Vision
I'm making two specific feedback threads for a few things that stood out for me personally while playing. As the thread title says, I'll be talking about vision and vision control. In the other thread I will be talking about harassment (economy and unit) and the pathing of units.
Vision
I really like when a game provides tools to control vision without handing it out for free. For example in Broodwar there were multiple ways to gain vision that rewarded the player. Positioning overlords or observers in key spots, knowing when to use scan or putting a cheap unit like a zergling in an area to spot the enemy. Those types of vision control are what I like, letting the player use the tools available to gain vision (and thus information) as well as deny it.
An example of vision that I dislike is in Starcraft 2 there are watch towers. Putting any unit next to a tower provides vision in the area around it. I really disliked this mechanic because it was giving vision in a large area for basically free. Fighting over the tower for vision provided a place to fight yes, but it was a cheap way to gain vision in my opinion. The counter-play to a watch tower is just holding it yourself. The vision granted was also a huge amount and depending on the map would give you a ton of information for essentially free.
With that said, how do I feel about vision in Atlas? I think that currently there is too much free vision. This mainly comes in two forms, one being passive vision granted by buildings and the other being vision wards.
The building vision, I think, is mostly due to pre-built structures on the map. This isn't a bad thing but I do think the vision they provide needs to be less. I feel like at the start of the game I can see too much of the map. The easy solution is lowering the vision structures provide but it could also just be an issue of the current maps design. If all the structures were brought closer to the main base there would be more open space that the player doesn't have vision of. To really know whether vision needs to lowered on structures I'd have to play on a different map designed to be less spaced out. But as is on the current map it feels like structures, specifically the pre-built ones, grant too much vision.
Wards. Wards are a great tool for providing vision as long as they are done properly. For example, in Dota, wards provide a fairly large vision radius but they have multiple downsides. They are on a timer, need to be bought at a shop and have a cooldown at said shop and can be killed by true-sight usually in the form of a different type of ward, sentry wards. That design, in my opinion, is great for vision control. It requires a player to be active and weigh the risk of buying/placing the ward to gain information for the team.
The vision ward in Atlas, at the moment, is very lame to be blunt. It provides a huge radius of vision for a relatively cheap cost of two gems and has no cool-down or limit on how many can be placed (that I'm aware of). Vision is information and currently in Atlas you're basically handed information for free by placing one or two wards. I can't say whether other players used this tool often but as someone that plays competitively and highly values vision I can safely say the wards are too much. I don't know the exact solution but I can say for certain they need to be toned way down.
Comments
I think I'd describe the vision system as "the simplest possible implementation of vision possible." I'm honestly very surprised that it's as fun as it is. I think there are a bunch of things we can do to improve this (and want to do)
I do like being able to put my wards in the brush and having them still work. It makes it a bit of a hunt for the other guy to smoke it out. You mentioned Dota's wards, and part of the fun of those is finding out that the other team has a ward in a certain area by their behavior, and having to seek it out and destroy it. I don't know if invisibility/detection is something you're looking to implement in Atlas in the future, but it seems to work for wards.