Contemporary Battle Planners Explain How to Make Fighting Games: Arc System Works & French-Bread Round Table Discussion

The Urban Legend Concerning Community and Battle Balance

4Gamer: From here we will be investigating urban legends concerning fighting games….errr, rather we'll be debunking rumors one by one. The first question is “Are DLC characters intentionally designed to be strong?" What do you make of it?

Kamone: From a developer's perspective, current in-game characters have had time to develop, so when a DLC character debuts during the game's life cycle, to a certain degree we want the new character to be easy to use. However, it is unthinkable for us to automatically make DLC characters strong.

Pachi: To create a special characteristic that both grabs the attention of current players and is enjoyable to play, perhaps you could say that the DLC character is often powerful. It's possible that as a result, this concept was strong by itself when you look at the outcome.
For example, let's look at BBCP's Kokonoe, a character which has repeatedly been called overpowered. The character concept was that she could place a gravitational field, and pull in the opponent and her own attack. Our theme was to see just how much fun players could have with this gravitational mechanic...Actually it was Mysterious Masked Man No. 1 that crafted these specifications (laughs).

MM1: Well my moral support is the feeling that “it's fine if it's fun (wry smile).

Pachi: Actually I think that really was fun. The set play developed from that point was really the fruit of labor of the players themselves. As a result, the technique became very strong.

BBCP's Kokonoe. Moreover, according to Pachi, “At the time of development, it was written inside the spec manual that she could place two gravitational fields at one time."

Kamone: Usually people who are already skilled in fighting games will jump at the chance to play these types of powerful characters. Top players who understand the system mechanics at a deep level fiend for the thrill. As a result, the character develops very rapidly and becomes strong.

4Gamer: Yes that seems very plausible. Also, there's talk that the cast has gotten too large. In the next iteration of the Blazblue series, Centralfiction, a record high 30 characters will ascend the stage...Could this be too many?

Endo: Actually, it's true that developing gimmicks for new characters is difficult, and balancing will be complicated. That being said, because it's an ongoing series, without any pressing reason we cannot reduce the cast. If a character disappears, people who played until now will object. (wry laughter).

Pachi: There are so many complaints!

4Gamer: If you only consider game balance, what is the most optimal number of characters?

Endo: According to our own Kato-san, “If we consider the players, it's easiest to balance the game with around 10 characters."

Kamone: If I imagined myself as a player that properly studied character matchups, then I feel that 10 characters is just about right. For UNIELST there were 17 characters. With this cast size, there will occasionally be times when you encounter rare characters that don't appear often during play.

Pachi: Even in Virtua Fighter 4 with that big of a player base, there were characters who felt like rare matchups despite only 13 characters. However, if you say that 10 characters are just enough, then people will say that you have far too few.

Kamone: In the Blazblue series, despite only having one character with tremendous depth, it's amazing that you can continue adding to the character roster. I'm always surprised by this. In Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code, we have 31 characters and 3 playable styles, which results in nearly 90 characters. There were days when I stared at the excel sheet endlessly.

4Gamer: However in the Blazblue series, you have many characters with unique systems, isn't it difficult for the opponent to memorize counter strategies. There are many characters with unique gauges, and the information displayed on the screen increases.

Endo: If you have special gauges, then you can create extremely powerful moves with limitations placed. It's extremely valuable because it allows characters to differentiate from one another. However since BBCP, we will not increase special gauges as much as possible.

Pachi: Really? Arakune, Kokonoe, Izayoi, isn't that quite a few?

Endo: According to Kato-san, we insist that "we're going to try and reduce that number", but not necessarily say that "we will reduce the number"(laughs sarcastically).

4Gamer: Understood (laughs). Well how about the opposite end of this trend as a result? How much of an impact on development do the opinions of people who say “this character is too strong," or “this character is too weak." After all, eventually Kokonoe was nerfed afterwards.

Pachi: Of course we check the community reaction and consider it. However, the final decision of balance change is made by the battle planner who will investigate the issue thoroughly until he agrees or disagrees. The battle planner will test their own designed method of playing against the conducting wire, so to speak. 　

