Allow me to argue with myself for a minute!
So key bindings are sort of sacred space; everyone has their own preferred method of controlling their characters, and oftentimes finding the right key setup is the first step in achieving enough comfort to start learning a game at the competitive level. Even though I am usually a “default man” myself, I understand that being able to rebind your keys is almost as much a fundamental right of the player as is their character choice, not to mention people play games on a wide variety of controllers (including Rock Band guitars ;)) so the ability to do so isn’t just a perk, it’s a requirement.
In the new build thread, I mentioned that I would prefer playing Geiger if the “Guile c. MP” was b+A and the step-kick was A instead. This is just a feel thing for me from years and years of downbacking with Guile, so it feels right to me. Also I am bad at Jaina and I want to be able to use Tiger Knee (f+A) without getting a Throw input sometimes, so I want it on neutral A instead. Valerie I want b+A to just swap with A, too.
What if there actually were an in-game way to remap these MOVES? Would it have catastrophic events for gameplay (answer: yes I think so)? Would it be a nightmare to code (probably)? Would it add anything relevant to the game in terms of development time (absolutely not)? Would it just lengthen the amount of time it takes to get into a match, making tournaments a nightmare (uh oh)? Does anybody even care about this?
It’d be kind of an unprecedented thing, being able to actually remap move inputs. Like what if you were playing SFV and you could make Ryu’s Shoryuken qcb+P instead? What if Hadouken was qcf+K? That seems crazy to even suggest, right?
Ironically, the character who made me think seriously about this concept is also the one whose design makes move remapping impossible: Geiger.
f+A is too good on its own to allow Geiger to charge while doing it. If you could throw Spirals, poke like a madman and still have your finger on C for jump-ins, he might be totally broken. Also, a new player could “bind their keys wrong”, and put the Geiger punch on f+A. Now they can’t do punch -> Time Spiral or Flash Gear, horribly crippling their damage potential with the character.
So of course the solution is “ban Geiger from move remapping” but that’s too sad of a solution so possibly gg to this entire idea ;D
The other thing is this would potentially make certain move remaps “correct” and now suddenly there are optimal bindings for moves? Bizarre. Valerie’s b+A being n+A would actually make it harder to Throw her (she’s either in Yomi Counter state or unThrowable even though she’s pushing buttons). n+A being b+A would make her “throw range whiff” a lot better and safer, providing her better Throw mix-ups on the ground.
That’s just one character, “improved” by remapping keys and creating a situation where the default bindings are probably worse than the “optimal” ones. There might be “better bindings” for all of the characters, or “worse” ones. So now that’s super shitty and shouldn’t be considered either. Imagine how stupid the Valerie vs. Rook mixup situation after Rook blocks Val’s BBC chain. Did he bind f+A to the leg sweep to beat the delayed jump OS? Would the aforementioned Valerie “Jumpkick” on n+A beat both sides of the Throw/C mixup? Pretty terrible.
So clearly a lot of thought has gone into what buttons are even on what buttons in terms of b, n, and f versions of A. Strangely, the fact that movement keys interfere with Block and Throw (and Geiger’s principal mechanic) make the idea of remapping special moves impossible, even though it could potentially be easy to imagine. Perhaps if the entire game were designed around none of these bindings being “correct” or “optimal”, but that’s a whole struggle in and of itself and is not a design goal of Fantasy Strike in the slightest.
Anyway, in the meantime, I will try to purge the bad habits of holding b during Geiger combos and messing myself up
Thanks for reading this pointless and circular rant!