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
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.
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.
microsoft got blocked from buying activision
Not necessarily. The UK blocked it, but the EU approved it. Afaik USA hasn't said anything yet. In any case Microsoft can still appeal and get the UK to change it's mind.
I think that even though Stormgate will have 1v1 modes, they said that the main mode would be 3v3, I remember reading that somewhere but don't remember where.
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.
microsoft got blocked from buying activision
Not necessarily. The UK blocked it, but the EU approved it. Afaik USA hasn't said anything yet. In any case Microsoft can still appeal and get the UK to change it's mind.
I think that even though Stormgate will have 1v1 modes, they said that the main mode would be 3v3, I remember reading that somewhere but don't remember where.
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.
Unless they can get integrated ladder + matchmaking in someway, I don't think mods can compete with the main game.
Although, if the editor is good I will most likely try to implement my vision for the future of the RTS genre into it.
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.
I think your right. To me moba's were made for people that couldn't macro. If it dosn't have that heavy macro component i will be disappointed. I can just play a moba if i want the focus to be on the micro part.
That said it's probably best not to overreact from 1 video we wont no for sure until we get our hands on it.
I do wonder though how many new streamers it will bring into the scene and if any of them will be able to become as popular as the bigger names at the moment. After a game has been out for a long time you somewhat end up on twitch where people will gravitate to people who are already popular so it makes it very hard for new people to grow. Games like Fortnite which got big very quickly gave a lot of new streamers a chance to grow, but now it's ended up like everything else. I wonder if Stormgate will do that as well or if it'll skip the growing stage and the bigger streamers will just see the main benefit?
I think your right. To me moba's were made for people that couldn't macro. If it dosn't have that heavy macro component i will be disappointed. I can just play a moba if i want the focus to be on the micro part.
That said it's probably best not to overreact from 1 video we wont no for sure until we get our hands on it.
Agreed - macro is a big part of what makes an RTS for me (as opposed to a moba or real time tactics). While the fights look nice enough, if a bit slow, I am worried about the macro.
But it is early days. The early SC2 videos like this also had all sorts of 1 base nonsense where macro didn't exactly shine either.
As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
On June 23 2023 20:42 AmericanUmlaut wrote: As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
you are talking of a different type of macro here, the macro-playstyle as opposed to the all-in playstyle. Macro-playstyle can easily go hand in hand with an increase focus of micro-mechanics.
On June 23 2023 20:42 AmericanUmlaut wrote: As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
you are talking of a different type of macro here, the macro-playstyle as opposed to the all-in playstyle. Macro-playstyle can easily go hand in hand with an increase focus of micro-mechanics.
Eh, I think the point is (possibly) reasonable. Legacy of the Void (and, really, all of late WoL onwards) feels like a more macro-mechanics oriented game than early WoL did, in large part because SC2 macro on 1-2 bases and SC2 macro on 3-4 bases are two very different beasts. Same idea for protecting key units in low eco games - a clump of marines matters way more when you have only 1 barracks.
I didn't watch that much of early WoL though, so my impressions may be quite off.
On June 23 2023 20:42 AmericanUmlaut wrote: As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
you are talking of a different type of macro here, the macro-playstyle as opposed to the all-in playstyle. Macro-playstyle can easily go hand in hand with an increase focus of micro-mechanics.
Eh, I think the point is (possibly) reasonable. Legacy of the Void (and, really, all of late WoL onwards) feels like a more macro-mechanics oriented game than early WoL did, in large part because SC2 macro on 1-2 bases and SC2 macro on 3-4 bases are two very different beasts. Same idea for protecting key units in low eco games - a clump of marines matters way more when you have only 1 barracks.
I didn't watch that much of early WoL though, so my impressions may be quite off.
Yeh that's definitely true. When WoL was released Dustin Browder thought small maps = more action = better.
Obv blizzard later learned that larger maps can give more spread-out action which is far more interesting than deathball into gg.
On June 23 2023 20:42 AmericanUmlaut wrote: As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
you are talking of a different type of macro here, the macro-playstyle as opposed to the all-in playstyle. Macro-playstyle can easily go hand in hand with an increase focus of micro-mechanics.
Eh, I think the point is (possibly) reasonable. Legacy of the Void (and, really, all of late WoL onwards) feels like a more macro-mechanics oriented game than early WoL did, in large part because SC2 macro on 1-2 bases and SC2 macro on 3-4 bases are two very different beasts. Same idea for protecting key units in low eco games - a clump of marines matters way more when you have only 1 barracks.
I didn't watch that much of early WoL though, so my impressions may be quite off.
Yeh that's definitely true. When WoL was released Dustin Browder thought small maps = more action = better.
Obv blizzard later learned that larger maps can give more spread-out action which is far more interesting than deathball into gg.
Which to me? Is true if they could have balanced it. Forced to fight over contested bases sooner. Less avoiding armies like you sometimes get now with counter attacks.
On June 23 2023 20:42 AmericanUmlaut wrote: As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
you are talking of a different type of macro here, the macro-playstyle as opposed to the all-in playstyle. Macro-playstyle can easily go hand in hand with an increase focus of micro-mechanics.
Eh, I think the point is (possibly) reasonable. Legacy of the Void (and, really, all of late WoL onwards) feels like a more macro-mechanics oriented game than early WoL did, in large part because SC2 macro on 1-2 bases and SC2 macro on 3-4 bases are two very different beasts. Same idea for protecting key units in low eco games - a clump of marines matters way more when you have only 1 barracks.
I didn't watch that much of early WoL though, so my impressions may be quite off.
Yeh that's definitely true. When WoL was released Dustin Browder thought small maps = more action = better.
Obv blizzard later learned that larger maps can give more spread-out action which is far more interesting than deathball into gg.
Which to me? Is true if they could have balanced it. Forced to fight over contested bases sooner. Less avoiding armies like you sometimes get now with counter attacks.
The way SC2 works is that, often, if you lose a battle you lose the game because of the high damage output of everything. On small maps, not being able to avoid (that has more implications btw. for example you cannot really flank, either) the opponent's army just means the side who wins the fight will either win immediately or do enough damage to end the game a few minutes later.
On June 23 2023 20:42 AmericanUmlaut wrote: As I recall, Blizzard thought they were making an RTS with much more micro and much less macro. They thought SC2 would be played on tiny maps with few expansions. It just turned out the game they thought they made sucked, and it got improved tremendously through the introduction of larger maps that allowed for macro and strategic play.
you are talking of a different type of macro here, the macro-playstyle as opposed to the all-in playstyle. Macro-playstyle can easily go hand in hand with an increase focus of micro-mechanics.
Eh, I think the point is (possibly) reasonable. Legacy of the Void (and, really, all of late WoL onwards) feels like a more macro-mechanics oriented game than early WoL did, in large part because SC2 macro on 1-2 bases and SC2 macro on 3-4 bases are two very different beasts. Same idea for protecting key units in low eco games - a clump of marines matters way more when you have only 1 barracks.
I didn't watch that much of early WoL though, so my impressions may be quite off.
Yeh that's definitely true. When WoL was released Dustin Browder thought small maps = more action = better.
Obv blizzard later learned that larger maps can give more spread-out action which is far more interesting than deathball into gg.
Which to me? Is true if they could have balanced it. Forced to fight over contested bases sooner. Less avoiding armies like you sometimes get now with counter attacks.
Yes, blizzard kinda band-aided multitasking by overbuffing harass-options. While I like harass, I agree it can't replace actual engagements.
The ideal game has lots of actual fights as well.
I think fast production speed is very important. Being able to lose a battle and relatively quickly rebuild it combined with a strong defenders advantage will encourage more back-and-forth of actual battles.
What you'd really need to encourage battles is to incentivize them through a gameplay mechanic. That isn't a thing in sc2. Not what i'd want, but imagine if you got resources for doing dmg, some direct mechanic. Another big problem in these traditional rts games is that the asymmetrical design of factions / units makes it so one type of army has map control over the other, that in itself makes the "constant fighting" unattractive, because you are in danger to lose what you have for basically nothing in return, while you often might not even be able to really unengage.
Typical rts games are sandboxy, there is nothing which creates the pvp interactions but knowledge of when and how to damage the opponent in some way. That is a strength, as it gives a lot of freedom, but it's also a weakness because it only really allows people "to play the game" if they have a good idea about the meta. I think that is ultimately what a future, next gen rts has to solve if it wants to attract more people than the oldschool rts fans. It needs to take the player and create more limitations / create a scenario where it forces the players to interact in some way. Frostgiant's approach seems to be the creep camps, which imo isn't enough, but it's difficult to say because we don't know enough yet.
We believe it’s a mistake to simplify the game for the sake of making the game easier to play. Our goal is to remove the “tedious clicks” required to play a traditional RTS, but we absolutely don’t want to remove any clicks that are fun to play with and master over time.
Here are example high level questions we have for ourselves: What are the tedious, unnecessary things that just have been done in RTS because it’s always been this way?
Will make some people here probably unhappy, but to me that is exactly what game designers should ask themselves if they wanna make an rts game which isn't just for the crowd which still plays the oldschool rts titles. Now i might be projecting, but at least to me that sounds like reducing a lot of macro inputs when possible.
What you'd really need to encourage battles is to incentivize them through a gameplay mechanic. That isn't a thing in sc2. Not what i'd want, but imagine if you got resources for doing dmg, some direct mechanic.
The encouragement is one thing. However, if there isn't a proper defenders advantage + slow production speed you can still be strongly encouraged to move out on the map, lose one fight and then the game is over.
Thus, I think it's essential that you design and balance the game around it being )"okay" to lose fights. Losing a fight shouldn't result in your army power 30-60 seconds into the future being significantly worse than the opponent. (Especially not if combined with defenders advantage)
Typical rts games are sandboxy, there is nothing which creates the pvp interactions but knowledge of when and how to damage the opponent in some way.
I agree, but I also think a lot part of this is that you almost rarely have 2 army parts that efficiently can battle each other at the same time. Efficiently here being defined as a combination of cost efficiency + territorial benefit of winning an engagement.
So if you win a fight, it may be cost-ineffective, but you gain access to a ressurce which will help you in the future. In this case it could be beneficial/effective for both players to willingly enter the battle. Even if player A knows he will lose the battle, he can trade cost-effectively in the process and thus make player B pay to gain the terroritory.
Generally speaking, my preference for obtaining this type of gameplay is to ensure players have "bases" multiple parts around the map and can position static-defense + strong positional units that can trade cost effectively against almost any number of units.
What you don't want is scenarios where a few defensively positioned units gets oneshotted by a deadball army and thus gets killed before killing anything them selves.
Typical rts games are sandboxy, there is nothing which creates the pvp interactions but knowledge of when and how to damage the opponent in some way.
Also not a fan. I think you want to encourage as much as player-vs-player interaction as possible in a game. Every action you spend killing AI Monsters are action you could be spending microing against the opponent. Overall a poor band-aid fix.
We believe it’s a mistake to simplify the game for the sake of making the game easier to play. Our goal is to remove the “tedious clicks” required to play a traditional RTS, but we absolutely don’t want to remove any clicks that are fun to play with and master over time.
Here are example high level questions we have for ourselves: What are the tedious, unnecessary things that just have been done in RTS because it’s always been this way?
Will make some people here probably unhappy, but to me that is exactly what game designers should ask themselves if they wanna make an rts game which isn't just for the crowd which still plays the oldschool rts titles. Now i might be projecting, but at least to me that sounds like reducing a lot of macro inputs when possible.
I mean, if you ask anyone outside of a community like this which thing they dislike the most in RTS, the answer would be something like, "the 20 minutes before the NR timer ends".
We believe it’s a mistake to simplify the game for the sake of making the game easier to play. Our goal is to remove the “tedious clicks” required to play a traditional RTS, but we absolutely don’t want to remove any clicks that are fun to play with and master over time.
Here are example high level questions we have for ourselves: What are the tedious, unnecessary things that just have been done in RTS because it’s always been this way?
Will make some people here probably unhappy, but to me that is exactly what game designers should ask themselves if they wanna make an rts game which isn't just for the crowd which still plays the oldschool rts titles. Now i might be projecting, but at least to me that sounds like reducing a lot of macro inputs when possible.
I mean, if you ask anyone outside of a community like this which thing they dislike the most in RTS, the answer would be something like, "the 20 minutes before the NR timer ends".
There are games for those people, they are just not RTS's.
EPT
