The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why.

[@edpistemic]

Note: RTS players like RPGs next best. Devs need to hire good storytellers and talented world builders. People WANT the next great lore experience.

[@randomthings8732]

Lore is a must have imo, without its like... where did these units come from? What about this heavy artillery? What about the enemy? Just doesn't feel right

[@soulblade3291]

Precisely

[@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ]

For everything SC2 does right, story is not it. Everything related to Kerrigan is stupid, Mengsk portrayal was underwhelming, and the Protoss campaign was mostly bland and it spent so much time hyping Amon who was the most dull bland and abstract villain. He had no identity. Villain that attacks you with random groups of illusionary clones and floating crystals with laser beams... And his motivation and story is that he's just evil. That's just like a placeholder baddie. There were some highlights like Alarak, but I had hoped it would be better.

[@randomthings8732]

@@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ okay, im gonna be honest, HoTs and LOTV were hot trash, imo of course. (well hots gameplay made you feel like a monster, so there's that, i liked that part at least) Alarak will always be fun imo, and WoL was.. well i think it was at least better then the other campaigns

[@honorablezealot4372]

@GiantGrantGames RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new rts games watch this video I linked here kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4WYqKiFpqyejLc

[@taigaaisaka4540]

As a casual player, an rts having an amazing campaign is EXTREMELY important to me, rts campaigns can be so incredibly fun and replayable. Maybe I was just spoiled by Blizzard tho.

[@keller6920]

Same. Starcraft (both 1 and 2) and Warcraft 3 campaigns was the reason why I tried to play multiplayer in those games, even when I knew that I'm terrible in it.

[@itslife1399]

you should play Homeworld 1 and 2(HD versions) and the prequel homeworld deserts of kharak. you won't be disappointed.

[@attractivegd9531]

Also Star Wars Galactic battlegrounds and Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium War+Kane's Wrath.

[@kampfer91]

Actually , there are many who prefer a very good single player campaign over a stressful multiplayer that make turn you into a toxic person .

[@Lordblow1]

C&C campaigns since Red Alert 2 have always been great also. Then Red Alert 3 had an expansion with a long list of challenges that were progressively more difficult, a bit like stronghold Crusader did with the campaign trail. The greatness only really ended when C&C4 came and we don't talk about C&C4

[@Silentstrike46_]

In my teenage years I might have considered myself a bit more of a "hardcore" player - being willing to put in the hours to train and get better at RTS, the constant ladder matches, practicing build orders and timings, etc. But... then I went to university where you worked 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, so competitive matches were out of the question. Your "1 hour a week" simply couldn't compare to the practice of someone who played daily, for many hours a day. I've always enjoyed the co-op and campaigns side a lot, but I quickly realised that I simply couldn't enjoy that ranked competitive scene anymore. Even after university, I still have an 8-5 job, and a family. I've played games (especially RTS) since pretty much before I could read, so it feels weird considering myself a "causal" gamer, but... yeah, I am. And I imagine most people in my demographic would be in a similar situation, where you become a casual gamer not so much by choice, but just necessity, as life continues.

[@honeybadger_sc9816]

I disagree. This is not about not being able to compare to someone who practices a lot. You are not going to play against those people. You are going to be another toddler with a pool noodle, and my assumption is you are still hardcore at heart, and dont want to be the toddler. ^^ But you can definitly have fun even if you are a toddler with a pool noodle

[@Gnefitisis]

@@honeybadger_sc9816 ok. You can’t disagree with his life experience, buddy. I also got kids, so trying to do competitive is basically impossible. He’s on the mark for me. I like RTS but because I can’t folllow the pace, I basically must just play Paradox grand strategy… and eternally bitch and moan about the land combat being shit.

[@ThanhLe-ti8nx]

I think "hardcore vs casual" is also about the mindset and not only how much time you dedicated. Being super serious about getting better, obsessed about being efficient... is hardcore, and casual more is about having fun and being silly....

[@Pav298]

I completely agree. For example, i enjoy tennis, but I need to play at a decent level to enjoy it. Same with RTS 1v1.

[@Miguelgameiro00]

Your comment explains it all, as well as Grant’s phenomenal analysis. We are simply getting old and new kids don’t like these type of games

[@LifeForAiur]

"copycats are not following success but have instead been repeating mistakes" These words ring so true. And as an MMORPG player, I can't help but sympathize with the RTS community's frustrations about the genre because the same thing is effectively happening in the MMORPG genre: repeating mistakes due to a fundamental misattribution of what caused the success of the MMORPG greats.

[@SchnurriTV]

This sounds very true. I used to play a lot of warcraft 3s campaign as a kid, entered 1 round of multiplayer, got absolutely blasted, startet watching a guide on how to play multiplayer, but quit right away because i started to get a feeling of this game being just all about set tactics, competition and not really being fun. Its the same with mmorpgs: I started a few, but they quickly developed in doing boring stuff over and over again to make progress - or pay in cashshop to progress faster. To this day, i have no idea what makes these games so popular

[@laughingalex7563]

Whats also sad of mmorpgs, city of heroes was an outlier of the mmorpg experience, it had minimal focus on raids throughout its life and instead had lots of task forces and mission strings, and also for mission strings didnt try to make teaming impossible and even made any team composition work. You didnt need a healer if you had good alternatives like powerful force field buffs and higher damage, even if a tanker was absent. Crowd control was also really awesome and the sheer variety of powersets fitting to dozens of themes really worked for the game. And the effects and unique nuances made a difference, to heck with balance in a few ways. Wanna cripple enemy cooldowns to an extreme with ice or psionic attacks? Can do it. Wanna rip resistances or defenses with sonic and radiation(yes, kill enemies with radiation). Cool. Or even provide shields with sonic themed powers or shield yourself with ice powers that then freeze and debilitate everything getting close(and make em slip with ice patches on the ground like sub zero from mortal kombat 2, yea, was a thing in coh). But ncsoft shut it down, and with it shut a beacon for good games down, a beacon of variety. Every player i know who loves coh seems to have the same beef that every mmorpg is identical. And it completely undermines the genre.

[@laughingalex7563]

Thankfully homecoming and other rogue servers popped up and ncsoft cannot really shut them down without major repercussions from the mmorpg community.

[@Ruteekatreya]

@@laughingalex7563 Ugh, CoH was honestly largely a bad game. And speaking as an SCH main in XIV, the idea that FF is a viable or good healer archetype is laughable to the extreme. FF is everything y'all claim to hate about healing amplified to 11. Actual healing is infinitely more interesting.

[@phoenixpills]

Every MMO is just trying to be like WoW. This is a huge mistake because WoW exists. You can't out World-of-Warcraft World-of-Warcraft. There used to be games that were different but still successful, and that was Guild Wars 1. They then ditched this model to make Guild Wars 2, basically just a version of Guild Wars that is much more WoW-like. I'd say the reason Final Fantasy is so popular right now is that it differentiates from WoW the most out of any of the popular MMO's right now.

[@LettuceAttak]

I’m casual, not by choice…. But I have a family. Being able to nip away for a quick 25min co-op match or being able to pause a campaign is key. I love RTS, I grew up on C&C and RA I’d be keen to jump into other genres but so many nowadays are very heavy multiplayer based.

[@LachimusPrime]

Irk? Such a big time investment to get away from the kids 🤣😅😭

[@ArramzyChaos]

very relatable. The time investment it would take to get good isn't a luxury I can afford, but I also don't enjoy playing it and being bad, whilst knowing I'm bad. I don't want to be a drunk todler with a pool noodle, I want my army to make things go boom.

[@TheVortexBlazter]

I can agree with this, My dad does really Loves Starcraft and slower pace games, mostly for the reason that it can be easily paused. Its also quite painful but funny to watch him play through the campaign on the Slower pace speed :P

[@kriiistofel]

I am casual player by choice :D It's more fun for me this way.

[@MWarfield]

SC2 is my #1 Dad game 😄

[@Owlr4ider]

Supreme Commander did the spectacle incredibly well with each faction having multiple T4 units, aka super units. It's a game with a whole bunch of broken tactics, even before T4, but every faction has access to them so it's broken stuff fighting other broken stuff. Spectacle at its finest while still being balanced for multiplayer.

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

Forged alliance forever

[@potatosackstudios6374]

Strategic launch detected everyone zooms out to see where that fucker is going

[@samuelestebansotocarrascod4236]

Shut up calle

[@ivanvoloder8114]

Thats why I love Supcom. The shere scale of units colideing with each other on the battlefield is what makes the game unmatched. Rearly will you see such conflicts in any other RTS. The only RTS that could be compared to SupCom is Sins of Solar Empire by the units scale.

[@vitas5333]

Went back and played campaign and it blew me away. Highly recommend for any SC/rts players

[@MaMastoast]

To me the RTS genre was always about playing around in a cool world with interesting units and scenarios. warcraft felt like a campaign focused game which just so happened to have a skirmish mode.. I've probably replayed the frozen throne campaign 10 times. So yea, I am not the least bit interested in competitive RTS; campiagn, interesting world building and modding is what gets me excited. warcraft 3's incredible lifespan was entirely community driven and noone was playing wintermaul or kodo tag because it was hardcore and competitive, it was played because it was fun and wacky. Hell, to me starcraft is not a competitive hardcore chess game.. it's a world with a bunch of cool unit designs and a pretty ambitious rts campaign.

[@janoycresva919]

well said

[@angusbray4107]

I'm still playing Warcraft 3 now XD. Custom campaigns are where it's at, especially the saga of Rowan the Wise.

[@toddclawson2840]

I miss wintermaul. That and some other warcraft custom maps were my introduction to tower-defense and it has been one of my favorite genres ever since.

[@alecshockowitz8385]

Exactly! To me that's the core of what RTS is. Every single RTS I've liked is because it has weird or wacky mechanics and concepts, and is pretty solid to just play through it. The only RTS I've liked without a good campaign is Planetary Annihilation, because its so bizarre and interesting. Fun even for friends bad at those games, as they can just rush nukes or some shit.

[@angusbray4107]

@@alecshockowitz8385 Oh yeah, that's what i love about Warcraft 3. The old nothing but pixel graphics, great mechanics, stupidly unbalanced and wacky, but great fun.

[@Ripcode2233891]

The thing that kept me wanting more of age of empires 2 and red alert 2 every day was the amazing and engrossing campaigns. Every mission was its own challenge, and so satisfying to play. It made the skirmishes all the more enjoyable. Then I tried multiplayer on AoE2 and realised I didn't enjoy it at all because of how technical it had become. Always thought I was alone in this but good to see I'm not.

[@9trogenta13]

Man 25 years later I still remember Natalya.

[@shepherdlavellen3301]

I hate it to be "that guy" but "kept me from coming back" means "the reason why I don't play"

[@otavio8566]

​@@shepherdlavellen3301that was also bothering me

[@halfbakedproductions7887]

I loved Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge because it was so irreverent and light-hearted, at times getting really very silly. That was a core plank of what made it so fun. It was also a well designed and well thought out game which was excellent in its own right.

[@testermonkey2304]

Id love a new age of empires 2 "expansion" with more hirstorically accurate campaigns and story. Thats what i played it for almost two decades ago and would like more of, not whatever aoe 3 was. mythology was sick too

[@mcgarvey1986]

Stellaris, Sins, Empire at War..The mods really do keep these games going. Definitely that sandbox element you mention at the end is important.

[@sethb3090]

Empire at War's devs even came back two years ago (mind you, EAW is a single player game from 2005) and released a new patch explicitly to make modding easier and open up more things people could do with mods. They get it.

[@liamhogan4369]

Oh yeah, the Westwood enclave established after EA bought them out. Petroglyph knows their stuff for sure.

[@BOBANDVEG]

What games are in the vid?

[@Mediados]

Empire At War doesn't have any real relevance anymore, but Stellaris basically dominates the Grand Strategy Sci-Fi scene. The game just keeps getting better with every expansion.

[@BOBANDVEG]

@@Mediados I'm looking for medieval and viking rts games, but c&c style gameplay. I'm more interested in the skirmish , not so much in the long term aoe style of development. Any suggestions ???

[@TheArklyte]

5:40 Same is true for other genres like FPS for example. People love PvE, developers hate PvE. Why? To players it allows to get a dose of fun without fear of spending an evening being embarrassed by pro players. That's why everyone loves Titanfall 2 campaign, but is afraid to join MP community(back when it was alive without third party life support). The devs however prefer to give players an empty sandbox where they'd play together against each other. Because AI and campaign are the biggest amount of work in any game. Both in terms of time investment and workload. Which means money ie costly development. Publishers and investors will never approve costly development nowadays. Unless it has microtransactions and other exploitative crap their coke filled brains would understand.

[@andrewgreeb916]

Assuming you have proper ai programmed, campaigns are more about building the set pieces, and dotting in the encounters with enemies

[@rapidwaterwolf1]

You're ignoring the second half of that equation. Multiplayer is what keeps games alive and profitable. Halo had an absolutely stellar campaign in the first 3 games. But if it didn't have the best multiplayer fps experience in the market, it wouldn't have been a tenth as popular. There's also just far more money in making an extended multiplayer experience.

[@anima94]

idk how true this is for most people, in shooters I'd describe myself as a complete casual and for Titanfall 2 I never touched the campaign but just played online with randoms. The matchmaking making me play together with lots of other terrible players helped a lot, good matchmaking is key to make people engage in PvP and the reason lots of people still play starcraft 2

[@TheArklyte]

@@rapidwaterwolf1 you're right, I DO ignore it. Just like I do irl. Multiplayer communities are usually those bubbles of self importance stuck in feedback loop. Players come to have fun, not to be a source of fun for self proclaimed elitists. And that's why I believe that forge and coop campaign had seen far more people go through them then "consistent" MP crowd.

[@BigRocker-ot2yw]

Yes, that's true: multiplayer is much more cost effective and much more profitable than singleplayer. But luckily there is the Creative Assembly which did a wonderful job with Warhammer 2: they sold one of the best turn/RTS game with singleplayer as focus and they made it profitable through dlc where they added new factions/races with cool mechanics and new units that are not needed in order to enjoy the game with a certain race (except for the Skaven maybe) but they really increase the play time and they sell really well.

[@VieneLea]

FINALLY someone talks about this! I've been a fan of RTS games from my childhood when I became a gamer, with my first game ever played being Dune 2000. I almost never played multiplayer - and when I did I was really bad at it - and it really pained me so much that the developers simply stopped caring about us! I thought we're the minority, but no, they were just wrong!

[@sotmMrPants]

Yes! I always focused my time in Starcraft 1 with the fan-made campaigns. All the story and different worlds they designed were so so engaging.

[@jamespaguip5913]

RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS games for watch this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4WYqKiFpqyejLc

[@jamespaguip5913]

@@sotmMrPants RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS games for watch this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4WYqKiFpqyejLc

[@jamespaguip5913]

RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS games for example immortal gates of pyre

[@jamespaguip5913]

@@sotmMrPants RTS games are not dead their are indie developers still making new RTS games for example immortal gates of pyre.

[@Khorothis]

Watching this after Stormgate's EA's EA feels like a debriefing of a failed mission.

[@cattysplat]

Blizzard developers did exactly what Blizzard developers do. They copy competitors and refine their past successes. No new competitors = no new ideas to steal. Only thing they can do is remake Starcraft 2 with a new paintjob.

[@Khorothis]

@@cattysplat Yeah, Blizzard really has become a case of "victory has defeated you" sometime after WC3:TFT.

[@MattDawgGaming]

What I loved about StarCraft, Rise of Nations, Age of Mythology, and Age of Empires 3 was the campaigns, 100%. The vision around Wings of Liberty, a true rpg with a tech tree and meta game along with high quality cinematics was a breath of fresh air and we need more of it. Having choice of missions the branch so different tech are available at different missions, have zero sum choices in the narrative, gave it tons of replayability. We need an Age of Empires campaign like that!

[@SIGNOR-G]

The could have done something similar in AOE 2 Sforza campaign since you play as a condottiero/sellsword

[@frozenfeet4534]

isn't it crazy that the aoe4 campaign is just some lady reading a textbook to you, with zero continuity between missions? they could not have missed the mark further

[@frozenfeet4534]

@@MegaMaster1021 oh it's not bad necessarily but the fact that it replaces _all_ ingame voice acting is a sin, especially when the original age of kings tutorial is one of the best case studies on voice acting in any video game kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXvaoapoi92goKs

[@SIGNOR-G]

@@frozenfeet4534 they filled their mouth with all that history channel imitation but in the end it was a subpar campaign. The voice acting of AOE2 is much better

[@nathanfosdahl7525]

Phenomenal analysis! It seems obvious to say developers missed the mark but the fact that you pointed out exactly HOW they missed the mark complete with some good data makes this a treasure trove for dedicated game developers looking to make the next great RTS.

[@adtrlthegamer7449]

It really does. ^_^

[@brojakmate9872]

How are you so white?

[@antoniolewis1016]

I really hope more people see this video. It's just so excellent in so many ways.

[@Leeeeegion]

Giantgrantgames Not talking about Supreme Commander and all the ways it improved rts games made me sad.

[@planescaped]

I've always felt it to be the lack of effort put into good campaigns and single-player content. ever since Heart of the Swarm's singleplayer was such a downgrade compared to WoL.\ You need to hook an audience with a great core singleplayer game that they love to the point of wanting to try the multiplayer, not the other way around. RTS's aren't CoD.

[@ShreddedNerd]

A huge amount of this applies strongly to FPS. Especially the parts about hyperfocus on the e-sports experience and lack of tools for user generated content. The part about Starcraft 2 launching without proper custom games tools seems to perfectly mirror Halo Infinite releasing without Forge

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

Well, Halo Infinite has just launched and followed up with very little content in general. Not even the devs have pumped out as much material as they implied due to structural issues.

[@victuz]

Everytime someone talks about Forge in Halo, I remember of Sergeant Forge.

[@atticratz6128]

Jumping off of your esports point - I think having competitive scenes that are completely in-house is a bad move long-term anyways. It takes much more effort from the organization and they usually come off as sterile and corporate. An organizational tentpole event with independent orbiting competitions such as Valve holding The International is a much better approach than Riot’s completely in-house competitive scene. Casting is specifically a big issue. Esports is interesting in that there’s always a caster, unlike traditional sports where if you’re watching a game in-person there typically isn’t one. League had an instance where former players were streaming the games and doing commentary… and getting a lot more views than the official stream. Uh-oh! It was shut down fast, the assumption being that viewers would tune-in to the official broadcast. I doubt that’s happening but I’ve not been invested enough to even check.

[@MrDgf97]

Precisely. If Custom Games weren’t a broken mess and Forge was available at launch, I’m pretty sure the game wouldn’t be dead as it is

[@joachimfrank4134]

The Unreal leveleditor was legendary. Some friends even used it as a 3D Studio alternative to produce small films for the schools begin of holydays party.

[@NShomebase]

I'm actually shocked that a vet's suggestion to renew the genre is actually a focus on the things I enjoy as a casual RTS player.

[@ZverseZ]

I'd just like to comment on this heavily liked comment that, the video title was indeed correct.. Stormgate hailed as the next Starcraft 3 made by ex blizzard developers, is now dead on arrival

[@NShomebase]

@ZverseZ Oof. Don't love to hear it, but hopefully it's instructive.

[@redpandaluver8561]

@@ZverseZ Is it? I've not interacted with it much because I've been waiting for the full release next year. What's the big issues with it?

[@Xarx3s]

As someone who's spent the last 25 years or so years playing a whole host of games at a high competitive level one of the things that has always been apparent to me is that you can't force an E-sports "scene". It has to grow naturally from a large playerbase and people's inherently competitive nature. Sure you can throw money at it and attempt to create the illusion, but the second that money dries up everyone will jump ship. Overwatch being a prime example of this. Any dev that wants to create a long lasting successful E-sport game needs to take the unintuitive approach of not caring about E-sports in the slightest and focus entirely on making the game as fun and accessible to as many people as possible; while keeping player retention high. Take Counter Strike, 20 years ago it was largely considered babies first FPS game. With the real skillful players, choosing to play Quake and UT instead. Fast forward to today; CS has kept it's player count up and as such still has a competitive scene while Quake and UT are dead in the water. Dota/LoL exploded in popularity being essentially a simplified RTS while core RTS games stagnated and flatlined. Interest in Super Smash brothers, a party game; dwarfing every other fighting game. If you are still not convinced; Minecraft has a thriving competitive scene via speedrunning.

[@MrFullCrumb01]

KingArt Games, one of the main organizations behind Iron Harvest, fell into that trap. They attempted to force an E-Sports scene in their game before they had the playerbase to support it. Your examples are phenomenal, Xarx3s.

[@nemtudom5074]

Traditional fighting games are almost flatlining aswell, and smash is thriving Its just evolution of genre's

[@MaZeW1]

Overwatch was even worse. The game had a grassroots scene that they intentionally killed because they were afraid it might lessen the OverwatchLeague's significance somehow. And then they threw money at it to simulate what they just destroyed.

[@ErikCartman]

damn good point! thx for the view

[@daredaemon8878]

The thing about a hardcore scene is that it NEEDS that casual scene to support the game's community, but the casual scene doesn't need the hardcore scene at all. You see the same issue with MMOs that want to be Hardcore Raiding MMO. During the initial push, the hardcore contingent loves it, but there's no casual playerbase to maintain an actual community and so the game dies in ignominy within a year.

[@seancannon2193]

Strangely one of my favorite things about this video is seeing the statistics... because when I filled out that survey, due to the perception I had been given of the community as an active player that just doesn't tend to hop in and talk much, I thought I was playing devil's advocate with my answers. Turns out though that my answers almost perfectly match with the most common results. It wasn't an entirely perfect match of course, but I'm apparently much closer in opinion to the average player than I had believed.

[@KillahMate]

This is called 'pluralistic ignorance' and is common under certain circumstances - the bystander effect is a subtype of this. It's a common reason why change can be so hard within large groups of people, such as in politics - statistics might show that most people disagree with the status quo, but all of those same people think they are the _outlier,_ and they reluctantly continue to support the status quo that they _imagine_ other people prefer. Then you end up with stuff like a family that keeps ordering pineapple pizza even though all of them _hate_ pineapples, but everyone just assumes everyone _else_ likes pineapples and keeps quiet to not be a bother. That's why videos like this one are important; someone needs to be the first one to look around, take stock, and finally speak out.

[@seancannon2193]

@@KillahMate While that may be true, another solution is simply stick with your preferences regardless of that. For example, in the case of politics, I'll vote for whomever I prefer regardless of if it's the status quo.

[@KillahMate]

@@seancannon2193 It's not so much about voting - people seem to tend to vote the way they like most of the time, since that's private. Pluralistic ignorance mostly affects people's _social_ instincts - so for voting it'd be how people assume elections might go _in general,_ regardless that they voted for whom they preferred personally.

[@planetary-rendez-vous]

Turns out most people think they are more unique when they are average.

[@riluna3695]

9:50 "There are three pillars that these franchises had that allowed them to rise above and beyond and dominate the market for almost a decade." Are they perhaps each guarded by a progressively stronger group of enemies? In seriousness, this video is excellent, and I hope some dev out there sees it and pays it heed, carrying news of it back to their company. The importance of these elements really cannot be overstated, especially so long as people keep missing the mark on it. The trend I find is that the more a company tries to save on production costs by cutting corners and leaving out staples like an in-game editor, the less money they get in return because no one wants their half-assed game. And it's not a one-to-one tradeoff, either. They no doubt lose _significantly_ more in potential earnings than they saved initially. For an example, look no further than Minecraft. The original developer did so LITTLE penny-pinching that he's on record as saying he doesn't mind if people outright pirate his game. And yet STILL the numbers tower over everything else. Such is the power of standing proudly atop the three pillars of proper game development. Just be careful of the enemies guarding each one :P

[@dariussepaitis4341]

"Are they perhaps each guarded by a progressively stronger group of enemies?" - hilarious. You nailed this one for me and many other people who like RTS. You build inpenetrable defence against AI, then build a biggest army of the most OP units and SLOWLY chip away at the enemy until they run out of resources. Countless hours spent doing exactly. Good times.

[@weeveferrelaine6973]

Haha. I'm not some game dev with a company I belong to, I'm a private contractor, but I do have an RTS I was making on Roblox, that I back-burnered for a couple years, due to life forces pulling me one way or another. This is such great information to be aware of, and made me think differently about how I might approach some game designs, and it seems to correlate with a lot of the games I play the most- I do value being able to show creativity in the games that I play, and that makes sense for the RTS genre, which generally draws in a more mature audience. I will for sure bump up some features in my priority, if I find myself with enough free time to pick up my game again.

[@M33f3r]

hahaha thankyou. :)

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

The whole single player casual thing suggests another thing. A well written and well designed campaign makes a game worth it on its own merit, a campaign editor gives us then further and possibly infinity campaigns. Starcraft, Tiberian Sun and so on are really really robust single player experiences with deep and intricate settings with their own niches and would be worth it as novels or tv-shows if made well.

[@C0rran05]

For myself, I pretty much only played SC1 for the campaign. It was too good NOT to play it. My multiplayer experience back then, well, I was a kid that only cared about comp stomp really, so not much. Didn't care in the slightest. SC2 I did played ranked for a while and I can say that doing so sharpened my skills such that most people I play an RTS against will lose because I am now 'bred different' than then. Example: we have a weekly game night that began with old roommates and expanded and we sometimes play AOE. First time I ever played it I happened to get paired with the other best AOE player in our group and I surprised him at how well I did. When it comes down to it, he is the only real competition I have most of the time, and we avoid often avoid each other most of the game. But back to SC2, whenever I open it up now, I don't do multiplayer. Yeah, back in college it was fun, but what keeps me coming back is that I fell in love with the characters over the course of all the SC1 and 2 campaigns. Its like rewatching a classic childhood show or movie, or opening your favorite book again. The journey is just so immersive and amazing. I love every moment of the story over again. C&C works the same way. Never even touched multiplayer one except one time when my brothers and I as kids were trying to figure out how to work it and play together. The true greats of RTS are campaigns first, and multiplayer games second.

[@A.C_B.]

I feel like "The Battle for Middle Earth" deserves a mention as well. Its definitely more on the casual side of the genre, and the engine has a few issues, but it is incredibly fun to play. Wonderful example of how a game with terrible online-play is still able to hold a fanbase over more than a decade

[@grain3880]

I'm so excited for reforged, when it eventually comes out lol

[@ernest3286]

I hadn't heard about this! I loved BfME II when I was first introduced to it, and it looks like Reforged is going to be excellent!

[@michaeldillon7072]

Yep and He even talked about MOD DB. Age of the Ring is a mod for Battle for Middle Earth 2, it won mod of the year on MOD DB. Age of the ring is a lot of fun. I am also looking forward to reforged, but they are falling for the same trap he talks about. They are going all PVP and don't even have AI as of the last I checked. Most of my friends are casuals that will do co-op vs AI maps. Get is fight with your buddies against the AI and get out. Casual.

[@Gnefitisis]

True. Total gem that was mostly likely overlooked for being a franchise game, that's not Star Wars.

[@fedyx1544]

@@grain3880 I've stopped waiting for Reforged, I consider it dead now

[@Manwoker]

I was prepared to roll my eyes at some kind of 'Starcraft is an unreachable pinnacle that will never be surpassed' but I was blown away by how much you've not only explained what's good in RTS, but helped me realize *why* I have fun with these games. Thanks, Grant!

[@novkorova2774]

Indeed! To surpass starcraft you just need to make 3v3 or 4v4 fun.

