Interactive Backgrounds In Fighting Games

Something that I have always believed added an extra aspect of fun and/or tactical decision-making to fighting games is the inclusion of a "battle field" which contains changing conditions. In its simplest form, I'm talking about things like the signs in Ryu's stage and the crates in Guile's stage in SF2, or the fences around all areas but the corners of stages in VF4.

Nevertheless, I think that taking things a step further would be great for fighting games, yet is seldom seen. Ideas come to mind like a dungeon with one area where a character can be slammed unto spikes, a crowd on an edge of the grounds which will cushion-but-slow a character's fall, and a street where automobiles occasionally pass at full speed from background-to-foreground, threatening characters.

To some extent, I can rationalise that, perhaps, game designers don't want to do things like this in fear that their game will be accused (by hardcore players) of not deciding victors entirely on their gameplay skills.--Of course, this is just as much nonsense as saying that having traditional "corner traps" forces a player to think about more than the opponent. In this case, I think that more interactive background elements would add a new factor into fighting games' gameplay.

Given that there are players of different seriousness in the fighting game community, I would definitely be interested in hearing what a variety of players think of interactive backgrounds in these games.

I HAVEN'T GOT THE INCLINATION...
right at this moment in time, however, if you have a look, you'll see that Midway gave environmental hazards a lot of time in their 3D Mortal Kombat series in the last gen - especially in Deception from memory.

Obviously, it goes without saying, Tecmo/Itagaki was always keen on such things in his DOA series. World Heroes gave it a go back in the day in Death Match mode too, something I think could be reintroduced to games as a separate mode perhaps (like your sort of inferring here, in this thread). Might be a better idea than being forced into the main fighting game itself?

I always loved interactive BGs. My favorite fighting BG was actually in Mugen where I use the subway train from Final Fight. If you get stuck in the corner in that BG then you deserved it, the train was about 3-4 cars long before hitting a corner.

In actual fighting games I always loved the Real Bout FF ones but I would prefer a more smashable BG like if were in a bar and I throw you across the screen you land on a table and smash it and then if you are against the wall I could slam you against the wall and break through to the street where cars are passing by and can hit you but of course don't deal much damage just more of a "knock you off your feet" inconvenience.

I actually had this idea for when I wanted to create a new fighting game with a new fighting system introduced but I lack the resources to get it done but from all the people I've talked to they would want it to see the light of day.

I think it’s the kind of thing that could very easily appeal to casual fighting game fans. The dynamics of any given stage in a DOA game certainly has an effect on how matches play out. Like you said though, hardcore fighting game nuts detest this kind of thing. You kind of can’t blame them either; it’s more sporting to have a stable environment in which to compete, and the absence of random occurrences helps validate one person’s win over another.
Oddly enough, the first game that came to mind when I was reading the opening post was Bloodstorm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BloodStorm
It’s an abysmal game; all flash and no substance, and the ‘flash’ in this case is completely infantile. However, the game does have a ton of secret material, and plenty of stage specific punishment.