Mr. Strange wrote:The one part of this I'd like to specifically talk about is the "arbitrary" elemental weaknesses. Brian is, on this point, totally wrong. Godzilla is not vulnerable to electricity randomly - he is weak specifically because he beat Ghidorah too often in our balancing tests. With his ~12% extra damage taken from Ghidorah and Megalon's beam attack, Godzilla stopped dominating those matches so completely.
A few elemental resistances / vulnerabilities were put in place because of movie reference, but for the most part every single one of them (and even the specific breakdown of damage types) was adjusted specifically to improve game balance. Having that knob in there to adjust allowed us to be a bit more free with our melee attacks - letting us make them "look good" as our first criteria, instead of worrying too much about their particular effectiveness.
Let's take Megaguirus as a specific example - she has a crippling weakness to Atomic Energy. Why? Because she absolutely CLOBBERED Space Godzilla for months. Her energy parasite playstyle just hurt him too much, since his game is all about creating alternative ways to regenerate his hard-to-come-by energy. This was a hard decision, because it then meant that G2k and G90 / G54 were extra strong against Megaguirus. We had to take other steps to fix those match-ups.
The damage type system was such an incredibly useful tool for balancing the game - I can't imagine letting it go. Using a wide variety of damage types gave me fine control over each match-up possibility in the game, which in G:U was 650(!) different match-ups to balance.
I was really surprised at some of the fan backlash about this issue - I think something that made it hard to swallow was the fact that the numerical range of the resistances / vulnerabilites was so wide. Many of them were only ~5% changes to the base damage, while a (very) small number were +50% or more. Seeing that row of vulnerabilities in MOGUERA's character sheet seems to have been off-putting, but I promise you that MOGUERA was a top-tier character for a long time, and needed serious weakening. I didn't just slap those attributes on him randomly!
I appreciate the explanation. Perhaps in the next game, you could show the actual % of change in damage each weakness and resistance has.
Living Corpse wrote:As for GFW Gigan do we really even know if he was metallic blue? The tint used in this film gave everyone a weird color, all the people, monsters and cities had weird lighting to reflect that this was a heavily polluted future. What color was the suit without the weird lighting?
Yep. He is indeed a dark, metallic blue (just like the various toys made of the character). You can see the suit in decent lighting here:
http://youtu.be/Zcn3Mrzi2VE?t=4m6s
Svitska Donkun wrote:I think it is a really stupid move to say that monsters cannot do the moves they do in the games because they were never done in the movies.
I'm glad you're extending your respect to folks who want different things from the game than you do.
Goji wrote:To an extent, I agree with some of these things, but some are pretty nitpicky (no offense to Brian).
No offense taken. As I said, some of the things I mentioned were rather nitpicky. The coloring of Gigan 2004, and more specifically Godzilla 2000, were VERY minor complaints. Their inaccuracy didn't bother me at all. I actually think Gigan's charcoal color would make a nice alternate color option, if they included the metallic blue. It's more accurate to the original concept art than the suit in the actual film.
Goji wrote: * Destoroyah is much smaller than he was in the movie
Well, the thing with the Heisei monsters was that they were all in the 100 meter rage in the movies. So actually, SpaceGodzilla, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Biollante, Heisei Mechagodzilla, are all technically "smaller" than they should be in the Pipeworks games. Making them all larger would be jarring, and I can guarantee you
nobody would like it. (I mean, did
anybody like the giant Mecha-King Ghidorah at the end of
Godzilla:Domination?). Yeah, I didn't think so.
Then again, reaching critical mass made monsters larger, and even "turned" Godzilla into Burning Godzilla. If one wanted to recreate Heisei battles, it was easy enough to do.
I don't mean that Destoroyah should be 120 meters and Mechagodzilla 1974 should be 50 meters (Heisei and GFW monsters would win every battle). I think that all of the monsters should be sized to look like they did compared to Godzilla. So while Megalon was only 50 meters tall, he was more or less equal in height to the Showa Godzilla. Therefore, he should be about equal to Godzilla's height, whether it's the Heisei Godzilla, Godzilla 2000, or some other variant. If you look at Destoroyah's size in the movies, he towers over Godzilla. I think it's one of his most menacing traits--just how massive he is.
Goji wrote: * Anguirus' Supersonic Roar, Godzilla's Fireball, Jet Jaguar's Handclap, King Caesar's Laser Eyes, Mechagodzilla 1974's Flame Nose, Orga's Paralyzing Goo, Titanosaurus' Sonic Wave and Varan's Concentrated Blast should all be removed entirely (Godzilla, Mechagodzilla and Orga all have other powers that could easily replace the abilities listed)
* Biollante's Radioactive Sap Spray and Mothra Larva's Web shouldn't be able to create Beam Battles when they collide with a beam attack
This is where I can't agree at all. All of these things were added for the sake of adding variety to the arsenal of these characters. I'm also confused as to how Jet's "handclap" (karate chop?) and King Caesar's eye lasers aren't "accurate"? Orga's projectile is "goo"? Since when? He demonstrates a shoulder canon in the film, and the designers took a
small liberty with it. Not a big deal. I can understand not wanting Titanosaurus, and Varan to have beams, but I'm sure they were added for the sake of balance.
The "Handclap" is Jet Jaguar's projectile blast wave thing. He never used any energy weapons in the movie. King Caesar's eye beams were something he stole from Mechagodzilla (I DO love the idea of Caesar being able to absorb energy attacks). Orga's goo attack is his tap ability (I have no problems with his shoulder canon in the games). I frankly have no defense for Varan at all... I think he's a pretty lame monster as a fighter. He seems more like a support power-up or something. Titanosaurus doesn't need a beam though. He's got his hurricane winds from his tail. He could potentially knock buildings and other objects into other monsters with gusts from his tail. I think that would make for an interesting and unique ranged combat method.
Goji wrote:Mechagodzilla is shown to use the nostril flames in publicity photos, as well as in the original Japanese poster for the 1974 film. If we're going to remove that, we might as well remove Showa Gigan's eye laser, since he never had it outside of publicity photos either.
You're absolutely right. I totally spaced when I brought up his flame thrower. I too think that publicity photos depicting the monsters using certain attacks are absolutely fair to use. If Gabara were to ever make his way into a game, I'd love to see him use his electrical attack as a projectile, as shown in that awesome publicity photo.
Goji wrote:When you're making a fighting game, you need to give some of these monsters abilities they may not have in any previously existing media. If Titano and Varan don't have beams, then they need some kind of way to handle/combat beam battles, because sitting there, helplessly blocking your beam doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, especially not simply for the sake of a "film accurate version". This is a video game, not a movie.
I absolutely agree with you that the game needs to be good before it's completely faithful to the movies. As I just said, Varan really isn't a very powerful monster. Without a beam, I don't know how anyone could come up with a good moves list and set of stats that come anywhere near accurately depicting the monster from the movies. Even though they gave him a beam, I do think that his style seemed like a solid take on the character.
Still, I don't think that some of the liberties taken were necessary.
Mr. Strange wrote:1 - Titanosaurus using a sonic beam. Titanosaurus is weak to sonic - we know this from his film. But why? Well, it makes sense to me that, as an undersea creature, he uses sound to communicate over long distances, like whales. His advanced hearing makes him vulnerable to sonic attacks, essentially. But if his hearing is developed, it made sense to me that creatures of his race would also have sophisticated vocal cords, to create the sounds they had evolved to hear from far away.
Titanosaurus' sole weakness is supersonic waves...
Mr. Strange wrote:2 - KC's eye lasers. KC used "eye reflectors" in his film, but obviously that doesn't quite make sense in a fighting game - if weapons just bounce off him, then opponents simply wouldn't use weapons - and what's the fun in that? Folks like Mothra, JJ, and MKG already had some "weapons bounce off me" style effects, but they all came with strategic penalties.
So for KC, I came up with the idea that he is a "living battery" and can charge up his internal energy reserves by absorbing weapon attacks. This is why KC doesn't recharge energy normally - but automatically gains cells when blocking beam attacks. Then he expends the absorbed energy from his eyes. This gives a bunch of the same mechanical effect as "eye reflectors" - but spreads the absorption and the discharge into two distinct actions.
I never thought of it as a reflector so much as a way of absorbing energy. Automatically making Caesar rebound attacks back at his opponents would be cheap, and not a very fun ability to play with. On the other hand, allowing him to absorb incoming energy attacks with well-timed blocks, then having him capable of firing that attack back at his opponents could be cool. It would also more accurately depict the character. Although consider GU's beam mechanics, I guess a well-timed block wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. But I'm sure one could get creative...
Mr. Strange wrote:Just to make KC even more tied to the living battery idea, I have his stats change rather dramatically as his energy cells fill up. When his energy cells are low, KC takes almost no damage from weapon fire. When full, KC takes full damage from weapon attacks. When energy cells are low, KC has regular grapple strength. But as he gains energy, KC becomes a fierce grappler - with the highest weight in the game other than Biollante. (High weight makes him almost impossible to lift)
In my head, I thought that original KC was the "low-energy" state, while Final Wars KC (very jumpy and energetic) was the "high-energy" state.
This is very interesting stuff. I like this idea, but I honestly never noticed it while I played the game...