• RTS Games: What do you not like about them?
    73 replies, posted
I was thinking about this recently and I was wanting to get some opinions on the matter for future reference. Are they too slow? Do you not like the perspective the game puts you in? Are the games too reliant on micromanagement? Stuff like that. If your opinion isn't on the poll then state your opinion in your own post. Also keep in mind this doesn't count turn-based strategy games like Civilization. [sp]I personally am a fan of the genre, but if anything to me some of the games have some frustrating micro, personally.[/sp]
For me, it's when an RTS is too fast, almost like a slightly larger scale MOBA in some cases. Usually they're the RTS games that copy StarCraft, although I do love StarCraft myself, but I just don't like when other games try to emulate it since most of the time the execution feels wrong and feels like a weird mesh of C&C style RTS and StarCraft-ish RTS. I also like turtling and amassing a large amount of units in an RTS before attacking, and the RTS games that usually are faster tends to discourage that, and has bias for rushing. C&C Generals I feel like has the best balance of being able to scout around and rush a bit, but still be able to defend properly and in mid-game, be able to turtle and amass a large amount of units, going the same for your enemy, creating some fun and chaotic moments on top of the superweapons. Micromanagement can be a pain, but sometimes half of the fun of the game is on that, and it usually depends on how micromanagement is executed. It's pretty intense and satisfying to properly execute a string of orders that can turn a tide of battle that can usually end up as a stalemate or a loss, especially when it comes to exploiting your enemies lack of proper positioning and what not. It is annoying though yeah when there's just too many factors to consider.
Too fast for me. I prefer TBS games or grand strategy ala paradox.
I enjoy them from time to time but I don't see why people play them ALL the time
A lot of people seem to dislike micro so far, that's actually my favorite part of the games. It's more fun than macro by far, I don't feel like a tactical genius when I build a war factory Sim City to send 50 mammoth tanks or 20 kirovs to level the enemy base, there's heaps more depth (and ballsiness) to kiting a huge enemy army with like 3 fast rocket buggies supported by well-timed suicide bomber bikes on the flanks until they're all scraps, using the minimum amount of resources to win the map. Might be just me though.
[QUOTE=Shirt.;52582544]I enjoy them from time to time but I don't see why people play them ALL the time[/QUOTE] For me it depends on my mood. If I wanna feel like I'm in control of a huge army or otherwise want to use clever strategies using certain buildings and units, I'll play an RTS game like Age of Empires, StarCraft, or Command & Conquer for awhile. If I feel like building a cool space station/dungeon or want to become an evil mastermind, I'll play something more akin to Evil Genius, Dungeon Keeper, or StarTopia for awhile. TBH Don't really get why these games are considered RTS entirely? I feel the title Strategy Simulation would fit them better. I could go on and on but I don't need to, hah.
I prefer slower paced RTS like Company of Heroes, although I still enjoyed Warcraft III despite being awful at it.
[QUOTE=Drury;52582553]A lot of people seem to dislike micro so far, that's actually my favorite part of the games. It's more fun than macro by far, I don't feel like a tactical genius when I build a war factory Sim City to send 50 mammoth tanks or 20 kirovs to level the enemy base, there's heaps more depth (and ballsiness) to kiting a huge enemy army with like 3 fast rocket buggies supported by well-timed suicide bomber bikes on the flanks until they're all scraps, using the minimum amount of resources to win the map. Might be just me though.[/QUOTE] I agree that the micro in some games can be fun but I don't like the large amount of upgrades some of the games have that take forever to get finished. AoE2, I love the game but my biggest gripe with it is that. Especially in factions like the Saracens where the Monks have a rediculous amount of upgrades that you're almost guaranteed to never get by the time the match ends. I'd much rather spend more time amassing a force of dudes that kill people and blow up shit than upgrade every single thing they need before they can fight.
I just can't control more than one unit at a time, i grew up playing fps games and never learned how to micro manage.
[QUOTE=Drury;52582553]A lot of people seem to dislike micro so far, that's actually my favorite part of the games. It's more fun than macro by far, I don't feel like a tactical genius when I build a war factory Sim City to send 50 mammoth tanks or 20 kirovs to level the enemy base, there's heaps more depth (and ballsiness) to kiting a huge enemy army with like 3 fast rocket buggies supported by well-timed suicide bomber bikes on the flanks until they're all scraps, using the minimum amount of resources to win the map. Might be just me though.[/QUOTE] This is how I feel on the good parts of micro'ing as well from my earlier post. I just think in some games the micromanagement becomes too much of the focus and it ends up feeling like a MOBA for me, since it's more of me trying to worry about certain special abilities and exploiting pathfinding of units rather than making use of a good unit composition and ordering them to move, stop, attack and retreat while going around an enemy and attacking even the slightest weakpoints of the enemy. Other than StarCraft, some games where I found micromanagement to be really enjoyable are Company of Heroes, World in Conflict, Rise of Nations, DoH II, Battle Realms and Homeworld, both the originals and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. Not so much on some newer-ish RTS recently like Grey Goo, Wargame and Red Alert 3.
