
Can Real-Time strategy come back from the brink of death? – PC Gamer - vinnyglennon
https://www.pcgamer.com/can-real-time-strategy-come-back-from-the-brink-of-death/
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manfredo
RTS games tend to be more skill based and thus less accessible for new
players. For games that strive to have large audiences, it's important for
games to have a significant level of chance so that worse players can still
sometimes win, the absence of this chance makes it so that new players will be
losing most of their games for a significant amount of time until they become
proficient. This is in contrast to DOTA or League of Legends, where a poor
players will occasionally get carried by their team.

I suspect that a compounding factor is that traditional base-building RTS
games are hard to make work with microtransactions. RTS games tend to be very
carefully balanced, and mechanisms to secure an advantage by paying would
alienate any serious RTS player. This makes it so that cosmetic-only
microtransactions are the only viable option. The reality is that
microtransactions that confer advantages sell much better. Even games like
Path of Exile and League of Legends that purport to not be pay-to-win do allow
players to gain an advantage through paying (more rune pages for LoL,
inventory tabs for PoE), but this would destroy a traditional base-building
RTS. Company of Heroes 2 being a prime example, better commanders and hard-
advantages being available for purchase was a deal breaker for many gamers.
Who knows when the next patch will shift the meta and now you have to shell
out another $15 to stay competitive.

The reality is, RTS games never really were the stuff of AAA studios. Budgets
for these titles reflected their more niche audience. Resounding successes
like Warcraft 3 and Age of Empires were the exception rather than the norm.
Publishers are aware that the addressable audience is limited, and so budgets
are limited as a result. The RTS genre is still strong, but has become more
the realm of indie and mid-market studies. The Total War series is the only
one I'd really describe as AAA, and that's a mix of turn based and real time.

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bick_nyers
I had this idea for an RTS to make it more accessible, only allow one action
per second (and you can manage a queue of actions). That way it plays more
turn-based and strategic. Maybe 60 APM would still be too high and 30 APM
would be better. To make it distinct from a faster paced tactics-genre game I
think you would likely want smart AI that can micromanage for you and the idea
is that you are giving them more high level commands like be aggressive,
defensive, and maybe a sub-task like either patrol or aquire materials when
not suspecting combat. I think that this would be more akin to playing like a
General than current RTS, which is more playing like an all-knowing
micromanaging god. Maybe I'll try it out after my next game.

