Bao Xu paused briefly, then continued: “Some professional terms in fighting games, like ‘neutral game’ or ‘option select,’ often don’t emphasize just one thing, but rather a very broad, general concept. A player’s strength is determined by their mastery of these abilities and how flexibly they apply them.”
“For example, the concept of ‘neutral game’ is difficult to translate. It refers to all the actions you take before attacking your opponent or defending against their attacks. Whether it’s moving back and forth, controlling space, or baiting, they can all be considered part of the ‘neutral game.'”
“In other words, the purpose of the neutral game is to do everything possible to create situations favorable to yourself while putting your opponent in a disadvantageous position.”
“If it’s still hard to understand, you can roughly think of it as the preparatory ability before attacking, including both awareness and execution—similar to how in MOBA games, you frequently use small movements to bait out skills or lure enemies into terrain that’s favorable to you.”
“So, although action games like ‘Turn Back to Shore’ also involve suffering, their growth curve is still relatively scientific. At most, they’re difficult to get started with, but once you’re on track, you gradually adapt.”
“Fighting games are different. Their growth curve starts very low and progresses very slowly, with seemingly no upper limit. During this process, it’s hard to accurately assess how much stronger you’ve actually become. You might encounter an expert and get completely destroyed to the point where you question your life choices.”
“Unlike action games where you can become stronger just by memorizing patterns, fighting games aren’t just about memorization or practicing reaction speed and input motions. They require a large amount of targeted practice, and often you need to break down each action to the frame level through muscle memory.”
“If we compare the data, many players can become proficient in games like ‘Turn Back to Shore’ after thirty hours, become experts after a hundred hours, and beyond that, they’re just doing speedruns or instantly killing bosses.”
“But fighting games are different. A hundred hours is nothing special, a thousand hours might still leave you getting destroyed, and it goes on indefinitely—three thousand hours, five thousand hours, with no upper limit.”
Yu Fei couldn’t help but stare in disbelief: “Five thousand hours…”
He did a quick calculation.
Assuming you play religiously every day, averaging five hours a day, five thousand hours would still take three years.
If you averaged one hour a day, it would take over a decade.
The thought alone was frightening.
Although there’s the “10,000-hour rule,” that’s when discussing very complex, advanced professional fields.
Games are different. Even if you squeeze out that much time, they will become boring and lose their appeal, since they don’t have the depth of professional fields.
The key is that after playing many games for a few hundred hours, any improvement you can gain from additional practice becomes minimal.
Perhaps your ability has reached its limit, or the game’s mechanics don’t support further growth.
MOBA games and shooting games also have replayable characteristics, but even in shooting games, when facing experts, you can at least land a shot or two by luck.
In fighting games, when facing a true expert, it might be difficult to even move.
Bao Xu continued: “So here’s a very critical issue: fighting games must have a certain inheritance.”
“Those true experts who have played thousands of hours across all fighting games do so because all fighting games actually share certain commonalities. Previous experience can be applied to new games, and after a period of adjustment, they can quickly get up to speed.”
“These people are the most die-hard fans of fighting games, and also the most demanding.”
“If a fighting game conflicts with their existing experience, they’ll think the game is poorly made and won’t play it at all.”
“Of course, from another perspective, this also saves us some time in the design process: knowing that certain traditions must be continued, we don’t need to agonize over them.”
“For example, the basic combat system, special move inputs, and a series of operations absolutely cannot be drastically changed.”
Yu Fei nodded, gaining a deeper understanding of how wrong his original idea had been.
For fighting game players, executing special moves had become muscle memory, an instinctive reaction. Being able to input a super move in a split second during the chaos of battle is a skill every fighting game player must master.
If all these hard-earned skills had no place in “Ghost General 2,” why would they come to play it?
Therefore, since “Ghost General 2” is a fighting game, the basic combat system couldn’t be forcibly changed. It could only make minor adjustments to the traditional classic fighting game foundation, and any changes had to be carefully considered.
Character designs, movements, and special moves could all be varied, but the core and basic control scheme couldn’t be changed.
The reason game types are strictly divided into action games, side-scrolling games, and fighting games is that each type has very clear limitations that can’t be blurred.
Yu Fei thought for a moment and said, “So, ‘Ghost General 2’ still needs to continue the fighting game control scheme. The joystick must handle movement, jumping, and special move inputs. It can’t be changed to an action game’s control method.”
Bao Xu nodded: “Yes, that would fundamentally damage the enjoyment of fighting games, and it could no longer be called a fighting game.”
As he spoke, he casually picked up a game controller from Yu Fei’s desk.
“On a standard game controller, there are four areas on the front: left and right joysticks, left function area (up, down, left, right), and right function area (ABXY). But in fighting games, only two areas are actually used.”
“The right thumb rests on ABXY, and the right joystick isn’t used at all.”
“The left thumb uses either the D-pad or the left joystick, depending on personal preference, but regardless of which one is used, the other isn’t used at all.”
“Fighting game-specific controllers on the market directly eliminate all unnecessary joysticks and add two more buttons in the ABXY area.”
“The D-pad on a fighting controller is floating-style for easier special move inputs, while controllers similar to arcade machines have a large joystick on the left. The principle is the same, but the specific choice depends on personal preference.”
“But regardless of the formal differences, they all have one thing in common: the player’s hands can only attend to two areas, and the functions of these two areas are very fixed.”
Bao Xu explained very thoroughly, and Yu Fei quickly understood.
The pace of fighting games was too fast, so there was simply no time to do anything else.
In action games, players can take their left thumb off the left joystick to press the D-pad to use items, or they can stop pressing the attack or roll buttons with their right thumb to adjust the camera with the right joystick.
Although this would affect the original action, losing a fraction of a second wouldn’t have fatal consequences; you could just do it during a lull in combat.
But fighting games are different. Since a fraction of a second’s mistake could be caught by the opponent and cause massive damage, players simply can’t spare a hand to press other buttons.
Of course, the layout of fighting game controllers appeared much earlier than current console controllers.
So, the operation mode and controller style of fighting games are in a category of their own and difficult to fully integrate with the usage of mainstream controllers.
You can use a mainstream controller to simulate fighting game controller operations, but you can’t design fighting game gameplay based on the layout of mainstream controllers.
Yu Fei suddenly realized a problem: “Doesn’t that mean you can only move back and forth on a single plane? Essentially becoming a two-dimensional entity?”
In fighting games, the D-pad controls forward and backward movement, as well as jumping and crouching.
This means there are no buttons responsible for moving left or right, that is, in and out of the screen horizontally.
In other 2D fighting games, this wouldn’t be a major issue, but Mr. Pei had said that “Ghost General 2” would be a pure 3D game, and minions could come from different directions!
How would you attack minions coming from the side?
Bao Xu said: “This problem has already been solved in some fighting games. The solution is to press the up button twice, which makes you sidestep to the left, that is, moving into the screen.”
“It not only makes the character dodge the opponent’s attack but also rotates the entire screen.”
“Similarly, pressing the down button twice makes you sidestep to the right, that is, moving out of the screen, and the camera rotates accordingly.”
“We can go further and implement continuous sidestepping by double-tapping and then holding, or use button combinations to perform sidestepping operations.”
This control scheme was quite scientific. In fighting games, single-click, double-click, and holding are different operations. For example, holding the right direction makes you move, while double-clicking and holding makes you dash quickly.
Yu Fei nodded in understanding: “I see, so this operation itself is feasible, and there are existing design solutions.”
“However, it still operates within the fighting game control system, which compared to other games, especially action games, is a completely different system.”
“In that case, there’s not much we can design for the most basic combat system. We mainly need to continue the classic gameplay of fighting games, only making small tweaks to some details.”
“Hmm… after talking so much, I’ve gained some insights. At least we’ve ruled out many absolutely unfeasible directions.”
“But this is just eliminating mines; I still have no clue about what to actually do.”
Bao Xu smiled and explained: “Of course, this is just laying the foundation. Designing a game is not something that can be done quickly; it requires repeatedly weighing pros and cons and thinking about details.”
“It’s like building a building—it’s an overall project. If any part isn’t handled properly, it could affect the entire project, and in serious cases, you might have to start over.”
“Now the foundation has been laid, and the next step is to gradually refine all the content.”
“As for the specific approach, it’s actually very simple. Start from Mr. Pei’s requirements, analyze them bit by bit, establish a preliminary framework, and then gradually fill in the details.”
“I can’t help you too much in this process; you need ample time for independent thinking.”
Yu Fei pondered: “Putting it that way, I do have some ideas now.”
“However, the combat system is still very challenging. Even if we’re supposed to follow other games, the characters, skills, and actions all need to use ‘Ghost General’s’ settings. We can’t just copy directly.”
Bao Xu said: “That’s simple. If you’re not good at it, find someone who is.”
“There are many fighting game championship winners in China. Why not spend some money to bring them in as motion advisors?”
“When Mr. Pei assigned you to design this game, he certainly didn’t expect you to struggle with these aspects, as they require thousands of hours of gaming experience.”
“You should change your approach. Explore what makes you different from others, find breakthroughs from Mr. Pei’s hints, and gradually complete the entire game design.”