EPT[Interview] Frost Giant Studios: "It's hard to work on som…
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shadow4723
70 Posts
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Cinskywind1
13 Posts
The only thing to add is they seem quite eager for feedback at the early stages but with two topics on the front page here, reddits, twitter, facebook and every person adding in their input in long text, it would be hard to get an overall picture without reading all the posts. My suggestion at this point is may put survey on their main page with ratings againts the factors they are considering (rate 1-10 for campaign, co-op, 1v1). They could also ask people what games they play (SC2, BW, WC3, professional Grey Goo) and what factors they like/dislike (speed, econ, unit count). At least then can can see what their audience is interested in, what the numbers are like and what is important to players. It could then give more focus one the ones people want/like or even the let them know to focus on what needs improving from the current games. | ||
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Donger
United States147 Posts
The devs stated that gamers today want their games to be continuously updated because we live in an age that people download their games rather than buy a physical copy of the game. I think the biggest problem with SC2 was Blizzard constantly tweaked the game by changing the mechanics rather than taking the time to learn what features on the map favored one race over another and designed maps accordingly. My ask for Frost Giant is that they look to map design to keep things new and balanced rather than changing game mechanics. Remember BW survived for years without changing a single unit's stats. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom6567 Posts
Meanwhile SC2 was designed from the bottom up which never developed into whatever the designers originally wanted it to be. Zerg was designed to be weak at the start of the game, defending with creep with weak anti-air, Protoss was designed to be a deathball, and oddly enough terran had so many options in WoL that balance was tuned to limit T's opening BO. Hence why queens were buffed, swarmhosts and vipers were introduced as Z lacked options to break defences and in WoL the infestor was a swiss army knife of abilities. Forcefields intended to be a crux of protoss defence essentially meant that maps had to be made as a series of narrow corridors and end up looking the same. Terran's plethora of options lead to bunker build time being changed 999 times and eventually builds being pared down to reaper opening, everytime otherwise playing against T would be like roulette. In BW, Zerg was made thematically swarmy by making all units move in a slithering animation and when upgraded the land ranged units moved at the same speed as each other and the melee land units moved at the same speed as each other. In SC2 Zerg was thematically swarmy with creep mechanics and making lings very weak at the start of the game. It was the race that depended the most on gas. In BW protoss looks thematically high tech, but relied on and can do the most with on their basic units, the humble zealot and dragoon. In SC2 protoss was made to rely on units up the tech tree. BW relied on art to impart flavour, but SC2 relied on race mechanics to impart flavour. Which ironically led to BW being balanced around maps and SC2 to be locked into the same style of maps. | ||
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MockHamill
Sweden1720 Posts
BW was a great game but the interface was horrible and the game was very hard to control. It was popular in Korea but died out in the rest of the world very fast. If a game comes out 2023+ people will take some things for granted like 1. Being able to change the hotkey for every single unit, ability and building at launch. 2. Unlimited unit selection. 3. Easy to use and intuitive interface. 4. Units and follows your orders perfectly, not having to fight against the game to get a unit to down a ramp. Basically making a game similar to BW now will mean bankruptcy, the expectations of the players are so much higher now. The goal should be to make a game with great strategical and tactical depth while still being easy to control and understand. Also things like Disruptors should not be in the game, no one likes gameplay where if you react half a second too late you lose the game. RTS is not a twitch game. Speed should be beneficial but not a requirement to play the game on normal casual competitive level. Basically they should make the game more forgiving for normal players. SC2 lost so many players by having strategies that, while balanced for the top 0.1% are infuriating to play against. Things like cannon rushing should not exist on normal level, the game should be fun to play and not have element that makes average ladder players uninstall. | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom11762 Posts
On October 23 2020 01:42 MockHamill wrote: I do not agree with the BW nostalgia. BW was a great game but the interface was horrible and the game was very hard to control. It was popular in Korea but died out in the rest of the world very fast. If a game comes out 2023+ people will take some things for granted like 1. Being able to change the hotkey for every single unit, ability and building at launch. 2. Unlimited unit selection. 3. Easy to use and intuitive interface. 4. Units and follows your orders perfectly, not having to fight against the game to get a unit to down a ramp. Basically making a game similar to BW now will mean bankruptcy, the expectations of the players are so much higher now. The goal should be to make a game with great strategical and tactical depth while still being easy to control and understand. Broodwar didn't die outside of Korea very fast. It lived for 12 years being relatively popular with WCG and what not for a long time. The thing that mostly hurt it was the fact that everyone was on private servers as battle.net was bad and SC2 came out which took a lot of the players away, especially the top level players who wanted to go and make money in the new game as most of the tournaments in and outside of Korea switching to SC2 due to a) blizzard and b) it being a new game which was set to replace Broodwar. The fact BW still exists now and is still incredibly popular in Korea is a testament to how good the game actually is. BW these days has 1 and 3. 2 it doesn't have, which in a way is a benefit for Broodwar as it allows players to seperate themselves mechanically and the same can be said to 4. The pathfinding you've mentioned is a complete and utter exagerration though, it's no where near that bad. | ||
