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On September 02 2016 06:37 _Spartak_ wrote:
I don't like MOBA games and I have enjoyed GoA when I could play it (I've been having some technical difficulties). The biggest influence from the MOBAs is map design and I think that is a positive, it makes for a more action packed game than most RTSes. Other than that, it is an RTS through and through. You gather resources, then you produce units, research upgrades and tech up with those resources. You have armies and heroes are simply one of the parts of those armies, they are just powerful spellcasters and not much more. Heroes are not even as significant as they were in WC3. You control units individually, you can split, surround, flank, form a concave etc. with your units. All the things you would expect from an RTS.
Yeah i agree with that. It's just that the map design being like a moba kinda destroys one of the fun aspects of rts games. There really isn't much multitasking going on besides farming the bunnies while doing something else with your main army.
Overall i like the game though, it has potential.
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Units move a bit faster after the new patch. They have also made some changes to make games last shorter. It seems to have worked as far as I can tell from the games I played against bots. There is a lot less downtime and games wrap up quicker.
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Î have no idea why, but this game feels incredible boring
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On September 03 2016 00:21 Harris1st wrote:
Î have no idea why, but this game feels incredible boring
Moba likes are like that when you are used to real RTS.
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On September 03 2016 00:25 -Archangel- wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2016 00:21 Harris1st wrote:
Î have no idea why, but this game feels incredible boring Moba likes are like that when you are used to real RTS.
I think your opinion is extremely close minded 
1. Mobas in general are a lot different from rts and have their own strenghts.
2. GoA is a lot about rts mechanics, with multitasking probably the main difference (i hope they change that a bit)
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I would be quite surprised if +7.5% MS is anywhere near enough. But anyway, the whole pathing also needs to be cleaned up significantly so you can actually perform individual micro easily (like pulling away injured units) while controlling 20+ units at once.
If they get micro "right" the game can stil succeed despite other flaws. Without that I expect it would lead the same destiny as other slow-motion RTS's.
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On September 03 2016 01:15 Hider wrote:
I would be quite surprised if +7.5% MS is anywhere near enough. But anyway, the whole pathing also needs to be cleaned up significantly so you can actually perform individual micro easily (like pulling away injured units) while controlling 20+ units at once.
If they get micro "right" the game can stil succeed despite other flaws. Without that I expect it would lead the same destiny as other slow-motion RTS's.
It's not nearly as bad as grey goo was for example. In general i actually don't believe it's that slow at all. 7.5% change is noticeable as well!
The pathing gets criticized a lot but i would actually say that it's fine as it is for the most part, can you elaborate on what exactly was the problem here? I feel like a bit more space on the map to move your army around would help with most of that already?
My main problem is that there isn't really a whole lot multitasking going on, at the same time i think this is a wise choice to make it accessible for casual players though (if you have read my theory i think that multitasking is exactly what people dislike the most about rts games, any form of it)
Other than that i would obviously like to see a 1vs1 mode of some sorts, but that's maybe coming when they are happy with the first mode, who knows.
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The pathing gets criticized a lot but i would actually say that it's fine as it is for the most part, can you elaborate on what exactly was the problem here? I feel like a bit more space on the map to move your army around would help with most of that already?
You want to pull an injured unit away, but a few other units is close to it/behind it --> It gets blocked.
And that type of micro is the most basic and essential form of any RTS. So it's very important for me that this feels really smooth.
My main problem is that there isn't really a whole lot multitasking going on, at the same time i think this is a wise choice to make it accessible for casual players though (if you have read my theory i think that multitasking is exactly what people dislike the most about rts games, any form of it)
I think that with proper design you make multitasking something that feels really advantageous for skilled players to take advantage but new players can spend 99% of the time looking at their main deathball army and be absolutely fine (against other new players ofc).
@ Why I think fast MS is neccasary.
1. Player 1 uses an AOE ability on the enemy army.
2. You want to move your units out of the AOE.
3. In terms of balance, the damage of this ability needs to based on how easily it is for the opponent to move out of the damage (in terms of seconds).
4. If unit speed is slow and pathing is unclean, damage needs to be lower
5. The effect of that type of balance is a reduction is skillcap since an AOE ability will do similar types of damage against most opponent (regardless of how fast they are. e.g. the difference between 0.2s and 0.8s reactions isn't that significant)
6. On the other hand if you look at Psi Storm vs Bio, the reward for quick reactions and high mouse precision is very high because bio units can move and respond fast and psi storm wrecks it.
You can also look at Heroes of the Storm vs League of Legends skillshots. LOL skillshots feels so much more rewarding because hero movement speed is faster and those damage numbers can be balanced around being higher.
This makes dodging and landing skillshots very fun. Whereas in HOTS when you see an AOE ability you just try and move out of it, but it doesn't reward quick reactions to the same extent.
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Grubby will play the game in 90 min (sponsored stream)
Really interested to see his approach towards the game.
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On September 03 2016 01:30 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +The pathing gets criticized a lot but i would actually say that it's fine as it is for the most part, can you elaborate on what exactly was the problem here? I feel like a bit more space on the map to move your army around would help with most of that already? You want to pull an injured unit away, but a few other units is close to it/behind it --> It gets blocked. And that type of micro is the most basic and essential form of any RTS. So it's very important for me that this feels really smooth.
So it doesn't try to get where you click it basically, even if that would mean going around the army for example?
Sure i can see that being a problem, i didn't notice a it myself yet because i usually don't play with "huge armies" (lots of tier one) and i like to go dropship.
Blocking is a big thing in GoA atm so that part should be in there though, i guess it would be good enough with stop/hold position micro though.
Afaik the developers are aware that people have issues with the pathing though, they asked people to give exact examples because it's more valuable to them (in the forums)
I think that with proper design you need multitasking something that feels really advantageous for skilled players to take advantage but new players can spend 99% of the time looking at their army and be absolutely fine (against other new players ofc).
That's actually true i guess, even more so in a teamgame where in theory the whole defending of an enemy multitasking is done by more than one guy. Though i have to say that there is already some form of this in GoA.
1. Farming with some units (that's not really fun though)
2. Getting a dropship with casters/aoe units and try to approach the big enemy army from multiple angles to get value out of it.
But here is why I think a fast movement speed is neccasary:
1. Player 1 uses an AOE ability on the enemy army.
2. You want to move your units out of the AOE.
3. In terms of balance, the damage of this ability needs to based on how easily it is for the opponent to move out of the damage (in terms of seconds).
4. If unit speed is slow and pathing is unclean, damage needs to be lower
5. The effect of that type of balance is a reduction is skillcap since an AOE ability will do similar types of damage against most opponent.
6. On the other hand if you look at Psi Storm vs Bio, the reward for quick reactions and high mouse precision is very high because bio units can move and respond fast and psi storm wrecks it.
You can also look at Heroes of the Storm vs League of Legends skillshots. LOL skillshots feels so much more rewarding because hero movement speed is faster and those damage numbers can be balanced around being higher.
This makes dodging and landing skillshots very fun. Whereas in HOTS when you see an AOE ability you just try and move out of it, but it doesn't reward quick reactions to the same extent.
I actually think the movement speed is fine as it is. Especially after the increase with the new patch. Some units surely are a bit slower but that's just balance. AOE is very strong in GoA atm (against tier one especially) but there are units which "counter" this if you engage with it carefully (like the guys with plate). In this case the map gives too few paths to approach though i think.
On September 03 2016 01:32 ionONE wrote:
Grubby will play the game in 90 min (sponsored stream)
Really interested to see his approach towards the game.
Oh that is an important stream! How many viewers does grubby get these days?
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An alternative to the "fast movement speed"-related micro that I talked about in my previous post, you could also make a case for some WC3-type of micro that is extremely spell-dependant. Those are the only two types of RTS-micro approaches that I see.
But without a ton of abilities, slow movement speed and pathing that blocks, I just don't see great micro.
