My biggest problem with the newer rts games is there’s too much invested in the multiplayer component at the expense of single player experience. The last few weeks I’ve reinstalled homeworld, DoW, AoE 2 and are having a great time. The essence of these types games have been lost in newer games to dull first hour of boring chores or the fun sucked out of them to keep them balanced for multiplayer.
Your first point is reflected in GiantGrantGaming's survey, that 80% of the RTS genre never enters multiplayer in the first place, with only 7% wanting Esports on launch compared to the 65~% who want a campaign on launch.
Okay, you`ll complete campaign and thats it, no interest to play if there is no multiplayer. But problem of modern RTS games that they do not bring nothing new to the table. But even if they bring something it`s somehow worst than old games.
@@alexeivasiliev7766 Ya agreed. I think there is a market for an RTS game but there hasn't been a great RTS game in a while. AoE 4 and Company of Heroes 3 are the biggest proper RTS games that I can think of. They both are worst than their predecessors in many ways. Like just the art/visuals are mobile/cheap looking. The campaigns of both games are after thoughts and not much content for singleplayer. The thing is there isn't that many devs who know how to make a great RTS. Relic should be one of them... Blizzard hasn't made one in decades...
You might want to put "Dust Front" and "D.O.R.F. Real time strategic conflict" on your radar then. Especially "Dust Front", since it's entirely singleplayer-focused. And if you are feeling curious, might also keep an eye on "The Touhou Empires". I'd also suggest "The Scouring" and "Global Conflagration" but they seem more PvP focused.
@30:00 At a fundamental level I think the big problem is the needs of the industry as it exists in its current form. People blame F2P models, phones, culture wars, and they are all cancer but the more I think about, it the more it seems it is simply a function of the size of these companies. There is very little room for creativity in a place like EA or Activision. There can't be. The cost of failure is too high. Hell, we're seeing exactly that sort of failure play out across the industry pretty much at time of recording. Ubisoft is pretty much staggering around the room tripping over its guts like a zombie at time of recording. The hypercompetitive market that the big titans operate in forces them to try and latch on to any sort of success and ride it into the ground. Anything that can't meet that bar, simply cannot exist. Games out of those studios have to be live service, because it allows continued 'line go up' long past the release of the game for very little effort. They have to work that way though because they are publicly traded companies and the investor class needs an ever growing slice of the pie. Problem is though and Ben hits on it at the 35 minute mark is that the market they are trying to capture with a live service game simply doesn't exist. Most people want to play their 20 hours and move on. They don't want to play the same game for a thousand hours... but the publishers need the live service to survive because games cost so flipping much to make that they need the ability to churn out cheap content for the next two years that people will buy in order to make the line keep going up, while they shovel money into the next big shiny... And then people wonder why they grind their staff into dust. Then Lucid's point on the difficulty of AI programming for pathfinding means that the game can't be cheap, because it is very hard to do. It's the same reason why complex turn based strategy games will always be niche. It's hard to do good AI. The AI for some sort of cover shooter/action adventure/stealth/FPS can be 'good enough' by simply not being completely brainless, recognizing where the player is in relation to themselves, knowing what cover is and finally, which way to point the loud end of their sharp object. Give bosses a pattern for the player to work out. Think everything from Assassins Creed, to Call of Duty, to God of War to Cyberpunk to that Chinese game about the magic monkey that got real popular for a while... Name a big banner game from one of the big studios and it will probably fit that box. They only work because they DON'T spend money on AI can therefor spend money on cool shiny things like the lighting effects on the weaponskin you just unlocked and blow peoples minds with the graphics.
I think this is pretty likely. The only successful RTS games from now on will be cheaply made, then their relatively small return will be worth that tiny investment.
Great comments - think i agree with most of your points and things your emphasizing. They are all chasing after 1 billion dollar games, and players dont want to play most games that are monetized to try to make 1 billion dollars.
Great Ep!. Take what follows with a grain of salt as i'm not all that experienced with the genre. One of my favourite games of my youth was Age of Empires 2. I always felt I was bad at it. I guess I still am and i've concluded RTS is mostly not for me because of the time-pressure aspect, here's why: I think I was waaay more in love with what I wanted AOE2 to be than what it actually was. I wanted to feel like I outsmarted the other armies. I wanted to feel the freedom to improvise unpredictable decisions. When I tried the definitive edition I realised that effective play requires you to time a lot of things exactly. Which is learning a pattern, for example building the first house exactly after killing your second sheep (this is not the pattern, but a random example). Rinse repeat. Now how much strategy and outsmarting is actually happening when you feel you're stuck to exact repeats of similar patterns thought out by others to be 'effective'. I'm sure this only applies to early game and that once this becomes muscle memory the game opens up again. Basically, yes, i'm not good enough to enjoy these games, but I'm realising maybe I don't want/need to be. Turns out turn based is probably what I was looking for even as a kid. Having time to think is such a boon and weirdly enough feels tactical and less rigid. I must say however, for the short while I played it no too long ago, I was pretty impressed with the quickness and shifting of dominance in Dawn of War. Also not having played it enough to really comment, but I had fun with Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. So who knows, I might find RTS games that I do fall in love with. In any case, if it isn't obvious yet, it's not a genre I know much about, but hearing your thoughts in the podcast made me want to share my thoughts.
Ben: great insight! I agree, I found AoE2 to be less interesting than others seemed to find it, but it's unfeasibly popular so must be doing something right! I love RTS but I don't play it that much now, it's one of those genres I need to be in the mood for to enjoy properly.
@@MetaAbuseCast AoE2 nails a vibe, but maybe this is just nostalgia speaking. The soundtrack, the sprites, the setting. (My own) nostalgia is a hell of a drug. It's also probably very good for what it is/in its own niche and compared to what came after, but i'll leave the why to the experts :).
Without even watching fully I can tell confidently that the fall of rts can be blamed almost entirely on the idea of pvp and competetive gameplay, while wast majority of the rts players care pretty much only about capaign/skirmish vs bots
RTS was fun when you could play against friends, and not the unemployed who have the game datamined with wiki posted on 100+ APM within a week of the game's release.
Totally the truth of why RTS multiplayer went down the drain. RTS was fun when it made you feel good on LAN with your irl friends. But quickly became just sad once it turned online and realize you're below average and your "friends" started watching youtube videos to get better than you. Internet killed RTS. Need to go back the good old days of playing LAN with friends with no youtube strategy guides.
1:30:43 Couldn't agree more on this whole balance section. The more unusual ideas you try, the more cool options you give the player, the harder it is to balance. Whereas if everything is homogenous, it's automatically balanced because it's all the same. Rather than having unique races with their own styles and features, it's much safer to have them all be clones of the generic default army. A couple of examples from Relic games, because that's my background. One of the coolest things about Homeworld 1 is the salvage corvette. A ship you get literally from mission 1, and it's arguably the most powerful because it lets you steal enemy ships. One benefit is that by the end of the game, your fleet looks unique: you've got whatever assortment of ships you managed to capture from each enemy faction, minus the ones you weren't able to keep alive. What's more, capturing ships would let you go over the cap for each type of unit. If you were trying to achieve perfect multiplayer balance, that idea would get a veto immediately. Of course, in the campaign it works fine because of the dynamic difficulty: if you have too many ships, the enemy's starting fleet will be reinforced to match. It's not so much giving you an advantage as it is letting you play with cool ships. It's a similar story with Dawn of War 1. Apparently, the multiplayer scene was furious that the Eldar were too powerful. Yet when I play the game, I enjoy all 4 (or 5, or 7) races. None stands out as much easier or harder to play, or to play against. Maybe you can abuse the Fleet of Foot ability when dancing your units in and out of range... but I don't do that, and the computer doesn't do that. If there's a neat interaction like that, I might deploy it once in an encounter where it would turn the tide of battle. But none of the "Eldar OP" complaints cause a problem for me, and fixing them would make that race less interesting to play as or against. The hardcore competitive multiplayer enthusiasts might want to nerf something, and maybe all twelve of those people would be happy when the nerf happens. But the best case scenario is that nobody else cares, and it's more likely the average player fires up the game one evening without having read the patch notes. He doesn't know anything has changed, but the game is less fun than yesterday, and he can't put his finger on why. A week later, he's playing a different game and doesn't look back. Ten years later, he thinks about how fun that old RTS was, and wonders why he suddenly stopped playing it.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests! I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out. Oh, and good name for the podcast.
RTS is not a dead genre as in it's lacking a fan-base. It's just that most studios and publishers are more attracted to genres that are more financially attractive. Currently, and for the last few years, most publishers have been almost obsessed with 'games as a service' green-lighting titles like MMO's and team shooters.
