Why should you have too? A game with good combat would make it incredibly difficult but still fun and doable.
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Joseph Anderson - Breath of the Wild Analysis
- Thread starter nynt9
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Why should you have too? A game with good combat would make it incredibly difficult but still fun and doable.
DecoReturns
Member
Little off-topic, but you can definitely win major strength trials with weak weapons. You just need a Shield and know how to parry.
That's how I won mine, my best sword was 15 and only had three hearts.
But no, climbing won't help, having lots of stamina will tho
Vigilant Gambit
Member
I'll use Bayonetta as an example here again.
Say you're playing the game, and you stumble upon an Alfheim portal. Eventually, you clear it, using only Scarborough Fair on your hands and feet, as that's your favorite weapon set. You notice that you got Platinum for time, Gold for damage, and Silver for combos, giving you a Gold trophyfor completing it. The game is telling you, straight up, that you passed, and did well, but could've done better, and it tells you how on that results screen; spend a little more time working on more stylish combos, since you can already kill the enemy quickly, and do so without taking damage.
You consider the weapons available to you, and decide to use a full set of Handguns, which have an identical moveset to Scarborough Fair, but have weaker combo endings due to the lack of Wicked Weave attacks. Also, instead of spamming your favorite string, you start trying out various combinations of punches, kicks, holds, and pauses, to do a bunch of different combos, often incorporating special moves. This time, you get a Pure Platinum finish. Awesome!
If you want a greater challenge, you can increase the difficulty, which will change the game's mechanics and damage slightly, and change enemy layouts. The alfheim would have the same rules, but different enemies.
And the game directly rewards you for these restrictions that you choose to place on the game. There are no degrees of victory in BotW like in Bayonetta, so any restrictions you apply don't result in greater rewards, or at least recognition.
Simply put, there's no good reason (beyond the added challenge) to try to kill a lynel only using tree branches like there would be if the game was better designed, like in Bayonetta.
They could have had some element where, the weaker the weapons you use to kill an enemy, the more/better its drops, since you aren't hitting it and damaging it as much. That way, the enemy is harder to kill, and the game recognizes and rewards you for volunteering for that extra risk. They could apply the same principle to the chest rewards you get for clearing enemy encampments, where the more difficult the means you used to dispatch the enemies, the better the rewards. More rupees, or something. Or special dyes. I dunno.
Yeah. When you headshot a Lynel or use Urbosa's fury, it stuns them. Go upto them and you will see a prompt to mount them. Now switch to your strongest weapon and you will hit him 5 times. This will not consume durability. When he bucks you off, go into bullet time when you are in air for another few headshots.
When they are stunned, either from Urbosa's Fury or from a headshot, you can run up to them and mount them. This allows you to mash the attack button (with ANY weapon equipped, so you can swap to your highest damage weapon) for true damage with no degradation to your weapon.
You can link these back-to-back with good headshots and use of Stasis+ or Urbosa's Fury (which also damages them heavily). Tack on Flurry Rush on everything but the Club Lynel, and they melt.
Silver Lynels can be demolished very quickly, so the notion that they are bullet sponges is only true if you do not utilize the mechanics of their encounter.
Urbosa's Fury, in general, turns most units in the game into pincushions on top of dealing a very large chunk of damage to them, it will wipe out entire camps of everything short of Black/Silver. Non-Lynel/Boss enemies are stunned for a long-ass time as well. The only enemy in the game that isn't actually completely trivialized by her attack is Ganon as he has windows of resistance to her attack after being hit by it.
Once you also learn of the secret OPness of the 5x Savage Lynel bow with Bomb Arrows, there is really no enemy in the game that you cannot kill in a few seconds that isn't, again, a Lynel or Ganon (it trivializes his first phase, he's effectively immune to it in his second). Hinox get nigh-insta-gibbed by that bow/arrow combination to the eye. Molduga's will get killed in a few shots.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Honestly? git gud. On my first playthrough, I hit the Major Test of Strength near Eventide when I still only had 3 hearts, Sheikah Armour upgraded just the once (4/4/4), and my best weapon was a Guardian Sword (the lowest level, from the Kakariko Shrine that teaches you combat) and the rest mostly Spiked Boko Spears. I went on to beat it. It took me a lot of tries, but you can definitely do it. A well-timed arrow will stun it, the flurry timings are all manageable, and once it gets to firing lazers, a pot lid can finish it off.
Vigilant Gambit
Member
The fact that it's Bayonetta has no bearing on the validity of the comparison.
It does actually. Development budget and time aren't infinite. There will never be a perfect game that has the deep challenging combat, best exploration, most mind-bending puzzles, best sidequests, best story all in one game.
You still had some decent weapons. It's entirely possible that the first shrine you go into after getting off the plateau will be a major test of strength. My friend ended up in one with only a a branch and two regular clubs. They found the one at Hyrule castle while trying to find a way in.
Vigilant Gambit
Member
Them being different would've made them better. The same amount work was done. But it could've been done better.
Parapraxis
Member
Certainly would have made me less likely to avoid combat as I sometimes did. The risk/reward was not good enough. Then again, the combat is pretty flat anyways and not the best part of the game anyways, I guess exploration would be my pick for "best" aspect, even with the vast empty spaces (which I found tedious).
The point of the game is go where you want when you want, and finish the game your own way.
If they did that then its just like most games, just get harder the further you go, this game is all about freedom
It's weird that for an analysis that could be super paraphrased to "I liked the open world exploration at least" he makes no mention of learning about the world through exploration and NPCs. Why is Hateno Village looking peaceful despite the Calamity he asks? Well maybe because the game tells you the Calamity didn't manage to get that far since it was so far away plus you're told it's taken them that one hundred years to get to the state they're currently in. Even still, there are quests that indicate they're not completely safe as monsters steal from the farm.
Also funny that he spends ages critiquing the shrines only to side note at the end that the optional chests were where the challenge was... almost as if that was how they were designed to be! You'd think those few shrines where you can walk past the end goal to a completely new room for a bonus challenge would have given him that hint. He's lucky I actually stuck with the video by that point since I was almost tempted to close it the moment he automatically put the motion challenge in the awful category.
First video of his I've watched and he comes across, to be honest, as a fun sponge.
EDIT: Also, thinking back on his complaints about armour defence, where the higher your defence, the less damage you take (I clearly misunderstood something, because to me, that seems super obvious), he said, you had to resist upgrading armour before it was too late to have "fun". I clearly come from a different train of thought (which is likely why I didn't really agree with a lot of his video) but I enjoy becoming more powerful as I progress. However saying that, apart from some very rare exceptions, you can actually buy all your armour again. So you can do back to basic armour if you so wish. That's that exploration thing coming back again.
Also funny that he spends ages critiquing the shrines only to side note at the end that the optional chests were where the challenge was... almost as if that was how they were designed to be! You'd think those few shrines where you can walk past the end goal to a completely new room for a bonus challenge would have given him that hint. He's lucky I actually stuck with the video by that point since I was almost tempted to close it the moment he automatically put the motion challenge in the awful category.
First video of his I've watched and he comes across, to be honest, as a fun sponge.
EDIT: Also, thinking back on his complaints about armour defence, where the higher your defence, the less damage you take (I clearly misunderstood something, because to me, that seems super obvious), he said, you had to resist upgrading armour before it was too late to have "fun". I clearly come from a different train of thought (which is likely why I didn't really agree with a lot of his video) but I enjoy becoming more powerful as I progress. However saying that, apart from some very rare exceptions, you can actually buy all your armour again. So you can do back to basic armour if you so wish. That's that exploration thing coming back again.
Vigilant Gambit
Member
They could call it the Chivalry system of honor (risk) vs. reward.
There could be a minimum base damage below which you don't get any better rewards, like 5 or something so you can use a sword instead of a branch. That could change per-enemy. There could be a bonus for only using metal equipment to attack/defend during a lightning storm. You would have to drop it before lightning strikes, then pick it up and swing after. And then you get a yellow rupee or disposable jump boots or something.
Ok then, how about Nier: Automata? An open world game with exploration with combat that is comparable to Bayonetta.
His gripe with armor is that it scales as raw numbers instead of a percentage.
