The true value of upgrades in WC3
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- The true value of upgrades in WC3 (Live on 13-May-2024)
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00:00 Intro
03:17 The Power Fantasy (and types) of Upgrades
10:55 Pros & Cons Of Upgrades
22:05 Let's Talk Numbers
36:07 Attack Upgrades
39:20 Defense Upgrades
46:33 1 More Units, Or Upgrade?
51:13 One More Caveat
#GrubbyTalks #Thoughts #Upgrades #Units #Numerical #Transformative - Zábava
The true value of the upgrades is the units we make along the way!
literally! haha
hahaha, that's a smart one!
Arp de shroffel arp de punaani? 🎉
Me listening to lectures: i sleep
Me listening to RTS expert man: hmm yes tell me more
Technically this could count as a lecture. Maybe? :)
Welcome to Warcraft University!
Brain! Why are you like this!?
I love the upgrades because the icons are so pretty. :o
Truly pro level strategy.
Hahahaha! of course!
a man of culture
real
so true, remember the amazing looking icons in warcraft 2 ? unit upgrades changed the icon on the command card and it felt so good to have maxxed out unit, even SHIPS !
Age of mythology had a very good upgrade system like you could literally see each upgrade on your units
I love how the intro to this video is basically "You guys don't want to hear about this, and you don't really need to hear about this, but I'm going to talk about it anyway because this is my channel and I get to talk about whatever I want."
Value of upgrades in RTS games - make the game fun. Upgrades are my favourite part of any RTS game and I think modern rts games need to focus on them more than they currently are
Hey guys, grubby of the law here...
Nah, Grubby knows what he's talking about. They're nothing alike.
@@booradley6832spirit of the law mostly knows what's he talking about too
does spirit of the law have bad rep or something ?
@@goliver9991 he has a good reputation to me
@@goliver9991 I think it's more about his lack of actual game experience in a high lvl and over technical focus on theoretical details. Though he has been correct on technical things vs the "crystallized conventional wisdom" of the pros every now and then.
Today I learned from Grubby that Upkeep causes you to sell items for less money that's crazy
This is a good video and a good thought exercise
Mastering the game would be a futile endeavor if you had very good pinpoint skill for moving units and generally playing the game, but didn't maximize your resources and your opponent did
Man, this channel quickly became my favorite. I really really really enjoyed the "New game studios are making RTS for casuals" video. It gave me so much food for thought and I really wanted to comment and expand on it, I just haven't had the time to flesh out my position. Your content is truly a gift, Grubby.
Have you ever considered designing your own game?
Upgrades tier list next? And summonable units and buildings tier lists after?
"I like games with a bit of luck, so that you can learn how to master chaos of the universe itself in a microcosmos of challenging game envoirment. I think it's fun, bad luck, good luck - I'll take all of it" Grubby 2024
well said
I can't even master the chaos in my kitchen, let alone the universe!
This is awesome.
These Talks have been fantastic for me as a newer player, especially this one. A lot of people talk about builds, heros and units, but it can be pretty hard to find info and pointers on upgrades at least as a returning wc3 player and noob. I hope at some point we also get a Creep routing video and a Mercenary/Goblin Laboratory video for the same reason.
To simplify the one die roll vs multiple dice roll: one die roll is uniform (each outcome has the same chance). Multiple dice rolled (and added together) turns the outcome into a bell curve where the middle values are more likely to occur than either ends (high or low).
I love these nerdish in-depth analysis videos
Grubby bringing RTS discussion and making it more popular... This is truly amazing.
Stochastic in this context means that the value is random, but we have pretty good idea on how probable are the outcomes. A die roll is a very good example of that. You can't predict the roll, but you can pretty confidently build expectations over a number of rolls.
Man, did this dude explain everything while live??? Mad respect! I struggle to make such content while RECORDING and that gives you infinite tries!
Well, he is an expert in his field. This is like listening to Einstein explain physics to people.
Yes Grubby teach me more about the intricacies of a game I haven't played in a decade.
Loved the section on attack upgrades: convey the idea and consequences is more important than being mathematically concise. How often you see this information formulated mathematical terse and consise and than you need some time to figure out what it means numerically and even more time to understand what it means for your gameplay. Good job!
Ultravision actually works on all night elves regardless of gender, great upgrade
9:28 Destroyer can’t go back into a statue while a bear can transform back into a druid…
Ergo, transformative upgrade. It has transformed once.
non-transitive transformations don't stop being transformations
Two things:
1. If we consider items to be upgrades (it makes sense), then consumables should rather be considered... units. Healing potion gives you temporary advantage in a fight, like new grunt, but it's amulet of vitality that gives you permanent bonus, like an upgrade.
2. Creeping in mobas is a zero sum game actually - neutral creeps don't respawn fast enough to always fulfil strategic needs of both teams at the same time (if there are creeps available on the other side of the map, but the enemy just killed the ones near the objective that is important at the time... they get what they want and you need to choose what you prefer to sacrifice)
So nice to look up your channel and found a new video just uploaded!
strongly agree
I wish build and research times were visible in the tooltips. :o
Maybe in a mod... maybe by me, if possible... once I've space for WC3. lol
This is sorely missing and a thing in modern games :|
It's been a long time since I played this (back when Boots of Speed stacked and sentry wards could block the space they are on leading to some fun shenanigans) These videos are leading me back into it
Some random things I still ponder about after watching all of G's recent talk-time videos:
● Unarmored units still receive bonus 'armor' upgrades, despite not wearing any, so they're basically bulking despite taking probably the most punishment from all available attacks.
> The only difference between 'light armor' (most flying units) and 'unarmored' (most casters, Huntresses, Dryads, Gargoyles), is that the former takes (way) more bonus damage from Piercing and a bit more from Magic attacks, and the latter takes moderately more from Piercing and Siege attacks equally.
> While this was all made for balance purposes, the nomenclature is really confusing and dare I say, counter-intuitive to a degree. Especially for newer players.
● It took 15 years for Cannon Towers to benefit from Fragmentation Shards, but despite using a powder-based weaponry, they don't benefit from the gunpowder upgrades.
> CTs are already unique among all other HU towers due to having a Fortified armor type, however you do have to pay quite a lot to enjoy their resiliency.
> I feel like if a HU already decides to invest into Masonry, Workshop, Frag Shards, *and* makes a CT anywhere, they probably deserve that little extra damage given how costly it is to unlock all of that infrastructure and most likely soft-lock themselves into a certain tech path, i.e. Gyros, Tanks and Mortars, most likely.
● On NE's T2, you unlock 'Improved Bows' which increases Archers range by 200, making them transition better into the later stages of the game, but the T3 upgrade, ' Marksmanship' only gives you a flat +4 bonus damage.
> That 'exclusive 4th attack upgrade', while obviously powerful and welcomed, feels pretty basic and the improved range also does only exactly what the description entails.
> I'm wondering how cool would it be from an expression of skill perspective, if 'Marksmanship' increased the Archer's projectile speed while decreasing their overall attack period, thus ever so slightly benefiting lower-skill players with a passive bonus (i.e. they now deal damage faster), while also opening more micro-based options for higher-skill players, who would now enjoy best of both words, by dealing damage faster and being able to reposition their Archers quicker thanks to the shorter overall attack duration.
> For Hippogryph Riders, I feel like nothing should change and the benefit should remain as it originally was (+4 dmg), basically rolled into that unit for 'free', via the 'Hippogryph Taming' upgrade.
● Tier-3 units have been a hot topic for a while now, and I'm still baffled by how despite all the changes in the past couple of years, weak units remain weak, and moderately good units remain as they were.
> Bears are in a good place, imho, and Taurens have been discussed by pros and various WC3-bachelor-degree people already so I won't delve on them either.
> Abominations have a cleaver and deserve an upgrade that would grant them a passive 'Cleave'.
> It's a great tool for a frontline tank who's auto-attacks are deplorable anyway, so combined with Disease Cloud + ability to spread a percentage of whatever mediocre auto-attack damage they deal to begin with, seem like a fair reward if you manage to connect with a couple of workers before enemy responds, you die, etc.
> Knights' main issue is that within the very narrow niche they are moderately effective at, i.e. timing attacks vs UD, they are countered hard by Banshee Possession, more than anything else really.
> While HU's only responses I could think of are Staff of Sanctuary, or focus-firing/nuking the Banshee, it'd be amazing if the old WC2 'Paladin' upgrade would make a comeback, but instead of granting Knights ability to heal (which is already covered by Priests), combine Sundering Blades and Resistant Skin in it, i.e. immunity to Devour, Possession and reduction of certain spell effects.
● Orbs are a super-fun tool and there are two 'neutral', i.e. no faction-specific, that are practically unheard of in 1v1 games, due to item drop table level preferences of modern mapmakers and players.
> The Orb of Frost is obviously borderline broke, but if its special effect wasn't a 100% accurate and instead procked like the Orb of Lightning (30%), and maybe a +5 bonus instead of a +6, it would be better balanced against the Orb of Darkness, perhaps even fall into the same item level, thus we'd occasionally see it on Twisted Meadows.
> Faction shop Orbs are pretty unbalanced relative to each other and seeing how some effects are so much better than others that they only proc some of the time or stack, perhaps unifying that percentage-based standard into all effects by slightly tweaking their stats would be a better way of balancing than pricing them differently from one race to another as they are now?
(who reads this anyway..)
nobody 😅
the ancient of war last hitting the creep at 42:30 ish is sending me.
amazing editing, love the visual aid, but i was staring at it the whole time and just going 'no, no the exp, you can't'!
Almost last hitting. Had it gotten the last hit, it wouldn't have brought 82 xp or what the number was.
I (or whoever this Warden was, can't be me) lost 48XP on the first troll
@@GrubbyTalks I’m sure it was Melon, that rascal NElf player. Too busy cheesing to pay attention to creeping. XD
That is a crazy deep dive on upgrades!
For me, 1/1 looks nearly always worth it as it is cheap, quick, and the most effective, even available at tier 1.
2/1 and 2/2 are much larger investments, and 3/3 is more of a luxury.
Interestingly, armor upgrades could be used as a crutch for poor micro, as youll have more time to save any given unit.
Agree on all of the above! Nice breakdown
Thank you grubby. But you forgot one thing(due to your clear focus on hyper competitive gaming): emotional resonance. While this might not be as visible in an RTS, it is oh so visible in an RPG. What do I mean by emotional resonance. To show you what I mean, let me first delineate between an emotionally flat and dynamic upgrade.
Flat: +5% hp ; sure, makes you win, but you can't really feel that 98% of time
Dynamic: New Ability ; might not even advance your plan, but you WANT that upgrade
This is something RPGs, MMOs especially, battled with for a long time. Boring upgrades.
Something to consider.
I think with the defense upgrades one kills creeps faster because their units die to creeps slower thus managing to produce more damage before they die, lol
Thanks for the video, Grubby. I really enjoy the way you analyze and explain the mechanics in a nicely digested way, covering all the nuances needed slow enough
5:25 OMG, literally TODAY I had a discussion on reddit about the new respec feature of No Rest for the Wicked, where I stated that the respec should be expensive in order to retain the feel of commitment and meaning of actually have stats and stats requirement. I know it's a coincidence but it seems oddly correlated ahahah
the math talking about the percentage of bonus for each upgrade is a bit off, but it doesn`t remove from the conclusion
Tl;dr: opportunity cost is fundamental in designing a good rts game.
Love these videos, Grubby. It would be great if you could talk about the way pro players decide why and when they try to master a game and enter its scene(expectations, options, money, mechanics, skill expression/ceiling, randomness, etc.).
For example, in the dawn of war video you mentioned that there was a wc3 pro player that came from that game(mainly because there were no tournaments). This means that wc3 had some things that dawn of war didn't have that killed its pro scene.
I think this would be a good topic because the lack of a pro scene is one of the reasons a game can fail and you have ample experience in the reasoning behind picking or not a game to become pro in.
Stochastic and deterministic, haha the same as in radiation damge irl for x-ray exposure :D
NEED MOAR GRUBBY TALKS! LOVE THESE ❤
Upgrades are a great part of RTS. Choosing them makes your army stronger for the rest of the game at the cost of making it more difficult to switch techs. This is the exact kind of balance that makes RTS decision-making fun. I like the Starcraft style of point damage reduction rather than percentage damage reduction. This means that armor upgrades are more useful against marines than they are tanks, and that plays into the different strategies around timings which adds a ton of strategic depth.
That's the true beauty of RTS: having higher action per minute is valuable, specially if these fast actions are the best actions you can take at that moment - but taking the correct actions is still more valuable, and often harder to learn
Ive watched Grubby for decades and im loving these talking topic videos. I also haven't played wc3 in at least 10-15 years
Good upgrades add a diversity of effect when it comes to a player's playstyle, such as upgrading your town hall to a keep early on to get more advanced units at mid game, or upgrading your base through expansions to amass an army enough to overwhelm your opponent. It's not only by increment of numbers, it's also about changing the tides of battle through access of more powerful strategies.
Furry
Honest to god I was half expecting this to be a tier list of each individual upgrade.
"Level 1 weapon upgrades is cheap, effective, but not always worth it, tier B. Level 3 weapon upgrade however is extremely expensive and still only provides a moderate DPS improvement, despite how long it takes to acquire it and the cost. Tier D."
Interesting. I did not know about the hidden base damage, but it makes sense from an implementation point of view. Basically Level 0 being the unupgraded upgrade
Certainly made me more conscious about upgrading in any RTS. Gets way weirder where gold is just one of like 8 different totally different resources you have. Say, your units cost gold, but upgrades cost tech pool, but reinforcing costs more gold than building a unit, so you get upgrades to save gold, but not too early, because that costs more. In total war multiplayer you have only a rank-up, which doesn't cost much, but increases all stats, but still costs you the 1-time gold investment at the start of the game. In CoH there's individual squad/vehicle upgrades AND global upgdrades. I don't even remember how stuff worked in Homeworld 1/2 at all, that had some really hidden stats and modifiers.
I honestly think that the more upgrades, the better. +1:+1 upgrades represent the quality of your army's equipment, some upgrades represent new tactics or spells. I honestly wouldn't mind 4th or even 5th level of Blacksmith (and its equivalents) upgrades which may require sacrificing a high level artifacts to represent that now you have more valuable materials for your armor and weapons.
If someone was making a Warcraft 3.5 I could totally see them adding all sorts of unit upgrades that make them do more stuff. Make everything a little more broken. Footman shield bash upgrade (25 magic damage and 0.5 second stun!) Grunts gain experience from falling allied units and level up to a maximum of level 5 increasing their attributes! There's a lot you could do to make the game more complicated and more fun and powercreep the game a bit, but it's difficult to balance!
Grubby, please don't ever stop making videos like these!
Grubby, u r such a sunny guy. Pleasure to watch you!
Interested people are interesting people.
I've yet to discover anyone else that keeps me awake late into the night talking about the extreme details of a game I haven't played in over a decade
Love these discussions and analysis more than actually playing the game 😂
Keep them tier lists coming please!
15:51 I love all your stories bro!!!
Excellent video!
Thank you!
A big appeal of Terran in Sc2 for me is the upgrades + transformation aspect of units that meant I had "flexibility" which I like.
Hey Grubby
Love the vids! :)
Could you make a video on the best low upkeep unit army for every race in your opinion?
Cheers!
Great video Grub. Point is made very well in the video: in Warcraft 3 due to the heroes, just a single 12% stat boost, isn't really that impactful.
