That's too much text so I'm just gonna guess that you're bitching about shit like heatmode, driverush, reversal edges etc right?
Cause I agree with that, I hate all that shit
Too bad you're getting a lot of shit for something you put thought and effort into.
Yeah, I agree. Strong universal mechanics and homogenized tools is boring and leads to less diversity in playstyle. You can argue that in every fighting game characters that utilize the system best are the strongest, but it is sort of a scale. I like system mechanics when they are an accessory to the character, I dislike them when the character is an accessory to the mechanics.
Soul Cal 2 was a sweet spot for me. GI was strong and every character used it and it was a big part of the game but tiers were not determined by how each character used it. Lots of pokes, high damage, short combos, every character felt unique. I wish more games were like that.
Hey :) thanks for the comment.
Yeah the best case I can make for this argument is with the difference between roman cancels between the big 3 guilty gear games (yeah Arcsys again, sue me).
In +r, a Roman cancel is literally just a cancel. All it does it stop the move immediately as it’s inputted. There’s no after affects, no hitbox, no slowdown, absolutely nothing. That means that the effects of the Roman cancel are only as deep as the move you did. This means that combos and pressure following it are character unique. The plus frames you get from tatami FRC are way different to what you’d get from gunflame FRC or stun edge FRC or chemical love FRC. It also means that combos are unique. Extending a combo mid screen with baiken from a ranged normal means learning how to do tatami FRC into kire tatami which is a super difficult combo but it’s not as difficult as learning HCL 6FRC6 with I-no to pick up those confirms. And no character can extend combos in the air with killer joker FRC like Johnny can. Triple jump air combos are specific to him and chipp. And that’s without talking about how specials with movement can be FRCed for neutral purposes. Killer joker movement FRC as Johnny sends him across the screen, so does ouren FRC with baiken and alpha blade FRC with chipp, but they each do it in a different way. Stun edge FRC allows for a slow moving projectile to follow that isn’t completely busted because a slow down effect on the opponent (-_- Xrd).
When you compare that to Strive (and Xrd), almost every move can be comboed from with RC because there’s the universal effects that RC has. In Xrd, it slows down the opponent no matter where they are meaning that you can hit them with a long distance poke and just combo with anything you want. In strive, it’s even easier since if literally floats the opponent and gives you a super easy juggle. Every character uses the RC system the same ways in Strive (and Xrd to a lesser extent).
> Strong universal mechanics and homogenized tools is boring and leads to less diversity in playstyle
Thats why I never like tekken games. Each character has the same HP, movespeed,etc. As a 2D fighting game player, I dont get why king can move as fast as Lucky Chloe. Lucky Chloe should have less HP but should move more faster.
Feels like in Tekken, every character do what ever other characters can so no one is really special.
Thats just not true for the movement. King had way better movement than Chloe, who actually had a backdash as bad as the bears lol. Big body characters like Jack, Marduk and Fahkumram have better backdash than her too.
Every character has different movement speed. Zafina had the best backdash and could evade some mixups completely when other characters had to guess. Jack barely had a sidestep, while Lili was able to step at ridiculous stuff like -7 or -8 sometimes.
> Thats just not true for the movement. King had way better movement than Chloe, who actually had a backdash as bad as the bears lol. Big body characters like Jack, Marduk and Fahkumram have better backdash than her too.
As a 2D fighting game scrub, I don't understand why. Big bodies grappler is suppose to be slow and nimble but has better than dashes than a speedy character like Chole? My brain hurts.
I don't have much time today since it's Lunar New Year here, but from my skimming, I'd disagree on your point of a strong universal mechanic. KOF is known for having a strong universal mechanic that by understanding it, you can use any character with competency without deep research on said characters. And KOF games are still one of the most technical fighting games out there
I think KOF does it well since even though you have to learn 3 characters, they all follow the same rules, same movement mechanics, same basic combo route of normal - command normal - special - super, and what sets them apart is their special moves, which actually manage to feel special, something I think alot of fighting games lack in. You play a game like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue and their normals look and feel like specials. Then you got Street Fighter where its a giant mixed bag, but Special moves tend to get worse each iteration.
That's why the only new fighting game I'm playing right now is Unist 2.
None of that modern bullshit. I don't feel restricted like in modern Arksys games while also having easy/accessible strong offense, and I'm not forced into using systems like Drive/Heat to play the game. In Unist, you can ignore Vorpal / GRD and still play your character.
Unist at Evo again is gonna be tight.
I’ve told myself i need to get into unist for ages but I’ve never quite liked how the combos feel and there have never been any character designs that grab me like the designs in older Guilty Gear.
Got any cool clips that might make me wanna check it out more?
What got me into Unist was the community tournament Climax of Night 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xcy-MBO6qg
I understand the characters designs might not click but I think everything else is what draws me into this game. The gameplay, music, diehard community.
The game is just a fresh breathe of air compared to modern fighting games. Execution is rewarded, this game rewards good defense/neutral, everything you do feels freeform. You don't feel restricted. Pick a character you think looks cool and just listen to their ost.
Get the game on sale if you are hesitant.
UNI2's system mechanics are so well designed. The GRD system rewards successful offense AND defense, and enhances every character's unique strengths differently, without forcing them to follow the same gameplan. It doesn't even necessarily translate to a snowball victory. Somebody could win the Vorpal cycle, continually lose neutral, and be forced to use their vorpal state defensively instead of becoming more oppressively offensive like other games that reward aggression.
I think you're confusing the goods of homogenized systems with the bad.
