Poll: Base Building in RTS Genre

[Hargrimm]

I've jumped ship to 4X and Grand Strategy ages ago, because imo most RTS don't offer enough depth in either strategy or tactics for me to really enjoy them.
Supreme Commander and CoH did it right by focusing on their respective strenghts. CoH is more of a fast paced tactics game than a strategy game, but the fast paced fights offer a lot of depth with morale, cover etc. playing a major role.
In contrast, Supreme Commander focuses more on macro and it's input-output based economy rather than micromanaging your units and their abilities. You can win simply by clever economic management and army composition rather than babysitting your units.

Starcraft and those trying to emulate it on the other hand split your focus between both at the same time while also being very fast paced. The result is that both end up very shallow so as not to overtax the player, while also being very dependent on APM, which is not something I particularly enjoy or think a strategy game should be based around.

But most of the RTS games I've played with it featured are too small in scale. They're too short and action-centric. There are exceptions, I already know which ones people will suggest to me. But for the most part, while it's good to have the pressure of a nearby threat to have you balance offence and defence, you're really left to follow the quickest upgrade path and then explore during the five minutes or so it'd take your horde to reach the enemy gates. Then after that, all your hard work disappears with the Victory screen. The only recent RTS I played that really rewards base building is Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, because base upgrades performed during the invasion of a region remain during every subsequent defence, meaning that if you take your time with the first assault, you never have to worry about defending your territory again.

Also this. Most RTS are too small in scale and long term consequences are barely a factor, if at all.

 

[JemJar]

The simple fact is that people don't make RTS games nearly as much as they used to, and that's because they're amazingly easy to do badly and their core loop isn't as intrinsically compelling as, say FPS.

I respectfully disagree.

I'm forced to the opinion that a big part of the struggle for RTS development is piracy.

I wrote a huge a detailed post, but binned it, the gist is this :

Major developers (like Bioware, Valve and Crytek) have abandoned the "PC exclusive" over the past few years because it's financially treacherous to rely on sales on a platform where piracy is common place and forceful attempts at imposing DRM are met with scorn.

Therefore "PC friendly" genres such as RTS and Flight Sims are struggling badly.

This isn't to say that there aren't developers making PC exclusives (Maxis, Blizzard, Creative Assembly, Relic, SI Games*) but they're a dying breed. Ironically all the names in parentheses there are primarily (possible exception : Blizz) known for their strategy or management titles.

* = I know, there are console versions of Football Manager, but... seriously?

P.S. If anyone pulls that bullshit argument that piracy helps promote games and spread the fanbase you're a moron and the only "proof" of your argument would be if the rise of piracy had brought an increase in game sales across the board. It hasn't.

 

[purf]

Let me fix that for you:

Is Base BuildingAre Superweapons killing the genre?

Hell, yes!
I play RTSs for basebuilding, basically. I know I shouldn't and mostly this "tactic" gets me wiped out on anything other than easy, but that's not really because of my defenses being weak, but because of stuff I can't protect against. Which, for me, tastes of cheap and unfair and takes the fun out of this genre.

/opinion

 

[Lovely Mixture]

As a person who is finally getting to play Starcraft 1 for the first time. I say: No, but the way it's done can hurt games.

I was worried about the speed of mineral gathering Starcraft, and my worries were confirme. But that's not to say I don't think it's fun, it's very fun, it's just frustrating because you are required to build a lot before you fight.

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Depends on the game. Some games suit a much more combat based approach (though most of these, like World in Conflict, are actually RTT). Some games are pretty much based around base building.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

Now I haven't played that many RTS games in my lifetime, but I have played a few. My favorite being Warcraft III. For me that is the perfect RTS. The basebuilding isn't too fast, or too slow. The combat feels big enough, but you don't have hundreds of units. There are heroes who level and up collect randomly found items, like an RPG. The resource gathering pace of collecting lumber and gold. I wouldn't have changed a thing about that game, especially not the pace.

I don't think it would have been nearly as good without the base building. I used to create all these custom maps for my friends and I to play on, and playing with towers and building placement was all part of the fun. Even slowly working our way through forests by cutting down all the trees.

All about personal preferance though, I wouldn't like an RTS that is too fast-paced. Even in Civilization I turn the game speed to...heroic? Or whatever it is called. The one slower than normal, because I like a more drawn out game that I feel I don't need to rush through.

