Thoughts
I am still very new to this game. These thoughts and opinions are very likely to change as I play more.
I really enjoy the resource management system, even though I haven't been brave enough to turn off auto-queuing just yet. There's always a choice to be made, and I like that.
I'm having issues with the audio/visual feedback in the game. During my very first bot games, I ended up losing my entire army several times. I'd be looking around the map a bit, check a building or two, and when I'd scroll back to my army... it would be gone. I never even realized I was being attacked. As I've played more, I've gotten more used to always keeping track of my units. However, I do feel like there's something missing when it comes to feedback.
I have yet to really grasp which units or what abilities to look out for. This is of course always true for someone who is new to a game, but perhaps there's more to it as well. I'm not really feeling the "impact" of the units. In the middle of a battle, I only hear a bunch of "pew pew" or "pow pow" sounds. I have a very hard time quickly deciding if something is hurting me or not. It's getting better the more I play, but I really think there could be more distinct cues. The orbital strike of Celesta has a nice big red circle. The volley of Eris is pretty visible as well. However, I always feel like I was never warned about these abilities. I guess I'm expecting some kind of "nuclear launch detected" noise, so I can panic the sh*t out and make micro errors. Instead, I mainly feel frustrated. Because by the time I realize what's going on, it's almost always too late.
The only other thing I instantly felt I was missing was some kind of "ping wheel". Something similar to the smart pings in League of Legends or the action wheel in Overwatch. Since this is a team game, I want to be able to quickly tell my team mates what I am doing without having to type up a sentence. Team work feels super important.
Comments
So, here's an update.
I'd like to apologize in advance if I sound awfully negative. It's hard to put words to feelings I have about the game. I'd say the game improves with each update, so I may still end up loving the game!
Size and Movement
I really dig the increase in size, it makes easier to see individual units. It does however make the map feel super cramped all of a sudden, even with the lower unit cap. Unit collision is a big part of the game right now, and I feel like I'm afraid of being near my team mates because of it. Since my units won't move out of the way, I'm a walking death trap. This was true in earlier builds as well, but now that my units are larger, they tend to herp derp a lot more. Even when by myself I have some problems. If I send in my Raptor before Vela towards a creep by mistake, I can't just click that one Raptor and walk it out. Because 99% of the time, the rest of my units block said Raptor's movement.
AOE
I've tried writing something up about AOE over and over, but I just can't pinpoint what I dislike about it. I guess it comes down to not really liking losing 10+ units in an instant to a single spell. I think this ties into the horrible feeling of loss that I try to talk about later.
Resources
I've found the resource system to be less interesting as of late. Right now, killing creeps (especially medium/large camps) is what gets you units and upgrades, not the resource queue. When those camps appear, all of a sudden you can get a new tier, a few upgrades, and maybe even a couple of tech units. These income spikes coupled with, what I feel, the low impact of the queue, makes it a bit lackluster. The production slot upgrade also feels odd. Is there ever a point when you don't want to spam out all your production slots asap?
Loss of units
When I die with my hero in a MOBA, I don't feel as horrible as when I die with my army in Atlas. It feels like the game encourages continues fights, but I don't feel as if I want to ever just "go for it". In League of Legends, I'll try something fancy and die, but hey, I'll just respawn with all my items intact a bit later. In Atlas, I feel like I was just stomped back to the beginning of the game. That's a bit harsh, I guess. You retain upgrades after all. But, as opposed to League of Legends, dying in Atlas costs resources; potentially a lot of resources.
Feelings
I won't lie, I don't really love the game. It's cool, but for some reason it doesn't click for me. I see people calling the game "sluggish", and I can agree with that. Playing from EU is partly to blame for this I assume. However, even without lag, the game feels "slow". It could be the animations, it could be movement speed (in relation to screen size), I'm honestly not sure.
Tier 1.5 builds rarely want to spam production slots. Tier 1.5 is really good now.
I do think there should maybe be 2 tier 1.5 options per faction because they really define the midgame now I feel and having limited options as some factions (like Red) can be rough.