Wayfinder
Wayfinder is a 3rd person action MMO featuring randomized dungeons, massive open-world zones, hundreds of unique creatures to fight, and much more.
Role: Lead Encounter Designer
Team: Airship Syndicate, 100 employees
Duration: April 2021- January 2024
Engine: Unreal 4
Release: August 17th, 2023 on Steam, Playstation 4 and 5
Responsibilities
Content Design
Primary Designer in charge of Encounters throughout Wayfinder, nearly 100 in-game Events, and multiple World Bosses.
Prototyped, iterated, and shipped 350+ Encounters and 95+ Events
Implemented an endgame World Boss with more in active development
Established core pillars, features, and systems that defined and improved the Event system
Worked with our community team to determine areas of the Live game to improve based on player feedback
Lead Role
Pushed the boundaries of Encounters in Wayfinder to bring more life and variety to the game.
Established best practices for Encounter implementation
Worked with all departments to ship major milestones at a high quality
Drove the primary Design forward for Wayfinder's upcoming, and first, 6-player Raid
Mentored multiple Associate to Mid-level Designers
Assisted with the development of best practices and design philosophies for Live Service/Free to Play development
At a Glance
I’ve spent a significant amount of time designing and implementing Encounters, Events, Creatures, and more. Below I detail out some of the processes and tools I’ve utilized to deliver content alongside challenges and problems I’ve helped solve throughout the game.
Encounter Design
Summary
A major responsibility I had at Airship is utilizing nearly 200 different Creatures for players to fight across 4 Randomized Dungeons and 2 Open World zones in new and interesting ways. I made over 350 unique encounters that spawn passively via Level Generation or through specific Events players choose to participate in. I also spent time working with Designers and Engineers to establish new tools to implement dynamic encounters that bring life to the world of Wayfinder.
Major Initiatives
In my Lead role I heavily pursued new ways to engage players with our Creature roster via the following methods:
Implemented Faction War Encounters where 2 types of opposing Creature factions engage in combat with each other.
This immediately made both Randomized Dungeons and Open World zones feel alive in specific sections where these Encounters are allowed to spawn.
I worked with the Creature team to identify core Faction tags that control who and when creatures can fight each other alongside new tools that enabled designers to override Faction behaviors for scripted scenarios.
Improved our spawn behavior types for varied types of Encounters.
95% of all Encounters in Wayfinder either live as existing enemies occupying a space or enemies spawning on top of the player. To address this we moved to Spawn Closet behaviors, Ambient + Reinforcement Encounters, the standard Teleport spawn in most Encounters, and the Faction Wars from above.
I worked with our Engineers to implement the functionality and toolsets Designers could use to easily create Encounters with varied spawn behaviors. I collaborated with the Level Design team to identify creatures that would best use Spawn Closets and begin updating old tile sets with physical closet locations.
Ensured Designers are implementing Encounters with replayability in mind.
Combat focused Events should have multiple Encounters to choose from when any wave spawns in. This helps rotate the creature variety and keep players on their toes.
Better tools!
Worked closely with Engineers and Designers to find what isn’t working, what’s missing, and what’s confusing to improve our Encounter toolset to deliver better content, faster.
I spoke with Designers from all departments to identify core workflow issues, such as an overload of repeated functionality throughout our Encounter system that caused confusion, the lack of tools to create scripted scenarios, and more. I worked out timelines with our Engineers to improve and add to the Encounter system over time and created support docs for Designers to reference all new functionality and system changes.
The Details
Wayfinder encounters are generally categorized into two types: Passive Encounters that are randomly chosen via Level Generation to spawn throughout an Open World or Randomized Dungeon or Event Encounters specifically designed for different Events. Both types of encounters share similarities and tools to achieve success but the approach to them differs.
Passive Encounters Process Breakdown
Passive Encounters utilize multiple levers to deliver varied outcomes. The initial process typically breaks down like this:
Level Designers create dozens of Tiles that will randomly generate together to create a cohesive Randomized Dungeon.
During this process they are designing spaces for Encounters to spawn in, ranging from Small - Huge footprints, and getting a first pass placement of Encounter Managers.
I start working with the Creature team to identify what our core Creatures for the new Randomized Dungeon will be.
We’ll come up with a list of different Factions of Creatures, identify how much physical space they will need to successfully spawn and fight in any given tile, and determine which sub-zones they are allowed to spawn in.
Myself, and the Creature team, setup the initial Creature Blueprints for everything immediately. We use these initial BPs, which may have existing Creatures used as a proxy, to start spawning in the tiles. As the Creature team begins building the new content it’ll automatically update into our Encounters.
I’d begin setting up our Encounter Enemy Set Tables for each sub-zone, which each hold specific Creatures. Typically each Randomized Dungeon is broken down into 3 sub-zones. For instance, the Aurelian Ruins is comprised of 3 zones; The Codex Halls, The Undercroft, and The Repository of Knowledge.
Each of these sub-zones have a mix of specific Creatures that can only spawn in their zone and shared Creatures that can spawn across multiple zones.
I’d track which Creatures can spawn in which sub-zone using a comprehensive Excel sheet called the Enemy Matrix. A screenshot of portion of the matrix is listed to the right
Example of Encounters that can spawn in the Reaver Woods. Designers create a variety of Encounters using the Enemy Set from above alongside configurable data you’ll see below.
The Enemy Matrix is a source of truth for where Creatures will spawn without needing to open Unreal 4. Multiple teams use this for tracking additional things like Loot, Event/Quest Creature variants, and Lore Names.
Solo fight against the Talon of Pyre in the Live build.
Meteor Smash Ability
Fire Blast Ability
DPS Phase Check Ability
Event Design
Summary
One of my largest contributions to Wayfinder is creating a variety of Events for players to experience while establishing core pillars, working with engineers to improve our systems, and assisting Associate to Mid-level Event Designers to implement and polish their work.
The Challenges
How do we make repeatable content that can spawn in nearly any Tile in any Randomized Dungeon and is fun on the first playthrough and the 100th? We also needed to work within specific constraints such as ensuring all Events are enjoyable Solo or in Multiplayer and balance each Randomized Dungeon with enough Event variety to encourage players to play more.
The Solutions
I assisted in establishing a few core pillars for Events:
Emphasize player choice
Utilize items, World Modifiers, or hidden interactions that affect the gameplay and outcome for an Event
Support optional objectives players can work towards to complete the Event
Design with randomization and replayability in mind
Design combat heavy Events with varied Encounters and Minibosses to fight
Create Event Variants with randomized changes for players to encounter
Reinforce core game loops
Rewards are a powerful tool players will return to an Event to acquire
Provide areas where players can use their toolkit to achieve success (Ziplines, Double Jumps, etc.)
Create unique and memorable moments
Focus on quality over quantity for all Events
Feature gameplay and interactions that a typical Quest or Level Design cannot deliver
These pillars define what Events in Wayfinder are with each Event needing to fulfill, at minimum, 1 of the core pillars. The more complex and Event the easier it is to fulfill more pillars. In the next section I breakdown my work for a few Events and specifically callout which pillars each Event fulfills.
Event Breakdowns
I’ve captured a few videos showcasing Events in our Open World and one of our Randomized Dungeons in the Live game. I’m using an endgame character and build to get quick videos.
Open World Events
Sphere of Influence
Sphere of Influence is a mid-content level Event that can spawn in a variety of spots throughout the Open World. The Event features combat against the Gloom, the main antagonists Wayfinders continuously fight throughout the game.
It starts out with a Dark Star meteor falling from the sky and impacting the play space. This immediately creates a Gloom Bubble around it, infecting creatures in the area to become Gloomtouched (making them stronger and a pawn for the Gloom faction). Players need to defeat waves of creatures to weaken a shield covering the Dark Star meteor to slowly destroy it. Upon destruction a custom miniboss emerges as the finale fight for the Event.
The primary goals for this Event were:
Introduce a flashy Event via objects falling from the sky and assets that take up a large footprint to draw players towards.
