Thoughts on 12/6/2013
I thought everyone was super chill and friendly while I was hanging out in the test today! People I played with were fun too. Which is awesome!
Personal Progression:
Still haven't won a game, but I did feel like I made some progress! I got a bit more competent at controlling units and using abilities together in combat. Unfortunately I couldn't make as much progress as I would have liked, since what I picked in one game was often taken in the next. I plan to play some AI games to rectify that problem.
I also did find I had more of a grasp on the early game than before. I got a bit lost in my choices after the first couple gem waves though.
Build-wise upgrades continue to perplex me. Sometimes I get too many of them and end up behind in units the whole game. Sometimes I don't get enough and I can't kill anything. I am beginning to think staying on the unit side is safer though. Which is leading me to the following point: I'm not sure having all 4 upgrade slots available at the beginning has any purpose. I can see their use in the super late game as a way to spend money, but most of the game one or two seem to go unused. Having all four open did seem to encourage me, as a newbie, to try and fill them faster than I should. This might just be my inexperience talking though.
Feels:
Losing generally never feels great, which is a good thing since that motivates improvement. Unfortunately in almost all of my games my team lost the center and then it took about 8 minutes of frustrating helplessness for us to lose. It doesn't feel one-sided enough to recommend conceding, but it didn't feel like we could do anything to come back either. Generally I felt kind of bored during this part as a result. Of course, this could get better as I improve so I'll keep tabs on this myself and bring it up again if it still feels like this once I improve.
The largeness of the map made it feel hard to react to anything happening on the other side of the map. If a 3 on 2 fight started usually my team was dead by the time I could get there to do anything about it. After a while I'm not sure if I think this is a good thing or a bad thing yet. Need to play more.
I liked the way units synergize with the heroes! When I used the hero's abilities with the unit abilities it felt very powerful. It also felt really bad when I lost my hero! Where possible I started imitating this tactic when better players were doing it to me.
Interface:
I like most of the interface. Though the specific unit upgrades felt a bit disorganized. This isn't a catch all solution, but where applicable it might be better to have the upgrades line up above the unit they are attached to. Like this:
Zup Xup Cup
Zup Xup Cup
Z___X___C
Clearly this doesn't work in cases where a unit has 1 or 3 upgrades. So a better solution would be warranted if thought of! :D
Overall I had a good time! I'm looking forward to the test next week when a couple of my buddies might be able to join me and I can see what the party experience is like. Thanks guys! :D