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Bisutopia19299 Posts
On July 04 2024 09:48 NonY wrote:
It’s honestly intriguing social / psychological / game theory type experiment. If most people use skins because they want other people to see them (which is what people say), then most people would still be perfectly happy in a game where you can choose to see your opponent’s selections or make your own. That’s because they’d all cooperate with each other to see each others’ skins, right?
But wait, some people could be selfish and say “I want you to see my skins but I’m not gonna look at yours.” Such betrayal.
It makes me think that they should implement protection against betrayal. It’d be a simple matter of checking a box which says “if my opponent also has this box checked, we will see each others skins” but if either player does not check the box, then neither sees the others’ skins — they both see their own unit skins and default enemy unit skins (or whatever skins they select for enemy units).
Then I’d be curious what the skin meta turns out to be. Most people checking the box or not?
Mine's a colorblind/visual issue. I actually play better with carbot skins on in BW. As a person visually impaired, I'd prefer to buy/choose what skins I see on all units to give me the best ease of access to the game.
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On July 05 2024 02:29 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2024 00:37 _Spartak_ wrote:
It doesn't matter if all people buy skins to show off. It doesn't even matter if most do. As long as some people buy it at least partially with the motivation to show off, adding such a setting will devalue skins. ...which is why skins aren't a great monetization choice for RTS. You're putting devaluing the GAMEPLAY as less important than devaluing skins. It's already an annoying issue in mobas, and that's a case where you've got perhaps 7 enemy units you need to instantly recognize. Well they have to monetize something. They are only monetizing cosmetics in 1v1. I am not sure there are any other alternatives that "devalue gameplay" less while still being a f2p game.
Maybe they can have it so that you can pay like $20 to have the option to choose what skins your opponent's units are displayed with on your screen or something.
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On July 05 2024 03:34 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2024 09:48 NonY wrote:
It’s honestly intriguing social / psychological / game theory type experiment. If most people use skins because they want other people to see them (which is what people say), then most people would still be perfectly happy in a game where you can choose to see your opponent’s selections or make your own. That’s because they’d all cooperate with each other to see each others’ skins, right?
But wait, some people could be selfish and say “I want you to see my skins but I’m not gonna look at yours.” Such betrayal.
It makes me think that they should implement protection against betrayal. It’d be a simple matter of checking a box which says “if my opponent also has this box checked, we will see each others skins” but if either player does not check the box, then neither sees the others’ skins — they both see their own unit skins and default enemy unit skins (or whatever skins they select for enemy units).
Then I’d be curious what the skin meta turns out to be. Most people checking the box or not? Mine's a colorblind/visual issue. I actually play better with carbot skins on in BW. As a person visually impaired, I'd prefer to buy/choose what skins I see on all units to give me the best ease of access to the game.
Yeah, something like that should be a non-payed feature for accessibility though.
On July 05 2024 03:39 _Spartak_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2024 02:29 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 05 2024 00:37 _Spartak_ wrote:
It doesn't matter if all people buy skins to show off. It doesn't even matter if most do. As long as some people buy it at least partially with the motivation to show off, adding such a setting will devalue skins. ...which is why skins aren't a great monetization choice for RTS. You're putting devaluing the GAMEPLAY as less important than devaluing skins. It's already an annoying issue in mobas, and that's a case where you've got perhaps 7 enemy units you need to instantly recognize. Well they have to monetize something. They are only monetizing cosmetics in 1v1. I am not sure there are any other alternatives that "devalue gameplay" less while still being a f2p game. Maybe they can have it so that you can pay like $20 to have the option to choose what skins your opponent's units are displayed with on your screen or something.
They could monetise without using "tricks" to make people buy more than they otherwise would.
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What tricks? Selling unit skins?
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8751 Posts
On July 05 2024 00:37 _Spartak_ wrote:
It doesn't matter if all people buy skins to show off. It doesn't even matter if most do. As long as some people buy it at least partially with the motivation to show off, adding such a setting will devalue skins.
