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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WIld Combat

G

Gaspard

Member
Caelus said:
The ability to steal and keep any enemy weapon alone is making me excited, along with all the physics-related shenanigans.

Imagine stealing a dual-wield Shiekah energy katana, or a Goron hammer that lights the surrounding area on fire....
Click to expand...

I've fantasized about that ever since Windwaker let you steal enemy weapons.
 
S

Speely

Banned
Sandworms looks huge (sorry for terrible quality.)

vsQYWrK.png
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GAMETA

GAMETA

Banned
Ashby said:
Yeah, could use a flip or something before landing.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure a flip would look good if Link is falling straight 90º down.. he could use some knee bending but Nintendo usually don't use animations that stops the character from being instantly controlled by the player (I'm looking at you Assassin's Creed)
 
C

Coda

Member
cackhyena said:
This is the only one that bugs me. No transition animations after the shot. He just sits there, even after landing.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree a little flip and landing stance would have made the whole thing a little more convincing but I'll forgive it considering how much the game is achieving already.
 
C

Cartho

Member
Aaronrules380 said:
As I said before, Deadman's Volley is a goddamn Zelda tradition at this point
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This will be the first Zelda I've played since OoT on N64. I never even finished that as I was 8 years old, awful at games and Goldeneye stole my life. So I had no idea this was a standard move.
 
A

Aaronrules380

Member
Comrade Crunch said:
It isn't really, pretty much all the mechanics are things we've seen before, but it's got that Nintendo polish, and looks super fun.
Click to expand...

I'd argue it brings a greater level of interactivity with the world. In other Open World Games, you're ability to actually interact with the world is generally limited to three actions
1. Killing stuff
2. Talking to stuff
3. Picking stuff up
There are sometimes other systems like crafting, but those are generally just menu based. Also there's the occasional awful puzzle. In Breath of the Wild there are much more options with directly interacting with the environment as you can set things on fire, use wind to manipulate said fires, or use the fire to create an updraft for movement with the glider. You can use the runes for a much more interesting and physics based puzzle gameplay in addition to just pushing or pulling stuff or hitting a switch. These aren't necessarily new to gaming, but they're definitely something that pulls the open world genre forward through the specific combinations of actions and freedom
 
N

Nanashrew

Banned
Aaronrules380 said:
I'd argue it brings a greater level of interactivity with the world. In other Open World Games, you're ability to actually interact with the world is generally limited to three actions
1. Killing stuff
2. Talking to stuff
3. Picking stuff up
There are sometimes other systems like crafting, but those are generally just menu based. Also there's the occasional awful puzzle. In Breath of the Wild there are much more options with directly interacting with the environment as you can set things on fire, use wind to manipulate said fires, or use the fire to create an updraft for movement with the glider. You can use the runes for a much more interesting and physics based puzzle gameplay in addition to just pushing or pulling stuff or hitting a switch. These aren't necessarily new to gaming, but they're definitely something that pulls the open world genre forward through the specific combinations of actions and freedom
Click to expand...

And stuff like this.

qV4V2wu.gif


Also every tree we see you can cut down, roll them around or make a bridge across water, or cut it more and make them a bundle of sticks for camp fires.
 
P

Pif

Banned
Comrade Crunch said:
It isn't really, pretty much all the mechanics are things we've seen before, but it's got that Nintendo polish, and looks super fun.
Click to expand...

Not trying to start a list wars or anything but can I have some examples of this kind of physics based combat in an open World game?

The only one that comes to mind is GTA5 but it is a whole different gameplay.
 
J

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Aaronrules380 said:
As I said before, Deadman's Volley is a goddamn Zelda tradition at this point
Click to expand...

Thats what that is, lol.

I was remembering doing it with the spin attack in some of the games and the shield attack from Twilight Princess.

I remember some boss battle that pissed me off because it was hard to get the pattern. I think it was that one where Ganon came out some painting on a horse.

It was just a regular swing to deflect it back IIRC.
 
Majmun

Majmun

Member
Pif said:
Not trying to start a list wars or anything but can I have some examples of this kind of physics based combat in an open World game?

The only one that comes to mind is GTA5 but it is a whole different gameplay.
Click to expand...

Just Cause 3 has some really crazy physics based combat.
 
A

Aaronrules380

Member
jroc74 said:
Thats what that is, lol.

I was remembering doing it with the spin attack in some of the games and the shield attack from Twilight Princess.

I remember some boss battle that pissed me off because it was hard to get the pattern. I think it was that one where Ganon came out some painting on a horse.

It was just a regular swing to deflect it back IIRC.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the phantom ganon fight in OoT which was one of the instances of Dead Man's Volley in that game
 
C

Comrade Crunch

Member
Pif said:
Not trying to start a list wars or anything but can I have some examples of this kind of physics based combat in an open World game?

The only one that comes to mind is GTA5 but it is a whole different gameplay.
Click to expand...

Red Faction Guerrilla
Just Cause 2 and 3
Gravity Rush 1 and 2 (more so 2 than 1)
Dishonored 1 and 2
Dying Light
 
O

Otakumegane

Member
I'll just copy my whole post from my thread

I like weapon variety. I like having to experiment with Claymores and Hammers and the quickness of gauntlets and dual knifes. Often times, the trade off for this kind of variety in a game is a durability system.

In games like Fire Emblem,and The Last of Us, it's about resource conservation; melee weapons will break after few hits and with the limited resources in these games you must make the tradeoff between saving those precious uses or using it in a pinch. The problem with these kinds of implementations is that it never really feels good to have something break from usage. People were also prone to saving all their best items and weapons until the end like healing items in a JRPG. The newest Fire Emblem scrapped this entirely, adding stat tradeoffs instead and limiting the amount of weapons you could buy by increasing the price many times over. And while some may not agree with this change, many will tell you that the combat feels more strategical and satisfactory for it, choosing the best tool for the situation being far more important than saving all your best sacred uses and having it devolve to "should I use this OP super weapon or not?".

Monster Hunter and Dark Souls, two different games that are both highly praised for their combat systems in their own right, use a slightly different durability mechanic, but not one that is all too satisfying either. While weapons are not lost by losing durability, this stat ties directly into the amount of damage that you inflict, and the areas you can damage. Certain degrees of sharpness in MH are required to damage the more tougher areas of a Monster. One of the various problems with this sort of implementation is that while not incredibly important to your overall combat flow and strategy, it still serves as a minor annoyance all throughout the game. In Dark Souls, how often are you actually worried about if your weapon is at 198 instead of 200 durability? However, how much time will you spend resting at every bonfire and quickly repairing every armor piece and weapon that has barely lost durability like you're trying to level up forging in Skyrim? It not only is it a non-integral part of how you formulate an attack plan, it wastes valuable time and having them at perfect condition at all time is the only best possible solution forcing the player to waste valuable time and attention. If I may add a very small comment on this, is that Monster Hunter while not perfect with this is at least minimally understandable due to the rotations of the players in formation while playing in a well communicating multiplayer group, however it can be just as annoying)


This brings me to Zelda: Too Many Threads BotW. Zelda has had weapon durability in it before. The Razor sword of MM, the Giant Knife of OoT are all examples that followed the first examples of breaking after usage. Again, this is a imperfect method for the reasons stated above. When BotW was shown and revealed to have weapon durability, I was happy that variety was present but concerned that the developers still needed to tie this in with a durability system in order to make collecting them and gathering more prevalent. However, certain mechanics caught my attention.

In BotW, not only does the breaking strike of a weapon deal critical damage but one may throw the weapon, breaking it intentionally for the crit dmg and additional range and area of effect. Not only does this provide a outlet for satisfaction and not make you feel as if you "lost" that resource but that decided on a tradeoff for increased damage. Throwing the weapon also provides players agency for controlling when to break your weapon, instead of merely decaying over time, adding an additional layer of actual choice in attack planning and gameflow. Durability isn't merely an annoyance of a formality for variety no longer and this feature specifically really excited me. Even in exploration, you can choose to sacrifice shield durability for extra mobility with shieldsurfing allowing for more variations.

