I know it's only tangentially related to the topic, but I want to kill the "Zoners are Snipers" analogy. The only thing they have in common is range, and the way they frustrate players is completely different. Snipers are robbery characters. They are frustrating because they instantly kill you for the slightest mistake, the range is only part of the frustration. Zoners, in my mind, are 'constructor' characters, the ones that build sentry guns that lock down angles. The entire purpose of the class is to reduce the number of options the enemy player has at their disposal, which a lot of players find extremely frustrating to play against. The sentry gun is no danger to you if you don't approach, but the act of trying to approach and enforce your own game plan is often shut down by it, much like a zoner and their wall of projectiles. Funny enough, the constructor type character is another one that tends to be intentionally underpowered, both because they slow the game down significantly by existing and also because they tend to be better the worse the players are.
It's actually in the name: "zoner" refers to how they create "zones" that the opponent doesn't want to be in. You don't want to be in the space a projectile is approaching. You don't want to be where long normals can hit you. The "constructor" characters, as you put them, similarly function through area-denial: creating spaces that you do not want to exist in. Edit: Though, I suppose one could argue that the threat of a sniper has a similar effect of area denial, since the main way to play around a sniper is to simply not be in the sight line. A main point of frustration with snipers is that this is often the ONLY form of counterplay.
That's my biggest issue with computer games. It's just so hard to convince people that the computer is now in the garbage can, and that it was completely an accident the way that it could just happen with a tabletop game.
In my opinion, a zoner is much more similar to a machine gunner instead of a sniper. A sniper is more similar to Slayer. A machine gun locks down a position for a really, really long time. And when you think you caught him out, he's moved and is now shooting you in the back.
persona 4 arena was a weird 2-touch game because people stopped their combos right before awakening to make sure you don't get free meter and guts and i know people used to get upset about vtrigger, but i feel like ultras were way more controversial in their day because of how much damage they did my favorite comeback mechanic is in guilty gear missing link because you can just so supers for free Forever.
Pot/reaper main here. Even though potemkin struggles against axl, his toolkit consists of abilities that are designed to help alleviate those issues. Those options aren't as good as other characters, but they are good enough to help pot out. Even though the matchup may seem unfair, I wouldn't have it any other way. I probably wouldn't play pot if he didn't have the weaknesses he does. The game maintains competitive integrity by saying "even though your character may struggle greatly against certain others, we'll give you some ways to make up for it so that the match isn't helpless". Knowing that there IS something you can do, even if it is difficult or worse than another character's option, helps that feeling of "this matchup SUCKS and this game is unfair". I feel the same applies to Reaper in overwatch. The difference, however, is that in a game like overwatch, when a match is just not in your favor, the game doesn't give certain characters ways to make up for that bad matchup. No matter what you do as reaper, if you're up against an all-poke composition, you will not be able to do anything to the enemy team unless your team carries. Reaper cannot even exist at long range, whereas pot can use his armor/lengthy normals to try and get in. This is because overwatch expects you to swap characters to deal with bad matchups, rather than simply force your character to overcome the obstacles presented. This is why personally, I'm more a fan of the marvel rivals hero shooter balance philosophy moreso than overwatch's. I think both can do well as competitive games, but I don't like overwatch's approach to the topic you presented in this video. Does the better player win? Yeah, if they can accurately play the counterswap game. You can be the best reaper in the world, but you're not touching ana, mercy, pharah, widow.
@@Someguy_245 For me a lot of it was just experimenting and always trying an idea even if I don’t know how to do it yet. If I think of an edit I try my best to make it work, and sometimes it doesn’t look great, but it gets me familiar with new tools. For example, I had never used green screens much before, but in the GGST Heavyweight video I used them as many ways as I could think of!
I love you eddy. Can you start leaving names of the songs you use in your vids in the descriptions or comments please. Too many bangers I cant find (especially one startin at 2:11)
Comeback mechanics are more than just a counter to loss aversion, the real reason they need to exist is as a balance to natural Win More states. Mario Kart has a win more mechanic built in: A lot of it's offensive options have a range limit. So someone who drives away from the pack is pretty immune from most of the tools, and therefore can easily compound their win by not having to focus on dodging attacks. To counter this, there are attacks that target the front player, and the rear players get more wide reaching attacks to pull them back into a competitive gamesate. Win more situations are problematic because they worsen all the emotions of losing, but also they're just not fun in general. The competition has left the game and the rest is just a formality. So comeback mechanics' primary purpose is to prevent a player from getting into a invincible state.
Even in a perfectly balanced game the best player doesn't always win, assuming the skill gap between players isn't too overwhelming. The best players make mistakes too, which can be just enough to allow the second best to take a win. On the other hand even the most over tuned comeback mechanics can either be played around or abused by the best players, meaning they won' do much good in helping the worst. However these are extreme examples, the reality is most people fall somewhere in the middle where these mechanics do make a difference for better or worse. Just try to keep them subtle and maybe don't intentionally make certain archetypes weaker than others.
4:00 just want to note on the chess thing, you can really only notice an advantage with white over black unless you are around the IM level, or around top several thousand in the world. Even very good players rated around 2100-2200 FIDE (99.9 percentile) the white black advantage is negligible (as shown in games won drawn and lost)
I think there's a case to be made that in games there is more than the win and the loss. And those are levers you can pull that don't break competitive integrity. Something as simple as changing "You lost" to "Nice Try" can put the brakes on loss aversion at least a little. Also rewarding winning games does the opposite and makes the problem more extreme, especially if you start rewarding rank achievements, which will leave a large part of the playerbase feel left out. Dual ranked systems, which have both a matchmaking rank and a displayed rank which are only loosely related, can also be immensely frustrating, as you get matchmade against players who are higher than your displayed rank (or atleast it feels that way). And finally, most matchmaking systems come with the assumption that an unknown player is going to be of average skill, which really only works if there is a significant portion of casual games. With games always funneling people into competitive, this assumption breaks.
This is why I think that multiple shorter rounds are better for competitive integrity without sabotaging the casual appeal of stealing a round off of a player that is better than you from time to time. Strive players all know the "Nago Round" happens from time to time. Sometimes you guess wrong and die, it happens. As long as the better player wins more consistently than the weaker one then it should level out with enough rounds.
Comeback mechanics exist in MOBAs too, the two types that come to mind are resource bonuses (losing teams/players get more xp/gold for doing things), and big objectives near the end of a match that can completely turn the tides if your team gets it In theory I like these mechanics, especially in longer games it's a nice bit of motivation to keep fighting, but in practice neither of these mechanics stop people giving up 60 seconds into a match lol
What's funny about Mario Kart in regards to comeback mechanics is that depending on the track, it can be more competitively viable at a top level to hang back and collect some powerful items first and then use them to make a comeback, rather than just try to go as fast as you can the whole time. The eternal battle of bagging vs frontrunning. Tracks with lots of spots where you can get a shortcut by going over off-road while ignoring the speed debuff by using a speed item generally reward bagging more, but there are some stages where frontrunning is preferred
I will say that some comeback mechanics are necessary as "anti-snowball" mechanics. Imagine you're running a 100 meter dash, but when the first runner crosses the 33 meter threshold the trailing runner loses a leg and has to make up the deficit with only one leg left. That's team fighters like Marvel vs Capcom. Sure, a comeback from that position is a truly aspirational thing that can set a crowd on fire, but more often than not if you were already losing with a full team chances are you're going to continue losing when you're a man down. Sometimes the advantage gained from winning early is to great and needs something in play to counterbalance it... even though something like X-factor and Sparking are probably several steps too far.
Instead of longest range, I’m more so talking about effective range here. Pot has big limb normals, but doesn’t exert much pressure off them. He has to be pressed right up against you to be a significant threat, and that’s more what I mean by “effective range”. I will give you that even by that metric, pot isn’t the shortest range character, but I felt it would be confusing if I used characters I didn’t even talk about in the graphic behind pot and didn’t explain what sets them apart from him.
A completely fair game is a game with a static set of pieces/characters and a single strategy that works. Chess is fair in that it's, in theory, a solved game (As in there is a theoretical optimal move that will win every time), but it's complex enough for the human mind to never know what these solved situations are, which means it's still fun because of people's flaws. If people are perfect, Chess is boring. If one or both players are perfect, then the win of the game is to pick the side that always wins with the optimal moves. In the same way fighting games are based off of various aspects, reflexes, execution, reading an opponent, conditioning, everyone has their talents but are flawed, so the game is fun. A low tier character can conceivably win against a high tier at some skill levels. But for some people it's just fun to crush newbies. On the same issue, a game that's completely unfair is also not fun. But honestly none of this crap matters. What makes a game fun, even when unfair, is the people you play it with. There are no solutions outside of avoiding extremes and crappy people.
I'd say that a well-designed comeback mechanic is most important to counterbalance positive feedback loops. If the game's mechanics allow a player's initial victories to spiral - for example, a MOBA player winning a fight with an opponent means they can level up and buy items while their opponent is waiting to respawn and be more likely to win the next fight - then a comeback mechanic can let those initial victories still matter (since the advantaged player has still made progress towards their final win state that the disadvantaged player hasn't) without them disproportionately influencing future contests. For such a mechanic to function, of course, it needs to have an impact equal to or smaller than the recurring advantage gained from the positive feedback loop, so that falling behind is never comparatively advantageous. Basically, it is a bold and dangerous design choice to incentivise a player to fall behind at the start of a game deliberately so you can ride the comeback mechanic to victory. Sandbagging in Mario Kart to get better items is probably the best-known example of this. I still remember when playing with my friends on the DS version that everyone wanted to be one of the last to get an item box from the first group on Cheep Cheep Beach because getting mushrooms or a star would let you drive through the water around the S-shaped sandbar and cut off a massive section of track; the result is that we would stop right before those item boxes and essentially play a game of chicken there, sometimes for minutes. Fun in its own way, perhaps, but probably not the developers' intention! Incidentally, I think this might be why competitive fighting game communities dislike comeback mechanics - fighting game design typically does not confer any lasting advantage for making progress towards their final win state beyond locking an opponent into a combo for the duration of your next few strikes, so there aren't any major positive feedback loops to counterbalance.
