I give it another shot and kill the first boss.
Here’s are my SUBJECTIVE opinion on the game and how I think it could be better:
1. Stagger
I didn’t realize the stagger is based on poise until you mentioned it, it just feels random and inconsistent, hard to plan a strategy for it.
I’m not even sure if blocks also contribute to the poise damage.
I think this is more of a core mechanic of your game, personally I think it’s not good enough.
To clarify the issue, I’ll go through my terminologies for the action of the boss:
- -When the boss uses its ability, it will have 3 phases:
- Startup: Bringing up the sword.
- Release: Slam down the sword.
- Recover: Recover the sword back and move to an idle pose.
I’ll go through this in the format of I want to do something, and the problem with what I want to do something.
As a player I want to abuse the stagger mechanic, but since there’s no indication when the boss will get staggered, I will need to do a hit test to see if the boss will stagger to do follow up.
The problem is some of the startup is too fast, when this is the case, when I try to attack the boss to test if it will stagger, due to fast boss startup and long animation lock of player attack, I will 100% get punished if the boss uses an ability that has startup that is faster than player animation lock.
As a player I want to have follow-ups when the boss gets staggered, since I noticed that sometimes, when the boss staggered, my follow-ups ALSO stagger the boss, but I’m not sure why.
The problem is since I don’t know why the boss staggered, sometimes my follow-ups simply do not stagger the boss, and I get punished for it.
What I think could be better:
Better poise indication
If we are to use poise as a value to inflict staggers, some kind of indication is needed for players to plan around it, either bar or sound or whatever, and it would be better to communicate this information clearly to players somehow.
For a bad example (only to get my point across):
- -Poise has a bar indication, when the bar is maxed, the boss will get vulnerable state, when the state gets applied, the boss will stagger once, and any subsequent attack will also stagger the boss.
- -When the bar is maxed, it will gradually drop in like 1-2 secs or something, after the bar reaches 0, the vulnerable state is removed, and the boss cannot be staggered anymore until the bar is maxed again.
This will remove any feeling of randomness, and players can play and plan around the Poise bar.
Boss startup should not be faster than player animation lock
This is more of a guideline when designing, but generally boss startup should not be faster, if it is faster, then it should not be too punishing.
2. Floaty
Lots of things contribute to this:
- -Player movement:
- I think it’s better to remove acceleration, when I move, I want it to be at full speed immediately or reduce acceleration to full speed to minimal.
- The movement should start the moment I press the button, right in the case when I want to move to a direction that the player is not facing, it will rotate first, the move.
- When the player stops the movement, it should stop immediately, should not slide, I can’t even tell if it actually slides after movement stopped, I just feel like it is sliding.
- -Dash/Dodge:
- Remove the slide-ness of the dodge OR have an animation to indicate the brake after dodge.
- -Jump:
- When jumping toward a direction, after landing, there it should not slide, an animation to indicate landing would be good.
- -Attack:
- In the first attack of the combo, there’s a subtle movement (I’m not sure if it is character or camera) that moves back when the character steps back, it might be realistic but, it just feels floaty. Or just make the camera not move back at all.
- The movements of attack slides way too much after the attack is released, it needs to feel “tight”, the movement should only exist in the release animation, keep the movement after release minimal or not at all.
- -Boss:
- Same, less slide-y, avoid movements in recovery animation.