If somebody would really like to dig deeper into 'upgrade based RTS', should try the custom game mode Marine Arena in Starcraft 2. In that custom game, you really feel the value - or disappointing value - of every unit upgrade. And the upgrades make or break your game completely.
loved it!
Don't upgrades generally cost more lumber than gold? compared to units (% of the total cost in lumber is higher). I think that is very important when dealing with wc3 economy as gold has a limit on how much you can gain per minute, although lumber is more abundant. Deciding between upgrades and units here (or even teching) is an important part in the game economy that could have been mentioned (other than the high upkeed effect)
an interesting aspect of this is how it makes upgrades a _lot_ more resource efficient than they seem from combined totals when there's easy access to a goblin laboratory. the dynamic between gold production and lumber production is made all the more extreme when you have a shredder making lumber barely an obstacle, which means the neutral buildings on the map can have a major influence on how liberal you can be with upgrades
What's the idea behind the ai rushing lv 3 damage upgrades on orcs? Is there a reason to rush it before other upgrades or is it just the computer doing computer things?
I believe its an AI thing, I noticed that they usually build land units (especially orc).
The orc AI never rush t2 + beastiary + wind/bat riders, they always stick to massing t1 units- t2 upgrade- build beastiary and train raiders and another hero- then t3 -> another hero + tauren.
They skip wind/bat riders till t3, so they usually upgrade orcish blades along the way.
I would always upgrade ranged weapons to tier 2 before getting to low upkeep. I remember I used to hate the upkeep system with a passion but when I realized it's the perfect time to hall tech, attack, buy hero items, tower up, build production buildings,expand and upgrade right before supply crosses threshold, you can gain a huge gold advantage just because your opponent rushes his army size and doesn't understand economic efficiency.
i love the part about grubby himself having no clue when the Liquipedia goes in dept about how dmg gets calculated haha
If we're talking about units, then my favorite is Batrider when it suicides using concoction
damage upgrades is linear, there is no need to calculate them from previous upgrade as most of mechanics in wc3 are linear.
Also, not all dice roll 12% of basic damage, some units get more (ghouls benefit ~15% damage for example). Also upgrading already armored units less benefitial than units with low/no armor.
Damage upgrades being linear makes their comparative benefit in increasing total power fall logarithmically with each tier.
The comparison that informs the decision whether or not to start a damage upgrade isn't how much better is than the baseline at the beggining of the game, but how much better it is from your current state compared to getting more of the affected units. A linear increase means that progressive upgrades are comparatively less valuable, which is what the percentages calculated per tier reflect.
The need to calculate it is there because that's how you get to understand at what actually matters, which is how the decisions affect the total dps output of your army.
Your comments on re-spec got me thinking. Some sort of content or tier list on tome of retraining in wc3 could be cool
Hey Grubby, cool video. It would be interesting to hear how armor points combined with armor types also. For example piercing attack and magical attack vs heavy armor. Can we say that in some case armor upgrades are more useful?
The difference between sc2 and wc3 upgrades is so huge. Like in wc3 warcraft upgrade gets you usually about below 10% ehp/edmg. While in sc2 its often ~20+% dmg and depending on enemy 5-30% ehp while having a lot more units in sc2 than in wc3
I loved in BftME when you upgrade your army and everyone has shiny armor and weapons :D but apart from sheer stats increase I think upgrades make the game more interesting, both casually and competetively, you get more variety or more different strategies and skill expression
Watching all the grubby WC3 videos so I can play again and struggle against Medium Bots
Do units that transform into entirely new units give more xp? As in, do Berserkers give more xp than Headhunters? And what about Hippogryph Riders vs the sum of Hippogryphs and Archers?
One advantage for armor upgrades that you did not mentioned is healing efficiency (that you talk about in other videos).
Grubby would you ever consider doing a video on user or community suggestions for the game? I'd love to hear your thoughts on exclusive upgrades for lower tier units
Such as giving siege tanks a choice between Barrage, and Gnomish Gatling Gun, one or the other, the latter allowing siege tanks to target ground with a flying machine style attack
Huntress could receive an option between the current glaive bounce upgrade, and one that removes the bounce but increases damage/range
I think the hardest thing is to be able to convey these sometimes complex topics as easily as you can with Grubby. I wonder as if you chose your life as a streamer, since for me you were the world's best player in Warcraft 3, I sometimes wonder how such an extraordinary personality and intelligence like you would have developed in another professional area. With the potential to be the best in the world at something, you should actually become a multimillionaire in almost any profession. Maybe if you had become a physicist we would already have a uniformly functioning overall theory of our world view, but screw it, you're much more entertaining as a player.
"pretty standard (DK/Panda/Lich)" is like saying "uh i'm pretty vanilla in bed" and proceed to describe wildest kinks
At least he using heroes. Before watching WC3 I did not used heroes much (even while playing campaign). Now I understand heros are doing quite much
Please discuss at some point how Upkeep affects strategy in WC3. I understand the mechanics, but not how it actually affects the game, or best way to plan around it.
czcams.com/video/CGRGHpJpm_0/video.html
@@GrubbyTalks Gubby is awesome
I have a question: do you prepare this? Like its part of your job and there is some slot in ur weekly shedule where you sit down and maybe read about it again to make shure its that way or think of the best sequence for the presentation?
I wrote all that text, thats my preparation. Took about 4-5 hours
You've been watching even more Spirit of the Law, huh?
He really does have such good editing and sound production choices.
Yo Grubby. I would love to see you try Battle Realms. Their upgrades are very different in Warcraft. Instead of damage/armor upgrades or maybe some additional skill, the upgrades are more like boosting one aspect of their kit(less mana for every heal, less damage taken from certain attack types, you get the point)That was my second favorite game in my childhood and I haven't seen someone playing that in more than a decade now.
Hope you'll see my comment and try that amazing game.
I played it, it's pretty good!
This is good content idea!
This is outstanding! +intelligence
There's another element missing from this video. I'm HU with a fast expo playing mk + gryphons. I'm teching to t2 (or even t3). I can upgrade my gryphons before I even produce them, so in a way I'm kind of producing extra gryphons by getting upgrades, i.e. making 8 gryphons + getting an attack upgrade is like making 9 gryphons, so the blacksmith produced a gryphon.
Armor upgrades to not effect spells, but does that include physical spells, like the Warden's?
I have not played WC3 in 15 years at least. Yet, here I am.
Something I just thought about as I started watching this: While I previously called Red Alert 3 "C&C cosplaying as a Blizzard RTS" if you compare it to C&C3 the latter is actually the one featuring many - often quite impactful - upgrades. While in most cases it is "just" *hit harder* and in far fewer cases *live longer* there are also some utility upgrades akin to Ensnare.
I still do think RA3 is "C&C cosplaying as a Blizzard RTS", but at least in terms of upgrades it is actually pretty far removed from it.
Forget about Khadgars Bong of brilliance Grubby, Dovahkief Dragonbong is S-tier!
What about orbs?
I have two of them
Lightning and corruption argueably the best but you take what u get ingame
not knowing kept me awake, all those years..
random question grubby: would Thorns Aura (and Spiked Carapace?) be good if they also affected ranged units while in melee range?
I recommend spirit of the law to maybe be an inspiration
9:00, i read in wiki nature blessing also increase NE building stats? And does ultravision only give extra vision for heroes or for all NE units?
Ultravision is for all female night elves i think.
