CyberStrike

Combat Designer

Unity Engine

4 Members team
(January - April 2022)

Download (GDrive)

Control 4 Robot characters to fight through waves of rogue robot army!

Responsibilities:

Design and develop unique character abilities to fulfill different combat roles in a twin-stick horde shooter game
Prototype and implement player twin-stick shooter controls, core game modes, and User Interfaces with C#
Maintain the team's design documents that keep track of each feature of the game, as well as a character ability spreadsheet that keeps track of the numerical stat of each character

Summary

Core Combat System

Gameplay
The main gameplay of CyberStrike plays similarly to a twin-stick shooter, where the player will turn around to shoot at incoming enemies with the camera being static at a fixed angle. The player controls a group of 4 characters, but only 1 of them are active at any given time.
(similar to Genshin Impact or Punishing Gray Raven). The player will have to switch the character around to suit the combat situation and effectively eliminate enemies to survive,
Game modes
CyberStrike has 2 game modes, Elimination and Endless.
Elimination mode spawn the player inside a small arena and task them with eliminating all enemies within the time limit. Once all waves are eliminated, the player will win the game.
Endless mode works as the name implied. Player will face off against endless horde of enemies, with the goal of surviving the most waves as much as possible.
The Playable characters
Each character has 2 unique abilities and 1 ultimate ability. The abilities will define the role of the character and how they contribute to the effort of eliminating enemies. The roles are: DPS, Tank, Crowd Control, and Support
Player stats
Under the hood, there are a few main stats that are used for the gameplay.
These includes: HP, Armor, ATK, Crit. chance, Crit. damage

Combat Design

Combat Design Process

1. Taking and dealing Damage

The first step of my process was to plan out the player stats and how damage is dealt or taken.

With there being many enemies on the level at once, having one health pool will make the game very hard since bullets can come from all directions. That's why I decide to have HP and Armor as separate pools, with armor being able to regenerate after not taking hits.

For dealing damage, I use the basic Attack stat as the base value for most abilities, with critical chance and critical damage for some spice in gameplay. Damage calculation is kept simple, being as followed:

AbilityValue = (BaseValue + Buff) * AbilityMultiplier * Crit.Dmg * Debuff

2. Character roles and abilities design

When designing a character, the first thing that was determined is what role the character will fulfill (DPS, Tank, CC, Support). When it was decided, the next step on my list was deciding on a character theme. Having a theme helps me keep the design of abilities cohesive, as well as help the player understand and memorize it better.

For example, Chemical is a DPS character with a theme around the toxic hazard. All of its abilities will spew green toxins that will continually damage enemies over time. Meanwhile, Ghost is also a DPS character with a rogue theme. Ghost's abilities focus on stealth, mobility, and high single target damage.

With the primary game mode being the wave-based horde shooter, the focus of many characters will lean toward dealing damage or supporting the DPS. Abilities that boost survivability such as healing or shield allow the player to be comfortable with soaking some damage while dishing out the pain instead of spending time dodging bullets.

3. Balancing

When balancing abilities, multiple factors can be tuned to make abilities stronger or weaker. Since the focus of the game is defeating enemies as fast as possible, the primary value for balancing is

DPS and Total Damage.

Since abilities cannot be used rapidly due to cooldown, the cooldown is also added to DPS calculation. The formula is as followed:

DPS = (TotalDamage) / (TimeNeeded + Cooldown)

TimeNeeded is the amount of time for all damage ticks to occur plus flat +0.5s for ability deployment time.

Some characters have very high frontloaded damage, suitable against occasional enemies with a large health pool. The high frontloaded damage is balanced with smaller AoE or longer cooldown.

Another angle of balancing is looking at the health pool of enemies in a wave. Looking at combined the health pool and how it split into several smaller pools gives an idea of how much damage are needed to clear the stage in a given time.

The characters

Chemical (DPS)

Ability 1: Toxic Solution

Splash toxic chemicals forward in a cone shape. Enemies hit by the chemical take 5 HP% damage every 1.5s for a 6s. (18s cooldown)

Ability 2: Hazardous Fume

Drop gas grenade at feet, creating a toxic fume around self. Enemies within the fume take HP% damage every 1.5s. The fume lasts for 12s. (24s cooldown)

Ultimate: Biohazard Protocol

Trigger the protocol. 'Toxic Solution' and 'Hazardous Fume' used during the protocol have greater AoE. Enemies killed with DoT will create a smaller Hazardous Fume at their location. (50s cooldown)

Playstyle:

Use abilities on target with high HP or armor to slowly chip away their HP. Biohazard protocol is best used when enemies are grouped up tight to maximize the damage of the smaller fumes.

Abilities

Cut Characters

These characters were cut due to the lack of manpower and development time. However, they are completed in term of ability design.

Frag (DPS)

Ability 1: Fragmentation

Deploys 4 grenades around self. Grenades explode on contact or after 3s fuse, dealing 200% ATK. (6s cooldown)

Ability 2: Charged shot

Fire an explosive shot in front of self, dealing 300% ATK on contact and an additional 150% ATK in AoE. (10s cooldown)

Ultimate: Annihilation Protocol

While the protocol is active, the cooldown of Fragmentation and Charged Shot is reduced by half. The protocol lasts for 15s.

Playstyle:

After getting the most out of other characters' support abilities, use Frag's annihilation protocol and spam both abilities when they are off-cooldown.

Riot (Crowd Control)

Ability 1: Incapacitation

Deploy flash grenades, stunning enemies caught in the blast for 3s and dealing 75% ATK as AoE damage. (8s cooldown)

Ability 2: Barricade

Deploy movable defensive barrier around self and team. The barrier break after taking damage more than 300% of Riot's HP or disappear after 10s. (15s cooldown)

Ultimate: Phalanx Protocol

Deploy small defensive barrier around self that expands outward, pushing enemies away and dealing 200% ATK on
contact. The barrier become static and immovable once fully expanded. The barrier take 3s to expand and last 12s after fully expanded. (45s cooldown)

Playstyle:

Use Barricade to deal with incoming attacks, and Phalanx Protocol to get some breathing room. While the enemies are grouped together, use Incapacitation to stun them for window of opportunity to relocate or attack.

Ghost (DPS)

Ability 1: Going Dark

Turn invisible for a 12s, making enemies unable to target Ghost. Using the ability again before the duration end will end invisibility early and deal 500% ATK to a single target. (20s cooldown)

Ability 2: Nothing Personal

Dash forward, phasing through and dealing 250% ATK to enemies caught during the dash. (5s cooldown)

Ultimate: Rogue Protocol

Force trigger 'Nothing Personal' and then 'Going Dark'. During invisibility of 'Going Dark', gain 10atk%/second
The buff is cleared upon dealing damage. (50s cooldown)

Playstyle:

Nothing Personal can be used as a repositioning tool. Going Dark is best used for high priority target or escaping tricky situation. While under Rogue Protocol, it's best to wait until the player get enough ATK% stack to dispatch the target enemy before attacking.

Warden (Tank)

Ability 1: Sworn Protector

Gain Protector buff for 20s. While the buff is active, 60% percentage of damage taken will be redirected to Warden while it is not
an active character. (25s cooldown)

Ability 2: Resolute Stand

For 15s, each instance of damage taken will have its damage lowered by 5. (25s cooldown)

Ultimate: Oathsworn Protocol

For each 10% HP missing on Warden, the entire team get 3 ATK for 10s. The amount is calculated when the protocal
is activated. (20s cooldown)

Playstyle: