EPTPeople that want an easy rts actually search for an easy excuse to not play it. The rts genre will always be rather small compared to other genres, because the majority of people don't want to have so much freedom in their choices. Atleast when competing against others. To many ways to make a wrong decision.
The future of RTS games - Page 70
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
People that want an easy rts actually search for an easy excuse to not play it. The rts genre will always be rather small compared to other genres, because the majority of people don't want to have so much freedom in their choices. Atleast when competing against others. To many ways to make a wrong decision. | ||
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althaz
Australia1001 Posts
On February 04 2015 09:16 SoSexy wrote: Low apm in bw is what? 250? 200? Too much for a casual player, way too much 180 was enough to get to B level if you made good decisions. Obviously 300+ is better, but anything over 100-120 made the game extremely playable. | ||
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lestye
United States4178 Posts
On February 04 2015 12:54 Endymion wrote: I think discussing "the future of rts" is a really hard thing to do because lots of people want an RTS that is easier than SC2, and lots of people want an RTS that is as difficult/rewarding as broodwar if not more so... These are bound to be two completely different games, obviously.. Well 3, counting the people that actually still enjoy SC2 or enjoyed WoL back in the day. We need more RTS, that's the baseline. SC2 suffered from a lack of competition in my opinion, look at battlenet.20, people only put up with it because they loved RTS enough to ignore it... I hope there are still developers out there willing to fill the niches, because I want a true successor to broodwar that actually builds on it and makes an even BETTER rts (if that's even possible), but meanwhile I want there to be easier RTS too, if only for new players to use as a jumping off point. So more more more, please, because RTS is the most ballin genre out there and I love it to death. The thing is, a lot of RTSes even at the time of the genre couldn't even compete with SC1 or WC3 features (lol Grey Goo didn't ship with replays). I don't have faith that any modern studio can even try to put out a decent product. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On February 04 2015 13:25 althaz wrote: 180 was enough to get to B level if you made good decisions. Obviously 300+ is better, but anything over 100-120 made the game extremely playable. Comments like this is just outright elitist and insulting. The average gaming audience you bump into in the street will have 20-40 apm after trying their hardest. Only people that *stick* with it get above 50. For example, grab a random person who has never played Starcraft before, ask them to play the game, whats their APM? 5-10? Tell them to play for a month, then it will go up to 20-30, sometimes 40. Ask them to actually practice a few days a week--they start getting above 50. Tell them to focus on mechanics, have practice sessions focusing on just specific aspects of the game and they will start getting to the 60-75 range. Random comments saying people only need 100+ apm does not take into account that majority of the total gamer pool will NEVER reach that high an APM. Heck, most of the total Starcraft player pool does not reach 100+ APM let alone the totality of all gamers. | ||
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fruity.
England1711 Posts
On February 04 2015 13:35 Thieving Magpie wrote: Comments like this is just outright elitist and insulting. The average gaming audience you bump into in the street will have 20-40 apm after trying their hardest. Only people that *stick* with it get above 50. For example, grab a random person who has never played Starcraft before, ask them to play the game, whats their APM? 5-10? Tell them to play for a month, then it will go up to 20-30, sometimes 40. Ask them to actually practice a few days a week--they start getting above 50. Tell them to focus on mechanics, have practice sessions focusing on just specific aspects of the game and they will start getting to the 60-75 range. Random comments saying people only need 100+ apm does not take into account that majority of the total gamer pool will NEVER reach that high an APM. Heck, most of the total Starcraft player pool does not reach 100+ APM let alone the totality of all gamers. Totally agree. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On November 25 2014 20:44 maartendq wrote: Or any non-blizzard RTS will do. No need to be all hardcore here, I don't think I'm the only one who likes it when games are decided on whether or not I managed to cast an EMP in that one split second. Blizzard RTS are extremely light on strategy and tactics, they're all about minute unit control. I can't speak for SC2 as I haven't played it enough, but this is nothing but a massive heap of nonsense if we are talking about BW. Why you would post stuff like that without having experience with a game is beyond me. | ||
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TelecoM
United States10675 Posts
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On February 04 2015 09:16 SoSexy wrote: Low apm in bw is what? 250? 200? Too much for a casual player, way too much 100. Lots of players in the very low 100s that reach yellow ranks and occasionally blue ranks both of which are FAR past the domain of casual. But again all this casual player stuff totally misses the mark. If you're a casual player playing a casual player, then you both have low apm so it balances out. This is why whether a game is "hard" or not hardly means anything. It's still an even playing field if you go against someone at your skill level. The average gaming audience you bump into in the street will have 20-40 apm after trying their hardest. Only people that *stick* with it get above 50. For example, grab a random person who has never played Starcraft before, ask them to play the game, whats their APM? 5-10? Tell them to play for a month, then it will go up to 20-30, sometimes 40. Ask them to actually practice a few days a week--they start getting above 50. Tell them to focus on mechanics, have practice sessions focusing on just specific aspects of the game and they will start getting to the 60-75 range. No it won't. Maybe there is a difference between BW and SC2 apm, I dunno. If you even remotely try to do stuff in BW you end up with 40-60 apm at least. If you are getting 20-30 apm that means there are LARGE portions of the time you're literally just staring at shit doing nothing. Now, perhaps some people don't realize they should be doing stuff, but anybody that has a clue about RTS or has that concept explained to them easily manages 50 apm give or take. As we approach 100apm I start to agree with you that it is a different story. 100 is definitely not fast, but it does take learning a hotkey system and making a conscious effort to develop a routine for getting everything done and emphasizing playing as fast as possible...all of which do take us away from the realm of casual. It is VERY rare to find casual players that naturally play with apm around 100. Of course the entire APM thing is completely moot anyway. A casual player doesn't need 100apm to compete against other casual players and have fun. If he has 50 apm he will do perfectly fine against other 50 apm casual guys. You might need 100 apm to be reasonably competitive on a tough server like ICCup that consists of probably 95% old school serious BW players, but you can have a lovely experience playing other casual players with 50, 30, or even 20 apm. | ||
Falling
Canada11363 Posts
So with 1 factory, maybe 2 starports and a control group of wraiths, your apm will be 30, but otherwise it very quickly bumps into the 40's without even understanding basic army control. (I've got a few players that know how to macro, but aren't sure to sure when and where to attack with their armies. I've been trying to see if Team Melee helps at all, but LoL has proved too enticing recently  ) | ||
c3rberUs
Japan11286 Posts
Besides you don't need to be a 100 APM player to enjoy the game. | ||
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Excludos
Norway8111 Posts
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maartendq
Belgium3115 Posts
On February 04 2015 14:05 L_Master wrote: I can't speak for SC2 as I haven't played it enough, but this is nothing but a massive heap of nonsense if we are talking about BW. Why you would post stuff like that without having experience with a game is beyond me. The problem with Brood War (and Starcraft 2) is the skill floor. A player needs a certain level of mechanical skill (often expressed in APM) before strategy comes in play at all. What's the point having thought out a good strategy if your opponent's macro is micro just makes it plain obsolete, or not looking at your army at the wrong second may cause you to lose it? Everything needs to be done manually in Starcraft, from production to telling each unit which enemy unit to shoot. And all of this would actually be quite ok if it weren't for the fact that the standard speed of Starcraft 2 is 'faster'. Sure, you don't need 100 apm to enjoy the game, but if you want to be even slightly competitive - which most people want to be - the closer you are to that number the better. Blizzard designed Starcraft 2 to be a hardcore RTS, and has now noticed that casuals are flocking en-masse to the slower, more friendly MOBA games. No matter what they try for LOTV, they will not get that flood of casuals which they would like. The future of RTS for me lies in games like Grey Goo. RTS in which production is largely automated and can be done entirely using hotkeys (so no return to base to select buildings) and a focus on battles with units that do not require a high degree of micro-management. | ||
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On February 04 2015 13:35 Thieving Magpie wrote: Comments like this is just outright elitist and insulting. The average gaming audience you bump into in the street will have 20-40 apm after trying their hardest. Only people that *stick* with it get above 50. For example, grab a random person who has never played Starcraft before, ask them to play the game, whats their APM? 5-10? Tell them to play for a month, then it will go up to 20-30, sometimes 40. Ask them to actually practice a few days a week--they start getting above 50. Tell them to focus on mechanics, have practice sessions focusing on just specific aspects of the game and they will start getting to the 60-75 range. Random comments saying people only need 100+ apm does not take into account that majority of the total gamer pool will NEVER reach that high an APM. Heck, most of the total Starcraft player pool does not reach 100+ APM let alone the totality of all gamers. Agree. A lot of people don't seem to realise how unrepresentative them and their SC friends are for Blizzards target audience. On February 04 2015 17:02 Excludos wrote: Soccer is a dumb sport. How fast do those professionals run? It's far beyond what any casual player can do, so you can impossibly have fun playing it. We need a more casual game! Not sure where you want to go, but I assume you are saying that most "real" sports are also very "mechanics" based, in the sense that a physically fit person can play a game just a few times and beat someone that have much deeper strategical knowledge of the game by pure speed and strength. And those sports seem to be doing fine anyway. So to put these two together: Yes, sc2, and probably to larger extent sc:bw, skill depend a lot on how fast you are with the mouse and keyboard, but that doesn't have to mean that it scares casual players away. People that play soccer can still enjoy their strategic play even if a hypothetical faster and stronger player could beat them with any strategy. I remember my sc:bw newb days when my friend would beat me over and over with mass carriers vs my mass hydras (when we engaged after 30 minutes), and I couldn't figure out how to beat him. Solution? Get better mechanics and build more hydras faster and kill him after 10 minutes? No. Blindly build devourers for the 30 min engagement! So you can still play with strategy and have a lot of fun with it, no matter your level, even if many of today's better players would (correctly) point out that a better way to improve would be to improve mechanics. | ||
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KOtical
Germany451 Posts
