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[Frocto]

I was just a little amazed that ol' macka outright rejected it on the grounds of "I hate it absolutely"

SOUNDS LIKE ADDICT BEHAVIOUR TO ME

[Brentai]

I don't know an RTS from a hole in the ground but there seems to be some kind of game design discussion going on here so of course I'm going to say a bunch of stuff without basically knowing anything.

ON STREAMLINING MICROMANAGEMENT: They did that.  It was called Warcraft 3.  StarCraft, meanwhile, is the RTS for the ultra-hardcore; it's the game that the generally coke-addled Koreans play as their national sport, and you can damn well bet they take their superhuman mouseclicking abilities seriously.  If you don't serve that audience, you're not making a StarCraft game.  If you don't like it, then like a comic involving a cat in a top hat, it isn't for you.  Which is pretty much what Kayin said now that I reread the topic.

ON THE PERCEIVED LACK OF INNOVATION: Remember when WoW was brand new?  Okay, yes, that may be a tall order, but think about it for a minute.  The worst criticism leveraged at that game was that it was basically exactly like every other MMORPG at the time.  The best praise it got is that it was exactly like every other MMORPG at the time, but much more refined in most respects.  Those guys have proven before that you need only kill the category to make unfavorable comparisons to its peers impossible, and they're more than set to do that again here.

ON SKILL LEVELS: The only games that successfully allowed players of all skill levels to play together are the ones that introduced random bul*trip*

FUCK

Random bullshit.  I don't think that is going to fly here.  At all.  Ever.

If you're going to make a game that's meant to be played at tournaments then you're going to have to accept the fact that an amateur must never in any waAAAAAAUGH CRIT NOOB

...

*respawn* any way be nearly on the same level as a pro.  Basically what I'm saying is, I get that your favorite games are the ones that allow everyone to have fun together; that doesn't make them the "best".  Hell, by that metric, Chess would come in far behind Candyland.

Though Mongrel does make a point: amateurs will still play chess, at the least against other amateurs.  You don't see many scrubs in SC1 though.

On AI: Who cares?

I think that's enough for now.  I'm going to go check to make sure my rabites aren't all gathered in front of the ship, gridlocked until I tell one to just move the other direction for a turn and let the guys with the Gaia Stones get the fuck in, Jesus Christ.

[Büge]

-Auto-bunkering too would be annoying as hell.  I can imagine lots of situations where you units get out of position because the AI goes 'oh no, let ME handle this :D'  And if it was an option you could turn on or off, it wouldn't be much better than just highlighting a few marines and clicking the bunker.

I think Frocto may be referring to the ability that Orc Burrows had in Warcraft III, where you could click the 'Battle Stations' button and peons would drop what they were doing and dive in so they could throw sticks at the enemy.

[Mongrel]

That's like the town bell ability in Age of Empires III. Basically, there's a button at the town hall you can click if your base is being attacked, to make all your villagers run and garrison inside the town hall or a watchtower (whatever's closest). When you unclick the button, they all run out back to whatever task they were performing previously (it's not perfect, but definitely saves on re-tasking time).

While Det and Brent are mostly right, I think that in conventional Starcraft-style RTS, some automation is appropriate sometimes. But in that case the criteria are a little different.

Basically I think it's worth looking at (note that I'm saying looking at, not implementing - you would still have to judge implementation on a case-by-case basis) automating any tasks that are mind-numbingly tedious.  

@ Brent: I'm on record elsewhere as being a member of the camp that says luck is an integral part of games. Like filthy socialism to pure Godly capitalism, the exact ratio of luck to skill in a given game will always be a measure of vicious debate. But it has it's place.

Not just so a designer can pander to the CRITNOOB GLORY crowd, but also because a) there are skilled players who love battling impossible odds and winning. Not just made-up 4v1 handicap matches, but a REAL impossible situation no one could foresee, and b) In real life, shit happens. Or CRAZY WHAT THE HELL I DON'T EVEN happens. Some people genuinely like games that reflect that fact.

Not saying every game should have a luck component, or that everybody enjoys 'a' or 'b' but the more variables a game has, the more I lean toward having some random element involved.

[Bal]

WarIII had the town hall button too. It turned all your peasants into militia for a limited period of time. Everyone had some kind of defensive mechanism like that attached to basic structures. Undead had the earliest access to towers, Night Elves had an autocast heal on moon wells and buildings that fought back, and the other two have already been mentioned. Then, of course, you should have your hero in play by then as well.

