What makes a good RTS

[iHap]

So I recently saw a thread going over on the Company of Heroes official forums, and it got me wondering. What kind of mechanics would you absolutely love to see in a RTS.


I'll start out by going a little off track. World of Warcraft, I'm an avid player and I actually thinkit adds to the role playing, You have to repair your armor constantly or else your damage goes down.

Okay back on track. I have yet to play a game where the longer than infantry, equipment, armor is used the more it degrades. For example, in Company of Heroes, sending out a tank, it degrades the wheel tracks, bullets dent the armor, and the armor degrades. When an enemy tank hits my tank, then I go back and repair my tank it's 100% new practically. What I would like to see happening is if my tank survives, and I roll it back and repair it, it doesn't have the same damage, armor as it did when I first rolled it out. Same with weapons my infantry carries. Firing a weapon degrades the metal and when you add the war torn weapons the army was using back then they might have needed constant check ups to keep that weapon in perfect conditioning order.

[Hemalin]

I already have little incentive to keep my units alive, I don't need weapon/armor degradation added into the mix.

[crazyD]

I hate weapon degradation in any game. It may add to the "realism", but it just makes things frustrating by adding extra chores.

[Press Ninja]

I already have little incentive to keep my units alive, I don't need weapon/armor degradation added into the mix.

I agree. You're already micromanaging enough as it is, that would just complicate things more.

Personally I like the route Dawn of War 2 is taking, where you choose your leaders play style (Offensive, defensive and healing) and your units actually matter. It really gives it the feel of a tabletop miniature game that these games were based off of, such as Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000.

[ClannerDelta]

I already have little incentive to keep my units alive, I don't need weapon/armor degradation added into the mix.

Couldn't agree with this more. I've been a "survivalist" player in RTS's for as long as I can remember and its been a handicap until CoH hit. Taking care of your units and keeping them alive is hard enough without them being completely useless because of it.

As for what I'd like to see? Something like a Chromehounds style meta-map for online competition. You select your race/side every time the campaign starts or you come into it and you play it like that. With everyone's wins/losses adding to a money pool, money they can use to customize their units. Even if it's just cosmetic with different models/skins/paint colors/decals costing X amount of in game cash.

Something along the lines of RTS Guildwars style.

I would also like an FPS/RTS hybrid. With one person commanding from an RTS perspective and 1-3 others commanding a unique vehicle in a FPS perspective. Something like the King Tiger in CoH.

[Hemalin]

I want to see physics utilized more. It was really awesome in DoW but it was mainly utilized for visual effects and not really for gameplay.

[iHap]

I would also like an FPS/RTS hybrid. With one person commanding from an RTS perspective and 1-3 others commanding a unique vehicle in a FPS perspective. Something like the King Tiger in CoH.
Check out Savage 2. It's free, and is a RTS/FPS Fantasy game.

Honestly the reason why I see fit for an equipment degradation is because in CoH you can't just throw any type of unit against another unit, you HAVE TO HAVE THE RIGHT UNIT FOR THE JOB. I love CoH, but always having to one up your opponent gets boring after a while.

[Voodoo]

I believe we are seeing the RTS genre at the beginning of a 3 way split... In the future of PC Gaming I see three types of RTS games:

RT4X - Sins of a Solar Empire was the first
RTS - Dawn of War, Starcraft, C&C, etc...
RTT - Dawn of War 2, Ground Control, World of Conflict, etc...

RT4X = Real Time 4X Game
RTS = Real Time Strategy Game (Requires the creation and/or support of a main base)
RTT = Real Time Tatical Game (Changes focus on the units and combat versus the base building)

Regarding CoH, I'd love to see CoH mega-expanded by including naval battles which would also cover beach landings. I could totally see a game like CoH made just like Sins of a Solar Empire.... Instead of zooming in and out of solar systems, you are zooming in and out of land masses.

I guess, essentially, Supreme Commander without the suckage. Except a Company of Heroes at this level of execution would include the entire area of conflict. For example, I have a tank battle going on in Egypt, I zoom out and zoom in to check to see how well I am defending France from the American invasion...

Now, regarding the question of this thread... What makes a good RTS? It is when you can use strategy versus massive force to win. That's what makes it a kick ass RTS to me. When you are basically zerging around the map in a RTS, it becomes very uninteresting to me...

[ClannerDelta]

Honestly the reason why I see fit for an equipment degradation is because in CoH you can't just throw any type of unit against another unit, you HAVE TO HAVE THE RIGHT UNIT FOR THE JOB. I love CoH, but always having to one up your opponent gets boring after a while.

