Developer feedback - melee pit combos are irritating as hell

[Skywalker]

I really enjoy the game and I don't regret buying it. This feedback does not affect my review score but boy, am I frustrated.
I am finally starting to advance into the mid to end game content and recently stumbled upon this place in Thormash where you are asked to perform all these melee combos (the melee pit).
I can't even express how irritated I am. This is by far the most garbage stuff I've ever seen in gaming. Really Really poor game design.

I don't even know where to start. The whole combo where you have to click click pause click click click, then perform some BS action is TRASH. 99% of the times, I get this "wrong input" and the whole thing resets. This is not even about being difficult or "getting good" or whatever. This is purely trash game design where it just DOES NOT WORK. There is no indication how long to pause, when to resume. it is just BADDDDD gameplay loop. poorly executed on every level. How did it even pass QA/play testing, is beyond me.
I did some googling because I thought this must be a PC issue and I saw same pissed off players from 2 years ago so this must have been like that since day one.

I am a completionist (i.e do every quest, side mission, etc), and this might be the first game where I'll just completely skip this garbage, trash content. Seriously, I struggled less in the arena then in getting those stupid trash combos to work.

whoever came up with this melee combos at Guerrilla, should never be allowed to make decisions anymore. let him/her just write code or something. I doubt this will ever be fixed, but this should become a case study in game dev courses on how NOT to design gameplay loop.

[oldeschool]

rage quit after enough wrong input messages. -- I do want the extra hit with the spear, but the rewards vs the frustration isn't worth it.

[a passerby]

If many people can get it 100% of the time, why are you insisting that it does not work?

I guarantee you that if you were to record your gameplay along with your inputs, I could very easily point out the problems with your inputs.

But yes, melee combat overall does require improvements, but realistically no one would be using melee for most of the game even if it were viable anyway.

[Holografix]

it's fun because of the timing combos. i'm a fighting game enthusiast so the melee pits and combat reminds me of fighting games.

r1 - r1 - pause - r1 - hold r1 - RELEASE while holding forward - hold and release r2

-- a lowlands aoe combo with a halfmoon slash into a jump over

[joridiculous]

"QTE"-type mechanics in games is the most low-effort BS any game can have, especially in combat.
I don't mind to limit weapons, armour etc. but NOT when the only way to "fight" is clicking button sequences. That BS only have a place in tutorials to learn you some combos.

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by joridiculous:

"QTE"-type mechanics in games is the most low-effort BS any game can have, especially in combat.
I don't mind to limit weapons, armour etc. but NOT when the only way to "fight" is clicking button sequences. That BS only have a place in tutorials to learn you some combos.

It's more like Street Fighter or 2D fighting game inputs that QTE,

I've played lots of 2D fighters and did all the pits in like 5 minutes each.

It's actually easier than 2D fighters because the game gives you lots of visual inputs as to when pauses should end.

[Hydra_360ci]

lol.. I felt the same way with the Hunting Grounds of the first game. All that work to get Blazing Suns then the weapon you buy with the medals are like 1 point better than the stuff you buy from a trader. Then on new game+ you can do them all again to get one more weapon coils slot on them.

Anyways... Hunting Grounds survived... and the melee pit will survive too.
Maybe they'll fix the duplication glitch next time...

[deksroning]

Originally posted by Holografix:

it's fun because of the timing combos. i'm a fighting game enthusiast so the melee pits and combat reminds me of fighting games.

r1 - r1 - pause - r1 - hold r1 - RELEASE while holding forward - hold and release r2

-- a lowlands aoe combo with a halfmoon slash into a jump over

And this unfortunately doesn't help me because I'm gaming on a PC.
Even after following instructions most of the time, I get 'wrong input'.
Its the aerial slash and attack from while in the air that's the major issue... and some others.
The combos simply speaking don't work even after attempting the inputs as specified in the tutorials -in fact, it only worked once after trying it EXACTLY the same way after multiple failures - about 30 mins worth - and that's just the tutorial that worked... since then in the actual CHALLENGE it never worked.

So I gave up out of frustration.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by deksroning:

Originally posted by Holografix:

it's fun because of the timing combos. i'm a fighting game enthusiast so the melee pits and combat reminds me of fighting games.

r1 - r1 - pause - r1 - hold r1 - RELEASE while holding forward - hold and release r2

-- a lowlands aoe combo with a halfmoon slash into a jump over

And this unfortunately doesn't help me because I'm gaming on a PC.
Even after following instructions most of the time, I get 'wrong input'.
Its the aerial slash and attack from while in the air that's the major issue... and some others.
The combos simply speaking don't work even after attempting the inputs as specified in the tutorials -in fact, it only worked once after trying it EXACTLY the same way after multiple failures - about 30 mins worth - and that's just the tutorial that worked... since then in the actual CHALLENGE it never worked.

So I gave up out of frustration.

i'm on PC too. but i use a controller (dualshock ps4). if you use Kb/m that may be the issue.

[BeefoTheBold]

Originally posted by deksroning:

Originally posted by Holografix:

it's fun because of the timing combos. i'm a fighting game enthusiast so the melee pits and combat reminds me of fighting games.

r1 - r1 - pause - r1 - hold r1 - RELEASE while holding forward - hold and release r2

-- a lowlands aoe combo with a halfmoon slash into a jump over

And this unfortunately doesn't help me because I'm gaming on a PC.
Even after following instructions most of the time, I get 'wrong input'.
Its the aerial slash and attack from while in the air that's the major issue... and some others.
The combos simply speaking don't work even after attempting the inputs as specified in the tutorials -in fact, it only worked once after trying it EXACTLY the same way after multiple failures - about 30 mins worth - and that's just the tutorial that worked... since then in the actual CHALLENGE it never worked.

So I gave up out of frustration.

This is me too.

It could be a thing based on the porting of the game from consoles to PC. I've seen this before where consoles have a locked frame rate and PCs do not, which means things like this get screwed up as a result.

Very common with some Japanese games like the Yakuza/Like a Dragon ones for instance.