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On December 11 2023 14:03 WombaT wrote:
WC3 in terms of game mechanics was their properly innovative RTS for my money, heroes, creeping, upkeep, all with the traditional Blizzard polish.
Rob Pardo had balls. As great a success as Brood War was.. he said "screw this ima completely change everything". and it worked!
so ya,
I'd say WC3 was more innovative than SC2.
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On December 11 2023 12:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
The realistic talking characters in the cinematics were not possible until SC2 of 2010. The server tech did not exist in any other RTS. It tripled the tick rate of Warcraft3 making it more responsive than any RTS. The engine was the envy of every other RTS game maker. The world builder was a step up. The versus AI bot modes offered more variety than other games. Battle.Net did not exist. It came into existence with SC2. The ladder system was a massive leap forward.
For the first time, every competitive RTS game took place on teh game makers servers. This gives the game maker absolute 100% control over the games. This gave Blizzard a leg to stand on in its ongoing turf war with the korean esports promoters. Should ATVI have been in the turf war to at all? Whatever your answer... it was outside of Browder's job description.
Lots got done. Almost the entire C&C community quit C&C and started playing SC2. It was a massive leap forward from both WC3 and Red Alert 3 of 2008. Even the most skeptical and loyal C&C-ers were saying " this is unbelievable ".
I was a bit disliked in the C&C community for my loyalty to Starcraft. Two weeks after SC2 came out they all said to me "wow, ya, i get it now". my reply "red alert 3 is dead isn't it? it was dead in April boys."
"The realistic talking characters in the cinematics were not possible until SC2 of 2010."
- Red alert 2 had literally real talking characters in the cinematics 10 years prior. Granted, I'm sure you mean 3d characters but even then I don't know how well I'd stomach anything akin to "SC2 has a good story" as an argument. Raynor and Kerrigan got sexy-ified and the cinematics do present some level of visual appeal, but it was the opposite of 'bold and experimental' imo.
"(the next several comments)"
Tripling tick rate, better engine, better world builder again not innovations themselves, just further improving on what they'd already done. Wc2 / SC:BW / WC3 all had fantastic and progressively growing map editors, you could argue the 'best' being WC3 considering its maps spawned entire genres that spawned entire genres, whereas SC2's maps, in my experience, are mostly derivative of WC3 maps.
"Battle.Net did not exist. It came into existence with SC2"
I assume you have some technical caveat that the rest of the world will read as moving the goalposts, but Battle.Net existed in 96, and I at LEAST remember using it for diablo and Warcraft 2.
THAT SAID, as someone who didn't play BW much and didn't play competitively, I'll agree wholeheartedly that the ladder system was a massive step forward and paved the way for competitive games since... though I do remember a bunch of BW diehards lamenting how isolated and antisocial the sc2 landscape was. There was room for them to 'innovate' via clans and other social elements that didn't take root until muuch later on. Even then, that 'innovation' would be just better enabling the way people were already using SC:BW's social systems.
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On December 11 2023 12:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:it was <a risk, innovative>... its just everything is taken for granted now. The realistic talking characters in the cinematics were not possible until SC2 of 2010. The server tech did not exist in any other RTS. It tripled the tick rate of Warcraft3 making it more responsive than any RTS. The engine was the envy of every other RTS game maker. The world builder was a step up. The versus AI bot modes offered more variety than other games. Battle.Net did not exist. It came into existence with SC2. The ladder system was a massive leap forward.
Disagree about the world builder. It may have been a step up in terms of functionality, but at cost of most of all the accessibility BW's or WC3's had. I think this is pretty visible in how many custom maps have come out of the respective communities, too, so it's had a meaningful effect as well.
It wouldn't surprise me if less effort was put into making SC2's editor tool public-facing at the end, as compared to those past games. Which, I mean they still delivered a better editor than 95% of games regardless, credit where it's due.
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On December 11 2023 14:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2023 14:03 WombaT wrote:
WC3 in terms of game mechanics was their properly innovative RTS for my money, heroes, creeping, upkeep, all with the traditional Blizzard polish.
Rob Pardo had balls. As great a success as Brood War was.. he said "screw this ima completely change everything". and it worked! so ya, I'd say WC3 was more innovative than SC2.
Speaking of Rob Pardo, is he at the beach or is Bonfire gonna announce their game?