Kamone: It's possible that as a result of the players own research, a strong character is born that exceeds the imagination of the battle designers. When that happens, we must think introspectively and ask “Why is it that we failed to catch this?" After that comes a concrete proposal for a patch. Did we wrongly gather data? Were our development environment or testing environment faulty? These are the things that are important to review.

4Gamer: Pro-gamer, Mad Catz|Daigo Umehara said something along the lines of “If a skilled player really tries hard, that character becomes nerfed. (related article). Do you think this is possibly the case?

Pachi: Even after the game has been released and sold, we still continue to test the game. Often we find elements of the game that we may have overdone before the players have even begun their own research. We will adjust the problematic part at first during the balancing process, so as a result it may appear as though we have made the changes on behalf of the community's opinions. However, we will never nerf a character simply because a specific player gets a 100-win streak, or because they use a certain character to win a tournament.

Kamone: He wants to say that he is strong because in the end, it wasn't the character that was strong, but rather it was the player.

Pachi: Yes, that's right. If you look at the community's reaction, although there is a lot of commotion about strong and weak characters, but ultimately the player's strength decides who will win. That's why we wish that players who win would proudly declare, “its not the character that is strong, but it is I." As battle planners we would never simply just follow the trend and adjust the game.


4Gamer: By the way, what degree is the game influenced by the surveys conducted at the location tests? It feels as though recently games haven't changed drastically after location tests.

Pachi: This topic is quite shrouded in darkness (laughs sarcastically).

Kamone: As a policy we always look at answers from the location test surveys. However there are many individuals who write rude things. (laughs sarcastically). Therefore, recently we have the sentences cleaned up a bit before we read. When my heart become unsettled, I'll watch anime to recover. Mental care is very important.

Pachi: We will absolutely read over all comments. However, we often receive letters that say “I didn't go to the location test, but I saw it on the Internet and think this move is too strong." and that makes us shake our head (sarcastic laughter). Putting aside what people are doing and saying, we're always grateful when we receive personal opinions. Location tests are primarily for us to see the emotional reactions of players who actually tried out the game. Rather than the players test out strategy, we really want them to get their hands dirty with the game and play a lot. This is our true intention and what we consider most valuable.

MM1: However it is not true that we disregard opinions from players who have never touched the game. For example, whenever we introduce a new system, we want to check what type of impression it gives and what image it brings, regardless of whether or not they have played the game. If it's a poor image, players that would potentially have enjoyed the game may keep their distance away. As developers we simply cannot ignore this problem.

Pachi:If we think about it positively, you can say that we are turning expectations inside out, but its very difficult. Especially for a completely new system, there tends to be many opinions along the lines of "enough already, give us back the old system." At the same time, we will also be told by some players "if there isn't enough new changes, we will become bored with the game, so please adjust it a little more." (laughs)

Kamone: Fighting game fans don't necessarily all have literary talent. Ultimately, our main focus is to grasp the atmosphere of the location test by attending and seeing it with our own eyes.

Regarding Battle Design Trends in Fighting Games

4Gamer: Until now we have mainly focused on fighting games currently out. I want to shift topics and ask about the future. What direction do you feel fighting games are headed in the future?

MM1: Well it's not necessarily referring to the future, but compared to the past, games these days have fewer buttons, easier commands for special moves, and combos that connect easily. I feel that games are headed towards this direction and becoming more accessible.

Endo: As expected, we feel it's vital to increase the player population. Kato-san said that the entire reason why we have stylish type characters in the Blazblue series is for this very reason. We want players who have been hesitant to join until now to approach the game and play it.

MM2: This is also the same reasoning behind making the original P4U series. If you want players who have never touched a fighting game before to play, then it's important to show that we are approaching the game as something that was made for everyone. Therefore, we paid a lot of attention towards controls that were easy to approach.

4Gamer: This is the concept shared with Dengeki FC too, right?

Kamone: Yes, that's correct. The bottleneck for beginners is concentrated around the execution of the joystick. On the other hand, we see very little difference in the pressing of the buttons. Therefore to perform a special move in Dengeki FC, we have reduced the necessary inputs on the joystick to a bare minimum, and reduced the number of buttons to 4 by assigning different game system actions to multiple button press combinations. The basis of Dengeki FC design revolves around that thought process.

MM1: That being said, in Dengeki FC, if you take away the support button, it's played mainly by three buttons. P4U was designed with beginners in mind, but when they see Dengeki FC, they are surprised to see a game that can be simplified even further. Maybe we should also make P4U a 3 button game…

Pachi: It's amazing how games such as P4U and Dengeki FC have simplified control elements incorporated into the design. We couldn't possibly change away from 5 buttons for GGXrd; Even the simplification of controls has a limit. Although we've prepared stylish type character afterwards, we were torn between whether to reduce the buttons used, and other issues.

4Gamer: Between the two titles, Dengeki FC was released after P4U. Were there any instances where Dengeki FC referenced P4U.

Kamone: To say that we did not reference it at all would be a lie. As I mentioned before in a previous article, impact skills were based from the idea of bombs in shooting games. In fighting games, the best way to reveal true strength is in defense, rather than offense. Therefore we thought that with a combination button press command, players could survive those situations and to a certain degree bridge the gap in skill.

Pachi: Although it wasn't designed specifically for beginners in mind, roman cancels in Guilty Gear series and Overdrive in Blazblue are also used in such situations. It's a component that is not difficult to perform, but rather calls into question your decision making skills in a moment of need. In that moment, the line between superior and inferior is decided. Perhaps you could say that the on-going trend is this so-called "battle design focused on button presses."

Dengeki FC "Impact Skill" performed with combination button press. Generally its a useful move for Invincible reversal. Although it has slight differences, it closely resembles P4U Series Gyaku Gire Action.

4Gamer: The background of "rage arts" in the 3D series Tekken 7 may also have predicted this. However, in regards to GGxrd, could it be that there are some parts that are intentionally difficult? The timing window for rehearsals is short and you can't hold buttons for knockdown recovery*.

* You can hold down buttons before the knockdown recovery period and recover as quickly as possible. This system was used in many titles including Blazblue and P4U series, but in GGXrd, you must aim for the recovery period and press the buttons.

Pachi: Honestly, I personally don't think that GGXrd should go in "that direction." The reason is not to cater to beginners, but rather we should unify the control mechanisms among Arc games. In this way its easier for players to migrate from one game to the next. As such, the knockdown recovery was performed by "holding buttons" at the time of development.

4Gamer: Yeah that was the case, right?

Pachi: However General Director Ishiwatari had the belief that "we shouldn't change the feel of the controls we've used until now in the series." As a result we chose the option to increase the input window leniency. However we understand Ishiwatari's reason for being so insistent. For example, what would happen if we allowed knockdown recovery with the button hold method? When beginners fight each other, they would not be able to complete the entire combo.

4Gamer: Ah, they would absolutely recover in the fastest time possible right?

Pachi: Yes. There would be fewer instances where you win because of the opponent's mistimed recovery, and make it more difficult to determine a winner. Due to simplification, inconveniences arise, so the game mechanic would have both merit and demerits. The same can be said of special move commands and combos--if you accommodate those that want you to simplify it, it's actually not that difficult. However if you asked me if that would make the game really fun, I would personally have doubts. After all, there is a feeling of accomplishment in overcoming difficulty.

4Gamer: So Ishiwatari-san's insistence also forms the basis of your own deep emotions.

Pachi: All people who play fighting games have feelings. Despite the trend to simplify inputs, the pursuit of perfect timing and difficult inputs is one of the foundations of fighting games. I think it would be wrong to completely deny that.

4Gamer: It's often said that long and difficult combos are a hurdle for beginners in fighting games. However, this was originally a safety measure for beginner and intermediate players. Of course, intentionally making combos long and difficult would also cause a lot of trouble as well.

