A lot of people forget how Mew2king wrote the bible of Melee frame data by pausing and unpausing the game for over 200 hours

If people are going to come up with this information anyway, just put it in the game. The days of delayed discovery are over. Mortal Kombat tells you the fatality inputs now. Nothing is secret 6 hours after the game launches anymore. Frame data and hitboxes are so easy to implement in training mode from the developer's perspective that there's no excuse for not including it. If I played you in chess and won because I knew about a secret move (maybe my queen can instant kill your king if I do the hokey pokey), you wouldn't feel good about that loss because you didn't know all of the rules. Not putting frame data and hitboxes in the game is just trying not to teach your players all of the rules, so now they have to find an external source for that information instead.

Frame data and hitboxes being hidden has often being described as "the joy of discovery" but instead what happens often is "the frustration of ignorance". Most players, especially casual ones, are going to approach the game from a view that will make sense to them rather than the general design and balance philosophy of the game. A lot of mechanics and decisions are not going to be intuitive or quick to grasp and if the player can't see them he is going to get mad and complain for it to be changed to make sense to him. As others have said, it doesn't make physical sense for the character's weapons to have hurtboxes but it totally does from a balance / design perspective. For example, a casual that only sees the character getting "hit in the sword" without seeing the hurtboxes will probably demand for the move to be "fixed" to his view, showing the mechanics right up front makes it easier to understand and figure tha counterplay than guess in the dark.

I get it for a single-player game, but in a pvp I think the most immediate effect of hiding things from players is that it widens the gap between new players and veterans who just know. Sure, there are examples of things not being found even by veterans for years, but most of the time, I do feel like people end up figuring out basically essential knowledge to play the game "for real" in two days and then it's a crapshoot as to whether anyone bothers to put the information anywhere accessible as opposed to locking it behind Discord pinned comments.

You see the difference between a fighting game withholding frame data and Castlevania not telling you about the secret castle part of its game is that Castlevania is a single player experience with an entire series built off of its cryptic and secretive nature on top of the fact that you don't NEED to know there's a secret castle to play through and enjoy Castlevania even if you might miss out on a part of the game. Secrets like that in video games are charming and endearing and feel AMAZING if you stumble upon it yourself and are pretty neat if you find out about it from some other source. Frame data in fighting games ARE not some cool cryptic secret/easter egg in a video game. That shit is the shit that will literally shape and form my decision in a given situation. If I don't know that Sol's f.S is +2 or even some kind of positive block that shit literally makes me a worse player. I can't gauge a proper response to blocking that move without knowing that very crucial bit of information first. Maybe to the casual player it might not some like a big deal but uuuuhh its fucking 2022 and I'm not some casual gamer. Put the fucking frame data in there LOL.

KI had hitboxes and frame data back in 2013 (and taught you how to read both). I consider it a basic feature. If your game is suitably complex and balanced (and most modern fighters are), then there is zero chance the game gets "solved" super fast just because players don't have to guess at whether something is +1 or +2. That's a copout, and I'm pretty past the bullshit of FG devs not including basic QOL features. The idea that "good players will find it so we don't have to include it" is stupid. I shouldn't have to have my phone out to try and understand your game better, and newer or less serious players who aren't going to look at it online aren't going to have their experience ruined by it being a toggleable option. Some of them will even find the toggle themselves and wind up wanting to learn and better understand things themselves.

I think that the option for both frame data and hitboxes should be there for everyone. For fully casual people, it won't affect anything about their experience. No one is forcing them to do frame data calculus or even look at it to play the game, but it does provide an easy pathway into understanding the game further for those who want it. The barrier to entry is significantly lowered and you don't have to go looking for some sage out in the wilderness (dustloop, etc). There could even be a short demonstration of what the numbers/boxes mean when you turn it on for the first time. And for people who already know what it is, having it in game hugely improves the player experience because, if they're gonna look for it anyway, they may as well look at the source.

I think frame data should be available in the game for modern fighting games. I remember when I was first learning Street Fighter 4 and my friend explained frame data to me, it blew everything wide open. Suddenly I was able to understand how the game worked on a foundational level and how to experiment and build from there. Plus, those core concepts are applicable to all fighting games, which enabled me to explore other games. Frame data is foundational to the genre like pointing and shooting in an FPS, or accelerating and braking in a racing game. Having hidden things is fine, but I don't think information should be hidden if it teaches someone how to play the game. In fighting games 100% of the gameplay is built around the frame data and if a new player doesn't have that information it can be very difficult to learn in a vacuum. There isn't secondary gameplay, or methods of making a challenge easier like there is in other game genres. If a player has to go outside the game to understand how to play it at a basic level, while props and respect should be given to people making the data available, I would say that's a failure on the game's part. I can definitely understand how hiding this information made sense in the arcade space, but in the home console space it doesn't make sense to sell someone something and then not tell them how it works.