Ya I think the issue is that in the current market, if you make a premium multiplayer game it has to be really good to gain traction. Free to play is where the main market for multiplayer games are. Company of Heroes 3 for example or Age of Empires IV. Did both ok at launch but are niche again now. Imo if they just went F2P they could have had much bigger userbase. I think one of the other issue is how do you monetize an RTS game where there is usually no progress mechanic like in a RPG or FPS. That's something talented devs could figure out I am sure. The genre has basically not evolved from the 90s. We would basically need a game you can play singleplayer but is mainly multiplayer that has pve + pvp and the devs are able to monetize as f2p in a balanced way. So we need a indie dev to innovate to breakthrough the genre, to make it accessible and easy to learn with some unique twist while having depth for experienced rts players. Or one of the big publishers to take a risk but I doubt they will. EA had a huge presence in RTS but they are basically a sports game company right now with the odd singleplayer game here and there. Then there is Blizzard who are a shadow of their former self whom can't seem to get anything right, they are lucky China loves their games and people still addicted to WoW. Microsoft is the other big player in RTS but they seem happy just doing AoE2 on the side which has been doing great on its own. Games are so expensive to make right now so we are not seeing that many experimentation in game development other than the indie scene but RTS are demanding games to make. I know AI is the bogeyman for alot of people in the industry. But I think AI is a tool if it can reduce cost of development we will be able to see games be developed faster & cheaper. This should promote more risk and smaller studios producing higher quality content.
BATTLEMODE here, I forget exactly which one it was, but I think that battle was played on a youtube series on LA Feminie I did back on release. I won the battle handily but as usual lost a bunch of communion slaves because I can't be bothered with math when I'm playing :D
I find all this pathfinding talk kinda funny since one of the more popular RTS games, Starcraft Brood War has a lot of janky pathfinding itself! Good luck getting your squad of Dragoons down the ramp nicely :) I do agree that it feels like a lot of art has been lost in game dev in general and RTS games are incredibly hard to make. I personally think classic RTS genre isn't dead, but it was too successful at spawning new ones to it's own detriment. Back in the day if you wanted to play a MoBA, a TD or an auto battler, you played RTS. Like I think back to Stronghold's economy missions and honestly is there much difference between that and Factorio/Mindustry? You collect resources and build up a base while defending from occasional attacks from enemies. So is Factorion an RTS? Mindustry even has PvP, and mission selection. Basically my point is that most of the casual RTS players have found their own more mechanically niche genre that they switched to and have little reason to go back to playing RTS games that might come with a lot of extra things they don't enjoy. There is a good video that talk more about this called: Why are some new RTS not fun? Are they even proper RTS games? by GrubbyTalks Since this is the first episode I wish you guys talked more about what this podcast will be about. Just gaming in general? Also ending the episode with an announcement of what the next one will be about is always nice since the listener can 'prepare' for it in some way. Also please put links to videos that you reference in the description. Overall good episode, looking forward to the next one
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, analysis and feedback. I like your point about games like factorio and mindustry carving out their own niches.. As for future episodes; next one is going to be about AOW4 - is it good or is it trash :D We have a few folks who have pretty different thoughts about it.
Quick response regarding the last bit of your comment - we (I'm Shaun from this video) have published two audio only episodes prior but we hadn't figured out a podcast name at the time. They'll be uploaded here ASAP, they're currently up on Ben's UA-cam channel and I wanted to get his ok before uploading them here as well. As far as I'm aware it'll be a general gaming podcast. A mix of deep dives, interviews and more casual episodes. Whatever we want to talk about really, aiming for something good quality but not over-produced if that makes sense. Very much appreciate the feedback! We're figuring out some of this stuff as we go and it's a very busy time of year, with people being on holidays and that sort of thing but I'd like to get an end of year/our personal gaming highlights episode published by the new year and we're going to do that Age of Wonders episode Lucid referred to.
Giant Grand Games made a video about the same topic a while back called: The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why. He made the argument that the genre isn't dead, but the developers are just not putting in the work to give the new RTS games a solid foundation. And that's something RTS games need far more than other games. Though you are right that I can also see the problem being a lack of expertise. There are a few other problems, like trying to cater too much to multiplayer and E-Sports and ignoring the single player and campaigns. 18:15 I agree with the readability, though I do think that Starcraft is not that bad with it's readability. It might be because I played it more than Age of Empires, but I can distinguish the Starcraft units better than the Age of Empire ones. Screenshots are always harder to get a read on because the units don't move. If you see the units in the actual game they are far more distinct due to movement. But yeah, there are definitely games that focus too much on looking nice. I have one game that is basically Conquest of Elysium in 3D and the unit all looks so similar that you have no idea what is what. One old RTS game I love to play from time to time is Warzone 2100. 1:14:04 There are some pretty big difference in power levels between single and multiplayer in Total War Warhammer. You can boost low tier units to absurd level with lord skills and technologies, which are both missing in the multiplayer battles. Also for multiplayer there are unit limits. For example you can only bring a certain amount of big monsters. 1:16:46 The multiplayer games are definitely also tactically. There are some pretty hard counters and just throwing your big monster into the wrong blob on infantry can easily lose you the game. Total Warhammer is definitely not immersion breaking for me as it's a high fantasy setting and you have lore characters performe even more absurd feats than you can do in the game. I think one of the issues might be that the Warhammer series had a very silly start. Case in point: The naming convention for the Lizardmen. 1:34:59 The one problem I had with Age of Wonders 4 is: Too many decisions that matter too little. I want a game that lets me make impactful decisions. And not having to constantly tweak things for a minuscule outcomes. I enjoy Planetfall a lot more in that regard as it allows me to make decision who's impact I can feel. I agree, it isn't dead. Especially since there a lot of older RTS games that are still played a lot. Age of Empires 2. Supreme Commander Forever. Probably quite a few more.
I think you hit it dead on with the power fantasy of the general. I think games which deliver on that fantasy will never be dead, because the fantasy never will be.
Subscribed. I like the subjects and the insights. Since Lucid asked for honest feedback, here it goes: I don't know the names of the other two guys it would be nice if the guy on the left had a greenscreen, Lucid had a camera and everyeone had their nametags. It is hard to understand the guy on the left. It would also be nice if the games you were going to talk about had the gameplay showing on the screen instead of searching for it real time. The searching for information and images should be done in a different screen and it only put on the shared screen if the information or image is found. In general, everyone should be more high energy.
To stay on the topic, i heard all of them ok during a drive, so dont know where that is comming from. And I liked the realtime showing of games in the background. Its a podcast and most of the time they dont show anything, so if one/3 hosts can show some stuff while the other 2 are talking is a plus vs just having a static screen. Not to say your points arent valid, just that some of us have different take on them.
Ik i'm posting a lot of comments, but the one more thing i wanted to weigh in on is the notion of ultra-balanced faction equalized/parallel design, and i think this is completely ridiculous. Asymmetrical gameplay is extremely potent to drive imagination, creativity, and problem solving. If you want to make a perfectly balanced tournament, people can just use the same faction against eachother. Imo, nothing is cooler than having like one faction that is so overpowered you have to use some galaxy-brain strats to win, or team up against it. It makes it like a boss fight or humans vs super advanced aliens or whatever. ... The big thing is that you have to make a game that is structurally cohesive and has a great sort of attack-parry-counter system, where everything is survivable if you play your cards right (no click to delete base and easy victory without any way to block or counter it, which is the biggest failure of later C&C games, no Ion shields or missile defence). A well made good game will construct it's own audience, instead of catering to an existing embittered one.
@@MetaAbuseCast I've been playing RTS, mostly all the C&C games, my entire life, made maps and mods for all, and a majority of known sci-fi rts as well (though i never really played the blizzard titles). It saddens me greatly what has happened to the genre and how people keep claiming it's dead. I see an effect like with boomer shooters, how so many people insisted it was dead or obsolete, but guess what, it's been making a bit of a comeback because people are worn out from pseudo-tactical shooter saturation and want to go back to the more exciting simpler times of fast moving monster-blasting power fantasy with overpowered weapons. Someone just needs to recapture the magic in a way that gets notoriety and the genre will make a comeback.
This is why Red Alert 2 is one of those games I will remember for ever. Was it optimal to try and sneak a spy into your enemy's lab? No. Was it awesome? God yes. Chrono Ivan
@@perhapsyes2493 RA2 was amazing, but it also had immense potential to expand on it's formula, as many modders (including myself) have attempted to or are currently attempting to. For vanilla, the most broken stuff is pretty much all allies lol. Smart IFV use is bonkers, prism tanks are op af, and chrono legionnaires if used right are a superweapon in of themselves.
Main reason why I don't prefer RTS strategy games is the required apm skills for high level play. I can just pour some coffee/tea and relax while playing turn based ones and be just fine. If I want to play a game that requires continuous attention, I go for Mobas(only Dota 2) as it requires way less apm. I used to average ~170 apm in Starcraft2 but as I lost my youth It became harder and harder for me to keep up and I eventually lost interest as it became very tiring. Edit: I am not interested in playing RTS games single player after finishing campaigns.
