Why don't we see more rts indie games?

[blrrmmmff]

There are so many side scroller indie games, but barely any rts games? They were a huge hit in the late 90's and early 2000's. And potentially have more game play depth than a side scroller game if done well. And they should not be too hard to make, since you can build them entirely in 2d. Plus multiplayer.

So many unexplored concepts. I always wanted a mix between Red Alert and Close Combat. Close Combat is too slow and unresponsive (but I like the realism), and Red Alert lacks depth (but I like the speed, graphical style and vibe of the game).

Is this potentially an untapped niche, or is there a good reason this does not happen?

 

[Endemic]

Petroglyph's 8-bit series is one example. Don't think it was that good though.

Forgotten Empires (before it became an official Microsoft expansion for AOE2) sort of counts i guess?

 

[overly excitable young man]

Cause you need to create so many fucking sprites for an RTS game with all these units and buildings.
And even isometric because topdown rts hasn't any hold in todays market.

 

[Bester]

And they should not be too hard to make, since you can build them entirely in 2d. Plus multiplayer.

2D is not some sort of shortcut to make games. And RTS is not easier to make than any other genre. I think it's one of the most difficult ones. Just thinking about how to move groups of units, pathfinding-wise, makes my head hurt.

Why no one makes them? Because not enough indie game makers are fans of RTSes. And this is because not enough people in general are fans of RTSes.

When the PC platform exploded, RTSes were a nice way to utilize keyboard and mouse. After playing Dune on Sega, the K/M controls felt super smooth and novel. And that lasted for a few years, but then it became kinda repetitive? Most RTSes are copies of each other, with a few exceptions.

 

[Kalin]

lol what kinda fag picks a SMAX avatar

 

[jebsmoker]

there's like a million 'indie' rts games out there. you just have to make the effort to find some, and i promise you you haven't played all of them

sudden strike 1, 2, and 3 come to mind. you might like those if you want an indie rts to play

 

[TemplarGR]

Yes, there is a good reason, the 90s styled RTS games are obsolete and archaic and people don't like them.

 

[StrongBelwas]

I mean there have been a decent amount of RTSs (indie and otherwise) over the years, its just most of them aren't that good and die off quickly. In your particular case, a lot more people grew up with side scrollers then ever so much as touched an RTS, which simultaneously means there aren't going to be nearly as many developers going into the industry ever thinking of making one, and a lot less people interested in buying them, which creates a vicious cycle. One might as well ask why there are far more indie side scrollers then indie cRPGs.
But if we look at the broader point, the RTS genre hit a bubble in the same timeframe you mention where there were a ton of games that couldn't do a whole lot to differentiate themselves from one of the big franchises. There was always going to be a contraction, you can see the same thing happened with the tycoon genre after Rollercoaster Tycoon. I'm not sure that many people even want to spend a lot of time managing a bunch of units across a map without a chance to pause it for a break, just managing five or six seems to be too much for people.

 

[DeepOcean]

I'm messing with a RTS project as a hobby right now and no, RTS arent that easy to make, my headache right now is pathfinding, you have the two better options in terms of pathfinding for a RTS: flowfields or navmeshes. Most older RTS games use navmeshes but navmeshes are a pain in the ass to code from the scratch and both Unreal and Unity have navmesh systems that werent optimized for RTS games. Unity and Unreal have navmeshes that were coded taking in mind a shooter or an action game so there is no automatic way to deal with group pathfinding and group collision detection.

It is very common for units to get stuck on sharp turns and coding pushing behavior so units can push each other and not get stuck is a hell, you basically need to fix the problems of the navmeshes of those engines yourself and no, you dont have easy access to the code that makes the navmesh and coding it yourself, while possible, it is also a hell.

A tridimensional grid system would be very easy but pathfinding on a larger map with a gridsystem isnt so good for performance. Im searching about how to implement a flow field that is a more modern way to make RTS pathfinding that Supreme Commander used but it is complicated.

 

[Bester]

you dont have easy access to the code that makes the navmesh

I once tried exporting the navmesh from UE4. It uses Recast, UE4 itself is open source, should be doable, right? No, after 3 days I just said fuck it. Couldn't do it.

 

[The Fish]

https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengi...s_movement_split_merge_lane_picking_steering/

This person seems to have made good RTS-like crowd movement in UE4, though it sounds like he didn't use the UE4 navigation functions.