I feel like Guilty Gear Strive is one game that could really benefit from hitbox display. There are other modern fighting games with this problem, but I think in particular, what is and isn't a *hurtbox* in GGST can be very difficult to grok. For example, in Street Fighter, you know that you can hit Dhalsim's limbs because they're limbs and not weapons. But in Strive, you can *sometimes* hit Axl and Nago's long weapons, and this varies from move to move, and if you didn't play these characters, you wouldn't be able to easily tell "oh, this move has no hurtbox because it's an HS button". Even something universal like 6P is weird because most 6Ps don't really convey being upper body invulnerable (as compared to a rising attack like a DP or DBFZ's 2H). A great example of this is Sol's 6P, which is a low gut punch that looks rather similar to his f.S, except facing away from the screen, but has completely different properties. It's not weird to see an uppercut beat an air approach, but it is weird to see a gut punch make a fireball phase through your upper body. Hitbox/Hurtbox display would at least make this knowledge more accessible, although I think you could argue that the fact that these moves don't really convey their function well is a more fundamental issue with the intuitiveness of the game. But at the very least, you wouldn't have to rely on testing every move, or external sources like Dustloop to get this information.

I agree with the Reddit commenter. The frame data will exist somewhere. If it's not in the game, you're just forcing players to constantly switch between the game window and a browser window that will have the frame data. It's needlessly tedious. Dedicated players will still do it, so casual players will still be at a disadvantage, it's just less enjoyable for your most-engaged customers. It's a lose-lose situation. Put it in the damn game.

There's a difference between not spoiling the game (what Metroidvanias do) and making it harder for the player to figure out the *rules* of the game (what hiding frame data means). It's just a mindset that some developers have, especially in Japan: you're there to provide an experience to the player, and if you show them the game's inner workings, it's like a magician revealing their magic tricks (from their perspective, anyway). Japanese players *do* like non-systematic discovery more than Westerners, in general. Here's an example: I bought a guide to Dragon Quest 9 to know what kind of skills each "job" would offer, since the game itself wouldn't tell you. I'm like "I'm not gonna level-up blind and end up with a skill tree I don't like". A Japanese friend of mine said "but don't you get excited wondering what kind of skill you'll be getting when you level up?" , and I'm like "No." I wanted to have information to know where I was heading, while he preferred the thrill of discovery. I think there's something of this in how Japanese and Western developers approach game development.

When a game is competitive between two humans they should have equal access to information on how it functions and it should be upfront about the rules. Football isn't hiding the yard lines from the teams and you just gotta guess why you got first down while this other team just knows it now. In my opinion its not at all comparable a single player game's exploration.

i think there's a huge difference between finding secrets in single player games and finding key information that's important to be able to play and understand what's going on in the game. it'd be like asking someone to play chess but refusing to elaborate on how the pieces move, much less the exceptional moves that don't fit the "basic" rules. and on top of that, it's not like the info will be kept from the player, you're just making them have to go through a frustrating process to find the information

The thing for me is this. They make you pay full price for the game. DLC. Characters and Stages. Sometimes reselling them with higher markup. The very least these developers could do is make the information free or at the bare minimum accessible.

I think 2D fighting game devs don't like to show hitboxes in part because of the cases where hitboxes clearly don't match the displayed sprites or models. Even in a best case scenario, casual players that do not understand why it happens may see it as bad design, particularly when it involves moves they love or hate. In worse scenarios, it does expose dubious design, such as hitboxes being copy-pasted across multiple characters regardless of build (I recall SFV did this for jumping characters), moves where the hitboxes have been tweaked so much that they aren't even close to the displayed characters anymore, and moves where devs just said ---k it and gave some move a giant hit box (or Smash's equivalent where DLC characters get tons of hit capsules for even basic moves). It might also expose just how silly Arc System Work's move based invulnerability looks. Because heavens forbid they actually bother to design their animations to actually look like the desired functionality when they can instead just do stuff like make any move (such as a purely horizontal chest-high strike) into an anti-air by erasing the entire upper body collision. Seriously, stuff like Guilty Gear's hit boxes can look downright laughable if you haven't fully bought into their move-based invulnerability solution to a problem they themselves created.

