Hello everyone. I’m Ross, one of the designers at Lucid Games. It was great to see everyone diving into Destruction AllStars and crashing into each other with our 17 AllStars. I had a great time getting into the game myself and destroying with the community. Our first season is well underway and you have captured every second of the action with photo mode! I had a lot of fun seeing what you posted on social media, so much so that I had to pick a few of my favorites to share below.
Today we’re celebrating the launch of Blitz, our brand new game mode in Destruction AllStars, and I wanted to give all of you an overview of the game mode and dive into some of our design goals and aspirations for the mode. I’ll also give you some cheeky tips to help you get a head start in our new Premiere game mode! (If you’re new to our Arena of Destruction, you can get an introduction here.)
Blitz and glamor
Our new game mode, Blitz, is a highly competitive multi-team version of Mayhem that uses turns and a slightly modified scoring system to reward teamwork and accuracy. It encourages players to capitalize on well thought out and coordinated attacks rather than just lead, crush and dodge. This will bring you new rewards based on your skills to earn and show off to the community, just so they know who came out on top. We’ve been playing Blitz to Lucid a lot for a while now and having a lot of fun with it, so I really think you’re going to have fun.
From the ground
When we started with this type of mode, we knew we wanted to create something that uses basic game mechanics and what people love about Mayhem, but create a very competitive, intense, and fast-paced game mode that rewards team-oriented play. To achieve this, we knew we had to inject various forms of team play into Blitz, whether it was figuring out which team member should choose a specific AllStar, driving in a pack to chase the same opponents, or to avenge a teammate’s wreckage by destroying an enemy. player. Overall, we wanted to dampen some of the noise and allow for calculated and precise gameplay while still allowing you to stay tuned to the progress of a game between multiple teams.
To do this, we made the decision to have a maximum of 12 players in a Blitz game. Dividing those 12 into four teams of three AllStars helped give your choice of AllStar more weight throughout a game. Each match is divided into rounds where teams compete against each other to be the first team to score 100 points, or to have the most points when the time runs out. Scoring should be very familiar with hits, with barges, wrecks, and knockouts being a reliable way to climb the scoreboard. The first team to win two rounds will win the match, so don’t worry if you feel like you’ve fallen too far behind, a good spin puts you right back up there.
Along with its round-based system, what really sets Blitz apart are the character locks and ability energy transfer. With character lockdown, you have to choose a new AllStar at the start of each turn. Once you have used an AllStar, you cannot choose it for the remainder of the game. This means that you will use between two and five different AllStars in a game of Blitz, depending on the number of turns played. We think this makes you think more about your team makeup. Do you use your principal in the first round or are you saving it for a comeback in the fourth round? Another factor to consider is that your capacity load for your Breaker and Hero vehicle also carries over between turns. If you win your hero vehicle in round one, will you deploy it as soon as possible to secure victory, or will you keep it to start round two with a decisive advantage?
Inject depth into Blitz
Once the first versions of Blitz were up and running, we quickly started digging a little deeper to see what we could include to help separate the good teams from the best. Team withdrawals are a way to earn bonus points by working together to destroy an enemy player. The more players who work together, the more points you score. Communication can be a great way to plan this type of attack, but you can also keep it simple and follow your teammates around the arena. If you see them deploying a circuit breaker or charging a specific vehicle, you can sweep with assistance for a team teardown.
On the other hand, the revenge system is a great way to earn bonus points when you react to one of your teammates being destroyed or knocked out. After this happens to any player, his team has 30 seconds to get a Revenge Wreck or KO on the attacker and earn bonus points for his team. Keep a close eye on the kill flow and screen for which players you need to target.
Rounds can be won or lost on the character selection screen. Choosing a range of AllStars that work well together can help secure team withdrawals with a coordinated use of their abilities. For example, if you pick Jian and use their Breaker to drop mines around the arena and easily mark multiple enemy players, a teammate could follow along with Sgt. Rescue’s Hero Vehicle, which has a lot of weight and health, and destroy some of these vehicles for bonus points! You can combine this with your ability energy which is transmitted between turns. If your hero vehicle is ready, you can choose an AllStar with a hard hitting hero vehicle and start strong on the next turn. Or, if you’re low on energy, you can choose an AllStar with a powerful foot brake to support your teammates. Overall, there are a lot of team builds to experiment with.
Awards
There are unique rewards to be earned in Blitz as part of Season 1 Hotshots. Each week one of your Weekly Challenges will require you to play Blitz and will offer an additional reward, a Blitz themed skin for an AllStar. We’ve also added two new Sponsor Challenges to complete, each rewarding a set of Avatar and Banner. These challenges are based on winning games of Blitz, so they can be a way to really show off your skills to other players! Along with these rewards, the seasonal XP and point systems work in Blitz, and you can complete some of your daily and weekly challenges in Blitz just like any other game mode.
Good luck in the arena
Just to give you some tips and tricks from our playtests at Lucid… don’t play with Gerard, he’s a great producer but rubbish at Blitz. As for the more practical tips … choose your targets carefully to earn bonus score wherever possible, do you really want to deploy your Hero Vehicles ability for that target or is there some Vengeance Wreckage you might be looking for? further into the arena? Also picking the right AllStar for the right lap, but it can be a deeply personal choice. Do you pick your favorite AllStar early on to really set the tone for a game or are you going to save it for a next round? It’s about matching your choices to your playstyle and finding your rhythm, as well as countering the way enemy teams play.
It’s really great to see Blitz live today in Destruction AllStars! I know a lot of the Lucid team will be watching social media to see how all of you are doing in its first week, as well as getting started in connecting with the community. Hopefully we’ll see a lot of communication start to form as players tap into this type of team play to really capitalize on the score. I’m also hoping to see a few epic matches where each team wins a round, which leads to a fifth and final round where everything is up to the game.
This is just the start for Blitz as it was designed for competitive play and a ranking system. Although it launches today as an unrated playlist, we plan to release a ranked mode in the future. We’re not quite ready to talk about specifics on this just yet, but you can expect ranks to progress and exclusive rewards to be tied to the rank you achieve.
So this is it. It’s been an exciting challenge for us to bring the first all-new game mode to Destruction AllStars since its launch, but we think we’ve really hit the nail on the head with Blitz in delivering a fast-paced competitive experience as well as adding in new tactical layers to make player skills really shine! I can’t wait to hear what you all think of the mode, we really enjoyed building it, and I know I’m speaking on behalf of the team saying we can’t wait to play with you guys.
Blitz is now available in Destruction AllStars! We can’t wait to see what you think of our new Competitive Mode, so be sure to score our Twitter account with your thoughts and comments.
Oh, and as promised, here is a selection of our favorite photos in photo mode so far:
Wow, just awesome by @ Philt43_Yewone
Face of Fuego by @ QuelBia94
Shyft Anubis Head by @Biscxtti
Chaos by @hoffman_vp
Hana comic by @Acdra_Cos
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