Ten mobs, ten behaviours
Five of the ten Shooters shared the same movement and the same weapon. A status on the HUD was all that told them apart. That wasn't enough.
The Shooter class is done. Each of its ten mobs now does something the others don’t, which should make the fights a little less samey.
Before, five of them shared the same movement and the same weapon. What set them apart was a status on the HUD, a slow or an accuracy hit (so, near enough nothing). But in a wave you don’t read a status. You see mobs all doing the same thing.
A status isn’t enough, you need behaviour
That’s THE line for this pass and the ones coming. Behind it there was a choice: either I gave each one a slightly different effect, or I gave them a behaviour you can see.
I took the second, with a rule I set myself: the behaviour HAS to show. Something has to appear on screen, a position or a move. A mob that fires less often, you don’t notice it, you just die a bit slower without knowing why.
Two examples of what that looks like
The Grésil sweeps a band of the screen. If you stay out of its reach too long, it slides the band toward you. Its gauge tells you how long you have before that happens.
The Suppresseur watches where you’re heading. When you commit up or down, it locks that side, a gauge fills above it. After one second it comes to cut you off. If you change your mind before the second is up, the gauge drops and it stays put.
What the Suppresseur opens up for the rest
Until now a mob in this game reacted to where you are. The Suppresseur reacts to the direction you’re heading in, which didn’t exist. That’s one more degree in what the bestiary can do. It’s available to the eight other classes when their turn comes.
The first design I wrote had no counterplay at all. The mob moved because you move. The only way to stop it was to stop yourself, which another class already punishes.
What hasn’t changed
It’s still voxel cubes standing in for art. It’s ugly. I’m saying it because a well chosen screenshot could have you believe otherwise (yep, some of the props are starting to look decent).
What’s next
The game has nine classes. The Shooter is the first to go through this pass.