Mythren Combat Design

In this newsletter we will be going over how Mythren’s combat design works! Jon will be taking over from here!

Hey everyone, my name is Jon and I’m the Project Lead for Mythren! This means I’m constantly steering the direction of the project so I’m in a lot of meetings haha. Beyond that, I currently tackle quite a few things on Mythren, from animation, to programming, to game design. As the combat designer, it seems fitting that I hijack this newsletter post, so let’s get started.

Every mythren’s combat design starts with figuring out their “class”. The classes can be “All-Rounder, Rushdown, Tank, Zoner, Puppeteer, Unorthodox” and many more. This helps us define the general gameplay style for each mythren. From there we start breaking out the elements that make the mythren unique like Raddapus’ poison trails.

Jabs, Heavies, and Specials

When facing your opponent, choosing the right moves will be key to setting up devastating combos. The basic set of attacks you can use are “Jabs”, “Heavies, and “Specials”. The question is, how do each of these work?

Jab

• Jabs are the tools that your character uses the most throughout the game. Each mythren has a Jab sequence (usually somewhere between 3-5 jabs), and you can mix up the timing on each jab a bit to try and bait your opponent to counter attack. If you wait long enough, your jab sequence will reset, and you can start the sequence on the first jab again.

Heavy

• Heavy attacks are slower, but usually allow a strong opening into a combo. Some heavies may only be 1 hit while others can be a sequence of attacks (1-3 heavies in a heavy sequence, usually).

Special

• Specials are unique to the character being used. Raddapus shoots poison down that he can slide on, Graccoon shoots leaves from his back, etc. Their speed will vary depending on the character that is using it, and if a character has a “special” sequence it would have a max of 2 specials.

Shield

• Shields in mythren encapsulate your entire mythren. Holding block or getting hit will make your shield lose energy. If you lose enough energy your shield will break and stay broken for a certain amount of time. Some characters also have shield break attacks, so paying attention to telegraphed attacks will be important.

Skills

• Skills serve as large combo tools, each coming with a cooldown. When activating a skill, the mythren is invincible for a certain number of frames, which means you can counter with your own skill, or dodge them. Skills beat shield, so choosing wisely which option to use to escape is key to victory. Each Mythren currently has 3 reusable skills in a battle. They can learn more than 3 of course, but you can only take 3 of them to use in a battle.

Rad Meter

• Raddapus in particular has a “Rad Meter” that changes how we approach designing skills for him. His meter fills up whenever he hits a knockup, hits a 3x hit combo, or through use of a specific skill that has the sole purpose of filling up the Rad Meter.

• Once his rad meter has at least 2 levels, he gains access to his poison explosion skill. In a radius near Raddapus, and near any of his poison trails, he creates a large explosion that knocks up enemies to extend combos. The poison explosion takes 2 levels from your Rad Meter, so with a full rad meter you can use it at least twice in a combo!

That’s it for this insight into Mythren Combat, I’ll hand it back over to Zane to give you the final bits of the newsletter!

Community

• Our Kickstarter pre-launch page is live! If you plan on backing, clicking on “get notified on launch” will greatly help us!
• While we don’t have a set time we will be having another mid month newsletter, much like this one, going over gameplay on the Wild Isles, in particular in Tokapa (Zone 1)! Likely coming after the April 2nd newsletter.
• On twitter we’ve highlighted the brand new Mythren section to the website!
  • We will be updating this as time goes on with more information on the pre-existing mythren and as well with any new mythren we reveal as time goes on!
• Community member and mod, Charlieon, created this awesome fan art of Raddapus for Zane!

• Necromancer’s Gift is currently having a Kickstarter to raise funds to finish up their roguelike take on the monster taming genre!

Thanks for reading, and make sure to join our Discord!

See you on April 2nd!