Whatever happened to the RTS genre? (video)

[JarlFrank]

The problem is, a typical game of AoE will last over an hour.

Citation needed;

I stopped reading there and deleted the reply I was writing.

Citation needed? PLAY. THE. GAME.

Most of the AoE2 1v1 matches I play on Steam on intermediate skill level (my ELO on Steam always fluctuates between 1650 and 1750) last between 30 and 50 minutes before one player has gained the definite upper hand. Castle Age is hit about 20 minutes, then combat becomes frequent, and in early Imperial the decisive battle usually happens and someone calls GG. Sure, I've had games that lasted over an hour and devolve into a trash spam war, but that's not that common in 1v1. Although it depends on the map, Black Forest always takes much longer than an hour.

 

[Cael]

You haven't played the game.

If you insist, but I think you might be in a minority when saying that, particularly when stating outright that the RTS genre died because, basically, it was overtaken by games that require a much lesser time expenditure (which, honestly, I don't think is true, and I provided examples to the contrary) due to people generally becoming dumber, which... just isn't an useful statement (mostly because it's very biased and emotional) to make when gauging this phenomenon. You also insist that only 8 player modes have any legitimacy, which I think is a reductionist attitude because that essentially implies that a 2v2 or 3v3 brawl between highly competent players is worthless compared to a 3v5 slugfest against the AI where - as much fun as the mode is - the outcome is generally preordained when the players have the know-how and there's plenty of cheese techniques to fool the AI, like in pretty much every game.

the 4 vs 4 is a REAL game of strategy and tactics, particularly when you have a range of expertise in both teams.

I never denied that it takes considerable skill to play in such an environment. But I don't think that it denies legitimacy from the other game modes that are available. I also don't think that the complexity of the game mode means that you can't systematize and standardize certain things, like you could in any other game. There's a shitton of complexity left in Blizzard RTSes as well, and a meta game for any game mode you can think of, but I will still be the first to admit that even if the meta evolves a fair bit even today (through certain adjustments and ideas), it's still mostly set in stone.

In fact, I decided to educate myself some more, because, hell, why not, AoE2 is a very good game and I actually enjoyed learning about its intricacies in highly advanced modern online play as I prepared to respond to you properly. If the popular high level AoE2 streamers are any indication, online players still rarely, if ever, get games that last over an hour. That ZeroEmpires guy I pointed out earlier considered a 52 minute 4v4 game to be "pretty long" and he even managed to fit in 4v4 games that were, on average, around 35 minutes long.

Given your highly emotional and anecdotal account and a note that you generally no longer keep in touch with the same group since 2009, I'd insist on maintaining that your experience isn't the norm. I'd also refrain from carrying on an attitude of superiority about the way you play your favourite games (something that I try to do myself, as I honestly respect dedicated players of all games in this noble genre, especially since I played and enjoyed a lot of them myself, even if I ended up returning to Starcraft), because this is a thread where we talk about why RTS games have fallen out of favour and not having a war about whose favourite RTS is the best.

And because of your arrogant and condescending "citation needed", I will maintain that you are a know nothing git trying to sound knowledgeable. Now, piss off and bother someone else.

 

[JarlFrank]

Also Cael add me on Steam and play an AoE2 match against me, faggot.

 

[Dzupakazul]

And because of your arrogant and condescending "citation needed", I will maintain that you are a know nothing git trying to sound knowledgeable. Now, piss off and bother someone else.

Friend, I honestly thought that 'citation needed' is just a common piece of internet lingo that's used on the Codex in particular (there's a reaction for it, for one thing, and it doesn't carry nearly as negative a weight as some of the other reactions) and that it's used to denote disagreement or simply asking for verification. If I had any vitriol towards you on the Codex, I'd express it by slapping a reaction on all your posts and calling you a fag (which is not what I'm a fan of) instead of trying to produce walls of text on a subject that I have interest in, and also, I thought your opinion was worth engaging with.
I am genuinely sorry if you thought it was something more than that, but I don't think that, if I tried, I could be more arrogant or condescending than someone who claims that the only real way to play is a mode that requires a fuckton of effort to play (connection issues / problems with not being able to join games often prevented me from enjoying massive team modes in most RTSes), and then gets angry because it wasn't clear that this is how you play, or that many people playing 4v4 don't spend hours in-game on a single Random Map. My experience was different from yours because most of my RTS gameplay is spent on 1v1 and 2v2, so you decided I never played AoE instead of acknowledging that not everyone's standard metric is a 3v5 turtlefest vs AI.

