Tom's Progress Update

Champion Creation

The basic champion template that I am working toward draws similarities to weapon system on Guild Wars 2 (more so than any MOBA, anyway). Each champion will feature a primary attack (or spell, or ability) that functions as a basic/auto-attack, and abilities. The primary attack with respect to League of Legends would be a champions "innate" ability - but thematically tied to the champion's weapon. The decision to use this layout over the League's is for a number of reasons.

1. Engine: CryEngine typically supports shooters, and so "basic attacks" should feel comparable to a shooter. In particular, aiming. While League of Legends supports a "basic attack" that cannot miss (except in specific cases), in a shooter-engine, every attack should have to be aimed. 
2. Theme: Hordes is placed in a real-world setting (albeit the aftermath of an apocalypse). There is no magic, bows and swords (mostly). In League of Legends there is very little difference between a champion's basic attacks beyond range - and as a theme, I dislike this. A shotgun should feel like a shotgun; an uprooted stop sign should feel like a make-shift mace; a set of talons should feel like knives.

The simplest example would be to compare a shotgun to an assault rifle:

• Shotgun: small spread/AOE damage on each attack.
• Assault rifle: fast rate of fire, relatively long reload time.

For our abhuman champions with predominantly melee attacks, things such as:

• Cleave: this champion's attacks hit all enemies in a cleave around his target
• Isolation: this champion deals increased damage to enemies on their own.
• Backstab: this champion deals increased damage from behind.

Weapon-unspecific things such as: 

• Every third hit deals increased damage.
• The first hit against a target causes them to bleed.
• Deals increased damage to low healthed units.

... is also a possibility. 

For the purposes of whiteboxing the game, I have chosen two League of Legends champions to fill-in as placeholders for the Hunter and Abhuman champions: Graves and Kha'Zix, respectively.

Shotgun/gritty southerner theme (Hunter champion)

Xenomorph/apex predator theme (Abhuman champion)

Modelling

Progress in this department hit a standstill when I was unable to rig (add a skeleton) to the model for the purposes of animation. This roadblock is also halting my final year project - so I'll speak with Ewan tomorrow to see if he has any pointers. I've followed two tutorials and I'm running into the same error - when I move parts of the body it doesn't automatically pull other parts (like a Ragdoll): instead I get things that look like a scene out of saw.

Human champion, zombie champion and human minion model:

Zombie minion model: