Thursday, March 29, 2012

Regarding RTS Balance


To get things started, I figured I'd give a quick defense of my first GameRx review. After an associate of mine read my review of Dark Colony on the RSC blog, they mentioned that having identical sides shouldn't be a feature of an RTS. I agree with this to a point, but I also think that this overlooks some important changes in the gaming world over the past fifteen years, especially in the genre of real-time strategy.

Feel free to disagree, but I don't think this is a very consistent standard. It's not a perfect comparison, but I don't think anyone would call chess, checkers, or backgammon unfair or dull specifically on the grounds that both sides are evenly matched. Similarly, the first two Age of Empires have essentially equivalent teams with the exception of high-tier unit availability. The first two installments of the franchise are right up there with Dune II in terms of shaping the genre. Sometimes, there's something to be said for balance through simplicity.

A lot of RTS's now have a very high entry-level investment and are thus largely out of reach of the masses. I think is one of the reasons they've been on the decline in recent years, tragic though it may be. Blizzard has been setting the RTS standard since the beginning, realistically challenged only by Ensemble Studios and Creative Assembly. Personally, I've never been good at Starcraft; it's just not a very accessible game for many because of the amount of management your army takes. If I want to play an RTS, I want the focus to be on strategy -- not on micro-managing workers and cycling through hotkeyed armies.

Given today's standards of the RTS genre, having slower-paced game with equally matched sides is a breath of fresh air that brings the genre to the masses without sacrificing complexity. Rather than making a call based on reflexive use of meta knowledge to play the strengths and weaknesses of each faction, judgements are passed on broader principles of strategy. Similarly, having identical armies makes the competition purely a match of skill and wits rather than a competition of reflexes and application of metaknowledge. To me, this reaches a gameplay style much closer to its roots in wargames and military simulation, encouraging you to think as a general rather than a player.

Now, before all you Starcraft fans decide to give me a new pair of concrete shoes, I am by no means calling Starcraft and games like it illegitimate or impure. Rather, I am saying that because of their popularity, Starcraft-style games have made differing armies a standard rather than a feature. Now that this has become the standard of all AAA strategy games, identical armies thus becomes a feature. For what it's worth, I think it's a concept that we should try revisiting.

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