Where are all the strategy games? (Death of RTS geanre)

[Stg-Flame]

The best RTS ever made is actually the reason RTS games have been in decline for years now. Warcraft 3 was far and away the best RTS game but it also spawned all of the MOBA games that dominate the PC landscape at the moment. Most of your Tower Defense games also came out of Warcraft 3.

What Warcraft 3 made people discover is that most gamers are terrible at RTS. While there is still a pretty solid community of people playing W3 ladder most people realized that controlling many units and buildings efficiently was beyond their abilities so they moved into custom games. These custom games eventually broke out of Blizzard's campaign editor to become League of Legends and DotA, not to mention a few others.

I personally think that Blizzard is done with the RTS scene, which is tremendously depressing considering they are also probably the only company that could bring back the RTS glory days.

I disagree. WC3 strayed away from the traditional RTS (micro-managing different units, base building, researching, etc.) and went more toward a smaller-scale with more focus on specific units (heroes). It was less micro-managing the entire scope of RTS games, and more micro-managing your spell casters and heroes to buff and heal your troops. WC3 falls more in line with squad-based games like DoW2 than it does with games like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Starcraft, etc.

This is actually a pretty critical point, and one of the reasons I like the relic VP system so much. Traditional RTSs allow turtling too much, which of course will never work against a competent player. But if two poor players match off they really won't learn anything from each other. In the VP system, even bad players have to actively and constantly manage their units and control the map which I really believe forces people to improve much faster.

I never enjoyed playing against other players. I could win some games and I'd lose some games but I always preferred to play against the AI. Big Game Hunters is a favorite for many people and for me, it was so I could turtle until I had all my tech upgraded, then just screw with the enemy until I steamrolled them (Defilers dropped off in Terran bases was always fun). I could screw around against other players to a degree, but RTS games vs other humans just felt too competitive for my taste. I play video games to have fun, not be stressed out because I didn't see a few stray units pass on the edge of my fog of war and end up losing my builders. I played competitively in the past (not RTS games) and it sucked all the fun out of the game.

 

[amenx]

Would love to see a Supcom 3. What a massive let down 2 was, esp after SC-FA. If only some decent studio would invest in 3 with the original FA developing team full on board, would be a massive hit. Wish same for Rise of Nations, probably my other fave RTS. Was just on AOE3 recently and still looks good after all these years, graphically ahead of its time. Why the hell do these studios stop after massive hits? Dont they see the $ potential in follow-ups?

 

[Yakk]

Ashes of the Singularity : Escalation is getting Vulkan support and possibly a Linux port later on.

Yes! These Devs are really awesome!

 

[Majes]

I disagree. WC3 strayed away from the traditional RTS (micro-managing different units, base building, researching, etc.) and went more toward a smaller-scale with more focus on specific units (heroes). It was less micro-managing the entire scope of RTS games, and more micro-managing your spell casters and heroes to buff and heal your troops. WC3 falls more in line with squad-based games like DoW2 than it does with games like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Starcraft, etc.

Not sure what you disagree with... Maybe that it's the best RTS? That's okay. There are lots of games you can argue for best RTS, I just happen to think Warcraft 3 combined base building and squad management the best.

The real problem with RTS games today is there isn't a great way for companies to monetize them. Most people play them for the single player campaign, and it's painfully obvious to most consumers when a company is stringing a campaign along in order to make more money (Starcraft 2). It's so much easier to sell hero skins for a MOBA or weapons and skins for a FPS.

What I would really like to see is a little more innovation. I would have loved to see Blizzard bring players into their story by having story-line dictated by player results. In Starcraft there's supposed to be conflict on a galactic level. It wouldn't be too difficult for a company to set things up so that players can choose flashpoints to fight multiplayer battles in. Their results in these battles would dictate what race captures which planet or territory on a planet. Each month the battles change and keep building on the previous results. The story is written to follow the results.

This type of innovation does a couple of things. First it involves players at a much deeper level than just having a competitive ladder. The ladder can still be there, but players are now a part of the story whether they are successful or not. This style of game design also justifies a different type of payment model. I would be willing to pay a monthly fee for such a game or there could be account unlocks. These would make more sense in an RTS that has a different platform than the tradition single player/matchmaking style.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

The real problem with RTS games today is there isn't a great way for companies to monetize them. Most people play them for the single player campaign, and it's painfully obvious to most consumers when a company is stringing a campaign along in order to make more money (Starcraft 2). It's so much easier to sell hero skins for a MOBA or weapons and skins for a FPS.

