What are your hot takes on the genre?
When we're all playing games together, an RTS will be like the third most played game.
Play SupCom FAF.I really do think the modded client is worth playing. Remappable hotkeys, automatic map downloads, and rated PvP are worth it. I don't really like the gameplay changes they've made, like T3 mobile AA or primary and secondary factories, but it plays well enough. Getting a high rating is really fun.
>>747564440I honestly think neural interface link would make the game a lot better. Or at least some macros you can write and use during battle. Otherwise just mouse and keyboard isnt enough.
Should I play Command & conquer general or red alert 3?
>>747564440Why the whole strategy genre, not only the RTS sub one, is so stagnated? You see the rest of the genres evolving while this one still has the same mechanics from 30 years ago, when first / third person? when true open-world? when emergent narrative?When are this games going to look and be played like in their cinematic trailers? At some point our tech will reach that potential and beyond, when is this genre going to adapt and evolve with it?
>>747564440Supcomlikes are a dead end subgenre doomed to slowly have all of its 'gameplay' automated out in quality of life until all that's left is a game that plays itself. This genre design met its natural endpoint with Factorio, which ironically embodies all the core of Supcom's game design more succinctly than BAR or any of the other spring engine knockoffsThe micro-tax design of AoE where you tab back to your hq every 10 seconds to select and assign a newly built worker, where your aperture is deliberately restricted to force you to use more inputs to perform simple tasks is also a dead end. People inured to that design conflate tedium with gameplay but the truth is that actions which have no decision point attached are meaningless busywork which piles up on your way towards an action with a decision. These games either remain trapped forever in tedium-as-gameplay or automate the gameplay out with QoL because at the end of the day there was no real gameplay beyond it.And the Starcraft-style hybrid of diablo-esque isometric RPG and strategy game has been taken to its natural and logical conclusion with Starcraft 2 itself and a whole generation of MOBAs. As a game genre this holds the most potential because people actually enjoy playing these games instead of just watching automation tools play them for you, but they've naturally evolved away from being strategy games at all and into being more or less pure isometric RPGs in a competitive structure. And Starcraft 2 still suffers from the issue that the first ~5 minutes of any match is a rote execution of a scripted sequence of actions without any meaningful interaction with the other playerThe whole genre umbrella is in desperate need of genuine innovation but for decades all the design talent has been focused on trying to stamp and print TA knockoffs or translate ASSFAGGOTs into a mobile game.
>>747566710I hope Google doesn't start giving people implants. Don't we have enough warning on Mark of the Beast shit? Chrome already has it as its icon. It probably leads to the GPS effect, if not being much more heinous ("fighting the UI" for natural control).
>>747564440Peaked at Total Annihilation
>>747567418Unironically players don't like innovation, because they'd had relearn how to play them with each change. They'd rather have the games be intuitive, possible to figure out right away. They're also fine with not having new games in the first place, the average strategyfag is overstocked on games that can be played for thousands of hours.
>>747567418RTS is the biggest victim of the "eSports" plague. Despite decades to remedy the issues, they are STILL focusing on shit that only "competitive" esports fags care about instead of improving the genre and returning to the stripped-out features that people really liked. Wannabe newcomer RTSes refuse to stray from the Warcraft 3 and Starcraft "standard" despite that the eSports crowd is focused hard on those existing games; not looking towards new ones.Other strategy games, like 4X and Heroes-likes or whatever you call them have stuck to what works and incrementally improve upon them. Stories, campaigns, customizability, more variety and flexible strategies, whatever else. They are simply games focused on being fun for as many people as possible. Not for the "general audience" or "casuals" but for "hey everyone, here's a fucking strategy game, play it at your leisure how you want." Whenever one of them comes up with a new cool idea, others may take note and iterate. That kind of thing has not happened in RTSes for decades.Fighting games are constantly teetering on the edge of the same pitfall, which is why so many of them fail right out of the gate. However, the genre survives because of different appeals, namely the genre puts attractive characters front and center, and their "Warcraft" of the genre Street Fighter comes out with something new every few years (that both refines what was and tries something new) that games of the next gen then copy. And then there are many fighters that all do their own thing regardless, huge divergences from any standard.The eSports crowd there is but a marketing front for new fighting games, because unlike RTS which somehow became a serious "sport" with money involved, fighting game tourneys don't pay for shit.
