I ⁠am ⁠in ⁠need ⁠of ⁠some ⁠game ⁠design ⁠help.

What game, you ask?
Fighting.
Third person.
Common objects.
Being overly serious on the part of the characters (pretend that what they're doing is completely normal).
An extreme test of how not-lazy I can be.
Good, you're caught up.

And, don't be excited for this game, please.
I have virtually no experience in making a game, and I'm only here to look for some design help.
it's also destined for the pan-hated platform of roblixes, if the above two lines haven't driven you away yet
don't kill me though i can do what i want thanks

I need help designing certain parts of certain characters.

The general gist of everything I need help on is my imagination is horrible save me

• General
  • Specific numerical ability cap for each character?
  • Always have a passive?
  • Always have some form of ultimate-type ability?
  • Melee characters always have basic attack with combo?
    • More importantly, do ranged characters get attack combos?
  • Should there be more characters than there are now? Less?
  • How far should complexity go? Simple, easy to learn on everything? Entire game is difficult to master? Mix both types?
  • Gamemodes? I've never made any kind of competitive game in all of the minuscule amount of game-making experience that I have, now that I think about it. I don't know where to go in this direction.
  • Map structure? This one's probably bigger than everything else in this list. While everything else can be scrapped together, I do realize that bad map structure is the key to horrible failure.
• Umbra
  • Weapon: Umbrella; can be used as a spear or shield when opened
  • What I need help with: Other that what's already listed, I have very little idea where to go with this. One-handed stabs? Two-handed stabs? What other abilities should he have?
• Some trash can guy
  • No name yet. That itself I need help with.
  • Should I include the character at all? Currently, the general gist of it is that it's really tanky, wearing a trash can all the time, but that can be really annoying with this character just sitting in some choke point blocking shots.
• Keyboard Warrior
  • ha see the joke
  • The only decent idea I can see at the moment is that this character should have an ability where they use a wired mouse as a mace.
• Ray
  • Takes bananas out of his pockets and throws them rather quickly.
• Xeisal
  • Uses a fan. I'm not sure where else to go with this.
• Gurmeg
  • some of you may find this name mildly familiar
  • probably the most fleshed-out character i have so far
  • Uses a mug as weapon
    • current idea is that the mug shatters when used as melee and can be rebuilt from treading over dead enemy corpses
      • but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense
      • include mug shatter mechanic at all?
• Scare
  • Note: Name is not associated with physical traits
  • Uses a deck of cards. What else, you ask? help me
• Gunner
  • Blows peas out of a plastic straw. That's the gist of it, anyway.
  • Could use a better name.
  • I don't really have a lot of commitment to this character because of its incredibly frail support, so should I keep it at all.
• Astro
  • some of you may know what this references
  • I don't have anything for this character other than the name.

ok thanks
again don't kill me

 

If i understand correctly this is a game, where players fight each other? If not this might not help.

Allright, from what I know from map-making, it is important that there is ALWAYS minimum 2 ways in to a place, and of course at least one way out.

The reason this is so important, is that it will make posistioning a higher skill, instead of it simply being who can get to the camping spot first.

Also I have to say, that the 2 ways in, can be 1 ways (That you can only go one way through that route, for an example, this can be a drop down, that is too high to get up on again)

 

Disclaimer: I'm bored. Don't expect very high quality.

k

k

1. There's not much I can say about the first bullet point. You're going to want to clarify it more (what do you mean by ability cap?).
2. Ok
3. Ok
4. Ok
5. 8-9 characters is ok as long as they're done well. You don't want too many or too few, although determining that is relative.
6. The gist of the game should be simple (consider some sort of tutorial or intro-level) but some more complex mechanics could be interesting as long as they're not thrown straight at you right from the start.
7. I feel like you should be the one to make the gamemodes - you'd be the one to know all the background mechanics. Translates to: I'm too lazy to come up with ideas
8. Map structure depends on just what kind of gamemode and fighting style is present - for example, the stuff mentioned in @Th0mas1 's post could be vital in a CTF-style gamemode. If there are any specific characters with powerful mobility skills or passives, you'll want to account for those.

Might as well try.