Good video but I feel like league of legends would a better reference for comeback mechanics There is the obvious stuff such as bounties but also less obvious stuff such as spilt pushing/open nexus back door
Intresting explanation on perceived skill and player feelings particularly on certain archetypes. Part of me wants developers to stop putting in these archetypes without significantly changing them. Most of the time it feels more like checking a box then thoughtfully adding to the gameplay. I feel like you can still give those player fantasy without the frustration or at least significantly reducing it. For example people generally have no issue with "Marksman rifles" despite them having similar ranges to snipers because they lack a one shot. There is also things you can do to help feel like that power is more earned like fighting for it when the sniper spawns on the map like Halo or when it takes teamwork like Ashe w/dmg boost in Overwatch. On a similar note my casual friends had less frustration when fighting grapplers that do not do a lot of damage but get a combo off the grab or the grab is apart of the combo; big bodies with small but damaging combos also were less frustrating than the classic grappler.
The most fair and balanced competitive games, are games where there are little to no differences in the playing field. Rocket League is an example, it's just a 3v3 on the same exact playing field with the exact same "characters". Another good example are the FPS Arena of old, where the only difference was that one player spawned closer to the mega armour and the other closer to the mega health each round. The latter were abandoned by developers and the more casual public because the skill ceiling is extremely high, you NEED to be good at it to play competitive, unlike stuff like Valorant, Overwatch or Apex, where no matter your skill level you will win games eventually due to many factors (meta, teammates, maps and so on)
ouggg quake 3 arena is so good. as a kid I played so much open arena, an open source fork of it with some changes, played for so long before I even knew what quake was 😂
I love mechanics like spark and burst. they add a lot to think about in combat and open up the game for interesting strategies, and baiting and punishing bursts and DPs and invulnerable supers is such a rewarding feeling. I am loving dbfz right now, so much to think about during pressure with guard cancels, reflect, spark, supers, DPs. anti-reflect tactics are so interesting to me and spark baits and punishing a guard cancel tag always feels soo devious 😈
Good video bro, I do however think that 9/10 times the better player will win. I feel that there is a lot of mental involved in being the better player that just cannot be analysed in a video on mechanics. From an objective mechanical and decision making based view point, then yes the numbers will show that the better player won't always win, but there are more complex things to consider if you actually want a more thorough answer. I'm not trying to say that you are wrong, just that I think there is a lot more to discuss. I think this was a very good exploration of the topic, and would for sure watch another video exploring topics like this, I think talking about how the factors discussed in this video vary from player to player. To go back to fighting games, a player could be cracked at a bad match up and win it far more than they lose it, does this mean that it is a good or bad match up? Or is the player simply very good at compensating for their weaknesses? Maybe the player with the perceived really good match up is personally just bad at fighting that character regardless of community opinion. Obviously in majority of cases your videos points hold true, but there are other factors that create exceptions like play styles. That's all I have to add to the discussion, wasn't sure how to convey what I wanted to say and sorry if I misinterpreted anything! Great video overall!!
Only if the matchmaking sucked. The reason why it matters is that if you're playing against somebody that's overpowering every time, there's no ability to improve. If you spawn in and immediately get splatted, you're completely wasting your time. One of the things I hated about late '90s FPS games was that sometimes there would be no singleplayer game and your only options were playing against a poorly programmed bot that was either way too hard or way too easy or playing against randos online, which was the same problem, but with the added fun of being able to guess which one was the pedo and which one was FBI. Not all meta games are fun.
Do you edit these yourself? Edit: just realized you may not have the time to reply to these. If so its really good. Its not like 3 pro editors on payroll good, but its excellent for a creator with such little experience. Keep up the good work!
I think the player who is losing should gain options. If the better player is actually better, they'll know how to deal with these options, and shut them down.
Yes... But people need to understand that the better player IS the one who uses and abuses the system mechanics in place. This includes comeback mechanics. If you win because of a comeback mechanic, you were the better player.
I agree. I understand the video and what it's trying to communicate, but yeah, the question "should the better player win?" is technically a contradiction of terms, since the player who wins is, by definition, better (or at least played better in that game).
That was a question I was going to pose: "regardless of the mechanics, if you win, doesn't that always make you the better player?" But then I realized that question kind of misses the point. Fairness and integrity is a real concern when constructing the rules for a game, and if winning was all that mattered, none of these things such as balance, competitive integrity, and all of those other things wouldn't be addressed? "Being the better player" has no set definition; is it winning? Or is it winning a certain way under certain conditions? We don't really know, and I believe the answer to this evolves. Game developers are figuring out the answer to that based about what we whine, bitch, and moan about in competitive fighting games so we don't whine, bitch, and moan about it anymore.
@@AnthanKrufix no and thats a very stupid thing to say, seriously thats a terrible take And that not being true is actually a really good thing for sports (and esports)
I think this question depends on whether or not the game in question is team based or individual based. In team based games, like Valorant, there are games that will be lost no matter how hard you try to win, it's simply out of your control. Occasionally, you might even be the contributing factor to a loss despite your teammate playing significantly better than you. As a result, the "better" player in this case does not win, he loses for being better. So in a team based game, a mechanic involving a comeback system where the worse team has a chance seems more balanced. E.g. Spectre Divide's economy system is designed in a way in which losing doesn't mean you are screwed. You get a buff to help bring you back into the game, shields or extra money depending on the round. Now if we are talking about individual based, such as fighting games, then there should be no comeback mechanic in anyway. First of all, fighting games already do a good job and dividing skill through the neutral game, which 60%, if not more, of the player base doesn't understand. If someone is being poked over and over because they are making small mistakes, then they either need to adapt, or lose. Allowing a mechanic that allows the player losing to comeback and potentially win is going against the entire point of making a 1v1 multiplayer game. It might as well be Mario Kart at that point, or Smash with items turned on. Fighting games should be about who understands the neutral game, who has better combo routes and who can make better reads on their opponents. It shouldn't be about getting shit on the entire game, only to press one button and suddenly have a chance of winning the game because you force 50/50 mixups which your opponent guessed wrong. 50/50 are fine, because you can make a read, he will do this attack, I will block it and punish. Having a button or mechanic that removes the forcing guess to reverse the attacking and defending dynamic of the game creates more of a casual, arcade style environment rather than a competitive environment. Ultimately, regardless of the opinions of everyone, the ultimate decision of said mechanic in question is up the developers of the game, not the player base. As said in the video, if you removed half of the cast from Guilty Gear, you are left with a stale cast, and lose a lot of players who would've played those removed characters. This goes with all games. At the end of the day, gaming is a business and thus the intent behind a game is usually to sell copies of it (or skins in free games usually). Thus, if they dont have these certain features, the revenue from the game would decrease and the player base will be reduced to less than ideal, hindering future dlc sales or other microtransactions that will be added. Personally, I long for the day there is a good, high quality game that is strictly skill based and does not involve some weird gimmick, or comeback mechanic that allows for someone of less skill to have a chance at winning. That day will be a glorious day for those who truly enjoy the competitive experience, but just cant find it in modern games with their lame gimmicks that give advantage to players of less skill by being so easy to use, a toddler could do it. Until that day, however, the question is not, should the better player always win? It's should losing feel more rewarding?
Funnily enough competitive Mario kart often revolves around deciding to either try to outspeed everyone or sitting back to collect powerful items to speed ahead. Imo, very healthy way to handle it, especially since a good enough player can dodge alot of the more powerful items.
the better player shouldnt always win cuz that just makes the game super sweaty for everyone. you wouldnt be able to enjoy the game at ANY time beacause if you ever wanted to win you need to put in your 101% or hold the L
Trying to keep everything symmetrical and balanced is way less interesting than making something fun and having some kind of comeback mechanic to tip the scales a little. Especially in a genre like fighting games where individual numbers can be balanced per character.
I wonder what a character based on two things, desperation and a VERY limited snowballing mechanic that needs to be CONSTANTLY maintained by keeping the character's personal advantage state always pushed to its limit would look like. Like, imagine a character that has every single resource that they could have all tied together, meaning that their health, ammo, and anything else are all one single thing. Now imagine this character always having this resource ticking down, with it ticking down faster the more you get hit. The more actions you take, and just in general not accomplish anything or even LOSING, the faster you'll lose everything. This character can retain all of this better by constantly keeping a good advantage, but then you will need to lose the one resource you want to get a lot of because if you don't, you'll explode and DIE, meaning that you will be forced to plan around eventually spamming stronger, riskier, and more expensive options or otherwise you'll be dead, While you're having a balancing act with yourself your opponents are desperately trying to do everything within their power to make you become so stressed out and so focused on being selfish that despite your limitless options on how to do everything, the fact that you need to budget everything you do so that you don't go overboard, don't lose everything, don't get into a situation where you CAN lose everything, don't get into a situation where you will have too much of that one resource that you cannot know what to do with, don't make the wrong decision and neglect your teammates (if you have any), and just in general, despite you being potentially one of the strongest members of the entire cast, the fact that you can die all because you did not take into account what you NEEDED to do, should be something that stresses you out. This character should be nothing but an exercise in pure, unfiltered masochism that to everyone else looks like a genius pulling off some of the greatest plays when in reality the player playing the character isn't thinking about any part of the game that most other characters think about, they're thinking about "how to stay alive" and the answer to that is usually "Get to an opponent, get within the best possible position with the best possible circumstances, and DUMP EVERYTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLE BE DUMPED ONTO THAT ONE OPPONENT, rinse and repeat" with some occasional ways of being rewarded in other means that can keep the player alive.
