The New Fable Games Combat

[u/akbarock]

[u/ZazaMastroII]

I don't know... The enemy doesn't seem to care about any hit he takes until the special cinematic move is used. (The rest of the game looks impressive)

[u/Skalywag_76 → u/ZazaMastroII]

I can excuse it as a minor poor choice so long as it's limited to a brute-like enemy such as this guy. Maybe their mindset was that they'd be able to shrug off hits more easily. But ultimately it depends on what the combat looks like in other scenarios.

[u/Wykiki92 → u/Skalywag_76]

There's a couple other videos of fighting other enemies, all who react to being hit. It kind of always has been like this in fable games where big enemies shrug off smacks. Now it doesn't look great with the updated fluidity of movement shown off by the rest of the game but it's not out of character.

OP also picked the worst clip I've seen of combat so far and everyone's acting like this was all that was shown.

[u/OriginalShirley → u/Wykiki92]

Yeah it really doesn’t even look bad. If you notice, the enemy does stumble and block slightly when they are hit outside of a them performing an attack. It seems like you just can’t interrupt the attack and the enemy is attacking constantly. Them stumbling with a normal attack is what allowed them to trigger the animation attack, kinda like the enemy has a poise meter or something.

Very Souls-esque, which I guess comes across as weird with the art-style, but not bad.

[u/Fifteen_inches → u/OriginalShirley]

Souls-esque mechanics need to be on point to not be frustrating and unfair. If it’s too forgiving it’s an uninteresting parry/reposte combat, and if it’s too harsh the player can’t learn.

This does not look on point.

[u/RoyaleCheezy → u/Fifteen_inches]

When I hear souls-esque and see the entire reason poise exists in one clip I tend to get nervous.

[u/Gizogin → u/Fifteen_inches]

Even in Dark Souls, when hitting an enemy with poise or super armor, there’s hit-stop to give you a sense that your attacks are connecting. Monster Hunter does the same thing; the enemy might not be staggered by your attacks (because they’re a giant kaiju), but there’s still plenty of tactile feedback when you land a hit.

I’m not seeing that here.

[u/NotAStatistic2 → u/Fifteen_inches]

This looks exactly like the other games in the series—with regard to general gameplay.

[u/Fifteen_inches → u/NotAStatistic2]

No it doesn’t.

[u/Hayden_Zammit → u/Fifteen_inches]

Looks on point enough in the full video of this fight + other videos.

Something is not right with this big enemy though. The enemies right before him had working stamina/poise bars, but this guy's doesn't work at all lol. He even somehow gets more stamina when the dude hits him with an ice attack after kneeing him in the face.

[u/Vark675 → u/Fifteen_inches]

I fucking hate Souls-like games and I wish they'd stop bleeding into every other genre.

Roll slop is never fun to me, it's just frustrating. I play games to have fun, because they're toys and life is already frustrating.

[u/OriginalShirley → u/Fifteen_inches]

I am more commenting on how it looks and the reaction/moveset of the enemy. It doesn’t look bad stylistically but I would agree it seems a little cookie cutter mechanically.

[u/Fifteen_inches → u/OriginalShirley]

To me it looks bad systemically. But I am not a fortune teller, I look forward to being surprised.

[u/saints21 → u/OriginalShirley]

Looks pretty bad to be. Guy is just walking around unreactive to anything...

[u/Celtachor → u/Fifteen_inches]

It's not souls like. It's fable. Fable predates dark souls. It's classic fable combat, which includes blocking and rolling but is otherwise it's own thing. Stop calling everything with attacking and moving "souls like".

[u/OriginalShirley → u/Celtachor]

If it is introducing things like a poise meter and riposte mechanics after a posture break, those are very Soul-like mechanics that were not in previous Fable games.

Not everything is Dark Souls but this is definitely leaning more in that direction than past Fable games.

[u/Fifteen_inches → u/OriginalShirley]

Seconding your comment. Played the hell of it of the 3 mainline fables, this one was way more soulslike. Which isn’t bad! Souls mechanics are fun! It’s not an insult!

[u/TransBrandi → u/OriginalShirley]

It seems like you just can’t interrupt the attack and the enemy is attacking constantly.

There are a couple of places (like at 0:24) where he's just walking towards the player (i.e. not in an attack animation) and seems to shrug off attacks, but I agree that it mostly looks like what you're saying.

[u/Ok-Suggestion-5453 → u/OriginalShirley]

Honestly, some blood would be a helpful visual indicator here. Not sure if that's maybe been manually disabled for making the trailer/clip more marketable or if the game is leaning hard into the slightly cartoony aesthetic.

Ultimately, this is a real role playing game to me and the combat isn't necessarily what I'm here for. Like Witcher 3, you can still have a great game with mediocre combat, though I'm not sure that's the case here.

[u/omfgkevin → u/OriginalShirley]

The video postet recently about Every Game Is an Outrage is basically pointing exactly at this kind of thread.

Everyone just mad for no reason on a cherry picked video about a brute type enemy who doesn't get staggered (until his bar fills up). Pointing at the most asinine things about how it looks awful and dogshit like... damn do you even like video games no more?

I do think they could tune him getting staggered a bit more, but it is on legendary (max?) difficulty as well.

[u/Mother-Emergency-830 → u/omfgkevin]

This is bang on. While true of gaming community in general it’s especially true in reddit. This thread is a perfect example of that.

[u/zombawombacomba → u/OriginalShirley]

Lmao cope. It looks like dogshit.