Latest Skyforge Dev Diary Showcases Dynamic Combat System
In their latest developer diary, Dmitry Borodin focuses on the combat system in Allods Team and Obsidian Entertainment‘s upcoming MMORPG Skyforge, giving insights into how it was developed and how they have combined aspects from various genres to create a high-action gameplay style for an MMO.
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With combat such a core part of modern MMOs, the dedicated combat team have been focused on making it enjoyable and challenging, breaking it down into three core components:
- Classes – skill sets that the player will use in combat
- Mobs – monsters that are hostile to the player
- Interface – the camera and controls.
The latest article on the Skyforge website focuses on the use of Classes in the game.
The team have delved deep into player response to the game – we’re not just talking responding to comments from fans; all iterations of the game have been tested in their UX lab, measuring pulse, skin conductivity and eye-tracking, allowing them to identify distractions, combo viability and more. One of the key take-outs of this experimentation has been the stripping back of the UI (User Interface), reduction of cool-down times, simplification of skill-sets, etc. to create an intuitive and minimally-distracting system, where the game’s visual world is the focus. The team have already hinted at this stage that gamepad support will be available, implying Skyforge will not be a title where skill management is made possible only through characteristic MMORPG full-keyboard use and extensive macro-mapping.
Whilst one can see similarities with other titles from the genre – particularly perhaps with the likes of Guild Wars, with its minimalist skillsets – there are hints of the other titles the team reference shining through – the likes of God of War, Devil May Cry, Darksiders and even fighting games, such as Mortal Kombat and Tekken – in the visual impact and overall fluidity of how combat plays out in the early view of the game we’ve seen thus far; fast pace, combo sequences, dodging… Classes’ moves are played out through alternating animations and basic attacks have been spruced up in appearance giving a more dynamic feel to the final product. The granular detail in the refreshingly transparent full developer diary gives a great insight into just what it takes to produce a fully honed combat system that manages to stay engaging hour after hour.
Healers have been consciously left out of the game, with the team intent not to see players fall into the classic healer-tank pairing, which can result in a tired experience for the healer and a frustrating one for a tank without a healer in support. Instead, all classes are equipped with some form of healing ability, whilst the support classes have been implemented as more of a “combat director“, managing buffs and de-buffs and helping to shape the battlefield. With closed beta testing in full swing and the test-player base growing by the day, the guys at Allods Team and Obsidian are clearly putting their all into what has the potential to really shake up the F2P MMORPG space.
Stay tuned to PushStartPlay for the latest news! Skyforge is being developed for PC by the Mail.ru Group’s Allods Team in collaboration with Obsidian Entertainment and will be published by My.com. No fixed release date has been set yet, but the game is currently in closed beta in Europe and North America. Visit the official website for more details.