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About the upcoming Shield/Dodge/Grab mechanism

2K View2021-11-15

Sup, Party players!

For this month-end’s patch, we’re looking to release a wholly adjusted combat system, which includes the all-new Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism.

It’s been an epic journey coming to this. There were two opposing camps about adding the Shield mechanism to the game; countless debates happened during the developmental process, and we even have the recording to prove it! In this documentary, we recount our experiences and thought process in building the mechanism, as well as the dilemmas we faced in balancing it.

For example, we know that not adding the Shield combat maneuver would cause players to have limited ways to get up close with the opponent safely, and might even cause them to not have a way to counterattack when spammed with attacks. However, the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism does also have a pretty steep learning curve, making the game feel more hardcore than it is.

Needless to say, this system is a double-edged sword. We wanted to be conservative about the combat system and had hoped to only consider adding more mechanisms after having enough heroes in our roster. Over the past months, however, players have been plagued with a specific issue—in 1v1 battles, both parties can only jump around to poke each other, and whoever made the first move would often lose the advantage. In a brawl, the player can also easily win by choosing to ‘sneak’ around and damage players only when their KO scores are high, and this will cause everyone to play defensively and not take risks.

At the same time, not having the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism meant that we had to compensate by designing skills to be conservative, and trade off the fun, riskier concepts. For example, Magician’s strength had always been a point of extreme contention. Players think that the hero demands a lot of control, resulting in his flying objects being nerfed consistently. Non-players, however, think he has enough flying objects in his arsenal, making it difficult for melee characters to even get close. Without the Shield mechanism, the adjustment of flying objects thus became a huge source of stress on the development team.

In light of these issues, we started working on a solution during the summer. We launched the first version of the universal shield mechanism during an earlier CN build, where the shield movement was triggered by dragging the D-button up. The feedback then was that it was very difficult to use, so we changed it to a standalone button and continued monitoring gameplay. Players found that the standalone button was easier to use, so we decided to continue exploring along this line of thought.

Now, we have an updated version of the universal combat mechanism live in the preview server, which includes not only the universal Shield, but also Air Dodge and Grab. We also unified the heroes’ moves once and for all, to ensure that new players have a consistent basic understanding of all heroes, and there will be no need to specifically learn a certain skill of a hero (such as S-17’s Up Smash or Sivi’s Flurry of Punches).

Phew, gotta say we’re excited to hear your thoughts on this! We also prepared a short Q&A for the more common questions we received:

Q: You said you wanted to consider Shield only after having 30 heroes. What was your prime reason adding it now?

A: The developers who wanted Shield won in a fist fight. =p

That was only part of the reason. The other reason was mentioned in the foreword of this article—we hope to solve the conundrum of players resorting to only defensive playstyles. Hopefully, after adding in this system, it will allow us to design heroes that are more fun and bold.

Q: After incorporating the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism, the game feels more hardcore than before and is moving away from the casual game that the game used to tout. Is Flash Party changing its positioning in the market?

A: The intention behind adding the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism is to enrich the gameplay situation so each match can be just a little different than the last.

As mentioned before, having the new mechanism means we can design easier skills to pick up, with wider range of attack and stronger mobility without worrying about them being too OP.

After incorporating the mechanisms, combat will lower in difficulty from being unforgiving in timing and positioning to a rock-scissors-paper-type turn-based combat. For new players, higher level combat can be countered with a simpler Shield-and-Air-Dodge combo as it requires lower precision. We hope that this will allow matches to become fairer and less draining on new players and novices.

Our initial motive has not changed since we launched Early Access—we want to forge our own path and make platform fighting games popular again in this era. We know that this update is a huge change to the existing players, and we understand there are a lot of developers and players who do not want a full Shield/Air Dodge/Grab system. We still decided to go ahead and try it out, because at least we know in reality how it would affect Flash Party, and remove it should the effect be too drastic.

Q: Will the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism be implemented in all future modes?

A: Yes!

Q: In the mentioned documentary, there is a part that mentioned it’s a steep learning curve for new players. How do you determine that to be the case? Will there be a progressive learning process for new players in the future?

A: So far, there are two points:

We will add tutorial stages to let new players learn about the basics and techniques that include all universal maneuvers including Shield/Air Dodge/Grab. We will also add a hero adventuring system to teach about each hero’s combat strategy.Shield/Air Dodge/Grab is a foundational mechanism. In that regard, we cannot unlock it based on game progression, but we will be considering levelling it based on each player’s progress. We have reviewed footage of new players being defeated and noticed that Edge Recovery is a difficult concept to grasp and execute for new players, so we will be giving new players some maps that do not require Edge Recovery in the beginning stages. This way, they can focus on mastering the different maneuvers and keep the learning curve relatively level before introducing the Edge Recovery concept at a more advanced level.Q: Some heroes now have 2 Grabs or 2 Shields, how do we differentiate them, and in which scenarios are the best to use them?

A: After the update, heroes like Sophia and S-17 will be able to use both the universal Shield and their hero-specific Down Special to defend. However, these special moves are different from the universal Shield move.

Currently, the universal Shield move can only be used while the hero is on the ground and will not automatically counter. The player would need to successfully block against the attack and think about their next move (we suggest using a faster move). The special moves, unique to certain heroes, have a counterattack built into the blocking and can also be used in mid-air. For example, S-17’s Down Special can even reposition her for a certain distance. These are all advantages not available to the universal Shield move, and we intend to keep it.

Do try out the different Shields and Grabs to see the differences for yourself! The universal Shield and Grab have shorter animation frames and are more suitable for on-ground melee attacks.

Q: Macalon’s Neutral Special is removed but Alice’s Horizontal Special is still there. What is the consideration behind that?

A: We’re merging Macalon’s Neutral Special with the universal Grab because his original move also involves grabbing opponents in the direction the player chooses. We added a new Neutral Special move that can elevate his playstyle, so feel free to experiment.

As for Alice’s Horizontal Special’s Grab move is a multidirectional move, which is different from the universal Grab move. As mentioned before, this type of move works slightly differently than the universal moves, so we have opted to keep it.

Q: After the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism is online, will it really solve the issue of defensive fighting during matches?

A: That ultimately depends on each player’s playstyle and preferred approach. The changes made with regards to the Shield, Air Dodge, and other similarly intended features are based on the motive to reduce unsporting playing style in an attempt to maximize their in-game profits. But at the end of the day, we hope everyone, whether winners or losers, will be able to meet opponents that they can respect on the battling stage.

Q: How soon do you expect this to go on the official server? Will you make adjustments again?

A: The universal combat mechanism is currently available on the preview server. There will be a survey on the 2nd and the 8th day in this beta test. Based on these, we will consider the adjustment plan for the next step. If there is no major issue with the current build, we will release the content in the official build.

If you want to help us test the Shield/Air Dodge/Grab mechanism and also to learn more about the upcoming content online, please join our beta-server-exclusive Discord channel:

Discord:

Download: https://discord.gg/wgWCB38e

Discuss: https://discord.gg/k6jTtbtv

You can also take part in our first survey here: https://wj.qq.com/s2/9283115/b3e5/

Well, that’s that! We hope this article enlightened you on our decision to add the new mechanisms. No matter the outcome at the end of the testing, we only want you to have the best time with Flash Party.

Cheers,

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Flash Party

8.0

ActionMultiplayerEditors' ChoiceFighting

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Comments

ran

Add classic mode in the future please (when there's enough player base. Even the party mode took so long to find sometimes lol) or I'm gonna misses this 🥺

2021-11-17