Being the butterfingers I am I actually often find the more restrictive combo systems more difficult to engage with. Granblue's combo system is pretty simple but I also got the impression that it was far more mandatory than other games to do near optimal combos more frequently. In Granblue more than any other fighting game I felt like I was at a massive disadvantage because I was dropping more optimal damage. A small thing missing would often mean losing 50% or more of my potential damage constantly whereas in games with more freeform systems I could go for suboptimal stuff that still approached what "proper damage" would look like and I could still compete with more technical opponents as long as I outplay them enough. In Granblue it felt far more like my being bad at the controls was frequently the deciding factor in a match.
For better or worse BBTAG was actually my first ever fighting game and the combos were definitely what kept me playing. The first thing I did when I got it was try to get a 10,000 damage combo on all of the teams I chose (yea ik it's not much but I was a complete beginner). Took me hours and even though they were terrible I found it so satisfying. I'll always have a special place for ridiculously stupid yet cool looking combos, but the reality is nowadays I've been playing way more GBVSR because the 2 player element and strategy that comes with it is so satisfying to me now. It almost reminds me of for honor, as silly as it sounds, but the reasons I used to love that game are the same reasons I like granblue now. Ty for the video, was a great watch
I feel modern fighting games could develop into more complicated direction again if given some time. Like I think character specific combos could make a comeback if managed correctly, they do add some layers to mastery of the game and I feel big part of games you can "learn something new forever" are like that due to character specific combos. Just make sure that those regular hits you are expecting to get all the time are universal, and let character specificity fly with those weird hits you get like once every hundred match.
I have always garnered mixed feelings towards games where the combo game is so crazy that certain hits can just result in TODs if you know your way around - yeah, those often take effort and skill to pull off, but I'm a huge appreciator of interacting with my opponent on both ends. That being said, I feel like its possible to skew things too much in one direction where your options can feel kinda same-y because of how you're railroaded into certain routes. I feel like there's a happy middle-ground where there is enough room for combo expression and mastering the game while not being rewarded so much that more of the game becomes about the combo than the aspects of neutral and mindgames and strategy. And while there is an argument to be made that emphasis on combos being lost stems from balance, I do wonder if its not one of the things that ends up sacrificed in the name of accessibility sometimes. Accessibility is great! Don't get me wrong, I'd rather more people be able to enjoy fighting games than less but the drive to improve and squeeze those extra optimizations of damage, safety or plain old coolness gives people huge reasons to stick with games and feel *tangible progress* as it were.
i think a point to make about "combo expression" is that it kinda lends a game an air of endlessness, if that makes any sense. games with more lenience feel like there are combos that people haven't discovered yet and how people can just lab forever and never stop finding SOMETHING, even if that's not really true. meanwhile, games with rigid systems tend to feel "solved" a little sooner rather than later and i don't think people like being funneled into the optimal strategy so quickly. i used to play a lot of DOA5/6 and that's part of what i loved--the game is kinda DESIGNED to have weird emergent combos that you can mix-match for eternity. idk if i'm making sense, just speaking from the heart as a man who used to want to make combo videos
Really good video!! I personally love combos in older games (rn its melty c-roa my beloved) but even tho i dont play them as much or even at all recently i do like what new games are doing with combos making them have more impact rather than just doing the same thing every time and hey if i want cool combos in a modern game i can just boot up uni 2 and enjoy labbing that. Keep up the good work ur vids are always so cool
For me, the best rush from a fighting game is when I can confirm off of a stray hit. Which is something great in a game like GGST or SF6. But I feel compelled to ignore the potential combo in Granblue, just in case the game decides that it’s over. It doesn’t mean one is better than the other, but I have different expectations for each game. Ty for another great video!
Then you probably should try xrd or +r for much more expression and creativity in terms of combo, especially aerial ones. Daisuke himself said that 'GGST is not a combo game'.
I've got a third perspective to add to this. I don't want 1 player ToDs, but I also don't want out of the box prescribed combos. My off the cuff response would be to say that the Type 2 combos you laid out here have little/no room for decision making, but that obviously conflicts with your definition. So to differentiate what I'm trying to convey with those words from your definition so we can hopefully understand each other: The kind of decision making I want in a combo is mid-combo decisions about how to go about continuing the combo. I want to have to consider relative positioning, character weights, whether or not I have my bullcrap projectiles placed on the screen already, and whatnot in order to be able to turn a hit into a combo at all. In an ideal world it would kind of marry with Type 2 combos to where if you wanted a certain outcome like better wake up pressure afterwords you would have find a way into a certain route. Let's say you only get your oki outcome if you land your special with your opponent at the very top of the hitbox so the whole combo becomes about how can I route into pushing them higher up for it to work, and could be easier to achieve off an anti-air hit or against an opponent whose neutral game has them frequently using moves that leave them slightly airborne and already doing the work for me. Maybe some hits don't let you push them high enough. Maybe some hits technically CAN reach that outcome, but only in a ridiculously difficult to engineer situation or with really hard execution. That kind of thing. I don't know where to work this in to the idea, but I also want to contrast that with the way most combos in modern games have entirely removed any sort of situational consideration. Everything just works. Any hit, from any distance, at any angle, on any character, with any character specific resource stocked will result in the same canned combo working. I don't mind if these simple combos exist as a baseline for new players to work off of and get into the game, but I want these to be something that you eventually leave behind as you learn more specialized variants that achieve specific goals. Some of this could be modern games being newer and people simply haven't discovered them yet, but I'm pretty pessimistic at this point that new routes with benefits that weren't specifically planned out on their e-sports character stat sheets would just be removed for balance reasons. The combos don't have to be 30 second long drags, they could actually be relatively short. I just want to HAVE to engage with that DMC style combo expression rather than have it just be a kind of artistic self fulfillment. Does that sort of make sense to you? Anyway thanks for the video man. You got me thinking about this stuff again.
That’s why I play characters where the hard, sometimes character oriented shit is the most optimal, but also looks/feels the coolest. Best of both worlds. For me, Granblue doesn’t offer any characters like that, and even if it did the combo limit system would limit anything interesting I could do to secure a hard knock down anyway
It makes perfect sense to me, and honestly, it echoes what some people have been saying they like about the games in the Marvel vs Capcom Collection. Thanks for making me think about this
Funnily enough, that's my biggest gripe with games which combos I love to watch and hate to perform/or be subjected to. I have a life outside of fighting games and I simply can't be bothered to learn five different weight classes to get decent damage on the table. I play fighting games for the multiplayer aspect and only a little for the "expression", although that is also in playstyle (I love going switching it up from a very methodical/reactive style to going totally ham with grapplers for example.)
How did we get through this whole video with no UNI2 footage?? You're talking about modern games lowering combo expression and overlooking the glaring counterexample! UNI is great!! I got it solely for the combo trials, haven't even played a single match yet. Also, a counterexample from the past, Soul Calibur has never really been about combos, which is why I love the series a lot. It brings something unique to the table with its unflinching dedication to neutral and pressure over combo payoffs.
Yeah UNI 2 being ignored is a bit sad. I bought the game in part because it seemed to have really creative execution. So I enjoyed Vatista and her forward and up charges even though I'm not a charge character guy. Still the passive link system is really interesting. Even strategically ending blockstrings on whiffed light normals rather than punishable heavy normals is a move I didn't see in other games. Let alone the shield and grid interplay
Uni2 is a step in the direction of more accessible conversions imo. Getting combos from just about every hit and getting the meter to spend by the end of most stray hit combos are kinda new to the series
I agree on UNI2 being that game now and I think the same of BlazBlue. However, I think people are forgetting that these games were terribly broken by their combos for a WHILE, and new fighting games don't have the leniency to make those mistakes
too bad my friend doesn't speak english, this video is the best explanation of why he wants me to play storm but I find the combo system boring compared to a dbfz or skull girl
Between the 2 styles, I definitely tend to lean towards the optimal oki oriented hard knock down basically every time. This is mainly due to the characters I play being very knockdown/set play oriented, but also just my general love of finding the most optimal thing for every situation possible. But on the other hand, I’m also a massive fan of flashy high damaging hard to execute combos. I love sitting in training mode and grinding out hard optimal shit that I dream to one day hit in a real match. Due to this, I often lean towards difficult characters where the cool and difficult combos ARE the optimal ones that also give you the best oki. You could say I want to have my cake and eat it too, but hey at least the trade off is that it’s hard. That’s also what makes it fun though. This is half of the reason xrd Johnny is my favorite fighting game character ever. That being said, especially with Johnny, I will always take the guaranteed knock down over trying to do the hard optimal shit. Level 3 rejumps combos TECHNICALLY work on Baiken, but it’s very finicky and specific so if I ever find myself in that situation I’ll likely choose to do the level 2 variant instead in order to secure that coveted hard KD. The awesome thing about Johnny tho is that there are situations where you want to go for the really hard optimal shit. Maybe you need to kill before they get burst back, maybe you’re in a position where literally no other combo will work, or maybe you just want to style on the other person really hard. The point is that the hard shit will always be the most optimal, so you always have something new to strive for. A new reason to hop back into training mode or grind combos and match ups. There’s always a reason to improve. You really only get the best of both worlds like that by playing a character like Johnny. Strive Johnny is very oki orientated which I LOVE, and he does have some difficult set ups or tech you need to learn to play the character. His combos are not nearly as cool though and the tech is often optional. So although strive Johnny plays into the optimal hard KD set play combo style that I love a lot, they don’t feel nearly as cool or rewarding to do which often just makes me wish I was playing xrd instead. A great modern example though, is Yuzu from uni. I will commit real time to learning her at some point because she’s nearly everything I love in a modern fighting game character.
Another Daz banger. This reminded me of a Twitter clip I saw when the Strive Beta was up. It was a japanese player who did a Sol combo that used BRC, Positive Bonus, 5K dash cancels and 5H wallbounces to carry the opponent corner to corner and back. People were debating about the whole "Strive has no combos" "Strive is dumbbed down" and all that stuff, and I was starting to believe them, but then I saw that combo and was blown away. Genuienly one of the coolest things I've seen but I have since deleted Twitter and I cannot for the life of me find that clip now.
Strive is by far the most hated game for the silliest of reasons, people will un ironically say this even after many combo videos or insane characters like bedman and Asuka
Fast RCs alone invalidate any claims that Strive has no combos. Sometimes I even find myself thinking my flash fast RC combo might be optimal in some situations
His name is Odawara and he has some amazing confirms. Benado and Troxxus as well. Especially for Sol. Idk if i can post links here but this is one confirm ive found. ua-cam.com/users/shortsQTcxju7J0PA
@@lorenzolombardi3369its better if you observe the older games. The issue isnt that combos dont exist in strive. Its that the incentive to do them in matches is very low and often seeks like a waste of resources due to the wall break mechanic. In older games combos and the momentum from them are the optimal choice at high level so you see them more in matches.
@@sinshenlong and if you watch high level strive, especially with many characters like sol, nago, leo, gio ecc. You will see that at the first punish they always go for a huge combo into wall break. ALWAYS. Positive bonus is a huge reward and the main reward along side great damage on why you should learn many combos. If you don't belive me, have you seen daru ino coming up with huge wall to wall combos? Just an example. Testament was pretty bad for many patches specifically because they didnt have a good way to convert a punish into a combo Also wall break is a fantastic mechanic because it doesn't allow those god awful moments where the milliseconds you get into the corner you are just stuck there forever because ops milia has so mixup that she can punch you in real life (having alien from mkx flashbacks), wall break insetivise combos and forces the player to play netrual (unless you are slayer I guess) Have long combos is cool, having too long combos is the absolute worst because then you have something like skullgirls where a single touch leads to a 26 years combo that kills and you can't do anything about it, or mvc2 where you have Litteral infinite. At that point they start to have the "yugioh syndrome": it's not about playing the game, it's about not letting your opponent even begin to playing the game
beautiful video! I don't necessarily enjoy the creative aspects of combos. I can appreciate them but I much rather work with what I can use in a match than flair. One of my favorites of yours right here as you highlighted why creativity can be made from limitations :)
Part of the appeal of Dynasty Warriors games is the lite RTS element of managing which objectives / allies the player needs to dedicate their character too first.The mashy combos are kind of an iconic staple of the franchise, sure, but if Vampire Survivors and its kin have taught me anything, it's that the mashing isn't all that important itself to the experience, but the ability to select the different combos (or rather in most Warriors games, a different ender) is mostly a utility for altering how one carves their way towards those time gated tasks. Though if we're still examining the idea of simple combos, I feel like the simple pre-canned strings leading to preset specials was kinda what made the pre-Tenkaiichi Dragon Ball Z Budokai games so easy to pick up and play through regardless of skill level. But because getting more routes to the same moves and getting other combos in general was heavily dependent on collecting capsules, it made the early game feel very dry and grindy.
I would encourage people to play the first Hyrule Warriors if you want a good Warriors game. That game has so many different fun, goofy characters, it's just a blast. But yeah, it definitely feels more like a strategy game with managing your bases and deciding what to do next than an actual "fighting game", that's for sure.
Going off both this comment & Voice's reply, one of the best examples would be how base sword Link has both a massive spin attack ender for some good AOE clearing & a controllable shield bash dash ender for when you just need to plow through the crowd to reach a base in the next 3 seconds. And this is on top of his base heavy attack being a spin attack you can charge while moving so you can just enter a crowd with one good mini-AOE alongside like 5 other enders. And on a character wide aspect, you have Ruto mostly being AOE focused with attacks like her tidal wave ender or the whirlpool AOE while characters like Zant can be a bit better on laying on the damage on bosses (Zant can do both but he's got VERY clear options like using the projectile attack his meter can give you for focusing damage)
I would love to hear your thoughts on YOMI Hustle, a turn based fighting game where you can pick a move whenever you can act (not in hitstun/recovery). Combos are a guessing game where you try to hit the enemy as much as possible without letting them DI out of it. The best part is at the end where it does a real time replay of the fight, and it looks like both players are veterans who have practiced combos for years.
“I think that’s okay” I think it’s a failure on the part of the game designers to incorporate all the things these games could achieve. Think about how this ties in to the ongoing discussions about being able to play these games on a casual level and how “hard to learn” fighting games are, and then realize what’s been lost that didn’t need to be.
it's strange how you didn't even mention how higher level play tends to become more defensive, simply because personal choice dies as optimization rising of the Deal Damage Without Taking Damage goal.
This is so interesting because I've thought about this but never really understood it before. I have mostly played action games where the focus is mostly on strategic choices of attacks and combos. I thought games like DMC also worked that way so when I tried them I found them confusing. Like "What is this move for?" or "Which attack can help me in this situation?". I knew people did creative combos just for fun as well but I still thought each move had more practical uses. In most games I'm more used to play, it can be essential to use the right attacks in response to the situation. Wide swings for multiple enemies, pushing attacks for crowd control, dashing attacks to reposition and so on. If the game has good enough options like this with attacks, the game may not even need any traditional defensive mechanics like block or dodge. Edit: I am not speaking of fighting games btw but alot of this applies to them as well. I ment mostly singleplayer games with melee combat.
I feel like combos are important for their player expression you can learn a lot about how someone likes to play from a combo alone, I’m personally a combo fiend I love to optimize and I love to flex how I can do difficult things it’s what I find fun. In recent games it feels like players like me aren’t rewarded as much because they are taking away my ability to flex and show off my cool factor I like so much, thankfully it’s still some what present in some games like tekken 8 but I still feel the hit that game took compared to 7s creativity. Fortunately there is so much to love about fighting games where even if combos aren’t as flashy as I wish they could be I can still enjoy other things
Offense vs defense focused design I think, neutral isn’t really shambling back and forth refusing to hit anything because you know it’s worse to do something than nothing (which is kinda what happened by the end of sf5 lol) that’s just pretending to do footsies but secretly ready to hit down back not 2mK And offense is a lot more than doing a lot of buttons in a row and those other elements are really what we’re seeing emphasized with stuff like drive gauge and RC allowing for pressure extensions and neutral skipping
I think giving the one who is in the combo a degree (or more) agency is cool, it's one of the standout things about BBTAG to me. I've really grown to enjoy the way they designed burst in the game, the mix of things like frequency, methods of punishing/restricting it, and also the fact that it's tied to such a crucial resource ends up making it a game defining mechanic in a fun way! Many decisions you make end up being dictated by how you opt to play around burst. It's really jarring seeing how mid to lower level players make decisions Vs higher level ones, but even there's such expression in the way that decisions get made regarding burst from region to region, and I love that. But ye, the way that one plays around burst in BBTAG will always tell you something about them, and I find that to be pretty cool.
Okay, but what if instead of reducing combo variety fighting games added more mid-combo defensive options? Not even necessarily combo breakers, but just something to make it feel like you're totally at the mercy of your opponent's execution for the next few seconds. Actually, combo breakers/burst mechanics could make for a good video.
skullgirls kind of alleviates by having such imposing combo and infinite prevention systems that resets become the name of the game, _unless_ you can get very creative with your assists. makes it more of a "shouldn't have gotten hit now block my 12 mixups" instead of a "shouldn't have gotten hit now watch this cutscene". they can be equally brutal yea but in terms of interactability, i feel that it's a good solution
@@luckii_shots I would agree If skullgirls wasn't thatoppressive. I love the game but playing against people that know what they are doing can be traumatic.
Combos are good until they become a one player game, daily cursing towards pieces of garbage like arakune goes here, also litchi the fact people at ark looked at arakune and gave it greenlight irks me to this day.
I’m willing to believe there were better ways to mitigate that flaw in the design without gutting combos themselves. Coulda done something to empower the defending players instead. Don’t you find it a bit woeful how that aspect of fighting games is almost never evolved outside of bursts, IPS’s, and pushblock?
@@14megasxlrwdym nobody’s iterated on defensive mechanics? Guard cancels, IB, tech choices, and Blitz exist, plus all the variations of those defensive mechanics between games. GG’s FD and UNI’s shield are both pushblocks but interact with their systems in different ways.
Granblue has been one of my favorite fighting games, though a lot of my time has been in training mode. I really enjoy going "What's the best way to confirm off this starter, at this stage position?" I tend to view labbing combos like a puzzle, or a challenge to be overcome. It's especially satisfying to find a combo that works, and then go back over it and find someplace to improve it, whether that be in damage dealt, oki, or finding clever reset points to catch the opponent off guard. Successfully finding a combo that works feels like developing a tool for my arsenal, that I can then take into a real match and apply. While I'm not a fan of the recent changes to Yuel, it was still fun to go into training mode, and say "What can I do with these new/altered tools?"
Undernight still has pretty fun and interesting combos available. The optimals are fairly figured out but there's a good ladder of difficulty before you get there. You'll develop your combos as you're developing your skill in the game's other aspects. You can choose to focus more on optimising your damage or you can stick to old reliable and play the oki game better. I like deciding on the fly what combo I want to go into. When I'm in flow state, I sometimes surprise and impress myself with the creative ways I can keep a combo going while still getting close to max damage. Games with diverse combos makes each character into an instrument with their own tactile feedback and their own songs they can play.
