What was the biggest game changer for you? For me it was learning to macro in terms of always producing workers/villagers and adding additional production buildings. I used to think the resources would run out so why build costly buildings and workers. Oops! Another one I didn't mention is the use of keybindings, control groups, camera hotkeys etc. Personally, I had most of that already, coming from games like Everquest and early WoW where you had 20+ different spells to keybind or you couldn't really function.
I never really had much of a 'game changer'. I was always the kind of person who would explore all possibilities, and grasp those that were most advantageous. If anything, I'd say the biggest change was the combination of "Time Waits For No Man" and "Work smarter, not harder", which were really just punishing lessons to wake me up to the reality that fairness is not a right, and an absurd expectation to hold in confrontation and competition. I was also up in WoW, with an average of about 50 keybinds in regular use. My shaman had the record of ~70 regular use keybinds, and ~130 in total. It was worth using different ranks for the same spell. Rank1 frostbolt would still slow and freeze. Rank3-4 heals were the most efficient. Making enemies destroy rank1 totems was a very economical trade in long fights. Rank1 cast spells also tended to be shorter, tripping up enemies who are waiting to hit you with a counterspell, kick, slam, etc. And even when the enemy knows you're just doing feints, it's a great way to delay for builds or classes with superior endurance. And there were tons of special consumables and other items not tied to classes that could impact a fight. I'd stick to class things to keep fights fair, but the second I see someone chugging a potion or using some engineering gadgets I'd pull out my arsenal lol
Good video, after years of playing RTS it can become hard to remember what you struggled with in the beginning when helping out new players. This is true for all genres of games I think but can be extra daunting for new players in the RTS genre specifically because many people will have friends who are long time players say something like 'just produce units' and then be surprised when their friends struggle "just doing the basics". Just getting into the flow of actually moving your army around while also keeping up with macro is a huge hurdle for new and returning players alike, the video you made about the micro challenges in SC2 recently is an interesting but limited version of what I think should be introduced in future RTS games. I think having something like those challenges which isn't just one off challenges but like a 'campaign' where you don't produce units just control the army, and then another 'campaign' where you don't control units at all and are instead supposed to stay on top of production with an ever increasing amount of resource generation could be helpful in preparing people for 1v1 ladder more so than an actual campaign where you just kill AI that's set up on the map in a narrative campaign.
I loved the kind of "commando" missions in C&C Red Alert where you had a handful of marines and a double of attack dogs and had to make your way through a mission (usually underground tunnels) with just that. No marco, no economy.
Man thats a GREAT idea. There are plenty of missions in all sorts of RTS campaigns where you dont have a base or dont have to control it (literally first mission in Warcraft 3 and starcraft 2 campaign) but Missions where you just manage economy but dont actually move your army - THATS cool. We need a campaign with just that!
That cannon rush at 14:10 or so gives me heart palpitations. You need 3 drones to kill a cannon before it completes. Seeing two drones trying to mine a turret breaks my (zheart).
The casters thought PartinG had messed it up but he was actually intentionally trying to trap those drones! As far as cannon rush cheesing goes I thought I may as well pick an actually interesting example for the clip :)
Rules for RTS are the same as rules for personal combat, warfare and business. Information. Economy. Tools. Preparation. Position. From those five, all else can be derived. And the minutae of all derivations are subject to the scenario you apply them to.
8:56 there are some exceptions to this, or instance Decimus, Arbiter and Voridus in Halo Wars 2 adore chokepoints where they can make the most use of their abilities, Decmius and Voridus have AoE abilities and Arbiter has a Stim-type ability, and both the Arbiter's and Decimus' abilities can hit air units. Also there is the Dawn of War games where many melee units have some way to displace units on the charge potentially making chokepoints worthless, and others can jump over the choke point all-together. So while it is a good idea to try and funnel melee units into choke points it's best to be aware of what you can and can't funnel, for instance, Assault Marines, Raptors, Storm Boyz, Howling Banshees, Mega Nobz Assault Terminators, certain hero units & melee vehicles, etc., are all examples of stuff that you can't exactly funnel safely for one reason or another (ignoring the fact most of what listed will also be able to shoot back at you).
Hello my friend. I see a lot of rts games in your playlist. Can you make a video about red chaos the strict order? It is a new modern rts game and looks really amazing. Thank you
Hey there, I enjoyed your video and gonna watch some others aswell. I am nearly 40 years old and started YT in February. So far I couldnt find a "niche" but I guess I dont have one. When I started to play on PC next to Diablo 1 (ARPGs) RTS games were my favorite. I noticed you are pretty experienced in RTS games and I wanted to start a "personal project" so to speak. I wanna dedicate my time and effort to a RTS game that I recently (today) supported on kickstarter the name is ZeroSpace. It reminds me of Starcraft. And I wanna try to play it ranked/ladder just to see how far I can get as a "seasoned" player. So what I wanted to ask you is if you have any suggestions for RTS games that I could now play/practice to have a good starting point for the game. And if you maybe would be open to make like a little colaboration in which you could teach me things and we could make footage out of it. Just an idea. Have a nice day!
Hey there - good luck with your journey! It has to be StarCraft II in terms of preparing for ZeroSpace. The game is being developed by several SC2 pros and community figures and many people are hoping it will be the successor. Warcraft 3 might also be helpful in terms of having a "hero unit" which ZeroSpace will also do (i.e. one very strong unit in your army with unique abilities). Perhaps you could leave some info here, or find me on the "NewTubers" Discord.
Starcraft 2 is probably the best game to dedicate yourself to, it's very similar to ZeroSpace (probably) and the community still has tons of players that don't play at a very high level. You can play the Starcraft broodwar campaign again (for free) if you want but be warned even very low ranked members of the StarCraft broodwar community are actually insanely good and to play ladder you need to buy the remaster of Starcraft broodwar (while Starcraft 2 ladder is free) I'd really recommend watching Starcraft Broodwar though. If through watching Broodwar you decide you much prefer the Starcraft broodwar game design to SC2 and you don't mind getting absolutely battered every game even after spending a lot of time practicing then Broodwar can be a lot of fun
@@yaboykirby7789 I heard that SC 2 is free and probably gonna try it out. The broodwar experience I will look into. Thank you & maybe I find some people to play with somehow.
@@smilingsamurai8 In terms of Broodwar I'd recommend just playing the campaign and watching pro games (ASL is the big twice yearly broodwar tournament) at least for the time being.
The one that I'd suggest other than those (good ones) is the principle that the safest time to expand is while attacking. Critical to getting decent at competitive, and feels a bit counterintuitive at first.
Especially if an attack goes well. When you're ahead, get more ahead as Artosis would say (or stay on 2 base for the entire game and then lose to a B rank Protoss)
That's true in most cases (probably 95%+). There are some scenarios where it's a bit more nuanced though such as in Age of Empires, or human in WC3. Having a mobile defense/army is better than being stuck in one spot unless you are "tower pushing" or something like that.
It's fine to minimize or eliminate the amount of things your build instaloses to to help you to get better. Don't try to hard counter every build that's ever existed lmao It's amazing how quickly and easy it is to lose sight of that
@@Ianbus123 Sometimes you do a safe build that counters something and said something still kills you in early game (usually because you misplayed even if it doesn't feel like it) and that's ok. Sometimes your safe build that counters every popular cheese but one dies to a cheese no one has done for 15 years and that's ok. Sometimes you've lost the game the moment you found a match and it's still not your build's fault. When I try to "fix" my "unsafe" build after this I usually create a build that will die to every cheese except the one build I've just died to haha
Agreed @@yaboykirby7789 The point I am trying to make in the vid is that you don't want to have one super cheesy build which is the main reason for your success against opponents if your goal is to learn and improve (which it should be for many). If you don't have some sort of reasonably optimised opener you may be unable to play the game and get some decent practice in because people with more refined buildorders might just roll you over.
@@Ianbus123 I agree with the video. I'm just adding another (what I would regard as) RTS fundamental that I have constantly struggled with, which is that your build can't counter everything
Hi, do you know OpenRA? It's C&C but rebalanced for multiplayer, it plays total different than the normal C&C Blackened's Barracks is a yt channel that shows tournament games of OpenRA
I think an asterisk should be added to rule 1. Spend more, but have a rainy day fund if you lose a major fight and need and army yesterday. Nothing hurts worse then losing a big fight then realizing you don't have the cash or the time to replace said army.
Well the thinking is that if you have an army that represents say, 75% of your wealth and the opponent comes with 100%, they will score a decisive victory in that battle with a lot of units left over, and then will easily crush your 25% secondary group as well
You can go a long way with basic things done well. Last time I played SC2 it was still full of people in Masters/GM who floated loads of resources as soon as things got hectic or just sat in their base doing very little to control the map.
@@Ianbus123 i dont know how good m/gm in sc2 actually is compared to pro level. Most people dont float resources or are too inactive on the map because they dont know they should. They are simply too slow, prioritize wrong or, probably especially in master, are just somewhat talented but dont actually try to improve. Your video and title are not wrong, im not saying that. Those are 5 "golden rules" or basics to win in RTS.
talks about keeping queues short, shows footage of BAR, where resources are spent at production not ordering so you try and keep your queues as long as possible...
@@Ianbus123 No worries bud! It's an adjustment coming from SC2 but then you realize that the BAR way is a big quality of life improvement. Much lower APM requirement to manage macro/micro effectively. Peak BAR is getting into a rhythm of building a bunch of units, then queueing up a bunch of eco at your base - maybe even eating your factory to pay for it - right before you switch your attention to microing your units. Once the battle is over you switch back to your base and you've scaled massively while your attention was elsewhere. Then you can decide what units to make next and start the whole cycle again. In theory at least : ) BAR is OP
@@FirstFireStudio The queuing stuff was aimed at games like C&C and StarCraft where the moment you start building something it deducts the full cost. Streaming resources like in BAR is much harder to get used to in my experience. I found it cool in BAR teamgames how you tend to have people focusing on the macro side then you have frontliners doing a lot of skirmishing
@@Ianbus123 Its easy to stall your economy in BAR by trying to build too much at once and then you wind up building nothing really as everything comes up really slowly. As for the fontline vs eco roles that is very map dependent but also where the game introduces a lot of tactical nuance. No faster way to lose than leaving your teammates to fight a man down on the frontline while you try to scale your eco behind them but of course if the gamble pays off then you're the big hero coming in with better tech, etc.
@@335chr Because they are designed for spectators and not players. There are games designed for entertainment if you want entertainment, rather than a second job.
What was the biggest game changer for you? For me it was learning to macro in terms of always producing workers/villagers and adding additional production buildings. I used to think the resources would run out so why build costly buildings and workers. Oops!
Another one I didn't mention is the use of keybindings, control groups, camera hotkeys etc. Personally, I had most of that already, coming from games like Everquest and early WoW where you had 20+ different spells to keybind or you couldn't really function.
I never really had much of a 'game changer'. I was always the kind of person who would explore all possibilities, and grasp those that were most advantageous. If anything, I'd say the biggest change was the combination of "Time Waits For No Man" and "Work smarter, not harder", which were really just punishing lessons to wake me up to the reality that fairness is not a right, and an absurd expectation to hold in confrontation and competition.
I was also up in WoW, with an average of about 50 keybinds in regular use. My shaman had the record of ~70 regular use keybinds, and ~130 in total. It was worth using different ranks for the same spell. Rank1 frostbolt would still slow and freeze. Rank3-4 heals were the most efficient. Making enemies destroy rank1 totems was a very economical trade in long fights. Rank1 cast spells also tended to be shorter, tripping up enemies who are waiting to hit you with a counterspell, kick, slam, etc. And even when the enemy knows you're just doing feints, it's a great way to delay for builds or classes with superior endurance.
And there were tons of special consumables and other items not tied to classes that could impact a fight. I'd stick to class things to keep fights fair, but the second I see someone chugging a potion or using some engineering gadgets I'd pull out my arsenal lol
Finally moving out from the base.
Good video, after years of playing RTS it can become hard to remember what you struggled with in the beginning when helping out new players. This is true for all genres of games I think but can be extra daunting for new players in the RTS genre specifically because many people will have friends who are long time players say something like 'just produce units' and then be surprised when their friends struggle "just doing the basics".
Just getting into the flow of actually moving your army around while also keeping up with macro is a huge hurdle for new and returning players alike, the video you made about the micro challenges in SC2 recently is an interesting but limited version of what I think should be introduced in future RTS games.
I think having something like those challenges which isn't just one off challenges but like a 'campaign' where you don't produce units just control the army, and then another 'campaign' where you don't control units at all and are instead supposed to stay on top of production with an ever increasing amount of resource generation could be helpful in preparing people for 1v1 ladder more so than an actual campaign where you just kill AI that's set up on the map in a narrative campaign.
I loved the kind of "commando" missions in C&C Red Alert where you had a handful of marines and a double of attack dogs and had to make your way through a mission (usually underground tunnels) with just that. No marco, no economy.
Man thats a GREAT idea. There are plenty of missions in all sorts of RTS campaigns where you dont have a base or dont have to control it (literally first mission in Warcraft 3 and starcraft 2 campaign) but Missions where you just manage economy but dont actually move your army - THATS cool. We need a campaign with just that!
Your best video yet, lots of good useful information, stuff i didn’t even know as well!
Thank you Frank!
That cannon rush at 14:10 or so gives me heart palpitations. You need 3 drones to kill a cannon before it completes. Seeing two drones trying to mine a turret breaks my (zheart).
The casters thought PartinG had messed it up but he was actually intentionally trying to trap those drones! As far as cannon rush cheesing goes I thought I may as well pick an actually interesting example for the clip :)
Looking forward to the AOE4 deep dive 😎
Rules for RTS are the same as rules for personal combat, warfare and business.
Information.
Economy.
Tools.
Preparation.
Position.
From those five, all else can be derived. And the minutae of all derivations are subject to the scenario you apply them to.
Very good video, so much information, nice examples, nice montage.
Hey - thank you! Appreciate it.
8:56 there are some exceptions to this, or instance Decimus, Arbiter and Voridus in Halo Wars 2 adore chokepoints where they can make the most use of their abilities, Decmius and Voridus have AoE abilities and Arbiter has a Stim-type ability, and both the Arbiter's and Decimus' abilities can hit air units.
Also there is the Dawn of War games where many melee units have some way to displace units on the charge potentially making chokepoints worthless, and others can jump over the choke point all-together.
So while it is a good idea to try and funnel melee units into choke points it's best to be aware of what you can and can't funnel, for instance, Assault Marines, Raptors, Storm Boyz, Howling Banshees, Mega Nobz Assault Terminators, certain hero units & melee vehicles, etc., are all examples of stuff that you can't exactly funnel safely for one reason or another (ignoring the fact most of what listed will also be able to shoot back at you).
Hello my friend.
I see a lot of rts games in your playlist.
Can you make a video about red chaos the strict order?
It is a new modern rts game and looks really amazing.
Thank you
I am planning to do another video on upcoming RTS games, so I'll look in to it a bit - thanks!
Great video.
Hey - thank you :) Something a bit diffent so I'm glad it's being well received.
Hey there, I enjoyed your video and gonna watch some others aswell.
I am nearly 40 years old and started YT in February. So far I couldnt find a "niche" but I guess I dont have one.
When I started to play on PC next to Diablo 1 (ARPGs) RTS games were my favorite.
I noticed you are pretty experienced in RTS games and I wanted to start a "personal project" so to speak.
I wanna dedicate my time and effort to a RTS game that I recently (today) supported on kickstarter the name is ZeroSpace. It reminds me of Starcraft. And I wanna try to play it ranked/ladder just to see how far I can get as a "seasoned" player.
So what I wanted to ask you is if you have any suggestions for RTS games that I could now play/practice to have a good starting point for the game.
And if you maybe would be open to make like a little colaboration in which you could teach me things and we could make footage out of it.
Just an idea.
Have a nice day!
Hey there - good luck with your journey!
It has to be StarCraft II in terms of preparing for ZeroSpace. The game is being developed by several SC2 pros and community figures and many people are hoping it will be the successor.
Warcraft 3 might also be helpful in terms of having a "hero unit" which ZeroSpace will also do (i.e. one very strong unit in your army with unique abilities).
Perhaps you could leave some info here, or find me on the "NewTubers" Discord.
Starcraft 2 is probably the best game to dedicate yourself to, it's very similar to ZeroSpace (probably) and the community still has tons of players that don't play at a very high level. You can play the Starcraft broodwar campaign again (for free) if you want but be warned even very low ranked members of the StarCraft broodwar community are actually insanely good and to play ladder you need to buy the remaster of Starcraft broodwar (while Starcraft 2 ladder is free)
I'd really recommend watching Starcraft Broodwar though. If through watching Broodwar you decide you much prefer the Starcraft broodwar game design to SC2 and you don't mind getting absolutely battered every game even after spending a lot of time practicing then Broodwar can be a lot of fun
@@yaboykirby7789 I heard that SC 2 is free and probably gonna try it out.
The broodwar experience I will look into. Thank you & maybe I find some people to play with somehow.
@@smilingsamurai8 In terms of Broodwar I'd recommend just playing the campaign and watching pro games (ASL is the big twice yearly broodwar tournament) at least for the time being.
I am very thankful for your opinion 👍@@yaboykirby7789
The one that I'd suggest other than those (good ones) is the principle that the safest time to expand is while attacking. Critical to getting decent at competitive, and feels a bit counterintuitive at first.
Especially if an attack goes well. When you're ahead, get more ahead as Artosis would say (or stay on 2 base for the entire game and then lose to a B rank Protoss)
that is zerospace in 0:15 ?it looks really great!
That's right - from quite an early trailer too!
I am a noob, but still surprised you did not mentioned to favor mobile units over static defenses (like placing cannons everywhere).
