animation weight vs responsiveness
mechanicsComments
This reminds me of how high level fighting games balance commitment. By making certain moves risky but rewarding, they turn that weight into a strategic choice rather than a frustration.
I have to push back on the equivalence of weight and input lag. Lag is a latency issue between input and execution, whereas weight usually refers to the intentional use of startup and recovery frames to simulate inertia.
I wonder if this feeling changes when the game shifts into that combat gravity phase... where the RPG elements fade and it is just about the combat loop... does the weight feel more like lag then?
If a developer completely eliminated that perceived lag to maximize responsiveness, would the combat lose its tactile identity? Could the lack of inertia make the character feel like a floating camera rather than a physical entity?
True. If you look at the frame data for most weighted attacks, you are just seeing locked animations that prevent input buffering until a specific frame. It is an artificial bottleneck.
The missing piece here is animation canceling. Games that actually solve this let you interrupt the recovery frames with a dodge or block, which keeps the weight visually while restoring responsiveness.