7 ms·

Some problems I'd note for any resurgence of the RTS genre: * There hasn't been a huge RTS hit in ages, so large studios aren't going to push large chunks of c

Some problems I'd note for any resurgence of the RTS genre: * There hasn't been a huge RTS hit in ages, so large studios aren't going to push large chunks of cash into them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you may disagree with whether large studios should act this way, but that doesn't matter, because the observable fact is they do. * RTS games are still pretty expensive to make well. There hasn't been a breakout indie RTS, and nobody has established a default cheap art style for these. It's not like platformers where the world has accepted we can get away with pixel art forever. * Streamers rely on their ability to self-commentate, but nobody can play an RTS while talking. * Even back in the heyday of RTS, everyone I knew played custom maps rather than the actual RTS. I'm pretty sure that crowd is all in Roblox or modded Minecraft these days. And some bright spots: * People /are/ trying to make indie RTS games, more than I've ever seen before. * Tooth And Tail managed to look great while using pixel art. It's very high-production pixel art, but more importantly it's only one unit facing. Indie RTS costs will go down as people experiment with that. * The game randomizer community keeps building new community-run tournaments and fan commentated races. This means there's an increasing amount of talent available in the wider gaming community for organizing tournaments and commentating.

Kinrany 6y ago
> Streamers rely on their ability to self-commentate, but nobody can play an RTS while talking. For Starcraft 2 there's replay commentary. (I sometimes watch Lowko and WinterStarcraft. It's interesting how just watching pro players can unlock skills you wouldn't consider otherwise.)
- Kinrany 6y ago
  > Even back in the heyday of RTS, everyone I knew played custom maps rather than the actual RTS. I'm pretty sure that crowd is all in Roblox or modded Minecraft these days. Roblox does have a couple RTS games! They're not very good. Feels like an RTS engine could lead to an explosion and, with cross-pollination with other common mechanics, create a couple new genres.
  - kybernetikos 6y ago
    The Spring Engine is still active: https://springrts.com/ https://springrts.com/
    - Kinrany 6y ago
      Roblox/Minecraft have the advantage of networking/infrastructure being dead simple/free.
  - jack_pp 6y ago
    Haven't WC3 and SC2 been RTS engines themselves? People used them to make DotA and other mini-games, not other RTS games even though they could've. It just seems to me RTS games are like chess, not easy to get into, not easy to watch / understand unless you pour a lot of time into it. People would rather just play Catan or other not-so-try-hard social games. I think DotA is the best example of this, it's still try-hard yet somehow it strikes the perfect balance of try-hard but still easy enough that the average player can understand it and follow it.
- ajuc 6y ago
  There are some players that play while comentating. They don't usually talk a lot, and they are less competetive while comentating, but it's a thing. For example in Polish sc2 scene there's Indy who usually talks while playing and is semi-proffesional (won some small tournaments but isn't considered tier 1 like Nerchio, MaNa, Elazer).
bluescrn 6y ago
The obstacles to indie RTS games aren't art style/production related. If anything, the top-down or isometric-ish view makes that part relatively straightforward. The requirement for online multiplayer (while dealing with hundreds of units) is the bigger obstacle. Especially if they're working with Unity. Pathfinding (in a way that lets large swarms of units move smoothly through narrow choke points) is a non-trivial problem, too. Then there's the design problems. How to get away from standard build orders, and how to make a game that's more accessible than Starcraft but still allows high-level competitive play.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  You could eschew online multiplayer and just make a single player or LAN game. Most RTS games never got any real competitive play anyways because balancing is a very long and costly process. For indies it also matters that this process must be mind-numbingly boring.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    I never understood why balancing an RTS is such a difficult problem. Couldn’t you simply reduce each unit to a score that’s a combination of its cost to build, time to build, cost of buildings required to build it, speed, damage, defense, and damage per second, and make sure that all units in a class have roughly equal scores?
    - azureel 6y ago
      I think the previous comment refers to player (human) balance. Not in game unit balance. You know Elo rating, as in chess? Something like that is needed in order to match players against each other. An online multi-player game that fails the matchmaker system, will lose players eventually. Because if you match the newcomers with seasoned pros, everyone will be unhappy and churn rates will be high.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        No I think we are talking about balancing units. It’s not super satisfying to play a game with hundreds of units if only one or a handful of them are worth building.
LoSboccacc 6y ago
planetary annihilation disagrees, not that your analysis is wrong, because it touches many pain points of the rts genre, but indie succeses with simple graphic do exist. (also: castle story, darwinia, star ruler in the simple graphics and indie category, zero-k and uncountable space rts in the indie category) on the other side, Hearts Of Iron and Total War Warhammer sit quite high on steam charts, maybe not runaway success, but they aren't obscure, niche titles either, they both have more players and in-game hours than DayZ and Red Dead Redemption 2, to give you a point of reference, which were both considered hits. I think the list it's missing two major points: developing a rts cut you off the largish console market (albeit some success exist, it's an uphill battle) and a rts has both a large time commitment and skill ceiling, especially in today online dominated market, so it's a thought sell to the ever growing casual gamers market.
- bsder 6y ago
  Planetary Annihilation is the poster child for optimizing for "Twitch streaming friendly" instead of actually producing a good game.
ajuc 6y ago
In my opinion Starcraft 2 killed RTSes (just like Dota 2 and LOL killed MOBAs). With multiplayer games people can play the same title forever if it's deep enough. So new games in the same genre have to compete against a game that was made by Blizzard in 2010 and constantly developed ever since. So what happens is - people check out the new game, and either get bored (it's too similar and worse) or get discouraged (it's too different to bother learning). The only remaining market for RTS are so called "casuals" that want single player experience. But they don't engage with the game enough to justify years of gameplay development, balancing, innovative mechanics - they mostly want nice cutscenes and good graphics and beliveable dialogs and plot. And most of them won't even finish the game. They will play for a week and move on. Single player games that don't achieve cult status - are finished on the market after the first month. So for a new RTS to compete it has to be better than Starcraft 2 in multiplayer and gameplay or at least in storytelling. And that's a VERY hard thing to do for an indie studio. Risk is huge and required investment is enormous. I've had high hopes for Iron Harvest and it clearly went for the casual/single player market and did pretty well, but not well enough.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Couldn’t you argue the same thing for Facebook as the ultimate social network that will never be dethroned?
  - gota 6y ago
    Social networks are supposedly different in that the _new_ users (i.e. teenagers) are actively trying to _not_ share a platform with previous users (i.e. parents and people older than 25 in general)
    - dagw 6y ago
      Is SC2 getting a continuous stream of new users?
- candybar 6y ago
  Trying to appeal to a very small number of people that are still playing multiplayer SC2 and think of SC2 as the gold standard for RTS is a dead end. SC2 fundamentally failed with their multiplayer design due to their irrational focus on the esports and competitive aspects of multiplayer. The point of multiplayer isn't to allow hardcore fans to find ways to enjoy the game for 10+ years. The point of multiplayer from the developer's perspective is to lure in casuals and create a network effect (all my friends are playing X, so I'm gonna also learn and play X). It's more important for multiplayer games to be accessible to new players than single-player campaigns because it's part of your growth flywheel and repeated failures are easier to deal with when you're playing by yourself but SC2 gets this completely backwards. Competitive multiplayer is absurdly challenging for new players, while single-player campaigns are significantly easier even at the hardest difficulty settings.
Leherenn 6y ago
Top AoE2 players can play and talk. They get quiet during the micro intensive battles, but it's a small part of the game.
mrlala 6y ago
They Are Billions is really the only RTS I've played in ages, and it's technically not even an RTS to some degree.. it is and it isn't. But they really made a unique game so I've highly enjoyed it from time to time.

