They had combos, DOA4 functionally did not since you could hold out of them for free. It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to a game without hitstun. Thank goodness Itagaki is gone and Shimbori-san is smart enough to check sites like FSD to garner feedback from competitive players (read: nerf holds).
The height of SamSho was one summer the camp at the YMCA had the cabinet there. Needless to say I taught some bitches what was up with dat Haomaru.
I kind of think there are 2 discussions here; ‘combos at all’ and ‘long combos’.
It’s really hard to imagine, let alone justify games without any combos at all. Long combos are a much stickier situation.
People forget that long combos add tension to the game. It’s all about knowing that both you and your opponent have the ability to deal alot of damage. There’s a high risk vs high reward factor going on. You’re gambling on being able to land that setup into your big damage combo yet, at the same time, if you fail to do so, you risk getting blown up yourself. The part that makes this more interesting is the execution factor and the fact that the tension can cause you or your opponent to make mistakes.
because street fighter 1 sucked without combos.
And no, doing a dragon punch or hurricane kick doesn’t really count.
booooring
ss4 might be busted but is at least fun
You are forgetting hitconfirms and specific conditions. Not every poke is extended into a combo eveb if it theoretically could. Having a cr.mk do 40% on its own is dumb but having the potential for extra dmg with the right conditions adds depth.
You could theoretically just do this with auto-combos though and lose nothing decision wise.
I think an important distinction is “what does having a manual combo system have over having mash a button to get more damage?” You can get a lot of the same functionality and decisions off an auto-combo system (note that I don’t fully agree that this should be done, just that there’s a better argument here).
Except auto-combos by nature have limited depth. Traditional ones have more depth since they’re emergent (i.e. developed by the player).
Thanks for reading the part where I said that is what the argument should be, instead of “why have combos at all” because it’s wholly more interesting. I even said it’s not a good idea, but it’s a more interesting conversation to have that’s more revealing.
Properly done, combos can add a few things to a fighting game that would otherwise be missing.
-adding the choice of which combo path to follow based on positioning, character size/weight, available meter, etc. Recognizing which combo is best for the situation and making choices like saving/spending resources to maximize damage or positional advantage gives players something to learn and develop, which can be fun and keep a game from feeling shallow or hitting its peak too early
-adding an element of execution, requiring players to be capable in both mental and physical skills to succeed, and making them choose between going for a safer, less damaging combo or going for a more complex and rewarding one that could cost them at a critical moment.
-giving players something to experiment with and develop over the course of the game’s life span, and giving players something to play with in training mode trying to come up with new and unique, if impractical, combos for combo videos and such. While this is not necessary for the core gameplay it is something many players enjoy toying with to varying degrees.
are combos necessary? No, but you could just as easily argue for the removal of any execution barriers or reaction speed requirements or anything else people think is too hard/complicated/unnecessary and boil the whole genre down to a turn-based guessing game, essentially just a glorified rock-paper-scissors. Combos, if implemented right, can add both depth and a certain element of fun that games need to make people want to play them in the first place
I don’t think the problem here is combos, its taking away the back and forth mind game of which makes up the most interesting time in matches. Combos are just the prevalent (maybe only?) thing that could disable you for 30+ seconds without you having to do anything.
I mean, is there any much difference between a combo that is:
starter ~ 30 hit filler that last 20 secs ~ ender
and
starter ~ hit that stuns you for 20 secs ~ ender
assuming that they would do the same damage and leave you with the same options. You could argue that in a longer combo you are taken to multiple states, such as aerial or grounded states which allow for more reset opportunities, but even still there are some combos which are excruciatingly long to sit through not doing much.
How would you implement ahtocombos with all the variations for spacing, meter usage, resets and also maintain the skill of hitconfirming etc? Autocombos negate a lot of decision making.
Also how do autocombos keep up with the development of the game?
Look at a random match and count the amount of stray hits. Now imagine these were all autocombos.
The value of combos is pretty obvious but I think it’s pretty hard to make an argument for the value of long combos outside of people like doing them/tests execution/allows for more reset opportunities. Which may be fine reasons, just depends on the kind of game you’re trying to create.
I do wish there were more games being made with less of a focus on combos though. And for that matter, more games being made with SF2/SFA’s style of having to commit to something on block, rather than hitconfirming jab jab into whatever. Too much hitconfirming makes footsie games super dry.
Was thinking about this, and for the sake of this discussion I’m gonna split combos into 4 different characteristics
[LIST]
[]Damage
[]Options
[]Duration
[]Extendability.
[/LIST]
[LIST]
[]Damage is pretty straightforward, even with scaling a combo is generally gonna do more than a non-combo hit. Damage output mainly effects the speed of the match and risk/reward considerations. On the other hand, you can just pull a SS and lessen combos while turning up damage.
[]Options are, arguably, why combos are important. Basically this is about turning your starting hit into a meaningful decision… where the damage/reset/knockdown/position/burst bait choice comes in.
[]Duration is where combos add very little to games. All adding duration does, really, is make combo videos prettier while making the victim of the combo more likely to become frustrated. Exceptionally long duration combos only make fighting games worse. (Note that # of hits doesn’t matter at all, but rather time duration)
[]Finally, ‘extendability’. I coudln’t think of a good way to describe this, so I had to go with the neologism. This is how easy it is to use skill/muscle memory to extend a combo, and is, imo, a mixed bag. This is where my thing about rewarding practice, rather than play comes in. Past the very basic level extending combos is about experimenting to find the combos and then working to get the timing down. A number of people love that about fighting games, just as many do not. Subjective ‘what I like’ aside, my main thing about them is that it tends to feed into longer combo durations, which is definitely a negative.
[/LIST]
Of course a game could add combo breakers in some form, however this community throws a fit anytime a game does that in any form, because god forbid the game give players a way to stop long as fuck combos. DOA was a good experiment in this area but done very poorly, a breaker requiring meter/expert timing is a much better way of implementing such a feature. Something that can 't be done all the time to get out of combos, and requires actual timing and skill to pull off when being used.
in b4 someone says “but you can’t have combo breakers, because SF2/MvC2 didn’t have them, and all fighters have to copy them or else they’re shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
MK9 has a good combo breaker but that’s tied to its good meter so yeah.
I was gonna say MK9 yeah, there are a few in there.
The key to combo-breakers is arguably cost… either literal cost (ala MK9) or risk/reward cost (ala burst baiting).
I would love it if every game had a combo breaker system of some kind. Its one of the reasons I liked TVC so much, even if I think the general consensus was that TVC’s needed some tweaking.
DOA traditionally only allowed you to hold out of combos with select moves that put you in “critical state”. The main problem was that Itagaki made it so that just about every move put you in “critical state” in DOA4, along with nerfing juggles (because apparently he hated being juggled). Itagaki being gone is probably the best thing going for DOA5.
As for long combos, they appeal to that side of folks that wants to win. Hence most forms of limiting combo lengths eventually get defeated. Even undizzy in MvC2 which was meant to limit combos to only 50 hits was broken. This is why I prefer Skullgirls system. It basically acknowledges that players will want to go and figure out these things and gives the player free reign to continue their combo as long as it isn’t a brain dead infinite (in the strictest sense of the word).