Thoughts on Movement, the Map, and the Objectives
Go_Team_Seaslug
Member
I wanted to post some thoughts about the game so far, from my own experience. I am really enjoying it so far (even though I am terrible), but I have some complaints about the flow of the game, and the feel of some of the mechanics.
1 - My biggest issue is the problem with pathing. I've seen some other posts like this already in the forum, but it feels really clunky right now, and it makes retreats especially problematic for those who are bad at micro (me). I am not sure what would be ideal, but some way for friendly units to push by one another would be nice.
2 - The other big issue I have is that the map feels too spread apart. This might be a desire from a MOBA player, to be able to traverse a large portion of the map to help my teammates quickly, but I find that especially in the early game, I am committed to just sticking to the one area I have decided on instead of trying to push an advantage with early rotations and ganks. This makes the period before the titan spawns slow and uninteresting. Also, in that same vein in the later parts of the game, I never feel like there are many options to try to out flank my opponent. It takes too long to move around the map, usually making me leave my teammates for too long. It might be a little better feeling if the game was sped up a bit, or if there were some faster flanking units or if drops were more powerful, but right now I never feel like I can move around the map particularly free.
3 - The map feels too cramped. I know I just said it was too spread apart, but I have found issue with the size of the map concerning the largeness of the army sizes, the paths of the attack, and the excess of vision. I think it all boils down to the importance of the Titan fight, and how the map is designed around that fight. The big issues I have is that the titan fight area feels a little small. I find when all six armies are trying to vie for area control that combat becomes a bit of a clusterfuck. The area does not feel big enough for armies to move smoothly, which is then exacerbated by the unit pathing issues (this is particularly important in early skirmishes where there are lots of small units). This could be remedied some by having more useful flanking paths, but there are only two routes for either team which don't exactly punish an overextended team (there are still many escape options for the flanked team).
My other issue is that there never seems to be enough space on the map. This might be a result of the objectives that force army clashes (the titans and camps), and that the game is more interested in these bigger engagements than smaller skirmishes. But when I am losing a game, I am too afraid to try and move about the map, because there are too few objectives for me to try to claim. So I know where my opponent is, but I know I can't engage him/her.
4 - I want base objectives to mean something. There are all sorts of towers on the map for both teams that most players don't seem to care about. We rumble our titan down the same path that is the closest to the objective. There is not enough economy to be gained from these towers, and the map control they give is minimal (both in terms of vision and creep camp control). The significance to towers in a game like DOTA (which I am most experienced) is the importance of retaining jungle control through TP advantage as well as the economy boost that the objective gives. As it stands, towers protect maybe one small camp, stop movement on the edges of the map, and give a minor economy boost. They aren't worth taking for the most part and so there is a large chunk of the map that is not of interest to either team. Perhaps hiding a difficult camp behind the farther ones to promote breaking the tower down? Or exaggerating where the warp and healing stations are to increase the importance of map control around the edges.
5 - I want there to be more strategies to the game. This might be an early complaint, because the meta has not formed, but because the game is so focused on the titan fight, and the titan is so strong as a result, the game feels like there is only one way to win: win the titan fight. This strategy involves big armies pushing up against eachother, but it negates other possible strategies, like possible drop play, split pushing, pushing without the titan, farming the map instead of engaging, and so on. Players are being too led by the objectives, and so gameplay becomes a cycle: fight at titan, push/defend titan, farm camps, repeat. This is fun, and pushes the already micro intensive gameplay, but it reduces the strategic possibilities within the game.
Those are my first thoughts on the game. I'm really enjoying the game, and I am excited to continue playing and getting better in the process. I am very excited to see how the developers change and improve the game.
Comments
I agree on some points but not all so here comes my response.
I agree on some levels, I find the pathing to be great but I feel like melee and expensive units should be able to push my tier 1 blob away to either retreat or get in on the action. Currently microing single units and having a lot of melee units is pretty impossible atm or gives lower army performance.
I do not have this issue as I am one of the guys that stays near the middle zone picking off the easy and medium camps there, I've gotten some great flanks and have most often been close by to help a team mate out. It is also a question of map awareness as most of the time I've had vision of the enemy long before he engages my ally.
Though I do admit it is pretty hard to help out if you are on the other side of the map but I feel like that is a choice you have to make as if you could always go in and help it would lose most of the positional strategy that exists in the early game when all the creep camps are up.
Same opinion here, nothing to add except I would just like a bigger map in general as that would prevent a good team from knowing 100% where all of the enemies are and allows for more fights where an enemy army catches you out of position where the team mates can't help you.
I feel like base objectives already mean something based on a single element, vision, their vision is extremely valuable as it prevents an enemy hero from flanking you when you are trying to defend on one side and the bonus shards from destroying the side towers do add up in the end.
Do not underestimate the power of denying information and map control, I've seen many teams lose from knowing nothing outside of their base.
For example we had a titan fight where the enemy had 3 times as many units as we did, but they had no vision outside of their base during a titan fight and just sat in their base as we had flanked them so many times before that fight. They could have easily forced us to retreat if they just had had the vision to know our unit count.
I have exactly the same opinion, I would just like some strategic points of interest which you need to defend for an extensive period of time as currently the map provides no way of gaining an advantage to push into the enemy base except winning a titan fight. I move around the map, deny some creepes and gain small advantages here and there but overall they don't matter unless they help me win the titan fight, I can't use that advantage for pushing, harassing or other strategic things, the choice has been made for me.
Aka make more units so you can win that titan fight and push for the win.
Man i just posted a separate megathread on this, i can't believe I didn't see this post first. I'll read through it and see if I have any additional comments, in the meantime I've posted a bunch over at https://guardiansofatlas.xyz/forums/discussion/849/map-objectives-feedback-and-design-commentary?new=1 as well on the same topic
In particular I like your point that towers are not controlling objectives/vision very much. This is especially problematic, I think, because the side lanes are not very valuable, so there's nothing there for them to assist with jungling. More interesting side objectives would help a lot with this, as would maybe increasing map size and tower distance from the main base.
I agree with 3. (map being to small) and 4. (towers at corner dont meen much, i only kill them for the shards)