Versus City – How To Make Fighting Games Better Part 1

Versus City – How To Make Fighting Games Better Part 1
d3v by on May 3rd, 2012 at 8:14 am

Reno has just started the first of a new series of articles dealing with his ideas over at his Versus City blog.  Inspired by a similar thread over at our own forums, these articles present his ideas on how to improve the fighting game genre. Part 1 focuses on how fighting games need to better present information. Reno argues that one of the problems with fighting games is that they don’t do enough to prepare the player or to actually understand gameplay.

The first and most important thing we need to see happen is to change fighters from a “pull-based” game to a “push-based” game. Right now, if you want to be really good at fighting games, you need to seek out info; you need to search for videos to help better your play. You definitely need to do a lot of “pulling” to get what you need, but you shouldn’t have to.

While the amount of information on how to play and win in fighting games has increased online in recent years, most of this information is still unavailable in-game. While this has always been the traditional way to gain access to advanced strategies and tactics, Reno points out that the technology already exists to be able to push this kind of information in game. One (non fighting) game that Reno singles out is Sony’s Uncharted 3, with it’s Uncharted TV integration.  Here, the game in question streams 90 second clips from both developers and users in the game’s multiplayer menu.

This is a fantastic feature, and I was immediately impressed by it. Now, let’s take this idea a step further! Imagine that when communicating with the servers to play online, the servers analyze your battle data and then push appropriate media to your game. How awesome would that be for any type of player? If, for example, your battle data shows that your win/loss ratio against grapplers is poor, wouldn’t it be amazing if the game knew this and started pushing anti-grappler tutorial videos to your menu?

In closing, Reno notes that fighting games are similar to RTS games and shooters in that they benefit a lot from online play. At the same time, however, he laments on how the genre lags behind the other two in terms of usability and features and how the community has had to step up to spread the word in place of the publishers/developers.

You can read the entire article over at Versus City.

  • Anonymous

    SkullGirls already tried to “Revolutionize” the FG, and it did not work… same FG

    • Anonymous

      Read the article, there’s nothing here on “revolutionizing” how the games play themselves. It’s more about providing data and content to the player in game, instead of having them scrounge around a series of tubes for it..

      • Anonymous

        indeed, its also what needs to be done. why visit sites like srk and shit when all the info could have been in the game. 

        • Anonymous

          The way I see it, sites like SRK should offer a more freeform social framework around fighting games, but as it is they are pretty much the defining resources of info for these games, which is bad, because some players don’t even know these sites exist. The games themselves lack features, they lack tutorials, explanation, and accessible learning tools.

  • http://www.facebook.com/gabrielclow Gabriel Moura

    No!! Thats the whole point of being good at a fighting game. Developing your own strategies and seeking info is part of your determination at getting good.

    • http://twitter.com/Zenmetsu89 Saba

      Good tutorial–>more good players–>more good strategies discovered.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=11203818 Jared Bushido-Brown Payton

      C’mon dude….everyone looks at youtube videos or even buy strategy guides on how to improve your game…..One way or another a person doesn’t 100 percent rely on himself to improve himself….

    • Steve Shannon

      When you’re done trying to be a unique snowflake we’ll be over here having fun, winning, and trying to make the community better.

      Do you have a problem with people putting out tutorial videos because it will stifle creativity? Get real.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gethoff-Mahfacebuk/558552166 Gethoff Mahfacebuk

       Even given the proper tools, the players must still execute.  People place too much of a stigma on learning strategies from somewhere or someone else.  If these games were solely about developing tech on your own, Desk would be winning Evo every year.  And even he seeks out info from his peers.

      VF5 contained match vids of Japanese players on the disc, I’d like to see that pushed even further with some additional commentary.  For example when explaining how stepping works, you could use pro matches + dev commentary to show where pro players are successful stepping, and where they are not.

      If anything, this mentality of having to make your own “style” gets players in trouble.  It makes them feel as if they HAVE to do their thing, instead of doing what’s right for the situation.

  • http://www.facebook.com/gabrielclow Gabriel Moura

    No!! Thats the whole point of being good at a fighting game. Developing your own strategies and seeking info is part of your determination at getting good.

