It’s been a while since I last checked the post-funding updates for Sui Generis, Bare Mettle Entertainment’s extremely ambitious Kickstarter-funded action-RPG, and in the meantime the team released two new updates. The first covers the underworld areas, corpses’ decay, the damage and equipment mechanics and some revisions to combat. Here’s a snippet:
The combat and animations have been evolving constantly, they are the thing the game has been most praised and criticised for. Making notable improvements has been extremely challenging, it’s a hugely experimental and difficult technology and we’re often shooting in the dark, sometimes missing and wasting time.
Originally we designed the combat with a big focus on the physics, the force of blows and movements of your character being very dependent on the fluidity and timing of inputs. We’d had a lot of practice with this but when we released the combat alpha we saw it wasn’t always well received. Many people perceived it as somewhat unresponsive and clumsy, watching videos of others playing the game we saw that even skilled players weren’t easily achieving the same harmony with the physics, their character’s motions often looked ungainly. Elegance and effectiveness didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. We quickly made changes to improve the responsiveness of the controls based on feedback but these hurried changes came at the price of some unrealistic behaviour.
So, having received a lot of feedback on the combat and prototyping various suggestions in several rapid releases, we then went back and revised some of the earliest and most fundamental aspects of the animation system. We shifted the balance away from pure physics towards player control, completely redeveloped the input system and fixed numerous issues that were present in the combat alpha. We also made improvements to the AI which was still incomplete, giving the AI more tactical and human similar behaviour and trying to counter potential exploits. Our redesigned AI proved extremely difficult to beat which is what we were aiming for when considering the best possible AI opponents.
This took some time but as it all came together we finally found ourselves before what feels like a new game. The many changes to animation systems and a new asynchronous processing of inputs led to very responsive character control, characters move fluidly and remain balanced even under the most extreme conditions, allowing for precise control over new attack combinations and very fast dodges. Our almost unbeatable AI became easy to defeat and we had to add a whole new layer of cleverness and precision to it, finally making it challenging again and then introducing skill levels to reduce and control it’s effectiveness.
The final result is fantastic, it looks great and it’s incredibly good fun. The foundation is now more solid allowing us to do more, we see ways to improve it further but already we’ve achieved better results than we initially thought possible. Looking back and seeing how far we’ve come since the early animation we wonder at what the future could hold!
Combat is also the subject of update 29, which aims to clarify and explain what changes the devs are applying to the combat systems:
This is a very unique and highly skill based combat system. Please clear your mind of what you’ve learned in other games and take the time to read this quick introductory guide. Also pay attention to the tips that appear at the top of the screen after you defeat each opponent.
You might remember that we said “combat situations will be occasional yet meaningful”, we meant it. Combat in SG will have to be taken seriously, you will face AIs that are subject to the same exact rules as you and don’t particularly want to die. Characters aren’t suicidal loot piñatas and XP powerups, they’ll quickly teach you to respect them. Combat is supposed to be an intense experience, not a continuous and careless slaughter.
Finally, don’t forget that Sui Generis is an open world RPG, not a beat-em-up. There are many other aspects to the game and ways to approach things, even combat. The close quarters combat itself is also not complete, we will continue to add features and make improvements but we are currently focusing on other aspects of the game. This combat demo will give you a taste of SG’s original combat system and give you something to play around with before the prelude release, you should not consider it indicative of the actual game experience.
SPEED × HEAVY = WELLY
In English mister scientist! Physics in Sui Generis doesn’t mean accurate hitboxes, it means physical forces are driving everything. Moving and turning your character can have a huge effect on the force of your blows and each weapon behaves differently and requires different play. This concerns the weight and balance of weapons and even their shape. A sword will deal damage along its entire edge and its end can slice through your opponent but a hammer is not very effective if you hit someone with the haft, you need to hit with the head and put some force behind the blow. So, don’t just press the attack button but move your whole body with the swing, augment and direct every blow.
MY TURN, STAND STILL!
Timing is everything. To land an attack and succesfully bypass your opponent’s defences you need to time it well. Just pressing the attack button does not accomplish anything, you need land blows in the right place and at the right time to actually do damage. Your opponents are most vulnerable when they are themselves attacking or recovering from an attack. Even then you need to hit them where they are exposed and vulnerable. The same goes for you, a badly timed attack will leave you vulnerable and can lead to a very swift demise.
PLEASE DON’T HIT ME
Blocking and parrying in Sui Generis is an organic process, you can’t just press a button for magical invunerability. As long as you are facing your attacker and not doing anything else you will try to defend against incoming blows, however you must position and turn your character in such a way as to intercept the blow. Careful positioning can make your defences impenetrable but even if you don’t successfully block an attack you will take less damage when you are braced to defend against it, defending is always important. You can cancel an attack to defend at any time by letting go of the attack button, however it can take a moment for you character to fully prepare their guard.
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