After playing some Forza, I started thinking about the overall structure of the game and realized that I’d really like to see a fighting game that instituted a racing game-style “game tax.” I really like the way most racing games ease you into the experience by starting you off in the amateur leagues with a basic (but relatively easy to drive) car, and then let you develop your capabilities by winning/buying new vehicles and upgrades. I know some folks don’t like this sort of thing, but I really do. It adds an element of hard-earned progress that can really make the whole solo game worthwhile.
I think fighting games could benefit from that sort of structure, because while I really enjoy a good fighting game, they seem to be mostly geared towards multiplayer matches. The solo game in most fighter is usually just a lame ladder tournament bundled with a lame backstory for each character. As a result, I don’t buy many fighting games.
What I’d love to see would be a fighting game with RPG-style character advancement. Maybe give you a character with very limited moves and let you win/develop more by fighting in tournaments. You could have a whole skill tree of prerequisites and style groups, and then each player could develop their own corral of skills to best suit their play style.
It would also be a great training aid; instead of facing the immense learning curve of playing a character that starts with dozens of different (and often complicated) moves, you ease into them one at a time.
You’d almost have to market it not as a fighting game, because the hardcore fighting crowd that keeps most current fighting games viable would be so alienated by that, at least initially. It does seem like a cool idea though.
This would be really facinating, espically if you could bind your moves as you learn them. ie- I spent 10 “Experience Points” for “Fireball” then bind it to QCF + Punch or whatever rather then the current system in Fighting games where a moves strength is supposed to be balanced out by the complexity of it’s execution (which doesn’t work; SF II Dragon Punch is an example of something that once learned completly overpowered Ryu and Ken)
It would definitly be fun to learn styles and whatnot as you go along, making your own hodge-podge karate rather then the developer made hodge-podges. The main barrier I could see is how do you elegantly do combos short of making the player purchase pre-set combos rather then a more organic system where the player chains the moves together naturally.
Your idea about RPG-style character advancement is a good one (though it has been done somewhat before, in the import only Tobal 2 and that only in the Quest mode). It would have to be tweaked though so that the completely unlocked characters are available from the start too, because then competition would suffer and the game wouldn’t have a long shelf life to begin with. You would also have to make sure that there’s a separate only for this type of development to take advantage of the fact that when pitting two characters together their movesets won’t be balanced to take advantage of the whole fighting system equally. So it would be a challenge, but it could be done. It is being attempted on a smaller level with Soul Calibur III.
However, I must reject your paragraph above. Most fighters today have very elaborate and strong 1-player modes. Soul Calibur’s Quest modes are huge and very fun to play with multiple characters, especially since there’s lots of extra, non-required things you can do and save to buy money and new weapons and costumes and such.
VF4 is actually so far the closest of all released games to doing what you ask for. The training mode teaches you every basic facet of the game in excruciating detail. As long as you take a lot of time to practice in it and then try out in the kumite mode, you’ll progress in ranks. As you do, you’ll unlock things to customize your character with. By working on different types of training and then fighting in kumite, you do basically what you’ve asked for but it isn’t structured like an RPG. Also, you can train an AI character and customize their moveset though you can’t play one. In any event, its a lot stronger than the basic arcade mode. Especially since VF4’s AI is superb, being taken from dozens upon dozens of real players.
Guilty Gear Isuka allows you to program one character by taking him out on beat em up style missions and then customizing him with what you earn as well.
Guilty Gear, Tekken, Soul Calibur and VF are all excellent in singleplayer as well these days, and all of them are heading toward what you describe.
What I’d like to see it structured like is an up and coming student getting trained by a master. Of course you can’t have the student mix and match from different styles, he or she must select things from their own school, which would be a good limitation, but you gradually learn how to do each move and fit it in the wider context of the fighting system while fighting your way up the ladder. There could even be random mini-games to improve stats and random street fights that appear due to random event scenes around the city you’re based. You could even have diet factor in.
I don’t imagine it will take long for a fighter like that to appear though. Tobal 2 already did quite a lot of what I described above anyway, it was just set in a more typical quest mode.
the current system in Fighting games where a moves strength is supposed to be balanced out by the complexity of it’s execution (which doesn’t work; SF II Dragon Punch is an example of something that once learned completly overpowered Ryu and Ken)
Errr, that’s not how it works. Special moves are that way because they tend to be more versatile in use than regular moves, not because they are stronger. The developers know very well that several of their regular moves will be stronger. Its all for variety. And really only some VF moves are structured by how hard it is execute them. And its really the only game that even touches that idea.
