Why was the fighting changed?

[part]

I loved the game for being physics based, and now a lot of this charm has been replaced with clunky animations.... the combat feels really terrible and encourages spam rather than physics exploitation. Will this ever be reverted?

[Bio Drando]

There are still 0 animations in the game, every movement your Gang Beast does is fully physics-based, so technically the only "animation" they have is the opening and closing of their eyes.
I don't see how you could every think they used animations as there are 0 instances where I could think they'd want to use them, the gameplay simply wouldn't benefit from them at all, could you give me an example of where an animation moight be present? To me every movement is quite smooth and fluid, and while some are a bit more clunky (like rotating yourself while climbing/hanging from a wall) thay are still fully made using physics.

I think the issue is about what you consider "physics exploitations", if you mean the characters getting flung away then the devs always wanted to get rid of that, instead the game is more focused on grappling and it is more of a sort of tug of war for who can get in the spot where they can deal the most hits while being harder to hit (mostly behind someone).

With future gameplay changes and improvements in mind (revorked/improved K.O. system, a brand new swimming motion that allows you to move much more fast and fluently when in the water full with actual arm-swinging behavior and a mechanic that will allow you to break free of grabs if you can hit your opponent a few times) and the fact that the developer team said that they are reworking the physics system again (as they said it'll make both the movements more fluid and dynamic but also the job easier for them, specifying how in the current system they need to use multiple sub-states just to let you crouch whereas the new one can have that be shrunk into a single state) I'd say that the game is indeed gonna take more advantage of the phsyics, but less in a "exploit the phsyics and make the characters do extremely strong hits" and more in line of "boxing-wrestling hibrid where you fight for the best position".

So yeah, the game is fully phsyics-based now and it'll have its physics improved in later updates, I have no idea how you see those "clunky animations", there are no pre-set animation in the game.
And regarding spam: they actually nerfed it by not letting you headbutt and punch at the same time, if you punch while in the middle of a headbutt your Gang BEast won't actually punch but they'll just flail their arms around pretending to punch but without actually throwing any attack until the headbutting motion is over.

[part]

I didn't mean physics exploitation as a bad thing - I meant it as "You're able to do anything if you have an idea how the physics engine works."
I loved that! I absolutely adored how after some practice, I was able to perform wrestling moves on my friends in-game! But after the addition of online, that definitely changed. I feel like some kind of "animations" were added because that kind of physics online weren't a thing back then. The combat lost its charm of freedom and being physics-based and became a button mashing festival of random hits that do no damage and instant knockouts.
About the "animations".... I had no idea how to explain it, so I searched it up and I think Node said it better than me (watch the first few minutes of the video, they'll talk about the topic)
https://youtu.be/606w8wQMmgg