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Regarding cursor positioning, that only matters for thrusts (obviously it matters for footwork and momentum and all that other stuff, but the actual static position of the cursor has no bearing on swing height and aiming), so you don't need to worry about left-to-right swings being impossible to do properly.
For weapons hitting the ground, are you on the beta branch? They've changed the greatsword animations for the exact reason you specified, and they no longer hit the ground. Thrusts have also been changed and I think you'd like the changes.
Shield attacks like bashes will be coming later, but I don't think there are any plans to add a separate button for . With the introduction of grip changes and thaumaturgy quick-casting and possibly a whole lot of other potential keybinds I don't know about, it's already looking pretty cramped and I think most people who play for long enough believe there's no need to change this.
But I have "beaten" the story mode several dozens of times and defeated pretty much every level of enemy there is in the arena.
Also, yes I am on the beta branch.
The sad thing to me is that I pop back into the game to check out the changes they made and... this might bum some people out, it doesn't feel improved at all.
Combat is still sluggish, enemies are still flailing about while stumbeling through the arena.
Yes there is "magic" now, cool, but I would like for the core of the game to work better first before we branch out into other mechanics.
Lets talk about thrusts for a moment. Thrusts in melee combat are great because they are fast, hard to counter and are very lethal. Cuts can injure you yes, but thrusts pierce your organs.
In Exanima thrust however are slowish pokes, unless you use a very fast weapon and accelerate like hell. Thats precisely the problem, this is an isometric game, you have to "aim" with a 2d mouse in 3d environment, while also accelerating with mouse movements. That is not a great control scheme and just snowballs into well... wildy flailing around.
A similar problem exists with the left-right combo, yes you have "Remise" which allows you to hold the mouse button to perform a left-right swipe, but why do you have to position your mouse over your shoulder to perform a backhand-swing?
Its just not a very convinient or intuitive way of controlling your attacks. Just bind the other direction to the right mouse button.
Movement is another issue in my eyes, one you cannot take short steps in combat, you always perform the same step forward or backward, but the thing about any melee fighting is that, generally speaking, you want to use forward momentum to enhance your strikes, which would be more akin to a lunge, so like 1 and a half steps sort of.
Not being able to "hold" your attack is another decision I do not understand. A key component of expert fighting is stances and counter stances. Meaning you position yourself in a way that denies your opponent space to attack.
So for example you have a shield and a short sword. You would place your body behind the shield your sword in a position to strike depending on your enemy's stance.
In Exanima your arms are kind in a "boxing" stance and you deflect automatically when you "target" the direction the enemy attacks from. There is so much wrong with that but thats not the point.
My point is preparing a strike is very important in combat, immediately "firing" your attack when you can really contributes to the whole "flailing" feel.
Shield attacks absolutely need an additional button, if they don't add one I see no way this would be something most players actually use. A lot of the mechanics are already hidden behind obscure ways of using something and I am of the firm opinion most players don't actually understand how some of the mechanics work, otherwise there wouldn't be so much contradicting information about some of the most basic things you can do in the game.
I don't want to "♥♥♥♥" on the game, but they really, REALLY need to revamp UX big time.
Plus it could be so much easier.
Bind the swings to the two mouse buttons. Fast clicks mean fast but weak swings. Keeping the buttons pressed results in a slower but more powerful version of that swing. The longer you hold, the slower but more powerful the attack is. Obviously that means you can do fast swings, slow swings and everything in between. Kinda like you can do now but without any of the mouse wiggling plus much more consistency.
Overhead swings work the same depending on which mouse-button you doubletapped. So overhead left and overhead right. Fast overheads when just doubletapping, slow overhead when keeping the buttons pressed.
Thrusts of course work the same.
The mouse really should only be used to orientate yourself towards the enemy.
Still, i found out that swinging above your opponent happens a lot less when you don't swing mindlessly ; and if you really wanna make sure it doesn't happen, just force your character to place his arms correctly using a feint before swinging.
Aside from that, i don't really agree with your statements ; having all the combat system revovling around the cursor is not so problematic.
When you're not attacking, you have to make sure you're in a good defending stance so you will adjust your cursor to make sure your weapon (or shield) faces the opponent(s).
When you want to make a left to right swing, if you move your cursor quickly enougth, your character won't even lose his defending stance (cause he won't have the time to turn before you click). Besides, sometimes you'll want your character to turn a little to add some force to your swing, just move your cursor farer to the left and it will be good.
Except for LtR, you don't even have to move your cursor to swing, you can do some quick draws just by clicking for RtL. If you want to make quick LtR, you will have to keep your cursor close to your character and quickly move it left, click and move it back to defending stance (making sure you don't put it behind your character, but it's not that hard).
Considering the controls : to make shorter steps, you can change the way it's controlled in the settings ; there are three options, one of them may fit your playstyle better (double tap, long press, or holding shift).
As for thrust and overheads, a long time ago i tried to combo gamepad for movements + combat modifiers (assigning overhead on Left Trigger , thrusts on Left Button) and mouse for aiming and it was really interesting, faster, easier to use. Even the footwork was smoother.
I switched back to keyboard and mouse because the gamepad is only more convenient for combat and feels weird for exploration and such. But if you only play arena, it could help you a lot.
Finally, while i don't really agree with everything you said, i reckon it can be quite difficult the first few hours. It can get overwhelming and frustrating, but the longer you play and get used to it, the more natural it feels.
They probably could have come up with other solutions to handle gameplay, but this one allows for maximum precision if you take the time to learn it (well except for swing height, by now, but it will probably change). I can think of some other ways to handle it, but they all imply a different perspective (like FPS or TPS) and some auto-aiming for thrusts (which would make the game uselessly easier considering thrusts are the most dangerous attacks). All in all, i think it's a good overall system.
Except if it were really clunky you wouldn't have streamers showing a perfect gameplay.
It feels clunky when you're used to most ARPG games (like Dark Souls), because it's so much different and conter-intuitive ; some people just give up and rage over it, some others really give it a go and finally love it.
Disliking the gameplay is one thing, and it's everyone's right.
Calling it clunky or janky when other players have no problem with it tells more about the player than about the game imo.
There is a point where "git gud" is not an excuse for a poorly designed system. If you are required to play several hundred hours just for the basic system to "work" then the system is neither fun, nor intuitive and ultimately for a game, that is bad. Especially when you want it to be at least somewhat successful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssedTBmnaEM
Great example, good execution STILL way too clunky.
Pre-Beta video, there are a lot of improvements in the beta branch, on animations, physics and AI.
But still : in the montage video you shared there is both legit good gameplay i wish i was able to pull off (like those perfect diagonal overheads, i mostly always end up hitting the hips or the legs...) and janky grapples stuff for fun.
Some people on discord shared legit grapples videos, rightly executed, done at the right time, that felt natural.
It's all a matter of how you play it ; that doesn't mean one player is good and not the other, sometime you just wanna do and share some silly funny stuff, sometime you wanna play in a more realistic way ; and in this game, you can do both.
What exactly is so clanky in this video, aside from some enforced grapples ?
Its not perfect, but looks thousand times better than any other game wiith forced anymations (literally every other game) imo
And imo the game was at its best when it was drunken brawl simulator 2016. The more rigid anminations don't actually make the game more fun.
You mean apart from the stumbling around, the akwardly twisting towards the enemy after a "throw"? Honestly if this doesn't look clumsy and klunky to you I don't know what to tell you man.
I don't actually see you refuting what I say though, as in do you have a counter argument? Do you just disagree because you don't like what I am proposing or what?
Do you think it is better to have a combat system that is effectively QWOP in an isometric form, or do you think that a system that allows for more control is better?
Because I know what I think works better.
Again, this footage is pre-Beta branch and a lot of improvement have been made on said branch (you can freely switch to it). And there are more elegant ways to "throw" people, that's what i was referring to when i talked about grapples.
You're not seeing that because that's not my goal.
In all the things you suggested in your first comment there are some intriguing stuff, with advantages over the actual system and drawbacks.
Take the mouse button assignement for instance : having both mouse buttons dedicated to attacks would ease the control of the fight and would really shine in Arena mode ; but in story mode, having the right button to free run allows you to get the ♥♥♥♥ away from some encounters you know would be dangerous for your character in order to take them one by one later on. That's not a bad idea, and the devs had probably thought about it on early stages, they just decided otherwise.
I just don't see it as QWOP. They had this ambitious idea to make the game all physics centric, and to make all their animations procedural in order to make them blend completely in it. There's a reason why most studio don't do that, it's a lot of complicated work and it's unnecessary to do if you just want your game to be fun and pretty.
Now, if you compare the first builds (with old footage) to the most recent build (again, beta branch, try it out ;) ) you'll see the improvevments.
When you say "clanky", i see pre-Beta gameplay ; where i couldn't stop falling off stairs or tripping on small things. Actual version is so much better in that regard, so maybe it's my pov that's biaised ; maybe i can no longer see it for what it is and only see the improvements.
I referred of improvements they already thought about (like controlling swings' height) ; they are actually planning on improving that. I mean, they know there is still room for improvements and they are working on it ; so your suggestions are actually more than welcome, but adding buttons mapping could on the contrary make the gameplay way more complicated ; and effectively preventing playing the game with a gamepad + mouse but they don't really seem to care about gamepads.
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All in all, it doesn't seem like you really asked yourself why they decided this or that but just thought "I don't like this, i wish it was this way". If we go back to the LtR swing (which is the perfect example) : you think it's a bad user experience to move the cursor to the left of your character, click and move it back to the right of the opponent ; well, in a real world fight, that's exactly what you do : you move your weapon (arms, shoulders, torso) to the left in order to gain more force/momentum and quickly move it to the right of your opponent. So it may not be as simple as just pressing a dedicated button and let your character do all the work (with a baked animation) but it's actually more natural and let you decide exactly how the movement is made (should it be a power swing ? more rotation - should it be a quick draw ? less rotation).
Again, what you ask for is not bad at all, it's just that there are reasons behind most "flaws" you point out and there are downsides on your suggestions too ; it's just a matter of preferences, and chances are that they already had the debate in their studios, but maybe not, and maybe one of your ideas will shine out and make it to the game.
Your first concern with button assignment is somewhat confusing to me, since in campaign you switch between "combat" and "exploration" mode. Maybe I misunderstood your concern there?
On whether or not it is an "ambitious" idea we might disagree. As someone who works in that field I can say there is a reason we usually don't do it. Short version would be that it doesn't look good and requires much more effort to even get close to somewhat realistically feeling animation. Otherwise it looks, well clumsy.
Not saying its impossible just that there are very good reasons for why most people would not undertake such a task. That doesn't make it "bad" per se but for me, from a game designer's perspective (my trade) it is the wrong area to focus on when there are so many mechanics that need polish.
Also, again I am playing on Beta.
No I asked myself why one would choose so many different systems that conflict with one another and that happen to be bad decisions in regards to their intended function.
For instance, your cursor (a 2d sprite) acts as both a simulation of your arms (left-right swing) and also a means to aim, where the point you are aiming at is also determined by your camera position.
So your mouse at that point acts as many different means of control that in a fight need to be coordinated together, sometimes actively conflicting with one another. Need to orient the camera to go for that head thrust? Well hope hitting V is going to give you the angle because you cant use your mouse to do it because your mouse is busy defending and aiming at the target, while also controlling your swings in between.
See what I mean? There is a reason people call the game fantasy QWOP, thats because the game makes you jump through "millions" of hoops just to do a basic thing. Slashing, left fast or slow for instance.
Now this can work when you yourself are in control of the object in 3d space, like in Mordhau, Chivalry or Mount and Blade, but in a 3d space with an isometric camera where your mouse is at once the camera controller, the controller for your arms and means to aim? Now thats just a really bad design decision. Not because I don't like it but because it is very likely to be unnessecarily frustrating where it shouldn't be.
You do not want to overcomplicate your core gameplay loops. Ideally you want your core loops to flow naturally. Again I have beaten the story mode many times, its not that I cant do it, its just so frustrating when it doesn't need to be that way.
Nothing is gained from it and instead you actively generate frustration in the player.
Lets take the Golem fight for instance, whats the best way to fight them? Is it a heroic fight of skill between a giant and a man? No its trapping them in a door and poking them. Thats really the thing, it could be so much more heroic and epic but the best way to "play" the game is to abuse the physics engine.
That tells you its not good design. How? Well if players are more invested in finding ways to circumvent your combat system that you poured in so many man hours to create, then your system is simply not fun. Games generate fun in very different ways, Souls game generate fun by overcoming challenges.
You could say Exanima generates "fun" by finding ways around its core systems but if thats the case there is no need to develop said core systems. You see the problem?
The mouse is the target of your character, its focus point if you will ; which means, you can effectively target the head of your opponent while you thrust by leaving your cursor on its head during the action.
The only occurence that mess with aiming is when the view is set on pure Top if you wanna hit the legs; in which case, you'll have to move the camera but most of the time, you don't really need to. (advice there, if you have a 5 button mouse, reassign the camera control to one of your side mouse button. Really handy)
I must be dumber than i already think i am, cause i really don't get this :
What kind of an octopus can you be to be able to swing, thrust, and defend at once ?
Jokes aside, while not really aiming to be a combat simulation, this game tries to stay somewhat realistic ; as long as you attack, you lose your defense (except if using a shield or dual wielding), so it's not like you're supposed to make all these actions at once, you have to pace your game and these actions will flow as they are meant to.
You describe it as a complex and challenging task, it really isn't.
Another example of whys :
This. It's not just a matter of strength, you may want to defend yourself against one enemy while taking down another one : aiming at the first one in a defending stance, then attacking the one to his side who is less annoying but more dangerous. Using the cursor as the director of how your swing behave allows this.
It also allows for fancy stuff in order to pass through a shield bearer defenses ; you just have to be creative about it, it's indeed more than a click to win.
Your suggestions are simpler gameplay wise, not necessarily better. Where you see complexity, there is freedom of control.
You present yourself as a game designer, calling this game clunky. Well, just ask yourself "Why are these players prefering this system over ours ?".
Well for my part :
Same reason why i loved Noita, the very first two Fallouts and some others innovative titles : They dare, they commit themselves to it, they aim for quality and their end goal is their vision of the game.
As much as i love Dark Souls and the like, their gameplays are dumb basic, there is no real freedom of action and it quickly become redundant : roll, hit twice, roll, hit twice again, roll, oops he was already dead, nevermind.
And once you played one, you played them all. Some changes to the assets, some different maps, but the core is always the same and it gets old.
Exanima can be a little overwhelming at first but when you get used to it, it's just far above it all.
Each fight feels different, every move can be a mistake or a satisfying victory.
And yeah, the physics, "clunky" or not. The fact that the characters will react completely differently depending on what they are walking on, how they are getting hit, how they move depending on if are heavily loaded or not... It makes it all dynamic, sometimes surprising, a lot of times really satisfying.
It doesn't mean everything is perfect, there are a lot of room for improvements but you have to weight it all.
Example :
Considering animations are procedural, I could wish the arms extension depended on how close the opponents are during a fight in order to make sure the sweetspot of the weapon hit the enemy.
Easy to implement, sure as hell a QOL improvement, right ? Except it would have some drawbacks too, like what i said earlier : you don't necessarily wanna aim for the closest one. I ain't game designer by any means, but i get why they didn't implement such an easy thing ; what you see as design flaws actually work for most of the players who sticked with this game, some things could work better but it doesn't mean the idea behind it hasn't been debated and weighted.
I overcame the controls and got good at the game. Why can't you?
I feel like people who rabidly defend certain elements of the game like the control scheme or camera setup fall into this category, where they really feel as if these things are contributing to the success of the game because overcoming them gave them a sense of accomplishment that many fail at. What they don't want to say is "yeah i wasted 200 hours of my life learning a dumb UI in niche single player game that later got fixed". I do something similar every patch when I complain about how the niche mechanics of swing height changes.
The most rabid example of this i've seen is when somebody posted that they wanted the Knight Class removed because they felt that it made the game too easy for other people to play, and this diminished their sense of progression. Improving the controls or camera to make it more engaging similarly threatens certain people, even if better is objectively better OR GIVES PEOPLE AN ALTERNATIVE PATH even if the original schema is left intact.
Using a poor UI to inflate the game's skill cap is a bit like creating an artificial scarcity on something like diamonds. People will fall into the trap of seeing value in something that is really not valuable. Why can't I rebind the overhead attack? Why can't I rebind the mouse buttons? How does this make Exanima better?
I think the more important question is: if its such a great system why is the game not popular or on GOG it's rating sits at 3.7 and why is it that people that play it are still irked by it? The game had a peak of roughly 900 players. The average playtime of the entire player population of the game is barely 8.5 hours. Thats how long the game holds the attention of the average player who wanted to play the game because it looked interesting.
Also who do you mean? The ones that bought the game tried it and then never picked it up again? Is that your measure of how "fun" a system is? If so I am sure the game lives up to that.
Your answer in regards to my profession might be a bit tongue in cheek but I can explain to you exactly why systems like Souls work, despite skill locking (kinda your claim in regards to Exanima) the vast majority of players out and STILL being successful. You on the other hand can only offer the argument that the game is "complex".
No it isn't. Not at all. Its UI is cryptic, its movement clunky, the way you control your weapon is vastly inferior to pretty much every other input method out there.
One of the problems is the camera and again the cursor being used to simulate your swing, the height of the swing, and your direction. Which would be ok from a third-person perspektive or a first-person perspective. But from an isometric one?
Your mouse, which operates on a 2d plane acts both to determine the depth, width and height of your actions, in an isometric plane. Sorry that is not a good control scheme.
Also do you know why games like Fallout 1 and 2 were good? Because their systems worked. Their core loops were easy to grasp and fun.
Exanima is the opposite. Everybody can see that there is a great product hidden underneath several layers of odd design decisions that ultimately add nothing to the game. Again, Fallout's design is clean. Everything serves a purpose and is easily understood. The UI is not only readable it is also providing valuable feedback, something Exanima seems to have no idea how to do. The combat mechanics are "simple" but they work and offer enough complexity to remain interesting.
Same with pretty much every successful game out there. Exanima is like an overdesigned idea that lacks direction, with a Ui that does little to provide feedback, a combat system that feels more like you are fighting the controls than you are fighting the enemy, you know the best kind of "fun" in games.
What is gained by having every character stumble about drunkenly and having the most imposing enemies defeated by "locking" them in a door because of the physics?
Right, nothing. No feeling of finally beating a strong opponent in a duel after you struggled with a zombie on the first floor.
Again Exanima can be a great game, but they really need to overhaul the way the control scheme works, feedback is given and what it actually wants to be.