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Keep "my game is better than yours"-slapfights out of this. If the discussion devolves into simple bashing, this thread will be closed. |
4713 Posts
I don't think you can remove RTS elements like base management, economical management and unit production without removing a core piece of what gives RTS games their identity.
I wrote a long blog about this about a year ago but I'll just go ahead and restate the main idea. RTS means real time strategy, most people figure it means managing your resources, bases and army, what people don't factor in a lot of times properly is the real time aspect of it. What I'm getting at is RTS games implies managing your time and resources in a strategical and tactical way.
Its not just about, do I chose to make X unit over Y unit at Z time, its, do I chose to micro now or macro?
If you dumb down or remove the economy and base building/management aspects you remove depth by having one less subset of meaningful tasks to have to juggle and chose from at any given time. If you do this you better as hell make micro and multi-tasking a lot more exciting in other areas, which is still tough and again raises the ceiling, making it hard for casuals to get in.
You have games like Star Wars: Empire at War, as examples of removing the economy having a overall negative aspect on the gameplay. The space and land battles look fun and exciting, but they don't really have a long lasting impact due to the lack of depth to keep you sucked in.
You could say try to accelerate the initial base building aspect, but that also adds its own set of complications, as SC2 revealed. If you compress the base building part without offering proper scouting options then you risk having all-ins be too strong because there isn't enough time to react to one if you see it too late. At the same time if you make scouting too easy the game becomes shallower because you're destroying another key aspect of RTS.
So, no matter how you slice it, RTS games are going to have to be in a certain way. I don't see how you can succesfuly combine MoBA elements with RTS elements without severely dumbing down aspects that are fun in both.
Edit: Also, coming from a long time RTS player. MoBA's have a huge amount of strategic depth, right from the drafting stage.
First you have several viable strategies, straight up ganking style designed to get kills early and snowball.
There are pushing styles designed to destroy towers super quickly and use the farm advantage to either secure the win or head into the mid game with a huge advantage.
You have splitpush strats designed to stretch the enemy's resources super thin to the point you can easily pick them off and win convicing fights.
There are straight up teamfight styles designed to convicingly win 5 vs 5 fights and use those advantages to secure objectives.
You have late game oriented lineups designed purely to survive until heroes reach their full potential.
How have a vast array of heroes able to achieve those rolles with unique interractions between each other, and its up to the teams to determine the best heroes to pick and ban in order to either, build a strong composition of their own, while preventing the opponents from countering them efficiently or just straight up throwing a wrench into their works.
Then in game you have the choices of how to allocate farm, at any given moment to all the members. Time management is important, because there are a lot of resources on the map in the form of a big jungle, several lanes and game changing strong monsters, and you need to figure out where best to have your heroes at any given time, not only to farm but to protect each other or to secure kills on the other teams. You need to determine the best times to rotate in and out. Then there is the vast choice of which items to get at any given time or situation depending on your team comp and the enemy team comp.
There are a ton of parallels you can draw to RTS, but where as in RTS the resource allocation and unit management efficiency is determined by the player's multi-tasking and mechanics in a MoBA those are determined by a team's coordination and communication.
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Northern Ireland25585 Posts
The future of gaming for me will be a period where the death of genres and the supremacy of others isn't constantly proclaimed.
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RTS needs to find easier ways to control units and build bases.
People dont like to watch simulations of one player building up somr timing for 10mins. They want to see the actual timing and play it themselves. Without having to train macro for some weeks first.
From clunky selection boxing to having to select buildings and pressing multiple hotkeys just to start production of something that you wont have for another minute... the actual controls and gameplay mechanics are way too complicated for your average player that just wants to let off some steam after work or fool around "with that unit/strategy".
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On May 14 2014 06:39 aRyuujin wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2014 05:21 Cheren wrote:
It's a little strange that Dota's learning curve has lead multiple companies to make easier-to-learn versions (I'm not sure LoL is "easier" at a high level with how far Koreans have pushed the skill cap) like LoL, Smite, Dawngate, Heroes of the Storm, Infinite Crisis, etc., but no one's tried to make a Starcraft clone with an easier learning curve.
I'm not sure how you'd make an RTS with an easier learning curve, I'm just surprised it hasn't been attempted. easier starcraft sounds a lot like sc2. I think that one of the things that draws people to RTS is the difficulty and the skill required to play, which is why even the "easy" starcraft game (sc2) is still incredibly hard
Former diamond SC2 player here.