That's true in most cases (probably 95%+). There are some scenarios where it's a bit more nuanced though such as in Age of Empires, or human in WC3. Having a mobile defense/army is better than being stuck in one spot unless you are "tower pushing" or something like that.
This is really funny, you bring up the no queue rule WHILE showing a streaming economy game on screen, where queueing is absolutely fine.
oops
the point is legit though in most games like SC2
It's fine to minimize or eliminate the amount of things your build instaloses to to help you to get better. Don't try to hard counter every build that's ever existed lmao
It's amazing how quickly and easy it is to lose sight of that
A few safe build orders to get into the midgame without spending all your time thinking about what to build is a great way to improve imo
@@Ianbus123 Sometimes you do a safe build that counters something and said something still kills you in early game (usually because you misplayed even if it doesn't feel like it) and that's ok. Sometimes your safe build that counters every popular cheese but one dies to a cheese no one has done for 15 years and that's ok.
Sometimes you've lost the game the moment you found a match and it's still not your build's fault. When I try to "fix" my "unsafe" build after this I usually create a build that will die to every cheese except the one build I've just died to haha
Agreed @@yaboykirby7789
The point I am trying to make in the vid is that you don't want to have one super cheesy build which is the main reason for your success against opponents if your goal is to learn and improve (which it should be for many).
If you don't have some sort of reasonably optimised opener you may be unable to play the game and get some decent practice in because people with more refined buildorders might just roll you over.
@@Ianbus123 I agree with the video. I'm just adding another (what I would regard as) RTS fundamental that I have constantly struggled with, which is that your build can't counter everything
Hi, do you know OpenRA?
It's C&C but rebalanced for multiplayer, it plays total different than the normal C&C
Blackened's Barracks is a yt channel that shows tournament games of OpenRA
I heard about it but didn't do much research yet. Thank you for sharing!
I think an asterisk should be added to rule 1. Spend more, but have a rainy day fund if you lose a major fight and need and army yesterday. Nothing hurts worse then losing a big fight then realizing you don't have the cash or the time to replace said army.
Well the thinking is that if you have an army that represents say, 75% of your wealth and the opponent comes with 100%, they will score a decisive victory in that battle with a lot of units left over, and then will easily crush your 25% secondary group as well
Not really. Units early in a match are almost always more valuable than units later on.
i expected some higher level concepts instead of a beginners guide.
You can go a long way with basic things done well. Last time I played SC2 it was still full of people in Masters/GM who floated loads of resources as soon as things got hectic or just sat in their base doing very little to control the map.
@@Ianbus123 i dont know how good m/gm in sc2 actually is compared to pro level. Most people dont float resources or are too inactive on the map because they dont know they should. They are simply too slow, prioritize wrong or, probably especially in master, are just somewhat talented but dont actually try to improve.
Your video and title are not wrong, im not saying that. Those are 5 "golden rules" or basics to win in RTS.
talks about keeping queues short, shows footage of BAR, where resources are spent at production not ordering so you try and keep your queues as long as possible...
Oops
@@Ianbus123 No worries bud! It's an adjustment coming from SC2 but then you realize that the BAR way is a big quality of life improvement. Much lower APM requirement to manage macro/micro effectively. Peak BAR is getting into a rhythm of building a bunch of units, then queueing up a bunch of eco at your base - maybe even eating your factory to pay for it - right before you switch your attention to microing your units. Once the battle is over you switch back to your base and you've scaled massively while your attention was elsewhere. Then you can decide what units to make next and start the whole cycle again. In theory at least : )
BAR is OP
@@FirstFireStudio The queuing stuff was aimed at games like C&C and StarCraft where the moment you start building something it deducts the full cost. Streaming resources like in BAR is much harder to get used to in my experience.
I found it cool in BAR teamgames how you tend to have people focusing on the macro side then you have frontliners doing a lot of skirmishing
@@Ianbus123 Its easy to stall your economy in BAR by trying to build too much at once and then you wind up building nothing really as everything comes up really slowly. As for the fontline vs eco roles that is very map dependent but also where the game introduces a lot of tactical nuance. No faster way to lose than leaving your teammates to fight a man down on the frontline while you try to scale your eco behind them but of course if the gamble pays off then you're the big hero coming in with better tech, etc.
1. Don't play them they are all a waste of time unless you have nothing to do.
As are all hobbies to some extent that don't involve physical exercise I suppose? It can be fun to feel the sense of improvement
Why exactly are they a waste of time?
@@335chr Because they are designed for spectators and not players. There are games designed for entertainment if you want entertainment, rather than a second job.
@@Trubripes so because you are too stupid to play them no one should? That's just silly