Incline Game Design Talk - Action Combat

[DJOGamer PT]

A thread dedicated to the discussion of the Design of Combat Mechanics and associated Systems in Action games - their working, their objective, the variety of their forms and ultimately their quality.

This thread is not about any particular one style of Action Combat - be it within Figther/Brawlers (i.e. Figthing games, Hack 'n' Slashes, Beat 'em Ups, etc.) or within Shooters (i.e. FPS, TPS, Isometric/Top-down, etc.)
The reason for this, is the simple fact that for decades Action games have been blending both - we have countless game were shooting and figthing are of equal gameplay importance

This is a thread I've been thinking about for some time and while I'll personally will mostly talk about Fighters, again I stress that Shooters are equally welcome to the discussion.

With that said I'll begin with my summarised thoughts on my ideal of design and characteristics of a Melee Combat System:

Fundamentally, the engament of Action games comes from the choices you can make in its moment-to-moment gameplay
The Brawler subgenre in particular puts greater pressure on the player within short timeframes, as such these games require a reasonably diverse and consistently pratical array of actions that the playable character can perform
The audiovisual spectacle and the physical feedback aspect (i.e. what's commonly called game feel) is important, as it makes the action more clear (easy to follow and "read") and fun to play, but ideally that should be the icing on the cake, not the primary design focus
Since this a very mechanically focused genre, ideally the primary focus and strongest aspect of such a game, should the mechanical design
And the mechanical design, while it can take completely different forms and try to fullfill inumerable distinct gameplay experiences, it should never deprive the player of meaningful agency - the player should always have a choice regradless of the situation

The way I like to think about it, combat in a Fighter should be like a lightning fast chess match where both opponents can play at the same time
You have several pieces/actions that you can move/perform, each piece has unique properties, as such there are: contexts were each piece is more suited to operate, but each has multiple uses; some pieces and tactics can function as "counters" to other pieces and tactics; thres's a risk/reward correlation in the "power" of a certain piece and the ways it can be used (usually with the safest option being the least "extraordinary" result).
Theoretically you could win a game by using just one piece, but like in chess such approach should naturally make the game harder and require a great degree of execution from the player.
Also like in chess, ideally the design of the actions should be robust and versatile enough, allowing for a near endless amount of playstyles - i.e. it should possible, within the framework of the game, for each player to figth in own manner, therefore making the gameplay experience more personal and meaningful

The most important distinction I feel this example falls short of, is that in Chess you can not only find yourself having to use just one piece, but far worse you may find youself force to execute only 1 move otherwise its certain defeat.
Now, I do think that like in chess bad choices (and almost equally important in Action games, bad execution of the action) from the player should result in punishement and if severe enough, reduced possibilities of play.
In fact these situation can be a wonderful way to force the player to make riskier decisions and overall be a source of intense moments of Action (ba-dum-tss).
However, I believe this should never be pushed to the point where the player finds himself with absolutely no room for error and to deal with the situation he has extremely limited amount of options
Because "do exactely this or die" is an ultimatum, not a choice

Proof of this are those old arcade quarter munching bosses, that were programmed with all sort of lazy bullshit to counter any of the player's moves outside of a very specific tactic or cheesy attack
Meanwhile the best and most fondly remembered bosses are always those that while comprehensive in their figthing behaviour, still allow the player to defeat them in multiple ways

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think having a variety of ways to effectively counter most any situation also plays into the spectacle aspect- if the only answer to a particular character/attack/tactic is another particular thing, then you witness the same spectacle over and over and it simply becomes tedium. Glory kills and backstab/parry animations in general tend to make me feel this way. Also makes me lose interest in a lot of SHMUPs where the gameplay revolves around 'remember to move in this exact pattern when this attack starts.'

I think another aspect action games need is the chance to change the tools you work with over time. In a fighting game this might be switching characters, or teams of characters or even just their moveset in some cases. In longer games I think you need stuff like finding new equipment, spells, or other abilities. And those abilities need to actually change the way you play. Simply changing your damage or health by 20% while you go through the same motions doesn't matter, and neither does giving you a special move that is only useful for breaking rocks that cover a few secret passages. Game devs had this shit figured out all the way back in the 80's with stuff like Megaman, and it's sad to see new games where you can spend hours fighting the exact same way over and over again.

And I suppose the last really important piece to me is that movement in an action game needs to feel inherently expressive and free, even outside the context of any particular challenge. Warframe utterly nails this with it's sliding/wall running/bullet jumping insanity. But even something like old FPS games did well enough just by letting you move around like a greyhound on crack. On the other end of the scale you have stuff like old castlevania where just getting from point A to B felt like a test of patience, or Elder Scrolls games where you get winded just trying to get across town quickly and a low level character routinely gets stymied by a chest high wall he can't climb over. This plays back into the concept of your tools getting better over time as you gain access to better acrobatics or levitation, but it takes way too long in a natural playthrough for the baseline movement to be so weak.

 

[abija]

Fundamentally, the engament of Action games comes from the choices you can make in its moment-to-moment gameplay
The Brawler subgenre in particular puts greater pressure on the player within short timeframes, as such these games require a reasonably diverse and consistently pratical array of actions that the playable character can perform

You have a serious issue on your hands because the fun in what you describe comes after a considerable level of mastery in a specific game. Way more hours than people usually spend per game. Fast analyzing of the situation and interesting decisions do not happen without a serious investment from the player, regardless of how well designed the game is.

Chess is a very good comparison and as someone who spent 6 months in a chess club there are 2 things that happen:
- you learn the immensity of what you don't know
- you demolish vast majority of the people that say they know how to play

The exact same thing happens if you practice in an action game. The difference is, unless the game somehow lucks out and becomes a form of status symbol, nobody gives a fuck about it. So what you probably call incompetence by the devs is the result of many many concessions made to try and hook people in. Something needs to pay for "The audiovisual spectacle and the physical feedback aspect (i.e. what's commonly called game feel) is important"

 

[Damned Registrations]

Fast analyzing of the situation and interesting decisions do not happen without a serious investment from the player, regardless of how well designed the game is.

I disagree with that, at least in principle. You may not be able to analyze things effectively or make good decisions, but the process is what you get even as someone playing something as simple as Mario for the first time. I think fighting games (and most difficult action games in general) tend to fail at this for new players because there's not enough time to analyze something before you're already in the next situation. Hence you get players button mashing their way through a fighting game, or just panic rolling through a souls boss. However, not all difficult action games are like that- you'd never even try to button mash your way through something like Spelunky. It's also a very difficult game where mastery takes the form of being able to make split second decisions to avert disaster along with precise execution. The difference being that when you get hit in Spelunky, you often survive and then have a breather, and even if you don't, the situation remains onscreen and it's generally obvious enough what happened that you can analyze your death and think of a way to avoid it next time.

You can't do that in a fighting game except on the most basic level of something like jumping into an uppercut of having someone jump over your fireball and kick you in the face. As soon as you get into the weird shit like frame traps, character specific combos and bugs, or even just a combo you can't execute yourself and therefore don't know why you can't do what is being done to you- analysis is hopeless. You need a guide, or full on study with recordings, slow mo playback, and testing in practice modes that often don't even let you record inputs.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I am sick of hack and dash.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I think another aspect action games need is the chance to change the tools you work with over time. In a fighting game this might be switching characters, or teams of characters or even just their moveset in some cases. In longer games I think you need stuff like finding new equipment, spells, or other abilities. And those abilities need to actually change the way you play.

Agree
Though it is important to remember that not all devs have the resources to create so many assets - and also that some games do not benefit from having alot
In those cases, I think less is more and devs should rather focus on making each ability more versatile or perhaps seek to increase the synergy between abilities (by having certain abilities/equipment change the properties of other abilities)

And I suppose the last really important piece to me is that movement in an action game needs to feel inherently expressive and free, even outside the context of any particular challenge.

Now this I think depends entirely upon what kind of combat experience the game is trying to be
I understand the preference for faster paced, more agile movement but plenty of people prefer the more restrictive and slower paced style of other games
You mentioned Castlevania and indeed movement and positioning is a big part of the challenge - those games wouldn't work as they do if the Belmonts had the speed and control of Super Mario
Really, the "sluggish" approach allows for other kinds of gameplay and combat considerations that aren't quite as possible with the more fluid approach - you can see this in figthing games, with how important footsies are, matches turn into guessing games and baiting your opponent into wrong judgements

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think the only games that did sluggish movement well in my experience are the old AC games. You could build an absolute tank that couldn't dodge for shit. But even then you could still fly a bit to make use of cover or sniping vantages, and fire up the overboost to cover a long distance quickly. I honestly don't think the old castlevania (Or ghouls and ghosts) gameplay holds up. It mostly relies on surprising the player with offscreen attacks as you make a leap of faith over a pit or are dealing with some sort of other threat. Outside of boss fights, it never really feels like you're interacting with your enemies. Everything you're aware of is trivial to deal with and everything you're not aware of is impossible to defend against. Another old game with sluggish movement is Zelda 2, and I think that sort of works- I never got good enough but people definitely get to the point they can freely block and counter enemies with shields, even more than one at once, which makes up for moving like a bicycle on a sheet of ice.

