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On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee?
Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy.
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8751 Posts
On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy.
But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW.
Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy.
RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize.
So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game.
There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol
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I just wish for all these upcoming games that they are true to themselves and the vision behind it. Don't be Diablo 4...
If the vision is to make it macro heavy huge armies clashing then macro away! If the vision is more micro moba style, then yes go ahead.
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I'm not sure about these comments by DKim.
IMO focusing on "strategy" in competitive play is a fruitless endeavor. Every game that's played at a high level by a large group of people is destined to be optimized to death, until there are only a handful of viable "strategies" at best, and creativity is more often punished than rewarded.
RTS, despite its name, has always been more about tactics than strategy. If you tone down the technical aspect significantly, you may actually tone down some of the appeal.
Granted, games like C&C Rivals have been interesting and fun despite the lower barrier to entry, but I'm not sure they scratch the same itch that RTS players are feeling.
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What would improve these "mundane tasks" would, in my opinion, be to make them more visible. Creep or calling down mules are good examples of that visibility (not arguing whether those are good macro mechanics or not). Larva injects or chrono boosts, on the other hand, are not visible enough.
Broodwar had many years to introduce players to those mechanics, but today's gaming doesn't have anywhere near that patience. The question is how to reintroduce the difficulty created by technical limitations or even unintended unit behavior. For example, a unit could have an "anti-apm" mechanic. If you give more than three commands in five seconds, it stops for a second (annoyed or input overload), or a unit moves slower if you bunch up too many in a small space.
Honoring BW also means innovating because BW already exists. And there is a market for difficult 1v1 games. A recipe for disaster is just trying to make a game based around the inability to control everything "easier". A 1v1 game is not easy or hard, the difficulty depends on your opponent. Instead of removing ways for players to differentiate themselves, more options should be added, maybe more that do not rely only on speed.
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On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol
I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that.
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Late to the party but all of my experiences talking with David Kim lead me to believe he's pretty poor fit in any type of lead role.
Guy is the king of being presented with problems & issues, acknowledging them, then doing absolutely nothing or making the problem worse.
Maybe time dissolves egos but my expectations couldn't be any lower.
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lol when I hear that everyone can play.. Everyone can play BW, the question is how well, and the one who can click the fastest doesn't win either. I'm sure it won't work. A game that everyone can play and should still be competitive. Will it be a card game haha?
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On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that.
It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages.
Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact.
For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers.
If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game.
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On September 27 2023 05:40 Smorrie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages. Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact. For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers. If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game.
Polt is a great example for SC2. Very cerebral player.
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On September 27 2023 05:40 Smorrie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages. Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact. For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers. If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game.
I think you're missing the point. I don't have an issue with min-maxing or optimization in gameplay, both of which imply choice. I do have an issue with mindless task management. Again, lots to be learned from what makes FPS fun and interesting. Almost entirely about mechanical speed, accuracy, and precision, and yet almost every input has significant tactical, if not strategic, depth. Those devs aren't requiring lots of pointless inputs with little-to-no tactical or strategic value just to tax executive functions.
The design considerations and conversations related to chess are significantly more complicated, and extend way beyond whether speed confers an edge in the shortest time controls (clearly it does, though I watch and play a decent amount of bullet chess, and I'd say the pre-moving meta is even more important). The bigger critique of chess is that over hundreds of years worth of analyzed games and especially with the advent of powerful engines, the games at the highest levels often reduce down to which player has a better memory of all the various lines of theory in whatever opening happens to be played in a particular game. One player will often test another's knowledge of the specific line chosen, and if the other player accurately refutes, they'll just agree to a draw. It was the reason Bobby Fischer came to hate standard chess and invented a randomized variant, and it's also a significant reason why Magnus Carlsen abdicated the thrown. Ironically, Magnus believes a higher quantity of games at shorter time controls is necessary to be able to fairly evaluate skill. In any event, most designers would acknowledge that chess is not a very good game from a design perspective, and not something you'd really want to be modeling modern strategy games on.
