Build 238: Guardians of Atlas Open Alpha!!
Treisk
Member, Administrator
Build 238: Guardians of Atlas Open Alpha!!
TL;DR - New Announcer/Announcements; Faster Credit gain; Economy Adjustments; Balance
Hey, guys. If you haven't heard, we enter OPEN ALPHA on Friday (8/26). The NDA is still in place until then. But, this is the build we will be launching with. Updates are also going to come much less frequently (weekly at first, rather than twice a week).
We wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely thank every single tester that has ever shown up to a playtest, played our game, written feedback, or contributed in any way, no matter how small or large. Thank you for helping us get this far. We appreciate it more than words can possibly express.
Enjoy the Open Alpha!
~ The Artillery Games Team
Build 238 Hotfixes!
August 25, 2016
- Vela
- Fair Warning
- Marked units are now visible for the duration (including revealing invisible units)
- Vision Radius from Target Location: 19 ⇒ 11
- Fair Warning
- Bramblethorn
- BioShard cost: 165 ⇒ 125
- Trebuchet
- Unit Cap: 2 ⇒ 1
- Health: 600 ⇒ 250
- Added some missing audio bits
- Fixed a visual bug that caused Critter shields to appear as Plate (no functionality change)
- Modified default decks to include 3 faction-specific units, and remove Juggernauts.
- Auto-builder will now try harder to make high-tier units later in the game.
General Gameplay
- Added audio for all game announcements, featuring a new announcer!
- Damage Types are now displayed (next to the ability's damage) on Ability tooltips!
- Account Progression
- Credits on level-up: 1000 ⇒ 2000
- Increased the Credit gain rate by ~500%.
- Automated Production
- Now tends to upgrade to Tech Level 2 sooner.
- Will no longer build additional Patchbots if you have one alive.
Economy
Context: One big challenge we've always faced in our game is how it feels to be on the losing end of a one-sided game can feel pretty helpless, even if the case isn't very extreme. We'd like to try a set of changes aimed at allowing players to get their high-tech units more often if they've reached a level where they can access them, at the expense of not having quite as many upgrades. This gives us the opportunity to reduce the lost opportunity cost of starting upgrades later. It also allows us to point to upgrades as a more reasonable "thing" to be behind on.
We're making these particular changes because, simply, the fun of our game is in using cool units, so being behind shouldn't entirely preclude that fun. Being ahead will still, more often than not, provide a mathematical advantage in the form of efficacy through upgrades, but the team that's behind will now have more of a fighting chance!
- Reduced the BioShard cost of all units by 33%, rounded to the nearest 5.
- Units who's BioShard costs are modified further from this new value will indicate the new value represented as the "before" number.
- Increased the BioShard costs of all upgrades (unit and statistical) by 33% (rounded to the nearest 50)
- Statistical Upgrade Research Times: 180/240/300/360 ⇒ 150/180/210/240
- Tech Level 4 BioShard cost: 250 ⇒ 300
Bots
- The previous Bot difficulty is now HARD
- Added a MEDIUM Bot difficulty
Replays
- Fixed a bug that prevented a replay observer from leaving the game normally during the deck-building process.
Units
Blue
- Frostcaller
- Frostfall
- Number of Fields: 3 ⇒ 5
- Field Radius: 2.2 ⇒ 1
- Damage: 20 ⇒ 25
- Damage Type: Normal ⇒ Piercing
- Damage Frequency: 1 second ⇒ Continuous
- Northern Winds (Upgrade)
- Damage increase: 10 per second ⇒ 0
- Movement Slow Increase: 15% ⇒ 30%
- Frostfall
- Ancient Ice Frog
- Energy Cost: 13 ⇒ 10
- Icy Breath
- Cooldown: 22 seconds ⇒ 28 seconds
- Damage: 1 per second ⇒ 10 per second
- Damage Type: Projectile ⇒ Normal
- Channel Duration: 3 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds
- Deep Freeze (Upgrade)
- Freeze Duration Increase: 2 seconds ⇒ 1.5 seconds
- Aquadillo
- Cannonball
- Damage: 25 ⇒ 12
- Cannonball
- Dredgecrawler
- Kingpin Bomb renamed to Depth Charge
- Movement Speed: 1.5 ⇒ 1.6
- Movement Speed now accelerates smoothly.
- Jet Propulsion (Upgrade) has been reworked!
- No longer increases the speed or duration of Depth Charge
- Grants the Dredgecrawler double movement speed while out of combat for 10 seconds.
Green
- Alder
- Living Vines
- Level 5 Power Spike no longer reduces cooldown
- Level 5 Power Spike damage: 8 per second ⇒ 5 per second
- Level 15 Power Spike no longer reduces cooldown
- Living Vines
- Grath
- Stone Form renamed to Safeguard
- Howling Commando
- Health: 320 ⇒ 280
- Abominable Sludge
- Energy cost: 16 ⇒ 12
- Bramblethorn
- Energy cost: 11 ⇒ 10
- Tenacity: 75% ⇒ 50%
- Trebuchet
- Trebuchet Barrage simplified to Barrage
Red
- Exofiend
- Health: 550 ⇒ 650
- Damage: 30 ⇒ 35
- Movement Speed: 4.6 ⇒ 4.8
- Cleave size: 1.0 ⇒ 1.25
- Fixed a bug that caused Exofiends to have the incorrect armor type while burrowed.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Unburrow to be cast while not burrowed.