Include custom minibosses players will want to farm to acquire custom loot from.
Showcase the Gloom as an ongoing threat to the world of Wayfinder.
Fill empty spaces throughout the Zone with a larger event like this.
The Event required a lot of custom scripting to control the entrance of the Meteor into the play space alongside controlling the state of it based on player progression. It also required a custom timer to track how long the Event has existed in the play space. If it has been active, with no player interaction, for too long it’ll auto-cleanup and despawn; opening the play space up for new Events to spawn.
I setup 12 possible custom Gloom Encounters, 3 assigned to each wave, that increased in difficulty slightly. Each wave randomly picks from it’s 3 assigned Encounters to provide extra variety to the event.
Core pillars fulfilled:
Design with randomization and replayability in mind (Event features randomized Encounters to face)
Reinforce core game loops (Players receive powerful rewards on Event completion and have chase items to grind via the miniboss)
Create unique and memorable moments (Meteor falling from the sky is unique and memorable alongside fighting the Gloom)
Sphere of Influence playthrough in the Live build.
Gloom Tear
Gloom Tear is an early to mid-content level Event that features the Gloom forces invading the area.
Players start the event by optionally ripping the Gloom Tear portal open. After this they need to defeat 3 waves of Gloom forces before the Tear stabilizes and they can enter. Upon entering, players are teleported to a mini-dungeon where one of two minibosses will spawn. Defeating it will grant players access to a floating island of loot before they teleport back into the main section of the Open World. This Event features a hidden Heroic mode that changes which miniboss you fight inside the mini-dungeon!
The primary goals for this Event were:
Send players into a Gloom themed mini-dungeon which became the first Gloom tileset introduced to players outside of the Tutorial.
This was also an excellent opportunity to setup tech to teleport players to new locations within an Open World.
Introduce a hidden Heroic mode for players to find.
In the video you’ll see I kill 6 floating orbs during the 3rd wave of combat. Killing these orbs before defeating the main wave of Gloom spawns the Heroic miniboss, the Heart Ripper. However, if players kill the main wave of Gloom enemies before defeating the orbs, the Heroic miniboss does not spawn and the normal miniboss does.
Include custom minibosses players will want to farm to acquire custom loot from.
Showcase the Gloom as an ongoing threat to the world of Wayfinder.
Similar to Sphere of Influence, Gloom Tear features multiple waves of Gloom creatures to fight before progressing to a custom miniboss. Each wave of this Event utilized multiple Encounters to choose from to provide additional variety.
Setting up the teleportation logic in a clean, replicated, manor was the most difficult challenge. I worked with an Engineer at the studio to define a clean way to clear out player respawn points, properly teleport them hundreds of thousands of units away from the Open World into this mini-dungeon, and implement fail safes to kick players out of the mini-dungeon if they spent too long in it after the Event was completed.
The mini-dungeon was a collaborative effort between myself and the Level Designer assigned to the. I had a few primary goals to achieve with this playspace:
Add traversal mechanics to arrive at the boss arena.
It’s a combat focused event and I wanted to have a little downtime between waves of combat and miniboss fight.
Ensure the final block in the traversal section could phase in and out, otherwise a ranged player could safely sit on the block and cheese the fight.
Keep the mini-dungeon small enough to see the miniboss at the end of the blockout and quick enough to reach if someone teleported in late or died.
Present the player with loot they need to physically pick up vs being auto granted to.
We went with a floating loot island that players have access to after defeating one of the bosses.
Core pillars fulfilled:
Emphasize player choice (Hidden Heroic mode gives players the choice to activate it to chase new loot/rewards)
Design with randomization and replayability in mind (Event features randomized Encounters to face)
Reinforce core game loops (Players receive powerful rewards on Event completion and have chase items to grind via the miniboss alongside using traversal mechanics to reach the miniboss)
Create unique and memorable moments (Teleporting quickly to a Gloom dungeon)
Gloom Tear playthrough in the Live build.
Players need to traverse a simple chasm comprised of floating blocks to reach the Miniboss Arena.
