Advanced Combat Mechanics

This guide is an overview of the many Gameplay aspects of the fighting engine of Abyss Odyssey created by the developers of the game. Many of these features are things that are normally only seen in fighting games and which can be subtle (or totally missed) if you are playing the game casually, but which are important aspects if one is to learn to play competitively. The objective of this guide is to cover deeper aspects of the combat mechanics that are not presented in the tutorials. We will be updating this guide with more info or changes over time.

Cancel Points

In the main adventure mode players start with 1 Cancel Point which can be upgraded to 3 (In VS mode you immediately start with 3). Cancel points are a crucial part of the game's mechanics, as they allow for many actions (mostly canceling animations into others), but they also have other implications and operate a bit like a “stamina” meter. Cancel point's functions are:



1) Canceling Regular Attack or Special Attack animations into Special Attacks or Dashes. A cancel can be performed without the need for contact (unlike traditional fighting games where moves are canceled only when connecting a hit). Each canceled move takes away one cancel point, allowing you to link a maximum of three cancels in one sequence. Cancel points also allow for players to cancel a Special Attack or a Dodge from a hard knockdown. This is especially useful to avoid tech chasing and subsequent hard knockdowns from an opponent.

2) Cancel points allow the player to do an air recovery when being knocked out (or in an air combo). The air recovery uses one cancel point. However:

During knockout:
- A player will have no time penalty stun time with 3 cancel points available.
- A player will have 0.2s of penalty stun time with 2 cancel points available.
- A player will have 0.4s of penalty stun time with 1 cancel point available.
- A player will have no way of air recovering with no cancel points available.

Given the fast pace that the game acquires through use of cancel points for dashing and canceling animations, the way to recover cancel points is just simply to pause (walk or stay idle) for 0.5s.

Dodge/Dash Cancel to Jump

One of the most powerful offensive options of the game is an exploit of a system that combines two movement options that exist for all players. In Abyss Odyssey you can:

- Cancel an attack into a dodge (uses 1 cancel point)
- Cancel a dodge into a jump (does not use cancel points)


By combining any attack that can be canceled into a dash, you can immediately take your player airborne to continue your combo and chase your opponent in the air. A simple example would be:

Katrien's up attack -> cancel into dash forward -> immediately cancel into a jump -> *any aerial follow-up*

This offensive option enables players to create unique combos that start with a launcher attack which can be then used to follow up with virtually any attack in the air. With multiple cancel points, players can even cancel an aerial attack into a new dash or Special for extra hits and a more impressive combo.

Parry System

The parry system of Abyss is extremely powerful and simple to use. A parry is performed by simply doing a “perfect block” (timing the blocking of an incoming attack the moment it hits you). A parry not only blocks the incoming attack with no knock-back, but it also freezes the opponent for a microsecond in order to have a time for a counterattack. Projectiles can also be bounced in a downwards direction with a parry. Parries do not consume shield so it is always a better option than blocking. Grab attacks cannot be parried.



The effectiveness of a parry also has to do with how well timed the block is ahead of the impact. The closer it is to the actual hit, the more effective. Perfect timed parrying freezes adversaries slightly more and bounces projectiles with a better angle.

Transformations

Transformations can now be executed at any given moment, as long as the player has one cancel point to spare. These can even be executed mid-air. Transformations can also be used inside a combo, since they can be input to cancel out of an attack like special moves. This opens up a lot of possibilities to enhance combos and try out new strategies.

Transformations always cost a cancel point, so if the player has none transforming isn't possible until cancel points regenerate.

Momentum and Pain decay

In order to stop the game from easily allowing infinite combos and juggles, the game has a unique system of dealing with this without having to resort to damage scaling. There are basically two rules that govern how pain animations and the gravity (or weight) of a juggled opponent behave:

1) After 3 consecutive hits of the same attack in a combo on a grounded enemy, the opponent's next pain will be a knockout instead of a new grounded pain animation. This does not mean that the combo is canceled, but rather that it would become a juggle from this point and on if continued.