Kinrany 6y ago

> Streamers rely on their ability to self-commentate, but nobody can play an RTS while talking. For Starcraft 2 there's replay commentary. (I sometimes watch Lowko and WinterStarcraft. It's interesting how just watching pro players can unlock skills you wouldn't consider otherwise.)

Kinrany 6y ago
> Even back in the heyday of RTS, everyone I knew played custom maps rather than the actual RTS. I'm pretty sure that crowd is all in Roblox or modded Minecraft these days. Roblox does have a couple RTS games! They're not very good. Feels like an RTS engine could lead to an explosion and, with cross-pollination with other common mechanics, create a couple new genres.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  The Spring Engine is still active: https://springrts.com/ https://springrts.com/
  - Kinrany 6y ago
    Roblox/Minecraft have the advantage of networking/infrastructure being dead simple/free.
- jack_pp 6y ago
  Haven't WC3 and SC2 been RTS engines themselves? People used them to make DotA and other mini-games, not other RTS games even though they could've. It just seems to me RTS games are like chess, not easy to get into, not easy to watch / understand unless you pour a lot of time into it. People would rather just play Catan or other not-so-try-hard social games. I think DotA is the best example of this, it's still try-hard yet somehow it strikes the perfect balance of try-hard but still easy enough that the average player can understand it and follow it.
ajuc 6y ago
There are some players that play while comentating. They don't usually talk a lot, and they are less competetive while comentating, but it's a thing. For example in Polish sc2 scene there's Indy who usually talks while playing and is semi-proffesional (won some small tournaments but isn't considered tier 1 like Nerchio, MaNa, Elazer).

