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What are some of the core functionalities of a combo system that makes it interesting?

I'd thought about it on and off for a while, but never really tried building a list of things to look at. Main reason for not building a list is because I didn't think it'd be useful for any particular thing. However, when watching Maj's last video I began to think of what existed in that video that could be reproduced in other games, and I realized the value of having such a list.

So I'll get started.

-- Slow moving projectiles. +/-

• `Guile
  `SF3

Kinda self explanatory. The ability to chase slow moving projectiles can create interesting link combos. Having very slow startup on projectiles can also create very odd backwards-facing combos due to exotic hitboxes.

-- Link Combos. +

• `Everywhere

Pretty much every game has got them, though for some it's more prevalent than others. In games with very loose cancel rules and normal-chains the links can be very scarce. But I think this one is always going to be a + in everyones book.

-- OTGs, with relaunch. +/-

• `Marvel

Most of the time these are limited to one relaunch, sometimes not. Sometimes the opponent has the ability to tech hit out of an OTG-able knockdown, and sometimes not.

-- OTGs, no relaunch. +/-

• `GuiltyGear
  `MeltyBlood

Often used to build meter. Sometimes used for meaty setups.

-- Wallslam. +/-

• `GuiltyGear
  `MeltyBlood

Sometimes limited, sometimes not.

-- Scaled Knockback. +/-

• `GuiltyGear
  `BBB

Mostly scaled with combo hits. Could be scaled with combo damage. Pushes you progressively further back each hit, preventing most infinites and such.

-- Scaled Gravity. +/-

• `GuiltyGear
  `Monster

Mostly scaled with combo hits. Could be scaled with combo damage. Drops the opponent faster after each hit, preventing most juggle-based infinites.

-- Comboable Throws. +/-

• `GuiltyGear
  `MeltyBlood

Sometimes you can combo into them, sometimes you can combo after them. I sometimes wonder if it's a good or bad thing. In the case of MeltyBlood, a throw will reset the OTG and wallslam limit which could be perceived as either a really good thing or a really bad thing.

-- Air Resets. +/-

• `SF
  `Marvel

There's two kinds of resets, and there's even something peculiar in the GG series post X2. In most SF games normal moves would flip the opponent in the air, putting them in an invulnerable state and will hit the ground standing. In SF3 supers would reset this state and hit an opponent regardless of the flip invulnerability, though the opponent is still able to parry. In Guilty Gear post X2 if the opponent Burst (hitstun cancel) out of an attack they would become vulnerable to airthrows, but the combo count would continue to increment, creating odd mid-combo-throw combos.

-- Custom Combos. +/-

• `SFA2/3
  `SF3 Yun Genei Jin
  `CvS2

I forget where this idea was first born but it's a few reappearances which suggests people like it. Is it good, is it bad, what kind of custom is good and what kind are bad.

-- Attack Cancel. +/-

• `X-Men/Marvel
  `Guilty Gear
  `Hokuto no Ken
  `BBB

In the Capcom Marvel games as far back as X-Men there have been the ability to cancel an attack into a super jump, which enabled a quick-cancel of most normals, enabling very exotic combos. GG implemented the concept of using meter for a quick cancel of any move, costing meter to immediately return to neutral. HnK added the idea to do the same, except the Boost would move you forward. And BBB copied HnK.

-- Assists. +/-

• `Marvel
  `some KoF

MvC2 gave us the ability to fire other characters special moves while another character was on point, and switch between character mid-combo. I believe some of the KoF games did something similar with the switching of characters mid-combo as well.

-- Special-Super Cancel. +/-

• `SF3
  `SFEX

The ability to cancel a special into a super and such. These certainly aren't the only games that have it, though. But again, there's many types. I sometimes wonder if it's a good idea or bad idea. Like in the case of BBB and Monster and sometimes SFEX I felt that pretty much every combo would follow the normal->special->super chain without variance.