Amazing and deep combat but exploration, world interaction and sense of discovery is nowhere near level of BotW, and thats fine because the main focus of Nier is its combat.
Chezzymann
Member
The combat for me can still be fun 120 hours in, yes 1 on 1 stuff is easy (even silver lynels) but I still find it fairly challenging if I get into a fight with 5-6 of high level enemies at the same time and run out of food. Hard to keep track of them all at the same time and those white bobokins do a good amount of damage. I dont think it's a big deal as you don't really start "breaking" the combat system until like 50 hours in and that's when most people probably already finished the game.
The main issue I have is with the bosses, as they're easy and the entire motivation for all that exploration should be for beating them. But you don't really need to.
The main issue I have is with the bosses, as they're easy and the entire motivation for all that exploration should be for beating them. But you don't really need to.
The Hermit
Member
I liked this video a lot, even though most of his criticism is nitpick.
The shrine complain is valid. My other solution is having 100 shrines the way the game has, and the final 20 shrines unlocked after that. Not the location but the type.
So you have freedom the whole game and just the final stretch to be linear so completist feels rewarded.
The battle system complain is also clever. The dodge system could be a lot better. The weapon durability is not a bad idea, but should be improved upon. More animations and etc would be awesome too.
Enemy variation is something everyone talked about.
And the endgame... BotW still hasn't taken Ocarina's crow in my eyes, mostly because the end game and story.
Will the DLC fix that? One can only hope
The shrine complain is valid. My other solution is having 100 shrines the way the game has, and the final 20 shrines unlocked after that. Not the location but the type.
So you have freedom the whole game and just the final stretch to be linear so completist feels rewarded.
The battle system complain is also clever. The dodge system could be a lot better. The weapon durability is not a bad idea, but should be improved upon. More animations and etc would be awesome too.
Enemy variation is something everyone talked about.
And the endgame... BotW still hasn't taken Ocarina's crow in my eyes, mostly because the end game and story.
Will the DLC fix that? One can only hope
OrbitalBeard
Member
The reason BotW is seeing so many analytical videos (and there will be many more to come, I assure you) is because it's a gamechanger. It demands closer examination. It's a masterpiece and a template for game design that developers will be studying for years to come. The game is so big and special that many of its flaws, both major and minor, become magnified and appear to be worse than they really are, particularly in comparison to other, lesser games, I'm ok with nitpicking this game's issues, because it will hopefully result in something even greater next time.
Phrozenflame500
Member
Wow he actually went way harder with the shrine/combat complaints then I thought he would. I'm glad he broke it down as much as he did cause it does specifically identify why the shrine puzzles often felt a bit too collectible-y rather then a suitable replacement for dungeons.
As much as I do like BoTW I think it is really worth examining where things do start to break down. The game manages to cut out a remarkable amount of depth out of a system that lays out most of it's cards in the tutorial, but there are definitely points especially later on where that depth becomes disconcertingly shallow. Hopefully we see later DLCs or even the next Zelda title to expand on these ideas further.
As much as I do like BoTW I think it is really worth examining where things do start to break down. The game manages to cut out a remarkable amount of depth out of a system that lays out most of it's cards in the tutorial, but there are definitely points especially later on where that depth becomes disconcertingly shallow. Hopefully we see later DLCs or even the next Zelda title to expand on these ideas further.
Refreshment.01
Member
i sincerely wouldn't base a critcism piece about Bayonetta on it's "shallow" puzzle elements. The bulk of resources for that game were focused on the combat, as it should i might add.
How about we think about how the combat in BotW fairs in comparison to the rest of the series? Picking among various shallow combat experiences, at least going with the one that offers most possibilities seems like an improvement.
Saw the "fun" opinion in your argument. Darksiders for example, has better combat than Zelda. And i don't know if the better more balanced combat mechanics ends up being more "fun" than say ... gesturing up and down with the gyro while hitting enemies with a treasure chest in the head repeatedly.
If we could get better more challenging combat in BotW that would be fantastic but we do know where the focus of the series lies. i mean almost 2 decades of 3D Zelda games speak for themselves.
Nier: Automata isn't an open world game.