You really don't need high APM skills for most RTS games until you hit professional levels of play, which 99.9% of people will never reach (nor want to, I suspect). I think competitive Starcraft etc has really contributed to a false perception there and that's a big contributor to people abandoning RTS now. Lucid and I had a disagreement on this point though and I forget if we brought it up here or not, but if not it might be a good addendum episode.
I love multiplayer, but somehow it usually hurts too much when loosing in an RTS. I don't know why. Maybe because of the time invested in every game. I don't experience the same problem with FPS or Dota. How can one make RTS PvP sustainable/fun for casual/normal players? TBS don't have the same emotional impact, but that's not an option for me because of how long time each game takes. Maybe TBT thoug..
@@LCTesla I am a competitive gamer, I play to win and to improve. The thing I enjoy the most while playing a game is the feeling of accomplishment when I make that legendary play that I haven't done before. To do that you need to improve tactically and be able to execute it with the aging fingers you have. While I can improve tactically, my eye-hand coordination is naturally decreasing which results in decreased enjoyment overall. A game isn't worth playing for me if I am unable to improve anymore. Turn based games simply remove the need to have and maintain fast, precise fingers. I have to admit I preferred RTS over TBS back in the day but times have changed, games have changed, and I have changed.
Maybe Northgard is something more to your current tempo? You cannot lose the 'tiles' you own instantly, and enemies can't progress past one tile outside of their borders.
It's always super important for units in RTS games to be very distinct and recognizable, and most of them fail at this. Many of the really grandiose, and even Supreme Commander 2 really had this issue, in that so many keep making just rectangles with turrets on them, everything is way too samey, both in appearance and function. This is an issue in a lot of RTS mods too, is they don't really understand having design where every unit has a purpose that complements others and is instantly obvious. One of the issues that RTS games often have is where an entire faction is all one ultra uniform design palette - people want visually cohesive factions, but if they all look wayy too much the same, it compromises the per-unit distinction.
More of this! Thanks! You forgot about Zero-K. It deserves a mention. I would like to hear a podcast about how open source can create new technical, mechanic and content baselines. Especially for hard stuff like RTS.
Think Shaun mentioned it briefly but yes, good catch! I (BATTLEMODE) didn't play Zero-K so I've no experience with it, but I do like Beyond All Reason a lot. In fact, I still love the original Total Annihilation. It still plays very well today.
Units routing way around the map when caught in bottlenecks happened in all of the C&C games mind you. The C&C games were considered really high end in pathfinding innovation but they had a lot of these issues.
1:15:00 the conversation gets kinda weird and inconsistent here. They start with criticizing TW as being silly and not-grounded what with the fantasy warmaking going on but then in Conquest of Elysium there're all kinds of broken techniques and he's praising it all. It comes across as merely praising the game you like rather than making a meaningful critique.
To answer that, you have to understand that each game plays to a certain kind of desire in the player. The early TW games were historical and were pretty damn good for historical accuracy, as far as RTS games go. So to go from that to seeing a Hero + artillery unit tie up and destroy a 1,000+ man army is incredibly immersion breaking. Warhammer is still tied to some expectation of realism from the player. Conquest of Elysium doesn't have the same expectation of realism from the player, but still manages the realism far better than TW: Warhammer. In CoE, even a powerfully equipped hero that MIGHT be able to tank a whole army can still be killed by a single peasant's arrow with some luck, and there is nothing inherently unfair in the game as a result. Sure, you can run across situations that are difficult to overcome in the short term but knowledge is king, and learning the game mechanics tames those seemingly "broken" situations into something you can actually handle. Also consider the situation I discussed with Master of Magic vs Age of Wonders 4 and the removal of flying units. Lucid makes a great point about power fantasy: TW: Warhammer is a great power fantasy game but it is easily cheesed and that ruins the fun if you're the kind of gamer who cannot stop yourself playing with cheesy tactics. Conquest of Elysium can be cheesed too but you have to search harder for those cheesy strategies, and they are far less obvious.
@@battlemode That is interesting. Is CoE easier or harder to cheese than Dominions? I had heard that CoE was less serious (and therefore, I assumed, easier to break). That is a fair point about player expectations. I've long been in the TW3 sphere, so I reckon I stopped seeing the absurdities as such and more as simply aspects of the game. That really sucks about removing flying units. I understand why they'd do that what with flying units being the ultimate example of selective hard counters (you can't nuthin' about them if you can't reach them), but the flattening of gameplay is a bad, bad result.
@@adeptusjoker7176 CoE5 is a well designed game, and I'd say it's more difficult to cheese than Dominions because much of what you have access to, in terms of boosting your base units, comes from randomly gained magic items and units you can find/steal. Whereas in Dominions you can build most of the stuff in the game, and so that is somewhat more predictable. They're hard games to compare, but if you've not played CoE much I advise trying it again. I love Dominions but I really f'cking love CoE, it's a magnificent game.
@@battlemode lol, I hate to sound like a fake fan but I’ve never played Dominions or CoE but I’ve read every LP I can get my hand on. I’d better to give CoE another shot ;3
@@battlemode The really big thing is that Dominions gives you scripting control, and especially scripting control for magic, where CoE doesn't. There's some very marginal rank manipulation in terms of where troops are put, there's some limited spell selection, but there's nothing remotely comparable to thugging scripts, let alone the sort of complex battlefield magic you can get out of a decent communion.
Ben: they're not really flying units though, mechanically they're just ground units that can move through obstacles but they can still be hit by ground units just fine.
Is not dead, we just need a good new game. But since Developers cant cash in on the genre they wouldnt make. You cant microtransaction a RTS, neither can you create a Season pass of it. Well, they could try, but wouldnt make any ficking sense. Since a RTS should be working and finished completely.
Check Tempest Rising out, upcoming rts game. And we have Age of empires 4, that keeps improving, and it’s next dlc is gonna be Big, with alot of new content and rumors says it Will have alot of graphics upgrades too
they can have DLC for each army though. I've seen that on a few games. Northgard has around 15+ DLC civs/tribes, AOE II keeps putting out DLC civs too. You are right about skins tho, not gonna buy a skin for a unit that is like 1/2 inch on the screen if even that.
Dorf, tempest rising, dust front are looking promising. BAR is fantastic. currently making my own as well…so much untapped potential in rts genre. Dow 1&2 we’re soo good…need Dow 4.
RTS is less than it was Total Annihilation, Red Alert and War hammer 40k are yet to be beaten for fun and repeat play strong single player is important esp for longer games.
Stronghold and Stronghold Crusaders, Empire Earth, Age of Mythology, Army Men (rts), Rise of Nations, Pretorians a few lesser known rts games from early 2000s
From all the RTS Ive ever played, I never actually enjoyed PvP. It always required too much effort to become reasonably decent and the lobbys were extremely hostile to non-tryhards. So I basically only stuck to the story mode / campaign. And there were actually many games that delivered in that regard (Warcraft, Starcraft, Dune, Command and Conquer, Age of Mythology). But nowadays, studios just dont bother with that. Because its quite costly to develop decent single player campaign and it doesnt really pay for itself - someone who just plays the campaign once isnt going to stick around to buy skins and battle passes etc.
I Think this is mostly a gameplay design issue; for example in games like C&C, it incentivizes being a maniac speed demon and rushing their construction yard in the first minute of gameplay. I actually had an idea to prevent this, and that being a pre-match base building segment, where you can make structures, walls, defences etc, but can't make any units. Thinking about it, i could actually prototype this in C&C3 or RA3 as a custom map. I think it would be cool to have whole game modes like this though. This would allow people to establish a defencible base and then spend more on strategizing instead of frantically trying to keep their base alive. That and slowing down the gameplay a bit overall, make units move slower, build slower, require more tech, click-to-destroy-base superweapons etc. They purposely built them to b fast-paced for esports unfortunately.
"They play for 20 hours and then go and look for the next 'cool' game on steam" That pretty much sums up all the kids who spout how HYPED they are about an upcoming release as though they are being given a Ferrari for their 21st or something. They blow their load and prepurchase only to be disappointed the vast majority of the time... but still feel the need to type the cool phrase of the season like "Lets Gooooooo!!!". It's really quite sad. Edit to add: From around the 45 minute mark when mentioning the 8 bit bloke. When I completed my CompSci degree in '91 the first year programming (*programming* - not 'coding' as people love to call it today) consisted purely of ASM and C. Apparently that's to difficult these days so now it's python and java heh. How the hell can anyone understand the bare metal when programing with an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction?
Ben: I completely agree. That's why my first game is being programmed in 6581 assembly language on the Commander x16, I want to learn how to do stuff properly before moving onto the modern tools.
