Sneak Peek - Hounds' Game Design
Hello vikings!
In case you missed it, we revealed the latest clan that will join Northgard next week.
In order to give you an idea of the clan’s gameplay and concept, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to let Maaz tell you about his work regarding the Hounds!
[h2]Who is Maaz?[/h2]
Hi, I’m Maaz! I’m Northgard’s game designer;
You might have seen me on the Discord server or during some of our livestreams on Twitch. I’ve been on the Northgard team for the past three years. I have mainly worked on the clans of the Rat, Eagle, Lion, as well as the various free updates and balancing patches!
[hr][/hr][h3]The birth of a new clear clan[/h3]
Various factors led to the direction we took for the clan.
The two previous clans were focused on base-building and economy, so we were looking for a clan that would go in the opposite direction. We had been throwing around the idea of a clan that would get military units out of its kills for some time. Additionally, a large part of those of you who participated in the yearly survey wanted a more aggressive clan, we knew that this new addition would focus on “clearing” the wild creatures on the map.
After some research to find a good concept, the focus of the clan would revolve around berserkers, military units that would get specialized warriors out of the skins of the animals they eliminated. With this in mind, we started to work on the clan!
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[hr][/hr]After the Claws & Jaws update, the addition of foxes and boars increased the amount of berserkers from 2 to 4. We often had clans with one or two unique units, but with so many different options, we knew we wanted each type of berserker to fill a specific role in your warband with unique abilities and stats. Relying on each unit's position and the timing of their abilities to maximize the clan's military capacities.
We knew this wouldn't work with the average number of units most of you have in your warbands. as it would have increased the amount of micromanagement required to make the most of these new units. So we needed the clan to be playable with only half the number of units, or even less. This meant reducing the pressure on the clan's economic management and making berserkers strong enough to face an army twice their size. That's why berserkers can collect different types of resources to support the clan's development.
- Wolf gives you food
- Fox gives you Krowns
- Bear gives you wood
- Boar gives you lore
Due to the lack of a warchief and military camps, the only viable military path for the clan was Guardian, which is all about defense and not what we wanted for the clan. This led us to drop the usual military path completely in a similar way to the Lynx and its hunters’ path. This opened up the possibility for another use of military XP for the clan and for each unit to level up individually. That decision naturally reinforced the idea of making them strong enough to face bigger armies and to give them unique abilities to unlock.
The final piece of the puzzle was to design the berserkers’ various abilities, creating different roles and interesting synergies between the new units. With the help of our beta team, we kept iterating from there…
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[hr][/hr][h3]The iteration game[/h3]
There was a lot of iteration on the clan’s knowledge, the berserker’s abilities, and the relic. One of the major difficulty we faced was making sure all units were equally interesting and useful, balancing their price, stats, abilities, and a lot of variables that easily tended to favor one unit over the others.
The best example of this is probably the brawler, the clan’s base unit as they are weaker than berserkers and quickly evolve into one. For a while brawlers were nothing more than a stepping stone toward getting a berserker. Thanks to the beta testers’ feedback, as well as what we said earlier about having less economic pressure on the clan, we decided to make them a more versatile unit. The brawlers are intended to both fight and support the clan's military power, as well as work in specialized buildings to help the clan's economy.
[h2]Final word[/h2]
After all the iterating, testing, and balancing, we can’t wait to see you experience the clan yourselves. When that will be the case, tell us how it feels gameplay-wise!
Your feedback is important for us, not only it helps us better understand what you expect, but it will also help us prepare for the arrival of the Hounds in ranked mode!
Overall, we're happy with how the clan has developed and improved over the past months, and we hope you'll have a lot of fun playing it!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2946220/Northgard__Garm_Clan_of_the_Hounds/?utm_source=news&utm_medium=news&utm_campaign=wishlist&utm_content=sneakpeek1_core_design
Thanks for reading our first sneak peek of the Clan of the Hounds![hr][/hr]SOCIALS - DISCORD | REDDIT | X/TWITTER | FACEBOOK
Did you like it? Have you learned something new that you never realized when playing the game?
This is the first time we’ve done this type of content, so please let us know what you think of it! Just like for the game itself, your feedback will impact future content.
Let us know what you’d like to see / read about in the future, but stay tuned for the next article about the clan’s art direction which will be posted Tuesday!
-Shiro Games Community Team
