So, one thing I rather liked in a game called Warrior Kings was how your army always had upkeep costs. Unlike in WC3, where it's just a reduction in resource income at certain supply levels, in warrior kings each unit had amount of food that they required, and would reduce the amount of food stockpiled by that amount every so often, meaning that the larger your army got, the more food you needed to be producing in order to make sure everyone was fed. I could see a third resource working something like this; something like money for wages, or food for troops or the like to keep the troops you already have - particular if (like is also the case in warrior kings) you don't get the resource until it reaches your main base - and the unit that carries the resources from expansion to main can be captured. At that point, you basically have to balance out expansion with your ability to defend not only the expansion, but the resources being sent back to your main.
I'm very impressed by this analysis - I also found that SC2's pathfinding was too smooth - from a viewers perspective it creates a game that seems too uniform and characterless - none of the units seem to occupy space with any weight and this dispels the immersive nature that I loved in Brood War. You've put it in more nuanced and educated terms than i ever could so thank you for elucidating one of my primary concerns so well.
My biggest issue with SC2 pathing isn't clumping or even the auto-avoid ability that you describe, but rather that all units feel close to identical to control. In BW, a dragoon and a siege tank may look to be about the same size but they act completely differently. Honestly I don't know how to obtain a similar effect in a modern engine, but I've dabbled with the SC2 editor and I've noticed the only option for hitboxes is size. Meaning that all units have a circular hitbox of a certain radius. If units could have different hitbox shapes it may help to differenciate them... Also there are plenty of options for acceleration and deceleration values but OG units tend to have very sharp values, meaning they are more responsive (if you press S the units decelerate to a full strop almost instantanously) but of course it makes them feel samier. My guess is that Blizz focused on having the sharpest controls they could, because they were a big issue in SC1, and didn't realize or didn't care about the consequences on the feel of units.
changing the hit-"box" from a circle to any other shape complicates the collision/path finding problem a fair bit. Alternatives to pursue a more unique feel to units' movement could perhaps instead be achieved by adjusting acceleration settings, some units might be harder to bring to an immediate halt once they get going ,whereas others might be able to turn almost instantaneously.
Goes to show blizzard didn't know what they were doing, because gamers didn't know what they wanted - "Precision micro? Okay, just make it so they have instantaneous control!" They took 'precision' literally, when players really wanted good or fun micro, where engaging in micro would impact a game.
When we're talking about Unit movement and collision, we have to take another game into consideration "Ancestors Legacy". It had many flaws, but it did one thing very well which is having impact. What happens if you throw your body against a shieldwall or what happens if cavalry charges into a formation? We can also ask this question for games like Starcraft. What happens when an air unit crashes into a building? Blizzard games never had a system like this, but why shouldn't it have a system like this? Usualy units in Blizzard rts just explode or dissapear when they die, but how would it effect the game when the remains of destroyed tanks are scattered over the battlefield? I think this is a topic worth talking about it. It could give rts Games a lot more depth.
CoH and AL focused on unit composition and abilities winning the game, largely, with less importance for economy. Minor little things that improve how units fight, such as added cover from exploded vehicles or what have you, would add more variety to that; but if it includes RNG damage, then the dead vehicle as cover feature might compound upon that, to really make it feel like its out of a player's hands. Would be good for a deliberately casual RTS in the vein of super smash brothers, where noobs can defeat pros, due to luck of the dice causing cool and different things to happen each game. However, I think unit charges would make micro more interesting in a more repetitive attritonal game like AoE2. If you were to have added cover in that game, then you would also have clean up crews to reset or adjust the terrain to whatever is preferable by a given player.
The sc2 the hit box of the worker is disable when recolting minerals. And the units are not "aware" of the order it just that hen there are a hit box collision the unit move a x amount in the other direction. What do you think about Sanctuary?
@@Nutellafuerst Yes it would indeed be a terrible idea. riding stupid fucking trends does not a good game make. Go check out what happened when the planetside franchise decided to ride the "Fortnite battle royale" trend.
