By Alec Meer on February 9th, 2010 at 10:41 pm.
Today I went to have a bit of a fiddle with the upcoming Dawn of War II stanpansion (did I say it right?) Chaos Rising, my thoughts on which I will be expressing by repeatedly placing my fingers onto a series of plastic blocks arranged in a grid formation tomorrow. Today, though, I want to scratch at an itch that’s been bugging me and, quite clearly, a lot of RTS developers for a little while now. While playing – and getting roundly spanked at – CR’s multiplayer, I once again mulled over the problems multiplayer real-time strategy faces in trying to remain true to its build’n'bash roots whilst also finding ways to be accessible to folk who weren’t raised on years of it, or at least aren’t heavily invested enough to learn all the statistics, hotkeys and timings necessary to do well in online matches. Is there a danger that the new trend towards less building and more co-operation is throwing out too many babies with the minutiae-filled bathwater or, are those babies horribly mutated anyway? Whether you like to think of yourself that way or not, if you’re reading this site you’re a pretty hardcore PC gamer. You’re the audience for these games, and for the attempted changes to them. So: do you like to strategise online, in real-time? How? Why?
This is mostly about hearing the PC gaming community’s thoughts on that matter, and how their habits in this regard have (or haven’t) changed over the years, so the meat of this post is yonder comments thread below. But in the name of MATHS-POWER let’s have ourselves a wee poll too. Pray forgive the floating ns – a bizarre bug in our polling software, and also an attempt to hypnotist you into sending us some pudding. We do like pudding.
Personally: I play some RTS multiplayer amongst friends, but I steer well clear of going online unless it’s necessary for some article I’m working on. The disparity in knowledge and mastery of the game, the units and the bloody hotkeys between people who play it regularly and fiercely, and little old me, who’ll play it only until I have to/want to turn my attentions to another game, is huge. And the results of that disparity are often depressing. Or: I’m a weakling. But I accept that entirely. The question is whether I’m relatively alone in it and should indeed be jeered at, or if it’s a general trend – and, if so, should developers be striving harder to find more ways to let us weaklings in?
So, yeah. Share your RTS multiplayer habits with us: what, why, what does and doesn’t work, what do you wish the genre was doing? YOUR WORDS. WRITE THEM.
09/02/2010 at 22:47 Brumisator says:
Well I mostly played RTSs in the 20th century, when my internets were not up to snuff for playing on ye internet.
And I haven’t really gotten into any new ones to get good at them, so I haven’t dared test my skills online.
09/02/2010 at 22:48 DJ Phantoon says:
I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel as much love for Dawn of War 2′s multiplayer versus its predecessor. It was more balanced but for some reason I just do not like it being to Company of Heroes-ish.
Maybe it was the heavy weapons Space Marine groups, since the idea they would have an issue carrying giant weapons is absurd. Less absurd than super powered space fascists, anyways.
09/02/2010 at 22:52 Dain says:
The more strategy games start hurling base building and resource gathering out of the window, the more I like ‘em.
09/02/2010 at 22:55 Andy_Panthro says:
Can’t stand playing online, unless with select friends.
I’ve only played online a few times in the past few years, playing Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (Firestorm over Kronus) with some of the Good Old Games folks. I generally play RTS games for the single player challenge.
On that note, Men of War (which is my current RTS of choice) is fantastic, even if the second russian mission took me about 15 goes to complete!
09/02/2010 at 22:56 TotalBiscuit says:
Yeah, I play online RTS. Happily, not being 13 years old, I’m not a baby and can deal with losing, a lot. Online RTS gives the title a ton of longevity and one does not have to be in the upper echelons of competitive play to enjoy the simple pleasures of driving one’s enemy before them and hearing the lamentations of their women.
I still prefer more traditional RTS. Company of Heroes is an exception, though it is extremely poorly balanced. General + Zero Hour + Shockwave mod is the peak of online multiplayer RTS and everyone should try it with friends at least once.
09/02/2010 at 22:57 Spoon says:
I think there is plenty of room for both types, but I must admit that the classic base-building type gets relegated to friends-only games.
09/02/2010 at 22:57 rocketman71 says:
Only LAN with friends, too many cheaters, disconnecters and smurfs out there.
Also, I’m not touching C&C4 with a 10 feet pole. Or SC2 unless they pull their heads out of their asses and implement LAN support. I have enough great RTSs to last a lifetime, and I’m not buying blindly.
09/02/2010 at 23:00 Turin Turambar says:
I don’t play RTS online, the only exception was CoH.
Why? Because i don’t find in the multiplayer the same experience i find and like in the single player campaing. It’s like a different genre.
09/02/2010 at 23:01 Batolemaeus says:
I love playing rts. Well, loved to. I’m a bitter old Dune2, Red Alert, Tiberian Sun Vet. Things were so much better back in the days.
I generally don’t play online though. What really annoyed me was that most games were mostly about the perfect early build choreography and not really about having a good grasp of unit balance.
I had one 1v1 match in Supcom where i was strategically superior. I was harassing and taking over his mexes, could kill off some serious attempts on my commander. I lost anyways: he was entirely focused on min/maxing his economy and didn’t really care for his mexes. Instead, he started spamming experimentals and massfabs. Yay..
Same goes for C&C. You just spam and spam whatever huge ass unit your side has or just turtle until you get a superweapon. I think it’s really boring.
Starcraft is a bit different and I might actually play it. But it’s hard to get into an rps that is established already…while in UT/Q3 you might accidentally frag a vet, you have no chance in hell in an rts.
09/02/2010 at 23:01 Arathain says:
I’ll always play RTSs with friends, who are far more likely to be in the same (un)skilled bracket as me. Online? No thanks. I don’t have the time or the patience to build up those sorts of skills. I’d rather do something that’s fun now.
That said, the more strategic thinking and less micro there is, the more interested I am. I’m keeping an eye on Ruse, for example.
I’ve always had a problem. I’ve always liked RTSs, but I’m never very good at them, and I eventually become frustrated with the level of multi-tasking and micro they eventually require. So perhaps I am more in love with the idea of RTSs than the games themselves.
09/02/2010 at 23:10 Wilson says:
@Arathain – I feel like this sometimes as well. I enjoy watching CoH replays and fancy going online to face some real intelligence, but I feel intimidated by the possibility that I could end up matched up with someone of far higher skill and not stand a chance (not necessarily the game’s fault, there aren’t always many people online).
I wish losing horribly didn’t bother me as much as it does, and I know that in many RTS games it’s considered mandatory to improve, but it just makes me grumpy (I’ll note that I remain civil and don’t rage quit/insult anyone) at which point I stop playing and feel like a failure. My problem entirely, but it’s why I personally only play online occasionally.
09/02/2010 at 23:03 Navagon says:
Personally I’m definitely more of a single player RTS gamer. So having an actual campaign – either scripted like Dawn of War or engrossing like Total War – is important to me. I don’t often play multiplayer RTS, but coop is more interesting to me.
While we’re on the subject, definitely not such a fan of base building. If nothing else it seems unrealistic to be building your production lines on the front line. Company of Heroes got base building about as right as it will ever be.
09/02/2010 at 23:04 the wiseass says:
1. I play multiplayer RTS with my friends only. I can’t be arsed to get butchered by some uberhuman strategy freak, making 120 actions per minute.
2. The best part about RTS is base building. Yes I’m an addict to building games and I easily freak out when my buildings aren’t neat and tidy. So I usually waste an awful lot of time selecting the perfect location for my buildings and defenses. That’s one reason why I absolutely HATE every RTS without an base building part (World in Conflict being the exception, but it’s not a true to heart RTS either).
3. AoE II (yes two) is the greatest RTS ever made. This is a fact, there is no denying it. If you say otherwise you’re a monster and i do not want to talk to you again. SOASE is the second best RTS ever made. This is a fact also, but you’re permitted to debate this, I’ll be lenient on this one.
09/02/2010 at 23:04 Jon says:
While voting I assumed Heroes of Newerth was an RTS.
09/02/2010 at 23:09 JonFitt says:
I would count any DotA clones as an RTS.
09/02/2010 at 23:46 mejobloggs says:
I dunno, I don’t really count it as rts
More like…. rpg/action/rts.
rpgarts or something :p
09/02/2010 at 23:05 Heliosicle says:
I played SupCom and CoH online a reasonable amount, at least when I could get into a game on CoH, they never fixed it for me, I managed to play a few games with friends dependingon what order we joined, who hosted etc
09/02/2010 at 23:07 DIOakaNightmare says:
…The disparity in knowledge and mastery of the game, the units and the bloody hotkeys between people who play it regularly and fiercely, and little old me, who’ll play it only until I have to/want to turn my attentions to another game, is huge….
That’s why I have to play RTS multiplayer with my friends only – to compete online one have to invest tens (or rather hundred and more) of hours into training, learning hotkeys, memorizing maps and unit/building/upgrade stats. That’s achievable but sucks all the fun from the game, and I’d rather spend all the time on something useful.
Somehow multiplayer in shooters is more accessible for people like me, at least if that’s not Quake 3 or CS (though both were fun for couple of years after release), especially with now popular coop mode (or variations like horde in Gears Of War 2).
Maybe coop singleplayer for RTS?
09/02/2010 at 23:14 Wilson says:
@DIOakaNightmare: Some games do coop (Red Alert 3, though you need two copies, and Dawn of War II, though I could never figure out how to start a coop game…).
Is everyone who plays with their friends lucky enough to have friends of roughly the same skill level? I don’t know anyone into RTS’s who has a similar level to me. I think I tend to be somewhat above beginner, due to reading strategy articles/watching replays etc, but not hardcore enough/patient enough to get to the level of most people online.
09/02/2010 at 23:08 JonFitt says:
Up until recently my only MP RTS experiences were C&C1 against my brother back in 1990something. To me, RTS games are scripted campaigns against the AI.
I have experimented with DoW, and CoH, and a few DoTA clones. Generally (hawhaw) it’s not much fun unless you’re playing with friends. Coop Men of War was also fun.
Whereas I can be one sucky player on an FPS server, in a Team PvP RTS you engage in one long round with a few players and one bad player ruins it for everyone.
I hear C&C is going to have some mitigating mechanics, but I’ve grown disinterested in C&C’s play style over the years and probably won’t play it unless it’s a huge departure form the last couple.
The RTS’s trend towards optimal speed paths to success does not interest me. It’s too much RT and not enough S. I prefer to try and think up ways to outsmart, sneak up on or trick an opponent not: Rush this unit, cap four of these points, rush this tech, then spam this unit, win.
I’m playing a coop AI War game at the moment and that’s going very well. Does that count?
09/02/2010 at 23:12 RagingLion says:
I said I play RTSs but only if you count Multiwinia which is fairly atypical, but it’s completely the type that I’d actually play: stripped down, fun, arcadey I guess and doesn’t require too much heavy thinking.
I’m sure I could get into proper RTS multiplayer if I really wanted to, but I’d feel like my knowledge of all the possibilities would have to be so thorough that’s it’s a huge initial barrier to entry and dissuades me from trying in the first place. Ultimately I’m not sure if I really have as much fun as with a single-player experience where I can just experience and enjoy things rather than having to stress myself out.
09/02/2010 at 23:12 Acidburns says:
I have enjoyed many RTS games online but I find that you really need to put some work into them to get a good game out of them. I played a lot of arranged 2v2 with Company of Heroes and my friend and I are rather well ranked, but I’ve pretty much given it up because I’m finding the balance issues to be spoiling my fun.
From what I’ve heard the number of people who play RTS games online is pretty small. You are going to lose a lot when your starting an RTS, especially if it is a long time after release. I suppose these games could be more appealing by making it more fun to lose? There is probably a lot of unexplored scope the online RTS model, look at games like World in Conflict that have as much in common with Team Fortress as Starcraft. I think World in Conflict is a good example of an RTS that is fun and accessible to newer players. Mind you some of the players are utter arses but that is hardly WIC’s fault.
While some of my favorite gaming moments come from very close RTS matches I would like to see more co-operative play in all games! Co-op is fun.
09/02/2010 at 23:14 David Drahos says:
I don’t play RTS multiplayer online. I play the single player but I save multiplayer for LAN parties.
09/02/2010 at 23:17 mandrill says:
I play on lans when they happen usually with people I know are of a similar skill level as myself but every time I’ve been matched against some random bod online (even if the matchmaking is really good and matches skill levels well) I get my ass handed to me on a silver plate and flee from battle to the cries of “LOL n00b” echoing over the voice comms. This is even on games which haven’t been out for long so shouldn’t really have expert people playing them yet. mebbe I’m just a point and shoot kind of guy but online RTS games leave me cold, pit me against a decent AI and I’m happy.
@Jonfitt. I played the CnC4 beta once and promptly deleted it from my PC. It is not CnC and IMO they have some real stones calling it so. The only thing that is even remotely recognizable from the franchise is the setting. Everything else is totally incomprehensible to a CnC vet (even an a SP one). CnC4 may be just the radical departure you’re looking for.
09/02/2010 at 23:19 Nathan says:
I play as frequently as I can friends to play them with. And amongst the largely FPS crowd that I know, this isn’t nearly frequent enough. I’m too scared of venturing out into the internet where a heavy defeat is absolutely certain to ever improve my skills in that way.
09/02/2010 at 23:20 Doeke says:
I don’t RTS’s, stop asking me about them!
09/02/2010 at 23:20 Centy says:
I love playing with humans vs AI thats all me and my mates did with Company of Heroes usually just build a nice defense build up then crush them. I prefer that I hate playing it with strangers and in general it always feels like so much work and if you loose unlike a shooter it just feels like wasted time
09/02/2010 at 23:23 Zwebbie says:
I’ve been playing RTS games since Dune 2, but Company of Heroes is the only one I played online. I actually played that quite a lot, getting to level 9 thrice – that’s some 300-400 games, I guess?
Company of Heroes was pretty damn clever in that it actually made strategy a whole lot more natural. Units behind walls take less damage, running up close causes more damage (but the accuracy while running is decreased), tanks needn’t fear rifles, and so forth. The best parts were, in my opinion, the early battles of vanilla CoH. Allies have Riflemen, Axis have Volksgrenadiers and Machine Guns. The Allies have to flank the Axis, the Axis have to set up in such a way that incoming Riflemen face hot machinegun lead. It’s genius in its simplicity – there’s nothing involved except positioning and approach. That’s a sharp contrast to other games, where build orders and micromanagement are more important. These aren’t ignorable in CoH, but it has these moments where it’s almost chess with tanks. RTS terminology speaks of soft counters (x will beat y if numbers are equal) and hard counters (x will beat y mercilessly), but CoH has conditional counters (x will beat y if it approaches from the right direction, elseway y will beat x).
