Warp Spires no longer respawn; and now drop 12 Gems when destroyed.
Noticing logic has been changed for attack-moving
When attack-moving, units may now discard low-priority targets (such as Creeps and Critters) if they aren't near the attack-move destination
This can be used, while fighting low-priority targets, to move past those targets to fight enemies directly and ignore those low-priority targets
Idle units will still attempt to attack the nearest thing until a new attack command is issued
Critters
Critter spawning adjusted
Critters will now spawn throughout the game and don't stop spawning.
Critters still respawn every 30 seconds as before
Each side region has two spawn areas (4 total on the map)
5 Critters can be active at a time for each spawner (10 max per region; 20 total on the map)
Trees have been removed; Critters now spawn underground and "pop out"
Critters Will now flee from attackers
No longer requires target-firing
Titans
Is now "Leashed!" The Titans are trying to move towards the enemy base, but are stopped by a leash. After taking enough damage, the Titan will be reeled in by the leash. It will still occasionally stomp around towards enemy units.
Is now claimed by the player that secures the finishing blow
Economy
BioShard Generator Value: 20 - 55 ⇒ 30 - 82
UI & Audio
Added a hit indicator that appears when your units are attacked off-screen
Units
Heroes
Now gain less damage per level and more health per level, on average
Now gain +3 Physical Resist and Magical Resist per Hero level, except for Hydros who gains 4 of each instead.
The rewards for killing Heroes now scale with Hero level, and rewards for killing Heroes have been added!
Heroes now take 15 seconds (+ 2 seconds per Hero level) to respawn
Heroes will now drop 2 Gems (+ 1 per 2 hero levels) when killed
Heroes now grant 200 Experience (+ 50 Experience per Hero level) when killed
Melee units will now notice and chase targets from further away
Blue
Hydros
Health: 480 ⇒ 510
Damage: 19 ⇒ 18
Physical Resist: 10 ⇒ 0
Ryme
Damage: 24 ⇒ 18
Attack Range: 6 ⇒ 10
Movement speed: 5.1 ⇒ 4.8
Aquanaut
BioShard cost: 25 ⇒ 20
Health: 255 ⇒ 185
Damage: 24 ⇒ 30
Attack Range: 7 ⇒ 8.5
Movement speed: 4.6 ⇒ 4.4
Unit cap: 25 ⇒ 8
Ice Shield
Cooldown: 15 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds
Nautilusk
Added a tooltip to Unit Selection that explains the Nautilusk's Plate capacity and Plate regeneration mechanic.
Energy cost: 5 ⇒ 6
BioShard cost: 25 ⇒ 20
Health: 200 ⇒ 240
Damage: 16 ⇒ 22
Attack cooldown: 1.4 seconds ⇒ 1.1 seconds
Unit Cap: 25 ⇒ 6
Plate Capacity: 15 ⇒ 18
Out-of-Combat Plate regeneration rate: 1 per second ⇒ 2 per second
Gusset (Upgrade)
Bonus Plate: +5 ⇒ +8
Now reduces the required out-of-combat time by 2 seconds
Quadrapus
BioShard cost: 125 ⇒ 100
Ancient Ice Frog
BioShard cost: 250 ⇒ 175
Aquadillo
BioShard cost: 225 ⇒ 150
Green
Alder
Damage: 21 ⇒ 17
Attack Range: 7 ⇒ 9.5
Movement speed: 4.9 ⇒ 4.8
Grath
has received a visual update!
Health: 440 ⇒ 455
Damage: 21 ⇒ 18
Movement speed: 5.1 ⇒ 5.0
Physical Resist: 5 ⇒ 0
Howling Commando
BioShard cost: 25 ⇒ 30
Health: 290 ⇒ 320
Damage: 20 ⇒ 26
Attack Range: 5.25 ⇒ 5.5
Unit Cap: 25 ⇒ 6
Bramblethorn
Unit Cap: 4 ⇒ 3
Toxin Mystics have been reworked!
BioShard cost: 100 ⇒ 125
Damage: 12 ⇒ 10
Attack cooldown: 1.5 seconds ⇒ 1.8 seconds
Attack range: 11 ⇒ 8
Unit Cap: 6 ⇒ 4
Now applies a small Damage over Time effect to its attack targets
ACTIVE ABILITY: Deadly Toxin
The Toxin Mystic channels on its target, dealing damage equal to 1.5% of the target's max health per second.
