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Blizzard kinda killed the RTS genre with Starcraft 1. It's basically the perfect RTS so everything that came after it seems inferior. Even Starcraft 2. There

Blizzard kinda killed the RTS genre with Starcraft 1. It's basically the perfect RTS so everything that came after it seems inferior. Even Starcraft 2. There are still niches for specialized audiences, like historical battles with a more strategic bent, but for mass market RTS nothing has been able to beat a 23 year old game.

haunter 6y ago
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- SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
  Neither is an RTS. They're MOBAs.
  - vaylian 6y ago
    True. But these Mobas are descendants og these RTSs. WarCraft 3 gave birth to Dota 1. StarCraft 1 had the Aeon of Strife map.
    - redisman 6y ago
      Sure but mobas are much closer to action RPGs than RTS games in the actual game experience. The origin story as a mod for a RTS is interesting but doesn’t lock in the genre
- dgritsko 6y ago
  Those are MOBAs, not RTS.
- the_lonely_road 6y ago
  I guess it wasn't clear but he is talking about RTS games of which your examples are MOBA games and would not apply.
- idle_zealot 6y ago
  DOTA and LoL are not RTS games; they’re MOBAs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TulliusCicero 6y ago
I love BW but it's still far from perfect. Even if things like single build select and max 12 unit select were okay at the time and worked decently within the game's design, they're still incredibly clunky choices. Honestly, even playing it in its heydey, I already disliked the 12 unit select. > It's basically the perfect RTS so everything that came after it seems inferior. Even Starcraft 2. SC2 had a bunch of design choices that seemed to reflect a shallow understanding of what made BW actually super good. Like, how incredibly tightly units clumped together should've been picked out as an obvious flaw immediately, but instead they never fixed the underlying issue and just patched up some of the negative impacts via econ changes.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  > Like, how incredibly tightly units clumped together should've been picked out as an obvious flaw immediately Pretty much everyone who used air-units in SC1 abused the "tight" formations of Muta-stacks (or other SC:BW air units). In most fights: tight formations are incredibly superior to loose formations. (Obviously Corsairs / Valkyries changed that, but typical hit-and-run tactics are better when stacked) Automatically having tight stacks in SC2 meant the skill-curve of tight formations was brought down: so that beginners can benefit from the strategy with less practice. Advanced players can still use their superior APM to loosen the formations (if they go up against anti-death ball units, like Siege Tanks or Banelings).
  - joycian 6y ago
    Are there no widely used flak/AoE weapons that heavily punish tight formations?
    - naravara 6y ago
      There are plenty. The problem is that it's created a game dynamic where battles turn in an instant. You either dodge the splash and your army melts theirs or you eat the splash and your army evaporates in a flash. The game feels really swingy and punishing when whoever gets the right angle auto-wins. In contrast to Brood War, where battles tend to unfold as an aggregate of smaller engagements happening simultaneously all around the map, Starcraft 2 hinges a lot on positional play with two giant armies dancing around and probing each other trying to engage at an advantageous position. And then once they get drawn into an engagement it's just BOOM! ZAP! POW! and it's over. If you blink you could miss it.
Jetrel 6y ago
Speak for yourself; I can't stand SC1 after all the quality-of-life features they added to 2. There's nothing dumber and more immersion-breaking than watching 15 dragoons get stuck in a small opening because the game's pathfinding is the very best the mid-90s has to offer. Or watching a reaver's scarab just ... get stuck, on the way to a target. They solved all of this crap (and a whole lot more) in SC2, and I can't go back.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  Dragoon pathing is actually a bug where the dragoons think they're smaller than they are IIRC. They just never patched it because it ended up becoming a part of the accepted balance.
  - TheCapn 6y ago
    I think its because their model changed their hitbox as they moved. So while their pathing was calculated at one point of the animation they could no longer fit and would re-path or something to that extent.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > They just never patched it because it ended up becoming a part of the accepted balance. I wish people would do this today. Release your game and let the rules be the rules. Last year, Magic: the Gathering announced "by all our metrics, we consider the metagame healthy. So we're doing something we've never done before: we're banning a bunch of cards purely for the sake of change."
dragontamer 6y ago