Afaik the developers are aware that people have issues with the pathing though, they asked people to give exact examples because it's more valuable to them (in the forums)
The game has had significant pathing issues for years despite the fact that Day9 hyped up the pathing in one of his first interviews on the game.
Now, it's probably alot better now, but I still don't understand how its acceptable for a modern RTS game to have units that block each other when trying to pull back an injured unit (while controlling <10 units). You shouldn't need to take feedback to realize that this isn't optimal.
Sc2 on the other hand first runs into that issue when you have like 30-40+ units closely together. And ofc in those scenarios you micro your units on a "small group" basis.
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AOE is very strong in GoA atm (against tier one especially) but there are units which "counter" this if you engage with it carefully (like the guys with plate). In this case the map gives too few paths to approach though i think.
It's not about balance, but about skill-cap (reward for quick reactions and mouse precision).
With faster movement speed, you can make the difference between being bad or good at dodging/splitting AOE abilities very high.
I think its extremely important that any type of multipler-player PvP game creates mechanics that seperates players who are experienced (as in 100-500 hours) and those who are insanely skilled at the game. And fast movement speed creates a great foundation for having those types of mechanics in the game.
Btw, in Sc2 when I talk about the "proper fast movement speed" in that game I would say its within the 2.7-3.2 (*1.4) range. Movement speed below that are usually quite boring as well (slowhydras/roaches, immortals, colossus, unstimmed bio).
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On September 03 2016 01:53 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +AOE is very strong in GoA atm (against tier one especially) but there are units which "counter" this if you engage with it carefully (like the guys with plate). In this case the map gives too few paths to approach though i think. It's not about balance, but about skill-cap (reward for quick reactions and mouse precision). With faster movement speed, you can make the difference between being bad and good at dodging/splitting AOE abilities very high.
I get what you are saying but with all the units i have played so far you can dodge AOE pretty well and AOE is actually strong as well.
I really don't feel that this is an issue at this point tbh.
Pathing i could see, i need to test that more though and go unit comps which require that form of micro more often. (i can remember it being kinda bad sometimes doing camps though now that i think about it)
Some other units also have abilities which increase mobility, etc. I don't know when you played the game the last time or if it actually changed since then, but since alpha start i don't have the feeling this is an issue at all. And as other people pointed out the 7% change is also quite noticeable imo.
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I get what you are saying but with all the units i have played so far you can dodge AOE pretty well and AOE is actually strong as well.
You can also dodge stuff in Heroes of the Storm but does it feel like something that you want to spend hundreds of hours doing/practicing so you can get better?
That's what i personally loved about LOL the most because skillshots - in general - just felt perfectly designed. Easy to learn, difficult to master. You can always get better at placing and dodging skillshots.
The same thing is the case with splitting vs Psi storm with bio. A diamond player who may have played for 1000+ hours of Sc2 is still 10 times worse than a GM.
Would you say there is anything comparable in Project Atlas?.
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I never felt like units were too slow to micro. They are slower than StarCraft sure but SC is among the fastest RTS games ever. I would still say units move relatively fast compared to most RTS games. Animations are also faster than most and allow you to micro. I think units feel pretty responsive overall and I am saying that as someone who is very far away from their servers. I am sure it would feel even better if the latency was lower.
I think pathing is fine overall. There may be some issues need addressing but I like their approach. Pulling back injured units isn't the only micro there is. The current pathing system may make that harder but it also allows surrounds to be a lot more effective, you can flank your opponent's army to pick off important units because they may not be in the perfect position, you have to position your melee units right to get them effective because they won't squeeze through your army to move to the front lines etc.
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I actually only tried heroes at the very beginning and had immediately issues with a lot of things so i never touched it again.
I agree about lol being a very good example of these things from a "having fun" pov btw. Had a lot of fun playing lol, i don't play it anymore these days but that's mostly because i usually only play one teamgame (i hate teamgames^^) and csgo did take that spot.
