Better Games.

Movin’ on up!

This blog has moved it’s way over to better-gaming.blogspot.com.  Sorry Tumblr!

Interlude: The Power of Rock

My computer here took a crap today, and so in the middle of fixing it I don’t have time for the third episode of my Street Fighter roundup - which will end up being a pretty long post I imagine.  Instead, I figure I’ll throw out some thoughts regarding the newly crowded music game genre.

Guitar Hero is up to about 9 games now (GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, GH:Aerosmith, GH:World Tour, GH:On Tour, GH:On Tour 2, the coming soon GH:Metallica and any I may have missed).  We’ve also got Rock Band and it’s sequel.  Then the stuff like Rock Revolution, Guitar Freaks, etc etc.  The genre that was once barren and populated by DDR remakes and Parappa the Rapper (which, if you haven’t played it, is an obscene amount of fun) is now filled with options - some good, some not so good.

So what makes one of these stand out from the others?  Let’s start at the holy grail of music games: Guitar Hero 2.  When the first iteration of Guitar Hero came out, people scoffed, and players were laughed at for playing with “plastic instruments.”  Then GH2 came along and laughter turned to the sounds of rocking out.  It came down to a fun, slick interface, amazing song selection, extras that remind you you’re playing a game and last but not least, you really felt like you were rocking out.

Guitar Hero 2 was a smash hit, and suddenly the market was saturated with sequels and with Harmonix throwing out tons of downloadable tracks for Rock Band weekly, players had all the plastic music they’d ever need.  Eventually, a bit of the magic was lost, and we’re here to figure out exactly why.

Old games are old
People who jumped on the bandwagon in GH2 have been playing these games for 3 years.  What’s the last game you played for 3 years?  Probably World of Warcraft or some other MMO if anything, and even then the reason is constantly changing content and a player community.  Music games don’t have the luxury of the latter, and now rely heavily on additional content.  If we stopped getting DLC, or new iterations of these games so often, they’d fade out.  The fad has passed, and while adding drums and vocals refreshed things for a bit, it’s time for something new.  Maybe Keyboard Hero is next?

Commercialized
MTV now has a stake in Rock Band, and the influence is easy to see when comparing Rock Band’s original track list to, say, GH2’s.  There’s a lot of variety and a lot of new music.  My personal music taste aside, there’s a distinct difference between playing “that new song that’s been on the radio” and “that song I’ve been rocking out to for ages.”  Music has to establish itself, and flavor of the month stuff ends up having the same lasting power in the game as it does on the radio.

All cleaned up
It feels like there’s a gloss over these games now. GH2 had a grit to it that really just felt like you were in a seedy rock band.  Rock Band removed the grit entirely, and the result looks nice, but that presentation layer sits itself inbetween the player and the music, and it comes off lacking personality.  The GH sequels took a different approach, and tried to force that grit down our throats.  Unfortunately their presentation just looks like a dull and uninspired paper mache version of the original.  In a game all about rocking out, personality means a lot.

A most righteous conclusion
In the end, the biggest problem with new music games is they’re not that new.  The only difference between one game and the next is the track list, and with the variety of songs being so scattered, it becomes less and less of a lure.  Players desperate for new songs drop money every so often to pay for new tracks, but the magic has died and the curtain has closed.

It’ll take a a serious new innovation to get guitar games back to the glory they used to have.  I’m sure instead though, we’ll get more rehashes and remakes and track lists, and players will buy it because well, if you want to rock that’s what you have to do.  I’m hoping there’ll be some new revelation, something that makes these games as fun as they were when we started playing, but I’m not holding my breath.

Round 2: of gauges and their uses

We’ve discussed Ultras, but what of their close cousins, Supers?  The fate of the two is somewhat intertwined, as there is sometimes a decision to be made regarding which of the two to use.  Unfortunately, the decision almost always is in favor of the Ultra.  Why, you ask?  Well here’s a run down:

• The Revenge gauge resets each round, the Super gauge does not - therefore if possible using an Ultra still leaves you with meter for the next round, whereas using a Super leaves you meterless
• Using a Super means you’re missing out on the ability to do 4 EX moves
• A Super will usually do less damage than an Ultra

Now obviously there’s more to it than this.  Supers can be cancelled, and Supers are easier to combo than Ultras.  Still, for chatacters that can combo their Ultras, Supers offer little incentive. But don’t fret - this is an infinitely less complex problem than the Ultra dilemma!

Decrease the length of the gauge
We mentioned that you have to trade off 4 EX moves to do a Super.  So how do we make Supers more enticing?  Make them cost 3 EX moves!  It’s simple, quick and dirty, but this does two things: fills up your Super gauge quicker, allowing for more Super action during play, and makes the decision to use a Super a much easier one.  We’re not breaking EX moves, since you will still gain them at the same rate, we’re just making Supers a little more… thrifty.

Allow the gauge to hold two stocks of Supers
The one bad thing about our previous change is that we have less EX stocks!  Easily remedied: allow the Super gauge to hold two stocks instead of one.  This gives you 6 total EX moves, or 3 Focus cancels, or 2 supers.  Mmmm… tasty!  This also lets you do interesting things like EX into Super (which of course, needs to be playtested to make sure it’s not broken).  Overall this opens up a ridiculous number of options for every character and gives Supers a stronger presence.

Increase the gauge increase rate on damage dealt
One other problem is that if you use EX moves even somewhat regularly (even worse if you use cancels) you can easily end every round nowhere near getting a Super.  A very slight increase in how much meter you get upon dealing damage (not taking, and not blocking) does two things: allows a faster rate of increase and thus more delicious Supers, AND rewards offense in a game that makes it easy to turtle.

