Swarm like game mode/game loop

Over the last couple of week I’ve provided feedback and suggestions to both take advantage of the fact the game could be (and now should be) shown to a large amount of Web2 gamers, directly in discord. The general suggestions were:

• Que up with friends on a lobby screen.

• Select a ‘Class’, i.e tank, ranged, pyro etc.

• Ensure primary ranged weapons with low cooldown are present.

• Ability to select from a number of levels and difficulty modes.

• Significantly Decrease the cooldown of abilities.

• Have a high score leaderboard, grouped by friends/discord server, global, etc.

Over the last few days, I’ve been playing the Riot Games - League of Legends - Swarm Mode. This is FREE TO PLAY, so you can test it out right now: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/download/

It features effectively the same/similar rouge lite mechanics as Rug Busters / The Playa / Vampire Survivors. Here is some footage: https://youtu.be/nzvnioHgB0Y?t=1421 For specifics, see: https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Swarm_(League_of_Legends) + https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Swarm_(League_of_Legends)#Weapons

What is the same:

• You can que up as solo or with friends (up to 4 here)

• As you kill enemies, orbs drop, and when you pick them up, the Experience bar fills (for all team).

• On level up, you get to select from up to 3 upgrades.

• You can get 5 abilities to use.

• Upgrades are either passive bonuses (health, armor, health regen, damage, movement speed). OR upgrades to your weapon abilities.

Key differences between The Playa/SoulBound and Swarm Mode:

• There are a number of champions you can select at the start, these are based on LOL champs. Similar to the ‘classes’ I suggested.

  • Each champion has their own ‘passive’. For example Jinx gets a huge movement speed and ability cooldown reduction (decaying) each time they kill 75 enemies.

  • Each champion has their first weapon set specifically to them, and it is unlocked instantly. For example, Jinx shoots her gun every second or so, where as some melee champs might hit the ground similar to our current primary weapons. These primary weapons also can be upgraded.

  • The upgrade path is linear for each weapon, between 1-5 (+6 discussed below). Each upgrade adds multiple benefits, such as increased damage/range/frequency/duration/reduced cooldown/area, etc—-depending on what it is.

  • Each weapon has a passive that is linked to it, that will allow you to evolve it to level 6 if you have that passive, and are on level 5 + level up. This evolves it to a super effect, with better looking graphics, and it modifies slightly how it works (adds 1 or more extra effects). For example there is an item like the Ice cube, the level 6 effect also adds a shield to the user, slows them first, then freezes them (I think, something like that).

  • Therefore each champion will try to take specific items that synergies with their passive, primary weapon, and 2 extra abilities.

  • Each champion also has 2 set abilities. For example Jinx shoots a barrage of rockets with her E (like a 5-10 second cooldown), and her ult (R) is a HUGE AOE rocket with a 60 second cooldown.

  • The combination of all of these allows for significantly different playstyle depending on what champion you are playing. There are also supports who do speedup/shield in AOE to team for example.

  • You start with 2 champions available, and unlock others based on specific achievements

  • You can collect gold in the game.

  • You have passive upgrades you can buy, which exponentially increase in cost. These are done in the lobby, and slowly upgrade you account over time. You unlock better passive upgrades based on achievements also.

  • Whoever is the lobby owner can select whatever is the highest level they have defeated + 1.

  • The story mode has 5 ‘maps’, and then you unlock a hard mode, and then extreme mode.

  • There is a large variety of enemies from high quantity low health canon fodder, to medium level tanks who charge you slowly, to mini bosses, then larger bosses, and finally the final boss per map. Killing the larger bosses gives you an upgrade card.

  • The difficulty starts slow, but it scales up pretty fast, and by 14 minutes you are barely hanging on.

  • If someone dies, you can stand on a circle to respawn them, OR they wait x seconds to re-spawn. Each time the same person dies, they get an exponentially longer re-spawn time. If all team members die, it’s GG.

  • There are ‘events’, which give you a challenge, and if you beat it, you get a bonus. This is called a battle bunny boon, and gives you some cool effect for a period of time, plus an upgrade card, gold, experience orbs.

  • Each map has various things to do, such as bring something to a cannon to shoot for you, or trigger something to freeze all enemies in an area. Each map is different, but pretty big. Maybe takes 1 minute to run from end to end.

  • No enemies run off the screen, they all follow their pattern (doing things in an area), or just run to the nearest enemy.

  • The final boss is spawned after you survive 15 minutes.

  • The final boss is very crazy, fun, and tough (depending on what difficulty, your progression and skill).

  • Overall, you feel VERY powerful and empowered to make a difference in this game mode. People can also make a choice as to their gameplay style, which is very varied: https://u.gg/lol/swarm/build/swarm-builds

OVERALL:

I think Soulbound already has the core mechanics of this game mode already built. However, I think the fun factor could be multiplied significantly AND attract widespread appeal with Web2 gamers, especially in discord, if they were to implement similar changes to the above. My friends who play 20+ hours of games per week have been loving this game mode, and playing it daily since it came out recently.

I highly recommend all community members and team members spend a few hours playing this game and see how you feel.

The winning of the discord competition is the opportunity to put a web3 game on the map, and break into mainstream!

Pressing Tab will show on the left what abilities link to what passives:

Plus your current base stats: