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This one will be a short one. I just wanted to share some pictures/thoughts.
It's about focusing on concepts for a free2play RTS.
The heartpiece of the game would be this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NuX3T9e.jpg)
A unit menu from which you can choose the units you can build in the next game, depending on which units you have unlocked/bought.
Such a system would
- give you the freedom to customize your army, which adds personalized styles and additional strategical options.
- keeps the number of possible units in a match low, while having a lot of units in the game. The latter one being a requirement to have a way to generate money with meaningful content.
Since starting locations in RTS games are always similar to each other for balance reasons anyways, why not use that circumstance to our advantage. Let the player prebuild his starting location (or choose one of many templates). This allows him/her to build customized walls and mazes or even place a certain amount of defensive structures/traps (which he has to unlock/buy again, to have a certain variety of them) to start with.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RFMAgoH.jpg)
I think the most interesting part of this design (gameplaywise) would be that you could keep the amount of races tiny (1-2) without ending up with only 1-2matchups. Indeed, I believe this way it is very easy to increase the variety of gameplay as balancing the units of (only) 1-2 races against each other would be much easier. Especially as problems could get solved by the introduction of new units.
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to you mean real money when you talk about "Buying units"?
cause that sounds awful
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There are no good game or gameplay ideas. There are only good games. Go off and create what you think is a good game, don't talk about it without making something.
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On October 14 2013 21:06 iaguz wrote:
There are no good game or gameplay ideas. There are only good games. Go off and create what you think is a good game, don't talk about it without making something.
At what point in history has something been created without it first being talked about?
Anyway, to make a good game, the suggested concepts need to be removed.
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This would be so ridiculously hard to balance and would force something like tiers in World of Tanks since you would have no chance to balance the units of someone who just started to someone who has unlocked everything.
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On October 14 2013 21:14 Tobberoth wrote:
This would be so ridiculously hard to balance and would force something like tiers in World of Tanks since you would have no chance to balance the units of someone who just started to someone who has unlocked everything.
Why? You start with (let's say) 8/30 units. Your opponent chooses 8 of his unlocked 15 units. Why is your army inherently worse? The amount of strategies you can play in different games is lower for you, but anytime you play somebody, you still play with 8 units of yours against 8 units of his. In terms of Starcraft this could mean that you play with Worker/Marine/Marauder/Tank/Goliath/Medivac/BC/Raven against somebody who plays Worker/Marine/Hellion/Tank/Thor/Viking/Dropship/Sciene Vessel.
The important part is just to make the unlocked units a beginner starts the game with a useful way to play the game. Which can easily be achieved via updates to which units are given to new players. Not to mention LoL-like "unit of the week" could increase the amount of units you can choose from anyways, even for starters.
Also, a beginner is not likely to get matched against a longtime player anyways.
On October 14 2013 20:58 Paljas wrote:
to you mean real money when you talk about "Buying units"?
cause that sounds awful
Well, I'm talking about something like credits that you get from playing the game. Or from buying them with real money.
After all it's about f2p concepts - which means there must be alternative ways to finance the game (like speeding up your progress with credits).
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On October 14 2013 21:11 Passion wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2013 21:06 iaguz wrote:
There are no good game or gameplay ideas. There are only good games. Go off and create what you think is a good game, don't talk about it without making something.
At what point in history has something been created without it first being talked about? Anyway, to make a good game, the suggested concepts need to be removed.
Because no gameplay concepts can ever be truly discussed without actually having been made and played with.
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On October 14 2013 22:16 iaguz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2013 21:11 Passion wrote:On October 14 2013 21:06 iaguz wrote:
There are no good game or gameplay ideas. There are only good games. Go off and create what you think is a good game, don't talk about it without making something.
At what point in history has something been created without it first being talked about? Anyway, to make a good game, the suggested concepts need to be removed. Because no gameplay concepts can ever be truly discussed without actually having been made and played with.
I disagree. You can discuss whatever you want. The difference lies in the certainty with which you can draw conclusions.
As much as I'd love to "just make such a game", I don't have the resources for it. But I have the resources to imagine it and share my thoughts. So though the certainty whether this is actually good is lower than when it were tested, it's still worth discussing for me, because there is no better alternative.
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I would focus on the critical concepts of the game and its mechanics before ever focusing on meta aspects such as:
- achievements
- tiers
- levels
- social components
You need to forcibly set those aside and set a lense to shine only on the core mechanics of the game before anything else. If you do this then all these meta aspects will fall in line naturally.
In order to make this system work there cannot be a counter system. Only unique and highly microable units. Unique does not mean spells or abilities. It could mean upgrades, to be sure.
And you are probably going to want to cut the amount of possible units down to around 15-20 (you might say NO - we can't do that, that removes options for monetization and meta options - remember, all of that comes second to the fundamental mechanics of the game) and the amount one can select to 6 (or maybe 5). Consider the average SC match - only three to four units are used (beyond circumstantial utility units). One of the core mechanics of your game is this system of limitations - by limiting players to a certain set of options you force them to become creative and work hard to find solutions.