Dawn of War II, by the way, is a game I didn’t play, save for the beta. It made a grand number of stupid decisions. You’ve got the same machine gunners as in CoH, so that’s nice, but then jetpack troops are added to the game. Suddenly you’ve got hard counters and the build order is important again. Furthermore, the game’s (noble?) endeavour of removing base building puts the pace up by a lot! It’s a constant stream of action, with no breaks in between – very tiresome, very monotonous.
Anyway, a final word, on the daunting nature of RTS games, I’d argue that FPS games would be just as daunting if they were all played 1-on-1, so it’s not the complexity of the game (though it can be). The problem is that the amount of players in an RTS game is much, much smaller. Yes, you can try to enlarge it like DoWII tried to do, but being dead weight in a 3-man game is still not the same as being dead weight in an 18-man game. I don’t see how that’s a problem, though. Not every has to be super duper popular. Shakespeare is too daunting for most people to read.
09/02/2010 at 23:25 Webster says:
I mostly only play RTSes with friends, not with random types via matchmaking. As regards this idea of eliminating base-building… I like that aspect and I’m sorry to see it go. I was irritated by the lack of WALLS in C&C3, now bases are gone completely? Bah. I don’t necessarily see it as dumbing down, but it’s certainly removing an aspect I enjoy.
Maybe it’s the whole thing about winning the fight before the battle is really joined – finding the balance between resource gathering, unit production and fixed defence. Gathering intelligence on the enemy’s base and force disposition. It’s more engaging for me than “have some units. The enemy also has some. Go!”.
09/02/2010 at 23:25 Dustin Diamond's Sex-Tape says:
increasingly it feels like company of heroes was the concorde moment for rts. every compromise in regard to standard economic rts complexity was applied to the tactical model, protection of supply lines inparticular. dawn of war 2 elements regressed this tactical model in a trade with some action rpg elements that created this extremely enjoyable, but strategically thinner chimera.
with the original coh team long gone, and audiences being what they were, i doubt we’ll see lightning like that caught in a bottle again. especially with those production values.
09/02/2010 at 23:25 Joey says:
I used to play Starcraft constantly online to the behest of my then girlfriend and family. It was the one RTS I really sank a lot of time into. I’ve had Battle for Middle Earth 2 forever now, and although I’ve been told it’s a good game, I’ve never had the energy to play past the tutorial because I remember how long it took for me to get any decent at Starcraft. RTSs seem like games that if I didn’t already have too many games to play, I would love to sink a lot of time into it.
09/02/2010 at 23:28 AndrewC says:
Well I can’t stand the leety hardcore attitude of any game genre, not only because the immense disparity in skills between me and good players stops the game being fun, but also because the style of play that leetyness entails – with the min-maxis and the perfect build orders and the exploits and that – replaces fun, or even exciting competitiveness, with joyless, mechanical perfectionism. The endless repetition that the limited game systems (and all games based on rules have this, no matter how many types of units there are) encourage turns these games into the equivalent of those grindy Korean MMOs.
To put it differently – to be the best at any particular game system, the best tactic is just endless repetition, so those who value being the best over all other coinsiderations will naturally gravitate to a play style that removes all the fun from the game in favour of that grey gruel of grind – and their presence will terminally push the game in that direction for all players.
At least in FPSs there’s the immediate visceral thrill of direct control, but in the abstract, distant play of RTSs the effect is only strengthened.
Also there’s the huge, though immensely satisfying to express, generalisation that these leets are deeply insecure souls who hate those lesser than them as they see their true self image reflected back at them in our mortal gaming skills. They’ll always say that it is not them who are abnormally skilled – for *everyone* should know the perfect builds – but that everyone else is stupid for *not* knowing them. Fairly strong negative energy all round, and i’ll happily avoid it.
09/02/2010 at 23:28 Xocrates says:
I too am one of the old veterans of RTS. I remember playing Dune 2 and the original warcraft back in the now distant 20th century. C&C Red Alert was the first PC game I ever bought.
That said, I usually don’t play online much. I might take a peek to the online component in the around release when everyone is still pretty newbish and there isn’t a lot of pressure. Other than that it’s fairly rare.
However, to me, that rule applies to any game, not just RTS. The reason is simply that I don’t like other people dictating my gaming. I want to be able to play how I want when I want, and very few games allow that. RTS in particular are very punishing to that kind of thinking.
Regarding the base removal. Quite frankly I don’t see it as neither a bad thing or a threat to the “old” kind of RTS. It’s allows for a much needed diversification of the genre and quite frankly the reason why it seems we’re seeing so many of them is because there simply are too few RTS releases nowadays.
Consider for a moment that this year we’re supposed to see both Starcraft 2 and Supreme Commader 2 this year. Two games focused on a more “old school”, base building oriented time of gameplay.
Other major RTS releases for the year (of the top of my head) are DOW2 expansion and C&C 4 in the newer minimalistic base building approach, RUSE in the “I heard this one has base building but don’t really know” field, and apparently some more Total War, in the “may count or not as an RTS” field-
09/02/2010 at 23:30 Garg says:
I used to stay clear of the online RTS for the standard reasons Alec outlined; essentially an unforgiving skill/learning curve, further exacerbated by the problems of your inferiority often becoming apparent in the early stages of the game and yet taking ages to actually be defeated, and also being heckled as a “n00b lolz” because you haven’t invested god knows how much time into it.
I tried Dark Crusade as my first RTS online escapade, although I made sure I watched a bunch of replays and read some guides on the forums before even playing just to make sure it wasn’t so humiliating. It worked out ok in the end, and since I didn’t go as Chaos/Eldar I could always fall back on the excuse of “well they’re playing an overopowered race, and thats why they /really/ won”. Became especially enjoyable when I got my flat mate to start playing, with me protecting him until he could unleash a “fire dragon surprise” on the back of the enemy base.
09/02/2010 at 23:31 Psychopomp says:
The movement to no buildings, with a small number of squads is a godsend. RTS shouldn’t be about whoever can click the most, and can navigate the interface the fastest. The movement to, y’know, actual tactics and strategy is great.
Now if only finding a game of DoW2 didn’t end up being a pubstomp 9 times out of 10
10/02/2010 at 02:56 woppin says:
No buildings removes some of the more interesting strategies, such as where you could drop in 4 zealots to destroy the enemy spire before going for an air-heavy attack (de-teching). It also removes the ability to place your buildings such that they funnel your opponent into a particular area of your base, allowing you to defend more easily. Buildings also inform your opponent of what you are creating, which means that scouting becomes an important part of the game as each player tries to determine what is in the other person’s base so that they can counter appropriately.
I do think buildings are a good part of RTS. I used to think they were a needless part of the game that could be done away with, but since playing DoW2 online and realising how it was missing these parts of the genre I had taken for granted I have come to the opposite conclusion.
09/02/2010 at 23:33 ManaTree says:
I played SC custom campaigns back in the day. Recently too, but with friends at LAN parties. And still mostly custom campaigns. I can’t handle playing like a Korean champion despite being Korean. Fail, I know. It makes me sad. :(
I just recently got Company of Heroes, and while I haven’t gone too far into that, I get excited at the prospect of playing it, which certainly hasn’t happened before (mainly because I don’t generally play RTSs a ton). I expect that I’ll play multiplayer a decent amount once I understand the commands and get the hang of it, though.
09/02/2010 at 23:37 Acosta says:
I play a good amount of RTS and I always play solo, campaigns and skirmish. Call me weird, but I like the mechanics, I like to control big armies, assault impenetrable fortress or build one. Some of my best gaming experiences are with solo RTS campaigns (Homeworld, Battle Realms, Warcraft 3:exp, Rise of Legends…). But I like to test myself against the IA, competent or not, and advance in a story, not compete against other people, and I dislike the whole idea of “mastering” a game, once I have finished the campaign and have a good grasp of every unit, I lose the interest.
I would change my statement for a MMO RTS (not Dawn of Fantasy), something a bit like Eve but with armies. I could get behind something like that, but the usual RTS multiplayer don’t interest me.
09/02/2010 at 23:38 Clazzy says:
Back in the day I used to play loads of RTS games, mostly C&C games. Played TS and RA2 loads and a bit of Generals/C&C3 as well. I played WiC, CoH, Multiwinia and DEFCON a few times over the last couple of years but I’ve mostly drifted away. Part of it is that none of my friends play RTS games any more (much more fun than playing random people online) but it’s mostly because I don’t like a lot of them. I guess I’m just too used to the classic C&C way of thinking with base-building, resource collecting and endless vehicle spam. Also, a lot of games nowadays have good enough AI for the odd skirmish and don’t hurl abuse at you constantly.
I was lucky enough to get into the C&C4 beta as well and it’s truly the lowest point of the C&C series. I’ve played it about five times and uninstalled it because it isn’t worth my time to play. It is the same in name only with everything you ever loved about it (apart from GDI, Nod and Kane) ripped out. Now excuse me while I go and dig out my RA2/YR CDs.
09/02/2010 at 23:38 Jad says:
To do a quick comparison of FPSes online (which I do play) and RTSes online (which I dont — so I guess that should be “what I imagine RTS online (and my miniscule experience tells me) to be” — I might be wrong on some of these):
Losing in FPSes and RTSes are very different. Unless you’re getting utterly and completely dominated, you can end up fairly low on the end-of-round list on a Quake 3 match and still have had fun, have tasted victory — you may have had some lucky kill on the best player on the server, or had some shining moment, etc. In an RTS, you might get a momentary advantage over your superior opponent, but he eventually crushed you, and that’s less fun. Also, you may have had some quality battles with some of the lower-skilled guys during an FPS too, which leads into another point: RTSes have very low player-counts. You can’t hide your lack of skill in a crowd. Lastly, and this is a problem for newbies like me, is even telling how well you’re doing. You know very quickly if you get onto a Quake server where the skill level is vastly higher than your own, but in an RTS, it can take a while, especially against canny opponents, to tell if your loss is basically a given already.
Anyway, yes, if co-op play means that a low-skilled player can have fun and help out a team, than I’d be interested. (of course, if being low-skilled means you just drag your team down, I have negative interest. I’d rather get laughed at for an individual loss than yelled at for bringing a team down.)
09/02/2010 at 23:38 captainpuke says:
I have played all the C&C and Red Alert games along with SC, but never got into online play. I always played for the single player.
The couple of times I did try to play any of these games online I was roundly destroyed. It could be that I am terrible at RTS games, but it wasn’t until later that I found out that many people cheat like crazy while playing online. My first experience being so negative definitely jaded me a bit.
09/02/2010 at 23:39 Vinraith says:
On the rare occasion that I play an RTS online, it’s always co-op with a friend or two against AI. I don’t think I’ve played an RTS in adversarial multiplayer since Starcraft in ’98.
09/02/2010 at 23:39 devlocke says:
I quit playing RTSs before the internet became widespread, so I’ve never played one online. I used to lose a lot at LAN parties in the mid 90s. I don’t find them threatening, though, and I don’t think there’s a huge barrier to entry compared to other online games. It’s as easy to suck at an RTS as it is to suck at a FPS. And possibly no more difficult to be good at one than the other, it’s just different skill sets you have to spend time acquiring.
I don’t have any interest in playing anything online, except with friends. And I’m as likely to play an RTS as an FPS, in that situation. Sadly, I’m on a different sleep schedule than all my gaming friends and we never play much of anything, these days. Oh well. I play games for the story, for the most part, anyways.
09/02/2010 at 23:41 rxtx says:
I love playing online RTS. Started with Myth, then a bit of Starcraft, C&C, Sup Com, DoW. Yeah it takes a bit of getting into, but once you’ve been through the process with one game it gets easier as you move onto others. I never put in enough time to be one of the really good players who play 1000s of games, but I can hold my own.
The reason I do it is that once you’ve played real people, the AI skirmish just gets dull and predictable. Real people will occasionally surprise you even if you think you know all the tricks, so it keeps you on your toes more.
Its not really that difficult – yeah your first few games you’ll get stomped, but if you spend a little time reading the forums, wikis and watching the odd replay you quickly pick up what you’re doing wrong. It also helps if you start out with team games – granted you’ll probably annoy a few idiots for being new, but it should help you survive a bit longer to get your bearings
09/02/2010 at 23:41 SirKicksalot says:
I only played some Rome Total War battles with my neighbour back in 2005. And last year I was addicted to R.U.S.E.’s beta. Otherwise no.
09/02/2010 at 23:50 lafinass says:
In my experience RTS multiplayer is a mad dash of multitasking mania. The winner is the individual who has memorized the perfect building order and has everything timed to the second. If that means dying in a zerg rush or finding yourself faced with Nth tier units while you’re still building N – 3 tier units, it still generally leaves me feeling frustrated.
From a single player standpoint I prefer the traditional build, farm, destroy gameplay. On the other hand, Dawn of War 2 is probably the only RTS I’ve enjoyed in multiplayer this decade. Ideally I’d like the best of both worlds.
09/02/2010 at 23:52 airtekh says:
I haven’t played an RTS for years. It’s a genre I really wish I could get back into and I feel I should, since I only play PC games. I just find it requires me to be more mentally invested as opposed to other genres.
I have played the old C&C games from years ago, back when strategy games were new to me. I tried C&C: Red Alert 2 online once and got totally creamed by everyone I came across.
Incidentally, if one of you RTS fans could recommend a Total War game to a strategy newbie (seeing as they’re on sale this week on Steam) which one would it be? The only experience I’ve had with them is an old copy of Shogun: TW, which I must have played for a grand total of 30 mins before being permanently distracted.
10/02/2010 at 00:30 Chris D says:
Personally I’d go for Medieval 2. It has it’s detractors but it’s probably my favourite game of all time. Rome is also excellent but a bit more dated.
09/02/2010 at 23:52 Phried says:
Playing RTS against family members was one of the experiences that got me into gaming in the first place.
I’m really sad to see base building go, especially in established, classic franchises like C&C. Base building is part of the strategy, going for certain builds and manufacturing units that compliment each other. That said, as long as the “no base building” trend doesn’t affect the typical resource gathering, base building game type I’ve come to know and love, I can live with it.
10/02/2010 at 00:01 jordanwise says:
They’re just not that fun unless done LAN with people of similar abilities. Rage quitting is a huge issue, and that tank rushes still dominated the last rts i played online, C&C3 was really annoying. Dawn of War and the rest, while making things easier, are now shifting the focus from getting your clicking orders right in production queues to making sure that ever last unit is moving between the best cover/ staying out of range of stuff at all times. Nasty nasty micromanagement, go away
10/02/2010 at 00:11 Rick says:
Everytime I try to play an RTS, I just get my backside handed to me on a platter, regardless of how often I try. I may be good at the single-player, but I’m just useless and confused in a RTS multiplayer match, regardless of whether its StarCraft, Total War or Company of Heroes. I start, I think I’m getting the hang of it, I’ve got as far as having a vulture bike/town militia/jeeps and oh no here comes a Terran battlecruiser/heavy cavalry/Tiger tank, and ruins my day. Just give me a decent SP RTS and I’m happy (so stop worrying about the damn multiplayer on StarCraft II, Blizzard!)
