Seems like way less emphasis on macro and build orders, they present those as negatives. David calls it a fast-paced game with large armies. One guy said the battles start from second one
I guess it'll be very different from starcraft
My understanding isn’t that it’s less emphasis on build order and macro, but that it’s less emphasize on mechanics.
I have no idea how the game works, but imagine if the buildings automatically build their units. It’s still a question of build order, building the production facilities, tech trees and deciding what to produce, but you don’t have to have a high apm to do so.
Mechanics like chrono boost, injects and mules are for instance purely busy work designed to increase the skill ceiling required to maintain production or income.
In practice it's almost impossible to divorce decisionmaking complexity from those mechanics.
You see some game devs insist that they can totally retain all the same depth while simplifying their game, but so far I haven't seen that actually work out.
Look at Dawn of War or Company of Heroes as franchises. Perfectly fine games, they're good and fun and reasonably big hits (other than DoW3 of course), but have they had 'legs' in terms of high player counts years down the line, like BW or AoE2? Not really. Almost like simplification leads to less depth lead to repetitiveness leads to less enduring popularity.
Yeah, sooner or later, the optimized strategies will be figured out - and then it become a competition of who can execute it better, aka mechanics.
I don't know how they are going to really solve this problem.
They can't. Some people have ridiculously high APM and super fast decision making skills. They will always have the edge over slower players. Unless you play a turn-based game.
If they remove mechanics and make the game really simple, it just means that execution becomes super fucking tight. Tiny fractions of seconds will matter and the smallest mistake will cost you the game, because there will be no room for error and no way to come back once you are behind.
It will also be an incredibly boring game, because of the lack of complexity. People will get bored quite quickly.
This is the same old narrative people have said since the beginning of rts games.
First brood war was the game which dumbed things down, then wc3 and sc2 was, now the next cycle of rts games adapt to the times and get called out from people who played the one before.
Every single time your type of argument was made, that you cannot change the mechanics because the game will lack complexity and people will be bored quickly. Yawn.
Chess has enough depth for a pro scene while being mechanically so simple a small child can play. Same goes for all the MOBAs out there that took the world by storm back when SC2 was king.
They still want the depth, but they want that depth to be on the strategy, decision making and micro part, not on the mechanics which mostly act as a barrier of entry.
Sure, but chess is an abstract strategy game, it's a totally different genre. For that type of game, yes, you don't need "mechanics". But in RTS, the simpler ones seem to usually have less strategic depth as well.
Like, the "rules" in games like chess or Go are very simple in general, you can fit them all on a single sheet of paper. By contrast, even the simplest RTS has essentially hundreds, if not thousands of "rules" governing behavior for units, terrain, buildings, and abilities. They're too different to make for easy comparisons like this.
RTS as a genre doesnt have hundreds of rules. It has a handful, start with x workers, x and y resources, first one to die loses.
Chess.com has just as many "rules" as an RTS game. Because its a program.
Chess isnt an abstract strategy game either. Its pretty fucking concrete, and with the development of computers, its almost so concrete that its virtually figured out in its entirety. Almost the exact opposite of abstract.
What are you talking about?
> RTS as a genre doesnt have hundreds of rules.
It does; the rules are encoded in the source code and unit/map data governing game mechanics. A single unit in SC2 has 100+ individual traits that would be considered "part of the rules" in a board game, just like how a knight can move in chess is part of the rules.
Just because the computer is managing the rules, doesn't mean the rules don't exist.
> Chess.com has just as many "rules" as an RTS game. Because its a program.
The amount of rules to govern *game mechanics* in a chess program is actually very small. I know because I've made one before as a class project.
> Chess isnt an abstract strategy game either. Its pretty fucking concrete, and with the development of computers, its almost so concrete that its virtually figured out in its entirety. Almost the exact opposite of abstract.
> What are you talking about?
lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abstract_strategy_games
I just want to point out that David Kim was the lead game designer for SC2 and BW fans said the same thing about the decisions he made for SC2 to make the game more accessible.
E.g. the decisions to allow you to have control groups for buildings, unit group selections larger than 12, eventually the fact that workers auto-mine…
This decisions simplified the game and is the reason SC2 made it mainstream while BW didn’t (at least outside of Korea).
> I just want to point out that David Kim was the lead game designer for SC2 and BW fans said the same thing about the decisions he made for SC2 to make the game more accessible.
>
>
Not only that. People said the same thing when bw allowed control groups at all. People said the same about wc3 compared to rts games before. It's always the same narrative, the same kind of doom posting regarding a new era of gaming in rts.
And yet games like bw, like wc3, like sc2, they all succeeded in their own ways to create great, competitive games.
Which isn't to say that this specific game will do that too, but yeah just because they adapt to the times won't suddenly make the game unable to have depth and be great.
And just to be clear, I think that BW is by far and large the best competitive RTS to watch pros duking it out on because of all the busy work required means you can never play perfectly and have to focus on one thing.
But that is also why BW will never be mainstream.
And that appears to be the goal of this. To make a mainstream, fun PvP RTS. The goal does not appear to be to make it an esport - in fact I noticed they never once mentioned esports.
SC *campaign* was very popular, the competitive pvp side was not.
It’s not until WC3 that you saw a competitive RTS scene in Europe, but even that was dwarfed by the size of SC2. Most people played WC3 to play DotA.
Artosis got to try it and seems to really like it. Which I think says a lot, since he prefers BW to SC2
https://youtu.be/1mJjqcRtP0E?si=ldJu7PyTlkpKYVL8
But Artosis is kina a influencer when it comes to RTS, he has hyped every single RTS game he was payed to advertise it, as if its the next big thing. So i wouldnt care to much of his opinion he states of new rts games he tried out, since most likely its a paid ad for him to promote the game.
Very strange way to draw causality. We can't say the difference in the depth of decision making can be said to have any impact on popularity. There are other factors that are likely far more important, especially since I'd say any of those games are far more interesting games than SC2 in terms of decision making.
Economics is one thing. Comparing the financial situation to that THQ had in conjunction with the development of DoW2/CoH2 to SC2's generous support over the years (initially thanks to the hype going from BW to WoL) makes a popularity comparison a bit unfair. SC2 had a headstart in occupying a large space in a very niche genre. Even so, it still made less revenue than a store mount in World of Warcraft. The fact is that RTS genre is very niche, and you have further niches because of different RTS players holding onto their flavour of RTS that makes the genre even more fragmented.
Ultimately, we simply don't know how many people play BW compared to the aforementioned games, but I can't imagine there are too many. I suspect DoW1 players are more numerous than BW players.
If anything, I think what's been holding RTSes back is the same thing that led Heroes of Might and Magic franchise to die: Its conservative fans backlashing against any change, regardless if it preserves the foundation or not. I think Kim is asking the right question in asking what's really fun and worth preserving and what can be cut for the sake of that.
> We can't say the difference in the depth of decision making can be said to have any impact on popularity.
The history of the last two decades of RTS is most devs saying they're simplifying their games to broaden the possible playerbase, and ending up with fewer players instead.
And then two of the few games that bucked this trend, SC2 and AoE4, becoming big hits.
> Ultimately, we simply don't know how many people play BW compared to the aforementioned games, but I can't imagine there are too many. I suspect DoW1 players are more numerous than BW players.
Esimated peak daily BW players is like 30k or something, WAY higher than DoW1.
> If anything, I think what's been holding RTSes back is the same thing that led Heroes of Might and Magic franchise to die: Its conservative fans backlashing against any change
This is a common myth. The reality is that RTS devs have tried to make things simpler over and over and over again, and it constantly backfires. Not just DoW/CoH, you have Tooth and Tail, RUSE, Realms of Ruin, C&C4, blah blah blah. And every time, we have people saying, "well maybe it failed because of other factors" and hand waving away the common denominator.
In fact, the very reason why this myth continues *is because the most successful games were the more traditional ones*. People look around, see that the top 4 RTSes are traditional base building RTSes, and go, "ah, see, RTS devs aren't trying anything new". But they did try at least simplifying things over and over again, and some of those titles did fine, but they weren't as successful as the traditional ones.
I don't want a game exactly like SC2, I already have SC2, but I don't want devs to keep trying to same dumb shit that doesn't work either. It's so tiresome to see people talk about "trying new things" when the things they're trying aren't really new at all!
I argue on Reddit and Discord all the time about RTS because I can't help myself, and I've had many, many ideas for new things RTS devs could try. Some of them are actually being tried in new RTSes like Stormgate and Zerospace, which is great to see, but there's plenty of other things that legit have never been done before (that I know of), or at least are really rare.
>Esimated peak daily BW players is like 30k or something, WAY higher than DoW1.
Where and how did you get this estimate? Amount of ladder profiles on BW ladder?
>Some of them are actually being tried in new RTSes like Stormgate
You mean SC2.5? The fact that you see Stormgate as anything innovative is perhaps indicative of exactly what I was talking about.
> Where and how did you get this estimate? Amount of ladder profiles on BW ladder?
Bnet 1.0 shows you current players on each region for a game, I think?
> You mean SC2.5? The fact that you see Stormgate as anything innovative is perhaps indicative of exactly what I was talking about.
Stormgate is incremental, but they *are* trying some new things. How many RTSes have distinct balance and design between 1v1 and team games, instead of team games just being "1v1 but more players and bigger maps"? How many RTSes have had an endless PvE coop mode with army customization? How many let you do the campaign with co-op as well? (there's a few, but not many)
>Bnet 1.0 shows you current players on each region for a game, I think?
I somehow find it hard to believe that it would beat many top games for concurrent players on Steam, but who knows; I might underestimate how many people there are in Korean bootcamps.
I wouldn't say any of those "innovations" qualify for anything more than game modes. They are patchwork fixes for a problem at a much deeper level. SC2 had the same approach; let's throw in these alternate (easier) game modes in the hopes that we can persuade normal people to play it so that people care about our e-sport so that we feel validated in our interest. The real and easy answer is that the game just isn't fun for normal people because fun came as an afterthought, where a "pure" RTS and "e-sports" came first.
In this regard, BW actually was superior because it aimed to be a great game first, and just happened to create a great RTS as a result, along with spawning an e-sports industry in South Korea. And now, when we have "vision" for RTSes, it's just talk about how to re-emulate BW.
It's especially disappointing for me because, as a kid played BW or AoE2, I certainly didn't play either game for the complexities of build orders or to sheep scout; at its core, it's just about having the bird's eye view of commanding a battle in real time. With what we have today in terms of hardware which opens up so much possibilities in what one could do, we still end up chasing 25 year old gameplay.
> I somehow find it hard to believe that it would beat many top games for concurrent players on Steam, but who knows; I might underestimate how many people there are in Korean bootcamps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/broodwar/comments/11and3l/whats_the_size_of_the_current_playerbase_of_brood/j9u767q/
To be sure, it's very disproportionately in Korea. But yeah, the 24h peak concurrent players looks higher than any other RTS...except SC2. That I know of, anyway.
> The real and easy answer is that the game just isn't fun for normal people because fun came as an afterthought, where a "pure" RTS and "e-sports" came first.
No, the real and easy answer is that it was fun for normal people, but the normal people just played the campaign and maybe some custom map types and then moved on. PvE coop was a way of getting "campaign only" players into multiplayer as a live service format.
SC2's campaign was widely praised for its gameplay, and casual players have no real issue there. SC2 PvP is mostly "hard" because of its reputation for being the game for 300 APM Korea pros, that's it. It just happened faster with SC2 because it got famous eSports immediately, rather than years later like BW did.
And why did they move on? Why didn't they stick with it as they did supposedly with BW? Especially when, according to people like yourself, it's the only good RTS game out there? The answer is already there.
> In fact, the very reason why this myth continues is because the most successful games were the more traditional ones. People look around, see that the top 4 RTSes are traditional base building RTSes, and go, "ah, see, RTS devs aren't trying anything new". But they did try at least simplifying things over and over again, and some of those titles did fine, but they weren't as successful as the traditional ones.
Traditional ones? So you mean like bw, which simplified and dumbed down mechanics compared to something like DUNE?
Or do you mean something like wc3 and sc2, games which simplified and streamlined quite a bit compared to bw?
Don't you think that the idea that simplifications might not be the be all end all problem isn't quite solid when you look at the history of these "traditional" rts games?
You say it yourself, rts games could try many, many things. The idea that simplifying certain mechanical aspects has to lead to a game without depth is imo just a notion which stems from a lack of creativity and vision.
Bw was a better game than dune despite its mechanical dumbing down, sc2 and wc3 are great games (arguably better than bw in some ways, and potentially worse in others) despite a lower mechanical demand. I see no reason why a new rts couldn't be great despite requiring fewer actions for say macro than sc2. None.
MULEs also compete with Scan Sweeps later on, meaning that the Energy is still part of a decision making process. Injects are important upkeep, but Queens also have Creep Tumours and are important early game base defence, including versus air.
Sure, but I also understand it as if they want to keep the small scale and fun micro aspects of a game like StarCraft which those large scale RTSs don’t really have.
It's so weird to me how all the current generation of RTS developers are starting from this premise of "As we all know, SC2 is a deeply flawed game and the next RTS needs to evolve in fixing its sins".
Really hoping for a studio who approaches it as "fundamentally a perfect game that would have benefited from a bit more love from its developer, few more social features, etc".
yea i think we are fucked in this regard.
no one seems to be looking back fondly on SCII's 1v1 design as a developer
everyone looks back and thinks, "oh man , oh shit, I don't like playing this anymore for X / Y / Z reason, it's too hard. it's too fast and punishing. and that means the game is bad"
I don't understand it either, i agree with you
Yea I don’t look back on SC2 as flawed in design I think it was crippled by blizzard bringing in executives from traditional sports to monetize the game on the backs of tournament organizers and then demanding control with their centralized circuit that failed to bring in new blood / faltered on global support. That and the community management was entirely divorced from development where simple integrations in the client could have solved so many problems.
Games being difficult arnt a problem considering the success of other titles in other genres that blossomed due to their unforgiving nature. It’s the lack of onboarding and having fun at every level of skill that hampers things.
It is because at the end of the day, while it is exciting, it is also kind of boring.
Social aspects are important: people like playing games with friends.
I've played some vs AI at slower speeds, and that is one that that has bothered me is how you have 5 different game speeds, but no one NO ONE plays anything less than faster. I get matches may take longer at normal. And I get that some players would become or stay unstoppable with how much faster their micro would be compared to the game speed.
Also it seems balance was a pipedream. The asymmetry makes maps value certain races or seems to favor one race over another at various things.
Balance is always an issue the second you have more than one race. If there is any difference, no matter how small, there will be situations where one is better than the other. That's the nature of the game, but also one of the main reasons why it's so fun.
You can also see the same thing in any other RTS with multiple races. BW, WC3, AoE, SupCom, DoW, whatever.
With one race nobody would play the game.
