Remove the 10% chance to be hit

[Lunatic]

This one seems pretty self-explanatory: I saw that someone was about to shoot me, so I dodged. Instead of skillfully avoiding enemy bullets, I get hit by them anyways. This forces me to take damage that I shouldn't be taking due to flat random chance and dumb luck. Instead of rewarding the player for dodging appropriately, they eat damage they shouldn't be. Because of a random chance.

Punishing rolls and dives isn't THAT hard. With automatics, I'll catch the end of their dodges easily if I just keep spraying. With shotguns/magnum, I can wait and then shoot. Why have this random 10% chance to hit through dodges? Rolls only have one use - to avoid bullets - so to have this 10% chance (that's a lot) to completely NOT do what they're designed to do... I'm a little baffled, if not frustrated.

[Zyfex]

i like the 10% chance system

[Agera]

I guess it keeps things random and (not very) interesting. However, it seemed like not many people knew about when I used to play, so it did make for quite a few WTF moments in the chat. I don't really care, but it made sense when spamming dodges was super easy and no real metas were established. Now, it's just another thing that feels wrong with the game.

[Lunatic]

I wouldn't care if there was an established way to force hits through dives/rolls, because then you're setting up and skillfully executing a plan and the opponent is generally aware that the option is present. This just takes the skill out of it.

[KliPeH]

The whole game is about "dumb luck" though. The drops, the props, the crit chances. Removing "fun" elements such as these would only distance the game from what it is trying to be. While you can't say "holy shit, getting blasted off the map by a random magnum round that hit me while I was rolling is so fucking fun", again, SFD isn't trying to be balanced or "fair", it's trying to be entertaining. It mostly doesn't reward skillful play even where it is due (read: random M60 drop, spamming the attack button in melee, fire in most instances).

This is just the nature of the game; if we were to move it towards the competitive scene we'd have to have all crit chances removed (or introduce fixed ones), including the 10% roll one, have fixed spawns with fixed weapons spawning in them and massively improve the melee system (introducing new combos and special moves, removing various exploits, fixing all the bullshit stunlocks etc).

But we're NOWHERE near that, are we? Not even close. It would be nice to have all that, but the devs don't intend to go that way so why bother?

[Lunatic]

That's where there can be a new gamemode. We have "versus" and "custom", which is for scripting to allow for things like the deathmatch and domination modes people have made (which I expect will later be made more official).

Having a new mode called "competitive" or something of that nature would allow the current entertaining mode to be left in and thus retain the old spirit of SFD, but it would also throw a bone to players like me that prefer a little less luck and a little more skill. I'm not asking for something drastic, like fixed spawns (though progressively better spawns would be great, can explain that more later if someone's curious) but little things like removing this 10% chance would be a big start. Progressive weapon spawn changes, melee changes that I've previously talked about, and changing the way crits/knockdowns work would overall make a more skillful game. Making it a second gamemode leaves the old one intact and easily accessible, while also adding a new way to play the game. With the way we'll be getting server software, it's not like there will ever be a shortage of servers for these other gamemodes, either.

I should probably make a competitive thread now, huh.

[Zyfex]

i guess "competitive" means every single event is scripted to happen every time with flawless accuracy no matter what, huh

[Duck]

The idea with SFD is that winning isn't even a goal. Winning is the bi-product of needing the match to end. I think the luck of SFD also changes the dynamic of the gameplay. In competitive, if a beginner were to join they would be so totally destroyed every time; how would they progress? With luck in place it allows everyone to have fun whether they're skilled or not (at least in theory).

But that's where competitive mode comes into play, players who just started and want to have fun can just play the game. Those who are veterans and want to see all their hard work and skill be useful could play competitive mode.

I don't think competitive even has to be a "mode." Survival mode was a single map that executed the concept. Competitive could be a single map with many layouts and a different play style.

Competitive Mode Thread is needed...

[Hjarpe]

SFD will never be a competetive game, it's strictly fun for fun's sake. It's skill based and I think it has a very high skill ceiling, but randomness is the equalizer which lets even poor noobs win once in a while. It's an absolutely vital part of the game. Making a "competetive mode" would split the community in a big way, and that's the last thing we want.

The 10% hit chance is there for a reason. Without it, the meta would become very mechanical: Is he diving/rolling? No reason to shoot then, I know what will happen. Now there are at least SITUATIONS where you want to spray and pray, because one lucky bullet might save your life. Which to us is more interesting, more fun, and more "cinematic" in the best sense.

[[Failman]]

I'd like to say that not being rewarded for being skillful isn't true at all, and I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that being skillful isn't rewarding to most play. Most skilled player don't have trouble dealing with most situations since they know what's going before it happens hence more chance of them surviving, combing that with there added gaming experience from who knows how long there chances of survival are infinitely higher then the casual masses, but you all probably already know that so really how did anyone come to that conclusion?

