Is there any kind of weapon variety?

[=^w^=]

I've already bought the game (on Switch) but I just wanna know from anyone who's much further along whether or not some more weapon variety unlocks later or if it's going to be the same 3-hit melee combo and gatling gun ball-throwing the entire game.

[Senpai so Ecchi]

Oh boi, you are in for a wild ride :D
just wait until you unlock your first skills and progress your skill tree (its a HUGE tree).

you wont be bored, thats for sure ;)

if you dont want to wait, and are interested in seeing what is possible, you can watch this video showcase of all combat arts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHpSDt3S48Q

if you want to discover the combat arts yourself then i would suggest not watching that video and just believe me when i tell you that there will be a LOT of variety in possible attacks and defence moves that you can do (and should do!)

have fun :)

[Karhrandras]

I would have answered the OP question with 'no' actually. Mashing the Attack Button and using the VRP is an integral part of combat and will remain so for a long time. Weapons only differ in names and numbers, but it's not like they will behave in different ways, like let's say an Estoc vs. a Greathammer in a Souls game.

There are multiple tiers of combat arts for Attacking, Blocking, VRPing and Dashing and you unlock them while progressing through the game and leveling up. This means that for a very long time you will be stuck with your basic circuit, then fire, ice and so on. However later on, you'll be free to mix and match these as you see fit and there is also an option for resetting these circuits.

[conantheimp]

Both of the above posters are technically correct. You have your "bread and butter" three-hit combo, and ALL THE BALLS! It never really gets old, though, since you will be focusing more on building up SP(basically a magic-bar) to unleash special attacks, of which there are...many.

Just off the top of my head. The "neutral" tree you start with has 8+8, of which you can only equip 4+4 at a time, switchable out of combat. That +8/4 indicates that you can "charge" a skill for an upgraded version.

Each of the Elemental trees then lets you double-charge some of your abilities later in the game, and lets you mix-and-match charged abilities so you can benefit from going down different attack paths simultaneously, across all 4 elements. It gets crazy REALLY fast, letting you build up SP and unload unique combos based on your playstyle.

So yeah, you only ever get 2 basic attacks for melee and ranged, but you get a LOT more than that to play around with.

[tsjanith]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από conantheimp:

Each of the Elemental trees then lets you double-charge some of your abilities later in the game, and lets you mix-and-match charged abilities so you can benefit from going down different attack paths simultaneously, across all 4 elements. It gets crazy REALLY fast, letting you build up SP and unload unique combos based on your playstyle.

I've put a lot of hours into this game, but I genuinely have no idea what this means. If you would can you elaborate any further on this? Or maybe point me to a video that gives this visual representation?

[Missingno.]

Your meterless attacks don't change, but you'll unlock quite a lot of SP Skills. You have Melee, Ranged, Dash, and Shield skills, with level 1/2/3 versions, and they're different for all five elemental forms (note that Neutral element has no level 3 skills). Most of these slots also give you the choice of two different skills to learn, and these are separate choices for all three levels.

[conantheimp]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tsjanith:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από conantheimp:

Each of the Elemental trees then lets you double-charge some of your abilities later in the game, and lets you mix-and-match charged abilities so you can benefit from going down different attack paths simultaneously, across all 4 elements. It gets crazy REALLY fast, letting you build up SP and unload unique combos based on your playstyle.

I've put a lot of hours into this game, but I genuinely have no idea what this means. If you would can you elaborate any further on this? Or maybe point me to a video that gives this visual representation?

So you have 4 different kinds of Arts, right? Guard, Dash, Melee, and Ranged. In your Neutral tree you immediately get access to the second-level Arts for each, but they are "locked" such that each Level 1 art charges into the buffed version of itself.

For the other trees, 1 Combat Art only has a single version(you don't get a choice) and can only go up Level 2. The other 3 go up to Level 3, meaning you can consume 3 SP. If you remember the prologue that's what your character did to those last enemies.

Now, on TOP of this, for those three you don't necessarily have to charge into the upgraded version of the same Art. You can have level 1 be a spin attack, level 2 be an explosion, and then level 3 goes back to the spin attack. Or you could do it the opposite way, or have all three levels be the "same move", just upgraded. (Side note: One of each of these multi-path Arts does end in a single move instead of giving you a choice.)

The benefit to switching it up(particularly the first two) is that it opens up your tactical options in the middle of a fight. You never know if you'll be fighting a swarm, a single large and slow enemy, a fast enemy, etc.

