I have a couple of thoughts about how damage is dished out in this game after messing around in it.
Chip Damage: Dying to chip has been out of fighters for a while. It's not fun to die to chip and discourages defensive play, which regular chip and pressure options like those available in a combo heavy game like this already do.
Health Values: For a combo heavy fighter the damage is far too low. I've heard from a few people that just by looking at it high hit count combos do far too little damage to feel satisfying. You don't feel rewarded with the big numbers. I went into training to test it myself and just by doing Arizona's L,M,H, Launcher, L,M,H, 236H you're able to get 753 damage. At 4800 being the least amount of health you can have with just the basic bnb into special you need to hit the combo no less than 6.3 times to kill. 7 if you're at Arizona's health. I went into other games just to make sure it wasn't just a trick of the UI.
BlazBlue: Ragna's L,M,H, 6L(Launcher) j.M,H,j.M,H, 214H gets you 2302. The default health in that game is 10,000 so you can kill off a character in 4.3 strings with a combo that's extremely similar to the BnB I did in TFH.
DBFZ: Health is standardized in this game, everyone has 10,000. Goku's L, 2M, M, j.L, M, 2H, L,M, j.L, 214L does 3070 and is around the best universal (more or less) combo you can learn so 3.2 combos to kill a character. But to be fair that is the extended combo. L,M,2H j.L, j.M, j,L, j.M 214M gets you 2763 which is still 3.6 combos needed for a kill. Now being fair still DBZF is a 3v3 so 30% of one character is less than 20% of their health overall but it still contributes to that game feel of big combos doing big damage.
Skullgirls: This one is a bit weird since numbers get futzed with depending on who's playing how many characters but a 1v1 gives both characters 15500 health. Keeping with my habit of using just the Ryu's of each game I picked Fillia but she has a lot of multihit normals and specials that have the potential to leave damage sitting on the table if they don't connect right or you cancel them too early like with her j.MP. Even so doing her basic LP, MP, HP, j.LP, MP, HP 214MK gets you 3304 damage so you only need to hit it 4.6 times to kill your opponent.
Guilty Gear: Max health is 420 (heh) and Sol can get 101 out of K, cl.S,2D, 623HS. This one isn't quite as clear cut since this game has a mechanic where you gain defense when you're at 50% health and different characters have different health multipliers but those multipliers are all based off of the idea that a basic bnb can kill you in about 4.1 basic combos.
I did all this work for 2 reasons. 1 it was kinda fun once I got started. And 2 to see if the complaints about damage had merit in what's more or less considered the industry standard and it looks like it might. A lot of games have way higher potential damage for even the most basic of it's universal combos that every character is capable of.
What are your thoughts?
Chip Damage: Dying to chip has been out of fighters for a while. It's not fun to die to chip and discourages defensive play, which regular chip and pressure options like those available in a combo heavy game like this already do.
Health Values: For a combo heavy fighter the damage is far too low. I've heard from a few people that just by looking at it high hit count combos do far too little damage to feel satisfying. You don't feel rewarded with the big numbers. I went into training to test it myself and just by doing Arizona's L,M,H, Launcher, L,M,H, 236H you're able to get 753 damage. At 4800 being the least amount of health you can have with just the basic bnb into special you need to hit the combo no less than 6.3 times to kill. 7 if you're at Arizona's health. I went into other games just to make sure it wasn't just a trick of the UI.
BlazBlue: Ragna's L,M,H, 6L(Launcher) j.M,H,j.M,H, 214H gets you 2302. The default health in that game is 10,000 so you can kill off a character in 4.3 strings with a combo that's extremely similar to the BnB I did in TFH.
DBFZ: Health is standardized in this game, everyone has 10,000. Goku's L, 2M, M, j.L, M, 2H, L,M, j.L, 214L does 3070 and is around the best universal (more or less) combo you can learn so 3.2 combos to kill a character. But to be fair that is the extended combo. L,M,2H j.L, j.M, j,L, j.M 214M gets you 2763 which is still 3.6 combos needed for a kill. Now being fair still DBZF is a 3v3 so 30% of one character is less than 20% of their health overall but it still contributes to that game feel of big combos doing big damage.
Skullgirls: This one is a bit weird since numbers get futzed with depending on who's playing how many characters but a 1v1 gives both characters 15500 health. Keeping with my habit of using just the Ryu's of each game I picked Fillia but she has a lot of multihit normals and specials that have the potential to leave damage sitting on the table if they don't connect right or you cancel them too early like with her j.MP. Even so doing her basic LP, MP, HP, j.LP, MP, HP 214MK gets you 3304 damage so you only need to hit it 4.6 times to kill your opponent.
Guilty Gear: Max health is 420 (heh) and Sol can get 101 out of K, cl.S,2D, 623HS. This one isn't quite as clear cut since this game has a mechanic where you gain defense when you're at 50% health and different characters have different health multipliers but those multipliers are all based off of the idea that a basic bnb can kill you in about 4.1 basic combos.
I did all this work for 2 reasons. 1 it was kinda fun once I got started. And 2 to see if the complaints about damage had merit in what's more or less considered the industry standard and it looks like it might. A lot of games have way higher potential damage for even the most basic of it's universal combos that every character is capable of.
What are your thoughts?