Total War: Arena Developer Interview (Elliott Lock)

I don't think we've got any stock footage or anything from this. It would have to be purely audio at the moment because obviously it's closed alpha. So we're in a really, really early stage of the game. So, yeah, like I said previously, we're taking on a lot of feedback right now. We're really just trying to analyse the situation, the status quo. Every day the build's changing quite heavily as we take on a lot of feedback. The game is going to be sort of approached as a service rather than a sort of pre-packaged game. So obviously it's free to play. But as we take on feedback, we're going to kind of shape the game depending on what the community wants. So we're going to be listening to the community week by week and sort of taking in the feedback and patching the game appropriately to make sure it's suiting kind of what everyone wants, what everyone wants to see, what everyone wants to feel. So it's going to be an endless kind of project, if you like. So do you mind if you introduce yourself and say what your role is? You're a developer for the Total War Arena? Yeah, sorry, my name's Elliot Locke. I'm a designer on Total War Arena. Mainly I focus on the battle mechanics and battle development. Also I've got a hand in the front end, the meta game and how you progress. But at the moment really our main focus is the battles. We want to make those as strong as possible because that's where the core gameplay is. So if this is the first foray for Total War into this type of genre, what sort of previous games are you using as sort of benchmarks or targets? To be honest, we're looking at all of them and just sort of seeing what's done well, what's done right and what suits our game. One of the important things is we don't want to move away from what Total War is. It's a Total War game, it's important and it sticks to Total War pillars and it doesn't break into the sort of concepts that aren't acceptable for Total War basically. We mentioned, we talked about earlier about how important flanking is, how important positioning is, how important the makeup of your army is, it's rock, paper, scissors, etc. All of that needs to hold strong and if it's not holding strong, then we change the game, we shape it, we correct it. Like I say, it's an ongoing service and we'll keep making sure that it's working. Yeah, we're going to approach it like that really. Okay, and then right when we hop into the game, I assume you all start, once you get this, it's free to play with a base level? Yep, so you all start on Tier 1 and at the moment there's 10 tiers. So you start with a commander which is generated at random, so we'll give you a random commander at the start. In this example, you've got Germanicus. You can change your commanders. There'll be a selection that are freely available but also a selection that you'll have to unlock with in-game currency, which is silver. So as you progress, your commander will unlock new orders. These orders are very specific game mechanics that are suited to that commander. So for example, if you've got a support commander like Caesar, he'll have Focus Fire and Inspire, which is kind of morale. He's all about support, right? Being behind the lines and kind of encouraging and supporting and doing kind of damage from afar. And then you've got other commanders like Germanicus who have sort of heavy infantry charge and Raise Shields and Vengeance. These all kind of get stuck into the mix and do high amounts of damage. They're kind of tanky commanders. We don't really have a concept of a tank, but if there was one, this would be it. And then you've got other commanders that are more defensive, so they'll have bracing orders so they can brace from charges and stuff like that. When I say defensive, though, it doesn't mean that you camp or you sit back and do nothing. You're effectively kind of like an aggressive defense. You're on the front lines kind of defending the charges and bracing against what is effectively their attack. So defensive doesn't necessarily mean idle, just to stress that. It means that you defend whatever is being thrown at you effectively. I guess the main difference for this game is it's, well, free to play, there's 10 players, and then it's limited units, so it's three. And then when you speak of the commanders, are they actually visibly present on the battlefield or are these abilities sort of issued from the command camera? So like you say, it's three units. The commanders, you take them into the battle. The commander is always in the very first unit. So they can be killed and then you lose your abilities or they're still present? It's contextual. So some of the abilities that are very kind of specific to the commander and you need the commander for, if you lose your commander, you will also lose those orders. However, some are more trainings to the units, and they'll keep those orders even if your commander is lost. So it's very contextual. It depends on what the order is. So if it's something like Inspire, where he's inspiring his troops, if he dies, you will lose that order. But if it's more of a training, let's say attacking Testudo, that's a training, so that's kind of in the unit, so you won't necessarily lose all your orders. But again, that's to and fro, so it depends how we feel. It will be changed constantly to fit. Okay. And these will function more like the passive and active abilities of Rome 2? So you can upgrade some passive ones, and if the general dies, then that's fine. They're still mostly there. And then the active ones, do they have area effects you issue, or is it unit-specific? So all of the orders currently on the commanders, they're all active. There are no passive. Generally, all of the passive stuff is going to come from the unit equipment, which if you select a unit, you'll be able to see that you can upgrade a unit, his helmet, his sword, et cetera. But yeah, in general, again, we could change it, we could chop it around. Again, it depends how it feels, but at the moment the approach has been that the commander, everything he gives is active. It's something that you do. And the units, they will gain passive orders as well through their equipment. So if you give them a certain piece of equipment, they might gain the ability to see further or something in a forest or something like that. So that's there as well as another layer. Okay. And the whole idea of progression here is you start off with a basic package, you unlock experience or whatnot in battle, and then you spend that on either unlocking