Opinions on RTS games

[Angry Lawyer]

For my upcoming, relatively unannounced Half-Life 2 mod, I need to do a little research to see what the public wants.

What is your favourite, all time, Real Time Strategy game? And, what features made it good?
Also, what RTS games did you hate - and why?

Post your opinions here, so I can mould the clay of my mod into something publicly likeable.
Thanks in advance.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Rico]

Starcraft:

The gore, the setting, the units, the art, perfect unit balance, large scale battles and awesome plot. Great multiplayer.

Tiberian sun: units moved too slowly, no ability to speed up their movement, too much like a RA expansion pack, not very well balanced.

In addition to that I believe a new way of dealing with resources would probably be interesting. Look at Ground Control 2, their economy is simple yet pretty cool. The dropships are incredibly useful and there isn't the hassle of having to build 2000 buildings just to produce an unit. If you must have structures, I'd recommend making the building tree rather simple, too many buildings are confusing and boring.

 

[Frank]

Well the thing is, that you can't really find a game on the market where strategy is being used to defeat the enemy.
Let me explain:
C&C:
-Build a base (which you do in every single strategy game and every single level)
-Get money
-Get workers
-Build a HUUUUUUUGE army! Then you've actually won everything and you can move on...

I only liked Myth...

 

[Hazar]

Yeah,

For a good RTS you need originality, balance between factions, and good multiplayer.

For a bad RTS you need to make the same game 6 or 7 times with only different units, really bad balance (yuri's side in Yuri's revenge), and bad multiplayer.

 

[blahblahblah]

Rise of Nations requires strategy at the higher difficulty settings. Using flanking manuevers in that game is really useful.

Strategy games are all about balance and having battles. You do those two things right, you have an all-time great games. Look at Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations, and Starcraft. All of those games had great unit balancing and awesome battles.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Starcraft definitely.
The movement commands were simple and each unit had a useful purpose. You didn't just stop using marines once you had tanks, as an example. Special unit abilities like stimpacks and the EMP vehicle lock added a lot to the game. Every sort of attack had a valid countermeasure. Like cloaked guys vs. detectors. Building base fortifications is also fun.

Dungeon Keeper 2 was also good fun. It had many of the fun aspects of SC, plus you could control your minions through a FPS view in 3D and manipulate the environment by breaking down some walls and building your own barriers and defenses. It also had a lot of details in the environments.

I never liked Total Annihalation (sp?) though. Too much resource management and the controls were clumsy.

I prefer the games with smaller squads rather than huge armies.

 

[Hazar]

Oh, forgot the most important thing about a good RTS: STRATEGY
(some rts' forget that you know)

 

[Sui]

make it SIMPLE!!! heres the RTs's that i have played and what i liked disliked about them:

Warcraft 3
likes:heroes gain in levels!!!
simple units
hand to hand
dislikes: ARMY LIMITS!!!

age of mythology
likes:imaginitive
Dislikes: ARMY LIMIT!!!
the units have so much health
its all about how many workers you build...
TOO COMPLICATED

C+C generals
likes: well balanced
ONLY ONE SOURCE OF MONEY!!!
very fun
all units get better, wither by rank or upgrades or scavenging wreckages... this should have been in W3
Dislikes: not many

C+C generals expansion pack: zero hour
likes: fun
dislikes: adds too many units and unbalances the game... ;(

 

[Angry Lawyer]

So, the consenous so far is:

Simplistic resource gathering.
Simple tech-tree, and building options.
Ability for individual units to better themselves.
A very high cap on units.
Balance.
Storyline.
Violence.
The first-person thing in Dungeon-Keeper.

Anything not been mentioned?

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Sui]

Simplistic resource gathering.
Simple tech-tree, and building options.
Ability for individual units to better themselves.
A very high cap on units.
Balance.
Storyline.
Violence.
The first-person thing in Dungeon-Keeper.

-Angry Lawyer

that sounds like heaven so far

 

[daveodeth]

no really bizzare units, like a man with a killer top hat.

 

[ShadowFox]

Well I guess I'm alone here.

Total Annihilation by far. Lots and lots and lots of units. Humongous battles. You don't have to collect resources like most other RTS games. Grand music, great graphics and a neat online metagame while Cavedog was around.

TA and Warzone 2100 are the only RTS games I have enjoyed.

 

[PvtRyan]

No resource gathering, just pure strategy. I can't stand resource gathering, takes out the pace of the game with tedious gathering of stupid little minerals. You will also focus a lot more on REAL strategy when you only have a limited amount of troops which can't be replaced.

 

[DarkStar]

Homeworld. Loved the atmosphere in that game.

 

[Ames]

Only one bad thing about then Source engine is that you can't have humungous amounts of troops which would make resource gathering pretty stupid unless it's from a constant source like in Natural Selection.

And, of course, the first person thing would be great. A lot like Savage.

Maybe some sort of super-unit that you would play...

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Well, for resource system, I was thinking of something along the lines of either NS, with buildable refinery things, or something akin to DoD (if it had resources), where you capture 'control points', and they give you resources.

I admit, I did like TA. But I'm sure it had a rudimentary resource system.

*Adds great music to his list of needs for the mod. Possibly some inspiring trumpet things, like a mix of Lord of the Rings and Terminator 2 stuff. Something stirring.*

I agree with the 'no bizzare units' thing - thankfully, I'm limiting them to ones that fit in the Half-Life universe.

