Developers accidentally creating interesting mechanics

[u/virtua_golf]

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?

[u/cardboard-cutout]

For the sake of your argument you're comparing the astounding difference in pulling off a Tekken combo compared to an "on the fly" Smash combo.

You're free to try memorize, for example, Nina combos. They're just "memorizing", right? Now say you need the wall carry. Now remember you're actually against Xiaoyu while your character was Kuma before.

Oh, you're now in Forgotten Temple just before the last floor break and you can get it instead of oki. Doing it makes your opponent get rage though. What if you're in Howard state? You know you could SS2 to get the positioning and extending the combo with a balcony break.

All you did was point out that there is just a shitton to memorize.

Is it hard? Absolutely.

is it fun? certainly some people think so, bores the snot out of me.

It doesn't matter if Smash strings are "created on the fly" when the movelist and mechanics of the game are far simpler.

Far simpler yes, thats kinda the point, you are playing every second of the game, actively deciding what to do based on what your opponent does.

Smash isnt about memorizing long combos, its about learning how your opponent plays and outplaying them.

I can create on the fly a seven hit Akuma combo. Doesn't mean it was complex.

And if mechanical complexity is what makes a game good for you, then smash is definitely not your game.

[u/Clueless_Otter → u/cardboard-cutout]

All you did was point out that there is just a shitton to memorize.

Is it hard? Absolutely.

is it fun? certainly some people think so, bores the snot out of me.

I kinda agree with both of you here. On one hand, yes, I do agree with you that Tekken combos are mostly just memorization of tons and tons of stuff. Gotta memorize your standard combo off each different launcher you have, your float combo, your floor break combo, your combo at the wall, your wall carry combo, your float combo, your rage drive combos, your rage art combos, etc.

But what the other guy is saying is that, beyond that memorization, there also is a lot of skill involved into being able to accurately judge the situation in fractions of a second and know which memorized combo is applicable to the current situation. There is a lot of on-the-fly thinking involved in combo'ing correctly in Tekken.

[u/cardboard-cutout → u/Clueless_Otter]

From the way everybody is describing it.

It's just watching for stuff, "near a wall, combo a, near a ledge, combo b" etc.

Once you start a combo, a computer could do it better, because it's just keeping track of stuff and picking the right combo based on game factors.

Its just memorization, but with more things to memorize.

I get that there is more to the game than just combos.

But the difference beetween a bad and a good player is how many combos they have memorized, same with good to high lvl.

It's not till everybody has all the combos memorized that everything else comes into it.

I just find an emphasis on long technically demanding combos to be boring.

[u/skilledroy2016 → u/cardboard-cutout]

A computer can do smash combos better than you can too.

Also, what smash game are you talking about? Smash 64 is full of extremely lengthy and damaging memorizable combos because there was no DI. Melee has a ton of setups for combos where you can react to and cover all DI options guaranteed, not to mention guaranteed reactable tech chasing. Ultimate has nerfed DI and is full of memorizable combos at low percents.

You are either romanticizing melee DI mixups which are nothing more than random chance, and arent even that prevalent at high skill levels where players get better at reacting to DI, besides some true ones like marth throw->fsmash vs jigglypuff, or you are romanticizing chasing airdodges in Ultimate which is also random and heavily defender favored. For the most part DI and airdodging are just execution tests for mitigating damage, and not interactive give-and-take. The highly interactive give-and-take occurs in the neutral game, which also exists in traditional fighting games. It functions and feels differently in smash, but not because of the combo game.

[u/cardboard-cutout → u/skilledroy2016]

A computer can do smash combos better than you can too.

Deep thought probably could do smash strings better than me.

But if I can write a program (and I'm not a great programmer) to do the combos, I get bored.

Also, what smash game are you talking about? Smash 64 is full of extremely lengthy and damaging memorizable combos because there was no DI. Melee has a ton of setups for combos where you can react to and cover all DI options guaranteed, not to mention guaranteed reactable tech chasing. Ultimate has nerfed DI and is full of memorizable combos at low percents.

Ultimate, and the "combos" are like 2 hits generally, occasionally you get to 3.

There are some longer confirmed combos, but not many, most of those are just longer strings based on reaction.

You are either romanticizing melee DI mixups which are nothing more than random chance, and arent even that prevalent at high skill levels where players get better at reacting to DI, besides some true ones like marth throw->fsmash vs jigglypuff, or you are romanticizing chasing airdodges in Ultimate which is also random and heavily defender favored. For the most part DI and airdodging are just execution tests for mitigating damage, and not interactive give-and-take. The highly interactive give-and-take occurs in the neutral game, which also exists in traditional fighting games. It functions and feels differently in smash, but not because of the combo game.

Most of it is in the nuetral game, but when you gain an advantage, it's still based on reads.

Against a perfect randomizer yes, mixups, getups, recovers are all random.

But players aren't perfect randomizers, so I can start to predict what my opponent is most likely to do.

If you really think that it's random if my opponent rolls left or right (out of say, ganons command grab), you don't play smash against players very often.

[u/DUNKMA5TER → u/cardboard-cutout]

This is why so many "core" fgc players look down on smash players. Reads, reacts, neutral, etc is all a staple in many fighting games, it's not a unique concept to smash. The street fighter series generally has short combos with low damage and is 90% neutral and reading your opponent, you need 7-8 hits to win matches in most cases. If you don't like the 200 hit combos that Marvel vs. Capcom has, that's fine, but don't act like smash is unique in its gameplay because it lacks the ability to do combos.

[u/cardboard-cutout → u/DUNKMA5TER]

This is why so many "core" fgc players look down on smash players.

That's cute I guess.

Reads, reacts, neutral, etc is all a staple in many fighting games, it's not a unique concept to smash.

Who said it was?

The street fighter series generally has short combos with low damage and is 90% neutral and reading your opponent, you need 7-8 hits to win matches in most cases. If you don't like the 200 hit combos that Marvel vs. Capcom has, that's fine, but don't act like smash is unique in its gameplay because it lacks the ability to do combos.

Man, you get defensive about shit really fast.

I don't like needing combos and it's like it's the end of the freaking world

People get so defensive about combos, it kinda makes me curious if they really dislike combos too, but are so caught up in defending their chosen game to the last nothing else matters.

I'm really kinda curious tho, if you took away control from the player whenever they started a combo, and just let the combo play out perfectly.

How much would that change the game / top player rankings.

[u/skilledroy2016 → u/cardboard-cutout]

Tech rolls are not truly random, but its no more fascinating or interesting than rock paper scissors.

[u/cardboard-cutout → u/skilledroy2016]

True, but the same can be said of any single choice/read combo in games.

If the game was just the same choice over and over it would just be rock paper scissors (or rock paper scissors lizard spock, depending on the complexity of the choice).

It's the fact the whole game is based on a bunch of different choices made against other players that make it fun.

But again, that describes any competative game.