David Kim proved himself to be entirely unqualified to design or balance a game, this game will go nowhere. Riot wrote many articles and blog posts about quality game design and David Kim, almost to a T, violated nearly every principle they laid out. Starcraft 2 from a game design perspective became objectively worse. And in that time League became a massive, billion dollar E-Sport and SC2 shrank considerably. Pretty obvious who knew what they were doing.
I'll give you guys one example before I take on David Kim's newest ideas that will go nowhere:
From Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns, written long before the release of HOTS:
Power Without Gameplay This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice....
The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it...
Photon Overcharge is a classic example of power without gameplay. The various skills it took to hold all the different early one and two bases timings in WOL as Protoss were replaced by a completely over-buffed ability that required the player to click on the Mothership Core, press F, and click on a Pylon and they'd instantly hold a timing. It is the definition of power without gameplay.
The early phase of the game went out of the window, and it made Starcraft objectively worse in every way. The fact it even left a designers head laid out they were in the wrong field, and the fact it actually made the game is a sign of multiple failures at multiple levels, David Kim included.
David Kim clearly lacked the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one. That much is abundantly clear from his time working on Starcraft.
His new idea of creating a game that isn't APM dependent but is a real time strategy game shows he learned nothing. What made Starcraft 2 exciting, popular and great was the early game. Think of all amazing games and series when Starcraft 2 was at it's peak... MC vs WhiteRa at the GSL, Idra vs Bomber at MLG, Thorzain vs MC and then Naniwa at TSL2.
These were held on tiny maps, had constant action and the game could end at any moment. Taking an expansion was risky. It was the end game units that were boring... Carriers, Broodlords, Infestors, the Mothership... the game got stale when these units came out, there wasn't much skill to show.
What did those boring units have in common? They were low APM a-move units.
Isn't that what David Kim is suggesting? That it matters more what you build, not how you use it? Because things like Blink Micro, Marine Splits, and Muta micro require high APM, so he wants to remove those because not every player can do that... but those are what made SC2 exciting to watch, and fun to play as they were difficult to master.
It was the early game and midgame that were exciting because of the micro potential of the units, and the lack of hard counters (even though Banelings hard counter Marines, Marine splitting and focus firing changed this). The more a game of SC2 dragged on, the more it became rock-paper-scissors with hard counters and the less micro potential units have. That didn't prove to be popular, it proved damning.
Just watch game 3 of Idra vs Bomber at MLG Orlando ( https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlxo9d ), incredible show of skill on both sides, until the moment Idra A-moves Broods and Infestors that simply end the game. It wasn't impressive on any account.
Going that direction with a new game is doubling down on exactly what David Kim did previously, and many think doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
I don't think David Kim is insane, he is just uneducated and ignorant. Riot provided us all the game design playbook and he never read it. And Starcraft and League are where they are today because of it.
I must say, the take that SC2 was at it's peak in early 2011 is a very hot take (even if it probably had greatest interest at the time, at least in NA).
I guess that depends on how you define peak. By most objective measures, as well as from a game design standpoint, it is obvious when the peak was. The proof is always in the pudding, people want to watch and play well designed games, and they don't want to play or watch poorly designed ones. There is more than just a cursory correlation between game design and popularity. I'm not sure we've seen League's peak yet, there is a reason it is so popular.
The fact many of the game design decision from HOTS were reversed (such as Photon Overcharge) is just further evidence.
Of course most of the old guard who knew this is gone, because the game got worse, thus what I said is a hot take to those who don't know. My comments below exemplify why, but Razzia of the Blizzsters highlights it better: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/482697-razzia-of-the-blizzsters
Next, while photon overcharge has been removed, in the essence Protoss still have a "I solved your push" button in shield overcharge, so your example once again went nowhere.
I think my points just went way over your head. Your example attempting to my why my point went no where, is actually further evidence of my point.
As far as I am concerned, nexus photon overcharge and shield battery (with overcharge later on) are just different balancing of the same underlying design decision of 'Protoss need to have actual I Defend button because our design choices made it impossible to accomplish with just unit balancing'. Pylon overcharge just like other things from early LotV is a by-product of Blizzard having too much weed when they decided that LotV would be basically a rework of multiplayer, so i'll cheerfully ignore it. So, if you want to tell me they reversed a design decision from HotS when they just redressed it in a form that presumably is slightly less braindead? I am definitely not getting it, i admit.
