Damn! Let’em know how you really feel lol.
Same could be said about most discussions if you want to get technical. Not just within FGD but most conversations in general. I’m not saying change a game entirely. Just want people’s opinions and thoughts on universal and character specific mechanics and which would they prefer and why? Like is it so bad to think or discuss such things? Who kows maybe this discussion could give people ideas on how to implement such mechanics in their own games. Just keep an open mind.
Wait so restands/recaptures are available to everyone in KI? I thought that was exclusive to one of Saberwulf’s moves?
That is his preference and i respect it, but i certainly don’t treat it as gospel, different health values is in no way different to giving characters different walk speeds, dashes, different air movement options sets, etc, etc.
Of course that giving a character a good amount of health instead of good tools and call it a day would be just idiotic, but giving characters different attributes is part of what makes the fighting games awesome.
We can make an argument that giving some characters special movement options while others no and hoping that their tools will even the field is just a terrible idea, yet mvc2 is considered by many folks (included you and mikez) as one of their favorite games of all time.
That or say that different heights/weights for every character is just a terrible idea, yet mikez is totally fine with it to include it on his games.
Different health values is just another part of the asymmetric balance, and like any part of it, it takes work and fine tunning to get it right, but that doesn’t mean that is a bad idea, it only means that there are bad implementations.
Since everyone is willing to give an honest answer i will let you know what i think.
Every game is different, some have parries as a universe mechanic (3s, Battle Fantasia), others have it as a mechanic specific to a character (Hakumen on BlazBlue).
It all depends of the context and how the game is designed.
Like my homie crotchpuncha said, i am more interested on playing the game as it is than wishing that x thing should be an universal mechanic or specific to x or y character.
@BB_Hoody, you know you can do multiple quotes in a single post, right?
It can get really troublesome though when the tools of your low health character aren’t actually as good as the developers intended, so the low health just makes things even more unbalanced by just making that character die faster. Like say, Elizabeth in P4A.
Unlike variable walkspeeds, mobility, meters, etc., health generally isn’t an expendable resource. The goal is, after all, don’t get hit, and if you can get an advantage on your opponent without losing health, it’s pretty much always a better idea to take that option. If we’re taking about a game where health actually is an expendable resource like Baroque or Carmine’s blood stuff, that’s a different story, though.
yeah I forget that sometimes when I’m really into a discussion lol.
That is why i say that as every other aspect of the asymmetric balance it neeeds fine tuning, for example i think that walkspeeds or movement options in general are more critical for the balance of characters than health. Top tier characters are usually those who have better movement options and tools that complement those options.
The case of Elizabeth is special because because she on paper could be broken, it is why balancing here is tricky, give it too much and she ends being a nightmare, give her too little she ends having nightmares.
I am not really too invested on P4 those days, so i can’t really give an educated opinion on what are the problems with Elizabeth,
Another fact to take into account is that game balance at the end of the day is not only a matter of high level play, the developers also need to take into account the low and mid level players; of course balancing the game only for the lowest common denominator is a bad idea, but after all, they are also part of the people who plays the game, both low and mid level players neeed to feel the game is fair for them too.
It is why balancing some characters can be a nightmare.
For example, i am a Tager player on BB, he has been historically a low tier character, and yet he is the bane for anyone below high level play.
He is a character that in the eyes of the low and mid level players is unfair by how much he takes away from them and how hard is too kill, despite all his weaknes.
He is also a character that can control the flow of the match and the space with his magnetism mechanic, once you fall for his mixups you will certainly feel the pain.
Imagine how awful will be for them once BBCPEX Tager who is top is unleashed on the masses, lol.
Even when we would like that the developers focused on high level play only, the reality is that they also need to take into account the low and mid level play to have success.
I would like to go on more about this, but it will be offtopic so i will leave it at that.
I don’t remember saying not to talk about it, I remember you asking people for their opinion so I gave mine.
correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like in your opinion talking about this is a waste of time, hence my response. But I guess that technically is an opinion on the subject. No reason we can’t play our games and discuss such things within a game. But you’re entitled to your opinion.
Let me give you an history lesson, we all have been there, we all have had this same discussion on the past, and in the end it always devolves into dumbshit.
Like for example, those who are against universal mechanics because they believe they homogenize the characters, therefore they are the devil.
