Hi, I don't post in the game design section much because I'm not a game designer. But I want that to change. I've decided that I've spent so much time learning about game engine design and stuff - I've lost my ability to come up with any mildly interesting game ideas. So, I've decided to go with some premade things and just make a game, once that works - I could work on tweaking bits and possibly make an inhouse engine as needed. But actually get something done. Anyway, now thats out of the way I'll get onto the body of this post. I've always loved to play RTS games. The idea of controlling a massive army of units, building up a base and playing strategically has always felt like so much fun I've decided to go for some type of RTS game. Below I'll outline a few thoughts I've had that I (personally) haven't seen in an RTS. A new type of online play Online play in RTS games is the concept where each player controls a whole country/side. In reality - there is no way this happens. So why not have some type of delegation system? The player controls a commander of some type. I.e - a controller of ground units, an air commander, the construction manager and so on. This really enforces that players communicate well - for example... The unit commander creates a large ground army, and splits it. A quarter of the army will advance first, using the tanks provided by another commander and advance towards the enemy base, attacking SAM sites, allowing the planes to fly overhead bombing. Making each commander control each army of units could prove cumbersome so what I think would be nice is if a commander can delegate the control of one group of units to another person. Research and development I believe this does happen to some extent in most RTS games, but its still a bit shady. In C&C its just a case of the more you build, the more you've researched. Why not use some type of system where there is a research laboratory. Players need to employ researchers of some sort, and obtain resources needed to undergo research. This means that instead of just setting their clicking on buildings and slapping them down, players have to spend time with units making sure that the researchers are getting everything they need. Finance This is still pretty sketchy for me. I think for a game to have a nice finance system, I'd really need to think about the setting of the game. ------------------ Thanks for actually reading this much, I look forward to hearing your answers. - aCiD2

I think the delegation system is a good idea and I plan to make a massive RTS game with that as the main feature... one day..

It is an excellent idea, but for the sake of practicality, I think it'd need to be an option - or - have AI as an option.

Getting enough people to play, that you trust, is always hard among randoms, and even getting teams vs teams is very difficult unless you have a huge player base.

No one wants to fight their guts out on the field, and then having a "n00b" back as your production manager going "hmmm... what button i press?!" 10 minutes into the game, ya know? ;)

Firstly, I assume from your post you're not intending to have a persistant world in your RTS, but will create games as people join. Persistant worlds in RTSes have a huge number of challenges, mostly due to players having to go offline.

I think your idea of delegation and greater player cooperation in an RTS is an interesting one. Many current RTS games do this to an extent, by having allied players which allow team games, but they are usually controlling two disjoint forces (although some also have options for shared unit control). I think the reasons why most current games use this approach (and hence the main obstactles with your method) are: -

• Difficulties with splitting the units between the players - your design seems to suggest you intend to have one overall commander who will delegate responsibility. This may mean that the other players have little to do initially, and may become bored. Also in games with 'random' players, the commander might give the other players little/nothing to do just to annoy them.


• 'Chain of command' issues. Once units are allocated to a player, who can command them? Just that player? That player and the overall commander? Any player? All of these approaches have problems. If any player can command units, players can get into fights over what units are doing, resulting in them doing nothing useful, or a player could be in the middle of a vital manouvre and another could command the units away. Griefing is also a big problem with this approach. If units can only be commanded by their assigned player, there might be issues in players coordinating together in a cohesive strategy (although this could be a fun challenge, not necessarily a design flaw). It could also annoy players if, for example, they see a bunch of enemy units attacking a vital point, but their own units are not nearby. If the player commanding the nearby units was busy doing something else, they might have to stand powerless watching their units twiddle their thumbs while the enemy takes the point.

Your research ideas also sound like they could be good, but you'd need to take steps to ensure that the in depth research doesn't detract from the speed/playability of the game. If you're being bombed by the enemy whilst you're busy interviewing potential researchers to find the one with the best stats, it could prove problematic.

Those are my biggest reservations about your design so far anyway. I'm sure you could find ways around most of these issues, but it would need some more in depth design work. Also if you intend on having many players playing the same game simultaneously it could result in armies being very large, so be sure to consider the technical implications of this if you're planning to implement the game.

