Playtest 208: A (VERY ROUGH!) Preview of Major Changes
Treisk
Member, Administrator
Playtest 208: (Very Rough) Choose your units, not your squad!
TL;DR - Squads are dead, long live unit-picking!; New unit and resource production model; Warp In replaces Deploy; Some units cost some Scrap; New map
Hello all! Welcome to one of the absolute roughest builds you will ever play. Please understand that this is incredibly rough. Please, again, understand that this is incredibly incredibly rough looking. But, we're optimistic that this will eventually be the final game of Atlas! We're just giving it you in a v0 state first! Let us know what you think!
Some highlights:
- Squads are no more! You now pick a Hero + t1 and then select 5 additional units to form your army! We also have moar units! And unit caps have been dramatically increased!
- Many mid/high level units require scrap!
- Expansions are temporarily absent (they'll be coming back). Kill mercenaries and collect gems to get the scrap you need!
- You can't build infinitely many units at a time! There are restrictions to how many you can build at once (and this can be upgraded!)
- Units now warp in! When they're done, press V and click within a power field to warp those babies in where you please!
- You have some controls in your main base to grow your stock/supply/scrap/production capacity!
- Upgrades/Charms/Items are temporarily out of the game. They'll be coming back in a simplified form!
There's a whole boatload to talk about so lets hop to it!
The Gist of the Game
You first pick your Hero (which comes with a T1 unit). Then, you pick an additional basic unit + 4 advanced units to create your army composition! When the game begins, you have a production building (makes all your units) and a main base (makes all your economic decisions). You will use your army to kill mercenary camps to get money! You use that money to buy better and more powerful units! You then fight over gemming fountains in the middle of the map to acquire JUGGERNAUTS! Use the juggernauts to kill enemy shield batteries and eventually the enemy nexus! Hopefully this should all be familiar ♥
Unit Picking
First, choose a Hero. Each hero is paired with a single T1 unit that cannot be changed. For instance, if you choose Eris, you're gonna have Sandstingers and cannot change that unit to Spitfires. Once you've selected your hero, you are then locked into a color.
- Default Selections - To help ease you into the Unit Picking world, each Hero comes with a reasonable default set of units that have a reasonable syngery with eachother. Feel free to swap out any unit you like!
- Basic Units - One basic unit comes with your hero, your T1 unit. You may choose one additional basic unit from your color. There are one or two additional basic units per color, such as a melee or a ranged unit that are both slightly larger and more expensive than your T1. This will allow you some flexibility in your early game composition. (These units are listed in detail below)
- Advanced Units - You may choose 4 additional advanced units among high level units in your color AND mercenaries.
- Hotkeys - Because you are selecting these units one at a time, your ability hotkeys will apply in the order units are chosen. For instance, if both your basic units have no abilities, and your first advanced unit is a Pyrosaur, the Pyrosaur's Flamethrower ability will be on Q. And, your next advanced unit's ability will be on W.
Unit Production
There are several new restrictions on how units are made! In short, they require scrap, take time to build, and only a few can be built at one time.
- Scrap - Several of your high level units require scrap. You can collect scrap by killing camps OR by using the scrap generator in your main base.
- Construction Time - Your units take time to build. I feel obligated to add this second sentence.
- Multiplicity - At the start of the game, you may only build 4 basic units at a time and 1 advanced unit at a time. You may research additional production capacity at your main base (+2 basic and +1 advanced per unit of capacity researched). Be sure to research additional production capacity as the game goes on to rebuild your army quicker!
- Tech Level - Good ol classic tech level restriction. Tech up to unlock your big'ones.
- Warp In - Units no longer deploy when you press "V". Instead, you press V and then warp-in within the blue power fields. Blue power fields currently spawn in your main base and nearby heal towers/warp pads.
Main Base
There are now several ways to control your economy from the main base. Each of the below choices is free, but may only be researched one at a time.
- More Stock - Get a burst of additional stock. The amount of total stock gained increases with each subsequent research of "more stock."
- More Scrap - Get a burst of additional scrap. The amount of total scrap gained increases with each subsequent research of "more scrap."
- More Supply - Increase your maximum supply. The amount of supply gained does not change with subsequent researches.
- Production Capacity - Increase the amount of basic/advanced units you can build at one time. +2 basic and +1 advanced gained per level of production capacity.
- Automation Safeguard - If you forget to research one of the above, the game will automatically research either "more stock" or "more supply."
Additional Changes
- New Map - There is a new map! You will notice this the instant the game loads :P.
- Heal Towers/Warp Points - There are a few towers on the map that act as healing zones and warp points. When a heal/warp tower is destroyed, the killing team earns 150 scrap each. Heal/warp towers respawn after 5 minutes.
- Shield Battery - When shield batteries are destroyed, the killing team earns 150 scrap each.
- Tower Kill Rewards - There are more towers on the map that, when destroyed, grant scrap to the killer!
- Camps now respawn when killed. With each subsequent respawn, they grow in power and drop more scrap when killed.
Stuff That's Gone!
There are a few things missing in this build. Some of them are incidental. OThers are gone for good!
- Expansions are temporarily gone. They will be coming back.
- Upgrades/Charms/Items are temporarily gone. They will be coming back in a much more simplified form.
- Passive Supply Gain - This has been replaced by the main base "more supply" generator.
- Emergency Mode - You no longer gain stock when you are running low. This has been replaced by the main base "more stock" generator.
Squads ⇒ Units
- Players will no longer select a Squad.
- Players will now select the following:
- One Hero that comes with a Basic Unit
- One additional Basic Unit
- Four Advanced Units from a pool of units within your Hero's color.
- Neutral units (previously "Mercenaries") can be chosen as Advanced units in all colors.
Green
- Temporarily disabled
Blue
Heroes
- Hydros, Tidal Knight
- Basic Unit: Scuttleguard
- Ryme, Frozen Sage
- Basic Unit: Glacial Ranger
Alternate Basic Units
- NEW UNIT: Plated Warrior
- A sturdy melee unit that begins with, and does not regenerate, Plate.
- NEW UNIT: Voidling
- A stocky medium-ranged unit with a powerful Ice Shield.
- Ice Shield - Absorb all damage taken and apply it as healing for a short period of time.
Advanced Units
- Quadrapus
- Note: Plated Shell can still only affect Hydros, Scuttleguards, Quadrapi, and Aquadillos.
- Aquadillo
- No longer has Vindication
- Attack no longer splashes
- Damage increased
- Frostcaller
- Frostfall damage up, slow magnitude up, range down
- Ancient Ice Frog
- Health down, Icy Breath duration up, Icy Breath now has an "inhale" windup
- NEW UNIT: Kingpin
- Very slow unit that summons devastating living bombs to seek out enemy units. Cannot target-fire this attack.
- NEW UNIT: Shadow
- Fragile melee unit that can become invisible. Attacking ends the invisibility effect.
Red
Heroes
- Eris, Bringer of Chaos
- Basic Unit: Sandstinger
- Vex, Heart of the Volcano
- Basic Unit: Spitfire
Alternate Basic Units
- NEW UNIT: Beetle Fighter - A quick, standard melee unit. Spawns smaller beetles when killed.
Advanced Units
- Devilkin Dervish
- Apocalyte
- Pyrosaur
- Ignitor
- NEW UNIT: Lava Spitter
- Can attach itself to the ground, firing devastating line shots.
- NEW UNIT: Scarab
- Very sturdy, powerful melee unit with a cleave attack
White
Heroes
- Celesta, the Shadow Rose
- Basic Unit: Wisp
- Vela, Elegant Assassin
- Basic Unit: Raptor
Alternate Basic Units
- NEW UNIT: Sprinter
- A quick melee unit that is weak in direct combat. Has a Sprint ability that gives it bonus movement speed.
Advanced Units
- Purifier
- Precognitor
- Deadeye
- Pre-shot delay increased to 3 seconds, damage increased to 500 (900 to Marked targets)
- windray
- Aura effects no longer limited to Vela squad units; no longer stack.
Mercenaries ⇒ Neutral Units
Neutral Units are a class of unit that can be chosen by any player, regardless of their hero's color class.
- Teleporter
- Transport
- Health: 350 ⇒ 150
- Movement speed: 5.1 ⇒ 4.4
- Engineer
- Sentinel
Comments
Played two games and never felt like I had choices.
I have three economy buttons -- one give approximately zero scrap, one increases stock, one increases pop cap. So... I push the one that increases pop cap unless my stock is low. Otherwise I push the one that increases stock. Chore rather than choice.
I have six unit buttons now, in place of the previous (10?), and most of the time I can only push one or two of them due to scrap gating. Narrower choices throughout the game.
Smaller map, larger army, and fewer things to do on the map.
1) Unit Selection - I feel like I don't have a lot of options that I care about, but overall I like this method (more freedom) than the locked classes of pre-208.
2) Base / Macro / Stock/Scrap/Supply - My thoughts compared to pre-208: Stock/scrap/supply is more transparent in gains now, where before it just magically appeared at some rate that I didn't care about as long as I was spending it. Having more control is interesting, but I feel somewhat overwhelmed with obtaining what I need. I ended up settling on a simple mass T1 units where I was able to functionally ignore scrap and only focus on Stock and Supply, and I'm not sure that's ideal, but it's where I started feeling comfortable.
3) Everything Else - I have no idea why, but something about this patch made the game feel smoother. I can't quantify or even describe what it is - likely a combination of cleaner map with less distractions, more understanding/familiarity with the game.
Getting backdoored feels really bad. Teleport (or carefully walk) your entire army into the enemies base, ignore when they start to destroy your army and try to finish as many buildings as possible. Repeat until they die, This happened to me twice and felt incredibly difficult to handle. We tried an aggressive push on their base, and 2 people defended while 1 person backdoored us. Part of it was just getting outplayed, but it was frustrating none-the-less.
