Why did rts as a genre die out?

[R2zi3l]

or at least become way less popular than back in the day?

just curious...

[GoblinBait]

Casual I was pro in warcraft 3 and top 10 in warcraft 2. I do not care what some no name rts wanna be scrub thinks.

[ScubaSteve]

I think most people just don't like to think that much anymore

[Sharpnessism]

1. Money: From the developer's perspective, RTS games are a high effort and low reward ratio. They're difficult to design and it's hard for developers to introduce microtransactions that are now present in many games.

2. Paradoxical player preferences: Casual players want epic games they can watch. It works in single-player because the AI in all RTS games to date are terrible.

Even in slow-paced RTS games like Total War or AOEII, if you play against a skilled opponent in multiplayer, there is no time to just sit and watch battles if you still want to win.

3. Denial from players: Many "RTS veterans" live in denial, thinking that high APM is meaningless click spamming.

In reality, real-time strategy boils down to thinking and executing faster than your opponent. The faster your mind works, the faster you can translate it into in-game. Hence higher skill leads to higher APM.

Unfortunately, because most casual players and "RTS veterans" can't accept that there will be some people who know the game better or are faster thinkers, developers consistently put out casual junk RTS games.

[Solodric]

Simple answer? It didn't. One of the most popular and highest-grossing game series of all time is Total War, which has been going strong this whole time. You may say, well Total War is a hybrid grand-strategy/real-time tactics game, not a true RTS.

Then there's Company of Heroes 2 and Dawn of War 2/Retribution, which were very strong in their own rights. You could also argue those are real-time tactics, which is a subgenre but not the same as the dunelike RTSes you were talking about.

And that's the crux of the matter. The genre didn't die, it EVOLVED. And it makes sense that it did so; dunelikes lacked complexity and strategic depth (as a broad generalization), so players either navigated towards deeper tactics - and thus RTT games - or broader strategy, and thus towards games like Sins of a Solar Empire and Supreme Commander.

Hell, even games like the Overlord series, Battalion Wars, Brothers in Arms, etc., have filled that niche for people looking for a hybrid action/tactics game. Then there's stuff like Natural Selection 2 for people who want a more clear division between the RTS and action side.

The genre became more varied and nuanced, but it didn't die at all. It's just that dunelikes stopped being the predominant mold for these games. The same thing happened to RPGs; once, roguelikes were all the rage. Now, they're quite uncommon, but the mechanics that made the interesting have found their way into all sorts of 'rogue-lite' genres. Nostalgia aside, companies are trying to evolve to revolutionize the gameplay experiences.

Dawn of War 3 was essentially a throwback to the Dunelike days, and it got lambasted for being too many steps back from the in-depth tactics of Dawn of War 2/CoH 2. It shows you why those games are no longer being made very often; you either make something more complex or your game dies in a marketplace where the vast majority of competitors have evolved.

[Solodric]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sharpnessism:

1. Money: From the developer's perspective, RTS games are a high effort and low reward ratio. They're difficult to design and it's hard for developers to introduce microtransactions that are now present in many games.

2. Paradoxical player preferences: Casual players want epic games they can watch. It works in single-player because the AI in all RTS games to date are terrible.

Even in slow-paced RTS games like Total War or AOEII, if you play against a skilled opponent in multiplayer, there is no time to just sit and watch battles if you still want to win.

3. Denial from players: Many "RTS veterans" live in denial, thinking that high APM is meaningless click spamming.

In reality, real-time strategy boils down to thinking and executing faster than your opponent. The faster your mind works, the faster you can translate it into in-game. Hence higher skill leads to higher APM.

Unfortunately, because most casual players and "RTS veterans" can't accept that there will be some people who know the game better or are faster thinkers, developers consistently put out casual junk RTS games.

Regarding AI: Try Ultimate General: Gettysburg.

Regarding the high-APM = skilled strategist argument, I think you've totally misunderstood why people find APM-heavy games annoying. The issue is that there's no real thought involved in most of the actions you take in games like Starcraft; there isn't any STRATEGY to it, it's just that your unit AI is dumb and you need to issue the same basic commands over and over, babysitting and micromanaging them to prevent them from standing around and getting murdered. People want the game to force them to actually think, strategize, come up with unexpected ways to exploit situations.

Being faster at clicking on marines and medics is hardly that. And the M&Ms strategy in Starcraft was so effective that a bot set up to run it was unbeatable by human players. That means rapid, mindless micro was key - not 'strategy'. And that defeats the purpose of a strategy game. That, right there, is why the genre evolved past that point.

[piromantico]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Solodric:

Regarding AI: Try Ultimate General: Gettysburg.

Regarding the high-APM = skilled strategist argument, I think you've totally misunderstood why people find APM-heavy games annoying. The issue is that there's no real thought involved in most of the actions you take in games like Starcraft; there isn't any STRATEGY to it, it's just that your unit AI is dumb and you need to issue the same basic commands over and over, babysitting and micromanaging them to prevent them from standing around and getting murdered. People want the game to force them to actually think, strategize, come up with unexpected ways to exploit situations.

