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Capcom Says Online Play Is the Future of Fighting Games 60

Posted by Soulskill from the world-of-streetfightercraft dept.
Capcom's Yoshinori Ono spoke with Videogamer recently about the upcoming Street Fighter IV title. He discussed several features of the game, including the lag during online play being a "huge problem," and the decision to remove parrying from this offering. He also mentioned that once better infrastructure is in place, online play "will definitely be the future of the fighting game."
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Capcom Says Online Play Is the Future of Fighting Games More

Capcom Says Online Play Is the Future of Fighting Games

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  • Yes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Saturday August 30, 2008 @09:51AM (#24809671)
    Of course online play is the future. But as the summery pointed out, there is just too much lag right now. Take lag and add in some spots here in the US that simply can't get broadband at the moment (just about anywhere outside of a small town only has dial-up or satellite as options) and even broadband connections lag sometimes.
    • Actually, this [penny-arcade.com] is the biggest obstacle to online play. Lag would be a close second, though.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ch0ad ( 1127549 )
      tekken 5 online works beautifully over the internet. if the connection is fast enough (and "fast enough" isn't really that fast), the lag is completely unnoticeable. even reversals work perfectly (if you press a button combo in a half second window as the enemy attacks you throw them to the ground). so i don't quite see why they're bitching so much. it can and has been done!
      • Yes, but even if your internet is fast but you are playing a player who is on a pitiful connection, usually you will slow down too.
    • People play fighting games over the intertubes? Next thing you know, people will be playing games in which tons of people play online on a set of servers and will sit in one area for hours waiting for a particular beast to appear in order to obtain a magical treasure. Crazy talk!

  • Lag (Score:2)

    by Hatta ( 162192 )

    You thought lag was a problem for FPS? You haven't seen anything yet.

    • I'm playing a lot Day Of Defeat: Source these days, on a DSL connection with 2Mbit/s, and lag is not a problem as long as I stick to European servers (I'm living in Germany).

      It is different for US servers, when the data have to travel to the US and back the lag becomes a noticable disadvantage. But that is unavoidable due to the distance, even ideal routers cannot get around the limited speed of light.

      Conclusions:
      -Broadband, even with modest specs (2Mbit/s is the entry offer in Germany these days, unless yo

      • Re:Lag? Not much on broadband and nearby servers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mprx ( 82435 ) on Saturday August 30, 2008 @10:30AM (#24809995)

        In FPSs you can hide the lag by calculating the hits client side and displaying the results immediately, then confirming them on the server later. This works well because it's rare for players to act simultaneously, and when they do it's rare for one attack to interrupt another. Mastering the map layout and being able to predict your opponent's movement while remaining unpredictable yourself is more important than reaction time.

        This prediction game ("yomi" in fighting game slang, from the Japanese for "reading", as in reading your opponent) is also critical to fighting games, but reaction time is much more important than in FPSs because you're always watching your opponent (no FPS style ambushes or surprise attacks), and attacks are often interrupted by other attacks.

        Casual players might not notice the lag, but for high level play with traditional fast paced fighting games it's going to be unacceptable. Modifying the gameplay is the only solution, and a lot of hardcore players are going to be unhappy about that.

        • Rare for FPS players to act simultaneously? You must be a camper. Walking round a corner seeing someone and you both firing simultaneously is very common in the FPSs I've played.
          • In this case you hear one player or see rather one type the proverbial "CLICK".

            • If we are talking about high level play and the issue of simultaneous actions, I would say that it matters just as much as a fighting game in a fps. Sure you do not have as many actions occurring simultaneously but the few ones that do occur are even more important!

              At least in counter strike I know at least half the time someone would peek for an AWP shot (a scrim not pub play) it was a matter of both of the players shooting the other player and hitting, but whoever acted that milisecond earlier cancelling

              • But that's one very specific situation in the game and even for experienced players it is more of a gamble than aquired skill. Of course it can still has a huge influence on outcome of the game.
                But compared to a fighting game where every move is basically a question of attack and block, action and reaction it is relatively small.
                Of course it depends on the game, some fighting games are more timing based than others. But with some of the most popular for competetive play, the only successful attacks are a re

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The parent is correct - something fundamental will have to change about fighting games for them to work online.

          Even if online lag was reduced to zero (e.g. direct LAN cable connection), there would still be problems. Most fighting games currently are synchronised with the TV refresh rate (60Hz), and chances are each TV will be out of sync. More practically, the fighting action is so fast now that even 50ms of delay, low enough for a FPS game, is too much for dealing with things like counters.

        • Mastering the map layout and being able to predict your opponent's movement while remaining unpredictable yourself is more important than reaction time.

          This sounds really nice and mystical, but it doesn't have anything to do with reality.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by mollymoo ( 202721 )

            Perhaps not your reality, but it makes a hell of a difference to mine. Knowing the maps is essential, or you won't know where to look for danger or be much good at spotting partially concealed enemies. No matter how good your reactions, having your gun already pointed where the enemy is about to appear is an advantage. If you don't know the map, you can't predict this.

            Unpredictability gets me a lot of kills too. A common tactic of mine (which rarely fails) is to feint one way round an obstacle between me an

            • Yes, you have to know the map, but predicting where the enemy will be doesn't work the way Mprx thinks it does.

            • Unpredictability gets me a lot of kills too. A common tactic of mine (which rarely fails) is to feint one way round an obstacle between me an an enemy, so they expect me to reappear from (say) the left side of the cover.

              This would make that tactic very predictable.

              • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                by mollymoo ( 202721 )
                It would only be predictable if I always did it and you knew it was me you saw run behind the cover. The former isn't true and the latter is rarely true. The simple fact is that it works - people rarely correctly predict my actions.
                • My current FPS flavor is COD4, in COD4 when close enough you can see an enemy's name tag, roughly 9 meters distance. More than the length of a freight container. Which is where something like this may happen.

                  I don't doubt this tactic works, because it does, I've used it. Just not all that often.

                  Though in a spin of this, I will circle around, change direction than go prone, and stab someone as they run past. The nametag thing only works when you have an opponent in a certain section of the center of your s

                  • I'm playing CoD 4 at the moment too. I don't find the nametag appearing very often, perhaps I do it a bit further from the containers (and it is usually containers) than you. Because of the flow of the game I get a chance to use it regularly with the container in the corner by the crashed helicopter in Countdown - the angles are just right, but the distance can be a bit far sometimes.

                    The buildings on Crash are awesome for leaping out of windows, circling round and stabbing people in the back. Never really u

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mprx ( 82435 )
            I've got good reaction time, but I'll still get pwned in 1v1 against a really good player. With enough practice the "twitch" aiming becomes completely automatic, and everyone converges to the fastest speed humanly possible. If this is all there is then the game is reduced to luck. In reality, maneuvering so you see your opponent before they see you is very important, and this requires the same high level mind-games as all competitive sports.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Nick Ives ( 317 )

              LPBs still have an inherent advantage though. Back in the day I used to play QuakeWorld and often pw0ned players with 1/5 the ping of my dialup connection (usually about 180-220ms). That was due to tactics and map knowledge, same as you I'd bet, but when two players of similar skill run around a corner and see each other at the same time then the LPB will win.

              Back on topic, I imagine this would be far worse for fighting games like Street Fighter. My understanding is that online games on consoles get hosted

            • With enough practice the "twitch" aiming becomes completely automatic, and everyone converges to the fastest speed humanly possible.

              No. There will always be differences in reaction times and accuracy.

              In reality, maneuvering so you see your opponent before they see you is very important, and this requires the same high level mind-games as all competitive sports.

              Yes, but this has nothing to do with mystical statements like the one you posted earlier.

              • Yes, but this has nothing to do with mystical statements like the one you posted earlier.

                What did he say that was mystical? I must have missed the bit about harnessing your chi-flow.

          • It is definitely an advantage to know the map, because it dictates the opponents' moves to some extent. Especially on the start of a round when both sides rush to get a head start on the objectives.

            Example:
            In Avalanche (Day Of Defeat) there is a standard exchange of grenades across the marketplace on the start of a new round. Because the opponents will be roughly in the place where the grenades detonate if they rush. If they don't rush, they fall behind in getting to the center flag.

      • The games the article refers to are typically peer-peer, not client-server, and do not use dedicated servers. In fact, a two player game will perform worse with a dedicated server since the traffic has to go via two links rather than a single, "direct" one.

        The point being that without dedicated servers, it doesn't matter where the matchmaking server is, because game play does not go through it. Segregating users geographically makes it easier to find players near you, but the same can be done with ranking

  • Lag... (Score:3, Informative)

    by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Saturday August 30, 2008 @09:58AM (#24809733)
    Fighters like Street Fighter IV an Soul Calibur IV are being slowed down so that they can better deal with lag. Fans of Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter are usually counting frames and timing their moves precisely, and at the same time enjoy the frantic pace of the game. Street Fighter II Turbo was especially popular because of its speed. It's unfortunate that these aspects have to be toned down.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by WDot ( 1286728 )
      But then again, isn't the possibility of a revival in the popularity of fighting games a good thing? Despite the pace and relative simplicity of Soul Calibur IV, it's the first "traditional" fighting game I've been able to get friends to willingly play in a long time.

