Battles, Abilities, and Unit Control [TW3 Megathread]

EricEric Member, Administrator

How do battles feel? Battle pacing, battle micro, abilities, mercenaries, upgrades, items, etc.

When providing feedback, please use the following format:

  • X happened
  • It made me feel Y (or I’d like to feel Y)
  • (optional) Here’s a suggestion to improve it

Comments

  • SawyerSawyer Member
    edited April 15

    this post is from my first games. The post after comes with a bit more understanding.

    I've played about 5 games so far. I still don't have a firm grasp of this game yet. That being said, I took some notes from a newbies perspective.

    The plant guys seemed unique, but felt underwhelming. I feel like they're strong, perhaps I just played them incorrectly. I felt that getting the right setup in battles took too much effort and wasn't that rewarding for going through the process. It felt like a lot of work.

    Next I played the assassin guy I think. I felt his units were too weak, or that they didn't do enough damage for how weak they were. Perhaps I didn't play in the most efficient way, but my units felt irrelevant in most fights. I did like the Deadeyes. If you got some tanky units in front they might be decent, but for the most part I felt this race or w/e needs to either have more hp, or do more damage. I did also encounter a problem with raptors. I'm not sure if this was a bug or something else that happened in the game, but when I spawned too many raptors, they started to take damage or die when I pressed "V". It was almost like the spawn area had become full and some were either cancelled or died to make room for others.

    I talked about this in one of the other threads regarding pathing or unit collision, but a lot of the time units will get stuck. Other times units will act like they are fully surrounded with only a partial surround. I've stopped shift clicking all together because I know they get will stuck at some point.

    The water guys seem strong and one of my favorite people to play at the moment. They seem relatively tanky and a more new player friendly squad. They have the highest health of a tier 1 in the game at 275. They were the only squad that I had a sense of attachment to because they did not die in 2 seconds. This allowed me to develop a connection with my units on an individual level where I actually cared about their fate. I did my best to keep every unit alive with Hydros healing spell, and for the most part it worked. I did not really incorporate quadrapus into my unit mix, but I did use aquadillo. I really enjoyed playing aquadillo. The cannonball spell was a lot of fun, and combined with Hydros healing spell, they were practically unstoppable. I think this is the most noob friendly squad.

    Chaos felt pretty underwhelming. I think I played them wrong, but I ran into an issue again where it felt like the units were to expensive for what they had to offer beyond tier 2. They were too squishy or lacking something.
    I liked sandstingers a lot, but if a couple of them start to die your advantage goes out the window as your dps drops off.

    The earth/mech guy whatever it was was the first race I played and they were enjoyable. I locked using the rock spell because if you had one unit the enemy focused, it was good for messing them up.

    Felt like units in general didn't do enough damage.

    This has been an analysis of a noob that's played like 5 or 6 games tops.

  • SawyerSawyer Member
    edited April 15

    10 games later - not so newbie.

    I think I'm starting to understand the plant guys a lot more. I just played a game where my bot friends were getting their butts kicked, and thanks to me playing the plant guys we won. I ended up just using mass saplings to outlast my opponents until they ran out of stock, then I attacked and won.

    I think in general I'm starting to understand the concept of this game a little bit more. When I first started I was more or less just throwing units at each other to see what would happen. Now i understand most squads aren't designed to be played the same way.

    Something I would like to see more of are choke points, high ground, and possibly slightly larger aoe on some of the spells. I think some squads could benefit from taking advantageous positioning, but from my experience, it tends to be flat, open ground for the most part that is easily maneuverable.

  • HazardHazard Member

    @Sawyer said:
    this post is from my first games. The post after comes with a bit more understanding.
    Next I played the assassin guy I think. I felt his units were too weak, or that they didn't do enough damage for how weak they were.

    Fun tip: If you use Vela's Fair warning on some enemies and "Mark Them" Snipe will pretty much insta kill them.

  • SawyerSawyer Member
    edited April 15

    @Hazard said:

    Yeah I tried this and its strong and all, but I feel like if you go head to head with anyone you're going to lose most of the time because your units have like no health. Sure you snipe like 3-4 units, but when you units die in 2-3 hits it seems like you have to have an advanced knowledge of the game to fully structure your army in a battle and maneuver them in a way where they are at the fringes of the battle picking units off and then retreating. That's my impression anyway after playing them only 3 times.

    I do like the tier 2 units for sniping the enemies main squad leader guy though. Always feels satisfying bursting the enemies squad leader down quickly.

    Also, the raptors remind of of hydralisks.

