[Q] How did other RTS games fail?

On January 03 2009 13:05 Dgtl wrote:
Most RTS's fail because either the untis are too slow, the game is too slow or there is just not a big enough fan base.

On January 03 2009 13:07 Entertaining wrote:
they fail just like FPS games fail, while you play them your comparing them to the best. when i play fps most of the time i think to myself, "i could be playing halo3 right now". while playing rts like supreme commander i think "i could be cutting my wrists right now" lol jk, id rather play STARCRAFT

edit: and by crappy, I don't mean not well polished, just inherently flawed gameplay...

On January 03 2009 13:29 Hazz wrote:

Like? I'm guessing its to do with how you don't like heroes

On January 03 2009 14:15 NuB.xE wrote:
Most rts fail because they're not competitive enough imo

On January 03 2009 13:07 Entertaining wrote:
they fail just like FPS games fail, while you play them your comparing them to the best. when i play fps most of the time i think to myself, "i could be playing halo3 right now". while playing rts like supreme commander i think "i could be cutting my wrists right now" lol jk, id rather play STARCRAFT

The reason is that FPS doesn't need to be balanced in the same way an RTS does. Starcraft (and Warcraft 3) are the only games that still after 5 million hours of analyzing every little detail, no race is better than the other and no super-own-all strategy exist.

which WC3 has pretty much proven to be boring as fuck. There needs to be a healthy amount of tactics and strategy, people need to be able to be creative, I think this is the fatal flaw of most online games.

On January 03 2009 13:53 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:


More the absence of any meaningful macro. It's not like choosing to cut troops in favour of econ is all that valid in any way in war3. I don't think heros are as bad as people make it out to be, in a game with more macro they'd probably just play like reaver/shuttles play out in pvps

On January 03 2009 14:40 lwstupidus wrote:


Aside from the game selling well, Halo 3 was a horrible failure, so really bad comparison.



You must be unfamiliar with Orc.



And you must be unfamiliar with WC3 completely, which has infinitely more strategy at all levels of play, whereas in SC, the player who masses more units through macro at B or below is just going to win with A click.

On January 03 2009 14:52 Hazz wrote:
halo IS a failure - its boring and easy

On January 03 2009 14:54 Puosu wrote:

Ugh that is just ignorant, name one non-PC fps that would be a better e-Sport? +.+

On January 03 2009 15:06 DeepGray wrote:

There's the problem. Nothing good can come out of an FPS without a mouse and keyboard.

On January 03 2009 14:54 Puosu wrote:

Ugh that is just ignorant, name one non-PC fps that would be a better e-Sport? +.+

And I do know that part of the success is just Microsofts clever marketing but it still is the biggest succesful e-Sport in the states and it really can't be said otherwise.

On January 03 2009 15:29 Loanshark wrote:
Sure I wouldn't say Halo is bad, it just isn't good. Any person with half a brain can make a decent FPS that people like. Take Halo: characters with same health, nearly symmetrical maps, respawning, weapons scattered around map, nothing revolutionary, it's kinda obvious they didn't spend time on balance and relied on everything else to make a game that would appear great.
.

On January 03 2009 15:45 anotak wrote:
Total Annihilation: Ass networking support. Badly balanced units. Both races have 200+ units. Guess what, about 5 are ACTUALLY USEFUL.

Warhammer 40k: Autobuild. What the hell? Not even talking about automine here, we're talking AUTO FUCKING BUILD. Second: 9 races in 45 matchups. I'd love to see someone make a game like that balanced. And some of the races violate the inherent setup of races (ex. Necron needing only 1 of the 2 resources unlike every other race in the game). Other mechanics are insane as well (free units for some of the races). Detection is confusing. Imagine having to fight dark templar but not having any obvious way of knowing what unit detects or what to build. And on the other hand some races THEIR WORKERS DETECT. WHAT????

Command & Conquer 3: In the amount of time it takes a missile to travel from the weapon it is fired to the target gives me enough time to go, get up, make a sandwich and come back and then micro my unit to dodge successfully. Extremely boring. Detection is unclear how it works... apparently units only detect in certain directions and other things? not sure. Plus a lot of people have anti-brand name recognition with EA. Plus the people interested in the plot of the game are confused as shit when half the stuff got retconned randomly. Too much focus on superweapons. Early builds were terribly balanced. I watched some WCG2007 vids of this game, the finals bo5 consisted of this: Scrin Vs. Scrin. Game 1: Player 1 does Seeker rush, Player 2 does slightly slower seeker rush. Player 1 wins. Game 2: Same as Game 1. Game 3: Same as game 1. ETC. utterly retarded.

