On August 20 2025 14:53 RogerChillingworth wrote: Anyway, discussion about this game honestly just goes around in circles. I think a “RTS General Discussion” thread would be a lot more useful at this point. There are a lot of soulful efforts being made by people and will continue to be made and this Stormgate/Frostigant Megathread shouldn't eat all those blurbs and discussions. And then the 4 people who still want to talk about SG specifically can do that here. Just a thought!
Heeding the suggestion by RogerChillingworth, I hereby open a thread to discuss all kinds of RTS games. Please feel free to start a discussion with anything that interests you RTS-wise.
To start things of from my side: Should we get excited about another inevitably disastrous entry into the DoW series?
Nice!! I can't say I've been following Dawn of War or that I am a Warhammer fan (one of the only people in the world it seems), but that trailer looks pretty darn cool. I'll check out some gameplay.
Doesn't seem "Blizz style" but then again I haven't played it. It looks like a load of fun and like a good Sunday game. A couple important things to note
Currently planning a full product on release, not an EA launch
A campaign for every faction (3 factions)
The devs like Dawn of War, Brood War, and obviously C&C
A very recent dev interview provided some long-awaited info that I thought was nice:
The current resource system looks potentially weird and complex but the devs say a lot of it is automated (I personally prefer a simpler system that ISN'T automated, but who knows?)
I have a lot of thoughts about RTS and what would be a cool direction to go in, but I'll save that for a bit later.
I don't think making a worse StarCraft is really the play, and I'm generally uninterested in "attack-move" RTS. There's a lot of potential innovation in how to handle economy, combat, base building, and so on. And of course story, world and campaign could be a lot cooler and more ambitious than it is now.
It's a bit sad how much of a laborious, technical undertaking RTS really is, especially if you are doing it legit and having humans do the work. But yeah, to start a new 5-10 year project in this day and age seems potentially very unpredictable and stressful.
On August 20 2025 23:00 RogerChillingworth wrote: Nice!! I can't say I've been following Dawn of War or that I am a Warhammer fan (one of the only people in the world it seems), but that trailer looks pretty darn cool. I'll check out some gameplay.
Doesn't seem "Blizz style" but then again I haven't played it. It looks like a load of fun and like a good Sunday game. A couple important things to note
Currently planning a full product on release, not an EA launch
A campaign for every faction (3 factions)
The devs like Dawn of War, Brood War, and obviously C&C
A very recent dev interview provided some long-awaited info that I thought was nice:
The current resource system looks potentially weird and complex but the devs say a lot of it is automated (I personally prefer a simpler system that ISN'T automated, but who knows?)
Overall the units and vibe seem fun.
I helped found and run a group that has done (so far) like 15 actual LANs, with on-house casters (often yours truly) for SC2. Originally very locally, but we got our tentacles into many across the nation over time.
I vividly remember like a decent amount of us on Discord, anticipating the Stormgate reveal. We’d started out as an SC group, we have aspirations to branch out to be a more general RTS one, and Stormgate was meant to be the new game we might migrate to.
‘Lads, I know we were here for Stormgate, but was it just me or did D.O.R.F look fucking awesome?’
One of those gut things, one’s gut can often be wrong. I kinda felt Stormgate was in trouble even then, with a sorta meh cinematic trailer and nothing actually cool to show. If what was effectively a Stormgate specific viewing party had people leaving it more intrigued for DORF, not great.
IIRC this is from the same show, can’t remember 100%. Is D.O.R.F balanced or anything? I’ve got zero idea
Is it cool? Fuck yeah, we got a bit of stock rock music to listen to, there’s shit blowing up everywhere, designs are pretty poppy and distinctive.
In like a 50 second snapshot we’ve got satisfying looking regular RTS combat, we’ve parachutists popping in. Whether it’s an actual unit or merely a projectile, we’ve some giant fucking wrecking ball thing rolling around. We’ve got what looks like some kind of alien demigod floating around and fucking shit up. We’ve got some kind of apocalyptic nuke cannon that wipes out a screen.
Does it play well? I’ve zero idea. But it certainly at least feels fucking cool, that’s a set of toys I’d quite like to get my hands on.
It also has a name so stupid sounding that it ends up being a beneficial asset.
Pretty sad about the rts genre in general at this point.
Honestly City Builders are kinda the bigger genre now that is the most similar with base building like any dev probably just goes there cause it is far more profitable (like even random indie city builders like manor lords sold like pancakes). I think there are just not enough rts players anymore why it is alot less good to
Like another factor is how FPS and MOBA are just far more attractive options for players nowadays. Like team games just are alot more fun in general (I hate to admit it but I basically play more team games for multiplayer than rts tbqh)
But there are some curious titles like The Scouring which seems to be pretty close to what Warcraft 3 is.
But other than that the newer titles dont feel like they match what Broodwar or AoE2 has to offer like for competitive gameplay.
I thought this War 2 + They Are Billions RTS was pretty interesting for technical reasons. It's quite derivative in creative terms, but another impressive example of how even small indie teams can make high unit count RTS that aren't janky these days.
On August 20 2025 23:11 RogerChillingworth wrote: I have a lot of thoughts about RTS and what would be a cool direction to go in, but I'll save that for a bit later.
I don't think making a worse StarCraft is really the play, and I'm generally uninterested in "attack-move" RTS. There's a lot of potential innovation in how to handle economy, combat, base building, and so on. And of course story, world and campaign could be a lot cooler and more ambitious than it is now.
It's a bit sad how much of a laborious, technical undertaking RTS really is, especially if you are doing it legit and having humans do the work. But yeah, to start a new 5-10 year project in this day and age seems potentially very unpredictable and stressful.
I wanna hear it now dagnabbit!
For the forthcoming post I’m not considering technical feasibility, I’m going crazy on what I consider the evolution to be.
It’s a 4X, traditional RTS with a reasonably hefty element of resource management and base building, with great micro potential, at the same time
And its scope should be gigantic, relative to a traditional RTS.
If we split those areas crudely into 3, you should be able to jump around them at will. The AI should be able to do a competent, but worse job than a regular average human in your absence. Ideally you’re sharing the load with your buddies.
You should be the complete total war general. Able to do big picture logistics, but also adept at small scale command. How useful you are may depend what hat you choose, and when.
You’re on the verge of cracking your opponent, and personally command that potential final battle, a sensible use. Whereas if you spend all your timing focusing on peripheral conflicts, the history books may consider you a military genius but your boys lost.
The stretch goal is to make it an MMORTS in a persistent war zone.
On August 20 2025 14:53 RogerChillingworth wrote: Anyway, discussion about this game honestly just goes around in circles. I think a “RTS General Discussion” thread would be a lot more useful at this point. There are a lot of soulful efforts being made by people and will continue to be made and this Stormgate/Frostigant Megathread shouldn't eat all those blurbs and discussions. And then the 4 people who still want to talk about SG specifically can do that here. Just a thought!
Heeding the suggestion by RogerChillingworth, I hereby open a thread to discuss all kinds of RTS games. Please feel free to start a discussion with anything that interests you RTS-wise.
To start things of from my side: Should we get excited about another inevitably disastrous entry into the DoW series?
I am actually very hyped for DoW IV. I'm not sure why it would be inevitably disastrous - DoW and DoW II were both amazing, it was only DoW 3 that was a massive failure. The thing that gives me hope is that from the trailer it seems very much like they are re-using DoW 3 assets/art style? which was one thing that I think everyone enjoyed. Relic got the art style and atmosphere right, they just completely fucked the gameplay. So if DoW IV can be a return to form gameplay wise and re-use DoW 3 assets it could be an amazing return to form.
I thought this War 2 + They Are Billions RTS was pretty interesting for technical reasons. It's quite derivative in creative terms, but another impressive example of how even small indie teams can make high unit count RTS that aren't janky these days.
Do you really wanna post a Winter video with the title ":The Scouring - The WarCraft 4 We Deserve"? Thats the shit that makes the internet worse
There are like 100 pages of "What RTS should be like" in that Stormgate thread. Dont you think thats enough?
Do you really wanna make an account on a primarily RTS forum and your introductory post being to complain about people discussing RTS games?
Dawn of War 4 already looks better than Dawn of War 3 ever did. Adeptus Mechanicus was certainly a curve ball I did not see coming, even in my wildest dreams. Necrons as 1 of the 4 starting races were certainly a surprise, but a welcome one!
The melee fighting seems really well done, and the models top notch. Sync Kills are now... well, not only for kills but in general, for combat. On the other hand the ranged units look... out of place. They just stand there, shooting. Completely oblivious to the carnage around them. They don't care they're getting shot at, don't try to duck bullets or dodge big hits, I don't think they even have animations to show off glancing hits, grazes or rounds bouncing off their armor? They look like they came straight off tabletop...
Base building seems to be back, but not builders/workers (at least as far as I've seen?) Shit just drops from the sky and auto-builds. Maybe for the better, time will tell.
Larger maps, in the style of Dawn of War 1 instead of Dawn of War 2, and a lesser focus on Commanders/Heroes. Dawn of War 3 tried to make Commanders into MOBA-tier like entities and failed miserably.
Unit get promotions now, in the style of Total War (1->3 bronze chevrons to 1->3 silver chevrons to the ultimate 1->3 gold chevrons) and I honestly like that a lot. I feel like the player should be incentivized to save their Space Marines or Dreadnaughts or Terminators, instead of throwing them away like disposable zerglings or marines.
And I think most important of all? Relic has nothing to do with this game (as far as I know) which will be a breath of fresh air for the franchise after it being fumbled by Relic for so long. Relic has been leaking talent over the years and I honestly doubt they have it in them to make a good RTS anymore. Even Company of Heroes 3 was mid as hell and a lot of people went back to Company of Heroes 2.
Good Luck to King Art/Deep Silver.
edit: Just to say - I am cautiously optimistic about this.
On August 20 2025 14:53 RogerChillingworth wrote: Anyway, discussion about this game honestly just goes around in circles. I think a “RTS General Discussion” thread would be a lot more useful at this point. There are a lot of soulful efforts being made by people and will continue to be made and this Stormgate/Frostigant Megathread shouldn't eat all those blurbs and discussions. And then the 4 people who still want to talk about SG specifically can do that here. Just a thought!
Heeding the suggestion by RogerChillingworth, I hereby open a thread to discuss all kinds of RTS games. Please feel free to start a discussion with anything that interests you RTS-wise.
To start things of from my side: Should we get excited about another inevitably disastrous entry into the DoW series?
I am actually very hyped for DoW IV. I'm not sure why it would be inevitably disastrous - DoW and DoW II were both amazing, it was only DoW 3 that was a massive failure. The thing that gives me hope is that from the trailer it seems very much like they are re-using DoW 3 assets/art style? which was one thing that I think everyone enjoyed. Relic got the art style and atmosphere right, they just completely fucked the gameplay. So if DoW IV can be a return to form gameplay wise and re-use DoW 3 assets it could be an amazing return to form.
DoW2 was a disaster in my eyes. Incredibly unfun 1v1. No base building and basically just rally units from your base. The campaign was kinda cool and had coop, which is a big plus in my book, but still worse than DoW.