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Excludos
Norway8111 Posts
On February 04 2015 17:24 Cascade wrote: Agree. A lot of people don't seem to realise how unrepresentative them and their SC friends are for Blizzards target audience. Not sure where you want to go, but I assume you are saying that most "real" sports are also very "mechanics" based, in the sense that a physically fit person can play a game just a few times and beat someone that have much deeper strategical knowledge of the game by pure speed and strength. And those sports seem to be doing fine anyway. So to put these two together: Yes, sc2, and probably to larger extent sc:bw, skill depend a lot on how fast you are with the mouse and keyboard, but that doesn't have to mean that it scares casual players away. People that play soccer can still enjoy their strategic play even if a hypothetical faster and stronger player could beat them with any strategy. I remember my sc:bw newb days when my friend would beat me over and over with mass carriers vs my mass hydras (when we engaged after 30 minutes), and I couldn't figure out how to beat him. Solution? Get better mechanics and build more hydras faster and kill him after 10 minutes? No. Blindly build devourers for the 30 min engagement! So you can still play with strategy and have a lot of fun with it, no matter your level, even if many of today's better players would (correctly) point out that a better way to improve would be to improve mechanics. I was just simply pointing out how stupid some of the arguements earlier in this thread was, but your reasoning is very sound. Its completely possible to have fun with a game even if you dont have the speed of a proplayer. | ||
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Ziggareto
United Kingdom9 Posts
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On February 04 2015 17:22 maartendq wrote: The problem with Brood War (and Starcraft 2) is the skill floor. A player needs a certain level of mechanical skill (often expressed in APM) before strategy comes in play at all. What's the point having thought out a good strategy if your opponent's macro is micro just makes it plain obsolete, or not looking at your army at the wrong second may cause you to lose it? Everything needs to be done manually in Starcraft, from production to telling each unit which enemy unit to shoot. And all of this would actually be quite ok if it weren't for the fact that the standard speed of Starcraft 2 is 'faster'. Sure, you don't need 100 apm to enjoy the game, but if you want to be even slightly competitive - which most people want to be - the closer you are to that number the better. Blizzard designed Starcraft 2 to be a hardcore RTS, and has now noticed that casuals are flocking en-masse to the slower, more friendly MOBA games. No matter what they try for LOTV, they will not get that flood of casuals which they would like. The future of RTS for me lies in games like Grey Goo. RTS in which production is largely automated and can be done entirely using hotkeys (so no return to base to select buildings) and a focus on battles with units that do not require a high degree of micro-management. Absolutely not. If two 40 apm guys play each other the one that makes the better strategic decisions is almost certain to come out the victor. What you're saying only holds if there is a large skill gap, in which case sure. I certainly could beat my casual friends with mass scouts in BW even if they tried to execute a proper build. But in that case I'm winning because my level of mechanical skill is so much greater than theirs it overwhelms better strategical decisions. If both players mechanics are similar, i.e. casual players competing against each other mechanics will not be a major player, strategy will, because their mechanical skill is equal (non existant?). Example: Perhaps the most obvious example would be cycling, which has a huge amount of tactical stuff involved in most races. Less fit people are also able to hang with more fit people because of drafting, so it isn't just the fittest person wins. Now at some level (analogous to a very large mechanical discrepancy) a fitter cyclist could ride away from someone even if they were drafting efficiently and positioning themselves well in the bunch. In other words, mechanics would override tactics/strategy. However, cycling tends to be done within categories and thus you are racing people of similar capability and able to enjoy the full range of tactics available to racing. Same goes for starcraft and playing people of similar rank/league/skill than you. | ||
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FrozenProbe
Italy276 Posts
It reminds me of people that suck at mobas and claim that they lose games because their teammates are bad. | ||
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On February 04 2015 18:10 FrozenProbe wrote: People try to find a justification for their failures, so if you play a StarCraft game (vanilla, bw or sc2) you'll get destroyed at first, the problem is that those players will be upset because they lost, even without any knowledge of the game. "My mass bunker strategy didn't worked out only because my opponent was button-smashing the keyboard". I'm playing Grey Goo with a friend, we're experienced rts players (got high masters multiple times in Sc2, played bw aswell and many other rts), we already played vs people that rages out saying that the game is wrong, or something is dumb. It reminds me of people that suck at mobas and claim that they lose games because their teammates are bad. I think you get that in any competitive scenario. I'd say it goes beyond game design, and is more a matter of human nature.  Real question is, do they come back and play grey goo for long? | ||
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FrozenProbe
Italy276 Posts
On February 04 2015 18:33 Cascade wrote: I think you get that in any competitive scenario. I'd say it goes beyond game design, and is more a matter of human nature. Real question is, do they come back and play grey goo for long? They won't, because they are upset regarding the unfairness of the game, they don't want to learn, they're lazy and they will be back to retarded mobile/facebook games. | ||
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