Looking Back at Arkham City...COMBAT

[MontyPython]

Amazing idea !
Dogs who protect a compound and if the alarm goes off they release them to capture batman and you need to
fight them with a quick time event move or a gadget !
Another reason a Falcone/Sionis mansion would work...

Or the Arkham villains could have dogs.

All I have to say is I liked everything about the combat, so much better than Asylum.

[CRUZ]

Or the Arkham villains could have dogs.

All I have to say is I liked everything about the combat, so much better than Asylum.

Only joker has bud and lou and he's dead and so are they.
And i don't think a compound with rottweilers is two face or penguins style...
More like black mask or Falcone and if you would play as red hood you could break there jaws.
Comon you have to admit that would be a nice edition to the arkham series.

[MontyPython]

Only joker has bud and lou and he's dead and so are they.
And i don't think a compound with rottweilers is two face or penguins style...
More like black mask or Falcone and if you would play as red hood you could break there jaws.
Comon you have to admit that would be a nice edition to the arkham series.

Yeah, dogs would be a nice addition to the series.

[Neenah]

Yeah, dogs would be a nice addition to the series.

Dogs could be a similar type of enemies that the lunatics were in Arkham Asylum, they'd be there for 'scare factor' moments where they could jump out and surprise you. Would dogs then be countered the same? Slammed on the ground then taken out with a ground takedown?

[Batfan37]

You guys did a tremendous job with the combat in this game. Everything seemed improved, more animations, greater variation in enemies, more options with gadgets and takedowns. I personally didn't mind the ninjas and armored thugs, I thought they mixed up certain situations quite well, and the fact that you can take them out with the takedown, meant that you could choose an easier way to take them down for less points or a harder way for more. I hated blade/knife attacks at first, but now really like them since I mastered how to do them. I really like the environment moves. The acrobatics that the characters would do off of walls or putting a henchman's head in the wall all looked really good. Titan's I thought were better than Asylum, but could perhaps use a little more work, and the Leutenants I thought were great additions. I can but praise you for the combat in Arkham City, truly was superb, and it is hard for me to think what could be improved, but knowing you Rocksteady, you will probably add more amazing additions to the combat. The only thing I missed from Asylum combat wise, was being able to throw thugs, but the disarm/destroy and other special moves, more than made up for the lack of that.
Glad to see this thread as it is a good way to communicate with your fans, and shows us that you are thinking about another game, (which is extremely exciting for me) don't forget about story dlc though, I personnaly think that would be the cherry on top of what is already an excellent game. Well done for all the awards you have won, my personal game of the year. (and there has been some stiff competition this year) Asylum made me a fan of Batman and now I am buying books, watching old tv shows and really enjoying this amazing character and those around him. Thank you.

[Jomusar]

Great thread, ok:

Regarding combat I enjoyed every bit of it, from the new counters moves (using handrails, walls), the addition of more weapons in combat, double takedowns, blade takedowns and the new special moves felt great in the game.

My favourite thing about combat was disarm and destroy, I hope there are at least a couple of new special moves for the next game.

I agree with what someone else said, titans felt easier in fact fighting lieutenants felt more challenging and had more variation.

Features mmm well I'd really like to see the triumphal return of action camera glide kick, and possibly the addition of action camera in certain parts of combat.

Now I'm not sure about this but the titans in asylum would throw an inmate at you or do a ground pound. I have not seen this, perhaps titans can do these moves just like in Asylum but I think it gets completely overlooked because batman does not have to wait until the titans attack.

I think the flaw in Arkham city regarding titans, is that batman is given the ability to attack titans directly by means of the triple stun, making them far more vulnerable than in Asylum. In asylum you could use explosive gel to do some damage but it all comes down to waiting until the titan attacks.

A few things that I think might improve titans is the ability to throw pieces of walls or of the ground similar to what bane does in Asylum, do ground pounds every now and then. It would be cool if titans could jump and try to grab batman in the same way that grundy does in Arkham city though this would need a big environment.

Although I'm not a big fan of quick time events, a titan could do a kind of bear hug and batman would need to free of it.

Or let's say the triple stun could have less stunning time or in harder setting of the game, the stun move has to be recharge if use excessively in a short period of time. So we could use the stun on a titan followed by the batclaw but if we take too much time to use the batclaw the titan (as he's no longer stunned) can grab the line of the batclaw pull batman to him and again do a bear hug leading to another quick time event.

[SLI-756]

@SarahNinja
I like the current combat, the combos are really nice too.

[vigilante_by_night]

I'll try to refrain from bringing up much about combat without mentioning other aspects of the game as well.

