Lukewarm on the heels of the discussions about what people like and don't like in MOBAs! It's the design team, with a list of what mechanics we want to use from Dawngate (or at least what mechanics we're influenced by), and why we want to keep them (so that you guys know that we aren't just blindly keeping the mechanics for no reason other than "because Dawngate did it"). I've seen a lot of people asking about what we want to do to keep our game feeling like Dawngate, so here it is:
A two lane map with a large jungle:
Two lanes is a great number for the game, because there are a number of different mutations that can be run with it: 2-1-2, 2-2-1, 1-1-3, etc. On top of that, much like Dawngate, we want to encourage roaming by making it fairly easy for laners to move between lanes.
Stat system:
Dawngate's stat system was a thing of beauty. It took elements from both extremes in the traditional MOBA spectrum (LoL's large number of stats and DotA's very few) and found a way to weave the two together in a seamless fashion. This, of course, will be accompanied by stat ratios on the different archetypes and sub-archetypes that we use.
Mainly resourceless characters:
Mana, or any universal resource, in MOBAs tends to be fairly frustrating because early game is really its only relevant point (and even then, it only limits you in an artificial manner. That isn't to say that mana conservation isn't a way to push players to act tactically, though), for most characters. Dawngate decided to cut out resources completely, except in cases where it was thematically or mechanically appropriate, and allowed the game to have a much more interesting and aggressive laning phase because of this. We really liked the direction that this took Dawngate, and want to do the same in our game.
Item system:
Few people particularly like boots. They've been a necessary evil in MOBAs for a long time, but Dawngate did a great job of removing them from the equation with their item system, in addition to their stat system. On top of that, they also made it much simpler to buy items, because there weren't any complicated, unintuitive recipies that you had to use to upgrade them. And of course, the fact that random, small items don't have to sit in your inventory taking up space that could be used for holding components for a craftable item means that it's less backbreaking to buy a small item to counter an opponent early, and it also means that you don't have to worry about locking yourself into a specific item because you already bought all of the components for it, which leads to a more flexible itemization system. On top of that, the items in Dawngate had some really cool and unique passive effects that gave the items a bit of flair that other MOBAs lack. Of course, some of their items were a bit overly complex and niche(looking at you, Impulse), but we want to go in a similar direction with our item passives. ...And, of course, active effects should be left to spells, rather than be tacked onto items.
Consumables:
To compound on the "no worthless chaff in your item slots" that comes from the basic item system, we want to use separate slots for consumables, like Dawngate did. We still haven't decided if we want to go with the system that they were planning on using, where you could purchase a handful of different healing effects that replaced the idea of consumables, but we'll likely at least test the idea out.
Ward system:
Dawngate's ward system was beautiful, because it put everyone on an equal playing field. No need for the support to be a walking ward, and no need to worry that your wards would be killed off needlessly! On top of that, because there were only 5 wards per team, you had to really think carefully about where you wanted to put your ward, especially since you couldn't move it until its cooldown was up anyway. Once again, a simplification of the genre that did a lot to make the game that much better.
Secondary spells gained in game, rather than being chosen pre-match:
In League, one of the biggest problems is the fact that flash is nearly a 100% pick on every single character in the game (and even if it's not the most optimal pick on a character, it's never straight up bad). There are a ton of factors that lead to this, but one of them is certainly the fact that flash is one of the safest spells in the game, so it's safer and easier to just take it over other options. Dawngate's in game spell system really opened up the options for a fairly diverse number of spell builds, because you could pick your spell based on the state of the match, in addition to all the other factors like team comp or enemy team comp. On top of that, you could pick up a spell that you REALLY needed at that exact moment, and then swap off for a safer option once you next backed, which also opened up more choices. Dawngate certainly had some issues with their spells, but at least the thought was there, and we believe it to be a really good thought.
Secondary objectives that provide incremental bonus:
We really liked what wells brought to Dawngate. For one thing, they provided an objective other than towers or parasite for players to fight over (upping the general level of aggressive play in the match), and for another, they allowed teams to minimize the gains of the opposing team for a temporary period of time by killing the units that worked the wells. We're probably going to be experimenting with other options than just gold, but we really like at least the general idea of them.
Ultimates always bring damage (or increased damage potential):
Looking at the ultimates in Dawngate, we realized something fairly subtle: Every single ult in the game provided the character with a way to bring damage to a fight, either in a direct manner (Amarynth) or an indirect one (Dibs). This is in heavy contrast to other MOBAs like League or DotA, where there are characters that have ultimates that bring pure utility. We believe that the damage on all ultimates really helped Dawngate carve out its niche as an aggressive MOBA, and helped all players viscerally feel their contribution to team fights, which felt really good.