10/02/2010 at 00:12 malkav11 says:
I do not enjoy playing competitive multiplayer games online. Or at all, really. With the sole and not particularly intense exception of Team Fortress 2, which lured me in with its easy-to-figure-out classes, team-focused play, and awesome artistic direction. Even that I haven’t played in ages. I particularly don’t like doing it with RTSes, because for me the no-frills matching of unit against unit without context, storyline, scripting or any of that is intensely dull, even if people played with the full toolbox instead of doing tank rushes and stuff like that.
I’d much, much rather have stuff like Dawn of War II’s two cooperative modes, or for that matter C&C Red Alert 3′s allowing the entire campaign to be played cooperatively.
10/02/2010 at 00:18 Him says:
I play a lot of DoW2 3v3. I can’t claim to be the finest player going, but when GfWL matches me with people around my skill level (TS28-30) then I’m almost assured of a rollicking good time. The game mechanics aren’t difficult to absorb or understand, the only problem I encounter is matches with a disparity of skill (2 talented players & 1 new player vs 3 talented players, for example).
Also; super-excited about the Ork Weirdboy in the expandalone.
10/02/2010 at 00:25 subedii says:
I play RTS’s regularly. Started off with C&C: Red Alert way back in the day, used to play online and with friends, it was a blast. After that I pretty much stopped playing online until Dawn of War 2. That was probably more that I just didn’t have the net connection to try really, I wasn’t much into online games in general until fairly recently.
Anyway, whilst I could answer your first three questions (Yes, regularly, and generally hard to get into), I feel the fourth is loaded. Base building style RTS’s are just a different style of RTS, and whether one or the other they’re still quite difficult to get into if you’re playing online. I mean, your article doesn’t mention Starcraft anywhere, and whilst some other devs are going in a more immediate direction (different from “less complicated”), Starcraft is STILL the most popular and most played RTS in the world, and Starcraft 2 is going to have most of the same base building dynamics that the first game did. Then you’ve got more niche RTS’s like Supreme Commander that positively revel in the base building as an important part of the gameplay.
So as for RTS’s in general, I’ll be blunt, they could stand to be a lot more accessible to the new guy. But that’s an inherent problem with the genre itself. The S in RTS stands for Strategy, you generally have to have a greater starting base of knowledge and think more in order to start playing random guys and winning. FPS’s are mainstream enough that everyone plays them and the playerbase is quite diffuse in terms of skill levels. With RTS’s you’ve generally got the guys starting out, and the experienced players that crush them.
Dawn of War 2 tried to rectify this somewhat by making use of the TrueSkill matchmaking system, but they did a poor job of it by FORCING low ranked players to play against high TS players with literally a thousand games under their belt, just so that the system can “ascertain” their starting skill level. That start is going to put a lot of people off right from the start.
With Starcraft 2, Blizzard have been talking about tailoring their matchmaking system so that new players can play against each other.
Online RTS games are fun, they’re a real blast to play and can be incredibly involving when you get a tight match going. The main problem however isn’t that the genre needs to be simplified until it becomes a 3rd-person FPS. The problem at hand is that you need an effective means of matching people of roughly equivalent skill levels, because the competition level can easily put off anyone trying it for the first time. To anyone starting off, it’s nothing like the singleplayer they trained themselves up on, and full of arcane rules and seemingly impossible events that they can’t fully understand because the person they’re playing is so much more experienced than them.
Online fighting games like SF4 tend to have similar problems. It’s a brutal environment where top tier players can and do regularly beat the new guy into a bloody pulp, and their options are to either stick with it through hours of this in order to get better, or leave for something else. And really, most people aren’t crazy enough to do the former.
Unless you get in on the ground floor you’re fighting against the current right from the start. This happens in other online games, it’s just that it’s far more acute in RTS’s because:
- Games are longer
- Typically require a greater starting knowledgebase to even begin to grasp the mechanics at work (and often ask that you maintain a higher understanding of the game in order to get into the really good matches)
- Have smaller numbers of players (usually only 1-3 players on a side. Compare that with most online FPS’s), making mistakes more difficult to recover from and no backup to assist you.
RTS’s have been moving more towards more immediate styles of gameplay with greater numbers of players (I believe C&C 4′s default multiplayer mode is actually 5v5), but that’s not enough (it’s also not dumbing down, just a different style of gameplay). The key to solving the problem is getting people matched together at a similar skill level. You achieve that, you get something that’s fun for far more people.
10/02/2010 at 00:27 Nick says:
Hell no, I have had few worse online experiences than with RTSs. Much hatred for them online from me.
Well, aside from co op.
10/02/2010 at 00:27 Gorgeras says:
I think RTS games are a bit too restrictive sometimes and the disparity in skill levels plays too much of a hand in matches: a slight advantage is turned into a massive one.
When they allow for a broader skillset and the option of a player on a team specialising, I think they work better. Some people are better defenders, others are better on offence and others can do support. Too many RTS games force each player to be their own defence, offence and support. Whilst a good move by a player only seems to benefit that player, a mistake brings down the whole team.
I liked the way Demigod seemed to naturally allow players to slip into rolls that they could specialise in, get good at and wouldn’t make obvious mistakes that ruined everything. Yes there are ‘feeders’ and they still unbalance the game disproportionately, but at least once a person realises they don’t have the twitch skills for god-to-god combat, they can go capture flags or upgrade the army and buildings instead of running on the kills and kill streak treadmill.
An RTS where one player can choose to do the building and resource management and the others can do the attack and defence is the next logical step.
10/02/2010 at 02:09 Starky says:
This. Oh Non-Existing Sky Entity – This.
10/02/2010 at 08:54 morbug says:
@Gorgeras
There are actually at least one game that does this: Rise of Nations. Not a new game but me and a friend had a lot of fun playing this. He on defense/building/economy and me on offence/defence.
10/02/2010 at 00:31 Get Out Of Here Stalker says:
I never play RTSes online unless it’s in a team game, I don’t feel comfortable unless I know someone’s got my back and can make up for me sucking.
10/02/2010 at 00:43 Krondonian says:
‘Proper’ RTSes are too scary too even think of taking online. I get my ass kicked by easy computers, so that’s a no go area.
I did play some Rome: Total War though, which is completely odd. About half the available games say ‘NO ART NO ELE’, which is people they want neither Artillery nor Elephants in the game.
This sounds odd, removing the more interesting units, but I’ve known games with very overpowered stuff, so I obliged. It turned out, when getting into a game, that the reason for it is that the ‘best’ strategy is to make a little box of phalanx spearmen and have them poke anything to death before you get to them.
Sigh.
So naturally, upon realising this, I start such a game. My opponent slowly crawls his little brigade of cowards over a hill, and is confronted by my glorious army comprised solely of elephants and siege weaponry.
The most fun I ever had was ridiculous peasant fights of 10000 fleeing pitchforked farmers, or 1000 flaming pigs sieging Rome. Perhaps if some light hearted silliness was allowed in, people will begin trying the ‘real’ way of playing the game.
10/02/2010 at 06:11 qrter says:
This is a good story. It involves trickery and it is also funny. Well done, sir.
10/02/2010 at 08:51 MadMatty says:
:)
10/02/2010 at 00:43 Metalfish says:
Being good at an online RTS is like being a champion at pacman: there’s the illusion of skill and strategy, but in reality you’ve just played the damn thing so much that you know exactly what to do as an optimum series of button presses (the original pacman was non-random).
It’s like when some maths geek tells you they’ve solved noughts and crosses, or sudoko or whatever. There’s no X-factor any more.
10/02/2010 at 01:44 DMcCool says:
“Theres no X-Factor anymore”
If only, my good friend, if only…
10/02/2010 at 02:48 Joflar says:
Sudoku doesn’t really have any calculations to it though, its more about logically removing moves and then going with the single remaining possibility. You could just as easily switch out the 1′s and 9′s for triangles and squiggly lines, and the game is the same. If you did that in a regular rts then the whole thing would be nonsensical because your infantry are whacking some tanks and damaging it by dodechahedron. I think World in Conflict is one of my favorite RTS games because the strategy makes sense without numbers. I don’t need to know any abstract calculations about damage modifiers or resource consumption, I just know that my tanks have an offensive skill that’s good against a certain unit type and a defensive skill that makes it more likely that they’ll survive.
10/02/2010 at 04:13 Generico says:
The “X-factor” in an online RTS is the other players. No matter how fast you are at pressing the buttons, there’s no accounting for a human opponent.
10/02/2010 at 00:45 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
Not yet, but I’m sure some one will one day manage to draw me into that.
10/02/2010 at 00:48 froibo says:
I haven’t gotten into a good RTS online since WC3 the main problem with RTS online is that if you aren’t playing since the launch of the game you are at a huge disadvantage when trying to get into the game that it becomes frustrating to learn.
10/02/2010 at 00:50 subedii says:
Great, BoTP’d
The summary of my far too long post: The problem isn’t with RTS’s, the problem is that you need a good, working skill-based matchmaking system to go with them. Otherwise they remain impenetrable and largely separated into high tier players and the new guys.
10/02/2010 at 00:52 Shalrath says:
I really wish, newer ones especially were more.. tactical, I guess I’d say. To me, being good at strategy is not telling squad 1 to fall back behind a wall while I build a tank while I upgrade my workers while I scout with squad 4 and feign an attack with squad 3 while I… and so on, rather it’s knowing where to attack, with what, and at what time. Basically I like strat games where you start with ‘x’ units and that’s it.
I really like the Chaos Gate style turn-based strat games.
10/02/2010 at 04:03 Fumarole says:
Total War sounds like your cuppa.
10/02/2010 at 17:35 Jimmy says:
I gave up on RTSs after AOEII simply because they took too much time. I take out AOEII every now and then for a test run. I bought Medieval 2: Total War in the recent Steam sale and since then, have been just as addicted as I was to AOEII, but I have had a brilliant time. The complexity of M2TW is fantastic, and games are fairly emergent in how they develop, each with its unique flavour. The battles are brilliant, and feel much more ‘realistic’ than AOE.
Not sure I will go online. I will probably give it a try, as I enjoy military strategies, both from historical accounts and from online recreations. I think a set battle in MP mode is far fairer than AOE, which as I remember was all about who could do the clickety click click fastest. AOE just seemed schizophrenic when played properly against humanz.
10/02/2010 at 01:01 PixelCody says:
Formerly CoH and now plenty of DoW2 and Battleforge online. I love RTS games and enjoy them in many flavours so while I enjoy the direction that these games have gone in terms of base building, I don’t want other games to follow suit.
DoW2 (which I can’t stand in single player) and Battleforge fill the tactical niche perfectly and there are already too many DotA games going even further down that path. I’m not reinstalling Age of Empires 3 and Rise of Legends to get my full on RTS fix and hope for a game along those lines soon.
10/02/2010 at 01:02 PixelCody says:
“I’m not reinstalling…” should read “I’m NOW reinstalling…”
10/02/2010 at 01:03 squintik says:
Although I don’t play online RTS often, I find the “traditional” RTS really interesting, fun and rewarding in multiplayer (with people of a level more or less similar to mine).
I imagine most people are afraid of going online just because they will probably play against a crazy uber-trained guy, and so the problem is perhaps more about the low player base and/or bad matchmaking instead of the game type ?
The fact that you cannot join during a game and that games can be quite long probably doesn’t help.
Gameplay-wise, I think most players understand quite well the basic game mechanisms after doing some singleplayer and/or some skirmish against AI, so they should be able to understand what is happening during the game and what mistakes/success they did.
If both have more or less a similar “level” (knowledge of the game, of the game genre, personal skill, etc…), I think they can have fun easily. I’m convinced that the major problem is really about the probability of finding someone of a similar level.
I played my first RTS multiplayer games with friends on games like Age of Empires 2 or Starcraft, and even without playing well, we were able to build an army with a specific idea in mind (more stealth units to suprise him and destroy his base ? Flying units as he likes building tanks ? A lot of defense structure to win with my economy ? etc…) and then fight with it and have fun easily.
Perhaps it just lacks some “casual” RTS to attract new players to the genre. (games like RUSE perhaps ?)
Games with really short rounds ? (as it seems a lot of players only connect for a quick game on FPS)
Games with 16-32 players but with less units to control per player ? (so that you can easily join during the game, have a team helping you so that it’s more balanced, etc…)
And still, nice and rich games like Dawn of War with tons of players so that you can have some fun and balanced 1v1 or 2v2 games !
By the way, I guess there’s the same problem with FPS : “rich” (and so, complicated) games (enemy territory, tribes, natural selection, …) don’t have a big player base, but there’s always a strong community which enjoys their originality and would be really sad if they had to only play on more “casual” games (halo, cod, etc…).
10/02/2010 at 01:10 Gabanski83 says:
Bring back Dune 2.
10/02/2010 at 01:17 disperse says:
Hell, yeah.
10/02/2010 at 01:12 Capital-T-Tim says:
I took a crack at creating an RTS that is accessible to less hardcore audiences. In particular, it completes eschews unit micromanagement in favor of simple autonomous units, and places the focus on the gather-resources-create-creatures-repeat loop instead:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/tconkling/corpse-craft
10/02/2010 at 01:21 disperse says:
I played this. (I think it was covered by RPS at some point, no?) Absolutely loved the aesthetic. My problem with it was I was focusing so much on the puzzle game that I couldn’t appreciate the wonderfully hand-drawn units. Perhaps if the puzzle game only appeared during the daytime cycles I would have enjoyed it more…
10/02/2010 at 01:14 Ape says:
Got totally fucking owned by someone once playing Red Alert 2, my first online RTS experience.
I then realised, I will never be able to compete with the full-on, obsessive players who know every nuance of every map.
So now I only skirmish against the PC which I guess is a bit predictable but better for my blood pressure.
10/02/2010 at 01:20 liq3 says:
I’m a die-hard RTS fan. Along with FPS games (TF2/Tremulous style, not CoD/BFBC2 style) it’s my favourite genre. I’m a die-hard starcraft fan (and not half-bad at it). The likes of DoW and co just don’t match up to SC for RTS goodness.
I think the main problem with RTS is that the skillgaps are so varied. It’s just too easy for one person to dominate another due to the slippery slope trait. So matching people up with equally skilled players becomes hugely important, and no RTS has really accomplished this. If an SC quality RTS were to come out with rock solid match making, I’m sure it’d gain a large player base.
This is gonna make me sound like a bit of douchebag… I think most people can’t just handle how complex a real RTS (Starcraft) is. They’d much rather play simple games like Halo, since it just requires so much less thinking and gives them much more “instant fun”, which is pretty much the fad of the decade.