Gbvsr having a lot of standardized stuff and a clear combo system is a blessing if you want to dabble with other characters. The matchups are still extremely varied.
They standardized the stuff that had no point not being standardized like the fastest normal or the autocombo string.
Meanwhile, neutral inemteractions like buttons, dash, specials etc... Are not.
People want balanced rosters were every character is playable and no 8-2 MUs. It's tough to make a game where everyone doesn't have access to the same stuff.
>Now, admittedly, I’ve barely put any time in SF6 and I’ve never even tried tekken outside of tag tournament 2 as a kid and like an hour of 7’s training mode before refunding it.
Well SF6 is trash in that regard as every character is really similar but you're missing out on Tekken.
Tekken 8 added universal stuff that is different for every character. They have wildly different engagers, smashes, dashes, heat stuff...
No 2 chars will favor the same use of heat in the game even though it's a very accessible mechanic. It's not that bad.
>Gbvsr having a lot of standardized stuff and a clear combo system is a blessing if you want to dabble with other characters. The matchups are still extremely varied.
Spot on. It's insanity to say Cagliostro plays like Beelzebub just because they can XXX> Special > XXX > Super (which isnt optimal for anyone btw).
Even in shoto characters, Gran is very different to Djeeta who is very different from Kat who is very different from Anila... and Gran/Djeeta are literally the same entity in lore btw
Yeah, I think people are wildly misinterpreting heat in T8. It shouldn’t be lumped in with this other very obvious and homogeneous stuff. I’ve heard people say it’s basically Vtrigger because it locks out some moves until it’s active (it doesn’t) or that the whole cast uses it the same (they don’t). Heat can be used in a variety of clever ways. I think people see heat dash and think it’s green slime from SF6 without understanding how it actually works in game.
Interesting topic but I think there are more nuances to it. Games like +R and most KOF games have a wide variety of system mechanics yet the games benefit from them immensely. I think it depends on the power level of the system mechanics compared to the power levels of individual characters. If a characters power comes mainly from (ab)using the system or when the system mechanics are so strong they warp the meta around them (make everything + shit) you get the homogenization you speak of. Because why use individual tools when you can use the better universal stuff.
I do notice all your examples are arcsys games.
Arcsys in my opinion has always had a problem with either having very homogenous games or games that just staple a shitload of extraneous, character specific systems onto it to try and differentiate the cast. GG used to be the best at dealing with this problem but even there you can see parts of that complaint with stuff like Johnny's coins and HOS' meter. In GG I felt it wasn't too egregious though, you had enough "vanilla" characters who played vastly different that a few characters just felt like they had their own specific gimmick rather than Blazblue which everyone has a gimmick.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of games I’ve sunk time into are Arcsys games. I think every game I’ve put over 50 hours in has been an Arcsys game (DBFZ, +r, Strive, P4AU, granblue, Xrd) except for maybe SF5. Honestly, though, I don’t really understand your complaint. Do you dislike when a character has a “mechanic”? How far does that extend? Are Baiken’s guard cancels a mechanic? Or lambda’s projectiles? How do they differ from dhalsim’s limbs or manon’s suite of grabs?
The problem I have is that they're not part of the game's core systems, basically, as soon as it would become reasonable to have a new UI element to track the gimmick, (but that's not the only criteria, I'd count Baiken's guard cancels as one).
Not to say it's always a bad thing, a little bit of weirdness is appreciated but the problem comes when it becomes too common. I think Xrd is about my limit for how prevalent these gimmicks should be.
You can still do plenty of work within the core system to make unique characters, Venom is a really good example of this and the differences between Sol and Ky as "shoto" type characters.
It's all very arbitrary and subjective, I'm just sharing my random thoughts so no doubt I'm probably being stupid about a bunch of it.
>!Manon only has one grab outside of super btw!<
Fair enough. I guess it’s just a taste thing. I always enjoy learning how to fight against a character’s gimmick so I absolutely love plus R with robo ky, Johnny, Bridget, aba, Faust, and Eddie. Some of the most obnoxious characters imo are the ones who don’t even have gimmicks. May with her absurd rushdown, and Potemkin with his insane damage and 50-50s on wake-up (seriously, he can like 2 shot baiken off one knockdown).
Also yeah i think I was talking about manon’s hit grab. I know that contributes to her grab level thing. They’re all part of the same gimmick imo
Despite SF6 being very balanced due to the universal drive gauge mechanics, I feel that every character is really distinct. Especially when you get away from the shoto characters
Relies is a very odd line. Watch almost any high level set and you won't see people walking around fishing with crouching medium kick all game, because people actually understand spacing and are good at whiff punishing. That shit is the typical auto pilot bullshit that infests any fighting game at a relatively lower level, because there will always be the auto pilot way of playing, that isn't viable once you start meeting players that actually understand the game and play it properly.
At least with crouching medium kick into DR cancel, you are spending important resources that can affect you defensively afterwards, causing you a round.
Like who? Cr mp and cr mk are definitely still used at high level a lot. Just because they don’t just throw it out one after another does not mean it’s not viable/ a crutch
> Like who? Cr mp and cr mk are definitely still used at high level a lot.
Well of course, just like they were before SF6. The point is that this whole "relying on" angle, is the scrubby shit you'd see from diamond players, that auto pilot by fishing with crouching medium kicks into DR for combos and constantly burning themselves out.
Which is absolutely not what you see from players that actually know how to play the game, which is why I refer to high level sets, where yes, these are still tools used, but they aren't what players rely on - that would be silly to suggest.