Tekken 3 and 5 (never played Tag Team) both had some characters who could do combos that, once learned, were essently instant victory if you could start it. King, Nina, and the guy who had demon blood (can’t recall off hand) all had string combos that did over 100% and were unstoppable once the first move connected. Hwarangs was stoppable, but only at one very specific point.
Mortal Kombat 3 and 4, which not exactly the pinnacle of fighting games, also had issues with the ability to do roughly 50%-60% of your opponents life in damage if you managed to start a string with a single move.
Really, in a ton of games route memorization of complicated button sequences leads directly to a strictly stringer character not because of any tangable skill in reacting to your opponent but simply because the attacks seem to be balanced out by their complexity, a hurdle that once overcome breaks the system.
Tekken’s moves were also exceptions, in that they were near fatals. Also keep in mind, those moves were easier than normal to evade as well. Guilty Gear did the same thing. Small examples do not make the norm, nor is it true that the more complex movement set was the only thing that separated those moves from other potentially useful ones, as the build up and delay in Tekken were obvious downsides. Especially Guilty Gear, where the input is easy. Rival Schools and Power Stone are two more examples of games with super powerful moves tied to very simple inputs.
And Mortal Kombat is never a good example of anything but blazing incompetence.
I keep telling people about King of Fighters R2 for the Neo Geo Pocket which let you do pretty much this with a custom character. I’d love to see more games like that, although it would have to be an additional mode. For instance, if GGXX#RS is the usual refinement of the series PLUS (!) a mode like what you described, well that would be awesome.
the current system in Fighting games where a moves strength is supposed to be balanced out by the complexity of it’s execution (which doesn’t work; SF II Dragon Punch is an example of something that once learned completly overpowered Ryu and Ken)
But yeah, if you think that, you don’t understand fighting games at all.
Tekken 3 and 5 (never played Tag Team) both had some characters who could do combos that, once learned, were essently instant victory if you could start it. King, Nina, and the guy who had demon blood (can’t recall off hand) all had string combos that did over 100% and were unstoppable once the first move connected. Hwarangs was stoppable, but only at one very specific point.
Mortal Kombat 3 and 4, which not exactly the pinnacle of fighting games, also had issues with the ability to do roughly 50%-60% of your opponents life in damage if you managed to start a string with a single move.
Really, in a ton of games route memorization of complicated button sequences leads directly to a strictly stringer character not because of any tangable skill in reacting to your opponent but simply because the attacks seem to be balanced out by their complexity, a hurdle that once overcome breaks the system.
Chris Woods[/quote]
Tekken isn’t the pinnacle of fighting games any more than MK is. Tekken is a game that does what you describe, and I know exactly those combos you mean. But those are far from the norm. Play Guilty Gear.
In other words, you’re looking for a River City Ransom equivalent except mixing fighting games and RPG elements (as opposed to the side-scrolling beat 'em up and RPG elements). I’m not sure who might be able to do justice to such a concept, but it’s intriguing enough that I wouldn’t reject it out of hand.
I think the outline from the thread starter would be best employed in a “serious” title – something rather like Budokan and good old Karate Champ, as opposed to the supernatural thrills and spills of Capcom and Namco’s offerings.
Start on the streets, learn moves at clubs, gain experience in tournaments: and have plenty of exclusive paths or limiting factors. For example, a biological clock to ensure you can never master more than one art or two by the time you’re 50 and too damn old to carry on.
Like GT has manufaturers, such a game has disciplines. One the one hand, it could be a nice history lesson and a chance to accurately portray real martial arts, as far as such things are possible in games and stuff.
This is definitely something I’d be into. I originally had hoped that Shenmue would be like this. The series does contain a tiny drop of this concept in it, but it’s not nearly as robust as it could have been.
This could also have been the central concept for Virtua Quest, if Sega hadn’t lost their goddamned minds in the last few years. VF4:Evo really is the closest thing to this I can think of. The move customization isn’t there, but you can at least personalize your character and earn the right to compete in more advanced tournaments/arcades in the Quest Mode. The customization really does seem to add something. When I played (and by “played” I mean “got my ass handed to me in mere seconds”) VF4:Final Tuned in Tokyo arcades, the longtime players’ character were almost unrecognizable under all the custom items. One guy who beat me into the ground using Kage was only recognizable as Kage because of his moves. Otherwise, I never would have known.
It seems a natural evolution for the VF series to do something like Ben’s idea in VF5. If VF5 is indeed for the Xbox 360 as rumor has it, that means online play, which opens up a whole new aspect in the form of item and ability trading.
The closest thing I can think of is Def Jam Fight for NY. Big story mode, unlockable moves, different fighting styles that you can customize to your fighter. And you can build up your fighter’s stats.
Dude, is that game 3D? I can easily see a create-a-fighter feature working for a 3D game, but for 2D?! That would require an insanely dedicated art staff. You’d have to draw sprites for each character being able to do each move in the game. Then draw a new set of sprites if I want to change my character’s hair from blonde to brunette. A new set if I want them to wear a hat.
Or is the create-a-fighter mode even remotely as robust as what you see in the WWE Smackdown games? I guess that’s a more important question. Those games have made me wish that every other game ever made attempted to include a customization mode that was even 1/10th as good. Particularly fighting games, for which this kind of feature seems like an obviously great idea.
On the subject of RPG stuff, I will say that I’m not a fan of the idea of a game making me start off with a crappy character who has to be built up in some kind of story mode. VF4:EVO doesn’t make you do that, nor does it have to, because the fundamental game has so much depth that you will inevitably start off poorly, but continually improve with your character as you use them. The RPG system doesn’t involve you levelling up and putting a skill point in Dragon Punch - it involves you the player getting better at the game. I’d argue that this holds true for Guilty Gear X2 and Soul Calibur 2 as well (haven’t played enough Tekken 5 to really tell there).
I’m not totally opposed to the idea in singleplayer mode, I guess. But games like DJ:FFNY and the last two Smackdown games, where you have to play singleplayer mode a long time to earn enough experience to give your created fighters halfway-competitive stats, have all left me wishing that they would let me create whatever the hell I want for offline multiplayer purposes, and only force me to build up if I want to try singleplayer or online. I’ll admit that part of the reason I say this is because the braindead AI that drags down all wrestling games. It’s not “fun” (yeah, I SAID IT) because you might as well just sit there staring at the screen for five hours in order to earn your experience. That’s every bit as challenging as taking on Smackdown’s AI (Def Jam’s is a little better but not much). Most fighting games have at least competent AI, and VF4’s is actually fantastic, so that would probably help alleviate that tedium a lot.
I always imagined starting with an accomplished but bland street brawler, and the progression is a matter of defining and refining.
Basically, you start with Paul, and refine him into Law/Steve/Hwoarang and so on. This is also in keeping with my love of the notion of “zero sum” chracter deveopment.
you’ve never played Soul Caliber or Tekken? those are two of the most popular fighting games of all time and they have many of the basic properties he described.
It woudlnt be a “big leap” at all, im kinda surprised at the existence of this thread, since racing games and fighting games are related in excactly the manner he described.
Take Soul Caliber II for instance, it wasnt quite an RPG the way you described but it did have unlockable gameplay elements, like weapons that had different advantages and disadvantages and were more “advanced” (in terms of tactics) as opposed too the starting one
Its a good idea, and its not a large change from most modern fighters at all.
Whats a “game tax”? I dont even know what it is and it sounds like a good idea lol.
Here’s my definition of a “game tax”: when a game forces me to play a crappy singleplayer mode in order to unlock totally ordinary mundane nothing-special everyday average crap for use in multiplayer mode.
Which, I might add, is idiotic.
This isn’t to argue against all unlockables. Most games with a single-player-only focus tend to do a good job with them. Beat Devil May Cry 1 on the ridiculously tough hardest setting, and you’ll get to use an alternate character that is insanely overpowered but very fun to use. Beat Silent Hill 3, and on future playthroughs you can find goofy and/or overpowered weapons like lightsabers and machine guns with unlimited ammo. That stuff is great.
But why does Burnout 3 force me to win a few races in the (awful, thanks to the poor AI) singleplayer mode before I can use something like a Volkswagen Rabbit in multiplayer?! Why does Mortal Kombat:Deception force you to play the awful “it’s like Zelda, but it has none of the elements that make Zelda fun” Konquest mode in order to unlock Liu Kang and Raiden?! Why does Soul Calibur 2 make me beat Seung Mina in the (admittedly fun) Weapon Master mode before I can use her in multiplayer? There is no reason why, at least no reason that makes any goddamn sense.
In short, my definition of “game tax” is “stupid bullshit”. But I’m sure other peoples’ definitions will vary, much like no one can agree with anyone else on exactly what “emergent gameplay” means. :)
Game tax is an admission that your game isn’t fun enough on it’s own merits.
Sones’ idea is great for single player, but nobody is going to make a single player only fighting game. And any thought at all to “multiplayer balance” and such ruins the idea’s core, which is that your dude doesn’t become balanced, he eventually becomes awesome. Playing against your friend is bonus feature, the goal of the game is improvement.
I like the idea of binding, and it would be cool if I could spend more points to bind it to a fewer-button-presses combination. So I could get the Widowmaker ubermove and bind it to QCF RP QCB LK RK for like 10 points, or for 50 bind it to U D RP.
