Formations will introduce a tactical nuance to the play of Diamond Hand Legends. It’s one of those easy-to-understand and simple concepts that adds more complexity to the play-by-play decision-making of the players. The idea is inspired by classic JRPGs that a lot of our players will no doubt be familiar with. We took the idea of “back row” and “front row” and expanded it a bit.
The battlefield will hold a total of 9 units per hero. Each hero will have front and back row “slots” that they place their units on when they are called. The number of front and back row slots will depend on the selected formation for the hero. Combat damage is halved whenever a unit in the back row is attacking, or whenever a unit in the back row is being attacked with a friendly unit occupying a front row slot.
Every unit will be able to switch rows as a combat action (instead of attacking or using an ability). Some will be able to switch rows during the prep phase, and some abilities will push units into the back row or pull units into the front row. Some units will ignore rows when dealing combat damage, archers for example. We thought about making it so that ranged units would primarily deal damage with special abilities to get around the row system’s damage mitigation, however doing that as a standard for every ranged unit brought in some needless complications, both on the design level and on the interface level. It’s really frustrating for the player if they accidentally drag an attack instead of double-tapping to activate the ability, as an example. We ended up deciding that some units will simply “ignore rows” when dealing combat damage as the most simple way to deal with it.
Every hero will start out with one formation that is unique to their class and we’re currently planning on having at least one additional formation that can be unlocked for each hero. We are all looking forward to when we are ready for public testing so that all of you can experience and enjoy the system.
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A Brief Overview of Formations
