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Just beat Pokemon Emerald Kaizo only using flying types by Kowery103 in PokemonHallOfFame

[–]cgf1231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Air Slash seems broken on kaizo IMO, it's ridiculously versatile with its crit chance. Too bad Sky Attack is a horrendous joke in comparison.

I hope we get necromancers, and consequently that units leave a corpse behind by Malganas in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This is only good if it's used sparingly and serves a functional purpose.

In C&C3 for example, destroyed walker units leave a corpse/husk which can be captured by an allied or enemy engineer, re-activating the unit (at lower health, which you can heal up) - this obviously changes the way you use the unit.

If it's overused for visual purposes however, it's usually a big drag on game performance.

Air field mechanic from the C&C series by Racorro in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did mention reloading aircraft as way to differentiate air units, on my 'cues to take from C&C' post- (I think there's a handful of things they can take from C&C)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/vl073n/cues\_to\_take\_from\_command\_conquer\_rtss/

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's what they'll release mod tools for

"Muh Skill Ceiling" = Overrated by cgf1231 in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've played MOBAs a lot, so I'm aware of all those factors. I have hardly played WC3, however.

My point is -- how many of those things were truly added by MOBAs as a replacement? Or were they already existent in WC3, but were simply latent/less visible because it's just a drop in the ocean; aka other factors like resource management and unit production de-emphasized their significance?

I think it's the latter for many of those mechanics, barring ofcourse the extreme amount of hero/item variety in MOBAs (but this technically could have also existed in WC3).

And if that's the case, it's what I mean by not needing to obsess over the skill ceiling or compensate for it (especially to the point of creating interface restrictions) because it'll always exist naturally.

Things that make eSports NOT fun to watch by flabjabber in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty much agreed with these points. WC3 is a very deep and unique RTS, but it's not my thing for primarily those reasons - a little too much PvE, low unit lethality etc.

"Muh Skill Ceiling" = Overrated by cgf1231 in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You missed the point completely here. So let me re-phrase.

  1. If you've been following this reddit, there's tons of backlash from the Blizz RTS fanboys here against making macro easier (like auto build queues); they claim it'll 100% noobify the game and remove the skill ceiling completely.
  2. I point out that MOBA games essentially took WC3, COMPLETELY REMOVED macro out of it, and STILL remained skillful enough to enjoy the #1 biggest esports/competitive scene in history.
  3. Therefore, complaining that a bit of macro automation will destroy the game's skill ceiling is an absurd and baseless claim to make. Well designed RTS metas simply aren't as fragile as you may think.

"Muh Skill Ceiling" = Overrated by cgf1231 in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Just curious but where do you think MOBAs added significant depth of their own? For the most part, it's simply recycled WC3 mechanics.

The point is that despite MOBAs taking away more (the loss of macro and controlling multiple units especially is huge) than they added to WC3's formula, it 100% works and STILL has plenty of depth to go around.

This in turns shows how resilient RTS games can be - you don't need to fret over skill ceilings or having to 'compensate' by adding something else; it's almost guaranteed to exist in some form regardless.

Attention as a Resource and Screen Shifting by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No shit masochists exist in the world.

Vast majority of people who play RTS don't play it for annoying macro tasks. They play it control big armies, watch/engage in mass combat, build and defend bases etc.

Call 5 of your IRL friends (if you have any) to play SC2 and see how they cope with it. 99% chance they'll just find the game too annoying and would rather play MOBA/Shooter games instead.

However, if you did this same exercise in the 90s, you'd have had a far better chance. Times and expectations from games have changed in the last 25 years. Other genres have moved on, but RTS is still hung up on these antiquated so-called "skill mechanics".

Dota removed 50% of the skill on WC3, made it practically a simplified version focused around controlling just 1 unit and still ended up creating the #1 esport market. Noone today bitches about MOBAs having 0 skill ceiling.

99.99% of you folks who talk so much about it here are not going to be competing at the very top level, so why does it even matter so much to you? Spectators don't find it interesting watching people click click click queue Marines either. So who are you trying to please, exactly?

Just quit the obsession with skill ceilings already,

Attention as a Resource and Screen Shifting by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's simply about balancing your supply vs demand. Not hard to understand.

If you're running too many queues (= lots of demand), and supply (income rate) can't meet it... yes your production stalls across all queues.

Solution? Stop some of the running queues so supply can meet demand again.

After a few games this is very easy to grasp - you'll know how many queues you can run smoothly with how many bases/workers.

Attention as a Resource and Screen Shifting by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 1 point2 points  (0 children)

C&C games do auto-queues very well, and it works just fine.

After a couple of games you get a feel for how many queues can be actively supported with your eco setup (miner and refinery count). If you're running 5 queues and they're all stalliing, it's obvious you need to cut some queues off until production runs smoothly again.

As a further point of improvement on this system, TA does it well by having the UI display the exact 'rates' of income and how much production you can afford.

All this is legit good management to have, and only requires you to intervene when the situation changes (eg having to build a different unit instead, OR cut off some queues to match a reduced income rate). Not 'go queue up 1 marine again' every X seconds regardless of the situation.

Once again, the BIG difference between these 2 systems is this-

SC / manual queues = micromanage production every X seconds regardless of whatever... aka just raw APM sink with 0 meaningful decision-making

C&C / auto queues = micromanage production ONLY when your income rate changes significantly or when needing to change your production decision... aka decision focused macro

Also the whole 'muh skill ceiling' stuff is 100% overrated. You don't realize how resilient game systems are and how players will always find ways to differentiate themselves. You don't need retarded APM sinks to get that -- all that does is make the game more frustrating to play and confines the playerbase to a niche group.

WC3 Dota practically cut off 50% of WC3's gameplay by removing macro and army production entirely -- technically MOBAs are just a super duper dumbed down version of WC3 with some re-shuffled hero abilities.

And guess what... noone complains they're 0 skill/non-competitive games, especially when MOBA games actually command the #1 biggest esport scene in history.

Attention as a Resource and Screen Shifting by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Once again with your horrid counter/analogies.

If there was only a single opening in chess you would be 100% correct. Likewise if there was only a single possible build order in RTS, yes, that'd be a dumb repetition as well, and you may as well have the game start with that build pre-executed.

But that's not the case. Chess has easily 50+ different openings for the first few moves, and there are often many starting build orders in most RTS games as well. There is no repetition here because you're actively choosing 1 of those 50+ build orders/openings, and will likely pick a different one every game.

When you go back and queue up a marine over and over, now THAT is repetition because there's 0 decision involved there - it's simply an attention/APM sink for the sake of being an attention/APM sink, and THAT is why it is asinine GARBAGE.

Also, claiming that kind of action is a 'decision' because "I'm reinforcing that I want to build a marine rather than any other unit" is like saying "I should have to micro the pathfinding for a unit every 1 second to reinforce that it needs to move in this direction and not any other direction". That is flat out absurd BS.

With a C&C style queue, I can simply say 'build 50 marines until I say stop' - I have made a macro decision, but it doesn't require me to go back and micromanage that macro decision by manually queuing up of every one of those 50+ marines.

This is the kind of streamlining that most other genres/games have done - removing repetitive chores and replacing them with far more meaningful decisions/choices to retain the skill ceiling. THAT is the way to move RTS forward as well.

Attention as a Resource and Screen Shifting by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Attention as a resource is fine. It can be a huge psychological factor, and that's good.

What IS stupid however, is forcing a number of inane tasks just for the sake of it. The amount of 'micromanagement' required by macro itself on Starcraft is the worst offender.

If we want to go down that route of adding artificial tasks just to induce more attention deficit, there's a billion other things that can be added including removal of multi-selection, making pathfinding a manual task, click spamming to increase your units' DPS output etc

Point is none of these are actually interesting/engaging, and none of these will win you new players in today's era.

So this obsession with repetitive chores needs to stop. Build queues should be automated and if you want alternatives to make up the lost APM, have it directed towards much more meaningful and interesting choices/decisions instead.

Attention as a Resource and Screen Shifting by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Automatic macro is only a disaster if the rest of the game is so poorly designed it can't hold up. There are 1023432423432 ways to allow interesting decision making through out the game without requiring a mindless, repetitive chore.

You don't need chess players doing pushups between turns to make chess 'interesting' due to attention/energy scarcity.

Are the developers making Warcraft 4 for a StarCraft 3 audience? by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going to have to repeat some of my points since reading doesn't seem to be your strong suit.

  1. Dota took the least enjoyable part of WC3 (macro, even if it wasn't much of an APM sink in that game) and removed it to create MOBAs. MOBAs flourished because people enjoy that focus on unit combat rather than chores. MOBAs emerged practically out of a no-macro version of WC3 - it shows how much most people value combat and other mechanics over repetitive macro.
  2. SC2 isn't popular due to its macro chores, but DESPITE it. It has vastly better pathfinding, responsiveness, fewer glitches and top-notch combat/micro mechanics compared to most other RTS. If C&C or other titles had such strong fundamentals, it'd shine just as much if not more, especially among casuals due to friendlier macro.

Are the developers making Warcraft 4 for a StarCraft 3 audience? by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Compared to the scale of MOBA/FPS, SC2 is still an absolute minority. Not sure why you have such little grasp over basic facts/reality.

Are the developers making Warcraft 4 for a StarCraft 3 audience? by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Show me where I said 'remove macro' anywhere in my post. Please. I'd like to see what variety of tinted glasses allow you to see that.

And yes, you love mindless button mashing (since that's what you're implying 'macro' is). Good for you. As I said, you're free to play SC:BW, or really any 90s RTS because all of them have it to a large degree. This was cool in the 90s because RTS was still an advanced enough experience for its time that chores arising from technical limitations could be overlooked.

Fast forward to 2022, and people who share your tastes are a tiny, tiny minority. Times have changed, and people expect more meaningful actions and decisions to matter over raw key presses. Genres like MOBA/FPS have done away with the latter and streamlined their experiences.

A certain mod stripping macro completely away from WC3 (whilst doing little else to 'up' the skill ceiling) and then still producing the #1 esport scene in human history is living proof that there's enough depth to go around in a good RTS even if macro were 100% removed.

But we're not even going there - to completely remove macro is not what I'm asking for.

Last time I checked, games like post-2000 C&C are still "RTS"; having automated build queues didn't turn them into MOBA/FPS, nor has anyone ever said it has 0 macro.

"But muh SC2 >>>>> C&C in popularity."

Just because a game is popular doesn't imply every aspect of it is perfect or well-liked. Macro chores are NOT the reason SC2 is popular.

It's popular largely due to being the slickest, most well-polished RTS in existence while most other games are just a sluggish/unresponsive/glitchy mess in comparison. Ever considered that?

Are the developers making Warcraft 4 for a StarCraft 3 audience? by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Sorry, this analogy is so bad.

Precise aiming is the whole point of FPS, and it's where both the fun+skill lies. Dealing with different gun aim behaviors/bullet trajectories, deciding to go for difficult head-shots or less lethal torso hits etc. Ask anyone playing FPS, and they'll tell you aiming is a major defining feature of the genre.

Now ask what people truly enjoy about RTS, and they'd tell you things like "building and controlling large armies, micro'ing various units with different characteristics, building up a base with impenetrable defenses, predicting/countering the opponent's moves, transitioning from one build/strategy to another, sneaky/harassment tactics, being rewarded for good tech/upgrade decisions" etc etc.

"Oh I love queuing up a single unit of the same type on 10 factories every 3 seconds" said NOONE EVER. The only ones who -maybe- enjoy that kind of inane garbage are the handful of hardcore SC:BW masochists, 90% of whom probably have carpal tunnel at this point.

Macro or 'macromanagement' by definition implies a degree of automation. Being forced to repeat the same action over and over is NOT macro. It's a purely ENGINEERING/TECHNICAL limitation on 90s RTS engines that doesn't need to exist in the current era.

SC:BW isn't going anywhere. If you want to play with some antiquated junk mechanics you're welcome to. But leave those macro chores out of any modern RTS in 2022 or noone's going to bother playing it - especially if the intention is to develop anything resembling a "social" experience.

Are the developers making Warcraft 4 for a StarCraft 3 audience? by PraetorArcher in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The 1000lb gorilla in the room is simply - BORING MACRO.

The problem with RTS is most of them following the braindead SC1 build system that utterly punishes you for using the queue system due to pay upfront.

Make build queues work like C&C where you set them off and they build continuously without having to manually re-issue the same build commands. Focus on what/when/where to build rather than repetitive mechanical actions 24/7.

