Micro and macro at pro/high level play

I was looking through all of the Q&As again and forgive me if im asking a question that has been answered but id like to give a pretty in depth post here about what differentiates a good player from a bad player in an RTS game.

So ive been playing RTS games since I was 12 years old, I started with TA and went on to C&C and then onto SC2. Im currently top master in EU and id rate myself as a very good player and a great RTS player in general. Now that is where im coming from is out of the way id like to talk about the direction of PA.

What ive been wondering and I searched to see if it was specifically answered already but maybe they said it somewhere else. So my question is the difference between a good player and a bad player in most RTS games in history is 2 things micro and macro. Jon specifically said they were discouraging micro as a design choice but what about things like getting concaves, surrounds, flanks...etc will they matter at all? The reason why im asking is that is a huge gameplay advantage for a player who has the ability to do it.

Why is this stuff important? Well its a simple thing that is called skill ceiling if you can't get an advantage in micro you are lowering the skill ceiling. If you can't get an advantage in macro you are lowering it further. If a unit is badly balanced too it causes issues with this too.

For competitive games in particular this kind of thing is seriously important. If the skill ceiling is too low it gives move of a chance for a worse player to beat a better player. I can play at around 200-300APM in SC2 that means out of all of the players in the world in in the top 15% so im doing more things at one time than 85% of players out there. Im making units and then switching to controlling my units perfectly...etc and it means that I have the opportunities to do what it takes to win the game. The game is difficult enough that its impossible to play perfectly but the players who are close or who are doing more things at once they have an advantage and thats what makes the game interesting to play and to watch.

So my overall question is what about PA will cater to a player who wants a huge challenge when going into an RTS game if macro is the only differentiating factor because you say you want to discourage micro? I know PA has more unit types and each one has a different mechanic that makes strategy more important I get that but if micro isn't important I can't see how the game could be difficult enough to be a proper competitive title. Im not saying add spells to every unit but just make some things to make it better than just doing a 1A 2A 3A all game long.

Broaden the scope of your imagination is all we can tell you for now. Though micro is an inherent part of many RTS titles it is an artificial, manual dexterity skill ceiling.

Planetary Annihilation wants to discourage the inherent co-reliance of superior manual dexterity to enact superior stratagems. It is an aim I am completely in support of. If PA can kill the need to micro, or at least bring it to a point where it is borderline irrelevant then we have found a new lease on letting your brain actually THINK during a match, rather than relying on muscle memory and build orders.

A goal worth pursuing.

I think your experience as a RTS player, based on the games you have played in the past, may hinder your view how this all will work out as a whole. C&C, the Starcraft franchise, even SupCom focused on 1v1 situations on consistent, never changing maps. I don't really know about people's ambitions and the upcoming "ladder-scene" in this game but it will be hardly comparable to the games you probably played in the past. This game has much more to offer regarding the size of the battlefield and the fact that you can simply destroy a whole battlefield (a respective planet) and moving on to another (if there will be a 1v1 ladder with multiple planets in it).

It is most likely to happen that the random factor keeps ruling out a persistent use, or at least the repetion of one and the same form of hardcore micro. I'd like to believe that we will actually, given the opportunities this mapsize and the whole game system offers, see more teamplay or competetive group play than what we have seen so far in other RTS games.

As mentioned by many others this game has the potential to really have an impact on gameplay of an RTS or at least set itself somewhere else in terms of competetive gaming. I hope we grow out of this 1v1 competition that has ruled the RTS genre since its birth and hopefully we will have the experience to have really skill based, competetive multiplayer given the random generating of planets and the plain size of the possible battlefield.


EDIT: tl;dr nanolathe put it simpler and shorter some minutes before i was able to hit submit

I think these needs to be brought up perhaps late alpha/early beta when we know how the game really plays.

Why should a game "Need" 200-300 APM to play strategically?

I do agree with you OP, actually managing battles and maneuvering your army is fun. I hope that's encouraged while managing how units engage (spellcasting, kiting, focus fire, dodging, swerving, jinxing, etc.) is not. It is still important to have dynamic units and balance though. I think the goal is for strategy and battlefield management to dictate how impactful your units are, instead of APM.

Here is a topic on how that can be achieved.

Well I get the idea that the game is going for but having both is important for making your game a competitive title IMO. I don't agree with set build orders defining play ultimately but micro is a different story. PA itself according to the planet system will always rule that out. The difference is the micro aspect, micro forces you to have to do more things at one time which is a lot of what makes RTS games over the past 15 years interesting. The reason why it makes it interesting is because you not only have to deal with the strategic aspects, the building positioning, unit compositions, macro but also how the units fight which is the difference between me and KT_Flash or Jaedong. It means only the people with the fastest minds and the fastest hands will be at the top but each have to be equal, im not saying make a game that requires 500apm to play correctly (id say 300-350 is fine for a good skill ceiling and allowing for strategic play to be encouraged) but completely removing an aspect that makes play interesting is just very sad.