Thanks for all the help, guys. Keep posting with more thoughts too.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[RTFMish]

Warcraft 3

- Requires skill before you actually see yourself doing good
- Requires micro management
- Online play is the best imo

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Hmm. I did like Warcraft 3, but I didn't like the fact that it was so focused on Heroes.

*Adds 'micromanagement* to his list, and tries to figure out what it actually is*

-Angry Lawyer

 

[blahblahblah]

Don't forget the strategy element in battles. That is why I like Rise of Nations so much, it rewards you for actually taking the time to flank your enemy.

 

[theotherguy]

I thought ground control was superb, as well as ground control II (ive been playing the MP demo religiously) mainly because of the 3d camera that let you zoom and rotate on ANY angle, with no noticble lag (on my comp)

also very cool in that game was the awesome artillery, flying 100 feet into the air, and then raining down on the ground. The air combat was great, with dogfighting fighters. (although in GCII the air combat sucks) in GC, anti-aircraft guns actually made sense, looked VERY cool as well.

I also loved Total Annihilation, becuase of the cool guns, and diverse gameplay. And I was a huge starcraft fan around the year it came out, I was just fascinated by the moody atmosphere of starcraft, and the music, and well, EVERYTHING about starcraft back in the day had that moody feel of an apocalyptic war zone, it was just great.

Homeworld was also wonderful, just the freedom of the controls, camera etc. was great, I loved getting gigantic fleets, and then watching them converge on the enemies base from their own perspective.

as for RTS I did not like...well... rarely do I come across an RTS I dont like.
but if you must, I didnt like Age of Empires very much, it was just too boring, and all the races were too generic.

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

I've just highlighted some of the good things from the games.


Starcraft

very detailed univers and story.(great singleplayer campaign.)

unique races, plays very differently but yet balanced(broodwar ruined this though IMO)

WarcraftIII

Hero leveling/ abilities

Hero Items.

Neutral offensive critters.

Neutral buildings.(granting advantages)

Upkeep.

C&C: Generals

no limit to the amount of units you can have selected at the same time.

the units have very specific strengths/weaknesses vs different enemy units.

Every unit gets better with combat experience(as someone else mentioned this is what WarIII should have been)

unit health visible in main window(no need to start looking at the HUD like in WarIII) makes it alot easier to determin whose hurt. also visible indication on the units.

Ground control 2

Infantry can move thru woods and gains defensive bonuses for different cover.

Infantry can move while shooting.

Unit firing range is long and far more realistic.

Dark Reign

advanced rules of engagement...you could determin how far units would pursue a fleeing enemy and how much damage they would take before returning home.

 

[crabcakes66]

Total Anhillation.. The best RTS ever. (both singleplayer and multiplayer are great)


How was the resourcing system rudimentary? It was no different than any other game..... I think it was a bit more realistic in the aspect that you couldnt have a large military force without the recources and industry to back it up.

It was pretty much a 50/50 split you spent half your time(resources) building up industry and half your time(resources) building units. I think that was one of the great things about that game. There was always something that needed to be done.




C&c:Red alert would be the second best

 

[Pressure]

For my upcoming, relatively unannounced Half-Life 2 mod, I need to do a little research to see what the public wants.

What is your favourite, all time, Real Time Strategy game? And, what features made it good?
Also, what RTS games did you hate - and why?

Post your opinions here, so I can mould the clay of my mod into something publicly likeable.
Thanks in advance.

-Angry Lawyer

The best way to make something good isn't to play good games and try to copy what made them good. The best way is like you said, find bad games and find out what made them bad and avoid those reasons.

*Adds great music to his list of needs for the mod. Possibly some inspiring trumpet things, like a mix of Lord of the Rings and Terminator 2 stuff. Something stirring.*

Good music is a must. The one song I remember was Hell March from C&C: Red Alert.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Starcraft.

Love everything about it except the map-hacking infested battle.net. There's also assholes who drop hack you if you're about to win.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

I forgot to say that extremely different but equal teams are important. And resource gathering should be streamined to be unobtrusve, but also be integral to the goals of the mission.
Dungeon keeper was good, because it was based mostly on how much territory you manage to capture and control, rather than having a detatched 'mining' aspect.
More than one type of resource is also sometimes a necessity if you want to have more varied unit costs.
Having units properly costed is one of the most important things. Even the crappiest guy becomes equal to others if he's inexpensive.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

For my upcoming, relatively unannounced Half-Life 2 mod, I need to do a little research to see what the public wants.

What is your favourite, all time, Real Time Strategy game? And, what features made it good?
Also, what RTS games did you hate - and why?

Post your opinions here, so I can mould the clay of my mod into something publicly likeable.
Thanks in advance.

-Angry Lawyer

well i really loved NS version 1.04
it wasn't a perfect version by any means... but it had alot the elements that made the game fun..

after 1.04 (IMHO) NS went downhill completely... from having Onos at 1st hive, to HMG nerfing and jetpaks being useless..

had the NS team made minor tweaks to 1.04, the game would have been wonderful..

so Angry Lawyer, if u have an NS type mod in mind.. my advice is to look back at how NS 1.04 was and try to re-capture some of that magic.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

NS is more FPS than RTS: the focus is on every unit being human controlled. I'm more after the AI-controlled units, controlled by a commander, and the ability to possess a unit occasionally.

To Pressure - I'm not really trying to emulate any games, I'm moreso trying to find out what worked, and what didn't, so I know what pitfalls to avoid.

Wow, I was expecting people to have very different views on the makeup of an RTS - maybe there ARE only a few rules to keep in mind.

Keep the thoughts flowing

-Angry Lawyer