Instant Kill Mechanics (and why they tend to suck) // [Game Designer Explains]

Instant Kill Mechanics are a divisive staple feature commonly seen in many turn based RPG games, and tend to attract a rather mixed reception among many players, for often understandable reasons.
Why do people hate them? Why do people like them? What makes them fun? What makes them UN-fun? For such a seemingly straightforward mechanic, there's a deceptive amount to depth to discuss regarding them.
What exactly is the thought process which goes into designing such mechanics in the first place? And how do game designers (attempt to) balance the concept of "instantly kill the target" in a way that makes meaningful gameplay sense?
Channel Discord: / discord
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Chapter Timestamps
0:00 - Opening Gag
1:28 - Definitions: What is an "Instant Kill"
2:40 - The Inherent Fun of Instant Kills
4:48 - Chance & Probability (and the many problems with them...)
9:58 - Conditions and Activations (and the problems with THEM...)
14:19 - Cost & Resources (and how they can go wrong...)
18:15 - Case Studies
22:22 - Conclusion
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Music used
Persona 5 Strikers - An Axe to Grind (Instrumental)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Chicken Paradise
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective [Remastered] - Reincarnation (2023 Remaster)
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Additional thanks to Casteddu to helping to draw the Ting-Lu picture which was used throughout the video. I originally wanted to use it for the thumbnail, but was unable to because I realized Ting-Lu's head was so GODDAMN BIG, it'd block the entire image...

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

I got better at editing. Guilty Gear’s instant kill mechanic was something I originally planned to mention in earlier drafts, but eventually got axed because I felt that they didn’t really explain any points that the other examples didn’t cover better. They were a mechanic balanced by two restrictions in both cost and condition, being slow and telepgraphed moves which cost your whole meter upon whiffing, but after re-reading I felt the section was too long and Dragon Quest Hero generally showcases all *three* balance restrictions better. Too much time got wasted just explaining how GG’s mechanic work, only for the same points to just be repeated for Smash anyway, except Smash has a convenient MP meter showing numbers Also, I don't understand why, of all possible soundtracks, the **Chicken Kitchen** music is the one that fits best for this video. As I was editing, I tried to find a good opportunity to pivot to a different soundtrack, but there just... wasn't one.... Honorary mention to Articuno, who was good for a number of reasons unrelated to Instant Kill mechanics. Snow weather status gave it a 50% Def boost, activated Snow Cloak's 20% Evasion boost, and gave it 100% accuracy Blizzards to abuse, letting it do more damage and stick around far more than it has any normal reason to. Sheer Cold is mostly kept for rare, super tanky targets which are worth the rare gamble on. Since Ting Lu Fissure ended up being far more memetically infamous, it got the bigger focus while Articuno got relegated to a footnote.

[@GoaFan77]

I really wish you did put some different music in there, I was getting pretty sick of it by the end.

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

@@GoaFan77 Too much chicken I guess. I'll be more mindful about this theme in future. It's weirdly way, way too easy to loop compared to most others

[@vulduv]

@@GoaFan77 Most likely because the music is excessively loud in this video. It's grating on the ears trying to listen to what he is saying through the loud music.

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

@@vulduv Darn. Was the music here really too loud? I initially thought it was too soft and actually upped the volume during the editing. Your feedback has been noted regarding volume though. I now know future videos should have music be reduced even further

[@GoaFan77]

@@GoldenOwl_KZbin Maybe you can use it as an example in a future video about games that fall into the pitfall of using the same music too often. :)

[@Dexuz]

"Kill isn't a very family friendly word" *Shows Guillotine*

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

Vive la Révolution, Mon ami

[@Surikoazimaet]

It's like with tommyguns in Batman TAS...

[@Local_Intruder]

​@@GoldenOwl_KZbin ça c'est oui!

[@kevinjustus6341]

In Quest 64 the insta kill spell was very reliable, but the killed enemy didn't offer any XP, which is a steep cost for a single player RPG-style game

[@charziz6693]

Enemies killed by Ancient Arrows in BOTW also don’t drop anything and enemies in a battle skipped by Ryuji’s Instant Kill in Persona 5 pre Royal gave neither. I guess that’s a 4th way to balance them, no reward.

[@reknostarfox4690]

​@@charziz6693 I mean, it can fall under "Cost" section, since ypu basically trading rewards for removing weak nuisance that wouldn't worth anything for trouble it might make otherwise.

[@awesomehazimex7410]

​@@reknostarfox4690In theory it would work really well, imagine you're in a tough fight and things are looking bad so you might want to bust out the instakill, yet at the same time the reason you got into this mess was because this was a hard fight with a high exp reward, so you're left with an option to either instakill to win with no rewards or to weather the storm. In execution however, the problem comes from the fact that this kind of thing is hard to balance, one could just go using the instakill move which'll make the player underpowered or they might just avoid it out of fear they'll miss out on some exp

[@foxdrago9153]

I once added an very weak enemy to an game I made, which would be very easy to kill, but if you used an certain weapon on them you would transform them into an very op enemy, which instakills you, I laughed so much when someone tried that for the first time

[@itsyaboi1245]

Like the lightning goblin in FFIV

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

I am always a supporter and fan of developers doing a lil trolling.

[@Poptomist]

Yo what game, I need to see this for myself

[@jootersblaccat]

@@Poptomist i must also know

[@Iamverykarpy]

the "an"s instead of "a" is bothering me😭

[@dse763]

The thing that made Ting Lu unbearable wasn't just Fissure : it was the combination of Fissure and Stomping Tantrum, which double its power if the user missed a move the previous turn ... which happen a lot with fissure. Combined with Ting Lu's Bulk, it completely turns into "either I OHKO you or smash you with a STAB 150 BP 110 Attack ground move".

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

I didn’t want to get too sidetracked by Ting Lu, but this does tie into the point regarding Cost as a balancing point Ting Lu’s Fissure essentially has zero cost. Because Stomping Tantrum doubles in power, missing Fissure essentially just means Ting Lu still deals damage as if it used Stomping Tantrum during the Fissure turn It’s less than two Earthquakes, but that’s still substantially lower levels of cost than every other instant kill user

[@N12015]

@@GoldenOwl_KZbin Except it's not less because in doubles earthquake has 75 BP, just like stomping tantrum.

[@lelandwhitehead56]

@@N12015but in doubles it is effectively a 150 BP move since it hits both enemies (and your ally, but you’re generally going to have a levitate or flying mon with that strategy)

[@almightyk11]

​@@N12015I believe earthquake maintains full power in doubles because it hits allies as well

[@N12015]

@@almightyk11 Nope, removed in gen 4 because it was too easy to exploit with flying types.

[@ivanbluecool]

Basically "too easy and the game system is pointless". "too hard and it may as well be seen as unimportant" especially when they give bosses resistance against this power for no reason other than forcing you to not cheese it. It should work on everyone but be a big sink on resources or set up like getting 3-5 different things up before it can be used to make it worth it

[@1slayer959]

Yeah. That's why I never use insta kill moves. For 1, in the time spent casting it 20 times and praying. I could have just been attacking and probably would have won sooner anyway. And on the other hand. If they actually work. Well that's just lame from a gaming perspective. Taking all the fun challenge away

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

Kinda reminds me of something in a game I've been playing recently: Shadows of Forbidden Gods. One of the gods, Vinerva has an ability that cost 0 power to fully enshadow a ruler, basically an insta-win button, but it requires that the ruler accepted her gifts at least once, which means you need to spend an ungodly amount of power to spread your gifts near and far, and hope that the rulers accept them (unless they're elves, they love taking gifts pretty much immediately and so are basically free), which means you need to do a lot of set-up to make some country barron accept your offers of money or food, and to get the power to offer those gifts (my favourite method so far was setting up a turn 1 prophet for the main religion and infiltrating the other three to make them all convince everyone that everything was fine and to pray to me at their temple so I could be more powerful and give them more gold in exchange for a little sanity and eventually a little vampirism so I could get an achievement, took around 200 turns to set up but world panic was

