Cabby - The troubled Taxi driver (With concept art, ability descriptions/ideas)

tuncer_sensei

New member
Hello I'm Tuncer, this is an idea I had for your game Valve, I call him Cabby.

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Right so I made this character because although we have robots in the game we don't have amnesic wizard-ghost possessed taxi's yet, here's my submission for that--
Cabby is a possessed taxi car - possessed by the wizard whose body was was stuffed in to the back of the trunk of by the mobsters that carried out the hit- though inanimate object soul transfer is highly forbidden and widely known to have lots of issues, it was a last ditch effort by the wizard to self-preserve, at the cost of all of his memories. that was 20 years ago, and since then cabby has earned himself a living by being a taxi driver with a hot temper (very prone to road rage and hates parking meters, needs to consume gasoline in order to sustain himself.)

His abilities are highly useful in different situations and mesh well together to make him formidable on the battlefield that is the streets of the city.
I came up with various abilities for him that we could try out:

1- Hi-beams & horns - cone of vision area quick stun/interrupt lasts for less than a second
2- Road Rage - speeds up his movement and shooting speed for a short duration of time
3- Exhaust - Leaves a trail of smoke that slows enemies - (higher level silences them in the smoke)
I'm split on his ultimate
4- Taxi- moves fast and grabs whomever he hits to transport elsewhere or
4- Parking meter - leaves a parking meter that slows enemies in a AOE effect type of post, also ticks damage.



I think his movement speed should be affected by his spirit level as well.

I'm not sure if this is how you're supposed to submit an idea btw, just had a vision I couldn't get rid of from my head so I had to make it and share it.

some other details are he'd speak with a heavy NY accent, and say things like:
"Did somboddeh orda a taxi?!?"
"'Ey I'm driving hea! get outta da damn road, ya maniac!"
"what're ya blind!? ....heh heh you're aboutta be... tell ya dat much"
"If youse wanted me to run ya ova... more dan 'appy to oblige"
etc.

I recorded how I think it would sound but done better by professional voice actors of course, I'm just a lowly concept artist lol.

take 1-

View attachment Recording (1).mp4
take 2-

View attachment Recording (2).mp4

Additional details-

His lower body and upper body are connected via magic glyph from the wizard's spell.
he has an old style gatling gun that does burst shots I chose that gun for the obvious design direction taken in the character lol


Now I can finally sleep in peace thanks valve for making a stupidly addicting game, I guess-
But seriously I love the setting and the style's a lot of fun, congrats!

I'd love to hear suggestions for what Cabby's abilities could be, I'm not like set in stone for that, what do you guys think, Would you main this character? I'd main this character.
 
I have an animated 3d model too, but just wanted to post the concept art, I don't wanna show the 3d with the animations yet- not sure if I'll even finish it but just had to do it, you understand, I'm sure.
 
This is a really cool design, I like it a lot. But when I see Cabby I think more of a miniboss/jungle creep than a playable hero character.
 
Great design concept, model might be a bit busy but it's really cool and it's clear you've put a lot of thought and effort into it. Love the fact that the exposed engine would be the headshot hitbox. Though I would consider giving the front end and headlights a slightly more facial appearance.

Some general thoughts/ideas in terms of the abilities:

1 ability, instead of some kind of stun, what if it was an ability that dealt damage per second to any enemy who was inside the cone and looking directly into the lights?
Could be a useful tool in laning with the right positioning, forcing an enemy to decide whether to keep looking in your direction to try to get the last hit, or turn away to avoid damage.
Could even involve some kind of stun mechanic for one of the upgrades? Say if they look directly at you for x amount of time they get stunned. This could lead to synergies with other heroes like the Mo & Krill ultimate, get them into your headlights halfway through their ult and they'll get stunned after if you time it right.

2 ability, I think it's a generally boring idea and it kindof overlaps with the bonus movespeed of taxi ultimate (which I think is the better idea of the two), what if you stuck to the same idea of road rage and made it an AoE that infects enemies with rage, forcing them to run towards you and blindly fire at you.
It would synergise well with the 1 ability in 1v1 situations whilst also being a good teamfight disruption ability, further levels would increase the AoE, or give you bonus resistances for the duration of the rage.

3 ability, I think this is a great ability concept, no notes on this, like the idea of it silencing at a higher level and it sounds like a good tool for escapes.

4 ability, whilst the parking meter is a nice idea, I think the other ability utilises the idea that this is a possesed taxi in a much more interesting way.
I'd have it so that you can grab an ally and carry them inside you for a duration with increased movement speed, you would both take any damage you receive, but you would have additional bullet/spirit resist for the duration and you would slowly heal your passenger.

I think to make it a bit more balance you would need to be disarmed for the duration, and your passenger disarmed and silenced.

Would synergise well with teamfight ults, like ferrying a Dynamo into the middle of a fight so he can black hole, or could also be used to save someone who's about to die, or bring someone to the middle of a fight then cast road rage on the enemies to draw their attention.

Maybe further upgrades would give whoever gets in an instant burst of healing, or make it so the passenger is no longer disarmed, letting you grab people and do a drive-by.

If going with the idea of the ultimate being the taxi ability, I would consider making it a more open-topped taxi, to reduce the potential for clipping when having bigger player characters inside and to better facilitate the idea of the passenger shooting from inside.


I think tweaking the abilities to something like that would create a lot of synergy with his kit, both mechanically and thematically.
 
Thank you all so much for the feedback!
I love seeing the suggestions and thoughts on Cabby!

I think a convertible top could work(I just like that the top looks like a cabby cap but I think if it's convertible we could both have what we like.) and would be fun to have animated, avoid clipping- maybe enemies that are picked up and allies picked up in the same ride could still fire at each other

cabby could go "HEY NO FIGHTING BACK THERE, DON'T MAKE ME TURN AROUND- 'CAUSE I WILL!"

damage in the cone of vision for hi beams is a great idea, force decision making in the situation, get away or trade, maybe it also slows a bit?

Aoe road rage is an interesting idea, cabby would need to be real tanky for this to work, high mobility tank with player displacement and silence capabilities perhaps?

I wonder if you can do something like hit road rage, build towards increasing it's reach with all the items, get like a super large area to go road rage against you and you just hit ethereal shift to avoid most of the damage ??
the team would thank you for cc for sure, but I don't want to make him too op, or even op at all,

main idea with cabby was team, or enemy displacement with some cc abilities and speed boost to get to where he needs to make plays-
but honestly I like all the ideas I'm seeing, thank you! :D
 
Having a non humanoid looking creature would be confusing, thats why i think made viscous has a visible black helmet as a head. You obviously put a lot of effort in this post. Great concept but i'd settle for a crash dummy with taxi driver outfit instead honestly.
 
Holy cow, this is a super high effort post. Interesting idea but yeah, echoing what the others has said, the design would work well in a MOBA but not a shooter. It would be less quirky but a Transformers styled taxi would probably work. For the abilities they would transform into a taxi and then return back to humanoid form. Reminds me of Lapras from Pokemon Unite and Johnson from Mobile Legends
 
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