If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
Besides, you're talking about split second decisions. That shit has to be developed as muscle memory and instinct. There's no substitution for practice there.
I get that fighting games are hard to learn and not for everyone, but that doesn't make them poorly designed or unintuitive. If you want intuitive and simple, play checkers or Uno. Complexity and depth are functions of every video game made past like, 1988.
Complexity is not depth. They are not synonyms in game design. Intuitiveness is not simplicity. They are not synonyms in game design.
And have you played guitar hero or DDR on the gamepad? They suck, straight up. There's a reason for this.
All right, this is killing me.
The example of unintuitive inputs is Hadoken and Sonic Boom (236 P and charge4, 6P)
This is one of the most intuitive things about Street Fighter.
To use a Hadoken in anything but long range, Ryu/Ken should most likely cancel it from a low forward in order to extend its effective range, break a standing guard, and get more damage. It is called a cancel because of animation technicalities.
LEFT HAND down down/forward forward
RIGHT HAND m.kick punch
Guile's Sonic Boom (and Flash Kick) are meant mostly for turtling, as holding down/back (block) will allow for excellent defensive options.
LEFT HAND down/back up OR forward
RIGHT HAND kick OR punch
The idea is that as Guile is blocking, he has both offensive (boom) options and defensive (flash) options. The inputs affect mindgame (!!) because who the hell is going to jump in on Guile if he's blocking low? But if he's choosing to block high, he's giving up his anti-air option.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
Oh, I get it. That's completely intuitive, my mistake. (Irony: I only barely understood what you were talking about)
Anyways, I think I've said my piece at this point. I think they're needlessly clunky, people who have played them for a decade disagree. Ok. I don't see this going any further.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
3rd Strike was a pretty technical game. Street Fighter 4 was supposed to be a game that people could pick up much easier, a fighter accessible to everyone. It didn't really work out as well as they hoped.
Basically, companies have tried to make fighting games more accessible to players, such as SF4 and Blazblue, but it's still hard to keep beginners and more fighting obsessed players happy.
I don't know, SF4 sold a really impressive number of games, especially for a fighting game.
It did a decent job of making the game a bit more accessible, but when you have 1/60th of a second timing required to pull off the most essential combos in the game, you're not really thinking about the casual player or even the interested beginner.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
FADC, 1 frame link, and such stuff are pretty hard. But they are only necessary if the person you're playing against can do them... and if the character that you chose to play with makes good use of them.
These games are still fun to play even if you don't play like the japanese players.
Anyways, I think I've said my piece at this point. I think they're needlessly clunky, people who have played them for a decade disagree. Ok. I don't see this going any further.
For the record, SF4 is the first street fighter I've ever played, and my only other fighting game experience is in Smash Bros.
However, I do agree that 1 frame links are bullshit, but that doesn't stop the rest of the game from being assloads of fun.
If I could nail 1-frame links every time, I would do:
cr.lk cr.lk cr.lk xx EX Legs
Not that much of a difference. But if one player can do them and the other can't, they deserve to win, no?
doesn't 3lk xx EX legs actually do less damage too? Anyway, there are plenty of characters in SF where the 1 frame links simply aren't used, hell, and a lot where you never do more than a 3 hit combo. I don't think I do any combos over 2 hits on blanka and certainly nothing over 3 on rose...
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
FADC, 1 frame link, and such stuff are pretty hard. But they are only necessary if the person you're playing against can do them... and if the character that you chose to play with makes good use of them.
These games are still fun to play even if you don't play like the japanese players.
And that's why I still play and enjoy it.
But this is game with online play, and it's a game where, if you keep getting better, you're going to hit a ceiling when you can't do link combos or FADC shit. I'm pretty much at that ceiling, and I'm not even that good; I know that if I were pulling off the link combos for my characters I'd be winning a number of the matches I lose. I know that if I trained for hours to do Sagat's FADC combos that lead to his Ultra, I would win way more matches. I see the opportunities to use the various high-level execution techniques, but I simply don't have the technical ability to do them, and I lose matches because of it.
But I'm not really the problem; I have years and years of fighting game experience, and I have most of the important muscle memory already. I'm also obsessed enough that I'll probably end up practicing those combos even though practice itself is not fun.
A new player who picks it up and can't even do a shoryuken or an ultra reliably? That's really discouraging. I have seen dozens of players on this forum alone drop the game out of frustration or disappointment because of the difficulty of even the basic inputs.
When you lose because you screwed up the input for an Ultra, or because you messed up a link in your link combo, don't you find it frustrating instead of fun? Most people do, it seems to me.
Well, consider the example of 1 on 1 basketball. Even if one player is decidedly "better" at the game, he must execute with those skills in order to win.
Knowing what to do is honestly pretty easy. You can read some fighting forum and know the best choices in all the possible situations. You don't even need to play to do that.
