Designing a Strategy Game

[SoliterDan]

So, I'm terrible with creating an interesting way of starting a discussion, so I'll just be as blunt as possible:
People of Escapist what do you find annoying/pleasing in an Strategy game (RTS, TBS, grand, no matter)? What do you consider to be a good game design and a bad one when dealing with them?

Discuss

 

[Xprimentyl]

I?ll qualify my comments first by saying I am in no way, shape or form a fan of RTSs, but you did offer that we could talk about what we find annoying, so here goes?

Everything.

RTSs just feel like work to me. They?re painfully slow to build as you slog through the mundanity of gathering resources and building up your forces, then once you get to the actual gameplay (using that term severely loosely,) you?re juggling bowling bowls, putting out fires and jumping all over the screen until ultimately you or your opponent fail at one of any dozens of task you?re supposed to be managing and all that effort collapses. And all the while, you?re not DOING any of it; you?re pointing and clicking and watching as the ants on your screen go about following your orders. Hell, I?m multitasking 5 days a week at my job; the last thing I want to do when I?ve got time to play a videogame is the same shit, but for no pay. Maybe if my job was as a lab rat testing experiemental anesthesia for the FDA, I might throw in an RTS to bring my heart rate back up, but other than that, you can keep ?em.

 

[SoliterDan]

Everything.

RTSs just feel like work to me. They?re painfully slow to build as you slog through the mundanity of gathering resources and building up your forces, then once you get to the actual gameplay (using that term severely loosely,) you?re juggling bowling bowls, putting out fires and jumping all over the screen until ultimately you or your opponent fail at one of any dozens of task you?re supposed to be managing and all that effort collapses. And all the while, you?re not DOING any of it; you?re pointing and clicking and watching as the ants on your screen go about following your orders. Hell, I?m multitasking 5 days a week at my job; the last thing I want to do when I?ve got time to play a videogame is the same shit, but for no pay. Maybe if my job was as a lab rat testing experiemental anesthesia for the FDA, I might throw in an RTS to bring my heart rate back up, but other than that, you can keep ?em.

Fair enough, man. Though, if you would make a strategy game, how would you change this all?

 

[Redryhno]

Well, sorta depends on what you're talking about with scale. Grand strategy, I sorta dislike alot of their end-games simply because you're micromanaging a bunch of tiny units spread across an entire map. It gets a bit tedious. RTS, I dislike how build orders become a meta,and I'm shit at them because I don't particularly seem to get the shortcut keys. Turn-Based, if you have to click multiple times for a single action, you nearly lose me, or if you call yourself turn-based and pull a Final Fantasy with your combat system, you've lost my respect completely.

But what I like...I just like making decisions and having them actually matter. Dwarf Fortress is about planning out what you can do with what you get, and is alot of what makes it fun when you decide to settle in a Haunted Yellowstone equivalent. You might build a great gigantic mountain home, or you might be a dinky little trade hub because you tunneled into an ancient crypt and are constantly trying to keep the hell portals blocked off. Darkest Dungeon, I will pretty much always take a Bounty Hunter if I can, simply because they're a nearly perfect mix of utility and damage simply because of how they can fuck with positioning in a game that's all about positioning(also how badass is it for a normal dude to regularly be punching Eldritch horrors to death?). Stellaris and Crusader Kings, you consolidate power bases through such simple actions when you think about them, and just go as far as you want. Like, how many games can you say you "won" through marrying into a family, fixing inheritence laws, and making the right people despise that family so that they gave the land to yours when it came time for them to pass on the land? Xcom, just a game of playing the percentages and forcing a system that's stacked against you(if you're actually playing it on the difficulty it was meant to be played) to play your game, your way.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Snixt

Fair enough, man. Though, if you would make a strategy game, how would you change this all?

I?m not sure how I could change an RTS enough to my liking and it still be an RTS; the fundamental nature of RTSs is why I don?t like them. They have a lot of components to be enjoyed individually, but tasking me to task others to do them all at once isn?t a ?game.? I understand that they appeal to many people, I just lack the mental capacity to see why. I?ve only played ONE RTS through to completion and that was Halo Wars, and let me tell you, it was childbirth. I don?t think I enjoyed a single moment of it, but being a hapless Halo fan, I felt obligated to finish it. And from what I understand, Halo Wars is like ?Baby?s First RTS? compared to the real hardcore ones, so that solidifies the fact that I?ll never play another one.

Maybe RTSs could be improved with a common sense level of autonomy from individual units? In my experience, I would send fighting unit ?X? off to one end of the map to engage a target. Then over the course of however many minutes, my attention is spread thinner and thinner as I?m scrambling to maintain everything, shit starts to hit the fan, and then, oh look, over here in Bumfuck, Egypt, ?X? is sitting there with their thumbs up their asses because I didn?t highlight them and specifically TELL them to join in the fray happening one screen over. I don?t know, maybe some RTSs have already addressed this issue, but I?ll never know. And perhaps that autonomy takes away from the RTS experience so many enjoy?

