Andy B I donât understand stagger mechanics in action rpgs and at this point Iâm too afraid to ask. So Iâm attacking, and then they get staggered⌠and I keep attacking?
I think it matters a lot based on how the game in question implements them.
It kind of works for it at the end of the day, but, I think the way FFVIIR does stagger mechanics donât really paint them in the best light because itâs just kind of establishing a rhythm to the overall combat and kind of incentivizing the player to remember to put in some tactical variety into their combat routines. It doesnât take a rocket slime to figure out that if you get a time sensitive window with a generous damage multiplier that also incapacitates the enemy, youâll want to save your strongest attacks for that window. There is not a whole lot of pressure on the player to initiate a stagger, itâs generally understood that you can and will stagger an enemy eventually by continuing to attack them.
I think the best implementation of a stagger mechanic is found in two recent From Software games: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon. The main difference in implementation there is that there is a sort of psychological push and pull and a gameplay risk and reward to how a player achieves a stagger in the first place, because the rate at which any enemyâs stagger recovers is on a highly perceptible (and markedly quicker in comparison to, say, FFVIIR/FFXVI/heck even FFXIII) timeframe. You have to play with a certain aggressive attitude in order to stagger enemies consistently, or even stagger enemies at all. In Sekiro in particular you will make progress towards draining an enemyâs life bar (or bars, as is the case with pretty much all bosses) by hitting them with any attacks, but being relentlessly aggressive and achieving technical mastery over the gameâs systems enough to instead stagger enemies basically means youâre skipping the remainder of their life bar(s).
I think when âstagger mechanicsâ are done well it inspires that almost fighting game mentality of having to overwhelm an opponent and put them on a back foot in order to stagger an enemy. Again, I think there are a lot of ways FFVIIR and other games make it work anyway, or perhaps they cleverly craft the illusion of doing it the way that is more demanding on the player, but if you can maintain an enemyâs âstaggerâ without much effort, and outside of purposefully not engaging in combat mechanics there is little risk of an enemy ârecoveringâ their proximity to being staggered, itâs kind of just like a timer for when to do your big moves. So, in those cases, there isnât much to âget,â it really is a bit like a psychological trick to make it feel cool when the numbers get way bigger and the health bar drains way faster at a semi-regular rhythm and in a way that is fairly predictable and satisfying to achieve. And, just to reiterate, thereâs nothing wrong with this when itâs done well. Personally I cannot get enough of the numbers getting big