Not to mention those who think that made the games worse because they distract from the fundamentals whatever that they are because every moon someone has a different idea of what consist as fundamentals, there are also those who think that are terrible desing so the games with a lot of universal mechanics are simply trash.
And the list goes and goes and goes.
Putting it simple, is that many of us are tired of discussing the same shit over and over and having to deal with the classic srk peasant who doesn’t know what the hell are they talking about since they only played SF or MVC.
I guess that you were not around by the time that MVC3 was announced and the upraor when they found out that everyone outside those with unique air movement options would had an air dash, like enraged monkeys throwing shit, many people started throwing tantrums that it would ruin the game yada yada yada yada.
I still do wonder sometimes what would have happened if capcom instead decided to make the game they wanted and not this mess that because they kept listening to every single nitpick over an unfinished product now we have to deal with a craptastic implementation of hitstun scaling, a game with large chain windows and other stuff that cements the game as a kusoge like the japanese like to accuretly describe it.
But instead of keep theory fighting and theory designing many of us now prefer to play and enjoy the games for what they are.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted to implement a burst mechanic (seeing that it is on the hxh mode) as well as the air dashes but they decided to forget about it because the initial reception to their ideas by what i am sure it was a vocal minority of dumb monkeys.
It was likely going to be a disappointment regardless of fan input. The game has a lot of problems because of generally terrible new ideas, a poor understanding of playing MVC2 and the new developers weren’t aware of any of the lessons the old developers learned over the years. Then on top of that Ryoto Niitsuma said quite flatly that he never intended for MvC3 to be a serious tournament fighting game. That is just a clear lack of respect for the series.
I remember Seth Killian saying something like “We know we could never really repeat what MvC2 great.” I can see now that was PR speak for “These guys aren’t even trying to figure MvC2 out, so don’t be surprised if it’s ridiculous.”
OK now I see where you’re coming from, as appose to your earlier post where you had just simply decreed this thread is shit
I’m gonna throw my two cents into the pot because I’ve got nothing better to do right now. It all really comes down to the overall design philosophies of the game and what you’re trying to achieve.
Character specific mechanics are a great way to make characters very unique and diverse and give them individual ways to deal with situations. The downfall to that is that more often than not when characters are designed in such a unique way, matchups become super prevalent and important. Like Guilty Gear for example, it’s a game with a ton of unique designs, tons of unique attacks and move properties, tons of unique subsystems, extra meters, character specific abilities. Because of this, designs are super focused and characters have very clear strengths and very clear weaknesses. Matchups get really lopsided because some characters just flat out lack the tools to deal with certain situations because they were designed with other situations in mind. This isn’t a bad thing, it does give you clear things to practice against, you really know what you need to look out for in matchups, but very hard defined matchups are almost inescapable with this type of design. Generally though this can make games very complex and study heavy, the more character specific mechanics and systems in the game the more there is to learn. Between character specific mechanics, weight classes, hitbox sizes, damage scaling/proration/whatever, health values, etc., there gets to be a massive amount to remember. If you want to make a really complicated game for better or for worse, this is the way to go.
On the other hand, universal mechanics give everyone in the roster a way to deal with situations, everyone pulls from a pool of shared techniques and abilities. Some say that this can lead to homogenized feeling characters where everyone kinda does the same things, probably the big example of this being the Mortal Kombat series where everyone has basically the same toolset but one character has a fast fireball and one has a fireball that freezes you and one has a fireball that aims upward and so on and so forth. Everyone does similar things but have tweaks to them to make them different. This can definitely be a problem, but when I think universal mechanics, I tend to think of King of Fighters instead. With rolling everyone has a way to deal with fireball, with guard cancel roll and guard cancel blowback everyone has a way to deal with chip damage AND pressure situations that are tough to manage, with short hops everyone has a means to go on the offensive and employ some effective mixup. Even if these situations aren’t the absolute best tools to deal with every situation in the game, everyone has tools to deal with every situation in the game, and characters are more focused on moveset and being tooled to fit into a gameplan rather than being tooled to deal with someone else’s gameplan. This is one thing that KoF really excels at, almost regardless of character choice, as long as YOU can get your gameplan going, your character is really hard to deal with, because SNK doesn’t give characters filler moves so they can deal with fireballs or something because you already have tools to deal with fireballs. It moreso comes down to playing the opponent rather than the matchup, which is why if you watch a KoF tournament or read the wonderful SRK wiki for classic KoF, you’ll see that in tons of KoF games most if not all of the characters are viable and character variety is huge.
