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The Future of RTS

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Re: The Future of RTS

#141

Post by Tade0 »

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.

I haven't bought it yet for this exact reason.

Re: The Future of RTS

#142

Post by Macha »

DerSaidin wrote: post #93
_ofdw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>AoE 2 (DE) has 35 (he gives it a 3), making over 600 possible 1v1 matchups. The 3 species in Starcraft are quite distinct in many key areas, whereas in Age of Kings and AOE3 (the only ones I've played) the differences between the factions were limited to a handful of units and buildings, but ultimately they all played pretty much the same.

> ultimately they all played pretty much the same High level tournaments include civilization drafting before a best of N series of games. Occasionally, one player/team ends up with a civilization match up which gives them a clear advantage (because they successfully predicted their opponent's civilization pick - it the opponent had picked something else the advantage might swing the other way). Occasionally games ar…

So the civs are both not as distinct as sc2 races but also less balanced. Seems justified to me to rate it lower for how well the game adds and handles variety. I say this as someone for whom aoe2 was one of the major games of my childhood and only got into sc2 in college

Re: The Future of RTS

#143

Post by Iolaum »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #83
6510 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate the intentional crap UI to make actions more challenging. (sc2) Soldiers and creatures running into their death because they didn't get an attack command. Creating control groups and adding units manually. Producing units manually in as weird as possible ways. Those things just draw attention away from engagements of which you will simply have fewer at a time and they are won by catching the opponent wh…

> Soldiers and creatures running into their death because they didn't get an attack command. I wouldn't say that's there to make the controls more challenging. You should default to doing an attack move instead of a non-attack move. > Creating control groups and adding units manually. While I would like to be able to make factories assign units to groups, that's still manual creation. What do you have in mind for aut…

F2 is an anti-pattern. It can be OK if you play casually in bronze/silver. But if you want to play more competitively you need to be able to have units split in different locations on the map executing different orders.

Re: The Future of RTS

#144

Post by rcxdude »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #136

>> Simply put, most RTS games are exhausting. As someone who has achieved a relatively high level of play in numerous popular RTS games, my best coaching advice for the vast majority of players would be to play more and to play faster. In most instances being able to micro, macro, and multi task is the biggest obstacle keeping players from pushing their play to the next level. Many times, I hear players getting frust…

I don't think it's just about the competetive nature of RTS, though that's part of the appeal, so much as about the kind of skills modern RTSs reward. If I'm playing a game where I'm good at one element of it (especially the element after which the genre is named), but I consistently lose against those who have no skill in that element because a different element is so strongly weighted it trumps almost all of the others, I'm probably not going to have a lot of fun playing it, and it's probably going to lack wide-ranging appeal.

In fact, in modern RTS this effect is probably strongest at the lower performance levels. Just executing something, anything faster will win far more than any deeper understanding of the game and its systems or strategy.

Re: The Future of RTS

#145

Post by astrobe_ »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #94
Pxtl wrote: post #46

Honestly, I think the RTS genre is too hidebound to the origins of the genre. Too focused on trees of units and factories that existed originally because of singleplayer campaigns and trickling out upgrades. I mean, the current monster of the genre - SC2 - can trace many of its gameplay mechanics and units back to a game that came out in 1994, which was of course primarily designed for single-player gaming. An RTS ba…

Slightly off-topic, but Zero-K still has some "teching", just in the form of creating a supply chain of energy to the huge cannons. However, it's messed up in that the mechanic is simply undiscoverable without a tutorial. That's sort of ironic, as I've been missing higher tier units, as they were as close to a disruptable supply chain as it gets in TA: build factory -> make builder -> build factory 2 -> make tier 2 u…

You are describing a different Zero-K than I know. In the ZK I know switching to another factory is a late game thing, not something after you get a few builders for you first factory.

Also each factory has mid-tier and high-tier units with unique capabilities. Some factories even have low tier units with specific features (e.g. Jumpbot's pyro or Cloakbots cloaking builder).

I don't understand at all how you can say that many copy each other. That's blatantly unfair.

Furthermore despite the wide choice of units and structures, every stat and an helpful description of the typical role of the unit is available in-game.

The reason for the various AA towers is because you need bigger guns against bigger beasts. Your basic cheap and fast built AA tower will wreck locusts all day, but Ravens will laugh at them and crush your factory anyway. Depending on which style of unit you face (swarm of light units, pack of medium unit, or a few heavy and high DPS units), you need a different type of weapon (e.g. low DPS area of effect or single target high burst).

Re: The Future of RTS

#146

Post by rcxdude »

AlphaSite wrote: post #50
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…

Also there is an RTS which all about economics, Offworld Trading Company.

True, though logistics is not a particularly deep part of it (basically the only logistics part is the further you're transporting stuff the more you'll use of a particular resource, and there's one technology which just removes that cost).

Re: The Future of RTS

#147

Post by rcxdude »

rektide wrote: post #31
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offworld Trading Company addresses this pretty well.

how? there's additional operational cost in the form of energy used if you have far off resources being harvested. and the transport shuttle has to go get the goods, which increases cycle time a little. i have less than a dozen games in but i definitely didn't feel like I was managing the logistics; that moving stuff around was an issue or concern. there's a lot of different resources but they all roll up pretty auto…

I agree. It models it (which is more than most RTSs do), but it adds a fairly small amount to the gameplay (mostly location becomes important, it gives another element to the core supply and demand mechanics, and it gives value to one of the technologies which basically just eliminates the cost entirely).

Re: The Future of RTS

#148

Post by viraptor »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #136

>> Simply put, most RTS games are exhausting. As someone who has achieved a relatively high level of play in numerous popular RTS games, my best coaching advice for the vast majority of players would be to play more and to play faster. In most instances being able to micro, macro, and multi task is the biggest obstacle keeping players from pushing their play to the next level. Many times, I hear players getting frust…

I agree completely. I'd actually like to pick up a game which can't be min-max'ed to death. If that requires for example introducing some subtle randomness - great! As much as I enjoy some competitive play, I would love to know that the result looks more like log(skill) rather than e^(skill).

Re: The Future of RTS

#149

Post by halflings »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #29

As a master-level player of SC2 and once a top-1000 ladder player of Brood War I would also love to a see this genre evolving and staying fresh. I think that SC2 should be studied for its qualities but also for its mistakes. I think it is overall an excellent game but at the same time I feel that it was not as well designed as SC1, even if patches improved it and fixed some glaring errors over time. A few things that…

> - Population cap, in SC2 the population is capped at 200 supply, this is an inheritance of SC1 technical limitation, but it has a strong impact on SC2 late game, not for the best as players tend to invest in defensive structures to compensate, leading to potentially static/ boring games.

I actually find the population cap to be super useful, and serves the opposite purpose: Without a supply cap, the player with the better economy can just turtle up, defend their bases with strong tanky units, while they build a gigantic army. The supply cap forces them to move out and attack, trading units.

Re: The Future of RTS

#150

Post by Macha »

jbay808 wrote: post #79
Macha wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a few RTS games (StarCraft 2, Steel Division 2 come to mind) allow multiple players to share control of the same units/resources so you could artificially divide up responsibilities. You need to go far away from RTS to a game like Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator to find a game where players are dealing with distinct gameplay to a common goal in a shared space however

Age of Empires 2 lets you do this as well.

Ah, is this a definitive edition change? I don't remember HD/AoK having this
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