For a "perfect" game, Dragoon / Goliath pathing is sure awful. Starcraft 2 units really do "what you want" most of the time: automatically balling up into groups or "dancing" together. From one perspective, elite Starcraft1 players who memorized "The Magic Box" and other engine-level pathfinding behaviors saw this as an abomination: other players can gain the same skills now without practice. On the other hand... lets be frank. Dragoon / Goliath pathfinding was bullshit from Starcraft1. The extraordinary measures you'd have to take to become a competitive player who uses those (ie: Magic box memorization. Dragoon Dance practice. Etc. etc.) was fundamentally unfun. This is coming from me: someone who did put in the effort to properly dragoon dance / Muta stack / etc. etc. We all do things to seek a competitive edge against our opponents. ------------- The work / reward ratio needs to be there in some extent. But it can't be so large to turn beginners away. I'm not sure if anyone's found the proper balance yet, but Starcraft2 definitely was better from that perspective. EDIT: I'm also a big fan of fighting games. Hyper-fighters, like Blazblue or Guilty Gear, have a nice auto-balance called combo proration. Combos are clearly the best way to play, but each combo makes the rest of the combo exponentially do less damage (!!!). This means that a 50 hit combo in BlazBlue will probably only do 10% more than a 20 hit combo, despite the huge difficulty curve in executing. The bulk of the damage is from the attacks before proration kicks in. This allows for the expert-community to practice for those 50-hit combos, while not necessarily granting huge 250% bonuses over beginners. A casual player may only decide to learn the 20-hit combo and still be 90% of the way to playing like an expert (compared to experts who have to work far, far harder to get the last 10% of damage).
- TheCapn 6y ago
  I've always held that their patch/balance style is what ultimately killed SC2's scene compared to SC1. Just look at how many balance patches were required from SC2 vs. what they applied in SC1. While neither game is perfect IMO, letting the game mature without micromanaging it was a very important aspect of SCBW's success. Instead of mucking with units on a monthly basis they let things simmer and ultimately let balance be achieved through proper map design used in the competitive scene. In my personal opinion one of the biggest faults with SC2 was their unit design philosophy. The idea that every unit was viable or had some special unlock created a balance nightmare. Its been years since I played either game competitively (played iCCup in BW / Collegiate StarLeague for SC2:WoL) but I remember always feeling like the game had too much "gotcha" in it that SCBW never had. Didn't scout proxy reapers? gg. Didn't scout fast void? gg. Didn't scout x? gg. It was too much rock-paper-scissors where missing one piece of intel was death while SCBW wasn't entirely the same. Taking the Terran/Protoss matchup for example you'd typically expect the early game to be vulture+tank vs. zealot+goon where if the terran player just a-moved into the protoss it was guaranteed loss, but microing the vulture and tanks gave you the chance and arguably the upperhand where the skill of the either player determined the outcome. SC2 didn't have that to the same extent.
slowmovintarget 6y ago
I much preferred Supreme Commander, but then again, I'm not the eSports clicks-per-second type of gamer.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  I remember enjoying SupCom back in the day. I find it interesting that it still seems to have a small but loyal following thanks to ongoing, fan-driven development like Forged Alliance Forever. I can't imagine it's making anyone much money any more, but the game was good enough to build an enduring bubble around it.
confidantlake 6y ago
I watch probably 10 hours a week between SC1 and SC2. I have to agree, BW is a much better spectator sport imo. Battles take longer, there are things happening on more on the map ect. But SC2 is still a lot of fun to watch.
- nosianu 6y ago
  I watch both too and I disagree. After a while I have to stop watching SC1 games, I can continue watching SC2 for much much longer. SC1 just gets way too boring. It really is like watching chess, slow and methodical (assuming the perfect control only the top players can achieve in this game, I could not stand watching any less skilled players, other than with SC2). I appreciate the much faster games in SC2. I think SC2 game play is more significantly more varied too.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    Both are great :). I especially like TvT in Sc2. I find it is more interesting than the the SC1 counterpart.
bsder 6y ago
> Blizzard kinda killed the RTS genre with Starcraft 1. It's basically the perfect RTS so everything that came after it seems inferior. Even Starcraft 2. The overall market killed the RTS genre because everybody has a pretty clear idea of exactly how much money you're going to make selling an RTS and it's not that high. RTS games don't port well to consoles or mobile, and that's the majority of people and revenue. Blizzard killed the RTS genre by completely optimizing for e-sports click-fests at the expense of everything else. A pox on their house.
mobilio 6y ago
I still play SC1:BW Remastered almost every day. It's PERFECT!
rubidium 6y ago
AoE2 is another 20+ year old game that has experienced a renaissance due to new updates.
mdoms 6y ago
Yikes. I'm a very keen RTS player and I couldn't disagree with this any more strongly. Starcraft is a very milquetoast RTS that follows a basic formula and takes no risks. It's the Marvel movie of RTS games.

