I only watch @meauxdal at this point, and even then rarely find the time
been playing OoT for the first time in 19 years on stream. gonna keep trucking tonight, methinks. no camera, no commentary, just gameplay.
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I don’t think this is true at all. Most current competitive games are absolutely visually incomprehensible to me. As purely a spectator I feel like MvC Infinite is automatically an improvement over 3 just because I can watch it and have some basic idea of what’s happening without having to have played the game
As a player: The main issue is that they have become far more railroaded into very specific paths, with far less flexibility and options. And, ultimately, expressibility. This is part of why eSports focuses more on the player and how he presents himself and acts; because players are far less able to express themselves with the game mechanics to be individuals.
SFV is kind of the ultimate example of this. The way to play the game is extremely strictly laid out, with very little room for deviation, due to its stack of a million systems where After Every X, You Get A Stock Of Y To Do Something With. What separates players is the speed of their reaction time more than their individual playing styles, which is why older players have fallen off so hard in this generation.
You may enjoy watching this, but as a player it feels like I’m being played by the game a lot more than I was in previous generations of competitive games.
I feel like I’m missing some implied part of this argument, because I don’t see how making a game watchable necessarily results in inflexible character design. I feel like encouraging individual expression doesn’t necessarily make a game harder to follow. I think visual design plays a much much larger role.
I do agree that a lot of newer games are more clamped down than older ones, but I just think that’s because it’s easier to design an inflexible game and game companies are becoming more risk averse. It’s easier to balance a game with a inflexible characters; you just have to adjust a few numbers instead of reworking entire systems.
It’s not inherently necessary, but it’s definitely the trend for AAA tier games. Part of it is that the companies consider the part that you watch to be part of marketing the game.
And marketing says that you’re not allowed to have things that reflect poorly on the game be shown.
So you get this banal situation where everything has to play out The Correct Way, More Or Less, and anything that doesn’t tends towards being patched out, rather than being left to rock as part of the game for the players to figure out.
I also think it follows the tendency of balanced design to lock out possibilities; older games that achieved balance did so more out of luck and intuition. When balance is an overriding concern throughout development you can’t assume it’ll be ok but need to examine every piece for exploitative loops and so foreclose possibilities earlier.
I’m still not convinced. From what I know, the fighting games that would’ve been patched to hell and back, had the option been available back then, tend to have a gigantic barrier to entry, like Melee, and/or still have a really limited range of viable characters, like UMK3 or MvC2. So maybe they offer some unusual range of kinetic potential or mechanical weirdness but I don’t think it’s necessarily as clear a case of them being better games to play or watch. I guess I’d need the argument to be laid out more comprehensively and historically than just taking SF5 to task.
the english streams of chinese league used to be like this too, until people complained.
I watched chinese hots last night because it was the professional debut of EU hero league legend timelessX yes I’m a nerd. the restream lagged to hell and kendric spent half of one of the games accidentally muting himself.
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They may be more focused on youtube but I’m a fan of the Super Best Friends. They are just the exact type of my kind of dorks. Love fighting games, anime and the like. They also have experience as game testers so they are familiar with the language of games and also know how to talk about fighting games in terms of inputs, frame data and “yomi” but still remain casual and approachable. Most of their streaming efforts are personal individual efforts that happen infrequently. Pat seems to do so more regularly and is planning to go in hard for Monster Hunter World. Some times PlaugeofGripes shows up and while I enjoy his cynical brand of humor he also brings strong “design” opinions but not much of a reference point to see why somethings are the way they are.
Maximilian_DOOD is also a good front man for having a love of fighting games and all that surounds the genre. Not much in the way of design talk but knows what he likes and can do a good job at expressing his love for games. He has huge twitch stream chats so don’t go there expecting good discusion with him or other viewers. Does a lot of donation shoutouts so go in prepared.