CharminUltra
Member
All the nitpicking just made me want to play the game some more. SO GOOD.
But NO. I must move on and save the rest til the DLC hits.
But NO. I must move on and save the rest til the DLC hits.
MindGamingMantis
Banned
Yeah, I can see the script right in front of me.
Thank Baphomet for Joseph. This was one of the only critical and thoughtful analyses of the game I've seen -- And I say this because the game has glaring, critical flaws that most people gloss over or don't mention at all.
It's fine to like a thing and be fans of a thing, but I felt like most people reviewing and covering and commenting on the game weren't playing the same thing I was.
Edit: One thing that happens in a lot of games that bothers me immensely is a disconnect between how the characters in the game describe something and the actual gameplay reality of it. For example, an NPC in Horizon saying a lens is rare even though it drops commonly off of an easy enemy -- Or, as happens in most games, an enemy or boss hyped up as being deadly or dangerous when in reality it isn't. It was cathartic hearing Joseph highlight this issue in BOTW by pointing out the silliness of Prince Fishguy repeatedly warning you of the danger of a gaggle of easy ass enemies.
...Not to mention the last boss in the game being one of the easiest bosses in the game, and far easier than a basic world enemy, Lynel
It's fine to like a thing and be fans of a thing, but I felt like most people reviewing and covering and commenting on the game weren't playing the same thing I was.
Edit: One thing that happens in a lot of games that bothers me immensely is a disconnect between how the characters in the game describe something and the actual gameplay reality of it. For example, an NPC in Horizon saying a lens is rare even though it drops commonly off of an easy enemy -- Or, as happens in most games, an enemy or boss hyped up as being deadly or dangerous when in reality it isn't. It was cathartic hearing Joseph highlight this issue in BOTW by pointing out the silliness of Prince Fishguy repeatedly warning you of the danger of a gaggle of easy ass enemies.
...Not to mention the last boss in the game being one of the easiest bosses in the game, and far easier than a basic world enemy, Lynel
Lupin the Third
Member
Lynel is easily beaten with enough health items, strong armor and an adequate weapon supply. No combat or timing necessary unless you want to beat them faster. Ganon literally requires more varied skills including the shield parry in order to be bested. I don't think it's possible to beat him without the parry, though knowing this game there may well be another method like Ancient Arrows or something.
And the gaggle of easy enemies had shock arrows and odds were good you didn't have no Thunder Helm or anything at that point. Caution was in order.
You can beat Ganon without parrying a single time. You just need to trigger a flurry rush which is incredibly easy to do.
Lupin the Third
Member
Okay. But the parry and the dodge are kinda the same thing. The flurry rush works when he's in shielded mode too? I never tried. I only fought him like twice.
They're really not the same thing. One of them takes actual skill to perform (parrying). Yeah, a flurry will get rid of his shield.
Lupin the Third
Member
I'm awful at the combat in this game though I can sometimes parry consistently against Guardians. I don't think I've flurry rushed once except at the training shrine in Kakariko which I wish I could redo as a refresher. I can never figure out when I'm supposed to dodge in order to engage that feature so I usually just block or take the hit. So I wouldn't say it requires no skill.
Alcotholic
Banned
Im curious if Hard mode will do anything about the shrine issue.
Vigilant Gambit
Member
The critique from us is that you can use the building blocks the game already displays, and add very very small new ones, to address a lot of the issues we describe.
boiled goose
good with gravy
The game is best early. When it's challenging and difficult.
Then it becomes a bit boring. Difficulty scaling could have been better, particularly final boss and dungeons. Late game enemies do more damage and have more health, but the encounters don't get more tricky. 8 lynels would have been more interesting than a super lynel.
Still, an Amazing experience. Unparalleled sense of adventure.
It's so good and yet there's so many possible tweaks to improve it futher. Shows how great the Foundation is
Then it becomes a bit boring. Difficulty scaling could have been better, particularly final boss and dungeons. Late game enemies do more damage and have more health, but the encounters don't get more tricky. 8 lynels would have been more interesting than a super lynel.
Still, an Amazing experience. Unparalleled sense of adventure.