[Makaris]

That's like the town bell ability in Age of Empires III. Basically, there's a button at the town hall you can click if your base is being attacked, to make all your villagers run and garrison inside the town hall or a watchtower (whatever's closest). When you unclick the button, they all run out back to whatever task they were performing previously (it's not perfect, but definitely saves on re-tasking time).

While Det and Brent are mostly right, I think that in conventional Starcraft-style RTS, some automation is appropriate sometimes. But in that case the criteria are a little different.

Basically I think it's worth looking at (note that I'm saying looking at, not implementing - you would still have to judge implementation on a case-by-case basis) automating any tasks that are mind-numbingly tedious.  

@ Brent: I'm on record elsewhere as being a member of the camp that says luck is an integral part of games. Like filthy socialism to pure Godly capitalism, the exact ratio of luck to skill in a given game will always be a measure of vicious debate. But it has it's place.

Not just so a designer can pander to the CRITNOOB GLORY crowd, but also because a) there are skilled players who love battling impossible odds and winning. Not just made-up 4v1 handicap matches, but a REAL impossible situation no one could foresee, and b) In real life, shit happens. Or CRAZY WHAT THE HELL I DON'T EVEN happens. Some people genuinely like games that reflect that fact.

Not saying every game should have a luck component, or that everybody enjoys 'a' or 'b' but the more variables a game has, the more I lean toward having some random element involved.

The thing is Mongrel, when you are playing in a game that does not have perfect information, randomness doesn't have much of a point.  You don't know what your opponent is doing, so you have to scout to find out.  There is considerable depth right there.  What would be the point of having that depth if you might not benefit from your intel with random damage, or whatever?

In essence, having a game where you do not have all the information you need to make informed decisions is the perfect kind of 'randomness' a competitive game can have and still be good.

Basically, if you're aiming to make a competitive game, you want as little randomness as possible (or at the very most, very well considered randomness in small doses), preferably none.

If you're just making a game for general consumption where you don't care if it lasts for years and years (and years and years), then go ahead.

TF2's sorta a bad example in this regard as the community is divided over modding out crits or not; dividing the community isn't a good thing.

-

Also, you shouldn't be spamming bunkers to the extent where you would need to have that sort of automation.  It encourages players to turtle more than they should... and usually you don't want just whatever ol' unit to get into that bunker, you want to pick specific units due to low health, or damage output you want to protect.  It's not like the AoE3 or War3 examples where there just this one type of unit that is useless otherwise and of course you'd want to put them in the structure where they can fight.  It's a completely different situation!

Consider the Peon.  Nearly 100% of the time you would want to get him into that protected structure where he is safe AND deals more damage.  There isn't much of a game there.

Now consider the Bunker.  You need to decide what ground units go into it, and this can be an important decision.  It's not a no-brainer like with the Peon.  There is a game here.  You could add the automation anyway and deal whatever units get into the bunker first, but I see that as a crutch for bad play that I'd rather not encourage.  Be glad you have production queues!

And auto burrowing is bad, out right.  Sorry!  It would require a total revamp of the mechanic which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

[Mongrel]

WarIII had the town hall button too. It turned all your peasants into militia for a limited period of time. Everyone had some kind of defensive mechanism like that attached to basic structures. Undead had the earliest access to towers, Night Elves had an autocast heal on moon wells and buildings that fought back, and the other two have already been mentioned. Then, of course, you should have your hero in play by then as well.

Say, what do you folks think of what was often complained about with WCIII, Hero-dependent armies?

Basically, the complaints go like this:

"WCIII sucks because if you lose the race for leveling up your hero, you lose the match.

If two players in the same skill bracket clash in the early or early-mid game, and one manages to survive with his hero more-or-less intact and the other has his hero flattened, the fellow who lost his hero only falls further behind in leveling up. Barring egregious mistakes or serious mismanagement on the part of the player with the higher-level hero, the match is now effectively over."

Now, I didn't play much WCIII multiplayer, and what multiplayer I did play was pretty early in that game's history. I could see what the complainers were talking about, but was it just justified? Was it just hack players bitching? Or was it something that was initially a valid compolaint that became invalid over time as strategies developed to deal with the problem?

Having dropped WCIII only a few months after it came out, I'm just kinda wondering where that went.

That's like the town bell ability in Age of Empires III. Basically, there's a button at the town hall you can click if your base is being attacked, to make all your villagers run and garrison inside the town hall or a watchtower (whatever's closest). When you unclick the button, they all run out back to whatever task they were performing previously (it's not perfect, but definitely saves on re-tasking time).

While Det and Brent are mostly right, I think that in conventional Starcraft-style RTS, some automation is appropriate sometimes. But in that case the criteria are a little different.

