Playtest 204: Gem Geysers, Part 2.
Treisk
Member, Administrator
in Patch Notes
Playtest 204: Gem Geysers pt 2
TL;DR - Polish and refinement of Scrap purchasing systems; Titan tuning; Balance; Frostcallers have Frostfall again!
BE ADVISED: Your hotkeys have likely been reset.
General Gameplay
- Tech Levels now take 60, 90, and 120 seconds to research, respectively.
- Items now take 60, 90, and 120 seconds to research, respectively.
- Squad upgrades now take 60, 90, and 120 seconds to research depending on their tech level requirement.
Gem Spigots Geysers
- Spawn timers for Gem Geysers are now displayed on the UI beneath the Resource panel!
- Juggernaut Aspects are now weaker and last less time early; and are stronger and last longer as the game progresses.
Neutral Titans
- Leashing behavior has been reworked
- If a Titan is being kited and a red "!" appears above its head, it is nearing the end of its leash range.
- Titans will return to their starting position before chasing a target again
- All ranged Titans now use the "Lay Mine" mechanic.
- Ranged Titan attacks have a chance to drop a targetable Mine on the ground. If the mine is attacked, it is deactivated. If a mine is not killed, it explodes, dealing heavy damage.
- All melee Titans now use the "Titan Smash" mechanic
- Melee Titan attacks have a chance to lock onto a target. After a brief delay, if the target does not move out of the attack's range, it takes devastating damage.
- The medium Titan camp at each inner expansion no longer has flying Titans.
Mercenaries
- Mercenaries now have individual unit caps, and you are no longer limited to 4 total!
- Mercenary factions have been renamed.
- TRIANGLE is now "Machinists"
- SQUARE is now "Tacticians"
- CIRCLE is now "Raiders"
- DIAMOND is now "Assault Corps"
- Juggernauts have defected to the Assault Corps
- Leviathans have defected to the Machinists
- Martyr
- Aura duration: 5 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds
- Motivator
- Damage bonus: 12% ⇒ 40%
- Recharge rate: 10 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds
- Phantom
- Magical Resist reduction: 35 ⇒ 99
- Recharge rate: 10 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds
- Chiller
- Movement Speed reduction: 30% ⇒ 50%
- Attack cooldown increase: 20% ⇒ 40%
- Recharge time: 10 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds
- Enhancer
- Movement Speed bonus: 5% ⇒ 15%
- Attack cooldown reduction: 30% ⇒ 50%
Squads
Eris
- Sandstinger
- Health: 100 ⇒ 85
- Attack damage: 19 ⇒ 28
Grath
- Terrapin Trooper
- Attack damage: 25 ⇒ 15
- Attack cooldown: 1.4 ⇒ 1
- Movement speed: 4.7 ⇒ 4.6
- Howling Commando
- Attack damage: 60 ⇒ 30
- Attack cooldown: 3 ⇒ 1.5
- Rustborn Rhino
- Attack damage: 140 ⇒ 60
- Attack cooldown: 3.5 ⇒ 1.5
- Movement speed: 4.7 ⇒ 4.6
Ryme
- Frostcaller
- Glacial Spike (E) has been removed from the Frostcaller.
- Frostfall (E) has returned to the Frostcaller once again!
- Damage per pulse: 20 ⇒ 30
- Slow: 75% ⇒ 25%
Items
- Default activation hotkeys: J, K, L, M, ,, . ⇒ Alt+Q, W, E, A, S, D
Audio
- We're still on the hunt for any major audio issues. Please report any you might find!
Questions
- What was your experience with the collection and spending of Scrap throughout the game?
- What was your experience with Gem Spigots Geysers?
- What was your experience like fighting over them?
- What was your experience with their deactivation/reactivation throughout the game?
- What are your thoughts on the Juggernaut Aspect reward mechanic?
- Did you have any standout positive or negative experiences with audio or find a bug?
Comments
Frequently forget to spend it, but that's probably a skill that will come. Still getting the hang of what I can do and what makes sense, and what each type of thing costs, especially with the different costs for each type of thing and each level of it.
I stink at micro/positioning and tend to lose them. Had a pretty noticeable influence on pace of game. Either fighting, or sitting back to prepare for jug attack.
I've tuned out a lot of UI, but the timers where there when I thought of it.
Early game a pair of players can take a tower down, but a juggernaut can't. Maybe the idea is that player+jug can do some damage at that point.
The squad picker started aggravating the whine in my power supply with the previous build, but I also did a graphics driver update and I don't think it's actually audio.
Got raided hard in first AI game today, and started tower spamming around my expansions. Stopped raiding, but It's not clear what that does to me in upgrade race.
I don't get how to play Grath yet, and do poorly when I play him.
Still losing track of my units in battles, especially when playing melee squads.
Didn't see it today because I wasn't using it, but in the last few builds it seemed like activating rabbit's foot would make my hero stop, and get left behind.
I tend to overfocus and lose track of the overall flow of the game, but that's probably me.
