When creating Vanguard exiles, we envisioned a game that was clear on rules, a massive amount of depth and variation, which could also be cinematic and exciting to watch.
The rules themselves were relatively easy to develop, tune and expand.
The burning question then became “How do players view the game and ensure it is a consistently exciting experience?” So, in true engineering spirit, we isolated the problem by splitting the logic and visualisation components into two key systems: the Resolver, and the Director.
The Resolver
The Game logic is run in a system we call ‘the Resolver’, which handles all the individual rules, choices and Unit abilities. For each Skirmish after deployment, it calculates a timeline of events that took place, ready to be viewed.
You can see this in effect in the demo. When a skirmish ends, the Resolver can be leveraged, again and again, to analyze the many possible outcomes each deployment could have resulted in, and then show the various outcomes that were possible. Did you have a good strategy and luck wasn't on your side? Or…did you have no choice but still came out on top by the narrowest of margins?
The Director
Just seeing the result isn't enough though. We wanted to experience the battle blow-by-blow and kill-by-kill. To showcase everything from each miraculous, crazy, frenzy, along with each game-changing lucky dodge. The system that handles all aspects of this was named ‘the Director’.
Its mission sounds simple: Take the list of resolver events (i.e. the things that actually happened in that Skirmish) and show it in an interesting way. It does this in a variety of ways such as framing the action by controlling the camera, adding extra effects, and controlling time to emphasize key moments in the battle, as well as assisting in skipping past the repetitive moments.
The reality though, it's a far more complex problem to break down, more than simply ‘show me interesting things’
In the Demo you have a very simple Director that was enough for us to feel comfortable releasing. It enables us to get some very valuable feedback, but a far cry from our intended goal.
As we push to Early Access, the Director has undergone some massive changes to improve the feel of the game, in no small part from our community. It is thanks to feedback from our players that we’ve been able to double down on the important issues such as camera movement, focus and time and pacing.
Here is a simple section of a Skirmish in the demo, showing a typical sequence of events.
You can see the camera focus on the zones, watch some repetitive action, move, watch, then finally zoom out to show moves and claims take place.
In the improved Director, you will notice the camera has been much more logically placed to reduce its movement, whilst still being subtle and clever enough to maintain focus on key events.
You may also notice that we can now show attacks in the correct sequence they were intended as multiple zones can be focused on simultaneously. Ranged attacks will now be seen before we focus in on melee combat, including a clear view of which zone the ranged attack came from.
Another change you may notice from the above comparisons is how time is controlled.
The ability to focus on important events, while effectively ‘fast forwarding’ less important events, can really change how interesting the skirmish feels.
Let's look at a set of attacks and deaths from the demo
And now let's look at a similar sequence with the new Director
You'll see that the flow of battle is far easier to follow, and a lot more fun to watch! The changing in pace, the ability to see the sequence of blows hitting back-to-back, not to mention the final killing blow, all emphasized accordingly to make for a much more entertaining experience.
There are also plenty of changes and effects that we are now able to layer into this system. An example would be learning from the events of an entire battle, to then reduce the ‘interest’ in events a player has seen multiple times, and shift focus to newer moments and make them stand out. We also have the ability to add more detail into combat (effects, feedback with numbers/transient stats etc.) and give more options to you, the player, on what you would like to see and when.
For instance, do you want to always see the board in its entirety and only focus on death blows? What about if you wanted to see every single move and not miss a single beat?
By exposing some of the options the Director can use, we can allow players to tailor their skirmish viewing experience to better fit their playstyle. This is something we will be actively engaging in with our Early Access supporters. to help guide us so we can provide the best features possible.
The new Director also allows much more freedom in the visuals/presentation of the skirmish, such as the visual effect of your opponent playing their cards after deployment, followed by any triggered actions or events resolving on the map before battle commences (the latter being referred to in-house as ‘Beat 0’).
The Director handles even the most subtle of visual changes, such as the camera now panning back and revealing the full map once the skirmish has ended, where once it simply took you to the end-of-game display.
Something used a lot internally is the ability to save data from the Resolver, and replay it into the Director.
You already see this in a limited fashion in the Demo by having the ability to replay a single Skirmish. But here at Tea Division HQ, the team can save entire battles, to then experiment with how the Director views each Skirmish in battles, making tweaks and changes at each stage to improve the experience.
Sometime after Early Access, talks will commence around planning for players to store their replays of multiplayer, tournament and league battles that are tied to each individual Squad, so they can always revisit their greatest victories (and defeats for players wanting to learn) ... or even to research an opponent's strategies with their Squads before an important battle.
In the meantime, the team here at The Tea Division are receptive to community feedback, and remain committed to bringing our players the best possible gaming experience.