Day[9] AMA #1 Video! Post Questions for #2!
Day9
Member, Administrator
Here is the AMA to the FIRST thread!
(video removed)
Please post any questions you have about Atlas past/present/future! I'll be recording this second AMA on Dec 16th (after the Dec 13th playtest). I recommend playing both the Gameplay & Art maps this Sunday for fodder!
Woot!
Comments
Do you have any plans for XP to be spendable in some way (Like spending levels on unit/abilities)?
(Despite it's importance, I forget about XP a lot as a resource due to requiring only passive interaction)
Do you find that you lean more on Top Down design or Bottom Up when making squads?
I love the feeling of getting out a clutch Immortal against an early Roach push in Starcraft, or of seeing a heavy AD team in League of Legends and building armor even if you're not playing a typically tanky champion.
Atlas seems to be lacking in these kinds of decisions. You can specialize in physical or magic damage and armor, but it at least doesn't feel nearly as impactful. Do you have any plans or ideas (and can you share them) to increase the build depth and allow you to have those "Aha! I made the right decision!!" moments?
Edit: Unrelated second question:
Do you have any plans for a Linux client?
I'm running out of reasons to keep Windows installed, and the sooner I can get rid of it the happier I'll be.
Re "most broken": The most broken thing I remember testing was the build that had stacking heal auras and summonable heal cubes.
heals on heals on heals on heals on heals.
Wow, I think you hit one of the major adding "depth" nails on the head! I 100% agree. Really awesome question
My questions for part 2 are regarding team sizes. In team games there's often a situation where you have to design your units and their abilities considering the amount of firepower available in certain situations. For example healing spells, where you have a situation in which if say 3 people focus one target, and there's one player with a healing ability, if that person's healing can withstand the damage of those 3, then in a 2v2 scenario that healing ability would render the target unkillable, but if it can't then it can feel that the healer's ability is useless (no matter what I do I can't keep our X alive). A common answer to these concerns is to regulate the damage/healing output via crowd control abilities and can be tricky to balance.
What is the plan for this kind of situation, where numeric advantage gets compounded by having potentially dozens of units under each player's control creating an unstoppable deathball? Like maybe a supply cap for neutrals. Or maybe tuning the amount of units in a squad to make smaller armies. How set is the team size of 3?
Also related to team sizes: One common complaint in many team games is that some players might be 'dragging the rest of the team down'. Since it can be sometimes hard to successfully cooperate even with your friends to win a game, let alone strangers, it can be frustrating to various degrees to deal with an incompetent teammate, and also to be the incompetent teammate. This frustration can be offset to some degree by the ability of a subset of the players to 'carry' the rest to victory. In team games with low carrying potential it can feel futile to compete with even slightly unfavorable conditions, as winning would pretty much require a big blunder from the team with the advantage. Team games with high carrying potential also have their issues with a lot of pressure put on a particular position/class/squad/etc. not to mention that if a combo can win at a numerical disadvantage or having fed a bunch of resources, it's very fearsome what they can do when operating optimally.
What is the plan for Atlas with regards to the fundamental balance (not to be confused with balance tuning) of the team dynamics and individual contribution (or lack thereof). Will the game be so to speak 'soloq-friendly' or designed assuming one has a functioning complete team? Both approaches have their ups and downs, I'm curious to learn what side do you guys lean on.
So obviously Atlas has a native client now and I remember you talking about the reasons for it in a show some time back, but out of curiosity what's going on with the browser-based aspect of the game? Is that not going to be supported anymore, or is it something that adds more potential problems aside from gameplay so it's mostly a low priority at this point?
Here's the blog post about the switch from the browser to the native client:
http://blog.artillery.com/2015/09/artillery-native-game-client.html
Are there plans to expand on the characterization of the heroes and world of Atlas in the future? Personally I love to learn the background stories and personalities of all my favorite characters in games.
Cast a game of skilled Atlas players? The tutorial was good, but maybe a day 9 daily, or just a cast of a good game I think could help a lot.
N/A.
Are there plans for upgrades that influence the way units play? For example, the way Blink in Starcraft impacts what can be done with Stalkers, like turning them from a standard part of the player's army to a possible harassment tool and opening more micro potential. Upgrades in their current, passive state feel dull to me since I don't notice a difference before and after most of the time.
Are there any plans to edge players into being competitive, such as clans or groups that have rankings, or automated tournament?
We've often submitted feedback and been told "we know about issue X, we're working on it" which is awesome! Is there a rough "top 3" or "top 5" you can give us of the team's priorities for the game where it stands now?
Heyo!
