I’ve been playing around with a couple of ideas for new game mechanics, and also new approaches to tanking, and I’ve decided to combine a couple ideas into one character concept for a main tank to see what you guys think.

Ability 1: "Back off!"

Emits a wave that knocks enemies back in all directions (horizontally, I don’t think this ability would have any vertical affect, but I guess it could depending on how the ability manifests itself).

Broadly speaking, this ability would do some damage (but not likely to be a kill move unless used for enviros), and its primary purpose would be to make space by pushing enemies away from the player. You get the most utility out of this move through careful player positioning, rather than through mechanical aim, because you are the epicenter of this wave.

Before I dive into the different interactions I think this ability could have, I’d like to explain that it has two different “zones”.

There’s the inner radius, which I’d imagine is at most 5 meters (about the size of Soldier’s Biotic Field), and the outer radius which would probably be 10-15 meters (about the size of Lucio’s aura).

Now that I’ve defined the two zones, I can discuss the different aspects of this move that I’m considering: Damage, stun, and knockback.

Damage: It would do higher damage in the Inner Radius (let’s say 20, but I’m kinda making the numbers up for now), with a linear falloff for every meter outside of the inner radius. So you’d get maximum damage if you’re in melee range, but if you’re on the edge of the outer radius it would be like taking a single round’s worth of damage from Winston’s tickle-gun (which happens to be 3 damage).

Actually, I can make that work mathematically I think. 20 damage for 0-5 meters in the inner radius, 18 damage at 6m, 16 damage at 7m, 14 damage at 8m, 12 damage at 9m, 10 damage at 10m, 8 damage at 11m, 6 damage at 12m, 4 damage at 13m, 2 damage at 14m, and I guess if you’re on the 15m mark you’re too far away to take damage? I can work with that.

There could also be a brief stun if you’re in the Inner Radius, but the Outer Radius would only experience damage and knockback.

I don’t know how a stun would affect the damage rates at any distance, but I’m also not sure we even need the stun because I feel like it kinda runs against the primary purpose of this ability, which is to displace enemies rather than disable them.

There are actually two different ways this knock back could work… A: It could be a flat knock back rate that pushes you back 5 meters (made up number) regardless of where you’re standing, although I’m not sure how much sense that really makes. It also might be kind of unfair to be launched the same distance away from the outer edge as someone who is standing right in front of the tank. B: The other way this could work would be to knock back by a varying amount depending on how close to the epicenter you are. Effectively, regardless of where you’re standing, you’d be pushed to the outer edge of that 15 meter Outer Radius. I think I like this idea better. I think it works well with the damage-falloff idea in point 1, where you get more strongly affected the closer you are, and 15 meters represents the distance at which you are completely safe from his abilities.

This ability would give “Suppressor” (name pending) a way to create space and protect his teammates as a main tank without the use of a shield. What’s also nice about this is that he can protect teammates in front of him, rather than requiring that everyone stay behind him at all times. This would also be a really useful ability for KOTH maps, choke points, and of course enviro kills because you effectively get to pick a spot on the map and dictate that no one else is allowed in my spot.

This will deny entry to close range characters, but of course it would do nothing to stop long ranged characters from shooting (Widow) or even healing (Ana), so I think it would be situationally viable without being too OP.

Ability 2: "Weapon Sabotage"

Think of this as armor being applied in reverse. Specifically it would look like a kind of Anti-Rally. This was actually my original idea for a new game mechanic, from before I thought of trying to design a tank.

In a nutshell, armor (looking at Brigitte’s repair pack for simplicity’s sake) works by applying a buff to your teammate’s health in the form of temporary extra health that works to mitigate incoming damage. For most attacks, having armor will reduce the received damage by 3 (unless the damage is already less than 6, in which case you take half the damage).

“Weapon Sabotage” has the same effect of damage mitigation, but is a debuff applied to your enemies, rather than a buff to your allies.

If an enemy gets hit by this ability, all of their attacks will temporarily do less damage, as if their opponents were wearing armor.

These numbers could be tweaked, it doesn’t have to mathematically behave the exact same way as armor, but the idea is that your ability has sabotaged the enemy’s weapons such that they no longer perform at maximum effectiveness.

Important Note: Although its inspired by armor, the damage mitigation doesn’t (and maybe shouldn’t) behave the exact same way, because armor isn’t equally effective against all kinds of damage. A better solution would be to take a flat percentage off of every attack.

Again, I don’t know what the actual number would be, but for simplicity’s sake lets say that this debuff would take off 25% of every attack. Being able to attack at only 75% of your strength would have just as much impact on Reaper’s shotguns as it would on McCree’s Deadeye, and everything in between. So while the actual reduction rate itself would need some careful thought, I do think a percentage-based reduction would be better than armor’s method of “reduce by 3, unless the attack is so weak that armor might as well negate it entirely”.

Like with the “Back Off!” ability, I pictured this ability being emitted as a wave in all directions. This is mostly because I’m not trying to make a shooter here, but I’d be willing to consider reworking something into an aimed ability if people think this character gets too much AOE value without “mechanical skill”. Since I’m designing a tank, I don’t think its a huge problem to focus on positioning and game sense over aim, but this is open for debate.

I don’t particularly care how this attack works on a visual/in-game explanation level, although one idea I’ve toyed with is a cloud of dust (that would not create lingering visual distractions, I’m not trying to blind people by throwing sand in their faces) that would clog guns (and/or disrupt Doomfist’s focus? The internal logic kinda falls apart at melee users…) reducing their efficiency until “properly cleaned” (the effect wears off after a few seconds, exact duration undetermined).

What I like about this mechanic is that it provides a new way of protecting your teammates. You don’t take any new space for your team with it, but you make the space you occupy safer for your team by reducing the amount of damage that can be dealt to them, which could make it easier for them to win 1v1s and team fights (while still probably not doing much against sniping, which I’ll admit is probably going to be a weakness of this tank. But there’s nothing wrong with that, no character should be without weaknesses.)

This concept was largely inspired by Brigitte’s Rally and Repair Pack, along with Ana’s bio-grenade. That said, it didn’t really take form until I considered Moira’s ability to heal herself at the expense of her enemies, and I really wanted another ability that took away from enemies instead of just giving to teammates.

Even though the idea was based on several healers, I don’t really see this as a support ability since it isn’t giving your teammates extra health. Since the focus is instead on providing damage mitigation (just offensively rather than defensively), I thought it might be a good idea for a tank instead.

Other Notes

So those are the two main abilities I’m giving to this “Suppressor” main tank concept. I don’t know what buttons I’d bind these to, cuz they both feel like secondary abilities (shift and E), and I’m not sure what his primary would be.

I also have no idea for an ultimate yet. So if anyone has any good ideas for an ult or the rest of his abilities, I’d love to hear them.

Possible Ability 3?

Like I said before, I’m not really trying to make a shooter here, so I’d be more interested in non-gun options.

I’d consider giving him something like Sym’s old Photon Barrier, but it would be a little smaller and require (slightly) more precise aim. I figure this could make up for the weakness against snipers, you could throw a projectile barrier at them so that they couldn’t one-shot your squishies without:

Breaking the barrier first Waiting for the barrier to de-spawn Moving to a different position.

So it wouldn’t be a huge shield like the other shield tanks, but it would be enough to (with proper aim) shut down a sniper long enough for your team to get to a safer position, without shutting the sniper down entirely. As an enemy, you’d still be able to play around it by seeing it coming and moving to a different spot, and as a tank its still in line with your kit as a means of creating space by forcing your enemy to move.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of giving him a mini photon barrier. But to make it different from sym’s, what if we added a remote detonator to it?

Like Orisa’s Halt, the first button press would deploy a small projectile shield with n health that would fly x distance at y speed for z seconds, but then a second press of the button would cause the shield to explode, causing some amount of splash damage for anyone nearby, and with possible burn effects similar to Ashe’s Dynamite or Torb’s Molten Floor.

Health and Other Stats

I’m thinking 500 health, to put him on par with the other main tanks. Maybe 300 base health, with 200 shields?

Proposed Change:

Considering upgrading shields to 300, to account for the fact that this tank would be under constant fire and would need a bigger buffer since shield regen doesn’t start until you’re out of fire for 3 seconds. This would make total health 600 (equivalent to Dva, and I think roadhog?)

Also considering working armor into the healthpool instead or in addition to shields. Other possible reworks include triggering automatic shield regen upon using the “Back off!” ability.

I was originally thinking of using armor, just cuz it seemed appropriate, but then I realized that would be kinda redundant with his damage suppressant ability.

Besides, one weakness of this main tank concept is not having an actual shield (mini photon barrier doesn’t count), so a replenishing health pool would allow him to body-block more effectively.

In terms of size, I’m picturing a large, Reinhardt/B.O.B like figure. Someone with the body mass (whether organic or synthetic) to really take the hits. (You can’t really body-block for your team with Tracer’s figure)

Closing Remarks

Lastly, and this is by far the least important part of this character concept since I don’t really have a personality in mind, but I’d really like for there to be a Talon tank, so it might well as be part of my own design even if for no other reason than “because we don’t have one yet”…

So, thoughts?

UPDATE, 2 WEEKS AFTER HAVING THE IDEA, AND 1 WEEK AFTER WORKSHOP HIT THE PTR:

Not that anyone has chimed in here yet, but I did get Ability 1: Back-off! to work. I’ve decided to use Orisa as the model for this character, and Back-Off is bound to shift. Numbers are subject to change, and i might clean up the code later, but this is fully working so far.

Code: KDJVY

The way it works:

Press shift to trigger a circular seismic wave in 15m around you. The pulse will knock players slightly up, and decently far away in all directions (effectively applying an individual impulse in the direction from you to each player).

As discussed in the original write-up, there is a flat 20 damage and a 2 second knock-down applied to enemies within 5 meters.

Past the 5 meter mark, damage (x) falls off with distance (y) at a rate of y = -2x + 30.

In other words, AT 5 meters you still do exactly 20 damage, at 10 meters you do 10 damage, and at 15 meters no damage is done (but the enemy still feels the boop).