Ahhh Warcraft III <3

 

[Ironside]

I like the base building aspect in RTS's - in fact it may be my favourite part of the game. I for example absolutely loved the first Dawn of War game and its expansions, but absolutely hated the second game in the series when they removed most of what I liked about it. However I am somewhat undecided on whether base building is strictly necessary for a game like Company of Heroes (which I also loved) where I believe the combat and maneuvering the troops and whatnot is really the most enjoyable part of the game.

 

[Bad Jim]

Turtling is my favorite strategy!

Of course that's not a good thing for a game designer to encourage. The game should end with a winner, not two sides in deadlock.

Having said that though, maybe you could have a game where you turtle while your opponent tries to attack, then switch sides and see who lasts longest. A bit like the Unreal Tournament Assault mode, but in a RTS.

 

[Auron]

snip

Yeah... No, for some reason kickstarter games are racking in a profit and they're drm free, gog has a drm free policy and I don't see them complaining about piracy, Steam made games more accessible in various areas of the world with rampant piracy and it got lower in those areas where before the publishers set extremely high prices(I know, I live in Brazil.), piracy has not risen either I've been seeing it since the 90's in high abundance especially in the console market when it shifted to CD's. This bullshit about pc piracy is Epic Games and Ubisoft's discourse to justify not porting, funnily enough Epic Games has recently said that the best platform to start publishing is the PC after repeatedly saying PC gaming is dead a few years ago.


On that note, Bioware has been doing console games since MDK2, Baldur's Gate likely didn't get a console version because of other very logical reasons. Valve is just expanding into another lucrative market but their main games are still all primarily developed for the PC. Crytek was ordered by EA to make Crysis work on consoles and sadly made it much worse just to counter your examples, unless you have some very enlightening statistics that prove the contrary of course.

 

[JemJar]

snip

Yeah... No, for some reason kickstarter games are racking in a profit and they're drm free, gog has a drm free policy and I don't see them complaining about piracy, Steam made games more accessible in various areas of the world with rampant piracy and it got lower in those areas where before the publishers set extremely high prices(I know, I live in Brazil.), piracy has not risen either I've been seeing it since the 90's in high abundance especially in the console market when it shifted to CD's. This bullshit about pc piracy is Epic Games and Ubisoft's discourse to justify not porting, funnily enough Epic Games has recently said that the best platform to start publishing is the PC after repeatedly saying PC gaming is dead a few years ago.

Saying Kickstarter games are racking in a profit isn't necessarily the case as yet, they're gathering a lot of attention and a lot more funding than people really expected them to receive, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

My point wasn't really about those though, it's simply that "triple-A" PC exclusives appear to have been more common in years gone by, because publishers were more prepared to back them financially. I may well be wrong about that. But certainly there are fewer "triple-A" RTSes, and Kickstarter and the ever easier routes to get games on to Steam/GOG are helping people scratch their RTS itch with "A" and "B" alternatives.

Like Leviathan Warships, which "ain't no $60 title".

On that note, Bioware has been doing console games since MDK2, Baldur's Gate likely didn't get a console version because of other very logical reasons. Valve is just expanding into another lucrative market but their main games are still all primarily developed for the PC. Crytek was ordered by EA to make Crysis work on consoles and sadly made it much worse just to counter your examples, unless you have some very enlightening statistics that prove the contrary of course.

The jury's still out on Valve in all honesty, given that they're hardly prolific at this point in time.

EA pressuring Crytek into shifting their games to consoles is exactly my point. They're not doing it because they think it's funny to potentially crock a major IP. They're doing it because the gamble of making it "much worse" is worth it when set against the extra cash to be made, perhaps which needs to be made.

 

[Auron]

snip

There are many smaller and unknown kickstarter games already out actually, FTL, Stardrive, Banner Saga but the high profile games are still to be released, that much is true. I don't see a scenario where Wasteland Shadowrun and PE don't succeed after release but it would be possible. I think the main problem in the RTS industry like I said is no one wants to compete with Starcraft and no esports scene is going to compare for a while, save for MOBAs.