Lists of three make Sean happy (says in rhyming fashion) Here I go!
The unit picking is a great idea. I really love the idea, we just need to see how these builds/combos go and balance around that. In my opinion it comes down to two different team picks "I want to go with drop play" and "I don't want to go with drop play" Which is cool that there is much more option there. This makes me happy that the mercs are looking like this. I wanted fluidity with my forces and I got it (kinda).
I like the base set up... buuuuuuut it is hard to get a good opinion on how it would work because the health is soo low that it ends up being warping back at the main base, like previous builds, except now I have to point and click. Wanna know something that I think would be fun?????? cough Warp Prisms cough just so you can warp people in at certain places. Right now the issue is... Enemies take one of your healing towers, and if you don't almost immediately take theirs it can snowball. That is what happened 3/3 games.
Sundry: The generators are cool. I like it, I feel like I want to be able to increase my ability to generator. In the late game it is the gauge monitoring, but if I had to choice of a 'build' where I can really focus on the gauge watching and make my economy strong to support massive charms. Another feeling is no matter what happened in the previous part of the game, if our two armies trade into each other... we rebuild at the same time. Maybe, we rebuild different armies, but if it is generally the some units... We have our armies re spawn. I think this could be solved by increasing re spawn rate maybe through upgrades or bases. That is my opinion on things. Obviously the shield hp and stuff needs to change but that was obvious if you played half a game.
Hi Treisk! :D
Secret fourth point I lost all drive to play the last build... felt rinse repeat and I could see the skill ceiling (wasn't there obviously) but this build I think I'm outside... I can't see the roof. Oh god am I intrigued, just give me charms back :D
First day in the unit picker I mostly went with default squads. I really like having defaults so you can jump in and worry about the choices next time. In prior versions I would sometimes not use a squad unit, and rarely used more than two mercs, so being able to pick the units I intend to use feels pretty good at first blush. I'm certainly not using all the default units, so now it's figuring out what to sub in.
The resource system feels pretty good. I definitely had stock/scrap shortages and it will take some getting used to balancing things. The good thing is that when I had a shortage I knew how to address it, and my ability to address it wasn't limited be being outplayed on the map (cut off from gems/expansions etc) I kind of want to set priorities (on/off) and let it rotate, except perhaps for production capacity.
So far I like the map. It feels like less of a standoff between two fortresses. Respawn titans were interesting; you sometimes had something near your spawn when you wanted to kill a few seconds before tower respawn. Perhaps that reduces raiding and interaction through.
I liked combat better. I don't know if it was because people hadn't found their effective builds yet, or because damage upgrades were not available, but there were fewer times where I was surprised that I got my squad wiped, or at how quickly it happened. Battles lasted long enough that I had more time to play with position, abilities, and deciding if I should retreat or not.
New Resource System
First off, I like the fact that there are resource decisions to be made in this version; however, I don't like how those decisions are offered. Given the fact that we can only research one resource at a time, that resource will always be the thing we need right at that moment. I don't feel like there's a lot of long term planning so much as spamming an 'oh shit, I need x resource now' every time it's cycled. I don't feel that this system is skillful.
Units
The gameplay is still very engaging. I enjoy the battles, but unless the game is either pretty late stage or I have managed to gain a pretty significant advantage, I pretty much run around with a ball of basic units. I feel that all non-basic units cost too much to use most of the time but that most of my problems in this area can be solved by adjusting unit costs and tweaking the resource system. Apocalites (I think this is them. The giant red guys who have a castable AOE) feel very strong, though that could be because I spend most of my time running around with balls of wisps.
I do wish that I had more options when choosing units. It seems like I can't really find a good balance of dps/tanking units/support/casters with any of the colors. In larger scale battles involving allies this isn't a problem, but individual factions feel like a somewhat awkward compromise between the squads and regular RTS factions, not so much because of number of options as the types available to any given color.
Economy
I can't wait for expansions to be back, basically. Given that the current resource system allows one upgrade at a time, I feel like scrap often falls to the wayside when stock or food limit constantly need attention. This means that if my team is hard pressed to defend itself I don't really have time to acquire scrap from creep spawns and building higher tier units and getting upgrades for my units can be difficult and I get further and further behind.
I'm sure expansions coming back will help with this considerably. Just feedback.
Defending
As Sean told us, shield battery/nexus hp are too low because they aren't balanced for 3v3. After the first few games of this playtest everyone had figured out that backdooring was the strongest strategy. Whoever manages to knock out two shield batteries first is basically the winner as the other team has to constantly guard the nexus. While the hp thing contributes to this, I don't see this changing just because of hp tweaks. I feel like the Nexus and shield batteries should be a bit more defensible. I feel like juggernauts are not quite as necessary as they should be.
That's my 2 cents. Hope it's helpful.
Absolutely the most fun build I've played so far. I've said this before after a bunch of the big shifts, but I feel like I can judge the stretch to 5000 games a bit more accurately the more I play, and with the small number of games I played I definitely feel like this build of Atlas has the greatest potential of any prior Atlas build.
My summary is that I just see more and more options the more I play. With each game I play, and actually as time passes within each game as well, I feel like I have soooo many choices on attack routes and cool tactical plays that make me feel smart (a la "you've activated my trap card" or "check out this sick play").
UNIT SELECTION
I like heroes + selecting units. I think there's more awesome potential if these decisions are made in-game rather to prior to the game, or some combination of both. I'd love if I was able to make my army comp reactively. However on typing this, I guess it is kinda both pre-determined and reactive, since even if my "deck" has 6 units, I may only build 3 because the scenario calls for it. Maybe with some sweet units and balance the mini-deck-building aspect really feels kinda like Magic, where when you make a deck for a tournament you have to consider a handful of different enemy decks and build accordingly, and still make the right decision in the moment while playing.
STOCK/SCRAP/SUPPLY
My number 1 favorite change. I'm constantly measuring whether or not I need the right thing, and thinking a couple of steps further in the future than I was before.
Actually I wanna take a paragraph break here to emphasize that 'cause I just realized it myself. This is the first time in Atlas where I was actually thinking about a plan midgame and trying to do full setups and execute them. I don't know what part about the build made me feel this way. I definitely was up against some of the toughest Atlas players tonight and that makes me super happy to play.
So I actually don't have much else to say about the new "resource system". Oh, I didn't miss expansions. Like at all. My macro was farming titan camps and managing stock/scrap/supply. I'd love to play another ~50 games without expansions and see how I feel. Most of my focus in the game was fanangaling a way to kill the nexus, NOT secure a base, NOT harass, but just going straight for the kill. I really really really really loved this streamlined gameplay. In comparison, prior builds with expansions just felt muddy. I was in-game when Sean was talking about rat kings, but maybe this is what he was referring to?
OTHER THINGS
As more playtests go on I'm gonna try to open up my sensitivity to balance, because I think with the new direction of the game, good balance will make or break its longevity/fun-i-tude.
Kingpins are really cool, but don't feel OP because they're SO SLOW OH MY GOD. @Nib kept making Shadowbros and "sniping" my Kingpwns.
Lava Spitters in grass or on hills make me happy.
I am actually not hyped for when Green comes in because I don't want to overhype and disappoint myself. But damnit bring Papa Alds back.
Unit Picking
One of my favorite things about Atlas Classic was picking units to create an army. I am actually really happy the choice is now back. It allows for so many different unit combinations that strategy and engagements become more interesting. For example, in previous builds if someone was going Ryme, you knew exactly what units you would face (minus the merc matchup). However, now you cannot tell if Ryme will have his usual units or different ones, which will change the way you engage. I also cannot wait for green unit selection to occur (when/if it will ever). I will say, though, that it was not intuitive to select what units you wanted prior to hitting the "confirm" button.
Map/Econ
The map to me felt larger than previous builds, even though it does not visually look larger. I guess this feeling may come from walking from one side of the map to the other (whereas before you stuck to your lane and the center sometimes). I do really like the choke points and high/low ground. Tower placement seems too random for me. Also, I would much rather have less space between the meganodes and nexus than what is there right now, particularly on the left side.
As for econ, it is going to take some getting used to. I can understand wanting the player to be more cognizant of gaining scrap/stock/pop, without relying on the auto selection. However, I agree with Severed that it feels more like a chore right now. Once I understand the timing a bit better and/or not lose my army so quickly, I think the system will definitely feel better.
Everything else?
Sorry Abyss about the backdoor. I really wanted to try it out on the new map. I could do it (though with the scrap not being automated right now it felt too long/worthless to tech to level 4).
This map definitely made team combat more interesting and fun. Since it is not as spread out, there is no true delineation of lanes, meaning team fights and fights versus people you were not expecting to see.
Titans respswning felt odd, especially after the 3rd respawn. By that time, teams are fighting against one another and not really focused on titans (unless you want something to do while waiting for a larger army).
As someone who has been playtesting for a while, this is by far the most interesting build yet, and I'm really happy to see some Atlas classic thrown in.
Can't wait to see/play more
Drafting Units: I really liked this aspect. I felt there are very few options for some heroes, but the idea is great. I feel this system could be expanded in to sort of a CCG/M:TG or Guild Wars 1 style system, with some really awesome compositions. Mercenaries fit this system a lot better than before. I think it's awesome.
Map: I feel this map makes a lot more sense. Surprisingly, even though I was one of the biggest advocates for expansions, after the Battery patch, it brought most of hte similar gameplay to every single game, and had a better purpose in the overall design of the game. So I feel the focus on taking out Batteries may be a better choice than expansions. Regardless of what is chosen ,some other map "hot spots" for action would be welcome, the map feels empty. But I like the design of it a lot better than the old one! Reminds me of old StarCraft maps mixed mixed with the moba style tower based map. Looks to be designed without a lot of the flaws of the old map.