What about Liquidation?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqaeB6qkNa4ZeroSpace?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOUZKPQs-oStronghold 4? Dust Front?
>>747564440I think VR, if it hadn't died would've been fantastic for RTS.
>>747567418in english?
>>747564440it's fucking dead that's what's my takeGS has effectively taken over
>>747569532>Liquidationwc/sc clone, DOA>0spacewannabe sc3, DOA>S4lmao>dust frontnot even a real game
>>747564440My hot take is that rts genre has a StarCraft issue. Starcraft was a very specific implementation of the genre which blew up in esports and created an impression that all rts games should be exactly like StarCraft. While StarCraft is a fine game, this belief has stunted the genre to this day, which is now dominated by middle aged men in the same way arena (boomer) shooters are. Games like dawn of war, company of heroes, supreme commander, command and conquer, etc all get treated like a sideshow act and therefore never get the attention to revive the genre.
>>747570129https://youtu.be/XehNK7UpZsc he put it quite succinctly in this video
>>747568991Underrated.
>>747567882incorrect, the genre peaked at WC3:TFT
>>747567418>You see the rest of the genres evolvingSuch as?
>>747570045>game mimick old games>DOA! SHIT!>games doesn't mimmick old games>doesn't count!
>>747568991This and I think the funniest story of a RTS is Brutal Legend>Our RTS is good but we need something to draw players in so let's make a beat em up campaign that act as a tutorial>Works great but everyone gets mad at the RTS sections instead
>>747566863Generals is better, RA3 gets boring fast.
>>747570464Уcпoкoйcя, Димoн.
>>747570251The point about custom editors and community sandboxes is very well stated.
Is BAR out yet?
>>747566863They need to redo ra2
>>747570972you can play it for years already, or you are talking about the campaign that is being made by a gay furry?
>>747564440>What are your hot takes on the genre?micro is too important, which is funny cause the ui for it tends to be total ass. like fighting games, the biggest autist winskinda bland vs ai, too
>>747564440Waiting for a good soul successor for hybrid FPS-RTS, with base building and unit building and shit
>>747564440This genre is ripe for the taking because no one has done a good single player campaign right since the Westwood days.
>>747564440Halo Wars 1 and 2 were actually good. And I hate how there will never be a third one because 343 literally destroyed the Spirit of Fire, off fucking screen during Halo Infinite.
>>747566451>game usually determined by who gets the most value out of his first bomberfaf multiplayer is tarded unless you smurf, but then you ruin it for everybody else
>>747567418Actually, just about every genre has a cliff of innovation to pass 20 years of the same problems: RNG hipspread, slow ADS and other actions, and basic mobility for shooters. One or two button combat for character action games.
>>747564440every new RTS needs to have a starcraft 2 style co-op mission game mode on launch or it’s DoA
>>747564440What's your favorite non-mainstream rts? Personal I'm fond of Rise of Nations, which maybe it's not the most obscure, but still rather forgotten game. It's really shame it never got a sequel to iron out its kinks (and I don't count RoL).
>>747567436>Supcomlikes are a dead end subgenre doomed to slowly have all of its 'gameplay' automated out in quality of life until all that's left is a game that plays itself.No SupCom-like is innovating past SupCom. What other game even has a streaming economy? But a multicore SupCom clone would probably be the only RTS worth playing. How do you come back from such a realistic appropriation of a top down battlefield? I don't even want to play a game without full map zoom and strategic icons. How much more pleasing is it being the most strategic RTS? The amount of momentary options is undeniably the most attention requisite and fulfilling in the genre, if not the industry.
>>747564440the genre died because the average gamer IQ got reduced from 120 to 100
>>747567418Everything is stagnant because the input mechanisms haven't changed in decades. All you have is two hands so a shitty gamepad or m+kb is all you can use, and most people aren't even good at that.>muh racing sim, muh flight sticknobody uses those
RTS is normie unfriendly genre. Take your average gun and ball gamer and see what happens when he tries to play an RTS.
>>747568991This. Fuck esports faggots.Pic related. Tweaked specifically for esportfags that played the missions to death and kept demanding to the developers that a wave of a hundred elite Apocalypse tanks quietly spawning at the edge of the map, right next to your base, isn't punishing enough.
