Combos in fighting games

Combos are mandatory in more skill based fighters. There is no way around them if you actually want to be good at the game.
Those are for casuals.

When the game is built with the ability to 'escape' combos then you're right. If it's a modern fighting game where you literally cannot escape them then you're wrong.

This is why I don't like games like MvC where it's all about who lands a hit once gets juggled until his dead.
Then it's just a matter of perfecting your execution but you could play single player at this point since even the best player in the world can't do shit against it once the guard's been opened.

I don't even get what you want here? I mean long combos and resets and shit are the rewards for getting autistically good at a fighter. If you just want to play casually with friends or whatever you can just play for fun and not bother learning anything too crazy, even basic cancels like a normal into a fireball is pretty easy and rewarding. You don't need to do crazy Kazunoko shit.

I think it's more of a desire for a focus on making a fighting game that feels like "real life" sparring vs video game sparring.

If you've ever sparred RL it's a massive difference that is more or less based around tricking people and exploiting an exposed defense. For Honor had a good concept imo.

Combos should be punishing. If everyone can escape all the time then why should I break my fingers to learn a 17-24 attack combo? What would be the point of learning those if escape is easy ?
Guilty gear does it reasonably with 1 escape option that recharges over a long period of time. Use it early on a small combo and you are fucked, fail to realize what is coming your way and the damage is already dealt.

I have no idea why you would want to devalue combos. I used to hate on them when I was a noob, but once you get somewhat good you realize this is the bread and butter of the game. Without it, fighting games are just dumb button mashers like casuals think. But we don't want to be casuals, now do we ?

I like the third strike approach of things where combos are very hard to execute and you can get parried and punished easily at the start or if you fail.

I'm not OP, nor do I hate combos.
I'm just saying that in a game that is more about focus on combative maneuvers involve more strategy and critical thinking. Folk like me DO consider games like Dark Souls to be a fighting game, just one based on positioning and getting into the mind of the opponent. It's just my preferred format of game type after all.

Honestly, I'm also only really saying this because in a lot of modern combo-intensive fighting games someone can just essentially memorize an opening and a combo and do fine. Meanwhile in the above example there is no memorization of combos, just techniques.

So let's remove the skill required to make combos and boil it down to super quick hits, gouging distance and counters. Some you do have in many fighter games, but witht he combos removed, esentially a dumbed down fighter.
By your definition skill and memorization are gay.

While not all fighters have this, many do. You'd have to give some examples of what you consider bad modern fighers.
I've done relatively well in stuff melty blood with combo memorization, but in games like guilty gear one misjudged distance, misstep, one failed jump, one misjudged attack and I'm open for counters that do extra damage and can potentially end my game with more frail characters.

For all its flaws SFV is pretty much that game. Even the longer stuff like Ibuki or Urien's V Trigger combos are nothing compared to anime fighters or Marvel.

I'm also more a fan of simple outplaying but I still think combos have a place in fighting games. I don't think that the game should be solely based on combos though, a game should always have at least one character that largely depends on mindgames and reads rather than mechanical skill.

What utter bollocks but not only that, recent times have shown that strong single player content in multiplayer games matters. Think of it as a glorified tutorial, a barrier to entry that preps you for high level battles against human opponents. But sure throw all of that in the bin because "muh multiplayer". Dumb fucks like you act like you know best but you're nothing but a pathetic elitest.

What fighting a shit AI in an awfully written story mode? INB4 muh Nether Realm
A challenge mode that teaches you bad habits by making you learn unoptimal confirms?
There is no AI outside of arguably the special high level play imitating VF4 AI (that you need to unlock by playing IRL players) that actually prepares you for anything vs any sort of human player, playing a patterned AI that'll repeatedly make the same mistakes over and over will not prep you for real player who can adapt and make random moves.
Yeah, that's where trash goes.
It's not being elitest, it's knowing the content is worthless and not pretending otherwise because it's a chance to get instant gratification without actually learning the game.

Really mother fucker?

combos start become a huge threat when you're playing best of 5, grand finals and you're sweating like blood, don't even know how many fucking wins you have, misremembering your resources and all you have to rely on is your muscle memory.

But if you do want a fighter that doesn't focus on big combos all the time. I recommend Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, Koihime Enbu, Aquapazza, Bushido Blade, and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. DoA5 really rewards you for having good reads and fundamentals while it has some short combos to reward getting around people's holds. Koihime does have big combos but fatal counters are rare and you can win mainly on good fundamentals.

Not at all. If you took out the RPG mechanics; made items, weapons, and armor character specific, and turned stages into arenas where you fight 1v1 or 2v2. Then it could be a fighter and only if it revolved around just that for the main game.

