Months of work went into this video, I seriously hope you guys love it! Thank you for all the amazing support as always! Now I'm gonna go play some Halo Infinite
It’s similar to making animations and making tiktoks. You can spend ages making an animation but making a tiktok wouldn’t take too long. Not saying that making the ms paint stuff wouldn’t take a while but I’m just comparing the two.
Monster Hunter World was this game for me, I never felt such growth in a game only to get humbled by the next elder dragon and me seeking a way to overcome it.
My first MH was Generations Ultimate and going from that to Rise Sunbreak was like going from a fighter jet to one of the toy planes outside of stores 😂
"Without clarity, the other aspects all fall apart", he used an egg to represent clarity, and eggs are used to hold ingredients together in cooking. I see what you did there!
personally, simplistic controls are so much less overwhelming than having every button to use in combat. Jedi Survivor, Hollow Knight, and Assassin's Creed (at least the new ones) all feel so fun to fight in because anyone can do it. It's simplistic, you cant really make mistakes in what move you wanna pull off. It's just attack or block/dodge.
This has helped me to better understand and appreciate the Resident Evil games. I'm not a fan of having to be careful with my item management to beat the game, but if I just switch my perspective that the item management is apart of the game and not necessarily the combat itself, I'm more encouraged to try the earlier ones. It's like a challenge now to how good I can manage my items.
Agreed my only problem with it (I don’t know if this is true in all re games I’ve only played re 2&3 remakes a bit of re4 and re7) is the aiming sometimes mainly because I’m on console and getting headshots with a controller when you don’t have aim assist is harder then a genshin player when they see a child so conserving ammo and resources can be a pain in the a$$ to deal with
Yeah I think incremental boosts are just as much of a tool as huge gameplay warping upgrades. You gotta mix and match them juuuust right... OOOOR just be a metroidvania.
Bro I had to spent like 12 plat to get my accs and weapons to reasonable prefixes, and thats the only bad thing about preparing your equipment in Terraria
I'm not sure if there's such thing as a perfect combat system, but I think different kinds of combats work best for different games. Hollow Knight, for example, manages to have an incredibly simple yet deep combat, not in the sense of having to use lots of buttons, but that in its simplicity it has so much room to grow. Each scenario is different and requires different skills from the player, the combat yet so simple is so satisfying and gives the sensation of growth through learning
A game that, at least for me, has a "perfect" combat system is Hyper Light Drifter. It's just so damn satisfying to kill enemies in that game that I've finishied it like 10 times
@@CircleToonsHD Circle, I think God of War 2018 contradict or do not fulfilled the points you've made. Agency, GOW confines you to a linear passage while also incorporating weapon specific enemies. Imbalances, the game gives you the same enemy types throughout a playthrough just with higher stats. Evolution, it's rather limited but grants the allusion of complexity through the branching skill tree and earning runic attacks. On a related note, I have to say that "button mashy" is a criticism of yourself because the choice of attacks are reliant own your creativity. Clarity and Control, the FOV. For a series that relishes on the one man army trope, it's utterly confusing as to why the devs agree to limit it with a tightly frame camera. I get the idea of complementing narrative but the band aid solution of giving threat indicators already compromise that. And for a melee focused game, the screen gets messy if players attempt crazier moves against multiple enemies as it is filled with motions and particle effects. Also, we lose manual jumping because of this.
I remember finishing my first NG+ run, and right after that discovering that the cape, bot and sword you wear actually has a bunch of diferent effects including the super useful +1 HP that would have spared me of i don't know how many deaths
That's one thing I love about the 2D action games like Hollow Knight and Katana Zero, because even if the side-scroller format and core control schemes are super simple at a glance the different situations and challenges slowly escalate and evolve into a lot of unique and multi-layered encounters.
They're so annoying, fairly quick and hard to see. They hit then run for safety. Their poison effect is strong as hell, and it stacks too. You better have potions ready. If you get hit by them more than three times, you're basically crippled. Four, and just call yourself dead, its literally a terminal illness.
I don't know man all you need to do is switch to a weapon that has the "meat lover" enchantment when fighting vegetarian scorpions, so that skill is kinda a waste of skill point imo
There's a game that I've been playing called "Curse Of The Dead Gods" it's a rogue-like but does a really good job of the things that were said in this video. I would recommend checking it out if you're into Hades!
6:02 Destiny, in a nutshell. This is one of Bungie's biggest flaws with their game. There is absolutely no sense in a light/power level if the guy who just started a new character and myself at max level, do the same amount of damage to a level 1 enemy. So lame! Bungie has a fear of players being too strong. This was a good video.
I totally agree with this, i took a break from D2 recently and moved to sekiro, I am a souls veteran but i had to re learn a completely different combat system, but it feel so satisfying coming back to an earlier game area such as Senpou temple and breaking most of the enemies posture in a few hits. Another thing is looking back at the earlier game bosses/minibosses and seeing how quickly their posture bar fills compared to the slow almost antagonizing build of the final boss’ bar (sword saint isshin). well with the exception of the third phase as his lightning attacks can give you an advantage.
Long story short, games should make you realize that your journey was and still is meaningful, and a very simple way of doing that is scaling enemies based on the area or just that specific enemy type in general.
I stopped playing Destiny when all the Christmas noobs were able to just leap into gear I had to GRIND for, allowing them to easily and quickly level up to my high level/ gear score.
I've had the opposite problem with a lot of games too though, including Destiny at times. It's a really weird balance that designers have to strike between making you constantly feel more powerful than before while also making sure every encounter is more difficult than the last despite all those upgrades. Relative to the challenges you face, you should always be getting weaker, not stronger, but the way you FEEL needs to be the inverse.
Omg, the Clarity really hits me hard with how I'm feeling hurt by games these days. I know that some kids would want to play the game as well, but a 5+ minutes tutorial for one mechanic wouldn't help me nor the child I believe.
One genre that gets to explore all of this but I think is frequently overlooked is metroidvania type platformers. Hollow Knight and Ori 2 are great examples of games that basically check all these boxes, at least for me.
Ori 2 had really great combat. That was the largest improvement from the first game. The best part about the combat is how you maneuver yourself to attack and dodge attacks using bash. Truly one of the best abilities in gaming.
Maybe he should work with a dev team as a creative director/consultant. He seems to know his shit conceptually, but i'd guess he doesn't know a lot of Programming and integrating these Systems into an actual game (could be wrong about that tho). It would be really cool to see a Videogame with his vision someboday!
It's infinitely easier to talk about what makes good game combat, than to actually implement it into a real game. You can make a list of goals, discuss the theory and all, but to actually design and build a game which takes on all of these attributes is a completely different set of skills and knowledge, which almost nobody watching this video will have.
I like games where the combat seems simple at first till you realise some of the moves used for other things can be used for the combat, I recently discovered while fuckin around in Sonic Frontiers that you can use the wild rush to cancel out of any attacks meaning if you are close enough to do a wild rush on an enemy then you can do attacks way faster
"Not everything should scale with the player" *ahem* fallout 76 *ahem* the scorched/feral ghouls should not take three point blank shots from a combat shotgun *ahem*
Oh man that game was so fucking fun, getting off a perfect rabbit kick on a wolf and instakilling them was like, the most satisfying thing you could do in a videogame
"Perfect Videogame Combat" is when every neuron in your brain is lit up and you're pouring every ounce of your adrenaline, reflexes and combat mastery into a fight. Examples of this in my opinion are Orphan of Kos [Bloodborne], Vergil [Devil May Cry 5], Moon Lord [Terraria], Isshin, the Sword Saint [Sekiro] and basically any late-game shootout in Doom Eternal.
Hollow Knight bosses can make you feel like they are LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT, but when you do, it feels so so good, like it can make you literally feel like a BOSS
For me most hollow knight bosses are really fun and satisfying cuz of the learning curve. Take for example hornet at first you die almost instantly but after a few fights you start dodging and a few more you feel so good dodging hitting dodging hitting again. But some bosses are just cancer for example traitor lord made me want to quit until I finaly beat him. But I truthly love the combat in hollow knight.But some sections like white palace are straight up just pain.