Honestly, I think CoH just isn't for you then. The counter system is one of the reasons it's such a great game. Spamming a single unit is going to get you hard-countered into the dirt. As opposed to most RTS's that have you spamming 1 or 2 units. It makes the combat dynamic and fresh.

It's not as Rock>Paper>scissors as you make it sound either. Aside from the Anti-Infantry tanks, there isn't much that requires a hard-counter. Most things can be flanked/specialed to death. Ok, Commandos certainly need a very powerful anti-infantry weapon to kill. As they will just glider crush your infantry, but that's more of an imbalance than anything intended.

[Chill]

Regarding CoH, I'd love to see CoH mega-expanded by including naval battles which would also cover beach landings. I could totally see a game like CoH made just like Sins of a Solar Empire.... Instead of zooming in and out of solar systems, you are zooming in and out of land masses.

I guess, essentially, Supreme Commander without the suckage. Except a Company of Heroes at this level of execution would include the entire area of conflict. For example, I have a tank battle going on in Egypt, I zoom out and zoom in to check to see how well I am defending France from the American invasion...

Now, regarding the question of this thread... What makes a good RTS? It is when you can use strategy versus massive force to win. That's what makes it a kick ass RTS to me. When you are basically zerging around the map in a RTS, it becomes very uninteresting to me...

Completely agree. Personally, I'd like to see an RTS in the same vein as the Total War series, but combine the strategy map with the tactical battles into a seamless environment. Pretty much what you were describing, but I hate the "abstract" visual representation of most RTS's. If I'm controlling an army, I like seeing every individual unit represented. Not only for the sake of immersion and visual awesomeness, but for gameplay as well. Choke points become real choke points when you are charging a thousand infantry through a castles gate. It would also give enormous scale to the game, which is something lacking in most RTS's. Huge environments will give more players more possibilities to out flank and surprise their opponents.

I'd also like to see the end of static objectives. Really makes the game stale and encourages players to make tactics they use over and over again ad nauseam. Not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, but I feel it makes the game repetitive. I just think dynamic objectives, or just vague objectives would make for a more interesting game. Having a hard time thinking of a specific example, but I always like games where you have no idea where/when the next attack will happen and it forces you to be active (defensively and offensively).

I have a feeling most will disagree, but I'm also not a big fan of most RTS's, especially the 4X sub-genre. I'm hoping Empire: Total War will give me some of what I described above.

[Libuke]

I've never been a huge fan of base building in games, I just suck at juggling economy and combat at the same time so I really like the way the Total War series works, it is just to easy as AI is not very smart.

I will be probably getting Dawn of War 2 and from what I have heard it looks like it might have less base building then many RTS's so it will probably suit my style.

I enjoyed the way ground control worked and hope DoW2 is similar to it. I hope Empire: Total War works out too, and that perhaps the AI is little smarter and Very Hard/Very Hard actually seems hard.

[Poewan]

Completely agree. Personally, I'd like to see an RTS in the same vein as the Total War series, but combine the strategy map with the tactical battles into a seamless environment. Pretty much what you were describing, but I hate the "abstract" visual representation of most RTS's. If I'm controlling an army, I like seeing every individual unit represented. Not only for the sake of immersion and visual awesomeness, but for gameplay as well. Choke points become real choke points when you are charging a thousand infantry through a castles gate. It would also give enormous scale to the game, which is something lacking in most RTS's. Huge environments will give more players more possibilities to out flank and surprise their opponents.

I'd also like to see the end of static objectives. Really makes the game stale and encourages players to make tactics they use over and over again ad nauseam. Not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, but I feel it makes the game repetitive. I just think dynamic objectives, or just vague objectives would make for a more interesting game. Having a hard time thinking of a specific example, but I always like games where you have no idea where/when the next attack will happen and it forces you to be active (defensively and offensively).

I have a feeling most will disagree, but I'm also not a big fan of most RTS's, especially the 4X sub-genre. I'm hoping Empire: Total War will give me some of what I described above.

A mutliplayer campain mode to a total war game has been a long time wet dream of mine. However, I remember the devs saying that they believe the time and commitement nescessary to bring a campain to a close in such a game would garantee nobody would commit to playing one, and thus making the developement of a competitive multiplayer campain not worth the effort. It certainly makes sense, since I sure as hell know none of my friends would be willing to go through one....getting them to play through a full game of Heroes of might and magic 2 to its conclusion was already hard enough. Still, one can dream, right?

