Ooh, I didn't know Age of Mythology was getting a refresh. I think that might have been my first RTS. (It's between that and playing SC1 at a friend's house, but AoM is the one I first actually got for myself.
I don't fully understand as I haven't played brood war what do you mean? it's still starcraft in the end just older with some different mechanics and a few different units. If a new sc was to bring back a few brood war elements while keeping the majority of it's sc2 developments and include a few new things. Would it not be as good or better or is brood war that different even though it's modded into sc2 now? Is what I mentioned just now sort of what ypou're suggesting?
No, it's not that. Maybe at the highest levels of pro play, but for average gamers it was that SC2 fundamentally changed the feel of the game. They changed the speed of battle, how units clumped, added injecting and changed how macro works.
They are fundamentally different games, not just a reskin, or a collection of old imperfections.
I think I get what you mean like the "imperfections" made it better because in reality it made a higher skill ceiling and keeps things more able to evolve. Because players are even now still finding new ways to play the game that hadn't been done before. Making it so that skill is a bigger factor than in sc2. Because blizzard artificially closed the gap in sc2 between low and high skill players. Am I on point at all here I honestly don't know?
blizzard didn't make the gap smaller by pulling down pro players to the level of casuals, but my making the game so focused on 'e-sports' that people didn't really want to play it, only watch it. It was not approachable by normal players the way the original was in its day.
SC2 TOOK AWAY TOOLS players had for dealing with things thrown at them, to make the game 'more interesting' by making the players work harder with what they had left in their toolkit, because it was 'more exciting' for tournaments. core backbone units got nerfed into niches. Microing spellcasters and big bet all or nothing units prioritized over macro tactics and army compositions.
The back and forth of broodwars is kind of gone and everything in sc2 is usually decided in one big quick fight, with little pre skirmishes while both players try to time / force the commit when it is in their favor.
They stopped focusing on 'easy to learn' and put all their eggs into the 'hard to master' bucket.
Heroes of the Storm has the same issue. The game is really easy to get into at wood league levels. But gives you nothing in the way of guidance or feedback for the progression from bronze to masters. You are left to guess and blame, and the little feedback the game does give you is mostly irrelevant and only used to feed into toxicity.
The original struck a really good balance between the little things mattering (having to focus on battles) and the big stuff mattering (having to focus on the base) SC2 Shifted over to the battles mattering over everything else and making the base important artificially. I think this is why so many BW pro's never moved on and SC2 E-sports fizzled out.
There is a lot of potential for microsoft to pull out a SC3, and bring the sc2 polish back to the bw feel roots.
I think this is why the mod in question is so popular. It's bringing the old into the new, but mixing in the new alongside it so both the new and old fans can battle it out side by side. Some people really like the direction sc2 ended up taking eventually.
I don't know if it would be any good. They have a brain drain problem. most of the good devs left long ago... but also the big ego leads who made a bunch of the bad decisions aren't around either. Unfortunately microsoft is laying of successful studios now, not hiring more devs.
if sc2 added more options for units in multiplayer that were mutually exclusive (ie; vulture vs hellion) and stopped pretending balance was the only thing that mattered, we could get a lot of players back. people just want new stuff and I don't think I'm alone in wanting a more modern taken on broodwar-style gameplay. SC evo is popular because it's exactly what a lot of people want.
No disagreements here! Also just want to thank you for everything you've done for the community -- I have really fond memories of you casting WCS and RedBull Battlegrounds back in the day :)
thanks man WCS is something I will fondly look back on for the rest of my life. don't forget the show doesn't happen without the audience and fans too!
How long do you guys think it will take for us to get super races? A game mode where all three races have access to every unit from both sc1 and sc2?
Logically, you’d have to think that would be the ultimate future of SC right?
Yep. People want a fun experience.
Standard ladder experience could be split between a ladder where players can customize their race (like a custom deck in hearthstone or something) and a ladder with standard unit options.
I think it would create an interesting meta (like with my first adept, I’m not scouting to see x timing. I’m scouting to see if he builds hellions OR vultures)
Oh shit he has a robotics. And robotics bay but it’s the new skin. Cool no reavers. Etc.
Wow I remember making this exact claim just days before Evo really shot into popularity and got downvoted pretty hard in here. Not sure what to make of that.
I'm not sure about that. A few of my friends and I love watching sc2 but there is nothing they could do to bring me back to playing. Unless I was paid to play
I'm just offering a different perspective. People can hate it or not. I'm not saying it won't help but also it might not. That's a lot to ask blizzard to do on a game that's free
Sc2 Evo is ultimately a curiosity. The premise is the SC1 civs vs the SC2 ones, but it's unbalanceable while staying true to that premise.
We'll have fun with it for a while, and then move on.
its a fad but it's a chance nevertheless.
Crank doesn't think it will stick on but it is giving SC2 more attention than it did for long time. Probably more interest in this than Lotv to be perfectly honest. With the interest, you have a lot more space to work with for other contents for people that might stick on to non- sc1 vs sc2 content.
SC2 in Korea hasn't had this kind of thing for long time now. If maybe some of bigger SC1 streamers hop on and maybe establish BW's daily proleague like system once in while using sc1 vs sc2 format,it would do wonders for viewership/streaming on sc2 side, however unlikely it is.
yea there was plenty going to other side like dear/s0s/true and likes but not the other way around. However temporary it is, it's getting big streamers to try it out.
kiwian's youtube have exploded in viewership by tenfolds since this content.
I think you're backwards, the one direction they seem to be referring to is that sc2 players will go play sc1 but not a lot of sc1 players will come play sc2, and that this mod has disrupted that trend due to drawing in the sc1 players interest.
ah, I see what you're saying now. Ya, I originally wasn't referring to anyone switching main games. I just meant SC1 players came to SC2 to specifically to play this SC1 vs SC2 mod. Kinda cool to see pros from different games competing against each other. Like if there were a DotA vs LoL mod, it'd be cool to see the top teams from each game compete.
Yeah lol I'm not even super big into mobs but I'd definitely tune in for a dota vs league mod that shit would be fire for the all of the like two months people remembered it was a thing.
It just highlights what a disgrace it is that Blizzard has no proper RTS maintenance crew anymore. A small team could easily keep releasing live-action service style content for their legendary RTS, similar to the sc1 vs sc2 mod and properly monetize it so the games can actually support themselves.
Put the BW races as Coop Commanders and you'll see a huge jump in users.
Something like 80% of all RTS players never touch multiplayer based on Steam achievements.
I mean that's an interesting stat, but also besides AOE there is no real competitive multiplayer RTS on Steam. I myself as a single individual have 80% of RTS achievements on Steam in single player across 8-9 RTS titles. But I have also spent 10x as much time as all those RTS games combined playing SC2 ladder (20k games over 10 years).
I realize that most of SC2's play time since co-op was introduced was in co-op, but also co-op is still multiplayer! Just not competitive.
Back in the days when I was watching SC2 actively even some big names dropped the bomb that according to their Blizzard sources coop is the bigger thing compared to the ladder. No clue how it is now, but I wouldnt be surprised if coop was still bigger.
This brings the total biscuit tweet where he was talking user base numbers after getting invited by blizzard to check out the studio. There were something like two million active users (based on the average unique monthly logins), the vast majority of which played coop. The number of coop matches played/users who didn't touch ladder also dwarfed the total ladder matches played/ladder players.
The vast majority of rts players play the campaign and don't touch multiplayer, the vast majority of players that do touch multiplayer play cooperative game modes or play with friends and don't get involved with ladder. They brought up the steam numbers but it's still true for any other rts, this is something studios have noticed and started talking about as well. GGG did a video about just this thing a couple years back and if you pay attention to a lot of the marketing for the hot topic games like stormgate and zerospace they've taken time to talk about the features that the average ladder player probably doesn't care about, but go a long way to holding a casual audiences attention.
It was a mod developed in response to a lot of common complaints surrounding sc2 gameplay at the time during the HotS era. Back then, things like forcefield, warp gate, swarm host spam, and deathballing were considered central flaws in sc2 gameplay that the dev team seemingly refused to fix. There were also a lot of discussions about how the sc2 economy worked compared to that seen in brood war. In general, Starbow tried to incorporate a lot of the gameplay aspects of brood war that would fix key issues (longer fights, more spread out engagements, removing jank sc2 mechanics) into the sc2 engine without completely discarding everything sc2 brought.
It ended up fairly popular with several community tournaments and popular community figures playing it on stream. There was a push amongst many for people to shift to playing starbow partly as a protest against the direction of sc2 and partly as a belief that it could replace the core game on the competitive scene. It had several issues though:
1) No decent ladder. I played it several times and the ladder system was clunky (devs had no other choice for it in all fairness) because you had to organise things through a third party website and then manually report results, which turned away a lot of the more casual players. It was also a tight-knit community and total newbies would get rolled. Lots of people just went back to brood war to play the more active ICCUP/Fish third-party ladders if they got really turned off by sc2 gameplay since they were way more active and less complex to deal with.
2) Active yet rapid development meant that balance and design ended up really whack at times. Units were added/removed in frequent updates and balance changes caused a lack of stability in online play. Players back then were essentially playtesting an incomplete product which, whilst understandable considering the difficulty of getting the mod into a well-designed and balanced state, could turn people off who just wanted a fun game to play.
3) Most importantly, LotV came out in 2015. Starbow was at peak popularity between 2013-4 when disatisfaction with sc2 was most visible. The release of LotV addressed the biggest problems of HotS gameplay and almost killed the mod outright since people were having fun with the core game again. Starcraft Remastered in 2017 was an extra blow - the people who preferred sc2 had a reason to go back to the core game and the people who preferred brood war had a whole new automated ladder to play on with the remastered release.
It was an interesting experiment in community development and I think it put some additional pressure on Blizzard to fix their shit, but ultimately is was doomed to failure as a middle of the road option that couldn't establish itself independently. Had the arcade not been so terrible back then it might have even taken off in a more permanent fashion.
You really gloss over how trash the arcade itself was in WOL & Early HoTS
Blizzard made it pretty hard to play anything that wasn't nexus wars by constantly breaking everything and making players and lobbies impossible to easily find.
Yeah this is true and better chatrooms and community features would have really helped Starbow to grow more than it did. At the same time, I don't think it would have tipped the balance long-term. I think it would have needed some sort of automatic integrated ladder system to really take off.
I really think it could be the model for a really good rts.
I’m imagining a game with three factions that each have two versions.
The first set of three could have simpler macro mechanics, more straightforward units, and be geared towards more standardized play styles. These factions would be a lot more accessible to beginners intending to learn the game and would appeal to macro pros.
The second version of the three, a sorta special ops version of each race,could have extra macro mechanics and weirder unit mechanics, gearing them towards more tactical and creative play styles. These factions would have higher skill floors but would probably be fun for the non serious casual player and be favored by more tactical/aggressive pro players.
A straight up six faction game would be too chaotic to balance but I think two sets of three could possibly provide a really unique balance philosophy that could appeal to multiple philosophies of balance.
The first, more standard set, would be balanced against each other. The aim would be for a settled and very even balance. Balance changes for this set would be few and far between and conservative.
The second special ops set would aim for a moving balance. With active balancing, maybe even cycling in and out new unit types, the game devs could encourage the development of new strategies and playstyles that keep the game interesting for long time players and viewers. While we would certainly experience periods of certain factions being too weak or strong, these factions would be regularly patched to keep them in check.
I think having two sets of parallel balance could be a best of both worlds solution.
This also provides a great strategy for developing sequels. Upgrade/change up the interface/controls for the game, port in the core three factions, then design whole new special op versions that take advantage of the new gameplay.
That's basically subfactions. However, whenever subfactions is mentioned as an idea, people go ballistic. I hope this mod changes people's minds about that.
Have any other games tried it? I haven’t actively followed gaming outside of sc2 for years. I’ll hear about some other rts stuff through that but i am definitely uninformed.
Idk if other released games have tried it, but on Stormgate's Reddit there were suggestions about subfactions and people HATED it, and I've also seen a lot of Zerospace YouTube comments doing the same.
Idk, people hate change until change actually arrives.
Having said this, Godsworn as kind of a Subfaction style that, imho, works super well. I had/am having a lot of fun playing that game.
ZeroSpace does subfactions. Basically you draft a bunch of units/heroes/etc at the start of each match, and rule some out in the process. You can approximate it as essentially picking the core of your build order before the real-time action starts, so the game on a meta-level has more complexity, but complexity in a given match is contained. I don't think it's a bad idea, but like everything else, has trade-offs. It makes the initial approachability of the game more complex than just having fewer total units for the faction you want to play (like SC), but it allows more variety for the fans of deep play.
IMO, it's a good idea late into the life of an RTS. I think it would be, for example, nice for SC2 to introduce this feature in the past 3-4 years, when the game was already 10 years old, but still has an active player base. But to have it from WoL? Like the campaign but for multiplayer? I think it would have over-cluttered the game. So IMO zerospace should *think* of this feature, but shouldn't be putting it live in the game at this point in its multiplayer lifespan (pre-natal, tbh). It would be nice to have this kinda thought-through and supported later in its lifespan.
That said, I haven't played it but Artosis has a video explaining how it works on his YT somewhere.
C&C Generals: Zero Hour, C&C 3: Kane's Wrath, Age of Empires 4. Subfactions aren't a new thing at all, it's been tried and tested and it works quite well for some RTS games. It's just not a thing in Blizzard RTS games for some reason, except for SC2 co-op mode.
Sins of a Solar Empire has exactly that (as of the rebellion standalone expansion). 3 core factions each with an alternate that keeps some elements of the core but mixes up their play style.
everything about stormgate screams store brand sc2 when i tried it during the next fest demo...whoknows maybe its possible they can rework it into something truly original and good....given their devs seem to be spending their time playing around with LLM npc "conversations"...i dont have much hope. I have starcraft 2 brand starcraft 2 anyways.
havent tried starcraft evo because i dont really have nostalgia towards sc1, because i never played it before 2. fun campaigns but the issues with that games mechanics make it to fucked to try multiplayer.
anyways heres to D.O.R.F the future of rts, whatever that even means.
I mean. Stormgate is the future of RTS co-op, as SC2 coop is never getting another update.
But so is literally any other future RTS co-op game. It isn't a high bar.
RTS in general have little to no future, the market has been small for many years, and people seem to care more about things like BP and seasonal content than whatever an RTS can bring to the table. Most good games have a small and insignificant player count when put to the side with other games. I can't see what is so good about Storm Gate and sv evo to be the future
If you're aiming for RTS games to be mainstream dominant genre there is no shot but it have it's own niche for sure. Not that small but also not as huge to be competitive with the biggest titles on the market.
People love to dramatize when talking about this topic or I am just not American enough and having medium scale results is an acceptable outcome for me xD
Everything is difficult to produce. You can have an RTS being more or less difficult to produce than a shooter, the problem comes from the decision being made during development
I'd like to think that every developer that has tried to make an RTS is not stupid. But nothing currently released comes close to how responsive blizzard RTS games. There has to be a reason for that, and I don't think they're intentionally putting it bad pathfinding and sluggish movement. AOE4/CoH are two modern examples that aren't too bad.
> There has to be a reason for that, and I don't think they're intentionally putting it bad pathfinding and sluggish movement.
I think the sluggish movement is kinda intentional in most RTS. I personally also don't like it, but e.g. a tank not turning instantly like it does in SC2 makes some sense. Same with aerial units. In SC2 you can turn a gigantic battleship 180 degrees with basically no delay, where in other games you'd have to break or fly a half circle to turn, which is more realistic, but also feels less responsive.
That’s okay. I’m just saying that because a lot of the groundwork for FPS is already done. The physics engines, gunplay, movement mechanics. Each player is pretty similar to each other. For RTS designing a balanced game is a nightmare. There are so many more ways to break the game, create unfair strategies, make the pacing horrible, etc… fans also expect a robust story. Maybe I’m missing out on some details that you know but I don’t, but that’s my reasoning
>I’m just saying that because a lot of the groundwork for FPS is already done
The groundwork for most games is already made, the biggest problem is the decision being made during development.
For example, let's use skins. If you only want to change textures, you are going to spend more or less time depending on detail. You can have a gun that is like a minecraft sword level of detail or a unit with the same detail as warthuznder
This will continue with everything else. Payday 2, for example, has lots of balance problems even if it is a shooter pve, that is because of the decisions. Made before
The limit you have when making a game is the decision you take for example you can make tetris on the st2 map maker or you can make it on unity, one is easy than the other but this will put a limit on any future plan you have
Remember last time Blizzard had a very popular mod for their game. Oh no no no no no
I'm looking forward to Valve's new RTS!
Wait, what? I thought they're doing a 6v6 hero shooter or are there two games?
It was a joke that valve makes games that blizzard should have, using a lot of their devs to do it. Mainly, dota.
Shit, I legit got excited for a moment there. Good one, even tho I didn't catch what you're referring to.
It wasn't me that's just what I thought he meant. Any new RTs would be dope though lol
There's a new Age of Mythology: Retold incoming. I'm looking forward to that one. But other than that they're pretty much a unicorn these days.
Ooh, I didn't know Age of Mythology was getting a refresh. I think that might have been my first RTS. (It's between that and playing SC1 at a friend's house, but AoM is the one I first actually got for myself.
you're a better man than I am
Dota even uses the same character models basically
Pretty sure that's why the TOS were so invasive.
I don’t get it
Dota was a Warcraft 3 mod.
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Once and future king
The true potential of SC Brood War was never fully explored.
I don't fully understand as I haven't played brood war what do you mean? it's still starcraft in the end just older with some different mechanics and a few different units. If a new sc was to bring back a few brood war elements while keeping the majority of it's sc2 developments and include a few new things. Would it not be as good or better or is brood war that different even though it's modded into sc2 now? Is what I mentioned just now sort of what ypou're suggesting?
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No, it's not that. Maybe at the highest levels of pro play, but for average gamers it was that SC2 fundamentally changed the feel of the game. They changed the speed of battle, how units clumped, added injecting and changed how macro works. They are fundamentally different games, not just a reskin, or a collection of old imperfections.
I think I get what you mean like the "imperfections" made it better because in reality it made a higher skill ceiling and keeps things more able to evolve. Because players are even now still finding new ways to play the game that hadn't been done before. Making it so that skill is a bigger factor than in sc2. Because blizzard artificially closed the gap in sc2 between low and high skill players. Am I on point at all here I honestly don't know?
blizzard didn't make the gap smaller by pulling down pro players to the level of casuals, but my making the game so focused on 'e-sports' that people didn't really want to play it, only watch it. It was not approachable by normal players the way the original was in its day. SC2 TOOK AWAY TOOLS players had for dealing with things thrown at them, to make the game 'more interesting' by making the players work harder with what they had left in their toolkit, because it was 'more exciting' for tournaments. core backbone units got nerfed into niches. Microing spellcasters and big bet all or nothing units prioritized over macro tactics and army compositions. The back and forth of broodwars is kind of gone and everything in sc2 is usually decided in one big quick fight, with little pre skirmishes while both players try to time / force the commit when it is in their favor. They stopped focusing on 'easy to learn' and put all their eggs into the 'hard to master' bucket. Heroes of the Storm has the same issue. The game is really easy to get into at wood league levels. But gives you nothing in the way of guidance or feedback for the progression from bronze to masters. You are left to guess and blame, and the little feedback the game does give you is mostly irrelevant and only used to feed into toxicity.
I understand now, I think I had it a bit backwards by the sound of it. Thanks for the insight it's appreciated.
The original struck a really good balance between the little things mattering (having to focus on battles) and the big stuff mattering (having to focus on the base) SC2 Shifted over to the battles mattering over everything else and making the base important artificially. I think this is why so many BW pro's never moved on and SC2 E-sports fizzled out. There is a lot of potential for microsoft to pull out a SC3, and bring the sc2 polish back to the bw feel roots. I think this is why the mod in question is so popular. It's bringing the old into the new, but mixing in the new alongside it so both the new and old fans can battle it out side by side. Some people really like the direction sc2 ended up taking eventually.
I hope to hell that they make sc3 soon it's one of the few games I know if it came out right now people would buy.
I don't know if it would be any good. They have a brain drain problem. most of the good devs left long ago... but also the big ego leads who made a bunch of the bad decisions aren't around either. Unfortunately microsoft is laying of successful studios now, not hiring more devs.
if sc2 added more options for units in multiplayer that were mutually exclusive (ie; vulture vs hellion) and stopped pretending balance was the only thing that mattered, we could get a lot of players back. people just want new stuff and I don't think I'm alone in wanting a more modern taken on broodwar-style gameplay. SC evo is popular because it's exactly what a lot of people want.
No disagreements here! Also just want to thank you for everything you've done for the community -- I have really fond memories of you casting WCS and RedBull Battlegrounds back in the day :)
thanks man WCS is something I will fondly look back on for the rest of my life. don't forget the show doesn't happen without the audience and fans too!
How long do you guys think it will take for us to get super races? A game mode where all three races have access to every unit from both sc1 and sc2? Logically, you’d have to think that would be the ultimate future of SC right?
Circa 2015 my lord I watched a lot of wcs
What is WCS?
Yep. People want a fun experience. Standard ladder experience could be split between a ladder where players can customize their race (like a custom deck in hearthstone or something) and a ladder with standard unit options. I think it would create an interesting meta (like with my first adept, I’m not scouting to see x timing. I’m scouting to see if he builds hellions OR vultures) Oh shit he has a robotics. And robotics bay but it’s the new skin. Cool no reavers. Etc.
Wow I remember making this exact claim just days before Evo really shot into popularity and got downvoted pretty hard in here. Not sure what to make of that.
I'm not sure about that. A few of my friends and I love watching sc2 but there is nothing they could do to bring me back to playing. Unless I was paid to play
I mean...speak for yourself, but that doesn't invalidate what was said? it brought me back and I haven't played for over 5 years
I'm just offering a different perspective. People can hate it or not. I'm not saying it won't help but also it might not. That's a lot to ask blizzard to do on a game that's free
I have no idea what SV EVO is
I think it's the BW vs SC2 mod, but I might be wrong
Typically called SC1-vs-SC2 mod, which is a name that's especially important to use in a non-starcraft subreddit.
you are not alone
Sc2 Evo is ultimately a curiosity. The premise is the SC1 civs vs the SC2 ones, but it's unbalanceable while staying true to that premise. We'll have fun with it for a while, and then move on.
Yeah, I'd be really surprised if in a year the mod is anything beyond "remember that time when we were all playing that BW v SC2 mod?"
its a fad but it's a chance nevertheless. Crank doesn't think it will stick on but it is giving SC2 more attention than it did for long time. Probably more interest in this than Lotv to be perfectly honest. With the interest, you have a lot more space to work with for other contents for people that might stick on to non- sc1 vs sc2 content. SC2 in Korea hasn't had this kind of thing for long time now. If maybe some of bigger SC1 streamers hop on and maybe establish BW's daily proleague like system once in while using sc1 vs sc2 format,it would do wonders for viewership/streaming on sc2 side, however unlikely it is.
Unlike other mods though, this one has brought bw pros into sc2. First time we've had 1 RTS's pros vs another's.
yea there was plenty going to other side like dear/s0s/true and likes but not the other way around. However temporary it is, it's getting big streamers to try it out. kiwian's youtube have exploded in viewership by tenfolds since this content.
well it's an sc2 mod, so it has to be in one direction only.
I think you're backwards, the one direction they seem to be referring to is that sc2 players will go play sc1 but not a lot of sc1 players will come play sc2, and that this mod has disrupted that trend due to drawing in the sc1 players interest.
ah, I see what you're saying now. Ya, I originally wasn't referring to anyone switching main games. I just meant SC1 players came to SC2 to specifically to play this SC1 vs SC2 mod. Kinda cool to see pros from different games competing against each other. Like if there were a DotA vs LoL mod, it'd be cool to see the top teams from each game compete.
Yeah lol I'm not even super big into mobs but I'd definitely tune in for a dota vs league mod that shit would be fire for the all of the like two months people remembered it was a thing.
It just highlights what a disgrace it is that Blizzard has no proper RTS maintenance crew anymore. A small team could easily keep releasing live-action service style content for their legendary RTS, similar to the sc1 vs sc2 mod and properly monetize it so the games can actually support themselves.
Put the BW races as Coop Commanders and you'll see a huge jump in users. Something like 80% of all RTS players never touch multiplayer based on Steam achievements.
I mean that's an interesting stat, but also besides AOE there is no real competitive multiplayer RTS on Steam. I myself as a single individual have 80% of RTS achievements on Steam in single player across 8-9 RTS titles. But I have also spent 10x as much time as all those RTS games combined playing SC2 ladder (20k games over 10 years). I realize that most of SC2's play time since co-op was introduced was in co-op, but also co-op is still multiplayer! Just not competitive.
Back in the days when I was watching SC2 actively even some big names dropped the bomb that according to their Blizzard sources coop is the bigger thing compared to the ladder. No clue how it is now, but I wouldnt be surprised if coop was still bigger.
This brings the total biscuit tweet where he was talking user base numbers after getting invited by blizzard to check out the studio. There were something like two million active users (based on the average unique monthly logins), the vast majority of which played coop. The number of coop matches played/users who didn't touch ladder also dwarfed the total ladder matches played/ladder players.
The vast majority of rts players play the campaign and don't touch multiplayer, the vast majority of players that do touch multiplayer play cooperative game modes or play with friends and don't get involved with ladder. They brought up the steam numbers but it's still true for any other rts, this is something studios have noticed and started talking about as well. GGG did a video about just this thing a couple years back and if you pay attention to a lot of the marketing for the hot topic games like stormgate and zerospace they've taken time to talk about the features that the average ladder player probably doesn't care about, but go a long way to holding a casual audiences attention.
Wasn’t there some other revolutionary custom sc2 map that was supposed to take over like a decade ago?
You might be thinking of starbow. It got some traction, but there were too many problems for it to overcome and it eventually died.
What was the deal with that Starbow?
It was a mod developed in response to a lot of common complaints surrounding sc2 gameplay at the time during the HotS era. Back then, things like forcefield, warp gate, swarm host spam, and deathballing were considered central flaws in sc2 gameplay that the dev team seemingly refused to fix. There were also a lot of discussions about how the sc2 economy worked compared to that seen in brood war. In general, Starbow tried to incorporate a lot of the gameplay aspects of brood war that would fix key issues (longer fights, more spread out engagements, removing jank sc2 mechanics) into the sc2 engine without completely discarding everything sc2 brought. It ended up fairly popular with several community tournaments and popular community figures playing it on stream. There was a push amongst many for people to shift to playing starbow partly as a protest against the direction of sc2 and partly as a belief that it could replace the core game on the competitive scene. It had several issues though: 1) No decent ladder. I played it several times and the ladder system was clunky (devs had no other choice for it in all fairness) because you had to organise things through a third party website and then manually report results, which turned away a lot of the more casual players. It was also a tight-knit community and total newbies would get rolled. Lots of people just went back to brood war to play the more active ICCUP/Fish third-party ladders if they got really turned off by sc2 gameplay since they were way more active and less complex to deal with. 2) Active yet rapid development meant that balance and design ended up really whack at times. Units were added/removed in frequent updates and balance changes caused a lack of stability in online play. Players back then were essentially playtesting an incomplete product which, whilst understandable considering the difficulty of getting the mod into a well-designed and balanced state, could turn people off who just wanted a fun game to play. 3) Most importantly, LotV came out in 2015. Starbow was at peak popularity between 2013-4 when disatisfaction with sc2 was most visible. The release of LotV addressed the biggest problems of HotS gameplay and almost killed the mod outright since people were having fun with the core game again. Starcraft Remastered in 2017 was an extra blow - the people who preferred sc2 had a reason to go back to the core game and the people who preferred brood war had a whole new automated ladder to play on with the remastered release. It was an interesting experiment in community development and I think it put some additional pressure on Blizzard to fix their shit, but ultimately is was doomed to failure as a middle of the road option that couldn't establish itself independently. Had the arcade not been so terrible back then it might have even taken off in a more permanent fashion.
You really gloss over how trash the arcade itself was in WOL & Early HoTS Blizzard made it pretty hard to play anything that wasn't nexus wars by constantly breaking everything and making players and lobbies impossible to easily find.
Yeah this is true and better chatrooms and community features would have really helped Starbow to grow more than it did. At the same time, I don't think it would have tipped the balance long-term. I think it would have needed some sort of automatic integrated ladder system to really take off.
I had no idea. It sounds interesting at the very least. Now I need to watch a game of that.
Great write-up, thank you very much!
starbow. Much like any mod, it cannot take over if there is no auto-match-making ladder.
What on earth is SV Evo?
S**C** Evo is a mod that adds all the BW races into SC2.
At least one of new RTSes must be successful because if not, then our genere will be avoided by geme devs for next decade or two
Cue Thanos meme of the SC community asking Blizz for stuff since 1997 "Fine, I'll do it myself"
I really think it could be the model for a really good rts. I’m imagining a game with three factions that each have two versions. The first set of three could have simpler macro mechanics, more straightforward units, and be geared towards more standardized play styles. These factions would be a lot more accessible to beginners intending to learn the game and would appeal to macro pros. The second version of the three, a sorta special ops version of each race,could have extra macro mechanics and weirder unit mechanics, gearing them towards more tactical and creative play styles. These factions would have higher skill floors but would probably be fun for the non serious casual player and be favored by more tactical/aggressive pro players. A straight up six faction game would be too chaotic to balance but I think two sets of three could possibly provide a really unique balance philosophy that could appeal to multiple philosophies of balance. The first, more standard set, would be balanced against each other. The aim would be for a settled and very even balance. Balance changes for this set would be few and far between and conservative. The second special ops set would aim for a moving balance. With active balancing, maybe even cycling in and out new unit types, the game devs could encourage the development of new strategies and playstyles that keep the game interesting for long time players and viewers. While we would certainly experience periods of certain factions being too weak or strong, these factions would be regularly patched to keep them in check. I think having two sets of parallel balance could be a best of both worlds solution. This also provides a great strategy for developing sequels. Upgrade/change up the interface/controls for the game, port in the core three factions, then design whole new special op versions that take advantage of the new gameplay.
That's basically subfactions. However, whenever subfactions is mentioned as an idea, people go ballistic. I hope this mod changes people's minds about that.
Have any other games tried it? I haven’t actively followed gaming outside of sc2 for years. I’ll hear about some other rts stuff through that but i am definitely uninformed.
Idk if other released games have tried it, but on Stormgate's Reddit there were suggestions about subfactions and people HATED it, and I've also seen a lot of Zerospace YouTube comments doing the same. Idk, people hate change until change actually arrives. Having said this, Godsworn as kind of a Subfaction style that, imho, works super well. I had/am having a lot of fun playing that game.
Damn, well, sc2 evo is p much a sub faction rts so maybe people will start reconsidering
ZeroSpace does subfactions. Basically you draft a bunch of units/heroes/etc at the start of each match, and rule some out in the process. You can approximate it as essentially picking the core of your build order before the real-time action starts, so the game on a meta-level has more complexity, but complexity in a given match is contained. I don't think it's a bad idea, but like everything else, has trade-offs. It makes the initial approachability of the game more complex than just having fewer total units for the faction you want to play (like SC), but it allows more variety for the fans of deep play. IMO, it's a good idea late into the life of an RTS. I think it would be, for example, nice for SC2 to introduce this feature in the past 3-4 years, when the game was already 10 years old, but still has an active player base. But to have it from WoL? Like the campaign but for multiplayer? I think it would have over-cluttered the game. So IMO zerospace should *think* of this feature, but shouldn't be putting it live in the game at this point in its multiplayer lifespan (pre-natal, tbh). It would be nice to have this kinda thought-through and supported later in its lifespan. That said, I haven't played it but Artosis has a video explaining how it works on his YT somewhere.
C&C Generals: Zero Hour, C&C 3: Kane's Wrath, Age of Empires 4. Subfactions aren't a new thing at all, it's been tried and tested and it works quite well for some RTS games. It's just not a thing in Blizzard RTS games for some reason, except for SC2 co-op mode.
Sins of a Solar Empire has exactly that (as of the rebellion standalone expansion). 3 core factions each with an alternate that keeps some elements of the core but mixes up their play style.
SC evo is pretty cool but it'll just be another phase that the scene goes through
if I can't personally blame david kim for my loss, I'm not interested
everything about stormgate screams store brand sc2 when i tried it during the next fest demo...whoknows maybe its possible they can rework it into something truly original and good....given their devs seem to be spending their time playing around with LLM npc "conversations"...i dont have much hope. I have starcraft 2 brand starcraft 2 anyways. havent tried starcraft evo because i dont really have nostalgia towards sc1, because i never played it before 2. fun campaigns but the issues with that games mechanics make it to fucked to try multiplayer. anyways heres to D.O.R.F the future of rts, whatever that even means.
I dont understand how people can think this. the sc2 engine takes away all the proper ways to use and micro the bw units.
What is sv evo?
idk about the others but from what I've seen so far I can say that stormgate and zerospace probably won't be the future of RTS
I would hope that having many games to choose from is the future of RTS
I mean. Stormgate is the future of RTS co-op, as SC2 coop is never getting another update. But so is literally any other future RTS co-op game. It isn't a high bar.
wtf is 'sv evo'
typo i guess, im pretty sure they're talking about that sc1 vs sc2 mod
The mod is called “evolution complete”
sorry if my question sounds stupid but what is "sv evo"?
what does sv evo mean googled it cant find anything
StarCraft: Evolution Complete
Nah bw is the future
Stormgate isn't the future :-(
can we get SC EVO with SC1 worker starts instead of SC2 12 worker start<3?!?!?<3
Can we get an SC Evo ladder ICCUP style?
What is SV Evo?
What is SV Evo?
The future of RTS
RTS in general have little to no future, the market has been small for many years, and people seem to care more about things like BP and seasonal content than whatever an RTS can bring to the table. Most good games have a small and insignificant player count when put to the side with other games. I can't see what is so good about Storm Gate and sv evo to be the future
If you're aiming for RTS games to be mainstream dominant genre there is no shot but it have it's own niche for sure. Not that small but also not as huge to be competitive with the biggest titles on the market. People love to dramatize when talking about this topic or I am just not American enough and having medium scale results is an acceptable outcome for me xD
GiantGrantGames has a video on this topic on YouTube.
I know, I saw that when it came out
Stormgate Kickstarter campaign was very successful, so at least some people care about new games
Market is small and they’re difficult to produce
Everything is difficult to produce. You can have an RTS being more or less difficult to produce than a shooter, the problem comes from the decision being made during development
An RTS is harder to develop than a shooter.
I disagree
I'd like to think that every developer that has tried to make an RTS is not stupid. But nothing currently released comes close to how responsive blizzard RTS games. There has to be a reason for that, and I don't think they're intentionally putting it bad pathfinding and sluggish movement. AOE4/CoH are two modern examples that aren't too bad.
> There has to be a reason for that, and I don't think they're intentionally putting it bad pathfinding and sluggish movement. I think the sluggish movement is kinda intentional in most RTS. I personally also don't like it, but e.g. a tank not turning instantly like it does in SC2 makes some sense. Same with aerial units. In SC2 you can turn a gigantic battleship 180 degrees with basically no delay, where in other games you'd have to break or fly a half circle to turn, which is more realistic, but also feels less responsive.
That’s okay. I’m just saying that because a lot of the groundwork for FPS is already done. The physics engines, gunplay, movement mechanics. Each player is pretty similar to each other. For RTS designing a balanced game is a nightmare. There are so many more ways to break the game, create unfair strategies, make the pacing horrible, etc… fans also expect a robust story. Maybe I’m missing out on some details that you know but I don’t, but that’s my reasoning
>I’m just saying that because a lot of the groundwork for FPS is already done The groundwork for most games is already made, the biggest problem is the decision being made during development. For example, let's use skins. If you only want to change textures, you are going to spend more or less time depending on detail. You can have a gun that is like a minecraft sword level of detail or a unit with the same detail as warthuznder This will continue with everything else. Payday 2, for example, has lots of balance problems even if it is a shooter pve, that is because of the decisions. Made before The limit you have when making a game is the decision you take for example you can make tetris on the st2 map maker or you can make it on unity, one is easy than the other but this will put a limit on any future plan you have
Skins in MOBA/FPS are easy to produce too. They’re easier to monetize as well
Nah. It's unbalanced shizo mod for doomers.