  • Unlocking the ultimate ability of any hero didn't feel like a rewarding experience. In MOBAs like League of Legends and Dota 2, managing to get your ultimate ability first by somehow getting more experience than your laning opponent rewards you with more kill potential and ultimately "winning the lane". Since Atlas is an RTS, I feel like unlocking the ultimate ability could become a more rewarding experience. Maybe not like in the MOBAs previously mentioned, but perhaps something that could make a significant impact somewhere on the map.

  • BeanYakBeanYak Member

    Initial impressions after about 5 games against bots:

    • Items don't feel very rewarding. Although it might be a strange thought, the delayed reward of having to wait for the items to finish building doesn't feel as exciting as getting the item as soon as I buy it. In other MOBAs, it felt good to finally be able to afford the item that you needed so much, but to have to wait for it even after you buy it is a bit of a buzzkill.
    • There's maybe a bit too much synergy going on with the squads. My best example is Grath, where everything feels like it's focused on Crowd Control and defense. It's not so bad in a MOBA, but since I have my own army, I still kind of want to feel like my own army can be self supporting, where I don't need a teammate's units to fill in the gaps of my army. I guess the only thing in the squad that makes up for it is the rhino's devour. Also, I understand that mercenaries are meant to fill in gaps, and they do help the issue to some degree, but it still feels odd, especially in the early stages.
    • Although the game has heavy MOBA elements, it doesn't feel reasonable to split your army, and this hurts the RTS feel of the game. I don't really know how this could be helped given the way that the objectives are laid out and all, but there's not so much multitasking oppurtunity, and your army just kind of exists as a cohesive blob.
  • How do battles feel? Battle pacing, battle micro, abilities, mercenaries, upgrades, items, etc.

    The battle pacing is right on for most rts games, with a slow start but speeds up later on as the game progresses. Battle micro feels alot like starcrafts. It almost makes you feel like your stutter stepping marines against zealots. Wisps stutter stepping a scuttle guard feels amazing. As for abilities i feel like they are great and all but the lv eight abilities of the heroes might be a bit too over powered. It decides battles far too quickly on some occasions as you would wipe out an entire army with a well placed cleansing light.

  • I'm feeling like charms could maybe use a little rework. And I kick myself saying that cuz I'm still nailing down my build order and the micro for some squads etc etc, so adding a new aspect might only put me further back, but they feel a little too "set and forget" to me. Which again, right now is lovely because it's one less thing I really have to think about, after I can get all my squad units, anytime I have the correct amount of scrap, just fill in the squad's gaps with charms (Vela's units are not very durable, buy shielding/healing charms) and that's all.

    Again, I don't necessarily know if this a bad thing, but it feels like everytime I buy a new charm I'm just waiting to hit a button and then I'm done interacting with that aspect of the game until there's more scrap and I hit another button, which leaves me feeling somewhat unsatisfied.

  • What's up guys? I've played 8 games as Alder, Lord of Vines and I really love the design of his squad. Here's my feedback:
    I feel like Alder is all about smart set-up of fights. He wants to control where the fight is happening to get the right mix of saplings/supersaplings ready. He shines when he can force the enemy to fight on his terms.

    Living Vines:
    I feel that his Living Vines ability is tough to coordinate well when I'm rocking the plant drops. I think I would feel better about his Living Vines ability if it didn't have to originate from him. As I'm getting into the rhythm of dropping plants and altering them, while Alder is auto-attacking, I feel distracted by caring about where my Hero is for just this one ability. As the fourth level of upgrade adjusts the length, I'd feel better if I had double width instead... Alder is not a great chasing or kiting Hero so the double-length feels like it hits mostly empty ground past the front lines.

    Deeproot Terror
    This is fun! And Recycling it to a Goliath is great. I feel like I occasionally forget to save a sapling to cast it on, and in those moments I wish I could target a supersapling to transform it as well.

    Towers
    I like towers in RTS games and in Atlas really feel good about building expansion bases with my Hero. I feel that I wanted towers to watch lanes while I creep camp but I couldn't decide on the type of tower, or where to place it. I felt like the mix of towers is important, but also that the diversity of units from a three player team is too tough to anticipate. What if improving lanes with towers was also performed by the Hero - then I could snag them as I head out to kill stuff, using the gray tiles that scream "something is built here"?

    Thanks for the beta invite! I've been having fun. Let me know if I can clarify anything in my post or improve my feedback. Cheers!

  • PandapowniumPandapownium Member
    edited April 16

    Mercenaries! Great idea having some middle ground between squads. I have a few ideas that I think might work to make the mercenaries more fun and interesting.

    Things to consider

    1. Mercs don't feel super special. They are there, they are just extra units you have because you clicked them at the beginning of the game.
    2. A lot of the mercs feel like they are only good when you have your big squad and they are the salt and pepper on top of your mashed potato squad.
    3. Would this game really be missing something without these mercs? Yes... but several aspects wouldn't change.

    My purposed Changes

    1. Total merc revamp. Please hear me out on these ideas. Mercs are supposed to show your play style of how you are wanting to play your game. However, on a loading screen you don't really know what role you will need to take on.
    2. My idea for the revamp is to intertwine the upgrades and mercs. Right now upgrades don't really feel that special until about level 3. If you made it so that when you chose a specific charm you also unlocked a merc related to that charm then it would feel like you worked towards getting that merc. This would lead to some dialog like "Oh don't worry team, I have level three (mercenary)" and them being like "Oh my god yes!!"
    3. Also, I think mercenaries should be purchasable by using scrap instead of supply. They are mercenaries, they need to get paid by definition :P This would lead to a demand in scrap which would lead to aggressive expansions and a focus on more than just killing their healing fountain.
    4. Obviously the implementations of this would be harder than typing this out, but I think that this is a great solution to the problem we have with mercenaries. Let me know what you think! :D

    Edit: Changed relic to charm

  • ShadowShadow Member

    So having played a good number of games with most of the heros (i have no idea why but i have this innate feeling of not wanting to play vex and grath... not really explainable but something about them just doesn't have me motivated to play them the same as the others, similar to hydros but i did end up playing a few with him) so just wanted to give some of my thoughts and feelings on them:

    Alder: Tree man feels fun to play and i very much like the interaction between his units and i also think its great how he's one of the few characters where i didn't feel there was an obvious itemization for him. Very synergistic and felt really good, alot of fun.

    Eris: On the topic of synergistic feeling teams eris's feels so close but not quite. I like her alot and definatly get her 2 themes of high damage and getting in and out quickly due to being squishy. And her tier 1 and tier 2 units do this great (albeit there is one bit of confusion that i'll get to later) but her tier 3 feels like it belongs in a different group because while it does do high damage in a burst, it's not mobile and also the high damage doesn't feel worth it. Wanting to give it a fair go i tried doing a build of items focusing on the tier 3 (shares basically nothing with what the tier 1 and tier 2 unit build would have) and even so the ability would hit squishy heros to about 3/4 health, kill most tier 1 units or squishy tier 2s but just didn't have a "BANG" feeling to it. Just 2 ideas that I think might fix the issue i have with her tier 3: limit there to being 1 of them and give his ability a larger radius (focus on the bang feeling understanding that its not going to be a get in and out again style unit) or give it a smilarly blinky style effect and an ability to drop a sticky explosive (giving it the mobility its lacking, keeping the AOE but adding a larger risk to the playstyle). Finally following up on my comment about her tier 2, i think it's odd how he buffs everyone while vela's tier 3 only buffs her squad units in terms of consistancy.

    With that note Vela: Feels great once you get used to the fact you're a sniper, feels less great when you also realize you can casually blow up buildings from outside their range from critting an immobile building. I like the sniper concept, I always place more wards as vela and pay attention to them more because a sniper must be aware of their surroundings and i thinks thats great. But the tower slaying feels weird and not in line with the snipering.

    Ryme: Control mage feels great and controlly but mechanically he tier 3 feels weird, reading what it does i love the idea but when you're playing him it doesn't feel the same.

    Celeste: Favorite character when i started out and totally felt good, but then got better with playing other characters and just didn't feel incentive to return to playing her. Her cheap army massing isn't as effective as eris, her range game isn't as good as vela (yes she can also barrage from out of tower range but vela has a way to escape afterwards). I feel like she's really good with seigeing down a lane, however she doesn't have a way of tanking to provide a threat of her own so she needs someone tanky to help her, at which point why not play someone who can do a different aspect of the game pretty well on her own. Very simple to play though which is very nice for starting out and the purifiers as siege tanks feel great. Also her tier 3 unit, until i've been blinded in a game i will probobly not appreciate how powerful or lacking it is but atm when it is used it feels fairly lacking.

    Hydros: As i said didn't play alot of him but he feels like the quintessential tank, that said i liked the amount of ability juggling he involved and keeping all your units alive forever with him feels great and i've heard alot of people saying how great he is but he just left me feeling like while i was there and not dying, i also wasn't doing particularly much of anything.