I don't know, I just feel like the chances of DoW IV being good are slim based on what I liked about DoW. If they return base building and actually work on how stupid and janky the units feel, the game might actually be good.
On August 20 2025 14:53 RogerChillingworth wrote: Anyway, discussion about this game honestly just goes around in circles. I think a “RTS General Discussion” thread would be a lot more useful at this point. There are a lot of soulful efforts being made by people and will continue to be made and this Stormgate/Frostigant Megathread shouldn't eat all those blurbs and discussions. And then the 4 people who still want to talk about SG specifically can do that here. Just a thought!
Heeding the suggestion by RogerChillingworth, I hereby open a thread to discuss all kinds of RTS games. Please feel free to start a discussion with anything that interests you RTS-wise.
To start things of from my side: Should we get excited about another inevitably disastrous entry into the DoW series?
I am actually very hyped for DoW IV. I'm not sure why it would be inevitably disastrous - DoW and DoW II were both amazing, it was only DoW 3 that was a massive failure. The thing that gives me hope is that from the trailer it seems very much like they are re-using DoW 3 assets/art style? which was one thing that I think everyone enjoyed. Relic got the art style and atmosphere right, they just completely fucked the gameplay. So if DoW IV can be a return to form gameplay wise and re-use DoW 3 assets it could be an amazing return to form.
DoW2 was a disaster in my eyes. Incredibly unfun 1v1. No base building and basically just rally units from your base. The campaign was kinda cool and had coop, which is a big plus in my book, but still worse than DoW.
I don't know, I just feel like the chances of DoW IV being good are slim based on what I liked about DoW. If they return base building and actually work on how stupid and janky the units feel, the game might actually be good.
Dawn of War 2 was very divisive. On one hand - it was a terrible game if you considered it as a successor to Dawn of War 1. They lowered the scale of engagement, got rid of base building, much smaller unit roster and fewer upgrades per squad.
BUT, if you can look past that - and NOT look at it as a successor to Dawn of War 1 and instead look at it as a Company of Heroes-like, smaller scale tactical RTS that just happened to be set in the Warhammer 40K universe (and for some odd reason shares the name with the GOATed and amazing Dawn of War 1), it was a fine, fun game that can stand on its own merits. Think of it as Mechanicus or Space Hulk Tactics or Battlefleet Gothic: Armada or even ChaosGate: DemonHunters, i.e a rip-off of already existing game formula just with a Warhammer 40K paint job on top of it, and you have Dawn of War 2. It's basically Company of Heroes in space with the licensing of Warhammer 40K franchise visuals...
Now they should have NEVER used the name "Dawn of War 2" for it, and I think history (and people) would be a lot more forgiving towards that game's existence.
Haha I was actually lying in bed trying to go to sleep but was thinking about this so I'll just write it out quickly and maybe the Gods will let me sleep.
In terms of being analytical about RTS, I think it's super useful to point out but also deconstruct what you really like or dislike about a game. I'm always down to learn what people find fun and specifically why, if they can or care to go there.
Like I could talk forever about why Heroes of the Storm is a masterpiece—not a RTS, but still—and what makes that game so fun. I could talk about each hero. I don't like every hero, but someone does. And I could especially deconstruct why the heroes I love are very fun, and talk about mouth feel. I think mouth feel is so important in games, but it's a bit of a more abstract concept. For instance, why do some Brood War players play suboptimally, or make seemingly weird intuitive decisions on the fly? It's part of what makes them likable, and also why players have unique identities in that game. There are numerous examples of this in the recent ASL matches. And this mouth feel, or intuitive way of playing, is very much linked to what makes a game fun to play. It's tied to to how a unit or hero moves, its animations, its raw numbers, its overall place in the game, and a litany of other things. The thing is, when I look at a lot of modern RTS, this concept seems lost on them. It's why people like older games; because the edges are harder and there is better mouth feel for what you're doing inside the game.
The reason I'm being super nerdy about this is that I really want a great RTS—or some genre hybrid—to be made that all the communities actually want to get behind. And if that doesn't work, at least let it be a magnificent game. But the core shit is just not understood by the people making these games. You can paint some shapes on a billboard but that doesn't make it a house. StarCraft 2, under its great campaign and epic vibes, almost ruined itself by throwing away a large portion of its potential mouth feel in favor of a much cleaner and more linear style. The texture is still there but in much smaller quantities than previous Blizzard RTS. And the real problem comes when the reverence for StarCraft 2 spills into modern dev and these studios continually try to copy the weaker mouth feel of this game to exceptionally poor results. It is simply because it does not have the potential to be as fun as a more textured game where more is possible in the moment; where instead of zerglings on 1 hotkey running in and auto-surrounding your zealots, there is 15 seconds of cat-and-mouse and intense micro to min-max the damage every unit is doing. Because the unit behaviors in the latter example were made to be skillfully handled, not automated away. This is the game. Despite people's aversion to difficulty, this is the kind of shit that makes a RTS really good and endure the decades. Warcraft III, though not as mechanical as Brood War, pays just as much attention to mouth feel. Without it, your game is flat and linear to play and exceedingly boring to watch. And we will continue to see this in RTS if they don't make challenging, mechanical, textured games designed for people who want just that.
Anyway, that's the only wall of text I'll post in here. Any future ideas I have I'll try to communicate more visually and in a much less theoretical way.
On August 20 2025 23:11 RogerChillingworth wrote: I have a lot of thoughts about RTS and what would be a cool direction to go in, but I'll save that for a bit later.
I don't think making a worse StarCraft is really the play, and I'm generally uninterested in "attack-move" RTS. There's a lot of potential innovation in how to handle economy, combat, base building, and so on. And of course story, world and campaign could be a lot cooler and more ambitious than it is now.
It's a bit sad how much of a laborious, technical undertaking RTS really is, especially if you are doing it legit and having humans do the work. But yeah, to start a new 5-10 year project in this day and age seems potentially very unpredictable and stressful.
I wanna hear it now dagnabbit!
For the forthcoming post I’m not considering technical feasibility, I’m going crazy on what I consider the evolution to be.
It’s a 4X, traditional RTS with a reasonably hefty element of resource management and base building, with great micro potential, at the same time
And its scope should be gigantic, relative to a traditional RTS.
If we split those areas crudely into 3, you should be able to jump around them at will. The AI should be able to do a competent, but worse job than a regular average human in your absence. Ideally you’re sharing the load with your buddies.
You should be the complete total war general. Able to do big picture logistics, but also adept at small scale command. How useful you are may depend what hat you choose, and when.
You’re on the verge of cracking your opponent, and personally command that potential final battle, a sensible use. Whereas if you spend all your timing focusing on peripheral conflicts, the history books may consider you a military genius but your boys lost.
The stretch goal is to make it an MMORTS in a persistent war zone.
I'm not sure I completely understand your idea, but it sounds wild nonetheless.
On August 21 2025 00:56 Waxangel wrote: ...The Scouring....
I'm sure it'll sell, but I am indeed kind of surprised at how derivative of Warcraft 2 this is.
On August 21 2025 00:32 goody153 wrote: The newer titles dont feel like they match what Broodwar or AoE2 has to offer like for competitive gameplay.
On August 20 2025 23:00 RogerChillingworth wrote: Nice!! I can't say I've been following Dawn of War or that I am a Warhammer fan (one of the only people in the world it seems), but that trailer looks pretty darn cool. I'll check out some gameplay.
Doesn't seem "Blizz style" but then again I haven't played it. It looks like a load of fun and like a good Sunday game. A couple important things to note
Currently planning a full product on release, not an EA launch
A campaign for every faction (3 factions)
The devs like Dawn of War, Brood War, and obviously C&C
A very recent dev interview provided some long-awaited info that I thought was nice:
The current resource system looks potentially weird and complex but the devs say a lot of it is automated (I personally prefer a simpler system that ISN'T automated, but who knows?)
Overall the units and vibe seem fun.
D.O.R.F. looking super slick, I think they planning to do a Kickstarter. Last time I backed a game was project phoenix which just disappeared, R.I.P. But I am gonna back it for sure, the aesthetic is just awesome and I want to push it to the finish line. I would love more RTS done in this art style.
The scouring is another one that I am enjoying a lot. The mechanics are fairly simple but that's all needed to be fun. Lots of interesting ideas, Dev is active with testing and good MODs.
As for DOW4, I myself liked DOW3 so I am definitely in the minority. But my concern is apparently there's only 3 factions or 4 planned? The rest are probably DLC or paywalled.
On August 21 2025 05:02 Jaysod wrote: Dawn of War IV already looks like a Mobile Game. If it had a budget, they wouldnt release such gameplay footage. Watch it in 2160p and "enjoy" its textures.
What mobile games are you playing? It looks fine for an early build.
Tbh I think RTS has a certain fidelity cap anyway, readability is pretty damn crucial. It’s just the nature of the beast.
As good as SC2 is, they weren’t 15 years ahead of the curve in graphical chops. Hell I even play that gamet with mostly low graphic settings.
Yeah I have been following DORF for a while, you can tell some passion has gone into it.The sprites look great, I think it's on OpenRA engine.
Have always had the opinion RTS never successfully made the transition to 3D.Blurrier graphics and usually far worse performance than the sprite based games.Basically for me 3D adds nothing only takes away.
On August 21 2025 05:02 Jaysod wrote: Dawn of War IV already looks like a Mobile Game. If it had a budget, they wouldnt release such gameplay footage. Watch it in 2160p and "enjoy" its textures.
What mobile games are you playing? It looks fine for an early build.
Tbh I think RTS has a certain fidelity cap anyway, readability is pretty damn crucial. It’s just the nature of the beast.
As good as SC2 is, they weren’t 15 years ahead of the curve in graphical chops. Hell I even play that gamet with mostly low graphic settings.
Readability is definitely a key one.
I think readability are determined by a few things: -What kind of engagement (poking, spreading) -Types of units (ling vs zealots, quantity matter more. Tank naturally draw attention) -Special effects -Unit colour scheme/visual/size
Stormgate brute vs lancer is one that is just horrible to read.
The marine tank push for example have marine pokes with medivac micro, and then the engagement covers the whole screen and you can clearly tell which units are doing what
D.O.R.F doesn't have a kickstarter and probably are fine right now living off a patreon(which I do support).
sometimes you want a big silly RTS with a fun campaign and not overly tuned multiplayer, really helps that they're just building off on a heavily modified OpenRA engine.
speaking of which, anyone picked up the Mental Omega mod for RA2? its an insanely fun campaign to play. Story went too into anime territory for me.
On August 21 2025 11:50 BLinD-RawR wrote: D.O.R.F doesn't have a kickstarter and probably are fine right now living off a patreon(which I do support).
sometimes you want a big silly RTS with a fun campaign and not overly tuned multiplayer, really helps that they're just building off on a heavily modified OpenRA engine.
speaking of which, anyone picked up the Mental Omega mod for RA2? its an insanely fun campaign to play. Story went too into anime territory for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO_vFIGxH5M&t=302s D.O.R.F. will be running a kickstarter soon! The more I look at their videos, the more hyped I am. Other games already have the HD retro trend, like boomer shooter, turn based RPG etc, it's finally RTS's turn.
Tempest Rising was planned to release with significantly more content and features, like 3 factions each with a campaign of 15 missions, but unable to do so because the dev team's parent company downsized the project in the middle of development. But it seems the game sells reasonable well, with Steam daily peak player counts stabilized at 500-700. Which likely means the players can wait for DLC and patches for the complete campaign story, and common RTS features such as replay system and 3v3 or 4v4 (depend on how well they can optimize an RTS on Unreal Engine).
On August 21 2025 20:24 Manit0u wrote: We're back boys and girls!
The studio behind Iron Harvest was given the DoW franchise and they've been cooking. Slated to release next year they dropped the trailer and gave early access demo to some people. So far all the reviews have been extremely positive.
Trailer:
Early demo review:
Developer interview:
I have to say I haven't been more hyped for a game in a very long time.
Some features:
4 playable races at launch (SM, AdMech, Orks, Necrons). 4 separate campaigns forming an overarching story (written by established GW author John French). Multiplayer with ranked and custom games, Last Stand mode too. Seems like a mix of best features from DoW 1 & 2.
On August 21 2025 16:24 Jaysod wrote: Werent people INCREDIBLE hyped for Tempest Rising as well? How is this thing going?
I guess it means don't overhype yourself, but let yourself be appropriately hyped because there's nothing wrong with being happy. I've had to learn to rein in my expectations quite a bit until I play a finished game. Made the mistake twice already.
RE: The DORF kickstarter: I saw that interview too and it does seem like they'll have one, but I just can't do them anymore. I'll try to get into the playtests and if I like it I'll buy the game. But more than that and I get burned. Can't do it.
I have a seed of an idea that might scratch an itch for true rts fans while also having the possibility for casual play, a board game variant and maybe even turn based play. Initially it'd be a pure 1v1 game. There's also an auto loss condition which you have to prevent purely for yourself, which can also be a target for the opposing player. Just such a technical hurdle because what can you do with an idea without the tchnical skill.. I know the indie stories like Rain World - which is an absolute masterpiece - or Stardew Valley, but I don't know if I can etch out the time for it. In any case, all these new rts games are boring as hell, derivative slop. There's no ingenuity.
On August 21 2025 05:02 Jaysod wrote: Dawn of War IV already looks like a Mobile Game. If it had a budget, they wouldnt release such gameplay footage. Watch it in 2160p and "enjoy" its textures.
What mobile games are you playing? It looks fine for an early build.
Tbh I think RTS has a certain fidelity cap anyway, readability is pretty damn crucial. It’s just the nature of the beast.
As good as SC2 is, they weren’t 15 years ahead of the curve in graphical chops. Hell I even play that gamet with mostly low graphic settings.
The entire Stormgate experience has taught me "looks like a mobile game" is an inaccurate and inarticulate expression PC gamers just use as shorthand for "I generally don't like the way it looks."
On August 21 2025 05:02 Jaysod wrote: Dawn of War IV already looks like a Mobile Game. If it had a budget, they wouldnt release such gameplay footage. Watch it in 2160p and "enjoy" its textures.
What mobile games are you playing? It looks fine for an early build.
Tbh I think RTS has a certain fidelity cap anyway, readability is pretty damn crucial. It’s just the nature of the beast.
As good as SC2 is, they weren’t 15 years ahead of the curve in graphical chops. Hell I even play that gamet with mostly low graphic settings.
The entire Stormgate experience has taught me "looks like a mobile game" is an inaccurate and inarticulate expression PC gamers just use as shorthand for "I generally don't like the way it looks."
Like it or loathe it, Warhammer 40K is hardly generic as settings go, it’s got a distinctive general vibe, and many factions have very developed, distinct aesthetic. Plus you’ve got Cockney football hooligans, in space which is always nice.
The Imperium has like decades of throwing gothic influences, oppressively large urban environments, punk, religious fanaticism and Space Fascism into a blender.
Kinda works for many, if you dig the aesthetic it does a lot of heavy lifting over pure graphical fidelity.
That would be one way to improve things, make the environments really distinctively 40K instead of ‘city warfare zone’ or ‘ice zone’
Overall I think it looks alright, could be better in places, but I kinda know what’s going on, and it isn’t crazy lo-fi or anything.
On August 21 2025 05:02 Jaysod wrote: Dawn of War IV already looks like a Mobile Game. If it had a budget, they wouldnt release such gameplay footage. Watch it in 2160p and "enjoy" its textures.
What mobile games are you playing? It looks fine for an early build.
Tbh I think RTS has a certain fidelity cap anyway, readability is pretty damn crucial. It’s just the nature of the beast.
As good as SC2 is, they weren’t 15 years ahead of the curve in graphical chops. Hell I even play that gamet with mostly low graphic settings.
The entire Stormgate experience has taught me "looks like a mobile game" is an inaccurate and inarticulate expression PC gamers just use as shorthand for "I generally don't like the way it looks."
Can you tell me what looks good? The Low-Res textures? Its art-style is basically "Dusty-Grey-foggy". Oh wait, its Warhammer. You cant have anything aesthetic
This is a 2025 game for PC. Is there anything that makes it look like a PC title with a budget? Their entire catch is the same generic Warhammer thing. And when your main selling point are still "synced kills" (because they look cooool)...you should be worried
Sure!
The firing patterns are asynchronous, which helps them look and feel organic. That's good visual design.
There's apparently (in the video you linked) a whole system for melee combat where models animate specifically against their opponent, instead of having a generic melee attack like almost every RTS does. That's a cool and ambitious innovation that pretty much only matters visually.
Panning through other points, it looks like a Warhammer 40k game at a glance, and that's probably good considering it's a 40k game.
Your turn! Why do you think it looks like a mobile game? I can link you some quintessential mobile games and we can compare screenshots side-by-side, if you want, but to me it's pretty goddamn obvious that it's got a leg up on Kingdom Rush 8 or whatever we're at.
Sync kill animations in Relic's Dawn of War games are not purely visual, units locked in them get temporary invulnerability. Not sure if DoW4's expanded sync melee animations will be different though.
On August 22 2025 14:40 qwerty4w wrote: Sync kill animations in Relic's Dawn of War games are not purely visual, units locked in them get temporary invulnerability. Not sure if DoW4's expanded sync melee animations will be different though.
Oh yeah, they obviously have to have associated mechanics, I very much doubt you'd be able to freely move the units when they're in melee. I'm just saying the reason you go for a mechanic like that is aesthetics not mechanics. The mechanics are designed to make 'cool looking melee combat' work, not the other way around.
Warhammer Total War 3 has what seems like similar design sensibilities, though given that's larger scale battles than a typical RTS the sacrifice of finite unit control in favor of overall visual design seems more appropriate.
In any case, DoW4's system of melee combat seems like a decision made for visual design, not for game mechanics.
On August 21 2025 05:02 Jaysod wrote: Dawn of War IV already looks like a Mobile Game. If it had a budget, they wouldnt release such gameplay footage. Watch it in 2160p and "enjoy" its textures.
What mobile games are you playing? It looks fine for an early build.
Tbh I think RTS has a certain fidelity cap anyway, readability is pretty damn crucial. It’s just the nature of the beast.
As good as SC2 is, they weren’t 15 years ahead of the curve in graphical chops. Hell I even play that gamet with mostly low graphic settings.
The entire Stormgate experience has taught me "looks like a mobile game" is an inaccurate and inarticulate expression PC gamers just use as shorthand for "I generally don't like the way it looks."
Can you tell me what looks good? The Low-Res textures? Its art-style is basically "Dusty-Grey-foggy". Oh wait, its Warhammer. You cant have anything aesthetic https://youtu.be/ieH0Ahf2U3w?si=LGn_qn__r2V65g6m&t=1461 This is a 2025 game for PC. Is there anything that makes it look like a PC title with a budget? Their entire catch is the same generic Warhammer thing. And when your main selling point are still "synced kills" (because they look cooool)...you should be worried
Sure!
The firing patterns are asynchronous, which helps them look and feel organic. That's good visual design.
There's apparently (in the video you linked) a whole system for melee combat where models animate specifically against their opponent, instead of having a generic melee attack like almost every RTS does. That's a cool and ambitious innovation that pretty much only matters visually.
Panning through other points, it looks like a Warhammer 40k game at a glance, and that's probably good considering it's a 40k game.
Your turn! Why do you think it looks like a mobile game? I can link you some quintessential mobile games and we can compare screenshots side-by-side, if you want, but to me it's pretty goddamn obvious that it's got a leg up on Kingdom Rush 8 or whatever we're at.
You are actually telling me that this looks "organic"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieH0Ahf2U3w&t=1452s Take a look at the right side. Gotta mention that they designed Orks in a comical bad way. They went full Quasimodo when Orks are actually capable of standing upright. When it comes to combat: They wait, hit thin air, turn around for no reason, wait for some script to tell them to do something. Which also causes them to abruptly cancel their animation constantly. In that next combat we are going full "mobile": Take a look at the Marines, im not sure whats worse: Ultralow ground textures, blurry/foggy marine textures, 0 depth perception, 0 details. This is completely shot for efficiency. And again take a look at melee combat. Orks in the back hitting air. Please enlightenment me why this is supposed to be great.
I’m pretty sure the devs have been open about certain visual polish not being there, indeed I believe they namechecked some specific examples.
All the specific animations aren’t going to look 100% organic no, they certainly are more add more organic crunch, visual spectacle and flavour than the stock alternative.
I’d worry about a little jankiness as per gameplay itself, or it looking a bit odd if things trigger weirdly but we shall see.
For me if they get it all working, that’s a way bigger visual upgrade than high res textures or whatever.
But then that’s really not something I care about with most games, so my bar of what’s acceptable is lower than that of many people, which is totally fine, people value different things with different weightings.
I think broken arrow is a really fun game and its take on the economy of a players units and its deck is really ahead of its time. The ability to customize and retool various units to do vastly different things makes factions incredibly complex without getting too far in the weeds of a basic focus.
Its also missing a list of critical features like replay, in mission save games for campaign, leaver penalties, and has some nasty bugs that creep up.
Relic is making an Advance Wars type game, Earth vs. Mars. As a once fairly successful mid-sized developer, Relic is probably not doing well if they are resorted to making smaller games like this.
AoE4 is one of the more successful RTS games since SC2, I’m surprised Relic didn’t get given the DoW gig again.
If I were to guess, maybe them going independent has something to do with it. Maybe those are the terms of the split, or maybe it was a fractious one, or perhaps Relic simply wanna stretch their wings a bit.
I played Stormgate for the first time. And I was completely underwhelmed. I really wanted it to succeed because on paper, a synthesis of SC2 and WC3 sounds incredible. I knew it probably wouldnt be as good as those titles but I figured it'd still be solid given it'd be a game from this decade. Unfortunately I don't think I can produce any critique that hasn't been said a thousand times before so I'll leave at that.
