On June 18 2023 01:29 KobraKay wrote: Reading through this page alone I think gives a few clues on the state of RTS's. Different people have so many different expectations on how the core mechanics of this sort of game should be working to be fun, that it is rather hard to have a game that pleases everyone or at least ticks several significant boxes for a lot of people.
Indeed, why I’ve hoped Frost Giant have strong ideas of what they want to do, augmented by some community feedback but not driven too much by it.
You can’t make a game that pleases everyone, and you’ll be doomed to failure if you try.
On June 17 2023 21:17 The_Red_Viper wrote: Yeah i think generally the social factor is not nearly as important as people say it is. Yes it is a positive aspect if you can play easily with your friends, but let's be real for a moment, MANY people play the popular games like csgo or mobas in a solo queue, randomly playing with others, which more often than not becomes a negative experience on the social level. They put up with it because the core gameplay of these games is so good. (though there could be an argument to be made that the gameplay inherently is social, and that this experience outweighs the actual social interaction (chat, voice, etc).
The angle can see with social experience is that it can be an easier way in for new players. E.g. your experienced friends invites his newb friend to play together. They begin by playing some coop, then transition into 3v3 and ideally by then the new player is hooked and learns 1v1 by him self.
Making the teamgame experience good and making it feasible for a lesser skilled player to play together with a better player could be a factor - although not the primary one - that could make the game more successful.
On June 18 2023 01:29 KobraKay wrote: Reading through this page alone I think gives a few clues on the state of RTS's. Different people have so many different expectations on how the core mechanics of this sort of game should be working to be fun, that it is rather hard to have a game that pleases everyone or at least ticks several significant boxes for a lot of people.
Yep you can't please everyone. What you can do is to identify your target group and go all in on making the best possible game for them.
I am not quite sure who Frostgiant think their target group is. Old school RTS players? Personally I would have tried to make a game that works for both ambitious RTS players and the average MOBA player.
On June 18 2023 00:43 Yurie wrote: Many of the things people complain about here was solved in Warhammer 40000 dawn of war II. It had clear map objectives. Less macro, worked wonderfully in team games etc. So if the common complaints were solved in that and to a lesser degree Company of Heroes, why are they not the standard?
I think what matters is how it feels to control units. Does it feel responsive, does it feel skillful. Is (movement) based micro properly rewarded?
Obviously making the gameplay more microfocussed won't work if you don't design proper micro interactions and make the micro-gameplay good enough to justify it. I don't think anyone in this thread was asking for a game where you a-move a few units around the map to different objectives.
On June 17 2023 22:03 chuky500 wrote:
What would be interesting is to make the actual strategy part of the game more about position, especially at the beginning when you have 1 base and the base is small. Maybe you could start on 3 bases with workers divided into these bases. This way you could transfer workers if you got attacked and you wouldn't lose as much. You would have to position your units either all at one point, or scattered on several bases. You would always have something to let you delay the attack, either in the middle of the map or in a base before the other units would come. That's what you have in ball sports and the position of every player is visible. You could have that in a strategy game if the game gave you more vision.
.
Yes, so what I imagine in my ideal game is the base-acquiring thing happens immediately. I think you could even start with a smallish army and players would fight for positions/securing bases at multiple points throughout the map from the get-go.
Stormgate does seem to begin faster than Sc2, however, it's one of these areas where I feel like they are playing it so safe. Just go all-in. Reinvent the early game completely - if early is boring - then remove it and replace it with something fun. However, by only adjusting it a bit they hope to still keep the core RTS players happy.
Another thing that I don't like is how macro snowballs exponentially rather than linearly. For example if your production wasn't determined by how many buildings you had or how many workers you had, you wouldn't be exponentially behind if you lost some of it. Buildings and workers could only determine where your units are produced or where you mine, but it wouldn't be exponential if you lost something, and games would be closer overall and less frustrating.
Agree with the sentiment here. On one hand you want to encourage players to do stuff out on the map. On the other hand you don't want the punishment for losing a battle to be double-folded, e.g. losing both army + a base at the same time.
My philosophy to increase production speed + increase the amount of income sources. So if you have 7 different bases with income sources and only lose one little battle defending a base. That means you only go from 7 to 6 bases and you can quickly replenish the lost army. If you watch how LOTV is played out relative to WOL, it's generally much less snowbally as players have more econ (more workers and bases) + escape mechanics have improved for T + P meaning they lose a lower percentage of their army.
Overall at the moment I feel Stormgate is like all 1v1 fps like Quake that tried to revive the genre, but in the end they do thing the same so they feel like clones. They have 1 mega health and big armors, and the player that can grab them knows when they'll respawn and he basically has free kills for the next 3 minutes
I agree although I think Stormgate is still gonna be the only quality-RTS produced since Sc2. So relative to Quake-clones, it will have much less competition and hence there is still some type of niche for it.
On June 18 2023 00:43 Yurie wrote: PvP tends to boil down to the same experience over and over and thus I quit when I don't want to optimize that any longer. For me that is always the biggest attraction in the DotA clone genre, each game will be different enough that it feels unique when playing it even though the path is known.
That's why I always say for me the most important thing or one of, is the quality of balance allowing for as much of a plethora of openings as possible and follow ups mid game and late/endgame. If the balance is lackluster and you only have a few builds and cheeses possible (into similar mid/late/endgame compositions and situations) it gets repetitive and the game is played out in tactics instead of strategy, players have similar styles etc. This is likely harder to do when you're making a assymetrical game but if you make it, amazing. If you think of balance as 50% winrates only as far as I'm concerned game is moot lol but I think all devs know balance isn't that simplistic (heads or tails??^^).
If you can target a few dozen of possible openings per player (significant variations) at least on a given map and match up, each into at least a bunch of different midgames which themselves lead to at least a few different late/endgames (in terms of of build/macro) you'd have enough possibilities that no 2 games would feel quite the same and each 2 players can give quite different matches. Hard to do but the only way to make it is to have it as a target I'd say. Is it impossible? I don't know : D Is even better possible, with hundreds of openings into dozens of midgames and lategames??
Big question mark I guess but as a RTS player that's what I'd say about RTS design, make it as good a strategy game as you can : o The rules don't have to be necessarily complicated, it's in the balance, like Go shows. (it's not just about go being symetrical, a lot of symetrical games don't have anywhere close to the possibilities of go. Symetrical RTSs don't necessarily have the complexity of BW either, or mirror matchups. Well of course mirror matchups in a assymetrical game aren't necessarily as complex as in a symetrical game when the factions are designed to play against the other factions but this should still also be a target etc). This has been my criticism with even BW from the start as I got better at 1v1, it's too much about control (which can be cool but =>) too little about strategy.
The thing with strategies is once they’re out of the box anyone can use them. And over time you’re crowdsourcing innumerable man hours to figure out what’s more and more optimal over time.
I can’t think of a single game that’s really fleshed out and has a ton of viable different openings, lots of different compositions etc.
Would be awesome if there was mind!
Where there can still be dynamism is at more of the tactical/execution level. Intelligent positioning, a variety of terrain features can separate two games from playing out identically. Other kind of advantageous objectives to contest that differ from map to map, that kind of thing.
Having a ton of equally viable, interesting and ultimately balanced compositions would be great but past a certain level of player I’ve never seen a game pull that off.
What I hope they do do is design the game in a way so much more map variety is possible. Have interesting interactive map mechanics and very different architectures and you can create a lot of potential tactical dynamism, as well as keep the overall meta strats varied.
SC2 you ran into problems because you effectively needed by LoTV, partly also due to them only making maps for all matchups:
1. Needs to be a 2 player map as some potent cheeses need reliably scouted. 2. Needs a relatively homogenised map layout to accommodate various racial matchup quirks while not being unbalanced in any huge way
This further accelerates strategic/meta optimisation and lack of variety. Map pools ended up essentially as playing the same base strategy on every map, with slight variety in better/worse returns. You’re playing basically with the same aims, the only difference is x map may be slightly better for your race, x map slightly worse, but your gameplan is still pretty much the same.
You had the odd exception, Golden Wall made for some bloody great games at the pro level, but it was notable for being such a rarity.
I hope this is something Frost Giant can learn from moving forwards. Don’t try to make every map viable for every matchup in an asymmetric game, experiment a little. We never saw what say, an ideal PvT map even looks like because it might make for a broken map in TvZ or PvZ
Free yourself from those self-imposed shackles and go nuts. Have maps that only get rotated for specific matchups etc
The game could be fun, but my hopes lay with the editor. The main game will not have many macro mechanics. For example, attack and armor upgrades will not be in the game because the designers think they add too much complexity. Stormgate is a game I probably play a bit of, but so far I have no intention of watching the game.
If the engine is as good as they say and the editor is well-crafted, a SC3-like custom game could probably be created. For such a mod, community design decisions could work out because the two predecessors have strong designs that can be built upon.
On June 18 2023 05:39 Hildegard wrote: The game could be fun, but my hopes lay with the editor. The main game will not have many macro mechanics. For example, attack and armor upgrades will not be in the game because the designers think they add too much complexity. Stormgate is a game I probably play a bit of, but so far I have no intention of watching the game.
If the engine is as good as they say and the editor is well-crafted, a SC3-like custom game could probably be created. For such a mod, community design decisions could work out because the two predecessors have strong designs that can be built upon.
