Seth Killian's 'Rising Thunder' takes on FGC genre elitists

[Squire Grooktook]

Wha-wha I made it halfway through the game and I'm still just "some more space debris" ;_;

[eebrozgi]

What do you people think of being forced to return to a checkpoint upon continuing? I think it would force the less godly players to put at least some effort to each trial the game hands them, and having a high or even infinite amount of continues in that case would be less bad.

[Squire Grooktook]

What do you people think of being forced to return to a checkpoint upon continuing? I think it would force the less godly players to put at least some effort to each trial the game hands them, and having a high or even infinite amount of continues in that case would be less bad.

I think it's fine so long as continues are limited. If they aren't limited, then you're still not getting the sense of tension from having a restart hanging over your head. The "gauntlet" nature and tension needs to be part of the experience for these games to work IMO.

[Stevas]

Yes. I know. There's a lot, isn't there?
Sorry.
So here:
If Inputbox ("'N' = Fuck this noise, by the way.", "Can you be arsed?", "Y") = "N" Then
Goto skip_to_the_end

A lot has been mentioned already, but generally: just some fucking thought has to be put into it. Any thought. At all. Please.

Hey, remember when the original xbox came out?
I do. I remember being told how this would allow us to play in worlds we could only have dreamt of thus far, against AI that would be leaps and bounds ahead of current feeble attempts.

And now? We're playing "re-mastered", slightly shinier versions of games we played five to ten years ago; and even then, they themselves were just slightly shinier, probably slightly dumber iterations of the games that came out on that there original xbox anyway.

The problem? Online, in a word (I mean, obviously, I could go more in depth if you want - because humans are generally fucking morons, for example - but... I did say "in a word"; thinking about it, I probably should have just said 'moron' - but... whatever).
Once it became clear everyone was more than happy just being able to gun down their mates, there was literally no reason for developers to put effort into AI; the perfect AI was already there for them (loosely speaking) in the endless supply of ten year olds that have nothing better to do other than learn how to exploit your favourite shootbanginnaface game. Likewise, not a real need to throw money at writing decent storylines (WHO CARES, I WANNA SHOOT SOMEONE INNA FACE), creating original and interesting worlds/realities (WHO CARES, I WANNA SHOOT SOMEONE INNA FACE), coming up with different genres (WHO CARES, I WANNA - you get... the idea with... that.)

And now everyone is either still squabbling over that deathmatch bollocks pie, or having to come up with new and "interesting" ways to get money out of us (pre-order bonuses, DLC, whale targeting, subscription based renting, etc) - all the while pushing out unfinished products, with a sell now, fix later attitude, in an atmosphere of consumer idiocy/apathy and confusing legality.

The point here is: it's actually pointless arguing over this, guys. (And by "this", I mean "developers attempting to revive the shmup genre".) The future is set, the die is cast. The days of developers trying to think of ways to expand an audience of a long dead genre are long gone: you go where the money is - you don't try to convince the money to follow you. Just too risky now. Looks to me like Seth is chasing money that maybe doesn't exist, but I could be wrong. Stranger things have happened.

As I said at the beginning, it's not like stuff couldn't be done about it. Humans have such a powerful tool in the internet, and still refuse to tap the potential (or are seemingly clueless as to how to do so). It's all bang bang inna fucking face.
Fucking yawn.
Even god damn Nintendo had to resort to it - albeit in their usual, "colourful" way.

Just off the top of my head, for a fighting game, would it be THAT hard to analyse how you fight, and categorise you appropriately? I'm old now. I don't have the time - or the youthful dexterity - to nail those combos. Consequently, I rely on good fundamentals. I come up against some flashy sumbitch who has the youth/fingers, and I know: I have to expose him probably by a factor of 3 - 1 in order to "win" (put another way: he gets in on me once and he does damage it takes me two-to-three of his mistakes to equal). Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If I don't, that guy was usually just better than me. If I do, chances are that guy wasn't.
But what if the game recognised this, and give you the option to matchup against others like yourself? What if the game ranked fighters according to their style too? Spacing expert, normals wizard, flashy sumbitch, runaway wakeup-ultraing Ken...
How about being able to gamble points yourself? What if I went into a match with a set gamble of "I will nail you with my ultra" and a wager. I hit my ultra, I take those points off you. I don't, you get them off me.
"You will not hit me with a fireball"
"I won't even need to block"
"I'm using Sagat, and won't even bother with s.HK"
"I will taunt you 45 times"
etc
Wagers don't have to be for points. You could, I don't know, sacrifice your main for a number of matches. "I beat you, or I don't get to pick this character for 10 fights". Imma just making this shit up. And it is probably shit, but that's not my point - I'm not a games developer (thanks, I know) - the point is: is anyone even trying to think of something different any more?

