My first impression with Atlas
Hey guys, first off, I just want to say thanks for putting in the time and energy into innovating the space. I'm really glad to see what all of the effort has created.
1) The Feelz
First and foremost - Atlas has all of the elements that I loved that drew me into SC2 and subsequent mobas that I've played. It feels like I'm going from ignorance to knowledge slightly less ignorance in an engaging, fun, and interesting way. I love the merged concepts from RTS and mobas that really create a fun and unique experience.
I feel like the choices I'm making matter and I'm still responsible for a large part of the outcome of the game. Within just a couple of games, I was able to feel like I was pretty aware of where we were in the game (ahead, behind, could finish the game, etc)
**2) Major Gameplay **
Pathing and Unit collision clunkyness
This was probably the most (and really only) truly frustrating element that I felt I was fighting the entire game. If self-driving cars have this kind of pathing - we're all going to die. I appreciated some argument that it's "brood war esqe" or "it takes time to learn", but just generally felt like I didn't want to learn or have to fight with the system. If I wasn't so damn excited to play and test, this would've been enough to turn me off to the game entirely. Teamfighting also made this much worse, when you have no control of teammates blocking you and no hope for an easily trapped unit - FeelsBadMan.
Gems
I really like the gem collection mechanic. It makes me feel like the battlefield is dynamic and you have to think about controlling space carefully. On the other hand, I generally felt like it was often all-or-nothing to where most of the time either we had an advantage, and could collect gems in the middle, or we couldn't contest them, and really had to be passive and lose out.
Snowballing
I generally felt like it was too easy to go from a little behind to screwed after the first few minutes, with the rest of the game playing out "as it should" rather than a real back and forth. I was still having fun playing and practicing, but generally I didn't feel like I had the tools to make comebacks happen - especially when it comes to gem related plays. (With that said, it's also entirely possible probable that I just suck at this game.)
Missing "status" of units, upgrades
I always felt like I didn't have anywhere to figure out (within the game) upgrades, unit damage info (auto attacks), Leading to questions like "how much health do I have?" "how much damage do I do?" "what upgrade am I on?" "what is this unit's range now?" I generally also found myself wondering which squads were magic damage or attack damage focused.
3) Gameplay Minor
"Stuck recalling" - It wasn't till someone told me you could cancel recall that I realized you could. My league reflexes were frantically having me try and right click and move to cancel, to no avail.
Misclicking B when you mean to spawn units sucks. (especially when combined with the issue above)
Global sounds - like a couple cannons attacking something all the way across the map can get confusing.
I found it difficult to place ion cannons since the range indicator was outside of the screen draw range (@1920x1080). When trying to see generally what areas are covered, it'd be nice to see it on the minimap. (Like a large league ultimate indicator)
4) UI Oddities / Client Errors / Misc
Friend requests that get accepted in client are overwritten if "ignore" is pressed later on the web. The friend then gets dropped from your list.
Reeeaaallyyy obscure: I had middleclicked the chat window when the game had loaded, and couldn't click the "Ready" button to accept the game with the other cursor. Had to refresh client to fix.
Middleclick scrolling
I know this is super early in the process to talk about observing tools, but this is really important when it comes to spectators enjoying the game. The way league does middleclick is really well done. It creates a smooth way to show lots of variable action in any direction.
Sometimes would get an "Atlas Runner is not responding" window just before loading ingame. I think this was related to alt-tabbing.
Thanks for reading this far! I hope the feedback was constructive and helpful. I can clarify, give screenshots, or replicate stuff wherever needed. Thanks again for making such an awesome game and I can't wait to see where you guys go with it from here!