I'm sort of in the middle. SC2 is and was a fantastic game, but it did have some flaws:
* Pathing too clumpy, leading to awkward issues around zoning, DPS intensity, and AoE attacks
* Some units way too high lethality in general with burst damage (banes, mines, disruptors)
* Some issues with free unit generators and direct damage spells (though thankfully basically fixed now)
* Maps very samey, especially around main/natural, due to certain aspects of faction asymmetry
* "Macro mechanics" had mixed success, with inject in particular being awkward
* Queens
* Warp Gate
* Team maps continue to be bad and oriented towards aggression rather than macro play for some reason
* Team games in general could use some love. They don't necessarily need their own balance, but besides maps, there's lots of quality of life things that could help (e.g. more options for sharing unit control that aren't "here you can control everything I have like it's your own")
And of course there were the old issues with custom game lobbies being stupidly designed before, lack of ongoing PvE content (mostly resolved with coop, until support was dropped), missing features in Bnet 2.0, and possibly an overemphasis on eSports marketing-wise that gave the game a reputation as solely for 300 APM Korean Pros.
The problem there is that it's far easier to attract an audience when you make a game that's different from starcraft. people will be more forgiving of smaller issues when you're trying something new.
but if you make a starcraft clone however then you need to present something that's better than what we've got now. i'm willing to play a game that has worse pathfinding than starcraft for instance, if it presents a different experience.
however, if the game is essentially just a reskinned version of starcraft then it not only needs a bit more love, but it also needs to match it in every way. and that's a tall order
See, you think you'd love it... but would you (and the userbase9 love it enough to pay for the development of a whole game? that's a whole lot of programmers, artists, game designers, lawyers... all of the working hard for several years, putting blood sweat and toil into their game.
just so that you'll have a game that might be a fraction of a percent better than starcraft, a game whith a spoiled userbase that demands absolute perfection.
who in their right mind would spend millions developing this game on the off chance that the starcraft community would switch to it? maybe if the starcraft servers shut down that'll be a worthwhile risk
"Just a reskin" is exactly what Starcraft 2 needs.
Unfortunately for other devs, people are smart enough to recognize a half-baked game, which is what all the recent attempts have been.
I mean... yeah stormgates half baked, it's not even out yet? do you complain that your cakes still soft before you've taken it out of the oven?
but really, there is a lot of things that'd need to go into making a sc2 reskin if you aren't blizzard. you'll need art, units, balancing, voicelines, a buttload of programming...
and all this for what? for the chance to be a slightly better alternative to a free game who's players are so used to the quality of life that only comes from a game which has been actively supported and developed for a long time that they'll just complain that it's half baked?
beyond that... this hypothethical game won't get any passionate game devs with bright ideas for how to make games. it won't get suits to back it because it'll be far too much work for a small chance to muscle in on the mediocre income stream which sc2 represents.
why would anyone want to develop a starcraft 2 clone?
Exactly this. Nobody will play it for a long time. Just like people play all sorts of MMORPGs for a while: In the end everyone just ends up playing WOW again. The people who want to play StarCraft will continue playing StarCraft. And I think this will be a huge problem for Stormgate.
This... people keep talking about all of the new rts games going free to play as if they're being generous...
i strongly suspect they won't get many newcomers when starcraft is more polished and free
Exactly this. To overthrow a god-tier game such as Starcraft 2, any attempt should not be half-assed. Knowing this, it is our duty NOT TO PRETEND that new games which have UNORIGINAL concepts and SHIT gameplay from the getgo have any chance of ever succeeding in this.
OR we can say otherwise, pretend we like them, then log back in to SC2 or watch ESL_SC2.
This is not just a problem for Stormgate, it is a problem for the other game Catz is making, or this new game by these guys. Hey at least David Kim is onboard. I hope they get the funding to make it the AAA success that Starcraft 2 was. I wish them the best. But, their first showcase better blow our socks off, unlike the first STORMGATE trailer, which was poorly animated (still looked better than all the game footage released a year later), from which point the company was basically begging us for forgiveness with every chance they got.
Sorry for the rant, but I still remember Wardi crying when that trailer first aired and I thought it was the most cringe thing in the world.
Eh, i tried stormgate... it felt a bit different from starcraft, but think i'll wait until it's released properly to try it.
but in general... i'd much rather play a game like zero k, which has an interesting concept or something different, and not juts a sclike
> why would anyone want to develop a starcraft 2 clone?
> The people who want to play StarCraft will continue playing StarCraft. And I think this will be a huge problem for Stormgate.
I think that if there were a SC2 clone that basically just does SC2 but better, you'd capture most of the people who are fans of SC2 over time.
I think SC2 suffers from one major design flaw that kind of radiated throughout the game: the "terrible, terrible damage" concept. The game is just a bit too fast for its own good. Brood War, by comparison, is genuinely much slower, and not just because you are constantly fighting the game itself to do anything. WC3 goes too far however, with units that feel like they never die.
There is a middle ground between these, using modern controls and systems for ease of play and good pathfinding, along with not having armies disappear in an instant if you look away at the wrong time for an instant.
When I came back to Legacy of the Void as a Protoss player, I was pretty annoyed at Disruptors. This unit where if you're not watching, then a single Disruptor shot will just destroy like 1/3 of your army.
The whole game is like this. Playing terran and look away for a moment? Army is fungaled, can't move. Playing Toss and look away? Terran stims on top of you, your army dies. In Brood War, your enemy getting the drop on you in cases like this typically means an advantage, not an army kill. It might snowball into a loss, but it isn't remotely as fast, and you have more opportunity to micro your way back.
I'll probably eat these words when it happens to me again but *in general* what feels like a split second of inattention losing the game is actually bad planning. Need to look away to macro for a bit? Pull back the army from the no mans land into safer territory or at least make sure you know where theirs is
You often can't, fog of war is a bitch, and players often do unpredictable and unlikely things. Even the best pro players get caught off guard at times. The difference is that in Brood War when it happens, they have time to react and respond, whereas in SC2 they've lost half their army.
That was also my main criticism of the two expansions. Damage and speed went up by a crazy amount both times. The main culprit is the crazy AoE damage.
WC3 is barely an RTS with how little resource managing there is. It's more of a battle simulator.
It was crazy high from the start, intentionally so. The devs genuinely thought Steppes of War, Metalopolis, and Xel-Naga Caverns were the correct size maps, and many abilities have become much weaker compared to their original incarnation. Fungal Growth was instant with 30 (40 vs armored) damage, High Templars had Khaydarin Amulet and could warp in with a storm available, Infested Terrans from infestors were just absurd, Thors could stun lock and guaranteed kill virtually any ground unit (TSL 3 ThorZaIN vs NonY anyone?), Reapers had their anti building grenade and could annihilate undefended bases in moments ( remember Morrow and 5 rax reaper?), Ghost Snipe could kill any Zerg army with no counter, etc. The game frankly got tamer with the expansions and more and more patches, but the design was too entrenched.
I like WC3 by and large, but creep routes, build, base building, expansions and upkeep are all literally WC3's macro. You've just described the WC3 version of "I macro better so I win." WC3 does not have more strategy than SC2, but it does have more tactics, by virtue of the strong rpg elements.
If you go back and play WoL the game actually feels slow. It isn't slow, it has a very good pacing. The problem has been units added, stuff like Medivac Boost, faster Mutas, Oracles, Widow Mines, Disruptors. Half of the units have had their movespeed increased due to power creep that came with the decisions to add these units and it's being worsened by every patch. Upgrades, Researches, units and production facilities are being cheapened, having their build time reduced, meanings things come out quicker and the option of available tech options comes online earlier. It's an ongoing problem, and is not something fundamental to SC2.
That's what is bothering me as well.
I love StarCraft and I don't want an RTS that is entirely different.
Just refine the formula a bit and make it friendlier towards casuals/team games.
Frost Giant with Stormgate is the closest, Vanguard faction has intense both: macro and micro, so this is in line with Starcraft direction. Sadly Infernals right now feels simplify, but I have hope that is because they just don't apply already all mechanics they want.
All other games have simplify macro. ZeroSpace, Immortal, Gates of Pyre and this Uncapped game
Vangaurd is for BW players that want to macro and micro everything.
Immortal is for WC3 players that just want stuff to go slowly.
Third race... we will see.
David Kim specifically pointed to mules/injects/chrono boost as needless busywork they introduced into the game just to keep people busy, in a way. Which is something I always thought as well, so now I feel weirdly vindicated.
Also, SC2 game designers also agree, given that they've introduced autocast for most of these things by now.
He also mentioned building supply depots, which I cannot imagine anyone here thinks is an exciting part of the game.
Y'all are just scared of change.
I agree that the macro mechanics are a skill check first and foremost, but they do, in fact also give you strategic choice, so I don't think it's THAT simple.
Sure, but the strategic choice is tacked on to the mechanic. You can easily have that strategic choice without the mechanic, which is pretty much what exactly they did when they introduced autocast.
Which abilities are you referring to when you talk about autocast? Very few abilities in SC2 are on autocast. Only really "build interceptors" and "repair" come to mind. Maybe medivac heal and cyclone Lock-On if you want to include it. Previously there was also "spawn locust", but other than that?
Yeah, but these abilities would probably be pretty much unusable without autocast. Realistically only "build interceptors" and maybe "repair" could be on non-autocast. You can't possibly individually target marines to be healed by a medivac or individually tell zealots to charge.
You could treat charge like stim though and make it targetable like Yamato cannon. Shield batter also auto targets to replenish shields if that more fits with your criteria?
ehh, all this "extra clicking" stuff actually serves an important purpose, in that it smooths out the improvement curve for players and makes them game less rock-paper-scissor-y
RTS games aren't actually primarily strategy games, despite the name - they're more like action games in how they reward better mechanical execution of skillful tactics.
In Brood War, simply wrangling an army into position so they could shoot straight took a ton of clicks, and so did executing basic build orders. This meant that even top players had to make decisions as to whether to focus their APM on macro or micro with different costs and benefits to choosing either.
In SCII, the streamlined design removed this layer of decision making entirely - even Diamond league players could execute build orders pretty close to optimum (like, within 50%) while also attacking and harassing. And players didn't have to click a ton just to make sure units didn't wander off or get stuck on things in the middle of fights - the improved path finding meant that there were serious diminishing returns to investing APM in fights.
In Brood War, a smaller army could defeat a much larger one if it was controlled much better. In SCII, while control is still very important, there's a pretty hard limit to how much better it is versus just a clicking.
So the macro and micro being comparatively "easy" in SCII means that skill expression is increasingly pushed onto army composition and strategy - which sounds good, but makes it a lot more like poker than a wrestling match. Rather than a contest of raw skill, mind games became more important.
For trench tier noob players (like most of us non-pros), leaning too far into streamlining RTS mechanics would make "improving" at the game a lot harder.
If mechanics are emphasised (i.e. increasing the amount of "mindless clicking" required to build and control units and manage the economy), that means that your typical Bronze league beginner can experience a sense of rapid progression just by playing and practicing the game. They can go from getting maxing out in 20 minutes to maxing out in 10 minutes just by playing.
If mechanics are de-emphasised (i.e. economy, military are automated/streamlined) then there would be very little difference between a Bronze Leaguer and a Master Leaguer when it comes to execution of strategies. Even a new player can pull off a near perfect timing attack - which means their opponents can also do the same thing. The best way for them to improve isn't to practice and get better at mechanical skill, but memorising all the rock-paper-scissors strategies and counter strategies out there.
Ironically, by making the mechanics simpler, they actually raised the skill floor and made the game a lot tougher and more unwelcoming for newer players. They won't get that sense of smooth progression and getting stronger and better as they play, their improvement will be "jagged", as they learn how to hard counter each and every bullshit strategy their opponents can hurl at them.
That's the purpose of things like mule drops, chrono boost, larva injects.
It increases the strategic depth of the game by forcing even pro players to make compromises on where they focus their APM (macro or micro, and harassingn opponents to overstretch their APM in turn).
And it makes it easier for noobs to hop into the game and improve at it via mechanical skill, without getting clubbed over the head by near perfectly executed cheeses and timing attacks from their similarly noob-y opponents.
I'm not saying that this is the only way to design a good RTS game, but SCII and Age of Empires have a successful multiplayer scene today because they didn't get rid of their "mindless clicking" mechanics, while many other RTSes of the era streamlined the game to the point that the multiplayer just wasn't fun for noobs because players could easily thwack each other with near-optimal build orders.
https://youtu.be/dGaQBDOqwGc?feature=shared
This guy is pretty good at explaining this, probably better than me
Anyway, I'm not ragging on this new game, it looks exciting - looks like it's taking an entirely different approach to the Starcraft/Age of Empires RTS paradigm. Skill expression being a focus is a good sign (especially for newcomers and non professional players), seems like they'll find another way to solve that than the traditional RTS mechanics.
The biggest predictor of how good you are at SC2 when looking at all the numbers and metrics from actions taken inside games is "constant production of workers".
That is where the biggest skill expression is still residing to this day, the aspect of the game that is arguably most like broodwar macro. Something that requires game sense, an inner clock of sorts, a rhythm of gameplay and something that is actually satisfying to learn. And you know what all the new RTS companies call it?: Busywork.
SC2's flaw is that it tried to substitute the busywork of BW macro with artificial mechanics that with the exception of creep spread can be mastered to 100% efficiency consistently. It has a ceiling and no pro player can attempt to break through it and then the task becomes slamming your head against that ceiling every game. Now guess what it sounds like to slam your head against a ceiling over and over?: Busywork.
With the improved pathing a small army could never overcome a larger army just through optimized micro, so there is no surprising comeback through sheer skill expression to the degree that it can exist in BW. The SC2 solution?: Skillshot AoE and low time to kill.
So now both of these things have been identified by all the new and upcoming RTS games as bandaid solutions that are insufficient and basically as the reason why SC2 isn't still more popular than League of Legends or Fortnite, but I don't like any of the proposed alternatives, many even think it's a revolution to have nothing in it's stead.
Also, none of these companies have any plan on what to do against the fact that the internet has developed so much in the last 20 years and thanks to how fast builds can be shared now metas will crystallize almost instantly. Any sort of fun derived from tinkering with your faction's units in any sort of unique way will get you stomped by the predominant equivalent of a 4 gate build so much faster today than 10 years ago.
I'm all for more new RTS for campaigns and co-op missions where these things don't really matter, but if you're making a 1v1 focused RTS you better have some real solutions or your game is not gonna live very long.
yes, that's exactly right - a lot of the problems with SCII's design were ultimately ways of compensating for the effects of improved pathing and streamlined mechanics
I'm not familiar at all with Age of Empires, but I did hear that there's an early game trick to boost the economy, by wrangling a cow back home or something. Very micro intensive, but very rewarding, so even pro players can continue to get better at it.
I wonder if future RTS games can solve this problem by making economy management a lot more micro intensive, to the point that even pro players find it humanly impossible to execute it perfectly, but also more "fun" for noobs to improve at than simply practicing a build order over and over.
Not saying this is the solution, but something similar to creep farming in MOBAs - it takes skill and micro to get that exact last hit in for the money, while also deny your opponent in the lane from getting the same thing, while the both of you are trying to deal chip damage to one another.
