Jake

Idle Thumbs 119: You, Fisher

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It's a lot more complicated than it seems. Changing the control would change how you play many styles of characters. (Grapplers and charge characters in particular.)

 

There's also just the matter of this, the second half of the quote:

 

 

Relative to a game like Smash Bros, you are actually dealing with much larger movesets in more traditional fighting games. Standing and directional inputs are actually already covered by a lot of basic moves. (Down kick, down forward kick, forward kick, standing kick, jump kick, and repeat with how ever many buttons the game uses. Yes, they all serve a role.) So the simplest inputs are all claimed, and you kind of have to end up with some moves tied into special inputs, and the simplest special inputs tend to overlap in with normal actions in frustrating ways.

 

Back on Persona 4 Arena, that game has some real dedication for trying to map all of its specials to very basic special inputs, relying mostly on quarter circles and a few charge moves. The potential problem is that when every quarter circle action combined virtually any attack can result in a special, it ends up being really easy to throw out moves accidentally and screwing up your match just as easily as failing the input on something more complex might. I mean, a quarter circle is as simple as moving from a defensive crouch to a forward walk. It honestly took me years to be able to reliably pull off a shoryuken when under pressure, i always screwed it up when it mattered, but i appreciate it now for being something that doesn't easily overlap with other actions.

 

the part in bold is basically my entire point, if you could press one button and pull off a shoryuken it you make the game about choice of moves and timing not about your ability to pull of a specific move, and yes it would change how you play the game and that is what i was saying would make me like fighting games more, I'm not saying pro fighting gamers or anybody else would like it more, but for me that is the reason i don't like fighting games that much because i spend most of the time trying to pull of a move while in the game i am just doing random stuff

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You're completely dismissing every other point that was made.

I'm not trying to make you like fighting games, i'm just trying to articulate why it's the way it is.

These are games that are trying to map dozens, if not hundreds of moves to a controller that might not have more than four buttons.

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You're completely dismissing every other point that was made.

I'm not trying to make you like fighting games, i'm just trying to articulate why it's the way it is.

These are games that are trying to map dozens, if not hundreds of moves to a controller that might not have more than four buttons.

 

I'm a PC gamer and i have a keyboard, and i am giving my opinion on why i don't like fighting games, my opinion doesn't change because of the limitations of the controller 

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The assertion that a controller that had as many buttons as keyboard might be better for a fighting game is a little horrifying, but i'm just going to stop here.

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There's actually a card game that tries to simulate the strategy of fighting games called Yomi. I've never played it myself but apparently they have a online version and it looks pretty cool. http://www.sirlingames.com/pages/games

 

Also I think some mobile versions of fighting games, like the Street Fighter port for 3DS (which Jake should buy), use the touch screen to let players just tap for special moves.

 

As a fellow PC gamer I have to admit that fighting games are the one genre where a keyboard is woefully inadequate and it mostly has to do with keyboards not being designed to register more than three button presses at a time. 

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Dave Sirlin is a phenomenal designer; picking up one of his games is definitely a good idea. Puzzle Strike is my personal favorite.

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As a fellow PC gamer I have to admit that fighting games are the one genre where a keyboard is woefully inadequate and it mostly has to do with keyboards not being designed to register more than three button presses at a time. 

 

It probably wouldn't be so bad if the fighting game in question used 4 directional inputs instead of 8, but that itself would have a lot of implications for something like Street Fighter.

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One thing I think removing complicated moves would do would make you think more about your tools on a level playing field.

 

Sirlin has that amazing story about how he played some Street Fighter Alpha match as Rose against a generally better character and player, and used the one move Rose had that was able to come out faster and beat his opponents character to defeat them, or at least do better than he should have. And I mean literally one specific button. (Sorry for the huge paraphrase go to street fighter alpha 2 in this page for the actual story).

