On November 03 2025 01:52 RogerChillingworth wrote:
On October 31 2025 19:43 Harris1st wrote: Some movement/ pathfinding info on ZeroSpace
It's nice to have breakdowns like this but I can't help but to be distracted by the unit behaviors of ZeroSpace itself, as well as SC2. How everything flows like sardines instead of having elbow room will never achieve the look or feel of great RTS for me. Units need a larger footprint. Not only is it much more aesthetically pleasing but it opens up a lot of doors to more interesting gameplay, like blocks and surrounds. It's generally more interesting than f2ing a giant blob of shit. Just my opinion though. But I'm right, sry.
Be careful what you wish for. The result will be either that:
-Individual units will be too small to control
or
-You will control much smaller armies.
I guess you are a BW player, but that kind of Army control is not fun for many players, and was frustrating to some even at release.
Hmm, I don't understand your first point Slydie, like why the units would be too small to control? I would never shrink my units down to accommodate for their having a larger footprint. And on that topic, I am a huge proponent of a tighter zoom and larger units and buildings in general. There is a small tradeoff but it's way better for immersion and micro. For your second point about smaller armies--not necessarily. The armies could definitely be smaller, but that's a design decision. The only thing that should happen is fewer units on screen at once. Is all of this an ultra-modern take, or super casual friendly? Maybe not at first glance. But I am always careful about assuming anything. If the goal is to make the most fun game possible, then it will be casual friendly even when choosing this other path. In the end, it's all about implementation. We can theorycraft all day about what could work despite popular opinion. It ultimately comes down to convincing people of this different way once they see and feel it for themselves, that might seem or feel uncomfortable in the first moments but is soon understood to be better or at least in competition with what they find more familiar. And also to add, this bulkier unit footprint doesn't have to mean units move like drunk potatoes, but it could. I think at least a little wobbliness and jank is good. That dial can be tuned accordingly, but I think players have gotten very lazy and just want shit to work despite their lack of effort. Games pander to players way too much, for obvious reasons. But if the goal is to make a better game, and not just give people exactly what they want, then i think you encourage players to put more effort in. The kicker is to offer much higher rewards for the effort imo. I wouldn't expect or want a game to necessarily recreate all the frustrations of Brood War, but it bothers me that Brood War's strengths are pretty much unanimously disregarded by modern devs. Again, it's a dial that can be tuned. edit: In general, I'm a big fan of warcraft 3's unit behavior. I very much like Brood War too, but Warcraft 3 has less jank and inherent frustration (like sometimes a dragoon literally freezing and not attacking AT ALL when you tell it to) while assuming probably one of the coolest combat styles. Warcraft 3 is super unique, but then again so is Brood War. Two of the Chadliest of all time. And yet people still turn up their nose!
I believe they were showing gigantic armies just to show off their pathfinding, I don’t think it’s 100% representative of the game.
Their guy also did showcase that WC3 style body blocking was also possible, which is interesting.
I think sometimes people conflate engine capabilities with design decisions, so I’m interested to see how Zero Space implement everything. I mean Unreal Tournament is slower and floatier than Quake 3 (albeit still faster than most modern FPS games), but that’s not really down to the engine.
As an interesting aside from that demonstration, apparently it was running at tick rate of 80, and still seemed very performant, although the guy said they may drop it to find a sweet spot.
As someone who isn’t an expert in such things, I’d thought some of the performance issues with Stormgate were down to shooting for a needlessly high tick rate, but it seems the Zero Space crew are managing it. I’d be intrigued as to why that is and what the two teams have done differently!
On November 03 2025 04:28 WombaT wrote: I believe they were showing gigantic armies just to show off their pathfinding, I don’t think it’s 100% representative of the game.
Their guy also did showcase that WC3 style body blocking was also possible, which is interesting.
I think sometimes people conflate engine capabilities with design decisions, so I’m interested to see how Zero Space implement everything. I mean Unreal Tournament is slower and floatier than Quake 3 (albeit still faster than most modern FPS games), but that’s not really down to the engine.
As an interesting aside from that demonstration, apparently it was running at tick rate of 80, and still seemed very performant, although the guy said they may drop it to find a sweet spot.
