The Molasses Flood is looking for a Senior or Principal Combat Designer to help drive the vision and implementation of the combat experience in our latest project, a multiplayer action game set within the world of The Witcher. You will take on everything from the high-level — pitching enemy and weapon types — to the sub-second nitty-gritty — placing I-Frames, damage volumes, damage and hit reaction balancing, etc.. You will work across disciplines, from art and animation to engineering and production, to make our game’s combat fun, satisfying, and scalable from the early game to the late.

The person in this role will report to the Lead Gameplay Designer. This role may be performed per our hybrid work model in the greater Boston area (Tues/Thurs in our office and Mon/Wed/Fri work from home), with relocation assistance available. This role could also be performed remotely within the continental US and Canada, and according to US East coast core hours. Benefits and salary available varies by country. 

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine our approach to combat and foundational combat systems.

• Pitch, prototype, implement, and continually balance and improve a wide variety of enemy types, including core enemies and bosses, to shipping.

• Tune the combat experience at the micro level: animation length, i-frames, damage volumes, etc.

• Implement each character type’s combat behavior using techniques such as behavior trees, animation graphics, and blueprints.

• Help to define and develop internal workflows and development tools for AI behavior and attack patterns.

• Work with character art, animation, VFX, and Audio to ship characters with best-in-class presentation and polish.

• Help balance combat-related systems such as player leveling and experience, weapons, and damage.

• Produce and maintain design documentation and work with Production to ensure they can be implemented with time and resources available.

• Keep in constant communication with the team to solicit feedback and constantly hone your work.