Having a fireball come out with the same input as a punch would make you play much differently. I experienced a similar thing when I swapped from PS2 Controller to Arcade Stick on Fei Long for SFIV. I couldn't do quarter circles reliably at all anymore, but I was able to do dragon punch motions much easier. I ended up playing in a much different fashion that was way more dependent on using a variety of normals and special uppercut, rather than the bigger reliable damage of his quarter circle combo move. I learned how to use a variety of normal moves effectively, which was something I just never thought about significantly in 2D fighters. I feel there's a big desire/pressure to do special moves in a fighting game like that (especially one that is a throwback to one you played as a kid). I've definitely failed to do a special move at the right time, only to try again after failing, even though it isn't the right move anymore. However, like the Sirlin story illustrated, you should only really use the tools you need to win. When your fireball tool comes out the same as the kick-that-hits-above-you tool you only worry about using the right one in the right situation.

 

That's why I think it would be really informative and interesting to have more games that are designed like that. I'm not actually convinced that adding macros to a game designed otherwise would be the same, though.

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Signed up here just to say I appreciate the bit on the affect of violence in games and how the default gamer stance is to scoff and dismiss. I've been a gamer since the 8-bit days and I've murdered my share of virtual badies, but the older I get the more conscious I am of the things I put into my brain.

 

Happily one of the biggest influences on my thought process toward violence in games was a game. There's a scene in Heavy Rain in which you given the option to kill a drug dealer or not. On my initial play through of the game I made all of the decisions I felt I would in real life - and I did in fact kill the drug dealer. The execution of the moment in game and the weight of the decision narratively produced a sense of shock that I've since not forgotten. I haven't suffered any emotional damage from it or anything - but it did give me a context with which to measure other games and I've been much more aware since of the things I'm pretending to do in games, of the enjoyment I might get from pretending to do those things and of what that means to me as a human being.

 

I guess I don't really have a point persay - just that as a gamer I feel there is probably a difference, psychologically, between playing duck-hunt and (apparently) the newest splinter cell and while I have no idea what that difference may be - I'm glad that someone who clearly cares about games mentioned it in a public forum in a way that wasn't abject denial. 

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The assertion that a controller that had as many buttons as keyboard might be better for a fighting game is a little horrifying, but i'm just going to stop here.

 

i dont no if you noticed but i was talking about using macros, maybe there is some miscommunication when i am talking about macros, but to me using a macro for a fighting game would be when there would be a programmed in set of commands that get activated by pressing one button, so for example instead of pressing up, down, left, right, a, b etc. to perform a fatality i would press "f" for fatality and the macro would perform the move for me, I'm not saying keyboards are better for fighting games because they obviously aren't, my point was that a keyboard has lots of keys that could be linked to specific moves using macros 

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I only just realized that "Where's the trigger?" in the terrorism discussion was a line from The Dark Knight Rises. D'oh.

 

Speaking of jokes I don't get...

 

Also I feel like one of Jake's amazing jokes didn't get anywhere near enough laughs (in fact nobody laughed, I think). You guys were talking about the Splinter Cell picture book and imagined the child saying something like "how come nobody can ever find Sam Fisher" and someone said something like "play the video game and you'll understand" and then Jake said "wait until you're 11." That was fucking hilarious!

 

I actually didn't get this. I feel like an idiot.  :getmecoat

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Those first couple of MGS4 levels were easily the best part of that game, yeah. I never understood why they abandoned this brilliant concept less than a quarter of the way through the game and then went on to put in a bunch of way less interesting and fairly standard Video game-y sorts of levels for the rest, including some pretty uncreative boss fights. Such a disappointment after MGS3 blew my socks off. 

 

I do feel like MGS is a series that's fairly consistently had this frustrating dichotomy where it's billed as a stealth game and it wants you to play it as a stealth game, but your actual stealth mechanics are pretty limited and most of your tools are oriented towards the action shooter end of the spectrum, and you're regularly forced into boss fights and other mandatory action scenes, but the controls are ill suited to action. So it's a frustrating stealth experience -and- a frustrating action experience and never really finds a comfortable middle. MGS3 is amazing not because it manages to dodge this trend but because of the incredible attention to detail put into it and being the only MGS game that really masters that balance between taking itself seriously and the awareness of just how goofy it all is. (The bonus videos MGS3: Substance includes on the second disc are hilarious and demonstrate a level of self-awareness that was painfully lacking in MGS4.)

