Why is this allowed?

Ok real talk - I assume what OP complains about is something similar to Guilty Gear's guts system?
Can someone explain me really what is the end goal of such system? The fact that the same attack do different visual damage to the lifebar depending on how much health opponent has left never made sense to me. Really from the outside it looks pretty unfair. If you're sure that your attack will kill your opponent and you risk to go for it, but it doesn't kill him despite your perfect execution because of this system.

I'm very shit at fighting games, so rather than complaining I'm genuinely asking about the reasoning behind it.

To add a false sense of tension and excitement.

Nice dubdidubs, but there gotta be better answer.

Most fighting games do this to make things more exciting, but GG actually has a good reason, and that's because of its meter system. You build tension faster when you're low on health so it serves as the obligatory "comeback mechanic" of the games.

why is this thread aloud

For GG the system is called Guts.

First, it makes late game comebacks look more dramatic, which is fun even when you know it's kind of fake. Second, while Guts reduces the damage that characters take as they get lower on life, no attack can do less than one damage, so as the round goes on, the 100% optimal combos in any given situation change, which creates more variety and character individuality and promotes a higher skill ceiling. Third, since each character has a different Guts rating, it deepens matchup knowledge and promotes character individuality.

That doesn't explain logarithmic lifebars actually. In samurai shodown when your health is red you also generate heat much faster, but your amount of HP per pixel remains the same at all times.

I dunno man, on the contrary you actually need to land more hits that you would need otherwise. It's counter-intuitive.

Now this kinda sorta makes sense, but why not just give different characters different amount of HP outright?

Because the mechanic wouldn't make any sense if the lifebars weren't logarithmic. It's not a comeback mechanic if you never get a chance to use it because you just die anyway. The point of Guts specifically is that it adjusts the balance of how different characters can make use if this; high Guts + average health means you spend more time in the fast meter zone than low Guts + high health.

That's what I mean by optimal combos changing, late round against high Guts characters high damage combos start to become less optimal than combos with a million hits.

It doesn't take long to adjust to the idea that the health bar is deceptive and once you do it adds something. Knowing how to read it and if you're gonna kill with a combo becomes a living part of the game instead of just a math problem.

The other guy covered this better than I was.

Just make red zone different for each character then?

Tbh this whole guts thing sound more and more like SS red zone system but HIDDEN so you need to either read on it and remember it for each character or GUESS it because fuck you.
I mean I love GG, it's my all time favourite fightan series, but this one mechanic I don't like.
It shouldn't be hidden.

come to think of it, yeah I don't really understand.

why is this allowed?

you go for hard hitting attacks at 100% hp, then switch to combos with loads of hits at lower hps. not too hard to understand

Some heroes simply have less health and can get fucked by 2 special attacks if there is no damage reduction at lower health. The guts system fixes that. But guilty gear does not show it like in the OP.

It is hidden.

Why is this allowed?

In samsho? No it isn't.
What is hidden is at what ratio different characters can convert their heat gauge into red zone.

...

In GG.

Yes.

What the fuck ever, we have the discussion going, if op is (1) and done it's his loss not ours.

why respond to shitposting

The GUESSING part is what kills me. It's really hard to gauge what attack is going to finish off my enemy when the meter is straight up lying to me.

Guts is a fucking dogshit mechanic. Persona 4 Arena (by the same devs) had a similar and infinitely less retarded system called Awakening. When your health gets low and you enter a neutral state, you "Awaken", gaining an instant 50SP, increasing your max SP by the same amount, unlocking the character's Awakening super, and turning your remaining HP orange which gives you a flat damage reduction. The mechanic is completely consistent, predictable, and since it only triggers when you return to neutral it's possible to bait an opponent into a combo when they're right at the threshold and kill them with a big combo before they can Awaken.

Since each character's DP drains a small amount of health, you can even intentionally burn a little bit of your health for the express purpose of triggering your Awakening if you're close. There's an entire subset of mindgames of leaving the opponent right on the edge of Awakening then trying to bait them into DPing to get their Awakening, so you can punish them with a fatal counter and finish them off.

With GG's Guts, it's completely obfuscated, it has multiple "layers" so the damage you deal will never be consistent, and it takes effect the moment the opponent's HP hits each threshold so there isn't even any skill involved. It's a shit mechanic through and through.

People will defend this.

It's not limited to Guts, though. GG has a lot of obfuscated details. Tension Pulse and hitstun decay are pretty complicated things that have never been officially explained, just more or less worked out by player research.