Disassembly of the battle system of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun"

Transferred from Zhihu user Paranoia, the teahouse has been authorized

"Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" opened a three-day test some time ago, and I also had a more in-depth experience. Although there are still many details that need to be polished in the battle of this test, it can be seen that the foundation of the game at this stage is good. This article mainly focuses on combat-related content this time, sharing some of my views and thoughts.

Next, I will break it down in four modules:

1. Combat style design

2. Performance detail design

3. Pre-war strategy construction

4. Experience of confrontation in battle

Expressive design

1.1 Restrained special effects and strong "realism"

The combat special effects of "Yanyun" are more restrained, and the move design pays more attention to the performance of the characters themselves, as can be seen in the figure, the core skills are basically not designed with too many light effects, and the sense of blow is presented through the use of action details, which requires significantly more details to consider than the way to rely on special effects to build a sense of blow.

The player's special effects are restrained and concise, and the realistic feeling is enhanced

From this picture, we can also see that the current version of "Yanyun" does not handle it well in character lighting and weapon lighting, although the authenticity is guaranteed, but players cannot see the action details of characters and bosses. In this regard, it can be compared to the fact that Nioh 2 usually lights up characters to prevent players from weakening their perception of characters and movements in dim scenes.

"Nio" has more dark scenes, and the characters are marked with special light sources for players to identify

In bright scenes, the action texture is good. A more valuable point is that while borrowing from many foreign game detail processing techniques (expand this part in PART2), its action style maintains a very strong Chinese martial arts characteristic. We can see that the same swordsmanship moves, "Renwang 2" and "Crouching Dragon" are more inclined to extremely realistic practical killing moves, and in "Yanyun", their design combines the characteristics of Chinese martial arts, and we can see a more light and agile, flexible and changeable use of swordsmanship.

Left: King Ren Middle: Yan Yun Right: Wolong You can see that Yan Yun's movements will be more Chinese-style martial arts

1.2 Focus on bonus action performance and solve the problem of combat rhythm

Under the more restrained design of moves, it is easy to make real and bland battles, blindly pursuing realism and ignoring the refreshing experience, like buying a bead and returning a bead. I found that the development team took a more secure approach to balancing reality and rhythm – adding high-profile close-ups of executions, which was in line with my own expectations. This approach has become common in games such as the God of War series and the Ninja Dragon series, and can significantly enhance the positive feedback of the execution moment.

"Yanyun" uses a "stupid method" to build a degree of difference from other games based on this approach. The development team designed the feedback animations of different weapons or bosses separately, and after actual experience, I have to say that although the method is "stupid", there is a feeling of "miracles". On average, each boss has 3x weapons and several moves with special response bonus moment animation, and there is 1x weapon execution bonus moment animation, and the number of special performance animations corresponding to the boss released this time is about 20, and the magnitude of such animations will increase greatly as the number of bosses increases.

Compared to other games, "Elden Law Ring" revolves around weapons, and there are 3 types of execution performances in the conventional case, and with the change of weapons, there are special execution performances in individual cases. Similarly, Crouching Dragon may be less, with more than 10 execution animations revolving around weapons, and some reuse. A large number of bonus moment animations cut the rhythm of the battle, greatly improving the combat coolness, and also conveying the boss character to a certain extent. It is a more sincere approach.

But this approach is not unfounded, and a similar approach is found in Final Fantasy: Origins, where while Origins does not have a sold-selling market background, players have unanimously praised the elaborate multiple executions.

Close-up of the player's execution reward after the correct anti-mechanic

1.3 The boss style is very different and in urgent need of consistency

There are 5 bosses that can actually be experienced in this test, and the styles are very different, although the expressiveness and oppression are enough, but the problem of style consistency needs to be solved urgently.

For expressiveness and oppression, it can be seen that the current effect of the boss of "Yanyun" has reached the passing line of high-quality boss battles. The development team chose visual spectacle and dazzling techniques to try to break through the player's sensory threshold.

Take "Heart Hunting" as an example to analyze, in addition to the appearance effect of the royal sister who deliberately pleases the player, the use of Inception-style inverted suspension scenes, realistic thunderstorm weather combined with thunderstorm skills to provide real light and shadow for the scene of the giant red moon, the combination of these spectacle design points builds a good expressiveness; In terms of technical production, I can distinguish real-time light and shadow, VAT special effects, special effects hooks based on bone collisions, ragdolls and other technologies, but a boss battle stacks so many technical means that I also have some worries about its performance optimization. In addition, although this method can quickly impress the player and give it a shocking enough experience, the game development team needs to stay awake, and the longer vitality of the boss needs to be achieved through a more refined and humanistic design.

In the boss battle of "Yanyun", there are many ways to build pressure, basically the way of mainstream action games can be seen, looking up appearances, characteristic transitions, fast and slow knife changes, etc. In regular battles, a variety of special actions with different actions are used, forcing the player to observe carefully during the battle and make the right action at the right time. For example, in an agile boss "Heart Seeking", the boss will cast high-damage fast and slow knife skills, players need to identify the type of move by swinging forward, and then according to the animation performance, experience, intuition to find the correct timing to judge the move, this move is usually accompanied by a high damage penalty, any step of the judgment error may lead to the battle again, when the appearance is full of oppression.

The high-damage skills of slow knives give players a relatively large sense of oppression and excitement

Xunxin presents players with a high-pressure challenge of handling a combination of sudden advance + slow knife + borrowing, which strengthens the excitement of the battle

The above is the good side, the boss battle has reached a high-quality level in terms of expression and oppression while maintaining the overall realism of the game. But it cannot be ignored that the 5 bosses visible in this test are too different in their setting styles, and this difference is not in the plot setting, but in the consistency of the fighting style, which makes me have certain concerns about the subsequent boss design, if not handled well, the game will become a hodgepodge.

Battle detail design

2.1 Unexpected surprise: the collision box is not lazy and polished

In the domestic market, where 3A experience is relatively lacking, it is more challenging to polish the realism of action and action. When I was researching the Yanyun combat system, I deliberately experimented with their collision box design. Different from the three common processing methods in China (pure logical area judgment, attack-hit action point matching, attack physics simulation + simplified physical processing of hit), "Yanyun" collision box adopts a more close to 3A action game, the real physics judgment used by both the attacker and the victim is used, and the polishing has exceeded my original expectations, and has achieved a sufficiently fine level.

For example, "Elden Law Ring", "Monster Hunter" series, etc., all use this judgment method. In terms of performance, this judgment can achieve a more refined distinction between the hit position, and can accurately determine the intersection of the weapon's landing point and the enemy's body. In this way, the amount of work configured is theoretically much higher than that of the other three.

In addition, this method can bring more accurate strike damage determination, which can derive a dodge method based on the real weapon position, and players can directly dodge the boss's skills through different action mods in boss battles. This strategy is slightly difficult for beginners, but using it as a base to construct the entire combat performance and logic, its expansion space limit is high. "Yan Yun" can circumvent the leader's skills through low-ranking sword moves. The strategic dimension derived from the fine polishing of the collision box is believed to be able to play more amazing effects in the hands of action masters.

What you see is what you get, the boss's attacks collide with high accuracy and clear visual perception

When it comes to the delicate collision box, it has to be reminiscent of the amazing position control of the MH master

2.2 Introduce a toughness system to increase the realism of humanoid monster battles

In the early days, humanoid monsters often encountered problems during design, should they make humanoid monsters hard and straight when they were beaten? If the player can make the monster straight, there will be an embarrassing situation of succumbing to the boss all the time. The design of this part of "Yanyun" is believed to be more inspired by the soul series, combining toughness and combat with a benign combination. Such an example can be seen in Soul 3, where the leader of the nun who dies is also one of the classic scenes. In Nio, there is also a move of the spear car dead human, which is full of fun.

In Souls 3, players use tough straight weapons to directly unfairly succumb very difficult bosses to death

In the test version of Yanyun, you can see that the resiliency system has taken effect. Different weapons and attack methods can bring different toughness effects, and different attack sections under the same skill, the sharpening value matches the visual attack strength, and it is not exactly the same. Each monster also has its own toughness setting. You can take a look at my test results, assuming that the cumulative value of toughness of "Yanyun" is 100, then the monster is around 35-50, based on this vague standard, I tried to disassemble the toughness design of two martial arts different moves, and the more surprising thing is that it seems to be different from the data, and it can be seen that the game has done certain design and thinking.

However, it is a slight pity that the current version of "Yanyun" still needs a certain polishing in the numerical setting of toughness, and for mass players, it is necessary to give clearer teaching to lower the threshold of such mechanisms.

2.3 Introduce a bone vibration system to strengthen the distinction of hand feeling

In this test battle, when the monster is attacked, the hit effect will play on the part of the weapon cut, and based on this bone vibration system, a highly differentiated hit feedback prompt can be read from the monster during the battle, and the feel of the attack has been further enhanced thanks to this system.

The same system can look at the hardness distinction of Elden Law Ring horizontally, and when the player cuts the Furnace Knight in heavy armor, it feels like cutting into a piece of iron. However, when cutting a thin humanoid monster, the monster will have obvious hit feedback + hit direction feedback, so that the performance of the attack improves the feel of the battle, and also allows the player to perceive the characteristics of the monster more clearly. For example, although the classic palm monster of the old man ring looks very good to cut, it is actually cut up and does not move, at this time the player will perceive - this monster is quite hard, I have to think of some way.

Bosses will produce different swings depending on the direction of the player's attack

2.4 Some deficiencies in expressiveness

What can be seen is that in the version currently tested, there are still some deficiencies in performance in extreme cases. As shown in the figure, there are occasionally some minor problems when the boss's action and the player's attack intersect, which can be seen in the contact point of the special effect, the vibration screen of the action and other elements.

In some extreme cases, the boss will still have some unnatural swings

Similarly, the performance of the blocking move also needs some details polishing, such as the move of the blocking force, there should be a heavier block feedback, which is more impressive in the feedback of "Wolf" in the parrying lion ape.

Wolf's blocking design for special moves gives you a clear feedback on the next hit

However, from the current design of the boss battle, there should be many fans of deathmatch games in the development team, although many performance details still need to be polished, but the logic behind it is relatively similar, maybe in time you can see a better version.

Pre-war experience design

In "Yanyun", players can freely match weapons, martial arts, internal skills, and mental methods to customize their favorite combat style, and this BUILD construction design reminds me of the recently sold "Diablo 4". As one of the important grandfathers of BUILD, the Dark series still has a strong influence around the world. BUILD is also a proven choice for strong pre-war strategy design.

3.1 Weapons and martial arts systems – the core of the combat experience

The weapon system, as the bottom layer, determines what kind of martial arts the player can choose. The martial arts system is responsible for influencing the player's most core experience, and the system determines the moves the player can play. For example, in the same sword technique, using the nameless sword method to charge an attack will be a charge spurt, while using the Ten Books of the Arithmetic Ten Books will be a charge combo. This difference increases the differentiation of the same weapon, and for players who like swords, they can choose different moves to fight according to the feel, which is a bit like the interpretation of "Crouching Dragon" on the same weapon with multiple experiences - the same weapon has different moves, and you can choose freely.

The same weapon has different operations and focuses on different directions in battle according to martial arts

3.2 Internal power system - the core of the combat style

If the martial arts system determines how the player's basic experience is, the internal strength system determines the player's fighting style, aggressive players can choose offensive internal strength, and conservative players can choose survival internal strength, this test also saw that therapeutic internal strength can be chosen, I have to think of my days in "Monster Hunter" with wide-area filmmakers to give blood medicine to the bigwigs.

The internal strength determines the player's fighting style, which is equivalent to the basis of BUILD

3.3 Mental System – A powerful implementation of the freely constructed system

The Heart Method system was the system I had the most favorability when I came into contact with the pre-war strategy content this time. The Heart Method system is equivalent to the talent tree of the Dark series, and players can match their favorite combat style according to the situation. In this test, I repeatedly studied the mental system for racing, and finally paired up with a set of constructions around the execution of damage increase to enhance the character's racing ability in battle. When exploring the big world, I prefer to choose some mental methods that reduce endurance consumption and restore health to enhance the convenience of exploration.