bluescrn 6y ago

The obstacles to indie RTS games aren't art style/production related. If anything, the top-down or isometric-ish view makes that part relatively straightforward. The requirement for online multiplayer (while dealing with hundreds of units) is the bigger obstacle. Especially if they're working with Unity. Pathfinding (in a way that lets large swarms of units move smoothly through narrow choke points) is a non-trivial problem, too. Then there's the design problems. How to get away from standard build orders, and how to make a game that's more accessible than Starcraft but still allows high-level competitive play.

yoz-y 6y ago
You could eschew online multiplayer and just make a single player or LAN game. Most RTS games never got any real competitive play anyways because balancing is a very long and costly process. For indies it also matters that this process must be mind-numbingly boring.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  I never understood why balancing an RTS is such a difficult problem. Couldn’t you simply reduce each unit to a score that’s a combination of its cost to build, time to build, cost of buildings required to build it, speed, damage, defense, and damage per second, and make sure that all units in a class have roughly equal scores?
  - azureel 6y ago
    I think the previous comment refers to player (human) balance. Not in game unit balance. You know Elo rating, as in chess? Something like that is needed in order to match players against each other. An online multi-player game that fails the matchmaker system, will lose players eventually. Because if you match the newcomers with seasoned pros, everyone will be unhappy and churn rates will be high.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      No I think we are talking about balancing units. It’s not super satisfying to play a game with hundreds of units if only one or a handful of them are worth building.

LoSboccacc 6y ago

planetary annihilation disagrees, not that your analysis is wrong, because it touches many pain points of the rts genre, but indie succeses with simple graphic do exist. (also: castle story, darwinia, star ruler in the simple graphics and indie category, zero-k and uncountable space rts in the indie category) on the other side, Hearts Of Iron and Total War Warhammer sit quite high on steam charts, maybe not runaway success, but they aren't obscure, niche titles either, they both have more players and in-game hours than DayZ and Red Dead Redemption 2, to give you a point of reference, which were both considered hits. I think the list it's missing two major points: developing a rts cut you off the largish console market (albeit some success exist, it's an uphill battle) and a rts has both a large time commitment and skill ceiling, especially in today online dominated market, so it's a thought sell to the ever growing casual gamers market.

bsder 6y ago
Planetary Annihilation is the poster child for optimizing for "Twitch streaming friendly" instead of actually producing a good game.

ajuc 6y ago

In my opinion Starcraft 2 killed RTSes (just like Dota 2 and LOL killed MOBAs). With multiplayer games people can play the same title forever if it's deep enough. So new games in the same genre have to compete against a game that was made by Blizzard in 2010 and constantly developed ever since. So what happens is - people check out the new game, and either get bored (it's too similar and worse) or get discouraged (it's too different to bother learning). The only remaining market for RTS are so called "casuals" that want single player experience. But they don't engage with the game enough to justify years of gameplay development, balancing, innovative mechanics - they mostly want nice cutscenes and good graphics and beliveable dialogs and plot. And most of them won't even finish the game. They will play for a week and move on. Single player games that don't achieve cult status - are finished on the market after the first month. So for a new RTS to compete it has to be better than Starcraft 2 in multiplayer and gameplay or at least in storytelling. And that's a VERY hard thing to do for an indie studio. Risk is huge and required investment is enormous. I've had high hopes for Iron Harvest and it clearly went for the casual/single player market and did pretty well, but not well enough.

IgorPartola 6y ago
Couldn’t you argue the same thing for Facebook as the ultimate social network that will never be dethroned?
- gota 6y ago
  Social networks are supposedly different in that the _new_ users (i.e. teenagers) are actively trying to _not_ share a platform with previous users (i.e. parents and people older than 25 in general)
  - dagw 6y ago
    Is SC2 getting a continuous stream of new users?
candybar 6y ago
Trying to appeal to a very small number of people that are still playing multiplayer SC2 and think of SC2 as the gold standard for RTS is a dead end. SC2 fundamentally failed with their multiplayer design due to their irrational focus on the esports and competitive aspects of multiplayer. The point of multiplayer isn't to allow hardcore fans to find ways to enjoy the game for 10+ years. The point of multiplayer from the developer's perspective is to lure in casuals and create a network effect (all my friends are playing X, so I'm gonna also learn and play X). It's more important for multiplayer games to be accessible to new players than single-player campaigns because it's part of your growth flywheel and repeated failures are easier to deal with when you're playing by yourself but SC2 gets this completely backwards. Competitive multiplayer is absurdly challenging for new players, while single-player campaigns are significantly easier even at the hardest difficulty settings.

Leherenn 6y ago

Top AoE2 players can play and talk. They get quiet during the micro intensive battles, but it's a small part of the game.

mrlala 6y ago

They Are Billions is really the only RTS I've played in ages, and it's technically not even an RTS to some degree.. it is and it isn't. But they really made a unique game so I've highly enjoyed it from time to time.