BONUS STAGE
If you want some maths(you probably don't, but I wanna post this), you have technically have 68,719,476,736, or 2^36 different builds if you reach max CP and entirely fill out your Skill Tree. In a single Elemental tree you'll have 256(2^8) possible Art loadouts.

Of course, each of your Trees have little to no interaction between each other, and not all Arts are created equal. I find it fairly easy to choose between XYZ arts in general, and if you're having trouble with a particular fight you can always cater your build and put things back the way you like them after.

[tsjanith]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από conantheimp:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tsjanith:

I've put a lot of hours into this game, but I genuinely have no idea what this means. If you would can you elaborate any further on this? Or maybe point me to a video that gives this visual representation?

So you have 4 different kinds of Arts, right? Guard, Dash, Melee, and Ranged. In your Neutral tree you immediately get access to the second-level Arts for each, but they are "locked" such that each Level 1 art charges into the buffed version of itself.

For the other trees, 1 Combat Art only has a single version(you don't get a choice) and can only go up Level 2. The other 3 go up to Level 3, meaning you can consume 3 SP. If you remember the prologue that's what your character did to those last enemies.

Now, on TOP of this, for those three you don't necessarily have to charge into the upgraded version of the same Art. You can have level 1 be a spin attack, level 2 be an explosion, and then level 3 goes back to the spin attack. Or you could do it the opposite way, or have all three levels be the "same move", just upgraded. (Side note: One of each of these multi-path Arts does end in a single move instead of giving you a choice.)

The benefit to switching it up(particularly the first two) is that it opens up your tactical options in the middle of a fight. You never know if you'll be fighting a swarm, a single large and slow enemy, a fast enemy, etc.

BONUS STAGE
If you want some maths(you probably don't, but I wanna post this), you have technically have 68,719,476,736, or 2^36 different builds if you reach max CP and entirely fill out your Skill Tree. In a single Elemental tree you'll have 256(2^8) possible Art loadouts.

Of course, each of your Trees have little to no interaction between each other, and not all Arts are created equal. I find it fairly easy to choose between XYZ arts in general, and if you're having trouble with a particular fight you can always cater your build and put things back the way you like them after.

This is all very interesting, and thank you for the explanation.

Quite honestly, I've always found the combat in this game to be fairly easy, and I've never seen the need to switch things up so frenetically like this. I've seen speedruns where the guy was able to pretty much stunlock EVERYTHING and finish EVERYTHING in the game off extremely quickly, but I found that to be some pretty severe overkill.

I'd like to see this in practice on a more intermediate level, but I haven't found such a video. They're either WAY better than me or significantly worse. No in between lol

[DRayX]

Weapons only change your stats, they don't fundamentally change the combat. Throughout the game, all of the combat is based on the same 4 abilities: melee attack, ranged attack, dodge, and guard. However, as the game progresses you need to utilize these abilities in different ways, and the combat never becomes stale in my opinion.

As you progress through the story you will unlock new elements: ice, fire, shock, and wave. Each element has multiple skills that can be unlocked for each of the 4 abilities above for a total of 52 active skills at a time from a total of 92 skills.

Additionally, there are advanced combat techniques that you have from the beginning of the game, but that it never explicitly tells you about (or doesn't tell you about until later).

The first is "dash cancel" which allows you to chain together more than 4 melee attacks. If you use a dodge during the cooldown between melee combos, it will cancel the cooldown allowing you to do damage much more quickly (the game actually tells you about this one around a third of the way through).

The second is "perfect guarding", which the game never tells you about, but is pretty essential to high-level combat. If you guard right before an enemy melee attack, you will perform a perfect guard, and the enemy will be "countered" (sort of like "break") during which time you can deal a ton of damage (especially when combined with dash cancels).

The third is "perfect dodging" where you dodge through an enemy attack that connects with your character during the dodge i-frames. This one is the least essential, but you will likely end up doing it without even realizing it's a specific thing.

Furthermore, as you progress through the games, dealing damage to enemies generally becomes more of a puzzle. Most enemies require a certain combination of elements and abilities to break.

The end result is that while the fundamentals of combat never change, the complexity and variety of the components increases drastically. You'll need to combine different abilities to break enemies, with constantly switching elements to exploit weaknesses without overloading, with building up SP to use skills that will actually deal significant damage, all while trying to avoid incoming damage yourself.

This doesn't even touch on the significant variety of builds and modifiers available which will significantly alter the effectiveness of your particular combat style. Early game, HP regen is definitely the dominant build (but there are others that are viable), and glass-canon is the only viable build for the end-game arena.

[foofighter_ii]

so far, I only have the slash-slash and the pew-pew. There are some variations, but they feel like the same ♥♥♥♥

[conantheimp]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tsjanith:

This is all very interesting, and thank you for the explanation.