-- Attack Cancel. +/-

• `X-Men/Marvel
  `Guilty Gear

-- Front-step/Dash Cancel. +/-

• `some MeltyBlood
  `Monster

Monster wasn't the only game to implement this (I just can't think of any others atm). But, what they did was allow you to dash cancel normal moves into a forward dash, which had a dash cool-down. Being in a dash state you could perform dash-only attacks or simply stop dashing. MB and GG allow you to airdash cancel, but being able to front-step on the ground added some interesting dynamics. In the case of MB the only character that can do it (anymore) is W.Len.

-- Airdash / Double Jump. +/-

• `X-Men/Marvel
  `Meltyblood
  `Guilty Gear

Many games have used these functionalities outside of SF with varying levels of success. When combined with normal chains, many players feel the game becomes dialy (ground chain, air chain, dj repeat air chain). Some also feel that it dilutes footsies as the footsie game becomes heavily air based and "watery". How does it effect combos in games without normal chains, good idea/bad idea.

-- Normal Cancel Limitation. +/-

• `Meltyblood

Such as the ability to cancel a normal move into a normal jump, which is limited in MB. During a valid combo you aren't able to jump cancel more than once. This lead to interesting ways to bypass the limitation such as whiff cancels and obscure link combos. This could be applied to other things such as dash canceling (if applicable) and perhaps other things depending on how the game is designed. I personally feel Arcana Heart needs a bunch of these particular rulesets.

// Non-direct-combo related mechanics.

-- Kamone, while rising jump attack overheads. +/-

• `Chun-Li
  `MeltyBlood

Though this isn't directly combo related, it can be. The ability to hit the opponent while rising can create very odd jump and rejump combos on taller characters. Though in the case of MeltyBlood it also creates a wild high/low mixup due to the functionality of blockstun/fuzzyguard.

-- Suki, frame traps between attacks. +/-

• `Tick throws
  `MeltyBlood

Not directly combo related, but I find it interesting.

-- Delayed chains, ability to chain melee attacks with a manual delay. +/-

• `IaMP
  `MeltyBlood

Again, not directly combo related, but it can be. The ability to delay hits between a combo hit can make for some very interesting combos provided other system mechanics are in place.

... That's all I can think of for now.

I would like to point out that in CVS 2

the LVL2 cancel is an interesting take on the super cancels, since it goes the other way. And lets you sometimes have more interesting combos, such as ryo's extended lvl2 cancel craziness.


Also to the assists thing - Kof 99,2000,2001 had straight marvel 1 type assists, right down to them having a limit, or them picking you up on otg states. The best thing imo about them where the different ways in which they could extend certain combos such as in 2000 you could throw a character and if you called assist at the right time instead of doing their usual asisst attack they would come in with a flying kick that would pop the person up allowing for combos off of regular throws. Nice little addition and I think it makes 2000 my favorite KOF striker game, even if it also causes for ridiculous combos sometimes (mostly because they don't limit the number of strikers you can call in a combo, which I believe does marvel a world of good)


Scaled knockback is very interesting concept and when applied well It can be a good way to prevent infinites, the only problem is in games where this is implemented you can be able to trick the computer into reversing the knock back sometimes allowing for easier infinites rather than harder ones (IE hokuto no ken)

there is probably more to say but I can't think of it right now.

Yeah, regarding scaled knockback, in older versions of MeltyBlood (notably the PC version of FT) the character did not turn around between attack strings if the opponent crossed them up.

While this allowed for some extremely interesting "backwards" hitting combos and such, it also allowed for 5A/2A infinites. Since light attacks chained into themselves and you would not turn around, the opponent would be knocked toward you rather than away from you, indefinitely.

Scaled knockback wouldn't fix such a thing. But they fixed it in later arcade releases by forcing the character to adjust their direction between attacks.

