Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experience?

Poor Alex ... his momma don't seem to like him much. We wonder why in here ...

Moderator: Moderators

Did innovations in combat mechanics (both melee and ranged) enhance your survival horror experience?

Yes.
15
35%
No.
23
53%
Unsure.
5
12%
 
Total votes: 43

User avatar
Augophthalmoses
My Bestsellers Clerk
Posts: 398
Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Trans male

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Augophthalmoses »

I'm gonna have to disagree with your reasoning on combos. I think there's very few situations in the game where you shouldn't be using them. If you can hit with a quick attack, you never have any reason not to follow up with a combo. The only other useful move is a charged heavy attack. So actually, they do not provide any additional options at all. I think they accomplish nothing except to make the game feel more repetitive by encouraging the player to constantly repeat the same key combinations.
Sorry, but this post made no sense whatsoever and it's a pretty poor explanation as to how providing the player more options doesn't add anything and somehow makes the game feel more repetitive (what?). If anything restricting the player to less moves by making them use the same two or three hit combos is more repetitive.
Game design seems to fall into 1 of 2 camps: you can either focus on the mechanics of a game, or you can focus on the overall experience.
Or you could focus on both. Upgraded fighting mechanics and horror can exist without one taking away from the other. We need to get out of this old fashioned way of thinking because it's one of the factors that's bringing down the series.
User avatar
Doctor Eggnog
Subway Guard
Posts: 1587
Joined: 22 Aug 2010

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Doctor Eggnog »

"If anything restricting the player to less moves by making them use the same two or three hit combos is more repetitive."
That's what he said. I don't even think it was badly worded.

"Or you could focus on both. Upgraded fighting mechanics and horror can exist without one taking away from the other."
Can you give an example? Has this already happened? If not, do you really think that newer developers of SH games are going to privide such an amazing experience? I'm personally not counting on it.

"We need to get out of this old fashioned way of thinking because it's one of the factors that's bringing down the series."
The higher level of focus on combat has been bringing down the series. The first two Silent Hills are my favorite games. I'm sure it's possible to take that sort of game, integrate more combat, and make it even better than before, but I just don't see it happening. I think it's way, way more likely to make things worse, as it has in 4, in Homecoming, to an extent even in 3! It's possible but I don't buy that it's worth shooting for.

I don't like playing this card, but I'm not sure newer fans undertand how older fans like me felt when they saw the terrible things happening to the series. It was very unplesant. I often wished they had stopped at some point down the line. Maybe after 3. Maybe after Origins.

Oh, and Tillerman, I'm pretty sure that attacking in SH3 reduced stamina, at least with meele weapons. Blocking probably did as well.
Socially Awkward Penguin is my hero.
User avatar
Tillerman
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1446
Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Tillerman »

Augophthalmoses wrote:Sorry, but this post made no sense whatsoever and it's a pretty poor explanation as to how providing the player more options doesn't add anything and somehow makes the game feel more repetitive (what?).
I was kind of hoping at this point you'd just be willing to agree that we have different tastes, rather than continue to attack my argument so aggressively. I'm willing to say that if you like combos, that's fine. But I'm sorry, it's *your* response that makes no sense whatsoever. I thought I explained pretty well exactly why adding combos to Homecoming added *no extra options.* You didn't address my argument at all, you simply ignored it and just stated it "made no sense" without backing that up.

Okay, I'll reiterate. The combos add no extra options to combat because 90% they are your best option. If you hit with a weak attack, there is absolutely no reason to not follow up with a combo, EVER. Therefore, the only purpose of weak attacks is to be used in combos. There is also rarely a purpose to use strong attacks by themselves. Since you can end any combo with a strong attack, why use strong attacks by themselves when you can more easily connect with a weak attack and then end with a strong attack for free? It never makes sense to use strong attacks by themselves unless you're charging them.

