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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. | ||
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frajen86
168 Posts
On May 14 2014 15:33 Incognoto wrote: I understand what you're getting at but the reason obs isn't as fun in SC2 as it was in Aoe3 is largely due to game design, not the community. ^^ <3 tbh only played aoe2 | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16386 Posts
On May 14 2014 15:32 Big J wrote: In a blow to stereotype fans everywhere, a study of 2,000 gamers has shown that rather than being a 12-year-old male shut-in the average gamer is actually 35 years old with a job, a family and a habit of taking four weeks to finish a title. Most people just want to go online, start a game, shoot some stuff and go to bed. They do not want to stress themselves out with a game, and unless RTS starts going somewhat into that direction, it is going to stay a footnote in the mind of most people. i subscribe to this opinion. RTS is a weird kind of fun. its a "hard work" kind of fun. i'd describe Borderlands 2 as being the exact opposite kind of fun. Zany silly idiotic fun. Oddly enough, Blizzard always tries to capture Zany, Silly Idiotic fun in all their games. And, largely they succeed. But, competitive 1v1 RTS just can not be that kind of fun by the very nature of the game. There is nothing Blizzard or anyone else can do about it.... "it is what it is" | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
Here's what's really going on, in my opinion. Online gaming is becoming huge. It's much bigger now than it was 5 years ago. Way bigger. This is due to the fun online games that have surfaced since then: LoL, Team Fortress, Battlefield, Dota 2, etc. These games are HUGE compared to SC2. Now, in absolute numbers, compare SC2's scene to BW's foreign scene back in the day, or Aoe3 (since I keep discussing the game, I might as well use it). Back in its prime, Aoe3 had 3000 players online max. Fuck, that was a lot of players. That's actually so much. I'm not sure about BW numbers but the foreign BW scene surely paled compared to the size of SC2's foreign scene today. The RTS scene has actually grown a fuckton over the past years. The thing is that other game genres have just exploded. So, relatively speaking, the RTS genre is getting less and less attention. In absolute numbers, it has grown and it's still growing. It's just that it has been growing in the shadow of huge MOBAs and FPS games. So people are quick to glance at the numbers and just say "oh RTS is dying" when in reality it's actually growing. I for one don't give a fuck if the RTS scene is small compared to the MOBA scene*. As long as I can play a good RTS with other people and I don't have to wait 5 minutes to get a 1v1 going, I'm FINE. If there are broadcasted tournaments going on of the game I'm playing, then that's even BETTER. I don't care if the huge numbers you see in MOBAs aren't there, as long as I can play my game and I can watch and appreciate others also playing this game. I didn't give a fuck back when $1000 Aoe3 tournaments were running and the games weren't even broadcasted; the replays were released and that's it. That was still fun! *This actually leads to a real problem, which is actually the core problem at hand. Big gaming companies see the big numbers that MOBAs and online games like BF4 are getting and try to emulate that instead of making a decent RTS. Gaming companies don't quite care as much about making good games as they care about making that one "hit" that will get them LOADS of money. This is where the real issue lies, the fact that the RTS scene has less numbers and attention than MOBAs is irrelevant compared to the fact that decent RTS aren't being made anymore. Basically the RTS genre itself is fine but there are simply no good gaming devs that are willing to make a good RTS since there's more money to be made in other genres. The more I think about it, the more I think that the RTS scene will have to sustain itself without big devs. Which is kind of what's happening with Starbow. | ||
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urboss
Austria1223 Posts
Now, we know that PC sales are in decline for quite some time now. In a world of smartphones, tablet/notebook hybrids and gaming consoles there simply is no need for the average Joe to buy a desktop PC anymore. What's interesting though is that PC gaming is doing pretty well compared to consoles: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/analyst-pc-gaming-now-brings-in-more-money-than-console-gaming/ The reason for that is the free to play model which draws players back to the PC. For some interesting reason, consoles haven't fully adapted that model yet. But once they do, I believe that the current draw to PC games will fade again. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On May 14 2014 15:53 urboss wrote: RTS games also stand and fall by the PC market. Now, we know that PC sales are in decline for quite some time now. In a world of smartphones, tablet/notebook hybrids and gaming consoles there simply is no need for the average Joe to buy a desktop PC anymore. What's interesting though is that PC gaming is doing pretty well compared to consoles: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/analyst-pc-gaming-now-brings-in-more-money-than-console-gaming/ The reason for that is the free to play model which draws players back to the PC. For some interesting reason, consoles haven't fully adapted that model yet. But once they do, I believe that the current draw to PC games will fade again. The thing is that smartphones, tablets, notebooks and consoles are all of lesser quality, in both performance and ergonomics, compared to a desktop PC. A good CPU, a good graphics card, a good, big monitor with a mechanical keyboard and a decent mouse and you have the ultimate workstation / gaming platform. Portability is expensive and it's much less powerful than desktop counterparts. It's easier to maintain a youtube channel, for example, on a PC than a notebook. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
