My feedback thread. Feedback on my feedback is welcome (Double feedback all the way!)
Holy Feedback batman
My name is Alan Diaz, or more commonly known by my alias Metruzero, I prefer Alan if anyone is wondering or cares. A bit about my background, I've played several MOBA games, from LoL, DotA, DotA2, Smite, HotS, HoN, Infinite Crisis, etc etc. I've played some RTS games such as Red Alert 3, Starcraft 2, and Offworld Trading Company. Other fun facts, I play TF2 competitively for 1 1/2 years, I enjoy reading random articles about game design, been programming for 9 years, my favorite iced tea is Joe's Peach Tea, and I'm an amateur fire dancer!
But enough about me, let's get to the part we might actually care about! Skip to the bottom for a TL;DR
Before getting access
I've been following Day[9]'s channel for years now, I started watching him right as Wings of Liberty came out and I have him to thank for sparking my interest in RTS games. So when I heard that he joined a new independent company to make an RTS game, I'm not gonna lie, I got a bit excited. Anyone who has watched Sean's stream would know he enjoys randomly going off topic about game design and he's made a lot of good points so I was mostly excited to see how he can apply this knowledge. I read a few blog posts of course, one that really sparked my interest in this game was definitely the one that said the game would focus on team play. I loved playing 2v2 in Starcraft 2 and I still do, it's one of my favorite game modes, me and my friend who have never played an RTS before SC2 got to gold in 2v2 back in WoL(Well, I'm proud of it). So I told my friends about the team based RTS and we all got excited because it was such a fresh interesting concept to the RTS genre.
The next thing that I found interesting, not too excited about was squads. In the old blog post about squads, it mentioned having a roster of many units and you pick 3 of those and 1 hero. I wasn't super excited for this as I felt a very important part of an RTS game was that you never really knew what your opponent would do. For example, at the start of a SC2 game if you're facing zerg, what units will you face, besides the T1 unit that's build early every game? Well you might face muta ling, roach hydra, maybe get baneling rushed, are they going to do a one base play? I was worried that squads would take away that aspect of RTS games that made it so interesting to play back to back games against my friends.
First impressions after getting alpha access
"It's a MOBA" were my exact words after I played my first game. I felt very little RTS except for the army part, and way more moba. Keep in mind I was mostly playing against bots at first, but most fights felt like a deathball war and they clash into each other and just try to place skills in the right area. The armies are the only thing in Atlas that maintained that RTS feel for me. I was disapointed by this not because it's a MOBA but because I wanted an RTS, and I've already played so many MOBAs and at this point the market is so saturated by now. While it's still a unique concept on MOBAs, and I'll still play it with friends, I was expecting more RTS as there doesn't seem to be as many great RTS games recently where as with MOBAs I can turn the corner and find a good one. But I digress because I was determined to give the best feedback I can, so I pushed forward!
Comments
Core Gameplay Feedback
Base Building
This kind of goes back to my point about how it feels less like an RTS. In many RTS games, you choose where your buildings go, and how you build can determine the flow of some battles and how you defend. It's one of those simple things that actually adds a lot of depth. I felt disapointed when I go into game and I have NO choice where I can "build" (I use this word loosely) stuff. Sure while in many RTS games, economy expansions really have set areas to go, which isn't too bad, but the fact that I can only "build" expansions, towers, and collectors. And you don't "build" them, a lot of the time you just place them and forget them, especially with gold expansions.
Most gold expansions just felt like something I get at the start, and I get more in mid game as the gems per node increases. I didn't really feel that direct impact with gold expansions like I do in other RTS games, in fact, most of the time I barely noticed when a base ran out of gold. I feel like this is probably because of how place and forget it is. You place it, takes a while to build, it finishes, now it takes a while to build the first worker, now that one finishes, now it's gotta build the second worker where as in say SC2, you just flood a base with workers the moment it's up and you immediately notice that huge spike in income, which really helps you feel that direct impact it has on your econ.
