hmm, last post didn't go through.

Anyway.

What makes a real time strategy game real time. Hint: it's in the name.

With that in mind, we recognize that a rts game is built around the overwhelm factor and speed, as well as how those two things work together. We should understand that quick thinking and a good apm are absolute requirements in a game that is designed to incorporate time. If that wasn't the case, it would be a turn based game where you take turns at the same time, but it's not, it's an RTS.

The answer to this whole thing is simple, sibilantae... No, the strategist should lose. He is playing a game that does not cater to his skill set, whereas the player with the good APM but lacking the true strategic thinking ability IS playing in a game/genre that focuses on his. The armchair general (Or admiral) should be playing a game like chess, or if he requires the visuals, civ 4. Or a true 4x. Those types of games value strategy and not much less. When you suggest that the strategist should win because of his strategic thinking in a game that requires another skill set, it's no better than suggesting the player with no strategy and a high APM should win in a turn based games, he should get some sort of resource bonus, or combat buff for finishing his turn quicker. That's ludicrous, absolutely insane. Stop trying to suggest that strategy is the only factor in an RTS, if you want a game with only strategy, get a TBS, there are again, many exceptional TBS titles.

Understand everyone that in a real time strategy game you must possess first the ability to use your time effectively (Speed), secondly you must possess a winning strategy that can adapt and defeat your opponents strategy (Strategic thinking). And that's the order, the true veteran must possess both, but the average player against an average player, the one that focuses on maximizing his effective use of time, is the superior competitor and does deserve to win. Stop acting like taking full advantage of the RTS game mechanic that is the overwhelm factor is a bad thing, it's part of the game, and it's absolutely needed for it to be a true RTS. Otherwise as I said before, it just becomes a turn based game where you're taking your turns at the same time.

Overwhelm requires strategic thinking in it's own right anyway, do I micro that illuminator closer to increase it's dps with the side banks? Or let it fire at max range and go upgrade that new planet my colony frigate just got to increase my economy and be able to afford more illuminators. Do I want to auto cast gravity warhead and go play macro (Building new extractors/tradeports/labs/ships as soon as you have the money instead of microing too heavily and having a build up of resources, which IS a mistake.) Or do I want to use it manually to get full advantage of it but it will require me to stay and watch the battle and micro, instead of macro. Do I want to leave malice on auto cast and risk only hitting a couple ships or it getting used while lets say my other ships are targeting a group that won't be affected by it? It would let me focus more on building more ships and keeping my resources spent instead of Q'ing a lot of stuff at a later time which is poor macro.

The skilled player manages to spend his resources as he plays and still manually cast warhead/malice or maximize his ships dps. APM IS SKILL IN A REAL TIME STRATEGY GAME. If you the strategist are getting overwhelmed trying to micro and use your fleet to it's full potential but piling up resources and not continually sending more ships, then you have failed as an RTS gamer. You need to work on developing your RTS skillset instead of relying on less than half of a game to win, you need to take all aspects.

I'll say this one last thing, people suggesting the overwhelm factor or APM is not good for an RTS, you should be playing a TBS, you will enjoy it more, because an RTS is not the game for you. Overwhelm and APM are the reasons RTS games are successful, it forces you to make decisions about how you use your time, and in that sense, APM makes each second more valuable. And that is a built in design from the developers. Without it, the entire game would be one big build order of maximum efficiency rather than skill, strategy, apm, whatever. It wouldn't be an RTS anymore. The less important it becomes to use the time available to you the less variations there becomes, the less difference in skill. Those are the games that devolve into rock paper scissors, not starcraft, not any true RTS.

Mate, I didn't mean offence - the assumption of an inferior high APM-count player was to illustrate the point, and is by no means a generalization. I don't automatically assume this anyway - I am personally both a lousy strategist and somewhat slow-witted in gaming.



I actually disagree with you, though I see your point. Understanding your analogy of chess, I don't think that a high-APM count necessarily counts as quick-wittedness (but I'm not saying that it can't, obviously).
There's no need to get uppity at me; I'm not saying that APM should be eliminated - just that the emphasis on it needs to be decreased somewhat. This isn't a demand, or an insult, or anything like that. Just don't automatically assume I'm taking the extreme viewpoint.
And if there's something I said that indicated any sort of extremeness, then I apologize for it now. Just back off.

I'm not angry, at anyone but the people who made the forum I don't mean to come off as hostile, just this discussion has been going on for the better part of my life, and it's the same thing over and over. I love TBS games, FF tactics is a good example of a game I've spent hundreds of hours on, because I love taking the time to make the perfect strategy, advance wars too, civ 3 was one I probably spent even a thousand hours on, it's just they're different styles of play, and I personally can't agree that strategy should be the end all of an RTS game, the time element is why I play it. If I want a good strategic war to satisfy the armchair general within, I'm gonna play chess or load up some Civ3-4.

I think my second post did a good job of describing why I think APM and effective use of time are important to an RTS, though you can have varying degrees, to me part of the gameplay is always going to be doing the best I can to fight against that overwhelm factor and do as much as possible and efficiently as possible. That's an RTS to me, a TBS is all about the making the optimal decisions, which is cool, and I love to play them, but it really is a different style of gaming. If you really think that strategy should outweigh the overwhelm factor, it becomes all about the build order and nothing else, if you feel that's not the case, try and give an example of how else you could decide who is the most "skilled" or the most gifted when it comes to "strategy" if you can do that to a reasonable extent, I might change my mind, but for all the thinking I've given this subject, I doubt it's possible.

Keep in mind however, there's a certain line where micro outweighs macro, that's the only grey area here. Both Micro (APM)and Macro(Decision making on how to spend your APM, I treat my time as it's own resource, except it's one that scales with how fast I am, it alters my build orders, it alters my micro, it alters the outcome of the game, and I feel it should) work together to decide how the game works, to me what defines an RTS is the overwhelm factor, if I feel like I can just queue up everything and have the optimal build order, I get bored, and feel like I'm playing a flashy TBS game that has no substance comparatively.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying a different playstyle, but I think people are looking at the wrong genre to satisfy their gaming needs. An RTS game is simply built around time, with a large portion of the strategy being how to best use your time, a lesser portion being the combined blob of units and how it is comprised. To me building the correct amount of each ship is good, it denotes a strategic thinking. Believe me, I really do love strategy, I number crunch and playtest for data to get the very best in strategies so I can be the best, but my APM when it counts is a far bigger factor in who wins games. My macro is far superior to most players in sins because of the math I do, and my micro is unrivaled unless the koreans decide to start playing . My micro is the bigger factor in who wins games, but both contribute, it's how much each one contributes that is again, the grey area. For me, it's effective use of that micro, which I consider strategy, deciding how to use it.

But I'm a hardcore gamer, I used to play for money, my playstyle is more advanced and developed than the casual guy looking for fun, and the problem comes when the casual guy who thinks he should have the advantage comes in against someone like me, and just can't compete, he just gets overwhelmed and doesn't work as efficiently, he lets resources build up, he might build the right counter units, but doesn't micro them to be effective Example: Chasing fighters with flak, the flak leave your LRFs, and the fighters circle around and hit the fighters all the while the flak chase, but never get in range and are useless because of micro, but that micro means I'm not spending my resources while doing it and other stuff like that. When what he would be doing if he was informed and had the apm, is put the flak on hold pos and move them with the rest of your fleet, keeping them circled around it or just inside of it. Making sure they at least get some shots off on the fighters.

I really just think people are confusing what the RTS genre is for, and would enjoy a TBS game more. If you want an incredibly casual but fluid TBS game, then you want an RTS with no overwhelm, and that essentially cuts the game's legs out from under it, that's why there are no RTS titles like that. Sins was marketed as one, but failed to deliver, it's currently in my opinion suffering from the fable complex, a great game in it's own right no one can deny. But simply does not live up to the hype. It's not a problem with ability, or power, or anything like that, they could make a game with attributes like that, but while you guys think it would be fun. It wouldn't be :/

No problem at all, sir. Your point, I might add, is extremely cogently put. I think I might go and train up (just a little bit ) on my APM count...
Thanks!

They were well made, and obviously came from inside, not a cut and paste from the latest article in "Great Gamer" ..... or whatever. A pleasant change to read original viewpoints - whether or not I agree.

Dont stop though!

Most people just buy and use a game because they simply enjoy it, I certainly do, few will dig deeper. So dont be surprised at low response rate. Original thoughts are always interesting and read, even if not many respond

Regards
Zy

Haeso, I absolutely agree with your post about APM being a vital component of competitive RTS gaming. However, the issue isn't that but the scale of the game. Starcraft kept it small by having crap unit AI, and a crap UI scheme. Your say, 80 APM, lets you manage maybe 20-30 units. Who's to say that's the perfect scale and level? You say you used to play competitively. I used to play somewhat seriously as well in TA. I played on TEN and was a top 100 player. Some of our top players(zerbit7 and others) went on to play TA in the CPL later that year. I can tell you that at the highest levels of TA, APM was absolutely a factor, as well as strategy. The game was large and because resources were unlimited you couldn't brute force your way in, not if your opponent was any good. It required a high APM to manage your factories, your resources, your defenses, and your 200 units that you may have split into multiple forces. It's just a larger scale game because the AI and UI took care of the small stuff. We could take it in the opposite direction, we could take the control scheme back to the original Dune 2 level. No grouping, no queueing, and you micro-manage your unit targetting INDIVIDUALLY for each unit. Does that mean Dune 2 is the ultimate competitive RTS? I think not, and I think that it would be damn annoying to play. If you would agree with that, then the way you might feel about the Dune 2 control scheme, is the way I feel about Starcraft's control scheme. I think some of the people saying they might like a little more strategy aren't saying that they want it to be more like a TBS, they just want to have more strategic options and perhaps a larger scale.

Not to mention a huge reason why SC became a spectator sport to quite a large degree, Crandaelon. And while scale is nice and all, I personally would rather have a much higher degree of control over less than a more automated system for controlling masses. And was the 80 an example? Or is that the APM you think SC actually required? Most players in SC at high end had well over 200.

Regardless, I'd rather have exact micro on a smaller scale than a game that plays itself for me sup com and TA both got old real fast for me, the game relied on scale and automation instead of true microing of units, sure apm still mattered. But it just wasn't even close to the same level. I want to have absolutely full control of my units, autocasts are nice when I'm mopping people up and being lazy towards the end of a game I know I've won, but other than that it's boring.

Lets not forget that Blizzards IP was stol... i mean inspired by Games Workshop. They pretty much been ridding on there coat tail since day 1.



WARHAMMERONLYWILLOWNWOWWTFBBQPWNED

No, They didn't steal it, Warhammer 40k online will own Wow tho (Yes you heard me, GC is making Warhammer 40k Online, FINALLY)

I will murder THQ if they fuck Warhammer 40k Online up.

I swear to god.

Then again, GC/GW Might not let them.

And Haeso. Hey Smart Guy, Who's your favorite warhammer 40k faction?

If that's sarcasm, it's not particularly effective. The exaggeration is pointless and ignores the point (pardon the expression) that some are trying to make (though I do agree, now, with Haeso )

Not a counterpoint per se, and I do see your side of the argument better now; but I think the main problem main like myself have is not that we want RTS to be TBS, but that we want something in between. In most cases, RTS aren't really real time, they're greatly compressed time. (Technically even TBS are greatly compressed unless people only play one turn a day/week/month/year whatever a turn represents.) So currently, the choices out there boil down to Turn-Based or Real(Twitch)-Time.

The reason this desire for a happy medium turns into intense dislike of StarCraft (as I said earlier, I have no particular hate for it just feel it is overrated and not my "cup of tea") is that so many games that do have a pacing in between the two see speed increases soon after release to satisfy the rather vocal twitch audience. We see game after game that could've been the next big thing for us turned into the flavor of the month for the twitch audience.

An RTS/TBS game basically has two elements. One, it needs some sort of campaign map or overview. The other element is... well fighting. Gunshots, rayguns, whatever. The Total War series was one of the few games on God's green earth that seamlessly integrated TBS with RTS.

Starcraft 2 isin't going to be innovative WHATSOEVER. It will basically be the same thing as Starcraft 1 and I LOVE THEM FOR THAT. You guys aren't realizing that they are basically taking one of the greatest RTS of all time and slapping on new graphics and a campaign. You should be totally okay with that. Leave innovation to Stardock and, yes, even the tyrant company EA.

Oh, and if anyone dosen't like Starcraft 1 or even the Total War series and just want to mass units like an avid, ADD xbox 360 player then go back to AOE 3 and shoot yourself