I've heard many comments about rts's and the one big problem: how do you avoid designing an rts where the rush attack isn't the ultimate tactic. The answer in my opinion is one of logic. If the game is moving at a pace too fast then it will be easy to catch your enemies off guard. I believe that developers are not taking into account the vastness of the issue of game speed seriously enough. Just because we've got Pentuims running at phenonomal speed doesn't mean the game has to be fast/er. I get the impression that a lot of developers think "Now the standard computer runs at X+1 speed we must speed up the game". What a load of K-rap. I think its insane to overwhelm the players with speed just so you can say *head wobbling* "Look how fast our game is". The fact is, as from the example above with the rush tactic in rts's, if you keep pushing the speed of your games into astronomical levels then there will be nothing in the world a game designer will be able to do to help you make better games. End of whinge. I love Game Design and it loves me back. Our Goal is "Fun"! Edited by - Paul Cunningham on 9/10/00 9:16:08 AM

Agreed. The term Real Time should not suggest that time is compressed by some factor. Sensory overload does not make a game fun for me. Of course I do remember playing Kennedy Aproach on the C=64, long ago, and feeling the rush of a real ATC. But, that is a different style of game.

I thing RTSs should be a methodical game. Building defenses and strategicly placing units should not be (in my mind) a rushed event. And, when it is rushed, the strategy element is removed.

In my mind Real Time is translated into "Non Turn Base"

I suppose complaining about this isn''t going to change anything. Maybe it is time for action


Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

I agree with this.

I like to play an RTS for a long period of time (Age of empire 2 was great for this). You got real strategie there and more time to think how to place your building.

I belive there is one great way to prevent rush.

Like in Age of empire 2, rush was hard because early units sucks compare to the early defense (pesents run in town hall and shoot arrows wich simply anilate ealy attacks). This discourage the player and lead him to better strateies.

But... sometime a shorh game is fun... I sometime get bored when a game last to long on the net!

Hey Paul, this post was a bit less rude than my last... but I stick with my opinions!

Delisk

I agree, and not just w/ RTS games, either. You can really tell the difference when a developer pays attention to pacing. For example, in Thief, one of the greatest things about the game was its pacing. You wait for what seems like an hour to make your move, holding your breath, anticipating, then *BAM* you''re spotted, and you just might have to change your pants. By contrast, games like Quake don''t do it for me, because after awhile, the constant adrenaline rush wears thin (like listening to four Pantera albums back-to-back) and I just get bored.



If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal

quote: Original post by Delisk

But... sometime a shorh game is fun... I sometime get bored when a game last to long on the net!

Yeah, this is an important point. I play network games at work, and it''s difficult to get folks to switch to anything that takes longer than a 1/2 hour to play. Network play seems to put a lot of "cookie cutter" pressure on design, because everything has to happen quickly. It''s sort of the network news effect: You''ve only got 5 minutes to explain each story, and how much depth can you get with that restriction?

Not sure what the answer is to this one. You could make games take longer and give players the ability to save them in a campaign. That way one game could take a few sessions to finish. And it might be even more natural if you could make "chapters" that were designed for this kind of play.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

The solution is not one of slowing down the game, rather just balancing it out better. In every game there is a give and take, for instance if you want to perform a special move or command, you are penalized somewhat, by a drain on your "life" bar or perhaps a more than usual drain on resources. The trick to keeping players from making a rush isn''t that you prevent them from doing it, you make them pay. If it''s a game of strategy involving evolution of some sort, produce some sort of modules that can reduce resource consumption, such as a Power-recycling plant. If the player does not have any of the modules, they can still rush to attack, but they will take a huge drain on their resources, payment for performing a potentially powerful move.

JD

RE: TearDragon
I like what your saying but it should be kept in mind that what you are proposing is a game design patch.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

What does that mean?

Isn''t the "Tank Rush" problem related to the scale of the game?

FPS works ''cause you''re by yourself - single unit.
Through an educated guess I''d say attaining the same quality when playing two units would require time go by half as fast.
Extending to RTS with 100 units... ouch!
Now, this is an oversimplification, USUALLY those units will be idle, but in the "Tank Rush" you suddenly mobilise a LARGE quantity of your resources in an attack, something very hard to defend against since the defender doesn''t have a defense equivalent.

A logical solution would be a defense equivalent of a tank rush. Something like a "last stand" or along those lines. The little firemen working at your nuclear plant all have emergency defense weapons and take up defending your base or sommat. But this would require AI control instead of player control, and you wouldn''t feel like YOU are defending.
The other option is having enough time. Slowing down. Tank rush arrives, and the defender has the option to "slow time" immediately, or even pause for a second, to garner up the appropriate defense. After all, the attacking player used "idle time" to organise the attack, while the defender never gets this time to defend against an incoming assault.


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
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TearDragon, what you said was introducing a game element designed for one purpose. This is called a patch. I''m not saying they are bad especially if done well but when done badly (and often are) then it will stand out like a soar thumb when you''re playing the game. What MadKeithV proposed was a patch as well unless you had the option to slow down the game at any point in the game and not only when you''re defending. Do you see what i''m saying?

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!