Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 109

On April 13 2024 12:43 Leiocritus wrote:
Mad props for the Stormgate team for first raising funds, and then actually creating a game.

However, there is one strange thing I keep noticing when developers try to make RTS games. Which also plagued Starcraft 2 and which may be related to why MOBAs became so popular and RTS declined.

Every new title seems to ignore the fact that RTS games are games of mass clicking. Every game, including SC2, viewed high mechanical requirements as something bad and something to be resolved with QoL and automation. Every dev seems to have this idea that an 1vs1 RTS game is about out-strategizing the opponent. Exactly like Nony said in that video. And it is a trap.

I get that especially now in 2024 you can't make a game where it is really hard to have mundane tasks as if today was 1998. But why can no game dev come up with a new way to make mass clicking fun? Why is every new RTS game made as if an RTS game is inherently 'not fun' and removing the old-fashioned hardcore elements is the only solution? Why can't anyone come up with anything new and innovative?

Second, why does every game dev seem to think that a 1vs1 game is inherently competitive and hardcore? I get that there is a 1vs1 versus single player campaign or USM/custom game distinction. But every time a game dev focuses on making the 1vs1 game mode work, they get labeled as 'catering to esports'. Why is a 1vs1 game an 'esport'? You can only have an esport is you have a big gamer base ie your game is really popular. But why is respecting the 1vs1 game mode and the tactical and strategical dynamics for that in your game design 'catering to esports'? There is also a lore/single player vs competitive 1vs1 play dichotomy. But every time an argument is made for building a deliberate solid 1vs1 RTS game, it gets accused to 'catering to the esports niche'. I don't get that.
I used to think that maybe 1vs1 games were just never going to be popular, because people want to play team games for either the social aspect, or to blame their team members. But the huge resurgance of chess, which is only 1vs1 and even more brutal than RTS, proved this completely wrong. Zoomers and even the generation younger than them are playing a ton of chess online. So the 1vs1 argument is not a deal-breaker. If you make a good 1vs1 game, people will player it.

Then the supposed low skill floor of MOBAs vs the high skill ceiling of MOBAs. I think this is total bullshit. LoL and DotA have a ton of heroes, all with their own spells, and a dozen of items. The skill floor is high. If you play your first 10 games ever, you have no idea what your opponent's hero's are or what their spells do. You either are clueless for many games, or you have to deliberately memorize maybe even 100 hundred spells/heroes.

But if you were going to play say 3vs3 Hunters in SC BW, then most games people will build mostly zerglings, zealots, or marines. When I first placed WC2 or Starcraft in 1996 or 1998 and I was a kid who spoke only basic English, no way we thought RTS had a high skill ceiling. You can literally just start a game and immedaitely play. if you can use a computer, you can use a mouse. And you can play RTS. I get that for someone who never used a mouse in their lives ever, playing a video game isn't so straightforward. Which we underestimate. But literally every kid can play a basic RTS game in minutes. I don't get why people say there is a high skill ceiling. There is this expectation that everyone playing an RTS game somehow has to approach progamer play. But that's utterly absurd and I don't get why this expectation is there in RTS, but not say in chess. Or even things like baseball/football/basketball.

In chess, GothamChess' most watched video are his Low Elo chess videos. And in Starcraft, we had this Belgian caster GethSC. I get that the RTS crowd is elitist. But there's no reason why a fun new RTS game cannot be played at a very low level, casually, in 1vs1. Game devs just need to figure out how to make RTS aka 'mass clicking' fun for a Zoomer audience.

And then, why do all game devs ignore the lessons of SC BW? Everything in SC BW was decided by lore. Resource collection, tech tree, upgrades, maps. It is 100% lore/thematic based. Not gameplay based. By some flukes as well as the map editor, 1vs1 RTS matured. And this resulted in a very rich and deep game. Both tactically, strategically and mechanically.

WHY DOES LITERALLY EVERY GAME DEV COMPLETELY IGNORE THIS?

Take the most basic thing. The resource system. Dune had a spice collecting truck literally because of the book Dune. 100% lore based. No gameplay consideration at all. Then in Command&Conquer, they changed it to tiberium. But still the same gameplay mechanic. How resources are gathered is a keystone to your entire game. But it was 100% determined by lore. If you were to make a board game, then that is an insane thing to do. This is literally the key of game design.

Then for Warcraft, it was 100% lore based to have a gold mine and a forest that you could chop down. ZERO THOUGHT was put into what type of gameplay this would give. That's fine. It was 1994 or whatever and these were literally the first RTS games ever.

Then for Starcraft game out aka 'Warcraft in Space'. It was originally literally the same game engine. So the devs just decided to interchange the wood and gold as the base resources. It was gold in Warcraft and Warcraft 2. But in Starcraft, it would be wood. And they wouldn't call it wood, but it was mineral patches. And the gold mine became vespene gas and turned into the static gold mine.

Through a fluke, it turned out that worker AI being really bad created a very good gameplay mechanic. Where you either build units now, or build more workers to get more resources later. Just this fluke gave rise to rich gameplay and diverse strategies.

So now we have these new game devs that want to make new RTS games. Starcraft came out almost 30 years ago. Half the dev team wasn't even born back then. And they completely ignore all of that. They just create a random new lore-based resource system. You'd think that with 30 years of RTS history and competitive play, a smart game designer could conceive of a resource system specifically designed to create an RTS game with rich gameplay. But somehow they can't even progress a single step beyond literally 1994 thinking.
To me this is just shocking. Game devs can write millions of codes to create fancy game engines and graphics. But for the decisions that give rise to the fundamental core principals of their game, they seem to not even give that any thought at all.

Then to my last point. Creeps and map control. I think a major area that the original Starcraft did not exploit was map control. A driver of RTS gameplay can be map control. There have been several RTS games where you get resources based on which sectors of the map you control. This forces the player out onto the map and drives conflict from minute 1. I think this is a good gameplay principle, which all Blizzard RTS games basically completely lacked.
Except maybe for WC3 with creeps. I do have a huge problem with creeps, though. They drive action, yes. But you basically play a minigame vs an AI. I think this is very bad game design. You want players to play each other. Not neutral AI creeps.

Personally, I am baffled by RTS in 2024. All game devs completely ignore all lessons of the past. But at the same time they try to make Starcraft clones, without understanding how RTS gameplay works. And the result if games that are copies of Starcraft, but are more automated and stripped down.

At the same time, we have Youtube guru's claiming that the problem is that RTS is too focused on esports. But what they really mean is the 1vs1 game mode. Even though other 1vs1 games do quite well, chess the prime example. And then there's another video by a guy who claims RTS game has to be a sandbox engine. So just some platform for creating UMS maps. I think mods are cool and all. But to me UMS back in 1998 were mostly a bunch of crap maps. And very often game mod content is inferior to Triple A game dev content. So I don't really get that. And not even a video game. And they mention Roblox or whatever that is as the prime example. To me this is all really puzzling. Especially when then the same criticism is that the SC2 map editor is so advanced, it is too hard to use it.

My conclusion is that RTS is dead. If everyone and their dogs has convinced themselves that aiming is bad and no fun at all, then FPS games would instantly die and never come back. This is what happened with RTS. Our brains are bad at multitasking, so maybe this can be partially explained. But any dev that puts out an RTS on the foundation that in reality mass clicking is not fun anymore in 2024, but their game solves that. But the game offers literally nothing new, then your game is going to fail. Especially if you also refuse to try to understand how 1vs1 RTS worked in SC BW.

On April 13 2024 12:43 Leiocritus wrote:
Mad props for the Stormgate team for first raising funds, and then actually creating a game.

However, there is one strange thing I keep noticing when developers try to make RTS games. Which also plagued Starcraft 2 and which may be related to why MOBAs became so popular and RTS declined.

