but Pxtl I think you are missing the point that the OP WANTS a long game ...
you are of the style of gamer who played starcrafy on the FASTEST setting right, and big game hunters and lots of early harrasment and action ... and he is of the type who prefered Normal or Fast, more control, and long term evolving strategy.
Both are of course fun / valid types of games - for different people or different days ...
but his goal is to bring back the way it felt fun for the first AoE game that lastest 2 hours ... the OLD SCHOOL RTS long game.
[RTS] Game duration and repetition
Quote:Original post by Zanthos
- Sabotage: Possibly involving sabotaging a co-operative player by stealing resources and/or units, this could make breaking and gaining alliances very interesting, for example Player A and Player B versus Player C and Player D... Player A gets a mission from the server:
"We must break free from our petty alliances, there exists technology much more advanced than our own from within the realm of (Enter Player C name here). Your mission is to retrieve the blueprints to (xyz) from this building (marked on the map)." The reward would also be listed. Now I've already thought up a way in which this could falter for example Player A tells Player B that he has to sabotage his plans, in which case the sabotage goes ahead and they share the result.
I like the idea of some missions being mutually exclusive with your allies, it makes the 'diplomacy' side of the game more interesting. Do you fail the mission, and keep your allies, or do you attempt to complete the mission, and risk losing him? If missions are allocated against players completely randomly, then the more allies you have, the greater the chances of one of them intending to backstab you...
In order to prevent players from just letting an opponent complete a mission against them, one solution would be to make the reward/punishment zero sum - whatever the successful player wins, the unsuccessful player loses. However I think the idea of punishing the unsuccessful players too hard might run contrary to the style of game you're aiming for, so perhaps another solution might be in order.
Quote:
Possibly make it so that the players cannot re-ally when an act of sabotage is carried out or make it so that the morale of units is lowered(possibly resulting in revolt) when they re-ally after a sabotage has taken place.
An intermediate solution would be to have a kind of 'grudge' rating for each player. Successfully completing a mission against a player increases his grudge toward you, and no alliance can be made until the grudge drops over time, or until you offer a suitably large gift.
Quote:Original post by Xai
but Pxtl I think you are missing the point that the OP WANTS a long game ...
you are of the style of gamer who played starcrafy on the FASTEST setting right, and big game hunters and lots of early harrasment and action ... and he is of the type who prefered Normal or Fast, more control, and long term evolving strategy.
Both are of course fun / valid types of games - for different people or different days ...
but his goal is to bring back the way it felt fun for the first AoE game that lastest 2 hours ... the OLD SCHOOL RTS long game.
Ah. I misunderstood that. Still, if you're getting bored with the 45 minutes of build-up in TA, much of my advice will still help. Harassing the enemy in the early game is very productive in any case, and playing at higher speed will help the dull parts go faster.
And playing TA at high speed isn't like playing StarCraft at high speed - most things in TA do fairly well if you're not giving them direct orders, providing you've got them ready for combat. So while in StarCraft on high speed you're panicking at keeping track of your spellcasters and keeping your build queues full, in TA you're just playing TA with faster units and shorter build times.
Oh, and try playing on a medium map with TA Deathmatch mode. Its good for a change of pace.
My opinions on how to make a marathon game that's actually fun.
1) Eliminate the ability and goal of eliminating other players. Either make it entirely a 2-team game where the individual players stay in as part of their team until the team is annihilated, or find another approach. For example, you could make defenses very powerful and focus the game on some sort of external objective, such as control of a central map point or claiming of X territory (see Steal the Bacon for StarCraft, Cosmic Encounter, Risk 2150, or Emperor of the Fading Suns). After all, if you're going to play for 3 hours straight, I don't want to be stuch watching for the bottom 2.5 hours.
Respawning players would be an option, except that its very difficult to balance a new player into an old RTS game, and if possible would probably involve going with a much less epic scale.
2)Consider how intense you want your action to be. I've played many "epic" games who's solution to a long game was to make everything take an eon to do (Metal Fatigue is a worst-case scenario). Homeworld was a very slow game, which fit with the crawling ambience of the game - but many TA players I know found it slow and dull (other people I know loved it to death).
One problem that must be considered in superscalar RTS games is how many units can the player control? StarCraft becomes difficult to control at about 40 units. TA starts to crack at around 200. In a game with a superlarge map, having such little power on it can be frustrating (TA usually has the map pleasantly filled). In the end, maps that are large than the game can really handle just means a lot of "flyover country" just a lot of watching units cross the map (old C&C was terrible for this) - fit the map size to the gameplay.
In general, focusing on mortar artillery, scouting-unit deployments, and construction is a good idea - mounted assaults require sudden committments to wipe out your enemy, which means the game will end more abruptly. Look at Metal Marines for an interesting take on this idea - its an RTS where each player has their own map to build a city on, and players launch ICBMs and infantry dropships at each other.
