TFR Guidelines [READ]

[Tellis]

So I guess I should ask those clarifying questions here...

From what I gather there's pretty much four types of moves:

Basic moves: Self explanatory, just the standard two buttons and directions, punches and kicks, whatever

Special moves: This is stuff like your hadoukens (fireballs) and shoryukens (uppercuts) and atomic busters (really powerful grab moves). Generally in most fighting games these almost NEVER spend meter so you can use them all the time, and are simply "special" since they require a specific input beyond just "button + direction". They aren't finishers and usually aren't even that flashy, they're just part of your moveset/options.

GOGNIO moves: Now from what I can tell, these are basically what most fighting game people call either "super moves" or "desperation moves". Street Fighter 3 calls them Super Arts, Marvel vs Capcom calls them Hyper Combos,Soul Calibur V calls them Critical Edges, Guilty Gear calls them Overdrive Attacks, Street Fighter IV has two variations that use different meters, both Super and Ultra Combos... you get the picture I think. All of these examples cost meter, which, in TFR's case is the GOGNIO meter... thus GOGNIO moves! I am assuming we are planning to have the meter fill like most games, which is that it goes up with every hit dealt and received, usually rewarding more for giving damage over receiving damage (because why reward sucking, amirite?). GOGNIOs (and all super moves) are usually flashy, over the top attacks that could be anything from an automated giant string of normal attacks (King of Fighters has a lot of this, for example) or a more powerful version of a special move (think Shinku Hadoken compared to a normal Hadoken) or temporary invincibility or the ability to recover your health bar (Athena from KoF has this, for example) or even a transformation to a more powerful form for a limited time (think Giga Bowser or the werewolf guy from BlazBlue).

The purpose of these moves can be to further solidify a win, to increase your options, or to change momentum to your favor. They can be seen as a way to earn a victory from what would otherwise be defeat (thus the name "desperation moves"), however, an inexperienced player shouldn't be able to rely solely on these moves and win consistently against more experienced players. Which is why super moves often come with their own dangers. Obviously spending your best moves willy nilly is bad due to it wasting meter, but super moves also tend to leave you wide open if you miss with an initial hit, either due to the lengthy animation of the attack itself, or a cooldown period after the animation finishes. Or in the case of, say, Athena's healing super, she can easily be knocked out of the animation from any hit, stopping the healing (effectively wasting meter too) and leaving her wide open for a counterattack. Transformations are the odd ones out here because they don't "hit" like a normal super but the tradeoff is that the player must know how to use the transformation effectively instead of following a "fire and forget" mentality. But I think that's the general idea we've got so far for GOGNIO as well? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Spritalities: So obviously they're named after Mortal Kombat's Fatalities, which were set up like this: after a player wins their second round, the opponent stands up, dazed, while the words "Finish him/her" appear. From there you can either just hit them once, they fall over and the round is over, or you can enter a special input which does your Fatality, a gruesome, over the top finisher that kills the opponent (ripping out their spine, freezing them and shattering them, etc etc).

However, I don't think we should do that. Because I think Fatality mechanics are hella boring. Instead I think we should model them after the Instant Kill moves found in Aksys' fighting games, like Guilty Gear, Blazblue and Persona 4 Arena. Basically instead of flashy showboating AFTER the match is decided, it's basically more of a humiliation through ending the fight in a flashy showboating way. Now, all three of the games I mentioned do it different ways. Guilty Gear's can be used any time, and is activated by pressing all four buttons (which has your character do a really obvious "hey I'm going into Instant Kill mode" animation) and then you do the input for the attack itself (it's the same for most characters) and if it hits, bam, you won the round. However, if you miss the attack, you lose your whole meterfor the rest of the match. Blazblue's IKs only work if it's the match point and the opponent is at 20% health or below and you have a full meter. Persona 4 Arena's has similar requirements (match point) but YOU must be at low health, not the opponent (making it much more of "comeback" move than a way of rubbing it in your opponent's face). Basically what I propose is to keep the name Spritality but change it so it works more similarly to an Instant Kill system instead. I think most of the current character Spritalities could easily work this way anyway (though some may need a bit of tweaking/extra animation).


Um, so I guess my main question is, how are we formatting the GOGNIO bar itself? Some games have just the one bar while others have multiple levels you can rack up (with certain specials spending multiple levels, certain common techniques spending parts of meter etc.)

From what most people have been saying it's a single bar but I think we should agree on how it should be set up. However, a lot of Capcom fighting games like to have multiple meters so you can build them up over the course of a match (Marvel vs Capcom 3 has you with a total of 5 bars) instead of constantly managing one bar. However, these mechanics usually belong to games based around tag teams, where there's a lot of meter spending between a group of character. I think a single bar is the most simplistic way of planning it out, especially if GOGNIO moves are the only thing that will spend it, but I think it's mostly a matter of personal taste. So what do you guys think?


... also sorry that this turned into a giant essay, I got a bit carried away while I was bored waiting for class to start. I just wanted to be super detailed so nothing was misunderstood. I hope all of my assumptions are correct! If any of you take the time to read that I thank you wholeheartedly. And thanks for any comments, suggestions or clarifying responses!