What makes a good RTS?

BALANCE is what makes a good RTS. There must be equal balance between the factions. As for microing, bah! In certain instances, sure, but for the most part, there are to many units on the screen to do it accurately. I like Warcraft 3:FT and it has some issues. But its an overall fun factor that makes me keep playing it.

Of course, the main problem is online play is jerks. Guys that start a game and say "OMG I Got to eat dinner!" and leave you hanging. Community ettiquette needs improvement, then of course there are the people who insist on doing things themselves and won't play as a team. One of the most irritating things in War 3 are retards that never upgrade their armor and weapons. I love the NE have like 8-10 floor level archers and 4 mid tier upgraded orc grunts beat them all to death. Sucks when they are on your team though....
 
balance and AI. most fail at the AI every damn time. the quintessential daddy is warcraft 2 then starcraft. oh riiiiiiiiiite...most of you were on the tit when W2 and LAN'ing in DOS was around

Nasty_Savage said:
.... and say "OMG I ...
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anyone who uses OMG* is a dork
 
Any votes for Age of Empires is greatly appreciated by me. You have no idea what it means to a developer to hear people are still enjoying your game more than five years later.
 
Has anyone said:

A Great/Good Story.

For me thats what makes a great RTS. If the creator can make a story that draws me in and makes me want to play mission after mission to find out what happens then its golden. Thats why WC II/III StarCraft were such great games.

With that said, I must say my Favorite RTS of all Time has to Be Homeworld. Great Story, Great use of a 3D World, Great Graphics, Great musical Score (though stolen from Platoon), Great everything. That and the one great thing -- No CHEATS! You actually had to use your brain to figure the missions out, hurray!

*Hugs Homeworld Box*
 
abudhu said:
Great musical Score (though stolen from Platoon
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FINALLY

I have been telling people this forever. Everyone said it was such an original musical score, very haunting and set the mood out in the vastness which is space.

I tried to tell people time and time agian .... the music is from Platoon.

/rant

Yeah it was a great game. Homeworld 2 was .... ok ... wasn't the best as the first one. I like the first homeworld expansion as well.

I really liked the cinematics in that game. Animated Line drawings ... they just looked so cool and original.
 
^^ Haha, I hear that.
Cataclysm was tight. Good continuation story. Homeworld 2 was cool in its own right, but did lack something, just not sure what that something was. Still great games.
 
abudhu said:
^^ Haha, I hear that.
Cataclysm was tight. Good continuation story. Homeworld 2 was cool in its own right, but did lack something, just not sure what that something was. Still great games.
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Cataclysm was cool ... the end where you had to hit that teleporting mothership with that slow as gun was hard. I know you were supposed to EMP it with a large group of scouts and then nail it .... but I just shot and random places and eventually the ship appeared right in line with the super weapon.
 
chew63 said:
...yeah. That's what we're doing here right? discussing things we think make a good RTS? For me units gaining rank is a positive because: 1) it's more realistic. No commander (except maniacal dictators) like to see their troops die or has the ability to "grow" more units as soon as the others die 2) Units that have been through many battles should be able to make quick work of inexperienced noob units. 3) I like more complicated strategy.


And I agree with Ashtaka---"rushing should=suicide". I realize rushing is a "strategy" but I prefer a longer campaign with both sides hammering each other with large armies.
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Ah, I forgot, TA has ranks too :) Was awesome seeing plasma turrets with huge kill scores become super accurate because someone peewee rushes me non-stop.

Rushes have their place, don't get me wrong. But to me, it makes sense to send in ground pounders to weaken the defenses before sending in the troops.
 
RTS is the basis for competitive gaming. I mean where else can you and another person go head to head, testing strategy, speed, skills. MACRO/MICRO. I have been an avid sc gamer scince the release of BW. Starcraft expansion for those not familiar with blizzard products. :) I over 1000 games and run about a 50 50 record. I have played the best players in the united states including "hero" the us winner of the USA wcg 2004. I believe he place 26 in the world. Anyways back the the thread question. I believe that the RTS world is based of on one concept, HUMAN NEEDS TO BE THE BEST.. I havent met one player, who said, damn i lost but i dont care. Thats a bunch of bs people hate to loose, its a natural feeling. AND A GOOD RTS makes that feeling increase with good gameplay, Fast or slow paced. Another major concept liek i said at the begenning is the strategy. Strategy comes in so many diffrent ways, In games like cc you can make a huge army and attack its that simple, but in sc, you cant do that. Ive seen hundreds of lings get killed by two reavers and two archons. :) Ive seen strom wipe out lings. Ive seen 24 marines kill 12 carriers. ITs all strategy. Ive seen two lurkers take out 12 zelots. Ive seen rushes that ive never even heard of. The other day, after 5 years pluss of playing i saw a replay of a guy beating protoss with a two ebay rush. With marines and meds. i couldnt believe, after 5 years of this game i heard thought there wouldnt be any more ideas but htere still is. Thats what makes a great game, A GREAT RTS.
 
I hate RTS games that are really economy games, like RON. Basically, build a big economy and send bazillions of units at the other guy until his economy is worn down to nothing.

Not a big fan of super weapons either. Where's the strategy in wiping out an entire base with a nuke?
 
mjz_5 said:
i thought the warhammer 40000: Dawn of War - was a great RTS
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IS a great RTS :D

We play it at LANs often - tourney finals will go into 3 hours + with 2v2 format, I've seen an 8 player FFA take over 4 hours. I like it better than StarCraft, no freakin "zerg rush" - pretty balanced.
 
somecallmeTim said:
IS a great RTS :D

We play it at LANs often - tourney finals will go into 3 hours + with 2v2 format, I've seen an 8 player FFA take over 4 hours. I like it better than StarCraft, no freakin "zerg rush" - pretty balanced.
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There's plenty of rushing in Dawn of War. Scout Rush, Possessed Marine Rush, a couple of Ork Rushes...

That's the great part about Dawn of War, it keeps you on your feet. :D
 
StarCraft....

why?

sickest balancing and pure speed.

ive played warhammer and warcraft, and i think their graphics are nice, but i also am nostalgic for the 2d sprite work in starcraft.... i hope starcraft 2 still has the same feel as the original and can play on a Pentium 2 (lol).
 
Warcraft3 needs a LOT of AI fixing, mostly pathing and some collision size issures are present also.

The thing that bugs me is when gargoyles attack ground OVER air(which is their primary use, anti air) a lot of people say just to micro out of it, but it shouldnt be like that, they should attack air as a priority.
 
NeverBeGosu said:
RTS is the basis for competitive gaming. I mean where else can you and another person go head to head, testing strategy, speed, skills. MACRO/MICRO. I have been an avid sc gamer scince the release of BW. Starcraft expansion for those not familiar with blizzard products. :) I over 1000 games and run about a 50 50 record. I have played the best players in the united states including "hero" the us winner of the USA wcg 2004. I believe he place 26 in the world. Anyways back the the thread question. I believe that the RTS world is based of on one concept, HUMAN NEEDS TO BE THE BEST.. I havent met one player, who said, damn i lost but i dont care. Thats a bunch of bs people hate to loose, its a natural feeling. AND A GOOD RTS makes that feeling increase with good gameplay, Fast or slow paced. Another major concept liek i said at the begenning is the strategy. Strategy comes in so many diffrent ways, In games like cc you can make a huge army and attack its that simple, but in sc, you cant do that. Ive seen hundreds of lings get killed by two reavers and two archons. :) Ive seen strom wipe out lings. Ive seen 24 marines kill 12 carriers. ITs all strategy. Ive seen two lurkers take out 12 zelots. Ive seen rushes that ive never even heard of. The other day, after 5 years pluss of playing i saw a replay of a guy beating protoss with a two ebay rush. With marines and meds. i couldnt believe, after 5 years of this game i heard thought there wouldnt be any more ideas but htere still is. Thats what makes a great game, A GREAT RTS.
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aha see this guy knows what hes talking about. I have also played top canadian players like testie and veg
 
Lots of different teams/races to play as, that play very differently from each other. That was one of the problems with the Age of Empire games for me. You would get 3 or 4 countries with only minor differences between them.

Good combinations of units. What Age of Mythlogy did wrong in my opinion. All the units were against either one type of unit, or a counterunit. Also the really powerful ones were too expensive to be of much use.

I was personally never a fan of Starcraft. My favorite was Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. It played basically like a tuned up version of AoE 2 Had 8 completely different playing factions, many varied units, strong units with big weaknesses. All around a great game in my opinion.
 
RTS games are probably the hardest to keep balanced, when the race/faction count goes up, the chances of the game staying balanced keep getting thinner and thinner :(
 
I agree with you rc. And thats why the greatest rts has no sequel yet. I mean , would you want to make a game that has the potential of destroying a legendary game. i mean starcraft is a legacy and hell its halfway to classic almost. :) And if they do to it what they did to Warcraft three then they will ruin the game. I think that wc3 is the worst rts out there cuase they added the heroes. Hell take the heroes out and it might be a good game. But sc is the best and theres no arguing they need to make a sequal. but i think it should jsut be a simple graphics update with same units and gameplay. :) And thanks for the compliment :) about knowing what im talking about. I love this game. :)
 
The two most importan aspects, Variation and Balance. The two things SC had in spades... excellent variation (Three races, each controls similarly but plays completely differently than the others). No one wants to play a game where each side is exactly the same. But, with the variation you must have balance, if one race dominates another than it's not fun for the others and everyone will just play that one super race.

Take BFME, it has 4 races for variation, each with unique units, spells, and strategies. No race can easily dominate over another race so it's balanced. Makes for one great game.
 
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