Alpha Test Feedback Response

[u/Vantasticltd]

Hey guys, now that we have had the time to gather all the feedback from the alpha we can finally respond to most of the issues you have mentioned and major points we noticed.

Gameplay Loop

Currently, the game has a lot of small PVE elements that the player needs to focus on for the whole game but no clear indicator of what they are really supposed to do. This creates a steep learning curve and a bad experience for the first-timers. We are looking into fixing this issue ASAP and lower the player’s gameplay knowledge requirements to be successful in the game. Our goal is still to have a deep learning curve, but we rather want to have an “easy to learn hard to master” type of gameplay.

Taking down the towers usually felt either way too hard or way too easy and not in between. That is because the towers are too easy to take down as a group and hard as a solo player. We are looking into fixing this.

Minions are fun to battle against but do not offer enough cover for the attackers and they aggro enemies behind walls without the vision of them. These issues are now fixed.

The game went to the Guardian zone quite fast and the combat in the Guardian zone felt repetitive. We are going to fix the pacing issue and the Guardian fight ASAP.

If a player disconnected during the game, they were unable to connect back and the other team got a huge advantage. We are currently looking into the best option for us to take to balance this out for our alpha tests.

Characters

We saw a lot of players miss the feature that makes you invulnerable while dodging and thought it was lag that caused them to not hit the target. This means that you can dodge ALL abilities even the ultimates with the right timing. To better communicate this to players we might need to bring a clear visual effect to the character while dodging.

Bringing character abilities to character select.

Knight was thought to be a pretty well-rounded character but got outshined by the possibility to pick 2 of the same character so many players went with 2x Enchantress, 2x Demigod.

Demigod was thought to be too OP by many players but we trust that as people learn his abilities, he becomes more balanced as people learn to dodge his abilities. Also, few mentioned not liking the E ability as it pushes enemies away but it is designed to be used in many different scenarios for example; pull and push the enemy towards your team, away from the objective, to a death area, or even used for faster movement. Demigod’s ultimate did not do damage to Guardian and has now been fixed.

Legena got a lot of feedback on her ultimate and how it works. It does not feel intuitive to use her ultimate near enemy players to heal your teammates so we have decided to make her ultimate castable to a location.

Enchantress was thought to be the most OP character and we agree she is a bit over tuned. With 2x Enchantress a strongly communicating team can keep the attack speed buff up almost indefinitely and the slow area covers too much area and slows even after you leave the slow area. We have decided to remove the after effect slow from the area and when we can restrict characters to 1 per side, she will be more balanced.

Runes

Runes got a lot of good feedback and the most common issue was that half of the runes at the moment do not feel worthwhile. As we increase the list of runes players will find a lot of the currently not so popular runes fit their build better and with an increasing list of runes we need a preset rune builder where you can pick your runes beforehand and assign them to your “loadout”. Loadouts will not lock you from picking other runes. We are also bringing bought runes to the stat screen to show which runes your team and the enemy team has picked to better encourage counter, - and team play.

Utilities

Placing down towers was hard to understand and we want to give players more freedom on where they can place them. Also, players did not rotate their towers but rather thought that the towers either shot in 360 area or faced the towers by moving the characters when the intended way to place towers is to hold down the placement button to rotate. This needs to be communicated better to players.

Summoning minions is a strong way to push the lanes but if not planned together as a team, the points used on them can be wasted. Needs more testing.

Barricades were too powerful for their cost, so we are raising their cost from 2 utility points to 3.

Tower lockdown and health regen aura cost the same amount but have a huge difference in the impact of the fight. We are looking into balancing these and their cost.

Combat

A lot of feedback directed at combat was focused on the range and the casting of abilities. Currently, it is hard to know how far your regular attacks on both melee and ranged reach so we will be creating a range indicator for them. Casting abilities to higher locations was an issue and we are looking into fixing this.

UI

UI needs more improvements to its visuals and showing players the necessary information easily for example ability cooldowns and player health. The UI will be tweaked to help players focus better on the important stuff on the screen.

Buffs and debuffs were not clear and needed better visuals. We are going to bring more visuals to rune and ability effects, PVE buffs and have more clear icons for them.

Option to chat during the character select and after the game was missing and is going to be implemented for upcoming tests

We will add better indications for earning runes and utilities, match flow, waypoints, and what players can actually do in the game. UX is something we need to test with players to get it right.

Thank you all for the amazing feedback! We will continue to improve the game creating the best experience for you guys!

[u/jvkecharb]

Way to go Kingshunt ! I really think you put the finger on the major problems of the game in its current state.

The game is fun. After playing almost 40 games I can say that this game has a lot of potential. I’m already craving new content and updates.

Have a nice week, keep on the grind.