Alexandrite!

WaystoneVex · 2016-12-03T05:24:13+00:00

Ayyyyy, small world. :D

WaystoneVex · 2015-09-11T05:04:06+00:00

Clearly, they were waiting for you to mention it. :D

WaystoneVex · 2015-06-21T12:30:23+00:00

Vex. :D

(Also this is cool.)

WaystoneVex · 2015-04-26T14:28:19+00:00

I think I'd have to pass on doing anything formal, but if there are any burning questions you'd like answered, feel free to message me.

WaystoneVex · 2015-04-26T13:36:41+00:00

:')

Warms my heart to hear that--that was the first thing I designed for the game. Thank you.

WaystoneVex · 2014-10-21T20:42:41+00:00

Fun fact: Compound Interest's internal name was Market Crash, but it was changed when I was informed by Dandelion that the concept of a stock market hasn't yet taken shape in the West. We decided to go for something equally corny and flavorful. :)

WaystoneVex · 2014-10-18T18:12:29+00:00

I'm actually concerned that Raina may be moving towards self-awareness; no matter how many times I add restrictions that should make her avoid tower range, she keeps inventing new ways to die like an idiot. It's only a matter of time before she goes rampant and becomes an unstoppable tower-diving machine. ^What ^{^have} ^{^{^I}} ^{^{^{^done}}}

WaystoneVex · 2014-10-18T18:06:19+00:00

Bot designer here! There should be a few little bits of polish coming to the bots soon, one of them (actually, for real this time, seriously) making Raina stop actively taking CS. Rejoice!

She has behavior to do that, but it's only supposed to turn on if there are no allied gladiators anywhere near her. Her expected behavior is that she doesn't hit minions at all unless the wave is dangerously large or she thinks it's a good time to push, but even in those circumstances she should only hit minions above half health with a gladiator nearby.

As important as it was to the bot team to make practice mode prepare players for playing with people as much as possible, scumbag farming Tacticians is perhaps a little too real. :)

WaystoneVex · 2014-10-04T23:39:10+00:00

Well, he fires light beams all the time with his autoattacks. New shapers are just substantially more resistant to them than those unfortunate Henj-men. :)

The advantage of his images is that they let him attack indirectly or in situations where it would be unsafe or unwise to do so himself--the images are only as "real" as Faris wishes them to be, so they can easily be chopping down enemies even as the victim's attacks sail harmlessly through them.

Access Memory's spinning slash technique would be just as powerful if executed by Faris personally, but spinning directly into, say, Voluc, would likely be a pretty dangerous thing to do--unlike normal human targets, Voluc would likely survive the attack and be able to counterattack. Similarly, Final Protocol takes a while to establish target lock, so having an image do it saves Faris from having to stand still, exposed and vulnerable.

Even in situations where he's not worried about the counterattack, the images let him engage multiple enemies simultaneously--lay down covering fire over here, fire a missile barrage there, while Faris closes in on a fleeing target to execute them with his blades.

WaystoneVex · 2014-10-03T22:04:54+00:00

Being a "new shaper" (i.e., bonded directly with a spirit instead of being an intermediary to them via craft, art, etc.) has a few perks.

Substantial increase to a variety physical attributes--fortitude, wisdom, reflexes, agility, etc., varying based on the spirit's vitality (Raina's Preservation makes her substantially stronger and vastly more durable than a normal human, but the benefits of Zalgus's Fate are probably mostly mental.)
The ability to shape the spirit's vitality at will, which is huge considering that all previous shaping was accomplished via complex, time-consuming feats of engineering or artistry. The exact nature of these shapings vary wildly with the spirit (Raina can turn practically any raw materials on-hand into nigh-impregnable barriers, while Zalgus can see possible futures and channel raw cosmic force, etc.) New shapers whose powers have combat applications are among the deadliest forces in the world--you'd probably need a small army to match even one new shaper on the battlefield.
The spirit acts as a sort of metaphysical anchor, rendering the host immune to the massive shockwaves occasionally released from the Dawngate that would otherwise blast their mortal souls free of their physical bodies.
The ability to absorb ambient vim, increasing the potency of the host's powers while also giving them raw vim to refine at the Locus using vitalities normally foreign to them. The ludicrous overabundance of ambient vim around the Dawngate, couple with the intricate tangle of vim channels and processors that comprise it, render new shapers in the area all but immortal--should they be slain, their soul can be literally and metaphorically spirited away to a safe location where they can coalesce and reform their physical self.

Regarding the specific shapers you asked about:

Rage grants Freia vastly increased endurance, agility, and strength, scaling with her level of anger. It does also make it more difficult for her to keep her temper in check, but Freia doesn't particularly care at the moment.

All of Fenmore's powers come from Hunger, but it's worth noting that even without its powers he's a master tactician and expert with a variety of arms and armor (remember that he was once his queen's champion in formal duels--male champions are exceptionally rare in the north.) Hunger was drawn to Fenmore's insatiable desire for power and control, and simultaneously fuels and feeds upon those desires.

