Legacy: Steel and Sorcery

• Game: Legacy: Steel and Sorcery
• Developer: Notorious Studios
• Engine: Unreal Engine 5
• Game Mode: 1-32 players
• Platforms: PC, PS5, XBSX

• Lead the Encounter Design team in the development of 15 enemies, including 4 elite and 2 boss enemies, with varied playstyles and unique abilities.
• Designed, implemented, and tuned enemy attacks, abilities, and behavior trees for every enemy in the game.
• Owned and drove the 3 Cs and Core Combat Loop.
• Created the Melee vs Ranged gameplay, defensive systems, weapon combo systems, and gear-driven perk systems that became the backbone for the game.
• Designed and implemented the Warrior and Hunter player classes, with 12 unique abilities, and 6 weapon kits before delegating them to junior designers for further development.

Overview

Legacy: Steel and Sorcery is currently in late Alpha but it's goal is to blend the intensity of Escape from Tarkov's extraction gameplay with the class based fantasy and accessability of World of Warcraft or Dungeons and Dragons. The game is primarily a PvPvE experience where players can team up against classic fantasy monsters, or engage their fellow players in lethal PvP combat.

Each class will have unique weapons, abilities, and a class specific gameplay. By making each class different, we can support many different playstyles and attract players who enjoy different genres.

My Role

As the only gameplay designers on the team, I touch every system and have worked on every prototype. I'm responsible for the melee combat system, ranged combat system, our caster classes, the combo system, defensive systems, and all class abilities. I'm also in charge of building all of the game's weapons, items, tools, and loot. My responsibilities also include building the AI for our enemies, balancing the game, making sure each class feels unique and distinct.

I support the Technical Designers with the creation of loot, the respawning system, and balancing the economy. We also brainstorm and prototype most aspects of the game and work well as a team.

I write and maintain design documents to help detail systems for the Engineering team and to assist with onboarding new team members. I also work closely with Engineering and Animation to build gameplay systems and turn raw animations into actions.

One of my design goals for Legacy: Steel and Sorcery is to make each class play in a unique way with strengths and weaknesses that the other classes can support or exploit. I also want to reduce the complexity and steep learning curve of Tarkov without removing the intensity and fun. I aim to do this by refining the goals of Tarkov's many systems and turning them into bonuses and incentives instead of just hard game-over moments when you aren't properly prepared.

• Owned the design and development of:
• Core Loop
• The 3 Cs
• Combat
• Systems
• Enemies and Encounters
• Player Progression

• Quests
• Game balance
• Game economy
• Ranged vs Melee combat
• Prototyping