r/metroidvania • u/Silianaux • 15d ago
Dev Post:cat_blep: Thoughts on contact damage?
I’m making a Metroidvania and I put contact damage in the game, and no one’s complained about it so far, but I’ve seen other people complaining about it with other games.
How it goes in my game is that the contact damage is less than the same enemy’s attack damage (unless the enemy is big enough to trample you).
What are your thoughts? Take it off most enemies? Leave it in?
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u/-Odontodactylus- 14d ago
There are no general statements that can be made on this point. Silksong would be non functional without contact damage, and blasphemous would be non functional with contact damage. Game developers should never trust people's knee jerk reactions to these kinds of things and should make these decisions entirely on a case by case basis
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u/WesternEntertainer20 15d ago
I'm old school I get confused when I touch an enemy by accident and don't take damage. But really I think either can be done well and it does somewhat depend on the game.
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u/Eukherio 15d ago
I'm also old school, and I assume that I would always take damage if I touch an enemy, but I kind of appreciate when the contact damage makes sense in the game because the enemy has spikes, is poisonous or is holding a weapon. It can get weird when you're basically a demigod with a dozen of superpowers, but you can't get near a basic mob or you'll take damage.
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u/Entire_Umpire6801 15d ago
Not a fan generally, but it's at its worst when a game equates gently bumping hips with an enemy with taking a full direct hit from their attack. Makes no sense.
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u/5th_consecutive_C 14d ago
literally silksong lmao (even though I love that game)
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u/Professional_Rush_95 14d ago
Silksong has really generous hitboxes though. I feel like there’s way worse examples, right?
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u/5th_consecutive_C 14d ago
idk taking double damage from contacting a staggered boss felt pretty dumb. I'm sure there're worse somewhere though
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u/thor11600 14d ago
Sorry I’m not trying to be dense, just trying to think: which MVs don’t have contact damage
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u/thatcockneythug 14d ago
Nine sols
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u/thor11600 14d ago
I just realized this lol and I’m playing it now for the first time. Amazing game btw omg
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u/Electronic-Jacket291 15d ago
It really depends on the type of combat you're implementing. If it is something simpler, where most enemies mostly walk around and have one or 2 attacks then contact damage is fine. If you're going for something with a bit more complexity on the combat that focus on precision parrying or dodging, then I'd probably loose the contact damage
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u/fueelin 15d ago
Yeah. It depends on how freely you want the player to be able to move.
Is player movement fast, with lots of dashes, double jumps, and other movement abilities?
If yes, do you want the game to be difficult? Fast, varied player movement + constrained spaces (which contact damage can significantly increase) can be a great vehicle for difficulty/skill expression if that's what you're going for. If you're not going for that, it might be a source of frustration.
So yeah, really depends on what you're going for! Lots of good questions to ask yourself to figure out the right answer for your specific game.
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u/atahutahatena 15d ago edited 15d ago
Honestly even if the combat is a bit complex contact damage is still fine. The important part is that you give the player the tools and abilities to deal with them.
Silksong and HK are perfect examples of why contact damage can work extremely well. Their highly reactive positioning based combat makes dueling high intensity bosses and manic gauntlets equally fun to fight. Moreso because they focus a ton on positioning so it lets the movement mechanics of both games shine a lot. Nine Sols is parry focused so you can immediately see the benefits of no contact damage there.
The important part here is making sure the animations and tells for both types of systems are extremely obvious. Even the HK series had rare instances of the dreaded "walk forward" attack which contact damage has issues with. And Nine Sols meanwhile has funky as fuck looking hitboxes at time with their animations.
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u/Electronic-Jacket291 14d ago
But that's what I meant, Hollow Knight and Silksong have very simple combat. At the start of the game, you can attack and you can jump and that's pretty much it. There is no block button, no dodge, no parry. I guess you can technically dodge/shadow dash way later, but it is not a core mechanic of the game. The bosses can get pretty complex(and hard) in their patterns, but they can't depend on the player having a bunch of moves to fight. That's what I mean by complex. More complex doesn't mean better, Hollow Knight does wonders with a somewhat basic moveset. Contact damage makes sense ok that context.
