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[Mikademus]

This quote revved my head gears:

Games need to actually have different gameplay on different difficulties, not just making the enemies harder and getting rid of powerups.

Most games only use quantitative differences. Take a racing game, you have a light and snappy but weak car and a heavier and more sluggish but stronger one etc, basically a mix between acceleration, top speed and handling. Or vanilla RTS games, you have a side focusing on heavy, slow and strong units vs one focusing on faster but weaker ones. These are all quantitative differences, not qualitative differences.

Arguably, Starcraft can be considered having very dissimilar sides in that they have to be played quite differently: the all-round marines, the mass-herding melee-focused Zergs, and the high-tech Protoss (basically Warhammer Eldars).

What ways can you think to make games play qualitatively differently? Can a wizard play fundamentally differently than a ranger or a warrior? Can a game have a totally different play mechanics depending on your faction? What totally and fundamentally different races/sides can you think of for RTS games?

[Edit]
Renamed thread

[Bree]

I'd say start with a very simple game concept, then add more complex mechanics on higher difficulty levels. Guitar Hero: World Tour had a Beginner's Mode that had players merely hit the strum bar in time to the song, without the need for holding down fret buttons. Yes, this sounds really stupid, but there are people who have trouble with that concept by itself. Along with that, there is the usual Easy mode (only three fret buttons needed), Medium (four buttons), Hard (all five), and Expert (all five buttons and unfairly hard). This progression isn't perfect- going from Beginner to Easy is a fairly large jump for some older folks who aren't that used to games like this, and going from Medium to Hard was also difficult.

I'm also aware that Halo has extra enemies that are more intelligent on harder difficulties.

[increpare]

Not a rts, but still on the tactical side, Giants: Citizen Kabuto (which i , sorely, have not yet played in multiplayer mode) presented a lot of variation.  One could also say this is true of TF2.

Oh, of course, Sacrifice!  The style changed a lot depending on what units you had.

One could mention the two game-modes in Dwarf Fortress.

iji also, maybe more than the others.  maybe black and white (but not really).

pursuing the different win conditions in civ can lead to quite different gameplay styles, though i haven't played enough to be able to tell how different the gameplay actually feels.

[JLJac]

I have played around in my head a bit with multiplayer games where different "player roles" have completely different game mechanics. To come up with a pretty boring example: a zombie game where 7 players play a co-op fps like left for dead, while one player is the zombie hive mind and order zombies around like a real time strategy game. I know battlefield have hinted towards something like this, but there are several more exciting combinations that can be used.

On difficulties I've got to say that halo is one of my favs. The fact that several AI functions are blocked on lower difficulties gives it a lot of replay value, because when playing on a harder setting the enemy might actually surprise you. All of a sudden they get into a vehicle or sneak around a building to attack you from behind, and new interesting situations occur. I think AI is a great thing to change when making different difficulties.

What totally and fundamentally different races/sides can you think of for RTS games?

Some ideas:
A team with very few, very strong units. When another team have built 200 units this one has 15.
A team that has only one type of unit, that can combine with each others and take different "roles".
A team that is made up of two "classes", of which both is needed, that always fight internally.

[battlerager]

I have played around in my head a bit with multiplayer games where different "player roles" have completely different game mechanics. To come up with a pretty boring example: a zombie game where 7 players play a co-op fps like left for dead, while one player is the zombie hive mind and order zombies around like a real time strategy game. I know battlefield have hinted towards something like this, but there are several more exciting combinations that can be used.

That sounds a lot like that HL2 Mod "Zombie Master" 

[Mikademus]

Warning: Long post.

I'd say start with a very simple game concept, then add more complex mechanics on higher difficulty levels. Guitar Hero: World Tour had a Beginner's Mode that had players merely hit the strum bar in time to the song, without the need for holding down fret buttons. ... Easy mode (only three fret buttons needed), Medium (four buttons), Hard (all five), and Expert (all five buttons and unfairly hard).  ... I'm also aware that Halo has extra enemies that are more intelligent on harder difficulties.

