- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Controversial gaming opinion: video games are good.
What are controversial gaming opinions you have?
- Location
- Great Falls, Montana
RTS as a whole had a decent time in the '90s and early 2000s, but more or less died off as a genre after 2008, particularly in the US. The only things that keep the genre alive is literally a handful of games in the RTT sub-genre, Homeworld, Warcraft, and Starcraft.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
Within the last few years Eugen has made RTS a really great genre with their Wargame series and now Steel Division again, because they're games APM are not much of a determiner of skill. World in Conflict is on both sides of your line with Soviet Assault. Company of Heroes 2 dropped in 2013.
Look just because you don't keep up doesn't mean the genre's dead. You might as well tell me Space Sims are dead between the life that was breathed into FreeSpace 2 with Blue Planet, Strike Suit Zero, House of the Dying Sun, Star Citizen, and Elite.
- Location
- Great Falls, Montana
Sad thing is, I've kept up with the RTS genre as it's one of my passion genres... and it pretty much died (or is on life support) for a while now until -like Space Sims- got some life back into them but for the most part the games are RTTs (Real Time Tactics) not the CnC/Starcraft style 'build bases and economy and crush your enemies'.
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
You know, the reason why RTT is dominant in RTS markets is because nobody wants to compete with Blizzard and the CoC series. Because those dominated the market to a frankly insane extent and Starcraft murdered more than a few competitors.Sad thing is, I've kept up with the RTS genre as it's one of my passion genres... and it pretty much died (or is on life support) for a while now until -like Space Sims- got some life back into them but for the most part the games are RTTs (Real Time Tactics) not the CnC/Starcraft style 'build bases and economy and crush your enemies'.
Until Starcraft shudders to a halt in sales, nobody's going to make a serious try at that style of RTS again without a big IP behind it. CoC died already, so people are just waiting for Starcraft to reach its maximum saturation to have a good shot at actually getting somewhere.
- Location
- Great Falls, Montana
True... I remember a time where one game actually muscled into Starcraft's niche and vanished.
Outlive, you poor thing. 
I could take a SupCom remaster. 16 thread support, 64 bit support, AI overhaul(BOATS), erasing SupCom 2...
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
FAF does quite a good job of keeping it alive and updated.
FAF is just clunky and doesn't address the technical limits of the 32 bit engine.
I want 160x160km maps with 10-20k unit limits that my buddy and I can play for a week.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Basically all the attempts to recreate the gameplay of the original Baldur's Gate games totally fail to do it faithfully and just end up recreating the boring parts without the cool.
The thing that made the combat and Baldur's Gate fun and interesting wasn't the slow pace or "deep" mechanics. It was the chaos of it; a ton of spells having such hilariously unfair effects that if it lands, it can completely fuck over either side. One spell can make half your party crazy and they start running around the room leaving the rest open to being completely ganked. You had a ton of spells and abilities that are totally vague and you don't even know what they do or even if they're useful, the devs didn't care, they just dumped spells from the tabletop into the game and had at it. The dice roll and stat based nature of battles ended up buried so far under this layer of madness that winning was more about countering your enemy moment to moment and crossing your fingers having no idea if you were about to get bent over and fucked than it was about metastrategy.
With games like Dragon Age: Origins and Pillars of Eternity? Everything is nice and constrained and state based now. Spells can deal damage, buff, debuff, hit enemies with status effects, but they never do anything all that interesting or special. Everyone has MMO style abilities with nitty gritty little stat effects that don't actually change much. Every class has a specific role and everything is nicely balanced and winning is entirely up to the player knowing what to do. It just find it boring. If you can't recreate the unpredictable nature of the old games, just give me a more streamlined system or an outright action RPG and stop wasting my time.
Also, I don't think that developers unbalancing their games with patches is a bad thing, in fact it's great. Within reason, there's nothing wrong with disrupting the meta game status quo and watching all the players run around trying to figure out what's dominant now.
The thing that made the combat and Baldur's Gate fun and interesting wasn't the slow pace or "deep" mechanics. It was the chaos of it; a ton of spells having such hilariously unfair effects that if it lands, it can completely fuck over either side. One spell can make half your party crazy and they start running around the room leaving the rest open to being completely ganked. You had a ton of spells and abilities that are totally vague and you don't even know what they do or even if they're useful, the devs didn't care, they just dumped spells from the tabletop into the game and had at it. The dice roll and stat based nature of battles ended up buried so far under this layer of madness that winning was more about countering your enemy moment to moment and crossing your fingers having no idea if you were about to get bent over and fucked than it was about metastrategy.
With games like Dragon Age: Origins and Pillars of Eternity? Everything is nice and constrained and state based now. Spells can deal damage, buff, debuff, hit enemies with status effects, but they never do anything all that interesting or special. Everyone has MMO style abilities with nitty gritty little stat effects that don't actually change much. Every class has a specific role and everything is nicely balanced and winning is entirely up to the player knowing what to do. It just find it boring. If you can't recreate the unpredictable nature of the old games, just give me a more streamlined system or an outright action RPG and stop wasting my time.
