You said that characters currently have the same speed forward and backward, in pretty much all fighting games, forward speed is faster than backward speed to prevent the game from becoming too defensive.
You mentioned chip damage was set at the character level, you probably want more options than that, at the minimum you want to be able to set “high” and “low” chip damage per character, so you can implement SF style chip damage where only some moves do chip damage.
Share your knowledge brah. Why do you think it’s terrible? I did actually post it for the tutorial discussion.
Apparently Skull Girls has a really good tutorial feature, but I’ve yet to play that game.
He mainly went on about the single player without actually being able to name a fighting game that had a single player that did what he wanted. DFO, while a blast with friends, is so radically different between PvP and PvE along with playing almost nothing like a traditional fighting game that I almost think he just saw the name and threw it in (wouldn’t be the first time they completely flubbed the research aspect). Fighting games are inherently about RPS guesses based while single player is based on reactions. There’s a reason people say not to train on the AI, in that it builds terrible habits because they really just don’t act much like humans at all.
Even if we want to say DFO is a good example of a single player fighting game style, the PvE is almost entirely reactionary; you are either dodging attacks you see coming or just executing a plan based on knowledge of patterns. That’s what most single player games are; you lose because either your reactions suck or you made a major mistake.
That and single player costs a hell of a lot of money, especially if we have this magical single player that the Extra Credits guys want. No, what you need is a how/why tutorial. One that gives you a basic gameplan to execute (so that players can have fun, much like a newbie in Dota using a build order guide) and then explains why that game plan works. I learned to play SF4 by picking Ryu, using Fireballs at half screen or more, cr.mk xx hadoken at less, and cr.hp as my anti-air. I learned so much about playing the game with just those three buttons that I could fashion my own gameplan soon afterwards. If the game actually ran you through a tutorial about how everything worked in addition to that you could have a lot more players last past the first 5 hours or so.
Basically, there are three major things that a game could use in order to entice new players to keep playing: A great tutorial, reasonable execution requirements (something I think SFxT got right; you could do some zany stuff, but if you wanted to do solid damage off pokes it really wasn’t difficult), and good matchmaking. SF4 pretty much has none of those. Matchingmaking is a joke, doing hit confirms is tough unless you’re really experienced with linking out of chains, and there’s not even an attempt at a tutorial.
You want them to keep playing, you put in those three, and you probably put in some more mid level tools; viewable hitboxes and frame data, frame by frame programmable dummies, that sort of stuff.
If people cared about fighting games they would bite the bullet and make an effort to learn it the same way everyone else had to learn. They wouldn’t constantly complain “oh doing a fireball is SO hard” and beg for a tutorial that they’ll never end up using because their interest in fighting games is fleeting at the very most.
People like this want to be rewarded for button mashing and hate that the way to actually win at fighting games is counter-intuitive to that. Once they learn about any learning curve they’ll drop the game in a heartbeat because they just wanted to mash and not care about anything.
Killer Instinct 2013 has the best tutorial I’ve ever seen in a fighting game. But since the game is so mash friendly, people will never use it, because they’re satisfied with just slamming buttons like retards. Fighting games will always be niche, and these efforts to “expand the audience” are in vain. That Extra Credits guy talks about these developers like they don’t know what they’re doing, that if they just did it HIS way then everything would be perfect and millions of players would have a hardcore investment in fighting games. He couldn’t be more wrong.
RTS and Dotaclones all have a way lower barrier to mediocrity; you don’t need anywhere near the level of mechanical skull you need in a fighter in order to feel like you’re accomplishing something. Add in the fact that single player works for those games without any real engine changes (although it is still terrible for really teaching you how to play) and the fact that many players just to comp stomps and you’ll have a larger playerbase.
Really, go tell someone new to a game that they can either learn a combo that requires 1/30th of a second timing or they can hit Q and click. While the technical level required to be legitimately good if quite high in an RTS, the barrier to getting mediocre is quite low. Fighting games have the levels a lot closer together with a much higher floor.
“Easy mode inputs” are not the answer, as you can’t really transition from then to the real control scheme well and the type of people who you’re trying to stay don’t have the sort of money that sees them as anything but a crutch.
Lower the barrier to entry (SFxT, for all its faults, did this beautifully), good tutorials, solid matchmaking. That’s how you get people to play and have a real scene
Execution is not a factor at all in MOBAs and RTS. The controls are typically very rudimentary and basic making the learning curve just for them very small. Once you learn the basic controls there is nothing else to learn about them and you are free to enjoy the game as you wish. That’s not the case with fighting games, which require you to learn about special move inputs, timings and an assortment of other factors if you want to be able to do anything other than normal attacks. And this system cannot be simply removed or dumbed down, because execution is an integral part of fighting games as a whole. Thus fighting games are niche because of their very nature.
That’s not execution. When I talk about execution I’m talking about the mechanical aspects of muscle memory and things like converting a stray hit into a damaging combo or not getting an input error. These things are a direct result of the complicated nature of fighting game controls and the game’s physics working in tandem. Micro in a game like Starcraft isn’t really comparable because it’s not about execution, physics or muscle memory, it’s more about positioning, prediction, and prioritization. It’s more mental than it is physical. The controls themselves aren’t really a factor.
Agree with this, does this apply to fighters that have a open combo system like DOA, that game allows you to button mash out combos all day. Whereas SF has always been more execution focused because of the multi-directional inputs. SF4 has been less execution focused don’t you think with it’s larger input windows, do people like this now? (I didn’t jump onto the SF4 bandwagon, only SF game I ever played regularly was super turbo)
The comparable points you made about Starcraft are also very important to fighters too.
While I was able to put together the semblance of a basic fighting game movement system, a lot of work still needs to be done. As I learn more about UE4, I am figuring out ways to do things more effectively. In fact, the demo I provided earlier was rewritten close to 4 times. In some situations, systems and features I planned on using turned out not to be the best fit for what I was attempting. I need to spend the time to go deeper.
This thread is going to go dark for a while. Initially I was going to be stationed at HQ for sometime, but I’ve been deployed to a number of different events already, and I’m basically on the road for the next month and a half. On top of that, I’ve been assigned other high priority tasks, so my time will be limited.
I am looking forward to getting back to working on this, but the fighting game framework is going turn into a long term, slow burn hobby project.
When I am able to make progress, I will be sure to send updates here.
Maybe it is with RTS, but I’m going to have to disagree that the barrier to “mediocrity” with MOBAs is low. I got pretty hardcore into Heroes of Newerth for a time (which is the fastest/twitchiest moba) and from the start you have to learn 60+ heroes and how to utilize all of their skills in different situations, all the items, and the map layout. After that, you have to figure out how to compliment combinations of heroes to be effective, and other small (but important) mechanics like using teleportation items. Only after you’ve learned all of these mechanics will you be “mediocre”, and any incompetence from you will surely be pointed out by both your allies and enemies. It honestly takes at least 50+ hours to reach a minimum competent skill level where you won’t be a huge detriment to your team.
The largest barrier of entry to 2D fighters is the special move system. If you really wanted to overcome this, I think Tekken is a fantastic example of having a full move list with little need for “strange” inputs. Pressing 2 buttons and a direction is a much more newcomer-friendly way of doing moves than down,down-forward,forward+punch. In a 4-button fighter, you have 4 possible dual button inputs. If you add in directions (back, down, and forward; not even counting diagonals), you get 12 different grounded options, 9 if you use one combination for throws. If you want 3 versions of each special ala Street Fighter, this allows for 3 specials, a fine number for the average character. Supers, if you want them, could be done with all 4 buttons and a direction. And at the same time, you still have room for command normals to fill out a move list. Perhaps even more variety could be created by using throw+direction for command throws and holding the button(s) for different specials.