What people think is missing from modern fighting games 

Good video, when people talk about how they can't tell different players appart whe playing the same character I 100% think they are talking about combo conversions/decision making in converting. People actually want LESS accessible options so that players who practice more are able to convert better than those who don't. Being able to do whatever you want can just make things over centralized when it turns out that 1 route/technique overpowers the infinite number of other options you could go for but are inherently trash

I think what max is getting at, and what most of us want, is to feel consistently rewarded for exploring a character. Learning new things that you didn't know your character could do is exciting... new combo routes, new conversions off of unusual situations, It's a great feeling when you add another item to your toolbox that you didn't have before. Eventually, though, the discovery period has to end and then all that's left is to refine what you have and build your macro strategy, and through a combination of tighter systems and easier access to information the discovery period can feel much shorter than it was back when all you had was the boys at the arcade and your Street Fighter 3 prima official strategy guide.

What Max is asking for and what he’s describing are two different things. Max wants a fluid, I think that’s what he meant when he said “loose”, system and characters that can allow for more personalized approaches, but what he’s describing are games with a ton of combo potential or immediate gimmicks. And it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what he wants to. Max loves combos and tricks and it’s obvious they are his favorite element of fighting games, but more combo potential or confirm options don’t necessarily lead to more “emergent gameplay”. Because as players improve what is viable dwindles, that the rest might as well not be there.

Any discussion about player perception of games is incomplete without considering how people have incomplete information and make assumptions based on what they think they know. Consider especially how social media changes this for modern games compared to old games.

"Emergent gameplay" feels like one of those fancy twitter word combos people throw around when they aren't quite sure what they don't like about a game that they *want* to like

+1 to the idea of crossover streams where you teach Max BlazBlue or Brian_F teaches you SFV. Or maybe just a discussion table where you guys talk fighting game design. I feel like there's some great content hidden there somewhere that's becoming apparent as you guys build off of eachother's thoughts and ideas.

This is easy to solve. Just: - Have the game be niche - Make it have no imput buffer - Have a humongous amount of knowledge checks I promise you no single match will be the same.

I think Max's take here is very interesting compared to yours. As a tournament player, you're constantly looking to find new tech and push the character to improve at the game, and by extension to improve your results. I imagine that you're also looking at other top players of other games to scout out the kind of stuff they're doing to push their characters to figure out what you need to learn how to deal with in the future, which gives you a lot of knowledge on how the meta for other characters is being pushed. Finally, you're focused on one or two games at a time, which means you have a lot more time to focus on developing a single character. By contrast, Max is probably closer to a mid- to high-level player (not tournament level and not quite top level, but he's not bad either due to having so much experience in fighting games), so he's not nearly as invested in pushing his character(s), he probably doesn't actively look for the cool stuff other players are pushing with their characters, and Max plays a lot of different games so he's spending less time developing any particular character in those games. His values are different because he's at a different level. I think what Max is asking for is partially to allow for that discovery process to be accessible for non-tournament players. A big part of this is that you shouldn't need to go into training mode to discover new stuff until you're at the top level, and instead you should be able to get simple ideas or misinputs in the middle of the game and be able to test the practicality of your ideas or get surprised by the effectiveness of the move you misinput. At this level, you shouldn't be looking for stuff that's optimal or pushes your character forward, you should be looking for stuff that exists and broadens your gameplay experience.

Appreciate your assessment of the actual sentiment he's expressing. Feel like Strive is a great counterexample to have kept bringing up too as people have developed wall loops, wild combo recipes esp with the RC system, lack of air tech has led to different ways you can combo (naturally some suboptimal tho), and positive bonus choices like you mentioned

So Max and LK are both right as we experience games differently. I'm actually surprised tekken wasn't mentioned as it is the perfect example. Loose games do get optimized but there are player that create their own route using uncommon routes to express themselves even though it is not optimal. I'm with max on that as that was the biggest issue with MK11 where characters had only 1 way to do a launch combo in comparison to mkx where you had 3 - 4 special moves.

I think a factor in why newer games feel like they are figured out faster is that there's more way's for information about them to be disseminated quickly. what with social media and the like, whereas in the older days any new tech people discover would probably take a lot longer to become common knowledge.

I also want to say like… I don’t think it matters if the competitive players optimize the game or characters to be a specific way. The reason why I enjoy games that have more options even if most of the alternative choices are sub par is the fact that not everybody plays perfectly all of the time anyway. Mew2King vs Mang0 for example: I can watch a melee set and identify certain players just by the way they’re choosing to interact with the opponent. Even if there’s a “right” way to do it, you don’t see it a lot from older Melee sets UNLESS M2K is playing. Then you see Mr Optimal but he still loses to Mang0 doing some dumb shit. That’s what’s so cool about having a game like that. Just because you will optimize the game doesn’t mean you won’t still lose to some rowdy Mang0 type player.

It's hilarious this came up so soon after LK mentioned 1) the insanely oppressive power level of Litchi in BB back in the day 2) how he took a moment to see what other Millia's are doing and discovered they're mostly doing the same techniques he invented. MvCI....probably felt _"loose"_ because its relevancy lifespan was terribly short, capcom dropped support for that game so fast it no longer has 50:50 Marvel:Capcom. DNFDuel probably felt _"loose"_ because the beta (in-game) LITERALLY DIDN'T EVEN TELL YOU ANY BUTTONS. Pretty big factors to kinda ignore... Either way, a lot more has changed than just the design of fighting games. Information moves fast, people stream, anyone can look up guides, games now drop internationally at much closer times, you can see what top players around the world are doing solely from replays, training modes have VASTLY improved, lab monsters can share tech easily through standardized FGC twitter and wikis, eSports is a thing, play has shifted to online from arcades, frame data gets hacked out of games fast assuming they're not already given and even if not then lab monsters do good on that front too, ranked is more standardized and pedestalized in competitive gaming compared to just "getting good against Jimmy down the street" (I think this contributes a LOT to lack of individual play and lack of exploring personal character expression in players). A lot's changed... Plus, while maybe not for SF5 (which I can't say too much on) since its lifespan seems to have come to an end in terms of official support, an entry can change a lot over the course of supported development. We don't know what GGSTRev2AccentSlash+R-T or MBTLReactressCalvados is gonna look like, hell we don't even know what DNFDuel on release gonna look like. Could be better, could be worse. Devs probably plan for that sort of longterm support a lot more cognizantly now than they did before.

I think often overlooked is more movement options really lets creative players shine. Look at a Mishima player wavedashing in their opponents face only to bait out a hopkick and block punish it. Or a Magneto in umvc3 air plink dashing across the screen to reset neutral. Having quirky options like that can be fun to master and even work in a competitive environment.

"I want everyone to be like Izayoi" - Max when he finally plays BB with SKD and LK

He didn't give me the impression that he necessarily wanted big movelists and direct options when I first saw this. I believe is a combination of movelist and mechanics that allow for very very different situations and variety. GG is a series that always had had a lot of that and it makes the discovery process very cool. I must admit I had some of those "this feels loose" moments when you pick a fg where the ideas that you have just works and there's tons of stuff to discover but at the end of the day I think it's more important to have just straight up depth in a game (not necessarily complexity) because when you get good at the game it will feel "looser" anyway.

Core A gaming talks a little bit about this in the video about honers vs inovators. And I think it has to do with that, sice we're in an era where the games get figured out faster... It takes a lot more honing before you get to the point of inovation, a lot of new fighting game require you to be a lot more experienced with the basics and fundamentals to really be able to inovate. And to me, that is a good thing, it gives new players a clear set of rules to play and understand the game at the beginning, while giving the option of breaking and bending said rules to more experienced players.

I really think "loose and emergent games" just translates to "tag games with Roman cancels"

I don't really understand any characters other than Pot (and even then I'm a floor 9 shitter) but it still feels bizarre to me seeing people say everybody plays characters the same because watching FAB or Snake_Eyez play is a completely different experience

For some reason when the discussion turned to tight and limiting gameplay I thought of Baiken in Strive. I think it was Romolla/Deb who said her kit felt like the developers were afraid of making her overpowered. And that is part of why she thought they didn't give her back her Suzuran. As Suzuran would have surely helped change match ups and move be up the "tier list"

I think theres becoming a sea of messy definitions and conflated ideas between stuff like "emergent gameplay" and "player expression". Basically all games will have both of these things - because the developers literally cannot imagine the way every single different player will play every single different match in their game after they make it. To me, there are two specific cases where discussions about each concept, when defined more articulately - are interesting: 1. When developers actively patch out new things that players discover. This conversation is often localized to fighting games, but my enjoyment of a lot of modern shooters like Overwatch and Apex Legends have really been hurt by developers patching out things like movement "tech", bunnyhopping, and other engine-quirks used to the advantage of players strictly because they're "bugs", or unintended, and bugs and glitches need to be "fixed" - a dynamic that simply didn't exist when games like Quake 3 were competitive. This plays into your broader conversation about patch culture and how games develop in absence of it, I think. 2. When games have a more limited option spread in any given situation. I think what I, and what other people, liked about Xrd was how situational the game was despite how high the character power was. A lot of modern fighting games have more universal conversionability, like DBFZ (Strive not necessarily so as you've touched on), more general character tools with the "fat" trimmed out, and so on and so forth. Specific to Guilty Gear - the changes in the tech system dramatically changed the nature of scrambles, which were one thing I think defined Xrd, and resulted in so many novel situations playing out that made no two matches feel alike; and changes to system defense, which were a way the game became invested itself in very specific matchup knowledge and character interactions, made some people feel like Strive took a step back in this regard. Think in terms of how you used FB disc and lust shaker in AC and Xrd respectively to interact with the opponents defense. There was a lot of room for interesting, stimulating gameplay here on both the side of the attacker and defender - resulting in the "wide option spread" that some people feel like isn't as broad or interesting in Strive (although a lot of the people that say this don't understand either Xrd or Strive, so yeah lol). Appreciate as always your perspective, which is always very interesting and enjoyable to listen to

parrying has a bunch of weird option selects in 3s, but max is describing using the mechanic exactly as it's intended and then calling that emergent...

As someone who shares Max's view (generally) and both plays fighting games and spends a lot of time working through interesting questions like this in game design, I think I can translate Max's rant into more of a point. Bear with me here but I want to talk about a seemingly unrelated game, Magic the Gathering, because MtG is not just the common language of game design, but is also a great analogue for fighting games as they share many similarities. A while back, the lead designer of MtG blogged about a concept their psychology department uses to identify types of players, the Spike, Johnny, Timmy article. In short, Spike players want optimization and skill honing out of a game and our happy winning most games, while Johnny players want an outlet for expression out of a game and are happy to win once if it's in a way they want. In MtG there is a well defined algebraic curve used to define the appropriate power/cost/risk/reward of any one action in the game, it's not difficult or rare for players to crunch numbers and optimize a deck down to a single most optimal solution just based on spreads and expected outcome yet you still have the phenomenon of rogue decks where a player will take a random interaction that's gone unseen and sweep a tournament. This is an organic part of the game that is mostly possible due to 2 reasons 1: The sheer number of cards and interactions in MtG history is massive and ever growing making knowing every interaction impossible for any one player but most importantly 2: The static nature of a card game being printed and not patched when unintended interactions spring up. MtG at it's core is a sandbox where player expression is front and center because that's part of the promise the game is making when new players pick it up, it's personalized from the beginning by the act of creating a deck instead of using a preconstructed set of pieces. In a lot of ways fighting games also make this promise to new players, even if not intentionally, by having massive rosters of characters that all play in unique ways a new player assumes 99% of people won't know every detail of outside of who they play. This is a reason new and casual players hate mirror matches, you can't think my millia thoughts, I'M millia etc. is a very common casual sentiment. So I'll loop this back around to what Max is actually asking for which is MvC2. This is a game that is extremely appealing to the Johnny MtG players and when you look at it you can see why. Both games ask players to build their gameplan around interactions prior to match. Both games are played in a way that allows for the creation of ONE single win condition and executing it. Both games are filled with pieces and actions that in a vacuum appear sub optimal but are often wholly unique in their game. MvC2 is quite literally the Johnny MtG players wet dream, as evident by the recent resurgence in popularity of MvC2 ratio mode (see making seemingly bad things good) Now, MvC2 is in a unique position to appeal to players like this because of the aforementioned static nature of it's release. It's an old game, it's full of bugs and glitches that aren't getting patched out. But this plays to MvC2's credit because even at it's most degenerate and optimal, it will always require at a *bare minimum* 3 interactions to win a match. The MvC2 we see played today is not at all what the designers intended, but it's ok because the environment that current MvC2 exists in allows it that flexibility. Magneto is the definition of optimal in that game, we're talking about a literal 1F move that leads to unseeable mix or death. It works because much like MtG, MvC is a game of win conditions. MvC enjoyers aren't going to stop playing other characters because those characters don't have 1F lows, they're going to shift their perspective of the game to simply "don't get hit by it" because at the end of the day, their theorycrafted jank team comp is also going to kill in one or two exchanges and so it's all good. How the game is played ends up changing and the people who get enjoyment from innovation get to take part through defining how the game is played. When Max talks about games feeling stiff, he's talking about developers that see the opportunity to define how their game is played as a problem to be solved. SF/MK/etc NEEDS your games to take X number of interactions to decide a match simply because the mechanisms aren't in place for the game to still be enjoyable if they took less or if characters behaved "incorrectly", they're not wrong, those games are designed from the ground up with Spike players and skill honers in mind. MvC2 almost has the same energy as learning to speedrun or routing a speedrun for a game. You've got glitches left and right that genuinely define the game. Sentinel likely wouldn't be played without fly/refly, Juggs wouldn't be played without power up glitch, Cable kinda dookie without AHVB. Because these things exist and were never patched out, you have Johnny players asking questions like "What assist can I use to turn fly/refly pressure into a kill" "BB Hood is actual trash, but can I use her to enable Juggs?" "If Cable AHVB is so strong can I dedicate my entire team to charging and enabling it?" The promise of tech still yet to be discovered is what makes MvC2 such an interesting game, and it's largely due to the fact that what we consider "tech" is always changing with no capcom around to tell people it's not allowed or unintended. tl;dr - Adding 30 way mixups or whatever to a game like GG is an awful idea, I don't think that's what people are asking for because that's not what GG is and likewise for other games. What would be nice is if we had more games that think outside the box regarding what an acceptable interaction is, and maybe took more chances with letting characters do broken things so long as there's a larger meta-game to be played around it (such as having 3 guaranteed lifebars no matter how degenerate things get). While it's true many things will be optimized, if the end result of a set of options is lethal across the board, optimization matters less and less and we can start looking at expression in more interesting and flexible ways than "combo 6 do good damage" that will depend on the game it's in.