Something else I just remembered to add to the list, is limitations on specific cancels and such. MeltyBlood comes to mind, since you are unable to use a normal ground jump cancel more than once per combo. There were ways to bypass this limit, but there isn't a way to cancel a normal directly into a jump more than once.

Are we talking about building an ideal combo system from the ground up or adding subtle elements to spice up combo setups?

Whichever you want.

My idea was to have a list of features that effect combos and show what games they exist in.

And the reason for doing so was to see if some combo concepts could be transferred between games. Such as Sonic Boom setups and such for games that have slow projectiles.

[Edit] As a byproduct, I find this subject very interesting regardless of it's use.

I would just like to note that Im glad guilty gear gave my favorite character Slayer hella air and ground links. It makes him more fun to play for me, as link combos are my favorite kind!

Also forgot to mention

Counterhits Depending on the system they do different things. I love ggs system of changing it up depending on the move that hit. But ever since this was added into games it has always become a crucial part of the combo system, from major counters in Alpha 3, too combos that are only consistent off counter hit, ala rolento hit-checkable ch jab into cr.mk *yeah I know its a 1 frame link but thats not consistent*

Oh yes, that's a very good one. Situational CH-only combos exist in IaMP and MeltyBlood as well, and probably others.

And continuing from that same concept, there are some cases where Crouching Only combos exist, such as the ones in SF games, notably Street Fighter 3, 3rd Strike. They exist because crouching opponent incur a +1 to recovery, so that makes certain normally-impossible links possible.

That also reminds me of something else that exists in Guilty Gear, which is Attack Weights which is a very passive mechanic that also exists in IaMP, Melty Blood and perhaps others. Basically, when we look at framedata for SF games it's difficult to determine exactly how much hitstun or blockstun a move produces without either doing some rough calculations or thorough testing. But in games like GG and MB and IaMP, all attacks have a specific class or "weight" and will induce the same amount of hitstun/blockstun of their type. Where the varying frame data comes from is the animation's recovery frames.

However, this gives an awesome insight into certain things regarding cancels. Such as, canceling into a fireball, and knowing that it's a valid combo of any type 3 attack or higher, but invalid off anything lower. Of course, this has more use in Guilty Gear where any attack can be potentially canceled by a RC, which allows you to know exactly what moves have the greatest hitstun/blockstun values regardless of the moves recovery. But I would have also found this particularly useful for SF3 (it's a damn shame that if there are hit weights, I do not know of them) in order to determine things like tick throws and such. For example, Ibuki can cancel normally cancellable moves into a command dash, then attempt a throw or somesuch, but how does one determine what move in her moveset is best suited for this without knowing attack weights -- framedata doesn't help here because frame advantage/disadvantage doesn't account for the move being canceled. And while we can assume heavy attacks are best, we do not know precisely how many frames Ibuki recovers before/after the opponent does.

'Course we do know now that CPS3 is emulated but that's another story.

There's also something kinda obvious that I think I forgot, which is a Scaled Juggle Bar which exists in IaMP and may (i think?) exist in Guilty Gear. Basically attacks have values associated with them, and with each hit they increase the rate at which the juggle bar decreases. Therefor, even though each hit will reset the juggle bar to it's normal maximum value depending on the move used, it will very rapidly decrease as the number of hits go up, allowing the opponent to tech recover once the bar empties.

And on that note, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody applies a Juggle Cap which I'm not particularly fond of, but it's very effective. This cap actually sets a value for each move, and when the move connects in increments the bar towards 100%. The moves may or may not have any form of proration/scaling to them, but once the limit is reached the opponent becomes completely invulnerable and is knocked down. This also applies to standing opponents, thus removing any possibility of an infinite in that game whatsoever. The idea was that if the limit had not been reached then the opponent could air tech recover, and if the limit had been reached then they could not recover but would be invulnerable until reaching the ground.