Pachi: Combos can be practiced by grinding in training mode and improving just by yourself. However if you tried to strengthen your footsies game, you would not only need to play a crazy amount of games, but you'd also require a deep knowledge of the game system. If you looked at it from another perspective, you could say that "combo games" are much easier. In conclusion, in Street Fighter, which is more realistic? Hitting Daigo 10 times with crouching medium kick with footsies, or landing one full combo? Well, they both have different types of difficulty, and you can't compare them unconditionally.

Nowadays, there is a trend to heavily scale damage in combos so that even difficult combos won't yield much additional damage. However, GGXrd is designed so that performing difficult combos not only outputs the collateral amount of damage, but also results in favorable conditions after the combo. Conversely, you could say that the difficulty of the combo is included as a part of the game tuning.

What will happen to the future fighting games?

4Gamer: French-Bread is trying their hand at both beginner friendly Dengeki FC, and UNI for the core users. Both titles have very special gauges. The more advanced you become at playing, the more important it is to manage your meter. This is quite new as a fighting game mechanic, what do you think?

Kamone: That may be the case. As the basis for our ideology, we want to make both titles such that good players are rewarded properly for making good plays. As mentioned before, imagine performing a difficult combo during a tournament, wouldn't that be really hype? However, imagine for example blocking a difficult overhead, or breaking a difficult throw. It's hard to translate that brilliance.

4Gamer: As long as they are not core players from that title, it would be very difficult.

Kamone: If we could somehow visualize it with a type of gauge, we thought that more players would pay attention. Or, we wanted it to be made clear when a beginner made a mistake so in effect it would be easy to understand and correct.

4Gamer: In fighting games there are different type of strengths outside of just combos. You wanted to shine more spotlight on players who had stellar defense, or were very good in rock paper scissors situations.

Kamone: Yes, the GRD gauge in UNI was created exactly with that thought in mind. However, if you really were to probe deeply into the matter, its like the negative penalty turned inside out, so this is not an entirely new idea. The ore of fighting games have been considerably mined, so a completely new game system is not something that will appear very often.

Due to the GRD gauge system, intense attacks occur during both tense footsies and close combat in UNI. Aside, the "Active Flow" equipped in Blazblue Centralfiction can also be called a system with the same shared lineage.

4Gamer: If we look back at fighting game history, many ideas have been born and disappeared, and only the refined ones have remained. However, I have a feeling that there is still ground to develop new ideas.

Pachi: Personally I think the "undulation" in Virtua Fighter 3 can also be applied to 2D fighting games. Not only in the simple sense of difference in elevation, but the "field" originating from 2D fighting games.

MM1: Injustice resembled something similar didn't it? However I have a feeling that in 2D fighting games, stage elements are usually poorly received. The same goes for Real Bout Fatal Fury's ring outs.

Pachi: Isn't that because it was added later into the system? If a game was designed in the beginning with stage undulations, perhaps it could be considered a new combat game. Personally, I liked the sudden death system in Psychic Force 2012.

4Gamer: What exactly was it?

Pachi: Whenever there was a time over, the stage would shrink, and both characters' HP gauge would start again from one pixel. If sudden death was activated even once, the stage would shrink incrementally until a victor was decided. At that time I used a close combat character, so if my opponent used a long distance character, then I employed a strategy of dragging the opening round into sudden death.

An actual comparison of Sudden Death field size from Psychic Force 2012. Left: normal size. Right: Sudden death size. Sudden death screen is about 80% of normal size after each round activation.

4Gamer: Close combat characters would want to carry the round somehow to sudden death. Long range characters, on the other hand, would need to aim for a K.O. victory.

Pachi: Yes that's right. Psychic Force was a game that rewarded turtling too much. If both players were equally skilled and one decided to seriously play defense, the game would often go into Sudden Death mode. However much I disliked this way of playing, I found Sudden Death as a mechanic to conclude rounds within a certain time frame to be very interesting. The in game element to create a favorable stage for yourself should be a natural extension of spacing and approach, therefore I would want to create a fighting game with that type of gimmick built in.