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Cele
Germany3852 Posts
On October 23 2020 01:42 MockHamill wrote: I do not agree with the BW nostalgia. BW is a great game FTFY. Do you mind taking a look at korea where Starleagues like ASL are still going strong even tho BW is 20+ years old? Are you aware many progamers like Bisu, Flash, Jaedong etc actually switched back to Broodwar? They make plenty of good bucks too btw from never ending fan donations on afreeca. Outside of Korea, we still play this beloved game of ours, we have our own tournaments such as RCG and BSL. BW is not a “was“ game, but an “is“ game. We are not nostalgic, we just still play it. | ||
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Psyonic_Reaver
United States4042 Posts
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Hesxy
2 Posts
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PorkSoda
170 Posts
On October 22 2020 08:23 Essbee wrote: I'm a BW elitist and I couldn't care less about the UI and unit selection. Yes, the fact that these are archaic do help make the game be ceiling-less, where players can constantly get better and where mistakes are inevitable to keep the game more chaotic, but Monk touched on some more real examples as to why BW is so good: No deathball and defender's advantage. Thank you for that. Another thing working in brood war’s favor is that air units have a roll but they typically aren’t an endgame army in and of themselves. This allows for terrain to be important. | ||
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PorkSoda
170 Posts
Maybe one method for addressing this is to incorporate access to community resources directly from the user interface. That way a total newbie who is feeling lost can click a link within the games menu that opens Forst Giant’s strategy section of their eventual forum. Then they can see there are these things called build orders and they’re really important. From there they can start learning about X, Y, and Z. It might sound ridiculous to some of us salty old StarCraft vets but I think this kind of quick and direct access to learning resources could be really valuable for a brand new player. It also incorporates the community directly into the game, which is a plus. | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland1649 Posts
We'll have to wait and see. I think this should be ready in around 4-5 years, heh | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland1649 Posts
On October 23 2020 01:47 Qikz wrote: Broodwar didn't die outside of Korea very fast. It lived for 12 years being relatively popular with WCG and what not for a long time. The thing that mostly hurt it was the fact that everyone was on private servers as battle.net was bad and SC2 came out which took a lot of the players away, especially the top level players who wanted to go and make money in the new game as most of the tournaments in and outside of Korea switching to SC2 due to a) blizzard and b) it being a new game which was set to replace Broodwar. The fact BW still exists now and is still incredibly popular in Korea is a testament to how good the game actually is. BW these days has 1 and 3. 2 it doesn't have, which in a way is a benefit for Broodwar as it allows players to seperate themselves mechanically and the same can be said to 4. The pathfinding you've mentioned is a complete and utter exagerration though, it's no where near that bad. +1 to that | ||
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sneakyfox
7326 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland15161 Posts
On October 23 2020 04:38 PorkSoda wrote: Considering the “barrier to entry” problem: Maybe one method for addressing this is to incorporate access to community resources directly from the user interface. That way a total newbie who is feeling lost can click a link within the games menu that opens Forst Giant’s strategy section of their eventual forum. Then they can see there are these things called build orders and they’re really important. From there they can start learning about X, Y, and Z. It might sound ridiculous to some of us salty old StarCraft vets but I think this kind of quick and direct access to learning resources could be really valuable for a brand new player. It also incorporates the community directly into the game, which is a plus. A fantastic idea. It’s a huge and overlooked barrier, a centralisation of strategy and other resources. Even as someone who played and still watches a lot of SC2, is familiar with BW and played tons of WC3 at a trash level, actually trying to learn them now required a ton of trawling through sources all over the place. Can be worth the effort don’t get me wrong, but I mean I love RTS, have a familiarity with the titles and even then I was having to actively research stuff just to play. Multiply that tenfold for proper newbies and it becomes really daunting. With community vetting, I’d say you could get away with employing one person to curate and organise and update such a space properly. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland15161 Posts
