Playtest 230: Wednesday Night Mighty Tight Titan Fights!

TreiskTreisk Member, Administrator

Playtest 230: Wednesday Night Mighty Tight Titan Fights!


General Gameplay

In this build, we'll be experimenting with another set of interaction mechanics in the mid-map regions! The bottom and top regions are home to Shardvines that provide resources to those daring enough to claim its Gems. Meanwhile, a battle stirs in the middle of the map as two Titans prepare to face off! Defeat the enemy's Titan to free your own!

Objectives

Gem Regions

  • Reverted top and bottom Capture Zones to Gem Regions
  • The top and bottom Gem Regions no longer grant Titans once all Gems have been collected. Instead, they give an extra burst of 5 collectible Gems to the first team to collect 10!
  • The Gem Region has been removed from the center of the map.
  • Gem Region respawn time: 5 minutes
  • Gems needed to resolve region: 20 ⇒ 10
  • Gem Value: 10 ⇒ 20
  • Gem lifetime: 5 seconds ⇒ 16 seconds
  • Gem collection time: 5 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds
  • Gem spawn interval: 5 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds

Titan Fights!

  • The middle Gem Region has been replaced by two battling Titans! Players can attack these Titans. Once a Titan is destroyed, the survivor gains a burst of healing, then advances against the enemy, attacking towards the Nexus!
  • Each time Titans respawn, they become more difficult to take down.
  • Titan Fight respawn time: 5 minutes
  • The Titan is no longer player-controllable.
  • The Titan will occasionally march in a target direction, stunning targets it strikes along the way. This is telegraphed before it begins!
  • Every 45 seconds, the Titan will change positions. Note that this is different from the March ability!
  • As the Titans lose health, they drop gems that the opposing team can collect. This continues to be true even as the Titan advances against the enemy!

Economy

  • Energy gains from Generators and Creep Camps have been reduced by ~25%!

Creeps

  • Medium Camp spawn time: 6:00 ⇒ 7:00
  • Hard Camp spawn time: 12:00 ⇒ 14:00
  • Fixed a bug that caused the Mantis Flower creep from giving its full BioShard reward.


Units


Blue

  • Plated Warrior

    • Context: Rather than be a tank with strengths (slow, hard-hitting attacks) and weaknesses (fast-ticking DoTs and rapid attacks), this thing was sort of a clean answer-all tank. A big part of that is that players weren't sacrificing much damage or general-purpose durability for its more-specialized purpose. These changes should bring the unit in line with its intent.
    • Health: 265 ⇒ 200
    • Damage: 25 ⇒ 16

Red

  • Eris

    • Fixed a bug that caused Eris to become unable to move if something stopped Volley from completing.

Comments

  • wondiblewondible Member

    Lots of 3v3 in the middle. The asymmetry in areas is interesting, although I'm equally bad at taking all of them.

    Tried the opposite of last time - went full energy/supply (Ryme and Alder). My kill counts were higher, but I never actually got full deployment due to constant replacement, and both games we got curbstomped, never winning a single titan.

  • wondiblewondible Member

    Third game as Eris mass supply worked much better. Had surplus energy and even made T3. Was able to split hero to a gem region a few times. I was low in the kill count though.

  • Gems and Titans

    Topic
    (1.1) - This game mode had some fun going on. Overall, the variation was interesting. The gameplay experience changes throughout, which is kind of cool. A part of this was lack of familiarity; and with more time on this style, it might become easier to parse. As is, though, switching between center, gems, camps and invading kept a quick pace to the game, and I felt like there was more urgency in doing a given phase better. I thought this was a cool higher-order effect (unintended as it may be).

    (1.2) - The titan fights were kind of crazy. The net effect seemed to be zone plates with armies that survived much longer, as each side balanced between trying to impact the opposing armies and titan. It was also a little tough to read what was going on, but that just made it more fun. Long term, don't know, but tonight, these were fun fights.

    (1.3) - The map is feeling a little small, here. I'm guessing this comes from spending more time in proximity to large armies on both sides (eg. in the center during titan fights).

    Units

    Blue
    (2.1) - I hadn't played much with the Plated Warrior in the past (such that I don't remember when it appeared, even). I didn't end up building into them too much. I don't feel like it was an obvious read for where/when I'd want them. Whether this would have changed before when they were beefier, not sure.

  • grybyxgrybyx Member

    overall this felt really fun the fights in the middle over the titans were an interesting dynamic which felt very cluttered which made micro feel difficult but, it also opened up the possibility of split pushing and due to how long the fight lasted you could potentially due some roaming and taking camps other fountains etc while still contributing in the fight.

    I noticed I was often running low on energy which was a nice change from previous patches where I would just produce bioshards and supply until I was maxed this forced me to choose between fewer higher tier units or numerous low tier units rather than just filling my supply with low tier units then replacing them with higher tier units as I got enough bioshards. I really liked the feeling of having to make decisions like that.

    Something felt weird about the towers etc on the side the titan didn't push on. you just had to push without a titan to kill the shield battery and towers which based on always pushing with titans in previous patches felt kind of awkward.

  • MilleaMillea Member

    The late game feels a lot less frustrating. If a game goes on for a while, it does not feel like one team is ahead and the other team is defending a base forever. Long games happen more frequently.

    However, in the late game, only mid lane matters. I believe it's best to ignore bot and top past 30 minutes and just go mid. I don't like this.

    Here's an example: Gdd2a498d7f0e4b4eb9de6a12a1db55b3

    Also titan fight's results feel very binary. If you don't get the enemy titan's hp down a LOT it just heals back up to full and you have to deal with the full hp titan. This makes a . I'd prefer if they did something like heal a percentage of missing hp instead.

  • I agree with every aspect of Millea's post above. Additionally...

    Though the first Titan or two of full 3v3 combat is intensely interesting, I'm not as interested with 600 Shards banked up, 120+ Energy, and 100/100 maximum upgrade dream army waiting for what feels to be the only game-ending objective. While this is ABSOLUTELY an improvement over making Ion Cannons surrounding a Nexus until the game ends (more engaging, sense of possible comebacks), there is still a degree to which past the 35m mark I wanted the game to end and didn't care too strongly how it ended or who won.

    I feel as if I have more meaningful options due to the structuring of income. Having the top and bottom provide the same resources, but only two lanes for three players was very intriguing. I enjoyed using the space and the gameplay of this to poke around for more Easy camps, take unsecured Towers, play 1v1, and play 2v2 lanes. This to me is an enormous improvement. The timing of the first Titan also allows team fights and creates a single point of focus for battling at around the 4-6 minute mark that I found fun.

    The change in Energy granted by Creeps makes me feel like I should build Energy more often, as I cannot expect to generate enough of it for my needs through the Creeps alone. In previous builds I considered myself to be doing extremely poorly if I EVER had to build Energy, but now I find I build it in scenarios that don't involve me having just lost my entire army. It's possible that the context for making Energy changed for moreso than the balance or act of building it, but it's solid all the same :)

  • tedstertedster Member
    edited July 30

    The center titan fight is interesting but there are not enough compelling things to do around the map currently to encourage anything but big slugfest. This makes ultra-long-range units extremely powerful and makes skirmish squads feel bad. It also makes games feel almost entirely about mechanics and much less about choices past the 15 minute mark, since you're usually jamming center lane almost all the time or defending against titan/pokes.

    Siege DOES feel better in this mode, as do units like Conduits (who feel pretty overpowered instead of crummy like they did before). It also seems easier to turtle up and tech rush since there's more room to come back late, which might not be a good thing.

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