Well units to tend to block each other when trying to micro injured units back. This makes micro less practical and difficult as it means you need to move the units that are blocking back before you can move the injured unit away.
In a game like Starcraft this first becomes an issue when unit numbers are very large in which case individual unit micro typically isn't necceasary or you will have some type of mechanic (like blink or dropships) to "save" big individual units that are blocked.
In Atlas on the other hand it seems to be a problem when you have 4+ units.
I actually enjoy unit collision that makes micro more interesting, but there was a point when i was trying to micro back from a enemies army and it felt like the hit boxes were bigger than the units sometimes, so even though it looked like you could micro back you couldn't.
I too had problems with collision and possibly pathing. Sometimes instead of trying to run around a unit, one of my units will get stuck and run back and forth almost like its in a loop until the other unit is moved or dies. This makes me feel frustrated and annoyed. I feel like I'm taken out of whatever moment I was experiencing to manually fix a game problem.
This can be a problem if you shift click a move to spot and there are like 2 units in the way, everything will get clumped up. It's not like it's a funneling problem either. There is plenty of space around whatever is blocking you most of the time.
I really enjoy creep-blocking and the smaller amounts of "Specialized" units there is in Atlas, much like in Warcraft 3, one thing I really dislike is that even if your units form a perfect concave by themselves (Which means they'd walk around each other's hitboxes perfectly) they end up stuck on themselves, meaning you can't pull units out of a concave formation. I wish I was able to pull my smaller units back more easily.
The concept of creep-blocking in this specific game I think is really interesting. Microing individual injured units back took a lot more practice as one has to move other units out of the way first. Proactive microing and actively trying to make a concave in order to both increase dps and make microing easier is a surprisingly fun experience. However, at times, the units felt clunky and difficult to maneuver. The micro sometimes felt similar to the micro in Company of Heroes. (In Company of Heroes, units were grouped in squads instead of individuals and selecting one "unit" would be selecting one squad of 3-6 individual soldiers) Trying to micro large armies of 4-5 different unit types was difficult especially if you wanted to have, for example, tankier units up front and more dps focused units in the back. In one specific game, I wanted my Aquadillos in front and my other units in the back. By the time I had managed to do this, most of my units had died and I was forced to retreat without doing any significant damage. Perhaps increasing movement speed of all units by a set amount would make the micro more dynamic.
Hero and units are battling the enemy, their all clumped up. I try to micro my Hero out but my own units are blocking the way. The Hero derps and then dies.
This made me feel like that time when you have an Ultralisk/Zergling army and you try to micro the Ultra but there's 1-2 lings blocking the way. Like in StarCraft, larger units should simply push smaller ones away because of their size (I wish). Or in Atlas, the Hero is the most important unit in the game pretty much, their underlings should "know that" and get out of the way of the Hero's path because the Hero is the one who is going to lead them to victory. When a unit blocks the Hero from getting away and whatnot, it just feels stupid.
Have the Hero gain priority for pathing when moving through smaller units and be able to slightly push back larger units to get through them. Something like that.
The unit blocking is slightly annoying when you and your allies are all trying to converge on a fight. Some of the hit boxes are just to big to run by, when I've been playing I've typically built ranged units and they tend to block my allies melee units from getting within range in time to be effective. I understand the concept of wanting to be able to micro your units back out of harms way but the system itself just felt clunky. Maybe depending on the type of unit have it so allied units can run through each other, or a tier system kind of thing where tier 1 units can move through other tier 1 units but not tier 2/3, or similar size units can move through each other.
Attack moving your units sometimes doesn't make them attack enemy units. At first I thought this was intended because I tried it out on the neutral monsters but in some occasions attack moving my units to a fight just moved them there instead of attacking right away, happened I would say about 50% of the time.
Some of the flying units went straight through terrain, I'm assuming because it's pre-alpha that's also intended but having them fly above or around some terrain would be neat.
I have had a couple experiences where I had my army wiped out because I am trying to retreat from a fight and my robo friend is trying to charge into the fight and our armies collide and blocked each other so he can't engage and I can't flee. Times like this haven't been super common but they were really frustrating when they did happen.
@Trillen said:
I have had a couple experiences where I had my army wiped out because I am trying to retreat from a fight and my robo friend is trying to charge into the fight and our armies collide and blocked each other so he can't engage and I can't flee. Times like this haven't been super common but they were really frustrating when they did happen.
Oh yes...imagine during PvP...then it goes from being a stupid AI to a person and the toxicity will rain from the heavens. I have to wonder why collisions between units is coded at all - why not just collision detection between units and environment? Are there certain heroes that would benefit too much if collisions didn't exist?
Often times yes, but during a retreat it is often times catastrophic and would have gone better if we stayed and fought.
I often times found myself running in and helping my Ai partners when they are in an engagement. But by the time i get there they are running away from them and i find my self stuck in the midst of the entire enemy team. I felt like i really screwed up and tried running away from them but my units would run into each other and the enemie's units and get stuck on them.
@Bluewierdness said:
I actually enjoy unit collision that makes micro more interesting, but there was a point when i was trying to micro back from a enemies army and it felt like the hit boxes were bigger than the units sometimes, so even though it looked like you could micro back you couldn't.
I second this. Visually it can be deceptive on where you can/can't fit.
The other big issue I had was getting stuck on allies. When I saw a battle going badly and wanted to retreat, sometimes I would get stuck on allies behind me that would cause my units to die followed by my allies shortly after. Feelsbadman.
My experience with the movement has been similar to most people above in that the bodyblocking can be annoying but once I got used to it it has been alot rarer and actually felt pretty good, what was more annoying was how sometime when you clicked for your army to move somwhere they'd move in such a way such that the center of your army would end up in that position and they'd maintain the same configuration however other times they would all move to that spot. As far as I could tell there also wasn't any way to determine which way they would move until you clicked unless you clicked on precisely the center of the army, then they would all group up every time, but in general it was annoying to not be able to predict how my units would move because of this.
I don't understand the importance of having everybody not be able to moved when somebody needs to get past. When I'm tanking a camp and one of the guys gets targeted by titan smash I can't get him out because there are 8 of my other guys attacking the same guy. It is very frustrating to have to deal with this stuff, so to stop this I have to pull away a portion of my army just to save one guy.
When playing grath or hydros, I routinely had problems getting my melee units around my allies units when trying to engage at various points in the game. (First medium neutral camp, flanking engagements, etc)
It made me feel... frustrated that my basic unit could be rendered useless not by enemy, but by ally action or inaction.
Means to improve it: Engage moves (scuttlebug rollout etc) remove ally collision for the duration?
I frequently had units getting stuck on other units. This was especially bad if I had melee units. This was pretty frustrating, to say the least, especially as moving my units back and having them attack again led to the same problem. It felt like the hitboxes for pathing were slightly larger than the models actually were, which led to some issues.
@Delka said:
--A-Move aggro'd neutral camps. (especially that brutal camp)
--It made me feel sad and like i threw the game for my teammates.
IMO -- A-move shouldn't work on camps unless they have already been aggro'd.
Side note ... team was in Discord. Hallucinatory laughter at my pain may or may not have endured.
This also happened a few times to me, which was panic-inducing in addition to being frustrating. If reinforcements were being transferred from the base to the battlefield, they could easily end up being killed simply due to an A-Move.
Armies tend to get cluttered in most spaces on the map as the population increases. I feel this can be awkward when it comes to micro especially with a teammate in the mix. I think tighter collision would help mitigate these scenarios. What I mean by "tighter collision" is basically a smaller hit box so more units can fit in a given space.
I don't think all units need this treatment, such as Wisps perhaps. Alternatively, the map could be made larger and possibly have units move faster to compensate. I should add though, I do really like the speed of units currently.
@Readysetzerg said something super important that I don't want to get lost.
Hero is the most important unit in the game pretty much, their underlings should "know that" and get out of the way of the Hero's path because the Hero is the one who is going to lead them to victory.
S/he talks about some units having priority over others in terms of pathing and will push them out of the way. I have no idea how difficult this is to achieve on a technical standpoint, but gosh darn, what a great idea.
Comments
Well units to tend to block each other when trying to micro injured units back. This makes micro less practical and difficult as it means you need to move the units that are blocking back before you can move the injured unit away.
In a game like Starcraft this first becomes an issue when unit numbers are very large in which case individual unit micro typically isn't necceasary or you will have some type of mechanic (like blink or dropships) to "save" big individual units that are blocked.
In Atlas on the other hand it seems to be a problem when you have 4+ units.
I actually enjoy unit collision that makes micro more interesting, but there was a point when i was trying to micro back from a enemies army and it felt like the hit boxes were bigger than the units sometimes, so even though it looked like you could micro back you couldn't.
I too had problems with collision and possibly pathing. Sometimes instead of trying to run around a unit, one of my units will get stuck and run back and forth almost like its in a loop until the other unit is moved or dies. This makes me feel frustrated and annoyed. I feel like I'm taken out of whatever moment I was experiencing to manually fix a game problem.
This can be a problem if you shift click a move to spot and there are like 2 units in the way, everything will get clumped up. It's not like it's a funneling problem either. There is plenty of space around whatever is blocking you most of the time.
I really enjoy creep-blocking and the smaller amounts of "Specialized" units there is in Atlas, much like in Warcraft 3, one thing I really dislike is that even if your units form a perfect concave by themselves (Which means they'd walk around each other's hitboxes perfectly) they end up stuck on themselves, meaning you can't pull units out of a concave formation. I wish I was able to pull my smaller units back more easily.
The concept of creep-blocking in this specific game I think is really interesting. Microing individual injured units back took a lot more practice as one has to move other units out of the way first. Proactive microing and actively trying to make a concave in order to both increase dps and make microing easier is a surprisingly fun experience. However, at times, the units felt clunky and difficult to maneuver. The micro sometimes felt similar to the micro in Company of Heroes. (In Company of Heroes, units were grouped in squads instead of individuals and selecting one "unit" would be selecting one squad of 3-6 individual soldiers) Trying to micro large armies of 4-5 different unit types was difficult especially if you wanted to have, for example, tankier units up front and more dps focused units in the back. In one specific game, I wanted my Aquadillos in front and my other units in the back. By the time I had managed to do this, most of my units had died and I was forced to retreat without doing any significant damage. Perhaps increasing movement speed of all units by a set amount would make the micro more dynamic.
Hero and units are battling the enemy, their all clumped up. I try to micro my Hero out but my own units are blocking the way. The Hero derps and then dies.
This made me feel like that time when you have an Ultralisk/Zergling army and you try to micro the Ultra but there's 1-2 lings blocking the way. Like in StarCraft, larger units should simply push smaller ones away because of their size (I wish). Or in Atlas, the Hero is the most important unit in the game pretty much, their underlings should "know that" and get out of the way of the Hero's path because the Hero is the one who is going to lead them to victory. When a unit blocks the Hero from getting away and whatnot, it just feels stupid.
Have the Hero gain priority for pathing when moving through smaller units and be able to slightly push back larger units to get through them. Something like that.
The unit blocking is slightly annoying when you and your allies are all trying to converge on a fight. Some of the hit boxes are just to big to run by, when I've been playing I've typically built ranged units and they tend to block my allies melee units from getting within range in time to be effective. I understand the concept of wanting to be able to micro your units back out of harms way but the system itself just felt clunky. Maybe depending on the type of unit have it so allied units can run through each other, or a tier system kind of thing where tier 1 units can move through other tier 1 units but not tier 2/3, or similar size units can move through each other.
Attack moving your units sometimes doesn't make them attack enemy units. At first I thought this was intended because I tried it out on the neutral monsters but in some occasions attack moving my units to a fight just moved them there instead of attacking right away, happened I would say about 50% of the time.
