A solid diagnosis, but a poor prescription

A writer at gamestop recently posted an interesting article on fighting games and why they need to be fixed. You can read it at: http://www.gamespot.com/features/fixing-fighting-games-6368619/

I think the article starts out strongly, pointing out the recent short comings in fighting game sales and the historical precedent for the genre to collapse into a hardcore niche again as at the end of the 90s. To my knowledge there are at least 8 fighting game franchises that have been iterated on in the last year (plus several slightly less active titles that have active competitive scenes) and most of those franchises have been updating at least once per year. Because the differences between them are only apparent to hardcore gamers and game designers, the market for fighting games has already become over saturated and will probably implode soon unless somebody puts on the brakes. Of course people keep buying them so companies will keep pumping them out, but that's a different discussion.

Despite that strong diagnosis, the author's ideas for how to fix the fighting game genre are lackluster and frankly unimaginative. Essentially he just wants all Capcom fighters (I believe they're the only ones dropping the ball on what he prescribes) to have story modes and mission modes (that don't suck). Despite spotting the symptoms, the prescription completely misses the mark on what's wrong with fighting games and how to fix them.

The real problem with fighting games is a matter of focus. For a couple of decades now, the fighting game genre has tweaked, expanded, and retweaked the Street Fighter 2 formula over and over again. Two players creating spatial challenges for each other in real time. The problem is the focus of that endless tweaking is mainly in the combo systems. To me, this is what really drives players away. Combos are odd things to think about unless you study the gameplay system and really get down and dirty with training mode, something newbies are disinclined to do. If you want to appeal to more users (newbies), you need to expand on a part of SF2 that doesn't require so much practice.

If you were to ask me how to fix the fighting game genre, I would say change the way the spacing game works. Super Smash Bros broke it by adding in platforms (not to mention changing a lot of the underlying mechanics, but platforms are most relevant to the spacing game which is what fighting games are really about). I've always wanted to make a fighting game where the players can modify the gravity of their player (Metal Storm meets Guilty Gear). Something like that modifies the spacing game, and could breathe fresh air into a rotting genre. I don't think you would even need combos if you made the spacing more interesting, and combos are the biggest barrier to entry (solving another of the author's gripes about fighting games).

Of course, there are a number of other things you could mess with. You could change the ways the life bars work (Smash bros.), you could create a new visual style instead of recycling old ones (Guilty Gear, SF3, Skull Girls), or you could change the environment that the game functions in (another project I thought about for awhile was a sort of online poker version of a fighting game). But the space control game is the core of fighting games, and it's been untouched for far too long, if you want to refresh the fighting game genre, change the spacing game.

An Overlooked World Building Problem

I was thinking about world building the other night at my girlfriend's house when I tripped over a huge (though maybe subtle) stumbling block to the creation of really immersive, deep worlds in video games. I was actually thinking particularly of Valkyrie Profile, a stellar game which doesn't completely suffer from the problem I'm going to talk about in the specifics of gameplay, but which does embody it in a larger sense.

The problem has to do with actions available to players. Namely that when world building, most game/world designers (particularly ones in the sci-fi and Fantasy genres) fail to account for the dichotomy between actions available to characters in the universe and actions available to the player. While compelling fiction that is mostly removed from the action is still a fine way to tell a good story in a game (or at least, it's worked out okay in the past), I've always been frustrated playing games where the world I'm inhabiting doesn't correspond to the world I play in. I actually think the Metal Gear Solid series shows off both the downsides of this and possible ways of handling it.

One of the best examples of this break between player and avatar abilities is almost any custscene from Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. The scene I remember most is when the player beats the boss battle with the HindD helicoptor. In the ensuing cutscene, Solid Snake back flips onto an inflight missile and then uses it as a pivot so he can get a better angle to fire back the killing blow at the helicopter. It would be an amazing segment in an action movie, but after a grueling boss battle where the player is forced to take cover and fire back at the right opportunities, it seems kind of insulting. Meanwhile, in MGS2 and 3 you can actively break the game's story-line by cleverly exploiting the situations in cutscenes.