What results in wins, though, is being able to EXECUTE that knowledge for the win. Lord knows I've choked in a tough match, but for 3 rounds, prior performance doesn't matter-- only what happens for those rounds, and I love that.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
Given that the goal in this case is "a very low technical level" dot dot dot
And honestly, hyperbole isn't helping either. There are combos in many games that require just frame inputs. Nobody uses them except for gimmick videos because they require just frame inputs. Hit confirm time on most games for real pokes tends to be anywhere from 10-30 frames, if you can't follow up on an attack that you expect to probably hit within a quarter of a second, then you've probably got ham tied to your thumb.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
FADC, 1 frame link, and such stuff are pretty hard. But they are only necessary if the person you're playing against can do them... and if the character that you chose to play with makes good use of them.
These games are still fun to play even if you don't play like the japanese players.
And that's why I still play and enjoy it.
But this is game with online play, and it's a game where, if you keep getting better, you're going to hit a ceiling when you can't do link combos or FADC shit. I'm pretty much at that ceiling, and I'm not even that good; I know that if I were pulling off the link combos for my characters I'd be winning a number of the matches I lose. I know that if I trained for hours to do Sagat's FADC combos that lead to his Ultra, I would win way more matches. I see the opportunities to use the various high-level execution techniques, but I simply don't have the technical ability to do them, and I lose matches because of it.
But I'm not really the problem; I have years and years of fighting game experience, and I have most of the important muscle memory already. I'm also obsessed enough that I'll probably end up practicing those combos even though practice itself is not fun.
A new player who picks it up and can't even do a shoryuken or an ultra reliably? That's really discouraging. I have seen dozens of players on this forum alone drop the game out of frustration or disappointment because of the difficulty of even the basic inputs.
When you lose because you screwed up the input for an Ultra, or because you messed up a link in your link combo, don't you find it frustrating instead of fun? Most people do, it seems to me.
I agree with the ultra commands, 3 button inputs is a mistake. 1 frame links are also a truly bad idea. Though for other inputs, shoryukens or charge moves, how would they change the inputs to make it any better? They've already given a huge input window for shoryukens.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
FADC, 1 frame link, and such stuff are pretty hard. But they are only necessary if the person you're playing against can do them... and if the character that you chose to play with makes good use of them.
These games are still fun to play even if you don't play like the japanese players.
And that's why I still play and enjoy it.
But this is game with online play, and it's a game where, if you keep getting better, you're going to hit a ceiling when you can't do link combos or FADC shit. I'm pretty much at that ceiling, and I'm not even that good; I know that if I were pulling off the link combos for my characters I'd be winning a number of the matches I lose. I know that if I trained for hours to do Sagat's FADC combos that lead to his Ultra, I would win way more matches. I see the opportunities to use the various high-level execution techniques, but I simply don't have the technical ability to do them, and I lose matches because of it.
But I'm not really the problem; I have years and years of fighting game experience, and I have most of the important muscle memory already. I'm also obsessed enough that I'll probably end up practicing those combos even though practice itself is not fun.
A new player who picks it up and can't even do a shoryuken or an ultra reliably? That's really discouraging. I have seen dozens of players on this forum alone drop the game out of frustration or disappointment because of the difficulty of even the basic inputs.
When you lose because you screwed up the input for an Ultra, or because you messed up a link in your link combo, don't you find it frustrating instead of fun? Most people do, it seems to me.
I agree with the ultra commands, 3 button inputs is a mistake. 1 frame links are also a truly bad idea. Though for other inputs, shoryukens or charge moves, how would they change the inputs to make it any better? They've already given a huge input window for shoryukens.
But they already did make the shoryuken easier, there's that new shortcut; down-forward, down-forward+punch and it's fucking terrible. It's so easy to do you throw it out accidentally when you're just trying to move in and punch. I can't imagine how horrible things would be if they made it forward+punch.
edit: oh and yeah, 3p for ultras is stupid, i don't know how they expect you to play it on a controller. And 1 frame links are stupid too, they could be removed or all turned into target combos, either one would make me happy, though if you removed them guile and blanka would have nothing for offensive combos...
Honestly the windows are so huge now that I have definitely blown supers and such accidentally just by twitch walking and stuff. Fighting games are at a sort of breaking point-- making them any easier to play would truly anger the longtime fans, since their franchises have established such pride on complexity that they would need major changes in order to be really palatable to the masses.
That right there is another issue with fighting games-- as with many other genres, they've just become a rotting pile of sequels that are EXPECTED to carry over their predecessor's systems. If they were really able to try new IPs and ideas, we'd see more things like Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, where the 6-button Capcom fighter system got replaced with a new 4-button system, which fits home controllers much better.
Honestly the windows are so huge now that I have definitely blown supers and such accidentally just by twitch walking and stuff. Fighting games are at a sort of breaking point-- making them any easier to play would truly anger the longtime fans, since their franchises have established such pride on complexity that they would need major changes in order to be really palatable to the masses.
That right there is another issue with fighting games-- as with many other genres, they've just become a rotting pile of sequels that are EXPECTED to carry over their predecessor's systems. If they were really able to try new IPs and ideas, we'd see more things like Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, where the 6-button Capcom fighter system got replaced with a new 4-button system, which fits home controllers much better.