With David Kim's project gone, is Dawn of War IV/AoE 4 expansions the last hope for quality RTS?
On August 20 2025 14:53 RogerChillingworth wrote: Anyway, discussion about this game honestly just goes around in circles. I think a “RTS General Discussion” thread would be a lot more useful at this point. There are a lot of soulful efforts being made by people and will continue to be made and this Stormgate/Frostigant Megathread shouldn't eat all those blurbs and discussions. And then the 4 people who still want to talk about SG specifically can do that here. Just a thought!
Heeding the suggestion by RogerChillingworth, I hereby open a thread to discuss all kinds of RTS games. Please feel free to start a discussion with anything that interests you RTS-wise.
To start things of from my side: Should we get excited about another inevitably disastrous entry into the DoW series?
I am actually very hyped for DoW IV. I'm not sure why it would be inevitably disastrous - DoW and DoW II were both amazing, it was only DoW 3 that was a massive failure. The thing that gives me hope is that from the trailer it seems very much like they are re-using DoW 3 assets/art style? which was one thing that I think everyone enjoyed. Relic got the art style and atmosphere right, they just completely fucked the gameplay. So if DoW IV can be a return to form gameplay wise and re-use DoW 3 assets it could be an amazing return to form.
DoW2 was a disaster in my eyes. Incredibly unfun 1v1. No base building and basically just rally units from your base. The campaign was kinda cool and had coop, which is a big plus in my book, but still worse than DoW.
I don't know, I just feel like the chances of DoW IV being good are slim based on what I liked about DoW. If they return base building and actually work on how stupid and janky the units feel, the game might actually be good.
Dawn of War 2 was very divisive. On one hand - it was a terrible game if you considered it as a successor to Dawn of War 1. They lowered the scale of engagement, got rid of base building, much smaller unit roster and fewer upgrades per squad.
BUT, if you can look past that - and NOT look at it as a successor to Dawn of War 1 and instead look at it as a Company of Heroes-like, smaller scale tactical RTS that just happened to be set in the Warhammer 40K universe (and for some odd reason shares the name with the GOATed and amazing Dawn of War 1), it was a fine, fun game that can stand on its own merits. Think of it as Mechanicus or Space Hulk Tactics or Battlefleet Gothic: Armada or even ChaosGate: DemonHunters, i.e a rip-off of already existing game formula just with a Warhammer 40K paint job on top of it, and you have Dawn of War 2. It's basically Company of Heroes in space with the licensing of Warhammer 40K franchise visuals...
Now they should have NEVER used the name "Dawn of War 2" for it, and I think history (and people) would be a lot more forgiving towards that game's existence.
That's a reasonable take. I remember I enjoyed the campaign back when the game came out but probably more so because it was coop. I recently played through it again alone and found lacking.
On August 28 2025 19:05 lestye wrote: I played Stormgate for the first time. And I was completely underwhelmed. I really wanted it to succeed because on paper, a synthesis of SC2 and WC3 sounds incredible. I knew it probably wouldnt be as good as those titles but I figured it'd still be solid given it'd be a game from this decade. Unfortunately I don't think I can produce any critique that hasn't been said a thousand times before so I'll leave at that.
With David Kim's project gone, is Dawn of War IV/AoE 4 expansions the last hope for quality RTS?
It honestly depends on what you view as quality RTS. DoW games are super janky in their controls. I would rather micro a bunch of dragoons through a mineral line than to simply tell a big unit to just go somewhere in DoW games. DoW2 is somehow even worse than DoW in that regard.
I think if you go through this thread, there a few more promising titles mentioned. AoE4 and DoW IV are the only ones with a big budget though. That doesn't mean those games are the only hope though. More money just means they have possibilities in certain areas that smaller studios don't have. In most areas that are in my eyes more important to make a great game, e.g. gameplay ideas, art choice, etc., I don't think money solves anything.
I can see a lot of efforts being AI slop for the foreseeable future. I'd be very surprised if people took the time to properly make a RTS from ground zero. Like in the old, legit way. Even if they do, the odds of greatness are pretty slim. Theoretically there is space for something but my expectations are lower than Satan's butthole, and waiting around hoping someone does something for you is weak. THUS... apathy flows in like the blood rivers from The Shining. I'm ready to face-check it in slow-mo. But really, we just have to pass this painful, bloody stool and let enough time go by that things come back around, like in The Time Machine when it's so far into the future that shit has reset and people are living in tents again. The tent people might have something. but probably not
In the meantime I'm still always interested in what people are making, especially smaller groups. I just feel like a lot of efforts fall into the same traps, and many feel more like glorified Risk than an evolution of Blizz RTS.
BTW, wondering what people think about this comment:
On August 30 2025 01:20 qwerty4w wrote: If you make a solid AA-level Blizzard style RTS, like Armies of Exigo, or a great 2D RTS like StarCraft, I think it would likely be well-received in today's market.
As a 2D artist who is currently making RTS-style assets, I do wonder how people feel about 2D. I imagine people like it I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. A better question might be if people would accept flatter lighting, and an art style that might not be their favorite, but to me 2D does look a lot better and is more performative. Maybe TL is not the greatest sample size as we are mostly older, but I still think about this often. The thing about 2D, like a full 2D game that doesn't utilize 3D models at all, is that it can be much more time consuming to go back and change things, especially if it's a core change to the 'model' of the character, or even changes to a walk cycle. For this reason, it'd be overall better to make a game that does not fundamentally change, like Brood War, or Chess, and instead change things like maps to keep the game fresh and balanced. So yeah, another question is if a game that does not fundamentally change much once completed could be attractive, as long as the design is great and the balance is good enough.
On August 30 2025 01:20 qwerty4w wrote: If you make a solid AA-level Blizzard style RTS, like Armies of Exigo, or a great 2D RTS like StarCraft, I think it would likely be well-received in today's market.
As a 2D artist who is currently making RTS-style assets, I do wonder how people feel about 2D. I imagine people like it I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. A better question might be if people would accept flatter lighting, and an art style that might not be their favorite, but to me 2D does look a lot better and is more performative. Maybe TL is not the greatest sample size as we are mostly older, but I still think about this often. The thing about 2D, like a full 2D game that doesn't utilize 3D models at all, is that it can be much more time consuming to go back and change things, especially if it's a core change to the 'model' of the character, or even changes to a walk cycle. For this reason, it'd be overall better to make a game that does not fundamentally change, like Brood War, or Chess, and instead change things like maps to keep the game fresh and balanced. So yeah, another question is if a game that does not fundamentally change much once completed could be attractive, as long as the design is great and the balance is good enough.
I personally have mostly moved on from 2D games. It has to be better than a comparable 3D game to spark my interest. I have nothing inherently against it but the RPG-Maker spam has pushed me away from it. When I see a screenshot I assume the worst and have to be proven it is worth a shot.
On August 30 2025 01:20 qwerty4w wrote: If you make a solid AA-level Blizzard style RTS, like Armies of Exigo, or a great 2D RTS like StarCraft, I think it would likely be well-received in today's market.
As a 2D artist who is currently making RTS-style assets, I do wonder how people feel about 2D. I imagine people like it I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. A better question might be if people would accept flatter lighting, and an art style that might not be their favorite, but to me 2D does look a lot better and is more performative. Maybe TL is not the greatest sample size as we are mostly older, but I still think about this often. The thing about 2D, like a full 2D game that doesn't utilize 3D models at all, is that it can be much more time consuming to go back and change things, especially if it's a core change to the 'model' of the character, or even changes to a walk cycle. For this reason, it'd be overall better to make a game that does not fundamentally change, like Brood War, or Chess, and instead change things like maps to keep the game fresh and balanced. So yeah, another question is if a game that does not fundamentally change much once completed could be attractive, as long as the design is great and the balance is good enough.
I haven't really thought about it in terms of RTS but in general I think 2D does quite well. There are a lot of 2D indie games that were/are very popular. I think it's most often more about the art style than it is about graphics fidelity or 2D/3D. Also, 2D games tend to age much better. The the background art of the old infinity engine games from around 2000 still look absolutely gorgeous.
I also agree on your take that it's much better to make a competetive game that doesn't change itself, but change the rules around it to keep it fresh. Brood War and Chess are great examples and I think a lot of live service games should take a lesson from those.
On August 30 2025 01:20 qwerty4w wrote: If you make a solid AA-level Blizzard style RTS, like Armies of Exigo, or a great 2D RTS like StarCraft, I think it would likely be well-received in today's market.
As a 2D artist who is currently making RTS-style assets, I do wonder how people feel about 2D. I imagine people like it I don't see any reason why they wouldn't. A better question might be if people would accept flatter lighting, and an art style that might not be their favorite, but to me 2D does look a lot better and is more performative. Maybe TL is not the greatest sample size as we are mostly older, but I still think about this often. The thing about 2D, like a full 2D game that doesn't utilize 3D models at all, is that it can be much more time consuming to go back and change things, especially if it's a core change to the 'model' of the character, or even changes to a walk cycle. For this reason, it'd be overall better to make a game that does not fundamentally change, like Brood War, or Chess, and instead change things like maps to keep the game fresh and balanced. So yeah, another question is if a game that does not fundamentally change much once completed could be attractive, as long as the design is great and the balance is good enough.
While it is 8 years old now, Tooth and Tail did kinda prove 2D RTS can still work and for easy readability, 2D has a ton of advantages over 3D.
I generally agree. Yurie I have no idea what RPG-Maker is but it sounds awful, I'm sorry. I have seen a lot of 2D games do well, and they look really good. For RTS, doing the full animations for every unit (walk, death, attack, abilities, etc.) is immense. I was even thinking about how DORF is using some tech so they can tilt their sprites up or down depending on elevation, which is something SC doesn't have. For a full 2D thing, you'd have to go the SC way where it's just 'known' what the elevation is, and the units maintain their orientation. Otherwise you're doing everything three times, which is ridiculous. For my tests I do 8 directional movement, but that's not enough for a real game. In a video you can make it work, but otherwise I feel like you'd need at least 16. The google AI is telling me SC has 32, but it's because they used crude 3D models and then painted on top of them. And I don't think the game actually works in 32 directions, 16 at most. I'm not sure on this one. 16 angles does make sense, but you couldn't draw all that by hand. Not unless you reduced your unique unit count by a lot, or were ok conveyoring out a new asset every 4-6 months (as a solo). But anyway, I do love this idea of a game that doesn't fundamentally change once it's finished. It's way more memorable like that. No games do it because people expect constant new dopamine hits, but the other way is better.
Waiting to see a full DORF game. Curious about any gnarly stuff you can do, or if you run up to the enemy units and fire. It seems like more of a tactical game, which is cool enough. In their most recent vid, "infantry combat" + Show Spoiler +
, i found their lighting a little off-putting. Only slightly though. The muzzle flashes and everything are a bit much. Really don't think you need any of that. Didn't think they needed to go beyond the look of their initial trailer 2 years ago, but i guess devs feel like they have to make things look expensive or people won't like it. But it just ends up being visually noisy and less performative.