Red Alert 2: succeeded imo. Not on the level of SC, but sold very well. Too much focus on superweapons, thankfully they can be turned off.

Generals: Slow, boring. Haven't played it much tbh. I do know that it heavily disappointed C&C players with it's more SC-like interface but at the same time SC players don't like it because it's quite obviously C&C. Too much focus on superweapons.

Supreme Commander: I don't play it but I watched the best player in my town play it for about 2 minutes (literally) at a local tournament that he won. His actions consisted of the following: Zoom in. Zoom out. Select a group of units. Zoom out more. Click on the opposite side of the map. Zoom in. Sit and watch for about 30 seconds. Zoom out. Zoom in. Zoom out. site there for a little longer. At this point I got bored and decided to go play Street Fighter because my friend had showed up.

WC3: Too complicated. I watch it and all I understand is shiny shit just got cast by one dude and then the other dude cast shiny shit and then town portal. Hell, I even play this with my friend and that's all I understand really. I've even beaten some of my worse friends at it and I DONT KNOW WHAT ANYTHING DOES. I've had this game for YEARS. And I don't UNDERSTAND ANYTHING. what the hell. Kinda slow too.

Myth 2: No base management, I never tried multiplayer. I wouldn't be surprised if this game is kinda good multiplayer but idk. Also perhaps too obviously violent and it hurt sales probably. Like it's got a guy with his face mangled on the cover. And sure when I was a kid my mom bought me all sorts of violent games like UT and stuff but the game with the guy's face ripped off on the cover was a no-no.

WC2: Mostly succeeded. Perhaps not deep enough. Also very hard to control, even at the time. The UI was lacking even when it came out.

C&C tiberian sun: art style didn't stand out too much in most people's heads. very cheesy cutscenes. I loved the way this game felt, musically and in control but i was terrible at it. most people thought this game was worse than the previous ones just because it was "too futuristic" might as well be "starcraft 2 or something" c&c players said. kinda like how sc players have said that sc2 is like wc3???

On January 03 2009 16:31 [X]Ken_D wrote:
RTS are a lot harder to get into than other games. They require a bigger commitment for the initial learning curve whereas games like FPS are a lot more accessible. As a result there are less people trying out new RTS. Unless they have a big company or brand backing them up, most don't have the financial support to make their RTS to succeed and even get noticed.

On January 03 2009 16:24 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Comment About macro-thingys: Almost all the games listed here are micro games. There is no talk of games like Rise of Nations, or even more crazy european econ RTS (aka simcity with troops) like settlers or seven kingdoms, or even Age of Empire series.....

Where are the macro-strategy supporters on this forum??? When someone said that Starcraft had the most macro strategy, I felt dizzy~~~~

Though to be frank, I don't think any of those macro strategy games ever came close in market penetration or audience to micro ones. I guess build orders complicated enough to fill a book just lacks mass market appeal....

On January 03 2009 16:42 Shadowfury333 wrote:
@anotak: Myth 2 was meant to be a tactics game, and it was rather hard to micro well with decently large armies, as projectiles could hit friendlies, and all units pretty much had to be babysat in order to really deal a ton of damage. That game didn't do too poorly either, it was supported well, it was fun to play, and it's only big downside was lack of marketing, but back then Bungie was a Mac-focused company, which explains that (Myth 2 was their first Windows game since Marathon 2 IIRC)

On January 03 2009 14:45 Hazz wrote:

Is there any game apart from starcraft with such diverse economy management? Every other RTS seems to devolve into unit spam and basic micro. I don't think its fair to say warcraft 3 has inherently flawed gameplay because macro isn't the focus

On January 03 2009 14:40 lwstupidus wrote:


Aside from the game selling well, Halo 3 was a horrible failure, so really bad comparison.



You must be unfamiliar with Orc.



And you must be unfamiliar with WC3 completely, which has infinitely more strategy at all levels of play, whereas in SC, the player who masses more units through macro at B or below is just going to win with A click.

On January 03 2009 15:45 anotak wrote:
Total Annihilation: Ass networking support. Badly balanced units. Both races have 200+ units. Guess what, about 5 are ACTUALLY USEFUL.

On January 03 2009 16:24 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Comment About macro-thingys: Almost all the games listed here are micro games. There is no talk of games like Rise of Nations, or even more crazy european econ RTS (aka simcity with troops) like settlers or seven kingdoms, or even Age of Empire series.....

Where are the macro-strategy supporters on this forum??? When someone said that Starcraft had the most macro strategy, I felt dizzy~~~~

Though to be frank, I don't think any of those macro strategy games ever came close in market penetration or audience to micro ones. I guess build orders complicated enough to fill a book just lacks mass market appeal....

On January 03 2009 16:22 Lysdexia wrote:
A lot of posts in this thread have been about balance and how Starcraft is 'more balanced' than every other rts out there. I think it's more that the way the game is played mitigates the importance of balance.

Most other rts games, whether it's due to their slower pace, some design flaw, or the developer's attempt to give the game more casual appeal, have lower mechanical requirements. BW demands a great deal of speed, accuracy and multitasking from the players before strategy even really becomes an issue, which makes it a lot harder to get easy wins by abusing small imbalances.

Maybe with perfect or near perfect mechanics from both players, Starcraft is unplayable. It's possible that terran has some uber strat against protoss or that with perfect micro 4 pool is always insta-win. These problems will never come up for us because no game is just one players strategy against another's with an even starting point, but they will come up for games with lower execution requirements.

On January 03 2009 14:31 SWPIGWANG wrote:
DoW: Impossible balance model and impossible to statistically understand due to having a ton of races, 7+ armor classes and weapon classes, tons of unique modifiers involving interaction just about every two unit. Memorizing all the semi-hidden interactions as opposed to easy to understand concepts becomes more important than intuitive generalized ones. Immense complexity also means bugs and impossible balance issues that could not be resolved easily, let alone make all races internally balanced and deep..

On January 03 2009 20:37 rob3dj wrote:


How is having weapon classes and unique modifiers going to make LESS of a pro scene? thats exactly what you want, mechanics that to a noob they can sort of pick up without understanding "oh wow grey knights seem to be awesome against these banshees for some reason". While the pro player understand why this is and what other units they are good against.

On January 03 2009 22:00 zer0das wrote:
It's pretty simple... if you have a ton of different damage and armor types, it is much harder to figure how much damage you are going to do in a battle versus an army of varying composition. The number of permutations is huge. It might not even be readily apparent the optimal way to micro your stuff. Warcraft 3 has 4 damage types, and I can't even keep track of those. In Dawn of War it is next to impossible to tell how much damage your units are doing.

I think a huge part of why Starcraft is so successful is because it is really transparent... you know what your units are capable of because the damage system is easy to comprehend. And even if you can't, units die very quickly so even if you don't know the specifics you can figure out what works against what pretty quickly. More importantly, it is almost always readily apparent why you lost a battle, or the game. Transparency also lets you react to what your opponent is doing to minimize any edge they might gain from it. And you can try to maximize your own.

On January 03 2009 22:46 zer0das wrote:
Splash damage isn't a specific damage type. It is either normal, concussive, or explosive. Each unit that does splash damage has one of these types of damage. The means of splash is different, but they are all fairly intuitive... the animations show how they work simply enough.

Splash damage is also kind of nice because it gives the illusion of randomness when it isn't at all random.

On January 03 2009 23:46 Mora wrote:

3) proper post-release support.

On January 03 2009 13:19 Krigstar wrote:


The comparison to FPS doesn't really work since there have been hundreds of FPSs that has been played competitively. You have Halo, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, Battlefield and a shitload of others. We have only Starcraft and Warcraft 3 really and have only had them since the beginning of time.

The reason is that FPS doesn't need to be balanced in the same way an RTS does. Starcraft (and Warcraft 3) are the only games that still after 5 million hours of analyzing every little detail, no race is better than the other and no super-own-all strategy exist.

I'm pretty sure the most important aspect of creating a successful RTS in a competitive way is to take it slow and support it until it's perfect. Many other RTS-makers out there makes good games, but just don't give a shit after the user has bought the game. Why bother working on a game years after the release when you can just make a huge marketing campaign to show of explosions and shadow-effects, sell a ton and never have to worry about it again.

So basically the problem is that all other RTS-makers aren't Blizzard

On January 03 2009 22:26 HaFnium wrote:
I'll talk about AoE/AoC

First flaw is the lack of control of units. The computer AI is pretty stupid, the unit formation is very annoying in microing. Also it lacks pace (even in fast game mode)

Second flaw is the resources system (Map design). The resrouces are spreaded everywhere and there are simply too much resources. You can trade for different resrouces so it is quite hard to run out resources. There are less strategic sites/chokes around the map which makes battle boring.

The races are also pretty similar and they play generally in the same way.

On January 03 2009 18:46 Velr wrote:
I think Dawn of War was the only game with some sort of *chance* to get competetive.


Then Relic did not patch it fast enough.
Then Relic put out the first Addon and ruined everything that made Dawn of War interesting.
Then Relic put out more Addons and it did not get any better.

On January 04 2009 02:25 Fen wrote:
I also like how blizzard games give you very clear info about a unit and what it does.

A marine for example has 40 health and does 5 damage (its unit size and damage type could have been outlined better but this was fixed in warcraft 3). This allows me to look at a marine and say, ok I need 7 marines to kill a zergling in 1 volley. How many games give you this statistical information?

On January 04 2009 02:25 Fen wrote:
I also like how blizzard games give you very clear info about a unit and what it does.

A marine for example has 40 health and does 5 damage (its unit size and damage type could have been outlined better but this was fixed in warcraft 3). This allows me to look at a marine and say, ok I need 7 marines to kill a zergling in 1 volley. How many games give you this statistical information?

The main problem with DOW is that it doesn't have the control of starcraft, alot of the skill from starcraft comes from beign able to control individual untis, and do things such as hold position ect to break the engine.

How is having weapon classes and unique modifiers going to make LESS of a pro scene?

On January 04 2009 05:41 JudgeMathis wrote:
Warcraft 3 is the closes thing to Starcraft. Where Warcraft lacks, it makes up for. Yes, you can't macro that much. But, to replace that a Warcraft 3 player has to think about where the player is creeping, if he has an expansion. You can't really sit here, and say "SHIT BECAUSE WC3 MACRO IS LIMITED, SHIT SUCKS."

Btw, Wc2 was very imbalanced. Everyone plays Orc. -_-; Also, the fan base is the real reason why some RTS succeed or not.

On January 04 2009 05:52 ManWithCheese wrote:


Balance was simple and great in warcraft 2. If you take 2 players of high apm and equal skill and throw them into a large scale battle the human player will win, while you can bloodlust all your ogres it doesn't do any good when half of them couldn't attack till others died meanwhile the human player is spamming heal on his front line, the orc would then try to counteract this by increasing how big the front line is.

Shame more people didn't buy the battle.net edition as it was a blast to play.

On January 04 2009 08:12 avilo wrote:
i know cnc games fail because the devs half-assedly try to cater to two audiences: the mystical casual gamer, and the hardcore.

games are destined to fail much harder when u cater in ANY way to a casual audience. Was bw catered to casual/hardcores? i dun think so, I think they just wanted to make a good game, and they weren't bogged down with thinking about, "how will this be competitive for n00bs and pr0s?" Should we add in/ remove features to make it more accessible?

nope, they just made a kickass game, and it turned out good. Nowadays, devs are being pussies, and dumbing down RTS for these mythical casual gamer creatures that will suck either way. They dumbed down pingpong some with larger diameter of balls, they dumbed down tennis with slower balls at the aussie open (ok, these are exaggerations but there is truth in them), you can see this pattern of dumbing shit down for the casual human being everywhere. that is why RTS will continue to suck, SC2 may be the game to break the trend, but with shit like MBS/automining and things to cater to the casual, you can bet it won't have the same exact magic as bw. -.-

On January 04 2009 05:52 ManWithCheese wrote:


Balance was simple and great in warcraft 2. If you take 2 players of high apm and equal skill and throw them into a large scale battle the human player will win, while you can bloodlust all your ogres it doesn't do any good when half of them couldn't attack till others died meanwhile the human player is spamming heal on his front line, the orc would then try to counteract this by increasing how big the front line is.

Shame more people didn't buy the battle.net edition as it was a blast to play.

On January 05 2009 15:05 hideo wrote:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/

This is a free open source 3d rts engine originally created by a group of Total Annihilation modders.

The Balanced Annihilation mod is honestly as challenging and as fun an experience as brood war for me. It's also a very interesting glimpse at what rts can be, with its extremely powerful UI supplemented by user-creatable "widgets", and continuous direct and indirect input from players with regards to new new maps, balancing gameplay, and graphics.