[Chill]

I haven't been keeping up with Dow2 info (I was going to buy it anyways), but I'm kinda relieved to hear the base building will take a back seat this time around. I also have a hard time keeping up base building/economy/combat at once. I do enjoy the challenge though...as long as there's a pause button. Pause buttons rock.

OT: The Total War series indeed have some bad AI, but mods have really helped. DarthMod has some major AI changes, but most of the major mods incorporate some variation of that mod anyways.

A mutliplayer campain mode to a total war game has been a long time wet dream of mine. However, I remember the devs saying that they believe the time and commitement nescessary to bring a campain to a close in such a game would garantee nobody would commit to playing one, and thus making the developement of a competitive multiplayer campain not worth the effort. It certainly makes sense, since I sure as hell know none of my friends would be willing to go through one....getting them to play through a full game of Heroes of might and magic 2 to its conclusion was already hard enough. Still, one can dream, right?

They did create this mode with Kingdoms called hot seat (I think that's right). Sucked quite hard if I remember right. I think you couldn't actually play the battles, but forced to auto-calculate each battle.

[Poewan]

I've never been a huge fan of base building in games, I just suck at juggling economy and combat at the same time so I really like the way the Total War series works, it is just to easy as AI is not very smart.

I cant do it either. I see most of these RTS games as "twitch" games really, meaning that the "strategy" part of them is actually figuring out an optimal build order for what you want to go for/acomplish. After that, its just a matter of being able to micro manage your army in the field while building your base at the same time in a competent and effecient manner....multitasking at its finest. I just dont like it, it actually dosent feel like a strategy games anymore, but more like an action game. If you want to go do down that way, then please just forego the base construction part entirely....DoW2 sounds like something id like from what ive heard of it. Edit : I know thats a very broad generalisation, and I never really played CoH ( which seems to stray from the traditional formula ), so thats something to keep in mind while reading the above ramblings. Last RTS I played was Warcraft 3 if I remember well heheh....

As far as the Total War games difficulty goes, id just like the developpers to actually make the AI better at the higher levels, instead of just making it cheat like a motherfucker.

[Vermillion]

For me, an RTS needs to:

- have terrain bonuses. If I hold the high ground, there should be some advantage to that
- needs to have some sort of supply philosophy. The fact that my units can sit on the front line and just expend ammo/fuel with no negative impact means there is very little need for me to have any kind of realistic growth/expansion strategy
- must have limited resources. If you are going to make gathering units part of the game and have resources, you need to make them finite.
- must not have a arbitrary limit on number of units. If you want to limit my units, tie it to my abilty to support them with resources, not just arbitrary 100 units.
- must have the ability to create choke points. Again, this is strategy and it is rarely employeed well in most RTS.
- needs to have the ability to turtle. Yeah, I'm sure I'll get eaten alive for saying that, but playing defense is a strategy and if employeed effectively, can provide a distinct advantage against someone who wastes waves of units slamming against the rocks.
- huge maps with territories. i want to play global/universal conquest, where I'm fighting on several fronts and the impact of one battle may need me to redistribute resources in another front.

Sadly, the fact is that few RTS actually take advantage of real war strategies like supply lines, terrain, weather, etc.. I know most people just want to twitch, zerg rush and blow crap up cause it is fun and I don't disagree with you. But I want to see that extra level brought into the genre that benefits the player that sees the bigger picture and can effectively manage not just the battle, but the war.

[RandoM51]

Great backstory with cheesy cutscenes, seriously. Yes, I'm one of those people who play through the singleplayer campaign of an RTS and then uninstall it. Stopped playing multi around the time the tank rush gained popularity in one of the C&C games.

Too often in too many RTS titles the gameplay comes down to using the perfect build queue for whatever faction you're playing+lots of frantic mouseclicking. Once people hit on the most effective/efficient strategy for each faction anybody who wants to try something else gets destroyed. I lose interest at that point.

[ShivaX]

Honestly CoH is nearly the perfect model for an RTS.

Theres a little base building, but the game is mostly focused on being in the field getting resources, which pulls the game away from your base. Rushes generally don't work that well because the other guys base is simply too tough to realistically take out early.

Counters make sense and spamming one unit is fairly easy to counter if you're smart about it. Cover and terrain matter, you can create choke points and later on you can usually break those choke points (with heavy vehicles crushing lighter cover or arty blowing it up).