I'll bite and explain it.
Shield Battery and Bunkers are functionality equivalent in some respects and evidence of good game design, and Pylon Overcharge isn't. Why?
Let's look at how they impact the game. Let's say Terran is doing an early attack with 4 Marauders on building Nexus at the Protoss natural with a Pylon nearby. With Pylon Overcharge, the Terran either loses all 4 Marauders or has to wait to attack. If the Protoss has more than one Overcharge available, they can delay for long periods of time. Being able to buy time hurts the viability of any timing attack.
Thus, we saw a lot of timing attacks die out in HOTS. With attacking being far less effective, the money was invested into economy, natural expansion were totally free. Both sides would forgo attacking (compared to WOL) and focus on building their economy. This meant the time spent battling turned into time spent macroing... this sped up the game considerably, more units on the field, less control and reduced opportunities to show skill and was a large part of why Starcraft declined. TheDwf covered the impact of game speed in Razzia of the Blizzsters, he was right.
So Pylon Overcharge is a powerful free ability that turned structures that were used for supply into powerful standalone defense. This isn't like Zerg paying a Drone and minerals for Spine Crawler, Pylon Overcharge only costs energy. And because it a power without gameplay mechanic as I talked about previously, it had to be over buffed to be appreciated. That is a requirement of power without gameplay mechanics (which are bad mechanics to be avoided).
But what happens with those 4 Marauders now if a Shield Battery is there but no Pylon Overcharge? They walk in, kill the Shield Battery, kill the Pylon, deny the Nexus. Because like Bunkers, Shield Batteries power is dependent on nearby units, as they essentially just add hit points to nearby units. Pylon Overcharge didn't require anything but a Pylon (which you have to build anyway) to be incredibly strong.
So the Protoss has to build units early for the Shield Batteries to work. 1 Stalker near an Overcharged Battery won't cut it either, the Marauders will kill the Battery then the Stalker. So Protoss can't focus almost entirely on their economy, units and Shield Batteries aren't free like Pylon Overcharge.
Building units and Batteries is money that used to be spent on economy... so the game slows down. And because Protoss has to build units to be safe, it also means they have units they can attack with... so the opposing player has to build more units since the Protoss could attack. And now we've slowed down the game even more.
And that is good (LOTV is a better game than HOTS), we've slowed down the game to allow players to show skill, to allow for more strategies, to allow players to be creative. Again,TheDwf covered the impact of game speed in Razzia of the Blizzsters. But let's also make the maps smaller, because paradoxically, it will slow down the game further. Short rush distances mean people will build more units and less economy.
Isn't that what David Kim wants according to Shuffleblade above? Less macro, more battling?
But then why didn't he do it? Why did every decision Blizzard made over and over violate what I just went over above? Because they didn't read the script Riot published for everyone, they didn't understand the tenets of good game design. They tried to be edgy and cool and run against the grain. And just like everything else in life, if you make dumb decisions you pay for it.
And Starcraft paid for it.
You want to see a game at proper speed focused on battling and not macro? We already had that (and have you ever seen Artosis and Tasteless so excited?), and Kim took us away from it:
Starcraft 1 shield batteries were good game design. Starcraft 2 shield batteries are bad game design and ruin any sort of early game from the opponent. It's literally a "build this structure and look away, not have to worry about microing against a banshee, or a hellion, or a reaper. In starcraft 1, you had to manually use the shield battery and target the unit that you wanted shields to recharge on, which was good game design because it promoted interaction with the player. Super battery was the icing on the cake, it's entirely way too strong. The bunker and shield battery are not functional equivalents. Shield batteries scale well throughout the entire game, in every matchup. Bunkers do not. Shield batteries do not require supply to be effective, bunkers require supply in the form of marines to go inside the bunker which would take away supply that could be in the main army during engagements. Shield batteries heal the shields on units and structures, bunkers only attack units as long as there are marines inside of the bunker. Bunkers don't heal. Shield batteries and bunkers are not functionally equivalent by any means. Lastly, Don't want to ever have to defend an expansion as protoss? NP, just build a bunch of cannons and shield batteries at the nexus, It's stupid and does not promote interaction between players. Static defense is not suppose to be that strong at all. And if you do somehow manage to crack that crazy static defense of batteries/cannons, protoss can still recall to defend! It's absurd.
