Sacrificing a character to extend a match in a time out heavy game is already a mechanic in Rage of the Dragons for the NeoGeo. It makes those last few seconds super hype.
Melty blood is another game where if you use heat (kind of like a burst with meter) the clock will be stopped while healing the red health but after the time you stopped is over you will have no meter
@@suffering1901And That's Assuming You are Using The Relevant Moon Style For It. Which Affects Both The System Mechanics Including Heat and The Moveset of the Characters ( A Mixture of Grooves and Variations ).
@TheoryFighter, I think everyone can agree that X-Factor for Marvel 3 was the dumbest comeback mechanic ever implemented. It's also the reason why people abandoned that game after a while. It's pointless, if they had never included that it just might have equaled or surpassed mvc2, but now we know.. =(
One comeback mechanic that I enjoy is baroque in Tatsunoko versus Capcom. It lets you trade red health to immediately cancel whatever you're doing, get extra damage on hits depending on how much life is sacrificed, and make whiffed moves safe. Makes it much easier to whittle an opponent down after taking a beating, or try a risky but rewarding move to bait the opponent.
Comeback mechanics make sense in tag fighters and only tag fighters. When you lose a character in a tag fighter it's not the same as losing health, not being able to use the assist or DHC makes you lose a lot of potential damage, pressure, mix, set ups, etc. In a traditional fighting game like SF when Ryu loses health he can still use all his buttons and specials, he effectively loses nothing but a resource that is supposed to be lost. Health is just another resource you have to manage, as in "I can get hit this many times", you shouldn't get rewarded for using a resource poorly when you lose nothing else at all.
@@SharntGroSabo not really probably to you but majority still find hype into it. If that was not the case it would be more telling. Look at SF4 for example it has the same shit
@@The_WIll_OF_D99 that is literally the most common complaint about high level V play. Everyone gets a big 70% comeback combo for getting hit so you’re not really rewarded for doing good early on. You’re honestly more rewarded for getting your ass kicked first in some instances because you get to keep momentum easier.
Pandora brings new meaning to the name "Street Fighter x Timeout" Not sure what the ideal comeback mechanic is, but I also hope we can be done with the "flat damage boost on attacks" mode that most fighters have. Even if it's ultimately not a big boost that swings a lot of matches, when it does happen, it's all you can think about when a combo string or kill setup got you when it otherwise wouldn't have without that rage mechanic. If it were something that the losing player chooses to use, rather than just passive boosts, then it starts to feel more like it belongs among the game's other systems. In that regard, Pandora sounds pretty cool, even if the execution keeps it from really affecting the game. Maybe another thing it could have done is stop the current round from scrolling left or right, and keeping the fight contained within the current box dimensions. That way the opponent can't just run away.
Was not expecting such an interesting argument, gotta be honest. This is such a tired discussion and one that rarely leaves the most shallow stages. Great video.
Love the video! I do think comeback mechanics are important for all competitive games (as controversial of a statement as that may be for the fighting game community). When people say "comeback mechanic" it usually makes you think "making sure the losing player wins", but the real goal of the comeback mechanic should be to make sure the player with an early lead can't get lazy. Getting that early lead should still be the more advantageous position. A well-balanced comeback mechanic should simply make it so that the early lead player has to play just as hard as they did to get in that position to keep that position. While I'm speaking as an amateur designer, this is an example I'm all too experienced with after releasing a game with this problem, and am in the middle of working on a massive update to fix it: getting an early lead in a kart racing game without a good drafting mechanic lets the first person at the beginning of a round get extremely lazy, and at the highest level of play, the winner boils down to whoever can get lucky to get a head start in the first 20 seconds of the race. While some players like that they can be rewarded so heavily for a play made at the very start of the round, it can feel downright hopeless to try to catch up to a player where your only hope is wishing they make a mistake, while the early lead player is simply on cruise control and defaulting to a basic & practiced game plan from Time Trial mode. That's why I think even for games with emphasis on skill-based gameplay, catchup mechanics can still be extremely important. After all, matches are the most fun to both play and watch when everyone involved is trying their hardest to win. Replace "race" with "match", and "head start" with "life advantage", and you can see why some developers might want to try to implement comeback mechanics. Admittedly It's a lot easier to mess up in a fighting game though due to short matches and the 1v1 nature of the genre, so even minor tweaks can cause huge upsets in the game's balance at high level play. I totally agree that damage buffs/nerfs are not the way to go, since that dampens the impact of skills that fighting games normally reward you for getting good at. Stuff like gaining new abilities, or meter gained based on how behind you are, is more in the right direction because there's still the potential to out-play them.
My cousin and I played the hell outta that. He'd zone with Sagat and I'd charge up Metsu Hadoukens for a bit then we'd go crush. At that time it was super buggy and didn't even have all the sound effects quite right, it was a mess but fun.
This is a thing in Melty Blood as well. Not often do we see timeouts but turning on HEAT will stop the timer while also allow you to heal red-damaged health (you cannot heal red-health otherwise).
@@oinkoink1909 this comment might be 3 years old, but I am a H-Moon main and wanna speak my piece XD Half moons STILL have a way to consciously activate heat through proper meter management. If you notice there is a huge gap in health and you are at high Meter you can purposefully chose to do meterbuild routes for your combos to guarantee Auto-heat. This is also a pretty interesting way of going around it because its a fully skill based comeback mechanic. Where less experience players will just burn the meter even if it isnt that worth it in that situation, or hog it way too much when they dont need it which then leads to them losing the possibility of choosing when to Heat through metergain. Honestly its impressive how well designed MBAACC is as a game, somehow squeezing 3 entire core gameplay systems into one and making them work and have very interesting interactions. Defenetively was a shame they took it away from Lumina, but I dont blame them, maintaining the fine balance between each system and then the balance of each character being x3'd by the different systems probably was too much for them to even try to tackle once again. And if I was working on a game (Ahem, I am) I wouldn't wanna deal with that shit either LMAO XD
I agree. Thinking back to Tekken6, I think the problem with Tekken7's rage is mostly when it triggers. The HP range where T7 rage happens makes it almost inevitable. While in T6, you would've feasibly and easily not given away rage.
10:40 this is why mario kart's items are such a successful mechanic compared to almost every fighting game, its a core mechanic that affects all players and gives interesting risk reward decisions. like seeking out an item box, or when to use an item. it also makes the game more interesting for the winning player, since they have to take similar risks in order to defend themselves from enemy items. both players are engaging with the same system but in different ways, and i think its not given enough credit by the gaming community. what actually happens is people lump mario kart's items with fighting game comeback mechanics all the time, and the comparison is that "both are weighted towards the losing player in some way". however, if mario kart had the same philosophy as fighting game devs, then it'd be something more like "you get a speed boost if you're further behind the opponent". i know rubberbanding exists, but imagine if that wasnt exclusive to the AI in older mario karts, and it ENTIRELY replaced items. thats what fighting game comeback mechanics are like. they dont add much to the game for the winning player, you either gain access to a super move or get a damage boost. its very uninteresting compared to mario karts items, which singlehandedly turn a barebones racer into an interesting game. devs should look more into how they can create mechanics that create comebacks without just relying on "losing player should do more damage sometime!!"
I can already picture Grand Finals, one person has a decently large life lead and there's only 5 seconds left. The player who's losing scores a hit, activates Pandora, and makes the comeback for a super important win. My specific thought was the win resets the bracket but regardless it would definitely be a cool moment
I know this is a very old video and someone probably mentioned it already but the heat mechanic from melty blood is a perfect comeback mechanic in my opinion as instead of increasing your damage, it stops the timer and heals you, allowing you to pretty much time scam to get your bearings. But there's a clear downside to it, you stop healing if you're getting hit or you're blocking and once it runs out or the round ends with it still on all of your meter is gone which can be a huge detriment to trying to get the most out of it. So the opponent could just keep hitting you and stunt your healing so now not only do you not get your health back but you also lose all of your meter which I think is a good price to pay for mechanic that could easily be abused which enforces you to make it damb worth it. And this doesn't even cover the moon specific details of heat either, and if we did we'll be here all day.
the best "anti time-out" comeback mechanic would consist of, the timer stopping, and it stopping until someone lands a hit or dies or something or other, and then making it more likely for the player in disadvantage to land a hit and do whatever they gotta do to win, so for smash they could gain extra speed and knockback so they can actually hit and kill the opponent, for street fighter their attacks could come out faster and have less lag, allowing to hit easier and hit harder with better combos
In Smash, you can't just increase the knockback, as some characters might end up suffering due to that increased knockback. If I remember right, some characters like Shiek actually kinda struggle with rage on, as the additional knockback makes their combos way less consistent, and thus ironically makes it harder to get a kill.
I'm someone who is vehemently opposed to comeback mechanics, especially ones that give purely mathematical benefits like X Factor and Limit Break. However, I do appreciate mechanics like Blazblue's Overdrive that gives new properties to moves and can fundamentally change how a character is played when they are activated. I'm not going to pretend that Overdrive isn't a comeback mechanic when you gain more time for it at lower health. However, unlike X Factor, it's balanced on a per character basis, meaning some characters are designed to take advantage of it moreso than others. It becomes more interesting as it is also tied to your Burst, and using one or the other affects how quickly you get it back. It adds this layer of decision making that can be match up and situation specific that makes it so much more interesting to me. And yes, I know I contradicted myself by giving Overdrive a pass, so it goes to show just how credible I am.