DoW2 seems like its going to build on the good of CoH. Bases are even more simplified, which is fine cause building base buildings was more of a hassle than anything. They kept all the good aspects of CoH that forced combat into the field and you can't just spam one unit as fast as possible and win.

[headhunter228]

Really, I'm not a big fan of RTS games. I just can't move fast enough. But of the ones I've played, StarCraft is probably the best of them. I have a very Russian/Chinese viewpoint: If I throw enough units at something, eventually I'll destroy it. That's why I like playing the Zerg. But my problem is surviving long enough to build that giant army, and if by some miracle I do survive that long, my army still isn't big enough. I'm not very good at micromanaging my units in a battle, either. StarCraft would be a lot better if they did away with a population cap, and added hero units a la Warcraft III.

[SilentScreams]

I'd like to see one where defending is a viable tactic. Most RTS games seem to follow the rule of "he who expands wins" and it's just not the way I play.
I like to sit back with a solid defence and strike at vulnerable locations as I please to slowly wear down the enemy rather than expanding like a madman and going for the win within the first 10 minutes.

I'd also like to see one where about 4 different people can be on the same team and each perform different roles...kind of like World in Conflict, but fun.

[ShivaX]

I'd like to see one where defending is a viable tactic. Most RTS games seem to follow the rule of "he who expands wins" and it's just not the way I play.
I like to sit back with a solid defence and strike at vulnerable locations as I please to slowly wear down the enemy rather than expanding like a madman and going for the win within the first 10 minutes.

I'd also like to see one where about 4 different people can be on the same team and each perform different roles...kind of like World in Conflict, but fun.

Well the victory points in CoH sort of allowed for that. If you could take those points you could fortify them fairly well and get a win without neccessarily holding anything else.

I don't forsee a strategy of hiding in your base and not doing anything really working for most RTSs. If that was viable then everyone would just hide and never fight each other, which would make for a fairly boring game.

[SilentScreams]

I didn't say hide. I just mean basing my strategy on a strong defence, rather than all out unit spam attack, which seems to be the optimal method of playing RTSs at the moment.

[ClannerDelta]

I didn't say hide. I just mean basing my strategy on a strong defence, rather than all out unit spam attack, which seems to be the optimal method of playing RTSs at the moment.

I hate to harp on CoH again, obviously I'm a fan, but I would suggest you try it out.

Both the Wehrmacht and British allow you to play the "Snapping Turtle" strategy quite well.

Because of the way victory points work, you can easily base a strategy around a strong defensive sector with roaming units in support. Which is what I think you're talking about. With Brits... you can even Sim City your way to victory, though be prepared for people to fucking hate you.

[ShivaX]

I didn't say hide. I just mean basing my strategy on a strong defence, rather than all out unit spam attack, which seems to be the optimal method of playing RTSs at the moment.

Well its the method of a sub-section of RTSs.

Theres really a new kind of RTS out there that Relic has been building over the years. DoW gave us a hint of it, but it really showed up with CoH. DoW2 seems to be a continuation of the style.

In a game like say C&C3 (and Red Alert/SC2 from what I've seen), the whole goal is to build resource collecters and spam "tanks" - tanks being whatever the "best" early unit is, in C&C it was tanks. If you have a shit-ton of those units you roll into the other guys base and win. Theres not really many counters, or if there are you need almost as many of them as the other guy has tanks. The guy who has the best build order typically wins.

In a game like CoH the whole goal is to maintain map control. You don't have a legion of units and resources are fairly slow to come in. You have no collector units, so you use your fighting units to gain resources. Spamming one unit loses pretty much everytime. Even if you spam say Panther tanks, the other guy can easily defeat them all for a fraction of their cost (with ATGs/infantry with AT weapons/mines). Speed doesn't matter as much as playing smart and covering your weaknesses. You can tech for say a fast armored car to make a big splash, but its not going to let you drive into the other guys base and instantly win. At best it will give you a temporary map advantage that allows you to take some territory till the other guy makes a counter (or if he plays things poorly you'll kill a lot of his units and really hurt him).

Some people love the "C&C-style" of playing. Others really like the "CoH-style" of playing. I'm a big fan of the CoH-style, I think it makes for a more interesting game with more variety. Even crappy players can put up a fight and I've actually played games where huge comebacks have happened (which is pretty much non-existant in C&C-style games since its more about number of units than anything and a single loss in a battle usually means you lost the game).

It sounds like your desires for an RTS pretty much match my own. After playing CoH I literally can't play any other RTSs. I looked at Red Alert 3 and and even SC2 and think "I don't want to build harvesters and spam tanks again." SC2 had a shot with the story, which I love, but splitting it into 3 games might just kill it for me until its a battlechest thats dirt cheap.

