Can someone reply with their thoughts on this?

[DaHotFuzz]

So this entire game sounds and looks like a glorified custom game you can play in the starcraft 2 arcade. The fact that it is survival based further reinforces my belief on this.

I just want to know if it's more than a simple custom game you play once or twice then get bored with it and find something else to play.

[Drascalicus]

Depends on how far you want to go.

The game is difficult to learn, and you will often find that you get shredded because of any number of reasons.

It took me nearly 10 hours to beat map 1 on the lowest difficulty setting to advance to the next map.

Take it as you will, but the maps are always randomly generated, and there is always a new way to play, and a better score to get.

If you get bored from playing on easy mode, but will not ramp it up, this game is not for you.

[iceman]

Mate...this is not Starcraft I assure you...nothing like it,Starcraft is easy compared to this.
I love Starcraft...this not as much but i do enjoy a challange,Its so frickin annoyin at times but when you get a win...took me 70 hours,Its fun.
Resource gathering and management is very hard at times and this game is tough.
I got Far Cry 5 now so this will be sitting for a while now but i got my moneys worth.
I stayed at the accessible level or normal level the whole time,its about learning how to be better and mate...its frickin hard lol

[Atlanter]

The economic is far harder than Starcraft 2. And the amount of enemieunits isn´t comparable.

It doesn´t get repetetive very fast, because you can increase difficulty. I played over 50 times already, many failed attemets included.

[Quineloe]

one could easily recreate Stardew Valley in the SC2 arcade. didn't keep you from playing it for over 200 hours.

Which SC2 arcade game btw features ten thousand units in combat simultaneously?

[Lucid]

If you're just looking for an RTS, you can probably buy a bunch of AAA RTS titles that are comparable to Starcraft. The survival mode in this is fairly basic in terms of what it delivers, but the brutal challenge of it can keep you coming back if you enjoy a solid single player challenge.

More will be delivered once the campaign is launched.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by Fugue:

If you're just looking for an RTS, you can probably buy a bunch of AAA RTS titles that are comparable to Starcraft..

Really? Can you name some? Without going back 10 years that is. Anything released 2017 that is AAA and similar to Starcraft?

[Eppiox]

Having playing HEAPS of arcade maps, this *could* be a custom map (excluding the sc2 unit limits), but the level of refinement is well beyond what goes into any of the 2000+ custom maps sc2 and wc3 that i've played.

This imo would be like dota moving to dota2.
If you're not convinced I would still say 'watch this space' for a few months/year until the single player campaign is in - if you want an early taste then go for it, just be warned it can be heavily frustrating until you ‘get it’ and then you’ll agree with it.

[thefollowingcharacters]

Yes, you're right. So why get this? Because this is an extremely high quality, tested, designed, and professionally developed SC2 map, that will later on down the road get you entirely FREE campaign.

No, it doesn't get old very fast at all.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by DaHotFuzz:

So this entire game sounds and looks like a glorified custom game you can play in the starcraft 2 arcade. The fact that it is survival based further reinforces my belief on this.

I just want to know if it's more than a simple custom game you play once or twice then get bored with it and find something else to play.

It is impossible to have 20,000 units on screen in Starcraft.

[Crab Rangoon Enjoyer]

StarCraft is pretty easy compared to this one IMO

[Lucid]

Originally posted by Quineloe:

Really? Can you name some? Without going back 10 years that is. Anything released 2017 that is AAA and similar to Starcraft?

Considering Starcraft 2 is about 8 years old now there have been plenty of RTS games between then and now. But specifically since Legacy of the Void dropped (2015) there has been Company of Heroes 2, Planetary Annihilation Titans, and Homeworld remastered.
They are all high quality RTS games with campaigns, skirmish modes, and multiplayer. Not sure about the mod scene, but everything you'd expect to find is there and they are good quality titles.

Though I'm not sure why you'd discount anything older than that, considering there are loads of perfectly playable RTS titles outside of that narrow frame as well. I just didn't presuppose the OP had played any RTS titles other than Starcraft.

There's no reason to jump onto TAB if you're worried about the cost vs. content and whether you'll get tired of the survival game mode. It's worth the money, IMHO, but I wouldn't compare it to straight up RTS games at this point.

Hence, if you're looking for something "more like Starcraft" there are other options.

[Quineloe]

Company of Heroes 2 - is nothing like Starcraft 2. It is far more combat focused and far less resource focused, if you can even call it that at all. You expand by winning, so it's a trivial case of "win more".

Homeworld isn't even land based.

Planetary Annihilation: TITANS - you're joking, right? Nevermind this isn't even anywhere like starcraft, it's also clearly not an AAA title. It's also scoring terribly among all reviewers. No one is playing this today.

before you start arguing, AAA titles don't run these:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts?ref=live

As expected, you're struggling to name a simple base and army building RTS where you start with a main building and workers, even when going back to the release of wings of liberty.