And now that I've mentioned it, there's also the concept of Scaled Damage such as move proration and even scaled proration. In Melty Blood there exists different forms of damage scaling. Some moves have normal proration which reduces the damage % by a specific set amount but will not increase the gauge, so a move that reduces the gauge to 80% will cause all other hits to also do 80% and a following hit that has a value of 90% will still do 80% and leave the gauge at 80%. But, there is also the concept of scaled prorate which continually reduces the amount of damage by a specific %, so while you could use a move that sets the gauge to 80% over and over and still have it be 80%, a scaled prorate that reduces the gauge by 20% will slowly increment the gauge downwards, so you'll have things like 80% being reduced to 60% the next attack and then 40% the next attack and so on. Then there's also the "reverse beat" penalty that exists when you perform a reverse chain, like canceling a heavy attack into a light attack. This adds to a gauge which decreases the damage done by a %, but this is kept separate from damage prorating and is timer based, so it will instantly go to a 24% and then quickly begin to reduce in % from there.

And speaking of damage modifiers in Melty Blood, there's also character-specific Defense Modifiers. I'm sure we're all familiar with different levels of stamina so this needs no real explanation.

However, I will say that stamina and defense are not always the same. In the case of Melty Blood, characters life bars are divided into four sections, and these sections have different defense modifiers per section. So while one character may be taking 80% damage at full life they could be taking 110% damage at half life and 75% damage at quarter life. The end result is what appears to be different stamina ratings, which is not the case because all characters have the same life bar size. To me, this is rather problematic because testing the damage a combo can do is variable depending on the character. I would normally choose the character with the lowest defense for the first three quarters of their lifebar, but when it varies so much the combo is really going to do variable damage to each character in the roster.

C'mon, where's that OMF2097 guy for this? OMF had interesting combo properties...anything chained, anything juggled but only once per combo for each move. There was crazy junk but no infinites.

Mike Z

The Budokai series has a weird combo system.

The moves start off as tekken-style strings of button presses, but you can charge up some of the strikes by holding the button down. While you're charging, if you press the block button, it cancels straight out of the move. So by holding down the button and then hitting block, you could cancel out of a lot of moves and follow up with another quick string.

To stop infinites, they made it so if you use the same string twice in the same combo, it floats the enemy character. (Granted, this didn't actually work to prevent infinites, since there were still some juggle-based ones. But at least it made them harder.)

You could also cancel any move into an energy blast, then charge that and guard cancel it really quickly to recover faster. Made some really wacky combos possible.

Edit:

Xenozip. wrote:Oh yes, that's a very good one. Situational CH-only combos exist in IaMP and MeltyBlood as well, and probably others.

And continuing from that same concept, there are some cases where Crouching Only combos exist, such as the ones in SF games, notably Street Fighter 3, 3rd Strike. They exist because crouching opponent incur a +1 to recovery, so that makes certain normally-impossible links possible.

In 3S, there are also "stun only" combos that only work if the opponent entered a stunned state during the combo. That provides +1 frame of hitstun for some reason. Similarly, the juggle system changes dramatically when ever they're stunned.

Also, some games like Tekken/VF have terrain (walls, etc.) that make certain combos possible if you hit them. And in DOA4, the background would sometimes leap out and attack you, and you could combo into/out of that as well. (One of my friend's did it during the Evo West finals a couple of years back!)

This is pretty funny in retrospect, considering the IPS mechanic in Skullgirls by MikeZ and it's revision.

What are the changes exactly? Have you been playing Skullgirls?

I see two things missing from this list:

Dash/Run Cancel (Marvel/Darkstalkers/KoF96+/GGXX/Others)

Xenozip mentioned cancelling attacks with dashes, but what about the more common dashes with attacks? While not necessary for the majority of combos in the games they feature in, there are still certain combos that are, at the very least, made easier by being able to dash in with an attack (it depends on the character and their dash, such as how much momentum is retained after inputting an attack, etc). Same with running, though it's probable that the majority of run combos in KoF involve two characters running in the same direction for corner backwards hits shenanigans.

