Hi, I'm [AAAAAAAAAA], and I fugging love this game.
I mean it. I grew up on martial arts flicks and I'd spent years trying to like fighting games that fail miserably at capturing the feel of a great fight scene. I'm madly in love with the way this game completely demolishes the last 25 years' worth of fighting game dev teams without even trying.
With that said, there are a few things that've been rubbing me the wrong way, and I don't mean the crashing. So without further ado, here's a huge fugging wall of text of me complaining, informed by my own fighting game experience.
There's little point in having such well-made AI and dodging/blocking mechanics if you have so little control over your own attacks. Automating attacks based on distance -- at least this low of one -- means you can't time them with your opponent's movement. This isn't a problem with weapons because they're quick and relatively consistent, but it gets glaring when you're unarmed and half of your moves are hilariously telegraphed roundhouses.
On the other hand, that leads to a whole other possible game flow. Dodging and active/passive guard open the possibility of quick/slow mindgames, and with that comes pressure -- successful mixups wear down your opponent's passive guard, eventually leading to an opening -- but also baiting and stuffing. When all you can really do is pray for the move you want to come out, though, all of that goes out the window, leaving you with two options: block and punish, or leg-cannon up a storm.
I've been over the 2009 design doc on the Wolfire blog and apparently, directional input has some influence on your moves. Expanding on that would be a must to keep the keys to a minimum. Right away, you could preserve the game's responsiveness by having roundhouses come out above a certain speed threshold. Another way still is having it depend on moving towards your opponent (e.g. Ryu's standing f.MP overhead).
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I've got some other things to say about the platforming. It's bloody great, for one. I saw David's presentation about having animation entirely driven by movement, and it certainly pays off.
With that said, from a balance point of view, rabbit jumps are...well, they're kind of silly. They're less Mario and more Saints Row, and there's no incentive to do any of the cool parkour moves if one jump gets you there faster. Eroded Plateau illustrates that nicely, with tons of cool nooks and crannies that never see any use if you're not actively trying to show off. If it were up to me, I'd consider experimenting with lower base jump height and lowering gravity when on a wall. This gives wall-running a mechanical purpose besides walljumping.
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And that's about the end of that. Also, bindable debug keys are always good. With Z ragdolling you, you can't use WASD (ZQSD) on an AZERTY keyboard.
Here's way too much text of me blabbering about gameplay
Here's way too much text of me blabbering about gameplay
Last edited by Captain-W on Fri Jul 17, 2015 11:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Here's way too much text of me blabbering about gameplay
A lot of people complain about the lack of control over which moves you do, but I actually really find myself always able to perform the attacks I want to do. Maybe it's just my extreme amount of experience in the game, I dunno.
And I do agree with being able to (bunny)hop everywhere and go faster that way. I hope you slow down massively if you keep trying to hop everywhere like you can now.
And I do agree with being able to (bunny)hop everywhere and go faster that way. I hope you slow down massively if you keep trying to hop everywhere like you can now.
Re: Here's way too much text of me blabbering about gameplay
I myself discovered that the lack of control is due to my own lack of experience and timing.
The attacks are mostly controllable by learning the time intervals that the game uses.
I honestly still have an hard time going for a hook over a straight punch, but I am pretty sure it's my own fault with positioning.
Going for a punch instead of a roundhouse is just a matter of releasing the movement key in time before pressing the attack button.
I asked for confirmation in the Q&A thread and the devs said that the input needed to perform a roundhouse is given by movement keys, not by the movement itself, so, if you have momentum, but are not pressing the movement keys, and attack you'll punch.
Keep up practicing and I'm sure you'll control Turner just as you want in most if not all situations
Excellent thing about this game: Easy to learn, hard to master.
The attacks are mostly controllable by learning the time intervals that the game uses.
I honestly still have an hard time going for a hook over a straight punch, but I am pretty sure it's my own fault with positioning.
Going for a punch instead of a roundhouse is just a matter of releasing the movement key in time before pressing the attack button.
I asked for confirmation in the Q&A thread and the devs said that the input needed to perform a roundhouse is given by movement keys, not by the movement itself, so, if you have momentum, but are not pressing the movement keys, and attack you'll punch.
Keep up practicing and I'm sure you'll control Turner just as you want in most if not all situations
Excellent thing about this game: Easy to learn, hard to master.
Re: Here's way too much text of me blabbering about gameplay
Also, the knee and jab are both super powerful attacks.
If the enemy is sweeping the knee'll absolutely rek them, and the jab will counter roundhouses more reliably then sweep (sweep might take a little bit too much time)
If the enemy is sweeping the knee'll absolutely rek them, and the jab will counter roundhouses more reliably then sweep (sweep might take a little bit too much time)