Woe and despair

CryptoMakerCryptoMaker Member
in Feedback

About me
To be honest, I was quite hesitant about leaving this feedback, since I understand now that I'm not really in the target audience for Atlas. I don't like multiplayer RTS games—although I do enjoy watching professional SC2 and playing the single player campaigns. I also don't like MOBAs because I find them to be far too complicated for me. Games I enjoy are first-person shooters and twitchy arcade games. I have no interest in trying to figure out complex interactions in games, or design builds. Nonetheless, I feel like I wouldn't be doing my full duty as a tester (beyond just finding bugs) if I didn't make a post.

With that out of the way, here's my feedback. I'm trying to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, as requested.

Feedback
I played 7 PvP games on the first weekend, and 3 on the second weekend (at the time of this post). I played a bunch of bot games during the week, mostly muted while listening to audio books. Unfortunately I didn't think to take notes during my games, so I'm just recording some of my more vivid responses to events.

  • Event: I joined a match for the first time

    • The number of squads was completely overwhelming. I immediately felt despair due to the complexity of the game. I spent several minutes looking through the squads and trying to understand the abilities, and failing.
  • Event: I lost my first game against bots

    • I was confused, because I didn't understand what happened (I did watch the tutorial video). By this, I mean that I didn't understand how the enemy became so much more powerful. I had over 70 gems when I lost and had not spent any, because I felt too worried about wasting gems (they are a non-renewable resource!), and there were an overwhelming number of neutral weapons. If I wasn't a tester, I would have abandoned the game at this point because I knew it wasn't something I was interested in learning.
  • Event: My hero died because of poor positioning

    • I was angry at the pathfinding, since clicking my hero and telling them to move back had no effect—they simply ran into the "wall" created by my other units. I understood then that positioning is an important part of the game, which caused more despair—it's not something that I want to have to deal with.
  • Event: I won a game against bots

    • I felt hopeful, and thought that if I practiced a single squad enough, then I might be able to win PvP games. However, I know that this is not something that I would want to do if I was not a tester.
  • Event: I lost against a bunch of neutral weapons

    • This made me feel upset, because it feels like the "normal" army is completely useless... it felt like it is just a way to bootstrap your actual army of neutral weapons.
  • Event: An enemy team used several abilities at once, and killed my army

    • I felt despair again at the complexity of the game. This is the same reason I don't like playing or watching MOBAs: there are too many abilities, and I find the process of learning them to be a chore. Not fun.
  • Event: I killed an enemy hero using Vela's mark+ult snipe ability

    • This made me feel skillful, although the kill itself didn't feel particularly impactful.

Those were my most memorable moments playing the game. In general, playing Atlas makes me feel distressed and upset. Multiplayer SC2 makes me feel the same way; I've played about 3 games of multiplayer SC2 in bronze league. There were a few moments when I was playing against bots where I had fun. The current gameplay of Atlas would also not be something that I would be interested in watching on Twitch as a fan, since the large number of abilities and lack of "basic" units makes it too complicated for me.

I stopped playing PvP games on the second weekend because the game finally made me too upset and frustrated after three losses in a row. As I said, if I was a player, I would have stopped after one game a week ago, since I recognized immediately that the game is not for me.

That's an honest description of how I felt while playing. Although my reactions were mostly negative, please don't interpret this as a criticism of the game! I think that the game is great and the design is very intriguing, and I expect that it will be very successful as it continues to improve. It's just not the sort of game that I personally enjoy playing. I greatly appreciate all of the work that the Artillery team has done, and I am thankful that I could provide a small contribution by looking for bugs and generating data. I'm looking forward to seeing how the game evolves in the future! :)

Comments

  • Day9Day9 Member, Administrator

    I want to thank you for writing such an incredibly clear and excellent post. I'd go so far as to say that this is some of the best quality feedback we've ever received. You provided context for yourself, told us exactly what was happening in clear steps, and the precise internal reaction to the events. I would love to use this post as an example of how to give negative feedback in an extremely positive way. Would you mind? I'd happily remove your name if you'd like!

    Though I think Atlas might not be your game, you've pointed out a number of experiences that could have been improved for a player who doesn't normally play RTS. This will provide a great starting point for us to improve tutorials/new player experiences.

    Thanks so much for taking the time to write this :)

  • CryptoMakerCryptoMaker Member

    Thanks for the response, and sorry for the long delay. I'm glad that my feedback was useful! :) I don't mind if you use the post as an example, whether attributed or not.

    I really do hope that the game succeeds and that one day I'll enjoy watching some professional Atlas competition streams. :) I will try to keep explicit notes during future play tests to more fully document my experiences with the design questions.

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