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Topic: Why don't fighting games add Custom Characters?

Posts 1 to 13 of 13

mariovslink62

Now I'm referring to games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken. I know the biggest fear is unbalance, but is it it that hard to balance out the custom character?

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CanisWolfred

mariovslink62 wrote:

Now I'm referring to games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken. I know the biggest fear is unbalance, but is it it that hard to balance out the custom character?

Yes. Balancing a fighting game (or any highly complex and competitive game in general) is a load of work. I wouldn't take it that lightly. Street Fighter X Tekken attempted it (actually, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Alpha 3 Max both did it, too) and it was a complete mess. I think Soul Calibur 3 was the only one that really pulled it off well, since it was basically just taking the already established movesets of other characters and only really letting you alter the character models, IIRC.

That said, I recall a lot of 3D fighting games doing custom characters (either upgradable characters or characters you could visually customize) at least once per series, it's just that it's a lot of work that most developers feel is better used to charge for pre-made outfits and power-ups rather than personally customized characters...

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mariovslink62

CanisWolfred wrote:

mariovslink62 wrote:

Now I'm referring to games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken. I know the biggest fear is unbalance, but is it it that hard to balance out the custom character?

Yes. Balancing a fighting game (or any highly complex and competitive game in general) is a load of work. I wouldn't take it that lightly. Street Fighter X Tekken attempted it (actually, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Alpha 3 Max both did it, too) and it was a complete mess. I think Soul Calibur 3 was the only one that really pulled it off well, since it was basically just taking the already established movesets of other characters and only really letting you alter the character models, IIRC.

That said, I recall a lot of 3D fighting games doing custom characters (either upgradable characters or characters you could visually customize) at least once per series, it's just that it's a lot of work that most developers feel is better used to charge for pre-made outfits and power-ups rather than personally customized characters...

Yeah I do admit making a custom character will be pretty difficult. I do hope one day somebody can accomplish the perfect balance.

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CaviarMeths

SoulCalibur III had a big set of custom move sets for custom characters. Some were alright, but several were broken or useless. SoulCalibur IV and V kept custom characters, but dropped the move sets. You just picked a move set of a main character to copy.

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

mariovslink62

CaviarMeths wrote:

SoulCalibur III had a big set of custom move sets for custom characters. Some were alright, but several were broken or useless. SoulCalibur IV and V kept custom characters, but dropped the move sets. You just picked a move set of a main character to copy.

Wait. So you can create your own character, or add moves and stuff. I'm referring to something like the Mii Fighters.

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CaviarMeths

mariovslink62 wrote:

CaviarMeths wrote:

SoulCalibur III had a big set of custom move sets for custom characters. Some were alright, but several were broken or useless. SoulCalibur IV and V kept custom characters, but dropped the move sets. You just picked a move set of a main character to copy.

Wait. So you can create your own character, or add moves and stuff. I'm referring to something like the Mii Fighters.

You could create your own character with tons of options for face, body, and clothing. You got to choose from a dozen or so pre-made movesets depending on weapon (two-handed sword, katana, staff, etc). You could also eventually unlock movesets from the main characters to use with your custom character. You could not pick and choose moves though, you selected one weapon and took the entire set that comes with it.

SC4/5 dropped the movesets designed for SC3 and just went with custom character clones of main characters. You could also customize the clothing of the main characters. My Talim in SC4 wears a wizard hat.

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

RR529

I made Kenshin (from Rurouni Kenshin) and the main character from Lost Odyssey in Soul Calibur IV, lol.

Everytime I tried playing online with one of the created characters though, the lobby host would always kick me out after my first fight (the game had voice chat enabled, and as soon as one fight started, they were like "Ugh, it's one of THOSE people"...).

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Tasuki

I don't know maybe it was me but I just couldn't get into any of the Soul Calibers after II. I tried III, IV, and V but they just didn't feel right. Anyone else feel the same?

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Ryu_Niiyama

@Tasuki SC V was the only one I didn't like. They made some serious changes to Mitsurugi. While I learned his new moveset he feels different and it hampers my enjoyment of the game.

On Topic. Balancing is extremely important and custom characters do make that (more) difficult. It can also be annoying when playing in tournaments as well. I personally prefer the current SC route: customize fighter appearance but keep clone a moveset.

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LaserdiscGal

Mortal Kombat did have custom Kharacters back in Armageddon.

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bitleman

A game like Ultra Street Fighter 4 is already a nightmare to play because of all the match up you have to learn with all the different EX properties for each character it would become nearly impossible to play it competitively if you added custom movesets except for a very small elite of players.

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LyIa

Tommy_Wiseau wrote:

Mortal Kombat did have custom Kharacters back in Armageddon.

Oh god, I remember those. I made Cloud Strife, Naruto and Goku. I was such a weeb.

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RegalSin

It is extremely hard and annoying to program an fighting game. Why? Because first all the sprites/animations needs to load when the buttons are pressed and play for that amount of time. That code is not the greatest code but the amount of sprites/animations loading makes it a lot of work.

Secondly ALL OF THAT ANIMATION WHICH IS HAND DRAWN and is not pixel art. I am not assuming that it could be, but they had "electronic pens" even during the 1980's that can still work great today with various systems that supports them. That is a lot of work alone doing all of those animations. EVEN PLANNING THOSE ANIMATIONS.

Asides for music, and backgrounds think about the limit of variations. The truth is that we could install all kinds of variations for video-games but an fully loaded package is what we need people.

The time and duration to create the different costumes along with how long before the player-san becomes bored is what is annoying. Take Rival Schools on the Dreamcast and PSX. The American version comes with pre-made characters while the Japanese version comes with the character maker. The PSX game ( RS2:Mini games ) comes with an character creator ( mostly school/extra/ko characters ).

If it was an 2d game, all the custom characters would have to be per-assigned as with Rival Schools. 3d game is simular as all the settings would have to load on both/many machines. This is why we can't have virtual fights, where you can see custom characters being used and floated around.

Take an game like MUGEN ( which is the only real 2d fighter with custom characters) where you can have almost any kind of character but both characters needs to be installed on similar but identical games.

The only way an character could be not pre-installed if the game creators
have pre-installed data ( take Phantasy Star Online 1-2-BB ). PSO we have had like an billion different characters but guess what? They all can move the same exact way. Meaning they all have the same actions as the next player. Also SEGA had plenty of time to program the animations for the 3d figures and models. Same with EverQuest as well.

Point taken is that everything is pre-installed first. Then we can have variations. Take the Spyro Statue games ( Ammiba thingy ). Is Spyro pre-programed or is an program being uploaded and updated to the PS3 with or without connection? It must contain some sorta game data asides for pre-programmed objects.

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