Design 101: Themes

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Kinda like your English class, a theme is an overarching concept in a work.

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Themes are tremendously important in the creative process. A theme is the backbone of your work, a mental blueprint and an idea that helps you create something memorable. A theme is not a single pillar - it is the framework. All modern video game design should create a cohesive identity through gameplay, story, and art, and a theme is what ties those things together.

You can't just slap on some particle effects and call that a "theme." A theme has a symbiotic relationship with the whole work: a building without foundations is a broken wreck, and a foundation without a building is just that - an empty, incomplete foundation. For a theme to exist, it has to part of all aspects of a work - art, lore, and gameplay, with the latter being the most important.

Without a central theme, creativity and originality take a hit, and the overall design suffers for it.

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An example of a well-applied theme is Ahri, from League of Legends.


Story, gameplay, and art are tied together in Ahri's origin in Korean mythology. A ***iho (or gumiho) is a nine-tailed fox shapeshifter that invariably wants to become human, with a penchant for turning into beautiful women as a disguise. A ***iho is a morally ambiguous creature that can appear as a remorseless, inhuman monster who devours human hearts and livers, or a benevolent and sometimes even naive protective spirit.

Story and art aren't the focus of this, so I'll skip to gameplay.

From this, you get words like "trickster," "predator," "cunning," and "seductive."

Her passive heals Ahri periodically depending on the number of enemies hit by her spells.


Ahri has decent mobility for a mage, outside of her ult, which gives her arguably the best (or second-best) mobility of any character in the game for a few moments. Her kit is balanced between precise aiming at range and bobbing into close range for max damage, making her fairly unpredictable, especially when manipulating the Orb path. Being able to ignore protections indicates either trickery, brute force, or intelligence to bypass it. And she has a unique CC, and more importantly, it's irreplaceable in function - a taunt would be suicide for a squishy mage, and a stun, root, or slow wouldn't work with the closer ranged components of her kit, so it's not just a pointless gimmick (*cough*madness*cough*).

It fits together and synergizes to form a theme of a sexy lifestealing trickster, from a gameplay perspective. That is how a theme should be.

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An example of how a theme DOESN'T work is Ratatoskr.

In his mythology, he's a mischievous lying messenger squirrel who likes to prank people. He's known for tweaking messages to get the eagle and snake constantly pissed at each other, and also for having a drill-tooth-horn-or-whatever while chewing on Yggdrasil. I did not make any of that up.

We get words like "taunting," "trickster," and "messenger," words that are central to his identity.

In Smite, he's a physical assassin with generic AoE stuff, a magical acorn that can enhance said AoE stuff, and Arachne's Night Crawler with minor tweaks.

Let's be honest here: The only thing even superficially related to his identity is the acorn business and that's all superficial. It's particle effects and names. Does throwing magical acorns that heal him mean anything? Does having his dash magically stun people represent anything at all? His acorns could be anything - an enchanted banana, a magical harpoon, his frozen urine and waste pellets - and so it doesn't bring about a theme.

From his kit, you get the feeling that he's fast...and has orbiting boomerangs somewhere. He plays identically to most other Smite assassins - get in close, mash abilities from point blank range, then basic attack to victory. Ult to chase or escape. He's stupid easy and simple.

The only unique aspect of his kit is his recast dash, and that's essentially Swift Vengeance but better in every conceivable way.

Bear with me for a moment. Pretend that Ratatoskr has no acorns in his kit. Pretend he isn't a squirrel. What is Ratatoskr?

Fast. Straightforward. Deals strong damage. Has modifiable item.

Does he sound like anything besides "generic assassin w/fancy weapon?" Where's the trickster part, where he does something other than charge toward the enemy directly and run away? "Messenger" and "Taunting" don't exist. Truth is, Ratatoskr doesn't really have a theme in his kit. He's a blank slate - a god that can have multiple options because he lacks an overarching theme. And in my opinion, a sign of a lazy developer who can't design for ****.

