My impressions

So I came into Atlas as a player who loves playing both the RTS genre and the MOBA genre. I have 6000 hours in dota 2 and probably at least that many in starcraft 2 as well. I have played league of legends a decent bit as well, although that was several years ago. I really wanted to like Atlas coming into it, so I was disappointed when I didn't really like it very much. I don't hate it - I just don't enjoy it.

First off let me list some positive feedback I have about the game, because there are a few things that I like. I think the overall concept of mixing a team moba with rts elements has potential and could be good. I also like a lot of the unit designs in the game and think that the Atlas team came up with some cool ideas that we haven't really seen often in other rts games. Another feature that I like a lot is the ui panel for spellcasting that puts all of your armies spells on one tab, which makes it easier to not forget to use any of your abilities.

However, I do have some criticisms of the game which I think kind of killed my enthusiasm. The unit models all feel too small, and because of this I don't feel as excited to make the higher tier units. Yes the higher tier units are significantly bigger than the tier 1 units in general, but I don't feel like they are big enough to generate excitement personally. Also it feels like everything moves too slowly in the game. For lack of a better comparison, it feels like I'm controlling ground units in grey goo, everything feels sluggish and slow.

Another criticism I have is that hero units feel weird. They only have one spell until they are level 8, at which point they unlock their 2nd and last spell. Their ultimates feel powerful, but this is the only exciting thing that most of the heroes seem to do. And I don't really understand what the xp does from levels 8-20. My hero doesn't seem like it gets stronger, the respawn time doesn't increase, I don't unlock any new spells, so what does this xp actually do?

Objectives also feel weird. Probably because there are no creeps in lanes, taking towers doesn't really feel like it accomplishes much. You get a bit of gold and your opponent gets a bit less vision, but taking an outer tower or two doesn't really feel like it pushes your team towards a win as it does in dota or league of legends, because it doesn't really apply more pressure to the lane.

My last criticism is that it feels like the game encourages you to create a deathball with your team. At first you split up and take the objectives, but by the midgame it seems like both teams just group up all their armies together to contest the titan. The game doesn't really seem to create many incentives to not group everything up. In dota for example, you can split push with 1-2 heroes and then teleport back to defend, or take more farm and then teleport to defend crucial towers while the other team is grouped up and not getting as much out of the map as you. And in starcraft you can harass the workers and economy of the other team. But in Atlas it doesn't feel like you can do that much when they are grouped up to gain an advantage from it. Usually there aren't many objectives that are unclaimed that you can go farm, to get more out of the map. And you can't really split push and take meaningful objectives while the other side is grouped up. So it kind of feels like you just have to group up yourself.

Overall, it feels like I'm playing a mix of Grey Goo and the HoTS Garden of Terror map, when I wish it would feel like I was playing a mix of league of legends and starcraft, or dota 2 and starcraft.