>>747569708It went too far in the direction of waggle controls or whatever. I just want a 3D viewing experience using KB+M. At least that would be easy to design an RTS for.
>>747564440>What are your hot takes on the genre?Warcraft 3 sucks and ruined fantasy rts. Heroes and small armies are lame.
I played lots of RTS growing up and want to play some againwhats worth booting up? Ive been thinking about getting into wc3 because i started playing wow hardcore classic for the first time two months ago, but i sorta want to relive my aoe days as a lad.
>>747573969>I played lots of RTS growing up and want to play some againprobably the same ones you played growing upthere's been zero worthwhile innovation in the genre for about twenty years
>>747571498We will be waiting until we die brother.
>>747569915What's GS?
>>747569532it's wild how some people really try to make a reskinned worse copy of SC/WC.At least ZeroSpace looks fairly decent and it had some kind of unique mechanic I forgot aboutDustFront looks like it has potential but I don't think the grim dark wasteland look could prevent it to reach a bigger audience.Stronghold 4 actually looks fine, but apparently there are no fans left with any goodwill
>>747571359What RTS game do you think is genre-defining while simultaneously being too high APM?
>>747574339the problem is that every single Stronghold past Cruader has been abysmal dogshitthat's ~20 years of abysmal dogshitso yes there is no goodwill leftI am honestly baffled how the studio is still standing
>>747564440A good concept kickstarter fucking failed 10 years ago because RTS has been a dying genre if you're not SC or C&Chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNZ7oto4z4A
They need decent stories, and not many do, to offset the fact 99% of missions are resolved the exact same way, with the exact same build orders.
>>747572009As far as I'm aware, T1 bombers are still nerfed where you can't hover bomb without doing 360s between shots. But you can't honestly think destroying a few engies is game-defining unless it's some all-in engie drop for a T2 rush FOB. If you want to say air strategies are go-to in large maps, I would maybe agree, but AA is really powerful. People just don't make shields or AA and get rocked by bombers or gunships.
>>747573845I think the risk:reward build-up is massively more intense and thus enjoyable than most other genres, which should translate to popularity if people pick a good RTS and get good at it. I don't think it takes more time than MOBAs to learn when considering how many heroes and builds exist.
>>747568991Innovation in the 4X subgenre? Lol, lmao.Every 4X game in a nutshell:>80% is looking at the screen seeing the time past in max. speed>5% is the notification spam-nuking of the same 5 events / quests / decisions (despite the DLCs were sell with "10,000 new events" or something like that)>10% moving units in the map and see 2 minion knocking each other>the final remaining 5% is micromanagement until burnout>Modern companies equate hours of time played as a good metric so they maximize tedium in all aspects>eliminate all fun and interesting mechanics by design>made by vindictive effeminate men and bitter women with a political agenda and a hate boner for their own audience>while also unlocking all quality of life and features that should be in the base game under a mountain of DLC4X is even worse (somehow) than RTS.
>>747574663It died because uber entertainment were a bunch of nigger kikes that left planetary annihilation in a terrible state and ran off with the money.
>>747574663no it failed because it was made by the people who made PA which is a game that looks good in trailers but is boring to play. If PA released today people might even think its good because they didn't get scammed and the product actually resembles the trailer, nothing more.I will always love the trailer, just like Industrial Annihilation but don't expect anything from it
>>747574197He probably meant the Grand Strategy genre.
>>747564440>hot takes on the genre?RTS are easy and fun.The "fixing" we need is to flail alive anyone implying you need 300 APM and perfect memorization of all unit counter just to have fun with the campaign. That's the genre's actual problem and the reason potential newcomers stay away.
>>747573913Your favorite mod is dead.
>>747564440The genre peaked with planetary annihilation and it's the best version of strategy games by far. I backed this shit on kickstarter.
>>747575832An interesting concept but an absolute pain to actually play.
>>747573209Five Nations was fun.
>>747575957We lost the planet and escaped to the moon, turned it into a massive rocket, smashed it into the planet destroying everyone left there still fighting and won the game. It was the most kino experience I've ever had in a strategy game.
>>747575648>is fucking deader
>>747575162See? You don't understand gun and ball gamers.