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On September 27 2023 11:19 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2023 05:40 Smorrie wrote:On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages. Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact. For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers. If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game. I think you're missing the point. I don't have an issue with min-maxing or optimization in gameplay, both of which imply choice. I do have an issue with mindless task management. Again, lots to be learned from what makes FPS fun and interesting. Almost entirely about mechanical speed, accuracy, and precision, and yet almost every input has significant tactical, if not strategic, depth. Those devs aren't requiring lots of pointless inputs with little-to-no tactical or strategic value just to tax executive functions. The design considerations and conversations related to chess are significantly more complicated, and extend way beyond whether speed confers an edge in the shortest time controls (clearly it does, though I watch and play a decent amount of bullet chess, and I'd say the pre-moving meta is even more important). The bigger critique of chess is that over hundreds of years worth of analyzed games and especially with the advent of powerful engines, the games at the highest levels often reduce down to which player has a better memory of all the various lines of theory in whatever opening happens to be played in a particular game. One player will often test another's knowledge of the specific line chosen, and if the other player accurately refutes, they'll just agree to a draw. It was the reason Bobby Fischer came to hate standard chess and invented a randomized variant, and it's also a significant reason why Magnus Carlsen abdicated the thrown. Ironically, Magnus believes a higher quantity of games at shorter time controls is necessary to be able to fairly evaluate skill. In any event, most designers would acknowledge that chess is not a very good game from a design perspective, and not something you'd really want to be modeling modern strategy games on.
Tbh, I don't think the FPS genre really tests the same aspects of the player similarly. Starcraft and other RTSes push player by requiring routine inputs which almost settle into a flow state, and then flipping you up by introducing random interactive elements further taxing you. The cognitive load in CS is significantly different and makes the random interactive elements the focus. This, in turn, pushes the allotted load onto a somewhat simplified decision space, allowing you to have the insane speed and accuracy needed to beat someone in a duel when both of you are peeking or responding to the peek.
In Starcraft, you have to predict/maneuver/win the battle, but minimize the cost of the attention that could have gone to macro. The balancing act is the game, and changing this equation may make the game feel unrewarding/bland/unfair. Making a game with the routine being significantly less important is definitely a possibility, but how this is done is obviously a major point. An example is caster units in SC2, because one high impact spell that can be spammed with 1 control group has a mechanical cost of a click or two, while the response usually requires a higher degree of investment.
Simplifying the macro is one thing, but the shape of the micro aspects becomes extremely important to nail, because otherwise it can have larger scale consequences that won't even be redeemable after game release.
(Side note: would auto battlers just be an RTS with macro mechanics essentially removed?)
Personally, the game won't feel as rewarding if the micro elements are even bigger deciders, because games that test these skills more (like DOTA/LOL) show that heroes with bigger macro mechanics aren't as popular (Meepo/Chen/Enchantress etc in DOTA, idk in League).
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On September 27 2023 11:19 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2023 05:40 Smorrie wrote:On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages. Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact. For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers. If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game. I think you're missing the point. I don't have an issue with min-maxing or optimization in gameplay, both of which imply choice. I do have an issue with mindless task management. Again, lots to be learned from what makes FPS fun and interesting. Almost entirely about mechanical speed, accuracy, and precision, and yet almost every input has significant tactical, if not strategic, depth. Those devs aren't requiring lots of pointless inputs with little-to-no tactical or strategic value just to tax executive functions. The design considerations and conversations related to chess are significantly more complicated, and extend way beyond whether speed confers an edge in the shortest time controls (clearly it does, though I watch and play a decent amount of bullet chess, and I'd say the pre-moving meta is even more important). The bigger critique of chess is that over hundreds of years worth of analyzed games and especially with the advent of powerful engines, the games at the highest levels often reduce down to which player has a better memory of all the various lines of theory in whatever opening happens to be played in a particular game. One player will often test another's knowledge of the specific line chosen, and if the other player accurately refutes, they'll just agree to a draw. It was the reason Bobby Fischer came to hate standard chess and invented a randomized variant, and it's also a significant reason why Magnus Carlsen abdicated the thrown. Ironically, Magnus believes a higher quantity of games at shorter time controls is necessary to be able to fairly evaluate skill. In any event, most designers would acknowledge that chess is not a very good game from a design perspective, and not something you'd really want to be modeling modern strategy games on.
