Saying that you should be able to come up with a completely different, functional design is well....
a bit...
arrogant.
No offense but, something like that shouldn't come in as a big surprise. You may not know it but many designers even in the real world come up with one base design and just do the same design over and over with very little variation. You can see this most commonly in machines like cars, laptops, locks, etc etc etc. The same principle works with live things. Almost all mammals look like the same thing in its embryo stage, but they gradually grow different. Even my fighting style in Guilty Gear grew up the same way. I practically copied the techniques of some people (like combo videos), and after studying the game and their styles (and testing, a. lot. of. testing.) I came up with my own techniques.
Being not able to come up with something awesome right off the bat isn't something to be ashamed of. Don't sweat it. I'm pretty sure there are many that might admit they came up with a pretty useless AC design and it took them sometime to even get close to their ideal AC. So don't lose heart, since you're ready to admit that your capabilities to come up with a design fall short for your expectations. I believe you're ready to study.
From what I understand you don't fully understand the ACFA system yet. So that would be a good place to start.
imo, it might be a nice idea to go along with the following:
- Identify how you want to play.
- Find a design that more or less follows that direction of play.
- Find another design that is pretty much the opposite.
- Play both, identify strengths and weaknesses.
- Get the preferred AC you were using and tune it to how you play and what you've learned about previous designs.
- Test.
- Repeat the last two steps.
At some point, you will probably produce a design that may be recognizably different from the original model that you took. Or then again, it may only be slightly different. However I'm sure experienced players can definitely tell a difference. Then you fight people, and will probably want to create a design which may be a meta-game against certain people, and the cycle continues.
That's it. Many of you know I stopped playing AC about a decade ago so I hope you found my words helpful regardless.
a bit...
arrogant.
No offense but, something like that shouldn't come in as a big surprise. You may not know it but many designers even in the real world come up with one base design and just do the same design over and over with very little variation. You can see this most commonly in machines like cars, laptops, locks, etc etc etc. The same principle works with live things. Almost all mammals look like the same thing in its embryo stage, but they gradually grow different. Even my fighting style in Guilty Gear grew up the same way. I practically copied the techniques of some people (like combo videos), and after studying the game and their styles (and testing, a. lot. of. testing.) I came up with my own techniques.
Being not able to come up with something awesome right off the bat isn't something to be ashamed of. Don't sweat it. I'm pretty sure there are many that might admit they came up with a pretty useless AC design and it took them sometime to even get close to their ideal AC. So don't lose heart, since you're ready to admit that your capabilities to come up with a design fall short for your expectations. I believe you're ready to study.
From what I understand you don't fully understand the ACFA system yet. So that would be a good place to start.
imo, it might be a nice idea to go along with the following:
- Identify how you want to play.
- Find a design that more or less follows that direction of play.
- Find another design that is pretty much the opposite.
- Play both, identify strengths and weaknesses.
- Get the preferred AC you were using and tune it to how you play and what you've learned about previous designs.
- Test.
- Repeat the last two steps.
At some point, you will probably produce a design that may be recognizably different from the original model that you took. Or then again, it may only be slightly different. However I'm sure experienced players can definitely tell a difference. Then you fight people, and will probably want to create a design which may be a meta-game against certain people, and the cycle continues.
That's it. Many of you know I stopped playing AC about a decade ago so I hope you found my words helpful regardless.
