Lol, TL;DR
smash has no comeback mechanics and the player base is strong…
ultra has comeback mechanics and the player base is strong…
why is this a thread?
I have no idea how you got from A to B there, but your reasoning sounds something like “cars are easy to drive and since they are easy to drive then no one should ever crash and therefor there is no need for safety devices in said cars”
Your point presumes that a comeback will happen before there is a huge lead. Which is all good, because yes that WILL happen. My point is what happens when that DOESNT happen, and that the game should never feel over before all the life is actually gone.
If you disagree, then thats fine for you. But i really hope that people with your way of thinking are not designing the next streetfighter that i have to make a decision on whether i want to play or not. Or at the very least that designers with your philosophy actually have to play each other and see just how boring of a game they create, so they will educate themselves and not create a boring game.
Yeah again about big damage a sf4 player I played ST with last week said after our matches “man, that thing doesnt need a comeback mechanic with such high damage.”
Why are you being so dramatic?
Anyway, If you have a bunch of real opportunities for a comeback and you don’t/can’t make it happen then it’s a good sign that your opponent was just more skilled than you.
Even I was a game designer, I would never create a low damage game with poor mixup potential anyway. The best example of such a game is SF4 which I think is a terrible, boring game.
That is actually interesting correlation.
High damage = less need for a comeback mechanic.
Low damage = possible need depending on severity of mechanic.
I’m in the camp of "depends on if game is designed around the feature."
At this point in the SF4 games, I’m just meh towards it, because I’ve always treated the Ultra meter as basically a non-draining Rage meter of the Samurai Shodown series (though UNLIKE the SamSho games, the player who has a built-up Ultra meter do not get a damage boost, but like I said, it doesn’t drain away). And from the Alpha games on that had meter in SF, the player getting their asses kicked still built up a little bit of Super, sometimes enough that the other guy still had to watch out for wake-up/revenge supers that can still turn shit around in a fight.
I wonder, how many people here played a (now very) obscure fighter Rumble Fish? That game (and the sequel, which never got a console release, FUCK YOU SEGA) operated with two distinct meters: Offense and Defense. The offense meter (obviously) you gained via attacking your opponent, and had mechanics centered around cancelling your attacks as well as your main offensive supers. Attacking did still give a small increase towards your Defense meter, which obviously gained faster when you were getting your ass beat. However, that meter gave you ability to use simple stuff similar to blowbacks and emergency dodges (Rumble Fish didn’t have a burst mechanic… as far as I can recall). Oh, and certain characters had supers with some invincible frames when full of Defense meter (I know Garnet had a Defense super available to her when meter was full… but required her to be flat on the ground. One of the few cases of a pure-reversal-only attack). Others were more standard “get the fuck off me” moves, but did little damage in return.
That’s the stuff I like, because while it still keeps things interesting, it doesn’t outright hand a person “Oh, I’ll give you this to help you win HARD” type of comeback that certain games (cough MvC3) still get griped at for having.
^^That Rumble Fish mechanic sounds pretty interesting.
I think the problem with Ultras is that they’re too easy to get. If I’m focusing projectiles AND getting hit, I can possibly have TWO Ultras in a single round, which is absurd. A comeback mechanic, IMO, should only be available when you’re about to lose (hence calling it a “comeback.”)
If Capcom had made the Ultra meter inversely proportional to your life gauge, and that being THE ONLY way you could fill it, and the only way it could be totally full is when your life gauge was near 0, I doubt Ultras would have been as big a deal.
imo ultras were good for SFIV in that it gave newbie players something to focus on. players who are completely new to the genre do not know what they need to be learning (they still complain about fireball spam, after all), but you give them a flashy move with a cinematic that does over 40% of someone’s health and they will probably hop onboard with that.
if you’re lucky, they’ll learn to do the motion properly so they don’t keep getting these stupid yellow flashing uppercuts and learn to use their ultras at a time when they aren’t easily jumped over
i love how xf is constantly blamed for umvc3 comebacks (and how people seem to still think this is a problem in a best of five format)
when zero kills your point and then lands two incoming mixups to win the game it’s definitely not because he had xfactor
I agree on Capcom’s stance of putting emphasis to how much a player loses by (comeback factors). That’s a good way of having the person wanting to play more and eventually learning the game.
I was fortunate enough that I took SF4 seriously only after I got my ass handed to me by a person at a local arcade. We don’t live in a thriving arcade age anymore, pride is no longer a big motivating factor for learning fighting games.
From what I’ve heard the scene was “super elitist and underground for no reason” this is an exact quote from somebody I know who was around then.
To respond to the thread though, comeback mechanics aren’t bad if they are implemented well. You could argue that Super from ST is a comeback mechanic. Some examples of decent/non annoying comeback mechanics are Awakening in persona, and hell fire mode in GG you do get some slight things you couldn’t do before, but you still have to play well and use your tools intelligently to get the W. Whereas X factor for example borderline rewards certain characters for losing their team.
mvc2 has no comeback mechanics and its the GOAT
dont argue with me you already lost
At the lowest levels of play, ultras are mashed out, usually at random. Neither player learns anything.
At the highest levels of play, they reward a player for getting pounded on.
When you mix a high-level and low-level player, random Ultras from the newbie just give the high level player a free punish. Ultras also give the high-level player ways to easily output high damage to turn around the one game where the newbie was legitimately winning.
Why would any non-casuals defend them? The most positive thing that can be said about them is that they potentially balance out some difficult matchups by shutting down certain options. Thing is, it’s not fun to have options shut down because you’re doing well. Makes no sense. I’ll be sad if SFV has Ultras or anything even close to resembling them.
SFIV is, as someone who likes it, a boring game to watch. One potential argument for Ultras is that they’re hype. Not after the millionth time though, and especially not when they take ages, and are therefore sometimes used as timer scams. Instead of forcing it, the game itself should be exciting because of legitimate gameplay. There’s actually nothing more boring and less fighting-gamey than watching Justin Wong spend entire rounds, games, and sets fishing for Ultras with Rufus.
They hurt new players for many reasons, imagine a new player actually trying to play good and gets a life lead, and now the more experienced player has even more advantage because he took damage. Now the more experienced player has experience AND a comeback factor. Sounds pretty one sided to me.
comeback factors are pretty derpy and i have always hated the ultra mechanic in 4. like if i take of half your health, why do you automatically get rewarded by receiving an ultra that could have such good properties that just the threat of it alone can swing the neutral right back into the losers favor. Then from the neutral that now he has the advantage from, he can get that opening now that he didn’t have before and from that one opening can mount an offence that KO’s me because i didn’t make the right choice two times and got stunned and KO’ed. Getting hit shouldn’t be rewarded
I dont understand people saying ST supers were a comeback mechanic. In ST you don’t even get any meter from being hit.
I agree that comeback mechanics punish players. They just add another layer of complexity for newbies to wade through before they can start “actually playing”. Capcom seems to think players drop fighting games because they can’t win. They don’t. They stop playing fighting games because they can’t play.
That’s the real meat of the problem right there. It takes too much time to get to the point where you’re actually playing a fighting game as opposed to learning how to play it. No other genre takes this long to gain the basic proficiency needed to function at a baseline level.
If I was a new player getting into fighting games now it could take weeks or months before I could consider myself to be playing the game. Not even being good at the game. Just playing at a level where I basically know what options are available, can make an educated decision on which option to select, and can make my character follow through on my decision.
If Capcom wants to appeal to more casual players, they need to eliminate that barrier. Once players feel like they understand the game and can play it, they will find the drive to get better at it. As it is, newbies drop fighting games for the same reason that thousands of people drop playing the guitar. It’s not because they can’t play as good as someone who played all his life. It’s because they can’t play at all.
Agree with the OP 100% and it’s basically why ST is the truth.
CAPCOM please hire this mofo
It was, dark times for sure. I used to go to gatherings in NYC. It was extremely intimidating for any newcomer.
Smash is super popular among casual players. It’s partially because it’s Nintendo characters beating the snot out of each other, but it’s also because it’s such a simple game to learn. Characters have only 19 attacks (some have 20 (zair)) and there’s no need to pause and look up commands to learn how to do attacks with certain characters. Capcom has the right idea for fixing this problem of simply learning the controls, but it’s only for some old games in the series
Perhaps this could be the default screen setting. I’m not sure. Not having a comeback mechanic would simplify the controls and make this screen idea less cluttered
its ironic you say all this. I believe the reason we have so many good players now is BECAUSE of the come back mechanics, back in the day the people who would thrive were the ones who followed the rules straight away and the rest found no reason to stick around