If D.O.R.F. ended up a commercial success, I think there's a chance we will see more indie RTS games built upon the GNU-GPL licensed RTS engines in the future, like OpenRA and its D.O.R.F. fork, Spring/Recoil which is Zero-K and Beyond All Reason's engine, C&C Generals' SAGE engine that EA recently made copyleft, Warsmash which is an reimplementation of Warcraft 3's engine.
If you don't need the modern graphical features, making an RTS on an RTS engine is much easier than making one on Unreal or Unity, which requires the developer to write most of the game logic from scratch, that even an AA-level Unreal/Unity game like Tempest Rising or Broken Arrow can lack some of the basic features like replay or save, or lack the optimization needed for moderately high unit counts.
Regarding art style, I think if the RTS developer choose a low detailed style such as Low Poly, making an RTS as feature-rich and content-rich as Warcraft 3 shall also be possible within an AA-level budget.
Apparently many of the biggest FPS titles around PS3/Xbox 360 era cost less than $25 million to make (gamesindustry.biz/rein-puts-dev-cost-for-gears-of-war-at-10m digitalspy.com/videogames/a82352/halo-3-cost-15-million-to-develop gamewatcher.com/news/2008-20-08-crytek-reveals-crysis-cost-at-22-million-cryengine-2-around-2012), Warcraft 3 is about one generation older than Halo 3 and Crysis so probably cost significantly less, it may not even have a high-end AA budget by today's standard adjusted for inflation.
There is a silver lining to the cloud of Stormgate running like garbage. This should steer other RTS developers away from UE5.
Apparently, Dawn of War 4 is running in Unity. C# is its primary scripting language.. its needed for engine integration etc. I've got more than 10,000 hours in C#. C# is very good and has been very good since its birth ~ 2001. Bill Gates might be one of the Lizard Men secretly running the world.. but damn he and M$ did an awesome job leading the creation of C#. I'm a big fan of both C# and Unity.
Unity allows you to manage 87 bazillion objects at near C++ speeds while coding in the safe and cozy C# managed code environment.
"Code in C# because life is too short to code everything in C++"
All this sounds wonderful, however, recent builds of DoW4 are running at 5FPS during heavy battles. Hopefully, King Art Games can improve things.
Sanctuary: Shattered Sun (Supreme Commander FAF like RTS with some binary terraforming) use Unity's DOTS (Data-Oriented Technology Stack) for multithreading. Programming for Unity's DOTS is quite complicated and difficult judging by what I heard, but the game was mostly bottlenecked by its graphical performance according to its developers. They will release a public demo of the game by the end of 2025, perhaps it will have some improvement in this area.
it is hard if you've never done low level programming. if you have a solid all around math/computer science background with a 4 year degree that includes stuff like compiler construction in C++ and encryption algorithms in C++ then DOTS is just another technology stack.
If you took an Avilo style "computer science" degree you'll probably find DOTS tough. If you took a CombatEx type of degree then you'll be fine. Given the level of Avilo's math education i hesitate to label his degree as a "computer science" major.
Put it this way.. once you master DOTS its like you are coding in a high-level, super-easy language like Visual Basic while getting the lightning speed execution performance of well made C++.
They’re very different, albeit overlapping disciplines, game dev is not my particular domain to be fair.
Engine optimisers aren’t going to build you a good game, they’ll facilitate a good game with good design being a good experience for end users.
I’d imagine it can’t be that much more difficult to recruit some engineers particularly au fait with C# or C++, Unity or Unreal, they don’t have to build from scratch with a whole load of systems, but may need to write bespoke optimisations for specific use cases
Stormgate’s number 1 issue is a game design one, not a game engineering one. And they made some problems for themselves in the latter category as well.
There was no need to engineer the game at such a high tick rate other than to claim you have the ‘most responsive RTS ever’, which caused a lot of performance headaches.
They’d have had the exact same problems if they’d decided to go with Unity, or any other engine.
Well no, but you’re talking about Unity being good because C# has certain advantages at ‘near C++ speeds’.
Surely if you hire some crack C++ specialists, UE can be made to be performant?
Personally I don’t think it’s super advantageous to go the UE route in RTS, for a variety of reasons. A lot of the graphical funkiness, I mean it’s just not that relevant to a genre where you’re zoomed out from the action, and high graphical fidelity makes visibility tricky
Interesting thread. Ive worked in game development with published titles for clients like EA and others.
As an RTS fan I have been thinking about this problem recently and have come across some nice opinion pieces on the subject. So, here is some food for thought:
My own opinion is that a large majority of "timeless" RTS titles (Total Annihilation, C&C, StarCraft, Warcraft III) were successful because the game engine technology brought something new and exciting to the table, and there was a sense of magic for the players (myself included). The problem I have with most UE5/Unity RTS games that I have played is that they all feel "muddy" to me, and despite differences in art style the rendering makes every game look pretty much the same.
Thanks for sharing, Myst. I agree. As someone pointed out under one of those articles, it's prolly good to rein in the technical ambition. I wonder too that if you can't build your own unique tools or engine, can you focus on the fun of the game enough, with existing tools, that it doesn't matter? I wonder if ego gets in the way of people just trying to make a thing that's really fun to play. When I think about something I would want to make, ego absolutely does get in the way. And I'm way overly ambitious. I'm not even an engineer. I don't even know one. I feel like it comes from a place of foolishness, and just not knowing what a thing takes, and focusing on the emotion of it. I personally would find it hard to slog through 8-10 years of technical problems for 99.9% of projects. I do absolutely think that you must know what you want to do, and that you must do it, and decide that failure is not an option. I think once you make that decision, nothing is too ambitious. But you must know.
On September 02 2025 04:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Are there any well running RTS games made with UE5?
On September 02 2025 09:31 WombaT wrote: Well no, but you’re talking about Unity being good because C# has certain advantages at ‘near C++ speeds’.
Surely if you hire some crack C++ specialists, UE can be made to be performant?
Personally I don’t think it’s super advantageous to go the UE route in RTS, for a variety of reasons. A lot of the graphical funkiness, I mean it’s just not that relevant to a genre where you’re zoomed out from the action, and high graphical fidelity makes visibility tricky
I think Frost Giant's first move was the biggest mistake. I think trying to make a large scale RTS with 100s of fighting units in UE5 was a big mistake. I think they overestimated themselves. They talked in such giant grandiose terms they talked themselves into thinking they were some kind of giant.... in reality they had yet to release a single piece of software.
Tim Morten keeps making Bobby Kotick look smarter and smarter with each passing month.
Well no, but you’re talking about Unity being good because C# has certain advantages at ‘near C++ speeds’.
Unity has the potential to work well in a large scale RTS scenario. UE5 does not have that potential.
Meanwhile, BAR sets the unit cap per player at a default of 2000 (which can be adjusted with custom settings), and retains performance.
My favorite thing about BAR is the "Flanking Damage" mechanic. If 2 units are attacking a unit from opposite sides, that unit takes twice as much damage from each attacker. In practice this radically increases the possibile outcomes of each engagement.
On September 04 2025 07:43 ThunderJunk wrote: Meanwhile, BAR sets the unit cap per player at a default of 2000 (which can be adjusted with custom settings), and retains performance.
My favorite thing about BAR is the "Flanking Damage" mechanic. If 2 units are attacking a unit from opposite sides, that unit takes twice as much damage from each attacker. In practice this radically increases the possibile outcomes of each engagement.
Yeah, BAR is crazy. 100 player game, every projectile is a physical object taking into account elevation, distance, flanking etc. and it runs well.
In general, you can't trust AAA studios when they say something is "too hard"
Solo dev built a better game in 2 years than AAA studios can do in 5 years with hundreds of devs and unlimited budget.
On September 04 2025 07:43 ThunderJunk wrote: Meanwhile, BAR sets the unit cap per player at a default of 2000 (which can be adjusted with custom settings), and retains performance.
My favorite thing about BAR is the "Flanking Damage" mechanic. If 2 units are attacking a unit from opposite sides, that unit takes twice as much damage from each attacker. In practice this radically increases the possibile outcomes of each engagement.
Yeah, BAR is crazy. 100 player game, every projectile is a physical object taking into account elevation, distance, flanking etc. and it runs well.
In general, you can't trust AAA studios when they say something is "too hard"
On September 04 2025 07:43 ThunderJunk wrote: Meanwhile, BAR sets the unit cap per player at a default of 2000 (which can be adjusted with custom settings), and retains performance.
My favorite thing about BAR is the "Flanking Damage" mechanic. If 2 units are attacking a unit from opposite sides, that unit takes twice as much damage from each attacker. In practice this radically increases the possibile outcomes of each engagement.
Does it work well in practice? Sounds a cool mechanic but I can see it being a bit wonky at the same time depending on the thresholds.
I could see it being a bit chaotic positionally, if you’re slightly off you’re not getting your flank damage, versus being slightly differently positioned by a few ‘pixels’ and it kicks in.
Do you feel they’ve addressed that kind of concern?
Does anyone remember World in Conflict? That game felt so innovative in the way it handled multiplayer (8v8 battles where everyone picks a "class" that gives them a certain type of units to handle). Basically turned Battlefield into a team RTS (including completely destructible terrain/buildings). I'm not saying it was perfect at all, but definitely I think an interesting way of handling RTS multiplayer that might thrive in today's market (team-based games with defined roles for each player). I also loved the way that they set WASD to move the camera around lol.
I feel like 1v1 is just too off-putting to most gamers nowadays, but a team-focused RTS game could possibly find success.
Of course I think indie RTS game's biggest problem is just that most of them are way too derivative and nostalgic (big problem with a lot of the indie game market). Show me something new, not just worst versions of StarCraft or CnC.
On September 04 2025 00:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unity has the potential to work well in a large scale RTS scenario. UE5 does not have that potential.
Tempest Rising uses UE5. It's an RTS with 200 pop cap just like SC2.
you can't play 2v2 with a pop cap of 200 on a machine that costs less than $3000. and when you have a $3000 machine player 2v2 you can heat your home in january with your computer. they have a 2v2 with 100 pop cap mode that can be played on a reasonable machine.
there is no 3v3 or 3v3AI.
UE5 can not run decent scale RTS beyond 1v1 games.
On September 04 2025 07:43 ThunderJunk wrote: Meanwhile, BAR sets the unit cap per player at a default of 2000 (which can be adjusted with custom settings), and retains performance.
My favorite thing about BAR is the "Flanking Damage" mechanic. If 2 units are attacking a unit from opposite sides, that unit takes twice as much damage from each attacker. In practice this radically increases the possibile outcomes of each engagement.
Does it work well in practice? Sounds a cool mechanic but I can see it being a bit wonky at the same time depending on the thresholds.
I could see it being a bit chaotic positionally, if you’re slightly off you’re not getting your flank damage, versus being slightly differently positioned by a few ‘pixels’ and it kicks in.
Do you feel they’ve addressed that kind of concern?
It's continuous. There's no cutoff or breakpoint values. The closer to 180º the attackers are, the closer to 100% extra damage they do. It's very smooth.
