Destiny is promoting PA!

Players microing their bombers would disagree.

26:51
@acer1791
"Planetary Annihilation is really an RTS game, it’s really a real time strategy game, where like the buildings and your strategy and all that, it’s actually kind of important, and I’m guessing it can get really deep in high level games.

Whereas in StarCraft 2, which we’re kind of accustomed to calling it an RTS, it’s really very very loosely based on strategy, it’s more of a mechanics slug fest. You know? I’m not insulting anything, or saying it’s a bad game because of it. I’m saying like, in reality StarCraft 2 it’s a pretty big mechanics slug fest, you know, where strategy takes a back seat to your ability to control your ****.

Whereas, the Planetary Annihilation is waaay in the other direction to where there’s almost, I don’t even know if you can say that there is micro in that game. Although I guess you could micro a little bit."

The question is at ~8:10 in the video.

Lol, Acer was the one who asked it too. :^)

They really need to get into a public game against some of the better players so they can see how much pressure you can actually be under.

Haha yeah i watch that show every week so why not ask right?^^

The definition of rts is three-fold: it denotes a series of games based on Dune II (check) which have the elements of resources, army production and overhead army control (check) while being in real-time (check). It seems pretty silly to constantly insinuate that Starcraft is not really an rts game. In fact, it's the archetypal rts game.

Any professional Starcraft 2 player can beat any non-pro using only his mouse, anyhow. Also, I'm sure that PA will have the potential to be highly mechanically demanding.

Yeah, Desrow is really prematurely judging the game. He seems pretty irritated by it too. I don't see how you can voice such a strong opinion when you play a few two-player games, where both parties are complete noobs, on planets too big for even 3 players, of a game that's in beta, and proclaim that the game is like LEGOS because of art style and lack of player interaction.
I don't know, maybe it's a marketing strategy that Destiny asked Desrow to perform, but that's beyond me.

Okay bro, no need to pull out a dictionary on me and define a fluid language for us.
The reason I said that because it was a direct quote of Destiny, in a thread about destiny, started by me, that explicitly agreed with my point. Do you see how what he said might not be a universally objective truth, but still valid? It's not like he was being precise with his language anyway

I highly doubt that this is true, it's a generalization and an overstatement. I'm willing to bet there are numerous amateurs out that that can utilize a keyboard effectively. But let me settle your concerns, and say that I wasn't demeaning SC, just quoting destiny as per the conditions above.

How about this?
Any game is a sandbox (think minecraft) that has a certain set of rules (when, where, and what you can build) and a clearly defined objective (something minecraft lacks), and I, like most if not all people on these forums, prefer (have more fun) to obey the rules of a PA type game instead of an SC type game.
I think that's a lose enough definition of a game that you can't really disagree with, and my appeal is a personal preference.

Sure, but not as mechanically demanding as SC. If blizzard decided to remove resource costs of queuing units in factories, and removed the need to build supply buildings, the fans would be outraged, because it would remove from the spirit of the game, or whatever. Those mechanics, promote repetition of user input, and arguably add zero strategic depth.
Whereas in PA, with things like infinite queues, no population limit, area commands, templates, persisted order queues, do I need to keep going? That's exactly what we are going for here, removing execution barriers that add zero depth to the game where it matters.

Yeah the way they have played in their games I would have them both beat in under 10 mins. As they would me playing with their feet in Starcraft.

I guess that depends on what you call "non pro".
I can remember watching some korean smurfing on diamond league playing mouse only and winning one game after another. I guess somewhere in the masters league he would start to lose games that way though.

Unit matchups can still be interesting. We can have situations in which 5X will beat 5Y. I would rather have these situations based on terrain and positioning than on pure micromanagement. A lot of the micromanagement in SCII seems to have no choice involved beyond the choice of where to spend your APM. Micromanaging units flat out increases their effectiveness. I think this micromanagement can be avoided in the design of PA while retaining many tactical choices. These choices would take some micromanagement but a lot of it would occur prior to the battle (choosing positioning and where to fight) and the UI should be powerful enough to make the in-battle choices relatively easy to execute.

There are still a lot of ways to modify unit effectiveness. In TA there are weapons which gain range by being on the high ground. Units move slowly up hills so attacking up a hill disadvantages short ranged units. Area of effect weapons penalize your opponent for clumping and this may be unavoidable if there is a choke point. Broadly speaking there are 3 states to be in during a battle; charging into close range, skirmishing at max range and retreating. This will take some attention and quick decision making to manage.

