System Mechanics in Fighting Games 

sajam explaining fighting game concepts to fight back the twitter beasts when they complain is like sisyphus puhsing that boulder up the mountain

"How many of you are complaining about Manon or Zangief's drive rush?" Every Manon and Zangief player: 🤚

The fact that I've literally never seen someone complain about Gief or Manon's Drive Rush is proof enough that DR is more of a character specific complaint than a system complaint.

Yeah good vid Sajam but you failed to take into account that the player I'm fighting has a controller and was pressing buttons, and that's where the neutral skips are coming from, also the sun was in my eyes and my dog ate my stick mid match.

I'm not sure if something changed about your editor in the recent content you've made Sajam, but I wanted to say he's doing a great job. Appreciate linking the appropriate footage to describe the examples you use for the topic.

My personal favorite system is the Burst/Overdrive system from BlazBlue series. You can use it defensively with burst, use it offensively with Overdrive, and even use it to counter and do some damage using startup I-frames during the Overdrive activation into an Exceed Excel. It's the most versatile system I have seen in a fighting game. Edit: For those that have never played Blazblue: you can activate Burst to get out of any moment of hitstun to blast the opponent back but on a long timer or you can activate it any other time to activate a mode that enhances properties and damage of your specials and supers allowing for different and more damaging combos. The length of Overdrive gets longer the less health you have and you can hit a button at anytime during overdrive to initiate a meter less but heavily scaled super called an Exceed Excel but it instantly ends overdrive. Complex but insanely dynamic system with so many uses.

They should add a detector to buff mechanics when I'm using them but nerf said mechanics when you're using them

- neutral skips aren't new - when you want changes to a system mechanic, consider what that mechanic is designed to balance AGAINST in the overall flow of the game - mechanics can be overtuned in certain versions, but overall serve a useful balancing purpose 66L and Brave Counter to your hearts' content lads ☕

Fighting game alzheimers has been a serious dieseas aflecting more people each year to the point were we are seriously having the same convos every new game every patch, people forget how things were the last patch from last week and the community doesnt realise theyre experiencing it.

Sajam videos fill the all-consuming urge to tell everyone in the FGC to stop whining endlessly about the games they supposedly enjoy 😂

I don’t know why some people think this, but you literally cannot separate system and character mechanics when talking about balancing. Like, these things don’t exist in a vacuum. All characters have access to their unique kits AND also the system mechanics, obviously. That means they will necessarily interact with each other and affect balancing as a result.

Idk why people argue with this man knowing this stuff is his job

As a new player to SF6 and FGC in general, I wanted to thank you for your content man. I’ve watched most of all your sf5+6 stuff over the past few weeks and finally exited the training mode and custom room matches into ranked and placed plat 5 for the first time ever. Your content and attitude really helped make an impression on me with how to approach these games and avoiding forming bad habits

Even if everyone had the same DR or whatever, it would still be unbalanced due to the difference in what else characters can threaten with and the reward they get off of DR alone. As you said, it goes back to the characters

A video regarding powerful defensive system mechanics would be a blast to sit throught. It would be a nice point of comparison between poweful, but reasonable, defensive mechanis, like SFIII's parries or KI's combo breakers, and really degenerate stuff like SCVI's reversal edges

System mechanics can also have varying degrees of universality vs individuality. For SF6 Drive Rush vs Drive Parry are pretty good examples. Both are universal system mechanics in that every character has access to them but Drive Rush is a lot more individualized in terms of how it works in detail. Speed, distance etc varies from character to character. On the other hand Drive Parry is fairly identical across the board as far as i know. There's no individual differences in terms of how the parry at it's base works between characters (maybe a characters size impacts your hitbox and thus your parry but that's not an inherent part of the parry mechanic itself, which is why i said "parry at it's base"). However, even if Drive Parry doesn't have any built in individualization, what characters can do off of a parry does still vary as different characters have different moves, with different frame data and properties (armor, invincibility and so on) so even a fairly or mostly "universalized" universal mechanic can still end up having different levels of usefulness or versatility due to character differences. I think one reason why SF5 for example became a bit divisive especially towards the end of the game, was how individualized V-triggers and V-Reversals were. Technically a universal mechanic but so individualized that some characters ended up winning big and being demonstrably better as a result and some characters lost big and suffered heavily also as a result. So if the character you liked (for whatever reason) just so happened to have gotten shafted in the V-system distribution there wasn't a whole lot you could do about it. And if i were to speculate i think there's a chance Tekken 8 might end up in a similar place because of the Heat System and how individualized it is. This isn't to say that individualized "universal" mechanics are bad, just that you have to be very careful and thoughtful with how you implement and balance them otherwise they very easily end up dividing the roster into winners and losers. Where the winners play the game as "intended" with the mechanic and the losers play a different game where said mechanic is significantly less relevant or useful and as such have to fight an uphill battle winning with what feels like less tools at their disposal. Still doable, but it's a lot harder.