Tell that to Paradox, CKII is pretty popular and has more DLC than you can shake a stick at. Anyhow, most companies 'monetize' by making more good games. Half of the skin-madness games are FTP anyhow, so that's just how they actually get paid to begin with.

What I would really like to see is a little more innovation. I would have loved to see Blizzard bring players into their story by having story-line dictated by player results. In Starcraft there's supposed to be conflict on a galactic level. It wouldn't be too difficult for a company to set things up so that players can choose flashpoints to fight multiplayer battles in. Their results in these battles would dictate what race captures which planet or territory on a planet. Each month the battles change and keep building on the previous results. The story is written to follow the results.

This type of innovation does a couple of things. First it involves players at a much deeper level than just having a competitive ladder. The ladder can still be there, but players are now a part of the story whether they are successful or not. This style of game design also justifies a different type of payment model. I would be willing to pay a monthly fee for such a game or there could be account unlocks. These would make more sense in an RTS that has a different platform than the tradition single player/matchmaking style.

Something like this might work, but I'm not sure that story-driven strategy games is really a solid target market. Most gamers I know (90%+) just skip past 'story stuff' anyhow, it's really only that final 10% that would care about such a thing.

I do fully support more innovation though, I'd love more companies to get into the asymmetrical game. Blizz really hit a stride on starcraft due to the innumerable amount of strategies that actually came out of that game. There's a reason nobody plays/watches WC2 tournaments.

 

[Vivendi]

Blizzard just patched Starcraft + BW yesterday and released it for free. I already own a couple copies but I decided to download and install it and play a couple games online... so much fun. Played my first game as Protoss (Terran was my race in BW) and got ling rushed but managed to hold it off and win.

 

[Majes]

Tell that to Paradox, CKII is pretty popular and has more DLC than you can shake a stick at. Anyhow, most companies 'monetize' by making more good games. Half of the skin-madness games are FTP anyhow, so that's just how they actually get paid to begin with.

I'm not sure CKII is the best example since I had never heard of it... It seems to be doing okay on Steam (81st in players at time of post), but it's priced at $40 and it has tons of DLC? I'd have to see their results to be sure, but that's not the way I would try to market a game. There has to be another way to price people in other than re-skinning heroes/units...

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I really love your idea about the storyline dictated by player results. That would make things a lot more interesting and I would really enjoy playing that game for sure! you should submit that idea!

Not sure what you disagree with... Maybe that it's the best RTS? That's okay. There are lots of games you can argue for best RTS, I just happen to think Warcraft 3 combined base building and squad management the best.

The real problem with RTS games today is there isn't a great way for companies to monetize them. Most people play them for the single player campaign, and it's painfully obvious to most consumers when a company is stringing a campaign along in order to make more money (Starcraft 2). It's so much easier to sell hero skins for a MOBA or weapons and skins for a FPS.

What I would really like to see is a little more innovation. I would have loved to see Blizzard bring players into their story by having story-line dictated by player results. In Starcraft there's supposed to be conflict on a galactic level. It wouldn't be too difficult for a company to set things up so that players can choose flashpoints to fight multiplayer battles in. Their results in these battles would dictate what race captures which planet or territory on a planet. Each month the battles change and keep building on the previous results. The story is written to follow the results.

This type of innovation does a couple of things. First it involves players at a much deeper level than just having a competitive ladder. The ladder can still be there, but players are now a part of the story whether they are successful or not. This style of game design also justifies a different type of payment model. I would be willing to pay a monthly fee for such a game or there could be account unlocks. These would make more sense in an RTS that has a different platform than the tradition single player/matchmaking style.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I'm not sure CKII is the best example since I had never heard of it... It seems to be doing okay on Steam (81st in players at time of post), but it's priced at $40 and it has tons of DLC? I'd have to see their results to be sure, but that's not the way I would try to market a game. There has to be another way to price people in other than re-skinning heroes/units...

It isn't how I would market it either, but it's rather popular and certainly monetized, hence me referencing it originally.

I really hate DLC and wish it would just die in a fire already, but I'm fairly sure it's here to stay.

 

[crisium]

Starcraft Broodwar is still great because it emphasizes the "real" in RTS. I find it hard to be good at it, but whenever I can play someone equally bad it's a blast to play because you have so much to do constantly and the fundamental unit design is so good (even if the pathing isn't).

 

[local]

What I would really like to see is a little more innovation. I would have loved to see Blizzard bring players into their story by having story-line dictated by player results. In Starcraft there's supposed to be conflict on a galactic level. It wouldn't be too difficult for a company to set things up so that players can choose flashpoints to fight multiplayer battles in. Their results in these battles would dictate what race captures which planet or territory on a planet. Each month the battles change and keep building on the previous results. The story is written to follow the results.

This type of innovation does a couple of things. First it involves players at a much deeper level than just having a competitive ladder. The ladder can still be there, but players are now a part of the story whether they are successful or not. This style of game design also justifies a different type of payment model. I would be willing to pay a monthly fee for such a game or there could be account unlocks. These would make more sense in an RTS that has a different platform than the tradition single player/matchmaking style.

That sounds a lot like the old Galactic War MP mode for Total Annihilation. Both sides fought over planets in a sector until that sector flipped control and moved on to the next one, eventually one side would win the war. Cool idea to add some persistence to MP battles but there is no way I would ever pay a monthly fee for MP in a strategy game. The most MP I ever do in those is comp stomping as I don't care for the stressful PvP.

 

[DigDog]

stop being so negative and try Supreme Commander 2. it's much better than you think. units respond like you want them to, they are balanced, the pathing is great, air units work, and you don't spend half the game shooting at the effin ground.

 

[XavierMace]

stop being so negative and try Supreme Commander 2. it's much better than you think. units respond like you want them to, they are balanced, the pathing is great, air units work, and you don't spend half the game shooting at the effin ground.

No it's not.

 

[DigDog]

BECAUSE REASONS ?

 

[Stg-Flame]

I never played Forged Alliance, but I did play Sup Com 1 a lot and when I moved to Sup Com 2, the whole game felt empty. Like the devs took the core gameplay of Supreme Commander and hollowed it out then threw it back at us. It just wasn't fun. I do have Forged Alliance, but by the time that game went on sale, I was already on a different game. When I get that RTS itch again, I'll try Forged Alliance first since all the fans of Sup Com 1 said Forged Alliance was a giant step forward with the series.

 

[XavierMace]

I never played Forged Alliance, but I did play Sup Com 1 a lot and when I moved to Sup Com 2, the whole game felt empty. Like the devs took the core gameplay of Supreme Commander and hollowed it out then threw it back at us. It just wasn't fun. I do have Forged Alliance, but by the time that game went on sale, I was already on a different game. When I get that RTS itch again, I'll try Forged Alliance first since all the fans of Sup Com 1 said Forged Alliance was a giant step forward with the series.

Pretty much this. It felt like Square Enix went "Well, we've got this RTS IP. We have no idea how to make an RTS but we heard Starcraft was good, so let's try making that". It lacked any of the TA feel and scale that made the first one popular and if you weren't looking for a TA type RTS, there was and is far better options. The super weapons in 2 were funny but other than the Magnetron not terribly effective. None of them gave you the "Oh crap" feeling you'd get from the experimentals in SupCom 1. PC Gamer UK summed it up pretty well: "Supreme Commander 2 a game that solved the accessibility issues of the first game, bought primarily by people who didn’t want them solved". Forged Alliance was a great upgrade for SupCom 1, but SupCom did a complete about face and went the other direction.

That pretty much sums up the death of strategy games in general. Everyone keeps trying to solve the accessibility ignoring the fact that most of their loyal player base doesn't want it solved. It's like making a chess game, then creating a checkers sequel and being confused by the fact that all your fans hate it. The fact that there's currently 378 people playing Forged Alliance on Steam (and it wasn't even a Steam game originally) and 0 playing SupCom 2, kinda says it all.

Wars are big. TA/SupCom was one of the few games that made you feel like you're fighting a war not just a small scuffle. I liked CoH1/DoW1 save for the low unit count. Higher unit counts and tactics aren't mutually exclusive goals. There's something about having a 3 way battle with literally thousands of units involved that makes me smile. The only recent game that somewhat gives me that same feeling is Stellaris and it's a completely different type of RTS (although I do love it).

 

[StinkyPinky]

I always enjoyed playing against the AI as a sort of tower defence game. Just bunker up and watch the useless AI blast itself to pieces trying to enter your base. Ah, the good old days. The AI of Starcraft had no answer to a row of siege tanks and air defence. I would just sit there and let them use up all their resources and then roll on in.

Good old days, back when i had hours to kill.

 

[local]

Pretty much this. It felt like Square Enix went "Well, we've got this RTS IP. We have no idea how to make an RTS but we heard Starcraft was good, so let's try making that". It lacked any of the TA feel and scale that made the first one popular and if you weren't looking for a TA type RTS, there was and is far better options. The super weapons in 2 were funny but other than the Magnetron not terribly effective. None of them gave you the "Oh crap" feeling you'd get from the experimentals in SupCom 1. PC Gamer UK summed it up pretty well: "Supreme Commander 2 a game that solved the accessibility issues of the first game, bought primarily by people who didn’t want them solved". Forged Alliance was a great upgrade for SupCom 1, but SupCom did a complete about face and went the other direction.

That pretty much sums up the death of strategy games in general. Everyone keeps trying to solve the accessibility ignoring the fact that most of their loyal player base doesn't want it solved. It's like making a chess game, then creating a checkers sequel and being confused by the fact that all your fans hate it. The fact that there's currently 378 people playing Forged Alliance on Steam (and it wasn't even a Steam game originally) and 0 playing SupCom 2, kinda says it all.

Wars are big. TA/SupCom was one of the few games that made you feel like you're fighting a war not just a small scuffle. I liked CoH1/DoW1 save for the low unit count. Higher unit counts and tactics aren't mutually exclusive goals. There's something about having a 3 way battle with literally thousands of units involved that makes me smile. The only recent game that somewhat gives me that same feeling is Stellaris and it's a completely different type of RTS (although I do love it).

Agreed. But in a world where SupCom1 and FA did not exist I would probably put SupCom2 pretty high on the list of good recent RTS games. The biggest problem for SupCom2 is that they do exist and since it is a sequel it is more directly compared than any other RTS in existence.

SupCom1 - Great balance, huge scale, varied factions (could have used a little more imo), combined arms combat, fun
FA - SupCom1 turned up to 11
SupCom2 - Simplified version of SupCom1, smaller scale but still bigger than most others, lost the soul of SupCom1/FA
Grey Goo - Extremely varied factions, generic gameplay, boring
Act of Aggression - Gameplay felt horrible, game pace too slow but combat too fast, small scale
SoASE - Big, strategic gameplay, felt like a battle of dots instead of fleets.
SC1 - Great balance, varied factions, very small scale, APM clickfest
WC3 - Good balance, varied factions, small scale, APM clickfest
DoW1 with all expansions - Good balance, varied factions, scale too small, fun
DoW2 - Tactical squad type game, Not a RTS
CoH1 - More tactical than strategy, small scale, good balance
CoH2 - I don't know what is causing it but feels like a lesser version of CoH1
AotS - Large scale, almost no difference in factions, another battle of the dots, boring
Planetary Annihilation - The version of SupCom no one wanted to play. It would have been vastly improved with SupCom style maps instead of tiny planets imo.

I have hope for DoW3 as it looks like DoW1, even if it is smaller scale like DoW1 at least that was fun to play. And I honestly believe that someone could take the AotS engine and build a game good enough to be a decent comparison to SupCom2 at least and maybe even SupCom1/FA.

Absolutely nothing in existence beats a proper combined arms assault on a fortified base. Dozens of aircraft zipping overhead with air superiority fighters providing cover for the bombers while flak bursts from the ground pepper the skies. Damaged planes falling out the the air on fire to collide with something on the ground leaving wreckage. Offshore naval artillery and rocket attacks bursting against the shields. And drop ships dumping their squads on the back side of the base then returning to pick up the next load while your ground forces march up to the fortified front of the base dwarfed by the experimental units leading the charge. It is almost poetic in it's beauty and to date only SupCom1/FA can pull it off.