On May 14 2014 15:49 Incognoto wrote: I don't understand the "RTS games are too demanding mechanically" aspect of this. Is that REALLY why RTS is "dying"? Here's what's really going on, in my opinion. Online gaming is becoming huge. It's much bigger now than it was 5 years ago. Way bigger. This is due to the fun online games that have surfaced since then: LoL, Team Fortress, Battlefield, Dota 2, etc. These games are HUGE compared to SC2. Now, in absolute numbers, compare SC2's scene to BW's foreign scene back in the day, or Aoe3 (since I keep discussing the game, I might as well use it). Back in its prime, Aoe3 had 3000 players online max. Fuck, that was a lot of players. That's actually so much. I'm not sure about BW numbers but the foreign BW scene surely paled compared to the size of SC2's foreign scene today. The RTS scene has actually grown a fuckton over the past years. The thing is that other game genres have just exploded. So, relatively speaking, the RTS genre is getting less and less attention. In absolute numbers, it has grown and it's still growing. It's just that it has been growing in the shadow of huge MOBAs and FPS games. So people are quick to glance at the numbers and just say "oh RTS is dying" when in reality it's actually growing. I for one don't give a fuck if the RTS scene is small compared to the MOBA scene*. As long as I can play a good RTS with other people and I don't have to wait 5 minutes to get a 1v1 going, I'm FINE. If there are broadcasted tournaments going on of the game I'm playing, then that's even BETTER. I don't care if the huge numbers you see in MOBAs aren't there, as long as I can play my game and I can watch and appreciate others also playing this game. I didn't give a fuck back when $1000 Aoe3 tournaments were running and the games weren't even broadcasted; the replays were released and that's it. That was still fun! *This actually leads to a real problem, which is actually the core problem at hand. Big gaming companies see the big numbers that MOBAs and online games like BF4 are getting and try to emulate that instead of making a decent RTS. Gaming companies don't quite care as much about making good games as they care about making that one "hit" that will get them LOADS of money. This is where the real issue lies, the fact that the RTS scene has less numbers and attention than MOBAs is irrelevant compared to the fact that decent RTS aren't being made anymore. Basically the RTS genre itself is fine but there are simply no good gaming devs that are willing to make a good RTS since there's more money to be made in other genres. The more I think about it, the more I think that the RTS scene will have to sustain itself without big devs. Which is kind of what's happening with Starbow. I wholeheartedly agree. I think really high quality RTS games might be something of the past and will not be a top priority among PC gaming companies simply because it has a very different and smaller player-base. Modding might be the future of high quality RTS. And I will also be happy with any really high quality RTS as long as I can find a decent opponent to play vs without having to wait too long. Huge numbers of players for any RTS game will probably never happen. | ||
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ETisME
12275 Posts
On May 14 2014 14:22 Xiphos wrote: WC3 did better than BW globally is because of its two expos and WoW. Many people wanted to check out what's the fuzz about in the original WarCraft story and that the game "refreshed" itself with release of more expansion. Another factor is also because of its 'shinier' graphics. As a fan of wc3, this is pretty ridiculous to read. It is popular because it was a great game, not because of whatever shiny graphics or having 1 expansion WC has a great blend between moba and rts have to offer | ||
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GoldenH
1115 Posts
First, the idea that heroes are good. Actually heroes are bad, in a RTS, you need to be managing all your units simultaneously. in a MOBA, you need to be microing one unit constantly. Imagine trying to land a skillshot while dodging theirs AND splitting marines vs banes. Its' just not going to happen. So a good RTS isn't going to have hero units, unless there is some drastic improvement in UI. Second, you seem to just dislike the base building aspect of the game. Honestly, the base building can be just as exciting if it is well done. In a micro vs macro fight, one player is controlling units, the other is just attack moving them, and focusing on macro. In starcraft 2, this division has been negated because 1) combat happens so fast, you must always be controlling your units to make sure they're in the correct position or they will die for free, and 2) macro has been simplified to mean build all your units from your hotkeys. Additionally, the rush speed in a RTS is much faster than the laning phase in a MOBA. If there is no action in a long time in a RTS, it is because it is not designed to make harassment effective, and that's what we see in Starcraft 2. No harassment, because investing in harassment means you're behind, it's too slow to switch