On September 07 2025 16:28 followZeRoX wrote: So we are doomed if we want competitive 1v1 rts? I'm bored of wc3 or sc2, SG failed, is there anything until ZeroSpace tries?
Not to just keep shitting on all the RTS, but isn't The Scouring just a huge ripoff of Warcraft 2. Like way beyond a nod and just copying all the units? Even if it's just a hook to get people interested, feels weird to me and more than a bit off-putting. The setting is nice though. I don't have the energy to go looking for cool moments or any competitive gameplay, so if someone is actually playing the game and can share a different take I'm all ears.
On September 07 2025 16:28 followZeRoX wrote: So we are doomed if we want competitive 1v1 rts? I'm bored of wc3 or sc2, SG failed, is there anything until ZeroSpace tries?
Not to just keep shitting on all the RTS, but isn't The Scouring just a huge ripoff of Warcraft 2. Like way beyond a nod and just copying all the units? Even if it's just a hook to get people interested, feels weird to me and more than a bit off-putting. The setting is nice though. I don't have the energy to go looking for cool moments or any competitive gameplay, so if someone is actually playing the game and can share a different take I'm all ears.
I think it's even more Hero focused than WC3 and has a day/ night cycle with Zombie like stuff coming out at night. It has some fresh ideas. Competitive probably not worth since it has around the same numbers Stormgate has. But with 2% of the budget
A game that very specifically is not made for people with no mechanics, and who have no desire to become mechanical, is one that will be memorable imo. It has somehow become uncool to make this game, and is perhaps seen as unprofitable. But I feel that this is the kind of counter-intuitive choice you need to bake into a rad new RTS to have it stand shoulder to shoulder with old Blizz games. Simply put, the OG version of E.T. where the cops had guns and not flashlights was just way better.
edit: btw not a comment on the scouring, just a random thought.
On September 05 2025 15:47 qwerty4w wrote: Wind affecting projectiles means the current wind direction and speed need to be taken into consideration if the player wants to micro units perfectly. I think that's an interesting skill, but probably only makes sense for RTS/RTTs with low unit counts, which is likely why it's not reimplemented in Spring/Recoil.
Thats not correct. Wind does NOT affect projectiles in TA. Gravity does. But gravity is a fixed value for each map, so it is not random.
On September 11 2025 01:29 RogerChillingworth wrote: A game that very specifically is not made for people with no mechanics, and who have no desire to become mechanical, is one that will be memorable imo. It has somehow become uncool to make this game, and is perhaps seen as unprofitable. But I feel that this is the kind of counter-intuitive choice you need to bake into a rad new RTS to have it stand shoulder to shoulder with old Blizz games. Simply put, the OG version of E.T. where the cops had guns and not flashlights was just way better.
edit: btw not a comment on the scouring, just a random thought.
Well, Mechabellum devs had a very clear vision when making their game where they tried to specifically make a strategy game that doesn't require high APM or mechanical skills but still has a lot of depth and strategy involved (inspired by games like Go, Mahjong, Chess, etc.).
There are plenty of avenues you can take with RTS and other strategy games that can work. Just need to find a good recipe and stick to it.
oh yeah Manit0u, plenty of non-mechanical games are fun. But it's a bit of apples vs oranges. I would never say mechabellum is competing with or has the same goals as StarCraft in the way that other modern strategy games are. Anyway, I was just farting words. I'll try to put more thought into it next time.
On September 05 2025 15:47 qwerty4w wrote: Wind affecting projectiles means the current wind direction and speed need to be taken into consideration if the player wants to micro units perfectly. I think that's an interesting skill, but probably only makes sense for RTS/RTTs with low unit counts, which is likely why it's not reimplemented in Spring/Recoil.
Thats not correct. Wind does NOT affect projectiles in TA. Gravity does. But gravity is a fixed value for each map, so it is not random.
Wind also affects projectiles in TA, it's overt when you set the wind speed on a map high enough.
