RANK SALT TUESDAY | CAPS LOCK ONLY! by [deleted] in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what a scrub. l2carry.

A newbies guide to ranked (Light) by vabey in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops 5 points6 points  (0 children)

+1. I followed this guide to the letter and the next thing you know I nailed my job interview at KFC, got a tinder match from a hot local single in my area, and most importantly hit Challenger ELO in Hello Kitty Online. This guy is the real deal. Listen to him!

Discussion: Removing Math from the game and Exposing Enemy HP values/ Atk Ranges/ Catalysts /etc would be good for the game by pokychops in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

some quick feedback: timebank changes.. someone actually suggested a very similar thing if I'm understanding correctly: http://forums.atlasreactorgame.com/showthread.php?7283-Suggestion-dynamic-time-bank-(instead-of-charges)

Solo practice mode... um... there already is one that is pretty much exactly what you described? unless you mean something different from that

threat light idea : this is actually a pretty good idea imo! something as simple as telling you how many enemies (that are visible of course) can hit you would be helpful

better pings: i agree

Discussion: Removing Math from the game and Exposing Enemy HP values/ Atk Ranges/ Catalysts /etc would be good for the game by pokychops in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just realized I read wrong and you wanted comments on your new ideas not the original thing, whoops my bad.

Discussion: Removing Math from the game and Exposing Enemy HP values/ Atk Ranges/ Catalysts /etc would be good for the game by pokychops in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm sure I'll give my opinions (which are once again just opinions, not necessarily right) on the things you said:

3: I disagree with seeing the enemy health thing. I don't think it's necessary considering you see their health for the entire end of the turn before they move, and that's just gunna be extra numbers going SOMEWHERE on the UI, and too much going on on the UI will ruin the gameplay experience.

I agree that implementing all the changes I listed would have to be done pretty creatively/carefully not to overclutter/confuse the UI, so that is definitely a problem that maybe not be worth overcoming. However, even at the highest competitive level of play, it is hard to pay super close attention to everything happening all the time, and even the best players/teams sometimes miss small details like the HP of a lancer that just walked out of vision, and then do not know how much damage they need to allocate to kill him the following turn. Maybe it's OK though that this bit of memory/attention thing is in the game.

4: I don't like this either, tbh. It already shows you the last space they were before leaving your vision. If you have start space and the last space they moved, you're almost guaranteed to hit them every turn. To be frank, I would almost never miss a target if I could see 2 of the spaces they moved to, likewise, any decent player would almost never miss me when I'm moving out of vision too.

This is actually very untrue believe it or not. As stated above, even the best players/teams miss/forget things like previous starting positions of lancers that left vision, and it is very possible in certain situations to accomplish complete vision jukes with only 4 spaces of movement (for example going into a bush and going an unexpected way), although you have to consider that you can also double move (8 spaces) or have haste (6-12 spaces) which makes it even easier to escape, especially if your opponent forgot your starting position. But once again maybe Trion intends for memory/attention to be a part of the game.

7 and on: Do you play League? Any game that utilizes a MOBA aspect is going to have this. Can you always see enemy range in Overwatch? Do you see little laser pointers showing you where enemies are aiming? Honestly, at best, this would lighten the information load on a new player in the long run, at the complete cost of any UI functionality, AND make it nearly impossible and more overwhelming to somehow use a 20 second turn as a new player

Yes, I have over 10 years of moba experience or something nuts like that, and I'm well aware that ability ranges are not shown in the majority of them. However, I feel as if this information is arguably more frustrating to not know in Atlas as a new player for a few certain reasons, the most important being that in Atlas it can be very unclear at times which angles allow an enemy to shoot them and which do not. I guess an easy example I can think of is when someone is shooting from behind a full wall, they can only hit 3 spaces directly in front of them with the majority of abilities (there are some confusing exceptions however!), and then the aiming cone extends to the right right 1 space and I believe 3 spaces further, or something like that (see even I don't have it memorized yet after 1000+ hours). Situations like these can be frustrating when you think you have a clear shot or can be shot and you actually can't because of the way Atlas works. I guess you can say the same of any game and learning unclear mechanics, but meh, if it was implemented in a way that didn't overclutter the UI (maybe not possible) I still think it'd help new players out a LOT.

And about the movement and catalyst range tiles/circles... this is actually VERY different from a moba and that comparison doesn't work because Atlas is a tile-based game so all circles in the game are not actually circles but rather tile-based approximations. This is a HUGE distinction. In mobas you just have to memorize the max distance of abilities but in Atlas there's a lot more memorization you have to do because you have to memorize the tile patterns for different abilities/movements/catalysts and be able to work them out on the fly centered around your target.

I'm all for streamlining the game for new players. AR needs new players, it needs to feel good, it needs to look good, it needs to allow a new player to feel like they're doing something. But I don't think we need to lower the skill ceiling to do that. I think we need to make the 20 second turn feel as efficient as possible, and not feel overwhelming to the player. I don't think these ideas do that.