from harassment to all-in, and it is often impossible to punish even pure econ builds - if you even knew they were doing, but you don't, because you can't get scouting from harassment you're not doing. Third, the idea that RTS is too difficult to understand for casuals. IF anything, I'd argue it's too easy. The concepts are easily and quickly explained, but it's the execution that is difficult. So casters try to explain that execution, which makes it sound mysterious when it's really not. In starcraft 2, this is largely due to the fact that it is suboptimal to learn during a game, and much of the build orders are random, build order wins, so the game has been pushing towards limited number of effective strategies this entire time. From this I get, a next-gen RTS: Should have no heroes, but should have many more units that are microable, and also create disposable caster units with skill shots. One of the things that made the original starcraft great was that all the spells were completely devastating if they landed, seeming OP - the problem was that both side's abilities would obliterate the other, so there was a match on. So more abilities! But, in order to support the macro style of attack moving, you have to have beefy units that are able to trade evenly with the ability-users. The best way to do this is by giving advantages for good position, be it counterattack routes or high ground advantage or making units fight better in small clumps than large ones. Also make sure that units DIE SLOWLY, so you can tell from the minimap that you need to withdraw. | ||
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Xiphias
Norway2223 Posts
On May 14 2014 16:16 GoldenH wrote: From this I get, a next-gen RTS: Should have no heroes, but should have many more units that are microable, and also create disposable caster units with skill shots. One of the things that made the original starcraft great was that all the spells were completely devastating if they landed, seeming OP - the problem was that both side's abilities would obliterate the other, so there was a match on. So more abilities! But, in order to support the macro style of attack moving, you have to have beefy units that are able to trade evenly with the ability-users. The best way to do this is by giving advantages for good position, be it counterattack routes or high ground advantage or making units fight better in small clumps than large ones. Also make sure that units DIE SLOWLY, so you can tell from the minimap that you need to withdraw. Not to trow too much Starbow into this thread, but this is basically the main goals of Starbow and much of how current Starbow is. | ||
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StarMoon
Canada682 Posts
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Grixx
Belgium26 Posts
Lets face it, RTS is a once popular genre reduced to the hardcore and elite gamers (aw yeah we are such elitists) while a large bunch of the LoL community never played any other game before they played LoL. It's very acceptable to new players. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On May 14 2014 16:16 GoldenH wrote: I've been thinking about the OP for a while, and I have to disagree. First, the idea that heroes are good. Actually heroes are bad, in a RTS, you need to be managing all your units simultaneously. in a MOBA, you need to be microing one unit constantly. Imagine trying to land a skillshot while dodging theirs AND splitting marines vs banes. Its' just not going to happen. So a good RTS isn't going to have hero units, unless there is some drastic improvement in UI. Agree, hero units are irrelevant in RTS games. It can work out, like in WC3, but I actually feel that RTS does better when the action is being focused around entire armies rather than just a single unit (e.g. a hero). I don't think hero units are needed in an RTS game. Second, you seem to just dislike the base building aspect of the game. Honestly, the base building can be just as exciting if it is well done. In a micro vs macro fight, one player is controlling units, the other is just attack moving them, and focusing on macro. In starcraft 2, this division has been negated because 1) combat happens so fast, you must always be controlling your units to make sure they're in the correct position or they will die for free, and 2) macro has been simplified to mean build all your units from your hotkeys. I don't quite understand this part. Additionally, the rush speed in a RTS is much faster than the laning phase in a MOBA. If there is no action in a long time in a RTS, it is because it is not designed to make harassment effective, and that's what we see in Starcraft 2. No harassment, because investing in harassment means you're behind, it's too slow to switch from harassment to all-in, and it is often impossible to punish even pure econ builds - if you even knew they were doing, but you don't, because you can't get scouting from harassment you're not doing. Rushing/harass is a big part of RTS but it's been dumbed down a bit in SC2 because of how the maps are made. In big, open maps, like aoe3, harassment won and lost games. Third, the idea that RTS is too difficult to understand for casuals. IF anything, I'd argue it's too easy. The concepts are easily and quickly explained, but it's the execution that is difficult. So casters try to explain that execution, which makes it sound mysterious when it's really not. In starcraft 2, this is largely due to the fact that it is suboptimal to learn during a game, and much of the build orders are random, build order wins, so the game has been pushing towards limited number of effective strategies this entire time. I agree with this part. when tuning in to wcs EU it's a bit annoying that the casters are giving a very, very precise play-by-play and hardcore analysis of what's going on, when it's not that hard to just see it on screen. this is where tastosis really shines. when tasteless does play-by-play casting, he'll see "oh, is he going to get that medivac" or "ahhhhqsdmklfj" or something like that. tastosis don't try to make the game hard to understand, they just talk about what's goingon. other casters might tell you exactly how many units died instead of just saying "well x player got the better end of that trade" or will do really deep analysis when all you really need to do is just say "well this is good for x because y". From this I get, a next-gen RTS: Should have no heroes, but should have many more units that are microable, and also create disposable caster units with skill shots. One of the things that made the original starcraft great was that all the spells were completely devastating if they landed, seeming OP - the problem was that both side's abilities would obliterate the other, so there was a match on. So more abilities! well i find unit positioning as fun to watch as spell casting. careful with this as this is blizzard's approach with SC2 and all of a sudden a LOT of shit can die REALLY fast. if you don't pay attention to your units, a split second can cost you the game. or just like 5 hellions (500 minerals total) can end games if they get into mineral lines. that sort of stuff. big, powerful explosions/spells doesn't necessarily equate to fun dynamic games. but that's just my opinion. But, in order to support the macro style of attack moving, you have to have beefy units that are able to trade evenly with the ability-users. The best way to do this is by giving advantages for good position, be it counterattack routes or high ground advantage or making units fight better in small clumps than large ones. Also make sure that units DIE SLOWLY, so you can tell from the minimap that you need to withdraw. i agree that more durable units and the ability to retreat is very good for an RTS. | ||
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KTP_TV
France42 Posts
I think it needs more (kinda useless) stuff to customize, of course without impacting the game, only visual/cool stuff that would make it more appealing and easier to find ourselves into it. That's the most repelling thing about SC I could think of, the casual player actually feel like playing exactly the same game with the same stuff than anyone else (picking a name and an avatar, yeah that's about it). This game needs to have more things to invest in, something that makes you want coming back and keep playing it aside from ladder points. | ||
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urboss
Austria1223 Posts
On May 14 2014 16:31 Grixx wrote: A lot of stuff you say here are in Dawn of War 2, your heroes respawn, you almost build no buildings and you have a steady economy wich you can boost by taking points on the map. Lets face it, RTS is a once popular genre reduced to the hardcore and elite gamers (aw yeah we are such elitists) while a large bunch of the LoL community never played any other game before they played LoL. It's very acceptable to new players. As far as I remember, Dawn of War 2 was specifically designed and advertised to be a game for e-sports. What was the reason it never took off? Was it the overall concept? Was it the lack of free-to-play? Was it not balanced enough or did it have technical flaws? I guess that getting this right is super hard. Would a Dawn of War 2 with SC2 units and SC2 mechanics have better chances? | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On May 14 2014 15:33 Incognoto wrote: I understand what you're getting at but the reason obs isn't as fun in SC2 as it was in Aoe3 is largely due to game design, not the community. ^^ Also a lack of race loyalty. If you play zerg for two months straight your terran and protoss suffer A LOT. To the point of near unplayable unless you fight people way below your weight class. The Age of _____ games didn't really matter all that much since the mechanics of one nation was the same as the other 14 nations. This made people less upset about matchup specific quirks. | ||
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Myrddraal
Australia937 Posts
On May 14 2014 06:12 urboss wrote: Well yeah, I have to admit, I don't have much experience with MOBAs, so maybe I'm judging them wrong. I remember playing Demigod when it came out and the action in that game literally blew me away. I immediately thought: How awesome would that be with units from StarCraft? After some time I got bored with it, mainly because slaying minions that come back all the time isn't as much fun as expected. The same thing happened later with LoL, so I didn't even care to learn more about heroes and items. It's possible that I'm missing out on the possible strategies in MOBAs. I guess it's just a very different experience for a StarCraft player that is used to control dozens of units at a time. The slaying minions part is not supposed to be fun, the fun part in lane is the interaction between heroes, trying to gain small advantages or going for kills. I would argue that it is psychologically satisfying though, with the gold chink noise, the act of buying items to make your hero stronger, and the anticipation of what having those items might do. This could be a large part of what keeps people doing something that is inherently boring, and helps keep a casual audience, so maybe if the macro part of RTS felt a bit more