On August 25 2016 00:42 Plansix wrote: All they need to do is:
Remake brood war in a free to play format Remove a bunch of the busted UI non-sense from the original Let you save hot keys, Add a huge market for hats And change the game every 6 months or so with a huge patch that keeps it fresh for players.
Then it will be totally viable like Dota 2.
It is much harder to follow that method in RTS games with few races. You need racial balance which is hard to achieve with huge patches. That approach would be much better than the current SC2 one for me though, the part of SC2 I liked the most was discovering new builds and abusing those. Not refining them, which meant I quit a month or two after release.
If you have something like AoE 2 with a ton of races you can have modes where certain races are banned out since they failed in balancing them that patch. Then it would be a viable approach.
Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
They already made that. Clash of Clans and similar games.
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
They already made that. Clash of Clans and similar games.
In some ways, yes. But that also does well because its on a phone and can be played on the go. But there is a section of that audience that would play an RTS game if it was approachable.
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
I am not saying they don't care about their performance, i am saying that build orders are irrelevant for their performance in silver/gold league. All there is to it is building workers, expanding and spending your money on somewhat viable unit compositions. Real buildorders are a non factor in the "casual" leagues. Ofc you would get better if you actually played a real buildorder, but if you do that the chances are high that you aren't in the casual league to begin with
edit: so it's not that the burden of knowledge is too high, the burden of execution is.
On August 25 2016 00:42 Plansix wrote: All they need to do is:
Remake brood war in a free to play format Remove a bunch of the busted UI non-sense from the original Let you save hot keys, Add a huge market for hats And change the game every 6 months or so with a huge patch that keeps it fresh for players.
Then it will be totally viable like Dota 2.
The first 4 would be completely fine imo, I wouldn't mind hats in BW if you could tell what belongs to who. Balance in BW came from the maps first and foremost, but if Blizzard just worked with Kespa and the official mapmakers in Korea everything would be perfectly fine imo.
It's not that base building should be central, it's that I don't understand how base building is such a chore that it actively scares off players. I can't really empathize with such feelings.
For instance, DotA might not have base building, but it's a game that revolves around individual hero control and in terms of genre lies much closer to CS or scenarios in WoW than to BW, even if its origins lie in RTS. In retrospect it could be said that the success of MOBAs is about mixing something like Counterstrike with the third-person view and strategic overview that RTS games give you, with some RTS trappings like creep waves.
I don't think DotA is a good example for the obvious success of removing base building, it just turned WC3 into a completely different (more popular) genre which focused on individual control instead of the mixture of traditional RTS and RPG that WC3 offered. Note that WC3 has lots of base management, in terms of diversity and complexity (if not difficulty) probably exceeding that of BW.
But just because there are more popular genres out there, why can't there be RTS games which focus to an extent on base building? It's so natural to the genre to have production facilities and mining bases, I think it would be a loss to eliminate it. Not everyone prefers unit control over economy management, and games like Cities: Skylines and Civilization are still quite successful in this day and age. And I personally rarely read of examples of people coming to SC2 and finding the base management too much of a chore, beyond the mechanical requirements. It's true that many people prefer to spend their time on micro, but it's possible to have active base building that nevertheless doesn't require that much attention etc.
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
I am not saying they don't care about their performance, i am saying that build orders are irrelevant for their performance in silver/gold league. All there is to it is building workers, expanding and spending your money on somewhat viable unit compositions. Real buildorders are a non factor in the "casual" leagues. Ofc you would get better if you actually played a real buildorder, but if you do that the chances are high that you aren't in the casual league to begin with
edit: so it's not that the burden of knowledge is too high, the burden of execution is.
I think you totally misunderstand how a person who likes RTS games bounces off competitive play. I have numerous friends who play board games, chess at the master level and endless 4X and strategy games. Some of them play Dota or LoL. They will never play SC2. Its not because the game is “hard”. It is because the game doesn’t give a shit about teaching them how to play in a multiplayer setting and they can’t be bothered. And none of them are going to play in the bronze and silver leagues for any extended period of time.
The mystical group of “casual players” that you are talking about don’t exist. That isn’t an audience.
Grumbels: I remember a buddy of mine got into SC2, but kept losing to zerg because he didn’t wall in properly. He learned how and then quit the instant the map pool changed because he didn’t want to have to go through the process of relearning how to build bases.
It is the classic problem with RTS games on TL. Every single that is announced gets pinned with the “Might be the next BW” and then lets people down when it isnt’ exactly that. And then this debate takes place.
