I would like a fighter were I actually have complete creative control of the character and their attacks. Being able to make a character that looks as detailed as the original characters is ideal. I don’t want to choose from a list of attacks, I want to create the attacks. Pretty much, I want as much freedom of creation that the original character designers had. Of course, there would have to be some limits to prevent mugenitis. Maybe a system like EX-Groove mode where you are given a certain amount of points toward creating a groove(or a character when applied to this topic). You can’t give your character too much because you’d go over your limit. I’m sure players would find low-point combinations that may be a little too good, but that’s what downloadable patches are for.
EDIT: After looking at Fighter Maker…NOT LIKE THAT.
I just thought about this the other night. I don’t think any fighter has ever been designed with custom characters as its sole focus other than fighter maker, but that game was more of a fighting move maker.
I think a game could work if they took a mmorpg type of approach. You pick a class or style, and mabbe a secondary style. Then basic moves and special moves etc would all be based on a point system, and which moves you had access to would be based on your style. If it was magically balanced, then you could have a number of viable builds.
But this is just me randomly thinking out loud now.
Could you do custom characters in a cool way? Yes.
Would it benefit fighting games? Not for all the work it would take.
Consider the fact that most gamers don’t have the patience to learn your standard fighter. How many gamers would spend the time to create a new character with new moves, with specific frame data for each move, and specific aesthetics for each character. It would largely go unused.
Good timing with that bump. Out of boredom I just filled out an SC4 survey Namco emailed to me (must’ve been signed up there eons ago), and it mentioned something like “with online character customization for virtually infinite matchups, no longer can you just memorize your opponent’s strategies” and some bs about having to adapt more or whatever. You guys think there’s any truth in that? I can’t imagine playing against a character I’ve never seen or I would just be guessing since I’d have no idea what to expect, but I guess later-round adaptations could be interesting (or not). And yeah, there’s always the chance something could be god tier.
Yeah…fighting games are too strategy oriented for that IMO. The trend of games now seems to be trying to allow you to create your own game out of the game you purchased but for fighting games…completely custom characters just takes away from the fight more so than add to it. It would be completely random since everybody’s character would be different and you’d never know what to expect. There would definitely have to be limits to the custimization and even then…it’s just not the same to me as someone putting real effort to learn the ins and outs of a character despite their strengths and weaknesses.
I mean…to really get it to work like someone else mentioned earlier…you’d have to put custom characters into classes WoW style. That way there’s some kind of idea of the moveset of the character and the way to approach them in a fight. I mean if that’s the next step towards creating more sales for a fighting game…then sure. Other than that…I think people still enjoy playing a good game that works and is familiar to them.
I don’t think any kind of fighting game in the sense we understand it to be, will ever work out with custom characters. Imo it compremises the game’s “authenticity” and takes away from the artistic direction of the game as a whole. Imagine if you could throw your own bad characters into a great movie, with all the bad acting and crappy dialog included. Thats exactly how I feel about custom characters.
The game would only have authenticity if it had original characters and wasn’t centered around create a character. If the game expected you to compete with a made up character(as in, there were no pre-existing characters to choose) then there wouldn’t be an over-lying style or direction that would be ruined by the CACs. There would be no great movie to begin with in this sense, just film and a camera.
Ive gotta admit even though I do like creating my own person to mess about with most of the time it doesnt work too well and I wind up creating broken characters that look really ugly (MKA).
HOWEVER I do think SCIII got it on the nail though with the creation by just providing move-sets and making the create-a-characters almost central to one part of the game :woot:
