Some Thoughts on RTS in General

[SwiftSpear]

I'm making a widget that watches every forum for people who like micro and then argues with them. That way I don't have to keep an eye on each thread.

Not to say that micro or macro is better, but fundamentally the argument is retarded. It's entirely an issue of preference, you can't possibly "win" for either side.

That being said, I can appreciate micro alot, it's a very tactile tactical system. You do things that are ultimately good things to be doing, and immediately you see positive results. That lends alot to gameplay.

[KDR_11k]

I added micro to KP in Div0 because I found it boring to watch battles I can't influence, with micro I still have something to do even after I've moved my army to the enemy army

[zwzsg]

But I'm not sure I like that move. In KP you had so many units produced per seconds that were always order to give, especially considering how units placement had to be microed to win engagment.

I mostly agree with kiki post, save for the "realist" part.

As for the "realism" and "complexity" argument, I believe more realism, or more complexity does NOT make a game better, but what is important, is to make sure the underlaying mechanism of the game feels right and are easy to grasp, instead of being some hidden formula in the code, and that's what TA did so right. It was rather complex for its time, but the game gave enough visual feedback to make it all intuitive. For instance, when a bulldog shoot at vamp, you immediatly understand why it won't ever hit, and when it shoots at a cons plane, you also understand how comes it may sometimes hit. Or when you see a merl fire, just by looking at its rocket launch you understand why it will bypass every obstacle yet why it won't do any good against a jeffy. It a turn based game, instead their would be lots of "percentage to hit", "moving target malus", "ignore obstacle", and they would all be displayed numerically. Or worse, hidden from the player view which would have to guess them by lots and lots of trial and error.

The aim of a videogame should not to be realist, but to be coherent.
The aim of a videogame should not to add obscure complexity, but to be rich while staying intuitive and easy to understand.

I've said the same thing several times already:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=9930&p=178500#p178500
(read that post or next I'll self-quote)

You'll never have a game with your troops lying on the ground sobbing or retreating although they are not dead yet and you gave different orders.

The sobbing part maybe not, but there are several orders where not dead yet troops disobey player order and retreat. For instance, in Z some robots to that, in SpellForce the orc do that (according to the doc), and I'm sure there are more RTS doing that. Though I hate the concept personnaly. This is really not the kind of realism I'm looking for.

accidentally killing a friendly unit...

Spring, and several other RTS, do that, with large area of effect weapons, or long travel time weapons.

[hunterw]

if you guys want to see a perfect hybrid of RTS and FPS go play natural selection

[BlueTemplar]

It a turn based game, instead their would be lots of "percentage to hit", "moving target malus", "ignore obstacle", and they would all be displayed numerically.

It has nothing to do with turn based or real-time, it's about ergonomy and how the units animations are displayed. If in a turn-based game the animation is done right, you can have the same feeling if the unit will hit often, or do a lot of damage... Actually, it's in Spring that all those parameters are hidden from view! (BTW, I heard something about a "flanking bonus", what is it, it's like in C&C3?) Also, it will not make the game bad per se, look a Magic the gathering!

OTOH, You could have a real-time game where you would have a hard time to "feel" the units: for instance when you have battlecruisers or carriers clustered up in starcraft - units so big don't feel like they could be squeezed up in a such small space (it works great for mutalisks though, and with carriers, due to their interceptors you still get a nice effect).

[SwiftSpear]

if you guys want to see a perfect hybrid of RTS and FPS go play natural selection

If by perfect, you mean poorly designed and full of bugs, sure.

Still, it's a damn fun game.