Ironic it's exclusive to the wii.
Now now. MBAA more than tripled the size of its cast in its latest iteration and muxed with a rather significant number of the mechanics.
Personally I like fighting games, but the whole process of memorising button combinations is quite daunting to me.
And I have yet to find the find the right fighting game for me.
Fight Night. You make up your own combos, and there are no buttons - you control everything with the sticks. There's very little memorization, you can learn all the "moves" in about 3 minutes.
The problem with fighting games...is the mentality that people have about them. Fighting is not as easy as picking up a gun and killing someone (which does take some skill, but much less). It takes practice, discipline, and more practice to be good at it.
Unfortunately, some people feel entitled to instant gratification. Because of that, they will absolutely refuse to adapt and learn, instead labelling things as cheap or broken or flawed. In any other game, say a platformer, a player would take the time to learn how far their jump can go and what options their character has. If they come across a boss fight where the boss uses the exact same pattern over and over, they'll easily adapt and say that the boss was too easy. In a fighting game however, if they come across someone using the same move over and over, even if there is an easy counter like a sidestep, they'll eat it over and over again without trying anything to counter it. Then they'll whine about it.
So in a game where a major part is baiting mistakes and finding openings in the opponent's defense, we should not be able to punish those times that we do find an opening or when they made a mistake?
Punishing a mistake is fine. Punishing a mistake with a 0-death or an infinite is pretty fucking gay though. Infinites and 0-deaths are really lame. I use them in competitive play but I think they are the absolute dumbest things in any video game.
A 0-death can be good for gameplay if its difficult. I don't mean difficult in the 'practice for a million hours to get the timing right' kind of difficulty, but in the 'being able to predict your opponent correctly over the course of several actions' kind of difficulty. Smash Bros. Melee had a few of these.
Infinites, however, are almost always detrimental to gameplay.
Why are you still arguing this? That's how fighting games work; if they didn't they'd be something else. It's like saying I don't like turn based strategy games because I can't move during the other player's turn. Well, if I could then I'd be playing an RTS.
This is a very closed-minded way to look at it.
I know you're talking about having to wait through someone else's combo, but I'll respond to an earlier post's content instead. :P
It is entirely possible to design a deep fighting game that does not immediately repulse anyone who's not a fighting game afficionado.
Games do not have to require hundreds of hours of muscle memory training to be good.
It's quite possible to have combos, special moves, etc that do not require intense technical expertise to pull off. There are only two reasons to make them complex:
1) To cater to people who enjoy a technical input challenge on top of the strategic, tactical thinking
2) To prevent new-player-friendly games - both in terms of preventing button-mashing victories, and in terms of making new players lose more easily and thus distinguishing dedicated, higher-level players far more.
I don't really see the second one as positive, although I can see why some people would. If the game is easy to play, then your arcade cabinet will be raided by a bunch of crappy players, instead of similarly focused players who present you with an actual challenge.
Yes, but can you actually give me an example of how this would actually work?
Fighting games, especially 3D fighters, are not unintuitive, and the majority of moves and combos are not hard to do, they just take a little bit of timing. As I said before, VF has 3 buttons, DOA has 3 buttons, SC has 4 buttons, Tekken has 4 buttons, KOF series has 4 buttons, Last Blade and Samurai Shodown have 4 buttons. Quarter circle and half circle motions are not hard, neither is a dragon punch motion if you bother to learn.
On the other hand, I've seen examples of games where they've tried their best to limit the movelists or button inputs, and you end up with the 3D MK games, where combos are just a series of arbitrary button sequences and 95% of the time there is one that just does more damage than the rest and that's the only one you ever need to use. So, really, you only need to learn one or two combos and a few special attacks to be at maximum effectiveness in almost any situation. Guess what? The 3D MK games are even more broken and pointless than the 2D MK games.
Not saying definitively that it can't be done, but the fact is that it never has been done, not well. And again, VF -- easy inputs, you can win without the big flashy combos (most of which are not that hard to do), but it's the deepest and most daunting 3D fighting game series around, while also being the least popular. Tekken is almost the polar opposite. I think there are other reasons that contribute to this, but people do love flashy combos, and being able to pull them off seems to offer some bragging rights, even though with the way damage scaling works in most modern fighters you're almost always better off doing shorter, simpler combos. But in any good fighting game almost every input is in some way related to the yomi (mindgames), and that does take learning, as it should. Things like option selecting, oki (ground games -- how to attack or pressure your opponent when they're on the ground) and cancels are very input dependant, from both players.
If you play at a very low technical level against someone else that plays at a very low technical level, the winner is decided by mindgame (and luck, since neither of you know exactly what you're doing).
The level of play isn't as important as the two players being at the same level of play.
So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
It's not that critical to know any of that stuff unless you are really good at some fundamentals first. Standard three-hit combos will get you FAR if you are just okay at punishing people when they do stupid shit.
I got to 2000bp on SFIV using mostly just block, throw. Everyone playing Ken and Ryu would try to dragon punch after I'd knocked them down. Block it, then throw them when they land.