[@Planetdune]

@@novkorova2774 You can't surpass Starcraft... it is Starcraft.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

Starcraft has story, artstyle, soundscape, unit design, level design, campaign design, AND asymmetric campaign balance done extremely well.

[@dj_koen1265]

@@Duchess_Van_Hoof sc2 isnt some unsurpassable masterpiece, its just that it is the most polished rts out there and no body cares to challenge it because there is no monetary incentive to do so

[@Sassy_Witch]

Nah it still kinda weird. None of the custom starcraft custom gtames were fun and nowdays literally nobody plays them anymore. Plus the campaign after wings was pretty mid, especially writing wise

[@toruslp]

One of my favorite examples that prove your point, is Star Wars Empire at War. This game is now 16 years old and the modding community keep uploading amazing content. Even the Devs come back from time to time, when they somehow can manage, to make updates specifically to make modding easier, or to enhance modding experience. It's awesome, I love that game and it's community^^

[@sethb3090]

If there is any justice in the world, one day they will make EAW 2 and make it just as good

[@toruslp]

@@sethb3090 Indeed, from what I gathered the devs are highly interested and very passionate. So I really hope a sequel will come at some point.

[@Spectre4077]

I'll take this a bit further, and point out Battle for Middle Earth 2. That game had all the promise for custom content as well, and was well loved. I am fairly certain the only reason it isn't as big as EaW or other older RTSs is because of the licensing debacle that caused the game to be de-listed for sale. The original even came out around the same time as EaW first launched.

[@royasturias1784]

@@toruslp Disney through Lucasfilm Games (somewhat revived Lucas Arts) would have to go to Petroglyph based in Vegas.

[@lunanacomet]

I can't believe how well this video aged with how Stormgate turned out.

[@caioaugusto3138]

AoM: Retold is great though

[@Twiixq]

​@@caioaugusto3138 Well, it's a just a remake so no comparison ^^

[@jd2792]

​@@caioaugusto3138it has over 50 campgin mission and they aew getting even more dlc missions

[@k.e.v.2011]

​@@jd2792It's still not a new RTS title.

[@fritothedemon6647]

It's' so crazy to me how people could discount editors for custom games. These tools in the hands of players have literally created new GENRES of games with widespread popularity

[@dankmemes8254]

Literary the most popular pc game league of legends ew cringe was based on dota wich was a custom map in it hell you could even argue that auto battler also existed in it via legion tower defense

[@nekrataali]

LoL and DotA are exactly why we're seeing less editors for games in general. Blizzard is mad they own neither property and have since changed the way their arcade works. Then there's the whole Skyrim mod debacle. That's not to say that modding will go away, but don't be surprised if the tools for mod making become more and more rare.

[@knightdtd]

That's the part this video's analysis missed: economic aspect. Big game companies can't stand people making money off their game without getting their share. In Blizzard's case after being burnt from losing dota they alter their terms of services so that everything made from their arcade is 100% their property, leaving modders no incentive unless they want to be Blizz's slaves.

[@gino14]

I was developing my Minecraft modpack while listening to you, and the second you said the key to game longevity was in enabling user generated content, I had to stop and go on an imaginary angry rant in my head to 343i for not including Forge on day one for both Halo 5 and Halo Infinite. Three of the hottest trends in gaming - MOBAs, Battle Royales, and Survival Sandboxes - trace their origins back to user-generated content in other games. MOBAs descended from WC3 custom games. Battle Royales and Survival Sandboxes were born when ARMA players pushed their sandbox to hell and back. _One of the Internet's most renowned media conglomerates_ started as a bunch of random nobodies making videos in Halo's game engine. And you're telling me modern developers, this whole time *_don't_* see user-generation ability as a worthwhile investment?

[@andrewgreeb916]

Auto chess was made in the dota 2 arcade and massively increased the people playing dota 2 when it came out, if you give people the right tools they may just make your game more popular for you.

[@NoOne42]

I think it was less 'not worthwhile' and more 'we can put it off, release the incomplete game early, and use Forge's release to draw people back/in'. Still not really a great idea, but at least makes some sense.

[@op4000exe]

One of the sad (and dumb) arguments against mods, is that companies don't want to allow you to have free extra content. They want to charge for it, and end up strangling their game, earning nothing in the process.

[@andrewgreeb916]

@@op4000exe remember when they tried to have paid mods on Skyrim? Remember how well that worked out?

[@shieldphaser]

Most publishers these days look at user-generated content, go "hey wait, we could be *selling* that!" and then try to shut down the modding scene. Similarly, they don't want to allow mods when there are microtransactions, because if you can mod the game then all of a sudden the developer no longer has a monopoly on content expansions for the title -- which means they don't get to set the bar for quality anymore. Sadly, that just ends with them shooting themselves in the foot...

[@Christobanistan]

I was a developer on WarZone: Flashpoint, a spiritual remake of C&C: Generals. I can tell you this is all spot-on. Our designer was obsessed with competitive multi-player when we already had a single player game that was already 75% done, even on Steam. The devs who wrote the game did a great job on this purely single player game, but he insisted on a total rewrite for multiplayer to the point where they all to quit in protest. I then came on, but I eventually gave up on the multiplayer rewrite since at the time the game engine we'd used was terrible for network heavy games (no deterministic math/physics, essential to avoid constantly sending updates). I also had serious health issues, but I'd have stuck around if it were a game I truly wanted to play. I believe this myopic obsession with multiplayer and greed causes most RTSes to fail or even not complete.

[@lastword8783]

Im not sure its even multiplayer. Its *competitive/ranked* multiplayer. Coop and custom game shenanigans are all about spectacle and fun.

[@BlazingOwnager]

Jesus Christ man, I gotta agree with the lead designer. The campaigns in RTS games are fine to include, but there is a HUGE portion of RTS players who only care about the multiplayer. I don't think I've ever finished a C&C campaign and I've sunk thousands of hours into that franchise (even to this day with the RA remaster). Any good RTS has core mechanics that translate to both. Again, nothing against campaign, but no multiplayer = no sale.

[@Christobanistan]

@@BlazingOwnager That's really because of selection bias. The games cater so hard to competitive multiplayer because there's so much money in that, so it attracts those players only. But the vast majority of us aren't crazy competitive like that and just want a good skirmish against AI. I agree about the campaign, though, at least on C&C. They aren't great and that's not what draws people in, either. After all, you play them one time and that's all you get out of them.

[@RogerValor]

​@@Christobanistan Even if you are not competitive, if your core gameplay is not working out, you won't get the casuals either. This is a valid point, if you are on a Game Project, from a design standpoint, you have to keep multiplayer and competitiveness in the center. It does not mean, it has to become exclusive. But if your game does not feel fair, or does not allow to play together, you will topple. Even worse, if you do not get your basic multiplayer systems tippedy top, you will suffer if you try to expand on it, open it for the user to modify. As a game dev, you have to keep in mind, that everything comes at a cost. A player does not make this distinction. if you aim to recreate an RTS, but only focus on a single player experience, then you are not recreating all of it. You can still do it without any of this, there are plenty of Campaign driven single player RTS games out there. Plenty. You can go co-op and leave balancing PvP out of your scope even. Make it an adventure RTS. But even there, you already have to build on a solid multiplayer foundation, that does not desync at each creative idea one of your level designers had. But if you only keep it about competitive multiplayer, you will suffer as well. All of the major titles discusses in this video were exclusively well made in the multiplayer context.

[@Christobanistan]

@@RogerValor No, YOU need to realize everything comes at a cost. Adding multiplayer to an RTS means huge investments in time and effort. It is a totally different architecture and it's far harder. Skirmish is what most people like, and that's what we concentrated on. Once we decided to rewrite entirely just to support multiplayer, the project fell apart because no one wanted to invest 2 to 3 times the initial effort to add something they and most customers weren't primarily interested in. And I don't see where 'core gameplay' comes in, that was good. Perhaps we could do an initial release, then if financially successful hire extra devs to rewrite as a multiplayer game. But with a very small team you have to keep goals manageable.

[@christiandelao2547]

Theres a disconnect between casual and competitive play in how the games really played, the comparison to chess is pretty accurate, where new players can kind of make shit up as they go, but in competitive play theres optimal strategies you almost have to use and its less about strategy and more about efficiency, making it so casual and competitive players arnt really playing the same game

[@betterbelle29]

This, exactly this. I never realized how big the gap was between competitive and casual players in any game until I started interacting with new chess players. I've reached about 1750 elo on chesscom which puts me in like the 98th percentile or something, and I never really realized how different my approach to chess is from the average person's perspective. Not only that, but I didn't even realize how big the disconnect was between myself and the average person because I didn't even consider myself competitive until I realized how far ahead I am compared to everyone else. I'm not even just on a different page, I'm literally in an entirely different universe when it comes to my understanding of how chess is played. The same was true for Rocket League, a game I got similarly good at (~98th percentile in ranked play). The things I look for in these games are completely different from what my friends who don't play these games at the level I do look for and I didn't even realize it until a few years ago. If that's true for chess and Rocket League, surely that has to be true for most video games, especially with how my friends who've gotten good at other games seem to echo this same sentiment. That realization also completely shifted how I approach introducing people to the games I love; instead of a focus on how intense it can be in the competitive scene, I just focus on the cool and goofy parts. That's what the average person actually likes. Most people who play Rocket League aren't looking to do a ceiling shot with a flip reset. They just think car soccer with boost that lets you fly is a cool and fun idea. In chess, the average person doesn't really understand all the crazy positional ideas that can allow someone to win a game without even being up any material. They usually just really enjoy goofy positions with crazy, unclear tactics, even if that means they lose by having all their pieces captured.

[@yari4046]

the best example for lack of spectacle was definitively grey goo to me, 3 really cool factions and one of them is literally a sentient hivemind of nanomachines that assemble and reassemble themselves to whatever the situation calls for.... and the flashiest units they have is catapults that throw goo at enemies and big blobs that dont attack but just move over other units to consume them

[@SoftisNelaris]

Grey Goo sounded so interesting as a concept, and the trailer made it look amazing. Then the game sucked on pretty much every level. The only thing that felt remotely good to use were the endgame super units. And don't get me started on the awful campaign. I had to restart an entire mission once because ONE flying enemy went into impassible terrain, when the mission had you playing as the Goo... The one faction that *DOESN'T* have a flying unit. What the fuck is that?

[@spinyslasher6586]

@@SoftisNelaris it's as if the devs had a nice idea for a single faction of the game (the titular Grey Goo) and phoned in everything around it.

[@SoftisNelaris]

@@spinyslasher6586 Honestly, the Goo didn't even feel that great to play either. Very little "overwhelming" feeling playing as/against them. They also required an insane amount of management for a faction that's a nanomachine hivemind.

[@hopfaundfelder3375]

Also notice how Total War is still going strong. Their concept of the campaign beeing the main game has captured both casuals and hardcore players. And we will soon get to see how this system will work in other titles, as CoH3 is also going to have a strategic battle map mode.

[@Mediados]

Though I have to say that Warhammer 3 quickly blew out it's steam. It had a strong release and nothing since, I hooe Immortal Empires can turn that game around.

[@VioletCatastrophe]

As a huge player of EU4 and other PDX grand strategy games... well guess what they have? Super easy moddability. A robust single player experience that for many people IS the game for them with thousands of hours worth of replayability (about 1500 hours for me in EU4, and that is fairly low compared to true hardcore devotees of the game). A sandbox focus that lets players choose their own goals and direction. The modding scene is so robust that multiple full conversion mods exist, with one of them (Anbennar) being my favourite version of the game. Seems like focusing on a good single player experience in all situations leads to actual longevity. Reminds me of how Josh Strife Hayes always pushes the importance of a healthy casual experience in MMOs because those that focus on the hardcore players always fail.

[@Weiswolfe]

@@Mediados mostly because the chaos campaign is boring and lackluster in comparison with WH2's Vortex Campaign, and Immortal Empires is bugged so that helps

[@friendsquadzulu]

man there's like 27 hardcore total war players

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@Weiswolfe someone actually liked vortex????

[@markraisner9000]

At 70 years old, I've been playing Blizzard RTS games since Orcs VS Humans first came out. The campaign's are what I enjoy the most.

[@antoniolewis1016]

oh wow, that's amazing. Here I thought my 20 years of experience meant something!

[@attractivegd9531]

Yep, sad that the SC2 coop has so little maps in terms of numbers, size and variety. At least the camapign is somewhat playable in coop now.

[@Nil-js4bf]

But is the campaign what draws you back to the game and keeps you actively playing the game for years? Campaigns are mostly a one time affair, play it once and move on.

[@antoniolewis1016]

@@Nil-js4bf I enjoyed playing skirmish vs AI for many years. I never had to worry about the AI being rude.

[@markraisner9000]

@@Nil-js4bf I've replayed all the SC2 campaigns several times complete. I go back and replay different missions that I really enjoy and work them up to brutal.

[@hideshisface1886]

And now, like a prophecy, we are observing Stormgate tethering around 50%... It was, sadly, predictable.

[@aydentardif]

It's good that he works on Zerospace and applies everything to fix all major issues over the past 30 years and actually innovate unlike SG

[@kurt7937]

Yea. Campaign issues AND bad unit balance AND uninspired/offputting art style. I’m not going to lie, something would have to be so much better than SC for me to even consider it, nobody is looking for a new sc2 with less depth.

[@killedr6621]

Id love an rts where singleplayer was much larger in it. If I could build a kingdom in age and keep building on it through missions and events Im pretty sure Id never stop playing it

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@cembaturkemikkiran4109 crusader kings

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@cembaturkemikkiran4109 anno?

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@cembaturkemikkiran4109 wouldn't pan out well. Two different genres, both being resource heavy projects.. rather stick to the closest sauce

[@nechikuokami106]

Total war series ?