On September 11 2025 01:29 RogerChillingworth wrote: A game that very specifically is not made for people with no mechanics, and who have no desire to become mechanical, is one that will be memorable imo. It has somehow become uncool to make this game, and is perhaps seen as unprofitable. But I feel that this is the kind of counter-intuitive choice you need to bake into a rad new RTS to have it stand shoulder to shoulder with old Blizz games. Simply put, the OG version of E.T. where the cops had guns and not flashlights was just way better.
edit: btw not a comment on the scouring, just a random thought.
Battle Aces was rather unmechanical: F2 + A-move somewhere every 10 seconds. But that wasn't the solution either
lol. Yea I meant I think a mechanical game is the way to go. I rocked a double negative there. Battle Aces is kinda interesting though because I think the idea of starting a game immediately and fighting a lot could work, maybe not for RTS but just in general, but then they just didn't make combat interesting. So they got rid of all the mechanical macro stuff, to be left only with micro, and then micro was just a-move blobs of units. Very odd indeed. They just needed to do the one thing they were trying to do well. Durrrr. Like is it really this hard or are devs really this poop. Also kind of what I'm saying though. I feel like people aren't making mechanical games, or interesting games, because increasing the potential skill cap between 2 players means one person can epicly shit on the other, and that makes new players feel bad..or something. Really dumb if true. I even heard people complain that Battle Aces was only for sweaty hardcore players. Like are these people trolling? IDK man. Feel like the only way to silence the oceans of criticism about your game one way or the other is to make something that is simply a blast to play. And I am also a strong believer that hard or mechanical games can be very fun.
Battle Aces is still full of stutter stepping, it's not something anyone who doesn't like StarCraft style micro would want to play.
There are properly designed low apm RTS like Line War, Kohan, RUSE, Majesty, Sins of a Solar Empire etc. Basically if low apm is your design goal, you can have some good QoLs in the game's UI, or some fundamental limitations on unit controls, or you can deliberately make the units unresponsive, or give the units some good automatic behaviors. It's usually some combination of these things.
Low APM RTS is fine obviously. I just feel like the people who are trying to continue the lineage of Blizz RTS, or be in conversation with SC, shouldn't shy away from designing a mechanical and difficult game. But you could debate that one forever I guess. Just need solid examples that prove it one way or the other. In terms of stutter step micro, it really is a Star2 thing, less of a Brood War thing. There are lots of blurry edges to the term “stutter step” obviously, as it can just mean being economical with movement and attacks, which is encouraged in any game, but Star2 amps it up to a pretty insane degree. It's a huge can of worms, but in my mind, with some exceptions, the Star2 style of micro is actually quite bad. Micro is never what I think of when I think of Star2, even if it does technically have a good amount of it. In my opinion the unit interaction isn't the best.
edit: you can absolutely make the argument that starcraft 2 micro, stutter step or otherwie, is plentiful and great. You could bring up marine splitting and caster management and setting off widow mines with lings before engaging and all that. So it's wrong to say that Star2 is just stutter step, and that's why it's a huge can of worms. Maybe it comes down to feel and what people find fun. To me, the Star2 shit was always less fun than the Star1 and Warcraft 3 shit, but I am also speaking as a more casually-competitive player, not a hyper-competitive player by any means. But also, I feel like there is more potential in micro of Star1 and War3 to be fun for lower apm players. But this is my feeling. This shit's just so subjective. I'm ranting at this point, but you can argue it either way.
On September 13 2025 00:06 RogerChillingworth wrote: lol. Yea I meant I think a mechanical game is the way to go. I rocked a double negative there. Battle Aces is kinda interesting though because I think the idea of starting a game immediately and fighting a lot could work, maybe not for RTS but just in general, but then they just didn't make combat interesting. So they got rid of all the mechanical macro stuff, to be left only with micro, and then micro was just a-move blobs of units. Very odd indeed. They just needed to do the one thing they were trying to do well.
Dudes should have just copied Z. Macro is auto production, you just need to select the unit you want to build in each factory. To get an advantage, you need to get as many zones to ramp up production facilities and lower the production timer.
It would have worked so well with what they were trying to do. Outside of deck building and microtransactions from buying units :')
On September 13 2025 00:06 RogerChillingworth wrote: lol. Yea I meant I think a mechanical game is the way to go. I rocked a double negative there. Battle Aces is kinda interesting though because I think the idea of starting a game immediately and fighting a lot could work, maybe not for RTS but just in general, but then they just didn't make combat interesting. So they got rid of all the mechanical macro stuff, to be left only with micro, and then micro was just a-move blobs of units. Very odd indeed. They just needed to do the one thing they were trying to do well.
Dudes should have just copied Z. Macro is auto production, you just need to select the unit you want to build in each factory. To get an advantage, you need to get as many zones to ramp up production facilities and lower the production timer.
It would have worked so well with what they were trying to do. Outside of deck building and microtransactions from buying units :')
Was watching a video about gamer trends and it is a discussion about how strategy has decreased as an interest for gamers. Which thus would decrease interest for RTS games. Which aligns with what people often say here. Based on "The Quantic Gamer Motivation".
I think the point made about strategy needing to be different and often is included in larger titles might remove attention from RTS. You have more competitive games pulling parts of the audience from RTS. RTS doesn't succeed well in the coop sphere so you had the Dota clones pulling massive chunks out of the audience. Then you have the plorifilation of various sim games pulling the pure strategy people out.
Behind you get the ones that match the best with the genre when there is stiff competition that fits other people's reason for gaming better. Something like Fire Emblem ticks most of the same buttons an RTS does for me now that I don't really bother with PvP.
a large factor in the early 90s RTS surge was that it was on the cutting edge of tech. a few years prior it was only possible to play a game like DOOM with very few fighting units.
by 2004, once many people could easily join low latency games together that became the cutting edge of tech and DOTA replaced RTS which could be played with just 2 poeple having a low latency connection.
part of what made DOOM//Wolfenstein popular was the state of tech made it just barely viable. a few years earlier a DOOM type game was not feasible.
the buzz of being able to employ new tech helped fuel the demand for new genres from the 70s until about 2015.
On October 26 2025 04:30 Yurie wrote: Was watching a video about gamer trends and it is a discussion about how strategy has decreased as an interest for gamers. Which thus would decrease interest for RTS games. Which aligns with what people often say here. Based on "The Quantic Gamer Motivation".
I think the point made about strategy needing to be different and often is included in larger titles might remove attention from RTS. You have more competitive games pulling parts of the audience from RTS. RTS doesn't succeed well in the coop sphere so you had the Dota clones pulling massive chunks out of the audience. Then you have the plorifilation of various sim games pulling the pure strategy people out.
Behind you get the ones that match the best with the genre when there is stiff competition that fits other people's reason for gaming better. Something like Fire Emblem ticks most of the same buttons an RTS does for me now that I don't really bother with PvP.
I dont think so. The audience for RTS (and strategy in general) is still there. Most of the remasters of rts games are very successfull. I think RTS mainly suffers from opportunity cost. For instance, sc3 would sell very well but returns on developing WoW are much higher. And for strategy gamers there are plenty of alternatives to RTS. I'll just play Total War or EU4 instead.
RTS could use some modifications, not only because people's tastes have generally slid more in the direction of MOBA but also because it could just use some phat rims man. I don't see the point in building a hyper-traditional RTS in 2025, but what you change is the key that I think a lot of people will get wrong, and have gotten wrong recently. That isn't to say you can't have units that resemble dragoons or tanks or shuttles or whatever, but following the old script to a T where we send our dudes to mine minerals and ascend a linear tech tree while amassing an army of dudes that shoot pellets is probably not it. We have the best versions of those games and unless we want to remake them you have to start thinking outside the box without breaking it. Certainly, to say the strategy audience isn't there or people don't care about the genre anymore is a bad take.
EPT
