Facebreaker Discussion w/ EA's Todd Batty

[pastapadre]

Facebreaker is just a few weeks away from releasing and the available demo allows for the opportunity to try out the fast paced action as well as the photo face feature.

The lead designer of the game Todd Batty has expressed interest in interacting with the community. He plans to begin posting here tomorrow. If you have any questions, want to talk strategy, or anything else on your mind regarding Facebreaker feel free to discuss here!

[kyhadley]

I don't have any questions, but that's pretty cool

[rdelizo35]

Padre,

You said that you might be interested in a game like this. How likely are you to actually getting it when it comes out?

[pastapadre]

Originally Posted by rdelizo35

Padre,

You said that you might be interested in a game like this. How likely are you to actually getting it when it comes out?

Yeah I'll definitely get it. I've always enjoyed having change of pace games. I may actually be heading up to EAC to try the full game out next weekend.

I'm glad that Todd can come here and talk some about it. One thing that is always of concern with games that fall on the arcade side is longevity, so I'll be curious to see what about the game he feels will provide that.

[J-Claw]

hey this is my first time in the forum but ive been commenting on the site for a long while now, thanks pasta for the great site.

so i was playing the demo but "easy" didnt really seem easy at all. for people just starting out is that the best way to learn just by playing on easy and figuring it out or do you suggest a different way?

[tbatty]

Thanks for the intro Padre, and to everyone on this site who has shown interest in FaceBreaker (good or bad) thanks for that, too. Building a new IP is not easy, and I've come to realize that half the battle is in generating awareness for the game and getting people to actually give it a fair chance.

That's why I'm here. I met The Padre at a community day we held at EA for the last game I designed - NBA Street Homecourt. Since then, I have been a big fan of his site and come here quite a bit to see what people have to say about diff games, the industry in general, etc.

So, let's talk FaceBreaker. Bring on your comments and questions. Be as harsh or blunt as you want. I will do the same.

I wasnt planning on starting until I was back at work in the morning, but seeing as there are already some questions here I'll tackle a couple up front and then be back tomorrow for more.

Todd

[rdelizo35]

Hi Todd,

How will you address the difficulty settings in the finished game? I've been hearing from gamers who tried the demo that it seems super difficult even on the easiest setting.

Side note: NBA Street Homecourt was one of my favorite games ever. You did awesome with that one, man.

[tbatty]

Originally Posted by pastapadre

Yeah I'll definitely get it. I've always enjoyed having change of pace games. I may actually be heading up to EAC to try the full game out next weekend.

I'm glad that Todd can come here and talk some about it. One thing that is always of concern with games that fall on the arcade side is longevity, so I'll be curious to see what about the game he feels will provide that.

Guess I'll start with this one. First of all, I know Marcus has been trying to convince you to come up to EAC to try the full game out, but let me extend that invite personally, Padre.

If there is one thing i have learned in all the focus groups and demo tours I have done with FaceBreaker over the past few months its that after fighting me (or one of my assistant designers or QA testers) a few times you will gain a new appreciation for how good you can get at a seemingly simple game.

I guess this brings me to your question re: longevity. This is a loaded question and I just deleted a virtual wall of text that I had started writing in an attempt to explain what I hope gamers are going to like about facebreaker over the long term.

So, let me start by saying that there is a longer learning curve than is first apparent. In order to 'master' all of the mechanics in the game it is going to take quite a bit of playing against quite a few different opponents. This is where our 1P experience comes in. For those of you who do not know what it is all about, it is a ladder-type tournament where you fight through all the characters in the game. Each character has a prescribed 'weakness', and beating them requires pattern recognition and basic puzzle-solving, Punch-Out style. There are save points along the way, a rematch system and also hints to help you. The overall goal is to give you a wicked challenge and also to teach you a bunch different strategies you can use against other humans.

There are 3 skill level settings for this mode. Do not start on anything other than Fierce (the first level). The last level is called Impossible. It took one of our best QA testers 13 hours to beat. I can get through it now in about 40 minutes.

Beyond that is what I hope people will really buy the game for: multi-player. make no mistake, this is a multi-player game first and foremost. We kept the mechanics intentionally simple in order to ensure we could balance them as perfectly as possible, as well as keep all the characters balanced. This is also why we have been saying our game is old-school in every way possible. I believe as a designer that less mechanics = better games. Not only because it makes the game easier to balance properly, but also because it decreases the amount of time it takes 2 players of mismatched skill to get on an equal playing field. And this is what made old-school games great. it is why (I believe) gamers still call out NBA Live 99 or NHL 94 as the greatest versions of those games ever made. If you were to critique them by today's standards of controls, animation, ai, etc they would be terrible. However, they were very well balanced games that had simple enough mechanics (also due to the controllers back then having less buttons and therefore less possible unique inputs) that 2 friends could quite quickly learn all of the mechanics and then victory on any given day would come down to, very simply, who played the game better.

Facebreaker is the first game I have designed that I am still playing at this stage in the project. It is also the first game where I can't wait to play against other people online.

[rdelizo35]

Great insight on the game so far, Todd. You mentioned PunchOut in reference to FaceBreaker and also mentioned why "classic games" are so beloved. As a designer, did you look at those older games like PunchOut and say "Hey this is something that I can take and run with," in terms of designing Facebreaker's gameplay and puzzle-solving elements?

[tbatty]

Originally Posted by rdelizo35

Hi Todd,

How will you address the difficulty settings in the finished game? I've been hearing from gamers who tried the demo that it seems super difficult even on the easiest setting.

Side note: NBA Street Homecourt was one of my favorite games ever. You did awesome with that one, man.

Thanks for the feedback re: Homecourt, that was definitely one of my favorite projects of all time.

As far as difficulty goes, part of that was intentional. One of the biggest problems with the game is actually how responsive we made jabs. I mean, that should be a huge positive, no? The problem is that it makes many people believe that the game is a button masher. When you make buttons easy and fun to hit fast, there will always be that association. People made the same comments about Homecourt. Notice any similarities between the 2 games? Jabbing in Facebreaker = Crossovers in Homecourt.

And the problem here is that jabbing is NOT how to win the game. Or even to fight well. Oh, there are times when it pays to jab fast - when you stun someone and want to pull off a quick combo before they are out of it, for example. But you will be much better and learn the game much more quickly if you actually throw hooks more than jabs. Hooks are done by holding the button slightly (about a quarter of a second) before releasing it. When you get your rhythm down you can string them together quite nicely.

I will explain more about this as we start to talk strategy. For now, I would recommend to anyone that finds the game at all difficult to simply spend 10-15 minutes in Practice Mode. Learn how to Dodge against the Offensive AI. Learn how to string together hooks against the Dummy AI. Learn how to build up and finish off your combos against the Dummy AI. And learn the range (with whatever character you choose, they are all different) of your Haybreaker and Throw, both of which can be used from a greater distance than jabs.

Finally, the only tip you need to DESTROY the AI on Easy and even on Medium: learn how to dodge a dodge. I will explain how if anyone wants to know, it is dead simple to do, but not all that obvious to figure out. Once you learn this you can facebreak all of the opponents in the demo.