New good additions to freeflow combat would be simultaneous counters, new combat animations, the batclaw slam, aerial attacks really added variety in how the player could take down enemies. I thought it was awesome in combat finishing off a thug with a batclaw slam, easily my favorite part.

Now I'm sorry most of what I mention is going to be negative, but I think that's the most important thing to list right here and now.

I thought that the combo Bat swarm and combo multi takedown shouldn't have been implemented the way they were, or just taken out of the game all together. Summoning a swarm of bats should be more of a predator thing, and the multi batarang takedown is way overpowered, and unrealistic to the point of absurdity. Batman jumping 10 feet in the air throwing a couple dozen batarangs at downed enemies not only made the frame rate take a nosedive, but also just seemed kind of ridiculous.

I didn't like the armored thugs and how you have to defeat the Titan Henchmen now, but those are much more minor gripes. I just especially hate having to use the triple stun with the beat down move on Titans, it sucked the joy out of fighting titans completely. But the thing that frustrates me the most is hitting unstun titans now breaks your combo count, and I always happen to hit them right as they transition out of being stun back to normal. And I know this isn't strictly a combat thing, but I just hated the fact that armored thugs are so invincible that it's cartoony. Just because these thugs have a steel plate strapped to their chest and are wearing nutcracker soldier hats means they are invulnerable to a 210 pound man dive bombing them at 80 miles per hour?

I wonder why enemies pick up objects and throw them at you, it seems like something almost no one would do if they were in a fight. For the standard goons it's fine, but or highly skilled mercenaries it's just not fitting.

The Catwoman DLC was okay, but it didn't add much to neither gameplay nor story. The gameplay was clunky, many times I would lose my combo count by trying to quick throw her bolas, her 'thief vision' had very little visibility, her missions came up through the story in very strange intervals, and her parts added nothing to the overall story.

And lastly is boss fights, I loved the gameplay in the Mr. Freeze boss battle. However, pretty much all the others were a bit underwhelming in terms of interaction. The Grundy, Ras Al Ghul, and Clayface encounters were cool to watch, but lacking in engaging gameplay. All the player would do is awkwardly spam the buttom combination for a quickfire gadget(explosive gel, REC, freeze blasts) and it would become monotonous and predictable.

But the one gameplay portion that truly baffled me why Rocksteady designed it the way they did was the Two Face encounter in the final Catwoman episode. I despise that Two Face is treated like a super human, he's just a regular man, a silent takedown knockout smash should take him out of the fight immediately. The respawning enemies that appeared out of nowhere was strange, and the entire time it's frustrating. The irritating thing about this is, every time I play Arkham City's story I'll deactivate my account so I don't have to play the Catwoman DLC. To be quite honest, I loved that Rocksteady decided to make her gameplay optional this way, because I would loathe having to play her sections of the game again. Rocksteady should've improved the quality for her parts of the game or just dropped the playable Catwoman component all together.

In purely a gameplay perspective, Arkham City is just as good as Asylum at the time of their releases. There are certain aspects that added to the game, and a few that took away. The combat was great in both games, but overall, combat situations were a bit more memorable in Arkham Asylum. There's my constructive criticism for Rocksteady.

[scottybro1970]

With the addition of some new moves added, combat is just fine the way it is in AC and should be left alone.

The only thing I didn't like was the same thing someone else mentioned about Titans, how your combo can get broken because they seem to recover too fast. I don't know how many times I have had big combo's built up, only to lose them when I tried to strike a titan. If that can be fixed, assuming titans are going to be in the next game, that would be great. Also, if a titan can be beat down just like a lieutenant, that would be sweet as well.

Other than what I just mentioned, combat is fine!

[Darkicity]

what i liked about the combat is pretty much everything! it was all really great and improved on from Arkham Asylum i think a great step forward for the combat would be more enviormental interaction in fights since it did so well in Arkham City. I think titans have a good run but hopefully they don't come out in the next game since all the Titan formula was destroyed by Batman already. My favorite part of combat was being able to counter 3 people at once especially the ninjas since the animations seems to be better countering them than usual henchen. I really loved the gadget quickfire button since they made the combat sooo much better and the best part was tha it looked all so fluid in animation. one thing that i kind of did not like was that when countering two people the counter move would get a bit repetive and i think there should be ALOT more animations in the next game like from Arkham Asylum to Arkham City and there should be more takedowns since there seems to be lacking variety in that area alot of the movces are reused from arkham asylum but other than that ITS A PERFECT GAME AND IS MY FAVORITE OF THE YEAR UNTIL THE NEXT GAME PROBABLY. wel done with this game it's still unbelievable to have a game this great! before this i was bored with video games thank you for making such a great game