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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

#51

Post by vkou »

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…

> 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...

This is precisely why RTS is dead. Every victory or defeat is solely in your hands. In the MOBA format, you can always get carried by your team/cuss out your team for being failures.

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

#52

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

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'll disagree with the other poster. MOBA games, particularly Dota, have a pretty high threshold of entry compared to RTS. You've got 100 something heros, each with 4+ abilities. Then you've got basically as many items, half of which have an active of some sort.

That's a big initial bite to get down.

I played Dota for at least a year until I finally felt like I even understood the baseline. The skill cap on say SC2 is indeed as high as you can take it, but learning the tech tree and counters is comparatively trivial. It's not that Dota is chess or such, there's just a huge volume of material to get through.

But that's also what makes it so rewarding. Dota is the only video game where I feel the same sense of accomplishment when winning as a game of go.

I think the world is wide open to a new awesome RTS game. Just, no one has thought up something good enough.

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

#53

Post by blt »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #43
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Apex Legends balancing is pretty aggregate stat based and with each release they monitor aggregate stats like what % of X character is on the winning team over all games or what % of X character killed Y character as well as different team compositions, along with similar stats for individual weapons, to try to balance the overall engagement statistics as much as possible.

Dota has an interesting approach. They collect tons of statistics, but ultimately the game design comes down to one person, and they complement the stats with a lot of interviews with top ranked players to get their subjective perspective. The end result is the game has gotten better balanced continuously with time. There were a handful of patches that were a regression, but usually are on top of it pretty fast. One…

Did they try rotating the camera 180 degrees?

I can understand how this might be confusing. Like a mirror track in Mario Kart, it would make the map feel totally different.

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

#54

Post by pmoriarty »

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 am gorilla. I have 4 moves: punch, slam, eat banana, and my ultimate ability, get mad."

One day maybe there'll be games with just one move... just to dumb games down to the lowest common denominator and not leave anyone out.

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

#55

Post by RussianCow »

ajuc wrote: post #37
harpersealtako wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You ignored itemization and counterpicking in MOBAs, which is like ignoring build orders, army composition and macro efficiency in starcraft and just focusing on microing your army :) I was in the same camp when I only played RTS games, but after my friend got me into dota I have to admit there's a lot of depth there that I wasn't aware of. Also the win conditions are much more obvious in RTS games, just after I swit…

> after my friend got me into dota I have to admit there's a lot of depth there that I wasn't aware of.

But that's kind of the point: you don't have to be aware of it to have a good time. Sure, all of that stuff matters in competitive play, but it can still be fun to just run around killing things if you don't know what you're doing. On the other hand, seeing artillery blasting your base from afar and having no idea what to do about it is really demoralizing.

FWIW, I think this applies more to Dota 2 than it does to LoL. I haven't played the latter in many years, but I remember it being much more rigid and cookie-cutter strategy-wise than Dota, and the micro decisions mattered a lot more, which meant that sub-optimal play was more obvious. In Dota 2, your poor item build can still win the game with a single good team fight or just generally better awareness.

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

#56

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

blt wrote: post #53
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dota has an interesting approach. They collect tons of statistics, but ultimately the game design comes down to one person, and they complement the stats with a lot of interviews with top ranked players to get their subjective perspective. The end result is the game has gotten better balanced continuously with time. There were a handful of patches that were a regression, but usually are on top of it pretty fast. One…

Did they try rotating the camera 180 degrees? I can understand how this might be confusing. Like a mirror track in Mario Kart, it would make the map feel totally different.

So, I suspect why they haven't gone with an approach like that is they want to preserve the layout for spectators. Dota is the biggest purse in all of esports, and they take the spectatorship quite seriously as a result.

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

#57

Post by majormajor »

vkou wrote: post #51
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…

> 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... This is precisely why RTS is dead. Every victory or defeat is solely in your hands. In the MOBA format, you can always get carried by your team/cuss out your team for being failures.

The funnest starcraft games I ever played were 2v2 or 3v3 games with friends. 1 on 1 always seemed overly stressful and annoying.

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

#58

Post by ironman1478 »

blt wrote: post #53
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dota has an interesting approach. They collect tons of statistics, but ultimately the game design comes down to one person, and they complement the stats with a lot of interviews with top ranked players to get their subjective perspective. The end result is the game has gotten better balanced continuously with time. There were a handful of patches that were a regression, but usually are on top of it pretty fast. One…

Did they try rotating the camera 180 degrees? I can understand how this might be confusing. Like a mirror track in Mario Kart, it would make the map feel totally different.

Its really difficult. The exact placement of individual trees in the game matters a lot and it affects line of sight, which is a key component to Dota. If you flipped the view, not only would it just be weird, but what is visible can change I think based on the camera position. A tree that blocks a path in one camera position doesn't block it in another. A single tree's position sounds trivial, but navigating them is crucial at mid and high levels of play.

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

#59

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

ironman1478 wrote: post #58
blt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they try rotating the camera 180 degrees? I can understand how this might be confusing. Like a mirror track in Mario Kart, it would make the map feel totally different.

Its really difficult. The exact placement of individual trees in the game matters a lot and it affects line of sight, which is a key component to Dota. If you flipped the view, not only would it just be weird, but what is visible can change I think based on the camera position. A tree that blocks a path in one camera position doesn't block it in another. A single tree's position sounds trivial, but navigating them is…

This is really perceptive and on point. I think something a lot of casual observers miss about Dota is it's a game of momentum with very small edges that accumulate. Compared to the other MOBAs it's the game that punishes you for a single error far more harshly.

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

#60

Post by rikthevik »

pmoriarty wrote: post #54
harpersealtako wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am gorilla. I have 4 moves: punch, slam, eat banana, and my ultimate ability, get mad." One day maybe there'll be games with just one move... just to dumb games down to the lowest common denominator and not leave anyone out.

Check out Divekick. It's a 1v1 fighting game with two moves: Dive and Kick. And it's got a very high skill ceiling. :)
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