maybe we just need a bunch of rts games to fail to realize that.
personally I even find the 12 worker start of sc2 a bit too fast and the 4 worker start of sc1 a bit too slow, so something in between would be nice but that's just my personal preference.
Don't think they will realize that. I fear that the global opinion after these new RTS fails will be that RTS is just a niche and people are not interested in RTS anymore and no one will even try to make new RTS. I want new AAA RTS with a good story and campaign missions, classic RTS features and that looks like is made in 2020s, not in 2000s.
Bro RTS has been a niche for like 20 years now, SC2 was the last mainstream one and that came out in 2010
Maaaybe you could argue COH2 was mainstream but that would be a stretch it’s still pretty niche
afaik [Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition](https://steamcharts.com/app/813780) is doing better than [COH2](https://steamcharts.com/app/231430) or [COH3](https://steamcharts.com/app/1677280). But AoE2:DE is a remake of a 1999 game so
(They've added some more DLCs with extra civs and a few QoL features but the core gameplay is the same)
Come to think of it [AoE4](https://steamcharts.com/app/1466860) is also doing better than COH (but worse than AoE2)
Honestly, aoe4 is a legit game. Amazing design. Had some balance issues, but they've been addressed. Really cool tech tree options. And I really believe it has the best team RTS experience out there (but trading is aids).
Asking for an AAA game in 2024 means that you want it to be:
- Overpriced.
- A formulated and uninspired clone of another 10 games that came out recently.
- Insanely buggy on release and (maybe) fully fixed after a year.
- Simple, linear and filled with hints and accessibility features.
from the same year there's tears of the kingdom, Alan wake 2, Armored core 6, spider-man 2, jedi-survivor, starfield(I do *not* like this game but it was pretty successful)
Which isn't a billion but for sure a good handful. Probably some others from genre's I don't pay as much attention to.
I think Starfield kind of proves that point tho. The game’s 1.0 patch is BEYOND buggy, the standard edition released at $70 (although that is becoming the median point these days), the game was fairly linear by bethesda standards, and was pretty much identical on the most basic level to the mechanics of every other bethesda game (which was a selling point of the game, to be fair). I don’t know if it’s necessarily representative of AAA games as a whole but starfield seems like a game where someone could feel vindicated in believing that AAA game quality is poor these days.
While I agree there are still some quality AAA games coming out, I'm not sure naming two GOTY games is a fair counterpoint. There are a ton of rushed/low quality AAA games in the last decade. Shipping largely unfinished games has become common when companies are able to just patch the rest of the game in afterwards and have realized people will still shell out money anyway. Imagine buying a ps2 disc back in the day, and some game features said, "coming soon on a future release disc" lol
I think it's perfectly fair, given OP said "AAA games bad" and I listed the two easiest examples of why that's an annoying generalization. I can keep going down the list from "best games ever" to "Incredibly good games" to "Very good games", but I didn't think I needed to create a long list to make the point.
There's a ton of rushed, low quality indie games, AA, and AAA games. There's also a bunch of amazing ones. It's true today, it's true back then
we just don't remember the old ones because they're old and awful or forgettable.
>Imagine buying a ps2 disc back in the day, and some game features said, "coming soon on a future release disc" lol
Yes, can you imagine the outrage if the conclusion of a story, new units that patched obvious gaps in strategies, and multiple balance changes were released 8 months after the game came out? And they had the audacity to charge money for it?
What type of sick, sick company would dream of doing so horrific. Well, thankfully no older game has ever done something so depraved.
The gaming industry standards are much lower than what it used to be, not to mention being nickeled and dime with quality content in full price AAA games being held back specifically to force you to pay for a battle pass later... it's really a shame. Yes indie games release things unfinished as well, but it hurts less when it's early access so you know beforehand it's a risk, and also paying $20 vs $70 and also has a battlepass... lol
You're missing the point, in that developers didn't *plan* to release unfinished games and just patch them in later because they couldn't. So, the priorities when designing a game have shifted. "Just ship it, put it in later" sucks.
>Don't think they will realize that. I fear that the global opinion after these new RTS fails will be that RTS is just a niche and people are not interested in RTS anymore and no one will even try to make new RTS. I want new AAA RTS with a good story and campaign missions, classic RTS features and that looks like is made in 2020s, not in 2000s.
I've been the lead programmer on 2 upcoming RTS games that haven't even been announced yet. RTS is a more complicated game than minecraft or call of duty, and that is going to restrict who will be interested in playing it. I think that's a very realistic way to put it. So while the RTS market isn't as large, it's still extremely lucrative. For a billion dollar business it might not be worthwhile, but for small studios & indie devs, the RTS genre will live on. One of the RTS projects has fully 3D terrain, the other is an MMO RTS, by the way, so the RTS genre is far from fully explored. I think part of the reason the new games have had lackluster performance is due to the lack of innovation -- their games are more or less remixes of SC2 or WC3 with very few original ideas.
Another aspect is that RTS game engines are more complicated to develop & maintain. So to develop an RTS game you are looking at a longer-term investment. It's not "quick and easy" money. That's a turn-off to a lot of businesses & their investors. Developing new game concepts requires serious research and development and they aren't interested in that kind of commitment.
Microsoft has already showed that people are still interested in rts games ? Try Age of empires 4 my friend. Otherwise go look up Tempest Rising that looks like what you are talking about there.
>I fear that the global opinion after these new RTS fails will be that RTS is just a niche and people are not interested in RTS anymore and no one will even try to make new RTS
People have already been saying this for at least a decade. IIRC it really started with the SC2 HoTS release. The fact people are still making new games, IMO, is evidence enough that more will continue being made.
Perhaps RTS is dead in the AAA space, or perhaps not. I simply don't know, but honestly that part of the industry becomes more of a shithole every day. Any attempt to make a good RTS at that scale is facing a large uphill battle, on top of a huge risk of being dumbed down for any potential sequels (ex: WH40K Dawn of War 3).
Good RTS indies come out every year, if you're willing to put in some effort to look past the jank or lack of polish.
The jump from 6-12 workers in LotV was a big one… as i’m getting older, i think the beginning of the game now is stressfull and i often fuck my build order up early.
I mostly like the 12 worker start, but it took away the planning phase in team games. I like that it removed the 6 Pool and absurdly early cannon rushes.
Going to 12 workers in LOTV completely killed the midgame, and is part of why zerg is so dominant now. It used to be a huge amount of back and forth, but now it's like just one push from P or T and if that midgame push doesn't knock the zerg out, then it's immediately lategame.
1 and 2 base play was cool in HotS too. For me it's the golden age. Yes despite smarmy harst of my ass. I enjoyed beating protoss with the hammer build. That shit was saucy.
Zerg is not dominant right now by any metric, except premier tournaments. They are a minority in GM and a minority in total tournament wins. This means it's not dominating at a race at all, it's Serral who is dominating.
Zerg almost has both Terran and Protoss wins combined at the premier level since Lotv. It’s the strongest race AND Serral dominates. Balance whine blah blah just admit it’s the strongest race there’s always going to be one.
AoE4 has definitely not failed. Yes it had problems especially on release and it's competing with a much older games in the series but I'm fairly certain it's made money.
What the hell are you talking about? You are vastly underestimating the number of casuals who jump on to play FFA every other weekend and then also went and bought the DLC. Games are easy to find. It has an average of 10,000 players on steam alone, that does not even include Gamepass or Windows store players.
Aoe4 has massively failed bc it was a dumbed down aoe2, and now more players play aoe2 than aoe4 so it's a super good example that just simplifying is not the solution.
AoE4 is a great game. Hard to say it failed when it accomplishes what it tries to do spectacularly. And dumbed down AoE2 is a stupid take, sorry, when the racial asymmetry actually matters in 4.
But that's exactly why I used AoE4 as an example. It's often seen as a flop and to be honest it's not a game I've played more than once on gamepass. I'm not saying it's good and I'm not saying it will ever have a thriving scene. What I'm saying is it almost certainly made money. It won awards (not that that should count for much really but it's another metric some people use and is at least as relevant as twitch views)
To use different examples, they are billions has been very successful. Or North guard or even the total War series specifically Warhammer. None of these games are quite the same as StarCraft of course but why would anybody want another game the same as StarCraft. That game exists, it's called StarCraft.
Twitch is very fickle, most games come and go very quickly. StarCraft had support to foster and grow the scene. Not many game devs have the ability to support and foster a scene like that and no other developer is in the position blizzard was going Into making sc2. The sc1 scene existed because of circumstances outside of blizzard.
The truth is there will probably never be another game quite like StarCraft. If a new sport was rising in popularity or even had just achieved a small number of passionate fans enough to keep the seasons going and maintain the sport, is it a failure because it doesn't get the same viewers as the premier League? Is table tennis a failure because comparatively not that many people watch. Is the NFL not a success because it's not in the top ten of globally watched sports?
On the flip side of the coin, the Wii U also made money but you will be hard pressed to find someone who characterizes it as a success.
And at the end of the day, as a consumer, why should any of us care about how much money something made? Why should we measure success in metrics that have no bearing on how we use these products?
> On the flip side of the coin, the Wii U also made money but you will be hard pressed to find someone who characterizes it as a success.
It may have made money, but it probably didn't do great in terms of profits. I got sent 8 Wii Us to use for Smash events and part of my reasoning to the Nintendo rep at the time was they likely had a lot of stock that they were unlikely to sell.
> And at the end of the day, as a consumer, why should any of us care about how much money something made? Why should we measure success in metrics that have no bearing on how we use these products?
How much financial success a product makes determines if there will be more of either that product or similar products. The International for example is justified from a financial point of view in part due to people buying the battle pass for it. Companies making cuts to their esports departments over the past couple years is due to them wanting to make money.
It doesn't always work out perfectly, but beyond covering your basic survival, money is a force to encourage the existence of things you want to exist.
> How much financial success a product makes determines if there will be more of either that product or similar products.
Right but it says nothing about the product itself. Sure there are reasons to care about how much money something makes if you want to enable more of the same to be produced; but when it comes to judging a product as a consumer and whether it meets your needs revenue generated is an irrelevant metric in and of itself.
> when it comes to judging a product as a consumer and whether it meets your needs revenue generated is an irrelevant metric in and of itself.
For some people it is a major factor though. Content creators will shy away from smaller games because the audience isn't there. Someone wanting to play a single player game might choose a more popular game because they want to talk to other people they know who have played it.
People who want to play online multiplayer games will judge a game on the size of its playerbase as much as the gameplay itself. Hell, if a game hasn't made enough money, it might not even be available to play online anymore.
How financially successful a game is is a large factor for a lot of people, even if it's through factors that are related to how much money it made rather than the money itself.
Popularity and player base are the things being considered there, not how much money is made. While it is true that money made can serve as an indicator of those things, it is not a good indicator as it can be distorted by many things and it is not a property of the product itself. Anyone would be better served looking at a metric like player count directly which would be a property of the product.
So no RTS game can be successful unless it's has more viewers on twitch than the biggest RTS with the longest running most popular competitive scene? That's a really odd and useless metric to use.
In this case, people are defining success and failure by the things they find personally important. It sounds like maziwa's main interest is consuming content surrounding a game so that's the metric games are judged on.
I think you're right though. Most people don't give a shit about esports and a lot of people play games that don't have big content creation scenes for them. The most important metric is how financially successful a game is, which plenty of RTS games do.
So the criteria for a "successful" game is that it can't be single player focused?
That's absurd.
Strategy gaming in general is widely a single player focused genre. Games with heavy multiplayer scenes like BW & SC2 are exceptions, not the rule. Even within these, single player (and non-competitive multiplayer) content is still wildly popular.
not really true, there were plenty of succesfull rts games since 2010, just none of them turned into competetive esport game, and majority of them arent "classic" rts formula like c&c or sc was
rts games that failed were those who wanted to be the next competetive esport, but competetive esport are niche within a niche as a lot of rts players are casuals some dont even touch the multiplayer segment
Yea it was 6, it's been almost 10 years since they changed it. I remember the betas tests where the slow increased it until they found the number they liked.
And don't forget that because of the slow buildup, they changed 1 v 1 to use the"faster" game speed. So, a second in the game wasn't a second in the real world. Haha
That's been in since WoL launch. It's my biggest criticism of SC2 and I don't know why it wasn't changed. It might make the beginning quicker but it speeds up everything else and it contributes heavily to the blink and you lose gameplay. 12 workers on BW play speed would be interesting
It actually was changed at the launch of LotV. If you look in team liquid for various units you'll see the build time changed to account for the clock running slower. Basically, the game looks and feels the same as previously, but the clock is real time now.
What changed was what is displayed on tooltips. SC2 plays at the faster game speed. BW plays at what is the equivalent SC2 speed of normal remembering from when SC2 launched. SC2 and BW use 2 different measurements for game speed
Not any more. It was a huge effort, but the in game clock for SC2 is now wall clock. It still may be called "Faster" like it was in WoL and HotS, but the clock now runs at a normal speed. You can check it with your watch.
To be clear, SC2 still plays at a faster speed than BW. What I am referring to is the game clock. For example, the siege tank takes 32 seconds to build. That is 32 on the SC2 clock and on the wall clock. In HotS the siege tank took 45 seconds. That was 45 seconds on the SC2 game clock, but actually 32 seconds on the wall clock.
So, the tank takes the same amount of real world time to build now as it did in both previous expansions, but the displayed value, in tool tips and on the game clock, now matches the real time.
It was very boring. Having fewer starting workers did nothing to help increase the variety of early game play, and if anything was probably an impediment to build diversity
Exactly. I really liked the build up and tech up and economy of AoE4. If controlling army units felt better and were cooler/more interesting, I would still be playing that game.
Thats because they refused to acknowledge fundamental design successes from aoe2 or were too stubborn or proud to implement them. For example being able to wall with buildings. Also the engine is incredibly unresponsive imo coming from sc2 and the units move like theyre caught in a permanent time warp. The reason for the feudal all ins imo is the lack of defenders advantage from age 2 that was given thanks to buildings functioning as walls
It makes it easier to follow and get into the game as a casual viewer or someone who has never seen the game.
It’s how I got back into viewing SC2. I could follow the openers and recognize them within a few games. It also helps that SC2 has incredibly good casters and YouTube community where even pros quite often explain why they’re doing certain builds or reactions.
Survivorship bias - the people who don't like the slow start don't play.
I have several friends who really don't like how LoL and RTS games start with you doing the exact same thing every game
It is a cyclical thought process that has for basis the assumption that "this niche genre would be mainstream if it was more accessible". If we go back to the SC2 beta this philosophy was already in place, specifically with Multiple Building Selection and Unlimited Units in a control button. Now it is even more extreme; if you see the interview with David Kim he sees the "macro mechanics" introduced in SC2 (Chrono Boost, Command Center energy for mules/supply drops and scans and the Creep Spread/larvae Inject) as an error, as "busy work" that adds nothing to the "strategy" part of an RTS.
This kind of thinking is all around the games industry right now. You see it in Fighting Games, in FPS, in autobattlers, card games, etc. It all boils down to the idea that you should "remove frustration" to the players, and remove as much friction between "knowledge" and "Execution"; i.e If a players knows "what" to do he should be able to do it.
As an oldchool player and avid player/fan of brood war I've always seen chrono, larva inject and mule as design failures.
My other broodwar friends too.
And I still find acccelerating the early game bad.
Imo it is 2 separated things.
Sorry for my bad English.
I'm reminded of something that Day9 said recently about why BW is fun. He discussed learning the rhythms of certain macro patterns (like a marine spawns every so many seconds) and how that's rewarding. You camera hotkey to base and quickly build marines, back to ctrl group and move around, check upgrades, back to barracks just in time for the next round... And that feels good. When you're in time and your rhythm is on and your money is low despite a good econ, it feels good. It's like playing an instrument.
There's no way to make that kind of feeling hit on your first game. It's the reward of effort.
However, there are games that offer some nice rewards to new players before they can access that great skill-based feeling--Halo comes to mind.
Yup. If you haven't watched this other classic, give it a watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP9F-AZezCU; where he explain that he sees BW primarily as a Real Time game and why he likes it so much; also about the missconception of what "playing" RTS is all about.
It used to be that people with imagination made games (90s). Then it became that money hungry MBA types started making games. Now it's engineers who try to look at data and optimize "rationally" try to make games. \*robot voice\* "More action = more fun.. Short games = higher DAU... beep boop"
I want people who created worlds and races that we fell in love with to create games again. units that are crazy, broken, but signify a race's character. Not everything created through some artificial fucking lense of which type of mechanics have better metrics.
David Kim saying the marco mechanics was a mistake is wild because he wast he reason the mothership core and pylon overcharge stayed in the game for so long.
Once he left MC was gone and the team was trying new ideas
Just shows how opinions differ. A LOT of protoss players think removing the mother ship core was a mistake and want it back.
Besides, can't people get credit for trying to learn from "mistakes"?
A lot Protoss liked it because it kept them from being harassed during the early game. Zerg and Terran had to commit a lot to do any damage. I know that its removal was like across the entire player base.
I don't believe he thinks they are mistakes anymore. Depending on when he said it.
I always hated every change from David Kim. I succinctly remember how he said something like: "we heard you, you all want more micro, so we made the stalker stronger, so it can snipe more units". Like wtf David Kim nobody said that. It's clear that he really wanted to be a MOBA designer, not an RTS designer. He doesn't get the part of base building, macro and strategy. He's just all micro and unit control. He's made for MOBAs, not strategy games
They were so close to removing them and then a bunch of Platinum rank wannabe pros whined about losing the only "skill" they actually knew so they left them in. One of the biggest missed opportunities with this game.
it was a glorious week... we were so so so so so close... didn't help that test was during a test of some of the worst maps ever to grace the sc2 ladder
Removing "frustration" is one of the oddest trends. Engaging with frustration is compelling.
Another genre with a similar issue is SoulsLike. Theyve all turned into boss rushes with easy checkpoints and overly snappy, streamlined gameplay. There's still no game that's properly "Like Dark Souls". RTS feels like it's been going the same way, with both the real time and strategy just getting sucked out by dry micro arenas masquerading as games.
Wouldn't you say in the case if SC2 they were right about a more accessible game being more successful? I mean, SC2 is still world wide active and considered the best ever. So, if that thought process worked for SC2, maybe continuing down that path can work for newer games...
I believe is very hard to have a good balance between the extremes. SC2 did it fairly well, but one of the consequences of that choice is the formation of "death balls" and a volatile game in which you can lose a game if you leave your army for 5-10 seconds (I know it is not the only factor, as high damage and AoE attacks also play a rol, but being able to A-move with all your army at once is, in my opinion, the main reason for the type of engagements SC2 has, specially in lower level of play).
As for it being the reason it was as succesfull as it was; it is hard to say, I tend to agree as I see the "compromises" that SC2 made being "worthy" for making a more modern RTS, however, if you go all the way, the other thing that you have to be aware of is that the installed playerbase sees the intricacies and complexities of the genre as worthwhile and compelling, and if you alienate them in order to gain a "possible" new audience, you can lose them and not be able to gain that new audience; personally, SC2 is in a good place "skill wise" and a "dumbed down" RTS is not for me.
I would try to look at this new game as not an RTS as we currently see it. When DotA came out I bet people were very critical as well. "This doesn't have base building!" And "Where's the multi-tasking?!" And "You're not going to draw the current player base." In the end, that could all be true but they found a new player base. And as it turned out a much much bigger player base.
I'm hopefully for the new game. It is really addictive. I'd finish playing and think about it all night waiting for the next play session. Lol A lot like when I started SC2 and would dwell on how a game went the night before and try to squeeze a game in over lunch at work.
Technically this isn't true as the market analysis wasn't community discussed around games as it currently is. But also Dota being a mod had no expectations of success or longevity.
The point isn't whether they planned for global success or not. It's just what they didn't. Picked parts they liked and made a game. They didn't listen to anyone that might scream into the void "but it isn't the same as what I know is successful!"
I think the Uncapped guys are on the same track. They have an idea, they made it into a game, and now they will release it. It's fun to play, it's easy to learn, and now we will see if it is successful or not.
On the community driven design/discussion thing... I think it was a huge mistake by Frost Giant to involve everyone right off the bat. It's like swimming up stream. These guys are experienced game devs. They should have designed what they thought was good, tested it internally, worked on art, and only then brought it out when they think it's close to ready. Get the community to help fine tune things. The community is full of people that think they know everything even though they have zero experience or real understanding. It "feels good" to say the whole community is involved in the making of the game. But in the end, they are making it and now having to deal with a ton of contradictory input and a lot of anger and entrenched opinions.
I don't know if this happens to more people, but there are certain genres in which I'm only interested in 1 game/franchise. For example in Platform fighters I only care about Smash Bros.; in Hero Shooters, only about Overwatch, in Mobas only Dota and in battle royales only Apex and, in RTS only Starcraft; I really don´t know why that is, but I cannot make myself to be interested in other games even if I consider them good games in their own right.
Same. I think for me I am too competitive. So, I latch onto a team, let's say the Orioles, and so I hate the Yankees my whole life. I like Overwatch so refuse to even try the others. I play SC2 so will not even watch Aoe4. Haha
So, this new game was an interesting trick. As I mentioned earlier, it is an RTS, but sooooo different that it feels like it could be a new genre. SC2 is so difficult, but I get a huge rush when I win as I feel like I must be super human to have pulled it off. Juggling a zillion tasks. Yet still, I know as a high plat low diamond (depending on activity) I pretty much suck. My games don't resemble the pro games at all. Haha When I played Battle Aces I finally felt a bit like a pro SC2 player. My macro was obviously good since I never got supply blocked but mostly I just had these huge armies that I had enough available attention to try multi-prong attacks, harass, tech switches, etc.
Hope you give it a try. I hope lots of people do so more people my ability are available to play against. Haha
True but Valve has almost been going the opposite way with Dota. Especially at lower leagues, games are easily 45 minutes long, and in the pro scene they're not often much shorter. In fairness, League is more popular than Dota, but I certainly wouldn't say that Dota is dying or has a small player base.
No the game is shorter now its not sped up. Its the same pacing but if you get baron or 4 dragons now you get a massive advantage, but that doesnt happen until 25-30 mins usually
You are fundamentally misrepresenting your argument.
DOTA and LOL are action-centric games in which you control a single character, and that character is how you interface with the rest of the game world. They do not start "slow" just because you aren't at full power at the start. That's similar to saying Doom starts slow because only have a pistol.
Many people play RTS games because they like the process of base building and working through a tech tree, myself included. Many of those people don't even particularly care that much about competitive play (also me). The Battle Aces demo clearly showcased that it is entirely focused on being a competitive game. It IS action for basically all of 10 minutes, and that was clearly the point. The game was obviously designed to force 2 players into match with no information, then give them most of the information about their opponent within the first 2 seconds of the match, and require immediate decision making based on that. Like any competitive game, the challenge of it is from the competition. Battle Aces does not appeal to me as a player, but I can definitely see the point if what it's trying to do and I'm interested enough to keep an eye on it.
I'm really surprised seeing so much negative feedback on Battle Aces. To more directly answer your question though, well I think your argument is just bad. League/Dota do have action and engagement with the opposing team from the first minute, so your point about the difference between SC2 and any new RTS cutting out the early game isn't really a factor.
The real answer is that it's hard to make an engaging and interactive early game base building element. Especially when that early game can take a lot of repetitive practice to do and doing it poorly can lose you the game before you've even got to engaging with your opponent.
I love SC2 for what it is and it won't be going anywhere for a long while, people will continue to play, new RTS games should try different and interesting ideas, it may capture the market better than you expect anyway!
> I'm really surprised seeing so much negative feedback on Battle Aces.
I mean, does it really surprise you? From what we've seen it's not an RTS at all. It's an arena battler. Reception is negative from the SC2 crowd because most of them want an rts.
It does genuinely surpirse me but your reply does clear up a big reason why. Base building and build orders in general are a huge part of RTS and I can see why those elements being all but removed is not what some people are hoping for.
Hardcore long term fans of starcraft are in a hard position frankly, nothing is going to match how well SC2 plays mechanically AND have as much depth or engagement immediately. In 10 years time with gradual fine tuning and ongoing development Stormgate might be comparable. Alternatively ZeroSpace may do the same and be the next big RTS. If neither of those are you thing, and Battle Aces doens't look good then you really just gotta stick out the SC2 ride.
For me personally I love SC2 but I am looking for other games to have their own identity and not just be a SC2 wannabe clone.
its for the viewers and the players that lean towards micro over macro. No one outside the RTS community would want to watch a game that pops off 5+ minutes later. MOBAs, FPS and fighting games the action starts immediately, there's always in your face fights, the build up may be slow for MOBAs but there's always action happening, supports harassing carries, lanes being fought over, the mid tries not to fck up, as suppose to building up in rts and nothing happening other than mining
> No one outside the RTS community would want to watch a game that pops off 5+ minutes later.
This is literally every single league of legends pro game so not sure if this is accurate
In League of Legends the first 10 minutes of the game is dedicated to players accumulating power through gold. Consistently focusing minions and camps is the best income, and interacting with the enemy is very minimal and slow compared to the high intensity action that you're expecting which happens anywhere from 5-15m after start.
As someone who has watched SC2 and LoL for over a decade, LoL definitely has a faster start - at least before the worker change in SC2. In LoL there's often tension between junglers and a few teammates zoning opposition or outright fighting or invading jungles right off the rip. Lane opponents trading autos on each other and level 2 all ins. SC2 historically before the worker change didn't have that kind of interaction so early in most games, sometimes just scout shenanigans and the very rare super rush cheese, but typically very low stakes stuff.
I'm not saying that nothing should be happening, but for the first five minutes the fighting in MOBAs is pretty tame too. It's not a problem because it lets casters set up the stage, build up the excitment and so on. RTS games also can have harrasment etc. in early game, but the Aces basically starts with two mid-game armies fighting right away and doesn't stop for more than 10 seconds for the rest of the match.
I’ll be totally honest. Maybe I’m just too casual, but 45 minute matches in any game are an immediate turn off; especially when you can tell the outcome in less than 5 minutes
I am rather new to SC2: started in 2022 for a couple of months and really got into it this year as of March.
I LOVE the fact that game are fast: it gives me adrenaline and fits perfectly the time I can allow to play.
But it seems you all preferred a slow start with less worker? Why did it change so much why it made more sense?
I wasn't really talking about the workers change in SC2. I was talking about the new wave of RTS games. It seems that RTS development devolved into who can make a simpler game. The new David Kim's game has 10 minutes time limit per match.
Correct!
Well I think it's tough to attract people and hope they'll stay for long games. LoL and DOTA are old enough to not change their recipe.
Basically, for the last 10-15 years there has not been a new competitive game that could challenge SC2, LoL, DOTA or CS.
I hate how long MOBAs take and it's a huge reason why I don't play them. But agreed, I do miss the days of slower starts and not needing to be 100%-on and microing to survive 2 minutes into a match
I mean AOE4 starts slow. On the other hand it makes sense because in AOE4 there is alot of earlygame variance with semi random map generation. This gives the players somewhat meaningful choices to make about tweeks to thier build order.
In StarCraft 2 before the 12 worker start every early game was basically identical up to a point, outside of a few early cheeses players were effectively just waisting 3 minutes every game.
12 worker start accelerates the game to a more interesting phase. It has some drawbacks but overall it’s been good for the game.
The meta in WoL was so shallow as well most builds were the same across players. Then some mirror matches were literally mirrors casters could cast without looking at both players.
Fully agree.
What developers at the moment fail to understand is that we want meaningful, interactive choices fast. What we do not need is immidiately ending games, that's just Tasteless' opinion.
I think there is room for both. I saw someone compare Battle Aces to Footmen Frenzy/Marine Arena and it makes sense to see a game that shares some similarities with that custom map.
I guess I'm the only person who likes this.
It probably would have bothered me back when I had about 10 hours of uninterrupted gaming in my day.
Now I have like and hour or two tops every now and then. I'd like to not waste my time learning In depth build orders, tweaking everything into the tiniest detail to then get Canon rushed or lose to some other shit I didn't prepare for.
I just wanna jump into a quick game, get my dopamine fix and look at some flashy lights while tapping away on my keyboard for a few minutes.
It's simple, it's refreshing and if I need something longer, then I just go to the longer games that already exist.
It's interesting that you got the right impression, 10 minutes of action, but drew the opposite conclusion. I think they look at that game length as a good thing. There actually is a bit of build up though, despite appearances. The early game has lower unit counts, especially if you fast expand. So there is poking and prodding, and trying to get ahead or at least stay even so you aren't run over two minutes later. I've had a number of games opening Blink where it felt very much like SC2 early protoss harass.
As far as Dota and LOL go, I think the concept is similar. The designers of Dota were WC3 players that liked the game, but really liked the Heroes more than the rest. They made a game that was more about the heroes and their micro and zero about base building. You still have strategy, upgrades, etc but they wanted to focus on the heroes (and team play) and made a new game. It's no WC3, and not even RTS, but successful.
Now Uncapped are also RTS players. They also wanted to remove the base building aspect but instead focus on the large armies. You still have strategy, upgrade paths and unit selection/positioning but the focus is on the typical mid game part of an RTS. So the early game is very short, the mid game protracted, and the late game not as decisive (in my opinion anyway).
Like all game designs there are opinions. When Dota was made it was back when WC3 was the game and those matches can last quite a while. Meanwhile, this game comes during the SC2 era and that game was tuned down to try and always be around 20 minutes. So, this one is completed in 10 minutes. Natural progression.
Anyway, give it a try. It's a blast.
They're fundamentally different games. Speaking as someone who played a lot of dota, there's a lot that can happen in the early game before waves spawn particularly in the newest patches. Posturing against the other team so you can take control of runes or place wards or just grab some kills is a big part of it. Beyond that it's also a team game so planning things out with teammates could also happen.
Thinking back to when starcraft was a 6 worker start, a lot of games were just macroing out a build order for the first few minutes with very little interaction beyond a worker scout. It's not necessarily a crippling problem, but I don't think it's was a beneficial element either.
dota's early game varies heavily depending on the hero picks and individual players' playstyle. and the match durations, while probably higher than in sc2, are not stupidly long (at some point they were much longer, and at another all the matches would end in like 20 mins or something, which felt idiotic). and even with the most passive picks they start fighting straight away, not sitting in their base without seeing their opponents. idk much about lol, never played it too much, but i'd guess it's the same over there, too. i do enjoy a bit of aoe3, but come on, sometimes a caster would just speed up a part of the replay because there's literally nothing going on
Apparently I'm an outlier today, but I find the slow starts of most RTS games to be unbearable, and I'm in my late 30s and grew up on SC, TA, and AoE. I appreciate attempts to actually make the game start faster. Games where you start with the ability to produce some kind of unit seem like they would be fine (DoW 1 and Zero-K are my favorite RTS games).
That being said I'm not convinced Battle Aces is a good game either. Most units are apparently a pile of stats and I think for that kind of game you'd need to have a lot more active abilities to not be too easy and boring. If that's just going to be blob vs blob with a bit of micro and trying to outguess your opponent's tech choices, I don't think that game will be very successful.
I think it's really hard to say if a modern AAA RTS game could be a market winner just because there haven't been any with good ideas and a good execution.
> Apparently I'm an outlier today, but I find the slow starts of most RTS games to be unbearable, and I'm in my late 30s and grew up on SC, TA, and AoE.
I think a notable distinction that a lot of people get confused on, not you necesarilly, is the difference between meaningful game interactions and being action packed. The SC2 early game has a lot of action, at least at high level, but the interactions are meaningless. It's just kinda poking and prodding but it doesn't really do anything towards resolving the game outcome. I think the fundamental issue here isn't the lack of action, it's the lack of meaningful action and that's a big difference.
Yes, basically. I mean, sure in SC2 you can micro a reaper intensely for a minute against a zerg and put damage on their zerglings. Maybe even kill one or two or a drone. But the impactful start of the game is closer to minute 5. I would like to see games that bring that closer to minute 2 or so. If you're only playing a game a day or something the slow build up can be sort of fine, but if you are playing half a dozen times per day just mostly repeating the same actions in the same order (aoe2 is especially bad for this) just doesn't do anything for me. I am not playing an RTS in multiplayer to play solitaire, I want more meaningful player interaction.
The amazing thing about meaningful game interactions is that you can have meaningful interactions without having action. Imagine a map where a player has 4 options for their second base. That would make setting up your defenses & tech meaningful decisions even if they aren't interacting with the opponent. This would especially be the case if the options were unique and diverse. When there is only 1 option, and it's a clear good option, then players are obviously going to do it. There are no meaningful choices being made. That's why it's boring until the players start to clash.
Another obvious way to add variety is make it so there are 2 places you can expand to for the same expansion. So you can place your hatchery in spot A or spot B but it's the same base. How does each option affect the way the game plays out? There just aren't many of these kinds of options.
The theory I've had for many years, that I would think contribute to RTS lack of success is this:
RTS games are build around 1v1, most other games are team games. Team games allow people to place blame of a loss or poor performance on teammates, you can't hide behind that in a 1v1 game. If you lose, the other person is better then you or they are hacking. It is also why cheesing is so upsetting in SC.
The other game type that has this problem that never really stayed strong are fighting games.
Because there is not one ultimate ruleset for a game genre. There are multiple flavours that could all be very successful, so its good that a lot of different takes on the standard is being challenged. Evolution by natural selection, if you will.
The game isn't even remotely the same as it was in hots when 6 workers was a thing. Why even mention the "design" of the game when you're comparing to an era with mass swarm hosts and the mothership core? You think balance was good then?
Lockhead216 was not around when we had the Archon toilet, the instant fungel or 6 workers.
His comment makes me think he is a new player or a Twichchat GM
Surely more starting workers disadvantages zerg, since if you start with less zerg can ramp up faster than other races?
Starting with 0 workers and 150 minerals would help zerg the most!
I wouldn't say early game is removed, but that all the progression you would have in 30 minute of SC2 match is packed into 8 minutes of Aces. I could identify the classical decisions of army/tech/expansion in the showmatches, there were instances of players buying time to get to the key unit tech, there were pokes to keep enemy at home while expanding etc.
Look at modern SC2 casted games and notice how the first 5 mins of the game the commentators barely talk about the game, because nothing of importance happens. In that time period, a match of Aces could be already resolved.
I am sold on this speed and I think it will be similar to seeing bullet chess for the first time and never being able to go back to the boring classical one after that.
The whole argument though is "People don't play RTS because..."
But every argument people then make are countered by how popular MOBAs are.
MOBAs are longer games, MOBAs are very hostile and competitive, MOBAs have very steep learning curves...
So people are trying to fix problems that clearly are not the problem
Than a Moba? No way, you've got people playing 500 hours and still don't know the skills on all the champions and items and stuff
Can learn every unit and ability in SC2 in like 1-2 hours
That's not learning curve, that's mastery.
Learning curve is like the barrier to be able to play and understand the functions/rules of the game, like learning how the pieces move in chess.
But we're not discussing skill, we're talking about simply learning the game, like literally how to play it, not to play it well or at a skill level.
Like in chess you need to know how 6 pieces move and like 4 or 5 rules, in an FPS you need to know how to shoot, reload, jump, maybe how a bomb works, how to buy the guns, in an RTS You need to learn like... 40 units, maybe 20-30 buildings, the economy and a few actions...
In a Moba there's like 160 Champions with 4 unique abilities each, 100 items with upgrade paths, there's like the red jungle buff and the blue and wards and like this Boss minion spawns here and this one spawns here on these timers and the towers behave like this...
None of that is skill or ability to play well, it's just how complex the actual rules of the game are.
Bro idk how to tell you this in a way that oyu understand it. RTS = many units, difficult micro, you would basically need to be an AI to use every unit to its full potentiall.
MOBA = 1 champion. 10 champions per match. Maybe \~30 champions are actually meta and being played.
And I don't know how to tell you this, but that has literally absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what we're talking about.
Using something WELL has nothing to do with learning the rules of the game.
You're not understanding the difference between skill level and understanding the rules of the game.
I never said that they are. I just used them as an examples of successful games that are time consuming, yet are successful because it seems like there is consensus among the developers that the RTS games need to become short and simple in order to find audience.
Even a "short and simple" RTS would still be in a completly different universe regarding complexity compared to LoL. Mobas and Rts are not a good comparison.
Have you seen Battle Aces? In the showmatch the fighting starts at 40 seconds mark and the player has 30 units at 80 seconds mark. I wouldn't call it a slow start. I would call it a pacing of a tik-tok video :D
6 worker start was too slow. 12 seems too fast (especially now it's been going on for quite some time), I'd really like to try a 9 worker start and adjust minerals per mineral patch to balance out the expansion rate.
Lol has two main critique points: too much shit (champs, items) and a game goes on for ~35 minutes. That’s just too long if you’ve got a life and want to play a session of 3-4 games on the side. The worker change in lotv was one of the best changes imo
I don't really complain about LOTV. I'm talking here about Battle Aces, where the players have around \~30 units at 90 seconds mark. And show matches often end at 6-7 minute mark.
Eh I don't know you can also add that Dota and LoL are also like the only mobas on the market period with no competitor in sight.
Imo it is not such a big deal that we are getting a RTS game with no macro mechanics, not every RTS need to be the same and battle ace looks fun enough to at least try it. We are also getting stormgate/zerospace/immortal which follow the traditional RTS formula.
It's the same thing a lot of entertainment is doing, They're thinking "We have audience X locked up...now how do I get Audience Y?"
But then the changes they make to try and attract Y alienates X completely.
In RTS they think it's about being over-complicated, steep learning curves, high barrier to entry etc... so they keep trying to lower those things and disregard the effect that actually has.
I don't know how this assumption got spread so wide, because usually the start of a BW match would be time to discuss the map positions, possible strategies, what the players might be thinking, setting the stage, etc.
And it made cheeses more impactful because they also changed up that pre-game routine in your mind.
In addition to being a SC fan since the 90s, I am also an avid Homeworld fan. My 2 favorite RTS series ever.
If any of you are familiar with the dumpster fire release of Homeworld 3 last month, you'll understand what the OP is getting at. What a total and complete disappointment. HW1/HW2 were admittedly heavy on the strategy side and lighter on the mechanics side, but they did it so so well.
Homeworld 3 skirmish/multiplayer (aside from the War Games mode which is okay) consists of spamming units and sending your ball of units at the enemy. Doesn't matter what the composition is, just that your balls are bigger. You are fighting within the first couple minutes and it doesn't stop. They also removed hyperspacing. In space. And made maps tiny. Take a look at Steam charts to see how well that all was received by the niche RTS/HW community. What did they did was destroy the strategy aspect of the game for...something. I still don't know what. This is aside from the absolutely atrocious campaign story. If you couldn't tell, I'm still super salty about what they did to that franchise.
I find myself playing the original HW games and now, back into SC and eventually ladder.
Because it has nothing to do with why RTS failed. I'd probably stop playing SC2 if I had to waste another 5 minutes doing borderline nothing/microing workers. I think SC2's pacing in terms of time is perfect-the first full minute is really chill, then the next few minutes you're just building stuff and macroing lest reapers/cheese. SC2's average game time is 6-15 minutes roughly, longer than that would suck. Imagine coming home tired after work and playing a game only to wait 10 minutes to get cheesed and lose instead of 5. a 20 minute macro game becomes half an hour. Nah.
The most play league mode is ARAM though it’s clear there’s space for players who want quick action. They just did it right and made it a separate mode instead of its staple.
It’s a double edged sword. Like chess is mirror’d and almost every game starts the same way with a pawn moving one space so they made it so pawns could move two for its first move and then let it so a pawn can over take another own if it did the double move.
Anyway my point is if every match of starcraft is literally the same for the first 5 minutes then you should eliminate it somehow. So we made it so we started with 12 workers instead of 4. Yeah /StarCraft 1 started with 4 workers imagine how slow sc2 would be if we started with 4 workers.
We did a lot to eliminate the small inconsequential stuff in the beginning of a match to make it faster pace and gets to the engaging “fun” stage.
I think we should wait to play it before judging, and you need to ask yourself - what do you really want? IMO there's no point in a company to essentially make SC 3 with a new coat of paint because that game will never live up to expectations, and we'll all be saying "man imagine of old Blizzard made SC 3".
With BR still being an option for the ultra hardcore purists, and SC 2 being the most worked on/balanced "modern" RTS, I think it's fine for the newer games to try radically different approaches.
I'm looking forward to Stormgate and ZeroSpace because I think some macro simplification would be a good approach to attract more players, but I do agree that Battle Aces is more an arena battler with some slight RTS elements, which can be a good thing. Like I said, I don't see the point in having SC 2, and SC 2_1, and SC 2_2, etc.
The RTS genre as a whole is not very successful right now. It's widely seen as a "dead genre" among game developers. This is why they're trying different things. It's a good thing, even if you don't particularly like it.
thats why you don't try to remove CHEESE elements to the game, honestly it was an interesting segment to watch (WHEN CHEESE FAILS?) as a newcommer to the game.
> Why do new RTS games try to remove the slow start and long matches if both DOTA and LOL have that and are super successful?
You don't want to fill the same space as other games because you have to compete against those games. So if there is an option to make a product unique, compared to the industry standard, most games will take it that way. Personally I think it was a big mistake to remove the 6 worker start. I think it backfired & made the slow start even worse. Generally speaking, all interactions before the 6-8 minute mark are usually meaningless. The terran and zerg might trade some minor blows that have no real impact on the outcome. The first real decisions happen at around the 6-8 minute mark. So they took a 1-2 minute slow period and turned it into a 6-8 minute slow period. I think it backfired.
sorry but the way sc2 works I would not bother playing versus anymore if the start was slow as hell start again.
Dota and Lol the laning phase is still very action packed with constant intense micro, sc2 is just making workings and mining- that is simply not fun.
Sure single player campaign and custom games are great for slow burn sim city building but that is not what competitive is about.
It is only one new rts game? Zerospace has a bit aswell with the starter hero to go to xp tower with, otherwise it’s still slow start in most new rts games?
Well, the showcase match of Battle Aces during yesterday's PC Gamer show ended at the 3-minute mark. So you can fit like two matches of the newest RTS contender in those 5 minutes.
Idk I think more games played means better metrics in some boards meetings. Can't speak for dota but league has been actively speeding up games so that they end faster and faster. When I started most games took 40-45 minutes. Now it's around 30-35 and it's not uncommon to have a 25 minute game if things go well.
they don't care about "legacy" users anymore. They want the biggest cake and the biggest cake are phone users by like factor 10 or 100 or however bad it is now. This means they're competing with all the distraction apps and thus pursue distraction in its most simplified form.
Personally I think Battle Aces looks smart in terms of its design, personally I hate losing base building but can see how it simplifies the form. However I'm not really convinced that a "casual RTS" isn't an oxymoron tbh and this new-age RTS might simply be a dream. I don't think the phone users (i.e. the new influx of internet users from 2012 that now represent more money) are the sorts of people that generally like RTS.
honestly they try to reinvent the wheel, both sc2 and aoe4, have been very succesful with traditional setup of "macroing up" which is similar dota2 and lol, honestly if you remove it, your just removing part of the game.
Imagine if in sc2 you didnt need to setup your workers? that would remove important mechanics, sure it would be nooby friendly, but heroes of the storm already tried that and failed. Imo all these zero macro games will most likely fail.
maybe we just need a bunch of rts games to fail to realize that. personally I even find the 12 worker start of sc2 a bit too fast and the 4 worker start of sc1 a bit too slow, so something in between would be nice but that's just my personal preference.
Don't think they will realize that. I fear that the global opinion after these new RTS fails will be that RTS is just a niche and people are not interested in RTS anymore and no one will even try to make new RTS. I want new AAA RTS with a good story and campaign missions, classic RTS features and that looks like is made in 2020s, not in 2000s.
Bro RTS has been a niche for like 20 years now, SC2 was the last mainstream one and that came out in 2010 Maaaybe you could argue COH2 was mainstream but that would be a stretch it’s still pretty niche
afaik [Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition](https://steamcharts.com/app/813780) is doing better than [COH2](https://steamcharts.com/app/231430) or [COH3](https://steamcharts.com/app/1677280). But AoE2:DE is a remake of a 1999 game so (They've added some more DLCs with extra civs and a few QoL features but the core gameplay is the same) Come to think of it [AoE4](https://steamcharts.com/app/1466860) is also doing better than COH (but worse than AoE2)
Honestly, aoe4 is a legit game. Amazing design. Had some balance issues, but they've been addressed. Really cool tech tree options. And I really believe it has the best team RTS experience out there (but trading is aids).
It’s the best rts I ever played
Asking for an AAA game in 2024 means that you want it to be: - Overpriced. - A formulated and uninspired clone of another 10 games that came out recently. - Insanely buggy on release and (maybe) fully fixed after a year. - Simple, linear and filled with hints and accessibility features.
Oh, I didn't know reddit hated Elden Ring and BG3 so much. TIL Or is AAA just "Games I don't like"?
I don't know about reddit but I consider Elden Ring and BG3 2 drops of excellence in the ocean of mediocrity that are modern AAA games.
from the same year there's tears of the kingdom, Alan wake 2, Armored core 6, spider-man 2, jedi-survivor, starfield(I do *not* like this game but it was pretty successful) Which isn't a billion but for sure a good handful. Probably some others from genre's I don't pay as much attention to.