generals, buffing up general abilities, or buffing up your units? Yep, and progressing through the tree all the way to Tier X. So you can also purchase new base units, or are you just upgrading certain specific set units that come with that faction? So as you get to the end of a unit tree, it unlocks an entirely different unit. Okay. So you might, let's say— So for example here, we're with Germanicus, the Romans, and we have Hastati. So that's probably Tier I then? Yep. So Hastati are Tier— Here we go. Hastati are on Tier II. So for example, if you were to have, I believe, it's Italian Skirmishers, then the Italian Skirmishers will go into your Hastati, and so on and so forth. We're looking at the trees at the moment and how they're laid out. It's a really interesting development. We're looking at basically approaching it initially from a really high level, sort of missile versus melee. Then we broke it down a little further, and we're now looking at sort of the weights of units and the general soft role of a unit. So if you look at the entire tree, effectively as you go down each line, it's a different role. So you might have pikes and spears at the top, and then you go into sort of your missile and your cavalry, and then you've got artillery. But this is kind of evolving at the moment, and it's not entirely nailed down, so we're figuring it out. But it's important that you kind of flow into a unit that's relevant and not flow into a unit that's kind of not linked, so that it's something quite difficult that we're trying to sort out at the moment. But, yeah, that's the general idea. Okay, and when you go into this, you are randomly given a faction, a commander. Can you choose that? And if you do choose it, does that exclude other players from choosing the same combination? So everyone at the start, when you're given, you're given a random commander, but that's not in stone. You can freely go to another commander that are freely available. So you can have all ten players being Julius Caesar, potentially? At the moment, you might find that in this small area, just because it's 10 versus 10, and we've only got 20 players online. But when it gets released to the real world, when we have a lot of players online, hopefully the matchmaking will decide it. So the matchmaking will not only tally up player skill and player tier, it will also tally up player roles and ensure that you've got a match that has a balanced skill level, a balanced role level, and a balanced tier level. So, for example, if you're Tier 10 and I'm Tier 1, obviously we don't want to go into battle together because you're much higher than me. So it's all down to the matchmaking, which we've worked on a lot, and you'll see that become more and more effective as more and more people play the game because the larger the pot, the easier the job is, if you like, because obviously you've got more players to source from. So, yeah, it's all down to the matchmaking, effectively. Okay, and all this is about unlocking units, and I see different ways to unlock it, probably through experience and then also coins or money. So if a unit is free then, is the point of that unit being free such that I spend all my funds playing one battle, and then the next battle maybe I didn't win and I'm starting at zero funds? These guys are there to be able to play. Yeah, on the initial tier it's just to ensure that you don't get into a negative situation so that you can't play again. So effectively we've said that the initial tier is completely free. You don't have to play for replenishment like you would in Tier 2, 3, etc. So when you go into a battle, if your units get injured, you have to pay for replenishment. The idea is that you should always be able to play a battle. Obviously that's an important balance, and we're trying to figure out the entire balance at the moment. As you go into a battle, we want to ensure that you don't come out of a battle necessarily, unless fully deserved, of course, with negative economy. So you're always kind of gaining something. And the initial way that we've approached that on the first tier is to make sure it's free. Okay, sure. And the second icon here, that's the green eagle-looking one, is that experience versus money? So the two experiences we've got, green eagle is a unit experience. Again, we're working on the link, if you like. We're still working on what essentially icon sums that up, unit experience and free experience. But yeah, you've got free experience, which you can spend either on units, or you can spend on commanders and unlocking orders, or you've got unit experience here, which you can only spend on the unit, and that unit only. So you wouldn't be able to spend it on another unit and his equipment. It's entirely self-contained. It's self-contained, so if I lose these guys, I have to repurchase their equipment? Is that what you're saying? No, sorry, what I mean by that is that this 220, this number of XP that you have here within this unit can only be spent on this unit's equipment. And if you haven't got enough, you can source from your free XP. But that's kind of up to you, because, of course, if you do that, then that takes away from you progressing your commander, because that's the only source of XP you can spend to progress your commander and his orders. And for an individual unit like this Hastati unit, let's say I play 10 battles with him, I get a lot of money invested in him. So he's going to be that same unit, and I can just keep giving him better and better equipment? So yeah, at the moment we've got kind of a limit of tier 3, like 3 tiers of equipment that you can unlock. Once you get to the bottom of that and you've unlocked all of the equipment within that unit, you're on the next unit, so then you start reinvesting in another unit. So you can no longer bring this guy? You can, you're free to bring him. If you like, you can bring whatever units you want, and that will kind of equate to a number which we'll put into the matchmaking. We're still talking about what happens if you take a tier 10, two tier 10s and a tier 1, we probably won't end up allowing it. But if we did allow it, it's down to you. Obviously you would realize that if I'm taking a tier 1 unit and I'm going to be putting a tier 10 battle, that tier 1's not going to be so good. So we don't want to restrict you too much, but we'll just click on the icon. The computers, when they go idle, they decide to go back to desktop. And then this guy, so for example, like I said, played a couple games, we rank him up all the way, and then I quit