Dev blog 19 - The Fighter class
Hey folks!
This week we’re celebrating the existence of tanks in the world! Where would we be without having a good looking front line Fighter that soaks up all damage that makes him all scarred and not good looking? We’d be scarred as well!
Generally speaking, front line units in games are in a bit of a tough spot. In order to deal damage, they have to get up close to the enemies. This implies that, while they’re getting close, the enemy is roasting them with automatic fire from their bows or slings, and when they finally get close, they’re near death! You could give them an ungodly amount of survivability in terms of damage reductions and health, right? Sure, but then you have to reduce the damage they deal, otherwise they’d be too effective at everything, which is not ideal in terms of balancing.
We had this same issue at some point, which was around the time we redesigned their role and mechanics. This was also around the time we conceived of skill categories, the offense, defense, and utility types. Skills would fall into one of these, which allows us to roll one of each category on level-ups. Adding categories allows for some fine-grained control during combat as well, like disabling all skills of specific categories and similar. For the Fighters, the idea was to give them skills that increase their survivability and skills that allow them to move farther. This would allow the Fighters to close the gap to the enemies while still being able to deal with the incoming damage and still be able to deal some damage.
For instance, some fighter skills in our current roster are “Shield Block” and “Rush”. “Shield Block” allows the fighter to give himself a buff that reduces damage done to him. “Rush” allows him to move within his movement range and grants him 1 action point upon reaching his destination. This allows for some fun combinations, where the unit can use up to 3 skills on their turn if planned correctly. At this moment in time, we have 10 skills per unit, 3 per category (plus 1 for the default damage skill) that units can learn when they rank up. To make things more interesting and varied, each of those skills has 3 upgrades to choose from. Then to make things even more interesting, all of those upgraded versions have 3 more upgrades. For instance, “Rush” has an upgrade that grants the fighter a buff which increases his damage a bit. Combined with “Shield Block”, they make the fighter a good alpha strike unit that can deal with the incoming damage!
Thanks for reading! I hope you liked the images I personally made for this post :)
Be sure to wishlist the game if you haven’t already, and stay tuned for more information about our classes next week!
Hand of Merlin Discord server My Twitter
MarkoP
This week we’re celebrating the existence of tanks in the world! Where would we be without having a good looking front line Fighter that soaks up all damage that makes him all scarred and not good looking? We’d be scarred as well!
Generally speaking, front line units in games are in a bit of a tough spot. In order to deal damage, they have to get up close to the enemies. This implies that, while they’re getting close, the enemy is roasting them with automatic fire from their bows or slings, and when they finally get close, they’re near death! You could give them an ungodly amount of survivability in terms of damage reductions and health, right? Sure, but then you have to reduce the damage they deal, otherwise they’d be too effective at everything, which is not ideal in terms of balancing.
We had this same issue at some point, which was around the time we redesigned their role and mechanics. This was also around the time we conceived of skill categories, the offense, defense, and utility types. Skills would fall into one of these, which allows us to roll one of each category on level-ups. Adding categories allows for some fine-grained control during combat as well, like disabling all skills of specific categories and similar. For the Fighters, the idea was to give them skills that increase their survivability and skills that allow them to move farther. This would allow the Fighters to close the gap to the enemies while still being able to deal with the incoming damage and still be able to deal some damage.
For instance, some fighter skills in our current roster are “Shield Block” and “Rush”. “Shield Block” allows the fighter to give himself a buff that reduces damage done to him. “Rush” allows him to move within his movement range and grants him 1 action point upon reaching his destination. This allows for some fun combinations, where the unit can use up to 3 skills on their turn if planned correctly. At this moment in time, we have 10 skills per unit, 3 per category (plus 1 for the default damage skill) that units can learn when they rank up. To make things more interesting and varied, each of those skills has 3 upgrades to choose from. Then to make things even more interesting, all of those upgraded versions have 3 more upgrades. For instance, “Rush” has an upgrade that grants the fighter a buff which increases his damage a bit. Combined with “Shield Block”, they make the fighter a good alpha strike unit that can deal with the incoming damage!
Thanks for reading! I hope you liked the images I personally made for this post :)
Be sure to wishlist the game if you haven’t already, and stay tuned for more information about our classes next week!
Hand of Merlin Discord server My Twitter
MarkoP