I really don’t think FGS cares, nor should they care. Not everything can be a Pareto improvement. As long as it’s a net gain to player happiness and a net gain to revenue, they should do it. And I personally think that’s likely to be true.
I don’t think these numbers are accurate but just to demonstrate what I mean:
If 1% of skin buyers stop buying skins because they can’t show them off. But 50% of skin buyers only buy for their main faction, and 50% of those (so 25% of skin buyers overall) will buy skins for the other factions if they can set enemy units. Then you’ve generated a ton more revenue and pleased a lot more people than you’ve upset.
Upsetting a few people and devaluing the skins in one way is acceptable if you’ve pleased way more people and increased the value of the skins overall.
Edit: I truly believe it’d be better for business and player happiness. But we really shouldn’t forget about our competitive principles, either. This discussion is purely for ranked ladder, which is a competitive game mode, and it’s unfortunate that the gaming community has grown to tolerate this compromise for the sake of revenue. It’d be great if we could be rid of it.
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On July 05 2024 00:08 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +Disabling skins for opponents is definitely off the table because it does nothing but make some people not want to buy skins. It doesn't incentivise people to spend more money, it incentivises some to spend less. Yes we exist lol. I do my hair everyday even when I’m not going out. I’ve built muscle and leaned out just for myself, not to show off at the pool. I’d even argue at length that it’s healthier to be doing things just for yourself. As this relates to skins in a video game, I’d refer to the Reddit post. Like the fact that people buy skins for single player games and spend hours on customization in single player games. That is the same as doing your hair and makeup and wearing nice clothes but not going out, yeah? We don’t know how many of one type of person exists vs another, or how people would behave in a different environment (like how many people would actually buy fewer skins if some opponents might not see them). It’s simply untested and unknown.
Fair enough, but the thing is, not everyone feels the same way. As long as there's a decent % of players who buy skins to look cool to others, devs would never add an option to disable enemy skins. In my experience playing all kinds of different PvP games, some people just like to show off, and for others the skins they play with are part of their identity in the game.
You could definitely poll the community and see, the results would be skewed more towards hardcore players as they're the ones active on TL or reddit, but I'm sure there would be at least some chunk of people who dislike the idea of spending money on skins for them to be invisible to teammates or opponents.
As for me personally, I have nothing against disabling skins, and would love to customise enemy skins. I think many of the skins in SC2 are absolutely terrible for readability and gameplay. But if I was making big decisions for Frost Giant, I would feel unwise going down that route. Selling skins is a proven business model, and a large portion of their monetisation plan, it's just not worth messing around with.
EDIT: having a look through the reddit thread and I don't disagree with the initial post, but the comments are still full of people saying they wouldn't buy skins if people couldn't see them. Perhaps a middle ground could be reached where custom/tournament games can be played under specific skin settings for players, but for casual and ladder play the game has to sell skins to survive. It will be important that FG work on making good skins that don't mess with readability, as opposed to anything else
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Stormgate is the future of RTS, the only difference is not everyone has accepted it yet. It's like aoe2 fanboys to aoe4.
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On July 04 2024 04:04 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2024 00:45 gingerfluffmuffnr2 wrote:On July 02 2024 23:47 NonY wrote:
Yeah I just don’t see Tim and Tim making that transition. Downsizing a bit, of course. But to go that lean, they’d have to be part of the content creating grinders themselves, rather than being in more of leadership roles. Who knows though. If it’s that or let the game die, who knows what extremes they’ll go to. I don’t think that’s what they envisioned at all when they founded the studio. Pretty much this. No way the leadership is going to cut their own income. And i dont see many people paying 10$ per 3 missions multiple times. This is Stellaris-level milking, but without a massive game. my understanding is they’re making unique unit models and animations, environments, voice acting, original music, they have cut scenes, there will be new abilities, etc. If it actually all comes together and is good and fun, that is a lot of valuable assets to make it worth the price to me. That’s a lot different than someone slapping together a mission in the sc2 editor using existing assets etc. Of course they could have all those great assets and it could fall flat anyway. But if it’s good, then definitely think a lot of people would like to periodically pay $10 for several hours of high quality RTS campaign
Literally all they've said so far is that 1v1 will be f2p, and campaign and coop will be one of the ways to earn money. We don't know the price point, or the content in the campaign. It could be stellaris level exploitation with lazy missions phoned in by a tiny team, or it could be amazing value for the best RTS campaign since SC2.
