Damage Value Suggestions

MisterRockett

Backers' Beta Tester
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
11
8
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?
 

Arcanel

Backers' Beta Tester
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
71
64
I am pretty sure that a lot of fighters out there still have chip damage kills if you think about it.

Injustice 2 has it, so does Marvel vs Capcom Infinite as far as I know, I believe Guilty Gear and Blazblue also have chip kills too, so, it's not exactly something that is being faced out at all.

As for the damage, that actually kind of depends on who you ask, really. Some people might say that damage is too high because they may die too quickly if you're facing people who can get that high damage in or are able to keep you in resets and mixup setups on wakeup forever which are hard to block and then you die before you could even blink.

For example, my normal BnB damage with Tianhuo does around 1800-1900 damage depending on how much magic I have to spend at the moment off of j.C starter, and even if it wasn't j.C, I can do around 1200-1400 with 2a again, depending on how much magic I have.

You can get killed off with that in between 2-5 combos depending on character you're playing against, how much resources you have and that's not counting the stray hits which can do a pretty hefty damage if they're counterhit/highly damaging (Oleander's j.2C move does +600 damage on first hit).

So again, I feel it's kind of a "how you feel the game" and "what kind of fighting games are you used to", to me at least.
 

Mage

A Normal Person
Feb 26, 2017
121
472
Oblivion
I'm sorry to say I disagree strongly with the idea of higher damage output. I like longer rounds in fighting games.

From what I've played so far, it seems like there is an allowance for defensive play despite the strong mixup potential nearly every cast member has. I don't think the reward for pressure needs to be higher. The round can still end very quickly if you get cornered too early by a Pom, a Paprika, a Tianhuo, or even a Arizona.

Besides, Oleander, Pom, and Velvet can combo from long range moves, meaning that increasing damage output would actually benefit zoning to a smaller degree.

As for your point that longer, harder combos aren't rewarding enough, I don't know how I feel. To be honest, I'm glad of that; I've always been too lazy/bad to practice difficult combos. On the other hand, rewarding more work is a basic fighter fundamental. At least those longer combos do still deal more damage than the simple ones?
 

Alevgor

Canis Imaginatus
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
169
299
Early in the beta damage values were indeed quite low but now they are fine IMO.
As for chip damage, I'm not a fan of chip kills (says person who mains Oleander) and many mentioned above games have some mechanisms that help to deal with chip damage (like FD in Guilty Gear). I wish TFH had some sort of such a mechanism.
 

ph00tbag

Backers' Beta Tester
Backers' Beta Tester
Oct 19, 2016
67
72
Velvet would be unfixably bad without chip kills. Instead, why not try not getting hit?

As for damage, I never think about day1 dial-a-combos when talking about damage, because what's also important is scaling. Different fighters scale their combos differently. TFH scaling heavily rewards certain first hits, and damage heavy move choices, and light attacks wreck your proration, so with the right pathing you can get combos that can chunk out half an opponent's health. Other games tend to punish the use of damage heavy moves more, meaning damage output falls off quicker, and combos tend not to do more than a third of a health bar, but since lights don't prorate as heavily, your day one dial-a-combo won't look very anemic.

The end result of this is that low-level play might see some long fights if none of the players take a few moments to think outside the box. I suppose it could be argued that makes the game inaccessible, but the tradeoff is that high level play is a bit more high-risk/high-reward, since landing that long-startup heavy attack will usually mean a lot more damage if it hits.
 

Alevgor

Canis Imaginatus
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
169
299
Velvet would be unfixably bad without chip kills. Instead, why not try not getting hit?
I see a contradiction here. If you aren't being hit, it does not matter if it is chip damage or not.
 

MisterRockett

Backers' Beta Tester
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 3, 2016
11
8
I'll admit to being wrong about chip I guess I was just lucky enough to not have experienced it since SFIV. That being said I'm still not sure if it's a good fit for this game. A lot of specials and normals provide really good mixup opportunities and some supers are hard to avoid. Velvet's sucks you in for crying out loud if you're holding onto a magic pixel it's just a matter of her hitting the super button. And being able to anticipate Paprika cartwheeling onto you or falling from the sky should be rewarded if you're doing it in clutch with just one hit left on your life bar.
 

ph00tbag

Backers' Beta Tester
Backers' Beta Tester
Oct 19, 2016
67
72
I see a contradiction here. If you aren't being hit, it does not matter if it is chip damage or not.
I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm contrasting the strategy of blocking indefinitely because it won't net a KO with the far superior strategy of just not getting hit.

I'll admit to being wrong about chip I guess I was just lucky enough to not have experienced it since SFIV. That being said I'm still not sure if it's a good fit for this game. A lot of specials and normals provide really good mixup opportunities and some supers are hard to avoid. Velvet's sucks you in for crying out loud if you're holding onto a magic pixel it's just a matter of her hitting the super button. And being able to anticipate Paprika cartwheeling onto you or falling from the sky should be rewarded if you're doing it in clutch with just one hit left on your life bar.
Just looking at the way Velvet's super is designed, in context of her kit, I get the sense chip out super is meant to be a win-con of the character. Get your opponent to about midscreen with low enough health, while you have a bar saved up, and you've probably done enough work to earn the win.

As for reading attacks at low health, that's what just defense is for. You just have to have a read on timing as well.
 

Dragonbyte

Backers' Beta Tester
Backers' Beta Tester
Feb 4, 2016
12
9
You're not really comparing apples to apples with those combos.
LMH launch LMH 236H is missing a ton of potential damage for not really any harder execution. Even just doing
ABC 2C 3C jB jC ABC 236A 236C does 978
Then you can throw in another special since stomp cancels naturally into headbucks, and a lasso to end it
ABC 2C 3C jB jC BC 22C 236A 236C 2D does 1089 and gives you a stock of magic and a closer knockdown, and the damage only goes up from there if you throw in magic or starting hits that scale less.
That kills every character in less than 5 combos.

This game does have low damage per hit, but even fairly simple combos add up pretty fast.
 
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