On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
If this would be fun, why isn't "Dota but you play 1v1 where each opponent controls 5 heroes" something anyone plays?
'Raising the micro skillcap' isn't inherently a goal because more micro is absolutely not linearly tied to more fun. That's why Mobas tend towards one hero and generally heroes with more micro (At least, in dota 2) have lower pick rates. You can't just make more micro and expect it to be more fun - it's very easy to have mentally and physically taxing micro, and that's -bad-.
Most game studios tend to do both at the same time because they're trying to make a traditional RTS, and not some other game. Factorio is an example of an 'other' game that goes almost entirely to the basebuilding side of things. Mobas are a byproduct of experiments that leaned far away from macro and more into specific, interesting micro. You CAN make games that fissure macro from micro, I just don't see why you'd do that if your goal is to make an RTS as the genre is understood.
On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
Then why call it RTS in the first place? your previous post also falls under this same flaw.
On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
Then why call it RTS in the first place? your previous post also falls under this same flaw.
Haven't heard that one before. So your implicit assumption must be that removing macro from a game makes it not "real", or not "strategy"?
And everyone who don't think so have flawed logic. You simply cannot imagine a world where you can have strategy without macro? Your imagination doesn't allow for that?
On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
Then why call it RTS in the first place? your previous post also falls under this same flaw.
Haven't heard that one before. So your implicit assumption must be that removing macro from a game makes it not "real", or not "strategy"?
And everyone who don't think so have flawed logic. You simply cannot imagine a world where you can have strategy without macro? Your imagination doesn't allow for that?
I can’t really think of the last big success that did deviate hugely, Warcraft 3 probably. Sure it didn’t remove macro entirely but it did reduce its importance.
But as per your previous points, it absolutely compensated by adding a lot of strategic depth thru creeping, heroes and items and as we all know had a very satisfying level of micro for many.
SC2 may have QoL changes over BW but it’s still balls to the wall dependent on macroing, and right back to the ‘classic’ template many successful RTS games have used.
Going back to the DoW series, as a big 40K fan too, I think one of the problems that had with the direction it took is execution more than anything else. Less and macro, go fight with various armies from a beloved property? Nothing innately wrong with that.
However if you’re making a game that strips out one facet of the genre in place of focusing on combat, well, it better be bloody good combat!
For me look it wasn’t abysmal or anything but equally for my money, purely on the combat and especially micro enjoyability level I think Blizz did that facet of the game better with their big titles.
By want of an analogy I mean rap music strips out some elements that are core to most other genres, but it absolutely can work. But if you want to have a good rap career, chances are you have to nail your delivery and lyrics absolutely down. Folks don’t @me with some rappers with awful delivery and lyrics, I know they exist believe me :p
To crudely break it down, I think both the WC3 and DoW forks can work fundamentally, it ends up being an execution game. WC3 wouldn’t have succeeded if its substitute macro elements for heavy macro were terrible. DoW3 could well have been a roaring success if its attempt to substitute macro elements for a heavy focus on combat had been accompanied with absolutely brilliant combat.
One additional point I think is rarely mentioned is I find the opposite path has proven plenty successful, namely making games less micro heavy in lieu of ‘more macro’:. If not more mechanical busywork, certainly more depth.
The entire ‘4x’ genre (or well ‘4X life’) is effectively this direction of travel after all.
On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
Then why call it RTS in the first place? your previous post also falls under this same flaw.
Haven't heard that one before. So your implicit assumption must be that removing macro from a game makes it not "real", or not "strategy"?
And everyone who don't think so have flawed logic. You simply cannot imagine a world where you can have strategy without macro? Your imagination doesn't allow for that?
I quickly remembered why I ignore your posts all the time.
Never said that. Just said that is no longer an RTS. You have dow2 as an rtt, you have mobas, etc. There are plenty of games where you control squads and just micro what you have with no need to worry for macro.
Its not something that groundbreaking to remove macro and have a very heavy focus on micro. That exists, people just dont call it rts (or at least a standard one), and rightly so.
To put it in the same absurd way you tried to frame my post as something so far out there, or tried again with severe flaws calling me limited, why isn't Fifa of all things an rts?! "Its in real time and there is strategy involved!! Does your imagination not allow for that?!!?!"
Hope this helps you see how that sort of post you make is perceived by others.
Btw the poster above my first post said exactly the same thing that i did, so regardless of what you think, its not that farfetchd. This ends here, completely forgot the user i was replying to. Have a nice day.
On March 09 2024 00:32 _Spartak_ wrote: Flying all of those people out to LA sounds like it would be beyond Frost Giant's budget, so if it isn't SC2 related, this would make the most sense.
Based on what little they said, I am guessing it will be a game with SC-like combat but Dawn of War style economy/base management. Basically a bigger budget ZeroSpace. I am not sure if there is a niche for that though.
What makes you think it will be dawn of war style economy and base management? That seems very random.
Just a hunch based on the things they said in the past:
As for what they want to execute, Kim describes it as "the most action-packed PC RTS that has the lowest barrier to entry that is still impossible to master."
"So what we want to do is modernize a lot of it, and make it so any gamer can play this game. And to play at a competitive level, you don't need to practice the mechanics of it for a decade; you have to be good at the strategy, or countering what you're seeing on the enemy's side. We wanted to make a real strategy game rather than one where who can click the fastest is the best player."
So they want a game where players don't have to practice mechanics or click fast to succeed but they also want the most action-packed game possible. It stands to reason they will make economy management less mechanically demanding and provide more incentives to go out on the map. David Kim also worked on DoW before he joined Blizzard.
The game is already doomed then. Look at the trajectory DoW took from 1 to 3. They basically reduced the "base management" to be on the same level as a MOBA. Their focus to create a RTS with less mechanics and less macro to have fun with armies led to and RTS without macro, without micro and without strategy.
You can remove macro and increase micro skill cap. Although to be far, noone has succesfully accomplished this so far. Every game studio thinks they need to do both at the same time.
Then why call it RTS in the first place? your previous post also falls under this same flaw.
Haven't heard that one before. So your implicit assumption must be that removing macro from a game makes it not "real", or not "strategy"?
And everyone who don't think so have flawed logic. You simply cannot imagine a world where you can have strategy without macro? Your imagination doesn't allow for that?
Your argument is predicated on taking the genre of RTS literally. If we are to do this, MOBAs are also RTS. So is Clash of Clans. You could make a strong argument that Counterstrike is an RTS FPS. Shall I go on, or can we agree that when people refer to the genre of RTS, we're talking about games that follow the Dune 2, Starcraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires et al genre conventions?
On March 13 2024 04:59 JimmyJRaynor wrote: It'll be 3 years in June since Uncapped Games announced its RTS Project.
Four months ago, Uncapped Games was hiring for a Senior Community Manager. Hopefully, this means we'll be hearing more about their upcoming game soon.
Let's just hope this is still going and when they announce something it is closer to beeing done than a game with 3 races but only two of them are half done and the third is nowhere to be seen but still want to release in 4 month
I predicted that this would be something that is close to Dawn of War-inspired in terms of basebuilding and resource gathering and SC2-inspired in terms of combat and this documentary further enforces that idea. I wasn't really hopeful about this game because I like the macro aspect of RTS but this sounded worse than I feared. The things they are saying mirrors what an average redditor on r/games would say about why RTS games are dead. Nothing new that hasn't been tried either. RTS developers have been trying to remove the "chores" of RTS for like two decades now. It doesn't make the genre more appealing to casual players. Also I found this contrast between David Kim's and monk's views on supply buildings fascinating. I know which game design philosophy I will enjoy more.
DK spoke with PiG a bit more about his game philosophy btw
edit:
Have to say I'm not super pumped based on what's being said
The supposed issue of mundane clicks like mules or injects could have been solved by balancing the decision making better. The idea of choosing between scans vs mules, or creep spread vs injecting were good designs. And actually put emphasis on the 'strategy' part that DK keeps talking about.
The issue in sc2 was that you can make enough queens to do everything and so game was then balanced around people always hitting injects. Hitting mules isn't even that impactful on the game because OC energy is capped at 200 and not 50, you don't really lose much by being minutes late on mule drops.
Now, removing the mundane macro part of rts can definitely still make a good game, hell extremes like Hearthstone and autobattlers are popular enough. But I don't think the mundane macro part is actually something that makes RTS suffer. People enjoy base building and mining resources. Even WC3, the least 'base building' of the genre greats, still had a great balance of mechanical skill during fights.
As for supply depots, the idea of supply structures having secondary purposes that other games are doing is just so much better than viewing it as a pointless and unnecessary click. By giving supply structures secondary uses, you both make them actually matter (decision making) and also incentivise players to build them for other reasons, so they'll make them anyway and are less likely to get supply blocked.
But at the end of the day you can still play any strategy you want in sc2, sure you'll always be worse than a player with better mechanics. But if you want to have fun winning with your cool strategies and decision making, you'll just do so at an MMR where people are your skill level. Everyone wins 50% of their games in a ranked system. On top of that, there are GMs with 100 APM, and GMs that do only canon rush. The idea that you need 300 APM to play sc2 is only true if you're goal is to become pro.
