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Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread - Page 23

Forum Index > General Games
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ETisME
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
12521 Posts
April 23 2024 09:26 GMT
#441
On April 23 2024 18:15 Menkent wrote:
See! So I was right about Fortnite and building. Many people do dislike it. But it was the thing that made it initially very popular, because it was new.

ah you are right, I didn't read that properly. my bad
其疾如风,其徐如林,侵掠如火,不动如山,难知如阴,动如雷震。
Menkent
Profile Joined April 2024
22 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 09:33:08
April 23 2024 09:28 GMT
#442
@KingzTig
It is not the argument. It is not hard. Why not at least try and engage with the actual thing being said? Like claiming that a gameplay-based resource system might feel contrived or arbitrary or break immersion. Those are solid arguments.

Saying 'but the lore doesn't forbid it, so it is not lore-based' is nonsense and a stupid thing to even say. Especially if you are still saying it AFTER quoting FIVE TIMES.


If you had come to me and said 'Zero Space does have a pure gameplay-based system: the energy bar' Id have said ah yes, that is an example of what I meant. But you didn't even do that.

The fact that you do it now proves you understood perfectly well the entire time and you were being deliberately bad faith all that time. Even in this latest post, where you still pretend not to get it. And admit you do get it, giving a good example. In the very same post.

Please stop.

And for others who do want to engage, I never said game devs never adjust their lore-based resource system based on gameplay. Of course they do. And I also never said you can't adapt lore to explain your gameplay-based system. You obviously can. The issue is where the fundamental nature of the resource system comes from. Is it a lore/setting/world-building thing? Or is it a pure gameplay consideration.

If you have evidence that for Warcraft 1 they had several different resources systems that they playtested and they went wit the one giving the best gameplay, please show me. Because I have never seen it.
KingzTig
Profile Joined February 2024
155 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 09:35:24
April 23 2024 09:33 GMT
#443
On April 23 2024 18:28 Menkent wrote:
It is not the argument. It is not hard. Why not at least try and engage with the actual thing being said? Like claiming that a gameplay-based resource system might feel contrived or arbitrary or break immersion. Those are solid arguments.

Saying 'but the lore doesn't forbid it, so it is not lore-based' is nonsense and a stupid thing to even say. Especially if you are still saying it AFTER quoting FIVE TIMES.


If you had come to me and said 'Zero Space does have a pure gameplay-based system: the energy bar' Id have said ah yes, that is an example of what I meant. But you didn't even do that.

The fact that you do it now proves you understood perfectly well the entire time and you were being deliberately bad faith all that time. Even in this latest post, where you still pretend not to get it. And admit you do get it, giving a good example.

Please stop.

If you keep saying its lore based but lore never addressed any limitations, obviously you are the one confusing everyone.

Let alone you saying as if most modern rts don't even try to innovate, that part is outright wrong again because which of the new game doesn't?
Zerospace, gate of pyre and stormgate. Let me know.

I have even given you a few examples of what games were innovating and what designs they were borrowing.
But you seem to think wc3 couldn't have burrowed from AOE gathering hub system because it's how it's always been.
Menkent
Profile Joined April 2024
22 Posts
April 23 2024 09:33 GMT
#444
KingzTig, please stop.
KingzTig
Profile Joined February 2024
155 Posts
April 23 2024 09:37 GMT
#445
On April 23 2024 18:33 Menkent wrote:
KingzTig, please stop.

Sure, whats your take on the gate of pyre system? Do you think its lore based or world setting or gameplay? Or a bit of both like every RTS out there?
Menkent
Profile Joined April 2024
22 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 09:49:18
April 23 2024 09:45 GMT
#446
Immortal, Gate of Pyre is literally a carbon copy from Blizzard RTS. Town hall, workers, alloys being gathered by workers that can be harassed, and ether where you build your gas extractor.

Are you seriously asking this question? Of of all the games we could discuss, this one is maybe the clearest.

I still don't get the 'limited by lore' thing. And I never said devs didn't try to innovate. The general criticism is that no dev has been able to innovate enough to pull in a new audience. And my criticism is that they didn't take the lessons of SC BW for 1vs1 play, and intentionally designed the game from the ground up to have interesting 1vs1 play. For both casuals and competitive players.

Gates of Pyre is the perfect example. They literally copied SC2 and simplified it. Their resource system is my exact argument. It is simplified because the alloy is a combination of a gold mine in WC3 or mineral patches in SC BW/SC2. It just takes less workers. And the gas extractor is simplified because it takes no workers at all.

Doesn't mean it is bad per se. But the devs obviously thought 'the SC2 system works, but SC2 is generally too hard to learn, so let's make it a tiny bit simpler'. They didn't think about worker saturation, investment curves, rate of returns, and how that would diversify 1vs1 play.

But if you have an interview with a Gate of Pyre developer, where they explain why they changed the Blizzard resource system, and they explain why they believe their changes will lead to richer gameplay and strategies, please show me.
KingzTig
Profile Joined February 2024
155 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 09:59:27
April 23 2024 09:59 GMT
#447
On April 23 2024 18:45 Menkent wrote:
Immortal, Gate of Pyre is literally a carbon copy from Blizzard RTS. Town hall, workers, alloys being gathered by workers that can be harassed, and ether where you build your gas extractor.

Are you seriously asking this question? Of of all the games we could discuss, this one is maybe the clearest.

I still don't get the 'limited by lore' thing. And I never said devs didn't try to innovate. The general criticism is that no dev has been able to innovate enough to pull in a new audience. And my criticism is that they didn't take the lessons of SC BW for 1vs1 play, and intentionally designed the game from the ground up to have interesting 1vs1 play. For both casuals and competitive players.

Gates of Pyre is the perfect example. They literally copied SC2 and simplified it. Their resource system is my exact argument. It is simplified because the alloy is a combination of a gold mine in WC3 or mineral patches in SC BW/SC2. It just takes less workers. And the gas extractor is simplified because it takes no workers at all.

Doesn't mean it is bad per se. But the devs obviously thought 'the SC2 system works, but SC2 is generally too hard to learn, so let's make it a tiny bit simpler'. They didn't think about worker saturation, investment curves, rate of returns, and how that would diversify 1vs1 play.

But if you have an interview with a Gate of Pyre developer, where they explain why they changed the Blizzard resource system, and they explain why they believe their changes will lead to richer gameplay and strategies, please show me.

Carbon copy of sc2 would make it lore based or?
And are you really going to ignore capturing map objective for the third resource to cast global abilities?
How is that not diversifying 1v1?

Why do you think they didn't think about worker saturation, when it literally has an upgrade to increase mineable workers on one alloy?

Are you saying they never thought about unit strength, tech path and production rate for the rate of return? That's a big bold claim to make
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2603 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 11:01:01
April 23 2024 10:58 GMT
#448
On April 23 2024 17:07 Menkent wrote:
@Fleetfeet

lol you just cherry picked a few sentences about what he said as being 'poor grammar'. That's not how language works.

Also, they are right about Dune 2 and C&C stories. You can't compare that to storytelling in 2010. And yeah there were a few games whose names are basically lost that could be considered to be RTS games way early on. But those are nitpicks that don't even counter the core point. You can't say that SC2 having a shit story is ok and still appeals hugely to single player people because there was a niche game called 'Herzog Zwei'. Or that the Dune 2 game added a faction that doesn't exist in the novels. It IS the same story. You have a planet called Arrakis with spice. And you have to conquer it. That's the story. And it is pulled 1 for 1 from the book. Those don't counter the argument that SC2 had a bad story. That doesn't make any sense.


I didn't cherry-pick anything! It was the first post of theirs that I responded to, and the whole fucking paragraph I disagreed with. These weren't random sentences I grabbed from hither and yon, it was one post and one paragraph and that's all I needed to prove my point. I could exhaustively pull examples of shit grammar or them being a dick, but I don't need to - the first post of theirs I interacted with had it all cleanly, right there. You want to refute that, go ahead. Handwaving it away as me cherry-picking is lazy.

As to the bolded, you cannot believe this. They themselves do not believe this, as evidenced to them doing the following:

1) Declaring that playing through a campaign is playing through the story
"Playing a campaign is literally playing through a story. It is the entire concept."

2) Admitting that Warcraft 1 has both a campaign and a story
"With WC, WC2 and SC, Blizzard actually did a better job at trying to create a story and do world-building."

3) Confessing they know C&C came out in 1996, where Warcraft 1 came out in 1994.
"C&C was in 1996 bro."

By basic application of logic, we can see that the statement they made of "C&C was literally the first RTS game with it's own story" is patently false. Dune 2 having a story or not is irrelevant, because even if Dune 2 doesn't have an original story by some wild arbitration, Warcraft 1 still came out before and has an original story.

If you care to, you could explain precisely what you mean when you claim they are right about Dune 2 and C&C stories. As I see it currently, they cannot be right about Dune 2 and C&C stories based on ThE WoRdS tHeY WroTe. I don't have to argue against a point they made, because the point collapsed on itself before it had a chance to live.
Harris1st
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Germany6995 Posts
April 23 2024 11:41 GMT
#449
On April 23 2024 12:05 Fleetfeet wrote:

I don't know how you get past this hurdle, because people don't like things being hard. It's why I harp so much on campaign being important for any RTS, because I think a good RTS -needs- to be hard*, and campaigns or co-op function as an entry point where you can start experiencing that fun before having to go on to a competitive 1v1 game and getting your ass kicked.

*That said, I'm 100% all for PvE / noncompetitive RTS experiences.


This one is a bit more difficult to tackle because people actually LOOOOVE things beeing hard. Just look at the market. It's flooded with "souls"-like games, harsh survival games and other games that make people smash their keyboards. And everyone loves it. The difference beeing that most of these are PvE mechanics which you can immediately give another try and again and again while if you lost a PvP game (1v1 in particular I guess), it's lost and you failed and don't get that 2nd chance. Anyway, my point beeing: mechanics can be hard and people are willing to learn all kinds of patterns and combos. It kinda just has to be clear what to do, what for and then ofc there needs to be some kind of victory feeling/ adrenaline rush.
Go Serral! GG EZ for Ence. Flashbang dance FTW
Menkent
Profile Joined April 2024
22 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 11:48:30
April 23 2024 11:43 GMT
#450
WTF are you on about. Why would I argue for someone else's point?

You are indeed a complete dick, like you say. WTF are you even trying to do? You could have had an argument about RTS. Or about their history. But all you do is throw around a gigantic pile of diarrhea.

Honestly, I can't even understand your post right now. You sum up 3 points. Points of what? They cannot believe this? What? you cannot believe this? What? Believe what?

Dune 2 didn't have its own story. The story came from the novel.

Why the fuck are you even posting? This is completely incoherent. Why don't you go read a children's book on 'Grammar in the English language' and read that instead?
Here, buy this:

In fact, I'll even paypall it for you. As long as you stop posting here.
[image loading]

www.amazon.com


[edit]

Lol you are just another Dota2 player trying to have an argument on RTS. Once you grow some manners, mature up, and grow a pair of balls/ovaries, go argue about Moba's somewhere.

User was temp banned for this post.
jhgzutghjd
Profile Joined April 2024
1 Post
Last Edited: 2024-04-23 19:04:15
April 23 2024 14:14 GMT
#451
--- Nuked ---
Miragee
Profile Joined December 2009
8594 Posts
April 23 2024 15:10 GMT
#452
On April 23 2024 20:41 Harris1st wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 23 2024 12:05 Fleetfeet wrote:

I don't know how you get past this hurdle, because people don't like things being hard. It's why I harp so much on campaign being important for any RTS, because I think a good RTS -needs- to be hard*, and campaigns or co-op function as an entry point where you can start experiencing that fun before having to go on to a competitive 1v1 game and getting your ass kicked.

*That said, I'm 100% all for PvE / noncompetitive RTS experiences.


This one is a bit more difficult to tackle because people actually LOOOOVE things beeing hard. Just look at the market. It's flooded with "souls"-like games, harsh survival games and other games that make people smash their keyboards. And everyone loves it. The difference beeing that most of these are PvE mechanics which you can immediately give another try and again and again while if you lost a PvP game (1v1 in particular I guess), it's lost and you failed and don't get that 2nd chance. Anyway, my point beeing: mechanics can be hard and people are willing to learn all kinds of patterns and combos. It kinda just has to be clear what to do, what for and then ofc there needs to be some kind of victory feeling/ adrenaline rush.