@@StoryTeller796 in a way, yes. His spells cost mana. Mana also acts as a defense buff while he has it where without it he's more fragile than Chipp (Slayer's full meter super WILL kill a mana-less Asuka while Chipp at full would barely survive). You can also sacrifice health as one of the ways to speed up your mana recharge move & that's actually the most viable option competitively since you'd wanna use your Tension for RCs or supers. This also just means Asuka REALLY doesn't want to get hit since getting hit ALSO drops mana.
I feel like this is just a *horrible* thumbnail for this. "is Fairness Fair?" *Definitionally.* What is being questioned here is *what actually is and is not fair.* This is challenging preconcieved notions of what fairness is, not questioning if fairness as a quality possesses itself as a quality. We need to rethink what we think as fair. Why can't a comeback mechanic be "fair"? What makes "the player that's being screwed gets a small edge to help them still have a chance" less "fair" than pure skill? Why do we equate skill and fair at all?
You were almost at greatness. I actually think that comback mechanics are the most inportant barrier a competative player should play around. For casual players, it can act to create the uncertanty that makes games fun at low levels. For people who want to upgrade to competative, it becomes the ultimate worthyness test to see if that player is willing to learn the hard way.
most comeback mechanics exist to account for the difference in peoples decision making and ability to learn. sometimes you do have to even the playing field so the rich don't always stay rich. the blue shell doesn't just make is so the newer players have a better chance at winning, it forces the player in first to make good decisions the entire race and keep participating in the race, it'd get boring if the person in first controlled the race the entire time.
Good video, but you can also say that designing games to not allow for the better player to win can damage the game for both causals and competitive players. Just look at the modern fighting game, which I believe is the current extreme of this point. SF6's Drive System singlehandedly empowers the weaker player, and for that, most people who want to take the game more seriously find it frustrating to play. That's not saying the better player doesn't win, but they have to jump through more annoying hoops than usual in a game as explosive and guess heavy as SF6. Crappy business practices aside, Tekken 8's heat is hated by most of the returning playerbase as it just involves having to block nonsensical pressure for some time, and it's not an entirely fun mechanics to interact with which is why that game is bleeding players as we speak because it isn't fun for anyone to engage with. Mortal Kombat pretty much eased half of the typical archetypes that would usually appear in their games for the sake of causals, which just made every character feel the same and causes the game's to be bland having people leave. I'd rather developers design these things for the better player to win because not only to fighting games get to retain their usual depth and design but they remain fun to play for the people who actually enjoy the genre and not for a group of people who will leave at any time and for any reason.
I disagree it's not that these systems reward worse players it's that they disproportionately reward specific playstyles. Like Edd said, Zoners and Grapplers, or maybe more accurately keepaway and turtling, are widely considered unfun and thus are intentionally weak. So it creates this weird situation where both specialists and well-rounded players struggle against the favored playstyle, Rushdown. They might have more skills, but they aren't good enough at the thing the game is actually about.
@hijster479 I agree. But maybe "empowering weaker players" was a bad choice of words? I meant that these modern mechanics tend to empower players in general. I feel like core mechanics should only be used to strengthen the characters. That's where I feel like systems like Drive and Heat fail primarily. I will always feel that archetypes should be made strong, no matter what game they're in, because causal don't know what they want and will complain about anything even rush down if it's happening to them. So why should my fun be arbitrarily nerfed because a certain group of people want to Mash around? What these devs need to learn is that not every genre is for everybody, but I feel personally fighting games are going to get a lot worse before this is learned. With that being said, City of the Wolves does exactly what I'm talking about, and using the core systems gives power to the characters and not the players
I like to make the parallel to gambling a lot when talking about player skill and video games. Gambling doesn't require any effort and it's basically just luck, and we like gambling. It's fun. Lots of modern PvP games have gambling in one way or another - Fortnite, Call of Duty, CS/Valorant, etc. That way, we can blame losses on luck and wins on skill, even if they're likely the other way around.
Comeback mechanics can suck, but if you played games in the earlier days it felt worse when you couldn't get an opportunity to get back in. For instance SF2 you did well and you didn't have to worry if your opponent could get back in if you're dominating them, now in SF6 you're getting meter for getting hit sure, but if you haven't learned how to get back in you still lose. In Guilty Gear you had instant kills that were just awful to deal with because the counter was doing a command very quickly to not lose, if you played Rev 2 there was a clear warning of the danger...while in strive even without IK you could lose very quickly. Sounds unrelated til I bring up burst, because of how IK works now you can clearly tell to be concerned, but combat remains the same but a well timed burst can get you in with some meter or some breathing room as a defensive action. Let's look at KoF where I think '94 or'95 gave you infinite level 1 supers if you're low on health, while KoF 15 instead you're given on your last character and easier time of dealing with your opponent with more meter and longer max mode time, so you could make a comeback. All of these require skill and knowledge, if they didn't then it'd be meaningless. Imagine if I played Justin Wong in MVC2 and when I get to my last character and he has all 3 I just get to delete 2 of his characters and get a full heal, then we're playing 1 v 1, over powered but what's stopping him now from stomping me with his one remaining? X-Factor is crazy, but so is UMvC3. Thanks for the vid.
also, if "the better player always won" then if player A was only slightly better than player B, say 5% difference in skill, then player A would win 100% of the time, which is vastly different from the 55/45 skill ratio.
It depends on what the comeback mechanic is and how it's used. I like comeback mechanics that encourage decision-making and that don't influence the outcome too much. I think Mario Kart's item system is really well-designed. The way it works is that the lower your current place in the race is, the better the items you get are. This lends itself to a whole playstyle called "sandbagging", where you hang back to collect items and try to take the win at the end. The Blue Shell is an important part of ensuring that sandbagging is viable. If the guy in 1st is able to zoom way ahead of everyone, then sandbagging is jist kneecapping yourself by letting them further their lead. With Blue Shells, their lead becomes limited, letting sandbagging players overtake them at the finish line. A somewhat similar system I like is how meter works in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, specifically the fact that meter carries over between rounds. This gives the losing player a choice: do you use your meter to try and take back the round, or do you bring it into the next round to give yourself an advantage there? In both of these, the comeback mechanic has value at a higher level because they aren't too impactful but they can still be used strategically by skilled players to take the advantage. Conversely, X-Facter from MvC3 is the worst I've ever seen. It's a power-up sort of like Sparking from Dragonball FighterZ, but it gets stronger the more characters you've lost. This sounds like good game design, but the way it's set up encourages you to ONLY use it on your anchor, and mechanic is so powerful that it can sometimes be bad to take out your opponent's characters, especially if Vergil is involved. Rage from Smash (and the similar Aura mechanic exclusive to Lucario) is another bad comeback mechanic, but this is less due to the power and more because you don't ever have to make a decision. It just happens, and that makes it less interactive and more frustrating to be on the receiving end of.
Frankly, besides the factual errors, I feel like this video is incomplete without looking at the opposite of comeback mechanics-what I’ll call a “win-more” mechanic. Mechanics that exclusively help the player who is ahead are near omnipresent in fighting games. Take sf2t. You build meter in that game by doing two things. One is hitting the opponent, and the other is doing special moves. Both of these are things the winning player is doing more. In sf6, you gain Drive for hitting the opponent (winning) and lose it for blocking or getting punish countered (losing). Then, once you’ve lost enough to lose all of it, you’re put in a weakened state for some time. It’s worth looking at whether a player who is up should be given extra help. I think in many games, comeback mechanics are an attempt to solve this problem. Take marvel 3. In a team game, being the first player to lose a character, or to go from 2 characters to 1, is a huge deal. You lose access to supports, team supers, etc. Being on 2 characters is way worse than 3 where one has a pixel left. It’s easy to see how X-factor was an attempt to balance this out, and make sure that the first character loss wasn’t a game losing condition. Did they go too far? Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think including a comeback factor was a sin in and of itself. Solid vid, excellent editing.
v trigger (and things like it) couldve totally worked if it had a limit on damage you could get out of it based on the difference between the 2 players (making it "catch up" rather than "kill them before they get it themselves")
If they inverted the V meter the psychological inversion may make it swallowable. Call it the 'Form' or 'Technique' Meter. A player attacking looses thier form a little with every attack. if your form hits 0 your cannot block hits from an enemy. only dodge. The idea is players may pace themselves if you tell them they are the ones loosening something rather than their opponent gaining something
Catchup mechanics are almaust always fair. They modify game's system which can easily be exploited by strong players. A "weak" player may not even know about the mechanic which puts them in a disadvantage. At their unfairest catchup mechanics emplify skill demand and RNG. But mostly it's just another mechanic. The only truly unfair catchup mech is when the looser of the previous game goes first in the next game. Some board games have the "youngest goes first" rule, but I would argue it's not a catchup mechanic.
people think they're really cool snaking through the entire track in mario kart but to 7 other people, it's just not fun to play against. When i play Team fortess 2 and get sniped by a 10000 hours played ex-pro on a casual server, i can't exactly counter him as a sniper. its not fun to play like that. I think skill based matchmaking should exist to SOME degree, to prevent steamrolling at spawn for example. I also like smash ultimates solutions like setting handicaps so that you can decide for yourself and between friends, you know, to have fun. Which is the point after all.