I agree with your way of thinking. The overdrive mechanics leads to more options at the cost of health. It has benefits, but you still at a disadvantage in a lot of ways. Some games like street fighter 5 have huge design issues with v trigger in which some characters like the top gets more benefits, but low tiers doesn’t get much and usually still die. X factor killed umvc 3 for me since its just straight up rewards losing and stronger characters can abuse even level 1 x factor.
Blazblue CF comeback mechanic is pretty good. It gives each character something that helps their character. Stronger confirms, more mixup, mechanic and move effect/ frame changes, etc. Lower HP makes it last longer, it's tied to your burst and it has a recharge requiremrnts so using it all the time isn't a great option in mid+ level play as you might get caught with no way out inbetween charges.
Same thing with combos they complain if devs puts a limit on them like mvci and doa6 but in team games they don't complain about 1 tods. In general I find most things the community asks for are one sided(leaning offensively) and if devs were to fulfill their request the overall game would suffer. Having say a 30 hit limit still allows for creative combos in fact the limit almost makes it to where people come up with signature combos but with tods as soon as they discover the most practical one why do anything different?
I legit think that SFV's best comeback mechanic is chip kills requiring a full meter. As technical as SFIV was, whenever one player got really low on health the game revolved around the winning player putting immense pressure for the chip kill while the defender tried to read or react to an opening and unload their meters for a comeback. Take the match "Unnecessary roughness by Moons" for example. A match like that could NEVER have happened in SFIV because after Laura got her vortex going it was GG, but through an immense clutch and impeccable defense M Bison still had a fighting chance. The game didn't gave him the comeback, he earned it.
All good suggestions,s so i will just say I think x factor is actually a great mechanic that had some unfortunate balance issues. Phoenix/Vergil were problems, but I see those as balance failures NOT an issue with the mechanic itself. What I like about xfactor is that it's not a pure comeback mechanic and it isn't just an damage increase. The cancel and speedboost are serious, and in good meta's you'd see it popped just as often on the first hit of the match as the last character coming in. Treating it like a normal comeback mechanic and expecting it to not be in every round is, i think, unfair. It's much more similar to an RC/Burst that gets better the less hp you have. You can pop it early to just erase the first character you touch, and you can pop it late to help you combat dealing with a character plus their assist. It's not perfect at all, but I dislike how railed on it gets because two poor balance decisions (phoenix being WAY too good and way to hard to stop and vergil basically being the same thing)
Yeah I would liken X-Factor closer to something like an in match variant of TOP from Garou or Ratio setup in CvS 2. It's INTENDED to be used in every match, but when and how it's used is your choice based on what kind of player you are and what the matchup is, at least in theory.
you know what game had very interesting comeback mechanic? psychic force 2012 on that game most attacks ate your psy bar, which is not terrible as it sounds since the game was mostly projectile based the actual interesting thing was that the psy bar and the health bar were actually the same bar, it started half psy/half health and as you health went down you could fill more of the bar with psy instead. so if you had a pixel of health left you could hold twice as much psy than what you started with. im still waiting for the day someone finally do a online psychic force 2012 tourney
I'm glad to see people talking about this game. I think it's really underrated due to how bad of a rap it got early on, but I think it turned into a great but overlooked fighter.
My favourite comeback mechanic in any video game is the way garbage works in guideline Tetris. The goal of the game is to fill your opponent's board so that they cannot place another piece, and usually the only way you can interact with your opponent is by sending them garbage lines that appear at the bottom of their board. This opens up the possibilities for crazy comebacks and back and fourths, since the closer you get to losing, the more potential for attack you have to work with.
Speaking of mechanics I would like to see again. I liked the stryker system in the King of Fighters games during the NESTS saga. KOF2001 had the best one imo In KOF99, 2000 and 2001 you can select teams of 4 members. KOF2001 is the only game where you can choose how many strykers you want for example 4 character, no stryker 3 characters, 1 stryker 2 characters, 2 strykers 1 character, 3 strykers Here is the best most interesting part, depending of how many strykers you choose, the characters will make more or less damage. Example 4 characters no stryker, you have more members to play sure but your characters make less damage and you can't make level 3 supers. 1 character 3 strykers, the only character makes a lot of damage, if you lose one round, you lose, but you can fill the Power Gauge very quickly and can make Level 3 Supers Finally, you can call multiple strykers at the same time. KOF2001's stryker system is the definition of high risk high reward. I love that.
I would like to see comeback mechanics offer more versatility such as resetting damage scaling, offering more meter or even slowly regaining health. That way players can choose which resource they need depending on the scenario & all characters are not forced to do have the same game plan
Persona 4 Arena's comeback mechanic is exactly what you're looking for. When you get to low enough health and aren't in hitstun, Awakening is activated which increases your defense (basically a different way of handling Guilty Gear's guts mechanic), gives you access to a new super, and increases your max amount of meter from 100 to 150 along with gaining 50 meter. It's a lot more interesting than just bigger damage or health regen, because that Awakening super and that 50 extra max meter allows for a ton of new, powerful options that the characters don't have otherwise. It's also balanced by the fact that you have to get out of hitstun for it to activate, meaning that the opponent is actually capable of killing you before you can go into Awakening.
With the idea of comeback mechanics that gives you something other than just damage, there's a really interesting one that's not in a fighting game, but a shooter in Splatoon, you build meter towards your special weapon (think Ultimates in Overwatch) by covering terrain with ink. Having terrain covered with ink of your team's color confers implicit map control, as you can only swim through ink of your own team's color - not an enemy team's ink or surfaces without ink on them - and you move slower while standing in ink of the opposing team's color, so if your team has more of the map inked, there's a good chance you're probably ahead, even in game types other than turf wars. *However,* covering more terrain with ink gives you fewer opportunities to build meter, and conversely, if your team is behind in terms of map coverage, you have more opportunities to build meter. If you get literally painted into a corner, the game doesn't directly give you the means to get out, but it *does* quietly reward you for you geting yourself out. Rather than a discrete mechanic to help you get the ball rolling on making a comeback, it's an emergent element of the game's systems that rewards you if you get the ball rolling yourself
What I would do in a game where timeouts are common like this is… I'd probably want a mechanic that perhaps slows or temporarily stops the clock, sure, and extra damage is just boring… but I'd want something _more_ than that. Something that allows new cancels or faster movement or, as another commenter suggested, shrinks the stage boundaries so you can always corner combo. Actually, that might be an interesting comeback mechanic: an on-hit activated ability that makes the opponent's edge of the screen a wall, but not your own, no matter which side of you the foe is on. With this, your opponent is _always_ in the corner, so they have nowhere to run and they're always vulnerable to your strongest combos… but if you still have the time, _you_ can play patiently if need be.
@@TheoryFighter I would love to see a video of you analyzing a Smash Bros mechanic and finding a way to incorporate it into a traditional fighting game setting.
Asura Buster ~ Eternal Warriors has a very unique comeback mechanic, called Last Stand Once per match, when you lose a round, press all 3 attack buttons during the "K.O." sceen, and the screen will fade to white, and both players are taken to a new stage. The person who died has their lifebar replaced by a 10 second timer, and the opponent keeps the health they had at the end of thee round. Both players get infinite meter, and the match begins. If the person who activated Last Stand gets hit, they die. If they run out of time on their lifebar, they also die. It is the purest form of a salty runback I have ever seen, allowing you to undo your round losing mistake. Definitely provided several hype as shit tournament moments.
kind of an odd pick, but dengeki bunko fighting climax ignition has a really neat momentum stopper - when you don't have the life lead, a light turns on next to your lifebar, and when this light is on, pushblocking no longer costs meter. when you get the life lead back, the light turns off, meaning the other person has access to free meterless pushblocking. it leads to matchups where the momentum is super dynamic
xfactor discourages players from blowing xfactor as soon as they get the first hit to kill the first character, then the 2nd on the incoming mixup. this was the meta before people found anchors like vergil.
a time-out loss avoidance mechanic that requires you to RTSD to activate it? thats.... actually a really interesting idea, yah..... would it stop the clock indefinitely, like, forever, or would the timefreeze itself be on a timer?..... if i was gonna invent a wacky comeback mechanic for a game, it would be that when you're below 25% health and you press down, down + a button = your opponent's character no longer responds to the use of that button on your opponent's controller. you get to ban one of your opponent's normals/strength of special moves, for a round, so they have to finish you off without using it. and it would be a 4 button fighter like king of fighters LOL but the button ban mechanics activation would have a kinda-long vulnerable startup animation which your opponent could intterupt with an attack or throw or whatever.
