A few years ago we launched our Character Classes & Heroes feature allowing you to define characters in your game, populate their default loadout, and then take things one step further by creating heroes based on those classes - each hero having their own exceptions. This is a hugely powerful system, made even more powerful when connected to our existing asset and player inventory systems.
Today we have launched a brand new user interface for this feature, making it the easiest it's ever been to manage classes and heroes in your LootLocker game. In addition to that we've also taken the opportunity to refine the feature, making it more intuitive for a first time user.
Before we dive into what's different and new in this update, lets cover why this feature is so important.
Introduction to Classes
Classes are a very common mechanic in games today as it allows players to specialize or differentiate themselves from other players. This can be helpful especially in competitive games that require players to consider different classes to balance their team's compesition. Classes can increase replayabliity as well, especially when tied to separate progression systems per class.
Even if you don't have multiple Classes in your game, having a Class allows you to create a Loadout and equip items. And when it comes to equipping items, that's where our Class system really saves you time. Using Contexts and Loadouts you can easily define which Assets a player can equip, so you don't have to run any checks in-game. We handle all of that for you. All you have to do is configure it through our Web Console.
But what if you want to make a game inspired by DOTA and League of Legends and build ontop of a typical class system with further specialized Heroes. Well, that's exactly why we have Hero Classes with customizabale Exceptions!
The possibilites are endless.
Now onto what's new!
The first thing you will notice is that we've moved our original Character Classes page from the Game Settings menu to the Game Systems page. We felt that given the importance of this feature, it should be easier to locate. You will also notice that we've combined Classes and Heroes into a single menu and used our new parent menu system to nest Base Classes (previously Character Classes) and Hero Classes under.
Base Classes
Base Classes are, as they suggest, the basic class that your game supports - like a Warrior, Healer, or Wizard. Each Base Class has Equippable Contexts, Default Loadouts, and Key/Value Storage.
Equippable Contexts
Equippable Contexts allows you to define what contexts the class can equip. For example, your Warrior might be the only class to be able to equip Plate Armor.
Default Loadout
A class' Default Loadout defines what equip slots exist for the class as well as what assets the class has equipped by default when the character is newly created. Often a class-based game might start the player out with some basic armor and weapons when they create a new character in-game.
Key/Value Storage
Each class can also have key/value pairs assigned to them. These values can be updated individually on a per-player basis. This allows your game to support class-based stats which can be modifed per character instance.
Hero Classes
A Hero Class allows you to modify a Base Class' Default Loadout and equippable assets using Exceptions.
Default Loadout
As with the Base Class, the Hero's Default Loadout defines what slots the Hero can equip assets into, and what assets the Hero begins with when the character is created.
Exceptions
Exceptions lets you allow or restrict specific assets or contexts for that specific Hero Class. For example, a Hero might be based on our Warrior class from earlier, but this specific Hero cannot equip plate armor.
All together, the LootLocker Base Class and Hero Class systems are hugely powerful and make something relatively complex a lot more straightforward to grasp.
Useful Links
Here are some helpful resources to get you started implementing Base Classes and Heroes into your game.
If you have any question at all please don't hesitate to join the community on Discord.