>>747569708Don't usual VR injectors work with 3D RTS?
>>747576165>game has russian faction>it's for retards that tank spam and don't know how to playevery time
>>747574339Nostalgia bait is a good hook, but devs keep failing to make a fun game.
>>747576219I understand physiology. Motivation (fun) was solved in 1985. The height of intrinsic motivation is the height of fun.
>>747576165>>747573913>not a single fucking update for the past ten years (both of them)>still have the fucking guts to pretend to be in active developmentShould be illegal.
>>747576095The setting looks interesting, but they couldn't pick more generic name.
>>747576668RoTR is posting new pics every week THOUGH
>>747564440The genre has been entirely supplanted by grand strategy games like Total Warhammer that combine RTS with 4X. However with Dawn of War back I think that might change. DoW4 seems so sublime. Classic RTS kino imo, though some may be put off by the minimal base building. Personally I think it is the perfect balance and the game is drop dead gorgeous as well. I just hope that they add the Kin and some Chaos so we can see the controlled regions by say Nurgle looking overgrown an putrid since the Necron zones look sufficiently perverted by their tech.
>>747576735It's in active development BRO, 1.9 is coming out ANY SECOND bro. Don't look at the fact we're scamming people out of crowdfunding money for over a decade BRO.
>>747564440>Kills your franchise
>>747576315China is already the tank spam faction though?Or did ROTR change that?
>>747576924Russia and China both have similar playstyles but China is more about unit cohesion and their vehicles fucking suck unless they're in a group (even overlords) while Russia has the most powerful and destructive units in the game. They're extremely expensive but if you're on a map with tons of supplies Russia just wins
>>747576739It's going to be absolute dogshit like 2 and 3 were. The only thing dawn of war 2 did right was the wave defense mode when you control an individual unit with abilities. It was kino. If you can't make your squad composition yourself in the main menu or in-game from individual units then it won't be worth it. What I mean by that is making a 20 squad of guardsmen, or a 12 squad and putting 2 grenade launchers in, 1 medic, 1 commissar etc. The games have regressed and all you're going to get is slop sadly. I won't be buying DOW4. Shit I have an insane PC now I might finally try ultimate apocalypse or whatever the new one might be for soulstorm. I could barely run it at the time, ty for the reminder.
>>747576689And they added a sixth faction in an expansion anyway... The devs seem esl, the language and voice acting is kinda jank in places. The campaign is very long and there's a shitload of skirmish maps. Plays a lot like Starcraft and reminds me a bit of Star Trek Armada.
>>747577076>going to be absolute dogshitIt isn't, I've played 4 hours of it at Gamescom. It is pure perfection>like 2Get out fag. 2 was a superb game and the only people who didn't like it just wanted an expansion pack to 1. It is a unique game and completely separate. 3 was dogshit though no doubt. Not every RTS has to play the same and 2 offered the genre something new.>I won't be buying DOW4Your loss. It is the best RTS I've played since CoH, RA3, or SC2. The genre might as well have been completely dead as far as I'm concerned with how fucking good this game is compared to the last... 20 years. Holy shit RTS was a dead genre.
>>747576905WHAT THE FUCK where they thinking?
>>747577310Enjoy getting farmed for DLC bucks, your loss kid
>>747577264the devs are russianslavs usually have good ideas but absolutely horrid, dogshit implementation (Witcher is carried solely by the story, everyone agrees that the gameplay sucks)
>>747577430>he can't into creamapiPathetic
>>747575175>>80% is looking at the screenTHIS!!!!!
>>747577485Same with Earth 2150, lots of mechanics of questionable application, plus bugs.
>>747564440RTS should be unbalanced. It's what makes them fun.Give me shit like being able to put bombs on people with crazy ivans or driving a mastermind into a group of units to ttake them over for about 15 seconds before the tank self-destructs controlling more than 3 units at onceShit like WC3 killed the genre with the whole 'we must make all playstyles equal and must make it 'fun' for streamersLook at how shit AoE2 is now. Everything is practically the same each game and it's down to who can click the fastest most times with 'decision making'It's like doing a boxing match where the only strategy that's viable is jabbing once every 10 seconds and just dancing out of distance the rest of the time and both players do it till one of them takes a wrong step then tha match is 'won' but they still have go all 12 rounds
>>747577803>Same with Earth 2150, lots of mechanics of questionable application, plus bugs.this game is 26 years old, cmon nowback then we didn't even have wasd standarised
>>747566451I'll stick with the original instead of this cheaty bullshit
>>747571498Executive assault 2 tried but it's really fucking weird.
