What makes good combat?

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#1

I’ve been making a combat system for a game I’m working on. I’ve added parrying and dodging, but something still doesn’t feel right. The combat is stun heavy, so landing a hit locks you into a combo of 5 m1s.

EXAMPLE:

Although this works, it doesn’t feel very challenging. I watched a video about good combat, and all I got from it is that you should make parrying satisfying.

PARRYING:

The parrying came out alright, but mainly I need help and feedback on the attacking. I don’t want this game to be another one of those terrible bandits beaters. I would like to make the combat fun and challenging while still keeping it fairly simple.

Any feedback would be appreciated. If you’ve made a combat system before, and you’d like to share what you did, please do. This is my first time so I need help, thanks.

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#2

So to start off, a good combat system needs a good system? What I mean is, it needs to be really polished and well rounded.

Here in your first example you show a player getting struck in a in a combo move where the enemy is struck 5 times. I’m not sure what your health system is like, as in, how much damage you take per hit but -
lets say for every 5 hits is half the players health. If this is the case, which in yours it does not seem like, but never the less if it were the case you would want to up the health to combat the amount of damage you are taking per hit.

Now,
Some good things I look for in a combat system are;

  • Parrying/Blocking (which you have)
  • Combo moves (which you have)
  • Rolling or sliding
  • Jumping combo moves (or a double jump I guess)
  • Rolling or sliding
    I believe this is a pretty important one because it allows the player to have more movement. Sure, you have your parrying and blocking, but rolling or sliding could allow the player to parry an attack just in a different way.
    (ex. player is about to be hit, player rolls or slides away quickly)
  • Jumping combo moves (or a double jump I guess)
    So, some other things that would be good to have in a combat system would be double jump or jumping attacks. This would also allow the player to have a variety of different ways of combat to use against their enemy. (ex. double jump and smash into ground making the other player fly back and take damage?)

I hope this helps!

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#3

Thanks for taking the time to reply to this! I’ll try implement what you’ve said. I was thinking of adding air combat maybe.

#4

One piece of feedback maybe make a idle fighting animation it just seems a little weird when the animation goes from fighting to just standing straight(btw the animation is really good)

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#5

You probably got your ideas of Chaining Stun from many games that they themselves took ideas from others.It’s quite difficult to point out where exactly this idea of
Blocking and Attacking 4-5 times in a row with stun started from. (My best guess would be Black Magic 1)
However who use these either have a unique take on this genre or just go full on it

  • Grand Piece online
    A very basic take on Melee combat but that’s because the entire game revolves around a different style of fighting,with special abilities rather than hand to hand combat.
  • Deepwoken
    This itself is a fine idea,however their take was on Fromsoftware’s Sekiro Shadows Die Twice,using Posture as a sort of stamina to keep you from just blocking all day,and parrying to help you regain your posture.
  • Black Magic 2
    This was heavily influenced by Devil May Cry 5,with aerial combat and long stuns depending on how well you executed your combo,keep in mind this is a Fighting Game not an Action game,they are different things.

If you are looking for Action game,where focus is on creating tense battles between 2 opposing sides,I’d suggest getting a form of stamina in,similar to Dark Souls.Players will have to think carefully for their actions and manage a resource while also fighting.This is by far the hardest to balance out.

If you are looking for Fighting game,where the only aspect is a heated battle between 2 people,I’d suggest taking inspiration from the likes of 2D fighters,a great place to start is the Street Fighter series,as they are the creators of this genre.This is not that difficult to balance out,but still challenging.

But if you are looking for an entirely different style of fighting,it’s all up to you.You can mix and match practically any concepts you like!.But beware of the fact that some might not work together,imagine playing a 2D fighting game with abilities that shoot out very far.

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