Dev Diary - Of Mazes & Minotaurs

[Cobalt Arachne]

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Hey everyone, it's Cobalt Arachne!
I'm one of the designers here on the Homecoming Team!

For those who are unfamiliar with my past projects, I was designer behind the Dr. Aeon Strike Force, Advanced Modes, Sheathed/Holstered Weapons, Aether Rewards, and most recently, the Labyrinth of Fog raid zone! Which will be the focus of my post today.

 

It's been a while since my last Dev Diary (Wow, all the way back to January 2022!), but I felt like with the Labyrinth of Fog's live release, and it being one of the most experimental features we've released to-date, that people would enjoy some insight into the developmental process behind the unique project.

 

This project was geared to defy precedent so this might run long, but for those interested, I hope it will prove a good read!

 

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 Time to dig into the making of the Labyrinth of Fog! 

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 🧠 Labyrinth Concept Origins

 

The Labyrinth of Fog began the first week of August 2023, as an experiment in liminal space mazes using the City of Heroes engine. For those unfamiliar, liminal spaces are oftentimes seen as the 'space between points of interest' and games that focus on them are often maze like, surreal, and the assembly of these spaces can often defy what is sensible or realistic architecture.

Sound familiar? Because that sounds to me like the various City of Heroes' mission instances, twisty mazes of offices, labs, warehouses and more!

 

Who hasn't walked through one of those extra big 4-story office maps and thought 'How could anybody actually *work* in these labyrinths?', I always found it funny, but it was an entertaining thought that sparked the idea that became the Labyrinth of Fog.

That was where the zone's earliest work began, as an experimental map to build a liminal space maze using our game's engine, and seeing what that felt like. An office floor that connected to a sewer floor that connected to a Council cave floor. Moving between spaces like this is already something players do in City of Heroes but assembling it in a different way resulted in a very different feeling. It was taking what the game already did, and adding new context to it, and resulting in something that felt worth building on.

I felt that designing the map this way would result in a unique adaptation of a liminal space maze for City of Heroes. After playing around in the prototype space on my own enough to be satisfied, I now had my maze, but that needs actual gameplay to become content.

 

The initial design of the maze involved a revolving number of colored floors, the hue would determine which threats that floor contained, and it helped set a size goal for how big the map needed to become.

 

The Labyrinth of Fog currently has something in the high forties of individual unique floors and spaces, but that's actually only a third of what I originally scoped the design for. (The scope of the project quickly slammed into the walls of technical limitations.)
 

Knowing that scale was a component of this design, I worked out a design plan to create what I was after: This became tracked in an Excel spreadsheet that I used for the remainder of the assembly process of the map.

 

I planned out a new morning routine where I would wake up 3 hours earlier than usual, have some breakfast and caffeine, and then get to work.

 

Each day was comprised of bringing a singular floor of the Labyrinth to completion.

Building a Labyrinth floor a day keeps the burnout away!

 

After building each floor, I would beaconize it (how the game's NPCs know where to move on the map), place the enemy spawns, and then ensure the Minotaur's (more info on them later!) pathfinding worked in bringing them to the floor from the whole of the zone.

 

And so, things proceeded from there, and about a month-and-a-half later, I had a playable prototype!

 

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 The Labyrinth's layout was planned before assembly! 

 Originally containing multiple strata, only stratum A ended up being built in the zone, with stratums B & C going unused.  Hard to imagine the Labyrinth being TRIPLE its current size, right? 

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🐄 Labyrinth For A Minotaur

 

Due to the map being assembled from various map tile sets, the lore concept for the zone needed to be suitably surreal, so the map became a manifestation of the collective playerbase's memories. This allowed me to curate the experience to what would be most effective/fun in fulfilling a labyrinth's design, and not be hindered from loss of immersion for things such as players not having collision in the zone or there being a large variety of enemy groups present in the zone.

