EPT
Over time I have been thinking about the many gameplay features a good RTS should provide and I just want to share my thoughts about them, and a concept how to solve many of their problems.
Basically, the concept is less factions, more units per factions with pregame limits.
So let's look at some features of modern RTS games.
Multiple Factions
This is a very simply feature, that comes with a lot of complications. People want to play with and against multiple factions. There should be something for everyone, to fit their style and the individual games should give diversity in play, while all staying fun.
And that’s where the problems start. The amount of matchups grows very fast with the amount of races. In a game with 1race we have 1 matchup, with 2races, we already have 3, with 3races we get 6 matchups and with 4 we get 10 matchups.
In retrospect, with the amount of RTS experience we have today, it is not a surprise that Blizzard dropped 2races during the development of WC3 (dropping from 21 to 10 MUs). And even today, many people would argue that not all of them are really balanced, at least not in an enjoyable way.
Similarly, we get (or at least have gotten) a lot of frustration in Starcraft 2 (and also Broodwar) through coinflippy or very one dimensional matchups. Who has not been annoyed by Muta vs Muta, Marines vs more Marines or even in the nonMirrors, the unavailability of whole techpaths (Terran Bio in Broodwar TvP, Protoss Stargate PvT in SC2, Zerg Ranged ZvT in SC2 come to mind).
Amount of Units per faction
This is very similar to the above. The more units you give a race, the more you have to think about how the unit can be used in every matchup and how each of the other races can deal with it.
Some of the problems can be solved via different armor classes, damage types and specific “anti Unit” or “anti Race” abilities. And even without such unit features, some just turn out to be not really useful in a matchup or overlap too much with other units. But also the other way around exists. Some units are just straight up so good in certain matchups, which the whole factions are getting designed to only support that one unit, instead of having a variety of compositions and strategies.
The argument, why the lurker was removed from SC2, as it did not play out unique and it would simply have been a factor more to balance without providing something zerg needed becomes very understandable in that light. But the removal still leaves a sour taste of not being able to play with another cool unit.
And it is not just that. With how fast Zerg can techswitch, other races already have problems being universal enough to deal with the variety of possibilities, which could occur next. Too many units, and stuff becomes unpredictable, so many interesting designs get scrapped and races are left with little variety, game after game after game.
Uniqueness of factions
In Starcraft and Warcraft, all the races are very different and unique, right?
Wrong!
If we look purely at the units, we see a nice variety of concepts. But let’s take a deeper look.
Then we see races that mine the same resources at nearly the same rate, we see races that have the same supply caps, the same “standard” antiair, “standard” air tech path, “standard” mineral only units, “standard” cloak techs, “standard” hero choices and standard early game defenses.
With an even deeper look, we can see that all of the factions have a button for a-move, all of the factions have a minimap and all of the factions require similar basic mechanics.
Now don’t get me wrong, many of those things are great features that should be in an RTS game, but let’s say we were a little less limited by designing and balancing a lot of matchups, couldn’t the races differ way more and provide more of something for everyone. Less thought about “stuff has to be similar or it becomes too hard to balance everything”, more “whatever works and is fun, demanding or whatever principles mean good design”.
Am I the only one who thought about wanting to play the creeps in a MOBA game?
I could go more into detail about other features such as the need for mirrored maps vs using matchupspecific maps for two sides that are tailored for two different races and other stuff, but I guess it’s getting pretty clear what I want to say:
Fewer factions in an RTS, give the designers room for better designed matchups.
Now what’s the downside of fewer factions, specifically two (or maybe even only one)? Well, less matchups, less variety when playing and watching, which is basically the opposite of what I was talking about and this is where pregame army choices enter the stage.
But let’s go quickly through the upsides of a Deck system:
-) less factions, but different players with different Decks create variety
-) more units per faction, but the same amount (or even less if needed) of units to think about in a specific game
-) way, way easier to balance and design and more time for the designers to balance a specific matchup, leading to better matchups
-) more uniqueness. Things like Hero vs nonHero factions become easy to balance
-) ways to provide more units, some that might be better for beginners and casuals, some that just scale really well with skill and might just be stronger, while the others only provide niche roles or metagame potential at higher levels
-) easier to balance multiplayer! Ever wondered how MOBA games can exist with that many heroes, but still provide somewhat balanced and fun games? Limits! You don’t get more than one hero, so even with 5 players the opponents’ options stay predictable. With a Deck system, you can limit down the amount of choices when the amount of players go up, maybe even up to the point, where it becomes close to a monobattle, with a few standard units, and after that only 1 specific choice per player.
-) a personal touch. You can be “the one that can play a certain unit”
-) And last but not least, many people that watch gaming look out specifically for “their faction” to play. With 3 (equally played) races, you already have a 50% chance to get a game that you might not really want to watch, as – like with sport club supporters – you might like the game, but it’s not your side that is playing.
Of course, you have to regulate decks a bit to really provide the advantages. It might be too good if you skip each and every high tech requiring unit, but instead just play with like 7 different T1 units that you can all rush, so there might have to be a limitation to pick only a few early game units.
Or some units (f.e. workers and some essential combat units like the first ones and specific universal units) should be given in any deck, to provide stability.
Also there might have to be an “emergency spot” reserved for an ingame choice, after seeing the opponents Deck. And a small pause early on, to see through the opponents unit choices and get you a gameplan. Probably there need to be matchupspecific Decks, but with only 2races, that means only 2 Decks for per player – and one of them being for a mirrormatchup in which you still will have quite some overlaps anyways.
Closing words
By no means do I want to say, that the games we have are badly designed. But I think, the RTS genre has not reached its full potential yet, mostly because they hold on to advanced principles from SC:BW and WC3 times, like multiple races, without experimenting with new options.
Most strategy games today, differ in production, unit design and resource management. What they fail, is to provide something fundamentally unique, as mass amount of factions to keep the variety high, limits everything else to very little actual design options.
