mattiapearl
New member
Different hero picks could and should enable different gameplay loops. The team has shown formidable balancing capacity, which is a phenomenal help in designing new concepts. This post is going to be split between game direction ideas (related to heroes) and hero design.
Ability upgrades
As of now the ability upgrade function follows a moba inspired direction. I'll state facts followed by ideas.
- Ability unlock order is relevant only early in the game and creates a knowledge based gameplay in the earlier section of the game, also giving you the ability to learn how your opponent uses those cooldowns
- Ability upgrades and what someone will buy can be deducted and seen by checking their build (since most people follow closely 1 or 2 available builds based on the scenario) but most characters don't get gameplay changing/empowering upgrades until level 3. This encourages a lot of players to build into a single ability while forgoing the other ones. Visual changes in the appearance or animation/sfx of abilities when upgraded could help keeping the gameplay focused knowledge game rather than the "check profile" intel (I looked through forum posts but couldn't find a detail example to attach)
- At 30m+ in a game, points will be spent filling up missing abilities with an always expected ending setup for an hero (I'll always know that a seven at 50k will move during his ult).
---- Ability unlocks could disable the unlock of a certain upgrade later in the game (max level ball on seven could disable max level surge if unlocked first, or could change how surge level 3 works - depending on which gets unlocked first)
---- An extreme, would be a character design where abilities act differently if used before or after one another. An example would be a Sekiro combo tree, or a character that focuses on punching and kicking, which enables different combinations of his own cooldowns based on what he learns first and which skill he uses first. Upgrading his legs and fists could make him have a slower hitbox and not be as efficient as with a full leg build.To reduce the skill requirement and entry barrier for this mechanic, I'd suggest balancing the changes so that his (or any character) consequential builds look similar. This will flatten the diversity and fun curve for the hero, but will also make sure a non-perfect choice isn't rewarded negatively.
---- If ability locking exists, re-specing could be introduced as a mechanic for a timely event, or for a specific hero upgrade.
---- Re-specing could also simply be "prestige" in an ability. Yamato 1 could get 2 charges but go down in damage and needing extra 8 points for full damage again, enabling slash/only. Or it could change how her (previously capped) 2 ability works -- making it a pull or an "anywhere" grapple with less range that reduces her blade cd
//The fact you could build once in a 10 game characters given the right conditions, would make for more dynamic endgames for matches that end up stagnating behind a last fight resolution. It would also make for more skill required to pull out a stomp, but more reliability in it.
Hero specific item interactions
Altough the freedom to buy majestic leap (or stamina based items) and the consistent zipline speed on heroes make you able to build into an hypermobile character on any hero, they also seem too cheap and too low skill requirement (not in a bad way at all) to enable every hero to work the same way. High mobility doesn't punish bad positioning and it shrinks the map way too early into the game.
- Heroes could get specific momentum multipliers based on their weight/item count that would play into not making any 6 hero comp able to gank anywhere within 15 seconds. This means air control would be m
- Jungle holds less value and needs to be kept tuned down due to the ease of movement and farming of every hero
- Movement is insanely good before a fight, but kiting isn't an option except for specific items or little cooldowns. The ability to kite as a team through a specific team cooldown (such as a lash ult) is good, but not enough heroes have either defensive ults or space controlling abilities to do that. Dynamo 2 is a good example of a great kiting cooldown, but copying Void's Shift from supervive, more displacement abilities could be implemented with the increased risk for your own team (you throw a projectile and everyone at the landing spot is switched with you and people around you).
- There still isn't a "you're all immortal" cooldown in this game, the closest option is probably kelvin ult, but if there is an idea to introduce anything similar then multiple iterations of if should exist.
!!! I'm not going to focus on balance of these ideas because they are to be taken as single inspiration points, and balance is a cohesive view that requires knowledge of iteractions (worse dynamo tp is a bebop bomb buff etc etc)
Last points on the balance between moba and "fps"
This game is a moba, even if it isn't, and people like me who come from very punishing/very rewarding titles such as fps end up feeling the need for more satisfying mechanics and harder to hit cooldowns. Every hero is mobile easily, every bullet is easily hittable or buffable to the point of working, and almost every cd can be range boosted without giving up too much, which means that auto-aim cooldowns require fast fingers more than smart positioning.
The mechanics are fine and they define the genre, but mechanics like melee parry are extremely skill based and enable phenomenal gameplay loops inside of the game itself.
Hero ideas
I won't go into hero ideas directly but I'll make future posts about it with concept art and numbers included. I'll give a list of characters I've seen posted about in the forums and that I'd like to see as an extension of those already well written posts: I'd like to see Combo based melee characters (a monk for example), Necromancers, Hard support heroes that don't have to rely on farming to build souls (maybe limited from buying active items), More pure tank implementations that don't require colossus/warp stone/etherial to work, and a parry based character able to counter CDs.
Ability upgrades
As of now the ability upgrade function follows a moba inspired direction. I'll state facts followed by ideas.
- Ability unlock order is relevant only early in the game and creates a knowledge based gameplay in the earlier section of the game, also giving you the ability to learn how your opponent uses those cooldowns
- Ability upgrades and what someone will buy can be deducted and seen by checking their build (since most people follow closely 1 or 2 available builds based on the scenario) but most characters don't get gameplay changing/empowering upgrades until level 3. This encourages a lot of players to build into a single ability while forgoing the other ones. Visual changes in the appearance or animation/sfx of abilities when upgraded could help keeping the gameplay focused knowledge game rather than the "check profile" intel (I looked through forum posts but couldn't find a detail example to attach)
- At 30m+ in a game, points will be spent filling up missing abilities with an always expected ending setup for an hero (I'll always know that a seven at 50k will move during his ult).
---- Ability unlocks could disable the unlock of a certain upgrade later in the game (max level ball on seven could disable max level surge if unlocked first, or could change how surge level 3 works - depending on which gets unlocked first)
---- An extreme, would be a character design where abilities act differently if used before or after one another. An example would be a Sekiro combo tree, or a character that focuses on punching and kicking, which enables different combinations of his own cooldowns based on what he learns first and which skill he uses first. Upgrading his legs and fists could make him have a slower hitbox and not be as efficient as with a full leg build.To reduce the skill requirement and entry barrier for this mechanic, I'd suggest balancing the changes so that his (or any character) consequential builds look similar. This will flatten the diversity and fun curve for the hero, but will also make sure a non-perfect choice isn't rewarded negatively.
---- If ability locking exists, re-specing could be introduced as a mechanic for a timely event, or for a specific hero upgrade.
---- Re-specing could also simply be "prestige" in an ability. Yamato 1 could get 2 charges but go down in damage and needing extra 8 points for full damage again, enabling slash/only. Or it could change how her (previously capped) 2 ability works -- making it a pull or an "anywhere" grapple with less range that reduces her blade cd
//The fact you could build once in a 10 game characters given the right conditions, would make for more dynamic endgames for matches that end up stagnating behind a last fight resolution. It would also make for more skill required to pull out a stomp, but more reliability in it.
Hero specific item interactions
Altough the freedom to buy majestic leap (or stamina based items) and the consistent zipline speed on heroes make you able to build into an hypermobile character on any hero, they also seem too cheap and too low skill requirement (not in a bad way at all) to enable every hero to work the same way. High mobility doesn't punish bad positioning and it shrinks the map way too early into the game.
- Heroes could get specific momentum multipliers based on their weight/item count that would play into not making any 6 hero comp able to gank anywhere within 15 seconds. This means air control would be m
- Jungle holds less value and needs to be kept tuned down due to the ease of movement and farming of every hero
- Movement is insanely good before a fight, but kiting isn't an option except for specific items or little cooldowns. The ability to kite as a team through a specific team cooldown (such as a lash ult) is good, but not enough heroes have either defensive ults or space controlling abilities to do that. Dynamo 2 is a good example of a great kiting cooldown, but copying Void's Shift from supervive, more displacement abilities could be implemented with the increased risk for your own team (you throw a projectile and everyone at the landing spot is switched with you and people around you).
- There still isn't a "you're all immortal" cooldown in this game, the closest option is probably kelvin ult, but if there is an idea to introduce anything similar then multiple iterations of if should exist.
!!! I'm not going to focus on balance of these ideas because they are to be taken as single inspiration points, and balance is a cohesive view that requires knowledge of iteractions (worse dynamo tp is a bebop bomb buff etc etc)
Last points on the balance between moba and "fps"
This game is a moba, even if it isn't, and people like me who come from very punishing/very rewarding titles such as fps end up feeling the need for more satisfying mechanics and harder to hit cooldowns. Every hero is mobile easily, every bullet is easily hittable or buffable to the point of working, and almost every cd can be range boosted without giving up too much, which means that auto-aim cooldowns require fast fingers more than smart positioning.
The mechanics are fine and they define the genre, but mechanics like melee parry are extremely skill based and enable phenomenal gameplay loops inside of the game itself.
Hero ideas
I won't go into hero ideas directly but I'll make future posts about it with concept art and numbers included. I'll give a list of characters I've seen posted about in the forums and that I'd like to see as an extension of those already well written posts: I'd like to see Combo based melee characters (a monk for example), Necromancers, Hard support heroes that don't have to rely on farming to build souls (maybe limited from buying active items), More pure tank implementations that don't require colossus/warp stone/etherial to work, and a parry based character able to counter CDs.