I feel like what you brought up about people liking games that are more developed over time goes hand in hand with the mindset that gives us people fondly remembering Xrd or SF4 where they were received more divisively among the hardcore fans/sold poorly in the past. On the topic of stuff missing from modern games, I'd like for the devs to just let freeform nonsense tech develop rather than stamp it out; Yosuke's glide lead to an absolutely WILD character, but taking it out in Ultimax 2.0 took away what made Yosuke so unique and flexible.

The heavy handedness is a great way to put it. Whenever something unintentional is discovered, it gets patched out. It's not really that it's not there, it's just that it's going to get removed because it wasn't in the design spec. I would much prefer that devs mostly leave that stuff in. I'd prefer if they only removed stuff that actually breaks the game (such as gambit glitch) or adjust dumb stuff to avoid total kusoge scenarios (running out the clock with infinite jab combos and that kind of thing).

old gg does in some ways impose a system to create finite situations (ig. attack levels) but every situation has incredible amounts of depth to build upon. More powerful dash momentum, diverse gatling trees, malleable frame data with FD and IB changing pushback/blockstun, inherently the way meter is built with tension pulse and the extremely subtle ways that the more powerful forms of low profile+disjoint+retracted hurtboxes cause the game to feel incredibly deep in just the amount of different elements that can interact with eachother, let alone that the characters have way more diverse toolkits, which is what creates more situations which makes it difficult to always make the right choices and thus emergent gameplay compared to strive IMO

honestly this just makes me want a vid from you on the subject of player expression in fighting games, going over examples of games/scenarios with a lot of room for valid expression on a competitive level would be helpful as a zoomer ass platform fighter player that doesnt have a lot of knowledge of older fighting games i tend to think of player expression in a few different common forms: execution flashiness risk/reward preference niche knowledge technique discovery RPS preference??? (acting vs waiting vs preempting) i tend to feel like people mostly only ever care about the first 2 of those

I really like seeing differing perspectives on topics like this because it really highlights a lot of the nuances of the discussion which would be largely overlooked if you just listened to one source. I’d like to hear more about this.

I try to experiment with Potemkin tech, but I’m definitely not an expert. I especially love finding weird mixup situations. I don’t watch much high level gameplay though so I’m probably figuring out some stuff that is already meta. I definitely like how in GG it feels like everyone is broken and is balanced around being ridiculous. I feel like modern SF is scared of giving characters interesting mechanics because it’s harder to balance.

A big example of a restricted system blooming into an advanced emergent gameplay style, is "gunz the duel" How it's meant to be played is so boring, and the tech one random person found and shared to everyone made it the most mechanically intense game ever made.

Everybody wants to play blazblue, but nobody wants to play blazblue.

Yeah I agree with you to some extent. I think a good way to put it is that people want high character power through the system mechanics. I do like it when system mechanics allow for several options, from combo paths, to different KD set ups, mix ups, neutral structures, etc, even if there's 1 true optimal option for all of those. However, I do agree that "player expression" is often bullshit code for "I just wanna do broken stuff". Not so Hot take (sorry not sorry): KOF is the best designed Fighting game at a system level, it has everything people want without pushing things too far, it adds just the right amount of restrictions to keep things both in check and "loose".