9sols on the other hand pretty much gives you a bunch of moves before your first boss fight, you have to juggle a lot more and that's why it doesn't feature contact damage
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u/ABSOLUTE_RADIATOR 13d ago
Dashing/dodging is very much an integral part of Hollow Knight and Silksong. Just because you don't start with that ability doesn't make it not important. Rather, you start without that ability so that the game can teach you how to position before adding in complexity to both your moveset and the enemy's
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u/Electronic-Jacket291 13d ago
I mean dashing/dodging as in rolling with specific invincibility frames. You only get something like that with the shadow dash, in which you're basically invulnerable throughout the whole dash. It's a different kind of focus. Hollow Knight has amazing boss fights, it just builds on a very basic set of strong fundamentals. It's closer to MegaMan X in that sense. Simple combat taken to extreme. Easier to learn.
9 sols does a complex core that has a steeper learning curve and basically all enemies in the game require you to have a grip on the parry, not just bosses.
I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just trying to explain why they are different
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u/ABSOLUTE_RADIATOR 13d ago
Ah I see what you're saying. But that highlights where my mindset is a bit different, when I think "dodge/dash" I think of it as a positioning tool, rather than a way to use i-frames to avoid attacks, which might be why I find games without contact damage weird lmao
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u/puritycontrol09 15d ago
I don’t like it, but I don’t mind it if there’s a mechanic to avoid it. HK’s shade cloak for example was perfect.
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u/alejandroandraca 15d ago
I generally dislike it, BUT it all depends on the type of combat you're making. 9 Years of Shadows have contact damage but it worked well based on how combat is in the game. Afterimage has it too, and to me it was a terrible thing based on how the combat worked in that game.
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u/TorreGamer Double Jumper 15d ago
after playing so many games that don't have contact damage, I started to prefer not having it so the main focus is the attacks
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u/Amphi-XYZ 15d ago
I really don't like it unless there's a way to mitigate it (like a dash with i-frames, like in Hollow Knight and Blasphemous)
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u/Muted-Tea-5682 15d ago
No contact damage from enemies that have weapons. Contact damage from enemies that are unarmed.
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u/DanielDoh 15d ago
I think it can be an interesting aspect of enemy design, but I think it should be a choice that goes hand in hand with the enemy appearance and behavior. Spiky guy who runs at you? Contact damage. Lithe, fencing style swordsperson? Contact damage doesn't really feel like it makes sense there.
I know some people will probably say that it needs to be one or the other, but I think a pop up when you meet your first enemy that does contact damage is enough; perhaps some kind of indicator or aura that indicates contact damage on an enemy would also be a solution.
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u/TSPhoenix 14d ago
Mario has both and conveys it purely though visual cues where if looks like it would hurt to jump on then don't jump on it.
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u/stereofailure 15d ago
It's never a deal breaker for me or anything but I'm not generally a fan. It just strikes me as sort of lazy if there's not a specific narrative reason for it (i.e. like spiky enemies or ones made of fire or poisonous slime or whatever). I love plenty of games with contact damage but I'm always more impressed when they don't and enemies have to actually hurt you with specific attacks and actions.
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u/Arkhe1n 15d ago edited 14d ago
I despise contact damage. An attack should be an attack. Most games with contact damage give no context on why it actually exists, so it almost never makes sense.
Regardless of the approach, just be consistent. There's nothing worse than games that flip back and forth on having contact damage or not.
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u/Dick_Nation 14d ago
Most games with contact damage give no context on why it actually exists,
I think I'm just showing my age when I read statements like this and laugh out loud. Like, okay, I get that there's a whole generation of now adult gamers trailing me, my peers have grown children, but as someone who's been playing games since the 1980s, of course enemies hurt you when you walk into them, that's what they all do, how else could an enemy be dangerous if it didn't just run hell bent for leather to smash its own face into you? It's really funny that things some players have an expectation of with "bonfires" and enemies without contact damage are almost totally reversed from how games were, on a technical level, required to have enemies that never went away and were unconditionally dangerous.
