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
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'.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 :)
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
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
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 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 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.
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?"
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
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
“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.
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!"
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 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 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
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.
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).
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 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
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...
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?
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.
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! ✨
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
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.
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 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'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
... 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
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.
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.
"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!
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'.
The weirdest part about this video is that who on earth plays Uno/Anre?
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.
so we're in the middle of the combo vs neutral focused design alternation cycle?
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
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.
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.
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 :)
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
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
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 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 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.
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.
when talk of the restrictions with kunitsu-gami's attacks got brought up I was waiting for Monter Hunter to get mentioned
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?"
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
F in the chat for DND duel. Developers killed their child by neglect.
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
“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.
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!"
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 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)
Kunitsu-Gami mentioned!
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
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.
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).
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.
bro back in the days dynasty warrior use to be a effective combo game🥲🥲🥲
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
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...
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?
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
THE J.D CLCIKBAIT!!!! (nice video)
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! ✨
Your videos are always great
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
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.
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.
can we get the music list 👀
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.
i like the smt music in this
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.
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'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
7:50 man I have a mix of emotions seeing this.
... 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
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.
where the fuck is tekken ???
how you gonna talk about combos and just ignore tekken
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
@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”
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.