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The Future of RTS

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Re: The Future of RTS

#151

Post by rhn_mk1 »

astrobe_ wrote: post #145
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're right about mid-tier units in each factory. I guess that functions as a sort of equivalent to building tier-2 factories in TA, although there's max 1-2 of those in each factory.

What I'm trying to describe is rather the feeling of being quite lost still after 20 games or so, because I can't remember for the life of me which unit from which factory does what, even less what it works well with, and almost nothing about what mid-game units I can expect from the enemy given the observed factory they have.

Yes, the chassis, costs, and speeds give them different edges, but a more perfect game IMO would turn "Some factories even have low tier units with specific features" into "there's few enough units that each feels like it has a specific feature".

I'm not sure which way this would be best achieved: by combining some factories where units overlap most? By splitting factory groups into factions? After all, the original TA had a good faction/factory overlap: kbots+vehicles * arm+core gives 4 sets of overlaps, with some unique units in between them.

I do like the different experiments: cloaks? shields? jump? meelee? mines? disruption? All are awesome riffs on the concept, but too much all at once. Alpha Centauri dealt with it by letting the player piece units together and save as presets, instead of letting them blend in player's mind.

In all seriousness, I get the point of having 3 AA towers: one that can shoot ground, one that is somewhat powerful, and one for mid-late game. What you say about adjusting to swarms etc is not something that I expected (and my AA defenses have been historically useless for some reason), so maybe I'm just playing a game I'm not able to enjoy :P

Re: The Future of RTS

#152

Post by stephc_int13 »

halflings wrote: post #149
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…

There are pros and cons, and I agree that the supply cap is also something that can be used to reverse an unfavorable situation, knowing that over time the other player won't keep the economic advantage he gained early (same with upgrades or tech). But I think that's the opposite of being a pro-turtle mechanic, or at least in this case your incentive for turtling is when you've already won.

I think that diversity of ressources on maps should play the role of supply cap, leading to different strategies on different maps.

Re: The Future of RTS

#153

Post by abacadaba »

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…

This is why I've always liked C&C over SC.

Side note, openra is still addictive.

Re: The Future of RTS

#154

Post by sam_goody »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #114
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.

> There is one thing I've noticed about RTS: every player seems to think they are awful at the game. Dota 2 is another game where I've noticed this trend. > This actually keeps a lot of players from even trying online play. True with Dota 2 as well, lots of people that only play locally with bots, or resort to just watching streamers and others play it, because they're tired of the feeling of "not being good enough"…

Interesting observation.

I noticed that in real life, most people think they are sub-optimal. I've wondered what caused the pessimistic attitude and if it has always been this way.

(Of course, it could just be the people I hang out with, but I suspect it is pretty common for people to be harsh on themselves)

Your theory explains it. Life is always throwing us a lot of stuff at once (especially if 65% of our mental capacity is taken up by a smartphone). It is a game where we usually only have a general idea of what to do, lots of reasons not to do it, and not enough time to decide about everything.

If you stop and think, you are probably doing much more right than not. But overall, in the game of Life, you are also blowing lots of opportunities that you are aware of and simply don't have the time and resources to get right.

> skill growth in the game happens slowly by your mind learning to make many of the optimal decisions subconsciously, thus making things slowly more manageable. But that's not an easily visible, tangible change. And it still leaves you with twenty things you could be doing better, that are "obvious" in retrospect.

Maybe we should focus more on our slow advances. Players that consider themselves good, enjoy the game more and probably do better at it (in RTS and in Life).

Re: The Future of RTS

#155

Post by bjterry »

baby wrote: post #124
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.

I’m sorry but the whole points of RTS is competition. It’s like complaining that we’re talking about tweaks to make chess more competitive.

The single-player campaigns were a major focus for many early RTS. Even Warcraft II many players mostly played the single-player, but that was probably the tipping point due to the success of Battle.net.

Re: The Future of RTS

#156

Post by m12k »

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 thing is, esports and casual play help each other out. Streamers and tournaments are watched by hordes of casual players who are able to appreciate what's going on only because they play themselves, albeit at a much lower level. So from a community-building perspective, the ideal game should be playable by both pros and casuals.

Re: The Future of RTS

#157

Post by s_dev »

etempleton wrote: post #54

I felt that Company of Heroes was a nice evolution of the genre and minimized the need for incredibly high APM. For those who have not played Company of Heroes it is more about unit positioning and microing those units effectively. It requires a different set of skills than other RTS games. Unfortunately I have not seen this catch on. Relic, the developers of CoH are working on Age of Empires IV and so I hope they wi…

Company of Heroes 2 is fantastic. I bought everyone in my Steam list that game -- it was €1 a few months ago. However flops like Dawn of War 3 (a sister game to CoH) are why publishers are slower to risk on RTS.

Re: The Future of RTS

#158

Post by LoSboccacc »

jtolmar wrote: post #85

Some problems I'd note for any resurgence of the RTS genre: * There hasn't been a huge RTS hit in ages, so large studios aren't going to push large chunks of cash into them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you may disagree with whether large studios should act this way, but that doesn't matter, because the observable fact is they do. * RTS games are still pretty expensive to make well. There hasn't been a breako…

planetary annihilation disagrees, not that your analysis is wrong, because it touches many pain points of the rts genre, but indie succeses with simple graphic do exist.

(also: castle story, darwinia, star ruler in the simple graphics and indie category, zero-k and uncountable space rts in the indie category)

on the other side, Hearts Of Iron and Total War Warhammer sit quite high on steam charts, maybe not runaway success, but they aren't obscure, niche titles either, they both have more players and in-game hours than DayZ and Red Dead Redemption 2, to give you a point of reference, which were both considered hits.

I think the list it's missing two major points: developing a rts cut you off the largish console market (albeit some success exist, it's an uphill battle) and a rts has both a large time commitment and skill ceiling, especially in today online dominated market, so it's a thought sell to the ever growing casual gamers market.

Re: The Future of RTS

#159

Post by yoz-y »

bluescrn wrote: post #133
jtolmar wrote: post #85

Some problems I'd note for any resurgence of the RTS genre: * There hasn't been a huge RTS hit in ages, so large studios aren't going to push large chunks of cash into them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you may disagree with whether large studios should act this way, but that doesn't matter, because the observable fact is they do. * RTS games are still pretty expensive to make well. There hasn't been a breako…

The obstacles to indie RTS games aren't art style/production related. If anything, the top-down or isometric-ish view makes that part relatively straightforward. The requirement for online multiplayer (while dealing with hundreds of units) is the bigger obstacle. Especially if they're working with Unity. Pathfinding (in a way that lets large swarms of units move smoothly through narrow choke points) is a non-trivial…

You could eschew online multiplayer and just make a single player or LAN game. Most RTS games never got any real competitive play anyways because balancing is a very long and costly process. For indies it also matters that this process must be mind-numbingly boring.

Re: The Future of RTS

#160

Post by egeozcan »

How can you talk about RTS games and never mention the CNC series? Red Alert 2 was amazing. As an advanced Age of Empires 2 player, Red Alert 2 has a complete different set of strategy choices to offer and feels much more arcade. This may be good or bad depending on your preferences but it must be mentioned IMHO
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