Have a nice day, and I hope you give 1v1 with Jarl a try.

When I played WC3 on a LAN party many years ago, my pals wanted to play these shitty custom maps which bored the shit out of me. Where's the basebuilding? Where's the resource management? Where's the maneuvering, strategy, and tactics? These custom maps were like shitty basic RPGs, even the most generic Diablo clone was better than WC3 custom maps, because WC3 is a strategy game with minor RPG elements (level up your hero) and its strength lies in the strategy, not the RPG.

I honestly always thought that WC3 was like an RTS with a built-in Mario Party where everyone can make their own game, because the simple RPGs and other modes that people made for WC3 have always been more of a social occasion to smash someone with your favourite unit and have a simple leisure time; you played the game for like an hour tops and then it was over. And many of those modes for custom maps had their own strategic meta; I recall someone porting RISK to Starcraft and it was kinda fun and strategic that way, and there was also a map called Phantom which was basically a regular map but one of the people basically had money and production cheat codes on and the entire thing was about finding and dogpiling the Phantom before he runs away with the game, so it was your regular RTS with a "catch-the-traitor" feel to it. And the editors for those games were a boon more than they were a burden.

That it turned out to be so popular isn't really the fault of MOBAs, I don't think; people just always enjoyed having the casual option to fuck around in.

 

[vota DC]

The problem is, a typical game of AoE will last over an hour.

Citation needed;

I stopped reading there and deleted the reply I was writing.

Citation needed? PLAY. THE. GAME.

Most of the AoE2 1v1 matches I play on Steam on intermediate skill level (my ELO on Steam always fluctuates between 1650 and 1750) last between 30 and 50 minutes before one player has gained the definite upper hand. Castle Age is hit about 20 minutes, then combat becomes frequent, and in early Imperial the decisive battle usually happens and someone calls GG. Sure, I've had games that lasted over an hour and devolve into a trash spam war, but that's not that common in 1v1. Although it depends on the map, Black Forest always takes much longer than an hour.

Team game also involve more gold units late game because commerce.

 

[Cael]

Team game also involve more gold units late game because commerce.

That is where raiding and interdictions come in. Team games tend to have a lot more different tactical strikes and counterstrikes than 1v1, and are a whole lot more fun. The game play is also quite different, with different build and tech priorities.

1v1 tends to devolve into hotkey smashing and click fests. Idiots challenging others to 1v1 fights in a RTS are nothing but mental midgets and immature soiled diaper lickers. They can't help but add to the decline of the genre with their strident and vociferous taunts driving others and newbies into looking for less troll infested hobbies.

 

[Dzupakazul]

less troll infested hobbies.

We been around for a while now, mon.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Team game also involve more gold units late game because commerce.

That is where raiding and interdictions come in. Team games tend to have a lot more different tactical strikes and counterstrikes than 1v1, and are a whole lot more fun. The game play is also quite different, with different build and tech priorities.

1v1 tends to devolve into hotkey smashing and click fests. Idiots challenging others to 1v1 fights in a RTS are nothing but mental midgets and immature soiled diaper lickers. They can't help but add to the decline of the genre with their strident and vociferous taunts driving others and newbies into looking for less troll infested hobbies.

Oh shit where are those Internet Is Serious Business memes from back in 06 when you need them

 

[Space Satan]

Because to get a decent, living RTS you need:
1. Good team to make it fast runing on most PCs, to prevent Tiberium Sun
2. Dedicated and long-term support to balance on-release issues and keep online-communuty interested, to prevent Red Alert 3, which is, like, the worst case of balance and support effort.
3. Stable platform to sustain competitive online play. Again, Red Alert 3 had great online potential but thanks to EA lion's share of their budget gone to silicon-pumped models and anabolic wrestlers for real action cutscenes and online service was even worse than GameSpy.
4. Community rewards. Look at Starcraft II. hanks to David "Faggot" Kim, game is deserted but still had european players due to regular tournaments. And now after F2P saw some new blood influx.
Tiberium Wars was great but EA, being EA, sucked all they could from this game and abandoned it without patches, balance etc. Result - only Gamereplays are keeping it somehow alive. AoE is holding due to nostalgia but even that is not enough in a long-term.
I can't imagine indie devs being able to fulfill even half of this conditions. Hence RTS genre decline as only major companies could allow diving into RTS quagmire and they have no desire to.