Originally the Gloom Tear Event featured one loot island, outlined in Green. In V0.2 I added a secondary loot island that is accessible only by activating and defeating the Heroic version of the Event.
Summoning Rites
Summoning Rites is a mid-content level Event featuring Goblin Shamans attempting to take control of a Radiant creature!
The Event features 3 unique Radiant (golden/yellow in appearance) minibosses that are randomly chosen when it spawns in for players to fight. Players need to defeat each Goblin Shaman channeling magic into the Radiant miniboss before time runs out. While channeling, the Goblin Shamans take significantly reduced damaged and break from their channel after one of the previously unlocked Shamans has died. After two are defeated, the Radiant miniboss unlocks for players to fight.
The primary goals for this Event were:
Create a flashy event that draws the attention of the player while also giving life to the Goblin creature faction.
Include custom minibosses players will want to farm to acquire custom loot from.
Overall, Summoning Rites was a fairly simple Event to implement. Outside of the usual Encounter work and Event setup, I also setup the custom Goblin Shamans that are mostly immune to damage, do not perceive the player, and unlock into full AI after players progress through the Event. This required a new Gameplay Ability that is triggered on Spawn and a Gameplay Effect that reduced their incoming damage multiplier.
Core pillars fulfilled:
Design with randomization and replayability in mind (Event features randomized Minibosses to face)
Reinforce core game loops (Players receive powerful rewards on Event completion and have chase items to grind via the minibosses)
Create unique and memorable moments (Golden minibosses and Goblins using magic are rarely featured outside of this Event)
Summoning Rites playthrough in the Live build.
The 3 minibosses in Summoning Rites. Each creature has custom loot for players to chase!
Randomized Dungeon Events
Tracer
Tracer is an Event that can spawn in any of the 3 Randomized Dungeons found in the Aurelian Ruins. The Event gives all players items that feed into more complex Events found in different Randomized Dungeons.
I initially inherited Tracer from a previous Designer on the project and found ways to maximize variety as much as possible. The Event itself is very simple, players opt into the Event by interacting with the terminal and proceed to defeat waves, or sometimes a singular wave, of enemies. Upon completing combat the terminal releases a Tracer item to use in the Decoder Event.
Since this Event can spawn in every area of the Ruins, one major goal I had was to add variety via Encounters and rewards to each version:
Codex Halls
Players will only fight Goblins when interacting with this Event via 2 different Event variants.
Variant 1: Waves of Goblins attack the player
Variant 2: The terminal is already activated and a single wave of Goblins and a Fire Elemental are protecting it
Players always receive 1 Tracer for completion.
Undercroft
Players will 50/50 coinflip fight Goblins or Remnant Creatures
Players always receive 1 Tracer, but have a chance for it to drop multiple, and a very low chance the Tracer is fully replaced with a Data Fragment item. This item is used in the Facsimile event.
Repository of Knowledge
Players will only fight Remnants via 2 different Event variants.
Variant 1: Traditional waves of Remnant Creatures to fight
Variant 2: Terminal is activated and Remnant Creatures are fighting each other for control of it. Defeat the single wave to complete the Event.
Players have a high chance to receive multiple Tracers and multiple Data Fragments.
Core pillars fulfilled:
Design with randomization and replayability in mind (Event features randomized Encounters to face alongside different Variants that can randomly spawn in with new outcomes and behaviors)
Reinforce core game loops (players receive specific items that fuel their choices in later Dungeon runs)
Tracer Event Variant 1 playthrough in the Live build.
High level Encounters setup for Single Player and Multiplayer scenarios in the Tracer Event.
One Player Basic Encounter
One Player Advanced Encounter
Decoder
Decoder uses the Tracer item to activate and complete it. Players need to place, at minimum, one Tracer item into deposit stations to start the Event. They can place up to an additional 2 more Tracers to increase the difficulty of the Event and receive better rewards.
Decoder can only show up in Undercroft and the Repository of Knowledge and players exclusively fight Remnant Creatures. This Event has 2 variants:
Variant 1: Players place up to 3 Tracers and fight multiple waves of enemies. The waves increase in difficulty based on how many Tracers placed. If players place all 3 Tracers they will fight a custom miniboss at the end of the waves called the Cryptographer.