I think RTS is a very very difficult genre indeed. Like unit movement alone, I haven't seen any(I really mean any) modern RTS game made it right than starcraft did back in the 90s. That's how difficult it is.
Since I heard about a single horse skin in WoW make Blizzard money than entire life service of Starcraft 2 I know there might be no RTS game from blizzard anymore... not include other issue that unique to RTS in term of development decision. - RTS not easily port/playable on console limit it's market. - F2P RTS is hard to microtransaction in other game they could easily sell skin for single character for 20$+ but in RTS they have to make skin for entire armies while have to sell you the same price or they have to completely design entire game around how they going to milk from it instead of focus on actual game. At least the fact we still see some new RTS release at all even it's can't live up to the past tell me there's still some passionate developer trying to keep it a live somehow. Also I cheer for more people to play "Beyond All Reason" even it's didn't on steam yet but it's completely free and away have people to play with.
many of us RTS people are old school wargamers and prefer deeper games , newer games tend to be nerfed. I remember when AOE III came out , I tried it and you couldn't castle drop the enemy. I closed the game right there and never loaded it again.
I think it's just a genre that peaked early due to how graphics were already good enough in the 90s to perfect its gameplay aspects. It's kinda pointless to create new RTS because there's so many good classics to go back to. And modernity does not have any major competitive advantage over the past unlike on the FPS scene, or any novelty for that matter.
RTS is not dead, but its a genre that has become hard to make a pitch for in a AAA setting, its hard to do micro-transactions, its hard to sell skins, its difficult to turn into a live service etc. A modern RTS would have to be from a AA or indie studio and there you find a lack of resources, so they end up doing stuff like either making a forgettable clone of an existing game or not making a single player mode. The multi-player aspect of RTS is majorly overblown, most people who played RTS games back in the day played the campaign and then maybe against their friends at a LAN. Few actually played competitively.
RTS isn't dead, it's abandoned, and existing in limbo. It's not coming back largely because nobody is making new good iconic memorable rts games like C&C, AoE and Starcraft, which pretty much were the pillars of the genre. None of them innovated, if anything they devolved throughout their iterations, and were simplified into the ground. They had no motivation to try and fractalize the gameplay at all, with designs that can be used simply or complexly depending on how the players plays. I have a long term plan to try and rectify this, but it'll be many years before any of this comes to fruition. I want to see and build something that's like a fusion between C&C, Earth 2150, UAW, Supreme Commander. Each faction primarily focussed on different gameplay, like one with lots of little units, one that is almost all epic units, that kind of thing. Earth 2150 and Universe at War Earth Assault both have a lot of design principles that are neglected but have such massive potential, and it's a shame they are not brought forward in the genre. Really get into E1250 and you realize how many things you can actually do in that game; the ability to make custom units with the assembler is just the tip of the iceberg... It added so much strategy like hiding in the dark with your lights off, or repainting and IFF spoofing your units to make them look like an enemy's to sneak attack or trojan horse, weapons are all projectile, damage types...
Ben here: I personally don't consider TW an RTS game. For me, RTS needs to be like Dune 2 and so on, it's a very specific genre. Sins of a Solar Empire is also on the fence but I think it qualifies more than Total War does because you're continuously in the RTS element of the game, where TW drops you out constantly into a turn based strategy thing.
Pharaoh is not mainline, it was scam. And they admited and lowered price. So main game for Creative Assembly is TW Warhammer 3. And it will keep being for a while. Only updates for Warhammer 3. But still its dogshit game. Because they will announce new projects only in the end of 2025.
Such a shame. I love RTS. They are fun to play. I mostly play single-player campaign and every often i replay them. Co-op can also be fun if only i had people to play. I never touch mp.
There's no market anymore. All new RTS games are flopping regardless if they pander to SP people or not. The 90s are gone. Only the big budget RTS games are still around but they are getting old.
Just as book reading is in decline, RTS is in decline. The best genre of something is almost never the most popular. Most players can only buy a video game with a controller that has few buttons, which is limiting. In this case, RTS does not fit outside the mouse/keyboard combo. And because of the hectic modern life, people seek less stressful entertainment, like guided action games, where you just need to press a controller button and the avatar performs a side kick with double jump and tucked landing. This delivers satisfaction to the player who seeks a sense of power.
I play AEO II with people on X Box all the time. Some of them have keyboards too. I don't see why needing a keyboard for a rts is such a big deal when they used ot have those "music" games that you'd need a $100+ fake guitar to play.
bad take, blaming workers for the games not being as good anymore. Also you guys literally said that people arent built the same now because they don't want to make a game with a funny anti-soviet propaganda medicore acting lmao like there is nothing special in that game besides being that
There is another problem with RTS: they are PC esclusive. You can try to playa rts in a playstation, but it's hard to have a controller work as a keyboard. And the problem with pc is that there is no standard. If you have a console you can play a lot of games, with a pc you can play all of them but you need to have a good pc and that cost more than a console.
Ben: I actually played my first RTS game on the SEGA Megadrive/Genesis, a port of Dune II, and that got me into the genre. I didn't own a PC at the time and only got stuff like Total Annihilation once I'd finally got my first gaming PC back in about 1997
Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Crossfire: Legion: wasnt pc exclusive and they`re core mechanics was made for Consoles. And guess what they`re slow and boring so in steam charts: 29 and 2 players in it. Ancestors Legacy for consoles too, 66 players in steam. The Valiant 3 players in steam, but its too for consoles.
well thats obvious, most isometric/RTS games are better played in PC, the same way there are some games that are way better in consoles for example: fighting games Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter.... same with metroidvania, and as a PC gamer i refuse to buy a controller, otherwise i'd rather play console, PC is with mouse and keyboard only.
As a person that's never really liked real-time strategy games because they aren't strategy. I really think they're poised to make a huge comeback. You don't actually do strategy as much as you do tactics in an RTS. You only have tactical control. Aka, clicking units. With AI, I can voice command instead, and let the AI handle the tactics, while I think strategy and big picture. Same thing with real-time 4X games, like like X-4 Foundations. And space sims like X-Wing/TIE Fighter.
RTS went open source a while back, everyone playing beyond all reason (BAR) now. But that's not on these guys radar because it's not on their steam charts.
@@MetaAbuseCast oh cool, sorry I missed it in your episode, UA-cam I tend to watch after a long day's work to unwind so not always fully paying attention. Keep the interesting videos coming nice to see RTS genre getting UA-cam minutes
Mate Warhammer 3 is not much better than it was at launch - that is to say that it is still dogshit. I'm not sure which community you follow but Warhammer 3 is pretty widely disliked even now.
RTS is really hard to learn and grasp upon. Not a game for the laid back types of gamers. Not a game for the fast action pack shooter. Definitely not a game for newer players entering the gaming world. It's a game for the niche audience. Even I get bored after 1-2 hours of playing.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests! I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out. Oh, and good name for the podcast.
Thanks for the feedback! There's two other audio only episodes we'd recorded prior to deciding on the podcast name and recording this episode, they'll be uploaded here shortly. I wanted to check with Ben before uploading. I'll also be looking into more ways to make this podcast visible as well as making it available in more places in the near future.
My biggest problem with the newer rts games is there’s too much invested in the multiplayer component at the expense of single player experience. The last few weeks I’ve reinstalled homeworld, DoW, AoE 2 and are having a great time. The essence of these types games have been lost in newer games to dull first hour of boring chores or the fun sucked out of them to keep them balanced for multiplayer.
Your first point is reflected in GiantGrantGaming's survey, that 80% of the RTS genre never enters multiplayer in the first place, with only 7% wanting Esports on launch compared to the 65~% who want a campaign on launch.
Okay, you`ll complete campaign and thats it, no interest to play if there is no multiplayer. But problem of modern RTS games that they do not bring nothing new to the table. But even if they bring something it`s somehow worst than old games.
you do realize that computers can beat anyone ? they do make them dumber to lose to you, so what fun??
@@alexeivasiliev7766 Ya agreed. I think there is a market for an RTS game but there hasn't been a great RTS game in a while. AoE 4 and Company of Heroes 3 are the biggest proper RTS games that I can think of. They both are worst than their predecessors in many ways. Like just the art/visuals are mobile/cheap looking. The campaigns of both games are after thoughts and not much content for singleplayer.
The thing is there isn't that many devs who know how to make a great RTS. Relic should be one of them... Blizzard hasn't made one in decades...
You might want to put "Dust Front" and "D.O.R.F. Real time strategic conflict" on your radar then. Especially "Dust Front", since it's entirely singleplayer-focused. And if you are feeling curious, might also keep an eye on "The Touhou Empires". I'd also suggest "The Scouring" and "Global Conflagration" but they seem more PvP focused.
