Fighting games not impressive anymore...

Butta

Regular
I wonder if I will ever be amazed by a fighter the way I was playing Soul Caliber on the DreamCast. It seems to me that fighting games have lost their luster since and offer very little to impress me the way Soul Caliber did back in the day. When SC was released on DC it was a massive upgrade over the version available in the arcade. Even looking at VF5 for PS3, I can't help be feel underwhelmed by the overall presentation and gameplay.

Soul Caliber was probably the last perfect fighter ever released on a console and still manages to impress today!

This genre needs to be reinvented!!!
 
VF5 wasnt developed from ground up for PS3 hardware, I'd wait until a couple more come out before calling it game over on fighting games. We still havent seen what the "real" tekken 6 will look like, or the next gen soul caliburs.
 
In term of being impressive that had to go to VF3 on Model 3 for its time. It was so far ahead of everyone for years to come. Unlike VF4 and VF5 which nothing special.
 
Yep that too. But I think they could make a difference by making a few drastic changes that go beyond just static detail. Its the same games under a different skin for a decade. Its getting "tiredsome"
 
Personally I think Street Fighter 2 was the last 'perfect' beat em up. Once characters started getting too many moves, button bashing became a perfectly valid method of winning 2 player bouts.
 
Personally I think Street Fighter 2 was the last 'perfect' beat em up. Once characters started getting too many moves, button bashing became a perfectly valid method of winning 2 player bouts.

Is there any game in particular you think this method is valid, or do you think it applies for all fighting games?
 
I think fighting games need to make a next step. One great step they can make is physics. Looking forward to it.
 
I think fighting games need to make a next step. One great step they can make is physics. Looking forward to it.

I respectfully disagree. Right now fighting games are highly fine-tuned clockwork machines, where knowing every frame of animation gives you advantages. It's really a easy to learn, hard to master system. As soon as you add physics to the mix, the whole scenario gets decidedly more "non-deterministic", and button-mashing becomes much more powerful...
Anyway, that discussion came up a couple of months ago regarding Super Smash Brothers I believe... Maybe you can find the thread.
 
I respectfully disagree. Right now fighting games are highly fine-tuned clockwork machines, where knowing every frame of animation gives you advantages. It's really a easy to learn, hard to master system.
I think to be impressive again, open physics based combat is needed. As long as fighters still use canned animation sequences, even if it makes for a better fighter game, they won't have any 'Wow factor'. Looking at VF5 vids, they look the same to all the existing fighters but with tarted up graphics. And even those aren't too hot, because for example the cloth dynamics are canned and unrealistic. Perhaps better dynamic tweening between different sets of motions could be implemented somehow, but I doubt it given the requirements of the fighting engine.
 
I respectfully disagree. Right now fighting games are highly fine-tuned clockwork machines, where knowing every frame of animation gives you advantages. It's really a easy to learn, hard to master system. As soon as you add physics to the mix, the whole scenario gets decidedly more "non-deterministic", and button-mashing becomes much more powerful...

Sure, I'm not saying VF5 is going to go away. But it's a closed system. In itself, it has reached its limits. To move forward, a next step is needed. And physics based doesn't mean worse, automatically, or people would never have moved from SF2 to VF5, etc.

Anyway, that discussion came up a couple of months ago regarding Super Smash Brothers I believe... Maybe you can find the thread.

I was in that thread, or at least a recent fighting game thread. ;)
 
I respectfully disagree. Right now fighting games are highly fine-tuned clockwork machines, where knowing every frame of animation gives you advantages. It's really a easy to learn, hard to master system. As soon as you add physics to the mix, the whole scenario gets decidedly more "non-deterministic", and button-mashing becomes much more powerful...
Anyway, that discussion came up a couple of months ago regarding Super Smash Brothers I believe... Maybe you can find the thread.

Exactly. These are games of skill, timing, and strategy.
 
Sure, I'm not saying VF5 is going to go away. But it's a closed system. In itself, it has reached its limits. To move forward, a next step is needed. And physics based doesn't mean worse, automatically, or people would never have moved from SF2 to VF5, etc.

What does Street Fighter 2 have to do with crappy physics middleware?
 
Additional physics particularly useful for clothing and environmental interactions (water, fire, wood).

Beyond that applying physics to fighting models would remove the skill and playability that make them fun.
 
Exactly. These are games of skill, timing, and strategy.
But so are physics based fighters (ie. real life combat!). There's an assumption that something different can't be good, without anything different of that sort ever having been produced. The fact that a future fighter might play very differently can't be assumed to mean it'll be no fun, in the same way BG: DA is different from Diablo II as an action RPG, so is no fun. Or the same way GT2 played very differently from Outrun, so can't be any fun as a racer. I dare say something where you have to consider shifting weight and player balance, tied in with sixaxis motion control, could be very engaging and prevent button-mashers from ever doing well.
 