It's so good and yet there's so many possible tweaks to improve it futher. Shows how great the Foundation is
Is there a game with such mechanic? If you are low level and you kill a lynel your reward is his powerful weapons, but why should the game reward you for basically crippling yourself when you are high level?
And also weapons in Bayonetta work pretty different than in Breath of the Wild, Bayonetta weapons are made for different play styles, while this is also true in BOTW there are stats that show you that some weapons are way better than others, pretty sure that if you cripple yourself in Bayo by idk just doing one combo all the time the game will give you a stone medal.
That always happen with critically acclaimed game, it's not new.
My experience with lynel was pretty great. I fought one relatively early in the game with only 4 hearts and it took me several tries.
This was a great experience, because I couldn't believe Zelda had an enemy that was so challenging and had such an aggressive and varied moveset. I thought this was a sign of things to come..
But, no, it wasn't. That's the hardest and best designed enemy in the game. Nothing else comes close, not any of the dungeon bosses, not the last boss, nothing. That's it. It's all downhill from there.
Enemy variety and combat challenge hinted at greatness early but ultimately fell incredibly short of it.
Lupin the Third
Member
I'm really, really glad this game is not Dark Souls. I'm sorry you were let down.
That said, some additional enemy variety would have been nice. Late-game the same monsters everywhere do kind of start to wear thin.
Strike while the iron's hot. Any BOTW related on youtube right now will get a ton of views, especially if it's good. I think it's cool.
because it's a great game and everyone has their own story and experience
So it's natural that we already has 3 OT and so many discussions around
it's interesting to read other people's thought on this game but for me I will not take any of them very serious because none of these reviews or analysis capture my adventure or feeling in this game
It's a difficult game to critique, which is another thing I agree with Joseph about.
The reason it's unusually difficult to critique is because the things it does well it does so incredibly well. Namely, the overworld and the means by which you explore it. The views, the terrain, controlling link, climbing, and gliding. I adore this stuff. I want every game to be this now with respect to exploration. I also love the NPCs and their designs and how they roam the wild. The art style is incredible. It's gorgeous.
But most other aspects of the game (combat, enemy variety, dungeons, bosses, character progression, weapon system, quests, treasure, I could go on) are mediore to weak. It's hard to tie a neat ribbon around it.
I understand many people completely disagree with me here. You're not a bad person for disagreeing with me. This is just how I felt.
it's near impossible to persuade or argue with people when the experiences is completely different and hard to connect : D
M0nochromatic
Member
He pinpoints all the issues really well. The huge amount of poorly designed shrines, the implementation of the master sword, and the calculations and algorithms surrounding combat mechanics were what really wore thin in my playthrough.
Breath of the Wild was a good starting point for Nintendo, and I hope they can fix the weaknesses with it in its sequel.
Breath of the Wild was a good starting point for Nintendo, and I hope they can fix the weaknesses with it in its sequel.
marcbret87
Member
He does make some good points, though the way he speaks and presents it is just... overtly arrogant. Things like saying the combat was designed by a bunch of amateurs or the shrines being made by kids. Again, the challenge in the shrines in many occasions is to get the extra treasure more than the spirit orb. In general it seems to me that some of the flaws are partly personal preference, but not wrong design choices.
I don't quite agree that the Shrines should scale. It's too much fun reaching an area you are not supposed to be or trying to complete a combat shrine when you are ill-equipped for it. In general I agree that the Shrines could be more visually varied and it would be interesting to have Mega Shrines.
Now, for more specific stuff:
Reading through the post, indeed it should have been a no-brainer to add a recipe book
I don't quite agree that the Shrines should scale. It's too much fun reaching an area you are not supposed to be or trying to complete a combat shrine when you are ill-equipped for it. In general I agree that the Shrines could be more visually varied and it would be interesting to have Mega Shrines.
Now, for more specific stuff:
"Or lighting these torches in the desert—which takes less than a minute. It leads to an empty shrine"
Well, you have to fight the Molduga first before you can focus on lighting the torches (or at least avoid him while you light them), that is why you get a free pass.