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Eh. I'm explaining why this particular aspect of designing stuff is important, how it works, where it works well, and where it doesn't. Simple as that, really.

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1: What are you making?

I'll use one of Smite's own gods as an example. Ares. Again. -_-


2: Easiest question when it comes to design: Physical or magical?

You have to think more carefully about this step than you think. Mechanically, being physical grants stuff like powerful basic attacks, tower pushing power, being less limited by cooldowns and resources, as well as the benefit of certain items. Magical gods have the advantage of being more ability focused, having more area effects, being able to afford more burst and utility in his kit. Thematically, do you want Ares to slap his with his sword like a limp noodle? That makes the answer pretty clear.


3: What role?

Not assassin - too puny. Not support tank - Ares needs to deal damage. So a damage tank - a bruiser, or warrior.

You got the basic concept - physical warrior. Easy.


4: How do I get started?

Ask yourself, what is Ares?

Ares is tough. He's the paragon of being a warrior - meaning he has both fortitude and power. So you want to emphasize offense and defense in his kit. Or in simpler terms, damage and tankiness.

Q: Unbreakable: Ares passively gains 9/13/17/21/25 protections.

Ares can activate this ability to break free of CC and his next basic attack in 5 seconds deals 40/70/100/130/160 bonus physical damage (+40% of your physical power) and stuns enemies for 1 second. If a CC was successfully cleansed, this ability's cooldown is halved. Cooldown: 15 seconds.

The specifics, honestly, aren't too important in this stage. Stuff like damage numbers, cooldown, etc can be ironed out later. Right now, you want to create a general idea, like "telegraphed zoning tornado w/slow", and the general idea behind this move is Ares shrugging off CC.

In this case, I chose protections and CC immunity for tankiness. It could have been a shield, healing, damage reduction, whatever. You get the point.

Next is damage. Ares needs to deal damage. And yet, he needs to deal damage in a way that still lets him build a lot of tank items, because he's supposed to be a damage tank.

W: Conflagration: Passive: Ares' sword is on frikkin fire. Basic attacks apply true damage DoT for 40/60/80/100/120 true damage (+60% physical power) over five seconds.

Active: Ares swings his sword around in a 15-foot circle, dealing 60/110/160/210/260 damage (+60% of your physical power) and applying on-hit effects in that AoE. This ability cannot crit.

Cooldown: 9/8/7/6/5 seconds.

Lotsa sustained damage here.


5: What next?

Well, what is Ares besides strong and tough? Brutal. Violent. Bloodthirsty. He's all the horrible parts of war distilled into a personification of war.


6: But how do you convey brutality?

It's not a tangible concept that can be easily put into gameplay, so it's an excellent example of the subtitles of incorporating theme.

To put it simply, Ares delights in violence. So you want to have something in his kit that makes fights happen. It can't be something like No Escape. It has to be something that makes fights happen, not makes beads happen. Ares isn't some weirdo who teleports before binding enemies to him and pulling them. He's the god of war, who wants to get right into the enemy's face and bring the pain.

A team buff that encourages his team to fight can be fitting. I like that idea better than raw damage output or CC output, but this part is honestly personal taste. War is a really broad concept, after all. Other ideas: Long leap that stuns enemies. Resetting execute mechanic that encourages fearing Ares' pentakill potential. Maybe he rides his chariot, running down enemies and turning them into bloody smears. There's room to work with here, but this is what I went with:

R: Bloodlust: All nearby allied gods gain 20/25/30/35/40% move speed, doubled when walking toward enemies, for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

This sounds really lame, at first. It doesn't even increase damage. But this ability should not be underestimated, because you basically make your entire team impossible to run from. When you activate this ability, the enemy team will know a fight's coming, that they won't be able to run, and definitely not from Ares, who can tank towers because he's a tank. And that, I think, carries the theme of brutality fairly well.

So at this point, we have 60% of his kit done. He can get himself in, and deal decent damage. The rest, honestly, is just more of the same. Now that the framework is mostly finished, all that's left is to ensure the remaining parts fit.

