Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

The problem with the RTS genre

ChaDargo

Arcane
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
425
Location
Texas
Problem with RTS is that developers for many years pretty much acted as if the ultra competitive MP scene would carry their games but the reality is that a few games that have a decent support to grow a MP competitive community will thrive and the vast majority of RTS games wont. Most people like to fuck around the gameplay but they don't care enough to dedicate time to be good at the MP scene and those that care, pretty much they will focus on a few games they like and that is it, Starcraft, Age of Empires and the odd Supreme commander player. Most RTS games offer garbage single player content/co-op content and that is what you need on a game that doesn't have enough of a population to allow for decent pvp.


I agree with this but I have something else to add. I was heavily involved in the American and eventually even the Korean competitive scene for BW; I even helped some beginners learn the ropes. The biggest problem with RTS is linked directly to what you said about these companies angling for the competitive scene (which probably isn't helped by LoL and DOTA2 being so popular): these games require learning too many physical tasks. This is usually called APM, actions per minute, but it's more than that. In CS, you have to aim accurately and react quickly, and in DOTA or LoL, you have to move your unit(s) carefully--but you don't have to learn motor skills comparable to something like playing a musical instrument.

E.g., I was never a real high level competitor among Koreans, but even I had 250+ APM that wasn't just bullshitting around. Top players in SCBW and SC2 can (and must) have 300-400 APM. And, like any competitive endeavor, you have to practice continually, daily. This high demand for physical acuity (even if it's just your hands) is a huge hurtle for beginners in almost any RTS that's competitive. Yes, the companies can shoehorn in, or even effectively introduce, single-player modes, campaigns, fan-made mods. But ultimately this is out of tune with a game designed to be played with all these different physical mechanics involved.

TL;DR, you can't have a hugely successful genre that requires constant balance tweaking post-launch, constant monitoring of competitive elements or events, and a physical barrier akin to playing a saxophone or piano 2-4+ hours a day. That's a ton of resources from a dev, and ultimately they're just making games. Most people are going to play a game to escape and to relax.

It's not exactly relaxing entertainment to get carpel tunnel while losing 90% of the time in the same basic situations over and over. And that's just the learning phase.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
I am thinking

The blooms kill the RTS genre. Better graphic cards mean better bloom but a battle of hundred units on HD monitor nowadays mean it's really taxing for a proper RTS battle. Slow it to a crawl or it would fry your hardware.

Have you ever try replay Star Craft Brood War on your newest screen and turn effect to the max?
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
1,783
I do wonder what killed the RTS. I have seen many people that said Starcraft killed it.

Publishers killed it. Publishers have been taking every game, every franchise they can get their mitts on, and dumbing it down and making it more accessible to a wider audience. You can't really do that with an RTS without basically making it into a different genre (ie, the MOBA). Even a very simple RTS like StarCraft still requires some mental ability to play, so the target audience of the modern publisher will never be able to enjoy it. So publishers have little to no interest in making an RTS, and it's damned hard for small studios to make a good one the way a small studio can break into other genres (like Metroidvanias); an RTS just takes too much in the way of resources to make, if it's going to be not shit. For starters, most RTS engines are made in-house. That adds a lot of work right by itself, and they are some of the more challenging to make because they need to be completely deterministic if they're going to have multiplayer (and multiplayer is the main reason to play an RTS).

I totally agree on build orders, they're so robotic, so boring. Why even play yourself when you might as well get a script to run the eco for the first 5 minutes? Escaping build orders is why I play games like Age of Wonders, DotA2, and Dominions 5 - in those, each match is unique right from the start, and while there are similar things you want to do in every early game, it's never rigid and figured out like a build order is.