Basically I think it's worth looking at (note that I'm saying looking at, not implementing - you would still have to judge implementation on a case-by-case basis) automating any tasks that are mind-numbingly tedious.  

@ Brent: I'm on record elsewhere as being a member of the camp that says luck is an integral part of games. Like filthy socialism to pure Godly capitalism, the exact ratio of luck to skill in a given game will always be a measure of vicious debate. But it has it's place.

Not just so a designer can pander to the CRITNOOB GLORY crowd, but also because a) there are skilled players who love battling impossible odds and winning. Not just made-up 4v1 handicap matches, but a REAL impossible situation no one could foresee, and b) In real life, shit happens. Or CRAZY WHAT THE HELL I DON'T EVEN happens. Some people genuinely like games that reflect that fact.

Not saying every game should have a luck component, or that everybody enjoys 'a' or 'b' but the more variables a game has, the more I lean toward having some random element involved.

The thing is Mongrel, when you are playing in a game that does not have perfect information, randomness doesn't have much of a point.  You don't know what your opponent is doing, so you have to scout to find out.  There is considerable depth right there.  What would be the point of having that depth if you might not benefit from your intel with random damage, or whatever?

In essence, having a game where you do not have all the information you need to make informed decisions is the perfect kind of 'randomness' a competitive game can have and still be good.

Basically, if you're aiming to make a competitive game, you want as little randomness as possible (or at the very most, very well considered randomness in small doses), preferably none.

If you're just making a game for general consumption where you don't care if it lasts for years and years (and years and years), then go ahead.

TF2's sorta a bad example in this regard as the community is divided over modding out crits or not; dividing the community isn't a good thing.

-

Also, you shouldn't be spamming bunkers to the extent where you would need to have that sort of automation.

And auto burrowing is bad, out right.  Sorry!  It would require a total revamp of the mechanic which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

Well, my perspective is formed by non-videogame games as well, where luck is a factor in more obvious ways.

I'd actually agree that imperfect information is the best way to implement a random chance factor in RTS games. That's what's appropriate to an RTS's structure. Randomized damage (other than some minor baseline variability, which is present in any modern RTS) is stupid.

So in that regard, we agree, we're just calling it different things.

[Makaris]

Sure, thats fine!   

I generally just prefer guessing games where I only have myself to blame if it doesn't turn out right.  When there is randomness involved, it just tends to skew the whole game in my mind to something I can't really take too seriously.

[Frocto]

It would require a total revamp of the mechanic which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

This is a topic that probably deserves its own multi-page discussion, but I don't think, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," doesn't really apply to videogames and the world of yearly updates.

I mean...

It would require a total revamp of Starcraft which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

or

It would require a total revamp of Street Fighter 2 which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

and so on. I don't actually think there's anything wrong with trying new things just because the current system works fine. Who is this "not worth it" to, exactly?

[Mothra]

gaycraft II more like

[Büge]

Say, what do you folks think of what was often complained about with WCIII, Hero-dependent armies?

Basically, the complaints go like this:

"WCIII sucks because if you lose the race for leveling up your hero, you lose the match.

If two players in the same skill bracket clash in the early or early-mid game, and one manages to survive with his hero more-or-less intact and the other has his hero flattened, the fellow who lost his hero only falls further behind in leveling up. Barring egregious mistakes or serious mismanagement on the part of the player with the higher-level hero, the match is now effectively over."

Now, I didn't play much WCIII multiplayer, and what multiplayer I did play was pretty early in that game's history. I could see what the complainers were talking about, but was it just justified? Was it just hack players bitching? Or was it something that was initially a valid compolaint that became invalid over time as strategies developed to deal with the problem?

Having dropped WCIII only a few months after it came out, I'm just kinda wondering where that went.

I would say that's justified, at least in part. I do remember having to really rush the hero out of the gate and take down some creeps early on, because the other players would be doing the same. The game is very hero-focused. I can't recall if there was any possible way to win without using your hero.

[Bal]

No, there was no way to win without your hero, and the Altar was one of the first buildings built in everyone's build order for every race. It wasn't a choice whether or not you got a hero, just which hero you got, and even then the actually competitive heroes were not as varied as you would hope (ideally all of them should be, of course).

The thing about losing your hero early being the end of the match is true, but then no one good ever lost their hero that early. The bigger concern for higher tier players was that coming out second best in any conflict could put the enemy hero ahead, due to how they leveled. In reality, pro level WarIII games were usually very short, very skirmish based games with both sides being careful with every unit.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having to be that careful, but it didn't dovetail very well with the otherwise conventional RTS mechanics on display. Take Dawn of War II for example. It has a very important commander, and each unit is vitally important to keep alive, but the mechanics surrounding that are much better suited to that kind of gameplay.

