APM=actions per minutes). APMs are more than fast clicking. No pro player managed to do everything they know they should do. It is about prioritization. Even I, a modest gold…

The article ignores the Total War style of RTS which is more relaxed. I'm not sure if we should consider them in the same genre as Starcraft though.

Re: The Future of RTS

#105

Post by missurunha »

DerSaidin wrote: post #90

AOE2 variety comes from many different map scripts with many different seeds, not so much from the civilizations/units/techs. The doc talks about map generations in the AOE2 space section, but given the rational for prioritizing diversity, I expect this the variety in map generation should lead to a higher variety score. I really enjoying watching the AOE2 tournament scene: https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/Portal:…

I find it rather funny the author rating Starcraft with good variety. The game made every unit ranged so they wouldn't need to bother balancing melee attacks. I understand he means that each faction has different units, but imagine how boring AoE2 would be if all units were archers.

Re: The Future of RTS

#106

Post by yoz-y »

Gunax wrote: post #56

There is one thing I've noticed about RTS: every player seems to think they are awful at the game. This seems to be the opposite of most games, where players tend to overestimate their skill. This actually keeps a lot of players from even trying online play. There is something different about RTS... I think in some way they aren't fun. They are really quite stressful to play in ways other games aren't.

RTS matches take comparatively longer with other online games. In a Vs fighting game the match is over under three minutes every time. In an RTS you might be there for 20-40 minutes and lose because of a single mistake. Except when playing on lower tiers and getting rushed and beaten in 5 over and over.

I played SC2 for a while, at rather modest level (got to gold). After a few years I tried getting back to it and couldn’t even get out of bronze as I found defending against constant rushes not fun.

Re: The Future of RTS

#107

Post by jiggawatts »

pmoriarty wrote: post #70
jiggawatts wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What mods do you recommend for Factorio?

I'd actually recommend you play your first full game modless (plain vanilla). That should give you a feel for what the vanilla game is like, and what you like and don't like about it, so you'll be in much better shape to make your own decisions as to which mods look interesting or useful to you. Then I'd experiment with mods to find out which one you like or not. Some of the most popular mods are probably not too bad…

I'm most definitely not a "first time player" with 566 hours sunk so far!

I did try Bob's and Angel's, but I found the formulas so nonsensical that it broke the "immersion" for me.

I think I'd be more interested in a mod that added something that fits the game world and just... extended it a little. E.g.: adding aluminium and titanium, not 50 new raw materials that inter-convert into each other in absurd ways -- loops even in some mods!

E.g.: One thing that feels "not fleshed out enough" in the vanilla game to me is the infrastructure related to nuclear power. The centrifuges have no use other than nuclear enrichment and related processes. The heat pipes can only be meaningfully used with nuclear reactors. Etc... Similarly, you never need to use circuit networks, the back-pressure from the belts alone is sufficient to achieve the desired throughput.

Re: The Future of RTS

#108

Post by Aerroon »

TwoBit wrote: post #88

It's sad to me that this author's only view of RTS is as an esport. If that's how it is then I'll be fine if there's never another RTS, and 95% of the public doesn't care about esports either.

The author is HuK, a former professional SC2 player.[0] It's understandable why he would focus on the esports aspect more, however, he does point out that RTS games need a way better social side. The game needs lots of players that just play it for fun to really support a strong competitive scene.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HuK

Re: The Future of RTS

#109

Post by universa1 »

lostmsu wrote: post #19
AussieWog93 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say the same thing. I played Settlers III as a kid and while it was an interesting gimmick it was honestly pretty cumbersome.

I got Settlers II HD Edition on GoG, and it made us a couple of good evenings.

And there's a new one in the making, hopefully sticking to the more classical settlers 2-4 mechanics and feel... And not the later iterations of the series...

There is also Foundation, by a smallish canadian studio (iirc), that kinda is a mix between settlers and sim city :-)

Re: The Future of RTS

#110

Post by Aeolun »

unixhero wrote: post #77
pmoriarty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would be really interested in playing an RTS that focused much less heavily on variety of combat, and much more heavily on variety of logistics." You've basically just described Factorio , which is all about logistics. I strongly encourage you to give it a try, not only because of this, but because it is one of the greatest games ever made -- especially when played with mods, which make it 100 times better than th…

This might seem silly, but even as a grown man, Factorio scares me. It seems line it could be a trigger to fall into a deep chasm of aspberger like focus for weeks.

Probably not weeks, but a week for certain.
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