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macros

There are fighters out there that have macros, some SNK ones like king of fighters 2002. You can record and map your combos to a single shoulder button press... But I believe this feature is disabled during multiplayer as its a massive cheat

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i dont no if you noticed but i was talking about using macros, maybe there is some miscommunication when i am talking about macros, but to me using a macro for a fighting game would be when there would be a programmed in set of commands that get activated by pressing one button, so for example instead of pressing up, down, left, right, a, b etc. to perform a fatality i would press "f" for fatality and the macro would perform the move for me, I'm not saying keyboards are better for fighting games because they obviously aren't, my point was that a keyboard has lots of keys that could be linked to specific moves using macros 

You're not thinking it through. There's enough moves in most fighters that you would need an entire keyboard to macro everything. Sno doesn't want to play a fighter with a keyboard.

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I think there are good reasons for why fighting games generally settled on four-to-six button layouts. (As a genre largely born in arcades, it wasn't limited by gamepad layouts.)

 

You want to have those buttons always at your fingertips, you can easily hit any combination of buttons simultaneously and you don't have to travel your hand around searching for the right input.

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The special move inputs is half the fun/challenge of playing. And it opens up loads of short cuts for combos.

For example Ryu can combo a crouching punch in to a dragon punch, and you can do this by just adding an extra button press during the dragon punch input.

Dragon punch: towards, down, down towards diagonal + punch

Dragon punch combo: towards, down + punch, down towards diagonal + punch

When you learn this the game opens up massively

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The special move inputs is half the fun/challenge of playing.

Stalkinghead has somewhat unique preferences/ideas re: these things..

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I absolutely detest fighting games and none of what you people are saying is in any way changing my mind. The over-complicated quarter-circle magic bullshit is so incredibly off-putting and not at all interesting that it makes me mad when people try to defend it as if it's a good thing.

 

MAD.

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Playing fighting games competitively is the only time I feel alive :)

From C to Shining C | Ultra rare: 2%

You think you're good, don't you? Prove it by ranking up all characters to C Rank!

^ but seriuosly, getting this achievement in super street fighter 4 was easily the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my gaming career

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Regarding fighting game macros:

As a long term fighting game fan, and ignoring momentarily the implications of different types of characters being controlled in the same way leading to certain advantages/disadvantages (you could always balance things like recovery animations and move damage to sidestep that), I'm actually not opposed to the idea of a fighting game in which controls are massively simplified or perhaps even macros allowed. I've always preferred turn-based to real time strategy, and think it might be a cool thing to have a 2D fighting game where the strategic element is a little purer by removing the executional barrier to entry. As an aside, it might be a cool sub-genre, or perhaps a way to teach the basics of fighting game strategy, as I wouldn't like to see it as a feature in traditional 2D fighters - SFIV on 3DS allowed you to shortcut moves to the touchscreen which resulted in a really imbalanced game. Anyway, while I do think it's a shame that there's a dexterity-barrier to really getting the most out of fighting games as they are now, I think some of the richness in the meta-game would be lost by having macros or simplifying inputs.

I'm going to use SFIV as the basis for my argument as it's the best known and most popular fighting game right now, I'm going to try and keep this simple, but would be happy to go into grizzly detail if anyone would like to discuss specifics.

Basically, I think macros would oversimplify combo decisions in SFIV. They tend to boil down to confidence, and are influenced by a number of factors. Firstly, every decision you make in a game of SFIV is going to be influenced by the current game-state; things like you and your opponent's life and super meters, relative screen positioning, and even character choices (not all combos work on all characters! And some only when crouching, some only when standing, etc.)

Even before landing a combo, you need to make decisions about what you'll do whether the first hit connects are not. Are you confident enough to go for max damage right from the off, knowing if that first hit doesn't land, you're most likely in for a world of pain? Or would you rather play it safe with a combo that lets you adapt mid way through, allowing you to either ease off if it isn't connecting, or, if you see it is connecting, see it through to the end for a smaller amount of damage than if you'd gone all in? And in choosing exactly which buttons to press, you also need the confidence you won't drop the combo mid-way through, as dropped combos tend to lead to huge punishes from the other player.