I agree, and I think BlazBlue nails this too. But also, both of these games took YEARS to get it right! We suffered through a lot of stupid stuff first that would not fly today
Awesome vid! So thoughtful! I'm definitely a player who doesn't focus on combos (I perform self-described normcore combos lol). But as you stated I really do miss the little ways in which I could express myself in a combo. I do disagree however: I think it's possible in both character action and fighting games to have combo strategy as described here but also have more expression. Action games (maybe all games in a sense) are about Reaction > Execution. (This is why parries feel so good! It's a concentrated dose of both!) And I feel like this is why when you get locked in to a state/animation in a game It feels so bad. Obviously the freedom and expression is restricted but so is your ability to react. Thus by committing to a very committal state, literally a huge chunk of fun is pulled out of the game. I'm not saying you can't design games with committal actions it's just I think those are some of the risks. I think it's all so important to mention that in a fighting game it's just one-on-one. While in character action game there's a lot of other entities you have to worry about So when you get locked in it just feels kind of bad. Anyways really really great video! (I'm a CA and FG Dev so I think about the stuff constantly lol) It really is nice to see someone talk about this in a really thoughtful and impassioned way. Thanks! Keep fighting and keep making great stuff! ✨
11:17 except for XX Johnny where it was a way to cope with how bad he was up until +R in comparison to his kit being mad fun. But to be serious, im guilty of liking combos but then when receiving on the other ends I get why modern games combo are more simpler and optimised. I wish there can be a sweet spot in combo complexity/freedom and balance in modern games or make the characters' moveset/specials cooler. also, ill add that when I played gb a friend let me know that it was supposed to be a SF clone with anime filter so that's in line why the game is the way it is
I personally am glad at the softened focus on combos. It let me, someone with almost no fighting game experience, to get into them with SF6 after years of being scared off by crazy long combos that would sweep my health bar without me getting a chance to fight back.
Not to be "that guy", but I guarantee if you went back and played older games, you would find that not that many people (basically 0 at the beginner level) have whack-ass combos, and whatever combos you do see probably aren't actually that hard to learn. The basic strategy of "learn one BnB and one reliable anti-air, anything else is bonus" is not a new-age invention. In fact, SF6 combos are longer and flashier on average than any other SF game, other than 4 (when 4 is played at high-level)
I mean, even the older games with flashier combos *also* had the strategic decision making on prioritizing damage, resource, oki, corner carry etc. too. So it's not Old game has flash New game has strategy. The old game had flash AND strategy in combos. Older games still have neutral mind game interactions. Hell, you could even argue that certain things like having good defense are more properly rewarded on older games vs. modern fighting games, but that's another topic. The framing of this video makes it seem a little disingenuous, like older games somehow didn't have the neutral/strategy that newer games have.
You raise a good point. I think you're right that it comes off that way, but I didn't intend it to be Old = Flash New = Strategy I was still made to do strategy in older, more 'free' games, however, it was more common for people to find routes that eliminated the decision making entirely. One example is Under Night's Seth. He's been given new moves over time, and now every route goes into the same thing where we see the same combo and over, with little reason to ever deviate
I think that modern fighters like Strive, Granblu and SF6, have been designed to emphasize the mental stack and accelerate the speed at which people engage with the game on that level. I find that I enjoy this a lot. In fact modern controls allowed my best friend to finally stop mashing. He's finally playing with intent and juggling the stack. But I've always got Melty/Uni, DBFZ, and KOF to play when I wanna play the knowledge and execution check style game.
As a character action game fan, I love long wild free-form combos, I also wish they'd put resource or execution limitations on moves like snatch, teleport, and bayonettas bird dash that can be used to chain any two moves together without trying. As a fighting game enjoyer, I think moving toward active mid-combo defense would be more interesting, something more interactive than bursting preferably while keeping the door open for long combos to become something hype, like if nintendo can figure it out so can arcsys and/or capcom. As someone who's been getting into starward (chinese gacha gundam exvs, free to play now on steam) 2v2 random queue I think that combos gain a ton of depth in a team game when they are free-form enough to confirm mid-range projectile into anything but having to work around not getting interrupted by the target's teammate, like balancing between dropping three bullets for a quick knockdown versus kicking them in the face for 40 seconds but risking getting kicked in the face for 40 seconds as a free punish is super hype.
What is your idea for a combo-breaker mechanic that isn't Burst or Combo-Breaker? I assume you're talking about DI when you mention Nintendo. Do you think that professional FG devs don't know what Smash is? How did Terry and Ryu get in SF6 if not through smash?
@@munchatize_me I don't know for sure, most game mechanics don't work how you'd expect until you have a functional build of the game, but I think the easiest option with the least impact on the rest of the game would just be barrier blocking adjacent, just a binary state that either increases knockback and hitstun or doesn't, then make sure every character can get a few extensions off of people holding or not holding it through the whole combo.
@@thesacredbeast2000 so something like faultless defence in Guilty Gear or parry/perfect parry in sf6, but you'd prefer to use the defensive option after you've already gotten hit to reduce the opponent's reward, rather than using it to prevent getting hit?
If you actually look very closely at RWBY you can see there are a lot of Kingdom Hearts fighting styles baked into the characters moveset. Ruby is literally doing Marluxias attack pattern from KH2 Final Mix in her debut. That is also why Ruby exists at all because Marluxia was originally going to be a girl. So in other words Montys core inspiration was Tetsuya Nomura. This is also heavily evidenced by the fact one of his bigger projects was "Dead Fantasy" where he had Final Fantasy characters and Kingdom Hearts characters fighting together. Nobody likes talking about this aspect because then it loops back around to Final Fantasy and then Star Wars. You can't escape Star Wars.
one small though I had while watching this video is, what if we could turn off some of those restrictions. mabe not in a ranked or casual match, but something like in training mode or a custom lobby, we could turn of certain systems like combo limit or change certain propertys to just have fun with. it could be cool to see, mabe have something akin to a turbo mode in dmc. Although I know implementation of such a system would be extremely difficult, I thought it could be a cool idea to get the freedom we had in the past while still maintaining the "competitive" integrity or something. outside of that, I personally like to lean more onto what options can I pick during a combo, should I trade of oki and reset potential/advantage for more damage. that kind of stuff. while I do like a more anime fighter game because of how flashy some of the games get. I still think my most enjoyable experiences came from when I had to make the decision to go all in on a combo or when I caught someone with an oki I set up.
Maybe its just because Im new to fighting games, or maybe its just because I play Faust but I think strive has a lot of creativity with the robust roman cancel system and the juggling style makes the objective of routes easy to wrap your head around.
Great video essay, but one small gripe. In DMC you actually have to worry about the recovery on some of Dante's ground moves. Unless you have Quad S you can't just cancel out of anything like Bayonetta. It feels kind of limiting because with you being able to JC pretty much everything you do in the air, it's so strange having moves like Shock and the Pandora bow missile which leave Dante locked in 3 seconds of recovery, rendering them entirely useless for any kinda combo experimentation
Idk as a long time fighting game player I don’t think combos have become less unique as a matter of fact I think GGST has a larger amount of combo expression than most other fighting games right now. The problem isn’t that combos are less creative, it’s that we have become more competitive. If games were truly as strict as you put forth then we wouldn’t say “oh punk is my favorite street fighter player” or “man umisho’s sol is pretty unique.” Expression is still very much there but as we as the players get more competitive creativity takes a back seat. Sure you can make some super sick looking combo in BBTAG but I’d be willing to bet that it literally can’t work in a real match. Not to say that making those kinds of combos is wrong, but that’s not the point of any fighting game. Fighting games are simply about winning and the best way to win is be the most optimal.
I lovd this video, and its explanation for how combos in fighting games can vary from what they are now to what they were before. However, I do find it odd theres no reference to Under night. Albeit somewhat niche i'd say it does a good job to fill the space BlazBlue left in its absence as an execution based, more freeform combo based anime fighter. Whats your opinion there?
GBVS was never made with the intention of combos in mind. Originally it was a game built like a more modern take on SF2, then, when Rising came out, they shifted their focus to make the matches less neutral focused and more "fast paced" with lots of neutral skips, universal combo extenders (Raging Strike/Chain) and lots of damage. Still, the part about the combos its limited to be simple yet effective, though that description in this video its a bit too oversimplified for my taste, besides, the CD meter exists because the EX dont use meter bar, they need some limiting mechanic, and also being a leftover from the Gacha RPG origins of the IP. Depending on combo routing you can do extension of combos, or set the enemy for certain situations like Oki/"Unblockables"/Mix-ups. So its functionality over flashiness most of the time. Still, if you dig deep enough, theres some werid interactions that lead into a bit more "expression" on your combos, but not all characters have access to this. And one last thing: Not all games have to be about flashy combos, hell, theres games where you win with one button interactions, like footdive or footsies. I like the point that you make about taking a bit of freedom from players, cuz in the case of Granblue, they compromise this, for people to focus more on the strategizing part of FGs instead of the execution part.
I guess this falls into the second category of combo expression, but something I like is the ability to improvise and adjust for variations in the situation, like "hmm, the corner is closer than I thought, so imma branch here". I love that Beatrix lets me make shit up on the fly. And that interest in combo improv is the main reason why Granblue's implementation of combo limit annoys me so much, cause it keeps creeping up on me :(
honestly I'm just not creative enough to "make my own" combo. usually i tend to play more (to steal a definition) honable fighters instead of innovator fighters, I usually look up a wiki with a few BnBs and maybe some alternate enders then just hop into the actual game itself. mostly because while combos are cool I tend to just internalise them as "this is how you get more value from doing X thing" instead of "heres how you can show off your creativity!"
I think the solution is to allow opponent to mildly influence how they are hit while being hit. This may remove the concept of true combos, but as you made clear in your video, different strokes for different folks. I thought of some ideas. 1. Lean mechanic. You hold back or forward while being hit. If you hold forward the opponent can combo for longer but you gain meter. If you hold back you get knocked down earlier but lose meter. 2. If you are juggled you don't get to do that. This encourages players to seek out juggles. 3. Wall and floor bounces are made more common but they are techable if you are above 20% Lifebar. 4. Gravity scaling and damage scaling, but some moves that cost meter will reset damage scaling and gravity scaling. 5. Ability to switch stand vs crouch while being hit but unlike while blocking it is not instant and can be read. 6. Some supers lead to follow up that opponent can no longer influence until oki and Also reset damage and gravity scaling. 7. More use of SNK style movement.