Also, the popularity of fighting games has gone UP considerably in the past decade, rather than down. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat used to be the only contenders on the block, because fighting games used to be arcade-centric. The people who got good at these games were trying to save their quarters. They formed regular playtimes and communities, and swapped information and ideas (and occasionally, taunts). When the fighting game genre went to the consoles (in a form that was finally comparable to arcade play), the market only grew from there. One can only look at the recent sales of the most popular titles of the genre (Soul Calibur, Street Fighter, etc.) to see that they are indeed mainstream now rather than a niche genre with a tiny community of elite competitors. And the most popular games of the series actually are more "pick-up-and-play" than the old games of yore. Heck, you get features like training mode and online play, as well as the Internet (which wasn't used to the same degree then as it is now to develop gaming skills). Developers are getting better at making the games more accessible as well.
There will always be the competitive elite players in this genre, mostly because Fighting Games are one of the few genres that start you at a neutral position (even with variables such as character selection and such). Balance is important to the fans and the developers of these games, and one of the appeals of the genre is the fact that you are matching skill against skill. The person who memorizes more combos doesn't necessarily win (compared to someone who understands the systems of the game and develops their strategy).
The problem with fighting games...is the mentality that people have about them. Fighting is not as easy as picking up a gun and killing someone (which does take some skill, but much less). It takes practice, discipline, and more practice to be good at it.
Unfortunately, some people feel entitled to instant gratification. Because of that, they will absolutely refuse to adapt and learn, instead labelling things as cheap or broken or flawed. In any other game, say a platformer, a player would take the time to learn how far their jump can go and what options their character has. If they come across a boss fight where the boss uses the exact same pattern over and over, they'll easily adapt and say that the boss was too easy. In a fighting game however, if they come across someone using the same move over and over, even if there is an easy counter like a sidestep, they'll eat it over and over again without trying anything to counter it. Then they'll whine about it.
Those are the ones who hates fighting games.
Uh, no. Sure, maybe some people, but that's not why I hate fighting games, and I'm sure it's not why a lot of other people hate fighting games.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Yeah, I can never get into fighters because there's too much learning. You really have to invest in in to become good. Sometimes I just want to punch and kick shit, which is why I love brawlers way more.
Sadly the genre is basically dead, so I just keep playing The Warriors over and over. Also plan on getting Yakuza 2 at some point.
Not saying definitively that it can't be done, but the fact is that it never has been done, not well. And again, VF -- easy inputs, you can win without the big flashy combos (most of which are not that hard to do), but it's the deepest and most daunting 3D fighting game series around, while also being the least popular. Tekken is almost the polar opposite. I think there are other reasons that contribute to this, but people do love flashy combos, and being able to pull them off seems to offer some bragging rights, even though with the way damage scaling works in most modern fighters you're almost always better off doing shorter, simpler combos. But in any good fighting game almost every input is in some way related to the yomi (mindgames), and that does take learning, as it should. Things like option selecting, oki (ground games -- how to attack or pressure your opponent when they're on the ground) and cancels are very input dependant, from both players.
You keep saying VF has easy inputs, but, I don't really know how true that is. I know plenty of people who after hour of trying couldn't pull off some of the combos Evo recommended them, and some people that no matter how many times they tried couldn't consistently pull off some characters moves in training or some of their combo throws.
I certainly never found sidestepping while buffering in three throw escapes to be an easy thing to input. :P
Yeah, I can never get into fighters because there's too much learning. You really have to invest in in to become good. Sometimes I just want to punch and kick shit, which is why I love brawlers way more.
Sadly the genre is basically dead, so I just keep playing The Warriors over and over. Also plan on getting Yakuza 2 at some point.
Well, I'm specifically referring to games in which you just walk around and punch guys. DMC and Ninja Gaiden and games like that don't really fit into the "brawler" genre.
The only other two games I can think of like that are Final Fight and Beat Down, which apparently both sucked.
Also that new Tokyo something on the DS, which apparently sucks as well.
Also, the popularity of fighting games has gone UP considerably in the past decade, rather than down. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat used to be the only contenders on the block, because fighting games used to be arcade-centric. The people who got good at these games were trying to save their quarters. They formed regular playtimes and communities, and swapped information and ideas (and occasionally, taunts). When the fighting game genre went to the consoles (in a form that was finally comparable to arcade play), the market only grew from there. One can only look at the recent sales of the most popular titles of the genre (Soul Calibur, Street Fighter, etc.) to see that they are indeed mainstream now rather than a niche genre with a tiny community of elite competitors. And the most popular games of the series actually are more "pick-up-and-play" than the old games of yore. Heck, you get features like training mode and online play, as well as the Internet (which wasn't used to the same degree then as it is now to develop gaming skills). Developers are getting better at making the games more accessible as well.
