Playtest 214: Major unit collision size overhaul, More income adjustments, Eris ability changes!

TreiskTreisk Member, Administrator
edited May 28 in Patch Notes

Playtest 214: Major unit collision size overhaul, More income adjustments, Eris ability changes!

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General Gameplay

Pathing & Unit Collision

  • Units have seen major collision size reductions across the board!

    • Please inform us of your experience with the adjusted collision sizes, particularly how they affected your experience with pathing, moving through expected spaces (and if/when you couldn't do something you expected to be able to), or any other feedback here!
    • Please note that, as a result of reduced collision sizes, you may find it slightly more difficult to land abilities on units. Please also report your experience versus your expectations in regards to this!

Economy & Income

  • Increase Supply

    • Provides 3 max supply ⇒ 5 max supply
  • Scrap Generators have had their generation value increased dramatically!
  • Supply is now capped at 100 (20 base + 16*5 from Increase Supply)
  • Gem values have been adjusted. Please note that Medium and Large gems now only spawn from neutral camps.

    • Basic gem: 50 scrap ⇒ 20 scrap
    • Medium gem: 75 scrap ⇒ 40 scrap
    • Large gem: 100 scrap ⇒ 60 scrap

Gem Fountains

  • The size of gems spawned from Gem Fountains no longer escalate in size.
  • Gems required to summon a Titan: 10 ⇒ 8
  • Gem collection time: 45 seconds ⇒ 40 seconds
  • Time between Gem spawns: 10 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds

Items & Upgrades

  • The Item Shop has been removed
  • Added an upgrade to the Research Facility that allows your vision wards to detect invisible units.

Units

Green

  • Howling Commando

    • Scrap cost: 10 ⇒ 20
    • Splash radius: 1.5 ⇒ 1.25
    • Splash damage: 75% ⇒ 50%
  • Abominable Sludge

    • has received new VFX!

Red

  • Eris

    • Sandblast (Basic) has been removed.
    • Sandstorm (Ultimate) has been removed
    • New Basic Ability: Dis-Array!

      • Eris fires a quick shot at the target location, dealing damage to the first enemy unit struck. This ability's cooldown is halved if Dis-Array hits an enemy unit.
    • New Ultimate Ability: Volley!

      • Eris stands in place, firing a wild volley of arrows in a cone towards her target location, dealing damage to enemy units struck.
  • Vex

    • Scorch (Basic)

      • Cooldown: 10 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds
  • SandStinger

    • Health: 50 ⇒ 60

White

  • Deadeye

    • Using Take Aim several times consecutively should now behave more responsively!

Mercenaries

  • Chiller

    • has been reworked and added to the roster!

      • The Chiller's attacks now slow their target's movement speed.
      • Tech level required: 2 ⇒ 3
  • Trapper

    • has returned to the roster!

Comments

  • TrillenTrillen Member

    I am not a fan of the auto collecting the gems. There were times where I was fighting in a fountain and normally I would wait till the fight was over before collecting the gems so they wouldn't get insta killed but with auto collect that is not an option.

    X, Y thing : I feel frustrated when I auto collected gems I wasn't ready to collect yet.

    Eris is back to being insanely strong.

    The pathing seemed much better in the games I played. Thank you so much for the change

  • Hello Artillery, it's been a while so prepare for a long one:

    If I had not read the patch notes prior to playing some games, I doubt I would have noticed the collision changes myself. While I used a lot of Lava Spitters and Scarabs, both were for the first time, and as Vex I don't feel that there's a problem with my units being too bulky or hard to move around. However, I DID notice that I could get out of the way of my allies heroes more easily and it felt great not to be responsible for my allies' death. While I am concerned about the increase to bursty damage that comes from smaller collision radii, I do not feel that I have no power even as Eris is bowling over me with Sandstingers and Devilkin Dervishers... I feel there is enough AoE for me to punish army balls.

    Thank you for increasing the value of Supply. In the previous version I felt frustrated that the values were going up so slowly, particularly if I was on the losing side as it could easily become the case that I would have too many resources I would require and not enough time to get them back and fight against a disadvantage. It also feels good to get into larger army clashes sooner.