10/02/2010 at 02:07 Serenegoose says:
liq3: You’re right, it does make you sound like a douchebag. Presumptuous bollocks about how starcraft is so much more intellectual than other games out there. Bullsquid. It’s a game where people boast about their clicks per minute for crying out loud, which puts it on somewhere near the intellectual grounds of Typing of the Dead. It’s for people with the ability to micromanage effectively, it’s not some way of divining the Kwisatz Haderach.
Which is not to say it’s a bad game, though I can’t stand its guts. I just hate this statement that ‘smarter people play Y genre and shallower people play X genre’
10/02/2010 at 02:24 woppin says:
Liq3 from GR? Agreed on people not getting Starcraft. You need to at least watch a casted pro game to have some appreciation of what’s going on and just how hard and interesting it is.
Sorry goose but pretty much every serious online RTS gamer has accepted as fact that Starcraft is superior to every other RTS ever made. The strategies change on every map, for each matchup, and are affected by starting positions to give enough variety that no player can truly master them all. This doesn’t mean everyone plays it, some prefer slower games or different stryles, but it’s still THE example of how to make and maintain an RTS because of its perfect mix of balance and depth.
That’s not to say people playing or likign the other games are shallow, but grasping what is going on in a game of Starcraft without any help from someone takes a significant time investment. People who haven’t ever even seen a pro game really have no idea what it’s like.
As an aside for those saying SC is about speedy clicking and not strategy: I don’t believe you can make an RTS where there are a huge number of strategic decisions, because once you can effectively change overall strategy quickly, it stops becoming a major choice and is therefore smaller scale and deemed as “tactical”. For example in Starcraft going for Corsair/Reaver is a strategic decision, choosing how to move your troops when they engage is a tactical one. You can’t quickly change your build to go zealot/dragoon heavy because you won’t have the right upgrades and enough gateways so this is a strategic choice you have made based on what info you have. There are a number of these strategic choices made throughout the game by each player and they play a massive part in determining the victor because scouting is such a huge part of Starcraft.
This is one reason why base building is a good part of RTS games: scouting your opponent to see what they have so that you can respond to it becomes a skill, and if you scout poorly you won’t be prepared for attacks and will be punished.
For the inevitable respose saying “Supreme Commander was strategic!!11″, it really wasn’t, it had very little depth to it at all because there were no upgrades and you could win the game with T1 units reliably.
10/02/2010 at 16:07 Serenegoose says:
Woppin: if 20 million people say it, they can’t be wrong! Besides, didn’t really answer what I said. I didn’t say that starcraft was a bad game (as much as I hate it, I understand that of its specific subgenre it is considered exceptional) I said it wasn’t a ‘smart’ game. You don’t need to be a genius to play it, you just need to be good at starcraft. But you’re patently not correct. If every serious RTS player accepts that Starcraft is ‘the best’, then why aren’t they playing it? Why do people play other RTS games like Company of Heroes?
10/02/2010 at 01:25 BabelFish says:
While I generally stay clear of playing RTSs online, I’m considering giving starcraft 2 a real attempt.
I tried to play DoW2 online when it was new, but got supremely frustrated with the lack of balance in 1vs1 and the prevalence of pre-made vs pug in 3vs3. I’m hoping SC2 will be relatively balanced for 1vs1 from the first day, and new enough that I can at least partially make up for my lack of SC1 experience.
There’s no way I’m going within striking distance of any of the “oldschool” RTSs like starcraft or AoE though. By the time I’m done overcoming the advantage the people who have been playing the game for decades have, the next great RTS will be out.
10/02/2010 at 01:31 Colthor says:
I used to be good at Red Alert 2 multiplayer, but other than playing SupCom against friends I’ve not found anything more recent where going online wasn’t just an overwhelming pain in the backside.
Particularly smaller scale things like Dawn of War where you have to click furiously and babysit every individual unit (and upgrade them. I really hate it when you have to upgrade things after they’re built – is it really necessary for me, the commander, to come down there and personally give every ruddy cannon-fodder grunt his gun and a motivational speech? Couldn’t they just come out of the factory useful?). I couldn’t even beat the AI on Normal at DoW, so taking it online wasn’t going to happen.
Maybe if they stopped trying to turn RTS into action-games-with-really-crap-controls, and gave you time away from wiping your minions’ backsides to think about some strategies, persevering would feel more worthwhile.
10/02/2010 at 01:34 MonkeyPeach says:
Play a fair bit of zero hour and ground control 2 with my mates (actually four player coop zero hour almost every day for a week!)
ground control 2 is a building-less game – we just don’t find it as satifying as having bases. Not having bases is a great idea but we dont’ care for it.
We can play us vs the AI with a huge range of player ability. We always rank in the same order PvP though, which is boring/frustrating.
TLDR – online PvP needs very good matchmaking. Bases FTW
(and no I don’t 4chan much)
10/02/2010 at 01:38 JuJuCam says:
I find online anything multiplayer daunting enough without feeling like I’ve missed some 5 year boot camp that everyone else has gone through. To be honest I struggle to maintain interest in an RTS long enough to finish campaign mode. I can never escape the feeling that there’s something I don’t know and the lack of knowledge is putting me at a disadvantage…
10/02/2010 at 01:39 Logo says:
I used to play RTSes religiously. I still would if there were any worth playing. DoW2 is solid but not great and it uses the True skill system. WC3 is crap, CnC is beyond crap, SC is too old, and AoE is dead.
10/02/2010 at 01:43 Kakrafoon says:
I am a bit angry at the multiplayer modes of most RTS games. Because of them, I have to put up with that stupid thing called “balancing”, which means that the combat values of units change with every patch to create a perfect equilibrium in gameplay so that players of all factions, be they Space Fascists, Zerg, Imperial Guard, Protoss, the Wehrmacht or the Killer Clowns can all enjoy without somebody whining about “Über-units” or -tactics. My favourite example are the Panzer Elite armoured cars from Company of Heroes, which are, for some stupid balancing reason, vulnerable to rifle fire. Hello, they are armored cars! They are not supposed to go up against full-grown tanks, all right, but they should be completely impervious to small arms fire pinging off their moderately thick steel plates, except maybe the special AP ammo from the US machine guns.
It’s just that most real time strategy games are about some war or another, and wars are not supposed to be fair. Did anyone start whining on some forum when the Germans started building Tigers in WW2? “OMG plz fix Tigr xploit”? Did Darius complain to the gods about Alexander’s Macedons? Well, yes, he probably did, but no one listened and released a patch to nerf them so that was okay. The only strategy game that is truly balanced is chess. I like my RTS games to represent war as it really is, and that means asymetrical.
The only thing that should be changed to create balance in an RTS is the cost and availability of units (make it possible to mob that deadly Tiger with 5 Shermans), but never their actual combat values, which should be modelled as convincingly close to the original (for “realistic” RTS games) as possible – and that means that in an ideal RTS a Space Marine in power armour should, by the Emperor, be able to stand up to some wretched xenos with inferior alien guns for as long as it takes to kill them stone-dead with bolter fire, without seeing his health bar trickle slowly down. Hah.
10/02/2010 at 06:14 Ace says:
The entire PE faction is stupid.
COH shoutcaster here. The PE armored car comes out so early that you need small arms to pen it in order to keep it from ending the game. It can easily flank and destroy MGs and comes out several minutes before the fastest possible M8. Balance > realism. Don’t even get me started on overdrive.
The PE faction is currently the weakest, but the PE AC is still stupidly overpowered and really difficult to kill.
10/02/2010 at 08:26 Kakrafoon says:
Yeah, but.. that’s exactly my point! Did the Wehrmacht fashion the armour of their light armoured cars out of cheese, to give the Allied infantry a sporting chance of shooting them full of holes, so everyone could? I don’t think so, and I don’t care if a unit is “Tier one” or “Level one” or “early” or whatever in the tech tree. War is not supposed to be fair, and I’m not interested in any multiplayer balance. Another example: Why is the machine gun on the PE armoured cars, the US jeep and the Wehrmacht Motorcycle so puny? Essentially, the guns mounted on them are be the same gun as the crew-served machine guns. In the interest of balance, however, the .30 and the MG34 or MG42 mounted on vehicles (even the .50 available for tanks and halftracks) are in no way the infantry-shredding terrors they should be. Does a weapon suddenly fire cardboard bullets just because it is fired from a vehicle? Damn you, multiplayer gameplay balance!
10/02/2010 at 02:13 drewski says:
My problem with multiplayer RTS games is that the opposition are too good for it to be fun. I played Warcraft 3 with some friends multiplayer back in the day, and died in about ten minutes in all three games.
It wasn’t fun. And the time and effort it takes to learn how to play with good builds and right orders and speed of instructions is just too large for me to be bothered learning how – I get no more fun from playing multiplayer than I do singleplayer, yet with singleplayer I can generally pick it up much easier, at least on normal difficulty levels.
I’ll occasionally play multiplayer shooters, especially on console, because I find my skill level is similar to that of my friends, and my basic competence is higher so it’s easier to learn advanced skills. RTS online is just too hard, to intimidating. However I don’t think dumbing down the games will help – there’s always going to be a huge skill disparity between people who bother figuring out how to be good, and people who just won’t invest that time.
10/02/2010 at 02:17 Severian says:
@liq3
Actually, I don’t think this makes you sound like a douce at all. I’m terrible at RTS’s, and I don’t think this is because I’m an idiot, but I do think it’s because I don’t have the patience/motivation to master the intricacies of a complex genre. RTS’s do offer a cornucopia of response options and I imagine it’s very satisfying learning how to play them well. It ain’t my cup of tea, but I like that they exist and I like that there are players out there who get obsessed over them
10/02/2010 at 02:28 Starky says:
Most RTS’s utterly overwhelm the new player, the singleplayer/skirmish never prepares you for the speed and punishment of online play.
Ranking only helps a bit, a team full of newbies is just a bunch of people fumbling in the dark, no one learns anything.
The joy of something like Natural Selection or Demigod (and even DOW2 – all hybrid RTS games) is that even when you’re a newbie you can focus on some small task and contribute – and hopefully there will be one maybe 2 people on your team who you can learn from.
Be it going Gorge in NS and simply paying attention, or running around as a skulk munching resource nodes – you’re contributing to the team effort despite being a newbie.
Or as mentioned above just defending a lane, buying upgrades and doing things to help the better players out.
Or in DOW2, just running around capping things and maybe trying to hold 1 or 2 key positions, because inevitably for any new RTS if you try and focus on too much you do it poorly.
I’ve always held the key factor of accessibility (Dev buzzword of the Decade) in multiplayer isn’t dumbed down gameplay, or reduction of overall complexity. It doesn’t matter if it is an RTS, an FPS or what have you – new players need to be able to contribute, if they can’t they get frustrated and quit.
Games that allow newbies and experienced players to be in the same game without the newbies feeling utterly worthless should be accessibility goal number 1 for any dev, because newbies who feel they contribute have fun, keep playing and become the skilled players of tomorrow.
This is one of the key reasons IMO for the success of MMOs like WoW and Eve, because in both in raiding and in a corp, no matter how newbish you are there’s always SOMETHING you can contribute, even if it is just raw materials, poor DPS and a few buffs.
Most FPS games manage this with player numbers, getting lost in the crowd is great, you can suck, but still manage the odd kill, and in many cases (if you’ve played the genre before and have some idea) see yourself improving round after round until you’re happily finishing mid-table.
As has been often said in this thread, most RTS games are 4v4 at the max, which unless they are very well designed never allow a new player to contribute much to the team.
The new wave of RTS games are starting to excel in this, World in Conflict, Demigod, DOW2 so on.
There’s no reason why this philosophy can’t be adapted to traditional RTS games
Give me command and conquer where I can focus on harvesting and then building units, and give control of those units to another more experienced player.
Give me an RTS that allows me to upgrade my teammates buildings and units
Give me an RTS that allows me to focus on one or 2 tasks, but important tasks, and then feed that effort to the rest of my team.
Most RTS games have gone with the “every player is their own side” mentality, it’s not “us vs. them” it’s “me and him and him vs. them” – All starting in different locations.
It would be so simple to add in simple tools for team cohesion into RTS games…
Hell a nice start would be making maps where everyone on the same team starts at the same bloody place.
No one wants to feel useless and worthless to a team, so the key challenge for Devs has to be making sure that never happens (or at east to minimize it as best they can) in their RTS games.
This allows for comfortable skill-overlap – Skills in RTS matchmaking should exist in nice comfortable like WIFI channels that overlap happily – so each “skill bracket” can comfortably game with people 2 up and 2 down from it.
10/02/2010 at 02:52 caesarbear says:
Starky, you stole my ideas.
It so much easier for new players to contribute to a FPS team match, or even find some pleasure in free for all death match. RTS needs to get out of the 1 vs 1 tournament mindset before it becomes widely appealing for multiplayer.
10/02/2010 at 02:57 nichevo says:
I feel like I’m pissing into the ocean on commenting on a site like this, but I do like RTS games so I may as well go ahead and do it…
“How do you feel about the movement by some big games… towards building-free, co-op focused play instead of the traditional …. model?”
I’ve got no problems with co-op or simple RTS games — they are enjoyable in their own right. What would be worrying is if they were _all_ like this. And I am rather concerned they might be following this trend en masse.
I am concerned because there’s no gaming experience I enjoy more than mastering a fairly complex game and playing against human opponents. It’s a great workout for my brain. And the satisfaction of putting up a good fight (win or lose) is great.
“Do you think traditional RTS multiplayer in general is hard/daunting to get into?”
All multiplayer games, regardless of genre, become daunting to get into for one simple reason — people who like them and continue to play them are the people who are good at them and are able to win. The less talented people tend to drop out. RTS games are not special in this regard, save for the fact that the gap between novice and pro is usually quite large.
The silver bullet, of course, is to play with friends. But that’s not always practical.
There are some technical measures that help. A good ranking or statistics system allows you to seek out players of your level and avoid the pros. The ability to play team-on-team blunts the “fear factor” of facing an enemy alone. Game modes that don’t end well after victory is decided (because by the time there’s a tank army in your base you really lost about ten minutes ago, and this needless slaughter of your remnants is just needless morale-crushing pain). And of course it helps if the game is actually a good strategy game where knowing “the tricks” of build orders and play-sheet strategies isn’t a guaranteed win over someone who doesn’t know “the tricks” but can think strategically on the fly.
10/02/2010 at 07:00 Lemon scented apocalypse says:
Spot on.
+ 1 Internet points
10/02/2010 at 03:32 Thiefsie says:
RTS are a lot like MMORPG’s in my mind, and thus I can’t be bothered with them.
90% of the game is about waiting, or managing time (ie. farming) and I just don’t find that fun. Toss in the general inability of me to compete with people online as I don’t play enough to learn or experiment to get effective strategies and I am in a downhill battle.
