Current Events > Can a game have deep combat while being easy?

(+) Yeah! (+)

But the game will never demand that you go anywhere near that skillcap. You can solve most combat scenarios by ignoring them, spamming bomb/sage arrows, or simply holding shield and smacking things.

A game is deep when it has a lot of restrictions so have to play by the book

Imo

Thats dark souls lol

Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix is pretty much the perfect example. You have a myriad of ways of dealing with the enemies, yet on any difficulty that isn't Critical you can win by mostly pressing X with the occasional triangle thrown in for reaction commands.

If a game with deep mechanics is cheese-able does that invalidate it?

If a game with deep mechanics is cheese-able does that invalidate it?

So it's not deep.

Yes.

Thats dark souls lol

Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix is pretty much the perfect example. You have a myriad of ways of dealing with the enemies, yet on any difficulty that isn't Critical you can win by mostly pressing X with the occasional triangle thrown in for reaction commands.

This is correct. Look up any of the GDQ speedruns on it for instance.

Souls isn't deep, but that's not a bad thing.

NuZelda is kinda deep but it's all unintentional and even then its just iffy. Look up PECO's BoTW vids if you want to see what high level NuZelda combat can look like, it's wildly impractical but it's cool.

Nier:A counts.

I'd say Souls requires a deep understanding of enemy movements. Like if you want to no-hit some of the bosses, it's very possible, and sometimes necessary considering the damage they do. But you need to learn their patterns.

Deep?

I love souls games but deep is giving it too much credit. You can beat most enemies by putting up your shield and walking around them.

Most bosses are cheeseable and the game has more than a few NPCs that can straight-up kill bosses for you. Even the "hard" bosses can be locked into parry traps. There's like a handful of souls bosses that you have to play straight up.

I am almost done with Evil West, so I was just pondering this question. Because I really enjoy the combat system in that game, and it could be considered deep because there are lots of ways to dispatch enemies.

But the game is relatively easy. I could just punch my way through if I wanted, but I use all the systems to make the action look as cool and be as fun as possible. I do hear there is a difficulty spike in the final chapter, but I am not there yet.

I had a similar experience way back with the original version of Kingdoms of Amalur. The combat was fun, and there were a lot of options in it. But the game was really easy.

So: Maybe? Depending on how you define a deep combat system?

Nioh 2. It's. Not super easy, but is noticeably easier than Nioh 1 and some other Soulsesque games. It has the same deep combat system as Nioh 1 bit you can just use fists and stay in middle stance and destroy everything by spamming a few moves.

My working definition is a game with a high skill cap that requires you to (attempt) to reach it.

my definition is opposite. i think a game with good depth allows strategic players to beat dexterous ones.

Most games are cheeseable, though, even the deep ones.

Nier: Automata. There's an incredible weapon and combo system developed by Platinum games that's resulted in some incredible combo videos and is absolutely unnecessary to beat the game on any difficulty.

My working definition is a game with a high skill cap that requires you to (attempt) to reach it. Though being able to cheese games makes that definition difficult. So I think that it depends whether the cheese is encouraged (game hands you simplistic tools that let you ignore the rest of the mechanics) or not encouraged (souls games where you *can* probably solve most problems with firebombs/pyromancy from a safe distance but game, or community, or something, encourages you to learn the enemy patterns, i frames, recovery time on your swings, etc).

IMO the difference between depth and skill expression is on options. A deep combat engine may have may different systems where a skilled player will know the right thing to do at the right time, but you can still have a relatively "linear" system where all the good players make the same right move at the same time. Skill expression is more about individuality in how you choose to apply systems. So 2 very good players may approach a situation in 2 very different ways and still get to the same end goal.