[@FuzzySalamander]

100% The broader progression and upgrading over time is the BEST Whereas SC multiplayer (and battle royale games) are "spend 1-60 minutes grinding to build something up.... And youre dead. Back to square one for you!" Even if you WIN you restart from nothing Thats why the campaign progressions are so awesome by comparison, just like your kingdom suggestion!

[@marksmithcollins]

As a Korean, I think Blizzard was relying so much on 'competative' aspect of their 'RTS' lineup. They enhanced cinematics and scripted npc events in single player campaign in SC2 just like they did in WC3, but at the same time SC2 became absurdly fast-paced and counter-gimmicky focusing 'e-sports oriented'. Eventually it harmed its fundamental fun as an 'army simulation'. You are no more a commander nor a team leader. It became a weird MTGish Card game, blocking opponent's super unit as my super-counter unit. It might be spicy to watch pros playing, But even in Korea people think it is too much packed of gimmicks with forced design intentions. I think 'pure RTS' is now a genre of past - it became a meta genre contains multiple genres. Want some microcontrol? Do MOBAs like LOL. Massive spam? See TA-SupCom-PA lineage. Prefer military combat actions with sophiscated terrain? Try Company of Heroes. Want formation tactics like hammer-and-anvil things? Do Total War series. Want basement-building and defense? See They are Billions. Hardcore military geek? Eugen Systems will be your daily bread(with complaints)

[@slimebuck]

%100 agree. The game used to be way slower paced, but faster = more reliance on gimmicks. Widow mines, swarm hosts, lurkers, all gimmicks. They pushed away from being %50 building right and %50 battling right, to building being just an after thought with battling being 90%. Less strategy and more mindless reacting to what the enemy does. I used to play rts's over first person shooters because I wanted that strategy side, not just mindlessly countering my enemy and having to make super fast paced battle decisions. I miss being able to take more time planning stuff and carrying out those plans. Now the gameplay is so fast there is no real planning attacks, its just defend, counter, attack, go go go go go

[@airget]

I was looking for a comment like this, Blizzard definitely leaned heavy on the Korean Gamers who dominated the Starcraft scene, with their fast gameplay and just doubled down on it. I feel like that's a reason why I never played Starcraft 2, I enjoyed Starcraft but I feel like the strategic layer of the game is lost when it just becomes an arms raise of who has a faster CPS.

[@NecrosAcolyte]

Total War is grand strategy, not RTS. MOBAs have statistically zero crossover with RTS players.

[@Mediados]

I once tried to get into playing SC2 competitive and quickly noticed, it simply isn't fun. Pathetic, backstabby tactics are the most effective and your victory is dependant on how quickly you can work within the first 5 minutes. A competitive game should be a great challenge, yes but at the end if the day also fulfill the reason for the game to exist: Having fun.

[@animeweng]

Dota was born from Starcraft. It gave birth to the Moba genre. League of Legends and Dota 2 which became bigger than Starcraft. It's not just competitive gaming but user made content that makes it better.

[@codytyndall1077]

"Two drunk toddlers fencing with pool noodles," has got to be the best way to describe most SC2 ladders by far.

[@ML-uu7vb]

I really can't tell how I ended up with this video but it moved me to tears!!! I'm in my 30s now and I grew up with all the big hitters: AoE, AoM, C&C, SC1&2 and I lost my heart forever to Warcraft 3 ... and this video has finally put in words what I couldn't for the past 10-15 years. I can only hope that not all the triple A RTS developers are totally engulfed in their hubris and are still receptive for the voices (and videos ;) ) of people like you. A huge thank you from me and a "Dankeschön" from Germany!

[@arahelis2038]

I would like to add something: Starsector is also a good example of a game successful because of player content. Just like Skyrim, Starsector is a space-faring RPG, you play a space captain, doing missions around the sector, making gains, killing business opponents, saving people.. The game is made by a small team of three or four people I think, but the big thing is that EVERYTHING (or almost everything) is editable in the game file. You feel like your ship is too slow in space? You can modify that. You feel like quests are giving too many EXP? You can change that. And it doesn't require any special skills, the game files are so well written and commentated that anyone with notepad can fully customize their gameplay session if they feel like it. On top of that, add one of the biggest modding community I've ever seen, with some mods overhauling the game completely, and you have a successful (albeit not very well known) game with a very dedicated player base.

[@seeinred]

Starsector is the only game every that made me so invested, that i actually created my own mod. It's amazing game.

[@hobblesofkarth3943]

@@seeinred star secctor is a game so damn good that i actually exited it after like 2 weeks, BOUGHT IT, Instead of using the copy provided by Szeth, and went right back to playing. 20 bucks i didnt need to spend because it was god damn deserved!

[@gamerplays5131]

Lmao, "saving people" But yeah, starsector is that one game I don't get tired of since it provides so much worldbuilding and story telling along with great combat and sandbox features. Not to mention the abnormally intelligent and basically gestalt ai, provides enough difficulty to mess with you

[@avsbes98]

Today i learned that Skyrim is a space-faring RPG. /s

[@arahelis2038]

@@avsbes98 English is hard dude x)

[@brownjonny2230]

As a casual RTS player myself, I think future RTS should put more focus on single playing or cooperation contents, rather than competitive ones. PvP in RTS is INTENSE. Some loves it, but majority of casual players honestly feel it too intimidating.

[@el_mr6439]

true, I played Age of Empires II campaing since I was a kid, eventually bought the Steam version and played online just to realize that I suck at the game lol

[@adrianbozdog9702]

@@el_mr6439 I did the same thing with Lord of the rings Battle for Middle Earth 2. I loved that game so much as a kid. The Champaign the Full Map Game that could literally take 40+ hours to play in it's entirety and could be done in multiplayer or Solo. I went online exactly once to find out that anything that was good was insanely not fun and just stuck to Champaign and VS AI who would let you have fun. (AI doesn't whine when they start with nothing and you get a guarded citadel other players do.)

[@hkl2007]

Well the thing is, you can have both. All 1v1 multiplayer needs is map maker available for the community, ranked ladder that resets a few times per year, rotating map pool and private lobbies and you're set. Maybe a few balance patches if something is out of hand but that doesn't necessarily have to take away from the campaign, it's just that developers have been smoothbrained thinking they'll have an esports RTS at release becouse SC2 had that, while failing to realise the reason SC2 had esports at release was becouse broodwar existed for 10 years and had a well established pro scene. Broodwar has good singleplayer campaign and custom modes, people started out playing 1v1s in private lobbies and on 3rd party ladders, you can have both.

[@thewallsspeaktome3507]

@@adrianbozdog9702 woah now that you mention it, I should play that game again

[@THAC0MANIC]

the problem i have is ... there realy isnt Stragie involved in alot of modern day RTS its more about Micromanagement / high APM then anything eles.

[@ayuvir]

During COVID I decided to dip my toes on an introductory game design course. A big part of the course was making your own concept and pitching it, as well as have a rudimentary prototype ready. My first project concept was an RTS. To simplify think of it as Nebulous Fleet Command with simplified controls, meets Homeworld 2 with a dynamic sandbox campaign map like the Total War series. My point was that spectacle was a big part of why people stuck to older RTS and by having a challenging system that is easy to understand visually and has great effects (explosions, permanent damage etc) people would stay invested much longer as they're gonna want to see how ridiculous the tech gets, how far their army can be upgraded and where end game leads to. The campaign also had a bunch of systems in place that would make a campaign more personal. The whole point was to have an army that would get customized over time as tech would unlock and a combat system that was brutal but easy to understand, this way people would be much more attached to their units (reflected with visual representations i.e having a permanent patch job in one of the ship's hull after a penetration) and with emotional attachment would come a bigger drive to see a campaign through which in turn makes players stay longer. My mentor who was an industry vet and a teacher of game design just told me something along the lines of "that's all real good and sounds great, if this was 20 years ago people would be all over a prototype for what you described but thinking by nowadays standards how would you pitch this to a board of executives? all they tend to understand is sports and cars". He then proceeded to tell me how he spent a meeting trying to convince executives to change his project's engine and how, after a very long time, he finally got through to them by making the analogy that a game engine is kinda like a car engine.

[@funybirbman3813]

I'm sorry, but the gaming executives...didn't know what a game engine is?

[@ayuvir]

@@funybirbman3813 A lot of investors and company execs only care that the company is making more money. This is particularly true if you have a company that focuses on different kinds of media (Bandai-Namco, does video games and toys, among other things I'd imagine). Usually, you only need to convince the execs that are savvy with video games, but sometimes you may need more money and that's where you need to branch out for more investment. Those investors have a rough understanding of what is trendy, like say e-sports and the competitive scene but not much else, hence why having a good pitch with the many "keywords" is favorable and why a lot of videogames get tacked on features that have no place in a game like that (see Dead Space 2's multiplayer mode).

[@AAhmou]

@@funybirbman3813 People with capital are mostly experts at finding the right investments. The executive of a tech company for example doesn't have to be an engineer.

[@FireallyXTheories]

I smell a CGS student. ;D

[@funybirbman3813]

@@AAhmou I mean I know, but still?

[@Valdrex]

Total War Warhammer is a good example of how strong single player content can catapult a game to success. I was always a complete casual RTS players, just touching the campaign then moving on. TWW has had me hooked for years, completey single player. Was happy to see CoH 3 moving in the direction of a strategy later focus, hopefully it's decent. Your analysis seems pretty accurate to me.

[@jakeg3733]

Agreed. I play games to decompress after a stressful job, and it's deliberately antisocial for me. I was appalled when I saw the trend towards axing SP content in favor of MP and "comp" scenes. 2 hour afterthought campaigns, or even none at all. With few exceptions, I play games for the story. You said you like WH, and while I'm not really into WH Fantasy I'm a huge fan of 40k. There are two strategy games in that universe, Gladius and Battlesector which are most excellent, I'd recommend trying them if you haven't already. Both have pretty cool dynamic campaigns, and Battlesector has a good story campaign as well. More importantly they are still very actively developing the game, with a stated desire for more SP content because that's what people are asking for right now. It's a resurgence of what gaming used to be, pretty cool to see

[@teaser6089]

Sadly CoH3 failed. It's a bad game, especially the graphics just fail to impress, it's like it is a mod of CoH2 with worse graphics. Shit looks like someone vacuum'd the whole battlefield before you start a mission...

[@mr.voidroy6869]

Surre.... but I wouldn't call total war an rts.

[@MasterIceyy]

Same, but it's also the same reason I never touched multiplayer in TW:WH3 because everyone who is playing online is on a completely different level to players who just play campaign, it's almost a different game entirely and the skill gap kinda just makes it not that enjoyable when you can't even win a battle

[@declanmoran]

Your point on how the importantance of control that feels responsive and good is so spot on mate. I played SC2 as my first RTS and everything after that has felt kind of clunky and unplayable.

[@OMIMreacts]

SAMEEEE I never would have even considered the pathing and responsiveness to be that important, but man, AoE4 is more a fight against the pathing engine than against my opponent. sc2 never gets into the way.

[@nekrataali]

And it seems like each RTS that comes out tries to copy+paste old controls. It's 2022 and they're still making games using controls from 2003. Why are we still using weird "tab key plus control groups" to manage units? Why are auto attacks always directed at the closest enemy unit, instead of the ones with the lowest HP or do the most damage? Why can't I pause the game to issue commands, then start it again so I can micro without having (literally) 900 APM? Can you imagine making an FPS in 2022 that was supposed to be the new hotness for its genre, but it still used the same controls and mechanics of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault?

[@guestofearth]

@@nekrataali nah

[@TheRastil]

@@nekrataali There is pause + issuing commands in total war, propably only reason i coudl play it lol

[@ivayloivanov3744]

@@nekrataali then, RTS games are not for you

[@kaakkulandia]

"Spectacle sells." I just realized that one of my favorite things to do in Warhammer total war is having a caster summon a meteorite upon enemy infantry or having a fire storm cinder hundreds of units. It's way too overpowered in single player*, but it is so cool and the game would be worse if it wasn't possible. * You can do it in multiplayer too but human players don't stack their units the same way AI does making the spells much less satisfying.

[@conradwerth6954]

I mean, that's part of my favorite things with Total War Warhammer, and why I love the Warhammer games more than the historical Total War games. My first experience with Total War was the first Warhammer game, and it's a little hard to get as drawn in to battles of entirely human armies, with mostly identical units on both sides, when in other battles I've led legions of undead against an unruly mob of greenskins, or later seeing my masses of dinos throw themselves headlong into the spearlines of the high elves, and even now into Warhammer 3, where my valiant Streltsi and Tzar Guard hold the line against demonic hordes long enough for my bear cavalry to get in position and rip every single demon a new butthole. The spectacle of Warhammer alone is what made the games so popular, and I can't wait to see what the full combined map for game 3 will look like.

[@spacepiratekobold5112]

This is actually hilarious. You expanded and articulated on all my points I made to my professor back in 2016 on why the genre needed help, and my professor repeated the exact same issues as talking points as modern devs saying Competitive is more important than anything.

[@demonhunter2121]

RTS is the only genre that focuses on 1v1 competitive. Its the only genre that offers that experience. If they all focused on custom games and single player I would have no genre of games that appeal to me anymore. Everything doesn't need to be designed to appeal to the masses. It's fine to exist in a niche, but the shareholders will demand that they make 100 million in profit a quarter so it has to be a live service game designed for casual players. Just like every other game.

[@totallycarbon2106]

@@demonhunter2121 uhh have you heard of fighting games? Or 1v1 card games? Or, like, Chess?

[@Oznerock]

@@demonhunter2121 Ehhh they're not mutually exclusive. A good campaign making money means more people developing RTS. That ends up making the RTS genre get weaker and less money is poured into it, making the multiplayer weaker as well.

[@ThePahvinkeitin]

@@Oznerock True. It's often presented as a strict division between the casual players and the hardcore player base. You can't please everyone, but the interests of these two groups are really often aligned in some way or another. Especially in a genre like RTS where the required investments in engine benefit everyone. Not to mention the fact that casual players become hardcore players and hardcore players become casuals all the time. And the fact that being a hardcore player doesn't stop you from enjoying casual content and vice versa. So it's a false dichotomy in more ways than one.