It's around this point in the early phases that I explored the idea of some kind of monster being present in the maze to harass players, as this is something many other liminal space maze games utilize to drive pressure and engagement from participants.

 

The decision to have some kind of persistent mechanical critter threat that would seek out the players, would answer many other parts of the design decisions, and from there a lot of formation of the zone came naturally.

As for what this threat would be, I thought what fit better than borrowing from Greek mythology like so much in City of Heroes does?
That landed me on making it an adaptation of Daedalus's labyrinth (who was conveniently already featured as an in-game NPC) and the maze's mythical Minotaur.

Though City of Heroes had minotaurs as far back as Cimerora, I remember being confused by the Imperious Task Force having multiple minotaur enemies, as I'd always associated them with a unique singular monster in a famed labyrinth.

 

So the liminal space maze now had its Minotaur In The Fog who could move to any player's locations with speed and accuracy, as the game's path-finding would naturally move them through the maze at the most efficient path possible using the Lua follow-behavior we prototyped while making Pocket D's Blarf.

Once the Minotaur's basic setup was finished and function-proofed, I felt more confident that this was a solid-enough foundation to proceed as an actual content feature I could pitch to the team, subsequently receiving approval for the project, and then I moved from planning to prototype building!

 

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 People are gonna have so much beef with this guy... 

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Originally, the Minotaur was built as a non-intractable threat that players would have no choice but to flee from, as the Labyrinth's monster needed to be suitably scary and threatening. To accomplish this, I gave them a +5 base Level Shift, which would make them pretty much untouchable by the players, and any hit they sustained would likely spell their demise.

The first draft concept had the zone's gameplay centralized around avoiding the Minotaur as much as possible and defeating the various mobs that spawned on each floor, who would provide greater rewards in exchange for the players not having a mini-map and losing the freedom to control which enemy groups they were fighting at any given time.

 

In alpha testing, this setup was determined to be interesting, but not very fun/exciting, as there just wasn't much driving force behind the zone when it had no larger goal, and the feedback was that they wanted to somehow fight the Minotaur, instead of them being an invincible grim reaper.

 

And so, I began crafting a way to turn the Labyrinth from a hazard zone into a raid zone.

 

Thus, I designed a system by which players might collect their own Level Shifts while exploring and fighting in the Labyrinth, that they might climb to the point where they could eventually stand their ground and face the Minotaur as a raid boss.

 

I put a point system in-place where defeats of the zone's Elite Bosses could be used to fuel Level Shifts, and then the pinata critters that ended up as Malevolent Fogs were scattered throughout the Labyrinth to encourage exploration and give an alternative progression method to defeating enemies.

 

This fared far better in alpha feedback, and so I began redesigning the Minotaur to be a fully fleshed out raid boss.

 

The battle felt like it was lacking in finale flair, so the Colosseum of Minos was put together to give them an exclusive arena to have a showdown in, which also allowed us to add some more mechanics into the mix, such as the spike traps and sand vortexes encountered there.

 

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 Watch out for those spikes... They hurt! 

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 🏃‍♂️ Maze Movement & Seeking Secrets

 

At this point the zone was taking shape on its own, most the ideas were interacting favorably, and as I continued play testing it incrementally I found everything I was creating falling into place naturally, which is always a promising sign in any development project.

 

By this point, I was feeling pretty satisfied with the raid encounter, but the exploration elements left something to be desired.

Part of the Labyrinth's design is because players are not searching for any specific destinations, the lack of a mini map would not be a frustrating element and players would adapt and learn how to play the content without relying on it for spatial awareness/coordination.

 

This ended up proving trickier in practice than in concept, as you needed a way to find and meet-up with your teammates seamlessly and so the Follow Through Fog tray power was added, which allows all players to instantly teleport from anywhere in the Labyrinth to the position of anybody on their Team or League. This worked out wonderfully, and I've been a big fan of how players use it to call out objectives and quickly meet-up and share information/locations.

