Regarding movesets

Been thinking about some things lately while playing Hyrule Warriors AoC and researching others like Fire Emblem Warriors.

I'm probably not going to articulate this well because it's kind of jumbled ideas floating around in my head.

So I'm playing HW and thinking back on other Musou games as well as other action games and considering all the movesets. Like what makes a move/ability good or bad and why a lot of characters have moves that are largely pointless or so bad you'll be at a disadvantage using them.

Do you think the devs just throw them together without thinking too much or do they have a good idea but then it doesn't work out that well?

It was actually watching a lot of tier list videos not just for Musou characters but also RPG characters. One I watched recently was for Chrono Cross and had to wonder, the D and Cs are pretty bad, but why? Like was it intentional? If not then it's accidental which hints at character abilities being cobbled together without much thought.

And like in all these cases there's a lot of variation. All fantastic, all terrible, a mix of both, mostly terrible with one great thing that's better than anything else in the game, then the opposite.

In Fire Emblem Warriors I watched a guide for one of the dragon riders and she's described as decent, but this one dash move is the most overpowered broken thing in the game and just destroys everything.

Just wondering how all this stuff comes about. We all know games with those moves or strings we'll never touch unless we just want to. Everything I play has stuff like that.

Not sure if I'm getting this across properly.

Do you mean to ask what's the thought process behind making movesets and why less useful moves are also being included?

In that case I can assume having more moves just for the sake of having a big moveset can be used for marketing as a selling point (like how many games are being marketed as having huge worlds, lots of content etc...), where lots of the "variation" comes in the form of filler.

Could also be that the devs really want to make every move useful but they don't manage to get there. OP or useless moves can also be a case of the devs overlooking stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if OP moves are being put in games for the sake of being safety nets.

It's a mix of devs just adding stuff to make the characters more interesting in their eyes, lack of proper testing, lack of time or general incompetence. Even in great action games you still have a couple of moves and weapons that aren't really that well balanced, simply because sometimes there isn't enough time to fix those or because they didn't see the problems until it was too late.

From my experience, and this might not be what you want to hear, but often I prefer games where the devs just did 'whatever looked cool and had fun toys behind it, balance be damned'. Often these janky moves had the most depth and freedom since all their interactions generally weren't intended.

The second moves are very thought out, they tend to be very singular in their approach.

An example I have with this is in fighting games, namely Aegis Reflector. In Third Strike, this move was intended to be a summonable mirror that reflected projectiles. Instead players used it in funky ways, since it could also hit players. Then from SFV, it was intended to be used to attack, with the reflection being a bonus, but as a result it all felt very rigid. Hard to put into words.

>Do you mean to ask what's the thought process behind making movesets and why less useful moves are also being included?
This among other things.

>and this might not be what you want to hear,
There's nothing I dont want to hear. I'm not trying to make claims here. Simply wondering how things come about.
I think this topic overlaps with the 'if it's useless why use it' topic and other topics on depth.

>whatever looked cool and had fun toys behind it, balance be damned
This is a thing too, though it can massively backfire like in Okami where you have a main attack or ability that wipes the game, but a million cool things you can do with all the other abilities go completely unnoticed by the majority.

>Often these janky moves had the most depth and freedom since all their interactions generally weren't intended.
Glad you brought this up. I was going to mention something like this. Player created stuff.

Also, reminds me of complaints about DMC5's V. I read some talk about his moves and how the enemies can't deal with them or something, and how easy it is to get SSS. Like they weren't designed for him. That's another point, the enemies. Like how the moves interact with them.

Playing Musou games a lot and they have strings similar to Bayonetta where you have two buttons that you can combine to get different moves.

What does everyone think of strings like this? They often have a lot of filler moves with the move you really want at the end.

>What does everyone think of strings like this?
GoW does them the best imo. They make sense given the animation and the moveset isn't bloated in the slightest. Bayo uses basically every combination possible and there are a lot of repeats between combos and you'll end up only using a handful.
While there is beauty in the simplicity of DMC's ground combos, in the end the system pretty limiting. Look at Nero, he has 4 ground combos but all of them start the same way, and two of them are identical except for the finishing blow. When done well, double button combos are superior.

GoW does this very well yeah, with nearly every input being meaningful and having a considered ender with properties. My only other mention would be Ninja Gaiden II, with nearly every string having something to offer, from specific delimb%, to damage, knockback or grab potency.

>with nearly every input being meaningful
I find these inputs really interesting.

Sometimes there are a few hits that are not good or weird. Do you think they plan this or just put in filler animations before the big finishers?

You see A LOT of strings in Musou games due to multiple characters. So many different animations between characters. Lots of cases of fantastic strings, then some that are just shit. Or just a single hit somewhere in there that kind of sucks.