I've been really fixated on the question of "how to make a multiplayer game with melee and shooting characters work," recently.
This investigation has led me to investigate various online multiplayer melee-based fighting games in general (which I haven't played many of), and I've realized that they basically all flopped. "For Honor," "Bleeding Edge" etc. all went down the tubes.
So after THAT, I decided to investigate 1-on-1 arena fighters. But then I learned that most of those were anime games that also sucked as well.
So I'm curious as to why this is. Why haven't online fighting games that took full-advantage of 3D spaces ever worked? Do any of you have any theories? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
inb4 Tekken, Soul Calibur, etc.
I'm not talking about games where the camera is off to the side; I'm talking about games where the players have their own cameras, and can make full use of the arena.
 Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
 |
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
last game that really gave it a serious go was, like Powerstone. everything since has been party games.
I don't consider shit like For Honor to be fighting games.
Well maybe the term I'm looking for isn't "fighting games," then. Perhaps "Online Multiplayer Arena Fighting Games" or something.
Never heard of "Powerstone" though. Thanks, I'm gonna look it up.
Oh right, that's a first-person one, isn't it?
I guess I should try that one out as well, though I'm more interested in third-person ones, specifically.
>last game that really gave it a serious go was, like Powerstone.
actually i take that back. i forgot Absolver happened, but then again so did everyone else.
> Absolver
I'll look that one up too, anon. Thanks
(Especially since there seems to be so little footage of this "Powerstone" thing. Guess that's the reason I've never heard of it lol).
> this "Powerstone" thing.
It's Power Stone, an old Dreamcast game. there's 2 of them.
If you're googling "powerstone" one word in quotes you're not going to find it.
Reflecting further I also forgot that Anarchy Reigns happened. I'm still butthurt that it didn't have couch multiplayer.
I was finding SOME stuff on this game by spelling "powerstone" as one word. I could see it was for dreamcast, I just couldn't find much in the way of gameplay overviews without some Angry Videogame Nerd wanabe going "heyyyyy gang get a load of this OBSCURE blast from the past!"
But I'll try spelling it as two words, like you did. Maybe that'll give me a better sense of what hte game was like mechanically, then.
>No couch co-op
>No PC version to run 2 instances and emulate coop
It was this close to being perfect
>Anarchy Reigns
Oh right! That was the Multiplayer "Madworld" spinoff, right?
Man... what the frick were they THINKING with that game's graphics. They took the greatest thing about Madworld and threw it out the window. Utter idiocy.
>That was the Multiplayer "Madworld" spinoff, right?
Oddly, no. While it features Madworld's protagonist and goes into his backstory, the game itself has nothing to do with Madworld.
Absolver was a lot of fun honestly, I had a really good time with it. Making a combo that worked well always felt really good.
>Why haven't online fighting games that took full-advantage of 3D spaces ever worked? Do any of you have any theories?
Literal shitters. Chivalry is fricking great, but it is hard to learn.
>Chivalry is fricking great
>walk at enemy
>they hit you
>you can never seem to hit them
Doesn't feel great. I think I would actually be better at fighting with a melee weapon irl than in Chivalry.
you wouldnt. swords IRL move much, much faster than in chiv and you cant just press a button to defend.
Pure skill issue, keep at it and choose weapons with higher power/reach, you won’t be able to swing as fast but you can block better and hit enemies farther away
Tekken works fine.
I know it does. But I'm trying to find something that could be reasonably merged with a multiplayer shooter (like God of War or Devil May Cry) and where you could realistically engage multiple enemies.
I have nothing against ACTUAL fighting games, I just want to know what else is out there.
Sure. Perhaps what I'm asking about isn't really describable as a "fighting game," then. It's probably never been popular enough to consittute its own genre (though many have tried). I'm just trying to figure out why that is.
Tekken is probably the best fighting game. The last one I played was 4 and it wasn't online. I just played with my dad. I always wanted to get into it online but the guys that have been playing have been around for years. The core design and combos stayed the same, meaning they have years of muscle memory built up to destroy everyone. Even if I grinded for months with the easiest character I wouldn't even be near that level. That's why I always gravitated towards street fighter and mortal Kombat because they're scrub friendly
3d just adds more points of failure.
>balance for maps and player movement
>cost to create the maps, if updates are planned
>creation of a new meta based on movement/animation jank is possible
>lag could be even more of an issue
So add those to the other points of failure such as online pvp games being playgrounds for cheaters, and you get a very hard genre to work with.
Every single thing will lessen the already small audience you have.
Do you know what a fighting game is by chance?
Skill-based melee combat games really struggle with player retention because the skill differences can be massive and it's impossible to bring new players into it.
Go try playing Mordhau as a new player where the game is literally all about pure skill and you will get raped by veterans for 200h until you get even remotely decent.
because fighting games specifically only appeal to black pipo and autistic nerds (and in particular, ones that stink too). that and combined with the fact that they are purists and much prefer 2D. average normie cant handle the hypercompetitive and smelly nature of fighting games. i know i cant
For Honor was really fun.
Just try imagining the camera in Tekken being over the shoulder. It would be fricking stupid to play.
I just want versus-mode Devil May Cry, with ridiculous air combos and whatnot. Is that too much to ask?
It doesn't have to be like Tekken. I just wanna do fun shit like that against strangers online.
There's coop/pvp mod for dmc5 and it demonstrates very well why it doesn't work. Like first dmc is about crazy power fantasy combos and that just doesn't fly in a pvp game. And then because the camera isn't from a side you have very difficult time judging distances and with the precision gone positioning becomes less important. And you can't read your opponent. Are they crouching or parrying or what. Like whatever just smash buttons oh wow.
Ok well DMC was kind of an extreme example. Obviously you couldn't make the characters as broken as they are in DMC.
But maybe something more akin to God of War. Or at least the newer, shittier, over-the-shoulder God of War.
I just want air combos in a multiplayer arena fighter, man. I don't care how we get it, or what else has to change.
Doesn't Ninja Gaiden 3 have a PVP mode? you could try that if you can find a friend to play it.
I think that you don't count For Honor because you want it to be more crazy. But if you make a true 3d fighting game too free then you lose readibility and it's just not fun after the novelty wears off.
ninjala?
Ninjala sounds similar to what you want. The game has issues, but its combat allows for flexible yet flashy combos with both melee and projectiles that are touch-of-death if you execute them correctly. If you don't execute them correctly and fail to seal your opponent's burst then they can time that burst as you're swinging to escape. If they time it poorly you can break them. Rather than escaping, their burst can also be used for a rock-paper-scissors weapon clash where you could use the attacks from it to secure a drone, fend off people trying to interrupt, or secure a quicker kill that builds ult meter if you win
There's a lot of verticality for aerial fights and you can stick to walls or fly around the map with the ridiculous movement each player gets, which feels even better when you aim your movement with gyro. Both your mobility and firepower increase as you progress through the match and you can use terrain/drones to your advantage for obstacles and sneak attacks. Weapons all feel different and some like the skateboard and surfboard have unique movement options too. It's one of the best foundations I've seen for a 3D arena brawler
However, it's also a good example of what problems you can run into with this genre. Lag is the main one; even though the devs gave attacks enough tracking and hitstun that combos still work correctly online, there are still other forms of lag like teleporting during fast movement, players becoming desynched when you catch them in a gumbind during movement, or attacks interacting in weird ways. It's a miracle they got the game working as well as they did on this hardware, but the lag is still an issue
Another issue is that they don't take advantage of the combat and the two main modes focus on collecting drones/KOs/IPPONs to get points as fast as possible. This means the best way to win is to hit inanimate objects or steal kills from players who can't fight back, so skill takes a backseat to cheese.
There are limited time modes that do focus on fighting more, but they suffer from other issues like an overpowered comeback mechanic in the zone control mode, the opponent being able to run away forever in the 1v1 mode since there's no objective to fight over, or matches often being decided by ults or nobody being willing to attack one another in the survival mode. They do allow for some counterplay to these issues though; taking weapons that can invalidate the area denial ults in zone control, building your ability cards around chasing opponents down in 1v1, taking out the biggest threats first and building up points with aggressive play to win through timeout if the opponents are waiting to press their win button in survival, etc. Those limited time modes are a lot more fun than the main modes even with their issues, but you hardly get to play them since they're limited time.
Aside from that, the game's mechanics have more depth to them than the typical player is willing to learn and the devs try to put in things to balance that so "anyone can win" which waters down the whole experience. They got a lot of casual players who only care about the customization because of that, but both casual and competitive players are sick of the consequences of those training wheel mechanics and how chaotic the power creep combined with the droning/stealing meta has made things.
They also added a p2w weapon upgrade system. It resulted in some cool alternate specials for every weapon, but otherwise it's been a blight upon the game and everyone hates it.
