How do I teach the players that their strong but slow attack can not be cancelled?

Question

Designing the combat mechanics of my current project I've come to a problem: How do I make players feel responsable of their mistakes instead of they blaming my game? This is the scenario:

Among other things your character has two basic abilities a quick and a strong melee attacks, and as you may guessed the quick attack does less damage and has a smaller control(time enemies are pushed/stunned after hit), as the strong attack has a slower and obviously longer animation that (here is the catch) cannot be cancelled. And here is my concern; many players may feel that the game is unresponsive instead of realizing that they shouldn't had used a strong attack in that moment.

Extra info:

• Neither of the attacks consume resources as stamina.
• Receive a hit is a big penalization for the player as heal is hard and the difficulty lies in progressing through levels loosing less health than you can find.
• Both attacks has a 3 hit chain with cool down after the last, this means that the managing of this ability to cancel or not the attack is a core mechanic that the player should learn in order to succeed.
• Enemies always give a big hint before attacking the player.

Solutions I thought:

• Explain to the player via tutorial.
• Pop a message sometimes when the player got hit during a strong attack animation.

Pd: I'm looking to the solution to the problem described above, but any general tips in this mater are also appreciated

Answer 1

In your UI, if you have a way to display the currently available skills, disable all the other skills, and overlay a timer of some sort on them which should indicate how long until the next attack is available.

I haven't played World of Warcraft since the Open Beta Test, but I think there is something like this in that game:

(Clip from this video.)

This technique has the advantage of teaching the user that this skill causes the others to be locked, while giving them a clue about when they're going to be unlocked and usable again.

Answer 2

Here's an example to get you thinking: put a section in one stage where the player must break down walls that can only be broken with the heavy attack (this shows the attack's increased power), while being chased or having a wall close in behind. Since the player has a reason to move as quickly as possible, they will now clearly notice the wind-up freeze resulting from this more powerful attack. This gives a gameplay element that is potentially challenging and is showing them the benefit and consequences of using the attack. There's plenty of ideas for stuff like this, this is just one I thought of quickly.

As a side tip, there's actually a great video about this that I've watched several times to get an understanding of how to teach players about features of your game. This video is part of a small series called Sequelitis. In it the narrator examines the Megaman series and compares Classic and X. Much of his focus in this video is how they teach the players through gameplay, and not through manuals or tutorials. There is bad language in this video. However he really makes some good points and got me thinking much more in the direction you're looking towards.

Answer 3

People would likely forget mention of it in tutorials. It is better to teach them when they try it for themselves. The message seems like too strong of an interruption.

One idea would be to give feedback in the attempt to cancel the attack without actually cancelling the attack. You could use a sound (I am thinking a buzzer sound like in a game show when you get the wrong answer to a question) or have an X appear in the corner of the screen, or both.