u/KuroSlayerRddt

Hello Everyone,

This was the aforementioned post i was going to make regarding a.. fairly new, issue i noticed with this game. I was thinking of making this as a video to post on my dead SFA channel, where i would speak rather than use text, but i think this is better anyways, cuz at least more than 3 people will pay this any mind.. i hope.

With all the Introductory yap out of the way, lets get into it.

For starters, take a look at this video i posted a few hours ago today: Getting demolished by Nonna.

Whether you saw the video or not, the thing is, as you can tell when it comes to Nonna (who should've been deleted a long time ago), is that she turns the game into a cut-scene, is that a problem? yes. No one wants to just watch their characters get flung around the stage losing arbitrary amounts of hp, while she gets more rage because you are unlucky with the fact that her wolf (unavoidable P.O.S) hits you again during her bear rampage, giving her more rage and extending the attack. This is made even worse with the talent that gives her an extra attack, the extra attack doesn't leave over time and Nonna being as 'Nonna' as she is, makes that extra attack near unavoidable.

Thats the issue.

Unavoidable strings, and she isn't the only character to feature this, Ironclad, though he doesn't have a win button like Nonna, is very much capable of doing this, Itu; with BoD/KTI can unleash different flavours of HP devastation. The key with these characters is that you are relegated to watching as your health is taken from you without a means of escaping.

How is that an SFA problem?

SFA is already a game that rewards passive gameplay, in fact, passive and in more extreme cases, camping, have been prevalent since the early days of the game. The devs are aware, but have done nothing tangible in the 5, almost 6 years of the games lifespan (put me in charge for a week nekki). Now, I'll play the devils advocate, one of the games biggest strengths is the simplicity, of course, it was primarily designed for the mobile market, so theres only so much you can do design wise to make a satisfying PvP fighting game. I've played other fighting games, not on mobile though (i'm assuming the experience isn't as good as on other platforms) Injustice, Mortal Kombat and I've seen gameplays of Tekken and Street fighter. And in traditional fighting game sense, they feature combos and 'Juggling' but

What do they have that SFA doesn't?

For one, better movement and most importantly, a means to escape getting absolutely wrekt.

- Aerial escapes: A technique that allows the player to instantly drop the aggressors combo.

- Wake-up attacks: After getting knocked down, the defending player has a window to instantly skip the recovery and perform an attack, a great way to keep the aggressor off you, but risky in the sense that you'd naturally be open if you missed.

- Ground tech: A grounded version of the aerial escape, featuring invincibility frames (aerial escape features these too).

You cannot also use these moves however you please, as they are managed under a separate gauge, a meter. Said meter can be filled up by partaking in battle; getting hit, hitting the enemy and using special moves build up the meter, and the different moves require different amounts of meter, starting from 2 (wake up attacks don't require any though). And you have 4 bars of said meter.

SFA gives you no window, if you're on the ground, you are open to attack. Still playing Devils advocate, these things will be difficult to implement in the game, especially now that we are almost 6 years into the games life, in an era where the devs are seemingly more focussed on milking whatever playerbase is left rather than issuing QoL updates, making regular Balance changes and generally catering to their players (we STILL don't have features that should have existed ages ago). They don't seem to get that such aggressive, hardcore monetization doesn't net them their desired outcomes.

But the thing is, it is difficult, not impossible, it does not have to be an immediate, singular update, with player feedback, good testing and small, incremental updates, we can have these things in some way or form.

In Conclusion/TL;DR (you should really read the whole thing),

Shadow fight Arena will benefit from another layer of mechanical depth, the current system has its appeal, but is filled with flaws. Passive gameplay is rewarded, combo moves are problematic because you can only watch as you lose significant amounts of health (The game isn't made for traditional combos), and some characters are just broken.

I look forward to comments.

Misc

I'm thinking this could be a regular thing, 'SFA Roundtable', discussing some things that we haven't already. I don't know what else we could talk about though.