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On December 11 2023 19:35 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2023 14:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On December 11 2023 14:03 WombaT wrote:
WC3 in terms of game mechanics was their properly innovative RTS for my money, heroes, creeping, upkeep, all with the traditional Blizzard polish.
Rob Pardo had balls. As great a success as Brood War was.. he said "screw this ima completely change everything". and it worked! so ya, I'd say WC3 was more innovative than SC2. Speaking of Rob Pardo, is he at the beach or is Bonfire gonna announce their game?
"The great thing about doing nothing is, you can do it perfectly", Thomas Sowell.
Are they ever going to run out of money? LOL.
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On December 11 2023 09:57 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2023 09:16 Hider wrote:
Browder thoughts Steppes of War was good map because small map creates more action.Sc2 WOL was in hindsight a very flawed multiplayer game.
Browder didn't understand understand the finer details of RTS game-design and balance and has stated as well in interviews. However, he has ideas and visions, and RTS todays need more of "wouldn't it be cool if we could do this".
To the contrary Monk unquestionably understands a lot more about RTS balance and design - but a lot of topics such as "make action faster by speeding up early game" or small QoL improvements - in the grand scheme of things, they don't matter that much. You need the Dustin Browder mentality to shake things up, experiment with ambitious and creative ideas..
As an example - one area where I think all RTS game studios get stuck on the same old thinking is races. Game developers realize diversity is good so they try and solve this by adding diverse races.
But an issue with diverse races is that it makes it very hard for other players to switch races due to learning cost and thus you miss out on some parts of the gameplay. I need a game-studio to experiment with an alternative approach where players players don't precommit to a race and instead is able to select from mutually exclusive units as the game progresses. I don't know exactly how it would work, but I think there is potential and the game would look a lot different from anything else.
In contrast, it appears Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Zerospace barely offer any innovations and all seems to fall into this watered down sc2-wc3 hybrid. If Dustin Browder was the team-lead the game very well might have had many flaws but it would have contained noticeable innovations in some areas. I think there’s a problem in visibility/clarity, plus additional balance work required in implementing something like that. But hell I did enjoy the 3 different approaches to customising your armies each individual campaign did, I’d be interested to see some experimentation in this domain. For a multiplayer-focused game I really think you have to do customisation in a commital way, and via units rather than upgrades. I think it would be a nightmare if you had singular units with completely different attributes. You need to be able to do the mental calculus of ‘should I engage here’ and you can’t really do that with ‘is that unit x the high DPS one and is unit y the tanky one or the speedy variant’ AIs can do that calculus in a single player experience, but that would just end up messy as fuck I think for humans to manage if customisation is done by upgrades or spells or whatever, or having multiple skins for different units.
Just on the unit-part think quickly. I didn't mean in terms of upgrades, but rather at various stages you can choose between different types of units to unlock. Will it work well? I don't know, it requires some experimentation. But the potential is much higher than for races since there is a lot more variations of unique combinations you can run add.
The killer of innovation is immediately dismissing ideas based on preexisting conditions. "If we change this then everything will break." Yes, but what if you change that thing but also change other parts of the game to complement that change? Could it then work?
The reason I brought up the race-example is that races is in my opinion a band-aid solution to diversity. If something could be awesome, find a way to make it work - even if it requires reeinventing parts of the genre.
Another idea - "kill off what we know was the early game in traditional RTS". People will argue "it's necessaryfor build up phase, scouting, reaction" or "i kinda like my 1-2 reaper micro".
Stormgate acknowledges that the early game isn't that fun and therefore has made changes to make the game go quicker into mid-game. However, if parts of the gameplay of traditional RTS are fairly "meh"'ish, dare to remove it completely instead of just attempt to make it 10% less meh.
"If early game is killed we will have less diversity - everything will be the same "- the idea is not to remove it and not replace it with something nothing. Replace that part of the game with something new and potentially awesome.
The RTS genre is in dire need of innovation- way too little has happened since the 90s aside from better engines.
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The lack of innovation is one thing - however, that's mainly thinking from the perspective of what would need to make the RTS genre popular again.
If I am thinking from my personal perspective, the biggest issue I have is that the game looks boring from a mechanical perspective.
As I written many times before, I am personally in favor of easier macro mechanics.
However, RTS mechanics will be about APM and mouse precision. I heard many people argue "but now I am 30+, not so fast reactions anymore, maybe it's fine I play a game where speed isn't as important. But that type of RTS game cannot work from a competitive perspective.