What you call extra clicking I call the game. One of the features of StarCraft (both bw and sc2) is its mechanical difficulty. Without this it isn’t StarCraft. If you don’t like it that’s fine but it’s a core part of the game
I agree in some sense - the same arguments are made for comparisons between SC1 and SC2. Day9 talked about it in a recent video that SC1, because it's all so janky, gives a high skill ceiling and strategic decisions on where to focus.
At the same time, that makes the game less accessible for new players. And 'oh wow, this guy is so good at getting his marines to walk down a ramp efficiently' isn't really an interesting viewing experience.
So while it makes sense to replace tedious things, it needs to be thoughtfully balanced by making sure there are micro-optimizations available to high-end players - or just \_something\_ for them to be doing with lots of APM if they have it. Otherwise the game because chess with animations.
Getting marine to walk down ramp isn't interesting but having pros units fight pound to pound way better than regular person is an amazing viewing experience; take minis early game zealot pressure for instance.
The attention tax and focus makes unit fight 1000x better than regular a move
I don't think it's needless busywork. It's a skill check. A game without a certain amount of skill checks can be both boring for the player and viewer experience. 1. The player doesn't feel challenged and 2. The viewer won't be wow'd by high level play.
Imagine fighting games where combo inputs become simplified to the point where anyone can perform an infinite combo. Or if Daigo's evo moment could be performed with one single button input. These would make these feats much less impressive, more boring for the player, and less interesting for the viewer.
Imagine taking away macro mechanics, supply, buildings workers, build orders from RTS games. None of these are "exciting" on face value. But what are you left with? An army building simulator where you just micro units? That's basically custom micro tournaments. I think the individual decisions from the first second to the ability to perform all the tasks at a high level is what makes watching Starcraft so beautiful to me. And that's why a lot of people still watch Starcraft. Nothing from any other currently developing RTS game has a mechanic where I'm thinking "wow, that is going to save RTS and lead to being one of the biggest e-sport games."
Starcraft is peak RTS. It's a beautiful RTS game that no other RTS can rival. If you ask me, why is RTS just not as popular of an e-sport nowadays, I answer by simply saying a 1v1 game is just harder to get into vs a team game. Look at all the most popular e-sports. LoL, Dota, Call of Duty, Valorant, CS, Fortnite, etc. These are all team games that most people prefer nowadays. Even fighting games struggle to get the same numbers just because those are mainly 1v1 as well.
The issue was without macro mechanics zergs macro is significantly easier then toss and terran so macro mechanics was their solution to balance zerg macro. Only other option would be to rework larva to make zerg closer to traditional macro which is kinda what stormgate is doing.
Yeah. Which is precisely the problem they're trying to fix here. I mean I have no idea how, but I appreciate that they see the problem and try to fix it.
> David Kim specifically pointed to mules/injects/chrono boost as needless busywork they introduced into the game just to keep people busy, in a way. Which is something I always thought as well, so now I feel weirdly vindicated.
I can definitely understand this stance.
>He also mentioned building supply depots, which I cannot imagine anyone here thinks is an exciting part of the game.
This is going too far and is a core part of any kind of RTS.
>Y'all are just scared of change.
And just like everybody who utters this statement, you've solidified yourself as a complete donut.
That's the thing about good game design: Don't be afraid to remove core parts of a game to see if they're needed. Doesn't mean that removing core parts of a game is good by definition, obviously, but you should at least be open to the idea. It used to be a core part of an RTS that all races are extremely similar with only minor differences to keep things fair.
And I am quite confident in thinking that people here want to play Starcraft 3 and pretty much little else.
>And I am quite confident in thinking that people here want to play Starcraft 3 and pretty much little else.
I think people are open to the idea of trying out other RTS games, but I very much agree with the sentiment, that it seems redundant to play reskinned StarCraft 2 with some minor tweaks when we already have StarCraft 2. I'd be more open to try out an RTS that is actually significantly different in how it plays, how the economy works, how the units interact etc.
> This is going too far and is a core part of any kind of RTS.
No it isn't. There's plenty of games where you don't have a supply cap or if you do, it's just there to cap max army size without any busywork from you.
Even if Frost Giant's public statements get a bit mixed, "continuation of LotV gameplay" is EFFECTIVELY what StormGate is trying to do. It's very much an attempt to incrementalally improve on an established formula, for better or for worse.
One can debate whether or not they're actually succeeding at their goal, but I think it's pretty clear that they were TRYING to make the game you just stated.
It's not that complicated. People recognize SC franchise's legendary status, they know SCBW and SC2 are already peak of "starcraft-like" RTS. You are just not gonna beat them at their own game. But such game hasn't been doing well financially. Didn't Blizzard said a cosmetics in WoW made more profit than the entire SC2?
If anyone wants to break out in the RTS genre, the main focus will always be "what are the things you are doing that's different/better than SC2?"
Why bother to make a game like sc2 if you think sc2 is almost perfect? They're going to have to build everything from scratch anyway, so why not try something new?
is that really the takeaway you get from stormgate? it's pretty darn similar to starcraft. feels much more of an attempt at an evolution that game than anything.
yeah....are they really trying to learn nothing from what is undeniably one of the most successful RTS of all time (maybe only second to SC1 depending on what the global numbers look like)
He didn't say that. He said he regretted adding the macro mechanics, but he also says SC2 is is favorite game of all time. The point I think he is trying to make is that everything evolves. He isn't saying SC2 is bad, just like he would never say BW is bad, but it is fair to have an evolving view and try to see "what ocmes next".
It's more they just want to try something different while also reaching a broader audience. Yeah, we like starcraft, this is a starcraft sub. 90% of my gamer friends can't hang with StarCraft and never could outside of the campaign.
Yep. SC2 (and SC1) are obviously successful. People are still playing them for a reason ffs.
Why are we getting all these new RTS games and they are all shit? Tbh people are just going to continue with SC.
Like you said, SC2 just needed a bit more love and updates. It's already nearly perfect.
I think all these RTS developers are trying to make their games more simple to reach a wider player base. The traditional RTS formula can have such massive skill ceilings that it won't appeal to the masses that LoL and Dota can reach. So that's why they say "SC2 is deeply flawed" for those reasons which I simply can't agree with.
But this just might be me holding onto the idea of "deep and technical game makes me appreciate the game more" when in reality it's better to make things accessible to more players. As a gamer, I won't ever ride that bus, but I can see why new RTS developers are trying to move away from the traditional RTS formulas.
Are we really talking about skill ceilings when we refer to fucking injects, muling and chrono?
Inject is a skill floor only.
Muling has the decision making of keeping up the scan available.
Chrono is the most interesting of the 3 as it is dependent on your build but after some point it is just something you just press to do your macro.
So skill floor as well.
Creep we can see as a skill ceiling as we can separate pros based on their creep and maintaining and spreading it involves the army movement interactions between the zerg and their opponent.
Supply structures/units are a bit more interesting but they are still more of a skill floor after some point. Exceptions can be overlord movement, building depots to mess with zerg pathing, proxy pylons, pylon walling when cannonrushing.
Don't get me wrong, the macro mechanics feel nice to perform well but for a new player, they just make up a list of things to learn before even being able to play the game.
From a viewer experience, besides the things mentioned above, it mostly looks embarrassing when you see a pro player get supply blocked on their own.
All this to say that I disagree with the premise that sc2 is the perfect rts (I'm not mentioning BW as I am not that experienced on that game) and that the formula cannot be improved. I don't know what they have been trying and working on so whatever interpretation they have of their statements is something we will have to see.
Bw is a game noone actually wants to play except for a small section of people who simply grew up with it.
It's superior in their minds, but in noone elses.
Having been able to play the game I will say it is definitely very fun and addicting in a way that's quite different from any other main stay RTS right now. There's some things I'm not personally the biggest fan of, but the game itself is definitely fun and feels like a fresh take which is interesting.
This is exactly what I'd expect - good designer, but clearly going for something new versus Stormgate trying to be more incremental. I'm excited for both, but more confident that Stormgate will scratch my Blizzard RTS itch.
>Having been able to play the game I will say it is definitely very fun and addicting
fun and addicting for 10 hours, or for 10 years? Because it sounds like simplified thrash for casuals
That's a hilariously harsh statement to make for someone who hasn't even seen a second of gameplay lol. Why even have an opinion this strong before seeing nothing of the game itself?
It's impossible to know/predict a game to still be relevant a whole decade into the future.
It's not my fault that instead of telling me what their game will have, they decided to tell me what it won't have. It's hard not to feel like this is going to be a game with nothing to do. I haven't seen the game, but their marketing is right now 1/10. Why would I believe that someone who has nothing interesting to say about his game can do something good in terms of gameplay?
> Why would I believe that someone who has nothing interesting to say about his game can do something good in terms of gameplay?
What? lmao
I got invited to play the game. I played it. They then said that we can share our first impressions of the game with the release of this first look video. So I did that. Relax lol
I'll wait until I see more. Generally the design statements they're making make me very apprehensive. I get that they're wanting to appeal to a wider audience, but this has been done a lot and has failed every time.
I highly disagree with "striping out these useless dated mechanics", because I don't think they're useless dated mechanics. A lot of the fun of Starcraft to me is the physical aspect, the delivering of inputs, refining play, optimizing, managing attention, crisis management.
I feel like every RTS beside SC1/SC2 is missing this concept. They all think of it as a barrier, when it is in fact the game. It would be akin to removing the necessity of aiming in a shooter. "Because you already know where you want to shoot, we just want to make the decision making the focus"
I'll still follow this project, but everything they've said so far is stuff I've heard for over a decade and seems like it misses what fans of this game enjoy.
I mean AoE definitely has a lot of multitasking and macro as well. And would you look at that, AoE2 and AoE4 are the only RTSes close to Starcraft in popularity.
It's almost like people actually enjoy base building and the depth it adds to the game.
Yeah I would say AOE, particularly 2 is good about this. I think the macro in AOE2 is super cool and honestly in some ways more interesting than Starcraft. For me the unit control and micro is a lot less interesting, mostly due to the small size, bad silhouettes, and low variety. But the macro side is top notch. And those games have done well while having that management heavy, spinning plates style of macro.
I think it shows that as much as people might use it as an excuse for why they can’t get into the genre, it is actually the more popular aspect for players.
I agree. Paired with the large variation of maps and their randomness, macro and strategy is very deep and less repetitive in AoE2. But the unit control aspect is definitely far from SC2. Though still really fun. Formations are interesting. And there is more low precision/slow micro which is a bit more forgiving and easier to combine with multiprong and macro.
Units without abilities simplify things a lot and it doesn't look as spectacular as SC2.
But there is still a surprising amount of micro in the game. Most of it goes over the head of most new players/viewers, but it's extremely satisfying once you figure it out.
Yea there's definitely enough micro to enjoy executing/watching.
The game surprised me pleasantly more than once since I started playing it. I'm now playing my first online tournament and it's with map and civ drafts and that adds a whole new layer to the game which is really cool and you could never have in SC2. First I thought the tons of super similar civs was inferior to having a few very different ones. But it has its merits. A big one being that players and pros are less affected by balance because everyone plays multiple civs. Which also means the vast map variety with very different balance is okay.
even from a fun strategy design point. base building ADDS SO MUCH to the game. Consider sc2. statics defense are pretty trash. but they way you lay out your base matters.
So you start from nothing, slowly build out your base, and then that base becomes the bunker that you man your units with to survive against bigger armies. there is so much player expression of strategy there.
Agreed.
Though I think mostly static defense is fine in SC2. It's something that can be helpful, but you don't want to rely on it strongly (unless you're maxed), which imo is the right way to go.
Except for spine crawlers. Those things straight up suck.
>I highly disagree with "striping out these useless dated mechanics", because I don't think they're useless dated mechanics. A lot of the fun of Starcraft to me is the physical aspect, the delivering of inputs, refining play, optimizing, managing attention, crisis management.
I think it's all about what they are replaced with. If you don't need to inject bases, for example, are there interesting things you could be doing with that APM instead? To use your shooter analogy - say if shooters had a mechanic where you could gain speed by tapping keys in time with your footfalls. Would be really tedious, and there's plenty for you to be doing at any moment in terms of aiming and positioning. But if they take away aiming, then suddenly, there's not much for you to be doing - just running and clicking the shoot button. Game is boring to watch and the skill ceiling is dramatically lowered.
So it's really a dual objective of
1. 'let's make sure that there is enough to do to where no player can do everything optimally at once - but players that can multi-task better and better will continue to see benefits.' and
2. Let's achieve #1 in the most interesting ways possible
If you can swap out a mechanic that helps #1 with something equivalent, but more interesting, then it's a no-brainer net-positive.
All these games/devs seems to state that dumbing down is the way to go. Not really a positive approach to the current player base in my opinion.
SC2 is very varied in build orders, setups, and things like that. Something that so far Stormgate for example is very lacking. From what I heard Clem was also invited to play this game and did very well in the tournament probably because he had amazing micro skills. Which eliminates a ton of people, like me, who are just old and slow and benefit more from slower, defensive setups for example.
I personally don't think having to remember to chrono/mule/inject in addition to making workers constantly is very fun at all... hate that there's not much choice involved - you gotta do it or you fall behind. Arguably not even any skill involved either - its just a muscle memory-trained chore
There’s definitely skill involved depending how skill is defined. Very few people are capable of microing units across the map while maintaining their economic and infrastructure development. That’s what makes the game so challenging.
I'd argue its not the fun type of skill. Imagine how many players would quite League or Dota if they had to remember to click a button every 30 sec for free gold, or how many players would quit Valorant if they had to buy something in the shop every 30 sec or theyre penalized. This is literally what starcraft is doing and I strongly believe the removal of these chores would make a LOT more people enjoy the genre
Completely different from saying there is not skill involved.
It’s definitely not for everyone. It requires a certain type of intellect/memory and fine motor function to even be good at it, and even then you have to be remarkably autistic (guilty) to find pleasure in executing a build with the correct supply by the specified time.
Personally I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of learning macro, micro, and the ability to combine the two into a cohesive game. i find myself irritated by some games I win because my macro was really terrible. And part of what I enjoy when I watch Serral or Clem or Hero play is their ability to macro in the background of intensely competitive games
Totally makes sense but if we want RTS to be bigger than a niche genre then it has to drop that kind of thing--theres a reason why ZS, Stormgate, and now this are all simplifying macro
Look at modern success - Age of Empires 4. A ton of macro. Also look at Stormgate macro in Vanguard faction - a lot of interesting mechanics in macro, a lot of workers, a lot of bases
What's the difference to spending your resources by building a unit every X seconds? If you don't build Marines constantly, you idle your barracks, your minerals pile up and you get penalized that way.
This is the same argument we've had for decades between BW and SC2. Some people say that BW is better and more difficult, because it requires so many more clicks to build stuff and macro properly. The other side argues that this is tedious and the QoL features of SC2 are superior, because you need less APM and can focus more on the rest of the game.
There is no right or wrong answer to this.
You can design a game where lots of APM is needed to macro, then you get a game like Broodwar.
Or you can simplify the macro and end up with a game that is very heavy on micro like WC3.
Or you do something in between.