On another note, building in other RTS games isn't JUST got more econ, but it's also to "expand" (See what I did there =D) your reach on the map. In Atlas, you're base is set up for you when you get into the game. Expanding lacked real decision making. Once again, in SC2, you have a lot of things to consider. "How badly do I need this econ? Do I have the army to be able to protect it? Should I build turrets/cannons/spine crawlers to protect it? Is it at risk of dying?" In Atlas, there's almost none of that, most of the expansions are guarded by towers. Or you can place down 2 towers (Which are really cheap so it's not really much of a choice) to protect it. Most of the time when I expanded, it just kinda felt like a formatlity less than a strategic choice.
Overall the base building just felt extremely streamlined to the point where once again, it doesn't feel like an RTS, it feels like a MOBA that wanted to put in RTS mechanics to be different. I feel like it could use some big improvement.
Squads:
Ok these are cool, but also once again take away from what makes an RTS. From a design standpoint, all of the squads are really interesting, had very clear themes and matched them very well through gameplay. From an RTS standpoint, it felt like that point I made earlier in the pre invite section. I go into a game, my choice of comp, and gameplay style are locked once the game starts, even more so than I thought before. Once again, if I'm playing a race, I can start a game saying I might go an X build, but maybe at some point I'll say, "Actually, he's doing Y build, so I'll transition to Z."
In Atlas, it feels like, "Ok I'm going into this game with X." After some time, I might say, "My opponent is doing Y, but I have to keep doing X, because I have no choice anymore, so let's see what happens!"
Overall, the idea of squads feels restricting in game compared to other RTS games but I thought the design of each squad was very well done.
Upgrades
I'm kind of split on this one, some of the upgrades for the individual units are cool. But the armory stat upgrades are just boring. I feel like with how well they designed each squad, they could've done something a bit cooler which the armory upgrades instead of just, "More attack damage, your basic attacks do more damage." or other upgrades that every squad has, they don't feel unique.
Now I'm aware that both MOBAs and RTS games, many of them have upgrades like this, but I feel like with levels in this game, you can find a different way to have stats scale and instead have more upgrades relative to the squad. For example, Maybe Ryme could have an upgrade of, "Each level of this upgrade adds X seconds to the duration of your slows." That's interesting, it's relavent only to the squad but it's relavent and also helps the race in a way have more of it's own identity. Or maybe an upgrade for hydros that can say, "Your plated units generate a free plate every x seconds per level." Once again, in a way this is the same thing as "You take less damage" but at least it's in a way that's to the theme and flavor of the squad itself.
The upgrades could have also provided a way to fill the hole in my heart of "I can't transition play styles" by adding upgrades that actually can drastically change your playstyle and the way you approach the game.
At the moment we have 6 upgrades for each squad and then a bunch of armory upgrades which to me mostly feel boring because they're just stats, nothing cool with the squad just, more stats.
Game flow and the map
So the map and objectives as they are right now give very little strategic choice as to where you can be. Since gems are only awarded to the individual, it's a handicap to not go where the gems are. And the gems always spawn in big cluster, mid, bot top, cap mid. With the lone exception of the side gem bases, which I barely count because you can send like 6 T1 units to deal with towers and the bases. And most games just feel like a gems arms race until someone gets more neutrals than the other. Games got really predictable really quickly in my eyes.
I feel like perhaps spreading gems out more on paths for example may help players feel less forced to just all go straight mid. And can perhaps encourage ganking in some situations to keep players on their toes.
Conclusion / TLDR
I think this game doesn't have the strategic depth to be able to call itself an RTS at the moment. I feel very limited once I'm actually playing the game. And my overall judgement of this game, it's ok, it's not bad by any means. But if I had to choose a MOBA, would I drop HotS or League for this? Probably not. Would I drop Starcraft 2 or Offworld Trading Company if I had to choose an RTS? No. Right now with it's current state, I can't see this being a game I would sink over a thousand hours into like I've done with HotS, League, Starcraft 2, and other games I've played an unhealthy amount.