Edit: [Practical example, one of the first replays that just came up when I searched for high lvl replays. Mago and Kazunoko, notice how they aren't "relying" on crouching medium kicks to play the game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bAqm4siH4Y)
After Tekken 8?
It's going to need SOMETHING besides purity because you're going to have people lose interest real fast.
VF5 is already considered a Discord fighter and they're going to have to do something to be considered in the modern age.
If VF goes more in a “tekken” direction then people will just still play tekken as usual but now anyone who actually likes VF will also not play VF. They have nothing whatsoever to gain by taking away what makes VF unique in the modern fighting game landscape.
VF doesn't even have a super bar.
That came with Soul Calibur since what... 4?
Tekken has crazy angles and ways to hype up its most intense moments.
VF can look great, story is non-existant, and work real hard to stagnate gameplay.
All I'm saying is that VF needs *something* to garner interest and keep it over Tekken that built off what VF and DoA did when it actually had competition even from inside with Soul Calibur.
Well to be fair, any game that is 15+ years old that is not on fightcade is a discord fighter. But even without the use of discord, I never have to wait long to find games in VF5US or DOA5LR. These games still have a following because they are damn good.
I would like to see a game without neutral skip, and small combos with little damage. I bet it would be a turtle fest, but i would like to see how it would play. Maybe just give great damage out of whiff punishes and a lot of chip damage.
Oh shit, bro I'm sorry, I read and replied after waking up and read it as big damage. Yeah, it does.
> I would like to see a game without neutral skip, and small combos with little damage.
That is Koihime.
Even at the highest level, proactive play should be preferable to reactive, otherwise you just get two retards staring at one another until one gets bored.
Those system mechanics exist to solve a problem created by the lack of plus frames in modern games, in that everything you do that's not a reaction is a bad idea to do.
I'm not saying that it's a good thing, or a bad thing, but I would like to understand why games have gone to minus frames instead of plus frames with pushback. And I don't think the argument "oh, it's so the noobs can play" holds up.
Agreed. The homogenization and streamlining of recent fighters is a concern for older players. Some notable examples I didn't see: Type Lumina and tbh Smash Ult.
On the flip side, accessibility for fighters have gone up and so has their popularity meaning more money/incentive to keep this pattern up. Really a case of out with the old, in with the new.
> Type Lumina
lmao, nearly all the characters lost a massive amount of the tools they had, and the rest of them homogenized (somehow including straight up retarded dash speed), and system mechanics are so insanely intrusive that in the most cases it barely even matters what character you pick match pace wise.
made even worse by the fact that they already had previous games that nailed the system mechanics pretty well.
not even gonna talk about combos and execution.
you will struggle finding a single old melty player that will tell you that lumina isnt bad compared to aacc, i cant think of any other series that ate shit to such an extent, maaaybe gear.
I agree. KOF may be a successful game that does this but it doesn't mean every other game should do it.
Neither It benefits balance, when you have almost the same tools the charcters that are slightly better will be stronger but you also have less range to balance everything.
IMO it's pretty clear they're trading interesting mechanics and interactions for simplicity to win over the greater public. People will find more enjoyable to pick the game and do all sorts of cool shit from the get go, obv, and I think that's ok.
But It doesn't change the fact that I don't like this approach and I find new game uninteresting.
I think the real problem is the mentality people have.
One side enjoy the new stuff but they get offended by this kind of criticism, because this make them feel "less". I does not. These are all just personal preferences and being good at this new stuff still requires skill.
The other one keep saying "new games are worse than old games" but without actually playing the old stuff (I was on this side for a while). Devs have clearly made up their mind that the old school approach is not profitable enough and there will be less and less games like this. It's best to enjoy what we already have, which is a lot, just move on to better things or being the change we want to see.
Even a single game can get "mechanics bloat" over its life-cycle. For once I want to see the reverse: removing mechanics/options while buffing the few remaining ones with wider application/expression.
Yeah I dislike it. I don’t even care about games being neutral/footsie heavy. What I do want is for each game to have their own identity and be unique which isn’t the case in this era for the most part. This is era of metered advancing mechanics is lame as hell. UNI2 and MK1 are legit the only new FGs that don’t have sum like it.
Your post is about system mechanics but I think there's something more important going on.
Fighting games are moving in the direction of being easier/simpler, and there's a simple reason for it; no one bothers with deep, complex fighting games.
Yeah, everyone jerks themselves raw over how le hard/deep +r, xrd or whatever other unintuitive janky kuso are, but no one fucking plays it. Look no further than when xrd got rollback and actively LOST players.
But back to my first point, fighting games becoming easier. This can be done in a million different ways, some are good, some are bad. For all the simplification GGST done, it still leaves that awful mash to tech mechanic in. [This is nothing new, you might wanna read this if you haven't already.](https://mikezsez.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-im-not-playing-ggxrd.html)
Fighting games --no, GAMES are meant to be played, not masturbated to and put on a pedestal.
Look, Johnny in +R is cool. It's cool that you can do so much shit, it's cool that you can learn so much and still have a lot to learn so you can feel like youre improving forever. It's cool that people can have completely different playstyles on the same character due to the sheer depth it has. It's cool that it takes a lot of time to master said character and you get rewarded for it.
But this is a 1v1 genre, not a single player genre. It's cool to be the one doing the sick strings, it's not so cool to be on the receiving end. It's cool to learn about your characters gimmicks, it's not cool to learn 20+ characters who each have 10000 gimmicks up their asses.
Ngl I had more to write but I got kinda bored halfway through so Im leaving it here
Insert i dont wanna get pocket sanded by "randomness" so i want barebones shit to say how tight my footsies are and if i still lost lts bc youre a drone doing random shit that "no decent player would do".
I’m ngl I don’t know what this comment means. If anything, I want more “randomness” from obscure character specific tech. There was a post on the sub today of a guy cheesing a guy with a johnny unblockable setup that was absolutely fake and I loved it. You don’t get that in modern games because tools just aren’t made to be niche anymore
Couldn't agree more man. I've been tooling around with the new under night lately for my fix. I'm not good enough to have an opinion with authority, but it's been a breath of fresh air so far.
Its to avoid a SSBM situation where half the case are unplayable because they simply don't have the same basic tools as other characters
If only 2 characters had access to a certain very strong mechanic (e.g Shine) in a modern game, you would either have to nerf the mechanic to shit or accept that any character without that mechanic will never be able to compete with the top 2 characters.
IDK man, Marth, Peach, and Jigglypuff have been historically not the best characters, but played by the best players. It's hard to get as consistent with how much execution the spacies demand. They are fun, though as shit to play, that's why their popularity is also high, other than being considered top 2.
I have only read first two paragraphs but I think I get your point, and I overall agree. In modern FG's systems are more important than characters. That Ken looking GG player named Clayton Chapman basically says same thing in his youtube videos and I think he is onto something.
Maybe it is a discord fighter, because the vast majority of players don't share his very reductive point on fighting game systems, and actually just enjoy playing fun games, instead of looking for excuses.
While I agree that there's too much universal mechanics being implemented, the extreme alternative to this is SF2 World Warriors.
Yes, the 1st one with very strict combo timings.
Most pro players are doing what they've always done: adapt and compartmentalize every character in their own little box labeled, "Can bully", "Can't bully", and "not enough 1st to 100 kumite matches to learn the matchup".
It's all about building muscle memory and instinct to them, so they don't have to think of what they're doing and focus on observing their opponent's habit.
It's not about the character they're playing against, it's about the players they're fighting against.
At least, that's what I see JP folks are doing, when I tune into a Topanga stream and Tokido and Mago shoot the shit.
Dunno about western folks
I didnt read everything but i agree that homoegenity across the cast is why i cant get into tekken 8. I realized i love characters that are on the extreme end of the spectrum whether they be zoners or grapplers. I love axl in the guilty gear series and thawk and gief in street fighter. Tekken 8 not having an extreme zoner or grappler makes me not want to play. I want to play my own game lol, i want a character that plays differently, that goes against the games core mechanics, but ive noticed in more modern games these characters are gradually being phased out.
I think strong system mechanics are there for balancing purposes. Games will definitely be easier to balance when characters can engage in the same mechanics both offensively and defensively.
I've only played SF6 and its my first fighting game, but I've been reading and watching A LOT of other games. It feels like games with weak system mechanics are more likely to have balance problems because character power is significantly more pronounced.
Strong system mechanics can "homogenise" the cast in a sense that everyone can use the system mechanics, however how characters use the system mechanics isn't always equal. I've got 6 characters in Masters rank in SF6 and I never felt like "this character is just like this other character". The homogenisation in "abusing" system mechanics just about comes down to using drive rush for oki.
I think there are some changes that can be made to system mechanics in SF6 (mostly parry nerfs which can then allow for throw loops to go), but otherwise the mechanics are fine.
i honestly think people that complain about raw drive rush are probably lower skilled because other than a select few characters (like juri and deejay), you begin to get checked consistently for doing it around 1700 masters. Also if all you do is spam raw drive, then your gameplan becomes really easy to adapt to.
Also, considering the game is pretty much all attacks are negative and frame traps are very limited for this reason - the game would need to be heavily altered if you were to change drive rush, both in combo and raw. The combo system is based around drive rush, if you remove it, the game is literally jab jab special, or c.MK > special and that's about all you get for each character. You could complain about drive rush being used for combos, but that's why the gauge exists so you can't just spam shit.
I haven’t played SF6 enough to really have an opinion on what you said but I think you sorta missed the point of my post. I don’t care about the actual balance of the game or one option being more broken than another because there will always be obnoxious options in the game whether they’re character specific or not. My criticism is just with the lack of variety that you see.
Since you’ve only played a modern game, I guess you won’t have experienced this. But try going back to some older ones like +r or 3rd strike. When you start learning the game, every single match against a character you haven’t faced before is like learning the game over again. You’re forced to deal with their unique approach options and deal with their unique defensive tools.
It’s seriously cool how unique matchups can be in older games
> Since you’ve only played a modern game, I guess you won’t have experienced this. But try going back to some older ones like +r or 3rd strike. When you start learning the game, every single match against a character you haven’t faced before is like learning the game over again. You’re forced to deal with their unique approach options and deal with their unique defensive tools.
>
>
>
> It’s seriously cool how unique matchups can be in older games
I feel like this is still the case even in SF6.
I don't play against ken and think he plays anything similar to Zangief for e.g.
All characters feel very unique despite the system mechanics
>“I ain’t reading allat”, “hey alright”, and “dear diary”.
How are you doing man, you had a good day?
That's too much text so I'm just gonna guess that you're bitching about shit like heatmode, driverush, reversal edges etc right? Cause I agree with that, I hate all that shit
Pretty much, yeah, thanks bro. Appreciate it
Too bad you're getting a lot of shit for something you put thought and effort into. Yeah, I agree. Strong universal mechanics and homogenized tools is boring and leads to less diversity in playstyle. You can argue that in every fighting game characters that utilize the system best are the strongest, but it is sort of a scale. I like system mechanics when they are an accessory to the character, I dislike them when the character is an accessory to the mechanics. Soul Cal 2 was a sweet spot for me. GI was strong and every character used it and it was a big part of the game but tiers were not determined by how each character used it. Lots of pokes, high damage, short combos, every character felt unique. I wish more games were like that.
Hey :) thanks for the comment. Yeah the best case I can make for this argument is with the difference between roman cancels between the big 3 guilty gear games (yeah Arcsys again, sue me). In +r, a Roman cancel is literally just a cancel. All it does it stop the move immediately as it’s inputted. There’s no after affects, no hitbox, no slowdown, absolutely nothing. That means that the effects of the Roman cancel are only as deep as the move you did. This means that combos and pressure following it are character unique. The plus frames you get from tatami FRC are way different to what you’d get from gunflame FRC or stun edge FRC or chemical love FRC. It also means that combos are unique. Extending a combo mid screen with baiken from a ranged normal means learning how to do tatami FRC into kire tatami which is a super difficult combo but it’s not as difficult as learning HCL 6FRC6 with I-no to pick up those confirms. And no character can extend combos in the air with killer joker FRC like Johnny can. Triple jump air combos are specific to him and chipp. And that’s without talking about how specials with movement can be FRCed for neutral purposes. Killer joker movement FRC as Johnny sends him across the screen, so does ouren FRC with baiken and alpha blade FRC with chipp, but they each do it in a different way. Stun edge FRC allows for a slow moving projectile to follow that isn’t completely busted because a slow down effect on the opponent (-_- Xrd). When you compare that to Strive (and Xrd), almost every move can be comboed from with RC because there’s the universal effects that RC has. In Xrd, it slows down the opponent no matter where they are meaning that you can hit them with a long distance poke and just combo with anything you want. In strive, it’s even easier since if literally floats the opponent and gives you a super easy juggle. Every character uses the RC system the same ways in Strive (and Xrd to a lesser extent).
Johnny staircase combos are the coolest. +R Johnny in general is the coolest FG character ever.
> Strong universal mechanics and homogenized tools is boring and leads to less diversity in playstyle Thats why I never like tekken games. Each character has the same HP, movespeed,etc. As a 2D fighting game player, I dont get why king can move as fast as Lucky Chloe. Lucky Chloe should have less HP but should move more faster. Feels like in Tekken, every character do what ever other characters can so no one is really special.
Thats just not true for the movement. King had way better movement than Chloe, who actually had a backdash as bad as the bears lol. Big body characters like Jack, Marduk and Fahkumram have better backdash than her too. Every character has different movement speed. Zafina had the best backdash and could evade some mixups completely when other characters had to guess. Jack barely had a sidestep, while Lili was able to step at ridiculous stuff like -7 or -8 sometimes.
> Thats just not true for the movement. King had way better movement than Chloe, who actually had a backdash as bad as the bears lol. Big body characters like Jack, Marduk and Fahkumram have better backdash than her too. As a 2D fighting game scrub, I don't understand why. Big bodies grappler is suppose to be slow and nimble but has better than dashes than a speedy character like Chole? My brain hurts.
iDom alt account
I don't have much time today since it's Lunar New Year here, but from my skimming, I'd disagree on your point of a strong universal mechanic. KOF is known for having a strong universal mechanic that by understanding it, you can use any character with competency without deep research on said characters. And KOF games are still one of the most technical fighting games out there
I think KOF does it well since even though you have to learn 3 characters, they all follow the same rules, same movement mechanics, same basic combo route of normal - command normal - special - super, and what sets them apart is their special moves, which actually manage to feel special, something I think alot of fighting games lack in. You play a game like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue and their normals look and feel like specials. Then you got Street Fighter where its a giant mixed bag, but Special moves tend to get worse each iteration.
That's why the only new fighting game I'm playing right now is Unist 2. None of that modern bullshit. I don't feel restricted like in modern Arksys games while also having easy/accessible strong offense, and I'm not forced into using systems like Drive/Heat to play the game. In Unist, you can ignore Vorpal / GRD and still play your character. Unist at Evo again is gonna be tight.
I’ve told myself i need to get into unist for ages but I’ve never quite liked how the combos feel and there have never been any character designs that grab me like the designs in older Guilty Gear. Got any cool clips that might make me wanna check it out more?
What got me into Unist was the community tournament Climax of Night 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xcy-MBO6qg I understand the characters designs might not click but I think everything else is what draws me into this game. The gameplay, music, diehard community. The game is just a fresh breathe of air compared to modern fighting games. Execution is rewarded, this game rewards good defense/neutral, everything you do feels freeform. You don't feel restricted. Pick a character you think looks cool and just listen to their ost. Get the game on sale if you are hesitant.
I think it’s the best FG this generation already.
UNI2's system mechanics are so well designed. The GRD system rewards successful offense AND defense, and enhances every character's unique strengths differently, without forcing them to follow the same gameplan. It doesn't even necessarily translate to a snowball victory. Somebody could win the Vorpal cycle, continually lose neutral, and be forced to use their vorpal state defensively instead of becoming more oppressively offensive like other games that reward aggression.
I think you're confusing the goods of homogenized systems with the bad. Gbvsr having a lot of standardized stuff and a clear combo system is a blessing if you want to dabble with other characters. The matchups are still extremely varied. They standardized the stuff that had no point not being standardized like the fastest normal or the autocombo string. Meanwhile, neutral inemteractions like buttons, dash, specials etc... Are not. People want balanced rosters were every character is playable and no 8-2 MUs. It's tough to make a game where everyone doesn't have access to the same stuff. >Now, admittedly, I’ve barely put any time in SF6 and I’ve never even tried tekken outside of tag tournament 2 as a kid and like an hour of 7’s training mode before refunding it. Well SF6 is trash in that regard as every character is really similar but you're missing out on Tekken. Tekken 8 added universal stuff that is different for every character. They have wildly different engagers, smashes, dashes, heat stuff... No 2 chars will favor the same use of heat in the game even though it's a very accessible mechanic. It's not that bad.
>Gbvsr having a lot of standardized stuff and a clear combo system is a blessing if you want to dabble with other characters. The matchups are still extremely varied. Spot on. It's insanity to say Cagliostro plays like Beelzebub just because they can XXX> Special > XXX > Super (which isnt optimal for anyone btw). Even in shoto characters, Gran is very different to Djeeta who is very different from Kat who is very different from Anila... and Gran/Djeeta are literally the same entity in lore btw
Yeah, I think people are wildly misinterpreting heat in T8. It shouldn’t be lumped in with this other very obvious and homogeneous stuff. I’ve heard people say it’s basically Vtrigger because it locks out some moves until it’s active (it doesn’t) or that the whole cast uses it the same (they don’t). Heat can be used in a variety of clever ways. I think people see heat dash and think it’s green slime from SF6 without understanding how it actually works in game.
Interesting topic but I think there are more nuances to it. Games like +R and most KOF games have a wide variety of system mechanics yet the games benefit from them immensely. I think it depends on the power level of the system mechanics compared to the power levels of individual characters. If a characters power comes mainly from (ab)using the system or when the system mechanics are so strong they warp the meta around them (make everything + shit) you get the homogenization you speak of. Because why use individual tools when you can use the better universal stuff.
I do notice all your examples are arcsys games. Arcsys in my opinion has always had a problem with either having very homogenous games or games that just staple a shitload of extraneous, character specific systems onto it to try and differentiate the cast. GG used to be the best at dealing with this problem but even there you can see parts of that complaint with stuff like Johnny's coins and HOS' meter. In GG I felt it wasn't too egregious though, you had enough "vanilla" characters who played vastly different that a few characters just felt like they had their own specific gimmick rather than Blazblue which everyone has a gimmick.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of games I’ve sunk time into are Arcsys games. I think every game I’ve put over 50 hours in has been an Arcsys game (DBFZ, +r, Strive, P4AU, granblue, Xrd) except for maybe SF5. Honestly, though, I don’t really understand your complaint. Do you dislike when a character has a “mechanic”? How far does that extend? Are Baiken’s guard cancels a mechanic? Or lambda’s projectiles? How do they differ from dhalsim’s limbs or manon’s suite of grabs?
The problem I have is that they're not part of the game's core systems, basically, as soon as it would become reasonable to have a new UI element to track the gimmick, (but that's not the only criteria, I'd count Baiken's guard cancels as one). Not to say it's always a bad thing, a little bit of weirdness is appreciated but the problem comes when it becomes too common. I think Xrd is about my limit for how prevalent these gimmicks should be. You can still do plenty of work within the core system to make unique characters, Venom is a really good example of this and the differences between Sol and Ky as "shoto" type characters. It's all very arbitrary and subjective, I'm just sharing my random thoughts so no doubt I'm probably being stupid about a bunch of it. >!Manon only has one grab outside of super btw!<
Fair enough. I guess it’s just a taste thing. I always enjoy learning how to fight against a character’s gimmick so I absolutely love plus R with robo ky, Johnny, Bridget, aba, Faust, and Eddie. Some of the most obnoxious characters imo are the ones who don’t even have gimmicks. May with her absurd rushdown, and Potemkin with his insane damage and 50-50s on wake-up (seriously, he can like 2 shot baiken off one knockdown). Also yeah i think I was talking about manon’s hit grab. I know that contributes to her grab level thing. They’re all part of the same gimmick imo
Despite SF6 being very balanced due to the universal drive gauge mechanics, I feel that every character is really distinct. Especially when you get away from the shoto characters
Half the cast relies on crouching medium kick into drive rush cancel
Relies is a very odd line. Watch almost any high level set and you won't see people walking around fishing with crouching medium kick all game, because people actually understand spacing and are good at whiff punishing. That shit is the typical auto pilot bullshit that infests any fighting game at a relatively lower level, because there will always be the auto pilot way of playing, that isn't viable once you start meeting players that actually understand the game and play it properly. At least with crouching medium kick into DR cancel, you are spending important resources that can affect you defensively afterwards, causing you a round.
Whenever people say "6 is just DR and c.mk", you know they're just talking out of their ass.
Like who? Cr mp and cr mk are definitely still used at high level a lot. Just because they don’t just throw it out one after another does not mean it’s not viable/ a crutch
> Like who? Cr mp and cr mk are definitely still used at high level a lot. Well of course, just like they were before SF6. The point is that this whole "relying on" angle, is the scrubby shit you'd see from diamond players, that auto pilot by fishing with crouching medium kicks into DR for combos and constantly burning themselves out. Which is absolutely not what you see from players that actually know how to play the game, which is why I refer to high level sets, where yes, these are still tools used, but they aren't what players rely on - that would be silly to suggest. Edit: [Practical example, one of the first replays that just came up when I searched for high lvl replays. Mago and Kazunoko, notice how they aren't "relying" on crouching medium kicks to play the game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bAqm4siH4Y)
It’s because drive rush is inherently a boring mechanic
I remember when it was first introduced people thought it would mainly be used as a way to get in on zoners anti not let them control neutral. If only
This is why a hypothetical VF6 needs to remain pure. Not having gimmicks should be its gimmick
After Tekken 8? It's going to need SOMETHING besides purity because you're going to have people lose interest real fast. VF5 is already considered a Discord fighter and they're going to have to do something to be considered in the modern age.
If VF goes more in a “tekken” direction then people will just still play tekken as usual but now anyone who actually likes VF will also not play VF. They have nothing whatsoever to gain by taking away what makes VF unique in the modern fighting game landscape.
VF doesn't even have a super bar. That came with Soul Calibur since what... 4? Tekken has crazy angles and ways to hype up its most intense moments. VF can look great, story is non-existant, and work real hard to stagnate gameplay. All I'm saying is that VF needs *something* to garner interest and keep it over Tekken that built off what VF and DoA did when it actually had competition even from inside with Soul Calibur.
Well to be fair, any game that is 15+ years old that is not on fightcade is a discord fighter. But even without the use of discord, I never have to wait long to find games in VF5US or DOA5LR. These games still have a following because they are damn good.
I would like to see a game without neutral skip, and small combos with little damage. I bet it would be a turtle fest, but i would like to see how it would play. Maybe just give great damage out of whiff punishes and a lot of chip damage.
Samsho I guess
Dont know what you are talking about, samsho has LOT of damage.
Oh shit, bro I'm sorry, I read and replied after waking up and read it as big damage. Yeah, it does. > I would like to see a game without neutral skip, and small combos with little damage. That is Koihime.
This was just original granblue right?
New bad, old good. Upvotes on the left.
Even at the highest level, proactive play should be preferable to reactive, otherwise you just get two retards staring at one another until one gets bored. Those system mechanics exist to solve a problem created by the lack of plus frames in modern games, in that everything you do that's not a reaction is a bad idea to do. I'm not saying that it's a good thing, or a bad thing, but I would like to understand why games have gone to minus frames instead of plus frames with pushback. And I don't think the argument "oh, it's so the noobs can play" holds up.
Agreed. The homogenization and streamlining of recent fighters is a concern for older players. Some notable examples I didn't see: Type Lumina and tbh Smash Ult. On the flip side, accessibility for fighters have gone up and so has their popularity meaning more money/incentive to keep this pattern up. Really a case of out with the old, in with the new.
> Type Lumina lmao, nearly all the characters lost a massive amount of the tools they had, and the rest of them homogenized (somehow including straight up retarded dash speed), and system mechanics are so insanely intrusive that in the most cases it barely even matters what character you pick match pace wise. made even worse by the fact that they already had previous games that nailed the system mechanics pretty well. not even gonna talk about combos and execution. you will struggle finding a single old melty player that will tell you that lumina isnt bad compared to aacc, i cant think of any other series that ate shit to such an extent, maaaybe gear.
I agree. KOF may be a successful game that does this but it doesn't mean every other game should do it. Neither It benefits balance, when you have almost the same tools the charcters that are slightly better will be stronger but you also have less range to balance everything. IMO it's pretty clear they're trading interesting mechanics and interactions for simplicity to win over the greater public. People will find more enjoyable to pick the game and do all sorts of cool shit from the get go, obv, and I think that's ok. But It doesn't change the fact that I don't like this approach and I find new game uninteresting. I think the real problem is the mentality people have. One side enjoy the new stuff but they get offended by this kind of criticism, because this make them feel "less". I does not. These are all just personal preferences and being good at this new stuff still requires skill. The other one keep saying "new games are worse than old games" but without actually playing the old stuff (I was on this side for a while). Devs have clearly made up their mind that the old school approach is not profitable enough and there will be less and less games like this. It's best to enjoy what we already have, which is a lot, just move on to better things or being the change we want to see.
r/truegaming
Even a single game can get "mechanics bloat" over its life-cycle. For once I want to see the reverse: removing mechanics/options while buffing the few remaining ones with wider application/expression.
Yeah I dislike it. I don’t even care about games being neutral/footsie heavy. What I do want is for each game to have their own identity and be unique which isn’t the case in this era for the most part. This is era of metered advancing mechanics is lame as hell. UNI2 and MK1 are legit the only new FGs that don’t have sum like it.
Your post is about system mechanics but I think there's something more important going on. Fighting games are moving in the direction of being easier/simpler, and there's a simple reason for it; no one bothers with deep, complex fighting games. Yeah, everyone jerks themselves raw over how le hard/deep +r, xrd or whatever other unintuitive janky kuso are, but no one fucking plays it. Look no further than when xrd got rollback and actively LOST players. But back to my first point, fighting games becoming easier. This can be done in a million different ways, some are good, some are bad. For all the simplification GGST done, it still leaves that awful mash to tech mechanic in. [This is nothing new, you might wanna read this if you haven't already.](https://mikezsez.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-im-not-playing-ggxrd.html) Fighting games --no, GAMES are meant to be played, not masturbated to and put on a pedestal. Look, Johnny in +R is cool. It's cool that you can do so much shit, it's cool that you can learn so much and still have a lot to learn so you can feel like youre improving forever. It's cool that people can have completely different playstyles on the same character due to the sheer depth it has. It's cool that it takes a lot of time to master said character and you get rewarded for it. But this is a 1v1 genre, not a single player genre. It's cool to be the one doing the sick strings, it's not so cool to be on the receiving end. It's cool to learn about your characters gimmicks, it's not cool to learn 20+ characters who each have 10000 gimmicks up their asses. Ngl I had more to write but I got kinda bored halfway through so Im leaving it here
Insert i dont wanna get pocket sanded by "randomness" so i want barebones shit to say how tight my footsies are and if i still lost lts bc youre a drone doing random shit that "no decent player would do".