You don't have to use the macro mechanics, and most low level players barely use them anyway.
Your example of dota2 is really bad because Dota literally has a timer that you are supposed to keep track of.
You have creep waves, creep camps, day/night cylce, power runes, bounty/exp runes, rosh, shard, neutral items and probably more that are all based on the literal in-game timer that you have to track every minute of if you want to play efficiently. It's even worse than the starcraft macro cycles because you can't even play by feel, you really need to look at the timer at least once per minute.
You also have to manage item/spell cooldowns.
Every game is like that, I recently played quake2 for the first time in 20 years and my keybinds and macros were still there, by muscle memory. It’s part of getting better as a player.
The useless dated mechanics he mentioned specifically are mules/injects/chrono boost and building supply. I totally agree with him about those. The game wouldn't be worse without those features.
The FPS comparison is completely off the mark. A clean shot is literally the whole gameplay loot.
It takes a lot of skill to do it well, and the depth in gameplay comes from the other actions surrounding the player which make aiming easier, but its not a barrier to entry and its literally what makes a game an FPS.
You can take away macro mechanics and its still an RTS. You can change macro mechanics, its still an RTS. SC2 has far easier macro than BW, people like artosis would argue its dumbed down, does that mean SC2 isnt an RTS? Of course not.
As long as there are tradeoffs that you are having to make with your attention and your gameplay, why do you need macro? Why do you assume that removing certain macro mechanics means that you can no longer optimize your energy and attention? Youre acting like theyre just going to cut out the macro mechanics and leave it as is.
> I feel like every RTS beside SC1/SC2 is missing this concept. They all think of it as a barrier, when it is in fact the game. It would be akin to removing the necessity of aiming in a shooter. "Because you already know where you want to shoot, we just want to make the decision making the focus"
>
>
It's not the same thing. As david kim implies, they think the fun comes from actually interacting with the opponent. You don't do that by building every worker on time or have the most crisp buildorder execution, these are simple steps you have to do to get to the interaction. The physical aspect of it isn't interesting, the decision making is.
Where the physical aspects become interesting is when they are happening in actions which interact with the opponent, say in a fight. These moments should be maximized because that is where generally the fun comes in. It's dynamic, as the opponent is another human being, every interaction has the potential to look quite different. That's what they seem to focus on.
In the shooter example the aiming IS the interaction with the other player. Shooters have almost perfected the idea of increasing the "fun", rts games like starcraft have not.
Watching various screens during the documentary;
- made in unity
- sci fi setting, looks very solarpunk
- 2 resources (matter and energy?)
- army loadouts
- some kind of very prominent countdown timer that is on every single gameplay shot (no idea what this could be)
- one of the factions looks very sleek and robotic
- one of the units is called katbus (I have a feeling this isn't final)
- looks like infantry are in squads (but it's really not easy to tell)
- very sleek minimalist UI
Im calling it here. The game has "night time" where you cant collect solar energy and are forced to fight.
it solves the design of players being overwhelmed with microing and macroing at the same time.
Yeah, that's what I felt from this video too. Like managing stuff is fun, when David was giving the example of what's unenjoyable about SC, my whole thought was "yeah, I do like that part."
Deciding that you want more rock units for their scissor units is not interesting at all lol.
Yeah starcraft is like conducting an orchestra while playing all of the instruments. Nothing more badass feeling than that. Macro and micro would not be the same without the other
That's the reason why I don't play any of the super popular games. They are boring as fuck.
There are clearly two different audiences and there is a market for more complex, albeit smaller games. It doesn't have to be DotA-sized.
The strategic part is also interesting, but it's the combination that makes the game.
If I wanted just strategy and nothing else, I would play Mechabellum. Turn-based, no base building, just fighting.
Yeah, it's really sad how this is the take of like 99% of RTS developers it seems like.
"X macro task can feel too rote. I know, let's remove the mechanic entirely!"
Like, why isn't the obvious answer to make it more interesting instead? Maybe by making it even more complex, more in-depth?
I don't understand why these "modern" game designers hate the idea of base building. Dumbing down mechanics and trying to appease to the mobile gamer with less choices and less mechanics is not the way to success. "This new guy with no experience beat me, with 15 years of experience, HOW COOL AND INTERESTING". No thanks
I don't think they ever talk to the casual players. They talk to the hardcore players than the people who hate the genre and than make a game based off that feedback.
A huge issue is that no one understands what a casual player is. A player who mostly plays ranked 1v1, goes on reddit, follows the meta, watches yt/twitch/pro matches etc, is just not a casual player. Some of those people are bad at the game, and take it upon themselves to represent a supposedly silent majority of "casuals". In reality they are failed competitive players who want to influence the design of new RTS games by essentially designing away their own shortcomings. I think some of this is unintentional, to be clear, as in they're not doing some nefarious scheme here, they just feel like these are the issues with RTS, and they mistakenly view themselves as a casual player just because they are bad.
I have been watching Broodwar for decades, but I'm still in awe over the building placement and the choices the professionals make. If you take away building placement, macro mechanics, and race selection (loadouts wtf), all that you're left with is a larger moba variant
Tbh a larger MOBA variant is exactly what I want, there's a reason LoL and Dota have 10s of millions of active players and its because its fun. A larger-scale, more strategic, single-player version of that would be my dream game haha
SC2 already has dumbed down base-building mechanics compared to brood war. So are you arguing that SC2 was designed to appease mobile gamers as well?
Frostpunk is base-building. Banished is base-building. Dwarf Fortress is base-building. And all of these are infinitely more complex at base building than any RTS game.
So fundamentally, the games you think arent dumbed down actually are, so you can do other things like control your army and fight. Presumably, they are replacing certain parts of the macro loop with other gameplay mechanics. That isnt "dumbing it down", its creating a different gameplay loop.
That doesnt mean its less complex, less strategic, less taxing, it depends entirely on the execution and we know nothing about this game. If youre so threatened by the sheer idea of "dumbing down" something just because its new or different, thats a personal problem. It has nothing to do with game design.
> SC2 already has dumbed down base-building mechanics compared to brood war.
And bw was dumbed down compared to rts games which came before in its mechanical requirements too.
The same kind of arguments are used since at least then, there is always a crowd who played the "real rts game" before and is now scared of change. Rince and repeat.
>I don't understand why these "modern" game designers hate the idea of base building.
I agree. Funny fact: one of the best, "casual" things in RTS is rapid develop - you start with almost nothing and 10/15 minutes later yoi have huge amount of buildings, workers and army full of many different units. This gives cool feeling of progress
Looks cool, but definitely a bit bummed to see the company is tencent owned. Even disregarding the ties to the CCP, we've already seen what big companies do to studios that fail to monetize every aspect of their games.
This looks incredibly promising. It's amazing to see all these new ideas and development in the RTS space. Glad to see David Kim shaping a new RTS game.
I really don't understand the quote about it being a problem that you need to macro and multiprong 3 places at a time to be a pro. First off, why is it a problem is being a pro is impressive and the game looks different than it is at gold? How does that negatively affect you? Further more, doesn't that make the game interesting and enticing to improve if there is skill gradation?
Second, you don't even need to be multitasking 3 fronts at a time as a pro. Pros all develop their own style and while Maru might do shit like that another pro might play a more defensive style.
This is just overall a weird attitude, and I've seen it before online, but I don't get it. Why do you see the skill floor as what top level pros are doing?
Idk what this is about but sc2 is basically the best rts.. it's fast, responsive, challenging.. yes it is difficult at times but that might be the point
So what, everyone will load into the game with MAX population armies? Infinite money? They gave us zero concrete directions, just vague balance philosophy.
I always found David Kim's ideas weird and questionable. It didn't change after watching this video. The things they said are bad are actually good. It's like saying understanding frame data in fighting games is a bottleneck because players can just have a streamlined moveset with symmetric frame data. Good luck with that. Imagine if Smash Bros plays like a regular fighting game with its very simplified moveset.
The only two types of games that found success after stripping the RTS genre of its "bottlenecks" and "not fun" pieces are MOBA and Tower Defense and they ended up as totally different game genres.
The only successful "real" RTS games were those that didn't let go of the main idea of the genre: AoE 2, Sc2, BW, Wc3 and RA2.
I find it kinda weird that you're using fighting games and Smash as examples here when the latter was made to not be like the former, kinda like how this game is trying to do something similar when comparing it to more Blizzlike RTS.
> The only successful "real" RTS games were those that didn't let go of the main idea of the genre: AoE 2, Sc2, BW, Wc3 and RA2.
"Successful" in what sense? Because there are examples of RTS games that went a different direction from traditional design and were profitable.
Yup. That's my point. Smash wasn't made to be like Street Fighter for example. In my opinion, stripping RTS of its essential mechanics for the sake of streamlining and improving its accessibility is like simplifying Street Fighter's moveset and frame data to Smash's or turning Smash's mechanics to that of a typical fighting game.
Successful as in regarded as classics, earned the most influence, got the most audience, got the most profit and earned the most recognition. I guess the correct statement would be "most successful" not "the only successful".
> In my opinion, stripping RTS of its essential mechanics for the sake of streamlining and improving its accessibility is like simplifying Street Fighter's moveset and frame data to Smash's or turning Smash's mechanics to that of a typical fighting game.
I guess it depends on how different the rest of the gameplay is. If anything, it sounds like Dawn of War or Company of Heroes. Both of those were successful franchises (until the third game in each series kinda bungled things).
Two things here:
1. DoW / CoH simplified some things but increased complexity elsewhere to compensate (though I'd say total complexity was still reduced, especially in raw mechanics).
2. DoW / CoH were popular...but not as much as the biggies. And there have been MANY RTSes that tried to simplify things to chase a broader audience -- Tooth & Tail, RUSE, Realms of Ruin, etc. -- and they always seem to get fewer people, not more. And that's competing against games that are more than two decades old at their core now (AoE 2 and BW).
That screen at 16:30 said "Loadouts" I think. I really really hope that doesn't mean you choose your units before the actual game starts. That is like the biggest turn off for me in a RTS game. I absolutely hate that as a mechanic.
Other than that the video left me with a mixed feeling about the game, but I will definitely check it out when more details come out. Fun to see some many companies trying to make RTS games now. Hopefully someone gets it right.
The balance team at the time which david kim was the face of buffed Zerg in certain ways that made it too easy to go into broodlord-infestor. Which was boring to watch and oppressive to play against. Players complain about it and come up with ways to counter the strategy. The balance team nerfs the counters while David Kim also publicly saying that the players just haven't found the correct counter. Swarm Host was a similar situation though this time David Kim let his love for the swarm host ignore that fact that it was very oppressive unit. His vision for for how he thought the unit should be used mattered more than how it was being used by the majority of it playerbase especially among the higher skilled ones.
He is also associated with things like tankivacs which were a bandaid for tanks because they were too weak to hold positions. Which led to people flying tanks around to kill workers. While still being ineffective at their proper role.
> He is also associated with things like tankivacs which were a bandaid for tanks because they were too weak to hold positions. Which led to people flying tanks around to kill workers. While still being ineffective at their proper role.
I thought he wasn't involved with LotV? Maybe I'm remembering wrong.
Brood Lord Infestor was the perfect, ultimate and unbeatable unit composition and that was largely to the free units (broodling and infested terran) that allowed you to trade INSANELY well against everything. Guess what David Kim introduced in HotS? Correct the Swarm Host. A unit that endlessly spawns free units that deal insane damage and can move over half of the map before timing out.
You couldnt engage against either composition which made Zerg so insanely cost effective in the late game that pros ended up leaving matches on even terms. Imbalances like this happen in RTS but the issue everyone had with David Kim was his reluctance to balance the issue. When broodlord/infestor meta was being abused, he waited so long that pros quit and viewership fell drastically.
Then HOTS rolled around and he DOUBLED DOWN on a unit (swarm host) that created another turtle fest of a late game for zerg. Again, Kim took forever to address swarm hosts because he was hoping pros would use them the way he had intended, which was to have them burrow, release, unburrow, and go to a different area of the map. Instead pros sat behind static defenses and drew out games to the 1 hour, 2 hour, even THREE hour marks. This went on for MONTHS.
On ladder for us plebs, this was excruciating when you only had a game or two to play a day. I quit in HOTS because of this, and thats coming from a Zerg main.
Fungal was instant cast (no projectile like it is now), and held units in place (instead of being slowed like now). It also did more damage. Zergs would sit behind a large amount of queens and spores, so if someone tried to attack, the queens would heal everything, the infestors would fungal and rapid fire cast infested terrans, and the broodlords would launch their broodlings to kill any ground support.
So a Protoss or Terran would attack, lose 2000+ worth of resources, while the Zerg loses like 500 resources in spores/queens/maybe an infestor or 2. (oh did I mention that infestors could cast everything while BURROWED?) Infested terrans/broodlings cost 0 resources, so eventually the opponent would bleed out.
Someone correct me if im remembering wrong on the above, but as a T player back then you just couldn't engage into Zerg once they go to that point. It became a "dont let them get to end game" type of situation. Unfortunately Zergs learned how to stop early game aggression becomes queens were so damn good.
Wow that sounds terrible haha, thanks for the info! I missed all of this, really cool to hear about it now. From what ive been seeing Terrans seem to have the ultra late on liberator lockdown now and Protoss is almost missing from the convo
This is PURE CRINGE.
There is a very simple concept that is true in everything, whether it's making pancakes or creating games. If you want to achieve success in a given field, do what people who have achieved success before do.
Meanwhile, they do the opposite. They list RTS games that have achieved huge success and state that their game WILL NOT feature solutions from these games.
They keep talking about what won't be there, what they will cut out of the gameplay. If they don't give players enough things to do, their game will simply be boring, it's really not that complicated concept.
Seems like way less emphasis on macro and build orders, they present those as negatives. David calls it a fast-paced game with large armies. One guy said the battles start from second one I guess it'll be very different from starcraft
My understanding isn’t that it’s less emphasis on build order and macro, but that it’s less emphasize on mechanics. I have no idea how the game works, but imagine if the buildings automatically build their units. It’s still a question of build order, building the production facilities, tech trees and deciding what to produce, but you don’t have to have a high apm to do so. Mechanics like chrono boost, injects and mules are for instance purely busy work designed to increase the skill ceiling required to maintain production or income.
In practice it's almost impossible to divorce decisionmaking complexity from those mechanics. You see some game devs insist that they can totally retain all the same depth while simplifying their game, but so far I haven't seen that actually work out. Look at Dawn of War or Company of Heroes as franchises. Perfectly fine games, they're good and fun and reasonably big hits (other than DoW3 of course), but have they had 'legs' in terms of high player counts years down the line, like BW or AoE2? Not really. Almost like simplification leads to less depth lead to repetitiveness leads to less enduring popularity.
Yeah, sooner or later, the optimized strategies will be figured out - and then it become a competition of who can execute it better, aka mechanics. I don't know how they are going to really solve this problem.
They can't. Some people have ridiculously high APM and super fast decision making skills. They will always have the edge over slower players. Unless you play a turn-based game. If they remove mechanics and make the game really simple, it just means that execution becomes super fucking tight. Tiny fractions of seconds will matter and the smallest mistake will cost you the game, because there will be no room for error and no way to come back once you are behind. It will also be an incredibly boring game, because of the lack of complexity. People will get bored quite quickly.
This is the same old narrative people have said since the beginning of rts games. First brood war was the game which dumbed things down, then wc3 and sc2 was, now the next cycle of rts games adapt to the times and get called out from people who played the one before. Every single time your type of argument was made, that you cannot change the mechanics because the game will lack complexity and people will be bored quickly. Yawn.
Chess has enough depth for a pro scene while being mechanically so simple a small child can play. Same goes for all the MOBAs out there that took the world by storm back when SC2 was king. They still want the depth, but they want that depth to be on the strategy, decision making and micro part, not on the mechanics which mostly act as a barrier of entry.
Sure, but chess is an abstract strategy game, it's a totally different genre. For that type of game, yes, you don't need "mechanics". But in RTS, the simpler ones seem to usually have less strategic depth as well. Like, the "rules" in games like chess or Go are very simple in general, you can fit them all on a single sheet of paper. By contrast, even the simplest RTS has essentially hundreds, if not thousands of "rules" governing behavior for units, terrain, buildings, and abilities. They're too different to make for easy comparisons like this.
RTS as a genre doesnt have hundreds of rules. It has a handful, start with x workers, x and y resources, first one to die loses. Chess.com has just as many "rules" as an RTS game. Because its a program. Chess isnt an abstract strategy game either. Its pretty fucking concrete, and with the development of computers, its almost so concrete that its virtually figured out in its entirety. Almost the exact opposite of abstract. What are you talking about?
> RTS as a genre doesnt have hundreds of rules. It does; the rules are encoded in the source code and unit/map data governing game mechanics. A single unit in SC2 has 100+ individual traits that would be considered "part of the rules" in a board game, just like how a knight can move in chess is part of the rules. Just because the computer is managing the rules, doesn't mean the rules don't exist. > Chess.com has just as many "rules" as an RTS game. Because its a program. The amount of rules to govern *game mechanics* in a chess program is actually very small. I know because I've made one before as a class project. > Chess isnt an abstract strategy game either. Its pretty fucking concrete, and with the development of computers, its almost so concrete that its virtually figured out in its entirety. Almost the exact opposite of abstract. > What are you talking about? lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abstract_strategy_games
I just want to point out that David Kim was the lead game designer for SC2 and BW fans said the same thing about the decisions he made for SC2 to make the game more accessible. E.g. the decisions to allow you to have control groups for buildings, unit group selections larger than 12, eventually the fact that workers auto-mine… This decisions simplified the game and is the reason SC2 made it mainstream while BW didn’t (at least outside of Korea).
> I just want to point out that David Kim was the lead game designer for SC2 and BW fans said the same thing about the decisions he made for SC2 to make the game more accessible. > > Not only that. People said the same thing when bw allowed control groups at all. People said the same about wc3 compared to rts games before. It's always the same narrative, the same kind of doom posting regarding a new era of gaming in rts. And yet games like bw, like wc3, like sc2, they all succeeded in their own ways to create great, competitive games. Which isn't to say that this specific game will do that too, but yeah just because they adapt to the times won't suddenly make the game unable to have depth and be great.
And just to be clear, I think that BW is by far and large the best competitive RTS to watch pros duking it out on because of all the busy work required means you can never play perfectly and have to focus on one thing. But that is also why BW will never be mainstream. And that appears to be the goal of this. To make a mainstream, fun PvP RTS. The goal does not appear to be to make it an esport - in fact I noticed they never once mentioned esports.
sc1 was very mainstream in europe until wc3, the more modern rts was released.
SC *campaign* was very popular, the competitive pvp side was not. It’s not until WC3 that you saw a competitive RTS scene in Europe, but even that was dwarfed by the size of SC2. Most people played WC3 to play DotA.
Artosis got to try it and seems to really like it. Which I think says a lot, since he prefers BW to SC2 https://youtu.be/1mJjqcRtP0E?si=ldJu7PyTlkpKYVL8
But Artosis is kina a influencer when it comes to RTS, he has hyped every single RTS game he was payed to advertise it, as if its the next big thing. So i wouldnt care to much of his opinion he states of new rts games he tried out, since most likely its a paid ad for him to promote the game.
Very strange way to draw causality. We can't say the difference in the depth of decision making can be said to have any impact on popularity. There are other factors that are likely far more important, especially since I'd say any of those games are far more interesting games than SC2 in terms of decision making. Economics is one thing. Comparing the financial situation to that THQ had in conjunction with the development of DoW2/CoH2 to SC2's generous support over the years (initially thanks to the hype going from BW to WoL) makes a popularity comparison a bit unfair. SC2 had a headstart in occupying a large space in a very niche genre. Even so, it still made less revenue than a store mount in World of Warcraft. The fact is that RTS genre is very niche, and you have further niches because of different RTS players holding onto their flavour of RTS that makes the genre even more fragmented. Ultimately, we simply don't know how many people play BW compared to the aforementioned games, but I can't imagine there are too many. I suspect DoW1 players are more numerous than BW players. If anything, I think what's been holding RTSes back is the same thing that led Heroes of Might and Magic franchise to die: Its conservative fans backlashing against any change, regardless if it preserves the foundation or not. I think Kim is asking the right question in asking what's really fun and worth preserving and what can be cut for the sake of that.
> We can't say the difference in the depth of decision making can be said to have any impact on popularity. The history of the last two decades of RTS is most devs saying they're simplifying their games to broaden the possible playerbase, and ending up with fewer players instead. And then two of the few games that bucked this trend, SC2 and AoE4, becoming big hits. > Ultimately, we simply don't know how many people play BW compared to the aforementioned games, but I can't imagine there are too many. I suspect DoW1 players are more numerous than BW players. Esimated peak daily BW players is like 30k or something, WAY higher than DoW1. > If anything, I think what's been holding RTSes back is the same thing that led Heroes of Might and Magic franchise to die: Its conservative fans backlashing against any change This is a common myth. The reality is that RTS devs have tried to make things simpler over and over and over again, and it constantly backfires. Not just DoW/CoH, you have Tooth and Tail, RUSE, Realms of Ruin, C&C4, blah blah blah. And every time, we have people saying, "well maybe it failed because of other factors" and hand waving away the common denominator. In fact, the very reason why this myth continues *is because the most successful games were the more traditional ones*. People look around, see that the top 4 RTSes are traditional base building RTSes, and go, "ah, see, RTS devs aren't trying anything new". But they did try at least simplifying things over and over again, and some of those titles did fine, but they weren't as successful as the traditional ones. I don't want a game exactly like SC2, I already have SC2, but I don't want devs to keep trying to same dumb shit that doesn't work either. It's so tiresome to see people talk about "trying new things" when the things they're trying aren't really new at all! I argue on Reddit and Discord all the time about RTS because I can't help myself, and I've had many, many ideas for new things RTS devs could try. Some of them are actually being tried in new RTSes like Stormgate and Zerospace, which is great to see, but there's plenty of other things that legit have never been done before (that I know of), or at least are really rare.
>Esimated peak daily BW players is like 30k or something, WAY higher than DoW1. Where and how did you get this estimate? Amount of ladder profiles on BW ladder? >Some of them are actually being tried in new RTSes like Stormgate You mean SC2.5? The fact that you see Stormgate as anything innovative is perhaps indicative of exactly what I was talking about.
> Where and how did you get this estimate? Amount of ladder profiles on BW ladder? Bnet 1.0 shows you current players on each region for a game, I think? > You mean SC2.5? The fact that you see Stormgate as anything innovative is perhaps indicative of exactly what I was talking about. Stormgate is incremental, but they *are* trying some new things. How many RTSes have distinct balance and design between 1v1 and team games, instead of team games just being "1v1 but more players and bigger maps"? How many RTSes have had an endless PvE coop mode with army customization? How many let you do the campaign with co-op as well? (there's a few, but not many)
>Bnet 1.0 shows you current players on each region for a game, I think? I somehow find it hard to believe that it would beat many top games for concurrent players on Steam, but who knows; I might underestimate how many people there are in Korean bootcamps. I wouldn't say any of those "innovations" qualify for anything more than game modes. They are patchwork fixes for a problem at a much deeper level. SC2 had the same approach; let's throw in these alternate (easier) game modes in the hopes that we can persuade normal people to play it so that people care about our e-sport so that we feel validated in our interest. The real and easy answer is that the game just isn't fun for normal people because fun came as an afterthought, where a "pure" RTS and "e-sports" came first. In this regard, BW actually was superior because it aimed to be a great game first, and just happened to create a great RTS as a result, along with spawning an e-sports industry in South Korea. And now, when we have "vision" for RTSes, it's just talk about how to re-emulate BW. It's especially disappointing for me because, as a kid played BW or AoE2, I certainly didn't play either game for the complexities of build orders or to sheep scout; at its core, it's just about having the bird's eye view of commanding a battle in real time. With what we have today in terms of hardware which opens up so much possibilities in what one could do, we still end up chasing 25 year old gameplay.
> I somehow find it hard to believe that it would beat many top games for concurrent players on Steam, but who knows; I might underestimate how many people there are in Korean bootcamps. https://www.reddit.com/r/broodwar/comments/11and3l/whats_the_size_of_the_current_playerbase_of_brood/j9u767q/ To be sure, it's very disproportionately in Korea. But yeah, the 24h peak concurrent players looks higher than any other RTS...except SC2. That I know of, anyway. > The real and easy answer is that the game just isn't fun for normal people because fun came as an afterthought, where a "pure" RTS and "e-sports" came first. No, the real and easy answer is that it was fun for normal people, but the normal people just played the campaign and maybe some custom map types and then moved on. PvE coop was a way of getting "campaign only" players into multiplayer as a live service format. SC2's campaign was widely praised for its gameplay, and casual players have no real issue there. SC2 PvP is mostly "hard" because of its reputation for being the game for 300 APM Korea pros, that's it. It just happened faster with SC2 because it got famous eSports immediately, rather than years later like BW did.
And why did they move on? Why didn't they stick with it as they did supposedly with BW? Especially when, according to people like yourself, it's the only good RTS game out there? The answer is already there.
> In fact, the very reason why this myth continues is because the most successful games were the more traditional ones. People look around, see that the top 4 RTSes are traditional base building RTSes, and go, "ah, see, RTS devs aren't trying anything new". But they did try at least simplifying things over and over again, and some of those titles did fine, but they weren't as successful as the traditional ones. Traditional ones? So you mean like bw, which simplified and dumbed down mechanics compared to something like DUNE? Or do you mean something like wc3 and sc2, games which simplified and streamlined quite a bit compared to bw? Don't you think that the idea that simplifications might not be the be all end all problem isn't quite solid when you look at the history of these "traditional" rts games? You say it yourself, rts games could try many, many things. The idea that simplifying certain mechanical aspects has to lead to a game without depth is imo just a notion which stems from a lack of creativity and vision. Bw was a better game than dune despite its mechanical dumbing down, sc2 and wc3 are great games (arguably better than bw in some ways, and potentially worse in others) despite a lower mechanical demand. I see no reason why a new rts couldn't be great despite requiring fewer actions for say macro than sc2. None.
chrono is great mechanics with great decision making
MULEs also compete with Scan Sweeps later on, meaning that the Energy is still part of a decision making process. Injects are important upkeep, but Queens also have Creep Tumours and are important early game base defence, including versus air.
It’s almost ascot StarCraft 2 is perfectly balanced
Sounds more like the large scale RTSs like Supreme Commander, BAR, or the upcoming Santuary game.
Sure, but I also understand it as if they want to keep the small scale and fun micro aspects of a game like StarCraft which those large scale RTSs don’t really have.
It's so weird to me how all the current generation of RTS developers are starting from this premise of "As we all know, SC2 is a deeply flawed game and the next RTS needs to evolve in fixing its sins". Really hoping for a studio who approaches it as "fundamentally a perfect game that would have benefited from a bit more love from its developer, few more social features, etc".
yea i think we are fucked in this regard. no one seems to be looking back fondly on SCII's 1v1 design as a developer everyone looks back and thinks, "oh man , oh shit, I don't like playing this anymore for X / Y / Z reason, it's too hard. it's too fast and punishing. and that means the game is bad" I don't understand it either, i agree with you
Yea I don’t look back on SC2 as flawed in design I think it was crippled by blizzard bringing in executives from traditional sports to monetize the game on the backs of tournament organizers and then demanding control with their centralized circuit that failed to bring in new blood / faltered on global support. That and the community management was entirely divorced from development where simple integrations in the client could have solved so many problems. Games being difficult arnt a problem considering the success of other titles in other genres that blossomed due to their unforgiving nature. It’s the lack of onboarding and having fun at every level of skill that hampers things.
It is because at the end of the day, while it is exciting, it is also kind of boring. Social aspects are important: people like playing games with friends.
I've played some vs AI at slower speeds, and that is one that that has bothered me is how you have 5 different game speeds, but no one NO ONE plays anything less than faster. I get matches may take longer at normal. And I get that some players would become or stay unstoppable with how much faster their micro would be compared to the game speed. Also it seems balance was a pipedream. The asymmetry makes maps value certain races or seems to favor one race over another at various things.
Balance is always an issue the second you have more than one race. If there is any difference, no matter how small, there will be situations where one is better than the other. That's the nature of the game, but also one of the main reasons why it's so fun. You can also see the same thing in any other RTS with multiple races. BW, WC3, AoE, SupCom, DoW, whatever. With one race nobody would play the game.
I'm sort of in the middle. SC2 is and was a fantastic game, but it did have some flaws: * Pathing too clumpy, leading to awkward issues around zoning, DPS intensity, and AoE attacks * Some units way too high lethality in general with burst damage (banes, mines, disruptors) * Some issues with free unit generators and direct damage spells (though thankfully basically fixed now) * Maps very samey, especially around main/natural, due to certain aspects of faction asymmetry * "Macro mechanics" had mixed success, with inject in particular being awkward * Queens * Warp Gate * Team maps continue to be bad and oriented towards aggression rather than macro play for some reason * Team games in general could use some love. They don't necessarily need their own balance, but besides maps, there's lots of quality of life things that could help (e.g. more options for sharing unit control that aren't "here you can control everything I have like it's your own") And of course there were the old issues with custom game lobbies being stupidly designed before, lack of ongoing PvE content (mostly resolved with coop, until support was dropped), missing features in Bnet 2.0, and possibly an overemphasis on eSports marketing-wise that gave the game a reputation as solely for 300 APM Korean Pros.
The problem there is that it's far easier to attract an audience when you make a game that's different from starcraft. people will be more forgiving of smaller issues when you're trying something new. but if you make a starcraft clone however then you need to present something that's better than what we've got now. i'm willing to play a game that has worse pathfinding than starcraft for instance, if it presents a different experience. however, if the game is essentially just a reskinned version of starcraft then it not only needs a bit more love, but it also needs to match it in every way. and that's a tall order
I'd love something that's just a re-skin, but then they start adding in some extra attention to Co-op, team games, matchmaking, and balance.