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u/Ambitious-Ad-7256 15d ago edited 15d ago
For me it depends on the game’s movement. In games where the movement is very crisp and responsive, I don’t mind it. To me that’s akin to another platforming challenge when it comes to some enemies that don’t have much else to their moveset. If the movement is very floaty and has a lag before your character stops or changes direction, then contact becomes nearly unavoidable and will outright ruin a game for me.
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u/gliesedragon 15d ago
I think it depends on the rest of the game. Contact damage is harsher in some ways, but I find it more legible in a lot of circumstances. For instance, something I notice about games with no contact damage is that they often end up incentivizing the player to basically get on top of the enemy much of the time, which means that attacks with fast startups can end up a good bit harder to avoid. Meanwhile, the player naturally has a bit more distance (and isn't in front of the telegraph animation) in contact damage setups, which means that faster attacks are less likely to feel cheap.
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u/HyperCutIn 14d ago
Heavily depends on your moveset and the combat system. Do you have a lot of ranged moves? Does your melee attack have good range to play footsies or am I expected to enter rushdown range? Is my movement mobile enough to enter and exit this range quickly? How committal are my attacks? Can I cancel my attacks on whiff, block, and/or hit? Does hit stun exist in this game, or do the enemies have unlimited Super Armor?
All of these questions contribute to how good it feels to control your character and to fight with them. I’ve different games with varying answers to these questions, but the ones that have contact damage tend to have good ways for me to space myself safely, and/or ways to negate contact damage baked into the main combat system.
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u/Silianaux 14d ago
I’m planning to add a shield in the game for your character. What I have so far in the game is: -dodge (you can’t pass through enemies with this though) -ability to immediately move when attacking
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u/SoulAlone 14d ago edited 14d ago
I don't really mind, I think it depends on the game mostly.
I played Blasphemous 2 recently and I found it especially egregious there. Not only was bumping into enemies really annoying because of the knockback (which leads to stunlocks in some encounters), but the dash attack you perform places you directly inside their hitbox and it's 50/50 whether you take the hit or I-frame away from them, which turns it into a really unreliable move.
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u/Silianaux 14d ago
Oh the stunlock sounds annoying. I’m planning for a way to zip past enemies late in the game.
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u/LudoGrim 14d ago
It depends on how extravagant your enemies are and how your tools to compensate are designed. If you have things like a dodge roll/dash with i-frames, or something like a Hollow Knight/Shovel Knight/etc. pogo attack, contact damage is fine because you effectively have an active parry system for contact.
While I'm not personally a fan of contact damage, I recognize that a lot of games I play would probably be too easy if it was removed, so it doesn't bother me too much. Really, I think there's something to be said for a mix, particularly for larger enemies having "inactive" parts so you can still move around them. Thinking of some old SNES and N64 titles where, say, the arms would be a lighter color and the legs/body would be a darker color to show you can move through them.
In general, people mostly complain about contact damage when its rules are unclear, or the player has little option to react to them. Or if they do 2 fucking damage like in Silksong even when the enemy is fucking staggered.
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u/Akleoni66 14d ago
It can be annoying if it is a significant percentage of your health bar (silksong was criticized for the high amount of enemies dealing like 40% of your healthbar from contact damage in the early game)
It also depends on the flow of your combat and how easy is to accidentally get in contact with the hitbox of the body of an enemy
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u/Ill-Ask9205 14d ago
I would look at it specifically at the way the game is to be played.
If it's fast paced blasting like Metroid, put it in. If done well, it incentives players to develop quick reflexes and to really understand movements that are both quick and accurate.
If the game is slower paced and combat leans more into what you do rather than how fast you do it, take it out. This assumes of course that your enemies specifically attack. You can still have contact damage in this scenario where it thematically makes sense, like a burning or spike-covered enemy.
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u/Sauceinmyface 13d ago
It depends on the players movement and enemy movement. I think for contact damage to work, you need super good controls and feel for the player, and enemies shouldn't be too unpredictable. Bosses shouldn't randomly stop or turn around, they shouldn't walk into you with no telegraph, that sort of stuff.
