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RTS is Succeed by players and failed by players.
AmalurLegend
Index：
Part I - RTS is Succeed by players.
Part II - RTS is Failed by players.
Part III - Why does RTS genre fail?
Part IV - Can Blizzard's case be copy? Unfortunately, no.
Part V - What would happen to RTS genre in the future?
Part VI - My thoughts.
Epilogue
Now, we are in the Dark Age of RTS genre, and it's not just begun, but it's already here. In the future, it will be more Darker and Darker.
Please hear me out：
RTS is Succeed by players and failed by players.
Part I - RTS is Succeed by players.
[I] Before the strong internet connection people era, the RTS genre contains a wide range variety of players and at that time almost every type players can stay at their favorite play-style and there is less tension between players and developers.
[II] At the early era, there are different types players.
1. High Skill players - they play PvP with others.
2. VS AI players - they play VS AI mode.
3. Campaign players - they play campaign.
4. Mod players - they play Mod.
[III] The point is they are separated well and enjoy themselves.
Taking Warcraft 3 for example, there are so many players "Claimed" they have played or are playing WC3, but in fact they are playing different modes of WC3, only a small amount of all players do play the 1v1 online PvP mode and another are playing Campaign or VS AI mode and another are playing DOTA and other Mod games that's the biggest part of players.
[IV] From the beginning, there are not much players like the origin content provided by developers. So, after the Mod tool releasing, players just to make what they want.
[V] Conclusion of this part：
During the weak internet connection people era, there are not much choice in the game market and players can find what they want in RTS genre by different game modes and Mod Tools and the weak internet connection makes players do stay in their land, so there is not much tension between players and developers.
And why RTS can be successful? Because it contains a lot of different genre's players and different game modes players.
To be continued......
Comments
AmalurLegend
Part II - RTS is Failed by players.
[I] Now it's a strong internet connection people era and there are more and more "Specialization" genre than before. Let's take some examples. If players want to play build-simulation games and then they got it(0 AD). If players want to play "grand strategy with real time battle" and then they got it(Total War series). If players want to play DOTA and then they got it(LOL).
[II] Well the bad things are coming. RTS games lose its capability to contain the variety of players and left its original "Face" and then players just "realize"(In fact, they don't realize it and just feel they don't like those present RTS games) how they don't like RTS genre.
[III] Does it help if developers released a Mod Tools to let players create Mods? Honestly, not much help, because those Mods can not competitive to those "Specialization genre". We can see those Mods produced by SC2's Mod Tool and those are not as popular as WC3 and don't even mention the other games' Mods.
[IV] Now, developers have to deal with those players, but they can't. So, what ever they released, they just got failed.
[V] Conclusion of this part：
During the strong internet connection people era, there are so much choice in the game market and players can find what they want in other genres and that's not Mods can compete with and the strong internet connection makes players do not stay in their land, but to expand their land to others, so there is more tension between players and developers.
And why RTS is failed? Because it no longer contains a lot of different genre's players and different game modes players.
To be continued......
AmalurLegend
Part III - Why does RTS genre fail?
[I] The Traditional Structure of RTS games can not adapt the new environment.
Now, the new environment is easy to play, fast to get reward and Bipolar system(Extremely E-sport and Extremely Casual).
First, the nature of strategy games is the complexity, if we reduce the complexity and then we just reduce the Playing-Durability of game itself.
Let's see why those TBS can survive well, because they keep the complexity, but they do not put pressure on players, and I mean those TBS can let players take their time to play and can have a fun single player experience and that's hard for Traditional Real Time Strategy games to reach this goal. I remember someone claim that only to back to the "Root"(Old Formula) and then RTS can revive. I think no. The Total War can survive and sell well is not because it back to the root, but due to it can let players take their time to play and can have a fun single player experience.
Second, there is not much room for RTS to give reward to players, because the original reward is players learned new strategies and that's not developers can "give". What can developers give are skins, voice and special effect and so on. But those rewards are not as significant as those were in MOBA games.
Third, the Bipolar system - Extremely E-sport and Extremely Casual. This situation makes the development become more harder. In the traditional structure, if mechanic prefer the E-sport side and then it will not friendly to extremely casual side and vise versa. So, developers have 3 options - to make an extremely E-sport game or to make an extremely casual game or to change the structure of Strategy games in Real Time. But not to put all things together, it just makes everyone unhappy and nothing more.
[II] The Split Players.
The split players already there at before, now there is just have no tools to keep the form of union, so the problems reveal. As I mentioned before, there are reasons that makes players got split, but there are other reasons. I take Relic for example, they try to make a lot of different games, so they create a lot of small player groups among every titles. So, we have DOW1 player base and DOW2 player base and now we have DOW3 player base and each group size is small. And why they are arguing? Because they want to establish the "Right Face" of DOW game. This is the bad consequence of making a lot of different game-styles under the same title. If were I, I would not make a "Sequel" at the same title, but make a "Sidequel".
