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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

#21

Post by jdmichal »

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…

I watch both, and they definitely have different things going for them. I think something that is missed in appreciation of pro play is just how smoothly coordinated the players are. They make it look effortless, the same way high APM Starcraft2 players make things like fighting on multiple fronts while managing their macro look effortless. It can be really noticeable when a player gets swapped in the middle of a tournament run and the team doesn't quite gel back together right away.

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

#22

Post by theandrewbailey »

s5300 wrote: post #6
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

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

To my knowledge, Supreme Commanders Forged Alliance Forever (FAF) community has been updating the game and has a fairly active community. It seems to be in a fairly good state, wish I was in the position in life to be able to relax and dump some hours into playing it. Was always a fun game.

There's also the LOUD mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/loud-ai-supreme-commander-forged-...

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

#23

Post by oneplane »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

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

I think there is a much going on as ever, but because RTS games tend to be on the more heavier side to get in to and get good enough at to really enjoy it, it isn't featured as much as any of the generic FPS/BR/DOTA style games.

While there might be less of an SC2 eSports bonanza going on right now, there is Age of Empires that is pretty active (as was posted here as well).

I think one of the major impacts to the 'visibility' is the fact that 'generic' or 'casual' games have social buy-in that is orders of magnitude bigger than what we used to think of when talking about 'big games' or 'big communities' or 'active genres'. 10000 players or even 100000 players used to be top-tier. Now that's less than 1% of any of the 'big' games out there right now.

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

#24

Post by askesisdev »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #8
s5300 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, Supreme Commanders Forged Alliance Forever (FAF) community has been updating the game and has a fairly active community. It seems to be in a fairly good state, wish I was in the position in life to be able to relax and dump some hours into playing it. Was always a fun game.

FaF is great and basically the most modern RTS I regularly play. (Using FAF Forever or something) but technically it’s a buggy and slow mess that performs bad.

I was in the top20 worldwide ranking of the original Supreme Commander when I was a teenager, never got over the changes they did to the economy and gameplay on FA. The performance of the original was even worse, you had to apply a patch to get multithreading.

Found an SQL Injection too, reported it and got a license for Supreme Commander 2 as a bounty. That game was way worse than the original, too simplified but I guess it was the logical path as people complained about SupCom's difficulty/complexity.

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

#25

Post by harpersealtako »

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 ate them because they have a lower skill floor.

If I understand 50% of how to play a MOBA, I can play the game and have fun. I am gorilla. I have 4 moves: punch, slam, eat banana, and my ultimate ability, get mad. They have cooldowns, but it doesn't matter, I just spam all my moves when I see a bad guy. If I don't see a bad guy, I can kill the enemy turrets and little cpu creatures. If I'm having trouble, I can follow one of my allies and often get into 2v1s which are easier to win. And oh look, he is playing Sword Guy, he's doing pretty well, maybe I should try Sword Guy next time.

If I only understand 50% of how to play an RTS, I'm screwed because I didn't realize that I needed to build a t2 bot factory with my t1 bots, which can then build tier 2 constructor bots which are required to build flak cannons which are the only viable defense against this specific type of gunship-based commander sniping.

I like RTS games better too, but I can see how it can be hard to get into an RTS without a really expensive-to-create campaign tutorial (e.g. Starcraft) and/or a huge time commitment. I bet I could download a MOBA I've never played before and have fun in my first match knowing nothing about how to play it (even the controls).

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

#26

Post by Causality1 »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #17
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/

You are the first person I've seen mentioning Ashes of the Singularity who wasn't doing a hardware review.

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

#27

Post by jdmichal »

harpersealtako wrote: post #25
2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ate them because they have a lower skill floor. If I understand 50% of how to play a MOBA, I can play the game and have fun. I am gorilla. I have 4 moves: punch, slam, eat banana, and my ultimate ability, get mad. They have cooldowns, but it doesn't matter, I just spam all my moves when I see a bad guy. If I don't see a bad guy, I can kill the enemy turrets and little cpu creatures. If I'm having trouble, I can…

> I bet I could download a MOBA I've never played before and have fun in my first match knowing nothing about how to play it (even the controls).

Used to play DotA (as in, the custom WC3 map) and LoL. I downloaded Pokemon Unite last week. Instantly understood pretty much everything except the individual feel and tactics of each character.

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

#28

Post by TulliusCicero »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #2

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

Not releases, but there have been some other significant developments:

* Ex blizzard RTS devs have gone to a few different studios. Frost Giant has the most hype, but there's also one of the Dream Haven studios IIRC, and Uncapped Games.

* A bunch of SC2 modders made a new studio, SunSpear, and their new RTS called Immortal: Gates of Pyre had a successful Kickstarter and has been getting a fair amount of hype from the StarCraft community.

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

#30

Post by jessewmc »

harpersealtako wrote: post #25
2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ate them because they have a lower skill floor. If I understand 50% of how to play a MOBA, I can play the game and have fun. I am gorilla. I have 4 moves: punch, slam, eat banana, and my ultimate ability, get mad. They have cooldowns, but it doesn't matter, I just spam all my moves when I see a bad guy. If I don't see a bad guy, I can kill the enemy turrets and little cpu creatures. If I'm having trouble, I can…

I think the big problem here was with Starcraft 2's lack of UMS and chat room focus compared to Brood War. I played competitive 1v1 in both, and anecdotally I spent alot more time in Brood War, and much of that time was socializing, playing casual games, and UMS--largely with friends who didn't play competitively.

This community was completely destroyed by SC2, multiplayer really only appealed to serious competitive players. It sucked unless you only wanted to grind ladder. That community kept the game as a whole alive and acted as a gateway.

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