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I don't know about anyone else, but APM was not the thing that intimidated me as a new player, it's the fog of war and the complete lack of information that scared me. I also have zero desire to play a game any casual player can do well at if they just watch a meta-relevant YouTube video on what to do.
All of the great games are hard to play even when you know what to do and that's why they endure decades in an industry that is quick to forget. I really wish the focus on how to lower the barrier of entry was on how to best educate players how to play multiplayer in a stress free, non-competitive environment, not by stripping out skill differentiators until the winner is who knows the most. We could just hold a quiz show and award the winner that way if it's supposed to be all about knowing what to do.
New players suck because there is no concept of build orders, no scouting, it's all information related. When pro's can play at masters / GM level with only a mouse, the issue is not mechanics. APM is how we execute strategy; if you don't know what you're doing, you have nothing to execute and you stare at the screen = your APM is low. Teach players what to do and that all starts to go away.
I want to watch pro games and wonder "how can they do that?" in addition to "they're so smart". I want to feel like I can always improve my own game by improving myself. Endlessly. I want another RTS I can play for 10 years, just as SC2 has been my thing for the previous.
If they want the strategy to be more prominent in the game, they need to change the units/upgrades etc up more often. Imagine how much more diverse SC2 games would be if there were major re-balancing and design changes every year?
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When did David Kim leave the Diablo team??
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On July 01 2021 05:53 alpenrahm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2021 05:38 Zambrah wrote:
tbh a higher skill floor RTS sounds great, I never really got into SC2 beyond the campaign stuff because its so daunting. All of the shit you have to do is stressful, it feels like youre never doing shit right youre just doing shit less wrong and its kind of a feel bad.
I've always kind of wanted to try a game more on the scope of like, a MOBA but you control every character on your side of the field, like Lost Vikings from HotS but with more units.
I look forward to seeing how they manage to innovate RTS' That's on you man, you are missing out. RTS lives and breathes APM and that's true for all the good ones. If you remove the macro aspect of the game by automation or something along those lines you are basically leaving the boundaries of the genre. Besides, once you get past your anxiety and just enjoy the game for what it is, it becomes incredibly rewarding. I have never had a win in a Moba or shooter feel even remotely as well-earned as a win in sc2. There actually are titles out there that went for the more "strategic" approach, but none of them have even come close to being as fun a game as the sc series
FWIW, SC2 gameplay is quite literally built on automation. You simply cannot play well without "set it and forget it" play that involves pre-programmed unit and building actions that in turn relies on AI pathing and attack mechanisms, which is....automation. The question isn't whether there should be automation in RTS--there always has been and always will be. The question is how to give all the meaningful tactical and strategic choices to the player, while minimizing actions that don't necessarily confer much unique strategic and tactical value. Those can and should be automated or, better yet, eliminated. That doesn't mean that you need to make the game into some slow, plodding, "strategic" psuedo-turn-based abomination. But it also doesn't mean you need arbitrary mechanical challenges and barriers in the gameplay.
Example: I have never understood why supply buildings/units (depots, pylons, and overlords) are important from a game design or player experience perspective. (Supply caps might be needed to prevent turtling, but that's a different matter.) Sure, supply buildings/units have some tactical purpose: they allow you to build more units, and sniping your opponent's can sometimes supply block them. But doing so doesn't confer any *unique* tactical purpose because resources are the natural constraint designed to limit your ability to build more units. Literally nobody thinks about supply macro cycles almost ever in any strategic or tactical sense other than when their cognitive load got taxed too hard and they missed a cycle so are annoyed with themselves. And it's almost always more beneficial tactically to try to snipe workers than supply buildings/units, because as noted resources are the *true* constraint on building in RTS (and pretty much any other game). These things are just basically pointless annoying things you need to do so you can do the things that are actually fun and strategically and tactically beneficial to do.
People will defend this kind of stuff because that's how it's always been and you need the game to be high APM, mechanically etc. etc. etc. But don't confuse grinding, habit-formation, routine-development, and artificial mechanical challenges with strategic and tactical depth. Not the same...
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so the companies that are interested in making rts are:
dream haven - mike morihame previous blizzard ceo
uncapped games - david kim
Frost giant - previous blizzard sc2 employees.
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sc is really one of a kind, i doubt there can be a better game
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If RTS games only focused on strategy then it wouldn't be "Real Time" anymore, it would just be strategy games.
Not sure if David Kim learned anything from Sc2. Making actions easier did not make the game easier.
Sc2 actions are already easier than BW at accomplishing the same tasks, but there is still a high barrier to entry to both games.
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The issue I see with RTS is, that most of the time you cannot really outrule mechanics. You can obviously try to make the game easier from a mechanical standpoint but I feel strategic decisions benefit from time (i.e round based) while real time provides a focus on mechanics.
Obviously thats not as black and white as I described but I hope people still get what I am trying to say. Someone here wrote you can make it easy and dumb it down, but someone will eventually still be quicker at an easier level. The question here is, will the game still be interesting?
The major flaw in RTS I am currently seeing is that it holds no or next to no initiative for others to play with you. Going to play CS? League? Dota?
"Hey, lets try out XYZ together.."
I am aware COOP and teamgames is a thing, but thats also not what made RTS successful. If there is no iniative for people that like 1v1 to get others to try out the game too, it will always be smaller (note: not inferior) to FPS/moba which is alright. You need to not only modernize a game but also give iniative for people to play it together or alongside each other.
If there is one game I enjoy while I still play it alone ALONGSIDE others is Path of Exile. I feel group play isn't the strong point of it but its fun to hang out and talk about it, play alongside and enjoy the evenings. Thats really impossible for SC2. Or at least only possible to a small extent since you need to be so focused when playing it.
Edit: I believe the key to actually providing strategic success to a RTS game you need to be able to provide the players with choices that matter. Choices that actually diversify a matchup and player from another. In Broodwar against Zerg its viable to play:
SK Terran (vessel+marines)
Bio/Tank
Mech
Obviously thats just a small scale of what I want to express, but strategic aspect in RTS at least for me should be about the route you want to take. Be it hero routes in Warcraft or tech / upgrades choices. For me it could go even as far as locking yourself out of certain choices during gameplay (if you take one route) or picking a kind of "loadout" like Dropzone showed.
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United States33608 Posts
This interview with Wowhead has a more nuanced quote regarding APM requirements and what they want to achieve: https://classic.wowhead.com/news/interview-with-david-kims-newest-rts-studio-uncapped-games-323135
"At the esport level, players being able to show off their incredible micro / high APM skills that normal players can look up to and learn from, is awesome. We want to keep this while creating a game that is the easiest to get into for any PC gamer. One example of a high level goal here is to allow players to play the way they want in terms of APM intensive armies vs. low APM armies. We will have more specifics on this as well as other specific ideas to achieve our goal once we prove out more of our game vision.
We believe it’s a mistake to simplify the game for the sake of making the game easier to play. Our goal is to remove the “tedious clicks” required to play a traditional RTS, but we absolutely don’t want to remove any clicks that are fun to play with and master over time.
Here are example high level questions we have for ourselves:
• What are the tedious, unnecessary things that just have been done in RTS because it’s always been this way?"
I, for one, welcome our no-supply count overlords (or are they really overlords then?) 
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I understand the necessity to... simplify... the mechanics, so it's more broadly accessible, but honestly, what makes SC/SC2 awesome to watch and fun is that it's got so much going on at all times. I personally find the super precise micro stuff just really exciting, and then knowing that they're taking care of 10 other things all the while.
But I hope their game pans out well regardless.
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Excited that these Blizz vets are trying to breathe new life into RTS games
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Please refrain from writing low-effort troll posts about David Kim
can i make a low effort praise post? I think David Kim is a brilliant game designer. It is no mistake that Kim was able to climb the ranks through Blizzard while geniuses like Morhaime and Pardo were running the show.
i look forward to checking out any game David Kim designs.
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^ yeh for real. Davey is a god.
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I got nothing bad to say about David here. I hope he can produce his vision into something successful. Would be an interesting idea if it works out for the genre.
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TLADT24920 Posts
I'll probably at least check out what they make much like the other studios, but I can't imagine it'll surpass BW for me.
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On July 01 2021 12:42 Gescom wrote:
^ yeh for real. Davey is a god.
Wasnt he responsible for the dreadful Swarm Host and "Protoss-Bullshit" Era? Didnt Morhaimel italarry said: "Everyone should be able to play the game, even your Grandma!"?
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Would be very glad to see a new RTS
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South Korea2106 Posts
On July 01 2021 12:53 BigFan wrote:
I'll probably at least check out what they make much like the other studios, but I can't imagine it'll surpass BW for me.
elitist
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For me Warcraft 3 was much more entertaining than Starcraft 2 which I play nowadays nevertheless  . Warcraft 3 is less mechanical and more alive: health, magic fountains, artifacts, heroes and critters camps. No need to build N+1 bases and having to set up sophisticated keyboard layout (rapid fire stuff is not about skill). The good thing games become more entertaining and at the same time more easy to control and faster to play/watch. Boring Starcraft 1 needs a lot of camera hotkeys and 0-9 control groups and super fast clicking. Starcraft 2 is much more interesting and huge improvement over Starcraft 1. So I believe a new RTS would modernize those aspects and improve boring stuff like building bases and clicking everywhere without putting efforts to think.
All in All, Starcraft is not RTS, it's rather RTC (Real Time Clicking).
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Maybe a barracks can provide food count like a supply depot and then an add-on also adds +4 food.
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I think many people do not realize that in mutiplayer, even in games like Stellaris or Europa Universalis IV APM does matter. When You cant pause, or Your pause options are limited and time flows in real time it is always advantegous to do things fast.
APM/speed/execution seem like a feature of the "Real Time" part of RTS, You cant realy make it go away. Even in games that on surface do not have dexterity component player who does things faster usualy have advantage. The game would need to be extremly slow for speed to be of no importance in "real time" setting.
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EPT