I think we can have both very cool combo expression and startegic decision making in a game and I think plenty of older games have had that and especially ultimate marvel vs capcom 3 theres tons of different combos you can do per character to serve different purposes while they also look cool Tbf though mvc3 is a 3v3 tag game
For games with weapon switching - i kinda prefer if the weapon that you’ve just switched to uses a different attack depending on how many attacks you’ve done with the previous weapon (examples would be DmC, Darksiders).
As someone who enjoys high level tcgs, I have a different view of being forced to use certain characters because the balance isnt good enough to allow creative strats to be viable. I don't like it.
I like the video, but I'm not sure I agree that sf6 having less links means the combos are inherently less flashy or creative or complex, plus idk if that's necessarily true when you consider drive rush and burnout. And mk1 has the most creative combos the series has ever seen. Preference is preference but besides strive, which seems to have weirdly made their combos more complex and less complex in odd ways, I'm not sure you can say anything so definitive about modern games and combos. Edit - I'd go this far... The in fight combo expression has widened because you can reliably expect what works to work. But outside of the match, the extremes of what the systems allow don't exist because they work more reliably. There are still ways to bend the system but they still fit into the math so people don't feel as creative when they see or make them. But the payoff is seeing cooler shit more consistently and getting to actively make choices because you know what options you have in an actual fight, always.
I feel like some of my points are being misinterpreted here? Im not being definitive about modern games as a whole, I specified it to be the popular ones that I highlighted, because that's where I see it. I wouldn't dare say it about DNF Duel, and I left out MK1 for that reason as well. I also don't understand why burnout contributes to Combo Potential? I'm not saying SF6 lacks combo expression, I'm saying that term itself is confusing. But I am saying that SF6 offers less room for creativity because you do have less to find
I feel like comparing BBCF and GBFVSR is like comparing Street Fighter to MVC. They’re doing different things, trying to be different games. You don’t go to Granblue for what you go to Blazblue for.
I love action games but don't care for "creating combos". I prefer fights that are intense, with relentless enemies, that leave me barely alive, like in Ninja Gaiden. The gore is the cherry on top. As for fighting games, I couldn't care less about making up my own combo. I just go with the min maxed ones that someone else already theorycrafted for most damage/consistency/wall carry. Why do I play? Because fights are intense, pvp is one of those things that will never not be heart racing combat
Crazy seems likes most ppls complaints were that they were playin a different game than "xyz" Doesn't make the game bad because it's a different game than "xyz"....
I dont know about you, but I've spent eons in Granblue's training mode discovering crazy combos off of tons of real match situations, the combo limit is a little annoying but some characters would just get TOD's too easily ( but they should at least let me use all my specials in one combo).
There were a million other design decisions other than “gut this aspect people like and call it “conpetefively refined”” that would have been able to merge both aspect of play and now they all feel more or less identical.
I think gbvsr did good cuz it naturally evolved from gbvs but Strive is not that. It just went to a completely different route to narrow down decision making and I know you were focusing on gbvsr cuz its easier to pull examples of what your trying to say but gbvsr was funnily enough. The sequel that actually added more decisions while Strive took away.
I've always seen the Mk franchise as the most different fight game series. It's moves and combo system are so unique, I'm finding it really hard to get comfortable playing other games
I think that people may be upset with me for saying this but a combat system can either be creative or it can be strategic. It can't really be both at the same time. If it is creative and is built to allow deep expression, then it must have many correct answers. There must not be huge differences between different options in different situations. That way the player is free to do what feels best to them. But that means that the strategic depth of the game will necessarily be shallower. On the flip side, if you have a game that has very meaningful differences between each option then playing "creatively" will almost always mean playing incorrectly. And in that sense, being creative within that game is similar to deciding to stay in a game of blackjack when you have 4 and saying you're being creative. Yes... You are... But that is just the wrong option at that moment. So in a certain sense you're not really playing the same game as your opponent. You're basically throwing. I feel like people don't want to accept this because they have a nebulous idea that they can just be so good that they'll go for things that make them happier even if they're less consistent or optimal. And that this will let them show their individuality. But "being good" is the sum of good decisions and exercise of skills. When you commit to making decisions that you know are bad you're putting a limit on how "good" you can possibly be. The truth of the matter is that most games are not sandboxes, and they will have answers that are more correct than others in any given situation. The only way to get around that is to make a game where your decisions don't matter...
... but does it HAVE to be one or the other? If combos r too long ppl complain If they're too short theres little room for creativity Combo breakers r one solution I guess, those r always tied to a resource tho meaning u will eventually eat that 25 sec long 65%hp bombo wombo... and its almost certainly gonna kill. I suppose thats 'fine'? idk
They feel like they just cannot coincide. I even wondered: what if they made an extra mode with less restrictions, just where people can make cool stuff. But then again, people would just want that to become the main game, but people that hate long combos would dislike that main game
Another question: Where the hell is all the effective combo game been? All the action game are now souls and rouge-like😢😢😢 Are there any soft core action game out there?
This may be a contentious view, but I believe that combos in fighting games are a waste of time for both players. The times spent between actual decisions made by the players are pointless. They are an artifact of the past, persisting only because they are a genre convention and are expected by players. Eventually, after a game's release, players will come up with the most efficient combo, and the game will revolve around the ability to execute that combo. Nearly all other combo options will be inferior, unless, as you noted, the player has a preference for the damage or the situation. A simple launcher can deplete half of your life, which is equivalent to having a powerful single-hit move that matches the full combo's impact and the ensuing situation. It's akin to two people making love, then one suddenly starts wanking. It doesn't align with the fundamental essence of a fighting game. It resembles the mechanics of a single-player rhythm game more closely. About what you said in the video, I think if the game doesn't let you come up with a creative combo, it's not fun and shouldn't belong in the game. I think a combo should not exceed two or three hits and should not last longer than three seconds.
It was a good video until the ending part, you were making it sound like that expressive and less restrictive combo cannot coexist with competitive scene. Even if this was the case(it's not btw), we can at least have both 'types' or subgenres of fighting games coexist. Your attitude makes me feel that 'everyone should move on because of the companies that make fighting games have moved on'. No, they move on because that will reduce the development cost and attract more players, which means more money in their pocket. If diehards like us also surrender and choose to move on, then this *is* the true end of an era and the death of the games we love. I did strongly disagree that setplay video of yours but this is on another level. Really disappointed. Sorry I have to unsubscribed.
Both types do still exist. I said they still exist and you can find them and they just may not have a wide appeal. But you seem to not acknowledge that the less restrictive combo systems often come with issues that aren't super quick fixes. Like, games like UNI2 have achieved the right balance, but it doesn't show up out of thin air. We're in an unforgiving climate for new fighting games
That again proves what I said. The climate is so unforgiving for fighting games with seemingly 'chaotic' yet creative combo systems, and it falls on our shoulders as 'combo FTG boomers' to be more tolerant and supportive of these games, rather than ditch them entirely and move on to the next shallow fad. 1/2
@@DazIsBambo These games were never meant to appeal to the masses in the first place, and that’s okay. My only hope is that the small but dedicated fanbase doesn’t turn its back and chase after fleeting trends. It’s people like us who are crucial to keeping these games alive. They can coexist, but only if we’re here to support them. 2/2 Sorry I'm not native English speaker, wish I could convey my idea more clearly.
Creativity without restrictions is fake creativity. It's more like masturbation. Yes, I don't like DMC or Bayonetta gameplay. I find it boring as hell. I also hate when fighting games alnow similar mechanics: "creative" combos in fighting games are just long one sided rythm recipes. Boring. As. Hell.
Long combos are ass, not only are they boring and stupid to look at but they give new players incentive to learn them because the other guy just playing for fun will have to win neutral 7 times to do the same damage, the for fun player will quit while the combo bot will be left with other of his kind learning less neutral interactions and the game will slowly die down. for this to not happen the playerbase must be huge like tekken or Dbfz, every other game with long combos is dead in the water.
18:05 huh????? This isn't just about combos. This affects tech like movement too, just look at what happened at Oro in SFV, where he had a cool air tech with his air grab whiff and they removed it. I don't think we should celebrate mainstream fighting games getting less free-flow.
Being the butterfingers I am I actually often find the more restrictive combo systems more difficult to engage with. Granblue's combo system is pretty simple but I also got the impression that it was far more mandatory than other games to do near optimal combos more frequently.
In Granblue more than any other fighting game I felt like I was at a massive disadvantage because I was dropping more optimal damage. A small thing missing would often mean losing 50% or more of my potential damage constantly whereas in games with more freeform systems I could go for suboptimal stuff that still approached what "proper damage" would look like and I could still compete with more technical opponents as long as I outplay them enough. In Granblue it felt far more like my being bad at the controls was frequently the deciding factor in a match.
"Man, there's so many cool ideas in those other games"
\*Proceeds to rack up another 1000 hours in sf6\*
Relatable
For better or worse BBTAG was actually my first ever fighting game and the combos were definitely what kept me playing. The first thing I did when I got it was try to get a 10,000 damage combo on all of the teams I chose (yea ik it's not much but I was a complete beginner). Took me hours and even though they were terrible I found it so satisfying. I'll always have a special place for ridiculously stupid yet cool looking combos, but the reality is nowadays I've been playing way more GBVSR because the 2 player element and strategy that comes with it is so satisfying to me now. It almost reminds me of for honor, as silly as it sounds, but the reasons I used to love that game are the same reasons I like granblue now. Ty for the video, was a great watch
This was such a heartwarming comment to read. I'm glad you enjoyed the video and I'm glad you enjoy the simple combo game of GBVSR!
The weirdest part about this video is that who on earth plays Uno/Anre?
I feel modern fighting games could develop into more complicated direction again if given some time. Like I think character specific combos could make a comeback if managed correctly, they do add some layers to mastery of the game and I feel big part of games you can "learn something new forever" are like that due to character specific combos. Just make sure that those regular hits you are expecting to get all the time are universal, and let character specificity fly with those weird hits you get like once every hundred match.
