beholderd11
New member
Hello this is my second post about my initial character concept post Exquisite. If you wish to see my initial post about the character concept, please be sure to check out that post about the character Exquisite. This post will mainly be going over some of the pitfalls of my earlier post and developing more defined concepts (I will also be including some more sketches). Now onto the feedback.One of the bigger problems I received criticism for were the abilities (other than the 1) and the silhouette of the character. The silhouette is sort of hard to fix since that's just the character but I think it might just be due to the innate design of the character and the pose of the hero select that I submitted. As for the abilities, what I mainly gathered is that people generally like my idea for the 1 but didn't like the 3-4. 3 was too conceptual and 4 I was told was too similar to Sinclair. I got some indifference to the 2 so I changed it as well. For specific stats, I am far too out of my league to decide anything like that, so I probably won't be going that far. Mainly just discussion and what could be done better.
Weapon (Arm of War)
A Milanese 7mm pinfire saber-revolver that is a medium range, heavy hitter, hit-scan firearm in line with a Lady Geist or Mirage. The name of the gun is based on the Face of War painting by Dali. Reloading the Arm of War would involve the Authority of Doom (snake arm) spitting up bullets into the chamber.
Melee Attacks
There was some discussion that Exquisite's melee attacks should scale with weapon damage a little bit due to the nature of it being both a gun/melee weapon. I am not opposed to that; however I was also thinking about a sort of random attack might be neat as well. Like maybe have 4 separate melee attacks for each limb with their own modifiers (snake scales with spirit, sword/soldier scales with weapon, claw leg scales with vitality, and lamp leg scales idk). I agree that's too much and I was told to keep randomness to a minimum to keep viability but I just thought I'd spitball some bad ideas to just get some feed back.Movement
I actually think Exquisite might have increased Gravity but more stamina. Like they can run it down but don't have the best verticality if that makes sense? They are made of materialistic things so them being weighed down by these concepts of war and consumerism helps keep them feeling separate from someone more ethereal like Celeste. Plus it would also makes since that they can't move super well due to their janky body.
Abilities
I have sort of been swaying between 2 identities for this character due to the feedback I got. Should I focus them into a Carry or Support. At first I thought carry just due to the simplistic selfish world view their creators bestowed upon them; however, looking over it more, I do believe that maybe they want to revel in the absurdity of their existence and share that with others, believing it is what is right as that is what my original concept for the 1 conveyed. It gave bad randomness to enemies and good randomness to allies. That's not really a Carry the more I thought about it so the focus of abilities should be as a Support. The main point of inspiration I took while designing was Oracle from Dota 2. Someone suggested I look at Ogre Magi but I felt his set up was less "chaotic" and more "gambling" to me personally (and he's not really support designed). Plus I felt the concept of treating status effects like you're painting characters with colors of effect (like Grimstroke from Dota 2) worked into the concept of "art" which I was also told to push.All ability icons are subject to change.
1. Essence of Wormwood |  | Shoot forth a bolt of chaotic energy that, when released or when it hits an obstacle, explodes dealing spirit damage and purging enemies of non-ultimate buffs in the area of the explosion. If an ally is within range of the explosion it will transfer any non-ultimate (excluding your own) debuff afflicting that ally and apply it to you for 20% less of its current remaining effect time. |
I switched out the 1 and put the original 1 as the new 2. This 1 is supposed to be more inline with other Heroes' 1s and be a indicator of how Exquisite should be using their abilities.
I'm sort of indifferent to the name, its more a reference to the comet from the bible which doesn't super fit the character since Exquisite isn't related to any to any bible stories. I just thought it sounded more mystical and less generic than "Chaos Bolt". I would prefer to name each ability after a famous Surrealist/Dada piece of art but I've found that Persistence of Memory to be the only one that's fit really well so far.
2. Futility of Order |  | Summon a delayed blast that deals Spirit damage and applies a random negative status effect to enemies for 1.5s. The blast also applies a random positive status effect for 2s to Allies. If you currently have a status effect, you apply that instead of it being random. |
3. Persistence of Memory |  | (Passive) Damage you deal and healing you provide build up a chaos effect that when full causes all buffs and debuffs to last longer and to have stronger effects for a limited period of time. |
Named after the Dali painting. Both clocks and arrows I wanted to be a running icon in the abilities since clocks call back to surrealist art and arrows call back clocks (duh) but also the symbol for chaos.
