All About The Chainbreaker & Godkeeper
Hi there, I’m ModusPwnenz from the design team back again to chat about the design of the latest two Aspects; the Chainbreaker and the Godkeeper. Unlike my other blog post about the Star Captain, these two Aspects will be in game and playable when this article comes out so I won’t bore you with flowery descriptions and instead I want to talk some about their design process.
There were three key goals in my mind when coming up with the kits for each of these Aspects. I’ll break down each of these points and give my thoughts on them: what parts worked well, what didn’t, and what changed throughout their creation.
Goal #1: Synergize in compelling ways with the new movement system.
With the new movement system coming online in the previous major patch I wanted to have more ways to play around with it and give players tools to interact with it in interesting ways.
Runic Strike showcases how this manifested in the Chainbreaker as each punch sends them flying towards their target. The intention here was to give them a useful utility tool that allows them to conserve movement, but also one that could get you into sticky situations if you aren’t mindful. I wanted it to be something that could be spammed if you’re just building up Combos or when there is only one enemy left to beat down, but in situations where there are many enemies intelligent players can use them to ping pong themselves around the battlefield.
As a fun, thematic, side note, the Binding was changed from a “select” type Binding to a “skill shot” type Binding during development. The main reason was to make it easier to spam the binding to punch a target many times in a row rather than needing to select them each time, but it had another good “feel” impact in that it forces the Chainbreaker to stick more to targets unless they use their movement, giving a better sensation of a boxer beating down their opponent.
Godkeeper on the other hand is much more controlled with their mobility and only has one big burst of it by teleporting to their Celestial Spear after throwing it. However, the Spear has some interesting tactical implications in that it can be conserved until later turns or even used by your allies to get out of death zones.
Initially, the Celestial Spear could be picked up multiple times the turn it was used but it cost 1 Will to do so. This had some fun gameplay effects when matched up with certain augments but on the negative side led to weird flow issues where it became harder to understand when it could be used due to the Will requirement, and also had bad balance implications where it made certain Spear augments way too powerful (but boring) to use over and over instead of other abilities.
Goal #2: Their mechanics should integrate with drafted Bindings in a way that makes these Bindings feel different to use than with the other Aspects.
This goal is a bit more open ended but in my general idea was to give more ways to interact with drafted Bindings (current and any that we create in the future) in a way that could open up more opportunities for theorycrafting and creating OP builds.
Both Aspects approached this idea with their passives. Chainbreaker once again is a bit more in your face with the “Combo” mechanic.
The core idea here is that they punch enemies a bunch with their Runic Strike and this then makes their next Binding cheaper and come back faster. This allows for some interesting combinations with drafted Bindings. Want to be a gardener? Get the Cultivate binding and plant them at super speed. Going for a big boom magic build? Draft Jinx and make it rain destruction.
Godkeeper’s passive of Velocity is tied to Celestial Spear but also has a connection to movement based bindings. While this differs from Chainbreaker in that their options aren’t as open ended, it does give them reasons to take Bindings they might not otherwise. For the Godkeeper drafting Blink is now a viable offensive tool and not just a utility one.
Overall I think this style of juicing up certain types of Bindings is interesting but has a drawback of making the Aspect feel more pigeonholed into taking those I’m not sure I would take this style approach again in the future compared to the more open ended version that Chainbreaker utilizes.
Goal #3: Fill in gameplay gaps.
This goal is perhaps the least exciting but is essential in making the different gameplay mechanics feel represented enough so that players can make fun and powerful builds out of everything we give them. This boiled down to giving Smite and Bleed powers to the Godkeeper (via the “Celestial Spear” above, and their primary binding “Impale” below) and giving the Chainbreaker some advanced mechanics through their multi-strikes and hybrid damage builds (most easily seen in their powerful but expensive binding, “Eruption”). Both of course have many ways to build into these effects and tap into many other status effects as well. That is to say creating new Aspects is a good opportunity to bring lesser used but fun gameplay mechanics into the mainstream pool.
Which Aspect had which effect was partially determined by their look and theme, early on we knew that the Godkeeper would utilize both Bleed and Smite due to their weapon and feel, so it then was a matter of figuring out the supported mechanics of the Chainbreaker. Their dual fists suggested the magic and physical damage hybrid attacks, alternating between the two as a core theme to build off of. Access to multi-strike capabilities came from the idea of them being a martial arts brawler and giving them ways to combo more easily. With these ideas in place other supporting mechanics become more obvious, such as giving Vigor to Godkeeper and Sap to the Chainbreaker.
