As a Lead Designer, I took direction from the Game Director and Creative Stakeholders. In this I lead all how we built out a team based RTS with deckbuilding at its core and integrated it though gameplay features, combat systems, and core mechanics.
Leading a team of designers within multi-disciplinary team structure, with all areas of the game represented. Communicating high level vision and intentions to these teams to get buy in and forward momentum on design, tech, audio, to prototypes in software so we can prove out the new addition.
Fostering team cohesion though discussion and playing the game together. Iterating on features till they are at a state we can get feedback on. All while building a shared sense of direction using the vision and intentions we started with.
ROLE
LEAD DESIGNER
GENRE
REAL TIME STRATEGY
CAMPAIGN
MULTIPLAYER
COOP
PLATFORM
PC
CROSSFIRE LEGION
One of core gameplay pillars was to create an RTS where team members mattered. With this we looked at a lot of different games from other RTSs to the shooter genre where there had been a lot of new ideas and big stand out games with new win conditions.
We started looking at what areas of the RTS we could enhance to promote more team based play. With this we started to focus on 3 v 3 as our main game mode and looking into map objectives to force players to engage with one another.
We knew we wanted to keep resourcing harassable but with 3 players per side it would make maps very large if we has expansions all over the map. We chose instead to focus very much on new map objectives that could turn the tide of match in a fight, as well as allow you to win without directly engaging the enemies base.
The first objective to draw players into early game combat is a random rarity buff that players could get that increase there power level over another player for a short duration. Early game fights would be based on having map control of these buff drop sites.
The second objective was a win condition that if you setup 3 nuclear missile trucks close to the enemies base you would win. This was a secondary way to win on top of eliminating all hostile players. Creating tension for players and strategic choices throughout the match on which win condition was best to beat your opponents.
Team based RTS
Another major part of building a team based RTS is how many units does each player have. We wanted to create more opportunities for teammates to help each other using combined arms and strategic choice.
Our intention was to create a role for each player and to build counter play into the set number of units a player can bring in a deck. To do this the unit rosters in Crossfire Legion are built around the idea that you have holes in your unit composition that you will need another teammate to help you counter. This goes for the enemy team composition as well and adds variety to strategies once in the game.
With blind pick lobbies, other teams don't know what the enemy has picked before coming in. You and your teammate will need to work together to make sure you aren't vulnerable to an enemy unit that was picked.
DECK BUILDING