haunter 6y ago

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
Neither is an RTS. They're MOBAs.
- vaylian 6y ago
  True. But these Mobas are descendants og these RTSs. WarCraft 3 gave birth to Dota 1. StarCraft 1 had the Aeon of Strife map.
  - redisman 6y ago
    Sure but mobas are much closer to action RPGs than RTS games in the actual game experience. The origin story as a mod for a RTS is interesting but doesn’t lock in the genre
dgritsko 6y ago
Those are MOBAs, not RTS.
the_lonely_road 6y ago
I guess it wasn't clear but he is talking about RTS games of which your examples are MOBA games and would not apply.
idle_zealot 6y ago
DOTA and LoL are not RTS games; they’re MOBAs.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

TulliusCicero 6y ago

I love BW but it's still far from perfect. Even if things like single build select and max 12 unit select were okay at the time and worked decently within the game's design, they're still incredibly clunky choices. Honestly, even playing it in its heydey, I already disliked the 12 unit select. > It's basically the perfect RTS so everything that came after it seems inferior. Even Starcraft 2. SC2 had a bunch of design choices that seemed to reflect a shallow understanding of what made BW actually super good. Like, how incredibly tightly units clumped together should've been picked out as an obvious flaw immediately, but instead they never fixed the underlying issue and just patched up some of the negative impacts via econ changes.

dragontamer 6y ago
> Like, how incredibly tightly units clumped together should've been picked out as an obvious flaw immediately Pretty much everyone who used air-units in SC1 abused the "tight" formations of Muta-stacks (or other SC:BW air units). In most fights: tight formations are incredibly superior to loose formations. (Obviously Corsairs / Valkyries changed that, but typical hit-and-run tactics are better when stacked) Automatically having tight stacks in SC2 meant the skill-curve of tight formations was brought down: so that beginners can benefit from the strategy with less practice. Advanced players can still use their superior APM to loosen the formations (if they go up against anti-death ball units, like Siege Tanks or Banelings).
- joycian 6y ago
  Are there no widely used flak/AoE weapons that heavily punish tight formations?
  - naravara 6y ago
    There are plenty. The problem is that it's created a game dynamic where battles turn in an instant. You either dodge the splash and your army melts theirs or you eat the splash and your army evaporates in a flash. The game feels really swingy and punishing when whoever gets the right angle auto-wins. In contrast to Brood War, where battles tend to unfold as an aggregate of smaller engagements happening simultaneously all around the map, Starcraft 2 hinges a lot on positional play with two giant armies dancing around and probing each other trying to engage at an advantageous position. And then once they get drawn into an engagement it's just BOOM! ZAP! POW! and it's over. If you blink you could miss it.

Jetrel 6y ago

Speak for yourself; I can't stand SC1 after all the quality-of-life features they added to 2. There's nothing dumber and more immersion-breaking than watching 15 dragoons get stuck in a small opening because the game's pathfinding is the very best the mid-90s has to offer. Or watching a reaver's scarab just ... get stuck, on the way to a target. They solved all of this crap (and a whole lot more) in SC2, and I can't go back.

TulliusCicero 6y ago
Dragoon pathing is actually a bug where the dragoons think they're smaller than they are IIRC. They just never patched it because it ended up becoming a part of the accepted balance.
- TheCapn 6y ago
  I think its because their model changed their hitbox as they moved. So while their pathing was calculated at one point of the animation they could no longer fit and would re-path or something to that extent.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > They just never patched it because it ended up becoming a part of the accepted balance. I wish people would do this today. Release your game and let the rules be the rules. Last year, Magic: the Gathering announced "by all our metrics, we consider the metagame healthy. So we're doing something we've never done before: we're banning a bunch of cards purely for the sake of change."