[@xolotltolox7626]

Considering your pfp, i think you're weoo aware of Instant Kill mechanics that suck hard

[@JackdotC]

Dragons dogma actually has a pretty fun instant kill attack. One of them you need to get a specific ending to a quest line and stop a guy going to prison so you can buy an arrow from him that can one shot the final boss. There is another move where you sacrifice all of your companions to cast, so you can only use it if you're up against a very hard boss at the end of an area

[@matheusjahnke8643]

Kingdom Hearts 2 Demyx had an instakill move; *DANCE, WATER, DANCE* N water clones appeared and you have to kill them in X seconds; If you fail you die and have to restart the battle; He is immobile and immune to damage while doing that; He does that multiple times in battle; The worse is near the end, you have 10 seconds to kill 10 water clones... there's a reaction command to grab one water clone and spin it around to kill other water clones... which is usually useful here... but doing that in the ten seconds risks you being unable to kill clone you span around within the constrait; You know, the first times are fun; Then it isn't; In the data battle(is that the name) at the end unless you combo him he will keep doing that;

[@AmewTheFox]

My favorite story about Instant Kills concerns the unintended consequences of the existence of these moves being player facing. In Dragon Quest 4, Kyril the Priest gets access to Whack and its descendant spells, as is normal for the Priest spell list. However, in the original he is controlled by the computer. On the NES. So, for some reason, once Kyril learns Whack, he will stop taking any other action. That's strange, why is that? Well, the way that Whack actually kills is by dealing the Maximum HP of the enemy to it in damage, and just not telling you the number. Generally, the AI would try to do the most damaging thing it could do, especially if it would end a fight. So, the Kyril AI would see that Whack does somewhere upwards of one thousand damage, and keeps trying it, even though this boss enemy is immune. This has gone on to define his legacy of any super move-type thing he does is trying to cast Whack, over and over again.

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

I did come across it while doing research. Its to the extent that the Warriors game spinoff of Dragon Quest referenced this by his super move animation having him repeatedly cast and fail Whack while getting increasingly angry about it. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate footage of Kyril doing that in the original game (because it's a Japanese NES game lol). The Warriors clip was also unsuitable for the video topic, because it functioned like a standard super move and the funny animation was clearly just a reference.

[@speedypichu6833]

I guess that the fact almost all OHKO moves have the lowest possible PP could be considered a resource cost, but that only really matters in single player when you beat multiple enemies, or you are really going to go all into OHKO and possibly get unlucky compared to 5 earthquakes.

[@almightyk11]

The fact you have only 4 move options is also a resource cost

[@hailthequeenFM]

Even with the worst luck, you will take 2/4 Pokémon. The cost is not that great for the opponent. Whatever happens, you will take 2 Pokémon and they will like it.

[@swag66_]

​@@hailthequeenFMyou could miss all of them though.....

[@hailthequeenFM]

@swag66_ That's 8 STAB Stomping Tantrums, aka 8 225 BP move. Unless the opponent has a mono flying team, you're going to kill a few mons.

[@sakura368]

@@hailthequeenFM if they have a mono flying team then you should just bring zygarde, he doesn't care if you're flying or not you're getting a thousand arrows to the face

[@Varatho]

I think it's quite humorous when you used the Tf2 Spy as an example, when the Tf2 community at large considers Spies to be a non-issue and conversely Sniper is the class that most people find to be oppressive and unfun to play against. Seriously, the discussion around the Sniper (which has been going on for years now) is this topic but at it's logical conclusion. A gimmick based 1-hit KO just isn't an issue because they eventually get weeded out of extended play, and a purely skill-based 1-hit KO just isn't fun to be on the receiving end under any circumstance. And no amount of balance can change that because the problem isn't with balance, it's with human psychology: Humans (in general) perceive a loss as twice as bad as a win is good. So having the entire encounter compressed into a single action makes one person feel moderately good and the other feel horrible. Stretching out the encounter over a series of ups and downs mitigates the psychological problem.

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

TF2 Sniper is an entirely separate issue and topic. The headshot is not an "instant kill" - it's just "very big damage", and can be tanked with various factors like overheal or damage reduction. The reason why I chose Spy over Sniper is because Spy has a "true" instant kill mechanic. Nothing short of invincibility, 1-time Razorback protection, or being Saxton Hale saves you from a backstab. Sniper's issue is the question of balancing skill vs reward, a problem that plagues many other games (e.g. Street Fighter Akuma, Happy Chaos in Guilty Gear, etc). Sniper has nothing to do with this video topic.

[@intergalactic92]

One of the reasons I couldn’t get on with multiplayer shooters is the fact that constantly dying with zero opportunity to learn how to get good was not at all fun.

[@michaeljonathan9715]

​@@intergalactic92 Isn't like every PvP that do damage to each other's goal is get enemy's HP to 0 the fastest (and dying constantly is the effect of that even non-shooters like Kaizo mario which is 99% of chance of dying or gameover for every attempt) ? Also you don't need to live in-game to learn, you can spectacte your teammate in most mutliplayer shooters and copy their good moves while preventing their bad moves, or watch tutorial and replays in-game or outside the game like KZbin.

[@Roan_Harris]

​@@intergalactic92One of the reasons I quite like TF2 as a PvP shooter is that the gameplay is enjoyable to watch as well as play. This means I can just watch gameplay videos and "absorb" the skill of whoever is playing by not making the same mistakes they took whenever they die (Along with learning anything new I didn't know about).

[@jelqsensei]

@@GoldenOwl_KZbin You're splitting hairs. Sniper is both insta-kill and skill vs reward. There are technically buffs to counter sniper insta-kills but practically they have a negligible effect and heavily and consistently depend on team work and cohesion which is rarely reliable in pubs, more commonly in competitive. Even in ideal circumstances they still often only let you tank a single hit and are not a counter to the actual sniper class. The only ones that are mechanically predisposed to deal with snipers are spies, soldiers and other snipers all of which after a certain point rely entirely on personal attributes of skill and awareness. The truth is that even though spies are the only true insta-kill class in the game they scale very poorly and consequently do not express many attributes stereotypical of the genre while snipers scale incredibly well with playtime and outside a very narrow window of exception effectively become a non-mechanical insta-kill class. That in of itself is interesting enough to mention but both of them really do deserve a mention in this topic and there's no utility in not doing so.

[@almightyk11]

Something that confuses me is that in Final Fantasy, despite being considered well designed, cant get status effects from players right. Giving a status to a mook is rarely worth the action instead of attacking but any long fight you would want to use them on they make the enemy immune. Not just resisting but fully immune.

[@_Sinduss]

Play etrian odyssey. The main issue is hard cc is basically an instant kill. Status effects in most jrpgs exist to cause the player problems not to be used by the player.

[@almightyk11]

@@_Sinduss I know other games exist. Dafuq?

[@_Sinduss]

@@almightyk11just an example of a jrpgs where status effects are very useful. if you know other games exist then you know final fantasy is the McDonald's of jrpgs right.

[@almightyk11]

@@_Sinduss All I was saying was "I find this interesting". I thought the topic was intriguing with that specific circumstance. Responding to it with "Play something else" is just baffling.

[@furiouscorgi6614]

Persona actually did this very well, primarily with Tartarus guardians in Persona 3. Tartarus guardians are almost all vulnerable to status, either that or they possess weaknesses. Poison does somewhere around 1/5 max HP in damage per action (which yes, does count One More), Charm can steal their turns and make them benefit you (sometimes), Confusion takes turns and can give you items, Despair and Fear boost critical hit rates significantly, Freeze and Shock guarantee crits but are rare side effects of Bufu and Zio skills. Mitsuru's Personality trait also boosts crit rate against enemies inflicted with ailments, allowing you to use them wholly as a win condition compared to forcing damage against enemies without weaknesses.

