A disclaimer, since SRK these days is filled with like equal parts cool dudes who know how to read and jackasses who don’t: I don’t agree with this article. Like, at all. I’m posting it because this is “Fighting Game Discussion” and this is a topic of discussion related to fighting games.
That out of the way, a little history: Keith Burgun is the head of Dinofarm Games, maker of the admittedly really awesome games 100 Rogues (out for a while on mobile devices) and Auro (in beta but looking promising). I like Keith. But he’s… opinionated. And often about topics he doesn’t fully understand, like say asymmetrical competitive games like fighters.
He wrote this:
Discuss. And check the comments for some big names in game design talking about it.
Well let me just start off by saying that anyone who plays a game by trying to think about what is best for the game as opposed to what is best for increasing their chances to win is an idiot.
Oh good, the maiden response is monstrously dumb. Does the :rolleyes: smiley still work? Guess I’ll find out when I post.
Anywho, since you’re one of the aforementioned jackasses who can’t read: this isn’t about learning to play to win in a given fighter despite the fighter’s problems, it’s about a designer’s philosophy on such games. So, um, yeah, this topic is about “what is best for the game” and opinions related to that.
One would imagine “playing to win” would imply knowing what the fuck one is doing.
No but seriously, he had some interesting points. I never really thought too much about the subject but now I realize that most of the games I enjoy are asymmetrical. Funny.
My comment was in reference to this, which I didn’t think I would need to quote. I have a problem with this assumption, because no one who plays a video game ever plays a video game in the interest of what is best for the game and not in the interest of winning, not even casual players. The player is always trying to win, because that is the goal of the game. For a game designer to assume that any player takes this into account is an idiotic assumption and shouldn’t be counted as a negative towards asymmetric games because it legitimately does not exist. We make fun of scrubs all the time for saying “Fireballs are cheap” or “Spamming is for pussies,” but no one plays a game with the intent of making the game look good. If they can win by mashing out lightning legs as hard as they can they’re going to do it. As a game designer, you shouldn’t focus on trying to make all choices equal, you should focus on making all choices FUN.
So maybe instead of being a tool you could make an inference instead of taking a statement at face value, or maybe ask what I meant since you clearly didn’t get my point.
Also got posted on Gamasutra, with more… intriguing comments.
So you either very conveniently failed to give your comment context – suspicious given how sure you seem of yourself – or you hurriedly found a way to make that comment stick. Dumb either way, but hey, on-topic is on-topic.
I think it’s really easy to fall into the vortex of thinking that the article is talking about “not playing to win,” when the article is, in fact, talking strictly about design aspects and how the player has to interact with choices that are presented by asymmetry.
I will withhold my opinion on the writing, but as I was reading, I was thinking to myself, “I can only imagine someone making a reference to ‘Playing to Win’…”
Other than a few puzzle games and FPS, every good head-to-head game is asymmetrical.
Also, this guy’s writing is painful to read. He comes across like a first-year university student.
I can’t be bothered reading the entire article after everybody’s comments so far. But I’ll say this: SFII is an asymmetrical game, but new players will just pick the ordinary looking Ryu as a starting point
The main problem with the author’s argument is that all his examples are drawn from traditional turn-based games, which are among the easiest genre to create emergent asymmetry from inherent symmetry. In video games genres such as MOBAs and fighting games, symmetrical design usually reduces possible strategies to those that exploit the engine the most.
I think the author’s response to this would be that the exploitation of the engine would be a good thing, in the development sense, because it shows how frail the engine is and would be an impetus for a genuine improvement of the game through the engine, rather than through additions that hide or band-aid the engine’s exploitable problems.
The author of the article also doesn’t touch upon player preference (and if he did I must have missed it because I only went through it once).
If I liked to play a more zoning based game, and I know I can zone better way better than I rush down, while my opponent prefers to rush down. Then at the character select screen I can choose a character that starts me off on a character who zones better, at the cost of some other tools. If it was a symmetrical game where both players are Ken, who is more into rushing down than chucking fireballs constantly, then I am inherently at a disadvantage due to my preference of playstyle. Not everyone wants to play a game the same way. Sure I can try to play zoning Ken, but why don’t I just pick a character that plays to my strength than having to stick with what’s given to me?
But what if the one character was evenly proficient in zoning and rushing down? Well that is a tough question, because how can you tell if a character does the opposite thing evenly? You could say, “hey let’s test it, by having one player only zone and the other character only rushdown”. But everyone knows that’s a bs way of testing that and not exactly reflective of how a character really plays.
edit: actually he did go over it, on the personal expression part and said it doesn’t exist. Wait what? How can he brush that off, when we have people playing Ryu differently?
For example if someone had better reactions than his opponent, then he may like playing footsies against his opponent. For example, if he saw the other guy whiff cr.mk, then he would sweep it to gain the advantage. If the opponent knows he is weak in that area, then he doesn’t want to play any part of that losing game and play up another aspect or plan that he is good at. Maybe he is much better at reading fireball patterns and try to win through that way.