The biggest problem is everyone ignores the actual issue these mechanics have to argue “yOu DoNt HaVe To UsE tHeM lEt NoObS hAvE sOmEtHiNg YoU eLiTiSt” and forget is these mechanics actually never benefit the least experienced player, but in fact benefit the more experienced one. Just like auto combos they don’t actually help even the playing field, because experienced players will exploit them with their knowledge of how they work while new players will get demolished quicker because they lack the understanding of this mechanic. X factor literally rewards you for knowing how to use it to prevent comebacks. How is this helping a new player if I’m using it to prevent them from having any chance of playing the game?
Personally, I'm a big fan of comeback mechanics that don't seem like comeback mechanics. For example, look at Overdrive in Blazblue. Technically, it is indeed a comeback mechanic, because the duration of Overdrive is directly related to how much health your character has remaining, 4 seconds at minimum, or 8 seconds at most. However, OD doesn't give you any specific flat damage bonus or anything like that. Instead, every character's is completely unique. Ragna's D moves and specials gain new properties on hit, and steal vastly more health than normal, Jin's C normals gain the ability to trigger the freeze state that is usually only reserved for certain D moves, Bullet immediately gains 1 level of Heat Up, and for the duration of her Overdrive, using her Engage special moves will not reduce her Heat Up levels as long as the move completes while OD is still active, Bang loses the ability to block, but in exchange gets an 8 way dash that he can cancel into from many normals for relentless offense and new combos, etc. In this way, some characters have ODs that define a matchup, while others aren't that useful in the longrun besides maybe allowing you to convert into a combo from specific situations, or to punish the opponent after a particular option. But it goes even deeper than that, because there's another comeback mechanic on top of OD: Burst. While you have your Overdrive stocked, you can instead choose to spend it to burst out of any combo. Bursts in BB are extremely powerful, as they're in general much harder to bait than in GG, and are so fast that you'll very rarely find combos which are totally burst safe. However, using your OD for burst comes with many drawbacks. Your OD stock takes significantly longer to recharge if you choose to burst than if you instead chose to overdrive, since the timer starts at 0 when you burst and 3 when you OD. But not only that, there's a cooldown before the timer starts after you spend burst, so it's even longer than that. Burst also locks you out of gaining Active Flow for the rest of the round. Active Flow is a state that triggers in the background of the game by doing what the game defines as "good things". Stuff like maintaining offense for a long time, blocking well, hitting with certain moves, etc. Active Flow gives you a 10% damage bonus, for a short while, but more importantly it *greatly* accelerates the cooldown of your OD gauge. You can even trigger Active Flow manually by ending OD early with a special new move, so that you can get your OD gauge back as quickly as possible. Burst denies you access to all of these things. But like I mentioned earlier, for some characters or certain matchups, your overdrive isn't really that important. Sure it has its moments, but saving your OD for a burst might in fact be much more important at times. All this goes to say that comeback mechanics don't feel like comeback mechanics when there's a lot of different choices and nuances to how the mechanic can be used. BB allows you to use OD at any time, in a large variety of different ways, even though you get the MOST value out of it when you're losing by a lot. Thus, you very rarely feel like it ever steals a victory away from you, which is the main criticism with comeback mechanics. Giving you lots of different ways to avoid a losing situation in the first place inherently reduces the chances of your mechanic offering an "unearned win".
The only thing I really wish to say, is about Tekken's Rage Artes. I'm perfectly fine with how they are currently, I just wish that when your rage art armor is getting hit there wasn't a damage reduction. Ok, you got me with rage arte, I accept that, but, my attack that landed before you hit me shouldn't have reduced damage. It just confuses everything. I should easily know and be able to weight risk at a moments notice. If I know you want to use rage art, I shouldn't have to do quick math in my head to know if the attack I want to do will KO or not because I have to consider its damage minus the damage reduction.
I totally agree with you on the problem of comeback mechanics being too frequently used. In 90% of matches in SFV or Marvel, you're going to see V-Triggers and X-Factors and it kinda saps all of the excitement and drama of the mechanic, since usually there's few to little reasons not to use them. Pandora is on a whole other side of the scale, where it is seen practically never and rarely in situations that demand either player to make a risky choice. For me, in spite of their many problems, Ultras from SFIV could be really exciting to see, because their presence is always on hand, but the players couldn't think of them constantly because in many matches there wouldn't be a good moment for an Ultra to be used. I think the new Samsho has the best comeback mechanic in Issen. While it's a single attack that does tons of damage without high execution, it is kind of the ultimate risk for a potentially game-changing reward. The enemy doesn't have to think about it all the time, only at the moment of its activation. And even then, there's many ways to counter Issen. I think it's the most begginer-friendly mechanic in fighting games, at least in theory, whilst still allowing an experienced player to showcase their skill. Oh, and it also stops the timer :]
Pretty sure the only way you can build ultra in sf4 is by taking damage, making v trigger less of a pure comeback mechanic than ultra despite being complained about way more.
@@DANCERcow Yeah I guess grey life isn't the same as normal life, but it's still risky since you're accumulating potential damage and it only takes one hit to lose it all, and it's only really viable to use against fireball heavy characters. Compare to the V system where you can use your v skills and crush counters to more actively gain meter and it's still far less a comeback mechanic.
Maybe a selectable comeback mechanic is a good idea. One that's blind picked after character select by a button press so your opponent doesn't know what you have until you use it. I agree with flat damage boost being hard to balance but it's a good option for new or casual players. More advanced players could go for the clock stopper, movement speed buff or whatever else.
Probably the best example of a comeback mechanic that does something outside of giving you damage is Samurai Shodown's Rage Explosion. It acts as a burst on activation, pauses the clock while it's active and gives you access to a quick super. It can only be used once per set and the cost is that it completely consumes your rage bar meaning your damage will be slightly lower on average.
I don’t get the stigma against time Outs, some of the most lit rounds end on time! The stress/tension when the clock is ticking down and the last choices are crucial. Its hype!
I don't either. In fact, the way I look at it, whoever wins from a time out, if the game is properly tuned for it, earned it from better decision making for an entire 60+ seconds than their opponent.
The problem lies in when it's too frequent. An match going down to the last few seconds in a game where time-outs almost never happen can be extremely hype, but when it happens almost every time, it gets lame.
I think a big design difficulty to remember with how comeback mechanics are made is that they need to be accessible by new / casual players. Players to whom a hit confirm or complicated input might be too hard. That's often why so many of them are automatically activated, and not integrated more smoothly
I'll always love BlazBlue's current comeback mechanic: Overdrive. Sacrifices your Burst to enhance the Drive capabilities of your character (different with each), leading to normally impossible combos and big damage. It can be done at the start of the round but the time spent in Overdrive increases the less health you have upon activation and also freezes the clock to deny your opponent the time out if possible. It's also invincible on start up, can be combo'd into and enhances the strength and animations of Distortions (super moves).
The best comeback mechanic I can think of is Bursts from GG. Because fun fact if you didn't know: Burst gauge fills up faster the lower health you are. It isn't an auto-win button, it isn't an instant tempo reversal, but instead a reset to a neutral playing field. Both characters passively generate Burst gauge over time, with you gaining more the lower health you are. A.K.A. If you are low HP, you are rewarded for going "Oh shit, Im getting destroyed, need to focus up." and surviving while low. Giving you more chances to cover up any small mistakes you make. It also has its weaknesses in that it can be baited by Burst-Safe combos, Grabbed out of startup, or if you get grabbed/raw super'd you cant burst out of it. So if you fuck up that bad, no comeback mechanic will save your ass. It's a comeback mechanic that requires you to actually know the proper way to apply it, as opposed to "X-Factor go Brr!!" In addition the fact that it can easily be built up and properly used by both sides in a match, means it is a comeback mechanic with equal usage, whereas again with the X-Factor example many matches only one side would use X-Factor, then reverse-sweep. So with these in Mind IMO the most important aspects of a good comeback mechanic are: 1. Incentivizes playing better/tighter once you have it. 2. Has counterplay, so it must not be mindlessly used. 3. Can be used by both parties in a match. With these in mind, I come to a similar conclusion as you with the Pandora changes, however with a couple differences. 1. Pause timer. Agreed. The mechanic putting you with 1 character inherently makes you have to play better to keep up properly in a team game. 2. 0 Frame startup and no recovery is a bad choice IMO. I believe it should either have an interruptible startup or SOME recovery frames, so it cant just be used whenever with no possible punish for bad use. 3. I do actually think a damage boost on Pandora is a good idea, even if I don't usually like Stat-stick mechanics. 4. Once one player has used pandora, the opponent should have the option of doing the same, though at a higher health threshold IMO. Make it a sort-of... game of chicken/gamble. If the opponent matches your pandora, its a one on one match, bringing you both to the same level of possible damage and utility. Or if they dont match it, you have a single stronger character that can more easily K.O. one of the opponents characters, ending the round. I feel like the last two effects would have a similar impact to Ratio's from CvS. Almost like you sacrifice one low-HP character to increase your "Main" Characters Ratio mid-match. And the opponent gets the choice of following suit, or not. Im also honestly bad at fighting games but like throwing out ideas.