Combos invalidate most of your other options by being just plainly superior in most situations. The only real useful option is charge attacks, which have limited application because of their slowness. So your two REAL options are: combos, and charge attacks. This means that 90% of the time, most players will simply spam their weapon's combo, the exact same button inputs, over and over again. And they are exactly right to do so, because this is the most effective way to play the game. Now, explain to me again how combos add more "options" to combat, when clearly the opposite is true?
Augophthalmoses wrote:Or you could focus on both. Upgraded fighting mechanics and horror can exist without one taking away from the other.
Absolutely, but once again you're missing the point. The best way to focus on both is to upgrade the mechanics in a way that enhances the experience.
User avatar
swedish
SHH Cult Subscriber
SHH Cult Subscriber
Posts: 652
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: San Luis Obispo, CA

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by swedish »

Keep in mind, it is possible to have incredibly intense atmosphere and fun combat in a horror game. Condemned and Condemned 2: Bloodshot are good examples, and I'd really like to see this translated well into a Silent Hill game while still retaining the spirit of the series.

Homecoming was sort of a step in the right direction, but it suffered some problems that made fighting enemies pretty cheesey. Spamming knife attacks and glitching Needlers with an auto-finisher when they weren't even incapacitated were pretty significant problems. Yet, the game does have its moments that stem from the difficulty of having to engage monsters that actually fight back; when I played on Hard, I feared Schisms more than anything not just because they were generally creepy in appearance, but I actually feared for my life fighting and evading them. Out of all the Silent Hill games I've played (SH1-5), only SH3 evoked that same tension from engaging monsters, and that's because SH3's monsters were all encountered and dealt with in a variety of ways.

That brings me to another point: when taking combat into consideration, it should not only focus on the player character, but the monsters themselves. If you can make monsters incredibly interesting and terrifying to interact, you don't have to worry as much as improving the clunky combat of the game's predecessors.
[url=http://imageshack.us][img]http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6124/maiwaifuit1.jpg[/img][/url]
User avatar
Typographenia
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 1883
Joined: 26 Mar 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Los Angeles

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Typographenia »

So, does Silent Hill 2 fall under the category of combo system or whatever you guys are arguing?

I only ask, since it's possible to enter two different attack types with the melee weapons depending on if you press or hit the attack button. Are the attacks not quick enough in succession to qualify? The enemies move slower than the ones in Homecoming, so perhaps that compensates for the difference?
User avatar
Doctor Eggnog
Subway Guard
Posts: 1587
Joined: 22 Aug 2010

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Doctor Eggnog »

^ That's true, there is something of a very vague combo system, but I don't think they even tell you about it in game and it's hardly necessary to beat it. There is something of a light and heavy attacks thing though, and I didn't mind its inclusion just for variety's sake. It certainly didn't make the combat overly complex because enemies really couldn't block light attacks.
Socially Awkward Penguin is my hero.
User avatar
Tillerman
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1446
Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Tillerman »

I'm trying to think, and I believe the only thing that qualifies as a combo in SH2 is the two-hit attack with the board/pipe. It's not much of a combo, but I think it's a superior way for a Silent Hill game to have a "quick successive hits" type of move. It's very simple to do, fairly intuitive, only requires the use of one button, and there's no "finishers" to make it overpowered.

Compare that to Homecoming where combat is basically designed around executing combos... they expect you to do them, that's why they give the enemies so much life. That'd be fine in a true action game like Bayonetta, where you are given tons of different combos and other viable options for approaching and damaging an enemy. But Homecoming only gives you 1 really viable combo with most weapons, I believe the knife has 2 combo strings but most of the time the longer one is superior. So it fails as an action game because there's no variety. It's also an inferior combat system to SH2 because there is added complexity for no reason... instead if light/strong attacks, you have combos/charged attacks, you have added complexity that achieves no additional versatility. That is a failure of game design.

The more I think about Homecoming, the less respect I have for it's designers. They are hopelessly inept in just about every aspect of game design. From what I hear they also screwed up the Front Mission series very badly.
User avatar
Lucignolo
Just Passing Through
Posts: 18
Joined: 31 Mar 2012
Gender: Male
Location: Rome (Italy)
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Lucignolo »

Yeah...not enough anyway
User avatar
Leo Ho Tep
Cafe5to2 Waitress
Posts: 164
Joined: 12 Sep 2012
Gender: Male

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Leo Ho Tep »

I was happy with how they handled the fights. The combat mechanic is more than fine to me. For once, I wasn't scared because my character was an idiot who wasn't able to fight at all. I was scared because even if Alex is a skilled fighter, the monsters were really agressive and were real threats.