I have always garnered mixed feelings towards games where the combo game is so crazy that certain hits can just result in TODs if you know your way around - yeah, those often take effort and skill to pull off, but I'm a huge appreciator of interacting with my opponent on both ends. That being said, I feel like its possible to skew things too much in one direction where your options can feel kinda same-y because of how you're railroaded into certain routes.
I feel like there's a happy middle-ground where there is enough room for combo expression and mastering the game while not being rewarded so much that more of the game becomes about the combo than the aspects of neutral and mindgames and strategy.
And while there is an argument to be made that emphasis on combos being lost stems from balance, I do wonder if its not one of the things that ends up sacrificed in the name of accessibility sometimes. Accessibility is great! Don't get me wrong, I'd rather more people be able to enjoy fighting games than less but the drive to improve and squeeze those extra optimizations of damage, safety or plain old coolness gives people huge reasons to stick with games and feel *tangible progress* as it were.
i think a point to make about "combo expression" is that it kinda lends a game an air of endlessness, if that makes any sense. games with more lenience feel like there are combos that people haven't discovered yet and how people can just lab forever and never stop finding SOMETHING, even if that's not really true. meanwhile, games with rigid systems tend to feel "solved" a little sooner rather than later and i don't think people like being funneled into the optimal strategy so quickly. i used to play a lot of DOA5/6 and that's part of what i loved--the game is kinda DESIGNED to have weird emergent combos that you can mix-match for eternity. idk if i'm making sense, just speaking from the heart as a man who used to want to make combo videos
Really good video!! I personally love combos in older games (rn its melty c-roa my beloved) but even tho i dont play them as much or even at all recently i do like what new games are doing with combos making them have more impact rather than just doing the same thing every time and hey if i want cool combos in a modern game i can just boot up uni 2 and enjoy labbing that. Keep up the good work ur vids are always so cool
For me, the best rush from a fighting game is when I can confirm off of a stray hit. Which is something great in a game like GGST or SF6.
But I feel compelled to ignore the potential combo in Granblue, just in case the game decides that it’s over.
It doesn’t mean one is better than the other, but I have different expectations for each game.
Ty for another great video!
This is prolly my favorite part of melty, the air to air combos you get off stray air hits are so fun and satisfying
Then you probably should try xrd or +r for much more expression and creativity in terms of combo, especially aerial ones. Daisuke himself said that 'GGST is not a combo game'.
@keiasai3282 when did he say that?
@@Jabroni_14 The first gameplay showcase livestream hosted by ArcSys, in 2019
I've got a third perspective to add to this.
I don't want 1 player ToDs, but I also don't want out of the box prescribed combos.
My off the cuff response would be to say that the Type 2 combos you laid out here have little/no room for decision making, but that obviously conflicts with your definition. So to differentiate what I'm trying to convey with those words from your definition so we can hopefully understand each other:
The kind of decision making I want in a combo is mid-combo decisions about how to go about continuing the combo. I want to have to consider relative positioning, character weights, whether or not I have my bullcrap projectiles placed on the screen already, and whatnot in order to be able to turn a hit into a combo at all.
In an ideal world it would kind of marry with Type 2 combos to where if you wanted a certain outcome like better wake up pressure afterwords you would have find a way into a certain route. Let's say you only get your oki outcome if you land your special with your opponent at the very top of the hitbox so the whole combo becomes about how can I route into pushing them higher up for it to work, and could be easier to achieve off an anti-air hit or against an opponent whose neutral game has them frequently using moves that leave them slightly airborne and already doing the work for me. Maybe some hits don't let you push them high enough. Maybe some hits technically CAN reach that outcome, but only in a ridiculously difficult to engineer situation or with really hard execution. That kind of thing.
I don't know where to work this in to the idea, but I also want to contrast that with the way most combos in modern games have entirely removed any sort of situational consideration. Everything just works. Any hit, from any distance, at any angle, on any character, with any character specific resource stocked will result in the same canned combo working.
I don't mind if these simple combos exist as a baseline for new players to work off of and get into the game, but I want these to be something that you eventually leave behind as you learn more specialized variants that achieve specific goals.
Some of this could be modern games being newer and people simply haven't discovered them yet, but I'm pretty pessimistic at this point that new routes with benefits that weren't specifically planned out on their e-sports character stat sheets would just be removed for balance reasons.
The combos don't have to be 30 second long drags, they could actually be relatively short. I just want to HAVE to engage with that DMC style combo expression rather than have it just be a kind of artistic self fulfillment. Does that sort of make sense to you?
Anyway thanks for the video man. You got me thinking about this stuff again.
That’s why I play characters where the hard, sometimes character oriented shit is the most optimal, but also looks/feels the coolest. Best of both worlds.
For me, Granblue doesn’t offer any characters like that, and even if it did the combo limit system would limit anything interesting I could do to secure a hard knock down anyway
It makes perfect sense to me, and honestly, it echoes what some people have been saying they like about the games in the Marvel vs Capcom Collection. Thanks for making me think about this
Funnily enough, that's my biggest gripe with games which combos I love to watch and hate to perform/or be subjected to. I have a life outside of fighting games and I simply can't be bothered to learn five different weight classes to get decent damage on the table. I play fighting games for the multiplayer aspect and only a little for the "expression", although that is also in playstyle (I love going switching it up from a very methodical/reactive style to going totally ham with grapplers for example.)
How did we get through this whole video with no UNI2 footage?? You're talking about modern games lowering combo expression and overlooking the glaring counterexample! UNI is great!! I got it solely for the combo trials, haven't even played a single match yet.
Also, a counterexample from the past, Soul Calibur has never really been about combos, which is why I love the series a lot. It brings something unique to the table with its unflinching dedication to neutral and pressure over combo payoffs.
Yeah UNI 2 being ignored is a bit sad.
I bought the game in part because it seemed to have really creative execution. So I enjoyed Vatista and her forward and up charges even though I'm not a charge character guy.
Still the passive link system is really interesting. Even strategically ending blockstrings on whiffed light normals rather than punishable heavy normals is a move I didn't see in other games. Let alone the shield and grid interplay
Uni2 is a step in the direction of more accessible conversions imo. Getting combos from just about every hit and getting the meter to spend by the end of most stray hit combos are kinda new to the series
@@oklimbonah there’s a good couple of fighting games like that anime fighters are a lot like that but UNi2 is rlly fun
I agree on UNI2 being that game now and I think the same of BlazBlue. However, I think people are forgetting that these games were terribly broken by their combos for a WHILE, and new fighting games don't have the leniency to make those mistakes
You would live Skullgirls!
too bad my friend doesn't speak english, this video is the best explanation of why he wants me to play storm but I find the combo system boring compared to a dbfz or skull girl
Between the 2 styles, I definitely tend to lean towards the optimal oki oriented hard knock down basically every time. This is mainly due to the characters I play being very knockdown/set play oriented, but also just my general love of finding the most optimal thing for every situation possible.
But on the other hand, I’m also a massive fan of flashy high damaging hard to execute combos. I love sitting in training mode and grinding out hard optimal shit that I dream to one day hit in a real match. Due to this, I often lean towards difficult characters where the cool and difficult combos ARE the optimal ones that also give you the best oki.
You could say I want to have my cake and eat it too, but hey at least the trade off is that it’s hard. That’s also what makes it fun though. This is half of the reason xrd Johnny is my favorite fighting game character ever.
That being said, especially with Johnny, I will always take the guaranteed knock down over trying to do the hard optimal shit. Level 3 rejumps combos TECHNICALLY work on Baiken, but it’s very finicky and specific so if I ever find myself in that situation I’ll likely choose to do the level 2 variant instead in order to secure that coveted hard KD. The awesome thing about Johnny tho is that there are situations where you want to go for the really hard optimal shit. Maybe you need to kill before they get burst back, maybe you’re in a position where literally no other combo will work, or maybe you just want to style on the other person really hard.
The point is that the hard shit will always be the most optimal, so you always have something new to strive for. A new reason to hop back into training mode or grind combos and match ups. There’s always a reason to improve. You really only get the best of both worlds like that by playing a character like Johnny.
Strive Johnny is very oki orientated which I LOVE, and he does have some difficult set ups or tech you need to learn to play the character. His combos are not nearly as cool though and the tech is often optional. So although strive Johnny plays into the optimal hard KD set play combo style that I love a lot, they don’t feel nearly as cool or rewarding to do which often just makes me wish I was playing xrd instead.
A great modern example though, is Yuzu from uni. I will commit real time to learning her at some point because she’s nearly everything I love in a modern fighting game character.
Another Daz banger. This reminded me of a Twitter clip I saw when the Strive Beta was up. It was a japanese player who did a Sol combo that used BRC, Positive Bonus, 5K dash cancels and 5H wallbounces to carry the opponent corner to corner and back. People were debating about the whole "Strive has no combos" "Strive is dumbbed down" and all that stuff, and I was starting to believe them, but then I saw that combo and was blown away. Genuienly one of the coolest things I've seen but I have since deleted Twitter and I cannot for the life of me find that clip now.
Strive is by far the most hated game for the silliest of reasons, people will un ironically say this even after many combo videos or insane characters like bedman and Asuka
Fast RCs alone invalidate any claims that Strive has no combos. Sometimes I even find myself thinking my flash fast RC combo might be optimal in some situations
His name is Odawara and he has some amazing confirms. Benado and Troxxus as well. Especially for Sol.
Idk if i can post links here but this is one confirm ive found.
ua-cam.com/users/shortsQTcxju7J0PA
@@lorenzolombardi3369its better if you observe the older games. The issue isnt that combos dont exist in strive. Its that the incentive to do them in matches is very low and often seeks like a waste of resources due to the wall break mechanic. In older games combos and the momentum from them are the optimal choice at high level so you see them more in matches.