- Pyrosaur
- Now has 50% Tenacity (crowd control effects last 50% of the normal duration)
- Health: 425 ⇒ 600
- Movement Speed: 4.7 ⇒ 4.5
White
- Purifier
- Energy Cost: 8 ⇒ 7
- BioShard Cost: 50 ⇒ 75
- Unrooted Damage: 35 ⇒ 15
- Unrooted Attack Range: 12 ⇒ 11
- Unrooted Damage Type: Projectile ⇒ Normal
- Unit cap: 8 ⇒ 6
- Root
- Damage: 110 ⇒ 80
- Attack Cooldown: 3 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds
- Attack Range: 16.5 ⇒ 16
- Damage Type: Projectile ⇒ Normal
- Full damage splash radius: 0.5 ⇒ 0.2
- Fixed a bug that caused rooted Purifiers to have slightly reduced health
- Prism Cannon (Upgrade)
- Range bonus: 3.5 ⇒ 2.5
- Precognitor
- Blinding Smoke
- Added a targeting reticle for this ability (Sorry this was missing!)
- Blinding Smoke is now white, making it contrast more with on-map terrain
- Blinding Smoke
Mercenaries
- Patchbot
- Movement speed: 4.6 ⇒ 4.2
- Fixed a recently-introduced bug that caused Patchbots to shamble to the front of an army
- Snerp Herder
- Slow Trap renamed to Deploy Snerp Trap
- Cryowalker
- Attack Range: 11 ⇒ 9.5
Comments
Man. It's happening. It's really happening!
Man I wish I could be here this weekend, but I'll be playing and streaming it starting Monday for sure!
So excited for Friday now! XD Way to go guys!
'We wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely thank every single tester that has ever shown up to a playtest, played our game, written feedback, or contributed in any way, no matter how small or large. Thank you for helping us get this far. We appreciate it more than words can possibly express.'
And in turn, as testers, I would like to say that we truly appreciate the dedication you guys have shown to this game even when (we have) criticised the game heavily at times (lol rip basebuilding rts). To all the late night banter on random topics and our little microcosm of our community, cheers. I look forward to the future of Atlas.
Economy and Upgrade changes
(1.1) - I naturally tend to be upgrade focused in any game I play, be it an RTS, action rpg, etc., often with less than ideal results. Focusing too early on these, as I tend to do, I definitely felt like I was ramping slower tonight, and I think this makes sense from the notes, but I'm not sure if this is in line with the intended result from the economy changes in this build. I definitely noticed being behind on unit comp, so once I finally started getting some of them in (in particular Dervishes on Vex), the pickup was definitely noticeable.
Bot Difficulty
(2.1) - Played one game on the medium difficulty, this feels pretty good, though I could see some AI confusion (eg. soft-stuck units) that I had to clear with pings.
Units
Omerta
(3.1) - First time in a while that I'd played with Frostcallers. It's such a fine edge with Frostfall now, I feel like the usage has changed. Unless you can get staggered placement, that movement slow seems like the main use, though I think I prefer Newts for that.
(3.2) - Ice Frogs felt more effective and rewarding tonight. I hope to see the return of the Fire and Ice combo soon.
Mercs
(3.3) - I felt like the Cryowalker attack range reduction, at least in the matchups tonight, reduced its contribution a bit too much. I'd always tend to use it as just supplemental slow on target, but for its size, didn't seem to add much. This, primarily (and obviously) was against the Order.
Progression
Faster Rate
(4.1) - Nice to have, but my feeling is that is a bit too fast. Hopefully at some point we get a couple more resets to test, but the bigger thing will be how it feels with lots of new players. Yay, Open Alpha!
@snkz ^^^^
This nerf was particularly targeted at compositions that utilize Cryowalkers with Windrays. We think that composition is in a really good spot now and are going to keep an eye on Cryowalkers in other compositions, then adjust accordingly.
Yeah, we'll definitely be adjusting the progression rate further. This was just a safe rate that we could rely on to soften the possibly-harsh experiences some players might have if they come in, get hard-countered, and don't have a great answer. It also lets us say "Oh, I got crushed by X unit. Maybe let me try out that unit next game!"
Thanks as always! <3<3
<3333333333333333
Looking forward to it, and don't be afraid to plug your stream!
It's been a pleasure to test so far! You guys are amazing <3 Looking forward to hundreds of games in the Open Alpha!
This has been an amazing opportunity, and nothing but a pleasure to contribute to. Thank you and I look forward to the future of Guardians of atlas.
@Motiva @Renegade <33333333!
Build times feel long, and unit upgrade times feel ridiculous. Can we cut unit-specific upgrade times? Maybe in half?
Aquanauts need love. They've got respectable range and DPS, but not enough for a glass cannon, and the upgrade would only be worthwhile if it could heal them beyond their regular hit point cap. (A chance to refill a 140-HP pool if the opponent cooperates is less than inspiring.) With the current stats, they'd probably be balanced if they could cast the shield on any target rather than just themselves.
I think (and I remember hearing this before, somewhere else on these forums - apologies if I'm ripping someone off) that the main problem is the Aquanaut's ability feels underwhelming. It's supposed to be part of the identity of the Aquanaut to have this great shield, but you can barely ever use the shield and it doesn't do that much. I think the ability should have more uptime - either last longer or have lower cooldown. I agree about the upgrade too - it's "less than inspiring" in its current form; your proposed change is really interesting. Alternately maybe the upgrade could be changed to just increase the uptime of the shield (increase duration or decrease cooldown).
@Severedevil @cdiss Aquanauts are in line for a buff, definitely far too weak right now. Not quite sure when you'll get to see it in-game, but probably not too far off.
I think that the build time for upgrades is ok. There should be a trade off to doing them in inproper time and the loss of a production slot for several minutes seems to do that. Otherwise doing the upgrades would be a nobrainer.