Players receive 1 Data Fragment item for each Tracer placed.
Variant 2: A custom miniboss, the Third Keeper, protects the Decoder stations with Tracers already placed. Players do NOT need to place any Tracers and need to only kill the Third Keeper, and occasionally Remnants fighting the miniboss.
Players receive 3 Data Fragment items.
Overall, the design goal for Tracer and Decoder (and Facsimile, which is listed below) was to provide items to fuel players into Event participation. It also helped make the Ruins feel more alive with the Remnant creatures constantly trying to protect and use their Tracers and Fragments before Wayfinders can get to them.
Core pillars fulfilled:
Emphasize player choice (Players choose to place up to 3 items to start the Event)
Design with randomization and replayability in mind (Specific Encounters setup with specific Minibosses for players to repeat alongside different Variants that can randomly spawn)
Reinforce core game loops (players receive specific items that fuel their choices in later Dungeon runs)
Create unique and memorable moments (An entire tile dedicated to holding this Event)
Decoder Event Variant 2 playthrough in the Live build.
Shortly before the V0.2 content update players provided feedback that they could not find Memory Fragment pickups easily. I used Decoder to introduce 5 pickups for players to grab which are available even if player choose to not opt into the Event.
Data has shown players consistently grab these pickups alongside partaking in the Event more frequently.
Facsimile
Facsimile is an exclusive to the Repository of Knowledge and is one of the most complex Events found in Wayfinder. Players need to deposit 1 Data Fragment from the Decoder Event and will face waves of Radiantly buffed creatures before fighting 1 of 8 custom minibosses. Facsimile also features a hidden Heroic mode and hidden bonus minibosses based on which Dungeon Modifier was applied by a player before entering the Repository of Knowledge.
The Event lives on a custom tile and requires 1 Data Fragment to start. Upon start, players will fight 2-3 waves of Radiant creatures, all of which have a buff and increase in difficulty each wave. Each Data Fragment corresponds to a specific miniboss the player will fight:
Bear Fragment: Radiant Warbear. (Giant Bear)
Spider Fragment: Radiant Broodmother. (Giant Spider)
Ichor Fragment: Radiant Vaelor’s Blood (Giant Slime).
Goblin Fragment: Radiant Goblin Shaman + army.
Turtle Fragment: Radiant Highlands Horror (Giant Turtlesaur).
In addition to these 5 base minibosses to fight, if players entered the Randomized Dungeon with any Solar or Greed Dungeon Modifier active, a 2nd or 3rd miniboss will spawn:
Solar Modifier: Arclight Fire Elemental.
Greed Modifier: Arclight Deceiver.
Solar + Greed based Modifier combo: Fight both of the above at once.
And finally, the hidden Heroic mode presents another miniboss players will fight if they activate it. I showcase how to do this in the video by rotating all 4 statues to point towards the center of the arena. After doing this players can start the Event as usual, but one of the basic waves of Radiant creatures will be replaced with the Heroic miniboss. Some more detailed outcomes for the Heroic mode:
Players fight Commander Rigor and his army.
An AOE hazard spawns randomly throughout the Heroic Event. There are 6 spots throughout the tile it will spawn before blasting the area with damage.
Players can access to a cutout section of the side libraries. Here they gain extra loot and can place more items into a deposit point for additional loot.
The design goal for this Event was to maximize variety while giving players the power to choose what they want to fight. Each miniboss has custom loot which has encouraged players to re-run this Randomized Dungeon dozens of times to collect all of the loot from each one. Facsimile also acts as a great source of XP to gain, as minibosses provide the most XP per kill in any Randomized Dungeon.
Implementation wise, I worked very closely with our Worldbuilding team to design an arena to house the fight alongside places to put loot. On the scripting side I put a lot of effort into ensuring the different possible outcomes all worked correctly and kept the time to complete the Event around 5 minutes total. The Creature team and I collaborated on which creatures would be interesting to add as minibosses and each one received at least 1 new ability to use exclusively in this Event. I worked closely with our progression designer as well to include meaningful rewards and XP payouts to encourage replayability.