I do think they relied too much on the fights though, as I prefer Silent Hill not to be too much fight oriented,but that's not a weakness, that's just a matter of personnal preference imo.
User avatar
Augophthalmoses
My Bestsellers Clerk
Posts: 398
Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Trans male

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Augophthalmoses »

Tillerman wrote:I'm trying to think, and I believe the only thing that qualifies as a combo in SH2 is the two-hit attack with the board/pipe. It's not much of a combo, but I think it's a superior way for a Silent Hill game to have a "quick successive hits" type of move. It's very simple to do, fairly intuitive, only requires the use of one button, and there's no "finishers" to make it overpowered.

Compare that to Homecoming where combat is basically designed around executing combos... they expect you to do them, that's why they give the enemies so much life. That'd be fine in a true action game like Bayonetta, where you are given tons of different combos and other viable options for approaching and damaging an enemy. But Homecoming only gives you 1 really viable combo with most weapons, I believe the knife has 2 combo strings but most of the time the longer one is superior. So it fails as an action game because there's no variety. It's also an inferior combat system to SH2 because there is added complexity for no reason... instead if light/strong attacks, you have combos/charged attacks, you have added complexity that achieves no additional versatility. That is a failure of game design.

The more I think about Homecoming, the less respect I have for it's designers. They are hopelessly inept in just about every aspect of game design. From what I hear they also screwed up the Front Mission series very badly.
This has to be among the most screwed up descriptions and comparisons about Homecoming's combat I've seen in quite some time especially the comparison to Bayonetta. Your Bayonetta comparison is nonsense and fails to illustrate a significant point. Basically what you're suggesting is that the mechanics aren't suited to Silent Hill because previous games didn't have such fighting mechanics so they shouldn't be in Homecoming at all. And if they are it's emulating hack n' slahers/beat 'em ups. That's some incredibly insecure, fanboyistic bullcrap just because you don't like being taken out of your comfort zone. That's like saying FPS games have a focus on gunplay so Silent Hill using guns in the series wouldn't "fit" in with the games. You also go on record to say "instead of light/heavy attacks" while ignoring the fact that Homecoming does have light and heavy attacks. Or did you think the game was supposed to have only light and heavy attacks and not attempts at all to improve combos or other aspects of fighting? Because that's lazy, effortless thinking in regards to improving combat.

There is nothing at all complicated about the way Homecoming handles combos and no way in hell is it inferior to SH2 because that game barely gives you combos. You're limited to very basic hits. Your combos only allow up to two hits and the game has a very limited selection of weaponry. Not to mention it lacks all the innovations later games including SH3 & 4 introduced such as equipping ammo and items via R3, SH3's blocking mechanics, and the ability to charge attacks. Aside from the refined controls and physics along with giving the character a heavy weapon like the Great Knife, SH2's combat does absolutely nothing to evolve over SH1's fighting mechanics. You just have the bare basics and that's it. No attempt to drastically upgrade anything.

SH2's fighting mechanics are not in any way, shape, form, or fashion show better combat mechanics for the reasons you listed. The fandom really needs to grow the hell out of this misguided idea that the protagonist being a bumbling moron has to be a series staple and that it does anything other than produce a lazy, artificial attempt at fear. That is advocating lazy gameplay design. Homecoming adding combos and making them more crucial to fighting monster is not "failure of gameplay design". It's called adding more variety and strategy to the gameplay rather than just running up to the monster and whacking them with the same one hit attack or two combo hits. As a matter of fact Homecoming took measures to make nearly all the weapons the most balanced assortment in the series at the point because of the combos on top of weight and speed being given precedent more than before. The combos are what actually made the knife useful in Homecoming. Whereas in previous games it was completely useless because of how weak it was. When you combine the knife's weakness with the lack of moves the previous games gave you it gives you a broken and useless weapon. Homecoming fixed that by giving it a use. Then it added over the shoulder aiming and counteracted the game being too shooter heavy by cutting down the amount you can carry and find. You were given dodges but you couldn't button mash every time you were in danger. You had to time your dodges. That's called strategy. Giving the player more of it than any of the previous games had in regards to fighting mechanics. If there's anything to complain about in Homecoming it's that the game didn't give enough difficulty levels for all the players who might have problems adjusting to the fighting mechanics and the fact that finishers would glitch sometimes.

And people just wonder why I'm so harsh on SH fans when I see comments like yours that amount to producing obscene mental gymnastics to twist something into an objective extreme negative just because they don't like the combat. It's perfectly fine not to like the fighting mechanics, but your post is textbook example of reaching and stretching things to complain about and it's a practice the fandom really needs to put to rest. Because ideas like the ones contained within your post are what hold the series back. You're squeamish about new ideas so you'd rather the developers take the cheap way out and recycle familiar mechanics and ideas just to avoid a feeling of discomfort which is counterproductive to the premise of the games to begin with.
Last edited by Augophthalmoses on 27 Sep 2012, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
clips
Woodside Apartments Janitor
Posts: 1241
Joined: 21 May 2010

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by clips »

I'm just going to add my two cents, but it looks like Augo & Tillerman are going to keep this thread interesting....:)

I respect what Homecoming did in terms of trying to improve the combat within the series and because of Alex's character, i understand why they went the route they did, but it wasn't implemented that well...it was ok, but the enemy encounters felt redundant. It was a series of set patterns and combos with the gaming mechanic itself relying on you to "lock in" on the enemies on an invisible rail.

The combat felt great fighting the bosses, but fighting the lesser creatures just felt like you were going thru the motions...i think SH needs a system that just feels more natural and doesn't have a "lock in" system to launch combos or pattern based combat. As archaic as the combat was in older games or even in Downpour, the combat felt more natural with no "locking in" mechanic.
User avatar
Augophthalmoses
My Bestsellers Clerk
Posts: 398
Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Trans male

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Augophthalmoses »

Silent Hill has always had set patterns and lock on mechanics when fighting monsters even before Homecoming came along. It's just more noticeable in SH4 and Homecoming because those games make you fight melee more often.

And fighting creatures feeling like going through the motions? You can say that about any of the Silent Hill games. It's not like the creatures in the series have ever been known for having sophisticated AI or varied attacks.

For example, the nurse, Lying Figure, and mannequins in SH2. I know some people may have heard this all before, but it still bears bringing back up in this particular discussion. They're all bipedal monsters with similar attacks and weakness. Fighting one isn't really that much different from the rest save for LF's gas attack. And you fight those same three monsters for 75% of the game. The strategy in dealing with them never changes. I can easily say fighting monsters in SH2 (or any SH game for that matter) is going through the motions.

I mean if you're going to have a lock on function you may as well have it functional and fluid rather than clunky just to fulfill some idea of artificial fear. People need to keep in their mind at all times first and foremost that these are video games. You can't have every single thing within the game to feel completely "natural", "immersive", "atmospheric", or whatever because those are subjective matters anyway. There are always going to be things people can think of to say something about the game "isn't natural".

I can turn around and say SH1-3 aren't as "natural" feeling as SH4 and/or Downpour since they give the player unlimited inventory space. I can say SM feels "more natural" than any other game in the series since there's no inventory screen you have to go into like all the other games in the series. You can come up with all sorts of scenarios to say one game "feels" better than the other.

But those are all petty matters. You can't let stuff like that dictate so rigidly what Silent Hill should be when it comes to gameplay. It has to evolve one way or the other. It can't be stuck in limbo because of sentimentality and fear of what new ideas are going to do to the next installment.

Silent Hill thrives on new ideas.
User avatar
Tillerman
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1446
Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Tillerman »

Augophthalmoses wrote:Basically what you're suggesting is that the mechanics aren't suited to Silent Hill because previous games didn't have such fighting mechanics so they shouldn't be in Homecoming at all. And if they are it's emulating hack n' slahers/beat 'em ups.
It's not necessarily because the previous games didn't have these mechanics. It has nothing to do with fear of change, there's many ways I think the Silent Hill series could change and improve. It's just that adding combos is not one of those ways, and I think it's an incredibly stupid idea.