My big problem with most "Epic" RTS games is that they aren't - they're an hour of independant construction and planning punctuated by 10 minutes of carnage. TA is the rare exception.
1) Eliminate the ability and goal of eliminating other players. Either make it entirely a 2-team game where the individual players stay in as part of their team until the team is annihilated, or find another approach. For example, you could make defenses very powerful and focus the game on some sort of external objective, such as control of a central map point or claiming of X territory (see Steal the Bacon for StarCraft, Cosmic Encounter, Risk 2150, or Emperor of the Fading Suns). After all, if you're going to play for 3 hours straight, I don't want to be stuch watching for the bottom 2.5 hours.
Respawning players would be an option, except that its very difficult to balance a new player into an old RTS game, and if possible would probably involve going with a much less epic scale.
2)Consider how intense you want your action to be. I've played many "epic" games who's solution to a long game was to make everything take an eon to do (Metal Fatigue is a worst-case scenario). Homeworld was a very slow game, which fit with the crawling ambience of the game - but many TA players I know found it slow and dull (other people I know loved it to death).
One problem that must be considered in superscalar RTS games is how many units can the player control? StarCraft becomes difficult to control at about 40 units. TA starts to crack at around 200. In a game with a superlarge map, having such little power on it can be frustrating (TA usually has the map pleasantly filled). In the end, maps that are large than the game can really handle just means a lot of "flyover country" just a lot of watching units cross the map (old C&C was terrible for this) - fit the map size to the gameplay.
In general, focusing on mortar artillery, scouting-unit deployments, and construction is a good idea - mounted assaults require sudden committments to wipe out your enemy, which means the game will end more abruptly. Look at Metal Marines for an interesting take on this idea - its an RTS where each player has their own map to build a city on, and players launch ICBMs and infantry dropships at each other.
My big problem with most "Epic" RTS games is that they aren't - they're an hour of independant construction and planning punctuated by 10 minutes of carnage. TA is the rare exception.
Oh, and an odd aside since there are obvious TA fans here:
Have you seen Spring?
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/index.php
Have you seen Spring?
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/index.php
Sorry, didn't read down to here yet. I will after posting this idea in...
You should check out Rise of Nations (unsure about the expansion). The game's pace is just about perfect; there are small battles almost constantly, but the game really always comes to a close right about the time NapoleonBot trades me oil for money and I blow up the world.
Erh...what I mean to say is that the games moderate themselves with time because, once future technologies are unlocked (when the normal tech. paths are all complete, usually about the same time), defeating enemies begins to get HARDER. The rule of thumb is to attack the n00b who didn't build enough Wonders, because if you give them time to learn a missile shield (no superweapons can target you) or how to build stealth bombers, they're no longer the "n00b".
Also, I recommend less superweapons in RTS games...nuking your opponent over and over is all good and fun (and cool if you're playing C&C Generals), but if you can do it without eventually hurting yourself, it takes the thrill out of using them, and comes down to who saved the most money early-on. RoN moderated superweapons very well -- use them too much and you cause the end of the world, everybody loses.
In fact, if you haven't played Rise of Nations, you really don't know all the good things that RTS games can do. It's probably got the best resource gathering system I've ever seen, and national borders and attrition are very, very cool. Too bad you have to play the whole game imperialist (get the most land first).
MMM...cheese.
You should check out Rise of Nations (unsure about the expansion). The game's pace is just about perfect; there are small battles almost constantly, but the game really always comes to a close right about the time NapoleonBot trades me oil for money and I blow up the world.
Erh...what I mean to say is that the games moderate themselves with time because, once future technologies are unlocked (when the normal tech. paths are all complete, usually about the same time), defeating enemies begins to get HARDER. The rule of thumb is to attack the n00b who didn't build enough Wonders, because if you give them time to learn a missile shield (no superweapons can target you) or how to build stealth bombers, they're no longer the "n00b".
Also, I recommend less superweapons in RTS games...nuking your opponent over and over is all good and fun (and cool if you're playing C&C Generals), but if you can do it without eventually hurting yourself, it takes the thrill out of using them, and comes down to who saved the most money early-on. RoN moderated superweapons very well -- use them too much and you cause the end of the world, everybody loses.
In fact, if you haven't played Rise of Nations, you really don't know all the good things that RTS games can do. It's probably got the best resource gathering system I've ever seen, and national borders and attrition are very, very cool. Too bad you have to play the whole game imperialist (get the most land first).
MMM...cheese.
Let's look at Starcraft, whose games are usually around 25 minutes long.
It has limited resources, which actually speeds up the game. That forces players to expand and leave their main base, which means that just sitting in your base and building defenses will make you lose.
Since the whole game is very expand-driven, nearly every game revolves around a center-of-the-map push by both players, in an attempt to contain the other guy in their base. This, coupled with the fact that the defensive structures are pretty bad, forces players to be constantly attacking. Eventually, someone's push will break, or someone will find a way into the other guy's base and will do enough damage to force their opponent to surrender. If that doesn't happen, someone will run out of money first because they secured fewer expansions, and will then be forced to surrender.