Super Smash Bros. Melee has always had the best "emergent gameplay". In addition to all the movement/offensive options it gives you. It ALSO gives you something to do while you're getting hit (beyond shielding/guarding). Your trajectory is directly influenced by where your analog stick is as you're getting hit, and beyond that you can tech, not tech, and mash to get out of hitstun. IMO giving players defensive options is a really underrated way to make the game feel more "loose"

I think for me starting in Melee and then playing anime games, just having a lot of movement options is what I like the most. I think a lot of interesting/complex interactions can come up just from that alone. I don't care about extensive combos or the variety in combo routes all that much compared to just feeling like I can move around. I really just wanna move and interact with how the opponent is moving. I do agree people shouldn't be so quick to try and compare to older games though because information did not spread anywhere near as fast. I would bet that if any FG including any smash game considered og or whatever came out today, it would get "figured out" 10x faster than they did back then, but they'll look back and think "man those games must have been just so crazy deep that it took 20 years to learn these things". The combo stuff I 100% agree on, and that's probably why I actually don't like long combos all that much when you can convert off of everything. I think I prefer games where instead of a conversion every time, some or most of the initial hits just lead to another possible interaction between the players.

i would define emergent gameplay as a cumulative process in which a player uses a game's tools and mechanics in a combination of ways both intended and unintended by the game's developers in order to achieve a desired result that causes previously established metas and preconceptions to shift from their original state without the direct intervention of system/character changes made by the game's developers what i think max is getting hung up on is the idea that game's need mechanical freedom in order for emergent gameplay to happen and that the more mechanical freedom a game has, the more emergent gameplay there will be over the course of the game's lifetime personally, i think he's half right like you said, LK, restrictions force players to get creative and this is the other side of the coin in tandem with the other that allows emergent gameplay to happen. think of it like a pendulum. if a game is overly restrictive and controlled, then the development of new strategies and ways of playing the game are also hindered which means optimizing the game happens faster but if a game is too loose and free form then strategies and techniques that are developed are invalidated over time to the point that there is only one strategy to use examples of each side of the pendulum swinging too far in one direction i would say a game like granblue is too restrictive and controlled and a game like dbfz is too loose and free form. both are very different games but both naturally experience shifts in their metas and the preconceptions about the games very infrequently as a result of both of them swinging too far towards either restriction or freedom conversely, games like KI 2013, GG AC +r, SF3 Third Strike, and Skullgirls all have a much less rigid meta surrounding them as a result of new strategies and creative application of tech allowing for their metas to naturally shift more often as a result of those strategies and techniques gaining more or less relevance in response to combat what's popular at the moment and this is because they all strike an appropriate balance between what they restrict and what they allow for that then enables this kind of flexible environment to exist

Thoughtful video, I would like to see you and Max have an interview and have a discussion about it. To see how both your insights can come together in a discussion about modern fighting games from a casual(Max) and competitive(Lk) point of view.

Good vid, LK! I understand a lot more what your approach is and agree with some things of it especially your take at 10:21, I wholeheartedly agree with that.

I think that freedom of expression is a more effective term for what he was trying to say. There's something special about games like Smash bros melee and MVC2 that's kept people playing them for decades. Melee has tons of different viable playstyles for all the good characters, and a majority of it has to do with the movement options and how technically deep the game is. I'm not sure how other fighting games would implement ways to keep people coming back 10-20 years down the line, but I'm curious as to what others would think.

There are two big traits to a game that fill different players needs imo : Discovery and piloting. I think Richard Garfield also coined them as Innovators vs. Honers. Discovery is simply experiencing every part of the game, just seeing what's possible within the engine. But from a more casual standpoint, I think there's something great about knowing that you can't experience everything right away. It's also a very accessible way to enjoy the game since it's so intuitive : I played warrior for 10 hours, how does playing a mage feel like now. There's a decent example lately that thrives a lot of the discovery aspect : Vampire survivors. You organically get random builds, random progression from game to game, etc etc. All that adds up for 10-20 hours just to feel like you truly experienced every mechanic combination from the game. Piloting I think is more what you're about. For me it's everything that ties to attempting to play the game properly. What are the choices needed to play it well, how does it feel, the necessary practice to do so etc etc etc. So when you talk about games being solved or some esoteric options being made irrelevant by players, you're focusing a lot on the piloting part of the game. I think piloting will always be less accessible than the discovery because you inherently need introspection on yourself, comprehensive understanding of the game, etc. Vampire survivors is also a game that is pretty objectively very low on the piloting aspect. You can literally only just walk and have some agency on your build. I don't think one's better than the other. But when you said "Max, come play blazblue", I think that's a solid example of a game where the discovery aspect is huge. You can spend hours discovering a character and still not really focus on super proper piloting. And there's 30+ of them. I also think a lot more modern games are intentionally designing the piloting part of the game. Which is probably where the 2 concepts tend to compete with each other. It seems very difficult to design a specific piloting experience while also designing a high discoverability at the same time.

I hope theres a round table with all sorts of individuals to come together every now and then to debate this and other topics.

Very good video. I really like that you question the notion that having more shit with less defined purpose is inherently superior to more "limited" systems. I think it's ok to like just having a bunch of shit, but I would like those people to recognize that it's ultimately their preference. I think discussions like this in the long run will improve the discourse around fighting games.

I agree with you on most points, but I'm not sure whether the more conversion ability=less expression one holds up for all games/characters. Take my opinion with a huge grain of salt, because I'm not a pro player by any means. I think there are characters who have very strong conversion ability but which remain expressive because that conversion ability is tied to a resource, or because those conversions lead to variably interactive situations. For example, Litchi, Kokonoe, and Mu in BBCF all have the ability to convert most of their hits into high damage, but require the placement of stage elements with which the opponent can interact by repositioning around to try to avoid conversions. In Skullgirls, most characters can convert most of their hits into full combos. However, this doesn't make them less expressive, since combos in Skullgirls are broken up by resets, which are chosen non-linearly in a decision tree involving potential reward, expectations, conditioning, etc. Also, some combo conversions are reliant on assists, leading to a choice between using assists for neutral and going into assist cooldown vs saving them for conversion setups. Sorry for the super long comment, but I would love to hear your take on these examples and how they fit into your theory of character depth.

