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[jap88]

The thing i find annoying about RTS games nowdays is that rush beats everything supposedly Rush>boom>Turtle>rush but instead it's Rush>Boom>turtle

[Super Nova]

I am not a aggresive player too but i like to play with my enemys u know almost kill they but let them live for ur own entertainment.
i do it the the AI too but still.

I know it is crue but hey i have fun.

[Darvin]

My personal thoughts on the matter is that the whole concept of turtling, rushing, and booming are themselves flaws in the genre. I feel the next step, gameplay-wise, that needs to be taken in RTS games is to eliminate the concept of these three.

As far as rushing goes, I feel that games have either attempted to remove it from the picture or ignore it altogether. Both often end up as disaster; if you look at BFME2, the early game was dominated by offensive gambits that (if played out perfectly by both teams) resulted in a mutual defeat and were about which team could hunt down the last stragglers of the other team first. Alternately, I see too many games which remove the entire importance of the early game. The results of this are just as problematic; the game's all about a maximized build order, and the whole concept of the first attack is just moved ahead to a later point in time.

I feel that the solution is to integrate rushing as part of the early game. Battles with the opposing player must be an assumed part of the early game routine. Unless the unpredictability of player interaction comes into effect early on, all the early game will be is the repetition of a few well honed build orders; neither fun nor interesting. At the same time, it must be balanced so that players grow and advance rather than stagnate each other's development. That is, unless a player royally screws up, the rush won't impact his advance to the "late game" type armies.

As for turtling, I feel that this often stagnates a game and can lead to boring and drawn out bouts where the outcome is obvious. Defences should be part of other strategies, but simply sitting behind a wall shouldn't be a strategy on its own. It must exist to supplement other plans of action, but I feel a dedicated defence should mean inevitable defeat if you're not doing something else actively.

[The Witch King of Angmar]

Originally Posted by Darvin

My personal thoughts on the matter is that the whole concept of turtling, rushing, and booming are themselves flaws in the genre. I feel the next step, gameplay-wise, that needs to be taken in RTS games is to eliminate the concept of these three.

As far as rushing goes, I feel that games have either attempted to remove it from the picture or ignore it altogether. Both often end up as disaster; if you look at BFME2, the early game was dominated by offensive gambits that (if played out perfectly by both teams) resulted in a mutual defeat and were about which team could hunt down the last stragglers of the other team first. Alternately, I see too many games which remove the entire importance of the early game. The results of this are just as problematic; the game's all about a maximized build order, and the whole concept of the first attack is just moved ahead to a later point in time.

I feel that the solution is to integrate rushing as part of the early game. Battles with the opposing player must be an assumed part of the early game routine. Unless the unpredictability of player interaction comes into effect early on, all the early game will be is the repetition of a few well honed build orders; neither fun nor interesting. At the same time, it must be balanced so that players grow and advance rather than stagnate each other's development. That is, unless a player royally screws up, the rush won't impact his advance to the "late game" type armies.

As for turtling, I feel that this often stagnates a game and can lead to boring and drawn out bouts where the outcome is obvious. Defences should be part of other strategies, but simply sitting behind a wall shouldn't be a strategy on its own. It must exist to supplement other plans of action, but I feel a dedicated defence should mean inevitable defeat if you're not doing something else actively.

I think that in RTS games, players should be battling almost all the time. After a retreat or a lose, I think a player should prepare to build up a defense and get ready to be sieged if that's the situation until he/she has rebuilt.

[Ryan Zelazny]

I believe Dawn of Fantasy will differ quite a bit from other RTS titles in terms of creating strategies. There is so much involved in DoF to make it more realisitic that strategies like turtling and rushing (not quite sure what booming is) will become quite obsolete and players will have to develop more realistic strategies.

No comander in their right mind would send in a small untrained force at the start of a battle, with a 50/50 chance of winning or losing. Just as no one would rightly stay in their fortress waiting for their enemy to just give up.

Features like our line of sight system, layered maps, complex combat and powerful magic I think will add counter-strategies to pretty much anything. Allowing players of true tactic skill to win, over people who employ cowardly strategies, or attempt to just annoy their opponent.

For example, if someone is turtling in their fortress, take your mage, and send a huge volley of fireballs over them, no one is going to stay in a place covered in fire while your units burn to death. Dragons who stay in their caves are going to be at a disadvantage not being able to fly, or breathe fire without collateral damage will be devastating to them when legions of pikemen come in and skewer them.

To ward off rushers, place some scouts on high points to be able to get a good line of sight, anyone coming with their small army to rush you will be sorry they did because you knew they were coming.

[jap88]

Booming is just going all-out on economy and teching right away

...Sounds good Thething about most RTS games these days is that it's not the player with the most skill that wins, it's the player that clicks the mouse the fastest i geniunely hope to see that change with DoF.

[Darvin]

Thething about most RTS games these days is that it's not the player with the most skill that wins, it's the player that clicks the mouse the fastest

That's a misconception; as I've written in many articles, APM is meaningless if you're making bad decisions. Being able to click faster is an advantage, but at a certain point it's not a big deal, since the opposing player can still do everything they need to. Perhaps it won't be as quick as the other player, but in most cases a 1 or 2 second delay isn't significant anyways; lag will hurt you more than your own reaction time. Micromanagement is less about clicking quickly and more about thinking quickly. You need to be able to analyze what you need to do, figure out what orders you need to give in order to achieve that, and then give those orders in the most effective manner. The clicking is actually just a small portion of the whole process of micromanagement. This is why most people actually aren't very good at it; they believe their problem is that they aren't clicking fast enough, when the problem actually is that they're not making the right clicks. The advice I always give to people with micromanagement problems is to try clicking as slowly as possible, because the problem is they're hurrying to click so quickly that they aren't thinking about what they're doing, and that's their problem!

The biggest issue I find is actually memorization of strategies and counter-strategies. It's all about build orders and openers to reduce the game to an equation. The result is then that the game becomes a battle of "execution" of the strategy rather than the strategy itself. The most important thing from a game-design perspective is to get lots of player interaction early on, and that makes it very difficult to reduce the game to a formula.

[The Witch King of Angmar]

Originally Posted by Darvin

The biggest issue I find is actually memorization of strategies and counter-strategies. It's all about build orders and openers to reduce the game to an equation. The result is then that the game becomes a battle of "execution" of the strategy rather than the strategy itself. The most important thing from a game-design perspective is to get lots of player interaction early on, and that makes it very difficult to reduce the game to a formula.

I think alot of strategies come from your imagination and come and go depending on the situation. Alot of times for me if my partner is in a good position for me I will think up a quick strat that involves flanking, attacking from the side or backing him up in some way. I think in the tutorial for DOF their should be a list of basic manuvers and strategies for new players.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

My take on rushing is - it has got to be a strategy used in 1 out of 4 online games, at most! For the record - this is Skirmish Online mode we are talking about here, not MMORTS.

So yeah - casual rushing only. You might call it a radical solution, but, DoF is putting alot of emphasis on huge strongholds, thousands of units on screeen epic battles, naval combat, sieges. Now rushing, really cuts all of this as well as 80% of other content.

Why would developed bother adding all that content in, things like magic, heroes e.t.c. If most players would only build 2-3 buildings instead of a stronghold, use 20 units of one type, instead of army of 1000 mixed from 12 units types.

But don`t get me wrong - we are pushing for immediate combat action the second the game starts. Player would have good number of combat units pre-placed, allowing him to start fighting over resources or chock-points right away, or go around and creep hunting. And with-in 3 minutes player can build up to level 1 stronghold and start continuously pumping up his units.

[Darvin]

I think alot of strategies come from your imagination and come and go depending on the situation.

The problem is, unless there's significant player interaction, the number of situations you encounter in a frequent basis is so small that the "best" strategy is usually well known. Unless a game can create a variety of unexpected situations, creativity won't become an asset.

For the record - this is Skirmish Online mode we are talking about here, not MMORTS.

That kind of went without saying; we don't know enough about the mechanics of MMORTS yet to comment on such things. Whether a rush even makes sense in that setting is still up in the air.

Now rushing, really cuts all of this as well as 80% of other content.

I actually disagree; I believe that more content is cut by the lack of a rush then by the application of it. The key, of course, is that except in the worst case scenario that a rush does not impede a player's development to those late game armies. The important part of a rush is to prevent a "typical" mid-game and late-game scenario from emerging. If the game's progression can be reduced to a few typical formats, players will simply apply "cookie cutter" strategies, and these often restrict the game's content far more harshly than any rushing could.

Why would developed bother adding all that content in, things like magic, heroes e.t.c. If most players would only build 2-3 buildings instead of a stronghold, use 20 units of one type, instead of army of 1000 mixed from 12 units types.

This is the classic misconception of the rush; it should be viewed a stepping stone - rather than an alternative - to the late game material. There should be significant material in both an early game and late game context to provoke player interaction in interesting and unpredictable ways.

But don`t get me wrong - we are pushing for immediate combat action the second the game starts. Player would have good number of combat units pre-placed, allowing him to start fighting over resources or chock-points right away, or go around and creep hunting. And with-in 3 minutes player can build up to level 1 stronghold and start continuously pumping up his units.

Sounds good, although my experiences with creeps from warcraft III is that they are distractions that hurt the game more than they helped it.