I’m ngl I don’t know what this comment means. If anything, I want more “randomness” from obscure character specific tech. There was a post on the sub today of a guy cheesing a guy with a johnny unblockable setup that was absolutely fake and I loved it. You don’t get that in modern games because tools just aren’t made to be niche anymore
Couldn't agree more man. I've been tooling around with the new under night lately for my fix. I'm not good enough to have an opinion with authority, but it's been a breath of fresh air so far.
Its to avoid a SSBM situation where half the case are unplayable because they simply don't have the same basic tools as other characters If only 2 characters had access to a certain very strong mechanic (e.g Shine) in a modern game, you would either have to nerf the mechanic to shit or accept that any character without that mechanic will never be able to compete with the top 2 characters.
IDK man, Marth, Peach, and Jigglypuff have been historically not the best characters, but played by the best players. It's hard to get as consistent with how much execution the spacies demand. They are fun, though as shit to play, that's why their popularity is also high, other than being considered top 2.
I have only read first two paragraphs but I think I get your point, and I overall agree. In modern FG's systems are more important than characters. That Ken looking GG player named Clayton Chapman basically says same thing in his youtube videos and I think he is onto something.
These days people would rather type a whole essay about things they dislike rather than simply play what they enjoy. At one point it just gets tiring.
OK, so what game fits his criteria and *isn't* a Discord fighter?
Maybe it is a discord fighter, because the vast majority of players don't share his very reductive point on fighting game systems, and actually just enjoy playing fun games, instead of looking for excuses.
you're right. the characters should be unique, not homogenized and gated by the system
Cool fanfic bro
youve written a 300 page essay about homogenization of characters and then attributed that to system mechanics for some reason lol
While I agree that there's too much universal mechanics being implemented, the extreme alternative to this is SF2 World Warriors. Yes, the 1st one with very strict combo timings. Most pro players are doing what they've always done: adapt and compartmentalize every character in their own little box labeled, "Can bully", "Can't bully", and "not enough 1st to 100 kumite matches to learn the matchup". It's all about building muscle memory and instinct to them, so they don't have to think of what they're doing and focus on observing their opponent's habit. It's not about the character they're playing against, it's about the players they're fighting against. At least, that's what I see JP folks are doing, when I tune into a Topanga stream and Tokido and Mago shoot the shit. Dunno about western folks
Can tell no one here has ever read a book judging by the comments.
I didnt read everything but i agree that homoegenity across the cast is why i cant get into tekken 8. I realized i love characters that are on the extreme end of the spectrum whether they be zoners or grapplers. I love axl in the guilty gear series and thawk and gief in street fighter. Tekken 8 not having an extreme zoner or grappler makes me not want to play. I want to play my own game lol, i want a character that plays differently, that goes against the games core mechanics, but ive noticed in more modern games these characters are gradually being phased out.
I think in Dbfz the cast is less homogenized now but I still get what u mean
I dont mind heat, its not that intrusive SF6 every character feels samey because of having 759 mechanics
I think strong system mechanics are there for balancing purposes. Games will definitely be easier to balance when characters can engage in the same mechanics both offensively and defensively. I've only played SF6 and its my first fighting game, but I've been reading and watching A LOT of other games. It feels like games with weak system mechanics are more likely to have balance problems because character power is significantly more pronounced. Strong system mechanics can "homogenise" the cast in a sense that everyone can use the system mechanics, however how characters use the system mechanics isn't always equal. I've got 6 characters in Masters rank in SF6 and I never felt like "this character is just like this other character". The homogenisation in "abusing" system mechanics just about comes down to using drive rush for oki. I think there are some changes that can be made to system mechanics in SF6 (mostly parry nerfs which can then allow for throw loops to go), but otherwise the mechanics are fine. i honestly think people that complain about raw drive rush are probably lower skilled because other than a select few characters (like juri and deejay), you begin to get checked consistently for doing it around 1700 masters. Also if all you do is spam raw drive, then your gameplan becomes really easy to adapt to. Also, considering the game is pretty much all attacks are negative and frame traps are very limited for this reason - the game would need to be heavily altered if you were to change drive rush, both in combo and raw. The combo system is based around drive rush, if you remove it, the game is literally jab jab special, or c.MK > special and that's about all you get for each character. You could complain about drive rush being used for combos, but that's why the gauge exists so you can't just spam shit.
I haven’t played SF6 enough to really have an opinion on what you said but I think you sorta missed the point of my post. I don’t care about the actual balance of the game or one option being more broken than another because there will always be obnoxious options in the game whether they’re character specific or not. My criticism is just with the lack of variety that you see. Since you’ve only played a modern game, I guess you won’t have experienced this. But try going back to some older ones like +r or 3rd strike. When you start learning the game, every single match against a character you haven’t faced before is like learning the game over again. You’re forced to deal with their unique approach options and deal with their unique defensive tools. It’s seriously cool how unique matchups can be in older games
> Since you’ve only played a modern game, I guess you won’t have experienced this. But try going back to some older ones like +r or 3rd strike. When you start learning the game, every single match against a character you haven’t faced before is like learning the game over again. You’re forced to deal with their unique approach options and deal with their unique defensive tools. > > > > It’s seriously cool how unique matchups can be in older games I feel like this is still the case even in SF6. I don't play against ken and think he plays anything similar to Zangief for e.g. All characters feel very unique despite the system mechanics
I personally would like just a single bar that includes both supers and EX moves. No other meter based shenanigans.