Limiting Special Abilities?

[Goldsickle]

If you made a game with a character that has powerful moves, how would you limit the special move usage in order to balance the game?

1. Power Gauge
- Your character can only do their special moves when a certain gauge is filled up enough.

2. Context-Sensitive
- Your character can only perform special moves when specific conditions are met (e.g. you are right in front of a dizzied enemy). Usually, this method changes the functions of certain buttons (e.g. the button used to pick up items changes function into a special melee attack when standing before a dazed enemy).

3. Cool Down Time
- After using a special ability, you need to wait a bit until you can use it again.

4. Requires Items
- The character can only perform special moves if they have specific items for it.

5. No Limits
- Hardest to balance when this is applied but is possible. For example, you allow the player to use a powerful grab attack anytime they want but there are risks involved, like triggering certain enemies to counter attack, be vulnerable while executing the move or the move is useless if you didn't shatter the enemy's defenses yet.

[StaticSkull]

Power guage 4 sure

[Goldsickle]

At 1/10/17 08:10 PM, TheQuietGamer wrote: I would try to make it no limits. If I couldn't get the balance right, then cool down timer.

A lot of moves in the Devil May Cry series has no limits (some require the Devil Trigger gauge but not many).

My example was actually from the 4th game, where the character Nero can spam his Buster maneuver over and over again.
It may work on the lesser enemies but puts you at risk for the more stronger, faster enemies later.
Spamming the same moves over and over in this series also lowers your score.

[Big-Boss]

The Power Gauge option seems like the best choice to me. It puts a nice balance on things as long as it's done right. When hitting the enemy and getting hit by the enemy fills up the Power Gauge, that makes it the most fair.

[Chdonga]

A combination of power gauge and context sensitive. The context would be distance between user & target and the state that the target is in (ie stunned, etc)

[Goldsickle]

At 1/11/17 04:32 PM, DeftonesFan665 wrote: The Power Gauge option seems like the best choice to me. It puts a nice balance on things as long as it's done right. When hitting the enemy and getting hit by the enemy fills up the Power Gauge, that makes it the most fair.

In Bayonetta, getting hit by the enemy lowers your power gauge.
It's almost like it was designed so that you won't have any chance of getting back if you are hit by the enemy.

At 1/11/17 06:15 PM, Chdonga wrote: A combination of power gauge and context sensitive. The context would be distance between user & target and the state that the target is in (ie stunned, etc)

That's how it is in Resident Evil 6.
When the enemy is dazed by a head shot and so on, you can use special melee attacks that drain your gauge.

However, if you use timed counter attacks, you don't use up your stamina gauge at all.
So there's some strategy in trying to get as much counters as possible to avoid draining your stamina.

[Big-Boss]

At 1/13/17 03:40 AM, Goldsickle wrote:

At 1/11/17 04:32 PM, DeftonesFan665 wrote: The Power Gauge option seems like the best choice to me. It puts a nice balance on things as long as it's done right. When hitting the enemy and getting hit by the enemy fills up the Power Gauge, that makes it the most fair.

In Bayonetta, getting hit by the enemy lowers your power gauge.
It's almost like it was designed so that you won't have any chance of getting back if you are hit by the enemy.

That's why I like how the Mortal Kombat game released in 2011 does the opposite. It actually gives you a fighting chance if you're getting beat.