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The Future of RTS

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Re: The Future of RTS

#271

Post by reitzensteinm »

BadInformatics wrote: post #270
reitzensteinm wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original simulation ran fine on a Pentium 2, and that was a single core that also handled rendering, animation and audio. Considering a single core can be dedicated to it these days we're approaching two orders of magnitude more performance available. If it's become a bottleneck it's likely that there is very low hanging fruit to fix it.

The original version also had a smaller pop cap, less demanding graphics+audio, much smaller maps and less simulation (particles, animated water, fog, etc). Some other engine functionality like pathfinding has also been reworked in the Definitive Edition, so it's far from an apples-apples comparison. > If it's become a bottleneck it's likely that there is very low hanging fruit to fix it. This was true for the previo…

Popcap and map sizes are unchanged since AOE2: The Forgotten, though, and the other items are not in the deterministic simulation.

AOE2 HD wasn't multithreaded, so we should still have an order of magnitude more CPU performance at our disposal these days.

The pathfinding has been reworked, yeah. It shouldn't have made the game 10x slower.

In any case, if it already supports 8 player with 500 pop, 16 with 250 is not really any different.

Re: The Future of RTS

#272

Post by hnracer »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #37
hnracer wrote: post #27

RTSs attract a certain personality type: the type of person that becomes an engineer, mathematician, scientist, or statistician. I met so many individuals from these career choices when I was playing RTSs that it was uncanny. Given this, it's no surprise to me that RTSs aren't wildly popular, the complexity and depth is just too much, it takes a systematizing nerd (of which there aren't many) to fully appreciate it.…

At least in starcraft, >2 player has a totally different feel as early game rushes are way more powerful. a lot of people don't like to play like that

It's designed to be a 1v1 game, a lot of people don't like that because it becomes hyper-competitive and even a little stressful when compared to team games

Re: The Future of RTS

#273

Post by 6510 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #83
6510 wrote: post #71

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…

> Soldiers and creatures running into their death because they didn't get an attack command. I wouldn't say that's there to make the controls more challenging. You should default to doing an attack move instead of a non-attack move. > Creating control groups and adding units manually. While I would like to be able to make factories assign units to groups, that's still manual creation. What do you have in mind for aut…

Right, making the controls more challenging is taking away attention from economic planning, scouting, harassment and fights. As some famous broodwar player (whoes name I forgot - hah) said: Attention is the only resource. If you by design suck more than half the attention out of the players preemptively there is very little wiggle room for the actual game. In the late[r] game most players need all their attention to manage the economy (at the expense of everything else). The game becomes so fragile without that wiggle room that you cant recover from one unfortunate situation.

Its a classic really, the interface makes you feel dumb.

I'm suppose to be in command. My new trainee marine comes out of the barrack, he is not at all afraid of the hoard of terrifying zerg monsters, he just walks into them not even bothering to return fire. The SCV leaves the mineral line, builds a building, he is truly sophisticated at it! Then when done he just sits there.

>While I would like to be able to make factories assign units to groups

You can already put the factory in the control group, its just really annoying and doesn't do anything useful besides save a control group key.

Re: The Future of RTS

#274

Post by yvdriess »

Too wrote: post #209
yvdriess wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Doesn't dota2 have last-hitting like dota1?

Yes, last-hitting is indeed one of the more important mechanics where execution is important in DotA2. However, there are a ton of tools to stack that deck in your favor such that a weak last-hitter can still do better than a strong last-hitting opponent. Today, players try to set up the situation in their favor: lane support bullies the opponent so he cannot contest the last hit, you get certain items to have a larger last-hit window, you use abilities to secure the more valuable ranged creep, etc. There is so much that it becomes more like a chess game than a 'who can click in the correct time window' game.

Re: The Future of RTS

#275

Post by Zandikar »

jiggawatts wrote: post #53
pmoriarty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

What mods do you recommend for Factorio?

I'm 4000 hours deep into factorio, been playing since I think v0.13? Whenever it first hit steam in 2015.

QoL mods:

- Long Reach: Highly recommended if playing on >1080p res display

- Squeak through: Once you start laying pipes for fluids this becomes an essential mod for moving about your base

- Even Distribution: Evenly distributes items when you click drag to fill multiple entites with items, eg furnaces with fuel

- EvoGUI: Simple display overview for keeping track of biter evolution and basic environment info.

- Vehicle Snap: Makes it easier to align to a given cardinal direction

- Blueprint Extensions mod (Continued): Get the Continued flavor for version >1.0 compatibility. This mod gives some basic tools such as mirroring or rotating blueprints, very useful.

- Bottleneck: shows a simple colored dot over some entities to show if it's input starved, output limited (overfull), or running normally. Makes it easy to see at a glance what is backing up in sections of your base.

- FNEI: Want to know how to make something, or what use a certain item has? this simple mod shows how anything inthe game is made, or everything it can be used in. Also has great mod support, even full conversion mods.

Conversion/Gameplay Changing mods:

- Bobs And Angels modsets: Think you've figured out factorio? Want more factorio? More logistics? More recipes and items to make More things? Step into Bobs w/ Angels modset to ratchet up the complexity by an order of magnitude or two (in a good way). Want an extra challenge? Get the Sandblock mod, which is Bobs + Angels but starting on a tiny island, and you have to harvest resources to build your factory - including the land you build it on - from the sea.

- Krastorio: I actually haven't gotten around to this, but it's another full conversion mod that is highly recommended by many members of the community. Definitely on my to-play list

- Rampant Arsenal + Pitch Black: Want more of a RTS-esque combat challenge? Biters too boring/easy now that you've come to grips with Factorio's core mechanics? Deathworld too easy? Give this ago. It greatly expands the arsenal available to you should you choose to build them, but also greatly ramps up biter aggression, difficulty, and variety, especially at night.

There are many many more mods to choose from, and the modding community is very vibrant, and well supported from the devs themselves, with an excellent mod portal and mod loading system integrated into the game. It's by far the best mod community and integration in a game I've ever seen, and people are still churning out all manner of new and interesting stuff, as well as improving upon the classics listed above. There are also many I've not specified (eg FARL, LTN, etc) that many would consider essential, but this is already a long list.

EDIT: Also just realized this is a 9 day old thread. Came back from the holidays to my desktop and this tab was still open, apologies for the necro.

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