   What do you want to see in RTSs to come?
  Subject says it all, please give your thoughts and opinions of what you want to see in RTS (Real-Time Strategy) games.
Old PostSearch for RTS on the forums there were a few posts like this in game design and such. Also I'm sure you'll find a lot of thoughts about how many factions and resources an RTS game should have.   ;  Persistent world.  Building a good base from previous maps should provide bonuses to future maps.  You should be able to draw reinforcements and supplies from other bases.   ;Quote:Original post by ChurchSkizPersistent world.  Building a good base from previous maps should provide bonuses to future maps.  You should be able to draw reinforcements and supplies from other bases.Homeworld (maybe just sequel) used this model. It wasn't all that great.For one, difficulty had to scale with your level-end force. So it made natural sense to destroy your army just before finishing the mission, then use some thingamajig (was it resources) to build up fast on start of next. If not, the next mission would be absurdly harder based on some multipliers.And if difficulty doesn't scale, then failing to do well enough at level 2 will make it impossible to beat level 39. Or doing well on level 11 means you've outleveled all the remaining ones. This flaw tends to occur from time to time in various genres. Last time I encountered this problem was in some Flash game. The strategy there is to milk some lower levels using some skill to gain disproportionate advantage for the remaining ones. A similar one (Gemcraft) fixes this by only best score per each level contributes to total XP.Original idea sounds good on paper, but tends to fail in practice.   ;Quote:Original post by ChurchSkizPersistent world.  Building a good base from previous maps should provide bonuses to future maps.  You should be able to draw reinforcements and supplies from other bases.Didn't Dune2 do this? Or did I imagine that and having lots of adjacent territories makes no difference? Their very simple reinforcements mechanism would be very easy to tweak to be more generous in the case you left huge bases behind in earlier levels.;Quote:Original post by AntheusAnd if difficulty doesn't scale, then failing to do well enough at level 2 will make it impossible to beat level 39. Or doing well on level 11 means you've outleveled all the remaining ones. This flaw tends to occur from time to time in various genres.I don't know if I entirely agree. As long as you're allowed to go back and change your old base to make up for it later at a slight disadvantage, a more persistent RTS would be pretty cool imo.Having to plan a full campaign rather than playing individual battles in a predetermined campaign would be pretty awesome. I'd definitely be more interested in that than I am in current RTS's. I'd also like to see RTS's that have a bigger focus on combat strategy than resource management. ;  Pairing an RTS engine with Server Technology, allowing players to battle on planets. Each planet would have a huge surface amount, and intelligence gathering would have to be key to know where to attack next, where to mine for precious resources, to know enemy troop movement, etc...Inner territories would be more dedicated to production, while outer territories would be where most of the fighting would be done.It would be amazing to log on, help out with a coordinated attack on a specific spot, and carry on a role. Your role could be logistics, ferry-ing in mech units using automated air transports. Another player would then marshal those into combat.Supreme Commander showed us a bit of what RTS' future could be, but they sold out on Supreme Commander 2 with a very poor game.   ;Quote:Original post by ProzakPairing an RTS engine with Server TechnologyI've heard that Shattered Galaxy does this fairly well.   ;Quote:Original post by ChurchSkizPersistent world.  Building a good base from previous maps should provide bonuses to future maps.  You should be able to draw reinforcements and supplies from other bases.Al oldie, Earth 2150 had such a system, whereby you could ferry units from you main base to mission outposts and back. The game was still ridiculously hard, and your army came redundant so quickly that most of the time, you were throwing away outdated units. Good in theory, poor in execution.   ;  More FPS.   