As someone who isn’t an expert in such things, I’d thought some of the performance issues with Stormgate were down to shooting for a needlessly high tick rate, but it seems the Zero Space crew are managing it. I’d be intrigued as to why that is and what the two teams have done differently!
Ubisoft will be better at getting money out of the City of Montreal, Province of Quebec, and country of Canada. That might keep the studio going longer without bringing in any cash coming from customers buying a video game.
On December 17 2025 19:30 Harris1st wrote: Some fodder for this thread:
Amazon Games is working on a MOBA / RTS Hybrid called March of the Giants:
The thing I like is the difference in scale between small and big units. The trade-off is small units become an umicroable blob most of the time. A bit of a tangent but if I had to choose between rad realistic scaling and being able to micro the small guys, I'd choose the latter. But I think this idea of small units you can't micro, like MOBA AI-controlled units or something, is a legitimate angle just as long as there's plenty else to do.
There's a lot to say about the visual style of a lot of these games and the difference between 2D and 3D, even bad 3D and good 3D. When I think of really sweet art direction, Breath of the Wild, Hades, Halo, and obviously the old Blizz games come to mind. Even when they're 3D, I don't see it. The art fits and seems true to itself. I think as soon as you see something as 3D—the softness of the models, the muddiness of the palette, the thickness of the projectiles, whatever it is—the resonance falls off pretty quickly. Of course it's a ridiculous amount of work that I don't think anyone has done yet, but actually drawing all of the elements by hand adds a quality that's hard to articulate, but is obvious when you see it. In the words of the great Mr. Plinkett of youtube fame, you might not have noticed it but your brain did. The small inconsistencies, the slight wobbliness of the edges, the shading, the presence or absence of lines...the biggest drawback isn't necessarily time but inflexibility when something needs to be adjusted. But that can be offset in a number of ways, like choosing not to adjust things. Measure twice, cut once kind of thing.
Anyways, thanks for sharing. I hope people keep sharing stuff because I know there's a lot out there and I'm bad at finding it. At the very least, it's good fodder for discussion. Even if the game doesn't look good or pan out, it's still a case study.
RTS games can't afford long dev cycles. They need a small targeted focus and absolutely nail that. Deliver the MVP and make it an awesome playing experience ASAP. The idea of having to needing to create a big campaign, multiplayer, many game-modes - you can't get the funding required for that.
RTS games can't afford long dev cycles. They need a small targeted focus and absolutely nail that. Deliver the MVP and make it an awesome playing experience ASAP. The idea of having to needing to create a big campaign, multiplayer, many game-modes - you can't get the funding required for that.
Why not develop the game in Starcraft 2 Editor anyway? Those are blatant fanbase/fanfiction games, its shocking that they had people financing this in the first place
RTS games can't afford long dev cycles. They need a small targeted focus and absolutely nail that. Deliver the MVP and make it an awesome playing experience ASAP. The idea of having to needing to create a big campaign, multiplayer, many game-modes - you can't get the funding required for that.
Why not develop the game in Starcraft 2 Editor anyway? Those are blatant fanbase/fanfiction games, its shocking that they had people financing this in the first place
The first prototype was developed in the editor. However, I guess you can't make a real product purely in the editor. I also think that today games need its own ranked ladder and tutorial to take off.
RTS games can't afford long dev cycles. They need a small targeted focus and absolutely nail that. Deliver the MVP and make it an awesome playing experience ASAP. The idea of having to needing to create a big campaign, multiplayer, many game-modes - you can't get the funding required for that.
Why not develop the game in Starcraft 2 Editor anyway? Those are blatant fanbase/fanfiction games, its shocking that they had people financing this in the first place
The first prototype was developed in the editor. However, I guess you can't make a real product purely in the editor. I also think that today games need its own ranked ladder and tutorial to take off.
If you make a unique enough product it does take off. Dota Auto Chess had hundreds of thousands of players inside the Dota client, probably has 100+ released clones by now. I think Team Fight Tactics ended up the most famous.
If you make iterative games inside a market with competition your requirements goes up massively. So if you don't have the budget you need a title with clear appeal and small scope. If you don't have a clear appeal or too big scope it will not work out.
I think the biggest problem for RTS might be the lack of good engines so you can deliver the product in a reasonable time frame. There isn't enough money to do large bespoke developments, pvp, pve etc etc in one game when they aren't plug and play modules that you (massively) tweak.
You want to get back to having an engine you tweak, a new story and some improved models. Then pump that out in 1-2 years. That is most likely how you stay in RTS. With that you can slowly improve net code etc as the versions come out. Or if you get a surprise smash hit, do DLC and similar.
Edit. Think about something like Renpy. A beginner can more or less pump out a basic visual novel with it. The difference then comes in the writing, visuals etc more than about having to figure out the technical stuff. Or Unreal for basic walking simulators.
Opposite is of course the things that require a bespoke engine but then you need the right team and vision.
If you make a unique enough product it does take off. Dota Auto Chess had hundreds of thousands of players inside the Dota client, probably has 100+ released clones by now. I think Team Fight Tactics ended up the most famous.
If you make iterative games inside a market with competition your requirements goes up massively. So if you don't have the budget you need a title with clear appeal and small scope. If you don't have a clear appeal or too big scope it will not work out.
Yes thats fair. But it would need to be a completely new type of game/genre. I have a vision for my ideal type of RTS game. And even though it's far different from Zerospace, Immortals gates of pyre and Stormgate (which imo are are all variants of the starcraft-formula), it's still a competitive RTS and I think it would struggle to take off as a mod.
However, you should still be make a mod in SC2 and ensure that the feedback you get is clearly positive and that people love playing. You should test certain hypothesis and be able to adjust within the Sc2 engine until you nailed the experience.
played the original Immortals gates of Pyre mod a little, but I thought it was quite boring and preferred Sc2. I was never asked for my opinion about the game.
That leaves the question - what exactly was the point of the mod? If I i had to guess founders watched the games being played and through validation bias believed everything was fine.
That said, a lot of sympathy for everyone involved in this. Imagine putting 8 years of your life into this. At least Tim Morten got paid 250K per year for the first few years.
I think the biggest problem for RTS might be the lack of good engines so you can deliver the product in a reasonable time frame. There isn't enough money to do large bespoke developments, pvp, pve etc etc in one game when they aren't plug and play modules that you (massively) tweak.
So given the difficulties of an RTS, that means they need to be even more disciplined in the scope of the project.
I also think you need to identify the most essential parts of the game that needs to be done right for it to succeed and keep iterating on that. Don't add more stuff/units/faction until you nail that component 100% and people love to play it.
For me that's micro. Limit the initial version of the game to be 5-7 units but nail the micro experience. Ask brand new RTS players (e.g. people from a MOBA background) how it feels to micro these units. Then ask high level SC2 players how it feels (testing both skill floor and skill cap).
Next, make a highlight reel of the micro displayed with these units. If it's not possible to create a video demonstrating how awesome the units are and making the target group excited within 30 seconds - the game is DOA. And you could save your self (or investors) millions of dollars by cancelling the project.
Every single one of these RTS games developed fails at the micro part. The micro is not awesome and no highlight reels have been created.
RTS games can't afford long dev cycles. They need a small targeted focus and absolutely nail that. Deliver the MVP and make it an awesome playing experience ASAP. The idea of having to needing to create a big campaign, multiplayer, many game-modes - you can't get the funding required for that.
Tbh, more than a strong focus, I think you need a very heavy ballsack. Like beanbag chair ballsack. Like I ordered a quarter pound of deli meats but they gave me my ballsack instead, aka everything that's under the glass. The lady with the hairnet and serial killer gloves is like you can have all my deli meats if you just make a RTS with serious ballsack. And I say I'm vegetarian and she breaks my spine, closes me like a suitcase, and puts me ass first in the slicer and starts sawing away, full arm extensions.
People should be honest with themselves about their game early in development. Like...IS THIS IT? If not, go back. Because no one's gonna quit League of Legends to play Urinal Cake Simulator. + Show Spoiler +
BECAUSE THEY'RE ALREADY PLAYING IT LOL
Did Gates of Pyre ever make a strong case? Not sure any of these games did.