Core pillars fulfilled:
Emphasize player choice (Hidden Heroic mode gives players the choice to activate it to chase new loot/rewards alongside players choosing which item to start the Event with)
Design with randomization and replayability in mind (With 8 minibosses tied to specific items, Dungeon Modifiers, and the Heroic mode players have many reasons to replay the Event)
Reinforce core game loops (Players receive powerful rewards through normal and Heroic Event completion alongside each miniboss having custom loot to chase)
Create unique and memorable moments (An entire tile dedicated to this Event alongside a hidden Heroic mode and multiple custom minibosses to fight)
Facsimile playthrough in the Live build.
Shortly before the V0.2 content update players provided feedback that they could not find Memory Fragment pickups easily. I used Facsimile to introduce 6 pickups (one not pictured here) for players to collect. These are all available without opting into the Event and 4 are placed near the hidden Heroic mode.
Data has shown players are activating the Heroic mode more frequently as a result of this addition.
With the V0.2 content update I also expanded the Heroic loot room, which players access by defeating the Heroic mode. Here we have additional Memory Fragments placed alongside a new loot transaction point (the middle object with the hologram).
Players exchange items from Tracer and Decoder for bonus loot rolls in the form of Gold, Memory Fragments, and more.
After getting the Enemy Matrix and initial Enemy Sets done I’d move onto these steps:
Create Encounter Data Tables to hold every possible Encounter that can/will spawn in each specific Randomized Dungeon.
The Encounters themselves are singular entries in the data table and are almost entirely setup as a singular wave of enemies that spawn into the Randomized Dungeon for players to fight. All respawning waves of enemies come directly from Events, never the Passive Encounters.
Each Encounter utilizes a variety of options to create them, some examples are:
Difficulty - Easy, Normal, Hard, Advanced
Weight - 1 to 100 chance of spawning. Uses a bag of marbles selection, so 100 = 100 marbles in the bag with every other Encounter putting it’s own marbles in.
Enemy Set reference - Which enemies are we spawning and can optionally choose specific ones (which is 95% of all Passive Encounters) or use a Budget system.
Budget system is usually reserved for Events, but enables designers to simply pick an overall Enemy Set and assign a total Budget of enemies to spawn in using the Set. They can optionally set which types of enemies they’d like based on AI class tags which are valued as following:
Mini-Fodder = 1 budget
Fodder = 2 budget
Solder = 5 budget
Brute = 15 budget
Elite = 40 budget
Create the World Encounter Parameter entries which link to the Enemy Set, Encounter Tables, and Tiles created in the process above.
Everything above plugs into Level Generation to fill the Randomized Dungeon with random Encounters based on their size, difficulty, and weights. A typical Randomized Dungeon has between 25-60 possible Encounters to choose from!
Designers utilize the Enemy Set tables I setup to populate their own scripted Encounters. The goal was to reuse as many of the base Encounter tables/assets as possible to minimize bugs and time spent creating and upkeeping new assets.
Event Encounters
Event Encounters are hand-crafted to fit the intended design of the Event in question. I later detail out a few examples of Encounters in Events I’ve made, but generally speaking they:
Usually feature waves of enemies to defeat instead of a single wave of enemies
Waves increase in difficulty as the Event and Encounters are progressed
Reuses Encounter assets, like Enemy Sets, to rapidly create gameplay
World Boss Design
The Problem
Our only Open World zone on launch didn’t have any planned endgame content for players to engage in and we needed something to bring players back after reaching max level. This content also needed to contain a source of loot/progression for players to acquire over time.
The Solution
I prototyped a World Boss, named Talon of Pyre, to populate into a specific corner of our Open World that contained loot drops necessary to craft 2 different Weapons. The Boss initially spawned as a passion project of mine just before Wayfinder launched as I’m a huge fan of massive, high level, creatures existing in huge zones in games. To accomplish this within scope, I amped up an existing creature with new abilities, worked with Level Design to create an arena to fight it, and collaborated with VFX, Animation, and Progression teams to finalize it all.
