Comebacks
First off let me start by saying I had an absolute blast playing PvP games today and last Sunday. I think Atlas is already off to a great start and the game play is really enjoyable. However out of all the games I played I never saw a team make any sort of comeback. In 90% of my games I felt I could tell which team was going to win within the first 5-10 minutes of game play. It can be disheartening to spend another 20+ minutes playing what is essentially a losing battle, with very little chance of making anything happen against the other team.
I understand that there is obviously no ranking system yet, so there were some lopsided teams playing against each other which could have contributed a lot to this. I did always feel like the better team won, and I definitely want to keep it that way; maybe with more balanced teams there would be more back and forth and the problem could fix itself. I hate multiplayer games that have some kind of "comeback mechanic" just for the sake of making games feel closer, I always feel like those types of mechanics take away from the integrity of a game and can feel "cheap". I think the solution would have to be a lot more subtle, and I still want to leave games feeling like the better team won. I just don't want to be able to predict the outcome so quickly, it reminds me of spending 30 minutes closing out a losing game of LoL that I have no chance to come back in, which is the opposite of a fun multiplayer experience.
Did anyone else feel that games would snowball quickly and one team could pull ahead and never look back? Did you experience any comebacks in any of your games? I am curious how others felt about this.
Comments
I disagree actually, I've had a couple of games where we were getting pushed but then I get couple of mini ion cannons near one of their meganodes to drag their attention back to those and allow us to punish them for being out of position. While yes there is snowballing, as there should be. I feel like it may not be as bad as you think, I can definitely see where it might feel swingy. I'd recommend trying other tactics when behind. For example, try to pick off gem bases for huge xp. Set up cheesy ion cannons to apply pressure and force them back. There are ways to try and pull back I feel. Try to keep an open eye for opportunity.
The third game I posted in this thread is a great comeback game iirc. We weren't getting trashed or anything but we were definitely behind.
My games seem to always last until the late game and from my experience if you're losing you get one chance to build up a neutral weapon army and push for the enemy nexus. You'll either win or lose depending on how that goes. That's just my experience, though, and I'm sure it's like that because nobody really knows what they're doing yet
. It's still a lot of fun to make that last desperate push, anyway!
According to our data, it's pretty tough for players to make comebacks once they are sufficiently far behind (especially large gold differentials). Though a few here are posting counterexamples, there are still critical grains of truth to what you're saying. Here are some of our thoughts
To solve these
1. We want additional on-map structure & information transparency that players can go check and go "dude we're kicking ass." Something like "we've lost more towers, but we're way ahead in levels so I think we're winning." A player should be able to track when he lost an advantage or pulled a sick play because the in-game data lets him know. This lets players learn!
2. We want to make sure a player has tools available at all times that can have widely varying outcomes. For squads, we can add several high-impact abilities to squads. Or, we can introduce more multitasking to the game so a player can think, "well, as long as I continue to manage my stuff properly, I'll eventually overwhelm him." We need to add more "skill components" to the game. I think we are a bit flat in this department!
COMEBACKS MUST BE REAL!
I felt the same way during my play testing the last two weekends. I indicated in my survey that I wondered if it was a result of just not having enough games under my belt - but hearing that the vets have the same issue is...reassuring I guess.
I felt like I lacked information, and to me that lack of information was coming from two places:
1) I had a difficult time developing map awareness. Scouting with lone units was challenging and in some ways felt more risky than in a traditional RTS. (Ex. I played as Celesta most of the time in Atlas, and as Zerg most of the time in SC2. Risking a zergling or two to scout an enemy position [especially after the early game] feels a lot less risky than losing a wisp. The reason being that I can replace that zergling a whole lot faster than the wisp respawns). So the only way to gain map awareness was a more MOBA style warding and I really never perfected what/where to ward (which might simply be a result of me being a n0b) and the fact that the wards were visible made them difficult to maintain.
2) I have a lack of information about gem collection. The most frustrated I felt throughout the entirety of the playtest was during one game on the 1st map where me and my partner top were holding our own, but our solo bottom was getting thrashed - which wasn't communicated (not faulting the player - they may very well not have know they were losing badly). So out of nowhere approximately 100 gems worth of neutral weapons and it was g.g. -
- before we had time to react. HeroesOTS is extremely transparent about collecting items. I dont know if thats necessarily the right way to go for Atlas. What I wanted to see was a pop up at the end of every gem round that said how many green collected, how many red collected, and how many were uncollected. That way I would have a sense if we were winning, losing, or if both teams were being generally passive at which point some sort of aggression at the next gem spawn might provide a window to taking a big lead.
Though - as I have tried to end with in all my posts - I really think you guys are on the right track and I think it is more about the shaping and perfecting details and contours of the game and not the concept.
I feel like once voice acting is added, it may help with some of the problems Cygnus pointed out. One example I love is when you're doing a co op mission, you can sometimes here your ally say, "My army is getting torn to shreds out here!" When they lose a majority of their forces. And I personally think that is a great way to alert your team mates that you need help without having to stop and type help. Or even a simple, "An allied hero has been slain" can help out a lot. But with at the moment, we have "Your base is under attack" But something under attack could be a single T1 got one auto attack off. A lot of people under estimate how much an announcer can do to help increase awareness of the game. HotS has a similar one where when the haunted mines was spawning grave golems, you'd hear the announcer say "Their golem is much stronger than yours" or something like that. Imagine a voice that would say something like, "The enemy has gathered more gems than you!" or "Your team is crushing your opponents under the weight of all your gems!" It's one of those little things that can tip you off to how well you're doing.
It's a little strange thinking about balancing announcing these types of advantages and hiding information. It'd be nice to tell when I'm behind in gems or gold, but I also feel like hiding these things is important to strategy. I don't want the enemy knowing if I took another gold or gem base, or if I've been sneaking around grabbing gems while they've all been distracted somewhere else.
I think announcing how many gems each squad got after each wave may be enough for me. You'd be able to tell if your teammate was getting destroyed, and it wouldn't give away too much on the current map. Showing a game total for both teams would be very useful, but it may be too much info. It might make games go quicker because you'd be able to tell when you have enough of an advantage to press it, but is that a good thing or bad thing?
What even makes it possible to come back in a game besides having a better late game composition? Tricking an opponent into making a bad play? Upgrade tracks that give more advantage late game?
Well I definitely agree that it shouldn't show everything like when you're taking some bases. But since gem nodes appear and disappear on the map. That could be something to announce.