[Mongrel]

I just didn't like it because it almost seemed to make every other unit in the game feel almost irrelevant. That and yeah, losing the level-up race was EVERYTHING.

I mean, I really don't enjoy DotA at all, but DotA was absolutely the way that line of thinking should have been implemented.

[Bal]

Actually, nearly every unit in WarIII had an activated ability of one kind or another, so they were far from irrelevant, but the leveling game really was too huge.

Funny story, WarIII was originally going to be a lot like a story driven DotA with you controlling only your hero and maybe a small number of units through larger levels, resulting in something between an RTS and, like, Diablo. They decided that was stupid and so did some other stupid thing instead.

[Mongrel]

EDIT: I would actually like to see more heavy micro/little to no macro skirmish-size RTSes published. Like armies vary between roughly 5-20 units.

[Kayin]

It would require a total revamp of the mechanic which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

This is a topic that probably deserves its own multi-page discussion, but I don't think, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," doesn't really apply to videogames and the world of yearly updates.

I mean...

It would require a total revamp of Starcraft which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

or

It would require a total revamp of Street Fighter 2 which isn't worth it as it's clearly proven itself to be well balanced.

and so on. I don't actually think there's anything wrong with trying new things just because the current system works fine. Who is this "not worth it" to, exactly?

Silly point. Starcraft received TONS of balance patches. The game is balanced. No reason to totally remodel a mechanic THAT ISN'T EVEN AN ISSUE because Frocto doesn't want to click burrow occasionally. No one who wasn't going to quit the game for other reasons quit because they had to click to burrow. 10 years later the decide they want to do things differently and make some interface decisions early on so they could design around them and not shake things up later for no reason. They also made sure they made good, strong UI changes and didn't just get into the mentality of "omg clicking ever is bad".

Street Fighter II had no patches. It had new releases. It also (like any fighter due to the amount of matchups) never achieved perfect balance. Starcraft 1 ran it's course and Starcraft 2 is a similar but very different game.

[Frocto]

Right, I just can't accept the mindset of not changing something because it's fine the way it is. As long as companies want to make easy money by releasing sequels that shake things up slightly, that's not how videogames work, something you have supported in your post!

[Makaris]

Well, if your goal is be as different as possible that's fine... but it's not the best way to create a balanced, competitive game.  Which is the point of StarCraft.

Blizzard doesn't really seem to be after 'easy' money with how they are developing SC2.  If anything, they are receiving tons of flak for not totally reinventing the genre.

Like, most of the best games of all time weren't pioneers breaking new ground.  New idea's tend to suck.  Instead, they refined existing idea's.

[Kayin]

Right, I just can't accept the mindset of not changing something because it's fine the way it is. As long as companies want to make easy money by releasing sequels that shake things up slightly, that's not how videogames work, something you have supported in your post!

Frocto, stop making amateur-hour points. What people tend to do and what is good game design are totally separate and that isn't even relevant to the conversation.

Do people take working mechanics and replace them with something bad in their next iteration of a product? Yes. But we call those people out for being idiots, we don't imitate them.

[Frocto]

Makaris, you are straw-manning me!

shake things up slightly

is not the same as

be as different as possible

at all! Shame on you!

Anyway, haha, I don't think Blizzard as a company have ever had a single original idea, but if you are saying that Blizzard incorporates existing ideas, than that's fine with me and more or less what I've been driving at. This is what I mean when I say making the point of game companies not revamping things because they are balanced and it's

not worth it

is totally ridiculous! Now this is where things get a little thin for me, really, since I haven't played this super duper gay space cowboys game yet, but I have played a lot of Warcraft 3 and, holy moly, THERE IS A GAME THAT SHOOK THINGS UP THAT DIDN'T NEED SHAKING UP. That game included a BUNCH of the ideas I suggested and fucked around with them and overall was a total pile of garbage, but hey maybe some of those ideas ended up in Starcraft 2, I don't know! I will get back to you after I've played it.

Sorry, I'm just totally hung up on this idea that it's not worth changing something that works just for fun. That is a CRAZY thing to say because Blizzard are happily doing that themselves.

Frocto, stop making amateur-hour points. What people tend to do and what is good game design are totally separate and that isn't even relevant to the conversation.

Do people take working mechanics and replace them with something bad in their next iteration of a product? Yes. But we call those people out for being idiots, we don't imitate them.

Right, there is a reason I am responding to Makaris and not you. His points are not very solid!