I want there to be a secondary patch you can load into from the main menu for every game that has balance changes chosen by the community because that would be really funny. Truly, this would be grassroots.

Back in my day neutral skip meant either teleport or some obnoxious fullscreen armored lariat with plus frames, kids these days smh

This video felt like it had just a bit of extra sauce that made it feel like the effort that went into it was just that much more. Very satisfying, 10/10, would recommend.

I agree with the take. At least the point you’re making is on system mechanics. If there is going to be changes for balancing you need to start there. I have been playing fighting games for 30 years and most complaints about new games are mostly the same complaints.

I really like these short informative videos!!!

You hit the nail on the head with Seox. I'm not mad that he can backfilp across the screen and twerk on me. I'm mad that he does all that and then when you finally get a turn he will parry at the first available opportunity. Same energy as Nier's DP and parry SSBA.

Some people don't understand that making everything bad still means something is going to be better than other options unless everything is made the same. Strength is both in how and if something achieves a goal, and in relation to other similar options. Asking people to think is asking too much, though.

When you really think about it as a move, crouch tech in SF4 is straight up insane Its a 3 frame, plus on block crouching light kick that also techs throws

Another problem with how Focus Attacks were in SF4, a lot of chracters had really shit armor-breaking moves. Like if you're Sakura your armor break is fast and -2 on block and is a combo starter. If you're Balrog your armor breaker is like 20+ frames startup, requires charge, and is like -10 on block.

Moste kiling it with the editing

Interesting thoughts on granblue. I always thought 66L was used to make sure that characters could get come type of pressure after special since EX special into safe jumps are gone.

Hello, my kingliness, Mr. Sajam. Thank you for the entertaining and well thought out video. I would expect nothing less from my glorious king.

Sajam is that cool uncle who teaches you everything about playing fighting games so you can beat your little cousin. I love these videos.

I think there's something to be said about left/right hand mechanic overload, at least in SF6 since it's a frequent topic. in 3s, parry was on your left/direction inputs hand, and just throw was on right, in SF6, parry, throw AND drive impact are all on right hand. It's no wonder the controller standard has been "mod additional buttons on to your control if you don't play pad"

Moste has done it again.

Must be tough to be this right out here on the internet.

I saw you, circling that "subscribed" button when doing those videos flashbacks. Sneaky.

I love how well you break down the topics so a dunce like me can even understand

3:07 dude !!!!! i feel like focus attack was so much stronger than a lot of universal stuff we have now and no one complains about focus !! we love focus attack !!!

sajam's rant at the end about the cat boi is what i came here for.

i feel like you souped up on coffee for this topic cuz boi you were going

At this point I think all fighting games should only have 1 playable character. Everything would be universal and no match-up issues. The best game really /s

I agree. If you don't like those things, play a game with no 66L or Brave Counter. I LOVE GBVSR, but I hate 66L and a lot of the Ultimate Skills are ridiculous. I only play a few games at a time now, even when I do play. I just don't like how the system mechanics are structured, so I just play other stuff instead of milling about in someone's stream to complain lol.

Nah, Goldlewis needed WWA too. I mean not NEED, need, you know? But the big body characters also have slow movement speed, which means that their character-specific options are so much harder to use to solve matchups, and WWA does it with a meter cost, to remove the knowledge check if you're willing to spend meter to do so. One of the reasons season 3 feels so good to me is that those two new mechanics give you a way out without the character-specific options.

Moste hovering the cursor over the subscribe button lol

I just wish they would extend characters hurtboxes when they DR , it's ok if it's powerful , but it's just annoying when you're trying to check it and your move just whiffs and your opponent whiff punishes you on accident for checking his DR

You should start calling it "skipping footsies" and not skipping neutral. Because that's what people are not feeling.

Haven't watched the video yet, but my take is, if the neutral skip is a universal mechanic like Superdash/Drive Rush/whatever, it's no longer a neutral skip. It's just the new neutral. Something like, idk, Urien EX Tackle into VT is a neutral skip since not everyone has EX Tackle. 66L in Granblue Rising isn't a neutral skip since its a tool everyone has.

a big thing about drive rush is all the ideas i’ve seen to universally nerf it are all garbage. some people suggest making it a punish counter state, but that would unfairly hurt characters with bad drive rushes like manon or gief whose drive rushes are easier to interrupt. people suggest increasing the cost of raw drive rush but that would make it so much worse for oki (rip zangief’s already shit oki) and for combos (like 60% of aki’s combo routes become unviable)

I do think Deejay is walking a fine line having so much of his selling point be based around DR - like I feel like if his DR gets nerfed, he'd need something else given to him to compensate. He'd still be a scrub killer who can do 70+% off an opponent's mistake, but the DR is basically there to deal with the cautious players who don't just throw their lifebars away on a gamble. I would like to see a SF6 Mystery Mod style thing that gives Deejay's DR to Zangief though. That'd be hilarious.

