Last time we talked about the base, its structures and how they will affect the flow of the game. This time we want to talk about the second section we mentioned in the previous design diary: Classes. Our demo had five playable classes and while we are brainstorming new classes for the mix, our current focus is on bringing more polish to the five classes we have.
The demo classes were what we could call the minimum possible to play the game. That is, they can move around, fire a weapon, kill other players and die. While the main weapons themselves have to be fun to play with, they aren't the whole vision for the classes we expect to have in the final game. We want to give each class a suite of abilities that define that class' role and give you a lot of options for reacting to everything happening in the game.
Across the board, we are putting a lot of effort into getting our gunplay right. There was a good amount of feedback on this issue and we heard it loud and clear. We've got our recoil and headshots working and did a lot of work on the sniper and assault rifles since those seemed to get the most complaints. All of the primary weapons have had some work, and will likely change more as we continue to flesh out the content for each class.
From a high level, we want each class to have the following aspects: a main weapon, a secondary weapon, a minor ability and a choice between two major abilities. Since we talked a bit about the engineer previously and gave some of that class' future abilities away, lets use that class as the example here. Remember, all of this is subject to change so consider this just an example.
Our Engineer begins with the Repair Gun and Pistol, filling out the primary and secondary weapon aspects. For his minor ability, the Engineer gains proximity bomb: these are small sticky mines that can be placed on surfaces and explode when enemy infantry get near. For his primary abilities, he has a choice between the Repair Station we mentioned in a previous diary (a place-able object that repairs in a radius) or the Force Bubble ability, which creates a force field around an infantry, turret or Control Core (the structure weak points mentioned last time). You can only pick one of the major abilities, so choose wisely.
In addition, each class will gain the combat bonuses you saw in the demo (additional health, armor, damage, etc.) as well as modifiers to the abilities mentioned above and to his main weapon. For example, one upgrade reflects the repair beam back at the engineer when he repairs infantry, repairing himself as well. Another upgrades the Repair Station to repair health as well as armor.
All of the abilities and bonuses unlock over time and are added just like the stat upgrades that were available in the demo. This means that each class gains not just power but play options as the game progresses. To give you an idea of the amount of new options we are planning, the original tech tree had 24 entries; the new one has 102 (so far). Of course, not all of these are class upgrades, but then we'll talk more about that in the next design diary.