Sharing my ideas too

David_Sarre · February 9, 2017, 9:54am

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share my ideas too, I think I’m going to be far off the subject of the course since I’d like to use Unreal instead of Unity and I’m not making an RPG but a MOBA game.
I’m going to take all the design lessons I need (character creation, click to move, fight system, skills etc) and apply it to my game with a few changes, or a lot of changes

I want to make a MOBA game that is basically only the PVP part of an MMORPG. You create a hero (instead of choosing one when you play) and customize it, make it learn new skills etc and then fight in arenas in teams or solo in different game modes (capture flag, minion and towers, kill everyone, …)
Each game you win gives you points, gold or some kind of currency with which you can buy new equipment. Equipment here is only skins, nobody can buy power. You just have to fight to be better, and if you win you earn money to buy cool stuffs and change your character style.

About background story?
All players are demons in hell (manga style hell is a kind of deserted land, think about planet Namek in Dragon Ball, or the hell in YuYu Hakusho etc). They fight just because there’s nothing else to do in hell and all demons want to be the king in hell and only the most powerfull demon can be that king.
But also in this kind of hell there are factions so you can also battle in teams.
In this kind of universe demons are ranked by classes according to their power level (S class demon is more powerfull than A class demon is more powerfull than B class …) that’s how players will be ranked.
Demons also hide their true power most of the time so class S demons will be allowed to fight in D class game with handicap. If you reach rank S (the highest) you keep getting more power but, you are under handicap all the time.
The exception is that demon can also show their “final form” or “true form” so players will also be able to fight at their max power for a short period of time or in specific match.

For now I’m trying to get everything clear in my head before coding, I’m learning stuffs, connecting to DB, Networking, Unreal Engine course, RPG course, …
I want that game to be prototyped for next year (this is going to be my work for the end of my IT studies) meaning I want all the game flow to work (subscribe > launch game > create character > go to lobby > matchmaking > play match > edit character) even if it is not graphically polished and network feature isn’t production ready yet.

What do you think of that idea? Do you think moba players want to be able to customize their character? I usually like Heroes but I’m frustrated this is not exactly my color, my style etc, espacially when you are into e-sport, wouldn’t it be cool to have your own recognizable character instead of a hero? Do you think it is interesting?

Bazajaytee · February 9, 2017, 5:59pm

You mention learning new skills.
Is that a one-time event when creating your character i.e. I select Archery and I’m the best skill I can be in that area
Or
Is it something you earn XP to improve so when you start you have a lower DPS but as you play games you level up and do more damage?

If it is the latter, your matchmaking would need to account for high skill players vs newbie’s more than it would if you just all defaulted to a set level like Overwatch.

The latter option fits more with an MMORPG style game which you mention but not something you usually see in MOBA’s. That in itself could be a good thing, MOBA’s are pretty rigid in charcter customisations.

David_Sarre · February 9, 2017, 6:33pm

I was thinking of a progression more like in Albion Online (close to what’s in Skyrim) you don’t really choose your skills.
You use a weapon, for example a sword, then the more you use it the more you are efficient with a sword and then you unlock special sword skills and styles (fencing, kendo, …) the styles are just for character customization (animation) but skills will probably be the same in fencing and kendo, “precise stike” or “powerfull strike” will be the same logic and math but use different animations according to the style. (It’s just an idée, it could be complicated to allow player to change animation and skins)

So to each player will be attached a power attribute that will be growing while playing and doing any action. That value is going to be a multiplier in gameplay math (i.e. damage done = sword mastery level * power) and when playing with lower level player the power attribute will be reduced to match lower level players. By doing that I allow player to learn skills and use them, if you are new you don’t have much mastery points not much skills but still have a good base to fight with other and if you’re too powerfull then handicap is there.
It’s true that if you play with someone who’s playing sword for long time he has a better level in sword mastery, but there must be a difference between long time playing players and new comers, I have to make it not to hard but I like that this difference still exist.