Sfxt da best. Just llllmhh everything.
In older games, if you get poked or thrown or got hit with a simple small 2-3 hit combo, youâd lose a shit ton of life. It forced newer players to learn fundamental extremely fast, or they wouldnât have a chance to win, especially versus a better player with better fundamentals and defense.
Today, adding longer combos is one way a newer player can skip the fundamental phase and memorize a combo and go ham until he lands it. also, comboâs can be dropped, which is boon for the person getting hit. No one has 100% perfect execution at all times, even pro players drop comboâs in a tournament. So the longer the combo, the greater the chance of it getting dropped, another added incentment for newer players.
So just ask yourself what is easier to learn? Fundamentals and space and defense that comes from hours and hours of in-game experience and match ups. or memorizing a combo and practicing by yourself in training mode? Look at tekken, even most low level players can pull off a standard juggle combo. but you never see scrubs making proper use of back dashing, side stepping and whiff punishing. Comboâs are in newer fighting games not to scare new players away, but to give them a greater chance at winning.
I donât know, wouldnât one need basic fundamentals to land a combo? I mean, anyone can practice a combo but if you canât play the neutral game and get to an advantageous position where you can land said combo, itâs all for not.
Think what heâs saying is that you can learn optimum combos by yourself, therefore doing much more damage than your opponent who hasnât learned them. Therefore, even if the opponent has superior fundamentals, he is getting much less payoff when he lands a hit.
Anyways the problem with this kind of thinking is, casual players are not going to go to the training room. Hell I hate the training room, time is limited and Iâd rather be playing people than sitting practicing links or long combo strings. It might give people who just are bad at fighting games a better chance at lower or mid levels, however at higher levels players will have learned optimum (or close to optimum) combos plus have great skill in the other aspects of a fighting game.
Other flaws are that it means people are terrified to go online or to a tournament or offline gathering unless they have gotten down all their characterâs combos. It also encourages bad habits, like jumping randomly with no regard for spacing trying to land a combo. How many players do you see that have the spacing skills of an infant, yet can do high execution combos? That is messed up. Back in the day, sure there were different levels of how good someone was at fundamentals, but you didnât have people jumping around like mindless monkeys cause they would get killed nearly alwaysâŚand 100 hit combos didnât exist to make up for that.
Too many people think combo knowledge as all they need to know and that is indeed sad.
My answer to the OPâs question is yes, and I think itâs holding back the growth of fighting games as a whole. Back in the day, I could main one fighting game and still play every other title decently. Now I have to carefully think about whether I can afford to sink my time into a game enough to actually play it before I buy, and my FG purchases have decreased significantly.
Real Example:
In the old KoF titles you could just go normal -> command normal -> special and be good to go. Five minutes in practice mode tops, and you can start playing against the CPU to get the hang of your character. Do this for one afternoon and youâre good to get started playing against people. I played KoF âon the sideâ from 95 up until 2K2. When the new versions came out and there were all these drive combos all over I dropped it completely. I have a limited amount of leisure time, and I want to spend it playing games not grinding away in training mode.
I like games where big single hits and 2-in-1âs result in beefy damage.
I donât particularly mind games with long comboâs either, but I really hate hard damage scaling.
I blame shitty trial/challenge modes in modern fighting games. They place all the emphasis on combos (especially impractical combos), therefore more players think itâs important. When was the last time you saw a fleshed-out trial mode that bothered to teach defense, throw techs, anti-airs, and spacing? Itâs pretty rare. Skull Girls had a pretty solid tutorial that literally every FG maker in the world should try to emulate and improve on.
Ironically for combo heavy game, KI3 does this pretty good too. but then Im not sure if can really call KI combo oriented.
So you dont like when hitstun deterioration kicks in?
Confusing.
Oh man, thatâs a good one.
But even regular 1v1 has alot of long, highly damaging juggle combos.
You can get by with subpar fundamentals with big combos against most average and medicore opponents. Its only when you get to a point when your facing good opponents that the one opportunity for a combo wonât come. aka you can play like ass for 90% of the match and still pull a win out of your ass with a damaging enough combo.
Which is what Bala reminded me of at the KOFs at evo 2 years ago. Horrible fundamentals and getting by with large takuma combos. Though I have no KOF experience to speak of so perhaps I completely missed it. But watching it live that was the impression that I got.
Did you just say fucking BALA has horrible fundamentals? I donât know what makes you think that, but itâs certainly not the case. Even if it was the fact that he got stomped in the second set would still prove that the game is still fundamental based.
âTooâ combo orientated? Yes. MVC3, BB and P4A are the biggest offenders because they sacrifice alot of the other FG fundamentals simply to focus purely on combos and flash. KoFXIII is closer to the middle ground but still abit too combo orientated imo, especially compared to past KoF games; and I feel that they nerfed the speed of the game, effectiveness of normals (esp in terms of damage) and simple comboâs in KoFXIII in favour of the larger, longer, flashier (HD)meter heavy comboâs.
My problem with games like BB, P4A and those similar, is the fact that they are way too orchestrated. Little care is given to other aspects of the game because of Ebenezer Combo. Though have fun stating legit reasons as to why you dislike games like BB and MVC3 without being called a âhaterâ.
As for GG, it became more combo orientated when AC came but was still striking a very good balance and the core fundamentals were not neglectedâŚalthough some had morphed abit with the inclusion of FBâs. Thatâs actually changing with Xrd; the removal of FBâs and FRCâs directly nerfs combo longevity (as well as other things, but those are supplemented with the alternative RC systems). With the new RC system, YRCâs especially (these can only be performed if the opponent is in neither block nor hitstun, so these are not for combos at all); the game has shifted itâs emphasis into the neutral game. Into creativity; set-upâs; mind games and the encouraged use of meter beyond comboâs and the 25%. Though the comboâs are still cool and satisfying; they donât take an age and they arenât orchestrated, shallow nonsense.
P.S, guys; having an emphasis on combos in a game does not make it combo orientated. Only when the fundamental balance is lopsided in the way of combos is a game combo orientated. VF5FS is a good example; very heavy emphasis on combos but an even heavier emphasis on fundamentals means that it ISNâT combo orientated.
Anytime you think combos are too long, remember this video:
No sound, unfortunately.
[quote=âShinjiGohan, post:73, topic:167460â]
You can get by with subpar fundamentals with big combos against most average and medicore opponents. Its only when you get to a point when your facing good opponents that the one opportunity for a combo wonât come. aka you can play like ass for 90% of the match and still pull a win out of your ass with a damaging enough combo.
Which is what Bala reminded me of at the KOFs at evo 2 years ago. Horrible fundamentals and getting by with large takuma combos. Though I have no KOF experience to speak of so perhaps I completely missed it. But watching it live that was the impression that I got.
[/quote]Bala has great KOF fundamentals, the issue is really more if KOF XIII rewards KOF fundamentals as much as other KOF games since the game has some pretty fair criticisms in regards to that subject such as:
-Short-hops are godlike, normals being stubbier than normal which makes stuffing short hops harder, the other hops are pretty floaty in general. However, jumping in this version of KOF is a good idea due to something about the collision boxes benefiting the player who is jumping in on the grounded opponent.
- Fireballs are pretty bad, while KOF has always given players multiple options around zoning, good zoning has been rewarded in KOF where characters like Athena can do a good job keeping characters out, this game not so much.
-Rolls are terrible when compared to other KOF games, theyâre much slower and easily telegraphed.
-Individual hits doing much less damage than normal for a KOF game, combos are much more important in XIII when compared to 98 (and much longer). Damage overall is pretty low compared to 98 where some characters are on that ST damage status.
-Meter is really easy to get in this game like characters who can already do stupid damage can get meter really easy (Iâm looking at you Hwa Jai) etc. This makes meter mangement important and makes characters who can, like I said, do stupid damage and get tons of meter really good (Mr.Karate, Kim, Hwa Jai). Meter management has never been this important in the series, characters in KOF 98 like Terry could be really good and never use meter (Terry is a fantastic point character in 98 because of this, he does a lot of things well and really never has any use for meter). That isnât the case as much in KOF XIII.
Though I usually get hyped over long flashy combos I admit that they can get annoying. I think PSASBR did it right. Set a max to all combos. Make some easier and some harder so you can still style or do bnbâs but no true infinites.
Somewhat related. Mauve and Uesugi Kengou talking about SSV Special on the front page.
Really wish we saw more from that series in general as a 2D fighter.
Again I said that my viewpoint isnât from a KOF player. So the finer points are things that I canât see. What I saw was a player who was getting beat to the punch repeatively and was seemingly baled out with a huge takuma combo time and time again.