RTS games can't afford long dev cycles. They need a small targeted focus and absolutely nail that. Deliver the MVP and make it an awesome playing experience ASAP. The idea of having to needing to create a big campaign, multiplayer, many game-modes - you can't get the funding required for that.
what a shame. it's such a great RTS and the one I liked the most out of all the new ones. They really should just do a simple coop/1v1/multiplayer and add lore only as a side content imo, similar to how league of legends build out the world.
I also think you need to identify the most essential parts of the game that needs to be done right for it to succeed and keep iterating on that.... For me that's micro. Limit the initial version of the game to be 5-7 units but nail the micro experience..
I pretty much agree, though I think economy is often overlooked and people keep copy-pasting the old system of "mine a rock next to my command center". Blizz-style RTS micro is also pretty non-existent in a lot of these games and I think even old Blizz games could up the micro excitement ceiling. We've seen and learned a lot in 20 years.
The overall problem with all these RTS is that they're really not being all that creative where creativity matters most. I checked out some Immortal Gates of Pyre gameplay and while it didn't look bad, it absolutely looked like a variation of StarCraft. There is a nexus, and probes mine minerals next to the nexus, there is a corruptor like unit and zealot units and other units that fire lasers. It's just too similar in look and feel to other games and doesn't claim its own territory with any real energy. The odds that you're going to usurp your inspirations is pretty unlikely, so it's unclear why someone would spend 10 years trying to do just that. Just seems like there are a lot of fan projects with lots of references to old games, lacking a much needed virtuosic and truly original bent. The issue comes back to the best original ideas maintaining purity when kept within a very small team, but requiring an incredible amount of work and expertise to see it all through. If glimpses of these games is any sign, it's that a lot of the technical expertise is there but people need to try harder and less hard at the same time, have more fun while not thinking so much about what's come before, or the reception of an audience, and just make what the tummy rumbles. Easier said than done, but that's why I think it's so rare and why a lot of the huge successes feel like lightning in a bottle.
I like Hider's idea of keeping it simple and focusing on a mode, or a niche. Battle Aces was on a decent track with its premise but fell apart in execution, offering lots of toothless action and not much else. DORF seems to have nihilistic energy but is a little rickety in other places and might not scratch the competitive itch for Blizz-RTS gamers. I personally want to play something that's genuinely fun, that I think about before going to sleep, and allows me to be expressive, and something a player like Clem or Parting or Flash or Grubby or Viper thinks is cool--for me that's the barometer of something decent.
The issue comes back to the best original ideas maintaining purity when kept within a very small team, but requiring an incredible amount of work and expertise to see it all through.
Couldn't agree more. I think they lack truly creative ideas and fail to see the opportunities that exist. Instead, they attempt to refine the StarCraft formula — something you simply can’t do with a limited budget.
Battle Aces was on a decent track with its premise but fell apart in execution, offering lots of toothless action and not much else.
I was initially positive about Battle Aces when I heard the premise. David Kim had a clear vision and stripped away what he thought didn’t matter. However, he got the most important part wrong: the idea that simpler units make the game more appealing to new players. Simple units are rarely exciting. Battle Aces effectively became a micro arena, and if a micro arena is to succeed, it needs high skill-cap units that enable outplays and introduce new types of abilities.
Instead, Battle Aces felt stressful rather than exciting — forcing quick decisions without the reward of great micro. Why would any new player leave a MOBA to try out a stressful a-move simulator? Or if what you truly enjoy was the strategy of changing decks - card games or TfT offers a more enjoyable experience.
It’s a shame that the current consensus seems to be that competitive RTS no longer works and that campaigns and co-op must come first. One of the biggest strengths of RTS is the 1v1 format. You can design your own builds, watch pros, and immediately apply their strategies to your own play. Skill expression can also be far higher than in a MOBA.
My view is that many competitive MOBA players would prefer a well-designed RTS. (basically every MOBA player that prefers high skillcap heroes/champions). But because RTS games are stuck in a 90s formula and haven’t truly experimented with new forms of micro and abilities, games like Dota and LoL continue to offer a more compelling experience.
If you compare Dota 1 heroes from 20 years ago with modern LoL champions, the level of innovation in abilities and interactions is obvious. What equivalent innovation has RTS seen? Force Fields? It’s no surprise the genre is declining when the focus has largely been on modest QoL improvements layered onto the same StarCraft formula, with the expectation that it will somehow be enough.
Instead, competitive RTS should focus on creating genuinely new and exciting micro interactions — ones that veteran RTS players love, but that also resonate with players coming from a MOBA background.
As an example of a new type of micro interaction, I experimented many years ago in the StarCraft editor with giving Adepts a temporary “burst damage mode.” For about six seconds, their range and damage were dramatically increased, and I paired this with a very low cooldown and short duration on the shadow ability.
What this enabled was an assassin-style form of gameplay. You could roam the map with a small group of Adepts and, if executed perfectly, dive into a main army, snipe a Colossus, and escape by timing the shadows correctly. It felt incredible to control because it was extremely difficult to pull off, yet deeply rewarding when you nailed it.
I haven’t seen anyone experiment with this kind of assassin concept in RTS. Ghosts with Snipe aren’t true assassins, since they function as part of a deathball. Blink Stalkers come closer, but their damage is too limited to reliably snipe high-value targets.
I’m not claiming this idea would definitely work in a real game, but I do think some variation of it could. Either way, it’s the kind of concept that would need heavy iteration — and that’s exactly the kind of experimentation competitive RTS has been missing.
I understand your point Hider but there is also different types of players. I personally despise having to click a lot of spells in my RTS. I enjoy movement-based micro much more and there is not much innovation to be had except for making it better/more rewarding. Ironically I think Stormgate actually did a pretty decent job in that department.
I also enjoy macro and base-building. Even though I know this wasn't your point because you would like the focus to be more on micro, I think there could be a lot more innovation in macro as well. Like how you structure buildings for economic efficiency, sim cities for defense etc.
On January 04 2026 21:25 Miragee wrote: I understand your point Hider but there is also different types of players. I personally despise having to click a lot of spells in my RTS. I enjoy movement-based micro much more and there is not much innovation to be had except for making it better/more rewarding. Ironically I think Stormgate actually did a pretty decent job in that department.
' Oh, I actually agree, and I like to use the phrase “movement-based micro” as well. I’ve often argued against abilities that take up APM but don't encourage additional movement. For example, simple “press-a-button” to heal or shield are abilities that don’t belong in an RTS—at least not in one with large unit counts. (Stormgate has tons of these types of abilities)
Abilities should encourage unit movement. Psi Storm is a good example of this. They should also be far easier to use than in current SC2. Managing different control groups or tabbing between units is simply too difficult for most players. A system where abilities can be used without having to select the unit directly would be highly desirable.
In SC2, I think abilities are generally implemented poorly, but they have the potential to significantly elevate the game if done well. Still, the majority of APM should be spent on movement-based micro.
I think future RTS games should take inspiration from MOBAs (and other sources, such as movies or other games), but these ideas must be adapted to an RTS context—where multiple units are controlled simultaneously.
I also enjoy macro and base-building. Even though I know this wasn't your point because you would like the focus to be more on micro, I think there could be a lot more innovation in macro as well. Like how you structure buildings for economic efficiency, sim cities for defense etc.
In the type of game-mode I imagine, the whole production-based systems is mostly automated. However, taking control over different parts of the map matters a lot and static-defense/sim-city is a huge part about. I think this can be expanded upon a lot. If done well it will encourage creativity and increase the depth of the game.
However, ultimately I think the game-mode itself, QoL or some of the other details won't watter if the micro isn't awesome.
Another note on abilities. But damage-based abilities generally need to be lethal. RTS games that try to make the game more forgiving by reducing the damage across the board, it has the unfortuante side effect of not making abilities feel satisfying to use.
Instead of reducing damage, it's better to make losing a single skirmish/battle more forgiving. This can be done by significantly increasing the defenders advantage and boosting production speed. This means the game can be designed around units dying frequently.
All of the RTS games (except Battle Aces) went the other direction and reduced production speed relative to Sc2. And it means we have boring slow-motion battles with little "interesting" micro done during the battles
EPT