Anathema to fun for me is click on something… harvest resource. wait until enough resource is gained to build something else. Wait for that something to build… then start again. Over and over… with minor tactical oppurtunities that boil down to waiting for something to happen before I can do something else. Even the waiting for units to move somewhere else is a pain to me. This is why I find the DoW /CoH gameplay much more effective and fun, although still a little tiring.
I’ve thought about this a lot… and have decided that is why I will almost always not get into RTS that much… and without a decent story/mission/single player side of things… I don’t have much reason to play RTS at all.
I do have a bit of fun playing co-op with mates to take out harder ai opponents etc from time to time (oh the joys of TA/DR/SC back in the day)
Just too much chore without much payoff for me. Much like an mmorpg
10/02/2010 at 03:42 Total Casual says:
I haven’t played an RTS online since the original Dawn of War. I played Company of Heroes and DOW2 quite a bit single-player, and almost summoned the courage to play DOW2 multiplayer. However, with both those games they were simply too complicated for me to feel confident enough in my abilities to face human players.
Class systems, unit experience, inventory management, plus especially the porous nature of the player’s ‘territory’ in the resource-node-capture system makes the game very intimidating (for me), and I don’t understand why EA believes introducing that kind of gameplay to C&C4 will make it more casually approachable.
Starcraft and Warcraft 3 were approachable because they were so much simpler than newer games. Build your peons, build some factories, pump out troops, and throw them at your enemy-of course, an enemy with better micro would beat you, but that’s why there was a ranking system.
Another plus of the Blizzard games was/is the massive population of Battlenet with its wide spread of player skill levels-even if you do poorly there were plenty of other poor players to fight. SC2 needs to release in 2010!
10/02/2010 at 04:22 Generico says:
I’d play more online RTSes if there were any that I really liked. Most of them are too slow and too dumbed down to hold my interest for very long these days. Most of them have either totally removed or relegated any economic component to the sidelines. That puts the focus more on the combat, but removes the only actual strategic component that most RTS games have. The vast majority of recent RTS games are really just pure tactics games.
10/02/2010 at 04:34 the_fanciest_of_pants says:
The total war model of RTS’ is the only type that interests me anymore. Traditional harvest/build/research/fight RTS hit its apex at Starcraft and plummeted downhill from there.
Games that allow you to focus on the fight and allow for more tactical options are just plain more fun. I don’t see the appeal in drag selecting 1000 guys and rightclicking them into the general area of the enemy so I can focus on building farm/depot/whatever number 43. Not anymore at least.
10/02/2010 at 04:51 Gentacle says:
I barely go online with RTSs but I played DoW2 online regularly as Eldar. Between the nerfs from the beta to live and the overall squishiness it was fun, if not frustrating. Then that There Is Only War balance update came out and every race was squishy (and the eldar twice over) and I couldn’t keep up. Still looking forward to the expansion for some reason, though.
10/02/2010 at 04:56 Tom Camfield says:
16 man RTS games.
I don’t feel daunted about FPS multiplayer because I know I’m at least going to be better than one person, or that if I hold back and defend well then I might get a kill and help my team. I imagine that most RTS games don’t allow 16 people to battle it out in two teams. Once this happens, then maybe it’ll make multiplayer much more accessable.
I, at least, would have a go.
10/02/2010 at 05:13 Scalene says:
I’d play RTS games a bit more if they were more about Strategy, less about speed.
10/02/2010 at 05:21 Mr Popov says:
TBH Starcraft is so hailed as the awesome RTS because so much time and thought has been put into it to master it. Basically it is successful because it is successful. So many RTS have come since that make the genre so much more interesting, but because they aren’t as big of hits as starcraft, not as much thought and analysis go into them as does Starcraft.
10/02/2010 at 05:49 Frank says:
I think I may have tried Starcraft online once back in 2004 (when I first played it). I’m glad that the online community exists, but it would require a new branch of RTSs for me to join it. With changes like…
Teamplay — What Gorgeras and Starky said.
Simpler — Like Galcon or Plants vs Zombies, but complex enough for there to be no dominant strategy. Maybe ask David Sirlin how to do it: he made a Street Fighter **and** the very simple Kongai.
Slower — Either slow enough for strategy to dominate “micro” (as in Rise of Nations) or turn-based with a timer (Plants vs Zombies or my favorite, Bang! Howdy).
Shorter — 15 minutes max for me.
As it is, I’ll still play anything with a decent story and interesting single-player missions (like Starcraft and Company of Heroes) in whatever genre. Oh, and removing buildings sounds like a terrible idea. I don’t follow RTS trends, but without building there would only be micro/twitch-tactics I imagine.
10/02/2010 at 05:50 The One And Only says:
I never play RTS online since it’s never about strategy and always about clicking fast.
Then again, I rarely play them offline for the same reason, so maybe I’m just not in the target group.
10/02/2010 at 06:21 pistolhamster says:
I used to play RTS a lot, but they are almost all constructed in a way to make me feel like I am slipping down a slippery slope from start to end. Gotta build fast so I can get resources fsater. I gotta expand now or I will lose it. I have too many units now I cant control them all. Gah.
RTS are fascinating, but many of them are by heart rubbish experiences if you want to play them STRATEGICALLY. Almost every single game I tried except Starcraft has these too good units and too bad units and some tactics just don’t work. In my aging age I prefer grand strategy tbh. Slower pace, less caffeniated maniac – slash – 12yo click-fest-a-thons.
10/02/2010 at 06:48 JKjoker says:
i also feel newer rps have very little room for playing them strategically, mainly because the games are designed for multiplayer and they cant have matches lasting several hours, so rushes are encouraged, defense, long planned strategies, clever moves (any second away from preparing your rush is death) are discouraged, sometimes not even allowed
i logged a lot of hours in in these games since i first played Dune 2; c&c1, red alert1 and starcraft being my favorites, i tend to play long games, slowly taking over the map and fortifying my positions while i constantly harass the enemy with spells, infiltrators, spies and the like, i can and i have used rushes but using optimal builds and just concentrating in stream rolling doesnt feel fun to me, i rather having a situation where a frontal attack is impossible and i have to improvise something to reach my objectives, thats also why i enjoy the single player campaign a lot more than the “skirmish” mode and for multiplay i cant play slow, everyone rushing means i have to rush and it always plays like skirmish, adding coop mutiplay also mutilates any attempt at making a good scripted level, look RA3 or Resident evil 5, sure coop can be fun (with the right partners which is difficult without LAN support) but the single player experience is shot in the nuts to make mp workable
10/02/2010 at 06:31 Davie says:
I’ve had so little luck with succeeding in RTS multiplayer in general. I do enjoy it, but I also get a bit sick of constantly having my ass handed to me by an army that could populate a small ocuntry in the first five minutes of a game.
Whereas FPS multiplayer is much easier to get into, because even if you’re not great at it, the rules are the same–point and shoot–RTS online explodiness is far more complicated and pretty different for every game. I’ve found even playing against the computer in dozens of skirmish maps–and winning–doesn’t prepare me for the blokes I meet online, most of which have the uncanny ability to win the game in the time it takes me to get my resource production stable.
Therein lies the biggest problem, which people have already mentioned–there is little time for strategy when the goal appears to be to win the game as fast as possible. The solution to this, if there is one, could be to start making RTS games with much larger maps. That way it would take five minutes or so for an invading army to cross the terrain, giving time to build up and prepare. One might consider it boring to just watch the troops cross the map, but they should also be adding to their base and exploring other areas. I’d prefer RTS multiplayer to be much slower-paced. Only once in any game I can remember have I played a match that lasted more than forty minutes.
Anyhow, a slower-paced game would give newbies a chance to get used to the hotkeys, the counters, the resources, etc. and wouldn’t just be a frantic race to get your vehicle factory up so you can swarm your opponent with three billion tanks.
10/02/2010 at 06:43 DerShcraa says:
Please let me apologize for the hype in advance, BUT.
Men of War is the first RTS that has driven me to playing it online.
The singleplayer campaign sucks, but the multiplayer part produces an uncountered sense of verisimilitude.
Please, please, please at least try the haxcraxored version against your friends, it’s so good.
10/02/2010 at 07:05 Lemon scented apocalypse says:
Blasphemy! (Parts of) the MOW campaign are ace – any of the defence missions on hard are a geuninly terrifying experiance (No saves, mind) And building your own missions is also a blast. (although yes: the multiplyer is blindingly brilliant)
10/02/2010 at 06:56 DerShcraa says:
PS: I bought this beast when it was given away for 7.5 Euro around Chrismas and not at the time when it was given away at the ridiculous price of 3 Euros in January.
I still wish I’d have bought it at three to four times that price.
It has a steep learning curve, but it’s very rewarding.
10/02/2010 at 07:05 Gabbo says:
I must be a real oddity, as I used the asskickings I would receive online in games like Age of Kings and other RTS’s released at the time (Warcraft3, Starcraft, RoN, etc), to learn from and got better that way. With the focus shifting away from base-building, I see less incentive to go online (and haven’t in an RTS in a while). I still enjoy both types of RTS, but don’t like the trend of DOW2/C&C4 becoming the only style of play.
10/02/2010 at 07:09 Heliocentric says:
I’m posting this without reading comments yet. But i play rts quite alot, i’d like to think i’m hardcore, i think rts is a difficult genre to get into, but that doesn’t mean difficult is bad. I love arma, but your gran can’t play it.
These “entry level” rts are great as long as devs don’t forget about the hardcore. Anyone who changes the keyboard configs in a shooter can be hardcore in rts. But we need more turn based strategy which is action packed, i lured my ladyfriend into strategy games via advance wars, where she can now kick my ass, those skills (predicting traps, judging terrain, escorting units) carry over.
10/02/2010 at 07:10 Lemon scented apocalypse says:
I realise its not an RTS, but does anyone here play Dominions 3 online? Now that really is intimidating….
10/02/2010 at 07:11 Kelron says:
I occasionally play against friends of a similar skill level, but I find online RTS in general to be flawed. Very few of them allow creative strategic thinking, it’s all about learning tactics and build orders by rote.
Supcom is the closest I’ve found to allowing true strategy, with one memorable game having me put up a token defence in the middle of the map stopping the enemy scouts from reaching my start position, while I sneaked off to an island in the corner and built an army of submersible tanks he didn’t see coming and couldn’t defend against.
Unfortunately most games still end up being about who can build their economy fastest without giving ground, just like every other RTS.
10/02/2010 at 07:18 Fashigady says:
Only occasionally do I attempt to play online, mainly on DoW2. Originally I was mediocre at 2v2 but won a bit more than I lost – then nyds weren’t insanely overpowered and I simply sucked and stopped even trying. In my experience, playing RTSs online is only for the extremely hardcore and the masochistic.
10/02/2010 at 07:29 Anthony Damiani says:
I don’t play them online all that much anymore because, well, they’ve gotten so dumbed down, sped up and action-oriented. I don’t HATE DoW 2, but there’s so little meat there.
10/02/2010 at 07:33 Tei says:
I have played online Battlesomthing (I forgot the name), that one that is half a MMO, half a trading card game, 100% RTS. Even PVP.
Like most other RTS, theres this Only strategy to “RUSH” :-P
10/02/2010 at 07:39 MinisterofDOOM says:
I dislike multiplayer RTS for the same reason I dislike multiplayer gaming in general: I personally play games to relax and enjoy myself. But everyone else seems to play games so they can yell at people. People take games too seriously. I enjoy playing with friends but beyond that multiplayer in any genre holds no appeal for me.
Another reason I generally don’t bother with online in RTS games is that games can take far too long. With singleplayer missions I can save and come back later. With multiplayer I’m devoting a lot of time to a single game. I don’t always have that much time on hand.
As for C&C4/DOW2…they are taking a lot of steps in the wrong direction. They’re trading strategic depth for ease of use. And things like cross-mission persistent units with RPG-like stats add nothing of value to a real RTS experience because in a real RTS it’s not the individual units that matter, but rather how they are used. These games shift gameplay focus away from STRATEGY toward built-in process. You don’t have to think very hard because they game assigns all your goals for you, does all the resource gathering for you, and pretty much handles all the interesting parts of the game so you can focus on the immediate satisfaction of clicking on something. I can understand the appeal of that to RTS-newbies, but we were ALL new to the genre at one time. It’s far more rewarding to work your way up to playing a deep strategy game well than to just play a shallow one well from the start. It’s PLAYER progression that matters, not unit progression.
The RTS is just the latest genre to fall prey to the astoundingly misguided idea that old is bad, new is always good, so let’s just innovate for the sake of innovation. Cars don’t need 7 wheels. RTSs don’t need unit persistence. Cars DO need brakes. And RTSs need bases and resource harvesting.
Thank God Starcraft II is stating true to the classic formula. There’s one area where I have something good to say about multiplayer. Blizzard’s desire to please their existing loyal fanbase (a concept which woefully few developers seem to understand) has led them to avoid unnecessary innovation at any cost. The result is a game that is improved, but not reinvented. Which is exactly what C&C needs. Improvement, not reinvention. C&C3 was exactly that, and did a fairly good job of it(especially after the addition of Kane’s Wrath). C&C4 and DOW2 are bastard children of every generic console genre out there and none of the ingredients are appealing to me on any level.
10/02/2010 at 09:58 DerShcraa says:
“I dislike multiplayer RTS for the same reason I dislike multiplayer gaming in general: I personally play games to relax and enjoy myself. But everyone else seems to play games so they can yell at people.”
“Die schwierigste Turnübung ist immer noch, sich selbst auf den Arm zu nehmen.”
-Werner Finck
Throw it at Babelfish or something.
The semantic translation is something as follows: “Learn to laugh at yourself.”
Play with people who are able to do this and study this art yourself.
10/02/2010 at 10:19 MinisterofDOOM says:
Oh, I know how to laugh at myself. The issue is that no one else does. I remember years ago playing low-gravity screw-around matches in dm_bounce (HL) while we’d take turns being the “target” longjumping the length of the map as another player stood across on the cliff and tried to knock the targets out of the air with crossbow. Brilliant fun. We’d have a key bound to “spawn item_healthkit” so we could heal up and keep going. It wasn’t about scores, it wasn’t about e-genital size. It was about fun. And laughing a lot.
There’s none of that to be found today. That kind of thing would be considered “cheating” today and is likely to get you banned from servers. Because no one knows how to have any fun. Everyone takes things too seriously. Look at the videos of the MW2 servers with hacks for jumping and infinite ammo, etc. Tons of negative articles about them. But the fact is, if everyone wasn’t so worried about their effing kill/death ratios, those folks wouldn’t be hurting anyone at all. They’re just trying to have a little more fun with the game. 10 years ago those servers would have been met with joyous overpopulation. Today they’re frowned upon. That’s the trend multiplayer gaming has taken. Gamerscore is more important than enjoyment. It’s disgusting.