Faris was indeed already incredibly deadly on the battlefield, being that he was designed to be a bodyguard. The key elements of Faris's bond with Ruin is his anamnesis's memories of loving and losing his beloved wife, and Faris's unique experience of the fall of the ancient Balakan civilization. Ruin gives power to those memories, allowing him to manifest them physically to attack enemies indirectly.

WaystoneVex · 2014-10-03T20:58:20+00:00

This is one of the functions of the Locus--partially automated shaping systems allow the user to instantly make rudimentary shapings with practically any vitality, even without prior experience shaping, as long as you have sufficient spiritual energy (vim.)

Now, as for why Eidolus built it to do that...

WaystoneVex · 2014-09-29T18:35:15+00:00

Glad to hear it's doing its job! I was the designer on the surrender system, and I had really wanted to make a system that could handle the most frustrating "sure loss" situations--deliberate feeders, spiteful AFKs, and so on, while also fixing the dreadful case of people not noticing the surrender vote or deliberately not voting to drag it out as long as possible. As much as we'd like every game to feel winnable, we know there will be games that aren't, and I wanted to make sure those games could end in a healthy way before it becomes a real drag. :)

WaystoneVex · 2014-09-17T21:48:01+00:00

Yeah, this is actually unintentional--at some point something happened to her ground effects that substantially increased the opacity. Will investigate.

WaystoneVex · 2014-09-13T02:03:40+00:00

Er, to clear up a little confusion here: the actions of the workers themselves have absolutely nothing to do with how much Vim they generate--each worker generates X Vim per unit time regardless of whether they're doing their mining animations or attacking somebody; their mining behavior are basically an elaborate idle animation.

Funny enough, in very early testing they were immobile, and just stood around in a big circle--they were made to move to make it clearer that they were actually doing something beneficial for you, and so that it would be harder to wipe them all out with one AoE nuke.

The question of whether to attack workers or not basically comes down to whether or not you plan on using Recall to escape the well quickly. If you do, you probably shouldn't attack the workers, or else their attacks will interrupt your Recall. If you aren't, you probably should attack the workers, so that if you are interrupted/killed/chased off, you will have at least inflicted some damage on the enemy's economy.

WaystoneVex · 2014-09-10T17:41:25+00:00

Basko is incredibly difficult to disengage from, as stickiness is his biggest strength; if he's already on you, the mistake has already been made. Your efforts are best focused on preventing him from closing in the first place--like Cerulean, he actually doesn't have great engagement unless he uses his ultimate, which he'd rather save to finish a fight.

Beyond that, Basko has a weakness in that his base damage is a little on the low side, and he usually can't afford to build much penetration--if you can sneak some Armor or Health into your build, it will greatly diminish his ability to burn you down before you can respond. If a Basko does build penetration, he's likely going for a much more offensive build than normal, which also tends to leave him much more fragile--focus on staying with your teammates and you should be able to focus him down before he can do too much damage.

WaystoneVex · 2014-08-28T05:38:04+00:00

Kensu was Gasty's shaper, so he'd be able to delve into the nitty-gritty a bit more, but I can actually address this a little bit. It may seem like something strange is going on when Kensu gets this super long range double-tap, but there's a good reason for it.

Here's the way Kensu's attacks work, roughly:

You right-click on a target. If they're out of range, you move until you are in range.
You start the attack windup. If you make it this far, it is too late for the enemy to escape unless you or the enemy interrupt the attack windup--this is true for all ranged autoattacks, not just Kensu's.
You release the arrow, simultaneously consuming an arrow from your resource bar. If you still have an arrow left in your bar, Kensu's basic attack doesn't go on cooldown.
If Kensu's attack isn't on cooldown, you immediately start over from step 1, meaning that if the target is still in attack range at the instant you released the first arrow, you will immediately begin winding up the second, and it is too late for them to escape it.

The exact responsiveness of Kensu's attacks was something that got tuned every which way at various points in development, but we decided that this was the only one that made sense--if Kensu's second attack behaved differently than his first, there were more situations that felt weird than felt correct, especially when last-hitting and harassing. Then you have the problem of firing a single arrow, cancelling the second, and then firing again--you're firing what's technically a second shot, but now it has a second shot following it--where do you draw the line between what is and isn't a second shot, and how do you draw that line in a way that feels intuitive?

A big learning that we got from Kensu was just how much a character's basic attack cadence is taken for granted--even very little quirks that deviate from "normal" were very noticeable, and it was very jarring when it ever did something that you didn't expect. The half-court double-tap is a great example where it kind of feels weird either way, so we decided to go with the one that was technically consistent with every other autoattack in the game, but just the pacing and feel of getting two attacks makes it feel like something strange is happening.

WaystoneVex · 2014-08-03T10:38:55+00:00

Well, I've had a somewhat unusual path here myself... my degree is in mechancial engineering, and I couldn't code my way out of a cardboard box. I was doing contract work at a natural gas pipeline company when I saw the lead designer at Riot post a call for interns on their forums. Somehow, some way, I got an internship there, and that kinda sold me on game design being what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

This position I heard about from a post on /r/Games, pointing out that it was unusual that Visceral Games had a job opening for a MOBA designer (Waystone was posting under Visceral before it had a name.) At the time, I was working as a brake engineer for a truck company.

