Classes update

Today, we completed a first draft of the three classes that are currently in our game, and I'd like to tell something about the process that went into designing them thus far. We'll be testing these as soon as we can to do some iterations.

We currently have three classes, aptly named Offense, Defense and Support. We generally want there to be a division (not all players can do the same thing, and so on) so we're defaulting to a standard archetype for now.

In building up the classes, we were considering what we wanted the classes to do exactly, and particularly how much. Games like Dragon Age and World and Warcraft have classes with a lot of abilities (around forty to fifty), where games like League of Legends have classes with around three to four. While incorporating a lot of abilities can add a great deal of depth and complexity, a well-balanced mix of a few can do the exact same.

Since we'll likely make the game controlled by an Xbox360-controller, we can't have more than three-ish abilities before youll run out of buttons. It also means that we can't use mouse targeting.

We decided on the following outline for all classes:
1. A main attack with a very short cooldown (under 3 seconds).
2. An ability that's useful in a lot of situations, on a moderate cooldown (around 10 seconds).
3. An uber-ability that can be saved for the right moment, with a longer cooldown (around 60)
4. An ability that's always active, like an aura, passive, or constant effect.

Also, we further defined the flavour for the three classes:
Offense: the guy who deals the damage. Enemies are scared of how effectively this guy is at killing things.
Defense: the guy to assist the sphere carrier or defend the base. Enemies are scared of how they are disabled.
Support: in charge of flag carrying and scouting. Enemies are worried of how fast this guy is.

I'll post again tomorrow with the exact abilities and why they are what they are. Stay tuned :)