[@diego2817]

@@demonhunter2121 lol what about total war games? What about company of heroes Ardennes campaign ? What about dow dark crusade famous campaign ? Those things keep players playing multiple times...yes 1v1 is important but 2v2 3v3 and 4v4 are more fun, coh3 stats shows that most player base play 2v2 and 4v4 and 1v1 is the less played mode, thousands of players stop playing sc2 because that game relies heavily on APM and less strategy like the first one and before you reply I was in master league in sc2, I understand competitive I have played dota tournaments as well but I understand that casual gamers the ones that work all days and want some fun at nights are the most player base, I know that because I am one nowdays, I love single player content and 2v2 games.

[@thefierycharmeleon164]

Stormgate literally ignored most of these steps and advice. Game obliviously put most of it's focus on competitive esports multiplayer.

[@Greatdictator]

I gotta thank you SO MUCH for that polling data on the campaign importance for players, i always loved the campaigns in strategy games even the not so good ones and it always made me feel like maybe this is just a me thing, but i am so glad to see that people appreciate the campaigns being at the front first with a good multiplayer not as a after thought but as a bonus

[@PsyrenXY]

I wiiiiiiish you could play through the campaign with the co-op commanders

[@Qrzychu92]

I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I loove RTS games (and can't stand turn based ones :P Total War is the only one I really like). I've never played through one campaign. NEVER. I played countles hours of Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Empire Earth (1 and 2), Red Alert 2, Submarine Titans (it's like Starcraft 1.5 :P), Homeworld, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, etc... Never played more than one or two missions. I always run into a mission with a gimmick, like "avoid detection", and just got bored trying to solve this. In Supreme Commander, the mission were just too big, in Company of Heroes, some mission were like several 1v1 one after another, while others were "you have those 10 units, good luck". I dunno, right now I play quite a bit of SC2, I watched the story summary on YT (it is quite epic :)), but when I watch how the missions play out... I prefer to get cannon rushed 5 times in a row on ladder, and when I win, it feels like an achievment, while campaign does not

[@yawarapuyurak3271]

yes! the campaigns were the best aprt of RTS for me. My friends always liked playing original DOTA, but I loved the campaign of Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne.

[@BlazingOwnager]

@mr oko And a great RTS has great both.

[@kenim]

I though this was crystal clear for developers and the reason why RTS always have cheat codes to blitz through the campaign to enjoy the story.

[@bass-dc9175]

One thing that is of utmost importance is: The right scale. Scale is building Zerglings early on and dropping an Ultralisk on people later on. Scale is deffending an outpost with canons and zealots alongside fenix and flying the Gantrithor into the Overmind later on. Scale is destroying that command center with a handfull of good ol' boys, getting blamed for doing the right thing and joining up with that carismatic rebel leader to build up a fleet and take over the sector. Scale is building small fighters and gathering up the resources for bigger ships. Scale is seeing a small section of your ship morph into The Beast as it feeds on the living. Scale is having a campaign revolve around the members of a small faction, involved in a galactical conflict far beyond what they have bargained for. Scale is building an army of small scout robots only to drop a city sized UFO on people. Scale is retrieving the black box of Dostja for Brackman and helping him destroy QAI. Scale is fighting a small outpost lead by a cybran commander who makes you question the morals of your faction and taking over Black Sun to end this Infinite War peacefully. The Gameplay should reflect the scale. The story should reflect the scale. Two famous examples which did the opposite were: Supreme Commander 2 and Command and Conquer 4. Having what is essencially a large truck pump out toy-units to throw at each other endlessly is not the scale established by the previous games: You built large infrastructure, the story reflects that. You are a commander, the story revolves around your faction, which is reflected in the buildings you build. You start with small infantry, go up to tanks, ships, super units etc. Story and gameplay cut from the same piece of marbel. In C&C4, you start with a super unit and pump out smaller ones, the story revolves around YOU, the faction is irrelevant. It doesn't fit. Same with SupCom2. In SupComFA, you start with a strong unit, which can be upgraded. The Units you build first are small, mass producable, your positioning matters more than the individual unit. As you reach Tier 2, you get units which are individually rather strong and worth microing. Supported by an ever growing infrastructure. Tier 3 are units which are very strong. Often a hand full of them can cause extreme damage and the final Tier is supported by a city of infrastructure to produce them. Or you can pool resources into superweapons. Experimental Units which you have to build outside of factories because they are so large. A single one can end a game, but they are not invincible either, nothing is. But these units are absolutely rediculous. From large Spiderbots with a giant microwave laser mounted ontop, which can not only stealth but also walk under water, to a driving quad-tank submercible factory with torpedos, a bubble shield generator and an air staging platform, to a giant UFO with a planet cracker laserbeam, torpedos, a hangar for air units and the capabilities to produce more, to a building which is as rediculous as it is simple: An infinite resource generator. But that is to be expected when looking at the Story. You are a Supreme Commander. Only a few are used by the faction you are part of because they are so costly to produce. You are being sent via gates to various planets, but the energy cost to do so is so enormous that a workaround had to be thought of. So instead of sending armies, you are capable of producing ones on site. Each time you are being sent there alone, build up factories, generators etc. and tech up to acchieve a goal. You are important, but not unique. You control armies, because your faction makes this possible. You are not a lone gunman, you are an army commander. And the goals you need to acchieve are as grant as the units you build to acchieve them. That is SupComFA. The scale is next to perfect. The units you build reflect your faction. You start off small and finish big, with an actual story reason and the scale matches the universe spanning narative. Now SupCom2 ... I will make this painless: The units have been castrated, the story is "You fight against military dude, because military bad" + "You are a terrorist who is too dumb to realise that she is playing with nukes" + "You are a dude jumping from place to place only to find your two old friends who help you get to a crazy dude who wants to blow up a planet". The scale is all over the place. The feats are on a city-scale, planet-scale while the characters ... okay let me say it that way. The first games story spans a galaxy. The characters represent factions of entire races of people living on thousands of planets. It makes sense. The second ones story spans a few planets. While the characters (and I shit you not) span a classroom. Yes: They were in the same class at school and now they pilot robots to ... do random things. Oh and the new tech is provided to you by ... a company ... or a friend has suddenly "gotten new downloads" ... or your daddy is slowly unlocking it because he does not want to overwhelm you while you fight deadly enemies. The gameplay has you build large amounts of small units and experimentals from factories. It is just taking the Tier 1 of the first game and Tier 3 of the first game, cut down both and stitch them together. You no longer build from small units to medium to big to rediculous. You now start with Small ones, go to big ones and then the end. The resource generators: allways stay the same. In fact: better ones are sometimes SMALLER. It is all over the place, just like the trainwreck of a story. In a good RTS, the story and the gameplay follow the same scale. In a bad one: You have toy-producers fight each other because your character is oh so special. You have classroom mates in giant robots do dumb stuff with even dumber downscaled gameplay. You have a conflict to decide the fate of the sector be fought with equally grand units ... only to end with a single human shooting a laserbeam into the face of some generic villain because your bugs kicked over some rocks for you.

[@luismoronigajardoaros8602]

Homeworld cataclysm, i love that game

[@Frank-os6gq]

Wow! That was a really really good example of how a good artist works well done

[@paanjang16]

Scale is starting with a squads of marines and a force commander to clean up a spaceport Scale is slowly expanding your army, deploying more and more toys onto the battlefield while facing off with stronger and more variety of enemies till you deploy the biggest unit onto the battlefield Scale is when your force commander is given a hammer that can kill GODS and finally kill the antagonist thus ending the campaign.

[@bass-dc9175]

@@paanjang16 Precisely. The Warhammer 40k universe is another great example of Scale being done well. If a new faction suddenly were to arise, comprised of a handfull of dudes that suddenly topple the emperor with their new super-ships that are also smaller than a frigate: Then that would completely break the scale established. Another way to look at it is: The universe follows rules. And rules encurage creativity both in story telling and in gameplay design. I'd even go as far as to say that (even ignoring the epilogue) Warhammer 40K does Scale way better than Starcraft 2.

[@joshuafischer684]

@@bass-dc9175 Starcraft was originally developed as a 40k game, funnily enough.

[@Elunayme]

One thing that becomes glaringly obvious in your video is that RTS players love RPGs. Warcraft and Starcraft campaign are in part so popular because of RPG elements keeping it spicy. That's what so many RTS miss out on. Iron Harvest couldn't keep me interested because it was the same spiel every campaign mission. Meanwhile They Are Billions had a more shitty presentation, but the skill tree really kept me going.

[@1q34w]

That was true for earlier titles. The progression was in the upgrades and tech tree(just think of empire earth). Also, unit XP for cnc. It was really fun clearing a map with a few elite overlords.

[@DaDunge]

Yeah AoE also had a measure of immersion. For most players it wasn't about winning multiplayer matches using optimizied strategies it was about the emergent stories from playing.

[@JulianSkies]

That is entirely unsurprising, RTSes and RPGs are intrinsically linked in their origins. On a mechanics level, tabletop RPGs descend from wargames, which is what RTS most closely emulate. Before real-time strategy games exist, they were turn-based, and which are some of the most famous turn-based tactical games? RPGs (I bet most of the older players first cut their tactics teeth on Final Fantasy). Heck, even today RTS games and TRPGs both use the same storytelling style. They're different genres, but closely related.

[@Annokh]

Absolutely. When I played old RTSes, one major drive to play more missions was "let's see which new and exciting toys I will get next!"

[@theliato3809]

Cool leaders/personalities leading amazing armies/navies is part of what can make people want to jump in on a faction within the game. RPG aspects take that kind of personality and turn it into mechanics which can effect the game so it’s a pretty nice thing to have

[@Talis116]

The one fundamental misunderstanding I think a lot of people in not just RTS, but similar competitive genres have is that you shouldn't try to create a "competitive" game, you should just design a good game that appeals to a lot of people... if your game works for competition, people will make tournaments and make competition happen... but when you try to force it, especially at the cost of content that could have attracted more casual paying players its likely not going to succeed.

[@robinicus6347]

I love that on the wikipedia page for MOBAs it says this: "The first widely accepted game in the genre was Aeon of Strife (AoS), a fan-made custom map for StarCraft in which four players each control a single powerful unit and, aided by weak computer-controlled units, compete against a stronger computer"

[@Niclmaki]

I always thought it was a variation on Future Cop LAPD's Multiplayer mode.

[@lerandomguy2109]

I think the birth of the genre truly was right below Blizzard's eye with AoS and DoTa I was never really a fan of SC by the time I played so I didn't even know the existence of AoS for quite some time. I would spend hours and hours on DoTa every week lol

[@135791max]

I don't know how Aoen of Strife is "widely accepted" as being the first, it literally has almost nothing in common with modern MOBA's. I know it's edgy to say a lesser known game, but dota 1 is without a doubt the father of the Moba Genre.

[@Draeckon]

@@135791max It the earliest prototype of the genre, right down to being three lanes of AI-controlled minions smashing into each other periodically, while mostly letting the players decide which lane to try and push. The key difference, aside from the opposing faction being AI-controlled as well, was that it introduced semi-random events that would shake up the match - something that could be interpreted as the earliest form of map objectives like League's jungle camps/elite mobs or Heroes' map objectives. That not all heroes had abilities had more to do with the limitation of the engine, which was why you could buy regular units to supplement them - something that changed when WC3 allowed for the creation of DotA with its more flexible unit customization. DotA continued incrementing on the design, making it more of a PvP experience instead of pure PvE (although I recall there being a BW map that was PvP as well, though I don't think it was very popular). Things change and increment over time, it's just the nature of things. It's not hard to see the seeds of the modern moba in AoS, different as the two are now.

[@AresKusa]

@@135791max AoS is without a doubt the precursor of MOBA games - and DotA wasn't even the first or even close to the best AoS style map to come out for War3 so get lost with that nonsense. I know it's trendy to try and tear down others who are more invested and knowledgeable than you but this aint it chief

[@kered13]

This is a very good analysis, but at 6:10 I think you overlook a very important point about why developers keep focusing on multiplayer: It's much cheaper to make a multiplayer only game than to make a campaign. A campaign requires writing, careful level design, scripting, and functional AI. Multiplayer only requires some basic level design, especially for a game that is never truly going to be competitive anyways. So when a developer is strapped for budget, the first thing that hits the chopping block is the campaign.

[@Fressbremse]

Absolutely wrong, multiplayer requires a very accurate level of balancing, which is really hard to do. One of the things I would never consider myself to be able to do. Imo balancing is the hardest thing in game design to do a decent job at. Making something great is hard no matter what it is, but creating an okayish campaign is way easier than creating an okayish balance for multiplayer content.

[@kered13]

@@Fressbremse None of these games except StarCraft 2 is trying to balance multiplayer to they level. They don't have pro players testing the game and they're not providing significant balance support after launch. It doesn't take a ton of work to get balance just good enough for casual multiplayer, much less than making a full single player campaign anyways.

[@Fressbremse]

@@kered13 So you're agreeing with what I'm saying. They focus mostly on multiplayer, scrapping the campaign and the multiplayer still sucks, because it's not balanced and too hard to do a decent job at. They should just make a decent campaign because that's way easier.

[@bluebandit471]

I think a lot of people today forgot that when Warcraft 3 released their main point in advertising the game was how good campaign is. Of course multiplayer and great map editor where important aspects but you could see that they really tried to lure people in with how epic campaign going to be. And honestly it worked, a lot of my friends bougth the game because they wanted to play campaign and at the time their campaign was really groundbreaking (even today although graphics and animations are dated you can see that they put heart into it). So it is really disappointing seeing RTS this days treating campaigns as afterthought while it's supposed to be cool part.