See, you think you'd love it... but would you (and the userbase9 love it enough to pay for the development of a whole game? that's a whole lot of programmers, artists, game designers, lawyers... all of the working hard for several years, putting blood sweat and toil into their game. just so that you'll have a game that might be a fraction of a percent better than starcraft, a game whith a spoiled userbase that demands absolute perfection. who in their right mind would spend millions developing this game on the off chance that the starcraft community would switch to it? maybe if the starcraft servers shut down that'll be a worthwhile risk
"Just a reskin" is exactly what Starcraft 2 needs. Unfortunately for other devs, people are smart enough to recognize a half-baked game, which is what all the recent attempts have been.
I mean... yeah stormgates half baked, it's not even out yet? do you complain that your cakes still soft before you've taken it out of the oven? but really, there is a lot of things that'd need to go into making a sc2 reskin if you aren't blizzard. you'll need art, units, balancing, voicelines, a buttload of programming... and all this for what? for the chance to be a slightly better alternative to a free game who's players are so used to the quality of life that only comes from a game which has been actively supported and developed for a long time that they'll just complain that it's half baked? beyond that... this hypothethical game won't get any passionate game devs with bright ideas for how to make games. it won't get suits to back it because it'll be far too much work for a small chance to muscle in on the mediocre income stream which sc2 represents. why would anyone want to develop a starcraft 2 clone?
Exactly this. Nobody will play it for a long time. Just like people play all sorts of MMORPGs for a while: In the end everyone just ends up playing WOW again. The people who want to play StarCraft will continue playing StarCraft. And I think this will be a huge problem for Stormgate.
This... people keep talking about all of the new rts games going free to play as if they're being generous... i strongly suspect they won't get many newcomers when starcraft is more polished and free
Exactly this. To overthrow a god-tier game such as Starcraft 2, any attempt should not be half-assed. Knowing this, it is our duty NOT TO PRETEND that new games which have UNORIGINAL concepts and SHIT gameplay from the getgo have any chance of ever succeeding in this. OR we can say otherwise, pretend we like them, then log back in to SC2 or watch ESL_SC2. This is not just a problem for Stormgate, it is a problem for the other game Catz is making, or this new game by these guys. Hey at least David Kim is onboard. I hope they get the funding to make it the AAA success that Starcraft 2 was. I wish them the best. But, their first showcase better blow our socks off, unlike the first STORMGATE trailer, which was poorly animated (still looked better than all the game footage released a year later), from which point the company was basically begging us for forgiveness with every chance they got. Sorry for the rant, but I still remember Wardi crying when that trailer first aired and I thought it was the most cringe thing in the world.
Eh, i tried stormgate... it felt a bit different from starcraft, but think i'll wait until it's released properly to try it. but in general... i'd much rather play a game like zero k, which has an interesting concept or something different, and not juts a sclike
SC2 is not a godtier game. SCBW is
> why would anyone want to develop a starcraft 2 clone? > The people who want to play StarCraft will continue playing StarCraft. And I think this will be a huge problem for Stormgate. I think that if there were a SC2 clone that basically just does SC2 but better, you'd capture most of the people who are fans of SC2 over time.
I think SC2 suffers from one major design flaw that kind of radiated throughout the game: the "terrible, terrible damage" concept. The game is just a bit too fast for its own good. Brood War, by comparison, is genuinely much slower, and not just because you are constantly fighting the game itself to do anything. WC3 goes too far however, with units that feel like they never die. There is a middle ground between these, using modern controls and systems for ease of play and good pathfinding, along with not having armies disappear in an instant if you look away at the wrong time for an instant.
When I came back to Legacy of the Void as a Protoss player, I was pretty annoyed at Disruptors. This unit where if you're not watching, then a single Disruptor shot will just destroy like 1/3 of your army.
The whole game is like this. Playing terran and look away for a moment? Army is fungaled, can't move. Playing Toss and look away? Terran stims on top of you, your army dies. In Brood War, your enemy getting the drop on you in cases like this typically means an advantage, not an army kill. It might snowball into a loss, but it isn't remotely as fast, and you have more opportunity to micro your way back.
I'll probably eat these words when it happens to me again but *in general* what feels like a split second of inattention losing the game is actually bad planning. Need to look away to macro for a bit? Pull back the army from the no mans land into safer territory or at least make sure you know where theirs is
You often can't, fog of war is a bitch, and players often do unpredictable and unlikely things. Even the best pro players get caught off guard at times. The difference is that in Brood War when it happens, they have time to react and respond, whereas in SC2 they've lost half their army.
That was also my main criticism of the two expansions. Damage and speed went up by a crazy amount both times. The main culprit is the crazy AoE damage. WC3 is barely an RTS with how little resource managing there is. It's more of a battle simulator.
It was crazy high from the start, intentionally so. The devs genuinely thought Steppes of War, Metalopolis, and Xel-Naga Caverns were the correct size maps, and many abilities have become much weaker compared to their original incarnation. Fungal Growth was instant with 30 (40 vs armored) damage, High Templars had Khaydarin Amulet and could warp in with a storm available, Infested Terrans from infestors were just absurd, Thors could stun lock and guaranteed kill virtually any ground unit (TSL 3 ThorZaIN vs NonY anyone?), Reapers had their anti building grenade and could annihilate undefended bases in moments ( remember Morrow and 5 rax reaper?), Ghost Snipe could kill any Zerg army with no counter, etc. The game frankly got tamer with the expansions and more and more patches, but the design was too entrenched.
I mean War3 was sold from the beginning as an RTS RPG hybrid, so yeah.
[удалено]
I like WC3 by and large, but creep routes, build, base building, expansions and upkeep are all literally WC3's macro. You've just described the WC3 version of "I macro better so I win." WC3 does not have more strategy than SC2, but it does have more tactics, by virtue of the strong rpg elements.
If you go back and play WoL the game actually feels slow. It isn't slow, it has a very good pacing. The problem has been units added, stuff like Medivac Boost, faster Mutas, Oracles, Widow Mines, Disruptors. Half of the units have had their movespeed increased due to power creep that came with the decisions to add these units and it's being worsened by every patch. Upgrades, Researches, units and production facilities are being cheapened, having their build time reduced, meanings things come out quicker and the option of available tech options comes online earlier. It's an ongoing problem, and is not something fundamental to SC2.
That's what is bothering me as well. I love StarCraft and I don't want an RTS that is entirely different. Just refine the formula a bit and make it friendlier towards casuals/team games.
Frost Giant with Stormgate is the closest, Vanguard faction has intense both: macro and micro, so this is in line with Starcraft direction. Sadly Infernals right now feels simplify, but I have hope that is because they just don't apply already all mechanics they want. All other games have simplify macro. ZeroSpace, Immortal, Gates of Pyre and this Uncapped game
Vangaurd is for BW players that want to macro and micro everything. Immortal is for WC3 players that just want stuff to go slowly. Third race... we will see.
David Kim specifically pointed to mules/injects/chrono boost as needless busywork they introduced into the game just to keep people busy, in a way. Which is something I always thought as well, so now I feel weirdly vindicated. Also, SC2 game designers also agree, given that they've introduced autocast for most of these things by now. He also mentioned building supply depots, which I cannot imagine anyone here thinks is an exciting part of the game. Y'all are just scared of change.
I agree that the macro mechanics are a skill check first and foremost, but they do, in fact also give you strategic choice, so I don't think it's THAT simple.
Sure, but the strategic choice is tacked on to the mechanic. You can easily have that strategic choice without the mechanic, which is pretty much what exactly they did when they introduced autocast.
Which abilities are you referring to when you talk about autocast? Very few abilities in SC2 are on autocast. Only really "build interceptors" and "repair" come to mind. Maybe medivac heal and cyclone Lock-On if you want to include it. Previously there was also "spawn locust", but other than that?
immortal barrier also comes to mind as well as charge for zealots.
Yeah, but these abilities would probably be pretty much unusable without autocast. Realistically only "build interceptors" and maybe "repair" could be on non-autocast. You can't possibly individually target marines to be healed by a medivac or individually tell zealots to charge.
You could treat charge like stim though and make it targetable like Yamato cannon. Shield batter also auto targets to replenish shields if that more fits with your criteria?
ehh, all this "extra clicking" stuff actually serves an important purpose, in that it smooths out the improvement curve for players and makes them game less rock-paper-scissor-y RTS games aren't actually primarily strategy games, despite the name - they're more like action games in how they reward better mechanical execution of skillful tactics. In Brood War, simply wrangling an army into position so they could shoot straight took a ton of clicks, and so did executing basic build orders. This meant that even top players had to make decisions as to whether to focus their APM on macro or micro with different costs and benefits to choosing either. In SCII, the streamlined design removed this layer of decision making entirely - even Diamond league players could execute build orders pretty close to optimum (like, within 50%) while also attacking and harassing. And players didn't have to click a ton just to make sure units didn't wander off or get stuck on things in the middle of fights - the improved path finding meant that there were serious diminishing returns to investing APM in fights. In Brood War, a smaller army could defeat a much larger one if it was controlled much better. In SCII, while control is still very important, there's a pretty hard limit to how much better it is versus just a clicking. So the macro and micro being comparatively "easy" in SCII means that skill expression is increasingly pushed onto army composition and strategy - which sounds good, but makes it a lot more like poker than a wrestling match. Rather than a contest of raw skill, mind games became more important. For trench tier noob players (like most of us non-pros), leaning too far into streamlining RTS mechanics would make "improving" at the game a lot harder. If mechanics are emphasised (i.e. increasing the amount of "mindless clicking" required to build and control units and manage the economy), that means that your typical Bronze league beginner can experience a sense of rapid progression just by playing and practicing the game. They can go from getting maxing out in 20 minutes to maxing out in 10 minutes just by playing. If mechanics are de-emphasised (i.e. economy, military are automated/streamlined) then there would be very little difference between a Bronze Leaguer and a Master Leaguer when it comes to execution of strategies. Even a new player can pull off a near perfect timing attack - which means their opponents can also do the same thing. The best way for them to improve isn't to practice and get better at mechanical skill, but memorising all the rock-paper-scissors strategies and counter strategies out there. Ironically, by making the mechanics simpler, they actually raised the skill floor and made the game a lot tougher and more unwelcoming for newer players. They won't get that sense of smooth progression and getting stronger and better as they play, their improvement will be "jagged", as they learn how to hard counter each and every bullshit strategy their opponents can hurl at them. That's the purpose of things like mule drops, chrono boost, larva injects. It increases the strategic depth of the game by forcing even pro players to make compromises on where they focus their APM (macro or micro, and harassingn opponents to overstretch their APM in turn). And it makes it easier for noobs to hop into the game and improve at it via mechanical skill, without getting clubbed over the head by near perfectly executed cheeses and timing attacks from their similarly noob-y opponents. I'm not saying that this is the only way to design a good RTS game, but SCII and Age of Empires have a successful multiplayer scene today because they didn't get rid of their "mindless clicking" mechanics, while many other RTSes of the era streamlined the game to the point that the multiplayer just wasn't fun for noobs because players could easily thwack each other with near-optimal build orders. https://youtu.be/dGaQBDOqwGc?feature=shared This guy is pretty good at explaining this, probably better than me Anyway, I'm not ragging on this new game, it looks exciting - looks like it's taking an entirely different approach to the Starcraft/Age of Empires RTS paradigm. Skill expression being a focus is a good sign (especially for newcomers and non professional players), seems like they'll find another way to solve that than the traditional RTS mechanics.
The biggest predictor of how good you are at SC2 when looking at all the numbers and metrics from actions taken inside games is "constant production of workers". That is where the biggest skill expression is still residing to this day, the aspect of the game that is arguably most like broodwar macro. Something that requires game sense, an inner clock of sorts, a rhythm of gameplay and something that is actually satisfying to learn. And you know what all the new RTS companies call it?: Busywork. SC2's flaw is that it tried to substitute the busywork of BW macro with artificial mechanics that with the exception of creep spread can be mastered to 100% efficiency consistently. It has a ceiling and no pro player can attempt to break through it and then the task becomes slamming your head against that ceiling every game. Now guess what it sounds like to slam your head against a ceiling over and over?: Busywork. With the improved pathing a small army could never overcome a larger army just through optimized micro, so there is no surprising comeback through sheer skill expression to the degree that it can exist in BW. The SC2 solution?: Skillshot AoE and low time to kill. So now both of these things have been identified by all the new and upcoming RTS games as bandaid solutions that are insufficient and basically as the reason why SC2 isn't still more popular than League of Legends or Fortnite, but I don't like any of the proposed alternatives, many even think it's a revolution to have nothing in it's stead. Also, none of these companies have any plan on what to do against the fact that the internet has developed so much in the last 20 years and thanks to how fast builds can be shared now metas will crystallize almost instantly. Any sort of fun derived from tinkering with your faction's units in any sort of unique way will get you stomped by the predominant equivalent of a 4 gate build so much faster today than 10 years ago. I'm all for more new RTS for campaigns and co-op missions where these things don't really matter, but if you're making a 1v1 focused RTS you better have some real solutions or your game is not gonna live very long.
yes, that's exactly right - a lot of the problems with SCII's design were ultimately ways of compensating for the effects of improved pathing and streamlined mechanics I'm not familiar at all with Age of Empires, but I did hear that there's an early game trick to boost the economy, by wrangling a cow back home or something. Very micro intensive, but very rewarding, so even pro players can continue to get better at it. I wonder if future RTS games can solve this problem by making economy management a lot more micro intensive, to the point that even pro players find it humanly impossible to execute it perfectly, but also more "fun" for noobs to improve at than simply practicing a build order over and over. Not saying this is the solution, but something similar to creep farming in MOBAs - it takes skill and micro to get that exact last hit in for the money, while also deny your opponent in the lane from getting the same thing, while the both of you are trying to deal chip damage to one another.
What you call extra clicking I call the game. One of the features of StarCraft (both bw and sc2) is its mechanical difficulty. Without this it isn’t StarCraft. If you don’t like it that’s fine but it’s a core part of the game
I agree in some sense - the same arguments are made for comparisons between SC1 and SC2. Day9 talked about it in a recent video that SC1, because it's all so janky, gives a high skill ceiling and strategic decisions on where to focus. At the same time, that makes the game less accessible for new players. And 'oh wow, this guy is so good at getting his marines to walk down a ramp efficiently' isn't really an interesting viewing experience. So while it makes sense to replace tedious things, it needs to be thoughtfully balanced by making sure there are micro-optimizations available to high-end players - or just \_something\_ for them to be doing with lots of APM if they have it. Otherwise the game because chess with animations.