4Gamer: How about advancements made in hardware? Personally I am curious what would happen if you pushed the frame rate to 120fps and made a fighting game. When Virtua Fighter 2 became 60fps, it was quite shocking.

Pachi: If the game is 3D graphics like GGXrd, then we might develop in that direction. However for 2D graphics, I believe we are near the limit. Currently most people are creating in 720p, but if you were told to create in native 1080p resolution, most likely it would be impossible to do so.

MM1: Even if you did run at 120fps, it is unclear whether the costs would match the visual improvements made during the jump of 30fps to 60fps. After all, we have the precedent of GGXrd choosing to go with "limited animation" rather than going with "full animation" exactly.

Kamone: In 2D fighting games, it is quite painful to upgrade graphics. They are simply difficult to draw and there is a possibility that they cannot handle the hardware memory specs.

MM1: Looking at it from a pure battle design perspective, when you're faced with a scenario where "4 frame move is too strong, but we're unsure about 5 frames," the ability to convert to 4.5 frames working with 60fps is convenient if you think about it (laughs).

4Gamer: Could it be that games become even more demanding for precise controls than now?

Kamone: It's possible that this increased demand becomes intriguing.

Pachi: Rather, wouldn't it be interesting with Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR compatibility to use the "Gundam Senjo no Kizuna" interface, and battle like Psychic Force or Wartech: Senko No Ronde. For example you could mash on the lever and throw out a super realistic hadouken fireball.

4Gamer: You mean like Virtual-On? Wait, could you even call this a fighting game at this point? (laughs)

Kamone: Whether you adopt a revolutionary system or battle design, it will rapidly depart from everyone's preconceived image of what a fighting game should be. That's the difficult thing about making fighting games.

4Gamer: Well this talk allowed us to have big dreams, but we're almost up for time. Lastly, can you please give a message to your respective fanbase.

Endo: This newest title in the BB Series "Blazblue Centralfiction" will soon, so please look forward to it. Also on Steam we have the highly acclaimed Battle Fantasia -Revised Edition- and Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!!. At the end of January 2016 we will also be selling Skullgirls 2nd Encore. It's a unique fighting game with cute cartoon characters that go berserk, so please look forward to it.

Kamone: UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH Exe:Late[st] and Dengeki FIGHTING CLIMAX IGNITION are both out right now, so we'd really like you to play. Also, it was announced that talks concerning Tsuki Hime Remake is progressing, so please look forward to Melty Blood (laughs).

MM1 & MM2: For players whose first fighting game is P4U, it would make us happy if you could just attend a tournament or event at least once. It does not matter what your skill is, but it is connected to the development of the community, so please try and aggressively go!

Pachi: Well I held nothing back and spoke my mind for many things, but in the end both makers and players want to hype up fighting games, so let's enjoy them together. Also, please enjoy the critically acclaimed GUILTY GEAR Xrd REVELATOR out now.

4Gamer: Thank you for today!

---

We had a round table discussion with Arc System Works, Atlas, and French-Bread, and heard about the method of creating anime fighting games directly from the developers themselves. During this talk, we discussed how battle design is driven by the game's world view and visual demands. The importance of a fighting game's visual elements (character traits) substantiates enforces this idea, and is personally and intriguing topic.

"It is because there are a lot of characters that can fly in the air during Japanese anime battle scenes," according to Kamone-san. When we think about it, the reason Mortal Kombat series has a lot of warp moves may be due to a preference in game world video. If there were another chance, it's a topic we'd like to investigate even further.

In any case, as we mentioned in the beginning, we are in the period from this year to the next year preparing for many fighting video games to be released and go on sale. We want fighting game players to play the new titles, and also confirm how the battle planners approach their work. From this symposium, all of the participants stated "we would like everyone to write politely when sending their opinions. Therefore, we ask all gamers to place this reminder in their hearts.

--Written by Hameko, photo by Syuji Sasaki and translated by Zhi

GUILTY GEAR Xrd -SIGN- Official Site

Blazblue Chrono Phantasma - Official Site

Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax - Official Site

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late - Official Site

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax - Official Site