The community is very small, but there is a very healthy competitive segment, and 1v1 ladders and tournaments are held frequently.

Please check it out, but be aware that the learning curve is very steep, though if you've had any experience with online TA, you'll pick up the basics quickly.

On January 05 2009 12:20 lowlypawn wrote:

Should a single miss-click lose the game?
In WC3 clicking on a town portal (TP) one millisecond too late will lose you the game. This can be very frustrating. Should a RTS be decided by a single miss click?

Well as you can see there are a tons of factors a game designer must take into account. I've just scratched the surface and I'm sure you can come up with many. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

On January 04 2009 05:52 ManWithCheese wrote:


Balance was simple and great in warcraft 2. If you take 2 players of high apm and equal skill and throw them into a large scale battle the human player will win, while you can bloodlust all your ogres it doesn't do any good when half of them couldn't attack till others died meanwhile the human player is spamming heal on his front line, the orc would then try to counteract this by increasing how big the front line is.

Shame more people didn't buy the battle.net edition as it was a blast to play.

On January 05 2009 21:17 Pingvinen wrote:


Wouldn´t that be like the same thing like losing your commander due to misplacing him, or the enemy get a lucky sniper or whatever? Risk and reward...


Topic:
I kind of like that in SC, or WC3 games dont take forever to finish, they are easy to learn hard to master (like most of sports around: anyone can kick a ball with your foot or run as fast as they can.. ) and i dunno, i like the feeling of total control when i play a game of sc or wc3, can´t explain it, but it feels good.

On January 05 2009 19:35 PobTheCad wrote:

my main gripe with TA is too many units
if you can build 100 different units whats the bet 95 of them will never be used?
im guessing this product is the same . with user added units etc?

On January 06 2009 17:19 Tyraz wrote:

Too put it bluntly, SC to me is an absolutely shit house mellow RTS, with Terran the only real race you can play in relative safety if your gonna just mass turtle and then swarm loads of crap at each other. And too the same extent, AoE2 is a crap competitive RTS because of the appallingly OP units and strats.

On January 06 2009 17:19 Tyraz wrote:


Too draw the distinction; i'd like too draw on two games that came out pretty much the same time, and still have a very large fan base (although one is a large casual LAN gamer base, rather than pro). Too represent the 'mellow RTS' side of things, we have Microsoft's AoE2, which is still HUGELY popular with casual gamers and games typically last for upwards of 2 hours (with a movie or something on in the background). The game isn't very well balanced at all, with players usually being able too amass a massive army of two types of units and just batter each other with them too achieve victory. The resources are seemingly endless (trade carts) and defenses are a massive component (too say the least). To define the type of feel behind the fun you get from this... in essence i'd bring it right down too the type of 'tower defence/attack' mods you get for wc3. You get loads and loads of crap, and batter it against your enemy's defenses (strategy plays very little part) and pretty much see who ends up winning the big brute force battle.

.

On January 06 2009 19:10 Spawkuring wrote:
Tyraz, there's nothing wrong with a game being both casual and hardcore friendly at the same time.

On January 07 2009 06:46 dmfg wrote:
Slightly OT but D10 - I believe the RA3 engine shares the C&C3 engine's quirk of being locked at 30 FPS, meaning that if your comp is too slow to output 30 FPS then it actually slows down the game.

So if your computer only manages 15FPS, 1 ingame second takes 2 RL seconds. In C&C3 this was the most annoying thing ever online, when someone puts their settings waaaay above what their comp can handle just to annoy the hell out of you by slowing the game to a crawl.

On January 03 2009 22:24 Shikyo wrote:
Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever played NetStorm? I thought that the concept was quite fun and unique, although I haven't played it in a while. It was made around the same time as Starcraft. Apparently it still has a community around.

http://www.netstormhq.com/download.php?list.10

Download of the full version of the game if you want to try it

but competitive games are even better because you can actually choose between casual and hardcore play-styles, and not have to be shoehorned into casual-only like so many other games do. It's for this reason why I can't fathom why gamers today are on this "anti-hardcore" crusade.

On January 07 2009 10:06 -orb- wrote:
Other RTS's fail because they cater to noobs. Noobs generally get bored of games within a couple of months, so the RTS dies.

On January 07 2009 10:17 GeneralStan wrote:


What a cool game!