Also, I feel like i have to mention this because someone had mentioned earlier in the thread but the whole removing any sort of macro mechanics and the idea of just choosing what units you want and boom you have them is stupid because It's the equivalent of a micro battle map. We already have those and it would be bad if the game was limited to just that. Macro mechanics and unit build time and supply are important staples to any [good]rts. If what you want is to just automatically have your units and fight, just play a micro battles map, that's literally what that is. We don't need a game designed to be only that because it lacks substance and depth entirely.
David Kim proved himself to be entirely unqualified to design or balance a game, this game will go nowhere. Riot wrote many articles and blog posts about quality game design and David Kim, almost to a T, violated nearly every principle they laid out. Starcraft 2 from a game design perspective became objectively worse. And in that time League became a massive, billion dollar E-Sport and SC2 shrank considerably. Pretty obvious who knew what they were doing.
I'll give you guys one example before I take on David Kim's newest ideas that will go nowhere:
From Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns, written long before the release of HOTS:
Power Without Gameplay This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice....
The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it...
Photon Overcharge is a classic example of power without gameplay. The various skills it took to hold all the different early one and two bases timings in WOL as Protoss were replaced by a completely over-buffed ability that required the player to click on the Mothership Core, press F, and click on a Pylon and they'd instantly hold a timing. It is the definition of power without gameplay.
The early phase of the game went out of the window, and it made Starcraft objectively worse in every way. The fact it even left a designers head laid out they were in the wrong field, and the fact it actually made the game is a sign of multiple failures at multiple levels, David Kim included.
David Kim clearly lacked the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one. That much is abundantly clear from his time working on Starcraft.
His new idea of creating a game that isn't APM dependent but is a real time strategy game shows he learned nothing. What made Starcraft 2 exciting, popular and great was the early game. Think of all amazing games and series when Starcraft 2 was at it's peak... MC vs WhiteRa at the GSL, Idra vs Bomber at MLG, Thorzain vs MC and then Naniwa at TSL2.
These were held on tiny maps, had constant action and the game could end at any moment. Taking an expansion was risky. It was the end game units that were boring... Carriers, Broodlords, Infestors, the Mothership... the game got stale when these units came out, there wasn't much skill to show.
What did those boring units have in common? They were low APM a-move units.
Isn't that what David Kim is suggesting? That it matters more what you build, not how you use it? Because things like Blink Micro, Marine Splits, and Muta micro require high APM, so he wants to remove those because not every player can do that... but those are what made SC2 exciting to watch, and fun to play as they were difficult to master.
It was the early game and midgame that were exciting because of the micro potential of the units, and the lack of hard counters (even though Banelings hard counter Marines, Marine splitting and focus firing changed this). The more a game of SC2 dragged on, the more it became rock-paper-scissors with hard counters and the less micro potential units have. That didn't prove to be popular, it proved damning.
Just watch game 3 of Idra vs Bomber at MLG Orlando ( https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlxo9d ), incredible show of skill on both sides, until the moment Idra A-moves Broods and Infestors that simply end the game. It wasn't impressive on any account.
Going that direction with a new game is doubling down on exactly what David Kim did previously, and many think doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
I don't think David Kim is insane, he is just uneducated and ignorant. Riot provided us all the game design playbook and he never read it. And Starcraft and League are where they are today because of it.
I must say, the take that SC2 was at it's peak in early 2011 is a very hot take (even if it probably had greatest interest at the time, at least in NA).
I guess that depends on how you define peak. By most objective measures, as well as from a game design standpoint, it is obvious when the peak was. The proof is always in the pudding, people want to watch and play well designed games, and they don't want to play or watch poorly designed ones. There is more than just a cursory correlation between game design and popularity. I'm not sure we've seen League's peak yet, there is a reason it is so popular.
The fact many of the game design decision from HOTS were reversed (such as Photon Overcharge) is just further evidence.
Of course most of the old guard who knew this is gone, because the game got worse, thus what I said is a hot take to those who don't know. My comments below exemplify why, but Razzia of the Blizzsters highlights it better: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/482697-razzia-of-the-blizzsters
Next, while photon overcharge has been removed, in the essence Protoss still have a "I solved your push" button in shield overcharge, so your example once again went nowhere.
I think my points just went way over your head. Your example attempting to my why my point went no where, is actually further evidence of my point.
