The Fighter's Resource [Program] (Updated 4/26/17)

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

Perhaps if there were audio or video cues for performing throws or specials? I'm starting to understand the timing for the specials, but I still think it's very sensitive to input.

I quite like Chaoxys as a character, he's a good addition to the roster. The arcade mode is a bit of a survival mode, but it makes for tough practice with him.
I've played with Ocks, and... he got his ass handed pretty badly by Vipershark, Chris2balls and Metaru. Not sure if they're overpowered or if Baegal's nerfed. I have the impression he's a lot slower than them.
Gors is pretty balanced! The moves can be sequenced pretty smoothly, I absolutely love the spinning hammerhead attack.
Vipershark's good. However, it may be due to me having clumsy fat fingers or lacking experience, but I can't pull off specials as fast and as consecutively as the CPU does it when plays Vipershark (volleys of magazines and several Konataghost fireballs in a row), which was quite frustrating.
Robo is one of my favourites, despite his head boomerang being quite handicapping and not always very effective.

[Kosheh]

Vipershark's good. However, it may be due to me having clumsy fat fingers or lacking experience, but I can't pull off specials as fast and as consecutively as the CPU does it when plays Vipershark (volleys of magazines and several Konataghost fireballs in a row), which was quite frustrating.

I don't think the move lag for most of the attacks are programmed in, which results in volleys of magazines and Konataghost fireball wars being input by the CPU. It's not you - the CPU has godlike reflexes atm.

I notice some wonky physics though with Vipershark's elbow drop though. I understand the the point of it is to send Vipershark immediately sailing downwards after using it (like a real elbow drop) so as a result it's possible to piano out forward/back jumps and immediately hit P, wonk out the physics and have Vipershark bounce around the stage like a bouncy ball.

I'd treat it like Zangief's body splash in SF - no physics tomfoolery, huge hitbox (for cross-ups!) but really lousy attack priority



I noticed Ock has HUGE startup times on his attacks and they're extremely slow. I think that's the issue, Chris - tweaking damage/priority should change things like that.

[TomGuycott]

I did change Ocks physics on some attacks before releasing this build, but he's far from finished. There are SOME moves that will retain lag, like the Forward Punch. Usually the only attacks that are almost fast enough are the neutral Punch and Kick combos, the Youth Roll and the trumpet.

The physics of Vipershark's (and probably [robo9]'s since they work so similarly) air punch is fairly wonky at the moment. However, I believe the solution is to make an alternate standard Air Punch that doesn't alter the jump much, and making the current version a Down Air Punch like C2B's dropping baguette punch or the spinning hammer I implemented for Gilbert. The requirement of pressing down prevents it from being activated too early and making it such a hoppy move.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I realise that a lot of this is WIP, but I'm not sure what has been worked on, what is being worked on and what will be worked on, so I'm just taking notes on what I can observe so far, and hope it helps.

I don't think the move lag for most of the attacks are programmed in, which results in volleys of magazines and Konataghost fireball wars being input by the CPU. It's not you - the CPU has godlike reflexes atm.

Sure, I'm comparing the player to the CPU, but I liked the way the CPU used those specials. Anyway, it'll be fixed with some tweaking, yeah!

I noticed Ock has HUGE startup times on his attacks and they're extremely slow. I think that's the issue, Chris - tweaking damage/priority should change things like that.

The startup time is the issue I wanted to point out, mhh.

I did change Ocks physics on some attacks before releasing this build, but he's far from finished. There are SOME moves that will retain lag, like the Forward Punch. Usually the only attacks that are almost fast enough are the neutral Punch and Kick combos, the Youth Roll and the trumpet.

The physics of Vipershark's (and probably [robo9]'s since they work so similarly) air punch is fairly wonky at the moment. However, I believe the solution is to make an alternate standard Air Punch that doesn't alter the jump much, and making the current version a Down Air Punch like C2B's dropping baguette punch or the spinning hammer I implemented for Gilbert. The requirement of pressing down prevents it from being activated too early and making it such a hoppy move.

Okay! The forward punch is pretty powerful so that's understandable. I was concerned about the speed because Ocks is described as a fast and lightweight character, with weak attacks.

I like that idea of having a down air punch for robo and viper!


Keep up the good work, I'll play a bit more and let you know about anything else!