It depends… cause a lot of come back mechanics straight up ruin a game. Like the way items work in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe turns it into a toxic dumpster fire of a game where a lot of time the best option is to drive slower like a jackass in a RACING GAME to get better items for lap 3. X Factor in Marvel 3 getting progressively more powerful the less characters on a players team isn’t nearly as trash as bagging in MK8D. Both players are given the same options.
going into this: my initial thought is usually. an exception would be a sniper in, say, tf2. theres a point where no matter how much skill something takes, it'll still be unfun for the enemy player to deal with if theres minimal counterplay other than the enemy messing up. sniper is pretty much raw skill in tf2, but on CERTAIN MAPS (really bad ones that dont balance for sniper's existence) it feels like theres nothing to be done about him. the counterplay would usually be "get out of his line of sight and get behind him for an easy kill," but on quite a few maps that isnt too much of an option, or on certain points of some maps. also thats kinda messed up by the funny piss knife combo! but thats besides the point. so i'd say overall, its about it FEELING fair, no matter how much skill it really takes. also sometimes it simply isnt fair, like sniper on certain maps/certain parts of certain maps because those maps dont account for sniper and how he was initially balanced.
This is a backwards question. The better player does always win. That’s why they’re the winner. Anything else is excuses. I don’t care if the connection was 100 fucking frames and the dog ate your inputs. The better player would adapt.
X Factor isn't that much of a comeback mechanic. It does become stronger as you lose characters, but it's also useful early for someone winning to advance their lead. Using X factor to ToD their first character can just win you the whole match, especially if you have really dirty incoming mix-ups or even unblockable setups.
Worth mentioning that many games also compensate for map/atk-def/etc asymmetry in Bo1 by altering matchmaking. The team on the weak side is allocated SLIGHTLY stronger players, that in aggregate balances out for 50% winrate.
But what about "berserker" charachters they sorta willingly in disadvantage, but i don't think bad players gonna use them, good one's might consider them viable and blow everyone up as a result.
woke company bLizzard destroyed my career by reworking my main character because garbage players were crying on reddit i used to be top2 but after that i could only get to top87 for you its still top87 but i compare myself to other top players, its like i was suddenly the worst in the whole room of people i dedicated over 1800 hours for a single character my message to everyone is to please stop playing "esport" games
8:35 Also notable: Somebody has to pick first. So unless the game lets you "ghost" pick, submit your selection without it giving feedback, and then a random span of time from 3 to 5 seconds after both players choose finalizes, one player essentially knows what the other's Rock Paper Scissors move is and can pick their own to specifically beat it.
A much .more overt showing of zoner frustration is Asuka imo. His tool kit is finicky, and every time he oppresses you he either risks his potential health with mana break and p regen, his consistency with k regen, or most popularly, his own health flat out with S regen. He has to lose on his own terms to stay winning.
when you mentioned kneecapping certain strats bc certain players are good with them and they STOMP bad players i instantly thought of inting sion from league, INSANELY strong strat even still is the best way to play the character, BUT you can really only do it up to roughly diamond now before it becomes insanely hard and you absolutely need ALL the matchup knowledge, this is because of one singular player doing it for years and riot nerfing specifically what he says is good about the strategy.
You touched on the difference between precirved and actually skill for frustrating mechanics. The thing i find most interesting about the "Better player" is that sometimes there is a disconnect between what the devs think is skill and the players think is skill. Often leads to the community complaining that the better player doesn't doesn't win more than any of the deliberately unfair mechanics in the game
Worst feel wrt bad matchups? Live service games where you leave for like a few months and come back and suddenly whatever you practiced and perfected is off meta, and your teammates are toxic as shit even when you're in casual
Imagine if certain people were allowed an e-bike in the Tour de France just because they did poorly last year, and if they won the next year it wouldn’t be taken away but former champions were not allowed to make the switch until they lost for several consecutive years by significant margins
When playing smash bros ultimate with friends, we usually had final smash meter on. As we’ve gotten better (and evened out somewhat) at the game, I’ve seen it less and less as a selected setting in our lobbies
must in most fps a shotgun is give to one character/class that can move fast. so they can flank there enemies including snipers. a sniper with tunnel vision is easy to sneak up on them and kill them just most sniper are bad at close range so if you out flank must sniper will die. a zoner in a fps be would some one that can do area denial some like the demo and the grappler would be a tank they move slow they, hit hard, they can take the hits they like to fight close range to mid range like the heavy and character/class that got the shotgun who runs up to shoot you in point blank range that would be a rushdown fighter like sabrewulf!!
You know I don't think items make Smash Bros unfair because it creates an environment where I as the 'worse' player won literally 100% of the time vs my friend who would win 90%+ of the time with items off. It's not like items aren't in the game, or like playing without them is fun.
Neither of you are completely wrong. Not all items are overtuned and the game series is designed to give losers a leg up, though it is far more subtle than Mario Kart.. Since Brawl, we've had Pity Final Smashes and the Smash Ball breaks more easily when hit by the person who is behind. Some characters are also far better at reaching (Sonic is fast, Little Mac can't jump) and utilising (Zelda has a great final smash in Ultimate) items. There is even a gun specifically designed to do more damage if you are behind. Items work as an equaliser which leads to giving people who are behind a big moment even if they don't win. A great player who knows how to use items only becomes greater.
@@dangdudedan8756 it’s unfair because it takes away skill and make it luck based, also not everyone has the same chance of winning, people who get more item has the better chance of winning
Amazing work on this one Edd! Your editing is improving as always and you actually managed to make something that pisses everyone off sound reasonable, which it is. Well done
also no one in the ow community thinks widow maker is hard every dps player has 2 have good aim but she gets rewarded with an insta kill for doing the same thing and taking less risk because shes farther away also in 5v5 one kill is massive n pretty much wins the fight and how do u think awping takes skill HOW u jus press mouse1 like bro come on n in valorant especially because the slower movement speed gives you more time to react n makes it hard 2 peek
I do feel that things like matchup knowledge or meter awareness are part of the repertoire of a good player. When you're playing a fighting game, if the opponent studies your playstyle and picks a specific character to counter it, yet you refuse to change your character/strategy, then it's completely justified the other person will win.
the only fighting game i played is hisoutensoku and it feels extremly fair that better player will always win but theres one spesific unfair thing there about being beginner and thats just how easy it is to learn new character. it kinda sucks when you see other people get better faster than you because of it. i wish more people would talk about this game because i wonder really often if its the most complex and hardest fighting game because i dont know anythign else
on mario kart, you are actually rewarded for keeping an item that allows you to dodge a blue shell, and the majority of items you get as first are items that allow you to break a red shell. the skill also comes from knowing when to sandbag (actually wait for other people to get in front) so you can exploit the better items that you get and get back in first for just the last quarter of the last lap, as it's the only one that matters. that also protects you from most of the hate (items thrown at them) that the first player gets.
As somebody who played a grappler/zoner hybrid team in UMVC3, i can firmly say that they made up for me being worse at the game than my opponents a lot of the time :)
The better player can’t always win as any game where choices can be made is inherently random. A series of gambits (educated or not) until someone wins. Comeback mechanics do kinda just feel like a slap in the face cuz you know that’s not random at all
while comeback mechanic is annoying, reversal is whole another levels of annoyingness especially in smash ultimate. these filthy cloud player will spam the shit out of up B down air button to make sure they get that juicy reversal.
The point of a winning team having to put more effort to actually win than the losing team would have to defend themselves, despite it being the same case for them to win, is one that I've always noticed to be prolific in Splatoon a lot Many of the maps in Splatoon have almost a rolling hills pattern in terms of advantage, combined with a ton of choke points, I've always thought it was an interesting way to make it so every game isn't an entire wash if the opponent gets a strong rush
So, there should be a segregation like approach, pro players got a server for them and noobs a server especially for them. In this way everyone ends up happy.
buddy awps reward weaker players its clearly easier 2 use no debate peeking counter strafing n flicking on the players head is harder than holding an angle n clicking
All my wins are deserved and
I never lose my opponent just cheated
- Waluigi
Wah. This guy's onto something.
Based
No because i would never loose and thats lame
Oh shit the good gamer I guess I have no choice to believe you
@@eddventure6214THE LIVING LEGEND GOODGAMER1419 IS HERE!!!!
Lmao
You already lost at spelling.
Lololol
Core-A gaming and you releasing a video today? What a comeback mechanic.
Eddventure killed my dad
@@King-vo7qu Allegedly
Well duh your dad wasn't the better player
Bro is Dan
I know it's only tangentially related to the topic, but I want to kill the "Zoners are Snipers" analogy. The only thing they have in common is range, and the way they frustrate players is completely different. Snipers are robbery characters. They are frustrating because they instantly kill you for the slightest mistake, the range is only part of the frustration.
Zoners, in my mind, are 'constructor' characters, the ones that build sentry guns that lock down angles. The entire purpose of the class is to reduce the number of options the enemy player has at their disposal, which a lot of players find extremely frustrating to play against. The sentry gun is no danger to you if you don't approach, but the act of trying to approach and enforce your own game plan is often shut down by it, much like a zoner and their wall of projectiles.
Funny enough, the constructor type character is another one that tends to be intentionally underpowered, both because they slow the game down significantly by existing and also because they tend to be better the worse the players are.
👍
As a setplay zoner main who always plays engineer classes in shooters... yeah, you get it
Wow you really suck at respecting sight lines & wanna pretend it’s everyone else’s fault not yours.
It's actually in the name: "zoner" refers to how they create "zones" that the opponent doesn't want to be in. You don't want to be in the space a projectile is approaching. You don't want to be where long normals can hit you. The "constructor" characters, as you put them, similarly function through area-denial: creating spaces that you do not want to exist in.
Edit: Though, I suppose one could argue that the threat of a sniper has a similar effect of area denial, since the main way to play around a sniper is to simply not be in the sight line. A main point of frustration with snipers is that this is often the ONLY form of counterplay.
My sonics are booming my kicks are flashing and my Axls are lowing and you gotta deal with all of it. Signed zoner lover ❤️
I think comeback mechanics should exist in games I'm bad at and not exist in games I'm good at
That's my biggest issue with computer games. It's just so hard to convince people that the computer is now in the garbage can, and that it was completely an accident the way that it could just happen with a tabletop game.