Something that I love about a game of Starcraft is that, apart from the two minutes or so, you can [I]always[/I] be doing better than you are. You can be scouting more, you can plan your strategy better and react faster to new intel by thinking up new strategies, you can ramp up the speed you mash your hotkeys to build workers back at base, you can be faster and more precise with your micro in the battle. It's a constant challenge, a persistent mental load that you can push the limits of by trying hard, without going overboard and making too many mistakes. That's something I really enjoy, but I can easily see people hating that constant pressure.
I love RTS games but not really competitively. It's just very intense, so I just kind of feel like taking a break after a game or two of competitive multiplayer. The requirement to be good at micro is overhyped imo, at least in starcraft which is what I'm familiar with. You can get to a pretty decent league (like at least plat) purely based off good macro, mechanics but with fairly poor micro. If you have a bigger army with a stronger composition than the enemy most opponents can't really get around that.
I like RTS games, but honestly prefer those that are less micromanagement heavy like Supcom. I don't enjoy micromanaging things, I like big spectacle battles.
i hate the ones where you are zoomed in extremely far and are unable to zoom out massively. I know they want you to micro but at least let me zoom out.
The only RTS game I personally like are Westwood's Command & Conquer (and Dune) games because of how simple they are - basically you just have to build shit as fast as possible and rush the enemy base. But I think many other RTS and general strategy games today seem much more complicated to me, and I usually don't really want to invest my time into figuring them out, preferring easy to learn - hard to master approach.
[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52582680]I love RTS games but not really competitively. It's just very intense, so I just kind of feel like taking a break after a game or two of competitive multiplayer. The requirement to be good at micro is overhyped imo, at least in starcraft which is what I'm familiar with. You can get to a pretty decent league (like at least plat) purely based off good macro, mechanics but with fairly poor micro. If you have a bigger army with a stronger composition than the enemy most opponents can't really get around that.[/QUOTE] I always felt like bursting when playing competitive rts games, back in the day I played some Company of Heroes in multiplayer and it was just so exhausting. But like many, I do love rts games but the amount of management can be overwhelming. Best rts games are those where you can play a match against a capable AI.
If it's too fast and micromanagey, and especially if the AI is dogshit. Would rather taser myself in the bollocks than play RTSes online (would do just as well as I would in an online game, too), especially if it's a twitchy micromanagey sort of game.
It's definitely the micro for me - having to zip around the map presiding over each different situation directly. It's the fact that your units typically aren't capable of independent thought and action, and will often be spread so far apart that you can't spend too much time focusing on one fight or you'll be losing another, or falling behind on teching up or building expansions or whatever. It's why I prefer Real-time Tactics games like Ground Control, World in Conflict and Men of War - the combat IS the game. You can go into as much depth as you like with giving your units orders, because typically they'll all be more or less together so nothing else suffers for it. With cover, terrain and garrison systems that micro is less micro, more maintaining formations, fields of fire etc, something the AI can't be expected to do well on their own but without becoming frustrating because you don't have anything else to worry about except the objectives you're trying to achieve with those forces. In my ideal RTS with base-building and whatnot, you'd be able to give units, groups, builders and tech structures their own objectives. IE, "I want this tech, then this unit upgrade, then this", "I want this area cleared and held for expansion", "I want this many of this unit produced per 5 minutes" and your builders would automatically build the necessary structures as the resources allow. Sliders or whatever to determine how many resource collectors you want on each resource and such. Giving combat units an area to take, hold or scout and their rules of engagement, eg fall back if engaged for scouts, having units automatically attempt to flank or kite, designating drop-off points for transports to set off to when they're full and return, and telling production facilities that X number of Y units are to board that transport - All so you have a lot more freedom to intervene where needed, and that forces you're not focusing on can more or less hold their ground or achieve an objective without your oversight. This all depends on good AI design and robust interfaces, the former of which has really taken a back-seat in game development. I hate that in Starcraft for example, a single marine can run circles around a group of zerglings because they're unable to respond without player oversight, and that kiting means if their commander wants the zerglings alive and the marine dead, they have to focus on that situation, diverting attention to situations that carry a lot more consequence than killing a single enemy unit.