It has limited resources, which actually speeds up the game. That forces players to expand and leave their main base, which means that just sitting in your base and building defenses will make you lose.
Since the whole game is very expand-driven, nearly every game revolves around a center-of-the-map push by both players, in an attempt to contain the other guy in their base. This, coupled with the fact that the defensive structures are pretty bad, forces players to be constantly attacking. Eventually, someone's push will break, or someone will find a way into the other guy's base and will do enough damage to force their opponent to surrender. If that doesn't happen, someone will run out of money first because they secured fewer expansions, and will then be forced to surrender.
Quote:Original post by Grim
... scale more appropriate ... Comparing the size of the soldiers and the buildings, the legendary "wonder of the world" is actually the size of a largish house, and the actual houses are smaller than an outhouse. Heck, in some games some of the soldiers are larger than the buildings (WarCraft III, anyone?)!
This is kind of off topic but I always thought that the sprites on screen were meant to represent lots of units at once. If you consider that your average marine is meant to represent a sqad of 10 or even 100 guys the whole thing makes alot more sense. I think I even picked up this idea from some manual many years ago (might have been Dune 2 actually) - but the idea works for all modern RTS and has always much more sensible that 1 sprite is 1 guy.
Quote:Original post by kaysikQuote:Original post by Grim
... scale more appropriate ... Comparing the size of the soldiers and the buildings, the legendary "wonder of the world" is actually the size of a largish house, and the actual houses are smaller than an outhouse. Heck, in some games some of the soldiers are larger than the buildings (WarCraft III, anyone?)!
This is kind of off topic but I always thought that the sprites on screen were meant to represent lots of units at once. If you consider that your average marine is meant to represent a sqad of 10 or even 100 guys the whole thing makes alot more sense. I think I even picked up this idea from some manual many years ago (might have been Dune 2 actually) - but the idea works for all modern RTS and has always much more sensible that 1 sprite is 1 guy.
I don't think it's all that off topic, for if you consider the aspects in rts games more abstract than meets the eye, the game duration really depends on the level of abstraction. However, I did consider the level of abstraction too:
Quote:Original post by Grim
I do acknowledge that my argument is more on the gameplay-realism-axis, as the level of abstraction even in rts games is greater than the representation of the game makes you think. After all, the seemingly single soldier is still called a unit, which could easily refer to a whole group of soldiers, just represented as a single soldier for convenience.
And as for Dune 2 goes, there really were units that represented groups of units, but it was graphically represented as three soldiers, not a single one.
However, I think the level of abstraction in the representation of the game should correlate with the level of abstraction in the game mechanics. If I see one man chopping wood, shooting or whatever, in real time, giving me verbal acknowledgements as a singular entity etc. I find it cumbersome to consider the unit something else than a singular entity. If the units were really more abstract, they should be represented as such. The more realistically the game is represented (realistic not referring to the scale of things, necessarily, but whether I see abstract graphical icons or units/buildings/whatever looking like real world entities), the more mundane feel it has to it (as opposed to a more abstract feel).
And it is not limited to the units; after all, since buildings can be constructed in a matter of (real world time) minutes using stone age methods, the time is somehow abstract as well. The building might take less wood than you can chop from one tree, so the resources are abstract as well. And so on and so on, ad nauseaum. So yes, you can either see this as abstraction or a product of a twist in the proportionality for the sake of gameplay.
Summa summarum: an abstract game should be represented in an abstract way, unless the reason for using realistic depiction is phenomenally good. Of course, this is just my opinion.
Quote:
In order to prevent players from just letting an opponent complete a mission against them, one solution would be to make the reward/punishment zero sum - whatever the successful player wins, the unsuccessful player loses. However I think the idea of punishing the unsuccessful players too hard might run contrary to the style of game you're aiming for, so perhaps another solution might be in order.
Just give them opposite missions. A's mission is to destroy B's something or other, and B's mission is to protect his something or other. If A fails, he doesn't lose anything except a reward he didn't have anyway. If B fails, he loses his something or other, but that's it.
With assorted missions vs. other players, a game with more than 2 players could get really intense. For example:
A's mission: Intelligence indicates aliens (AI controlled) will be attacking, and you're not strong enough to defend yourself from them. Make an alliance with another player before the aliens get there, so you can survive the attack.
B's mission: Steal C's plans for (insert name of weapon/unit B can't currently produce due to lack of tech). This objective must be accomplished in X amount of time to keep C from finding out.
C's mission: A's (insert unit name) has committed war crimes. Capture them and bring them to your base for "questioning".
D's mission: B has a very productive mining operation on the edge of his territory. Take control of it, and keep B from taking it back for X amount of time.
Of course, not all missions would be against another player. This is just an example of what all players simultaneously having missions involving other players in some way would look like.
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