Let's talk about circles

Elijah, the Bloodied Butcher, looked out upon the arena. He was hungry. Far too hungry. And he needed something- no, someone- to eat. And fast.

There. Her. Cordelia Strange, standing a fair way off. A tad green for his liking, but a bit of salad never hurt anyone, eh?

He started towards her, cleaver in hand. Building up into a sprint, he charged down at her. Noticing him, she reacted in kind, running away from him at the same pace, flinging thorns at him as she ran.

He paid them no heed, at first. But slowly, surely, as they ran, he realized what the thorns were doing to him. Realizing too late, he turned to run but found himself rooted to the spot. Looking down, he saw that this was literally the case. Thick vines knotted around his legs, rendering him immobile.

Behind him, the Grovemother smiled. Her children would eat well tonight.

So there's a problem that's been turning up in testing. It seems pretty obvious when you think about it, but I'd somehow managed to miss it throughout development. Essentially, any fight between a ranged Templar and a melee Templar in the current system will be won by the ranged Templar. Why? Because the melee Templar will die before they get in range, while they're trying to chase down the ranger. Obviously enough, this poses a problem.


So there's several ways we could deal with this, but all of them have their downsides. I'm going to spoiler slightly in describing these, but think of it as a teaser for what is to come.

Oscar DuBain, the Adroit Duelist, looked out upon his adversary. Persephone stood opposite him, trying to judge when he'd make a move. A tense silence descended over the battlefield.
Oscar flinched forwards. A mere feint, but enough to goad his foe into action. With a rush of air, Kore formed behind him as Persephone held her distance. Just the chance he'd needed. In a deft movement, Oscar lunged forwards, closing the distance between them in mere moments, skewering Persephone on his rapier.
The Mage staggered backwards, breathing ragged. A hole in your lung tends to do that to you. In a last ditch attempt, she raised her hands, muttering an arcane chant. But he'd anticipated her. Turning, he raised his rapier, blocking and deflecting the orb of energy Kore had flung towards him, then lunged forwards once more, raising his blade for a vicious diagonal strike. As he'd anticipated, Kore had faded, leaving a surprised Persephone where she had stood moments before.
His blade descended.
The Storm Maiden fell.

The first method: Instant movement. By giving melee Templars a means of quickly closing the gap between them, the melee Templar evens the odds slightly. Unfortunately, this doesn't help poor Elijah, who's not quick or magical enough to dash or blink, and it poses other issues, like making Beatsticks less relevant, due to forcing everybody to be more mobile, taking away their unique point, and making it harder to play pure cannons due to it being impossible to kite people.

Pain. Pain is good. Pain means that you're still alive. Raul was able to take some consolation in this as he staggered to his feet, debris from the last blast settling around him. And of course, the Mad Bomber himself, Darryn King, laughing from the other side of the newly formed crater. Yeah, that's right, keep laughing while you still can.
Raul started to run forwards. Gathering his thoughts, he focused in on his hands. Darryn continued gloating, oblivious to the danger barreling towards him. Swiftly, Raul threw out his hand, snapping his fist open. Out of it blossomed a crackling wave of ice, surging out towards the Demolitionist. To Raul's relief, it struck the Bomber, entombing him in the ensorcelled frost.
Magically conjured materials aren't generally that tough, and don't generally last too long, but Raul didn't need it to. He just needed to get one good hit in. Closing the rest of the distance, Raul jumped up, pick raised overhead, and brought it down into the frozen Templar.
Darryn shattered messily across the ground.

The second method: Crowd control. If melee characters are given a way to stop ranged Templars running from the fight, such as a ranged stun or snare, they'll be able to catch up without needing to jump massive distances. Unfortunately, this still doesn't help Elijah, who hasn't any means of stunning or snaring people outside of melee range which fits flavour, and if they're already in melee range, that makes the crowd control moot point. So it's back to the drawing board.

Elijah, the Bloodied Butcher, looked out upon the arena. He was hungry. Far too hungry. And he needed something- no, someone- to eat. And fast.

There. Her. Cordelia Strange, standing a fair way off. A tad green for his liking, but a bit of salad never hurt anyone, eh?

He started towards her, cleaver in hand. Building up into a sprint, he charged down at her. Noticing him, she reacted in kind, running away from him at the same pace, flinging thorns at him as she ran.
The chase continued a short distance, thorns slowly wearing away at Elijah, when Cordelia stopped abruptly.
In front of her stood the arena walls.
The Grovemother turned to face her would-be predator, deadly blooms blossoming over her body. She wasn't going to go down without a fight.