For example, early on in MGS3, a boss who you'll fight later (The End) will appear, being carted around in a wheel chair. If the player skips the cutscene and has good enough aim, they can shoot The End in the head and kill him. This helps reinforce to the player that the world he's in is real, which is how we get to that sweet immersion spot. How do you know the end is dead? His boss fight is changed to the player fighting a bunch of random foot soldiers.

Is there a general solution? Well, I think it's just a matter of being more creative with the rules of your worlds, and accepting that your players will try to subvert those rules. Rather than trying to recreate a political intrigue story for an action RPG (which leads players to ask "Why can't I just jump villain x in an alley way?"), make they're inaction an explicit rule of the universe. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective does a great job of this by explaining right from the get go that the player is a ghost who can only interact with certain objects in the world.

Mischief Makers is another great example of this. It stars a robot named Marina who can pick objects up, shake them, and throw them. The player doesn't feel robbed within the context of the story because that's all she can do. In fact Marina often attempts to use all of these actions during cutscenes, but usually fails to apprehend the person/boss/clancer.

It certainly takes more work, but I think the payoff is there. Game design is really about consistency more than anything else, and by unifying the actions the player can use and those available to people in the world, the game as a whole becomes more consistent and more intimately immersive.

'Practice Makes Perfect' or 'If I made a training mode'

I've been playing a lot of fighting games recently. I've always had a longtime secret goal of being super good at fighting games and like with any skill, it means I have to spend a lot of time practicing. For fighting games practicing means hanging out in training mode, grinding out your combos and working on your setups until you're a killing machine. But working on combos can be really frustrating.

I think the problem with it is how mysterious and arbitrary the rules of a fighting game can be. When I used to practice guitar and I couldn't play a particular line, it was easy to place the blame on myself. Playing a guitar (at least, playing it poorly) isn't rocket science: you fret the note, you pluck the string when the beat comes, repeat. if you fail at steps 1 or 2, it's your fault 99.9% of the time. Fighting games are different. I remember showing the trial mode from Super Street Fighter 4 to my girlfriend. She was interested in learning how to play and was going along fine until she reached a trial where she had to link(word play!) two normal attacks. I forget which, I think a crouching medium punch to a standing medium punch with Rose. Something that seems simple but actually requires precise timing. But the problem isn't her timing (my girlfriend is onethousand times the musician I am), the problem is the game doesn't communicate what the timing is at all.

I was thinking about this recently when i was linked to a video of world famous violinist Itzhak Perlman talking about Practicing. While he's talking about playing music, I think he knows at least a little bit about picking up a skill. And I think that's probably the problem with game designers for fighting games. I doubt many of them have taken a fighting game seriously and don't know the trials and tribulations in becoming competitive at them. For that matter, I don't think most people who are actually top tier competitors at fighting games know what it takes to become good. Most of them just went to tournaments for all of their lives until they became amazing and then talked shit about their talent.

I think all of this should change, personally. And I think the biggest obstacle is the trash they call training mode in modern fighting games. Because of the way training mode is designed, if you aren't already dedicated to becoming the best, have access to frame data, and a lot of time to really explore the system, you'll spend a few minutes in training mode when you get the game and then only come back maybe to check how two moves interact with each other.

It doesn't have to be this way! I think to date, the best training mode options I've seen have been in Guilty Gear XX and Street Fighter 2 HD Remix (Fun fact: the creators of each of these games were very into fighting games at different points in their lives). Guilty Gear gives the players a treasure trove of options to break the game's system and push it to its limit. SF2HDR gives players an option to view hitboxes which is unheard of (for some reason). But these are still not quite there. What would I add? I can think of three options off the top of my head to improve the efficacy of fighting game training modes.

