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[Alevice]

Age of Empires and Total Anihilation had bigger FOVs. WC3's was actually uncommon for the era.

I think it was deliberate probably both for design and performance. Considering how many friendly fire aoe abilities are and the small unit count, I appreciate being close to them. Flame strike sometimes required surgical precision in its placement for maximum effect.

[Dacke]

But they had a zoom ability, so either way you could have chosen to have the camera down their noses when you wanted to.

[Alevice]

I'm not sure if you mean that WC3 had zoom-in (not sure why it had, tbh) or that the other games I mentioned had zoom (they didn't).

If you mean the former, I feel you and I are not playing the same game. Warcraft 3 skirmishes barely had anything going on past one screen in a given area. They usually had like 12-14 units per side in a given conflict at a time, most of which fit in a single screen. I can understand your criticism if you wanted larger battles, for which Warcraft 3 was not the game you are looking for. It wasn't designed with that in mind, and focused to play its strengths (heavily micro oriented - deep focus on kiting, forcing target priority switch, loads of spells for almost every unit).

From a technical standpoint, WC3 is a competitive game, and zooming out and having more stuff going on on a single screen is taxing on a cpu, which at the time wc3 was released, was not going to perform well on low end machines, and giving a system specs based advantage on a competitive game is a huge no.

For all the flaws the game had (bad pathing, order latency, use of floating point rather than fixed point in its VM, plenty of useless spells, items and heroes, a really punishing upkeep system, etc), the FOV wasnt really one of them.

[Dacke]

I understand the design choice from a technical point of view. I don't agree that you only needed to care about the single screen, you still need to keep track of the bigger picture (macro, enemy movements, etc.) Maybe they had to disallow zooming out due to technical reasons, sure. But it makes for a really annoying playing experience imho, so Dota 2 being stuck with that choice is just.. ugh.

[Alevice]

With the exception of Supreme Commander, Empire Earth 2 (which are newer games by quite some years) and other games where you can zoom out veeery far, I think pretty much every RTS suffers from that anyway. Usually macro and enemy movements just need a small glance before you switchback to your main force(s), and usually just clicking in the minimap is much faster than manually zooming out (unless its a button toggle thing) or manually scrolling. Its an RTS design trope that I have always been at odds, admittedly, but its not a particular case for just WC3. I still wonder why not many RTS adopted EE2 citizen manager, which alleviates a huge aspect of macro.

I am not saying you have to like it, which is totally alright, I can totally understand why it can suck for a given audience, but I dont think it is really fair to call it bad design, where given the overall design goals (focus on RPG elements and micro for the most part, a carefuly reading of WC3's official strategy guide further elaborates on that), there was clearly a lot of thought put into it.

And this comes from a person who usually enjoys Age of Empires and Rise of Nations more.

I should emphasize that I agree that most MOBAs could actually benefit from a larger FOV, even if fixed. The only mechanic that benefits from such a close zoom is last -hitting/denying, and I would expect a more elegant solution to that legacy feature to come aboard. But then again, DOTA players seem to like that such a feature exists, so I cant say I have the right call there.

[quantumpotato]

usually just clicking in the minimap is much faster than manually zooming out (unless its a button toggle thing) or manually scrolling.

In Starcraft 2 (maybe 1, didn't play it), you can hit hotkeys then click on the minimap for some actions. For example, the queens can inject larva into the hives. You can tab through your queens, hit the inject button and tap your hive on the mini-map and they'll perform the action. It needs to be done every 45 seconds so it's an interesting choice of game design & compromise of map UI.

[Schoq]

The real question to me is why such a thing isn't just automated with a toggle but I'm not an rts player

[Dacke]

Day9, the starcraft player, describes SC:BW as a disorganization engine. It can be a highly competitive game because it's impossible to be in complete control. You can always improve your play by improving your speed and multitasking, managing to better keep track of everything enables you to execute more complex strategies.

I think it makes for a pretty awful singleplayer or non-pro multiplayer game, because of that, though. I definitely prefer strategy games that put a focus on strategy over execution.

[Photon]

I think it makes for a pretty awful singleplayer or non-pro multiplayer game, because of that, though. I definitely prefer strategy games that put a focus on strategy over execution.

There's something to be said of being able to quickly and expertly execute a gameplan, but generally speaking I'd agree. I find myself gravitating less and less towards hi-speed gameplay that's coupled with a requirement for razor-sharp precision.

[Alevice]

There is a hugely deep strategy over starcraft games (wc3 is far more tactical), but you really need to cross the skill threshold before you can even grasp what needs to be done. Frankly many rts played competitively are just as bad if not worse. Age of Empires 2 gives a false illusion of being less a clickfest, but if you get to watch tournament replays, the macro can be more insane (sellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwoodsellwood).

Its part of being real time and all that.

[s0]

yes RTSes are basically action/strategy hybrids rather than pure strategy

[Dacke]

Some are and the term is often used that way. But as I've insisted before, it's quite possible to create games that are about strategic decisions in real time without the twitch. SRTs?

[bitserum]

I was working on a Online Dating simulator that was supposed to have some 15-ish characters of different sexes/sexualities (some major, some minor) with decently fleshed out personalities/mental stats. It was supposed to have non-converging dialog/choices and past choices would carry on, and sometimes even between characters.
I went far enough with a single NPC development to realize halfway-through that play testing it was a pain in the ass, I just couldn't suffer through it.
Also a quick calculation of invested time * my plans for the game, showed I would likely be working on it for at least 5-6 years.
It was an awful, soul-sucking idea; yet I'd still like to play that game

[Mittens]

These reasons are why I really like Neptunes Pride, resources are generated so slowly and units move so slowly that everyone has hours to press the buttons, winning is decided more by the strategic choices you make

[s0]

there are a million browser and mobile MMOs that are similar btw

[Mittens]

Yeah, i just find it really draining to learn a new RTS

[battlerager]

Some are and the term is often used that way. But as I've insisted before, it's quite possible to create games that are about strategic decisions in real time without the twitch. SRTs?

As long as you play against Human opponents, any RTS will have this "barrier" or "problem" to some degree because that's just what the real time - part leads to. The only way to avoid it is by designing / playing a turn based strategy game.


Even if you, say, make units slow and take control away once units are locked in combat to prevent crazy micro shenanigans, the faster player would still be at an advantage from quickly jumping back and forth between fronts and the economy and giving out orders to workers and so on.

I guess you could make the floor so low (by allowing 'queueing up' orders for everything, lowering the speed of combat and movement and locking certain actions when certain conditions are met) that basically anyone could compete, but I'm not sure just how low you'd need to go to do that.

[Dacke]

It may be true that it's impossible to remove any advantages to quick actions (though I'm really not convinced of this). But it really isn't that difficult to create something where:

• the number of meaningful decisions you have to make per minute is relatively low
• giving lots if instructions quickly only gives minor advantages, if any
• the tactical/strategic decisions you make is what results in victory/loss in most situations

For example, there are certain SC2 mods where you build buildings that spawn automated units every ~20s. So it doesn't matter when in those 20 seconds you build your buildings. So in a sense it's turn based, where each turn takes place simultaneously and is "activated" every 20 seconds. But you have to continuously keep track of how the fight is going and make decisions based on that information. Plus they often mix in some purely real time elements, like activating abilities.

You still may get a small advantage by building your buildings as close to the 20s mark as possible and building stuff quickly so you can spend more time watching the fight. But those advantages are pretty negligible in a non-pro environment (unlike SC2, where doing as much as possible all the time will allow you to crush other non-pros)

Strategic games in real time, almost no twitch needed but the games don't feel slow/boring.

[gimymblert]

The problem is that with strategy there is a delay between actions and consequences, because it's suppose to be long time, as such it mean that reactivity would be slow, fast reactivity to a dire situation is generally more fun to a lot of people.

[ProgramGamer]

I that the distinction from strategy and tactics btw? The delay between decision and result?