This excerpt is a breakdown of one of the basic enemy’s behavior in the game StarWars: JediFallenOrder. We will look at the base melee StormTrooper. (Credit: http://jasondeheras.com/gamedesign/enemydesign has a great way of breaking down enemies so I used that as reference)
Aggression:
The StormTrooper has about 1.5-2 seconds of downtime after an attack.
Movement Speed:
Walks about the same as the player speed but has a lounging move to compensate for the distance from player as a quicker approaching move.
Attack Range:
Short Range melee with one Thrusting move with a bit more range.
Attack Speed:
The Storm Troopers attacks have fairly short anticipation time making it hard for the player to get a hit in when the attack has started. This is also relates to how long the anticipation time is for the player’s basic combo’s first hit.
Anticipation Pose/Readability:
The poses before the impact frames are very noticeable and match the motion of the impact. This allows the player to predict the directionality of the attack.
The anticipation time is average and gives enough time for the player to block/evade/parry.
Attack Recovery:
Most of the attacks on the StormTrooper have a recovery time of about 1 second.
Attack Combo/Moveset:
The StormTrooper has a basic slashing combo, a thrusting move and a slamdown.
Attack Tracking:
The StormTrooper has very low tracking once the attack starts. However, the weapon collision sweep is fairly large and can hit the player even when they evade if too close.
Group Aggression:
There isn’t much downtime when multiple enemies are nearby. They do however try not to attack at the same time and will back away once an attack is done giving their allies a chance to come in. Usually this is done via a token or threshold system where each enemy/enemy attack will decide whether it has the amount needed to come in.
Player Damage:
A double hit of the combo will take away a good chunk (about 1/4th) of the player’s healthbar making even the basic enemy fairly threatening.
Player Reactions:
On blocking enemies will do lighter block reactions on the player that will cause backwards displacement. However, if the player doesn’t block, he will take a longer stagger reaction.
The more elite versions of the stormtroopers also have an unblockable attack which will knock the player down causing them to be disabled for a bit.
Health:
StormTroopers are fairly weak and will die in 2-3 hits. When staggered, they are also vulnerable to execution sync moves from the player.
Defense/Reactions
The game has a block stamina system where attacks will first drain the block meter before doing a bigger stagger reaction. Moves like the player’s parry will do a bigger block recoil animation too.
Note: In the JediMaster difficulty I was playing the game, it was fairly easy to parry these enemy types. But in the highest difficulty the parry window reduces quite a bit requiring more precise timing.