FANGS DEV BLOG 2/12/2021

Welcome to Dev Blog #1! Thanks for joining us for our first Dev Stream and engaging in our community & Discord. We appreciate all the feedback you give us. We want these Dev Blogs to provide the community with transparency and double down on our promise that we’re committed to building this game with the players in mind.

COMBAT

We hear you loud and clear regarding combat and fluidity. Moments like executing high level combos, outplaying your opponents, and slamming games contribute to the core of what makes a game "feel" good. Our design team is busy reevaluating the various systems that make combat feel good. We’re looking at everything from smaller changes (i.e. movement speed increases) to bigger systemic changes (adjusting cast times, adding additional abilities, etc). As with any significant change, these adjustments reshape the way the game feels, so we’ll do some testing internally before we reveal our plan moving forward. 

Here’s an example to give you an idea of the direction we’re moving for cast times:

Rayo SPACE was at 0.35s Cast Time. A little too slow for a movement ability.

We reduced it to 0.2s to make it easier to react for dodging and chasing.

OBJECTIVES

You asked us a lot of questions about the objective focused game mode and the different objectives, so let’s take a deeper dive into objectives. We want to create a new Strategic Objective Brawler genre by combining the moment-to-moment combat that shines in Arena Brawlers with the tactical decision making found in MOBAs. These elements create clear moments where the individual skill and prowess of each player can thrive by presenting them with different scenarios in each match as they contest different objectives and coordinate with their teammates.

Having multiple objectives and win conditions provides a deeper layer of strategy different from 'kill the other team' while also shortening round and match length compared to a MOBA.

Some of you noticed that some objectives impacted rounds more than other objectives (E.G. Aspect Victory vs Relic Victory) and that is intentional. Our design goals for the first map aimed for the Relic and Aspect victories to happen most often, with the more rare Captain victory putting a cap on game length. We don’t think we’re quite hitting the goals of keeping Relic and Aspect close, so we’re going to increase the Aspect speed to get it closer to the Relic.

RELIC VS ASPECT

Even though they should be the most common resolutions to a game, the Relic and the Aspect work differently as win conditions because of the Relic’s finite progression checkpoints and the Aspect’s all or nothing ending.

Escorting the Relic Carrier back to base to ensure the capture of a Relic.

Relics spawn every 30 seconds at either the North or South Shrine and create definite checkpoints and win progression for teams. To capitalize on this, teams need to set up positions, win engagements and protect the Relic Carrier. While you carry the relic, you have lower movement speed and cannot use your movement abilities. This provides your opponents specific chances to stop you from capturing the relic. Additionally, the chance to take back the relic after your enemies have carried it should be difficult, but not impossible.

The Aspect differs from the Relic because it doesn’t have definitive checkpoints. A team can push the Aspect all the way to just an inch shy of the goal, and their opponents can undo all of that progress by pushing it back. The Aspect’s back and forth nature primarily exists to put pressure on the map, especially in the late game. 

Push the Aspect for a Victory or to put pressure so you can do another objective.

Finally, the Captain exists as our primary way of gating super long matches. When the Captain actively engages in combat and helps their teammates, they will be priority targets. It forces the combat to revolve around the objectives but maintains the mindfulness of a “protect the VIP” team coordination scenario and creates an upper limit for the length of the match. Teams vote for the Captain at the beginning of each round. After the team selects a Captain, that player cannot become Captain again until all players have been Captain at least once.

In FANGS it’s okay to Tunnel Vision for the kill! …sometimes

Our team is hard at work experimenting with a ton of things, and we want you to understand that nothing is set in stone in our game. We promise to take the time to engage with the community, listen to your feedback and provide you transparent and actionable steps when we create our game plan. As always, thanks for taking the time to read our post and please let us know your thoughts in our Discord and submit topics for Dev Blog #2.