Why most fighting games suck, JABS OF DOOM Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Most fighting games (i.e. Street Fighter, Tekken, etc) suck because they all are fundamentally based on the premise that if somebody taps you it completely stops you from completing a physical movement on any scale. This was presumably established in the days of 2d sprite fighters to make a game balance difference between fast attacks and slow attacks and also to differentiate blocking from attacking.

However, it's also completely ridiculous. You don't have to be an amateur boxer to realize that if someone jabs their index and ring finger into your ribs that isn't necessarily going to make you unable to simultaneously bring your fist down on their face with a really big swinging motion. This kind of thing is exactly what you see in most fighting games, though. The finger strike stops the motion of the big hammerfist and the person getting poked staggers backwards in total dismay.

I feel tired of this paradigm that has been in place with these games for so many years. I think it's time that somebody think of a new paradigm, one that is more realistic. I feel like someone should try and make a game that realistically represents boxing, which is the simplest combative sport and thus would be easiest to model.

In real boxing, the jab isn't used to magically negate any other punch that may be in play. You could throw your jab and hit someone but at the same time get hit harder by them and thus be worse off than the other guy. The jab is a probe and a setup, basically, and also used to punish people with a sloppy guard. I'd like to see an engine that takes physics into account where a punch is only stopped if, in terms of physics, the pounds of force hitting the puncher is enough to actually throw him off balance. Otherwise he will get hit but it doesn't stop him from completing his punch.

I'd also like to see a game represent fatigue in a better way. In a lot of combative sports fatigue can be a decisive factor. A boxer in the ring may be nearly impossible to knock out when he's fresh and all his techniques are good but when he begins to get exhausted and distracted that is when he will actually be vulnerable to a one-hit knockout. There's a real balance between effective aggression and defeating yourself by exhausting yourself...just look at Muhammad Ali and his Rope A Dope strategy.

Most games have a "vitality bar". Even though the "vitality bar" concept is flawed and abstract I'll be that it could be made a lot more realistic is if it regenerated slowly while on the other hand every movement a character made and every hit the character absorbed (even if blocked) depleted that meter a little bit. The empty meter would represent the state of exhaustion which is most vulnerable to knockouts.

I think this would be much more interesting to play and provide more in depth gameplay than the now decades-old paradigm of fast hits versus slow hits versus blocking and that's all.

[Kagetenshi]

Pfaugh! You completely ignored throws and counters! Edumacate yourself!

~J

[hyzmarca]

I'm of the opinion that the best fighting game ever is Bushido Blade, because it didn't have lifebars. Since every character had an edged weapon, it either killed outright or so badly crippled that a finishing blow was almost a certainty, except that certain players who spent an absurd amount of time learning ground fighting and picked the right weapons could actually be more dangerous after you cut both of their hamstrings.

[Kagetenshi]

Bushido Blade was awesome, but it did get old how you could hack at someone for hours and so long as you were only hitting the same limb, they wouldn't ever become more damaged than that limb becoming useless.

It was also kinda neat how some of the characters with sufficiently damaging throwable weapons (might have just been Tatsumi and his short second sword) could throw it for an immediate kill at the start of the match provided the opponent didn't move quickly and was in the right stance for it to hit their torso or head.

Though you're not right about everyone having an edged weapon. The sledgehammer was an option.

~J

[Adarael]

The sledgehammer was THE option, as far as I'm concerned.

[Kagetenshi]

I was always more a fan of Mikado+naginata or Red Shadow+saber.

~J

[Adarael]

I'd have liked the naginata more if you could use it more like how a naginata ought to be used. I didn't like their mechanics for it all that much.

(I'm a big fan of the real thing, though.)

[Critias]

Man. Bushido Blade. I miss that game.

[Blade]

In real boxing you don't have power geysers or buster wolf, and you can't just 5m high to slash your opponent with your katana.

That's why real life boxing sucks.

Bushido Blade was indeed nice btw (and the second is far better than the first).

[Kagetenshi]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Fortune]

I like boxing 'cause bags are harder to stack.