As far as I am concerned, nexus photon overcharge and shield battery (with overcharge later on) are just different balancing of the same underlying design decision of 'Protoss need to have actual I Defend button because our design choices made it impossible to accomplish with just unit balancing'. Pylon overcharge just like other things from early LotV is a by-product of Blizzard having too much weed when they decided that LotV would be basically a rework of multiplayer, so i'll cheerfully ignore it. So, if you want to tell me they reversed a design decision from HotS when they just redressed it in a form that presumably is slightly less braindead? I am definitely not getting it, i admit.
I'll bite and explain it.
Shield Battery and Bunkers are functionality equivalent in some respects and evidence of good game design, and Pylon Overcharge isn't. Why?
Let's look at how they impact the game. Let's say Terran is doing an early attack with 4 Marauders on building Nexus at the Protoss natural with a Pylon nearby. With Pylon Overcharge, the Terran either loses all 4 Marauders or has to wait to attack. If the Protoss has more than one Overcharge available, they can delay for long periods of time. Being able to buy time hurts the viability of any timing attack.
Thus, we saw a lot of timing attacks die out in HOTS. With attacking being far less effective, the money was invested into economy, natural expansion were totally free. Both sides would forgo attacking (compared to WOL) and focus on building their economy. This meant the time spent battling turned into time spent macroing... this sped up the game considerably, more units on the field, less control and reduced opportunities to show skill and was a large part of why Starcraft declined. TheDwf covered the impact of game speed in Razzia of the Blizzsters, he was right.
So Pylon Overcharge is a powerful free ability that turned structures that were used for supply into powerful standalone defense. This isn't like Zerg paying a Drone and minerals for Spine Crawler, Pylon Overcharge only costs energy. And because it a power without gameplay mechanic as I talked about previously, it had to be over buffed to be appreciated. That is a requirement of power without gameplay mechanics (which are bad mechanics to be avoided).
But what happens with those 4 Marauders now if a Shield Battery is there but no Pylon Overcharge? They walk in, kill the Shield Battery, kill the Pylon, deny the Nexus. Because like Bunkers, Shield Batteries power is dependent on nearby units, as they essentially just add hit points to nearby units. Pylon Overcharge didn't require anything but a Pylon (which you have to build anyway) to be incredibly strong.
So the Protoss has to build units early for the Shield Batteries to work. 1 Stalker near an Overcharged Battery won't cut it either, the Marauders will kill the Battery then the Stalker. So Protoss can't focus almost entirely on their economy, units and Shield Batteries aren't free like Pylon Overcharge.
Building units and Batteries is money that used to be spent on economy... so the game slows down. And because Protoss has to build units to be safe, it also means they have units they can attack with... so the opposing player has to build more units since the Protoss could attack. And now we've slowed down the game even more.
And that is good (LOTV is a better game than HOTS), we've slowed down the game to allow players to show skill, to allow for more strategies, to allow players to be creative. Again,TheDwf covered the impact of game speed in Razzia of the Blizzsters. But let's also make the maps smaller, because paradoxically, it will slow down the game further. Short rush distances mean people will build more units and less economy.
Isn't that what David Kim wants according to Shuffleblade above? Less macro, more battling?
But then why didn't he do it? Why did every decision Blizzard made over and over violate what I just went over above? Because they didn't read the script Riot published for everyone, they didn't understand the tenets of good game design. They tried to be edgy and cool and run against the grain. And just like everything else in life, if you make dumb decisions you pay for it.
And Starcraft paid for it.
You want to see a game at proper speed focused on battling and not macro? We already had that (and have you ever seen Artosis and Tasteless so excited?), and Kim took us away from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUb40awTL0k&ab_channel=lepya
As i said, i ignore pylon overcharge entirely and compare nexus overcharge with shield batteries+ present battery overcharge. Both are designated "I defend your push" buttons, the difference being that nexus overcharge is completely self-sufficient (and braindead on top of enabling over the top greed), but that's not design choice, it's balancing choice, which you happen to treat as design choice. As the other guy above me put it, SC2's shield batteries are not exactly the most interactive of buildings either. To the point where they are actually even more self-sufficient as counter to early harass than nexus/pylon overcharges.