[NICKtendo DS]

Things I forgot to mention:
The foreground railing of The Space Ring shouldn't go up faster than the camera (moving up while the other layers go down). It should go down slower than the other layers, including the players. It looks weird ATM.
Other than that, I love how that stage and especially Planet Xero turned out. Can't wait to see how Icicle turns out

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I think I figured out something I felt would be worth implementing in the game:

Buffering Attacks
Buffering basically means storing button presses. It goes a long way in making a game feel responsive. A good example of buffering is God of War. When you press attack Kratos does his first move. Pressing attack again at an early part of his animation will buffer the next move and he'll execute it when his first attack ends. Without a buffer system in the same scenario, most people would be frustrated if they pushed attack and then nothing happened because they didn't press it at the exact right time. In a good control system, this doesn't only apply to attack chains, you can buffer a jump after a roll for example. Some games allow you to buffer whole attack strings (I think Soul Caliber does this?) so if you press attack 4x you'll get the 4 hits in the chain, but I think most games only buffer one move.
In Tutorial Fighter, when you press attack, you're just setting the variable buffer=1. When buffer=1 that means an attack is queued up and it will play when possible. Here's some pseudo code to show whats happening on a basic level:

Code:

Code: Select all
    Press "A"
      set buffer=1

    if buffer=1
      if no attack is playing
          play attack 1
          set buffer=0
      if attack 1 is playing
          play attack 2
          set buffer=0
      if attack 2 is playing
          play attack 3
          set buffer=0

The attackTimer comes into play with buffering. When you press attack, the attackTimer is set to a certain time, then counts down to 0 using timedelta. You can only go into the next attack while the attackTimer is greater than

UberLou's Fighter Tutorial

You probably had to do this to make the specials work, but I was thinking of how you could use this technique on a more general level.

I'm also programming a little key input engine in GM, like you find in practice modes in fighting games.

[TomGuycott]

Don't know exactly how to implement that, but if I can I will. The only way I can think of will require a lot of work (essentially going to each individual attack, adding a specific thing, repeating for every single attack it can be buffered to, etc), and even then I don't know exactly how to get it to work. We'll see, though.

[TheShyGuy]

Tom, what kind of programming constructs (I think that's the word?) do you have access to? Can you create a List/array/cache/container like objects? I think that's the minimal you'd need before things get really tedious.

I imagine that you'd have 2 time windows. One is an Input stringing window. It's a very small window, maybe a few frames long. If a new key is pressed and "windowTime > 0", the new input gets strung onto the current Input string. If a new key is pressed and "windowTime <= 0", then a new Input string starts altogether.

The next window is for the lifetime of a Input string. When that window < 0, the current Input string is invalid/removed/dead.

I'm unsure how fighting game input buffering works, but at this point, you have a buffer of Input strings. You can go through each input string and cache the Moves that can be created from that string (multiple moves (subMoves) can come from a single input string -- however, "consuming"/executing a sub/move consumes the entire input string that the submove came from). At this time, you have a buffer of Moves. You probably want to check a Move's subMoves from the longest to shortest to decide what move to do.

I hope that stuff made sense and is helpful

[LunchPolice]

So I tried out the demo today. There's definitely potential for a very fun game here but there's something a little off with the basic game feel. I believe that something is the speed at which characters move through the air. I think if jumps didn't ascend and descend as quickly as they do now the game would feel a lot less janky. The fact that many stages don't seem to scroll vertically very well doesn't help either but I'm sure that can be ironed out in time.

Otherwise I'm liking the game so far! The zoning characters are definitely my favourites.
(oh yeah, also the character select screen is super weird. what's up with that?)

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I don't know if this is accidental or not, but jumping, pressing down+punch will make C2B do a duck punch in the air, which brakes his fall and allows him to reach further. I think this is a great addition to the moveset and hope it doesn't get taken away!

[Korby]

I apologize for the bump, but I hadn't seen it mentioned here.
Ocks has an incredibly simple infinite combo by juggling people with his ducking kick, as demonstrated here:

from TFR's 0.4 Build.

[TomGuycott]

Thanks for the mention. I've already implemented something to prevent that, it's a shorter pop-up once the enemy is in the air. That way he can't keep bouncing them forever.

[TomGuycott]

Two days after the one year anniversary of my last post on the subject, I'm posting an update!

Still working on a movelist, I'm hoping to do more frequent updates to the engine because as you'll notice, the file size is significantly less. This is because I'm using random placeholder Midis instead of our original soundtrack just for the purpose of making the download updates easier. I'll include our original music in more final versions of the game.

Download link (Also in original post).

Quick note: some moves have changed inputs, but for the most part are still quarter circles forward or back plus a button, and for supers and spritalities they are usually quarter or half circles back, then push forward and attack.

The aforementioned input for supers works for both C2B and Chaoxs, who I believe had incomplete ones in the last update. Also, Meta's Heracross special is now quartercircle back-forward punch instead of two quartercircles forward.


I plan to make visual aids for character moves soon so people who don't read threads as deeply aren't intimidated.

[The Phinx]

I'm so glad you are still working on this! The game is very unbalanced but I love the endless combos, this is awesome man. I have something in the works.

EDIT:

Chaoxys is a Beast! He's like Sentinel from MVC.

[TheShyGuy]

Ohh so that's what Nick's stage is supposed to look like..

Everything looks great!