On this note, I think cancelling dashes with regular attacks is a different process than having dash-specific attacks.

Oh, and if we're commenting on the usefulness of each property, I think dash-cancels are great. I really want to see them in a mainline SF game.

Hit Stun Scaling (MvC3, Smash Bros series)

AFAIK there are only a few games that use this. MvC3 and SMash Bros. series both use hit stun scaling in combos, but to opposite effect:

In MvC3, the longer the combo goes on, the less hit stun each subsequent attack inflicts, and do so to varying degrees based on individual attacks (i.e. ground attacks reduce hit stun more than aerial attacks), so they can make finding really long combos unnecessarily difficult. I'm not a fan of this system. I prefer GGXX's general increased knockback and gravity scaling for long combos.

Meanwhile, Smash Bros series uses a strange system were hit stun/knockback/gravity values are all dependent on current percentage (life) value - the higher this value, the greater the hit stun/knockback on attacks are and the lighter the characters become, making most (juggle) combos easier. It's a unique system that really only works in a Smash Bros or Smash Bros-type system (do we know if Sony All-Stars will use a similar system?), and I doubt we'll ever see it in a more "standard" fighter.

Wait...you *like* the hitstun scaling thing? I'm also pretty sure it's present in BlazBlue

onReload wrote:Wait...you *like* the hitstun scaling thing? I'm also pretty sure it's present in BlazBlue

Indeed it is. And personally I hate it, it's laziest way to balance the combo system if you ask me.

Sorry to revive this thread, but I found it very interesting.

One of the things I like the most about SFxT is being able to store a CH mid-combo (with the right setup of course). Add to that that some moves have different effects on CH (crumple, ground bounce, wall bounce, etc) and it really makes some very flashy (and powerful) combos possible.

Also, moves that can reflect FBs and something like Dudley's Rose also allow for some cool setups.

onReload wrote:Wait...you *like* the hitstun scaling thing? I'm also pretty sure it's present in BlazBlue

This response is over two years late, but I didn't bump up the thread. Anyway, I just wanted to confirm that I am NOT a fan of MvC3-style hitstun scaling.I'm a fan of Guilty Gear's systems of gravity/knockback scaling instead.

Blocking is one of the best core mechanic in any fighter in my opinion. "block buttons" are often critisized in fighting games, but I think that they can work very well when implimented properly. Super Smash Bros Melee has and absolutely brilliant method of ballancing the block button. For those who aren't familiar, there are two types of blocking in melee. There is a light (transparent) sheild and a dark (opaque) sheild. The light sheild is bigger, but causes more pushback, and the dark sheild is smaller but causes less pushback. In addition to genuine gaurd breaks in melee, there is also a mechanic called sheild poking. As you block, your sheild gets smaller and the head/feet of your character become exposed. Exposed limbs can be hit through your sheild, but you can move the center of your sheild with the control stick to cover your head/feet creating a high/low mixup.

Gaurd break is one of my favorite mechanics. I like being rewarded for the act of maintaining pressure regardless of landing hits. I would like to see more games ditch dizzy in favor of gaurd crush.

Counter hits can be interesting, but I feel like this mechanic works best when the counterhit is deliberate. Taking counterhit damage in footsies seems kind of arbitrary to me, however doing counter-hit only combos on offense after baiting your opponent into hitting a button is incredibly rewarding.

I'm not fond of having throw invincibility after exiting blockstun/hitstun/on wakeup. I truely dont understand why this mechanic exists. I dont get why it is important to be able to beat tick throws/meaty throws with fast normals. The only fighting game I can think of that doesnt have this mechanic is melee. I'd like to play a more traditional 2d fighter without this mechanic and see how it plays.

Throws inputs that are done by pressing normal+back/towards is the worst thing ever. I hate them in every single game they are in. Having a throw whiff animation seems like such an essential part of the game to me.