That’s it for this installment, the next (and probably last SFIV) episode I’ll deal with character-specific tweaks.  Fun times ahead!

Round 1… FIGHT!

The inspiration for this post, and this blog in its entirety, was a post I made over at the shoryuken.com forums, regarding my set of ideal, “fictional patch notes” for the game Street Fighter IV.  It was only a list with no rhyme or reason to it, but I’m going to use this space to really expound on what I think are the games biggest areas in need of improvement.

I should add that I thoroughly enjoy the game in its current incarnation.  If I didn’t I wouldn’t have played it enough to make this assessment.  I should make a note to anyone and everyone that “then just don’t play it” isn’t really a response.  There’s not a single game that wouldn’t benefit from every single gamer enjoying it, and it’s our duty as gamers to rip these things to shreds and let developers know what we liked and didn’t like.

I’ll be doing this in installments, as this will be way too much for one big SF4 post.

And with that, on to the post!

Ultra Moves and the Revenge Gauge
I’m going to start here, as this is a big gripe for a lot of players.  Ultra moves are essentially big, powerful attacks that can do up to 60% of your opponents total health.  You earn the ability to do Ultras by essentially taking hits in the face.  Around 50% health you can do an Ultra, with the damage you do increasing as your health decreases.

So what’s the problem?  Well, it comes down to a few characters being able to easily land their Ultras.  Imagine the following scenario: Vega has been pounding on Abel, who is almost dead at this point.  Abel has only landed a handful of combos on Vega, leaving him still at around 50% health.  This match is, to the naked eye, already Vega’s.  However, Abel managed to land a crouching fierce punch, which he can combo into his (now full) Ultra.  Abel has just won the match.

See, the issue is that an Ultra can give you a lot of benefit for a little work.  Now we could just pull Ultras out, sure.  But they’re in there for a reason - Ultras give a player on the losing end a chance to make a comeback.  Pardon the cheesery, but the match isn’t over until its over.  This is a great mechanic, and keeps players trying their hardest despite how behind they are.  So how can we remedy the issue without making Ultras obsolete?  Let’s find out!

Increase every character’s health
Ultras really accentuate a big underlying problem with the game - no one has enough health!  A simple jumping roundhouse -> crouching roundhouse combo does something in the vicinity of 20% of an average character’s life.  When you put it like that, 50% health for what should be your big, damaging move doesn’t seem so ridiculous now does it?  I mean it should be more powerful than landing two incredibly easy 2-hit combos shouldn’t it?  It doesn’t need to be an enormous increase, something like +150-200 health across the board (to put things in Perspective, Ryu has, I believe, 1000 health).  Already our ridiculous 60% combos are down to 50%, players can be competitive for longer and matches last a little longer than 20 seconds.

Decrease Revenge Gauge rate of increase
Ultras are supposed to be comeback moves, but do you really need a comeback at 50% health?  Getting them so early simply means they replace Supers (which I’ll touch on later) as your big attack of choice.  Instead, the Revenge Gauge should increase at a rate that leaves it at 75% full just before your death.  This way you get your Ultra at 2/3 dead instead of 1/2, when you really need it to make your comeback.

You can still get it earlier by using the absorbed damage from a Focus Attack (which is also the only way to get the gauge to 100% with this change).  This makes Ultra more of a reward if you successfully get it before you’re almost dead - pushing it from a free super, to something you get as a reward for being a more skilled player.

Increased damage reduction for mid-combo Ultra
This is simple and straightforward.  If the first hit of your Ultra is not the first hit in a combo, the damage should be decreased by somewhere in the vicinity of 1/4.  This helps to balance out characters who can easily combo in their Ultras.  We don’t want to necessarily remove this ability, as it could be a key component of the character, but we don’t want an easy win button either.  It should do more damage than inserting any other move into the combo, but not nearly as much as a clean Ultra.

End Result (warning: fuzzy math!)
With all of these changes in place, let’s revisit our Abel vs. Vega example.  I’m going to throw some math in here, and these numbers aren’t going to correct, but it’s for the sake of proving a point!

Let’s say Vega has 1000 health, and Abel’s crouching HP -> Ultra combo at 100% does 500 damage.  In our previous example where Abel was almost dead and Vega has 50% health, this won Abel the match off a normal hit combo.

With the revamped rules, Vega now has 1200 health, and Abel is only at 75% Ultra.  The damage doesn’t scale linearly I’m sure but let’s say at 75% it does 420 damage for the sake of making my math clean.

Now, Abel hits with a crouching HP -> Ultra.  Because it’s in a combo, it now does 315, bringing Vega from 600 down to 285.  If he does a clean Ultra he brings him down to 180.  Vega is definitely now in comeback range, but he did not instantly lose, and only did about 25% of Vega’s new and improved health with a combo into Ultra.  This seems like a much better solution.

That’s it for round 1!  Join us next time where we’ll discuss Supers and EX moves!

So It Begins

Welcome to Better Games.  A blog I will hopefully be updating semi-regularly with my insights and rants on whatever game I’m playing at the time.  I’m not a game designer, nor a game programmer.  Hell, I can’t even draw anything more fancy than a stick figure.

But I’d like to think I have a general handle on what works and what doesn’t.  I’ve been a gamer for just about the last 20 years, and I may have picked up a thing or two regarding what makes good games good and bad games bad.

So let’s see how long I can keep the shenanigans up for, shall we?