How to keep new people in Blizzard RTS games? - Page 4

On October 28 2020 03:55 dUTtrOACh wrote:
With regards to competitive, economy-based RTS, the hard truth is that it doesn't appeal to everyone as a genre. Not everyone is capable of playing at a high level, and the devotion it takes to reach a high level is akin to work. Therefore, people are confronted with the reality that they will either be terrible, or will have to work at being good (with differing maximum levels from person to person, depending on talent). Unlike some other games people consider to be hardcore, you're not able to just memorize some attack pattern, or some other faulty measure of skill ceiling. RTS games, especially more complicated ones, take a level of devotion and introspection that IMO most people are unwilling to dedicate themselves to.

EDIT: For some, the fun in the genre is the study and improve aspect, while for others it is the genre's greatest detractor. Should developers be striving to twist the genre into something appealing to people who fundamentally aren't interested in it, or should they just develop another game for people who don't actually like RTS?

On October 27 2020 12:06 Frankenberry wrote:
Auto-production or similar isn't a good thing for an RTS. It removes the "real time" aspect of the game and leaves you only with "strategy". No. Just no.

I uninstalled SC2 tonight. So I guess I'm one of the people leaving the game.
It's not the first time but this time it's probably for good. Came back from a 4 year break to check out the game and I don't think I'll be giving it more chances.

A bit about me. I've been playing on and off since WoL beta. Always played Terran. My highest rank was master 1 4 years ago. Can't remember my MMR but I was starting to meet some low GM's here and there. I took a break for 4 years and recently tried it out again. I played around 250 games around 4000 - 4200 MMR on EU.

The main problem with Starcraft 2 in my opinion is that the races have way too many options now. There are so many all-ins, so many different forms of cheese and they are too hard to hold. Even if you scout them you will have an up-hill battle ahead of you.

Why was it ever necessary to make so many different units viable in so many matchups ? Why is it a good thing that on top of everything else we now have Battlecruiser all ins or Shield Battery + Void Ray or Shield Battery + Immortal / Warp Prism and all the other bullshit. It's hard to scout and you got almost no time to react.

To me it seems like Starcraft 2 more than ever before encourages the players to cheese. And I did notice there is a lot more early aggression / cheese / early all-ins now than there were 4 years ago when I played last time.

12 workers means you have less time to scout and adapt. That change from HotS combined with all these options makes the game very unenjoyable.

If I get to a macro game the game is still solid. Still enjoyable, even after 10 years but the early game and the idea that every unit had to be viable for as many matchup's as possible has made it very volatile. A lot of my games felt like very "ooooh gotcha" and it wasn't cool. Cheese is just way too hard to hold. Even if you scout it. Don't feel like it's very well designed to be honest.

TvP and TvT especially felt extremely random.

On October 28 2020 06:21 dUTtrOACh wrote:
The custom game / arcade system and the F2P nature of the core, multiplayer game (F2P perhaps implemented with poor timing or lack of advertising) and the coop system are already so much... so much more than other games in the genre. If being basically the best isn't enough, then maybe there is a more brutal reality at play that can't be addressed.

On October 28 2020 18:05 Harris1st wrote:


Well, the topic of this thread is "how to keep new people .... "

Interaction is one answer.
For example, if playing a BR game, if you don't interact with anyone for the first 5-10 mins (cause map too big or whatever) and gear up and suddenly you get a sneaky headshot from somewhere, chances are it was not a good experience for you.

Another example would be Moba, where you interact with someone in your lane for small leads and you are on high alert, thrill of the hunt, chances are it was good experience.

This is what players, specially younger, want.

My point beeing, the next big thing in RTS can be econ driven, but econ has to be the outcome of interaction. Like gold mines you fight over from the get go or something. Way more in the direction that WC3 goes than Starcraft.
Now, in Starcraft you can influence the eco of your enemy pretty early, but IMO in bad ways. Like an unseen mine drop can end the game. Not fun, not a good experience
I also think it is way more likely that Blizz works on WC4 than SC3

On October 29 2020 00:36 dUTtrOACh wrote:


Yea, but from the standpoint of a new player playing a MOBA, they can be in centre lane against someone simply better than them, with a favourable hero pick (an imbalanced encounter in two ways). They will get rekt and probably rage.

Same thing in a BR... If this new player doesn't actually know how to play a shooter (not just playing a differently skinned game they are familiar with) along with not knowing where or how to loot, they are far more likely to get rekt and probably rage.

I don't understand your point on interaction, because in SC2 you can interact as soon as both players' first scouting or proxying workers are able to intercept one another mid-map or arive at the opponent's base. A MOBA game's laning is a simplification of this idea, where you have no choice but to continuously engage your "opponent(s)" in the lane, or face the economic consequences of letting them "free-farm". In attempting to prevent the free-farm of your opponent, you run the risk of potentially exacerbating your deficit by dying and feeding them. In a lot of ways, this is similar to SC2, except you can maybe sub out with another hero or request reinforcements. It still comes down to skill and familiarity, only in a lower stakes environment. In SC2 1v1, you don't spend any time dead, you don't have friends to bail you out when you're worse than your opponent, and you're entirely responsible for any failures that result in defeat.

IMO, SC2 (any RTS really) has zero downtime as long as you're in game, and it has more meaningful interaction than most other non-RTS games, with the exception of perhaps shooters and fighting games, where interactions and victory conditions can be met more quickly.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that Blizzard had the idea of putting bases closer together, so that players are more actively fighting, etc. That was in early WoL, where we can probably agree that the game was in a worse state than once maps were made bigger. Players want more time between interactions, more distance between starting positions, and more interesting and varied maps to encourage creative army movement. Thinking that more interaction (meaning more stressed multitasking) is what new players would want when they're trying to learn how to just grow and live is bizarre. Most people's complaints about SC2 are the quick resolution of combat encounters and the fast economic buildup compared to BW and early SC2, which are maybe beneficial to esports, in terms of time-management and action, but are crushing to lower skill players.

EDIT: I'm not against new players having more options (in terms of game modes, casual ladder, etc), but I am against the dumbing down of RTS to suit the generational trend of people being too soft to face their own inadequacy. There is practically nothing more intimate in video-gaming, than RTS.

On October 27 2020 21:08 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
That's not true. Guides that focus completly on macro completely bypass the need to think about strategy, by giving the guide follower the strategy to follow, so they don't need to think about strategy at all. You can get to masters by following the same strategy over and over, and the tactics and the BO to go with it, likewise you can get to masters, by doing the complete opposite of these macro focused "guides". Or by being a well rounded player, having fun trying lots of different things. That's how most people get to masters. Most people who follow these guides which brainlessly produce mass marines or whatever stop well before masters.