Ultravision affects ALL night elven units, not just specific heroes - ALL units and ALL heroes. Why Grubby thinks its any different is weird to me, he can literally check it in the World Editor
this is something i wanted to ask for a longer time. I've always wondered watching your game play why mill/blacksmith/etc upgrades don't seem to be used that much. when i was playing 3v3 4v4 and the likes i would always get all the upgrades for my units. granted I'm a noob basically
i had an intuition that it might not be worth it. but I'm just surprised that this is how it is
Gonna guess. Low tier: bombs for gyros,
Top tier: pilliage, flak cannons, druid of the claw master training, dispel, destroyer,
waiting for the day rts games become famous again and grubby becomes the most watched ww3 player
Just started the video, but on the topic of "numerical upgrades are boring" - well, yes, but actually not really? I mean, fundamentally, numerical upgrades could sound boring (they aren't as flashy as "give/change unit ability" ones) but sometimes they change the whole unit just as well as the other ones.
I want to elaborate. So, picture this - we have a basic roster of units: heavy infantry, archers, light infantry/skirmishers, heavy cavalry and light cavalry. So, let's say, HA and spearmen have 1.25 movespeed, archers and skirmishers have 1.75, HC has 2 and LC has 2.5. If we add just simple numerical upgrade to archers' ms, like, 20% increase, suddenly it can outrun heavy cavalry which means that from being countered by them (since they take less damage from arrows or overall bulky enough to soak a bunch of shots and make contact relatively healthy) they become soft-counter instead (while doing less damage overall, with proper micro, 5% difference in movement speed makes them able to outrun the HC and soften them up before a contact with proper infantry).
This is a simple numerical change which drastically changes gameplay and tactic. You can't just steamroll archers with heavy cavalry but they can't really fight back without being quite micro-intensive. Yes, I know, archers outrunning cavalry sounds busted on paper but I thought about it for literal two minutes, so surely gamedevs could figure out balancing measure.
What I want to say is that just a stat change can have a huge impact on a unit. Imagine "+1 attack range" for spearmen, which allows them to have a first hit against infantry and therefore making them a great mopping-up tool. Or "+7 line of sight" for light cavalry making them useful even when after "harassing enemy economy" stage of the game. Those are, in fact, "numerical upgrades" but they really have an impact.
On the other topic - are "+1 attack range"-type upgrades even should be considered "numerical"? I mean, yeah, they simply change the stats of the unit, but for melee I would argue it is as impactful as the whole new ability
My micro is so poor that I almost always research armor and take alot of healing. But what is the general rule of thumb? Do you fill up your supplies first before researching upgrades (that are not essential to a strategy)? Do armor upgrades even do much for units with low hp ?
This channel is bad for my health One of my favorite things to do when I watch grubby on twitch or more like my favorite parts of his streams is when he starts talking about things and explaining things because I love the deep conversation and now he has a channel dedicated directly to that how am I supposed to watch him on twitch if he keeps releasing all these videos
What are those 6 ways ? :D 1. Goldmine, 2. Creeps, 3. Selling item 4.transmute ulti, 5. Undead unsummon what are other ways ? Or some campaign gold rewards /quests
It's very odd to me that ultra-modern RTS designers are not including upgrades and talking about it like a selling point. Thanks for this deep dive into why they're awesome
There's no point. Only nerds knee deep in the weeds care about learning upgrades.
No one is basing their siege tank preference based around Broodwar upgrade or SC2 free.
Whether the big guns go sufficiently boom are all people are gonna care about.
The right upgrades are iconic and fun to acquire. Siege Tanks would not nearly be as iconic as they are in Brood War if it wasn't for their machine shop upgrade turning them into artillery. Even casual players who aren't trying to sweat and optimize a game enjoy making their favorite unit more powerful with new capabilities.@@HellecticMojo
@@HellecticMojoI get your point but RTS is a 'nerd' genre. You don't see anyone trying to make a 'casual' chess mode with easier rules. It would probably bring in a larger audience, but the type of people that chess appeal to in the first place, enjoy to get knee deep in the intricacies of the game.
Same here. Yes, there's a whole discussion to be had regarding developing a game for a broader audience (so the company makes enough revenue to survive) vs developing a game that has depth, in a genre known for its depth.