In my opinion, a zoner is much more similar to a machine gunner instead of a sniper. A sniper is more similar to Slayer.
A machine gun locks down a position for a really, really long time. And when you think you caught him out, he's moved and is now shooting you in the back.
persona 4 arena was a weird 2-touch game because people stopped their combos right before awakening to make sure you don't get free meter and guts
and i know people used to get upset about vtrigger, but i feel like ultras were way more controversial in their day because of how much damage they did
my favorite comeback mechanic is in guilty gear missing link because you can just so supers for free Forever.
Pot/reaper main here.
Even though potemkin struggles against axl, his toolkit consists of abilities that are designed to help alleviate those issues. Those options aren't as good as other characters, but they are good enough to help pot out. Even though the matchup may seem unfair, I wouldn't have it any other way. I probably wouldn't play pot if he didn't have the weaknesses he does. The game maintains competitive integrity by saying "even though your character may struggle greatly against certain others, we'll give you some ways to make up for it so that the match isn't helpless". Knowing that there IS something you can do, even if it is difficult or worse than another character's option, helps that feeling of "this matchup SUCKS and this game is unfair".
I feel the same applies to Reaper in overwatch. The difference, however, is that in a game like overwatch, when a match is just not in your favor, the game doesn't give certain characters ways to make up for that bad matchup. No matter what you do as reaper, if you're up against an all-poke composition, you will not be able to do anything to the enemy team unless your team carries. Reaper cannot even exist at long range, whereas pot can use his armor/lengthy normals to try and get in. This is because overwatch expects you to swap characters to deal with bad matchups, rather than simply force your character to overcome the obstacles presented. This is why personally, I'm more a fan of the marvel rivals hero shooter balance philosophy moreso than overwatch's. I think both can do well as competitive games, but I don't like overwatch's approach to the topic you presented in this video. Does the better player win? Yeah, if they can accurately play the counterswap game. You can be the best reaper in the world, but you're not touching ana, mercy, pharah, widow.
Stopped ow just because of this. Who thought counter swapping was fun
Beautiful editing. Any tips to get better?
@@Someguy_245 For me a lot of it was just experimenting and always trying an idea even if I don’t know how to do it yet. If I think of an edit I try my best to make it work, and sometimes it doesn’t look great, but it gets me familiar with new tools. For example, I had never used green screens much before, but in the GGST Heavyweight video I used them as many ways as I could think of!
@@eddventure6214 Thanks. I'll try to keep that in mind
im honestly debating whether i should switch to evil and scary mario after watching this vid
4:35 not entirely correct. TF2 switches sides in asymetrical gamemodes.
I love you eddy. Can you start leaving names of the songs you use in your vids in the descriptions or comments please. Too many bangers I cant find (especially one startin at 2:11)
The one at 2:11 is River Stage from Marvel vs Capcom 2
@@Toxic-PyroThanks man
Comeback mechanics are more than just a counter to loss aversion, the real reason they need to exist is as a balance to natural Win More states. Mario Kart has a win more mechanic built in: A lot of it's offensive options have a range limit. So someone who drives away from the pack is pretty immune from most of the tools, and therefore can easily compound their win by not having to focus on dodging attacks. To counter this, there are attacks that target the front player, and the rear players get more wide reaching attacks to pull them back into a competitive gamesate.
Win more situations are problematic because they worsen all the emotions of losing, but also they're just not fun in general. The competition has left the game and the rest is just a formality. So comeback mechanics' primary purpose is to prevent a player from getting into a invincible state.
Even in a perfectly balanced game the best player doesn't always win, assuming the skill gap between players isn't too overwhelming. The best players make mistakes too, which can be just enough to allow the second best to take a win. On the other hand even the most over tuned comeback mechanics can either be played around or abused by the best players, meaning they won' do much good in helping the worst. However these are extreme examples, the reality is most people fall somewhere in the middle where these mechanics do make a difference for better or worse. Just try to keep them subtle and maybe don't intentionally make certain archetypes weaker than others.
4:00 just want to note on the chess thing, you can really only notice an advantage with white over black unless you are around the IM level, or around top several thousand in the world. Even very good players rated around 2100-2200 FIDE (99.9 percentile) the white black advantage is negligible (as shown in games won drawn and lost)
I think there's a case to be made that in games there is more than the win and the loss. And those are levers you can pull that don't break competitive integrity. Something as simple as changing "You lost" to "Nice Try" can put the brakes on loss aversion at least a little. Also rewarding winning games does the opposite and makes the problem more extreme, especially if you start rewarding rank achievements, which will leave a large part of the playerbase feel left out. Dual ranked systems, which have both a matchmaking rank and a displayed rank which are only loosely related, can also be immensely frustrating, as you get matchmade against players who are higher than your displayed rank (or atleast it feels that way). And finally, most matchmaking systems come with the assumption that an unknown player is going to be of average skill, which really only works if there is a significant portion of casual games. With games always funneling people into competitive, this assumption breaks.
This is why I think that multiple shorter rounds are better for competitive integrity without sabotaging the casual appeal of stealing a round off of a player that is better than you from time to time. Strive players all know the "Nago Round" happens from time to time. Sometimes you guess wrong and die, it happens. As long as the better player wins more consistently than the weaker one then it should level out with enough rounds.
Are you truly the better player, if you can't beat the comeback mechanic?
Comeback mechanics exist in MOBAs too, the two types that come to mind are resource bonuses (losing teams/players get more xp/gold for doing things), and big objectives near the end of a match that can completely turn the tides if your team gets it
In theory I like these mechanics, especially in longer games it's a nice bit of motivation to keep fighting, but in practice neither of these mechanics stop people giving up 60 seconds into a match lol
What's funny about Mario Kart in regards to comeback mechanics is that depending on the track, it can be more competitively viable at a top level to hang back and collect some powerful items first and then use them to make a comeback, rather than just try to go as fast as you can the whole time. The eternal battle of bagging vs frontrunning. Tracks with lots of spots where you can get a shortcut by going over off-road while ignoring the speed debuff by using a speed item generally reward bagging more, but there are some stages where frontrunning is preferred
babe wake up new eddventure just dropped
I will say that some comeback mechanics are necessary as "anti-snowball" mechanics. Imagine you're running a 100 meter dash, but when the first runner crosses the 33 meter threshold the trailing runner loses a leg and has to make up the deficit with only one leg left. That's team fighters like Marvel vs Capcom. Sure, a comeback from that position is a truly aspirational thing that can set a crowd on fire, but more often than not if you were already losing with a full team chances are you're going to continue losing when you're a man down. Sometimes the advantage gained from winning early is to great and needs something in play to counterbalance it... even though something like X-factor and Sparking are probably several steps too far.
16:28 potemkin isnt low range though
Instead of longest range, I’m more so talking about effective range here. Pot has big limb normals, but doesn’t exert much pressure off them. He has to be pressed right up against you to be a significant threat, and that’s more what I mean by “effective range”. I will give you that even by that metric, pot isn’t the shortest range character, but I felt it would be confusing if I used characters I didn’t even talk about in the graphic behind pot and didn’t explain what sets them apart from him.
A completely fair game is a game with a static set of pieces/characters and a single strategy that works.
Chess is fair in that it's, in theory, a solved game (As in there is a theoretical optimal move that will win every time), but it's complex enough for the human mind to never know what these solved situations are, which means it's still fun because of people's flaws. If people are perfect, Chess is boring. If one or both players are perfect, then the win of the game is to pick the side that always wins with the optimal moves.
In the same way fighting games are based off of various aspects, reflexes, execution, reading an opponent, conditioning, everyone has their talents but are flawed, so the game is fun. A low tier character can conceivably win against a high tier at some skill levels. But for some people it's just fun to crush newbies.
On the same issue, a game that's completely unfair is also not fun.
But honestly none of this crap matters. What makes a game fun, even when unfair, is the people you play it with. There are no solutions outside of avoiding extremes and crappy people.
I'd say that a well-designed comeback mechanic is most important to counterbalance positive feedback loops. If the game's mechanics allow a player's initial victories to spiral - for example, a MOBA player winning a fight with an opponent means they can level up and buy items while their opponent is waiting to respawn and be more likely to win the next fight - then a comeback mechanic can let those initial victories still matter (since the advantaged player has still made progress towards their final win state that the disadvantaged player hasn't) without them disproportionately influencing future contests.
For such a mechanic to function, of course, it needs to have an impact equal to or smaller than the recurring advantage gained from the positive feedback loop, so that falling behind is never comparatively advantageous. Basically, it is a bold and dangerous design choice to incentivise a player to fall behind at the start of a game deliberately so you can ride the comeback mechanic to victory. Sandbagging in Mario Kart to get better items is probably the best-known example of this. I still remember when playing with my friends on the DS version that everyone wanted to be one of the last to get an item box from the first group on Cheep Cheep Beach because getting mushrooms or a star would let you drive through the water around the S-shaped sandbar and cut off a massive section of track; the result is that we would stop right before those item boxes and essentially play a game of chicken there, sometimes for minutes. Fun in its own way, perhaps, but probably not the developers' intention!
Incidentally, I think this might be why competitive fighting game communities dislike comeback mechanics - fighting game design typically does not confer any lasting advantage for making progress towards their final win state beyond locking an opponent into a combo for the duration of your next few strikes, so there aren't any major positive feedback loops to counterbalance.
No, I should always win
Good video but I feel like league of legends would a better reference for comeback mechanics
There is the obvious stuff such as bounties but also less obvious stuff such as spilt pushing/open nexus back door
Mortal kombat has top tier zoners because netherrealm still hasn't learned how to balance projectiles in their games.
