Incredible to see how disconnected Blizzard is from its customers.
One more shooter, when we wanted the next RTS.
RTS is not a very popular genre all things considered, and the ARTS/MOBA variants are dominated by DOTA and League of Legends.
You also can’t play RTS games on consoles.
A lot of fans of StarCraft still wish they saw StarCraft: Ghost see the light of day. Arguably the franchise is very much underdeveloped. The IP and story would work well for many game genres that haven’t been explored.
If StarCraft 3 comes out it would only be popular in South Korea and possibly not all that popular at all even there.
> You also can’t play RTS games on consoles.
You certainly can. See Halo Wars.
It was commercially successful but not in a mainstream mass audience kind of way.
Yes, it proved that RTS can be done on a controller (arguably, StarCraft 64 kind of sort of proved that, too), but if you’ve ever played StarCraft 2 I think you’d agree that particular style of RTS is really not possible without a keyboard and mouse. The game is almost entirely revolving around maximizing your actions per minute.
I also think the RTS genre is very much less popular today and then it was at that time.
Maybe for top tier play, but apm wasn’t really needed for regular play.
Just to debunk this myth, it used to be possible to get to diamond with 80-100 apm (which is very easy to achieve), efficient builds, fundamental rush defense, and a-move.
Not sure about now, but it was doable for many years.
I have never felt so stressed while gaming, even when we talk about fast paced online shooters.
Maybe I wasn’t using the right strategy, I dunno.
It kinda looks like Blizzard is trying to build their own Borderlands-like game which would likely be a lot more fun and mass-market friendly.
You can, see StarCraft 64.
That said, I don’t know if I would even touch a RTS on a console these days. So maybe I agree in spirit.
It was super fun but definitely not the same competitive experience. But it was really impressive how well it all worked.
Pikmin.
Given that StarCraft 2 still hasn't fully displaced BroodWar, I shudder to think of the uphill battle a StarCraft 3 would face.
Really, in this era of live service games, it would make more sense to release a client refresh (multithreading + anniversary graphics) for SC2, and an expansion pack of new campaigns...
Nailed it. People want patched versions of the same RTS. AoE4 came out a few years ago as an IMO fantastic RTS which smoothed over many of the idiosyncrasies of AoE2. From a multiplayer perspective, it was doomed from the start, for not being AoE2. I couldn't even convince my friends to play it with me. (Everyone is still playing AoE2, and expansions + patches are still regular)
angels eat that shit up. see also: theranos, et al
If you’re trying to launch a cool new shooter, why use SC IP?
That said, whether the game itself will be good is still TBD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIpLl2W2chg
I'm still amazed that Blizzard dropped the ball on recreating the same environment that enables dynamic play, instead it's always a formation of rock paper scissors with very little nuance in between.
The balance team had no idea of the game they wanted StarCraft 2 to be. By the time it all settled down the community went back to SC:BW.
I'm positive there was some combination of SC2 patches that was amazing, if only the patch/balance team stuck with it. I don't know which set of patches that was though.
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I have ranted before about deathballs. Beginners want deathballs but advanced players want something deeper than a deathballs.
For all of their faults, SC:BW and AoE2 are anti-deathball. SC:BW is somewhat "accidentally" anti-deathball because of map bumping and poor patching.
AoE2 has incredible siege and defensive emplacements (castles and bombard cannons and siege onagers) that counter deathballs, above and beyond SC2 anti-deathball options.
The AoE2 deathballs unit, the Crossbowman (line) needs like 30+ units before it really starts to feel oppressive, and universally everyone has rams and mangonels to kinda deal with them (or Skirmishers).
As it ends up, SC2 is randomly anti-APM and pro-APM, depending on the patch, depending on the year.
By swinging back and forth trying to cater to both camps, all that was accomplished was confusion and ultimately a loss of trust between players and the balance team. In many regards, the community swinging back to SC:BW or AOE2 is because we don't like patches that change the game so dramatically.
AOE2 seems to have hit the correct balance point, major changes that the community desires (ex: Longswords being viable after 25 years of constant buffing) but never so major that it fundamentally alters the game the community likes.
Or ex: being brave enough to throw out all sea units / Naval Battles and basically start over from scratch. (Kind of a big change but one the community actually enjoyed).
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SC2 patches were more random feeling and more knee jerk.
On "Deathballs", no. SC2 always allowed the player to select all military. SC2 always had smoother patching and better programmed "flocking" behavior.
In SC:BW, it's an APM feat to simply control 12 Dragoons/Goliaths/Siege Tanks across a bridge. Meanwhile, a hundred SC2 Stalkers can easily chain-blink across the same terrain no issues.
In SC:BW, the bad patching and bumping is part of the balance. In SC2, all units moved too smoothly and too easily, as such deathballs are always easier to setup.
SC2 allowed players to easily control Deathballs, so then they tried to balance that by making splash attacks more powerful.
In contrast, it's literally impossible to control a deathballs in SC:BW, because you can only ever select 12 units. Literally impossible to control more units (and even then, those 12 units were extremely wonky around bridges or other terrain features).
In SC:BW, the deathballs debate is innately moot. No human can control a deathballs anyway so it's not even a debate. Like controlling 48 zerglings is a feat reserved for top pros.
