(delete this thread)

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Vanilla supcom’s UI was patched in a matter of weeks. Dunno why that’s included in the list.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Ok, if you are going to reply to me. Please read this entire post first and think about what you want and then respond in any way you want.

What people like about Supreme Commander 2 is not the research tree specifically. Mike is right in saying that the research tree has issues. What they do like is what the research tree gives them as the OP is pointing out:
-instantaneous tier upgrades
-special ability unlocks in the field of battle
-super fancy toys that have never been seen before or yet again in an RTS
-Commander that make investing directly into your commander while in the field both effective and viable.

I would argue that we don't want all of these things in PA. The research system created Dues ex Machina scenarios that could turn a fight in an instant as long as you have enough RP collected. This is cool for SC2 fans. This is not PA.

To be honest, one of the things I think that was severely lacking in competitive SC2 was tournaments for the all tech unlocked.

I don't think we need tier 2 and 3 being better overall than tier 1 whatever system we end up using. I don't think we want a game mechanic that automagically upgrades your units in the field. Mavor said no veterancy already too, so what you see is what you get. That's what we want right? I personally think so. We will still have bigger and more awesome units become available as you play, but you pay extra for those. That's what we call investment and payout without putting a player in a whole other league because they have a massively upgraded factory.

We can provide special abilities through tier 2 units.

We can provide super fancy toys by putting reasonable costs on them.

PA is more TA centric: massive armies. I don't see PA having an avenue to focus specifically on commander upgrades to the point that he is a one bot army. Jon Mavor promised us battles on a massive scale. Supreme Commander 2 is aimed partially at the LoL community (single powerful champion) in a wierd and cool sort of way, but that's not what PA is, and I don't think that's what we want.

I think that the more I look at what we want, the more I think that the Zero K power grid is going to make a lot of people happy. It's kinda like FA because it's an adjacency bonus, but it's less superficial and more straight up cool and interesting. It is also strait forward and intuitive.

We do not need commander upgrades or other unit upgrades.

Having ways to protect your commander and make him tough to kill are very important. Feeling defenseless to comm snipe is no fun. Pausing or rooting units while they are upgraded for long periods of time is no fun. Having an upgrade show up after it's construction is complete like Iron Man armor maybe is cool.

Having good pathing is essential. Good UI with a moddable keybindings is also extremely important.

Having lots of cool units is going to be super important and make up the strategic options of the game.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

The worst thing they did in SupCom 2 was.... they designed it for consols !!!!

no consols -> bigger maps, more units, no research system, "old" eco system -> a real SupCom 2

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

I disagree with the reasoning of the OP. This stuff isn't generally agreed upon, it is mostly subjective. Here are a few of the bits I don't like.

TA - You can't suggest things to include from TA then mainly base your points on what was good in 1997. This only works if Uber plans to invent time travel and release PA in 1997 along with computers capable of running it. The downsides listed are overly specific and/or debatable.

Simulated projectiles - This comes up as pros and cons of various games. But no reason was given for why it is better.

There are discussions about resource systems and tech levels elsewhere. The 'best system' seems to be subjective.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

I am just going to say it, I prefer SC2 to SC1FA.

I like the research system, and felt it was a lot more balanced then the three tiers of the original.

The more efficient economy of SC2 allows anyone to play the game, not just people who learned how to use the economy without crashing it.

The Smaller maps allow me to play the game at more then the 3FPS like the original.

And I will remind people that the unit limit is the same, higher even with a little modding.

Quite frankly, SC2 is the better game in playability.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

So SupCom2 is objectively better because you didn't have to learn the economy system, and you have a slow computer?

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Learning an economy is not fun for a RTS game, especially one with the focus on battles, not economy.

And yes, because I have a slow computer.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

igncom1, you realize how terribly biased that is at best right?

Also, I don't think it's fair to say that PA won't be focusing on Economy, Eco will play a huge part in PA as it did most RTSs aside from say the Total War type of games.

You can't focus on a battle if you can't build an army.

Mike

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Well its my opinion, not hiding my bias at all.

I am not implying that the economy isn't important, jut that I wan it to be less of a chore like in SC, I want to fight a war not play with efficient logistics.

TA seems to play rather well, but I am truly a supporter of the SC2 "Trickle in, Buy out" economy.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Im afraid you do not understand CoH. Go put on a dunces hat and sit in the corner.
In World War II [which it is based on] not all shots would penetrate. I do love a bit of realism in games that I think demand it [I play the arma 2 series for instance].
The immersion in CoH for me is that not every shot will penetrate, its passion is in the story, the closeness and the long fought struggles that you do not get in a more strategic RTS. Indeed the tactics to ensure a working strategy have a part. However I have long since ground myself out of vanilla CoH to the far superior mod of CoH - Blitzkrieg Mod - http://blitzkrieg-mod.de/board/.

That mod for me increases the amount of map you can see & adds more realism and doctrine abilities to 16 for each one. It is also more suited to more players than 1v1's.
However even vanilla has a lot of advantages, such as being able to drive over hedges, place mines for area denial, micromanagement can indeed cost you if you place too much emphasis on it. If you are good enough at CoH you will win matches despite the occasional thing that goes wrong, you would be prepared for it.