I should have voted micro, since that's my least favorite gameplay "feature" in any RTS. I enjoy RTS games since they're fairly short but satisfying time commitments - like playing a game of StarCraft for a half hour. The reason I like that is because I'm busy as shit and I can't spend my time practicing a game like that. I think very tactically, but a tactical mind is almost useless in StarCraft 1/2 if you can't micromanage well. And that's something that has to be practiced. So I don't ever play online because obviously everyone else in the world is infinitely more practiced than I am. That's basically it, I really don't enjoy getting stomped because someone else puts in 5 hours a day of practice. It's not the micromanagement itself I hate, but the fact that features like that basically gate me out of playing with anyone else ever. But then I have to play against AI, and AI hasn't really gotten a lot of love in recent games.
Personally, I used to love RTS. But nowadays I feel a little... "intimidated" by the notion of online play, especially competitive, and many of them don't seem to cater as well to more unique singleplayer/cooperative experiences. It's one of the reasons I don't play DOTA 2 anymore, other than just not having the time to invest into getting shat on. But what I really love is what happened when RPG mechanics became a factor in games like Warcraft 3, with a focus on heroes that spiralled into its own genre. It's just a shame that hero-based strategy is so multiplayer focused, otherwise I'd be all over it. I want to build up bases and manage my forces, but instead of going up against an overly-competitive chap who's mastered the skill ceiling, I want to go up against a world of adventure, filled with creeps and quests, resources and treasures, dungeons and dragons, that kind of stuff. So basically an RPG that controls like an RTS, where there's so much singleplayer content that I end up forgetting that they even HAVE a PvP option.
The focus on the competitive aspect (e.g. Starcraft). I wish there were more RTS games which focused more on comp stomping with lots of base building options.
Competetive microing RTSs are my least favorite. I tend to lean more towards Men of War as my favorite for that reason.
My brother and I used to play Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. It's Age of Empires II with star wars characters, dialog, maps, campaigns, and units. IMO, it's still the best star wars game ever made. We would go into custom games, set 4 computers as Gungans, both join the same team (he would always play empire and I'd choose a random faction like Wookies or Trade Federation) and we'd proceed to genocide all those Jar Jar Binks slack jawed freaks together.
Koreans. Seriously though, bad ai/singleplayer content. I like micro, but I'm so bad at rts multiplayer that I stay away from games that don't have good ai with varying levels of difficulty.
What's RTS stand for, Rancid Turtle Shit or maybe Rabid Turd Sniffer
RTS used to be my favorite games, but the genera has been lacking in recent years. Nothing's really struck a fine balance for me since Supcom FA. I don't like RTS that are super fast and micro heavy, like most of the recent ones have been, competitive focused.. They just become about being fast clickfests and shrink into a narrow range of tactics. Competitive focus is one of the things that has ruined the genera, because this is the most effective way to make a game competitive. They're built for twitch players and ADD spectators with no real interest in the game. I hate the lack of variety and scale in most recent RTS. Bring back scale and macro play.
[QUOTE=Gunner th;52584439]RTS used to be my favorite games, but the genera has been lacking in recent years. Nothing's really struck a fine balance for me since Supcom FA. I don't like RTS that are super fast and micro heavy, like most of the recent ones have been, competitive focused.. They just become about being fast clickfests and shrink into a narrow range of tactics. Competitive focus is one of the things that has ruined the genera, because this is the most effective way to make a game competitive. They're built for twitch players and ADD spectators with no real interest in the game. I hate the lack of variety and scale in most recent RTS. Bring back scale and macro play.[/QUOTE] I can see what you mean, but the way you put it rubs me the wrong way. You can have a slow-paced macro-heavy RTS that's still competitively viable, being balanced around competitive play does not a bad RTS make per se - it just means there's more depth to the game. What sucks is when developers get laser-focused on competitive and forget accessibility so new players struggle with the game, but that's not a problem of focusing competitive, it's more a problem on not focusing on casual play as well. It's not a one-or-the-other type of deal. Ultimately, yeah, at times it can feel like devs completely forget the casual RTS audience. It must also be said that this is not always true and things like 8bit Armies happen which are just so barebones and watered down there's no point for [i]anyone[/i] to play.
[QUOTE=Gunner th;52584439]RTS used to be my favorite games, but the genera has been lacking in recent years. Nothing's really struck a fine balance for me since Supcom FA. I don't like RTS that are super fast and micro heavy, like most of the recent ones have been, competitive focused.. They just become about being fast clickfests and shrink into a narrow range of tactics. Competitive focus is one of the things that has ruined the genera, because this is the most effective way to make a game competitive. They're built for twitch players and ADD spectators with no real interest in the game. I hate the lack of variety and scale in most recent RTS. Bring back scale and macro play.[/QUOTE] That first paragraph is my situation as well. Supcom FA was the pinnacle.
Everyone online is way better than me but my friends are way worse than me. So only co-op for me. :(
I like micro in Total War. But not really at all in other games. For some reason total war makes micro seem like desperate repeated assaults to wear down the opposition but in other games it feels like busywork to me.
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