Contact Damage

[Koh]

This aspect of game design many rely on has become more and more irritating to me these days.  I've some reasons against this design decision, that I'll quote from my post on Soul Saver Online's forum below.

I've been playing this game for a little while now, and am Level 53.  The gameplay itself is decent, but as I've been playing, the levels of frustration have been increasing more and more because of this design aspect.  Contact damage for enemies in no way compliments the gameplay, nor the map design of this game.  Here's a couple of reasons to support my claim.

1.  In general, contact damage is a dated and lazy way out of making defined attack animations for each and every enemy.  Back in the early days of gaming and the 8-bit era, memory was very expensive and limited, meaning there was only so much memory available to use to have all the graphics required to make a complete game, such as tile graphics, character graphics, Heads Up Display (HUD) graphics, and so on.  So contact damage was a way to save resources such that memory could be used for other aspects of the game.  Since the 16-bit era, however, games have arisen that no longer ran into the issue of memory in regards to contact damage, such as Secret of Mana, a game released nearly 20 years ago.  This game, along with many others, did not have to rely on contact damage to save memory; every enemy had a defined attack animation and range, such that the player can clearly see when and where an enemy is attacking.  If a nearly 20 year old game can accomplish this with far less resources available than we have today, there's absolutely no excuse for games in this day and age to rely on contact damage.  This game already sports defined attack animations for enemies, so that's already in place.  There's no need to have contact damage stacked with this, unless it makes sense for the enemy's design.  For example, Keburi monsters that are basically living fires.  Touching fire hurts, so it makes sense there, or a monster covered in spikes.

2.  In most cases, it does not compliment the game design.  Especially in regards to MMOs like this one, Soul Saver Online, where enemies are randomly respawning on the current map.  Since they hurt by touch and do that, unsuspecting players take unnecessary damage, which could even kill them, just because they didn't have any reaction time, nor could they see, the enemy spawning on top of them.  That in and of itself is a bad game design aspect.  Also, the map design in this game features of lot of areas with tight corridors, or even just a bunch of enemies on platforms, where it's near impossible to traverse the map without taking damage.  Assassins have the great solution of Hiding to this, but that's not available to every class, nor can you use it in the Avatar form.

Contact damage was a necessity on early consoles and 8-bit machines for memory reasons.  The 16 bit era proved it is no longer necessary, so there's no reason one would need to rely on it in this day and age.

[TomGuycott]

I think that it is dependent on the game in question, and frankly not many modern games use that unless it is a throwback, a series staple or just complementary to the design.

Clearly you've been burnt by this game's use of it, though.

[Tellis]

This aspect of game design many rely on has become more and more irritating to me these days.  I've some reasons against this design decision, that I'll quote from my post on Soul Saver Online's forum below.

I've been playing this game for a little while now, and am Level 53.  The gameplay itself is decent, but as I've been playing, the levels of frustration have been increasing more and more because of this design aspect.  Contact damage for enemies in no way compliments the gameplay, nor the map design of this game.  Here's a couple of reasons to support my claim.

1.  In general, contact damage is a dated and lazy way out of making defined attack animations for each and every enemy.  Back in the early days of gaming and the 8-bit era, memory was very expensive and limited, meaning there was only so much memory available to use to have all the graphics required to make a complete game, such as tile graphics, character graphics, Heads Up Display (HUD) graphics, and so on.  So contact damage was a way to save resources such that memory could be used for other aspects of the game.  Since the 16-bit era, however, games have arisen that no longer ran into the issue of memory in regards to contact damage, such as Secret of Mana, a game released nearly 20 years ago.  This game, along with many others, did not have to rely on contact damage to save memory; every enemy had a defined attack animation and range, such that the player can clearly see when and where an enemy is attacking.  If a nearly 20 year old game can accomplish this with far less resources available than we have today, there's absolutely no excuse for games in this day and age to rely on contact damage.  This game already sports defined attack animations for enemies, so that's already in place.  There's no need to have contact damage stacked with this, unless it makes sense for the enemy's design.  For example, Keburi monsters that are basically living fires.  Touching fire hurts, so it makes sense there, or a monster covered in spikes.