[ShivaX]

I hate to harp on CoH again, obviously I'm a fan, but I would suggest you try it out.

Both the Wehrmacht and British allow you to play the "Snapping Turtle" strategy quite well.

Because of the way victory points work, you can easily base a strategy around a strong defensive sector with roaming units in support. Which is what I think you're talking about. With Brits... you can even Sim City your way to victory, though be prepared for people to fucking hate you.

Man I'm glad I'm not the only one. After writing that book I was afraid I was going to look like a schill for Relic. CoH is the herald for a new age of RTS that actually involves tactics and thought and I'm filled with man-love for Relic because of it.

[SilentScreams]

Thanks Delta and Shiva.
I think I have an old review copy of CoH laying around somewhere that I never got around to playing. I may have to dig it out.

[ShivaX]

Thanks Delta and Shiva.
I think I have an old review copy of CoH laying around somewhere that I never got around to playing. I may have to dig it out.

Do it, its exactly what you want RTSs to be. Hell if you know a lot about WW2 hardware its actually fairly accurate in how a lot of things operate (a little generous on the number of hits things take, but thats a given).

Like a Sherman against a Panther? Sherman is screwed. Unless hes on the Panther's flank, then he can penetrate its armor. Head-to-head hes boned, even if hes got a 76mm gun. The WW2 geek in me loves it.

[ClannerDelta]

Man I'm glad I'm not the only one. After writing that book I was afraid I was going to look like a schill for Relic. CoH is the herald for a new age of RTS that actually involves tactics and thought and I'm filled with man-love for Relic because of it.

Yeah, CoH is one of those great games that's so good, you sound like a total fanboy just listing the good stuff.

That aside, I think you might want to check out RA3. The way they implemented refineries gets rid of the eco-boom problem C&C 3 had. It's 1 refinery per ore patch and any more than 1 collector per refinery is a huge waste of resources. Most games I've played online stay in the 3-4 refineries area.

The Soviet vs Allies match up is pretty boring with a very specific build order normally, but playing Empire has been a real blast. I don't think I've won a match the same way twice yet. Tank spam is also less effective. You need a decent mix of units no matter what side you play.

[Hotcod]

dow2, that is all

[jpublic]

I can tell you the one thing that pisses me off about a lot of modern RTSes - the inability to zoom out to a satisfactory distance.

[SilentScreams]

I can tell you the one thing that pisses me off about a lot of modern RTSes - the inability to zoom out to a satisfactory distance.

Agreed. I'm supposed to be overseeing everything, so let me see everything.

[Panthera]

I can tell you the one thing that pisses me off about a lot of modern RTSes - the inability to zoom out to a satisfactory distance.

We need more companies to follow up on what Supreme Commander did. Or hell, even Sins of a Solar empire - we should be able to zoom all the way out and still have a usable interface for conducting strategic movement.

[jpublic]

Biggest violator in this: Dawn of War. For Fuck's sake, this is the year 40k.

[ShivaX]

I can tell you the one thing that pisses me off about a lot of modern RTSes - the inability to zoom out to a satisfactory distance.

Thats been a factor in RTS's since they went past 800x600. The more of the map you can see, the better you can play. CoH sort of avoided the issue with their minimap thing that you could almost play the game from.

Still I often wish I could pull back more, but then thats going to raise the system specs for someone (at least in theory) which means less sales, blah, blah.

[Panthera]

Still I often wish I could pull back more, but then thats going to raise the system specs for someone (at least in theory) which means less sales, blah, blah.

This isn't necessarily true. See: Sins of a Solar Empire, for example, when zooming out gives you an iconic view. As it does in Galactic Civilizations 2, and Supreme Commander.

[CES]

I hate to harp on CoH again, obviously I'm a fan, but I would suggest you try it out.

Both the Wehrmacht and British allow you to play the "Snapping Turtle" strategy quite well.

Because of the way victory points work, you can easily base a strategy around a strong defensive sector with roaming units in support. Which is what I think you're talking about. With Brits... you can even Sim City your way to victory, though be prepared for people to fucking hate you.

The British RA path is ideal for defensive operations. That damn 25 pounder arty + Supercharge ability that lets it hit most spots on the map is incredibly annoying. Then, for extra fun the final unit in that branch is a mobile version.

That said, it's incredibly satisfying to use it on the enemy since everything smaller than a Panzer gets crushed.