The third method: Terrain. I know that people have been asking for this since the project began, but I never realized how vital it is. From giving people vantage points to shoot from, to creating choke points for strategic combat, to giving areas to ambush from, if need be, terrain solves a lot of the problems postulated above on its own. The issue is, it's hard to add that sort of terrain to a featureless ball. Hence, a change of direction is needed, once again.


Say goodbye to the planetoid, say hello to the Arena system. It's still in development, but here's the concept. Each Templar, in addition to their four unique abilities, bring a unique arena into the fray. In general, they'll be laid out in a fashion similar to one of the following, with their own unique thematic artwork.

...=======...    .............    ......+......    .............
.............    .....===.....    ......+......    .............
===...+...===    ..=...+...=..    ....=====....    ......+......
......+......    ..=...+...=..    ....=====....    ......+......
=============    =============    =============    =============
For  Fighters    For  Bruisers      For Novas       For Cannons            

With = being platforms, . being air, and + being a pylon, which, just as before, are the winning conditions for the game, but function slightly differently to their previous iteration. Rather than capturing all the pylons in an arbitrary order, the arenas for each Templar in a team are put into a line, horizontally, and the pylons must be captured moving forward. To explain better, here's a diagram, starring a Red Team consisting of Cordelia, Elijah and Darryn, and a Blue Team consisting of Bastion, Rebecca, and Persephone. When play begins, the map looks like this:

|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|.............|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|
|.The..Forest.|The..Abbatoir|TheLaboratory|.............|The..Statuary|.The.Barroom.|..The.Storm..|
|===...R...===|===...R...===|===...R...===|......+......|===...B...===|===...B...===|===...B...===|
|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|
|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|

While playing, you may only exit an arena if the pylon in it, or in the room you are moving to, is your team's colour. This effectively means that the only arena that both teams can enter is the central, unnamed arena. A messy initial fight occurs, after which, let's say, Team Blue has the upper hand, and successfully captures the pylon in that arena.

|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|.............|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|
|.The..Forest.|The..Abbatoir|TheLaboratory|.............|The..Statuary|.The.Barroom.|..The.Storm..|
|===...R...===|===...R...===|===...R...===|......B......|===...B...===|===...B...===|===...B...===|
|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|
|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|

At this point, the members of team Red start respawning in Cordelia's arena, The Forest. At the same time, team Blue start pushing into Darryn's arena, the Laboratory. Both teams can now enter both the Laboratory and the central arena, leading to more fights and a clear attack and defense mechanic- Blue is trying to capture the pylon in the Laboratory, whereas Red is trying to take the central pylon, so they can push into the Statuary, Bastion's arena. Let's say that Blue continues winning, and takes the Laboratory. The progression is fairly obvious:

|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|.............|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|
|.The..Forest.|The..Abbatoir|TheLaboratory|.............|The..Statuary|.The.Barroom.|..The.Storm..|
|===...R...===|===...R...===|===...B...===|......B......|===...B...===|===...B...===|===...B...===|
|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|
|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|

|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|.............|...=======...|...=======...|...=======...|
|.The..Forest.|The..Abbatoir|TheLaboratory|.............|The..Statuary|.The.Barroom.|..The.Storm..|
|===...R...===|===...B...===|===...B...===|......B......|===...B...===|===...B...===|===...B...===|
|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|......+......|
|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|=============|

By now, two interesting things are happening. First, since team Red are respawning in The Forest, which is an arena fighting is happening in, they can be back in the fight almost immediately after dying. However, team Blue, respawning in The Storm, 5 arenas away, have to run a long way before they can rejoin the battle if they die. This acts as a natural balancing mechanic. Of course, this doesn't stop our hypothetical team Blue, who capture The Forest's pylon, and win the game! Go them!

Got it?

Time for some fun stuff, then.

Each arena has a unique passive effect on it or on people inside it. Nothing massive, mostly, and they affect everyone in them reasonably equally. However, as I've demonstrated above, not everybody wants the same things. For example, let's take the Forest, Cordelia's arena. In the Forest, every time a Templar uses an ability, they have a tiny amount of health restored. Obviously enough, on people with enormous cooldowns, such as Bastion and Persephone, over in team Blue, this is not beneficial. However, on people who fire off abilities like there's no tomorrow, such as, say, Cordelia herself, it is a much more tangible benefit. All arenas have been designed in such a way to make their passive effects very beneficial to their respective Templars- it's up to the players to find synergy to make it beneficial to their entire team.

So, that's the arena system, and that's an ENORMOUS wall of text. 

Class is over. Any questions?