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The future of RTS games - Page 48

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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.
LittleRagey
Profile Joined August 2011
United States24 Posts
May 28 2014 10:07 GMT
#941
You're not using the term "casual" correctly. See, a casual is someone who does not take a game seriously. They play the game to have fun, and whether they get better, win, or go anywhere with the game does not matter to them. Changing the fundamentals of a game will affect both casual players, and hardcore players.What I'm saying is that casuals and hardcore players' opinions should both be considered on this matter.
urboss
Profile Joined September 2013
Austria1223 Posts
May 28 2014 10:27 GMT
#942
We are talking about creating a new game here.
It's not like the terms "RTS and "MOBA" are protected trademarks or holy grails that cannot be touched.

If you ask the average person on TL how to improve the RTS genre, he will suggest you some tiny tweaks on the existing game SC2.

If you want to create a new game that transforms the genre, most people on TL do have a view that is too narrow, because they only know the reality of their own game.
ETisME
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
12889 Posts
May 28 2014 10:31 GMT
#943
On May 28 2014 19:27 urboss wrote:
We are talking about creating a new game here.
It's not like the terms "RTS and "MOBA" are protected trademarks or holy grails that cannot be touched.

If you ask the average person on TL how to improve the RTS genre, he will suggest you some tiny tweaks on the existing game SC2.

If you want to create a new game that transforms the genre, most people on TL do have a view that is too narrow, because they only know the reality of their own game.

I believe the genre is poorly defined, similar to rpg and arpg.
其疾如风,其徐如林,侵掠如火,不动如山,难知如阴,动如雷震。
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland27463 Posts
May 28 2014 13:37 GMT
#944
It's pretty clear what defines an RTS I thought, or to draw a distinction for clarity's sake 'classic RTS'.

1. Some kind of economy management and production.
2. Some kind of teching progression.
3. Some way to manually control your forces.

Sub-genres include Real-Time Tactical games which remove 1+2 in favour of 3, like Bungie's fantastic Myth series.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
TL+ Member
ETisME
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
12889 Posts
May 28 2014 13:55 GMT
#945
On May 28 2014 22:37 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's pretty clear what defines an RTS I thought, or to draw a distinction for clarity's sake 'classic RTS'.

1. Some kind of economy management and production.
2. Some kind of teching progression.
3. Some way to manually control your forces.

Sub-genres include Real-Time Tactical games which remove 1+2 in favour of 3, like Bungie's fantastic Myth series.

I don't think so.

Economy management itself is a vague concept.
In sc2 we learnt that attention, apm and energy are resources.
What about moba?
Creep gold, energy, cooldown and mana control, time spent ganking, experience gain/loss

Teching is another vague concept. Development? What about heros in wc3, their skill sets are also tech as they provide benefits for your army.
That goes for moba heros too.
What qualifies as development and teching?

Your army forces? How much is an army? Meepo is like 4 units. Visage etc
其疾如风,其徐如林,侵掠如火,不动如山,难知如阴,动如雷震。
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
May 28 2014 14:04 GMT
#946
On May 28 2014 22:55 ETisME wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 28 2014 22:37 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's pretty clear what defines an RTS I thought, or to draw a distinction for clarity's sake 'classic RTS'.

1. Some kind of economy management and production.
2. Some kind of teching progression.
3. Some way to manually control your forces.

Sub-genres include Real-Time Tactical games which remove 1+2 in favour of 3, like Bungie's fantastic Myth series.

I don't think so.

Economy management itself is a vague concept.
In sc2 we learnt that attention, apm and energy are resources.
What about moba?
Creep gold, energy, cooldown and mana control, time spent ganking, experience gain/loss

Teching is another vague concept. Development? What about heros in wc3, their skill sets are also tech as they provide benefits for your army.
That goes for moba heros too.
What qualifies as development and teching?

Your army forces? How much is an army? Meepo is like 4 units. Visage etc


well, that's why MOBA was originally called ARTS and is actually a subgenre of RTS.
So yeah, MOBAs are RTS games by the usual broad definitions of RTS.

Attention and apm however aren't resources per se, since the game does not limit them. That's rather the e-sports/comptetitive part of the game.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland27463 Posts
May 28 2014 14:26 GMT
#947
WC3 economy management factors in other mechanics like Upkeep etc. Economy and tech are bolstered by the creeping mechanics, which adds another element in lieu of mechanically demanding macro. Strangely underrated game in terms of depth, it took certain aspects away but added in other largely unexplored mechanics in their place.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
TL+ Member
Thieving Magpie
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States6752 Posts
May 28 2014 15:21 GMT
#948
On May 28 2014 18:55 urboss wrote:
Yes, and who gives a shit if it is a MOBA with RTS elements?
It is only a handful of hardcore players like on TL that really care.
Let the casuals decide!


