COMBAT SYSTEM DESIGN EXAMPLE
COMBAT DESIGN ITERATION – INGLORIOUS
Inglorious is a competitive dungeon crawler game, therefore, combat is the main focus during gameplay. Being the main goal of each mach to be the first player who defeats all the waves of npc's, we needed a combat system as fair as possible to all the different combat styles of our champions.
To achive that, we decided that the best aproach for designing the combat skills of the heroes would be to define the common scenarios that a player would face in combat, and give each champion a way to solve them.
To define this situations, we had to understand first how the enemies behave. We wanted to give to the player the feeling that they where facing an army, a little bit chaotic but with a strategy behind. So we designed the enemy's AI to tend to surround the player in a formation and don't attack the player in a mindless line.
This behaviour, supported by the different skills of the enemies, results in the enemies becoming more powerful if the player gives them time to group up and surround the champion. So, the situations that we chose to guide our design where determined by the way combat could evolve during the match.
We decided to give to the characters 4 skills plus a basic attack, like in most MOBAS, so we picked the 4 most common situations to decide this skills.
The basic attack and the Skill A are for the first situation, when the player face combat to a single enemy. That's why this skills are more focused into harm a target or to open combat.
The second scenario is when the player face a couple of enemies at the same time and wants to return to the first stage, therefore this skills are oriented to little areas of effect, forced relocation of enemies and also buffs that help to defeat a couple of enemies faster.
The third scenario happens when the player let the enemies group up and the situationt starts to go out of hand. The skills designed for that moment are more about big areas of damage, healing skills or shields that lend to the player a window to take control back.
Forth scenario happens when the player is overtaken by the enemies and needs to scape. The ultimates are designed like a pannic button, they can defeat a lot of enemies or give you a scape window, but the cost of resource is big and the cooldowns high, so they are the last option.
VIHA COMBAT SYSTEM DOCUMENT
Viha's skills only have cooldown. There is no resource cost to execute them.
- Basic Attack
Melee attack. Using this skill, the player can hit as many enemies are in the attack range area. This area will be an arc in front of the character, being the target in the middle. The main objective of the atack will recibe 100% of the damage and the rest of enemies hitted will receive X%.
- Skill A (AP+AD)
Viha jumps to the targeted enemy generating a DD in AOE that push away the enemies inside.
Skill casting time is X seconds.
Example: Rona – Vainglory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYIhMwdQoug
- Skill B (AP)
+20% Attack speed buff during X seconds.
Skill casting time is X seconds.
Example: Varian – Heroes of the Storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1EFtw1UdfA
- Skill C (AP)
Applies a shield that reduces 65% of the total damage recibed during X seconds.
Skill casting time is X seconds.
- Ultimate Skill (AP+AD) (Needs to be unlock reaching level 6)
Viha enters berserker mode becoming invulnerable during 5 seconds. While this skill is active, the player lose control of the character and Viha will execute X attacks to random enemies inside the AoE. The first attack will be always be executed to the enemy with less life of all inside the AoE. The rest of attacks will be executed to random enemies, never realizing 2 consecutive attacks on the same enemy.
Example: Kharazim Ultimate – Heroes of the Storm
Skill casting time is X seconds.
- Dash
Viha moves X% more faster during X seconds in a straight line following the direction marked by the right stick. During the movement, he's invulnerable.
- Rage
Viha has a Rage bar instead of a Resource bar that it will be filled X% with every Basic Attack that hits a target. The bar goes from 0 to 100 and it will not scalate with the character's level. Rage will be lost X% each second if Viha don't execute the Basic Attack againts a target during the X seconds after the last Basic Attack. When the bar reachs 100, the pasive skill Transformation will be automaticaly activated.
- Passive Skill: Transformation
During 10 seconds, Viha will be transformate into his demonic form. During the transformation, Viha has a buff of +20% in his damage, health and attack speed stats, and all his skill's cooldowns will be reseted.
UPGRADES
- Level 3:
- – Increase the AoE of the Skill A in X% but also reduce the total damage of the skill in X%
- – With each enemy kill, Viha steals X% of the enemy health
- – Skill C now also ricochet back to the enemy X% of the damage received
- Level 6
- – Ultimate
- Level 9
- – +X% of Rage whit each basic attack
- Level 12
- – Increase the duration of the demonic transformation in X seconds
CHARACTER DESIGN EXAMPLES
Inglorious has a lot of influence from MOBAS, there are champions with an unique set of skills to face combat, and my duty with character design was to look for the right target profile for each character.
Serching wich type of player will enjoy to play with each set of mechanic was the foundation for a good design.
Then, I picked the references and try to build a champion that will potenciate their mechanics, write an apeeling background narrative and work with the Art Team to achieve an aesthetic that match the taste of the target audience.
XANDRIAS
A narcissistic wizard who masters the magic of ligtht at a safe distance
Key Words: Long Distance – Low life –
Nuke gameplay
CPT. JANE
A cocky pirate capable of breaking through the enemy lines with pushing cannon fire
Key Words: Medium Distance – Explosive attacks – Strategic gameplay
ANGELA
A godless paladin whose specialty is to endure in the heat of battle
Key Words: Melee Distance – Resistant –
First Line gameplay
VIHA
A bloody berserker possessed by a demon who lends to him his powers to hunt his prey
Key Words: Melee Distance – Life steel –
Reckless gameplay
LEVEL DESIGN EXAMPLE
GAME
INGLORIOUS
GAME MODE
- Single Player -
- Conquer and Defend
- Easy – Medium – Hard
ENGINE
- UNREAL ENGINE 4
DEVELOPED BY
COVEN ARTS
OVERVIEW
In this mode, the player will have to conquer the cores of the map (espherical construcs that attack any enemy in their area) trying to defend them against the enemy hordes that will try to conquer them back. When the timer runs out, if the player has more than 2 of the 5 cores conquered, they win.
The player can also defend the cores with ghost troupes using souls of the enemies defeated. Also, this souls can be used to upgrade the cores or to buy equipment at the shops.
Our goal in this map was to provide a single player experience using all the mechanics from the multiplayer mode. Since the map don't change from any difficulty mode, I designed a battleground with geometries that split the waves of enemies from their spawn points to different cores, making them more bereable to be faced, but also increasing the difficulty of the gameplay when waves are bigger and new spawn points appear, flooding with enemies several cores at the same time.
All images are property of COVEN ARTS. Original artworks by Daniel Gil.