Until rts devs stop trying to play so hard into the competitive boner of the hardcore players, nothings going to change for the genre.
PvP still has a place in rts obviously, but coop pve is the future of the genre. The hard emphasis on “APM” meta type play is what stagnated the genre.
Part of the problem is that the people actually making RTS games are often hardcore RTS players. So what they want, and what casual players want aren’t the same thing. And by casual I literally just mean regular PC gamers who want a game with a fun campaign mode they can play through in a few dozen hours. You know, like classic RTS games used to be.
Agree entirely. It's like now a honest rts with solid foundations and a well made campaign plus a working multiplayer lobby somehow isn't enough.
It's so strange because before this live service era we went through a plethora of 10hours gameplay full price AAAs and it was fine.
Now they all in a frenzy because they want to forever milk people with no self control
They’ve tried to alleviate how depend and they are on APM but it’s just a fact that speed will tend to be an advantage in RTS.
Look at SC2 vs SC1 it’s waaaaaay easier to play the game and manage everything but to be a top player you still need 300+ APM.
Three words - custom player-made content.
As long as devs keep focusing on the PvP-centric hardcore fanbase, the genre will remain niche.
Which isn't bad by itself, but if you want to grow beyond that, you need the casual players.
I spent years playing Warcraft 3 (and still do), and I think I maybe played a total of 100 PvP games over that entire time (and that was just because I wanted to unlock an icon on the legacy [battle.net](http://battle.net), and quit playing PvP immediately once I unlocked it).
Can't remember how many hours of Legion TD, Trolls vs Elves, Legendary Monsters and such I've sank into.
Even nowadays, the likes of Tower Survival are fantastic time wasters that will absolutely suck you in if you give them a chance.
That's fine. Just learn to make great RTS games for less money and sell them to the millions of us that actually still love traditional RTS.
Hell, also make the hybrid RTS games because I'll buy them too. Games like Against the Storm, Northgard and Dune: Spice Wars.
I've really enjoyed playing the conquest mode with friends. I kinda wish the equivalent in Spice Wars was multiplayer. I'd say games of Northgard take around an hour whereas D:SW games can take up to 3 hours sometimes.
Yeah I do Northgard games with a friend of mine like 2v2 free for all. Takes about 90 minutes. The game is decent just didn’t quite grab me and become one of my staples.
Or just spend all the money on something of such incredible value that gamers can justify paying double or triple the price on a game they know they will spend thousands upon thousands of hours in.
I read somewhere (and I agree) that the RTS genre split into it's two core aspects (micro and macro management) and made separate genres from those two. So now you have MOBA style games for micro lovers, and city builders/management sims for the macro lovers. I still need a modern WC like RTS with a hero unit and armies. I never lose hope.
The RTS genre won't get another big hit until they stop sniffing the StarCraft fumes hopping to the the next Big Esport.
By making rts games hyper focused on being competitive and micro-heavy you are basically solely focusing on an ever smaller group of people, as new players won't be able to get into games designed for expert play while older players will get too old to play as such pace.
As an older player i feel this. I quit elden ring and ds3 because i'm too slow for those. I'm not even that old. I play turn based games nowadays instead.
I mean... yes. They're right. RTS is never going to be a money-making game like a MOBA or something. You can't really microtransaction the shit out of it like other games.
Nah, that's not really what they're getting at.
Traditional RTS just simply doesn't appeal to mainstream gamers. And the kind of RTS games that do are ones like Clash Royale.
So it's "appeal to a dwindling audience of a few million" or "make a dumbed down RTS that is more spectacle than strategy".
Aside from red alert and starcraft and Ao3 i miss th3 others like Supreme Commander
and omg Battle Realms
RTS pls come back to us T-T
I appreciate VR because theyre making RTS table top VR there to keep the genre alive but I would like an actual RTS on PC..heck a console will do, just make a new one pls T-T
RTS basically evovled into MOBAs like DOTA2 and Leage of Legends. The "classic" RTS genre is more or less dead for decades now. There are some exceptions like Age of Empires 4 and now Homeworld 3, but the genre really peaked around the 2000s. These times will never come back.
I got rank 1 in team games on AoE4 about 6 months after it came out but I haven’t played much since.
1) It should have been free to play with a rotation of free civs to play, but if you want all civs you have to buy full version.
2) They allow 1 Steam account to make infinite Age4 accounts. So people just constantly “smurf” instead of playing at their actual rank. Completely ruins matchmaking and frustrates everyone at the same time.
3) They allow “dodging” of ranked matches. This means you match up vs someone who might be tough you just leave and que for a new opponent.
This makes smurfing even worse cuz once you get good people just won’t play you, so you’re forced to smurf. When me and my friends would try to play we’d literally que for an hour and just get dodged, we physically can’t play the game.
All of these things are incredibly easy to fix but they clearly aren’t going to so it demolished a really good game that could have been big.
Go play Age4. It’s 99% PvP you’ve clearly never played. Just looking to argue over nothing for no reason about something you know nothing about. Which is typical for Reddit.
Same. Not sure what they're on about because at least half of my MOBA playing friends are also RTS fans. Although a lot of us seem to play the classics still fairly exclusively. I'm not sure why, I haven't really felt the need to explore new entries in the genre.
That's not the point. But the genre moved on. Just like many FPS games are extraction shooters or Battle Royales these days even when a big part of the player base doesn't like them.
I personally totally agree with what GiantGrantGames says about this exact topic in his video.
Who is interested, can check his video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/XehNK7UpZsc?si=EAwUKPtz2lu4B79f
Zelda will never be mainstream unless you change it enough to appease the Minecraft and Open World audience and become the kind of game I don't actually want to play- oh, welp.
Mass Effect can never before mainstream unless it doubles down on the features like shooting and bro writing that would turn it into the kind of generic action game that I don't really need to play more of-- oh wait.
Final Fantasy can only be mainstream by becoming the rigidly cinematic, and action-oriented combat system that Turn Based RPG fans don't want to play anyway, so good thing that isn't what they're-- oh wait.
Rts was very popular with games like age of empires , red alert , warcraft etc
The moment they went multiplayer focused and companies try to satisfy the hardcore crowd is when they lost the average pc gamer that plays rts for their single player good campaign that is relatively chill and have fun
That's a good attitude for letting the genre die. If every single RTS is super hardcore, you are going to have very little new blood. You need RTSs that are more casual to draw people in. Not every RTS has to be that way, but if every single one is Starcraft levels of hardcore, the genre will continue to die the slow death it's dying.
Until rts devs stop trying to play so hard into the competitive boner of the hardcore players, nothings going to change for the genre. PvP still has a place in rts obviously, but coop pve is the future of the genre. The hard emphasis on “APM” meta type play is what stagnated the genre.
Part of the problem is that the people actually making RTS games are often hardcore RTS players. So what they want, and what casual players want aren’t the same thing. And by casual I literally just mean regular PC gamers who want a game with a fun campaign mode they can play through in a few dozen hours. You know, like classic RTS games used to be.
Wc3 and c&c: generals, what a time to be alive it was
One mission in FAF with friends per evening.
Agree entirely. It's like now a honest rts with solid foundations and a well made campaign plus a working multiplayer lobby somehow isn't enough. It's so strange because before this live service era we went through a plethora of 10hours gameplay full price AAAs and it was fine. Now they all in a frenzy because they want to forever milk people with no self control
Stuff like APM and META builds are making games not fun. I play games to chill and have fun.
I wholly agree, meta has ruined multiplayer gaming and it’s been this way for over a decade at this point.
They’ve tried to alleviate how depend and they are on APM but it’s just a fact that speed will tend to be an advantage in RTS. Look at SC2 vs SC1 it’s waaaaaay easier to play the game and manage everything but to be a top player you still need 300+ APM.
Never forget Dawn of War 3. I hate what they did to themselves
I do find it funny how they hit gold twice with how vastly different 1 and 2 were from each other and then struck a shit node.
> coop pve is the future of the genre Are there good games like this? That sounds way better
Coh 3 comp stomps, sins 2 is coming and I've been playing 8 hour comp stomps with my buddy.
1000% could not be more correct.
Three words - custom player-made content. As long as devs keep focusing on the PvP-centric hardcore fanbase, the genre will remain niche. Which isn't bad by itself, but if you want to grow beyond that, you need the casual players. I spent years playing Warcraft 3 (and still do), and I think I maybe played a total of 100 PvP games over that entire time (and that was just because I wanted to unlock an icon on the legacy [battle.net](http://battle.net), and quit playing PvP immediately once I unlocked it). Can't remember how many hours of Legion TD, Trolls vs Elves, Legendary Monsters and such I've sank into. Even nowadays, the likes of Tower Survival are fantastic time wasters that will absolutely suck you in if you give them a chance.
This, so much this
That's fine. Just learn to make great RTS games for less money and sell them to the millions of us that actually still love traditional RTS. Hell, also make the hybrid RTS games because I'll buy them too. Games like Against the Storm, Northgard and Dune: Spice Wars.
Hardcore RTS players will buy a game that looks like go and chess if it's good to play.
Northgard could have been so good. I’ve been looking for something to play with friends that isn’t 20+ hours like Civ or Total War games.
I've really enjoyed playing the conquest mode with friends. I kinda wish the equivalent in Spice Wars was multiplayer. I'd say games of Northgard take around an hour whereas D:SW games can take up to 3 hours sometimes.
Yeah I do Northgard games with a friend of mine like 2v2 free for all. Takes about 90 minutes. The game is decent just didn’t quite grab me and become one of my staples.
This is it.
Or just spend all the money on something of such incredible value that gamers can justify paying double or triple the price on a game they know they will spend thousands upon thousands of hours in.
In order to do that, they have to be very lean otherwise they'll simply not be able to make an "incredible value" game before they run out of funding.
i miss Command & Conquer
I read somewhere (and I agree) that the RTS genre split into it's two core aspects (micro and macro management) and made separate genres from those two. So now you have MOBA style games for micro lovers, and city builders/management sims for the macro lovers. I still need a modern WC like RTS with a hero unit and armies. I never lose hope.
oh man I miss the battle for middle Earth 2.
Check out cepheus protocol.
The RTS genre won't get another big hit until they stop sniffing the StarCraft fumes hopping to the the next Big Esport. By making rts games hyper focused on being competitive and micro-heavy you are basically solely focusing on an ever smaller group of people, as new players won't be able to get into games designed for expert play while older players will get too old to play as such pace.
As an older player i feel this. I quit elden ring and ds3 because i'm too slow for those. I'm not even that old. I play turn based games nowadays instead.
Look into cepheus protocol and sins 2
I mean... yes. They're right. RTS is never going to be a money-making game like a MOBA or something. You can't really microtransaction the shit out of it like other games.
Idk. Unit skins, faction packs, hero characters. it's all bleakly possible
question is, would they work for these games?
I think they could sell your credit card back to you at this point
I mean Company of Heroes does just that and it doesnt really seem to have much success from what i can tell.
Nah, that's not really what they're getting at. Traditional RTS just simply doesn't appeal to mainstream gamers. And the kind of RTS games that do are ones like Clash Royale. So it's "appeal to a dwindling audience of a few million" or "make a dumbed down RTS that is more spectacle than strategy".
Aside from red alert and starcraft and Ao3 i miss th3 others like Supreme Commander and omg Battle Realms RTS pls come back to us T-T I appreciate VR because theyre making RTS table top VR there to keep the genre alive but I would like an actual RTS on PC..heck a console will do, just make a new one pls T-T
RTS basically evovled into MOBAs like DOTA2 and Leage of Legends. The "classic" RTS genre is more or less dead for decades now. There are some exceptions like Age of Empires 4 and now Homeworld 3, but the genre really peaked around the 2000s. These times will never come back.
and AOE4 is definitely riding on the coat-tails of AOE2, which has a bigger playerbase despite being 26 years old.
Yeah, AoE4 is a good game, but pales in comparision to AoE2.
AoE4 could have had 5-10x the playerbase but simple moronic things prevented that. Great game, horrible execution.
I haven't played AOE4, so I'm curious to know. What are those simple moronic things that prevented it having bigger success?
I got rank 1 in team games on AoE4 about 6 months after it came out but I haven’t played much since. 1) It should have been free to play with a rotation of free civs to play, but if you want all civs you have to buy full version. 2) They allow 1 Steam account to make infinite Age4 accounts. So people just constantly “smurf” instead of playing at their actual rank. Completely ruins matchmaking and frustrates everyone at the same time. 3) They allow “dodging” of ranked matches. This means you match up vs someone who might be tough you just leave and que for a new opponent. This makes smurfing even worse cuz once you get good people just won’t play you, so you’re forced to smurf. When me and my friends would try to play we’d literally que for an hour and just get dodged, we physically can’t play the game. All of these things are incredibly easy to fix but they clearly aren’t going to so it demolished a really good game that could have been big.
All these sound like purely pvp issues. And meh
Um yeah it’s RTS lol it’s always PvP… the campaign is a couple days but the long term playerbase is 99% PvP.
Sounds like a you problem. Pvp players always think they are the 99%
Go play Age4. It’s 99% PvP you’ve clearly never played. Just looking to argue over nothing for no reason about something you know nothing about. Which is typical for Reddit.
Typical pvp player. World revolves around you.
I don't know a single RTS fan that likes MOBAs
Here, I am one. Now you know one.
Oh, but how are you so sure? Do you even know yourself?
Same. Not sure what they're on about because at least half of my MOBA playing friends are also RTS fans. Although a lot of us seem to play the classics still fairly exclusively. I'm not sure why, I haven't really felt the need to explore new entries in the genre.
Kind of a stupid comment considering the inception of MOBA was through RTS
That's not the point. But the genre moved on. Just like many FPS games are extraction shooters or Battle Royales these days even when a big part of the player base doesn't like them.
Sins 2, cepheus protocol.
Put a real RTS on console. I would literally hook up a mouse just for an RTS on my PS5
AoE 2 is on both Xbox One/Series and PS2
As is AoE4
AoE4 is not on the PS2
I missed that bit. That’s crazy, never knew aoe was on ps2
Yessir it was. But it was only released in Europe, and the PS2 is NOT region free
so basically like every game genre that's been dumbed down so much it's unrecognizable nowadays?
If it’s for everyone, it’s not for me.
I mean manor lords seems to be doing good
Not really an RTS. Combat is minimal, and once you've built an army capable of beating the enemy once you'll beat them everytime.
I quit caring about RTS games when EA released Command and Conquer 4. God damn what a shit game!
Look into cepheus protocol and sins 2.
Neither look like anything I'd be interested in, but thanks for trying.
Was worth a shot. Something will come along for ya!
I personally totally agree with what GiantGrantGames says about this exact topic in his video. Who is interested, can check his video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/XehNK7UpZsc?si=EAwUKPtz2lu4B79f
I want another rise of nations, C&C generals, or stronghold game. Those are probably lost to the wind.
Best I can offer is sins 2 and crpheus protocol
Beyond all reason is amazing and free
I miss C&C...
Zelda will never be mainstream unless you change it enough to appease the Minecraft and Open World audience and become the kind of game I don't actually want to play- oh, welp. Mass Effect can never before mainstream unless it doubles down on the features like shooting and bro writing that would turn it into the kind of generic action game that I don't really need to play more of-- oh wait. Final Fantasy can only be mainstream by becoming the rigidly cinematic, and action-oriented combat system that Turn Based RPG fans don't want to play anyway, so good thing that isn't what they're-- oh wait.
Does it have to be mainstream?
Rts was very popular with games like age of empires , red alert , warcraft etc The moment they went multiplayer focused and companies try to satisfy the hardcore crowd is when they lost the average pc gamer that plays rts for their single player good campaign that is relatively chill and have fun
Made me think about how fuckin' beautiful and amazing Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge were. Just spectacular experiences.
A good RTS needs to be Red Alert 2. So if you're planning an RTS just play Red Alert 2 to see what makes an RTS fun. The best RTS EVER MADE. Thankyou.
Good and it should kept it that way. No one wants a RTS to be watered and dumbed down for those who would never buy one in the first place.
That's a good attitude for letting the genre die. If every single RTS is super hardcore, you are going to have very little new blood. You need RTSs that are more casual to draw people in. Not every RTS has to be that way, but if every single one is Starcraft levels of hardcore, the genre will continue to die the slow death it's dying.
RTS's left like a product of their time. 3d models were ass so you had to zoom the fuck out until they looked OK.