As an early on Nappa player in DBFZ, the addition of frame data transformed my abilities with the character tremendously. Realizing that the frame advantage I got, restanding people with acid spit was purely based on the height my opponent was at when they got hit by it was huge. Was ranging anywhere frome +20f-44f. Also, the forced instant explosion on the final saibaman hug in high hitstun decay combos leading into unavoidable frame advantage on block. Perfection.

Them's Fightin' Herds has both Frame Data and Hitboxes built into the system. It was built off of Skullgirls' engine, so that makes sense. Both of those games have some of the best training modes I've ever used. I've always disagreed with the developer mentality of the game losing an element of discovery. I think having that data available means everyone has a single source of truth about how the game works and it becomes easier to explain how and why things happen, which is especially helpful for newer players.

Man i remember finding the secret shop in dota 1, shit's buried in the trees on the left and right edges of the map. You literally have to know you can walk through those trees to even see the shop.

You know LK is an OG when he pulls out PAPERBACK player guides to look up frame data.

I support all of your videos I love the content that you push out. I'm usually one of the first few to catch you when you drop videos. And I'm over here laughing because for the longest you are always saying like And subscribe if you feel like it. So I feel Joy Of My Heart hearing you say those words. GG my man continue the road to Greatness

My opinion is that hiding stuff for entertainment value is fine, but not for games designed to be competitive. I think it is important that in a competitive gaming space, all the players should have access to the same information. Imagine if football has hidden rules that the umpires don't tell the players, and that only a select few teams managed to notice it? How fair would it be for a team to have an advantage because they know the existence of a rule that was hidden from others?

I've been playing fighting games for a long time so I'm used to looking up Excel sheets with the frame data in them. But it is so much more beneficial to have frame data built in the game. Things like "block stun" bar, are also super helpful. In Tekken there are alot of moves that are punishable but have very little block stun, making it hard to react to and punish. If you don't have clarity on things like that, it can be tilting.

For single player games it makes sense to have secret rooms or bosses for discovery purpose, exploration is one of the main attraction of those games. The exploration in FGs are combos, mix-ups and set-ups tho. Not telling the players how certain moves work just makes it inconvenient and frustrating, you always have to check other sources, or how I did it: made my own. Meaty-timings also often have different frame-data, fireballs different data depending on spacing and just having those numbers available to you is such an important part on developing strategies for and against moves. Strive at least has little videos with explainations to give an idea what moves do and they usually also tell you when something is + on block, which is something (not better than actual framedata tho). Not including framedata for "discovery" is an old developer mindset that needs to die out. Put it into the games.

I like your videos/insights, well done

And oh, side note. Dota 2 does tell you where the secret shop is. At least the versions I've played it. If you want an item that needs the secret shop, clicking it will ping on the map for you. The game did not told you about a side shop however, although I think that doesn't even exist anymore so...

The Heihachi example reminds me of how some moves in SFV have way longer or shorter blockstun than they look like regardless of how minus they are and makes punishing them really tricky if you don't know about it.

Main reasons to come see your vids is the excellent info and great opinions. But lowkey one of my reasons I love your content so much is is the background music. Chrono Trigger ftw

i think hitboxes and frame data being so open was one of the reasons i was drawn to Killer Instinct. it was my first true attempt at a fighting game, and it was a little confusing at first as to what the numbers meant when i looked at my move list, (cuz it showed all of the frame data next to it) but figuring it out and understanding specifically how my moves work is a great feeling especially when in the training/practice mode