The titles that survived the test of time managed to have both. They have simple enough mechanics that casual players can spend hours on campaign, custom scenarios and overall single player modes, like WC3, AoE2 and etc, but are deep enough that there's a Hardcore community that kept these games alive for decades past its shelf life.
However, the latter are the ones keeping these titles alive. That is me and you, and anyone watching this video on the secondary channel of an ex pro player of a 20yo game.
So I'd say, any dev approaching this genre should take the chess approach and embrace the niche 'nerd' community rather than trying to make a RTS-lite that no one will talk about in 5 years. I know it's hard and a risk, but unless someone really revolutionize the genre, there's no point in developing a RTS game without the complexity.
@@voidgods your entire thought process is why the genre died. There are plenty of casual chess btw.
The tryhard sweat nonsense is why zero people are excited for Stormgate who thinks drop ship micro and aoe dodging makes for a good showcase.
You talk about how it's you and me watching an ex-proplayer is keeping it alive, but no, it isn't. Look at his tierlist videos. Every other comment is a variation of "I'm watching this despite not playing for 20 years." Absolutely none of us were keeping the game alive. If we were, none of us would be asking questions about the game as everything would be common knowledge. Grubby just got lucky on the algorithm.
@@HellecticMojo well I could argue that it's all a matter of perspective then, because people watching these hour long videos despite not playing the game for years, to me indicates that they DO find all of this interesting. The true casual players probably think this is all too boring or complex. If you find any of this theory crafting mildly interesting you are probably above 'casual' level (not in personal skill but interest for the product).
Maybe these players simply can't/ don't want to apply it in game, but that's fine - bringing up chess again (which I think has a lot of parallels), there are way more spectators than players, and these spectators enjoy having in depth knowledge of the game, the openings and etc, even though they may not play at any remotely close level to a pro player. That's why we all watch sports right? Seeing the best of the best achieve what we never could - but that's only as interesting as the height of the skill ceiling for said sport.
You may not agree, but long after the official AoE2 servers were shut down, the game continued to live on through public servers. The type of player that goes through the trouble of setting up a public client such as Voobly is not a casual. These players continued to update the game through public patches and eventually these modders were hired to develop the HD and Definitive editions, and here we are, AoE2 is back to the top 3 most popular RTS currently, alongside WC3 and SC2, which are all complex, micro intensive, classic RTS games.
Meanwhile, all the other simpler RTS, including AoM from the same company, have not gotten the same level of longevity and success.
If history doesn't clearly show that RTS players want hardcore RTS experience, I don't know what does. People are seemingly not excited about Stormgate for the same reason they were not for AoE4 - they are jaded and don't think devs are creating games as interesting as the old ones, and they were right about AoE4. But I'm sure that if the game releases and is good enough, people will play it and create their own niche tryhard community.
What are the 6 Types of getting Gold?
1. Mining
2. creeping
3. pillage
4. transmute
5. selling items
6. ?
Allies sending you money
My completionist mindset wants to click all the buttons before the game is over. Nearly always to my own detriment.
please make a ranking video about all summoning units in warcraft 3.
How would you feel about if upgrades only had half the effect on units currently built, but full effect on units of that type not yet built? That would incentivise going for upgrades before doing a tech switch, would that make RTS games more interesting?
this is the video I waited for. OMG. In every RTS but especially WC3 I was and still are obsessed with getting upgrades fast. And then ending up with too few units, and lose the game.
Nice
i think this video is 1. 2. and 3. reason why u making videos, we need this, we want this and we like to hear u talk about it
In sc the armor system is a flat number, minus a flat number, Also the numbers they use is often under 20. In warcraft the upgrades is % based. Meaning 2 ghouls will beat one fully upgraded ghoul. When in sc an fully upgraded zealot will beat two zels. This is why sc, rushing upgrades is so massive when in warcraft, why spend t he cost or a unit or two, just for 10% attack and about 10% in defense, when you could just build more units. Also you need more units to creep so not getting upgrades tends to win out
Hi Grubbs!
This needs to be a college course.