I'm on a classic gaming binge right now but it is one of those stark reminders that there are some truly awful classic games. Either I really don't fucking like this style of RTS which is entirely possible or some people who praise the classic Warcraft games have been wearing the rose tinted glasses a little too much.
I played Warcraft 3 lately and I was immediately reminded of why my younger self went and cheesed it on easy mode and cheats. The game just isn't fun to play and I ended up rage quitting on one of those classic RTS no building missions that should never be allowed to exist in an RTS.
It was one of the blood elf missions on frozen throne where they escape the dungeon and I just noped out of there when the game clearly expected me to take on more squads of humans without any heals available. Which means the game devs clearly expect you to micro that part of the game perfectly to get through it and I can't be bothered.
. AI cheats even by Starcraft standards clearly ignores economy rules and can spam away stacks, I swear their build times had been tweaked too compared to the players, that's cheating almost as bad as creative assembly standards
. Combat is painfully slow, partly thanks to attack time and partly thanks to the fact that everybody has 300hp+ and are massive damage soakers
. Upgrades do fuck all and so do optional quests at times, there were times when they put optional quests in and I swear it was a fucking troll by the devs, they simply don't bother giving you enough of a buff in a situation to justify it
. On normal mode especially or anything higher you're going to be forced to spam waves in order to win, it's not like literally any other game where you can win pretty well with a bit of careful micro-ing
. Night elves and wraith possession can fuck off and die in a fire, another example of obnoxious cheap difficulty
. The AI micro-management is very much like Starcraft but worse because of the RPGness of abilities in Warcraft 3 in Starcraft 1 you could at least macro your way out of that situation for the most part against stuff like Templar's storm but almost all spellcasters have perfect micro against you and I suspect they're scripted to target specific unit types like with the wraith
TLDR: Don't play Warcraft 3, it's one of those often posted about but honestly I fucking hate it and always have, I think I'd almost rather play a damn walking simulator
Starcraft, red alert 2 and warcraft 3 all have the same average match length of around 15 minutes. It's not slower than the other games especially when level 6 abilities level entire armies and bases in one cast.
Calling other people trolls when you write a bait post that reads like you don't even want to play the game isn't exactly going to make you look good. It's a hero centric game, I try to point that out but you'd rather pretend you know the game when your complains like having trouble with night elves or possession suggests you didn't try to use heroes all that much.
I have to agree with the first option you suggested in your post. You probably don't like this style of RTS and you really ought not to play games that rely on hero units with armies almost exclusively being buffers for the hero units. If you hate that, and given that about 5 out of your 6 complaints involve the army vs hero dynamic you really do, its better to just avoid these style of games entirely.
You're writing about match length I'm talking about per damage combat speed and hitpoints, nah, come on, also the only person I called a troll in this thread is you because you didn't even respond to my point about combat time properly.
You literally posted zero data on how long it takes units to kill each other.
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Medium_Tank_(Tiberian_Dawn)
A medium tank in tib dawn has 400 hp and does 30 damage and it takes 50 in-game frames to reload its shot (i.e at the slowest speed setting). This would be one attack every 3 seconds at the average speed setting so 10 dmg per second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZt-bO3_csU You can see it takes 3 seconds for the medium tank fire and it takes an advanced unit like the mammoth tank 20 seconds to kill a tank (unless you play at super speed which most people don't)
This means it would take 2/3 of a minute for 2 tanks to kill each other assuming perfect accuracy (which is rarely the case if the tanks are moving).
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Footman_(Warcraft_III)#Classic The lowly footman in WC3 has 420 blaze it hp. Does 12.5 dmg every 1.35 seconds. And has two armor which grants 10% damage reduction. Meaning he does 11.25 dmg (this is most likely wrong because I haven't factored damage vs armor multipliers).
https://warcraft3.info/articles/208/overview-of-armor-and-damage-reduction This means two footman would take 36.5 seconds to kill each other in a duel. Which is faster! than C&C.
This isn't even getting to the fact you're supposed to interrupt fights with heroes some of which like Archmage can cast AOE spells that do 50 dmg per second and last for 10 seconds (500 dmg) which is enough to instantly melt 6 footmen per cast every 10 seconds.
The matches end at the exact same time frames because the time to kill is roughly the same. The only one trolling here is you lol.
I specifically cited Red Alert 2 not Tiberian Dawn, the fact that you keep on reaching so hard to score a win against me on the internet by referencing shit I've never even posted about is why I think you're being a troll. Get a life.
. First you went on about match length, I was specifically writing about combat attack speed etc.
. Second you tried to compare Tiberian Dawn when I was specifically citing Red Alert 2, that's just utterly dishonest
You're either a troll that's trying too hard or you're fast becoming another anti-social sperg because trolls are at least funny or clever when they try this shit and you're being neither.
If I wrote 1 + 1 = 2 you'll just claim I posted 1 + 1 = 5
If you told me you played ranked Warcraft 3 ladder matches religiously I wouldn't even be shocked because it would explain you taking it so seriously.
The joke is you can't even keep your bullshit straight because looking back at your post you even acknowledge that I was posting about Starcraft and Red Alert 2 so you are just being a bullshit artist. You just flipped the script and started writing about Tiberium Dawn for no fucking reason.
Okay knock it off with the hostility. It's obviously not helping you. If you hate WC3 for long times to kill then you hate lot of RTS games then. Case and point going berserk for just mentioning Tiberian dawn. Pro-tip: PUT "I'm comparing it to RED ALERT 2" in your OP then. It's not my job to mind read or put up with your aggressive stupidity.
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Grizzly_Battle_Tank 300 hp. 55 damage still 3 seconds to fire. 16 seconds for a grizzly to kill another grizzly.
So basically half the time to kill for regular units but an archmage can still kill 6 dudes of much higher health in 10 seconds or less. Let's not even talk about Blade master who can kill everything in 7 seconds or less with his lvl 6 skill.
And this isn't getting into the fact that if you are at this point you're basically just saying you don't like WC3 because its not RA2 or starcraft. I hate blizzard RTS games for damaging the genre but I don't hate games for shallow reasons. If you don't actually appreciate RTS and demand the ADHD experience then your post is kinda pointless.