If a combat system that revolves around combos, then yes, it is literally emulating hack n' slashers/beat 'em ups.
Augophthalmoses wrote:Or did you think the game was supposed to have only light and heavy attacks and not attempts at all to improve combos or other aspects of fighting? Because that's lazy, effortless thinking in regards to improving combat.
But that's just it, adding combos is not an "improvement" to combat. I disagree with your premise, that combat is "improved" by adding sequences of buttons for the players to press. In fact, I would say *that* is lazy thinking, because that's just looking at popular action games and saying "let's copy that."
Augophthalmoses wrote:The fandom really needs to grow the hell out of this misguided idea that the protagonist being a bumbling moron has to be a series staple and that it does anything other than produce a lazy, artificial attempt at fear.
None of the protagonists are "bumbling morons." They all control perfectly fine. The early Silent Hills do a good job at making you feel like you are playing a normal person without combat skills, while at the same time providing a reasonable level of control over what you're doing.
Augophthalmoses wrote:Homecoming adding combos and making them more crucial to fighting monster is not "failure of gameplay design". It's called adding more variety and strategy to the gameplay rather than just running up to the monster and whacking them with the same one hit attack or two combo hits.
Wrong. First of all, it adds precisesly zero "variety" or "strategy" because the amount of combos available is very limited, so for the most part players will be repeating the same combo over and over.

But let's assume that there were a healthy amount of combos, and that you might want to use different ones for different situations so that they would actually add "strategy" or "variety" like you say. Is that really the kind of strategy that serves a horror game like Silent Hill? I would say no. It makes the combat feel too mechanical, and makes the player dwell too much on what buttons to press. IMO this is bad for the game.

What you are neglecting is that Silent Hill's combat system doesn't need combos to have "strategy" or "variety." There are other ways these things can be achieved, like positioning, timing, environment, weapon variety, and monster variety. Thinking that a combat system needs combos in order to have strategy or variety shows that you have an overly simplistic view on combat systems in video games.
Augophthalmoses wrote:As a matter of fact Homecoming took measures to make nearly all the weapons the most balanced assortment in the series at the point because of the combos on top of weight and speed being given precedent more than before. The combos are what actually made the knife useful in Homecoming. Whereas in previous games it was completely useless because of how weak it was.
Actually the knife is easily the best weapon in Homecoming 99% of the time. Look up some FAQs, you'll see they say the same thing. Good thing Homecoming took measures to "balance" the weapons, huh?
Augophthalmoses wrote:And people just wonder why I'm so harsh on SH fans when I see comments like yours
Cut that crap out right now. First of all, I am not a group of people called "SH fans," I am a person who has excellent points that you don't have a good answer to. And secondly, you aren't being "harsh," you are ignoring my points and just repeating yours ad nasuem. Look, I'm not necessarily going to say you're wrong, you have strong opinions about the direction you want Silent Hill to take and that's fine. But if you think that your idea of Silent Hill is what everyone wants, you need to wake up. Your concept for Silent Hill isn't an "evolution" just because it's what YOU want, and no one is "holding back" Silent Hill. We have different opinions and that's all there is to it.
User avatar
Augophthalmoses
My Bestsellers Clerk
Posts: 398
Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Trans male

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Augophthalmoses »

No, there isn't anything wrong with differing opinions. There is something wrong, however, with opinions that are not based in any sort of logic.
But that's just it, adding combos is not an "improvement" to combat. I disagree with your premise, that combat is "improved" by adding sequences of buttons for the players to press. In fact, I would say *that* is lazy thinking, because that's just looking at popular action games and saying "let's copy that."
This isn't thinking logically if you seriously say adding combos is "not an improvement to combat" because it shows an appalling lack of understanding the obvious. You're usually fighting with melee weapons. How in the hell is adding more moves for the player to perform with a melee weapon not improving fighting mechanics? You don't even explain how it's not an improvement. To say adding combos doesn't enhance combat is the very antithesis of common sense. You don't even give out any ideas that you think would enhance combat in place of combos. You just keep belting out over and over "well, they don't feel like Silent Hill because fighters do blah blah blah".

It's not something that requires looking at hack and slashers or fighters in order to think up. It's been a part of ordinary adventure games for ages. I read that post and it becomes crystal clear to me that your post is just looking for mundane things to complain about just because you don't like Homecoming. It's a post that is extremely hard to be taken seriously. I don't mind you not liking the combat as long as you have some good reasons to back it up. "I don't like combos because they feel like fighting/hack and slashers and that isn't Silent Hill!" isn't a good reason. It's over generalized nonsense.
Wrong. First of all, it adds precisesly zero "variety" or "strategy" because the amount of combos available is very limited, so for the most part players will be repeating the same combo over and over.
No, actually you're wrong. This isn't a matter of subjectivity. This is objectivity. Giving the player more moves to perform does in fact add strategy and variety. The combos aren't anything out of Tekken, but they're at least more varied and numerous than the very bare bones "combos" previous games had.

The more moves you have, the less likely you'll be using the same ones over and over. The less moves you have to perform, the more likely you'll be using the same ones over and over. What ideas do you have to add strategy to the mix? Start naming some so I can if you truly have some nifty ideas or if you're just rambling around random things you don't like.

I've played Homecoming enough to know the moves you can perform with melee weapons far outnumber what all you could do with melee weapons in SH1-4. All I'm seeing in your post is that you have a horribly distorted idea of what constitutes as "variety" or "improvement".

If you don't like that style, that's all you. But you can't sit here and claim it doesn't enhance the fighting mechanics because it's already been established that it does and expect to be taken seriously.
User avatar
Tillerman
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1446
Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Tillerman »

Augophthalmoses wrote:No, there isn't anything wrong with differing opinions. There is something wrong, however, with opinions that are not based in any sort of logic.
Both of our opinions are based more on preferences than anything else. Don't try to pretend like your preferences are somehow more "logical," because that's BS. You apparently think that ALL games with some sort of combat should automatically have a combo system. That's a pretty narrow minded view.
Augophthalmoses wrote:How in the hell is adding more moves for the player to perform with a melee weapon not improving fighting mechanics?
Have you ever heard the phrase "less is more"? There's a variety of reasons why a simpler approach might be better.

For example, what if our design goal with the next Silent Hill was *realism*? Fights in real life are not combo heavy... sometimes they even end in one blow. If we wanted to make a fighting system that felt more realistic and gritty, then we might not want to have a combo system at all, but rather we might want to focus on a variety of moves that only strike once or twice, and you have to pick and choose the correct move and be more worried about timing and positioning. IMO, this sort of combat system would work much better for a Silent Hill game than a combo system.

Just to reiterate: you don't need a combo system to have a variety of moves. Also, you don't necessarily want to have too many moves, because then the player feels like they need to study their character and memorize the moves, which is not necessarily good for a horror game because the controls should feel intuitive.
Augophthalmoses wrote:You don't even give out any ideas that you think would enhance combat in place of combos.
Actually I did, but you ignored it:
Tillerman wrote:Silent Hill's combat system doesn't need combos to have "strategy" or "variety." There are other ways these things can be achieved, like positioning, timing, environment, weapon variety, and monster variety.
You love to ignore my points. Oh well. I expanded on those alternatives above, so I guess this time you really can't ignore it.
Augophthalmoses wrote:The combos aren't anything out of Tekken, but they're at least more varied and numerous than the very bare bones "combos" previous games had.
That's just ridiculously false. Combos in Homecoming can only consist of a string of light attacks, heavy attacks can only be used at the end of combos. Because of this limitation, there is generally only 1 useful combo for every weapon: A, A, A, X. That is the sequence of buttons players will be repeating throughout the entire game. How the hell is that "varied and numerous?" Either stop claiming that, or give me a god damned list of every possible combo and possible legitimate uses uses for it, because I guarantee you can't do it.
User avatar
Augophthalmoses
My Bestsellers Clerk
Posts: 398
Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Trans male

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Augophthalmoses »

Both of our opinions are based more on preferences than anything else. Don't try to pretend like your preferences are somehow more "logical," because that's BS. You apparently think that ALL games with some sort of combat should automatically have a combo system. That's a pretty narrow minded view.
And more point dodging. Has nothing to do with saying my preferences are my sensible than yours. It's saying that adding combos in an effort to add improvements to the fighting mechanics is not only logical, but stone cold common sense. None of your criticisms have any sound reasoning within them. "Combos are in fighters, hack and slashers, and beat 'em ups. They don't feel like Silent Hill" is an unreasonable excuse. By that logic you may as well consider the concept of being able to gun down the monsters in the game "un Silent Hill like" just because FPS or TPS games focus on gunplay or saying item collecting isn't befitting in Silent Hill just because RPGs have that function.
Have you ever heard the phrase "less is more"? There's a variety of reasons why a simpler approach might be better.
You're talking about gameplay and Silent Hill isn't exactly something like Haunting Ground. It was designed from SH1 with fighting in mind with both melee and firearm weapons. SH3 and SH4 took steps to improve combat by adding the ability to block, equip items via R3, and charge up attacks. I know you're likely going to say "well, they didn't have Virtua Fighter combos either so that doesn't mean they should have them." It doesn't mean they can't either. If the previous developers think it's a good idea to tighten the fighting mechanics, then that should tell anybody it's only logical to do the same in future installments. And that's what you should do. You should strive to make improvements instead of trying to be lazy. Besides, new combat abilities, monster weaknesses, character weaknesses, can have the potential to introduce new challenges and tension.
For example, what if our design goal with the next Silent Hill was *realism*? Fights in real life are not combo heavy...
If you want to get onto the subject of realism, not everybody is going to fight the same way in real life and not everybody is going to swing a knife or pipe in just 1-2 hit combos. You're just overgeneralizing.
sometimes they even end in one blow. If we wanted to make a fighting system that felt more realistic and gritty, then we might not want to have a combo system at all, but rather we might want to focus on a variety of moves that only strike once or twice, and you have to pick and choose the correct move and be more worried about timing and positioning. IMO, this sort of combat system would work much better for a Silent Hill game than a combo system.
Except people by nature have the inherent ability to use quick combo movements with weapons like a knife or rod type of weapon if a situation ever arises. You don't have to be some military trained person in order to so especially with something like a knife. Being in a crazy situation like Silent Hill surrounded by monsters would be reason enough to fight more desperately and ferociously. Only having the ability to strike only once or twice would get old quickly and lessen the amount of strategy needed in dealing with enemies. When you have a limited amount of abilities the chances are greater that they'll grow dull quicker. If you want to true realism, people's movements with weapons are not going to be as limited as you're suggesting they are. All I'm seeing here is that you have a distorted idea of realism when it comes to people fighting with weapons.
Just to reiterate: you don't need a combo system to have a variety of moves. Also, you don't necessarily want to have too many moves, because then the player feels like they need to study their character and memorize the moves, which is not necessarily good for a horror game because the controls should feel intuitive.
Of course you don't need combos to have a variety of moves but why not have no both instead of one or the other? Why limit yourself to just certain ones? And there's nothing unintuitive about combos. They're simple to learn and Silent Hill is never going to have long type combos you see in Tekken. And how is it that studying the character and memorizing their moves can't be good for a horror game? It's horror. Part of the experience is observing everything around you and taking the necessary steps to survive. Having to observe enemy movements and time attacks/dodges would only further strengthen that and you counteract. Having to time attacks and dodges is what counteracts the fear of empowerment because you can't exactly mash on the attack or dodge buttons and expect to get out of danger right away.

You have to remember first and foremost that it's a video game. It's not a good idea to strip down gameplay in the name of immersion when immersion is a subjective matter anyway.
Actually I did, but you ignored it:
You provided a list. You didn't actually provide a solid example of "okay, instead of having combos let us have the play do this blah blah blah" until this post you made. In fact, the list you rounded off is just more or less helping my point. For example, you listed timing and I provided an example of how timing can factor into the gameplay and provide tension that can be effective in a horror game.

Of course there are other ways to induce horror. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try to tighten those concepts as much as possible though. Look at Downpour. Combat was dumbed down in order to convey a feel of helplessness, but it got a lot of complaints of being hard, annoying, etc. and despite the combat there were still complaints that the game wasn't scary with one of the main complaints being monster design. While fighting mechanics are not the number one aspect of the series, they are important none the less and they should not be ignored. Silent Hill isn't just three or four elements like story, atmosphere, puzzles, etc. It's about many different concepts coming together in as fluid and effective of manner as possible.
That's just ridiculously false.
No, actually it's true. The rest of your post just further verifies my point.
Combos in Homecoming can only consist of a string of light attacks, heavy attacks can only be used at the end of combos. Because of this limitation, there is generally only 1 useful combo for every weapon: A, A, A, X. That is the sequence of buttons players will be repeating throughout the entire game. How the hell is that "varied and numerous?"
How the hell is that various? The fact that none of the previous games even had combos like that nor did they even have heavy attacks. You just have the downward swings and the side attacks that could be used in combos. The only "heavy" sort of attacks the series had was when SH4 added the ability to charge attacks. And even then they took out the ability to do those side swing attacks the first three games had.
User avatar
Tillerman
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1446
Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Tillerman »