@30:00 At a fundamental level I think the big problem is the needs of the industry as it exists in its current form. People blame F2P models, phones, culture wars, and they are all cancer but the more I think about, it the more it seems it is simply a function of the size of these companies. There is very little room for creativity in a place like EA or Activision. There can't be. The cost of failure is too high. Hell, we're seeing exactly that sort of failure play out across the industry pretty much at time of recording. Ubisoft is pretty much staggering around the room tripping over its guts like a zombie at time of recording. The hypercompetitive market that the big titans operate in forces them to try and latch on to any sort of success and ride it into the ground. Anything that can't meet that bar, simply cannot exist. Games out of those studios have to be live service, because it allows continued 'line go up' long past the release of the game for very little effort. They have to work that way though because they are publicly traded companies and the investor class needs an ever growing slice of the pie.
Problem is though and Ben hits on it at the 35 minute mark is that the market they are trying to capture with a live service game simply doesn't exist. Most people want to play their 20 hours and move on. They don't want to play the same game for a thousand hours... but the publishers need the live service to survive because games cost so flipping much to make that they need the ability to churn out cheap content for the next two years that people will buy in order to make the line keep going up, while they shovel money into the next big shiny... And then people wonder why they grind their staff into dust.
Then Lucid's point on the difficulty of AI programming for pathfinding means that the game can't be cheap, because it is very hard to do. It's the same reason why complex turn based strategy games will always be niche. It's hard to do good AI. The AI for some sort of cover shooter/action adventure/stealth/FPS can be 'good enough' by simply not being completely brainless, recognizing where the player is in relation to themselves, knowing what cover is and finally, which way to point the loud end of their sharp object. Give bosses a pattern for the player to work out. Think everything from Assassins Creed, to Call of Duty, to God of War to Cyberpunk to that Chinese game about the magic monkey that got real popular for a while... Name a big banner game from one of the big studios and it will probably fit that box. They only work because they DON'T spend money on AI can therefor spend money on cool shiny things like the lighting effects on the weaponskin you just unlocked and blow peoples minds with the graphics.
I think this is pretty likely.
The only successful RTS games from now on will be cheaply made, then their relatively small return will be worth that tiny investment.
Great comments - think i agree with most of your points and things your emphasizing. They are all chasing after 1 billion dollar games, and players dont want to play most games that are monetized to try to make 1 billion dollars.
Great Ep!. Take what follows with a grain of salt as i'm not all that experienced with the genre. One of my favourite games of my youth was Age of Empires 2. I always felt I was bad at it. I guess I still am and i've concluded RTS is mostly not for me because of the time-pressure aspect, here's why:
I think I was waaay more in love with what I wanted AOE2 to be than what it actually was. I wanted to feel like I outsmarted the other armies. I wanted to feel the freedom to improvise unpredictable decisions. When I tried the definitive edition I realised that effective play requires you to time a lot of things exactly. Which is learning a pattern, for example building the first house exactly after killing your second sheep (this is not the pattern, but a random example). Rinse repeat. Now how much strategy and outsmarting is actually happening when you feel you're stuck to exact repeats of similar patterns thought out by others to be 'effective'. I'm sure this only applies to early game and that once this becomes muscle memory the game opens up again. Basically, yes, i'm not good enough to enjoy these games, but I'm realising maybe I don't want/need to be.
Turns out turn based is probably what I was looking for even as a kid. Having time to think is such a boon and weirdly enough feels tactical and less rigid. I must say however, for the short while I played it no too long ago, I was pretty impressed with the quickness and shifting of dominance in Dawn of War. Also not having played it enough to really comment, but I had fun with Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. So who knows, I might find RTS games that I do fall in love with. In any case, if it isn't obvious yet, it's not a genre I know much about, but hearing your thoughts in the podcast made me want to share my thoughts.
Ben: great insight! I agree, I found AoE2 to be less interesting than others seemed to find it, but it's unfeasibly popular so must be doing something right!
I love RTS but I don't play it that much now, it's one of those genres I need to be in the mood for to enjoy properly.
@@MetaAbuseCast AoE2 nails a vibe, but maybe this is just nostalgia speaking. The soundtrack, the sprites, the setting. (My own) nostalgia is a hell of a drug. It's also probably very good for what it is/in its own niche and compared to what came after, but i'll leave the why to the experts :).
Without even watching fully I can tell confidently that the fall of rts can be blamed almost entirely on the idea of pvp and competetive gameplay, while wast majority of the rts players care pretty much only about capaign/skirmish vs bots
RTS was fun when you could play against friends, and not the unemployed who have the game datamined with wiki posted on 100+ APM within a week of the game's release.
Totally the truth of why RTS multiplayer went down the drain.
RTS was fun when it made you feel good on LAN with your irl friends. But quickly became just sad once it turned online and realize you're below average and your "friends" started watching youtube videos to get better than you.
Internet killed RTS. Need to go back the good old days of playing LAN with friends with no youtube strategy guides.
1:30:43 Couldn't agree more on this whole balance section. The more unusual ideas you try, the more cool options you give the player, the harder it is to balance. Whereas if everything is homogenous, it's automatically balanced because it's all the same. Rather than having unique races with their own styles and features, it's much safer to have them all be clones of the generic default army. A couple of examples from Relic games, because that's my background.
One of the coolest things about Homeworld 1 is the salvage corvette. A ship you get literally from mission 1, and it's arguably the most powerful because it lets you steal enemy ships. One benefit is that by the end of the game, your fleet looks unique: you've got whatever assortment of ships you managed to capture from each enemy faction, minus the ones you weren't able to keep alive. What's more, capturing ships would let you go over the cap for each type of unit. If you were trying to achieve perfect multiplayer balance, that idea would get a veto immediately. Of course, in the campaign it works fine because of the dynamic difficulty: if you have too many ships, the enemy's starting fleet will be reinforced to match. It's not so much giving you an advantage as it is letting you play with cool ships.
It's a similar story with Dawn of War 1. Apparently, the multiplayer scene was furious that the Eldar were too powerful. Yet when I play the game, I enjoy all 4 (or 5, or 7) races. None stands out as much easier or harder to play, or to play against. Maybe you can abuse the Fleet of Foot ability when dancing your units in and out of range... but I don't do that, and the computer doesn't do that. If there's a neat interaction like that, I might deploy it once in an encounter where it would turn the tide of battle. But none of the "Eldar OP" complaints cause a problem for me, and fixing them would make that race less interesting to play as or against.
The hardcore competitive multiplayer enthusiasts might want to nerf something, and maybe all twelve of those people would be happy when the nerf happens. But the best case scenario is that nobody else cares, and it's more likely the average player fires up the game one evening without having read the patch notes. He doesn't know anything has changed, but the game is less fun than yesterday, and he can't put his finger on why. A week later, he's playing a different game and doesn't look back. Ten years later, he thinks about how fun that old RTS was, and wonders why he suddenly stopped playing it.
Great points, one thing i want to do as a topic for a podcast is: Ways to balance games without having balanced factions/ heros etc.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests!
I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out.
Oh, and good name for the podcast.
Amazing podcast, you guys just put into words many of the concepts I have in mind about gaming, I can't wait for the next video.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! More to come for sure
RTS is not a dead genre as in it's lacking a fan-base. It's just that most studios and publishers are more attracted to genres that are more financially attractive. Currently, and for the last few years, most publishers have been almost obsessed with 'games as a service' green-lighting titles like MMO's and team shooters.
Ya I think the issue is that in the current market, if you make a premium multiplayer game it has to be really good to gain traction. Free to play is where the main market for multiplayer games are.
Company of Heroes 3 for example or Age of Empires IV. Did both ok at launch but are niche again now. Imo if they just went F2P they could have had much bigger userbase. I think one of the other issue is how do you monetize an RTS game where there is usually no progress mechanic like in a RPG or FPS. That's something talented devs could figure out I am sure.
The genre has basically not evolved from the 90s. We would basically need a game you can play singleplayer but is mainly multiplayer that has pve + pvp and the devs are able to monetize as f2p in a balanced way.
So we need a indie dev to innovate to breakthrough the genre, to make it accessible and easy to learn with some unique twist while having depth for experienced rts players. Or one of the big publishers to take a risk but I doubt they will.
EA had a huge presence in RTS but they are basically a sports game company right now with the odd singleplayer game here and there. Then there is Blizzard who are a shadow of their former self whom can't seem to get anything right, they are lucky China loves their games and people still addicted to WoW. Microsoft is the other big player in RTS but they seem happy just doing AoE2 on the side which has been doing great on its own.
Games are so expensive to make right now so we are not seeing that many experimentation in game development other than the indie scene but RTS are demanding games to make. I know AI is the bogeyman for alot of people in the industry. But I think AI is a tool if it can reduce cost of development we will be able to see games be developed faster & cheaper. This should promote more risk and smaller studios producing higher quality content.
Loved the podcast! Hope to hear more from you soon
Thanks! We've got more recorded waiting to go up, and recording another episode or two this weekend too.
