In this case, the only moves that would be safe would be moves that have a quicker recovery than your opponents quickest move. So basically, each character’s LP and/or LK would be the only moves that might have a chance to be safe.
Blockstun has been around for as long as fighting games have, I guess nobody really knows how the idea was born. But there obviously had to be some sort of “control” over blocking, to prevent everything that has already been mentioned. How they came up with blockstun, who knows, but its been a pretty much ideal solution, hence why 15 years later it hasn’t really changed at all.
If they took the path you suggest, then they would severly limit options when it comes to designing moves. Anything with a longer recovery than the startup of the quickest move would be essentially useless. So the majority of each characters moves would be quick pokes, and we’d still have very pokey gameplay. Also every character would have to have at least one move that has that shortest startup, or they would be severely disadvantaged.
It’s quite possible I’m wrong about this, but as far as I know, most fighters run at 60 FPS. I don’t think 3D games are much different.
Nobody “should” have the advantage, in general. It depends very much on the situation, and the move(s) used. If the attacker uses a hard hitting, slow move unsafely (i.e., when its not guaranteed to hit, by comboing into it or otherwise), then the defender “should” have the advantage because the attacker was playing carelessly.
Its not so much that giving advantage to the defender is broken, its giving them advantage on literally any hit that they block. Which is what blockstun prevents.
What sparks these thoughts, anyway? Been molested by blockstrings lately?
You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. BTW, I severely doubt there’s anything that comes out in 0 frames, about the closest thing you’ll find is zero frame start up. (e.g. AHVB) If you really want to play a game like that why don’t you go download mugen and make all the characters have zero block stun, and you can see what happens next. (i.e. Stupidity)
BTW, a game designer isn’t going to come in here and say “OMG, what a good idea, I’m going to make a game without blockstun” so there’s no point even arguing this. Take it from people who have played streetfigther for a long time and are actually good at it: YOUR IDEA BLOWS. IT IS QUITE POSSIBLY THE WORST IDEA EVER SUGGESTED IN THE HISTORY OF SRK EVER.
edit: One last thing, if you give the advantage to the so called “defender” then the game is fucking stupid. Are you really suggesting they should punish you for attacking? You know what happens then right? People just turtle all day, staring at each other until someone becomes stupid enough to attack. You know how I know? I’ve seen SVC chaos matches, which are almost as bad as what you are suggesting, but at least GCFS takes meter.
No instead of criticizing we should cut his balls off and nail him to a fucking cross. He’s been here for three years and still knows almost nothing about fighting games. That’d be like an automotive techinician asking why cars have brakes and seat belts.
If you really want to play a game that has no block stun and no recovery on blocked moves, just play something that lets you jack the game speed way up until everything looks like it’s in fast forward. Human reflexes aren’t fast enough to deal with a game where everyone can punish out of block immediately, but can also recover from a move so quickly that it can’t be punished.
There has to be some sort of delay somewhere in it in order to give your brain some time to actually work out what you’re doing, and the delay of move recovery and the delay of block stun are necessary to balance each other.
I think I played that. The entire cast is made of Chun-Li’s. Actually, there’s only 2 buttons on the cabinet, forward and fierce. I felt it odd, and then never “accidentally” hit a “useless” button and realized why they streamlined the game so much.
I think it would be quite possible to make a game without any blockstun; it’s just that the mechanics would be very different from what we’re used to. You could have extremely high damage blockable attacks and low damage unblockables. Of course, having unblockables would require to focus on utilizing evasion as the main defense, so there would have to be about a baillion different movement options and what not.
In conclusion, it would be a very, very, very strange game.
No, the point is EVERY move would become punishable, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything… it would turn a game into who could tech throws best wins.
Actually, even though most of us know the role of blockstun in the game, the fact that it puzzles people not affluent in fighting games can have an adverse affect on game design. Not just in fighting games, but in ALL games. There are many non-fighting games that don’t even use hit stun, let alone other fighting game staples like block stun and push back.
Take Warcraft 3 for example. You attack somebody. They get hurt. Do they get stunned? Do they get pushed back? Nope. So what’s to stop a group of units from walking right past your units? Nothing actually. You’d either need a mass of units so large that the enemies can’t walk around it, or be able to deal enough damage to them to kill them before they get by. Not exactly strategic for a so-called real-time strategy game.
So yeah, a lot of people don’t know. People who play fighting games should know, but I’m sure a lot of them take it for granted. You never miss something until it’s gone.
Why choose blockstun? Because if you made “most” moves recover in less time than the fastest move comes out, then “most” moves would be safe. Do you want the game to just be a guessing game where each player takes turns throwing out random attacks to see if the opponent can guess the right counter attack? That’s what would happen. Plus, you’re simplifying the situation way too much. In Street Fighter, there’s a variety of moves with a variety of ranges and priorities, as well as throws and projectiles. If throwing a projectile recovered faster than the startup of the fastest move in the game, it’d quickly degenerate.
By the way, Zangief’s light punch Spinning Piledriver has zero startup.
Several things have zero frame startup, actually. All normal throws in SF2, Blanka’s horizontal and vertical rolls, Ken’s fierce Shoryuken, etc.
Anyway, management of timing is an important part of fighting games. Every action you can take will keep your character “locked” for some period, so you have to learn to utilize your time well. If you could perform any action at any time (block mid-attack, cancel anything into anything, etc.), then the game would just be a mess.
I miss S.AM.