Love the videos, it's building honest hype. It definitely feels like this game is going to have some distinct identity.
Out there rambling: They invited 'card gamers', probably reading too much into it, but I can definitely see something like 'picking cards' that defines the early game, without spending the boring first few minutes (also good for spectating) while perhaps retaining some tension between rush/eco.
Anyway the game might turn out good or bad, it's essentially pointless to theorize at this point. Looking forward to the reveal and thank god they aren't trying (so far) to pull us emotionally into it by saying dumb stuff like saving rts.
Minor addition: defn agree that base building should be part of a 'proper' rts, hope it's still there to some capacity. But I'd not be sad if supply depots specifically are removed, for instance.
I like the interview, the chain of thoughts make sense to me. I am just happy someone is bringing in major shakeup to the genre. And I am glad he ain’t babbling too much about esport potential etc.
On April 19 2024 02:49 _Spartak_ wrote: I predicted that this would be something that is close to Dawn of War-inspired in terms of basebuilding and resource gathering and SC2-inspired in terms of combat and this documentary further enforces that idea. I wasn't really hopeful about this game because I like the macro aspect of RTS but this sounded worse than I feared. The things they are saying mirrors what an average redditor on r/games would say about why RTS games are dead. Nothing new that hasn't been tried either. RTS developers have been trying to remove the "chores" of RTS for like two decades now. It doesn't make the genre more appealing to casual players. Also I found this contrast between David Kim's and monk's views on supply buildings fascinating. I know which game design philosophy I will enjoy more.
My experience from the playtest is that regardless of whatever the official rhetoric might end up being, it's absolutely NOT directly competing in the traditional RTS space or "improving" on the old model. I wouldn't say it's quite traditional RTS -> MOBA in terms of difference, but it might help to just think of it as a different sub-genre entirely.
I think it succeeds quite well at its core concept, and it's rather fun (there's also plenty of Twitter testimonials from people who are more hardcore 1v1 SC2/RTS players than me). It's not trying to engage you as a traditional RTS fan per se—it has just enough crossover with traditional RTS that it might entice you to try a totally different kind of game.
Awesome treat to see MrJack draw a bit live (@16min). He's like drawing out great looking RTS units in real-time. I mean maybe he's re-drawing pre-designed things but it looks crazy good. Hopefully they can translate the look to 3d/in-game properly.
Can't believe Blizzard lost him, he should have been art directing their whole operation on a professional athlete sized contract.
The game may turn out to be loads of fun, especially for players outside of the RTS space, but I was hoping that one of these studios was going to take on the challenge of creating a very mechanical and fun game. The argument seems to be that a high APM requirement and lots of multitasking is either tedious or exclusive, but I don't think it paints an accurate picture. I think some of the harder mechanical RTS aren't as fun as they could be for different reasons—not because they're mechanical, and not necessarily because there's 1-2 minutes of down time at the start of the game.
I always felt that if you filled an aesthetically badass game with loads of cool moments and fulfilling interactions, interested players would rise to the occasion to learn the game and participate in the fun that's being had. Maybe this kind of game wouldn't "be for everyone", but I find the premise of making a game for everyone to be a bit of a false one anyways.
All that said, I'm very interested to experience it for myself. After a long drought of RTS, it feels like we're getting many seasons of Game of Thrones all at once. Pretty wild times!
On April 19 2024 12:25 RogerChillingworth wrote: The game may turn out to be loads of fun, especially for players outside of the RTS space, but I was hoping that one of these studios was going to take on the challenge of creating a very mechanical and fun game. The argument seems to be that a high APM requirement and lots of multitasking is either tedious or exclusive, but I don't think it paints an accurate picture. I think some of the harder mechanical RTS aren't as fun as they could be for different reasons—not because they're mechanical, and not necessarily because there's 1-2 minutes of down time at the start of the game.
I always felt that if you filled an aesthetically badass game with loads of cool moments and fulfilling interactions, interested players would rise to the occasion to learn the game and participate in the fun that's being had. Maybe this kind of game wouldn't "be for everyone", but I find the premise of making a game for everyone to be a bit of a false one anyways.
I mean of course a highly mechanical game can be good fun for a wide range of people, it was called Starcraft! An extremely challenging game and yet tons of kids across a whole ton of nations were having fun with camping with mass photon cannons versus camping with mass siege tanks on The Hunters at LAN.
Is the point that our modern internet just killed the ability to have casual fun in a game? I mean, maybe to an extent...
EPT