The only thing game devs can change is the type of mechanics that people spend their actions on (e.g. micro vs macro), but APM always needs to be super essential in an RTS game otherwise the skill-cap is boring and unexisting.
Watching players play with 300+APM and still realizing that they would benefit alot from an additional +100APM is amazing, and it's stuff like that which I love.
Some may argue, that the micro-potential of Stormgate is yet to be discovered, but based on its current state I think they are overestimating it's micro potential. The mechanical skillcap of Stormgate as it is now is many times lower than that of Sc2. Some of it can potentially get improved with better unit design, but I must admit that the unit-design of Stormgate is very dissapointing. With a lower game-speed, if anything, they needed to have more focus on adding micro-interactions and skilled abilities.
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Northern Ireland25388 Posts
On December 12 2023 08:41 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2023 09:57 WombaT wrote:On December 11 2023 09:16 Hider wrote:
Browder thoughts Steppes of War was good map because small map creates more action.Sc2 WOL was in hindsight a very flawed multiplayer game.
Browder didn't understand understand the finer details of RTS game-design and balance and has stated as well in interviews. However, he has ideas and visions, and RTS todays need more of "wouldn't it be cool if we could do this".
To the contrary Monk unquestionably understands a lot more about RTS balance and design - but a lot of topics such as "make action faster by speeding up early game" or small QoL improvements - in the grand scheme of things, they don't matter that much. You need the Dustin Browder mentality to shake things up, experiment with ambitious and creative ideas..
As an example - one area where I think all RTS game studios get stuck on the same old thinking is races. Game developers realize diversity is good so they try and solve this by adding diverse races.
But an issue with diverse races is that it makes it very hard for other players to switch races due to learning cost and thus you miss out on some parts of the gameplay. I need a game-studio to experiment with an alternative approach where players players don't precommit to a race and instead is able to select from mutually exclusive units as the game progresses. I don't know exactly how it would work, but I think there is potential and the game would look a lot different from anything else.
In contrast, it appears Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Zerospace barely offer any innovations and all seems to fall into this watered down sc2-wc3 hybrid. If Dustin Browder was the team-lead the game very well might have had many flaws but it would have contained noticeable innovations in some areas. I think there’s a problem in visibility/clarity, plus additional balance work required in implementing something like that. But hell I did enjoy the 3 different approaches to customising your armies each individual campaign did, I’d be interested to see some experimentation in this domain. For a multiplayer-focused game I really think you have to do customisation in a commital way, and via units rather than upgrades. I think it would be a nightmare if you had singular units with completely different attributes. You need to be able to do the mental calculus of ‘should I engage here’ and you can’t really do that with ‘is that unit x the high DPS one and is unit y the tanky one or the speedy variant’ AIs can do that calculus in a single player experience, but that would just end up messy as fuck I think for humans to manage if customisation is done by upgrades or spells or whatever, or having multiple skins for different units. Just on the unit-part think quickly. I didn't mean in terms of upgrades, but rather at various stages you can choose between different types of units to unlock. Will it work well? I don't know, it requires some experimentation. But the potential is much higher than for races since there is a lot more variations of unique combinations you can run add. The killer of innovation is immediately dismissing ideas based on preexisting conditions. "If we change this then everything will break." Yes, but what if you change that thing but also change other parts of the game to complement that change? Could it then work? The reason I brought up the race-example is that races is in my opinion a band-aid solution to diversity. If something could be awesome, find a way to make it work - even if it requires reeinventing parts of the genre. Another idea - "kill off what we know was the early game in traditional RTS". People will argue "it's necessaryfor build up phase, scouting, reaction" or "i kinda like my 1-2 reaper micro". Stormgate acknowledges that the early game isn't that fun and therefore has made changes to make the game go quicker into mid-game. However, if parts of the gameplay of traditional RTS are fairly "meh"'ish, dare to remove it completely instead of just attempt to make it 10% less meh. "If early game is killed we will have less diversity - everything will be the same "- the idea is not to remove it and not replace it with something nothing. Replace that part of the game with something new and potentially awesome. The RTS genre is in dire need of innovation- way too little has happened since the 90s aside from better engines.
I don’t think we disagree, my point was different units are much easier to distinguish than say, 5 different upgraded forms of Stalkers or whatever. So unlocking, or choosing a ‘loadout’ with different units for me is far preferable to upgraded units, it’s way more comprehensible.
