Planning for a game

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
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As I’m also sorta designing a fighting game, I thought I’d chime in.

FDSM:

> Point of this is despite my lack of hardcoreness I am getting into a project to help create a fighting game('m an artist and not a designer but have always wanted to make a fighting game) so 'm looking for discussion and suggestions on how to make something new and easy to pick up but hard to master, and something that will be different from what’s out right now and won’t focus on just a handful of characters in tournament play.

To start off with, I think you ask yourself: Who is your target audience? “Easy to pick up but hard to master” is incredibly vague. I think you should narrow down the audience you’re trying to reach. Are you going after the hardcore tourney crowd? Are you going to make a game that people who’ve only played a Naruto or a DBZ fighting game? Someone familiar with 2D stuff? Or more used to Tekken, Soul Calibur or maybe Virtua Fighter? Someone who refuses to play anything but Smash Bros? I think this is where you should start the design process. You need some basic parameters to work with.

Second, I think you should study the fighting games you like. It’s possible, but I don’t think I could work on a fighting game using ideas I couldn’t stand to actually use myself. Study the games you like and learn what makes them tick. More importantly, learn the ways that they break down at higher levels (if applicable) so you can try and avoid those pitfalls. See how these ideas could be presented to your target audience if they aren’t naturally receptive to them.

> The two biggest things I want to do is a) give players a larger measure of customability before and during matches and b) make every character worth playing and able to compete.

See this is a good idea. But again, it depends on your philosophy. Right off the bat, I can tell you that the former is not a good idea if you’re looking at drawing in a casual audience. More options before a match = more confusion. If that’s what you want, then fine, go with that. But know that it could potentially turn off a lot of players.

The latter is admirable, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much from the beginning. I especially hope you don’t concentrate on trying to make every character competitive against every other character, since that’s nearly impossible. There’s also a philosophical drawback to it: If you give all characters too many options that could work against everyone, then everyone will end up essentially being the same. This will go against making diverse characters. Sometimes, less is more.

Again, get your target audience in mind first. Then decide what parts of fighting games you like, and go from there.

22

Character-specific damage buffs are never a good idea. :confused: You should try to aim to avoid stuff like that. It will deter people from playing certain characters out of fear that they can be counter-picked. It also means she’ll have an advantage over the other females in the cast unless she’s like…really bad. And in that case she’ll have an even HARDER time fighting against guys.

23

I would like to gear my game to more of the 3S CvS2 tourny crowd of players as the main demographic but leave it open to play to people who recognize SF… if that’s at all possible. Like, SFII is pretty easy to pick up and learn(at least I think so) but will take you hours upon hours to truly master and know all the ins and outs of the game, which is what 'm looking to do.

'll post later, still feeling sick and going to go pass out.

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Alright… to recap, if anyone is still reading…

I plan on targeting this 2D fighter(may make it 3D on 2D plane like SF4 and SSB… not sure, would certainly make animating moves easier I think) towards a major demographic of CvS2/3S tournament level plays with the minor demographic to be of people who have at least played a fighting game before(GG was like that to me… I had played SF, saw GG and decided to try it… may not be the same way for all).

I want to gear the pacing of the game to be that like CvS2, where the tempo can be slow and tactical or quick and flashy, depending on characters, play styles, etc.

It will be a 1v1 game with a 1v2, 1v3, 1v4, 2v2, 2v3, 3v3, 2v4, 3v4 and 4v4 option, no tags and no ratios, however teams with fewer people would get some sort of damage reduction and modifier as well as regain some amount of health at each round start.

The game is geared towards customability for players to have various different play styles as well as looks to their character. The game will feature at least 20 different characters, 10 colors each at least(not going for arcade release so I think I can leave the larger color assortment in), a dedication path(a set stat change to the selected character, BALANCED(no change), POWER(+STR/DEF-SPD/AGI) and SPEED(+SPD/AGI-STR/DEF), sort of like Last Blade 2) and possibly 2 groove types, not sure whether to stick with the two I have, one being a combination of P and C grooves from CvS2(1 meter, Air Block, Dodge, Counter Attack) and the other being a combination of C, S and N grooves from CvS2(3 meters, use a meter to do extra damage for a time, manually charge the meter and use 2 meters to nullify hit stun), each groove being geared towards defensive and offensive play respectively. However, I am torn on either changing it to a more 3S type system where you choose one super with various meter lengths and amounts and each character having access to their ultimate attack when their meter is fully maxed out, or including this type of meter system as just a third option instead of the only option. I would go a GG route but the tension meter always felt too short for me.

A note on the characters, have 11 so far and fitting these descriptions:

Main character, all rounder, very combo friendly, has 3 special moves, one of which is like Iori’s Wild Flower, the other is a ground fireball like Iori’s and the last is a kick anti-air. 4 super moves, one being a two hit uppercut, one being sort of like… Magnetic Tempest I guess, one being an auto combo projectile and the last being like Chun’s Kikkosou(sp?)

Co-Main character, all rounder as well, very mix up oriented with 4 special moves including 2 follow-up input specials much like Gouki’s Hyakki Shuu one being in the air and one being on the ground. He’s also going to be very anti-air based, with an anti-air leg uppercut and an anti-air throw, as well as some normals and special normals that will have various uses for airborne enemies. So far he only has 3 supers including his ultimate so I need to add another one, his ultimate is an auto-parry that will work much like Remy’s Blue Nocturne(but will blow past any hits after the first parried hit).

Main boss, no moves yet, being geared to play much like Gouki/Shin Gouki in terms of highly offensive with little defense(he’ll take damage like a baby as a playable character, as a boss he’ll have high defense).

Lead female, going to follow the “classic girl fighter” fast, agile, weak and can’t take hits too well. Looking to make her a hybrid of Cammy and Ciel(Melty Blood) if at all possible. Her trademark move will be a kiss that poisons opponents for a small bit of damage over time… I do want to keep in that it does double damage to women as a fan service(besides… the damage to guys will be 1% per few seconds, so it would be 2% to women… not a huge difference) and she will also be the main fan service character(her taunt is going to be her pulling her top off… not sure if it’s going to be censored or not). 4 special moves(kiss, uppercut, projectile, air projectile), 3 supers so far(need a 4th).

Second female, counter character, stronger and more defense than most female characters have, her game play will be geared towards a Rock/Geese style where she can be offensive but she’s most effective at baiting opponents to catch them with a counter. 8 specials(5 counters) and 3 supers(need a 4th).

Male character, projectile users, his gameplay centers around projectiles… as 4 of his 5 special moves are projectiles, a single, double, triple and beam shot attack with an uppercut as the last. 4 supers.

Male character, going to be fire based, have an idea of some of his special moves(a Twelve N.D.L. type fire attack most likely to be included). No idea on his gameplay style yet.

Big bruiser male, a departure from most big guys, will have the fastest run in the game, will have an uppercut and a projectile and have very little in the way of command grabs. Has 4 specials and 3 supers(need a 4th).

Wrestler character, NOT a luchador or big bruiser, think more technical like Bret Hart, will have 4 command throws and a passable anti-air attack that can allow him to deal with projectiles. 3 supers, need a 4th.

Bigger bruiser male, stat booster, limited special move options, geared to be an absolute monster if played correctly(come to think of it… it almost doesn’t matter what dedication he picks as he can pump up his stats…) and the correct dedication and groove are selected. 4 special moves and 4 supers.

Male/female character, very, VERY combo friendly(not sure if I want her to be a Yun though when Genji is in use), swaps between a Ryu and charage character play style with lots of mix up options. Male so far has 3/4 special/super moves, female 4/4 special/super.

A couple things I have left out.

  1. Taunts will be like in 3S, build a bit of meter and actually do something for the character(stat boost, refill guard meter).

  2. A major selling point of the game will be a system mechanic I came up with, it will be a system that revolves around comboed throws. Think sort of DoA/Tekken where you perform a throw then you put another input in to go into another throw or move. Each character will have a specific requirement for their set up move(opponent facing them, in the air, on the ground, etc) and when performed can lead to either a juggle, a knockdown or string into another throw. Landing the set up will NOT be guaranteed damage, as you can tech the set up, have a small frame window to perform a dodge/counter attack(if using the correct groove), special move or throw of your own. This is my main idea for customization as I don’t really want characters to be limited to just a handful of “bread and butter” combos… I want to see a lot more options than just cLKx2 xx Super or cMK xx Super, etc.

