Join us this week for a discussion of combat in video games: does it have to be in everything? Why are there so few games whose core loop consists of anything else? What is the perfect synthesis between depicted content and varied activity in a video game?
The Souls-like genre remains popular, along with FromSoftware's classics there are many contenders. But which are the best Souls-like games?
Hmm... In my opinion, the 7 best are the 6 made by FromSoftware (DeS, DS1, DS2, DS3, BB and ER), then Lies of P. But each to their own.
Parrying has been creeping into more games, with almost every high-profile title of the last few years featuring it in some way. Why?
i understand the authors frustration i'm not the best at parrying in games. not that i can't complete a game that requires it but it is a definite harder thing for me than other kinds of techniques in games. which might be the main reason it's so heavily added in games nowadays. want to make your game challenging without having to do a lot of work? just add a parry boss. (what i mean by parry boss is a boss you have to beat by parrying such that their attacks will kill you otherwise)
I always think it's fine as long as such games also have the roll/dodge panic button. But I understand the will to parry, it seems so cinematic in a fight when you pull it off.
There are many ways that a game developer can choose to raise the difficulty in their games — but which ways are the most effective?
A great example on how to do difficulty in a video game is DOOM ETERNAL. Started playing on ULTRA VIOLENCE but then I started playing on NIGHTMARE after a couple hundred hours of playing on UV . What makes DOOM ETERNAL fun, is on Nightmare, the enemies are very aggressive ,but they give you the tools to defeat difficult enemies , you just have to learn how to use them .
Personal dislikes are bullet sponges and bosses with regular enemies thrown in. Just make the boss hit harder if it's too easy.
I think Helldivers 2 really gets it right. If enemies are easy, they swarm. If they're high level, they tend to have good defense and need strategems to take down...or bait.
I never feel too angry if I die by swarm because it is usually my fault for not checking my 6. I don't even mind dying if a teammate drops a bomb on the swarm that is gutting me.
I don't like cheap deaths. When the game allows you to progress only to hit you with an enemy that is suddenly immune to all the things you've unlocked and mastered is just dumb. If the game doesn't do hit boxes right and you get killed in lame ways it is dumb.
The screenshot is from Elden Ring, a game I really enjoyed, but the scaling was silly. I didn't do the Eligtree til late game so it was goofy difficult. I thought the Elden Beast was rather cheap. Not a fun skill based match, but just cheap enemy. There was no sense of, "oh it defeated me because I did this or I did that" like all Souls/Borne games.
1. Intelligent opponents that don't have some set, optional strategy to win and requires more critical thinking.
2. Game provides players with the knowledge and tools about a game world to stand a chance (or at the very least, the opportunity to gain the knowledge and tools).
3. Don't insist on enemies having much more health than the player arbitrarily. Sometimes, you'll have more durable enemies who are armored or inhuman which I would say is fair. The best approach to this I can recall in recent memory is Naughty Dog games: You're extremely vulnerable without armor and can get picked off pretty easily, but your enemies are pretty beatable with the right weapons and strategies where you can't just brute force it. That said, ammo is in short supply, so you engage at your own risk.
4. Depending on the type of games, make resources more scarce without necessarily making enemies bullet sponges. It simply means you'll have to choose your battles carefully and have damn good aim. Like Uncharted. If you're not good at headshots, Crushing is a rough time.