TLDR: While loving the games with weapon variety, I felt these games were shackled to a system of weapon durability. Of the many things I could praise all these games for their amazing combat systems, Zelda seems to have found a solution that I find acceptable in terms of this balance and with it added an extra layer of strategy on a traditionally unchanged mechanic, something that I've been longing for some of my more combat-intensive games, and of all the cool things Zelda has to offer, this stood out as something that may go unnoticed but truly clever.
Click to expand...

Basically the idea of cycling through weapons is great. Having durability mechanics that you can control for a rewards is something I enjoy a lot.

Here's an example.
LuMiLJP.gif
 
GAMETA

GAMETA

Banned
Otakumegane said:
I'll just copy my whole post from my thread



Basically the idea of cycling through weapons is great. Having durability mechanics that you can control for a rewards is something I enjoy a lot.

Here's an example.
LuMiLJP.gif
Click to expand...

I also think we'll be getting definitive non-breakable weapons, so it's not a big deal at all.
 
Aldric

Aldric

Member
Enduin said:
It actually reminds me of Pete's Dragon, except with a Croc head. It's got a really fat body, short arms and legs and a long tail.
Click to expand...

They look more like giant carnivorous fishes to me than sandworms. Which makes sense as this is probably a sand sea you can only traverse with the help of these punk walruses creatures.
 
SinCityAssassin

SinCityAssassin

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Looks good I just hope some of these mechanics are organically discoverable and not embedded in 10 hours of tutorials
Click to expand...

The fact that you can use a shield like that is not mentioned in any tutorial shown throughout the demo. Combat tips like weapon throwing or Flurry attacks are relegated to just single screen word prompts.
 
A

Aaronrules380

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Looks good I just hope some of these mechanics are organically discoverable and not embedded in 10 hours of tutorials
Click to expand...

It honestly doesn't sound like there will be many tutorials at all, since it seems like the e3 demo stuff we've seen is pretty much just the start of the game (largely) unaltered
 
P

Plum

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Looks good I just hope some of these mechanics are organically discoverable and not embedded in 10 hours of tutorials
Click to expand...

Have you not seen the opening? All the game gives you are some basic button, item and inventory explanations and nothing else, the rest has to be figured out on your own.
 
M

Mr-Joker

Banned
I am actually interested to see how the combat plays out, though I am not fond of breakable weapons and really hope that there are unbreakable weapons in the game as I don't like the idea of hunting to find weapons and then never using them because I don't want them to break.

SinCityAssassin said:
SICK CHICO TRICKS
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Someone should post the footage of her fighting the rock golem with little effort, now that was bad ass.
 
R

Rizific

Member
yes yes yes. everything ive seen so far has me very excited to play this game. ive never day 1'ed a console, ever. switch will be the first, only because of this game.
 
W

watomsk

Neo Member
Aaronrules380 said:
Do we know how tight the timing on Flurry Rush is? Abilities like that are usually balanced by having strict timing requirements where failing means taking an attack you could've otherwise avoided
Click to expand...

Not sure, I've seen videos and it seems like you have to dodge right before the enemy attacks. I imagine depending on the enemy pattern this is probably easy enough or more difficult. I can see how it might be more difficult to pull off than say, the parry attack from Wind Waker (which was downright broken in my opinion), but still seems superfluous because the combat seems to be really fun without the flurry rush mechanic already.

The only other detail about this game that bothers me is the food hoarding, and that you can pause time to eat at any moment. It seems like a step back from Skyward Sword and many other games. This doesn't bother me as much because you can at least choose not to carry a lot of food, and cooking is up to you.

My main concern is that these mechanics might make the combat too easy, but I suppose Zelda games have never been particularly hard and that has never stopped me from enjoying them. Still, I'm hoping for hero mode.
 
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