I'm not sure about is how flanking damage is applied from bombers. I would guess 150% because they're hitting from above, which is a 90º angle. I don't know whether flanking damage is increased by attackers attacking from elevation. Like, if there's a marginal damage increase if two attackers are attacking at 90º laterally, and also one of them is on a hill, so it ends up being like 100º. I suspect that is indeed how it works, though!
In practice, it feels like every battle is microable, and you're always trying to find ways to get damage from multiple sources from multiple angles. For example, you could have a small cloud of ticks surround a big strong enemy unit, and also have an actual damage dealer attacking it - then that unit will go down way quicker because the ticks activate the flanking damage from all sides, so everything is multiplied by 2.
There's definitely ample chaos in BAR. The fact that you can't just count how many shots it takes to kill something makes it far less predictable, and forces a lot more emergent decision making.
Other cool things: 1) Units that die leave metal behind, which can be reclaimed or in some cases resurrected. The wreckage itself acts like destructible walls that block pathing both of units and attack projectiles. This too leads to emergent decision-making during fights. 2) Metal deposits aren't neatly concentrated in base locations. They're spread all over the map. So raiding and runbys are a defining feature of gameplay in just about every match. 3) Windspeed is variable and partially random, so macro build orders can't be the same every game. Windspeed values are map-dependent. Some maps have more wind, some have less. (If you want macro build orders to be the same every game, you can always play on maps that don't have wind.) 4) Navy and Hovercrafts.
It's a completely different system than Starcraft or any of the Starcraft clones. It's something very special.
The original creator of the RTS engine Spring (Beyond All Reason uses a fork called Recoil) later joined Massive Entertainment and became one of the programmers of World in Conflict.
I think wind is a bit more interesting in Total Annihilation, as it does not only affect energy generation, but also projectile trajectory like in Team17's Worms series.
The original creator of the RTS engine Spring (Beyond All Reason uses a fork called Recoil) later joined Massive Entertainment and became one of the programmers of World in Conflict.
I think wind is a bit more interesting in Total Annihilation, as it does not only affect energy generation, but also projectile trajectory like in Team17's Worms series.
Hard disagree. That's a bad application of RNG imo
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.
On September 02 2025 04:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Are there any well running RTS games made with UE5?
On September 04 2025 00:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unity has the potential to work well in a large scale RTS scenario. UE5 does not have that potential.
Tempest Rising uses UE5. It's an RTS with 200 pop cap just like SC2.
you can't play 2v2 with a pop cap of 200 on a machine that costs less than $3000. and when you have a $3000 machine player 2v2 you can heat your home in january with your computer. they have a 2v2 with 100 pop cap mode that can be played on a reasonable machine.
there is no 3v3 or 3v3AI.
UE5 can not run decent scale RTS beyond 1v1 games.
You're wrong. If it would be impossible they wouldn't do a 2v2 ranked mode. And now introducing 3v3...
There's nothing wrong with talking about the performance of Unreal Engine without talking about the gameplay details of any game.
Tempest Rising has key units with special abilities called specialists. The game had pretty imbalanced multiplayer 2-3 months ago and it was mostly GDF vs GDF, it seems to be in a much better state now. I heard that the multiplayer of early StarCraft without BW was mostly Zerg spamming 2-3 types of units, Tempest Rising at launch can't be worse than that.
On September 02 2025 04:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Are there any well running RTS games made with UE5?
On September 04 2025 00:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unity has the potential to work well in a large scale RTS scenario. UE5 does not have that potential.
Tempest Rising uses UE5. It's an RTS with 200 pop cap just like SC2.
you can't play 2v2 with a pop cap of 200 on a machine that costs less than $3000. and when you have a $3000 machine player 2v2 you can heat your home in january with your computer. they have a 2v2 with 100 pop cap mode that can be played on a reasonable machine.
there is no 3v3 or 3v3AI.
UE5 can not run decent scale RTS beyond 1v1 games.
You're wrong. If it would be impossible they wouldn't do a 2v2 ranked mode. And now introducing 3v3...
This might as well be 1v1, its all just a mirrored blob of units hitting each other. Just 2 blobs i guess. Is that actually the game at its full potential? Are there any special key units? It looks as boring as it gets. Crazy that people are actually talking about performance when the game looks that bad.
Isn't SC2 also just 2 blobs of units hitting each other? How is that different?
Armies in C&C3 are generally more spread out than in Tempest Rising, probably partly due to pathfinding and unit physics and partly due to most vehicles in C&C3 can fire while moving.
On September 05 2025 00:15 Ideas wrote: Does anyone remember World in Conflict? That game felt so innovative in the way it handled multiplayer (8v8 battles where everyone picks a "class" that gives them a certain type of units to handle). Basically turned Battlefield into a team RTS (including completely destructible terrain/buildings). I'm not saying it was perfect at all, but definitely I think an interesting way of handling RTS multiplayer that might thrive in today's market (team-based games with defined roles for each player). I also loved the way that they set WASD to move the camera around lol.
I feel like 1v1 is just too off-putting to most gamers nowadays, but a team-focused RTS game could possibly find success.
Of course I think indie RTS game's biggest problem is just that most of them are way too derivative and nostalgic (big problem with a lot of the indie game market). Show me something new, not just worst versions of StarCraft or CnC.
The game did not age well. Oh boy do the units seem basic af. The campaign is probably the best rts campaign made tho, expecially added with the russian missions.
The problem with group games like that is that it makes match finding really rough. you can easily get stuck with bad teammates and that'll ruin an hour of your life for you. BA is what I think you're looking for but the issue I think is graphics. the standard of graphics today is just way too high for all the units that are needed. BA aparently redid like 80% of its assets to remain on the standard expected of the genre.
Warno and BA are both pretty great I think SD2 was also incredible when it game out and had those big team battles.
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.
Yes, good point. I think it's a perfect thing in like an FPS where your sniper bullet gets pushed around a little by the wind. It's a necessity in a golf simulator.
With multiple battles all over the map, large scale and small scale, accounting for shifting directional windspeed just feels to me like too much.
On September 06 2025 00:43 qwerty4w wrote: Armies in C&C3 are generally more spread out than in Tempest Rising, probably partly due to pathfinding and unit physics and partly due to most vehicles in C&C3 can fire while moving.
I forgot that C&C3 also has a formation system and Tempest Rising doesn't have one. Having useful spread-out formations is probably the most straightforward way to make armies in an RTS more spread out.
go on Twitch and try to find a game of Tempest Rising where 4 players are playing and they have a high unit count. Their "solution" is to create a 100 Pop Cap version of the game to make 2v2 viable. Unit tracking on UE5 does not scale. it fries the CPU.
Bob Fitch's 1997 SC1 Engine > 2025 UE5
i hope that eventually, after many years of trying, someone makes RTS viable on the UE5 engine and then licenses/sells the tech. Perhaps when CPUs are 10X as powerful as they are now UE5 RTS games can be viable on a $1000//4 year old PC the way SC2 was in 2010.
On September 05 2025 21:40 qwerty4w wrote: I heard that the multiplayer of early StarCraft without BW was mostly Zerg spamming 2-3 types of units, Tempest Rising at launch can't be worse than that.
By default, Tempest Rising has a set Population population limit of 200. It limits the maximum number of units the player can have on the map.
As of the Rally & Recon update, the population capacity can be adjusted for skirmish and non-ranked multiplayer games. It can be set from 100 to 500 in increments of 100.
Any 2v2 with 100 pop cap is with custom setting. Tempest Rising's pop cap (which is always displayed on the left of minimap) is per player not per team.
On September 06 2025 00:43 qwerty4w wrote: Armies in C&C3 are generally more spread out than in Tempest Rising, probably partly due to pathfinding and unit physics and partly due to most vehicles in C&C3 can fire while moving.
I forgot that C&C3 also has a formation system and Tempest Rising doesn't have one. Having useful spread-out formations is probably the most straightforward way to make armies in an RTS more spread out.
Personally I think that the best way to do that is to go the DoW/CoH route - purchasing and operating squads instead of single soldiers. It's easier to manage and visually much easier to comprehend.
go on Twitch and try to find a game of Tempest Rising where 4 players are playing and they have a high unit count. Their "solution" is to create a 100 Pop Cap version of the game to make 2v2 viable. Unit tracking on UE5 does not scale. it fries the CPU.
There's 200 pop cap in 2v2. Also, there are units that make other units too (like drone troopers).
Why do you think they would add a 2v2 (and soon 3v3) modes if it wouldn't be feasible? I suspect they know more about the game engine they're using than you do.
All due respect to Wayward, but Tempest Rising doesn't look good at all to me. Modern warfare in general is very hard to pull off for RTS, everything is inherently so generic. Tiberian Sun moved things into the future a bit and was able to be more creative. But yeah, everything is just 2 blobs fighting each other. If the gameplay is run up to the opponent and attack and see who wins, why am I playing this game. I'm in it for the meaningless clicks, the rad designs, the skill and personality expression. All these games just look so ugly and boring.
As an aside, talking about LAN etc. in the other bad Unshipped Games thread: DORF supposedly plans to release with LAN and even a physical copy? Maybe the latter part is attached to their rumored kickstarter, I don't know. But this is good news for DORF fans if it's true. Not just a nostalgia game, but actually doing some things correctly. Still reserving judgment until I play the game of course, but it's a nice detail. Waiting to see a competitive 1v1 match.
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?
Age of Empire 2 and 4 seems to be doing fine.
People say Beyond All Reason is good as well in 1vs1 but I don't play that mode. Also missing match making since it is in Alpha, making it harder to find games. Older in the same genre Supreme Commander Forged Alliance.
Tempest Rising seems to be the only good one released this year.
The reason Tempest Rising's battles look somewhat less dynamic than many other RTS games is probably that units can't stutter step like in Starcraft or Warcraft, neither can they attack while moving (other than vehicles crushing other units), and their average TTK isn't particularly low, lead to less need of frequent repositioning during combats. Still I think some RTS players might prefer to have less frequent repositioning and focus more on using these repositioning well to outcompete the opponent.
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?
Dawn of War got its definitive refurbished edition and people are playing it in anticipation for Dawn of War 4 which is slated to come out soon.
On September 07 2025 17:42 qwerty4w wrote: The reason Tempest Rising's battles look somewhat less dynamic than many other RTS games is probably that units can't stutter step like in Starcraft or Warcraft, neither can they attack while moving (other than vehicles crushing other units), and their average TTK isn't particularly low, lead to less need of frequent repositioning during combats. Still I think some RTS players might prefer to have less frequent repositioning and focus more on using these repositioning well to outcompete the opponent.
I think this is a conscious choice by the devs. It is an interesting one IMO since it means you can't just randomly spam movement, every move has to be deliberate or you'll be missing out on damage in potentially critical engagement. This makes it a bit more strategic since you need to be careful of your positioning and need to micro more potentially (you don't spam orders on a big blob but instead want to reposition only the units that aren't currently engaging the enemy).
Anyway, every RTS will have its unique systems and approaches. In DoW/CoH you have the squads with the cover system, destructible terrain, different armor types (in CoH/DoW2 you can have a million guys with basic guns and you won't be able to dent a vehicle, imagine zerglings or marines not being able to kill siege tanks) etc.
