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.