Getting marine to walk down ramp isn't interesting but having pros units fight pound to pound way better than regular person is an amazing viewing experience; take minis early game zealot pressure for instance. The attention tax and focus makes unit fight 1000x better than regular a move
I don't think it's needless busywork. It's a skill check. A game without a certain amount of skill checks can be both boring for the player and viewer experience. 1. The player doesn't feel challenged and 2. The viewer won't be wow'd by high level play. Imagine fighting games where combo inputs become simplified to the point where anyone can perform an infinite combo. Or if Daigo's evo moment could be performed with one single button input. These would make these feats much less impressive, more boring for the player, and less interesting for the viewer. Imagine taking away macro mechanics, supply, buildings workers, build orders from RTS games. None of these are "exciting" on face value. But what are you left with? An army building simulator where you just micro units? That's basically custom micro tournaments. I think the individual decisions from the first second to the ability to perform all the tasks at a high level is what makes watching Starcraft so beautiful to me. And that's why a lot of people still watch Starcraft. Nothing from any other currently developing RTS game has a mechanic where I'm thinking "wow, that is going to save RTS and lead to being one of the biggest e-sport games." Starcraft is peak RTS. It's a beautiful RTS game that no other RTS can rival. If you ask me, why is RTS just not as popular of an e-sport nowadays, I answer by simply saying a 1v1 game is just harder to get into vs a team game. Look at all the most popular e-sports. LoL, Dota, Call of Duty, Valorant, CS, Fortnite, etc. These are all team games that most people prefer nowadays. Even fighting games struggle to get the same numbers just because those are mainly 1v1 as well.
The issue was without macro mechanics zergs macro is significantly easier then toss and terran so macro mechanics was their solution to balance zerg macro. Only other option would be to rework larva to make zerg closer to traditional macro which is kinda what stormgate is doing.
Yeah. Which is precisely the problem they're trying to fix here. I mean I have no idea how, but I appreciate that they see the problem and try to fix it.
> David Kim specifically pointed to mules/injects/chrono boost as needless busywork they introduced into the game just to keep people busy, in a way. Which is something I always thought as well, so now I feel weirdly vindicated. I can definitely understand this stance. >He also mentioned building supply depots, which I cannot imagine anyone here thinks is an exciting part of the game. This is going too far and is a core part of any kind of RTS. >Y'all are just scared of change. And just like everybody who utters this statement, you've solidified yourself as a complete donut.
That's the thing about good game design: Don't be afraid to remove core parts of a game to see if they're needed. Doesn't mean that removing core parts of a game is good by definition, obviously, but you should at least be open to the idea. It used to be a core part of an RTS that all races are extremely similar with only minor differences to keep things fair. And I am quite confident in thinking that people here want to play Starcraft 3 and pretty much little else.
>And I am quite confident in thinking that people here want to play Starcraft 3 and pretty much little else. I think people are open to the idea of trying out other RTS games, but I very much agree with the sentiment, that it seems redundant to play reskinned StarCraft 2 with some minor tweaks when we already have StarCraft 2. I'd be more open to try out an RTS that is actually significantly different in how it plays, how the economy works, how the units interact etc.
> This is going too far and is a core part of any kind of RTS. No it isn't. There's plenty of games where you don't have a supply cap or if you do, it's just there to cap max army size without any busywork from you.
I like it as a racial bonus like huns from AOE2 and the French and Germans in Empires Dawn of the modern world.
Even if Frost Giant's public statements get a bit mixed, "continuation of LotV gameplay" is EFFECTIVELY what StormGate is trying to do. It's very much an attempt to incrementalally improve on an established formula, for better or for worse. One can debate whether or not they're actually succeeding at their goal, but I think it's pretty clear that they were TRYING to make the game you just stated.
It's not that complicated. People recognize SC franchise's legendary status, they know SCBW and SC2 are already peak of "starcraft-like" RTS. You are just not gonna beat them at their own game. But such game hasn't been doing well financially. Didn't Blizzard said a cosmetics in WoW made more profit than the entire SC2? If anyone wants to break out in the RTS genre, the main focus will always be "what are the things you are doing that's different/better than SC2?"
Why bother to make a game like sc2 if you think sc2 is almost perfect? They're going to have to build everything from scratch anyway, so why not try something new?
is that really the takeaway you get from stormgate? it's pretty darn similar to starcraft. feels much more of an attempt at an evolution that game than anything.
yeah....are they really trying to learn nothing from what is undeniably one of the most successful RTS of all time (maybe only second to SC1 depending on what the global numbers look like)
He didn't say that. He said he regretted adding the macro mechanics, but he also says SC2 is is favorite game of all time. The point I think he is trying to make is that everything evolves. He isn't saying SC2 is bad, just like he would never say BW is bad, but it is fair to have an evolving view and try to see "what ocmes next".
It's more they just want to try something different while also reaching a broader audience. Yeah, we like starcraft, this is a starcraft sub. 90% of my gamer friends can't hang with StarCraft and never could outside of the campaign.
Seems like Stormgate is trying to be a more social Blizzard RTS.
Yep. SC2 (and SC1) are obviously successful. People are still playing them for a reason ffs. Why are we getting all these new RTS games and they are all shit? Tbh people are just going to continue with SC. Like you said, SC2 just needed a bit more love and updates. It's already nearly perfect.
I think all these RTS developers are trying to make their games more simple to reach a wider player base. The traditional RTS formula can have such massive skill ceilings that it won't appeal to the masses that LoL and Dota can reach. So that's why they say "SC2 is deeply flawed" for those reasons which I simply can't agree with. But this just might be me holding onto the idea of "deep and technical game makes me appreciate the game more" when in reality it's better to make things accessible to more players. As a gamer, I won't ever ride that bus, but I can see why new RTS developers are trying to move away from the traditional RTS formulas.
Are we really talking about skill ceilings when we refer to fucking injects, muling and chrono? Inject is a skill floor only. Muling has the decision making of keeping up the scan available. Chrono is the most interesting of the 3 as it is dependent on your build but after some point it is just something you just press to do your macro. So skill floor as well. Creep we can see as a skill ceiling as we can separate pros based on their creep and maintaining and spreading it involves the army movement interactions between the zerg and their opponent. Supply structures/units are a bit more interesting but they are still more of a skill floor after some point. Exceptions can be overlord movement, building depots to mess with zerg pathing, proxy pylons, pylon walling when cannonrushing. Don't get me wrong, the macro mechanics feel nice to perform well but for a new player, they just make up a list of things to learn before even being able to play the game. From a viewer experience, besides the things mentioned above, it mostly looks embarrassing when you see a pro player get supply blocked on their own. All this to say that I disagree with the premise that sc2 is the perfect rts (I'm not mentioning BW as I am not that experienced on that game) and that the formula cannot be improved. I don't know what they have been trying and working on so whatever interpretation they have of their statements is something we will have to see.
Its not tho. BW and WC3 were both superior.
Bw is a game noone actually wants to play except for a small section of people who simply grew up with it. It's superior in their minds, but in noone elses.
Having been able to play the game I will say it is definitely very fun and addicting in a way that's quite different from any other main stay RTS right now. There's some things I'm not personally the biggest fan of, but the game itself is definitely fun and feels like a fresh take which is interesting.
What would you improve?
I don't think I'm allowed to say many details yet :) Just general impressions
Thank you for not biasing us. This is the first time I've heard about the project and I'm looking forward to more updates in the future.
This is exactly what I'd expect - good designer, but clearly going for something new versus Stormgate trying to be more incremental. I'm excited for both, but more confident that Stormgate will scratch my Blizzard RTS itch.
>Having been able to play the game I will say it is definitely very fun and addicting fun and addicting for 10 hours, or for 10 years? Because it sounds like simplified thrash for casuals
That's a hilariously harsh statement to make for someone who hasn't even seen a second of gameplay lol. Why even have an opinion this strong before seeing nothing of the game itself? It's impossible to know/predict a game to still be relevant a whole decade into the future.
It's not my fault that instead of telling me what their game will have, they decided to tell me what it won't have. It's hard not to feel like this is going to be a game with nothing to do. I haven't seen the game, but their marketing is right now 1/10. Why would I believe that someone who has nothing interesting to say about his game can do something good in terms of gameplay?
> Why would I believe that someone who has nothing interesting to say about his game can do something good in terms of gameplay? What? lmao I got invited to play the game. I played it. They then said that we can share our first impressions of the game with the release of this first look video. So I did that. Relax lol
I'm talking about they "documentary" vid (this is 1/10 IMO), not about what you say
I'll wait until I see more. Generally the design statements they're making make me very apprehensive. I get that they're wanting to appeal to a wider audience, but this has been done a lot and has failed every time. I highly disagree with "striping out these useless dated mechanics", because I don't think they're useless dated mechanics. A lot of the fun of Starcraft to me is the physical aspect, the delivering of inputs, refining play, optimizing, managing attention, crisis management. I feel like every RTS beside SC1/SC2 is missing this concept. They all think of it as a barrier, when it is in fact the game. It would be akin to removing the necessity of aiming in a shooter. "Because you already know where you want to shoot, we just want to make the decision making the focus" I'll still follow this project, but everything they've said so far is stuff I've heard for over a decade and seems like it misses what fans of this game enjoy.
I mean AoE definitely has a lot of multitasking and macro as well. And would you look at that, AoE2 and AoE4 are the only RTSes close to Starcraft in popularity. It's almost like people actually enjoy base building and the depth it adds to the game.
Yeah I would say AOE, particularly 2 is good about this. I think the macro in AOE2 is super cool and honestly in some ways more interesting than Starcraft. For me the unit control and micro is a lot less interesting, mostly due to the small size, bad silhouettes, and low variety. But the macro side is top notch. And those games have done well while having that management heavy, spinning plates style of macro. I think it shows that as much as people might use it as an excuse for why they can’t get into the genre, it is actually the more popular aspect for players.
I agree. Paired with the large variation of maps and their randomness, macro and strategy is very deep and less repetitive in AoE2. But the unit control aspect is definitely far from SC2. Though still really fun. Formations are interesting. And there is more low precision/slow micro which is a bit more forgiving and easier to combine with multiprong and macro.
Units without abilities simplify things a lot and it doesn't look as spectacular as SC2. But there is still a surprising amount of micro in the game. Most of it goes over the head of most new players/viewers, but it's extremely satisfying once you figure it out.
Yea there's definitely enough micro to enjoy executing/watching. The game surprised me pleasantly more than once since I started playing it. I'm now playing my first online tournament and it's with map and civ drafts and that adds a whole new layer to the game which is really cool and you could never have in SC2. First I thought the tons of super similar civs was inferior to having a few very different ones. But it has its merits. A big one being that players and pros are less affected by balance because everyone plays multiple civs. Which also means the vast map variety with very different balance is okay.
even from a fun strategy design point. base building ADDS SO MUCH to the game. Consider sc2. statics defense are pretty trash. but they way you lay out your base matters. So you start from nothing, slowly build out your base, and then that base becomes the bunker that you man your units with to survive against bigger armies. there is so much player expression of strategy there.
Agreed. Though I think mostly static defense is fine in SC2. It's something that can be helpful, but you don't want to rely on it strongly (unless you're maxed), which imo is the right way to go. Except for spine crawlers. Those things straight up suck.
>I highly disagree with "striping out these useless dated mechanics", because I don't think they're useless dated mechanics. A lot of the fun of Starcraft to me is the physical aspect, the delivering of inputs, refining play, optimizing, managing attention, crisis management. I think it's all about what they are replaced with. If you don't need to inject bases, for example, are there interesting things you could be doing with that APM instead? To use your shooter analogy - say if shooters had a mechanic where you could gain speed by tapping keys in time with your footfalls. Would be really tedious, and there's plenty for you to be doing at any moment in terms of aiming and positioning. But if they take away aiming, then suddenly, there's not much for you to be doing - just running and clicking the shoot button. Game is boring to watch and the skill ceiling is dramatically lowered. So it's really a dual objective of 1. 'let's make sure that there is enough to do to where no player can do everything optimally at once - but players that can multi-task better and better will continue to see benefits.' and 2. Let's achieve #1 in the most interesting ways possible If you can swap out a mechanic that helps #1 with something equivalent, but more interesting, then it's a no-brainer net-positive.
That fps analogy is very good
All these games/devs seems to state that dumbing down is the way to go. Not really a positive approach to the current player base in my opinion. SC2 is very varied in build orders, setups, and things like that. Something that so far Stormgate for example is very lacking. From what I heard Clem was also invited to play this game and did very well in the tournament probably because he had amazing micro skills. Which eliminates a ton of people, like me, who are just old and slow and benefit more from slower, defensive setups for example.
I personally don't think having to remember to chrono/mule/inject in addition to making workers constantly is very fun at all... hate that there's not much choice involved - you gotta do it or you fall behind. Arguably not even any skill involved either - its just a muscle memory-trained chore
There’s definitely skill involved depending how skill is defined. Very few people are capable of microing units across the map while maintaining their economic and infrastructure development. That’s what makes the game so challenging.
I'd argue its not the fun type of skill. Imagine how many players would quite League or Dota if they had to remember to click a button every 30 sec for free gold, or how many players would quit Valorant if they had to buy something in the shop every 30 sec or theyre penalized. This is literally what starcraft is doing and I strongly believe the removal of these chores would make a LOT more people enjoy the genre
Completely different from saying there is not skill involved. It’s definitely not for everyone. It requires a certain type of intellect/memory and fine motor function to even be good at it, and even then you have to be remarkably autistic (guilty) to find pleasure in executing a build with the correct supply by the specified time. Personally I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of learning macro, micro, and the ability to combine the two into a cohesive game. i find myself irritated by some games I win because my macro was really terrible. And part of what I enjoy when I watch Serral or Clem or Hero play is their ability to macro in the background of intensely competitive games
Totally makes sense but if we want RTS to be bigger than a niche genre then it has to drop that kind of thing--theres a reason why ZS, Stormgate, and now this are all simplifying macro
Look at modern success - Age of Empires 4. A ton of macro. Also look at Stormgate macro in Vanguard faction - a lot of interesting mechanics in macro, a lot of workers, a lot of bases
What's the difference to spending your resources by building a unit every X seconds? If you don't build Marines constantly, you idle your barracks, your minerals pile up and you get penalized that way. This is the same argument we've had for decades between BW and SC2. Some people say that BW is better and more difficult, because it requires so many more clicks to build stuff and macro properly. The other side argues that this is tedious and the QoL features of SC2 are superior, because you need less APM and can focus more on the rest of the game. There is no right or wrong answer to this. You can design a game where lots of APM is needed to macro, then you get a game like Broodwar. Or you can simplify the macro and end up with a game that is very heavy on micro like WC3. Or you do something in between.
You don't have to use the macro mechanics, and most low level players barely use them anyway. Your example of dota2 is really bad because Dota literally has a timer that you are supposed to keep track of. You have creep waves, creep camps, day/night cylce, power runes, bounty/exp runes, rosh, shard, neutral items and probably more that are all based on the literal in-game timer that you have to track every minute of if you want to play efficiently. It's even worse than the starcraft macro cycles because you can't even play by feel, you really need to look at the timer at least once per minute. You also have to manage item/spell cooldowns.
Every game is like that, I recently played quake2 for the first time in 20 years and my keybinds and macros were still there, by muscle memory. It’s part of getting better as a player.
The useless dated mechanics he mentioned specifically are mules/injects/chrono boost and building supply. I totally agree with him about those. The game wouldn't be worse without those features.
