Dauntless Pre-Alpha Combat Footage Thoughts

With the footage being out for some time now, I thought it’d be time to look at the combat shown and pick apart the things that stuck out. Of I’m still excited for the game’s Beta and actual release date, but it’s always important to understand everything is fallible. Even for pre-alpha footage, the combat shown does raise concerns and hopes.

Responsive Monsters

It wasn’t shown quite clearly in the announcement or Master the Hunt videos, but demonstrated fully here. The Behemoths do respond to the player’s attack as seen with Shrike - the giant Owl bear monster - being dunked whilst flying towards the Slayer. This is great as it means the gameplay will allow the player to perform some showstopping moments that can change the tide of the hunt. What’s also great is the demonstration of the monster’s attack patterns, slight nuances can be seen here and there of when to and not attack. Plus, who doesn’t love a well animated death?

Different Styles of Combat (Maybe?)

Easy to identify what attacks there are with the consecutive slashes, showcasing the sword’s combo slashes - potentially using Aether with the abundant bluish particles on each hit landing - and what looks like a combo finisher with the downward swing that slayed Shrike. Whether or not there’s a counter mechanic and just how much will the player be affected after being hit would be interesting to know. Early in the video at 0.13 the player stumbles back to the hit because of Shrike back-winging it. Whereas they stumble slightly at 0.42 -0.44 after Shrike attack glides at the the player. I did also notice a quite splatter of something during that hit, so maybe blood particles?

Lacklustre Hits

Taking me a few times rewatching the video to understand what was missing and maybe why the gameplay looked so sluggish was primarily down to the audio (and maybe the camera). If there’s something that makes combat meaty is the how the 12 principles of Animation are utilised. The camera slightly rumbles when the Axe charges up, but the problem with this piece of animation is that it looks rather bland which is partly due to the framing being quite zoomed out.

But what it doesn’t fully convey is power, the camera doesn’t ham up the impact and it sounds light and airy compared to an expected heavier tone. This also includes the roll animation looking long and sluggish. When compared to the attack of Shrike, it’s kinda scary what the overall timing and pacing of a fight will be. As the video continues playing, combat looks quite disjointed, it lacks fluidity after each hit - hanging there in a still animation state. Nothing denotes a rhythm that the player can follow and the slight noticeable animation snapping just makes it worse. This can easily fixed with some kind of blending animation, but with several frames of animation where the player’s not moving, it can make even a slow paced game look slower without.

Disconnected Audio

Maybe it was the audio chosen for the video, but any good design will feature audio to sell a moment. And that’s what’s lacking, music to match the rhythm of a fight. If Shrike is supposed to be the opening monster for the game, then there’s going to more room for error when it comes to game design and its audio being generic in tone as it’s going to most likely teach the player how to play. However, the subtleties of the audio let it down. It was when I pumped up the audio of the footage that I noticed the subtle grunts and nuances to make the player feel more responsive. But then the background music just sells melancholy with the low hum and slow beats of the drum, which sounds more like something you’d use transitioning from calm to boss fight.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the pre-alpha footage shows promise of the combat. If the pacing of the video is slowed down to deliberately showcase what the has to offer, then that’s well done. But, if that is the overall pacing then maybe things need to be sped up slightly. Watching the video at 1.25 and 1.5 times playback speed seemed make each attack and dodge flow better, but watching a video doesn’t mean playing the game. It might be that the game is actually more responsive, but what clearly is hindering the footage from really conveying both the player and behemoth’s attacks is the impact of each strike and audio to reinforce it.