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Post by Weasel on Oct 20, 2014 12:21:01 GMT -5
Fighting games used to do that auto thing. I wonder why they stopped. But Alpha used to block for you if you weren't touching anything. Actually, I think any game in that engine did that Zelda style blocking. Quick research tells me it was limited number of hits. Also, it allowed easy supers by just hitting punch and kick. But, you got 1 super bar, which IIRC in Alpha is an awful handicap. But, it gave new players at least the tools to figure out to play. Even if they were limited. Capcom VS SNK 2 EO (the Gamecube and XBox versions) had a special alternate control scheme (called either GC-Ism or EO-Ism, depending on which version of the game). Instead of three punches and three kicks, all punches and kicks were moved to the two shoulder buttons, dependent on how fast you pull the trigger. Other moves that required multiple button presses were shifted to the face buttons, so you could press one button to dodge/roll, another button to activate your Special meter (on the S, N, and P grooves, I think), the Taunt button, etc. The most important change of EO-Ism is that you now use the right stick to do special moves. The move is dependent on what direction you push the stick (the more complicated fighters had up to 16 moves crammed into that one stick!), and the strength is dependent on how far you push it. Problem with EO-Ism is that it makes the difficult moves absolutely trivial to pull off, and (if I remember correctly) could be used in online play as well. So you could run into a Rugal player who is constantly using Dark Barrier to reflect your projectiles, a Guile that does not need to charge his Sonic Boom, a Terry that does not need to charge Rising Tackle, a Kyosuke or Akuma who can seamlessly combo anything into either Final Grade Remix or Shun Goku Satsu, or Geese doing a flawless Deadly Rave without missing an input...basically, crazy shit.
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Post by Bobinator on Oct 20, 2014 18:04:40 GMT -5
I think fighting games are a great point on this whole topic, as they all hit so many different levels of complexity that they all have a place on both sides of the scale. I mean, for example, let's take, say, Street Fighter 4 and Mortal Kombat 9, just as any random example.
Street Fighter 4 is firmly on the difficulty side of things. You have a combo system that demands pretty much split second time to succeed with. A lot of the super moves are going to be really hard for somebody new to fighting games to do, like, say, QCF,QCF, Punch. Some supers, like anything Guile has, I don't even know how to do. Nothing in the game is really explained, as while the game has combo trials, they don't really explain how they work aside from the button inputs.
MK9, however, is on the other end of that. You do every super in the game by pressing two buttons together. Special moves are generally two directions and a button. Most combos are done through juggles, which means you get a lot more time to actually do your combos, and every character has a list of instant combos you can do if you're not good with those. The game also has a short tutorial, which, while it doesn't go very in depth, at least gives you some idea of what you're doing.
Now, the question is, which of these approaches are better? That's hard to say, but in my own personal opinion, but I'd kind of prefer easier execution in my fighting games, myself. See, I'd prefer the difficulty come from knowing what move to do, and when, as opposed to being able to pull it off at all. Yes, the supers in MK9 are easy, but you still have to know what the best situations to use them there are. That's what I like.
There's also sort of a middle ground, where more fighting games are offering better tutorials on how to do things. Skullgirls is a game that has a pretty good tutorial, and it's not that hard of a game to learn. That's the question, though: On the scale of difficulty versus accessibility, is it better to have more advanced mechanics that are explained well, or just have simpler mechanics in general? Hmmm...
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Post by The Great Klaid on Oct 20, 2014 18:43:49 GMT -5
I'd err toward the latter. The one thing I love about Street Fighter is when I figured out the motions, they feel intuitive. The charge moves feel like you have to rear back and then let go. Like Sonic Boom or Psycho Crusher. Not to mention they work when you link them. It feels better to spin the joystick around then it does to tap out stuff like a cheat code.
As for the actual question of mechanics in general. I want a difficulty curve. I want a game that starts out simple and ramps up. I love being able to find out I can do new things. I don't have any problem with a good tutorial sticking me in the middle of the difficulty curve. I really enjoy it actually. It's what I love about games really. But that's my personal answer.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2014 21:07:56 GMT -5
I think fighting games are a great point on this whole topic, as they all hit so many different levels of complexity that they all have a place on both sides of the scale. I mean, for example, let's take, say, Street Fighter 4 and Mortal Kombat 9, just as any random example. Street Fighter 4 is firmly on the difficulty side of things. You have a combo system that demands pretty much split second time to succeed with. A lot of the super moves are going to be really hard for somebody new to fighting games to do, like, say, QCF,QCF, Punch. Some supers, like anything Guile has, I don't even know how to do. Nothing in the game is really explained, as while the game has combo trials, they don't really explain how they work aside from the button inputs. MK9, however, is on the other end of that. You do every super in the game by pressing two buttons together. Special moves are generally two directions and a button. Most combos are done through juggles, which means you get a lot more time to actually do your combos, and every character has a list of instant combos you can do if you're not good with those. The game also has a short tutorial, which, while it doesn't go very in depth, at least gives you some idea of what you're doing. Now, the question is, which of these approaches are better? That's hard to say, but in my own personal opinion, but I'd kind of prefer easier execution in my fighting games, myself. See, I'd prefer the difficulty come from knowing what move to do, and when, as opposed to being able to pull it off at all. Yes, the supers in MK9 are easy, but you still have to know what the best situations to use them there are. That's what I like. There's also sort of a middle ground, where more fighting games are offering better tutorials on how to do things. Skullgirls is a game that has a pretty good tutorial, and it's not that hard of a game to learn. That's the question, though: On the scale of difficulty versus accessibility, is it better to have more advanced mechanics that are explained well, or just have simpler mechanics in general? Hmmm... This is my problem with fighting games. I'm perfectly fine with fighters requiring split-specond timing. They just need to actually TEACH the players how to pull those moves off. Trial / Challenge modes, as they currently exist, are not the answer.
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Post by alphex on Oct 20, 2014 22:37:17 GMT -5
Fighting games used to do that auto thing. I wonder why they stopped. But Alpha used to block for you if you weren't touching anything. Actually, I think any game in that engine did that Zelda style blocking. Quick research tells me it was limited number of hits. Also, it allowed easy supers by just hitting punch and kick. But, you got 1 super bar, which IIRC in Alpha is an awful handicap. But, it gave new players at least the tools to figure out to play. Even if they were limited. Alpha 2 gave you infinite auto blocks, and by pressing two kick or punch buttons at the same time automatically performed a super move! It was a great system; I learned playing fighting games with Alpha 2, and at the beginning, I was strictly using auto. Of course, as you said, less super bar is a huge handicat in Alpha, so it was strictly beginner only. But yeah, I wonder why that was dropped? And really... fighting games are kinda bound to have a shitty learning curve, as they play completely different on different levels. But I guess part of the answer is for them to be fun at all levels. I personally don't find Street Fighter 3 to be too much fun, as I never truly learned to parry. Half of the game's tactics thus are invalid for me. It's just such an integral part of the game. Actually, the two fighting games I like the most, Real Bout 2 and Alpha 3 (A-ISM!) don't have such central stuff. (Yes, V-ISM is important, but I find the game to be a ton more fun in A)
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Post by The Great Klaid on Oct 20, 2014 23:03:56 GMT -5
Well, the hardest thing for me in fighters to grasp has been timing. Well, that and what the hell is down-forward. But, timing has been the biggest obstacle for me to get. That's why I've never been too concerned about tutorials in fighting games. I guess, everything really always felt like it came down to practice for me.
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Post by Ace Whatever on Oct 21, 2014 4:47:46 GMT -5
Yeah fighting games are probably the biggest "execution as entry barrier" genre out there. One that's way more hard than it needs to be. I don't think the issue is lack of live tutorials though, because while they can explain all the nuances of the game, they can never teach you how to execute a fireball motion or do a canned 10 Hit combo in Tekken . The motions inputs and the timing are simply motor skills you have to pick up like riding a bike or swimming. Also, I spent a lot of time looking on the internet but I never found a convincing answer to the necessity of "high execution characters". Charge and grapple playstyles I can live with, but I never understood having characters that need to do a half circle to accomplish something that others characters can do with a much simpler quarter circle motion. And let's not get even started on SNK's goddamn pretzel motions that bleeded horribly into every other 2D fighting game not made by Capcom. Arc System Works took this to new retarded levels in Blazblue. The character Bang for instance has to to do all his ground specials with dragon punch motions even though forward quarters circles on the ground aren't mapped to anything. Same for Litchi except all the crap she could have done with quarter circles are mapped to half circles for some goddamn reason. Even Capcom hasn't completely avoided this. Ibuki's Neck Breaker went from being a quarter circle in SF3 to a half circle in SF4, and the motions for any charge character in non-SF3 games are flat out ridiculous. MK9 also isn't infallible. Because it doesn't follow the convention of making all punch or kick buttons activate the same special, any character that has an attack with variable range/direction has to input a somewhat counter-intuitive motion to pull off the 3rd variant (Kenshi's Telekenetic Slash, Noob Saibot's Trap Holes). Only Jade to my knowledge seems to employ another button to fire her third boomerang move. The biggest offender I've seen so far is Arcana Heart 3. There's a character called Elsa whose strongest super requires you to input the four cardinal direction in a non-rotating motion within a split second! What the hell is that supposed to prove? Now let's look at an example that almost completely throws all those conventions out the window. Garou: Mark of the Wolves, arguably the best Fatal Fury game ever, has nearly the entire cast run on very simple quarter circle motions for their specials save for maybe one advanced technique per character. The only charge character is the final boss and even then he still uses double quarter circle motions for his supers. And this is a SNK game! I don't think "Simple" control schemes are the solution to this issue because you sacrifice access to your character's complete toolset in exchange for flawless execution. And as explained before the games aren't designed to be balanced with those simple controls in mind.
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Post by thoothan on Oct 21, 2014 10:47:58 GMT -5
They need to have like a scrolling bar on the side where the buttons fall down a la guitar hero to teach players the timing for stuff
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Post by The Great Klaid on Oct 21, 2014 11:32:58 GMT -5
Damn, I was just going to post that. Although really, you have to mash it out very quickly. It's why things like down-forward twice works for Dragon Punch.
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Post by RAGilmour on Oct 21, 2014 13:10:53 GMT -5
Apart from a few of Akira's very difficultly timed moves, I think Virtua Fighter is easy to learn the moves but also has great depth. The real problem is being able to remember all the moves for each situation; quite a long move list, which is an annoyance for me that 2d fighters tended to avoid.
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Post by strizzuth on Oct 21, 2014 13:17:33 GMT -5
Here, I think this says it all:
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Post by The Great Klaid on Oct 21, 2014 14:09:12 GMT -5
Yeah, that would be perfect. Especially because nothing is ever mentioned about Wake-ups. As an example. There is a lot of stuff that I learned the hard way. Hell recovery times and hitboxes too.
For example my little bro likes to mash lightning kicks as Chun-li. For years, I'd just play keep away and not give him the chance. But I played with Dudley one day, and remembered reading about how there are different kinds of hit boxes. As we'd always assumed punching the legs would get you hurt. Ended the decade spanning meta of spamming lightning kicks, with a high punch.
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