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RTS is dead because the moment 99% of players play online they get immediately destroyed: it's an unforgiving genre with a massive amount to learn.
by 15155 4y ago
RTS is dead because the moment 99% of players play online they get immediately destroyed: it's an unforgiving genre with a massive amount to learn.
- whatshisface 4y agoRTS newbies get immediately destroyed because RTSes are mostly dead, meaning that all online players have been playing it for decades and know a lot. An RTS with a steady influx of new players and matchmaking would work just fine, if anyone were to get one going.
- JadoJodo 4y agoDoes SC2 do rank based matchmaking?
- bombcar 4y agoIt does (and at least when it came out) it was relatively decent. The problem occurs when the game has been out long enough that all the active players are leagues ahead of a new player; either they wait forever for a match or get steamrolled.
- vkou 4y agoThere's plenty of people playing SC2 online at ~every skill level, right now. Queue times are not long at all. The main problem is that it's a 12 year-old game, that's been largely abandoned by the developer. The other main problem is that unlike a skill-based MOBA, you can't blame anyone else for your losses. The third main problem is that the game is incredibly stressful, demands 100% of your attention, and the smallest mistake can lose the game for you.
- cwillu 4y agoThis doesn't invalidate your point, but it's worth noting that SC2 had a significant balance patch released yesterday.
- htag 4y agoThe patch was put on the Player Test Realm (PTR), which is almost like an open beta. I wouldn't say that it was "released", more like pushed to staging or open beta.
- vkou 4y agoSure, and it's had a minor, but excellent balance patch earlier in the year, but it's also been more-or-less abandoned for a few years, and is quite clearly not being actively developed.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y ago>The main problem is that it's a 12 year-old game, that's been largely abandoned by the developer my brother in Christ, you got it backwards - being abandoned is the biggest blessing an old Blizzard game can receive.
- 411111111111111 4y agoCan you imagine a modern remake with up to date blizzard strategies? They'd probably add commander level and equipable commander items which grant buffs to your units. You'd have a chance of getting one item each time you win a pvp fight and you can increase the quality/rarity of the drop by using cash shop items. Oh, and the rare items might require a higher commander level... Obviously you'd also be able to buy temporary buffs to your XP gain, so you can equip them sooner. They could maybe even focus more on group pvp (i.e. 4vs4) so the whales can carry scrubs to wins. That would give them a chance of loot even if they're just there to be farmed and will make them properly fawn over the mighty whales that let them gain their pointless upgrades. Perfect whale farm.
- plushpuffin 4y agoBack when I played it, there was a 50 game skill test for new players which determined which of the major rank pools you were placed in. Those first 50 games were crazy because you were matched randomly with other new and established players, so sometimes you would play someone really good who would steamroll you in the first 5 minutes, and sometimes you got someone who had at most played the scripted campaigns against the AI and thought they could sit there for the first 30 minutes slowly building up an army. It was actually pretty fun not knowing which way it would go, and whenever we matched with newbies my partner and I got to experiment with a bunch of different strategies that would never work in a real game.
- babypuncher 4y ago> played the scripted campaigns against the AI and thought they could sit there for the first 30 minutes slowly building up an army. This right here is my fundamental problem with multiplayer RTS games. The fun I get out of them is in the slow burn long buildup, but other players always find ways to optimize the early game so they win fast and never actually get to the fun part where everyone has massive bases lobbing nukes at eachother. The fun way to play is not the optimal way to play. It's now been about 10 years since I've even bothered trying an RTS online.
- plushpuffin 4y agoYeah I've felt the same way at times, especially when the armor/weapon types make it very rock paper scissors. It wasn't as blatant in the original StarCraft, but WarCraft 3 and StarCraft 2 seemed to go hard into counters against certain types of units, so someone who either scouts a bit better than you do or picks an army composition that happens to perfectly counter yours will mop the floor with you. My partner and I had way more fun in those early games when we could stretch it out to 30-60 minutes sometimes. Once you're playing against ranked people who are there to win it's just a mad rush to the first or second tech tier.
- creakingstairs 4y ago> It wasn't as blatant in the original StarCraft It was pretty much the same as SC2, they just never told you in the UI. e.g. Dragoons do half damage to mutalisks. Yamato cannons don’t kill zealots.
- leidenfrost 4y agoRTS is dead because it's a better overall decision to make a MOBA instead. They're less niche and more fun to watch as e-sports for the casual player. RTS streams are downright boring if you're not actively competing at ranked matches.
- bombcar 4y agoMOBAs you can just watch. RTS you often need a good commenter or a really decent strategic understanding of the game.
- mesh 4y agoPersonally, I think RTSs are way easier to watch. Its easier to understand what is going on at a base level (i.e. build an army and beat the other side). MOBAs seem super confusing if you dont play. Its 30 minutes of nothing happening, and then like 15 seconds of people getting really excited and then the game is over.
- bombcar 4y agoYeah, I always found watching MOBAs boring but I never really played them; at least RTS I knew roughly what they were doing and doing better than I could.
