For a note on the future of this game please see here.

A good starting point to talk about the game's systems would be the Heroes you play as.  In that case, the first major question you'll encounter is which class do you want your Hero to be.  For reasons we'll discuss in a later devlog you'll very likely need to make use of every class but nevertheless the decision you make should have a notable effect on the way you play. 

Of course, one has to toss out the classic game dev disclaimer before we get into anything serious.  What we talk about is our current thinking.  It is quite likely to change over the course of development and through the feedback we hope ya'll provide.  That out of the way, let's begin!

First we'll talk about our philosophy on how classes should work then we'll get into the current implementation and where that is headed.

So, what makes a good class?  What are examples of good classes?  One of the most important quarries of game design nuggets that I have comes from the Diablo series so let's start there, specifically with its third game.  How does a Necromancer differ from a Demon Hunter?  What is implied by the names the classes?  How does that implication shape the playstyle of the class?  These, and more, are the jumble of questions we have to deal with.

Let's pick a question and go with it.  "What is implied by the name of class?"  Necromancer is fairly easy.  Necromancy, being the magical interaction with the dead, immediately tells us what this class will do.  It's abilities will revolve around raising or otherwise dealing with dead creatures.  This gives credence to the class' use of zombies, bones and corpses as weapons.  Yet, we can go further.  In popular culture zombies are often depicted in hoards.  This too is supported by the Necromancer's design.  If inclined to play that way, the player can conjure up a large number of undead to fight for them, fulfilling the 'fantasy' of zombie hoards while also staying true to the idea of being a Necromancer.

Now would be a good time to unpack this idea of class fantasy that we just poked at.  What does it mean?  To us at Los Alamos it gets at the idea of what the class represents while in the game.  For example, if the player is a Thief class how do the design decisions support the feeling that should be produced by being a Thief?  What things would a player expect of such a character?  In this line of thought it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have a hefty, rumpus , highly armored brute being a Thief.  The general conception of a Thief is someone who is sly and stealthy.  But that is only the visual angle.  Critically, this thinking should extend beyond the looks and apply to the design as well.  If our Thief is supposed to be slippery and hard to notice it would be of little use for us as designer to give the class abilities for diving directly into combat and brawling with large groups of enemies.  This would go directly against the class fantasy that we have identified.  Instead abilities that give the class temporary invisibility or evasion would contribute positively to achieving the overall fantasy.

In regards to our own game there is a bit of a problem.  We touched the two major ways to deliver that fantasy, visual and design (a third would be narrative) but as has been no doubt noticed, our ability to deliver fantasy in the look of the class is nonexistent.  It is difficult to communicate much with an @ symbol.  Instead our game will have to lean on the design of the class.  How this will be done is something that will be discussed in the future so please look forward to it. 

Let's move on from the abstract to something still abstract, albeit less so.  What do we intend for our combat classes?  In short we want the player's class choice to define how they play, not how powerful they become.  Every combat class should be valid at every stage of play.  Take, for example a MOBA, where someone's favorite hero is severely underpowered.  That is not likely to promote a high level of enjoyment in those players who greatly prefer that hero.  This is the root of our thinking.  If there is a class which has a play style the player prefers they should be free to make that choice, well, freely.  Their enjoyment should be evoked by the decisions the class offers, not its numerical relevance.  In this way we hope to add classes that differ from each other in how they operate within the set of rules the game has.

Of course, this is the goal.  Our ability to successfully execute this will be dependent on the direction development takes and the feedback we get.

Now that we have identified an overarching philosophy for classes let's go into something a bit more practical.  If our goal is to have every combat class be viable how can this be achieved?  The first step is to look to the game and find out which aspects of it are absolutely critical.  These features must be supported by all classes, otherwise they risk becoming irrelevant.  While the example Thief class may not be proficient at fighting it still needs to have those tools available, otherwise it becomes useless in that large aspect of the game.  That said, it blurs the lines between the classes, lowering the significance of the choice, if the Thief's combat effectiveness is too close to a Knight class' battle capabilities.  Instead what should be done is to find the secondary aspects of the game, those that can change drastically without breaking a class' ability to compete for relevancy, and create ways for that class to innovate.  For us those areas would be in the types of equipment slots the class has, the amount of MP it can regenerate, if moving costs a large amount of energy and so on.  Making it so the example Knight class can use spells but doesn't regenerate MP creates a very different style of play opposed to a Magician class that regens quickly.  These are the areas and sorts of things that we will use to establish a class identity.

So.  With all of that said, where do we stand at this moment in development?  At present these are the things completed: the ability to make classes, base stats, rolling a new hero with X class, variable equipment slots per class and list of spells to learn naturally at different levels.  The big thing not on this list is secondary stats, which may be explored in-depth in a later devlog but for our game are things like MP regen, energy spent per move and such.  Completing that will be a milestone that yields a good amount of diversity and for any work spent on classes that will be the priority.

In closing we'll leave you with the first three of our game's classes and the most generic of them all.  In future updates we will deep dive into each of them.  The first three are the Warrior, the Wizard and as is required in game looking like ours, the Rogue.  These three will offer the basic gameplay styles while subsequently announced classes will provide specialized roles and more unique playstyles.

What classes would you want to see?