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On June 07 2023 05:05 ProMeTheus112 wrote: I think macro is fun in a strategy game as long as there is decision making associated with it (strategic/tactical/economic/etc choices). It's not about it taking 300APM to do properly but rather involving decision making at every step on a reasonable pace i think.
Decision making in the sense of SC2 orbital energy, yes. But that's rarely a true decision and rather just fixed scenarios you learn.
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On June 07 2023 05:19 Hildegard wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 05:05 ProMeTheus112 wrote: I think macro is fun in a strategy game as long as there is decision making associated with it (strategic/tactical/economic/etc choices). It's not about it taking 300APM to do properly but rather involving decision making at every step on a reasonable pace i think. Decision making in the sense of SC2 orbital energy, yes. But that's rarely a true decision and rather just fixed scenarios you learn. Exactly that's why mechanics that involve little decision because they end up following a fixed scenario aren't fun imo (this comes down to balance). Or at least, less fun. Not to mention when they're like that they don't really take part in the strategy part of the game anymore, only mechanical. I can see how some players would actually enjoy trying to push their APMs in the 300, maybe. Although, at some point too fast means players actually hurt themselves if they play a lot. I like fast pace all right but I'd get tired of it if I feel I'm just following a scenario. For example, I can see how fast Tetris is fun because you don't know which pieces you're gonna get next and each game is different and you even get to choose how you play it out to an extent, while doing a fast Tetris game with always the same sequence would be rather boring. Well at that point you'd want to play something like Beatmania instead but it's not a puzzle game etc.
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On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote: I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding.
To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later.
Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already.
I can't disagree more here. RTS shouldn't really be all about macro (or all about micro). And what you're proposing (remember to do something every x amount of time) is just a repetitive chore, not anything exciting or really related to economy. If you want busy work like that why not just make resource gatherers fully manual? You no longer can just send them to gather resources and forget about them but have to return every time they finish gathering resources to send them back to the base and then back to resources. Same thing but doesn't sound fun any more, does it?
On June 07 2023 02:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2023 17:09 Manit0u wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote: One difference is that more people playing games in 2023 than probably ever before. The team game market is saturated, but there are very few 1v1 games. But I'm fairly certain there is a market for 1v1. Especially that you have several communities starved for a new RTS. Dawn of War 3 failed, Company of Heroes 3 failed, Red Alert went mobile, WC3R failed, Spellforce 3 and Total War Warhammer 3 kinda niche... I’m not sure how much these games failed. They just weren’t the new BW/SC2 or what have you. Such is modern gaming and expectations though. Making a decent AAA game and making your money back is relative failure if it’s not the new League or Fortnite level game I mean AoE4 is a case in point. Its success or failure really depends on what your gauge is. A ton of people gave it a shot, enjoyed it and went back to playing other things. It would be a success on many metrics, a failure on others.
Well, for some of it the failures are quite obvious: CoH 3 is a dead game pretty soon after launch. Dawn of War 3 also lost all the players as they simply went back to playing Dawn of War 2. New Red Alert being a mobile game was akin to Diablo Immortal announcement failure. It really angered the fans. WarCraft 3 Reforged is so bad that pretty much anyone who plays the game (especially pros) is playing it using the old client and old graphics.
It's not just about expectations but developers failing to understand their audience.
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On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea.
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On June 07 2023 06:58 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea.
I wonder if macro-only game could be a fun idea... Where you can't control units at all and all you do is make decisions regarding base building and managing stuff there instead. You focus on the base while fully automated units go do their thing.
I would not be opposed to such an idea I think
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On June 07 2023 07:25 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 06:58 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea. I wonder if macro-only game could be a fun idea... Where you can't control units at all and all you do is make decisions regarding base building and managing stuff there instead. You focus on the base while fully automated units go do their thing. I would not be opposed to such an idea I think Yeah thats funky idea actually. It's a reverse moba lolz.
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That's just desert storm or whatever, isn't it? Can't remember what the popular one is called but they exist.
e - I suppose those also automate a lot of the macro, to be fair. Not exactly the same, but certainly on the same branch.
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On June 07 2023 08:19 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 07:25 Manit0u wrote:On June 07 2023 06:58 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea. I wonder if macro-only game could be a fun idea... Where you can't control units at all and all you do is make decisions regarding base building and managing stuff there instead. You focus on the base while fully automated units go do their thing. I would not be opposed to such an idea I think Yeah thats funky idea actually. It's a reverse moba lolz.
I think you've had kinda parts of it in some of the early MOBAs that were being played along DotA during its WC3 mod days. Unfortunately can't remember the names now but one was a ship game with really cool stuff where one of the captains could abandon his ship and instead remain on land to improve the port (upgrading towers, minions etc.) and one could avoid fighting and instead use a special smuggler ship to complete runs and provide bonus income for teammates (and the one on land upgrading the base). The other one I also don't remember the name of but it had some tanks I think but also capture points and elements of upgrading your towers/units. I think also Demigod had something like that but didn't play that much of it.
And speaking of MOBAs that I think got it down to the core (without all the boring creeps and stuff) Bloodline Champions was amazing. Pure carnage (but required a lot of skill so not very newbie friendly).
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Yeah, there's a game in the SC2 arcade called Desert Strike that is only macro - the only decisions you make are which units to add to your automatically-spawned waves of units, when to invest in your economy, and which upgrades to get. It's actually pretty fun. I play it a lot with my kids. There's a significant amount of strategic depth, and I could see a smart team coming up with a more involved and intricate version of the same thing and ending up with a decent game.
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On June 06 2023 12:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2023 23:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On June 02 2023 15:50 Slydie wrote:On June 02 2023 03:04 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah I think upkeep was more than a bandaid it was a deliberate attempt at doing something different with individual units having more importance and less focus on churning out as many as you can from production. It is all interconnected, if you want a hero focused game, you can't have big, amassed armies, so Upkeep was the solution they came up with. In retrospect, though, the DOTA formula of autospawned uncontrollable creeps and no base building at all turned out to be much more successful. Needless to say, I hope Sormgate will NOT have hero units in PvP. I am very curious about how they manage the different tasks you need to do in an RTS: econ, basebuilding, army building, expansion strategy, tech choices, army composition, micro and army tactics. SC2 is a lot about what you do in your base, and whoever is faster with better multitasking will usually be the better player. The market for that kind of demanding game might be limited now, 25 years after the heyday of RTS😔 Mobas had become more successful than RTS as a whole, as they pulled in a lot of players in an era where gaming became much more popular years after years and a large proportion of players like to play team games, and games that aren't heavily demanding on mechanics like RTS are. I thought I read somewhere the plan for Stormgate is to have heroes only in team games. To add to your point about MOBAs versus RTSs. in 1995 a MOBA with 5v5 of 10 people connected in low latency was not technically feasible. What was reasonably possible was finding 1,2, or 3 people who could play against you in a 1v1 or 2v2. Competitive MOBAs were not technically feasible... RTS games were technically feasible. As soon as the 5v5 MOBA became feasible the competitive 1v1 RTS waned in popularity.
Is this true? I mean, stuff such as Ultima Online and Quake existed around that time.
On June 06 2023 21:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2023 17:09 Manit0u wrote: Especially that you have several communities starved for a new RTS I think it is the opposite. The consumer today has a bountiful crop great games from which to choose. What we have is a growing number of consumers with a bizarre self absorbed mindset expecting a video game to make their life great. They get very loud when they feel bored. When I was a kid and we got bored of Mario64 or StarCraft64 or Zelda we just ripped the cartridge out of the N64 and did something else. We did not 'blame the game'. We just accepted the fact that all games eventually get boring. Grubby discussed this exact issue a few years ago. "Play until you get bored and when you get bored do something else.' These giant marketing companies tell players the next game will make the players' lives complete by making it into an all encompassing lifelong + Show Spoiler + habit. This feeds into the unhealthy mindset the self absorbed crowd has. The marketing companies will never say "you will like this game for a few months... Have a total blast ... Then never play it again". Nope, according to the marketing of the new games ... every game the great devs make will be an all time great masterpiece.
This is a very good observation. Well, the observation is, the fact in itself is obviously not good.
On June 07 2023 08:19 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 07:25 Manit0u wrote:On June 07 2023 06:58 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea. I wonder if macro-only game could be a fun idea... Where you can't control units at all and all you do is make decisions regarding base building and managing stuff there instead. You focus on the base while fully automated units go do their thing. I would not be opposed to such an idea I think Yeah thats funky idea actually. It's a reverse moba lolz.
This sounds exactly like some WC3 tower defenses to me, where you build your maze and build/upgrade units to spawn for your opponent.
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On June 07 2023 17:25 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2023 12:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On June 05 2023 23:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On June 02 2023 15:50 Slydie wrote:On June 02 2023 03:04 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah I think upkeep was more than a bandaid it was a deliberate attempt at doing something different with individual units having more importance and less focus on churning out as many as you can from production. It is all interconnected, if you want a hero focused game, you can't have big, amassed armies, so Upkeep was the solution they came up with. In retrospect, though, the DOTA formula of autospawned uncontrollable creeps and no base building at all turned out to be much more successful. Needless to say, I hope Sormgate will NOT have hero units in PvP. I am very curious about how they manage the different tasks you need to do in an RTS: econ, basebuilding, army building, expansion strategy, tech choices, army composition, micro and army tactics. SC2 is a lot about what you do in your base, and whoever is faster with better multitasking will usually be the better player. The market for that kind of demanding game might be limited now, 25 years after the heyday of RTS😔 Mobas had become more successful than RTS as a whole, as they pulled in a lot of players in an era where gaming became much more popular years after years and a large proportion of players like to play team games, and games that aren't heavily demanding on mechanics like RTS are. I thought I read somewhere the plan for Stormgate is to have heroes only in team games. To add to your point about MOBAs versus RTSs. in 1995 a MOBA with 5v5 of 10 people connected in low latency was not technically feasible. What was reasonably possible was finding 1,2, or 3 people who could play against you in a 1v1 or 2v2. Competitive MOBAs were not technically feasible... RTS games were technically feasible. As soon as the 5v5 MOBA became feasible the competitive 1v1 RTS waned in popularity. Is this true? I mean, stuff such as Ultima Online and Quake existed around that time.
No, of course it's not true. As you say, there were plenty of games that showed you could more than two people in a game without it being a problem. I mean, how many people got into Broodwar through 8 player BGH free-for-alls? Obviously if the technology could handle 8 people all issuing commands to dozens of units, it could handle 10 people all issuing commands to one unit. MOBAs didn't exist yet because no one had had the idea for them, not because some technological revolution suddenly made them possible.
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On June 06 2023 20:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Part of the reason these games failed is that strategy/action games retain players forever.
So that, in 1993 the action/strategy players attached themselves to MULE and Super Tecmo Bowl and these players never moved on. They played the games until they had kids and then stopped playing games altogether.
I know COH players who like 1 certain type of COH1 game or COH2 game and they are not moving off those games. This makes it very hard for COH3 to succeed.
Today, there are dozens of these communities. In the early 90s this was not the case. It was MULE and Tecmo Bowl and that's it. This made it way easier for upcoming Action/Strategy games to succeed. The fact that some people keep playing a game after it loses popularity doesn't mean what you are arguing it means. I mean, if your argument were true then every strategy game player over 40 would be playing one of the same couple of games, and none would have ever moved on. I'm 40, and I played MULE and Super Tecmo Bowl as a kid, and I've played every Civ, and I played a ton of BW and then a ton of WC3 and then a ton of SC2 and a bit of AOE4 and SupCom and C&C and BAR, and I'm definitely going to play Stormgate. I know people (myself included) who continue to enjoy old games they played long ago and stay in the scene, but the idea that they all just shut themselves off from the world and only ever play that one game is just silly.
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Maybe we'll get a Proleague Manager with some strategy elements, player development, team house upgrades and pre-picked build-orders sometime in the future.
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On June 07 2023 18:34 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 17:25 Miragee wrote:On June 06 2023 12:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On June 05 2023 23:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On June 02 2023 15:50 Slydie wrote:On June 02 2023 03:04 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah I think upkeep was more than a bandaid it was a deliberate attempt at doing something different with individual units having more importance and less focus on churning out as many as you can from production. It is all interconnected, if you want a hero focused game, you can't have big, amassed armies, so Upkeep was the solution they came up with. In retrospect, though, the DOTA formula of autospawned uncontrollable creeps and no base building at all turned out to be much more successful. Needless to say, I hope Sormgate will NOT have hero units in PvP. I am very curious about how they manage the different tasks you need to do in an RTS: econ, basebuilding, army building, expansion strategy, tech choices, army composition, micro and army tactics. SC2 is a lot about what you do in your base, and whoever is faster with better multitasking will usually be the better player. The market for that kind of demanding game might be limited now, 25 years after the heyday of RTS😔 Mobas had become more successful than RTS as a whole, as they pulled in a lot of players in an era where gaming became much more popular years after years and a large proportion of players like to play team games, and games that aren't heavily demanding on mechanics like RTS are. I thought I read somewhere the plan for Stormgate is to have heroes only in team games. To add to your point about MOBAs versus RTSs. in 1995 a MOBA with 5v5 of 10 people connected in low latency was not technically feasible. What was reasonably possible was finding 1,2, or 3 people who could play against you in a 1v1 or 2v2. Competitive MOBAs were not technically feasible... RTS games were technically feasible. As soon as the 5v5 MOBA became feasible the competitive 1v1 RTS waned in popularity. Is this true? I mean, stuff such as Ultima Online and Quake existed around that time. No, of course it's not true. As you say, there were plenty of games that showed you could more than two people in a game without it being a problem. I mean, how many people got into Broodwar through 8 player BGH free-for-alls? Obviously if the technology could handle 8 people all issuing commands to dozens of units, it could handle 10 people all issuing commands to one unit. MOBAs didn't exist yet because no one had had the idea for them, not because some technological revolution suddenly made them possible.
I never played Brood War online, only LAN, so I don't know what was going on in battle.net at that time. But I'm pretty sure the BGH trend and stuff set in after 2000. And for a fun round of BGH FFA you really didn't need perfect latency. All competitive play was LAN . For a reason I would guess
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Northern Ireland20802 Posts
On June 07 2023 06:58 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea. I find macro quite fun, or perhaps a better word is satisfying. If you’re nailing it while moving your army around, expanding, hitting those upgrades. It’s also quite satisfying when you get that moment that your gambit or trick succeeded in bamboozling your opponent.
While nobody truly 100% masters macro, I guess it does give a sense of mastery when you’re keeping on top of everything, that APM creeps up and you’re still juggling plates.
The micro is yeah, the fun part of the experience. And the real direct interaction versus your opponent as opposed to the more indirect phases where you’re both microing out of sight of each other.
To drop the macro part in difficulty/prominence, you likely need more of the micro, more skirmishes
Take a reasonably average SC2 game. You build up, there’s a few initial pokes. Maybe an oracle shows up or a drop. Then those quite non-committal pokes are done and you gear up for the first big army engagement.
Quite often the game can just end there. Now imagine such a game with greatly simplified macro. You’re really not actually doing all that much in that 6-10 minute game
Other SC2 games, like a mid-thru lategame TvZ slugfest you’d be constantly skirmishing all over the place, you’d actually be able to focus on skirmishing even harder and that would be pretty swell.
I’m not innately against keeping similar macro requirements, or lessening them either but I think it’s almost 100% dependent on what kind of game flow takes place around them.
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On June 07 2023 21:18 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 18:34 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On June 07 2023 17:25 Miragee wrote:On June 06 2023 12:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On June 05 2023 23:54 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On June 02 2023 15:50 Slydie wrote:On June 02 2023 03:04 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah I think upkeep was more than a bandaid it was a deliberate attempt at doing something different with individual units having more importance and less focus on churning out as many as you can from production. It is all interconnected, if you want a hero focused game, you can't have big, amassed armies, so Upkeep was the solution they came up with. In retrospect, though, the DOTA formula of autospawned uncontrollable creeps and no base building at all turned out to be much more successful. Needless to say, I hope Sormgate will NOT have hero units in PvP. I am very curious about how they manage the different tasks you need to do in an RTS: econ, basebuilding, army building, expansion strategy, tech choices, army composition, micro and army tactics. SC2 is a lot about what you do in your base, and whoever is faster with better multitasking will usually be the better player. The market for that kind of demanding game might be limited now, 25 years after the heyday of RTS😔 Mobas had become more successful than RTS as a whole, as they pulled in a lot of players in an era where gaming became much more popular years after years and a large proportion of players like to play team games, and games that aren't heavily demanding on mechanics like RTS are. I thought I read somewhere the plan for Stormgate is to have heroes only in team games. To add to your point about MOBAs versus RTSs. in 1995 a MOBA with 5v5 of 10 people connected in low latency was not technically feasible. What was reasonably possible was finding 1,2, or 3 people who could play against you in a 1v1 or 2v2. Competitive MOBAs were not technically feasible... RTS games were technically feasible. As soon as the 5v5 MOBA became feasible the competitive 1v1 RTS waned in popularity. Is this true? I mean, stuff such as Ultima Online and Quake existed around that time. No, of course it's not true. As you say, there were plenty of games that showed you could more than two people in a game without it being a problem. I mean, how many people got into Broodwar through 8 player BGH free-for-alls? Obviously if the technology could handle 8 people all issuing commands to dozens of units, it could handle 10 people all issuing commands to one unit. MOBAs didn't exist yet because no one had had the idea for them, not because some technological revolution suddenly made them possible. I never played Brood War online, only LAN, so I don't know what was going on in battle.net at that time. But I'm pretty sure the BGH trend and stuff set in after 2000. And for a fun round of BGH FFA you really didn't need perfect latency. All competitive play was LAN . For a reason I would guess
That hasn't really changed, though. The best competitive experience is still live because of networking issues. And even if the experience wasn't great pre-broadband, FFA was always a feature in BW as far as I know.
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On June 07 2023 18:40 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2023 20:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Part of the reason these games failed is that strategy/action games retain players forever.
So that, in 1993 the action/strategy players attached themselves to MULE and Super Tecmo Bowl and these players never moved on. They played the games until they had kids and then stopped playing games altogether.
I know COH players who like 1 certain type of COH1 game or COH2 game and they are not moving off those games. This makes it very hard for COH3 to succeed.
Today, there are dozens of these communities. In the early 90s this was not the case. It was MULE and Tecmo Bowl and that's it. This made it way easier for upcoming Action/Strategy games to succeed. The fact that some people keep playing a game after it loses popularity doesn't mean what you are arguing it means. I mean, if your argument were true then every strategy game player over 40 would be playing one of the same couple of games, and none would have ever moved on. I'm 40, and I played MULE and Super Tecmo Bowl as a kid, and I've played every Civ, and I played a ton of BW and then a ton of WC3 and then a ton of SC2 and a bit of AOE4 and SupCom and C&C and BAR, and I'm definitely going to play Stormgate. I know people (myself included) who continue to enjoy old games they played long ago and stay in the scene, but the idea that they all just shut themselves off from the world and only ever play that one game is just silly. huh? they get married, have kids and stop playing video games because they are busy raising and providing for a family. "shut themselves off from the world"? The world is not video games. I'd argue they are more "shut off from the world" when they are playing video games. They are less shut off from the world when they are raising a family.
Many people bought an NES just to play Tecmo Bowl and then Super Tecmo Bowl. They didn't play any other games.
For me, it was NHL '94. A big portion of EA NHL players never moved on. Hardly any one moved on to NHL '95.
People who do not have much time for video games only play the very best games because they have no time for other games. In university, my classmates and I had no time to learn a new EA NHL game. It was NHL '94 or nuttin'. I had very little free time. I moved 9 times in 4.5 years and lived in 4 cities. Hardly means I was "shut off from the world" just because I had no times for games.
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On June 07 2023 07:25 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 06:58 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 07 2023 04:54 Hildegard wrote:On June 07 2023 02:42 The_Red_Viper wrote:On June 06 2023 15:47 Hildegard wrote:
Room for improvement from the Starcraft games could be to make macro more visible. A Zerg player that can unload huge zergling/baneling attacks and re-max immediately, multiple times does incredibly well in macro, but for most viewers that process isn't really visible. Creep spread however is. I realize creep isn't seen as a great mechanic, but for a viewer it's easy to follow.
I think fundamentally 'macro' is just not fun and really just a means to get to the fun part. Unit interactions, player interactions. I am saying that as someone who enjoys pressing the buttons, to get into a certain flow, but ultimately this is all just a certain mechanics test, there is nothing interesting to it. Whereas controlling the units vs another player is dynamic, it allows the player to have different experiences depending on the other player's inputs. It's no surprise that this is what mobas generally focus on, player vs player interactions, unit dynamics. That is what is fun, to most people. A good test for it is imo also what newer players generally do in starcraft, they pay way too much attention to their units, they want to control them, which means bad macro. But this inclination in itself tells us something. I don't agree. Macro is what RTS games are really about. Without it, micro and decision-making would be a lot less impressive. I just think that macro needs better visualization. That makes it more rewarding. To what, I agree is that many macro mechanics aren't all that exciting, but I think there is room for something as "simple" as remembering to do something every 18 seconds. Hopefully, the Stormgate developers can come up with something exciting. Maybe one faction needs to recalibrate instruments for the mini-map or other interface features to work. That could be a simple mini-game that takes 1–2 seconds to complete, but, if failed, can only be tried 30 seconds later. Ok, I'm certainly no developer for a reason, but I hope we get excellent macro mechanics for Stormgate because I don't think new micro mechanics or decisions could be innovative in the same way, simply because most things in these areas have been done already. We are talking past each other a little. My stance is that the actual macro actions are not fun, they are just what you have to do to manifest your decisions onto the game, and then with these decisions get to input which actually is fun, the dynamic one which happens in player vs player interactions. To say it differently, pressing a key to build a worker all the time isn't really fun per se (i already caveated this by saying that even though i think that, personally i kinda like the rhythm to it, the flow, but i think that is mostly an acquired liking), adding buildings isn't fun, all the actions one does there do not generate "fun". The decision behind it can be fun, to see a plan work out as imagined, to be able to hit certain timings, all that kind of stuff. Could one generate that without the big focus on 'macro' to keep you busy? I think so. I have to stress once again, what do new players like to do? They focus on their units / army, they want to make something happen with the things which actually are dynamic: the elements in the game which allow for high variance and pvp interactions. This is what a lot of popular games focus on, be it mobas, csgo, fortnite, etc. Personally i would go even further in that thought (i'd say a problem of rts games is that there is little structure to them which makes pvp interactions happen), but that's another layer to this general idea. I wonder if macro-only game could be a fun idea... Where you can't control units at all and all you do is make decisions regarding base building and managing stuff there instead. You focus on the base while fully automated units go do their thing. I would not be opposed to such an idea I think Another "macro only" game would be something like biter battles mod for Factorio. Focus is on building base most efficiently / defending most efficiently. Higher production creates stronger waves of basic enemies that the enemy team has to defend against.
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On June 08 2023 10:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2023 18:40 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On June 06 2023 20:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Part of the reason these games failed is that strategy/action games retain players forever.
So that, in 1993 the action/strategy players attached themselves to MULE and Super Tecmo Bowl and these players never moved on. They played the games until they had kids and then stopped playing games altogether.
I know COH players who like 1 certain type of COH1 game or COH2 game and they are not moving off those games. This makes it very hard for COH3 to succeed.
Today, there are dozens of these communities. In the early 90s this was not the case. It was MULE and Tecmo Bowl and that's it. This made it way easier for upcoming Action/Strategy games to succeed. The fact that some people keep playing a game after it loses popularity doesn't mean what you are arguing it means. I mean, if your argument were true then every strategy game player over 40 would be playing one of the same couple of games, and none would have ever moved on. I'm 40, and I played MULE and Super Tecmo Bowl as a kid, and I've played every Civ, and I played a ton of BW and then a ton of WC3 and then a ton of SC2 and a bit of AOE4 and SupCom and C&C and BAR, and I'm definitely going to play Stormgate. I know people (myself included) who continue to enjoy old games they played long ago and stay in the scene, but the idea that they all just shut themselves off from the world and only ever play that one game is just silly. huh? they get married, have kids and stop playing video games because they are busy raising and providing for a family. "shut themselves off from the world"? The world is not video games. I'd argue they are more "shut off from the world" when they are playing video games. They are less shut off from the world when they are raising a family. Many people bought an NES just to play Tecmo Bowl and then Super Tecmo Bowl. They didn't play any other games. For me, it was NHL '94. A big portion of EA NHL players never moved on. Hardly any one moved on to NHL '95. People who do not have much time for video games only play the very best games because they have no time for other games. In university, my classmates and I had no time to learn a new EA NHL game. It was NHL '94 or nuttin'. I had very little free time. I moved 9 times in 4.5 years and lived in 4 cities. Hardly means I was "shut off from the world" just because I had no times for games. You're inventing a phenomenon that I don't think exists, or is much more limited than the sweeping claims you're making. You're basically saying it's impossible for a new strategy game to succeed because everyone who likes strategy games already picked their game and they're not going to change to a new one. And that's just patent nonsense. Just look at how excited the StarCraft community - made up largely of elder nerds like us - is about this upcoming new entry in the genre. It's simply not the case that we all picked the one strategy game we're going to play exclusively for the rest of our life. You're basically positing that the only audience for a new strategy or RTS game comprises people who don't like any other strategy games. That's a very silly argument, and from your own story I get a strong whiff of projection; that you are so strongly engaged with a game or two from your childhood that you're uninterested in moving on and trying something new, so you assume the whole gaming community must feel the same way.
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My wishlist for easier control mechanics: -An option for automatic unit production, which needs to be turned on and off at the right time. -Less timingbased macro which designed to differentiate players (mule energy, creep, inject, cronoboost) -Unit formations buttons: line, clumped, spread, spearhead etc. -If less actions are spent on base management, make interresting skirmish units to focus on instead. -More tactics and strategy and less "terrible terrible damage" mechanics where you lose 20 supply because you did not look the right way for 2 seconds (mines, disruptors, banelings). -All races can switch tech fairly easily to soft counter the opponent. -Keep the SC2 model of having to prioritize between army, tech and economy.
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