- monkpit 4y agoI disagree that you can “just watch” MOBAs. I don’t play any MOBAs, but I will occasionally watch them. If I don’t have a commentator guiding me along to tell me what is happening (to some degree) then it makes no sense to me.
- kcb 4y agoWith MOBAs you can blame your teammates when you lose. RTSs are mostly played 1v1.
- creakingstairs 4y ago> RTS streams are downright boring if you're not actively competing at ranked matches. I disagree. A lot of Korean viewers never even touched the ranked online multiplayer when BW was mainstream esports. Heck even my dad watched it.
- cogman10 4y agoThat's a factor. But the bigger factor is it's harder to freemium an RTS without destroying the game. The fun of RTSes is the learning curve, but throw in a bunch of "you can buy a special unit for $10" and all the sudden the game balancing is destroyed. That leaves you with inconsequential things like avatar skins to sell and very few people would buy those. Couple that with the fact that new players aren't likely to spend hours online playing the game (because they get destroyed) and you've got a major problem. For me, the fun of RTSes was in single player games and lan parties.
- whatshisface 4y agoValve made millions off of team fortress hats that made your hitbox larger. I don't see why so many people think cosmetics in games can't sell.
- cogman10 4y ago> I don't see why so many people think cosmetics in games can't sell. Big difference between the cosmetics for an FPS and RTS. There aren't a lot of cosmetic options you could come up in an RTS.
- whatshisface 4y agoI can think of a lot of different ones...
- no_wizard 4y agoThis was after they sold the game at a fair price for many many years. The "freemium" play was I imagine, in part taken because sales flatlined. I remember the transition. I kinda hated it, to be honest. Not because of the drops (they were introducing hats and loot well before this) but because the influx of players were...low quality
- squeaky-clean 4y agoA large playerbase and good matchmaking could solve this. Ironically the best way for any game to get a large enough playerbase for fair matchmaking and low queue times is to go free-to-play.
- Barrin92 4y agothis wasn't always a problem though. Warcraft 3 and both Starcraft games had a large and diverse audience for a long time. From competitive players to people who enjoyed the story despite the fact that they're quite difficult multiplayer games. Elden Ring and the Souls games are difficult and even to a point intentionally alienating but have had massive success including in the mainstream. I don't know what it is but I feel there's something else going on with the rapid decline of RTS besides the difficulty.
- josephd79 4y agoElden ring and Horizon Zero Dawn are amazing solo player games. I don’t wanna play pvp multiplayer. I like Co-Op multiplayer with my buddies. Elden Ring with full game co-op would be amazing. I’d buy all the DLC they could release in a heartbeat.
- MarcoZavala 4y ago
- ThatPlayer 4y agoStarcraft 2 is the only game the thought of queueing up for a 1v1 game gets my heartrate up (ladder anxiety). It's not so much the winning or losing, but the fact that games are just 20+ minutes of full-tilt. Whether you're winning or losing, there's zero downtime because there's always something that needs to be done. Other competitive games like CS/Valorant gives you downtime in between rounds and when you die. Similarly with MOBAs, travel time in between your base and lane, when you die. Even fighting games, when you get a hit in, it's back to muscle memory for your bread and butter combo, and rounds are much shorter.
- Aerroon 4y agoOn an unrelated note, I think this lack of downtime is partly responsible for StarCraft pros suffering as much from RSI. There's no clear downtime while playing and the hands have to be going at speed the entire time.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- baud147258 4y agoAre all RTS players interested in online play? I like RTSs, played a certain number, but I've never played online. But RTS devs focusing a lot of their efforts on multiplayers, effort that are going to be wasted on a good portion of the potential market who's just not into MP and is never going to touch the online mode.
- baud147258 4y ago> I like RTSs, played a certain number, but I've never played online. I realized I wrote a mistake: I did play a handful of MP matches of World in Conflict after finishing the (very enjoyable) single-player campaign. It was fun, but not as much as the single player portion; and I never invested enough time for it to be fun.
- larksimian 4y agoI'd love to play an RTS that was APM capped somehow. Maybe in a tiered fashion. As it stands the design of SC2 style RTS is just insanely stressful. I could see something like SC2 being fun with 2-3 people playing 1 player's role at a time. 1 person on the econ, 2 people on the army. Or much better AI that you can override selectively, so if you want to handle the fighting you can, or if you want to handke the econ you can.
- creakingstairs 4y agoYou should check out Tooth and Tail! Not sure if the online scene is still going on but it has a unique take on RTS that effectively caps APM.
- intelVISA 4y agoI thought RTS died due to the ever diminishing market share of PC games vs. mobile and, to an extent, console.
- govg 4y agoPC is still king for esports and competitive gaming (outside of niches like fighting games or sports). League and Dota continue to be among the most watched events online.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago> unforgiving genre with a massive amount to learn. This also describes chess, yet that has a significant online presence.
- Arisaka1 4y agoFighting games are also driven to a niche genre due to the amount of "labbing" (training mode to build combos into your muscle memory) is required.