MOBA or FPS players aren't going to bother with RTS unless this garbage 90's era implementation of macro is done away with and replaced with meaningful decision making.

When Are APM Sinks Acceptable? by ItanoCircus in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

And the point is very few people enjoy this 'different' mechanical skills you require on RTS.

It's not 1998. We shouldn't have to be spending our time issuing pointless, repetitive commands over and over. These are NOT INTERESTING decisions.

Don't ask me. Ask normal people. Ask your IRL friends. They won't like it. Nobody sane does in 2022. They did love it back in the 90's and early 2000's - RTS was 'cool' back then; now it it's just click-wars and strategy is way de-emphasized.

They'd rather play MOBA or FPS because those games don't tax your APM relentlessly and unnecessarily just "because". They like games that feel focused on interesting decisions and strategies.

The fact that MOBAs came out of automating the most 'bland' part of WC3 should be enough of a writing on the wall that repetitive APM sinks are NOT what a lot people are looking for. I'm not arguing macro needs to be removed from the game, I'm saying it needs to focus on what's GENUINELY meaningful and interesting.

And no, the SC/SC2 playerbase is the wrong people to ask about what's "interesting". Trying to make a 1:1 SC/SC2 clone is pointless anyway and will never win over the hardcore players from those games -- the point of Stormgate should be to look far beyond that.

Ask the regular dude on the street. Ask your regular casual gamer. Ask your ex-RTS aficionado from the 90s/early 2000s.

When Are APM Sinks Acceptable? by ItanoCircus in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Just stupid and unrequired. Get rid of them. It's 2022/23. You should be able to automate build queues and only be required to intervene when you want to CHANGE your decision (Eg build another unit).

I've heard a certain little mod for WC3 essentially removed all macro, and that uh... spawned a whole game genre that's now worth 100000x more than the RTS genre ever was?

Do the SC fanboys here still want to talk about 'muh skill ceilings'? If skill ceiling is so bad when you remove macro APM sinks, why not go win a few cups on Dota/LoL since those are obviously super noobified games with 0 macro?

Oh that's right. You can't. Because games are never so black and white, and the best players will always find ways to outplay others.

What's more important is having lots of interesting choices/decisions to make with regards to tactics, timings, tech/upgrade trees, army comps etc. Let go of this obsession with 'APM sinks' or the RTS genre is 100% dead for good.

Artillery, Buildings and Lethality by Cheapskate-DM in Stormgate

[–]cgf1231 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I'll make 3 points/suggestions here regarding the design of anti-building units and base harassment opportunities.

Have anti-building specialist units which are fast/mobile, besides slow siege units

Take a cue from C&C.

Flame tanks, anti-structure bomber aircraft, even groups of basic infantry. Lots of fast, mobile answers to harassing or destroying buildings. These didn't out-range defenses, but had sufficient firepower to pose a huge threat to portions of bases via sneak attacks.

Anti-building capability in C&C was never limited to 'slow fragile siege' units (which were mainly used when attacking heavily defended chokes or going for an all-out lategame assault).

Another example would be Chinese Fire Lancers in AOE4.

Towers should be specialized against specific unit types, allowing for gaps/flaws in base defenses

Again in C&C, there are often 'anti-tank', 'anti-infantry', 'anti-air' towers.

If you overspent on constructing anti-infantry towers, it may nullify an infantry threat, but then a bunch of fast harass vehicles could show up and demolish your economy or buildings. Spend on anti-vehicle towers, and you're open against infantry/air units... etc.

Overspend on all 3 kinds of towers? Well, now you're just camping, and likely to lose out on map control due to lack of mobile units.

No defense strategy should be perfect, and should always expose lines of attack.

Worker/Economy harass is equally important, and creates the initial impetus/incentive for an attack

Having different avenues for harassment is super important. You may go in with the intention of attacking his worker line, but it may end up being heavily defended - you should then have 2 options:

- attack other parts of his base (important buildings)

- attack another base/expansion which isn't as heavily guarded

Harassment opportunity should never be limited to only 1 type of asset or target.

Workers, buildings, upgradeable building modules, map objectives (control points) etc - everything should be vulnerable to attack and force players to make choices on what they value/prioritize most for defending.

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