  • http://twitter.com/lovelessLP YTH|LP Loveless

    This is exactly what shouldn’t be done. If scrubs can’t look online for 20-30 minutes, they deserve to mash wakeup uppercuts for the rest of their life.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RVTCDH7KD4LOBP22XNRB2J56TM Sean O'donovan

      *smh* you’re exactly what’s wrong with the community.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RVTCDH7KD4LOBP22XNRB2J56TM Sean O'donovan

      *smh* you’re exactly what’s wrong with the community.

      • http://twitter.com/lovelessLP YTH|LP Loveless

        Yeah, and you’re probably bad at fighting games.

        • http://www.facebook.com/departanddisappear Destin Williams

          Dude, you were wrong. Learn from others taught you, and become a better person. No need to keep at it.

        • http://www.facebook.com/spongejordan123 Jordan Bartel

          It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they have no idea that these resources are available to them as there is no first party support. Once you’ve gotten into one fighter and researched on it, its all downhill for the rest, but for someone who just has what the game has to offer and doesn’t know that there are outside communities like SRK, they’re at a severe disadvantage. This is true with any game with any sort of depth.

        • http://www.facebook.com/spongejordan123 Jordan Bartel

          It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they have no idea that these resources are available to them as there is no first party support. Once you’ve gotten into one fighter and researched on it, its all downhill for the rest, but for someone who just has what the game has to offer and doesn’t know that there are outside communities like SRK, they’re at a severe disadvantage. This is true with any game with any sort of depth.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nicholas-Rowe/675477093 Nicholas Rowe

           idiot

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003605901486 Elizabeth Nara

           Stay free.

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003605901486 Elizabeth Nara

           Stay free.

        • ZigTheHunter

          That’s your idea of a reply? please. His skill has nothing to do with this and you only prove his point, you really are the scum of this community.

        • ZigTheHunter

          That’s your idea of a reply? please. His skill has nothing to do with this and you only prove his point, you really are the scum of this community.

      • http://twitter.com/lovelessLP YTH|LP Loveless

        Yeah, and you’re probably bad at fighting games.

    • Anonymous

      You must be lonely.

      • http://twitter.com/lerp5555 brian ziggity

        LOL it sure looks that way

    • Moribund Cadaver

      This attitude is popular in hardcore nerd circles. It’s the philosophy of ‘obscurism’. Remain niche, hidden, and elite by obscuring information.

      That’s great and all, but if the FG community’s elite snobs had their way, the current state of the entire scene would be six guys playing MVC2 and finishing in the same order in every tournament.

      Putting more information out there does nothing but put more information out there. Castigating people as “scrubs” because they don’t know where to find information right off the bat is counterproductive elitism.

      • Anonymous

        dont worry, its probably because dude sucks soo much that if othersb learned to play better hed suck even more than he already does. 

    • Moribund Cadaver

      This attitude is popular in hardcore nerd circles. It’s the philosophy of ‘obscurism’. Remain niche, hidden, and elite by obscuring information.

      That’s great and all, but if the FG community’s elite snobs had their way, the current state of the entire scene would be six guys playing MVC2 and finishing in the same order in every tournament.

      Putting more information out there does nothing but put more information out there. Castigating people as “scrubs” because they don’t know where to find information right off the bat is counterproductive elitism.

    • http://twitter.com/srslygtfo Mr. X

       It’s kind of weird saying that on SRK, a forum that houses information for all to see and share. First it was you had to go to [insert arcade] to learn to play, then it moved online by the communities, next would be for developers to include it in the game itself.

      • http://twitter.com/Mr_DoWork MR.DoWork

         Indeed, shall we call it the evolution of fighting games?

      • http://twitter.com/Mr_DoWork MR.DoWork

         Indeed, shall we call it the evolution of fighting games?

      • http://twitter.com/Mr_DoWork MR.DoWork

         Indeed, shall we call it the evolution of fighting games?