One interesting comeback mechanic I've always thought of is the idea that you land a successful hit/combo and can cancel/end it with your comeback mechanic, in which whatever you hit the opponent with is used somehow to heal you. This would make it so you have to take a more active approach to your comeback (having to land a hit) while granting you the resource that the opponent currently has more of than you. I dunno just a thought.
I know this video is old but I would recommend taking a peek at DNF Duel's comeback mechanic known as Awakening. But the implementation is pretty interesting. It does the old "You gain access to a move" aka The Awakening special but there is also a passive you get when your in the state. This passive is unique per character and while some are just "More damage", others are more unique. Hitman gains an extra follow up move on any mana skill, Berzerker gains bonus life steal, Ranger gains showtime which on hit reduces foes mana gain, damage output and makes them take more damage, and so on for the rest of the cast. But there is an interesting catch to this system in that using the awakening special will take you out of that state, thus removing your passive. So misjudging your damage and leaving the opponent at low HP means you could eat a lost round. Also DNF duel did something right with awakening specials in that they are not invul at all. This isn't an extra magic DP get out of jail card, this move is tasked with doinga combo ender
Not only is he one of the only characters to have one, but his is also rather creative in that it buffs most of his kit and his hitboxes, but also removes his best combo extender, Grappling hook. In other words, you can kill more but you can't perform combos NEARLY as easily, and combined with the changed attributes of most of Joker's moves, his combos can get thrown for a loop entirely as balancing for Arsene's ludicrous buffs.
@@yetravellingsonc8372 taking away grappling hook isn't nearly enough, as grappling hook usually isn't his best move for extending combos anyways, i dont see that move too often at higher levels of play
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 I mean, we have Kazuya and Sephiroth as well with wild comeback mechanics. I don't remember if they were in Smash at the time of this video or your comment, but even then, you also had Terry, Cloud, Little Mac, Lucario and a few others. Joker's far from being the only one, but not everyone has a non-universal comeback mechanic (the universal ones being respawn platform and generic rage).
Lucarios aura in smash bros is a surprisingly deep comeback mechanism, other than damage it affects the size and launch rate of a variety of moves. For example lucario is more of a rushdown fighter with combos at low percentage, becoming a zoner when he gains aura
You know my favorite idea of a comeback mechanic is each character has a unique version of it like when a character dies he say something like I'll damn you from the grave and the he puts a signigicant debuff on your opponent or acharacter that gives her second super armour and invul but it has a timer and shes out and dies during it, or a character backstabs his secondary and gets a signigicant buff. It gives pros the ability to risk by losing a teamate at the cost of a stronger main, and gives noobs a chance to get back on the game, thos also insentivides vounterpivks and te building sinve a veback mechamic can counter another one loke the first and thord one i mentioned. It is unreleased and is on planning stages.
I think the Tekken tag aspect of having 2 rounds was a bad choice, typically in a versus from Capcom you have 1 round and if every character dies you win, if they made it so that pandora had a property in that format it would have been much more useful.
After watching the video and reading the comments I am more convinced than ever that blazblue centralfiction might actually the best fighting game ever made.
Nobody ever talks about resonance blaze from bbtag. It works great as a comeback mechanic and stops the timer. Its temporary, gets more powerful if you did well in the match, gives access to more damage without just handing it to you, and is risky to activate in close quarters. The biggest swing it gives in my opinion is that it locks the opponent out of bring able to burst combos. In that way it rewards skillful use of your solo character and can return the game to an even state when used effectively. Now on the opponents side they may be unable to burst but they still have access to assist and extended combos that you can't burst as you have no assist. Last thing, resonance blaze does restore red health, it stops when you get hit preventing it from being as powerful as sparking in dbfz.
I think that a cool change to Pandora might be instead of there being a timer to the buff, the buff only lasts as long as you maintain the added health from the sacrificed character. When you sacrifice your point character it adds that health as grey life or “purple life” for the theme I guess, and once it is depleted, you’re back to the original character without a buff
So you’d like it to be similar to heat in melty blood? It restores recoverable health, freezes the timer, and gives access to extra super when you activate
I know this is somewhat late, but I have a good comeback mechanic, Persona 4 Arena's Awakening. Get knocked down to below 30% health and you get an armor boost, 50 more meter (immediately gained to your amount and cap), and access to a new super (which might as well be a damage boost, but some characters don't get just damage boosts for their new supers I believe). This is an instant comeback mechanic that immediately activates and is entirely positive, how is it good? It's not strictly damage but also time [armor boost] and there are ways to circumvent it, because in order to activate it, you can't be in hit stun and the armor only activates once you enter it rather than instantly. This means that a smart opponent will leave you at a sliver above 30% and then try to deal as much damage they can in a combo before you enter awakening if not outright killing you, but then that means you are unlikely to reach awakening when fighting against a good enemy, yeah? Well, more mechanics of Persona 4 Arena come in to save it. First off, chip is a thing (and it doesn't kill due to the fact chip damage deals recoverable damage), second off there are ways to deal damage to yourself in this game outside of gimmick characters like Elizabeth. To use one's own reversal or cancel attacks into supers, you have to convert some of your HP into recoverable HP, which can count towards the 30%. Due to all reversals being different in the game, some characters have it easier than others for this (Chie spam her quick counter from far away while Ken Amada is better off just doing something else) but it's still an option.
While a lot of comeback mechanics are a move that leads to massive damage or something that gives a damage boost, in Killer Instinct that's generally not the case. Sure, you can activate Instinct to extend combos, but say you pop Instinct with Jago, as an example, it allows him to heal through successful connections with his fireballs. Generally, Instinct is used to enhance the character as opposed to giving away a flat damage boost or give them a big f'u move. Shadow Jago can drain his own instinct for a command grab where the more instinct he has the more damage he does. I primarily bring this all up because I feel as if it's a good way to implement a comeback mechanic. Give awesome characters a mechanic that will make them even more awesome, cranking it to 11.
I think it would be nice if Capcom released an improved version of this game for current consoles. They do it for all their other fighters, and SFxT had such a poor launch that negatively impacted it.
A 3 hit combo in SF2 is a come back mechanic.
1 hit if you are zangief
Then what is a 4 hit combo?
Stop liking.
@@terrellsjohnentertaimentvi3523 infinite
@@christoferprestipino7433 stun?
Or a win condition
Sacrificing a character to extend a match in a time out heavy game is already a mechanic in Rage of the Dragons for the NeoGeo. It makes those last few seconds super hype.
Yeah, that game was fire. You got extra meter and health, but no assist super or tag outs. Very well designed.
Gotta check that out!
Melty blood is another game where if you use heat (kind of like a burst with meter) the clock will be stopped while healing the red health but after the time you stopped is over you will have no meter
@@suffering1901And That's Assuming You are Using The Relevant Moon Style For It. Which Affects Both The System Mechanics Including Heat and The Moveset of the Characters ( A Mixture of Grooves and Variations ).
Came for comeback mechanics, stayed for SFxT discussion.
@TheoryFighter, I think everyone can agree that X-Factor for Marvel 3 was the dumbest comeback mechanic ever implemented. It's also the reason why people abandoned that game after a while. It's pointless, if they had never included that it just might have equaled or surpassed mvc2, but now we know.. =(
I ended up staring at those kaiju mammoths for the majority of the video...
@@battosaijenkins946 I think it kept the game alive. It allowed for way more character diversity and comebacks
One comeback mechanic that I enjoy is baroque in Tatsunoko versus Capcom. It lets you trade red health to immediately cancel whatever you're doing, get extra damage on hits depending on how much life is sacrificed, and make whiffed moves safe. Makes it much easier to whittle an opponent down after taking a beating, or try a risky but rewarding move to bait the opponent.
I feel like the best part is that comeback mechanic doesn't really feel like one.
Is it a comeback mechanic
OH MY GOD "Sacrifice your teamates health for more time on the clock" Fighterpedia lives. Woolie Matt you were right all along.
Fucking lol. Can’t believe you remember that, what a flashback.
Just lame it out like its X Tekken
Huh?
I can't believe that joke in the video has now become someone legit suggesting it.
First thing I thought of lmfao. They were ahead of their time
Comeback mechanics make sense in tag fighters and only tag fighters. When you lose a character in a tag fighter it's not the same as losing health, not being able to use the assist or DHC makes you lose a lot of potential damage, pressure, mix, set ups, etc. In a traditional fighting game like SF when Ryu loses health he can still use all his buttons and specials, he effectively loses nothing but a resource that is supposed to be lost. Health is just another resource you have to manage, as in "I can get hit this many times", you shouldn't get rewarded for using a resource poorly when you lose nothing else at all.
completely agree
I mean what SF5 did is perfectly fine.
Especially what we might have with the new V shift that's a huge change
@@The_WIll_OF_D99 The issue with sfv tempo is that everyone got a comeback attempt every round. It makes it a lot less special and hype.
@@SharntGroSabo not really probably to you but majority still find hype into it.
If that was not the case it would be more telling.
Look at SF4 for example it has the same shit
@@The_WIll_OF_D99 that is literally the most common complaint about high level V play. Everyone gets a big 70% comeback combo for getting hit so you’re not really rewarded for doing good early on. You’re honestly more rewarded for getting your ass kicked first in some instances because you get to keep momentum easier.
