Art Feedback [TW3 Megathread]
Models, animations, sounds, visual effects and particles, textures, environment, icons - it all goes here! In addition to how it feels, also let us know how our art adds to or detracts from gameplay.
When providing feedback, please use the following format:
- X happened
- It made me feel Y (or I’d like to feel Y)
- (optional) Here’s a suggestion to improve it
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The main base is smaller than the base you make mercs from.
This confuses me as I think the main base should feel bigger and more important.
Along with perhaps flipping there sizes, models that are more different could help set the two buildings apart.
One other thing I noticed is that the visual effect for the Frostcallers Frostfall ability is simply three blue circles. I never really knew when the enemy was taking damage form it, or if damage started right away or if there was a delay from casting.
So far so good though!
This could just be personal preference or lack of playing nearly enough, but a lot of the units feel like they look similar in the game. My brain for whatever reason has just placed every unit in the game into two categories, small units and big units, then separates those into friendly and not-friendly. This is only in-game, out of they all look unique and incredible but thus far in-game everything just gets clumped in my mind as "units", which just makes me not even attempt to want to remember what those units do, what they're good at, etc. If I see an enemy army walking past I don't try to calculate if I can take them down myself cuz I just see dudes and think "ahh, I can take em".
Again, this could totally just be an issue with not spending enough time with each squad yet and such, but even something as simple as not having all friendlies be green and all enemies being orange might just allow me to say "Ok, that's that squad, what do they do" instead of "I SEE BADDIES, LET'S JUMP EM!".
Otherwise, things that have already been pointed out such as the merc base being bigger than the main base and how all buildings look incredibly similar (either it's a base or a tower) could really be improved just for clarity's sake.
The art (not gameplay or strategy, obviously) makes me feel like this is an updated version of Total Annihilation...and I love it. More sciencey than fantasy. The map itself looks gorgeous with some nice colored lighting in the right spots. It's a really pretty game.
First jumping into the game the music is awesome!
My first few games I was looking for my friendly structures on the minimap and they were troublesome to find because they seem to be translucent.
Also, the ability tool-tips on the game loading screen. As a new player I would've liked to be able to see the hot-keys of the ability in the tool-tip (in the corner?).
Things are looking really good, obviously still some work to be done, but it isn't anything you guys don't already know about! Keep it up :D
Thanks for the comments everyone! I'll reply to them all on Monday. Keep the comments rolling if you have anything at all to say, we thrive on the back and forth with the community.
I love the "chillout station" aesthetic I get from this game. Not just the music and soft sounds (which are awesome), but the cool colors and sleek lines of the graphics give it an amazingly peaceful feel which contrasts brilliantly with the stress of wanting to all over the map at once.
I feel like it hurts the functionality of the game in places. The ping sound and visuals are way too chill to get anyone's attention, and the sound effects often lack impact, making big fights feel a little anticlimactic. Special effects for spells and abilities are almost always too low-key, and if it weren't for the giant colored lines on the ground, I wouldn't notice them (which makes them feel weak and powerless).
The units are not distinct enough, with similar shapes and animations. Far too many units are just a static shape with no moving pieces and on top of that two of the neutral units are both cubes. I feel disappointed when my awesome army does not look as cool as it plays. Units also do not have enough sound effects, visual effects, or idle animations to make them feel like they have personality. Also, the bases don't change with the character or the mercenaries you choose and look really bland next to any other RTS's bases. I felt "meh" looking at my base in Atlus, where I usually feel pride looking at my base in starcraft.
What I love most about the art in atlas is that the action is very readable, even if the individual units or spells aren't. Each unit has a strong outline and the heroes have distinct silhouettes, so I can instantly tell when an army is moving, the direction its going, and its approximate size. This is not only great for gameplay, but lets me build excitement for a battle that's about to occur, since the angles of attack can heavily influence the outcome.
That is something many AAA RTSes still get wrong, and I'm very happy to see Atlus doing it so well so early.
@DanishSauce - Hey there! thanks for your comments! All base buildings (and fountains) are very much placeholder "art" that we're using until we have a much more solid design sense of the visual requirements for these things. So, we haven't really spent much time on them at all. I agree with you that flipping their sizes would be an easy win for a step towards more clarity. I for one, can't wait until we make the time to really art these things out and give each player a really great first impression of our art style (since these are the first things you see when you get ingame)... heh. Many VFX are also placeholder, or in an early state too... so we'll for sure take this feedback into account when we have time to readdress that ability from an art perspective! woohoo! thanks!
@thoromir825 - As we iterate on our squads and units, we go through various phases of refinement. Textures are always being intreated upon by @Berreck and others on the art team to improve the visual quality of the game. when we do these texture touchup passes, sometimes we have different goals. One goal may have been to establish more of a sense of unification amongst the squad - to visually group them into a cohesive unit - almost like a family. What we usually do at this phase is check that work in, and let it get played with for a while... to see if people have feedback - just like yours! So, this is a super valuable data point! thanks!
@wolverinero79 - <3 thanks for the kind words!
@glowffin - Great feedback! We haven't prioritized UI/Minimap work too much recently, and this feedback will really help us out when we next have a shot at upping the quality and clarity of that! thanks! (i like the music too! hahaha). Hotkeys! YES!
@Pandapownium - <3 thanks! It looks like you got a lot of games in! We hope you enjoyed yourself! Thanks for all the feedback!
@Wodenborn - Great and insightful feedback! thank you! Audio and VFX contribute tremendously to the "feel" of a squad and units... those elements can plus up the experience and really help things feel more powerful. Those are two areas (audio and VFX) that we're just recently starting to get traction on (our VFX artist @JCvfx is hard at work every day giving unit attacks and abilities more life and vibrancy). As such, there are a ton of existing placeholder fx in the game that just haven't had a proper quality pass on them yet. See, as we iterate on unit/ability design, sometimes we may find that an ability may not be playing out they way we'd hoped for that unit. So, spending time on refining those VFX as the unit ability is getting tested and refined, doesn't always make the best use of our small art team's time - if the context of the ability will continue to evolve and in some cases change altogether. We usually try to focus on the things that are either causing the game experience (clarity/performance) to suffer, or ones that we have a higher degree of confidence in, because we've playtested them "sufficiently". Short story long (haha... sorry for the tangent there) we'll continue to be iterating on all things when they make the most sense to - VFX, audio, models, textures, etc. to make your army feel as powerful as we can... we hear you! Thanks for your thoughts on readability! We've really prioritized readability highly as we've been iterating and developing the art for Atlas! it thrills us to hear someone responding so well to it!
thank you everyone! all feedback is the most favoritestest thing to everyone here at Artillery! We really appreciate your time and thoughts on the matter! you're all wonderful! <3
-Bob