The reason build orders exist is that during the earlier parts of the game, the game's state is limited enough that you can figure out the optimal choices, and execute them, with great accuracy. As the game's state grows more complex it becomes harder and harder to figure out the exact optimal choice and you're just trying to pick what seems best at the moment (plus you tend to have a large amount of your attention focused on fighting your enemy). It's easy to figure out the ideal order of first units and buildings because there are so few factors to consider and it's such a relatively consistent setup. That being said, a build order is good because it's also serving as a sort of warmup for the rest of the match, and it helps you keep track of where all your shit is. If you just started with a large prefabricated base, you wouldn't have that same mental map of it unless it was the same in every game (and if it was, then build orders would be about the ideal early stages of using and expanding that base). When you consider that build orders in a typical RTS are just 5-10 minutes in a match that will last a half hour to an hour, they're hardly a substantial problem to fans of the game. It's usually people who aren't particularly big on RTS in the first place who complain about them.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
I am thinking the reason no new RTS worth talking about is the incapability of catching up between hardware upgrades AND software design philosophy.

1. I am talking about RTS maps is mostly 2D in nature while gamers are more aware of 3D maps thanks to Shogun-style kinda games. Or from nonRTS game such as Skyrim's 3D maps.
2. AI pathfinding probabbly not catching up so AI enemies are more easily caught in 3D map should such exist. So it's a problem of code advance.
3. The not in sync between the next step of 3D rts battles and hardware. I am thinking about, like hundreds of unit battling on a map like SC Broodwar with different piece of terrains, high level of HD graphic quality, lots of blooms around (because you know, battles), IN REAL TIME. So yeah, while the hardware increase, it's nowhere enough to satisfy such demands.

Point 3 can be illustrated with the trend to create "1000 captain america fight 20000 soldiers" kind of battle simulator video. What is it if not the desire for RTS battles?
 

warci

Educated
Joined
Mar 6, 2018
Messages
70
You guys should check out Wargame: Red Dragon. It's a niche RTS for grown-ups that's relatively recent and still has an active player base. Has some micro but APM isn't the determining factor.

If you want to try wargame, I much prefer the airland battle one (gets rid of the rubbish naval combat). The problem is that after a while it becomes a rock/paper/scissors simulator and you can basically 'game' the game by building decks with loads of a certain OP unit while ignoring the whole combined arms warfare thing.

I don't agree that RTS's haven't innovated the last few years though. For example men of war and graviteam tactics (my two most played games of all time) are totally different from one another and from the typical dune2 formula.
The problem is, like with all other genres: mainstream gaming. Game sales and promotion are defined by morons who just want to play the latest shiniest turd-clickfest. A good rts requires you to use your brain, while the average console owner has barely enough brainpower to put a dvd right side up in a console, any game worth its salt will be ignored by the masses and thus requires some digging to find.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,710
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
That being said, a build order is good because it's also serving as a sort of warmup for the rest of the match, and it helps you keep track of where all your shit is.
I'm pretty sure people who say this just have stockholm syndrome for build orders; build orders have probably gouged ruts in their brain matter from the repetition. You don't need 5 minutes just keep track of where your shit is when you can see it on the screen and riff through buildings with hotkeys that exist to scroll through buildings of each type (at least in AoE2). If you want to have a warmup, which just sounds like bullshit to me, you can do that any way you like, there's no need for it to be mandatory at the start of each game.
If you just started with a large prefabricated base, you wouldn't have that same mental map of it unless it was the same in every game (and if it was, then build orders would be about the ideal early stages of using and expanding that base). When you consider that build orders in a typical RTS are just 5-10 minutes in a match that will last a half hour to an hour, they're hardly a substantial problem to fans of the game. It's usually people who aren't particularly big on RTS in the first place who complain about them.
Why's it necessary or good for players to have the time to develop a mental map of their base? Having only a small amount of time to get used to and adapt to the layout would certainly involve more thought and skill than mindlessly repeating a build order. And no, build orders wouldn't really be about the early stages of that base - because like you said, the situation would be so much more complicated and variable than the excruciatingly slow start of having a town center, three villagers, and almost everything unavailable. You'd only have a vestige of the build order paradigm left.
Taking between a third and a twelfth of each game is very significant, especially since it's the start of the game and therefore affects everything else.
And of course they're not a problem to fans of traditional RTS games, because by definition anyone that dislikes build orders stops playing traditional RTS games like I did. I had thousands of hours in AoE2, started taking multiplayer seriously, and realised that the central thing that was holding me back was failing to memorise and robotically execute build orders, so I left. There's a similar thing in dota2 for core heroes that need gold - a lot of their gameplay is about killing creeps, so I never play them, because it's boring.
And actually, one of the most important build orders in AoE2 is the Fast Castle which keeps you on strict rails for 15 mins on the ingame clock (which is 10 minutes of real time) so you can easily spend 35% of a match - the most crucial 35%, since it's setting up everything else - on a build order that might as well have been done by a script.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
1,783
You don't need 5 minutes just keep track of where your shit is when you can see it on the screen and riff through buildings with hotkeys

In a very simplistic RTS like, say, Age of Empires, yes, there's not much to keep track of and a prebuilt base would work. In SCFA there is way too much shit going on. Cycling through buildings one at a time is a... terrible idea to say the least, especially when those include factory lines.

there's no need for it to be mandatory at the start of each game

And it isn't mandatory, you're quite free to build your first units and buildings wherever and in whatever order you want. Nobody's forcing you to use a build order.

You'd only have a vestige of the build order paradigm left.

People would still find the optimal opening moves for a given preset base, and people like you would cry about it as much as you do about build orders. Because that's what build orders are - optimal moves for a known state. Do you cry about Chess openings as well?

The whole discussion is sort of moot because in SCFA if you care to take the time you more or less can automate a templated base rather than setting it by hand. You lose a lot of flexibility that way because you can't tune your early build order as easily but if your problem is with clicking then go in sandbox mode, build a base, and save it as a template. Then you can fire it off once at the start of each match.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,466
Location
Shaper Crypt
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/wargame-red-dragon

user reviews look promising, even the negative ones
Plus they jsut released ISRAEL as a nation pack, majestic incline

Want to play Wargame? I love Wargame. They didn't release Israel yesterday tho, Eugen got the boot and Red Dragon won't even be patched.

Wargame is frankly a great approach to Real Time Strategy games, and I'm kinda surprised no one copied it: sure, you have micro, but it's novel in its attempt to get a complete battlefield experience and the Cold War setting is novel. Plus, tons of units and factions to play with.

That said, if you want to play Red Dragon in MP, hit me on steam or PM, it would be greaaat.

You guys should check out Wargame: Red Dragon. It's a niche RTS for grown-ups that's relatively recent and still has an active player base. Has some micro but APM isn't the determining factor.

RD has the typical problems of an "abandoned" game, balance is out of whack and there are a few optimal plays. Sure, it happens to everything, but with no support the problem just worsens.

Furthermore, it has Norks! NORKS!

FEFD2E249540F8E893638A4B9A2B59164287D27B


Cute Norks!
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
I think the age of competitive RTS dominating the market is over and there is no way to turn that around, games like Generals, RA 2, Age of Empires and etc, not because those games wouldn't be successful on this day and age, they would but because publishers want ALL of the money instead of some of the money. Star Craft 2 made money for Blizzard but nowhere near something like Overwatch and on the eyes of dysfunctional companies way too used to a explosive growth market, that means zero chance for big RTS releases.

The problem is that there aren't publishers or developer houses that are willing to take the burden of making and supporting a competitive RTS game and some guy on his garage won't be able to do that, RTS fans need for a Focus Home, Paradox or THQ Nordic, or any AA publisher on the middle market to try but, so far, most aren't interested to try as there are safer bets in terms of gaming. Reality is that if you aren't a publisher with enough cash, you can only do like the ex WestWood guys are doing with Age of Conan or the They are Billions developer, offer single player content as no way in hell you will have the budget to play test balance patches, run servers and all that expense.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,710
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
And it isn't mandatory, you're quite free to build your first units and buildings wherever and in whatever order you want. Nobody's forcing you to use a build order.
Build orders are mandatory to play AoE2 or Starcraft competitively.
People would still find the optimal opening moves for a given preset base, and people like you would cry about it as much as you do about build orders. Because that's what build orders are - optimal moves for a known state. Do you cry about Chess openings as well?
I don't want build orders totally removed, I just want them shortened. I don't mind chess openings.

The whole discussion is sort of moot because in SCFA if you care to take the time you more or less can automate a templated base rather than setting it by hand. You lose a lot of flexibility that way because you can't tune your early build order as easily but if your problem is with clicking then go in sandbox mode, build a base, and save it as a template. Then you can fire it off once at the start of each match.
I've never heard of SCFA before, but it sounds awesome. My quip about ''why play when a script can do it'' wasn't pure rhetoric, I wouldn't actually mind using scripts or templates, that sounds great.
 

majorsoccer

Prospernaut
Shitposter
Joined
Mar 10, 2019
Messages
175
Fuck Starcraft 2 retardred story !! i will play Supreme commander skirmish instead.
 
Last edited:

80s Stallone

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
796
Location
The Bunker
RTS games are hard and very unpredictable to make. And big publishers aren't interested. Even if they sold well, they could simply invest their money into something more profitable.

On the other hand, there is my personal feeling that something hasn't moved over when they abandoned 2D-sprite-based games for 3D. The "punch" is just not there, it always feel like rubber tanks fighting each other instead of real battles.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
1,783
Build orders are mandatory to play AoE2 or Starcraft competitively.

Well... I think any competitive game is always going to involve some level of fine-tuning and routine that may feel tedious, especially since competitive games by their nature should minimize randomization. And it's hard to prevent a build order without introducing RNG, the most you can do is allow build order automation (partial as in SCFA or entire), but since it's a largely dead genre nobody's going to expand on SCFA's template system.

I've never heard of SCFA before, but it sounds awesome. My quip about ''why play when a script can do it'' wasn't pure rhetoric, I wouldn't actually mind using scripts or templates, that sounds great.

In that case I'll elaborate some what. SCFA is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, sequel to Supreme Commander, itself a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation. SCFA is basically the final game in the "series" and, in my opinion, the best. It has some issues, most notably command dropping later in the games and pathfinding issues, both of which are probably due to the number of units involved and the overall scale of the game. However, it does a lot of things really well, which other RTS haven't really ventured into:

You can save buildings as templates. A basic example is a T1 turret surrounded by wall sections, which costs barely more but is much more durable. Another example is four T1 mass storage spaced so that when the template is built around a mass extractor, they will all contribute the full adjacency bonus to its production. A more fancy example is a T3 power generator surrounded by T2 mass fabricators for lategame mass production (the energy costs are offset by the pgen they surround) and with basic wall sections at each corner so you can click and drag a line of copies of the template across the map, and they'll be spaced out (due to the wall sections you built as spacers) such that their death explosion doesn't set off a chain reaction, if one is destroyed. You could also do this with your opening factory setup, either as one whole series of buildings or as a few separate templates for main base components ie a power farm, an array of factories, etc.

You can click and drag to build. One of the main reasons I and a lot of players don't bother templating our starting build orders (just finnicky stuff like mass storages or a hydrocarbon plant with energy storages around it, stuff like that, to save a ton of clicking while staying flexible) is that SupCom makes it really easy to build stuff. You can select a factory to build and instead of having to shift-click a bunch of them as you do in many RTS, you just click and drag and your worker(s) will build them in a row as you defined it. Same goes for things like pgens. I just pick a workers, hotkey for pgen, click and drag, and that's my starter power farm dealt with almost instantly. I'll probably send more workers to assist (right click on a worker that's carrying out the order and the ones you have selected will assist it with everything it does until they are told otherwise), but that's about it. I don't think most other RTS allow this, though I could be remembering wrong as SCFA is the only one I play anymore. I'm pretty sure most of them rely on Shift Clicking for every single building which is really, really tedious.

