Subject:
Return to the basics
Description:
Return to the basics of Real-Time-Strategy, focusing on resource gathering, management, deployment, and tactical maneuvering.
Positive Effect:
Broad appeal as the basics are easy for new people to pick up and the mastery comes from implementation of tactics and strategy instead of speed of user's interfacing.
Negative Effect:
Hard-core (APS-focused) gamers will be discouraged. Many will decry the absence of their personal fantasies (Mai the Psychic Girl / dolphins with rockets on their backs)
Media:
APS video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q
My recommendation is that the franchise return to what made it great in most of the most successful iterations - C&C, C&C3, RA, RA2, and especially Yuri. I would include the following aspects as "basics":
1. Elements in play are easy to understand.
- A tank looks and acts like a tank. Infantry run on their feet and carry guns. Planes fly and helicopters fly and can hover. By having units (and buildings) that are easily recognized and behave in expected ways, the player can focus more on creating and using those resources and less on discovering which rock needs to hit what scissors so they can protect their paper. It should be obvious that a man cannot defeat a tank, unless that man is carrying a tank-killing bazooka (and one can see that weapon on the man.)
2. The collection of Tiberium is 50% of the game. The other 50% is making sure the other guy doesn't get to.
- The coin of the realm is Tiberium. Gathering it from the environment is what allows the player to build resources and deploy them. Resource gathering has been marginalized by the node-point system popularized in the Dawn of War series. Although it is easier to eliminate resource gathering than to balance it, the fundamental cycle of C&C style gameplay is built on the gathering of resources that are spread out all over the entire map (and are sometimes repopulated randomly). This is what makes the entire map valuable and avoids the chessboard maps we see in current "RTS" games. Removing the harvesters is one of the principle reasons any RTS game becomes a RTT (Real Time Tactical) game.
3. Keep it intimate and tangible - abstracts are for ADD players.
- Superweapons are an excellent method of discouraging turtling, but are a terrible way to drive strategic gameplay. Basic units --> sporadic "special use" attacks --> superweapons. A game that has 5-10 nukes launched in a single session is a game that has abandoned players who want to actually have a battle in the field.
4. Multiplayer should be focused on teamwork, not playing side-by-side.
- Allow players to integrate in multiplayer. There's no reason one player's APC couldn't carry an allied players men. Yet this is common in the new iterations. If I can build tunnels from one place to another, my ally should be allowed to use those same tunnels. RA2's Allied IFV was probably the most brilliant unit ever put into the game by merit of being able to put in soviet units as well. The Battle Tank goes similarly. Why can't I lend my Ally money? Why can't I "gift" units? Are we allies or not? I'm still confused by why two players cannot have one cursor each and control one base together.
Focusing on what made the original C&C great - simple units, easy-to-understand tactics, and a fight for terrain that mattered - is my recommendation.
Return to the basics
Description:
Return to the basics of Real-Time-Strategy, focusing on resource gathering, management, deployment, and tactical maneuvering.
Positive Effect:
Broad appeal as the basics are easy for new people to pick up and the mastery comes from implementation of tactics and strategy instead of speed of user's interfacing.
Negative Effect:
Hard-core (APS-focused) gamers will be discouraged. Many will decry the absence of their personal fantasies (Mai the Psychic Girl / dolphins with rockets on their backs)
Media:
APS video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q
My recommendation is that the franchise return to what made it great in most of the most successful iterations - C&C, C&C3, RA, RA2, and especially Yuri. I would include the following aspects as "basics":
1. Elements in play are easy to understand.
- A tank looks and acts like a tank. Infantry run on their feet and carry guns. Planes fly and helicopters fly and can hover. By having units (and buildings) that are easily recognized and behave in expected ways, the player can focus more on creating and using those resources and less on discovering which rock needs to hit what scissors so they can protect their paper. It should be obvious that a man cannot defeat a tank, unless that man is carrying a tank-killing bazooka (and one can see that weapon on the man.)
2. The collection of Tiberium is 50% of the game. The other 50% is making sure the other guy doesn't get to.
- The coin of the realm is Tiberium. Gathering it from the environment is what allows the player to build resources and deploy them. Resource gathering has been marginalized by the node-point system popularized in the Dawn of War series. Although it is easier to eliminate resource gathering than to balance it, the fundamental cycle of C&C style gameplay is built on the gathering of resources that are spread out all over the entire map (and are sometimes repopulated randomly). This is what makes the entire map valuable and avoids the chessboard maps we see in current "RTS" games. Removing the harvesters is one of the principle reasons any RTS game becomes a RTT (Real Time Tactical) game.
3. Keep it intimate and tangible - abstracts are for ADD players.
- Superweapons are an excellent method of discouraging turtling, but are a terrible way to drive strategic gameplay. Basic units --> sporadic "special use" attacks --> superweapons. A game that has 5-10 nukes launched in a single session is a game that has abandoned players who want to actually have a battle in the field.
4. Multiplayer should be focused on teamwork, not playing side-by-side.
- Allow players to integrate in multiplayer. There's no reason one player's APC couldn't carry an allied players men. Yet this is common in the new iterations. If I can build tunnels from one place to another, my ally should be allowed to use those same tunnels. RA2's Allied IFV was probably the most brilliant unit ever put into the game by merit of being able to put in soviet units as well. The Battle Tank goes similarly. Why can't I lend my Ally money? Why can't I "gift" units? Are we allies or not? I'm still confused by why two players cannot have one cursor each and control one base together.
Focusing on what made the original C&C great - simple units, easy-to-understand tactics, and a fight for terrain that mattered - is my recommendation.
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