The combination of martial arts, internal skills, and mental methods achieves the effect of 1+1>2 in battle

3.4 Although free, there are still shortcomings

In this test, although I praised the game for its freely constructed pre-war strategy system, there is still some room for improvement in the depth of strategy. In terms of "Diablo 4", which I have recently been addicted to, both the number of talent trees and the number of strategic choices of the peak disk are relatively higher than the current number of 2 martial arts + 1 internal strength + 4 mental methods. This led to the fact that "Yan Yun" still had some limitations in its pre-war strategic collocation. Of course, based on the background of the current first external test, the current number is still in a promising state in the future. It is hoped that the development team will pay more attention to the fun of players' free BUILD in the subsequent development process, and strive to allow players to achieve more combinations.

In Diablo 4, players face a wealth of strategic choices before the battle

In-war experience design

4.1 Support the combat experience of high-frequency decision-making with a variety of action means

In this test, it can be clearly felt that the logic behind "Yanyun" is in line with the high-difficulty mode of "Soul of Tsushima", that is, every shot needs to observe the situation, and the experience is also a bit like the choice design of a fighting game. Due to the boss's uncertainty, players need to confirm the leader's behavior every time they make a move and strive for the best decision.

Fast-paced combat with a variety of means

For example, in the process of fighting with Xinxin, the player cannot be too hasty in the next shot after each shot, but needs to check the action of Xinxin, if Xinxin has the possibility of blocking, the shot will lose resources and efficiency. If you are still in a state of behavior backwards after the shot, Xunxin launches a yellow circle special operation, which is likely to cause the player's death. This frequent decision-making design reinforces the sense of strategy and tension in battle, and also requires the player's concentration.

After overusing the attack, he could not take advantage of the situation, and was hit by the boss's throw

Because I spent a lot of testing time on the leader of the heart-seeking in this test, I will disassemble a heart-seeking racing logic here for your reference.

Rich action and in-battle strategy design increases the depth of the boss's challenging fun

4.2 Combat experience that makes decisions about your own stamina and your enemy's true qi (toughness bar).

In battle, players need to make decisions based on their stamina and the enemy's true qi:

When the enemy's True Qi is high, players need to consider what means to use to reduce the enemy's True Qi Strip, and if they can gradually complete this strategy while ensuring survival, so that their enemy's True Qi deficit enters a state of respite and gains a combat advantage

When the enemy's true qi is low, because emptying the enemy will produce a large hard straight, the player can behave more aggressively at this time, using blood exchange and other means to quickly beat the enemy into a state of respite and gain a combat advantage

The player's strategy revolves around their own stamina and enemy true qi

4.3 Emphasis on the fun of decision-making, both players and enemies have a variety of arrow-like strategic responses

As shown in the figure, the enemy will have a variety of behaviors to make response requirements to the player, and the game gives players a variety of coping methods, and "Yanyun" uses this design to strengthen the game feeling in battle. Similarly, each battle will be affected by this design to produce different variables, such as a yellow circle action that is also an enemy, and taking advantage of the situation or dodging to dodge will most likely cause the leader to take a different action in the future.

Enemies present multiple behavioral challenges to the player, and players have multiple ways to respond

Such an arrow response design will not make the player scratch their heads in battle, and each behavior of the enemy can have a clearer coping strategy. As the number of challenges increases, players have a deeper understanding of their own movements, as well as a deeper understanding of enemy movements and AI, and the battle will become more convenient, and the feeling of becoming stronger will follow.

However, in this test, the design of AI also has some shortcomings, monsters will frequently use counterattack means that cannot be dealt with when the player is close, it can be seen that although these details and experiences are harmless, they still need to be polished compared to top ARPG games. Only if the boss's behavior is rigorous, the player can have more fun challenging and the boss will appear more sane and logical.

This classic design is not too much of a problem in regions with more mature 3A pipelines, but for the Chinese market, which still needs to grow, it can be said that "Yanyun" has made more obvious progress.