Dark forces threaten the fate of the world, but you are not alone! Summon an army of unique Gods and Heroes from distinct cultures to create your own elite team. You can then enhance their abilities with powerful new skills, unlock their iconic weapons, and strengthen them for epic battles.
From April 2021 to April 2022, I was a Game Designer at IGG Canada, taking on senior responsibilities to push out one of the most ambitious and internationally-reaching projects I’ve had the honour of being a part of.
As one of the few Systems and Gameplay designers at the company, I oversaw several of the core gameplay, progression, and monetization systems present within Mythic Heroes, including but not limited to:
I was the sole designer of this system, from the UI/UX wire-frames, to each Beast’s unique skills, to the difficulty of each level and the amount of resources dropped.
Based on our goalposts for player progression, I also balanced the difficulty of each boss using data structures in Excel. Due to the “auto-battle” nature of this game, the data structures had to encompass various damage formulas and preset / desired values to create the ideal combat pacing / result.
Each Zodiac Beast is split into 10+ levels with ascending difficulty. Each skillset is designed to provide unique challenges:
Draco requires high mobility to escape from the constant pursuit of a Debuff-stacking tornado.
Ankaa has a revival mechanic that requires high burst or healing reduction at key moments.
Baihu has a single target execution, requiring invincibility skills and shielding.
Genbu requires high attack speed to break its shell. The longer you wait the more powerful he becomes.
Chimaera unleashes a devastating team wipe when 5 ultimate skills are activated.
One of my favourite parts of this experience was having in-depth discussions with the animators, giving heavy input on how the skills I designed should look, and eventually seeing them come to life.
While I was solely responsible for the system design, UI/UX wire-frames, Boss skills and balancing/tuning, I had many heated discussions with the Lead Designer and Creative Director on its direction and goal, as well as the nuances of its mechanics.
The Wardragon is a 2-day, reoccurring Raid Boss for all members of the Guild to challenge. This system also includes an auto-adjusting difficulty scale - based on the Guild’s combined damage at the end of the event, the Wardragon will either: increase, remain the same, or drop in difficulty.
Some of the biggest challenges were:
normalizing the DPS of newbies vs veterans in an exponentially growing damage system
designing and balancing reward tiers for participants based on performance
Each problem was tackled and solved through focused design discussions with the team and creative director.
I was the system / UI/UX wire-frame designer.
These leaderboards encompass every single game mode, and collect a massive amount of user data.
Through a series of automated filters, the millions of data points are stripped to their most relevant variables, then compiled to create a list of all Heroes and their final popularity “Rating”, for each game mode in question.
Team compositions, equipped skills and gear are also compiled and displayed to best guide the players.
Despite being perhaps the most challenging system I’ve worked on thus far, I’m confident that in its current state, it portrays an accurate reflection of player data, whilst having the option to be influenced and tweaked based on company or stakeholder requests.
This system alone went through more than 6 revisions and optimizations before it even went online- with constant tweaks to the data collected, as well as the complex equations from which the final popularity “Rating” is produced.
Limited Summon Pool
Optimizing the Limited Summon to include a “player-selected” Hero for better quality of life and increased desire to spend.
New Hero Evolution
Battlepass-style system that unlocks rewards and IAP bundles based on Hero progression.
On top of core systems that are still present within the live version of the game, I was also responsible for a majority of the combat tuning (especially with regards to Boss-style battles), Hero and Boss skill design/balance, and new data points to be collected from users for a better understanding of their spending habits.
One of our core progression systems, Divinity, includes the option to unlock new skills from 3 talent trees.
I provided a few skill designs and performed many balancing passes for the entire system.