On October 23 2020 03:33 PorkSoda wrote: Another thing working in brood war’s favor is that air units have a roll but they typically aren’t an endgame army in and of themselves. This allows for terrain to be important. It’s definitely a huge plus BW does. I guess it’s part due to the economy, part to the pathing differences/unit selection limits and deathballing. I love how something like the Carrier works in BW, really formidable situationally and even a few are potent, they’re microable too and vs a counter unit like Goliaths the terrain is actually important. Feels how capital ships should be. I like SC2’s air units that are skirmishers and harass units. those are all pretty cool imo. Phoenixes for example are a really cool, well designed skill-scaling unit (outside of metas they can be massed). They reward precise clicking, there’s some neat micro tricks with them plus there’s a strategic element to how you utilise your energy. Air ball v air ball is garbage and I hope this new RTS steers well clear. Fragile skirmishers, advanced and costly spellcasters or potent but vulnerable capital ship type units are all tried and tested ‘good’ air units. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile1854 Posts
On October 23 2020 01:42 MockHamill wrote: Basically they should make the game more forgiving for normal players. SC2 lost so many players by having strategies that, while balanced for the top 0.1% are infuriating to play against. Things like cannon rushing should not exist on normal level, the game should be fun to play and not have element that makes average ladder players uninstall. why? im tired of easy as fk to play competitive games. give me HARDCORE GAMING, full keyboard usage, speed, strategy, map awareness, that shit is RTS skill. fuck mobile gaming. | ||
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Comedy
224 Posts
On October 23 2020 00:25 Hider wrote: If they make a good game with responsive units and high skill cap I will play it and it might very well be better than Sc2. However, I don't believe the game can ever become really big without larger fundamental changes. The best thing about Sc2 are controlling simple but infinitive skillcap units like Marines and playing a macro-game with spread out units all over the map with frequent engagements. However, the skill requirements to play such a game will always be too high without larger underlying changes. I want the average gold league LOL player to be able to pick up a new RTS game and <50 hours he will be able to experience the same type of feeling that a Masters Sc2 player feels when he is taking part in an action-packed macro game. (while still keeping a high skill cap ofc) I am thinking of changes such as completely changing resource-collection/base-building/unit production etc. to allow players to focus on the unit-control side instead. If a company manages to do that well it could have a similar learning curve as MOBA's with the skill-cap of Sc2 + a better and more consistent gaming experience. that's just a different genre then though isn't it? I love base-building, and if I wanted to play a micro-only game, I would either play MOBA's or WC3. I would never touch this game if it had no heavy macro component or base building element. Your way of thinking is a pitfall that unfortunately these developers also seem to fall in to. Instead of having a vision for 'Let's make an amazing competitive rts', the vision is 'lets pander to the masses, lets get as many casuals as possible on the game, if we can do that, we'll have esports!'. Having esports is easy to do. Mobile games have lots of players, and esports. Making a competitive RTS that IS esports because of it's merit as a competitive game challenging its players to their maximum ability is a whole different thing than making a game for casuals and thus having a few guys playing tournaments because it's a game lots of people play. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland15161 Posts
On October 23 2020 07:20 XenOsky wrote: why? im tired of easy as fk to play competitive games. give me HARDCORE GAMING, full keyboard usage, speed, strategy, map awareness, that shit is RTS skill. fuck mobile gaming. Stuff can be both hardcore and cater to newbies at the same time. The skill should be in how well you use your tools, not making your tools really difficult to use. Tricky balance to strike of course, especially with racial asymmetry. If I had a gripe with SC2 it would be how much more control-dependent Terran tends to be over the other races. In that instance I think it’s more the other two races need to be more like Terran in that respect. Blind ladder cheese is frustrating as hell sometimes, but an aspect Id like to keep. It adds too much to tournament play for a start. More of a mix between 2/3/4 player maps and you solve a lot of issues. Doesn’t dumb down the game at all, actually expands options and approaches a bit | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland15161 Posts
On October 23 2020 07:33 Comedy wrote: that's just a different genre then though isn't it? I love base-building, and if I wanted to play a micro-only game, I would either play MOBA's or WC3. I would never touch this game if it had no heavy macro component or base building element. Your way of thinking is a pitfall that unfortunately these developers also seem to fall in to. Instead of having a vision for 'Let's make an amazing competitive rts', the vision is 'lets pander to the masses, lets get as many casuals as possible on the game, if we can do that, we'll have esports!'. Having esports is easy to do. Mobile games have lots of players, and esports. Making a competitive RTS that IS esports because of it's merit as a competitive game challenging its players to their maximum ability is a whole different thing than making a game for casuals and thus having a few guys playing tournaments because it's a game lots of people play. Ideally you can do both. I like SC2’s macro myself. Feels it strikes a good balance between being demanding without too monotonous. SC2’s main problem is deathballs and things melting (IMO). The micro is really satisfying in early skirmishes and as the armies get bigger there’s less and less effective micro to do. By want of a typically bad Wombat analogy a game of SC2 can feel like the macro stage is like exchanging sexually charged texts with your partner, and the combat is like getting home to them and ejaculating in 10 seconds. I’d be happy to keep the fun flirtatious exchanges, it’s clearly the lasting 10 seconds that’s the problem. | ||
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