They also have different approaches to micro: SC - stutter-stepping TR - moving selected units and only when necessary CoH - getting into cover/optimal range and staying there (this seems like not much micro but battles there are often taking place all over the map and not in just one place so you need to do a lot of this on different screens)
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?
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.
Hot take but I think more RTS need to release without catering to try and make something into an esport. Not everything neesd to be an esport. I think the focus on these recent big RTS games (Stormgate, Battle Aces and what not) and what's ruined them is their inability to do anything but design games that need to be 100% balanced so their can be tournaments and what not. The more you try and tinker with balance the more likely you get in an endless loop of balancing out anything fun or toning everything down far too much which is eventually what killed SC2 by the time HoTS came out for me. When you start overbalancing everything the factions start losing their differences and the game overall just becomes boring.
Tempest Rising as far as I'm aware was made as a fun game first, much like how Broodwar back in the day was and of all the recent RTS games I've played that's been easily the most fun newer RTS game I've played in forever. Tempest Rising for the most part is hyper traditional as well.
RTS games just need to be fun, if they're fun and people like them; like fighting games eventually people will want to take it more seriously and play more. That shouldn't be the goal from the offset. By making something to try and give birth to an esport you're either going to make the game less fun overall or you're putting all your eggs in a basket that for the most part isn't going to work out. You'll end up wasting a load of money trying to get bigger streamers in the RTS field to play your game and for other reasons as well. Most of the big esports games now were all birthed decades ago; or they're basically copies of something that was birthed decades ago (see League being a clone of DOTA1). None of those games were designed to be played competitively, it just happened in the end as they ended up being good games.
On October 26 2025 18:44 Qikz wrote: Hot take but I think more RTS need to release without catering to try and make something into an esport. Not everything neesd to be an esport. I think the focus on these recent big RTS games (Stormgate, Battle Aces and what not) and what's ruined them is their inability to do anything but design games that need to be 100% balanced so their can be tournaments and what not. The more you try and tinker with balance the more likely you get in an endless loop of balancing out anything fun or toning everything down far too much which is eventually what killed SC2 by the time HoTS came out for me. When you start overbalancing everything the factions start losing their differences and the game overall just becomes boring.
Tempest Rising as far as I'm aware was made as a fun game first, much like how Broodwar back in the day was and of all the recent RTS games I've played that's been easily the most fun newer RTS game I've played in forever. Tempest Rising for the most part is hyper traditional as well.
RTS games just need to be fun, if they're fun and people like them; like fighting games eventually people will want to take it more seriously and play more. That shouldn't be the goal from the offset. By making something to try and give birth to an esport you're either going to make the game less fun overall or you're putting all your eggs in a basket that for the most part isn't going to work out. You'll end up wasting a load of money trying to get bigger streamers in the RTS field to play your game and for other reasons as well. Most of the big esports games now were all birthed decades ago; or they're basically copies of something that was birthed decades ago (see League being a clone of DOTA1). None of those games were designed to be played competitively, it just happened in the end as they ended up being good games.
Brood War was balanced by being imbalanced. Dark Swarm is almost unbeatable, but irradiate is such a bullshit spell that it can kill a lurker in one shot
It creates a situation where everything can feel strong as hell, on both sides of the matchup. Then you discover a way to beat it and crush, until you meet a more skilled guy who feels imba as hell with his counter strategy. Like 973, I can often get way ahead with it vs. my MMR opponents, then I tried vs. Dewalt and he barely made any cannons and I still couldn't quite kill him. Then he plays vs. Koreans that kill him with it because they are even more precise with their timings and micro.
It's like an endless spiral staircase where you re-discover how imbalanced a strategy is and then meet even more skilled opponents who can counter it even better.
On October 26 2025 18:44 Qikz wrote: RTS games just need to be fun, if they're fun and people like them; like fighting games eventually people will want to take it more seriously and play more. That shouldn't be the goal from the offset. By making something to try and give birth to an esport you're either going to make the game less fun overall or you're putting all your eggs in a basket that for the most part isn't going to work out. You'll end up wasting a load of money trying to get bigger streamers in the RTS field to play your game and for other reasons as well. Most of the big esports games now were all birthed decades ago; or they're basically copies of something that was birthed decades ago (see League being a clone of DOTA1). None of those games were designed to be played competitively, it just happened in the end as they ended up being good games.
I think you need to make a game that is great fun and then let the community modify the rules around the game to turn it into a esport if they so choose. Many games made in the 90s have been turned into esports and continue to have a competitive scene around them to this day.
It's true that people have forgotten the most important ingredient. I think the conventional thinking is that RTS has to be huge, and so the production of the genre is gatekept by industry vets with the pedigree to get investment cash, and those people seem to make games that are less fun than the ones people with no experience are making. The way I look at it, a RTS only needs a few things: to be top-down, with an economy aspect and multiple units and, as Qikz puts it, to actually be fun. Everything else is fair game, including ideas that can be tackled by much smaller teams. What you choose to put in or leave out of your game might determine its success but there's no wrong way, and we've seen virtually no real experimentation. Trust me, my dudes, I alone have sketched out a number of concepts people haven't touched yet. Pathways are infinite. We have seen such a small fraction of the potential of RTS, and MOBA too. Some shit will always be carried over from StarCraft and Warcraft, and rightfully so. But just enough to hold the thing together and remind people of what they're playing and what they loved about their childhood. But you backfill that shit with innovations that make the genre more fun to play and give it a much needed coat of paint. The issue, as we've seen, for any number of reasons, is modern efforts not carrying over the correct stuff, or leaving out the good stuff altogether, but also not innovating in ways that make the genre more interesting or, crucially, more fun to play. People are iterating on the hotdog without realizing it. It's like they don't know about all the delicious cuisine that rightfully makes their dick sandwich look like a shitty snack.
On October 26 2025 21:57 RogerChillingworth wrote: The way I look at it, a RTS only needs a few things:
Just to add that I do think a great RTS needs to build its own unique software that makes the special things in the game possible and stand apart. This is just my opinion and I won't declare that not having it means your game sucks. However, I think it's a pretty necessary component to making something special. That said, while it might be hard to find someone capable and willing to do that on a smaller budget, or no budget, it still doesn't require a huge team imo. Maybe brass nuggets and yardstick sauseej tho.
On October 26 2025 16:46 RogerChillingworth wrote: 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 will 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.
RTS had every kind of modification possible. Its all been done in the past. The only modification that worked out was DotA, everything else fizzled away. And im not talking about Mods itself. Developer tried all kind of variations of gameplay
That's not true at all. You have your auto battler, your auto chess, your tower defenses and a whole lot of other stuff who took a part of classical RTS and made a game out of it.
Anyone played the new campaign in stronghold definitive edition?
Already have HD and considering picking it up in Xmas sale but some of the steam reviews say it's a bit rushed, amateurish map design etc.The graphics are a pretty modest improvement for me as in the HD ones are nice enough.
On October 26 2025 18:44 Qikz wrote: Hot take but I think more RTS need to release without catering to try and make something into an esport. Not everything neesd to be an esport. I think the focus on these recent big RTS games (Stormgate, Battle Aces and what not) and what's ruined them is their inability to do anything but design games that need to be 100% balanced so their can be tournaments and what not. The more you try and tinker with balance the more likely you get in an endless loop of balancing out anything fun or toning everything down far too much which is eventually what killed SC2 by the time HoTS came out for me. When you start overbalancing everything the factions start losing their differences and the game overall just becomes boring.
Tempest Rising as far as I'm aware was made as a fun game first, much like how Broodwar back in the day was and of all the recent RTS games I've played that's been easily the most fun newer RTS game I've played in forever. Tempest Rising for the most part is hyper traditional as well.
RTS games just need to be fun, if they're fun and people like them; like fighting games eventually people will want to take it more seriously and play more. That shouldn't be the goal from the offset. By making something to try and give birth to an esport you're either going to make the game less fun overall or you're putting all your eggs in a basket that for the most part isn't going to work out. You'll end up wasting a load of money trying to get bigger streamers in the RTS field to play your game and for other reasons as well. Most of the big esports games now were all birthed decades ago; or they're basically copies of something that was birthed decades ago (see League being a clone of DOTA1). None of those games were designed to be played competitively, it just happened in the end as they ended up being good games.
I think the genre just needs a fresh new take. Sort of what modern DOOM did to the franchise. Potentially mixing it with other genres, doesn't even need to have PvP. Tower defense got a ton of different varieties, same should happen for RTS.
On October 29 2025 02:04 ThunderJunk wrote: Broodwar is the best "classic" rts and it's not even balanced. The best modern rts is Beyond All Reason, and it's not even out of alpha.
i think the best thing to do is let the community balance it for their competitive purposes. a giant publisher of RTS games like Activision ~2010 trying to control every aspect of esports competition would be like the President of the USA picking fights with the mayors of small towns. Or like a human spending an hour of time learning how to better fight an ant.
On October 29 2025 02:04 ThunderJunk wrote: Broodwar is the best "classic" rts and it's not even balanced. The best modern rts is Beyond All Reason, and it's not even out of alpha.
i think the best thing to do is let the community balance it for their competitive purposes. a giant publisher of RTS games like Activision ~2010 trying to control every aspect of esports competition would be like the President of the USA picking fights with the mayors of small towns. Or like a human spending an hour of time learning how to better fight an ant.
If you have one somewhat cohesive community, that broadly agrees on the desirable direction.
Not always the case, and you end up with fragmentation
The biggest eSports scenes are ones where the developer is King as regards balance.
Then below that you’ve some big success stories in terms of a grass roots organisation of tournaments. But to my knowledge they don’t really balance the game, they’ll set certain custom rulesets but they’re not changing the games themselves.
Right, they balance the game with maps and custom rulesets etc.
I am not measuring the competitive events in terms of money. Plenty of great esports experiences occur with abandoned games. If everyone is having a blast I consider the event a success no matter the amount of the prize pool.
There isn’t a one size fits all approach is my point. In a fighting game if some character is super OP, the community can decide to have restrictions or outright ban it for competitions.
On October 31 2025 03:46 WombaT wrote: There isn’t a one size fits all approach is my point. In a fighting game if some character is super OP, the community can decide to have restrictions or outright ban it for competitions.
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.
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.
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
On January 05 2026 01:05 Hider wrote: 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
I would say that Beyond all Reason and the entire Total Annihilation line starts off with slower production than Sc2 but has no ceiling apart from what lags the game due to unit count. Where producing 10 units a second for minutes at a time isn't anything odd in a late game scenario.
Early game unit counts are small and micro is very important. Things stabilize and you tech up where the new units are few and micro of individual units instead of formations matters again. Then you repeat it again as units get many. Then late game when cheap units (since they absorb shots and scout), very expensive or niche ones are the only viable ones.
