Combat Design: "Guardcharge"

In games such as Souls-like and other ARPGs, wielding a weapon, blocking and parrying are often not all possible with every arsenal choice. Depending on each weapon’s set skills, some can block, some can parry, and some can do neither because the button that would be used for them is busy with another special move. This complexity is doubled when wielding weapons on both hands (either dual-wielding or simply equipping a weapon and shield): It’s just too much for a gamepad (or a brain) to handle.

In real life, one would be perfectly able to block, parry and attack with both sword-hand and shield-hand. In these types of games, however, players who don’t want to sacrifice any of these possibilities must equip different weapons that can do some of these, and switch between them as needed, which is counterintuitive to say the least.

But what if attacking, blocking and parrying could all be done with the same button? Here I propose to make melee combat dynamic and satisfactory, full of clashes and clangs and sparks rather than roll-dodges, by unifying complex actions into simple button hold-and-release, relying more on timing rather than finger memory.

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