    However, I feel that the lower speed of army creation (2 at a time) when combined with the faster increase in supply means that my early-game battles are extremely consequential. As I've drawn two games today, one where I was smashed and another where I was fairly even, I don't feel this is a BAD thing. I enjoy that there are longer benefits to winning a battle than the time it takes for the units to respawn, but I've also seen that my games today have been shorter by about 10 minutes than was typical. Given that I was playing with AceAl, Nib, and other awesome people like that, I'm willing to concede it might be because they're very, very good at the game.

    I didn't feel as starved for Scrap during the beginning and middle portions of the game as in previous versions, so I feel those changes were overall excellent. It also feels more intuitive to me that the Scrap Generators are more effective than the Creeps for Scrap collection, but the number and respawn rate of the creeps means I don't feel hurt for Scrap at any point in the game.

    While I didn't type it out, I'm glad that the deck picker at the start of the game shows the Tier for various units. Also, props on the image changes for the bases and several of the units. They look amazing!

    On a final note, I do not feel that the Pyrosaur is a comparable choice to make for Vex given its cost and tech requirements. The Ignitor fits the range of Spitfires more and has a more distant AoE at 50 lower scrap, the Scarab and Lava Spitters are your T2 choice for keeping distance by mixing it up or playing ranged respectively and cost 1/4 the Scrap at an earlier tech tree, and the Apocalyte does what the Pyrosaur wants to do, but at range and with guaranteed deaths on T1 units.

    Thank you again for your time and the games!

  • wondiblewondible Member

    I'm often experiencing a stock crash in the early game. I guess I need to work on different build orders.

    Scrap is back to being the major consideration in which units I build.

    I tend to queue up resources when I fall short, which may be why I sometimes had large resource spikes. The economy right now feels very swingy, where I'm either completely out or have way too much. Maybe I just need to be babysitting my generators while fighting.

    Tried trapper in one game, I think the mine only went off once. Chillers came in too late to get any real fighting.

  • CohLysionCohLysion Member

    Collision Size Reduction

    (1.1) - Collision size reduction was nice tonight. Didn't notice an increased targeting difficulty, movement and pathing was good. Makes the map feel a bit bigger. Overall, improvement.

    Economy and Income

    (2.1) - I was surprised, even having read the patch notes, to hit the supply cap. It was late game, and didn't really feel too inhibited by it, so no feedback either way.
    (2.2) - Increased scrap generator rate was noticeable, especially when still spamming at a rate commensurate with the previous rate. Still felt like I got a lot from jungling, even with the reductions. If it was me, I'd worry about reducing it further, if that is a consideration.

    Gem Fountains

    (3.1) - I like this change, as it makes the consideration of jungling vs gemming late game a bit more of a decision.

    Item Shop

    (4.1) - I miss the shop, and the items. I still hope for these at some point. I actually prefer the idea of choosing your armament before game, kind of like choosing your deck (see tests when all the captors were the same except you got to choose an ability and death laser).

    Units

    Green
    (5.1) - Really only got playtime in on Green. I like the sludge vfx, well done. Commando nerf, cost seems in line, splash damage reduction was fairly noticeable against the big t1 armies today. Kind of was hoping to get more out of them.

    Other Notes
    (5.2) - Saw a bit of Eris's kit in play, seems cool. No real feedback.
    (5.3) - Biggest place I focus on Scorch would tend to be jungling. Increasing the CD on that, maybe not that big a deal for jungle, and if it balances in pvp, is cool.

  • DeaucalionDeaucalion Member
    edited May 30

    Collision

    I did find it a little easier to extricate units. I think I still noticed a few units getting stuck running against other units, but during the playtest it was mentioned that that is a somewhat separate pathing issue that has not yet been addressed.

    Army / Resource Snowball

    Like last test, I felt like I spent most of the match just struggling to get my army strength above 50% of my supply cap. This felt particularly bad this time because the tighter unit packing amplified attrition rates and the advantage of large armies. The reduced number of build slots and expedited supply gain also contributed. I did run into some earlier than expected stock shortages because of this.

    Due to these factors, I felt that there wasn't really a way for me to successfully engage my opponents once I started to fall behind. Perhaps the correct thing to do is turtle up on my side of the field and do camps while my army builds, but I feel like this just gives my opponent's the space do their own camps + secure jugs and push in to harass my camps.

    Obviously I am playing against people who have better unit control, and I expect to feel that in encounters and ultimately lose to them because of that, but right now I just feel more and more powerless as the gap in army strength widens.

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