E: Onslaught: Ares lunges forward 20 feet, cleaving enemies in a 15 foot, 180 degree cone for 50/75/100/125/150 damage (+50% of your physical power). If this ability hits an enemy, it can be recast in the next 1.5 seconds.

Recast: Ares leaps forward 30 feet, dealing 50/75/100/125/150 damage (+50% of your physical power) to all enemies in a 20-foot circle around him, stunning enemies hit for 0.75 seconds.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.

The stun is the second dash, so it's not encouraged to use it to run away, although that is possible. By all means, this doesn't have to be a double dash. It could have been Shackles, or a damage nuke, or whatever. War is a flexible term, that can be a slow but unstoppable offensive tank or a mobile Terminator.

All that is left is the passive, but don't take this as a suggestion that you have to follow a certain template. You don't have to do things in the order I did them.

At this point, I usually shape the last piece of the puzzle into something that synergizes well with the rest. Ares has decent mobility skills, DoTs, and a anti-CC based stun, on top of another stun.

Passive: Wrath: You gain 2% move and attack speed for 3 seconds for each enemy hit by your attacks and abilities, stacking up to ten times.

You get more and move powerful as the fight goes on, encouraging a long-lasting, tanky playstyle, as well as working well thematically with the rest of his kit.


7: Edit.

And that's making the kit coherent. Constantly editing and making changes and redoing or altering things is all part of the design process, so don't shy from it.

Some things are a mere edit.

R: Bloodlust: Passive: Wrath's attack speed bonus is increased by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5%.

Active: All nearby allied gods gain 20/25/30/35/40% move speed, doubled when walking toward enemies, for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds.

This makes your passive scale, and overall provides consistent gameplay.

Other changes are more dramatic.

Unbreakable used to have a 2 second stun with cleansing CC, but when combined with his leap, that kind of CC spamming damaged counterplay potential - he leaps on you, stunning and damaging you, and trying to CC him back results in a ridiculously long stun. So now, it stays at 1 second and CC-ing him again won't have such an immediate, devastating effect.


8: Analyze

This is a crucial step. Imagine Ares is in the game. Where would he go?

I imagine Ares as a straightforward warrior or maybe a jungler. In the jungle, you have good clear speed and decent ganks, and you can utilize your ultimate with whatever you choose. But his best role should be a warrior or even a support - solo lane lets you get a gold advantage, letting your damage shine in fights, while supports would enjoy Ares' strong early game and decent utility, for a more offensive duo lane composition.

Playstyle is next, and it's quite important.

Ares has no real escape. His ultimate isn't a true dash or leap and his leap is honestly really small. However, he is extremely adept at getting into fights. And once he's there, he deals a lot of damage with his free attack speed and DoTs and W spam, and his level of control stops enemies from simply walking past him. You can't afford to ignore him.

He doesn't ever feel impotent at any point. As you constantly stack your passive as the fight progresses, simply slowly getting stronger makes the player feel like a threat even with just your basic attacks.

He's very straightforward, but war isn't known for its subtlety. You could say his playstyle is just raw ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!, and you wouldn't be off the mark. At the same time, he can't afford to go pure assassin, as his passive protections aren't too impressive on their own and being in fights for so long without any range means you NEED tankiness.

Overall, I think this brings about the theme of Ares fairly well.

This is so true. Nuff said, Hirez step up your game or hire this guy!

I added a "How" section, because I forgot it like a moron.

Kudos to the detail and thought put into this, if you're going to design a god this IS how it should be done, and I can see the problems wrong with several gods ( Ratatoskr being an example) in smite thematically.

However, I have to say this. Is it the developer being lazy when there is a lack of a theme to a new character? Yes. Would the character be better if they were thematically cohesive? In most cases yes (unless you're being limited by your theme, but this is a small minority of the time). Yet, do you really think the average Smite player could even identify a character with a poorly formed theme, or to push the point further, even care that much if a god's theme doesn't match their character design?