1) Slow down

This was actually featured in Super Smash Bros' training mode, but no one picked up on it (maybe cause it's technically not a "fighting game" but a "competitive action game" (whatever Nintendo)). I'm not sure why. This obviously plays into Itzhak's idea of practicing slowly (hope you watched the video). Some fighting games require you to do a move and then follow with another move, sometimes within 1/60th of a second. That sort of timing is certainly possible (I've watched plenty in real life matches), but without the ability to slow things down and really figure out the timing, only the most diehard fans can be competitive.

2) Color Coded hit boxes to show when cancels/links are possible

I think this one is pretty obvious, but would actually be really hard to implement. Mainly because if a character had one cancelable-move, it would be difficult to tell which other moves would be cancelable. But assuming a solid solution could be designed (again, this is off the top of my head), this and the previous feature would make combo discovery and composition a much easier and enjoyable experience.

3) Programmable two way (or three way!) mixups

This one would appeal to the more technically inclined players I've talked about, but I think it would be great for anyone who wanted to get serious about fighting games. For the uninitiated, when a player has the advantage they often put the other player in a situation where they must make a guess. If they guess right, they usually get out free, if they guess wrong, they receive damage and usually are put back into the same situation. These situations are hard to practice on your own, because the CPU can only record one set of inputs. If a training mode allowed two recorded inputs that would randomly be switched between, a player could train their reactions against the world of mixups, instead of just whatever they run into from their friends.

Look at all that, right off the top of my head. If (when) I end up making a fighting game, I'm going to make the greatest training mode in the world.

I Think You're in Dangerous Territory, Capcom

I haven't really posted on Capcom's recent treatment of Mega Man, because I want to keep this blog focused on game design discussion and responses to goings on in the gaming community.

For the record (and disclosure), I was very sad and angry about the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3. Mega Man Legends 2 is one of the most superbly polished 3d action games ever created, and it's sad Capcom felt the mostly complete demo did not meet the criteria for release.

The resulting fan backlash now wonders if Capcom is trying to kill off the Blue Bomber. When Ultimate Marvel Versus Capcom 3 was announced, a lot of people began hoping that maybe Mega Man would make an appearance. He sure did, but not in a way anyone expected.

Personally, I was waiting for them to port over Megaman Volnutt from Tatsunoko Versus Capcom. Viewtiful Joe and Zero were plucked almost verbatim from that game, so it seems like it'd be pretty easy to bring Volnutt along too. I'd expect at least one of Mega Man's incarnations to make it in though, Mega Man (original recipe) has been in the two previous Marvel Versus Capcom games, for crying loudly outside.

Instead we get this. If you don't want to read the story, UMvC3 has a level referencing a famous comic book cover, but instead of mutants, this poster has characters from Marvel Versus Capcom 2 who didn't make it into MvC3. It merges the game world and the gameplay together neatly. The problem here is that one character is listed as neither slain nor captured: Mega Man.

This is a massive tactical error. Capcom could have switched him with someone else (say, Amingo!), which would spread rumors of that character being DLC and when it didn't happen noone would care. Instead we're left wondering if this is a concerted trolling effort from Capcom.

But even THAT is not the point of this post. The point of this post is a recent response by Capcom's VP Chris Svensson to a comment from a fan. The fan wrote to Capcom complaining about the appearances of Mega Man in UMvC3. To Quote Svensson:

So to understand you correctly, we can't use Mega Man in any form or make any references (other than as a playable character) without pissing some folks off?

I think you need thicker skin. I'd also think as a fan, you should like to see any/all exposure for Mega Man to raise awareness for the brand in any form, even if you personally aren't satisfied by the execution

Is this where we are now? A fan is unhappy, so you're telling him to man up. Let's instead stretch his complaint to hyperbole as our counter arguement and throw context out the window! How does this make any sense? Even Segata Sanshiro knows better than that.

I really just don't understand why Svensson felt the need to put this fan in his place. Couldn't he have just said nothing? That's Capcom's problem these days. A lot of this Mega Man stuff would've blown over if it weren't for antagonizing inclusions like Days of Future Past, and relentless anti-pandering to fans. Mega Man fans are upset, how about we let it blow over?

