Every once in a while, the Eleventh Hour Team will give a peek behind the curtain about how its ARPG Last Epoch happens through some developer blogs. Its most recent blog gets into a topic that both seems and definitely is a lot harder than it looks: skill design, thanks to the team’s Technical Game Designer, Justin Carpenter.
Each step of the process is walked through in the blog. The team has to come up with abilities that match the Class or Mastery’s intent, such as, for example, a single-target damage skill in the style of Diablo 2’s Guided Arrow for Marksman.
The nitty-gritty of what exactly the ability should do is where things get tricky. They have to prototype it on account of a few specific important things, namely the visual design and, of course, what its numbers, effects and parameters are. The team also has to talk about how these things get integrated into other mechanics, specifically the skill tree, and then it’s sent out for slow refinement.
If you’re interested in the details, the full blog is definitely worth a read, especially if you have an appreciation for the ARPG genre. Last Epoch itself, over a year after its official launch, is currently in its third “season” of content.