out and come back another time, I can still find this exact same guy with the same investment. Yeah, it'd be exactly the same. And how do I keep track of those guys? Do I rename this Hastati something like Hastati number 5 or give him a name? I see what you're saying. If we go... Just to be able to differentiate, because all these guys are going to be tuned differently. Right, so I see what you're saying now. If you were to upgrade a unit's helmet, for example, all of those units within your army will have the same. So if you had two Hastati units and you gave them this helmet, Helmet B, both units will have that helmet. However, if you had an entirely different unit, so you had two Hastati and a Principe, the Principe's equipmentry would be completely separate to the Hastati. Gotcha. OK, that makes more sense. And then, again, it's worth taking on board that the equipment and its progression doesn't necessarily mean better, because it's contextual, so it might be better in armor, for example, you get an armor boost, but you might get a disadvantage in sight, for example, so your vision might not be quite as good, not quite as big. Are you still recording? Yep. Good. So, yeah, every positive can also have a negative in the equipment, not all the time, but, again, it's all contextual, it's entirely total, it's all very, very contextual. So that's the idea behind that. OK. Yeah, that covers a lot of the UI, and the Barracks is where you... Let's see if I can recall what's in here. So the Barracks is a quick sum-up of your unit, so you can scroll through from Tier 1 to Tier 10, just by clicking here, and you can see all of your units and what units you want to take out of here and put into your squad. So, obviously, you're only on Tier 2 at the moment, so you can look at Tier 1 and Tier 2, remove the unit, and take a unit from your Barracks and put it into your army. So this is essentially your resource units, if you like, your Barracks. This is where you pull them out of your Barracks, and you put them into your army, and then they go into battle. I saw earlier there was a cost to replenish, so if you lose half your troops... Yep, you'll have to pay to replenish them. There is also a cost to adding. So as I go... You've got a spare unit here. As I go to add a unit, let's do a Tier 2 one. Tier 1's different. It costs you a small amount of silver to add it. So this creates scenarios, essentially, where although you might be able to unlock a tier, you might not be able to afford to have an entire army full of that tier, so you might have to go into battle with one Tier 3 and two Tier 2s. For example, in this context, I think you can actually unlock it all, but as the game develops, obviously, it depends on how well you play. Okay, and then on the higher tiers, so Romans, I guess, are going to start mostly low-tier infantry, then you progress towards Skirmishers, and then Cavalry is the highest tier for Romans, and then you come back to Armored Legionnaires, I guess? So if you click on the army... Yeah, so we're kind of focusing on Swords, Legionnaires, and stuff like that, and the end game, if you like, for the Romans, yeah, there's a Cavalry in the mix, and the Swords are their main kind of weaponry. With the Greeks, it's more about missiles and artillery at the moment. Again, we can look to change it. It's difficult to pin down. Effectively, you're kind of generalizing the factions a little bit, in a way, because you can obviously argue back and forth as to what the Romans should be, what the Greeks should be, and what the Barbarians should be. So the Barbarians, for example, will probably be more aggressive and melee and in fights and guerrilla warfare, if you like, being better in forests and stuff like that. So yeah, each faction tree is different, so it's important that when you go into a battle, again, the matchmaking will take care of this, that you might bring Roman and everything that's good about Roman, I might bring Greece and everything that's good about Greece, and when we combine, it's all about synergy. And that's built into the orders as well. So with the commander orders, on their own, they're okay, but combined, the synergy, that's where the power is, that's where you draw your strength as an entire alliance. That makes sense. So that's what it's about, and that's how we intend to draw all the sort of team gameplay out of it and stuff like that. So you can play as an individual, but if you play as a team, you're much, much stronger. Okay, and then for these factions right now, there are just, I think we're sticking to the Roman world, but you guys are anticipating bringing different time periods together, I understand? That is the idea. We're not entirely sure who at the moment. We only know Roman and Greek. We've been looking recently at barbarians, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be them. But yeah, everything's kind of open, and the idea is that we can bring anything in. We could look to bring in Shogun era and stuff like that at a much later date. So that's kind of the concept of the game, is clashing all of those guys together. So yeah, we're looking to bring in different eras. Perfect. Okay. Yeah, we'll probably do another recording when we do the gameplay. Hopefully we can get into a battle for you and show you just how it sort of plays. That'd be really, really cool. Was there anything else you wanted to discuss about the UI here at the front end? Not really. I think we've pretty much been through everything. One thing I would say is that your units can also have consumables, which is something in addition that you can pay for. So for example, your sword got... What have you got here? You've got Hastati. So swords, they can increase the... They've got like a weaponsmith consumable, which is sharpening your blades. They've got increased damage. You've got other things like double rations and stuff like that, increases your health. We're kind of looking at the conceptual links at the moment to ensure they're strong and we're not pushing the boundaries too much. And let's grab a missile unit really quickly. So with a missile unit, for example, he'll have something where flaming arrows and stuff like that, and they're going to be a consumable. So you'll spend them, so you only get a certain amount of them. Gotcha. So generally at the moment ammo is infinite, your default, but consumable ammo has a certain amount to it, so you spend it, you consume it. Heavy shot, flame shot. Yeah, stuff like that, yeah. That's the idea behind consumables, basically. Okay, cool. Thanks.