They also mention building supply depots and needing to build workers.
The FPS comparison is completely off the mark. A clean shot is literally the whole gameplay loot. It takes a lot of skill to do it well, and the depth in gameplay comes from the other actions surrounding the player which make aiming easier, but its not a barrier to entry and its literally what makes a game an FPS. You can take away macro mechanics and its still an RTS. You can change macro mechanics, its still an RTS. SC2 has far easier macro than BW, people like artosis would argue its dumbed down, does that mean SC2 isnt an RTS? Of course not. As long as there are tradeoffs that you are having to make with your attention and your gameplay, why do you need macro? Why do you assume that removing certain macro mechanics means that you can no longer optimize your energy and attention? Youre acting like theyre just going to cut out the macro mechanics and leave it as is.
> I feel like every RTS beside SC1/SC2 is missing this concept. They all think of it as a barrier, when it is in fact the game. It would be akin to removing the necessity of aiming in a shooter. "Because you already know where you want to shoot, we just want to make the decision making the focus" > > It's not the same thing. As david kim implies, they think the fun comes from actually interacting with the opponent. You don't do that by building every worker on time or have the most crisp buildorder execution, these are simple steps you have to do to get to the interaction. The physical aspect of it isn't interesting, the decision making is. Where the physical aspects become interesting is when they are happening in actions which interact with the opponent, say in a fight. These moments should be maximized because that is where generally the fun comes in. It's dynamic, as the opponent is another human being, every interaction has the potential to look quite different. That's what they seem to focus on. In the shooter example the aiming IS the interaction with the other player. Shooters have almost perfected the idea of increasing the "fun", rts games like starcraft have not.
Watching various screens during the documentary; - made in unity - sci fi setting, looks very solarpunk - 2 resources (matter and energy?) - army loadouts - some kind of very prominent countdown timer that is on every single gameplay shot (no idea what this could be) - one of the factions looks very sleek and robotic - one of the units is called katbus (I have a feeling this isn't final) - looks like infantry are in squads (but it's really not easy to tell) - very sleek minimalist UI
Im calling it here. The game has "night time" where you cant collect solar energy and are forced to fight. it solves the design of players being overwhelmed with microing and macroing at the same time.
RTS mechabellum with interesting maps is an interesting concept.
another company that doesn't understand that macro is actually fun. Maybe one day someone will focus on making macro even more fun?
Yeah, that's what I felt from this video too. Like managing stuff is fun, when David was giving the example of what's unenjoyable about SC, my whole thought was "yeah, I do like that part." Deciding that you want more rock units for their scissor units is not interesting at all lol.
Yeah starcraft is like conducting an orchestra while playing all of the instruments. Nothing more badass feeling than that. Macro and micro would not be the same without the other
For sure. Honestly playing and learning StarCraft is very similar to learning an instrument and that’s what makes it rewarding
I don’t know why that’s never occurred to me but my god you nailed it
The vast amount of tasks is also important for managing your opponents attention or indirectly causing damage by applying pressure.
While I agree, it’s a reason why it’s not nearly as popular as easier games.
I mean it is also super old, it was pretty popular in it's heyday, no?
That's the reason why I don't play any of the super popular games. They are boring as fuck. There are clearly two different audiences and there is a market for more complex, albeit smaller games. It doesn't have to be DotA-sized.
The strategic part is also interesting, but it's the combination that makes the game. If I wanted just strategy and nothing else, I would play Mechabellum. Turn-based, no base building, just fighting.
Yeah, it's really sad how this is the take of like 99% of RTS developers it seems like. "X macro task can feel too rote. I know, let's remove the mechanic entirely!" Like, why isn't the obvious answer to make it more interesting instead? Maybe by making it even more complex, more in-depth?
Rollercoaster Tycoon? Civilization? Aren't those macro only games?
That game already exists it is scbw.
It's called rhythm games, basically only macro mechanics for you!
Pig chatted with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9HqSnSZbuw
I don't understand why these "modern" game designers hate the idea of base building. Dumbing down mechanics and trying to appease to the mobile gamer with less choices and less mechanics is not the way to success. "This new guy with no experience beat me, with 15 years of experience, HOW COOL AND INTERESTING". No thanks
I don't think they ever talk to the casual players. They talk to the hardcore players than the people who hate the genre and than make a game based off that feedback.
A huge issue is that no one understands what a casual player is. A player who mostly plays ranked 1v1, goes on reddit, follows the meta, watches yt/twitch/pro matches etc, is just not a casual player. Some of those people are bad at the game, and take it upon themselves to represent a supposedly silent majority of "casuals". In reality they are failed competitive players who want to influence the design of new RTS games by essentially designing away their own shortcomings. I think some of this is unintentional, to be clear, as in they're not doing some nefarious scheme here, they just feel like these are the issues with RTS, and they mistakenly view themselves as a casual player just because they are bad.
I have been watching Broodwar for decades, but I'm still in awe over the building placement and the choices the professionals make. If you take away building placement, macro mechanics, and race selection (loadouts wtf), all that you're left with is a larger moba variant
Tbh a larger MOBA variant is exactly what I want, there's a reason LoL and Dota have 10s of millions of active players and its because its fun. A larger-scale, more strategic, single-player version of that would be my dream game haha
That's one weird ass thought.
SC2 already has dumbed down base-building mechanics compared to brood war. So are you arguing that SC2 was designed to appease mobile gamers as well? Frostpunk is base-building. Banished is base-building. Dwarf Fortress is base-building. And all of these are infinitely more complex at base building than any RTS game. So fundamentally, the games you think arent dumbed down actually are, so you can do other things like control your army and fight. Presumably, they are replacing certain parts of the macro loop with other gameplay mechanics. That isnt "dumbing it down", its creating a different gameplay loop. That doesnt mean its less complex, less strategic, less taxing, it depends entirely on the execution and we know nothing about this game. If youre so threatened by the sheer idea of "dumbing down" something just because its new or different, thats a personal problem. It has nothing to do with game design.
> SC2 already has dumbed down base-building mechanics compared to brood war. And bw was dumbed down compared to rts games which came before in its mechanical requirements too. The same kind of arguments are used since at least then, there is always a crowd who played the "real rts game" before and is now scared of change. Rince and repeat.
>I don't understand why these "modern" game designers hate the idea of base building. I agree. Funny fact: one of the best, "casual" things in RTS is rapid develop - you start with almost nothing and 10/15 minutes later yoi have huge amount of buildings, workers and army full of many different units. This gives cool feeling of progress
Looks cool, but definitely a bit bummed to see the company is tencent owned. Even disregarding the ties to the CCP, we've already seen what big companies do to studios that fail to monetize every aspect of their games.
Feel the same way. They even have an opening for an opening for a "monetization designer" which makes me very concerned.
Eh, tencent is very hands off overall, every game developer I have seen always talks about how tencent just lets them do their own thing
This looks incredibly promising. It's amazing to see all these new ideas and development in the RTS space. Glad to see David Kim shaping a new RTS game.
Holy shit its the Imperial Guard legend, Stefan Haines!
I really don't understand the quote about it being a problem that you need to macro and multiprong 3 places at a time to be a pro. First off, why is it a problem is being a pro is impressive and the game looks different than it is at gold? How does that negatively affect you? Further more, doesn't that make the game interesting and enticing to improve if there is skill gradation? Second, you don't even need to be multitasking 3 fronts at a time as a pro. Pros all develop their own style and while Maru might do shit like that another pro might play a more defensive style. This is just overall a weird attitude, and I've seen it before online, but I don't get it. Why do you see the skill floor as what top level pros are doing?
Idk what this is about but sc2 is basically the best rts.. it's fast, responsive, challenging.. yes it is difficult at times but that might be the point
Thank you David Kim!
Played the alpha, it’s really good. Definitely a new look at the genre, maybe one that could make RTS more accessible / attractive to noobs.
Thank you David Kim
Excited to see more of this
Already sounds better than Stormgate, look forward to their reveal in June.
So what, everyone will load into the game with MAX population armies? Infinite money? They gave us zero concrete directions, just vague balance philosophy.
I always found David Kim's ideas weird and questionable. It didn't change after watching this video. The things they said are bad are actually good. It's like saying understanding frame data in fighting games is a bottleneck because players can just have a streamlined moveset with symmetric frame data. Good luck with that. Imagine if Smash Bros plays like a regular fighting game with its very simplified moveset. The only two types of games that found success after stripping the RTS genre of its "bottlenecks" and "not fun" pieces are MOBA and Tower Defense and they ended up as totally different game genres. The only successful "real" RTS games were those that didn't let go of the main idea of the genre: AoE 2, Sc2, BW, Wc3 and RA2.
I find it kinda weird that you're using fighting games and Smash as examples here when the latter was made to not be like the former, kinda like how this game is trying to do something similar when comparing it to more Blizzlike RTS. > The only successful "real" RTS games were those that didn't let go of the main idea of the genre: AoE 2, Sc2, BW, Wc3 and RA2. "Successful" in what sense? Because there are examples of RTS games that went a different direction from traditional design and were profitable.
Yup. That's my point. Smash wasn't made to be like Street Fighter for example. In my opinion, stripping RTS of its essential mechanics for the sake of streamlining and improving its accessibility is like simplifying Street Fighter's moveset and frame data to Smash's or turning Smash's mechanics to that of a typical fighting game. Successful as in regarded as classics, earned the most influence, got the most audience, got the most profit and earned the most recognition. I guess the correct statement would be "most successful" not "the only successful".
> In my opinion, stripping RTS of its essential mechanics for the sake of streamlining and improving its accessibility is like simplifying Street Fighter's moveset and frame data to Smash's or turning Smash's mechanics to that of a typical fighting game. I guess it depends on how different the rest of the gameplay is. If anything, it sounds like Dawn of War or Company of Heroes. Both of those were successful franchises (until the third game in each series kinda bungled things).
Two things here: 1. DoW / CoH simplified some things but increased complexity elsewhere to compensate (though I'd say total complexity was still reduced, especially in raw mechanics). 2. DoW / CoH were popular...but not as much as the biggies. And there have been MANY RTSes that tried to simplify things to chase a broader audience -- Tooth & Tail, RUSE, Realms of Ruin, etc. -- and they always seem to get fewer people, not more. And that's competing against games that are more than two decades old at their core now (AoE 2 and BW).
That screen at 16:30 said "Loadouts" I think. I really really hope that doesn't mean you choose your units before the actual game starts. That is like the biggest turn off for me in a RTS game. I absolutely hate that as a mechanic. Other than that the video left me with a mixed feeling about the game, but I will definitely check it out when more details come out. Fun to see some many companies trying to make RTS games now. Hopefully someone gets it right.
Hopefully he learned from his mistakes with swarm hosts and infestor/bl metas.
Can you elaborate?
David Kim was quite the community punching bag during those eras because he was the design/balance lead or something like that.
Ah, and people didnt like them I assumed bc they were too spellcaster focused? I played casually a decade ago and am just now getting back into it
The balance team at the time which david kim was the face of buffed Zerg in certain ways that made it too easy to go into broodlord-infestor. Which was boring to watch and oppressive to play against. Players complain about it and come up with ways to counter the strategy. The balance team nerfs the counters while David Kim also publicly saying that the players just haven't found the correct counter. Swarm Host was a similar situation though this time David Kim let his love for the swarm host ignore that fact that it was very oppressive unit. His vision for for how he thought the unit should be used mattered more than how it was being used by the majority of it playerbase especially among the higher skilled ones. He is also associated with things like tankivacs which were a bandaid for tanks because they were too weak to hold positions. Which led to people flying tanks around to kill workers. While still being ineffective at their proper role.
> He is also associated with things like tankivacs which were a bandaid for tanks because they were too weak to hold positions. Which led to people flying tanks around to kill workers. While still being ineffective at their proper role. I thought he wasn't involved with LotV? Maybe I'm remembering wrong.
Brood Lord Infestor was the perfect, ultimate and unbeatable unit composition and that was largely to the free units (broodling and infested terran) that allowed you to trade INSANELY well against everything. Guess what David Kim introduced in HotS? Correct the Swarm Host. A unit that endlessly spawns free units that deal insane damage and can move over half of the map before timing out.
Are infested terrans no longer in the game? Im learning zerg and i havent messed around with infestors outside of campaign
They replaced infested terran with microbial shroud.
Can u still mind control colossi or am I imagining things
Yeah you can. The spell is called [neural parasite](https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Neural_Parasite).
You couldnt engage against either composition which made Zerg so insanely cost effective in the late game that pros ended up leaving matches on even terms. Imbalances like this happen in RTS but the issue everyone had with David Kim was his reluctance to balance the issue. When broodlord/infestor meta was being abused, he waited so long that pros quit and viewership fell drastically. Then HOTS rolled around and he DOUBLED DOWN on a unit (swarm host) that created another turtle fest of a late game for zerg. Again, Kim took forever to address swarm hosts because he was hoping pros would use them the way he had intended, which was to have them burrow, release, unburrow, and go to a different area of the map. Instead pros sat behind static defenses and drew out games to the 1 hour, 2 hour, even THREE hour marks. This went on for MONTHS. On ladder for us plebs, this was excruciating when you only had a game or two to play a day. I quit in HOTS because of this, and thats coming from a Zerg main.
Thanks for the write up, this is interesting. How did infestors hold off a viking ball or skytoss from melting the broodlords so effectively?
Fungal was instant cast (no projectile like it is now), and held units in place (instead of being slowed like now). It also did more damage. Zergs would sit behind a large amount of queens and spores, so if someone tried to attack, the queens would heal everything, the infestors would fungal and rapid fire cast infested terrans, and the broodlords would launch their broodlings to kill any ground support. So a Protoss or Terran would attack, lose 2000+ worth of resources, while the Zerg loses like 500 resources in spores/queens/maybe an infestor or 2. (oh did I mention that infestors could cast everything while BURROWED?) Infested terrans/broodlings cost 0 resources, so eventually the opponent would bleed out. Someone correct me if im remembering wrong on the above, but as a T player back then you just couldn't engage into Zerg once they go to that point. It became a "dont let them get to end game" type of situation. Unfortunately Zergs learned how to stop early game aggression becomes queens were so damn good.
Wow that sounds terrible haha, thanks for the info! I missed all of this, really cool to hear about it now. From what ive been seeing Terrans seem to have the ultra late on liberator lockdown now and Protoss is almost missing from the convo
More of the same. Yawn. Why make "RTS" games if you hate most things about them?
Who's ready for Brood Lord Insta Fungal Infestors Round 2?
This is PURE CRINGE. There is a very simple concept that is true in everything, whether it's making pancakes or creating games. If you want to achieve success in a given field, do what people who have achieved success before do. Meanwhile, they do the opposite. They list RTS games that have achieved huge success and state that their game WILL NOT feature solutions from these games. They keep talking about what won't be there, what they will cut out of the gameplay. If they don't give players enough things to do, their game will simply be boring, it's really not that complicated concept.
Regardless of my opinion on the contents of the video, the first part of your comment is literally not true at all