I am a really big fan of base building in RTS games, which is why I never liked Starcraft. Bases in Starcraft feel like they have such little rhyme or reason. They are messy and ugly. I always build a ton of bases in games like Tiberian Sun, that, while gameplay wise, are a waste of time and money, feel fun to build and fun to defend and destroy. I think a really cool strategy game idea would be a logistics themed game. One where building more realistic bases all over a map is a strategy so that they can supply and support each other. Maybe you start out with a FOB and you need to expand into guerilla held territory, but you need to build COPs and Logistics centers to keep your troops supplied and protected.
I always hated in Starcraft how clicks per second is a means to measure how effective some one is at the game. I really want to see a game where tactics and unit composition matter, where a platoon of mechanized infantry face off against like a BTR platoon and, using strategy, you pull through. Have each squad with a realistic composition of like a Squad leader, 2 team leaders, a radio man, 2 squad weapons, a crew served weapon, 2 anti tank units, a combat life saver, and 2 rifle men. I think something with that depth, but with a more coherant interface than like Shockforce, and with pausable real time combat would be awesome. Like Arma but an RTS.
What games would you want to see?
Oh boy, I have so many game ideas that I would love to make, but they’re all so complex I would either need a full game studio or the determination of the dwarf fortress devs.
A fantasy civilization builder in a massive open world. Think stellaris, but on the ground with magic rather than in space with spaceships, where you essentially design a civilization from the ground up, with countless different options for said civilization, and with a massive world to explore full of events and discoveries and other civilizations to interact with. As an example of what I would like to see, you could play as dwarves who live fully underground and end up finding the buried body of a massive god, which they must deal with the consequences of. Or you could play a nomadic civilization that progresses from living out of horse-drawn carts to constructing massive vehicles which they build entire cities on the back of. Maybe those vehicles are actually living creatures, or magically animated constructs. I absolutely love the wildly different civilizations you can create in stellaris and the stories they create, but I always wanted something somehow even more sandboxy, plus I love magic and fantasy so I wanted to mix that in.
An extremely in-depth survival game with a focus on interactivity. Another genre of games I deeply enjoy is survival games that really make you survive. Two examples of this are the excellent games Stationeers and Vintage Story. The first game has a major focus on interconnected systems and full simulation, while the second involves a series of realistic and in-depth yet largely separate systems. I’ve always imagined some combination of the two, a deeply simulated world where everything interacts with everything else, and yet each individual system is extremely in-depth and meaningful. I would hope that this would enable extremely creative problem solving, such as you might find in the newest Legend of Zelda games, yet much more meaningful as now it is actually necessary to your survival. There are some more specific touches that I would personally add to such a game such as separating it from our world, and placing it in a fantasy world with radically different animals and environments, which I believe would open up more opportunities for unique and fun game mechanics when no longer restrained by realism. This is more of a pipe-dream but I would also enjoy if the in-depth systems were so in-depth that mastery of said system would require significant effort, without it getting stale. Combine this with highly intelligent NPCs that you as a player could work with and you could realistically form a village in which you as the player would fulfill a single role, such as being a farmer, or blacksmith, or scholar, without it getting boring, even if you’re playing singleplayer.
Lastly, I’ve been rolling around the idea of an RPG in which the classes are all so different that they feel like playing different games. This came about from frustration with Final Fantasy XIV, where it felt like the only thing that changed when I changed classes was the order in which I press my buttons. I’ve had ideas such as a summoner who plays the game like an RTS, or an alchemist who gathers ingredients and crafts various potions and tools to use in battle, or a bard who casts spells to a beat almost like a rhythm game, or a fighter who dances with his opponent with parries and dodges and counterattacks. Admittedly this game is a much looser concept than the previous two, but I’m mostly just tired of games where class choices feel more like cosmetic options than like actual meaningfully different playstyles.