As I said I’m open to experimentation. But us humans can only deal with so much and I think to some degree RTS needs predictable outcomes to be enjoyable as a multiplayer game competitively.
So you really only have so much scope to add variance before it becomes an unpredictable clusterfuck. Playing a good RTS campaign with a crapload of units and all sorts of abilities and customisation is fun. Playing a 1v1 game with so many units, the danger is where you end up with a clusterfuck of unpredictable outcomes where the learning curve is just too long to figure how compositions all interact and relative strengths and weaknesses.
I also think there’s a danger in dismissing what ‘isn’t fun’ if it sets the stage for other stuff with a bit of depth. As you say there needs something to replace it. Sure the early game isn’t super exciting, but it sets the stage for the mid and beyond. So, as you say if you’re truncating it it needs some kind of interesting substitute.
Least for the moment it feels like SC2 without the heavy macro, and WC3 creeps without the items and heroes that influence choices there.
Perhaps competitive RTS is just difficult to deviate too far away from traditional formulas and other expressions of the genre are the way to do that.
I’d love to play a game where you and perhaps friends are generals in a much larger theatre of war, and I mean the tech is there to do such a game. Be it networking or improvements in procedural generation. More of a slow burner where you’re punching in a as cog in a big war machine as part of your chosen factor. Just to spitball one thing Id love to play
Bit of a rambling post in the end but I feel that next step in RTS maybe occurs elsewhere from competitive environs, and the latter itch is scratched by iteration on familiar styles. Or perhaps someone will prove me hugely wrong!
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On December 12 2023 09:02 Hider wrote:
The lack of innovation is one thing - however, that's mainly thinking from the perspective of what would need to make the RTS genre popular again.
I think RTS lost popularity due to technology getting better. Likewise Broadcast Radio will never be as popular as it was before the TV was invented. RTS can have a solid niche audience but it will never have the general audience in NA like it did in 2000 when a PC in the home was as fundamental as your Fridge and Oven.
Space Invaders type games will also always have a niche. We'll never go back to 1980 and have it be that popular again. Space Invaders for the Atari 2600 sold for $80 USD in 1980. That is $270 in today's money. Space Invaders was the most popular cartridge on the most popular system. As cool a game as Space Invaders was that will never happen again.
RTS is sorta in the same boat as Space Invaders. Both are passed on by technology.
Space Invaders Arcade Cabinets still get sold and played today. Imagine how proud the designer must be.
Also, please note I restricted my comment to NA. Possibly some marketing genius in South Korea can figure out how to bring back the former glory of RTS in that country.
On December 12 2023 10:05 WombaT wrote:
Bit of a rambling post in the end ...
rambling posts are unacceptable. i never do rambling posts. I'm PM-ing every mod to have this nuked immediately
On December 12 2023 09:02 Hider wrote:
however, that's mainly thinking from the perspective of what would need to make the RTS genre popular again.
As I written many times before, I am personally in favor of easier macro mechanics.
When i want easier macro mechanics along with easier base building mechanics i play Red Alert 3. You set up resource gathering in 2 seconds with 2 clicks. It is 1 collector per resource node.
I think you are probably correct. Easier macro mechanics has the most probability of producing a more popular RTS genre.
In the history of RTS i think RA3 has the easiest macro. I have not played every RTS game though. Perhaps some game has easier macro? Halo Wars 2 perhaps? Northgard?
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I think RTS lost popularity due to technology getting better. Likewise Broadcast Radio will never be as popular as it was before the TV was invented. RTS can have a solid niche audience but it will never have the general audience in NA like it did in 2000 when a PC in the home was as fundamental as your Fridge and Oven.
I mostly agree. I think the potential in size for RTS genre will always be limited due to the average gamer not liking the APM skillcap, as opposed to shooters where aiming has a nicer skillcurve and MOBA's where it's more about decisions and timings.
However, the potential is still many many times higher than what the current market size indicates. The potential is for a strong niche whereas I think it currently only possesses a small niche.
There are enough ego-driven MOBA players who find enjoyment in outplays and carrying, and an amazing competitive RTS would probably appeal better to them than any MOBA.
But currently the RTS games are so flawed, mediocre and uninnovative that MOBA-ego-players still find more enjoyment playing Yasuo or equivalent than learning an RTS.
A fast-paced but "forgiving" micro+multitaskfocussed RTS with nicer learning curve and well-designed micro interactions could secure a noticeable percentage of the MOBA-market. A bland mix of Wc3 and Sc2 has not potential.
As long as RTS developers are stuck with their current mindset of not attempting any real innovations, the market size will only continue to decline. (this is not specific to Stormgate - Immortals Gates of Pyre and Zerospace fall into the category as welll)
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I honestly think "APM" is not the deciding factor, it's multitasking that is tiring. MOBA players spam a shit ton of APM with their mouse. Klicking 3 times per second to move a single character is way less exhausting for the head then playing at half of those APM but being dropped at one location while trying to keep up with production, building structures and moving your army.
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How crazy would it be if you could have a camera in camera mode where you could manipulate two locations at once?
As an real time STRATEGY game I feel that you shouldn't lose because you had to move your camera to build something in your base. I feel you should win or lose strategically, for example you did not defend your base and can only watch as an enemy army destroys it, not because of some limitation of the camera.
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Northern Ireland25388 Posts
On December 12 2023 23:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2023 10:05 WombaT wrote:
Bit of a rambling post in the end ... rambling posts are unacceptable. i never do rambling posts. I'm PM-ing every mod to have this nuked immediately
On December 13 2023 08:55 gobbledydook wrote:
How crazy would it be if you could have a camera in camera mode where you could manipulate two locations at once?
As a real time STRATEGY game I feel that you shouldn't lose because you had to move your camera to build something in your base. I feel you should win or lose strategically, for example you did not defend your base and can only watch as an enemy army destroys it, not because of some limitation of the camera.
It just feels, sensible. Personally I love picking someone apart on multiple fronts (ok that never really happened :p) and can accept I’ve been outplayed when someone does it to me. Whereas I don’t think there’s a player around who enjoys the bad luck of going to macro at a critical time
Look at a game like Wow with its million plugins and automation for big raids, or an Eve, or various other games I don’t particularly like but allow for streamlined ways to view lots of pertinent information and customise it.
Camera in camera sounds intriguing, hell even just customising the UI layout. SC2, like its forebears had the maddening layout that the two pertinent overlays to the game field were as far apart as possible. Especially in a game where minimap awareness is so critical, scanning your minerals/supply only for some critical enemy movement to occur wasn’t ideal.
Although I think it maybe gives pretty big advantages to people with certain setups, equally a lack of customisation disadvantages people with various conditions.
Even with colourblind modes, I’ve forever struggled with minimap spotting, to take one example, and others have severely impaired vision or what have you.
A much bigger minimap, being able to resize etc, hell even stick it on a second monitor or something would be QoL for a fair few I imagine.
Just spitballing as ever, it does feel there’s a lot of room for addition in this particular domain.
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On December 13 2023 05:54 Hider wrote:
There are enough ego-driven MOBA players who find enjoyment in outplays and carrying, and an amazing competitive RTS would probably appeal better to them than any MOBA.
But currently the RTS games are so flawed, mediocre and uninnovative that MOBA-ego-players still find more enjoyment playing Yasuo or equivalent than learning an RTS.
Ego driven players will never thrive long term in a 1 on 1 environment. Be it chess, the slowest option that comes to mind. Or the latest iteration of quake, the fastest option I can think of.
This is because after losing enough times, there are no more excuses,and the ego of said player HAS to take the hit. You cant win everytime. And you cant blame balance every time.
You CAN however blame your "shitty teammates" for every loss.
Ego players thrive in MOBA because of the additional excuses available to protect the ego. I would even go so far as to say ego players thrive in team situations where there arepeople around them that they can be the hero for.
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Northern Ireland25388 Posts
On December 13 2023 21:00 Branch.AUT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2023 05:54 Hider wrote:
There are enough ego-driven MOBA players who find enjoyment in outplays and carrying, and an amazing competitive RTS would probably appeal better to them than any MOBA.
But currently the RTS games are so flawed, mediocre and uninnovative that MOBA-ego-players still find more enjoyment playing Yasuo or equivalent than learning an RTS.
Ego driven players will never thrive long term in a 1 on 1 environment. Be it chess, the slowest option that comes to mind. Or the latest iteration of quake, the fastest option I can think of. This is because after losing enough times, there are no more excuses,and the ego of said player HAS to take the hit. You cant win everytime. And you cant blame balance every time. You CAN however blame your "shitty teammates" for every loss. Ego players thrive in MOBA because of the additional excuses available to protect the ego. I would even go so far as to say ego players thrive in team situations where there arepeople around them that they can be the hero for.