4. Wheel of Chaos |  | You deal incremental spirit damage to a large stationary targeted area to all units (including allies) within it. This damage cannot kill allies. Units who take damage from this effect regenerate health over time after a period of time (this effect counts as a status effect and can interact with exquisite's other abilities). The amount of health regenerated over its duration exceeds the amount of damage taken. At Tier 3, after each increment of damage is dealt, units gain temporary random/experimental status effects. |
I was thinking that the random/experimental status effects could get crazy from Sinclair’s rabbit debuff, legendary passive items from street brawl, to inverted controls, to more normal/common status effects. It would be a mix bag of both positive and negative status effects that would last for a limited time (the time would heavily depend on the status effect for balance of coarse). I'm totally open to that not being a part of the ult since the 3 already procs with all the damage and healing going on though. The status effects would also be affectable by Exquisites other abilities, so it gives Exquisite the ability to pick and choose what allies and enemies keep or loose the buffs and debuffs they are getting from the ult as well as allowing Exquisite to apply the debuffs/buffs they are receiving from the ult to other heroes.
The incremental damage happens every time the wheel of chaos rotates (the light explosion I used was from a gif on Pinterest, though I'm unsure where its from). The healing is not burst and happens over time but starts like a second or two after taking the damage.
Character Design Updates
So the major complaints I got to the design was one: it doesn't have a clear silhouette, and two: it doesn't have a clear personality. I understand that I got a lot of positive feed back that pushed back on these critiques, so I don't want to ignore the people who really enjoyed the initial design. As such, I am wanting to keep the basic design but maybe spruce up some things here and there to maybe ease some of the complaints I got.1. For silhouette, I don't think there's much I can fix without a complete redesign. Mainly because I chose the limbs for specific reasons to disassociate them from humanity while also having symbolic meanings. They are weird and disjointed on purpose to convey the themes that surrealism and dadaism were trying to push. Additionally, I felt like a good number of people in that initial post understood those concepts that I was trying push the design which is why I'm confident in keeping the body the same. However, I have done some sketches to sort of work some humanity into the design without stripping away the fundamentals while also calling back to what Exquisites abilities are.
So the whole concept of of these additional elements is to add some more background to Exquisite with what maybe they do in their free time. I thought that the idea of them collecting stitched together rag dolls was both funny (because its weird how this homunculus thing has a hobby but also because its also stitched together), played into the idea that Exquisite is already a scary thing to look at (creepy doll trope), and actually tied into their abilities (Exquisite is stitching and unwinding status effects onto/from heroes sort of like a voodoo doll). I think I would need to experiment a bit more with the doll design but this is just a cursory sketch of the concept.
2. Now personality, this one in my opinion is a lot more easier but difficult in the sense that its a faceless hero. So, its sort of difficult to impose human emotions onto them like a regular character. A good way to usually get around this is through the animations and gestures, but I didn't have time for all that so I mainly worked on silhouette animation sketches and the portrait.
Thank You Everyone for All of the Amazing Feedback and Support!
I didn't get everything I wanted to work on for the update done but I was wanting to get this all done before a week had passed. I unluckily got a hand injury so it made progress a bit slower and slightly lowered the quality of some of the work but hopefully it'll gets the points across! I was actually thinking about maybe doing more hero designs because I have had like a couple ideas that I think are great (probably aren't realistic but it's great art practice for me doing junk I love). I was actually thinking about maybe doing a HERO VOTE for it. I'd reveal some silhouettes/names and backgrounds of the characters then have people vote on what they want me to work on next. It'll prolly be awhile before everything is ready since I want to have a good base for all 3-6 heroes I'm currently planning on holding the votes for. I don't expect much of a turnout for the votes since none of this is official but I just love the collaborative nature of concept art and want to do more. Thank you all again for the feedback. Hopefully my next character proposal will be better and more fleshed out.Thanks again! Astranged.
