What makes an ability "Special"?

Happy Thursday Patrons!

It’s time to talk about one of Ethereal’s premier mechanics, special abilities. For those of you who haven’t gotten the chance to play the game, or just need a refresher, each Myth has a unique special ability bound to the right-mouse button (right bumper on controller) which offers the Myth a powerful effect at a harsher cost. For example, Dante’s special ability allows him to unload 10 basic attacks in quick succession, and then silences and disarms him for a brief duration. This tradeoff offers excellent front loaded damage but leaves Dante especially vulnerable after the volley ends. Our philosophy around special abilities until now has been to give players a powerful tool in their arsenal that makes them consider when the best time to use it will be, and if the benefit will be worth the cost. So why are we making this Dev Blog?

What Went Wrong

With this philosophy, ‘powerful tradeoff’, the design space was painfully vague. All special abilities fit an easy formula:

pro + con = special

While this formula looked simple on the surface, it caused a lot of headache behind the scenes when designing special abilities. What kind of pros would be considered special enough to be, well, special? More importantly, what cons can we attach that feel meaningful, yet avoid user frustration? Going back to Dante, is the front loaded damage of 10 rapid bullets worth the 2 seconds of essentially doing nothing? This design philosophy led to a rabbit hole of player psychology around the qualities of interesting restrictions. We needed to come up with ways to punish our players while balancing the very fine line between ‘hardly a setback’, and ‘incredibly frustrating’.

This led to greater scrutiny that all specials were not made equal. Through internal and open testing, we took feedback that showed players were favoring special abilities that had no effect on their normal gameplay patterns. Marina’s special provided instant area crowd control that did wonders for her ability to peel for her allies, and the residual slow was hardly a consideration when the rest of her kit focused on supporting her team from range. Meanwhile, Noxus players were speaking out against how inconsequential her extended ability range was during her special compared to the cost of being able to reposition in fights.

More questions began to surface around the content of what can even be classified as a con, and not just the cost of casting an ability in the first place. Obviously, mana cost and ability cooldown are just inherent cons of casting basic abilities… or they were until the release of Kahlea, whose special ability’s con is tied to mana consumption. The entire idea of pro + con was already proving to be less interesting than we were hoping for, so we decided to revamp the philosophy behind special abilities entirely.

New Philosophy

In few words:

A special ability is a concise representation of the gameplay patterns relevant to a Myth's particular niche.

In more words:

Moving forward, all special abilities will be treated as the premier tool associated with their Myth. Our goal is to target new player onboarding by providing you with an accurate litmus test when discovering new Myths to try out in Ethereal. You should be able to browse the collection to find a Myth with a neat visual design, read their unique special ability, and have a good idea on whether or not that Myth will mesh well with your playstyle. We want to land on something that is true to the identity of the Myth, rather than the most powerful tool in their arsenal. Ideally, a special shouldn’t feel like a Myth’s second ultimate, and instead should feel important to their gameplay pattern as a whole.

Gone are the days of rigid pro + con design, though some Myths may still have restrictions where the design makes sense. Instead, each special ability will represent the role their Myth provides to the team, whether that be burst damage, defensive power, or long range artillery. Think of the special ability as being the splash art of the gameplay; a quick look to see if the Myth appeals to you. Let’s talk about what this means for our starting roster.

Examples

All of our changes fit into three categories: rebalance, reshuffle, and rework. To start off with an example of rebalancing, let’s take a look at our favorite gunslinger, Dante.

Removed silence from Dante RMB (Overload):

Fire 10 shots in quick succession, dealing reduced damage. After all shots have been fired, become disarmed for 2 seconds

Dante’s Overload was one of the most well-received special abilities of the starting roster, boasting unparalleled burst of any ability come late game if the player could land every shot. We didn’t feel the need to make large changes to a good ability that already fits the new philosophy, describing Dante as a quickshot, slightly arrogant marksman. Even so, players were quick to bring up the gap in logic of restricting Dante from rolling or lobbing grenades just because his pistols blew up. With the silence gone, players will gain more agency in how they use Overload, without drastically inflating its power.

Next we have reshuffles. This type of change occurred when Myths already had the perfect ability to match the new philosophy, it was just on the wrong button. We took an existing ability, swapped it with the special ability, and rebalanced both abilities to better represent the power level of their new positions.

Reshuffled Marina E (Pearl of the Ocean) and RMB (Siren Song):

RMB (Pearl of the Ocean) Shield value increased, passive defensive power when healing and shielding allies increased, charges per level changed to 1/2/3

E (Siren Song) Charm duration reduced, added cast time, removed self slow

Marina is our premier defensive enchanter, focused on keeping allies alive and healthy throughout a fight. We thought Pearl of the Ocean had every aspect necessary to tell players what she will be doing most of the time, whereas Siren Song only provided a powerful effect unrelated to her major gameplay patterns.

Finally, we have reworks. In a few cases, the special ability present did not meet our design goals for the character, either by being too restrictive or plain incongruous with the rest of the Myth’s kit. In these cases, we have introduced large-scale changes or entirely new abilities, designed explicitly with the new philosophy in mind.

Reworked Noxus RMB (Convergence):

[Toggle] Noxus roots herself in radiant energy, empowering her basic attacks to become lobbed orbs of light. These orbs benefit from greatly increased range and deal magic damage in a small area when they collide with enemies or geometry. Toggle off to end the effect.

Noxus will now rain fire upon her enemies in spectacular fashion, earning her the title of ‘artillery mage’. One thing is off about this ability, though. After this entire blog post discussing the harm of debilitating restrictions, why keep the root on Noxus? The answer is… rock, paper, scissors. Noxus is our long range mage, meant to poke enemies, clear waves, and be vulnerable to hard engage divers. By keeping a heavy restriction in the special ability, we proudly state to all players wanting to learn Noxus that she has both strengths and weaknesses, and what those qualities are. That being said, we’ve removed the lingering slow when the ability ends to help alleviate the pains of repositioning. Hopefully, this will strike the right balance between agency and counterplay.

What to Expect

We have made changes to every special ability of the starting roster, and will provide more information soon on what those changes look like. In the future, expect Myths to feature their special ability first and foremost on their ability previews. We will continue taking feedback from internal testing and open playtests to ensure this unique feature achieves its potential, and truly lives up to its name as ‘special’.

Thanks,  
Undying Games ~~