Hmm, perhaps that straddles the borderline between quantitative and qualitative differences. Still, though the control scheme is made more intricate the game play it still rather the same, wouldn't you agree? However, making the AI tougher with difficulty level is a nice idea, perhaps especially for FPS games. It depends on, of course, that your AI is good enough to actually be dumbed-down for easy-level games.

pursuing the different win conditions in civ can lead to quite different gameplay styles, though i haven't played enough to be able to tell how different the gameplay actually feels.

I was thinking of Alpha Centauri myself. Sid Meier tried to create wider differences between civilisations there by allowing capitalistic, communistic and theocratic societies. However, they really only boiled down to numeric differences between units and some different monuments (more numerics), which I saw and still see as a missed opportunity, sort of like the civilisation mode in Spore in fact (using propaganda there uses a radio-wave "antenna" that makes the enemy lose some population, using military strength uses a "cannon" that makes the enemy lose some population). Imagine instead that a theocratic society produce units that excel at converting enemies and are virtually immune to conversion themselves; that communistic societies can spawn revolutionaries inside enemy cities, etc etc, that is all civilisations are actually fundamentally different.

What totally and fundamentally different races/sides can you think of for RTS games?

Some ideas:
A team with very few, very strong units. When another team have built 200 units this one has 15.
A team that has only one type of unit, that can combine with each others and take different "roles".
A team that is made up of two "classes", of which both is needed, that always fight internally.

Hmm, ok, so we have the standard set:

* Team Power (strong, slow, usually shorter ranged weapons) [House Harkonnen in Dune II, Russians in Red Alert and RA3, etc]
* Team Agile (weak, fast, longer ranged weapons) [House Artreides in Dune II]
* Team Smarts & Gadgets (weak, hi-tech, highly diverse and specialised units) [House Ordos in Dune II, the Protoss in Starcraft, Empire of the Sun in Red Alert III]
* Team Allround (balanced) [Marines in Starcraft, the Feds in Red ALert III]
* Team Teeming Horror (teeming swarms, fast, weak) [Zergs in Starcraft, Tyranids in Warhammer 40K]

Of these only teams power, agile and allround are mere numeric variations (unless provided with very unique units). Smarts & Gadgets might play differently if their tech is different enough, but are usually reduced to another numeric variation. Team Teeming Horror is the one that usually really differs by requiring great adjustments to playing style.

Then we could add your

* Team Goliath: (few, extremely strong)
* Team Gattai! (clones that can combine)
* Team Conflict (battles within)

Goliath seems like the extreme pole of the numeric balancing act. Gattai! might be very unique, unless the combinations are just like those of any other unit; how would they be used to create a really different game play than just being the extreme version of Team Allround? Team Conflict however would require being played very specially.

We could consider

* Team Slurpmimic: originally very basic units but absorbs the attributes of the units they confront and grows stronger with wins. Would require special tactics to keep raising new ones, a balancing act or protection, production and aggression.
* Team Recyclebots: can only extract resources from scrap (destroyed units).
* Team Cybernik: Organic and machine fusions. How would this affect gameplay?

[Traveller]

I think it's worthwhile to differentiate civs based on what resources they have any use for.  It doesn't entirely change play style, but it can at least give multiplayer some variety if one resource site can only be used by a certain player, or is much less valuable to another--Does the machine-civ that can't use food still want to control the good food production sites?  It won't help you, but it can deny your enemy their use.  Differentiation here can involve one civ that uses all resources (so they get use out of any that they control), and one that uses very few, or has an entirely different system (so controlling them is just denial).

The missed-opportunity game Malkari took that and ran with it a bit.  Each of five civs ("guilds") had their own ways of producing power from the asteroid field that the game was played on.  Some civs got more power from asteroids closer to the sun, some got more power from big or from small ones, some got more power from rapidly spinning asteroids, I think some got more power from fast-moving ones.  If an enemy who likes fast-spinning asteroids has a (mineral-poor) very fast spinning one that is far from the sun, while you rely on solar power, is it still worthwhile to take it from him?  It helped that each game always had all five guilds, and they were always all at war (your only allies were within your own guild), so any rock-paper-scissors combos were enhanced by the fact that you always have lots of other people trying to kill you.  Such a shame that the game sucked--its core concepts were the best I have ever seen in a MOO knockoff.  (And before you try--it doesn't run on any Windows OS more recent than 98 or maybe ME, and I can't find a way to emulate or turn on compatibility modes.)

[Mikademus]

Have you tried running it under WINE on Linux or *BSD? Linux seems to have almost better Windows compatibility today than Windows itself... 0.o;

Anyway, that sounds like a nice concept. It the factions really have so different requirements that they would be played deeply differently, but still interfere with each other, then that could be very interesting...

I was thinking a bit about platformers and fighters today. What if for instance one character died if he touched ground; another would lose gravity if he jumped and thus have to have something to bounce against or be lost in sky; while a third would be blind but invisible, and could only see when beeping a sonar bubble around him, but which would also make him visible to enemies meanwhile? A brawl game between types as different as these might be really interesting...

[5parrowhawk]

Have you tried running it under WINE on Linux or *BSD? Linux seems to have almost better Windows compatibility today than Windows itself... 0.o;

Anyway, that sounds like a nice concept. It the factions really have so different requirements that they would be played deeply differently, but still interfere with each other, then that could be very interesting...

I was thinking a bit about platformers and fighters today. What if for instance one character died if he touched ground; another would lose gravity if he jumped and thus have to have something to bounce against or be lost in sky; while a third would be blind but invisible, and could only see when beeping a sonar bubble around him, but which would also make him visible to enemies meanwhile? A brawl game between types as different as these might be really interesting...

Makes good sense, but you need to consider how they interact with each other, or you get into a Mornington Crescent scenario where the players simply "play past" each other. In other words, if the only verb you have is "smack other player", then the potential for interesting interactions between the different player types is pretty low. A bad example is in "Universe At War", where one of the factions can harvest random junk on the map for resources. Since the other factions have no reason to interact with the random junk in different ways, this harvesting mechanic, although it is interesting in and of itself, never lives up to its full potential.

[ChevyRay]

Difficulty levels is something I also feel really strong about in games. Battlerager and I actually talked about this a lot for Skullboy, and we've decided that each new difficulty will present a whole shitload of new gameplay elements (eg. levels changed up a bit, maybe more stronger enemies, completely new enemies, enemies have new moves and smarter AI, bosses use completely different strategies and attacks, etc.)

So basically there's enough new material to really pump up the replay value. Somehow this has to be made evident, though, so people don't assume it's just a "regular" difficulty-increase method being applied.

[5parrowhawk]

Sounds cool. Sounds like a lot of work, too

Maybe you could change up the enemies' AI "barks" when the difficulty level changes. That's a nice subtle way of conveying to the player that the enemies are thinking differently. Especially effective are the "I see what you're doing" barks, something along the lines of "He's got a rocket launcher! Spread out and find cover!"

If your budget doesn't include voice, you could always use text balloons...

[JLJac]

If your budget doesn't include voice, you could always use text balloons...

Haha that would be pretty cool!

Many modern shooters have talking enemies and team mates screaming "grenade" or "take cover" and such, but it would be fun to see in an RTS.



Mikademus, you're right about the team goliat thing, it's just an extreme laboration with values and numbers. But I still think it would play very differently, it would rather play as a squad hack and slash kind of game instead of a classical RTS.

Of those three

* Team Slurpmimic
* Team Recyclebots
* Team Cybernik

I think recyclebots is the best idea. Sluprmimic would get even stronger by every victory, which would create a negative catch-up system. Players that win one battle get stronger and win the next one etc. Cyborgs is just a design feature, gameplay-wise you can make them play pretty much any way.

With the recyclebots: What if they gain the most from using parts from their own units? That would give them a little advantage when loosing a fight, balancing them as a team.

New ideas:
A team that doesn't have any permanent units, but can spawn units that exists for about 60 seconds, just long enough to fight a battle. If the unit is still alive at the end of that time you gain back 75% of the energy it took to produce it.
A team that has no ability to build any infrastructure, but can hide itself. It has to live within another team's main base to gather resources, camouflaging itself as that team's units. Suddenly a "hey, I didn't order that unit to go there" occurs, and you need to confront the host.
A team that live in a completely other "dimension" with only a few contact points to the other players. Those contact points soon become hot spots for the action, and maybe they can be moved, shut down and re-opened?

[5parrowhawk]

The dimension thing sounds bogus for the reasons I mentioned above (players playing past each other), but the parasite/chameleon and the temporary-unit thing sound interesting.

I'm imagining the temporary-unit faction as some kind of magical faction, where the player controls these very tough "summoner" units which can summon temporary armies onto the field. The faction might not have a fixed base - instead the summoner starts out as a single unit, but when he dies, he becomes an invisible, invincible ghost. The player would have to move the ghost to a safe location and perform a somewhat lengthy ritual to revive the summoner - if the ritual circle is discovered and destroyed, he loses the game. Possibly (to produce negative feedback) very powerful immovable guardian units will appear for the duration of the ritual to defend the reviving summoner.

This also means that the summoned units, in general, should have abilities that allow them to protect the summoner - such as preventing him from being directly targeted, or making him invisible, or making copies of him, or simply taunting the opponents' units so that they target the taunter instead. Elsewise the game devolves into "concentrate fire on the leader".

The other issue with the summoner is that his ability to summon stuff allows him to counter anything the other team throws at him. One possibility is to force the summoner to "morph" (an ability which costs resources and takes time) into different forms in order to access different units.

Hmm, was Sacrifice like that? I haven't played it...

The chameleon faction could also include the possibility of some parasitic abilities. For instance, units built from an "infected" structure would have reduced statistics, but the chameleon player would gain resources every time the victim builds a unit. There are a couple of things that bother me about this idea, though - firstly, the victim is in for a great deal of frustration. Second, how do you finish them off once and for all?

Another idea: Team Bipolar. This could be a way to make Team All-Rounder unique. Their entire team, and each of their units, has 3 modes. They gather 2 resources, both of which are needed to build their units. When their resources are more or less balanced, then their entire team is in Mode 2. However, when their amount of Resource A is more than twice their amount of Resource B, their entire team shifts to Mode 1 (defensive?). Conversely, when their amount of Resource B is more than twice their amount of Resource A, their entire team shifts to Mode 3 (aggressive?).

Now that I think about it, this makes sense for Team Teeming Horror - the different chemicals alter their perceptions and attitudes! Possibly they have some (troublesome?) way to shed resources, or convert resources from one form to another. Team Bipolar could also use an "evolve" system in lieu of a tech tree, as follows: Critter A needs a lot of Resource A to produce. Hence when Critter A is mass-produced, the team will most likely have more of Resource B, so it will be in Mode 3. However, Critter A must be in Mode 1 to evolve to its next form.

The only catch is that a player could simply keep spending to keep their resource count low (hmm, that sounds kind of like it would work for Teeming Horror). To avoid this, instead of using the resource ratios directly, you could implement a separate meter which moves back and forth depending on the current resource ratio.

[Mikademus]

Difficulty levels is something I also feel really strong about in games. Battlerager and I actually talked about this a lot for Skullboy, and we've decided that each new difficulty will present a whole shitload of new gameplay elements (eg. levels changed up a bit, maybe more stronger enemies, completely new enemies, enemies have new moves and smarter AI, bosses use completely different strategies and attacks, etc.)

Sounds cool. Sounds like a lot of work, too

Sounds like a much better expenditure than spending 90% of the budget on boring cutting-edge gfx though

Mikademus, you're right about the team goliat thing, it's just an extreme laboration with values and numbers. But I still think it would play very differently, it would rather play as a squad hack and slash kind of game instead of a classical RTS.

Team Goliath would probably be quite difficult to balance in a MP game. Thee units must be tremendously expensive, so either you're susceptible to Team Yada's first cheapo-rush, or if you start with a unit you can just juggernaut his base. Perhaps if they come in some kind of tiered system, where the first one (Big Moma) is immensely powerful but also excruciatingly slow, but necessary for further units, and the team actually evolves to building faster and less powerful units (that is, the opposite of Team Poser)?

Sluprmimic would get even stronger by every victory, which would create a negative catch-up system. Players that win one battle get stronger and win the next one etc. Cyborgs is just a design feature, gameplay-wise you can make them play pretty much any way.

Well, the slurpmimics would be balanceable if not the entire team but individual slurpmimics got stronger with each win because then everything becomes a risk/advantage analysis of balancing making and training new units vs. nurturing your powerful ones which would mean making your most valuable ones prime targets. Also, they wouldn't automatically improve with winning, they'd need to slurp the beaten opponents too. Also, the only way the could adapt would be by absorbing the enemy types they need. I think they would be a very difficult faction to play. I agree with cyborgs that cybernetics in itself isn't base enough for a faction.

I think recyclebots is the best idea. ... With the recyclebots: What if they gain the most from using parts from their own units? That would give them a little advantage when loosing a fight, balancing them as a team.

That would mesh well with the recyclebot theme, yeah.

Building on the recyclebot and slurpmimic ideas, consider Team Clone-Clone: Clone-Clone have no unit production facilities, instead they reproduce by dividing into clones. Perhaps each clone is somewhat weaker than the original? They have no intrinsic specialisation (except perhaps stealth and infiltration?) and can only evolve by absorbing the nature of their defeated enemies. Now consider the similar Team Bodysnatcher: though they perhaps can produce mechanical stuff they cannot produce live units (which for some reason are necessary to use their equipment) but they can resurrect and conscript their vanquished opponents. Finally, consider Team Reaper: Similarly to the Bodysnatchers the Reapers cannot produce their own units but their resource is in fact the opponents people which they harvest and put into their flesh vats from which they can produce units. All of these would in fact mesh with the Recyclebot template, especially a Recyclebot/Harvester faction would be highly unique, I think.

A team that doesn't have any permanent units, but can spawn units that exists for about 60 seconds, just long enough to fight a battle. If the unit is still alive at the end of that time you gain back 75% of the energy it took to produce it.

Yeah, a "Team Flasher" (or less politically incorrect, "Team Firefly" or "Wispwillers"?) could prove really interesting. Potential, but I have the feeling it might be the most difficult one to design and balance.

A team that live in a completely other "dimension" with only a few contact points to the other players. Those contact points soon become hot spots for the action, and maybe they can be moved, shut down and re-opened?

Agree with Sparrowhawk, as described there'd be too few reasons for interaction, unless you add some provisos like that all resources points are also points of contact, and extraction on either side creates adverse effects on the other side, forcing encounters.

A team that has no ability to build any infrastructure, but can hide itself. It has to live within another team's main base to gather resources, camouflaging itself as that team's units. Suddenly a "hey, I didn't order that unit to go there" occurs, and you need to confront the host.

The chameleon faction could also include the possibility of some parasitic abilities. For instance, units built from an "infected" structure would have reduced statistics, but the chameleon player would gain resources every time the victim builds a unit. There are a couple of things that bother me about this idea, though - firstly, the victim is in for a great deal of frustration. Second, how do you finish them off once and for all

"Team Trojan Cuckoo", that would be less useful in 1v1 MP but probably devastating in 3+ player MP games. They would be constricted by not being able to extract much resources (or be discovered) but gain all the technology research of their host opponent and perhaps siphon some resources from him. This has all the makings of a very interesting king of the hill faction.

As for Team Bipolar, perhaps it could be combined with Team Conflict and the "other" faction doesn't disappear or change but rather fight the new one, and the balanced is the enemy of both? Of course, if also Flesh Reapers then everything starts making a surreal sense...

[Mikademus]

I renamed the thread to "Actually genuinely different factions and character in games"; the previous name was only confusing.

[Mikademus]

Hmm, found some evidence of new thinking in Starcraft II:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47494.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47495.html

The first video features units forming up into a combine mecha. The second shows it in action in a city.

(It's a pity, though, that it is probably an April Fool's joke)

[gunswordfist]

Better AI and replacing easier enemies with harder ones (think Devil May Cry). Better AI can inspire the playing to use better strategies which is great.