In any case, if you're interested in what can go right and wrong with arena fighters then Ninjala is a nice example of both. Despite the common belief, it didn't flop and somehow isn't dead yet despite all the issues either. The third anniversary is coming up this month and it's still getting big collabs every season besides that.
>I just want versus-mode Devil May Cry, with ridiculous air combos and whatnot. Is that too much to ask?
first person melee sucks and will never be good but devs keep trying anyway for some reason
I dunno about you, but for honor is on its 7th year alive
it makes enough money to at least warrant an small asset team, and a tiny balance team
it hasnt been hard to find some matches considering crossplay servers
Just like how 2D fighting games are too niche due to people too lazy to learn the fundamentals and system mechanics, 3D fighters are in a similar place except with even more nuiance due to 3D positioning that can completely change how you approach follow-ups after getting a swing in or guarding successfully.
>due to people too lazy to learn the fundamentals and system mechanics
People pick up the fundamentals within minutes, it's not hard.
the problem is when you hop online to apply those fundamentals for the first time and just get endlessly bodied by sweatlords who have been playing fightan for 20 years.
If you don't have an active local scene or a group of friends all getting into fightan at the same time then you're just never going to git gud, you're doomed to being stunlocked and perfect KO'd forever.
>People pick up the fundamentals within minutes, it's not hard.
This is factually untrue. People think that they've picked up fundamentals against CPUs that are largely useless for practicing fundamentals on. You need real opponents that move around and have human behavior to truly get a feel for fundamentals of blocking, whiff punishing, okizeme, etc.
You CAN build fundamentals when going up against the advanced player if you stick with it and don't mind getting stomped until you learn. Yes there are easier roads but it's not impossible to get fundamentals from fighting "sweatlords". Using that term basically means you've given up before you've started.
>Using that term basically means you've given up before you've started.
even seasoned fightan players say that if you haven't gotten into a new fighting game within the first two weeks, don't bother.
For someone completely new to the genre, there simply is no hope.
>no hope
There's that phrasing again. Just because you reached the starting line at a different point doesn't mean you have no chance at getting decent. There's a 18 year old playing UMVC3 right now currently dominating the scene and that game's over 10 years old.
>even seasoned fightan players say that if you haven't gotten into a new fighting game within the first two weeks, don't bother.
no they don't
literally no one good at fighting games says that. At the absolute most you might get someone saying learning an old game with a small playerbase can be harder than a new game with a large playerbase, but even that is more like "Xrd will be harder to get into than Strive" not "Strive has been out for more than 14 days, you missed your chance."
The people saying that are scrubs lying to each other to make themselves feel less bad about giving up, or never even trying.
>no they don't
Yes they do.
Why are you so desperate to be a loser?
>and I've realized that they basically all flopped. "For Honor," "Bleeding Edge" etc. all went down the tubes.
For Honor is one of the most populated fighting games right now despite being mostly off the radar.
For Honor would have been perfect if it wasn't for parrying. I don't know why the devs thought that a reactionary defense option should guarantee damage.
The worst part is that they have the answer to the problem in the game itself. Deflect is a similar defensive option, but it does not guarantee a follow up, is a shorter animation and allows both players to act again immediately, meaning that deflect trading is a thing.
If deflect was the only defensive option, the game would reward constant aggression instead of fishing for a parry and waiting for the other player to commit first.
>For Honor would have been perfect if it wasn't for parrying. I don't know why the devs thought that a reactionary defense option should guarantee damage.
they changed this and the entire game structure to be read based
the loudest people right now are still complaining about it no longer being reactionary
I thought they only changed it so that parrying heavies only guarantees lights while parrying lights guarantees a heavy. So it's still guaranteed damage, unless there is some more recent change that I am unaware of, which is highly possible as I haven't played since like 2019.
naw, they sped up a lot of attacks, and hid the various UI warnings till later, making people have to pay attention to animations rather then UI more
>Why don't fully 3D online fighting games ever seem to work?
They do. It's called Naraka. Ignoring all the cosmetic lootbox shit, the gay BR mode, and other dumb things the devs did, the fundamental gameplay is incredibly good. Fast as frick skilled melee combat and movement.
Yeah, because fighting someone is generally a one-on-one affair. You can only 'fight' properly if the enemy is the only thing you're focused on. So if you introduce an arena you can run around in with multiple people, it just becomes a 'mob' game. As in, you're all just part of a mob.