      Let these simplified fighters get eaten up as gateway drugs, and hopefully a new crop of "hardcore" fighting game fans will result.

  • That about sums it up.

  • But if the future of games is to keep playing GameVersion+1, then count me out (unless the theme is similar but the gameplay changes, i.e. Zelda, Metroid).

  • Better infrastructure.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Scott Kevill ( 1080991 ) on Saturday August 30, 2008 @10:20AM (#24809911) Homepage
    Yeah.. like increasing the speed of light. Good luck with that.

    From the article, it looks like they're also confused between bandwidth and latency. Slightly simplified, it's the latency that makes it impossible to do real-time melee games well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amorsen ( 7485 )

      Getting rid of DSL is good for 15ms if the line is really good, and 50-100ms if the line is bad. That should help.

      As long as you don't have to cross an ocean, 50ms latency console-to-console should be doable in a few years.

  • Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wave Net was fast and lag free back the mid 90's so this is not new.

    • Back in the mid 90's we didn't have hordes of people downloading crap from torrents and P2P, we didn't have the masses watching videos on YouTube, Hulu and the like, and spam was at much lower levels.

      It doesn't matter if your game doesn't use much bandwidth if the "tubes are clogged".

      • We also have tubes a damn sight bigger than back then. The tubes aren't clogged, at least the big ones. You ISP's tubes may be clogged, if they are then you need to find a new ISP or to pay your existing ISP more money for lower contention.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

          "Find a new ISP" is easier said than done. A lot of people have absolutely zero choice when it comes to high-speed internet.

          I do agree that the internet as a whole as more bandwidth than in the 90's, however the usage (IMO) is currently growing a lot faster than the available capacity (again, torrents, p2p, youtube, hulu, voip, spam, bots, etc - and that's not even mentioning things like legal online music stores, video stores, 10MB Flash "websites", internet radio, etc).

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            A lot of people have absolutely zero choice when it comes to high-speed internet.

            You meant "near zero choice". If it were absolutely zero choice, that would even rule out moving your family to a home where a better connection is offered.

      • Back in the mid 90's we didn't have hordes of people downloading crap from torrents and P2P, we didn't have the masses watching videos on YouTube, Hulu and the like, and spam was at much lower levels.

        It doesn't matter if your game doesn't use much bandwidth if the "tubes are clogged".

        Those things wouldn't really have effected UMK3 WaveNet anyway since it's not like these machines were running across the internet.

        Arcades with wavenet machines had ISDN lines that connected them to a Midway headquarters. They had a direct line to run a few arcade machines over.

    • There aren't many sources out there about it, but it looks like the WaveNet version of the game never made it out of testing in Chicago [realmmedia.com].

      Also, while it's hard to know for sure without knowing more about the WaveNet game, I suspect that a 2D 16-bit-era fighter is going to send significantly less data back and forth than Street Fighter IV would need to.

      • I don't think you'd seriously need to send that much more data. They don't actually send any graphical data. Just information about which buttons your pressing. The computer on the other end can recreate your moves based complete on your button presses.
  • Too bad they removed parrying, it was one of my favorite elements of Third Strike.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by joystickgenie ( 913297 )

      Tell me about it. This new lead designer just pisses me off more and more as I read new interviews from him.

      VideoGamer.com: Why did you make the decision to remove parrying for Street Fighter IV?

      YO: ...Basically we used the rule book from Street Fighter II because that was the most popular.

      VideoGamer.com: Some critics have said the game is too similar to Street Fighter II. That is doesn't move the series forward. What do you say to those criticisms?

      YO: ...ultimately we wanted to create a sequel to Street Fi

  • The first rule of online fighting games is you don't talk about online fighting games!?
  • The future is now! Soon every American home will integrate their television, phone and computer! You'll be able to visit the Louvre on one channel, or watch female mud wrestling on another. You can do your shopping at home, or play Mortal Kombat with a friend from Vietnam! There's no end to the possibilities!
  • The coolest thing with online fighters is that they can hold 1000 players in a small area all fighting at once instead of like 64. The trick is that you only need to worry about people near you, so you can send packets increasingly at lower intervals the farther they are from you. I'm one of the few people that even knows this. My website is www.roamingdragon.com. I have all the hard parts done. I'll be doing beta on the web in like a year.

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