 

[KMFJD]

Age of Empires 2 HD has 2 or 3 expansion packs for it, seems to still be doing ok, still a decent community on voobly as well.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

All the veteran relic players are calling DoW3 "Dawn of Blob." This was my experience from limited play and watching streams. I think it's mostly caused by a combination of map design and the tower push victory mechanic.

I was poking through SteamCharts the other night to check on the health of the RTS genre. Basically, people ONLY play AoE2 HD (avg 6-7k players) and CoH2 (avg 4k players). This is pretty sad since they're both 2+ years old and one is an ancient remaster.

 

[Ranulf]

I have hope for DoW3 as it looks like DoW1, even if it is smaller scale like DoW1 at least that was fun to play.

Sadly, it isn't. Its looks to DoW1 and even 2 are superficial. The base building is basic and in the end an extra waste of time other than having a forward base/barracks building. You could take all of them out of the game and miss nothing. Numbers it is bigger than DoW1 with a unit cap of 250 IIRC but it just becomes a big mass of flashy colors. End game is all about managing your elites/heroes.

We aren't even getting a reskinned CoH2 type game.

 

[local]

Sadly, it isn't. Its looks to DoW1 and even 2 are superficial. The base building is basic and in the end an extra waste of time other than having a forward base/barracks building. You could take all of them out of the game and miss nothing. Numbers it is bigger than DoW1 with a unit cap of 250 IIRC but it just becomes a big mass of flashy colors. End game is all about managing your elites/heroes.

We aren't even getting a reskinned CoH2 type game.

Ugh, that sucks.

 

[DigDog]

Pretty much this. It felt like Square Enix went "Well, we've got this RTS IP. We have no idea how to make an RTS but we heard Starcraft was good, so let's try making that". It lacked any of the TA feel and scale that made the first one popular and if you weren't looking for a TA type RTS, there was and is far better options. The super weapons in 2 were funny but other than the Magnetron not terribly effective. None of them gave you the "Oh crap" feeling you'd get from the experimentals in SupCom 1. P...

SupCom had a lot of issues that people gladly overlooked because 1) the camera system was amazing, 2) the resource collecting system was ingenuous, and 3) the superweapons looked awesome.

now, going into detail, issues i can think of, off the top of my head.
1) combombs
2) air units were absolutely garbage. you could send a huge squadron of nuke bombers to a stationary, undefended target and they would all miss because their pathing and movement was completely broken.
3) a huge number of units in the game suffered from design flaws relating to pathing, formation, movement, AI. too often you would have a squad of tanks get wrecked by a small unit because they are all shooting the ground and do not realize it, leading you to micromanage the position of each defender. same for turrets.
4) the economy system was unwieldy, both in you being able to completely grind to a halt during the early stages, and - due to the exponential system of mass+energy giving you more mass+ energy (T1 mass fabricators) meant you often had games where one player completely outproduced the other.
5) framerate issued. not due to bad coding, but inherent in the game design, due to the sheer amount of stuff happening. not a critique to the game, but a fact faced by many users.
6) pathing in general, movement (turn speed specially), bad design of naval units. also the way units are deployed by naval factories. often making small adjustments to a unit as it tried to path, meant blocking that unit for a few crucial seconds. essentially the same problems as C&C95, 10 years later.
7) games always ending in one of a couple different ways - with a land spam + colossus by Aeon, half a dozen corvettes by Cybran, or T3 bot spam by Terran. most of the T4 units were crap, Aeon Air, Terran Land, all 3 naval, and good luck trying to build the T4 terran artillery.
On small maps, it's just spam after spam after spam of land units.



Now, i will grant that the game had some positive aspects, the camera, the by-unit combat mode, mass recovery, a pretty cool nuke, the UI in general, and the amazing Sorian AI. Visual design was a bit crap, but you can't have everything.

 

[EduCat]

Honestly the best rts of all time imo is probably age of empires. The procedurally generated maps made each game unique and badass. I was always partial to rise of Rome but AoE 2 is prob as popular today as it was in the past.

Steam even released new content. Voobly.com also has a ton of players.

Blizzard made sc1 free which is pretty cool.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Halo Wars Definitive Edition just hit Steam. Is that any fun? It's only $20 right now.