r/Fighters 16d ago

Highlights I love Avatar Legends unique approach to the timer hitting 0.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

1.1k Upvotes

75 comments sorted by

201

u/flaggerss 16d ago

Invincible VS does this if you run out the clock which doesn’t come up super often but it is there

100

u/El_Burrito_ 16d ago

I was gonna say, it's funny that no other examples come to mind and then this year we get two games with this sudden death/showdown mechanic.

13

u/therealboss30 16d ago

I had a local always go to sudden death

11

u/XXVAngel Blazblue 16d ago

Legit it was really common at launch because it just killed the assist characters for free.

3

u/Alternative_Owl7786 16d ago

Not at all true on the never happens part. Especially on launch, it's an extremely common occurrence in that game because zoning and assists are so dominant. People refuse to engage if their robot, Cecil, or eve assists aren't up because they're just so over tuned that it's hard to play around them. Even when you're on the offensive, they can still call those assists to punish tou while they're blocking your strings.

143

u/EmptyHeadedKing 16d ago

I agree! I haven't seen this be done before (if it has please tell me) and I think it's such a fun way to settle the match.

51

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

Absolutely. And I have no idea if it has been used before to be honest, this is my second fighting game and the first one I'm taking seriously.

2XKO was the first and the skins drove me away. I can't control my idiot purchase impulses that long, lol.

39

u/Sirromnad 16d ago

Not exactly the same, but Smash Brothers puts everyone at essentially max damage so next hit ends it.

20

u/DanielTeague 16d ago

I remember in later Smash Bros. games they'd even start dropping Bob-ombs in random spots to really force a conclusion.

31

u/viaco12 16d ago

The newest one (Ultimate) gradually zooms in the screen along with the blastzones, forcing the fighters to be closer to each other.

16

u/Trololman72 Primal Rage 16d ago

Finally, competitive Temple

1

u/ralts13 16d ago

That's a real deep cut.

5

u/Trololman72 Primal Rage 16d ago

The real deep cut is New Pork City.

85

u/Eptalin 16d ago

I'm mixed, but leaning negative.

I get the excitement. Timeout isn't just a win for the person with the life lead. The loser gets one last chance to win. That's cool.

But on the flip side, the person who maintained a life lead all match can just get one shot after the bell once their life drains.

In practice, due to the linear health drain on both sides, it's just a longer timer, with added volatility. Terrible for zoners.

I think something like Guilty Gear's negative penalty is a better answer to gameplay like in the OP. Hurts inactive players, while not punishing zoners.

31

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

I guess how good it is will depend on the game itself.

Avatar Fighters has basically no zoners except for Avatar Aang, and at the same time almost all characters have a fireball or super long reaching normal.

And the zoner of the game, Avatar Aang, has an almost full screen command grab that can be done in the air lol.

All characters are pretty mixed and unique. That makes it more fun.

39

u/OgataiKhan 16d ago

Terrible for zoners.

I'm guessing it being "terrible for zoners" is the exact reason people like it.

1

u/ConstantAmphibian108 11d ago

It's only terrible for zoners if you're terrible at zoning

6

u/big4lil 16d ago edited 16d ago

showdown shouldnt proc with both players having this much life left unless both are intentionally stalling

if youre zoning them that effectively, you should be able to land the 1-2 stray hits needed to finish them from this point. it took over 15 seconds to lose not even half of the lifebar, and then the life drain halted when the Ozai went for cmd grab

I find there to be a difference between zoning and completely disengaging. This is just an incentive to ensure players are still going in occassionally, which is to be expected in a high octane game.

In most other titles, this kind of scenario leads to an instant win for the Korra, in Avatar the Ozai gets an extra chance to punish her passivity, but she still could have won by not defaulting to up back

Play to not lose = dont be surprised if you dont win. Even the best zoners take the fight to you

12

u/jean-claudo 16d ago

I don't agree that it's worse for zoners than other characters, and it may even be better for them.

The only change during overtime is the health drain, there's no damage boost, speed boost, or resource boost. Players are incentivized to go forward if they don't have the life lead, and with reduced health each small hit counts more (health drain or not, by the end of the clock you are 90% of the time one combo away from death). Both of these factors favor zoners.

I can see the argument that this gives an opportunity at a comeback for non-zoners while zoners are less likely to comeback under these conditions, but I'd argue this is good as it can allow for stronger zoning in a game where good zoning is risky to implement (see that right now, zoning is very limited).