For me element that draw me to SC2 was strategic aspect - which is non existant in SC2, mind you.
Unfortunately RTS is a really wrong term to name this kind of games.
First and foremost these are dexterity based games. You don't strategically think for most of the time playing this game, the most important part in SC2 is mechanical grind and dexterity of your palms. Look at all those high level player posts: "just do as much units as u can and steamroll opponent by 1a moving" There is no strategical thinking involved, only painful and relentless mechanical excercise; in SC2 for the most part win those players who are mechanically better, not the ones that outsmart opponent.
(this explains why SC2 was such a hot thing in beta, when nothing was figured out so strategy really played big part - TLO brilliant beta games for example).
There is little room for creative play, game is figured out and you just have to learn how to counter enemy - there is no place for strategy.
On the contrary to what original poster said MOBA games are much more about strategy than SC2.
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Northern Ireland25585 Posts
I think what you refer to is the ability to improvise and show strategical brilliance on the fly, which I agree is hard to do in SC2, or indeed most other games of this type.
An intelligent or innovative style or use of units is pretty easy to replicate once the cat is out of the bag. There is plenty of strategy in SC2, but I do agree having more of those eureka moments of improvisational genius (or at least feeling that way) is missing from most players experiences.
I'm not sure how long you can sustain a game that enables such moments if you have a few hundred guys playing professionally worldwide and many more streaming at levels below that.
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4713 Posts
On May 14 2014 07:12 Embir wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2014 06:39 aRyuujin wrote:On May 14 2014 05:21 Cheren wrote:
It's a little strange that Dota's learning curve has lead multiple companies to make easier-to-learn versions (I'm not sure LoL is "easier" at a high level with how far Koreans have pushed the skill cap) like LoL, Smite, Dawngate, Heroes of the Storm, Infinite Crisis, etc., but no one's tried to make a Starcraft clone with an easier learning curve.
I'm not sure how you'd make an RTS with an easier learning curve, I'm just surprised it hasn't been attempted. easier starcraft sounds a lot like sc2. I think that one of the things that draws people to RTS is the difficulty and the skill required to play, which is why even the "easy" starcraft game (sc2) is still incredibly hard Former diamond SC2 player here. For me element that draw me to SC2 was strategic aspect - which is non existant in SC2, mind you. Unfortunately RTS is a really wrong term to name this kind of games. First and foremost these are dexterity based games. You don't strategically think for most of the time playing this game, the most important part in SC2 is mechanical grind and dexterity of your palms. Look at all those high level player posts: "just do as much units as u can and steamroll opponent by 1a moving" There is no strategical thinking involved, only painful and relentless mechanical excercise; in SC2 for the most part win those players who are mechanically better, not the ones that outsmart opponent. (this explains why SC2 was such a hot thing in beta, when nothing was figured out so strategy really played big part - TLO brilliant beta games for example). There is little room for creative play, game is figured out and you just have to learn how to counter enemy - there is no place for strategy. On the contrary to what original poster said MOBA games are much more about strategy than SC2.
Bullshit. Real time strategy game means allocating your attention as a resource, it means choosing between macro and micro at times, choosing where to micro harder and where to just leave units on to their own devices. I'd argue the so called "lack of strategic depth" you are getting at is the lack of viability of certain unit comps in the game of certain strategic/tactical choices being better in certain situations, leading to some standardization.
But here is a reality check, there will always be a certain level of automation and standardization, thats just how it works, you can't remove that, the best you can do is just make as many options available and equal to each other.
The brilliance of RTS games is the juggling of all the different tasks in the most efficient way, while great macro, micro or multi-tasking are impressive on their own it is the combination of all those at the same time, that makes some players truly impressive. How under duress some players can still have perfect macro, how even taken aback some people still have insane battle management, how some people can just be in so many places at the same time efficiently.
And if all those are not impressive I'd say its the micro or macro aspects that are lacking sufficient depth due to game flaws, not due to a inherent flaw in the concepts of micro or macro themselves.
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I'm not sure how you'd make an RTS with an easier learning curve, I'm just surprised it hasn't been attempted. Well, WC3 is a pretty fuckin easy game, and then if you compare SC2 to BW... nuff said. It has been attempted repeatedly.
For me element that draw me to SC2 was strategic aspect - which is non existant in SC2, mind you.
Unfortunately RTS is a really wrong term to name this kind of games.