The developments in Chess are also overlapping with the evolution in BW - now that replays are plentifully available, first person footage is easily accessible & timers have been added to the game UI, people have been copying progamer build orders to a second. Practicing and memorizing these will get you to higher ranked games by itself, even though problems will of course start to arise when opponents are high enough level themselves to dismiss the advantages gained by following the first 5 minutes to a second. This doesn't make it pointless though - this happens in every game genre - even in non-competitive games like Diablo where people want to copy the most optimal builds, even while leveling.
Also, I'm not missing your point, I just don't agree ;-) While I do acknowledge BW has various mechanics that are outdated (i.e. pathing), many operational tasks that one could call mindless end up having more influence on the game's flow at higher levels. A casual player will attempt to keep worker production up from the very start of the game. Is this a mindless task that punishes players who can't keep this up? Advanced build orders have various moments where worker production is temporarily cut and/or workers are switched between gathering gas and minerals. This leads to a variety of different timings and additional game depth. Obviously this type of depth was never a conscious part of the original game design, but leaving these features out by default will also eliminate any optimization variety and strategical depth coming out of this.
I'd say BW is more of a a happy accident rather than excellent game design. However, for some reason all attempts made to make a superior modern competitive RTS game have failed (or at least have been inferior to BW). So I think it's expected that David Kim's words don't resonate with the majority of the BW player base.
Regarding the FPS references - I'm not very well known with competitive FPS, but when I think back of high level duel= based FPS (since RTS primarily revolves around 1:1 as well), aside from speed & accuracy, optimizing map routes and learning spawn times to pick up armor, weapons and ammo has a really big influence on the game. Team games of course have a completely different dynamic.
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On September 27 2023 20:31 Wintex wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2023 11:19 rwala wrote:On September 27 2023 05:40 Smorrie wrote:On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages. Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact. For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers. If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game. I think you're missing the point. I don't have an issue with min-maxing or optimization in gameplay, both of which imply choice. I do have an issue with mindless task management. Again, lots to be learned from what makes FPS fun and interesting. Almost entirely about mechanical speed, accuracy, and precision, and yet almost every input has significant tactical, if not strategic, depth. Those devs aren't requiring lots of pointless inputs with little-to-no tactical or strategic value just to tax executive functions. The design considerations and conversations related to chess are significantly more complicated, and extend way beyond whether speed confers an edge in the shortest time controls (clearly it does, though I watch and play a decent amount of bullet chess, and I'd say the pre-moving meta is even more important). The bigger critique of chess is that over hundreds of years worth of analyzed games and especially with the advent of powerful engines, the games at the highest levels often reduce down to which player has a better memory of all the various lines of theory in whatever opening happens to be played in a particular game. One player will often test another's knowledge of the specific line chosen, and if the other player accurately refutes, they'll just agree to a draw. It was the reason Bobby Fischer came to hate standard chess and invented a randomized variant, and it's also a significant reason why Magnus Carlsen abdicated the thrown. Ironically, Magnus believes a higher quantity of games at shorter time controls is necessary to be able to fairly evaluate skill. In any event, most designers would acknowledge that chess is not a very good game from a design perspective, and not something you'd really want to be modeling modern strategy games on. Tbh, I don't think the FPS genre really tests the same aspects of the player similarly. Starcraft and other RTSes push player by requiring routine inputs which almost settle into a flow state, and then flipping you up by introducing random interactive elements further taxing you. The cognitive load in CS is significantly different and makes the random interactive elements the focus. This, in turn, pushes the allotted load onto a somewhat simplified decision space, allowing you to have the insane speed and accuracy needed to beat someone in a duel when both of you are peeking or responding to the peek. In Starcraft, you have to predict/maneuver/win the battle, but minimize the cost of the attention that could have gone to macro. The balancing act is the game, and changing this equation may make the game feel unrewarding/bland/unfair. Making a game with the routine being significantly less important is definitely a possibility, but how this is done is obviously a major point. An example is caster units in SC2, because one high impact spell that can be spammed with 1 control group has a mechanical cost of a click or two, while the response usually requires a higher degree of investment. Simplifying the macro is one thing, but the shape of the micro aspects becomes extremely important to nail, because otherwise it can have larger scale consequences that won't even be redeemable after game release. (Side note: would auto battlers just be an RTS with macro mechanics essentially removed?) Personally, the game won't feel as rewarding if the micro elements are even bigger deciders, because games that test these skills more (like DOTA/LOL) show that heroes with bigger macro mechanics aren't as popular (Meepo/Chen/Enchantress etc in DOTA, idk in League).