[@maluxorath8715]

For sure, I play RTS games purely for the singleplayer experience. One of my favorites, Heroes of Might & Magic III, has a lot of campaigns and even more great singleplayer scenarios that kept me playing the game for years. And I'm still far from finishing it all!

[@Shenordak]

That's what they are doing right with Age of Empire 2 DE. They are focusing a lot on Single Player, and great campaigns.

[@vibri_]

I just think there needs to be something to fill the middle between casual player-focused campaigns and competitive serious multiplayer. Something that keeps those who beat the campaigns and AI coming back to the game and drives them to get better, but without scaring them away from getting steamrolled by a veteran who has been playing RTS since 1996 and has 300+ APM.

[@Gonzalo_105]

if you are playing someone with 300 apm the problem is matchmaking, i play at 100 apm (age of empires 2 and starcraft 1) and i mostly face people with similar skills.

[@Regunes]

I think there is still room for a game like DOW 1. A Rts that doesn't take itself seriously and just emphasize on asymmetric playstyle and putting a show. For me AOE IV didn't stick around because it wasn't innovative enough, and despite the effort it doesn't look that good, even tho it seems great gameplay wise Edit: I watched the full thing. Very good, tho you could have mentionned DOW.

[@rodi8266]

Regunes ay?

[@Regunes]

@rodi greetings fellow admiral

[@biwarayoganata]

DOW as in Dawn of War? If yes, that's my favorite RTS of all time.

[@Regunes]

@@biwarayoganata Dawn of War 1 yes.

[@biwarayoganata]

@@Regunes Especially Dark Crusade. I could be biased since I only played Winter Assault and Dark Crusade, but that was the best one for me.

[@themurmeli88]

21:15 I can predict that this will be Bethesda's downfall. Day will come when an overpaid executive decides that "Mod support drains money and gives none back hur-dur cut it out, and put in a skin store!" I'm not saying Fallout 76 already did that, but... Fallout 76 already did that.

[@andrewlechner6343]

At least that is multi-player, we really need to worry if that is the case with starfield or, God forbid, Elder scrolls 6.

[@ratnapkins7853]

They tried it with FO4 and got a shit ton of flak for it, they were gonna make people pay for any user created mods. They ended up making the creation club instead.

[@OneAndZer0]

Nah, it will take more than that to bring them down. Sure, 76 sucked at launch, but has been supported and improved a lot. Mods are important, but Bethasda has such a huge fan base and 2 of the most anticipated games in development. On top of that, they publish a lot of great games. There's a lot more to that studio than just mods is my point. As said in this video "doom and gloom is a lazy alternative to actual critical analysis."

[@HyenaBlank]

@@OneAndZer0 Would be nice if they allowed people to run and host their own sessions or servers on FO76. Just disconnect it from the official server progression system if they so have too and let people go wild with that half of it

[@ratnapkins7853]

​@@HyenaBlank They half-assed that recently. IF you pay for their FO76 sub, IF. When you host your private session (always needed a sub for that) you can tweak what values Bethesda has allowed you to. Like damage taken and dealt, build restrictions and a few other basic console commands. It's not great.

[@TheDukeofDorks]

Watching this feels so validating from the perspective of someone that absolutely adores RTS, but hates playing them multiplayer. Nowadays it feels like you just can't separate the two, if there's a big new RTS coming out the ONLY thing that developers are talking about is how it'll be designed for Esports. Which as you so eloquently state, is a shortsighted thing for them to focus on! I really hope the topics in this video spread and become a more publicly held attitude, it'd be nice to see a resurgence of the RTS genre with developers realizing what the core of these experiences truly is. Get more experiences like those three pillars (Would throw Battle for Middle Earth as an honorable 4th, you can't get much more spectacle than dropping the Balrog on an army) where I can open up the game and have countless playable options for how I am able to experience it. Also, do just wanna quickly throw out that Age of Empires 4 campaign definitely wasn't an afterthought, there was a ridiculous amount of effort put into the every aspect of the game... except the actual gameplay. Which is hilarious, like some designers got so excited to highlight and teach about all of these historical facts, then 6 months before release panicked as they realized "Wait, we need to have gameplay to go with this?!" Which, ya know, is a bit disappointing, but the high quality history presentations do make it somewhat worth it.

[@gemsofsteel3648]

That 4th would be debatable, you had Dawn of War series and what is more epic that Chaos fallower lifted into air and exploding with blood everywhere to summon huge demon xD Also it had best voice acting for units in RTS overall. Though I loved BfME 2 too, great game, before I bouhht I played good 4 hours in a demo on only two available maps as a kid xD

[@xanaus5920]

@@gemsofsteel3648 I was surprised to not see DoW mentioned.

[@gemsofsteel3648]

@@xanaus5920 I can see why, only one really successful title and every game from them was making some kinds of mistakes mentioned in video. 1st DoW had terrible pathfinding, 2nd had no single player outside for terrible campaign that didn't felt like RTS game at all (and BTW it was main reason I played only like 2 hours of that title) with that online focus, with 3rd DoW I am not quite sure. After bad opinions ultimately I never tried it.

[@funybirbman3813]

That age of empires idea about them trying to teach the historical facts is honestly adorable

[@MaMastoast]

@@gemsofsteel3648 I actually really liked dow 2's campaign... the rest of it sucked though.. no base building..

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

My favorite thing about real-time strategy is the feeling that I'm establishing some sort of base of operations. Of course I love Starcraft and Dawn of War, but I'm still waiting for the day that I can go between areas making multiple territories all part of the real-time strategy experience. Not by the AI randomly selecting that it somehow defeated me, but by it being required to pull it off. I don't go into a new map with pre-selected limitations I go into a new map with whatever I want to risk taking with me. Again it's this world building experience that a lot of casuals love.

[@yeiji4315]

play total war especially the older titles

[@dm9910]

One of CnC3's expansions did this but it's kind of ass

[@pandemonium8420]

Battle for Middle Earth 2 , War of the Ring mode.

[@ZartaxtheWise]

Homeworld also leys the playet keep units between scenarios. A truly great game!

[@dragonslair951167]

Spectacle is definitely huge for me- it makes me so disappointed to see that pro players deliberately turn down their graphics.

[@michaellopate4969]

Pro players are playing for different reasons. This same dynamic is repeated across genre: I played a lot of magic the gathering as both a very casual and then very competitive player, and fundamentally what I was looking for changed completely. When i was a casual player, i wanted to do cool stuff and see a crazy board develop. But as a competitive player, the game was just the medium to compete with the opponent. I would play the most "boring" deck if i thought it gave me the best chance to win because that's what the game was about for me. What was cool was not playing huge creatures and doing cool things, but out thinking and outplaying my opponent. For RTS, graphics are the same thing. Pro players aren't looking at the game screen to appreciate it's beauty. They are looking almost entirely for information to defeat the opponent. Everything that gets in the way of that can be turned down. You want maximum frame rate and responsiveness, you want minimum visual clutter. Luckily we can observe RTS games and have commentators that bring the spectacle back in! I'm watching a high level match to enjoy the game. Serral and Maru are trying to win. Don't be disappointed for them, they are interacting with the game in a fundamentally different way than more casual players are.

[@RuslanLagashkin]

@@michaellopate4969 Exactly my experience, "trying cool things" vs. "trying to win". It is such a shame devs focusing on second, leaving out most of potential audience outside the boat.

[@StoffiePrductions]

It makes me disappointed to see such a weak minded creature who cant understand different gameplay than its own.

[@687grayfox]

Competitive Multiplayer and the endless quest for "balance" has been the death of fun in single player for a while now, all of your points were excellent and well articulated, especially the one about custom content creation, warcraft 3 and age of empires 2 custom content creation is one of the things that sparked my interest in game design, and later programming.

[@ЮрийШуклов]

I can't deny Grant truly nailed the every aspect that made me go "Oh, another RTS that will go nowhere" upon seeing almost any of the recent titles.

[@MSCCA]

I fell in love with RTS games when I played the demos for age of empires 1 and starcraft 1 as a kid. I have yet to play the online multiplayer for any RTS game. For me the most important aspect of an RTS is the campaign followed by co-op.

[@ivanlagrossemoule]

I absolutely hate competitive multiplayer games. I played a lot in the past, but one day I realized I was wasting many hours of my life just doing something I didn't enjoy that much. It's kind of like arguing online, you get drawn in but in the end you just end up annoyed and unsatisfied even if you won. Now I exclusively play games I enjoy all along. I just want a relaxing and interesting campaign or gamemode to play after work.

[@user-ii9bl6de2j]

The funnest part of SC 1 was when my friend made a campaign that included our two rp characters. Sure we were overpowered but it felt cool to have a story so easily made with them.

[@gibberconfirm166]

I know it's a different dead genre but it's crazy to me I made like 6 whole TIE Fighter campaigns when I was 13 with a DOS tool. That's like a 20 hour game I made in 100 (?) hours and "Star Citizen" hasn't released yet. It had full text dialogue and mission briefings, too!

[@GamerZakh]

My strongest memory with Age of Mythology was creating a co-op RPG adventure where two brothers were turned into a Frost and Fire Giant and they had to turn themselves back. That ability to create was so important to me loving the game. This analysis feels exactly right.

[@anachronity9002]

The Starcraft and Warcraft 3 map editors led directly to my current career in software. They were so user friendly that they acted as a natural ramp from wanting a cool thing in-game, to sort of making a best-effort version of that cool thing, to learning how to actually make that cool thing, to learning how to make that cool thing so well that it seemed as much part of the game as anything from the campaigns.

[@Abelhawk]

That is awesome, and I wish I could've figured out the map editor for Age of Mythology. I remember trying to put some units on the map editor and then they killed each other. Like, on the actual editor and not in a game. It was weird.

[@Zaderos]

Age of mythology is an absolute masterpiece in that aspect. I hope it regains it's honor with a future instalment

[@vladivanov5500]

AoM had the best custom (modded) editor back in the day. There was tons of stuff you could do with it that you couldn't with any other editor.

[@Arkantos117]

It was a very sad day when my hard drive failed and I lost all my AoM custom maps/scenarios that I'd built up since it released.

[@nathanjenkins5785]

To continue on the point at 12:00; Good pathing in an rts is as important, or even more important, than tight controls to a platformer. If your units are consistently taking ages to move across slightly complicated ground, it not only feels bad to play, but it also limits the maps both you and your community can make.

[@XionDarkblood13]

So something that helped me recently with ladder intimidation was a video by winter. It was one of his angry coach series and one of the games he was coaching was a diamond rank I think and he watched the replay and was getting upset how defensive the player was and how he refused to move out and the player in the twitch chat was trying to explain what he was worried about and winter swapped vision and went to his opponents base and they had 1/1/1 as terran and no expansion or anything else. It was like 8 minutes into the game. Some of the scvs were idle and besides the one push that had come across the map the opponent had done nothing else. Winter was like "This is what you are afraid of! Look at what your opponent is doing! Nothing! You are over here thinking you are fighting Maru and in reality this guy probably went AFK after sending his army over." Seeing that this was what Diamond players were struggling with has very much changed my views on how hard the ladder is and how much we psyche ourselves out. I really cannot stress how much you hit home on the idea that RTS games are presented as so difficult that only the biggest brains can attempt to play it but in reality the average person can have a consistent win rate with a little bit of practice.

[@Gonzalo_105]

i agree, lader intimidation exist mostly in our minds, and if the game has bad matchmaking.

[@LeprechaunZombie]

See, this is why I never really bought the idea that MOBA's are going to replace RTS's. MOBA's are pretty exclusively multiplayer-focused, which will draw in that hardcore audience, but alienates players like me who just want to play the game at their own pace. You could theoretically take a MOBA and give it some sort of single-player campaign that strips away the team aspect or the rigid "destroy the enemy base" gameplay, but then you've just reinvented Diablo.

[@benjaminlee985]

I think the closest thing to a single-player MOBA would be Dynasty Warriors-type games where you play a hero unit on a battlefield full of AI mooks and the occasional AI-controlled elite, and your goal is to seize or defend objectives around the map.

[@joelshadbolt2137]

and this is bad because?

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

@@joelshadbolt2137 Read the comment again. There was a point that was made that you entirely missed.

[@propheinx2250]

I honestly don't get why no MOBA developer has really done something like that. A side mode where you join with a group (MOBAs are an entirely team based game after all) and play through a dungeon and fight a boss at the end. It seems so obvious it's surprising it hasn't been done yet.

[@Handepsilon]

@@propheinx2250 Maybe because of this part? "...but then you've just reinvented Diablo."

[@MrNoobomnenie]

23:47 It's funny that you are mentioning Touhou in this section, because Touhou is a *perfect* example of how a fanbase-generated content can spawn an absolutely GINORMOUS community out of a something as niche as a series of indie shmups.

[@AresKusa]

Touhou is a bit of a really weird example seeing it has a massive following that the VAST MAJORITY of fans (especially western) never actually played the games. People got carried in to the memes, charming characters and good music - the game itself isn't even secondary, forget primary.

[@littlekuribohimposte]

@@AresKusa Well, I think that kind of because of the game Touhou is. It's a blisteringly hard bullet hell, where you need to know where your hitbox is (usually your sprite's neck) and keep track of the bullets flying everywhere. It's got a high barrier to entry, and that's probably why fans gravitate to the spinoffs in a genre they know, or just the goofball characters. And you know it's like that when 80% of the lore is just accepted fanon. And even then there's discourse like if Mima or Yuka taught Marisa the Master Spark.

[@kampa7671]

@@littlekuribohimposte Well, there are also fighting games which are significantly easier than bullet hell ones.

[@littlekuribohimposte]

@@kampa7671 I knink only Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. And the firs came was more like Arkanoid. But those are the only two mainline that break the formula

[@kampa7671]

@@littlekuribohimposte There's more of them - though admitedly I didn't play the newer ones, so I have no idea if they are more of a classic fighter games. SWR (and "Immaterial and Missing Power") certainly had bullet hell elements in its' story mode, which could get somewhat complex at higher difficulties - while still being far easier than the actual shooters. There's also Shoot The Bullet and Double Spoiler, which were still bullet hell, but slightly different from the main games, split into their own mini levels with progressively increasing difficulty. Made it much easier to learn the game in smaller chunks instead of 1CCing the entire thing in one go.