So I watched the video, and one part of this video stuck out, building up a community. One thing that does that really well is lore, a campaign, storytelling, etc etc. I have seen the "Earth, Fire, Water, Air (or metal?)" theme behind the heroes we can choose, which to me seems like something that could have "a background". I know it is early, but do you Artillerites have any specific thoughts or plans moving forward to build up a background for this game?
Heyooo! Have you considered making squads / units that are not necessarily practical but are flashy and fun to play with / watch? Kind of like the nuclear missile from SC2!
would you guys add a post game lobby like in League of Legends where you can chat with your teammates and enemies about the game you just played?
How high of a priority is the collision/pathfinding development right now? It bothers me
Does everybody in the office eat lunch before the alpha tests? I hope you all have full bellies before attempting such a feat.
Did the played percentages of the heros have any noticeable change from last week to this week?
How has the discussion regarding 'turn rates' gone over the development of Atlas? It's often brought up when comparing LoL and Dota 2 for example (with LoL having instant/twitchy/responsive turns and Dota 2 having different rates of turning per hero)
Could you go over some of the core design philosophy behind each of the squads? Is there any specific relations between squads of the same color? ( other than the aesthetic) Was there any specific squads that were used in unexpected ways?
Do you #BELIEVEINSTEVE? On a more serious note: Do you have any idea of a strategy/timeframe for when a full alpha/beta/full game would come out? I know this is difficult to say usually but a very general estimate maybe?
what do you think about associating neutral weapons with tech tiers, instead of being able to buy any of them as soon as you have the gems for it?
1) Were there any cool things you saw players doing that you didn't expect or anticipate during the playtest? If so, what were those things?
2) What's your biggest concern with the game at the moment? What are you most proud of?
3) One of the things I've heard you mention a lot is that you want to add more diversity / depth to the game. What plans do you currently have to add more diversity / depth?
4) Of the three primary resources (XP, Gems, Gold) which do you think was the most important factor in deciding who would win a game and why? Any statistics on this?
5) Do you think the Gameplay Map or the Art Map made for more interesting games? What kinds of changes are you looking to make for either map based on the games?
Hi Day[9], Zerg player from SC2 checking in.
I'm wondering how you feel about the current state of macro/economy construction in Atlas. When I was playing yesterday, I often felt that by far the most important economic strategy was to expand to a gem base, whereas expansions into additional gold bases didn't really feel impactful at all. Perhaps this is due to the slow rate of gold collection and the need for hundreds of gold to get high-impact units, rather than only ~40 gems for a high-impact neutral unit. Thoughts?
What is the process for designing maps? How were the arted/gameplay maps designed?
How do you plan to make the end game more diverse? It feels right now that the gameplay of late game doesn't change much across games.
I recently finished watching your play through of the Legacy of the Void campaign and after you beat it, epilogue not included, you spoke about how a singular player RTS campaign is one of the most enjoyable and unique feelings in games. I'm sure to some extent many of the early Atlas players, including myself feel the same way. Would a single player campaign ever be something you would consider adding to Atlas, even if it wouldn't be until long after the initial launch of the game?
After playing PVP on both maps, I found that the art map swings very heavily into one team's favour more readily than the gameplay map. Between that and other bits of information I've picked up, I have to ask:
Is the art map sitting on old ideas for overall gameplay? Are things like control zones and rotating gem spawns ideas you like for your "one map, one mode", or have they been iterated past?
First of all, I'm glad you have a strongly against stance on shared unit control and want the focus to be entirely team based gameplay.
I grew up playing Starcraft and wc3 DotA on a LAN (so atlas is a dream come true!) and while I love the depth and intensity of SC in past years I found myself leaning towards the moba genre. One of the things that I feel was key to this was a player's identity on a team. For example when playing DotA or LoL with 5 friends generally (at least for me) we had one guy who played each position. This is separate from hero/champion/squad selection and allows multiple options to get the job done. Something like "I am the support player. It is my job to protect our carry and scout for the team. Without me we will have a weak early game and our carry will fall behind theirs." This is one of those features for me that really influences whether or not a game is a "I will play this for 500+ hours" game, because it really allows you to master one role, while still having other positions to learn, and REALLY adds to the experience of playing with your friends over and over.
I feel Atlas is missing this sort of distinction between players on a team, but that might be because I am a little inexperienced with the game. Celesta is a good example of a squad that does this well though. Whenever I had a Celesta on my team I wanted to follow her around and protect her so she could get her purifiers set up and start the siege. Alder was a good combo with his abilities to root units from getting to close, heal the purifiers, and set up temporary turrets when they got attacked. This Celesta+Alder interaction was one of my favorite parts of play testing.
So my question, in short, would be how do you want Atlas to distinguish between players on the same team? Is there a Quarterback Lineman Wide receiver setup intended? Or is it aiming for 3 equal identical parts of the same machine? And what are your plans/ideas for implementing these 'roles'?