Take Driveclub. There are leaderboards. There are points.
They're completely fucking pointless, because those at the top are typically just kids who have had nothing better to do than grind those points out 24/7. At one point there was a club which had 3 members in the global top 10: I raced two of them and beat them very, very easily. Generally, I found that outrageous score in the hundreds of billions = shite.
Why bother giving us points? If all they do is signify the time someone has put into it? Would it have been that difficult to have everyone put a certain percentage of their total points into the kitty, and percentages be doled out based on finishing places? At least then they'd mean something. But no. All the children need to feel better about themselves: in the online age, you are your score.

Don't get me started on achievements.

Then again, maybe Seth is. Trying something different, I mean. Fair play to him, I say. It's nice to see someone at least trying that.
Huh. I think I've actually changed my mind mid-way through this post?

Wouldn't be the first time.
And enough time has passed.

As for shmups, again, some thought. Please. Yes to the degrading messages of Gradius V (basically, yes to everything in Gradius V - but that's maybe just me). Yes, let's have leaderboard scores per level. Also, the Geometry Wars approach of taunting you with your nearest friend's score. Yes to tutorials.
But just... more. More fucking thought. Let me send a challenge of "beat my score in this segment in less goes than it took me to". Maybe allow us to set up lobbies, so you can just chill while waiting your turn - virtual arcade, sort of thing. Virtual bets: if you have the lowest score in that lobby, you have to have whatever is agreed on as your avatar/personal message for a week (within tasteful reason, of course *ahem*). Branching levels. Difficulties that don't just make the game harder by upping limits/variables (again, I'm making shit up, but I'm thinking certain levels/ships/power ups only available at higher - or even lower - difficulties - meaning different strategies are required).
Multiplayer modes where others can take control of the baddies! In... some way.
Two player modes a bit like puzzle fighter, with the vert screen side by side for you both, and stuff happening on your screen that's a result of your opponent doing stuff right/wrong!
Hell, we got enough screen: make it three or four player competitive. I don't know how. I'm an ideas man, dammit! Talking shite is as far as I go in this organisation; fuck this - where are the hookers and happy powder already? I'm on a roll! Unlockables that aren't just more damn loli-girl backgrounds!

Too far?

Naturally, I've been misleading you.
There is, of course, a shitload of thought goes into vidyagaimz.

Just... not on the actual games themselves.

skip_to_the_end:

You're probably putting way more thought into the design of games than the developers are.
It's all about fleecing you for disposable income you didn't even realise you had, now.

[drunkninja24]

So I got my email letting me know the game was available and went and checked it out

It's not bad in all honesty, but a couple design decisions just fuck with me.

The first being that you have dedicated throw and super buttons. Obviously these are consistent with the entire game's design philosophy, but as someone who has cut his teeth on 4-6 button fighters over the years, actually needing to make use of all 8 buttons on a standard 360 arcade stick is super jarring. Second being combos feel a little weird. Like, the ones that are there are pretty simple, but very few light attacks combo into medium or heavy and such.

But the game is fun, and the cooldown system with specials does make you think a little more about when you need to use a move, and the cooldowns themselves are fairly generous so far (about 2-5 seconds depending on the move). I'd say its worth checking out at least

[STG4WD]

The first being that you have dedicated throw and super buttons. Obviously these are consistent with the entire game's design philosophy, but as someone who has cut his teeth on 4-6 button fighters over the years, actually needing to make use of all 8 buttons on a standard 360 arcade stick is super jarring. Second being combos feel a little weird. Like, the ones that are there are pretty simple, but very few light attacks combo into medium or heavy and such.

Interesting! Thanks for the update.

So can you tell us what exactly you've got mapped on each of the 8 buttons? Does that include all normals, all special moves AND throw AND Super?!

[drunkninja24]

The first being that you have dedicated throw and super buttons. Obviously these are consistent with the entire game's design philosophy, but as someone who has cut his teeth on 4-6 button fighters over the years, actually needing to make use of all 8 buttons on a standard 360 arcade stick is super jarring. Second being combos feel a little weird. Like, the ones that are there are pretty simple, but very few light attacks combo into medium or heavy and such.

Interesting! Thanks for the update.

So can you tell us what exactly you've got mapped on each of the 8 buttons? Does that include all normals, all special moves AND throw AND Super?!