2.  In most cases, it does not compliment the game design.  Especially in regards to MMOs like this one, Soul Saver Online, where enemies are randomly respawning on the current map.  Since they hurt by touch and do that, unsuspecting players take unnecessary damage, which could even kill them, just because they didn't have any reaction time, nor could they see, the enemy spawning on top of them.  That in and of itself is a bad game design aspect.  Also, the map design in this game features of lot of areas with tight corridors, or even just a bunch of enemies on platforms, where it's near impossible to traverse the map without taking damage.  Assassins have the great solution of Hiding to this, but that's not available to every class, nor can you use it in the Avatar form.

Contact damage was a necessity on early consoles and 8-bit machines for memory reasons.  The 16 bit era proved it is no longer necessary, so there's no reason one would need to rely on it in this day and age.

Hey, quoting your post with the color tags removed so people on the Dark theme can actually read it without highlighting the whole thing. You should probably edit out the color tags on your post (especially if they're black! what's the point?) as well.

As for the actual use of it... it still has its purposes in platformers (which Soul Saver, on top of looking like a MapleStory clone, seems to be emulating somewhat) and similar games where combat is not meant to be engaging. In games with contact damage, the gameplay is instead focused on avoidance of enemies, or defeating them from a distance. Obviously since combat options for the player in this game are much more fleshed out than a normal platformer (and it's upclose for melee classe), I can see how the mismatch here in design philosophies could cause problems.

Though honestly, from the looks of the gameplay, it kind of just seems like the developers were too lazy to add enemies with actual attack patterns other than "bump into you", especially since the enemies seem to have attack animations that don't actually affect hitboxes or do extra damage. It just seems like bad game design in this specific game rather than an excuse to write off an entire enemy design type for every game in every genre.

[Kriven]

It depends on the game... Koopas shouldn't ever have to punch Mario to hurt him (Super Smash Bros. aside).

To be honest, I've been screwed over more by games with attack animations that don't line up with their hitboxes than games with contact damage. At least in the games with contact damage you're conditioned from the get-go to approach combat in a specific manner, games with poor attack animations are often confusing and frustrating. Particularly when you have instances where the enemy objects don't have any knockback and just keep going through their attack animation while the hero character is finishing up his.

[Koh]

Fixed it, sorry about that.  I often copy paste thread posts I make on other forums to here, and it seems to carry formatting from that entry box over for some reason, even though I haven't used any text formatting options manually.

I think a legacy reason is a rather poor reason to defend this design choice honestly.  Just like it'd be a bad reason not to undergo any change in life.  "It's always been that way."  Doesn't mean it can't be changed for the better, no?

Mario never had intricate combat, however, it did have situations where bullshit did come up from contact damage and enemy placement...especially in Super Mario Bros 3, NES or SNES.  All the Castlevanias, more specifically the arcade style ones, most definitely had their fair share of this as well.  And in cases like Ninja Gaiden, where knockback is also an issue, it just makes for an ungodly frustrating playthrough of a game that would otherwise not even be that difficult.  You could call it a form of Fake Difficulty.

[Kriven]

Mario 3:

Are you specifically referring to that bullshit where the tail-swipe attack didn't always kill the enemy but would often harm Mario instead?

[Koh]

Perhaps, but more specifically just the placement of some enemies versus how fast Mario would be headed there before the screen reveals they're there, or when Mario is going in pipes that go off screen, and when he emerges from the pipe, takes contact damage from something the player has no way of seeing ahead of time.

One case in point: https://youtu.be/Y5wK5Z23hoo?t=162

[Kriven]

That doesn't really demonstrate the pitfalls of contact damage as much as it does the pitfalls of poor level design...

[Koh]

A bit of both really. They shouldn't have put them there if they know Mario gets hurt by touch, yes. But on the flipside, if he didn't get hurt by touch, the placement would be fine, and the player would at least have had a window of reaction time to escape that situation somehow, before the Koopas clobbered him with whatever attack.

[TomGuycott]

It still sounds to me like one game with a poor design choice to use contact damage is dictating a vehement decision on your part that all forms of contact damage is bad.

I stand by what I said that there is a time and a place for it.

[Koh]

I don't disagree with that though o.o. As I've already said, it makes sense in some scenarios. Touching an enemy covered in spikes, touching an enemy made of fire, getting hit by an enemy that's rushing you with a charge attack, getting squashed by a bouncing heavy enemy...those all make sense. What doesn't make sense is getting hurt by touching an enemy that's just standing there, casually walking back and forth, or just flying aimlessly.

[puggsoy]

I don't disagree with that though o.o.  As I've already said, it makes sense in some scenarios.  Touching an enemy covered in spikes, touching an enemy made of fire, getting hit by an enemy that's rushing you with a charge attack, getting squashed by a bouncing heavy enemy...those all make sense.  What doesn't make sense is getting hurt by touching an enemy that's just standing there, casually walking back and forth, or just flying aimlessly.

I'm gonna be honest, I think "doesn't make sense" is a bit of a lazy argument. Mario is a plumber who jumps on sentient mushrooms with legs and hits floating blocks that produce coins. You can't tell me that in such a universe contact damage "doesn't make sense".

In a realistic game, that is trying to be realistic, then yes the mechanics should ideally be realistic and make sense. But in a lot of games (if not most), simply "making sense" is not a large concern.

I agree with TomGuycott, it really does depend on the game. Art style, gameplay, design. Also, even if hardware isn't as restrictive nowadays, budget and resources still are, especially for indie developers. Sometimes you just don't have the budget to hire an animator, or the engine you use just works best with contact damage (e.g. if you use a platformer engine that already has built-in enemy mechanics).

Seriously, just like any aspect of a game, there are so many factors that affect whether contact damage is acceptable or not. Sometimes people will use it badly, but that doesn't mean the mechanic itself is bad.

[Koh]

 You can't tell me that in such a universe contact damage "doesn't make sense".

Actually, I can, as it's one of the defining examples of the trope, hehehe.   Now, it may affect some people's Willing Suspension of Disbelief more than others, but for me mostly it begs the question of what actually happened to them.  It's not like a censor box just pops up over the characters to hide the fact something happened back there, it just...happens, lol. *touch a wall, nearly have a heart attack* Could be a catalyst for Fridge Logic in some scenarios because of that.

[puggsoy]

I could make the same argument for the collection of coins/items/powerups by simply touching them. It's exceedingly common and accepted, even though it "makes no sense". It's just a better mechanic than having an animation, and collision damage is the same deal. The reason the former doesn't get complained about is because it's beneficial to the player and doesn't annoy people, but it really isn't any more logical than collision damage. So I don't think "making sense" is a legitimate argument.

Again, it has to do with design, and depends on the game. Avoiding an enemy that damages you upon touch is much different than dodging animated attacks. And although you could say that spikes and fire are a better indicator of this, well, it's not exactly nice if every game that has this has all their enemies covered in spikes or on fire, or has some other obviously damaging feature. Besides, these are used for different effects (e.g. unable to jump on, burn damage, etc).

I do agree the collision damage is a stupid and nonsensical decision in some cases, but it's not a straight-up bad mechanic.

[Koh]

Yeah, it's not a bad mechanic overall. It just leads to some incredibly frustrating moments at times with its presence. For example, you're playing any of the Stiffvanias, and are playing the weave game no problem. Dodging all the projectiles and Medusa Heads or whatever coming at you. Then that one point happens when you jump, successfully dodge one or more projectiles and since you're stuck in that arc until you land, get hurt by something that just so happened to casually end up where your intended point of landing was. Or how about when your character becomes a tennis ball? Small windows of invincibility, such that when you get touched by an enemy and knocked back, you're doomed to take a 2nd or even 3rd hits from other enemies, because you had no reaction frames between the touch damage of each kicking in. Or even worse, in games like Megaman, where stuff flies into the screen without any sort of signal, so that unless you've memorized the level design through trial and error, or just having done it before, you'll take a lot of hits unnecessarily. Gridsnapped games, like the first StarTropics, where you're always sliding around because your character is trying to stay on some invisible grid. Often leads to him sliding right into enemies trying to stay on it, and said enemies are otherwise just standing there or moving at a snail's pace.