rewarding that would keep casual players more interested. On May 14 2014 08:28 urboss wrote: 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? When I first tried Dota 2 after I had pretty much stopped playing SC2 I had a similar mindset and picked heroes that had minions and it definitely did ease my transition as I felt I had something to micro. But the fact is that the amount of focus you need for one hero, having only one hero to manage is enough for most players. Sure you may be used to controlling dozens of units in an RTS, but you can't individually micro units at the exact same time, and losing a hero due to mismanagement is a pretty big deal. Having said that, the option to have multiple units to control is definitely a bonus. If you haven't tried Dota at all I would suggest giving it a try with some heroes with minions (Enchantress, Chen, Natures Prophet, Enigma, Lycan, Broodmother), illusions (Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight, Naga Siren, Terrorblade) or if you really want multiple heroes Meepo or Brewmaster. Also, I have controlled multiple heroes before when another player has abandoned and it is fun, but it is really hard to do well. - Lack of strategic depth I know a lot of people have already commented on this, but I just wanted to add my thoughts. Both genres have the capacity to be extremely strategically deep, between players with similar mechanics (more so for SC2) and game understanding (more so for MOBAs) but new players to either genre often don't get to see this because they essentially aren't good enough yet. The problem in SC2 is that a relatively small mechanical difference is often very difficult overcome, so less mechanically skilled players might often be trying to pull off an interesting strategy but find that they lose to their opponent who just built more units than they did. This leads to the losing player feeling like there was little that they could to strategy wise. At least this was a large problem for me, and I know it is a problem for some of my friends that I would call social gamers (rather than competitive gamers) that never got into SC2. The issue with fixing this is that mechanical difference giving advantage is what makes StarCraft such a good competitive game, and such cannot be removed. I think it could be improved as many people have already suggested with positional play becoming more important, or by slowing down battles so that there is more time to make decisions and micro for less skilled players. For Dota the issue is that there is so much to understand about the game, with all the potential combinations of heroes/lanes/items that one team will often stomp the other because they did not realise how badly their team will fair against the other, how certain abilities/effects interact with each other or how important it is for a hero to get a certain item etc. I think Valve is trying to work on this by introducing tutorials, guides and (just updated) recommended item lists in order to give new players a leg up, however I think this will always be a problem with players at lower levels that just don't care enough to actively learn about the game. These are problems that go away the more you play and watch each game, which is when you start to appreciate how deep they can be. So to be able to take this step you need to play a lot, and this is the part where Dota pulls ahead for me, as while playing a lot you can choose from up to 100 different heroes and play in and against different team compositions every game. The variety keeps me going, whereas in SC2 I felt like there were limited strategies that I could do (that were viable) in order to have a decent game against a similarly skilled opponent. So I guess what I am saying is that for me to play an RTS over Dota again it would have to have enough variety of viable strategies that can be pulled off (or at least fully attempted) even in games with a reasonable skill discrepancy. | ||
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LuckyGnomTV
Russian Federation367 Posts
p.s. It wasnt a good game in fact, but maybe it was bad not because of game ideas. | ||
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baubo
China3370 Posts
One example is Zero vs. Jangbi. OSL Ro4, Game 4. Zero up 2-1 and with match point. You can find the entire video with English Sub-Titles on Youtube. But here's a transcript of the Korean cast near the end after Zero had destroyed basically all of Jangbi's economy. + Show Spoiler + "... this is just like in the campaign when Protoss is down to their last stand. No luxury no glory but there is one last stand as a hero rises from the dark to scrap together all that's left for one last battle! Yes, Protoss, one last battle, seemingly impossible but Protoss always has one last push! JangBi breaks out of his ramp and is now moving out! This is a battle for history, for the ancestors, a fight for justice and for survival! For Brood War! Zero has hydras ahhhh AHHHH STORMMM AHHHHH the desperation battle oh the storm WILL JANGBI PUSH THROUGH IT LOOKS LIKE HE'S PUSHING THROUGH ahhh the million Protoss hopes and spirits still alive ZERO'S ARMY IS THINNING AHHH PROTOSS AHHH THE HANBANG AHHH AHHHH FOUR HYDRAS LEFT FOUR AHHH GEEEEEEEEE GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" | ||
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Patate
Canada441 Posts
On May 14 2014 05:12 amazingxkcd wrote: This may apply to league, but definitely not to dota. Typical comment from someone who doesn't know anything about mobas, but decided that DoTA2 > LoL because TL said so.. | ||
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