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
I am not saying they don't care about their performance, i am saying that build orders are irrelevant for their performance in silver/gold league. All there is to it is building workers, expanding and spending your money on somewhat viable unit compositions. Real buildorders are a non factor in the "casual" leagues. Ofc you would get better if you actually played a real buildorder, but if you do that the chances are high that you aren't in the casual league to begin with
edit: so it's not that the burden of knowledge is too high, the burden of execution is.
I think you totally misunderstand how a person who likes RTS games bounces off competitive play. I have numerous friends who play board games, chess at the master level and endless 4X and strategy games. Some of them play Dota or LoL. They will never play SC2. Its not because the game is “hard”. It is because the game doesn’t give a shit about teaching them how to play in a multiplayer setting and they can’t be bothered. And none of them are going to play in the bronze and silver leagues for any extended period of time.
The mystical group of “casual players” that you are talking about don’t exist. That isn’t an audience.
Grumbels: I remember a buddy of mine got into SC2, but kept losing to zerg because he didn’t wall in properly. He learned how and then quit the instant the map pool changed because he didn’t want to have to go through the process of relearning how to build bases.
Sure there could be some form of better tutorial system, that doesn't change my point at all though. Build orders are completely irrelevant, the burden of knowledge isn't that high. In fact the burden of knowledge to play mobas is way, way higher (especially dota2) So because your friends cannot be bothered to play in silver league it means that nobody else would be ok to play in a "casual" league? There are lol players who play since season one and these guys are still in bronze/silver/gold. It doesn't seem to bother them too much tbh.
So yes, it's absolutely about the mechanical requirements to play the game on a basic lvl for most players. The knowledge part is almost trivial, executing it is the hard one.
On August 25 2016 01:07 Grumbels wrote: It's not that base building should be central, it's that I don't understand how base building is such a chore that it actively scares off players. I can't really empathize with such feelings.
For instance, DotA might not have base building, but it's a game that revolves around individual hero control and in terms of genre lies much closer to CS or scenarios in WoW than to BW, even if its origins lie in RTS. In retrospect it could be said that the success of MOBAs is about mixing something like Counterstrike with the third-person view and strategic overview that RTS games give you, with some RTS trappings like creep waves.
I don't think DotA is a good example for the obvious success of removing base building, it just turned WC3 into a completely different (more popular) genre which focused on individual control instead of the mixture of traditional RTS and RPG that WC3 offered. Note that WC3 has lots of base management, in terms of diversity and complexity (if not difficulty) probably exceeding that of BW.
But just because there are more popular genres out there, why can't there be RTS games which focus to an extent on base building? It's so natural to the genre to have production facilities and mining bases, I think it would be a loss to eliminate it. Not everyone prefers unit control over economy management, and games like Cities: Skylines and Civilization are still quite successful in this day and age. And I personally rarely read of examples of people coming to SC2 and finding the base management too much of a chore, beyond the mechanical requirements. It's true that many people prefer to spend their time on micro, but it's possible to have active base building that nevertheless doesn't require that much attention etc.
Because base building actively needs apm you would rather want to spend somewhere else. The same is true for macro. Lower lvl players always like to micro their units, move them around, etc. In the meantime their money goes up to thousands of minerals because they don't macro and create new production buildings at home. It's somewhat "unfun" to have to look somewhere else when you could in the meantime do something with your units. LoL doesn't have this, csgo doesn't have this, etc
I personally think this is more of a "multitasking" problem, people don't like it if they need to relocate their attention to multiple things all over the map. At the same time i think this becomes less of an issue if this multitasking is at least linked to actual unit control though.
On August 24 2016 20:54 _Spartak_ wrote: If you are making a traditional RTS, it is hard to see how it can succeed and retain a playerbase in today's climate. At that point, you are simply making an inferior StarCraft 2 and why would anyone play your game instead of SC2? Any marginal benefits a new traditional RTS might have will be insignificant compared to the polish and the big community a Blizzard game can offer. I think SC2 is as good as it gets for the traditional RTS formula for the foreseeable future. If a new RTS is going to succeed, it has to innovate. I don't know if GoA is that game but it at least HAS a chance because it is trying something new.
Sc2 is successful because of AAA production quality. No other RTS in a long time was made by a AAA games making company.
DoW3 that is coming is closest to a AAA RTS, we will see how that does.
I don't even consider Sc2 an especially good RTS, but I cannot deny it is polished like hell and lots of money was put into promoting it.
On August 25 2016 01:17 Atimo wrote: Guys this is Guardians of Atlas thread, not "fantasize my perfect RTS" thread, it has been 4 pages with approximately zero post about GoA.