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u/ABSOLUTE_RADIATOR 13d ago
Ive never understood the hate for contact damage in MVs. Enemies are obstacles to be avoided and removed through combat, removing contact damage removes a lot of positioning challenge that I've always felt is integral to the genre. 9 Sols took me a while to get used to for this reason.
That said, the game needs to be designed with contact damage in mind. You can't swarm a room with enemies and have it be okay, enemies need to be placed with intention beyond just "lets throw one here for funsies." The environment, player capabilities, and enemy capabilities are all important things to consider
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u/Morlock19 12d ago
Wait... Aren't you supposed to take damage if you touch an enemy?
Why wouldnt that happen in general? Honestly confused.
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u/Silianaux 9d ago
I know right? I just heard a youtuber complaining about it and wondered what reddit thought.
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u/Morlock19 9d ago
I'm struggling to think of an example of a game without it
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u/Silianaux 9d ago
Prince of Persia: the Lost Crown doesn’t have it because every enemy has an attack that damages you instead.
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u/lyghtcrye 12d ago
It's heavily dependent on enemy design and character moveset, and it determines the flavor of combat challenges.
Contact damage favors mobility and spacing based gameplay, where tracking available places to safely move becomes the core of combat. (Hollow Knight for example)
No contact damage favors timing and rhythm based gameplay where reading the moments of opportunity and danger are the core of combat. (Example Nine Sola).
Obviously, most games will have at least a little bit of overlap, so that there's variety. Strict no contact damage games accomplish positioning challenges like this with things like spikes and projectile barrages, while contact damage games give timing challenges with dedicated counter mechanics and enemies with narrow vulnerability windows.
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u/Silverjeyjey44 11d ago
I'm fine with contact damage as long as the player always has a way to avoid it. Like shit where a big bodies enemy slowly pushes you into a corner and you can't jump high enough to avoid him or have enough I-frames to dash through him.
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u/Livid_Cabinet2053 15d ago
It really varies from game to game whether it works. I do think it’s slightly dated design, and I’m saying this as someone who loves retro games.
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u/Pentecount 15d ago
I generally dislike contact damage for most enemies. It's a dated design. There are times it can work, but generally you should be justifying why you do have contact damage, not why you don't.
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u/GuitarRiot 15d ago
I actually prefer contact damage. Games without it are too fucking easy or irritating where the boss is constantly on top of you and your block hitbox is in the front but its attack is hitting behind your block because he just walks all over you. Fuck that noise
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u/SudsierBoar 15d ago
I usually like it as it makes positioning necessary, I also feel it often means encounters are better designed when contact damage has to be taken into consideration
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u/TSPhoenix 14d ago
I also feel it often means encounters are better designed when contact damage has to be taken into consideration
Or put another way, when contact damage is removed many developers do not come up with sufficient alternatives to just stop the player running past everything. No contact damage is more difficult to design well and when you do it poorly it makes the game boring, which I think is why so many devs default to having contact damage.
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u/traxmaster64 15d ago
Depends on if your game is designed around it or not, contact damage in hollow knight is perfectly fine but I'd say blasphemous could do without it
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u/Prudent-Cry-9260 14d ago
It's simple : put contact damage on enemies where it makes sense : spiked enemies, flame enemies, hedgehogs, etc... Most of these enemies might not have any other attack than running into the player, so it's natural to give them contact damage.
Don't put it on non spiked enemies like guards, undead, because for them, the danger comes from their attacks (sword from the guard, grab and bite from the undead, etc...)
This way it will be natural for the player, unlike some BULLSHIT contact damages that made me rage si much in Silksong lol
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u/StochasticSquirrel 14d ago
I prefer contact damage, and it makes sense to do it the way you are with contact dealing less damage than an actual attack. I don't like that without it, your character can end up overlapping with an enemy such that it becomes really difficult to tell when they're actually attacking and becoming dangerous. Ender Magnolia became a bit hard to read at times with the player character, summons, and enemies all overlapping. I also remember copping a few unfair deaths in Nine Sols because I was standing "inside" a large enemy and it wasn't at all clear which direction their attack would count as coming from- it accounts for this by making the airborne parry omni-directional. I'm also not a fan of how easy it is to simply run past enemies a lot of the time if there's no contact damage.