Augophthalmoses wrote:How the hell is that various? The fact that none of the previous games even had combos like that nor did they even have heavy attacks. You just have the downward swings and the side attacks that could be used in combos. The only "heavy" sort of attacks the series had was when SH4 added the ability to charge attacks. And even then they took out the ability to do those side swing attacks the first three games had.
Call em what you want. Light/heavy, side-swing/downward attack. There are TWO basic attacks you can do with each weapon in the early Silent Hill games. Okay, so we agree on that much... but you still completely ignored my request for a list of useful combos. Sorry, but this is extremely important... I really don't want you to ignore this request. So let's just focus on this for now.

You say that the combos in Homecoming help add "variety" and "strategy" to combat, right? Fine. Then give me a list of useful combos with each weapon. Here, I'll help start it for you.

Fireaxe:
A, A, X. This is the bread and butter combo of the fireaxe. It allows you to get the most hits in before your finisher.
Other combos: ???

Well, that's one useful combo. Sorry I can't think of any others. However I'm guessing there must be a lot of them, based on how much "variety" and "strategy" you think there is in this game... right? So please list them for me. Thanks.
User avatar
warfare315
Brookhaven Receptionist
Posts: 889
Joined: 05 Dec 2009
Gender: Male
Location: New York
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by warfare315 »

Tillerman wrote:
Augophthalmoses wrote:How the hell is that various? The fact that none of the previous games even had combos like that nor did they even have heavy attacks. You just have the downward swings and the side attacks that could be used in combos. The only "heavy" sort of attacks the series had was when SH4 added the ability to charge attacks. And even then they took out the ability to do those side swing attacks the first three games had.
Call em what you want. Light/heavy, side-swing/downward attack. There are TWO basic attacks you can do with each weapon in the early Silent Hill games. Okay, so we agree on that much... but you still completely ignored my request for a list of useful combos. Sorry, but this is extremely important... I really don't want you to ignore this request. So let's just focus on this for now.

You say that the combos in Homecoming help add "variety" and "strategy" to combat, right? Fine. Then give me a list of useful combos with each weapon. Here, I'll help start it for you.

Fireaxe:
A, A, X. This is the bread and butter combo of the fireaxe. It allows you to get the most hits in before your finisher.
Other combos: ???

Well, that's one useful combo. Sorry I can't think of any others. However I'm guessing there must be a lot of them, based on how much "variety" and "strategy" you think there is in this game... right? So please list them for me. Thanks.
It wasn't a bad idea, but spamming A, A, X can pretty much win you the game.. once I figured that out, the combat didn't really feel as special as the first time I played through.
Another frequency perpetuated into context, trapped in the eternal paradox.
vaporeyesofficial.bandcamp.com
Facebook.com/vaporeyesofficial
User avatar
Tillerman
Rosewater Park Attendant
Posts: 1446
Joined: 12 Oct 2010
Gender: Male
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Tillerman »

warfare315 wrote:It wasn't a bad idea, but spamming A, A, X can pretty much win you the game.. once I figured that out, the combat didn't really feel as special as the first time I played through.
Well, yeah. I mean, that's literally the *only* useful combo with the axe. So what else would you do? That was one of the points I was trying to make, combos don't add any variety or depth to combat when you have to spam the same combo over and over. They literally add nothing to the game except button mashing. Wow, what innovation!

Though if you want a weapon you can spam it's combo and get through the game easily, I wouldn't suggest the fireaxe, I'd suggest the knife. The knife makes most encounters trivial, it practically breaks the game. Try it sometime.
User avatar
Silent Fantasy
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 1924
Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Gender: Male
Location: Katz Street
Contact:

Re: Did innovations in combat mechanics enhance your experie

Post by Silent Fantasy »

The knife is game breaking. I never used any other weapon, never used a gun, and rarely had to heal. And I beat the game on Hard without realizing it. Every fight came down to dodge, X,X,X,Y. Rinse and repeat. No other combo or weapon was viable in comparison and made every fight very monotonous. Even if in the older games you did nothing but hold R2 and press X a few times, it was over much faster than using the above knife combo 5 to 8 times per enemy.
Image
WARNING: Some Parts of Reality May Seem Violent or Cruel.
Post Reply