>>747576579There are basically 2 doctrines on how to sell games>good gameplay>make a game that looks goodbut gameplay can't always be properly displayed in a trailer, so games are often designed with marketing in mind.That's why movie games are so convenient, because many player don't even realize how much they are railroaded through the experience without any friction.Generally having long story sequences, cutscenes, dialog... does well to hide the gameplay, because the player doesn't expect those parts to be very interactive. Also exploration, minigames are equally just filler. JRPGs are basically built on that hill.RTS is one of those genres that are predominantly gameplay, its hard to automate in the same way for casuals nor does it work well with filler content.Imagine a Final Fantasy game that is mainly just 60 hours of main gameplay.or Imagine an RTS where most of its time is spent in chatting with your comrades, managing army compositions and exploring a world that is 100 times bigger than your average AoE2 map (ok Spellforce already exists)
>>747577901>Look at how shit AoE2 is now.Funny example, because compfags are shitting themselves over the big content additions and fun changes in old mechanics.
>>747569532Liquidation has a decent foundation, but the dev is pretty damn slow on updating just about anything with it. 6 campaign missions, 3 factions, and about 8 skirmish maps is already way ahead of other indie RTS games, but there hasn't been anything since it launched into early access.
>>747578013I would ask again how it's cheaty, but you probably won't answer again.
>>747571024Impossible, nobody can get close to Tim Curry's shenanigans and charisma.
>>747577961BW also came out 26 years ago and is still one of the biggest RTS games out there
>>747567418no genre is evolving, they all went to shit
>>747578203That's why the copycat approach is convenient (or at least used to), because it does tell you what the game will be about and whether it appeals to you. You say 'I'm making a spiritual successor to Starcraft/C&C/CoH/Supcom/Homeworld' and your playerbase immediately knows what this is about and what would make it really good.
>>747578456Broke ass asians who need a monthly net cafe subscription aren't a sellable userbase
Play Act of War: Direct Action, Act of War: High Treason and Act of Aggression.
>>747567418RTS is one of the most evolved genres out there. There's so many branches now compared to the 'classic' rts 30 years ago. moba games pure tower defense whatever the fuck they are billions genre is calledRTT games Hybrid TPS/FPS/RTS games (Savage,Natural selection etc.)Then you have city building being mixed with RTS elements like in manor lords. People took the parts that they liked from the old RTS games (usually some custom game mode) and made entire genres out of them.
>>747567418You can make 100 more rpgs and rpg fans will be happy to play another 100 rpgs.A strategy game is played for more than one narrative experience.RPG fans run out of rpgs they want to play in theory.An RTS needs to be better than the game the RTS fan is already playing, it needs to replace it in some manner.Same with other strategy genres, if a new 4x doesn't address my problems with the genre and improve upon the one I'm already playing, why switch?Other genres than strategy are more like movies than games.We don't need anything new, and if there's something new it better be good.
>>747567418AAA are being careful and indies like to stay on the safe side in general, too. Strategy games require a lot of resources, you wouldn't want to experiment too much when you could go with something that you know could sell.
>>747578013filtered retard
>>747579448>using cheats
>>747578837Except that you are telling everyone who you compete with. None of the small studios making RTS games these days can surpass WC/SC.>>747579167good trollhalf those genres have less in common with rts than fucking Mount and Blade
Regiments is on sale:https://www.gog.com/fr/game/regiments
>>747579493Retard detectedThose genres exist because of RTS.
>>747573345Correct.
>>747579167That just means the basic RTS format of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink has no place with modern audiences who can pick up any of these subgenres for a more specific type of gameplay.