[@furiouscorgi6614]

Note for the Persona section- in Persona 3, Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4, and Persona 4 Golden (iirc), Hama and Mudo (instant-kill skills) were the only sources of Light and Dark damage respectively. You were gonna use One-Hit Kill moves, and you'll like it, if you want to strike weaknesses. Persona 5 introduced Eiha and Kouha as standard offensive Curse and Bless moves, and Persona 3 Reload kept them in the game as Dark and Light. Elaboration: They still have affinity. Hama and Mudo have 30% hit rates, double on weakness (awarding One More if they hit) and halved on resistance, and Hamaon and Mudoon have 50% hit rates with the same rules- because of stats increasing and the relation of Luck with instant-kill, the hit rates have a more central hit rate generally, but you get the idea of the upgraded versions being better. For the most part, third tier Instant-Kill is enemy exclusive. While a character is in Guard stance, additionally, they're fully immune to instant death effects.

[@coffee9658]

Correct,in p1 and the p2 duology I believe if my memory serves me correctly they would sometimes be combined as like slash+light skills, and sometimes the fusion spells did light/dark damage (I think)

[@voraciouslatias]

In Smt V it got balanced. Light and Dark got turned into damaging moves which could only have chances of instant kill if the opponent was weak to it... With rare exceptions like God's bow which has an innate 150% instant kill chance

[@ah.neat.408]

SMT4:A also tried to balance it by making it so it dealt damage like the other magic moves, letting you get another press turn if the enemies weak to it. However, if you manage to get smirk, it can guarantee an instakill on the next foe you use it on. I'm not sure which way is my favorite, but I much prefer the light and dark skills being more than just instakill spells.

[@nado1908]

Another, lesser known, attempt to balance this is in Digital Devil Saga games where expel spells now are far more accurate and instead halve the target's current hp.

[@furiouscorgi6614]

@coffee9658 i believe so although I haven't played them, and Persona Q and Q2 have dual-elemental (physical element)/(magic element) attacks as well

[@doubl2480]

I appreciate the Ting-lu set because it's one of the rare reliable ways to find synergy with the move Stomping Tantrum, and I think that's pretty unique and cool. You're not simply hoping to win by landing a one-hit K.O move on your opponent with Fissure - you have a second move that is specifically a back-up for when Fissure fails to land, climbing to 150 power for a massive regular attack. Under that aspect, I don't see this strategy as only relying on chance, since you "win" even if you lose the gamble. You're just taking fully advantage of what the Pokemon has to offer.

[@Kokichus]

and thats precisely why it was so busted, it was literally dealing the same amount of damage as two stomping tantrums in a row with additional 30% chance to ohko every other turn

[@ah.neat.408]

If this was on a less bulky Pokémon, it wouldn't have been as problematic as it was. Then, the downside to an inherently powerful combo would be more apparent, plus the player might also have to develop another strategy to keep said mon on the field longer. It'd be kind of like how Tinkaton has that one super strong move, but its stats are purposely kept low, so it's not going on rampages.

[@sakura368]

maybe they should nerf his tankiness

[@sakura368]

@@ah.neat.408 a physical signature move on a special attacker pokemon, gamefreak knew what they were doing, kind of

[@TheWrathAbove]

​@@sakura368Nerfing Ting-Lu's tankiness isn't really an option. The entire point of the Treasures of Ruin is that they are hyper oriented into a specific stat that's further boosted by their ability. At best we might see a minor nerf to the ruin abilities, but there's no good way to nerf Ting-Lu's insane defensive bulk without losing it's identity

[@davidparker1603]

I LOVE GAMBLING, I LOVE INSTA KILL MOVES

[@vinzo0913]

I vaguely remember an RPG game me and a couple friends made in school; One of the abilities the protag had was an instant kill attack, and to balance, rather than it being inaccurate or have battle drawbacks, every time it was used it made the world worse around you. I don't remember fully what happened everywhere but it could range from being barred from certain inns to being made a wanted criminal by the king. Which, if triggered, was a soft-lock. Admittedly this was a relatively simple rpg, head to 4 dungeons to find keys, bring them to the king, he turns out to be the BBEG, 3 part battle, final surprise battle. And we deliberately made it so that most important battles had horrific consequences if insta'd. And also made sure you had to go through at least 3 conversations of warnings before getting the ability.

[@sfc0450]

That's a pretty neat way to do it! I'd ask to have a look but I'm guessing you haven't had access to it for a long time

[@vinzo0913]

@@sfc0450 sadly it was on a usb and I lost it in a move years ago :/

[@emmaroni]

Watching videos about game design always make me go "Wow I wasn't aware so much thought went into x topic". Reimu has an "instant kill" in the Touhou fighting game spinoff Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (it even has its own music when the conditions are met). To activate the spell you have to be in the third round and then AFTER that you have to hit the enemy 7 times with melee attacks when the game is largely based on projectiles (condition), consumes a large amount of resources and on top of that you are choosing a spell that can only activate on the third round (cost), and it's hard to explain but getting the resources during the battle needed for it is random in itself as well (chance). When everything is met, you can cast Fantasy Heaven which only has a few niches to live it. The special theme and the spell exceeding the 99-hit counter is very dopamine-inducing

[@Dukstless]

It's not an instant kill. It's just a lot of projectiles, that if you are sufficiently close to the enemy, stack up an entire lifebar worth of damage (if you are not close enough it will deal less damage from what I've tested). It also works on all three rounds, it just gets the funny reference if it's used on round three. Due to that, it's completely possible for Reimu to just waste it if she doesn't make sure the opponent has no way out (on top of having to activate it in 15 seconds or it just does nothing lmao). And if you're Youmu under Typhoon, Voidness Sword just straight up ignores it (since Typhoon removes hitstun), so Youmu gets to pull a UNO reverse card on Reimu and eat like 2/3 of her healthbar. The funniest shit here is that the meme potential only exists in Soku. In base game, that is SWR, it deals heavy damage but it will never OHKO. Even if used in drizzle, the limit and rate mechanics cap it at like 8500 damage (ie 85% of the healthbar).

[@emmaroni]

@@Dukstless found out i had no comment notifs, appreciate the reply

[@GolemAvalanche]

The Etrian Odyssey series tries to make ailments useful and worthwhile for the player, and instant kills in particular have a few interesting appearances. For some classes, you have decently-strong attacks with a chance of instant death, such as on the Ronin; the Dark Hunter's whip specialty has a conditional move that has an instant kill chance that increases the more the target is bound (a creature's head, arms, and legs can be bound to disable skills using those parts, among other effects), requiring significant prior setup; the Wildling's summonable Tiger can cause instant death with its attacks, which has in one instance been used in RNG manipulation for EXP grinding in a very specific setup; and one branch of the Necromancer, a class that creates disposable ghosts to attack, heal, or block attacks with, has a move called Zombie Powder that creates a ghost with equal HP to the enemy it instantly killed if successful, allowing you to make much bigger ghosts than usual. There are plenty of caveats, of course: enemy status resistances vary greatly, and most aren't going to be durable or dangerous enough for instant kills to be worth it during a standard exploration where TP recovery is sparse; furthermore, since skills are bought and upgraded using limited Skill Points, overinvesting in a person's instant death skills can easily result in that character being unable to meaningfully contribute in important battles. However, there is also explicitly an incentive to use instant kills sometimes: many enemies have items that can only be obtained by defeating that enemy a certain way (using a specific element as the final blow, them having a specific ailment or bind when dying, etc.), and a handful of foes must be defeated via instant kill to drop that material, even bosses on some occasions.

