Knockdown: A Dev's Easy Way Out

[pankakes123]

You are probably looking at the title of this post and thinking "WTF?"

Here's what I'm talking about. So you're playing an action game and here comes an enemy. You just got a brand new sword and armor and you are ready to own it. However, the enemy is a common enemy to inflict knockdown, which knocks your character on to the ground. You hopelessly slam on your controller trying to get up, but you know it won't work. Eventually you die to the enemy, but you know it could have been an easy kill if your character stayed on his/her damn feet.

I've played a countless number a games that include just far too many enemies that inflict knockdown. It now seems like adding knockdown into games is just an easy way to add difficulty to the game, when in reality it usually is just unfair and frustrating. I don't hate all the games that include this by any means. Right now I'm playing Dragon's Dogma, which is my game of the year so far, but I feel the game could be so much more fair and mild in difficulty if it weren't for the fact that almost every enemy knocks you off your feet for a few seconds. What do you guys think of knockdown? Do you like it and how it adds a great deal of difficulty, or do you think it is just flat out unfair.

I'd say used lightly it is a good thing, but too many games go overboard with the concept.

[sabrage]

I thought this was going to be about Phil Fish being a douche.

[MrPopo]

I think it depends on if the disabling moves are exclusive to enemies or if you have equal access to them. If I can keep my enemies locked in hitstun just as easily as they can do so to me, then it becomes a reflex game of being the first to get the hit in, and it doesn't feel too bad. By comparison, one of Odin Sphere's flaws was that enemies frequently would not go in to hitstun, and it seemed random as to what they would flinch at and what they wouldn't. Then you combine that with attacks with overly long animation and it leads to a lot of cheaply lost health.