Basically, every faction had a base melee unit (Footman, Ghoul, Grunt, Huntress), base ranged unit, advanced melee unit to potentially replace the base unit (Abomination, Druid of Claw, Knight, Tauren), one artillery siege unit, and some basic flying unit. The differences came in the exact stats of those units, the heroes, and the auxiliary units such as casters and more specialized units such as Raiders, Steam Engines, etc.
Other asymmetrical games like Grey Goo also have defined roles that every faction must fill (base attacker, anti-armor unit, tank, artillery), and some RTS games like Age of Empires and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds just give every faction the same sets of units with different unique upgrades or different levels of access for various tech.
Yes and Nelf actually had no melee t1 unit but still they felt different play even with units of similar role. To me that shows the races do not need to be completely asymmetrical maybe that is what causes some design issues in SC2. Could be biased but to me this game had the good amount of everything - allows 1 base to punish expander but I remember games on Echo Isles were such pressure by opponent if you tried to fast expand and if your expand survived was a high reward (near impossible to punish in LotV often), plenty or fast apm needs, not that much spent on workers, different races and play. I know heroes too strong were a flaw but everything else was just the right fit.
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Huntresses dealt ânormalâ damage, the same type as melee units. Of course, they also were âunarmoredâ, which meant they took extra damage from Piercing and Siege. They were âclose enoughâ to serve as the melee t1, even though they technically werenât. Druids of the Claw also came into play earlier than most of the big âadvanced meleeâ units, so you could start building them up before bear form became available.
The units donât have to be âexactlyâ the same, just close enough to fill the necessary roles.
The game is 13 years old⌠what other games from 13 years ago are still alive and at peak? Like none.
The best hope is when MS takes over blizzard they will support legacy games more than Bobby Kotick is doing or MS makes starcraft 3.
Counter Strike is still going strong and there are rumors a new one is going to be released. CS:GO has 1.3 million peak players. SC2 1v1 ladder has like 40k.
SC2âs development was probably put into a limbo with Microsoftâs acquisition of Activision. Thatâs my theory on why not much has been happening the past year or so. They were planning on doing a yearly redesign and that stopped around the same time as Microsoft was probably poking around about buying it all.
The problem with SC2 is that you canât code bots to boost engagement. Twitter etc has bots that engage with users to try and keep them on the platform, and I suspect big games have that too. But, this only works on games that are simple enough for bots to do. FPS games are point-and-click, so bots do them well. SC2 on the other hand is basically impossible to code bots that are good enough to pass as a human player.
There was all the hoopla over Twitter bots with Muskâs purchase, and I donât think people realize just how over-run the internet is with bots. The entire internet is practically run by bots. If you are a small video game company, people just wonât play your game without other people to play with and you canât pay people to play the game 24/7 because itâs not cost effective. You have to have thousands of bots to generate engagement to build up a player base that is large enough to generate its own engagement.
If SCâs player base is going to continue to shrink, they should probably think about automating some of the experience with bots. Make the map pool refresh automatically, seasonal balance variations, etc.
Funny how they try to make Starcraft Broodwar feel relevant, almost new! Even for my most beloved games (wc3) I know it is time to move on, especially when they did the final blow with reforged.
I am not having any goals in SC2, I would try to play competitive SG (not pro just go for whatever high one should deserve), so⌠all these issues in ladder I know will not be fixed and the game also starts feeling worth switching to another even if not too old game. So I do not care what they do with balance other than when I see really silly biased opinions.
CS:GO may actually genuinely fit to be still relevant after so many years.
But yes it has to do with people not liking RTS easier is MOBA or any random shooter ( Fortnite, OW, Valorant and all such)
Frostgiant are making a good start to make Stormgate a free game from the beginning. idk what will be the purchasable, skins? It shouldnât be too casual and more like war3 difficulty which may be easier than SC2 I might say, but that could bring more people. Or it is infinitely doomed RTS to be for the GenZâs
You should see what they are complaining about in D4. Why is the Druid so fat, why is he looking like a 40 year old, âI dont wanna play someone looking like a daddyâ or better yet letâs just quote:
As a woman who works out and takes pride in being attractive the whole âplay your fantasyâ thing they marketed. Playing druid is my nightmare. I go to the gym and take care of myself to NOT look like that.
America YOU did this, you.
There is a reason why I never started WoW or RPG and no matter how dead RTS is here are worse things than whatever in RTS community
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Yeah what the hell fk last 2 patches, and this one what in the GDF?