The worst thing about CoH is being able to get a decent multiplayer game tbh. Their lobby is terrible and getting one for Blitzkrieg is worse due to a lobby bug though 2v2's and 1v1's are not affected by it [afaik]. Oh go play Blitzkrieg Mod please.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

No you go sit in the corner, it is no more realistic to roll dice to determine if a shot counts. If it were realistic, itd be physically modelling the shot and determining what damage was done, if it was a flesh wound, deflected by something, stopped by armour, hit an artery, etc CoH is about as realistic as xcom.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

You can always hope they get physically modelling the shot done for CoH 2. Id like it so that tanks are done properly like in World of Tanks though these things are not always possible.

The coldtech for coh2 looks interesting however. Realistically freeze to death?

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Realism for it's own sake is not a good thing.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

hahaha tanks done properly like in world of tanks. Simulators aren't games, and simulators aren't RL.

Realism is just another word for justifying certain playstyles, It rarely has anything to do with what would happen in reality.

^^^ This right here.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

You forgot Warcraft 3 and the frozen throne!!

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

I personally enjoy the military simulator, Arma2 for the attempt at realism [maybe even realistic]. I never did get into World of Tanks though I did try it [too small for me]. I enjoy the hardcore aspects of simulators and no you are wrong, they are games too. You are right realism is not necassarily realistic. Thats why its called realism not realistic. If you enjoy realism in your games there is no reason why it isn't good for its own sake, as generally there are many different things you can attempt with it.

I certainly wouldn't like Planetary Annihilation, to have realism in it though

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Build orders = strategic planning.

And on the other hand TA requires a steady hand and fast brain just like Starcraft, if you want to do well.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Here I can talk some more about something I already mentioned in the defining micro thread already:
PA is an RTS. Real Time Strategygame. So what can you expect from this kind of genre?
It says something about strategy and something about time.
So the strategy:
Demanding strategic planning is something very reasonable in this regard, and as lirpakkaa pointed out: build orders are strategic planning. In fact I would say that they are pretty much a PERFECT example of strategic planning. Having a "strategy" means you have a general plan for the game that you will try to execute. Something that you have before the game starts. As the game proceeds you will need to make tactical decisions to adapt to what actually happens. This is exactly what a build order is about: You have a plan what you want to build, but in certain cases your opponent will do something that just requires you to throw it overboard and do something differently.

So about the time:
RTS claims to be "Real Time". This implies that time and therefore speed is something important. You cant just relax while playing, you need to be quick at whatever you do. Time is a resource in this kind of game. So being fast naturally is an advantage. In addition you need to be good at time management. Should I make a power generator now, or should I give a move-command to my acu before that? Such questions are important in a RTs.

Conclusion: You need to have a good build order and you need to be quick to execute it to win any kind of RTS that actually keeps what its genre promises.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Roll to hit isn't deterministic.

I like both stochastic and deterministic games. However predominantly deterministic games "steal" much of their complexity from a player's actions. Uncertainty becomes the sum of a player's mistakes. Your actions per minute are slower. Your build order is off. You didn't recon enough.

The challenge of the Blizzard RTS, inherited and refined from Westwood, is to overwhelm a player with a long laundry list of hard and soft counters, upgrades, bonuses like elevation, and so on. These are all static table based numbers. The challenge comes from a player sort of intuitively calculating the shifting equations in real time while multitasking economy, construction, recon, and so on. I never quite forget I'm jumping through a lot of hoops not of my own making, or made by my opponent.

I also like flight simulators where any and all table based numbers are considered by designer and player alike as necessary evils. I don't agree with Realism is bad. I don't want to memorize how to safely land at a given airfield in any of a fixed number of crosswinds. I can do that if there are too many static tables feeding the environment. Somehow, someway, I feel this should apply to all games that desire to be open ended challenging while not being overwhelming at the low end of skill and experience.

I appreciate the disdain for Relic's quick and dirty abstraction of accuracy in Company of Heroes, although it is attenuated by other factors like different types of cover, effective and ineffective fire, and so on. It's a necessary evil. So is hitscan for that matter. In my opinion COH is a sandbox that rewards a player for following a wider spectrum of sound military doctrine. In that sense, COH is "better" as an RTS.

But I'm certain the best RTS yet to be made, whatever it is, will go further down that road of abstracting additional elements of warfare not yet considered, like Microsoft's forgotten Close Combat series that weighted morale as important a factor as anything else.

In my opinion, Warcraft III was the pinnacle of the Blizzard RTS. Starcraft II is yet another refinement from the refinement wizards, but adds absolutely nothing new beyond a unprecedentedly beautiful graphics engine every RTS gamer should be happy to have.

I'm much more certain the next big RTS will not be a mashup recipe of the "right" elements culled from preexisting RTS games. That sounds boring even in theory besides being totally subjective. And it is ignoring the bald faced fact that RTS as a genre has grown stagnant and risk averse conservative, just like every other genre. Good thing Uberent is fully funded from grass roots donations with only the simple mandate to be awesome. Reason for hope novelty will return once again to RTS.

Re: What RTS Games Did Right, and What They Did Wrong

Here's what.