So, say you do get a hit and can combo from it, the type of combo you do is going to be based on all the factors described above. (You'll have moment-to-moment goals at different point during each round, which you can think of as your 'current ambitions', CKII fans). So, if you're winning, you might want to think about maximising damage. If you're cornered, you might want to do a combo that gets you out of there. You might want to do a combo which could stun your opponent (if you've been taking a mental note of how close they are to being stunned). You might want to prioritise building super meter, if you think it will afford you more options offensively or defensively.

And of course, it's not only a matter of choosing the right combo for the right situation, there is the difficulty of the combo to consider too. Combos range from 'baby' to extremely difficult. Some of the very hardest combos require timing that can be as strict as inputting a button press in a window only 1/60th of a second long. I can't say with a straight face that these are 100% necessary to win, but combos are fairly scalable in difficulty, and add to the richness of possibility the game offers. It's up to you to find the sweet spot between risk and reward depending on your situation and abilities, something I think macros would take away from. Added to which, difficulty isn't the only deciding factor in combo use - muscle memory can also be a bitch! For example, let's say Ryu is cornered with 50 health left. Not low enough to be chipped to death, but low enough that the next hit will take the round. Ken jumps in and bets everything on a Dragon Punch. Ryu blocks and Ken is sailing into the air. Now, as Ken lands, it's likely the Ryu player might panic, knowing he has only a short window to punish Ken, and enter a familiar combo. Let's say he does crouching medium punch, crouching hard punch, Dragon Punch. Good damage, but when Ken recovers, Ryu is still in the corner, and any move he can do can be easily countered by Ken to earn him the round. Now, if Ryu was being clever, he would have done crouching medium punch, crouching hard punch, Whirlwind Kick which would have got him out of the corner. The combos are of the same difficulty, it's just muscle memory that trips the player up. Overcoming this kind of thing is the mark of a good player, as he's constantly thinking about his situation rather than relying on rote memorisation. I think if you had a macro for each combo, though the temptation to press your favourite macro button is still there, I think pressing two familiar buttons then a different one is slightly more of a mental/physical barrier than just pressing one button for the appropriate situation.

Similar to the above-described situation, external factors also have a way of affecting players' execution, and therefore their decision making processes too. Perhaps you haven't played the game in a month and you might not be playing as well and maybe choose to simplify things a bit... until the moment comes you need to bust out the flash in order to save your neck. Or maybe you're a top player and the match you're playing is a high stakes tournament, being streamed on the internet for all the world to see, and you don't want to embarrass yourself by messing up, but you also don't want to be seen missing your chances... With macros, I think you'd be losing a lot of tension!

And you'd also use the "execution as intimidation" aspect of the game too!

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Okay, having listened to the podcast again, I really liked Chris' thoughts on games with no failstate or a soft failstate. Most games have a really black-and-white idea of accomplishments: either you win or you lose, try again. I know this is loaded, but it seems almost childish? Not meaning dumb or petty, but more meaning a child's view of the world, where failure is clear and absolute. Crusader Kings II, among other games, seems a bit more realistic about failure: bad things happen, your fault or not, and the game goes on. I don't think that every game should be that way, but like Chris, I wish that more games were that way. Almost as much as violence, "winning" is such a weird concept to pervade gaming, which is play at its core. I guess the platonic ideal of a game right now is still shooting all the men until you win?

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i agree about with the discussion about Civ, it does seem very odd to be able to "win" the world, the only kind of victory in civilisation that doesn't seem weird is a victory of total dominance where there aren't any other civilisations left but your own and that is only because really there wouldn't be anything else left to do except maybe make a few more cities, but Civ does seem to be the type of game that doesn't need a victory condition at all.

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RE: Keith David—He was in The Thing!!! It wasn't quite the deep-voiced Keith David we know from later films like Requiem for a Dream, but still pretty visible.

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