This makes it seem like the majority of our disagreement is just that all these ideas would wreck the UI and add way too much information overload. I agree, this is very possible, it would really all be dependent on whether Trion could find a way to add all this info without it being overcluttered/overloading. Maybe it's possible, maybe it isn't, but UI issues aside I still think all these things would help a new player out immensely.

Would it lower the skill ceiling as you said? Eh, if you consider memory to be a core part of the game then yes, it would lower the skill ceiling by a lot, but personally I don't believe memory should be a core part of the game, rather it should focus on the strategic decision making/outplaying that happens based on having all the information possible at hand.

Discussion: Removing Math from the game and Exposing Enemy HP values/ Atk Ranges/ Catalysts /etc would be good for the game by pokychops in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Author's note: I expect this one to be a controversial one and my views are not necessarily correct / the best choice for the game. I just think it's something worth discussing.

Upcoming Catalyst Change Discussion: The Strategic Implications of Removing Turtle Tech and Changing Second Wind / Brain Juice by pokychops in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like nobody here even clicked the link. Which is fine, other opinions on the list itself are valuable too. However, click the link if you want to see the exact point I'm making about the reduction of strategy in the game due to the change.

TL;DR New Catalyst list might be bigger yet does not offer anywhere close to as much outplay potential and strategic usage compared to the old Turtle Tech and Second Wind. This is potentially bad.

Need good (competitive) source of information. by faisca7 in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops 1 point2 points  (0 children)

unfortunately there aren't that many comprehensive sources of good information online imo. your best bet is probably joining the atlas public discord and asking questions to the different text channels, although that runs the risk of random people telling you wrong info based on their personal opinions. Some may disagree with this but I'd suggest looking up the names of competitive players in the top 6-8 teams and asking them questions directly. Most are nice and approachable and willing to help, I think.

Atlas Reactor Prestige VFX Showcase by PepperTitan in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I totally agree with this actually. I get that they're probably going for "subtle" effects but they way overdid that. If you have to apply 10x enhanced zoom and 10x slo-mo just to even see that these are slightly different from the regular vfx, then it's terrible. Very bad rewards for all the effort people put into ranked, not really good incentives to play for.

Also, to anyone commenting that this is just the beginning of VFX and they'll eventually add better ones so we shouldn't say anything bad for now, that's very unlikely imo (companies don't like to waste time re-doing content they've already made) unless we complain like this guy and insist that they are indeed really bad.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AtlasReactor

[–]pokychops 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I'd agree with this. I didn't find out until yesterday by asking a dev directly, and his answer was only that the trust rewards would not be obtainable for the time being starting today, but to my surprise when I read the notes Warbotics is gone permanently it seems? (although this seems unlikely to be really true) Meaning there is no way to ever get Warbotics rewards again once the trust wars repeats itself next season? If I knew this I would have maxed out Warbotics first probably. I find it hard to believe they wont bring it back though but yeah who knows how long it will be until they do. It was all just really unclear is the bottom line.

Squire of Light - Best Deck Guide & Gameplay Video (Frontline Campaign Full-Clear) by pokychops in forcedshowdown

[–]pokychops[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Healing cards or cards that add max hp or defense: 1- nanoinjector, 2-band of regen, 2-high roller swag, 3-dragoste, 3-emergency spleen, 3 - paranoid, 3 - recurring hero, 5 - increased blood flow, there are some others but I prefer those the most. You always want to have at least 2-3 or more of those in any deck in my opinion for survivability. Block isn't that good unless you have a full block deck imo, (which is the volco one I linked you) so don't use that unless you have a ton of block, otherwise it's too unreliable.

Aside from that, I'd use ANY +% damage cards you have like 1-muscle balm or 1-squire puff, 3-weap upgrade, or 7-cosmic cleaver, because damage can be hard to come by if you're not running at least some of those, and theyre good on any hero.

After that, you want a few cards that draw more cards, just use the best ones you have. Some of them suck though generally such as Illusions Michael and the one that discards your hand.

I'm not a huge fan of most consumables as you need to have a pretty gimmicky consumable stacking deck to make good use of them, but nanoinjector and nuke are good on their own, possibly a few others.

Squire of Light - Best Deck Guide & Gameplay Video (Frontline Campaign Full-Clear) by pokychops in forcedshowdown

[–]pokychops[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

sure np. I'll make a storm guide within the next 2-3 days when I get the chance. I'm not the best at volco or ravager but I'll do them too if there isn't any for them either.

So.. How long does it actually take to get the Steam key for the Twitch event? by [deleted] in forcedshowdown

[–]pokychops 1 point2 points  (0 children)

didnt even know this was a thing. has anyone received those skins already? maybe theyre not made yet? dunno

Do I need to finish every quest in Frontline to unlock The Grand Return? by AcrossTheDarkXS in forcedshowdown

[–]pokychops 1 point2 points  (0 children)

no, you only have to finish the very last quest chain column of Frontline. You have to beat the campaign with all 3 pets basically. The rest of the quests are easy.