There is this preconceived notion of building up to a certain point and then justifying an attack on the other base. Attacking any time before that is considered a rush. It''s foolish to do if the other player has defenses up, and a cheap quick win if the other player has no defense. Even if default defenses are in place, the other player can attack with a bare minimum necessary to end the game quickly, and it would still be considered a rush.

So, is preventing a rush even possible? There will always be the perception of attacking too soon.

In single player, most missions don''t allow a rush because the opponent is already well established - so the challenge is to survive long enough and build up a force to progress across the map and take resources. In the StarCraft style, anyway.

When both players start out at the same level, though, won''t there always be a "too soon" point that the other player would be using to exploit what you might or might not be doing with your own resources?

When I played Battlezone online, we usually agreed to a 5 minute rule. You couldn''t touch the other player''s scavengers, or interfere with their scrap collection, or attack any of the opposing player''s structures for 5 minutes. That way, both players are responsible for being ready for an attack within 5 minutes. And if you weren''t ready, that was your own problem. But this wasn''t built into the game design.

If someone can rush you, you can EASILY counter rush. Anyone who complains about the rush because they cant go straight for thier large units shouldnt be playing stratagy games.

Yep. Special Olympics. This has obviously turned into a war of witts between long-term strategists and short-term tacticians.

Okay, rather then argue the goods and bads of Rushes, how about we discuss alternative ideas. This forum is for discussing ideas, and if we accept Abstract Equality, that all people matter and matter equally, then no idea is automatically bad, we just need to discuss it and find its pitfalls. That said, how about some ideas.

We can play group starcraft later. :D

Rushing is only allowed by bad game design.

An allies VS allies game in RA2 usually began like this:

One would start building some basic buildings and refinery. They''d also get some units - they are cheap and quick to make. Rushing would be a risky technique, and not building units at all would also be a risky technique. Units that could be built were (basically) :

Flying machinegunners, tanks, and machinegun/rocket vehicles.

#1 was fine, unless the other made #3 and gunned them down in a breeze.
#2 was good, unless the other made #1, which would harass any tank force to a leaky piece of junk.
#3 was excellent, unless the other made #2, which would kill them in a couple of shots each.

Soviet were designed to be rushers, and 6-7 tanks could run on anything but a soviet. So the game was unbalanced. But allied vs allied games made rushing a risky choice, because your rush force could get wiped by cheaper, but more adapted units.

ToohrVyk

Also, pushing my idea from the previous post even further, allowing a sub-race choice that is invisible to all but the player before the game starts. For, instance, one could choose "Human" and all would see it before game start and plan a strategy accordingly. He could then choose a "secret option" : "extraction" (additonal workers, and money, to start with), "rush" (immediately starts with a small attack force) and knowledge of the other guy''s position), "defense" (has additional gold, no workers, but gets to place 2-3 defense towers around his start postition). So we''d get :

Extraction effective against defense (dominates in mid-late game).
Rush effective against extraction (dominates in early game).
Defense effective against rush (impregnable in early game).

The choice of a game mode being secret, pulling off a rush is risky since the other can be expecting you... That''s paper-rock-scissors...

ToohrVyk

Rushing is what kills a game. As I mentioned earlier, it really doesn''t matter who is winning the rush. The fact that you simply build a large army of whatever you want and then stomp your opponent to the ground can hardly be called tactics.

It is just pump peons -> gather resources & build units -> attack -> repeat until victory or no more resources.

A real strategy game would involve that you want your units to survive in order for you to win and get experience. A point system provides just this. How the game then is planned and balanced is another thing but denying the constant stream of new units does change the game for the better. Suddenly you have to think before attacking. You have to think how to gain the upper hand. If you are loosing, how can you change the situation (if at all)? If not, what can I do to gain as much points as possible for next game? Can I save units to the next game? etc... the possibilities are endless. So yes, maybe the game does end when your opponent gains the high ground but so what? That is what tactics is all about. Not who has the most efficient production of new units.




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Feel free to comment, object, laugh at or agree to this. I won''t engage in flaming because of what I have said.
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But that doesn't satisfy the need for the other kinds of feedback that strategy games (read: video games) can offer. People want battles and victories. And if your side loses a skirmish, you build more and send them out there.

I guess there's a difference between a strategy game that satisifes the mass audience and a game that requires strategy in a truer sense of the word.

[edited by - Waverider on May 8, 2003 4:22:57 PM]

This is like talking to a brick wall, but no matter.

Obviously there are those who prefer long games, and those who don''t really mind how long a game takes.

From Kylotan:

quote:

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If there is only one ''particular goal'', and only one ''best way'', then the game is pointless. It comes down to learning that best way, and executing it flawlessly, and hoping random factors don''t bring you down. You may as well recite poetry from memory for all the ''strategic'' elements it offers.

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Figuring out the (current) best way to do something is precisely strategising. Better strategists figure out better ways to do something. If you were really concerned about strategy in gaming, you would take an opposing rush as a strategic challenge. As I pointed out last post, poor strategists give up quickly. I showed in detail how Inmate had grossly overlooked his strategic options. But he gave up instead - immediately deciding that he had no hope of beating that rush without leaving himself vulnerable.

So in most RTS games there are strategists who work on constructing early assault strategies, and another group working on frustrating early assaults without too much sacrifice. Rushing becomes harassment only, although it will beat a newbie outright. Because most RTS games give a significant advantage to the defender, rushing doesn''t decide games between good players.

quote:

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The opposite is true; I''d like the building component of the game to be more important so that it''s not about how quickly you build, it''s about what you choose to build, in what ratios, and how it''s deployed.