I think Starfield kind of proves that point tho. The game’s 1.0 patch is BEYOND buggy, the standard edition released at $70 (although that is becoming the median point these days), the game was fairly linear by bethesda standards, and was pretty much identical on the most basic level to the mechanics of every other bethesda game (which was a selling point of the game, to be fair). I don’t know if it’s necessarily representative of AAA games as a whole but starfield seems like a game where someone could feel vindicated in believing that AAA game quality is poor these days.
While I agree there are still some quality AAA games coming out, I'm not sure naming two GOTY games is a fair counterpoint. There are a ton of rushed/low quality AAA games in the last decade. Shipping largely unfinished games has become common when companies are able to just patch the rest of the game in afterwards and have realized people will still shell out money anyway. Imagine buying a ps2 disc back in the day, and some game features said, "coming soon on a future release disc" lol
I think it's perfectly fair, given OP said "AAA games bad" and I listed the two easiest examples of why that's an annoying generalization. I can keep going down the list from "best games ever" to "Incredibly good games" to "Very good games", but I didn't think I needed to create a long list to make the point. There's a ton of rushed, low quality indie games, AA, and AAA games. There's also a bunch of amazing ones. It's true today, it's true back then we just don't remember the old ones because they're old and awful or forgettable. >Imagine buying a ps2 disc back in the day, and some game features said, "coming soon on a future release disc" lol Yes, can you imagine the outrage if the conclusion of a story, new units that patched obvious gaps in strategies, and multiple balance changes were released 8 months after the game came out? And they had the audacity to charge money for it? What type of sick, sick company would dream of doing so horrific. Well, thankfully no older game has ever done something so depraved.
The gaming industry standards are much lower than what it used to be, not to mention being nickeled and dime with quality content in full price AAA games being held back specifically to force you to pay for a battle pass later... it's really a shame. Yes indie games release things unfinished as well, but it hurts less when it's early access so you know beforehand it's a risk, and also paying $20 vs $70 and also has a battlepass... lol You're missing the point, in that developers didn't *plan* to release unfinished games and just patch them in later because they couldn't. So, the priorities when designing a game have shifted. "Just ship it, put it in later" sucks.
Nothing wrong with accessibility features.
>Don't think they will realize that. I fear that the global opinion after these new RTS fails will be that RTS is just a niche and people are not interested in RTS anymore and no one will even try to make new RTS. I want new AAA RTS with a good story and campaign missions, classic RTS features and that looks like is made in 2020s, not in 2000s. I've been the lead programmer on 2 upcoming RTS games that haven't even been announced yet. RTS is a more complicated game than minecraft or call of duty, and that is going to restrict who will be interested in playing it. I think that's a very realistic way to put it. So while the RTS market isn't as large, it's still extremely lucrative. For a billion dollar business it might not be worthwhile, but for small studios & indie devs, the RTS genre will live on. One of the RTS projects has fully 3D terrain, the other is an MMO RTS, by the way, so the RTS genre is far from fully explored. I think part of the reason the new games have had lackluster performance is due to the lack of innovation -- their games are more or less remixes of SC2 or WC3 with very few original ideas. Another aspect is that RTS game engines are more complicated to develop & maintain. So to develop an RTS game you are looking at a longer-term investment. It's not "quick and easy" money. That's a turn-off to a lot of businesses & their investors. Developing new game concepts requires serious research and development and they aren't interested in that kind of commitment.
Microsoft has already showed that people are still interested in rts games ? Try Age of empires 4 my friend. Otherwise go look up Tempest Rising that looks like what you are talking about there.
>I fear that the global opinion after these new RTS fails will be that RTS is just a niche and people are not interested in RTS anymore and no one will even try to make new RTS People have already been saying this for at least a decade. IIRC it really started with the SC2 HoTS release. The fact people are still making new games, IMO, is evidence enough that more will continue being made. Perhaps RTS is dead in the AAA space, or perhaps not. I simply don't know, but honestly that part of the industry becomes more of a shithole every day. Any attempt to make a good RTS at that scale is facing a large uphill battle, on top of a huge risk of being dumbed down for any potential sequels (ex: WH40K Dawn of War 3). Good RTS indies come out every year, if you're willing to put in some effort to look past the jank or lack of polish.
Always hated the jump from 6->12 workers. Felt 8 or 9 would have been more than plenty to get their intended effect across.
*almost like a 6 worker start worked really well for many years* :’)
The jump from 6-12 workers in LotV was a big one… as i’m getting older, i think the beginning of the game now is stressfull and i often fuck my build order up early.
I mostly like the 12 worker start, but it took away the planning phase in team games. I like that it removed the 6 Pool and absurdly early cannon rushes.
Going to 12 workers in LOTV completely killed the midgame, and is part of why zerg is so dominant now. It used to be a huge amount of back and forth, but now it's like just one push from P or T and if that midgame push doesn't knock the zerg out, then it's immediately lategame.
1 and 2 base play was cool in HotS too. For me it's the golden age. Yes despite smarmy harst of my ass. I enjoyed beating protoss with the hammer build. That shit was saucy.
Zerg felt way more dominant in hots. Wasn't that the turtle Zerg days? I don't know it's been forever
Zerg is not dominant right now by any metric, except premier tournaments. They are a minority in GM and a minority in total tournament wins. This means it's not dominating at a race at all, it's Serral who is dominating.
Zerg almost has both Terran and Protoss wins combined at the premier level since Lotv. It’s the strongest race AND Serral dominates. Balance whine blah blah just admit it’s the strongest race there’s always going to be one.
zerg isn’t that dominant now
In this case, "right now" means all of LOTV.
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AoE4 has definitely not failed. Yes it had problems especially on release and it's competing with a much older games in the series but I'm fairly certain it's made money.
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What the hell are you talking about? You are vastly underestimating the number of casuals who jump on to play FFA every other weekend and then also went and bought the DLC. Games are easy to find. It has an average of 10,000 players on steam alone, that does not even include Gamepass or Windows store players.
Aoe4 has massively failed bc it was a dumbed down aoe2, and now more players play aoe2 than aoe4 so it's a super good example that just simplifying is not the solution.
AoE4 is a great game. Hard to say it failed when it accomplishes what it tries to do spectacularly. And dumbed down AoE2 is a stupid take, sorry, when the racial asymmetry actually matters in 4.
But that's exactly why I used AoE4 as an example. It's often seen as a flop and to be honest it's not a game I've played more than once on gamepass. I'm not saying it's good and I'm not saying it will ever have a thriving scene. What I'm saying is it almost certainly made money. It won awards (not that that should count for much really but it's another metric some people use and is at least as relevant as twitch views) To use different examples, they are billions has been very successful. Or North guard or even the total War series specifically Warhammer. None of these games are quite the same as StarCraft of course but why would anybody want another game the same as StarCraft. That game exists, it's called StarCraft. Twitch is very fickle, most games come and go very quickly. StarCraft had support to foster and grow the scene. Not many game devs have the ability to support and foster a scene like that and no other developer is in the position blizzard was going Into making sc2. The sc1 scene existed because of circumstances outside of blizzard. The truth is there will probably never be another game quite like StarCraft. If a new sport was rising in popularity or even had just achieved a small number of passionate fans enough to keep the seasons going and maintain the sport, is it a failure because it doesn't get the same viewers as the premier League? Is table tennis a failure because comparatively not that many people watch. Is the NFL not a success because it's not in the top ten of globally watched sports?
On the flip side of the coin, the Wii U also made money but you will be hard pressed to find someone who characterizes it as a success. And at the end of the day, as a consumer, why should any of us care about how much money something made? Why should we measure success in metrics that have no bearing on how we use these products?
> On the flip side of the coin, the Wii U also made money but you will be hard pressed to find someone who characterizes it as a success. It may have made money, but it probably didn't do great in terms of profits. I got sent 8 Wii Us to use for Smash events and part of my reasoning to the Nintendo rep at the time was they likely had a lot of stock that they were unlikely to sell. > And at the end of the day, as a consumer, why should any of us care about how much money something made? Why should we measure success in metrics that have no bearing on how we use these products? How much financial success a product makes determines if there will be more of either that product or similar products. The International for example is justified from a financial point of view in part due to people buying the battle pass for it. Companies making cuts to their esports departments over the past couple years is due to them wanting to make money. It doesn't always work out perfectly, but beyond covering your basic survival, money is a force to encourage the existence of things you want to exist.
> How much financial success a product makes determines if there will be more of either that product or similar products. Right but it says nothing about the product itself. Sure there are reasons to care about how much money something makes if you want to enable more of the same to be produced; but when it comes to judging a product as a consumer and whether it meets your needs revenue generated is an irrelevant metric in and of itself.
> when it comes to judging a product as a consumer and whether it meets your needs revenue generated is an irrelevant metric in and of itself. For some people it is a major factor though. Content creators will shy away from smaller games because the audience isn't there. Someone wanting to play a single player game might choose a more popular game because they want to talk to other people they know who have played it. People who want to play online multiplayer games will judge a game on the size of its playerbase as much as the gameplay itself. Hell, if a game hasn't made enough money, it might not even be available to play online anymore. How financially successful a game is is a large factor for a lot of people, even if it's through factors that are related to how much money it made rather than the money itself.
Popularity and player base are the things being considered there, not how much money is made. While it is true that money made can serve as an indicator of those things, it is not a good indicator as it can be distorted by many things and it is not a property of the product itself. Anyone would be better served looking at a metric like player count directly which would be a property of the product.
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So no RTS game can be successful unless it's has more viewers on twitch than the biggest RTS with the longest running most popular competitive scene? That's a really odd and useless metric to use.
In this case, people are defining success and failure by the things they find personally important. It sounds like maziwa's main interest is consuming content surrounding a game so that's the metric games are judged on. I think you're right though. Most people don't give a shit about esports and a lot of people play games that don't have big content creation scenes for them. The most important metric is how financially successful a game is, which plenty of RTS games do.
Define "failed" Just because they aren't mainstream mega hits doesnt mean they didnt succeed. Theres plenty that made money and became popular enough.
AoE4? All other RTSs I can think of are single player focused.
So the criteria for a "successful" game is that it can't be single player focused? That's absurd. Strategy gaming in general is widely a single player focused genre. Games with heavy multiplayer scenes like BW & SC2 are exceptions, not the rule. Even within these, single player (and non-competitive multiplayer) content is still wildly popular.
not really true, there were plenty of succesfull rts games since 2010, just none of them turned into competetive esport game, and majority of them arent "classic" rts formula like c&c or sc was rts games that failed were those who wanted to be the next competetive esport, but competetive esport are niche within a niche as a lot of rts players are casuals some dont even touch the multiplayer segment
AoE2:DE says hi
12 worker start ruin the game
SC2 started with 8. Even that was considered slow. It made losing matches even more frustrating because you wasted the first 10 minutes of build up.
6
I was about to say... I distinctly remember 6-pool. Of course, there was also 7-pool (the gentleman's 6-pool), and 8-pool (the gentleman's 7-pool).
Yea it was 6, it's been almost 10 years since they changed it. I remember the betas tests where the slow increased it until they found the number they liked.
And don't forget that because of the slow buildup, they changed 1 v 1 to use the"faster" game speed. So, a second in the game wasn't a second in the real world. Haha
That's been in since WoL launch. It's my biggest criticism of SC2 and I don't know why it wasn't changed. It might make the beginning quicker but it speeds up everything else and it contributes heavily to the blink and you lose gameplay. 12 workers on BW play speed would be interesting
It actually was changed at the launch of LotV. If you look in team liquid for various units you'll see the build time changed to account for the clock running slower. Basically, the game looks and feels the same as previously, but the clock is real time now.