Pandora brings new meaning to the name "Street Fighter x Timeout"
Not sure what the ideal comeback mechanic is, but I also hope we can be done with the "flat damage boost on attacks" mode that most fighters have. Even if it's ultimately not a big boost that swings a lot of matches, when it does happen, it's all you can think about when a combo string or kill setup got you when it otherwise wouldn't have without that rage mechanic. If it were something that the losing player chooses to use, rather than just passive boosts, then it starts to feel more like it belongs among the game's other systems. In that regard, Pandora sounds pretty cool, even if the execution keeps it from really affecting the game. Maybe another thing it could have done is stop the current round from scrolling left or right, and keeping the fight contained within the current box dimensions. That way the opponent can't just run away.
Was not expecting such an interesting argument, gotta be honest. This is such a tired discussion and one that rarely leaves the most shallow stages. Great video.
The pandora animation is so epic, and i love the appearance of characters after its use
Love the video! I do think comeback mechanics are important for all competitive games (as controversial of a statement as that may be for the fighting game community).
When people say "comeback mechanic" it usually makes you think "making sure the losing player wins", but the real goal of the comeback mechanic should be to make sure the player with an early lead can't get lazy.
Getting that early lead should still be the more advantageous position. A well-balanced comeback mechanic should simply make it so that the early lead player has to play just as hard as they did to get in that position to keep that position.
While I'm speaking as an amateur designer, this is an example I'm all too experienced with after releasing a game with this problem, and am in the middle of working on a massive update to fix it: getting an early lead in a kart racing game without a good drafting mechanic lets the first person at the beginning of a round get extremely lazy, and at the highest level of play, the winner boils down to whoever can get lucky to get a head start in the first 20 seconds of the race.
While some players like that they can be rewarded so heavily for a play made at the very start of the round, it can feel downright hopeless to try to catch up to a player where your only hope is wishing they make a mistake, while the early lead player is simply on cruise control and defaulting to a basic & practiced game plan from Time Trial mode. That's why I think even for games with emphasis on skill-based gameplay, catchup mechanics can still be extremely important. After all, matches are the most fun to both play and watch when everyone involved is trying their hardest to win.
Replace "race" with "match", and "head start" with "life advantage", and you can see why some developers might want to try to implement comeback mechanics. Admittedly It's a lot easier to mess up in a fighting game though due to short matches and the 1v1 nature of the genre, so even minor tweaks can cause huge upsets in the game's balance at high level play. I totally agree that damage buffs/nerfs are not the way to go, since that dampens the impact of skills that fighting games normally reward you for getting good at. Stuff like gaining new abilities, or meter gained based on how behind you are, is more in the right direction because there's still the potential to out-play them.
I'm researching the concept of comeback mechanics in FGs and you have one of the best explanation of it.
Loved playing SFxT co-op online with a buddy. Wish more fighting games would offer that option
My cousin and I played the hell outta that. He'd zone with Sagat and I'd charge up Metsu Hadoukens for a bit then we'd go crush. At that time it was super buggy and didn't even have all the sound effects quite right, it was a mess but fun.
This is a thing in Melty Blood as well. Not often do we see timeouts but turning on HEAT will stop the timer while also allow you to heal red-damaged health (you cannot heal red-health otherwise).
Rip half moon mains
@@oinkoink1909 this comment might be 3 years old, but I am a H-Moon main and wanna speak my piece XD
Half moons STILL have a way to consciously activate heat through proper meter management. If you notice there is a huge gap in health and you are at high Meter you can purposefully chose to do meterbuild routes for your combos to guarantee Auto-heat.
This is also a pretty interesting way of going around it because its a fully skill based comeback mechanic. Where less experience players will just burn the meter even if it isnt that worth it in that situation, or hog it way too much when they dont need it which then leads to them losing the possibility of choosing when to Heat through metergain.
Honestly its impressive how well designed MBAACC is as a game, somehow squeezing 3 entire core gameplay systems into one and making them work and have very interesting interactions. Defenetively was a shame they took it away from Lumina, but I dont blame them, maintaining the fine balance between each system and then the balance of each character being x3'd by the different systems probably was too much for them to even try to tackle once again. And if I was working on a game (Ahem, I am) I wouldn't wanna deal with that shit either LMAO XD
I agree. Thinking back to Tekken6, I think the problem with Tekken7's rage is mostly when it triggers. The HP range where T7 rage happens makes it almost inevitable. While in T6, you would've feasibly and easily not given away rage.
Not to mention rage arts that have armour and deal good damage
10:40 this is why mario kart's items are such a successful mechanic compared to almost every fighting game, its a core mechanic that affects all players and gives interesting risk reward decisions. like seeking out an item box, or when to use an item. it also makes the game more interesting for the winning player, since they have to take similar risks in order to defend themselves from enemy items. both players are engaging with the same system but in different ways, and i think its not given enough credit by the gaming community.
what actually happens is people lump mario kart's items with fighting game comeback mechanics all the time, and the comparison is that "both are weighted towards the losing player in some way". however, if mario kart had the same philosophy as fighting game devs, then it'd be something more like "you get a speed boost if you're further behind the opponent".
i know rubberbanding exists, but imagine if that wasnt exclusive to the AI in older mario karts, and it ENTIRELY replaced items. thats what fighting game comeback mechanics are like. they dont add much to the game for the winning player, you either gain access to a super move or get a damage boost. its very uninteresting compared to mario karts items, which singlehandedly turn a barebones racer into an interesting game.
devs should look more into how they can create mechanics that create comebacks without just relying on "losing player should do more damage sometime!!"
I can already picture Grand Finals, one person has a decently large life lead and there's only 5 seconds left. The player who's losing scores a hit, activates Pandora, and makes the comeback for a super important win. My specific thought was the win resets the bracket but regardless it would definitely be a cool moment
I know this is a very old video and someone probably mentioned it already but the heat mechanic from melty blood is a perfect comeback mechanic in my opinion as instead of increasing your damage, it stops the timer and heals you, allowing you to pretty much time scam to get your bearings. But there's a clear downside to it, you stop healing if you're getting hit or you're blocking and once it runs out or the round ends with it still on all of your meter is gone which can be a huge detriment to trying to get the most out of it. So the opponent could just keep hitting you and stunt your healing so now not only do you not get your health back but you also lose all of your meter which I think is a good price to pay for mechanic that could easily be abused which enforces you to make it damb worth it. And this doesn't even cover the moon specific details of heat either, and if we did we'll be here all day.
When a comeback mechanic is good enough, it's just called a game mechanic.
I love how SFxTK plays but Pandora mode was such a weak mechanic that was only useful 5% of the time.
Get rid of the gems, change the launch mechanics and it would've been great
Game was so fun with friends but online those gems where a nightmare and besides, why you lose when you lost a character? Most stupid game design ever
I think the definition of comeback mechanics as "momentum stoppers rather than a win condition" is a useful one.
the best "anti time-out" comeback mechanic would consist of, the timer stopping, and it stopping until someone lands a hit or dies or something or other, and then making it more likely for the player in disadvantage to land a hit and do whatever they gotta do to win, so for smash they could gain extra speed and knockback so they can actually hit and kill the opponent, for street fighter their attacks could come out faster and have less lag, allowing to hit easier and hit harder with better combos
In Smash, you can't just increase the knockback, as some characters might end up suffering due to that increased knockback. If I remember right, some characters like Shiek actually kinda struggle with rage on, as the additional knockback makes their combos way less consistent, and thus ironically makes it harder to get a kill.
I'm someone who is vehemently opposed to comeback mechanics, especially ones that give purely mathematical benefits like X Factor and Limit Break. However, I do appreciate mechanics like Blazblue's Overdrive that gives new properties to moves and can fundamentally change how a character is played when they are activated. I'm not going to pretend that Overdrive isn't a comeback mechanic when you gain more time for it at lower health. However, unlike X Factor, it's balanced on a per character basis, meaning some characters are designed to take advantage of it moreso than others. It becomes more interesting as it is also tied to your Burst, and using one or the other affects how quickly you get it back. It adds this layer of decision making that can be match up and situation specific that makes it so much more interesting to me. And yes, I know I contradicted myself by giving Overdrive a pass, so it goes to show just how credible I am.
Nah, it just means your beef is more with feeling robbed, rather than clever resource use turning the tide.
I agree with your way of thinking. The overdrive mechanics leads to more options at the cost of health. It has benefits, but you still at a disadvantage in a lot of ways. Some games like street fighter 5 have huge design issues with v trigger in which some characters like the top gets more benefits, but low tiers doesn’t get much and usually still die. X factor killed umvc 3 for me since its just straight up rewards losing and stronger characters can abuse even level 1 x factor.
Blazblue CF comeback mechanic is pretty good. It gives each character something that helps their character. Stronger confirms, more mixup, mechanic and move effect/ frame changes, etc.
Lower HP makes it last longer, it's tied to your burst and it has a recharge requiremrnts so using it all the time isn't a great option in mid+ level play as you might get caught with no way out inbetween charges.
It’s interesting that players don’t complain about the opposite: what I call “win more” mechanics, such as dizzies or instant kills.
Ed Boon's frustration with dizzies in Street Fighter II inspired Mortal Kombat's fatality mechanic.
Same thing with combos they complain if devs puts a limit on them like mvci and doa6 but in team games they don't complain about 1 tods. In general I find most things the community asks for are one sided(leaning offensively) and if devs were to fulfill their request the overall game would suffer. Having say a 30 hit limit still allows for creative combos in fact the limit almost makes it to where people come up with signature combos but with tods as soon as they discover the most practical one why do anything different?
If you get your ass beat up for too long then you deserve the dizzie
Even tough is not exactly fair they are way more fun than comeback mechanics in my opinion
whats so wrong about dizzies and iks?
I legit think that SFV's best comeback mechanic is chip kills requiring a full meter. As technical as SFIV was, whenever one player got really low on health the game revolved around the winning player putting immense pressure for the chip kill while the defender tried to read or react to an opening and unload their meters for a comeback.
Take the match "Unnecessary roughness by Moons" for example. A match like that could NEVER have happened in SFIV because after Laura got her vortex going it was GG, but through an immense clutch and impeccable defense M Bison still had a fighting chance. The game didn't gave him the comeback, he earned it.
Ayy, thats awesome to see ssbu footage in an fgc video. Great video as usual!
Ironic how the clip featured Joker, a character with a notorious comeback mechanic.
SfxT could’ve been so great. The concept is amazing
All good suggestions,s so i will just say I think x factor is actually a great mechanic that had some unfortunate balance issues.
Phoenix/Vergil were problems, but I see those as balance failures NOT an issue with the mechanic itself. What I like about xfactor is that it's not a pure comeback mechanic and it isn't just an damage increase. The cancel and speedboost are serious, and in good meta's you'd see it popped just as often on the first hit of the match as the last character coming in.
Treating it like a normal comeback mechanic and expecting it to not be in every round is, i think, unfair. It's much more similar to an RC/Burst that gets better the less hp you have. You can pop it early to just erase the first character you touch, and you can pop it late to help you combat dealing with a character plus their assist.
It's not perfect at all, but I dislike how railed on it gets because two poor balance decisions (phoenix being WAY too good and way to hard to stop and vergil basically being the same thing)
Yeah I would liken X-Factor closer to something like an in match variant of TOP from Garou or Ratio setup in CvS 2. It's INTENDED to be used in every match, but when and how it's used is your choice based on what kind of player you are and what the matchup is, at least in theory.
In short, screw Vergil
Vergil x-factor is something that seems worse to spectators. But Vergil has to survive incoming in Marvel to get x-factor in the first place.
you know what game had very interesting comeback mechanic? psychic force 2012
on that game most attacks ate your psy bar, which is not terrible as it sounds since the game was mostly projectile based
the actual interesting thing was that the psy bar and the health bar were actually the same bar, it started half psy/half health and as you health went down you could fill more of the bar with psy instead.
so if you had a pixel of health left you could hold twice as much psy than what you started with.
im still waiting for the day someone finally do a online psychic force 2012 tourney
@Wilson Nascimento if you destroyed your own health you actually gained a damage bonus
I'm glad to see people talking about this game. I think it's really underrated due to how bad of a rap it got early on, but I think it turned into a great but overlooked fighter.
My favourite comeback mechanic in any video game is the way garbage works in guideline Tetris. The goal of the game is to fill your opponent's board so that they cannot place another piece, and usually the only way you can interact with your opponent is by sending them garbage lines that appear at the bottom of their board. This opens up the possibilities for crazy comebacks and back and fourths, since the closer you get to losing, the more potential for attack you have to work with.
Speaking of mechanics I would like to see again.
I liked the stryker system in the King of Fighters games during the NESTS saga.
KOF2001 had the best one imo
In KOF99, 2000 and 2001 you can select teams of 4 members.
KOF2001 is the only game where you can choose how many strykers you want for example
4 character, no stryker
3 characters, 1 stryker
2 characters, 2 strykers
1 character, 3 strykers
Here is the best most interesting part, depending of how many strykers you choose, the characters will make more or less damage.
Example
4 characters no stryker, you have more members to play sure but your characters make less damage and you can't make level 3 supers.
1 character 3 strykers, the only character makes a lot of damage, if you lose one round, you lose, but you can fill the Power Gauge very quickly and can make Level 3 Supers
Finally, you can call multiple strykers at the same time.
KOF2001's stryker system is the definition of high risk high reward.
I love that.
Stopping the timer in Melty Blood using Heat is something pretty neat that I'd like to see in other games.
Another fantastic video! Keep killing it man!
Thank you kindly!
I would like to see comeback mechanics offer more versatility such as resetting damage scaling, offering more meter or even slowly regaining health. That way players can choose which resource they need depending on the scenario & all characters are not forced to do have the same game plan
Persona 4 Arena's comeback mechanic is exactly what you're looking for. When you get to low enough health and aren't in hitstun, Awakening is activated which increases your defense (basically a different way of handling Guilty Gear's guts mechanic), gives you access to a new super, and increases your max amount of meter from 100 to 150 along with gaining 50 meter. It's a lot more interesting than just bigger damage or health regen, because that Awakening super and that 50 extra max meter allows for a ton of new, powerful options that the characters don't have otherwise. It's also balanced by the fact that you have to get out of hitstun for it to activate, meaning that the opponent is actually capable of killing you before you can go into Awakening.
@@The_MeevI feel like when he said you have to choose which resource he didn't mean all of them at once.
I enjoyed the heritage for the future at the beginning.
With the idea of comeback mechanics that gives you something other than just damage, there's a really interesting one that's not in a fighting game, but a shooter
in Splatoon, you build meter towards your special weapon (think Ultimates in Overwatch) by covering terrain with ink. Having terrain covered with ink of your team's color confers implicit map control, as you can only swim through ink of your own team's color - not an enemy team's ink or surfaces without ink on them - and you move slower while standing in ink of the opposing team's color, so if your team has more of the map inked, there's a good chance you're probably ahead, even in game types other than turf wars.
*However,* covering more terrain with ink gives you fewer opportunities to build meter, and conversely, if your team is behind in terms of map coverage, you have more opportunities to build meter. If you get literally painted into a corner, the game doesn't directly give you the means to get out, but it *does* quietly reward you for you geting yourself out.
Rather than a discrete mechanic to help you get the ball rolling on making a comeback, it's an emergent element of the game's systems that rewards you if you get the ball rolling yourself
Another solid vid,
What I would do in a game where timeouts are common like this is… I'd probably want a mechanic that perhaps slows or temporarily stops the clock, sure, and extra damage is just boring… but I'd want something _more_ than that. Something that allows new cancels or faster movement or, as another commenter suggested, shrinks the stage boundaries so you can always corner combo. Actually, that might be an interesting comeback mechanic: an on-hit activated ability that makes the opponent's edge of the screen a wall, but not your own, no matter which side of you the foe is on. With this, your opponent is _always_ in the corner, so they have nowhere to run and they're always vulnerable to your strongest combos… but if you still have the time, _you_ can play patiently if need be.
You don't get super meter for getting hit in ST.
Ah my bad I meant supers in early games in general but communicated it's terribly
@@TheoryFighter
I would love to see a video of you analyzing a Smash Bros mechanic and finding a way to incorporate it into a traditional fighting game setting.
Asura Buster ~ Eternal Warriors has a very unique comeback mechanic, called Last Stand
Once per match, when you lose a round, press all 3 attack buttons during the "K.O." sceen, and the screen will fade to white, and both players are taken to a new stage. The person who died has their lifebar replaced by a 10 second timer, and the opponent keeps the health they had at the end of thee round. Both players get infinite meter, and the match begins. If the person who activated Last Stand gets hit, they die. If they run out of time on their lifebar, they also die. It is the purest form of a salty runback I have ever seen, allowing you to undo your round losing mistake. Definitely provided several hype as shit tournament moments.
Great video! I hope future fighting games keep coming up with interesting new ways to help players start comebacks, instead of more damage boosts
kind of an odd pick, but dengeki bunko fighting climax ignition has a really neat momentum stopper - when you don't have the life lead, a light turns on next to your lifebar, and when this light is on, pushblocking no longer costs meter. when you get the life lead back, the light turns off, meaning the other person has access to free meterless pushblocking. it leads to matchups where the momentum is super dynamic
Great video! Definitely have to tune in for more!
xfactor discourages players from blowing xfactor as soon as they get the first hit to kill the first character, then the 2nd on the incoming mixup. this was the meta before people found anchors like vergil.
a time-out loss avoidance mechanic that requires you to RTSD to activate it? thats.... actually a really interesting idea, yah..... would it stop the clock indefinitely, like, forever, or would the timefreeze itself be on a timer?..... if i was gonna invent a wacky comeback mechanic for a game, it would be that when you're below 25% health and you press down, down + a button = your opponent's character no longer responds to the use of that button on your opponent's controller. you get to ban one of your opponent's normals/strength of special moves, for a round, so they have to finish you off without using it. and it would be a 4 button fighter like king of fighters LOL but the button ban mechanics activation would have a kinda-long vulnerable startup animation which your opponent could intterupt with an attack or throw or whatever.
The biggest problem is everyone ignores the actual issue these mechanics have to argue “yOu DoNt HaVe To UsE tHeM lEt NoObS hAvE sOmEtHiNg YoU eLiTiSt” and forget is these mechanics actually never benefit the least experienced player, but in fact benefit the more experienced one. Just like auto combos they don’t actually help even the playing field, because experienced players will exploit them with their knowledge of how they work while new players will get demolished quicker because they lack the understanding of this mechanic. X factor literally rewards you for knowing how to use it to prevent comebacks. How is this helping a new player if I’m using it to prevent them from having any chance of playing the game?
Try Aquapazza, the only anime crossover i would put my nuts on the fire for, the mood and support mechanics are underated.
i'm probably the only one who hopes maybe Dantarion will come back to mod this game, so this game would be fixed by other modders along the way
Not sure if SFxT has much of a modding scene, but I would play a version with this addition.
Personally, I'm a big fan of comeback mechanics that don't seem like comeback mechanics. For example, look at Overdrive in Blazblue. Technically, it is indeed a comeback mechanic, because the duration of Overdrive is directly related to how much health your character has remaining, 4 seconds at minimum, or 8 seconds at most. However, OD doesn't give you any specific flat damage bonus or anything like that. Instead, every character's is completely unique. Ragna's D moves and specials gain new properties on hit, and steal vastly more health than normal, Jin's C normals gain the ability to trigger the freeze state that is usually only reserved for certain D moves, Bullet immediately gains 1 level of Heat Up, and for the duration of her Overdrive, using her Engage special moves will not reduce her Heat Up levels as long as the move completes while OD is still active, Bang loses the ability to block, but in exchange gets an 8 way dash that he can cancel into from many normals for relentless offense and new combos, etc. In this way, some characters have ODs that define a matchup, while others aren't that useful in the longrun besides maybe allowing you to convert into a combo from specific situations, or to punish the opponent after a particular option. But it goes even deeper than that, because there's another comeback mechanic on top of OD: Burst. While you have your Overdrive stocked, you can instead choose to spend it to burst out of any combo. Bursts in BB are extremely powerful, as they're in general much harder to bait than in GG, and are so fast that you'll very rarely find combos which are totally burst safe. However, using your OD for burst comes with many drawbacks. Your OD stock takes significantly longer to recharge if you choose to burst than if you instead chose to overdrive, since the timer starts at 0 when you burst and 3 when you OD. But not only that, there's a cooldown before the timer starts after you spend burst, so it's even longer than that. Burst also locks you out of gaining Active Flow for the rest of the round. Active Flow is a state that triggers in the background of the game by doing what the game defines as "good things". Stuff like maintaining offense for a long time, blocking well, hitting with certain moves, etc. Active Flow gives you a 10% damage bonus, for a short while, but more importantly it *greatly* accelerates the cooldown of your OD gauge. You can even trigger Active Flow manually by ending OD early with a special new move, so that you can get your OD gauge back as quickly as possible. Burst denies you access to all of these things. But like I mentioned earlier, for some characters or certain matchups, your overdrive isn't really that important. Sure it has its moments, but saving your OD for a burst might in fact be much more important at times.
All this goes to say that comeback mechanics don't feel like comeback mechanics when there's a lot of different choices and nuances to how the mechanic can be used. BB allows you to use OD at any time, in a large variety of different ways, even though you get the MOST value out of it when you're losing by a lot. Thus, you very rarely feel like it ever steals a victory away from you, which is the main criticism with comeback mechanics. Giving you lots of different ways to avoid a losing situation in the first place inherently reduces the chances of your mechanic offering an "unearned win".
Comeback mechanics should always introduce new interesting options and decision making
10 second limit should've been replaced with life drain that get's paused by netting hits (on shield minimal drain slow, on hit max drain slow)
Surprised you didn’t bring up Bloody Roar and the Hyper Beast mode (which literally stops the clock lol)
I am super begginer in fighting games and love your videos. Thanks for do it
Really awesome video! Well explained and very interesting.
fully agree with u on your opinion with the comeback mechanic ..... i still love sfxt to this day
Playing Roboky with his self destruct install makes me onow that 10 seconds is really short for a buff
Check out Samurai Shodown V. It has a solid comeback mechanic and fights usually end in time outs. It's also a good fighting game.
The only thing I really wish to say, is about Tekken's Rage Artes. I'm perfectly fine with how they are currently, I just wish that when your rage art armor is getting hit there wasn't a damage reduction.
Ok, you got me with rage arte, I accept that, but, my attack that landed before you hit me shouldn't have reduced damage. It just confuses everything. I should easily know and be able to weight risk at a moments notice. If I know you want to use rage art, I shouldn't have to do quick math in my head to know if the attack I want to do will KO or not because I have to consider its damage minus the damage reduction.
I totally agree with you on the problem of comeback mechanics being too frequently used. In 90% of matches in SFV or Marvel, you're going to see V-Triggers and X-Factors and it kinda saps all of the excitement and drama of the mechanic, since usually there's few to little reasons not to use them. Pandora is on a whole other side of the scale, where it is seen practically never and rarely in situations that demand either player to make a risky choice.
For me, in spite of their many problems, Ultras from SFIV could be really exciting to see, because their presence is always on hand, but the players couldn't think of them constantly because in many matches there wouldn't be a good moment for an Ultra to be used.
I think the new Samsho has the best comeback mechanic in Issen. While it's a single attack that does tons of damage without high execution, it is kind of the ultimate risk for a potentially game-changing reward. The enemy doesn't have to think about it all the time, only at the moment of its activation. And even then, there's many ways to counter Issen. I think it's the most begginer-friendly mechanic in fighting games, at least in theory, whilst still allowing an experienced player to showcase their skill.
Oh, and it also stops the timer :]
Love when you talk about sfxtk. Game is so underrated.
Pretty sure the only way you can build ultra in sf4 is by taking damage, making v trigger less of a pure comeback mechanic than ultra despite being complained about way more.
You can absorb all attacks using focus and not take damage and still gain ultra!
@@DANCERcow Yeah I guess grey life isn't the same as normal life, but it's still risky since you're accumulating potential damage and it only takes one hit to lose it all, and it's only really viable to use against fireball heavy characters. Compare to the V system where you can use your v skills and crush counters to more actively gain meter and it's still far less a comeback mechanic.
Maybe a selectable comeback mechanic is a good idea. One that's blind picked after character select by a button press so your opponent doesn't know what you have until you use it. I agree with flat damage boost being hard to balance but it's a good option for new or casual players. More advanced players could go for the clock stopper, movement speed buff or whatever else.
Literally the stone system in MvCI
@@gamezilla345 Ha, never played it but that’s cool.
Probably the best example of a comeback mechanic that does something outside of giving you damage is Samurai Shodown's Rage Explosion. It acts as a burst on activation, pauses the clock while it's active and gives you access to a quick super. It can only be used once per set and the cost is that it completely consumes your rage bar meaning your damage will be slightly lower on average.
I don’t get the stigma against time
Outs, some of the most lit rounds end on time! The stress/tension when the clock is ticking down and the last choices are crucial. Its hype!
Fully agree
I don't either. In fact, the way I look at it, whoever wins from a time out, if the game is properly tuned for it, earned it from better decision making for an entire 60+ seconds than their opponent.
The problem lies in when it's too frequent. An match going down to the last few seconds in a game where time-outs almost never happen can be extremely hype, but when it happens almost every time, it gets lame.
Here from Qmanchu, amazing video
I like that spectators liking something can influence the player experience. Only fighting games have this magic to it.
How come? I would think that is actually an issue.
What do you mean?
Seems like you would like BlazBlue's comeback mechanic, since it also stops the timer
I think a big design difficulty to remember with how comeback mechanics are made is that they need to be accessible by new / casual players. Players to whom a hit confirm or complicated input might be too hard. That's often why so many of them are automatically activated, and not integrated more smoothly
I'll always love BlazBlue's current comeback mechanic: Overdrive. Sacrifices your Burst to enhance the Drive capabilities of your character (different with each), leading to normally impossible combos and big damage. It can be done at the start of the round but the time spent in Overdrive increases the less health you have upon activation and also freezes the clock to deny your opponent the time out if possible. It's also invincible on start up, can be combo'd into and enhances the strength and animations of Distortions (super moves).
im in love with your logo and your background music
love your videos
whoof... Pandora
what a rough "comeback" mechanic totally not worth popping it.
The best comeback mechanic I can think of is Bursts from GG.
Because fun fact if you didn't know: Burst gauge fills up faster the lower health you are.
It isn't an auto-win button, it isn't an instant tempo reversal, but instead a reset to a neutral playing field. Both characters passively generate Burst gauge over time, with you gaining more the lower health you are.
A.K.A. If you are low HP, you are rewarded for going "Oh shit, Im getting destroyed, need to focus up." and surviving while low. Giving you more chances to cover up any small mistakes you make.