There's an RTS-like autobattler I forget the name of (Looked it up - Mechabellum) that feels like a good reference point. Still a fun game without macro, but certainly feels like it lacks long-term bite of a proper RTS. Also Deserts of Kharak for a macro-lite RTS, again fun but feels like you lose long-term appeal to apparent simplicity.
As for macro champions in League - there aren't any. Those with controllable pets have limited control over said pets, and those pets never have active abilities. League seems to follow the same paradigm as dota where the most consistently popular are strong things with high skill expression (Pango/Ta and Zed/Yasuo) and strong straightforward meatballs (Tidehunter/Pudge and Nautilus/Darius). The consistent element people care about is the power fantasy - if it feels like you're winning, that matters more than unique mechanics or playstyle. Plenty of unique in League - Still noone plays Ivern unless he's actually good xD
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As a watcher of competitive BW, it has seemed that part of the fun is that it is so incredibly difficult to optimize control over many diverse units and aspects of the game that players can find ways to express themselves uniquely by choosing which parts of the game they are going to devote attention to and when. This room for creativity makes it possible for players to frequently have fresh takes on what the best way is to win, and usually there isn't really a right answer so the meta-game stays fresh in a seesaw manner with the help of mapmakers trying out different combinations of ideas to reward players who think differently about how to approach the game.
In contrast, in watching SC2, all the top players look more similar to each other in how they play.
To bring an example from sports/athletics: As a fan of baseball, the "difficulty" of professional baseball and the fact that I'll never throw 100 mph doesn't diminish my enjoyment of playing catch with a friend. Baseball is also an absurdly strategic game.
The difficulty of controlling units in BW does not make it less fun to hop on to Battlenet and play customs with my friends and to try not to die to zealot rushes or play other UMS games.
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[B]In contrast, in watching SC2, all the top players look more similar to each other in how they play..
That's not entirely true. Especially the Terrans have big stylistic differences, and they are atypical players for Protoss (ShowTime) and Zerg (Dark) as well. But the differences are smaller than in BW, and I would agree that more stylistic diversity would be great for the game and that macro mechanics are most likely needed for that. Maybe rhythm games could be an inspiration for those macro mechanics to make them more exciting.
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On September 28 2023 08:19 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2023 20:31 Wintex wrote:On September 27 2023 11:19 rwala wrote:On September 27 2023 05:40 Smorrie wrote:On September 26 2023 23:37 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 10:25 NonY wrote:On September 26 2023 08:43 rwala wrote:On September 26 2023 05:00 robopork wrote:
I suck at these games but doesn't reducing the demands of attention and management affect the strategy?
