I despise the click-fest world that most RTS games become, but I love the idea of watching a strategy game play out in real time.
Wargame: Red Dragon is the best example of this. I have zero interest in the MP component because the action is just too fast for me and the strategy is generally lost in the clicking. But as a SP game with a time-scale slider, it’s one of my favorite games of the last few years.
I really want to like RTS games, but developers in the genre almost appear to be trying as hard as possible to avoid appealing to me. :(
The elevation was really weird, but I loved how you could set your forces to defend a region, but have them pull back if they took too much damage, but set the repair bays way point back to the defensive line. You could automate your defenses enough to focus on other aspects of the game.
At the same time, you could set units to harass the enemy, while other troops followed the harasser, allowing you to constantly probe the enemy for weak points, and not have to worry about the micro.
Actually, I’d love to have an RTS were it really was strategy, while the computer manages all the tactics. You just set general objectives for the forces to implement, like assigning a squad to scout in a region, and the computer would know to withdraw before being destroyed by a greater force, or set a unit to attack, and computer will know to set up artillery in the back, and manage targets. I really am a very lazy gamer.
I thought that was sarcasm. Aren’t the communities for basically all MOBAs toxic due to intolerance of noobs/weak players? Another MOBA question, I read a posting online last night that I think in the comments to Brad’s article that MOBAs are a less complicated than RTS. Is that true? From what I’ve looked at it seemed to me there is so much more to learn due to character, build, and item combinations. That is probably one of the reasons I haven’t really jumped in.
I can see an argument that MOBAs could be less complicated (though I think DotA would be a stretch) for players that focus on a small number of heroes. You certainly don’t have to juggle quite as many kinds of things physically or mentally. But the micro skill-cap is much higher and, as you say, the character combinations alone make for a huge amount of complexity. When I watch a draft I constantly fail at second guessing counters and synergies, and that’s before the match has even started.
My understanding is the complexity in MOBAs is more of a meta thing where you need to know about all of the heroes, abilities, items…and how they synergize or counter each other in a match. All of that complexity can be learned outside of the game reading wikis to some extent.
I think RTS games have more in-game complexity in terms of needing to manage a lot of spinning plates at the same time: ecomony, base building, map control, scouting, multiple discrete armies engaged in different battles across the map, and so on.
It’s actually turning into one of the finest fantasy RTS games I’ve ever played for a variety of reasons. Great units and abilities, fun maps, great meta map mode, solid AI, great pacing. It just is hitting all the right notes for me.
I know ^^. But it’s not a matter of degree. A failure to keep up is not as bad as in RTS. Bad players in MOBAs are the ones that “feed” the other team. You can fall behind and still not be actively contributing to your team’s defeat. OTOH a failure to age at the right time or expand at the right time means you team has fewer resources/units than the other team and might be already “pre-defeated”.
So frustrating!!! I played about 2 hours into BfME2 many, many years ago. Since then I’ve tried to install the game, to no avail, my discs are bad :( (so now I have a good CD key but no game!!)