When it comes to games hiding things from players, it can be extremely difficult to do it right. There are, like, three types of hiding from players that games utilize, frame data and the DOTA secret shop are "logic gates," there are then "rabbit hole" secrets, and, finally, "For the Player's Good." I'll get "For the Player's Good," out of the way since it's the least important to the discussion. GBA Fire Emblem games had a system in place where all rolls had a special formula that made it so chances above 50% chance hit more often than they should and chances below 50% hit less often than they should. This was never hinted to players and players, without datamining, would never know. This was designed to align with a player's perception of luck, a 99% chance to hit and then missing is memed upon, like in XCOM, even though you are going to be doing way more than 100 attacks at that luck. "Logic Gate," is a simple one, do you know it or not. A Y/N question. "Do you know where the secret shop is?" "No?" "Then good luck finding it." "Do you know what the frame data for this move is?" "No?" "Then suffer." Logic Gate secrets aren't inherently bad either, it's only when not knowing can ruin everything or lock you off from a huge chunk of the game. Do I know how long a hammer swing is in Monster Hunter? No, but it's not going to make tougher monsters invincible or impossible to beat. Do I know the frame data of this character matchup? No, and now my opponent has a huge advantage over me because they know. "Rabbit holes," are more expansive than Logic Gates, it's like finding a little nugget and using that to dig deeper and deeper. The answer to a question inquiring about this is never strictly yes or no, but basically a percentage, like how knowing how a character combos grows with playing the character and messing around with actions. This, in my opinion, is less egregious than logic gates if they are necessary or lock you off from a chunk of the game. You'll get much farther as a player who knows how to interact with an opponent (frame data/logic gate) without knowing how to do the most optimal combo than you will as a player who can pull the most optimal combo 100% of the time but can't play interactions. However, it can still gate you from the highest tier play. You'll also have a better chance of being engaged in it if you stumble into it, if you find a random treasure chest in a game by stumbling onto it, you'll be like "Oh neat," and open it, but if you find a locked chest or a key to a locked chest, it becomes a hunt for the other. The best use for Logic Gates and Rabbit Holes is for optional side content or easter eggs. They are also better when they're hinted at, but then they're no longer being hidden from players. If you have these secrets be necessary, you have a very high likelihood of having players who didn't know come around later, find out what they didn't know, and feel cheated or tricked, and no one likes that.

I think in RPG's secret info can actually add to the joy of playing the game. Part of the fun is discovering stuff without the game holding your hand. In fighting games there can be that same joy, but the fact remains that potential is limited in your own improvement without it. I think that's the core difference

I feel like the simpler these games get on the surface we need more under the hood things like frame data and hitbox viewer to add to the depth and truly see if a new player wants to close that gap.

Gravity Rush 2, so many critics thought the game ended on a cliff hanger when they really only reached the half way point. Basically had to figure out there was more game after the fake-out credits yourself. Just came to mind when you mentioned Metroidvanias.

Omitting frame data in a fighting game training mode is like not including network connectivity information during an an online match. There's absolutely no reason for it not being available other than to purposefully frustrate the players.

Subbed cus he asked nicely🤣 love the content man keep it up

when you try to buy a secret shop item, it pings you the location on the minimap, there are icons displaying where they are

Legitimately the first thing I thought of when you whipped out the BlazBlue player guide was the CvS2 bible It's how I found out that multiple character in the game have a few links that I didn't know of, such as Terry's c.mp linking into itself iirc, Kyo's c.lk linking into c.mp, and all that.

I come from Killer instinct which had hitboxes & frame data. That stuff should be in the game along with other advanced options. That type of stuff will only be used by hardcore players & if it isn't implemented in the game then there will be a PC mod to find it regardless. There is already tons of stuff to learn to become good at a fighting game so just having the tools accessible (and not paid for) will help the hardcore audience. All the Western & indie devs have had this stuff for so long.

Personally, I prefer it in my fighting games, however, I think its usefulness is highly limited without a slowdown feature.

Ayy. Didn't expect some Order of Ecclesia love here today

not only does SG have frame data and hit boxes but it also has as graph thats generated as you do the move that shows you each frame of the moves properties (like whats invuln, when the hit boxes are active, etc) also it generates the frame data dynamically so if you end up in odd situations it will still be accurate

4:30 Things like this kill me in fighting games. I wish games would at least add some visual effect for properties like this. Knowing if someone is super + or if you're super - isn't a fun thing to realize in the heat of the moment.

Another banger. Hope u make it out to Texas Showdown this year dawg

this inspired me to continue my OOE playthrought thanks king

Def think hiding stuff is ok for some games but not fighting games. If they had tutorials that explained frame data, hit boxes and everything that they say is too complex then it might get more ppl to higher levels of play. As someone who sucks at fighting games I took 1 year to learn hitboxes and frame data and that helped me improve my gameplay tons. Not having those options in training mode is just a bs excuse to make things harder for higher level players. Yeah we can go to dustloops to find the data that others worked hard to fine but it shouldn’t be that way. Give the player base the option to see them in training mode to make things easier overall for players. Just see it as the usual dps tracker in mmos. It won’t do anything for those that suck and don’t understand the numbers but it will do tons of those that do. No need to leave it out because one group won’t use it.

But then it's harder to practice, for exemple, on strive, meaty giovanna 2D, on the earlier hits it's -, but on later active frames it can be even +6, but how will i know for shure my timing is right? on framedata wikis there's only the framedata on the first hitbox. I guess i could use the framedata on the trai... oh wait a sec.

The Axl part of the video got me thinking, could there be a way to convey through animations how plus or minus a move is? And have it be clear enough that you could block a move you've never seen before and instantly know what situation you're in.

"It will shorten the discovery period" is the classic Japanese game dev non-answer. Japanese game devs of fighting games in particular have this mentality related to the arcade scene that they should leave as much of the game to be discovered by players as possible. Japanese fighting games are notorious for having bad patch notes, you will be hard pressed to find many JP fighting games that will list exactly how moves got changed in terms of damage/frame data.

The only games I can think of that have hitboxes available are Skullgirls, Rivals of Aether, and Them’s Fightin’ Herds, and of those 3, only Skullgirls and Them’s Fightin’ Herds have the option to show frame data, although they all have a slowdown feature, which all fighting games should have for practicing combos, either way, all of them should be staple features in fighting games.

Thank God for Dustloop

Secret shop literally shows in the map on Dota 2 tho. Don't remember in DotA (the WC3 map) but it is in Dota 2 it does.

It prolonges the trial and error period its the equivalent to not giving a study guide before the test good vid

Like the discussion surrounding difficulty and accessibility w/ From Software games - It would be great if every game was accesseable to everyone and every FG has hitbox+frame data, but at the end of the day, it's what the developers decides and/or has resources to do to get out the best version of their game that they can.

Dota 2 Secret Shop secret only in the name. The game also tells you about it. But anyway I get the point.

Someone may have already commented this, but DOTA has an absolutely incredible tutorial that goes over everything from basics (the secret shop included) to advanced meta strategies, and also has an in-game overlay where user-generated builds walk you through your progression within a match step by step. Honestly, if anything, DOTA shames fighting games with their approach to teaching the game, and still retains an extremely high level of depth and nuance. The tutorial stuff definitely worth checking out (it's free to play) on its own if you're interested in how games teach players and for ideas on what fighting games could do better.

I land squarely in the camp of 'hiding information from the player in a competetive multiplayer game is very very bad'. I can live without hitboxes, but dynamic framedata is very important. No knowing the frame advantage on your own jumpins really hurts, now I just kinda have to guess. Also other situations where a move hits mid active frames in certain setups and so on. Lets go a step forward and say that every game should have the Fantasy Strikes hitspark system, where you can tell your rough frame advantage by the hitspark. Yellow for even, red for disadvantage and blue for advantage, spark getting bigger more minus/plus you are. For cancels just show the advantage as if you didn't cancel, that should be fine, as long as the players undestand that cancels are a thing. That kind of system would help players to be on the same page when it comes to those Axl examples. Also it should make it more obvious why Baiken doing cS walkup cS to you is different to Gio doing the same to you.

Sometimes I wish Tekken got the same heat as SFV for literally forcing people to pay extra to learn how the game they bought works... but that's not how everyone feels so I keep quiet

Not displaying frame data is annoying but I also can’t really get mad bc I’m gonna go to dustloop to check it anyway. It just makes porting the information over a lot easier, basically

if the argument to not add frame data is that the game will progress faster and that's somehow a bad thing, then your game is the problem not the frame data

The DNF Duel beta showed me the positive side of there being none of these tools and even no training mode. I waited until the second day, since the first had so many server issues. Since there was no training mode, the overall skill baseline felt more manageable and I had more fun than with most 2D FGs (being someone who grew up on 20 years of 3D FGs). Since I prefer learning through playing matches and grinding in training mode actually damages my motivation to keep playing, and when labbing is practically REQUIRED to keep up at low-level play it outright kills my desire to play, the environment that resulted from no training mode allowed me to keep up with my 20 years of genre fundamentals and ability to learn the opponent when the game itself isn't in the way so much. That said, since the full release will have training mode, I'm just going to wait and see what labbers will discover and wheather the meta will go in the usual directiin for modern fighting games or if it'll be something I can enjoy long-term and axtually be worth my time and money.

If fighting games were more mainstream back in the early 2000s games company would've sold frame data, hitboxes, moves and stuffs through "Strategy Guide" books ala Super Mario games

I feel like this is a leftover mindset from arcade settings, where people were spending lots of coins just to lab stuff to get an edge over other people. There is no good reason to hide frame data. The "exploration" part hiding them creates are boring chores and nothing more.

I didn't know Axl had a plus move and its the move I hate >.> I guess I'll try to see what I can do with it now.