 

I wanted players to rely on each other, not silently using a provided system, and this design drove social interactivity forward, which is always a positive element to include in MMO design.

 

Thus, we had our solution to the issue of how players would coordinate without a mini map to guide them and without that burden falling on raid leaders being required to manage every/all facets of coordination.

 

With movement logistical issues out of the way, I began adding hidden things to find in the Labyrinth such as the secrets, motes, and gladiators.

After all, if there's nothing to discover and find, the maze becomes a lot less interesting to traverse and explore!

 

The idea of finding secret spaces was inspired by older 3D games, such as Super Mario 64, as a child and before the internet these games fascinated me with how many spaces there were to find, and without the ability to look things up you couldn't know if you had found everything or not.

Those old games felt like they held infinite potential to surprise me, and that's the energy/vibes I channeled into making the Labyrinth's secrets: Surprises that might shock, entertain, alarm, fascinate, confuse, or obscure.

 

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 The Labyrinth holds many secrets to be uncovered! 

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In the same vein, the zone's accolade reward instead of giving a new power to players, instead gives them direct access to a new lobby in the zone. Along the way I was baking in as much lore and flavor as I could, nearly every power description in the project has text that gives context clues behind the zone's purpose and origins.

 

By this point the Labyrinth was basically function-complete, and so it went to Closed Beta in March 2024, revealed to the public for the first time, and began the process of testing and gathering feedback before ultimately releasing on July 23rd, 2024, almost exactly a year to the project's conception to completion!

 

It was a feature that aimed to do a lot of new, first-time things, and changing the approach to promote innovation, and I know despite the successes the project has seen, that there's lots of room for improvement in the Labyrinth of Fog, as such I'm fully committed to continuing supporting this feature moving forward and aiming to improve and polish it.

 

Additionally, if anybody has any non-lore (no spoilers!) questions about specific Labyrinth design elements that weren't detailed in this post, feel free to ask!

 

Look forward to future updates and improvements!

 

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Spoiler

 After all, the Labyrinth's true purpose yet remains unfulfilled... 

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A super big thanks to everyone involved in testing, feedback, and helping to make this project the best it could be!

 

An additional thank you to all the support of our players & community, who are the real heroes in our City of Heroes!

 

 

🎉

[Laucianna]

29 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

using the Lua follow-behavior we prototyped while making Pocket D's Blarf.

So Blarf walked so the Minotaur could run? 😄 But in all seriousness thank you so much for all the work you have put into this! It is by far the most mobile and interesting raid in the game in my opinion especially as I have learned more and more about the hidden lore within! I look forward to the additions and tweaks you add to it in the future and whatever projects you move onto going forward! 

[Laucianna]

Also I know you said no Lore questions.... But I have to know:

Spoiler

Is the Minotaur left handed or right handed? 😄

 

[Cobalt Arachne]

28 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

Is the Minotaur left handed or right handed? 😄

Hmm, given they're a capable wielder of dual blades, axe/shield, and the bow it's probably most sensible that they're ambidextrous.
I feel like I've read about eyesight says that it is linked to your primary hand, and since the Minotaur has three eyes, being equally capable with both hands makes the most sense to me.

[Glacier Peak]

Here we go! 

 

I was really looking forward to reading this dev post. Thank you for sharing the behind the scenes. I feel like this content swung for the fence and connected! 

Edited August 29 by Glacier Peak

[DemonSeed]

The Labyrinth was a tonne of fun to play and unlock everything for. 
 

Even the unlocking of the badges led to alot of teamwork. 

[strix_]

This was an awesome new zone for the game and reading how it all came together was fascinating!

[Crasical]

Considering that the Minotaur in the Fog is *THE* Minotaur, rather than one of the many other minotaurs in Cimerora, have you considered updating Mender Ramiel's story arc, where the Time Echoes culminate with the 'Echo of Minos' as the last obstacle before one breaches the chamber were the Well of the Furies was once kept? Considering that NPC is intended to be (a temporal echo of) the same definitive-article minotaur, shouldn't they now share the same model?