All orders can be adjusted. If you've told a worker to build a bunch of stuff, you can hold shift to see the queued orders on the map and move any unbuilt buildings to other locations, or remove them from the queue. I don't believe you can insert new orders, which is one of SCFA's limitations. You can also adjust patrol paths in the same way, or adjust rally paths from factories. Speaking of which, factories can assist other factories. If you've told one factory to build a looping queue of 5 tanks 1 arty 1 aa indefinitely and to send them on a rally path down to the front line, you can select any other factory, right click on that one, and it will produce the same queue of units and send them along the same rally path.

It has a flux economy (Homeworld does this as well to a limited degree) which means that instead of a flat price at the start, you pay for a unit as you build it. The faster you build, the faster resources are consumed. You can allocate building power via engineers assisting buildings to construct priority units or buildings faster at the expense of greater resource consumption. A common example is having a ton of engineers assist a T3 air factory to churn out air superiority fighters quickly. This isn't really a convenience example but it is an example of how SCFA pushed for better mechanics. Another example, SCFA has a full strategic camera. You can zoom out to see the entire map (units change to icons at a certain range though you can opt to always overlay the icons at any range) and zoom back in just as smoothly, at any time. It is a nice way of monitoring the overall flow of the map, provided you have sufficient radar and/or sonar coverage.

There are issues and areas where it could use improvement, like being able to let other units take over a build template instead of just assisting the ones that initially got the order, or including default production queues for factories in a template, but even with what they do have, SCFA goes a really long way in reducing a lot of the finnicky busywork that many RTS suffer from, without sacrificing complexity or hamstringing basebuilding; in fact it's more complex than most with things like adjacency bonuses and the need to maintain a sufficient power grid to run all your shields and radar, not just paying flat costs for stuff. Yet despite all that it's so much more convenient to play. This is probably why I don't mind build orders, there's a ton less clicking and setup time required in SCFA to do them compared to the experience in most RTS where you have to do a single click for each and every thing that gets built.

And I'll admit that yes, I forgot how tedious it is in most RTS until you pointed this out. And you are quite right about the build order experience in those games being unpleasant.
 

Jokzore

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
Messages
623
RTS died because they're simply too hard. The initial time/effort investment you have to make to learn how to play an RTS at a basic level is just too high, its intimidating. People would rather play something that's easier to pick up and makes you feel like you're good at it instantly.

People will cite the popularity of LoL and DoTA as examples of the opposite, but I think this exactly proves my point. While it may take a very long time to learn all the ins and outs of DoTA, the first step on this path is much easier than it is in most RTS.

Short attention spans and instant gratification culture. Gaem jurnlists are actually partially correct about something, gamers ARE entitled, just not in the way that they think.
 
Last edited:

baud

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 11, 2016
Messages
3,992
Location
Septentrion
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
the Cold War setting is novel

World in Conflict was Cold War too and was released 5 years before the first wargame. Also from what I've seen of wargame, it look like the gameplay is similar to World in Conflict: no base-building, new units get air-dropped on a side of the map and it's based around capture points.

And as for why RTS died, I'd say there's two separate issues: dumbing down in pursuits of the console audience (like SC2 being release on console), which led to shallow gameplay. And a pursuit toward the "pro-gaming" scenes, on a genre that can only support a handful of competitive games at the same time.
 

Trithne

Erudite
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
1,191
the Cold War setting is novel

World in Conflict was Cold War too and was released 5 years before the first wargame. Also from what I've seen of wargame, it look like the gameplay is similar to World in Conflict: no base-building, new units get air-dropped on a side of the map and it's based around capture points.