Spoiler: Umbra

The umbrella weapon you mentioned is a spear/shield cross, I assume. The toggle would probably be simple (e.g. on a mouse, left click is attack/defend and right click is toggle). The spear form's damage would be light but quick. The shield is more of a bounce-shield and any heavy blow would temporarily disable it and default to the spear form.

A passive may be (or include) a sort of Mary-Poppins style float ability to allow limited gliding and higher jumps. Additionally, in shield mode, your walk speed could be slightly reduced.

Coming up with an attack combo/bonus for this one seems simple enough - if you block an attack with a shield and then quickly stab the opponent, the attack does more damage.

I can imagine at least two kinds of "ultimate abilities" for this character:

• Rainstorm/Acid Rain: The character pulls the umbrella above their head and it begins to rain. The rain does low damage and reduces enemies' armor/defense stat.
• Some kind of shadow-meld ability: The character goes invisible for a brief time, and will do high damage to the next player attacked.

Spoiler: Some trash can guy

(I have no name ideas)
I'm guessing this is your tank character.

Instead of a constant garbage-can mode, it could be activated. The character would be wearing lighter armor that allows only slightly slower movement, and holding down a key (shift?) would enter garbage-can mode. It's already kinda obvious what that would do - increase defense by a ton at the cost of mobility.

Attacks could include ramming into enemies and throwing trash (could range from low-damage crumpled paper to large chunks of material and toxic sludge). A special attack could be some sort of ramming-charge that runs in a straight line but does lots of damage and knockback.

Passive: Increased health regen

For an ultimate ability-

• Garbage Heap: Spits out a pile of garbage that lasts for a moderate amount of time and blocks a path (could be an important factor to remember for map design). Enemies walking into the garbage pile will be poisoned and take damage. If the character who used the ability is on or near the garbage pile, they get a regeneration, defense, and damage bonus.

Spoiler: Keyboard Warrior

The wired-mouse swing attack would probably be fast with low damage. Perhaps an alternate attack could be a front-facing keyboard slam that does higher damage and possibly stuns the target for a very brief time.

Passive: Increased damage and speed with every enemy that's nearby

Ultimate:

• Glitch: For a short time (5 seconds?), the character's speed is increased, and attacks will stun and lower the defense of enemies.

Spoiler: Ray

I have a feeling this is a reference. I don't know what to do here.

Spoiler: Xeisal

The fan could do a constant sort of knockback effect and may "suffocate" (not the best word there) an opponent if they stay in it too long - it won't do much damage, however.

A fan bash could be an alternate damage-dealing attack.

A passive could be that the character takes increased knockback, and the fan could be used to fly very temporarily.

An ultimate ability could be some kind of tornado - mostly dealing damage from falling and collision with objects.

Spoiler: Gurmeg

Perhaps the regular attack shatters the mug, and the brief automatic reconstruction of the mug is the attack cooldown? The shrapnel could deal damage in a small area.

I'm not sure about passives, maybe a thorns effect (attackers take damage)?

Ultimate:

• IDK

Spoiler: Scare

The attack could pretty much be a wild card - anywhere from x damage on card to special abilities on things like queens and jokers.

Passive: Longer invincibility cooldown when attacked

Ultimate:
I'm thinking the ultimate could be triggered by pulling the joker card. The chances of pulling that card could start out very low, but get higher and higher as the player's health decreases.

• Copycat: Copies the abilities of the next player the character attacks.

Spoiler: Gunner

This could basically be the long-ranged character. What if the passive is that damage grows the longer the distance you attack from (a sniper passive)? The ultimate ability could be a machine gun attack.

Spoiler: Astro

I have a feeling that the reference you mentioned could be important to the playstyle. You're being really vague though.

All that comes to mind is rocket boots

 

As in, should I always have <insert number here> abilities for each character, or should I vary it a bit?

Indeed it is. Every character with very minimal description except Gunner is a reference. I suppose it makes sense that I'll have to think of something myself.

labyrinth

 

It would probably be better to vary it a bit - have some approximate numbers, but allow flexibility where needed.

References are something I'm not very good at in general :/ I'm not the best person to ask for that kind of thing.

Which is a name I don't recognize.

 

@Labyrinth