>>747567418I'd argue that nothing really evolved all that much, and purely gameplay-and-mechanics-wise, modern games haven't moved all that much compared to things from 30 years ago. Still the same shit, but with prettier textures.The problem with videogames at large is that player agency, something that pretty much defines the medium, offers way more possibilities than people know what to do with. Thinking back in the 00s, a videogame of the future would be one with gigantic, labyrinthine systems of choices that shape the player experience and allows for multitude of completely unique playstyles. But here's the problem, such a thing would be awfully hard to design. And majority of people would likely either ignore the details or get lost in them. So the industry went the opposite way, and decided that everything worth making has already been made so let's make more of it. So the entire medium retracted into few specific genres. A Shooter or a Fighting game or an RPG or a SHMUP, or an RTS always with the exact elements you expect this genre to have. You could say that rather than expanding their horizons, they went back to perfecting the pacman formula, simply because it's a great deal less risky.Theoretically, strategy should give you a wide expanse of choices, and I would say that a strategy game of the future would be something like Dwarf Fortress on steroids, where you can both micro- and macromanage the hell out of everything, to such extent that no route optimization would be possible for the sheer amount of possible variance. But would the players be able handle such complexity? And would developers be able to deliver it? The compromise seems to be sidegrades of what's already there, like TD for RTS, but that too requires a creative approach not many can pull off. The limits we face now are mostly the limits of human creativity and dedication. We've squeezed everything we could out of hardware, if we want to move forward, we'd have to start with ourselves.
>>747564440starcraft and blizzshit take on rts is only good through the lens of 90s limitations.
>>747576905Homeworld 2 did. Homeworld 3 was just the natural evolution of turning S'jet from a tragic background character into a chosen-one-marvel-wank shit.The series only has two entries, 1 and Cataclysm. 2 and 3 are nu-garbage.
>>747579397> indies like to stay on the safe side in general, too.All the copy cat, trend following the mainstream industry does the indie scene does even worse. Which isn't entirely unreasonable. That's YOUR money that you're putting on the line and this is whole game development thing doesn't work that's a lot of money down the drain. But hey, some game about evil robot mascots sold gang busters, so maybe you could try making your own version of that to ride the wave for an easier payday?
>>747579493These games are decades old. Players would love something fresh for a change. Doesn't have to be a masterpiece, as long as it doesn't suck.
>>747573345Counter argument, the post orgasm permanent perk of playing videogame turned on and now all games need to be slow or I feel more arused than usualWhere are the GreyGoo, Starcraft Broodwar streams of cute anime vtubers commenting on Artificial Intelligences matches? I was promised more ecstacy!!!I want to see protoss carriers dancing as Amon envisioned!!!!
>>747580028Homeworld 2 has a lot of mechanical changes that made sense for the gameplay, but the story is so "and then they lived happily ever after" at the end that Gearbox decided security blanket space hitler was the best path to go with it. The mechanics side of things isn't even better, as HW3 removes a lot of things that previous games were able to do a decade earlier.
>>747579656Yeah basically. That's why newer 'classic' RTS has died off for the most part besides old games that are still popular with their fans. Age of empires has more players than a ton of modern AAA game releases while newer RTS like stormgate flopped and failed within weeks of release. There's still some success stories out there here and there over the last decade. I've seen some indie RTS on steam that I've literally never heard of but they have thousands of reviews and overwhelmingly positive scores.
>>747580127This isn't rocket science. You take someone's idea, give it a reskin, throw in an original idea or two, and make sure to shill it twice as hard. Worth a shot.If you're the one who's bleeding resources into innovative R&D and achieve a modest success, you can expect a bigger fish to take your idea and do a better job selling it. Nobody wants to be the sucker who does all the heavy lifting, they'd rather play it safe.
>>747579556>retard detectedFortnite exists because of Tennis for Two...
>>747564440I stopped caring about it after it became esports focused
>>747575832I hate how this looks if its to have a planet i'd rather have a big ass map and not something like that
>>747564440It killed itself by chasing MLG shit and forgetting how good the rest of the expierence could be at funneling peeps into the competitive side of the game.
>>747579973>>747579258>>747579397So we just have to wait another 30 years when AI can create its own games, to finally see that explosion of creativity with 0 financial risks or what?
handcannoneers need a buff
You should stop making these threads if you have THIS much nothing to say.
>>747584467Making is the easy part. Convincing some jaded grognards to pick up a 'creative' game that looks like nothing they're familiar with, not so easy. Devs have weird ideas from time to time and just can't sell them.