Is no upgrades confirmed? Hm, feels like that takes a degree of depth out, and it’s not as if they’re opaque or difficult to understand
Was always a big fan of double forge builds despite them making a bunch of pushes hard to hold, there’s a clear risk/reward to pushing heavy ups
Or from BW thru SC2 a lot of builds and timings have been built around specific upgrade and how that matches up
I like upgrades and often I was trying strats involving upgrading something early or whatever I wanted early to see if it works out and.. most of the time it didn't really work out past a certain level due to balance : P
I'm just sad they're doing something cookie cutter. Nothing innovative or entirely newly cooked, just safe. I get it, but it doesn't get me excited at all. I'm doing playing derivatives of derivatives. I need interesting mechanics/story/environment, or I'm not going to be pulled in.
On June 18 2023 18:46 Uldridge wrote: I'm just sad they're doing something cookie cutter. Nothing innovative or entirely newly cooked, just safe. I get it, but it doesn't get me excited at all. I'm doing playing derivatives of derivatives. I need interesting mechanics/story/environment, or I'm not going to be pulled in.
There is plenty of innovation already and we've only seen one race. Creeps, powerups, new terrain, resources work differently, can build faster with multiple workers at once, scouting changes, build anything with 1 hotkey
No, I'd say that's just reintepretation of existing concepts.
That's like saying Coca Cola innovated because they added cherry flavor to it. If that's innovation for you than I guess they have a new customer. At most it can get a "let's try it out" vibe, but it hardly makes me hyped.
On June 18 2023 23:23 Uldridge wrote: No, I'd say that's just reintepretation of existing concepts.
That's like saying Coca Cola innovated because they added cherry flavor to it. If that's innovation for you than I guess they have a new customer. At most it can get a "let's try it out" vibe, but it hardly makes me hyped.
Can I have an example of some innovation you would like to see them?
On June 18 2023 04:00 CicadaSC wrote: im wondering what nony thinks of the gameplay revealed so far
My impression is that the game will play a lot like mid to late game SC2 TvZ but without the crazy lethality that SC2 has. So constantly fighting over map control in multiple places, lots of skirmishes and tactics. And I think the macro will be easier, so it’ll give players more time to micro and control multiple armies.
The gameplay footage was fine with me. I think it showed some good things like how each unit will be designed to have great potential with perfect control. I’m going to butcher this memory and change all the details, but I remember a Korean SC1 show where pros played amateurs and I think it might have been sea[shield] who said something like he was going to kill a dragon with a vulture, and the casters said how can you do that, it’s not possible, and sea said yes but this is a progamer vulture.
I believe FGS wants all their units to be like that, where success isn’t binary like “if you land this spell then you have a good trade” but rather a dozen or more tiny decisions in quick succession define success, like exactly which direction you move in, how far you move, which exact units you move, etc. I think this kind of thing will be good.
I just hope build order or economy requires similar precision and timing, so that people who manually do certain macro activities at the perfect time see an appreciable difference in their production.
I don’t expect that someone who doesn’t micro should be able to produce so much more that they can be competitive. That’s unrealistic. But for an SC2 example, in a Protoss 2 base all-in that ends up producing units with warp gates at a warp prism, you don’t have to look back at your base at all anymore. You build a few extra pylons before the attack starts, you lose units, you rebuild them on the battlefield, you aren’t building anymore immortals / voids / whatever. No more probes or expanding or upgrades. There’s nothing useful to chrono. It’s stupid easy macro since you never look away from the battlefield again.
I hope SG avoids any situations like that. Production or economy needs to fall off a cliff if neglected, just like neglected units get slaughtered by good micro.
On June 18 2023 04:00 CicadaSC wrote: im wondering what nony thinks of the gameplay revealed so far
My impression is that the game will play a lot like mid to late game SC2 TvZ but without the crazy lethality that SC2 has. So constantly fighting over map control in multiple places, lots of skirmishes and tactics. And I think the macro will be easier, so it’ll give players more time to micro and control multiple armies.
The gameplay footage was fine with me. I think it showed some good things like how each unit will be designed to have great potential with perfect control. I’m going to butcher this memory and change all the details, but I remember a Korean SC1 show where pros played amateurs and I think it might have been sea[shield] who said something like he was going to kill a dragon with a vulture, and the casters said how can you do that, it’s not possible, and sea said yes but this is a progamer vulture.
I believe FGS wants all their units to be like that, where success isn’t binary like “if you land this spell then you have a good trade” but rather a dozen or more tiny decisions in quick succession define success, like exactly which direction you move in, how far you move, which exact units you move, etc. I think this kind of thing will be good.
I just hope build order or economy requires similar precision and timing, so that people who manually do certain macro activities at the perfect time see an appreciable difference in their production.