I guess you could help with this by simply adding an option of a rematch into match making? Like, if you finished a match you get a pop-up or something asking you for a rematch and if both accept it within 1 minute or so you enter a rematch.
uummpaa
Profile Joined July 2018
238 Posts
April 23 2024 15:31 GMT
#453
i dont think having a rematch button fixes anything about that, since the other player can do something different this time and if it was one of your mistakes, you can pay attention to it next game no matter the opponent.

i think a good team vs team mode can be a nice entry drug to 1v1 if this is a goal of devs, since the barrier is much lower playing in a team (as can be seen by MOBAs popularity), it just would need some things added to the n players are doing the same thing in parallel. be it some side quests, some rescources being farmed by only a few players of a team or whatever.

if ppl have fun in team games, they will eventually try 1v1 as well, and the game is still played by more players, which benefits pretty much everyone
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12238 Posts
April 23 2024 17:29 GMT
#454
On April 23 2024 17:36 ETisME wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 23 2024 14:03 Excalibur_Z wrote:
On April 23 2024 12:05 Fleetfeet wrote:
RTS imo are in an interesting spot where the "Chasing Brood War" school of design feels like a really hard sell. I feel like a lot of us would wholeheartedly agree that BW is (among) the best competitive game available, while simultaneously being able to see that its fun isn't 'accessible'. The problem I feel will always be a problem is you can't make Brood War's fun accessible. The game is about controlling all these moving parts and the level of tension that rises from exactly that difficulty - you remove that difficulty, and you remove that fun.

A fundamental difference between SC2 and BW to me is that SC2 tried to make said fun accessible, but failed to keep the same tension. In a game of BW, a better player than me could kick the shit out of me with an army half the size, simply because they could control the engagement -that much better-. There's a tension in knowing you have an advantage and knowing the sheer difficulty in actually executing a plan that exploits that advantage. Maybenexttime said it best - the more ahead you get economically, the harder it is to manage.

I don't know how you get past this hurdle, because people don't like things being hard. It's why I harp so much on campaign being important for any RTS, because I think a good RTS -needs- to be hard*, and campaigns or co-op function as an entry point where you can start experiencing that fun before having to go on to a competitive 1v1 game and getting your ass kicked.

*That said, I'm 100% all for PvE / noncompetitive RTS experiences.


BW is a curious beast because it has so many layers of complexity. However, fundamentally, it is an accessible game, as proven by its universal popularity and the fact that it resonated with a substantial casual playerbase. Around here on TL we like to float the concept of "real" BW referring to high-level BW: a carefully curated set of maps that follow general design rules where players frequently use various quirks and exploits in the game engine honed from years of experimentation at a blinding pace. But that is the bleeding edge.

Most players don't play that way, and don't care to learn. And yet, the game still works very well for them, and remains fun. They sit behind countless walls of Photon Cannons and build Carriers while floating thousands of minerals, if they even bothered to expand at all. They have entire attack squadrons consisting of no more than 12 Zerglings. They think Vultures are only good for Spider Mines. Some just play comp stomps or clunky, poorly-balanced UMS maps. They're perfectly happy in this world.

SC2 decided to put competition at the forefront by making ladder the default way to play multiplayer. There are tutorials about macroing, control groups, hotkeys, all to prepare you for the deep end. It also stripped down the Battle.net experience to dissuade players from building casual communities that thrived in BW. Hardcore was now the de facto Starcraft experience, and while the matchmaker tried its best to make matches fair, where even the weakest players could feel like they had a shot, the creeping dread was ever-present because everyone felt like they needed to constantly try their hardest to maintain their rank. For the casual crowds of old hoping for BW familiarity, that's a big detractor for retention. As a result, SC2's community skewed increasingly hardcore. Eventually, after years, Blizzard realized that they were alienating an entire population and introduced Co-op, which unsurprisingly was very successful because it gave those players a home again.

So when you talk about "accessibility", it's very important to get the framing right. BW and SC2 are both highly accessible. BW especially has an infinite skill ceiling with a very low skill floor (SC2, despite its QoL leaps, I'd argue has a higher skill floor by design). The better you get, and the more you learn, the more pathways for improvement appear. That's why we love BW, and that's why it has so much staying power.