Why don’t more games use badge systems for upgrades? Or the ability to respec like dark souls? This allows players to play their way. It’s just better.
words cannot describe how much i love monster hunter's combat, especially from a lore point of view as you actively exploit these animal's biology as you fight them, i got issues with generations ultimate (like how cutting off a rathian's tail STILL POISONS YOU WHEN IT BACKFLIPS) but it's overall absolutely perfect for me
Ultrakill is literally perfect gameplay wise. Slick and responsive movement, satisfying and unique weapons and abilities and equipment that are all useful and add to the flow of combat. The gimmick of healing yourself with the blood of the damned is both fun and absolutely badass.
i believe dark souls series has nailed the best gameplay for some players expecting in the adventure genre as you cant button smash your way, has many movements and even combo like light , heavy , and special attack for both single and double hand. it has lots of weapons suitable for their builds and every dark souls game has that unique style of gameplay and lots of other amazing feelings you feel after defeating that god damn bossfight
I mean I guess, as long as it does not overrun other ip, im fine with the combat. I finished demon's soul and it was fine I guess. But when I started dark soul, I got my ass kicked. Which is fine. But the sheer amount of death is personally too much. I felt like in demon's soul, the game was great when the game was hard, but not when it was HARD. I feel that difficulty is like... Nsfw. Bdsm. If its too gentle, then its boring and might as well do the real thing, do it to harsh and it just hurt but do it in between and it work great. Demon's soul is for me(except the two manticore, the big lava dude and false king alan) the exact right amount of difficulty. Dark soul is too much for me. And no, im not willing to get good. I just don't enjoy the process of getting good in dark soul unlike demon's soul. Now, im not asking them to put an easy mode. It would destroy the point of souls game. You can't go into a souls game and asking it to be easy. Souls is for souls fan and I respect that. My problem is, when that souls philosophy come to franchises that did not have that way of doing thing. Like darksider 3 or doom eternal. That is when I will complain. You have your thing, we have ours. But yeah. Souls combat is great. No wonder people try as best as they can to copy it.
@@clapointe151 if u thought dark souls 1 was hard lmao blood borne, sekiro is gonna make u burn ur house down and never look back. Because dark souls 1 believe it or not is one of the easier souls games. lol
Metal gear rising: reavengence is and should be at least an honorable mention with combat and gameplay still holding up today, and the music is on Parr if not better than Doom's music.
Botw has great combat I mean I personally love how after a while once you’ve gotten far into the game it’s just so satisfying to sweep through enemy’s wether it be with a sword a spear a big sword a bow or even a shield
I swear that out the entire thing I was screaming out loud botw. If I had the choice to replay it for the first time again it would probably be my first choice because I kind of spoiled it with playthroughs guides exploits and I pretty much hate myself for destroying a perfectly great game for loot SMH🤦♂️
After playing through Skyward Sword HD, even the button-only controls feel downright frustrating against late-game enemies. Basically, I just want to play BOTW again
This video just oozes with passion and love for video game combat, and it's refreshing to hear an in-depth analysis on it. So many points were brilliantly brought up but none felt like filler. Those months of work really paid off. Love it!
I always hated whenever the game would make the same enemy scale in level with the player like "Well since I'm a higher level and deal more damage (and you deal more to me) that makes me an amazing enemy!"
10:46 Often overlooked aspect. "Weight". Hitting something should feel like you are hitting something with effort and inertia and committed movement , not a quiet suggestion of maybe possibly brushing lightly against something with a feather duster (Skyrim).
One thing I want to see in games is enemys working together, such as having a sheild boy with the weakness of being shoved ,but when you do shove him a different type of enemy will counter you by shoving you. It would be great for a game to have 10 different types of enemys that work well together and can make different difficult to defeat teams.
@@sinisterthoughts2896 I don't think that's what there talking about, in soul like games generally a mob of weak monsters do the same thin g they would do alone but there more of them so you can very easily get stunlocked
I feel like i saw this in some game, but i can't really remember. The closest i can think of, is sadly a turn based example. Chrono Trigger has enemies do different attacks when grouped up with certain types and they also have different reactions depending on field placement and attacks used.
Yep. And the best of all is that there are so many different ways to approach different targets/locations. Ive played from start to finish 2 times already 😁
middle earth combat is so repetitive it should be a crime. Every encounter takes 15 minutes because you have party which is very easy but then oh no you have to finish them on the ground and when you have other enemies fighting you, you can't finish them off. The combat is so annoying
Same with aragami 2, the ability to see where the enemies have gone and where they are going to go is acquired a bit later in the game and I always just forget how handy it is, no joke most of the missions would be impossible without it.