I don’t expect that someone who doesn’t micro should be able to produce so much more that they can be competitive. That’s unrealistic. But for an SC2 example, in a Protoss 2 base all-in that ends up producing units with warp gates at a warp prism, you don’t have to look back at your base at all anymore. You build a few extra pylons before the attack starts, you lose units, you rebuild them on the battlefield, you aren’t building anymore immortals / voids / whatever. No more probes or expanding or upgrades. There’s nothing useful to chrono. It’s stupid easy macro since you never look away from the battlefield again.
I hope SG avoids any situations like that. Production or economy needs to fall off a cliff if neglected, just like neglected units get slaughtered by good micro.
On June 22 2023 07:15 CicadaSC wrote: New unit got revealed in detail what's your thoughts? 4 abilities it's like a moba unit lol
Bw medic actually also has 3 abilities although heal is autocast, and the other two are rather rarely used. Looks interesting it's a like a big medic that can shoot and doesn't autocast its heals. I think it's more fitting than medivac that heals and transports units (with a movement boost :/) to where they can destroy 10 probes and a nexus in 2 sec lul. Kinda like how its abilities can do something different on enemy or friendly units giving you a style choice there how you spend the energy. I'd even say it looks like potential for nice mirror match up but ofc need larger scale view of match up to tell.
On June 22 2023 07:15 CicadaSC wrote: New unit got revealed in detail what's your thoughts? 4 abilities it's like a moba unit lol https://youtu.be/iQy4RJiYtOY
Well you can tell that macro will most likely be watered down based on that unit interaction (length of fight/amount of abilities etc). They wanna attract the moba/War3 crowd, SC2 lost a lot of ppl to moba so maybe their long-term plan is to bring them back.
To me true RTS will always be macro mechanics first and everything else comes after that. The beauty of RTS is the practice you put in to gain that mechanics edge over your opponent so you can prioritize other actions to get even more ahead (that's where the strategy comes in, that type of approach to gameplay usually ends up having a very high skill ceiling and in turn leads to rewarding gameplay experience), it's a constant actions war.
BW strategy can be b.o strategy but it's mainly on the fly decision making, it has both aspects. Spending 1 min staring at the same screen doesn't seem very appealing to me. You don't wanna fall into either the instant death battle trap (SC2) or have super long micro wars, you wanna be somewhere in the middle. Hopefully as the game/macro scales up it'll end up being somewhere there, I'm hoping the extended micro fights are just an early game feature.
From what I've seen so far it looks like they're prioritizing micro 1st to bring in a different "RTS" crowd, I hope I'm wrong about the macro aspect because that would be a deal breaker for competitive 1v1 players (after the money runs out ^.^). Honestly I just can't tell what this game wants to be, but ya it's still early days.. i'll try to be more patient :D.
On June 22 2023 07:15 CicadaSC wrote: New unit got revealed in detail what's your thoughts? 4 abilities it's like a moba unit lol https://youtu.be/iQy4RJiYtOY
Well you can tell that macro will most likely be watered down based on that unit interaction (length of fight/amount of abilities etc). They wanna attract the moba/War3 crowd, SC2 lost a lot of ppl to moba so maybe their long-term plan is to bring them back.
To me true RTS will always be macro mechanics first and everything else comes after that. The beauty of RTS is the practice you put in to gain that mechanics edge over your opponent so you can prioritize other actions to get even more ahead (that's where the strategy comes in, that type of approach to gameplay usually ends up having a very high skill ceiling and in turn leads to rewarding gameplay experience), it's a constant actions war.
BW strategy can be b.o strategy but it's mainly on the fly decision making, it has both aspects. Spending 1 min staring at the same screen doesn't seem very appealing to me. You don't wanna fall into either the instant death battle trap (SC2) or have super long micro wars, you wanna be somewhere in the middle. Hopefully as the game/macro scales up it'll end up being somewhere there, I'm hoping the extended micro fights are just an early game feature.
From what I've seen so far it looks like they're prioritizing micro 1st to bring in a different "RTS" crowd, I hope I'm wrong about the macro aspect because that would be a deal breaker for competitive 1v1 players (after the money runs out ^.^). Honestly I just can't tell what this game wants to be, but ya it's still early days.. i'll try to be more patient :D.
Look, tl.net is probably the place on the internet that has the most people interested in macro RTS, but you don't see more than five people in this thread advocating for more macro mechanics in Stormgate. The market for that needs to be completely redeveloped. The developer team obviously isn't confident that heavy macro mechanics will attract enough players for the game to be successful. Still, the game may attract new players, and the editor, which will not be included at launch, will provide such options in the long term. My hope is that the editor will eventually be used to create something that works like an SC:3 would. If that mod is successful, maybe Microsoft will decide that it's time to revive one of their biggest IPs and really make SC:3. Until then, we still have Broodwar, SC:2, and a micro-heavy Stormgate that hopefully still has some surprises in store, that will improve the genre overall.
EPT