@@sinshenlong and if you watch high level strive, especially with many characters like sol, nago, leo, gio ecc. You will see that at the first punish they always go for a huge combo into wall break. ALWAYS. Positive bonus is a huge reward and the main reward along side great damage on why you should learn many combos. If you don't belive me, have you seen daru ino coming up with huge wall to wall combos? Just an example. Testament was pretty bad for many patches specifically because they didnt have a good way to convert a punish into a combo
Also wall break is a fantastic mechanic because it doesn't allow those god awful moments where the milliseconds you get into the corner you are just stuck there forever because ops milia has so mixup that she can punch you in real life (having alien from mkx flashbacks), wall break insetivise combos and forces the player to play netrual (unless you are slayer I guess)
Have long combos is cool, having too long combos is the absolute worst because then you have something like skullgirls where a single touch leads to a 26 years combo that kills and you can't do anything about it, or mvc2 where you have Litteral infinite. At that point they start to have the "yugioh syndrome": it's not about playing the game, it's about not letting your opponent even begin to playing the game
beautiful video! I don't necessarily enjoy the creative aspects of combos. I can appreciate them but I much rather work with what I can use in a match than flair. One of my favorites of yours right here as you highlighted why creativity can be made from limitations :)
Part of the appeal of Dynasty Warriors games is the lite RTS element of managing which objectives / allies the player needs to dedicate their character too first.The mashy combos are kind of an iconic staple of the franchise, sure, but if Vampire Survivors and its kin have taught me anything, it's that the mashing isn't all that important itself to the experience, but the ability to select the different combos (or rather in most Warriors games, a different ender) is mostly a utility for altering how one carves their way towards those time gated tasks.
Though if we're still examining the idea of simple combos, I feel like the simple pre-canned strings leading to preset specials was kinda what made the pre-Tenkaiichi Dragon Ball Z Budokai games so easy to pick up and play through regardless of skill level. But because getting more routes to the same moves and getting other combos in general was heavily dependent on collecting capsules, it made the early game feel very dry and grindy.
I would encourage people to play the first Hyrule Warriors if you want a good Warriors game. That game has so many different fun, goofy characters, it's just a blast. But yeah, it definitely feels more like a strategy game with managing your bases and deciding what to do next than an actual "fighting game", that's for sure.
Going off both this comment & Voice's reply, one of the best examples would be how base sword Link has both a massive spin attack ender for some good AOE clearing & a controllable shield bash dash ender for when you just need to plow through the crowd to reach a base in the next 3 seconds. And this is on top of his base heavy attack being a spin attack you can charge while moving so you can just enter a crowd with one good mini-AOE alongside like 5 other enders.
And on a character wide aspect, you have Ruto mostly being AOE focused with attacks like her tidal wave ender or the whirlpool AOE while characters like Zant can be a bit better on laying on the damage on bosses (Zant can do both but he's got VERY clear options like using the projectile attack his meter can give you for focusing damage)
In a sea of stream VODs and half-baked opinions, your well constructed vid's are a treat
I would love to hear your thoughts on YOMI Hustle, a turn based fighting game where you can pick a move whenever you can act (not in hitstun/recovery). Combos are a guessing game where you try to hit the enemy as much as possible without letting them DI out of it. The best part is at the end where it does a real time replay of the fight, and it looks like both players are veterans who have practiced combos for years.
Limitations and tradeoffs paves the way for creativity.
Its somthing that both extrinsicly and intrinsically motivated players can get behind
“I think that’s okay”
I think it’s a failure on the part of the game designers to incorporate all the things these games could achieve.
Think about how this ties in to the ongoing discussions about being able to play these games on a casual level and how “hard to learn” fighting games are, and then realize what’s been lost that didn’t need to be.
The way you described Kunitsu-Gami was exactly my thought process for combat in Yakuza games. Great video.
it's strange how you didn't even mention how higher level play tends to become more defensive, simply because personal choice dies as optimization rising of the Deal Damage Without Taking Damage goal.
This is so interesting because I've thought about this but never really understood it before. I have mostly played action games where the focus is mostly on strategic choices of attacks and combos. I thought games like DMC also worked that way so when I tried them I found them confusing. Like "What is this move for?" or "Which attack can help me in this situation?". I knew people did creative combos just for fun as well but I still thought each move had more practical uses. In most games I'm more used to play, it can be essential to use the right attacks in response to the situation. Wide swings for multiple enemies, pushing attacks for crowd control, dashing attacks to reposition and so on. If the game has good enough options like this with attacks, the game may not even need any traditional defensive mechanics like block or dodge. Edit: I am not speaking of fighting games btw but alot of this applies to them as well. I ment mostly singleplayer games with melee combat.
I feel like combos are important for their player expression you can learn a lot about how someone likes to play from a combo alone, I’m personally a combo fiend I love to optimize and I love to flex how I can do difficult things it’s what I find fun. In recent games it feels like players like me aren’t rewarded as much because they are taking away my ability to flex and show off my cool factor I like so much, thankfully it’s still some what present in some games like tekken 8 but I still feel the hit that game took compared to 7s creativity. Fortunately there is so much to love about fighting games where even if combos aren’t as flashy as I wish they could be I can still enjoy other things
so we're in the middle of the combo vs neutral focused design alternation cycle?
Offense vs defense focused design I think, neutral isn’t really shambling back and forth refusing to hit anything because you know it’s worse to do something than nothing (which is kinda what happened by the end of sf5 lol) that’s just pretending to do footsies but secretly ready to hit down back not 2mK
And offense is a lot more than doing a lot of buttons in a row and those other elements are really what we’re seeing emphasized with stuff like drive gauge and RC allowing for pressure extensions and neutral skipping
I think giving the one who is in the combo a degree (or more) agency is cool, it's one of the standout things about BBTAG to me. I've really grown to enjoy the way they designed burst in the game, the mix of things like frequency, methods of punishing/restricting it, and also the fact that it's tied to such a crucial resource ends up making it a game defining mechanic in a fun way! Many decisions you make end up being dictated by how you opt to play around burst. It's really jarring seeing how mid to lower level players make decisions Vs higher level ones, but even there's such expression in the way that decisions get made regarding burst from region to region, and I love that. But ye, the way that one plays around burst in BBTAG will always tell you something about them, and I find that to be pretty cool.
Okay, but what if instead of reducing combo variety fighting games added more mid-combo defensive options? Not even necessarily combo breakers, but just something to make it feel like you're totally at the mercy of your opponent's execution for the next few seconds.
Actually, combo breakers/burst mechanics could make for a good video.
skullgirls kind of alleviates by having such imposing combo and infinite prevention systems that resets become the name of the game, _unless_ you can get very creative with your assists. makes it more of a "shouldn't have gotten hit now block my 12 mixups" instead of a "shouldn't have gotten hit now watch this cutscene". they can be equally brutal yea but in terms of interactability, i feel that it's a good solution
@@luckii_shots I would agree If skullgirls wasn't thatoppressive. I love the game but playing against people that know what they are doing can be traumatic.
Combos are good until they become a one player game, daily cursing towards pieces of garbage like arakune goes here, also litchi the fact people at ark looked at arakune and gave it greenlight irks me to this day.
Screw that, the longer the combo, the better
Lost neutral? Watch this movie, you're ASSSS
Yep, this. Looking at you mvc2 and skullgirl
@@lorenzolombardi3369the day people realize some people like long combos and resets...
I’m willing to believe there were better ways to mitigate that flaw in the design without gutting combos themselves.
Coulda done something to empower the defending players instead.
Don’t you find it a bit woeful how that aspect of fighting games is almost never evolved outside of bursts, IPS’s, and pushblock?
@@14megasxlrwdym nobody’s iterated on defensive mechanics? Guard cancels, IB, tech choices, and Blitz exist, plus all the variations of those defensive mechanics between games. GG’s FD and UNI’s shield are both pushblocks but interact with their systems in different ways.
Granblue has been one of my favorite fighting games, though a lot of my time has been in training mode. I really enjoy going "What's the best way to confirm off this starter, at this stage position?" I tend to view labbing combos like a puzzle, or a challenge to be overcome. It's especially satisfying to find a combo that works, and then go back over it and find someplace to improve it, whether that be in damage dealt, oki, or finding clever reset points to catch the opponent off guard. Successfully finding a combo that works feels like developing a tool for my arsenal, that I can then take into a real match and apply. While I'm not a fan of the recent changes to Yuel, it was still fun to go into training mode, and say "What can I do with these new/altered tools?"
Undernight still has pretty fun and interesting combos available. The optimals are fairly figured out but there's a good ladder of difficulty before you get there. You'll develop your combos as you're developing your skill in the game's other aspects. You can choose to focus more on optimising your damage or you can stick to old reliable and play the oki game better.
I like deciding on the fly what combo I want to go into. When I'm in flow state, I sometimes surprise and impress myself with the creative ways I can keep a combo going while still getting close to max damage. Games with diverse combos makes each character into an instrument with their own tactile feedback and their own songs they can play.
I agree, and I think BlazBlue nails this too. But also, both of these games took YEARS to get it right! We suffered through a lot of stupid stuff first that would not fly today
when talk of the restrictions with kunitsu-gami's attacks got brought up I was waiting for Monter Hunter to get mentioned
same! Took me until just recently to truly click with hunting horn, the one weapon where you really do need to improvise a bunch
Awesome vid! So thoughtful!
I'm definitely a player who doesn't focus on combos (I perform self-described normcore combos lol).
But as you stated I really do miss the little ways in which I could express myself in a combo.
I do disagree however: I think it's possible in both character action and fighting games to have combo strategy as described here but also have more expression.
Action games (maybe all games in a sense) are about Reaction > Execution. (This is why parries feel so good! It's a concentrated dose of both!)
And I feel like this is why when you get locked in to a state/animation in a game It feels so bad. Obviously the freedom and expression is restricted but so is your ability to react. Thus by committing to a very committal state, literally a huge chunk of fun is pulled out of the game. I'm not saying you can't design games with committal actions it's just I think those are some of the risks.
I think it's all so important to mention that in a fighting game it's just one-on-one. While in character action game there's a lot of other entities you have to worry about So when you get locked in it just feels kind of bad.
Anyways really really great video! (I'm a CA and FG Dev so I think about the stuff constantly lol) It really is nice to see someone talk about this in a really thoughtful and impassioned way. Thanks! Keep fighting and keep making great stuff! ✨
Great perspective, especially as Kimitsu-Gami is also a game that caught my attention.
11:17 except for XX Johnny where it was a way to cope with how bad he was up until +R in comparison to his kit being mad fun. But to be serious, im guilty of liking combos but then when receiving on the other ends I get why modern games combo are more simpler and optimised. I wish there can be a sweet spot in combo complexity/freedom and balance in modern games or make the characters' moveset/specials cooler. also, ill add that when I played gb a friend let me know that it was supposed to be a SF clone with anime filter so that's in line why the game is the way it is
Kunitsu-Gami mentioned!
Excellent video and a nuanced take. Great work!
I personally am glad at the softened focus on combos. It let me, someone with almost no fighting game experience, to get into them with SF6 after years of being scared off by crazy long combos that would sweep my health bar without me getting a chance to fight back.
Not to be "that guy", but I guarantee if you went back and played older games, you would find that not that many people (basically 0 at the beginner level) have whack-ass combos, and whatever combos you do see probably aren't actually that hard to learn. The basic strategy of "learn one BnB and one reliable anti-air, anything else is bonus" is not a new-age invention. In fact, SF6 combos are longer and flashier on average than any other SF game, other than 4 (when 4 is played at high-level)
I mean, even the older games with flashier combos *also* had the strategic decision making on prioritizing damage, resource, oki, corner carry etc. too. So it's not Old game has flash New game has strategy. The old game had flash AND strategy in combos.
Older games still have neutral mind game interactions. Hell, you could even argue that certain things like having good defense are more properly rewarded on older games vs. modern fighting games, but that's another topic.
The framing of this video makes it seem a little disingenuous, like older games somehow didn't have the neutral/strategy that newer games have.
You raise a good point. I think you're right that it comes off that way, but I didn't intend it to be
Old = Flash
New = Strategy
I was still made to do strategy in older, more 'free' games, however, it was more common for people to find routes that eliminated the decision making entirely. One example is Under Night's Seth. He's been given new moves over time, and now every route goes into the same thing where we see the same combo and over, with little reason to ever deviate
Nice video daz!
I think that modern fighters like Strive, Granblu and SF6, have been designed to emphasize the mental stack and accelerate the speed at which people engage with the game on that level. I find that I enjoy this a lot. In fact modern controls allowed my best friend to finally stop mashing. He's finally playing with intent and juggling the stack.
But I've always got Melty/Uni, DBFZ, and KOF to play when I wanna play the knowledge and execution check style game.
As a character action game fan, I love long wild free-form combos, I also wish they'd put resource or execution limitations on moves like snatch, teleport, and bayonettas bird dash that can be used to chain any two moves together without trying.
As a fighting game enjoyer, I think moving toward active mid-combo defense would be more interesting, something more interactive than bursting preferably while keeping the door open for long combos to become something hype, like if nintendo can figure it out so can arcsys and/or capcom.
As someone who's been getting into starward (chinese gacha gundam exvs, free to play now on steam) 2v2 random queue I think that combos gain a ton of depth in a team game when they are free-form enough to confirm mid-range projectile into anything but having to work around not getting interrupted by the target's teammate, like balancing between dropping three bullets for a quick knockdown versus kicking them in the face for 40 seconds but risking getting kicked in the face for 40 seconds as a free punish is super hype.
What is your idea for a combo-breaker mechanic that isn't Burst or Combo-Breaker? I assume you're talking about DI when you mention Nintendo. Do you think that professional FG devs don't know what Smash is? How did Terry and Ryu get in SF6 if not through smash?
@@munchatize_me I don't know for sure, most game mechanics don't work how you'd expect until you have a functional build of the game, but I think the easiest option with the least impact on the rest of the game would just be barrier blocking adjacent, just a binary state that either increases knockback and hitstun or doesn't, then make sure every character can get a few extensions off of people holding or not holding it through the whole combo.
@@thesacredbeast2000 so something like faultless defence in Guilty Gear or parry/perfect parry in sf6, but you'd prefer to use the defensive option after you've already gotten hit to reduce the opponent's reward, rather than using it to prevent getting hit?
If you actually look very closely at RWBY you can see there are a lot of Kingdom Hearts fighting styles baked into the characters moveset. Ruby is literally doing Marluxias attack pattern from KH2 Final Mix in her debut. That is also why Ruby exists at all because Marluxia was originally going to be a girl. So in other words Montys core inspiration was Tetsuya Nomura. This is also heavily evidenced by the fact one of his bigger projects was "Dead Fantasy" where he had Final Fantasy characters and Kingdom Hearts characters fighting together. Nobody likes talking about this aspect because then it loops back around to Final Fantasy and then Star Wars. You can't escape Star Wars.
THE J.D CLCIKBAIT!!!! (nice video)
one small though I had while watching this video is, what if we could turn off some of those restrictions. mabe not in a ranked or casual match, but something like in training mode or a custom lobby, we could turn of certain systems like combo limit or change certain propertys to just have fun with. it could be cool to see, mabe have something akin to a turbo mode in dmc. Although I know implementation of such a system would be extremely difficult, I thought it could be a cool idea to get the freedom we had in the past while still maintaining the "competitive" integrity or something.
outside of that, I personally like to lean more onto what options can I pick during a combo, should I trade of oki and reset potential/advantage for more damage. that kind of stuff. while I do like a more anime fighter game because of how flashy some of the games get. I still think my most enjoyable experiences came from when I had to make the decision to go all in on a combo or when I caught someone with an oki I set up.
I like how you think. I had the same thought.
Maybe its just because Im new to fighting games, or maybe its just because I play Faust but I think strive has a lot of creativity with the robust roman cancel system and the juggling style makes the objective of routes easy to wrap your head around.
Nice SMT 4 music
Great video essay, but one small gripe. In DMC you actually have to worry about the recovery on some of Dante's ground moves. Unless you have Quad S you can't just cancel out of anything like Bayonetta.
It feels kind of limiting because with you being able to JC pretty much everything you do in the air, it's so strange having moves like Shock and the Pandora bow missile which leave Dante locked in 3 seconds of recovery, rendering them entirely useless for any kinda combo experimentation
Your videos are always great
The answer transition at 9:45 was sick
F in the chat for DND duel. Developers killed their child by neglect.
Idk as a long time fighting game player I don’t think combos have become less unique as a matter of fact I think GGST has a larger amount of combo expression than most other fighting games right now. The problem isn’t that combos are less creative, it’s that we have become more competitive. If games were truly as strict as you put forth then we wouldn’t say “oh punk is my favorite street fighter player” or “man umisho’s sol is pretty unique.” Expression is still very much there but as we as the players get more competitive creativity takes a back seat. Sure you can make some super sick looking combo in BBTAG but I’d be willing to bet that it literally can’t work in a real match. Not to say that making those kinds of combos is wrong, but that’s not the point of any fighting game. Fighting games are simply about winning and the best way to win is be the most optimal.
I lovd this video, and its explanation for how combos in fighting games can vary from what they are now to what they were before. However, I do find it odd theres no reference to Under night. Albeit somewhat niche i'd say it does a good job to fill the space BlazBlue left in its absence as an execution based, more freeform combo based anime fighter. Whats your opinion there?
GBVS was never made with the intention of combos in mind. Originally it was a game built like a more modern take on SF2, then, when Rising came out, they shifted their focus to make the matches less neutral focused and more "fast paced" with lots of neutral skips, universal combo extenders (Raging Strike/Chain) and lots of damage. Still, the part about the combos its limited to be simple yet effective, though that description in this video its a bit too oversimplified for my taste, besides, the CD meter exists because the EX dont use meter bar, they need some limiting mechanic, and also being a leftover from the Gacha RPG origins of the IP.
Depending on combo routing you can do extension of combos, or set the enemy for certain situations like Oki/"Unblockables"/Mix-ups. So its functionality over flashiness most of the time.
Still, if you dig deep enough, theres some werid interactions that lead into a bit more "expression" on your combos, but not all characters have access to this.
And one last thing: Not all games have to be about flashy combos, hell, theres games where you win with one button interactions, like footdive or footsies.
I like the point that you make about taking a bit of freedom from players, cuz in the case of Granblue, they compromise this, for people to focus more on the strategizing part of FGs instead of the execution part.
Yo Chaos shout out, thanks!
I guess this falls into the second category of combo expression, but something I like is the ability to improvise and adjust for variations in the situation, like "hmm, the corner is closer than I thought, so imma branch here". I love that Beatrix lets me make shit up on the fly.
And that interest in combo improv is the main reason why Granblue's implementation of combo limit annoys me so much, cause it keeps creeping up on me :(
honestly I'm just not creative enough to "make my own" combo. usually i tend to play more (to steal a definition) honable fighters instead of innovator fighters, I usually look up a wiki with a few BnBs and maybe some alternate enders then just hop into the actual game itself. mostly because while combos are cool I tend to just internalise them as "this is how you get more value from doing X thing" instead of "heres how you can show off your creativity!"
bro back in the days dynasty warrior use to be a effective combo game🥲🥲🥲
I think the solution is to allow opponent to mildly influence how they are hit while being hit. This may remove the concept of true combos, but as you made clear in your video, different strokes for different folks. I thought of some ideas. 1. Lean mechanic. You hold back or forward while being hit. If you hold forward the opponent can combo for longer but you gain meter. If you hold back you get knocked down earlier but lose meter. 2. If you are juggled you don't get to do that. This encourages players to seek out juggles. 3. Wall and floor bounces are made more common but they are techable if you are above 20% Lifebar. 4. Gravity scaling and damage scaling, but some moves that cost meter will reset damage scaling and gravity scaling. 5. Ability to switch stand vs crouch while being hit but unlike while blocking it is not instant and can be read. 6. Some supers lead to follow up that opponent can no longer influence until oki and Also reset damage and gravity scaling. 7. More use of SNK style movement.
