Post
The designed wind-up, visual tell, or audio cue that warns a player an enemy attack is incoming.
Every readable enemy attack has a telegraph: a crouched wind-up, a glowing weapon, a shouted threat, a red flash. The telegraph gives players a reaction window proportional to the attack's threat — bigger attacks, longer tells. Bad telegraphing creates false difficulty. Good telegraphing lets the player feel skilled for reading the enemy rather than memorizing patterns.
Example
Dark Souls enemies famously have long wind-ups with distinct animations for sweep vs thrust. Monster Hunter encodes monster behavior in elaborate multi-stage tells. God of War Ragnarok adds color-coded ring flashes for unblockable attacks. Doom Eternal's glory-kill marking is a form of positive telegraphing.
Why it matters
Telegraphing is the contract between designer and player that makes difficult combat learnable. It is also the single most auditable combat-design element and often the first thing tuned in late-stage playtesting.
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