Every new title seems to ignore the fact that RTS games are games of mass clicking. Every game, including SC2, viewed high mechanical requirements as something bad and something to be resolved with QoL and automation. Every dev seems to have this idea that an 1vs1 RTS game is about out-strategizing the opponent. Exactly like Nony said in that video. And it is a trap.

I get that especially now in 2024 you can't make a game where it is really hard to have mundane tasks as if today was 1998. But why can no game dev come up with a new way to make mass clicking fun? Why is every new RTS game made as if an RTS game is inherently 'not fun' and removing the old-fashioned hardcore elements is the only solution? Why can't anyone come up with anything new and innovative?

Second, why does every game dev seem to think that a 1vs1 game is inherently competitive and hardcore? I get that there is a 1vs1 versus single player campaign or USM/custom game distinction. But every time a game dev focuses on making the 1vs1 game mode work, they get labeled as 'catering to esports'. Why is a 1vs1 game an 'esport'? You can only have an esport is you have a big gamer base ie your game is really popular. But why is respecting the 1vs1 game mode and the tactical and strategical dynamics for that in your game design 'catering to esports'? There is also a lore/single player vs competitive 1vs1 play dichotomy. But every time an argument is made for building a deliberate solid 1vs1 RTS game, it gets accused to 'catering to the esports niche'. I don't get that.
I used to think that maybe 1vs1 games were just never going to be popular, because people want to play team games for either the social aspect, or to blame their team members. But the huge resurgance of chess, which is only 1vs1 and even more brutal than RTS, proved this completely wrong. Zoomers and even the generation younger than them are playing a ton of chess online. So the 1vs1 argument is not a deal-breaker. If you make a good 1vs1 game, people will player it.

Then the supposed low skill floor of MOBAs vs the high skill ceiling of MOBAs. I think this is total bullshit. LoL and DotA have a ton of heroes, all with their own spells, and a dozen of items. The skill floor is high. If you play your first 10 games ever, you have no idea what your opponent's hero's are or what their spells do. You either are clueless for many games, or you have to deliberately memorize maybe even 100 hundred spells/heroes.

But if you were going to play say 3vs3 Hunters in SC BW, then most games people will build mostly zerglings, zealots, or marines. When I first placed WC2 or Starcraft in 1996 or 1998 and I was a kid who spoke only basic English, no way we thought RTS had a high skill ceiling. You can literally just start a game and immedaitely play. if you can use a computer, you can use a mouse. And you can play RTS. I get that for someone who never used a mouse in their lives ever, playing a video game isn't so straightforward. Which we underestimate. But literally every kid can play a basic RTS game in minutes. I don't get why people say there is a high skill ceiling. There is this expectation that everyone playing an RTS game somehow has to approach progamer play. But that's utterly absurd and I don't get why this expectation is there in RTS, but not say in chess. Or even things like baseball/football/basketball.

In chess, GothamChess' most watched video are his Low Elo chess videos. And in Starcraft, we had this Belgian caster GethSC. I get that the RTS crowd is elitist. But there's no reason why a fun new RTS game cannot be played at a very low level, casually, in 1vs1. Game devs just need to figure out how to make RTS aka 'mass clicking' fun for a Zoomer audience.

And then, why do all game devs ignore the lessons of SC BW? Everything in SC BW was decided by lore. Resource collection, tech tree, upgrades, maps. It is 100% lore/thematic based. Not gameplay based. By some flukes as well as the map editor, 1vs1 RTS matured. And this resulted in a very rich and deep game. Both tactically, strategically and mechanically.

WHY DOES LITERALLY EVERY GAME DEV COMPLETELY IGNORE THIS?

Take the most basic thing. The resource system. Dune had a spice collecting truck literally because of the book Dune. 100% lore based. No gameplay consideration at all. Then in Command&Conquer, they changed it to tiberium. But still the same gameplay mechanic. How resources are gathered is a keystone to your entire game. But it was 100% determined by lore. If you were to make a board game, then that is an insane thing to do. This is literally the key of game design.