Talon of Pyre was created off our base Fire Elemental creature. I scaled it up, gave it new stats, and created a custom Event to spawn it into the world every 2 hours. It initially didn’t offer anything the base creature already had.
Internally the fight received positive feedback, but the general consensus was “I wish it had more!” As a result, this was my first deep dive into Creature creation/design on Wayfinder and made a few custom abilities:
Meteor Smash
Talon of Pyre reaches up into the sky and targets up to 6 nearby players. Each player receives an AOE indicator attached to them that expires in 3s. After 1.5s the AOE detaches, giving players enough time to dash out of the indicator before the meteor spawns dealing heavy damage.
A design goal for this specific ability was to target ranged players and pressure them when they were not within melee range of the Boss.
Fire Blast
Periodically the Talon of Pyre will wind up a massive Fire Blast that deals heavy damage to players caught in it. This ability originally existed on the base Fire Elemental creature, but I increased the size of it and reworked it to feel better as a player to interact with. Originally the ability had mistimed damage application compared to it’s outgoing visuals alongside bugs where damage regions existed too long after the ability ended.
DPS Phase Check
The final major ability is a custom DPS Check at the end of the fight. When the Talon of Pyre reaches 10% or less HP it will enter this phase. I re-used assets from the Fire Blast to create a multi-wave blast of damage that fired every 5s. If players failed to defeat Pyre in 30s the boss would self-kill itself and release a massive explosion that killed all nearby players.
A design goal for this ability was to provide a clear moment in time for players to utilize their Ultimate abilities to rapidly burst the boss down. A Wingrave Ultimate can negate the outgoing damage from the blasts, Kyros Ultimate can easily chunk down a few percentage points of health, etc.
With Ranged combat being a very prevalent choice in Wayfinder, I needed to find a way to stop players from sitting on top of minor geometry or outside the arena and cheese the fight. The answer to this is the massive ring of fire asset that blocks all projectiles from crossing it, effectively eliminating any chance for ranged players to sit outside of it and cheese the fight. It also applies a flat DoT that deals 75 damage to players every 5s. This small DoT is inconsequential to endgame players while seriously hurting or killing low level players; both of which were the intended outcomes for this fight.
Now that the fight had interesting mechanics, and ways to prevent player cheese, it was time to give reasons for an endgame player to come and participate in the fight. The answer to this: Weapon part drops. This boss drops items that are necessary to craft the Hellswarm Shotgun and Titan’s Bane 2-handed Sword. These loot drops, alongside some additional drops players find valuable like crafting resources and stat-based items, proved successful in bringing players back to engage in the fight. Endgame players routinely return every 2 hours when this boss spawns to fight it and get 1 step closer to crafting or progressing their Weapons.
I wanted to give a narrative element to this creature existing in the world and utilized some in-game lore to accomplish this, alongside a questline developed by the Quest team. Goblin Shamans, a type of goblin that shoots fireballs at players, have the ability to rarely spawn a Fire Elemental if two of them are in an Encounter. I decided to play into this element and created beefier versions of the Shaman and spawned 3 of them into the fight alongside Talon of Pyre. Goal was to showcase 3 Shamans are able to spawn their ultimate weapon! The Quest team introduced a questline that has players killing goblins, participating in the Summoning Rites event (detailed later), and culminating with a fight against Talon of Pyre. This questline is available at a low level and provides additional narrative insight into the events alongside a reason to return to the zone once reaching new levels!
Example of a Faction War Encounter in action. Two factions of Creatures battle until a player gains threat.
Example of an Enemy Set. Designers can easily reference any Enemy Set to quickly setup Encounters with accurate information.
Enemy Sets contain creatures of the same faction, their Class rank, references to their Blueprint assets, and contain Spawn Behavior overrides.
Examples of the configurable data available. Designers typically leave the “Wave Positioning” info in the right screenshot as default for all Passive Encounters, but heavily modify it for their Event Encounters.