You are describing Smash Bros.
I think we can have both very cool combo expression and startegic decision making in a game and I think plenty of older games have had that and especially ultimate marvel vs capcom 3 theres tons of different combos you can do per character to serve different purposes while they also look cool
Tbf though mvc3 is a 3v3 tag game
For games with weapon switching - i kinda prefer if the weapon that you’ve just switched to uses a different attack depending on how many attacks you’ve done with the previous weapon (examples would be DmC, Darksiders).
Interpretation 1: I like TODs
Interpretation 2: I like Neutral
The rare case of a person that uses 4 apocalypse music
As someone who enjoys high level tcgs, I have a different view of being forced to use certain characters because the balance isnt good enough to allow creative strats to be viable. I don't like it.
You rly made a GBVS combo section and didn't talk about Abel??? Literally the most combo heavy and combo decision heavy character in the game.
Hey, you should check naruto storm connections. The combo freedom in this game is ssomething never done on the sotrm series and its a lot of fun
i like the smt music in this
I like the video, but I'm not sure I agree that sf6 having less links means the combos are inherently less flashy or creative or complex, plus idk if that's necessarily true when you consider drive rush and burnout. And mk1 has the most creative combos the series has ever seen. Preference is preference but besides strive, which seems to have weirdly made their combos more complex and less complex in odd ways, I'm not sure you can say anything so definitive about modern games and combos.
Edit - I'd go this far... The in fight combo expression has widened because you can reliably expect what works to work. But outside of the match, the extremes of what the systems allow don't exist because they work more reliably. There are still ways to bend the system but they still fit into the math so people don't feel as creative when they see or make them. But the payoff is seeing cooler shit more consistently and getting to actively make choices because you know what options you have in an actual fight, always.
I feel like some of my points are being misinterpreted here? Im not being definitive about modern games as a whole, I specified it to be the popular ones that I highlighted, because that's where I see it. I wouldn't dare say it about DNF Duel, and I left out MK1 for that reason as well.
I also don't understand why burnout contributes to Combo Potential? I'm not saying SF6 lacks combo expression, I'm saying that term itself is confusing. But I am saying that SF6 offers less room for creativity because you do have less to find
I feel like comparing BBCF and GBFVSR is like comparing Street Fighter to MVC. They’re doing different things, trying to be different games. You don’t go to Granblue for what you go to Blazblue for.
can we get the music list 👀
Sorry about that! I've added it to the description now!
I love action games but don't care for "creating combos". I prefer fights that are intense, with relentless enemies, that leave me barely alive, like in Ninja Gaiden. The gore is the cherry on top. As for fighting games, I couldn't care less about making up my own combo. I just go with the min maxed ones that someone else already theorycrafted for most damage/consistency/wall carry. Why do I play? Because fights are intense, pvp is one of those things that will never not be heart racing combat
7:50 man I have a mix of emotions seeing this.
Crazy seems likes most ppls complaints were that they were playin a different game than "xyz" Doesn't make the game bad because it's a different game than "xyz"....
I dont know about you, but I've spent eons in Granblue's training mode discovering crazy combos off of tons of real match situations, the combo limit is a little annoying but some characters would just get TOD's too easily ( but they should at least let me use all my specials in one combo).
There were a million other design decisions other than “gut this aspect people like and call it “conpetefively refined”” that would have been able to merge both aspect of play and now they all feel more or less identical.
I'm a dumb wimp that stops at a streak of like 4 chains. I can't do TAS levels of combos, no matter how hard I try.
I think gbvsr did good cuz it naturally evolved from gbvs but Strive is not that. It just went to a completely different route to narrow down decision making and I know you were focusing on gbvsr cuz its easier to pull examples of what your trying to say but gbvsr was funnily enough. The sequel that actually added more decisions while Strive took away.
assault spy mentioned
Gwen Stacey #1 Anre NA
video woulda added more depth if you added tekken tbh. you get lotta creative combos and isnt restricted to like limits. great video either way.
'Twas on my mind, but it's the one fighting game I don't feel confident speaking on. I trust myself with the other ones!
It not character action game. It called spectacle fighter
Facts.
Combos are the worst part in fighting games unless you can route for something other than damage because they are just a means to an end.
I've always seen the Mk franchise as the most different fight game series. It's moves and combo system are so unique, I'm finding it really hard to get comfortable playing other games
I think that people may be upset with me for saying this but a combat system can either be creative or it can be strategic. It can't really be both at the same time.
If it is creative and is built to allow deep expression, then it must have many correct answers. There must not be huge differences between different options in different situations. That way the player is free to do what feels best to them. But that means that the strategic depth of the game will necessarily be shallower.
On the flip side, if you have a game that has very meaningful differences between each option then playing "creatively" will almost always mean playing incorrectly. And in that sense, being creative within that game is similar to deciding to stay in a game of blackjack when you have 4 and saying you're being creative. Yes... You are... But that is just the wrong option at that moment. So in a certain sense you're not really playing the same game as your opponent. You're basically throwing.
I feel like people don't want to accept this because they have a nebulous idea that they can just be so good that they'll go for things that make them happier even if they're less consistent or optimal. And that this will let them show their individuality. But "being good" is the sum of good decisions and exercise of skills. When you commit to making decisions that you know are bad you're putting a limit on how "good" you can possibly be.
The truth of the matter is that most games are not sandboxes, and they will have answers that are more correct than others in any given situation. The only way to get around that is to make a game where your decisions don't matter...
... but does it HAVE to be one or the other?
If combos r too long ppl complain
If they're too short theres little room for creativity
Combo breakers r one solution I guess, those r always tied to a resource tho meaning u will eventually eat that 25 sec long 65%hp bombo wombo... and its almost certainly gonna kill. I suppose thats 'fine'?
idk
They feel like they just cannot coincide. I even wondered: what if they made an extra mode with less restrictions, just where people can make cool stuff. But then again, people would just want that to become the main game, but people that hate long combos would dislike that main game
Another question: Where the hell is all the effective combo game been? All the action game are now souls and rouge-like😢😢😢
Are there any soft core action game out there?
This may be a contentious view, but I believe that combos in fighting games are a waste of time for both players.
The times spent between actual decisions made by the players are pointless.
They are an artifact of the past, persisting only because they are a genre convention and are expected by players.
Eventually, after a game's release, players will come up with the most efficient combo, and the game will revolve around the ability to execute that combo.
Nearly all other combo options will be inferior, unless, as you noted, the player has a preference for the damage or the situation.
A simple launcher can deplete half of your life, which is equivalent to having a powerful single-hit move that matches the full combo's impact and the ensuing situation.
It's akin to two people making love, then one suddenly starts wanking. It doesn't align with the fundamental essence of a fighting game. It resembles the mechanics of a single-player rhythm game more closely.
About what you said in the video, I think if the game doesn't let you come up with a creative combo, it's not fun and shouldn't belong in the game.
I think a combo should not exceed two or three hits and should not last longer than three seconds.
@3:10 The combat is identical to a warriors game, ie main attack button then special attack button whenever you want to get a different “ender”
It was a good video until the ending part, you were making it sound like that expressive and less restrictive combo cannot coexist with competitive scene. Even if this was the case(it's not btw), we can at least have both 'types' or subgenres of fighting games coexist.
Your attitude makes me feel that 'everyone should move on because of the companies that make fighting games have moved on'. No, they move on because that will reduce the development cost and attract more players, which means more money in their pocket. If diehards like us also surrender and choose to move on, then this *is* the true end of an era and the death of the games we love.
I did strongly disagree that setplay video of yours but this is on another level. Really disappointed. Sorry I have to unsubscribed.
Both types do still exist. I said they still exist and you can find them and they just may not have a wide appeal. But you seem to not acknowledge that the less restrictive combo systems often come with issues that aren't super quick fixes. Like, games like UNI2 have achieved the right balance, but it doesn't show up out of thin air. We're in an unforgiving climate for new fighting games
That again proves what I said. The climate is so unforgiving for fighting games with seemingly 'chaotic' yet creative combo systems, and it falls on our shoulders as 'combo FTG boomers' to be more tolerant and supportive of these games, rather than ditch them entirely and move on to the next shallow fad. 1/2
@@DazIsBambo These games were never meant to appeal to the masses in the first place, and that’s okay. My only hope is that the small but dedicated fanbase doesn’t turn its back and chase after fleeting trends. It’s people like us who are crucial to keeping these games alive. They can coexist, but only if we’re here to support them. 2/2 Sorry I'm not native English speaker, wish I could convey my idea more clearly.
Creativity without restrictions is fake creativity. It's more like masturbation.
Yes, I don't like DMC or Bayonetta gameplay. I find it boring as hell. I also hate when fighting games alnow similar mechanics: "creative" combos in fighting games are just long one sided rythm recipes. Boring. As. Hell.
Xenoblade 2 has fighting game combos and action game combos.
Oh? I'm interested...
that is SEVERELY overstating it, it's a tab target RPG with frame data and cancels instead of a global cooldown.
Straight up false information
where the fuck is tekken ???
how you gonna talk about combos and just ignore tekken
I waited for it the entire video lol
Long combos are ass, not only are they boring and stupid to look at but they give new players incentive to learn them because the other guy just playing for fun will have to win neutral 7 times to do the same damage, the for fun player will quit while the combo bot will be left with other of his kind learning less neutral interactions and the game will slowly die down.
for this to not happen the playerbase must be huge like tekken or Dbfz, every other game with long combos is dead in the water.
18:05 huh????? This isn't just about combos. This affects tech like movement too, just look at what happened at Oro in SFV, where he had a cool air tech with his air grab whiff and they removed it.
I don't think we should celebrate mainstream fighting games getting less free-flow.
what game @ 0:50 ?
blazblue cross tag battle
0:40 his* creative mind, my goodness. The fgc does not want to recognize men anymore.