Why does touching enemies cause you to die in games? In some cases it makes sense if the enemy is covered in spikes or is a living ball of fire then indeed touching them could be damaging and cause death. But what annoys me is that so many games, the large majority for sure cause you to take damage if you touch something regardless of how much force you collide with, whether it is so much as touching a finger against it or slamming into it head first with full force these games always count this as damage, and it is usually always a ridiculously high amount of damage also.
My most recent example being playing Dark Souls just fighting the Gaping Dragon, he had 1 hit left to die and I decided to be heroic and leap at his flank with a powerful attack, but the attack didn't land and I instantly died from FULL health, which was more damaging than any of his attacks, his slamming attacks, grabbing, tail sweeping, nothing came close to this damage suffered from accidentally jumping into his rear. Now this wasn't a case of being crushed beneath his feet which would have been understandable but it was jumping into a stationary and very plump rear end which if anything would have been cushioning and definitely not the most deadly thing in the world.
Another example more fitting more many people to know would be Megaman, I don't play these myself but I know that accidentally touching a robot master causes you far more damage than being shot by them many times.
What hurts you? There is nothing in the game world that makes sense with the damage that you take, you are grazing past something or accidentally knocking into it not being assaulted by it. It is just lazy programming and in this age is frankly just bullshit like lives which should have been obsoleted long ago after games had developed.
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At 2/14/14 03:26 PM, Ragnarokia wrote: My most recent example being playing Dark Souls just fighting the Gaping Dragon, he had 1 hit left to die and I decided to be heroic and leap at his flank with a powerful attack, but the attack didn't land and I instantly died from FULL health, which was more damaging than any of his attacks, his slamming attacks, grabbing, tail sweeping, nothing came close to this damage suffered from accidentally jumping into his rear. Now this wasn't a case of being crushed beneath his feet which would have been understandable but it was jumping into a stationary and very plump rear end which if anything would have been cushioning and definitely not the most deadly thing in the world.
That's strange, you probably ran into a bug there. Dark Souls doesn't have contact damage anywhere.
What hurts you? There is nothing in the game world that makes sense with the damage that you take, you are grazing past something or accidentally knocking into it not being assaulted by it. It is just lazy programming and in this age is frankly just bullshit like lives which should have been obsoleted long ago after games had developed.
Back in the day contact damage has been a way of telling you that you are being assaulted. With the limitations of the 8-bit era many devs couldn't implement complex animations and resorted to this instead. Nowadays it's lazy programming indeed and I'm sure many devs aren't even realizing how stupid contact damage is. It just became a thing.
At 2/14/14 03:26 PM, Ragnarokia wrote:
Another example more fitting more many people to know would be Megaman, I don't play these myself but I know that accidentally touching a robot master causes you far more damage than being shot by them many times.
This reminds me of the final boss in Metroid Fusion. Touching it would cause just as much damage as a swipe from it's claws. However, this was not a 360 boss, you could only attack it from one side. The designers probably didn't want you to get behind the monster, find it's "sweet spot" (:3) where you could damage it unharmed, what is now referred to as "kiting" it. And I think that's the idea behind most bosses and enemies from that era
What hurts you? There is nothing in the game world that makes sense with the damage that you take, you are grazing past something or accidentally knocking into it not being assaulted by it. It is just lazy programming and in this age is frankly just bullshit like lives which should have been obsoleted long ago after games had developed.
This concept was born in the pixel days of 2-D side scrollers. Some enemies A.I. was so dumb that they would just run at you can keep going, even if they passed you, like in Castlevania or Altered Beast. This adds to the challenge, as the monsters would come back and keep coming at you like a gauntlet.
It still happens in most of the games I play.
The biggest exceptions being RTS and shooters.
The thing I hate most is when monsters spawn right beside me.
In Revenge of Shinobi for the Genesis, touch damage doesn't exist, but knockback does. A good strategy is actively jump into an enemy to avoid a projectile as it will give you invincibility frames, allowing you to keep the sword power-up or not take any damage. Don't do it near pits though, as Joe Musashi suffers some seriously bad knockback upon impact. You quite literally gravitate towards pits.
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The things that hurt you in games back in the day were so arbitrary and silly a lot of the time.
There are lots of things in video games that are taken for granted which really don't make sense. For example, why are spikes so deadly in most games? In real life touching spikes probably won't kill you. In a video game touching spikes is as bad or worse than touching lava. There has to be some gameplay element and "avoid bad stuff" is a solid choice.
