General gaming questions that aren't thread worthy

[kryss]

*Leopold

[Neon Ignition]

Why are developers still mostly so incapable of making final bosses in fighters that aren't cheap?

[Asura]

Why are developers still mostly so incapable of making final bosses in fighters that aren't cheap?

Mainly because they put so little time into AI, so the only way to up the difficulty is to make final bosses that effectively cheat, either by genuinely cheating or by just having the best of everything and few obvious weaknesses.

A question arises here; what do people feel makes a fighting game final boss "good"?

[Neon Ignition]

For me it's pretty much down to just visual design and the way the game stages the fight.

Given in most games the boss is a playable character they should be just as balanced as any other fighter, throwing lazy stuff in like tons of teleport/projectile/moves from other fighters just makes them feel broken and cheap. Coupled with when they are cheap.

Most games though you can almost guarantee they're the worst visual design too

[Asura]

Given in most games the boss is a playable character they should be just as balanced as any other fighter, throwing lazy stuff in like tons of teleport/projectile/moves from other fighters just makes them feel broken and cheap. Coupled with when they are cheap.

That's interesting, because one of my favourite fighting game bosses is God Rugal from Capcom vs SNK2, and he is the very definition of broken.

[QualityChimp]

I can't think of any amazing boss fights off the top of my head, strangely enough.

I quite like Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja where you fight all the previous bosses.
I had to search what the actual final boss was and it's some kabuki dude on a helicopter.
This is out on Switch now in America, but it's $9.99. I love the game, but ten bucks? Sheesh!

[Cassius_Smoke]

Cyber Akuma in Marvel vs Capcom seemed good. He was just a tougher faster version though really.

[Asura]

Cyber Akuma in Marvel vs Capcom seemed good. He was just a tougher faster version though really.

Oh man, on the PS1 version of Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter he was like a force of nature.

It was due to a weird quirk. In the Vs games on PS1 (X-Men vs, MSH vs and Marvel vs) you didn't have a team of 2 characters; you just had the 1 character and a partner who could, at times, jump onscreen for individual moves. This was balanced out because the opponent had the same restriction.

However, when you fought Cyber-Akuma, he was designed in the arcade version to fight both your characters on his own. You can probably already see the problem.

As a result, he was incredibly difficult to beat. I remember once it took me an entire day of retrying.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I take it back, he was absolutely crushing when I think about it.

[Goemon]

Fighting game AI is completely broken.
All it's doing is input reading and producing a response. Difficulty is determined by how it reacts to what it reads.

I've been playing Street Fighter Turbo on the SNES mini recently and the AI is hilarious.

Playing level 7 difficulty - Every time I press a punch I get counter hit, if I press nothing I get thrown and if I do something invincible it gets blocked

The only way to play is basically put it in situations it can't deal with e.g. make it jump over a fireball or doing something deliberate to make it open itself up e.g. do a light DP in front of Guile to make him instantly flash kick.

I can't believe I never really spotted it back in the day or maybe I was just more accepting because multi-player was harder to come by. Either way its difficult to get any satisfaction from playing fighting game AI these days.

[Asura]

I can't believe I never really spotted it back in the day or maybe I was just more accepting because multi-player was harder to come by. Either way its find it difficult to get any satisfaction from paying fighting game AI these days.

Yeah; I remember Soul Calibur 1, especially - it was very obvious when you played it for a while that the computer reacts to your inputs on the pad, not the movements of your character (or some approximation).

The best fighting game AI I can remember is Virtua Fighter 4. I played the learning mode a great deal, and I used to main Lau - one of my friends later played against the AI and he swore that it played like me.

[Goemon]

Yea, I played right through the progression mode of VF4 Evo and don’t ever remember feeling frustrated with the AI at any point.

Still, I was playing VF2 on the Saturn last week and was laughing within a few mins! I got to fight 5, which is Jeffery and I watched the AI react to my standing kick by ducking for a split second and instantly grabbing me while I was still in recovery. Like literally within 1/2 a second.

I’m pretty sure the grab he did can only be done on crouching opponents too!

What I find interesting, if you can call it that, is that I think the shonky AI can be a large contributing factor on if someone will actually ultimately get into the game.

I personally never liked VF, because 99% of the time with the early versions the only opponent I had was the AI and dying by the 3rd/4th character I was like “no, I don’t like this game”

I didn’t actually get into it until VF4 when there was a group of people I knew all playing it together. Playing human opponents made it much more back and forth where I was going away, learning things, and getting better.

Arcade modes of fighting games are literally just a cheap coin guzzling mode with no intention of ever getting you to learn anything, and I understand why a lot of people are put off and can’t get into them.

It’s a shame because once you can get into a fighting game they can be some of the most rewarding.

[_SD_]

SNK Boss Syndrome. Rugal, Geese, Shin Akuma etc....

[Asura]

I personally never liked VF, because 99% of the time with the early versions the only opponent I had was the AI and dying by the 3rd/4th character I was like “no, I don’t like this game”

I think one of VF's problems in this regard was that it always had the same route of characters (IIRC the Saturn version went Jacky > Sarah > Jeffry > Kage > Pai > Wolf > Lau > Akira > Dural). With the difficulty rising with each stage, this meant you never got to play against a difficult Jacky, or an easy Akira.

[Zen Monkey]

Are Kirby games for kids? I picked up Kirby Star Allies on Switch yesterday, my first Kirby game no less, turned it off after half an hour and straight on eBay with it. Felt like a game for toddlers. Hated it.