In regards to the affordability of assets- You don't necessarily need new assets (or at least, expensive ones) to keep the gameplay fresh. You can get by with new equipment not showing up on the character, or showing up as just a palette swap or small accessory that's trivial to animate. You get a ton of mileage out of tweaking existing assets in games and I think devs don't do this often enough. Make my sword swing longer, my jump arc better, extend my iframes, give a bit of health regen; these are all things that can make a huge difference in how you approach challenges in a game that require little or no investment aside from balancing. I'd definitely rather have a bunch of that than 14 instead of 13 types of cannon fodder to stab, and enemies require entire sets of animations for attacks, injuries, various sorts of movement and anything else you want them to do like idle animations or environmental interactions. And again, tweaking existing enemies is better than just having more of them. Stuff like the monsters fighting each other in MHW adds a ton to the experience and only required adding some animations to existing monsters that already have dozens of animations. Same for all their different injuries being shown. I think they could take the concept further and do more variants; make monsters that are fast but weak, or tanky but huge and slow, give them an extra type of resistance or two but drastically lower their stamina. That'd do more for me than having a crazy puffball bat I'm hardly ever going to fight anyways.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Fundamentally, the engament of Action games comes from the choices you can make in its moment-to-moment gameplay
The Brawler subgenre in particular puts greater pressure on the player within short timeframes, as such these games require a reasonably diverse and consistently pratical array of actions that the playable character can perform

You have a serious issue on your hands because the fun in what you describe comes after a considerable level of mastery in a specific game. Way more hours than people usually spend per game. Fast analyzing of the situation and interesting decisions do not happen without a serious investment from the player, regardless of how well designed the game is.

Chess is a very good comparison and as someone who spent 6 months in a chess club there are 2 things that happen:
- you learn the immensity of what you don't know
- you demolish vast majority of the people that say they know how to play

The exact same thing happens if you practice in an action game. The difference is, unless the game somehow lucks out and becomes a form of status symbol, nobody gives a fuck about it. So what you probably call incompetence by the devs is the result of many many concessions made to try and hook people in. Something needs to pay for "The audiovisual spectacle and the physical feedback aspect (i.e. what's commonly called game feel) is important"

Yes but learning and mastery is also part of the appeal

I think that's also part of the reason why it's common for these games to be short, but then have various extra game modes and difficulties - for extended replayability
So even if the game only has 10 hours of content, due to the mechanical depth and additional challenges the player can still easily spend 50+ hours
The Japanese in particular like to lock harder difficulties and have the "price" of ability upgrades high enough to require additional playtroughs, because the logic behind it is to progressively teach the player all the gameplay nuances and prepare him for the "ultimate challenge" game mode

You raise a fine point about dev concessions to hook audiences
I wouldn't call that incompetence, it's a willing and unfortunate (yet understanble) sacrifice of quality
But I don't think such sacrifice should be required
I mean if Fromsoftware has proved anything in this last decade, is that the reputation of "difficulty" does not render financial and critical success more difficult to attain
Besides Difficulty options exist for a reason, your game can appeal to both the casual and hardcore audience

 

[DJOGamer PT]

You don't necessarily need new assets (or at least, expensive ones) to keep the gameplay fresh.

Encounter and Level Design are imo underlooked elements in this.
Even "weak" enemies can be made more interesting to fight if the context you figth them in has some creativity to it - pairing them with other trivial enemies that smartly "plug" their weakness, also works quite well.

 

[d1r]

GOD HAND

 

[Hell Swarm]

GOD HAND

Tank controls in a beat 'em up don't work and God hand deserves the low scores it got. Neg rate me and prove me right.

The issue with 'action' is it's too generic to discuss in any form. If we're honest the biggest action genre right now is Dark souls and if you want to actually discuss the depth it has.. Well it has the same depth as streets of rage 3. There's very little depth or complexity to the combat and it's become shallower over time if anything. You can't compare street fighter to dark souls or spelunky IMO. They're so widely different it's hard to contrast them in a meaningful way.

You don't need a lot of enemies if you use those enemies wisely any way. Devil may cry does an excellent job of refreshing it's combat as you go up the difficulties. At first you lack abilities but as you unlock more you gain new ways to fight. Then they start mixing enemies in weird ways. A sin scissors is not dangerous on it's own but it requires you to pay attention to it and quickly do it's counter move. That becomes much more difficult if a shadow is constantly pressuring you or puppets are throwing knives at you. Modern games don't mix their assets well because they're not designed to be mixed. Which is a shame as there's many ways you can take a simple ranged enemy and constantly change the dynamic.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The issue with 'action' is it's too generic to discuss in any form.

The thread isn't about all manner of action gameplay, just combat - specifically those related to figthing and shooting
And the thread so far as proved worthwhile discussion on the topic is possible

Tank controls in a beat 'em up don't work and God hand deserves the low scores it got. Neg rate me and prove me right.

You would need to expand on this opinion first
As it stands, there's not enough "meat" here for any real criticism, this is just bait

 

[NecroLord]

Action/Combat...
Who even cares?
It's the same thing.
Is a shooter like Doom also not an action game?

 

[Hell Swarm]

You would need to expand on this opinion first
As it stands, there's not enough "meat" here for any real criticism, this is just bait

What more meat do you need?
God hand has tank controls
Tank controls are a poor fit for a beat 'em up
God hand is a bad game because it's controls are a poor fit for a beat 'em up.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Action/Combat...
Who even cares?
It's the same thing.

Uh, no. Turn based combat is also a thing.

 

[d1r]

GOD HAND

Tank controls in a beat 'em up don't work and God hand deserves the low scores it got. Neg rate me and prove me right.

It absolutely works if you actually use the controls given to you.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Tank controls are absolutely a poor fit for a beat 'em up game, but Godhand is still a pretty good game in spite of that. It's not like that tank controls even matter for the most part; they only come into play between fights when you're exploring. Probably saved them having to do extra work on the camera.

My main gripe with Godhand is actually the difficulty scaling system, but I still think it's worth a playthrough. The combat is fair, and it's got style. Deserves it's cult following more than MGR at any rate.

 

[Hell Swarm]

GOD HAND

Tank controls in a beat 'em up don't work and God hand deserves the low scores it got. Neg rate me and prove me right.

It absolutely works if you actually use the controls given to you.

I played God hand at release and hated the controls. So "it works" is subjective and I found they didn't. God hand is not a stand alone title, it's part of the eco system and compare DMC to Godhand and they're not in the same league.

Tank controls are absolutely a poor fit for a beat 'em up game, but Godhand is still a pretty good game in spite of that. It's not like that tank controls even matter for the most part; they only come into play between fights when you're exploring. Probably saved them having to do extra work on the camera.

My main gripe with Godhand is actually the difficulty scaling system, but I still think it's worth a playthrough. The combat is fair, and it's got style. Deserves it's cult following more than MGR at any rate.

Tank controls are great for survival horror. They're exactly what that genre needs and anything else breaks them but a fighting game.. well Fighting force got it right on the ps1. So God hand has no excuse.

 

[d1r]

GOD HAND

Tank controls in a beat 'em up don't work and God hand deserves the low scores it got. Neg rate me and prove me right.

It absolutely works if you actually use the controls given to you.

I played God hand at release and hated the controls. So "it works" is subjective and I found they didn't. God hand is not a stand alone title, it's part of the eco system and compare DMC to Godhand and they're not in the same league.

Cool. User problem. Doesn't justify your retarded take that it objectively deserved the score it got.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Action/Combat...
Who even cares?
It's the same thing.

Combat is perhaps the most common activity in the Action genre.
But Action games that don't have a significant Combat component exist and are entirely possible - platforming, stealth, racing, sports, rythm, survival.
Adicionally, not all Combat systems belong to the Action genre - Tactical and Strategy games for example.

What more meat do you need?
God hand has tank controls
Tank controls are a poor fit for a beat 'em up

I am fundamentally of the idea that any game mechanic, no matter how "wrong" it might look on paper, can work provided there's smart design to that accounts for it

In God Hand the tank controls make sideways movement clunky and Gene isn't very acrobatic, but when you play the game you see there's really no need for neither
The enemies come at you from the front, even during ambush encounters the game never has them coming from different directions, and encounters of more than 3 enemies at the same time are very rare - so if there's a figth you find yourself surrounded, it's because you put yourself there
The maps also aren't very complex in their layout, are spacious even in tigth corridors and don't any precise control navigation and platforming (Gene won't even fall off the few "cliffs" in the game unless you press the "jump down" interaction) - so even on the matter of exploration, the movement controls aren't an issue
Again you never figth mobs of enemies, enemies always figth you head-on, they don't dance around you, their attacks are super telegraphed and the camera framing really emphasizes all these aspects - the whole combat system is completely tuned in for these brawls against few oponents
Also, Gene's attack hitboxes are lenient (and I've always suspected there's a little bit of tracking), while the enemies attack hitboxes are quite strict and have no tracking
Finally, the Dodge system, the entire reason why the Tank Controls exist, to free up the rigth analog stick for Gene's lightning fast dodges - there's not a single enemy attack you can't avoid with 2 quick taps