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Err, well evidently "rushers" have chosen better things to build in better ratios, and have deployed them better. How do they not deserve the win?

quote:

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...Yet it is still possible to talk meaningly about the sun without being able to say "if I move one inch to the left I am in the sun, and one inch to the right I am out of the sun".

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Everyone knows what the sun is. There is dispute about what a "rush" is. So you need to define the latter. I have "rushed" people with a horde of top-tier units before, but I don''t consider that a rush. But you did end up defining it - well into the discussion I might add :

quote:

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In fact, the rush (at least for the purposes of this discussion) is when you create an overwhelming force so quickly that an opponent has little chance unless they explicitly prepare for such a rush. The actual timespan is irrelevant. It''s whether the defender has had the chance to actively choose a strategy or not; and whether they had more than one decent strategy to choose from.

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Yes very few RTS games have such strategies. The big problem is that people like you (and Inmate) walk into a game, get beaten by a rush, somehow decide that because your amazing strategic abilities cannot figure out a good defence in the 2 minutes of thought you gave to it, that you had no choice but to execute the exact same strategy. I proved that this was the case for Inmate, but you Kylotan, have not done the courtesy of giving me any examples to work with. Strategy is figuring out what choices you do have - chances are some people have already worked on anti-rush strategies, and you should try to get hold of them if you can''t think of any yourself. And add to them if possible.

But no, instead you give up, claim there is no strategy in the game, and start posts on how to remove rushing.

quote:

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No, my complaint is that (in some games) it is hard to repel that strategy without embracing it yourself.

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And how would you know this without giving it serious strategic thought? Perhaps you actually have an example of a strategy in a widely-played RTS that cannot be repelled except by using the same strategy?

From Sandman :

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1. Early rushes spoil the fun of the game, particularly for new or casual players who may never consider abstract defenses like the ''wall in'' strategy Argus mentioned. Even if there are no other reasons, this alone is reason enough to try and reduce the effectiveness of rushing.

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I tend to agree here - although all it takes is a simple question in a strategy forum to get some idea of the current state of anti-rush techniques. But is your argument to dumb down the game so that no one needs to think about anti-rush strategies? Basically the question is whether to target new/casual players or the hardcore crowd - a business decision.

RTS games do this with different game modes. For instance, the game Kohan has a mode called ''Turtle'', where defense is given a massive advantage. Age of Kings has a mode where everyone starts with an army and lots of tech (or something similar), and a lot of casual players enjoyed this. The problem is that for most big strat games the hardcore crowd seems to be larger, casual players tend to play with the larger groups and the result is a lot of pissed-off casual players.

quote:

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I think if any useful discussion is going to come out of this thread we need to stop arguing about whether or not all RTS games are mindless rushing games, and get on to serious discussions about what to do about it.

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Do about what, exactly? Sounds to me like you''ve made up your mind already. Few RTS games are mindless rushing games (even less given different game settings are available), so there is no need to do anything.

From MichaelT:

quote:

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The fact that you simply build a large army of whatever you want and then stomp your opponent to the ground can hardly be called tactics.

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What happens when you fail to stomp your opponent to the ground? Which I guarantee will happen if you face a half-decent player.

What Dauntless and ToohrVyk have suggested - that "the opposing player doesn''t know your exact capabilities at first, and must probe your strengths and weaknesses" works reasonably well. People are less likely to rush if you choose random race in RTS games for example (since few rushes are effective against all factions). Add in other unknown factors and things become even more risky. A player known to only rush will not make it far (not that they make it far anyway).

From Waverider:

quote:

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I guess there''s a difference between a strategy game that satisifes the mass audience and a game that requires strategy in a truer sense of the word.

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Or perhaps those who can''t be bothered strategising like to pretend that they follow a "truer" sense of strategy - one that doesn''t require thinking maybe?

quote:

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Original post by Argus
I tend to agree here - although all it takes is a simple question in a strategy forum to get some idea of the current state of anti-rush techniques. But is your argument to dumb down the game so that no one needs to think about anti-rush strategies? Basically the question is whether to target new/casual players or the hardcore crowd - a business decision.

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My point is that although many players don't think rushing is a problem, there are many players who clearly do think it is a problem. Otherwise threads like this wouldn't turn into such a trainwreck of people complaining about it.

What would be nice is a system which enables the casual players to at least get *some* enjoyment out of a game with the more hardcore players, even if they do end up getting their arses thoroughly kicked. Most casual players can accept losing, but they'd like to at least get started before they get beaten. Telling them to 'Go learn how to play properly n00b' just emphasizes the arrogant attitude that many hardcore players have towards anyone who doesn't spend at least 6 hours a day playing the game, and another 4 hours trawling through strategy forums.

In my opinion, the wallin strategy is rather abstract - it doesn't really seem logical in any conventional military terms. Sure, placing a barrier between ranged troops and melee troops makes sense, but using your production and supply centers as a barrier? It's slightly more lateral thinking than logical thinking. In my opinion, the game could have a much broader range of 'anti rush' strategies available, making full use of terrain features and unit positioning, so the emphasis is on smart and quick - and original - thinking rather than reading about an abstract counter on a strategy website.



[edited by - Sandman on May 8, 2003 7:29:14 PM]