Character developers in smite generally are looking for a way to design gods that are fun to play with kits that relate to the character in some way. While it would be better to have a kit that deeply plays into Ratatoskr's lore, on his identity as a trickster and a messenger, most players are satisfied to have a spunky squirrel who throws acorns at stuff, dashes around and saves his trickster attributes to his taunts and voicepack.

As long as character developers can get away with doing less work, making kits based around simple gameplay concepts rather than character's thematic backgrounds while still receiving just about the same amount of praise from the community, they will. While I personally would enjoy a game more with more cleverly designed thematic characters like your Ares, I doubt we'll see anything like that anytime soon because from the community's overarching standpoint, people like Ratatoskr. Despite his clear flaws that you pointed out, he's one of the more popular gods that I've seen come out in a while.

And to be honest, if I had to choose one, I would take gameplay over thematic cohesiveness any day.

The problem with "simple gameplay concepts" is that it usually goes hand in hand with good theme, as well.

In Smite, things are horrifically repetitive, and what truly distinguishes one god from the other is a short list. Take Serqet vs Fenrir. They're both known for a ton of mobility skills and their hard CC ult. And in the end, what's so different about them? Serqet has crits, armor shred, stealth that's rarely ever used, madness, health and true damage. Fenrir has lifesteal, and that's pretty much all that really is different - Serqet also has AoE damage, CC and a damage steroid. Stuff like a zigzag dash versus a teleport, or autolocking AoE damage versus DoT AoE damage, or attack speed versus power, doesn't really matter, because when you go to the meat of it, they're played and treated identically.

How this prevents theme, is that in removing choice, they make it harder to place or define a god. Having a dash becomes more meaningful when every other god in your class doesn't have a freaking dash. You've seen the repetitive elements, right? How every assassin needs at least two mobility skills, a hard CC, massive burst damage, AND crits to be even considered for viability. How mages need ridiculous AoE CC and burst AoE damage and mobility and not just good utility, but great utility, to be considered for viability. How pretty much every warrior must have a heal skill, several hard CC skills, raw burst damage, and mobility. You get the point.

League of Legends has more than double the playable characters than Smite does, and each champion plays and feels unique, because they have breathing room to be different, rather than the choking environment that forces them to be similar, or die.

How this affects balance is precisely because of that repetitiveness. Let's go back to an example: Serqet is Fenrir 2.0. Scylla was Anubis 2.0. Bellona is everyone 2.0. And so on.

Because differences are smaller, niches also become smaller and harder to define, and therefore the game's balance is wrecked because the metagame becomes too focused. It's not a contest of niche vs niche - it's a contest of "who can do this job better."

In League, both Heimerdinger and Azir are zoning, sustained damage monsters, but they're differentiated by not just their playstyle, but their niche - Azir has ridiculous control, precision, defensive ult, and range, while Heimer has burst damage, AoE damage, a utility ult, and more versatility.

In Smite, Anubis is extinct because of his own niche just isn't useful enough - it's not just been replaced, it's been excavated. Nemesis is a joke. Kali's niche of her ult isn't good when Bakasura has area control, true damage, a better early game, and free, unconditional.

And to bring this back to the original point, Ratatoskr lacks a theme or niche because he has to be like everyone else, because of Power Creep. If every god in the game had a proper theme (read: proper niche), the game would be more balanced. It's recursive: Rat can't have a theme because all the other gods don't have a theme because somewhere along the line, some moron thought that Power Creep had to be fixed by buffing everyone else instead of nerfing the problem.

tl;dr: Good themes are linked to good balance. LoL is more balanced, Dawngate was amazingly balanced, HOTS is a bit more balanced, etc. Because themes pretty much ARE niches - they're both fundamental concepts that lay out a god's place in the game.

Is every character playable in some circumstances in LoL? Pardon, but I don't know the first thing about that game.

they use a rotation like smite of 8-12 (mostly 10) different changing twice a month I believe or once a week.

you don't have the Dota part like Smite has where everyone is avaible for you

No, I mean, playable. Like, usable.

ohw Can;t awnser that but you have the normal counters