[III] Time is different.
The strong internet connection people era is not the reason but the Catalyst to make RTS fail.
First, with the High speed and High density of internet, players can find those games they want to play now a day. There are more choice than the old times, so players no longer have to stick at RTS games.
Second, the strong internet connection will make those split player divisions become more solid small groups and it will sharp the conflict when there is no tools to help keeping the union.
Third, the Consumer awareness is higher and higher. There are more and more players think they pay the money and then they should got what they want, but refuse to observe the information of the product first and then to decide to buy the game. They are almost asking those things the product can not provide and then they are asking refund. The strong internet connection does increase the tension between players and developers. To make a game is similar to make a policy, and government can not satisfied everyone. Players have to adapt to accept the compromise.
To be continued......
AmalurLegend
Part IV - Can Blizzard's case be copy? Unfortunately, no.
[I] I have to say that the business model of SC2 is successful. Blizzard does take care of every player groups among PvP players, Campaign players, and Mod players. At the casual players' part, there are a lot of Coop mission every week for players to play and at the E-sport players' part there are a lot of tournaments in every years. So, that's why SC2 can still keep their players.
[II] But could other studios copy Blizzard's experience?
The success of SC1 is just a coincidence and it has a relationship with the Korean government's policy. In that time the KR government try to raise their industry and one of all is game media industry and at that time the Best PvP RTS is SC1, so they just pick SC1 to develop their E-sport industry. If the KR government does not give his hand and push the E-sport industry hardly and then we will not see the "E-sport scene" today. (KR has bought at least 4,000,000 copies of SC1)
And we can see that the KR government adapts the market very fast. At before, they make RTS games too, but soon they found their "Blue Ocean Strategy", so they make a lot of MMORPG and then now they make a lot of Mobile games.
So, it's hard to see the KR government have the will to support another RTS game. And it's hard to see other country to support a RTS game by their government.
[III] What can Relic do?
Relic can not make a RTS game harder than SC2. Even if they can, those professional players still will not come to play their game, unless Relic provide a lot of price. And It's hard to change the habit of players and audience.
Maybe the Coop mission has some room for Relic to do some effort to compete with SC2, but I am not optimistic, because Blizzard can provide new content every week and that's not Relic can provide.
To be continued......
AmalurLegend
Part V - What would happen to RTS genre in the future?
[I] There will have less AAA titles and will have more independent titles.
[II] What ever Developers released, players just don't like those new games. (Not remake or remaster.)
[III] More and more players just watch the RTS game tournaments and less and less players do really play the games.
Part VI - My thoughts.
[I] I think now it's time to develop a new genre for strategy game and do not tied by those traditional structure. If we still tied to those traditional structure and then the genre can never adapt the new environment.
[II] To really realize the words "Easy to play and Hard to master".
I take "Igo" for example. (The "Igo" is a kind chess of Japan.) Igo is very easy to play and every one can do it, just to put those chess on the board and there is no APM issue and Igo is also hard to master, due to its tons of strategy variety. I have to say： I think it's a shame of Blizzard that they never realize this words in their RTS games.
[III] To test how good of players' decision and not to test how fest could players click.
The rule of past RTS games is "Do more and more decisions as you can and the winner is who have more better decisions".
The rule of new genre(My idea) is "The decision number is limited and players have to increase their quality of every decision"
And I think it's a fundamental rule of a new genre.
Epilogue -
Honestly,now I am very relief after I finally figure out what I like is the strategy games in real time and not the real time strategy games. So, I can get out of the trap of seeking the good RTS games. I am so tired, after the long journey of seeking good RTS games and now I can rest. Now, I can study the new genre and there is another long way to go.
Thanks for reading.
jambai
Not sure all this introspection of the genre is answering your question. One also has to look onto the other genres and why they're making the numbers they are and what the average gamer of 2017 looks like.
Draconix
And how the classic solutions can further improve if not?
I suppose, that not all of them can be improved in a good way, as long as people opinions will vary.
Martin
I think it is good to both have sequels to games that stick to the formular and improve upon it, and sequels that dare stray from it to try something new, don't see why we should restrict ourselves to one or the other. It is just important that the developer is transparent about the game; not as in saying "hey hey if you like the prequel dont buy this" since that would be ridiculous from a marketing standpoint, but being open about the differences, what is added and what is removed from the game. We had pretty much all information about how dow3 was going to be so I think they did it right, (aside from the part where they had to sell their game and maintain a playerbase of course).
