Ping Wheel and Ping System

Hello Patrons!

We are excited to reveal a new feature in Ethereal that we know is going to take the gameplay experience to new horizons: the Ping Wheel! Communication is a key component in any team-based game, and all of the best team games have implemented systems that allow for quick, efficient, accurate, and pronounced commands between teammates. We do not want Ethereal to be an exception, and have dedicated the time towards making our own system that highlights all of the important callouts while still feeling natural and fluent for a third-person MOBA.

Multiple factors went into designing our current iteration of the Ping Wheel. The first major step was figuring out what would be considered an “important ping.” Having too many callouts will overcrowd any system and make it overly complicated and far from being quick and efficient. On the other hand, having too few callouts will render each one of them too vague and ambiguous to be interpreted accurately, making the entire system too confusing and stressful to learn. In its current form, we settled on a small handful of objective-based callouts, such as “Attack,” “Defend,” and “Hold This Position,” and some select environment-based callouts, such as “Danger,” “Enemy Missing,” and “Group Up Here.” While we are open to different possible callout options to fit on our Ping Wheel, we believe that these are a solid starting point for a clear, concise, and consistent system that is easy to learn and vital to master.

The next major step was figuring out the design and functionality of the Ping Wheel itself. The main reason we chose to use wheel design is because we wanted a system that was able to convey a lot of information with as little input as possible, since Ethereal is being designed to work with a controller in addition to keyboard and mouse. All that is needed is a single input dedicated to bringing up the Ping Wheel, since both mice and controllers already have mapped buttons for switching, confirming, and cancelling selections. The wheel design also allows for a simple and logical display of all options on the screen at once, which means that there are no complicated sub-menus that need to be memorized, and that each ping command can be as easily accessed as all other commands are able to be.

Here is a preview of what the current Ping Wheel will look like for the next test. The art is not final and is subject to change, but it does represent our intentions, goals, and design philosophy of how we want to convey our systems to our players.

As always, thank you all for your support! We look forward to seeing you in the next Patron playtest, where Heca will become yours to command.

Undying Games ~~