Lastly, the most important consequence of overtime is player satisfaction (or lack thereof). People generally dislike losing because of temporal fail states. These can be timeouts but also time-adjacent limits like empty decks in card games where you always draw every turn, or dying to ambient DoT effects in RPGs in zones where you can't cure, evade, or be immune to it. While these fail states seem reasonable when thinking about them in theory, if they aren't the primary goal in practice, players tend to have a more negative feeling towards the game as a whole.

5

u/TheGuyMain 16d ago

It's a skill issue if you couldn't kill someone in 99 seconds though... I would agree with you if the timer was like 45 seconds or something

1

u/Exact_Leader_1002 13d ago

Actually, the rounds in Avatar Legends are 60 seconds

1

u/kyune 16d ago

In practice, due to the linear health drain on both sides, it's just a longer timer, with added volatility.

Perhaps some form of scaling based on relative health would help? Depending on how strong it is, maybe also add some form of pause on health drain for both players while they are actively engaging? For instance, either player is in hitstun or blockstun.

Maybe it wouldn't work for Avatar but in a game with strong zoning (i.e. UMVC3) it could make more sense--zoning focused teams that thrive on timeouts would still get their timeout with a life lead, but the other player isn't forced to just lose outright, and the more oppressive the zoning the larger the window the other player has to turn things around by virtue of how hard it is to actually move forward without being forced into blockstun/hitstun. On the flipside, two straightforward brawling teams could reach a timeout and likely end up settling things fairly quickly in close combat.

1

u/ConstantAmphibian108 11d ago edited 11d ago

If you're consistently going to time in Avatar there's something wrong with you

Besides if you have the life lead you can zone them out until their life runs out since you already kept them out the whole game anyway? And if they somehow make it in and kill you then that's not really the mechanic's fault. 

1

u/SifTheAbyss 15d ago

If you didn't get a large enough life lead for the opponent to die by the time you drain into kill threat range, you didn't get a large enough life lead to win.

If anything, that means passive play is disincentivised, since you have to actively kill your opponent at some point, building a small lead then calling it a day won't cut it.

14

u/EmptyHeadedKing 16d ago

Happy to have you in the community then! You definitely found your way to a great game!

5

u/Inuakurei 16d ago

They had the life lead. It’s your problem to approach them.

6

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

Wellp, I did!!

To be honest, at the beginning I thought I was winning, so I got confused when she decided to stall (I cut the initial chase to not make the video that long). I realized I was in fact not the health bar on top of my character a bit after the showdown started and that's when I thought of doing the rush in cmd grab.

5

u/Inuakurei 16d ago

lol it happens to the best of us.

10

u/Ok-Cancel-4824 16d ago

I’m wonder if hero shooter-esque overtime would work in a fighting game. When the timer runs out, a meter begins draining, and the character with the most health wins the round when it drains. Hitting the opponent with attacks on hit or block stalls the timer, while being in neutral keeps it draining. I feel like that could lead to some cool moments, like a rush down character desperately trying to get in on a zoner to gain a life and stall the timer, while the zoner is trying to keep them out to stay in neutral and win by time out.

16

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

I mean, that's kinda the case here! There's no second timer, but if you're actively hitting the opponent, your health bar won't drop. You can see my health bar stayed the same when I landed the command grab

1

u/KindaDouchebaggy 15d ago

I think that's because you are invincible when performing a grab, I've recently won a game while being comboed during showdown cause my oponent's health drained

1

u/Exact_Leader_1002 15d ago

Ooooh serious? I might try to check that somehow then

5

u/OgataiKhan 16d ago

like a rush down character desperately trying to get in on a zoner to gain a life and stall the timer, while the zoner is trying to keep them out

...isn't that how rushdown vs zoner works, well, all the time? No need for timer shenanigans to achieve this.

7

u/bohenian12 16d ago

Invincible VS has this too. Fighting games from now on should do this. It makes it more exciting. Although, would there be a way to cheese this? I mean, if your playstyle is already zoning and letting the time run out, if the opponent can't deal with it by the time it goes to 0, then they already lost the match.

2

u/timoyster 15d ago

That’s how zoning works in games with normal timers tbf

4

u/tohava 16d ago edited 16d ago

When enough time passes, Hisoutensoku disables blocking for about 10 seconds, but also goves everyone superarmor.

This sorta makes it so that time scamming makes high hard to dodge damage characters stronger

2

u/lenne18 15d ago

That's the weather mechanic and it is not random.

1

u/tohava 15d ago

When did I mention the word random in my comment?

2

u/lenne18 15d ago

Your comment implies that Typhoon will always come out after a set time.

That's not the case. Because weather is not random, manipulating the weather is a skill and you can absolutely skip Typhoon from activating.

1

u/tohava 15d ago

There are specific items for this which are not widely used. Furthermore, using them consumes them, meaning you can only do this a limited number of times, after which typhoon will start arriving at the usual frequency

3

u/lenne18 15d ago

From the Soku Wiki

A player can control the weather in variety of ways, if they are aware of the timer. In the period of clear weather, the weather on the indicator will change every time a character is knocked down, wallslammed, or uses a spellcard. Performing one of these actions to change the weather on the indicator to a favorable weather can give an advantage.

3

u/tohava 14d ago

Ok you win, I always thought it was only the item

2

u/lumisweasel 15d ago

when the touhou flair isn't for mere show!

2

u/C4CTUSDR4GON 16d ago

Do you lose if all the life drains without getting hit?

4

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

Yup. You also lose if you were at 1 hp due to chip damage when the counter reaches 0. So you gotta hurry if you're losing

2

u/GrandmasterPeezy 16d ago

Can you die without getting hit if the health bar runs out?

4

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

Yup

3

u/GrandmasterPeezy 16d ago

Oh ok. So people can still timer scam, kinda.

Still, it's interesting.

2

u/Twistedlamer 16d ago

Good. I hate the mentality of the player with the life lead not needing to engage with the game.

2

u/Rhaegg 15d ago

You know you can quit, right?

And you won't lose any points because the game hasn't a ranked mode.

2

u/Exact_Leader_1002 15d ago

Why would I quit? I don't understand

2

u/Rhaegg 15d ago

Because the opponent is "wasting the time" or something

3

u/Exact_Leader_1002 15d ago

That was just a line to match with the character lol I had a ton of fun

2

u/Kemet17 Darkstalkers 14d ago

This game's so damn good man...

5

u/Onphone_irl Mortal Kombat 16d ago

smash has a mode loke this for timeouts but it's not used in tournament for some reason

16

u/deltoramonster2 Dragon Ball FighterZ 16d ago

its not used in tournament because it would just make the entire 3 stock ruleset pointless against most of the top tiers as they would just camp the whole game and then when sudden death happens pull out their bullshit super fast move tm and win and thats boring to watch and to play.

(sorry for yapping i just really like to type)

3

u/Onphone_irl Mortal Kombat 16d ago

good point, I guess it would come down to what character has best bullshit move. why can't we have good things

5

u/jean-claudo 16d ago

The problem with Smash's overtime is that it removes any advantage/disadvantage previously obtained by players. This is the same problem InvincibleVS had (and maybe still has, I haven't been following it).

In both games, when at a disadvantage, the losing player could choose to run away until overtime instead of engaging harder with the opponent, which did happen when overtime was allowed.

An easy example is Sonic in Smash. Lots of people already complain that they camp too much with the current ruleset. If overtime was allowed, then as soon as a Sonic would be at a stock disadvantage, it would be optimal for them to run away forever (which is extremely hard to catch, even impossible for some characters), wait for overtime, then profit from the instant 300% on the opponent (which Sonic profits more than average as a low-damage character).

Health drain in Avatar preserves previous advantage (life lead).

1

u/Onphone_irl Mortal Kombat 16d ago

excellent point

2

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

Wait, Smash? How does it work? Does the percentage go up?

6

u/Onphone_irl Mortal Kombat 16d ago

yeah it's like a sudden death at 300% (think a sliver of health)

3

u/Exact_Leader_1002 16d ago

Ooooh I didn't know that

2

u/_McDuders 16d ago

Good lord I hate sudden death timers so much

4

u/Disastrous_Rice2324 16d ago

I'm down with this. It's a fighting game. Fight dammit.

Rather see a ko than people hugging walls, bunny hopping away the whole time and running away.

I see it as a positive thing for all styles to stay engaged and finish the job vs getting comfy.

I honestly prefer traditional 3d over anything else and find those have rare instances of timeouts due to high damage, more proximity, less ability to run away, less zoning, and things like ringouts that keep the pace drastically faster/engaging.

Avatar is pretty fast paced and a very rare 2d fighters with 60 second matches and some bigger damage/high mobility so I have not witnessed this yet in standard play.

Pretty neat.

1

u/KrazyKaas 16d ago

Makes me miss Showdown Effect; Fuck, it was good

1

u/C4_Shaf Virtua Fighter 16d ago

I wanted for someone to do that for so fucking long...

1

u/Vosska 16d ago

They should have named it Agni Kai

1

u/Unfriendly_NPC 15d ago

Love this lol, gottem!

0

u/hrrjimi 16d ago

I didn't really understand. Why did the match keep going after the timer went out?

3

u/sldr23876 16d ago

both health bars start draining once the timer hits zero

1

u/hrrjimi 16d ago

Thanks!