Rob will be doing some new artwork for the prints and wallpapers, but not made to request!
I had a chance to check out the free alpha you put up.
It’s fun, but definitely needs more polish. What I think you absolutely need are better audio/visual cues. The sound effects are weak and don’t have any impact to them, and it’s hard to tell when you are immobile, leading to frustrating moments where you’re mashing the buttons and wondering why your character isn’t moving or teching a knockdown. I think characters should have a flash or spark to indicate when they’re able to move again. Also, it looks particularly bad when the characters ragdoll and float around like they’re party balloons.
I don’t know if you’re willing to change the controls at all, but tapping/holding a button to do different moves isn’t very intuitive. I don’t think parry needs its own button. This is only a suggestion, but this is how I’d do it:
X: Light
Y: Heavy
B: Grab/Throw
A: Jump
LB: Core Attack. This should be mapped to a shoulder because you’re not gonna be using it very often, unlike the face buttons.
RB: Shield/Evade. Parrying only occurs when you press shield at the EXACT moment of impact, similar to how it works in Third Strike (or more aptly, Smash Bros.)
The parry is more modeled after how Soul Calibur/DOA work. Because the attacks are quite fast, the parry window is big enough to throw it pre-emptively vs always reactionary. I think having the level of precision equal to 3S would make parry inaccessible for a lot of folks. Also I would imagine it cause players to instinctively TAP guard to parry, which is the input for roll/evade.
I also have throw/parry assigned to X+Y and A+B along w/ the shoulder buttons for those that prefer to stick to face buttons (I usually do them this way myself)
As for ragdolls/disabled characters, it’s pretty simple to know when you can move - you are always disabled unless you tech recover, or get up (off the ground). Your character flashes white and does a spinning/flip animation when you tech recover so it’s pretty obvious, and it’s fairly easy to see when you character is “getting up” from ragdoll, in which you can then roll or guard (while getting up). Most good players would be using tech recover 99% of the time, anyway.
What do you mean by “floating like a balloon”? Admittedly this sort of happens but only on the final hit/pause, because the physics calculations get thrown off when you scale time (will fix this)
When I say “floating like a balloon” I’m referring to the thing that happens to Ember at 1:10 in this video. When they become t-posed and spin like that it just doesn’t look very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP1M_G9h8qU
If you have large parry windows you risk dumbing down the game. People will just mash the parry button when they see an attack coming. Parrying isn’t supposed to be easy to do, because the rewards for doing it are supposed to be great. Also you’re underestimating the ability of your audience to use these tactics skillfully. Not knowing how to parry right away doesn’t mean the game will be “inaccessible”, it’s all part of learning the game.
Smash Bros does it well, where pressing shield at the exact moment a projectile hits you will completely negate the projectile. But in any case I think the first problem you should fix is tapping/holding to do certain moves. It doesn’t feel right; for a game like this, I think it’s best if each button only does one thing.
Gonna have to disagree here. The game is a “party brawler” so having mechanics that require a lower skill curve are paramount to keeping that feel. I want to have a solid combat system with some depth, but at the same time give non-competitive players the opportunity to enjoy themselves. The amount of standard, character-based defensive and attack options in Combat Core already surpass what is available in Power Stone 1, and Power Stone 2 was even more simple w/ it’s mechanics. Also, there are several ways to punish an opponent who uses parry too much (throws, core attacks, or a quick follow-up after a projectile) The reward for parrying is also not always huge, I was aiming for it to be used fairly often to keep players active defensively as well as attacking, and sort of approached it to how Soul Calibur’s guard impacts work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D11Sx9neTMI
The “balloon floating” is something that only happens on the final hit of a match and time is scaled down too low for the physics to keep up, this will be fixed in the future!
As far as changing the actual control scheme, I’m afraid I’m too far down this path at this point and feel comfortable with the setup. I may look into changes if players/backers have a concern with this after I get feedback from more people.
Soul calibur had the best parry ever constructed. GGxrd flat out copied it and I for one can say that I’m extremely happy with that. A well designed parry system like soul caliburs is ridiculously fun, some of the funnest times I’ve ever had with a fighter were sc2 parry battles.
Even so, I don’t really see how having a strict timing-based parry robs anything from this.
I’m proposing that pressing the shield button at the exact moment of impact results in a parry. This is no more difficult than having to press a dedicated parry button at the exact moment of impact, and removes the need to have parry mapped to its own button. The only difference is that you don’t get punished for attempting to parry, since if you don’t parry you just put up a shield like normal, and there are no recovery frames from doing a parry attempt with this method, which is actually easier on casual players. Conceptually, shield button for parrying is very easy to understand, even to a casual player, and since you are the designer you are able to control how difficult this is to actually perform.