Draconix
Good examples, but as for new games, sorry, but people should stop expect them to be previous games's remakes or improvements.
To be honest, this is Life after all, and not always we can get what we want. And I'm actually fine with it, because if people would always get what they want, they might be happier, but also more selfish than they are now.
I think that there shouldn't be so much need to improve only classic games over time, new installments should also be apprecciated for trying be innovative. And no, improving a succesfull formula isn't trully a innovation, but just remaking. We should apprecciate developers for trying something new.
Ololo111
I would doubt that. Most of the modern titles failed or hit under the line. The very Steel Division with so much commendations on how it is better than DoW3 now is nothing more but corpse on my prime-time. Just like the very genre. With exeption that it's still rotting.
It's not about the "Face", @AmalurLegend It's more about the genre being bloated, first, to be betrayed by developers, next, (DoW2, Universe at War and all CnCs) and to be betrayed by the very playerbase at it's end (Etherium, 8-bit, DoW3).
Seriously, I can't call anyone fond to DoW2 as someone having his own taste. More like "victim of good marketing" to me. People don't know what to admire. And they can always go and play their stinky CoD for equivalent "fun".
Bleh. It's really shameful to be part of this. These very reviews "I was playing DoW since 6 y.o" and by "DoW" this creature mean DC. Instead of issueing a handful of freindly magistral kicks, the majority is making him into their journalist idol (for a month or two, but still...).
For the most time I was in the genre, I considered "solo-playing dinnies" (I guess, it's "campaign players", in your terms) as an arch-enemies of progress. And demise of Etherium made me sure on it. That was stupid. It wasn't just them.
The whole playerbase reformed in such a way, so I have no idea of exact proccess. I guess, most of the people can call it's true name (sadly, including you). One thing I know for sure, that I don't want to be one of them.
So, yes, RTS is for degenerates. And for Elites, of course.
Iliya
@AmalurLegend hello man. Not sure if you get this message but I just made an account just to reply to you. Wanted to know your conclusion is on point. I spent months also recently trying to look for a good RTS game and I could not find one. I cam to the exact conclusion as you tho with different reasoning. You placed it perfectly, we don't need Real Time Strategy games, their time has passed. We need Strategy games at Real Time.
In the past it was not possible due to graphics and engines required to show big battles with Units not being dumb. So it was inevitable for super AMP heavy where ever unit needs baby sitting and the guy is fast at clicking and baby sits every unit at once comes at top.
RTS Genre can be extremely popular again. It just has to move away massively from the traditional super APM ideology and give players less decisions to make but those decisions being more important and impacting ones. Showcase massive battles with visual spectacle instead of tiny skirmishes in corners of the map. Add some more strategic aspects such as politics to the game. Massively speed up the process of game, this can include starting with already an established base and army and expanding on that. Reducing boring time and increasing fun time. The amount of micro required needs significant reduction specially in sections such as economy and base building, replaced by more strategic decisions. Another factor needs improvement is Synergy and team play. RTS games usually lack synergy and each player kinda does his own stuff and team-play is not important.
Another issue why RTS failed and I think forgot to mention is monetization of games in past. Back then it was more important to super hype a game and make it quickly and sell. The more games you make and sell the better. Something not possible for RTS which takes time and effort to make. Now however Live-services are superior it is more important to make a game that is good and lasts long than sells well. And there is no game that as addictive and long lasting as an RTS game!
ReubenUK
Didn't the Dark Age of RTS surpass us years ago? I believe that the RTS genre crossed over to the Age of Strife a while back. There are still bastions of hope though the increase in warp storms prevent them from reaching out.
nachocheese
According to blizzard, most people play either the campaign or custom games on their RTS games (including SC2). usually custom maps and mods, while competetive players are a minority.
So it seems like trying to go straight for the competitive minority will always result in failure. Right now its probably the better to go for single player and user created content, if you don't have a casual playerbase you will never get any kind of E-sports going anyway.
Dandalus
If DoW3 was as it is but had vp's instead of power core it would have been a success. That simple change, not to mention more improvements. DoW3 was a stupid creation aiming for moba ++heresy redacted++ and I wonder who believed moba players, who just play mobas cause they are free, are gonna spend 60€ on a strategy game cause it has a power core win condition.
Draconix
Well, it didn't pay off of course. But doesn't change the fact for me that it is actually a very nice game especially when playing Annihilation. I think that if Relic could launch the game with Power Core and especially Annihilation at start, then it could be better received than it was. But overall, I'm glad that they added Annihilation eventually.
Thought Victory Point indeed could be a better alternative, but I always preffered Annihilation over Victory Point.
ReubenUK
I'd personally not want a mode centred around camping victory points to be the mode played in quick matches.