    Hopefully this was of some use to y'all, Overall I'm having a blast and think the game feels amazing and very rewarding to put time and energy into.

    Quickly touching on mercenaries, I feel like they're often forgotten and only start to be used more for minor build optomizations rather than being an integral part of the game. I feel like they're great for experimenting with and there are certainly some that work in certain builds but at no point did I feel incentivised to begin experimenting with them besides personal drive to try and figure out if they could be used to make builds better.

  • Still feel lost in big battles. I have trouble tracking my units as well as ally/enemy balance.

    Most battles have a pretty good pacing, perhaps just a tad fast. There is time to get some abilities off and position a bit, but a big clash can turn pretty quick.

    I sometime miss titan bombs because they appear outside of where I'm focusing. A projectile effect from the titan tot he bomb would be nice to draw attention to it.

  • I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure that if you specifically target air units while controlling units that cannot attack air, they will just hug around the air unit and not do anything. I feel like this just makes for unnecessarily difficult control when wanting to focus air (since you need to make sure you don't select any ground only units before doing it.

    I think the units that can't attack air should treat targeting of an air unit just like an a-move.

  • Reactor_MonkReactor_Monk Member
    edited April 19

    @Shadow said:

    With that note Vela: Feels great once you get used to the fact you're a sniper, feels less great when you also realize you can casually blow up buildings from outside their range from critting an immobile building. I like the sniper concept, I always place more wards as vela and pay attention to them more because a sniper must be aware of their surroundings and i thinks thats great. But the tower slaying feels weird and not in line with the snipering.

    I have to echo this point. Vela does so much damage to towers, she can take them out in 2 Snipes with 3-4 Deadeyes, even if you back off in between the volleys and the tower shield heals up a bit. Granted, that is a 21-28 Pop investment, but they are able to do so without being threatened by the towers at all. The other siege units are either slow, immobile, or short ranged/melee so it's easier to counter. The high burst damage against enemy units seems to fit the role of a sniper, because if the opponent can close the gap, Vela and her units are super squishy. But towers can't pursue so they are just sitting ducks.

    • When I first found out that you can use everybody's abilities from one grouping I was ecstatic! When playing Starcraft 2, nothing would be worse than wanting to force field the ramp so lings don't get in, but your army grouping is on Zealots and not Sentries. I love that design, so props to that decision.
    • The micro in battles can feel difficult with melee units. Hydros being my main squad over the PvP weekend, I was up close and personal with a lot of Alders, Alderie? Alderinians? Anyways, I was close to them. When I noticed is they could just dump their saplings in a row and I couldn't get past. It was the ultimate zone, if I got too close I would lose a good part of my army just trying to kill his temporary beasts. I know that is why you have teammates to take care of these situations, but I don't think it should be Alder> Hydros in micro battles every time. It is not that the saplings deal a lot of damage, but they deal enough to soften my army and block them from perusing his army, because my army is melee.
    • This point is like the last one but more general, because of poor pathing, micro is insane! I can stutter step with wisps all day (which feels amazing btw) but I can't Stutter Scuddle to save the life of me, because they do nothing but clip on each other.
    • Surrounding an enemy is sooo fun! Celesta with mass wisps, just blocking the escape is really attractive. BUT...... (see last point)
    • I was originally thinking that some moves felt underwhelming, and I realized it is because I'm not getting the 'full' experience. Let me explain, if I have the Celesta's circle surrounding the enemy and the are waiting for judgment I get a little excited, what if however the were some bad ass visual effects and audio. Like beep beep beep BOOM and a beam of light shines down from the heavens judging them of their sins and cleansing them! That would feel epic!! That is stuff that gets the blood pumping, just like the sound of banelings exploding and marines dying. I know you obviously plan on making these FX better, but I thought I'd just say if you don't skip on the FX, I promise I won't skip on the emotions.
    • Upgrades are a click and forget until tier three, obviously we have the sprint which isn't like that, but there are a lot of passives that don't feel special. Like, would I be mad if my units got better just because I leveled? No, I wouldn't because that is basically what is going on right now. As the game gets later, my guys get stronger. Obviously I'm being over analytical, but I strongly believe that there is a good room for improvement here.

    Those are just a couple thoughts on the topics. I have a Mercenary comment higher up that I posted earlier. It talks about combining mercs and upgrades, I know that it is a major change, but that's what pre-alphas are for, and I would be shocked if they rejected any idea based off of the difficulty. No, I don't think it's the solution, but it is a half option to a problem, and everybody has to have a 'bad' idea before a genius one.

    Thanks for reading,
    Pandapownium

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