I think you can have both types of micro in the same game. @Miragee @Hider. I love movers and shooters, which work well in mechanical games where it's a lot just to move units around and macro. I also really like this feeling of being a bit overwhelmed and one choice eliminating another one: intensely microing your shuttle-reaver leaves money piling up at home. You simply cannot visit all your gateways and do this kind of micro at the same time. It's not a requirement that modern games take this tension-based (and friction-based) approach, but if the combat is also overly recognizable and bland, then what are we even doin. The allergy to creating resistance for the player is somewhat understandable, but resistance coupled with joy seems ideal to me.
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
Double post my bad. I think the one addendum to vying for shorter dev cycles would be if you're making a timeless game that will not be patched. Issue here is a lot of people may think they're making a timeless game when they're really making a jump to conclusions mat. But tbh if it's truly one of those unicorn games, then taking 10 years is likely to its benefit. I guess the devs just have to know what they're making.
I also really like this feeling of being a bit overwhelmed and one choice eliminating another one: intensely microing your shuttle-reaver leaves money piling up at home. You simply cannot visit all your gateways and do this kind of micro at the same time.
I agree - I love this feeling as well. I think some RTS developers make a mistake when they try to eliminate this tension in order to lower the skill floor or smooth the learning curve. Multitasking is a core part of competitive RTS, just as aiming is intrinsic to FPS games. Removing it makes the gameplay less interesting.
That said, I would experiment with two design directions:
1. Replace part of the macro burden with a higher micro skill cap and more opportunities for multitask-driven gameplay (relative to SC2). SC2 already has strong micro depth, but I would push it significantly further. Many of the newer RTS games simplify macro through QoL changes while simultaneously reducing movement speed/increasing lethality and failing to introduce new, interesting micro interactions. The result is a lower mechanical skill ceiling - and, ultimately, less engaging gameplay.
2. Make multitasking suboptimal for beginners. New players shouldn’t be forced into multitask-heavy play to be effective. Instead, the optimal early experience should involve controlling a single army, spending 95%+ of camera time watching and maneuvering it. As players improve, it should gradually become optimal to split that army into multiple groups, naturally introducing multitasking as a reward for skill growth rather than a barrier to entry.
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
5 years ago getting funding was probably easier though so they may have had a better chance at a releasing a more fleshed out product. But I still don't think it would have been a success.
As a general rule: If you can't make a short youtube montage video that immediately appeals to the target audience - the game can't lure them in (and the skillcap is also likely to be boring). Zerospace, Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Battle Aces all failed this test. Starcraft 2 - as flawed as it is - is still more exciting.
Sometimes I watch NBA highlights or watch Messi do crazy shit. That motivates me and makes me want to to play these sports. It's the same concept with competitive games. It boggles my mind that all these game devs don't understand this concept - and instead focus on stuff that relatively speaking doesn't matter.
Factions, team-modes, map-design, lore, unit-count doesn't matter if the skillcap is boring.
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
5 years ago getting funding was probably easier though so they may have had a better chance at a releasing a more fleshed out product. But I still don't think it would have been a success.
As a general rule: If you can't make a short youtube montage video that immediately appeals to the target audience - the game can't lure them in (and the skillcap is also likely to be boring). Zerospace, Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Battle Aces all failed this test. Starcraft 2 - as flawed as it is - is still more exciting.
Sometimes I watch NBA highlights or watch Messi do crazy shit. That motivates me and makes me want to to play these sports. It's the same concept with competitive games. It boggles my mind that all these game devs don't understand this concept - and instead focus on stuff that relatively speaking doesn't matter.
Factions, team-modes, map-design, lore, unit-count doesn't matter if the skillcap is boring.
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
5 years ago getting funding was probably easier though so they may have had a better chance at a releasing a more fleshed out product. But I still don't think it would have been a success.
As a general rule: If you can't make a short youtube montage video that immediately appeals to the target audience - the game can't lure them in (and the skillcap is also likely to be boring). Zerospace, Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Battle Aces all failed this test. Starcraft 2 - as flawed as it is - is still more exciting.
Sometimes I watch NBA highlights or watch Messi do crazy shit. That motivates me and makes me want to to play these sports. It's the same concept with competitive games. It boggles my mind that all these game devs don't understand this concept - and instead focus on stuff that relatively speaking doesn't matter.
Factions, team-modes, map-design, lore, unit-count doesn't matter if the skillcap is boring.
Starcraft 2 is flawed? Compared to what?
Compared to what the RTS genre can be. Relatively speaking still better than other RTS games - and that's kinda my point. Huge room for improvement but instead the other games focus on the wrong parts.
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
5 years ago getting funding was probably easier though so they may have had a better chance at a releasing a more fleshed out product. But I still don't think it would have been a success.
As a general rule: If you can't make a short youtube montage video that immediately appeals to the target audience - the game can't lure them in (and the skillcap is also likely to be boring). Zerospace, Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Battle Aces all failed this test. Starcraft 2 - as flawed as it is - is still more exciting.
Sometimes I watch NBA highlights or watch Messi do crazy shit. That motivates me and makes me want to to play these sports. It's the same concept with competitive games. It boggles my mind that all these game devs don't understand this concept - and instead focus on stuff that relatively speaking doesn't matter.
Factions, team-modes, map-design, lore, unit-count doesn't matter if the skillcap is boring.
Starcraft 2 is flawed? Compared to what?
Compared to what the RTS genre can be. Relatively speaking still better than other RTS games - and that's kinda my point. Huge room for improvement but instead the other games focus on the wrong parts.
Oh, so its 100% hypothetical and not realizable. Odd how you treat your opinion as a fact
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
5 years ago getting funding was probably easier though so they may have had a better chance at a releasing a more fleshed out product. But I still don't think it would have been a success.
As a general rule: If you can't make a short youtube montage video that immediately appeals to the target audience - the game can't lure them in (and the skillcap is also likely to be boring). Zerospace, Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Battle Aces all failed this test. Starcraft 2 - as flawed as it is - is still more exciting.
Sometimes I watch NBA highlights or watch Messi do crazy shit. That motivates me and makes me want to to play these sports. It's the same concept with competitive games. It boggles my mind that all these game devs don't understand this concept - and instead focus on stuff that relatively speaking doesn't matter.
Factions, team-modes, map-design, lore, unit-count doesn't matter if the skillcap is boring.
Starcraft 2 is flawed? Compared to what?
Compared to what the RTS genre can be. Relatively speaking still better than other RTS games - and that's kinda my point. Huge room for improvement but instead the other games focus on the wrong parts.
Oh, so its 100% hypothetical and not realizable. Odd how you treat your opinion as a fact
What's not realizable? They haven't been realized yet - that's my point. RTS genre has a huge potential because there are many angles/mechanics/approaches that haven't been explored.
Starcraft 2 is not a flawed game? It has no flaws?
I wrote many opinions in my last few comments. I would expect 'starcraft 2 is flawed game' to be one of the lesser controversial statements I made - never heard from any Starcraft 2 fan before that it wasn't.. Do you want me to preface everything I write with "this is my opinion".
Are you actually being interested in RTS game-design discussions? Because beware they do involve opinions.
That said, I would experiment with two design directions:
1. Replace part of the macro burden with a higher micro skill cap and more opportunities for multitask-driven gameplay (relative to SC2). SC2 already has strong micro depth, but I would push it significantly further. Many of the newer RTS games simplify macro through QoL changes while simultaneously reducing movement speed/increasing lethality and failing to introduce new, interesting micro interactions. The result is a lower mechanical skill ceiling - and, ultimately, less engaging gameplay.
2. Make multitasking suboptimal for beginners. New players shouldn’t be forced into multitask-heavy play to be effective. Instead, the optimal early experience should involve controlling a single army, spending 95%+ of camera time watching and maneuvering it. As players improve, it should gradually become optimal to split that army into multiple groups, naturally introducing multitasking as a reward for skill growth rather than a barrier to entry.
I would hesitate to spend too much energy building bumpers for noobs in 1v1, outside of things that make the game more fun for everyone. Heroes of the Storm does it so well, in that the start of the game is not punishing at all and the cost of mistakes builds as the game goes on. I said as much in the tower rushing thread ^^. People who want to learn multitasking and become faster will do it, and it will come from inside. No amount of hand-holding or overly-accommodating design will help.
Anecdotally, I self-taught StarCraft 2 after some years playing DotA because I was driven to learn and was inspired by the pros. I feel like the individual has to want to not suck, and have some motivation around that. If the game accommodates the player with the motivation to improve, that is ideal.
edit: there are so many modes and potential RTS directions that would be very casual friendly, and you can tutorialize those, such as campaign, 2v2, co-op, etc. I'm strictly talking about 1v1. edit: NINJA DELETEd BAD PARTS ugghh edit: edit
In general I think the key point is shorter dev cycles and stronger focus. No doubt 10 years ago, the Immortal Gates of Pyre premise was sweet. And if they had released 6 years ago, would have been really cool. But as things drag on, interests and expectations change.
5 years ago getting funding was probably easier though so they may have had a better chance at a releasing a more fleshed out product. But I still don't think it would have been a success.
As a general rule: If you can't make a short youtube montage video that immediately appeals to the target audience - the game can't lure them in (and the skillcap is also likely to be boring). Zerospace, Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Battle Aces all failed this test. Starcraft 2 - as flawed as it is - is still more exciting.
Sometimes I watch NBA highlights or watch Messi do crazy shit. That motivates me and makes me want to to play these sports. It's the same concept with competitive games. It boggles my mind that all these game devs don't understand this concept - and instead focus on stuff that relatively speaking doesn't matter.
Factions, team-modes, map-design, lore, unit-count doesn't matter if the skillcap is boring.
Starcraft 2 is flawed? Compared to what?
Compared to what the RTS genre can be. Relatively speaking still better than other RTS games - and that's kinda my point. Huge room for improvement but instead the other games focus on the wrong parts.
Oh, so its 100% hypothetical and not realizable. Odd how you treat your opinion as a fact
What's not realizable? They haven't been realized yet - that's my point. RTS genre has a huge potential because there are many angles/mechanics/approaches that haven't been explored.
Starcraft 2 is not a flawed game? It has no flaws?
I wrote many opinions in my last few comments. I would expect 'starcraft 2 is flawed game' to be one of the lesser controversial statements I made - never heard from any Starcraft 2 fan before that it wasn't.. Do you want me to preface everything I write with "this is my opinion".
Are you actually being interested in RTS game-design discussions? Because beware they do involve opinions.
RTS doesnt have huge potential. If it would have huge potential, any other company would have picked up RTS. But they didnt. Instead they developed Shooter, Battle Royal, Moba, Open World garbage, They tried MMORPG, but failed.
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.
I thought Immortal Gates of Pyre was dead month ago?! I had this game in my steam wishlist forever and occasionally I check up on games. The steam site of this was deader than dead last check up
Holy...lol. That's a lot of RTS. Something about lining them all up like that is rlly funny.
Some look pretty darn cool. Been following DORF closely but can't say I'm like mega hyped for the whole "dig trenches and build walls" thing. I'm also not much of a base builder but don't wanna be too negative. Still stoked to give it a shot and think it'll do well.
A couple that caught my eye were Fleetbreakers and Counter Clash. Some of the others look beyond butt fugly and I love it. It's like Be Kind Rewind. You can tell people love the genre.
EPT
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