I understand I gave a lot of critisism, but I just want to point out I gave a lot of negatives because I want to see this game succeed. Because I am tired of seeing more of the same, I want a new team based RTS game that will blow my expectations out of the water. I WANT a team based RTS game to sink a thousand hours into, and honestly, this game has the best chance at it. The game in it's current alpha state has so much room to grow to allow for more strategy, more options, and most importantly, a chance to grow into that game that I want to sing praises to all my friends about.
Thanks for reading! If you disagree with any of my points or wish to discuss any of them further, I'd be happy to hear you out! And when I lose forum access and you still want to talk to me about stuff, cause oh god I love talking about game design, I can be reach on skype by metruzero as well. And I feel that this type of discussion is what can lead to the best feedback, sure the devs can bounce ideas off of us. Why can't we bounce ideas off each other?
Hey Alan, on the topic of RTS I think it is to easy to compare games to conventional rts's like Starcraft. In my opinion real time strategies are about the player having to make decisions on the fly, and these decisions directly correlate to how well the player does. I would like to note that MOBA's directly stemmed from an RTS UMS varient. MOBA's are essentially RTS's they just gave them selves a cool name.
I do agree as the game progresses your options back home decrease, but for me the core rts elements revolve around trying to out think my opponents during a match.
Hi Gorlak,
I understand where you're coming from, but I still think that compared to other RTS games that I have played, there's less of that "out think your opponent" idea. many of the decisions you can make feel like the game is holding your hand through them. In an army based RTS, a lot of the out thinking can come from where your army is on the map for example. In this game, at least with the current art map, I feel punished whenever my hero is not exactly where the gems/point is because I'm just losing gems the more time I spend away from there.
I would agree that an RTS should almost feel like a game of chess, it's about out smarting your opponent and making great counter plays to what your opponent does. But Atlas at the moment feels extremely limited to me in that regard. Most of the choices I make are like, "I'm gonna take a lot of magic damage, so I'll take magic resist" where as there could've been some kind of option that counters what my opponent does in a gameplay sense, less than a "I have more stats that counter your stats" way. Does that make sense or did I butcher my point? I suck at typing.
On the topic of MOBA vs RTS. I would still say they are very different now, sure many of them control the same. But now we see moba games that are almost nothing like an RTS game like Smite for example. People still call that a MOBA but it's control from a third person action perspective. So I think to say that in the current market that MOBA = RTS is inaccurate. Obviously it originated from an RTS, but I wouldn't say in it's current form they are still one in the same.
Also, the reason I keep relating to Starcraft is because it's one of the best examples of an army vs army based RTS that I have off the top of my head, and since Atlas is an army vs army based RTS, that is why I made a lot of correlations. If I made a frustrating amount of comparisons, I apologize.
Ok I know wikipedia isn't the best of sources, but I think it is sufficient in this case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplayer_online_battle_arena
Moba's are rts games at their core.
Now I do agree that that a moba and an conventional rts like sc2 are two completely different things. I also agree with you that the game does sort of feel more like a moba then a conventional rts such as starcraft.
Where I do not agree with is being limited in options. I thought gems did a good job of giving me options throughout a game. deciding when to drop ion cannons or when to push towers are some examples of things I was thinking of while playing.
I hope at the end of the day we all don't start fighting over whether its a rts or a moba. lets all do the safe thing and declare it an ARTS
Hi Gorlak,
I can agree that the neutral weapons gave more flexibility during the game. I also had issues with some neutrals with how simple they were, overall, at least the low cost neutrals felt very underwhelming, I suppose for good reason since in terms of cost, they should have the same impact as a turret.
Something I want to ask your opinion on, what would be your thoughts on a unit specific to each squad that can be bought only with gems but isn't a neutral so it's not exclusive to objectives. I feel like it'd be a nice option for teams that are heavy on defense and can't really use their gems on neutrals to push down objectives since they are pushed back hard. Thoughts?