Another possible improvement might be to make them faster. The ?strategy? aspect is lost on me when a slow, 10-15 minute build ends in complete disaster around minute 17. I?d much rather know my strategy failed sooner rather than later. This was done well in the very first Rainbow Six on PC back in the late ?90s early 2000s(?); they separated the prep work from the action. You?d have a mission, you?re given an overview of the map with enemies and objectives, you?d pick your 3-4 man team (iirc) plot waypoints for your individual units, etc. Basically, you?d set your very detailed plan, then hit a ?Play? button and you could participate in the action or let the AI execute, but it was pass/fail within minutes; if it failed, you?d go back to the drawing board and try again. It was none of this send Sgt. Pile down to the nearest 7/11 for more bullets while his unit is actively under attack. But that removes the ?Real-Time? aspect of RTSs, again subverting what I?m sure folks love about them.

TL;DR:

Essentially, I wasted your time for the second post in a row. My apologies, but I do love to hate RTSs.

 

[SoliterDan]

I still have Tiberium Wars installed, and haven't felt the urge to get back to it because of the Croatian "War on three fronts" kind of mission. In order to beat it I feel I'll have to spend quite a bit of time just dedicated to memorizing the hot keys that will allow me to make the necessary commands fast enough to succeeed. If that sentence sounded long-winded, then that's exactly how I feel playing the game is, but it's still in the back of my mind.

If I had nothing else to play I'd be more inclined to tackle it properly, but like Xprimentl said it still mostly feels like a chore, with the hot key hurdle for me personally. I really need to be in that mindset, which would involve a decent amount of vacation for starters.

 

[Saelune]

Clarity. I keep trying to get into various strategy games for whatever reason, but alot of them I have no idea what to do, nothing is clear, and its just like...UGH.

(Hourish Long)

The video focuses on board games, but many board games are strategy games, and they mention how games like Europa Universalis is painfully complicated, and basically require being taught by a veteran player...and even that doesnt help much.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Yes, totally agreed!

Someone please help me with this phrase I?m thinking of that?s escaping me right now. It?s fairly common and roughly defined as the degree of skill a game requires from the very beginning (or very quickly) for a player to be proficient? It?s not ?learning curve,? but I guess they?re closely related. For example, games that teach you the basics with an overt, point-to-point, in-game tutorial (low [phrase]) versus a games like Dark souls that tell you nothing, outright punish you for your ignorance but remain mechanically basic enough that a reasonably seasoned gamer can eventually ?get it? (medium [phrase],) or games like, well, 99% of RTSs that are overly complex and require intimate knowledge and instant recall of said knowledge of myriad mechanics on a routine basis (bullshit [phrase].) If RTSs could find a way to lessen their [phrase I can?t think of that?s driving me insane] without sacrificing their fundaments, I?d be more willing to give them a break, I dare say perhaps even an honest trrrrrrrrryI can?t say it! Will. Never. Happen.

 

[SoliterDan]

Maybe RTSs could be improved with a common sense level of autonomy from individual units? In my experience, I would send fighting unit ?X? off to one end of the map to engage a target. Then over the course of however many minutes, my attention is spread thinner and thinner as I?m scrambling to maintain everything, shit starts to hit the fan, and then, oh look, over here in Bumfuck, Egypt, ?X? is sitting there with their thumbs up their asses because I didn?t highlight them and specifically TELL them to join in the fray happening one screen over. I don?t know, maybe some RTSs have already addressed this issue, but I?ll never know. And perhaps that autonomy takes away from the RTS experience so many enjoy?

Hm...There is a strategy sub-genre called "Indirect control strategy" where you don't have any command over your units and have to lure them via rewards and such. Majesty is a good example of this, have you tried it?

Clarity. I keep trying to get into various strategy games for whatever reason, but alot of them I have no idea what to do, nothing is clear, and its just like...UGH.

The video focuses on board games, but many board games are strategy games, and they mention how games like Europa Universalis is painfully complicated, and basically require being taught by a veteran player...and even that doesnt help much.

Though you're correct (to some extent) and I also don't like Grand Strategies for this very reason, a lot of these problems, IMO, come not from the lack of clarity, but because of bad tutorials or players in-desire to actually learn the rules. There are of course, a lot of exceptions, but usually, complex rules are required to simulate complex things, like EU.

 

[SoliterDan]

I'm also reading you all and baffled that no one here mentioned TBS (turn-based strategies) in any way. A lot of Xprimentyl's problems are if not solved in there, then definitely are eased due to not going in real time.

 

[Bad Jim]

Fair enough, man. Though, if you would make a strategy game, how would you change this all?

I've seen the argument before, on a long, well thought out post on a SupCom board that I've subsequently failed to find, that you want a linear army expansion rather than exponential. In most RTS games, one worker lost early on snowballs into a steep economic disadvantage. But if you are given units at a fixed rate, minor losses become less important. Thus, there is less emphasis on getting small things right and more emphasis on the strategy.

A downside is that map control becomes less important, because controlling resources is most of the battle in a traditional RTS. I think you could still have map resources though, for example you could have control points that enabled you to make units that did +10% more damage or had a shield. One important consideration is countering the 'blob' strategy, as a large map with numerous resources is difficult to control without splitting forces. You have to make sure that controlling the map is more valuable than putting all your units in a blob.

 

[Bad Jim]

This was done well in the very first Rainbow Six on PC back in the late ?90s early 2000s(?); they separated the prep work from the action.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. You could spend like three hours carefully placing buildings and units on half a map, play it online against someone, then tweak your design instead of throwing it out wholesale and building anew each game. It would be like building a Magic the Gathering deck, hopefully without having to buy units and buildings as DLC.