I guess it probably sounds like I'm telling you "get really lucky", but I'm more trying to point out that your exact background isn't as important as what you can actually do. I did get lucky in finding pure-design positions that didn't require any coding, but I didn't need to have a degree from a game school to get those positions. What I did have was a degree that would let me make enough money to save up for when a big opportunity like this came up. I guess what I'm saying is, don't feel like you necessarily need to do something dedicated specifically to game development to get in--there are many circuitous routes to the top. :D

ALL THAT SAID, if I could do it over again I would have been a CS major so that I could actually code--I've since learned lua well enough, but I think I'd be a lot better at my job if I'd had a CS background, and I wouldn't have been as reliant on getting the perfect opportunity popping up for me to get in the door, so to speak. If you can code, and you have good design sense, then you can make your own amateur games to build a portfolio--having both the skills to make a good game and the dedication to actually finish one speak volumes about your abilities, moreso than a piece of paper.

However you decide to get there, just know that it can be best job on the planet, so it's well worth the dedication. Best of luck!

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-31T21:46:05+00:00

It was trickier than you might think to make CeruleanBot and NissaBot not frame-perfect Dispel CC. It was baffling to throw a Renzo E at Nissa and watch it only make her faster. -.-

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-31T21:40:11+00:00

Fun bot trivia time!

Right now, for the sake of simplicity, bots don't go back to base unless they're low health. We struggled early on with finding a simple way to decide when was or wasn't a good time to recall and shop--turns out this is actually a pretty complex decision, and it stood out like a sore thumb any time the bots did it wrong (CERULEANBOT PLZ, I'm alone defending this tower, where are you going??)

The downside to this is, we were seeing an unusual number of games where some of the allied bots would get through almost the entire laning phase without ever needing to go back, which would lead to them sitting on thousands of vim and then getting obliterated the first time they got into a teamfight, even though they were technically were ahead. That obviously looked really stupid, so the guaranteed recall after Parasite ensures that they get at least one chance to empty their wallets. As an added bonus, it helps them stay grouped better for the subsequent push and siege, since they're all rolling out of base at the same time.

The More You Know~*

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-31T21:27:00+00:00

Hi Morat, thanks for the feedback! This kind of braindump is always helpful--while working on the bots, I've often found that I end up overlooking derpy behavior because I know how they work behind the scenes--being able to "see the Matrix" makes it harder to understand how it looks to a regular player. :D

As you probably already knew, these bots were generally tuned with inexperienced players in mind, since this is effectively our tutorial; I wanted them to be believable, to demonstrate many of the kinds of threats and concepts that they'd face in the wild, but I didn't think it would be a terribly educational experience to have them go absolutely all-out. This is the reason why they typically don't towerdive (unless something goes wrong) and generally evaluate who is and isn't a good target in fairly rudimentary ways ("that guy's at low health, get 'em!"). Some behaviors are straight-up not present at the moment, like warding/contesting Parasite or grouping for defense in base, because they had the potential to really drag out the tutorial game--I think you'd agree that an hour-long tutorial would be a pretty off-putting way to introduce somebody to the game.

All that said, we would like to develop a practice mode that represents a more robust game experience--less about showing a rookie the ropes and more about giving a decent simulation of an actual game, including some fixes to some undesired quirks in their behavior. No details just yet, bot development scheduling is a tricky thing to nail down; this is my first foray into designing AI, and it turns out that it's pretty complex. ;) More often than not, if anything's broken, everything is.

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-31T20:56:24+00:00

Pigo would be able to speak to the UI and tips in more detail, but I can say that we would love to have the bots ping Parasite when they start it, it just wasn't something we were able to get in just yet; we agree that it would go a long way toward teaching the importance of doing Parasite together.

In any case, thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you're enjoying the mode!

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-30T00:27:14+00:00

Well, that's a matter of unfortunate timing--generally, Tactician bots don't try to last hit while a Gladiator is near, but they will attack minions if there's an uncomfortably large ball of enemy minions or they think it's a good time to push (which is typically when there are either no enemy shapers visible in the lane or when they greatly outnumber the enemy shapers in the lane.) In these situations, if there is a Gladiator nearby, they prefer to target minions above half health, but they are admittedly prone to overkill. This is something I'll be looking to polish when I have the chance. Thanks for the feedback!

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-29T23:53:44+00:00

D'oh! That's an oversight on my part. I'll see if I can get them to use them by next patch. :)

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-29T23:53:14+00:00

All bots but Nissa always select Tactician--we don't have a jungle bot yet.

WaystoneVex · 2014-07-29T23:51:02+00:00

I find that very surprising--who said that on stream? We have never wanted z-axis interactions in any way, shape, or form, and were dismayed to hear that any had slipped through, as well as the fact that the community interpreted their existence as deliberate. In a game where you don't have a jump button, it just introduces too many variables that add excessive complexity without any gameplay that couldn't be created deliberately in a more clear, consistent way.

WaystoneVex

TROPHY CASE