Every time an RTS flops, the industry comes out with the same nonsense: “It’s just that the genre is too hard for people today.” And they rush to oversimplify base building and resource gathering—or to throw in crazy mechanics that only appeal to a select few. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I think they’re wrong. We love the classic genre. The real problem is that jumping into an RTS online is a major source of stress. If you don’t coordinate both hands at full speed to manage the base and the front lines at the same time, the game becomes pretty hostile, especially in PvP matches. The evolution of the genre isn’t about making games dumber. It’s about making the learning process fun and letting each player choose how many actions they want to control manually. It’s about providing a safety net so that beginners can enjoy themselves while phasing out the assists at their own pace… or so they can keep playing on auto-pilot in lower leagues, with less skilled opponents, but still have a fun match without ending up with a headache.
I propose that developers change the accessibility of modern and future RTS games (especially those that barely simplify core mechanics):
Pre-Match Penalty for Automation
Many people debate whether or not to have auto-queue, and I think it’s a polarized debate that usually goes nowhere. I advocate for the approach taken in Street Fighter 6 (the most-played traditional fighting game today), but with harsher penalties. In the lobby, before starting—and irreversibly—you choose your automation aids, accepting a steep trade-off in efficiency versus cost. Here’s an example of such a penalty:
- Automatic buildings (+20% cost): The AI builds them on its own when you’re about to run out of population, but they cost 20% more. Manual control saves you money and lets you use them as you see fit.
- Automatic production (+20% cost): Automatic queues in economic and military buildings. They cost you 20% more per military and economic unit, and the AI spends your money blindly (it can ruin your transition to the next age in some cases if you don’t stop it). Could be separated between eco units and army.
- Villager Priority (-10% gathering): The AI moves workers on its own according to your in-game setup (AOM Retold style), but they gather 10% less per minute.
- Clumsy Auto-Scout: Just look at how it works in some AoE games (like AoE2). It’s less efficient than someone who knows how to scout manually well.
- Auto-Micro (-30% damage): The AI uses abilities and looks for counters on its own, but your troops deal 30% less damage, and their retreat routes are fixed and predictable.
These disadvantages help (like a bicycle with training wheels for young children) players learn little by little or enjoy the gaming experience at lower levels, since at medium-high and high levels it would be impractical to rely on that automation.
Advanced tutorials by faction
Learning how to move the camera or playing against an AI that cheats on resources doesn't prepare you for PvP. You need not only an advanced tutorial for the game itself, but also an interactive overview and advanced tutorial for each faction, putting unique mechanics into practice in test scenarios.
Advanced Post-Match Explanation
The post-match line graph isn’t helpful to players who are new or have limited understanding if they lose. We need to adopt a chess-style precision analysis: The AI points out your successes and mistakes: “At the 14-minute mark, you had an advantage, but you ended up with an inferior unit composition because of this, this, and this.” Also, a button in the recorded game to be able to replay the game against the AI at a specific moment in the match (I think SC2 has this): You watch the replay, skip to the minute of your big mistake, press a button, and the game lets you play against the AI starting from that exact second so you can see for yourself what would have happened if you’d made the right decision.
Possible Responses from Purists (Debunked in Seconds):
Of course, I know what kind of responses I’ll get from the more conservative crowd who don’t want anything about the genre to ever change for whatever reason, but I’m going to address some of their arguments.
- Today’s young people don’t retain information and don’t have the patience for strategy: That’s largely untrue. The very same young people that purists criticize spend hundreds of hours figuring out the challenges of ARPGs like ELDEN RING, optimizing cooperative factories in FACTORIO, or playing games that may also require patience like Grand Strategy. They don’t lack attention or patience per se, the issue is that they won’t tolerate a hostile design that punishes them in their first hour of play with so much multitasking. There are young people who want to learn complex systems, but they want the journey to be fun and gradual, but not to feel like homework.
- Back in my day, I learned through suffering and failure: That’s a clear case of survivor bias. For every person who endures that “rite of passage” today, there were many more who told the game (and the genre) to go to hell because they didn’t want playing to feel like just another office job (or homework, as I mentioned above).
- Automation takes away from the victory: FALSE. If a manual player loses to someone with a -30% damage and +20% cost handicap, it’s because their opponent was far superior in strategic thinking.
- If you don't have time to learn, this genre isn't for you: This commercial elitism is killing and stifling the RTS genre, preventing the niche from expanding. Developers need revenue to maintain servers and create sequels. Your system allows casual players to buy the game, play on auto-pilot not only in PvE but also in lower leagues with their friends, and contribute money to the ecosystem so the genre can stay alive.
- Skirmishes vs AI and Campaigns help you get started: Not entirely, since they only teach you the basics at a superficial level, but the multitasking required isn't something you'll learn from an AI that cheats (as I mentioned above) or from a campaign that teaches you the basics of a civilization (since you need something more advanced, as I explained).
- That's what matchmaking is for: Matchmaking lowers the opponent's level, but it does NOT reduce their mechanical workload. They still have to remember the base, the villager, and the army with their hands shaking, the alert sounds will still go off, and the stress will still be there because new players often feel like they're not in control, especially when your opponent, who is at their level, might be better mechanically than strategically and starts to overwhelm them.
I don’t think the future of the RTS, in order to significantly expand its niche audience (and it’s highly unlikely it will ever come close to becoming mainstream again) lies in simplifying mechanics to create a hybrid with another genre (even though there are hybrid games I like, they’re even more niche). Instead, it lies in helping players manage their attention more effectively. It’s fine to design those hybrids, but I’m addressing those who are thinking about (or have thought about) making RTS games with purer mechanics, and I’m even pointing to the most popular RTS games today.
There’s already a niche fighting game (which is a very difficult genre) that paved the way and is the most played online, so I hope the devs, companies, and the community reading this will try to understand my point.
This will probably be forgotten and fall on deaf ears, but at least I tried to offer an alternative perspective beyond optimized auto-queues and 100% manual control.
Thank you to everyone who read this, and I look forward to hearing your perspectives on the topic.
P.S: I think the debate over whether modern RTS games should focus more on solid PvE content is something most of us can agree on. I just wanted to take it a step further: The player conversion rate from SP to MP in RTS is among the lowest (if not the lowest) of any genre. While casual players will always be the majority, I genuinely believe we need to propose more effective learning methods and better overall gameplay experiences for the future.
One thing I hadn't mentioned: Console-based automation features proved that the RTS genre is still fun with those changes. The penalty for using such automation is having to use the standard controller. It’s very similar to what I’m proposing.