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Like you said, this eliminates punishing parry attempts and removes a layer of meta from the mechanics while also making it harder/more confusing to execute. Another point, having more than 2 primary attack buttons would make mouse/keyboard controls even more cumbersome, and since this is currently a PC-only game there are a great number of people who will actually use these controls, and if you aren’t using core attacks very often then you probably should!
Dude I give up.
I respect that it’s your game and you’re free to do what you want with it, but I just wish you’d be a bit more open minded.
Ah dude I have taken all your feedback seriously and really appreciate it! I’ve already touched on some things you pointed out last year (adding throws, more knockbacks, dropping mobile, better characters)
But that kind of change is not something I can toss in quickly to test out, it changes some some of the fundamental mechanics and the way the game feels/controls, and would take some time to implement.
You’re literally the only person that has suggested removing the button hold attacks or felt that the current button layout wasn’t intuitive, and I’m heavily in “campaign mode” for much of the Kickstarter run and have less time for actual game development. I’m hoping to get a larger pool of feedback from backers when this is over, if there’s an outcry for a change in the button layout then it will definitely be looked into. I’ll be looking to backer feedback on A LOT of issues going forward!
Sure. Well if it ever becomes possible to experiment with this in the future, please try to implement my suggested controls? Just to give them a try and see which style people like better. It’s just all in the interest of developing the game.
Anyways, I tried to donate yesterday, but sadly Kickstarter doesn’t accept Paypal, which sucks as I have no credit card.
Mechanics from the new update:
Attack Mixups
Although Combat Core keeps the attack inputs simple with 2 buttons, you still a have a lot of options available in your arsenal!
Most characters will have 3-5 hit string if you continue to press the same attack input, but you can actually switch between attack strings at any point of the combo.
Here you can see Bruizer’s 2 basic combo strings, but also a variation mixing both, or also executing a heavy or core attack during the combo!*
** Parry/Catch**
Parries can be executed by either the default parry button (Q on keyboard, LB on Xbox Gamepad) or by pressing jump + guard at the same time. A successful parry will cause a non-damaging stun to the attacker and open up an opportunity for a counter attack!
If you time it right, you can parry and catch weapons or projectiles!
Air Recovery (Tech)
If you press roll/evasion while airborne, you can recover faster than you would waiting to stand back up! You are also invulnerable until you land on the ground.
Roll Invincibility Frames
The roll evasion move (default is tap B/middle click)has more utility than just increased movespeed. The first few frames of the roll you are actually invincible! With quick timing (or luck) you can completely evade all attacks, even grabs or core attacks! But it does not last the duration of the entire roll, so be careful!
Rolling at the right time can evade ANYTHING*
How do you pronounce “Pugi”? Is it “pyuji” as in “pugilist”? Or just “Poogie” with a hard G?
It’s short for “Pugilist” so yeah, “Pyuji” would be the correct pronunciation. Would love to hear some opinions on the characters names because me and the character designer (Rob) are constantly fighting about them, haha.
Maybe you should spell it “Pugie” so that people are more likely to pronounce it that way. Regarding the others names, for Bruizer, how about making that his surname, with his initial in front of it? Like “J. Bruizer” or something, that’s how Capcom and other arcade fighters did it back in the day.
I don’t know what your plan is regarding the story but from the way you’re presenting the game it seems to be some sort of televised sporting event with characters in uniforms and costumes? In which case they’d all be using stage names and not their real names. You could have their real names in their bio pages.
By the way, I’m sketching a little piece of fanart for you guys. I don’t know if I’ll color it right away, but the sketch should be done soon. Please show it to Rob when it’s done!
Yeah we will might do something like that, Rob is really stubborn with the naming though but maybe the backers can convince him to budge 
Can’t wait to see the fanart! So far we have 2 Pugis and a very rough Jondo haha
Sorry it’s taking so long. The lineart is almost finished, and don’t worry, it’s not Pugi.
Alright, well apart from a few details, the lineart’s basically done. I still have to add some things yet though. When’s your next update?
Here it is if you want to see what I have so far. I figured since both our games have huge, brawny tan-skinned grappler girls, why not have them meet up?
It’s still not quite done, I’ll add the remaining details tomorrow.
Haha nice, is Ember 50ft tall or did Milchi shrink? Gonna post a new update tonight showing some of Jordan’s character models
Could be either one…