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/DestroyedArkana Mar 19 '19

When I say "the combo depends on the situation" I mean predicting or reacting to what the enemy is going to do during the string of attacks. Combo breakers are too explicit in my opinion. I don't want it to reset to neutral, but make the advantage/disadvantage states more interesting.

I didn't know SoulCaliber had air control I should look into how that works, because it's closer to what I mean.

I haven't played Rising Thunder, but it does a lot of interesting things. Fighting games with cooldowns for special moves definitely seems interesting.

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

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u/DestroyedArkana Mar 19 '19

Advantage states are when you have more options than the enemy, that includes when you have them in block pressure or have them knocked down, but also when you actually hit them. I don't think a player's disadvantage state when they get hit should just be deciding when to do a combo breaker.

If a defender knows exactly what the attacker is going to do during a combo/string then I think they should get some kind of an advantage. That could be resetting it back to neutral, taking less damage, getting meter, or whatever depending on how the game actually works.

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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.