"Fierce Attack" Rage Mechanic

I realize there are instances where kaiju are shown to get tired. And I would argue that all the examples you cited are more cases of monsters being injured than fatigued.

The vast majority of films do not depict giant monsters growing weary from fighting one another. That's a very human thing that happens and why it makes sense in wrestling, MMA, boxing games, and sports games in general, but not so much a giant monster fighting game.

Regardless, I think we both agree Defense is an intriguing idea!

You've made me so happy with this comment...

I ended up missing the finer granularity of the 12-box energy system from StE - you could have 8-energy weapons (Orga's paralyzing goo), 6-energy weapons (Fireball) and 2 energy weapons (Oxygen Absorbers). But we can probably merge the systems a bit - make the cells boolian (as they were in G:U) but increase their number.

Will we be seeing some monsters have longer "defense" bars and some have less? Like how monsters have different health totals? It would be interesting to see monsters like Anguirus have alot of defense which allows him to be a very active and wreckless fighter, despite his lack of ranged capabilities and low attack strength. So his strengths would be found in another stat not seen previously in the Godzilla games.

I would assume high-defense kaiju would simply lose less defense rather than have a larger/longer bar

Well that is what I mean xD

EDIT: Or leave it the same length and add more boxes within the bar.

I actually think more "boxes" in the bar would be more clear - as Slither said. That's not quite a guarantee of how the mechanic works - but I think using bool values instead of floats should be encouraged.

Here is the defense bar idea you proposed, but in a tighter spaced formation

I was thinking the bar that is being used will switch over to show that bar upfront. Example: Getting hit shows your defense bar upfront. Charging a beam shows your energy.

Ah - this assumes that you won't have actions which use both bars simultaneously! Which already sounds awesome to me for some characters...

hmmm didn't think about that one. Like what? The only things I could think of is Exterminus's transformations. EDIT: Okay I can see special guards and abilities using both bars up. Maybe a third type of bar would be shown showing the two smaller bars side by side.

Also I think this bar system would work well with the portable hud style discussed in the past.

How about if you use over the energy limit you get dazed or exhausted?

I've found that penalizing incorrect actions is very confusing for players. Instead, I try to reward correct actions. The huge initial knockback + damage of a powered-up beam is a good example of this.

Like jet jaguar with growing and megalon with burrowing

I did think jet jaguars large form was a bit broken but it could use more fierce energy or stamina than his regular form.

I don't feel as though limiting the options of a skilled player is "balance". In my opinion, a game should be balanced on a character/matchup basis. While making the game more skill oriented would increase its learning curve, the game would also more likely hold a player's interest longer. Content itself is a way to hold a player's interest initially, but deep gameplay that encourages a player to learn and grow adds replay value and stretches out that content. Fighting-game style tech isn't a bad thing, it encourages players to experiment with move properties and adapt their playstyles. To a fighting game player, getting better or discovering new "technology" is far more rewarding than completing a story mode or unlocking content.

A good way to help new players is to build in some kind of comeback mechanic (Don't make it as broken as X-factor though). Perhaps taking damage could build rage meter faster than dealing damage. Maybe in-game military or stage hazards could have a tendency to punish the player currently in the lead. Better yet, some kind of meter-based (It could draw the rage meter for example) combo breaker, or skullgirls-style infinite-detection system could be implemented as a way to escape combos.

Honestly, I don't really agree with a fatigue system for attacking. Since this is a kaiju game, slow/powerful attacks are probably going to be even more slow and powerful than human-scale fighting games. Such attacks could easily be countered with carefully timed lighter and faster moves. Encouraging players to try and manually counter incoming moves would make for more intelligent and engaging play. Maybe fatigue could be a situational status-effect, certain kaiju could have moves that cause fatigue after use.

While guard break or "Turtle punishment" systems have been implemented in many fighting games, in most fighting games players are better off relying on mix-ups, grabs, chip damage, or unblockables as tools for breaking through defense. Putting more emphasis on a high-low blocking system, or making defense a directional mechanic could allow for players to discover new ways to punish overly-defensive play. I'm not against a guard break mechanic being present, but I feel as though it should not become the player's main focus when trying to overcome defensive play.

Neither do we! We discarded that idea around page 2, and came up with a better solution that doesn't limit player actions in the same way.