TL;DR: one-on-one fighting games force the attention on the fight by virtue of there being two players and camera stuff vs. multiplayer fighting games are just a clusterfrick of chaos.
the best 3d melee/shooting hybrid arena game was gunz
Heres how multiplayer games go regardless of genre.
>there are bad players, medium players and good players
>there are also people who play games casually, those that play games a lot, and those that play a game like its a job
>a successful multiplayer game will have gameplay that allows even the casual players who are actually bad at the game to get a win every so often.
>This seems ridiculous, but these are the people that will make up 90% of a healthy playerbase. This is why games like CoD and CSGO and Fortnite are still popular. All it takes is for players to be able to get a kill every so often, be on the winnign team and feel like they helped, and even get close to winning the game themselves and they will keep playing.
>Even the middling skill players who play a lot will eventually move on if all they are up against is the sweats and the "fodder" is not in the game. So in the end, the only people still playing the game are the people who are good at the game and havent moved on.
>there are people in multiplayer games whos whole existence is to take the role of an npc and be an easy kill
3d plains add more ways for shitters to eat shit, and thus quit the game faster. This is why I want a big COOP game with medieval combat. I want to see something like Full Invasion mod for MnB made into a full game where good players can lead an army of players and the bad players can still feel like they are part of something and even get some kills in. I honestly dont think there is anything wrong with the combat its the fact that its PvP is why it dies. These games are TOO skill based and that shit is anthrax to the majority playerbase.
For Honor was fine, it just had a problem where no matter what they did with the gameplay it was flawed since every reasonable person will just play like a turtle or abuse certain characters that had ridiculous animations and the lowest ms timed attacks.
they've been slowly giving new tools for most heroes
It hasn't been like this for years. Of course you still have some people abusing OP heroes, but that's literally every fighting game and they do some light balancing every other month.
look up Divine Knockout
I don’t know. I was literally one of the best in the world at pic related and it was a ton of fun.
most of them are taking fighting systems built around focusing on one opponent and 1v2 or more situations basically means you are going to lose. which is evidently why even really good players lose their shit when they get dogpiled constantly.
PvP in Dark Souls is kino as frick dude, not our fault that most people are shitters and can't understand their own movement and attacks well enough to git gud.
Guess they'll just have to stick to their garbage 2D shit.
PvP in HOI4 is kino as frick dude, not our fault that most people are shitters and can't understand their own economy and political system well enough to git gud.
Guess they'll just have to stick to their garbage 3D shit.
Literally no one here is talking about strategy games moron, you're just showcasing your mental illness.
Distance between you and your opponent is harder to judge with the more over the shoulder tps camera these tend to have which means the nuance of melee and neutral takes a hit.
Not 1 vs 1 but Gundam Extreme Versus is really popular in Japan. That game focuses more on ranged attacks, resource/ammo management and team work. It still has plenty of melee moves and combos but I'd say that the emphasis on other aspects is what makes it click gameplay wise.
realest answer too many video games
shooters are just far more popular because all a casual needs to remember is to get the aim and rooty tooty which carries over many games
melee fighters differ too much in rules
like casuals get intimidated on TWO attack buttons!
rumbleverse was such a fun game but shitty business decisions made it crash and burn
its so hard for a new game to find success these days without an insane amount of marketing or an insane amount of luck
>marketing
I really hope you're memeing my guy. Rumbleverse failed because the artwork is the most disgusting western cartoon shit possible. It's offensive even to zoomers who usually eat that Fortnite style shit up. Was the gameplay good? Can't tell you because it was instantly trashed from one look at it. And apparently the people that did play didn't spend a single dime on any of the cosmetics because it was over and done in record fricking time. Died faster than Babylon's Fall even.
Worth noting the top players before it died wore mask, one of them used a fursuit. The art was so bad it was actually preferable to RP as a furry who elbowed people from atop a skyscraper.
>make the characters butt fricking ugly instead of taking advantage over how many semenbrains and simps love fighting game thots
Their fault
>rumble
the game actually rewarded skill so it had to die
There will always be latency due to the internet working this way for online gaming. Unless you can system link and face someone head to head you'll never get the truest sense of who is best with no potential for debate to ever occur.
For melee type of games this is even worse. At least with shooters the action is often fast enough and at a distance. It feels so much worse when internet lag fricks up your swing of an axe or sword though in a melee based fight. In fact it makes me just want to not play it at all.
No naraka mentioned? You guys gay as fuvk
I have this vague memory of Blade&Soul PvP being popular in Korea back in the days.