Fighting game mechanics discussion

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
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I’m actually not an arcana heart 3 nut (yet!) so I don’t know about all the different arcana. After looking at the wiki…yea, I don’t really see how mirroring your opponent’s arcana is suppose to be beneficial to you. Never was a big fan of mimicry, probably why Shang Tsung never appealed to me. Having said that, people who can fight competently are always a blast to watch.

I think what makes AH3’s sub-system so enjoyable is that the arcana are so diverse, it is impossible to pick a “best” one for every situation. You as a player need to decide how you want to win the match, whether it be focusing on a strength, covering a weakness, or using some other gimmick provided by the arcana to give yourself the upper hand.

MKX, I think the only problem here is that few characters have really good/useful/diverse fight styles. Scorpion is a character with really good alt fight styles. His ninjitsu gives him some extra range, but sacrifices some of his “vortex” options. However, this makes some of his more challenging match ups against characters who out range him more favorable. Kotal Kahn however had kinda bland options. Your options were a totem system for boosting/negating damage, a command grab that charged a resource, or some cool saw attacks. Your core combos didn’t really change much from style to style, just how you boosted your damage. You’d either activate a totem before a combo, or end one with a damaging saw attack. I watched one of the top 1000 players swap his fight style every game. The only difference in HOW he actually fought was that in war god style he’d occasionally use a saw sword attack. He didn’t use any of his sun or blood god specials. Kotal Kahn played the same regardless of the stance you chose.

Vanguard Princess… didn’t play or watch it enough to form an opinion of it. I returned it upon realizing it was a port of a free game by a shady publisher. never played the Eolith KOF games either.

I haven’t played “Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena” or “Koihime Enbu” either, but they seem to be getting good praise. wonder if sub-systems are becoming a thing.

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(It’s been a while since I paid attention to MKX, but was I always under the impression that whatever version of Kotal Khan that uses his saw-like sword–War God?–was the best overall anyway given the huge-ass projectile he gains access to with it in that mode and overall range buff it gives him.)

Since we’re talking about Arcana Heart 3 (Love Max) so much as it is, I might as well link to the wiki for that as well: http://wiki.mizuumi.net/w/Arcana_Heart_3.

Otherwise, I see. I unfortunately never got to touch the game despite buying it for PS3 since I was lazy git who put off playing it and then PS3 basically died a couple of years back, which is probably as long as it’s been since I’ve watched videos of it. I’m pretty sure that Mirror is the “worst” overall, but that’s less because it’s outright bad and far more because it’s really situational, which makes it the most difficult Arcana to use effectively as it is since you not only have to know what it can do to use whatever character you’re using but also basically every other character in the game or at least know what you’re getting from them.

For the record, the Eolith KOFs are KOF '99, KOF 2000, and KOF 2001, with them getting progressively more broken in that order. 2001 is arguably outright unplayable at the highest levels in terms of its bullshit, but Strikers are a huge part of the issue with the more busted parts of 2000 since at least a couple of them are outright unblockable (unless I’m confusing this with 2001, where they also appear)–looking at you, Ron. I’m sure someone in the KOF thread could tell you a lot more about it, but that’s personally all I know and remember off the top of my head.

Apropos nothing that we’re talking about at present, but I forgot to say thanks for this. Kum Haehyun is a lot cooler than I thought he was going to be given what little I initially saw of him.

It’s a shame that he technically doesn’t exist since he’s apparently just a person-sized mech or something for a little (?) Korean girl, which is really weird, even by Guilty Gear standards.

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I;m simply not fan of how ASW design over drives, distortion drive, ect in general.

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. This is examu specialty as all their fighter outside of deamon Bride thrives on sub system and they’ve done pretty decent job. Sub system when handle well often expands game option that both casual and competitive can benefit from. Most casual like variety in their games. sub system like style, grooves, assists ect make thing like mirror matches a rare occurrence because to same character can still have different sub system and different play style al together.

For Competitive players its highly value due to ease to transition they offer, one such example is learning multiple character. Learning fighter already daunting as it is and on top of these game increases rooster which in turn increase the require match up knowledge. Sub system like Examu’s arcana, Nrs’ Varation, and French bread Melty’s moon style let player adjust their gameplay with out having to alter their base knowledge.

i think magnet the worst arcana.

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Yea, war god was the saw sword. All of Kotal Khan’s saw attacks could cancel out of normals so it was a much more consistent way to apply extra damage then the blood god totems. Throwing the saw sword instead of the disk is only better if you’re using the EX version and your opponent is in the air, since it will land additional hits. Otherwise, it does less damage than the disk. You’re also without the sword for a time after you throw it. This was probably the one reason you’d go blood god over war god. The sun god grab just couldn’t be included in any worthwhile combos, making it a poor choice for people who wanted to maximize damage.