Quite honestly, I've always found the combat in this game to be fairly easy, and I've never seen the need to switch things up so frenetically like this. I've seen speedruns where the guy was able to pretty much stunlock EVERYTHING and finish EVERYTHING in the game off extremely quickly, but I found that to be some pretty severe overkill.

I'd like to see this in practice on a more intermediate level, but I haven't found such a video. They're either WAY better than me or significantly worse. No in between lol

Yeah, early combat is fairly easy, the game is actually fairly well paced in that sense. The difficulty will ramp with every new major area, though. Even through the second dungeon or so you should be able to do whatever you want, but starting with the area right after that you'll have to start catering your build to the kinds of enemies you'll be facing.

A lot of games these days are either easy all the way through or difficult from beginning to end. Crosscode eschews that trend and actually has a healthy difficulty curve.

If you wanna make it a little harder in the beginning you can ignore the side quests(except the ones from the man wearing all the class armors, his are always more difficult than the surrounding area) and avoid grinding or doing out of your way to get level appropriate equipment. Once you have all four elements you may wish to change out of that playstyle, but eh, different people find different things difficult.

[tsjanith]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από conantheimp:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tsjanith:

This is all very interesting, and thank you for the explanation.

Quite honestly, I've always found the combat in this game to be fairly easy, and I've never seen the need to switch things up so frenetically like this. I've seen speedruns where the guy was able to pretty much stunlock EVERYTHING and finish EVERYTHING in the game off extremely quickly, but I found that to be some pretty severe overkill.

I'd like to see this in practice on a more intermediate level, but I haven't found such a video. They're either WAY better than me or significantly worse. No in between lol

Yeah, early combat is fairly easy, the game is actually fairly well paced in that sense. The difficulty will ramp with every new major area, though. Even through the second dungeon or so you should be able to do whatever you want, but starting with the area right after that you'll have to start catering your build to the kinds of enemies you'll be facing.

A lot of games these days are either easy all the way through or difficult from beginning to end. Crosscode eschews that trend and actually has a healthy difficulty curve.

If you wanna make it a little harder in the beginning you can ignore the side quests(except the ones from the man wearing all the class armors, his are always more difficult than the surrounding area) and avoid grinding or doing out of your way to get level appropriate equipment. Once you have all four elements you may wish to change out of that playstyle, but eh, different people find different things difficult.

I have all the elements unlocked. The last time I played, I actually completed Grand Whatever temple. I actually just entered Sapphire Ridge and then, and only then, did I find the difficulty in the combat to get a spike. The first time I walked in there and took on some of those bipedal beetles and whatnot I got my ass handed to me, and it was glorious :)

I can tell I'm going to have to get better at perfect guarding for this area.

[conantheimp]

I know this has moved on a bit, but I had a thought at 3am that wouldn't go away: I don't think any of us talked about Weapon Modifiers.

So there is a reason to equip new weapons besides flat stat bonuses. In fact, you may often find yourself NOT using the weapon with bigger better numbers if you pay attention to what you're equipping.

These are things like getting a short-range Sword Beam that deals a % of your total damage, static regen(ESPECIALLY helpful during the early game before you have access to these abilities in your skill tree), longer i-frames during a dodge, etc. These kinds of things are on all of your equipment, but personally I find the most impactful mods to be on the weapons.

[Spike_Bop]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Karhrandras:

I would have answered the OP question with 'no' actually. Mashing the Attack Button and using the VRP is an integral part of combat and will remain so for a long time. Weapons only differ in names and numbers, but it's not like they will behave in different ways, like let's say an Estoc vs. a Greathammer in a Souls game.

There are multiple tiers of combat arts for Attacking, Blocking, VRPing and Dashing and you unlock them while progressing through the game and leveling up. This means that for a very long time you will be stuck with your basic circuit, then fire, ice and so on. However later on, you'll be free to mix and match these as you see fit and there is also an option for resetting these circuits.

mashmashmash pull mash and block is the short ver of this

[Dr.Doctor]

The way your build your character can feel very different, too.
My first playthrough I was a paper tiger, all attack and crit w/ no defense. it was very crunchy, and enemies were hemorrhaging numbers all over the place.
My second playthrough was a defensive / tech-defense build. I was perfect blocking enemy attacks and killing things w/ spike damage and it was totally viable and--as a pleasant surprise--just as fun as my crit build.

I was very impressed with the combat. It's got old school flair w/ modern gaming sensibilities. Thee game opens up tremendously.