Then for Warcraft, it was 100% lore based to have a gold mine and a forest that you could chop down. ZERO THOUGHT was put into what type of gameplay this would give. That's fine. It was 1994 or whatever and these were literally the first RTS games ever.

Then for Starcraft game out aka 'Warcraft in Space'. It was originally literally the same game engine. So the devs just decided to interchange the wood and gold as the base resources. It was gold in Warcraft and Warcraft 2. But in Starcraft, it would be wood. And they wouldn't call it wood, but it was mineral patches. And the gold mine became vespene gas and turned into the static gold mine.

Through a fluke, it turned out that worker AI being really bad created a very good gameplay mechanic. Where you either build units now, or build more workers to get more resources later. Just this fluke gave rise to rich gameplay and diverse strategies.

So now we have these new game devs that want to make new RTS games. Starcraft came out almost 30 years ago. Half the dev team wasn't even born back then. And they completely ignore all of that. They just create a random new lore-based resource system. You'd think that with 30 years of RTS history and competitive play, a smart game designer could conceive of a resource system specifically designed to create an RTS game with rich gameplay. But somehow they can't even progress a single step beyond literally 1994 thinking.
To me this is just shocking. Game devs can write millions of codes to create fancy game engines and graphics. But for the decisions that give rise to the fundamental core principals of their game, they seem to not even give that any thought at all.

Then to my last point. Creeps and map control. I think a major area that the original Starcraft did not exploit was map control. A driver of RTS gameplay can be map control. There have been several RTS games where you get resources based on which sectors of the map you control. This forces the player out onto the map and drives conflict from minute 1. I think this is a good gameplay principle, which all Blizzard RTS games basically completely lacked.
Except maybe for WC3 with creeps. I do have a huge problem with creeps, though. They drive action, yes. But you basically play a minigame vs an AI. I think this is very bad game design. You want players to play each other. Not neutral AI creeps.

Personally, I am baffled by RTS in 2024. All game devs completely ignore all lessons of the past. But at the same time they try to make Starcraft clones, without understanding how RTS gameplay works. And the result if games that are copies of Starcraft, but are more automated and stripped down.

At the same time, we have Youtube guru's claiming that the problem is that RTS is too focused on esports. But what they really mean is the 1vs1 game mode. Even though other 1vs1 games do quite well, chess the prime example. And then there's another video by a guy who claims RTS game has to be a sandbox engine. So just some platform for creating UMS maps. I think mods are cool and all. But to me UMS back in 1998 were mostly a bunch of crap maps. And very often game mod content is inferior to Triple A game dev content. So I don't really get that. And not even a video game. And they mention Roblox or whatever that is as the prime example. To me this is all really puzzling. Especially when then the same criticism is that the SC2 map editor is so advanced, it is too hard to use it.

My conclusion is that RTS is dead. If everyone and their dogs has convinced themselves that aiming is bad and no fun at all, then FPS games would instantly die and never come back. This is what happened with RTS. Our brains are bad at multitasking, so maybe this can be partially explained. But any dev that puts out an RTS on the foundation that in reality mass clicking is not fun anymore in 2024, but their game solves that. But the game offers literally nothing new, then your game is going to fail. Especially if you also refuse to try to understand how 1vs1 RTS worked in SC BW.

On April 15 2024 05:21 Fleetfeet wrote:


To be fair, it IS the SG / Frost Giant thread, so whining about Frost Giant isn't off-topic. I won't contest that some users are irrational and emotionally invested in SG's failure, but I also wouldn't wave away all criticism of Frost Giant. Certainly a fair portion of said criticism is reasonable.

On April 15 2024 05:05 _Spartak_ wrote:
Most of the negative stuff in this thread doesn't have to do with what the next great RTS needs or even about discussing the game itself though. It is mostly a few people who have a weird vendetta against Frost Giant.