    • http://www.facebook.com/h1tm0nl33 Joshua Johnson

      Because god forbid if a fighting game try to teach anyone who hasn’t been playing fighting games the last 20 some odd years non-stop how to play.

    • http://twitter.com/emezie Emezie Okorafor

      Ugh.

    • Anonymous

      While some players benefit from learning things by themselves – we can get more people to like the things we do if it was easier for these people were given the resources to learn. 

      We have nothing to lose from having more friends enjoying the things we like.

  • Anonymous

    Wouldn’t it be, like, just maybe, only a little, FUCKING SIMPLER if FGs just had a guide with terminology and basics, with everything from “normals > specials” to “frame advantage > frame traps”? I love the “media streaming” idea too, I’m only a little against it because it promotes this lazy behaviour our current society suffers; so, instead of “automatically playing” them, I’d offer the clips in a menu so when you loose to a grappler 100 times in a row you can just go check them out (because maybe you are Fuudo playing against Itabashi and automatic tutorials may be redundant).

    So yeah, that’s basically a good idea: a nice guide with the theory (because FGs have theory, get over with it) and examples/tutorials/match analysis in clip format.

    • Anonymous

      People dont read shit. They’ll complain about shit they dont understand anyway. Most people have to be shown instead of taught. :/

    • Anonymous

      I’d disagree with what you consider as “lazy”. In all honesty, nowadays people are barraged with information from all sides. The convenience of having information at one’s fingertips is not a sign of laziness, but a remarkable change in how the big question has changed from “How do I get the answer” to “Where do I get the answer”.

      It isn’t so much “lazy” as it is “taking advantage of all the conveniences given to us so we can achieve more”.

    • Anonymous

      I’d disagree with what you consider as “lazy”. In all honesty, nowadays people are barraged with information from all sides. The convenience of having information at one’s fingertips is not a sign of laziness, but a remarkable change in how the big question has changed from “How do I get the answer” to “Where do I get the answer”.

      It isn’t so much “lazy” as it is “taking advantage of all the conveniences given to us so we can achieve more”.

  • Anonymous

    doesn’t matter what you do. Some people just aren’t gonna be good at fighting games. Hand Eye coordination is what matters most and anticipating. Some people just can’t do that. The same way I’ve never been good at baseball.

    • Anonymous

      You don’t pop out of the womb good at baseball. Same with fighting games. People might be more naturally adept at it than others but with enough practice anybody should be able to get to the point that they can play relatively well. Maybe not on a professional level, but enough to hold your own and enough to find good competition at your level. The problem with fighting games isn’t that the learning curve is necessarily steep, it’s that the established resources for learning aren’t good enough.

      There is plenty of information on the internet, and there are tools in the games to help you improve. However, some of this information isn’t organized particularly well, the tools can be obtuse and/or awkward/unintuitive to use, and most importantly there is very little direction nor explanation. It is often difficult for new fighting game players to find a starting point to improve themselves, and without that little push they will never be motivated to pursue a higher level of play. Given that the majority of today’s fighting games put more emphasis on high level play, this is why their popularity wanes after time.

    • http://twitter.com/iMinecraftsite iMinecraft

      Studies show that a person will react 8 times faster “on reflex” if they first know what’s coming/what to look for. Teaching someone what to look for in certain situations (i.e. what are your options on wakeup against a grappler and what are they going to try to do) can help one’s reactions improve by a huge degree.

  • Anonymous

    doesn’t matter what you do. Some people just aren’t gonna be good at fighting games. Hand Eye coordination is what matters most and anticipating. Some people just can’t do that. The same way I’ve never been good at baseball.

  • Moribund Cadaver

    In addition to the concepts outlined, another good model to look at would be what Blizzard built around Starcraft II. A sophisticated online community built right into the game with leagues and rankings. Online games in general are moving towards this model because people want it; they want a league, they want brackets, history, stats, comparisons, and structure.

    Fighting games are still missing out on the MOBA trend, but it is perhaps understandable as their online development lags years behind most other genres.

    One reason we need this in fighters is because right now, the experience of playing online at home is too anemic. At a social get together, be it an arcade or even a casual tournament, there’s a tremendous amount of interaction. There is conversation and stacking one’s self up against other people right there, immediately.