In fact, your description of 4 marauder attack makes it clear to me why Blizzard had this godawful idea of creating pylon overcharge in the first place. Killing pylons is relatively easy, so from their shortsighted perspective, making overcharge be activated on something 'easy' to kill would be naturally a fine way to nerf photon overcharge to prevent excess greed nexus version enabled on top of greater versatility in coverage.
As for this WhiteRa vs MC game... uhm, is the classic BO loss of blink 4 gate against 3 gate robo worth anything being hyped over? Like, it probably was hype as fuck in it's relevant context. But we are 10 years later, for various both good and bad reasons foreigners beating Koreans is not something to be hyped over anymore, and there were hundreds of games like that later on. Enough that 3 gate robo was put as the safest opener in PvP in every Protoss guide i have seen in early 2012 (my Protoss is by far my worst though, so there was probably a safer build still).
Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
On July 03 2021 23:10 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
I think it's best of all the great minds work together to make one great rts game but sometimes in that situation designers butt heads when it comes to ideas/philosophies or vision for the game.
Don't we? I do not. I want a lot of RTS games competing against each other. The market is there. If all those "blizzard veterans" really wanted to work together they would be working together. I don't really see why you would want to merge different teams with possibly different visions to work together that all.
On July 01 2021 23:44 Andi_Goldberger wrote: I find it sort of amusing how years ago the conversation around SC2 was that it was way too easy and the mechanics weren't difficult enough, making it less appealing to hardcore people thus weakening its playerbase while today every single "new" RTS developer is saying the complete opposite. Just a weird observation I have had, maybe its just a warped perception of the discourse back then on my part :p
That's because SCBW had a large established userbase that SC2 tried tapping into at its release.
Newer RTS games instead are trying to appeal to people that are not already playing RTS games, hence the diametrical opposition.
On July 01 2021 23:44 Andi_Goldberger wrote: I find it sort of amusing how years ago the conversation around SC2 was that it was way too easy and the mechanics weren't difficult enough, making it less appealing to hardcore people thus weakening its playerbase while today every single "new" RTS developer is saying the complete opposite. Just a weird observation I have had, maybe its just a warped perception of the discourse back then on my part :p
That's because SCBW had a large established userbase that SC2 tried tapping into at its release.
Newer RTS games instead are trying to appeal to people that are not already playing RTS games, hence the diametrical opposition.
Right but it has been revealed over time that less mechanically demanding = less exciting to play. It's a recipe for an unsustainable playerbase because the games aren't rewarding enough to make players want to continuously play the game. On paper, it sounds like a good idea to appeal to a broader audience by making the game easy to play but that approach shoots itself in the foot long term as we have seen in the past. If you want to appeal to a broad audience, aggressively market the game. You want to appeal to a large audience, Do the same exact player rewards/player recruitment program that riot games did. They actually gave you something if you helped grow the playerbase.
On July 02 2021 08:08 BronzeKnee wrote: David Kim proved himself to be entirely unqualified to design or balance a game, this game will go nowhere. Riot wrote many articles and blog posts about quality game design and David Kim, almost to a T, violated nearly every principle they laid out. Starcraft 2 from a game design perspective became objectively worse. And in that time League became a massive, billion dollar E-Sport and SC2 shrank considerably. Pretty obvious who knew what they were doing.
I'll give you guys one example before I take on David Kim's newest ideas that will go nowhere:
From Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns, written long before the release of HOTS:
Power Without Gameplay This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice....
The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it...
Photon Overcharge is a classic example of power without gameplay. The various skills it took to hold all the different early one and two bases timings in WOL as Protoss were replaced by a completely over-buffed ability that required the player to click on the Mothership Core, press F, and click on a Pylon and they'd instantly hold a timing. It is the definition of power without gameplay.
The early phase of the game went out of the window, and it made Starcraft objectively worse in every way. The fact it even left a designers head laid out they were in the wrong field, and the fact it actually made the game is a sign of multiple failures at multiple levels, David Kim included.
David Kim clearly lacked the ability to recognize a good idea from a bad one. That much is abundantly clear from his time working on Starcraft.
His new idea of creating a game that isn't APM dependent but is a real time strategy game shows he learned nothing. What made Starcraft 2 exciting, popular and great was the early game. Think of all amazing games and series when Starcraft 2 was at it's peak... MC vs WhiteRa at the GSL, Idra vs Bomber at MLG, Thorzain vs MC and then Naniwa at TSL2.