So in essence you want to have something to get mechanically better at? But it also has to be the fast paced, reaction time kind of micro.
Well i will be honest and say that there is nothing to the same extent as marine splitting against banelings/storm in this game i think. Maybe you can split against dredgecrawler shots like that if you are good enough? Maybe the pathing is too bad to actually make this viable atm though, i mostly am the guy using dredgecrawlers so i wouldn't know
Actual aoe in this game has a warning period where you see the shape on the ground before it actually gets casted, so probably nothing as fast paced and tense in it atm, no.
At the same time i think that there is a lot to get better at in big armies with lots of abilities and different positioning requirements. Maybe not the kind of mechanics test you are looking for though.
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I never felt like units were too slow to micro. They are slower than StarCraft sure but SC is among the fastest RTS games ever. I would still say units move relatively fast compared to most RTS games. Animations are also faster than most and allow you to micro. I think units feel pretty responsive overall and I am saying that as someone who is very far away from their servers. I am sure it would feel even better if the latency was lower.
And that's the argument I use when people say the "RTS scene is dying". No game developers are making terrible decisions when it comes to the pace of the game.
Even if Atlas is 50% "better" than those game developers, the game is imo still too slow. Correlation doesn't imply causation, however its still something to take into account when evaluating data (Sc2 most succesful RTS - all slowmotion games fail big time).
From my experience the movement speed that gives you the highst skill cap for "core units" in terms of "Sc2-numers" is between 2.7-3.2 (*1.4). (Stimmed bio is 3.12)
If I had to guess, Atlas units are probably at around 2 (*1.4) prior to the patch, and WC3 might be at like 1.5. However, Wc3 had an absurd amount of abilities you had to manage so the micro-skillcap was there (but in a different way).
But without an absurd amount of abilities, you need that 2.7+ MS.
Animations are also faster than most and allow you to micro.
0 damage point is a good foundation (and blizzard could acutally learn from that), however simple "group" kiting isn't really micro for more experienced RTS players.
"Real" RTS micro is microing individual units or sub groups seperately. And the skillcap is high if there is a big difference (and reward) between how a top player microes those subgroups/units relative to a moderately experienced player.
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So in essence you want to have something to get mechanically better at? But it also has to be the fast paced, reaction time kind of micro.
Absolutely. And it would surprise med alot if a player vs. player multiplayer game can succeed without some type of mechanics that makes "getting better" at the "direct interaction"-part (which is micro in RTS and in FPS that's aiming) feel extremely rewarding.
Especially when the game is made by a start-up.
I suspect some people might find initial enjoyment in the game, but I question whether anyone would find enjoyment in trying to "master it".
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i think part of the problem is player/developers have different ideas of what "speed" means, or when complaints like people have about SC2 being "too fast", people misinterpret them.
The combat speed of SC2 is pretty fast, and that's a GOOD thing. When people say the game is "too fast", most of the time their not talking about the actual combat speed, or anything micro related. The "too fast" complaints are directly focused at the macro speed & speed of economic growth. But Blizzard completely misinterprets that, and their responses in the weekly updates instead talk about the "gameplay" itself being too fast.
This is the type of thing that gives players the impression that the developers are out of touch with their game. If they don't understand the complaints, it makes you question if they even play their game.
Same thing with Atlas recently, although they do listen a bit better. I know for a fact that they actually do play their game (it's one of the things that made me admire the team throughout alpha). Their problem was a bit different. They hear complaints of "too slow", and it seems they couldn't pinpoint the exact cause of the problem, so they sped up everything. They sped up move speed, upgrade speed, and tried to lower overall game length.
I think the 2nd approach is better overall. But I really do wish the SC2 devs actually understood the status of their own game. A few times they have came SO CLOSE to actually meeting SC2's potential, but then they don't just drop the ball, they drop the ball and shit all over it in epic fashion. Even now, and with their design changes, they have some ideas right, but some completely far and away off the mark.
Such a shame. I still have not completely given up hope, but the state of SC2 is the most depressing of all of the games I follow...
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EPT