Not only that, the beta's tend to be far too short to get out any of the kinks in the game itself so that when it hits store shelves the game is buggy and totally imbalanced. Of course this can be fixed if the developers are willing to listen to the community

On January 07 2009 15:01 Tiamat wrote:
Random thoughts for reasons why other RTS fail...

a) Units become worthless as the game progresses. I always hated the "Tier" system. I mean one of the things I hated about War2 and War3 is that once you get to the late game, you would never have a reason to build a footman ever again. Just build knights. SC gave every unit a use throughout the entire game. Tier systems are stupid and dont work for a fun game.

b) Battle Net, other RTSs have horrible multiplayer systems. Battle net single handedly helped SC become the RTS. Boneyards, Relic, Gamespy, they all suck balls.

c) Unit response, I want my units to move and do what I want them to. Some RTS have such horrible pathfinding that its unbelievable.

On January 07 2009 16:53 SerpentFlame wrote:
Thoughts for the failures of some RTS Games (actually I only played CnC so I'll just be discussing that)

1) Too many units occupy the same niche and there's a lack of diversity among units. Why build Heavy tanks when you could build Mammoth tanks? Why build light tanks or missile trucks when you could get Heavy Tanks? (CnC). A lot of units were mostly flashy but didn't really bring anything fresh into the game. Warcraft three slightly falls into this as well, in that a lot of units in Castle-tech completely outclass in every way the corresponding tier two or tier one unit. The difference that was made in Starcraft is that (most) units are specialized and diverse so that they find their place in a niche that isn't a iron hardcounter to any specific strategy, but a malleable softcounter to an opponent's observed unit combination. Each race is also given a different dynamic, which changes the pace of the gameplay immensely.

2) Reaction and scouting isn't that important: if you see your opponent going seeker rush, there's nothing you can really do except continue with the strategy that you started with; a seeker rush. Starcraft strategies on the other hand are so numerously diverse (yet still not as to be just too much for a gamer) and importantly, there is no "winning" strategy such as the OU Seeker Rush. Really, a lot of more unorthodox strategies (such as Reverse Stove sairgoon, bluegoon v T, bachanic or ghosts v P, or Dragoon Templar v Z, etc.) are semi-viable and at least make for an interesting game dynamic, whereas in a lot of RTS's its all about massing a lot of one type of tank and then winning.

3) Weak-paced micromanagement; almost all units don't move too quickly and micromanaging them doesn't lead to much benefit.

4) No depth in economy. Macromanagement and expanding in Starcraft is tremendously important, but the same can't be said of most RTS games that have less-harassable bases or less benefits to economic expansion, overall dumbing down the gameplay in other RTS's.

On January 07 2009 22:03 Lamentations wrote:
The WC or AoE clones are really annoying, especially when they try to implement 'creative' and 'unique' gameplay mechanics like going underground in armies of exigo but turns out it just ruins the flow of the game.

On January 09 2009 01:53 freelander wrote:


lol you are so funny

it's like the destructable obstacles on a map.. you don't have to include underground on a map if you create one you know. the most played exigo map didn't have underground, and not exigo featured underground first.. metal fatigue had 3 playing levels actually.

and the other thing: it was a good feature

On January 09 2009 02:02 dmfg wrote:


I've never played Exigo but why does this underground thing make me think of burrowed infestors being able to move freely in SC2..?

On January 03 2009 13:07 Entertaining wrote:
when i play while playing rts like supreme commander i think "i could be cutting my wrists right now" lol jk, id rather play STARCRAFT

On January 12 2009 04:11 Volshok wrote:
(Random Number Generator)

+ Show Spoiler +

I'd say SC is great because it's a balanced playing field that rewards players for the actions and decisions they make, leaving little to "luck"

On January 12 2009 04:11 Volshok wrote:
(Random Number Generator)

+ Show Spoiler +

I'd say SC is great because it's a balanced playing field that rewards players for the actions and decisions they make, leaving little to "luck"

On January 12 2009 04:26 freelander wrote:


there are a lot of losses because your scout finds later the opponent than your opponent's scout find you..

On January 12 2009 05:03 ManWithCheese wrote:


What about reavers? They are nothing but luck. People can say they create a OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH moment but when you have 1 reaver taking out 6+ workers every shot in 1 game and in another game another reaver missing all of his shots well.... thats just not right and is very game changing all by luck.

On January 12 2009 05:03 ManWithCheese wrote:


What about reavers? They are nothing but luck. People can say they create a OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH moment but when you have 1 reaver taking out 6+ workers every shot in 1 game and in another game another reaver missing all of his shots well.... thats just not right and is very game changing all by luck.

On January 17 2009 04:44 Grel wrote:
I think a thing that sets starcraft apart is that the games are dynamic

1) Too many units occupy the same niche and there's a lack of diversity among units. Why build Heavy tanks when you could build Mammoth tanks? Why build light tanks or missile trucks when you could get Heavy Tanks? (CnC). A lot of units were mostly flashy but didn't really bring anything fresh into the game. Warcraft three slightly falls into this as well, in that a lot of units in Castle-tech completely outclass in every way the corresponding tier two or tier one unit. The difference that was made in Starcraft is that (most) units are specialized and diverse so that they find their place in a niche that isn't a iron hardcounter to any specific strategy, but a malleable softcounter to an opponent's observed unit combination. Each race is also given a different dynamic, which changes the pace of the gameplay immensely.

2) Reaction and scouting isn't that important: if you see your opponent going seeker rush, there's nothing you can really do except continue with the strategy that you started with; a seeker rush. Starcraft strategies on the other hand are so numerously diverse (yet still not as to be just too much for a gamer) and importantly, there is no "winning" strategy such as the OU Seeker Rush. Really, a lot of more unorthodox strategies (such as Reverse Stove sairgoon, bluegoon v T, bachanic or ghosts v P, or Dragoon Templar v Z, etc.) are semi-viable and at least make for an interesting game dynamic, whereas in a lot of RTS's its all about massing a lot of one type of tank and then winning.

3) Weak-paced micromanagement; almost all units don't move too quickly and micromanaging them doesn't lead to much benefit.

4) No depth in economy. Macromanagement and expanding in Starcraft is tremendously important, but the same can't be said of most RTS games that have less-harassable bases or less benefits to economic expansion, overall dumbing down the gameplay in other RTS's.

On January 17 2009 06:49 L wrote:
All false in upper level play.

All very false.

On January 22 2009 18:06 hunter3 wrote:
Warcraft II = win

On January 03 2009 16:24 SWPIGWANG wrote:
Comment About macro-thingys: Almost all the games listed here are micro games. There is no talk of games like Rise of Nations, or even more crazy european econ RTS (aka simcity with troops) like settlers or seven kingdoms, or even Age of Empire series.....

Where are the macro-strategy supporters on this forum??? When someone said that Starcraft had the most macro strategy, I felt dizzy~~~~

Though to be frank, I don't think any of those macro strategy games ever came close in market penetration or audience to micro ones. I guess build orders complicated enough to fill a book just lacks mass market appeal....

On January 30 2009 18:08 Oc wrote:
Like how most games 'fail' in the long term: they fail to achieve balance, fun factor, accessibility and depth. All of this while introducing something NEW.

SC wouldn't be where it is today if the game wasn't graphically appealing and the presentation top-notch for its time. It's easy to talk about gameplay > graphics considering how big SC is now, but if the game doesn't dazzle you in the first 15 minutes how do you expect it to stick around for 15 years?

On January 17 2009 06:49 L wrote:
All false in upper level play.

All very false.

mass 1 unit in wcg finals...

On February 12 2009 05:32 D10 wrote:
I think the biggest reason other RTS games failed (to surpass BW) is because, no other company has the blizzard mentality of making only AAA+ products whose purpose is more than to be a game, but an experience, that and the fact that, it seems most companies have completely wrong views of how competitive play works.

On February 12 2009 05:32 D10 wrote:
I think the biggest reason other RTS games failed (to surpass BW) is because, no other company has the blizzard mentality of making only AAA+ products whose purpose is more than to be a game, but an experience, that and the fact that, it seems most companies have completely wrong views of how competitive play works.

On February 12 2009 11:52 The Storyteller wrote:


Which is really because there's no incentive for companies to make really good games like SC... Blizzard really has not made very much money from the SC game in the past 5 years, even though the pro scene is so popular. You buy one copy and never need another one. So companies like to push out a game that's just good enough for some people to play, then come up with an expansion pack, then come up with a sequel. That probably makes them more money than coming up with one really good game.

Blizzard has found a way to break that model, though. They've been smart enough to capitalise on the SC franchise, licensing the rights to novels. That's the benefit of having a truly long lived game.

On February 12 2009 09:01 armed_ wrote:

If anything the problem with other RTS games is they focus too much on being an experience and not enough on actually being a good game.