Company of Heroes 3 Is a good game now with a very good Graphic
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DoW4 be the game people want, sounds like a task possible after AoE4.
Each big RTS developer had a phase with Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, Empire Earth 3, Age of Empires Online and Dawn of War 3. It’s a very “Uncanny Valley” thing how clear is for community what they want from an IP and what the developers actually make out of it.
By now we they should have the know how what people want from an RTS.
But still we got recently an RTS like Homeworld 3.
Made by the original developers, and still wasn’t an amazing success.
So what’s the recipe here?
Use the original devs? Use new devs? Focus on competitive gameplay? Ignore competitive gameplay?
I think a purely single-player focused RTS might be funny (I’d play it), but I don’t think it’d do well because most players expect LAN / local MP. Which means you have to think about balance, which means you have to think about competitive balance.
Nobody likes getting stomped. Imbalanced games have a higher percentage of stomps regardless of skill level.
This is of course separate to publisher meddling, which generally never seems to help.
After all this time, I think its clear they design their games from the wrong end.
PvP and competitive gaming, while re-invent the wheel and add changes just for the sake of it.
We do end up with games that are even for the target core audience not fun or nice to play.
Its like start build a house with a roof first and wonder why it does collapse without a foundation.
Especially Homeworld 3 was odd to say the least, nobody was asking for those space obstacles that ruined the game flow and games performance. They tried to make some kind of company of heroes in space, but it backfired extremely.
They need first a clear vision what is the foundation of their game.
Back to basics, a fluent experience with functional and reliable tool.
PvP and competitively gaming in general is incredibly against changes for the sake of it, though.
However we’re at the stage where playing it safe is, ironically, risky in the RTS genre given the sheer stagnation in the genre compared to others over the years.
So RTS is in a weird space. Making changes is risky. Not making changes is also risky.
You change too much and you risk alienating what is already a niche fanbase. Change too little and they won’t move on from their nostalgic favourites.
I don’t think fans think about this too much (which is fine, they just want to play something they enjoy). But RTS is in a very difficult space I think, compounded by the ongoing economic situation (pretty much worldwide) and a risk-averse publishing model.
If Homeworld, using the original devs, who spent a lot of time working with fans through a Kickstarter-esque system (Fig), can’t get it right, what does that say?
Could the game have gotten better with more support? Do RTS games need longer development cycles to finish / polish additional features that help community retention?
Or do fans just want the games from their childhood with fancier graphics?
I think it does say a lot, that over 18 years
the only successful AAA base build RTS since Tiberium Wars from year 2007 is Age of Empires 4.
I think it’s like with the new Starwars trilogy, Disney tried to please the criticism by the newer movies, but ended up with movies people liked less. Same here. Ever since they tried to make RTS better, they got worse.
Maybe there was nothing wrong in the first place ? Maybe instead to focus to fix things people didnt like,
do first the things people actually liked?
Many Game developers seem not to understand what makes the games good in first place.
Over years this focus to make games easier to handle kind of backfired. Especially RTS are games about many numbers, making them less difficult to handle doesn’t mean you get the better game. Making faction more different to play, kind of backfired too. It kind of did lead to less variety what units and strategies can be used.
My observation is, fans want childhood games, but with more grown up and complex gameplay.
Where their play style has more impact on the games experience.
I think RTS need more time to have betas with real people.
It’s a complex clockwork mechanism with many gears that needs to be in the right place.
There is no risk in making an RTS, if there is a clear concept. All it needs is time to set things right.
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After what they have been doing with coh3 I will trust relic again, not sure where are they going to get money and good developers, this since the game must* include sync kills, accuracy system, strong knock back, strong and good voice acting and a game play similar to DOW1.
Because they got rid of the people that made a poor job on dow lll :), still remember Gabriel Angelo’s doing black flips with terminator armor hahahaha,
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Tartarus Plate, actually, not standard Terminator Armour at all. If you’re going to turn this into another Relic-bashing thread you should at least get the lore correct 
I don’t care Gorb, it looked ridiculous and super MOBA, if DOW 3 was a good game for you that’s ok, but I am 1000000% sure that DOW IV will be totally different to DOW3 if rumors are true.
Rule of cool applies 100% of the time. If they tried to follow the WH40K lore to an absolute tee then you wouldn’t have a playable game.
Front flipping and smashing down into the ground with a thunder hammer is incredibly rad anyways.
Sure that’s why DOW3 is so popular nowadays 
So the next DLC will be the last?
StarCraft 2.
I’m pretty sure that counts as a base building RTS.
But that also released 15 years ago.
If these rumors are true, as well as the rumors of Relic no longer being in the driver seat, then another studio would pick it up.
No way they would let a game with this much revenue potential blip out of existence.
Especially in a franchise that has traded studios and had content developed for other titles over decades.
I don’t really care that you think it looked ridiculous - DoW II had plenty of “MOBA” animations and the lead designer even said that he wanted the game to feel a bit like DotA (source: a DoW II preview Ebbert attended back in 2009).
It’s only in the past few years that RTS purists have even cared about things looking like a “MOBA”.
I hope Relic don’t create vDoW 2.0, that’d be incredibly boring and a waste of their creative talents.
Sure Gorb!
Because in dow2 the main objective of the game was to destroy the main core… Oh wait!
Weren’t we talking about animations?
Also, DoW II introduced a “Victory Point” game mode (similar to CoH, minus the supply lines), which was highly controversial, as well as being the default / only ranked game mode.
So basically youre not satisfied with any of their products so think everything they make will suck lol
A bigger waste of their talent would be another vDoW 3.0
Vague Experiments are something for indie developers, AAA should followa clear vision
I would call Starcraft2 am 4A game. It did take so much time and money,
that is for no other developer possible.
We have to understand the frustration people did build up over the time.
After so many disappointments It’s a thing we can’t deny it.
The biggest Issue I see, all developers dont think outside of some kind of arena mode,
where you have 3-5 circles on the small map to move your units to.
Its not an issue that started with DoW3. Already back by Red Alert 3, Arena Wars 2,
BattleForge, Empire Earth 3 and Age of Empires Online people clearly hated that concept
I think best would be for Relic to pick DoW1 and make based on it the better game.
Just focus on the things that made DoW1 so good.
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I’d rather say AoE4 is AA instead of calling any game AAAA. Maybe you could argue that a game like GTA6 is AAAA but clearly not Starcraft 2. There are many bigger games, just not in this genre.
But anyway it’s been 15 years since it released.