Going to have to disagree with you. Fighting games are pretty much niche now, at least in terms of competition. The only (competitive) community that seems to be benefiting significantly from console releases is SF4 (and that's mostly just bigger pots for the same top players), and only time will tell how far the nostalgia carries the casual players. As you said, it used to be that you'd go to the arcade and if you didn't want to lose all your money in 15 minutes then you needed to practise and get good at the games, or you could get involved with a local scene and actually spend quality OFFLINE time playing and learning with other people. Soul Calibur 4 sold well, but the actual influx of new blood was fairly limited (after people had spent some 30 hours unlocking shit and designing custom characters, but then realized they still had no idea how to actually play the game), and hasn't come close to the SC2 days, which was still arcade influenced, and tourneys were run on PS2 while the best selling system was the Gamecube -- there was very little transfer. Virtua Fighter 5 pretty much flopped in the West, and now we don't even get the updated VF5:R. SNK has been putting out arcade ports of their games for a while now, even packaging them together, and it hasn't really gotten them much. KOFXII? Who can say, but those games are harder to get into the SF.
Not saying definitively that it can't be done, but the fact is that it never has been done, not well. And again, VF -- easy inputs, you can win without the big flashy combos (most of which are not that hard to do), but it's the deepest and most daunting 3D fighting game series around, while also being the least popular. Tekken is almost the polar opposite. I think there are other reasons that contribute to this, but people do love flashy combos, and being able to pull them off seems to offer some bragging rights, even though with the way damage scaling works in most modern fighters you're almost always better off doing shorter, simpler combos. But in any good fighting game almost every input is in some way related to the yomi (mindgames), and that does take learning, as it should. Things like option selecting, oki (ground games -- how to attack or pressure your opponent when they're on the ground) and cancels are very input dependant, from both players.
You keep saying VF has easy inputs, but, I don't really know how true that is. I know plenty of people who after hour of trying couldn't pull off some of the combos Evo recommended them, and some people that no matter how many times they tried couldn't consistently pull off some characters moves in training or some of their combo throws.
I certainly never found sidestepping while buffering in three throw escapes to be an easy thing to input. :P
Well, that was going to be my extended argument about why harder inputs are important to the actual depth of fighting games. If throw escapes were easy in VF then throws would be worthless and offence would be completely different than it is now.
But the basics of the game are easy enough, and you can get by just fine using a very small moveset for many characters. Elbow, heelkick, pounce, a couple throws, low punch, and good anticipation and movement will win you rounds. In VF3 there were Akira players that used like 5 moves outside of basic combos. Hit throws and the like are more about timing than straight up input difficulty. Obviously there are things that take some practise and learning, but it's not GG, or even KOF.
Well, that was going to be my extended argument about why harder inputs are important to the actual depth of fighting games. If throw escapes were easy in VF then throws would be worthless and offence would be completely different than it is now.
That's not true though. A good player in a VF game is expected to be able to buffer in 3 throw escapes in the time frame enter to given to enter throw escapes. However, you can buffer in more, if you are fast enough. If you just changed the game to having twice as long of a window for throw escapes, yes, that would be bad for game balance. But, if you doubled the input window but then capped the number of escapes at 3, not only have you made inputs easier, but you've also made throw escaping a more consistent mechanic and therefore can refine the game balance even further, I feel.
The only downside to my system is that it would be harder to surprise someone with a throw to the point where they have no time to input any throw escapes, but, I assume that's pretty rare to see in high level play anyway.
Naw, because you still have to do them under pressure, and I'm not just talking about highest level play. If any mediocre player could get out 3 throw escapes and an evade than that would effectively hamstring certain characters. Besides that, maybe things have changed now, but back when I was still paying attention (VF3-4), getting out 3 throw escapes consistently outside of skill projects was very rare, and not required to win tournaments. And I don't mind there being a barrier like that to separate the levels of play anyway.
Anyway, after reading all 7 pages, the one thing that strikes me is, the main complaints against fighting games made here seem to all stem from the fact that people are either playing against the CPU, or against humans way above their skill level.
First of all, never play against the computer. Perhaps, someday, we'll be able to program in an AI opponent that acts like varying skill levels of human opponents, but that day is not today. Playing against the AI only teaches you one thing: how to beat the AI. These skills do not transfer over to versus play except in the rarest and most insignificant of circumstances.
Second, play against someone at your level; or, at least, someone willing to coach you up to their level. If you hop online into a random match, and get your ass completely handed to you in 12s, no, you're probably not going to learn anything. However, if you're playing a match against an equal, you'll have time to see the mistakes you made, and how to not make them in the future.
As has been stated, fighting games are really about providing a system within which two opponents may test their skills as fairly as possible. If you lost, it's because you lacked the skill/insight to best your opponent. However, blaming the game/system is easier than admitting you lost to a human.
This is why the PA community is the best community to pick up a fighting game in. Even if people are kicking your ass, they'll happily spend hours showing you tricks, letting you try out combos, explaining how they punished you and how to avoid it, etc. It becomes an exercise in collaboration, rather than frustration.
Are there any fighting games out there with real tutorials? I mean, not the training mode where you try to learn how to execute moves and combos in a vacuum, which you (or at least I) proceed to completely forget against even the easiest computer opponent. I mean a tutorial, with scripted scenes that go something like
Your opponent threw an imprudent punch. *pause*
Here is how you respond to this.