10/02/2010 at 07:39 Zanchito says:
I don’t usually play online much, because of two main reasons:
1) Too different skill levels: I work full time, train and teach, besides needing time for being a person, so I don’t have too much time. This means I can’t practice much so I’m not very good at competition. It wouldn’t bother me much if it weren’t for…
2) Online gamers are the pox: the internet is full of morons waiting to complain and yell about anything and everything. I play games to chill out and have fun, I have no interest in having to put up with idiots who take games as if they were losing money on them. If you don’t like being in a team with random people, play bloody private matches or join a clan, man.
Anyone here plays League of Legends? It’s free and it’s fun, I wouldn’t mind playing it with reasonable people for a change. :)
10/02/2010 at 07:45 Zanchito says:
Damn, I need an edit button…
Don’t take my point 1) as wanting easier games. I like my strategy to be strategic, complex and involving, and I don’t mind losing if the opponent is better than me. I just would like to have some sort of automatic skill asessment (win/lose ratio?) system in-game so I can be matched with players of similar skill.
10/02/2010 at 07:46 Vague-rant says:
I’m not too serious an RTS player, but I do play them, in part due to having played Tiberium sun to death as a kid. Even with that background I still find some of the newer RTS’s daunting. My friends and I play over LAN occasionally and its more of a laugh than anything else, and I prefer that to the uber precise macros and micros of the modern RTS world.
As for the movement to non-base building? I don’t know… Whilst they do remove one part they seem to intensify the emphasis on unit control, so overall I’m going to say there’s no overall change.
10/02/2010 at 07:54 Asskicker says:
Ditto, I suck so much at them I need somebody to cover me. :P
10/02/2010 at 08:02 archonsod says:
I tend to find “traditional” RTS’s, and even more modern ones like DoW II terribly dull in multiplayer. I don’t know whether it’s down to the format (watching tiny little men shoot each other is not quite as exciting as putting a bullet through someone’s head in first person), the mechanics or the lack of tactics (or in some cases strategy) that does it.
10/02/2010 at 08:09 Jarmo says:
I only play multiplayer RTS in LAN parties with my friends. I never go online to play RTS games. I have no interest whatsoever in playing against strangers. Also, all the talk about the skill disparity on offer there is pretty daunting and does nothing to lure me there.
10/02/2010 at 08:15 Kakrafoon says:
Yes, exactly my point. Dropping into a round of shooting 32 or 16 players in Team Fortress 2 or Battlefield 2142 is far less daunting than going Mano-a-Mano against a perfect stranger.
10/02/2010 at 09:03 Jarmo says:
Playing mano-a-mano feels like a very personally aggressive act, almost like a fist fight. When the opponent isn’t a friend there is nothing mitigating the feeling. No matter whether I’m winning or losing, I either feel bad for myself or the other guy. I don’t like the negative feelings so I don’t play.
10/02/2010 at 09:38 Catastrophe says:
@ Jarmo
I agree totally, thats how I feel regarding RTS online play.
I enjoy RTS games but tend to stay away from any online component for this reason, though I enjoy them on LAN.
I used to play Total Annihilation, online and I was pretty good, but still got the anxious feeling back then.
10/02/2010 at 08:14 Bonedwarf says:
I love RTS. Been playing all the way back to the original Dune 2 on the Amiga. I love them.
NEVER EVER play them online. Used to. Hardcore into Starcraft and Warcraft 3, but the thing they are, by their nature, repetitive and learnable. What order to do stuff in etc… Exploits and all that. Plus you’re against people who do NOTHING but play. Even buying the game on release day you’re going to be behind the times almost immediately and being yelled at, called a noob etc… Simply because you can’t/won’t devote all your time to learning the game.
And obviously the later in the games life you buy it, the more screwed you are. I bought Dawn of War when the first expansion came out but knew I was screwed if I ever wanted to play it online. Same with Company of Heroes. It’s too far into the games life cycle to stand a chance online, which means doing the old Starcraft Human vs Ai and in that case, why bother going online?
10/02/2010 at 08:15 Aim Here says:
Actually, the fact that RTSes are daunting, difficult, and come with a huge learning curve is exactly why I’m trying to pick up Starcraft these days (after having a quick look through some other RTSes). I got bored with modern games being so easy and being patronised with simple so-called achievements and showered with meaningless awards, when I knew fine well that I sucked. So I found a game which wasn’t afraid to tell me I lacked a whole bunch of skills.
I still find trying to start a match quite intimidating (it’s not like a public FPS server, where nobody cares which part of the high score table you’re on – someone is about to know, and care about, exactly how bad you are at this game), but It’s a huge buzz on those rare occasions when I do manage to win against another live human being.
10/02/2010 at 09:24 pistolhamster says:
I have begun to be really tired of these “Skittles games” that shower you in their equivalent of brightly colored candies with extreme sugar content and artificial flavour. I guess I am the minority, the world really seem to like skittles games.
EA is especially awful on this. I remember playing Burnout 3 for the first time and got absolutely showered in unlocks and what not. You really stop caring then, and consequently I stopped playing it, because the game went from Fast and Difficult as in Burnout 1 and 2 to ez-mode Skittles Extravaganza bland-a-fest :(
10/02/2010 at 08:24 pinbag says:
I dont realy like the fast pased rts’s that are being pusched up to us old veterans ….
They feel so cheap …
10/02/2010 at 08:26 StalinsGhost says:
Generally I try them out a bit, before promptly getting smacked down by the big boys.
10/02/2010 at 08:41 Johnny says:
I voted “Bad news for strategy gaming – dumbing down and all that” on the last question even though that’s not ENTIRELY the truth – I despise Dawn of War 2 because it’s just boring; it’s not just doing it different, it’s dumbing it down so hard that I spent most of my time playing that game WAITING for stuff to happen.
On the other hand, World In Conflict is simply brilliant to play multiplayer with 6 players or more, but that’s because it’s got actual strategy to it. Dawn of War 2 does NOT, no matter what the back of the box tries to tell you.
10/02/2010 at 10:05 zzzzzz says:
I felt cheated when i played (and was bored by) Dow 2.
It has *nothing* in common with dow 1 except the Setting,and can hardly be called a sequel…
10/02/2010 at 11:37 Kleevah says:
I feel the exact same way.
World in Conflict really nailed how to do a “light” FPS where strategy and tactics gets all priority over base building and upkeep. DoW2, on the other hand, really didn’t feel like a FPS at all, more like a squad based action game or something. Which would be totally OK if it wasn’t for the fact that the first DoW was very very good, just making me disappointed by the sequel.. :(
10/02/2010 at 11:41 Kleevah says:
And why the hell do i keep writing FPS when I mean RTS… :p
10/02/2010 at 08:43 Danny says:
I loved playing Company of Heroes online. Normally I play most RTS games online for a month or 3, until the ‘noobs’ leave and the ‘hardcore’ crowd takes over. I’m a really sore loser, so I only want to play games where I have the upper hand.
Sorry.
10/02/2010 at 08:47 Sian says:
I love RTSs, but I never play them online. In traditional RTS games, the winning side is mostly decided by two factors: learning by rote and applying that rote with enough speed. In my experience, matches usually go like this:
1) start building, blindly following a build order that you found in most videos of the game on youtube.
2) start/fend off an early rush to disrupt/avoid disruption of your rote.
3) mass the unit deemed as the most overpowered in the game.
4) have one huge clash that decides the match.
Some folks settle for less favoured units that are ready earlier in hopes of surprising their enemy, but in most games, people attack with one, maybe two kinds of units and that’s it.
To me, this isn’t strategy, it’s mindless. Modern RTSs go against this trend, setting a focus on tactics instead of wasting all this time building a base, but even there, more often than not, there’s one unit that stands above the rest and will finish the match pretty certainly if it’s employed as the only unit in your army. Combined arms are rarely successful online, because even with hard counters that one unit usually suffices, because to counter THAT your enemy needs to mass its specific counter which more often than not will be comparatively useless against everything else, including buildings.
And forget about ambushes, traps, finding weak spots in the enemy’s base, because a frontal all-out assault is the only way to survive their frontal all-out assault.
I love building bases, I love employing tactics, using strike groups, ambushes (when the game allows me to), diversions, but online I don’t have a chance because everybody else has a rote and can press the necessary hotkeyes quickly enough. And then they call getting rid of learning to press the same buttons in a specific order every match “dumbing down”.
10/02/2010 at 10:21 batpic says:
@Sian, I think the exception to your Mass rule is Starcraft — as the Koreans have proven that there isn’t a single-unit strategy that will win you the game. But I certainly agree that it is not until the rote and speed are mastered that you see much strategy, which is very tough for new players and those who don’t devote their lives to a game.
10/02/2010 at 08:47 Fraser says:
I don’t bother! I’m certainly daunted by the difficulty of playing the 0.1% of players who spend all their time online with this one game, but the bigger problem is the time commitment required to play an entire RTS match without being able to pause or resume another day. When I have that much time with a guarantee of no interruptions, which is very rare, I’d rather use it to immerse myself in a single-player game with a bit of story.
10/02/2010 at 09:11 Biz says:
so I was done ranting on how deep, strategic, multiplayer RTS is essentially dead with no foreseeable hope of recovery because of popular developers not bothering to make complex games, Microsoft Game Studios’ retarded decisions, and casual gamers choosing the RTT’s over wanting to invest time in learning deep online strategy games…
and then I thought of how people can spend hundreds of hours learning some complex MMO system…
and then I thought that a MMORTS was the only way to introduce complexity back into multiplayer RTS without turning lots of people off…
and then I realized that World of Starcraft is the only chance of such a thing gaining attention…
and then I realized how absurd the idea of a starcraft MMO saving the RTS genre was so I went back to playing age of empires 2…
and as I waited for a game to fill up I was browsing the internet about gaming stuff and naturally news about this starcraft remake (aka starcraft 2) is all over the place…
and that reminded me of the huge legions of people who have been riding blizzard’s **** for the last 12 years…
and then I came back to the original conclusion. the future of multiplayer RTS is screwed
if firaxis doesn’t take the accessibility and facebook and conosle crap too seriously, I guess I can look forward to civilization 5. civ4 is basically dead, and even when I find a game it just doesn’t have any challenge. not a RTS, but at the end of the day any type strategy game will do
a free fanmade remake of aoe2 with modern graphics may also get some attention, but microsoft is full of lamer lawyers so i don’t know about that…
10/02/2010 at 09:13 Sagan says:
I was once pretty good at Warcraft III, but haven’t played an RTS online since. It just suddenly becomes way too stressful when you are playing against a human being.
I played Warcraft III online for way longer than I wanted, because I had gotten good, and I didn’t want all that training to go to waste. But eventually I realized “this is a constant struggle, I will just be stressed out for 15 minutes, and it won’t be fun. I should stop with this.”
Then I went to play tower defence maps, thank you.
10/02/2010 at 09:24 Quercus says:
I play RTS games a fair bit and generally prefer co-op games with friends, although occasionally I go for more confrontational games online.
Although they are very daunting, I think Relic went too far in dumbing down (or rather, simplifying) what you could do in DoW2. What they should have done is had simplified game modes that new players can get into, but retaining the full battle modes as well, because their core fan base (playing Company of Heroes for example) in general found DoW2 too simplistic to retain their interest.
If you create an excellent game such as CoH, it is relatively simple to adapt it to simpler game modes that new players can easily get into, but if you create the game as a simplistic one, adding complexity is almost impossible.
10/02/2010 at 13:25 Adam Whitehead says:
The problem with this argument being that DAWN OF WAR II’s sales have dwarfed those of COMPANY OF HEROES by quite a lot (hence why Relic are still dragging their feet over CoH2 in favour of producing more DoW content), so from Relic’s POV their decision to ‘dumb down’ DoW2 was vindicated.
I agree that DoW2 wasn’t an RTS, but I actually really enjoyed the game in a DIABLO-in-space kind of way. It did have problems with repetiveness though, despite being of unusually decent length (something Relic have struggled with in the past: really, 17 missions from one faction and that’s it?).
10/02/2010 at 16:51 Alex says:
DOW2 was a blast, I never played online. I would actually try it if I thought there was decent matchmaking available that selected for skill and experience. Agreed about the stressfulness though, I just don’t need it after a hard day at work. If I want competition and strategy with a real human I’ll go play tennis.
10/02/2010 at 09:32 Blackberries says:
RTSes are one of my favourite genres of game, but I play them overwhelmingly for the singleplayer. Therefore if the game’s mechanics aren’t satisfying played alone, if the AI isn’t halfway interesting and if there isn’t a well developed and worthwhile campaign then I will be sorely pissed off.
That said, if my friends also manage to have the same game, I love playing multiplayer with them – but co-op, against AI.
I don’t get into player-versus-player multiplayer because I generally find it tedious. It’s rarely two great strategic mines duking it out across the plains of battle – after the game’s been out for more than a week it’s who can get out the correct assortment of units in the shortest time available. Only gets vaguely interesting when it’s 4-vs-4 or some such. I wouldn’t touch 1-vs-1 with a 3 metre strategy-pole.
As for the changing dynamics – argh! I love the traditional bases-and-build model, as do people I tend to play co-op with. Our favourites are Age of Empires II (still!), and one friend and I went through a spate of Dawn of War, which was great. However after trying out the DoW II demo, my friend was so underwhelmed he didn’t even get the game. I did, for the singleplayer (which was a let down too).. the multiplayer isn’t anywhere near as fun as the first game.
So in short: Keep the old formula and make sure the singleplayer mode is the meat of the game, so far as I’m concerned.
10/02/2010 at 09:36 megaman says:
I played DOW2 in and out, but never could be bothered to try the multiplayer. My mulitplayer experiences in C&C in the past were so gruesome that I am now generally shy of meeting 12 year-old strangers kicking my ass in 5 minutes although I’m the one who played almost every RTS since Dune and he just saw the light a couple of years ago.
Dumbing things down too much can’t be the solution (I envy those who really master the pvp variant of RTS games). It would make things more interesting for me, but at the cost of those pros, so I am not entirely convinced this would be a good thing. This made answering the last question hard.
10/02/2010 at 09:41 Hmm-Hmm. says:
I really like to play an RTS every once in a while. My latest RTS darling was Dawn of War (and expansions), which almost convinced me to go online.
As for the polls: The only question I couldn’t answer properly was the last. I like base building.. and I also like co-op play. For me base building is no deterrent from going online.. being bashed for being rubbish at it is. I don’t think gameplay in general should be ‘dumbed down’ (unless you make a game specifically for the inexperienced crowd) but there could be different playing modes, with easier ones lowering the threshold for the inexperienced. A good matchmaking system is imperative, as well.
I didn’t try multiplayer with DOW, but I tried a couple of times.. with C&C, Starcraft and Warcraft 3, but the results weren’t encouraging, so to speak.