As a comparison, WoL was $59.99 back in the day, and AAA titles sell for $70 new now? So at 29 missions, that means $2.41 per mission. HotS was $40 for 20 missions, so 2/3 of the price for 2/3 of the missions, and LotV was also $40 for 19 + 6 missions. Seems like Blizzard had a fairly consistent price point of ~$2.40 (price adjusted $) per SC2 mission.
I don't think $10 for 3 missions is a fair price, even if the campaign is as good as SC2's was (which I doubt it will be). Will people be willing to pay for it, in this day and age of microtransactions? Probably.
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On July 05 2024 16:23 CicadaSC wrote:
Stormgate is the future of RTS, the only difference is not everyone has accepted it yet. It's like aoe2 fanboys to aoe4.
Why do you use AoE2, the game with higher player numbers, to claim the more modern game AoE4 is more relevant? (30 day average of 15,192.3 vs 8,722.0)
Or did I misunderstand your point where you think a past game is the future of RTS?
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On July 05 2024 16:23 CicadaSC wrote:
Stormgate is the future of RTS, the only difference is not everyone has accepted it yet. It's like aoe2 fanboys to aoe4.
yeahyeah, we have to switch to the new game everytime because it's newer, not because it's better. Is this Mike Morhaime's secret account?
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CoH3 and Homeworld3 went down in a ball of flames. Look for Blackbird Interactive to start laying people off. Relic survived via a big financial rework.
The RTS genre has lost the "Angry Joe" crowd. It has lost the Asmongold crowd. Unfortunately, the genre is not gaining new audiences.
If these RTS game makers can pump out a continuous stream of cool content for their games with 10 or less people I think they can thrive. I bet you SC2 was rolling along with less than 10 people the last 7 or 8 years.
Northgard pumps out new content with a team under 10. The base game is $7.
Smaller teams can do things faster... speed is what we need...we need greasy fast speed
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On July 05 2024 23:40 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2024 16:23 CicadaSC wrote:
Stormgate is the future of RTS, the only difference is not everyone has accepted it yet. It's like aoe2 fanboys to aoe4. Why do you use AoE2, the game with higher player numbers, to claim the more modern game AoE4 is more relevant? (30 day average of 15,192.3 vs 8,722.0) Or did I misunderstand your point where you think a past game is the future of RTS?
15,000 people have not accepted the future of AOE, which at this point is also stormgate.
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On July 06 2024 04:57 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2024 23:40 Yurie wrote:On July 05 2024 16:23 CicadaSC wrote:
Stormgate is the future of RTS, the only difference is not everyone has accepted it yet. It's like aoe2 fanboys to aoe4. Why do you use AoE2, the game with higher player numbers, to claim the more modern game AoE4 is more relevant? (30 day average of 15,192.3 vs 8,722.0) Or did I misunderstand your point where you think a past game is the future of RTS? 15,000 people have not accepted the future of AOE, which at this point is also stormgate.
I would be surprised if stormgate has much more than that after 6 months of release.
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Just anecdotally during Summer Game Fest I saw way more excitement for the Age of Mythology remake than for Stormgate or Battle Aces from the casuals in the reddit comments / youtube comments.
There's also this indie ant-themed RTS that came out earlier this year that is pretty popular called Empires of the Undergrowth with over 11000 very positive reviews:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/
Not a competitive RTS but I think speaks to how casual fans just want to play single player or co-op and watch big battles happen at their own pace with cool and unique settings/units. I have a feeling all these new RTSs are going to have trouble survivng because they want to be live games attracting an ever-expanding audience of online players but they are just totally off-putting so far in their approach to most casual fans (outside of existing SC2 fans) from what I can tell.
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Age of Mythology: Retold is outselling Stormgate on preorders as well, #650~ to #750~. Age of Myth comes out later, not until September but has been buoyed by a sale on their Extended edition. Stormgate holding on to a couple spots ahead of UNO right now, so we will see if they manage to keep their lead on UNO over the next week.
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On July 06 2024 03:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:CoH3 and Homeworld3 went down in a ball of flames. Look for Blackbird Interactive to start laying people off. Relic survived via a big financial rework. The RTS genre has lost the "Angry Joe" crowd. It has lost the Asmongold crowd. Unfortunately, the genre is not gaining new audiences. If these RTS game makers can pump out a continuous stream of cool content for their games with 10 or less people I think they can thrive. I bet you SC2 was rolling along with less than 10 people the last 7 or 8 years. Northgard pumps out new content with a team under 10. The base game is $7. Smaller teams can do things faster... speed is what we need... we need greasy fast speed
If Frost Giant succeed in making the best RTS engine to date and a great editor, then they can do basically anything they want from there.
I think the end goal for Stormgate is to have that dedicated team of probably like 10 people pumping out constant new missions/commanders, the same way they monetized SC2 in LotV. Except in SC2 they had $100M worth of engine and assets already in there to work with, for Stormgate they have to make their own first.
The other people who work there will be focused on esports, cinematics, 1v1/3v3 updates, skins/microtransactions, or furthering the editor to give that campaign team more to work with.
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On July 07 2024 03:17 MegaBuster wrote:
Age of Mythology: Retold is outselling Stormgate on preorders as well, #650~ to #750~. Age of Myth comes out later, not until September but has been buoyed by a sale on their Extended edition. Stormgate holding on to a couple spots ahead of UNO right now, so we will see if they manage to keep their lead on UNO over the next week.
Who's preordering a f2p game?
If Stormgate was a full campaign with a flat fee, it would probably have preorders
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On July 06 2024 21:58 KobraKay wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2024 04:57 CicadaSC wrote:On July 05 2024 23:40 Yurie wrote:On July 05 2024 16:23 CicadaSC wrote:
Stormgate is the future of RTS, the only difference is not everyone has accepted it yet. It's like aoe2 fanboys to aoe4. Why do you use AoE2, the game with higher player numbers, to claim the more modern game AoE4 is more relevant? (30 day average of 15,192.3 vs 8,722.0) Or did I misunderstand your point where you think a past game is the future of RTS? 15,000 people have not accepted the future of AOE, which at this point is also stormgate. I would be surprised if stormgate has much more than that after 6 months of release.
6 months after early access or 6 months after 1.0?
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On July 07 2024 03:17 MegaBuster wrote:
Age of Mythology: Retold is outselling Stormgate on preorders as well, #650~ to #750~. Age of Myth comes out later, not until September but has been buoyed by a sale on their Extended edition. Stormgate holding on to a couple spots ahead of UNO right now, so we will see if they manage to keep their lead on UNO over the next week. Stormgate is free to play that is going to be released on early access and it has already sold these packs to its most dedicated players outside of Steam through Kickstarter/Indiegogo. Stormgate has more wishlists than AoM: Retold.
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Just for posterity the final prophecy of the Stormheads is that there are 500k people on this steam wishlist who are waiting for the date to come. At which point they will show up en masse to play and buy in such quantity that they will usher in the 2nd RTS renaissance. Said people don't really talk about the game, look at any beta games, don't tweet, don't chat, but they the silent majority are lurking and ready to emerge like a million zombie JFK Juniors for August 13th. Let's just get that in ink for the archivists.
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