[@Superflaming85]

I think another interesting aspect of this is how EO differs a tiny bit with some of the other RPGs. In a lot of RPGs, bosses are immune to a lot of the instant-kill mechanics, making them exclusively a tool for dealing with enemies, and Etrian Odyssey isn't much different. (Even if it does have a lot of boss-like enemies that are vulnerable) However, Etrian Odyssey has a huge focus on exploring a dungeon compared to fighting bosses, and in general random encounters can be quite dangerous. Thus, instant kill moves can be a legit strat to deal with things, even if a bit up to chance. Amusingly, the funniest example of this I can think of comes from an Etrian Odyssey game that isn't entirely an Etrian Odyssey game: Persona Q! Due to the game's funky sub-persona mechanics essentially giving you a constantly refreshing pool of SP, if you slap a high-SP sub-persona on someone with an instant-kill (Or in the case of Naoto, two of them), you can constantly start every fight with an AoE instant kill. This is exactly as strong as it sounds.

[@byeguyssry]

With reference to the Chess analogy... chess players do add randomness! It's called Chess960 or Fischer Random Chess, invented by the former world champion a few decades ago Though I'd note that it's entirely input randomness rather than output randomness

[@darkmetal2412]

Wolf being obviously annoyed by Fissure is the best. He definitely lost to a Fissure player one time lol

[@intergalactic92]

Well if it upsets him then maybe it ain’t so bad 😂

[@Thraim.]

In PvE instant kills usually suck because any enemy strong enough to matter is immune.

[@michaeljonathan9715]

Nah, i think Spy in MvM (which is technically a PvE gamemode despite in a PvP game) can instakill non-giant type robots, the key word is giant is a type not size so a french man with it's tiny knife backstab a critical boosted giant jumping samurai demoman (basically enemy robot that jump high and deal enough damage to kill most classes that'll you and your teammate are playing as) or giant Fist of Steel Heavy-bot (same but instead of katana, it's use it's fist which is 100% more vulnerable to melee but block 40% of ranged damage) and both of them destroyed to parts. Even if the enemy is giant type, they aren't completely immune and take 0 damage or small damage in most badly balanced RPG, instead spy kill them with about 2-5 backstabs with maximum armor penetrations although risky since giants are almost always armed and deal lots of damage, especially up close due to ramp-up and fall-off. So playing spy in MvM can be fun with enough skill if your teammate, latency and hit registration isn't messing with you for dumb reason.

[@ahawdjkmwodjikma6543]

Mehrunes’ Razor:

[@ivanbluecool]

One shot skills or attack in games and anime tend to be so boring or bad. You know they can one shot a foe but plot basically has to keep that from happening. It's either too easy and the game becomes a wash or too hard for you to do and pointless to try oe the enemy can do it and makes it annoying to even play One punch man basically takes this concept perfectly showing why it's not good but doing it in a great way.

[@Soothsayer_98]

I like the way the One Punch Man game handled it with 2 different variants for Saitama, the hero outfit takes zero damage and insta-kills everyone in a single hit (and using him in a 3v3 forces you to fight a 2v3 for two minutes before being able to switch to Saitama, where if you lose your 2 characters before he shows up it's game over), or you can just equip the pajamas and keep the entire unique moveset that Saitama has but you're no longer invincible and enemies don't die instantly anymore.

[@michaeljonathan9715]

Agreed, but a game that is 17 years old now can do it almost perfectly by simply require downside, actual efforts and not be Mary Sue (and probably apply to anime as well by having downside, actual efforts and not be Mary Sue to the characters that can 1-shot like Saitama need to do insane 1000 push-ups, 1000 sit-ups and 1000 pull-ups before able to do the 1 punch to kill). One of the example is spy, he can instakill you whenever he click m1 with his knives on you back, it's extremely rewarding but extremely risky for a class that's base max health is 125 (which is lowest base max health in the game) and only has revolver to defend himself if he's caught by you or your teammate which deal 40 base damage (150% damage on maximum ramp-up) to 125-300 base health other classes have, so spy need to hit 4-8 times at medium range to kill while other classes need ~3 seconds of rapid fire or 2 burst damage hit to kill.

[@longbeing]

The Risk of Rain series has a few different kinds of instant kills, which I think are generally pretty balanced. As roguelikes, they’re a naturally forgiving environment for IKs since it’s very common for both enemies and players to be instantly killed by attacks that aren’t true IKs.

[@mintx1720]

The true evil is 3v3 fissure, where all three of Dondozo, Garg and Lu gets fissue, with the additional meme of sheer cold Chien-Pao. In singles term this makes them wall-breakers, somehow. It's pure chaos that completely ruined the game mode for a while.

[@Blahblah97555]

I think the most important part of an instant kill move is how they’re presented to the player. In SMT they’re the only curse and holy skills, so when encounter a curse or holy weak opponent or a demon that specializes in them, you naturally realize that they have to be useful in some scenarios and start trying them out. By comparison in Pokémon or DQ, since there isn’t a good explanation for the mechanics in game, or an indication of when they’ll be more effective, you’re likely to try them out a couple times and once they fail never touch them again.

[@hotcoldman9793]

Wow the old porn spray spy kill trick 😂😂

[@joseurbanos.domingo6344]

The ol' reliable

[@marzipancutter8144]

When you already brought up Faust, I thought you were also going to bring up about GGs Instakill moves, A good player should never be hit by them but it's so fun knowing they're there (and I believe one borders on viable) and that you can always catch an opponent sleeping. I generally love the funny big slow attacks. I want them to be not that good but still in the realm of possibility, it adds dimensions to player expression and gives you opportunities to be flashy. It's also hype to see a madman land them in tournament.

[@Gensolink]

you can reliably get them off in certain situation if you fulfill some conditions so the only time it's the opponents's fault is when you do it in neutral because it's telegraphed

[@marzipancutter8144]

​@@Gensolink Yeah right, that's part of what makes em sick.

[@Nyghtking]

Like Mehrunes Razor in Skyrim, it has a 1% chance of instantly killing an enemy when you hit them, which is balanced by having to do a side quest to get it, balanced by the low chance of triggering, and balanced a final time by having very few enemies in the game you would want to actually use it against due to how tough they are.

[@ZenoDLC]

What if the cost is a whole character? I remember playing 7th Dragon 2020, in there you make each of the character you play as and can make an infinite amount of them but only at level 1. The game has a Boost system where each character has a Boost bar, when it's full, you can spend the whole thing to have that character enter Boost Mode where their stats are increased for 3 turns and they gain access to powerful moves which would also end Boost. There is one character class, Gunner, which has access to two Boost Skill. One of them is a simple damage attack with a chance for status effects, the other is an instant kill (Or just incredible damage on a boss), but the character dies. And by dead I don't mean get a reviving item and it'll be fine, they are removed from your character list and you lose all that stat boosting items and grinding you did on that character (The character thankfully leaves all the equippable item on the ground before exploding, so you at least won't lose stuff like quest-exclusive items)

[@Dexuz]

I like the kamikaze approach to instakills, it's similar to Destiny Bond but more direct. Although it only really works in games where your units/characters are more or less spendable, either because they heal at the nearest inn, or because you can mass produce them. An example of where neither of those conditions is used and thus doesn't work is in Fire Emblem Fates with the ninja, you don't want anyone to die there.

[@sebc255]

As someone who's been playing Dragon Quest religiously these past few years, I think the way their instant death spells work made me appreciate them more as a mechanic. Granted, most are strictly single-player games, but it doesn't take away that I can feel they're actually balanced in favor of the player. A surprinsingly large amount of enemies are decently vulnerable, the player is given a high natural resistance while the more problematic enemies are given low resistance as compensation, ocassionally the single-target variant is even given an accuracy boost, and if an enemy has access to them there's a high chance they're made more susceptible to some status condition or move that will prevent them from casting them.

[@sumthinorother9615]

Basically the only problem is how little that’s telegraphed to the player at all. Even then, it’s a fun option for people who try it, and other people don’t really miss out by much. It’s pretty great. Even getting hit tends to be more interesting than frustrating.

[@sebc255]

@@sumthinorother9615 True, these are things you'll only find out if you feel confident spending your first couple turns experimenting, or if you already looked up the chances.

