Treia's Feedback

Treia

General:
1. I mostly enjoyed the 3v3 format. I feel moving towards a team format will be an attractive change for a traditionally 1v1 genre.
2. I feel Atlas could go even further to enhance the sense of team play and dependency on one’s allies. Right now, each player is doing the same sorts of activities around the map, just together instead of alone.
3. I greatly enjoyed the increased interaction with my opponents throughout the game compared to other RTS titles - and that losing a single battle did not mean losing the game.
4. I liked that each of the squads approached battles differently, but I was disappointed that there was not a greater difference in the way each squad or type of squad approached the map.
5. I felt the game would have been more interesting if squads went further to differentiate themselves; emphasizing resource gathering, towers, neutral weapons, gems, or combat.
6. The method to winning the game was basically the same for each squad, which made games begin to feel the same after playing for a few days - even when pvp was enabled.

Game Mechanics:
1. The flow of the early game feels arbitrary. Every game began the same way; expand, two gem phases, then clear Titans to expand again. The gem phases in general felt arbitrary - as if player interaction were scripted and not organic.
2. I loved the fast respawn timer for Hero units.
3. I generally enjoyed the army construction and unit respawn systems in Atlas. I appreciated the permanent value purchasing each unit or upgrade provided.
4. It was frustrating when part of my army was dead. I did not feel I could make effective plays around the map if more than a few units had been killed.
5. It was tedious deploying units every time a single one revived. Strategically, I found deploying right away to be more optimal than waiting for the entire army to be ready.

Allies:
1. It was extremely frustrating when my units were trapped behind my allies’ armies. I found myself frequently wrestling for position with my ally in tight corridors.
2. It was a starkly negative experience when an ally immediately took both expansion nodes when we both cleared the Titans from a base. I found it odd that income was not shared across the team. I worry that feeding a carry will become the right way to play - which I do not enjoy in other games.

Strategy:
1. I appreciated the opportunity to conduct multi-pronged attacks and harassment with Neutral Weapons.
2. Attacking enemy side expansions and side towers felt mostly pointless. Games were won by focusing on the middle lanes to the Nexus and the double yield expansions.
3. I was disappointed that I could not place my own towers in enemy territory once I had removed their towers. I feel this would have added more depth to taking and holding ground, which would have made the map feel more dynamic.

Squads:
1. Overall, I had fun with each squad. Squads abilities and combat roles made sense, with few exceptions.
2. Hex’s playstyle did not feel synergistic to me - particularly when considering percentage upgrades.
a. The mixture of auto attackers and spellcasters made engagements feel awkward. I was torn between staying in combat to allow my auto attackers to charge up their attacks, and trying to stave off hard engagements to optimize my damage over time abilities.
b. This conflict could have been ameliorated by unit specific upgrades that heightened one playstyle or the other.
c. I also felt less effective with Hex relative to other squads - though I did enjoy the majority of his kit.
3. I appreciated the strategic depth possible with abilities like Galvanize - healing, protecting units, eating tower shots, and more. Conversely, the heal on Hydros felt far less dynamic.

Upgrades:
1. I found the percentage upgrades to be boring. Improving my army in a way that does not change their functionality was less interesting to me than the unit specific upgrades which did change functionality.
2. I greatly enjoyed the unit specific upgrades. I liked specializing my army the way I wanted to play. For example, with Ryme I prioritized Frostfall radius and cast range. I would enjoy even more of these types of upgrades to heighten the sense of ownership I had over my own playstyle vs another player’s.
3. Adding new buttons to existing units, like the Rhino, through upgrades was awesome. I loved researching upgrades that changed how I used units.

Collision:
1. I had a poor experience when unit models were smaller than hitboxes. I expected collision radii to match or be smaller than unit art. Pathing bulky melee units, particularly when hitboxes were larger than the models, was immensely frustrating.

UI:
1. Removing the necessity to tab through subgroups to reach abilities is an amazing quality of life improvement.
2. I appreciated sound queues for important events. They were clear and not obtrusive.
3. The size and placement of health bars was frustrating. It was difficult to see how much health units had, especially starting out. I appreciated the attack cooldown indicator on units, but I felt it obscured the health bars even further - particularly on smaller units and units with fast attacks.
4. My unit selections were not immediately obvious. Seeing the completed circle around the top of the units I had selected felt more difficult than it needed to be.
5. It was frustrating losing my control grouping on the upgrade buildings each time I upgraded. I eventually resorted to going back to base whenever I wanted to choose a new upgrade, which was not ideal.
6. I did not feel the percentage upgrades read well on the battlefield. I was able to look at each of my opponents’ bases to see which upgrades they had selected, but that did not feel practical. I would have appreciated more “at a glance” information on how my opponents were upgrading their armies.
7. I was glad that the Atlas unit information was available out of game, but with such an emphasis on percentage upgrades, I missed having that information available in-game.
8. Ability cooldowns were difficult to see at a glance because the icons were small.
9. The announcement banner on the top of the screen obscured large parts of the battlefield, sometimes during a battle.
10. I had to reread unit specific upgrades multiple times to make sure I was getting the right one. I did not feel there was a strong organization scheme. They were organized by tiers but not by unit.