Oops, you shouldn't have jumped there! *pause*
Here's what happens. *ow ow ow*
Here's what you should do instead.
I mean a tutorial that actually teaches you to play fighting games.
Because I'm in the same situation as several other posters in this thread -- I enjoy playing some fighting games, and even have an arcade stick for an occasional game -- but I am beyond suck. Well beyond suck, into some galactic-center-black-hole zone of cosmic failure. And it's not an issue of learning the inputs: those take time to learn, but practice builds muscle memory. What I've somehow never managed to grasp is the principles.
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So why not make it easier for players to reach the same technical level?
Who says it's not? You?
Besides, you're talking about split second decisions. That shit has to be developed as muscle memory and instinct. There's no substitution for practice there.
All right, this is killing me.
The example of unintuitive inputs is Hadoken and Sonic Boom (236 P and charge4, 6P)
This is one of the most intuitive things about Street Fighter.
To use a Hadoken in anything but long range, Ryu/Ken should most likely cancel it from a low forward in order to extend its effective range, break a standing guard, and get more damage. It is called a cancel because of animation technicalities.
Guile's Sonic Boom (and Flash Kick) are meant mostly for turtling, as holding down/back (block) will allow for excellent defensive options.
The idea is that as Guile is blocking, he has both offensive (boom) options and defensive (flash) options. The inputs affect mindgame (!!) because who the hell is going to jump in on Guile if he's blocking low? But if he's choosing to block high, he's giving up his anti-air option.
....pretty much everyone?
It is not easy to learn how to do FADC combos, 1-frame links, etc, in Street Fighter IV. They are deliberately made more difficult than they need to be, in some instances.
I'm not talking about split second decisions, I'm talking about the muscle memory necessary to pull off moves and combos that are very difficult to execute and require many hours of practice just to do, before you even start thinking about when or why you'd do them.
Anyways, I think I've said my piece at this point. I think they're needlessly clunky, people who have played them for a decade disagree. Ok. I don't see this going any further.
3rd Strike was a pretty technical game. Street Fighter 4 was supposed to be a game that people could pick up much easier, a fighter accessible to everyone. It didn't really work out as well as they hoped.
Basically, companies have tried to make fighting games more accessible to players, such as SF4 and Blazblue, but it's still hard to keep beginners and more fighting obsessed players happy.
It did a decent job of making the game a bit more accessible, but when you have 1/60th of a second timing required to pull off the most essential combos in the game, you're not really thinking about the casual player or even the interested beginner.
FADC, 1 frame link, and such stuff are pretty hard. But they are only necessary if the person you're playing against can do them... and if the character that you chose to play with makes good use of them.
These games are still fun to play even if you don't play like the japanese players.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cW2nMf1gk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZUMjoxfZA
In SF4, I play as Chun Li. I like to do:
cr.lk cr.lk xx EX Legs
If I could nail 1-frame links every time, I would do:
cr.lk cr.lk cr.lk xx EX Legs
Not that much of a difference. But if one player can do them and the other can't, they deserve to win, no?
For the record, SF4 is the first street fighter I've ever played, and my only other fighting game experience is in Smash Bros.
However, I do agree that 1 frame links are bullshit, but that doesn't stop the rest of the game from being assloads of fun.
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Black: 1377 6749 7425
doesn't 3lk xx EX legs actually do less damage too? Anyway, there are plenty of characters in SF where the 1 frame links simply aren't used, hell, and a lot where you never do more than a 3 hit combo. I don't think I do any combos over 2 hits on blanka and certainly nothing over 3 on rose...
And that's why I still play and enjoy it.
But this is game with online play, and it's a game where, if you keep getting better, you're going to hit a ceiling when you can't do link combos or FADC shit. I'm pretty much at that ceiling, and I'm not even that good; I know that if I were pulling off the link combos for my characters I'd be winning a number of the matches I lose. I know that if I trained for hours to do Sagat's FADC combos that lead to his Ultra, I would win way more matches. I see the opportunities to use the various high-level execution techniques, but I simply don't have the technical ability to do them, and I lose matches because of it.
But I'm not really the problem; I have years and years of fighting game experience, and I have most of the important muscle memory already. I'm also obsessed enough that I'll probably end up practicing those combos even though practice itself is not fun.
A new player who picks it up and can't even do a shoryuken or an ultra reliably? That's really discouraging. I have seen dozens of players on this forum alone drop the game out of frustration or disappointment because of the difficulty of even the basic inputs.
When you lose because you screwed up the input for an Ultra, or because you messed up a link in your link combo, don't you find it frustrating instead of fun? Most people do, it seems to me.
Knowing what to do is honestly pretty easy. You can read some fighting forum and know the best choices in all the possible situations. You don't even need to play to do that.
What results in wins, though, is being able to EXECUTE that knowledge for the win. Lord knows I've choked in a tough match, but for 3 rounds, prior performance doesn't matter-- only what happens for those rounds, and I love that.