But as I said before, your core game play didn’t really change. Kotal can score 30-34% meter-less combos regardless of which style he’s using. I’m sure most of the 1337 players preferred blood god for the 2-4% extra damage on a few combos. The top 1000 player I was watching didn’t give a hoot which style he was using.

Perhaps in the main games. But Leopaldon is just as, if not stranger than that!

I wasn’t aware Examu had that many more games.

I would argue that Magnet is perhaps better than mirror in that it’s always a good choice for the game’s grappler. However, it shares the same trait as being effective only in very special matchups.

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His gimmick (controlling on-screen objects) actually turned out to have some very interesting applications. Tuning Ball (and it’s corresponding overdrive) can be used in a lot of ways in both neutral and pressure since you can actually steer them around. I also think his palm-overdrive might be the best OD in the game, especially now that Sin’s RTL got nerfed; it’s a great reversal on its own, but if you think it’ll get blocked you can just hold it and use the movement gimmick, and it’s legit scary to try to punish him because the super still has armor post-activation and is unblockable when fully charged. Oh, and it’s a great mid-combo extender as well.

He’s generally regarded as one of the weaker characters in the cast afaik, even though people are still figuring him out. Still, even the “bad” characters in Xrd are legit scary, so who cares.

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(With respect to the last three posts, I see. Interesting to know about Kotal Khan.)

With regards to Magnetism Arcana potentially being the weakest: I could see that given that most of its specials seem slow to start up and yet its homing dash is “OH GODS THIS IS FAST” levels of acceleration, especially if you are not used to it. I cannot decide if it is ironic that it may so low tier given how overpowered its default owner, Catherine, was when she initially debuted–it is definitely either that or fitting though. Either way, yeah, I can see it being good for Kira maybe, but beyond that, I am unsure who else actually cares about it.

With regards to Kum Haehyun: I also realized in the meantime, between looking at some various other gameplay videos for Xrd: -REVELATOR- and doing other research on it, that apparently Haehyun is the girl’s name; the mech/robot’s name is apparently Jonryoku or something. And, yeah, there are definitely weirder designs in Guilty Gear, even ignoring Leopaldon; two of the characters I like are easily weirder given they are Zappa and A.B.A. who are both extremely weird. My “issue” with Kum Haehyun is less that she’s weird and more that the mech seems superfluous given her own supposed abilities and that it would seems like it would be been a better deal for him to have been an actual person and for the two to be separate characters. Just seems like a wasted opportunity. Shrug.

With regards to actual mechanics: Since Arcana Heart (3) keeps coming up, the newest King of Fighters dropped with a character who uses one, and we are talking about the latest Guilty Gear as well, I’m curious: What do people think about air-dashes? Do you think that if air dashes appear in a game that they should be universally the same? Or notable character-based distinctions “allowed” even if it means that some characters might not even have air dashes at all, as happened in (Ultimate) Marvel vs. Capcom 3?

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It really depends on whether or not certain characters can still be considered good without air dashes. More movement options are GENERALLY a good thing for a character but if someone without an AD can for sure hang with those that do have them, then it just makes for more variety in playstyles, which isn’t a bad thing.

Potemkin has never had an air dash but in older games he’s gotten around it by having other mobility options, big normals, high damage etc etc etc. He’s missing a couple tools in Xrd so far, so he’s not back to his old self but he’s still a decent character.

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(My first reaction was to say " well, that is a bit of a self-proving argument" or something to that effect, but I suppose we are basically forced to work backwards when talking about this since none of us are game developers.)

As such I will say that while Potemkin is a (more than) decent example of a character who can succeed despite not having an air-dash or much mobility in general due to the other tools–fucking Slidehead and its accursed unblockable shockwave–that the character is given as compensation, that is not quite what I was trying to get at. I was more asking if non-universal air-dashing seems like a good thing from a basic design standpoint given that the characters without the air-dashes stand a significant chance of being screwed over and will doubtless always need some type of compensation for lacking a universal tool. Still, that is my fault for not quite clarifying things as much as I should have.

I will use (Ultimate) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as an example of, once again, what I think should not be done. In that game, as everyone in here probably already knows, not every character has the benefit of having an air-dash unfortunately. For example, all of the Resident Evil characters lack an air-dash, though Wesker effectively has one given his teleport, which is part of the reason that he’s the best Resident Evil character in that game, though I am getting ahead of myself a bit.

Given who my main character was when I still cared about that game, I will use Chris Redfield as an example of how not having an air dash or, really, any air options in general is highly detrimental. In general, despite being a space control zoner character in design, even if he is not having to deal with one of the slew of teleporters in the game, if Chris ever super-jumps, then due to his lack of air-dash, he is basically always doomed to land on an ambiguous mix-up of something if he doesn’t call an assist before doing so or have a land mine already out to prevent someone from just ground dashing in on him. The fact that he lacks any valid air-to-air options if someone is not either right next to him or diagonally under him is easily his biggest flaw as a character. I can tell you that if this were any other game, then match-ups like Chris vs. Trish would be basically 0-10. As it is, it is a bit of a secular miracle that Chris is only as low as mid-tier, though that is arguably mostly due to just how incredibly good his land-mines and magnum special moves actually are even when compared to the general bullshit in that game.

More generally, if you look at all the characters in the game, you will notice that pretty much all of the lower end characters have either non-existent air mobility or at best have a terrible version of it. Hsien-ko is a prime example of the latter, having what’s easily the worst air-dash in the game to the point it is usually better not to use it, especially since it unnecessarily got hit by the overall air-dash nerf going into Ultimate, which is just another example of how rushed the game is, but I digress. Hsien-ko is a rather tragic example, really, given that her utterly crippled mobility is basically the only real thing holding her back from being an at least decent character since she has excellent normals and at least the one of the best hypers in the game.

On the other end, pretty much all of the top tier characters have air mobility and tend to have it in excess. I will grant that having excessive air mobility does not automatically make someone top tier, as evidenced by how Trish somehow never manages to make it into Top 10 characters on anyone’s list (that I am current aware of) despite still being a great character, but it sure as hell does not hurt in the least bit.

Of course, this is all specific to one game, but it is perhaps at least indicative of what said change did to the series it is the latest installment of given I think pretty much every Vs. game before it had universal air-dash as a mechanic; I am admittedly unsure about Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, however, given I have never played that.

All things considered, at the very least, UMvC3 made me decide that basically universal air-dashing either has to be in a game where everyone can super-jump and super-jump height is thus a regular part of the game or you have give the characters without air-dashes some type of compensation, likely aerial, to make up for lacking it. It still bugs the hell of me, for instance, that neither of Jill’s Level 1 supers/hypers can be used in the air for some inane reason, to say nothing of the whole DLC idiocy and them nerfing her before anyone even discovered her Mad Beast unblockables, but, again, I digress.

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I think that, in games which feature more usage of aerial space, having no airdash or bad airdash hurts the character’s movement options (though even if an airdash is considered not very useful in neutral, it can give, depending on the game, combo options – airdash cancelling or instant airdashes – or mix-ups against grounded opponents), depending on the character and game mechanics, it can hurt the character’s air-to-air and air-to-ground options. Some characters might have bad movement speed but good mobility options (for example, Archetype Earth from Melty Blood, who has a slow, floaty jump but can fly for a while – slightly faster than her jump speed, but still not fast – and has good zoning normals, specials and supers on the ground and air), or zoning options and/or a good reversal (I’m thinking of Yuyuko from Immaterial and Missing Power, she’s slow, but can set homing projectiles that cover a good screen space due to them being spreaded out before homing – and she can do more than one wave of them --, and use them for cover)

other things that I’ve thought about, is that airdashes (similarly to high enough jumps, and/or slow jumps) can help a character stay on the air for longer (if said character is more effective there, for example, due to having good air-to-air and air-to-ground options), or the characters who lack good air mobility could have good ground-to-ground or ground-to-air options, or air-to-air or air-to-ground options (in this case, having a bad airdash or no airdash wouldn’t be too problematic), or they could be deliberately be made to have disadvantage against other opponents (grounded or airborne), but have something to compensate for that (I can’t think of any example that sounds fun to play as, atm). Depending on the speed of the character (in a case where the character has good air mobility options), he/she can even have bad air-to-air or air-to-ground options but still be able to get in to the opponent due to the latter’s fear of having his/her air-to-air/air-to-ground options be baited and whiff punished, or (in a case where the character has few air mobility options), the normals can be good enough so that you can counter a jump-in with a rising jump attack, for example (if the opponent’s going to use a strong air-to-ground attack that has good range but high startup time)

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. Having universal air dash wont change poor design choices. while I’m advocate of homogenize system, but simply adding them does’t fix problems ether. if character gong to be design with hard counter to it, their needs to be reasonable trade off to make it work or make sure the System offer something that is reliable. Potemkin gain this by having tool that outright shutdown other character stuff and forces people to respect him. While Potemkin couldn’t capitalist on some situation he could work off other which still allow him the ability to condition opponents.

Examu’s game they rarely suffer these due to their design of making universal system mechanics strong and making sure every character can use it on fundamental level. French bread is sorta does the same thing Arc does but does it better. This is due to them willing to be more homogenize than being unique.

Arc system has the innovative design but they have poor time taming whether they either making character so gimmicky design they their gimmick become hindrance than advantage (Robo ky/bridhget[GG], Maria/Junpei[P4UA] to character gimmick being so strong they nearly break the game (Zato/Elpheit[GG],Jin/Nu[BB]

Your way over emphasizing air mobility in game where any action can lead to KO. I don’t see Chris as zoning character but power house with some screen control. H’es not suppose to fill screen to clip life away at every given minute but co-horse opponent into risky action and capitalist on them like Ghost rider. Just because character have screen control option doesn’t mean that their strength. I-no have alot screen control option but she rush down mix up character.

Yes character who lack air mobility struggle in heavy screen control but this is intended because character where design with hard counters in mind. But this is team base game your suppose to design team to be well balance in that regards. using low mobility character against strong screen control character is like a water pokemon going up against an electric type, its just a bad call. Knowing and identify character roles is intricate part of team base game, chris redfield is mostly an anchor due to his ability to combo well on his own and using meter to solidify it or as point character who have assists that cover his flaws.

Also UMVC3 over enough tools to deal with majority situation it on basic level, cross over counter being one of the prime tool to use in heavy screen controller situation as some assist have invincibility start up up to active frames and canceling super for additional invule frames works too. Chris redfiel also ha sone of the btter one as it not only get off cross counter assists but he can can combo with high reward and if had meter to spare can push it further.

[details=Spoiler]

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I personally think the diversity in the air dashes/not having air dashes in Marvel 3 things is fine. It’s still better than MVC2 where like 3 or 4 characters can be in a space where nobody else can. Just some of the characters needed better air to ground confirms to deal with the more aerial ones.

I also think Chris on an optimal team is a better character than Wesker on any of his optimal teams. As a solo character Wesker is better, but Chris stacked with Doom and Strider is better than anything Wesker loaded up can do.

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^

Yea, the right team made all the difference. It’s really hard to put characters from games like UMvC3 into tiers when their effectiveness is also determined by who they stand in battle next to.

I’m going to say it’s fine if a character has extra mobility options if they pay for it somehow. You could have a game where say, a character can air dash and triple jump, but can only fight in close range. Being able to dash through the air is simply part of their rush-down game style, to constantly close in on the opponent.

Chip is an example of an extremely mobile character who’s almost always been mid to high tier in the guilty gear series. While his extra air movement and kit made him very mobile, he has the lowest health pool in nearly every installment.

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(It also helps that Chipp is always also the fastest character in the series in general, which by itself helps him quite a bit even before his additional aerial mobility and teleports.)

I will grant that it is entirely possible that Chris is better than Wesker team-wise, especially given how long it has been since I played and how much Strider’s Vajra gets rid of a lot of Chris’s solo issues. I was, however, intentionally just going by solo issues since bringing up teams would a) make things far more complicated and b) make us end up talking about UMvC3 itself rather than, you know, mechanics in general, which is what we are supposed to be talking about in here.

As such, yes, I am over-emphasizing air mobility in UMvC3, in part because to discuss it, I basically have to do so. I am similarly not going to be one of those people who romanticizes MvC2’s air mobility as somehow automatically better just because everyone had it given that Storm and Sentinel basically rule the skies in that game; even though we were stuck with that game for a decade and I do have fond memories of it, I am not going to ignore its massive flaws like other people. I even readily admit, for all its faults and personal disappointment, UMvC3 is likely better balanced than MvC2, but a) that is not saying much really and b) that does nothing to stop me from thinking that UMvC3 could have still been far better than it was/is before it was both essentially rushed out and then rather quickly abandoned.

Still, like I said, that is talking more about a specific game rather the mechanics itself, so I will stop digressing. All I wanted to do was explain why, to me, even if it is hardly the most significant issue in that game, the lack of universal air-dashing in UMvC3 made me realize that if you are going to have a game where super-jump height can regularly be reached by all characters, then the characters lacking an air-dash need some compensation, whether it’s additional mobility otherwise or making sure they have valid air-to-air options.

I am still not sure where I stand on universal air-dashing otherwise, though that is perhaps because the only other game series that I am aware of where all characters can get to super-jump height is Arcana Heart, which has the homing dash mechanic that effectively serves as a universal air-dash within it. That game series would clearly be completely different and doubtless worse off without that mechanic being universal, so it is a bit pointless discussing that particular game series in general with regards to this unfortunately.

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I like how this thread has turned out. I’m learning a lot.

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Here’s what I’d like to know…

Do you guys think that ultimately universal mechanics are good/bad? Or is it strictly on a game to game basis, where something like YRC works for Guilty Gear but a similar mechanic in other game just wouldn’t make sense and hurt the game rather than help it?

Are you for/against universal stuff in fighting games?

I for example like how in Third Strike everybody had a universal overhead that could help blowing up defensive players, but I hate how in SFIV everybody had a focus attack but it didn’t benefit most of the cast

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I think it depends on the mechanic itself. Like universal over heads in Third Strike work as a means of giving all characters a decent mix up game. That way every character can have a threatening offence to some degree. Short sweet and to the point and it worked.

Now with Focus attacks in SF4. I think this is where a universal mechanic can become problematic. The main issue I see with focus attacks as a universal mechanic is that some characters get far more from it than others. Instead of all focus attacks providing the same level of utility for all characters like the universal overhead. You had some characters who have a flat out better Focus attack compared to most, and things that go beyond just a good Focus attacks. Like using FADC to make DPs safe, Using it to abuse Ultra like in the Case of Elena, FADCing to extend combos. While everyone can pretty much do this. Some characters get WAY more out of it like E.Ryu, while others are not even worth doing it with unless you about to KO I.E Makoto

So TLDR: In my opinion. More simplistic mechanics with little variables that work as a equalizer work better as universal. like a universal overhead allowing everyone to have mix up potential. Nothing more, nothing less. Where as something with much more flexibility in what you can do with it shouldn’t. Because if a character is already better than another, then you have a universal mechanic that they can utilize better than the lesser character. What dog does the lesser character have in that fight now?

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(Yeah, whether universal mechanics are good in general is essentially a case-by-case basis.)

Pretty much the only possible exception, in my eyes, is perhaps holding back to block and having innate combos. Outside of the Mortal Kombat games (and, if you really want to go there, the Smash Bros. games), pretty much every fighting game ever uses that, even some of the 3D games (not that I tend to play any of those, so I could be wrong). Personally I dislike block buttons, so that’s a fine thing with me. The latter is universal mechanic is “violated” even less despite the fact that combos initially started out as a bug in SF2 IIRC since the only “offender” that I can think of that intentionally does not have them is Vanguard Princess, where pretty much every character has to use an assist to get more than a 2-hit combo going.

I only realized a few hours ago that I apparently never answered this in all my blathering above. Apologies.

To be brief for once, I also think they all have value, but overall I like Full Carryover the least given most times characters start off in a corner after being K.O’d they are already still at a huge disadvantage. I do not think you should be at a disadvantage from the very beginning of the round even if ending up in the corner is likely the player’s fault in the first place.

Weirdly, it only really “bothers” me in the recent Netherrealm Studios games–I cannot watch the newest Killer Instinct without the hitsparks giving me a headache. I am more or less fine with Full Carryover in Vampire Savior and the one-on-one instances of Skullgirls.

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I hadn’t noticed the original air-dash sparking question.

I can’t think of any game that I’ve played where everyone had a “universal” air dash aside from Arcana Heart 3. But the as you’ve said, that multi-direction air dash isn’t really the same as traditional air dashes.

The closest thing to a universal air dash system that I played was the earlier Melty Blood games, and I played them very little. Even though everyone has an air dash, they don’t all air dash the same way. Walachia was the axl/dhalsim /Scharlachrot crazy normal range character. His damage also wasn’t a whole lot lower than the rest of the characters. The one thing that kept this character from becoming OP was that he didn’t have a swift back dash like the rest of the characters. He moved backwards very slowly, but had a very fast forward dash. This meant that you couldn’t just choose the range you wanted to fight at. You had to fight to keep your opponent in that sweet spot with aggressive tactics. Only the nimble and rush down characters had fast back dashes.

EDIT:

Didn’t see you post.

This isn’t entirely true. Counterhits can let you get some combos off too. Otherwise, yea. You need assists.

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MvC3 forever the game that did a million things right and a few things terribly, terribly, absolutely fucking amazingly wrong.

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As i mention in my last post I;m more for homogenise system thus in favor of Universal mechanics. I can’t think of game where universal mechanic was implemented poorly unless it base design was poor to begin with.