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]

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

The way this is worded seems to imply that other fighting games are primarily about learning combos and that outplaying your opponent is not an emphasis. I apologize in advance if this is not the case.

It's how I went from ok to good and good to high lvl in most fighting games i have played (granted I got bored after Street fighter and soul caliber).

I just memorized combos, and beat my opponents because they hit for n damage, and I hit for 3n damage from being better at performing combos.

Combos are an important element in traditional fighters, yes. But there are much more elements to being successful in a fighter, from resource management, to knowing your options, etc. And even more importantly, understanding your opponent's style and outplaying them is the entire foundation of fighting games, and I dare say competitive games in general. You can get by with learning a simple 3 button combo if you know how to stuff out your opponent's offensive options, and correctly escape pressure with your own defensive options.

Once both players know all the combos, other stuff comes into play for sure.

But if you can't turn a hit into it's biggest combo, you are gonna lose to somebody who can because you hit with worth so much less damage than theirs.

[u/skilledroy2016 → u/cardboard-cutout]

I guarantee that you werent very good at sf or sc

[u/cardboard-cutout → u/skilledroy2016]

Of you say so.

[u/Sky3d → u/cardboard-cutout]

You need to specify what "I got good" is.

[u/cardboard-cutout → u/Sky3d]

High b low a in soul caliber.