201–210 of 275 posts
>> 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…
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"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.
Players who get way into Factorio see that as the beginning of the game, some 40hrs after starting in my case. If the idea of playing essentially a 40hr tutorial doesn't make you want to run away then Factorio might be for you.
I prefer Dwarf Fortress if I want to make large swaths of time disappear, personally... though I haven't played that in many years come to think of it. I guess as I approach 40 and my awareness of my own mortality increases I care less for making time disappear.
[0] I think pushing robotics much earlier in the tech tree may have made it more enjoyable for me, and there are mods for that, but I never paly a modded game until I've experienced it as it was intended and by that point I didn't want to pay more of that damned exercise in complexity-fetishism.
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…
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I've found that it engages the same parts of my brain as writing software, and I only have a limited amount of time each day that I'm able to focus on either activity. So to some degree it is self-balancing, but it's also possible to lose 4-6 hours while playing it if you get in the zone.
This is why I could never get into it nor Zachtronics games. Just feels like work.
Factorio presents a significantly more complex problem at a vastly increased scale.
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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 nothin…
Yes, the diversity can be overwhelming. The cloak factory is said to be a solid choice for beginners. From there, you can venture in other flavors of "bot" factories, like shield bots and jump bots. Then you can experiment with the more specialized ones, like spiders, hovers, gunships. And finally there are the very specific ones like the airplanes factory and the ships factory (good skills in those can make a differ…
The thing that drives me to Zero-K is that it's much more polished than other Spring RTS mods, the constant metal/energy factor, that it has a good diversity, and actually works without having to guess how to run it.
Meanwhile I'm still going to looking for something where the diversity has less overlaps, where I can distinguish units without having to zoom out to see icons,… and where ships come in a whole range of sizes ;)
So far I'm not willing to give up the moveable commander, and that eliminates Nota.
I think RTS can evolve, but I don't think you can compete with SC2 in the style where it excels, after more than a decade of balance patches. You can make games with a different focus though. SC2 is a short (~10-20 minutes) 1 on 1 APMs contest. (APM=actions per minutes). APMs are more than fast clicking. No pro player managed to do everything they know they should do. It is about prioritization. Even I, a modest gold…
> SC2 is a short (~10-20 minutes) 1 on 1 APMs contest. This is the first time I learned this. (Sorry tongue in cheek a bit.) But yeah as an eSport (1v1), or in modes where people play 1 on 1 (and APM tends to win), your statement is true. It is not the only mode you can play SC2, and while it might the most recognized or popular setup, the people I play with prefer basically ever mode except that one. (Many of us als…
Something that isn't significantly touched on here that most RTSes neglect is physical logistics. That is, actually getting resources from the point of collection to the point of consumption. In most RTSes, once you collect resources they essentially go into a magic resource counter in the cloud. You can collect wood on one side of the map, and instantly create a building with that on the other side of the map. I wou…
"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…
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…
There is a saying from game designers (e.g. Zachtronics) that the UI always has to have some element of frustration to it. The most elegant easy to use interface to a game is a 'push this button to win' button. This might be one of the reasons why you still have the physical interfaces design surviving in video games, while we don't see that in desktop UIs anymore (outside some niche software). That being said, SC2 g…
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.