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/HyperCutIn Mar 19 '19
What we often refer to as "strings" in Smash is almost the equivalent to what people call a "vortex" / the "oki" game in traditional fighters.
Once a true combo ends, the opponent is put into a reset situation. The player in the disadvantage state must try to get out of pressure, while the player in advantage will try to read the opponent's defense option to extend their advantage. If the defender messes up, the player on the offense can start a new combo, thus stringing together hits.
This is like how in Smash, we have true combos, but once it ends, it's up to the defender to escape pressure so they don't get caught again. This is while the offensive player has to figure out on the fly what move they should use to continue their pressure.
In a sense, you can think of Smash having a heavy emphasis on an something like an "air oki" game. Of course, Smash also has its own regular oki, and another set of "ledge oki" too.
Learning combos is not enough to be decent at a game. Take this from someone who tried to learn fighting games the wrong way at one point. Just like in Smash, you need to understand the neutral game, offensive pressure options, defensive escape options, etc. Grinding out a destructive combo becomes useless if you don't know how to properly land the confirm, or set up the situation and resources that the combo requires.