Production slots and Harrassment chat
I had a good conversation in chat today about production slots and harrassment and thought I'd post it here TL:DR/Summary is at bottom
[Global][Motiva] i think production should be able to add more slots, it just takes up exponential time+ slots or something to add them Some real late game-remaxing i feel would help collapse an econ advantage you have in your bank
[Global][Motiva] idk the solution though
[Global][Millea] i want some sort of harassment. The energy orbs were a form of it but they got removed - i can easily see why they were though
[Global][snkz] ah okay
[Global][Millea] they made sense to remove
[Global][snkz] just checking how far back you were thinking
[Global][snkz] back in the expansion days
[Global][snkz] or gemming
[Global][Millea] i have only been a tester since TW4
[Global][Millea] i wasn't around for the good old days
[Global][Millea]
[Global][snkz] interesting points, do you think camp denying is a form of harrassement?
[Global][snkz] why is it not the same for you
[Global][Millea] Camp denying is usually fought with an enemy army
[Global][Millea] mostly
[Global][snkz] yup
[Global][Millea] it's your army vs their army and it's just an excuse to battle
[Global][Millea] like titans
[Global][Millea] harassment is where you can outmaneuvre your opponents to destroy something on their back line
[Global][Millea] that's valuable
[Global][snkz] yup okay
[Global][Millea] like in sc2 workers for example
[Global][Millea] that is interesting
[Global][Millea] right now we can have that with warp spires and shield batteries, but there are only 4 of them outside the big towers
[Global][Millea] and the ones inside the towers are impossible to get to without an army
[Global][Motiva] Yea, there is no reason to break off 4 of my units and go try to get 6-7 of my enemies units
[Global][Motiva] not really a way
[Global][Millea] i think that the new side lanes do encourage army splitting, but i would like some other ways
[Global][Motiva] Yea true
[Global][ToastyTilapia] arrrrggggg matey
[Global][ToastyTilapia] I be queued
[Global][Millea] and i also think there's a problem with everyone having exactly 6 production slots at all times - i don't like that there's no way of getting an advantage
[Global][Millea] in that aspect
[Global][Millea] of the game
[Global][Millea] besides for like the first 3 minutes
[Global][Motiva] yea, with long production times as well with late game upgrades
[Global][Motiva] late game production can still feel like early game production
[Global][Millea] it may be interesting to combine them - what if for example your production slots were represented by buildings?
[Global][snkz] like the shield batteries
[Global][Millea] yeah
[Global][Millea] except these would respawn after a time
[Global][snkz] lose all 3, max out at 3
[Global][snkz] i see
[Global][Millea] because it's devastating to lose too many
[Global][Millea] i don't know if it would be fun
[Global][Millea] or not
[Global][Millea] which is why i think it needs to be tested like everything
[Global][Millea] but that's a brainstormed solution
[Global][snkz] it may not be clear to the attacking player that they did anything impactful
[Global][Millea] that is true
[Global][Millea] good point
[Global][snkz] and it will be super clear to the team that got hit
[Global][snkz] and they will not be happy haha
[Global][snkz] but i think its a cool idea
[Global][Millea] in sc2 though destroying a bunch of workers isn't particularly noticeable
[Global][snkz] i like it better then the build time penalty thing we did
[Global][Millea] yeah
Summary
- There isn't very much harrassment in Atlas.
- Production slot system feels weird, especially in the later game. In this aspect of the game, there's no way of getting ahead in this area.
- Why not combine these ideas?
- Potential idea for production slot revamp: Production slots represented by respawnable building which can be destroyed
Comments
The building idea isn't entirely clear to me, but I would like to see a way for production to scale, and harassment to be meaningful. Warcraft 3 is a good example.
I wouldn't mind seeing some way to leverage an eco advantage into a production advantage in the late game, where long unit build times, long upgrade times, and only 6 slots makes this feel clunky. It is rarely worth it to trade my entire army for their entire army to re-max with all tier 3 units when I have a strong economic edge. The strength of titans, the combination of production types, and long build times, means that it might be some time before I get my max army again unless I want to cancel upgrades.
Let alone if my gamble failed, we traded armies (should be good for me), but lost the titan. I may have 2,000 shard advantage in my bank, but the titan is still going to kill my archive before my maybe 6 units is out. At least this is my impression from my very limited time playing.
I wouldn't mind seeing like a 5minute cool down ability on the archive that can take down most of a titan, so that it at least requires a strong army backing to end the game before like the 5th titan.
Maybe a tier 4 upgrade on production speed,or or more slots, but these slots take up production slots and maybe near exponential build time increases? idk I'm sure the internal team has ran circles around these mechanics, and It's not entirely clear what sort of feedback you guys are looking for. but these are my thoughts.
I'm enjoying the sort of multitasking juggernauts bring to the table, and I think these two issues are related.
Juggernauts are essentially a form of kamikaze harassment for only 5 energy and some time on a production slot.
There aren't many other situations in the game where it's worth breaking off 3-4 units of mine, and taking them around to harass the opponent, and try to get 5-6 units. Hopefully keeping my units, but if not trading up at the least.
The lack of the ability to leverage a production/economic advantage in a late/max game situation make it really difficult to justify the risk as well.
A random spewing ideas to match the dumping of information above :D Cheers everyone!
The harassment part of the post could be done by allowing you to build shard generators or something similar in the top / bottom and make those targets for harassment, this wouldn't fix the 6 production slots late game though, since in the late game that is the biggest limiting factor with production (maybe increase shard cost or lower shard drops to make units feel more expensive?).
Just to elaborate a bit more on the production building idea. If production slots are represented by buildings on map, that are actually destructible, player would be able to get an advantage by destroying the building and delaying/canceling an upgrade in production.
In other games, destroying a tech building that is working on an upgrade is usually big, game changing play. For example in Starcraft II, sniping tech lab researching stim pack means, that the timing attack will be severely delayed or weakened.