If you make the solution "choose the right set of units," then that detracts from player expression from within the game itself. Part of the reason why I am fundamentally against "masses of units to choose from," and lean towards "masses of opportunities for expression of player skill."
I would question why you want pre-built starting locations. What does this accomplish? It removes early aggression from the game and makes play less dynamic. It provides a natural way to turtle. Are these things you want?
I don't think letting players begin the match with things they have for free (dictated by meta decisions - NO) is a good nor well thought out dynamic. There should always be an inherent cost assosciated with a decision or action - one that forcibly makes players consider their play and make logical decisions. Again no matter all the decisions you might offer with this base defense concept - the likelihood of it being figured out and becoming a game of "what is the best composition of turrets/defense I can make) is extremely, EXTREMELY high (this is almost unavoidable).
I am reminded of a quote:
"Redundancy in purpose..." Keep this in mind at all times!
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On October 15 2013 00:54 Qwyn wrote:
I would focus on the critical concepts of the game and its mechanics before ever focusing on meta aspects such as:
- achievements
- tiers
- levels
- social components
You need to forcibly set those aside and set a lense to shine only on the core mechanics of the game before anything else. If you do this then all these meta aspects will fall in line naturally.
Unit compositions are the most core part of an RTS game. And the "deck system" I describe is so integral to what compositions a player can get, that it has to be there from the start.
On October 15 2013 00:54 Qwyn wrote:
In order to make this system work there cannot be a counter system. Only unique and highly microable units. Unique does not mean spells or abilities. It could mean upgrades, to be sure.
Why? There just need to be possible configurations that counter everything an opponent has to offer. E.g. in SC2 Terran could do with MMMVG+SCV against Protoss. That's only 6 units needed to counter 17 Protoss units (and any possible configuration a Protoss can achieve from them).
Basically what you write next: you usually just need very few differnt units.
And you are probably going to want to cut the amount of possible units down to around 15-20 (you might say NO - we can't do that, that removes options for monetization and meta options - remember, all of that comes second to the fundamental mechanics of the game) and the amount one can select to 6 (or maybe 5). Consider the average SC match - only three to four units are used (beyond circumstantial utility units). One of the core mechanics of your game is this system of limitations - by limiting players to a certain set of options you force them to become creative and work hard to find solutions.
That would have to be figured out and would naturally happen, as you'd start the game with only few more than the amount of chooseable units and then slowly add them and rebalance them against each other. And you would easily see after a short time whether a new unit is too hard to handle for the system or not, as you always just add another 1 to the game.
If you make the solution "choose the right set of units," then that detracts from player expression from within the game itself. Part of the reason why I am fundamentally against "masses of units to choose from," and lean towards "masses of opportunities for expression of player skill."
That's what you have in all RTS games. You build the right units. But a bigger set of units that a player could have to handle a situation makes it much easier to balance the game in a certain way.
I would question why you want pre-built starting locations. What does this accomplish? It removes early aggression from the game and makes play less dynamic. It provides a natural way to turtle. Are these things you want?
It only removes aggression if starting locations are sufficient for turtling. However if additional bases are mandatory gameplaywise there is a lot of aggression possible towards those, without having players lose to early game coinflips. It makes a game less volatile if a 2rax cannot end the game straight up because there are two towers by default in the main base. But it can still give you an advantage by pushing an expansion with it. And even if you screw up you can still build a CC at home and play from behind, because you cannot just get baneling busted and have to reproduce 10marines before the CC.
One of the main problems of RTS games is that the game often ends with a frustrating early rush that does just outright kill you. That's something everybody and especially new players hate. RTS is about building something up. If that is stopped because somebody decided to just start off with a spawing pool at 6 it is incredibly frustrating, as for most players it's not just a loss, but it was a waste of time.
Defensive advantages mean that you have more freedom to play what you want for as long as you are safe (in this case early on). Which leads to more fun - and diversity, because you cannot punish a 1base lair zerg for not having the production to overwhelm a harmless 7min push.
I don't think letting players begin the match with things they have for free (dictated by meta decisions - NO) is a good nor well thought out dynamic. There should always be an inherent cost assosciated with a decision or action - one that forcibly makes players consider their play and make logical decisions. Again no matter all the decisions you might offer with this base defense concept - the likelihood of it being figured out and becoming a game of "what is the best composition of turrets/defense I can make) is extremely, EXTREMELY high (this is almost unavoidable).
It's not just unavoidable. It's also completely wanted. You have to think about which configuration you want. Hell, at higher levels you may want to think about it for every single map. And then you can see all those little metagame changes when Mutaplay becomes less popular, that some genius will reconfigure his towers a little to get a tiny better configuration against the new most popular style.
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I think the most interesting part of this design (gameplaywise) would be that you could keep the amount of races tiny (1-2) without ending up with only 1-2matchups. Indeed, I believe this way it is very easy to increase the variety of gameplay as balancing the units of (only) 1-2 races against each other would be much easier. Especially as problems could get solved by the introduction of new units.
Assuming three choices per unit type you have over ninety thousand compositions with just one race. You can't possibly hope to balance this by adding even more new units or say that balancing two races is easy.
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EPT