Well, just add in a few more planets if it is too easy. At some point you will need 1k apm just for the macro. Additionally some amount of army control will definitely be required. You don't need to to move around your units as precise as in SC2, but you still need to move them.

EDIT:
While I do agree that a certain amount of speed means fun, it is not required AT ALL for high level of competitive play. Look at chess, for example. Players have hours to think about their moves.

FA already pushes micro to be borderline irrelevant imho. Also if you are completely relaying on muscle memory and build orders for the repetitive parts your brain is actually free to "THINK" about more complex stuff.

false, entire openings in FA are based on micro (see: bomber first). i agree though, supcom micro is a lot different than the responsive reflexive micro in starcraft.

also not sure chess is an appropriate example here, it's a turn based game and where your opponent's growing economy forces you to act in TA, a time limit forces you to act in competitive chess. maybe i just misunderstood your point though

Bomber first? The exception proves the rule
Sure there are some little quirks based on weird behavior that requires intensive unitcontrol. But those are exceptions. They just broaden the possibilities, but most games are pretty low on micro in FA. Most micro in FA is either done at the beginning of the game, because the players have the time for it, or in relation to the acu outdancing attacks to survive.

Chess might not be a very good example.

It shouldn't, but the player should be rewarded when they can attain such a high APM. A nearly infinite skill ceiling is a good thing, it's what keeps a game fresh. There are limitless "build orders" in supcom that can work out if you have good micro and battlefield awareness.

Why should that be rewarded when arguably, it's more important to reward Critical and Strategic thought in a strategy game?

I see no actual reason to reward a player's manual dexterity when what should be being focused on it their strategic plans. A plan should be as easy and intuitive to implement by the player and there should not be a layer of obfuscation between a player and that plan.

The Higher an APM a real-time strategy game REQUIRES of the player to act strategically the more poorly and weakly the UI of that real-time strategy game has been designed.

In RTS such things will be rewarded, it's pretty much inevitable, isn't it? It's real-time and making the right decisions combined with executing them fast is going to be a winner. Turn based games on the other hand...

Correct or otherwise successful decisions under timed pressure is indeed an important aspect to reward in an RTS. Making the player's implementation of those decisions require a high APM is not.

fair enough , economy focus and the occasional micro aside FA has really fun macro tactics. the whole family of TA games do for that matter.

I'm Also a master Sc2 Player, and I agree with many of the Op's points. However, having said that, I believe having a higher apm in PA should make a difference but it will be something small. Aka someone with better strategy should almost always beat the guy with super high apm and not much strategy.

I do not expect PA to be very competitive in esports or high level 1v1 at all. Maybe it's possible but I don't really see it. It actually surprised me when the devs mentioned this being one for their goals, if they go after this, it will be easy to ruin the game, I think. The game is a moddable, plus the dynamic maps, and generally slower paced gameplay plus one faction game model is not something that is going to allow for the whole e-sports thing. In my eyes pa is going to be awesome for slower paced awesome team matches, and the fact that it is open just enforces this.

I'm probably biased but nothing can touch Starcraft when it comes to a purely competitive 1v1 rts game.

It's not inevitable. It's just a matter of reducing the APM barriers to effective unit use. For example, assault tanks don't require high APM to effectively use but blinking stalkers do. But you don't have to remove interesting traits from units to reduce micro - giving units Smart Combat can allow them to have interesting traits without creating a high APM barrier.

I think their idea is to not somehow limit PA from becoming an esport. Just as they don't want to limit the modding community by continuing to update the engine after release.

While Starcraft has a lot of mechanics that artificially encourage what I would call busywork in both micro and macro (I’m looking at you spawn larva), I think that trying to artificially limit or eliminate micro would be a mistake. I’m sure the devs are already working out how the game will work on a tactical level, but I think that how we want the game to work on the small scale is a discussion worth having.

A couple of thoughts…

Even though the demographic for PA is different than the Starcraft 2 ladder, there are still going to be dominant build orders just like every other online rts, i think the discussion should be about how to get them to be as varied and balanced as possible rather than trying to eliminate that mindset.

TA and supcom fa in my opinion were very much about simulation driving gameplay, while supcom 2 had more of a rock paper scissors balance. I know the devs are leaning towards the former, but I’d like to see a balance between the approaches as much as possible.

From the latest livestream it appears unit pathing behavior is very much a work in progress. The guy who did the excellent path finding for supcom 2 is working on PA, it would be very nice to have more formations than the standard box formation in that game(wedge, circle, etc) or the ability dispense with formations entirely.

Your probably right...

Uber does not want Planetary Annihilation to be a "purely competitive 1v1 RTS game".

If they did, they wouldn't be actively courting their intention to have matches with 20 players per side.