    Playing fighters on the couch with only the lonely “ranked match” button, fighting a stream of anonymous people who you rarely find out anything about, gets discouraging. I believe it also hampers progress because it is demoralizing. “Why am I trying to get good this game anyway?”

    And so there is the need for a far more robust framework for presenting these games in the online age. Folks need to feel that they’re a part of something big, and the FG community needs to be fully brought right into the games themselves. Not disassociated on a scattering of random websites.

    • Anonymous

      I believe this is particularly important, and that you’re absolutely right. There is too much of a disconnect between online players and their opponents. Social aspects might seem like needless fluff to some people, but it’s one of the areas in which online fighting games could use the most improvement. Battle points are not enough. I want to be able to track my successes and failures, walk through replays frame-by-frame to see what I did wrong. I want to be able to spectate a game that’s currently going on and listen to a shoutcast, in the game, and maybe chat with others in a lobby, in real time. Then I want to be able to go into an online training mode and practice what I’ve learned. I want the game to do more than just throw numbers at me, I want it to convey information in a useful manner that can make sense to someone who might not understand the most intricate technical aspects of the game.

      Leagues are a particularly good idea in Starcraft II because they go hand-in-hand with the matchmaking. They provide an easy metric for players to determine relative skill level. If I start up a Capcom fighter in online mode, though, all I see are the battle points, and that doesn’t tell me anything about my relative skill level to my opponent’s; it only tells me who’s played more games and who’s won more often.

    • http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich

      that will never happen because.. consoles and its target audience are limited.
      Capcom doesn’t even show ping number in fear it would be confusing to your average gamer (and it is!).

      not to mention they are incompetent at doing functional interfaces. can i have a damn Rematch button in SF4 and SFxT online in 2 player lobbies (so i don’t have to sit through character selection and loading screens over and over)? can i have a Pass Turn in Endless lobbies? etc. etc. etc. etc.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003605901486 Elizabeth Nara

        HDR and 3SO says hi.

        • http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich

           still not even remotely on level with anything by Blizzard

        • http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich

           still not even remotely on level with anything by Blizzard

        • http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich

           still not even remotely on level with anything by Blizzard

    • http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich

      that will never happen because.. consoles and its target audience are limited.
      Capcom doesn’t even show ping number in fear it would be confusing to your average gamer (and it is!).

      not to mention they are incompetent at doing functional interfaces. can i have a damn Rematch button in SF4 and SFxT online in 2 player lobbies (so i don’t have to sit through character selection and loading screens over and over)? can i have a Pass Turn in Endless lobbies? etc. etc. etc. etc.

  • http://twitter.com/Thraphelga le sun

    let’s take a step back and get the simple shit right for once, before we address anything else.

    how about…
    - streamline online match making to either give the player a list of lobbies like ssf4 does or make random match making faster.- on a similar note, all the little insignificant stuff that follows right before and after an online match could take a little less forever. - examples, search until a match is found, save the player from having to “research” every 3 seconds, who in their right mind goes online, waits the 3 seconds for the match not found notification and just says oh okay then fuck it, guess I’m not playing anymore. No shit they’ll want to keep searching. - the game doesn’t need to “save player profile” for half a minute after EVERY online match.- mandatory replay button for online, and have the replay button on the same screen as the match like vs mode, not like in third strike online where it takes you through 2 goddamn menus, that defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. - character selection plus stage selection timer online can’t be over a full minute. No one should need that.If I jump on sfxt or mvc3, each match itself takes 1-2 minutes, 3 in very rare instance. but it takes an hour+ to play 10 ranked games due to all these sluggish nonsense. If the goal here is to make these games more accessible to new players… Let’s start by putting them back into the action and learn by actually playing, instead of having them spend 4 minutes being salty over the game they just lost in under 1 minute. 

    EDIT: wtf comments formatting -.-

    • Anonymous

      Let’s GO! Someone tell me why we’re so fucking behind on stuff like this?

    • Anonymous

      Well said.  Also if I’m in a lobby with 3+ players, when it’s my turn let me choose to ”replay” using the same characters/options or change character.  No reason to assume that I need to change characters because I wasn’t playing in the last game.  In games like MvC3 that have slots to save your teams let me choose that right away too.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Marsh/1210398171 Mike Marsh

    Wahhh! Wahhh! I’m an SRK poster! Waaah! Waah!

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/XABDZOMRW3Y5Y3Q7IJJKT6YHT4 Marky

    Some good ideas here, but first thing’s first… every fighting game NEEDS these 2 things:

    1:  GOOD netcode.  Remember before MK was released, Netherrealm said their netcode would be the best of the best and blow us all away?  Yeah…   And remember how Atlus promised us great netcode for KOF13, but it’s only really decent at 3 bars and up?  Yeah…  STOP THAT.  It’s 2012, people.  Quake 3 has better netcode than most fighting games.   QUAKE FUCKING 3 RELEASED IN 1999.  WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU DEVELOPERS?

    2:  Spectator mode and lobbies.  MK9 and SC5 do this right, but then you have KOF13 and Skullgirls sitting there diddling their lips and making retard noises because they don’t understand how simply being able to watch other players helps people level up their game and creates a sense of community when combined with ingame voice chat.  Real elementary stuff yet it’s missing from some of the best fighting games.  Fuck that.  SMH

    Once these things become a universal core features in all fighters, then we can talk ingame YouTube and other shit.

    • Jarkko Oranen

      You’re comparing FPS netcode to FG netcode, and that’s just wrong. FPS games have a lot more leeway with latency than fighting games; in an FPS, 100ms extra delay is at worst a mild annoyance if it’s noticeable at all, whereas it makes a fighting game pretty much unplayable. 

      Besides, “good netcode” for fighting games is plain impossible in many cases. If there’s significant distance between the players, or if the service provider sucks, then you’re screwed and nothing can be done.

      • Anonymous

        Agreed, People need to stop blaming netcode and start protesting against shitty, over subscribed ISP’s/net infrastructure.

  • Anonymous

    So many things are possible if only a good solid netcode could be made for fighting games. I don’t know all the specifics that make making a fighting game’s netcode so hard to properly accomplish sometimes, and alot of the times I’m aware that its just a matter of 2 people, or a group of people just not being able to connect correctly. It’s just odd to me a game like Gran Turismo 5 with customization down to a millimeter on your vehicle on about 100 variables running in full 3D multiplied by 16 people in 1 race on a completely customized user track can run at such an insanely high level online. Again, I don’t know any specifics I’m not a tech, if there is a reason that that’s possible for that game and not fighting games that I’m not aware of then so be it, but its 2012 I think somehow……somehow we have to be able to do better with our games.

  • Anonymous

    So many things are possible if only a good solid netcode could be made for fighting games. I don’t know all the specifics that make making a fighting game’s netcode so hard to properly accomplish sometimes, and alot of the times I’m aware that its just a matter of 2 people, or a group of people just not being able to connect correctly. It’s just odd to me a game like Gran Turismo 5 with customization down to a millimeter on your vehicle on about 100 variables running in full 3D multiplied by 16 people in 1 race on a completely customized user track can run at such an insanely high level online. Again, I don’t know any specifics I’m not a tech, if there is a reason that that’s possible for that game and not fighting games that I’m not aware of then so be it, but its 2012 I think somehow……somehow we have to be able to do better with our games.

  • http://www.squidoo.com/fightinggamesonline fighting games online

    Here is the problem I’m seeing with this idealism. 50% of what people utilize when it comes to fighting games are created by those who are in the community. Terms like spacing and mix ups are all techniques and strategies that are developed throughout the years within the fighting game community. The developers themselves had no idea of the creativity that would become apart of what sites like shoryuken and others would create. So many factors come into play which stem outside of what the actual game was intended to play and each iteration developed concepts that came from the community and slowly crept their way into the next cycle of fighting games. Things like buffering and glitches, are some great examples.

    Its no different with chess. Players like Bobby Fischer developed there own form of strategy from their intimate understanding of the game and from that they created material for those to read and learn from.

    Its a great idea that he purposed, I would love to see it come to fruition, and I know that I personally could benefit from having something like that but budget wise it just seems like it be to much of an ambitious task for a company that is not making uncharted’s big numbers. 

    I do believe there is a disconnect from the developer and players in where developers wish players to discover and players wish developers to just give up all the information at once so that we can learn how to play the game in a shorter amount of time. No matter what there is still going to be one fact that remains, fighting games take a very long time to learn(especially games with enormous move lists).  In this age of information I can agree that its time developers do a better job of giving out more information(especially frame data) and provide it in game.  It may just do a better job of keeping players around.

    • http://twitter.com/Mightfo Mightfo

      Yeah, I think this is important. The way we conceptualize and categorize fighting games is not necessarily how they were designed/are, although our understanding is bred rather evolutionarily so it is going to have a strong degree of accuracy.(unlike, say, many approaches to understanding history since they dont have practical application to test how accurate the understanding is)

    • http://profiles.google.com/mpureka Mike Pureka

      I don’t view this as that big a problem, because the developers don’t need to give away the Super Special Sauce Secrets of their particular game to get newbies going.   Just providing basic information that’s applicable to the “genre” would go a long way, and match content more or less provides itself – though you’d need to write some sort of match analysis tool to determine what matches might be worth recommending to someone to watch.

      Frame data is an interesting beast though, because there’s so BLOODY MUCH of it that incorporating it into the game might be a bit of an interface challenge.  Though the skullgirls hitbox display functionality is a step in the right direction.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=670602173 Kevin LordHollow Hicks

    Every fighting game should just post a link to SRK and youtube, telling the player where to go for info.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=670602173 Kevin LordHollow Hicks

    Every fighting game should just post a link to SRK and youtube, telling the player where to go for info.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Taylor-Batten/100000103808372 Taylor Batten

    Virtua fighter training mode. the best training mode ever.

    Virtua fighter netcode.

    additions:
    streaming updates to these based upon the metagame and your issues via play stats.
    Frame data added to training mode.
    Guilty gear style button config IN EVERY GAME. Capcom’s style takes too long.
    consistent updates to fix things that are broken. these updates are free.
    paid Dlc being done for what dlc should be done for: off disk things like outfits that can’t already be unlocked by playing the game.
    replay/replay anaysis mode with frame data like vf and additional options like slowdown. able to search by player name and character.
    something to detect boosting online.
    automatic and user based error reporting.
    training mode can actually teach you move motions. even if it’s via demonstration like tekken.

  • http://twitter.com/MiGaOh Michael G. O’Hair

    2nd part’s been posted already. How old is part 1?

  • http://twitter.com/MiGaOh Michael G. O’Hair

    2nd part’s been posted already. How old is part 1?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-McAlister/100001501270453 Brian McAlister

    I think before we start looking at adding features in the games like the ones used in Uncharted 3 or some sort of community/social media integration, we should worry about them getting the training modes right in FGs.  Right now there is really no standard set for training modes which is the players main tool for learning the game (whether they find the info on the internet or elsewhere).  Some FGs have a robust training mode while others are bare bones or are missing important features.  Maybe they don’t show frame data, or don’t have a record function, or worse have no in game move list.  Right now I think the community could make a pretty concrete list of things we expect to have in a FG training mode.

    Beyond this personally I think FGs would benefit greatly from integration with social media or community sites such as SRK.  Say being able to publish your replay videos right to Facebook or SRK where people can watch and discuss them would be a great tool.  Likewise having say the top 5 videos for a certain character from SRK available to watch right in the game would help those who never knew about SRK learn the game better as well as making those people aware of the site and the community.  They could even built their own community site like Bungie did with Halo and add things like stat tracking as well.  I figure the later would have been done already considering the benefits of client tracking and adverting.