Granted I know this whole combo throw system could be narrowed and exploited to one or two options, if used at all, but I like the idea of linking throws together and having a throw be included into a combo.

One thing I would love to see is something like this: Jump in HP, sLP, sMP, cLK, set up throw, follow up throw, special/super.

And granted, not all of these combo throws will be able to do that, as I said some may have a requirement for the opponent to be in the air, on the ground, maybe even attacking you or even having to be dizzied to use it.

Ideas, thoughts, especially about the groove/meter system will help out.

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Throw chains are present in akatsuki blitzkampf anD in general I find how most throw chains work if they exist are relatively shallow. I think rather than worrying about your cast size, you should try to be more creative with your character designs. A lot of them feel like cut and paste jobs or just plain archtypes we’ve seen time and time again, which means you’ll end up doing what a lot of artist designers try to do and that’s bank on the visual design of your characters to appeal. I would definitely suggest for you to go creative and try to thinkup original ideas as muchas possible and forget the archtypes for now. Don’t need another game where 25-50%+ of the cast has either a fireball, dp or both.

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I have no interest in this thread, but whats wrong with lots of color palettes?

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'm trying to stay away from the classic everyone has a fireball/dp however I did want to keep at least some of them so people can adjust somewhat easier. Right now 5 of the 11(hopefully 20) have a type of fireball but 'm looking to change up the mechanics of the fireball user a bit, I mean some of it will be the same granted but 'm looking to add some spin to it so it’s all not completely “do this motion and a fireball goes straight across the screen in a straight line until it hits the other side or the opponent”. For the big bruiser with the fireball I actually want his projectile to work like a grenade almost, it throws somewhat higher, arches for a while then lands and continues forward. The last character, the female half, will have a fireball that when the LP version is used will act like a curve ball upward, start low to the ground like Sagat/Remy then uppercut itself upward, MP will go straight forward then fizzle and HP she’ll pull like a Yuri and jump up and throw a fireball which will do a curve downward, maybe even come back towards hers.

I love the design of GG with how vastly different their characters are… my biggest concern though is 'm afraid of out and out ripping of ideas.

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I think one of the worse reasons for a character to exist is to give them a familiar character to play with first to pull them into your game. The reason why I think ArcSys makes some really nice character designs is because they create the character because they think the character will be cool and also trying to make sure every move has a purpose or use and as long as your reasoning is that and it makes sense rather than just trying to appeal to an unknown audience anyways then I think you will do fine.

I’m not sure how long the idea has been brewing in your mind, but as an artist I can assume you already have a basic theme. Honestly though it seems like you’re worried about too many different things and you’re not focusing enough. I know that you probably have like some passing thoughts for a character and just jot it down as a side note to work on them later, but you should really try and flesh out one character at a time and probably play a little theory fighter in your head as you create more and more characters.

A character with a good base should help you create situations and gameplay ideas in your head so that you can figure out what kind of options you want them to have, what they can do and what the opponent character can do to counter or fight back. As a last bit of … well comfort I guess, don’t worry too much about ripping off ideas as long as you can make them your own. If you want to have tons of fireball characters and you can build unique styles around each of them then go for it, if the fireballs are there because you think they’re cool, but they really do nothing for the character or it doesn’t really make sense, remove them. Don’t be afraid to make people uncomfortable about how your characters play when they first pick them up because for the audience you’re aiming at, I’m sure there are plenty of people who get a kick out of figuring out how a character works rather than just jumping in and sticking to familiar characters. That’s more of a casual gamer phobia where they want to just pick some easy to play character so they don’t have to learn the game.

Also just as a side note, I’m amazed you came up with so many supers (unless they’re just mock plans). I found it incredibly hard to come-up with supers, especially unique ones. I’ve put thoughts into and fleshed out about 35+ different characters across different indie and undeveloped games and super moves always give me trouble. Though that might just be I have an innate hate for generic supers like auto-combo supers that end in a knockdown or linear projectile supers… anyways ignore that, I really feel like in this day and age, everything should be about maximum creativity.

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Xiii:

> I think one of the worse reasons for a character to exist is to give them a familiar character to play with first to pull them into your game.

STRONGLY disagree here.

Now, you may not want to have a character whose sole purpose is for beginners - we don’t need any more characters like Tekken 3 Eddie. BUt beginner-friendly characters in general? Definitely. Why do you think the Marvel games were so popular? They had Wolverine for mashers, who could go hog wild with him. If Wolverine, a naturally popular character, had gameplay like, I dunno, Lei Fei from Virtua Fighter (I don’t know VF to well; somebody really unorthodox), I believe the Marvel games would not be as popular as they were.

This is also why Ryu almost never changes from game to game. He’s rock solid and very familiar, the kind of character you generally don’t have to think too hard on how to play in a new system right off the bat. Having a bit of familiarity in a new environment is a huge boost for new players. It gives them a base to work with and then move on to discover the other stuff your game has. Or maybe not, but regardless, they’re still playing your game, which is ultimately what you want. At least if you want your game to make money, that is. Not sure what FDSM is going for commercially.

You can have odd ball characters that are difficult to figure out at first. But across the board? Bad idea. Even in Guilty Gear, Sol and Ky are extremely straightforward at the basic level, Ky more so than Sol.

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I think you misunderstood what I said Ultima. What I said was that having a Ryu type character or any character that reminds you of some other character JUST to attract people is a bad idea in general. Beginner friendly or solid staple characters in a series is a different story. Do you need a Mexican or Black Ryu in a game unrelated to SF that really isn’t any different? Not saying that’s what’s happening here, but just planting the seed so that it can be thought about. Let the character’s style, gameplay or gimmicks be the reason for the character rather than fear of people not being attracted to your game because characters don’t appeal to them. That will happen regardless anyways.

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More thanks for all the discussion, this is a lot more than I got on another forum.

What I meant by the character thing is there won’t be a dude who looks like Ryu or anything(Ryo for example), but he’ll have an easy to pick up and understand move set… on the surface until the player gets to know the mechanics of the game and the character they will recognize QCF+P does this, QCB+K does this, DPF+P does this, etc etc.

My main goal is to make every character have various styles of play available… which is why 'm kind of shying away from the 3S meter system… as I really don’t want to see a reincarnation of Ken, Yun and Chun… where the devs took the time to put in 3 supers for each but no one uses 2 of the 3 because there’s almost just one play style for each character.

Granted there’s various sub styles of play… turtle, more/less aggressive, etc, but, again being no expert, I watch videos and it’s all “look to land this one move and you’re golden”, y’know?

I want to give players many more options… so that they can take a Hugo for example and do rushdown like a Cammy player would, granted not nearly on her same level and at least try to do that against all the characters… if that’s at all possible.

May be wrong, especially since I don’t know all the ins and outs of fighting games.

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There are still balancing issues in 3S and the idea of having selectable supers isn’t bad, it just turns out a certain way with those characters in particular.

Yun’s SA3 is 10x better than his other supers both in damage and versatility, not to mention it’s the shortest meter a character can have and Yun doesn’t need EX moves to perform.

Chun Li’s SA2 is similar where the other supers would have been viable if her SA2 was only like 1 long meter instead of 2 and the rest of her SAs were 2 or 3 medium meters or something. She has the same properties with the other ones being able to cancel it, but SA2 moves her forward, through projectiles and is a guaranteed counter to a lot of slow moves on block.

Ken’s SA3 is just about meter and reliability really, lots of meter, easy to build up, hit confirmable at max distance with certain normals and knocks down to setup for his cross-up game.

You still have characters like Oro that can use SA2 and 3, Makoto that can use SA1 and 2 (and 3 if you’re crazy), Remy where SA1 and 2 are interchangeable, +Ryu, Yang, Hugo, Q, etc. The problem is having all 3 useful, but that’s a balancing issue and there are ways to solve that now as you can patch your game to rebalance certain things. Of course if you don’t want to do it still that’s your choice, just showing you that you can if you like that system.

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Would each character having at least one great move, say a high priority normal/special normal, help balance things or fuck it up?

Because 'm not sure exactly how to set up a priority system… does it go rock-paper-scissors? Percentages? Frames and damage?

I would like to have almost every super have at least some confirmable way of landing it… not sure if that makes it too strong or not. If using a 3S like system, in what ways could the supers be balanced and would it be a good idea to say integrate the groove system into the 3S meter system like so:

Select character > select dedication(balanced, power, speed) > select super using 3S system then select a groove? Would that be far too much?

Or should I just condense the groove system to just a couple things added to the single 3S system, for example everyone has air blocking and a counterattack/dodge move?

I think I might just have to remove the groove system for a bit… because I want to keep groove specific things like in CvS2 but also want to go with a 3S like control scheme… or throw that out the window and go with a MB/GG scheme and have all single level supers but some supers are stronger/weaker.

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Quick thought here…

3 Punch and 3 Kick scheme vs a P, K, X, XX and XXX scheme

Which one offers more versatility in fighting? Like… could SF work with a GG/MB control scheme and vice versa?

Should there be a guard/counter button?

I personally like the SF set up, especially the 3S scheme because you can have more special normals than in CvS2(I think there are anyway).

If I do a MB/GG set up… I can remove the C groove aspect because there won’t be various levels of damage for a super, it would just be different supers that do different damage.

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I don’t know any games that actually program in “priority”. I’m not sure how much options before a fight actually bother new players, but looking at CvS2, it probably doesn’t matter much between 1, 2 or none. Even KoF games are like pick 3 characters and then pick an order. Usually good moves are ones with fast start-up, large hitboxes and few recovery frames.

I’m a fan of a consistent system rather than a bunch of random systems put together unless it serves a purpose. Especially with having a bunch of contrasting defensive options available since you have to account for both when it comes to balancing.

Finally with your control scheme, it shouldn’t matter. I think it just allows you to have more control of your character when you have more buttons. 6 button setups push for normals to be more important as well as more variations to specials moves, where as it seems less buttons encourage more combo heavy systems with less control in variations for your specials, but honestly, it shouldn’t matter which one you pick as long as you can do everything you want to do for your characters with whatever scheme you pick. Also for guard/counter buttons, I don’t personally like them. Guard buttons for blocking seem redundant in a 2d fighter, unless you’re trying to go for a shield/bunker guard. Counter button I think is rather redundant as well since you could just give it a command out of block stun rather than giving it a dedicated button. Makes it a little harder, but also takes more skill than mashing on the counter button when you’re tired of someone pressuring you too much.

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What 'm thinking of doing is a 4-6 button system…
Light Attack, Medium Attack, Heavy Attack and Throw
Light Attack, Medium Attack, Heavy Attack, Signature Attack and Throw
Quick Attack, Punch, Kick, Hard Attack, Heavy Attack and Throw

Throw, since 'm basing a large amount of the system around a special universal throw string. The Throw button when used with a directional input or alone could be the basic throws, Throw + an attack button could be the groove specific moves(i.e. press Throw + Light/Quick to perform a dodge), Throw + directional motion(i.e. QCF) could be the set up and following strings of the combo throws and Throw and attack button + directional motion(i.e. QCF + Throw-Quick Attack) could be for some specials and supers.

The other attacks would all vary person to person as normal, some being punches, some being kicks, and could be used in conjunction with directional input for special normals. Quick and Signature/Heavy Attacks could be specialty attacks kinda like Dust in GG, Quick would do very little damage but could beat out a number of other attacks, make it basically the Jab of SF and Signature/Heavy would be slower but more damaging attacks that all characters would have, used mostly for punishing, in combos or for some footsies(i.e. Hugo’s Palm Bomber).

I think with a Throw button I can keep all the options that I want to have, especially if I use the 2 groove system though 'd have to alter it a bit as there would no longer be variations of one super. I look at it like this for a control scheme:

Quick Attack - An attack that comes out and recovers quickly, does very little damage, can be performed standing, close, crouching, running, jumping and air dashing. Think of it as a LP/LK.
Punch - Character’s signature punching attack, can be performed standing, close, crouching, running, jumping and air dashing. Think of it as a MP/MK.
Kick - Character’s signature kicking attack, can be performed standing, close, crouching, running, jumping and air dashing. Think of it as a MP/MK.
Hard Attack - Character’s signature hard hitting attack, can be performed standing, close, crouching, running, jumping and air dashing. Think of it as a HP/HK.
Heavy Attack - Character’s signature big damage attack, can be performed standing, close, crouching, running, jumping and air dashing. Could be a launcher, a trip, an attack that does lots of damage but can be very slow to start or very easily punished when whiffed, blocked or even hit.
Throw - Universal throw button, when used either alone or in conjunction with other attack buttons and directional input(s) it can perform various actions like normal throws, combo throws, specials, supers and groove specific actions.

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Xiii: re: familiar characters

Well you see, characters like Ryu, and the many MANY others of his ilk, are omnipresent because there character types are balanced, simple and fairly easy to understand. You might not want to necessary copy the shoto archetype, but if you’re looking for a character that is familiar to (fighting) players in general and eases them into your system and/or is generally popular, a shoto-style character is a good, safe bet. With the exception of MK, I know of no serious 2D fighter series that doesn’t have a shoto character variant in it. That’s because the shoto is a time-tested design that works.

So the fact is, almost every (?) single maker of 2D fighters disagrees with you.

re: selectable supers

Selectable supers are fine in theory, but I think in practice they’re a bad idea. Because they almost never turn out to be equal. In all 3 SF3 games, most characters have only one really good, useful super. A handful have two. No one has three. It’s much better to just give your character access to all supers at once and let the chips fall where they may.

re: priority

With the exception of MUGEN and some other game whose name I forget, there’s no such thing as priority as it’s commonly used. Priority is a vague term that generally refers to how often a particular attack will beat out another attack. It’s a relative term that’s a combination of the following factors:

Start up time: The shorter the start up time, the faster a move is. Faster moves have a better chance at hitting than slower moves, so faster speed is associated with higher priority.

Active time: The longer a move remains active, the greater the chance of it actually hitting an opponent. So longer activity can translate into higher priority.

Recovery time: The shorter a move’s recovery time, the less vulnerable it leaves the character. Faster recovery is associated with higher priority.

Hit box: This is the part of a move that can actually hurt an opponent during the active phase. In 2D games this is usually some form of rectangle, hence the term “hit box”. The large this box is, the greater the chance of it making contact with the opponent. Hence, bigger hit boxes are associated with higher priority (insert gif of CvS2 Sagat c.HP here).

Vulnerable Box: This is the part of the character that can be hurt by an opponent through out a move. The smaller this is, the less likelyhood of the character being hit by an attack during the move. Hence, smaller vulnerability boxes is associated with higher priority.

Invincible frames: This is more a subset of the vunlerable box factor, but worth a mention on its own. Moves that are considered to have invincibility on certain frames have NO vunlerable box, meaning they cannot be hit at all on those frames. Classic example is the Sf2 shoto Shoryuken, which was invincible on the way up. Some moves don’t have full invincibility, but rather invincibility only in certain areas. Like for example, Gief’s KKK Lariet in Hyper Fighting is invincible from waist down. This means that there is no vulnerable box for his waist and below; his head, however, still has a vulnerable box.

So priority (or lack thereof) is really a combination of factors. MUGEN, however, is not like this, or at least not last I checked, which admittedly was years ago so I might be wrong: It actually has the ability to set a priority value for attacks, which is a numerical value that determines how and if it will override other attacks. I believe there is another game that uses such a system, but I can’t recall at the moment.

re: buttons

Despite being a hardcore SF fan and part of the SIX BUTTONS 4 LIFe crowd, I’d have to advise against making a 6 button fighter unless you’re trying to make a peculiarly-SF type game. I think for most general purposes, 4 buttons (LP/LK/HP/HK) or even 3 buttons (L/M/H attacks) is better. I think BlazBlue’s Light/Medium/Heavy/Drive and TvC’s new system of Light/Medium/Heavy/Partner (the last button in both setups is essentially a system button) is potentially very good.

Dunno about a specific throw button though… not unless it has more functions than just throw. In general, be very careful about adding buttons that only do 1 or 2 things (see also: MK adding a button for Run).

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If I was you OP, I’d just make ultima’s street fighter perfect game, because on paper, it sounds awesome.

Anyhoo, my advice would probably be to work out your system first, with a bunch of clone characters, to you get the feel of your game where you want it to be.

And balance wise, I like the idea of rock-paper-scissors, but having every character have their own version of that, making counter picking less important. I’m not saying every character has to have a dragon punch, you can edit each to where you want (Some characters have more scissors, some more rock, etc) and go from there.

Last piece of advice…post beta’s here so we can test!

39

Maybe one side isn’t reading the other side’s detail or something, but Ultima. This entire time I’ve been saying don’t create Shoto type characters just because you feel like you need to, only because you have an idea for one. Everyone wants to be successful, but how many games have actually tried to break the mold and proven that you would fail because you don’t have a shoto type character in the game? It’s such an overused frame because it works on the base foundation of what fighters were originally, but a lot of that has begun to change where the fireball/dp combo is still good, but not as overbearing as it was before and shoto type characters now are beginning to be drastically different.

Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Sagat, Dan, Kyo, Iori, Shingo, Sol, Ky, etc. They’re all based on the same premise, but they’ve grown into different types of characters. If you can create a character based off a DP and a Fireball that’s different then that’s great, but if you’re just going to clone Ryu where all you’re changing is normals a bit and the base premise of his gameplay doesn’t change all that much outside of how the system affects the game, I find it a waste of a character slot. It’s less time spent on a different character and even if eventually you get to create every character you want, would you rather have characters you really want first or characters you feel like you need, but haven’t really been proven to be needed first? I would go with something that grips the fighting game community first over something that grips the casual audience as to go for the casual audience, you need more than a shoto character. You need lots of flashy effects and arguably the ability to build a game with 3D effects or full 3D in general and even then there’s no guarantee. Having the type and the effects doesn’t even mean you’re 50% there. I think it’s effect on grabbing a gamer is a lot more miniscule than you might think and that a lot of the staple characters that have a DP/Fireball have been around for a long time and their designs are very liked for their character, rather than for the DP/Fireball compliments.

Take Garou for example, it’s a great game with a good following, it’s not a huge smash hit, but it’s 1 game that would be welcomed to have a 2nd. How many real shotos are in that game? 1? and he’s not even anywhere near the poster boy, Rock is. You really only have a handful of fighters that you use as your “proof” that I’m wrong? SF, KoF and now GG? How many other big fighting game franchises are there? There are still tons of fighting games that are kinda in the media spotlight that doesn’t reform to that. If MvC2 didn’t have shotos in the game, people would still play the hell out of it, because Marvel characters are popular and arguably more popular than SF characters. Go make Marvel VS DC and see how many characters actually have a reason to have an uppercut and fireball and see if most people will care. I bet it’ll have more sales than most SF games on their own or even combinations of SF games put together.

And again to reiterate so I don’t have someone putting words in my mouth, I’m not talking about the absence of familiar characters by choice. If you want to do it then go ahead as I feel like being creative, innovative and interesting are the most important things to design, especially for a fighting game. If you really want to make a shoto then nothing I can do to really stop you short of killing you and I have no reason to do that. The only thing is if my words affect how you think about design and broaden your scope of ideas or allow you to think of anything other than the standard, I think that’s great. I wish most people would get off the idea of trying to be a smash hit by trying to find some formula to it, it’s about timing, luck and more luck. You never know what will stick and what won’t and fighting games in general have a much harder time than other genres so why bother with trying to be a success before you even know what you want and what will work? Just because SF2 was a success, doesn’t mean cloning it for 08/09 will mean you will be successful.

/rant

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I don’t know what the hell that rant was about.

All I know is, you said this:

And I strongly disagreed. I didn’t even use shotos as my sole example, since I also mentioned Tekken 3 Eddie and Wolverine. You having a problem with shotos and seeing them waste of character slots and uncreative and blah blah blah dick is entirely your problem.

Though perhaps the definition of “shoto” is the issue here? I’m merely referring to generic FB/DP characters. Almost no one outside of Ryu/Ken/Akuma actually plays like real shotos… KoF95 Iori/Kyo/Ryo might be the exception, and maybe Mizuguchi from Fighter’s History. But the majority of FB/DP characters don’t really play like ARK. BUt there ARE tons of FB/DP characters though: Rival Schools, Marvel games, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, KoF, Samurai Shodown, Last Blade, Fighter’s History, World Heroes, Guilty Gear, TMNT:TF, and a ton of lesser games I’m forgetting. I don’t know about Melty Blood or Arcana Heart, since I never played those.

I purposefully left out 3D because FDSM isn’t planning a 3D game so it’s not relevant.

And while you may disagree, FDSM wanting to include a shoto-style (read: FB/DP) character “so people can adjust somewhat easier” is perfectly legit. even if he doesn’t go for FB/DP, that line of thinking is definitely useful to keep in mind from a design standpoint. It’s simply a matter of being practical, not necessarily being standard.