Personally I have to disagree with most of everything here, but also in some way I am in total agreement with you. I say that with no disrespect, and from a pretty hardcore gamer perspective.

All you need to do is look beyond RTS scene.

SC2 was just the earliest batch of the modern gaming era, which every game are fighting for player's time and attention. Many video game devs have brought up this point, the sense of progression matters just as much if not more than having fun.

Decades ago, your range of competition would most likely be local pub hero or your friends. With the internet maturing, your competition is worldwide. Which game right now has a big casual scene alongside with a competitive esports scene?

That's why we have toxic meta build players in Helldivers 2 (which is a 100% PvE mode, and you don't lose anything at all even if you failed the mission).
You have "best build" on a simple casual card game like marvel snap.
Diablo genre becoming even more of a minmax grind, when most of playerbase at casual used to just enjoy the game at their pacing back in D2 .

Fighter genre is the biggest victim of it all, most of their games have player count down 90% within around a month after launch. The difference? Remember it used to be played mostly in arcade?

Fortnite is now played like a psychotic game where players spam their build wall buttons, and drove players off.
EPIC basically repositioned the whole game with collaborate for MTX and get out of the broken meta/core gameplay loop.

Games just aren't building their social side through lobby or launcher, it's all discord/social media/twitch.
Not League of legends, not Dota, not overwatch, not CS.

looking at BW and thinking to use it as a template for modern game era is imo, not seeing how much gaming has changed overall, at every genre.


I do think the content creation space -- and telemetry -- had a large influence on both player behavior and game design. Content creators push the narrative of "optimal play" for clicks. Telemetry informs designers about gaps. To your question about which games successfully simultaneously support casual and competitive experiences... maybe Destiny? I'd also argue SF6 was quite successful in that regard, and that its Modern controls gambit paid off in teaching newer players how to conceptualize mechanics without being blocked by input barriers (and the Cooperation Cup initiatives also did a great job perpetuating the idea to a broad casual audience that anyone can play fighting games). Maybe Dota2 with its Arcade and various seasonal PvE modes?

I'm not suggesting using BW as a model for in-game socialization, by the way. I just meant that BW players who did have that expectation with the sequel basically felt like they had the rug pulled out from under them.
Moderator
BWisOverrated
Profile Joined April 2024
3 Posts
April 23 2024 19:01 GMT
#455
--- Nuked ---
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2603 Posts
April 23 2024 19:38 GMT
#456
On April 23 2024 20:41 Harris1st wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 23 2024 12:05 Fleetfeet wrote:

I don't know how you get past this hurdle, because people don't like things being hard. It's why I harp so much on campaign being important for any RTS, because I think a good RTS -needs- to be hard*, and campaigns or co-op function as an entry point where you can start experiencing that fun before having to go on to a competitive 1v1 game and getting your ass kicked.

*That said, I'm 100% all for PvE / noncompetitive RTS experiences.


This one is a bit more difficult to tackle because people actually LOOOOVE things beeing hard. Just look at the market. It's flooded with "souls"-like games, harsh survival games and other games that make people smash their keyboards. And everyone loves it. The difference beeing that most of these are PvE mechanics which you can immediately give another try and again and again while if you lost a PvP game (1v1 in particular I guess), it's lost and you failed and don't get that 2nd chance. Anyway, my point beeing: mechanics can be hard and people are willing to learn all kinds of patterns and combos. It kinda just has to be clear what to do, what for and then ofc there needs to be some kind of victory feeling/ adrenaline rush.


Totally, and I was imprecise with my use of 'hard'. There's certainly a market for difficult games, and people like being GOOD at difficult games. I dun have time right now, but there's certainly something to the idea of a game being hard in the same way playing piano well is hard, and games like the souls series this point have been teaching people to play electric keyboards for years.
jca2 *
Profile Joined March 2006
France52 Posts
April 27 2024 16:33 GMT
#457
I'm surprised they are not thinking about making tools to help players become better at the game, instead of making the game easier to play. Although I share their view about SC2 becoming way too complex with too many buildings, units, spells and so on for the casual gamer, I still believe that mechanics, speed, APM, multitasking are at the core of competitive RTS.