Yep, this is all by default

so on a standard 8-button arcade stick, the default mapping goes:

L-M-H-Throw
S1-S2-S3-Super

if you play on keyboard, these mappings are:

WASD for movement
UIO for S1-S2-S3
JKL for L-M-H
H for Throw
Spacebar for Super

[mamboFoxtrot]

I'm going to die laughing if the intended "casual" audience ignores the game because "there's too many buttons!".

Anyways, it's free-to-play, and the "pay" part is for non-essential stuff, right? I'll check it out if my laptop can actually run it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Game sounds interesting, let's go look at screenshots

[img: Borderlands: True Fighting]

[opt2not]

Just got my alpha access today. I'm going to try this out on the weekend, but from what I've been watching so far, I really like what I'm seeing.
My only concern is the 8-button layout, I do think they should still have the 2-button press for grabs, and perhaps something like hitting all 3 special buttons for Supers.

I'm not sure why they're pushing to have absolutely everything be a one-button press.
I know they're shying away from forcing people to do complex inputs for attacks for more accessibility to the masses, but c'mon, a 2-button simultaneous press is not a complex input to pull off.

[drunkninja24]

The salt is too real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0WetHkYVtw

[trap15]

Thank you based Cagar

[drunkninja24]

Okay, so playing a bit more today, figured out some more things

least with the character I'm using (Edge) you can still combo light into medium, it just takes a little timing awareness, you can't mash a combo out

and there is one mechanic requiring multiple button presses, you can press any two special attack buttons to spend one stock of meter to break a combo, or you can use a stock of meter to cancel an attack with a dash or a jump

[opt2not]

The salt is too real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0WetHkYVtw

Lol, so are the c-bombs... epic rage here.

[BIL]

The salt is too real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0WetHkYVtw

Oh wow.

Spoiler

HE IS LITERALLY FUCKING CRYING

SALT IS GUSHING EVERYWHERE

[Immryr]

holy shit.......

[Shepardus]

After melting down on Twitter he deleted both his Twitter and his (partnered) Twitch account.

The game may have simpler inputs, but clearly the very concept of being able to lose in a game is already too much for some people to handle.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Wow, he uninstalls the game, rages for 20 minutes, and then unpersons himself from all sectors of the internet.

I think this may be the most rekt I have ever seen someone git.

And all because he didn't lrn2block.

[MathU]

I guess I'll comment on the game now since it's been moved to off-topic.

Personally I think this game has a great concept. As someone who can perform such complex feats in Guilty Gear as 6623K to air dash Kenroukaku with Jam or 6321476K FRC 66 to instant air dash after a grounded Chemical Love with I-No, I still think overly complex motions are something that should have been done away with in fighting games a long time ago. Even after all these years I can still somehow manage to mess up dragon punch motions when it matters, and it never feels like anything but a time sink to practice the physical special move motion over and over and over to hope it won't happen during a match again. One thing I loved about the Bloody Roar series is how it reduced nearly every character special move into a simple quarter circle motion. It was easy to learn and universal and there wasn't any loss of character uniqueness because of the reduced execution barrier.

Unfortunately the 3D graphics in a 2D game and the adherence to boring slow and clunky Street Fighter paradigms makes me not want to play this game in particular. I hope it can initiate a change in fighting game development though! Shame the Smash Bros. series wasn't taken seriously enough to affect other games; I guess it was just too different that nobody wanted to think about applying its ideas to more traditional fighters.

[Icarus]

The salt is too real
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0WetHkYVtw

I am dying with laughter.

[BIL]

Cagar = David Attenborough of shumpsfarm.

That is prime footage of a scrub in the wild.

[hien]

They want to make things simpler and then use an 8-button layout? That's kinda stupid…
Also, is there any reason to why you can't see the cooldown bars of your opponent?

[ZacharyB]

It's so you never know what move he's gonna pull until he does it. After he does it, you know he won't be able to use it for a few seconds. That's when you strike. ...If he doesn't have anything else planned.

[hien]

It's so you never know what move he's gonna pull until he does it.

How would I know which move my opponent is going to use next, just by being able to see his cool down meter? Not seeing it only forces you to remember and predict cool down times which I'd find quite annoying. Or did I overlook something?

[quash]

This game seems to be an attempt to steal Rise of Incarnates' thunder above all else. Pitching it as being in any way similar to League of Legends basically gives it away.

If you want a mech fighter with a low input barrier that is still engaging at higher levels of play, you should be playing Gundam.

[Blinge]

Squire just linked me to the salt vid.. absolutely glorious

Spoiler

[BIL]

WTB username: "Living Cunt."