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Senior Encounter Designer

Overview

ZeniMax Online Studios is seeking a Senior Encounter Designer to join our studio for the development of our next AAA game. This is a chance to join an experienced group of developers in pre-production for a new IP.

This role will collaborate closely with the Lead Combat Designer, Lead Game Designer, and Lead Level Designer to bring gameplay encounters from early vision to industry-defining final implementations. This role will also work extensively with AI, animation, and gameplay programmers to innovate on a wide range of challenging enemies and fun combat gameplay experiences.

Responsibilities

• Partner closely with the level design and content teams to help define industry leading gameplay and solidify best practices for combat flows in level design
• Establish combat metrics for AI in level design
• Design enemies within “faction” lore which fulfill "chess piece" combat roles
• Design enemy offensive and defensive capabilities, create behaviors for those abilities
• Create behaviors for enemy group coordination
• Provide specific hands-on support with content for special case instances
• Collaborate with the combat team in the development of mechanics and player abilities to deliver a thrilling yet approachable combat experience
• Help define tool needs for scripting to support encounter design
• Help to establish standards for documentation and implementation practices
• Mentor level designers in building layouts that leverage a variety of AI systems

Qualifications

• 5+ years related experience
• Deeply creative with a great sense of what makes for fun gameplay
• Excellent ability to work collaboratively in a cross-discipline development environment
• Proficiency integrating imagery and text to deliver thorough, easy to understand design documents
• Comfortable with a playtest-driven development schedule focused on iteration and polish
• Strong understanding of the discrete elements that game systems are built upon, and the ability to problem solve both holistically and on a per-component basis
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Working knowledge of scripting or programming
• An online portfolio which clearly demonstrates relevant work experience

Preferred Skills

• Experience developing Open World games
• Experience in level design
• Experience in AI design

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