Fantastic game. As an achievement hunter I shake my head a bit at the gold chip on all jokers thing, but for now I just see it as another excuse to play it more. I still feel like I‘m shit at the game though around 40 hours in.
@mesamunefire What are y'all going to buy in this sale? I'm thinking Space Tyrant, to satisfy my itch for a more laid back 4X focused on combat; the Metal Gear Solid master collections; and maybe some indie games below 15 bucks
I don’t know. I just no longer find the extra stress from the real-time element engaging. I used to love it, but preferences shift of course, and now I prefer the relaxation of taking my own time to figure out what I want to do, then checking whether I “solved the puzzle”, basically.
I used to play defensively either by myself or with a friend against the computer. Most people seemed to play a rush strategy. I didn’t find much fun in that. The games were over too quick. Instead I’d simply find a difficulty where I’d last anywhere from 1-2 hours in a game, beating back the cpu while building up more defenses and progressing through the ages and technology, in the early stages of the game. Eventually I could tell I was overpowered and then moved to defeat the enemy. There was a challenge in the beginning half of the game, then just crushing! And none of that rush stuff!
I loved RTS games back in the day, played through all the Command & Conquers, Warcrafts, Starcrafts and all that, but then gradually it felt like the genre starting morphing into DotA and other games and I just sort of moved on. I was mostly single-player, though got into multiplayer later, but remember it being so fucking nerve-wracking and having to click hundreds of times a minute and trying to optimize everything, I’d be so worn out after playing. My best game I ever remembered playing was Starcraft 2, there was one match where multiple players tried ganging up on me in a FFA match, it was obvious they were coordinating, and I somehow fended them off and took the game. It wasn’t an important game or anything, but that was one of the fond memories I have from that time in my gaming life.
I think I eventually just shifted over to turn-based strategy instead and I don’t know if the genre ever really returned from DotA.
That line about “only 20% stick around for the multiplayer” isn’t exclusive to RTS. Usually I hear a number like 30%, even for other RTS games, but that’s the case across every genre, even for games like fighting games that you think are only there for multiplayer. Only about 30% of people of any game’s player base will stick around to play online matches against other people.
StarCraft II is one of my favorite games, but to get back into RTSes, for me personally, I’m looking for two solutions: I want it to work well with a controller, and I think I want to get rid of the fog of war. The controller thing, done well, solves the APM complaint already, since there’s usually a speed limit on it. Tooth & Tail, Cannon Brawl, Brutal Legend, etc. give you a “cursor” character such that it doesn’t matter what input device you’re on, since that character can only move at a set speed. This isn’t the only way to do it though; it isn’t coded to use controllers, but Northgard operates on distinct tiles and things move at a slower pace such that a game like it could work on a controller without compromise. One of those compromises that games like Halo Wars or Battle Aces have made is that you can’t really place buildings strategically, and that feels like they’ve gone too far. As for the fog of war, I recognize its strategic value, but it wrecks me mentally and emotionally. It’s just so stress-inducing, even when I understand how to thoroughly scout. Cannon Brawl does without it entirely, and I can enjoy that game in a way that I can’t other RTSes. You still have to split your attention paying attention to all of the different attacks in motion that your opponent has thrown at you, and so it doesn’t feel like it’s missing something. I’m the star of my own story, so these things definitely feel important to me, but I do feel like both of these things would do wonders for making the genre feel more approachable.
And of course, for me, it’s a non-starter if the game is online-only. The two big RTS revivals with the most marketing right now are Stormforge and Battle Aces, and both are online-only, as is that Beyond All Reason game right now. These games have been cooking for a long time, and they’re going to be launching into a live service game crash. Their lead developers may take away the lesson that the genre can’t be saved when I hope that the actual reason is that customers hate putting time and money into a game that will likely be deleted off the face of the earth in a matter of months, not even years.
Starcraft 2 has the best control scheme out of all the RTS games that I have played. I wish Age of Empires 2 could put the map on the left, then I would be way better at using it.
Fog of war
Just play Terran and scan, hurr durrrrrrr. Interestingly, AoE2 has a game option of letting everyone see each other by default.
The Last Night, Replaced and now this. I can’t keep giving my hopes up for highly stylized, somewhat pixely blade runneresk games. I hope one of these get released.
It definitely shows some bosses we haven’t seen before, and the narration hints at what the story might be, or at least the surface level that represents this character’s narrative. For the most part, it’s a bit like watching the original release trailer.
You don’t need to watch it to know, it is fucking epic. I am hyped beyond all measure. We are so fucking back.
youtu.be
Aktywne