For the same reason you don't introduce the rules of Go into chess just to make it harder for computers to beat it.

It was my understanding that the goal of the thread was to make the RTS more appealing to casuals, and not to simply remove the RTS genre altogether.

Case in point, as an RTS fan, I am 100% more excited playing Red Alert and Age of Empires than I will ever be playing Dota or LoL. Not because Red Alert and Age of Empires are better games, but because I'm an RTS fan.

The goal should not be the removal of aspects of an RTS that make it an RTS but a change in either its presentation or explanation so that newer players can grok it more easily.

Hark, what baseball through yonder window breaks?
Thieving Magpie
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States6752 Posts
May 28 2014 15:34 GMT
#949
On May 28 2014 22:37 Wombat_NI wrote:
It's pretty clear what defines an RTS I thought, or to draw a distinction for clarity's sake 'classic RTS'.

1. Some kind of economy management and production.
2. Some kind of teching progression.
3. Some way to manually control your forces.

Sub-genres include Real-Time Tactical games which remove 1+2 in favour of 3, like Bungie's fantastic Myth series.


When I think of an RTS, to me the baseline that makes it different from other genres is most specifically the Production => Controlling of mass forces.

Or, to put it simply, to me an RTS is where you first make an army, and then use that army to achieve a goal.

Starting with an army or having an army given to you contradicts that base description to me. Those sub-genres exists of course, but they are tangents from the main goal of an RTS which building and army and then using that army.

Economy management is normally the stopgap to production while tech progression is usually the stopgap to army strength. Both are not required, per se, but its usually bad to ignore them. When that baseline descriptor gets too diluted, that's when things get weird.

MOBAs produce the army for you, and they attack with the army for you. Your responsibilities are distilled to purely the small arms tactics that give your army an edge similar to reaver micro in BW or drop play in SC2. By remove the means of production from the player along with the control of the total mass of troops, we lose the RTS feel that is wanted by RTS fans.

No one played war games so they could micro general Patton. They played war games so that they could *be* general Patton. The amount of micro is not as important as the feeling of production transitioning to army control.

Nexus Wars is the opposite of the MOBA, for example. Wherein they simply give you control of production and tech, but not the army control. MOBAs take away production and army control for pure dictation of tech and micro. Neither feel like an RTS despite having aspects of an RTS because it removes the basic fundamentals of what an RTS fan wants in an RTS. Which is the ability to make shit and then use that shit against someone else's shit. Shitception.
Hark, what baseball through yonder window breaks?
Eliezar
Profile Joined May 2004
United States481 Posts
May 29 2014 19:56 GMT
#950
The core ideas of starcraft are economy, tech, or mass. It just happens that those get crossed with macro and micro. And all of it comes together in strategy (I guess tactics are a subset of micro, idk).

RTS games don't need to have an economy nor do they need to have tech they just have to be a strategy game played in real time instead of turn based.

I think its definitely true that Blizzard could have evolved the genre through StarCraft 2 and really didn't. Someone will eventually.
BlackGosu
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Canada1046 Posts
May 30 2014 04:17 GMT
#951
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social
Jar Jar Binks
Thieving Magpie
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States6752 Posts
May 30 2014 06:55 GMT
#952
On May 30 2014 13:17 BlackGosu wrote:
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social


I can testify that it was easier getting an aeon of strife game running than a 1v1 game running. MOBAs have been more successful since BW.
Hark, what baseball through yonder window breaks?
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11607 Posts
May 30 2014 07:01 GMT
#953
On May 30 2014 15:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 30 2014 13:17 BlackGosu wrote:
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social


I can testify that it was easier getting an aeon of strife game running than a 1v1 game running. MOBAs have been more successful since BW.

Do you have the aeon of strife map? I've never seen anyone play it and although I've downloaded a lot of ums map packs, I've yet to come across it.
ModeratorWake me up when Trump's term is finished. Slava Ukraini.
Thieving Magpie
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States6752 Posts
May 30 2014 07:15 GMT
#954
On May 30 2014 16:01 Falling wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 30 2014 15:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 30 2014 13:17 BlackGosu wrote:
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social


I can testify that it was easier getting an aeon of strife game running than a 1v1 game running. MOBAs have been more successful since BW.

Do you have the aeon of strife map? I've never seen anyone play it and although I've downloaded a lot of ums map packs, I've yet to come across it.


That was about 3 CPUs and 2 diskettes ago I'm afraid
Hark, what baseball through yonder window breaks?
Mindcrime
Profile Joined July 2004
United States6899 Posts
May 30 2014 07:32 GMT
#955
On May 30 2014 15:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 30 2014 13:17 BlackGosu wrote:
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social


I can testify that it was easier getting an aeon of strife game running than a 1v1 game running. MOBAs have been more successful since BW.


that's bullshit
That wasn't any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery.
Thieving Magpie
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States6752 Posts
May 30 2014 08:47 GMT
#956
On May 30 2014 16:32 Mindcrime wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 30 2014 15:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 30 2014 13:17 BlackGosu wrote:
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social


I can testify that it was easier getting an aeon of strife game running than a 1v1 game running. MOBAs have been more successful since BW.


that's bullshit


Don't hate on bnet 1.0 for being different than what you wished it was.
Hark, what baseball through yonder window breaks?
Thrillz
Profile Joined May 2012
4313 Posts
May 30 2014 09:44 GMT
#957
Tbh I don't mind if SC2 declines...if it's not good enough then it should decline. Sink or swim.

At this moment the state of SC2 is pretty ...meh unsatisfactory imo. Until it's fun/good enough and Blizzard gets their act together I have no reservations about SC2 declining.
CYFAWS
Profile Joined October 2012
Sweden275 Posts
May 30 2014 13:40 GMT
#958
imma fix this. working on a fucking huge project that will allow for casuals to play quite effectively with <30 apm, while pros can easily micromanage for greater efficiency, and it seems to be working quite well, without the bw vs sc2 issue: bws clunky controls forces more interesting dynamics and higher apm. it's also quite possible it will work for casual play on tablets. it also has a melee mode which is more sc2esque and a campaign mode which is somewhat of a mix between sc2 and huge slow turnbased strategy games. imagine sc2 with 50k pop, where you dont need to micromanage your units and buildings unless you really want to. space civilization war sim. gonna fuck the gaming world up and put RTS back where it belongs, with its boots on every other genre's face.
Coldblackice
Profile Joined April 2011
United States49 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-30 14:17:24
May 30 2014 14:13 GMT
#959
Evolution.

We're inundated with so many options these days -- tons of new games (how many times do we hear someone say they're adding yet another game to their miles-long backlog?), streamed movies, on-demand TV, reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. etc.

So many options, so little time. With this, comes dwindling patience -- people aren't willing to invest large chunks of time into something that doesn't give a quick and satisfying return/reward.

Unfortunately, the RTS has become an increasingly outdated model. Like boardgames before video games. They take a high amount of investment in terms of time, learning curve, and upkeep. You can't sign-out for a few weeks/months, come back, and hope to get a decent return on time invested. You're going to slog through a good amount of pain (losing) to catch back up. A big investment, with little (or delayed) return.

MOBAs seem to be the new modern equivalent of the "video game" to the RTS "board game". You can jump in quickly, get straight into action quickly, and get a relatively quick return on your time invested in the form of wins, successes, rewards, etc.

And this is aside from other more modernized features of the MOBA, like increased social connection, extending a vastly more interconnected world today compared to the 1998 world of Starcraft. The world today expects to connect with anyone and everyone throughout anything and everything -- nearly every single app or website we use today is connecting with and interacting with others.

In contrast, the RTS is spent mostly in the silent solitude of 1v1. And this bridges into yet another difference -- stress. The RTS is traditionally much more stressful, particularly in lieu of its 1v1 nature, the stress of steep learning curves, the stress of steep upkeep demands, the stress of "forced" competition through ladder, etc.

Personally, I'm an avid Starcrafter, through and through, with no interest in MOBAs whatsoever. But I also recognize that I'm the modern minority in this, and that modern interests, cultures, and a massive international gaming industry/community that is light-years larger and different from the late 90's Starcraft-world has paved the path for a continually evolving evolution of game interests and preferences.

I wish it weren't so! I wish -- and fleetingly hope -- that Starcraft and the RTS can evolve and stay fun and relevant. But like has already been mentioned, unfortunately, I think the RTS has indeed already evolved: it's what we now call the "MOBA".

tl;dr

Gamers today: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11607 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-30 16:38:36
May 30 2014 14:26 GMT
#960
On May 30 2014 17:47 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 30 2014 16:32 Mindcrime wrote:
On May 30 2014 15:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 30 2014 13:17 BlackGosu wrote:
rts games just cannot keep up with moba games. dota and LoL are just more fun. sure they're not as hard as sc2, but they're a hell of a lot more fun and social


I can testify that it was easier getting an aeon of strife game running than a 1v1 game running. MOBAs have been more successful since BW.


that's bullshit


Don't hate on bnet 1.0 for being different than what you wished it was.

That's a shame that you don't have the map. No-one seems to anymore

But, I also kinda wonder what was your time period of playing. Because 2009-2014 on iccup, it would seem to me that ums are in the minority and it has always been super easy to get a 1v1 game running at my level. It's only in this last year that the server population has gone down that certain times of day are more difficult.

Never saw Aeon in that time. I would have pegged BGH and Fastest Possible as the easy games to get started with a significant number of people.
ModeratorWake me up when Trump's term is finished. Slava Ukraini.
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