Damn I gotta get into Blazblue. Also it’s funny he mentions DNF duel cause I felt super limited in that beta

I know this is silly to say and I don't know if you'll see this comment, but I really appreciate your RU-vid videos that focus on your thoughts and process with fighting games. Listening to your critical thinking process about FGs is very helpful for me, someone who doesn't think as critically about the FGs, to learn and be encouraged to enjoy more about the games. So basically LK, thank you for all your hard work! It's been a blast. :)

Resonated with the millia thing. Tried to figure out the best way to play her , And what you should do to win. Everything was a set of questions such as , what do I do to get people to respect me ? How do I protect myself from being so negative ? I originally thought it had to be Meter but she’s not good at building it and I was like why don’t people break the wall? You can gain positive status anytime for rc mix up so why try so hard not to break the wall when It feels like millia needs the meter to get rolling? What’s the point in breaking the wall with super when using it for rc for your moves and oki is infinitely better ? You can easily ch with j.S and confirm quite easily with dust to air carry to break wall so why rejump? Why even rejump to optimize damage when she isn’t even good at damage? Isn’t it better to break wall to gain meter? What’s so bad about breaking the wall and it resets neutral if I’m playing a character like millia who’s whole plot is to rush down with her speed and movement versatility? I can use rc to make h disc meaty and delay it or use rc to go into high/low mix up with her moves so isn’t it good to have as much meter as you can for that? Isnt it best to exclusively use the meter on rc for her mix up game plan? Isn’t a millia in a perpetual state of positive status good? All my answers felt so anti-meta and I thought I was incorrect and rode ur dick for awhile and copied your movement/strategy because I thought this is how millia should be played until I told my self I didn’t get into fg to copy the next man over and in such an explosive game I wanted to try what I thought would work for me So I said fk it and went back to my old question and answers I opted for breaking the wall consecutively even tho it resets neutral and I’m being told to wall slump or always rejump combo to get to the floor to do super. I’d rather break the wall as quickly as I can because the meter for the rc let’s me do anything I want without having to worry about getting exploded and millia is really good at breaking the wall. You can drag ur opponent in the air or on the ground from one side to the other and if you hit the wall you will break it immediately. Millia with meter is broken , it’s so easy to condition after stock 1 because they’ll be so scared of the oki I can set up so easily after mirazh into haircar special , some people get so conditioned because of how late you can delay cancel h disc into rc . You can get them to finally block as long as you have meter and they see you using it for rc , so much so that I can delay cancel it so late they’ll block the disc for so long that I can mirazh into grab and because I’m still positive I can go for otg and pressure their block to gain back that meter. Ngl i win alot of games with this mindset of always breaking the wall and exclusively using my meter on rc for getting my opponent to block what ever mix up is coming ,it’s so free because they have to hold it . I actually don’t care if winger gives me hard knock down after wall break , Fuck a super , I go acapella. Millia is powerful but no one respects her. I thought her tools are good but inherently flawed and rc covers all of those flaws , iykyk.

I find interesting that skullgirls is the poster child for "do whatever" game... When it is the most degenerate game ever. have you ever seen mid to high level skullgirls? People trade pokes till something lands... Then it is a one way ticket to reset land

I think fighting game devs should include a platform on the top of the screen where you can go to, and maybe two other platforms on the sides

I think a better way to think about 'tight' or heavy handed game design is something like proscribed game design. They've designed many of these modern fg with a very specific playstyle in mind and have set up many ways to disincentivize other approaches. You can still see emergent gameplay show up in those systems, like with the emergence of Strive's wallslump stuff, but it has less impact on the overall game or is for very specific situations.

I much prefer GGACPR to Strive (and I went to +R after Strive) but for me I don't think it comes down to anything about emergent gameplay or one having more options than the other; for the characters I play (Strive Faust and +R Dizzy) I don't feel like there's an especially huge amount of difference in the amount of good options they have, if that means anything. I just genuinely prefer how movement and combos feel in +R. I don't know why people need to make big things about why they think certain games are so much better than others, because it almost always comes down to personal taste (I think MBAACC feels like shit, for instance, and I don't try to pretend it's anything other than me not liking how it feels). The amount of options is never what defines a fighting game imo, it's how those options manifest.

Max is just nostalgic for the MVC3 era discovery phase, which was a unique point in time for the FGC and will never be replicated. It's also the era that made him rich. U/MVC3 would be "solved" much faster today. Even still, while I'm partial to the type of games Max describes - the discovery phase of these games can be particularly chaotic and frustrating for certain kinds of players looking to be competitive. My biggest issue is the nerfing of base movement options. They're becoming so binary and just terrible. KOF 15 would be the perfect game for me if the movement were more analog (it's still pretty dope though).

I want to bring up an example not from fighting games. In Pokemon Black and White 2 competitive, the meta was dominated by Stealth Rock and Weather. Those same games introduced the Black and White Kyurem forms. White Kyurem specialized in special attacks, whilst Black Kyurem had a more mixed attack stat. Competitive players favored White Kyurem, as they could just focus on one aspect. Now as Kyurem is part ice type, all forms are weak to Stealth Rock. This meant that Black Kyurem was seen as lesser than White Kyurem, and thus it was put into a lesser rank, and people didn't use Black Kyurem because of fear of Stealth Rock. The thing is, whilst Black Kyurem has less Special Stats than White Kyurem, it was still one of the strongest pokemon in terms of stats, and it had a decent mixed movepool. It was only towards the end of Black and White's pvp did competitive players note they made a mistake, because Black Kyurem had one major advantage over White Kyurem, that being unpredictability. Tl;Dr: White Kyurem was better at a limited scale, Black Kyurem was better on an emergent scale.

I'm still fairly new to fighting games find my joy in them at tekken7 season 3 or later and have been enjoying strive but I'm at most a casual due only find time to play once or twice a mounth if that, and I can say this much, what I think most people mean by emergent gameplay is in fact more Route options / clear or interesting rout options that allow for visual intresting mix ups or feels good in the input section, and honestly I've dropped entire fighting games just cos I don't like how the button structure works and for me GGST feels good but also lacking in the fact that feel the could massively expand on the command normal system personally or by providing more command normals for chacters that only have 2 to help diversity of what they do but that might already be in the works for all I know or not? Just how I feel at the end of the day

i think what max is describing is a game like Killer instinct? its a super fun game for casuals and it had a lot of depth to for the competitive community. i personally cant wait for the next instalment for that game because i feel like its to late to hop in now lol.

It's funny that Maximilian mentioned UNI because that game is the perfect example of characters that have lots of options and despite this there is a clear ''optimal'' gameplan for that character. Yes there are characters that are more 'loose'(lmao) as he says, mostly the top tiers like Vatista and Byakuya but from my experience Phonon, Wagner, Nanase and maybe even Gordeau all have a single optimal way to play. Despite this UNI is still mad fun though.

Emergent Gameplay is defined as “A phenomenon where players utilize and push mechanics of a game to solve problems to the point where it’s questionable if these strategies are intended by the gameplay designer.” Yes these strategies may open up the game to give players more options, but it becomes a problem when the strategy is so overwhelmingly good that nothing else should be considered. Things like: -Wobbling in Smash Brothers Melee which made fishing for a grab the only way to play for the ice climbers. -Button combos in Halo 2 which made the Battle rifle so good that it eliminated the use of many other weapons.

Good video, I think you do a great job describing your point of view and your interpretation of what Max is saying. I do think though that outside of the end of the video you kinda fail to fully think about it in the mindset of a completely casual player. A game like guilty gear strive is great and beginner friendly but personally playing with my friends very casually it does feel very limiting to the point where I just feel like I have less to learn and experiment. When I realized in the open beta test that every combo was just slash heavy slash special move repeat and if you wanted to optimize it you could get like 20 more damage and nothing else it just didn't feel interesting. I much prefered learning skullgirls because I can just do whatever I want, whether it's good or not it doesn't matter because I get to at least experiment. Having redundant bad options is definitely bad in ways and makes no difference at higher levels but most of us just aren't there yet.

Casuals want the feeling of a lot of options even if it's an illusion, or to the detriment of the game. 3S parries grant the illusion of options because it's technically another "tool," even though OS' cause a lot of rps scenarios in other games to have binary outcomes. If you look at high level 3S, there's actually way less going into the decision making and strategy from games like SF5 where every tool has a proper use.

I feel like games with huge movesets like Tekken are the best at encouraging the player to express themselves through the options available to them. For example the character with the least number of moves is negan (~60 moves), and I've yet to see 2 negans play the same. I suspect the 3d aspect helps with this too.

A problem with free flowing fighting games is that there's a wrong way to play and you might not know you're not playing a character correctly or wasting your time grinding combos that aren't worth your time.

The things I will write here, are maybe already known etc. and I am not a competitive player, I enjoy the games I play and try to get better in my pace and so. BUT one thing LK said about the way of getting to information is aboslutly right, rn it is much much easier to get knowledge so yeah the games feel figured out even if they are maybe not. One example is the way I want to learn to play with Baiken in strive. Sure I get help if I have no idea, I looked up easy to use BnBs for the character. But atm I try to find own routes, and through that I found some funny RC Combos - all are not optimal, BUT fun as hell. Also with that way of learning it is much more hype if you see something on a tournament stream you never have seen - a cancel, an otg or even some simple interaction between two moves. So I find things much slower than I would if I would use the knowlegde of the community - I have "emergent" gameplay in that regard. Still I can see what Max means, many new games try to explain almost everything in their tutorials, so maybe that is that missing feeling. Instead of having a simple tutorial and let the player figure out the depth of the system - the tutorials show some depth.

nice video, very well thought out and informational. BTW were you watching a stream while doing this? I kept hearing some stuff in the background while you were talking and it sounds like someone picking up loot in an MMO or something and it was a little distracting lmao. Good example is at around 10:30-10:45 in the video.

i think what you've identified is that max wants a game that feels a certain way, knows that he isn't getting that feeling, but hasn't diagnosed the reason. Here is a problem: a game can offer a lot of 'creativity' per se, where every player has a variety of approaches they might aim for, and a variety of at least partially valid interpretations of how to play, and how to use one's tools. However, a game can do all these things and still end being super convergent for a variety of reasons. I would say that in general, a game(or character) that gives you a chance for a lot of creativity is not necessarily one that offers you a lot of opportunity or incentive to improvise. There's a shit ton of possible game states in your average fighting game, but you don't actually run into a lot of them in practice. Either pressure from your opponent restricts your viable choices down to a small amount, or you're doing pre-rehearsed bread-and-butter, where the situation is confirmed into the optimal series of commands. I would liken this to chess, where only a subset of all possible board configurations actually occur in real games. Perhaps what max actually wants is a game which is scrappier and less likely to place you in familiar, predictable, or solvable game states. I will grant that things like air techs and air resets have the power to do that. That said, this environment might be argued to actually be against creativity. You'll notice that a lot of the characters who do well in these situations are ones where you just have a fast or evasive option to hit as soon as you broadly recognize what situation you're in. I hate to say it, but I actually think +R testament comes the closest that i've seen in guilty gear to creating gameplay that involves a large variety of game states, promotes player expression and improvisation, and still duly promotes and rewards creativity. That said, many people claim to hate to play against testament. I only wonder if it is actually those qualities which make people dislike him.

Was mbaacc a barebones game? It felt pretty free when I first played it without any idea how it worked

I mean, mbaacc doesnt feel bare bones(movement options can be utilized in a lot of ways). Were you referring to act cadenza when you said mbac?

We still have no idea what strives ceiling looks like. The game continues to evolve.

I think the same people who ask for things like this would be the first to complain when the top end of the game is dominated by characters who basically maximize or abuse these "loose mechanics" they're asking for. "Why does this character get to combo of X", "Look how much harder I have to work for my damage and meter", "My character doesn't get to do X that this other character can, this is so unfair" etc. This was what so many Dustloop forum convos regarding earlier Blazblue versions were like by my memory. The reason why a lot of modern fighting games might feel "over designed" is because they're actually trying to minimize people having feelings like this about the game (LK talked about this in his gatekeeper video about how people feeling like they can actually win with a weaker character like Goku Black is actually pretty important to your average dude's willingness to play and stick with FighterZ). And like LK said, you can't compare the speed at which knowledge spreads now to how it did for games pre-2010 let alone stuff before that. Who's to say that if the internet and match footage spread as quickly then as it does now (Not to mention just larger player pools in general) that you wouldn't see these "loose" games get solved just as fast just because people would quickly realize "Oh, the way I'm playing these games/characters is wack I need to get on this new strategy".

Hmmm. 7:38 makes a ton of sense but it never really thought about what strive is stricter on cancel windows. It was a big reason it didn't like the game, because it was the complete opposite of Uniclr but the same neutral/strike throw focus and it could never understand why until it heard that.