First and foremost these are dexterity based games. You don't strategically think for most of the time playing this game, the most important part in SC2 is mechanical grind and dexterity of your palms. Look at all those high level player posts: "just do as much units as u can and steamroll opponent by 1a moving" There is no strategical thinking involved, only painful and relentless mechanical excercise; in SC2 for the most part win those players who are mechanically better, not the ones that outsmart opponent.
(this explains why SC2 was such a hot thing in beta, when nothing was figured out so strategy really played big part - TLO brilliant beta games for example).
There is little room for creative play, game is figured out and you just have to learn how to counter enemy - there is no place for strategy.
MOBA + RTS is War3. Macro isn't a thing in that game. Warcraft 4 could be huge if it came out now, but the days of Blizzard innovating and releasing high quality games are a decade past.
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Age of Empires 4
One can only hope 
And Blizzard should really advertise that its F2P, most Casuals only play team games, which is essentially free.
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Northern Ireland25585 Posts
I'd argue against WC3 being an easy game, at least when you went up against others. The macro is easier granted, but they at least added other mechanics that added real depth to the game. Loved that shit
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On May 14 2014 07:21 Destructicon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2014 07:12 Embir wrote:On May 14 2014 06:39 aRyuujin wrote:On May 14 2014 05:21 Cheren wrote:
It's a little strange that Dota's learning curve has lead multiple companies to make easier-to-learn versions (I'm not sure LoL is "easier" at a high level with how far Koreans have pushed the skill cap) like LoL, Smite, Dawngate, Heroes of the Storm, Infinite Crisis, etc., but no one's tried to make a Starcraft clone with an easier learning curve.
I'm not sure how you'd make an RTS with an easier learning curve, I'm just surprised it hasn't been attempted. easier starcraft sounds a lot like sc2. I think that one of the things that draws people to RTS is the difficulty and the skill required to play, which is why even the "easy" starcraft game (sc2) is still incredibly hard Former diamond SC2 player here. For me element that draw me to SC2 was strategic aspect - which is non existant in SC2, mind you. Unfortunately RTS is a really wrong term to name this kind of games. First and foremost these are dexterity based games. You don't strategically think for most of the time playing this game, the most important part in SC2 is mechanical grind and dexterity of your palms. Look at all those high level player posts: "just do as much units as u can and steamroll opponent by 1a moving" There is no strategical thinking involved, only painful and relentless mechanical excercise; in SC2 for the most part win those players who are mechanically better, not the ones that outsmart opponent. (this explains why SC2 was such a hot thing in beta, when nothing was figured out so strategy really played big part - TLO brilliant beta games for example). There is little room for creative play, game is figured out and you just have to learn how to counter enemy - there is no place for strategy. On the contrary to what original poster said MOBA games are much more about strategy than SC2. Bullshit. Real time strategy game means allocating your attention as a resource, it means choosing between macro and micro at times, choosing where to micro harder and where to just leave units on to their own devices. I'd argue the so called "lack of strategic depth" you are getting at is the lack of viability of certain unit comps in the game of certain strategic/tactical choices being better in certain situations, leading to some standardization. But here is a reality check, there will always be a certain level of automation and standardization, thats just how it works, you can't remove that, the best you can do is just make as many options available and equal to each other. The brilliance of RTS games is the juggling of all the different tasks in the most efficient way, while great macro, micro or multi-tasking are impressive on their own it is the combination of all those at the same time, that makes some players truly impressive. How under duress some players can still have perfect macro, how even taken aback some people still have insane battle management, how some people can just be in so many places at the same time efficiently.And if all those are not impressive I'd say its the micro or macro aspects that are lacking sufficient depth due to game flaws, not due to a inherent flaw in the concepts of micro or macro themselves.
Only somewhat strategical match up in SC2 was TvT.
Bolded part of your post is exactly what i was talking about. It is not about strategy. It is about grinding and excercising, just like with playing piano.
Second, I wasn't talking if SC2 as e-sport is impressive or not, I was talking about SC2 not being strategy game, because it is not.
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Northern Ireland25585 Posts
On May 14 2014 05:28 plogamer wrote:
I usually watch Starcraft 2. But this one time I was watching Dota 2, someone in my family noted that the casting had improved. So sad.
Starcraft 2 casting is often times like listening to a golf game or test cricket match. Ugh.
Improved in what sense? Also Test Cricket is the shit man
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4713 Posts
On May 14 2014 07:42 Embir wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2014 07:21 Destructicon wrote:On May 14 2014 07:12 Embir wrote:On May 14 2014 06:39 aRyuujin wrote:On May 14 2014 05:21 Cheren wrote:
It's a little strange that Dota's learning curve has lead multiple companies to make easier-to-learn versions (I'm not sure LoL is "easier" at a high level with how far Koreans have pushed the skill cap) like LoL, Smite, Dawngate, Heroes of the Storm, Infinite Crisis, etc., but no one's tried to make a Starcraft clone with an easier learning curve.
I'm not sure how you'd make an RTS with an easier learning curve, I'm just surprised it hasn't been attempted. easier starcraft sounds a lot like sc2. I think that one of the things that draws people to RTS is the difficulty and the skill required to play, which is why even the "easy" starcraft game (sc2) is still incredibly hard Former diamond SC2 player here. For me element that draw me to SC2 was strategic aspect - which is non existant in SC2, mind you. Unfortunately RTS is a really wrong term to name this kind of games. First and foremost these are dexterity based games. You don't strategically think for most of the time playing this game, the most important part in SC2 is mechanical grind and dexterity of your palms. Look at all those high level player posts: "just do as much units as u can and steamroll opponent by 1a moving" There is no strategical thinking involved, only painful and relentless mechanical excercise; in SC2 for the most part win those players who are mechanically better, not the ones that outsmart opponent. (this explains why SC2 was such a hot thing in beta, when nothing was figured out so strategy really played big part - TLO brilliant beta games for example). There is little room for creative play, game is figured out and you just have to learn how to counter enemy - there is no place for strategy. On the contrary to what original poster said MOBA games are much more about strategy than SC2. Bullshit. Real time strategy game means allocating your attention as a resource, it means choosing between macro and micro at times, choosing where to micro harder and where to just leave units on to their own devices. I'd argue the so called "lack of strategic depth" you are getting at is the lack of viability of certain unit comps in the game of certain strategic/tactical choices being better in certain situations, leading to some standardization. But here is a reality check, there will always be a certain level of automation and standardization, thats just how it works, you can't remove that, the best you can do is just make as many options available and equal to each other. The brilliance of RTS games is the juggling of all the different tasks in the most efficient way, while great macro, micro or multi-tasking are impressive on their own it is the combination of all those at the same time, that makes some players truly impressive. How under duress some players can still have perfect macro, how even taken aback some people still have insane battle management, how some people can just be in so many places at the same time efficiently.And if all those are not impressive I'd say its the micro or macro aspects that are lacking sufficient depth due to game flaws, not due to a inherent flaw in the concepts of micro or macro themselves. Only somewhat strategical match up in SC2 was TvT. Bolded part of your post is exactly what i was talking about. It is not about strategy. It is about grinding and excercising, just like with playing piano. Second, I wasn't talking if SC2 as e-sport is impressive or not, I was talking about SC2 not being strategy game, because it is not.
No, it is a strategy game, because the strategy comes in how you manage your time, multi-tasking between micro and macro and even between the different aspects of micro and macro requires as much strategy and decision making as it requires raw mechanical skill.
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I know its been said already but yeah, your game idea is definitely Nexus Wars.
I'm not convinced thats the answer
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MarineKingPrime - an excellent example of a guy with brilliant micro, macro, and multitasking who is horrible at SC2. He has some of the worst strategic decision making I've seen in the game.
Losira - insane APM. Sucks.
This game requires APM, that's for sure. But at the highest level of APM, strategy plays a HUGE factor.
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Northern Ireland25585 Posts
Let's not overstate things, MKP and Losira don't 'suck' at the game, although MKP at his most brainless is painful to watch sometimes
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The day RTS games with heroes become the only RTS games on the market is the day I stop playing the RTS genre.
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This opinion will be incredible unpopular especially on TL.net and this account will be branded for life for posting this but it's the truth - deal with it 
I think RTSs need some kind of reboot to get popular again. Back to the basics!
There I said it. That word has been used to death in marketing but it would help to revive the genre as a whole and introduce a new generation of players to it.
SC2 is actually already a pretty basic oldschool RTS mechanically but competitive play and "innovative" singleplayer has pushed it so far from the humble beginnings in the 90's that I see SC2 like a completely other game than, let's say, the original C&C from 1995 although it's the same setup. It's like a different genre with the same mechanics.