[@alihamadqabazard2857]

When finished Xenoblade 3 and that other games before it, I might think of getting Dragon quest next for my fix. As a guy who plays DQ religiously, which game do you recommend to start. Note: I have a Switch.

[@sebc255]

@@alihamadqabazard2857 Your options in terms of mainline games are 1, 2, 3 and 11. 1 is good if you want a quick test since it's by far the shortest and simplest. 2 has a reputation of being the hardest, but I think as long as you're efficient and don't rush things it's not too bad save for a couple spots near the beginning and end. In terms of story, though, I wouldn't recommend it because it's directly tied to the first game. 3 is arguably the most complete of the original trilogy in terms of content, and a very important game historically. If you like character creation and class systems, then this is the game for you. Though keep in mind there's a well-known twist that connects this game with the previous two. Whether you want to play this first or last, it'll make the whole trilogy a better experience. 11 is currently the latest mainline game, and you go-to if you want to stick to modern RPGs. It's a lot of people's first Dragon Quest and succeeds at getting people hooked, but being kind of an anniversary title means it's filled with references to past games, the original trilogy in particular. If you don't mind that, however, they may even get you interested in seeking out the rest of the series, or you can just see the game as a love letter to the classic era of JRPGs as a whole.

[@calvinnguyen1870]

I once died to whack within the first two seconds of a game of smash ultimate. I ran up to him, he top-decked it, I died at 0%. I honestly can’t even be mad, it’s funny as hell.

[@dram3711]

That's why hero is the essence of smash

[@browncow5210]

Shout out to Erik with Fatal Slash in DQ11. 40% chance to kill, and even if it doesn't it's still a very strong attack. For as strong as it is, it only costs 8MP.

[@king_of_rats_Monfernep]

- Let's just make an attack that attacks everyone and kills them instantly, but gives resistance to instant death to every strong enemy? ©Matt Roshak, developer of Epic battle fantasy

[@Otherfox-be9up]

Weak fissure stomping tantrum energy vs chad no guard sheer cold aura

[@zincorelearn980]

I have some ideas for conditional One-Hit KOs. * Predator - A move that instakills a switching pokemon, but considered a signature move, so you know that the threat of that move is present on specific pokemon - kinda like a mind-games arena trap. And make it have 5 PP, so people can't just always spam it. * Evaporate - instakills Water and Ice Pokemon, also a signature move, probably. * Omega Beam - always hits and one-hit KOs, but has 1-turn preparation and 1-turn cooldown. Can be NOT a signature move, as it's pretty much counterable. Also, as bonus effects to make ability more interesting, have it sharply reduce defences on preparation turn only and greatly increase them on cooldown turn only - so the opponent may choose to try and stop you mid-charging or deal significant damage before going down, intead of wasting a turn on switching to a less favorable team member. * Execute - one-shots a pokemon with 50% or less HP. Has a pretty limited selection of users.

[@snomandonly]

Honchkrow with execute

[@dave9515]

Nah have ik for dragons and fairies along with steel and dark types. Ice and Water types aren't good enough to warrant getting nuked like that.

[@jltheking3]

Really enjoy your videos, they’re educational and entertaining :) Cheers from a fellow DigiPen SG grad

[@lordinfernape4753]

Mega Gengar does not have arena trap, it has shadow tag

[@intergalactic92]

It's the exact same mechanic, just themed differently (and arena trap fails against flying and levitate mons)

[@101Pokemon579]

It should also be noted that while Arena Trap works against other Arena Trappers, Shadow Tag does not function against itself (which was specifically implemented to prevent Wobbuffet standoffs). The sheer number of things that ST can trap compared to AT is mind boggling. So definitely not the same mechanics even though they're *very* similar in function.

[@lordinfernape4753]

@@intergalactic92 Then that means its not the same, one only traps grounded mpns and the other one traps everything but ghost types

[@MarcusTalks1]

⁠@@lordinfernape4753yeah it’s almost like saying Keen eye and Big pecks are the same since both stop accuracy from being lowered, but Big pecks stops all stat decreases. Meanwhile Big pecks is literally just bird themed Clear body. And also whatever the signature moves of Reshiram and Zekrom are… they’re literally just overly complicated names for Mold breaker

[@lordinfernape4753]

@@MarcusTalks1 Believe it or not, the difference is big enough in their viability

[@vonskeedle5309]

Funny thing about TF2 spy is that, at least in older patches of the game, it actually was possible to stack enough resistances to survive a spy backstab. Since it always does 2 times the victim's HP times 3 due to it being a guaranteed crit, you'd just need to have more than 83.333% damage resistance or more than 50% resistance plus crit immunity to survive. There used to be a lot more items that gave huge universal damage resistance like the Phlogistinator or the Spy's own Dead Ringer, but nowadays I don't believe it's possible to hit that threshold in vanilla TF2.

[@ladygeneveve3805]

You can in mannpower mode with the resistance buff combined with the dr or the battalions backup

[@vonskeedle5309]

@@ladygeneveve3805 Yeah I figured Mannpower would have an exception, which is why I specified "vanilla" TF2. That mode is goofy af

[@jamesvonderhaar2553]

Gen 2 Pokemon community: stall is too powerful! Also Gen 2 Pokémon community: let’s ban OHKO moves! What gets me is that OHKO moves clearly fill and important design niche in early Pokémon. It’s not just a random check; OHKO moves work particularly well against defensive Pokemon with sustain that can’t damage very much. I’m other words, theyre meant to counter the Skarmories, Snorlaxes, and Blisseys that dominated the game in gens 1-4. It’s like, no wonder Blissey and curselax and Calm Mind Suicune are running rampant, you banned their primary counters! If you removed every ice move from the game I bet Salamanca would be unstoppable, too! They’re less necessary now that Game Freak has found other ways to punish stall tactics, but they still serve this role in the modern metagame.

[@DarkSymphony777]

gen 3 has magnet pull magneton as a counter

[@kevcraft9852]

There is a special move a certain class can do in a turn based combat game I made that allows the player to one-shot an enemy. It has a decreasing chance of hitting the more health the enemy has, but missing the attack makes it have a long cooldown. This makes it useful as a finisher after softening up the enemy or as a way to quickly take down weaker opponents. Having it based on chance is somewhat dumb, but since my game is more heavily based around knowing what each enemy can do and exploiting that, knowing how much damage the enemy has taken and therefore how effective the move will be against them makes for an interesting and strategic option in the player's toolkit

[@Delmworks]

Best version of this is probably in Knights of Pen and Paper 2 of all things- an enemy with 6 conditions (5 with a certain room item) gets instgibbed. It takes a lot of work usually but ties in with the normal game mechanics nicely- and while you can make a ninja build to exploit it that also takes some work

[@darksinz56]

So regarding Exodia, the counterplay isn't exactly rush the player down but to use hand traps. YGO has gotten so combo crazy to the point that they have to implement monster cards with the ability to negate the effect of something or do a certain effect AKA hand traps. These cards can only be activated when the opponent does the action stated in the card and usually are once a turn. A exordia player deck is usually focused in drawing and recycling cards to draw more cards which can end you in turn 1 if they start first. The flaw with Hand traps however is the fact there are also cards that counter hand traps thou it will take up space in your deck making your combo less consistent, the same can be said about hand traps too.

[@nintenx1235]

I love megaten's light and dark attacks prior to 4apocalypse because they have such crazy high chances of success that it makes luck builds so fun. Blind killing all but one out of 4+ enemies off a mamudoon/mahamaon is addicting.

[@LostBlade776]

Another game that I think does instant kills well is Guilty Gear Xrd because to do them you have to do a button combination to go into "instant kill mode" which has a long animation that you can be hit out of and when you are in the mode your meter drains continuously and if you run out of meter it will start draining your health and also you cannot combo into instant kills you can only hit them raw and the attack range is very short and if you do miss your instant kill you can no longer use meter for the rest of the round but that's if you go into instant kill mode at any normal point because if you activate instant kill mode when you're at high HP and your enemy is at low HP you activate a slightly different version that when going into the mode pauses the game letting you get into instant kill mode for free but also allows you to combo into instant kill allowing for a cool and hype flashy finish if you want to go for it if you are winning but an extremely risky not worth it move if the conditions are not yet met

[@Gensolink]

the combo version only depends on your amount of meter and the opponent's health, your own health doesnt matter. The conditions are 1 round from winning, you have 50% meter or more and they need to have 20% life when returning to neutral or 10% if you combo them to this threshold before their life bar start to flash. Given how much meter the game throw at you the hardest part is finding an opportunity that allows you to go into IK mode and land the hit but a majority of the cast have a near universal route for it to work but good luck starting it on someone that can react

[@LostBlade776]

@@Gensolink Oh I see my mistake then thank you for the correction

[@slyseal2091]

you type like it's also draining your health

[@LostBlade776]

@@slyseal2091 It drains your health when you have no meter

[@slyseal2091]

@@LostBlade776 a good nights rest should help you

[@unknownfactor6489]

Great video man

[@andreasobermuller3044]

In Persona 4 Arena, the character Naoto has an insta-kill mechanic, where her opponent starts with a number under their healthbar, with some of her attacks lowering that number, and if the number reaches zero, two of her specials will immediately kill the opponent when they hit.

[@Thelostrune]

Arcturus (Gravity's first game, preceding Ragnarok Online) has Dimension Hole which removes anything caught in its radius which isn't a boss or flying, but your party members can also get caught in it. You have a tendency to get knocked around a lot too in the Grandia-like combat system, so you risk losing out on the experience if you aren't careful.

[@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606]

11:08 Pokemon's example is Perish Song

[@amberhernandez]

My favourite part of Yakuza: Like A Dragon was when I fought through the entire final dungeon with the strongest enemies in the game, carefully strategising and surviving until I reach the final boss, only to die halfway through because he used a move that guarantees a one-shot and it just happened to pick Ichiban (who whites you out if he dies). Yes, there's counterplay in Sacrifice Stones and Peerless Resolve, but when I get my Resolve popped by an attack into the sacrifice stone shatter INTO the OHKO move, it's not like I could really do anything about it 😭

[@pabox7509]

As a Ghost Trick fan i loved hearing its OST in the video

[@magpie54]

I think the Instant Kills in Guilty Gear is one of the best instances of the mechanic because in order to do it, you first have to enter a powered up state, which is very easy to punish and drains your meter and HP, then land a very slow attack which typically cannot be comboed into unless you get a dizzy or have foe at low HP after landing specific attacks. Casually, it is very fun to Yolo on your friends and steal a round, whereas competitively, it's a way to BM on opponents because in most cases a normal combo would have killed.

[@HaHaHaHolowence]

I feel like Battle/Shell Armor and Focus Band/Sash should make their bearer immune against these one-hit knockout moves.

[@magebear7]

This needs to be watched with CC on.

[@tezereth]

One mechanic, that technically enter the "condition" section, is dark souls curse. It’s more of an enemy thing, but basically, instead of being random, the more you were exposed to curse attacks, the more the meter filled, and once it was full only would you die instantly.

[@lpfan4491]

15:23 Weirdly enough, I had the experience of them being very balanced. I simply never collected the camera, which made the ancient shop never open up, so I had only a limited amount of them and because I can't deal with losing a limited resource like that, I just never used them, lmao.

[@sileopatronus]

They're balanced fine even if you can buy them since there's rarely any benefit to killing enemies in those games aside from what they drop. Ancient arrows are good for main bosses, guardians, and rarely getting a problem enemy out of the way.

[@the_supern0va238]

I think I really cool example of instakills you missed is in fighting games. Many ArcSys fighters, most notably Guilty Gear, Persona 4 Arena, and BlazBlue have instant kill mechanics. However the conditions for these are quite rigorous. They require for you to have maximum meter, be on match point, and in Blazblue at least, the opponent needs to be at 30 percent health or less. It's especially difficult in BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle since having the maximum meter possible requires extensive, expert use of the game's tag system mechanics and to land a hit during a powered up state that only lasts for 15 seconds. Most of the time if you have the conditions met for an insta kill in these games it can usually be more optimal to just go for a normal combo that would kill anyway. Except for one specific character however that breaks these rules. Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4 Arena. Naoto represents the instakill moves in the original game, but it would be super unbalanced to have an RNG instakill in a fighting game, ESPECIALLY at high level. Instead she has what's called a Fate Counter. The opponent has 13 or 14, can't remember Fate Counters which Naoto can remove by connecting certain moves. When she reduces that counter to zero, then that's when her insta kills will work. However almost all of those options, including the instakills themselves cost meter, making it a balancing act of using it to reduce the Fate Counter and to use her important metered moves in neutral, and if you can snowball on her, her defense is quite poor. It's a less interesting but similar story in her Cross Tag Battle variation. She needs 2 bars of meter to use her rather unreliable super to mark the opponent that she almost needs to combo into to land, and another 2 bars to use the instakill. 4 bars in this game is a lot when the maximum you can store is 5 and if you want to use instakill you're pretty much barred from using meter for anything else which can be very bad depending on her partner. It's all about the opportunity cost to get on the instakill in both games or to use your important tools you need for neutral and defense. However this is also quite bad for the opponent in the right conditions, Shadow Naoto in P4A and Naoto in Resonance Blaze break the meter limitations and gain it MUCH faster than normal. It's especially egregious in P4A since Shadow Naoto can cancel her supers into each other which can lead to reducing the Fate Counter to zero off of one combo which she can lead into a 50/50 mixup which combos into the instakill. She's an undisputed top tier for this reason. While Naoto in Cross Tag can pop Resonance Blaze when her partner goes down and trap the opponent in an infinite block string until the Resonance time runs out and keep mixing them until she gets a hit and leads into the instakill in two combos at most. In general it's all a very delicate, interesting balancing act until ArcSys seems to throw out the window with their comeback mechanics that make Naoto's meter economy more efficient.

[@techno_otaku]

it's like balancing a jackpot in a lottery when you think about it I always appreciate the hard-to-achieve critical hits when you work your way up to it cause it makes me smile like the Joker

[@thedatabase6850]

Dragon Quest Builders 2 has an early-game weapon called the Poison Needle, which has a high chance to crit and a chance to instakill any enemies except bosses. That aspect actually makes it good enough to be used in the late-game, and the weapon's honestly really fun to gamble with it bc you don't know when it'll come in clutch. I also want to include the One-Hit Obliterator from the BotW dlc, being exclusively usable in only one section of the game and sacrificing your health for damage, making so you can instakill while also dying in one hit yourself.

[@BetterCallPapyrus]

tauros/x accuracy from gen 1: am i a joke to you?

[@frankwest5388]

Instant kill moves when used by enemies also tends to lead to interesting things. In some examples, they are a skill based obstacle. Like when the boss stands still and clearly charges his super move, so the player runs to hide behind a rock. But in others it just feels cheap. Two examples of the latter that I can thiink of are Yunaleska from FFX and everything in Shin Megami Nocturne. With Yunaleska, she has a few on paper interesting mechanics, that a player can work around. All of them relating to the Zombie status effect that she inflicts, which reverses health gained by items or spells. Now at this point, you will have seen Zombie once during the Seymore Flux fight. Where he first zombies a team mate and then uses an ability that would usually revive the dead to instantly kill them. Now the Zombie status is super rare, I do not know if any other enemy besides these two even use it and items that deal with it are just as rare, the normal status removing spell as an example does not work on it. However because it only ever affects one target, the player will likely just ignore it and revive the party member on their first playthrough. So the only time the player sees this status up to this point, they don't have to cure it but they will be aware of it. This means one of two things. Either the player starts preparing some ways to heal the status condition or they will be taught to just push through it. And the Yunaleska fight punishes you for doing either. Because once the third phase of the fight starts, she casts a unique spell that instantly kills any team mate that is not afflicted by the zombie condition. Which is super cheap becasue there is no way the player will see it coming and up to this point they will be trained to heal the zombie condition immediatly. Especially since in phase 2 Yunaleska can do massive damage to zombie inflicted team mates. If the player has external knowlege about the fights mechanics or played the game once already, they will see it coming and deal with it by strategically leaving one or two TM zombified but there is no way you can reasonbly see it coming if you didn't know how this rare status affliction works or how the boss specifically interacts with it. Next Shin Megami Nocturne. Due to the games high encounter rate and how many enemies have instant kill moves, they become cheap as well because, especially early on, you don't have means to bypass instant kill attacks that even common enemies use. Meaning that even for basic things like walking in a straight line or level grinding, you will get punished and set back to your save for doing nothing but just playing the game.