Always this endless debate of BW versus the world, don't you guys get bored of it ?
This debate about design choices is somewhat linked to GoA though. GoA tries to be an rts without base building (or at least minimal i guess?), it tries to be more accessible for a wider audience through combining moba/rts design. I think it's better to argue a bit about these concepts than to be silent for the next 2 days
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
I am not saying they don't care about their performance, i am saying that build orders are irrelevant for their performance in silver/gold league. All there is to it is building workers, expanding and spending your money on somewhat viable unit compositions. Real buildorders are a non factor in the "casual" leagues. Ofc you would get better if you actually played a real buildorder, but if you do that the chances are high that you aren't in the casual league to begin with
edit: so it's not that the burden of knowledge is too high, the burden of execution is.
I think you totally misunderstand how a person who likes RTS games bounces off competitive play. I have numerous friends who play board games, chess at the master level and endless 4X and strategy games. Some of them play Dota or LoL. They will never play SC2. Its not because the game is “hard”. It is because the game doesn’t give a shit about teaching them how to play in a multiplayer setting and they can’t be bothered. And none of them are going to play in the bronze and silver leagues for any extended period of time.
The mystical group of “casual players” that you are talking about don’t exist. That isn’t an audience.
Grumbels: I remember a buddy of mine got into SC2, but kept losing to zerg because he didn’t wall in properly. He learned how and then quit the instant the map pool changed because he didn’t want to have to go through the process of relearning how to build bases.
Sure there could be some form of better tutorial system, that doesn't change my point at all though. Build orders are completely irrelevant, the burden of knowledge isn't that high. In fact the burden of knowledge to play mobas is way, way higher (especially dota2) So because your friends cannot be bothered to play in silver league it means that nobody else would be ok to play in a "casual" league? There are lol players who play since season one and these guys are still in bronze/silver/gold. It doesn't seem to bother them too much tbh.
So yes, it's absolutely about the mechanical requirements to play the game on a basic lvl for most players. The knowledge part is almost trivial, executing it is the hard one.
I think you are missing my point. RTS games do not exist in a vacuum. They compete with other games for peoples time, including games like Dota and league. And when those games respect the players time more, they get more players. When RTS games focus on having a heavily mechanical requirement to even get into the strategy part of the game, people don't stick with them.
You said it your self, build orders don't matter much at bronze through gold. So someone looking to play a strategic game isn't going to get much out of SC2 until they put in the time to get their mechanics up to get them beyond those leagues. That can be 20-40 hours of practice depending on the player. Or they could play something else.
On August 25 2016 01:17 Atimo wrote: Guys this is Guardians of Atlas thread, not "fantasize my perfect RTS" thread, it has been 4 pages with approximately zero post about GoA.
Always this endless debate of BW versus the world, don't you guys get bored of it ?
This debate about design choices is somewhat linked to GoA though. GoA tries to be an rts without base building (or at least minimal i guess?), it tries to be more accessible for a wider audience through combining moba/rts design. I think it's better to argue a bit about these concepts than to be silent for the next 2 days
I agree it could be an interesting debate except it already took place 100 times on TL and it is biaised by people who just want BW2.
Personally it bores me but eh, I just have two more days to wait...
Looks to me like a lot of people saying that a game won't be good with basically nothing to back up their views other than experience with a handful of games they didn't like and one game they did like.
Maybe people will enjoy this game, maybe they won't. I Don't see why anyone would claim the game will be bad before they've played it when we haven't seen a game like this before.
On August 25 2016 01:47 travis wrote: Looks to me like a lot of people saying that a game won't be good with basically nothing to back up their views other than experience with a handful of games they didn't like and one game they did like.
Maybe people will enjoy this game, maybe they won't. I Don't see why anyone would claim the game will be bad before they've played it when we haven't seen a game like this before.
Couldn't agree more, this game is really trying something NEW, for the best or the worst I don't know but we can't be blaming this based on our previous game experience.
On August 25 2016 00:53 Plansix wrote: Saying built orders are not important for “casual” players is sort of like claiming that picks, skill builds and items in LoL/Dota don’t matter in “casual” games.
I find a lot of RTS fans believe in this mythical “casual audience” that will play the game forever no caring about their performance or if they win or lose. These people make up the majority of LOL/Dota and folks plays console shooters. And RTS games just need to make some version of an RTS these mythical people will want to play, but still not care if they win or lose.
