Lead Hero Development
Gameplay Design
Visual Design
Selector who eventually went on to be named "Nova" was the first and only "Healer" in the project Slimecore.
Creating the first support and due to budgetary fate the only support was a really large task.
Creating the first support and due to budgetary fate the only support was a really large task.
When initially starting work on Selector there was two big questions that had to be answered.
1. What does a support look like in Slimecore?
examples: Do supports heal? How much do they heal? How much damage is a support allowed to have? How much utility does a character need to be considered a support?
2. What WILL the support role look like in Slimecore?
Are all supports healers? Can supports shield? What are the rule sets for future supports? What items should supports build?
Slimecore was a 3v3 hero shooter without defined roles. When hero games don't have defined roles they naturally all fall into the category of "everyone is DPS... BUT" if they were going to have any additional utility or purpose.
This sort of design problem really came to fruition when it came to Players vs. Object compared to Player vs. Player. Without DPS scaling on ability/utility characters it was really hard for them to take objectives that needed to be "destroyed". Comparatively the more traditional shooter characters could easily take down objectives because their primary fires scaled harder with raw damage stats.
Making a support character with healing in a 3rd person shooter required some research. I think one important part of working on any game is to play AS MANY GAMES AS POSSIBLE in the genre you are working on. I really tried leaving no stone left unturned in the 3rd person shooter space.
The aim of the research was to
1. Reduce costs by seeing what we could directly reference
2. Find playstyles that work in the current game setup
Selector was a music/sound based character with heavy music themes. There are many "music" based characters across the genre of MOBAs and hero shooters but it was hard to find something that FELT right.
That is when I started thinking about music as more of pathogen that spreads to others then a character who plays songs. Selector began getting heavily referenced as a "spread healer" who would change the tides of battle by spreading their sound!
A hero called Labula from a very lesser known hero shooter called T3 Arena also became a bit of a visual for the 3rd person shooter vantage of Selector.
Ivankov from Heroes of the Storm became the reference to how a "spread healer" could work.
Selector became a character who had a healing ability called Bounce Beat that would spread and mark allies/enemies for positive/negative effects. Then Selector would use an ability to send out a signal detonating the marks adding extra effects.
Overtime the core of the design got dumbed down which became a very big regret of mine. It became very frustrating to balance a character who could reliably heal and do damage at the same time. There was also a lot of elements to the gameplay that newer players completely would miss such as the detonating element of the kit.
Allowing players to actually learn a hero before reacting to them by balancing was a big lesson I learned. Sometimes as a designer you know that a design is "strong" but it takes a while for players to catch up. I reacted and caved to pressure which made Selector became a bit more uninteresting as a character.
Overtime Selector because more of a control support that could provide utility for their heal with additional healing. I think overall it worked and they were easily one of the most popular characters on the roster.
I think for a 3rd person shooter a more utility based support vs healing support worked out better as well. In a 3v3 format it made not taking a support more feasible because the player was not missing out on game changing heals.
Some fun fanart from the community