[@byeguyssry]

I wonder if there's any difference in the player experience between "true" one-hit kills and "one-hit kills" that merely do a ludricrous amount of damage (like LoL's execute showing 9999 True Damage or Undertale letting you one-shot bosses if on Genocide route by dealing a large amount of damage that can never not one-shot).

[@emberthefox4951]

I like how One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows handled Saitama. In exchange for an instant win button, you play most of the match at a one man deficit. You can also get him out faster with good play. Dodge and combo well, and Saitama comes sooner. What he basically does is put the match on a stricter timer in your favor in exchange for making your opponent's win condition easier as well. I also like how they have Dream Saitama as a nerfed version of him, in case you like his moveset but don't want to play a gimmick. That or the funny situation of playing two Saitamas.

[@Magicwaterz]

Not really an Instant-kill but rather high Crit damage character but can potentially do so depending on the target. A Dota2 Hero Phantom Assassin has this high risk-high reward mechanic where her main gimmick is to get up close and try to kill opponents as fast as possible, as well having a passive that evades physical attacks at a high percentage. There was this one match where the opposing team was on the verge of losing, the team with Phantom Assassin are already demolishing their base. They decided to buy this one specific item as a last resort to turn this around, Blade Mail, an item that returns damage passively and it increases its damage return while active. They got cocky and when this Phantom Assassin tried to kill a tank hero, she instantly died, bought back to have a revenge kill, only to die again, with no buyback. Everything fell apart, as each hero died one by one now that they no longer have their high damage hero on their team, and the opposing team managed to win.

[@andrewgreeb916]

The thing is phantom assassin wasn't even good. Cause sure damage is nice, but you need to bring more to the table that just damage, and coup de grace was just not much of a percent increase in average damage. PA consistently underperformed in every tournament.

[@Magicwaterz]

@@andrewgreeb916 I was just talking about how despite this hero having the highest damage output against the team who are mostly have lower HP except for their tank, managed to turn the losing match around by a simple item that does not really absorb damage to the non-tanks but its active effect completely nullifies the enemy's literal cannon.

[@andrewgreeb916]

@@Magicwaterz yeah blademail is fun

[@cyberneon9599]

In terms of good Instant Kill mechanics I would say Shadowverse did a great Job. There is a little rng involved due to it being a card game but if you manage it right you will be able to meet the conditions of an instant kill via use of great resources, while also adding cards to defend yourself.

[@judeaurelien9842]

In a future Pokemon video could give a history on the exp system used throughout the series and what you thought was the best while giving your own ideas on how it could be improved?

[@vel0xraperio]

Misdreavus with Abby's hat works surprisingly well.

[@Jakey726]

The sekiro route of rewarding someone who keeps tabs on their enemy's attack patterns well enough by allowing them to cleave the head of a giant beast or stabbing through the heart of a bandit (Execution) is honestly one of my favourites. Rewarding skill based gameplay and critical thinking with a huge combat advantage is a great way to push players to know their enemies and learn how they work instead of just smashing your head into them until the bruteforce works.

[@Ramsey276one]

6:03 thanks for the Alice Compilation!

[@GoldenOwl_YouTube]

Go thank the guy who made it. I put the name there. Go find and like his video or something

[@Ramsey276one]

@@GoldenOwl_KZbin SURE!

[@emojothejojo]

One of my favourite insta kill mechanics in a game is chomper from plants vs zombies garden warfare, chomper can insta kill using burrow, getting players from behind, or getting players caught in spike weeds but after insta killing chomper has to wait a few seconds before he can get back to fight so he is quite vulnerable and many of the insta kill conditions are easy to avoid, i,e burrow needs the target on the ground.

[@TheMaskedNinja_]

Even before sw/sh ohko still got use because some pokemon were so bulky that things like sheercold would on average land before other moves would kill. iirc sheer cold lapras had some decent use

[@4rtistPeter]

Using the sex spray in TF2 to land a Your Eternal Reward Backstab is such a high IQ play 🗿

[@robertoalexandermendezmore408]

in Pokémon presence of insta kill moves is normally a sign of a very fatty meta, Ting lu (and dodonzo) is just the ones with the tool to manege bulky mons without using perish trap as for the articuno, the winner articuno doesnt click Sheer cold ones in all the tournament (in matter of fact, any of the RNG factors activate ones in all the tournament) so that articuno just won at base of spamming Blizzard

[@blazechaos212]

Yep. The Sheer Cold is just a Get Out of Jail Free card in tough matchups.

[@KidneyJack64]

Ghost Trick OST. Subscribed.

[@NobleVampireSamurai]

I do like your point about Guilty Gear's IK mechanics being balanced. However, I'd like to bring up another point related to that: BlazBlue's Astral Heat mechanic. It has a very specific set of conditions that also make it balanced. -The enemy character has to be at a certain health threshold to activate it. -Must have 100 Heat Gauge to work -You have to do an input unique to the character -Certain characters have special conditions for AH to work (Noel and Hakumen's are parries and only work if someone attacks them, Bang's has to be done in the air, Carl's has to be done with Nirvana active, Litchi has to be in Overdrive, Terumi and Amane's can only hit if the attack is in a specific range and not too far forward or too close, etc.)

[@RuyVuusen]

There are also games in which every attack instantly kills. They are often heavily movement based and usually allow for rapid respawning.

[@luyandolove]

1:23 Im guessing as a warning to the player that the have to prepare, as a story mandated thing, and maybe as a reward/punishment for taking a risk I hope I’m right this time around. I watch all your videos but I’m so bad at the game dev questions 😭

[@Ghost_Drive]

Though I never got far enough or good enough to experience it when the game came out (and now my Wii U is far away from me), I believe the strongest super boss in Xenoblade X had an instant kill, so the player has to learn to play around it to beat them (though the most OP build countered it easily). They also gave the Mastermind, the support class that was the worst at combat an instant kill, the condition being you had to use a different move to control the enemy to your side (again, a support only ability), and then the instant kill needs to succeed on it's chance (unless the enemy is toppled or stunned), with failure releasing the enemy from your control without killing it. Has a probability, conditions that improve the odds, and a cost of being the support player. With Sharla's headshot, maybe Monolith Soft is onto something in giving support characters an instant kill; if it succeeds, the support player gets to be happy they contributed offensively, and if it fails, they are still making meaningful contributions through support actions.

[@Cinder_the_ace]

My favorite insta-kill move in any game ever is in the Star Wars mobile game. Where Jar Jar Binks has a 1/1000 chance to instantly kill an enemy with his basic attack.

[@OccuredJakub12]

One of my favourite One hit kill mechanics is actually... from the Pokémon TCG! The recent meta has a very strong Lost Zone deck whose ace is a Giratina VStar. The whole point of the lost deck is that you can put cards from your deck into the Lost Zone, which is like a discard pile that you cannot pull anything back out of. There are multiple cards that play around having a minimum amount of cards put in the Lost Zone. For example, with Cramorant if you have 4, its main attack has no energy cost. Giratina VStar has a one-time use attack that requires you to have 4 energy put on it, PLUS have it evolved into the VStar form, PLUS have 10 cards in the Lost Deck. Only then, for the one-time cost of your VStar token, you get the chance to insta-kill the enemy's active Pokemon, no questions asked. It's not a mechanic you have to use, and most of the time weaker Lost Zone cards like Cramorant or Sableye can do the trick, Giratina even still has strong attacks of its own. But when you manage to get it all set up against the enemy's strongest Pokémon, you feel like a strategy god!

[@indominusrex2859]

Why did i recognise spy's hand with the butterfly knife instantly

[@AnotherDuck]

Decades ago I played a MUD (text based multiplayer game) called Achaea. Pretty much all classes had an insta-kill of some kind, plus one in the general combat skill. Several were time based, where you started an attack and if the enemy didn't move or stop you from acting, they would die. One was a poison that if not healed soon enough, you'd die. One could kill you if you had less than half MP. One could kill you if you had all four limbs crippled. One was a voodoo doll that if fashioned (an action building it) enough times, could at any point later on kill you from any distance. People didn't like the last one due to how easy it was to gradually complete the doll, and after that the doll user had way too much power over the victim for much too long.

[@mariowizard1198]

Another well balanced instakill is Earthbound’s PK Flash. It’s a chance based attack that with higher levels has an ever increasing chance to instantly kill any enemies effected. What makes it interesting is that if the attack hits, but the instant kill *doesnt* happen, it’ll do something else, the options being Crying (significantly reduced bash accuracy), Strangeness (Attacks random target, even allies or themself), or numbness (unable to make bash attacks entirely). It’s random, but all effects have roughly the same purpose, to hinder enemy attacks, so it’s always worth it to throw it out if you know an enemy’s vulnerable to Flash. It’s a good solution to the “All or nothing” problem that chance instakills have because you can keep the instakill chance relatively low while still encouraging its use by giving the player *something* There’s also (sort of) Jeff’s Multi Bottle rockets for a cost based instakill. While they don’t technically instakill, with how much damage Multi Bottle Rockets do they might as well be considered one. Though unlike flash, these ain’t balanced in the slightest since they trivialize every boss fight in the game where you can get them except Carbon Dog/Diamond Dog, Porky, and Giygas, who all have a hardcoded resistance to bottle rockets.

[@cyberkyogre]

this video is so underrated!

[@mypikachu1256]

Sekiro execution is probably the best implementation of instakill because the entire game is based around it

[@kitestar]

Yeah I don’t mind it as much if risk/reward are in play when it comes to instakill chances

[@peylol1781]

i never thought i whould see a rowlet with jotaro part 3 hat talking while jimmy neutrons dad plays yugioh.

[@videakias3000]

in csgo there was a weapon that instant-kills any opponent. the downside is that it can only be used once.

[@tysondennis1016]

Correction: Mega Gengar has Shadow Tag, not Arena Trap.

[@joseurbanos.domingo6344]

When you mention cost, i got FUGA's soul cannon flashback.

[@MrK-bw5oh]

Ok, so, small note. Spys backstab isnt a guaranteed ohko. It just does a lot of damage, it doesnt bypass the damage system.

[@bananaspice1967]

I swear next time I see a moose my fight or flight response will become my fight and die response.

[@MechMK1]

There was a PS2 game I forgot the name of. It had a set of incredibly powerful weapons you could use, but if you did, the enemy would not drop anything. No items, exp, etc... For a singleplayer game, that was a worthwhile tradeoff. Unfortunately, some players didn't know that (the game did a poor job explaining it) and so once they started using the powerful weapons, they'd cease to progress with no idea why.

[@RenoKyrie]

There are Instant kill that end up becoming a gimmick to a certain fight like the boss fight of Alriune from Library of Ruina In Library of Ruina you have 2 Bars, a Health Bar and a Stagger Bar and both are reduced when taking damage to a certain attack(Takes more if you have a specific weakness that lowers either of them further) or when an attack is blocked and you take reflected damage to the Stagger Bar, when the Stagger Bar Drains to 0 you get staggered Alriune has a gimmick where anyone getting staggered in the fight gets instantly killed except for Alriune herself The strategy is pretty much avoid yourself taking damage or just dont aim someone who is using Blocking Skills

[@soundrogue4472]

Nani? You as a game designer not having a shit take this time! An actual good take!

[@clock3505]

Sword Fight On The Heights has ice dagger It might destroy people in a nanosecond, but ice dagger says “What if NO”

[@arandomperson12345]

This is a minor thing, but carrying over from the arseius video, I appreciate you subtly justifying your non-standard but ultimately correct proninciation of Ting-Lu's name. Now its name makes sense! In any case, thanks for the great video. Your stuff is consistently excellent at really breaking down the game design driving a lot of choices game devs make. Personally, I can see why pros dislike randomness, but find it unbearable at the level they try to avoid it. Bunch of babies cant handle even the slighest amount of variation in games when playing around it is definitely a skill in itself (looking at you, smash players with your innate hatred of SLOPES of all things...). They just have to have Pokemon Stadium 2 every single time. Gods forbid they actually have to play around a bit of terrain variation...

[@Universal0Life]

Even though this is a Pokémon channel, idk why I thought he was also gonna talk about gun games instant kill headshot mechanics in this video.

[@soundrogue4472]

23:52 just because you have a degree; does not mean you understand your field. Yes I agree with your video and everything you said in said video but your experience and hands on knowledge is worth more than a degree.

[@tophattetra7770]

im not gonna even argue about it, but i find something like +Dangerous in Lisa games very cool

[@solbradguy7628]

I definitely understand that games would be boring if instant kills were too consistent and easy to pull off, but my experience with them is that they are almost always so watered down that they're useless and it feels like a waste of time to even try them. Some of the only exceptions where I thought they were well-balanced and fun were in Final Fantasy 6, where I had Locke dual wield two weapons that had a small chance to instant kill and get an extra attack every turn, giving him 4 (maybe more? I can't remember) chances, and consistently getting at least one enemy per combat. But bosses were still immune. In Persona Arena both Naoto and Elizabeth have instant kills, but Naoto has to build up stacks of a separate resource first and Elizabeth's places a trap that detonates after a long time and costs meter so you basically have to set up a long combo into it. Both of those felt fair but not useless and a lot of fun to pull off. That's really it. There are a lot of cases of an enemy that feels very annoying and tanky or evasive where an instant death spell would feel like a perfect solution but they are either immune or the spell has a pathetic chance of success and you'd be better off with anything else. I find a similar case for a lot of status conditions in games too, where it almost feels like devs don't want you to even use them since it feels like they never work on anything you try to use them on.

[@anjacup1422]

Hatchet Man in dragon quest is not an instant kill move, but it has a chance to give you a big Crit, and I am addicted to using it as much as possible

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

Personally, I think that instant kills can be fun to have in a game, but I also think that the main contributing factor as to why they are hated is because they tend to be RNG based relatively frequently. People always hate when they lose a game because of luck, and getting unlucky too often or playing against an opponent that seems to always have luck on their side makes playing the game begin to feel unfun because you're losing due to something that's not in your control. RNG on the whole is frustrating, because it means that no matter how carefully you plan your strategy, there's always a chance that something can go wrong, and having something that can instantly kill your character (or one of them, if there's a team) feels cheap as a result. That said, the kind of instant kills that are designed best are the ones that were labeled as being "conditional", because using them comes entirely down to how good you are, and can offer incentive to become better at the game to give a player the satisfaction of taking an opponent out in a way that would normally be unwieldly, abd I knew the spy's backstab from Team Fortress 2 would be an example of how to balance this mechanic. On a side note, though not in the conventional way of what an instant kill is would be the freeze status effect in gen1 of Pokemon: it's RNG dependent, but the reason why I would lump it into this category is because if you get lucky enough to freeze one of your opponent's Pokemon, that Pokemon is unable to do anything for the rest of the battle because there isn't a turn limit on how long it can last for in gen1 like there is in future generations, thus effectively killing whatever Pokemon is frozen without actually having to reduce their HP to zero like you would normally