Further, because control of 48 zerglings is so hard, pros who COULD do it use the 4x groups of Zerglings on increasingly divergent points of the map (harassing multiple bases), rather than concentrating their efforts in one area. Might as well "tax the opponents APM" by attacking multiple locations if you have such good unit control or APM.
Since you seem to be tapped into the AOE2 scene, any tournaments you'd recommend checking out?
* Four resources. Stone runs out first and is the key for Castles, a 4000 to 6000 HP building that deals 11x4 damage. Strategically speaking, the castle locations DEFINE the middle game (aka the Castle Age) and still have huge influence for Imperial Age.
Gold is basically the same as Vespine Gas. Gold is +technology or +advanced units. The middle game is determined by your gold unit choice (usually either Knights or XBows, but some players choose mass Monks, Siege or other compositions). The end game is basically when Gold runs out and players are forced to play with so called Trash units (aka wood and food only).
Wood and Food are basically the equivalent of minerals, except Food is made from wood. (You first cut down a tree then make a farm and then finally food comes out). In many ways, it's best to think of food as processed wood, highly available on most maps but slower to gather than Gold/wood.
* Gold units set your main army, Trash units (aka: units that only cost food+wood) TEND to set up the counter to your opponent and are more of a reaction (or prediction). Remember, gold tends to be easier to gather than food in the middle game. Only in the late game does gold run out.
* As such, start the game thinking of Wood == minerals, Gold == Gas except Gold runs out. And you'll actually be pretty good for the feelings of which units are useful for what.
* Food == processed Wood is probably easy enough for you to figure out by feel. I don't expect issues for StarCraft players trying to understand food.
* Stone needs special consideration because nothing in SC:BW or SC2 feels like an AoE2 castle. My overall recommendation is to pretend stones make castles and nothing else important (Towers can be useful but beginner players should focus on thinking about the castle). Play with the Castle first, get some experience and then work backwards to understanding stone.
* Counters are far stronger and swingy in AoE2 than SC:BW or SC2. Let's take a Feudal Age engagement for example: 1 spearman ties with 3 scouts in an engagement... So we are talking about 10 Spearmen trading with 30 scouts in combat kind of counters.
Another counter: Monks counter Knights. Knights are like Battlecruisers if Battlecruisers were the 2nd fastest unit in the game and appeared in the middle of the tech tree (Castle age) ready to go with very few necessary upgrades.... Like seriously Knights are good. Fast, high damage, high armor but costs a ton.
The counter unit... Monks.... their ability is to convert enemy units to your side. So uhhhhhh, hard counter. Monks appear at the same time as Knights (Castle Age) except Monks need a few more upgrades to really be useful.
Depends on the unit: XBows vs Elite Skirmisher or Mangonels is closer to StarCraft levels of counterplay. XBows can win vs equivalent Mangonel with elite level micro / mistakes from the opponent, but most agree that with "equal micro" Mangonels/Onagers/Skirmishers should usually beat XBows.
Speaking of which: AoE2 micro is defined by arrow dodging, Mangonel shot placement (manually predicting the future location of your opponent and aiming there), and finally quick walls / villager shenanigans.
This means that scouting has a degree of importance. In general, you should scout on chickens maps, and you should mix up scouting vs luring on deer maps. Chickens cannot be lured, so scouting is your only option. Deer can be lured, meaning micro-ing your Scout to push a deer into your base and capture an early source of food. Luring is necessary for some builds (ie: rushes which need more food than other builds).
It also means that "SimCity" is based on map layout. Arabia (most common map generator) sometimes spawns "closed" (long woodlines that act as walls), which sometimes makes walling cheaper/easier.
Or sometimes Arabia spawns "open", or fat tree lines spaced far apart. In these, large "base walls" are impossible and people tend to favor "small walls" (maybe a few to protect farms, and like 8 tiles of walls max to protect gold). Top tier pros prefer "quick walls", only walling after the opponent's attack arrives. This is very difficult / micro/APM-intensive, so feel free to just small-wall by default and/or large base wall if the map generates something useful.
If you "large wall", integrate necessary buildings (ex: blacksmith, market, barracks) into your walls. Full scale buildings tend to have ~2000 HP or so, while palisade walls only have 250 or so HP. In fact, most players use "house walls" (the AoE2 equivalent to Supply Depos), because you need tons of houses ANYWAY, and because Houses have 900 HP, its usually better to defend with houses.
I can’t tell if this is too late a move though or if there will be a void and a desire still by the time this releases.
Is there any other studio working on releasing a similar game already since it was obvious Destinys life was short lived for a while with Bungies focus on Marathon?
Halo was originally conceived as an RTS, then turned out to be a successful FPS. Then they made a fairly successful RTS too.
Everything Blizzard does is met with such absurd hostility. Gamers pay $60 for 100+ hours of entertainment and still feel like they’re getting screwed at every turn.
They may be alienating the core audience that made them who they are, but I don't think they're disconnected from their customer base, which has changed. RTSes are not popular and they are not platform-agnostic like an FPS is.
If you don't believe me, read some books and articles -- this has been well analyzed and discussed.
Sorry but you are the one disconnected from the reality of today's gaming market.
You think you do, but you don't.
Indeed, that's the joke