Scrap
Bursty?
(1.1) - I'm not sure what triggered it, but I was often surprised by massive jolts in scrap income (that were quite welcome), bigger than what I was used to with tower kills or whatever.
(1.2) - In general I liked the pacing of it compared to gold spending in the games I played. There are lots of factors that go into that, right? Engagement victories or defeats is an obvious one, but based on where we were playing, what was going on in the game at the time, and such, I felt like I didn't have the scrap for what I needed right at that moment, but was close enough that I could make decisions about how to get that scrap. That felt clean.
(1.3) - Spending it: I personally still like the upgrades, and the structure of the items. I feel like I've yet to reach a fully upgrade stack on the items so far, but I like that, it provides a longer-than-a-game experience, trying to figure out how to get to those full stacks.
Gem Engenderers
(2.1) - I'd been away when the gem originators were introduced, so this was my first exposure. It wasn't immediately obvious in-game what was supposed to happen. Could use some more cues (low priority, don't think it will really throw too many people).
(2.2) - There didn't really seem to be a whole lot of fighting going on over them today (limited number of games). I liked the zone plate mechanism more than the gem approach. In the current form of the game, though, I doubt the plate mechanism really works, especially with the limited economy. Yeesh, nobody would go for them in that case. [cringes]
Engagement/Reactivation
(3.1) - Didn't really come into play. I'm not sure what triggers it, whether on timers or whatever, but it didn't sync up with "game clock", so it was more a "hey, some gems to get" kind of thing.
Juggernauticus Aspectis
(4.1) - Seems cool enough, but would prefer if you instead got the old Ion Cannon, and the game switched to a first person shooter mode, so you could target things. Yeah, this.
Audio
(5.1) - The biggest thing that stood out was the new base under attack sounds, and I really liked these.
Additional Feedback
General Feel of Game
Narrative
(6.1) - In response to a general question on Discord about how the game is feeling now, broadly. While there is lots to discuss regarding that question in terms of gameplay, mechanics and matchups, one thing that I thought about for a bit is narrative feel. In earlier iterations of the game, I felt like the story that was told in a match was clear. Squad identity was a big thing, and the interactions being limited to the squads themselves made the conceptual (narrative) chunks more concise. Now, with all the various interactions from squads, mercs, items, and the map, I feel like the narrative structure of the game is less clear. This would be expected, in part from the increasing complexity of the game, but even just from the decreased familiarity with the current game. I don't think this is a problem, and the discussion is hand-wavy; but if y'all deemed it was, I bet there are lots of things you can do to strengthen these narrative structures. Step one: make Teemo t-shirts.
Bugs
Titan Agro
(7.1) - Replay: Gcdf8298c0a264fb79cfda7fc8254a073 replay
Apparent Bug: Aggro from titan doesn't seem to be working correctly, seems to get stuck at Metal Gear Solid mode, after aggro cleared. [x:27; y:57; t: ~5:30]
Unsolicited feedback: I don't like where gold is right now. Maybe it's because I'm still adjusting, but I feel like I have too much gold early game, and not enough gold late game, and I really REALLY dislike the feeling that I can't control my gold income - it's such a rare resource late game that I get starved out of games because I just can't replenish my army; objectively, I understand that it's fair, but it feels unfair - it feels like I'm losing games because I'm starved on a resource and I can't do anything about it. I almost only play Celesta at this point, so maybe this isn't true for every squad, but unit gold cost and supply cost are equal in my experience (wisps are 2g and 2 supply, 7g / 7 supply, etc.). Do we really need both resources?
I really like Mercs. I haven't tried them all out yet, but the two I've used (square and circle (I still haven't learned the names yet)) both seem to have unique roles that drastically change my win conditions. I still haven't really dove (dived? diven?) into them to see how strong each one is, and what the best ways to use them are, but from what I've seen, I like them a lot.
Was floating scrap a lot. Initially you can spend it on tech and your favored squad upgrades, but It's hard to just "build" items. You need to look at what your opponent built, read the tooltips for this build, and I have trouble identifying which is which even when I just want to get lvl2 of the one I already bought! Basically I can only buy items after my army was wiped, and when I get to buying items I float scrap like it's a biblical flood.
Since it's practically the only resource you can affect, the collection just feels like "what you do". There was rarely a decision point where I had to choose between getting scrap or XP (or scrap or kills). It's build your own scrap capability or reduce your enemies, all game.
It's good having something to focus on, particularly late game when both teams are in fatigue. It can lead to great teamfights initially, but then you have to sit around "zoning" while gems spawn for quite a bit. Doesn't feel like you won the spigot geyser from a big fight, but from territory control.
And there's nothing guaranteeing a fight over the geysers. I've seen people just trade (Blue gets middle, Red gets top) or not contest them (getting expos or raiding, just doing something else). But sometimes the fighting moves to that area and it feels like there's a reason.
I don't know what the pattern is, but I also don't often notice the "Active" text on the top left side explaining them. Maybe that box also has timers, but I never noticed? Usually I'll just look at the minimap for objectives and gems in the middle indicate a possible use for my army.
It's a little weak on the first geyser, but later in the game it's a way of forcing people to take towers and modify the map. I think the gem dominance is actually more valuable than the Juggernauts for controlling the middle though.
Audio was inconsistent, but that might have been my side. It would be nice if the game would switch audio devices when I change the default audio device for my system, I have to restart the client to switch audio devices right now.
Bugs: The ones I remember were both in G9cb95e16cfc7454b90bf4ddf2d35d9b6 .
Collection just sort of "happens", and I realized my issue with spending of scrap. In other games like Starcraft, the income is in smaller increments, as is your spending (relative to Atlas right now). Because I'll get big chunks of scrap when I'm otherwise paying attention to combat, I always just check back when I have a breather and realize "oh hey, I have a lot, I should spend some". As a result I tend to float scrap way higher than I should since I don't have a regular pace for spending.
About the same as last week - I generally have a good feeling for when the first wave will hit but otherwise, I just look toward the middle when I have a moment. It felt nice to coordinate with my top-lane ally and make the decisions as to whether we thought we had enough time to clear titans or needed to work the spigot/funnel/geyser.
I still don't like how the grey bar on the spigot blocks the gem counter at certain perspectives. Between this and deciding whether to have the gem counter show the accurate # under fog of war, or removing the counter altogether under fog of war, these two changes would make the gameplay experience smoother for me.
I don't know if it's because it's new but the "whoosh" sound that Scuttles make when they start rolling seems quite loud compared to everything else in-game.
Overall I have to say I like the new Frostball back on Ryme. It's not so slow that it's unbelievably punishing if you get caught (you still have a reasonable timeframe to react), yet it can work nicely to scare some army blobs with poor mobility.
I played Hydros for the first time in a long time yesterday with someone on voice comms and coordinating movement, flanking and intercepting for @ZeldasCreed was incredibly satisfying. It's the support role I so badly want to play - to screw up movement for the opponent with my units and let my ally fire away without feeling afraid of the terrain.
In general, I mentioned this in Discord but in previous weeks when I got ahead/behind, it felt like an inevitable continuation in that direction for my team. In these past two tests, the games have felt a bit closer and when my team got ahead, I felt like I needed to stay on my toes to NOT lose that lead. Maybe that's just me being nervous...
Oh, and the new ward hotkeys are hard to use. :/
This week I sat down and worked out a defined strategy before the playtest:
* Hydros with Raider mercs.
* A small number of scuttleguards, then backing them up with Motivators and eventually Hornets (a comp essentially focused on not body blocking myself).
* I focused on the Blitz Orb, Soulshard, and Steal Bangle items, and got the Chilling Claw Upgrade.
Because I had a clear plan I found it pretty easy to make a quick pit stops at my base to spend my scrap, queue up new units, and rally built units. This meant that I did not experience the build-up of scrap that other people are mentioning. I did not particularly perceive where my scrap was coming from. At this point clearing camps and building expansions is just sort of a habit.
When harvesting Gem Geysers, I felt that my primary motivation was the Jug aspect, which in the early game can be used to knock down my opponents expansions and perhaps also nab a very early reward tower. The early juggernaut aspects aren't that powerful, but the damage the early gem lead they can give you is significant. I do like aspects as tools for progressing and eventually finishing the game because it makes victories feel like the product of winning skirmishes on more-or-less equal footing in a neutral area.
With the jug aspect I also felt a lot more comfortable/motivated push when my army wasn't at full strength and potentially to split up my army, because a) the jug is on a timer and I need to push NOW, and b) the jug is an expendable shield against tower damage and when my opponents counterattack I can always pull the rest of my forces back and make them choose between chasing or cleaning up the juggernaut.
Additional Notes:
* Pressing Alt for items abilities is really awkward, and not something I can do in the middle of combat. I guess I will have to do the unthinkable and ACTUALLY CLICK THE BUTTON : O
* I think a lot of the difficulty I have navigating the item system is the gestalt bonuses of each item. It is annoying to keep track of which one is attack damage & magic resist vs attack damage & physical resist, etc... It would be a lot simpler if each boosted one attribute, and then later a more specific quality like regen or tenacity and eventually activated abilities.
* I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but "save" abilities like Hydros and Grath's D abilities cause me to trip up frequently. Sometimes I need to urgently heal an injured unit, but my D has a few tenths of a second before it is ready. I click a moment to soon, and since the ability isn't off cooldown, I end up individually selecting the unit. So I've lost selection of my hero, and in the time it takes to reselect them and cast the D, the unit usually dies. It would be nice if left clicking a unit while D is held down (but on cooldown) did not cause you to select the unit.
I've done this. So. Many. Times. I've gotten pretty fast at hitting F1 then D again, but like you said, it's not always in time to save the unit.
Aw man, these last versions look so fun and my internet at home is broken.