[agentx5]

I enjoyed reading this, please more dev diaries! 😄

[victusfate]

My first time without any reading or prompting, I wandered a bit and got bored and left. Second time in I asked more questions and got the hang of it. 

 

I dig the idea of a group moving together through the labyrinth and clearing as they go (a KM player at heart). Glad the design allows for it!

 

Thanks again 🙏

[Cobalt Arachne]

4 hours ago, victusfate said:

I dig the idea of a group moving together through the labyrinth and clearing as they go (a KM player at heart). Glad the design allows for it!

 

Thanks again 🙏

Most welcome! 🙂

Not only does the design allow for it, but leagues clearing the content by utilizing defeats is something I'd like to see become more viable, so expect that method to continue seeing balance improvements with time.

[DemonSeed]

6 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Most welcome! 🙂

Not only does the design allow for it, but leagues clearing the content by utilizing defeats is something I'd like to see become more viable, so expect that method to continue seeing balance improvements with time.

Defeat all mission but it’s set in the Labyrinth and takes 2 days straight to complete. 

[Cobalt Arachne]

Also, here's something for a little extra!

A bunch of WIP screenshots from the zone during assembly, and some peeks at what's going on behind the curtain...

 

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[Glacier Peak]

7 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

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Hami won this battle, if I remember correctly?

[Cobalt Arachne]

3 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Hami won this battle, if I remember correctly?

Surprisingly, the Minotaur actually won at about 20 minutes, after stacking enough -MaxHP debuffs to reduce Hamidon to 1HP, who was then one-shot.

[Seed22]

Laby’s a solid addition to the game. Keep up the great work!

[TauntingMonk]

 

This is new!

[mechahamham]

17 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Also, here's something for a little extra!

A bunch of WIP screenshots from the zone during assembly, and some peeks at what's going on behind the curtain...

 

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Holy cats do I love the Escher-esque stuff!

[Velvet Mystique]

 The lore and the mechanics combine to make this zone sing!!! Exciting to get some insight into the development process, too.

[Laucianna]

On 8/30/2024 at 3:16 PM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Also, here's something for a little extra!

A bunch of WIP screenshots from the zone during assembly, and some peeks at what's going on behind the curtain...

 

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This does have me wondering, was there ever plans to include more then the GMs we already see in the Labyrinth now? Would be cool to explore the Labyrinth and go into one of the Dome rooms with just Hamidon in the middle without his mitos 😄 

[DemonSeed]

4 hours ago, Laucianna said:

This does have me wondering, was there ever plans to include more then the GMs we already see in the Labyrinth now? Would be cool to explore the Labyrinth and go into one of the Dome rooms with just Hamidon in the middle without his mitos 😄 

A human Hamidon in his lab would make for a really neat secret area.

[Laucianna]

2 hours ago, DemonSeed said:

A human Hamidon in his lab would make for a really neat secret area.

I didn't even think of Human Hami! That's a great idea!!! Still the same toughness as the GM but in a nerdy ass scientist body 😄 

[Glacier Peak]

3 hours ago, Laucianna said:

I didn't even think of Human Hami! That's a great idea!!! Still the same toughness as the GM but in a nerdy ass scientist body 😄 

[DemonSeed]

I have a feeling human Hami wouldn't put up much of a fight. Unless it was some alternate reality where he gained incarnate strength without turning to goo. 

[Laucianna]

2 hours ago, DemonSeed said:

I have a feeling human Hami wouldn't put up much of a fight. Unless it was some alternate reality where he gained incarnate strength without turning to goo. 

Majority of the foes we fight in the Labyrinth are just the fog using our memories to form them (Like Kronos Titan, Jack, Nictus etc) so it could have the strength of Hamidon (The blob) but the body of the mortal man 🙂