How I feel about Atlas in its current state (176) (Now with PvP feedback and mode suggestions!)

Shizune

I decided to choose Vela, as the idea of high damage long range units intrigued me, and I found myself really enjoying the game, and here's a few of the points I managed to scrounge up for criticism's sake.

Pre-PvP

• Expanding to new locations seemed pretty fast, as almost as soon as I got the 10 gems required I expanded where I could.
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  • I felt this was a good design choice, it made the games fast and interesting, I never felt like I had to wait or that I couldn't do something.
• Standard micro actions felt great (stutter step, splitting, etc)
• The one problem I do have with this game is the feedback it gave me: at first it seemed hard to make out things like health bars and construction timers, and this made it difficult for me to time pushes and retreats, this just deemed to be an adjustment issue however
• One major thing I found troublesome is pathfinding, many times would I do v ` rmb, and a minute later wondering where my troops actually were, they were either slowly meandering around objects, or managed to get stuck on an ally or tower.
• Bot AI, though I didn't expect it to be much at this point, was atrocious, an easy way to cheese them that I accidentally found was if you destroyed one of their expansions, the first thing the AI would prioritize is rebuilding it. If you manage to block their hero in a corridor or similar, he won't retaliate, he'll try desperately to get to the expansion, but will never get there.
• This is a personal opinion from the games I played of Vela, but it seems that the the only time you would actually use the skill shot is if you use the flare ability, because afterwards it one shots enemy heroes, in my opinion it feels a bit OP, since you can effectively take the 'most' important unit from the enemy's squad out of the equation, and it doesn't seem like any hero could counter that ability, the only thing they could do is micro units to be in the way, but even then I've managed o thread the needle more than a couple times to hit the hero.

That's pretty much how I felt about the bot games I've played, I'm off to do some PvP (As soon as everything gets fixed), if you have any extra questions about my experience so far, don't hesitate to ask! ^.^

Shizune

PvP

Once again, I played Vela for these matches, I knew the mechanics the best and I thought she was fun ^.^

• Communication between players seems to be nonexistant, other than glhf, gg, and the occasional ping to bring pushes and losses to attention, beyond that, there was no coordination or more vocalized strategy.
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  • I feel like a macro system could really benefit the chat here, so you can say basic things without interrupting micro or APM at all.
• There doesn't seem to be any way to come back, once you fall behind you are almost doomed to fail, my first match was a loss, and I didn't even manage to get to level 6 to get my skill shot, however my second match we completely steamrolled the enemy team, I managed to pick off enemy weapons and push forward with my own, decimating the towers on my side and nearly destroying the enemy Nexus in one swoop, all while my allies distracted the enemy on the other side of the map.
• It was certainly fun, even when I was losing in the first match, all I could feel was that I wanted to do better, and that I could do better (most of the reasoning behind this feeling was that my teams levels were 1-1-1, and the enemies were 3-3-2, so I felt like there was some more complex micro going on than I had anticipated).
• The controls felt solid and I didn't feel cheated (except for the time my hand was a little too far to the left and I kept hitting Caps Lock instead of A while stutter stepping, but that's my own fault).

Now I feel that I should just give some feedback on Vela as a squad...

• As mentioned before, I feel the skill shot is a little too overpowered, as you can deny the opponent's hero before you even engage their squad.
• She seems like the character that was meant to be on the far right side going solo, as she can easily handle one regular opponent, and fending off a push with two enemy squads can easily overwhelm her.
• I found myself personally mostly maxing out on my Raptors and T1 upgrades before I even thought of researching T2, this allowed me to get an early expansion up and overwhelm my opponent.
• My starting build order that I used was build four raptors, then do T1 Attack upgrade and Physical Resist upgrade, this felt comfortable for me, although I did tend to struggle early, this helped me in the late early game to take some major pushes.
• I really love the idea behind this squad, it just felt great and was very true to my natural strategies in other RTS titles, however, I feel that the game always ends before I even research T3 and get my first Windray, I think that this was a good design choice, I feel that it would allow the late game units to be only available to either those that rush those units out, or to the people that get caught in very close matches, so it seems like T3 units could just be for a major momentum swing late game.

Keep up the good work guys! I'd love to be a part of this game as it progresses through development, so if you ever feel like you need an extra playtester down the line, I'm always here, but beyond that, know you guys have a fan in me! ^.^

Shizune

@snkz, here's your game mode ideas/reasons for 'em.

1v1 - I can't imagine this being a ranked mode, as you could just get completely screwed by a hard counter, but it'd be fun to play with a friend, or even multiple friends in a sort of mini tournament.

Assymetric - probably like 2 higher power characters versus 5 (shrug not sure on the scale) normal characters, the 2 could start off with two resource nodes to start, or a 2x node each, also bump up squad size (I'm not sure if buffing the units themselves would be a good Idea in this scenario), the reason I think this would be amazing is because it would emphasize the micro ability of the smaller team, as this would be a great mode to actually split up your squad to divide and conquer.

Objective - A few simple types like KOTH or others similar, but then more intricately designed ones HOTS style in approach to objectives, just to kind of vary the gameplay. I personally tend to get bored with games quickly, I'll play them for a couple hours, and then leave to play something else, I might return to it that day, but most likely the next day, these Objective games would help break up the monotony and spice things up.

Crown - Now hear me out on this one (Idea taken directly from my favorite 3D fighting game Lost Saga...). its similar to King of the Hill, except somebody picks up a crown and has to hold it, the person wearing the crown has reduced movement speed, and the area he can move will be restricted (to avoid running far away and into own base), I personally think its fun and interesting.

Day9

I really like how you took the time to break your experience from PvBot to PvP play! I don't have extensive responses unless there's specific stuff you'd like me to comment on. If so, lemme know!

Briefly though, I think the snowballing is a slight bit on the tough side. In particular, I think there's a lack of options for players to get to "the next big thing" they need to get back into the game. For example, suppose you are 1-1-1 vs 3-2-2. In an ideal world, you'd think, "Ok, we are behind in levels. I'll try to avoid taking too many direct engagements until I'm level 3. Then, my Hero ability will be powerful enough to give me the edge I need to get back into this game!" Unfortunately, there aren't too many ways to gain levels OTHER than directly fighting your opponent. As a result, you have to get your face pounded until you hit level 3 and, by that time, your opponent is even more ahead. I think we need more feeling of "alternative paths."