Why is it that a tournament mode isn’t a standard mode in all fighting games? I remember that shit from the SNES Super Street Fighter 2 and thought it was brilliant. I know SF4 has it, as well as some other games, but the point is every fighting game should have it by now.
Devs could even take it a step further and design a tourney mode so that it would provide optimal play by disabling unneeded features or only using stages that wouldn’t cause potential lag.
The thing is that only capcom does stages with potential lag.
Also what unnecessary features?
Got into a bit of an argument with a VF player about emergent gameplay in fighting games. After arguing that good fighting games are those that allow players the freedom to “break stuff” so to speak, he countered that “playing the game outside how it was intended to be played when it was created” was “bad design.” So now I’m wondering, what are everyone (or at least the FGD regulars) thoughts on this.
Me, I admit that I’ve probably been around the Capcom block too much that I think that it’s okay for games to be “broken” and played outside how the developers intended since that implies a sort of freedom (which is also why, outside of my natural tier whore tendencies, I’m fine with games that aren’t quite balanced).
““playing the game outside how it was intended to be played when it was created” was “bad design.””
couldn’t get past this. as a game developer of fighting games in particular you cannot avoid this. you cannot hope to design every combo, mixup, or interaction in the game and make it work out and balance the way you want it to.
a lot of problems in fighting games come from these sort of oversights, but a lot of the really cool stuff does too.
competition is naturally about imbalance. there is no problem with imbalance if there is a choice involved.
While i think that it can enhance the depth of the game, i can understand where he is coming from, of course that is inevitable that the games end “broken” the more they are played, but ideally how much they are broken would be less if the game is well designed.
What do i mean is that, even when the game designers can’t foresee everything that will end making the high level play, the high level play wouldn’t be too far apart from what was intended, also, i don’t consider imbalance between characters as part of the design in this specific case, unless the imbalance is caused because some glitch or purposefully trying to make the character strong , the imbalance is only a byproduct of the fact that the developers can’t foresee every aspect of the game in the long run.
It’s also hard to take “developer intent” clearly.
Example; SF4. Off of sweep and throw, there are 2 wakeup options. Block or press buttons. So yeah, the concept of vortex is going to stem from this.
SFxT - they tried to add another wakeup option off of hard knockdown. First revision of the game, rolls were not punishable and went far enough that they could avoid a lot of wakeup options.
This mitigated most of the vortex problem but made hard knockdown way less powerful. Add a punish to the rolls and things were looking pretty good, but it was probably too late for the game.
I’ll go ahead and say that all the current 2d FGs are pretty poorly designed. The strongest design is probably KoF13 but its damage flaw is unfortunate (without HD combos it would have been a very nice game). The next strongest designs IMO are Persona 4 and UMVC3/SF4. Persona 4 does a lot of things pretty well but has poor character balance and not enough moves to keep the game interesting when going in depth and grinding out the game. UMVC3’s damage is incredibly high, the balance is incredibly bad (but expected), and XF/TACs are incredibly lazy and gamechanging mechanics, but the combo system, team system, and cast are strong points. SF4 is just kind of boring, and although it is supposed to be solid, ends up having vortex and silly dive kick mixups. and cammy.
nah the best current fighting game is obviously Gōketsuji Ichizoku Matsuri Senzo Kuyou.
I mean the best fighting game of all time is Digimon Rumble Arena 2.
I disagree that P4A is a well designed game. The issues with the 2 button “DPs” are already well known (seriously, being able to cancel Mitsuru’s into super on whiff is bullshit, we were laughing at how many Singaporean players at SEAM2013 were falling for it). Then there’s the lack of normals as well as how easy it is to make things happen in the game even if you don’t understand it.
Also, if not for XF, UMvC3 would be fine as it is. Sure undizzy from 2 was a better solution than hitstun scaling (in that a) it didn’t affect the combo itself and b) it wasn’t plagued by exceptions), but aside from that, XF is really the only thing that could use fixing. Damage in general is fine, it’s a Versus game, you’re supposed to be dying of 1 or 2 combos. Balance is also ok. We actually have a decent amount of viable character (more than 2, which is still an overall better game).
XTekken is a game that needs a second chance. Look past the gems and DLC bullshit and the system in the 2013 version is actually pretty solid. More solid than IV which is plagued by alot of things but gets a free pass since it has a large playerbase.
In terms of being solid, I’d put Skullgirls up there with KoFXIII. Sure Slightly Different Edition still has some really long combos (Fortune… ugh), but everything in general is pretty well designed. The game is moving closer to MvC2 thanks to guys like MegamanDS (thank you Dan for giving us our AHVB-like shenanigans) as well as Mike Z putting in all the stuff he liked from Neo_G’s system (push block guard cancel, invincible assists, double snap infinites, undizzy).
I’m pretty sure you can’t cancel the Mitsuru DP into super on whiff, just on block.
I like P4’s systems. The Awakening system is has its own metagame, and isn’t too terrible. The “blue life” system is a little gimmicky, since all chip is blue life and all DPs and cancels create blue life, but it’s consistent. The status system is very cool and I wish they did more stuff with it. The persona card system was very cool even though unbalanced, and they’re looking to balance it so that is cool too.
The DPs were an awful idea yes.
Current SFxT has some merits but RIP playerbase and I think the combo system is terrible. It is also pretty difficult to have a serious offense in the game.
updated Skullgirls doesn’t exist yet, and while I wish SG was successful, I just didn’t like the gameplay when it launched, so I can see why it’s not successful.
When say “AHVB-like” do you just mean Peacock’s “argus-into item drop-into argus-into etc” or is there a new technique I’m unaware of?
Lol, the DP can only be canceled on hit or block, and many characters have options selects if she decides to do it on block, so no.
P4A is a well designed game for what it tries to do, a game that is simple enough for beginners/not fg fans to jump in while retaining enough stuff to appeal more seasoned players.
Every mechanic is well thought, but of course it needs refinement to get to the well tuned point.
Theirs a shitton more wrong with UMVC3 than XF
Real talk I’d say Xandou, XIII, P4A, BBCP, SFXT, and SFIV As much as I hate it are all leaps and bounds above Marvel when it comes to design.
I still can’t consider P4A a good game, not when it’s easy to make shit happen even if you don’t know what you’re doing. And I’m not just talking about regular sets, I’m talking about two guys making top 8 at SEAM despite not having played the game seriously in months and running with the most basic of tech (okay, I’ll give that McArthur is probably the best anime layer in South East Asia, but still).
I dunno. Aside from XF3, TAC and the issues with the HSD, I really can’t find anything much that I’d change about Marvel. Maybe if they made more teams that forced players to play more fundamentally against them like MorriDoom (similar to how MvC2 had some pretty good zoning/keepaway teams that did the exact same thing) instead of just teams that were about converting stray hits into damage.
SFIV as a series on the other hand just isn’t fundamentally sound anymore. Footsies in the game are a shell of what they’re supposed to be. Meter management is nigh non-existent since you only really use the super bar for EXs and FADCs (Supers are way to weak) and you have a separate meter for your big game changing meter powered option (Ultras).
It’s not easy to make shit happen in P4, the players at SEAM just blew for the most part sadly. Theres dumb stuff in P4 but it’s nowhere close to Marvel.
The other problem with marvel you keep not mentoning is how dumb throws are in a game where H is usually one of the better normals, it’s easy to option select, and for the most part easy to convert off of. Converting in that game is far too easy due to all the hit state modifiers. The game is just all over the place. It’s fun but it’s a badly designed game. It’s on the level of HNK.
I guess we’ll just have to disagree on it then.
Besides, I’d really like to get back to the original question on freedom and breaking things.
I’ll be honest d3v, i think that your opinion on P4A is only based on what MikeZ has said, i am almost sure that if Mike has said that he thinks that is a game well designed we wouldn’t be disagreeing right now 
You know why P4A is a well designed game?
Is because is working as intended for the major part, as i said the game was designed to be accessible while retaining enough depth.
And no, the game is not that easy as you want to paint it, otherwise any random will be placing high on every tournament, and no, as Lord_raptor said seam is not a good example, since all the players blew for the most part.
Not just Mike Z. Most of the top anime players here just don’t think it’s a good game.
Fuck mitsuru.
Everything else is fine. And the niggas at SEAM had no fundamentals so of course they’d lose to basic tech
I can make the same argument that almost all the top air dasher players think that is good and like it.
Some people not liking it/thinking is good doesn’t equate to all of them. Plus there are a lot who hated on the game without playing it to begin with, so yeah…
Plus like if i care about what some “top” players think, is sad but in reality not many know what makes a game good to begin with, does a good racer know how to build a good car? exactly.
If i go by what those fuckers said, i will think that SG is one of the most garbagestic games of all time seeing how some of them think that is not a good game
Instead of going by what other people like to say/think i prefer to form my own opinion.
In P4A i see a game that is working as intended, like i said in my previous posts, some can make an argument about the mechanics and not liking them, but over all, they work withing a risk reward ratio that is well balanced considering that is the 1st try, of course that there can be some rough points but that is why they are worked on the revisions/sequels.
Keep in mind that P4A is a game that their primary target market is people who probably have never played fighting games/not played them seriously, with that in mind the game makes some compromises to be more accessible, but at the same time is designed to keep a depth core gameplay, i sound like a broken record repeating this, i know, but is the true.
Also, i really doubt that you have played the game seriously seeing the ill informed opinion that you have, like really, to this day still complaining about 2 buttons DP’s and auto combos is like complaining about jab, jab, jab pressure on SFxT, or complaining about ultras on SSF4.
Perhaps the few things that you can validly complain about the game are the balance and the freedom of gameplay that each character offers compared to other air dashers. But imo those are meaningless,
Just look at ST a game that is still highly praised yet has the same “problems” that P4A has.