Fighting Game Hype Thread

[quash]

I definitely don't think it's bad, but I don't think it's what made the previous UNIB titles stand out. And when you start looking at the other games that have suffered this kind of fate of not committing enough to a coherent design philosophy (KOF and Melty Blood come to mind), you can't help but worry.

[Hagane]

Yeah, UNIB's interesting to me because it manages to balance ground and air game pretty well, system wise. Aerial game is not as unsafe as in a ground based game like ST, but it's nowhere near as safe as in most airdashers.

If anything, the overabundance of long ranged characters that can convert into huge damage from far away while still having excellent keepaway is it's biggest weakness, one that makes absolutely no sense from a design standpoint. You either have good long range zoning or damage, not both.

Take away the top 3's ability to do huge damage or make them very weak at close range defense (as in ST Dhalsim, who also has great offense and pressure but is helpless if he loses the initiative at that range). Otherwise it's just a gimmick that makes some character archetypes worthless, which is never a good thing.

[Squire Grooktook]

I definitely don't think it's bad, but I don't think it's what made the previous UNIB titles stand out. And when you start looking at the other games that have suffered this kind of fate of not committing enough to a coherent design philosophy (KOF and Melty Blood come to mind), you can't help but worry.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point. I think it's an excellent and standout game on that front. The long range characters are just the equivalent Dhalism and like-archetypes to me. At least half the cast doesn't even have those kind of ranges anyway, and I think they work incredibly well for the most part.

Otherwise it's just a gimmick that makes some character archetypes worthless, which is never a good thing.

Yeah, exactly. Some (and by that I mean more then just Akatsuki) of the characters really don't seen designed with Quash's interpretation of the game in mind at all, and they'd have to be altered to an extreme extent to fit the "everyone is dhalism" thing Quash has in mind.

If we're talking "slightly longer range pokes then most normal fighting games" like Seth's sweep, that's fine (which many weapon based fighters already do). But full screen noodle appendages? Bleh. Strikes me like it would make the battlefield more homogeneous. No zoning/coldplay zone if the edges of the screen become equivalent to neutral/mid space.

[quash]

If anything, the overabundance of long ranged characters that can convert into huge damage from far away while still having excellent keepaway is it's biggest weakness, one that makes absolutely no sense from a design standpoint. You either have good long range zoning or damage, not both.

On principle I agree with this. I think there can and should be more to reap from long range poking than just confirms into high damage combos. I really, really want the next Under Night to implement staggers on long range moves for their counter hit effects so you can only get those kinds of confirms in certain situations. I think that alone would make UNIEL a much better game.

[quash]

Yeah, exactly. Some (and by that I mean more then just Akatsuki) of the characters really don't seen designed with Quash's interpretation of the game in mind at all, and they'd have to be altered to an extreme extent to fit the "everyone is dhalism" thing Quash has in mind.

So because there's characters that don't poke at long range means the game wasn't designed to accommodate it?

But full screen noodle appendages? Bleh. Strikes me like it would make the battlefield more homogeneous. No zoning/coldplay zone if the edges of the screen become equivalent to neutral/mid space.

If done right, it would give the game a wider variety of meaningful ranges than it's had in any of its iterations. Give every "noodle appendage" a blindspot or two and suddenly we have a full guessing game at full screen. It wouldn't stop there either because then you could have close-range characters beat these moves by utilizing running normals designed to do so.

The game could be so much more than it is, French Bread just has to have the balls to make another iteration of the game that may not be particularly well balanced to get there.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, exactly. Some (and by that I mean more then just Akatsuki) of the characters really don't seen designed with Quash's interpretation of the game in mind at all, and they'd have to be altered to an extreme extent to fit the "everyone is dhalism" thing Quash has in mind.

So because there's characters that don't poke at long range means the game wasn't designed to accommodate it?

More like quite a few. Some of the characters have notcieablely decent mid-range pokes, but full screen noodle pokes like those that Merkava, Gordeau, and Waldstein posses seem to be the exception rather then the rule. Unless you're counting fireballs (which wouldn't have the same effect anyway), I don't see how more then half the cast would be able to play the way they do.

we have a full guessing game at full screen.

See, I'm not sure I like this idea.

[quash]

I keep agreeing that UNIEL is not particularly well balanced, but I don't think we agree on the reasons why. It basically just comes down to the hitboxes being too good and covering too much vertical space at once; without giving those moves significant weaknesses, I agree, it's not a good idea to focus on them.

But all you have to do is make these kinds of moves more situational. Have a long range poke that whiffs crouchers and a long range poke that hits crouching but can be jumped. For the characters that don't have these pokes, give them either moves that can beat them or movement/defensive options that allow them to move in safely.

[Squire Grooktook]

I keep agreeing that UNIEL is not particularly well balanced, but I don't think we agree on the reasons why. It basically just comes down to the hitboxes being too good and covering too much vertical space at once; without giving those moves significant weaknesses, I agree, it's not a good idea to focus on them.

But all you have to do is make these kinds of moves more situational. Have a long range poke that whiffs crouchers and a long range poke that hits crouching but can be jumped. For the characters that don't have these pokes, give them either moves that can beat them or movement/defensive options that allow them to move in safely.

The thing is, you keep talking about this brave new playstyle based around full screen guessing games, but currently only 3 (maybe 4-5 if we're being liberal with what counts as a poke vs a projectile) characters have moves that can actually do that. That's not a playstyle, that's a small-subset of the cast. If those characters were balanced the way you say, so that the rest would have a chance to fight them intelligently, fine. But there's no way you can call that "the games playstyle" unless you give the other 2/3rds of the cast similar ranges.

[quash]

Serious question: would you make this same argument for Marvel 2?

[Squire Grooktook]

Serious question: would you make this same argument for Marvel 2?

No, because in Marvel 2 the rest of the cast is not viable, and you're saying the rest of the cast should be viable. You cannot play Marvel 2 any other way because doing so is not viable, it is the dominant style of the game, which is not what you're arguing for (in order to do so, you'd have to be asserting that the long range characters should be the only viable ones). If the entire cast is viable, then 3 out of 20 characters is not going to be the over-riding theme of the game.

Secondly, because, while the low tiers in Marvel have some unique tools, they're playstyle is not totally different from the top tiers. A low tier tournament "feels" like the same game and rewards similar skills and tactics.

[quash]

We're going in circles now. You like the close range element of UNIB enough to keep playing it, great. But you are most likely in the minority on that.

Whether or not you see that the game was designed with long ranged neutral in mind, it's hard to deny that it can be implemented in a smart way that would make the entire game much better. It doesn't mean giving everyone full screen pokes, but giving everyone an answer to them.

[Hagane]

quash:

I'm not against the idea of a long ranged character that can do good damage or get offense opportunities from afar but

1- they should be balanced by making them weak on certain other aspects (helpless at short range, low damage, low defense, etc. - your idea of staggers is good, but it shouldn't be the only one, to keep things varied), and only give damage or pressure or keepaway and not all of that at once.

2- the game shouldn't revolve around long range only. As Squire says, most of the cast can't hang up with the tops because the tops do too many things right (a character balance problem rather than a system design decision), making them kind of irrelevant. There's no point in having many character archetypes but then make only one truly viable.

[Squire Grooktook]

But you are most likely in the minority on that.

You're the first person I've heard this from, so I doubt it.

Whether or not you see that the game was designed with long ranged neutral in mind, it's hard to deny that it can be implemented in a smart way that would make the entire game much better.

Yes, completely true. It's also hard to deny that 3 characters out of 20 will represent the games entire playstyle and focus, if the rest of the cast cannot play that way against each-other and are still completely viable.

[quash]

There's no point in having many character archetypes but then make only one truly viable.

That is not what I want at all. My original statement was not saying that everyone should be like the UNIEL top 3, but that everyone should be strong enough to stand up to them. I do also want to see more characters that utilize more ranges at neutral, but that also applies to closer range (albeit to a lesser extent).

The problem Squire and I are having is that I see that the game was made with long range poking in mind, whereas he sees it as an effect rather than a cause. He cites the number of characters that use those ranges, I cite the intentional design choices made to dissuade people from trying to rush in at full screen. Who cares if only three characters use those ranges, the fact of the matter is that the game is practically their oyster because it was made to accommodate them.

[Squire Grooktook]

[I cite the intentional design choices made to dissuade people from trying to rush in at full screen.

I'm not sure you've done that though :3 I don't remember talking about anything but those characters. I mean, we haven't even mentioned the whole tug-of-war GRD System, which is another defining and unique aspect of the game.

In general (and by that I mean, take any match up that's likely to occur, at random) I don't see the game as discouraging that anymore then most games (in other words, it wants you to play smart instead of running in thoughtlessly, like any decent fighter).

[quash]

I'm not sure you've done that though :3

The thing with Under Night is that it's not distinct in the mechanics it has, but in the mechanics that are notably absent. Mechanics that were made out of necessity because the 4:3 airdash fighters needed to give you ways to dance around pokes that covered the whole screen. This mentality has been carried over into widescreen fighters, as well, and you can really see that in games like BlazBlue and Persona.

Under Night is unique because it forces you to stay grounded in situations where those games would rather have you jump. Likewise, instead of giving you air pokes, they give you ground pokes. Even the close range characters tend to poke at slightly longer ranges than other widescreen fighters.

I guess what I'm getting at is that Under Night has effectively hit the reset button on 2D fighters. Instead of building upon old foundations that worked in the old format, it takes things back to the basics as much as possible and sheds a lot of what other games have in the process.

I may prefer GGXrd over Under Night right now, but truth be told, Xrd is little more than a widescreen port of #R. UNIB is at least trying to break new ground by giving you a neutral game that really takes advantage of the widescreen format. Even if this latest version moves away from that a bit, and even if the next version isn't particularly well balanced, if they at least go back to trying to work out the full screen game, they're entirely redeemed in my eyes.

I don't necessarily require or care that a fighting game be balanced, especially if it's trying something that no other game has done before. UNIEL was a breakthrough in this regard and UNIST is taking a step back to focus on balance. If we have to follow a tick-tock cycle, then so be it.

[Squire Grooktook]

That's all well and good, but still doesn't count as an argument for how the mechanics dissuade rushing in, at least, any more then such offense is dissuaded in most fighters. The long range ground pokes just means that you can play a more traditional footsies game in a sub-genre where classical grounded wiff/bait/punish strats are much more limited (again, not saying GG or Marvel don't have spacing games, even grounded ones, but their application is much different).

[quash]

Well, where's the FD braking? Or homing? Or super jumps? These are all obvious solutions to the issues posed by UNIEL's top 3 and yet the game hasn't implemented any of these.

If you're thinking that they'd just cause more problems, you'd be right. And that's why I like that this game intentionally doesn't give you these kinds of things.

[Squire Grooktook]

Well, where's the FD braking? Or the homing? Or super jumps?

Vampire Savior doesn't have any of the above, and it's probably one of the most (and best) aggressive games ever made. VS is also arguably the progenitor of all air-dash fighters.

You don't need specific mechanics to encourage rush down. You can have a nice fundamentals focused ground spacing game revolving around traditional fighting styles, and still have a perfectly fine balance of offense and defense, ranged and close.

[quash]

It's also a 4:3 game, so there's less real estate on screen to worry about. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, isn't Talbain still considered the best overall character in the game by a wide margin? And what's his strength as a character?

[Squire Grooktook]

It's also a 4:3 game, so there's less real estate on screen to worry about.

Empty space isn't going to discourage one Ryu from coming at another Ryu.

Plus, if I'm not mistaken, isn't Talbain still considered the best overall character in the game by a wide margin? And what's his strength as a character?

Mistaken, yes. Q-Bee, Zabel, and Sasquatch are S-Tier. Talbain is A-Tier. They're all rushdown characters, but everyone in the game is rushdown.

And what's his strength as a character?

Mix ups and strong hitboxes.

[Hagane]

quash:

There's no need to add such subsystems to the game, just like you wouldn't "balance" ST by adding parries or airdashes; the issue is a character balance problem, not a system design one. If you added more mobility options the ground game would weaken. Top three just needs some real strategical weaknesses to fix the game.

[quash]

There's no need to add such subsystems to the game, just like you wouldn't "balance" ST by adding parries or airdashes; the issue is a character balance problem, not a system design one. If you added more mobility options the ground game would weaken. Top three just needs some real strategical weaknesses to fix the game.

I agree. But there's also no denying that the inherent advantage posed by the long range characters in UNIEL is, at least in part, encouraged by the way the game is designed. That's not to say that they can't or shouldn't have weaknesses, but even the most fleshed out and balanced UNIB game will tend to favor characters that can poke at long range (barring any kind of radical system changes between now and then).

[Squire Grooktook]

A longer screen size would only give an advantage to long range play if the room size isn't adjusted accordingly (even then, it'd arguably be a small one at best). The corner is always the biggest stake in any neutral game.

I don't remember the rooms in UN being any bigger.

[quash]

Empty space isn't going to discourage one Ryu from coming at another Ryu.

Oh? So next time you find yourself in a neutral situation you should just jump forward. What's the worst that can happen?

Mix ups and strong hitboxes.

Which is part of the point I'm trying to illustrate here. Fighting game developers figured out a long time ago how to make various different character types strong in 4:3. They did this both through fine tuning hitboxes but also creating systems that encouraged smart play. A character like Talbain managed to be strong in a game that by all means was working against him, and I doubt that was by mistake.

The problem is that today, most widescreen fighters are basically copy/pasting what worked before and hoping that it sticks. BlazBlue is probably the worst offender in this regard but frankly all but UNIB are guilty of it.

[Squire Grooktook]

Empty space isn't going to discourage one Ryu from coming at another Ryu.

Oh? So next time you find yourself in a neutral situation you should just jump forward. What's the worst that can happen?

No you just walk forward and block if they throw a fireball. Start playing the same footsies game Ryu would be playing against Ryu at any other time.

A character like Talbain managed to be strong in a game that by all means was working against him, and I doubt that was by mistake.

This makes me think you don't really understand Talbain, or VS in general. The game isn't working against him at all, he's an extremely fast character with fast mix ups and a large number of offensive and defensive tools in a game that's all about mix ups and aggression.

[quash]

Missing the point is an understatement...

Yes Talbain has good mixups but what is really his strength as a character? It's his pokes. Without his pokes a good portion of the cast would be able to take a shit on him without him even getting the chance to retaliate. This is in a game that, in your own estimation, is primarily focused on mixups. An estimation I don't disagree with, and you are basically proving my point without even realizing it.

[Hagane]

quash:

I don't know, it's been a long time since I actually played the game and informed myself about it, but I don't recall any particular reason as to why the top three benefits more from the game system than the rest. Is there a mechanic I'm not taking into account here that benefits long range characters more than mid-close ones?

Otherwise I just think that it's a matter of those characters being too good at too many things (kinda like Iori from KOF; he just does everything well so he's almost always top tier) rather than them benefitting from specific system design decisions (like A2 Ken / Rose having dumb ACs and shotos having dumb CCs).

I'd make a parallel with ST: despite what many think, playing zoning isn't the "true" way to play the game, it's just that several characters have subpar options to deal with zoning. The ones that do have good ways around it (Rog, Vega) can compete perfectly well or even beat the best zoners. I think this applies here too; I don't think the developers intended the game to be played mostly at long range, I just think they just made the tops too all around strong with no real strategic weaknesses, and didn't give most other characters specific strong ways to deal with that kind of play.

Character balance is the problem, not the game being designed primarily around long range.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yes Talbain has good mixups but what is really his strength as a character? It's his pokes.

Not really. Talbain's strength is that he does a lot of things and does them quite well. His pokes aren't any better then his absolutely terrifying mobility and and mix up tools. He's a swiss army knife, that just so happens to have enough strength in each of his gadgets to still be quite strong even if he were to somehow lose the others. IMO Saying that he'd be at a disadvantage without his pokes is like saying Storm in MVC2 would be at a disadvantage if she lost on of her thousands of options.

Without his pokes a good portion of the cast would be able to take a shit on him without him even getting the chance to retaliate.

No, because he'd just be doing what he and everybody else in the game wins by doing: rush down your opponent before they rush down you.

And that's assuming the rest of the cast doesn't have pokes or spacing tools either, or as if their rush down options somehow shut him down due to some lack of option or weakness. You have provided no evidence for how the game "works against him".

[quash]

I think this applies here too; I don't think the developers intended the game to be played mostly at long range, I just think they just made the tops too all around strong with no real strategic weaknesses, and didn't give most other characters specific strong ways to deal with that kind of play.

The complete and utter lack of movement and defensive options flies in the face of this, but let's say for a moment that you're right, and UNIEL just happened to be a mistake. What does this change other than the fact that they didn't consider how their game might promote more ranged poking than any other 2D fighter currently out?