I dare say something where you have to consider shifting weight and player balance, tied in with sixaxis motion control, could be very engaging and prevent button-mashers from ever doing well.

Well, let me first ask if you have any real experience with fighters on at least a semi-competitive level? If not, then we shouldn't even be having this conversation. So, fighters like Tekken and VF both factor player weight into float and stun effects. Tekken, I believe, has various weight classes, while in VF each character has a different weight. Few, if any, serious players would ever consider using a gamepad like the SIXAXIS, so the argument there is simply bogus.

It looks to me like you're trying to solve a problem that does not really exist.
 
Well, let me first ask if you have any real experience with fighters on at least a semi-competitive level? If not, then we shouldn't even be having this conversation. So, fighters like Tekken and VF both factor player weight into float and stun effects. Tekken, I believe, has various weight classes, while in VF each character has a different weight. Few, if any, serious players would ever consider using a gamepad like the SIXAXIS, so the argument there is simply bogus.
I'm somewhat shocked at this response. It strikes me as totally lacking vision, and coming from the elitest hardcore fighter fan rather than general gamer. Not everyone is a semi-professional or serious player. Why would you refuse them the right to offer opinions on what they would like to see in a fighting game?

Now if you'll excuse my lack of professional status, I exercise my privalege to express ideas as to what would be a fun game for people to play. We're talking about a different class of fighter game that works on different principles, so can't be compared to existing fighter games. The logic some have expressed here is 'These games are good; that game is different; therefore that game is bad' and it's bogus! That logic would see FFXII and Rogue Galaxy with turn based combat, just because existing fans of RPGs are used to turn-based combat and won't try anything different!

Open physics gameplay could add lots of small detail like dodging, feigning, overbalancing, which is adaptable and fluid, and is evident to even beginner players. It would also put button mashes at a disadvantage. That might not be something the elitest experts appreciate, but in these games played by gamers for fun against their buddies, you get characters where a player just mashes buttons and wins 8 times out of 10 with no skill at all. A physics combat game could get round that very effectively, and be more intuitive to play, and allow for more creative combat, than the current canned animation methods. The result will be different, better in some respects and worse in others. Elitest hardcore fighters will probably complain like stink at how a company creating such a game isn't pandering to their arrogant demands, but the result is certainly something that would satify the OP's desire for a leap in fighters that can amaze once again.
It looks to me like you're trying to solve a problem that does not really exist.
The problem is that new fighting games aren't doing anything to amaze, as per the original post (did you even read that post?), being the same game each time with improved graphics. The existing gameplay mechanics ties them to the same canned animation systems, and the genre has stalled. Hence the original posters point that the genre needs to be reinvented. Now if you want to argue your case, explain what VF5 has done to amaze us all. And in case you don't appreciate this, changing the timing from a 1,2,AB+4 Double Yoghurt Punch to be 3 and 2 frames instead of 3 and 3 frames, no matter how much that might thrill the competition scene, isn't likely to amaze the masses, which is what this thread is about. How do us casuals get amazed, and attracted into buying fighting games, where at the moment we see Fighter n where n is getting ever larger and think to ourselves 'same thing I played in Fighter 3 so why should I buy the same basic game again?'
 
I see and agree with both sides of this argument. The traditional fighting game needs to stick around, but the genre needs to grow as well. Look towards Def Jam, Power Stone or Virtual On... prototypes for the future of fighting games.
 
Open physics gameplay could add lots of small detail like dodging, feigning, overbalancing, which is adaptable and fluid, and is evident to even beginner players. It would also put button mashes at a disadvantage. That might not be something the elitest experts appreciate, but in these games played by gamers for fun against their buddies, you get characters where a player just mashes buttons and wins 8 times out of 10 with no skill at all. A physics combat game could get round that very effectively, and be more intuitive to play, and allow for more creative combat, than the current canned animation methods.

Do you have any real examples of how changing the physics model will improve gameplay? Dodging and feigning are already implemented in VF and have nothing to do with the physics model you are using. Have you ever worked with Havok or Novodex? Have you ever used the SIXAXIS controller? I assume that by writing the above post, the answer to both questions is 'No'.
 
I see and agree with both sides of this argument. The traditional fighting game needs to stick around, but the genre needs to grow as well. Look towards Def Jam, Power Stone or Virtual On... prototypes for the future of fighting games.

I agree, I think there are other franchises out there that will appeal to the novice player who's mostly interested in beating his friend up -- Super Smash Bros. or Power Stone come to mind. There are also games like MK or Tao Feng (???, the Xbox fighter) that may prove interesting to such an audience.
 
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