Astoria Feedback

Aerial combat and combos in general

There are minor flaws that just require small adjustments and changes, but the overall problem of Astoria is that staying in the air comboing enemies doesn't require a deep learning process that involves intricate mechanics and inputs, which is partly what makes DMC great.

These are clips from a test build with reduced inertia in some moves:

This clip, however, was from the last demo version:

My playtime is probably between 1 and 2 hours, and something isn't right if I can do something cool with a minimal effort, let alone staying in the air for so long with very easy loops.

It's definitely not just 1 or 2 moves or loops. It's a much more fundamental issue. Some more examples (from the last public DEMO version; in the test build all this would be probably easier):

In DMC4 there are relatively easy and consistent loops with Dante, but they still require a minimal understanding of mechanics and practice that can take from days to weeks, or even months, depending on each person's previous experience and other variables. Let alone their sustainability. In most cases, they aren't loops that can be done for too long without another type of adjustment, like some height adjustment or even re-launching with ecstasy (to be fair, some of the loops shown above require adjustments too, but others barely need any).

Here is a loop I have showed many times in 4, even if it involves a motion modification:

Let's consider the actions for one cicle (coming from a previous cycle):

Gun shot -> Full House -> Style Switch to SM -> JC -> Style -> Style Switch to RG -> Left Stick backwards -> JC -> Style -> Style Switch to Trickster -> Left Stick forwards -> Style -> (Repeat).

13 actions.

Compare the actions for such a loop, that involved quite a lot of movement with simply pressing up/down and 1 button, and pressing one more at most for each cycle if you want to stabilize the character and enemy. In DMC such movement is dissected between a tech like FG and a teleport skill. And it's not only more rewarding; it still gives you more freedom and control options, since one can cancel FG at different points, for example.

The similar vanilla (or non-modified SE) loop is even harder, because it involves lucifer glitch and shotgun JC, where height and distance can get accumulatively messed up.

But these are complex loops that imply movement. What about more simple ones just to stay in the air...

Ok.

A simple starrave vs an airborne scarecrow requires 5 actions per cycle and speed to do it 2 - 3 times. Against a frost it can be done more times, but it's not easy for a new player.

The Full House -> Rave loop requires 7 actions too if we count weapon switching (sometimes an easier loop requires more actions, but even this one isn't that easy in comparison).

Gun raves may be simple and easy on paper, but you lose height quickly (actually that's their function). To be more sustainable one would have to use JCs in between.

One could say that the simplest one is just JCing rave against a frost... It's simply sliding between jump and style (technically 2 actions in one motion). But if you can't JC ecstasy to do it higher, another frost or other enemies can attack you if they aren't off-camera. Also you gain progressively height from each JC, which means that you have to adjust your height anyway.

DMC is not just about how it looks. We don't love it just because cool, creative and quick stuff happens on the screen, but also because of how rewarding is learning to do it.

It was me who suggested the removal of stamina in Astoria, to focus on natural limitations like in DMC (forcing the player to learn height and distance adjustments to stay longer in the air), but I am honestly not sure if it's possible to create such natural limitations easily at this point.

One of the most obvious answers to all this is: the game doesn't have to be like DMC to such a point. Anyway enemies have a different behavior in this regard and the game has a different philosophy, even if it clearly takes inspiration from DMC. Thus maybe my suggestion wasn't right after all, but I couldn't have guessed this without playing the game myself.

I am still not even sure now how it could be solved.

Minor observations (many already discussed/mentioned)...

- The character should be able to summon sword formations passively, and the swords shouldn't disappear if a cancel is used for an active action (they should be independent).

- JC should have less frames and gain less height. Even though it's in the current system not very meaningful overall anyway. I used it in only one of the loops to reset the aerial dashes, but even that one was possible without JC, because of the bug from the next point.

- Dashing in the air with certain timing allows infinite dashes (or maybe I am missing something myself and this is intended for the training room alone, but I doubt it).

- Interesting moves like the helmbreaker type of move or down+circle should be JCable with enemy's hitbox (they can be jump cancelled only with the ground itself).

- Air trick should be more precise and consistent regarding the location of the enemy, however, there is an interesting glitch that allows the character to do ground moves in the air, which should be kept if possible:

(Discovered by MeDo Kage).

- Enemies and bosses seem pretty good overall regarding their move-set (and leaving aside the main issue of the game that I explained more extensively). But (for me, at the very least) rigid enemies, like a plant throwing some projectile, or the small enemies that don't really require much reading and aren't good to combo anyway, should be kept at minimum. While it may have some things in common with Hollow Knight, this is clearly a very different game, and such enemies are more an annoyance.

- Glaive or Guard modes should be reflected in the character's model/animations after switching. For instance, if you are in glaive mode and you execute in the air the down+circle move, even though now you are in guard mode (with the corresponding move-set) and it's shown in the HUD, the model itself is still shown with the glaive.

- The forwards move with glaive has some overlapping with the down+triangle in terms of utility. It's supposed to have a positioning function similar to DMC's dive kicks, but I currently don't consider it useful enough. It should stun and maybe have some tracking. Other than that, it can be used to go past below the enemy and do something else, but again, down+triangle already has a similar function and it's faster, more consistent and stuns properly.

- The first tutorial map shouldn't have such height limits and platforms, but more of an open area with enemies to combo.

- Lock-on should imply pressing constantly (or have both options).

- It would be possibly better to make enemies bounce after helmbreaker (vertically). And maybe after the million stabs type of glaive attack (horizontally... both, from the air and from the ground).

- The projected slash from down+square should be more satisfying. And maybe make a hold version that could have another effect instead of launching (or the opposite... make the holding version a launcher, but the normal one just a stun projectile with some more satisfying effect when it hits).

- Glaive and Guard modes should be switchable with d-pad passively. This would also give more freedom to work with the move-set (to implement new moves or tweak the current ones).

- A more direct move with forwards knock back would be useful. Currently one has many launchers and re-lanchers, but knockback is more at the end of strings or long moves (not counting the backwards knockback from the sword).

- Zodiac (the range weapon) should be more meaningful. It can help with minor adjustments to stun, but one could really just skip it for the most part.