So why not provide some sort of built-in coaching module to help the player improve? Things like what we tried doing in the old BW days with (Wiki)BWChart, (Wiki)APMAlert or BWCoach. Things it could do:

-display meaningful post-game stats but more importantly, provide a smart analysis of them and derive things to work on to improve etc (watch Moneyball with Jonah Hill)
-provide in-game build-order coaching: "prepare to build this unit", "now build this unit", etc
-provide a library of build orders to train with, with a possibility to import third-party BOs
-provide in-game mechanics coaching: "check your base", "inject now", "check army on hotkey 1", "upgrade now", "use hotkey x for your marines", etc
-provide in-game strategic coaching (we have AI now...): "time to expand", "time to switch army composition", "your opponent seems to be playing the xxxx strat, we suggest doing..."
-provide a library of strategies to train with, with a possibility to import third-party strategies.
-provide a bunch of in-game tutorials for competitive gaming, with the coaching module trying to teach things one at a time, then combine them, etc, offering a smooth learning curve and adapting to your current skill level, like a real coach would do (we have AI now...). Ideally, those games would be "generated" depending on what you want to work on, your skill level, the opponent skill level you want to emulate, and so on.

When you think about it, in which sport do you get to learn all the technique and do all the practice totally on your own? Take competitive swimming for example, how far do you go without a proper coach who explains you what to learn, how to learn it, in which order, with witch methodology and so forth. Not mentioning all the time spent in the pool with the coach watching over you, fixing all the wrong moves, etc.

One last idea: use the AI developed for the coaching module to figure out your real skill level during ladder games and adjust the matchmaking process accordingly. No more fake bronze players trashing the real bronze ones for fun
APM? Never heard of it...
prion_
Profile Joined September 2022
78 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-27 21:43:28
April 27 2024 21:36 GMT
#458
People say improvement in an RTS is mostly drilling rote skills like not getting supply blocked, constantly producing, following a build order etc. This is true (to an extent)*. However, it's also true for pretty much all competitive games, including popular genres. Improvement in League, CS, Dota, Rocket League, Valorant etc. is 80-90% mechanics. So it doesn't seem to be a very good explanation for why RTS games aren't popular anymore.

*It's true to the degree that the most efficient way to improve is by practicing mechanics. But in reality there are many ways to improve, and improving as efficiently as possible isn't the way everyone plays games.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12238 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-27 22:22:48
April 27 2024 22:21 GMT
#459
On April 28 2024 01:33 jca2 wrote:
I'm surprised they are not thinking about making tools to help players become better at the game, instead of making the game easier to play. Although I share their view about SC2 becoming way too complex with too many buildings, units, spells and so on for the casual gamer, I still believe that mechanics, speed, APM, multitasking are at the core of competitive RTS.

So why not provide some sort of built-in coaching module to help the player improve? Things like what we tried doing in the old BW days with (Wiki)BWChart, (Wiki)APMAlert or BWCoach. Things it could do:

-display meaningful post-game stats but more importantly, provide a smart analysis of them and derive things to work on to improve etc (watch Moneyball with Jonah Hill)
-provide in-game build-order coaching: "prepare to build this unit", "now build this unit", etc
-provide a library of build orders to train with, with a possibility to import third-party BOs
-provide in-game mechanics coaching: "check your base", "inject now", "check army on hotkey 1", "upgrade now", "use hotkey x for your marines", etc
-provide in-game strategic coaching (we have AI now...): "time to expand", "time to switch army composition", "your opponent seems to be playing the xxxx strat, we suggest doing..."
-provide a library of strategies to train with, with a possibility to import third-party strategies.
-provide a bunch of in-game tutorials for competitive gaming, with the coaching module trying to teach things one at a time, then combine them, etc, offering a smooth learning curve and adapting to your current skill level, like a real coach would do (we have AI now...). Ideally, those games would be "generated" depending on what you want to work on, your skill level, the opponent skill level you want to emulate, and so on.

When you think about it, in which sport do you get to learn all the technique and do all the practice totally on your own? Take competitive swimming for example, how far do you go without a proper coach who explains you what to learn, how to learn it, in which order, with witch methodology and so forth. Not mentioning all the time spent in the pool with the coach watching over you, fixing all the wrong moves, etc.