Everything has been abstracted, twisted or diversified that the original RTS part of it feels almost like a small fraction. And that's just Starcraft - I didn't even mention the competition like Companys of Heroes which has almost no resembleance to it's ancestors.
Why did we fell in love with RTSs back in the day?
Because it's incredible cool to create an army - your army - and then command it like the literal armchair general. And not like those boring turn-based wargames from the 80's but real-time thus action-packed!
Simple things like building your base, expanding and creating your dudes has to be made fun again! Today that's the lame "work" part but back in the day even this phase was already rewarding. Maybe because you didn't had to think so much about scouting etc. but actually could just enjoy creating your army composition. Gather resources, build your stuff, command it in battle. That already was the all the fun. Not: thinking about information, mindgames, damage types, asynchronous unit balance etc. etc. that all take you away from the basic RTS experience.
YET hero units probably have to stay to make RTSs attractive for new players. Hero units act like the red line to guide you through the game. There are endless possibilities to play, win and lose a game of SC2 and that's taxing for a lot of players. "When should I attack and when defend?" etc.
Because you can always do something with your hero unit it easier to come up with gameplans on the fly for inexperienced players. Also players like to have some kind of ingame avatar.
How can you design a game this way and still make it deep and interesting for the competitive crowd? I've got no idea, I'm no RTS game designer, but there are games with far more simpler mechanics that are still played like sports.
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rts games were never mass produced to begin with.
On May 14 2014 08:17 shin ken wrote:This opinion will be incredible unpopular especially on TL.net and this account will be branded for life for posting this but it's the truth - deal with it I think RTSs need some kind of reboot to get popular again. Back to the basics! There I said it. That word has been used to death in marketing but it would help to revive the genre as a whole and introduce a new generation of players to it. SC2 is actually already a pretty basic oldschool RTS mechanically but competitive play and "innovative" singleplayer has pushed it so far from the humble beginnings in the 90's that I see SC2 like a completely other game than, let's say, the original C&C from 1995 although it's the same setup. It's like a different genre with the same mechanics. Everything has been abstracted, twisted or diversified that the original RTS part of it feels almost like a small fraction. And that's just Starcraft - I didn't even mention the competition like Companys of Heroes which has almost no resembleance to it's ancestors. Why did we fell in love with RTSs back in the day? Because it's incredible cool to create an army - your army - and then command it like the literal armchair general. And not like those boring turn-based wargames from the 80's but real-time thus action-packed! Simple things like building your base, expanding and creating your dudes has to be made fun again! Today that's the lame "work" part but back in the day even this phase was already rewarding. Maybe because you didn't had to think so much about scouting etc. but actually could just enjoy creating your army composition. Gather resources, build your stuff, command it in battle. That already was the all the fun. Not: thinking about information, mindgames, damage types, asynchronous unit balance etc. etc. that all take you away from the basic RTS experience. YET hero units probably have to stay to make RTSs attractive for new players. Hero units act like the red line to guide you through the game. There are endless possibilities to play, win and lose a game of SC2 and that's taxing for a lot of players. "When should I attack and when defend?" etc. Because you can always do something with your hero unit it easier to come up with gameplans on the fly for inexperienced players. Also players like to have some kind of ingame avatar. How can you design a game this way and still make it deep and interesting for the competitive crowd? I've got no idea, I'm no RTS game designer, but there are games with far more simpler mechanics that are still played like sports.
it will always be a niche market accept it. the craze is cellphone games or in other words, casual games. Things you can get in and out of quickly. competitive gaming is a completely different breed and should be accepted as such. That's why adding such friendly U.I.'s is hogwash.
On May 14 2014 08:15 Pontius Pirate wrote:
The day RTS games with heroes become the only RTS games on the market is the day I stop playing the RTS genre.
people keep bringing up the notion of heroes. we've already seen it in such games like WCIII.
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I know this is the SC2 forum, but I'd love to hear from the MOBA players.
How would you feel playing LoL or Dota controlling 3 units instead of one?
Would that enhance the game for you?
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Northern Ireland25585 Posts
Ken did you ever consider that perhaps it was more fun because of novelty, or indeed your age that just building armies and stuff was fun and engaging for you then?
I think I was 8 when BW came out, so surviving a BGH 3v3 and getting Carriers out was cool as fuck in a way NO game can really replicate for me as a (relatively) mature adult.
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EPT