True, games native to PC were more common til the Xbox 360 or so when big franchises like Elder Scrolls started converting and pandering to consoles and the big names like Epic started proclaiming PC gaming was dead. I do not think the main reason is PC piracy though* but branching out and raking more profits, namely a great example of greed working against art. Not that consoles are bad but if games are becoming simpler to accommodate a controller then it's a problem in my book.

Valve's success allowed them to build an Empire(Steam) and they have employed a lot of ex-modders as successful developers, none of their games so far have been a miss. While there's not that much quantity neither does Blizzard. Counter Strike was the most popular competitive game in the world at a time, before cod and halo matches ruined competitive fps for ever, and is still pretty significant, don't think you can deny it's success.

About Crytek butchering Crysis into a native console title well I think it's more a matter of opening the possibilities and widening the market, they said it themselves that the games would remain the same(Not sure on that part.) back then. Also holy balls if games are bloated in cost now I imagine how much money they're throwing at them! http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/08/19/gc-2008-crysis-cost-22-million-to-make


*Believe me, I live in Brazil and I am pretty sure China and Russia are the same, I think the only normal Xbox I've ever seem is my brother's, pretty much all of them are pirate enabled. PS3 is far rarer, their copy protection was broken too late in the generation and people already had collections of games. In all fairness a game used to cost 150 to 200 dollars in Brazil so this culture has had some justification but nowadays with Steam, gog, origin Hong Kong sites selling legit console games cheap as hell it's really more of a matter of being used to it or really poor. In fact I just realized that the possible always online DRM on the xbox might be a result of these countries where they can't effectively combat piracy at all.

 

[JemJar]

True, games native to PC were more common til the Xbox 360 or so when big franchises like Elder Scrolls started converting and pandering to consoles and the big names like Epic started proclaiming PC gaming was dead. I do not think the main reason is PC piracy though* but branching out and raking more profits, namely a great example of greed working against art. Not that consoles are bad but if games are becoming simpler to accommodate a controller then it's a problem in my book.

-snip-

About Crytek butchering Crysis into a native console title...

It's hard to be entirely sure of what was said in which meetings and why, but yeah, the simplification / ruining of games by designing primarily for consoles and essentially porting back to PC is definitely there. Which is why Mass Effect is harder to play on PC than KOTOR was and Oblivion is an utterly HORRIBLE game on PC if you ever want to, you know, use your inventory screen(s) or map screen(s) or quest log screen(s) or... you get the idea. Oblivion makes me cry because it would have been a much better PC experience if they had literally copied and pasted the UI from Morrowind. Oblivion's PC UI is 100% console designed. Urgh.

I don't think any single factor can be blamed for this stuff, but piracy scares publishers and publishers therefore don't want to fund something they can't "easily" make piracy-free. Hence MMOs, multiplayer titles with complicated online key systems, evil always-on DRM etc, etc.

One very valid counter argument which might be just as important as piracy is copy-catting.

One big reason why everyone is making MMOs, FPSes and 3rd Person Action/Adventures is that it's where the big monoliths of gaming currently are. WoW, CoD and have raked in stacks of cash, so publishers want developers making those sorts of games. Look back 15 years and you've got Command and Conquer (and then Red Alert) - games which pulled in a crowd, grabbed attention and paying customers. You've got X-Wing and TIE Fighter titles bringing people to the space flight sim market.

These genres still exist, there are still some truly excellent games in that range. Shogun 2, StarCraft II, Company of Heroes errr... 2. And in the space flight sims, well there's not been much movement lately but the X series has been brilliant. Might go play some X3 Terran Conflict later.

In between times there have been some great games, with brilliant ideas and good review scores which haven't really sold. The Homeworld series. Conflict Freespace (Freespace 2 is amazing).

Maybe the cycle will come back around. Maybe another developer or two will put out top-notch RTSes, make barrels of cash and see the genre surge forwards again. But I doubt it.

*Believe me, I live in Brazil and I am pretty sure China and Russia are the same, I think the only normal Xbox I've ever seem is my brother's, pretty much all of them are pirate enabled.

This is fascinating reading.

I suppose it depends how you look at it. My understanding is that 15 years ago, very few people in the BRICS countries even had access to consoles so maybe some sales and a lot of piracy still beats no sales and no players.

To give some context from my experiences in the UK and France, I know a lot of gamers who previously have or still do play pirated PC games. I have, no point lying about it. But to my knowledge I don't know anyone who has a modded console and plays pirated console games.