These were held on tiny maps, had constant action and the game could end at any moment. Taking an expansion was risky. It was the end game units that were boring... Carriers, Broodlords, Infestors, the Mothership... the game got stale when these units came out, there wasn't much skill to show.
What did those boring units have in common? They were low APM a-move units.
Isn't that what David Kim is suggesting? That it matters more what you build, not how you use it? Because things like Blink Micro, Marine Splits, and Muta micro require high APM, so he wants to remove those because not every player can do that... but those are what made SC2 exciting to watch, and fun to play as they were difficult to master.
It was the early game and midgame that were exciting because of the micro potential of the units, and the lack of hard counters (even though Banelings hard counter Marines, Marine splitting and focus firing changed this). The more a game of SC2 dragged on, the more it became rock-paper-scissors with hard counters and the less micro potential units have. That didn't prove to be popular, it proved damning.
Just watch game 3 of Idra vs Bomber at MLG Orlando ( https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlxo9d ), incredible show of skill on both sides, until the moment Idra A-moves Broods and Infestors that simply end the game. It wasn't impressive on any account.
Going that direction with a new game is doubling down on exactly what David Kim did previously, and many think doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
I don't think David Kim is insane, he is just uneducated and ignorant. Riot provided us all the game design playbook and he never read it. And Starcraft and League are where they are today because of it.
How much input did David Kim have on the sc2 unit designs? I was under the impression that he was given the designs and had to balance them more or less as-is. E.g. he could change the numbers of something like fungal, but not the nature of the spell (being a DoT + root). It's been a while given that I noped out of sc2 during late WoL when I learned of the swarm host. WoL felt horrible in design, but overall good in balance.
Overall I agree with this post regarding the poor state of sc2 design. For that reason I'm hoping DK didn't have much or any authority over the unit designs or else I can hardly have anything but low expectations for this RTS
On July 01 2021 23:44 Andi_Goldberger wrote: I find it sort of amusing how years ago the conversation around SC2 was that it was way too easy and the mechanics weren't difficult enough, making it less appealing to hardcore people thus weakening its playerbase while today every single "new" RTS developer is saying the complete opposite. Just a weird observation I have had, maybe its just a warped perception of the discourse back then on my part :p
That's because SCBW had a large established userbase that SC2 tried tapping into at its release.
Newer RTS games instead are trying to appeal to people that are not already playing RTS games, hence the diametrical opposition.
Right but it has been revealed over time that less mechanically demanding = less exciting to play. It's a recipe for an unsustainable playerbase because the games aren't rewarding enough to make players want to continuously play the game. On paper, it sounds like a good idea to appeal to a broader audience by making the game easy to play but that approach shoots itself in the foot long term as we have seen in the past. If you want to appeal to a broad audience, aggressively market the game. You want to appeal to a large audience, Do the same exact player rewards/player recruitment program that riot games did. They actually gave you something if you helped grow the playerbase.
In what way was that ever revealed? Mobas are so popular partly because they're 'easier' to play than rts games, mechanically that is. It's just more fun for a large portion of people playing games. Marketing is great to make people aware, but they won't just stick with it, the appeal is in the game itself.
There are countless of factors to consider for this ofc, and yeah in general the game needs reward time investment, the ability to noticeably get better at it. But that doesn't mean one cannot look at rts as a genre and reduce its mechanical requirements, and maybe change other aspects which might not work as well as they could. It won't be for everyone, but yeah if you want to produce an rts game which is truly popular, something people actually want to play in a multiplayer setting, there is no doubt in my mind that you have to lower the mechanical burden and introduce things i have talked about in this thread already (less variance in game outcomes and more importantly a more direct game mechanic which makes people interact with each other ) on top of countless other things ofc. If David Kim just makes every unit sluggish to solve that perceived problem (like other rts games have done *cough grey goo cough*), then it'll fail yeah.
On July 03 2021 23:10 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
we're gonna end up with more RTS games than there are players lol
Great news. I'm sure they have plenty ideas about how a next gen RTS should play but I hope they're also giving much thoughts about the game's business model and the incentives for players to keep on playing the game in the long run. Lots of RTS in the past have suffered from poorly thought out business models (Sc2 included imo).
On July 03 2021 23:10 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
we're gonna end up with more RTS games than there are players lol
Acutally i thought many times to this problem and i don t find solutions. If light units must die faster against aoe, you have to spread them isn t it ? How can you create a better "pathfinding" while you have to ask to your units to attack separetly (i.e not with a A-move).