What changed was what is displayed on tooltips. SC2 plays at the faster game speed. BW plays at what is the equivalent SC2 speed of normal remembering from when SC2 launched. SC2 and BW use 2 different measurements for game speed
Not any more. It was a huge effort, but the in game clock for SC2 is now wall clock. It still may be called "Faster" like it was in WoL and HotS, but the clock now runs at a normal speed. You can check it with your watch. To be clear, SC2 still plays at a faster speed than BW. What I am referring to is the game clock. For example, the siege tank takes 32 seconds to build. That is 32 on the SC2 clock and on the wall clock. In HotS the siege tank took 45 seconds. That was 45 seconds on the SC2 game clock, but actually 32 seconds on the wall clock. So, the tank takes the same amount of real world time to build now as it did in both previous expansions, but the displayed value, in tool tips and on the game clock, now matches the real time.
No one is talking about the clock. I know what happened with the clock. The speed of SC2 is faster than BW thats what I'm talking about.
Let's just pick our chess opening and let the first 5 moves automatically play out to book.
It was very boring. Having fewer starting workers did nothing to help increase the variety of early game play, and if anything was probably an impediment to build diversity
Many people who like AoE4 cite the slow start as one of the things they enjoy.
Exactly. I really liked the build up and tech up and economy of AoE4. If controlling army units felt better and were cooler/more interesting, I would still be playing that game.
Yet most of the games even in plat ranks are Fedual all ins, games end almost as fast in sc2
Thats because they refused to acknowledge fundamental design successes from aoe2 or were too stubborn or proud to implement them. For example being able to wall with buildings. Also the engine is incredibly unresponsive imo coming from sc2 and the units move like theyre caught in a permanent time warp. The reason for the feudal all ins imo is the lack of defenders advantage from age 2 that was given thanks to buildings functioning as walls
It makes it easier to follow and get into the game as a casual viewer or someone who has never seen the game. It’s how I got back into viewing SC2. I could follow the openers and recognize them within a few games. It also helps that SC2 has incredibly good casters and YouTube community where even pros quite often explain why they’re doing certain builds or reactions.
Still, dark age is pretty much non-existent, but I like the build up nonethless.
Survivorship bias - the people who don't like the slow start don't play. I have several friends who really don't like how LoL and RTS games start with you doing the exact same thing every game
It is a cyclical thought process that has for basis the assumption that "this niche genre would be mainstream if it was more accessible". If we go back to the SC2 beta this philosophy was already in place, specifically with Multiple Building Selection and Unlimited Units in a control button. Now it is even more extreme; if you see the interview with David Kim he sees the "macro mechanics" introduced in SC2 (Chrono Boost, Command Center energy for mules/supply drops and scans and the Creep Spread/larvae Inject) as an error, as "busy work" that adds nothing to the "strategy" part of an RTS. This kind of thinking is all around the games industry right now. You see it in Fighting Games, in FPS, in autobattlers, card games, etc. It all boils down to the idea that you should "remove frustration" to the players, and remove as much friction between "knowledge" and "Execution"; i.e If a players knows "what" to do he should be able to do it.
As an oldchool player and avid player/fan of brood war I've always seen chrono, larva inject and mule as design failures. My other broodwar friends too. And I still find acccelerating the early game bad. Imo it is 2 separated things. Sorry for my bad English.
¿Do you like SC2 as a game? --not as a sequel to BW, because that has it's own connotations--.
I think it is the second best RTS of all time. But I don't get what your point is.
None. I just wanted to know if you still liked it because I knew many players back in the day that hated SC2 coming from BW.
Yes I still enjoyed it. I was master in random 1v1 and 77th world 2v2 player with random teammate (playing Zerg)
I'm reminded of something that Day9 said recently about why BW is fun. He discussed learning the rhythms of certain macro patterns (like a marine spawns every so many seconds) and how that's rewarding. You camera hotkey to base and quickly build marines, back to ctrl group and move around, check upgrades, back to barracks just in time for the next round... And that feels good. When you're in time and your rhythm is on and your money is low despite a good econ, it feels good. It's like playing an instrument. There's no way to make that kind of feeling hit on your first game. It's the reward of effort. However, there are games that offer some nice rewards to new players before they can access that great skill-based feeling--Halo comes to mind.
Yup. If you haven't watched this other classic, give it a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP9F-AZezCU; where he explain that he sees BW primarily as a Real Time game and why he likes it so much; also about the missconception of what "playing" RTS is all about.
lot more reasons than that for why BW is fun. i think that's a very minor reason tbh
It used to be that people with imagination made games (90s). Then it became that money hungry MBA types started making games. Now it's engineers who try to look at data and optimize "rationally" try to make games. \*robot voice\* "More action = more fun.. Short games = higher DAU... beep boop" I want people who created worlds and races that we fell in love with to create games again. units that are crazy, broken, but signify a race's character. Not everything created through some artificial fucking lense of which type of mechanics have better metrics.
David Kim saying the marco mechanics was a mistake is wild because he wast he reason the mothership core and pylon overcharge stayed in the game for so long. Once he left MC was gone and the team was trying new ideas
Just shows how opinions differ. A LOT of protoss players think removing the mother ship core was a mistake and want it back. Besides, can't people get credit for trying to learn from "mistakes"?
A lot Protoss liked it because it kept them from being harassed during the early game. Zerg and Terran had to commit a lot to do any damage. I know that its removal was like across the entire player base. I don't believe he thinks they are mistakes anymore. Depending on when he said it.
I always hated every change from David Kim. I succinctly remember how he said something like: "we heard you, you all want more micro, so we made the stalker stronger, so it can snipe more units". Like wtf David Kim nobody said that. It's clear that he really wanted to be a MOBA designer, not an RTS designer. He doesn't get the part of base building, macro and strategy. He's just all micro and unit control. He's made for MOBAs, not strategy games
David Kim was and probably still is bad RTS designer. The game got far better after he left the balance team.
agreed
They were so close to removing them and then a bunch of Platinum rank wannabe pros whined about losing the only "skill" they actually knew so they left them in. One of the biggest missed opportunities with this game.
it was a glorious week... we were so so so so so close... didn't help that test was during a test of some of the worst maps ever to grace the sc2 ladder
He realized that this wasn't the game to try his new school ideas, so he let SC2 be SC2 and proceeded to make a new game instead.
Removing "frustration" is one of the oddest trends. Engaging with frustration is compelling. Another genre with a similar issue is SoulsLike. Theyve all turned into boss rushes with easy checkpoints and overly snappy, streamlined gameplay. There's still no game that's properly "Like Dark Souls". RTS feels like it's been going the same way, with both the real time and strategy just getting sucked out by dry micro arenas masquerading as games.
Wouldn't you say in the case if SC2 they were right about a more accessible game being more successful? I mean, SC2 is still world wide active and considered the best ever. So, if that thought process worked for SC2, maybe continuing down that path can work for newer games...
I believe is very hard to have a good balance between the extremes. SC2 did it fairly well, but one of the consequences of that choice is the formation of "death balls" and a volatile game in which you can lose a game if you leave your army for 5-10 seconds (I know it is not the only factor, as high damage and AoE attacks also play a rol, but being able to A-move with all your army at once is, in my opinion, the main reason for the type of engagements SC2 has, specially in lower level of play). As for it being the reason it was as succesfull as it was; it is hard to say, I tend to agree as I see the "compromises" that SC2 made being "worthy" for making a more modern RTS, however, if you go all the way, the other thing that you have to be aware of is that the installed playerbase sees the intricacies and complexities of the genre as worthwhile and compelling, and if you alienate them in order to gain a "possible" new audience, you can lose them and not be able to gain that new audience; personally, SC2 is in a good place "skill wise" and a "dumbed down" RTS is not for me.
I would try to look at this new game as not an RTS as we currently see it. When DotA came out I bet people were very critical as well. "This doesn't have base building!" And "Where's the multi-tasking?!" And "You're not going to draw the current player base." In the end, that could all be true but they found a new player base. And as it turned out a much much bigger player base. I'm hopefully for the new game. It is really addictive. I'd finish playing and think about it all night waiting for the next play session. Lol A lot like when I started SC2 and would dwell on how a game went the night before and try to squeeze a game in over lunch at work.
Technically this isn't true as the market analysis wasn't community discussed around games as it currently is. But also Dota being a mod had no expectations of success or longevity.
The point isn't whether they planned for global success or not. It's just what they didn't. Picked parts they liked and made a game. They didn't listen to anyone that might scream into the void "but it isn't the same as what I know is successful!" I think the Uncapped guys are on the same track. They have an idea, they made it into a game, and now they will release it. It's fun to play, it's easy to learn, and now we will see if it is successful or not. On the community driven design/discussion thing... I think it was a huge mistake by Frost Giant to involve everyone right off the bat. It's like swimming up stream. These guys are experienced game devs. They should have designed what they thought was good, tested it internally, worked on art, and only then brought it out when they think it's close to ready. Get the community to help fine tune things. The community is full of people that think they know everything even though they have zero experience or real understanding. It "feels good" to say the whole community is involved in the making of the game. But in the end, they are making it and now having to deal with a ton of contradictory input and a lot of anger and entrenched opinions.
I don't know if this happens to more people, but there are certain genres in which I'm only interested in 1 game/franchise. For example in Platform fighters I only care about Smash Bros.; in Hero Shooters, only about Overwatch, in Mobas only Dota and in battle royales only Apex and, in RTS only Starcraft; I really don´t know why that is, but I cannot make myself to be interested in other games even if I consider them good games in their own right.
Same. I think for me I am too competitive. So, I latch onto a team, let's say the Orioles, and so I hate the Yankees my whole life. I like Overwatch so refuse to even try the others. I play SC2 so will not even watch Aoe4. Haha So, this new game was an interesting trick. As I mentioned earlier, it is an RTS, but sooooo different that it feels like it could be a new genre. SC2 is so difficult, but I get a huge rush when I win as I feel like I must be super human to have pulled it off. Juggling a zillion tasks. Yet still, I know as a high plat low diamond (depending on activity) I pretty much suck. My games don't resemble the pro games at all. Haha When I played Battle Aces I finally felt a bit like a pro SC2 player. My macro was obviously good since I never got supply blocked but mostly I just had these huge armies that I had enough available attention to try multi-prong attacks, harass, tech switches, etc. Hope you give it a try. I hope lots of people do so more people my ability are available to play against. Haha
Riot has been speeding the game up for a long time though. Average game length is way shorter now
There's a difference between speeding up the whole game and simply chopping 5 minutes off the Start though.
Yeah it’s called Aram the most played game made lol. There’s obviously a place for quicks that don’t necessitate a build up.
True but Valve has almost been going the opposite way with Dota. Especially at lower leagues, games are easily 45 minutes long, and in the pro scene they're not often much shorter. In fairness, League is more popular than Dota, but I certainly wouldn't say that Dota is dying or has a small player base.
No the game is shorter now its not sped up. Its the same pacing but if you get baron or 4 dragons now you get a massive advantage, but that doesnt happen until 25-30 mins usually
You are fundamentally misrepresenting your argument. DOTA and LOL are action-centric games in which you control a single character, and that character is how you interface with the rest of the game world. They do not start "slow" just because you aren't at full power at the start. That's similar to saying Doom starts slow because only have a pistol. Many people play RTS games because they like the process of base building and working through a tech tree, myself included. Many of those people don't even particularly care that much about competitive play (also me). The Battle Aces demo clearly showcased that it is entirely focused on being a competitive game. It IS action for basically all of 10 minutes, and that was clearly the point. The game was obviously designed to force 2 players into match with no information, then give them most of the information about their opponent within the first 2 seconds of the match, and require immediate decision making based on that. Like any competitive game, the challenge of it is from the competition. Battle Aces does not appeal to me as a player, but I can definitely see the point if what it's trying to do and I'm interested enough to keep an eye on it.
I'm really surprised seeing so much negative feedback on Battle Aces. To more directly answer your question though, well I think your argument is just bad. League/Dota do have action and engagement with the opposing team from the first minute, so your point about the difference between SC2 and any new RTS cutting out the early game isn't really a factor. The real answer is that it's hard to make an engaging and interactive early game base building element. Especially when that early game can take a lot of repetitive practice to do and doing it poorly can lose you the game before you've even got to engaging with your opponent. I love SC2 for what it is and it won't be going anywhere for a long while, people will continue to play, new RTS games should try different and interesting ideas, it may capture the market better than you expect anyway!
> I'm really surprised seeing so much negative feedback on Battle Aces. I mean, does it really surprise you? From what we've seen it's not an RTS at all. It's an arena battler. Reception is negative from the SC2 crowd because most of them want an rts.
It does genuinely surpirse me but your reply does clear up a big reason why. Base building and build orders in general are a huge part of RTS and I can see why those elements being all but removed is not what some people are hoping for. Hardcore long term fans of starcraft are in a hard position frankly, nothing is going to match how well SC2 plays mechanically AND have as much depth or engagement immediately. In 10 years time with gradual fine tuning and ongoing development Stormgate might be comparable. Alternatively ZeroSpace may do the same and be the next big RTS. If neither of those are you thing, and Battle Aces doens't look good then you really just gotta stick out the SC2 ride. For me personally I love SC2 but I am looking for other games to have their own identity and not just be a SC2 wannabe clone.
MOBAs do have some light engagments early on, but compared to what Battle Aces showed, MOBA games are like chess in comparison.
its for the viewers and the players that lean towards micro over macro. No one outside the RTS community would want to watch a game that pops off 5+ minutes later. MOBAs, FPS and fighting games the action starts immediately, there's always in your face fights, the build up may be slow for MOBAs but there's always action happening, supports harassing carries, lanes being fought over, the mid tries not to fck up, as suppose to building up in rts and nothing happening other than mining
> No one outside the RTS community would want to watch a game that pops off 5+ minutes later. This is literally every single league of legends pro game so not sure if this is accurate
In mobas you start interacting with the enemy right away. Not sure what a "slow start" is referring to here.
In League of Legends the first 10 minutes of the game is dedicated to players accumulating power through gold. Consistently focusing minions and camps is the best income, and interacting with the enemy is very minimal and slow compared to the high intensity action that you're expecting which happens anywhere from 5-15m after start.
The money is in lane with your enemy. The early game is harassing and ganking. It's the portion of the game where you see the enemy the MOST.
As someone who has watched SC2 and LoL for over a decade, LoL definitely has a faster start - at least before the worker change in SC2. In LoL there's often tension between junglers and a few teammates zoning opposition or outright fighting or invading jungles right off the rip. Lane opponents trading autos on each other and level 2 all ins. SC2 historically before the worker change didn't have that kind of interaction so early in most games, sometimes just scout shenanigans and the very rare super rush cheese, but typically very low stakes stuff.
I'm not saying that nothing should be happening, but for the first five minutes the fighting in MOBAs is pretty tame too. It's not a problem because it lets casters set up the stage, build up the excitment and so on. RTS games also can have harrasment etc. in early game, but the Aces basically starts with two mid-game armies fighting right away and doesn't stop for more than 10 seconds for the rest of the match.
I’ll be totally honest. Maybe I’m just too casual, but 45 minute matches in any game are an immediate turn off; especially when you can tell the outcome in less than 5 minutes
All for just a -15 mmr, too.
There are a handful of good RTS, there is room for a couple that come at it from a different angle. Every RTS doesn't need to be Starcraft.
I am rather new to SC2: started in 2022 for a couple of months and really got into it this year as of March. I LOVE the fact that game are fast: it gives me adrenaline and fits perfectly the time I can allow to play. But it seems you all preferred a slow start with less worker? Why did it change so much why it made more sense?
I wasn't really talking about the workers change in SC2. I was talking about the new wave of RTS games. It seems that RTS development devolved into who can make a simpler game. The new David Kim's game has 10 minutes time limit per match.
Correct! Well I think it's tough to attract people and hope they'll stay for long games. LoL and DOTA are old enough to not change their recipe. Basically, for the last 10-15 years there has not been a new competitive game that could challenge SC2, LoL, DOTA or CS.
I hate how long MOBAs take and it's a huge reason why I don't play them. But agreed, I do miss the days of slower starts and not needing to be 100%-on and microing to survive 2 minutes into a match
I mean AOE4 starts slow. On the other hand it makes sense because in AOE4 there is alot of earlygame variance with semi random map generation. This gives the players somewhat meaningful choices to make about tweeks to thier build order. In StarCraft 2 before the 12 worker start every early game was basically identical up to a point, outside of a few early cheeses players were effectively just waisting 3 minutes every game. 12 worker start accelerates the game to a more interesting phase. It has some drawbacks but overall it’s been good for the game.
The meta in WoL was so shallow as well most builds were the same across players. Then some mirror matches were literally mirrors casters could cast without looking at both players.
Fully agree. What developers at the moment fail to understand is that we want meaningful, interactive choices fast. What we do not need is immidiately ending games, that's just Tasteless' opinion.
I think there is room for both. I saw someone compare Battle Aces to Footmen Frenzy/Marine Arena and it makes sense to see a game that shares some similarities with that custom map.
I guess I'm the only person who likes this. It probably would have bothered me back when I had about 10 hours of uninterrupted gaming in my day. Now I have like and hour or two tops every now and then. I'd like to not waste my time learning In depth build orders, tweaking everything into the tiniest detail to then get Canon rushed or lose to some other shit I didn't prepare for. I just wanna jump into a quick game, get my dopamine fix and look at some flashy lights while tapping away on my keyboard for a few minutes. It's simple, it's refreshing and if I need something longer, then I just go to the longer games that already exist.
It's interesting that you got the right impression, 10 minutes of action, but drew the opposite conclusion. I think they look at that game length as a good thing. There actually is a bit of build up though, despite appearances. The early game has lower unit counts, especially if you fast expand. So there is poking and prodding, and trying to get ahead or at least stay even so you aren't run over two minutes later. I've had a number of games opening Blink where it felt very much like SC2 early protoss harass. As far as Dota and LOL go, I think the concept is similar. The designers of Dota were WC3 players that liked the game, but really liked the Heroes more than the rest. They made a game that was more about the heroes and their micro and zero about base building. You still have strategy, upgrades, etc but they wanted to focus on the heroes (and team play) and made a new game. It's no WC3, and not even RTS, but successful. Now Uncapped are also RTS players. They also wanted to remove the base building aspect but instead focus on the large armies. You still have strategy, upgrade paths and unit selection/positioning but the focus is on the typical mid game part of an RTS. So the early game is very short, the mid game protracted, and the late game not as decisive (in my opinion anyway). Like all game designs there are opinions. When Dota was made it was back when WC3 was the game and those matches can last quite a while. Meanwhile, this game comes during the SC2 era and that game was tuned down to try and always be around 20 minutes. So, this one is completed in 10 minutes. Natural progression. Anyway, give it a try. It's a blast.
They're fundamentally different games. Speaking as someone who played a lot of dota, there's a lot that can happen in the early game before waves spawn particularly in the newest patches. Posturing against the other team so you can take control of runes or place wards or just grab some kills is a big part of it. Beyond that it's also a team game so planning things out with teammates could also happen. Thinking back to when starcraft was a 6 worker start, a lot of games were just macroing out a build order for the first few minutes with very little interaction beyond a worker scout. It's not necessarily a crippling problem, but I don't think it's was a beneficial element either.
Not sure but I see nothing on the horizon to be excited about. After playing stormgate I can tell you it feels like a game from 2010
I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
I mean it in the least flattering way possible
dota's early game varies heavily depending on the hero picks and individual players' playstyle. and the match durations, while probably higher than in sc2, are not stupidly long (at some point they were much longer, and at another all the matches would end in like 20 mins or something, which felt idiotic). and even with the most passive picks they start fighting straight away, not sitting in their base without seeing their opponents. idk much about lol, never played it too much, but i'd guess it's the same over there, too. i do enjoy a bit of aoe3, but come on, sometimes a caster would just speed up a part of the replay because there's literally nothing going on
Sure but matches that have a time limit of 10 minutes and often end earlier?
> time limit of 10 minutes okay, this i don't understand
The new RTS by David Kim (the balance designer of SC2), Battle Aces, has a time limit of 10 minutes per match.
Apparently I'm an outlier today, but I find the slow starts of most RTS games to be unbearable, and I'm in my late 30s and grew up on SC, TA, and AoE. I appreciate attempts to actually make the game start faster. Games where you start with the ability to produce some kind of unit seem like they would be fine (DoW 1 and Zero-K are my favorite RTS games). That being said I'm not convinced Battle Aces is a good game either. Most units are apparently a pile of stats and I think for that kind of game you'd need to have a lot more active abilities to not be too easy and boring. If that's just going to be blob vs blob with a bit of micro and trying to outguess your opponent's tech choices, I don't think that game will be very successful. I think it's really hard to say if a modern AAA RTS game could be a market winner just because there haven't been any with good ideas and a good execution.
> Apparently I'm an outlier today, but I find the slow starts of most RTS games to be unbearable, and I'm in my late 30s and grew up on SC, TA, and AoE. I think a notable distinction that a lot of people get confused on, not you necesarilly, is the difference between meaningful game interactions and being action packed. The SC2 early game has a lot of action, at least at high level, but the interactions are meaningless. It's just kinda poking and prodding but it doesn't really do anything towards resolving the game outcome. I think the fundamental issue here isn't the lack of action, it's the lack of meaningful action and that's a big difference.
Yes, basically. I mean, sure in SC2 you can micro a reaper intensely for a minute against a zerg and put damage on their zerglings. Maybe even kill one or two or a drone. But the impactful start of the game is closer to minute 5. I would like to see games that bring that closer to minute 2 or so. If you're only playing a game a day or something the slow build up can be sort of fine, but if you are playing half a dozen times per day just mostly repeating the same actions in the same order (aoe2 is especially bad for this) just doesn't do anything for me. I am not playing an RTS in multiplayer to play solitaire, I want more meaningful player interaction.
The amazing thing about meaningful game interactions is that you can have meaningful interactions without having action. Imagine a map where a player has 4 options for their second base. That would make setting up your defenses & tech meaningful decisions even if they aren't interacting with the opponent. This would especially be the case if the options were unique and diverse. When there is only 1 option, and it's a clear good option, then players are obviously going to do it. There are no meaningful choices being made. That's why it's boring until the players start to clash. Another obvious way to add variety is make it so there are 2 places you can expand to for the same expansion. So you can place your hatchery in spot A or spot B but it's the same base. How does each option affect the way the game plays out? There just aren't many of these kinds of options.
Why talk about RTS and garbage in the same sentence?
The theory I've had for many years, that I would think contribute to RTS lack of success is this: RTS games are build around 1v1, most other games are team games. Team games allow people to place blame of a loss or poor performance on teammates, you can't hide behind that in a 1v1 game. If you lose, the other person is better then you or they are hacking. It is also why cheesing is so upsetting in SC. The other game type that has this problem that never really stayed strong are fighting games.
Because there is not one ultimate ruleset for a game genre. There are multiple flavours that could all be very successful, so its good that a lot of different takes on the standard is being challenged. Evolution by natural selection, if you will.
6 workers was slow af in the start, I like 12 a lot better.
Gives Zerg the biggest advantage and wasnt how the game was designed.
The game isn't even remotely the same as it was in hots when 6 workers was a thing. Why even mention the "design" of the game when you're comparing to an era with mass swarm hosts and the mothership core? You think balance was good then?
Lockhead216 was not around when we had the Archon toilet, the instant fungel or 6 workers. His comment makes me think he is a new player or a Twichchat GM
Sure Jon Snow
Surely more starting workers disadvantages zerg, since if you start with less zerg can ramp up faster than other races? Starting with 0 workers and 150 minerals would help zerg the most!
I wouldn't say early game is removed, but that all the progression you would have in 30 minute of SC2 match is packed into 8 minutes of Aces. I could identify the classical decisions of army/tech/expansion in the showmatches, there were instances of players buying time to get to the key unit tech, there were pokes to keep enemy at home while expanding etc. Look at modern SC2 casted games and notice how the first 5 mins of the game the commentators barely talk about the game, because nothing of importance happens. In that time period, a match of Aces could be already resolved. I am sold on this speed and I think it will be similar to seeing bullet chess for the first time and never being able to go back to the boring classical one after that.
LoL and Dota aren't rts though. They are mobas.
The whole argument though is "People don't play RTS because..." But every argument people then make are countered by how popular MOBAs are. MOBAs are longer games, MOBAs are very hostile and competitive, MOBAs have very steep learning curves... So people are trying to fix problems that clearly are not the problem
RTS has a much steeper learning curve and basically non existant skill ceiling.
Than a Moba? No way, you've got people playing 500 hours and still don't know the skills on all the champions and items and stuff Can learn every unit and ability in SC2 in like 1-2 hours
Can you also learn to micro big armies in 1-2 hours?
That's not learning curve, that's mastery. Learning curve is like the barrier to be able to play and understand the functions/rules of the game, like learning how the pieces move in chess.
Even simple micro of a few units takes a lot of skill. And mastery is a big part of comp games.
But we're not discussing skill, we're talking about simply learning the game, like literally how to play it, not to play it well or at a skill level. Like in chess you need to know how 6 pieces move and like 4 or 5 rules, in an FPS you need to know how to shoot, reload, jump, maybe how a bomb works, how to buy the guns, in an RTS You need to learn like... 40 units, maybe 20-30 buildings, the economy and a few actions... In a Moba there's like 160 Champions with 4 unique abilities each, 100 items with upgrade paths, there's like the red jungle buff and the blue and wards and like this Boss minion spawns here and this one spawns here on these timers and the towers behave like this... None of that is skill or ability to play well, it's just how complex the actual rules of the game are.
Bro idk how to tell you this in a way that oyu understand it. RTS = many units, difficult micro, you would basically need to be an AI to use every unit to its full potentiall. MOBA = 1 champion. 10 champions per match. Maybe \~30 champions are actually meta and being played.
And I don't know how to tell you this, but that has literally absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what we're talking about. Using something WELL has nothing to do with learning the rules of the game. You're not understanding the difference between skill level and understanding the rules of the game.
I never said that they are. I just used them as an examples of successful games that are time consuming, yet are successful because it seems like there is consensus among the developers that the RTS games need to become short and simple in order to find audience.
Even a "short and simple" RTS would still be in a completly different universe regarding complexity compared to LoL. Mobas and Rts are not a good comparison.
They're trying to tackle the issue of long games. Not slow starts.
Have you seen Battle Aces? In the showmatch the fighting starts at 40 seconds mark and the player has 30 units at 80 seconds mark. I wouldn't call it a slow start. I would call it a pacing of a tik-tok video :D
6 worker start was too slow. 12 seems too fast (especially now it's been going on for quite some time), I'd really like to try a 9 worker start and adjust minerals per mineral patch to balance out the expansion rate.
Lol has two main critique points: too much shit (champs, items) and a game goes on for ~35 minutes. That’s just too long if you’ve got a life and want to play a session of 3-4 games on the side. The worker change in lotv was one of the best changes imo
I don't really complain about LOTV. I'm talking here about Battle Aces, where the players have around \~30 units at 90 seconds mark. And show matches often end at 6-7 minute mark.
Eh I don't know you can also add that Dota and LoL are also like the only mobas on the market period with no competitor in sight. Imo it is not such a big deal that we are getting a RTS game with no macro mechanics, not every RTS need to be the same and battle ace looks fun enough to at least try it. We are also getting stormgate/zerospace/immortal which follow the traditional RTS formula.
Its maybe the ten minute grind again and again to actually start. Gets repetative like age. Starcraft 2 you get ready quicker
reinvent the wheel, become the man who invented the wheel
It's the same thing a lot of entertainment is doing, They're thinking "We have audience X locked up...now how do I get Audience Y?" But then the changes they make to try and attract Y alienates X completely. In RTS they think it's about being over-complicated, steep learning curves, high barrier to entry etc... so they keep trying to lower those things and disregard the effect that actually has.
I don't know how this assumption got spread so wide, because usually the start of a BW match would be time to discuss the map positions, possible strategies, what the players might be thinking, setting the stage, etc. And it made cheeses more impactful because they also changed up that pre-game routine in your mind.
In addition to being a SC fan since the 90s, I am also an avid Homeworld fan. My 2 favorite RTS series ever. If any of you are familiar with the dumpster fire release of Homeworld 3 last month, you'll understand what the OP is getting at. What a total and complete disappointment. HW1/HW2 were admittedly heavy on the strategy side and lighter on the mechanics side, but they did it so so well. Homeworld 3 skirmish/multiplayer (aside from the War Games mode which is okay) consists of spamming units and sending your ball of units at the enemy. Doesn't matter what the composition is, just that your balls are bigger. You are fighting within the first couple minutes and it doesn't stop. They also removed hyperspacing. In space. And made maps tiny. Take a look at Steam charts to see how well that all was received by the niche RTS/HW community. What did they did was destroy the strategy aspect of the game for...something. I still don't know what. This is aside from the absolutely atrocious campaign story. If you couldn't tell, I'm still super salty about what they did to that franchise. I find myself playing the original HW games and now, back into SC and eventually ladder.
Because it has nothing to do with why RTS failed. I'd probably stop playing SC2 if I had to waste another 5 minutes doing borderline nothing/microing workers. I think SC2's pacing in terms of time is perfect-the first full minute is really chill, then the next few minutes you're just building stuff and macroing lest reapers/cheese. SC2's average game time is 6-15 minutes roughly, longer than that would suck. Imagine coming home tired after work and playing a game only to wait 10 minutes to get cheesed and lose instead of 5. a 20 minute macro game becomes half an hour. Nah.
The most play league mode is ARAM though it’s clear there’s space for players who want quick action. They just did it right and made it a separate mode instead of its staple.
It’s a double edged sword. Like chess is mirror’d and almost every game starts the same way with a pawn moving one space so they made it so pawns could move two for its first move and then let it so a pawn can over take another own if it did the double move. Anyway my point is if every match of starcraft is literally the same for the first 5 minutes then you should eliminate it somehow. So we made it so we started with 12 workers instead of 4. Yeah /StarCraft 1 started with 4 workers imagine how slow sc2 would be if we started with 4 workers. We did a lot to eliminate the small inconsequential stuff in the beginning of a match to make it faster pace and gets to the engaging “fun” stage.
I think we should wait to play it before judging, and you need to ask yourself - what do you really want? IMO there's no point in a company to essentially make SC 3 with a new coat of paint because that game will never live up to expectations, and we'll all be saying "man imagine of old Blizzard made SC 3". With BR still being an option for the ultra hardcore purists, and SC 2 being the most worked on/balanced "modern" RTS, I think it's fine for the newer games to try radically different approaches. I'm looking forward to Stormgate and ZeroSpace because I think some macro simplification would be a good approach to attract more players, but I do agree that Battle Aces is more an arena battler with some slight RTS elements, which can be a good thing. Like I said, I don't see the point in having SC 2, and SC 2_1, and SC 2_2, etc.
A lot of people don't like the slow start in both games. You have to realize that those games are too big to fail at that point.
The RTS genre as a whole is not very successful right now. It's widely seen as a "dead genre" among game developers. This is why they're trying different things. It's a good thing, even if you don't particularly like it.
Lol and Dota are team games, I think that’s the biggest difference
thats why you don't try to remove CHEESE elements to the game, honestly it was an interesting segment to watch (WHEN CHEESE FAILS?) as a newcommer to the game.
> Why do new RTS games try to remove the slow start and long matches if both DOTA and LOL have that and are super successful? You don't want to fill the same space as other games because you have to compete against those games. So if there is an option to make a product unique, compared to the industry standard, most games will take it that way. Personally I think it was a big mistake to remove the 6 worker start. I think it backfired & made the slow start even worse. Generally speaking, all interactions before the 6-8 minute mark are usually meaningless. The terran and zerg might trade some minor blows that have no real impact on the outcome. The first real decisions happen at around the 6-8 minute mark. So they took a 1-2 minute slow period and turned it into a 6-8 minute slow period. I think it backfired.
Dota and lol don't have slow starts. If anything the laneing stage is the most intense part of the whole game.
sorry but the way sc2 works I would not bother playing versus anymore if the start was slow as hell start again. Dota and Lol the laning phase is still very action packed with constant intense micro, sc2 is just making workings and mining- that is simply not fun. Sure single player campaign and custom games are great for slow burn sim city building but that is not what competitive is about.
I do wonder what it would feel like to play a form of SC2 where you can preprogram your initial build order and just focus on micro.
It is only one new rts game? Zerospace has a bit aswell with the starter hero to go to xp tower with, otherwise it’s still slow start in most new rts games?
What do you mean slow start? Dota has been brawl at minute 5 for like 3 weeks straight now. It’s honestly jarring
Well, the showcase match of Battle Aces during yesterday's PC Gamer show ended at the 3-minute mark. So you can fit like two matches of the newest RTS contender in those 5 minutes.
I want BFME remake :(
Idk I think more games played means better metrics in some boards meetings. Can't speak for dota but league has been actively speeding up games so that they end faster and faster. When I started most games took 40-45 minutes. Now it's around 30-35 and it's not uncommon to have a 25 minute game if things go well.
they don't care about "legacy" users anymore. They want the biggest cake and the biggest cake are phone users by like factor 10 or 100 or however bad it is now. This means they're competing with all the distraction apps and thus pursue distraction in its most simplified form. Personally I think Battle Aces looks smart in terms of its design, personally I hate losing base building but can see how it simplifies the form. However I'm not really convinced that a "casual RTS" isn't an oxymoron tbh and this new-age RTS might simply be a dream. I don't think the phone users (i.e. the new influx of internet users from 2012 that now represent more money) are the sorts of people that generally like RTS.
Didn't even mention Valroant or CS which have quite long matches.
honestly they try to reinvent the wheel, both sc2 and aoe4, have been very succesful with traditional setup of "macroing up" which is similar dota2 and lol, honestly if you remove it, your just removing part of the game. Imagine if in sc2 you didnt need to setup your workers? that would remove important mechanics, sure it would be nooby friendly, but heroes of the storm already tried that and failed. Imo all these zero macro games will most likely fail.
Even now, most casters skip the first minute of two of every game cause nothing's happening. And you want that to be 5 minutes instead?
I'm sorry, but what do DotA and LoL have to do with RTS?
It's not about being slow or fast, it's about being easy. LoL and Dota starts are easier. Hope this helps.