This is the eSports I want.
well you missed out, that describes basically all of starcraft 2 circa 2011
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mauve would you explain how sf5 or it’s contemporaries railroad players into specific kinds of play? I don’t like playing sf5 at all really, but I’m too much of a scrub and too fixated on kinaesthetics to really know why that game doesn’t really work well at high levels
I play Xrd mostly and I know part of what makes it work is the generous amount of movement and defensive options baked into the basic mechanics of the game. It make a it kind of hard to understand but really fun to watch after you’ve played it only a couple times
Full disclosure I only found out what a dead-angle is like last month
So, as an example. SF2, in its original form, was a very ‘basic’ fighting game, it was very pure in the sense of that all you had to do was hit the other dude a bunch until he died from it. You could always come back, if you just did the right things.
Later editions of it added a super meter, which meant actions (offensive, defensive, etc) would build meter, and then you’d have an extra, limited tool at your disposal. Which mean that you could, and had to, factor the building of that meter into your strategy. This added a stronger ‘meta’ layer than the game previously had, reducing emphasis on individual guesses in favor of stronger overall play.
That’s not a bad thing, it gives you more to think about and different aims beyond punching the other guy in the face that you can build strategies around, which also diversifies the character roster.
So, with that in mind, let’s fast forward a little to SFV’s double mishmash of systems:
Critical Art Meter, which is separated into three sections. Builds a lot when attacking, builds roughly 40% as much when defending. So after a certain amount of time in the match, you will temporarily have more tools at your disposal. Many strong move properties, eg invincibility, are frequently locked beyond using this meter. It carries over between rounds.
The V Gauge builds in a similar way, and, again, locks many of your character’s stronger tools behind a gate. Not just the guard cancel to keep distance from the opponent, but also V-Triggers to have additional offensive tools and offensive capabilities. It does not carry over between rounds.
What tools are available dictates offensive and defensive options. If someone’s options are, statistically, stronger than yours, you would play more defensively. If your options are, statistically, stronger than theirs, you would play more offensively. This isn’t just hyperbole; watch when people clam up or go offensive in a match. At higher levels of play, this is often dictated by who has what available, and risks takenare made more apparent, with higher consequences.
By having a mix of meters which dictate your available tools and available choices throughout the course of the match, you can make characters stronger and weaker on a regular tempo, regulating the players’ activities on a higher level basis, which SFV and many other modern fighters do. For example, Persona does this with its systems.
SFV sans meters is a very ‘dull’ game. Pressure without V-Triggers or using other meter is usually weak, damage is lower; it’s about jockeying for position for when that meter is available, to press the advantage.
So set play is predictable in rhythm? The tempo is too regulated to allow for unorthodox play? Enough of a player’s game plan is locked behind the meters that meter management becomes the arbiter of game flow instead of a wrinkle. I think I get it. Am I getting it?
This is a good enough summary really.
Instead of being additional bonuses, they feel more like essential tools you have to manage and juggle.
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New guy here. Gonna repost this here, 'cause it’s the more appropriate thread (even though it’s been inactive for a while). Not into streams but I do watch some stuff on youtube. Gameplay, but also documentary-type stuff.
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So I was watching some of Midna Light’s runs lately. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched Mario Maker runs; ever since I discovered Kaizo Mario and was into Pangea Panga’s craziness. I like his minimalism. No commentary (he’s Japanese anyway), just an edit of his progression through the level and skill at work. You get the whole run at the end.
I don’t know where he is situated in the upper echelons of Mario Maker players, but it must take him hours and lots of perseverance and dedication to clear those levels. To give you an idea:
Here one of Panga’s. Watch how he expertly evades those fireballs and grinders.
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Interesting how give an idea of how kanji works, drawing analogy with emoticons. Japanese writing seems particularly complex because it mixes different alphabets/ writing systems. How is your experience learning Japanese? Doable? Hard?
The whole esports arena looks like a f’ed lights show to me. And they squeeze people like lemons.
I like the more low-profile stuff that’s not a money circus, where people are competing because they love playing the game. Like that Kick Off 2 World Cup they do every year.