ICBM Escalation is a great innovation in RTS…
So glad we have this new podcast!! I hope it's here to stay
Did Femine won that battle against Pyrene?! That looked like a hard fight to win
BATTLEMODE here, I forget exactly which one it was, but I think that battle was played on a youtube series on LA Feminie I did back on release. I won the battle handily but as usual lost a bunch of communion slaves because I can't be bothered with math when I'm playing :D
I find all this pathfinding talk kinda funny since one of the more popular RTS games, Starcraft Brood War has a lot of janky pathfinding itself! Good luck getting your squad of Dragoons down the ramp nicely :) I do agree that it feels like a lot of art has been lost in game dev in general and RTS games are incredibly hard to make.
I personally think classic RTS genre isn't dead, but it was too successful at spawning new ones to it's own detriment. Back in the day if you wanted to play a MoBA, a TD or an auto battler, you played RTS. Like I think back to Stronghold's economy missions and honestly is there much difference between that and Factorio/Mindustry? You collect resources and build up a base while defending from occasional attacks from enemies. So is Factorion an RTS? Mindustry even has PvP, and mission selection. Basically my point is that most of the casual RTS players have found their own more mechanically niche genre that they switched to and have little reason to go back to playing RTS games that might come with a lot of extra things they don't enjoy.
There is a good video that talk more about this called: Why are some new RTS not fun? Are they even proper RTS games? by GrubbyTalks
Since this is the first episode I wish you guys talked more about what this podcast will be about. Just gaming in general? Also ending the episode with an announcement of what the next one will be about is always nice since the listener can 'prepare' for it in some way. Also please put links to videos that you reference in the description.
Overall good episode, looking forward to the next one
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, analysis and feedback. I like your point about games like factorio and mindustry carving out their own niches..
As for future episodes; next one is going to be about AOW4 - is it good or is it trash :D We have a few folks who have pretty different thoughts about it.
Quick response regarding the last bit of your comment - we (I'm Shaun from this video) have published two audio only episodes prior but we hadn't figured out a podcast name at the time. They'll be uploaded here ASAP, they're currently up on Ben's UA-cam channel and I wanted to get his ok before uploading them here as well.
As far as I'm aware it'll be a general gaming podcast. A mix of deep dives, interviews and more casual episodes. Whatever we want to talk about really, aiming for something good quality but not over-produced if that makes sense.
Very much appreciate the feedback! We're figuring out some of this stuff as we go and it's a very busy time of year, with people being on holidays and that sort of thing but I'd like to get an end of year/our personal gaming highlights episode published by the new year and we're going to do that Age of Wonders episode Lucid referred to.
@@fragtactics Thank you! And happy holidays!
Giant Grand Games made a video about the same topic a while back called: The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why.
He made the argument that the genre isn't dead, but the developers are just not putting in the work to give the new RTS games a solid foundation. And that's something RTS games need far more than other games. Though you are right that I can also see the problem being a lack of expertise.
There are a few other problems, like trying to cater too much to multiplayer and E-Sports and ignoring the single player and campaigns.
18:15 I agree with the readability, though I do think that Starcraft is not that bad with it's readability. It might be because I played it more than Age of Empires, but I can distinguish the Starcraft units better than the Age of Empire ones. Screenshots are always harder to get a read on because the units don't move. If you see the units in the actual game they are far more distinct due to movement. But yeah, there are definitely games that focus too much on looking nice. I have one game that is basically Conquest of Elysium in 3D and the unit all looks so similar that you have no idea what is what.
One old RTS game I love to play from time to time is Warzone 2100.
1:14:04 There are some pretty big difference in power levels between single and multiplayer in Total War Warhammer. You can boost low tier units to absurd level with lord skills and technologies, which are both missing in the multiplayer battles. Also for multiplayer there are unit limits. For example you can only bring a certain amount of big monsters.
1:16:46 The multiplayer games are definitely also tactically. There are some pretty hard counters and just throwing your big monster into the wrong blob on infantry can easily lose you the game.
Total Warhammer is definitely not immersion breaking for me as it's a high fantasy setting and you have lore characters performe even more absurd feats than you can do in the game. I think one of the issues might be that the Warhammer series had a very silly start. Case in point: The naming convention for the Lizardmen.
1:34:59 The one problem I had with Age of Wonders 4 is: Too many decisions that matter too little.
I want a game that lets me make impactful decisions. And not having to constantly tweak things for a minuscule outcomes. I enjoy Planetfall a lot more in that regard as it allows me to make decision who's impact I can feel.
I agree, it isn't dead. Especially since there a lot of older RTS games that are still played a lot. Age of Empires 2. Supreme Commander Forever. Probably quite a few more.
I think you hit it dead on with the power fantasy of the general. I think games which deliver on that fantasy will never be dead, because the fantasy never will be.
Well put.
Subscribed. I like the subjects and the insights. Since Lucid asked for honest feedback, here it goes: I don't know the names of the other two guys it would be nice if the guy on the left had a greenscreen, Lucid had a camera and everyeone had their nametags. It is hard to understand the guy on the left. It would also be nice if the games you were going to talk about had the gameplay showing on the screen instead of searching for it real time. The searching for information and images should be done in a different screen and it only put on the shared screen if the information or image is found. In general, everyone should be more high energy.
To stay on the topic, i heard all of them ok during a drive, so dont know where that is comming from.
And I liked the realtime showing of games in the background. Its a podcast and most of the time they dont show anything, so if one/3 hosts can show some stuff while the other 2 are talking is a plus vs just having a static screen.
Not to say your points arent valid, just that some of us have different take on them.
Good points across the board, i got a webcam so ill be appearing in the next one. We can try to work on energy too :) Name tags is a great idea.
Can't wait for the next episode!
What? Not going to mention Beyond All Reason? BAR is free to play ffs and it's amazing.
I'm pretty sure we mentioned it, and Zero-K briefly too.
Ik i'm posting a lot of comments, but the one more thing i wanted to weigh in on is the notion of ultra-balanced faction equalized/parallel design, and i think this is completely ridiculous. Asymmetrical gameplay is extremely potent to drive imagination, creativity, and problem solving. If you want to make a perfectly balanced tournament, people can just use the same faction against eachother. Imo, nothing is cooler than having like one faction that is so overpowered you have to use some galaxy-brain strats to win, or team up against it. It makes it like a boss fight or humans vs super advanced aliens or whatever. ... The big thing is that you have to make a game that is structurally cohesive and has a great sort of attack-parry-counter system, where everything is survivable if you play your cards right (no click to delete base and easy victory without any way to block or counter it, which is the biggest failure of later C&C games, no Ion shields or missile defence). A well made good game will construct it's own audience, instead of catering to an existing embittered one.
Ben: Really appreciate the detailed comments, it's really helpful for people watching to see some extra views on the topic!
@@MetaAbuseCast I've been playing RTS, mostly all the C&C games, my entire life, made maps and mods for all, and a majority of known sci-fi rts as well (though i never really played the blizzard titles). It saddens me greatly what has happened to the genre and how people keep claiming it's dead.
I see an effect like with boomer shooters, how so many people insisted it was dead or obsolete, but guess what, it's been making a bit of a comeback because people are worn out from pseudo-tactical shooter saturation and want to go back to the more exciting simpler times of fast moving monster-blasting power fantasy with overpowered weapons.
Someone just needs to recapture the magic in a way that gets notoriety and the genre will make a comeback.
or like in AOE , some civs are stronger in different periods, and it's better to rush some civs with an early attack then let them boom.
This is why Red Alert 2 is one of those games I will remember for ever.
Was it optimal to try and sneak a spy into your enemy's lab? No.
Was it awesome? God yes. Chrono Ivan
@@perhapsyes2493 RA2 was amazing, but it also had immense potential to expand on it's formula, as many modders (including myself) have attempted to or are currently attempting to.
For vanilla, the most broken stuff is pretty much all allies lol. Smart IFV use is bonkers, prism tanks are op af, and chrono legionnaires if used right are a superweapon in of themselves.
Main reason why I don't prefer RTS strategy games is the required apm skills for high level play. I can just pour some coffee/tea and relax while playing turn based ones and be just fine.
If I want to play a game that requires continuous attention, I go for Mobas(only Dota 2) as it requires way less apm.
I used to average ~170 apm in Starcraft2 but as I lost my youth It became harder and harder for me to keep up and I eventually lost interest as it became very tiring.
Edit: I am not interested in playing RTS games single player after finishing campaigns.
You really don't need high APM skills for most RTS games until you hit professional levels of play, which 99.9% of people will never reach (nor want to, I suspect).
I think competitive Starcraft etc has really contributed to a false perception there and that's a big contributor to people abandoning RTS now. Lucid and I had a disagreement on this point though and I forget if we brought it up here or not, but if not it might be a good addendum episode.