Both designs can be smart, both designs can be rewarding, it’s just a matter of what kind of designs you want. Character specific mechanics can lead to incredibly strong fun to use characters that have oppressive tools that you can just run with. People will really find playstyles to gravitate towards, characters that interest them, it’s a game that breeds character loyalty. Universal mechanics on the other hand lead to a smooth freeflowing game where everyone has something to work with and the only oppressive tools at your disposal are in your head and how effectively you can implement your strategy against your opponent. It’ll be easier to pick up and play multiple characters once you understand the core engine of the game, the only thing holding you back is planning effectively for numerous situations. It goes without saying, but character specific mechanics are generally in games with a higher focus on character design and universal mechanics are generally in games with a higher focus on core engine design. They each have their place.
Well yea that is my opinion, but that doesn’t mean I’m telling you not to talk about it, it just means that’s my opinion about wishing something was something else, which is what this thread really boils down to.
You asked for opinions, you can’t get mad when someone gives you one you don’t like. I didn’t even think my post on the subject was hostile at at all. Shit I even asked a guy to go into detail on one of his positions so clearly I’m find with discussion.
The only thing that i don’t like of your post is that you make the same mistake of sell GG as an extremly complex game when its more user friendly than many people believe.
Just because it’s easy to play at a low level doesn’t mean it’s easy to play at a high level, and there is a substantially higher learning curve and amount to study at a higher level of GG than most games because you’re learning things like the intricacies of individual character blockstrings to know when you can IB and when you should IB to get different punish opportunities, how character weight classes affect confirms/juggles/anti airs/punishes, learning the character specific mechanics like Sin’s hunger meter, which itself isn’t complicated, but then inferring from the hunger meter based on how it works to determine how Sin players like to use that meter and when they like to eat to recover and when you have an opportunity to punish, so on so forth etc. etc. etc.
GG totally is user friendly to jump into and play, but the better you get the more that goes away. To become proficient at GG you really need to work at it, more so than other games. GG isn’t the most complex thing ever, it’s not an insurmountable amount of knowledge to understand, but I feel like claiming that the game doesn’t demand a higher level of study and have far more character specific intricacies that make things more complex than other games is intellectually dishonest.
I’m not mad, I was just disappointed as to why people would find this discussion pointless. But again you’re entitled to your opinion. It’s all good.
Thank you for this post. I think me and a lot of others learned from it. From the way you put it, it sounds like I’d prefer a game that utilizes more universal mechanics that puts characters on an even playing field. That’s why I love Vampire Savior. mechanics such as push blocking, guard cancels/alpha counters ( some better than others ) etc allow just about all characters ( maybe not Anak, poor guy ) to compete. But games with more focus on character specific mechanics have their appeal. But it seems like in those games some characters will be flat out better than others or like you explained be more match up heavy. Because while a character that’s bottom tier mechanics’s might not be generally great, they can be highly effective I specific match ups against some high tier characters.
Yo made it soun lik the amount of work needed for GG is not present on other games that for some reason don’t end labeled like that, you say that you think is intellectually dishonest to say that GG is more complex than other games, while i think that overreaching on how complicate the game is is the same if not worst, because one thing is say that the game is not complex, but other trying to say that it requires an amount of time for learning it that is like if it was like rocked science or something.
Sometimes i wonder how well do the people that treat GG as a string theory thesis, know the game, because is obvious to anyone who actually plays the game that they more than likely are parroting what they have heard.
You sound like the people that come saying that GG is overcomplicated and then say that games like mvc2/mvc3 are dumbed shit for babies.
Okay, you can feel however way you want, but I do play GG. I main I-No in Xrd, Jam in AC, #R is the game that got me into competitive fighters back in 2006, if you think what I’m saying has no basis then maybe you just learn GG more naturally than I do or maybe I’m just so bad at the entire series that I think that things in GG are more complicated than they are. I’m not going to pretend to be an amazing GG player or anything because I prioritize other games like 98 and XIII over it, but it’s not like I’m just making shit up about a game I don’t play. That’s how I feel about GG, the sheer amount of character specific things you need to learn and keep track of makes every matchup feel like a new game entirely.