I agree with Hjarpe the game needs some brownie points for the newbies.

[Duck]

SFD will never be a competitive game, it's strictly fun for fun's sake. It's skill based and I think it has a very high skill ceiling, but randomness is the equalizer which lets even poor noobs win once in a while. It's an absolutely vital part of the game. Making a "competitive mode" would split the community in a big way, and that's the last thing we want.

The 10% hit chance is there for a reason. Without it, the meta would become very mechanical: Is he diving/rolling? No reason to shoot then, I know what will happen. Now there are at least SITUATIONS where you want to spray and pray, because one lucky bullet might save your life. Which to us is more interesting, more fun, and more "cinematic" in the best sense.

I understand what you're saying about "splitting the community" and I totally understand why the game is the way that it is. It makes sense and it's fun. But I don't think that a competitive mode would be bad in any way. The community is already split; in the forums you have everyone who talks about more costumes and how fun their map is and etc. But then you have those like Lunatic who make seriously solid contributions to the game itself, the veterans who WANT to continue to test their skills and HAVE FUN testing those skills. Of course in-game you have the great divide as well, noobs can't join a "pro's" server anyway. Veteran players and noobs and everyone in between can't enjoy a game with the other side of the division. The high level players don't get a challenge and the low level players get fucked over and over.

If a competitive mode was implemented it would allow the gap in the community that is already here, to be filled. High level players could continue to be challenged and enjoy the game, low level players could actually learn and get better.

[KliPeH]

Off Topic

The community is already split;
[...]
Of course in-game you have the great divide as well, noobs can't join a "pro's" server anyway. Veteran players and noobs and everyone in between can't enjoy a game with the other side of the division. The high level players don't get a challenge and the low level players get fucked over and over.

I don't think this "divide" is that dominant in the game as you make it out to be. I'd say a greater divide is between the players who do know how to play, and the ones who don't - those who never bothered to change their name, or their skin, or play the tutorial for that matter. They go in-game blindly and somehow expect not to get completely annihilated by the players who have some experience playing the game for a short while already. As soon as they get destroyed they leave, never to be seen on the server again. I don't consider myself a "veteran", but I won't let a player who doesn't know how to pick up an item further delay my games

It's not about bad players not being allowed to play with good players. It's about you standing there, wasting my time trying to figure out how to pick up that grenade, which makes me lose my patience. Play the tutorial and come back, yeah? I also see the opposite happen - new/bad players hosting a game, having a good player join their game and ruin their fun, and kicking him out for simply being way too good for their liking.

I think this is where bots would come in handy - train yourself to get better and be more confident in your ability to face a tough opponent before you move into the PvP area of SFD. The ability to train alone, or even practice against bots together (remembering all the hours spent in Co-op with my friend playing the original SF) would be the thing that brings "pro" players and "noob" players together, resulting in a more homogeneous playerbase.

I agree with Hjarpe, luck DOES work both for good players and bad players alike, and what should (in-theory) allow them all to play together. I find it hard to believe someone would actually play Competitive mode if it was to be introduced, but wouldn't mind seeing it in either. I just see map creators and hosts move towards one direction, with their "fun" obstacle courses and flying platforms, and it is the exact opposite to where (in my opinion) a competitive scene would head. Whether it's the young playerbase who decides the nature of most maps or the "easygoing", light vibe SFD radiates, I can't imagine Competitive being too big of a success. Official modes like Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, Team Deathmatch, Zombies, on the other hand...

[Bash Kraken]

I've been thinking about a competitive SFD gamemode for a bit too, Lunatic. I'm all for it. I feel as though if Gurt and Hjarpe don't end up making a competitive mode, the community will at some point. In fact, I was thinking of trying to develop one myself. However, I don't have any real scripting knowledge, and I also feel that taking something like this upon myself would leave people dissatisfied. The creation of a community-made competitive gamemode would have to be just that: community driven.

Anyway if there was a competitive scene for SFD, it would not only allow for veteran players to get more enjoyment out of the game but also get quite a few new people to play the game who may have been turned off by the randomness of normal SFD. There will always be different types of players who like a game for different reasons, so why not embrace it?

[Duck]

Off Topic

The community is already split;
[...]
Of course in-game you have the great divide as well, noobs can't join a "pro's" server anyway. Veteran players and noobs and everyone in between can't enjoy a game with the other side of the division. The high level players don't get a challenge and the low level players get fucked over and over.

I don't think this "divide" is that dominant in the game as you make it out to be. I'd say a greater divide is between the players who do know how to play, and the ones who don't - those who never bothered to change their name, or their skin, or play the tutorial for that matter. They go in-game blindly and somehow expect not to get completely annihilated by the players who have some experience playing the game for a short while already. As soon as they get destroyed they leave, never to be seen on the server again. I don't consider myself a "veteran", but I won't let a player who doesn't know how to pick up an item further delay my games

It's not about bad players not being allowed to play with good players. It's about you standing there, wasting my time trying to figure out how to pick up that grenade, which makes me lose my patience. Play the tutorial and come back, yeah? I also see the opposite happen - new/bad players hosting a game, having a good player join their game and ruin their fun, and kicking him out for simply being way too good for their liking.

I think this is where bots would come in handy - train yourself to get better and be more confident in your ability to face a tough opponent before you move into the PvP area of SFD. The ability to train alone, or even practice against bots together (remembering all the hours spent in Co-op with my friend playing the original SF) would be the thing that brings "pro" players and "noob" players together, resulting in a more homogeneous playerbase.

I agree with Hjarpe, luck DOES work both for good players and bad players alike, and what should (in-theory) allow them all to play together. I find it hard to believe someone would actually play Competitive mode if it was to be introduced, but wouldn't mind seeing it in either. I just see map creators and hosts move towards one direction, with their "fun" obstacle courses and flying platforms, and it is the exact opposite to where (in my opinion) a competitive scene would head. Whether it's the young playerbase who decides the nature of most maps or the "easygoing", light vibe SFD radiates, I can't imagine Competitive being too big of a success. Official modes like Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, Team Deathmatch, Zombies, on the other hand...

How is it hard to believe that a competitive mode would be popular? Just look at a map like NF 3, it takes much of the randomness out of SFD gameplay, although it's far from perfect it's one of the most popular maps in the community.

People want to compete, they want to test themselves against their friends and anyone else. They want to show off their honed and trained skills. There is plenty of demand for this type of mode.

The post above this one also makes a great point. Instead of rejecting the concept why don't the devs just make a version that makes sense and is polished?

Accept It

[Lunatic]

Cool part about current SFD is that anyone can jump in and have fun. Fun isn't a bad thing to go for, and is what games originally wanted to be. I can respect that. In a game about fighting and killing, though, you can't expect a competitive scene to not crop up, or at least try to. The current version of the game is fun, but has too many luck-based elements to truly be competitive due to how random the game is in nature. Leaving the current game-mode alone and in-game is a good idea; having a secondary game mode that removes much of the random bits and pieces would allow both modes of play to survive.

I think I'm done trying to make a competitive scene, trying to get a competitive game out of this. This is a party game. This is playing smash bros with items on. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's random and luck-based. Nothing wrong with having fun, but that's all this is, and considering the ideas I have are shot down or disregarded, I won't be trying to submit competitive-based ideas any more. Have fun, everyone.

[Gurt]

You're welcome to submit ideas / suggestions but we don't indent SFD to be Call of Duty or Counter Strike in 2D. SFD is random in nature to mix and spice things up and we will keep it like that as that's where we want to go. We don't want to remove the randomness (weapon-spread, weapon-drops, level layout, spawn positions, crit chances, hit chance when dodging, etc...) to make a CoD/CS in 2D and have another mode being the core SFD game as we intend it to be. To quote Hjarpe: "Making a 'competetive mode' would split the community in a big way, and that's the last thing we want.".

[Lunatic]

And that's where we have different mentalities; when I look at this game and the direction I'd like to see, I'd rather move it towards Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, while you're moving it towards CoD and CS. This is a shooter, plain and simple to you, and while it could be a wonderful blend of those two genres, it's obvious that it keeps getting moved towards the shooter genre, one that is quite abundant as-is. This game is great in that it is very different than those games, and is indeed it's own unique game. I respect that, I respect your decision as devs and what you want/plan to do with the game, but the ideas and thoughts I have would make this game more balanced and varied (melee overhauls being the best example) which is quite obviously not what you're going for.

As a competitive gamer, I saw a massive amount of potential in this game long ago. It was fast-paced, the balance between guns and melee was 50/50 (fair and balanced!) and the controls were tight. Things have gotten slower, melee is less powerful, and guns are still as great as ever. Melee isn't supposed to be perfect and great, guns are supposed to win most of the time, and that's the way this shooter is meant to be played. Guess I'm just bugged I saw this game with limitless potential go in a direction that I view as detrimental to a competitive scene - something that you also don't want, which is really sad to hear. With minor tweaks, the melee would balance out nicely and allow a beautifully dynamic fighting game with amazing cover-based gunplay. That's the potential I saw.

