My First Six Games

I was completely shocked that I got invited into the Atlas closed beta this weekend. Totally did not expect to get in, so thank you for the invite :-D.

I took some notes as I played through my first six games - I hope the devs find it useful. If anyone would like me to elaborate on what I said below I would be happy to do so.

Looking through these notes after playing my sixth game, I felt really stupid thinking "how could I not know that?" or "didn't I pay any attention during the tutorial?", but I didn't think I'd be doing Artillery any service by editing my notes for my own pride. So please be easy on me while reading this thing, I really did try to pay attention as I was playing!

Game One (Tutorial)

When I initially logged in, I was trying to modify my settings - one thing I recall changing was going from "Windowed" to "Full Screen", after doing that my mouse clicks would not register on the ground, but would register on the spaces outside of the tutorial arena.

It felt clunky, and odd clicking on the orbs popping out of the orb tower. I intuitively wanted to step on the orbs.

Game Two (Easy Bots)

Being able to choose from so many heroes at the start of the match feels a little overwhelming.

The text on the character cards is unpleasant to read.

Do the shades of color on these heroes mean anything?

I chose hydros, he sounded a little more straightforward than the other heroes.

Oh woah, I'm choosing my army units? That's neat.

Ohhhhh, they're FACTIONS, it looks like it affects my unit choice. Oh my god there is so much to take in!

I'm glad my units are defaulted for me. If I had to choose my squad I would just end up choosing randomly I think.

Why do I need to warp myself in at the start?

I'm unsure of how to increase my pop cap.

I placed collector things on the orbs, but I'm unsure why it hasn't gathered yet does the time it takes differ in the game than the tutorial?

Ohhhh, I see the little bars below the orbs now.

Okay, so there are a bunch of buildings, I can upgrade using these and such.

Came out of the first game a little overwhelmed. I haven't played many mobas, RTS games are generally my thing. Choosing all of the units I can build, AND the equipment I can get, AND choosing upgrades, AND managing all of the action of the board seems so daunting right now. It feels like all of the complexity of a moba and an rts combined.

Game Three (Normal Bots)

This game I felt like I had a much better understanding of what was going on early on. The pieces started to click and I started to enjoy myself more and worry less about all of the things I didn't know. Until I started getting to the end. When my team of bots and I slammed into a few heroes and got smashed. It looked like they had a huge number of units (though at the moment I'm not sure if these things are like zerglings to my zealots or what).

I was frustrated after this game, I started looking around at the different numbers (like the goofy cross thing at the top, I suspect it's our team's total population) to see where I went wrong.

Game Four (Tutorial Again)

After playing that game, I felt like I really hadn't payed enough attention during the tutorial so I went back to play that. Sure enough, a lot of my questions were suddenly cleared up. The big thing I missed was the sort of "flow" of the game, it seems like I should be focusing a lot more on these towers and orbs, and then maybe killing monster camps during downtime.

Game Five (Easy Bots)

Ohhhhhhhhhhh!!! Now i'm starting to feel it. I'm starting to care more about my unit composition, and I'm starting to see that my "cheap" units feel more free now! I just keep summoning them when they get killed. Playing the tutorial again really helped me feel more relaxed about my objectives.

The "upgrade complete" notification has gotten annoying. It's constant, and while I understand that it's important, maybe a slightly more sublte sound for it just so it isn't so grating all the time?

I feel like an idiot, I just realized that these upgrades are only helping my units and not everyone elses. That's neat.

I know it's considered bad practice to click things... but moving my hand all the way over to the "O" key to get to my upgrades is really annoying. Can we get a tab similar to army and production but for the last few buildings?

Won this game, this time it felt really good. Started getting actually excited about all the stuff I'm seeing go on. Probably my most fun game yet :-D.

Game Six (Normal Bots)

Should be going to bed for work tomorrow, but I really want to play one more game against harder bots and see if I can do better.

I started playing Grath in my second attempt at the tutorial. He feels good and pretty simple so far.

Wait... what are these stone piles left over after I kill a spawn? I right clicked it. What have I been missing?!

Soooo, finished that game. Oh man I had a blast . There's still so much I don't know but crushing my opponents felt great. Definitely noticed a huge improvement from the previous games. That little tug of war over the orbs is a ton of fun. I
now see why you need to "click" on the orbs that I mentioned in the first game too - the enemy can destroy your orbs hahah.

All in all, the game FEELS fun. There's so much depth here that it's extremely intimidating at first, but I genuinely look forward to my next time getting to sit with the game.