Ego takes different forms, some like to be perceived as skilled, some want to ruthlessly prove it. Also if you’re driven by ego I mean you somewhat have to share a bit of glory in a team, even if you won’t admit it.
I think games have shifted to be generally more team-based because it’s more social, partly for the reasons you outline.
But iirc chess is growing in popularity a bit. Speedrunning has grown a lot over the years and it’s a very solo activity, outside of knowledge sharing. Fortnite (or PubG to an extent) or FIFA are all huge games with their main competitive modes being 1v1. Which I think tends to be glossed over a bit here, albeit understandably by focusing on MOBAs due to their similarities with RTS
There’s a lot of people with differing psychological profiles out there, and I think sufficient folks enjoy challenging themselves mano o mano for a 1v1 game to prosper. Equally, on the other side of the ledger, teammates may shield the ego but they can also be incredibly exasperating and I personally hate solo queueing in most titles. Between toxicity and incompetence it’s not a pleasant experience.
One possibility we haven’t really discussed much come to think of it is maybe the team modes in Stormgate actually turn out to be the popular mode, that they do interesting things and balance them properly and the competitive scene shifts that way from the traditional 1v1, or they’re equally viable.
I had a lot of fun and mostly played AT in WC3, had some casual fun with it in SC2 but certain racial combos were clearly really advantaged due to certain limitations, too much for it to really feel it had much competitive potential. Protoss’ lack of speed and need to wall for example. A relative lack of hive mind experimentation and optimisation, and maps built upon that knowledge also being a factor.
If factions lack those kind of constraints that are exacerbated by multiple opponents perhaps the team modes end up having a lot of competitive potential too.
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On December 13 2023 21:00 Branch.AUT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2023 05:54 Hider wrote:
There are enough ego-driven MOBA players who find enjoyment in outplays and carrying, and an amazing competitive RTS would probably appeal better to them than any MOBA.
But currently the RTS games are so flawed, mediocre and uninnovative that MOBA-ego-players still find more enjoyment playing Yasuo or equivalent than learning an RTS.
Ego driven players will never thrive long term in a 1 on 1 environment. Be it chess, the slowest option that comes to mind. Or the latest iteration of quake, the fastest option I can think of. This is because after losing enough times, there are no more excuses,and the ego of said player HAS to take the hit. You cant win everytime. And you cant blame balance every time. You CAN however blame your "shitty teammates" for every loss. Ego players thrive in MOBA because of the additional excuses available to protect the ego. I would even go so far as to say ego players thrive in team situations where there arepeople around them that they can be the hero for.
I believe Ego-driven players get satisfaction from doing well individually and feeling like they are one of the main reasons they win. They enjoy mechanically rewarding champions - easy point and click low APM champions are typically considered boring.
Winning well getting carried is not particularly rewarding for them and not being able to carry because other people on your team is doing poorly is an incredibly frustrating experience.
The advantage RTS has over MOBA's in that they don't need to be teamgames to "work". MOBA's in contrast becomes arena games if played as 1v1 which is a completely different type of gamemode. RTS are still the same type of game in 1v1 and 4v4s.
Ego players thrive in MOBA because of the additional excuses available to protect the ego.
They are forced into a miserable situation and can't get out of it. If you only play to carry and make big outplays and can't because you are far behind, it's a terrible gaming experience. Thus they are frustrated and use that to vent in order to feel better. RTS are much less than that because people simply leave the game when they want.
The reason why MOBA's have managed to capture them (instead of RTS games) is imo due to the RTS genre being stuck in the 90s with excessively high mechanical learning barriers and knowledge barriers + less focus on micro. The few micro-focussed RTS games have been very bad. So them playing MOBA's is more a result of a lack of better alternative, but I think a well done next gen RTS game can fit their profile better.
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On December 13 2023 07:48 Miragee wrote:
I honestly think "APM" is not the deciding factor, it's multitasking that is tiring. MOBA players spam a shit ton of APM with their mouse. Klicking 3 times per second to move a single character is way less exhausting for the head then playing at half of those APM but being dropped at one location while trying to keep up with production, building structures and moving your army.
It's a fair argument, because even the more mechanically demanding champions/heroes in MOBA's are not multitask-based, but more timing/precision/knowledge-based.
My theory is that you will still find a general correlation in people who like the high skill cap moba heroes and who can find enjoyment in mutltiasking in an RTS, but I don't know the ratio for sure.