The actual pathfinding of SC2 seems to be one of the best achievement of this game
On July 03 2021 23:10 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
we're gonna end up with more RTS games than there are players lol
options are good, competition is also good.
Indeed, and having a burst of interest for a bit in RTS that leads to even one of those competing games making a solid and sustainable game and business model would be amazing for the RTS scene.
On July 01 2021 23:44 Andi_Goldberger wrote: I find it sort of amusing how years ago the conversation around SC2 was that it was way too easy and the mechanics weren't difficult enough, making it less appealing to hardcore people thus weakening its playerbase while today every single "new" RTS developer is saying the complete opposite. Just a weird observation I have had, maybe its just a warped perception of the discourse back then on my part :p
That's because SCBW had a large established userbase that SC2 tried tapping into at its release.
Newer RTS games instead are trying to appeal to people that are not already playing RTS games, hence the diametrical opposition.
Right but it has been revealed over time that less mechanically demanding = less exciting to play. It's a recipe for an unsustainable playerbase because the games aren't rewarding enough to make players want to continuously play the game. On paper, it sounds like a good idea to appeal to a broader audience by making the game easy to play but that approach shoots itself in the foot long term as we have seen in the past. If you want to appeal to a broad audience, aggressively market the game. You want to appeal to a large audience, Do the same exact player rewards/player recruitment program that riot games did. They actually gave you something if you helped grow the playerbase.
Is that the case for me? Sure. I have gaming as a hobby and take it more seriously than the average gamer. Some days I don't play because I'm just unable to perform at the level I'd want to.
Is it the case for everyone? No, far from it. The average guy wants to come home from his job at the shoestore, put his wife Peggy to bed and then crank out a couple of casual games. They just want to blow off some steam, not compete in the OSL or something. Most people just don't want or need the complexity that a very competetive sport entails. They don't care about competing or any of that jazz. The ones that do are a minority. Can a game tailored towards that minority be profitable? Yea, sure. Is catering to that portion of the consumer base the best financial decision? No.
And that's the crux of the problem. Gaming has become way more mainstream, and with that come certain stipulations. If a game of the magnitude of Broodwar would get published today it would get shit on and probably a load of 3/10 reviews. Broodwar was a lucky accident, a combination having the right things in the right time. Times have changed, and the game publishers have changed with them, because business has the imperative of making the most money.
On July 01 2021 23:44 Andi_Goldberger wrote: I find it sort of amusing how years ago the conversation around SC2 was that it was way too easy and the mechanics weren't difficult enough, making it less appealing to hardcore people thus weakening its playerbase while today every single "new" RTS developer is saying the complete opposite. Just a weird observation I have had, maybe its just a warped perception of the discourse back then on my part :p
That's because SCBW had a large established userbase that SC2 tried tapping into at its release.
Newer RTS games instead are trying to appeal to people that are not already playing RTS games, hence the diametrical opposition.
Right but it has been revealed over time that less mechanically demanding = less exciting to play. It's a recipe for an unsustainable playerbase because the games aren't rewarding enough to make players want to continuously play the game. On paper, it sounds like a good idea to appeal to a broader audience by making the game easy to play but that approach shoots itself in the foot long term as we have seen in the past. If you want to appeal to a broad audience, aggressively market the game. You want to appeal to a large audience, Do the same exact player rewards/player recruitment program that riot games did. They actually gave you something if you helped grow the playerbase.
Is that the case for me? Sure. I have gaming as a hobby and take it more seriously than the average gamer. Some days I don't play because I'm just unable to perform at the level I'd want to.
Is it the case for everyone? No, far from it. The average guy wants to come home from his job at the shoestore, put his wife Peggy to bed and then crank out a couple of casual games. They just want to blow off some steam, not compete in the OSL or something. Most people just don't want or need the complexity that a very competetive sport entails. They don't care about competing or any of that jazz. The ones that do are a minority. Can a game tailored towards that minority be profitable? Yea, sure. Is catering to that portion of the consumer base the best financial decision? No.
And that's the crux of the problem. Gaming has become way more mainstream, and with that come certain stipulations. If a game of the magnitude of Broodwar would get published today it would get shit on and probably a load of 3/10 reviews. Broodwar was a lucky accident, a combination having the right things in the right time. Times have changed, and the game publishers have changed with them, because business has the imperative not of making the most money.
I agree 100%. If BW came out today with improved graphics but kept the interface and pathfinding it would be considered an unplayable mess.
I think the gaming studio that manages to make a game with deep macro, micro and strategies but with a moba-like interface and learning curve will be the winner.
"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."
I mean has anyone ever made an RTS where the fastest player is the best player? Seems like a straw man. I would've thought if that was any game, it's BW, but of course anyone who has followed BW knows that would be an awful description of it.
I think probably the two most famous players of all time are boxer and flash, who were both extremely strategic players... Most famous protoss player probably Bisu? For revolutionizing PvZ
It just seems weird to make it a goal for competitive play to not require extremely good mechanics and fast play. I think the other new RTS's in development still want that for competitive play and are figuring out ways to make their games more enjoyable for slower players. Maybe they figure RTS players will go to the other new RTS's in development and they're going to try to capture more players from other genres.
I think it is a strawman. I think the people arguing that RTS games need to be easier are trying to guide development of a game to solve their own perceived reasons for being bad at the game.
Unfortunately, by removing all of the perceived hard parts of the game, you usually remove most of the game entirely.
"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."
I mean has anyone ever made an RTS where the fastest player is the best player? Seems like a straw man. I would've thought if that was any game, it's BW, but of course anyone who has followed BW knows that would be an awful description of it.
I think probably the two most famous players of all time are boxer and flash, who were both extremely strategic players... Most famous protoss player probably Bisu? For revolutionizing PvZ
It just seems weird to make it a goal for competitive play to not require extremely good mechanics and fast play. I think the other new RTS's in development still want that for competitive play and are figuring out ways to make their games more enjoyable for slower players. Maybe they figure RTS players will go to the other new RTS's in development and they're going to try to capture more players from other genres.
I think it is a strawman. I think the people arguing that RTS games need to be easier are trying to guide development of a game to solve their own perceived reasons for being bad at the game.
Unfortunately, by removing all of the perceived hard parts of the game, you usually remove most of the game entirely.
Generally the complaint is more that people want to be doing strategic things, and mechanical demands can stop people getting to that stage. Agree or disagree with their assessment generally it tends to be making a game easier in one aspect so that more people can stretch themselves in another aspect.
And there probably is something to that too, most decent guides I’ve ever seen basically all share a fix your mechanics/base macro before doing anything else in the game.
On the other hand the combination of managing a lot, choosing what to manage and the sheer mechanical chops required aren’t some annoying hurdle to overcome, but a big part of the appeal in the first place.
Nony’s mentioning of Bisu’s dismantling of Savior being a case in point. The beauty of that was it was an hitherto unseen style and strategic approach to a matchup that required Bisu’s particular mechanical skillset to execute.
A big, big part, for me anyway over what this studio puts out, or Frost Giant given that they have discussed similar ideas is, what stays in place if you do make it more approachable and user friendly?
Something like SC2 with less macro is just, SC2 with less. Whereas if other mechanics, more use of terrain or longer more microable combat is the trade off then, that’s something else to do.
On July 03 2021 23:10 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
we're gonna end up with more RTS games than there are players lol
options are good, competition is also good.
idk it seems reminiscent of years ago when everyone was trying to make arena shooters suddenly (Toxikk, Reflex, the new Unreal Tournament, I think a Tribes game too, etc), the player base was divided between all of them and then they all died very quickly or never even really had a player base to begin with
On July 03 2021 23:10 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: Can anyone tell me why Uncapped Games and Frost Giant both make an RTS game? Both consist of a lot of Blizzard veterans! I'd have liked it if both teams merged and created just one RTS. There is still the Age Of Empires franchise. We definitely don't want too many RTS games, don't we?
we're gonna end up with more RTS games than there are players lol
options are good, competition is also good.
idk it seems reminiscent of years ago when everyone was trying to make arena shooters suddenly (Toxikk, Reflex, the new Unreal Tournament, I think a Tribes game too, etc), the player base was divided between all of them and then they all died very quickly or never even really had a player base to begin with
Yeah that was pretty painful for me, I was really hoping at least Quake would bring home the bacon, especially after UT got canned.
My brain has not picked well, my favourite genres being RTS and arena shooters haha.
EPT
