Advocacy and design for real-time strategy and tactics games.

https://waywardstrategy.com/2024/03/20/mind-control-stun-and-fire-oh-my-a-discussion-about-status-effects-in-real-time-strategy-games/

Hello there, Commanders, and welcome back to Wayward Strategy.

A topic I’ve had come up a lot lately both professionally and in my personal gaming time is the concept of “status effects” in real time strategy games. Buffs and debuffs, if you will. Perhaps there’s more to it than that, though: status effects are a bigger topic than just making some numbers go up or down in a game. Right? I mean, I wouldn’t be writing this if I thought it were that easy.

Paralysis, mind control, slows, speed boosts, damage suppression, damage boosting, et cetera and the list goes on. I think it’s fair to say that players and designers alike have a somewhat complicated relationship with systems that temporarily modify the performance of game pieces in RTS, RPGs, and other games. For every awesome boost like Inner Fire, there’s a pernicious Scrin Cultist out there stealing your tanks, or a Zerg Infestor’s Fungal Growth locking down half of your army.

Which leads me to ask, can we define or circumscribe some rules or observations about what makes a successful or good system for status changes in an RTS? Something that adds to the game experience rather than detracting from it? Or, at least, that adds to the game experience more than it detracts from it?

I think it’s worth a try.

I will try to also cover my thought process behind some of the implementation and design on Tempest Rising, as far as I’m able: so I’ll only be able to discuss elements which have been made public by the development team as of the date of publication of this blog post. Hopefully this will be of interest to y’all.

To read the rest, visit the blog: https://waywardstrategy.com/2024/03/20/mind-control-stun-and-fire-oh-my-a-discussion-about-status-effects-in-real-time-strategy-games/