 

[JarlFrank]

Team game also involve more gold units late game because commerce.

That is where raiding and interdictions come in. Team games tend to have a lot more different tactical strikes and counterstrikes than 1v1, and are a whole lot more fun. The game play is also quite different, with different build and tech priorities.

1v1 tends to devolve into hotkey smashing and click fests. Idiots challenging others to 1v1 fights in a RTS are nothing but mental midgets and immature soiled diaper lickers. They can't help but add to the decline of the genre with their strident and vociferous taunts driving others and newbies into looking for less troll infested hobbies.

Nigger you're just afraid to get rekt when you can't rely on being pulled by teammates.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I think part of it is that RTS games are big on both physical and mental dexterity. In fact, I can't think of a single other genre that emphasizes both of those things. This not only made it hard for new players to get in on the action, but it also led to the fanbase gradually splitting. Love it or hate it, Civ 5 made TBS games popular again, probably more popular than they've ever been, creating a more appealing alternative to fans who preferred the strategy side of things but didn't care too much for having to execute everything at once. Meanwhile, MOBAs catered to the rest of the crowd - those who preferred the twitchiness of army control and felt that things like resource management and unit production got in the way of that. In other words, people who were more into the macro side of things went TBS and those who were more into the micro went MOBA, and RTS became a sort of niche genre for people who want macro and micro simultaneously.

 

[Space Satan]

In MOBAs you control ONE unit and act through skills, mostly. Instead of multitasking. It is multitasking that is a gaping abyss that separates MOBA from RTS. Strategy and other stuff, like micro is present in both, just in different ways but at most MOBA can have extremely limited interactions, like Meepo clones or 1-2 minions.

 

[flyingjohn]

Most people who play strategy games don't want games that are too taxing on the reflex side of things.
You have to manually control hundreds of units,your economy and always be aware of conflicts breaking out on the map.
That is personally too taxing and not really "strategic". Plus path finding has to be perfect which never happens.
And each part of rts games that people like has been done in other games:
-Want to play an aoe like game,there is civ and other 4x empire games.
-Want to play a combat focused game,there is the real time tactics genre like the commando series which is focused on less units.
-Want to execute advanced combat maneuvers,well there are war games for that.
And each of these genres does have an added resource element.

The big area that rts shine is multiplayer since tbs and the other genres don't lend themselves to that easily,at least not competitively.

 

[Steve]

I think the popularity of team-based games killed them off, people enjoy playing with their friends, at least you can blame them for defeat. Almost every popular multiplayer game nowadays is team-based, just look at CS:GO, Overwatch, DOTA2, LoL and even PUBG. Very few people play 1vs1 arena shooters anymore just like very few people play 1vs1 RTS anymore.

While you can do 2vs2, 3vs3 etc. in most RTS they're mostly not balanced for team matches and the main focus has always been in 1vs1.

 

[Space Satan]

RTS is a good niche. CS:GO is so popular also because matches are fast. When you have a family and\or working hard you don't have much spare time. A session for hours that require no disconnects'desynchs is mostly unavailable but quick RTS match for 15-30 minutes is okay. It does not matter if there is no teamplay and you are doing 1x1 but joy-to-time spent ratio mostly.

 

[thesheeep]

Because to get a decent, living RTS you need:
1. Good team to make it fast runing on most PCs, to prevent Tiberium Sun
2. Dedicated and long-term support to balance on-release issues and keep online-communuty interested, to prevent Red Alert 3, which is, like, the worst case of balance and support effort.
3. Stable platform to sustain competitive online play. Again, Red Alert 3 had great online potential but thanks to EA lion's share of their budget gone to silicon-pumped models and anabolic wrestlers for real action cutscenes and online service was even worse than GameSpy.
4. Community rewards. Look at Starcraft II. hanks to David "Faggot" Kim, game is deserted but still had european players due to regular tournaments. And now after F2P saw some new blood influx.
Tiberium Wars was great but EA, being EA, sucked all they could from this game and abandoned it without patches, balance etc. Result - only Gamereplays are keeping it somehow alive. AoE is holding due to nostalgia but even that is not enough in a long-term.
I can't imagine indie devs being able to fulfill even half of this conditions. Hence RTS genre decline as only major companies could allow diving into RTS quagmire and they have no desire to.