dragontamer 6y ago

For a "perfect" game, Dragoon / Goliath pathing is sure awful. Starcraft 2 units really do "what you want" most of the time: automatically balling up into groups or "dancing" together. From one perspective, elite Starcraft1 players who memorized "The Magic Box" and other engine-level pathfinding behaviors saw this as an abomination: other players can gain the same skills now without practice. On the other hand... lets be frank. Dragoon / Goliath pathfinding was bullshit from Starcraft1. The extraordinary measures you'd have to take to become a competitive player who uses those (ie: Magic box memorization. Dragoon Dance practice. Etc. etc.) was fundamentally unfun. This is coming from me: someone who did put in the effort to properly dragoon dance / Muta stack / etc. etc. We all do things to seek a competitive edge against our opponents. ------------- The work / reward ratio needs to be there in some extent. But it can't be so large to turn beginners away. I'm not sure if anyone's found the proper balance yet, but Starcraft2 definitely was better from that perspective. EDIT: I'm also a big fan of fighting games. Hyper-fighters, like Blazblue or Guilty Gear, have a nice auto-balance called combo proration. Combos are clearly the best way to play, but each combo makes the rest of the combo exponentially do less damage (!!!). This means that a 50 hit combo in BlazBlue will probably only do 10% more than a 20 hit combo, despite the huge difficulty curve in executing. The bulk of the damage is from the attacks before proration kicks in. This allows for the expert-community to practice for those 50-hit combos, while not necessarily granting huge 250% bonuses over beginners. A casual player may only decide to learn the 20-hit combo and still be 90% of the way to playing like an expert (compared to experts who have to work far, far harder to get the last 10% of damage).

TheCapn 6y ago
I've always held that their patch/balance style is what ultimately killed SC2's scene compared to SC1. Just look at how many balance patches were required from SC2 vs. what they applied in SC1. While neither game is perfect IMO, letting the game mature without micromanaging it was a very important aspect of SCBW's success. Instead of mucking with units on a monthly basis they let things simmer and ultimately let balance be achieved through proper map design used in the competitive scene. In my personal opinion one of the biggest faults with SC2 was their unit design philosophy. The idea that every unit was viable or had some special unlock created a balance nightmare. Its been years since I played either game competitively (played iCCup in BW / Collegiate StarLeague for SC2:WoL) but I remember always feeling like the game had too much "gotcha" in it that SCBW never had. Didn't scout proxy reapers? gg. Didn't scout fast void? gg. Didn't scout x? gg. It was too much rock-paper-scissors where missing one piece of intel was death while SCBW wasn't entirely the same. Taking the Terran/Protoss matchup for example you'd typically expect the early game to be vulture+tank vs. zealot+goon where if the terran player just a-moved into the protoss it was guaranteed loss, but microing the vulture and tanks gave you the chance and arguably the upperhand where the skill of the either player determined the outcome. SC2 didn't have that to the same extent.

slowmovintarget 6y ago

I much preferred Supreme Commander, but then again, I'm not the eSports clicks-per-second type of gamer.

Silhouette 6y ago
I remember enjoying SupCom back in the day. I find it interesting that it still seems to have a small but loyal following thanks to ongoing, fan-driven development like Forged Alliance Forever. I can't imagine it's making anyone much money any more, but the game was good enough to build an enduring bubble around it.

confidantlake 6y ago

I watch probably 10 hours a week between SC1 and SC2. I have to agree, BW is a much better spectator sport imo. Battles take longer, there are things happening on more on the map ect. But SC2 is still a lot of fun to watch.

nosianu 6y ago
I watch both too and I disagree. After a while I have to stop watching SC1 games, I can continue watching SC2 for much much longer. SC1 just gets way too boring. It really is like watching chess, slow and methodical (assuming the perfect control only the top players can achieve in this game, I could not stand watching any less skilled players, other than with SC2). I appreciate the much faster games in SC2. I think SC2 game play is more significantly more varied too.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  Both are great :). I especially like TvT in Sc2. I find it is more interesting than the the SC1 counterpart.

bsder 6y ago

> Blizzard kinda killed the RTS genre with Starcraft 1. It's basically the perfect RTS so everything that came after it seems inferior. Even Starcraft 2. The overall market killed the RTS genre because everybody has a pretty clear idea of exactly how much money you're going to make selling an RTS and it's not that high. RTS games don't port well to consoles or mobile, and that's the majority of people and revenue. Blizzard killed the RTS genre by completely optimizing for e-sports click-fests at the expense of everything else. A pox on their house.

mobilio 6y ago

I still play SC1:BW Remastered almost every day. It's PERFECT!

rubidium 6y ago

AoE2 is another 20+ year old game that has experienced a renaissance due to new updates.

mdoms 6y ago

Yikes. I'm a very keen RTS player and I couldn't disagree with this any more strongly. Starcraft is a very milquetoast RTS that follows a basic formula and takes no risks. It's the Marvel movie of RTS games.