So yeah, I could keep submitting suggestions, but they're all going to be akin to melee improvements or actual game balance (looking at you, sniper rifle). You're welcome to turn me down, as you are the dev, this is your game, and I respect that. I just don't think a competitive mode would split the community in a negative way at all. There's a huge number of players that play smash bros, and there are two very different communities that play it - one very hardcore competitive scene, and then the casual players who enjoy the random stages and items. The game easily caters to both communities without compromising either one much, if at all.

[Gurt]

We surely see the old versions differently and the current version. I still will argue that the melee was broken in many ways in older versions. Not until recently versions I'm happy with the melee as it can't be abused to neglect incoming damage or inflict too much damage in short time anymore. The gunplay has also had its own "nerfs" over the time but not as noticeable as melee if compared to very old versions.

Comparing SFD to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat (pure melee brawlers) is not what we're trying to be either. SFD doesn't have the amount of move-set for a really varied melee brawling experience like those games (and neither will be). The balance between guns and melee doesn't have to be 50/50 and we're not trying to aim for that goal either. There's too many factors involved to even make that work, distance to run, covers to use, weapons to counter, melee weapons to be used, rolling/diving still got that 10 % hit chance, level design, random layout and probably more I'm not thinking of now.

With that said your melee overhaul topic was not in vain. After reading that and other replies Hjarpe and I came up with a design we both can agree upon related to a new melee move which we will mention in the future. We also have the planned feature to throw items so melee in our vision will get some new tools to work with. If we had endless of time we could tinker and replace one melee system with the next to see which one fit. Sadly, we're only human. It might not be what you imagined and even step further away from your vision of what SFD can be. But sharing ideas can give birth to other ideas or solve other problems. But we hope you will like it when that info/update comes.

[Lunatic]

Honestly, promising changes in relation to issues I foresee, or at least showing me where I was wrong, goes very far in terms of my outlook. Before reading that: negative outlook; now, positive outlook. I don't need exact explanations or the idea itself, just news that there are changes.

Older versions had it's own melee issues, I won't deny it, but the very few melee issues we have today are much worse than the pile of issues old melee had. Today, you can completely stunlock someone (nearly to death from full health depending on stamina) if you walldive someone and do falling attacks only. You can dive into someone and then hit them with an instant jump attack, and considering tackles are still rather tough to beat, this is very abusable, mainly because it's the game's easiest kill-confirm. I still think the fast-paced gameplay and the way everything blended together made 1.2.1 specifically the most balanced version, even if it was lacking a handful of essential elements we have today. Perhaps I'll go further in-depth on this on at a later date.

Comparing SFD to pure melee brawlers is what I would hope for in melee combat, but I don't want that large of a moveset, nor do I want gunplay invalidated or removed. SFD is special in the way the game works from start to finish in terms of the way it's played. Mixing in a few elements from traditional fighting games would be a strong benefit to melee combat, in my opinion, and round out the entire system. Still, I'm interested in seeing what direction this game will take, and that's why I stick around. I've been here for years, I couldn't imagine leaving, even if things displease me competitively. I'd like to make sure it's clear I have fun on a more casual level, but that level always leaves me craving a more competitive spirit.

[KliPeH]

[...]
Not until recently versions I'm happy with the melee as it can't be abused to neglect incoming damage or inflict too much damage in short time anymore.
[...]

While I'm not expecting any new combos or movesets to be added, I do want the melee system to stop being so clunky and broken at times. It's full of exploits people use either to stunlock their opponent completely or unfairly deal hits whose damage can't be avoided if you happen to be in their range. If you intend to have these effects fully used to their extent either create new moves for them, or start officially teaching people how to use them in combat inside your tutorials. Otherwise remove/nerf the following:

• The ability to instantly slam an opponent after you dive at them and cancel your roll.
• The ability to stunlock an opponent because going off an object/platform removes slam/kick cooldown.
• The ability to combo walldiving and slamming so fast the opponent can't react until you deplete your stamina.
• I don't see why equipping a weapon takes a second or two but sheathing any weapon away and switching to fists is instant.
• Diving fighter's hitbox being so large stopping dives doesn't require your punch to connect with the opponent's sprite.

I don't think the pacing of the system is wrong, or it being "too slow". Obviously I haven't played the 1.2.1 version so I'm not the one to talk, but I think i'm allowed to point out flaws in the current system. It saddens me to see how people resort to using exploits such as these to win their games. Of course you'd do anything to win a game, that's the goal after all, and i'm no different, but you'd also use an instagibbing automatic weapon if it was introduced - which doesn't mean it is balanced solely on that basis. I'd rather see official moves fill the exploits' place (since things such as slam/kick cooldown bypassing clearly wasn't meant to be, otherwise they wouldn't be introduced in the first place).