I love multiplayer, but somehow it usually hurts too much when loosing in an RTS. I don't know why. Maybe because of the time invested in every game. I don't experience the same problem with FPS or Dota.
How can one make RTS PvP sustainable/fun for casual/normal players? TBS don't have the same emotional impact, but that's not an option for me because of how long time each game takes. Maybe TBT thoug..
Why do you need to be in the upper leagues... just find players on your level
@@LCTesla I am a competitive gamer, I play to win and to improve. The thing I enjoy the most while playing a game is the feeling of accomplishment when I make that legendary play that I haven't done before. To do that you need to improve tactically and be able to execute it with the aging fingers you have. While I can improve tactically, my eye-hand coordination is naturally decreasing which results in decreased enjoyment overall. A game isn't worth playing for me if I am unable to improve anymore.
Turn based games simply remove the need to have and maintain fast, precise fingers.
I have to admit I preferred RTS over TBS back in the day but times have changed, games have changed, and I have changed.
Maybe Northgard is something more to your current tempo? You cannot lose the 'tiles' you own instantly, and enemies can't progress past one tile outside of their borders.
It's always super important for units in RTS games to be very distinct and recognizable, and most of them fail at this. Many of the really grandiose, and even Supreme Commander 2 really had this issue, in that so many keep making just rectangles with turrets on them, everything is way too samey, both in appearance and function. This is an issue in a lot of RTS mods too, is they don't really understand having design where every unit has a purpose that complements others and is instantly obvious. One of the issues that RTS games often have is where an entire faction is all one ultra uniform design palette - people want visually cohesive factions, but if they all look wayy too much the same, it compromises the per-unit distinction.
More of this! Thanks!
You forgot about Zero-K. It deserves a mention. I would like to hear a podcast about how open source can create new technical, mechanic and content baselines. Especially for hard stuff like RTS.
Think Shaun mentioned it briefly but yes, good catch! I (BATTLEMODE) didn't play Zero-K so I've no experience with it, but I do like Beyond All Reason a lot.
In fact, I still love the original Total Annihilation. It still plays very well today.
Units routing way around the map when caught in bottlenecks happened in all of the C&C games mind you. The C&C games were considered really high end in pathfinding innovation but they had a lot of these issues.
1:15:00 the conversation gets kinda weird and inconsistent here. They start with criticizing TW as being silly and not-grounded what with the fantasy warmaking going on but then in Conquest of Elysium there're all kinds of broken techniques and he's praising it all. It comes across as merely praising the game you like rather than making a meaningful critique.
To answer that, you have to understand that each game plays to a certain kind of desire in the player.
The early TW games were historical and were pretty damn good for historical accuracy, as far as RTS games go. So to go from that to seeing a Hero + artillery unit tie up and destroy a 1,000+ man army is incredibly immersion breaking. Warhammer is still tied to some expectation of realism from the player.
Conquest of Elysium doesn't have the same expectation of realism from the player, but still manages the realism far better than TW: Warhammer.
In CoE, even a powerfully equipped hero that MIGHT be able to tank a whole army can still be killed by a single peasant's arrow with some luck, and there is nothing inherently unfair in the game as a result. Sure, you can run across situations that are difficult to overcome in the short term but knowledge is king, and learning the game mechanics tames those seemingly "broken" situations into something you can actually handle.
Also consider the situation I discussed with Master of Magic vs Age of Wonders 4 and the removal of flying units.
Lucid makes a great point about power fantasy: TW: Warhammer is a great power fantasy game but it is easily cheesed and that ruins the fun if you're the kind of gamer who cannot stop yourself playing with cheesy tactics. Conquest of Elysium can be cheesed too but you have to search harder for those cheesy strategies, and they are far less obvious.
@@battlemode That is interesting. Is CoE easier or harder to cheese than Dominions? I had heard that CoE was less serious (and therefore, I assumed, easier to break).
That is a fair point about player expectations. I've long been in the TW3 sphere, so I reckon I stopped seeing the absurdities as such and more as simply aspects of the game.
That really sucks about removing flying units. I understand why they'd do that what with flying units being the ultimate example of selective hard counters (you can't nuthin' about them if you can't reach them), but the flattening of gameplay is a bad, bad result.
@@adeptusjoker7176 CoE5 is a well designed game, and I'd say it's more difficult to cheese than Dominions because much of what you have access to, in terms of boosting your base units, comes from randomly gained magic items and units you can find/steal. Whereas in Dominions you can build most of the stuff in the game, and so that is somewhat more predictable.
They're hard games to compare, but if you've not played CoE much I advise trying it again. I love Dominions but I really f'cking love CoE, it's a magnificent game.
@@battlemode lol, I hate to sound like a fake fan but I’ve never played Dominions or CoE but I’ve read every LP I can get my hand on. I’d better to give CoE another shot ;3
@@battlemode The really big thing is that Dominions gives you scripting control, and especially scripting control for magic, where CoE doesn't. There's some very marginal rank manipulation in terms of where troops are put, there's some limited spell selection, but there's nothing remotely comparable to thugging scripts, let alone the sort of complex battlefield magic you can get out of a decent communion.
AoW4 has flying units and theyre usually weak to ranged (whether physical or magical depends on their type usually)
Ben: they're not really flying units though, mechanically they're just ground units that can move through obstacles but they can still be hit by ground units just fine.
Is not dead, we just need a good new game. But since Developers cant cash in on the genre they wouldnt make. You cant microtransaction a RTS, neither can you create a Season pass of it.
Well, they could try, but wouldnt make any ficking sense. Since a RTS should be working and finished completely.
Check Tempest Rising out, upcoming rts game. And we have Age of empires 4, that keeps improving, and it’s next dlc is gonna be Big, with alot of new content and rumors says it Will have alot of graphics upgrades too
they can have DLC for each army though. I've seen that on a few games. Northgard has around 15+ DLC civs/tribes, AOE II keeps putting out DLC civs too. You are right about skins tho, not gonna buy a skin for a unit that is like 1/2 inch on the screen if even that.
Dorf, tempest rising, dust front are looking promising. BAR is fantastic. currently making my own as well…so much untapped potential in rts genre. Dow 1&2 we’re soo good…need Dow 4.
RTS is less than it was Total Annihilation, Red Alert and War hammer 40k are yet to be beaten for fun and repeat play strong single player is important esp for longer games.
Stronghold and Stronghold Crusaders, Empire Earth, Age of Mythology, Army Men (rts), Rise of Nations, Pretorians a few lesser known rts games from early 2000s
There is a remake of "Empire Earth" in the making called "Empire Eternal"
From all the RTS Ive ever played, I never actually enjoyed PvP. It always required too much effort to become reasonably decent and the lobbys were extremely hostile to non-tryhards. So I basically only stuck to the story mode / campaign. And there were actually many games that delivered in that regard (Warcraft, Starcraft, Dune, Command and Conquer, Age of Mythology). But nowadays, studios just dont bother with that. Because its quite costly to develop decent single player campaign and it doesnt really pay for itself - someone who just plays the campaign once isnt going to stick around to buy skins and battle passes etc.
Ben: Yes, I think the only RTS games that will make money now are the ones made so cheaply that the small number of buyers is viable.
I Think this is mostly a gameplay design issue; for example in games like C&C, it incentivizes being a maniac speed demon and rushing their construction yard in the first minute of gameplay. I actually had an idea to prevent this, and that being a pre-match base building segment, where you can make structures, walls, defences etc, but can't make any units. Thinking about it, i could actually prototype this in C&C3 or RA3 as a custom map.
I think it would be cool to have whole game modes like this though. This would allow people to establish a defencible base and then spend more on strategizing instead of frantically trying to keep their base alive. That and slowing down the gameplay a bit overall, make units move slower, build slower, require more tech, click-to-destroy-base superweapons etc.
They purposely built them to b fast-paced for esports unfortunately.
Maybe it's not very popular, but the only which i'm waiting for is D.O.R.F. because it's cool.
"They play for 20 hours and then go and look for the next 'cool' game on steam"
That pretty much sums up all the kids who spout how HYPED they are about an upcoming release as though they are being given a Ferrari for their 21st or something. They blow their load and prepurchase only to be disappointed the vast majority of the time... but still feel the need to type the cool phrase of the season like "Lets Gooooooo!!!".
It's really quite sad.
Edit to add: From around the 45 minute mark when mentioning the 8 bit bloke. When I completed my CompSci degree in '91 the first year programming (*programming* - not 'coding' as people love to call it today) consisted purely of ASM and C. Apparently that's to difficult these days so now it's python and java heh. How the hell can anyone understand the bare metal when programing with an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction?
Ben: I completely agree. That's why my first game is being programmed in 6581 assembly language on the Commander x16, I want to learn how to do stuff properly before moving onto the modern tools.
Just chilling here 4am on boxing day listening to this :)
Thanks Drex, let us know what you think of the video format.