My opinion about what emergent gameplay should try to accomplish is to make people who are learning the game have answers that might not be optimal but do prevent them from being put into situations where they are asking, "What am I supposed to do here?" and have only one response - especially if the response is situational. Take for instance the situation of "Sol is mashing far Slash." The reason why it was so oppressive as I see it is because the only answer is FD. You can't challenge, you can't backdash, you can't try to jump out, all you can do is spend meter to reset to neutral. And having so many characters and other such situations where there is only ONE answer to dealing with them (and even that answer can be unreliable) is what makes the gameplay feel so restrictive. Speaking as someone who is fairly casual with fighting games, having a game where players can go off their instincts and still perform well enough is a good way to keep people around. Make people engage more with the macro of the game rather than the optimization by designing the game such that they don't find themselves in situations where they're helpless because they didn't do enough homework. The most annoying part about fighting games to me is knowledge checks, because if you haven't studied outside crap or happen to just naturally play in a manner that answers it, you can't DO anything about it. Many people, if they are asked why they don't play fighting games, might answer "because I don't want to have to study hundreds of moves," which while typically only true of a game like Tekken is something that feels more like a legitimate criticism in some newer games where the devs seem to go under the impression that "oh, you have no idea what to do in this situation and everything you try in your normal playstyle doesn't work? Look it up on the internet" is good enough. Parry is such a useful mechanic to solve this because it lets you substitute raw frame data knowledge with knowledge of your opponent, even though obviously you will benefit from having the frame knowledge. It doesn't matter if they are spamming a forward-moving plus attack, or a move that pushes you too far away to punish (Mega Fist) because you can parry it and negate both of them. "oh but IB" - has a 2 frame window

One thing is I think players want to be able to make a wrong choice as well. Like in old Guilty Gear even when I’m being combod I’m making choices and button inputs because the way teching and scramble situations are in ACR good decisions during those moments turn the tide of a match

I imagine a mechanic like roman/rapid cancels would make a game loose. I bet older GG would be considered loose by Max because of the different cancel options you get for most characters among other reasons. Also I'm using loose because of your reaction to it.

All this emergent gameplay this emergent gameplay that I'm still trying to figure out the optimal way to use three of Strive Baiken's four moves. What he wants is to be new at the games again.

Making fighting games have emergent gameplay requires 2 things, offensive and defensive options. Offensive, simple, make it easier to combo anything. I’m not saying everything has to be optimal. Just that it shouldn’t be difficult to find multiple ways to connect attacks. Defensively, a little less obvious, but there are many great examples. Killer Instinct Combo Breaker and DOA’s counter hold systems, along with the anime fighter Burst mechanic make for excellent defensive options. Also, Strive’s Roman Cancel system is exemplary of a mixed Off/Def mechanic. If DNF Duel gets a burst mechanic, it’s gonna be even more lit.

Personally I used to watch Xrd matches all day everyday. When Strive came out I stopped watching tournaments a month into the game cause everything was the same over an over again. Like it's not fun watching anything if you can predict what the players are gonna do. Like Zato under pressure. Either gonna mash 2P into 6P straight 6P or 2p2p2p2p an thats it. That's every match imo characters just do the same things they did last match an who ever is better/cheaper wins

I find it weird that people always say 3S is a game where everything has an answer because... well it's not super true. Yeah you can respond to situations with parry but after getting parried yourself there isn't much you can do. A game with more outplay potential would be like GG XX, since after getting slashbacked you still have many cancel options. 3S is still a great game, don't get me wrong, but for different reasons.

This is an incredible perspective.

I still don't really feel like I understand what Emergent gameplay is specifically. Most games have specific optimal ways to engage with. Especially fighting games. The thing that stood out the most to me was having people use characters in different ways, but most fighting games are like that to begin with. Most of the time it doesn't seem like most players play the exact same way. The win condition maybe, but general playstyle, not really. That could be character specific but i dont feel like it would be. could be wrong tho lol.

Player expression being integral in competitive scenerios and actually being rewarding is what I believe makes a long running fg.

Fantastic video, I've always felt something was off about the opinion that the more ***LOOSE*** the game is, the more fun it is. Skullgirls let you pick whichever move you want as an assist, but why would you ever use anything but a special move. Plus the combo structure is pretty much identical wherever you are on screen (if you're not trying to optimize everything to death). There wasn't much of a reason to experiment for a casual, nor is it rewarding.

Emergent gameplay is when relatively simple mechanics interact to produce scenarios that are more than the sum of their parts. Whether or not the devs intend for these scenarios doesn't matter really. For example I've been playing Street Fighter Alpha 2 recently, and one thing I noticed is that there's no extended hit stun on counter hit - which means there's a flexible mixup scenario instead. This is emergent gameplay.

SFV had a lot of examples of the balance feeling heavy handed. I have an good example: Oro had an fast fall glitch, which was absolutely not broken. You could not do highs because you were stuck at the throw animation, you basically had an way to change your jump arc, and hit opponents who wasn't expecting it. But they removed it! For no reason! Oro wasn't even close to being a top tier character, he was mid tier at best, and they removed it. SFV really have a lot of examples of it.

Honestly I think the problem is the vagueness of the term emergent gameplay. A speedrun or a challenge run is emergent gameplay, an unorthodox strategy or approach to a matchup isn't necessarily. On paper, every example he gave is technically intended gameplay, the goal of a fighting is to reduce the opponents life to zero, or at least more than they reduce yours. I think it's more important to consider how many different ways the game can be played effectively. As an anecdote, while playing Type Lumina a couple months ago, I ran into an Arcueid player online that constantly ran away and repeatedly timed me out. Not because Arcueid has tons of zoning tools or broken movement, but just because he was good at stuffing my air approach and escaping the corner whenever I gave him some room to breath. That and constantly using FR to buy time when I was ahead. With that said, in the hundred or so hours I put into Strive I don't think I ever saw a time out despite the fact that I was playing Axl for most of them. For another anecdote, when Bonchan won SFV at Evo 2019, he repeatedly switched from Sagat to Karin in his matches. For context, In SF4 Bonchan was known for playing very passively and using Sagats strong fireballs and anti-airs as the crux of his gameplan. Oftentimes after scoring 40+ percent with an Ultra conversion he'd simply walk back instead of taking the oki (and space) after the knockdown. Despite this, in SFV it was pretty common to see his Karin rushing down and going for stuns even if the opponents had meter to contest. I can't speak for Max, but personally I think this is the problem. It feels like you can't win in a lot of newer games unless you play in a certain way (Aggressively). It makes the cast feel samey when they're essentially all doing the same things in slightly different ways. I don't think you necessarily need a massive move list or difficult execution to achieve this, the system just needs to accommodate alternate win conditions. I love messing around with guard break in Samsho and Kof15, the GRD game in UNI, and ringouts, sabakis, and sideturn setups in VF5. You can, and most players will win most of their matches without seeing these mechanics, but it's nice to know that they're an option, and it's hype to see them implemented at high level play.