More games from Finance

In a way this post builds on the direction I was moving in with my last post. Video Game worlds are currently too static. A great way getting them to change is to implement facsimile financial models into games. The financial system (while outrageously broken and corrupt) is a big factor in how society moves, changes, and grows.

Detractors may tell me that Recettear has already accomplished this. Which is true, but Recettear puts you in control of a small world (your store) where supply and demand are the same thing as HP and MP. It's a good first step, to be sure but we need to expand it and I'm afraid implementing more substantial and self-contained economics systems (outside of MMOs, of course) is quite a bit more difficult than a simple buy low sell high logical challenge.

I've read the blog of Paul Krugman for a few months now (which probably explains my big interest in pushing economics/finance on video games). A few days ago Krugman post a link to an article he wrote about 10 years ago about a Baby-Sitting Co-Op. Basically a bunch of couples decided to set up a co-op to babysit each other's kids without having to hire babysitters. They issued their own currency to ensure nobody gamed the system. But they ran into troubles because there wasn't enough of said currency.

It's a pretty interesting model, but I'm not really here to talk about economics. I think trying to create a Baby-Sitting Co-Op game is in the interest of the game design community because it's a relatively simple system which acts as a microcosm of the greater world of economics. If successfully implemented into a game, the next iteration could be a more realistic market system for FFXV or whatever where towns sell weapons based on what materials are closest to them rather than where they are in the linearity. As long as we're being linear, let's make it engaging!

Let's up the world ante a bit

I was thinking the other day about ways to expand game worlds and mechanics in a meaningful way while I was driving my car the other night. Here's a simple idea that I'm happy to let someone steal from me: finance.

I don't really mean a game about the stock market or banking per se. But maybe put some investments that work like real world investments into an RPG or something. I think it would bring some depth to a strategy RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics. A lot of RPGs like to force players to make a bunch of money by killing monsters. It'd be really cool if the game had inflation and investing in real estate or buying ownership of a store was how you could keep the money piling in to keep up and buy new equipment.

After that I was thinking of implementing finance in a slightly less literal way. Let's make a game where there are no healing spells. You have a certain amount of life at any given time. You can get life by killing monsters, but it's fairly rare. But much less rare-ly you can find a fairy who will ask you for a chunk of your life. In exchange she'll restore your life slowly overtime. The goal here is amass so many fairies that you're gains will compound and you'll be invincible.

Maybe I'll just make this game.

MW3 vs BF3, a lesson in Game Feel I guess

Eurogamer.net has an interesting article comparing (though they fail to use the term) the game feel of Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. The article brings a game quality that nobody talks about into context, discusses the rivalry between EA and Activision(-Blizzard), the future, and even some pc vs console discussion.

The Game Feel part of the discussion has to do with response times. Apparently Digital Foundry sat down and measured out the response time of MW3 and BF3 and found that MW3 responds about twice as fast as BF3, partially because MW3 runs at 60 FPS and BF3 runs at 30 FPS. I think their interpretation is that this response time is secretly addictive to players (even if they may not realize it) and draws them to MW3 like children to Chuck E Cheese's. I think they're on the tokens. In exchange though, Battlefield 3 implements a whole slew of rendering techniques that Modern Warfare can't handle in the time allotted, so we have a clear tradeoff.

The really interesting part to me though, is near the end where Digital Foundry points out that BF3 runs at 60FPS on a PC, that's not using the 5 year old technology that Modern Warfare is optimized for. They then claim that come next console generation, Activision is going to be at a technological disadvantage because of the engine Modern Warfare uses. EA will topple Activision, and the hobbits will begin taking on their real nemesis: Sauron.

The article is very interesting, but I wonder if the predictions are true. I think it's a little presumptuous to assume that Activision won't try to improve the engine at all for the next generation. Activision probably saved a pretty penny on development costs for MW3 so I don't see why they wouldn't invest in an upgraded engine for Xbox 720 or whatever. Even if they didn't, I'm sure Modern Warfare 4 would sell amazingly well on name alone.