No, that's not how it works. People who are bad at fighters simply think they're all about combos. It's everything in between that where the real skill shines. Better fundamentals will net you far more victories than memorizing a fancy combo. A combo just makes your good decision have more reward to it. But how will you get that combo off when you fall for every setup, mixup, cross-up, throw, zoning tactic, and block pressure in the game? There are times where I picked a new character in a game and still won with them only due to knowing basic fundamentals while the other person didn't. Sure they knew some combos but they didn't know how to make me stop blocking.

Combos should not be removed entirely since that does raise the skill ceiling and visibly shows how well the player is. That said, combos should not be the crux of your damage. Combos should award extra damage for being good enough, not a window of "fuck you, you didn't block so enjoy my 25+ string that does 70% damage. GG fgt. :^)".

That's a good reason why people hate X-factor in MvC3. You get rewarded absurd amounts of damage, no block stun, and a cancel just for having 1 character left. Though there aren't many games with 70% damage combos unless they require a shit ton of meter or are very hard to pull off like a triple 360 super.

Fiona with the Punishment arcana can OHKO you though. However it's done from a lv3 command grab super. Followed by a 360 attack where you have a single frame to input it properly. Of course pulling shit off like this is absurdly impractical but I did see a JP player pull it off in the middle of the fight (but without punishment). Wish I could find the video though.

Then even a beginner should be able to see the UI and know that the other side is dangerous enough as it is. Long strings are fine but you are right that X-factor tier bullshit was a mistake. It's a shame too since I liked MvC2 but everyone I played with knew that MvC2 was more of a meme game full of broken, but fun, characters. MvC seems to have gotten the broken down but the fun is still missing to this day.

Nigga that hit lands because of good positioning and them letting their guard down, THE SAME FUCKING WAY IT HAPPENS IN YOUR VIDEO

Okay heres your you good bait

I feel like this is a question only asked by people who never played fighting games before and haven't actually gone into training mode and tried doing some combos. In any game that's not part the Vs. Capcom series and as long as you're not playing the game's most technical character (C. Roa, Eddie/Zato, Gen, etc) you should be able to get their bread and butter doable in a day, and consistent in a week.
The REAL cancer in fighting games is the guessing game when you get knocked down, see SFV, where defensive options like dragon punches are nerfed to shit.

Combos are another layer of complexity in a fighting game. Knowing the properties of a character's moves and the dexterity to chain them for maximum effectiveness is a valuable skill. Of course they can get retarded, like some characters in the earlier releases of Blazblue and the MvC series in general, but can't anything get retarded anyway?

Not a bad opinion to have, but I'm pretty sure you're just blaming combos for how trash you are at fighting games.

Every fighting game is just niggers memorizing shit so they can do the highest damage combo, there is barely any skill involved, its just pratice until you can do that shit like a machine

combos are good insofar as they add risk & depth to the overall structure of mixups & footsies within a game and there isn't just one completely optimal one that doesn't overshadow everything else like lighting loops or footdive infinites. combos shouldn't be braindead repetition, there should be tactical considerations just like in every other aspect of the match. guilty gear manages to do most of these things very well.

if you can dial phone numbers and form complete sentences, memorizing a combo should be trivial

darkstalkers combos are basically magic series into knockdown/super. it also has a lot of systems that mitigate setplay

koihime enbu is a game i've never played but it's been described to me as the game people think st was

youtube.com/watch?v=dKuvUdBdrvU

motw & last blade
play these games

youtube.com/watch?v=yWmkJ8uunsU

there are legitimate complaints to hold against the way combos work in certain games but generally i find that people who 'hate combo fighters' just don't like that getting hit has a consequence

So say I like games like>>13084123 ,where there aren't any real combos and ,where there are combos, it's just that they don't go on for too long. What fighting games would you recommend for someone who is ok with combos, but doesn't want them to go on for longer than they should, like in MvC or SG?

meant to reply to

Soul Calibur. It's the entire point of the series.

Dead or Alive was pretty much the same, but 5 more combo focused because of new mechanics?

Great bait OP but I agree. The genre died outright when playing your oppenent was the ever further end goal and not the beginning.

I like the idea of playing fighting games more than player them since SC and DOA were dead before the netplay years we now have. 5 is the cursed number.

When does product placement work well in vidya, let alone fighting games?

Guilty Gear Xrd is probably right up your alley. You can combo very freely, but there are many checks and balances to ensure the damage scales appropriately and to prevent infinites/unblockables.

Nah GG is a combo fest too. At least it has a breaker.

When it's on a qt and the costume isn't too outlandish or stands out.

Redpill me on Melty Blood.

The majority of all characters' combos use a light>medium>heavy gatling system. You can do just fine knowing P>S>H>launcher>repeat. Several defensive characters, too.

I haven't played too much Melty mostly because it's not my thing tbh but it's known as THE poverty fighter.

The game for me.

Your people are calling to you.

If you can get your ass down to the back alley next to Taco Bell there's a Melty tourny going down in half an hour, winner gets $6.50 and coupon for half-off a large Dr. Pepper.

I don't even need to know where you live, I can guarantee you I'm right though.

Fuck that's more than my job pays.

Im not talking about that. Im saying you will lose the round in 3 combos anyway like on many other games. 4 potentially if you use the burst well

>you're not gonna catch up to it in terms of skill for two months at the very least
suffering

Have you considered not getting hit?

Oh really not getting hit? Pfff easy. I should have known thanks for the advice

If you're so bad that you think any round in any matchup will end in 3 combos because you don't know how to block or predict oki, then you're too far gone for anyone's help.

Sure, if you're playing against very adept players. 70% of people can't even pull off those large combos are go for simpler, safer ones online. And even then you won't die in 3 combos if your defense is great.

It is much easier than you think. Stop pressing buttons, know what the other player is capable of, and look for openings. Do they have a special cross-up or overheads? Do they have command grabs or unblockables? Know what they can throw at you and adapt properly. You won't die from 3 combos when people can't hit you with the start of their combo stream because your defense is so good.

In most games, blocking low and simply looking for throws and overheads is the best way to minimize the amount of things to look for. And maybe you do get grabbed (assuming it's not a grappler) but it's no where near as bad as losing a third of your health. Most games don't make it so you can combo from grabs unless it's a grab that sets up for a combo.

What makes it officially a combo? Your opponent can't get out of it? I'm bad at fighting games and don't play them.

Why bothering learning how to combo when you can bitch about hitboxes and netcode?

Hitting someone with a series of attacks where your opponent had no chance to escape (barring get out of jail free mechanics). Vid related is not a combo, for instance, since Potemkin is blocking everything.

>show buy GGXXAC+R to an acquaintance
Extremely important, but not the only thing you need to know.

I don't know how Mortal Kombat does it, but fighting games should do the opposite.

It's very strict on the timing but can still be pulled off only if you fully know the frames on said attack with that fighter.

NRS games are about blockstrings, you have to learn the tricky ones so you don't get hit, once you re done blocking the string, the game goes back to neutral or you get a chance to punish.
I like it because it's a different system than traditional games, i want NRS to keep doing its thing and refining it to a point where it may be actually good.

Maybe it looks different playing it, but whenever I watch vids of NRS games the characters against the backgrounds just seem like dark on dark and it's hard to tell what is happening exactly unless it's a flashier move and add that to the fact that a lot of the animations just don't have any oomph to them. Like the basic three jab animation looks and feels the same whether or not it hits, whiffs or gets blocked.

That's because their animations are the worst in the industry and their art design is a close second.

I've seen fighting games with excellent neutral gameplay. All combos do is make it absurdly difficult to learn a new character. It's a shit mechanic that needs to go.

You don't play fighting games, do you?

He said "I've seen fighting games." So no, he hasn't.

It's like pottery

Hard SAKO combos are the best…

Not the original one, I can just recognize when a game is a straight downgrade.

And clearly I know something about the game if I won every match and we both had experience with GG basics. I have played the game with a sparring partner for an extended period of time, it's just that neither of us have honed that tism that involves chain memorization, which has lead to our neutral game being over-developed. I've been working on my combos slowly to compensate.

Fuck you. I used to love Soul Calibur's single player content. Even III, with its horrendously broken AI, made up for it with what was basically a RTS mode combined with a fighting game. That was the coolest shit ever. But overall, III isn't as good as the previous games. But now SCV has such shit single player content that it's just like teasing us that actually wanted it. It might as well not be there.

Long combos are not good
This is because instead of being a contest of a series of decisions made against the opponent, who is also making its own decisions, it turns into a "the first one to get a poke gets to showcase their muscle memory".
It's ok to have punishes, but to the extent that you cannot have more than just 1 mistake is not fun for either party. a contest should be a match of many decisions, with come back and different branches of decisions to to take after each decision is made.

Spamming projectiles with an assist covering you to chip them to death is not skill or a game that you truly engage your opponent
Spamming neutral play until you get an opening is ok, but when only one opening gives you a snowball advantage and you 100> 0 an enemy, the game does not have a proper balance.
short and sweet combos are what balanced games should have. They allow the opponent more than just 1 life, and allow you to win both strategically and tactically by a series of earned openings, and not just one.