10/02/2010 at 09:41 Flint says:
I’m not really a RTS player (hence the third answer to the first question) but I do play the very occasional RTS game. I’d never even dream of going online though – I’ve got enough to manage already in the singleplayer, I honestly don’t want to become the laughing stock of the hardcore community.
10/02/2010 at 09:42 JamesOf83 says:
I find them daunting. I love RTS games, but my limited experience of trying them online usually ends up with me dead because the other person knows a rushing strategy where they can send in a handful of units to kill me before I’ve even got my first factory up.
Obviously when you first play an FPS online you’ll probably be killed 10 times in a row before you even get a single kill. The difference is you’ll respawn within seconds and you can try again, over and over giving you the chance to learn the game quickly. Also, I think FPS skills easily trasfer to other FPS games. If you can move your character about well and aim well in one FPS, it’s not going to be much different in another. With an RTS, things can work drastically differently.
I suppose because I like to build bases and that takes a while in most RTS’s, I don’t want to invest that time online with someone I don’t know for them to potentially pull out. From the PC Gamer preview of SupCom2 though, it sounds like if this happens or they drop connection that the AI will take over, though this may only happen if they lose connection I’m not sure.
10/02/2010 at 09:54 Duoae says:
I liked RTSes but not squad combat games (looking at you DOW2 which shouldn’t even be listed in that last question) but i’ve always played RTSes cooperatively (team vs team) with friends on the internet. I’ve never played against random people because a) i’ll get my ass whooped and b) it’s not as fun playing against someone who you’ve no connection to. You’re not literally fighting them like in an FPS.
I don’t want all games to move towards co-op only as playing against the AI is generally not as fun since their weaknesses can easily be gamed but i certainly don’t mind the inclusion.
10/02/2010 at 09:59 neems says:
Has there ever been an RTS that really and truly rewarded strategy over numbers / speed? And if there was such a game, would I suck at it?
I wonder if you could get away with a game where both / all players have identical armies, playing on symmetrical maps, perhaps with a setup timer. Best man wins.
As a side note, did anybody else come away from Dawn of War 2 (singleplayer) with the impression that it was an action rpg?
10/02/2010 at 13:31 Adam Whitehead says:
COMPANY OF HEROES has enough variety to discourage rushing with one particular type of unit at the start of the game, and there are some interesting tactics to use later on (for example, the Germans rolling an ultra-expensive and irreplaceable King Tiger into your base only to have its engine disabled by a well-placed mortar round and then pounded into rubble by anti-tank guns). STARCRAFT does have a similar paradigm, providing you can overcome the Zerg player’s prospensity to Zergling-rush at the start of the game, which, even if it doesn’t wipe you out, can cause enough damage to put you on the back foot for the rest of the game.
GROUND CONTROL, its sequel and WORLD IN CONFLICT do have a set-up where you field two identical armies (within reason). GC2 and WiC permit in-game reinforcing though, whilst GC1 (still one of the best RTS games ever made, albeit one of the most hardcore) doesn’t.
10/02/2010 at 17:59 archonsod says:
Depends on how far you want to stretch the term “RTS”. The Total War series for example.
I think the key difference is the combat variables. Traditional RTS is more like Rock, paper scissors with elaborate graphics – Unit A will always destroy Unit B no matter the situation, assuming equal numbers.
Personally I preferred Men of War to Company of Heroes.
10/02/2010 at 10:18 MadMatty says:
Ive played RTS since their birth, Dune 2 on the Amiga.
I agree with just about all the things being said about RTS here on the comments (for once everyone seem to be in agreeance?! w00t!).
Had some fun with Battleforge, but it was quite short lived as it lacked the deep strategy part- of say SupremeCommander, which i think is the king of multiplayer RTS right now. Mainly because Supcom as the ability to automate units, and stack up, like 30 mins worth of orders on a unit, and that minimizes the click-speed thing, making for a quite strategic game, while still conserving the entertaining aspects of micro-management. And base building!
Played Starcraft quite a bit also, which was great amongst friends… theres a lot of clickie-micromanagement to that game, but its intended and quite fun really… but players who are mouse-ninjas have a big avantage.
Do i play online? no, the people who play daily kick my ass, so theres really no point.
I played around 300 matches of C&C Generals Online, and after that, i was *nearly* worthwhile opposition for the regular onliners- go figure.
When i did play obsessively, i played Counterstrike around year 2000-02 – racked up about 80 000 player kills, 40 000 confirmed thru the ol´ Clanbase :D
10/02/2010 at 11:29 MisterX says:
NEVER ever play online other than co-op with my friends against the AI
Supreme commander or LOTR: The battle for middle earth 2 were both excellent for this.
I like to more orr less take my time in the early game, playing online doesn’t allow this at all.
10/02/2010 at 11:35 Ffitz says:
I agree with what a lot of peeps are saying here. I love RTSes, but only really ever play the single-player campaigns.
The reason being that I can’t and won’t get to grips with the “do everything as quickly as possible with shortcuts, build queues and mob-rush” play style that MP RTSes seem to devolve in to. I just can’t cope with a base-build and a build queue and troop running about orders all at the same time. They make my head hurt.
I like to turtle, and I’m happiest when I’m building a really fancy base in an RTS (DOW2 excepted).
What I’d love to see in an MP RTS is dual-control co-op. Something where two players control the same team, at the same time. So, for example, I could be base building while my partner is ruching about capping points with our starter squads. Any troops I create from our factory, I can send off to a spot that he designates, where he can take control of them simply by clicking on them.
I don’t know if any games already offer this, but I haven’t really been keeping an eye out for one because MP RTS leaves me so cold anyway.
10/02/2010 at 11:38 Carra says:
I also love to turtle. It’s what makes games like Stronghold so damn good. I wish there were more of those defense oriented games. These days it all seems to be about more and more aggressive assaults.
10/02/2010 at 13:17 MisterX says:
I’d buy that.
Homeworld 2 sorta filled that gap I would take the fleet out to battles, my mate would defend our motherships , build fleet and give them over to me.
Great fun
10/02/2010 at 11:37 Carra says:
Once upon a time I played nothing but online Age of Empires 2 for nine months.
Since then I haven’t played that many online games. A game of shooty, shooty fun like TF2 or RtcW fcomes along now and then. And of course I played way too much WoW.
But RTS games are hard to get into. It will easily take you months to be a decent player. It’s also a completely different experience than the single player game. You have to be way more aggressive. My usual playstyle in these games is to build an army while protecting my base and suddenly send them all in one big wave. That just doesn’t work in multiplayer. And of course being good at starcraft does not mean that you will be good at age of kings. While being good at Quake 3 will make you decent in Unreal Tournament.
These games require a serious time investment. Today I’d rather just start a game of TF2 for some quick fun. If you have played any shooter in the last ten years you can go ahead and have a few frags.
10/02/2010 at 11:41 Polis says:
I had voted easy to get into, that is not fully true but the other option was wrong also. First of all there are rankings so you can play against people with similar skill, secondly I think that it would be best if people would start playing at lower game speed so they will be able to execute they plans, and later on going to fastest game speed, focus management is important part of RTS game you have to know when it is best for you to focus on attack, when you can go back to base to start production (often even in middle of the combat), nobody even the fastest players can do it all/have perfect control. That makes harrasment much more important, and you can harras in the same time when there is big battle becouse it will be much harder for your opponent to notice it etc. Focus managment is why many people are against multiple building selection if you will be able to do everything then this critical fast thinking will not be part of the game any longer. (almost nobody cares about unlimited unit selection, you will split your army in parts for various reasons anyway)
“I don’t get into player-versus-player multiplayer because I generally find it tedious. It’s rarely two great strategic mines duking it out across the plains of battle – after the game’s been out for more than a week it’s who can get out the correct assortment of units in the shortest time available.”
That is not true at least for SC, it is very adoptive game you can’t just mindlessly make your build without watching what your opponent is doing, and there are no doom units all units are useful depending on the situation. Good mechanic skills are important but they alone will not make you good player.
10/02/2010 at 12:04 pkt-zer0 says:
I really like Starcraft… as a spectator sport. I enjoy the strategic depth, but it pains me to know that I’d need way higher APM before that actually becomes a factor. Which is why I’m looking forward to SC2, which will hopefully have a better interface.
Not pleased with recent trends, because more often than not it ends up being nothing more than taking out the ‘strategy’ from RTS. Too much dumbing down is a shame, as I actually prefer RTT to RTS.
10/02/2010 at 12:21 Andrew Dunn says:
I love RTS games (broadly speaking) and Company of Heroes and Men of War are two games which I regularly played online for the best part of three years, combined. Dawn of War 2 adds in a fair bit, too. However, I did answer that RTS games are generally daunting to get into, online, although modern Relic RTS games are probably the most accessible even in full adversarial multiplayer. I’ve been playing RTS games since 1997 but Company of Heroes was the first one I actually became good at.
10/02/2010 at 13:00 Jimbo says:
Only play co-op – leaning toward RTT rather than traditional RTS. Some skirmish vs. AI is ok, but much prefer a proper campaign that can be played co-op.
Soldiers / Faces / Men of War are the pinnacle of co-op gaming in any genre if you ask me.
10/02/2010 at 13:04 Ginger Yellow says:
I only recently started playing multiplayer RTS, despite being a big fan of the genre. Unless you count a few LAN games of Age of Empires when I was at university. I started playing online Company of Heroes after the ToV expansion, and now play it most nights. I’m decent enough without being particularly good (level 9 American, 7 Wehrmacht, but I’ve only played a handful of games as the Germans). I actually think CoH is pretty friendly for newcomers, mainly because the units are mostly familiar and engagements pan out more or less as you would expect them to in real life. In a loose sense of course – obviously units survive a lot longer than they would, but the point is you can pretty much intuit how a unit will fare against another even if you haven’t played before. Also, the GameReplays community is more than happy to provide helpful tips for newbs if you post replays of your defeats.
I also played a lot of Demigod early on, but kind of fell away as the community became more and more hardcore and actively hostile to casual/new players. Other than that, not much at all.
As for base building, I’m generally speaking a fan of complex economies in RTS, so I don’t mind it at all. But I’m glad people are experimenting with different approaches. I wouldn’t want base building to disappear completely from the genre, but it’s good that some games don’t have it.
10/02/2010 at 13:30 Scroll says:
I do miss the days of playing TA on a lan, Ho hum.
These days I might give sup com or Red alert 3 or Sins ago online every once in a while but I prefer to play offline, far less stressful.
10/02/2010 at 13:34 Radiant says:
Unlike say FPS’, fighters or Tetris; RTS’ online are so different to the single player game that campaign mode really doesn’t prepare you for online.
Online is like playing an infuriatingly hard game, which you’ve never played before and you don’t know the rules or the spreadsheets stats.
As Solium Infernum shows you that type of game is best played with friends.
Even then it’s 2 hours of your life; which is ok if it was just you but you also have to take 2 hours away from one of your friends too.
Without beer that’s IMPOSSIBLE.
10/02/2010 at 13:36 Adam Whitehead says:
Me and my friends played CoH online against other players for a while and became quite good until Relic reset all the rankings for reasons known only to themselves, and suddenly elite players who poured eight hours into the game daily were going up against n00bs. After that the game lost a lot of its charm, and we switched to playing co-op against the AI (although given Relic’s tendency to mess around with the AI settings every patch, this has also been a variable experience). That wasn’t so much fun.
Back in the day I got pretty good at STARCRAFT, but these days would probably not last more than a few minutes against experienced hardcore players.
10/02/2010 at 14:54 Cooper says:
If I play something multiplayer I want it to be drop-in-drop-out where even a lack of skill doesn’t mean a shit game.
Someone, at somepoint, will create the TF2 of RTS games. But I envisage that meaning many more players on a map than most RTS multiplayer currently allows for so that those of us without super skillz can still have a laugh.
10/02/2010 at 14:57 CMaster says:
I’ll add my personal experiences here, as plenty others seem to be doing. No idea if they will ever get read, but here you go. First though, a bit of a personal RTS history:
I dabbled with various RTS demos as a kid, loving the idea but never getting any of them due to lack of money to buy £40-£45 PC games. I eventually wound up with a copy of Starcraft (having played the excellent demo) and loved it. Only ever played the campaign though, as I got stomped in skirmish matches. A couple of LAN games vs one friend, and two very, very dissapoinint battle.net experiences a couple of years later. Then I disocverd Homeworld. I loved that game so much, that it put me off RTS games for years. They just flat out couldn’t compare. So after Homeworld, I never played RTS beyond the occasional demo, which reassured me that I was tired of them. Someone bought me Red Alert 2 at some point, which I blitzed through the campaign with, but hte lack of depth meant I had no interest in multiplayer. Recently, Supreme Commander became an occasional skirmish vs the AI and turtle diversion, while World in Conflict grabbed me for a while. Company of Heroes has now become my most-played game on Steam over the past few months, after picking it up as part of the THQ pack (grabbed largley for the DoW games that I had friends who loved) in November.
Now a little bit of multiplayer history. After dabbling with a few unusal FPS (mostly The Opera) and trying to get the ancient NetStorm working, I became hooked on Natural Selection. Here was a multiplayer only game that was both action packed and strategic, and where an individual player could contribute to the stratergy of the team, without a poor decision letting the team down (unless you were the marine commander), at least at the non-competetive level. In fact, I became a fairly vaulable player, despite not being great at getting kills. I had a good grasp of the stratgic situation and when things would be useful, as well as helping organise the team. I’ve then trucked through a couple of MMOs and a variety of other FPSes and the like to varying degrees in online gaming that aren’t relevant. I then picked up World In Conflict, excited by the prospect of genuinley tactical combat and team-play aspect. I was dissapointed to find out that actual online play mostly involved building 4-6 of your best unit, moving them around together and trying to avoid your hard counter long enough to build up enough points to call in fire-support that wiped out another player in one shot. And so we come to my recent, and only significant involvement in online RTS: Company of Heroes.
Company of Heroes is a game I have come to absolutley love. Asymetric armies, multiple viable paths and build orders, variety of maps, commander skills etc. Scales nicley with multiple players too. It also has a nice mix between the importance of unit mix and quantity and the position of individual units for an individual engagement. It has it’s issues, like doubts about how balanced the sides are and the fact that at higher (but not that high – this includes the level I am getting to with 60-70 matches) levels the life or death of 1 or 2 units can decide the outcome of the game. The matchmaking does a fairly good job – having played through most of the SP game and done a couple of comp-stomps and a match versus a friend, I was able to hit the “Play Now” button and join 1 v 1s that I won slighty more often than I lost. They were against other players who also seemed to be feeling their way with the game and factions.
