Design Action Combat

Treat combat as explicit state machines with visible, testable timing rather than animation-driven guesses.

Specify every combat verb

For each player or enemy action, define: startup, active window, recovery, cancellation rules, resource cost, contact shape, damage/posture outcome, cooldown, and feedback. Make telegraph, danger, contact, and recovery readable at normal camera distance.

Use authoritative outcomes

• Drive hits, blocks, parries, and interrupts from authoritative collision/contact events.
• Require direction, range, phase, and state validity before resolving an outcome.
• Apply each contact once using stable action and target identifiers.
• Keep visuals downstream of resolved simulation events.

Tune for decisions

Give each defense a distinct purpose: spacing, dodge, timed guard, interruption, or resource trade. Avoid unpunishable attacks, recovery loops, unavoidable damage, and dominant spam. Boss phases must alter decision pressure without invalidating learned timing.