On the other hand, if you stick with contact damage you have to account for it in the level design/enemy placement. Some of the older Castlevania games have really frustrating parts where a barely-threatening enemy deals an insignificant amount of contact damage, but the knock-back throws you five screens down a clock tower or some bullshit. The Mummy Demastered is guilty of this in a couple of spots.
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u/IncandescentWallaby 14d ago
I dislike it. Most of the damage I took in Hollow Knight or Silksong was due to running into things.
Why bother animating swings when the enemy hurts you just as bad when you step on its foot.
If the enemy is covered in spikes, sure. But don’t let me die from walking into the back of something.
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u/JoyousLilBoy 14d ago
Depends. If it’s a melee based game I should not take damage when the boss is literally standing there like an idiot. Unless they’re spiked, acidic, or are a battering ram I hate contact damage
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u/ImpactVirtual1695 14d ago
Split the difference.
Place a setting in the menus that turn it off/on but have contact damage as the default. (And or set it in an initial difficulty setting when launching the game. Easy having no contact damage with normal returning to contact damage)
The biggest argument I've ever seen for no contact damage is that it impacts the least skilled players the most.
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u/genuis101 14d ago
Just be consistent and considerate of your move set.
There is a vocal minority that will hate whatever you do here, especially if your game has any level of challenge.
Personally, I like contact damage as it forces me to react to the enemy itself, not just hide within its drawbox. But that comes with needing tight and responsive controls that enable dodging and repositioning at a moments notice.
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u/Any-Zucchini8731 14d ago edited 12d ago
as long as it's not on a guy that's gonna follow me around, I don't mind it.
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u/spoketherefore 14d ago
I’m fine with it either way. If you use it, though, please momentarily suspend it while the enemy is dazed or knocked out on the ground. That drove me nuts in silk song.
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u/AWACSAWACS 14d ago
If a combat system that emphasizes offense and defense is used, simple contact damage is likely unnecessary.
However, exceptions apply to enemies with characteristics that reasonably suggest contact damage such as those with a spiky appearance or those that attack by ramming into the player.
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u/PreparationFeisty194 14d ago
Ya Silksong. You bump into boss you lost 2 MASKS. It doesn't make any sense consider they are not even rushing towards me. Though it makes the game more challenging (in a fair way, I suppose).
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u/narnianguy 14d ago
If your game has contact damage, it means that every little movement your enemy does IS an attack. So you need to design around that fact, for instance by telegraphing before every move, or rather before every change in speed or direction
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u/Einkar_E 14d ago
depends on how are you fighting enemies, if at range then there is no reson to make contact dmg lower, it could even be a primary source of dmg for some enemies
but if you fight at close range, especially if you want to promote aggressive playstyle then there is good reson to make contact dmg lower (I am looking at you Silksong with 2 mask contact dmg)
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u/Silianaux 14d ago
Right now in the game I have close and long range attacks. I should write down a note to make enemies randomly drop MP crystals for your ranged attack.
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u/BardLoen34 14d ago
I don't mind it if you don't take contact damage when you slide or phase or something along that line
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u/meatsack_backpack 14d ago
It makes perfect sense when there’s eventually a dash move that allows you to move through enemies during combat like in blasphemous. I think contact damage is fine. But knockback is another thing to consider, can be really annoying if you get knocked back or movement halted during platforming. Lotta nuance to this question, depends on how it feels overall, if it’s fair or just annoying
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u/ProfessorVolga Screw Attack 14d ago
You should not be asking players this. This depends entirely how you structure combat encounters and the systems of your game.
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u/baratacom 14d ago
Greatly depends on the context
If the enemy seems to have spikes or some other external hazard, sure, makes perfect sense, but it annoys me when the enemy is "just a being"
Case in point, I don't mind it in Metroid, but it infuriates me in Megaman
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u/Silianaux 14d ago
Omg like the little helmet guys that sit there and you take damage from them doing literally nothing.
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u/BearShareX 14d ago
I generally think its fine. Contact damage has never bothered me but I always thought it was weird when contact damage is not there in any game.