Can we actually get that cream out of the coffee? Sure, and having players play hungry, sleep deprived, and balancing on one foot in a sauna blaring a cacophony of noise would also impact the strategy. The thing is when you equate strategy and tactics with mindless task management you start to lose the heart of what strategy and tactics is all about. I’m not trying to be harsh, I do think a lot of folks in the community enjoy the mundane process of grinding out macro cycles and somehow find it soothing or comforting or whatever. But it really has nothing to do with strategy. But it’s the character that RTS games developed nonetheless. Now if you want to remove that character to make some other kind of RTS game, that’s fine. But BW alone has had so much success and loyalty that it’s absurd to think that we just throw away this type of game forever. At least one of these successors needs to honor the mechanics of playing BW. Fans of strategy games like to make arguments that since “strategy” is in the name of the category they’re in, we must prioritize it over everything else. Nonsense. It’s virtually impossible to have a contest or competition without strategy being present, whether it’s arm wrestling or a foot race or soccer or an FPS or whatever. Everything has strategy in it and “strategy games” are free to feature skills other than strategy. RTS particularly is well suited for featuring non-strategy skills, since removing the turn-based aspect and introducing the skill of using a mouse and keyboard in real time invites the exact difficulty that you now suggest we de-emphasize. So just like playing soccer requires you to be able to run a bit, and being able to run really well is a huge advantage in soccer, so it goes with mechanics in RTS’s like BW and its successors. Mundane tasks are inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the flashier parts of the game. You can’t remove them and just keep the “fun stuff” without changing the entire nature of the game. There’s room in the world for both kinds of games imo. I’m just tired of people attacking this aspect of BW and its successors like it’s a fault that can be fixed or optimized by modern game devs. Leave us alone lol I meant that as kind of an absurd example, but thanks for validating that there's a segment of the community willing to admit that RTS in some respects reduces to this kind of silliness. I love BW and grew up playing it, but there's no question it's outdated in a number of ways. I also love Command & Conquer, BW fixed a lot of the issues in that franchise, and yet there's a solid community still dedicated to C&C. No one is suggesting we get rid of these titles, and I didn't say strategy needs to be prioritized over everything else (I'm not trying to recreate chess or go here). In fact if you read my last comment you'll see that I think RTS can learn from some of the mechanics of what makes FPS fun from a speed, responsiveness, and dexterity skill perspective. SC2 improved on BW by making the units faster and more responsive, with better pathfinding and AI. But if you think a memory skill check is critical to the essence of RTS, I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. It's the fate of every non-turn based video game. Today gamers are very used to min maxing every game they play. Even in todays most popular and accessible Chess variants (with faster time controls) mechanical speed and accuracy will give you significant advantages. Truth is, in your average game this isn't much to worry about. Obviously at a higher level of competition the advantages of such abilities will have a larger impact. For many years, performing these type of tasks in a most optimal manner were hardly game changing in competitive BW. The foreign scene had a lot of many lower apm players who excelled due to strategical and tactical superiority (Fisheye, Nazgul). Even Savior, one of the most influential players of all time, had relatively low APM but superior strategy and tactical awareness compared to his peers. If minimizing this is amongst your core design ideas, I think you're focusing on the wrong things and will likely put you at a higher risk of creating a bland game. I think you're missing the point. I don't have an issue with min-maxing or optimization in gameplay, both of which imply choice. I do have an issue with mindless task management. Again, lots to be learned from what makes FPS fun and interesting. Almost entirely about mechanical speed, accuracy, and precision, and yet almost every input has significant tactical, if not strategic, depth. Those devs aren't requiring lots of pointless inputs with little-to-no tactical or strategic value just to tax executive functions. The design considerations and conversations related to chess are significantly more complicated, and extend way beyond whether speed confers an edge in the shortest time controls (clearly it does, though I watch and play a decent amount of bullet chess, and I'd say the pre-moving meta is even more important). The bigger critique of chess is that over hundreds of years worth of analyzed games and especially with the advent of powerful engines, the games at the highest levels often reduce down to which player has a better memory of all the various lines of theory in whatever opening happens to be played in a particular game. One player will often test another's knowledge of the specific line chosen, and if the