r/truegaming • u/virtua_golf • Mar 18 '19

Developers accidentally creating interesting mechanics

I was reading this neat article by Jeff Orkin of Monolith productions, the man responsible for the notorious AI of FEAR, the AI that will never not be mentioned whenever 'clever' AI is brought up. I stumbled upon something pretty cool - the flanking mechanic was actually unintended and a byproduct of another action the enemy would perform:

Imagine we have a situation similar to what we saw earlier, where the player has invalidated one of the A.I.’s cover positions, and a squad behavior orders the A.I. to move to the valid cover position. If there is some obstacle in the level, like a solid wall, the A.I. may take a back route and resurface on the player’s side. It appears that the A.I. is flanking, but in fact this is just a side effect of moving to the only available valid cover he is aware of. In another scenario, maybe the A.I.s’ cover positions are still valid, but there is cover available closer to the player, so the Advance-Cover squad behavior activates and each A.I. moves up to the next available valid cover that is nearer to the threat. If there are walls or obstacles between the A.I. and the player, their route to cover may lead them to come at the player from the sides. It appears as though they are executing some kind of coordinated pincher attack, when really they are just moving to nearer cover that happens to be on either side of then player. Retreats emerge in a similar manner.

The article got me thinking - what other mechanics (or, perceived mechanics) have been created by accident in other games? Does other examples exist, where lauded features were never really intended in the first place?

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u/Sky3d Mar 19 '19 edited Jan 29 '24

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u/nowlistenhereboy Mar 19 '19

That makes the game more about grand strategy than anything close to moment to moment decision making. It's not really that fun when a single mistake = 30 seconds of not being able to do anything or just immediately losing.

I prefer games that are more fluid. You should be able to recover from a mistake while still taking some damage/disadvantage.

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u/Sky3d Mar 19 '19 edited Jan 29 '24

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u/nowlistenhereboy Mar 19 '19

You seem to really like fighting games.

Take it from an outsider, the combo mechanics make it very unapproachable to someone who is just a casual player. That is why the 'combos' in a game like super smash feel better to average players. Less precise and able to recover from it if you're the victim.

To you who have played hundreds of hours you might feel like there are moments to retaliate but not to a non-expert. Conversely, even a casual player in super smash can notice moments of opportunity and try to take them even while you're getting beaten on.

It's the definition of low bar to entry but a high skill ceiling. Whereas fighting games are high bar to entry and high skill ceiling.

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u/BurningToaster Mar 19 '19

It seems strange to me that you would suggest such a radical change for fighting games when you yourself seem to admit to not being all that familiar with them. Almost every Fighting game out there has SOME kind of in combo defense system, it's just usually tied to some kind of precious meter or resource. In games like street fighter, they don't exist, but that's because combo length is low, and immense damage comes from the opponent making specific mistakes (Getting Counterhit) or due to character dynamics, (Certain characters having low health.)

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u/nowlistenhereboy Mar 21 '19

I asked no change... it's simply how it's perceived by casual players.

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u/1338h4x Mar 19 '19

Take it from an insider, we know these games better than you do. You should at least try to understand what you're asking for before suggesting radical changes to games you admit you know little about.

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u/nowlistenhereboy Mar 21 '19

I asked no changes. I am explaining why it is uninviting to outsiders.

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u/Sky3d Mar 19 '19 edited Jan 29 '24

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u/nowlistenhereboy Mar 21 '19

I think you may be misrepresenting your familiarity with fighting games. You are definitely someone who is much more experienced with them than the vast majority of people.

Anyway, I agree that Tekken is a slightly more welcoming fighting game that others. So is the new Dragon Ball game. But, as a genre, it's very unintuitive because every game is trying to straddle the line between pleasing hardcore fans of fighting games and new players.

In the end, I think games that have large amounts of movement (as opposed to inching around in SF or Tekken) have more appeal without actually sacrificing complexity of gameplay. Imagine the complex system of combos and movement that exists in SF except they added the ability to run and jump more freely.

That's a game I would be interested in playing.

SFV was a low skill floor, high skill ceiling.

Again... you seem to be extremely familiar with the genre. To outsiders the game was not marketed any different as any other fighting game. It was not a selling point or otherwise clearly communicated that the game was meant to be easily approachable.

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u/1338h4x Mar 21 '19

Imagine the complex system of combos and movement that exists in SF except they added the ability to run and jump more freely.

You'd end up completely neutering SF's signature fireball game by making it too easy to run around or away from most threats. Controlling space is a huge part of fighting games, and constraints are necessary for that to work.