SnickerPuffs
New member
After posting my previous thread about reworking an unused/scrapped hero, I instantly wanted to dive back in and make another. However, unlike the last one, which was made in only a couple days, I wanted to put more thought and consideration into both his kit and his characterization. By the time I came out the other side, I had realized two things.
1) My concepts were too specific to recreate in-game, so I couldn't made a working mod like last time (pensive emoji).
2) Someone else already beat me to the punch for reworking Rutger.
The in-development hero Frank also leaked during this time, and I have a hunch that he is Valve's own take at reworking Rutger. In fact, both he and the first pass at my Rutger rework shared a LOT of similarities, so I went back to the drawing board and tweaked him a bit more. At this point, I feel confident that my take on Rutger can stand on his own feet when compared to both Testwamore's Rutger *and* Frank.
(His pose is pretty lame in this sketch, so expect me to post something more interesting at some point)
A FATE'S TALE:
Growing up, Rutger wanted nothing more than to prove himself in a fight; to live up to his grandfather's tales of valor in the last of the pre-mystic wars. He never got the chance, his meager physique leaving him a perpetual underdog. It was only when the Paranormal Military Companies, desperate for more bodies to fuel their proxy wars, gave him a way out. With a combination of extra-planar relics and experimental Ixian science, they could turn him into the perfect soldier.
They did much more than that.
Even with his enhancements, he was still the weakest soldier in the company, and was quickly shunted back to the worst squadron. Every deployment was another suicide mission. Bullet wounds, broken bones, severed limbs, even magic-infused heavy ordinance shredding his body-- no matter how badly he was injured, he couldn't die. His bones would reform, his sinew would knit itself back together. The relics kept him alive... but they didn't keep him *him*.
With each battle, he lost more and more of himself in every meaning of the phrase. By the time his services were no longer needed, he struggled to recognize his own reflection; the hardened and discolored skin, the horns, the tail, the shape of his face, even his eyes. Rutger had died on those battlefields, but this thing that gradually replaced him would never take a last breath. Not unless he did the unthinkable.
(1) Magic Missile [Rocket Launcher]
None of these abilities are wholly new. Instead, they're retoolings of Rutger's original kit. Magic Missile, for example, is just "Rocket Launcher", but with a few core changes-- Firstly, this ability deals both Weapon Damage AND Spirit Damage, similarly to Wrecker's 'Wrecking Ball'. Secondly, the initial self-damage resist and self-knockback bonus are much lower, but improve with each upgrade. At max level, they're stronger than the original ability.
(2) Front Line [Force Field]
"Front Line" bares little resemblance to it's original form, but that's for the best. "Force Field" was incredibly boring when compared to the other abilities that fit the same utility niche of 'advancement denial'. For this rework, I took inspiration from them-- most obviously McGinnis' "Spectral Wall" and Paradox's "Time Wall".
I'm quite fond of this concept's rotation mechanic; AFAIK, no other ability in the game has this sort of feature.
(3) Scorched Earth [Pulse]
Like with my Thumper rework, I took an ability that I felt was more 'core' to his playstyle and upgraded that into an ultimate. For Rutger, that was his Cheat Death ability, but I didn't want to scrap his "Pulse" ability either. I don't have much to say on this ability outside of that. The T2 'afterburn' upgrade was added to tie back into Rutger's new lore-- if his augmentations are turning him into an Ixian, shouldn't he gain some control over fire?
(4) Tantalize [Cheat Death]
As I said above-- with how core "Cheat Death" felt to Rutger's identity as a hero, I knew I had to make it his ultimate. Instead of making it a 'get out of jail free' card, however, I wanted to make it feel like it takes skill to avoid death. If you can get the upper hand on your attacker(s) during your second wind, you'll get a small health bonus, making it that much harder for them to do it a second time.
The initial cooldown may seem a bit low (especially given how Cheat Death was recently turned into an item with a 130s cooldown), but keep in mind that the cooldown extends by ten seconds every time it gets activated, *regardless* of if you survive or not.
CHARACTERIZATION:
Rutger is struggling with a crisis of identity, so much so that it often reads as if he's developed a split personality. To explain these two halves, I'll refer to them using separate monikers-- "The Corpse", and "The Demon".
"The Corpse" holds the belief that Rutger had died during his service under the PMCs, his Ixian augmentations only keeping the physical body alive. He swears that he felt Rutger's soul leave his body the first time that he died, and that it didn't come back when he was revived. Struggling to move on, he can't decide if he wants to bring Rutger back, or to have The Patrons remove his life-sustaining augmentations so he can finally actually die. "The Corpse" is dour and distressed, both from the traumatic stress from his time as a soldier and the dissociative ennui of how it changed him.
In contrast, "The Demon" believes that he's a 'new' person, born the first time Rutger's relic-infused implants revived him. His wish to the Patrons is to to fully separate him from Rutger (who he views as an inherited, "second-hand" identity) so he can have a clean slate to decide exactly who he is and who he wants to be. While he's recaptured the impulsiveness and cocky pugnaciousness of Rutger's younger days, he's much less of a sore loser. He's also really big into pinball.
Each side of Rutger's personality would have it's own VO (ideally done by the same actor), similar to how Sinclair has individual VO for both Henry and Savannah. Every time a Rutger voice line is called, the game would randomly pick between each of these two versions. "The Corpse" is much more prominent during the early game, while "The Demon" is much more prominent during the late game.
1) My concepts were too specific to recreate in-game, so I couldn't made a working mod like last time (pensive emoji).
2) Someone else already beat me to the punch for reworking Rutger.
The in-development hero Frank also leaked during this time, and I have a hunch that he is Valve's own take at reworking Rutger. In fact, both he and the first pass at my Rutger rework shared a LOT of similarities, so I went back to the drawing board and tweaked him a bit more. At this point, I feel confident that my take on Rutger can stand on his own feet when compared to both Testwamore's Rutger *and* Frank.
(His pose is pretty lame in this sketch, so expect me to post something more interesting at some point)
A FATE'S TALE:
Growing up, Rutger wanted nothing more than to prove himself in a fight; to live up to his grandfather's tales of valor in the last of the pre-mystic wars. He never got the chance, his meager physique leaving him a perpetual underdog. It was only when the Paranormal Military Companies, desperate for more bodies to fuel their proxy wars, gave him a way out. With a combination of extra-planar relics and experimental Ixian science, they could turn him into the perfect soldier.
They did much more than that.
Even with his enhancements, he was still the weakest soldier in the company, and was quickly shunted back to the worst squadron. Every deployment was another suicide mission. Bullet wounds, broken bones, severed limbs, even magic-infused heavy ordinance shredding his body-- no matter how badly he was injured, he couldn't die. His bones would reform, his sinew would knit itself back together. The relics kept him alive... but they didn't keep him *him*.
With each battle, he lost more and more of himself in every meaning of the phrase. By the time his services were no longer needed, he struggled to recognize his own reflection; the hardened and discolored skin, the horns, the tail, the shape of his face, even his eyes. Rutger had died on those battlefields, but this thing that gradually replaced him would never take a last breath. Not unless he did the unthinkable.
(1) Magic Missile [Rocket Launcher]
None of these abilities are wholly new. Instead, they're retoolings of Rutger's original kit. Magic Missile, for example, is just "Rocket Launcher", but with a few core changes-- Firstly, this ability deals both Weapon Damage AND Spirit Damage, similarly to Wrecker's 'Wrecking Ball'. Secondly, the initial self-damage resist and self-knockback bonus are much lower, but improve with each upgrade. At max level, they're stronger than the original ability.
(2) Front Line [Force Field]
"Front Line" bares little resemblance to it's original form, but that's for the best. "Force Field" was incredibly boring when compared to the other abilities that fit the same utility niche of 'advancement denial'. For this rework, I took inspiration from them-- most obviously McGinnis' "Spectral Wall" and Paradox's "Time Wall".
I'm quite fond of this concept's rotation mechanic; AFAIK, no other ability in the game has this sort of feature.
(3) Scorched Earth [Pulse]
Like with my Thumper rework, I took an ability that I felt was more 'core' to his playstyle and upgraded that into an ultimate. For Rutger, that was his Cheat Death ability, but I didn't want to scrap his "Pulse" ability either. I don't have much to say on this ability outside of that. The T2 'afterburn' upgrade was added to tie back into Rutger's new lore-- if his augmentations are turning him into an Ixian, shouldn't he gain some control over fire?
(4) Tantalize [Cheat Death]
As I said above-- with how core "Cheat Death" felt to Rutger's identity as a hero, I knew I had to make it his ultimate. Instead of making it a 'get out of jail free' card, however, I wanted to make it feel like it takes skill to avoid death. If you can get the upper hand on your attacker(s) during your second wind, you'll get a small health bonus, making it that much harder for them to do it a second time.
The initial cooldown may seem a bit low (especially given how Cheat Death was recently turned into an item with a 130s cooldown), but keep in mind that the cooldown extends by ten seconds every time it gets activated, *regardless* of if you survive or not.
CHARACTERIZATION:
Rutger is struggling with a crisis of identity, so much so that it often reads as if he's developed a split personality. To explain these two halves, I'll refer to them using separate monikers-- "The Corpse", and "The Demon".
"The Corpse" holds the belief that Rutger had died during his service under the PMCs, his Ixian augmentations only keeping the physical body alive. He swears that he felt Rutger's soul leave his body the first time that he died, and that it didn't come back when he was revived. Struggling to move on, he can't decide if he wants to bring Rutger back, or to have The Patrons remove his life-sustaining augmentations so he can finally actually die. "The Corpse" is dour and distressed, both from the traumatic stress from his time as a soldier and the dissociative ennui of how it changed him.
In contrast, "The Demon" believes that he's a 'new' person, born the first time Rutger's relic-infused implants revived him. His wish to the Patrons is to to fully separate him from Rutger (who he views as an inherited, "second-hand" identity) so he can have a clean slate to decide exactly who he is and who he wants to be. While he's recaptured the impulsiveness and cocky pugnaciousness of Rutger's younger days, he's much less of a sore loser. He's also really big into pinball.
Each side of Rutger's personality would have it's own VO (ideally done by the same actor), similar to how Sinclair has individual VO for both Henry and Savannah. Every time a Rutger voice line is called, the game would randomly pick between each of these two versions. "The Corpse" is much more prominent during the early game, while "The Demon" is much more prominent during the late game.