Being faster at clicking on marines and medics is hardly that. And the M&Ms strategy in Starcraft was so effective that a bot set up to run it was unbeatable by human players. That means rapid, mindless micro was key - not 'strategy'. And that defeats the purpose of a strategy game. That, right there, is why the genre evolved past that point.

Please, watch some Brood War pro games. Of course they need to be fast, but if you really think there is no strategy, you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

[Solodric]

Początkowo opublikowane przez piromantico:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Solodric:

The issue is that there's no real thought involved in most of the actions you take in games like Starcraft;

Please, watch some Brood War pro games. Of course they need to be fast, but if you really think there is no strategy, you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

Please note the "most of the actions" comment. Most of it is determined by raw speed, not any in-depth tactics. And I have watched pro games. I found them insufferably dull because they largely boil down to rock-paper-scissor counters, globbing, and raw speed. Yes, some strategy is involved, but it's all very cookie-cutter compared to the tactics you see in more in-depth RTT games (or, for that matter, on a real battlefield).

It's a question of degree. Newer games often give you tougher, more thoughtful strategic decisions to make, rather than forcing you to scurry around like a bot trying to manage all of your pieces rapidly like you're playing an FPS. That doesn't mean the older RTSes are garbage, or that there was NO strategy, it's that the genre has evolved to be more about its namesake and eschew elements that detracted from it.

[GoblinBait]

Well most of those rts were made in america. And america tends to favor fps as one of its top gaming genres so it does make sense why they went that route at the time and for so many years.

But as gaming evolved and fps itself even evolved the focus on the rapid declined somewhat.

[rockstar]

RTS games = Age Of Empires 1/2/Mythology ,, Warcraft 3 ,, Starcraft 1..

NON RTS games =Warhammer 40K DawnOfWar 2, Company of Heroes 1/2, Ancestors Legacy...

APM - Action Per Minute need good balance, If it is too much like in Starcraft where you need do insane macros, then it is BAD, when it is too little APM , then game lacks "adrenaline".


IF there isn't LONG and GOOD Single Player Campaign, it is NOT good RTS game.

End of story.

[Zoth]

Początkowo opublikowane przez rockstar:

:2016butterfly:

RTS games = Age Of Empires 1/2/Mythology ,, Warcraft 3 ,, Starcraft 1..

NON RTS games =Warhammer 40K DawnOfWar 2, Company of Heroes 1/2, Ancestors Legacy...

APM - Action Per Minute need good balance, If it is too much like in Starcraft where you need do insane macros, then it is BAD, when it is too little APM , then game lacks "adrenaline".


IF there isn't LONG and GOOD Single Player Campaign, it is NOT good RTS game.

End of story.

This whole post is a load of bullcrap. Ignore it and move on.

[Zoth]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Casual:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mr.Prickly:

I enjoy survival indeed. Ever since UO and original EQ.

Yeah, maybe stay in that forum. Dont talk RTS when you have over 1k hours in ARK. Games like that are why we have no decent RTS and no decent games nowadays......

You understand the demographic that game appeals to is 15-25 right?

I cant take you seriously, sorry.

and this is another proof that rts fans are a bunch of "elitists".
"me is smarter than you, because I play thinking man's game"

[FredDie]

Because current kids play games like fartnite and other trash games exclusively...oldschool RTS/RPG players now have families and stuff.

[tomasoltis]

rts died out because nobody needs people that need to think and react to situation while keeping multiple levels of reality.

one could say that developers themselves degraded along with evil of greed. Greed makes companies not pay employees, work for free, while they take their money as their own. With sucha nonexistent moral compass, they lose the sight of right and wrong, then good is all they can do. Good is when they hoard money. And push a political agenda. Basically to pay people who use your money against you, because addiction to money and power is utterly destructive.

within such an environment, can you concentrate on promoting right vs wrong, or concentrating on being productive ? Not sure, but evil seems to be always the easier path as well as selfish interest. 20 years ago, it was after the cold war, you largely didnt need any bs, or fake philosophical agendas, people were free from commiesm and today ? It seems it strikes back, the same evil, went from the east to the west, now west pushes largely copy-paste thought policing, they invented new layer of confusion with gender identities, and political correctness. Political correctness equals thought police, bnut it gets deeper as people are watched on the internet, phone ... poor Stasi had no such equipment. Within an unfree environment, there is always pressure, like we need this, we need our games to show that. Dont like it ? Rashshan spuy

games are a political tool and rts is hardly good at manipulation, except stuff like coh2 lol.

[Ulfric Sombrage]

RTS is less popular, like rpg old school are less popular, like flight sims, etc. Because video game casualised with time.

[VEF215]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSA2tR6BN7c

There's actually a fair bit of games coming out.

Warcraft 3 Reforged

Age of Empires 4

Age of Empires 2 & 3 Definitive Editions

Command and Conquer Remasters

Iron Harvest

Conan RTS from Petroglyph

Armored Fortress

Re-Legion

Mods:

Evolutions: Real Time Strategy Evolved
The Battle for Middle Earth: Reforged

A decent offering.