Some of the flying units went straight through terrain, I'm assuming because it's pre-alpha that's also intended but having them fly above or around some terrain would be neat.
I have had a couple experiences where I had my army wiped out because I am trying to retreat from a fight and my robo friend is trying to charge into the fight and our armies collide and blocked each other so he can't engage and I can't flee. Times like this haven't been super common but they were really frustrating when they did happen.
Oh yes...imagine during PvP...then it goes from being a stupid AI to a person and the toxicity will rain from the heavens. I have to wonder why collisions between units is coded at all - why not just collision detection between units and environment? Are there certain heroes that would benefit too much if collisions didn't exist?
Did your Units go where you wanted them to go?
Often times yes, but during a retreat it is often times catastrophic and would have gone better if we stayed and fought.
I often times found myself running in and helping my Ai partners when they are in an engagement. But by the time i get there they are running away from them and i find my self stuck in the midst of the entire enemy team. I felt like i really screwed up and tried running away from them but my units would run into each other and the enemie's units and get stuck on them.
I second this. Visually it can be deceptive on where you can/can't fit.
The other big issue I had was getting stuck on allies. When I saw a battle going badly and wanted to retreat, sometimes I would get stuck on allies behind me that would cause my units to die followed by my allies shortly after. Feelsbadman.
My experience with the movement has been similar to most people above in that the bodyblocking can be annoying but once I got used to it it has been alot rarer and actually felt pretty good, what was more annoying was how sometime when you clicked for your army to move somwhere they'd move in such a way such that the center of your army would end up in that position and they'd maintain the same configuration however other times they would all move to that spot. As far as I could tell there also wasn't any way to determine which way they would move until you clicked unless you clicked on precisely the center of the army, then they would all group up every time, but in general it was annoying to not be able to predict how my units would move because of this.
I don't understand the importance of having everybody not be able to moved when somebody needs to get past. When I'm tanking a camp and one of the guys gets targeted by titan smash I can't get him out because there are 8 of my other guys attacking the same guy. It is very frustrating to have to deal with this stuff, so to stop this I have to pull away a portion of my army just to save one guy.
When playing grath or hydros, I routinely had problems getting my melee units around my allies units when trying to engage at various points in the game. (First medium neutral camp, flanking engagements, etc)
It made me feel... frustrated that my basic unit could be rendered useless not by enemy, but by ally action or inaction.
Means to improve it: Engage moves (scuttlebug rollout etc) remove ally collision for the duration?
--A-Move aggro'd neutral camps. (especially that brutal camp)
--It made me feel sad and like i threw the game for my teammates.
IMO -- A-move shouldn't work on camps unless they have already been aggro'd.
Side note ... team was in Discord. Hallucinatory laughter at my pain may or may not have endured.
I frequently had units getting stuck on other units. This was especially bad if I had melee units. This was pretty frustrating, to say the least, especially as moving my units back and having them attack again led to the same problem. It felt like the hitboxes for pathing were slightly larger than the models actually were, which led to some issues.
This also happened a few times to me, which was panic-inducing in addition to being frustrating. If reinforcements were being transferred from the base to the battlefield, they could easily end up being killed simply due to an A-Move.
Armies tend to get cluttered in most spaces on the map as the population increases. I feel this can be awkward when it comes to micro especially with a teammate in the mix. I think tighter collision would help mitigate these scenarios. What I mean by "tighter collision" is basically a smaller hit box so more units can fit in a given space.
I don't think all units need this treatment, such as Wisps perhaps. Alternatively, the map could be made larger and possibly have units move faster to compensate. I should add though, I do really like the speed of units currently.
Sometimes, units will get stuck on pathing around another unit, and rock back and forth without ever establishing a path.
It frustrated me.
@Readysetzerg said something super important that I don't want to get lost.
S/he talks about some units having priority over others in terms of pathing and will push them out of the way. I have no idea how difficult this is to achieve on a technical standpoint, but gosh darn, what a great idea.