I think you need to separate the units from the chain of command. What you need is a over all commander, who just says stuff like: I want an airdrop here: *plop* (places marker). to do that we need to research this *plop* (makes research priority: flying transporter). Now the next level of commander would be the one actually doing what the main commander demanded, by playing the game. As you see the overall commander would need to be extremely abstracted from actual gameplay, that way it could work.
Another idea would be a tactical map, and a strategical map, where each map type has it's own commander. The advantage would be that no one would meddle with the other's plans, but it would demand a high degree of trust in the main commander.

As seen on British television (Decisive Battles, a show using the rome:total war engine to pitch non-gamers against "historical" opponents), this can result in quite humorous situation for an observer ;-)
Another application (which i have played and not enjoyed) is "Shattered Galaxy" mainly disliked the RPG parts.

The idea to have a chain of command is a good one, but it lacks a thorough application up to now.

Yeah, just have four players to a team and give each player or 'general' the same stuff. I.E. Five tanks, two jets, five cargo planes, a hundred ground troops... ect. You still need team cordination for all generals to attack at once or to distract the enemy and such.

Some interesting points from all of you, many of which I hadn't considered - which is just what I was looking for. I really like BvG's marker idea. What I'd probably do is have some type of mission board (possibly pre game - it would certainly be modifiable in realtime) where the commanders can place markers on the map, and anotations.

Like BvG said, the main commander would need to be abstracted from the game and this really results in an autocratic type of player, because they can do little other than boss other players on what to do. I think this would downgrade gameplay for the other commanders because they aren't doing what they want to do as such.

To overcome this, I think I may remove the 'main commander' idea, and just have different departs.


Now then, onto Psychor's points and questions:

Quote:

Difficulties with splitting the units between the players

Hmm, I think this would be handled in a lobby situation. The posts are vacent and you can fill empty posts. Boredom is an issue and I hadn't really considered gameplay startup. People like airforce commanders are likely to be unable to build an airport in the start of match - due to insufficient research.

One thing I could do, however - is have research split into departments. All commanders start of with quite primitive units and factories. Ie, the tanks are very slow, do little damage and have little armour. As you research more in your chosen department, you can upgrade and build better units. This way, the game starts giving all commanders something to do so they aren't sitting around waiting for the research commander to research their units.

On the unit control problems, I've come up with a small work around. Firsly, the main commander of all those units 'creates' them. He then decides, "Oh - I think I'll attack from the back round their base." He selects the desired units and then 'locks' this control.

Now, other commanders can select units regardless of control, but when they try and do something with them that could interfere with another players tactics, a box comes up on the main commanders screen asking if he wishes for the other commander to have control of these units.



One final thing I'd like to talk about now, is yet another research idea. It's more of just an addon. I spoke before about collecting resources for researchers - but what are these resources? I'm still ensure of initial resources, but over time, as the enemies vehicles and units are destroyed/killed, you can collect their technology. You can then take this back to your research area and reverse-engineer their technology, or something. Sort of like stealing blueprints - what do you think about that?

There would most likely be some randomness involved here. I.e, when units die - they state of the technology they are carrying becomes damaged by some factor. If a sniper kills a unit, then most technology is likely to be in good condition. However, its blown up by a nuke - it's probably not gonna be salvage-able.

One idea would be to have the main commander have an overview of the entire map, while his sub commanders can only see whats around their units. This way, they would have to listen to the general commander if they wanted to be effective, but if they wanted to they could totally ignore him.

Quote:

Original post by ussnewjersey4 One idea would be to have the main commander have an overview of the entire map, while his sub commanders can only see whats around their units. This way, they would have to listen to the general commander if they wanted to be effective, but if they wanted to they could totally ignore him.

But then what does the main commander do, except send orders to the sub-commanders? To me, that would be boring - in the long run.

When i think of an over-commander and such, i think of games like System Shock, or Metal Gear Solid. Here you are, a grunt (possibly with a team) walking through corridors not knowing whats around the corner. Now the "Commander" see's the whole map (or uses video cameras and blueprints, however you like), and relay's useful bits of information to you, such as where 'X' is, or whether there are units closing on your possition, or giving you objectives that you could approach anyway you saw fit. This doesn't really help much, unless you play from a RTS/3rd Person perspective like in the game Sacrifice by Shiny Entertainment, which could be pretty interesting. ;)

I think the whole scavenging thing could be interesting to, since you'd have to be careful what you choose to research lest your enemy scavenge it and use it against you.