Back in 2020, GD Keys published a great article that discusses the anatomy of an attack in combat-related games. Covering a variety of topics, from making animations to working with input lag, the article dissects what makes up an attack, both for the player and for the enemies the player is fighting, and highlights the key components like readability, fairness, skill, challenge, purpose, etc.
If you are a game developer and is currently working on a game that involves fighting you will need to consider things like pacing, enemy AI and decision trees, group AI, player’s abilities and metrics, player’s strategies, difficulty management and rationalization, hitboxes and hurtboxes, and a myriad of other things, and GD Keys' article gives an in-depth explanation of all of this things and more.