[@Ins0mnia365]

The 24y old game Jazz Jackrabbit 2 still has (even this small) a scene with a few excellent level editors. It inspired 2 guys and started up a studio that made the Ori games. So being able to mod is really, really important.

[@esrbin95]

Wait Ori games were inspirated by Jackrabbit modding/level making scene? wow, loved jackrabbit back in the days ; mind pointing me towards this user created stuff? ^^

[@eikestuhr9912]

@@esrbin95 bbhhhhhg

[@Sey318]

Man this video is a year old but is so on point. It only takes a look at wc3 or sc2 to realize how important things like campaign, story and elements from other genres like rpg are. The best RTS is one where the player that is terrified of pvp still ends up playing hundreds of hours. Not that a healthy pvp environment isn't great.

[@Person01234]

Honestly, my biggest gripe about modern RTS is the AI and the almost complete lack of progress, in many cases backsliding it's done since the RTSs of my youth. I like multiplayer just fine and I understand that the only way you'll get human level strategic thinking is online (though actually most online multiplayers largely consist of people who have one specific tactic they use and if it doesn't work they ragequit and go crying on the forums about how unbalanced the game is). But I am primarily in RTSs for the singleplayer, where I don't have to sweat and tryhard. And frankly, AI in modern RTSs is generally just a shitshow of incompetence, especially in games that require more finesse. I do find esports-ready balancing to be a problem in that it tends to homogenize factions in the pursuit of a near impossible goal of "perfect balance", whereas personally I prefer factions to be different and in many cases for them to be deliberately of different strengths as a primary method of difficulty selection for the game. But honestly, to me samey balancing is forgivable if the game is fundamentally fun and it doesn't matter how well balanced the game is for me if the AI has no clue what it's doing. It's going to suck all the fun out of the single player game and thus I won't stick around and jump into the occasional online game. And no, simply giving the AI cheats doesn't create strategic gameplay. Ultimately though, companies can't flash AI in front of people to show off how amazing their new game is and get people to buy it, so it's been almost completely neglected.

[@davidholmes3728]

Honestly rts games should buy Minecraft learning ai it would scale it's difficulty with you pretty quickly ect

[@abadenoughdude300]

If we at the turn of the century knew of the technology we have now (machine learning, tensor cores, cloud computing) we'd cream ourselves at the thought of what it could mean for game AI. But somehow completely nothing has changed and today's AI struggles just as much with the freaking pathfinding than it did in the early days of RTS.

[@loowick4074]

AI kinda stagnated

[@FelisImpurrator]

The latter comment about competitive PVP balancing sucking the diversity out of faction design applies to a lot of things. It's actually kind of a problem with all PVEVP hybrid games - look at, say, V Rising, which is fun at its core but has the blandest set of cookie-cutter abilities you can imagine in what's fundamentally a survival-crafting isometric RPG. It's like that because its devs designed kits using the MOBA paradigm they used for Battlerite, balancing hard around PVP "fairness" to the point that most abilities are reskins with very slight mechanical differences.

[@meyes1098]

Well a good enough AI will always beat a human at an RTS. Take for instance age of empires 2 (the one I'm most familiar with): an AI can potentialy micromanage to such a degree that it will always use the optimum nr of units to attack in an optimum way. What does this mean? Well let's say we have 10 archers vs 10 archers, each archer has 30 HP and deals 10 dmg, assuming we both attack at the same time to simplify things, what I can do as a human is select all 10 archers and focus on 1 enemy, thus killing each in one shot, but an AI can take groups of 3 and kill 3 of my archers in the same amount of time, while the last archer hits a new enemy. Now this particular example may very well be possible for a human, but even then a human will be much slower at it, while an AI will be almost instant, on the level of miliseconds. Now scale this up for 100 unit armies with varying stats, varying advantages and disadvantages (i.e. hill advantage in aoe2), positioning, counters and hardcounters, etc. and you can see how a very good AI can make it impossible for a human to beat it, or at the very least make it very close to impossible.

[@robinicus6347]

I'm so happy the main point of the video was Player Made Content. All of the games I play, I play for the mods, and because of playing those mods, I've MADE mods and because of that, I'm now becoming a video game developer. Without player made content I would be a completely different person

[@MaMastoast]

Making custom maps in warcraft and AoE2 is what put me on the path to be a game dev myself :)

[@H3Vtux]

Absolutely spot on analysis. As somebody who started RTS at age 8 when brood war came out, and have seen moba slowly take over this all rang completely true to me. Particularly the part about multiplayer focus making things too balanced and by extension less fun, I think extends beyond RTS. A well balanced multiplayer game is great, but it shouldn't be the only type of game, because eventually they feel like a second job. Too much focus on balance means you have to limit how much is in the game (as the starcraft guy was saying) you end up with things that are either redundant, or overpowered, and suddenly the unit count is cut in half. I think the future of the RTS should look something like starcraft coop. They're allowed to have overpowered and varied playstyles because the computer isn't going to whine, and you get all that great spectacle. Also if you've never played Star Wars Galactic battlegrounds I would reccommend it. It's an underrated gem.

[@LeDominantDeSC2]

Typically starcraft battlegrounds is very fun, but dear god the pathfinding is shit

[@njalsand133]

it needs a good setting and story with personality, Supreme commander as an example is just beeps and boops

[@loneirregular1280]

As someone who was all about... I really wish they kept supporting SC2 coop, eck the aprils fools event when you played against another player should have been a baseline non-ranked game feature. That thing was hilarious and fun

[@willbrandau4278]

Lol, terrible analysis.

[@nickmurphy4209]

I remember when I was younger on Friday nights when I got home from school I was allowed to go on the computer for 90 minutes and would always boot up Broodwar of SC2 and playing some matches with my dad when he got home from work. No other game has really don't that.

[@happilyignorant]

I haven't tried out Starcraft but hearing this actually makes me want to play it. I used to adore Command and Conquer Generals and I remember making M.A.D sessions where you had 8 AI and all of them were on the same side, you'd then see them all swamp the center of the map, but if you used a Nuke, Laser, Scud launcer on them, you'd find out that the AI actually did retaliatory strikes on you, a team member! Yes your own Team AI would nuke you if you nuked them!

[@halfbakedproductions7887]

I remember the notorious SCUD bug on C&C Generals. It was so bad that EA actually went back months later to release a one-off micro patch just to fix that and nothing else.

[@Marksman3434]

Both Starcraft 1 and 2 are great in their own way, and they both have great single player campaigns that provide great entertainment and storytelling and characters (though SC2's story goes a bit too crazy, IMO, but it's still compelling enough). Starcraft 1's remaster is actually very much worth purchasing if you plan on playing it. The upscale of the visuals and assets to 4K and widescreen display really elevates it to modern-day standards because its gameplay and art style is basically timeless.

[@grocksauce7422]

Brother, StarCraft (1&2) is undeniably the greatest rts out there… and if you like good stories, the campaign is Top notch !

[@dagg497]

Starcraft 1 is cool with friends over LAN. But Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm have both great story and missions. I don't like the third expansion Protoss Legacy of the Void, both the stlry and gameplay is really over the top and not so good.

[@Shineplasma]

SC1 is the apex of rts games.

[@willbrolley262]

Much as I love watching Lowko cast professional Starcraft, my favorite videos that he does are almost always the Bronze League Heroes matches, the viewer submitted games that tend to fall in Gold or lower. They're just utterly fantastic and hilarious to watch.

[@chat1296]

Both are fun to watch, though the entertainment in the bronze league heroes gives it

[@Eluxor]

Same reason why T90 Lowelo legends work, its more entretaining for me to see players just doing whatever, panicking and playing like I would rather than seeing people do the same strats 90% of the times while having small differences.

[@LordXadro]

Agreed, i skip most of his casting of league games

[@danielbuehner4273]

Supreme Commander deserves an honorable mention for having massive scale in an RTS in both map size and how you can get an economy rolling. It had a lot of good bits to it but really didn't take off.

[@cl5258]

Check out sanctuary. Hopefully, finally, a worthy spiritual successor

[@oblii5590]

whilst it stayed small, the game is modded and maintained by the community on Forged Alliance Forever. Feel free to check it out.

[@Ebb0Productions]

Forged Alliance Forever is still alive and well.

[@jeffbezos3633]

total annihilation clones (supreme commander is a spiritual successor) exists and are loved look up beyond all reason. Forged alliance forever, zero k etc

[@spritemon98]

How big are the maps?

[@JayMaverick]

Great analysis. Valve figured this out after seeing Quake's endless list of mods. It's funny how developers are still clueless about it 25 years later.

[@kerbonaut2059]

Valve took the day to read the playerbase and then sat on their ass, forever rich to do absolutely whatever the fuck they want because they got cash in the bag. I swear modern day capitalists are fucking stupid...

[@dodojesus4529]

Valve(at this point being mainly steam) realized this hard with workshops etc.

[@OstroGothic]

Had to come back and rewatch after playing Stormgate, and yea. Over-focus on 1v1, weak campaign (so far), and lack of "wow factor". Here's hoping they'll turn it around and that ZeroSpace doesn't make the same mistakes

[@Lordblow1]

For every RTS I have played there are 2 things I have enjoyed above all. 1 the campaign. 2 the arcade stile mods in multiplayer. The 1v1 ladder is fun to watch every now and then but it is just so much of a grind. Ladder rly is the only gamemode where half the time I wonder if I even enjoyed myself at all.

[@RuslanLagashkin]

Yep, it is like work after work. Against people who are taking it too seriously.

[@zapleesquad7976]

As a inspired game developer, this video will be referenced intensely when I make the rts I always wanted to make. I always thought to fine tune the competitive multiplayer, but after this video, the campaign and editor shall be made with much care. Great video! I really enjoyed it.

[@jamespaguip5913]

RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS games for watch this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4WYqKiFpqyejLc

[@jamespaguip5913]

RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS games for example immortal gates of pyre.

[@tanostrelok2323]

I'm just a nobody that played RTS for over 20 years, but I''d also suggest army customization. Not asthethics, but being able to select from various units for a specific slot, or to finetune/create your own units from preset tools, basically what SC2 tried to do with their campaign, but expanded to the whole game. Sure, this could mean that the tryhards could end up creating armies entirely different than what you envisioned, but it could also enable everybody else to have fun with their own meme units, or to expand on what you've made.

[@zapleesquad7976]

@@tanostrelok2323 I like that idea. I was planning to do that, but now that I know that it’s something people want, I’m definitely going to make that a feature.

[@Kaefer1973]

@@jamespaguip5913 RTS is dead, ever since 1992 almost only Dune 2 Clones are being released. It's poison for the genre. I mean I still play Siege (1992) for it's originallity, that shouldn't be a thing.

[@Lanadra]

Command & Conquer in particular has an amazing modding scene. Massive mod projects like Twisted Insurrection or Mental Omega keeping pretty much every entry of the C&C universe somewhat relevant.

[@vaelophisnyx9873]

I scoffed at his displaying of C&C Generals ZH's 13 MILLION mod downloads, followed by dismissing it as not relevant like...C&C is strategy. Bliz never understood how to make an RTS and instead just made twitchy clicky micro management games.

[@Noah-zz8uw]

Yeah, Corona Mod, Remix Mod, Tiberium Essence, Mental Omega, Tiberium Crisis, Rise of The Reds, all of them are great, and many of them are practically iconic!

[@AHunDread]

8:54 the casual to hardcore conversion rate is so low because the moment you queue in to a skirmish multiplayer game, a level 999 BOSS unironically spawns and trumps your previous two matches against other noobs into hardcore cocaine dust for them to sniff with one simple worker rush (or equivalents), just like you were unironically filming here; meanwhile the casual player, in this "transitive state" into the hardcore, expected a more traditional, lower apm strategy not dependent on incredibly min-maxed numbers, some ridiculous attention-boosting drug, energy drinks and countless sweaty hours of beating gaming mouse keys into an orgy of clicks and GG's. A similar story happens with f2p model 10-10, 15-15 or larger arena games. The series of lost games and the inevitable result of a crater of an MMR will lead you to quit online gaming, as it no longer provides any sort of appropriate stimuli to get you into the state of being hooked. It's even worse when Hardcore's create new accounts in order to skyrocket a clean scoreboard (smurfing), at least in games where the MMR actually means something other than a way to discriminate recruitment into hardcore clan mode type matchmaking. On the bright side, it makes you want to touch grass more often.

[@chippy_the_monk]

I think that another good point is not to be afraid of a console RTS. Millions of gamers around the world play console but not PC games, it’s a huge player base that shouldn’t be forgotten. Console rts like StarCraft 64 only suck because you can’t emulate a mouse with a controller. But rts made with a controller in mind like the Pikmin series feel great to play, but wouldn’t transfer to PC well. Don’t be afraid to make an rts for console, just remember that two joysticks are NOT a mouse.

[@twotoohonest2907]

Hell halo wars is a decent RTS, the controls are okay enough, there is spectacle aplenty, some decently popular mods, the campaign was fun enough with missions varying from each other

[@MaMastoast]

Hmm.. I think it's very difficult to make a game that works on both PC and consoles.. Even first person games tend to sacrifice the PC user experience in favor of making the game controller friendly.. So yea you could make a console RTS; but it should probably be console exclusive.

[@-someguywhoisadegeneratefo1487]

I actually play CnC 3 Tib. Wars on console. Mainly because I haven’t beaten the campaigns on Hard since the game’s release, but the gameplay is just so fun and I love its style. However, I look at PC CnC and I just wish I had what they had. However, I’ve been a console gamer for a long time so I wouldn’t invest my time anywhere else. Not yet anyway. Anyways, my point is I’m glad to have the game on console where I play since I don’t even have a PC, but in a way they just seem to play better when you have a keyboard and mouse. Maybe they could allow that kind of support for the console versions, but then again, that would be kinda annoying for MP having someone with much easier access to high APMs than you.