Given that the goal in this case is "a very low technical level" dot dot dot
And honestly, hyperbole isn't helping either. There are combos in many games that require just frame inputs. Nobody uses them except for gimmick videos because they require just frame inputs. Hit confirm time on most games for real pokes tends to be anywhere from 10-30 frames, if you can't follow up on an attack that you expect to probably hit within a quarter of a second, then you've probably got ham tied to your thumb.
I agree with the ultra commands, 3 button inputs is a mistake. 1 frame links are also a truly bad idea. Though for other inputs, shoryukens or charge moves, how would they change the inputs to make it any better? They've already given a huge input window for shoryukens.
But they already did make the shoryuken easier, there's that new shortcut; down-forward, down-forward+punch and it's fucking terrible. It's so easy to do you throw it out accidentally when you're just trying to move in and punch. I can't imagine how horrible things would be if they made it forward+punch.
edit: oh and yeah, 3p for ultras is stupid, i don't know how they expect you to play it on a controller. And 1 frame links are stupid too, they could be removed or all turned into target combos, either one would make me happy, though if you removed them guile and blanka would have nothing for offensive combos...
That right there is another issue with fighting games-- as with many other genres, they've just become a rotting pile of sequels that are EXPECTED to carry over their predecessor's systems. If they were really able to try new IPs and ideas, we'd see more things like Tatsunoko Vs Capcom, where the 6-button Capcom fighter system got replaced with a new 4-button system, which fits home controllers much better.
Ironic it's exclusive to the wii.
Now now. MBAA more than tripled the size of its cast in its latest iteration and muxed with a rather significant number of the mechanics.
Fight Night. You make up your own combos, and there are no buttons - you control everything with the sticks. There's very little memorization, you can learn all the "moves" in about 3 minutes.
Unfortunately, some people feel entitled to instant gratification. Because of that, they will absolutely refuse to adapt and learn, instead labelling things as cheap or broken or flawed. In any other game, say a platformer, a player would take the time to learn how far their jump can go and what options their character has. If they come across a boss fight where the boss uses the exact same pattern over and over, they'll easily adapt and say that the boss was too easy. In a fighting game however, if they come across someone using the same move over and over, even if there is an easy counter like a sidestep, they'll eat it over and over again without trying anything to counter it. Then they'll whine about it.
Those are the ones who hates fighting games.
Punishing a mistake is fine. Punishing a mistake with a 0-death or an infinite is pretty fucking gay though. Infinites and 0-deaths are really lame. I use them in competitive play but I think they are the absolute dumbest things in any video game.
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Infinites, however, are almost always detrimental to gameplay.
GT: Tanky the Tank
Black: 1377 6749 7425
More fighting games need guns.
Yes, but can you actually give me an example of how this would actually work?
Fighting games, especially 3D fighters, are not unintuitive, and the majority of moves and combos are not hard to do, they just take a little bit of timing. As I said before, VF has 3 buttons, DOA has 3 buttons, SC has 4 buttons, Tekken has 4 buttons, KOF series has 4 buttons, Last Blade and Samurai Shodown have 4 buttons. Quarter circle and half circle motions are not hard, neither is a dragon punch motion if you bother to learn.
On the other hand, I've seen examples of games where they've tried their best to limit the movelists or button inputs, and you end up with the 3D MK games, where combos are just a series of arbitrary button sequences and 95% of the time there is one that just does more damage than the rest and that's the only one you ever need to use. So, really, you only need to learn one or two combos and a few special attacks to be at maximum effectiveness in almost any situation. Guess what? The 3D MK games are even more broken and pointless than the 2D MK games.
Not saying definitively that it can't be done, but the fact is that it never has been done, not well. And again, VF -- easy inputs, you can win without the big flashy combos (most of which are not that hard to do), but it's the deepest and most daunting 3D fighting game series around, while also being the least popular. Tekken is almost the polar opposite. I think there are other reasons that contribute to this, but people do love flashy combos, and being able to pull them off seems to offer some bragging rights, even though with the way damage scaling works in most modern fighters you're almost always better off doing shorter, simpler combos. But in any good fighting game almost every input is in some way related to the yomi (mindgames), and that does take learning, as it should. Things like option selecting, oki (ground games -- how to attack or pressure your opponent when they're on the ground) and cancels are very input dependant, from both players.
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It's not that critical to know any of that stuff unless you are really good at some fundamentals first. Standard three-hit combos will get you FAR if you are just okay at punishing people when they do stupid shit.
I got to 2000bp on SFIV using mostly just block, throw. Everyone playing Ken and Ryu would try to dragon punch after I'd knocked them down. Block it, then throw them when they land.
There will always be the competitive elite players in this genre, mostly because Fighting Games are one of the few genres that start you at a neutral position (even with variables such as character selection and such). Balance is important to the fans and the developers of these games, and one of the appeals of the genre is the fact that you are matching skill against skill. The person who memorizes more combos doesn't necessarily win (compared to someone who understands the systems of the game and develops their strategy).
Uh, no. Sure, maybe some people, but that's not why I hate fighting games, and I'm sure it's not why a lot of other people hate fighting games.
Sadly the genre is basically dead, so I just keep playing The Warriors over and over. Also plan on getting Yakuza 2 at some point.
You keep saying VF has easy inputs, but, I don't really know how true that is. I know plenty of people who after hour of trying couldn't pull off some of the combos Evo recommended them, and some people that no matter how many times they tried couldn't consistently pull off some characters moves in training or some of their combo throws.
I certainly never found sidestepping while buffering in three throw escapes to be an easy thing to input. :P
As dead as PC gaming, RTSes, TBSes, and JRPGs.
The only other two games I can think of like that are Final Fight and Beat Down, which apparently both sucked.
Also that new Tokyo something on the DS, which apparently sucks as well.
Going to have to disagree with you. Fighting games are pretty much niche now, at least in terms of competition. The only (competitive) community that seems to be benefiting significantly from console releases is SF4 (and that's mostly just bigger pots for the same top players), and only time will tell how far the nostalgia carries the casual players. As you said, it used to be that you'd go to the arcade and if you didn't want to lose all your money in 15 minutes then you needed to practise and get good at the games, or you could get involved with a local scene and actually spend quality OFFLINE time playing and learning with other people. Soul Calibur 4 sold well, but the actual influx of new blood was fairly limited (after people had spent some 30 hours unlocking shit and designing custom characters, but then realized they still had no idea how to actually play the game), and hasn't come close to the SC2 days, which was still arcade influenced, and tourneys were run on PS2 while the best selling system was the Gamecube -- there was very little transfer. Virtua Fighter 5 pretty much flopped in the West, and now we don't even get the updated VF5:R. SNK has been putting out arcade ports of their games for a while now, even packaging them together, and it hasn't really gotten them much. KOFXII? Who can say, but those games are harder to get into the SF.
Again, Tekken seems to be the exception.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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But, for some reason, I can deal with Smash Bros. I'm good at it, so maybe that's why.
Well, that was going to be my extended argument about why harder inputs are important to the actual depth of fighting games. If throw escapes were easy in VF then throws would be worthless and offence would be completely different than it is now.
But the basics of the game are easy enough, and you can get by just fine using a very small moveset for many characters. Elbow, heelkick, pounce, a couple throws, low punch, and good anticipation and movement will win you rounds. In VF3 there were Akira players that used like 5 moves outside of basic combos. Hit throws and the like are more about timing than straight up input difficulty. Obviously there are things that take some practise and learning, but it's not GG, or even KOF.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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That's not true though. A good player in a VF game is expected to be able to buffer in 3 throw escapes in the time frame enter to given to enter throw escapes. However, you can buffer in more, if you are fast enough. If you just changed the game to having twice as long of a window for throw escapes, yes, that would be bad for game balance. But, if you doubled the input window but then capped the number of escapes at 3, not only have you made inputs easier, but you've also made throw escaping a more consistent mechanic and therefore can refine the game balance even further, I feel.
The only downside to my system is that it would be harder to surprise someone with a throw to the point where they have no time to input any throw escapes, but, I assume that's pretty rare to see in high level play anyway.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Anyway, after reading all 7 pages, the one thing that strikes me is, the main complaints against fighting games made here seem to all stem from the fact that people are either playing against the CPU, or against humans way above their skill level.
First of all, never play against the computer. Perhaps, someday, we'll be able to program in an AI opponent that acts like varying skill levels of human opponents, but that day is not today. Playing against the AI only teaches you one thing: how to beat the AI. These skills do not transfer over to versus play except in the rarest and most insignificant of circumstances.
Second, play against someone at your level; or, at least, someone willing to coach you up to their level. If you hop online into a random match, and get your ass completely handed to you in 12s, no, you're probably not going to learn anything. However, if you're playing a match against an equal, you'll have time to see the mistakes you made, and how to not make them in the future.
As has been stated, fighting games are really about providing a system within which two opponents may test their skills as fairly as possible. If you lost, it's because you lacked the skill/insight to best your opponent. However, blaming the game/system is easier than admitting you lost to a human.
This is why the PA community is the best community to pick up a fighting game in. Even if people are kicking your ass, they'll happily spend hours showing you tricks, letting you try out combos, explaining how they punished you and how to avoid it, etc. It becomes an exercise in collaboration, rather than frustration.
Your opponent threw an imprudent punch. *pause*
Here is how you respond to this.
Oops, you shouldn't have jumped there! *pause*
Here's what happens. *ow ow ow*
Here's what you should do instead.
I mean a tutorial that actually teaches you to play fighting games.
Because I'm in the same situation as several other posters in this thread -- I enjoy playing some fighting games, and even have an arcade stick for an occasional game -- but I am beyond suck. Well beyond suck, into some galactic-center-black-hole zone of cosmic failure. And it's not an issue of learning the inputs: those take time to learn, but practice builds muscle memory. What I've somehow never managed to grasp is the principles.