Are character designs the most important aspect of a fighting game?

Are character designs the most important aspect of a fighting game?

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for sales, yeah

this. it could be the best fighting game technically but if the character designs are trash no ones going to give a fuck.

MvCI says yes

Project L will show that no.

Apparently it's presentation.

It'll be popular initially and then everyone will stop playing after a couple of days

Which means flop to a f2p model game, since most of a f2p game sales come from keeping people playing your game and buying cosmetics and characters.

Seeing that the roster/cast is the foundation for fighters, I'd say yes. They're what grabs the eye of people to come on in and try the game (hence why the intro vid in the arcade days was called the attract mode). They see the "accessibility" or deep gameplay, they see characters that look good to them. And they better be good because you are going to look at said characters the most. They are also arguably the most animated of all genres, and with animation comes appeal that can last for years. Not to mention said characters determine what moves they can do, hence affecting the core gameplay.

Ultimatly, I'd argue that the fighting genre is a celebration of character (why we love seeing who gets into Smash or gets a fighting game adaptation and such), so you better get that right.

And whatever you do, don't look at them as functions.

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Look at MVCi.

>Supposedly good gameplay (i never played it)
>Good rollback netcode that people cry about
>Game is a failure, due to the roster, ugly graphics and UI

Brand Recognition + Good looks = Successful FG

Guilty Gear looks good but it's bottom of the barrel weabshit that only appeals to a niche audience (weabs).

The most impartant aspect is not to be seen as a fighting game. People see smash as a party game, so it sells to a much larger audience.

Fighting games have a stigma where people will not play them because they are too hard to learn and have shallow single player content. This makes them not worth the money and also not fun to play.

Look at the online for any fighting game and you will see MOST of the people who bought it have never played a single match online.

>And whatever you do, don't look at them as functions
The gameplay designer should do this though, and actual players do, cry more.

You shouldn’t say this in an interview for BRAND VS BRAND 4 though.

Yes. It's why Smash keeps selling so well. Characters. Even if the gameplay is garbage. Killer Instinct has the best gameplay but people aren't in on it and thus it died + console jew exclusivity etc etc.

You think League of Legends manchildren will play a fighting game where they are fully accountable and can't blame their xyz for losing? Nah. It'll last 2 weeks cause of linked streamer promos or some 'bonus free loot' for the core game for playing/watching, then it'll burn the fuck out.

Gameplay is and street fighter will always fall short of the king of fighters in that regard

I literally only got into fighting games because I thought Ryu shooting fireballs and Ken uppercutting people with huge flaming uppercuts was cool.

Similarly, the MvC franchise upped this shit to 1000 so I got into it because of that too. Nobody cares if you can do 1 frame kara cancel meaty frametrap okis. Whatever you're doing needs to look cool.

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>king of fighters

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I'd argue this is true of any game. Seriously. Think of a game that had unappealing or boring character designs that you still loved playing.

And that's why KOF is more successful than SF! More people play KOF13 and 14 than SFV!

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No. Look at Divekick, Divekick had a cult following and had matches at all big name events for a couple years. And it's just because the mechanics were simple and beautiful.

>Cult following

You're kind of disproving your own point. Divekick was an FG by the FGC for the FGC. I wouldn't say it had much appeal outside the FGC

LoL doesn't have great character designs but they're recognizable to the millions of dumbfucks that love LoL. The first month of Project L will be huge until the very nature of fighting games scare away 90% of them and the game sort of sits around the 3rd or 4th most populated fighting game online for 5+ years.

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I'd be curious as what fighting games you think will have a higher playerbase than project L

Especially considering the most important thing: 80% of fighting games have god awful netcode while project L will probably have some ridiculous high budget new netcode system

>You shouldn’t say this in an interview for BRAND VS BRAND 4 though.
This, his big mistake was assuming that casuals cared about the gameplay first when 99% of MvC discussion is WHERE'S GENE/GAMBIT/NERO/MOON KNIGHT etc.

Guilty Gear is not bottom of the barrel when it comes to weebshit, BlazBlue is. GG is the brainchild of a westaboo metalhead whose only real outlet for his insane story and characters is through fighting games (and occasional spinoffs nobody remembers and/or likes). BlazBlue was the lowest-common-denominator weeaboo pandering anime fighter ArcSys made to make money so they could buy the rights to Guilty Gear from SEGA.

MvCI gameplay was shit tho

Divekick was popular because it was a meme game. It had built in support from the FGC since it was made for them, and I'd argue they're really the only ones who play it. Nobody has ever been attracted to a game because "it's easy to play". It's always about doing cool shit.

having friends to play with is most important aspect of a fighting game, after that it's having popular appeal

If by "character designs" you mean absolutely nothing but looks, then no. Games can look slick but play like ass.
But if you also mean stuff like their playstyle, then yes, absolutely.

I refuse to play Mitsu in SC6 because he looks boring. Played the fuck outta him in SC1 because his alt outfit is sick.

I think Project L will fail to keep a vast majority of the LoL players that even bother trying it and I also feel like most fighting game players won't stick to it unless Riot shows off a really impressive set of mechanics and a creative, balanced roster.

Good netcode is a plus, but I'm pretty sure the whole industry is moving towards that right now. GG Strive is getting help from the guy that did Killer Instinct's netcode and GGPO is literally free for indies and companies alike; SNK literally patched rollback into Garou. If Capcom uses their working MvCi rollback instead of their shit SFV rollback in their next fighter and Bamco starts using it, that's everybody.

Haohmaru was always better than Mitsurugi and his appearance in SCVI cements that. Can't believe Bamco was cool with letting SNK's character basically prove their MC inferior with an official side-by-side like that.

I havent kept up with riot's games. What is the fighting game supposed to play like? I'd assume street fighter because apparently the FPS is just CS

If Project L goes f2p, and judging from LoL it will, then it will most assuredly be the top most played fighting game on Steam by a huge margin. Not just for a year, but forever. Look at Brawlhalla, a game literally nobody here ever talks about, a game that's left out of nearly all FGC discussion and even platform fighter discussion. Pretty much a literally who game as far as anyone here or in FGC forums are concerned. It absolutely demolishes the current top most played "real" fighting games in terms of playerbase. It's not even close.

The reason they can do this is because the game is free, has fighters on rotation, fighters can be unlocked with in game grinding, is very easy to pick up and play, and has a huge variety of cosmetic shit to paypig for. These are all things Project L will 100% have. This board needs to prepare it's anus for the dozens of Project L shitposting threads once people see it consistently beating the current Street Fighter, Tekken, Anime game, etc, in terms of numbers.

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Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat are peak character designs. iconic and flawless

>SNK literally patched rollback into Garou.

You mean Code Mystics. Easy with the dick sucking there, SNK hasn't done shit.

They make the game worth playing.

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My bad, all I knew was that Garou got rollback.

Ok paco

The designs were also garbage and it's the worst of the series so he was still right.

>And whatever you do, don't look at them as functions
I agreed with the post up until this point. I believe the ultimate trick is making them work on both levels because otherwise, why are you even putting them in a video game?