Ehhh... applied to RTS games with a focus on competitive online play, I'd say you are mostly right.

But RTS games with a focus on competitive online play have never been more than a niche. And that niche is more than full already.
Even if Grey Goo, for example, would have sold like crazy, wouldn't have had a terrible name and not a giant host of other issues... it wouldn't have had a long life because it tried catering right into the filled niche of competitive online RTS games.
Or look at DoW III. Do you honestly think it would be long-lived if it wasn't just a bad game and that it could compete on player numbers with StarCraft? Of course not.

Hell, even Blizzard got wind of reality at some point and implemented a whole co-op game mode with custom missions, levelling up, achievements, rewards and what not into SC2, for the sole purpose of catering to people not interested in competitive play.
If they had actually implemented some persistant world system or a campaign map, I'd have loved it - as it is now, you just play some special random pseudo-campaign map each time. Meh.

However, thankfully focusing on competitive online play is entirely optional and the only things relevant from your list would be 1. and to some extent 2.
And those could very well be pulled off by smaller developers.

Though not the smallest of indies for sure.
Even if you made it a pure singleplayer game - thus reducing design complexity easily by 1/3 and programming complexity easily by 1/2 - you'd still have deal with an enormous need of many assets and very difficult programming and UI design tasks.
So the basic statement remains valid:
It is hard and costly to make a really good RTS that has any chance of success. Far more so than almost any other genre. You can make a good game in other genres with less effort.

 

[mbv123]

RTS died when they started focus on the E-sports cancer and completely neglected Single Player. Average gamer doesn't give a shit about learning some autistic meta builds and have a contest on who can click the fastest, and just wants to play the game at his own pace, either in a Campaign or Skirmish against the AI, maybe play with some friends in coop against hardest AI and try to survive, or just build a comfy base.
Best RTS's were always the ones with a stellar and good SP campaign - AoE2, CoH, C&C, etc.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Average gamer doesn't give a shit about learning some autistic meta builds and have a contest on who can click the fastest

Aside from even how your favourite games with a stellar and good SP campaign are affected by how fast you click and do have build orders, all I can ask is whether we're now gauging quality of games by what the average gamer wants. In that case, I vote for Mass Effect 3 as RPG of the year. After all, nobody gives a shit about what an autistic Sirtech or Troika fan wants, amirite?

I also don't quite see where are the RTSes that "completely neglected Single Player". When was the last time you played an RTS which didn't have a campaign? SC2's storyline might have been shit, but WoL has pretty fun missions to play through, and the entire campaign, for a title that's often criticized for being overtly focused on "e-sports cancer", has like 90+ missions.

Even CoH would just get stale for everyone and abandoned shortly after its last campaign DLC if its endgame was to learn how to play against computers ad infinitum. Even the most difficult AIs aren't usually particularly nuanced and strike at you according to patterns. Say what you will about the competitive scene, but it generally helps the games live. I play CoH1 3v3s on-and-off with my buddies and we never run into the same people in consecutive matches. I doubt AoE2 would have gone HD if people didn't play it, either.

Like, really, I want to play CoH1 against a guy who can utilize Snipers and set up proper flanks with his MGs and terrorize me with his armored cars, not constantly against an AI that doesn't ever have to scout because it sees all fog of war (not that it would be able to properly react to whatever shit you're pulling) and only knows how to rush you with Volks, then pile up on you with Grens and spam off-map reinforcements because it seems to have no cooldown on those.

 

[Space Satan]

SP is nice for flavour and building a backstory for setting but for Rts to survive online play, online COMPETITIVE play is mandatory. How long will you play skirmish? Or coop? A week or two? Online matches is what keeping RTS alive. It could be monetized and hat-economized, like Blizzard did. With different unit skins etc.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Company of Heroes / CoH 2. It's a pretty good RTS (really tactical rather than strategic, but we tend to call this RTS) in my opinion, it's multiplayer-centered (I don't know who would find the campaigns interesting even if he has a passing knowledge of WW2 history), nice graphics, aims to recreate "the feeling" of its factions.

 

[Dzupakazul]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Company of Heroes / CoH 2. It's a pretty good RTS (really tactical rather than strategic, but we tend to call this RTS) in my opinion, it's multiplayer-centered (I don't know who would find the campaigns interesting even if he has a passing knowledge of WW2 history), nice graphics, aims to recreate "the feeling" of its factions.

I mentioned it literally two posts above yours and it's been peppered throughout the thread; I enjoy it greatly. Dunno how multiplayer-centered it is because whatever you think about the quality of the campaigns, there *is* 7 of them in CoH1 alone. The game's mechanics are some of the most friendly towards people new to the genre, though I wouldn't say that makes the game simplistic at all. I find it a bit too rock-paper-scissorish at times, but like in most good RTSes, you can often overcome these absolutes by simply outplaying your opponent, which is a plus. I'd say competitive play seems quite micro-heavy - I always lose my Flammenwerfer Pioneers too early and I hate getting my infantry blobs obliterated by artillery in seconds or picked off by a sniper, so you gotta have good control. It's worth mentioning that CoH2 is still supported, so the "dead" genre isn't restricted to Blizzard and AoE at all.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Ok, I just scanned the thread, and did it inefficiently. I am enjoying CoH2, and I'm coming to think Relic are the last company still doing good RTS games. Uneducated opinion.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Ok, I just scanned the thread, and did it inefficiently. I am enjoying CoH2, and I'm coming to think Relic are the last company still doing good RTS games. Uneducated opinion.

AFAIK, nobody likes Dawn of War 3, but I haven't followed that release too closely.

 

[Perkel]

SP is nice for flavour and building a backstory for setting but for Rts to survive online play, online COMPETITIVE play is mandatory. How long will you play skirmish? Or coop? A week or two? Online matches is what keeping RTS alive. It could be monetized and hat-economized, like Blizzard did. With different unit skins etc.

lol no. Most of people back in the day at best played hot seat coop or they had to do lan parties was something you did once in while.

People who play RTS in multiplayer treat RTS games as race against the clock. Like some hyperactive rabbit on roid trying to outsmart everyone else by keeping their macros, training their hand movement and bindings.

90% of players on other hand want like some other poster said take their time and be more goal oriented. It is about strategy, resource management not about how fast you can masturbate.

So with developers trying to chase multiplayer market they decided to care for 10% of RTS players who are loud rather than rest of normal ones who just want good RTS with great SP campaign.

And the genre died. It died in era where everyone has internet and connecting to other and playing together is milion times easier than before. Which is why your point is bullshit.


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Second problem is 3D. Once game moves from 2D to 3D developers often make simple mistakes. They take longer animations, more cluttered landmasses, fucking around with camera that used to be something you didn't care about etc. pathfinding suddenly becomes a fucking problem. And the most important part about it. When games went for 3D they became smaller, less units, smaller maps, square shaped buildings and so on.

I think only Earth 2150 tried to actually use 3D for something other than just eyecandy (you could terraform creating natural walls, dig tunnels under enemy base etc.) and Warzone2100 which gave you ability to build your own units from parts. Machines also was kind of awesome as it give you ability to take rein of machine and fight with your army.


This and multiplayer focus basically killed any fun RTS games had.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

lol no. Most of people back in the day at best played hot seat coop or they had to do lan parties was something you did once in while.

People who play RTS in multiplayer treat RTS games as race against the clock. Like some hyperactive rabbit on roid trying to outsmart everyone else by keeping their macros, training their hand movement and bindings.

90% of players on other hand want like some other poster said take their time and be more goal oriented. It is about strategy, resource management not about how fast you can masturbate.

So with developers trying to chase multiplayer market they decided to care for 10% of RTS players who are loud rather than rest of normal ones who just want good RTS with great SP campaign.

And the genre died. It died in era where everyone has internet and connecting to other and playing together is milion times easier than before. Which is why your point is bullshit.

Which devs were the ones focusing on multiplayer to the point where their game failed because of it? Most games barely get balance patches after release and the community has to keep playing with problems, quit or make their own patches. Also, complaining about TIME in REAL TIME GAME, if you want pure strategy there's whole other genres to choose from and if you are playing campaign you just fucking pause. Yes when you're playing online you want to be faster than your opponent but it's not a fucking reaction speed test, people who actually know what to do can do it faster and without thinking.

A competitive scene for an RTS brings more players into the game and it shows there is actually some depth to the mechanics. And guess what, it's actually the gameplay that makes a campaign fun not whatever shitty story they tacked onto it.