This happens with monster hunter too. However i totally get the developers perspective and that it messes with the fun factor a bit. It exposes the magic and mystery a bit which takes away from the experience in a number of ways. Sort of like the analytics approach to sports.

Sometimes I wish I didn't know the hitboxes in skullgirls, Cerabella's j. Mp gives me conniptions.

You know what happens when I have to go to a website to find out my frame data? I close the game. Multiple sessions have been cut short because I wound up having to dive into a wiki rabbit hole to get the info I wanted. Having to look this nonsense up just makes me play the games less.

There are actually people in the "fighting game community" who think that the games should have FEWER OPTIONS. For WHATEVER REASON. In a competitive game in which everything is supposed to be 100% deterministic, I don't think there's any good reason for hiding information from the player.

Honestly, there is a lot of fun when just figuring things out about your character WITHOUT the game hurling all of the information at you. It’s like being put in the desert, and you have to find water wherever you can, and learn where to go and how to survive in the Wild West of a Fighting Game. When everything is thrown at you, it can feel like being tossed into an Ocean. The people who do want it and are ready for it are the Sailors on a boat who have at least some good fundamentals about FG’s. There could be a balance. Maybe after some time playing with your character, the game could give you access to some more info about them, like Frame Data, Hurt/Hit Boxes, attributes, and other stuff. Not a foolproof idea, but maybe something that could be workshopped

i think the false ending of castlevania is completely different than a fighter not having frame data. i like that games do hidden secrets and easter eggs like castlevania did and don’t really want to see those disappear.

Coming from Mortal Kombat it's so much more convenient to have in game frame data compared to using resources outside the game. I think this is something nowhere near enough people push for in new fighting games

On the idea of just hiding information from players... it depends. I feel like, as a dev, even if it's a secret you have to at least clue the player in that there's more to be discovered or else they're gonna judge what they perceive as the full experience. It's like if someone gave you a plate with a naked hot dog, and never told you that warm buns and chili were in the oven, lol. Players can only judge the game that's in front of them. So if a new player picks up Tekken, after playing Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive, they're gonna be like "this feels slow and clunky" unless someone introduces them to the concept of Korean Back Dashes. But you might have already lost them at that point. Generally, I like surprises and hidden tech SO LONG AS the game isn't made significantly more enjoyable/becomes playable with that information. Donkey Kong Country did this with that percentage meter on the screen. It was a very simple but effective way to say to the player, "No! We're Not Done Yet! You haven't seen anything! Get Ready!" This is also one reason I've had bad experiences with Dark Souls in the past even though I like the game for the most part. A lack of knowledge in that game costs you real world time if you goof your build really badly, which I did lol. Like, kara throws aren't necessary for you to have fun playing as Potemkin, but they'll enhance your experience if you are aware of them. There was a long time I didn't really understand what Blue Roman Cancels were for when playing XX before some advanced players put me on to some Baiken dust loop combos. Because that was my main, all the way back then, lol. At some levels, all that information is just noise to most players and it's a devs job to make sure that information doesn't become a friction point for players, even if it's just mentally. Although, with fighting games I feel like giving players more information (WITH CONTEXT!) helps with player retention and increases the chance of converting them to competitive players, of varying levels, which will overall increase their enjoyment with fighting games that have a core gameplay loop built around competitive play. Which is exactly what Strive does, for the most part. I love this topic and could go on at great lengths, but I'm gonna stop for now, haha. Great vid!

I personally enjoy finding stuff out through matches rather than frame data when the game is new but I’m also fully on board with a game giving people access to frame data if it means more ppl are gonna play the game

That dota secret shop thing is really funny because I can't tell if it's a stretch or just seems small compared to the endless other things kept obscure to confuse the hell out of newcomers from league.

Shout to the developers of virtual fighter 4 on the freaking PS2 (so literally 20 years ago) still teaching players how to play the game better than many Japanese made fighting games today.

For a competitive game, the discovery process is something that you have to keep up with other players in or you'll get left behind, and there's really not a good reason for the game to not do as much as it can to get everyone up to speed. It's especially dumb in the modern era, where people will just write an external viewer for hitboxes, or decompile the move scripts -- it's easier than ever before for top players to get the information while an ordinary joe trying to learn the game is left struggling blind. For single player games, the discovery process is something you can handle on your own time, at your own pace. You don't need to tell the player absolutely everything right out the gate, and having a few actual secrets is always neat.

I can see the developer standpoint, though I ultimately stand in favor of in-game Frame Data. Demystifying the game with Frame Data can kill some of the "magic," but I think it's a worthy sacrifice given just how useful this information can be to competitive players. That said, I do think developers need to be mindful of how they present this information to the player. Information overload and menu bloat are real concerns, and I'm not sure how accommodating the average fighting game player is towards these things.

Frog Fractions is an example of a game with a lot of hidden information and potential that sort of lurks below the surface.

For the fighting game setting I would look at it the same way as Magic the Gathering, where in terms of mechanics nothing is hidden from the players, nor should it be. There basically isn't a good enough argument behind obscuring things like frame data or hitboxes (ie, what my tools are and how they work). I strongly believe Harada's take is wrong, and what you said about finding the DBFZ setup required the frame data proves that. A fighting game hiding frame data and hitbox data is conceptually the same as an RPG or MMO hiding your ability tooltips in the name of "discovery". I believe every single fighter should include these things. We've only just got the hang of actual move lists that tell us some of the unobvious properties a move might have, and even that's barely matching the standard of other genres. Fighting games are still one foot in the dark ages for no reason.

I think that frame data and hitboxes might help new players the "function" of moves that they would otherwise have to learn in matches through trial and error, or have prior knowledge of from other games

I just think it makes no sense really to not have these mechanics in game when people are gonna lab and mod to find out these things anyway. Like why make it harder to get the information you want.

Poll: Valentine's jiggle or Jack-o's crouch?

Like the castlevania example, they hiding unique designs; New audiovisual experiences that evoke relatively strong emotions from the player. In this situation, the player obtains value from the discovery itself. Frame data is a tool to understamd how the game works. In this situation, the player does not obtain value from the discovery, but in how they use the information they discover. It just makes sense for devs to cut out the discovery phase and let players go straight to the utilisation phase which they actually enjoy.

On the topic of Dota, the game is actually quite extensively opened as far as useful statistics go. Base attack time, front swing, casting points, effect interactions, turn speed, collision size, you name it. For the "secret shop", you literally just need to play the game once and explore a bit. There are in-game hints as to how to find it

"I am a weeb I only think in 2 dimensions" is actually bars ngl. Lordknight spittin'

Tbh before I heard your opinion about frame data not bein in-game, even before this video, I thought it was probably the biggest flaw in GGST. After hearing your opinions, well, I gotta say I do kinda agree with the fact that by not showing the "correct" path, it encourages players to open more doors. Nevertheless, I think it's a mistake not to be clear with the reasons for doing this. After all, we even got combo recipes before frame data, and frame data is just crucial, no matter what. I hope it's added by the end of S1 or beginning of S2, a whole year is enough for discovering stuff, right?

While I disagree with the specific approach taken by Daisuke in terms of outright withholding information in-engine, I am gonna go up to bat for him in terms of sentiment of wanting the meta to be approached by the player-base from a specific angle. When you compare the way talk about and play fighting games from the past 10-15 years versus the way titles older than that were approached, there is a marked incline and, arguably, obsession with optimization. While options like, say, the high-into-snapback combo in DBFZ took two years to discover due to frame data being inaccessible in-engine, I have to ask, what if that was on purpose? Had the frame data never been made available (which is silly to think about, but hear me out), how long would it have taken for that tech to be discovered? Three years? Four? More than that? A slower-developing meta might objectively sound like a bad thing, but I feel like Daisuke may actually be onto something. If you consider games like Third Strike or Vampire Savior or even Melee, their slow-building metas ultimately made them fighting game staples that still get discussed and played to this day. Competition within a slower meta doesn't mean developments still aren't made, but they tend to lean more towards mindset and matchup-focused focus rather than on option selects and character optimization. By contrast, games like Street Fighter IV or P4AU essentially became dead in the water once their successors were released and their playerbase moved over to the newer entries. People don't talk about SF4 in the same vein that people talk about 3S, and I think it has to do with the way a lot of the playerbase seem to almost try speedrunning the meta. People push as hard as they can to break past the 80-20 point, and as soon as a sequel or spiritual successor drops, the game gets put to bed. Like, when a hypothetical DBFZ2 or Shonen Jump fighter gets released, assuming the game isn't trash, what are the odds that all the tech and optimization made into DBFZ will remain relevant? What are the odds that people will still play DBFZ when a shinier successor exists? This is what I think Daisuke is trying to prevent. His exact method is somewhat misguided in my opinion, but I do think the players and developer intentions are ultimately just at odds with each other.

For me, frame data is something that should be implemented in fighting games because it allows for discovery. Realizing a move is punishable when you thought it wasn't is discovery. Finding moves that can be used in specific situations is discovery. Knowledge really is power in this case

I think giving fighting games data and even teaching new players how to make use of it could make fighting games a lot more accessible and way less frustrating to new players. I do think there is a silver lining for something like your dragon ball example. Basically not giving the data outright so people experiment at first and then giving it to them after a while, extending the discovery time by possibly giving the player base new things that wouldn't be discovered otherwise which can extend the games lifespan, though Im not saying that its the best way of doing things, it could very well just flop while waiting for the data or afterwards (because nothing new was found for example). For other games that don't require a high amount of game knowledge like the Castlevania example, I think its best to give players hints rather then outright telling it.

another sinister example is hiding ping or wifi indicator to favor the dark ones

Melee on Dolphin has been modded to show hit boxes and hurt boxes, and Rivals of Aether also shows you both.

Metroidvanias have Exploration as a theme. Of course it makes sense to hide things, so you actually have to explore something. Fighting games have competition as theme. Competitions should have all rules laid bare, so every one knows them. I think where the disconnect happens is: Super high level players (like less than 1%) enjoy finding new combos and shit. But if you start out, it's not fun to have to discover this against a potentialy huge cast. In Metroidvanias, if I miss something, ok I missed out fun I could have had. I still had fun with the other parts. In fighting games, I basically get knowledge checked and loose the match in a miserable way because I have the feeling I couldn't do anything. -_- Hide this stuff in menus if you don't want to overburden everybody with it, but make it accesible for people that require it for learning.

In an alternate universe lk is a top sg player and is showing us strive and its training mode frame data and hitboxes

I don't know how fruitful such a discussion would be here honestly, because I think anyone who watched this video already has a certain level of investment in fighting games and therefore will already know about these concepts and how to find them, and so it will just be an inconvenience to them. Myself included. But the people on the other side of the argument, those who don't know or don't care about this information, probably aren't watching this video and we won't really hear any of their thoughts.

Rivals of ather has the best tools. Frame data and hitboxes and oh so much.

Do they want to be XRD 2 or Strive? You can't design a game around a certain group, while making it as frustrating as hell for them to figure out why they were hit.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the N64 had hitbox option.

i think its more understandable in single player games like castlevania and darksouls than it is in a competitive multiplayer environment where people play with money on the line

Dota 2 secret shop is very easy to find, I think you mean Dota 1

"Element of discovery", more like, "please buy our juicy strategy guides" like you implied. They seem to understand that if they hook a casual player into a game/character that player is very likely to pay for the information to step up their game, especially in a genre where competition is key and knowledge is pretty strong, and honestly, it sucks to not know how the heck stuff work. It's frustating and the fact that it persists in modern FGs seems like an artifact of the arcade era that really just really affects the players that already invested time/money in the game so it's not really a priority. As someone who is just recently dipping their toes into the intricacies of FGs I very early found myself craving for that advanced data, especially the hitboxes (Still not there where I can use frame data effectively). I wanted to know how my character freaking works please. Especially 'cuz Fighting Game logic is not really straight forward. I can get in a single player action game if an attack has invencibilty or not just by playing 'cuz that status tends to be applied to the whole character model and I wasn't sent flying by an enemy that attacked me during the move. And the maximum range of an attack is only really a thing for REALLY advanced players like Devil May Cry combo masters. Most people NEED those to not get bodied and know what the moves do and their range, if they have invulneravility (and what KIND of invulneravility), what are the good pokes, etc. 'Cuz it's not intuitive unless you know how to look for them, which I'll very confidently say most people don't know

Finding out LK is a Castlevania fan just made my day.

I think that, in a way, full frame data and hitbox view is a double edged sword for accessibility and discovery. for the high end players it's a very nice tool to have, but I think it can be another thing that's somewhat intimidating to new players. it also makes the games discovery faster which also is a thing that makes it harder for newer players to get in before, well, everyone knows all the stuff a lot of people feel like they need some form of mastery before they're comfortable jumping in, and seeing the numbers and hitboxes etc and seeing the 'you don't know this stuff yet' can be counterintuitive to that, something that can hamper people from actually trying the game and realizing it's not as complex as it may seem, or stop them from trying pvp and learning this stuff. its a bit of a catch 22. because its good for the top end of your audience who, all in all, are gonna be the 5% who get the most out of it, but its daunting for the baseline and for your game to be successful, you need to find a compromise for both