This all becomes a lot more complicated when armies consist of multiple unit types (which they almost always will). Some positions might be good for some units and bad for others. Players have to decide what they want to focus down and kill in a battle. This is non-trivial choice. If you have some bombers waiting off to the side then perhaps your aim in a battle could be to snipe all their AA units then disengage and harass them with the bombers. These types of tactical decisions link in nicely with your overall strategy.

There can be so many interesting decisions to make when setting up and executing a battle. These will all take some mechanical skill and could require quite a bit of micromanagement. But I think this is micromanagement with a purpose, it could be somehow handled by the UI without detracting from gameplay. The other type of micromanagement, the type which just increases unit effectiveness, gets in the way of tactical micromanagement. Time has to be spent making sure your units aren't stupid so it discourages or even punishes people from trying to implement good tactics.

There was at least one Brood War pro who did only play using the mouse, no keyboard shortcuts at all.

@lilbthebasedlord Starcraft 2 and Brood War are nearly the same game, yet most people would say that the latter has more strategic depth.

There are two issues here:
1. being a strategy-type game such as an rts. SC2 clearly qualifies here, although the genre is subtly different from that of PA. But the difference is much smaller than some people here think.
or 2. having strategic depth. I would say that Starcraft 2 can sometimes be strategically shallow (my personal opinion -- Although anyone should check this article next time they want to say something like that. (or this one about Brood War for that matter)), but I don't think you can defend statements that PA does have strategic depth. The game is far from being finished and didn't even have the chance yet to earn this distinction of having strategic depth.

Because it's something you have to earn, you can't have it granted to you by some sophistry with the definition of rts. (with some more sophistry about "language being fluid")

Destiny's statement should be seen as him making an illustrative point about the difference between SC2&PA, so he is obviously exaggerating to highlight the difference. That's important context for his statement.

I think the most important part about his statement is that a game like starcraft develops the importance of mechanics over time. Strategies are getting figured out and a meta begins to establish.
If that happens you either have to be innovative and change the matchups (there are more different races in starcraft, something PA lacks) entirely or just execute the current "optimal" strategies better.
I don't see why this wont happen here too, with the exception that there is little way to distinguish yourself over the mechanics part (at least i think that is the case).

I would appreciate if someone could explain to me why you guys don't see this happening here (the game getting figured out, so strategy and tactics are no real point anymore).

No, that's not true.

TA, SupCom, PA and StarCraft 2 are actually a subgenre of RTS games.
These are "Base Building" RTS games.

There are RTS games where there is no resource collection involved.
AND
There are RTS games where no base building is involved.

You don't build bases in CoH

You totally build bases in CoH. It was ******* irritating because that component clearly didn't belong in that game, but there it was, being obnoxious and spoiling the fun part. Then along came Dawn of War 2 and dumped the rubbish building bit, but went backwards when it came to map quality.

I didn't like having to take cover as a space marine, when you ARE cover.

SC2 has been out since 2010. A meta has been established, except no one is refining their execution of the best build. Why? Because the game changes. There are patches that change unit values and even mechanics. There are new map pools, and most importantly, new players and new ways of looking at the game.
I hate this example, but look at chess. How old is that game? Are the best players refining their execution of the best strategies? Probably not, considering it's not really real time.
The same goes for TA and FA. I hope you get my point. I guess what you are talking about doesn't happen until patches stop being released and new talent stops entering the player pool.

With the release of PA we won't even have build orders given procedural map generation and semi-random distribution of the limiting resource, metal. After the initial opener of (factory, 2x pgen, 2x mex) all procedural information outside of the match stops mattering, and your habits come into play.
What I'm saying is that there will never be a build order that will tell you how many units you will have at what time mark and supply. Every single game will be unique.

You're right, and I did talk about PA as if it had already been released with the features that were promised to be in the game. Refer to the Confirmed features list thread by KNigt.
Am I wrong though?

The key to PA being more strategy based is the resource system, for several reasons: In PA, one builds one's own resource/income structures. This basically means that the player can decide if he wants more income or another unit, for the entire duration of the game. Finding the balance of growth between additional income, defensive structures, production facilities and the combat units of all types they produce is thus the critical issue. Every single thing you build is a strategic choice, and lots of different build orders and strategies are viable.

Even looking past all the strategy in build orders, attacking orders pay just as vital a role. Deciding where to send units, how many of these units you send and what to attack differs in every game. In the highely unlikely event of two players that build identical bases for 20 minutes. Have the same unit consitency, everything is the same. Do you think there will be a stalemate?

I'm a firm believer in the strategy of risk in RTS games like PA. Thats why many top level RTS gamers also have a high aptitude for poker.

Promotion related...

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1r22i7/what_old_game_would_once_again_be_awesome_if/

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