Also, I don't think that developers unbalancing their games with patches is a bad thing, in fact it's great. Within reason, there's nothing wrong with disrupting the meta game status quo and watching all the players run around trying to figure out what's dominant now.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Man you should come play 3.5 with us tabletoppers.
- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
I 'unno, FF's 40K RPGs might better reflect the chaotic range of "Gib an enemy and morale-scatter their allies" to "Slip on a half-flight of stairs and break your clavicle ".
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not sure how "controversial" this opinion, but competitive multiplayer is rubbish.
Some background: When I was younger I spent countless hours playing online deathmatch in games like Quake II, Quake III: Arena, and Unreal Tournament, and I don't recall anywhere near the level of sheer toxicity amongst players that we have nowadays. Sure, there was trash-talking over the chat (voice chat was, mercifully, absent in those days), but have a look at Quake III screenshot:
The chatlog is a small area of the screen in the upper left. You don't really pay much attention to it, and since it's used for both chat messages and player death messages most chat messages will tend to scroll off fairly quickly. So if someone was being an asshole, well, it didn't really affect your enjoyment of the game.
What's more, most servers were running free-for-alls, where the object was to be the first one to hit the kill limit before the timer ran down. If you failed, you had no one to blame but yourself, and if you got killed, you'd be thrown right back into the match, ready to take revenge on whomever killed you. So there was comparitively little raging and screaming, and even if someone started acting toxic, their only outlet was a tiny little chat screen off to one corner.
But then a little game called Counter-Strike started getting popular. Hooooo boy....
I am convinced that the makers of Counter-Strike did not intend for this game to be "enjoyed." No, I am certain that was designed as some kind of sadistic social experiment in psychological torture and setting people at each other's throats. In Counter-Strike, there is no resurrection of slain players. No, you must spend the rest of the match in spectator mode, which is not only boring as hell (especially when it's down to just two players hunting each other across the map), it also gives new players precious little "game time" in which to improve. Combined with the way the game requires solid teamwork in order to secure victory, you have a system where not only is death incredibly frustrating, since it effectively cuts you off from the game for a while, but also encourages you to vent your rage against your teammates.
(Some of you won't believe me, but I once knew someone who became so enraged during a CS match that he picked up his monitor, started swinging it around by the signal cable, before letting it fly through the air. And this was back in the days of CRT monitors...those things were fucking heavy!)
And don't even get me started on Smash Bros. I've always regarded this series like Mario Kart, a none-too-serious party game meant to be played between you and your friends. I can't help but laugh at the ultra-hardcore, ultra-competitive side of the fanbase ("FOX ONLY! NO ITEMS! FINAL DESTINATION!"), who get so worked up about a game involving Nintendo characters beating the crap out of each other.
Competitive multiplayer just blows. The only multiplayer game I'm even remotely interested in is Overwatch, and even them I'm hesitant to buy it, lest the player base turn out be a bunch of toxic, fulminating churls.
Some background: When I was younger I spent countless hours playing online deathmatch in games like Quake II, Quake III: Arena, and Unreal Tournament, and I don't recall anywhere near the level of sheer toxicity amongst players that we have nowadays. Sure, there was trash-talking over the chat (voice chat was, mercifully, absent in those days), but have a look at Quake III screenshot:
The chatlog is a small area of the screen in the upper left. You don't really pay much attention to it, and since it's used for both chat messages and player death messages most chat messages will tend to scroll off fairly quickly. So if someone was being an asshole, well, it didn't really affect your enjoyment of the game.
What's more, most servers were running free-for-alls, where the object was to be the first one to hit the kill limit before the timer ran down. If you failed, you had no one to blame but yourself, and if you got killed, you'd be thrown right back into the match, ready to take revenge on whomever killed you. So there was comparitively little raging and screaming, and even if someone started acting toxic, their only outlet was a tiny little chat screen off to one corner.
But then a little game called Counter-Strike started getting popular. Hooooo boy....
I am convinced that the makers of Counter-Strike did not intend for this game to be "enjoyed." No, I am certain that was designed as some kind of sadistic social experiment in psychological torture and setting people at each other's throats. In Counter-Strike, there is no resurrection of slain players. No, you must spend the rest of the match in spectator mode, which is not only boring as hell (especially when it's down to just two players hunting each other across the map), it also gives new players precious little "game time" in which to improve. Combined with the way the game requires solid teamwork in order to secure victory, you have a system where not only is death incredibly frustrating, since it effectively cuts you off from the game for a while, but also encourages you to vent your rage against your teammates.
(Some of you won't believe me, but I once knew someone who became so enraged during a CS match that he picked up his monitor, started swinging it around by the signal cable, before letting it fly through the air. And this was back in the days of CRT monitors...those things were fucking heavy!)
And don't even get me started on Smash Bros. I've always regarded this series like Mario Kart, a none-too-serious party game meant to be played between you and your friends. I can't help but laugh at the ultra-hardcore, ultra-competitive side of the fanbase ("FOX ONLY! NO ITEMS! FINAL DESTINATION!"), who get so worked up about a game involving Nintendo characters beating the crap out of each other.