The biggest problem for me is the game is so f’ing hard to replay honestly like the first 3 bosses I fight in a play through are so hard because I forgot the control sceme
I do not like elder scrolls online, because I can level SO MUCH (e.g lvl 50) and go back to a starter area (lvl 1), and ALL OF THE ENEMIES AND QUESTS ARE NOW LVL 50!
Bonus points if a toaster isn't even relevant in your game's universe and you add a side by side the next time they run the toaster with a timer... but in slow motion so it actually takes longer... followed by absurd cheering. Also only have two 'bread' you get at the beginning and if they use them before that well guess you aren't getting that achievement.
I installed the "Toaster toasts toast 18% faster" upgrade, but it's not working. It takes just as long for...wait a minute. *inserts toast back into the toaster, gets burnt toast significantly faster* GASP!
Throw "Guild Wars 2" into the ring, it has the most fluid and intuitive combat I have seen in MMORPGs and the skills are stunningly-well animated, but they don't lock you in place forever like in any Japanese game of that variety. It just feels fun to fight everything and anything in that game and they tend to rebalance the skills - sometimes remaking them from ground up when something gets too stagnant.
The part about not letting the player getting too comfy reminded me about Metal Gear Rising so much because the start of the game you dont really mind mechanics like parrying but then when you reach Monsoon and Jetstream Sam you realize how important parrying is and the game tells you to go for it whenever you can and to me thats good game design and gives the player more and more freedom on how they play
I didn't even figure out how to parry before monsoon, but I learned how to parry and that white people with Sam. I think the pinnacle of metal gear rising revengeance is the fight Jetstream Sam, but I love the grandio scale of senator Armstrong is the final boss.
Also another thing that they weaponize comfortability in that game is that up until the sundowner fight despite sundowner being really easy unlike all bosses previously he is slow tanky and does a lot of damage where all the bosses before him are fast agile and the differences between the combat of sundowner and all the bosses before it causing you to have to adapt to a whole new type of bossfight
Ghost of Tsushima hits this list nearly perfectly but for some reason I haven’t seen that mentioned here Edit: I’ve seen it 3 times now still not enough though
It's pretty cool how you learn from your enemies and then they learn from you. mongols in act 1 have no head armour, gg ez aim on the head; mongols in act 2 have head armour but I can shoot the narrow section in their eyes, gg ez aim for the eyes; mongols act 3 add eye armour.... Not bad just joking throw bombs on them
my friend pedro is perfect. it checks off all the boxes and more. i'd like to add that sound design also make fighting ten times better, good sound design can tell you what is less important actions with soft sounds like swooshes on dashing and rolling and big clangs on parries and heavy hits.
@@someone-iv2nt no, your the friend of a man born into a corrupt family of criminals that was spawned when the son of the family knocked himself out to forget it all. (this might not be right because i haven't played the game in forever)
Genuine counterpoint from a game design graduate here. His example on gameplay evolving by introducing a shield enemy that needs to be pushed to create an opening, then making a variant that challenges this could be harmful depending on how its done. When you create a language with the player to indicate what mechanics work where only to betray it later, it can create confusion and a mistrust of established knowledge. However, you can indicate that this new variant can't be pushed over with some key features to build upon prior knowledge without betraying it entirely, such as adding big spikes to the shield, this in turn would tell the player that, logically, pushing this enemy would hurt you, so you try to find a different way to hurt them. Maybe less a counterpoint and more an expansion on that point.
Ye, I noticed that too. I was thinking about how Spyro indicates what can and can't be flamed by making non-flammable creatures, boxes, etc. metallic. And super similar thing with charging. You can't charge anything that's much larger than you. (Although there are _some_ enemies that you can push back by charging.)
This confusion is purposefully used very well of Deepnest from Hollow Knight. (Spoilers after this mark) What team cherry was going for was to break what you've figured out up to that point in the game. There's a fake bench, when the player up until that point saw benches as the best thing ever. There's an enemy that, after you kill it, starts attacking again when the player might be healing. Every surface might be dangerous. Nosk. It all works to make this place seem like somewhere you shouldn't be, or are not welcome in
Thank you guys for giving some nice feedback to this point. I did think about it later that whether or not it is good to betray the character's established knowledge was based on the kind of game you were building.