One thing though; the multitasking learning curve (if macro is very easy-semi/automatic) will be relatively flat. By that I mean you are not forced into multitasking as you learn the game. If you play against other new players, chances are that if either of you attempts to do multitasking it will likely lead to much worse micro and hence be suboptimal.
So as long as multitasking is gradually introduced I think it can work out. But it does require almost removing the macro-part, because in SC2 all new players are forced to both micro and macro at the same time - in contrast if you only focus on micro at the beginning and then gradually learn to implement multi-pronged harass or split up your army in multiple places at once, you get a nicer learning curve.
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On December 14 2023 07:47 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2023 07:48 Miragee wrote:
I honestly think "APM" is not the deciding factor, it's multitasking that is tiring. MOBA players spam a shit ton of APM with their mouse. Klicking 3 times per second to move a single character is way less exhausting for the head then playing at half of those APM but being dropped at one location while trying to keep up with production, building structures and moving your army. It's a fair argument, because even the more mechanically demanding champions/heroes in MOBA's are not multitask-based, but more timing/precision/knowledge-based. My theory is that you will still find a general correlation in people who like the high skill cap moba heroes and who can find enjoyment in mutltiasking in an RTS, but I don't know the ratio for sure. One thing though; the multitasking learning curve (if macro is very easy-semi/automatic) will be relatively flat. By that I mean you are not forced into multitasking as you learn the game. If you play against other new players, chances are that if either of you attempts to do multitasking it will likely lead to much worse micro and hence be suboptimal. So as long as multitasking is gradually introduced I think it can work out. But it does require almost removing the macro-part, because in SC2 all new players are forced to both micro and macro at the same time - in contrast if you only focus on micro at the beginning and then gradually learn to implement multi-pronged harass or split up your army in multiple places at once, you get a nicer learning curve.
Probably one change that could be made is to have queued up units only deduct resources when they actually build. You should also be able to queue up a unit without the necessary resources (or even tech) and have it start when the requirements are met. This frees up your apm to worry about more strategical decisions such as which unit to build, or which base buildings you need, rather than having to be at your base at the exact moment you can build something.
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On December 13 2023 05:54 Hider wrote:
But currently the RTS games are so flawed, mediocre and uninnovative that MOBA-ego-players still find more enjoyment playing Yasuo or equivalent than learning an RTS.
A fast-paced but "forgiving" micro+multitaskfocussed RTS with nicer learning curve and well-designed micro interactions could secure a noticeable percentage of the MOBA-market. A bland mix of Wc3 and Sc2 has not potential.
As long as RTS developers are stuck with their current mindset of not attempting any real innovations, the market size will only continue to decline. (this is not specific to Stormgate - Immortals Gates of Pyre and Zerospace fall into the category as welll)
thanks for your detailed and well thought out reply.
I think there are many great RTS games out there and I think the RTS genre is at capacity. I particularly enjoy the various types of RTS.
CoH2 is great. SC2, Brood War, WC3 are all great. Red Alert 3 is great. AoE2 is great.
I was super skeptical about CoH2. I'm glad I turned out to be 100% wrong. It proved to be a great game.
I think CoH2 is innovative in its own way. RA3 is innovative in its own way. Same with SC2.
With so many RTS players locked into these games it is really hard to get people to try something new.
On December 13 2023 05:54 Hider wrote:
As long as RTS developers are stuck with their current mindset of not attempting any real innovations
there is a "catch 22" in having hard core fans. It also happens with Halo , Titanfall and other established games. Long time hard core fans don't want anything changed. These fans are really loud and spend a lot of time online. So we end up with Starcraft Remastered, AoE2: Definitive Edition, Borderlands1 Enhanced Edition. etc etc.
It was pretty hilarious when Apex Legends appeared with zero exposure. BANG! Here it is! EA/Respawn did not want people complaining loudly about how EA/Respawn/Greedy Owners were cashing in on Titanfall and changing it too much. It was a smart move by EA.
On December 13 2023 09:59 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2023 23:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On December 12 2023 10:05 WombaT wrote:
Bit of a rambling post in the end ... rambling posts are unacceptable. i never do rambling posts. I'm PM-ing every mod to have this nuked immediately
it is a joke dude. Ramble On.
+ Show Spoiler +Ramble On .. is the greatest song in the 70 year history of the rock and roll genre
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EPT