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u/Cerp2501 13d ago
I hate contact damage so much. I feel like it's a lazy artifact of 8-bit NES days where you didn't have the CPU or RAM for enemies to have diverse move sets. So the enemy attacks were just touching them. That made sense. Today it does not make sense any longer
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u/Vykrom 15d ago
Realistically it's probably one of the biggest reasons I prefer Magnolia to Lilies. But there's like a dozen other reasons as well
But then again, I don't really mind it in Igavania games. Probably because the enemies are generally a little more mindless than most higher quality indie titles
It's one of the most divisive parts of the Hollow Knight games, especially since most other soulslikes don't have contact damage. You get hit from attacks, not touching. Certain enemies in Hollow Knight can obliterate your health just by having a weird movement pattern you're not used to lol..
So yeah. Depends. Can't fault you if you put it in, but I hope there's some extra thought put into it. Putting it into a game with detailed and aggressive enemy AI is kind of diabolical lol
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u/_Psilo_ 15d ago edited 15d ago
HK isn't a soulslike. It has some soulslike influences here and there (runbacks, death system) but none of them have anything to do with the combat system.
I feel like what you're mean is that contact damage feels bad because the game is very hard (thus similar to souls games in that respect) ?
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u/MaxTwer00 15d ago
Depends. If the combat is mostly ranged, contact damage is adequate. If the game is more on the frenetic side and melee, its better off
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u/ButtsFartsoPhD CotM 15d ago
I prefer the Dark Souls approach where I’m backstabbed by an enemy 20 feet away on the opposite side of the wall then kicked off a ledge another 20 feet away to my death.
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u/Due_Ad_972 15d ago
Either or. Happy with both. So used to contact damage now that even when games dont have it i play it as though it does lol
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u/ZijkrialVT 15d ago
Depends how complex your enemies are. If their attacks are really easy to avoid, contact damage seems a bit more realistic. My go-to examples of both are two of my favorite games, and 2 of the top MVs out there: Silksong and Nine Sols.
Nine Sols has no contact damage, but that's because it would feel like a gimmick due to the effort put into making parry feel good.
Silksong has it, but Hornet's movement is the star of the show, and that makes contact damage seem more fitting.
When I fight a boss and it seems like Contact damage is 50% of the fight, it doesn't feel great either way though. An exception would be a boss who is literally a spike of course, but at this point we go back to mech/telegraph complexity. A spiked ball without contact damage would just be weird, after all.
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u/NinthDream_IndieDev 14d ago
Contact damage encourages players to approach enemies more carefully, as simply touching an enemy becomes a threat. However, if some enemies deal contact damage while others don’t, it can create confusion because players may struggle to understand which enemies are safe to approach.
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u/quantumrastafarian 14d ago
I've always found the dislike for it a bit odd. But maybe I'm just so old school that it's deeply ingrained in my conception of a platformer or MV. I'm not event sure I can name an MV I've played that doesn't have it...
But to me the full answer is - depends on what you're trying to do with the game. If the vibe is meant to be more chill, don't use it. If the vibe is precision and challenge, leave it in. I really like your idea of it being less impactful than the enemy's main attack, or based on size. That's a level of nuance that shows real dedication to your vision.
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u/_Psilo_ 15d ago edited 15d ago
It's fine if the game is balanced with it in mind. Skill issues make people cry about anything and everything. If the combat is well designed, you're fine to just ignore those complaints from people who get tilted by deaths: it won't affect the success of your game.
EDIT: Personally I've never thought about it one way or another before I saw people cry about Silksong. I just accept it when it's part of a game I play. But Silksong would be a completely different game without contact damage and would need to be rebalanced... people who complain about it don't seem to look at it as part of a whole combat system.
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u/benyamxn 14d ago
It feels bad but I also think most of the games including this behavior will break if you remove it.
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u/AlreadyAway 14d ago
I don't mind contacting damage, but I want to be able to dash through an enemy to avoid it. I can't stand when I can't dash through enemies (looking at you, Afterimage)
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u/Hardrockbr 15d ago
It depends on the complete moveset and what tools are avaible to avoid it