GLoRToR
Positive Poster!
Hey.
This time I'm not bringing hype and not being sarcastic.
Heck, I'm not even looking to get a rise out of anybody.
I simply want to show you guys, the community, and everybody interested something that might, or might not help us better understand the workings of fighting games.
This is something I've been interested in so I went around and asked a few people versed in game design (ie, professional game designers, coders, brainstormers and the like) who have been there at the birth of countless games, what they think balance would mean in a fighting game.
This is an excerpt Game Design Document v1.03 for a planned game's mechanics and concepts.
In blue text, I'll be making remarks explanatory of the meaning and idea behind what you read.
In orange text, there are the professional opinions.
1. The Set: Game Assessment and comparison
In every case one must define the goal of the game whether it is to kick the ball past the line, or beat the opponent.
The goal of a fighting game is that two sides compete using attack buttons and movement buttons. The side whose Health Bar reaches zero points, loses.
Fighting games have the strong point of availability and accessability. This means that anybody can just hop in and mash buttons, they are easy to adhere to and simple to grab a hold of without needing to read a vast manual of information - given that both players just stopped by at an arcade cabinet and neither of them are versed in the game.
Fighting games also have the strong point of depth. Past the button mashing, fundamentals and technical terms enrich the environment and allow for greater immersion - this is when the guy on the left who has spent more time understanding the game, will beat the guy on the right who is just pressing buttons.
Fighting games have the weak point of match-ups and tier lists. While in games where you just grab a gun to shoot at one another, everybody has the same hp and guns do "Gun amounts" of damage; In fighting games different skillsets (Character) have different abilities from Normal Attacks which respond to a single button, (AttackTypeNormal) and Special Attacks which respond to button combinations (AttackTypeSpecial).
These two attack types have various properties, such as:
- Damage (AttackDamage) which defines how much of the Health Bar it reduces.
- Range (AttackRange) which defines how far it reaches.
- Speed (AttackFrames) which defines how much time passes between pressing the button and the attack being performed, between the move hitting and the character recovering, and other aspects later to be found in the document. (See Frame Data Discussion)
and various special optional properties such as
- invincibility (AttackInterruptable) which means if a faster move collides with the object, whether it continue its course, deal damage to said object, or be interrupted, perhaps even take damage.
A projectile such as Hadoken in Street Fighter is to be considered a single information which has, say 10hp, each. These projectiles may or may not collide to snuff each other out, or deal its hp's worth in damage. A character's normal attack such as a kick, may be interruptable (MK9 frame advantage on stuff like Cage's f3 beating anything you do) or may collide and both sides may suffer damage.
In order to avoid ending up with Absolutes [ Moves that have no counter (MK9 Kung Lao's Spin pre-patch to some degree) ] collision, vulnerability and speed all should be considered on the development level. If a move is unstoppable, it should take extra damage OR be very vulnerable once the attack misses. ("Whiff Punishability") (Jade's Glow, Jade's f21, Ninja teleports in MK9)
Creating objects, special abilities which are Absolute are a good way to ensure certain tools in the game from being destroyed before they fill their purpose. (Cyrax's grenade, Jade's Staff, Kabal's ground Saw, Kenshi's Spirit) However, over- or misusing the mechanics of absolutes can lead to bad game consistency and bad game balance.
Thus the following criteria are of high priority to define when creating a fighting game engine:
- Hit priority: two objects meeting, which one is superior, beating the other one? If they are equal in priority, what happens? Do they both take damage? Do they bypass one another?
- Vulnerability: what happens when a hit is landed? Does it knock down, does it incapacitate etc.
I'll continue when I get back if I see interest. If not, just get a mod to delete it or whatever.
Cheers.
This time I'm not bringing hype and not being sarcastic.
Heck, I'm not even looking to get a rise out of anybody.
I simply want to show you guys, the community, and everybody interested something that might, or might not help us better understand the workings of fighting games.
This is something I've been interested in so I went around and asked a few people versed in game design (ie, professional game designers, coders, brainstormers and the like) who have been there at the birth of countless games, what they think balance would mean in a fighting game.
This is an excerpt Game Design Document v1.03 for a planned game's mechanics and concepts.
In blue text, I'll be making remarks explanatory of the meaning and idea behind what you read.
In orange text, there are the professional opinions.
1. The Set: Game Assessment and comparison
In every case one must define the goal of the game whether it is to kick the ball past the line, or beat the opponent.
The goal of a fighting game is that two sides compete using attack buttons and movement buttons. The side whose Health Bar reaches zero points, loses.
Fighting games have the strong point of availability and accessability. This means that anybody can just hop in and mash buttons, they are easy to adhere to and simple to grab a hold of without needing to read a vast manual of information - given that both players just stopped by at an arcade cabinet and neither of them are versed in the game.
Fighting games also have the strong point of depth. Past the button mashing, fundamentals and technical terms enrich the environment and allow for greater immersion - this is when the guy on the left who has spent more time understanding the game, will beat the guy on the right who is just pressing buttons.
Fighting games have the weak point of match-ups and tier lists. While in games where you just grab a gun to shoot at one another, everybody has the same hp and guns do "Gun amounts" of damage; In fighting games different skillsets (Character) have different abilities from Normal Attacks which respond to a single button, (AttackTypeNormal) and Special Attacks which respond to button combinations (AttackTypeSpecial).
These two attack types have various properties, such as:
- Damage (AttackDamage) which defines how much of the Health Bar it reduces.
- Range (AttackRange) which defines how far it reaches.
- Speed (AttackFrames) which defines how much time passes between pressing the button and the attack being performed, between the move hitting and the character recovering, and other aspects later to be found in the document. (See Frame Data Discussion)
and various special optional properties such as
- invincibility (AttackInterruptable) which means if a faster move collides with the object, whether it continue its course, deal damage to said object, or be interrupted, perhaps even take damage.
A projectile such as Hadoken in Street Fighter is to be considered a single information which has, say 10hp, each. These projectiles may or may not collide to snuff each other out, or deal its hp's worth in damage. A character's normal attack such as a kick, may be interruptable (MK9 frame advantage on stuff like Cage's f3 beating anything you do) or may collide and both sides may suffer damage.
In order to avoid ending up with Absolutes [ Moves that have no counter (MK9 Kung Lao's Spin pre-patch to some degree) ] collision, vulnerability and speed all should be considered on the development level. If a move is unstoppable, it should take extra damage OR be very vulnerable once the attack misses. ("Whiff Punishability") (Jade's Glow, Jade's f21, Ninja teleports in MK9)
Creating objects, special abilities which are Absolute are a good way to ensure certain tools in the game from being destroyed before they fill their purpose. (Cyrax's grenade, Jade's Staff, Kabal's ground Saw, Kenshi's Spirit) However, over- or misusing the mechanics of absolutes can lead to bad game consistency and bad game balance.
Thus the following criteria are of high priority to define when creating a fighting game engine:
- Hit priority: two objects meeting, which one is superior, beating the other one? If they are equal in priority, what happens? Do they both take damage? Do they bypass one another?
- Vulnerability: what happens when a hit is landed? Does it knock down, does it incapacitate etc.
I'll continue when I get back if I see interest. If not, just get a mod to delete it or whatever.
Cheers.
