Designing for Tier Two, Part Three

Note: This post is part of a series - First Part Here

What happens if you don't introduce a fundamental weakness in a character's area of strength?

In a PvE game, the answer is typically boredom. In a PvP game, the answer is typically toxicity or simply unbalanced.

For example, how many single player games have you played, where the ranged option is so strong, that you might as well never actually melee attack? In Fable, for example, using a bow or magic combat could become so fast, powerful and ubiquitous - that comparatively, melee combat wasn't required and was actually suboptimal in a lot of cases.

In Mass Effect 1, the assault rifles particular balance of firepower, ammo count, accuracy and range meant that there typically was no point in using other weapons (outside of some extreme examples with the Pistol, which you could eventually make into an assault rifle.)

In League of Legends, Jax's main strength is to be an unstoppable one on one killing machine. When Jax is good, any kind of one on one fight is a terrible prospect and distinctly unsatisfying. Poppy's main strength is to assassinate one character without fear or reprisal, again, any kind of one on one fight is a terrible prospect and distinctly unsatisfying.

Why does this happen?

 If your primary strength has no weaknesses in that field, then one of two things typically happen:

1. You fight with your primary strength - ranged combat for instance - and you win and dominate, because you have no weakness. In a PvE game, this tends to lead to boredom. In a PvP game, this leads to unsatisfying gameplay or simply OP gameplay.
2. You fight in something that is not your primary strength - and then you find ways to just ignore those fights so you can fight #1.

For example, you have no incentive to become a better melee character if your character's ranged attacks has no weakness. You simply want to find as many opportunities to fight in ranged - eschewing any case where you might have to melee - You typically only do so if you are forced to.

However, since your ranged attacks have no weaknesses, you don't have to put in a lot of thought to use them in the first place - you simply dominate and so, you have a distinctly boring experience because the best way to play, is to first find a way to use your ranged attack and then grind away with that boring route.

Why can't I introduce weaknesses that aren't in their strength?

I believe that most people intuitively understand that things without weaknesses are inherently uninteresting - The perfect hero is not a character that holds your interest for very long. However, the dominant line of thought is that as long as they have some kind of weakness at all, then it is fine. Designing for Tier Two says this is not the case - It is much much better to have a weakness built into the inherent strength of the character.

For example, let's take Fable again - The crossbow was a very effective weapon - It had high damage, low reload speeds, the ability to combo and the ability to hit multiple targets with a spell and had a range high enough to be safe - It has no essential weakness. You could even spec a repositioning spell if you dabbled in magic so that you could blink away from foes.

The ranged character, frequently had low health or terrible melee ability - However, the key question is: Does this matter? If everyone dies before they enter melee range, does low health or terrible melee ability matter? If you died in one hit in melee but usually killed everyone at range 95% of the time, is this decent gameplay? Is this even interesting gameplay where you stand in a corner and snipe away?

You see, inherent weaknesses in fields other than the one you are using means you typically play so you never have to think about them. If you have an inherent weakness in the area of expertise that you are using, it means you constantly have to overcome them to leverage your core strength.

For example, a sniper rifle or a rail-gun is the perfect example of a ranged weapon with an absurd strength (one shot kills, insane range) with equally absurd weakness (terrible reloading, single target). When you are using a railgun or a sniper rifle, you always keep these two facts in mind, even as you abuse your core strength - adding a level of depth of thought to your play experience, even as you destroy people with your strengths.

It is when your weakness doesn't matter where games start to get boring. Let's say your character is super durable and super fast in melee, but has no ranged attacks as his "weakness." Does this matter? Do you even need to think when fighting? You simply run to the person and hit them until they are dead. Your primary strength overcomes anything that could fight in it, and fighting in your primary strength has no obstacle to overcome - the result is that you always fight in melee but you never really care about what you do.

Designing for Tier Two, Part Two

Note: This post is part of a series - First Part Here

Recapping - Making something memorable and non-toxic means two things:

1) Strongly emphasize one or two elements.
2) However, even in those strengths - have weaknesses in that element to highlight those strengths.

In this part, I'll talk about some examples from a variety of sources.

Color Contrast

You've seen this before - An entire black and white painting with a single element of color. This serves to emphasize both the bleakness of the black and white setting *and* the element of color.

It's fairly trite by now - but it's a good example to lead off of with.

Ninja Gaiden  - Melee Master

One of the keys here, in making you feel like a ridiculous Ninja is actually due to your primary weaknesses - you are bad at ranged combat and you go squish when things look at you the wrong way.

However, it means you have to compensate with mobility, a great melee moveset, evasiveness and flexibility.