I am not saying they don't care about their performance, i am saying that build orders are irrelevant for their performance in silver/gold league. All there is to it is building workers, expanding and spending your money on somewhat viable unit compositions. Real buildorders are a non factor in the "casual" leagues. Ofc you would get better if you actually played a real buildorder, but if you do that the chances are high that you aren't in the casual league to begin with
edit: so it's not that the burden of knowledge is too high, the burden of execution is.
I think you totally misunderstand how a person who likes RTS games bounces off competitive play. I have numerous friends who play board games, chess at the master level and endless 4X and strategy games. Some of them play Dota or LoL. They will never play SC2. Its not because the game is “hard”. It is because the game doesn’t give a shit about teaching them how to play in a multiplayer setting and they can’t be bothered. And none of them are going to play in the bronze and silver leagues for any extended period of time.
The mystical group of “casual players” that you are talking about don’t exist. That isn’t an audience.
Grumbels: I remember a buddy of mine got into SC2, but kept losing to zerg because he didn’t wall in properly. He learned how and then quit the instant the map pool changed because he didn’t want to have to go through the process of relearning how to build bases.
Sure there could be some form of better tutorial system, that doesn't change my point at all though. Build orders are completely irrelevant, the burden of knowledge isn't that high. In fact the burden of knowledge to play mobas is way, way higher (especially dota2) So because your friends cannot be bothered to play in silver league it means that nobody else would be ok to play in a "casual" league? There are lol players who play since season one and these guys are still in bronze/silver/gold. It doesn't seem to bother them too much tbh.
So yes, it's absolutely about the mechanical requirements to play the game on a basic lvl for most players. The knowledge part is almost trivial, executing it is the hard one.
I think you are missing my point. RTS games do not exist in a vacuum. They compete with other games for peoples time, including games like Dota and league. And when those games respect the players time more, they get more players. When RTS games focus on having a heavily mechanical requirement to even get into the strategy part of the game, people don't stick with them.
You said it your self, build orders don't matter much at bronze through gold. So someone looking to play a strategic game isn't going to get much out of SC2 until they put in the time to get their mechanics up to get them beyond those leagues. That can be 20-40 hours of practice depending on the player. Or they could play something else.
Build orders not mattering much in lower leagues doesn't mean that you cannot make own strategies/tactics to defeat your opponent while still being bad at the mechanical part of the game. Usually mechanics are the main factor in sc2 which define your mmr lvl. This means that you should play against people who are just as bad at making workers/microing their units, etc than you are. At this point decisions actually matter again. That doesn't mean that you need a perfect build order though. Obviously this is more of a general concept and isn't true for every single match you can play in gold league.
But yeah sure people would rather play games they don't have to train mechanically for x amount of hours, that's pretty much what i said with "the mechanical part is the problem, not the burden of knowledge".
I said it somewhere else before, the burden of knowledge in mobas is way, way higher. You need to know what every hero does you face, you need to know which items to buy, you need to know the general strength of hero X during timeframe Y in comparison to your hero, etc. That's a lot more info you actually need to know to be "competitive". The difference is that the mechanical part is fairly easy to get into, everybody can press qwer and click with the mouse a bit. It also helps that mobas are way better at creating interaction between players than rts games are. A good video about this: (he talks about csgo here, mobas kinda do the same though)
On August 25 2016 01:17 Atimo wrote: Guys this is Guardians of Atlas thread, not "fantasize my perfect RTS" thread, it has been 4 pages with approximately zero post about GoA.
Always this endless debate of BW versus the world, don't you guys get bored of it ?
What is there to talk about? Everyone is under NDA and they've done jack shit to show what the game is supposed to be. If there was like a few matches to talk about, I'd be down to talk about that.
On August 24 2016 22:16 zeo wrote: Maybe a game has to have a good single player campaign to reel in the casuals first. Lots of people bought SC and WC3 and never touched the online components.
And I thought CS:GO, Dota and LOL disproved that need.
And if the casuals don't enjoy the multiplayergame, then they won't play it.
So the important part is to make the multiplayer experience enjoyable for new as well as very competitive minded players.
I think those inherently team-based, social games don't need it as much as 1v1 titles. Street Fighter V got so much criticism because they shipped the game without a story mode, so casuals were turned off and it bombed.
On August 25 2016 01:47 travis wrote: Looks to me like a lot of people saying that a game won't be good with basically nothing to back up their views other than experience with a handful of games they didn't like and one game they did like.
Maybe people will enjoy this game, maybe they won't. I Don't see why anyone would claim the game will be bad before they've played it when we haven't seen a game like this before.
I'm basing my views off the trailer they released.
EPT