When it comes to gameplay, Starcraft 2 is closer to TAB than any of these.
Command and Conquer, Dark Reign, Age of Empires - the typical, easily accessible 2D strategy games are what I'm talking about. Many modern RTS games suffer greatly from 3D and feature overflow, leaving new players overwhelmed and are therefore dismissed.

Or why do you think is Starcraft (2) the only RTS that is played professionally, and has been for a decade at this point

[Lucid]

I've come at this saying "TAB is different to Starcraft, if you want something more like starcraft there are other RTS titles." You seem to be arguing that any RTS I can name is more different to Starcraft than Starcraft is to TAB. Which is a weird position. Especially since you're calling out PA:Titans as an indie, despite the fact that TAB is an indie title itself.

There are different lineages to RTS titles, but I don't think 2d/3d is the real distinction. TAB has 2 major differences from most RTS titles. 1 - you can pause. 2 - it's so much more economy focused, to the point where unit composition isn't really a thing other than your end-game mix of AOE and single hit damage. Those two elements put it much further away than the other RTS titles I've mentioned.

On pausing - One of the reasons Starcraft is huge is because it has a massive skill ceiling. You will always be struggling to keep up with the action and there is never a moment when there's nothing you could be doing. But that's a standard feature in RTS games. You'll notice that when pushing yourself in CoH, or PA:Titans, or any competent traditional RTS title. You won't notice it in TAB unless you're trying to play no-pause, which isn't recommended unless you can already beat it using pause when you need to work out what to focus on next.

On the economy side, I need you to explain what you mean by Starcraft being "resource focused" when it has nothing that CoH doesn't have. 2 resource types, food caps, unit tech progression, unit abilities. CoH carries on a lineage from Dawn of War and Ground Control before it. They were about a larger number of smaller resource points that you'd have to take and hold, instead of focusing on building expansions around larger resource deposits. Is it important that you're not constantly bulding workers, but instead focusing more time on map control? You still need to deny expansions and fortify your own, because building on those points costs money and pays off only over time.

Even if you're content to write of PA: Titans (which is a mistake, it suffers from an "it was bad at release but then got much better" issue), it's lineage is Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. If you've played any of those you'll know that they too differ from Starcraft. But the most noticeable way is that they have always focused on macrostomping with good unit compositions, backed by a strong, 2 resource economy. You're still building workers, bases, armies, vying for map control and denying expansions. PA's 3d globe map takes some getting used to, but the core gameplay is still nothing people haven't seen before. Macrostomping is all about economy. Arguably Starcraft has more nuance and a higher skill ceiling through it's spellcaster units. But then, isn't that a feature of a more combat/micro oriented RTS?

That's definitely something TAB doesn't have at all.

I could go on, but if you're going to make call-backs to Age of Empires and Command and Conquer, I don't know why you'd split hairs over these other titles. C&C morphed into Starcraft because it adopted the ideas that worked. It wasn't fun or interesting to have tiberium/Ore fields and expensive, defenseless harvesters going out of the safety of the base to gather resources. Pre-Generals it was tank rush and harvester sniping, unless you were doing cute stuff with engineers and APCs. Hence, C&C adopted concentrated resource piles in Generals and hey, wasn't that one of the best C&C games for multiplayer?

If you really want to split hairs, then no - there's no RTS like Starcraft because why the hell would any RTS developer try to go up against Starcraft? They're all going to do something different. I'd say TAB is doing something very different. How is it more like Starcraft than any other RTS?

[notsram]

This is an INSANELY tough game. I've only beaten it at the lowest levels - have yet to get the required 20% to advance to the next map. It's hugely frustrating. But I keep playing it. It's seriously addictive. You know you can do better every time you fail! Well over 200 hours so far and I'll probably start another game as soon as I've typed this.

It's nothing like Starcraft. As mentioned above, it's way harder. If you're not sure that you'll like it, Steam has a very good refund policy so buy it and refund it of you don't like it. But, if you like a challenging game, you'll like this :)

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by Fugue:

I've come at this saying "TAB is different to Starcraft, if you want something more like starcraft there are other RTS titles." You seem to be arguing that any RTS I can name is more different to Starcraft than Starcraft is to TAB. Which is a weird position. Especially since you're calling out PA:Titans as an indie, despite the fact that TAB is an indie title itself.

What? My original question was: . Anything released 2017 that is AAA and similar to Starcraft?

TaB has nothing to do with the question. Nothing. I'm not going to read the rest of your post, it's probably full of similar fallacies and weird accusations.

SC has base building, and expansion for resources. You don't win Starcraft by insanely skillful micro plays, you win by having more than your opponent. I'd suggest Day9s recent Starcraft analysis on the subject.

TaB works the exact same way. You expand to get more resources, which you use to get up the tech tree and build lots and lots of units.
sniper ballista thanatos is considered the best stuff against zombies, but 100 soldiers easily beat a tower of snipers, one ballista and a thanatos when it comes to waves. Simply having more is key here as well. That's why all the high % guides suggest the same thing: huge economy, lots of stuff.