This is why "its marvel baby" is a joke, and all snowballing games are the polar opposite of boring casual games where the opponent never dies or can get a stupid casual comeback. all extremes are bad. There needs to be a balance of combos rewarded by game knowledge and also space for both you and the opponent to follow up

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Respecting hitboxes, knowing them, and deciding when to poke with it or not is ok.
no matter the fighter people will approach with the most reward and the least risk, with safe options to poke.

Make different attacks so no ONE attack does both?

Air juggle is shit

I think Pokken is a great example of how to do combos and inputs right in a way that's both accessible, without actually being casualized.

All move inputs are a single button press and a direction,and most combos are relatively short, and typically deal 1/5-1/4th of a character's lifebar. But there's still an executional skillgap in terms of timing and spacing to execute more complex and optimal combos, which typically do 1/3 to 1/2 of a character's lifebar (there are tons of ways to recover red health in pokken, so this isn't as severe as it may seem). Furthemore, due to the phase system in Pokken, there's more combo variety since depending on the current MU and state of the match, you might wanna use a combo that racks up more or lesss phase points to stay in the current phase/switch phases faster.

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Long combos are shit because they turn the game into solitaire until the combo is done.

I am scared the new DBZ fighter will just be Blaz Blue levels of Combo autism. Anyone play it?

MK is bad because timing doesn't matters. SF is good because timing is very important

I used to play a lot of usfiv, and I love the way they handled combos. In Mortal Kombat, Injustice and Tekken you got these huge ass combos that take over 50% of your hp. I think MKX even has a 78% damage combo, and I personally don't think that those are fun.

Those combos are just muscle memory, they are hard for newbies, but if you play long enough you can memorize them. I prefer the short combos that street fighter has. Timing on your combos is harder and you also have a lot more predicting and mind reading.

Combos are pretty sweet when you can pull them off, put I don't think they're necessary. ARMS is pretty great at minimizing how much of a combo you need for a fighting game, and it becomes more of that rock-paper-scissor style that makes fighters so fun.

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I've been playing Tekken for a long time but I cant memorize combos except very simple ones
Life is suffering

>Implying the game doesn't break horribly the moment you play single fighter mode and the other player counterpicks (seriously, there is nothing to do if the enemy knows a projectile spamming zoning combo and you happen to have a low mobility/low air character)
I hope the people ITT saying combos are the best are not talking about Skullgirls-tier combos.

you probably need the right kind of teacher. I wasn't able to do shit in SF even thought I had played it for like half a year. But when a friend shoved me how to play it suddenly all made sense.

Yeah, maybe
I've a friend that keeps beating me at tekken, but probably it's not enough since I still manage to win sometime

Combos are fine if they're not too long but have some variety…

Smash Bros

Combos for DAYS

ShoryuCAN!

There are countless videos like that on youtube. Mortal Kombat is total trash.

it has meidos thats all you ever need

Nothing wrong with combos. I guess you mean juggling. Juggling is bad, getting completely destroyed because you made 1 small mistake is bad and unrealistic
Smaller combos where you have to read your opponent's moves to chain one after the other are much better. Meaning you can finish one combo and try to start another attacking from above for example but if the opponent blocks or dodges back you're open. There should be a wide enough open space to have a realistic chance of defending yourself and not getting juggled

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Original combos from Street Fighter 2 were a happy accident. Animation frame breaks stemming from a programming error. Once discovered and mastered changed the focus to the metagame we all know today as "combos".

Funny historical trivia: Capcom fixed the error and issued patch ePROMs to the arcade vendors. This put a halt to intentional animation frame breaking to link moves (ie, combos), and in turn caused a decline in quarter/token drops.

In the end it was the arcade vendors to blame for combos. From a marketing point of view this was the correct move. All the money indicated we arcade players enjoyed the game more with the combos. Capcom and others weren't stupid to start designing games with combos as a feature based on scientific evidence and economic data.

Many beloved game mechanics across all genres started off as bugs/oversights. I really don't get why this is often used as a point against combos.

Don't let your internal bias cloud your judgement. My comment was entirely neutral to that argument.

meh meant for you

It was more the way you worded it than my internal bias that it made it seem like you made an argument against combos, user.

Xrd has burst which are combo-breakers…

That's literally wrong though, the timing and spacing executional gap is just as high as other fighters.

Melty Blood has a good combo system.

3000 damage, 500 meter gain.

3500 damage, 700 meter gain.

You can spend a day learning all the fancy combos but at the end of the day, being able to confirm simple combos off of decent hits is what matters the most.