other player accurately refutes, they'll just agree to a draw. It was the reason Bobby Fischer came to hate standard chess and invented a randomized variant, and it's also a significant reason why Magnus Carlsen abdicated the thrown. Ironically, Magnus believes a higher quantity of games at shorter time controls is necessary to be able to fairly evaluate skill. In any event, most designers would acknowledge that chess is not a very good game from a design perspective, and not something you'd really want to be modeling modern strategy games on. Tbh, I don't think the FPS genre really tests the same aspects of the player similarly. Starcraft and other RTSes push player by requiring routine inputs which almost settle into a flow state, and then flipping you up by introducing random interactive elements further taxing you. The cognitive load in CS is significantly different and makes the random interactive elements the focus. This, in turn, pushes the allotted load onto a somewhat simplified decision space, allowing you to have the insane speed and accuracy needed to beat someone in a duel when both of you are peeking or responding to the peek. In Starcraft, you have to predict/maneuver/win the battle, but minimize the cost of the attention that could have gone to macro. The balancing act is the game, and changing this equation may make the game feel unrewarding/bland/unfair. Making a game with the routine being significantly less important is definitely a possibility, but how this is done is obviously a major point. An example is caster units in SC2, because one high impact spell that can be spammed with 1 control group has a mechanical cost of a click or two, while the response usually requires a higher degree of investment. Simplifying the macro is one thing, but the shape of the micro aspects becomes extremely important to nail, because otherwise it can have larger scale consequences that won't even be redeemable after game release. (Side note: would auto battlers just be an RTS with macro mechanics essentially removed?) Personally, the game won't feel as rewarding if the micro elements are even bigger deciders, because games that test these skills more (like DOTA/LOL) show that heroes with bigger macro mechanics aren't as popular (Meepo/Chen/Enchantress etc in DOTA, idk in League). There's an RTS-like autobattler I forget the name of (Looked it up - Mechabellum) that feels like a good reference point. Still a fun game without macro, but certainly feels like it lacks long-term bite of a proper RTS. Also Deserts of Kharak for a macro-lite RTS, again fun but feels like you lose long-term appeal to apparent simplicity. As for macro champions in League - there aren't any. Those with controllable pets have limited control over said pets, and those pets never have active abilities. League seems to follow the same paradigm as dota where the most consistently popular are strong things with high skill expression (Pango/Ta and Zed/Yasuo) and strong straightforward meatballs (Tidehunter/Pudge and Nautilus/Darius). The consistent element people care about is the power fantasy - if it feels like you're winning, that matters more than unique mechanics or playstyle. Plenty of unique in League - Still noone plays Ivern unless he's actually good xD
Not to go too far OT but Heroes of the Storm had Lost Vikings, which is the most macro heavy unit(s) I have ever played in a MOBA and a good Viking player had a ridiculous large impact in the game, be it amateur or pro level.
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On September 27 2023 01:20 Agh wrote:
Late to the party but all of my experiences talking with David Kim lead me to believe he's pretty poor fit in any type of lead role.
Guy is the king of being presented with problems & issues, acknowledging them, then doing absolutely nothing or making the problem worse.
Maybe time dissolves egos but my expectations couldn't be any lower.
He did what he was supposed to do, but I do agree he had no real value in SC2 as far as advancing the meta or gameplay in a positive way. He was told to appease the casuals make it the most fun for them so they could sell the most copies and made sweeping changes to things to nerf their use into the ground so people would be happier during their games. It made pro play worse and very linier and boring with very little stylistic adaptation after that, sure there were some okayish end game nerfs that worked out well because they were far too strong considering their counters, but for the most part it was eliminating early game threats, so that noobs could have an easier time.
Meanwhile just as he would nerf whatever early/mid game meta was going on, the pros were figuring out how to play against it and crush because of how hard their opponents invested into it. Forcing everyone to realize that early/begging of mid game aggression wasn't really possible and you had to go down the one lane and play a long macro game instead of agression.
I have no hope for his project it will be lame on launch.
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I think you can give the dirty plebs their due and make rts games that don't actually require mechanical skill to play. But to say Broodwar is outdated is just dumb. Broodwar will survive every rise and fall of every civilization from now until humanity itself disappears. Mark my words on that.
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EPT