Additionally, enemies between 5 and 10 meters will receive a 1-second stun (instead of a 2-second knockdown).

Similarly, enemies between 10 and 15 meters will be rooted for half a second upon landing.

The change from flat to variable damage was cool, but I really wanted to up raise the importance of positioning for this ability, hence the weaker status conditions applied the farther out you are. There isn’t any real difference between knockdown (like Earthshatter) and stun (like flashbang), aside from the visual animation. But I think knockdown looks cooler, and makes more sense if you’re close to me, hence the less dramatic effect with a shorter duration at mid-range.

As for rooting between 10 and 15, I wasn’t initially even going to use this status condition. But when I was finishing up the code, it bothered me that every other range had something special except for the 10-15 range. If you don’t know, the “Rooted” condition prevents movement, but doesn’t cancel animations or prevent aiming. I THINK this is what happens in a Junkrat trap, not certain about that though. This condition only applies in the outer range, and only lasts for half a second, because I want you to still feel the impact of the crash, but when you’re on the edge of the blast zone you should only feel a slight tremor. I envision a half second of being Rooted as being like feeling the jolt when you land, your knees maybe buckle a bit and you need to quickly steady yourself before you can walk again, but you’re not paralyzed or knocked over at any time. So yeah, I think it’s ok. And if I coded it right, this only applies to < 15.

In other words, if you are exactly 15 meters away, that is the only distance where you can experience a boop, but have no damage and no lingering status condition.

I realize now that I never really settled on the Line Of Sight Conditions for each effect… I guess I could do that now, or I could wait until I come back to it and finalize numbers like cooldowns.

(It’s currently on a 3 second cooldown with very forgiving LOS requirements to permit easy testing, but I was thinking maybe a 9 second cooldown)

Onwards to Weapon Sabotage!

Some notes regarding Weapon Sabotage:

This move was originally going to be another AOE, but quite frankly the last week of coding has made me hate working with multi-target moves, so I’m going to try to rework it into a single-target lock-on move (kinda like Brigitte’s Repair Pack).

At present, it will set the afflicted enemy’s damage output to 70% of the normal amount. I don’t remember if I said it here or if it only came up on Reddit, but a flat damage reduction (like the subtract 3 damage points of armor) doesn’t really make sense, and it doesn’t affect all types of damage equally, hence instead opting for a 30% reduction across the board.

The effects of this currently last for 4 seconds for testing purposes, but I was considering an 8 second cooldown for the final version. (Of course, there’s no reason that duration of effect has to be equal to the subsequent cooldown).

Another thing I’ve decided to add that wasn’t in the initial design is a temporary change in aim speed. This started as a joke, but it turned out to be easy to code and funny to use. I also thought it fit nicely with the concept of clouds of shrapnel/debris jamming a gun and making it harder to use. Not only would this mean less powerful, its reasonable to assume that it might be less accurate too. But I have no idea how to (or if I even can) alter accuracy or projectile spread. What I can do is suddenly change the speed with which the enemy player can aim, the increased difficulty with aiming will simulate a less accurate gun.

While the numbers are still very much up in the air, the basic idea is that when the ability is used, I will set the enemy’s aim speedt to a random percentage of what it normally is (i’m thinking between 0 and 200%, so it could be slower or faster). To make things even funnier, I think I might loop that line of code so that the random aim speed changes multiple times throughout the ability’s duration. If this proves to be too awful to play with, I will remove it.

But here’s a rough prototype that is done to extremes just for laughs. If I actually implement it for my tank, it will be much less drastic.

Here’s the code: AXVAB

This prototype works for any character, but I recommend an aim-heavy hitscan. McCree is funny, Widow is probably a nightmare, but you’re free to do whatever.

To be clear, this prototype applies the ability to yourself, and only the aim change (not the damage reduction).

When you press shift, a visual effect will appear on you for 10 seconds. During this time, your aim speed will be randomly changed to anywhere between 0% and 500% (again, this is done for laughs, the real thing would be a much smaller range). This action is repeated, giving you a new random aim speed every 0.1 seconds (see previous parenthetical comment).

That’s right, your mouse movement speed will randomly change by any amount between not moving at all, and 5 times faster than normal, and this change will happen 100 times, once every tenth of a second, for 10 seconds.

I want to stress this one more time, for a real ability the effect would only last half as long, the range will probably be 0% (or maybe even 50%) to 200% at most, and the frequency of getting new aim speeds will be at least half a second, but more likely a whole second (depending on how long the effect lasts).

Side-note regarding Ability 3:

As I said originally, I wanted a mini Photon Barrier as an alternate fire. One idea was to make it a two stage move (like Orisa’s HALT, which is part of why I’m using Orisa as my model), where the first click would shoot the barrier and the second click would detonate it.

Another idea I’ve had since then is to shorten the duration of the projectile, and change it from a barrier to a deflect hitbox.

But both of these ideas are literally impossible right now, since we can’t do much to mess with projectiles yet, so Primary Fire (which hasn’t even been thought of yet) and Alternate Fire are both being put on the back burner for now, while I shift my main focus to making Ability 2: Weapon Sabotage work.

Thank you.