How Could Fighting Games Change for the Better?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1061

I’ve seen Broly Legs do FADCs and Chun Li has one frame links, her 5 hit, which is Broly’s bnb.

Secondly, what’s long is is subjective.

Comboing takes ABSOLUTELY NO PRECEDENCE OVER THE THINGS I STATED EARLIER, AT ALL.

Trust me, if anyone thinks the difference between them and Justin Wong is the combos he knows, I think they deserved to get punched in the mouth.

Combos are there as a risk reward, as a Rose main, I can tell you right now, 1 FRAME LINKS ARE NOT HARD, they’re just not.

To continue, combos are there as a risk reward, if you get this combo, you get advantageous life, and position.

If every single touch was a guaranteed combo (you advocate easier/shorter combos), wouldn’t that take part of the strategy out?

1062

Personally I don’t think the guts of a fighting game need to change heavily.There are too many philosophies out there so it’s impossible to say that one is heads and tails above the rest. I think people will agree though that the primary problem with fighting games now is the elements around the battle system; poorly-made menus, total lack of information about game mechanics, etc.

1063

I do know how you could do that. Change the frame data of individual attacks, release patches.

How is that in any way, shape, or form inconsistent with what I’ve been saying? A series of links is harder to do than a target combo.

If by chance you mean you have less hit-confirms (thus less combo starters), then I’d say maybe we don’t need such long hit-confirm strings (under the assumption that the player consistently can execute them). That is another argument however (one I think I made earlier actually).

You’ve made my point for me. The kind of reward a player gets for being able to successful dump his/her resources makes HD combos necessary for higher levels of play. I have seen and had matches myself wherein a player has outwitted an opponent for the majority of the round and still lost because the opponent landed an 80%+ hd combo.

1064

I made a long post and people are still arguing about the meat of the game :[

Please drop it and move on, you’re arguing preference until your fingers cramp

1065

Combos arguably need to be split up into a few different subjects and tackled as such.

[LIST]
[]Combo damage (relative to general game damage)
[]Combo duration (in time, but this also effects things like corner carries)
[]Combo extension options (Can’t think of a good term for this; how much can you link in new combo elements and extensions? Effects things like resets and combo learning)
[]Combo startup options (can you start every combo out of a jab? Do you need a slow/unsafe launcher to start your combo? How much does position matter?)
[*]Learning (how intuitive combo starters/extensions are, well communicated juggle/bounce/whatever states)
[/LIST]
I don’t think we can talk about combos ‘as a whole’ or even about combo length on its own. We’ve gotta break it down into parts.
~Xes

Edit:

First of all, Velma is hot.

Secondly, some of the things you list, there’s no points of discussion really. Everybody wants as good as possible netplay and matchmaking, everyone likes good teaching tools (although there’s been some discussion of using singleplayer vs using tutorials).

The meat of the game is where there’s room for discussion :smiley: ~X

1066

We’re not going to be able to stop arguing someone else’s preference is right or wrong are we?

1067

Support Monster Ancient Cline

1068

I’m done since we keep arguing opinions and they really have nothing to do with the topic.

1069

As long as everybody understands that its just a discussion for amusement, it’s probably okay.

For me at least, all this talk has gotten me to take a serious look at how I view some of these things, and modify my ideas.

So its useful for that, we bounce what we think is good off each other and consider the arguments posed. (Well and occasionally exchange cruel jibes)

~Xes

1070

I think the real issue here is being able to combo from normal throws, despite some questionable option-selects they can potentially create.

1071

The problem is really accentuated when the 2 go together (as in MvC3). In marvel, you have a high range/priority normal move OR an ublockable throw, and it’s even worse when you can OS with a divekick (ala wolverine)

Comboing from throws gets almost immediately into like/don’t like territory is the problem, if its a game where you can do 80% combos, throws are almost too weak if you can’t do that. That’s definitely a taste thing.

~Xes

1072

Holy hell, I didn’t expect this thread to get this many replies!

You know, I’ve been keeping track of what people have been saying, and I’d like to revise my statement and re-post it in a more efficient manner. I haven’t even gotten to touch on online play.

1073

for anyone complaining about combos
go play
DIVEKICK
motherfuckers

1074

yes and no.

its all about the throw specifics.

fully breakable throws aren’t so bad as long as the mechanics in place are fine. Fast startup and fast tech time, this forces players to essentially guess on techs could be argued whether or not that is good\bad. By guessing on techs, you can implement fake throw attempts with +frame normals. Biggest use of this is in ST where ryu can walk up to you and through you s.mk or activate close s.mk slightly earlier and get +frames into a combo. Even works in a2 as well, ken can do the same throw mind game then use c.mk\c.lk to beat a throw attempt and get a combo.

in most SF games since the mixups are so slow from neutral positions players only have to worry about 2 things. People hitting them low and throws. Since SF has so little mixups to begin with, whenever throws get nerfed its a big deal. Mvc2 didn’t have that big of a throw game and no one complained about the lack of mixups there because there were other mechanics in place that allowed players to still get damage. Until SF beefs up their mechanics to a KOF level, shitty throw systems will promote stagnation for the game tempo.

the problem with SF is the engine. If you gave more players more attacking options having a shitty throw system isn’t so bad. I believe kof02 was plagued by huge tech windows making normal throws almost useless from what I’ve read about the game. However, the game offers so much in terms of engine mechanics that you can still open players up if they continue to hold down back with other mechanics.

If you give players more tools to use, sometimes those tools can circumvent bad mechanics. Its why its so easy to pick on sf4\sfxt, those games don’t have very many tools to begin with so when 1 of the mechanics is slightly shitty, it makes the whole game look shitty.

1075

It’s more thinking in terms of ‘how could we improve things?’

Fully breakable throws are fine, but I think that’s a place that the traditional models could be improved on.

Should say that I think throws in SF4 are just fine. Uninspired maybe, but fine. They’re worth doing, which is the important part.

~Xes

Edit: However I wanna add this to the discussion of combo systems:

1076

Very late to the party, and probably people are over this topic already. But on the subject of aesthetics, people need to stop conflating “aesthetics” with “advanced graphics technology.”

Someone mentioned Tetris as an example of “bad graphics”. But Tetris looks fine! There’s nothing wrong with the aesthetics of Tetris.

Someone also mentioned SF4, MvC3, SFxT as an example of “good graphics”. But personally I think those games look terrible. I care about aesthetics -> but that’s a seperate issue from caring about Graphics Technology. Aesthetics depend on personal preference, but everyone cares about aesthetics in some way.

People are still playing ST and Starcraft 1, not because they dont care about aesthetics - because those games look alright - but because they don’t care Graphics Technology. If ST had aesthetics like that Bikini Babe fighting game, with bad 90s rotoscoped live action women sprites, or if Starcraft 1 was just a completely abstract game of geometric shapes and dots, far less people (even hardcore competitive players) would be playing them.

So yeah, it’s true when we say lots of people, particularly competitive players, don’t care about Graphics Technology. But pretty much everyone cares about Aesthetics to some degree. We see it when people dislike games as being “too anime” or “all-female cast”, we see it when other people dislike MK for being too gratuitously gory, we see it when people dislike SF4 for being 2.5D, etc. We see it when some people like certain characters and stick with them, even in versions of a game where that character is weak or unfun.

Heh, it would be an interesting experiment to release an indy game based on a popular game (say, ST, 3S or MvC2) with all the features we’ve ever wanted, all the arcade-perfect gameplay, basically a perfect game. But the characters are just hitboxes, there’s no names or story, and the sound is just beeps and clicks. You can’t copyright gameplay so presumably this is legal.

Theoretically this game should be the most popular game amongst the “I don’t care about graphics” crowd. But it wont be, because everyone cares about aesthetics to some degree.

1077

The evolution of game play and execution of fighting games really never factor in its success with the casual/new crowd (TBH FPS games haven’t really changed all too much from Doom to COD) and neither do gaps between bad and good players. I mean look at Melee or SSB64, the difference between a pro and a beginner was bigger than any fighting game ever. A pro literally had 50% (100% in the SSB64) less frames on recovery than a beginner did. Yet it successfully succeed in pleasing both.

The thing is people just don’t like losing. Single player and casual plays is generally hugely undermined in fighting games. Games like Smash got it right with it’s single and casual play. It had huge re playability with literally dozens of none competitive versus modes, unlockable characters and trophies, and so on that the core competitive game play was almost gone at times, yet it was still there for the competitive players to enjoy as well. Things like a high score for time trails, or survival mode would greatly increase the experience for a casual player without ever interfering with the competitive players.

Imagine if SF5 had an actual story mode, character unlocks/trophies, character customization, modes/trails like MK9, none competitive versus modes like Smash, and the casual/normal scheme options like MvC3. Capcom could make the game play as competitive as they wanted to please the hardcore players, well still introducing casual/none comeptitive gamers to the scene that don’t even need to be interested in the fighting aspect of the game to actually enjoy it.

1078

FPS games have changed a lot, it’s just subtle stuff.

If nothing else, the change to emphasis on team play is a bigger change than FG’s have had since SF1.

~Xes

1079

I would argue that airdashers & tag teams are a change of similar degree.

Incidentally, when I looked at the “Monster AC revived” thread here on FGD, I just kinda thought, “Nice work, but what’s the point?” Do we really need another me-too low budget traditional 2D fighter these days? Sure, maybe SG has a reason to exist, in that it seeks to be a more community focused version of MvC2 gameplay.
But generally speaking, I feel like, the established franchises should stick to tradition, but an indie game that doesnt innovate in drastic and new ways is just a waste of time.

I wonder how other people feel? Or are people still happy to see more SF2 clones being made?

1080

Not everyone is making fighters with some sort of higher mandate in mind, some people just love the genre and want to make a game they feel they and others will enjoy. Does there need to be a “point” outside of that when making any game?