Overall both aspects were a ton of fun to work on and grow into what they are today, I hope you all enjoy playing them as much as I did making them!
There were three key goals in my mind when coming up with the kits for each of these Aspects. I’ll break down each of these points and give my thoughts on them: what parts worked well, what didn’t, and what changed throughout their creation.
Goal #1: Synergize in compelling ways with the new movement system.
With the new movement system coming online in the previous major patch I wanted to have more ways to play around with it and give players tools to interact with it in interesting ways.
Runic Strike showcases how this manifested in the Chainbreaker as each punch sends them flying towards their target. The intention here was to give them a useful utility tool that allows them to conserve movement, but also one that could get you into sticky situations if you aren’t mindful. I wanted it to be something that could be spammed if you’re just building up Combos or when there is only one enemy left to beat down, but in situations where there are many enemies intelligent players can use them to ping pong themselves around the battlefield.
As a fun, thematic, side note, the Binding was changed from a “select” type Binding to a “skill shot” type Binding during development. The main reason was to make it easier to spam the binding to punch a target many times in a row rather than needing to select them each time, but it had another good “feel” impact in that it forces the Chainbreaker to stick more to targets unless they use their movement, giving a better sensation of a boxer beating down their opponent.
Godkeeper on the other hand is much more controlled with their mobility and only has one big burst of it by teleporting to their Celestial Spear after throwing it. However, the Spear has some interesting tactical implications in that it can be conserved until later turns or even used by your allies to get out of death zones.
Initially, the Celestial Spear could be picked up multiple times the turn it was used but it cost 1 Will to do so. This had some fun gameplay effects when matched up with certain augments but on the negative side led to weird flow issues where it became harder to understand when it could be used due to the Will requirement, and also had bad balance implications where it made certain Spear augments way too powerful (but boring) to use over and over instead of other abilities.
Goal #2: Their mechanics should integrate with drafted Bindings in a way that makes these Bindings feel different to use than with the other Aspects.
This goal is a bit more open ended but in my general idea was to give more ways to interact with drafted Bindings (current and any that we create in the future) in a way that could open up more opportunities for theorycrafting and creating OP builds.
Both Aspects approached this idea with their passives. Chainbreaker once again is a bit more in your face with the “Combo” mechanic.
The core idea here is that they punch enemies a bunch with their Runic Strike and this then makes their next Binding cheaper and come back faster. This allows for some interesting combinations with drafted Bindings. Want to be a gardener? Get the Cultivate binding and plant them at super speed. Going for a big boom magic build? Draft Jinx and make it rain destruction.
Godkeeper’s passive of Velocity is tied to Celestial Spear but also has a connection to movement based bindings. While this differs from Chainbreaker in that their options aren’t as open ended, it does give them reasons to take Bindings they might not otherwise. For the Godkeeper drafting Blink is now a viable offensive tool and not just a utility one.
Overall I think this style of juicing up certain types of Bindings is interesting but has a drawback of making the Aspect feel more pigeonholed into taking those I’m not sure I would take this style approach again in the future compared to the more open ended version that Chainbreaker utilizes.
Goal #3: Fill in gameplay gaps.
This goal is perhaps the least exciting but is essential in making the different gameplay mechanics feel represented enough so that players can make fun and powerful builds out of everything we give them. This boiled down to giving Smite and Bleed powers to the Godkeeper (via the “Celestial Spear” above, and their primary binding “Impale” below) and giving the Chainbreaker some advanced mechanics through their multi-strikes and hybrid damage builds (most easily seen in their powerful but expensive binding, “Eruption”). Both of course have many ways to build into these effects and tap into many other status effects as well. That is to say creating new Aspects is a good opportunity to bring lesser used but fun gameplay mechanics into the mainstream pool.
Which Aspect had which effect was partially determined by their look and theme, early on we knew that the Godkeeper would utilize both Bleed and Smite due to their weapon and feel, so it then was a matter of figuring out the supported mechanics of the Chainbreaker. Their dual fists suggested the magic and physical damage hybrid attacks, alternating between the two as a core theme to build off of. Access to multi-strike capabilities came from the idea of them being a martial arts brawler and giving them ways to combo more easily. With these ideas in place other supporting mechanics become more obvious, such as giving Vigor to Godkeeper and Sap to the Chainbreaker.
Overall both aspects were a ton of fun to work on and grow into what they are today, I hope you all enjoy playing them as much as I did making them!