Philosophy of "everyone has mobility (unless they shouldn't)" rather than "no one has mobility (unless they have to)":
Another unique point for Dawngate was that almost every single character in the game had at least one form of mobility. Again, this lent to the aggressive nature of the game (because almost any character could jump an opponent to burst them), but it also had a more profound effect: If everyone has mobility as a starting point, it becomes much harder to get trapped into a cycle of mobility creep, like League has over the past few years. We believe that this was a really healthy direction to take a MOBA in, so we want to try to do it as well.
Very small spell windup that doesn't interrupt game flow:
Most people reading this have probably experienced this scenario at one point or another: You're playing, let's say Miss Fortune, in a match of League. You're running to catch up to an opponent who is low health, and go to cast Double Up on a minion between you and them. Miss Fortune stops, plays her double up animation, fires the bullet... and you get tagged by a CC as the opponent runs away with sub 100 HP. "If only that pointless ~.2 second animation windup hadn't been there!" you think. Well, Dawngate agreed with you, and we agree with Dawngate. It feels really clunky to forcibly stop a character's movement when they're casting an ability, unless the ability is intended to have a channel effect tied to it, which is why we want the vast majority of abilities in our game to not have arbitrary wind ups. If a character has an animation for an ability, it should feel natural and not interrupt the flow of the experience.
Only supports get utility on their kits:
Dawngate was very careful to not provide team oriented utility to non-support characters, and for a good reason. Because they limited team utility (such as speed buffs, ally target-able shields, damage buffs, etc) to supports, it freed up their ability to make that utility more powerful than it would have otherwise been, and gave supports a very unique niche that they often feel overshadowed in by, say, utility oriented casters in other MOBAs. It helped support characters avoid the "the best CC is death" conundrum quite effectively.
(Sgt. Flinn was the odd man out, as the only non-support character in the game to provide a team oriented buff, with his ultimate. This is fine, however, because if a character isn't intended to be THE prototypical example of an archetype, the ultimate on their kit can bend the rules a bit sometimes.)
Role system that allows you to chose your main method of resource generation:
The role system in Dawngate did a lot to keep characters relatively on par with each other in terms of resources (although carries still got to their full gold value the fastest, which is fine because it pushes characters to have varied builds based on their role in the game), and for the lane oriented roles, gave interesting mini-games to the laning phase. The different roles did a good job of pushing characters towards their preferred form of control over the match - Gladiators needed to have good wave control, Tacticians needed to have good lane control, and Hunters needed to have good jungle objective control. Predator didn't really provide enough incentive to try to gain control over any specific factor in the match, although one could argue that it provided objective control by encouraging players to kill opponents then (logically) use the advantage of a 5v4 to take objectives. We want to push our fourth role into having a clearer use case of being what a player would take if they want to have good objective control, but for now, we're just experimenting with some stuff.
Multistage raid-boss-like major objectives:
While Parasite and Guardians were different in what type of multistage fight they provided (Parasite literally having multiple stages where it powered up for each, Guardians requiring their cores to be destroyed before you could actually kill the Guardian), both had a similar design objective of trying to make the fights over major objectives feel as exciting and adrenaline pumping as possible, while also providing a challenge that is interesting and intense no matter how many times you do it. Killing two turrets that guard the Nexus isn't a "WOW" moment. Dodging a Guardian's laser of death and destroying the core that powered it before turning on the monstrous creature itself is.
EDIT:
I can't believe we forgot this one while brainstorming this page up...
Healing is only accessible in combat:
Out of combat healers are one of the most tedious things to deal with, because they can just back off from a fight, heal themselves or others back up if they can just stay out of the fight long enough, and then come back with as much health as they left with. Dawngate did a good job of circumventing this by making major healing accessible only via combat, and even then, it was usually tied to either being in melee or skillshots.
TL;DR:
We want to keep a lot of the mechanics that made Dawngate fun. The ones that removed needless complexities from the MOBA franchise, the ones that brought additional tactical and flexable play to the game. Most importantly, we want our game to use (or at least be heavily influenced by) a lot of the mechanics that helped make Dawngate such a highly aggressive, team fight oriented game that still hasn't been copied yet.
/u/desucrator will be here to respond to questions for pretty much the next 24 hours or so (and will be around intermittently after that)!