One last idea: use the AI developed for the coaching module to figure out your real skill level during ladder games and adjust the matchmaking process accordingly. No more fake bronze players trashing the real bronze ones for fun


When I think of the average casual player, this is the profile I use:
- They don't like frontloaded complexity.
- They don't like tutorials.
- They want a fundamentally simple game loop.
- They want immediate gameplay feedback.
- They want some form of progression.

If I'm a designer, I look at this profile and have a nervous breakdown. Tutorials are proven to work, but players hate reading when they could instead learn something through their own discovery. RTS games (and also fighting games) already have a reputation for complexity, which stops a huge amount of people from even trying them out. The most clever way to teach players is through level design. There is a subtle but effective difference between telling a player "Spider Mines do full damage to Large units like Dragoons. Try using one against this Dragoon now." and letting the player feel smart by killing 1 Dragoon on Hold Position at a chokepoint with their 1 Vulture.

That said, I do agree that a suite of competitive-level coaching tools could be beneficial once players have proven that they fully understand the basics. SC2 tried a competitive onboarding method in Wings of Liberty (which was not very robust) where you had to build a certain number of units within a certain time, or defeat a powerful wave of enemies that was set to arrive at a certain time. Those interactive exercises weren't ideal, but they at least set expectations for the player that opponents were going to operate in a certain way, in order to prepare them for the multiplayer experience. So, something more advanced could probably work, but only after players have gone through that initial organic learning phase (generally, there is this huge player confidence gap that exists between understanding concepts and applying them within a competitive format).

I'm not fully on board with using AI/ML to estimate a player's skill within a broad spectrum, at least in RTS. I know that method is used often in FPS games like Halo, where TrueSkill2 will accurately identify that the 30-0-12 KDA player in your 1500 MMR lobby probably shouldn't have his MMR increased by only +10. In RTS, with the sheer amount of variables in play and the wide variety of playstyles, I think that's a much harder sell (and when Valve attempted something similar in Dota2, players were able to exploit it to achieve artificially high or low account placement).
Moderator
Crimthand
Profile Joined April 2024
15 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-28 00:32:00
April 28 2024 00:20 GMT
#460
Tutorials, learning modes. etc need to be a bonus. Very optional. Chess.com has tons of training modes and lessons. They work.

But it should be completely optional for those who enjoy practicing deliberately for the game they play. Many people just don't like that. I am surprised that people say MOBAs are more popular because they are easy to learn in comparison to RTS. That doesn't make sense to me. But yes, for RTS there is a lot of deliberate practice to do that will make you better. Which could be considered 'mundane' or 'rote' or whatever. But the same is true for many other games. Do fighting games like Street Fighter have game modes that allow you to quickly practice certain moves?

Still, Starcraft 2 had very little of these. Despite the fact that SC BW had many multitask practice UMS maps. So I would say this is just one more thing where SC2 did drop the ball.

People should be able to just play without thinking and have fun. But people who want to try to deliberately practice, should also have that option. And if the game becomes less fun with deliberate practice, then your game is flawed.

For RTS I now wonder if maybe the reason for the unexpected inpopularity may be that the learning feedback loop in RTS is quite long-term. In FPS or MOBA and even chess, if you make a mistake, you usually immediately find out. But in RTS, if you make a mistake, you might be rewarded on the short term by losing less fast. This can make the learning feedback loop at lof more tricky. Even Deepmind had to struggle with that, where the AI tried to become better at the game by playing in a silly way to just lose less fast. I believe that the first iterations of the AI just tried to win the game by refusing to play it. Humans have a similar reward model. How humans are able to learn is actually quite fascinating. Usually, we get better by doing the same thing over and over again. But that actually doesn't make sense. You get better by doing things better. And what 'better' means often is not obvious. And this likely is more true in TRS than in MOBA and FPS.

If this is the actual reason for the inpolularity of RTS, then literally no developer ever has addressed this.

I am sure Dota2 players have great insights into MOBA. But let's keep your opinions to MOBA games on Dota2 fora. Don't pollute RTS with your misguided ideas. No matter how big you think your ego should be. MOBAs are great. They just aren't RTS and playing MOBAs doesn't make you understand RTS. Even if you are actually good.
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