Economy: I am very mixed about this aspect. I like the changes for units in the economy, one thing I'm not adapted to yet is scrap cost on units. It's not as intuitive as there is a very drastic difference on price of units, and this makes a lot of T1 unit spam. I don't care for that too much.
About the Generators, I like that you can choose what you want to work on, but the current implementation doesn't feel like very good decision making. The choices are pretty straight forward based upon what's necessary at the time, rather than strategic planning ahead. It seemed like there was 2 choices rather than 3 - focus on production or focus on scrap. Supply or stock was a situational requirement rather than a strategic one.
It did not feel very natural with how the system would build 1 at a time and then grant a chunk at once. I kept having the same feelings over and over:, "constant decision making could be built in to a nice system, but why is this rewarding chunks of resources, rather than functioning like an upgrade that increases the resource income?". Chunks of resources don't feel like the choices are making a solid investment.
It really seems like what would be intuitive would be upgrading one of the 3 areas. That's what my mind as a gamer expects to see in a game. The current implementation just feels weird.
Overall thoughts: I was excited as major changes were announced to be in patch. Then today when changes were officially announced, I was a bit worried when we were told so much changed and removal of squads etc. Because I REALLY enjoyed the last builds prior to this one.
But I was pleasantly surprised by the results. Most of the new systems are nice upgrades! Most of the things I loved about the old build are still here! My feelings I had since TW1 of "I wish more fights over the expansions happened" surprisingly has disappeared since the battery build, and I look forward to seeing this map improve over time.
The only one aspect that has diminished my fun a bit is the economy. I like that the focus seems to be on improving decision making, but I do not like queueing decisions or having to constantly make the same couple decisions alternatively over and over. It doesn't feel like the excitement is building up as the game goes on as much as it used to. It seems like there is a huge bottleneck of production going on during the game more often than not, rather than growth of the army being encouraged. It felt like much more attention was spent on mechanics rather than choices that matter.
If I was going to explain it in RPG terms, Generators felt more like throughout the game I was "constantly purchasing consumables at the shop to temporarily strengthen my character over and over" rather than "investing in some equipment that will improve my main build/strategy for my character for the duration of the game".
I know it is an early build, so I'm sure some of these things might change, but for current build those are my thoughts!
Thanks for the hard work!
Hey guys! I had a great time play testing last night. I wanted to write some of the thoughts I shared last night, hopefully to be a little clearer.
The 'Gain' Eco System
This system, for me, was not intuitive at all. The first two games I got stomped because I hit a wall where I could not build any units and I was stuck waiting for a very long time. In game three however, it clicked. Once I understood the system, it felt like I had a huge amount of potential, and it felt like it took both mechanical and mental skills to pull off something great (I love that). The most important part is that it makes the game feel a lot more like an rts. Kudos for this, it feels like a bold move that could really pay off. Finally, if anything needs polish first, its this. Get a really clean UI so that its both more intuitive, and easier to keep track of.
The Warp in Mechanic
I was also really concerned about this. I'm a Terran player, not a Protoss player! In SC I loved going 4-a-a-a-a... to build my marines. I love queuing up units (not too many queued of course). One again I was pleasantly surprised. It feels like the warp in gives me the best of both worlds. I can still queue up on units, then when I need them I warp them in. It felt very natural to me.
The Unit Picking System
This was the opposite of the 'Gain' System for me. This felt very intuitive, but not really exciting. I think you have the right idea currently, but the units I had to choose from didn't excite me. The early tiers for blue felt really cool. I tried both choices and liked them both, but the other early tier units didn't seem as interesting. My hope is that you guys will focus on giving us two or three really strong, unique choices, rather than 6 or 7 okay choices. The higher tier units are cool, but the way the game is currently (no expansions), it feels difficult to get a cool mix of them. Overall, I feel like this will be an improvement to the merc system.
The Map
I think due to the fact that this build was "rough", these comments aren't quite fair, but I'll share my feelings anyway. First, it felt like there was less to do. Not having expansions, meant that it felt like my only options where to get aspects and neutral camps. With the temporary removal of charms, neutral camps felt less useful. Although, I felt like I was starved of scrap the whole game, so I guess not having the charms might have been a good thing. Ultimately, when there were no aspects to collect, I felt like there was nothing I could do. It wasn't very fun when the aspects where on cooldown.
Second, the chokes felts much tighter. I don't know if others experienced this, but I found myself getting stuck/blocked by my allies more often. It felt a lot like TW1 in this regard. Since the aspects where on cooldown often, and there were no expansions, there didn't seem to be cool engagement spots.
Once again, I attribute these thoughts to the build being rough and not playing as many games as I have on the old map.
Hopefully, some of this is useful! Let me know if you want more details on anything I've mentioned. I had a lot of fun, and I can't wait for the next build!
Also, I'm sorry if I am not able to play this Sunday. i am going to my first real e-sports event. Dreamhack Austin!
First off, sorry I was logged into the wrong account when I posted. Lefty and Righty have been working together on this playtest, in their combined aspect as AceAl, due to the difficulty of a completely new build.
I like it! It provides a lot more variety and a good sense of pre-game strategy. I didn't actually do this last night, but I feel like there's a lot of room to plan your squad composition before the game for an even more strategic feel. This would of course require the Atlaspedia to be complete and not crash, so I can't actually try it out.
I ended up liking wisps + deadeyes for my white squad, and spitfires + dervishes for red. But it felt odd that I could pick deadeyes without having the "mark" ability, or pick ignitors without having a reliable source of ignite. I only tried the former, but it still seemed to work well enough.
I like it! For the first half of my first game I felt confused and like I was struggling economically (because I felt I was relying on a trickle from buttons I didn't understand). I suggest massive UX improvements with the generators, roughly the same as everyone else wants.
Once I got the hang of it though, I really felt like economy was a strategic choice again. One game I went for scrap first and accepted that as a consequence of my decision I would have a smaller army and not be able to replenish it much early game, so I played conservatively before my back-door triumph. Resource deficiencies or surpluses now feel like the result of my choices as opposed to an arbitrary interaction of railroad mechanics.
I really like how the bases are in the back and you warp in where-ever. When the whole team has a shared deployment route it feels like it's more of a coordinated strategy game than an "assigned lanes" MOBA. WIth the bases in the back, it also feels like the Nexus is a real "goal" now, because it's at their effective end of the playable space.
Balance issues are many and pretty well-known, but here are the ones I ran into (Note that I wasn't able to confirm the replay ids, watch replay did nothing when I clicked it):
Some brief notes:
Generator Stall - I can't tell if the generator rate slows down over time, or perhaps I just missed something in the notes (like there is a cap), but it seems like in a test bot game (haven't tried to repro yet), generators seemed to stall out. At a certain point, they no longer seemed to proc. In general, will be better when they have a countdown indicator like the rest of the production elements.
Generator Mechanism - I like this. It feels a little like moving to large scale production management (like managing a supply train). In a game state where we are not managing workers anymore, this is an interesting middle ground. Contrasting against slider mechanisms (things like Civ, space sim games where you balance shields, weapons, etc.) I think I'd give the edge to the sliders. In an RTS, that maybe isn't as interesting though, and would tend to be static? ["Added new upgrade, Research: Quarterly Finance Report"]
Pushing the buttons, maybe kind of meh, but not a big deal for roughest of rough early-ness.
Unit Picking - Yay! It's back-ish! While playing yesterday was already fun, the potential is high here. Do I like building a deck beforehand compared to [building invulnerable expansions in game that enable a new unit to be produced]? (I'm volunteering the question) I think an answer requires going back through all the various mechanisms we've played, as it is probably one of the central thematic questions you guys have been working around (excuse the editorial).
Hopefully this will begin feeling better once we've added more content, and once we've dug deeper into the role identities of units.
WOOO!
Lots of good stuff to consider in here. Thanks for testing and posting!
Lists of three make the world go 'round!
We have a metagame kinda! Woo!
Will peruse through some games and get an idea for how consistent this seems. Taking healing towers should definitely get you a leg up, but shouldn't be so crippling that it, alone, ends games. Lots of tuning to be done here, for sure!
Awesome stuff here! Love it!
Hi!
Soooooonnn....... ™
Thanks so much!
The merc thing is another contributing factor of us moving to the unit-picking scheme. Mercs were a great idea, but choosing a faction just to get one or two Mercs seemed like a waste of a choice. So now you pick your composition; maybe it contains Mercs, maybe it doesn't! Woo!
MORE WOO!
Yeah, we're very pleased with how combat is pacing out and how readable it is so far in the unit-picking world. Not content, but pleased. Gotta push to make sure combat is as awesome as possible!
Love your writeups, thanks so much!
Definitely noticed lots of mass-T1-age tonight. Lots of work to be done to make sure the game isn't just masses of basic units mashing, as the advanced units are definitely the fun, juicy bits.
I would credit our color system with this. We don't necessarily want one player to have such an ideal toolkit that he can 1v3 through composition alone with a perfect "Tank, artillery, support" composition where each role has ideal stats.
That's where we get to let our color-factions emphasize their strengths and weaknesses. Red has no ideal tank, blue has no perfect artillery unit, white has no powerful damagey caster, and green has no hyper-mobility. But red can shell out the damage, white has mobility, green is wicked tanky, and blue has all the support-castery goodness you could ever want.
Soon™! :D
Gotta tune and tweak until this one feels right, for sure!
Always! Thanks!
WOOO!
Love the analogy to deck-building. Balance and content will definitely play a huge role in making the unit-picking system feel solid and "free."
Being able to create and execute a plan is a huge goal of this resource-production system, so stoked to see ya say that!
Interesting. Good stuff here.
I think that's wise.
COUNTERPLAY WOO
TERRAIN MATTERS WOO
Oh, he's comin' back. Papa's comin' home. Soon.......™
Thanks Sam! <3
Lots of chipping away to do at the UI, for sure.
Yeah, we've gotta screw in some of the looser pieces of the map. The map is actually almost 30% of the size of the previous; but the paths are much more winding than the previous one.
I think we're mostly going to let it stew a bit and polish it a touch to see how it feels. I imagine the first few games is where it'll feel the most rocky. Just need more data here more than anything.
Need more options at Tech4, for sure. Still tossing some stuff around for that.
It's been such a relief to see that games didn't return to the old "mash 3v3 in the mid" that the old-old-old TW1 Art Map game mode lead to. We're seeing lots of healthy splitting, but also a good amount of teamplay. Feels good so far; hopefully we can keep it feeling that way and do away with the hard "duo/solo" lane segregation we had before.
Good stuff!
WWWOOOOOOOOOO
ALSO HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Awesome awesome awesome! Yeah, the feeling you get in unit-selection being similar to deck-building is definitely a desire here. Once we've got more content in there (particularly, mercs!), hopefully this will feel EVEN BETTER!
We're learners! Woohoo!
We're looking at a few different options for emphasizing the presence of higher-tier units. That is to say, we see the trouble of mass T1-age happening and are investigating solutions!
It can definitely feel quite a bit reactive right now. We're still chatting about whether that's a big problem or not, though. We definitely want some of that reactive flavor. We're looking at whether it's too reactive.
This could definitely be an alternate route to go with this. Good stuff!
WOO!
Good stuff here. Awesome, awesome, awesome!
Thank YOU for testing and posting! WOOO!
Nice. Love this bit!
Awesome!
Hopefully this will feel better once there's more content in the system. Right now it's basically "Choose 4 of 8." Soon, there'll be more than 8 and your choices will feel more different from game to game. Would love it if you'd keep tabs on how that feeling changes for you as we expand the unit roster (starting with Mercs).
Lots of tuning to do there still (likely beginning with the reintroducing of expansions). Adding items will probably favor T1 units quite a bit at first until we tweak it properly, though. One problem at a time here though, most likely.
Pathing is always a bit weird when we have a new map. Many improvements to come on this front!
Could also be this. :D
Very useful indeed! Enjoy your time at Dreamhack, and don't be afraid to say hi to your favorites. They appreciate it as much as you appreciate their time! And above all else, just have as much fun as possible! WOO!
Thanks!
First impressions (6 games, I think):
MICRO:
1) It's the same. It's still fun.
MACRO:
1) The game feels like an RTS now. Like, you can finally say "RTS/DotA" hybrid without just meaning that there are multiple units to control.
2) Macro decisions are small in scale, but have implications that grow in importance, and with the accuracy of the player. Am I making a tech play? Do I need more units? Will a bigger army help in this situation? What about each of those questions 30 seconds from now? 10 minutes from now? Further, there doesn't seem to be a point where these decisions stop. I will never NOT want a larger army, or more tech units.
3) Gems are really abundant after the 3rd titan kills. No valuation on this comment, just an observation. I'd be worried about expansions being important at all with the current system.
4) I do not like items. I will never like items being a part of gameplay. I think items are a really shallow way to add complexity. That is my bias, and I will take it to my grave. Thus, this build makes me happy.
STRATEGY:
1) Currently, the key points on the map are healing towers, mega nodes, and the nexus. These targets mean that the game will, necessarily snowball into a single lane of action (potentially with drop play changing the current conflict point, but still along one line). It's not bad... but it's really a static solution. Ever had a starcraft match where you ended up switching main bases with an opponent after a trade? Or have your main obliterated, and have to retreat to an expansion? Does Atlas offer my a similar feeling? Do the devs want that kind of feeling? Does the nexus have to be the only thing we need to kill?
2) I feel freedom to attack objectives when my opponent is out of position. Towers are currently a stop gap, not an impassible wall. That's a really good change, I think.
3) Wards are life.
4) The teleporter is lame. Not that there's no counter play. But it's just not fun to play against. The good implementations of teleportation (scroll of town portal: DOTA, recall: WC3) have always been retreat spells. If you guys can make offensive teleport into something that doesn't annoy your playerbase... props.
SUMMATION:
209 is more of the game I hoped for when I first read what Atlas was supposed to be. I feel like the individual can express their playstyle more in the current rules, than before. The game feels more open, and the skill ceiling seems higher.
The Map
… felt very cramped. All the passageways are narrow, and the fountain areas are cluttered with obstacles. I felt frustratingly limited in my ability to maneuver, especially with melee units. Confined spaces can definitely lead to cool situations and allow certain types of units to shine. Ideally the map should have a mixture of tight and open spaces to support different types of engagements and tactics.
Unit Picking
Like previous builds, I find myself building only two or three types of units per game, so having the rest of the customizable slots doesn’t mean much to me. I can see the potential for counter-play, so I’m optimistic that when things are better balanced there will reasons to utilize more of my unit slots.
However, I do find it a little odd that I am given so many unit options, but I can still expect my army to be composed mostly of T1s for the entirety of the game. I tried out a heavy Scarab comp and had some success, but the scrap overhead and build system make that kind of strategy really difficult. I feel like unit picks might feel more impactful if compositions changed more between the early, mid, and end game.
I like that each hero has his or her own special unit, though that unit always being the T1 seems like it could cause problems down the line. I’m worried about complexity creep and the potential limits of interesting T1 design space as you release more heroes. I’m kind of curious to see what happens to the Grovetender when green gets added back in.
The Economy
It was a funny April fools joke when you added a farm to the base, but I really don’t enjoy managing a crop rotation while I’m trying to micro my army. Since time is being converted into resources, it would be simpler if it just accumulated as one resource (minerals stock) and then spent to build other things like gas scrap and pylons pop. As it is, the system is functionally analogous to Starcraft, but it’s configuration is unnecessarily awkward.
Better yet, I’d really just prefer to go back to a fixed rate of pop growth. Games are fun when army strengths are evenly matched, and I have to outplay my opponents each time I want push closer to the win.
Having to warp in units a few at a time was a little awkward, but I think this system has potential. I think I prefer enforcing downtime after unit loss this way rather than running into a resource scarcity wall.
P.S. I would actually play a farm RTS where I could raise herds of animals and send them to harass my rival’s vegetable patches to secure an economic lead and a blue ribbon for largest squash at the county fair.
1) What I thought of unit-picking
I like it. It feels like I'll be able to put together whackier combos - surround with Scuttleguards then for them to stand in my Frostfall, whee! Unfortunately, while I like the concept I didn't really get to see much of it in action. Scrap is very scarce and (as mentioned above) once people realized that the shield batteries and nexus were both wet noodles, there wasn't really a "late game". As such, I look forward to crazy unit combos and the different ways in which they play out, but the opportunity just isn't there right now.
2) Main base stuff - generators, etc.
Conceptually, I like the idea of steering my #'s and I also understand how rough/early this is, but in execution I'm not sure what I think about it. It SEEMS like it offers options and depth and also lets you adjust to both your playstyle and how the game is going, but it didn't feel that way. Maybe this will play out different when the #'s are tweaked (scrap gives a pittance, population doesn't hit a point where there's no way I could fill it after 10 minutes with how frequently things die), but it doesn't seem to have much impact right now.
3) Grab bag of everything
As mentioned above, because stock was relatively limited, armies comprised mostly T1 units. Once you got about 10 minutes in, that meant that army blobs were so huge that I felt my allies and I were constantly getting in each other's way. Maneuvering out of the way of big abilities was a pain, if possible at all, and I felt more like the crux of the game involved trying like hell to get a decent position and little else. It wasn't even like my teammates were doing their own thing - we were trying to coordinate and you'd just hear "oh sorry, I trapped your hero" on Discord pretty often.
I loved being able to warp in units - ignoring the problem in the test builds of streaming units getting caught/lost, being able to pop out a cluster of units for your squad and go do SOMETHING with them just feels so...so Atlas. The single sequentially built one-or-two-at-a-time-units just felt boring and like "just another RTS".
I liked respawning titans - even though the balance is a little off right now, it feels like it could give you something to do at any point in the game. I have to agree with @Cycle that I don't even really miss expansions. I mean, when I think about it, expansions make you trade a short-term time/money investment in exchange for longer-term payout. They also provide a means by which you have to get ahead of your opponent - by either taking expansions faster or denying theirs. Finally, they offer objectives on the map - "here is how you defeat your opponent, you have to kill these".
But...it feels like we can recreate most of those concepts without having an expansion that brings in passive income. Working backwards on my list, there are already objectives on the map. I can try to smash titans, or control the gem spigot or track where my opponent is going and deny them doing the same. The only thing that doesn't really translate is the short-term investment for long-term payout, but I'm OK with alternate goals and tactics.
I have warmed up to the build after playing a few more bot games today with Hydros. There really isn't much I can say at this point that hasn't already been said in one form or another. Overall, I do like the change to units and the map. Once (if) the missing Mercs return and/or new units are added along with expos and upgrades; I think I will definitively feel the improvement over the previous build. Having a pool of units to choose from based on color, alongside a core T1 for each hero, just seems more appropriate for the game as a whole.
My aim so far has been to build a blue hero into a support role. Through traversing the map, creeping the camps, and engaging in combat from a defensive standpoint; My team (of bots lul) was able to achieve victory. Therefor, I feel like this build caters more to that fantasy than the last. Here's to the future.