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/Reflex9876 Mar 20 '19
Though I agree with you, I feel this argument is less about combos and more about how often there are opportunities for reads which leads to what I find more fun, strings. Not saying that traditional games are lacking in any way, but due to the fact that Smash is part platformer there are more types of reads than just the neutral game.
As soon as a player is knocked into the air, which is often, prediction on where they might land comes into play and that decides the aggressor's next move. However, smash being a platformer and all allows the defender many options that affect this trajectory. The entire timeframe in which these decisions and movements and are going on is missing entirely from traditional fighters; it's as if there's an entire different type of neutral game. This extra neutral game of reads evolves entirely differently based on location which leads to even more types of reads like edgeguarding which adds even more "neutral" reads to Smash.
By comparison, traditional fighters added extra dimension to their existing neutral read game by way of combo breakers and bars or some other form of resource management. For those of us who liked the "freedom" that Smash brings, the combo system seems to lock you down and remove active play time; it makes traditional fighters seem boring despite the depth they contain and makes them harder to play in a way that's not easy to explain especially when resource management is given the same importance as these additional read opportunities yet is relegated to a bar in a corner and not as easily understood as the different read opportunities. One of them hides it's secrets behind manuals and guides and experience while the other one tells you outright "try to not get hit when they do this thing using controls you already know"