What makes a game's combat "fun"

Satisfying feedback, varied enemy AI patterns, the sense that you have an appropriate amount of options to use, and the sense that you aren't mindlessly repeating the same action over and over with no variation in encounters even if you often technically are if you boil down the encounters to their most objective bare bones.

Well its not op because if you do get hit half your hp is gone. balanced.

being good at it

>Responsive controls
>Good hitboxes
>Fair challenge, no bullshit and damage sponges

Souls combat is pretty simple and barebones really, but it does the basics right

It's still OP as shit besides a few bosses.

Dodging is only OP if you're good at it. Most players aren't good at it. That's why dodging is heavily buffed in Bloodborne when static defensive options like shields are taken away.

Facilitating player expression while also remaining a challenge

Hits has spark and is satisfying and the enemy reacts for the body part being hit.

See the Surge and Sekiro.

well it can make it more satisfying but let's be honest even if dark souls was easier it would still be really fun.

The alternative is enemies then become massive meat shields to make up for the easier difficulty then this just becomes more annoying

How much money I spent to win, nothing feels better then just crushing someone with a stack meta $500 deck

Combat should be a dynamic dance between you and your opponent(s). It needs enough variety to be expressive enough so that player personality and state of mind can be recognized or bluffed and fainted. Merely optimal is enough, established metas cannot be too strong. This allows players to break and branch out easily to play with all of their enemies. I also believe that this type of nuance is completely unintentional by devs or designers and attempts to balance games is destructive. Game's need a vision; a literal dream. You don't 'give' players tools, you create warriors in the context of the game alone and forget about the player and the audience. QoL can come later. All a game needs to offer a player is the opportunity to exceed imagination in a literally fantastic environment.

>I wish magic builds didn't feel so slow and clunky to use.
its like the fastest way to kill almost every boss in any given souls game without doing excessive buffing and low-hp-damage-boosting-crap and every school of magic has spells that come out within a fraction of a second

>especially in Bloodborne

You mean the from game with second less iframes on the dodge, more recovery frames than most of them and the only one you take double damage if you're hit during your dodge?

Either depth or buttery smooth controls. Or some mishmash of the two

Reel it in, Sun Tzu

kek

>enemies kill you in two hits, you kill them in 30 hits ahaha so fun and hard xD

Has anyone restored that armor set and completed the model? Burial Knight.

The fact that you're always 2-4 hits away from death, even at full HP.
It really makes you always need to pay attention as you can only afford 1-2 consecutive mistakes, and you can't make too many either because of limited heals.

I know what you mean. If spells were like a third quicker to cast or didnt slow you down so much when casting it'd feel way better but then it'd break pvp but then who cares about that shit

Versatility

Eh, not necessarily. While danger does make the game more intense, it isn't mandatory. What's important is feeling like the things happening are happening because of your own skill and timing. This is why batman/AC style controls can be great or terrible depending on how you play them.

>*boosts your spells*

but seriously spells like black flame, crystal soul spear, chaos bed vestige and lightning arrow are already so fast and strong that only the hardest bosses can even stand a chance against a spellcaster using them
casting something like wrath of the gods in DaS3, now THAT is stupid slow

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It has almost no recovery, drains almost no stamina and still has a fuckload of i-frames. You can consistently and easily even dodge forward right through bullets and shit.
I have never felt as overpowered as I did in that game.

A lot of things, but it usually starts with being able to smack an enemy into the air and hit it while it’s up there.

Frame by frame, it has more recovery and less iframes than dark souls 3 standard

I recently did another run with my 60int SL125 character in DS3 and yeah I have to agree that CSS spam breaks all the bosses. Even the ones who are resistant to magic simply melted to it.

The only boss that I didn't CSS spam was Gael, but I just used the story teller staff poison on him, and it drained all his life. I didn't even have to attack.

I never played Dark Souls 3, got bored with the series after 2 and only played Bloodborne after that.

its quite simple actually.

Physics, dynamics. Thats it

So you try to make an argument about dark souls while knowing jack shit about the series.

Thanks for confirming that your opinion is worthless.

>So you try to make an argument about dark souls while knowing jack shit about the series.
Because I played Demons, Dark 1&2 and all of the DLC. Which is a majority of the series.

You're obviously a close-minded and heavily biased fanboy that doesn't like people saying bad things about things you like.
So you are a worthless person in general to talk to.

This ring is for mostly PvP or very agile enemies like the corvian knights and ringed knights.
Because without 40 dex in PvP, you'll rarely hit anything with spells, bar some surprise shots as an invader when the host/phantoms are busy with mobs.

I beat gael using that glitch too on a lvl 20 +2 character I genuinely thank god for that, not another 5 hour boss fight

Having a variety of useful tools to use beyond R1 and running R1, so souls games don't have fun or challenging combat unfortunately

Zone of proximal development
Look it up.
"Fun gaming" tries to design a gameplay loop that falls into it. - among other things. You need to be challenged but the task should not be impossible.

So you only used a longsword.
Shame.

More soul in six seconds than all of DaS2

>I played through each game once or twice it means I know all about the mechanics
You shouldn't bother even writing a post about souls games because you're always gonna expose yourself like a complete idiot who doesn't know jack shit about any mechanics.

This has nothing to do with saying bad things about game x or y. It's about you making up shit that is factually wrong, getting exposed like the moron you are and now going into complete damage control.

>This ring is for mostly PvP
sage ring+2 is a 20% increase in casting speed, that is fucking enormous and can make the difference between dodging an attack in a bossfight after casting or eating shit and die

In DaS3 I ran a quality/faith build with Astora Greatsword, Saint's Bident, and Eleonora, and a strength build with Great Machete, Butcher Knife, Follower Spear, and Quakestone Hammer.

On all of those weapons the only good attacks besides standing and running R1 are charge on AGS which is ridiculously easy to parry, and maybe the spear throw which only really hits retards who stand still. You can dodge almost everything on reaction simply by pressing the roll button and there's no real way to apply pressure or play aggressively outside of staggering your R1s or timing running attacks.

Everyone who says BB is the easiest souls game
- Played it once
- Used saws or noobsword
- Leveled endurance past 20
- Went to DLC overleveled
- Never touched a FRC chalice dungeon

Nothing in the whole series is as hard as FRC HMPH.

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>what makes a game's combat "fun"
Dying repeatedly with no way of knowing what you did wrong.

if its a bit of a struggle its fun. its its too easy then its boring, if its too hard its frustrating. Games that strike that balance are fun. Dark souls goes all over the place but it gets a pass for me because you can go where you want so you can go to an easier area then come back to the harder ones later.

For most games my go to checklist is something like:
>Fighting enemies vs fighting controls
>Positioning being important else you miss, suffer recovery frames, ect.
>hitstop with added hitstop with a dash of hitstop when it comes to melee
>good sound design

I am repeatng myself, I know. I beat DaS3 with pure pyromancer, DaS2 Scholar with pure sorcerer and now am playing DaS Remastered with pure sorcerer. After this, and after playing RE3 and FF7 remake, I'll probably play DaS3 with pure sorcerer. By pure, I mean
>pyromancies + items (bombs)
>sorceries + items (bombs)
>no shield
>no weapon
and I can tell you, it's not that bad. DaS 1 may the the hardest because even though sorceries are more powerful in DaS1 comapred to DaS2 (at least, that's the impression I got), I feel like they are not so precise as they are in DaS2. But then, sorceries in DaS1 don't use stamina, so you can have your spamfest and don't have to worry about staming if you have to roll.

Speaking of magic...
Do you guys prefer Demon's and Dark Souls 3 where you need MP to cast a spell, or Dark Souls 1 and 2 where spells have ''charges'' and don't use MP? I personally prefer DaS1/2, although DaS3 has its benefits (you don't need to spend too many point on Attunement; 5 slots for spells/pyromancies in DaS3 is probably more than enough).

Bloodborne is a lot less forgiving than it seems, the lower i frames means you can't spend all day inside of an active attack like you can in other Souls games, you have to dodge in away that has you inside an attack for the least amount of time.
>the only one you take double damage if you're hit during your dodge?
This is true for every roll in Dark Souls 1 and Quickstep in 3

I think the most important aspect of combat is a combination of visceral visuals (check out the game Control, it's an absolute masterclass in visceral combat feel) and snappy and responsive controls (stuff like input delay is grating and hurts the experience), some rumble from the controller to aid the whole feeling if appropriate

Things like freezing the game for a single frame when you land a big hit (see dragons dogma) is also something I find great since it makes the heavier weapons actually feel hefty and powerful

Another important aspect is the proper balance between player and enemy and also enemy response when being attacked. If the monsters in MH just stood there and didn't flinch it would feel absolutely terrible (World does this best since it has the most interactive monsters yet and they flinch and respond to attacks delightfully), damage sponges are unacceptable

I think the system DaS1/2 has is better as a whole since it forces the player to think strategically and ration his spells rather than just chug mp flasks and spam, I do prefer DeS magic though because the idea of rationing my spells makes me uncomfortable and I end up just playing a melee character instead

Quicksilver bullets are the best resource for spells :^)

Because overreliance on i-frame dodging is boring

>BB is easy
>summons for every boss

>think strategically and ration his spells
I always play a hexer in DaS2 because you can get an obscene amount of dark orbs by stacking the 3 copies you get per NG cycle, as well as additional casts granted by attunement

>Never touched a FRC chalice dungeon
Remind me, is that the chalice where your HP is halved, an optional ''dungeon'' you must beat to get a platinum, or something else? It's been a while since I played it.

Challange that rewards strategy, cleverness and good timing/reflexes and Risk vs Reward.

i-frames are retarded because it makes the direction of your dodge hardly matter.

Wrong. Dodging directly away from an attack can "waste" the i-frames and you can still get hit while dodging into an attack ensures you'll i-frame through it.

Completely forgot about that, yea those dark spells in DaS2 were OP as fuck and that is a case where the system is obviously broken, no way should you ever be able to clear entire areas + the bosses just through your sheer amount of spell uses

Fetid Rotten Cursed chalice dungeon.
Your hp is halved, enemies are buffed and extra stronger enemies spawn in the dungeon.