It also has its weaknesses in that it can be baited by Burst-Safe combos, Grabbed out of startup, or if you get grabbed/raw super'd you cant burst out of it. So if you fuck up that bad, no comeback mechanic will save your ass.
It's a comeback mechanic that requires you to actually know the proper way to apply it, as opposed to "X-Factor go Brr!!"
In addition the fact that it can easily be built up and properly used by both sides in a match, means it is a comeback mechanic with equal usage, whereas again with the X-Factor example many matches only one side would use X-Factor, then reverse-sweep.
So with these in Mind IMO the most important aspects of a good comeback mechanic are:
1. Incentivizes playing better/tighter once you have it.
2. Has counterplay, so it must not be mindlessly used.
3. Can be used by both parties in a match.
With these in mind, I come to a similar conclusion as you with the Pandora changes, however with a couple differences.
1. Pause timer. Agreed. The mechanic putting you with 1 character inherently makes you have to play better to keep up properly in a team game.
2. 0 Frame startup and no recovery is a bad choice IMO. I believe it should either have an interruptible startup or SOME recovery frames, so it cant just be used whenever with no possible punish for bad use.
3. I do actually think a damage boost on Pandora is a good idea, even if I don't usually like Stat-stick mechanics.
4. Once one player has used pandora, the opponent should have the option of doing the same, though at a higher health threshold IMO. Make it a sort-of... game of chicken/gamble. If the opponent matches your pandora, its a one on one match, bringing you both to the same level of possible damage and utility. Or if they dont match it, you have a single stronger character that can more easily K.O. one of the opponents characters, ending the round.
I feel like the last two effects would have a similar impact to Ratio's from CvS. Almost like you sacrifice one low-HP character to increase your "Main" Characters Ratio mid-match. And the opponent gets the choice of following suit, or not.
Im also honestly bad at fighting games but like throwing out ideas.
One interesting comeback mechanic I've always thought of is the idea that you land a successful hit/combo and can cancel/end it with your comeback mechanic, in which whatever you hit the opponent with is used somehow to heal you. This would make it so you have to take a more active approach to your comeback (having to land a hit) while granting you the resource that the opponent currently has more of than you. I dunno just a thought.
Wait so, Pandora is supposed to be a comeback mechanic but it kills you if you don’t win in the next 10 seconds? Yiiiikes 😬
...So, basically, wall break in Guilty Gear Strive is a comeback mechanic that can make both players feel good at the same time.
I know this video is old but I would recommend taking a peek at DNF Duel's comeback mechanic known as Awakening. But the implementation is pretty interesting. It does the old "You gain access to a move" aka The Awakening special but there is also a passive you get when your in the state. This passive is unique per character and while some are just "More damage", others are more unique. Hitman gains an extra follow up move on any mana skill, Berzerker gains bonus life steal, Ranger gains showtime which on hit reduces foes mana gain, damage output and makes them take more damage, and so on for the rest of the cast. But there is an interesting catch to this system in that using the awakening special will take you out of that state, thus removing your passive. So misjudging your damage and leaving the opponent at low HP means you could eat a lost round.
Also DNF duel did something right with awakening specials in that they are not invul at all. This isn't an extra magic DP get out of jail card, this move is tasked with doinga combo ender
I find it ironic that you put a clip of Joker, a character who has a comeback mechanic that increases his damage, when talking about Smash.
Yeah but hes the only one who has it
Not only is he one of the only characters to have one, but his is also rather creative in that it buffs most of his kit and his hitboxes, but also removes his best combo extender, Grappling hook.
In other words, you can kill more but you can't perform combos NEARLY as easily, and combined with the changed attributes of most of Joker's moves, his combos can get thrown for a loop entirely as balancing for Arsene's ludicrous buffs.
@@yetravellingsonc8372 taking away grappling hook isn't nearly enough, as grappling hook usually isn't his best move for extending combos anyways, i dont see that move too often at higher levels of play
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 I mean, we have Kazuya and Sephiroth as well with wild comeback mechanics. I don't remember if they were in Smash at the time of this video or your comment, but even then, you also had Terry, Cloud, Little Mac, Lucario and a few others. Joker's far from being the only one, but not everyone has a non-universal comeback mechanic (the universal ones being respawn platform and generic rage).
Lucarios aura in smash bros is a surprisingly deep comeback mechanism, other than damage it affects the size and launch rate of a variety of moves. For example lucario is more of a rushdown fighter with combos at low percentage, becoming a zoner when he gains aura
You know my favorite idea of a comeback mechanic is each character has a unique version of it like when a character dies he say something like I'll damn you from the grave and the he puts a signigicant debuff on your opponent or acharacter that gives her second super armour and invul but it has a timer and shes out and dies during it, or a character backstabs his secondary and gets a signigicant buff. It gives pros the ability to risk by losing a teamate at the cost of a stronger main, and gives noobs a chance to get back on the game, thos also insentivides vounterpivks and te building sinve a veback mechamic can counter another one loke the first and thord one i mentioned. It is unreleased and is on planning stages.
I think the Tekken tag aspect of having 2 rounds was a bad choice, typically in a versus from Capcom you have 1 round and if every character dies you win, if they made it so that pandora had a property in that format it would have been much more useful.
Overdrive is the best comeback mechanic
This was a beautiful breakdown thank you
So... You want the State of Nothingness and Rage Burst from Samurai Shodown 5?
I would prefer a fighting game with a healthy amount of defensive options and big damage over shoehorning in some "comeback" mechanic
SFXT pandora needs to be moded into this
After watching the video and reading the comments I am more convinced than ever that blazblue centralfiction might actually the best fighting game ever made.
SfxT was one of my favorite fighting games, and I wish it were more popular lol.
Nobody ever talks about resonance blaze from bbtag. It works great as a comeback mechanic and stops the timer. Its temporary, gets more powerful if you did well in the match, gives access to more damage without just handing it to you, and is risky to activate in close quarters. The biggest swing it gives in my opinion is that it locks the opponent out of bring able to burst combos. In that way it rewards skillful use of your solo character and can return the game to an even state when used effectively. Now on the opponents side they may be unable to burst but they still have access to assist and extended combos that you can't burst as you have no assist. Last thing, resonance blaze does restore red health, it stops when you get hit preventing it from being as powerful as sparking in dbfz.
I would also pose an alternate that is a combo starter and places a wall for 10 seconds x distance from the activators facing direction.
Burst in guilty gear came to mind, I think it's a pretty solid mechanic
Technically the comeback mechanic in Guilty Gear is hellfire.
@@Tejan45 only in xrd tho
Bring something similar to SFxT; I cannot afford therapy anymore.
I think that a cool change to Pandora might be instead of there being a timer to the buff, the buff only lasts as long as you maintain the added health from the sacrificed character.
When you sacrifice your point character it adds that health as grey life or “purple life” for the theme I guess, and once it is depleted, you’re back to the original character without a buff
Wow, I was surprised to hear MrPeck brought up. 👍
SFxT content in 2021? Into my veins!
So you’d like it to be similar to heat in melty blood? It restores recoverable health, freezes the timer, and gives access to extra super when you activate
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I know this is somewhat late, but I have a good comeback mechanic, Persona 4 Arena's Awakening. Get knocked down to below 30% health and you get an armor boost, 50 more meter (immediately gained to your amount and cap), and access to a new super (which might as well be a damage boost, but some characters don't get just damage boosts for their new supers I believe). This is an instant comeback mechanic that immediately activates and is entirely positive, how is it good? It's not strictly damage but also time [armor boost] and there are ways to circumvent it, because in order to activate it, you can't be in hit stun and the armor only activates once you enter it rather than instantly.
This means that a smart opponent will leave you at a sliver above 30% and then try to deal as much damage they can in a combo before you enter awakening if not outright killing you, but then that means you are unlikely to reach awakening when fighting against a good enemy, yeah? Well, more mechanics of Persona 4 Arena come in to save it. First off, chip is a thing (and it doesn't kill due to the fact chip damage deals recoverable damage), second off there are ways to deal damage to yourself in this game outside of gimmick characters like Elizabeth. To use one's own reversal or cancel attacks into supers, you have to convert some of your HP into recoverable HP, which can count towards the 30%. Due to all reversals being different in the game, some characters have it easier than others for this (Chie spam her quick counter from far away while Ken Amada is better off just doing something else) but it's still an option.
While a lot of comeback mechanics are a move that leads to massive damage or something that gives a damage boost, in Killer Instinct that's generally not the case. Sure, you can activate Instinct to extend combos, but say you pop Instinct with Jago, as an example, it allows him to heal through successful connections with his fireballs. Generally, Instinct is used to enhance the character as opposed to giving away a flat damage boost or give them a big f'u move. Shadow Jago can drain his own instinct for a command grab where the more instinct he has the more damage he does. I primarily bring this all up because I feel as if it's a good way to implement a comeback mechanic. Give awesome characters a mechanic that will make them even more awesome, cranking it to 11.
I think it would be nice if Capcom released an improved version of this game for current consoles. They do it for all their other fighters, and SFxT had such a poor launch that negatively impacted it.