Strategically you can intentionally take damage too sometimes. For example in MegaMan games intentionally take damage from a weak enemy/attack then take advantage of temporary invulnerability to avoid damage from a stronger enemy/attack.
Other common video game stuff that doesn't make sense? Air-jumping, changing jump direction mid-air, roll-jumping, jumping ridiculous heights, unlimited ammo, infinitely respawning enemies, chained wall jumping. And then you have the very Mario-specific standing on a pipe that has a piranha plant in it somehow prevents the piranha plant from coming up and eating you.
But you know why you have those things in video games? Because there has to be some gameplay mechanic. There have to be some rules. Some limitations. Some goal you try for.
At 2/14/14 07:36 PM, SmashLuigiFan1 wrote: In Revenge of Shinobi for the Genesis, touch damage doesn't exist, but knockback does. A good strategy is actively jump into an enemy to avoid a projectile as it will give you invincibility frames, allowing you to keep the sword power-up or not take any damage. Don't do it near pits though, as Joe Musashi suffers some seriously bad knockback upon impact. You quite literally gravitate towards pits.
And that's another reason for me to buy Revenge of the Shinobi, which I haven't and totally should.
Personally, I think touch damage stems from the classic Mario games, where it was generally assumed that the enemies either had fangs or fists with which to defend themselves. Their only weak point, therefore, was their head, which Mario would then jump on. I'm assuming later games borrowed the concept of "touch damage" from Mario.
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At 2/18/14 01:23 AM, oobooglunk wrote: And that's another reason for me to buy Revenge of the Shinobi, which I haven't and totally should.
You should, as the game is a great side-scrolling action game with great level design, enemies, music, powers and power-ups. There's even some RPG elements in the game, as your health bar increases by 2 bars for every 100,000 points you get. It's difficult, too. On the Hardest difficulty you only get a single life per continue, so the game has an extra challenge if you're daring enough to play through it.
I should also note that enemies with physical attacks like sword swings and jump kicks will cause damage as you're touching an attack and not the enemy itself. Remember that when you're playing.
Personally, I think touch damage stems from the classic Mario games, where it was generally assumed that the enemies either had fangs or fists with which to defend themselves. Their only weak point, therefore, was their head, which Mario would then jump on. I'm assuming later games borrowed the concept of "touch damage" from Mario.
Not really, as touch damage has been a thing since the 70s. It's a very common thing to see it in arcade games.
"It's easier to talk about the bad than to understand the good." - Jirard Khalil
"This was a mistake." - Jirard Khalil, 2013
"WELCOME TO THE FANTASY ZONE! GET READY. . ."
It's a game, it's not supposed to be real, that's the point.
At 2/18/14 02:21 AM, SuperElroy wrote: It's a game, it's not supposed to be real, that's the point.
Both unrelated and wrong. The game might be going of ITS OWN logic and not real life logic, but it is THAT logic in itself which this premise of dying from touching completely ignores. As mentioned earlier, this is about enemies which have no reason in the game world to hurt you by touching them.
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Its an obstacle, like water. Just use your imagination, maybe the person punches you when you get close ;)
At 2/18/14 08:37 AM, Ragnarokia wrote:At 2/18/14 02:21 AM, SuperElroy wrote: It's a game, it's not supposed to be real, that's the point.Both unrelated and wrong. The game might be going of ITS OWN logic and not real life logic, but it is THAT logic in itself which this premise of dying from touching completely ignores. As mentioned earlier, this is about enemies which have no reason in the game world to hurt you by touching them.
It's completely related. I don't think you understand what a game is, it doesn't have logic or need it, it can be what ever the developer intended it to be.
It's not the real world lol.
At 2/18/14 01:32 PM, SuperElroy wrote: It's completely related. I don't think you understand what a game is, it doesn't have logic or need it, it can be what ever the developer intended it to be.
It's not the real world lol.
Yes but some designs that game devs put in are stupid or ridiculous and we have every right to complain about them. Stop making an ass out of yourself.
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At 2/19/14 02:16 PM, AngryGrag wrote:At 2/18/14 01:32 PM, SuperElroy wrote: It's completely related. I don't think you understand what a game is, it doesn't have logic or need it, it can be what ever the developer intended it to be.Yes but some designs that game devs put in are stupid or ridiculous and we have every right to complain about them. Stop making an ass out of yourself.
It's not the real world lol.
The point is to make them stupid or ridiculous.
I think you're all making asses of yourselves every day on Newgrounds, thanks to whoever lured you all to the site.
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