NRS doesn't know what projectile immunity is unless you're Jade.
There's rarely any immunity type in MK, everything is just Armor
comeback mechanics are swag, even though Nintendo hand coded it so blue shells can only spawn when i'm in first
Intresting explanation on perceived skill and player feelings particularly on certain archetypes. Part of me wants developers to stop putting in these archetypes without significantly changing them. Most of the time it feels more like checking a box then thoughtfully adding to the gameplay. I feel like you can still give those player fantasy without the frustration or at least significantly reducing it.
For example people generally have no issue with "Marksman rifles" despite them having similar ranges to snipers because they lack a one shot. There is also things you can do to help feel like that power is more earned like fighting for it when the sniper spawns on the map like Halo or when it takes teamwork like Ashe w/dmg boost in Overwatch. On a similar note my casual friends had less frustration when fighting grapplers that do not do a lot of damage but get a combo off the grab or the grab is apart of the combo; big bodies with small but damaging combos also were less frustrating than the classic grappler.
The most fair and balanced competitive games, are games where there are little to no differences in the playing field. Rocket League is an example, it's just a 3v3 on the same exact playing field with the exact same "characters". Another good example are the FPS Arena of old, where the only difference was that one player spawned closer to the mega armour and the other closer to the mega health each round. The latter were abandoned by developers and the more casual public because the skill ceiling is extremely high, you NEED to be good at it to play competitive, unlike stuff like Valorant, Overwatch or Apex, where no matter your skill level you will win games eventually due to many factors (meta, teammates, maps and so on)
ouggg quake 3 arena is so good. as a kid I played so much open arena, an open source fork of it with some changes, played for so long before I even knew what quake was 😂
I love mechanics like spark and burst. they add a lot to think about in combat and open up the game for interesting strategies, and baiting and punishing bursts and DPs and invulnerable supers is such a rewarding feeling. I am loving dbfz right now, so much to think about during pressure with guard cancels, reflect, spark, supers, DPs. anti-reflect tactics are so interesting to me and spark baits and punishing a guard cancel tag always feels soo devious 😈
Good video bro, I do however think that 9/10 times the better player will win. I feel that there is a lot of mental involved in being the better player that just cannot be analysed in a video on mechanics.
From an objective mechanical and decision making based view point, then yes the numbers will show that the better player won't always win, but there are more complex things to consider if you actually want a more thorough answer. I'm not trying to say that you are wrong, just that I think there is a lot more to discuss.
I think this was a very good exploration of the topic, and would for sure watch another video exploring topics like this, I think talking about how the factors discussed in this video vary from player to player. To go back to fighting games, a player could be cracked at a bad match up and win it far more than they lose it, does this mean that it is a good or bad match up? Or is the player simply very good at compensating for their weaknesses? Maybe the player with the perceived really good match up is personally just bad at fighting that character regardless of community opinion. Obviously in majority of cases your videos points hold true, but there are other factors that create exceptions like play styles.
That's all I have to add to the discussion, wasn't sure how to convey what I wanted to say and sorry if I misinterpreted anything! Great video overall!!
great example is Snake Eyes in SF4 beating Sanford Kelly's Sagat and then Xians Dhalsim back to back
If the better player ALWAYS won. 99% of players would quit.
Only if the matchmaking sucked. The reason why it matters is that if you're playing against somebody that's overpowering every time, there's no ability to improve. If you spawn in and immediately get splatted, you're completely wasting your time. One of the things I hated about late '90s FPS games was that sometimes there would be no singleplayer game and your only options were playing against a poorly programmed bot that was either way too hard or way too easy or playing against randos online, which was the same problem, but with the added fun of being able to guess which one was the pedo and which one was FBI. Not all meta games are fun.
Let them quit then lol
17:27 wait this derfla person is goated
#derfla
Do you edit these yourself?
Edit: just realized you may not have the time to reply to these. If so its really good. Its not like 3 pro editors on payroll good, but its excellent for a creator with such little experience. Keep up the good work!
Can't let Stevie Blunder fly under the radar like that, god tier pun
I was so proud of it
@@eddventure6214 Just wait till Stevie sees that, oh wait. Never mind.
I think the player who is losing should gain options. If the better player is actually better, they'll know how to deal with these options, and shut them down.
No that is just flawed reasoning. Skill level of players is irrelevant mechanics need to make sense regardless.
Yes... But people need to understand that the better player IS the one who uses and abuses the system mechanics in place. This includes comeback mechanics.
If you win because of a comeback mechanic, you were the better player.
Nah, thats bullshit and you are stupid
It isnt like that and thats actually something good for sports (and esports)
I agree. I understand the video and what it's trying to communicate, but yeah, the question "should the better player win?" is technically a contradiction of terms, since the player who wins is, by definition, better (or at least played better in that game).
That was a question I was going to pose: "regardless of the mechanics, if you win, doesn't that always make you the better player?" But then I realized that question kind of misses the point. Fairness and integrity is a real concern when constructing the rules for a game, and if winning was all that mattered, none of these things such as balance, competitive integrity, and all of those other things wouldn't be addressed? "Being the better player" has no set definition; is it winning? Or is it winning a certain way under certain conditions? We don't really know, and I believe the answer to this evolves. Game developers are figuring out the answer to that based about what we whine, bitch, and moan about in competitive fighting games so we don't whine, bitch, and moan about it anymore.
@@AnthanKrufix no and thats a very stupid thing to say, seriously thats a terrible take
And that not being true is actually a really good thing for sports (and esports)
True, but games are meant to be tests of specific skills. At some point certain skills have to be prioritized over others.
I think this question depends on whether or not the game in question is team based or individual based. In team based games, like Valorant, there are games that will be lost no matter how hard you try to win, it's simply out of your control. Occasionally, you might even be the contributing factor to a loss despite your teammate playing significantly better than you. As a result, the "better" player in this case does not win, he loses for being better. So in a team based game, a mechanic involving a comeback system where the worse team has a chance seems more balanced. E.g. Spectre Divide's economy system is designed in a way in which losing doesn't mean you are screwed. You get a buff to help bring you back into the game, shields or extra money depending on the round. Now if we are talking about individual based, such as fighting games, then there should be no comeback mechanic in anyway. First of all, fighting games already do a good job and dividing skill through the neutral game, which 60%, if not more, of the player base doesn't understand. If someone is being poked over and over because they are making small mistakes, then they either need to adapt, or lose. Allowing a mechanic that allows the player losing to comeback and potentially win is going against the entire point of making a 1v1 multiplayer game. It might as well be Mario Kart at that point, or Smash with items turned on. Fighting games should be about who understands the neutral game, who has better combo routes and who can make better reads on their opponents. It shouldn't be about getting shit on the entire game, only to press one button and suddenly have a chance of winning the game because you force 50/50 mixups which your opponent guessed wrong. 50/50 are fine, because you can make a read, he will do this attack, I will block it and punish. Having a button or mechanic that removes the forcing guess to reverse the attacking and defending dynamic of the game creates more of a casual, arcade style environment rather than a competitive environment.
Ultimately, regardless of the opinions of everyone, the ultimate decision of said mechanic in question is up the developers of the game, not the player base. As said in the video, if you removed half of the cast from Guilty Gear, you are left with a stale cast, and lose a lot of players who would've played those removed characters. This goes with all games. At the end of the day, gaming is a business and thus the intent behind a game is usually to sell copies of it (or skins in free games usually). Thus, if they dont have these certain features, the revenue from the game would decrease and the player base will be reduced to less than ideal, hindering future dlc sales or other microtransactions that will be added.
Personally, I long for the day there is a good, high quality game that is strictly skill based and does not involve some weird gimmick, or comeback mechanic that allows for someone of less skill to have a chance at winning. That day will be a glorious day for those who truly enjoy the competitive experience, but just cant find it in modern games with their lame gimmicks that give advantage to players of less skill by being so easy to use, a toddler could do it.
Until that day, however, the question is not, should the better player always win? It's should losing feel more rewarding?
Funnily enough competitive Mario kart often revolves around deciding to either try to outspeed everyone or sitting back to collect powerful items to speed ahead. Imo, very healthy way to handle it, especially since a good enough player can dodge alot of the more powerful items.
the better player shouldnt always win cuz that just makes the game super sweaty for everyone. you wouldnt be able to enjoy the game at ANY time beacause if you ever wanted to win you need to put in your 101% or hold the L
Trying to keep everything symmetrical and balanced is way less interesting than making something fun and having some kind of comeback mechanic to tip the scales a little.
Especially in a genre like fighting games where individual numbers can be balanced per character.
Competitive games vs fun party games
2:40 may be the greatest edit i've ever seen you make, that shit had me dying. thank you for another incredible video ed
I wonder what a character based on two things, desperation and a VERY limited snowballing mechanic that needs to be CONSTANTLY maintained by keeping the character's personal advantage state always pushed to its limit would look like.
Like, imagine a character that has every single resource that they could have all tied together, meaning that their health, ammo, and anything else are all one single thing.
Now imagine this character always having this resource ticking down, with it ticking down faster the more you get hit. The more actions you take, and just in general not accomplish anything or even LOSING, the faster you'll lose everything.
This character can retain all of this better by constantly keeping a good advantage, but then you will need to lose the one resource you want to get a lot of because if you don't, you'll explode and DIE, meaning that you will be forced to plan around eventually spamming stronger, riskier, and more expensive options or otherwise you'll be dead,
While you're having a balancing act with yourself your opponents are desperately trying to do everything within their power to make you become so stressed out and so focused on being selfish that despite your limitless options on how to do everything, the fact that you need to budget everything you do so that you don't go overboard, don't lose everything, don't get into a situation where you CAN lose everything, don't get into a situation where you will have too much of that one resource that you cannot know what to do with, don't make the wrong decision and neglect your teammates (if you have any), and just in general, despite you being potentially one of the strongest members of the entire cast, the fact that you can die all because you did not take into account what you NEEDED to do, should be something that stresses you out.
This character should be nothing but an exercise in pure, unfiltered masochism that to everyone else looks like a genius pulling off some of the greatest plays when in reality the player playing the character isn't thinking about any part of the game that most other characters think about, they're thinking about "how to stay alive" and the answer to that is usually "Get to an opponent, get within the best possible position with the best possible circumstances, and DUMP EVERYTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLE BE DUMPED ONTO THAT ONE OPPONENT, rinse and repeat" with some occasional ways of being rewarded in other means that can keep the player alive.
asuka r#
@@levelzapstudios1145 Huh? Asuka? That Man Asuka from Guilty Gear Strive?
@@StoryTeller796 in a way, yes. His spells cost mana. Mana also acts as a defense buff while he has it where without it he's more fragile than Chipp (Slayer's full meter super WILL kill a mana-less Asuka while Chipp at full would barely survive). You can also sacrifice health as one of the ways to speed up your mana recharge move & that's actually the most viable option competitively since you'd wanna use your Tension for RCs or supers. This also just means Asuka REALLY doesn't want to get hit since getting hit ALSO drops mana.
I mean Steve in smash ultimate is kinda like that except it a BIG snowball and it’s not tied to his health but disadvantage state instead
I feel like this is just a *horrible* thumbnail for this.
"is Fairness Fair?" *Definitionally.* What is being questioned here is *what actually is and is not fair.*
This is challenging preconcieved notions of what fairness is, not questioning if fairness as a quality possesses itself as a quality.
We need to rethink what we think as fair. Why can't a comeback mechanic be "fair"? What makes "the player that's being screwed gets a small edge to help them still have a chance" less "fair" than pure skill?
Why do we equate skill and fair at all?
"The better player wins, everytime"
-Simpleflips
You were almost at greatness. I actually think that comback mechanics are the most inportant barrier a competative player should play around. For casual players, it can act to create the uncertanty that makes games fun at low levels. For people who want to upgrade to competative, it becomes the ultimate worthyness test to see if that player is willing to learn the hard way.
most comeback mechanics exist to account for the difference in peoples decision making and ability to learn. sometimes you do have to even the playing field so the rich don't always stay rich.
the blue shell doesn't just make is so the newer players have a better chance at winning, it forces the player in first to make good decisions the entire race and keep participating in the race, it'd get boring if the person in first controlled the race the entire time.
Yes because I would always win and that's awesome
Good video, but you can also say that designing games to not allow for the better player to win can damage the game for both causals and competitive players.
Just look at the modern fighting game, which I believe is the current extreme of this point. SF6's Drive System singlehandedly empowers the weaker player, and for that, most people who want to take the game more seriously find it frustrating to play. That's not saying the better player doesn't win, but they have to jump through more annoying hoops than usual in a game as explosive and guess heavy as SF6.
Crappy business practices aside, Tekken 8's heat is hated by most of the returning playerbase as it just involves having to block nonsensical pressure for some time, and it's not an entirely fun mechanics to interact with which is why that game is bleeding players as we speak because it isn't fun for anyone to engage with.
Mortal Kombat pretty much eased half of the typical archetypes that would usually appear in their games for the sake of causals, which just made every character feel the same and causes the game's to be bland having people leave.
I'd rather developers design these things for the better player to win because not only to fighting games get to retain their usual depth and design but they remain fun to play for the people who actually enjoy the genre and not for a group of people who will leave at any time and for any reason.
I disagree it's not that these systems reward worse players it's that they disproportionately reward specific playstyles.
Like Edd said, Zoners and Grapplers, or maybe more accurately keepaway and turtling, are widely considered unfun and thus are intentionally weak.
So it creates this weird situation where both specialists and well-rounded players struggle against the favored playstyle, Rushdown. They might have more skills, but they aren't good enough at the thing the game is actually about.
@hijster479 I agree. But maybe "empowering weaker players" was a bad choice of words? I meant that these modern mechanics tend to empower players in general. I feel like core mechanics should only be used to strengthen the characters. That's where I feel like systems like Drive and Heat fail primarily.
I will always feel that archetypes should be made strong, no matter what game they're in, because causal don't know what they want and will complain about anything even rush down if it's happening to them. So why should my fun be arbitrarily nerfed because a certain group of people want to Mash around?
What these devs need to learn is that not every genre is for everybody, but I feel personally fighting games are going to get a lot worse before this is learned. With that being said, City of the Wolves does exactly what I'm talking about, and using the core systems gives power to the characters and not the players
I like to make the parallel to gambling a lot when talking about player skill and video games.
Gambling doesn't require any effort and it's basically just luck, and we like gambling. It's fun. Lots of modern PvP games have gambling in one way or another - Fortnite, Call of Duty, CS/Valorant, etc.
That way, we can blame losses on luck and wins on skill, even if they're likely the other way around.
Comeback mechanics can suck, but if you played games in the earlier days it felt worse when you couldn't get an opportunity to get back in. For instance SF2 you did well and you didn't have to worry if your opponent could get back in if you're dominating them, now in SF6 you're getting meter for getting hit sure, but if you haven't learned how to get back in you still lose. In Guilty Gear you had instant kills that were just awful to deal with because the counter was doing a command very quickly to not lose, if you played Rev 2 there was a clear warning of the danger...while in strive even without IK you could lose very quickly. Sounds unrelated til I bring up burst, because of how IK works now you can clearly tell to be concerned, but combat remains the same but a well timed burst can get you in with some meter or some breathing room as a defensive action. Let's look at KoF where I think '94 or'95 gave you infinite level 1 supers if you're low on health, while KoF 15 instead you're given on your last character and easier time of dealing with your opponent with more meter and longer max mode time, so you could make a comeback. All of these require skill and knowledge, if they didn't then it'd be meaningless. Imagine if I played Justin Wong in MVC2 and when I get to my last character and he has all 3 I just get to delete 2 of his characters and get a full heal, then we're playing 1 v 1, over powered but what's stopping him now from stomping me with his one remaining? X-Factor is crazy, but so is UMvC3.
Thanks for the vid.
also, if "the better player always won" then if player A was only slightly better than player B, say 5% difference in skill, then player A would win 100% of the time, which is vastly different from the 55/45 skill ratio.
4:06 White has a 0.3+ advantage, which is only exploitable if you are in the top 0.01% of skill.
I'm sorry I cannot focus on whatever you're saying at 10:10 Luigi is a fucking MONSTER dude I have replayed this clip 3 times and I cannot do it
It depends on what the comeback mechanic is and how it's used. I like comeback mechanics that encourage decision-making and that don't influence the outcome too much.
I think Mario Kart's item system is really well-designed. The way it works is that the lower your current place in the race is, the better the items you get are. This lends itself to a whole playstyle called "sandbagging", where you hang back to collect items and try to take the win at the end. The Blue Shell is an important part of ensuring that sandbagging is viable. If the guy in 1st is able to zoom way ahead of everyone, then sandbagging is jist kneecapping yourself by letting them further their lead. With Blue Shells, their lead becomes limited, letting sandbagging players overtake them at the finish line.
A somewhat similar system I like is how meter works in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, specifically the fact that meter carries over between rounds. This gives the losing player a choice: do you use your meter to try and take back the round, or do you bring it into the next round to give yourself an advantage there?
In both of these, the comeback mechanic has value at a higher level because they aren't too impactful but they can still be used strategically by skilled players to take the advantage.
Conversely, X-Facter from MvC3 is the worst I've ever seen. It's a power-up sort of like Sparking from Dragonball FighterZ, but it gets stronger the more characters you've lost. This sounds like good game design, but the way it's set up encourages you to ONLY use it on your anchor, and mechanic is so powerful that it can sometimes be bad to take out your opponent's characters, especially if Vergil is involved.
Rage from Smash (and the similar Aura mechanic exclusive to Lucario) is another bad comeback mechanic, but this is less due to the power and more because you don't ever have to make a decision. It just happens, and that makes it less interactive and more frustrating to be on the receiving end of.
Frankly, besides the factual errors, I feel like this video is incomplete without looking at the opposite of comeback mechanics-what I’ll call a “win-more” mechanic. Mechanics that exclusively help the player who is ahead are near omnipresent in fighting games. Take sf2t. You build meter in that game by doing two things. One is hitting the opponent, and the other is doing special moves. Both of these are things the winning player is doing more. In sf6, you gain Drive for hitting the opponent (winning) and lose it for blocking or getting punish countered (losing). Then, once you’ve lost enough to lose all of it, you’re put in a weakened state for some time. It’s worth looking at whether a player who is up should be given extra help. I think in many games, comeback mechanics are an attempt to solve this problem. Take marvel 3. In a team game, being the first player to lose a character, or to go from 2 characters to 1, is a huge deal. You lose access to supports, team supers, etc. Being on 2 characters is way worse than 3 where one has a pixel left. It’s easy to see how X-factor was an attempt to balance this out, and make sure that the first character loss wasn’t a game losing condition. Did they go too far? Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think including a comeback factor was a sin in and of itself. Solid vid, excellent editing.
v trigger (and things like it) couldve totally worked if it had a limit on damage you could get out of it based on the difference between the 2 players
(making it "catch up" rather than "kill them before they get it themselves")
If they inverted the V meter the psychological inversion may make it swallowable.
Call it the 'Form' or 'Technique' Meter. A player attacking looses thier form a little with every attack. if your form hits 0 your cannot block hits from an enemy. only dodge. The idea is players may pace themselves if you tell them they are the ones loosening something rather than their opponent gaining something
Catchup mechanics are almaust always fair.