And as for why RTS died, I'd say there's two separate issues: dumbing down in pursuits of the console audience (like SC2 being release on console), which led to shallow gameplay. And a pursuit toward the "pro-gaming" scenes, on a genre that can only support a handful of competitive games at the same time.

The differences between WiC and WRD are mostly in scale; WiC was heavy on infantry tactics in typically urban environments. Wargame maps are many square km and intended to model large swathes of country, often featuring multiple different cities on the one map.
 

Olinser

Savant
Joined
Nov 1, 2018
Messages
977
Location
Denial
RTS died because they're simply too hard. The initial time/effort investment you have to make to learn how to play an RTS at a basic level is just too high, its intimidating. People would rather play something that's easier to pick up and makes you feel like you're good at it instantly.

People will cite the popularity of LoL and DoTA as examples of the opposite, but I think this exactly proves my point. While it may take a very long time to learn all the ins and outs of DoTA, the first step on this path is much easier than it is in most RTS.

Short attention spans and instant gratification culture. Gaem jurnlists are actually partially correct about something, gamers ARE entitled, just not in the way that they think.

I somewhat agree with you, but I think it's less of an issue of difficulty or learning curve, and more of an issue of the level of focus and multi-tasking required to play the game well. The base rules of an RTS are quite easy to learn and are pretty standard - collect resources, build units, attack, the formula really hasn't changed much for decades.

I'd argue the main problem is that playing an RTS competitively requires CONSTANT EXTREME ATTENTION the entire game.

A game like League or DOTA requires a moderate amount of focus, but there's not really that much going on within the game that you have to constantly track. You have to focus on the enemy team (only 5), and to a lesser degree your teammates. Within that, there are periods of significantly less activity where you can take a break and collect yourself, so to speak, such as after winning a big fight or dying and waiting for the respawn. Aware players can generally track where their opponents are at all times, and there's not that much they can do that an alert and warding player will be truly caught off guard by. If you see all 5 enemies you know basically what they're capable of doing and can relax a bit if you aren't in immediate danger.

A game like Starcraft 2 playing actual competitive ranked, you cannot relax during a game, EVER. Resources in the bank or used in units that aren't building right now are useless, you have to constantly monitor your flow to be efficient, sustain production, and attack/defend. Your opponent can attack in a significantly wider area and with a wide variety of units, you have to constantly focus and redirect your focus, and the 3 seconds you relax might miss a drop might lose you the game. Pro strategies succeed or fail on margins of SECONDS.

At it's core, its a matter of what players can lie to themselves about. Players watch LoL and DOTA2 pros and convince themselves that what the pros are doing really isn't that difficult (even though it is) and that they could be that good if they practiced enough. Players watch Starcraft 2 pros and instantly comprehend that they will never, ever sustain 300+ APM for an entire game no matter how much they practice.
 
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
1,853,654
Location
Belém do Pará, Império do Brasil
I do wonder if one of the problems of RTSes are the fast pace.

Feels like there's something to be said for a slower-paced RTS, if done right

Nivelates - does that mean - 'puts on an even footing'? It's not a word in english but it ought to be.

Yes, it does. I'm surprised its not a word in english, actually.

Point of order: it is a real word, you just mispelled it.

That extra L is like, so unecessary
 
Unwanted

a Goat

Unwanted
Dumbfuck Edgy Vatnik
Joined
Jun 15, 2014
Messages
6,941
Location
Albania
Multiplayer focus didn't allow for experimentation with mechanics, the genre stagnated while its competitive multiplayer fanbase was moving to MOBAs and the funding was running short cuz you just can't move the genre to consoles.
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
I am really sad that there are so few RTSs with a nice single-player campaign. Say what you will about Blizzard, but Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3 did have a well-done single player campaign.

As far as competitive RTS games are concerned, I don't think Starcraft 1 will ever be topped.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom