Today I stumbled upon a blog post where the author argued that base building in today's RTS games is a chore and feels a lot like work.
Here's an excerpt:
Anyone else get that feeling when playing any of the recent mainstream RTS games? It was novel at first. But now, it is work. When you are playing anything but "no rush 5 minutes, n00b game"s, be it single player missions or multi player matches, you are building the base because you have to. Because it is your only way to build up an army. And, for the most part, you do it in a time constraint, fearing the coming onslaught of Red Helmeted Fanatic Zerglings under strict orders from Saruman to wipe you off the face of Middle Tib Sara. It's a chore on your way to the fight. Some might even go as far as calling it a hindrance.
http://theravencypher.blogspot.com/2011/01/all-work-and-no-play-make-rts-dull.html
After reading the whole thing it was clear to me that the author is greatly underestimating the strategic value of base building. In any RTS game, especially SC/SC2, base building is just as important in terms of strategic value as fighting and winning battles. Saying that base building is a chore and only exists as a way to get an army belies ignorance on the part of the player or is evidence of a poorly designed game. It only takes a couple of hours of playing Starcraft to realize just how integral base building is to the player's overall strategy and success.
Base building adds a whole new dimension to strategy. The author mentions games like DoW 2 and CoH that have eschewed elements of base building in favor of a focus on tactical maneuver and micromanagement. Although great games, I feel that they are strategically crippled and have not provided a convincing alternative to base building with their implementation of victory and control points.
This article is a classic example of "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about" and the author simply needs to think about the RTS games he plays.
What are your thoughts?
Well since you used words TOP PLAYERS, I challenge you to give me a build in Starcraft 1 & 2 that is so powerful. There are some that will get you into the group of top 10% players, but these are not top players, not even close
Also, top of the ladder != top For added fun, name a "build" that wins all the tournaments!
You could at least start with something challenging. For Starcraft 1, there's a good reason the whole ZERG RUSH meme came up. A well timed zergling rush build would win against anything but a perfectly timed defence against it, including having to resort to using your builders to fight it off; something even experienced players might not even think about using. Before anyone calls me on this because they didn't read my earlier post, it was eventually patched so the zerg rush was slowed to sane levels, but not all games are lucky to get the support level of Blizzard. Many games leave festering imbalances for the entire life of a product.
Starcraft 2? For terran vs protoss the 2 rax fast expand -> marine/maruader spam is considered nearly foolproof for even high level play.
Also, top of the ladder != top
This is very true, but the absolute top tournament players tend to have the benefit of sponsorship and is basically their job to play video games all day. I'm sure we could all rise to the 'true' top if you played whatever game for 8 hours a day, every day for months.
For added fun, name a "build" that wins all the tournaments!
Company of Heroes, 2v2 arranged team. US/British. US spams rifles -> airborne. British spams tommies and PIAT sappers while teching to Kangeroo Carriers. Munitions for Strafe and FOO ready. Axis will lose 9 times out of 10 on any map. It became so bad all 2v2 tournaments for the last year banned British.
I was referring to SC2 tourneys Also, players are only sponsored in Teams. There are lots and lots of tournaments where anyone can play.
Also, MM spam vs Protoss? Really? They can get a sentry to block their ramp and you'll never get up there with your MM ball. Or if you do they'll split you off with the FF. Nearly foolproof? It's a good opening sure, but it doesn't win a game unless your opponent has been doing something way out there. As soon as a Colossus or High Templar is out you basically need to do something more than MM spam. And the FE is still going to be slower than a dedicated MM rush, giving the Protoss plenty of time to prepare.. they can likely even get an Immortal or two out depending on the map to shut down your Marauders hard.
I never played Kohan, but heard good things about it. I remember reading a review, where the author compared it to Star Command Revolution, which i think is one of the most fun RTS games ever. Accidentally he is great admirer of that game too and i tried it, cause i read his articles about it too...and in the end i could only agree with him.
Nevermind, when it comes to base building... i like it, i definitely prefer the games to have it to games like Suddne Stirke, Blitzkrieg etc.., where you are just given units to fight. Such game lack the strategic depth and i like big scale, epic, grandiose stuff. If there are no buildings to build, there are probably no units to build/train... then you cant do the strategic decision of building this or building that...and i fail to see how this is good addition to the game, when you actually lose an important layer of gameplay...
What i do not like though, is over the top base building...when you need to build 3 levels of some research base to get some important tech or unit... it is just redundant and boring and STARCRAFT 1 was exactly like this...therefore i do not understand why people think it is so special...IMHO its not. I cant comment on SC2, as i havent played it yet, perhaps they fixed this. DOW1 (though i probably prefer it to DOW2) suffered from this too. I remember building my entire baee for 20-30 minutes to get to Monolith as Necron, only for the game to freeze/desync... and i could start all over again. THIS IS BAD.
Simply base-building and resource management should be in RTS game, cause its part of actual strategy. It should be however as minimal as it gets... so you can spend more time fighting and moving your armies around, cause that is definitely more fun than waiting 20 minutes for something to build.
First, I want to establish that I am talking about SupCom 1 and SC1, seeing that SupCom 2 was simplified and I do not care for it and I have not played SC2. TA is a fun game as well, but that is not part of my commentary.
The positive or negative is a matter of opinion. I prefer it where other players do not. Again, I never said anything about being better, but rather being more complex.
The buildings do all work the same, but there are more concerns than SC. You have ground defense, air defense, tactical missile defense, strategic missile defense, shield generation, etc. This makes building a defensive line more complex than SC. Nothing more.
Resources are also more complex. I can build a mining rig, which can be upgraded, and then I can attach energy generators to make it more energy efficient or attach mass storage to make it mine faster or I can build a production facility next to it, so that unit production draws less mass resource.
As for the construction buildings, they produce similar units, but not all units have the same stats. Based on your faction, you might want to slightly tweak your approach. I rarely to never aimed for top equipment because I could push out mid range units faster than the enemy could push out experimentals, and I could apply them to devastate the experimentals with minimal losses. SC is not dissimilar. If you play a long game, as Terran you often go for nukes. As each race, I found the means to detect and prevent every nuke launch. And as every race I had my 'top' units I would aim to acquire before rolling over the opponent. Keep in mind this is SP.
Again, I am not saying one is better than another. I am saying that base building appeals to some people more than others. I feel that I am one of those people and, in my experience, SupCom gives more toward that end than SC. Both are fun games, but in slightly different ways.
Didnt the original team that made Company of Heroes left Relic? That's why they can't make a CoH-like DoW game.
Would DoW 2 and other RTS that do away with base building completely be like those Tactical games like Hidden and Dangerous or the original Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games?
Not the entire team, just three of the development leaders. They formed their own studio called Smoking Gun Interactive. They left some time between the release of vCoH and CoH:OF
As a matter of fact I have. Not recently and a very challenging (probably cause I was little) but very intersting. My dad (i think) got a new update yesterday?
Rather fun but my favorite was the Tiger Tank
For me it's not about base building or no base building, it's about good base building versus bad. Any game without any sort of base building is usually lacking in depth. However Starcraft II and even SupCom 1 is an example of bad base building, and company of heroes is good. While DowII is also bad.
Base building should be minimal, fluid and not a distraction from combat. It should practically be a part of combat not something totally divorced from it. Starcraft II makes players spend way more time micromanaging their base then actually fighting. There is a lot of wasted time and useless clicking. Supcom I is the same. DowII on the other hand is superior in a lot of ways. It is just so much fun not having to worry about the order and placements of dozens of buildings that serve no purpose but to force you to build them... You can upgrade units and tech while chasing down or fleeing the enemy. It's non stop action. I used to play 20 minute games that were so exciting and action packed that I thought they had lasted hours. The strategy is still their it's just in the background and you don't have to stare at it constantly.
Of course DowII suffers from a lack of good base building because it is too shallow. Unlike CoH you can't build effective choke-points and you don't have the range of strategic options. CoH is the best base building system I have seen because for the most part you build on the front line, not secreted away in your own little corner. It could however use some of the streamlining found in DowII.
Although for the most part Supcom1 is superior to SupCom II one of the things Supcom2 does right is move base building closer to the front. Factories become mini fortresses that you can build to protect your border resources, and to reinforce right there at the front line. Which is a much better system then building all your barracks in your own personal corner. Build orders are not strategy, which is where a lot of games get it wrong.
I dunno. I wouldn't argue against SupCom2 having something good in that you can add features to a given building and research to upgrade its performance. At the same time, I feel that managing you resources, such as needing better energy generators and mining equipment, is a common issue in all warfare and so fits in the mold. I also feel that most of the buildings are useful, the few that I'm not interested in usually going without my touching them. Of course, I enjoy the turtle method of base production, which mid to late game allows me to focus on nothing but troop movement.
In the end, I don't think it should be a matter of base building being good or bad, but the description of the game being good or bad. Every game has its fans and thus has its place. It would be nice if the publishers and critics both were to make clear the design of the game. Some have gotten better by publishing game footage or demos prior to release, but both the publishers and game buyers need to search out or provide info to make things clear cut. It's like watching a movie trailer that looks like a comedy and finding that it's dramatic and they clipped out the few funny scenes.
Actually it is. Build orders are strategy that were invented and tested by the players to be most effective and then shared with other players.
All games have build orders except those that give you everything at start and you cannot in any way build or reinforce after that. Any game that needs you to do X in Y amount of time to access Z will have a build order around that.
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