    • http://twitter.com/lerp5555 brian ziggity

       who in there right mind would make  an fg with no in game move list……….XD

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Gethoff-Mahfacebuk/558552166 Gethoff Mahfacebuk

    Oh god part 2 is perfect.  A competitive player understands that we need A TON more scrub friendly content in order to keep the sales moving.  Give them all that shit, let them fuck with the game, and let them get online and talk shit about how their ridiculous create a character takes skill to win with.

    LET THEM BE WRONG.  We need their money.

  • Anonymous

    I like the general idea, but not the execution.

    A major sore spot in fighting games for millennia has been the computer-controlled opponents. If you’ve never played a fighting game before and you want to know what all the hype is about, unless you have a friend who is already into it, you are going to end up playing against the computer.

    While computer opponents can offer some challenges, they essentially teach people playing single-player how to play the game wrong. A human opponent will not read every mixup you attempt. A human opponent will not automatically DP every normal move you throw out. Likewise, a human opponent will not stand there and get hit in the face with fireballs. A human opponent will not jump at you just because you’re doing crouching shorts.

    Improving AI opponents is the most obvious way to let players who just want to jump right in get exposure to basic strategy. If they can at least ape the actions they see the computer doing, then they can go online with at least some confidence in what they’re doing.

    Another idea I had was “training games.” We all know and love the bonus stages in Street Fighter, and mini-games are always a hit. What if instead of just trials where you do an unnecessarily difficult combo that is totally impractical in real life and teaches you nothing, you could play a mini-game specific to the character you want that helps teach you the range, timing, and spacing of their moves? Kind of like the barrel stage, only more elaborate.

  • Anonymous

    I like the general idea, but not the execution.

    A major sore spot in fighting games for millennia has been the computer-controlled opponents. If you’ve never played a fighting game before and you want to know what all the hype is about, unless you have a friend who is already into it, you are going to end up playing against the computer.

    While computer opponents can offer some challenges, they essentially teach people playing single-player how to play the game wrong. A human opponent will not read every mixup you attempt. A human opponent will not automatically DP every normal move you throw out. Likewise, a human opponent will not stand there and get hit in the face with fireballs. A human opponent will not jump at you just because you’re doing crouching shorts.

    Improving AI opponents is the most obvious way to let players who just want to jump right in get exposure to basic strategy. If they can at least ape the actions they see the computer doing, then they can go online with at least some confidence in what they’re doing.

    Another idea I had was “training games.” We all know and love the bonus stages in Street Fighter, and mini-games are always a hit. What if instead of just trials where you do an unnecessarily difficult combo that is totally impractical in real life and teaches you nothing, you could play a mini-game specific to the character you want that helps teach you the range, timing, and spacing of their moves? Kind of like the barrel stage, only more elaborate.

  • Anonymous

    Easy task, when making fighting game forget about:
    -practice mode
    -customizations
    -extra modes such as time trial, survival, etc.
    -achievements
    -everything else which isn’t related with competetive gameplay
    -simpler fight system
    You maybe ask why forget about practice mode? To make game more fun and harder – so you will learn the game during fight against human, not a training dummy. Look at korea/japan arcades. Do they have enabled practice mode on cabs? Hmm….
    During era of Mortal Kombat 2-3 and Street Fighter 2 games were just fun.

    • http://profiles.google.com/mpureka Mike Pureka

      I really shouldn’t have to point out that it’s actually impossible to remove practice mode from a fighting game;  If someone wants to practice, all they have to do is go into versus mode without an opponent.

      Also, if  you think lack of extra modes was why fighting games used to be fun, you might need to think harder.

    • http://profiles.google.com/mpureka Mike Pureka

      I really shouldn’t have to point out that it’s actually impossible to remove practice mode from a fighting game;  If someone wants to practice, all they have to do is go into versus mode without an opponent.

      Also, if  you think lack of extra modes was why fighting games used to be fun, you might need to think harder.

    • http://profiles.google.com/mpureka Mike Pureka

      I really shouldn’t have to point out that it’s actually impossible to remove practice mode from a fighting game;  If someone wants to practice, all they have to do is go into versus mode without an opponent.

      Also, if  you think lack of extra modes was why fighting games used to be fun, you might need to think harder.

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