With 2 weeks remaining for the final day, our feature team has almost everything done. Paul has been asking to give some feedback on the Game Design Document so I took some time to do it. Overall, it looks like a summary of everything we have. But there are certain sections that need to improve, I just wrote down my point of view in those ones. Matt also asked for feedback for the prototypic codex. I haven't looked it yet but I will be providing some in the following days.
I was worried a few weeks ago about the performance of the team but now I am positive we will be passing this class without serious issues!
0 Comments
A few weeks before the deadline the weargear still needs some work. Tyler wanted me to make sure the weargear options for Ore were ok. I saw most of them in order. Tyler, however, wanted to add some specific weapons to a certain unit to boost up their offensive characteristic which was one of the main issues our race had in several playtest.
Then, we had to make sure the replace and default options make sense. This was a mess, lots of weapons were shared indistinctly among units. We had to create a couple and exchange a good part of them. Finally, Jeremy asked me to write a list that shows which weapon can be replaced. I just followed examples from current codex and asked for feedback. I wasn't big deal. This week I took what seems to be a simple task. I just had to take care of keywords and faction keywords for every unit of our race. After looking how it is done in older codex I realize that there is a difference between characters (warlords), infantry (normal units), vehicles (usually heavy support, transport or fast attack), flyer, and monsters. Beside this, I only have to add the unit name to complete it. Faction keywords were actually even easier. The only thing I had to do was put the name of our race and specify which sub-race belong, if it was more than 2 and if it was a Psyker. Pretty easy stuff to be honest.
Tyler wanted to double check every single ability for the units. The idea was that each one should have at least one unique ability. That actually makes total sense if the idea is to differentiate each one. So I took Ore again to keep in consonance with my previous work. Overall I took out the weakest one and create new ones to fill that blank. Also if I didn't feel comfortable with an old one I just went to the strategic team's ability list to find a better one. This time I also took reference from Necrons which I liked them. My intention was to adapt this to our race necessities. I put provisional names for all the new ones but I really would like that someone from Lore team corrects them...
This time I had to create a Fast Attack Unit. That was surprisingly hard because, after the 7th edition (in which the movement of the majority of units was increased), the fast attack fell into a useless void. They weren't that useful as used to be and they have never really been powerful. So I struggled a little bit trying to find a good reference for them. First look for "best fast attack unit" but for some reason, I ended with the Tyranids Shrikers. It is true that I have been trying to stay with the same reference as far as I can. Overall I would say our race is a mod of Tyranids but it is also true that we add lots more shooties and our toughness if usually higher. Other team members also include references from other armies of course.
Now was the time to test my brand new unit in combat. I was expecting to participate in playtesting sessions several weeks ago. But for various reasons, I never had the chance. Although Tyler was assisting me with specific rules I also had to take notes so it was quite difficult game. In the end, I won (we were controlling Tyranids) but we realized that the toughness and strength of my Elites could be a little too high. The cost was also off. In the reflection, I had the sensation that our units were indeed hard to kill but relatively inoffensive and with serious limitations against shooties enemies. We should be revising these details for next playtest sessions.
We played in Prisoners Exchange scenario. Although the idea of taking enemy models as a prisoner was interesting the scenario as a whole wasn't working very well. We quickly forgot of those units and went straight to combat. I didn't feel too confident being on Lore team. That's because my grammar skills are still kinda poor and creating fiction universes is not my favorite part regarding creative writing. I would prefer focus on small stories with a few character but high symbolic levels. So I asked Leo if I can change to mechanics team. Since we started to play this game I was looking forward to creating a unit and play with its numbers. This week I finally started to work on my first unit: an Elite. As we need an Ore unit I looked in Tyranids code which suppose to be the strongest close combat race. The numbers were corrected by Tyler and Jacob several times until this final result.
My first real task for our X'tal race was making a general warlord traits list for our race. As usual, the first thing I did was seek for references. I research how Space Marines, which is supposed to be the base race, assign traits always reinforcing the subclass abilities, focusing on a specific weapon or unit. I also looked Harlequins race which has been my personal favorite, they focus on their special movement ability. So I decided to stay with the general strategy of our race, hard to kill, high defense, strong in melee, etc to developed 6 abilities to choose. Almost all of them were commented by Tyler and Jacob, so I had to apply several changes following their recommendations. It was hard failing over and over again but the only way to learn.
For our first actual sprint, we agreed to make a sample army so we can actually test the basics stats of our race. Although I supposed to be in the content team I really wanted to write special abilities. That's why I ended up helping with Psyker abilities, I like them especially because can be decisive for any battle. We just have to look at Smite, which is the basic ability of any Psyker, It is super strong and can easily take out entire units.
So, as usual, I go through a bunch of other Psykers seeking similar patterns. As I couldn't find any and I also thought it was a little early to come with a detailed version, I just base my Psyker abilities by the name of them: Light Beam and Tunnel. I like the idea for the first one but I wasn't anything special. For our first month of class we spent some time discussing how our 1500 pint army with flyers units were going to be. We had a few misunderstanding between Christ and Nikki but everything was luckily solve at the end. Because Christ wanted to use a new race, we have to update the whole units sheets since the beginning. That was what I worked on during our Monday meeting. The Aeldari race was actually pretty cool because their endless types of units, weapons and abilities, this army has a little bit of everything. On the other hand, we also had to work on our pitch for the race presentation. The idea of a "pacifist" army was prowling my mind for several weeks ago. Which I thought it would be interesting the idea of a army which battle against armies. So after a little research I found my prime reference: Blue Lanterns corps, starting from them I designed basics: background, characters, weapons and abilities in a simple 7 slices presentation.Sadly I lost as always in the poll.
|
AuthorI want to study Video Games in a theoretical way. Archivos
May 2018
Categories
All
|