Your moves are as powerful as they need to be, to compensate for your essential weakness in those moves. Imagine if Ryu had a rocket launcher in Ninja Gaiden - now.. none of your moveset has any meaning because you wouldn't need to use any of it - This is a common flaw in a lot of games where, since you don't have a weakness to overcome, the game is far less interesting - simply spam your ranged button.

League of Legends - Gragas/Rammus/Riven

One of Gragas' strengths is mobility - he has one of the best moveblocks in the game and excels at chasing. Rammus' strength, is also mobility - he has one of the fastest movement speeds in the game and excels at chasing. Riven's strength, is also mobility - she has the most flexible movement pattern and ignores slowing effects.

How can they compete with each other? It's from the weakness in their strength that they begin to diverge and feel unique.

Gragas' body-slam cannot go through units - He will stop at the first unit hit - He is an amazing chaser/evader, so long as there are no obstacles in the way. Surrounded, Gragas cannot escape, despite the fact that he is a very mobile character. However, Gragas can go through walls, mimcking the Kool-Aid man to some extent - This gives him excellent ambush opportunities. The Gragas player needs to think about how to most effectively use his strongest element.

Rammus is similar in that he cannot go through units - He will stop at the first unit hit. However, Rammus' land-speed is three or four times higher than Gragas' overall. However, since Rammus cannot go through walls either, the paths that Rammus can take are very restricted, even though he can take them at lightning fast speeds, giving the Rammus player the need to think about the path that he takes.

Riven's mobility comes from that fact that she has four distinct surge abilities, enabling her to ignore slows and do lots of fake-outs and weaving through disparate elements - She can also attack on the move with these, providing continuous threat while moving at the same time (or defending, in the case of her last movement ability) However, Riven's mobility is highly localized - She cannot go through walls and her top speed isn't that high, comparable to 550 MS - since each movement ability also moves her a very short distance, the Riven player must chain her movement abilities together to actually reach where she goes - often trading damage in the interim.

Designing for Tier 2, Part One

In a competitive environment (or for enemies in a PvE environment) - How do you design such that things are both memorable and non-toxic?

This is my personal take on it - which I call designing for Tier 2 - For this specific example, I'll be talking a lot about League of Legends champion design, since that's.. currently just what I do.

Making something memorable is actually the easier of the two problems to solve for: Find one or two distinct elements and execute them cleanly and powerfully. In Ninja Gaiden, for instance, you are a ridiculous badass with every move in existence. In Prince of Persia, you are one of the most agile characters in games. In League of Legends, you make a champion excel at one or two particular fields - typically with that in mind as their Marquee ability.

Let's take Blitzcrank, the Steam Golem - Blitzcrank excels at disruption. His marquee ability is Rocket Grab - a move that sends out a tethered fist that grabs opponents back to him. His other abilities also ramp up this disruptive element on blitzcrank - He has a melee range uppercut that disables opponents briefly and he has an area of effect silence on a relatively long cooldown.

If you need to channel a spell or stand in place for a while, Blitzcrank will ruin your day.

But wait, doesn't that sound incredibly frustrating to fight against? Moreover, what if I want to make another champion who's memorable moment is disruption? How would I accomplish that?

This is where designing for Tier 2 comes in, the essential principle being: Even in a character's 'top-of-the-line' strength - they have limitations that they need to overcome.

Or rephrased - The strongest element of a character is still limited and has obstacles that need to be overcome.

Let's go back to each individual ability -

Ranged Grab - Skillshot reliant - The opponent's can dodge - It has a long cooldown.
Power Fist - Melee-only - The opponent can kite or stay out of his range.
Area of Effect Silence - Short duration - Melee-only - Longest cooldown.

Then take a look at the abilities as whole -

It lacks a strong area of effect component disruption.
The disruption durations are very short - the opponent is only locked out from actions for a total of perhaps 0.75 seconds.

When you fight Blitzcrank, even when fighting him in his area of expertise - disruption, you know his set of limitations within that field. It also allows you to design another character that excels at disruption without making Blitzcrank feel poor - because you can design another champion to excel at areas where Blitzcrank is weak at, and have weaknesses where Blitzcrank does not.

But wait - Doesn't that mean Blitzcrank doesn't excel at disruption?

The combination of Rocket Grab and Power Fist means that Blitzcrank's movement disruption is very strong - even if he doesn't actually cause lock-down and is only single-target.

Because Blitzcrank has weaknesses in his area of expertise, you are allowed to ratchet up even farther in terms of their relative strengths - Power Fist has one of the lowest cooldowns in the game for a disable of that type (2 seconds) - while remaining safe due to the fact that his kit is self-limiting, even when successful.