My own experience with the game was confusion at first, but after that initial cringe learning the whole thing just works and the game becomes quite fun

 

[Anonona]

Again you never figth mobs of enemies, enemies always figth you head-on, they don't dance around you, their attacks are super telegraphed and the camera framing really emphasizes all these aspects - the whole combat system is completely tuned in for these brawls against few oponents

They also limit ranged attacks for enemies quite a lot, so you don't find yourself getting snipped while your back is turned. Nu-God of War, while not having tank controls, did have over the shoulder camera and the encounter design could be quite annoying often times with how they were design and how many of them had dangerous long range options.

The director of God Hand also directed Resident Evil 4 and I think they share certain fundamental philosophies on their design, particularly an emphasis on crowd control by smart play and keeping your enemies in front of you.

 

[Hell Swarm]

GOD HAND

Tank controls in a beat 'em up don't work and God hand deserves the low scores it got. Neg rate me and prove me right.

It absolutely works if you actually use the controls given to you.

I played God hand at release and hated the controls. So "it works" is subjective and I found they didn't. God hand is not a stand alone title, it's part of the eco system and compare DMC to Godhand and they're not in the same league.

Cool. User problem. Doesn't justify your retarded take that it objectively deserved the score it got.

The game is clunky and the only reason people like it is the presentation. If they could just admit this it would be better than pretending it belongs along side games like Bayonetta and DMC. It's only put there because no one else wants it. So cult game fans try to force it into discussions it doesn't belong in. It's fine as another whacky Japanese game you play for the experience but it's objectively a bad game based on it's gameplay only.

The enemies come at you from the front, even during ambush encounters the game never has them coming from different directions, and encounters of more than 3 enemies at the same time are very rare - so if there's a figth you find yourself surrounded, it's because you put yourself there

Again you never figth mobs of enemies, enemies always figth you head-on, they don't dance around you, their attacks are super telegraphed and the camera framing really emphasizes all these aspects - the whole combat system is completely tuned in for these brawls against few oponents

At 11 minutes you can see a guy being attacked by multiple enemies and surrounded. You can blame him for not knowing where the enemies spawn in but it's definitely an ambush you're likely to get surrounded in. I remember the demon enemies being pretty fast but it's been a decade since I played it so I could be remembering that wrong.

 

[d1r]

Hell Swarm
Once again, absolute subjective take completely disregarding the fact, that the game has an incredible fighting flow, and works beautifully on a very mechanical level if you put more than one hour and some brainpower into it. It certainly is a different kind of beat-em-up/action game, but it is completely dishonest to say that it is OBJECTIVELY bad because it doesn't suit YOUR playstyle. There is a very good reasoning why this game has become a cult classic, and it is not because of presentation alone.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Hell Swarm
Once again, absolute subjective take completely disregarding the fact, that the game has an incredible fighting flow, and works beautifully on a very mechanical level if you put more than one hour and some brainpower into it. It certainly is a different kind of beat-em-up/action game, but it is completely dishonest to say that it is OBJECTIVELY bad because it doesn't suit YOUR playstyle. There is a very good reasoning why this game has become a cult classic, and it is not because of presentation alone.

Sure it works beautifully while you slowly turn to face enemies and waddle like an American between areas.

It's fine to enjoy God hand. But it's still jank and has major issues already solved by games at that point. I'm sure you play for all the gay men waving their dicks at you to Mazinger music like everyone else.

 

[d1r]

Hell Swarm
Once again, absolute subjective take completely disregarding the fact, that the game has an incredible fighting flow, and works beautifully on a very mechanical level if you put more than one hour and some brainpower into it. It certainly is a different kind of beat-em-up/action game, but it is completely dishonest to say that it is OBJECTIVELY bad because it doesn't suit YOUR playstyle. There is a very good reasoning why this game has become a cult classic, and it is not because of presentation alone.

Sure it works beautifully while you slowly turn to face enemies and waddle like an American between areas.

You know, that is exactly how I know that you haven't played this game fore more than 30 minutes, respectively didn't even bother to dive into it and learn at least its basic mechanics. Your opinion on this matter is thus absolutely worthless.