Hello, Forgers!

This week, we’re excited to talk to you about one of the core features of AetherForged, inspired by what we believe to be one of the most innovative things about Dawngate: the Role System. The best part about Dawngate, for me, at least, was being able to play Freia two ways: one as a lane gladiator with coordinated ganks post-6 to really mess things up, and the other as a hunter with full life drain just to surprise people out of the gate by rushing to 6 and doing massive ganks. We want that same versatility out of our system, and looked to improve the Roles from Dawngate and make them our own. These roles will act in the same way as Dawngate’s roles did: your Forger and your role are independent of each other, and there’s no limit on how many of a role you can have. That being said, there are clearly very silly options that don’t work quite as well as the ones that get you the best bang for buck.

Without further ado, the roles we have are…

The Destroyer

The Destroyer is designed to control creep-waves and gives benefits when you do so properly . As the Destroyer, you will destroy enemy creeps, earning increased salt as you do so. In addition, Destroyers get stacks which are consumed upon each creep being killed, which acts as a heal on a short cooldown, and also acts as an execute for melee Forgers. Playing a Destroyer means you’re interested in scaling up your Forger to a point where you can take over the game, and don’t mind waiting to do so. An important thing to note is that the heal has a range, which means that tools that are too long-ranged can’t be used for the healing benefit.

The Harrier

The Harrier role takes over the game through simply denying the enemy resources to continue scaling. In most MOBAs, health is an incredibly valuable resource as it dictates whether you can stay in conflict to hold lanes, invade, and so on, so the Harrier is based exactly around that. Simply put, when the Harrier deals damage in any instance to a Forger, they gain salt. Multiple hits in a short time on the same forger result in increased gains in comparison to the same amount on multiple forgers. Rewarding accuracy in targeting was a key that we wanted to touch upon; haphazardly throwing your attacks with no aim is less rewarded than calculated poke and harass.

The Saboteur

The Saboteur is a new role that heavily rewards aggression in multiple lanes and capturing objectives. They deal bonus damage to turrets and gain bonus salt for doing so. In addition, when assaulting mines, they gain small bonuses for killing workers and large bonuses for capturing them. This role requires strong rotational play, but has the most rewards for doing so. One thing we realized was that kill-oriented play was not necessarily conducive to winning the game; in a low-kill environment, this Forger would be starved out. In addition, it promoted play patterns where kills became the main focus and not the true goal of winning the game. With this kind of role, it serves the same purpose of advancing the game without being so contingent on high-kill clown fiestas. Saboteurs can be played in both the lane and the jungle, allowing for different styles of Saboteurs even within the same game.

The Poacher

The poacher is designed to control the spaces outside non-jungle objectives, and are rewarded for doing so properly. In lieu of more traditional roles, the Poacher is specifically designed to reward counter-jungling and jungle-farming playstyles. This role centers itself around stacks on specific camps; killing the large monster in any given camp will give you a stack; two if it’s in the enemy jungle. This then gives you subsequent scaling rewards the next time you kill that same camp. The scaling rewards apply to every monster within that camp; this allows the Poacher to emphasize what camps he wants to poach, and then designates that area for gank paths later. Emphasis on jungle control are what separates the Poacher from a jungle-based Saboteur.

So, there you have it, roles! We are, as always, on hand for all your questions regarding roles in AetherForged, and are looking forward to more posts in the future!

Cheers,

HeroicTechnology