They modify game's system which can easily be exploited by strong players. A "weak" player may not even know about the mechanic which puts them in a disadvantage.
At their unfairest catchup mechanics emplify skill demand and RNG. But mostly it's just another mechanic.
The only truly unfair catchup mech is when the looser of the previous game goes first in the next game. Some board games have the "youngest goes first" rule, but I would argue it's not a catchup mechanic.
people think they're really cool snaking through the entire track in mario kart but to 7 other people, it's just not fun to play against.
When i play Team fortess 2 and get sniped by a 10000 hours played ex-pro on a casual server, i can't exactly counter him as a sniper. its not fun to play like that.
I think skill based matchmaking should exist to SOME degree, to prevent steamrolling at spawn for example. I also like smash ultimates solutions like setting handicaps so that you can decide for yourself and between friends, you know, to have fun. Which is the point after all.
It depends… cause a lot of come back mechanics straight up ruin a game. Like the way items work in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe turns it into a toxic dumpster fire of a game where a lot of time the best option is to drive slower like a jackass in a RACING GAME to get better items for lap 3.
X Factor in Marvel 3 getting progressively more powerful the less characters on a players team isn’t nearly as trash as bagging in MK8D. Both players are given the same options.
going into this: my initial thought is usually. an exception would be a sniper in, say, tf2. theres a point where no matter how much skill something takes, it'll still be unfun for the enemy player to deal with if theres minimal counterplay other than the enemy messing up. sniper is pretty much raw skill in tf2, but on CERTAIN MAPS (really bad ones that dont balance for sniper's existence) it feels like theres nothing to be done about him. the counterplay would usually be "get out of his line of sight and get behind him for an easy kill," but on quite a few maps that isnt too much of an option, or on certain points of some maps. also thats kinda messed up by the funny piss knife combo! but thats besides the point. so i'd say overall, its about it FEELING fair, no matter how much skill it really takes. also sometimes it simply isnt fair, like sniper on certain maps/certain parts of certain maps because those maps dont account for sniper and how he was initially balanced.
This is a backwards question. The better player does always win. That’s why they’re the winner.
Anything else is excuses. I don’t care if the connection was 100 fucking frames and the dog ate your inputs. The better player would adapt.
X Factor isn't that much of a comeback mechanic. It does become stronger as you lose characters, but it's also useful early for someone winning to advance their lead. Using X factor to ToD their first character can just win you the whole match, especially if you have really dirty incoming mix-ups or even unblockable setups.
Worth mentioning that many games also compensate for map/atk-def/etc asymmetry in Bo1 by altering matchmaking. The team on the weak side is allocated SLIGHTLY stronger players, that in aggregate balances out for 50% winrate.
But what about "berserker" charachters they sorta willingly in disadvantage, but i don't think bad players gonna use them, good one's might consider them viable and blow everyone up as a result.
woke company bLizzard destroyed my career by reworking my main character because garbage players were crying on reddit
i used to be top2 but after that i could only get to top87
for you its still top87 but i compare myself to other top players, its like i was suddenly the worst in the whole room of people
i dedicated over 1800 hours for a single character
my message to everyone is to please stop playing "esport" games
8:35 Also notable: Somebody has to pick first.
So unless the game lets you "ghost" pick, submit your selection without it giving feedback, and then a random span of time from 3 to 5 seconds after both players choose finalizes, one player essentially knows what the other's Rock Paper Scissors move is and can pick their own to specifically beat it.
A much .more overt showing of zoner frustration is Asuka imo. His tool kit is finicky, and every time he oppresses you he either risks his potential health with mana break and p regen, his consistency with k regen, or most popularly, his own health flat out with S regen. He has to lose on his own terms to stay winning.
when you mentioned kneecapping certain strats bc certain players are good with them and they STOMP bad players i instantly thought of inting sion from league, INSANELY strong strat even still is the best way to play the character, BUT you can really only do it up to roughly diamond now before it becomes insanely hard and you absolutely need ALL the matchup knowledge, this is because of one singular player doing it for years and riot nerfing specifically what he says is good about the strategy.
You touched on the difference between precirved and actually skill for frustrating mechanics. The thing i find most interesting about the "Better player" is that sometimes there is a disconnect between what the devs think is skill and the players think is skill. Often leads to the community complaining that the better player doesn't doesn't win more than any of the deliberately unfair mechanics in the game
Worst feel wrt bad matchups? Live service games where you leave for like a few months and come back and suddenly whatever you practiced and perfected is off meta, and your teammates are toxic as shit even when you're in casual
Imagine if certain people were allowed an e-bike in the Tour de France just because they did poorly last year, and if they won the next year it wouldn’t be taken away but former champions were not allowed to make the switch until they lost for several consecutive years by significant margins
Thatd be sick as fuck
its fuckin street fighter bro
As Max Dood said, paraphrased: There will always be bull you have to deal with if you're playing fighting games.
When playing smash bros ultimate with friends, we usually had final smash meter on. As we’ve gotten better (and evened out somewhat) at the game, I’ve seen it less and less as a selected setting in our lobbies
must in most fps a shotgun is give to one character/class that can move fast. so they can flank there enemies including snipers.
a sniper with tunnel vision is easy to sneak up on them and kill them just most sniper are bad at close range so if you out flank must sniper will die. a zoner in a fps be would some one that can do area denial some like the demo and the grappler would be a tank they move slow they, hit hard, they can take the hits they like to fight close range to mid range like the heavy and character/class that got the shotgun who runs up to shoot you in point blank range that would be a rushdown fighter like sabrewulf!!
You know I don't think items make Smash Bros unfair because it creates an environment where I as the 'worse' player won literally 100% of the time vs my friend who would win 90%+ of the time with items off. It's not like items aren't in the game, or like playing without them is fun.
i mean it is luck based and all the item were overpowered so yeah it’s unfair
@@iwantsocialcredit no its fair because everyone has the same chance to win the game every item
Neither of you are completely wrong. Not all items are overtuned and the game series is designed to give losers a leg up, though it is far more subtle than Mario Kart..
Since Brawl, we've had Pity Final Smashes and the Smash Ball breaks more easily when hit by the person who is behind.
Some characters are also far better at reaching (Sonic is fast, Little Mac can't jump) and utilising (Zelda has a great final smash in Ultimate) items. There is even a gun specifically designed to do more damage if you are behind.
Items work as an equaliser which leads to giving people who are behind a big moment even if they don't win. A great player who knows how to use items only becomes greater.
@@dangdudedan8756 it’s unfair because it takes away skill and make it luck based, also not everyone has the same chance of winning, people who get more item has the better chance of winning
Amazing work on this one Edd! Your editing is improving as always and you actually managed to make something that pisses everyone off sound reasonable, which it is. Well done
Sick ass video damn
also no one in the ow community thinks widow maker is hard every dps player has 2 have good aim but she gets rewarded with an insta kill for doing the same thing and taking less risk because shes farther away also in 5v5 one kill is massive n pretty much wins the fight and how do u think awping takes skill HOW u jus press mouse1 like bro come on n in valorant especially because the slower movement speed gives you more time to react n makes it hard 2 peek
I just love your videos. Watching this video not only shown why fighting games are amazing and my favorite genre also I need comeback to fps games.
I do feel that things like matchup knowledge or meter awareness are part of the repertoire of a good player. When you're playing a fighting game, if the opponent studies your playstyle and picks a specific character to counter it, yet you refuse to change your character/strategy, then it's completely justified the other person will win.
the only fighting game i played is hisoutensoku and it feels extremly fair that better player will always win but theres one spesific unfair thing there about being beginner and thats just how easy it is to learn new character. it kinda sucks when you see other people get better faster than you because of it. i wish more people would talk about this game because i wonder really often if its the most complex and hardest fighting game because i dont know anythign else
on mario kart, you are actually rewarded for keeping an item that allows you to dodge a blue shell, and the majority of items you get as first are items that allow you to break a red shell.
the skill also comes from knowing when to sandbag (actually wait for other people to get in front) so you can exploit the better items that you get and get back in first for just the last quarter of the last lap, as it's the only one that matters. that also protects you from most of the hate (items thrown at them) that the first player gets.
Should be noted that SNK actually is pretty well known for having at least one grappler at the top(we're all still paying for the sins of 98 daimon)
As somebody who played a grappler/zoner hybrid team in UMVC3, i can firmly say that they made up for me being worse at the game than my opponents a lot of the time :)
The better player can’t always win as any game where choices can be made is inherently random. A series of gambits (educated or not) until someone wins. Comeback mechanics do kinda just feel like a slap in the face cuz you know that’s not random at all
You mean suddenly you're playing the final season of SF5 and you have to play Luke.
while comeback mechanic is annoying, reversal is whole another levels of annoyingness especially in smash ultimate. these filthy cloud player will spam the shit out of up B down air button to make sure they get that juicy reversal.
The point of a winning team having to put more effort to actually win than the losing team would have to defend themselves, despite it being the same case for them to win, is one that I've always noticed to be prolific in Splatoon a lot
Many of the maps in Splatoon have almost a rolling hills pattern in terms of advantage, combined with a ton of choke points, I've always thought it was an interesting way to make it so every game isn't an entire wash if the opponent gets a strong rush
i hear that HFTF music 👀
good pick because HFTF is probably the most balanced and fair game of all time 😎
So, there should be a segregation like approach, pro players got a server for them and noobs a server especially for them. In this way everyone ends up happy.
1 solution is to simply make the game fun even when you lose… but sadly that can’t be done for all types of games.
buddy awps reward weaker players its clearly easier 2 use no debate peeking counter strafing n flicking on the players head is harder than holding an angle n clicking
Would release R8 revolver (1 shot head & body at long range) be Season 1 Happy Chaos?
Silly RUclipsr, the question itself is moot.
If they won, they're the better player.