One of the things I end up despairing at with the game more and more with the game though are the other players. Most of them are absoltuley fine, if a little arrogant. However so many of them seem to prefer that the game has not stratergy or thought. One of the most popular match ups you see in “custom games” is Annihalate 3vs3 on The Scheldt. This basicaly comes down to all players on both sides throwing massive amounts of MGs, Snipers and Mortars at one little choke point. It seems they’d rather play that than a map where they have to think on their feet. Another common one is 2vs2 on a map with very unbalanced starting locations, with the game creator + friend in the stronger starting position.
So yes, I do play RTS online. But it’s a bit of a recent revelation. I think that good match making and a large enough community to support it are important. I also think that there is space for a “Massively Multiplayer” RTS, or rather RTT where you bring a small group of units and control them (possibly a persistent, upgradeable set of units in a more conventional MMO world, or possibly just a purchasble set of units in a traditional lobby-game world) in a much larger battle (5 vs 5 upwards) could have great potentional.
10/02/2010 at 15:14 KJR says:
I used to play RTS’s more heavily, but the community around them is perfectly tuned to demotivate me. If I’m on the winning side I get called a hacker among other things, if I’m on the losing side I’m dumped on by both my teammate and my opponents. Call me weak-willed, but the last thing I need in my scant spare time is to be called every expletive in the book by some child because I’m playing a video game.
The most important feature of online RTS to me is a “no-chat” feature. Maybe more games have them, but I haven’t had the patience to find them. It’s a shame because I very much have enjoyed the core mechanics of online RTS ever since Starcraft, and even enjoyed the playing aspect of DOW II and Demigod.
10/02/2010 at 15:43 EyeMessiah says:
I’m a HUGE fan of online multiplayer, but imo RTS multiplay suffers from the standard multiplayer problem i.e. that hardly anyone plays it, and those that do play everyday.
If your playing semi-casually (i.e. not every day) against randoms, which I suspect is what the vast majority of gamers experience of online play is, its very difficult to find people to play with who are at a similar skill level & level of commitment to the game. Chances are you’ll end up playing someone substantially more hardcore than you, then you won’t bother playing again and the multiplayer aspect loses yet another potential semi-casual player, which is a shame give that the problem is that there aren’t enough semi-casual players to begin with!
I’m not sure what the solution is, beyond somehow bringing multiplayer out into the mainstream and attracting new players with a larger range of skill levels.
Of course it would nice if we all had a large pool of gaming buddies to draw from, but we can’t all be games journalists can we?
10/02/2010 at 16:20 Ginger Yellow says:
This is true, but you can always play automatch, which as you say works pretty well. You get the occasional dick in automatch, but it’s pretty rare. Though I can understand delving into custom games for matches other than 1v1, and it can be dispiriting.
10/02/2010 at 16:34 terry says:
I am genuinely terrible at playing RTS games and so never play online because I always get the nagging feeling that I’m wasting someone’s time. It’s fine if you’re playing with someone you know or someone who is equally clueless, but there’s just too much of competitive gap otherwise. Tied into that RTS mp games seem to have the hardcoreultragrognardsperger demographic who are intent on steamrolling teh n00bz, which puts me immediately off even trying. I get quite enough of that in TF2!
10/02/2010 at 16:36 BlondRobin says:
I love RTSes, and I do feel a little like games such as DoW2 are fairly dumbed down; being a big fan of DoW1 and base/economy/etc management, I feel that their removal simply detracts from the game overall. However, on the other hand, I haven’t played an RTS against human players since Starcraft because, as many others have echoed, it rapidly turns into nothing more than rote memorization of optimal build strategies which are not fun, interesting, or deep. The closest I’ve come to a multiplayer RTS is playing AI War with a friend recently, honestly; which I like a lot, but isn’t competitive.
So I struggled briefly with the final question; on one hand, I like co-op in all games and am overjoyed it’s finally making a comeback, and it’s true I might be able to play a far simpler RTS online now competitively. However, I have no real DESIRE to do so, because I feel like what little interest I had in doing so (not being an immensely competitive person) was stripped away with all the complexity. If Dawn of War 2 is the future of RTSes, I’m somewhat glad I was never a big fan of the genre to begin with.
10/02/2010 at 16:37 Chaz says:
I quite like the idea of co-op RTS games. I’d like to be able to play RTS games online, but my mind is just too slow and losing makes me cry.
10/02/2010 at 17:17 Ginger Yellow says:
BlondRobin: At least give CoH a try, especially if you have it installed anyway. It’s definitely not an optimal build order game, or even particularly a clicks-per-minute game, although obviously it does help especially in heated moments. It’s much more about reading the tactical situation correctly and deploying the right counters. I was intimidated from playing online for a long while, but it really wasn’t that hard to get into once I jumped in the water. In automatch you will occasionally be pitted against a far superior opponent, but there are plenty of noobs playing (especially since the recent Steam sale) and it does a pretty good job of matching players up of roughly the same skill.
10/02/2010 at 18:23 Daniel says:
I used to play Red Alert (followed by RA2) on LAN with a friend. We were both of the mind that it’s more fun to build up huge armies of tanks and the have an epic battle than race to win the game in 15 minutes, so we’d have a 30ish minute ceasefire to start the game where we weren’t allowed to attack each other’s main bases.
I play single player somewhat the same… once the AI is down to a few scraggly buildings I still like to bring in my whole army for an epic conclusion.
10/02/2010 at 18:52 Joe G. says:
My story is similar to many of the above responders. I love RTS games and I buy a ton of them. However, I nearly always play them in single player mode.
The main problem is, as someone else stated, too much RT and not enough S. You need to memorize your optimum build order and click through it faster than your opponent. My mouse skills are not all that great, so it is inevitable that I will fat-finger something even if I know my build order in advance, which is a rare occurrence in itself.
The recent trend away from base-building has zero effect on this problem, because it merely shifts all the mouse clicking over to unit micro, which is just as difficult in its own way. The real problem is with mutiltasking in a real time environment, it is too hard to make sure that all of your units are maximizing their effectiveness. I enjoy both kinds of games in single player mode and I hope that the DOTA style doesn’t crowd out the more traditional base builders.
I prefer my strategy games to play out like a chess match, where I have some time (not unlimited) to plan and think out my moves.
10/02/2010 at 20:53 cw says:
I’ve played RTS’s since Red Alert which totally blew my mind when it came out. I never really played it online much however. Next I played Starcraft which I did play online but not regularly. Mostly I played on a LAN with friends. I played quite a bit of Warcraft 3 online which is where I really started to learn some skills that can apply to any RTS instead of just building the same thing every match. After that my computer couldn’t really handle the newer games for a while.
After getting a new laptop last year, I picked up Company of Heroes during the xmas sale and
absolutely love it. I just love how the units are handled, the graphics, the sound, everything is done so well. I do realize it has some balance issues that aren’t likely to be addressed, but they aren’t enough to deter me, at least not yet. The matchmaking isn’t horrible either.
I really wish I could have gotten it when it first came out, but I’m still really enjoying it despite the large presence of highly skilled players. I alternate between playing skirmishes against the CPU on hard and playing online in automatch.
I’d really like to find some other players to add to my friends list, especially fellow RPS players. So look me up on steam if you want. My steam name is alcrani.
10/02/2010 at 21:11 SwiftRanger says:
When a good RTS game (SupCom, WiC, DoW II were the best in recent years imo) comes around I always try to play it online with friends in team ranked games. After a while balance and matchmaking issues limit the longevity of these games.
Probably the biggest barrier for many people is that an RTS match always feels like all or nothing. Joining an online FPS dedicated server for 10 minutes is 1000 times less daunting that taking the risk of losing a match of 30-45 minutes in which you have to be top most of the time. Most online RTSs just focus on a ranked ladder which does nothing for the average person except for getting a tiny larger e-penis. Players need the right rewards for just even trying to play an RTS game. DoW II took some huge steps there with pure visual wargear rewards for your units (and took steps back with the TrueSkill matchmaking which happily keeps putting newbies up against top players).
Team games often lower a barrier but it doesn’t always work (see C&C4) and when it does it isn’t even a regular RTS (WiC). I’ve always wondered what effect one huge persistent playfield would have on the multiplayer side, I believe that’s where developers should work towards (alongside more rewards).
11/02/2010 at 01:47 bill says:
The thing is, playing muliplayer RTS one-on-one with a stranger is like having a 3 hour long chess game with someone you’ve never met before.
Playing multiplayer FPS (for example) with 15 odd players is more like joining in a quick game of kick-around football in the park.
In the first option it’s more competitive, more personal (and yet impersonal), more all-or-nothing.
I suspect 10 minutes into the chess game i’d realise he was better than me and want to quit… but maybe feel obligated to play for the next 2 hours to an ending.
whereas in the footie it wouldn’t really matter if i was the weakest player among many. And i could drop out at any time without causing too much hassle.
11/02/2010 at 02:16 bill says:
It seems that what is needed is a cut-down, short, many on many mutiplayer RTS. And maybe with some randomisation to cut down on the efficiency queues.
I’ve never played games like Savage, but maybe the split between controlling individual units and the whole battle is a way to let people get in bit by bit. I heard games like MAG do something a little similar.
This may be exactly what DoW2 multiplayer does, I haven’t tried it. But what i’m imagining is something like:
When you start mutiplayer you have a very limited unit/point cap and basically have only one squad. As you win games you raise this point cap and can therefore slowly gain more squads, and be playing against people with a similar level of skill/experience to you.
When each game starts many variables are randomised, and not all units/upgrades/weapons are available in each game. So in one game you might be limited to scout marines, in another you might not have them available.
Arenas are randomised, but symetrical. There is a time limit, and you can win by victory, or by being in the lead at the end.
11/02/2010 at 02:24 BonusWavePilot says:
Another vote for ‘only play with my mates’, though using online thingummies to make it happen.
Mostly I play ancient old C&C Generals, with the agreement not to exploit the ‘scud bug’, since as I understand it EA *still* haven’t patched it away. (GLA for preference – as much for the enthusiasm of their barks as anything. Liked Protoss in SC for the same reason.)
I think my favourite RTS experience remains giggling to myself after clearly having lost a game of… erm think it was Red Alert? Possibly even one of the older C&C titles… where to beat your opponent you had to kill every last one of their guys – and irritating my opponent in a way I found increasingly hysterical by managing to keep my last infantry unit hidden and fleeing around the map while he searched for him. Made even better by the random crate drop things which would sometimes give you a whole building, or serious unit.
11/02/2010 at 06:16 pistolhamster says:
Ooh, ooh. I forgot!
Close Combat-series. Now THAT was brilliant. I played it Multi many times, and when you got your ass handed to you, it felt a lot different than when you get twitched down in split seconds in Vanilla RTS. I think that the “building loads of stuff” part and the “commanding huge armies” stuff combined just makes for a poor cocktail. It is one we are loathed to turn our backs on because it has served us so well as a trope for gaming since the early 90′s.
But more units and bigger maps and deeper tech trees just doesn’t do us any good for gameplay. I am really wondering how Starcraft 2 is going to turn out. Will Blizzard cater to the massive fanbase in Korea who adore the old Starcraft? If they do, I think Im gonna buy only if the singleplayer experience is worthwhile and probably skip completely on multi.
11/02/2010 at 08:19 Tweakd says:
I certainly played vCoH to death online. As soon as another RTS comes along to rival that (Homeword3?????) then I’ll start again.
11/02/2010 at 08:51 Joachim says:
I hardly ever play RTSes online, and the reason is pretty much the same one you give yourself; It’s daunting, and I don’t really enjoy honing my skills enough to be able to compete on that level (not even sure I could). There are other, more rewarding, things to do.
I think a large part of the problem is all those born and bred to win at all costs. I look forward to co-op, so those wanting to rub fellow human faces in the dust will go elsewhere.
12/02/2010 at 14:24 Boldoran says:
Is there an RTS that favors a turtleing playstyle over rushers in multiplayer mode? I prefer to play defensivly. Maybe such a game would be boring because no one would wan’t to take the risk of being the first to attack. But I still prefer a bit of a slower pace instead of the mad rushing that many online RTS are.
12/02/2010 at 14:56 Heliocentric says:
Rushing doesn’t work in perimeter. Or play sots as hivers who are literally incapable of rushing moving at their fastest about 30 times slower than the fastest alien (to them) fleet.
15/02/2010 at 04:53 Ninjabutter says:
I play competitive RTS games constantly and have done so for years. I loathe the direction they’ve gone with the lack of base-building, but I already wrote a huge article about that on my own website a few weeks ago.
@Wilson:
“I feel like this sometimes as well. I enjoy watching CoH replays and fancy going online to face some real intelligence, but I feel intimidated by the possibility that I could end up matched up with someone of far higher skill and not stand a chance (not necessarily the game’s fault, there aren’t always many people online).”
You mentioned it yourself in the second part of your post, but that is the easiest way to quickly improve. You said losing makes you grumpy regardless, but bear in mind that that’ll happen less often the more the play; playing skilled enemies instead of retards simply makes this happen faster. Save every replay of your games and watch them; note what the other guy did that you did not. Even if you do absolutely nothing right, you can eliminate all of that from your strategy in the next match. If losing in any capacity makes you grumpy, even if it’s a justified loss at the hands of someone genuinely better than you, then you’re going to have a rough time coping with ANY game.
@the wiseass:
“I can’t be arsed to get butchered by some uberhuman strategy freak, making 120 actions per minute.”
Amusingly, 120 APM is pretty average, if not below average, for “good” players in most RTS games currently on the market. You also seem to be implying that the ability to click really fast has something to do with skill, which it doesn’t. Players with extremely high APM (like in the 300+ range) are considered bad players in most games as they’re wasting a lot of energy with inefficiency.
@Centy:
“I prefer that I hate playing it with strangers and in general it always feels like so much work and if you loose unlike a shooter it just feels like wasted time”
How is losing an RTS match “wasted time” while it’s not in a shooter? The principles are exactly the same; you’ve still lost, and hopefully improved from the experience.
@AndrewC:
“Also there’s the huge, though immensely satisfying to express, generalisation that these leets are deeply insecure souls who hate those lesser than them as they see their true self image reflected back at them in our mortal gaming skills. They’ll always say that it is not them who are abnormally skilled – for *everyone* should know the perfect builds – but that everyone else is stupid for *not* knowing them. Fairly strong negative energy all round, and i’ll happily avoid it.”
I’ve been part of the Dawn of War community for several years and spent a fair amount of that time in the competitive community; the people like you describe aren’t the majority. There are plenty of skilled players out there who are willing to tell you what you did wrong after a match, and some will even play extra rounds with you if they’re not doing anything else just for practice if you ask them. Avoiding online play because of people like you’re talking about is like staying indoors during recess because there’s a bully on the playground. Who cares? There’s fifty other kids out there who’ll play with you.
Good lord, there’s four pages of comments. I’ll stop here.
17/02/2010 at 18:12 SpArTy zE MAGNIFICILE says:
These gamers they just need to be given doorbells to play with to satisfy their needs of instant gratification.
These developers they just need to distribute the doorbells.