[@Kriegschwein]

Or you can, you know... Make an RTS playable with mouse & keyboard on console? Xbox's have native support for those. You just release them on these platforms nad put giant banner "Mouse&keyboard required". We don't live in age then diffrent types of controllers are locked to their respective platforms.

[@theliato3809]

Console RTS is difficult to nail down properly if it’s not built with it in mind

[@ShadowWolfTJC]

I feel that some of the recent base builder games, such as Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Craft the World, and Timberborn to name a few, check all those rts boxes, but does so in a more... calm and casual way (more akin to playing, say, Animal Crossing as opposed to playing, say, Doom)?

[@shieldphaser]

Rimworld, yes. It's built on a core of a tactical strategy game before segueing into colony management. The other three? Not so much.

[@pallingtontheshrike6374]

they all hit the sandbox and to a degree the rpg genres, which, surprise surprise, is half+ of the RTS genre.

[@brobzoid]

yeah, the old RTS games that were big hits often hit multiple different 'use cases'. age of empires 2 being a great game for just starting with a town center and some farmers that you eventually built into a huge city, while also being a great game for smashing huge armies against one another, while also being a game focused on historical conflicts and factions, etc, etc. Today all of these different cases have their own robust games, like how total war is unparalleled for smashing huge armies against one another, or those building games you mention, there are also great games focused entirely on base defense like they are billions, etc, etc. Not to take away from Grant's point, which I find convincing, but there has been some substantial shifts in the market in general that impact what and how an RTS can position itself as far as selling points go

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

@@brobzoid Base building is such an important and for some reason forgotten about feature of RTS games. Remember the massive failure that was C&C4? not having base building largely killed it.

[@Default78334]

@@KaiserMattTygore927 Which kinda bums me out because some of my favorite RTSs of the past were ones that basically had no base building or resource gathering and focused instead on territory control mechanics like Sacrifice and Z.

[@-Raylight]

Back then, the devs are gamers too. They play their own games and if it's not fun, they'll change it. Now? Corporate companies like EA, Blizzard, etc will not allow that sadly. It's more strict Wasn't he biggest RTS right now is AoE2DE?

[@Kyrkby]

Hard disagree there. To say that developers today don't count as gamers is very out of touch. And what even is "back then"? The 2000s, or earlier?

[@danielmorris8748]

@@Kyrkby What he is saying is that if old RTS developers found something not fun they would often just change it, now to do so they often have to deal with corporate so they don’t bother.

[@Rintero_Pryde]

Casual RTS player here, most recently enjoyed Sins of a Solar Empire with Sins of the Prophets HALO and Star Wars: Interregnum mods (from modDB). I've played the mods far more than the base game. The RTS I've truthfully enjoyed the MOST in the last several years was They Are Billions. And that's single player af. So given these examples from my own RTS experiences in the last decade or more, this video seems spot-on. Nice video!

[@dionisio5831]

I think a great example that shows the importance of user created content in RTS is what happened with Age of Empires. The reason why the Definitive Editions and AoE4 exist, is because a group of modders were allowed to make an official expansion, and since then they've added tons of new content to the whole series.

[@frozenfeet4534]

aoe4 already failed though. 7 months out without a single crumb of new content. the game is barebones, it's 'balanced' but without *im*balances that are interesting enough to create fun positions to play or watch

[@jamespaguip5913]

RTS games are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS games for watch this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4WYqKiFpqyejLc

[@jamespaguip5913]

@@frozenfeet4534 RTS game are not dead there are indie developers still making new RTS game for example immortal gates of pyre.

[@frozenfeet4534]

yes, people will always make RTS games, but those games will never be relevant on a scale above forums specifically dedicated to them. there's never going to be another brood war, especially not with a name like that

[@rioplats]

@@frozenfeet4534 Yeah, and that's due to Relic and Microsoft not seeming to understand *why* the older titles thrived for so long, and why the Definitive Editions continue to do so. I played in the Stress Test, but only played vs AI since I'm an offline/campaign RTS fan, and held off my purchase because modding tools weren't going to release until half a year after the game was out. Never mind expansions, yikes D:

[@00Mikeyman]

As an RTS fan for my entire life, starting with warcraft 3 and playing custom games since the age of 7, this video completely hit the money. I 100% agree with your takes on what makes the OG RTS games stand out so significantly. Great video! :)

[@popeneiad7968]

I love that point on good editors. The SC2 editor looks so insane to use, I’m sure that people who can parse it are able to make more things, but I could make epic missions even with the simplicity of the World Editor (WC3’s editor). Sadly all my campaigns are now locked out by the paywall of reforged, but I would love to continue making more of them

[@DaDunge]

The w3 editor was actually a sleeping giant it was superpowerful.

[@funybirbman3813]

Yeah, you can make some wild stuff with the SC2 editor. I once saw a MOBA shooter. A shooter. In starcraft 2.

[@MaMastoast]

I did a lot of editor stufff for warcraft as a teenager.. was excited to try out all the nw options for sc2 when it was announced.. Sadly the user experience of the editor is pretty terrible and while it allows you to do some amazing things way beyond the scope of the wc editor, even the most basic things take ages to do.

[@DaDunge]

@@MaMastoast I remember a friend showed me a starcraft 1 mod where you controlled a single unit which you could upgrade to other units for money you earned by fighting others. So yeah the Blizzard editors have always bene strong.

[@D_U_N_E]

Only half way through, but a decent enemy AI would be one of the top things I'd like to see in many RTS games. For just getting to know the game, you can be completely selfish because you aren't ruining the experience of another while you get on the tracks, and if you just want a lazy game you can tailor your experience. If you have a busy life, or are completely interrupted, being able to pause is massive. Even if it's just a pretty image you are seeking, competent enemy AI and a spectator mode can push another small subset for continued enjoyment. That said, I am slightly irritated by CoH2 AI, I only play on expert, but the extra-resources and 'cheating' nature makes it a terrible tool for grasping actual online play. It at least is something, but I really hope they spend some of the budget in the upcoming title getting an expert AI that actually takes an expert to defeat.

[@SkySweeperSyn]

I'm surprised the Supreme Commander series wasn't brought up in this discussion. That's one I would put up there with the other 4 in all honesty, one of my favorite RTSs.

[@anab0lic]

check out Beyond all reason if you liked supcom, its even better tbh.

[@bradleylong3230]

​@@anab0licI disagree, I found BAR's unit count to be extremely bloated, and the base building is less interesting imo. It adds complexity, but it just doesn't feel nearly as tight as SupCom does, especially with FaF installed.

[@dundundada]

I've always loved bass building which is why I really like these "new" swarm defense games. Like Riftbreaker or they are billions

[@briangen0]

On the contrary, I enjoy playing RTS but absolutely hate Tower Defense games.

[@dundundada]

@@briangen0 I didnt say you had to like tower defense because you like rts

[@jasonsoliva6678]

Base building to defend against a rts enemy attack is fun but tower defense are really constrictive and stress inducing even though they are essentially the same objective. In tower defense you need to trial and error once you get to the more difficult waves while in RTS if your base gets destroyed it's usually because you did not scout and were inefficient with your economy and not punctual with your military.

[@ekki1993]

@@jasonsoliva6678 It's a distillation of what you do in RTS. At some point you get attacked and need to defend, which can be a fun experience especially if it's tailored for a game. Same goes for 4X games taking away the time restraint for better macro play at the expense of a lower micro skill ceiling. It's a genre that's so vast and mechanically deep that it spawned multiple other genres that were easier to get into and thus blew up.

[@tanostrelok2323]

@@briangen0 Sure, but defending on RTS is not just setting up towers or cannons or whatever your favorite game uses, but to ambush, counterattack, managing your economy, but most importantly, it's just one part of the game, unlike TD where it's the whole of it. On RTS, unless you're on multiplayer against somebody outplaying you, a defensive approach is just an option (Especially considering how many games have worked to make turtling inviable in multiplayer).

[@olexander13]

Thank you for the content, man.I also watch ur archives channel every day. This gives me a relief in these desperate times in my Ukraine

[@chrislee367]

Fascinating video -- so I have played RTS since ~1993 (Dune II) which I played with my younger brother. Then got into Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Tiberium Wars, etc. I played Warcraft 2 towards the end of college, Age of Empires (II, III, IV including knowing some of the developers at Stainless Steel Studios and Ensemble, Age of Mythology), Starcraft, SC2, Warcraft III, etc. (I still play SC2 from time to time) I also played a lot of other titles much less known (Dark Reign, Dark Reign II, Kohan, Star Wars: Empire at War, Star Trek: Armada, Armada 2, etc.) I was going to approach Hasbro at some point with a lot of the ideas that you had: You want a dynamic enough game that could be a variety of games (First Person Shooter, Role Playing/MMORPG, Real Time Strategy, etc.) but you also want to give a lot of creativity in terms of user-generated content, whether that's new games or designing new units or even "shooting your own videos/re-enacting cartoons." I was going to approach Hasbro to build a Transformers themed platform.

[@etzool]

I'm one of those casuals that loved SC2 but wouldn't bother with multiplayer, and I LOVE the "two drunk toddlers fencing with pool noodles" line. It makes me want to give my two-year-old son a shot of vodka and challenge him to a match (though I've heard he might have a hard time playing Zerg until he's completed postgrad).

[@asgarzigel]

Honestly, with most RTS games releasing without even a basic replay / spectator system as well, the devs don't even seem to care much about the PvP scene either. Like, content creators want to cast games and stuff, it's literally free advertisement and they probably have these functions internally for development purposes anyway. It's always so bizarre to me when that happens.

[@ronenth]

RTS was one of the best game genre's that my dad showed to me, starcraft 1 was the first rts game i played , back then i played that together with my dad, watching him do campaigns, and clearing out enemy waves, man it was good times, seeing that the genre is dying truly made me sad, i hope sc 3 will be a thing.

[@Llortnerof]

There's actually quite a few new RTSes coming out. The most notable probably being Homeworld 3. The only reason the genre was ever "dying" was because publishers got it into their head that it was and set wrong priorities.

[@MODEST500]

RTS has a learning curve and is very demanding mentally , coz you have to keep track of so many things.

[@ChadVulpes]

But it's not. You can play Warcraft III campaign and especially Starcraft II campaign with no knowledge of RTS games and still have a good time.

[@aloe7794]

It's only the ladder that's mentally taxing usually You can play literally everything else in RTSes as you wish and most of the time you're gonna have a great time playing

[@MODEST500]

@@aloe7794 yes i agree with you on that

[@bronyhub]

Man that part about spectacle and modding is so damn true. I still go back and play games like Dawn of War and Command and Conquer 3 because fresh mods come out even right now that add insane new units and exciting strategy opportunities and both engines hold up very well. Modding can fundamentally change the way you experience a game, which is why I've spent countless hours playing Vivecraft (VR Minecraft with full java mod support) when I would have rarely spent time with Minecraft normally. Now I look at any modern game I plan to invest time into, whether it be an FPS, RPG or RTS and if the developers don't have firm plans to release modding tools to the community, or worse yet, plan to make the game a "live service experience" the game is pretty much DOA to me.

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

The warhammer 40k game is an extremely unbalanced RTS. But I often go back to playing it from time to time just to hear the amazing voice-lines, the awesome empire soundtrack and the absolute loud chaos of the combat.

[@olefredrikskjegstad5972]

I can attest to the user-generated content bringing me back to AoEII time and time again. There are a lot of really intricate and well-made custom campaigns that you can play on the mod workshop. So much work done by other players that I can enjoy. It's great.

[@HalfTangible]

The RTS also runs into the issue of being really, REALLY hard to produce and make good (hence few if any indies and those that come out are often painfully janky). If you wanna make, say, an old-school JRPG, it's piss easy in comparison. But making an RTS requires so much knowledge of game design just to get set up, let alone make decent.

[@Spaced92]

For me the reason for this is because all the most successful RTS developers were dragged away from the genre unnaturally, sort of ending their prime before they were allowed to die out. Starcraft/WC 3? Most of them went to work on WoW. Westwood? Dead from failed EA MMORPGs. Relic? Got their devs poached by companies like Blizzard to work on various stuff before falling off. CA? Unlike most they were uninterrupted and despite ups and downs are the biggest RTS devs there is. Like this guy said, there's a selection bias with modern RTS devs, they don't know the main RTS audience. They think every RTS player is a Starcraft type when they don't even understand why Starcraft succeeded. But even then he doesn't get it right IMO, when did some supreme editor make AoE or C&C as big as they were? Was always a Blizzard thing.

[@victuz]

@@Spaced92 I was never into RTS except for AoE because I found them too micromanage intensive and unfun for laid-back experiences... But Creative Assembly managed to completely shatter my bias, since their games give more attention to macromanagement, so your choices have much higher impact in the long run... And even better, their games give you enough time to think well about your decisions.

[@Matrix2Strata017]

@@Spaced92 Precisely your first sentence is what I believe. I would probably say it's evident as we saw Homeworld, one example, disappear despite it being a GOAT. Those who made great games back in the day, I would say their time is ending or coming to a near end as the industry pretty much pushes against their desires.

[@FFXfever]

@@victuz the sad thing for me is that while there's a studio macro focused games, there really isn't one for Micro. I kinda play Kenshi for that hit lol.

[@nervsouly]

Making an old school JRPG is not easy either. Because let's be honest with ourselves for a moment, most of them suck major ass. Especially the key component of story and writing style is mostly done by semi professionals and makes you reach for the skip SKIP OMG SKIP!! button rather fast.

[@molotov6844]

While rts games seem to be having problem, the "real time tactical" sub genre games like wargame red dragon, warno, steel division 2, regiments and the much anticipated broken arrow are all still strong in their gameplay.