How much for you to train Max in BB?

I think he worded it a little bad but I do agree with his general point of games being too “explicitly designed”, basically. Stuff like patches and season passes have only exacerbated this feeling, where back in the day a version gets one patch at best, and you’re left to rock with that version for a year or two, but now patches happen every 6 months or so, sometimes emergency patches even happen like in the case of the MBTL infinites. The players get to push the development for that version, but it feels like the devs are far more present in how you play in modern games, for better or for worse. I also think you can design limitations that aren’t just conversion ability, my most notable example being a character who is based around having amazing conversions, Sin. Unlike Millia, Sin doesn’t often have to ask what he does after he lands a poke or a non optimal hit, because he usually can convert, as long as he has food. But upon getting that hit, he asks a different question: Do I run oki or eat? I don’t think any other GG character asks the question of running oki or not, and I think it creates different types of Sins based on if they like to be aggressive and keep the pressure on after KD even after getting low on food, leading to less reward on hit and way worse situations in general, or playing it safer and potentially letting a dangerous character like Chipp or Millia reset back to neutral where they can maneuver around you and get one knockdown to seal the deal.

Battlefield and Call of Duty specifically from online multiplayer is the perfect example of emergent gameplay! Every thing a player does changes the match and you will never play the same match the same way twice or it is highly improbable because you and each player teammate or enemy team are always changing each other's paths throughout! All it takes is one player to not do the same thing, if everyone else tries to replicate the previous match exactly as it panned out; to completely alter the match entirely. Creating a chain reaction from friend and foe that makes the match a unique match. As an example everyone does the same thing as the previous match but as you run down that hall where you killed an enemy player, you decide half way to turn around out of the hallway you came from. That move creates a snowball effect that will change everyone's encounter with each other and throws off the replication! Hallway man survives because you went back, they find your teammate who spawns in who in the previous match survives his spawn in but here is killed by that surviving hallway enemy etc etc most multiplayer games that are pve/pvp/pvpve are like this!

I’ll never forget when BB started clicking for me, just started pressing a few more buttons n thought “hol up yall gon let me get away with this?” And the rest was history (i haven’t played BB in like 5yrs so I’m awful now but you get the point)

There is an interesting parallel between this and Pokémon double battle tournaments. In Pokémon when the new game comes out Pokémon tournaments tend to not include all the Pokémon from all the other previous games. And in general the power levels of all the Pokémon is lower, so you see more team variety. But when you add the other Pokémon, despite the added variety, there is a centralisation of strategy. You see fewer Pokémon being used at the competitive level because they added all the strongest Mons. But when you look at single battle tournaments they run tournaments with different strength levels of Pokémon in mind, so you can make a team of Weaker Pokémon and still use that team as long as you're playing at the right level. Beyond that it's not like every Pokémon is using the same moveset or items, each team will use different things depending on the strategy of the player. I think emergence is what you make of it.

I think emergent gameplay might be a concept that depends on what the individual feels it is.

Doa is one of the "loosest" games around, with moves that transition one to another in such a free and open way that they alow a ton of expression. Also defensive play even after getting hit has a ton of decision making that makes the game always interesting even while getting comboed. And yet it's the most misjudged fighting game ever (for good reasons, I'll admit that).

I just want Makoto back in SF tbh

I'm not sure if people understand why they don't like certain games. For example, I don't believe that the lack of expression is the reason why people don't like SFV. I think the biggest issue is archetype bias. It seems that the developers want fireball zoners, grapplers, and rushdown characters to be weak in the game. You're fighting an uphill battle if your character isn't a limb zoner(that does high damage for not reason) or converts single hits into damage and oki. Gief has been bad for years and they still nerf him every patch. The new V shift mechanic hurts the weaker characters more than those in the top tier. The issue isn't that the game is designed in a certain way, it's that the system alienates as huge portion of its cast.

this is why the first week of a new FG is always the most fun

14:39 Dragon Punch Tag Battle

i dont see him playing ASW games, Examu (now team arcana) games, fkdig, blade arcus, even fate UC and Basara X. he only “recently” jumped into kof series. as far as content i have seen him play and promote. i would love to see him play and promote games from the makers i listed at top as well as the few other games in the list.

Yeah, I've also thought that people are wording badly that they want to be able to do a lot of shit. Which in general I agree with. Like, I also felt like SFV was a step down from SF4 (even though I was super casual and trash at 4, but I watched a lot of tournaments), and the same with MK11 from MKX. A lot of people said that about Strive from Xrd, but I didn't because I didn't play Xrd, so to me Strive is an interesting game with more options then the last couple games I played.

Bro, you dropped Disgaea vocally? Hella love that series.

I feel like what max is harping on ab is take the strive gatling system like he was saying it influences your decision making based off of what you can get off of it I feel like he wants say hey you can get stuff off of all these options you can press type deal and I feel like the strive roman cancle system is the definition of freedom you can do so much random shit cuz the whole point of it is you have a sex basement of options just everything everywhere with 50 meter but in the end there's still optimal ways to use it yk either way still mad fun

More choices and ways are not real on the age of internet where people just try to search the optimal path for every situation. See mmos for an example, a lot of choices possible, but everyone uses the same rotation.

Brian F, Max, now you made a video on this. I can't wait for this to become a meme and dudes to start saying " This game is too explicitly designed! " " Oh nooo! My skill cap! " " Nuuuuuuuh! Muh emergent gameplay! "

Longer discovery periods are cool, but I don't like games where it feels like there are unnecessary "gimmicky" parts to characters/system mechanics (tekken comes to mind). I think I'm one of the few who likes clear design philosophy when little fat. Melee doesn't have a lot of moves, but there are almost infinite situations to be explored through refinement of movement, defensive strategy, and countering the "good" option. I guess at the end of the day I want clear answers, but a lot of situations.

The Disgaea reference hit for me. Game gives tons of options but you can beat most fights with a single mage because of the way you can level and the range the spells have. Final Fantasy Tactics, by comparison, requires more strategy because of the limitations it puts on the player and character builds.