Dune 2... the first RTS by westwood studio. I was 15 or 16.
I think RTS is a very very difficult genre indeed. Like unit movement alone, I haven't seen any(I really mean any) modern RTS game made it right than starcraft did back in the 90s. That's how difficult it is.
Call to arms- Gates of hell Ostront restored my faith in the genre.
Since I heard about a single horse skin in WoW make Blizzard money than entire life service of Starcraft 2 I know there might be no RTS game from blizzard anymore... not include other issue that unique to RTS in term of development decision.
- RTS not easily port/playable on console limit it's market.
- F2P RTS is hard to microtransaction in other game they could easily sell skin for single character for 20$+ but in RTS they have to make skin for entire armies while have to sell you the same price or they have to completely design entire game around how they going to milk from it instead of focus on actual game.
At least the fact we still see some new RTS release at all even it's can't live up to the past tell me there's still some passionate developer trying to keep it a live somehow.
Also I cheer for more people to play "Beyond All Reason" even it's didn't on steam yet but it's completely free and away have people to play with.
Coh 3 is a lot of fun, and the best modern RTS imo.
Pretending you don't know why larger game companies can't produce quality games anymore devalues your channel. Be brave.
What do you think the problem is?
many of us RTS people are old school wargamers and prefer deeper games , newer games tend to be nerfed. I remember when AOE III came out , I tried it and you couldn't castle drop the enemy. I closed the game right there and never loaded it again.
I think it's just a genre that peaked early due to how graphics were already good enough in the 90s to perfect its gameplay aspects. It's kinda pointless to create new RTS because there's so many good classics to go back to. And modernity does not have any major competitive advantage over the past unlike on the FPS scene, or any novelty for that matter.
I don’t play RTS because the multi tasking isn’t fun. I prefer single player strategy like Total War and Paradox titles.
RTS is not dead, but its a genre that has become hard to make a pitch for in a AAA setting, its hard to do micro-transactions, its hard to sell skins, its difficult to turn into a live service etc. A modern RTS would have to be from a AA or indie studio and there you find a lack of resources, so they end up doing stuff like either making a forgettable clone of an existing game or not making a single player mode. The multi-player aspect of RTS is majorly overblown, most people who played RTS games back in the day played the campaign and then maybe against their friends at a LAN. Few actually played competitively.
RTS isn't dead, it's abandoned, and existing in limbo.
It's not coming back largely because nobody is making new good iconic memorable rts games like C&C, AoE and Starcraft, which pretty much were the pillars of the genre. None of them innovated, if anything they devolved throughout their iterations, and were simplified into the ground. They had no motivation to try and fractalize the gameplay at all, with designs that can be used simply or complexly depending on how the players plays. I have a long term plan to try and rectify this, but it'll be many years before any of this comes to fruition. I want to see and build something that's like a fusion between C&C, Earth 2150, UAW, Supreme Commander. Each faction primarily focussed on different gameplay, like one with lots of little units, one that is almost all epic units, that kind of thing.
Earth 2150 and Universe at War Earth Assault both have a lot of design principles that are neglected but have such massive potential, and it's a shame they are not brought forward in the genre. Really get into E1250 and you realize how many things you can actually do in that game; the ability to make custom units with the assembler is just the tip of the iceberg... It added so much strategy like hiding in the dark with your lights off, or repainting and IFF spoofing your units to make them look like an enemy's to sneak attack or trojan horse, weapons are all projectile, damage types...
Why criticize total war when Warhammer isnt even their mainline title, Pharaoh is.
Total War isn’t RTS, it’s RTT. There’s no building in battle mode and the campaign is turn based.
@@lateralus6512 I am aware but people still call it RTS
Ben here: I personally don't consider TW an RTS game. For me, RTS needs to be like Dune 2 and so on, it's a very specific genre. Sins of a Solar Empire is also on the fence but I think it qualifies more than Total War does because you're continuously in the RTS element of the game, where TW drops you out constantly into a turn based strategy thing.
Pharaoh is not mainline, it was scam. And they admited and lowered price. So main game for Creative Assembly is TW Warhammer 3. And it will keep being for a while. Only updates for Warhammer 3. But still its dogshit game.
Because they will announce new projects only in the end of 2025.
@@alexeivasiliev7766 Last I checked Total War was historical long before Warhammer
Such a shame. I love RTS. They are fun to play. I mostly play single-player campaign and every often i replay them. Co-op can also be fun if only i had people to play. I never touch mp.
Aaaaand... subscribed.
Thanks!
There's no market anymore. All new RTS games are flopping regardless if they pander to SP people or not. The 90s are gone. Only the big budget RTS games are still around but they are getting old.
Just as book reading is in decline, RTS is in decline. The best genre of something is almost never the most popular. Most players can only buy a video game with a controller that has few buttons, which is limiting. In this case, RTS does not fit outside the mouse/keyboard combo. And because of the hectic modern life, people seek less stressful entertainment, like guided action games, where you just need to press a controller button and the avatar performs a side kick with double jump and tucked landing. This delivers satisfaction to the player who seeks a sense of power.
I play AEO II with people on X Box all the time. Some of them have keyboards too. I don't see why needing a keyboard for a rts is such a big deal when they used ot have those "music" games that you'd need a $100+ fake guitar to play.
Broken Arrow?
bad take, blaming workers for the games not being as good anymore. Also you guys literally said that people arent built the same now because they don't want to make a game with a funny anti-soviet propaganda medicore acting lmao like there is nothing special in that game besides being that
I wishlisted 40 great upcoming RTS's for 2025. So no.
There is another problem with RTS: they are PC esclusive. You can try to playa rts in a playstation, but it's hard to have a controller work as a keyboard. And the problem with pc is that there is no standard. If you have a console you can play a lot of games, with a pc you can play all of them but you need to have a good pc and that cost more than a console.
Ben: I actually played my first RTS game on the SEGA Megadrive/Genesis, a port of Dune II, and that got me into the genre. I didn't own a PC at the time and only got stuff like Total Annihilation once I'd finally got my first gaming PC back in about 1997
Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Crossfire: Legion: wasnt pc exclusive and they`re core mechanics was made for Consoles. And guess what they`re slow and boring so in steam charts: 29 and 2 players in it. Ancestors Legacy for consoles too, 66 players in steam. The Valiant 3 players in steam, but its too for consoles.
Halo wars 2 is still played by it’s fans even though it stopped receiving content a long time ago
well thats obvious, most isometric/RTS games are better played in PC, the same way there are some games that are way better in consoles for example: fighting games Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter.... same with metroidvania, and as a PC gamer i refuse to buy a controller, otherwise i'd rather play console, PC is with mouse and keyboard only.
Single player has become where to learn mechanics for multiplayer to fight sweats.
No thanks.
RTS moved to mobile.
Honestly the funny thing is RTS may be having a resurgence. The problem is Microsoft owns all the recent good ones.
no.
What a MAJESTIC beard
@@Dakkalazy haha thanks! Getting a lot of positive comments about it
As a person that's never really liked real-time strategy games because they aren't strategy.
I really think they're poised to make a huge comeback.
You don't actually do strategy as much as you do tactics in an RTS. You only have tactical control. Aka, clicking units.
With AI, I can voice command instead, and let the AI handle the tactics, while I think strategy and big picture.
Same thing with real-time 4X games, like like X-4 Foundations.
And space sims like X-Wing/TIE Fighter.
RTS went open source a while back, everyone playing beyond all reason (BAR) now. But that's not on these guys radar because it's not on their steam charts.
That's cool. Can you briefly describe the story and characters from its campaign?
Also they mention it several times in the video
Ben: I play BAR, great game! We mentioned it, and Zero-K in the episode.
@@MetaAbuseCast oh cool, sorry I missed it in your episode, UA-cam I tend to watch after a long day's work to unwind so not always fully paying attention. Keep the interesting videos coming nice to see RTS genre getting UA-cam minutes
Mate Warhammer 3 is not much better than it was at launch - that is to say that it is still dogshit. I'm not sure which community you follow but Warhammer 3 is pretty widely disliked even now.
RTS is really hard to learn and grasp upon. Not a game for the laid back types of gamers. Not a game for the fast action pack shooter. Definitely not a game for newer players entering the gaming world. It's a game for the niche audience. Even I get bored after 1-2 hours of playing.
Subscribed as well. Will finish listening as I have time. Yea on the guests!
I was lucky enough to see this because I’m subbed to Lucid and he had an announcement video on his channel, otherwise I don’t think I would have seen this. Maybe announcements / community messages on your channels might get the word spread out.
Oh, and good name for the podcast.
Thanks for the feedback! There's two other audio only episodes we'd recorded prior to deciding on the podcast name and recording this episode, they'll be uploaded here shortly. I wanted to check with Ben before uploading. I'll also be looking into more ways to make this podcast visible as well as making it available in more places in the near future.