[Lagomorph]

I think only certain parts of the boxing physics could be modeled and deserves to be.

Certain other areas Like the problem of trying to match damage to energy, so much more goes into how a bullet or fist damages than just the energy behind it. that means you can't really make a good basis for damage based on basic physics. But things like knockback and blow blocking I think would be well done with physics.

[Abbandon]

I think boxing sucks. It only represents about less than 1/3rd of a real fight. Mixed Martial Arts is where its at. There you have everything, boxing, kicking, grappling, knee's and elbows(depend on organization).

Sou Calibur 3 has a option for the bad guys to become invincable. They get health regen but they also never get interrupted. Now matter how you hit them they just keep coming at you with fll combos's. Its pretty frustrating to fight against guys like that. I like my interrupts hehehe.

I guess it does make it more realistic because I would try to parry the guys blows and knock him off balance that way and then open up on him without myself being interrupted.

I dont like that fact that you saymost fighting games suck though just because you want something different. No matter what fighing game your playing everyone has to play by the same rules. Adjust to the mechanics present in each fighter game or be butt raped.

I'd like a fighter that has a super complex yet easy counter system. I want to see fights go: throw punch/kick - counter - counter - counter - counter - counter - oops i screwed up *smack you get hit*. Maybe the game would launch into slowmo whenever someone launched an attack and ould stay in slowmo until somebody screws up and then it would get replayed at full speed. That would be sweet atleast to me hehe. Its not realistic but i dont play games for realism.

I cant wait to see actual footage of street fighter 4. Sould Calibur 4 looks freaking amazing, the graphics are insane. My fav fighters are Soul Calibur > DBZ BT > Mortal Kombat.

[Kagetenshi]

Mixed martial arts suck pretty badly too—they usually ban an assortment of moves with great practical value, like eye gouges and finger/toe locks. Where it's at is finding people in real life and fighting them to the death, though you have a harder time ensuring a high quality of opposition.

~J

[Wounded Ronin]

Abbandon, you are falsely concluding that the only value to a combative sport is how realistic it is. However, there's no particular reason why that would have anything to do with how much fun the sport is to play.

That would be like saying that Rugby is a better came than Soccer because Rugby is a more realistic simulation of trying to take a ball away from someone in real life.

Kage: Eye gouges and other "t3h d34dly" stuff are the icing on the cake. The skills employed in a MMA match, however, can be seen as the engine or the delivery system. The fundamentals, if you will. The eye gouge isn't the fundamental. The fundamental is the ability to apply the eye gouge (or the punch) on a fully resisting opponent.

[Abbandon]

Im lost. All I said was that i like MMA better than boxing because its more realistic. I didnt say anything about which is better to play in a video game.

[Blade]

Abbandon, did you try Last Blade (1 or 2) on Neo Geo ?
There was an easy yet very tactical counter system because you just had one "counter" button. If the opponent was hitting you when you pressed that button, you'd counter immediately. But if he wasn't you'd be vulnerable after doing your counter move and he'd be able to hit you.

When fighting against masters of the counter system, it led to very intense fights.

[Abbandon]

Nope never played neogeo. Wrestling on N64 let you counter counters and also on the n64 there was a game called like Flying Dragons or something and that was super wicked and had counter system built in. When you countered one guy a time limit bar popped up to give the other guy a chance to counter and then you could counter his counter. Wish I had played those Last Blade games they sound fun.

[Aku]

i thought fighting games sucked for the lack of photo realistic babes and strip moves... :D

[Wounded Ronin]

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/hentai-gam...raper-hyper.php

There you go, Aku. HYPER REAL ACTION!!!!

[Mercer]

What I've never been able to figure out is why wrestling games have the same lifebars and damaging moves as every other fighting game. Shouldn't they have Heat-O-Meters where you can't pin your opponent until you've driven the crowd sufficiently crazy, and shouldn't you get bonus points for sticking as close as possible to the match scripts?

I liked Bushido Blade, but as a rule I never cared much for fighting games. Except Virtua-Fighter. I always liked Virtua-Fighter and I always played Wolf. Awooooooooooooooooo!!!

[Simon May]