Final thoughts: A little too much MOBA in the RTS?

tedster · May 24

After taking some time to gather my thoughts, I wanted to post my overall impression of the current state of Atlas based on the build I've played as well where I think it might fit into the gaming community at large. This going to be a bit rambling but maybe it will spark some discussion, so here goes!

The present state of Atlas feels like it has figured a few things out well enough to be very enjoyable: squad sizes, resource gain rates, army mix and match potential, pacing and length of the game, pacing of rising and falling action. Based on my impressions, and the comments I have seen on the forums, these things are either working or trending in the right direction. I feel like there are a number of really good core systems in place, and while they don't all mesh perfectly they are fun and interesting to explore and fight with. I'm looking forward to where these systems go and what the gestalt looks like when they all come together, and they are good enough that I want to keep playing with them.

Right now the (successful!) design goals of Atlas that feel front and center seem to be:

Promote team-based gameplay that starts early and rises continually over the course of the game, with peaks and valleys as players flips between objectives and skirmishes, with occasional climaxes over major battles
Encourage players to travel around the map, completing individual objectives while occasionally coming together in groups of 2 or sometimes 3 depending on the flow of the game and critical map positions/objective spawns
Create a natural progression of power that tells a complete story in a reasonable amount of time - most games take a fairly similar amount of time, with very close/exciting games being the exception that last longer
Foster an environment where individual achievement and excellent team coordination both have considerable roles

There are also a number of systems that made me, and others, feel like they have a ways to go before they will be fun in the long-term. In particular, several relate to the map itself:

Titans do not feel very interesting, though the fights at the center do feel good some (but not all) of the time.
As a corollary, fighting at towers does not feel very interesting, in that you're usually waiting for a titan or probably rolling the opponent so badly you've already won, which lacks a dynamic or interactive feel
Snowballing feels like a major issue to most commentors, happening very easily in many games, and it seems extremely likely this snowballing issue stems from a lack of objectives to complete on the map besides the parallel creep camps (which, assuming teams are rotating efficiently, will produce resources for both sides at approximately the same rate unless one team is getting badly rolled).
The objective problem is further magnified because there is no real long-term map control "things" you can do: towers are too far back to protect lanes, and as a result you usually have vision on the majority of the enemy team for the majority of the game. Getting caught truly out of position is very rare as a result, especially since there aren't many tricky things you can be doing, meaning there's less chance of sneaking something that will pull you ahead or catching an opponent overreaching to cap an important camp/buff/tower
There also aren't really critical terrain features to fight over like in a "traditional" RTS that might encourage splitting up armies to do different tasks: cliffs overlooking resource patches, important passages to guard, backdoor areas to lock down, workers to guard, etc.
As a result, the map feels very small and some of the lulls in action feel manufactured because you can literally have nothing to do, especially since there are no waves to clear
Finally, players having to chase teammates around to tag resource nodes in order to maximize efficiency promotes clumping and safe, steady rolling around rather than exciting, aggressive, and occasionally risky excursions and is the opposite of what you might expect when "maximizing" resource gains

I've been considering these things as a whole and I feel like they are all related, particularly due to the fact that Atlas is currently attempting to replicate a MOBA map and flow-of-action. The most MOBA-esque elements of the game are the parts that feel the weakest, I think. It's possible this is not the long-term plan with regards to the primary game mode or map, but currently and personally I feel that the attempt to partially clone the MOBA aesthetic is limiting the gameplay in Atlas and shoehorning it into decisions that are not playing to its unique strengths.

The problem is, I'm not sure where you can go in the RTS genre when the central victory condition seems permanently mired in the concept of "Kill The Base". And there are only two major schools of thought - either the base can get bigger, and does stuff, in which case you have Starcraft-like game flow and victory conditions, or it doesn't do anything, in which case you have a MOBA philosophy like Atlas does now. And since there aren't creep waves in Atlas to keep you occupied and gain tiny advantages over, or items to be built, you're basically just fighting over and over until someone is strong enough to punch the other guy really hard one time.

I can't help but feel Atlas would be more suited to a Big Game Hunters style map than a MOBA map, with bigger distances, wider variety of types of things to do, and more routes to travel that wouldn't automatically run you head-long into an opponent if you travelled far enough down them. With three armies on each side, I'd love to see more lateral movement from your start area, rather than just Forward and Back - there would even be a real price to pay, since you'd be further away from the action if a teammate needed you.

Hell, with the current mechanics in place Atlas would be incredibly fun as a 3v3v3v3 on a huge map. But to some degree that might require re-evaluating what a base is, and does, and how it functions as a victory condition for the enemy. Maybe Warcraft 3 was going down the right path after all, with limited worker counts and diminishing returns with big armies, thus making Macro very simple but having timing and decision-making of when to increase macro capabilities still be crucial.