Dev blog 20 - The Ranger class
Hey folks!
This week is all about our main damage dealers, the Rangers. Bow in hand, Rangers are great for hurting faraway units, at the cost of being unable to hit adjacent units at all!
The core idea behind the Ranger class was always to limit their fighting capabilities in close range because they have the longest range among the other classes and can (mostly) safely attack other units. This is also the canonical class with access to Overwatch, a staple skill used by our role model XCOM. I’m not sure how XCOM does Overwatch internally, but we expanded this general functionality to be usable by any unit with any ability. So units will be able to “react” to enemy movement or attacks with any ability we can make. Stuff like “unit enters an area, give him a debuff”, or “unit tries attacking, prevent half his damage”. It’s wild :)
So after Mat came on board, he got tasked (amongst all other stuff) to make a list of skills for all classes that follow the upgrading idea I wrote about in the previous post. The ideas he came up with are pretty cool (in my opinion), that play with the notion of the ranger keeping his enemies at bay while trying to hide or run away from them. He also plays with boosting his own damage or increasing the likelihood of the enemies to take damage from the Ranger.
For instance, there are two abilities I find interesting as a combination. They require some setup, but when pulled off, allow the Ranger to deal a lot of damage. The skill “Hunter’s Mark” applies the “Mark” status effect on an enemy, making him take more damage from the Rangers attacks. Then the Ranger can use “Take Aim”, which grants him increased accuracy, and with an upgrade also grants him more damage for his next attack. The downside of “Take Aim” is that it roots the Ranger in place, but since we’re dealing damage, we don’t care! So we Mark, Take Aim and Shoot to kill (or just really hurt the guy). To compensate, the enemies have a lot of effective health, so this is a combination most people will probably want to take advantage of.
Thanks for reading! Wishlist the game if you haven’t already, and stay tuned for more information about our third class next week.
Hand of Merlin Discord server My Twitter
MarkoP
This week is all about our main damage dealers, the Rangers. Bow in hand, Rangers are great for hurting faraway units, at the cost of being unable to hit adjacent units at all!
The core idea behind the Ranger class was always to limit their fighting capabilities in close range because they have the longest range among the other classes and can (mostly) safely attack other units. This is also the canonical class with access to Overwatch, a staple skill used by our role model XCOM. I’m not sure how XCOM does Overwatch internally, but we expanded this general functionality to be usable by any unit with any ability. So units will be able to “react” to enemy movement or attacks with any ability we can make. Stuff like “unit enters an area, give him a debuff”, or “unit tries attacking, prevent half his damage”. It’s wild :)
So after Mat came on board, he got tasked (amongst all other stuff) to make a list of skills for all classes that follow the upgrading idea I wrote about in the previous post. The ideas he came up with are pretty cool (in my opinion), that play with the notion of the ranger keeping his enemies at bay while trying to hide or run away from them. He also plays with boosting his own damage or increasing the likelihood of the enemies to take damage from the Ranger.
For instance, there are two abilities I find interesting as a combination. They require some setup, but when pulled off, allow the Ranger to deal a lot of damage. The skill “Hunter’s Mark” applies the “Mark” status effect on an enemy, making him take more damage from the Rangers attacks. Then the Ranger can use “Take Aim”, which grants him increased accuracy, and with an upgrade also grants him more damage for his next attack. The downside of “Take Aim” is that it roots the Ranger in place, but since we’re dealing damage, we don’t care! So we Mark, Take Aim and Shoot to kill (or just really hurt the guy). To compensate, the enemies have a lot of effective health, so this is a combination most people will probably want to take advantage of.
Thanks for reading! Wishlist the game if you haven’t already, and stay tuned for more information about our third class next week.
Hand of Merlin Discord server My Twitter
MarkoP