IMO to make an RTS noob friendly you simply need a separate mode or ranking bracket with slowed down game speed. APM is the biggest factor, it's comparable to time-to-kill in FPS as both heavily punish poor and slow descision making.
@@lucifirius because noobs can't or don't want to play at that speed. They have trouble making decisions while trying to also do things faster than their opponent. Instead of dumbing down the strategy just let them play at a more leisurely pace. Like in CoD you can walk around soaking up bullets while in CSGO you will get melted for walking around the wrong corner. I'm average but when ever I play any RTS I normally always lose by being to slow. When I play some one that plays at my speed we have a long fight or one of us out thinks the other. Then again maybe just having a rank system is enough to separate the players and the real problem is that there aren't enough average people in the player base to balance out the good ones like there is in something like CoD or CSGO.
@@flavorgod FPS do it all the time with casual mode, competitive mode, hardcore mode, coop mode, etc. In the old days, and probably still, you could find custom game matches with slower game speed and a more casual aspect to it. If those players would play anyway because they find the game to fast then wouldn't this add to the player base rather than split it? Some players might go back in forth like in CSGO for instance where you can play rank or casual depending on your mood, and in casual you have more money and more players on a team which is comparable to slowing down an RTS or speeding up production/research times. This attracts noobs and some will graduate to the more competitive modes.
@@TheAgavi There might be some way to make it work; units with morale increasing abilities, for example, or the ability for low morale units to break and run back to your main base (meaning the losing player doesn't need to spend as many resources to replace them)?
@@Parker8752 If you have an enemy army on the run it's basically free damage because you're hitting them and they're not hitting back. Deciding to disengage and flee in an RTS is basically deciding to sacrifice your front line (who will be at the back when you run) to save the rest. Sometimes that's a decision you have to make but often if you're going to lose an engagement anyway then you want to sacrifice your remaining forces to thin out their army and buy time for you to produce units for when they arrive on your doorstep. Definitely not a fan of the morale idea. In RTS design snowballing is when a loss increases the possibility you'll lose again. Stuff like that means that entire games can be decided by one early bad engagement.
@@TheAgavi It would have to be implemented well to avoid it causing a snowballing effect; I'll grant you that. I don't think it would necessarily cause that effect though; it would depend on implementation and integration with other systems in the game. The rest of the game would have to be designed with morale in mind for such a system to work, of course - you couldn't just tack it on to a game that is in all other ways a clone of Starcraft 2. Off the top of my head, it would need ways to both boost and damage morale, and means for units that break to avoid getting killed on their way to wherever they're fleeing to. Perhaps a speed boost would be one such thing, to help them get out of range faster.
The guy who did Starcraft's pathfinding did a talk about how it works. It's online somewhere -- was it GDC? And I think the guy in question is the same guy who's in Frost Giant. I'd give you links but I can't find them and am lazy. I'm sure the pathfinding will be very close to Starcraft II. I suspect they'll just do as good a job as they can of the pathfinding, and that they will continue to let units push other units out of the way. For this same reason -- it's the best way to do smooth pathfinding. I should also say that in SC2 you can make your units become unpassable when you hold position them. You talked about the SVS knowing what the best mineral patches are. They don't, I'm pretty sure. The just bounce off a patch if there's two SCVs already there and pathfind their way to a new one. I was really hoping I could tell you _exactly_ how it all works, because I looked into it a couple of years ago as I attempted to write my own RTS. But it's been a couple of years and I'd probably be talking mostly shit. More thoughts from my brain. I hope to God there's no turn speed! I hate that stuff! What I love about SC2 is how nimble the units feel. I like directing units somewhere and having them just do it. ie, I prefer Mario's movement to Rockstar's. It just feels better. My favourite thing to do in an RTS is stutter step. YOU LISTENING, FROST GIANT???????
I don't agree with your last point, for example marines being very responsive makes sense but I would rather have bigger units feel less responsive and therefore more different than rines. CoH and this video also show there is cool gameplay to be had if you make turn rates more meaningful with things like directional armor. Personally, I think having some units with a limited arc of fire (like 120 or 180 instead of 360) would be another way to integrate gameplay with varying turn rates.
Micro is a lot deeper and more fun, if diff units turn and accelerate differently, because it's an added variable to composition, balance and tactics. Just because you are confirmation biased about something doesn't mean everyone else ought to be.
@@iopklmification In the context that units already have to face a target they're attacking going all the way back to Brood War in 1999, so arc of fire is pretty much meaningless; unless you're referring the MG taking time to 'set up' in CoH. The coding of that is fairly easy, I think, because they already factor in the fact that a unit knows it has to turn X amount to face an enemy, even if the turn is near-instant (eg. 10 miliseconds or something). The 'arc of fire' would simply limit where it can turn to, by ignoring units that are beyond where it can turn.
Hey HavestBuildDestroy, and anyone who is unsure about to do, or to not do hero units in the game. please watch from 44:25 to 46:50 of this video th-cam.com/video/PQw80Reh2ps/w-d-xo.html Thank you, the question should be solved and easy to understand after that.
Cool vid, I like watching these, because I've never had invested this much thought into things like pathfinding and basic intelligence for RTS-games, and it's good to see an in-depth analysis. Also, is there any info about the Frost Giant games world and units?
So, one thing I rather liked in a game called Warrior Kings was how your army always had upkeep costs. Unlike in WC3, where it's just a reduction in resource income at certain supply levels, in warrior kings each unit had amount of food that they required, and would reduce the amount of food stockpiled by that amount every so often, meaning that the larger your army got, the more food you needed to be producing in order to make sure everyone was fed.
I could see a third resource working something like this; something like money for wages, or food for troops or the like to keep the troops you already have - particular if (like is also the case in warrior kings) you don't get the resource until it reaches your main base - and the unit that carries the resources from expansion to main can be captured. At that point, you basically have to balance out expansion with your ability to defend not only the expansion, but the resources being sent back to your main.
I'm very impressed by this analysis - I also found that SC2's pathfinding was too smooth - from a viewers perspective it creates a game that seems too uniform and characterless - none of the units seem to occupy space with any weight and this dispels the immersive nature that I loved in Brood War. You've put it in more nuanced and educated terms than i ever could so thank you for elucidating one of my primary concerns so well.
My biggest issue with SC2 pathing isn't clumping or even the auto-avoid ability that you describe, but rather that all units feel close to identical to control.
In BW, a dragoon and a siege tank may look to be about the same size but they act completely differently.
Honestly I don't know how to obtain a similar effect in a modern engine, but I've dabbled with the SC2 editor and I've noticed the only option for hitboxes is size. Meaning that all units have a circular hitbox of a certain radius. If units could have different hitbox shapes it may help to differenciate them...
Also there are plenty of options for acceleration and deceleration values but OG units tend to have very sharp values, meaning they are more responsive (if you press S the units decelerate to a full strop almost instantanously) but of course it makes them feel samier. My guess is that Blizz focused on having the sharpest controls they could, because they were a big issue in SC1, and didn't realize or didn't care about the consequences on the feel of units.
changing the hit-"box" from a circle to any other shape complicates the collision/path finding problem a fair bit.
Alternatives to pursue a more unique feel to units' movement could perhaps instead be achieved by adjusting acceleration settings, some units might be harder to bring to an immediate halt once they get going ,whereas others might be able to turn almost instantaneously.
Goes to show blizzard didn't know what they were doing, because gamers didn't know what they wanted - "Precision micro? Okay, just make it so they have instantaneous control!"
They took 'precision' literally, when players really wanted good or fun micro, where engaging in micro would impact a game.
Lots of interesting points, especially regarding unit movement
Can't stop watching your videos !!!
When we're talking about Unit movement and collision, we have to take another game into consideration "Ancestors Legacy".
It had many flaws, but it did one thing very well which is having impact. What happens if you throw your body against a shieldwall or what happens if cavalry charges into a formation?
We can also ask this question for games like Starcraft. What happens when an air unit crashes into a building? Blizzard games never had a system like this, but why shouldn't it have a system like this? Usualy units in Blizzard rts just explode or dissapear when they die, but how would it effect the game when the remains of destroyed tanks are scattered over the battlefield? I think this is a topic worth talking about it. It could give rts Games a lot more depth.
CoH and AL focused on unit composition and abilities winning the game, largely, with less importance for economy. Minor little things that improve how units fight, such as added cover from exploded vehicles or what have you, would add more variety to that; but if it includes RNG damage, then the dead vehicle as cover feature might compound upon that, to really make it feel like its out of a player's hands. Would be good for a deliberately casual RTS in the vein of super smash brothers, where noobs can defeat pros, due to luck of the dice causing cool and different things to happen each game.
However, I think unit charges would make micro more interesting in a more repetitive attritonal game like AoE2. If you were to have added cover in that game, then you would also have clean up crews to reset or adjust the terrain to whatever is preferable by a given player.
Hope someone from frost giant is watching.
I'm so excited for this
The sc2 the hit box of the worker is disable when recolting minerals. And the units are not "aware" of the order it just that hen there are a hit box collision the unit move a x amount in the other direction.
What do you think about Sanctuary?
Another great video
F91 is such a legend in SC when it comes to mutas micro!
1st rule and by far the most important: DO NOT HAVE YOUR UNITS AUTOMATICALLY CLUMP UP TO THE MOST MATHMATICALLY DENSE POINT LIKE STARCRAFT 2
And yes I know I said this in part 1 but it always has to be said
Yes yes, do not do things like the best and most successful RTS of all time, that would be a terrible idea
It adds a lot of micro skill by having you manually space your units. There are advantages even if you personally don't like that style.
@@richardsuquar380 no its garbage that can stay in the 90s.
@@Nutellafuerst Yes it would indeed be a terrible idea.
riding stupid fucking trends does not a good game make.
Go check out what happened when the planetside franchise decided to ride the "Fortnite battle royale" trend.
IMO to make an RTS noob friendly you simply need a separate mode or ranking bracket with slowed down game speed. APM is the biggest factor, it's comparable to time-to-kill in FPS as both heavily punish poor and slow descision making.
But why?
@@lucifirius because noobs can't or don't want to play at that speed. They have trouble making decisions while trying to also do things faster than their opponent. Instead of dumbing down the strategy just let them play at a more leisurely pace. Like in CoD you can walk around soaking up bullets while in CSGO you will get melted for walking around the wrong corner. I'm average but when ever I play any RTS I normally always lose by being to slow. When I play some one that plays at my speed we have a long fight or one of us out thinks the other. Then again maybe just having a rank system is enough to separate the players and the real problem is that there aren't enough average people in the player base to balance out the good ones like there is in something like CoD or CSGO.
Splitting the community is bad.
@@flavorgod FPS do it all the time with casual mode, competitive mode, hardcore mode, coop mode, etc. In the old days, and probably still, you could find custom game matches with slower game speed and a more casual aspect to it. If those players would play anyway because they find the game to fast then wouldn't this add to the player base rather than split it? Some players might go back in forth like in CSGO for instance where you can play rank or casual depending on your mood, and in casual you have more money and more players on a team which is comparable to slowing down an RTS or speeding up production/research times. This attracts noobs and some will graduate to the more competitive modes.
Just a have a good campaign. That's where the noobs go
What are your thoughts on morale systems? Units becoming less effective when demoralised by enemy attack.
Probably a gimmick unless its handled really really well.
That kind of thing causes death spirals. Your units are losing, so they get less effective and lose faster. Terrible.
@@TheAgavi There might be some way to make it work; units with morale increasing abilities, for example, or the ability for low morale units to break and run back to your main base (meaning the losing player doesn't need to spend as many resources to replace them)?
@@Parker8752 If you have an enemy army on the run it's basically free damage because you're hitting them and they're not hitting back.
Deciding to disengage and flee in an RTS is basically deciding to sacrifice your front line (who will be at the back when you run) to save the rest. Sometimes that's a decision you have to make but often if you're going to lose an engagement anyway then you want to sacrifice your remaining forces to thin out their army and buy time for you to produce units for when they arrive on your doorstep.
Definitely not a fan of the morale idea. In RTS design snowballing is when a loss increases the possibility you'll lose again. Stuff like that means that entire games can be decided by one early bad engagement.
@@TheAgavi It would have to be implemented well to avoid it causing a snowballing effect; I'll grant you that. I don't think it would necessarily cause that effect though; it would depend on implementation and integration with other systems in the game.
The rest of the game would have to be designed with morale in mind for such a system to work, of course - you couldn't just tack it on to a game that is in all other ways a clone of Starcraft 2. Off the top of my head, it would need ways to both boost and damage morale, and means for units that break to avoid getting killed on their way to wherever they're fleeing to. Perhaps a speed boost would be one such thing, to help them get out of range faster.
The guy who did Starcraft's pathfinding did a talk about how it works. It's online somewhere -- was it GDC? And I think the guy in question is the same guy who's in Frost Giant. I'd give you links but I can't find them and am lazy.
I'm sure the pathfinding will be very close to Starcraft II. I suspect they'll just do as good a job as they can of the pathfinding, and that they will continue to let units push other units out of the way. For this same reason -- it's the best way to do smooth pathfinding. I should also say that in SC2 you can make your units become unpassable when you hold position them.
You talked about the SVS knowing what the best mineral patches are. They don't, I'm pretty sure. The just bounce off a patch if there's two SCVs already there and pathfind their way to a new one. I was really hoping I could tell you _exactly_ how it all works, because I looked into it a couple of years ago as I attempted to write my own RTS. But it's been a couple of years and I'd probably be talking mostly shit.
More thoughts from my brain. I hope to God there's no turn speed! I hate that stuff! What I love about SC2 is how nimble the units feel. I like directing units somewhere and having them just do it. ie, I prefer Mario's movement to Rockstar's. It just feels better. My favourite thing to do in an RTS is stutter step.
YOU LISTENING, FROST GIANT???????
I don't agree with your last point, for example marines being very responsive makes sense but I would rather have bigger units feel less responsive and therefore more different than rines. CoH and this video also show there is cool gameplay to be had if you make turn rates more meaningful with things like directional armor.
Personally, I think having some units with a limited arc of fire (like 120 or 180 instead of 360) would be another way to integrate gameplay with varying turn rates.
@@iopklmification
Thors used to have turn rates, but for whatever gameplay reason made them turn as fast as everything
Micro is a lot deeper and more fun, if diff units turn and accelerate differently, because it's an added variable to composition, balance and tactics.
Just because you are confirmation biased about something doesn't mean everyone else ought to be.
@@iopklmification In the context that units already have to face a target they're attacking going all the way back to Brood War in 1999, so arc of fire is pretty much meaningless; unless you're referring the MG taking time to 'set up' in CoH. The coding of that is fairly easy, I think, because they already factor in the fact that a unit knows it has to turn X amount to face an enemy, even if the turn is near-instant (eg. 10 miliseconds or something). The 'arc of fire' would simply limit where it can turn to, by ignoring units that are beyond where it can turn.
Will you make a video on AoE4 or what??
Hey HavestBuildDestroy, and anyone who is unsure about to do, or to not do hero units in the game.
please watch from 44:25 to 46:50 of this video th-cam.com/video/PQw80Reh2ps/w-d-xo.html
Thank you, the question should be solved and easy to understand after that.
Cool vid, I like watching these, because I've never had invested this much thought into things like pathfinding and basic intelligence for RTS-games, and it's good to see an in-depth analysis. Also, is there any info about the Frost Giant games world and units?
The reason starcraft 2 will die out is because blizzard-activision stopped supporting it.
Brood war > SC2
>enduring popularity
UHHHHHHHH