2) When repeating the same attack during a juggle-combo, the upwards momentum applied to the juggled enemy will start to decay over each new attack (as long as the same attack is being repeated). This basically means that unless new and different attacks are used in a juggle, the opponent will start to have less upwards force applied, thus making him feel heavier and making it harder to continue the combo before he hits the ground.

Both these rules in combination allow for a great variety of combos and juggles, without resorting to cheap repetitive combos that rely on just one or two attacks. All characters in Abyss Odyssey are capable of performing 10+ hit combos using variety of attacks and cancel points creatively.

Air dodge to ground sliding

Some characters have fast air dodges that when performed near ground level can carry on the inertia of the dodge into a small slide on the ground. This is very obvious with Katrien's air dodge, which allows for a pretty decent ground slide. This can be used as a way of adding momentum and extending attacks that are stationary on the ground. A very powerful use for this is to use the grab when sliding, transforming a short distance move into a sliding quick option to catch opponents off guard.

Fast Recovery

When knocked out, players can press block, dash left or dash right just before hitting the ground in order to perform the respective faster recovery animation.

Directional Influence

During a knockout the player still has a small amount of air control which can be used as a way of making it more difficult for his opponent to follow-up and continue his combo.

Grab throw directions

When grabbed, enemies can be thrown in three predefined directions (which are custom per character):

-Neutral (throw and hold no direction in the movement stick)
-Backwards (throw and hold backwards)
-Forward (throw and hold forward)

The direction of launched enemies greatly depends on the character's grab animation. Some characters can not really throw back and have more of a variety of forward throws. Knowing the optimal grab throw direction can be essential to set up combo-juggles on enemies.

Fast Falling

By pressing down on the directional input after the apex of a jump, you can accelerate the falling speed of your jump for a quicker descent.

High jump

Hold down + press jump to travel higher during the first jump. This option can only be performed on regular floors and not on "drop down surfaces", since in those cases the down + jump combination serves as a way of dropping from the platform.

Recovering from knockback / Groggy time

When a character is knocked into the air, he can cancel out of the knockback by jumping (or attacking) after a specific time. How long the character is unable to jump or attack out of the hit (groggy time) depends of the amount of cancel points which are available to the character while flying through the air. The more cancel points the less groggy time. If the player has no cancel points the knockback cannot be cancelled at all.

Note: Some specific attacks will output a longer base groggy time (depends of hitbox properties).

[Nax_o]

This guide is mandatory to learn. Only by learning the cancel mechanics will you enjoy the game past the first hours. Excellent game but very demanding too. I play many roguelikes but for the action kind this is the only game i frequently return back to.

[L'Ïann]

thx

[Beutimus]

Helpful information! I guess I'm not quite as advanced to know exactly what 'pain' is. Thanks though. :)

[[ACE] abordeu]

Added transformations section!

[[ACE] abordeu]

Updated with Knockback/Groggy time information.

[[ACE] cbordeu]

Awesome tips there Pinkman. Glad to see you use Melee styled gameplay in the combat. Hopefully we'll be able to have a working online vs mode soon so more people can test their skills against each other.

[Todo]

Very helpful guide, I didn't notice the dash into jump cancel before and it's great for combos!
I did find a few useful techniques not covered in the guide:
Short hop fast fall - Short hop, use your favorite normal, fast fall- similar to smash bros melee, you don't have any landing lag so you cancel any recovery frames from that attack and follow up immediately.
Dodge dance- When walking about, you can go much faster by canceling a ground dodge into a short hop, immediately dodging and then ground dodging the moment you hit the floor- repeat if necessary. You also get useful invincibility frames from all the dodging. Not very safe on some singleplayer levels, though, and not very useful on characters like the soldier with bad dodges.

[Nasty Peep]

A video would be nice to benefit those who need that little extra.

[tinodafunk]

I'm not sure if I was lucky, or skilled - or maybe some bastardisation of both! In saying that, I am a huge fan of all of the game types present in Odyssey - so that couldn't have hurt!

[[ACE] cbordeu]

Hi Diabeasty. There might be a way to exploit that for sure. I'm sure the game has many other options we have yet to see.