This damage increases by an additional 1.5% of the target's max health for every second the channel persists.
The damage effect lasts 2 seconds after the channel ends.
Channels for 8 seconds, cannot be canceled by the player, and cancels if the target exits its range.
Abominable Sludge
BioShard cost: 225 ⇒ 175
Batterhorn
BioShard cost: 225 ⇒ 200
Trebuchet
Unit Cap: 4 ⇒ 3
Red
Eris
Damage: 26 ⇒ 28
Attack Cooldown: 2 seconds ⇒ 1.8 seconds
Attack Range: 7 ⇒ 8.5
Movement speed: 5.4 ⇒ 5.3
Vex
Damage: 22 ⇒ 18
Attack Range: 8 ⇒ 9.5
Cinder Beetle
Energy cost: 5 ⇒ 7
BioShard cost: 25 ⇒ 30
Unit Cap: 25 ⇒ 6
Spawn Beetles
Beetles spawned: 2 ⇒ 3
Tooltip not yet updated!
Cinderling damage: 4 ⇒ 5
Cinderling movement speed: 5.7 ⇒ 5.8
Exofiend
Now has a visual effect on the ground when burrowed (not visible to enemies)
Warp towers are interesting. Removes the uncertainty about where I can spawn at the current time. Between warps and heals there is definitely some feedback on the losing team.
Critter attack seemed to work okay - would usually prefer enemies, but still usable on critters.
"click anywhere to exit" is up long before there is any response to clicks.
Economy generally felt like it was flowing pretty well. I sometimes had a a surprising amount of shards later in the game.
When I'm running back to base after a fight, I sometimes have to swap between units and construction to figure out what I've still got and what I need to replace.
I'll have to play more with it to be sure but I like the removal of warp towers being permanent. It opens a hole in the defense (aside from just towers) where the attacker can set up a siege without the play changing after a while.
The new "noticing logic" is another thing I'll have to toy with more, but early indications are positive. I felt like this was something I didn't need, yet it was nice.
I'm really sort of "meh" about the critter spawns. A while ago when we were talking about gem capturing, Day9 said that it felt like you were being drawn away from the actual game to "milk the cow". It interrupted the pace of what was fun in order to just sort of farm - I feel the same about the critters. It's replaced clicking on a gem node with attacking a critter "node" of sorts. In neither case do I find anything particularly engaging or fun about either of them - they're no threat to me and are there just to be harvested. The advantage here is that, due to how you've implemented it, the hero doesn't necessarily need to be with the army to farm the critters.
Critters to me are a dumbed-down piñata version of creeps that already exist in the game. Creep camps are more interesting because of their dynamic - if you don't interrupt their shield you're in for a bad time, particularly if you get ganked while clearing the camp because you didn't scout enough. If this happens, do you back out? Do you try and fight? If you do, watch out for the shield stun! It's more interesting. The phase of the game, by comparison, where "it's time to farm the critters" is the part that I'm sitting there, waiting for it to be over. The titan fight in the middle is definitely more interesting (I didn't say it in weeks past but props on the art work, I like it!). As I cited above, even regular camps are more interesting to me.
I know that doing a direct comparison to MOBAs isn't fair but when I'm laning in Dota 2, I'm not only killing enemy creeps for gold/exp, I'm doing it to both help my own creeps push toward the enemy tower and prevent the opposing creeps from getting hits on my own tower. Yes there are subtle nuances where you don't necessarily want to do that early on in the game, but this is just a general point - you're killing the units for a reason other than just to get stronger. Critters in Atlas, by comparison, feel like busy work.
Didn't have time to type up notes last night, so just some quick informal ones here.
Progression System : Second test (no games off-test) on progression. I find I'm enjoying the out-game leveling, though I wonder to what extent what I'm liking, the bigger out-game strategy of what to unlock, is influenced by unit familiarity. I like playing within the strategic limitations. I imagine a new player would definitely like a way to demo units with faster frequency than what comes up in the hero rotation. Rate of progression seems okay, I think. I don't have a good feel for what the target rate should be, but my rough impression is that it feels a little slow at the beginning. I've roughly been at one unlock per level. Are level and currency rates for human and bot games equal?
Thinking about critters, what I've found is that I don't really go after them mid-to-late game. They don't feel like they are as critical, though I don't actually remember now what they give you. It's now gems, right? What does this version of gems give you? Writing this, I'm reminded of critters in SC2. I often would imagine in passing by them (I suppose instead of focusing on my macro) what it would be like if they responded to what was going on in the game. Makes me wonder what it would be like if critters spawned randomly around the map (with quantity/rate symmetry), and even traveled. If they maintained a tangible benefit, could make the vision game more interesting, since the difference between this and old gems would be that you'd have to find them first.
Picking up the shards on the ground feels like an unnecessary chore. There's no competition over them, so it removes the main attraction with them over getting shards on kill.
Treisk
Member, Administrator
Comments
Warp towers are interesting. Removes the uncertainty about where I can spawn at the current time. Between warps and heals there is definitely some feedback on the losing team.
Critter attack seemed to work okay - would usually prefer enemies, but still usable on critters.
"click anywhere to exit" is up long before there is any response to clicks.
Economy generally felt like it was flowing pretty well. I sometimes had a a surprising amount of shards later in the game.
When I'm running back to base after a fight, I sometimes have to swap between units and construction to figure out what I've still got and what I need to replace.
I'll have to play more with it to be sure but I like the removal of warp towers being permanent. It opens a hole in the defense (aside from just towers) where the attacker can set up a siege without the play changing after a while.
The new "noticing logic" is another thing I'll have to toy with more, but early indications are positive. I felt like this was something I didn't need, yet it was nice.
I'm really sort of "meh" about the critter spawns. A while ago when we were talking about gem capturing, Day9 said that it felt like you were being drawn away from the actual game to "milk the cow". It interrupted the pace of what was fun in order to just sort of farm - I feel the same about the critters. It's replaced clicking on a gem node with attacking a critter "node" of sorts. In neither case do I find anything particularly engaging or fun about either of them - they're no threat to me and are there just to be harvested. The advantage here is that, due to how you've implemented it, the hero doesn't necessarily need to be with the army to farm the critters.
Critters to me are a dumbed-down piñata version of creeps that already exist in the game. Creep camps are more interesting because of their dynamic - if you don't interrupt their shield you're in for a bad time, particularly if you get ganked while clearing the camp because you didn't scout enough. If this happens, do you back out? Do you try and fight? If you do, watch out for the shield stun! It's more interesting. The phase of the game, by comparison, where "it's time to farm the critters" is the part that I'm sitting there, waiting for it to be over. The titan fight in the middle is definitely more interesting (I didn't say it in weeks past but props on the art work, I like it!). As I cited above, even regular camps are more interesting to me.
I know that doing a direct comparison to MOBAs isn't fair but when I'm laning in Dota 2, I'm not only killing enemy creeps for gold/exp, I'm doing it to both help my own creeps push toward the enemy tower and prevent the opposing creeps from getting hits on my own tower. Yes there are subtle nuances where you don't necessarily want to do that early on in the game, but this is just a general point - you're killing the units for a reason other than just to get stronger. Critters in Atlas, by comparison, feel like busy work.
[Progression]
Didn't have time to type up notes last night, so just some quick informal ones here.
Progression System : Second test (no games off-test) on progression. I find I'm enjoying the out-game leveling, though I wonder to what extent what I'm liking, the bigger out-game strategy of what to unlock, is influenced by unit familiarity. I like playing within the strategic limitations. I imagine a new player would definitely like a way to demo units with faster frequency than what comes up in the hero rotation. Rate of progression seems okay, I think. I don't have a good feel for what the target rate should be, but my rough impression is that it feels a little slow at the beginning. I've roughly been at one unlock per level. Are level and currency rates for human and bot games equal?
Thinking about critters, what I've found is that I don't really go after them mid-to-late game. They don't feel like they are as critical, though I don't actually remember now what they give you. It's now gems, right? What does this version of gems give you?
Writing this, I'm reminded of critters in SC2. I often would imagine in passing by them (I suppose instead of focusing on my macro) what it would be like if they responded to what was going on in the game. Makes me wonder what it would be like if critters spawned randomly around the map (with quantity/rate symmetry), and even traveled. If they maintained a tangible benefit, could make the vision game more interesting, since the difference between this and old gems would be that you'd have to find them first.
deadeye nerf feelsbadman.
I really don't think apoc needed a price change, and Apocs are my favorite unit....
Picking up the shards on the ground feels like an unnecessary chore. There's no competition over them, so it removes the main attraction with them over getting shards on kill.