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In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

waywardstrategy.com

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Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#11

Post by throwaway17_17 »

stu2010 wrote: post #7
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

I feel like there’s been little going on in RTS land. Did I miss any significant releases?

Company of Heroes was an outstanding release, and its sequel is a good game with a still living, active community. Company of Heroes 3 was recently announced, and its launch will probably get a lot of old players back into the multiplayer lobbies.

The CoH games are great small army RTS games, even if I think of them as Real Time Tactics games. But that really is the point for me. It seems that with the aging and seeming non-interest in RTS games like Starcraft, the market and those making products to serve that market have splintered a relatively homogeneous genre into a group of loosely similar niche genres where the differences between themselves and other games is seen as a dividing line instead of focusing on the commonalities involved to grow interest and increase player base amongst the larger game segment.

I see Warhammer 40k and Starcraft having much more in common with each other than either has with Halo, despite the very obvious surface level trappings. And I think X-com has more in common with CoH than either have in common with modern warfare or call of duty. I really despair for a broader grouping of strategy and tactics games, that may or may not exclude 4x games, in hopes that it could build a bridge between the various niche styles and cross promote the bigger genre.

Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#14

Post by fxtentacle »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

I feel like there’s been little going on in RTS land. Did I miss any significant releases?

Since nobody has figured out how to integrate loot boxes or gambling into RTS yet, other genres are currently much more profitable.

Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#15

Post by ironman1478 »

I think its cool seeing what factors are considered in RTS balancing. I guess an equivalent for fighting games would be invincible vs non-invincible DPs or weird things like movement options.

In RTS games balancing seems a bit more quantifiable. In fighting games there is a lot of guessing at what actually counters what unless its extremely obvious. Its hard to tell if a matchup or strat is good/bad due to the character/move properties or if its because one player is way better.

Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#16

Post by bluescrn »

2bitencryption wrote: post #4
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

I feel like there’s been little going on in RTS land. Did I miss any significant releases?

Maybe there's some underground scene for hardcore RTS players, but as a (formerly) casual follower of the Starcraft 2 pro scene, it seems like MOBAs ate their lunch. It's really a shame, since there was nothing quite like the intensity of a 1v1 match between two players controlling an army with a nearly unlimited skill cap... As much as I've tried, I simply cannot make any sense of the on-screen visual overload of MO…

With a MOBA you’re relying on other players. If you lose at Starcraft, you only have yourself to blame, you can watch the replay and see exactly where you went wrong, and steadily improve.

Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#17

Post by theandrewbailey »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

I feel like there’s been little going on in RTS land. Did I miss any significant releases?

Grey Goo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/290790/Grey_Goo/

Ashes of the Singluarity: https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/

I haven't played them, but they are in my Steam backlog. I've heard jokingly that Ashes is mostly played by people doing benchmarks.

I have played Planetary Annihilation. It's like Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander (same people, different studio): https://planetaryannihilation.com/

Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#18

Post by ajuc »

2bitencryption wrote: post #4
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

I feel like there’s been little going on in RTS land. Did I miss any significant releases?

Maybe there's some underground scene for hardcore RTS players, but as a (formerly) casual follower of the Starcraft 2 pro scene, it seems like MOBAs ate their lunch. It's really a shame, since there was nothing quite like the intensity of a 1v1 match between two players controlling an army with a nearly unlimited skill cap... As much as I've tried, I simply cannot make any sense of the on-screen visual overload of MO…

MOBAs are almost impossible to get into if you're not starting with friend(s). Half the skill is in communication and coordination, and if you're playing solo with random people you'll almost never experience good teamplay. Toxicity is over the roof compared to 1v1 games like starcraft.

I stopped playing Starcraft 2 (or any Blizzard games) because of the Hong Kong controversy but I do miss some good multiplayer RTS. Preferably a little less APM-intensive than starcraft.

Re: In defense of hard counters in real time strategy games

#20

Post by oneplane »

thrwawy12345 wrote: post #12
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

I feel like there’s been little going on in RTS land. Did I miss any significant releases?

Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition has a thriving pro level tournament scene and online multiplayer culture.

And Age of Empires 2 on Voobly is still active as well, with userpatch updates being released.

Then there is Age of Empires 4 that is nearing completion which might be an Age of Empires 2 DE contender or might be an AoE 3 dud.

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