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The problem I’m having with a bunch of modern RTS games is, lack of clunk. Clunk can be good!
I think the clunkiness kinda make BW works. It adds for better mele vs ranged dynamics and increases defenders advantage.
However, I don't think we should try to replicate this in modern games. I think we should try to add skill-expression, defenders advantage and ranged-vs-melee dynamics work in a different way.
One thing that became so clear to me when I experienced with the Sc2 modding is that melee units needs to be fast. Ultras should imo be faster (and smaller). Zealots should be faster and legspeed removed. Broodwar gets that right.
For some reason Stormgate decides to go in the opposite direction with the Brute being the worst defender.
But besides generally making them faster, it is imo easier to make ranged units work. To create diversity for melee units we would have to explore with different types of abilities. But I also think abilities should be simple too use and not take up too APM.
I want players to spend the primary part of their APM moving units around as opposed to ability-spamming so it's a tricky balance. Thus, abilities should reward "movement-based" micro as opposed to existing for the sake of existing (looking at abduct as an offender here)
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Core units are definitely a big component. Even if we dumb down sc2 to just the core t1 and 1.5 units, it will still be a pretty damn fine RTS.
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On April 06 2025 09:30 RogerChillingworth wrote:WHAT ARE YOU HIDING, HIDER + Show Spoiler +
Ended up quoting myself twice in a row when i wanted to edit my comment.
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
On April 06 2025 04:51 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +The problem I’m having with a bunch of modern RTS games is, lack of clunk. Clunk can be good! I think the clunkiness kinda make BW works. It adds for better mele vs ranged dynamics and increases defenders advantage. However, I don't think we should try to replicate this in modern games. I think we should try to add skill-expression, defenders advantage and ranged-vs-melee dynamics work in a different way. One thing that became so clear to me when I experienced with the Sc2 modding is that melee units needs to be fast. Ultras should imo be faster (and smaller). Zealots should be faster and legspeed removed. Broodwar gets that right. For some reason Stormgate decides to go in the opposite direction with the Brute being the worst defender. But besides generally making them faster, it is imo easier to make ranged units work. To create diversity for melee units we would have to explore with different types of abilities. But I also think abilities should be simple too use and not take up too APM. I want players to spend the primary part of their APM moving units around as opposed to ability-spamming so it's a tricky balance. Thus, abilities should reward "movement-based" micro as opposed to existing for the sake of existing (looking at abduct as an offender here)
Yeah can’t disagree with any of this really!
I’m hopeful someone can nail it one day
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On April 05 2025 12:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2025 10:06 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Yea, totally. Games have gotten very linear and streamlined in their movement. I think abilities are all that's left to fill the void. I partially blame consumers, but ultimately it's the devs' job to lead the way. I remember when Flash was playing Random in ASL and a few of the pros commented on his "good zealot hits". These days, everyone from Silver league up can do move-shot micro or kite well in Stormgate or Battle Aces. Just nothing to it. Doomed.
You need a bit of clunk. It really makes it. I've always personally gravitated toward the clunky ass units. The medium-heavies and heavies. Their clunk is always compensated by something else. Usually a strong hit or something. Matter of taste I guess but it adds texture. There's a tiny bit of this in Stormgate. There used to be more. There was never a ton. Everything just glides around and is super slippery. Back in alpha and beta, I remember nothing but complaints about any sort of clunk, or when the unit pathing wasn't perfect when given a lazy command halfway across the map. Those same people stop playing ladder after 3 losses. Just doomed. Without a bit of clunk, so to speak, the units with the best numbers on paper are just the best units. Ya need it! It doesn’t have to be in the form of janky pathing, or UI limitations, but ya need the clunk. I think I’ll adopt this term from now on. Outside of AoE, there’s nothing that beats MMM in SC2, in the hands of a skilled player. You can buttery smooth, stutter step to your heart’s content, or focus fire stragglers etc. Archers in WC3? Sure, AoE hits them like a truck, but they’ve other vulnerabilities. They’re slow, they can’t stutter step on a sixpence and yes, you can’t control more than 12 at once. Fuck I still have nightmares of a game I played like 15+ years ago where I was crazy ahead versus a human and fed my big, unwieldy bears into a meat grinder that was their base, trying to finish the game. You even see that in an SC2 which has generally buttery smooth controls, with ultras, good in an open field, oh dear don’t try to attack into an opponent who’s fortified and has chokes. The problem I’m having with a bunch of modern RTS games is, lack of clunk. Clunk can be good! Without clunk, and without making ranged units utter, utter garbage, they will always, always be better than melee units as volume increases. Always. It’s a problem, and it’s one that’s continually made worse by making these games easier to play. I’m not advocating necessarily going full BW/WC3 and limiting controls back to 12 units, but it is a problem. My vague tinkering in something like Stormgate, the tournaments I’ve watched it’s frequently just a battle of constant stutter-stepping and not that much else. You don’t have the melee micro, the body blocks, the surrounds, the flanks so much because of how ranged DPS, and the ability to control as much as you want just so completely outscales it. This isn’t to say it doesn’t exist, it does, the game enables it, it just falls off hugely with scale, and it seemingly gets worse with every new game. You see some of the sickest micro battles in SC2 where it’s like 60-70 supply and there’s a couple of each early game unit, and people doing insane things. Scale it up and it starts dropping off in terms of interesting interactions.
There are really easy to solutions to prolems like this IMO. Obviously one would have to balance it right.
Make melee more potent:
- increase walking speed (cavalry > archers)
- give melee some sort of anti-ranged armor options / protection shield. think guardian shield. this could be an ability or another unit supporting. To stick with the 12: every 11 melee units need one support shielder unit in the vicinity. controlled wrong (big 100 unit deathball), the shielder unit works suboptimal.
- give melee units some range so the second row can attack too. think archon.
- have different melee units for different purpose. think lings flanking bio for banes to connect. beautiful to play, beautiful to watch.
- have formations. think phalanx
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On April 08 2025 20:11 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2025 12:26 WombaT wrote:On April 05 2025 10:06 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Yea, totally. Games have gotten very linear and streamlined in their movement. I think abilities are all that's left to fill the void. I partially blame consumers, but ultimately it's the devs' job to lead the way. I remember when Flash was playing Random in ASL and a few of the pros commented on his "good zealot hits". These days, everyone from Silver league up can do move-shot micro or kite well in Stormgate or Battle Aces. Just nothing to it. Doomed.
You need a bit of clunk. It really makes it. I've always personally gravitated toward the clunky ass units. The medium-heavies and heavies. Their clunk is always compensated by something else. Usually a strong hit or something. Matter of taste I guess but it adds texture. There's a tiny bit of this in Stormgate. There used to be more. There was never a ton. Everything just glides around and is super slippery. Back in alpha and beta, I remember nothing but complaints about any sort of clunk, or when the unit pathing wasn't perfect when given a lazy command halfway across the map. Those same people stop playing ladder after 3 losses. Just doomed. Without a bit of clunk, so to speak, the units with the best numbers on paper are just the best units. Ya need it! It doesn’t have to be in the form of janky pathing, or UI limitations, but ya need the clunk. I think I’ll adopt this term from now on. Outside of AoE, there’s nothing that beats MMM in SC2, in the hands of a skilled player. You can buttery smooth, stutter step to your heart’s content, or focus fire stragglers etc. Archers in WC3? Sure, AoE hits them like a truck, but they’ve other vulnerabilities. They’re slow, they can’t stutter step on a sixpence and yes, you can’t control more than 12 at once. Fuck I still have nightmares of a game I played like 15+ years ago where I was crazy ahead versus a human and fed my big, unwieldy bears into a meat grinder that was their base, trying to finish the game. You even see that in an SC2 which has generally buttery smooth controls, with ultras, good in an open field, oh dear don’t try to attack into an opponent who’s fortified and has chokes. The problem I’m having with a bunch of modern RTS games is, lack of clunk. Clunk can be good! Without clunk, and without making ranged units utter, utter garbage, they will always, always be better than melee units as volume increases. Always. It’s a problem, and it’s one that’s continually made worse by making these games easier to play. I’m not advocating necessarily going full BW/WC3 and limiting controls back to 12 units, but it is a problem. My vague tinkering in something like Stormgate, the tournaments I’ve watched it’s frequently just a battle of constant stutter-stepping and not that much else. You don’t have the melee micro, the body blocks, the surrounds, the flanks so much because of how ranged DPS, and the ability to control as much as you want just so completely outscales it. This isn’t to say it doesn’t exist, it does, the game enables it, it just falls off hugely with scale, and it seemingly gets worse with every new game. You see some of the sickest micro battles in SC2 where it’s like 60-70 supply and there’s a couple of each early game unit, and people doing insane things. Scale it up and it starts dropping off in terms of interesting interactions. There are really easy to solutions to prolems like this IMO. Obviously one would have to balance it right. Make melee more potent: - increase walking speed (cavalry > archers) - give melee some sort of anti-ranged armor options / protection shield. think guardian shield. this could be an ability or another unit supporting. To stick with the 12: every 11 melee units need one support shielder unit in the vicinity. controlled wrong (big 100 unit deathball), the shielder unit works suboptimal. - give melee units some range so the second row can attack too. think archon. - have different melee units for different purpose. think lings flanking bio for banes to connect. beautiful to play, beautiful to watch. - have formations. think phalanx
Does it make using melee units fun though?
The only reliable way I can think of to make melee units fun is when they are really fast. Short-ranged units like Archon/Roaches really fun (little skill-expression).
Medium speed units that are very tanky aren't fun either.
I think you have to quite creative in abilities you give to them. I've been thinking of some type of leap-jump ability. Or maybe a reflective shield that only lasts a few seconds.
But again - while we can and should take inspiration from MOBA's - we need to be careful about not making the ability-clicking itself too APM-intensive.
It's definitely one of the harder problems to solve imo - it requires a lot of experimentation. I
However, I think you can easily make a quite good RTS game though without really nailing melee units. It's more important to nail defenders advantage, spell-casters, the general pace and micro-rewardingness of ranged units - plus learning barrier ofc.
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Well, Ling/Bling and Zealots are most definitely fun to play! Ultras not so much.
On the other hand, only ranged vs ranged is mostly not fun for me. That's why I am not a big fan of C&C games. Clump of tanks vs clump of tanks meh
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On April 09 2025 17:16 Harris1st wrote:
Well, Ling/Bling and Zealots are most definitely fun to play! Ultras not so much.
On the other hand, only ranged vs ranged is mostly not fun for me. That's why I am not a big fan of C&C games. Clump of tanks vs clump of tanks meh
I remember in hots everyone hated the roach war, but it eventually got to roach hydra vs roach infestors, with or without burrow became so much fun.
I even liked the standard roach vs roach.
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On April 10 2025 09:40 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2025 17:16 Harris1st wrote:
Well, Ling/Bling and Zealots are most definitely fun to play! Ultras not so much.
On the other hand, only ranged vs ranged is mostly not fun for me. That's why I am not a big fan of C&C games. Clump of tanks vs clump of tanks meh I remember in hots everyone hated the roach war, but it eventually got to roach hydra vs roach infestors, with or without burrow became so much fun. I even liked the standard roach vs roach.
vanilla roach vs roach not really but yes roach ravager (with burrow move) can lead to interesting dynamics because it is not clump vs clump but multiple clumps vs multiple clumps all over the place with zoning/retreat ability etc...
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Wow, very cool. It's just missing Jack Black doing a bad cartwheel and going I...AM STEVE. With like this same yard sale audio jungle Hans Zimmer music playing in the background.
Now that we're all collectively stuck in the garbage compactor yelling for C3PO's help, I think it's safe to say that the next great RTS will be made by one of:
A) Strait jacketed dude who codes the whole fucking game in braille with his forehead
B) Retired post office clerk who figures with the help of chat gpt, this cool software hobby could be better than 20 years of woodford reserve
C) A beamish young clone of Chris Metzen before he sold his soul and returned to Blizzard's WoW expansion trough for SOME DAT SWEET HONEY, BB
D) Pent up StarCraft nerd who turned no-nut november into no-nut forever and would happily swallow a rusty nail for a 1% chance of making their dreams come true
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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When I tried the campaign a year ago maybe, it felt like they had put a lot of resources into a long intro cutscene that established the most clichéd starting point and then I somehow forgot to continue the whole thing later because how forgettable the whole thing felt. It wasn't horribly bad, but gave absolutely nothing exciting to look forward to.
I take it that it didn't get much more interesting later on since they're now overhauling some of it?
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On April 12 2025 13:15 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Wow, very cool. It's just missing Jack Black doing a bad cartwheel and going I...AM STEVE. With like this same yard sale audio jungle Hans Zimmer music playing in the background.
Now that we're all collectively stuck in the garbage compactor yelling for C3PO's help, I think it's safe to say that the next great RTS will be made by one of:
A) Strait jacketed dude who codes the whole fucking game in braille with his forehead
B) Retired post office clerk who figures with the help of chat gpt, this cool software hobby could be better than 20 years of woodford reserve
C) A beamish young clone of Chris Metzen before he sold his soul and returned to Blizzard's WoW expansion trough for SOME DAT SWEET HONEY, BB
D) Pent up StarCraft nerd who turned no-nut november into no-nut forever and would happily swallow a rusty nail for a 1% chance of making their dreams come true
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think an interesting approach is Beyond All Reason which is in Alpha but very enjoyable. Basically an open source project, so annoyances get stamped but you also get feature bloat.
It has a decent AI already, scenarios to show the concept of a campaign. But I highly doubt you will get good cinematics or similar from them.
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I've heard of BAR but haven't seen a frame of it. I'll check it out.
Was thinking of trying the new RTS, Cyanide. I HEAR IT'S GOOD.
+ Show Spoiler +
+ Show Spoiler +
edit: still waiting for DORF. Those devs are slow as shit smh'ing my head
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On April 12 2025 14:19 Bacillus wrote:
When I tried the campaign a year ago maybe, it felt like they had put a lot of resources into a long intro cutscene that established the most clichéd starting point and then I somehow forgot to continue the whole thing later because how forgettable the whole thing felt. It wasn't horribly bad, but gave absolutely nothing exciting to look forward to.
I take it that it didn't get much more interesting later on since they're now overhauling some of it?
yeah it had funny badness before. they shoulda amped that up. i think a combo of stiffly animated cutscenes, awful dialogue, and lots of random blood and gore (currently absent) could have been funny enough for people to buy. but afaik it's being edited to be even more generic. didn't rlly think it was possible.
the plot of Stormgate is essentially Mortal Kombat Annihilation, with a touch of Indiana Jones 4. If you're gonna do that might as well go full bore.
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On April 14 2025 03:36 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Mortal Kombat Annihilation
Oh no, you made me remember.
As a kid, I watched it with my brother on VHS.
Haha, I discovered the concept of bad movies that day. As a MK fan, I felt scammed and insulted personally.
That being said, your comparison is damn accurate :D.
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On April 14 2025 02:51 RogerChillingworth wrote:I've heard of BAR but haven't seen a frame of it. I'll check it out. Was thinking of trying the new RTS, Cyanide. I HEAR IT'S GOOD. + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +edit: still waiting for DORF. Those devs are slow as shit smh'ing my head
DORFteam is currently THINKING about a Kickstarter... I'm not sure whats going wrong there. Basically means they are a looooooooooong ways out. DORFteams is not a fan of early access so they want to actually release a 1.0 feature complete game.
Also DORF is looking like retro C&C but really is Starcraft meets Factorio. There are supply lines and stuff
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We have a date for the campaign rework, and a bunch of other changes.
April 22nd. 4 more days!
I believe it is just the first chapter right? but I am still excited to see what it's going to look like and if players who didn't like it will come back to try it out now that it's been reworked.
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EPT