8:06 describing early for honor. Literally two mechanics are actually useful in year 1 FH. Dodge, Guardbreak(basically grab, only good early on because teching was broken), and Parry. There was no offense, no neutral, no mixups, no nothing. Even most defensive mechanics outside dodge and parry were simply bad Or horrendously designed. Over time they made offense strong and people complain CONSTANTLY. It was a staring contest at launch. Now that every character has a viable opener and defense isn't completely broken they cry. It's weird.

im pretty hugh rn n i just realized im watching a sajam video of a video i just watched . help!

Rose's backdash is the thing I miss the most about SF4

Yeah Seox will do that parry every single time except the one time I decide to wait and punish it he will receive psychic information despite it being the first time I try to bait it and he'll know. He'll know.

I was wondering why I kept getting hit when trying to dash block in Granblue, I guess you actually aren't able too! I guess I need to think about dashing as being more committal and trying to cancel into dodge.

I didn't know you couldn't dash block in gbfvs. Can you do it in rising?

Don't forget about heat

bro said fireball YRC and my ass started smiling LMFAO, I'm guilty as hell.

If they got rid of drive rush, characters like Kimberly would be bottom tier. If they nerfed Deejay's and Juri's drive rush distance, no one would complain about it anymore. Personally I think drive rush is a fun mechanic, if not the most fun mechanic in the game. It's not perfect, but the game is only at Season 1 so people need to calm down about it.

neutral skip with armor is fucking cancer ngl Super Dash is fair and easily punishable

I don't really get the term "neutral skip" in this context. From a parry drive rush takes 11 frames until you can use a move and there's a game freeze for 10 frames, so doesn't that mean they flash green 21 frames before they can even use a move? Surely that means DR moves are reactable? Yes, it's hard to react, but isn't the neutral in SF6 jab when you see green and DI when you see red? Or rather, those are the two additional options on the standard mental stack of poke when in footsies range and anti-air when they jump. Like, that is the neutral, not skipping it? Maybe I don't get it because I'm a smasher and SF6 is the first traditional fighting game I've invested significant time into.

My biggest gripe with Granblue's 66L is not anything to do with any character specific strength. It's the universal application it has of absolutely demolishing spacing traps. There are no spacing traps anymore in Granblue. If your move is minus enough, the opponent will 66L you, and you will not be able to spacing trap it. It's easiest to see this with the other universal, 66M. Most 66Ms are lows that are about -6 to -8 when spaced, and leave you outside of the range of a lot of normals that could potentially punish. Instead of risking the spacing trap, if you block a 66M, simply 66L instead. You won't get a punish, but you are now close and +2, and there's no risk of being whiff punished because of how HUGE 66Ls are. It's absurd how good 66L is in many respects, but this is the area where I think it hurts the game the most. Spacing traps are so interesting, and they simply do not exist with 66L in its current state.

If you play against custom characters with cammy divekick, dj drive rush, dragonlash, jp spike and departure, sumo headbutt, sandblast, yoga teleport, and spd and then go play ranked everything magically becomes fair all of a sudden

Sayjam should put out a tweet that says "Tell me your least favorite parts of fighting games" just so he can do a video where he tells them all that they're wrong.

Back at the Sajamagogue for the latest preachings of truth and reason in fighting games.

If everyone wanted a fair and balanced fighting game that does not rely on system mechanics or character strengths or individual experience in the genre or skill, that already exists. It's called Street Fighter 1. Have fun with that.

Bro didn't watch the video. Don't be mad but these thumbnails tho. Chef's kiss f****** amazing!! eight thumbs up

global mechanics are good because they give the same tools to certain characters that might otherwise not have access to anything similar to it. this and the fact that you have another dial to change, it's good for balance.

I don't know anythig about any of that, but in doubt, i think the solution would be to nerf Sol Badguy.

I can see why people would complain about offensive system mechanics due to them, when they are strong, feeling more opporessive to go against, whereas defensive ones are, generally, less jarring (Of course there are exceptions, 3s parry like you said.). I don't really see anything inherently wrong with drive rush, 66L or anything like that. It's largely a matter of taste, finding a game you like and learning how to work with the system mechanics, (Even if they seem overtuned.).

Balance for a game like SF6 seems hard, so many interwoven mechanics. It's okay to say 'I dont like x thing, but I don't know how it could be adjusted' . Im not huge on throw loops, but understand why they are there atm. First big balance patch for FGs are sick, cant wait for S2 of SF6.

Very well said and valid input from someone who is clearly passionate about fighting games. Is Sajam his name? how is it pronounced if so? Curious.

8:00 tl:dr characters should be ryu

I could hear sajam talk for 2 hours straight about mechanics and systems in games

If they remove the cartoon step from deejay ill be sad, idc if it gets nerfed as long as he still keeps the animation.

Talking about drive rush as a universal mechanic feels like talking about heavy punch as a universal mechanic. Both are buttons you can press to do an attack and every character has a different attack on that button. People really do be willing to come up with the wildest shit to complain about a thing they don't like.

Manon's Drive Rush is a joke, but I would not want to see her with an average one, she would be impossible to keep out.

The neutral skip hate is like old heads who hate Steph Curry's influence on the NBA. It's an evolution of the game. Live with it.

Sajam asking fighting game players to think 😏

No, Sajam. Parrying is not a neutral skip. Moving forward while attacking is not a neutral skip either.

Its always funny to me seeing all the hate on 66L. Just like with DR i think its stronger for some characters (Djeeta) than it would be for others. In my case I feel Ladiva 66L is rather weak as shes just so slow to dash compared to others and it limits how effective it is for pressure and basically makes me forgo using it for neutral

Super dash

A lot of people struggle to understand how hard it is to design specific things in such complex systems. Lazy thinking prevails like it doesn't work right, I (and many others) can see that so the designer is a moron. They miss the fact that lots of similar things do work as part of the whole so nobody pays attention and every change to the things that dont work creates ripple effects. Its always easier to critique.

Im 40 years old. Am i too old for fighting games?

I like sf6 system mechanics but they feel very feat or famine to me. Which is fine but I get frustrated way to much some times

Okay, but every game having some fast, advancing, plus on block system-mechanic move is still samey and makes games more bland. The problem is the ubiquity, not that they're fundamentally terrible mechanics. Every character has a move like this in seemingly every game people are currently playing. Even if those mechanics fit the games in a vacuum, even if it's more of a problem on some characters than others, it is going to grate on people. Imagine if every single character had a system mechanic projectile in every fighting game game that released or got a major update in 2023. Or they all had invincible meterless reversals, or counter moves, or whatever. Of course you'd get people complaining.

Sajam have a amazing tshirt that change colour at 0:40

The balancing of the drive system mechanics in SF6 is elegant, I think the game might have been playtested for years to work out the cost of all the mechanics so perfectly. The feeling of using a successful Drive Reversal with 2.1 drive bars while your opponent Drive Rushes at you with 3.1, your DR knocked them down, then you make them block one thing to burn them out? Incredible.

Technically cancelling a poke into an advancing special move is a systemwide neutral skip.

twitter fighter mfs could NOT deal with ssbu joker dash attack

If 66L didn't teleport you half the screen with a active hitbox id be more okay with it. It can be so hard to check even when I know exactly when its coming. There should be a whiff mechanic on spot dodge or something, most the time its still plus.

This video is too smart and too fast and too true for these cro-mags to pay attention to. But still good stuff it's good that it's out there and now people can point to this.

Superdash rules I hope if the sequel to fighterz isn’t Dragon Ball it gives everybody some kinda jump dash like roshi, or maybe everybody with a unique dash approach button

Put your car in neutral and see how far you get, I came to press buttons and I’m putting that shit in 5th now block this wack ass mixup

Need to put your conclusions earlier in the video because you know these people are halfway done with their "you're wrong because x" essay by minute 2

Comment

Ive yet to hear someone complain about JP's DR... 🤔 Kind of ironic, right lads?

Honestly I prefer system mechanics since that makes it universal. I will die standing on the hill that Combo/Counter breakers is the sickest shit; Not a neutral skip but a system mechanic.

people that complain about this kinda stuff usually suck and would lose with or without the mechanics

"Omg, they can just skip neutral whenever, this game is trash" Honestly not even surprised people still have these kinds of takes in the fgc. The number of times ive seen folks lose and blame the game and/or its mechanics is too many to count. Like, brother i am sorry but not every loss is because of how "broken" a full screen ulti skill is (especially when its not unblockable) or bc they kept spamming drive impact.

I'm glad there's someone like Sajam saying this cuz people like Punk are making it seem like SF6 system mechanics are borderline unplayable and not fair. This man Punk wants another street fighter 5 dumpster fire on our hands. Lol

Drive rush or whatever sucks. It’s a non fadc focus. Ruins neutral entirely.

feels like a lot of these complaints from twitch/youtube commenters can be solved by whining less and playing more

neutral skip? more like, offensive options ive never considered defending.