"Seems like this could have the potential to be a cool puzzle, right? Well not only is this shrine one of those ”one room, one layer only" puzzles, it's also completely subverted by using stasis on the ball when it's already in the dock and then running to the pillar. And this mechanic, with freezing a ball mid-roll, is something taught to you in the tutorial shrine. Every player is going to know this. Imagine if putting a bomb in the slot would work just as well because it's the same shape. That's how poorly designed this puzzle is. To add insult to injury, there are TWO of these wind current shrines that can be ruined the same way."
Well, I didn't actually realise this at all, and I like that there are this kind of obvious but not so obvious solutions to shrines.
I also don't see what is the problem with stomping over bosses if you get the Master Sword early. It's common that getting better gear makes combat easier, or so it seems to me. In general it seems to me that this is a choice on your side. You can make the game harder on yourself if you want, that is the beauty of it
Well, you have to fight the Molduga first before you can focus on lighting the torches (or at least avoid him while you light them), that is why you get a free pass.
"Seems like this could have the potential to be a cool puzzle, right? Well not only is this shrine one of those ”one room, one layer only" puzzles, it's also completely subverted by using stasis on the ball when it's already in the dock and then running to the pillar. And this mechanic, with freezing a ball mid-roll, is something taught to you in the tutorial shrine. Every player is going to know this. Imagine if putting a bomb in the slot would work just as well because it's the same shape. That's how poorly designed this puzzle is. To add insult to injury, there are TWO of these wind current shrines that can be ruined the same way."
Well, I didn't actually realise this at all, and I like that there are this kind of obvious but not so obvious solutions to shrines.
I also don't see what is the problem with stomping over bosses if you get the Master Sword early. It's common that getting better gear makes combat easier, or so it seems to me. In general it seems to me that this is a choice on your side. You can make the game harder on yourself if you want, that is the beauty of it
Reading through the post, indeed it should have been a no-brainer to add a recipe book
I don't think I've ever complained so much about a game that I played for so long. I've played BotW for over 70 hours, but I do feel that the game has a lot of issues. I think I'll watch this video, as some of the things touched on in the OP are largely why I detest the combat in this game.
marcbret87
Member
I personally enjoy the fact that at the beginning of the game you start as a little shit that basically has to run away from most encounters. Or that you raid a camp by throwing bombs from the distance and trying to pick enemies one by one on a hit and run basis. I enjoyed that tension, but I also enjoy that as I get better gear, more hearts and skills I can kick some ass. As somebody said, this is not Dark Souls, and I am thankful for it. The name of the game is indeed freedom. My main enjoyment of the game comes from exploration, while the combat is fun I don't expect Bayonetta levels of depth. Perhaps the Hard Mode via DLC will satisfy some of those complaints.
With Mighty Simmered Fruit and a 5x burst bow, I beat Ganon for the first time tonight in less than a minute without ever swinging a weapon. Was kind of a bummer, and speaks to a lot of the comments Joseph makes in this video about the game's poor balance.
I don't agree with assertions that making the most of the resources the game gives you is cheesing the game, and that the level of challenge should be solely self-administered. I like that BotW gives lots of opportunities to take on situations in creative ways, but making the game less fun because I chose to explore and prepare myself thoroughly wasn't a rewarding experience.
I also ended up using the Master Sword like he did, and I felt its inclusion worsened the game overall as the game encourages you to rely on it for pretty much the exact reasons he stated. The durability system worked best when the game fully embraced it.
Overall I really agreed with most of the points in this video (though I think the suggestions for resolving them were off the mark), and also agree that it's one of my favourite games ever. Looking forward to hard mode.
You don't look at the individual aspects of the game in vacuum and make 1:1 comparisons to other games like combat in BotW vs combat in Dark Souls, or dungeons in TP vs dungeons in BotW, or quests in MM vs quests in BotW; that's not how game design works.
BotW set out to do literally 1 thing: be an adventure. Everything is designed around that fact in mind and a developer only has so many resources. You can't expect the combat depth and enemy variety of a Bayonetta -- a title designed specifically around those things -- in a massive game like BotW where the thing they obviously spend all their time on was the physics engine which leads to emergent gameplay. The enemies are just dummies for you to experiment on, and from that perspective they fulfill their role perfectly and thus the game is 10/10