True, it has to be done right. I think in the example he gave, it's a good game mechanic because it makes you have to think and figure out their weakness instead of repeating the same attacks as on the last enemy. But there are situations where it could also be a bad game mechanic
The game that has my favorite combat has to be Devil May Cry 5, there are just so many options and so much to learn to perfect the combos you can do. It starts by giving you the basics and as you progress you get more tools, more moves, and more weapons that can all be paired with each other in some way to do combos. I have never seen a game that wants the player to style on the enemies as much as this game and I highly recommend it to anyone this sounds appealing to.
That's exactly the game I was thinking of while watching this video. I think the most fun I've ever had with combat in video games is with any of the Dante sections. He's pretty difficult to learn but the game does a great job of easing you into the infinite possibilities of his moveset whether you are a newcomer or veteran of the series
Most dmc games are great, 3,4&5 are the best, 1 is great but it’s combat isn’t as good as the other three, and 2.... we don’t talk about 2... that game can be boiled down to ‘enter devil trigger, spam ebony and ivory, win’ 😒
I finished devil may cry 5 and it amazing and worth playing. My favourite characters to play was vegil because of the combat and the music (Bury the light).
"here is a list of games that does these" why is sekiro on there it has no build verity and focuses on counter based game play instead of something like blood born? " ALSO GAMES THAT REQUIRE YOU THE COUNTER BUTTON A MILLION TIMES OVER F ING STUPID" than why did you just promote sekiro that's the least "gamer soup" modern souls like (the other thing on that list I completely agree with have a good day)
For me, a good combat system is hollow knight, simple controls, but many upon many ways to combine those actions to succeed at what you are doing, for example, there's speedruns where speedrunners get the glowing womb charm without crystal dash, or, just try path of pain. This, however, is my personal opinion, and anyone can disagree.
It doesn't even really got all of these points, it's just such an amazing system regardless Call me a masochist but I have fun fighting absolute radiance on radiant after I've already done it, or ultimatum radiance on ascended (boy was that hard). The only time I didn't really have a lot of fun during combat was charmless p5, just because it takes so long and the early parts are to easy compared to charmless collector
New Muck 3.0 update: I heard you were struggling, because you're not an Epic gamer like me, so here is a combat system with 20 button + combos. You've welcome.
🤓: Batman Arkham City/Knight may have "press counter to watch a movie" but I do enjoy its evolution where you gradually go from : beating up a lollipop gooner to the Chad tax evader. Both challenge maps of infinite combat and Infinite stealth arenas back this up to some degree. I haven't booted up Dark Souls 3 yet and I'm excited to see how far my mental health can deplete in one sitting
The World Ends With You fits this entirely. If you haven't played it, circle, i'd recommend trying it out, it's really good! Hollow Knight also feels like it fits this very well.
This is a great video hitting all the right points except for DMC5. DMC5 in particular, and Dante in general as a character throughout most of the games he is playable in.
Circletoons we all know which game u were talking about when u said “I hate games that make u hit the counter button over and over” and I am offended (Batman Arkham series)
Also Arkham did a pretty good job of throwing in different enemy types that you need different tactics for with the shield, knife and stun baton guys and whatever else.
Up until you mentioned skill trees I thought for sure you were talking about Gears of War😂 third person, has a great cover system, has rolls and vaults, weapons variety, etc, SO CLOSE 😂
Honestly I feel like a lot of people count out 2D games when it comes to open-ended/open world combat games, but terraria is magnificent when it comes to all this. Countless playstyles and simple but effective controls that translate well across numerous platforms. It’s a game of movement and possibilities, and easily one of my all-time favorites
I totally agree, and also some people don't enjoy games with the survival aspect as much as they do games that focus mostly or only on fighting. I know which side of that I'm on with my 500+ hours in terraria, but that's just my assumption. Also go watch the dark souls video it kind explains some of circle's views on combat and difficulty. He do got good opinions tho
I immediately thought of terraria at 7:36. finishing a playthrough and starting again without wings or a hook or a sword that oneshots most enemies makes you wonder how you survived early game at all. in terms of evolution, terraria does a good job of scaling slowly but satisfyingly
I love Terraria combat but another- my favorite- 2D game is Hollow Knight. It’s combat system is so amazing and when you play well it feels awesome. :)