 

[ValeVelKal]

There are so many side scroller indie games, but barely any rts games? They were a huge hit in the late 90's and early 2000's. And potentially have more game play depth than a side scroller game if done well. And they should not be too hard to make, since you can build them entirely in 2d. Plus multiplayer.

So many unexplored concepts. I always wanted a mix between Red Alert and Close Combat. Close Combat is too slow and unresponsive (but I like the realism), and Red Alert lacks depth (but I like the speed, graphical style and vibe of the game).

Is this potentially an untapped niche, or is there a good reason this does not happen?

Basically you are looking for Wargame : Red Dragon right ? If you want depth, well, I would say it has more depth than CC. Expect fun after 2 hours of playing, and an barely acceptable level after 80 hours of gameplay.

 

[Bester]

https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengi...s_movement_split_merge_lane_picking_steering/

This person seems to have made good RTS-like crowd movement in UE4, though it sounds like he didn't use the UE4 navigation functions.

He wrote his own navigation and collision systems. The only vanilla thing he uses is the navmesh generated by ue4. Very impressive, something like this can easily take half a year to do well in unreal. It'd be easier to just write your own game engine for this, because you wouldn't be slowed down by ue4's crippling api and compile times.

 

[DalekFlay]

Maybe the well received C&C Remastered will spark a revival interest in RTS games, but as of this minute they're looked down on as a genre for the most part. I get the argument that they're tricky to make, but still... the fact there was nothing Kickstarted or whatever that anyone paid one iota of attention to is pretty telling.

Personally I usually played them for reasons other than the gameplay, like C&C's goofy story stuff and personality. I bet a lot of people felt the same.

 

[visions]

I'm not sure that many people even want to spend a lot of time managing a bunch of units across a map without a chance to pause it for a break, just managing five or six seems to be too much for people.

Didn't some RTS games let you give orders when paused in single player? I'm thinking Age of Empires 2, at least some (maybe all?) of the Warlords Battlecry games.

 

[Grauken]

It's kinda funny how genres are in and out of the limelight, I still remember the time RTSs reigned supreme and it felt like they were almost everything people were playing. And now they are deader than adventures or RPGs

 

[sser]

If by RTS you mean base-building and all that, then Northgard springs to mind as that game is very successful.

There are a lot of quasi-RTS games nowadays that borrow from the genre, but straight 1:1 adaptations are kinda rare. It's kinda been done to death, so you need to do it very well to catch attention, and even now the indies get bullied anyway cause the bulk of the market is eaten by the HD re-re-remakes.

 

[luj1]

MOBA killed RTS

 

[Grauken]

MOBA killed RTS

That's true probably but also weird, as RTS were often single-player, but as I understand it MOBA's aren't. Did all the people who where into RTS move on the MOBAs? I mean I played my fair share of RTS, but after some time I just felt the genre stagnated and it was just copies of copies of copies with no new or interesting elements, or super-autistic variants I wasn't interested in

 

[luj1]

Well RTS were geared towards mp too

 

[Grauken]

Well RTS were geared towards mp too

Yeah, I know, but at that time lots of games had good single- and multiplayer, so it wasn't either or, but MOBA's are just multiplayer, so I venture a good singleplayer RTS that isn't just copying old stuff should still have an audience

 

[DeepOcean]

Most single player campaigns of traditional RTS are just glorified tutorials for the multiplayer. Only the really older ones like Warcraft 2 and Command and Conquer were mostly single player but as soon as internet became a widespread thing, they shifted to be more multiplayer focused with each sequel and new franchises continued the trend. RTS suffered the same multiplayer crazyness that FPS suffered through.

 

[Grauken]

Most single player campaigns of traditional RTS are just glorified tutorials for the multiplayer. Only the really older ones like Warcraft 2 and Command and Conquer were mostly single player but as soon as internet became a widespread thing, they shifted to be more multiplayer focused with each sequel and new franchises continued the trend. RTS suffered the same multiplayer crazyness that FPS suffered through.

Well, I clearly jumped off before that happened

 

[luj1]

Which SP-focused RTS do you remember? Homeworld, Ground Control 2, Impossible Creatures, Perimeter, Grey Goo, Myth 2, Total Annihilation Kingdoms, Warlords Battlecry?

And a bunch of them were MP-focused,

Warcraft, Starcraft, CnC, KKnD, Battle Realms, DoW

 

[Grauken]

Dune 2, C&C, Warcraft 1+2, The Tone Rebellion, Warwind 1+2, KKND 1+2, Myth 1+2 probably as well, but they were a bit different than the others