Competitive multiplayer just blows. The only multiplayer game I'm even remotely interested in is Overwatch, and even them I'm hesitant to buy it, lest the player base turn out be a bunch of toxic, fulminating churls.
Last edited:
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I like cooperative games because the feel of pulling off a clever tactic with your friends us great. Usually though, this works out better when we're in the same room.
One nice thing about playing HotS is that the community is deliberately nicer, as a reaction against LOL and it's toxicity. I mean, you still get raging jerks but they're a minority, and i can easily go a dozen games without running into an asshole.
One nice thing about playing HotS is that the community is deliberately nicer, as a reaction against LOL and it's toxicity. I mean, you still get raging jerks but they're a minority, and i can easily go a dozen games without running into an asshole.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I would not recommend it in that case. The best thing I can say about the Overwatch community is that they aren't as bad as MOBA communities, but there's plenty of toxicity to be found.
cB557
voOOP
I've run into some bad eggs in PvP stuff in games, but I've run into more people who were at least baseline pleasant, and of course the overwhelming majority don't talk at all. It's honestly strange to me to hear people talking about having such an overwhelmingly negative view of randos since it just doesn't match my experience at all.
Because UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME SupCom is fucking boring and devolves into mashing two robot blobs against one another while managing an annoying resource system. Company of Heroes is the best RTS.
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
No, it ends by smashing lots of robot blobs while managing a resource system that's way more interesting than "lol just pile X gold and Y wood"
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I've played neither of those, but a cursory glance at both tells me that the difference in appeal is whether you want to be a tactician or a logistician.
Maybe not the best comparison, but the question was "Who need new RTS when you can just play Supreme Commander anyway?" so I answered ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The issue is the robot-smashing is boring no matter how many blobs there are and the logistics system isn't actually interesting enough to sell me on the game. Like, what's so interesting about SupCom's resource system...?No, it ends by smashing lots of robot blobs while managing a resource system that's way more interesting than "lol just pile X gold and Y wood"
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
I find the flux approach more interesting than your basic "mine X amount of crystal and you cannot build until you have it". Of course, if your thing is complex logistics and supply chains, it will be disappointing...
And, well, by definition it's all robot smashing, but it's way more diverse and tactically varied than just "brute forcing your way via spamming the same unit again and again".
So because you don't like how Counter Strike worked anybody who takes a game seriously beyond a certain level is a laughable tryhard? You seem to have something against toxic communities but to deride competitive multiplayer as whole because people get angry online... Or were actually referring to your own inability to keep you're cool because that's probably what actually keeps you from enjoying it.
People don't play the game the way I want them to play. God when did it become an insult to call somebody a tryhard? When did it become 'uncool' to give it you're all. Was it when you decide that it isn't worth getting invested in it and see anyone who does as fools?
If you want to play it that way go find some friends that agree with you.
Last edited:
Morphic Tide
Crazy Brainstormer, Munchkin and Wannabe Min-Maxer
- Location
- MI, USA
Actually, the unit que system of SupCom makes auto-spam amazingly powerful. But you have to set up universal counter formations as part of said auto-spam. Which is very close to impossible.
Upside, you can include transport routes in your auto-spam. Which means that SupCom can do complicated logistics, engine wise, it just doesn't make you need them the vast majority of the time.
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
I said that it was more varied, so yes spamming is a thing that you can do but it's not something that's a guaranteed autowin.
Though we're starting to derail; do we have a SupCom thread?
Now I've just played pillars of eternity recently and i followed some developer commentary and i can definitely say that balance was very much something they were aiming for and that they weren't trying to recapture the feeling of BG in that regard and that a balanced system is ultimately a lot more fun to play around with than an unbalanced one. Simply put there a lot more choices that matter in balanced system.
Take stats for example. In Pillars of Eternity every stats is useful for every class. Furthermore it definitely hurts to make a stat a dump stat. This is balance and it opens up many more opportunities for choice. I'm going contest that claim that each class is locked into a single roll by the way. Take the fighter for example. Naturally very tanky, he also has a variety of single target knockdowns and grabs. This means you can legtimately choose to leave his Con at 10 and take up Int so his prone's last much longer and his clear-out has a larger AOE. You can also choose to take advantage of his high naturally accuracy to make him into a very reliable DPS. Each of these choices will require a different stat spread and will have definite strengths and weaknesses.
You also said their abilities don't really change much. I find it difficult to imagine how I would have gotten through half the encounters in the game without using Devotion of the Faithful ( +4 Might +20 Accuracy on allies / -10 Might -10 Accuracy on foes ) which basically gives every member of your party 24 more stat points and debuffs the enemy for 20 stats points as well. If you don't like Priests than take Defensive Mindweb a cipher ability which allows every member of the party to use the highest defense of in the party. Since not even your tank likely has the highest defense value for every type of defense this makes your entire party more tankier than you're main tank.
Perhaps the issue is that you played the game at too low a difficulty. Since frankly even on PoTD a well optimized six-man party will stomp through the hardest encounters in the game. I would suggest a four man party for a proper challenge. I mean there is steam achievement for completing this game solo on the highest difficulty including all the most difficult fights with perma-death.
Last edited: