Someone brought up an argument earlier about having more mechanics not necessarily having more depth (namely the tic-tac-toe example). That situation probably applies to Ultimate.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
FGC pros and youtubers are asking developers to stop making fighting games easier
- Thread starter Teh_Lurv
- Start date
Ah yes, the "dedicated fanbase" that kept most fighting games on life support during the last generation, where sales for the fighting genre continually slumped. Yes, THOSE people are the ones to trust! Not the sales figures of games from this generation. Let's trust the "fans". They surely have never been wrong, because they love the thing and aren't biased in the slightest.
Somewhat related, but it irks me in fighting game threads where one or multiple people go, "I hate how people "who don't play fighting games" say what fighting games should be" when all they really means that fans that aren't FGC (or they just happen to disagree to) said their thoughts. Like if you want fighters to be accessible, maybe don't with that elitist BS and gatekeeping, trying to shut up people you disagree with or don't follow the FGC code or whatever isn't going to help.
It irks me this time because after seeing that rhetoric, someone on this thread decided to prove them right... *Sigh*
Sorry that was unrelated, didn't know where else it would appropriate to say it.
It irks me this time because after seeing that rhetoric, someone on this thread decided to prove them right... *Sigh*
Sorry that was unrelated, didn't know where else it would appropriate to say it.
Why do you have such a grudge against the FGC?
No one is saying "Cater to us you owe us." They're simply showing that methods to draw sales aren't working and at the same time are making an inferior product.
By the way, many of these pros have gone on to help development.
While true, this thread is about modern fighting game mechanics not a 2001 title
But Melee is still being played to this day, hence the comparison.
...it absolutely is though. I wouldn't even say that's a positive. But it absolutely is.
That's literally the opposite of what they said. Max specifically pointed out the same thing we know for other games being made in the AAA space. You want more sales? Make better graphics. You want even more sales? Provide a single player story. You want even more and more sales? Add a ton of stages and costumes.
Content is king. People aren't drawn to a game immediately because of game mechanics being changed. They are arguing if these devs want to sell to a bigger audience they have to do what other AAA studios are doing already.
I think there is a distinction missing between making things easier and making them less complex.
So is smash 64, but it isn't really germane to this discussion.
I think folks have the wrong idea of what "complexity" even is to start with
It's literally not
Do the math on # of character matchups in Ultimate vs melee. Melee just has more movements options. But there are less than 7 truly viable chars in melee competitively.
My solutions to these arguments, long ago were:
1) give every FG a single player mode like Quest mode in VF4Evo that is meant to augment the lengthy, rich and, frankly, useful tutorial
2) mimic the AI in said Quest mode
3) Force everything to be ranked, but make it so ranking is determined by more than just win/loss and how you won/lost. Your performance in the match actually matters to your rank so that veterans can jump in and play and get to their respective higher rankings faster and leave the ladders of lesser players behind. W/L still matters most, but maybe like 40% or 50% of it, the rest made up on defensive options used, offensive options used, timing of moves and attempted combos. It could still be manipulated but it would be harder to do it, at the very least, due to the granularity.
I later added:
4) keep inputs simple for those who want to learn them and complicated for those who do not. It's your choice. Fighting EX Layer did this to amazing effect, and having an easy input for Darun's Brahma Bomb didn't make him any more or less dangerous, it simply allowed other people whose hands cannot move as fast as mine or anyone else's a chance to actually use him. You still have to know when and how to use the move, after all.
That all being said, I do tend to agree at least a bit on comeback mechanics like Ultras in SFIV being a detriment (and in SFIV they ended up being used for just more damage rather than comebacks thanks to the FA design being stupid) but they by no means "ruined" the genre. Part of why MK still makes money is its cast and the single player content. Part of why SFV didn't take off like it should have was that it focused too much on the multiplayer and didn't have any of the single player content it should have had at launch (that was later patched in). SFxT could have been great if it were balanced properly and didn't get a lot of bad press for early parts of later DLC being preloaded onto the disc.
1) give every FG a single player mode like Quest mode in VF4Evo that is meant to augment the lengthy, rich and, frankly, useful tutorial
2) mimic the AI in said Quest mode
3) Force everything to be ranked, but make it so ranking is determined by more than just win/loss and how you won/lost. Your performance in the match actually matters to your rank so that veterans can jump in and play and get to their respective higher rankings faster and leave the ladders of lesser players behind. W/L still matters most, but maybe like 40% or 50% of it, the rest made up on defensive options used, offensive options used, timing of moves and attempted combos. It could still be manipulated but it would be harder to do it, at the very least, due to the granularity.
I later added:
4) keep inputs simple for those who want to learn them and complicated for those who do not. It's your choice. Fighting EX Layer did this to amazing effect, and having an easy input for Darun's Brahma Bomb didn't make him any more or less dangerous, it simply allowed other people whose hands cannot move as fast as mine or anyone else's a chance to actually use him. You still have to know when and how to use the move, after all.
That all being said, I do tend to agree at least a bit on comeback mechanics like Ultras in SFIV being a detriment (and in SFIV they ended up being used for just more damage rather than comebacks thanks to the FA design being stupid) but they by no means "ruined" the genre. Part of why MK still makes money is its cast and the single player content. Part of why SFV didn't take off like it should have was that it focused too much on the multiplayer and didn't have any of the single player content it should have had at launch (that was later patched in). SFxT could have been great if it were balanced properly and didn't get a lot of bad press for early parts of later DLC being preloaded onto the disc.
Just out of curiosity, how would you even rank close won matches versus those won with perfects? What should be more valuable for your ranking?
Two things.
1) I think there is more evidence to show accessibility has led to larger sales for many franchises, and the resurgence of fighting games among gamers. This generation has been much better for fighting games than the previous one, financially.
2) Going on to help development =\= business savvy advice.
Content has always been present. Fighting games have always added more characters, better graphics, costumes, stages, music, CG endings, etc. Sales still declined, because ultimately the games just weren't accessible to a wide enough audience. People aren't drawn into games immediately because the mechanics changed, correct, but they do read reviews, see news, play at their friends house, etc. It's very clear that accessibility has put these games in more homes than they would have gotten otherwise, because visually they aren't ground breaking. No one was running out to buy Tekken 7 because of the graphics (because the leap isn't massive).
The FGC can scream until their eyes bleed, but frankly they aren't putting enough money into the market for fighting games, so their input means much less than the money that keeps these studios open. It's clear the studios are working hard to toe the line to maintain both accessibility and depth / balance, but they aren't going to full stop abandon making their games accessible because a small dedicated subset of their users are screaming for deeper, less accessible titles.
I understand some of the complaints here with comeback mechanics and all that. I'm generally against needlessly difficult or complex inputs though. Usually those just end up hurting my hands, so then I go off to play less painful games.
Lol. "Probably". That situations applies to tic-tac-toe because the game is entirely deterministic and zero-dimensional. Adding that rule they mentioned doesn't lead to more options it just adds an additional rule. Whereas the things added to Ultimate literally add options because they're added to a system based on physical interactions and they increase the number of possible physical interactions. Both games have things the other game doesn't have. Yes, options that were in Melee have been taken out and don't exist in Ultimate. But options in Ultimate don't exist in Melee. The path to the skill ceiling has been changed. The skill ceiling itself has not been reduced. Ultimate has just as much potential for growth, unique scenarios, cool combos, meta changes, etc. Again, it just does so via different means. Similar to how one particular traditional fighting game like street fighter won't necessarily have more or less depth than another like MvC just because they approach the design in a different manner. Or how games from completely different genres won't necessarily have more or less depth than one another.
Melee has more complicated input requirements for high level play, yes.
It's more or less and outline, not a specific number for things, haha. Those details would be ironed out, but everything you do that can be reasonably measured should count. The person getting a perfect would be given points for doing so, of course, but I wouldn't penalize the recipient as much for losing if the data shows it was just an outright blowout. the data for ranking points based on the match would also be available for a given player, sort of how SFV right now does a graph based on your performance, but a bit more nuanced and useful.
That's not what I mean though. In fact, I think it's a good thing that later Smash games took away something like L-canceling.
I agree, and prefer the auto-cancelling they have now.
But if that's the case then I don't know what you're talking about. So I assume we just don't use the term "complex" to mean the same things. So it's likely we'll just be talking past each other if we continue because it's unlikely we're gonna come to an agreement. lol
Which is fine. It happens.
That's just not true at all. Street Fighter 4 has developed way more content than 3rd strike and sold better. Street fighter 5 has sold worse despite it being a clear example of gameplay changes emphasized over content.
Marvel Infinite as max pointed out is the second example of a game trying this strategy and suffering in sales.
Every Smash game sold better than the last and the amount of content generally has gone up. Every MK and Injustice since MK9 has sold better than the last by adding more content.
There is a point to be made about how fighting games suffered during the start of the 21st century but I doubt any of them look favorably content wise to their peers in the same time period.
Content is king, give it to the casual buyer. They won't bat an eye when it comes to mechanics.
Haha, I'll just say that I'm using complexity to mean depth and that I don't think depth from a fighting game comes from how much "stuff" or mechanics it manages to pack into it but rather depth comes from the nuance and details. One such nuance is the risk/reward balance between options. A lot of newer fighting games have HIGH REWARD/LOW RISK options where you'll be a fool to not apply it constantly in your matches.
A good example of this is Super Dashes in dragon ball fighterz. Doing a super dash can outright win you the game, grant you a ton of damage on your opponent, or grant you a very advantageous situation. In neutral, you always have to expect to deal with a super dash because it's literally that powerful with few risks. Yes, there's counter play to it but one of it's best counters literally requires your opponent to be sitting still waiting for it. So the literal application of a super dash is important than just the threat of doing a super dash because of its risks versus reward. I think this is an example of making a game easier. Creating very strong high reward but low-risk options.
You're arguing for content while ignoring the accessibility changes as a catalyst. Injustice and MK are incredibly accessible to casual audiences, and the quality of those games over previous NR titles (MK titles previous to 9) was abysmal. Combining good accesible gameplay with a significant jump in visual presentation = big win. We can look to Tekken, KI, and MK as titles that all streamlined their gameplay to a degree and did very well this generation.
The argument that making the games harder will make them sell better is grounded in fantasy only. Limiting your audience to hardcore players only will not make those players spend more money. The people spending money are the casual goofs with money to burn who really like the way Character A's special looks, etc.
Content has always increased in almost every fighting game since the dawn of the genre. There are exceptions where sequels debuted with less content, but as a general observation, the amount of content has almost always increased in every franchise.
Combos off of raw super dash require assists to extend or get hard knockdown and have some of the lowest damage in the game. It can be 2H'd on ground or in the air, and has only ki blast invul, so you can be jabbed out of it.
A better example is raw tag, which is almost unpredictable and costs nothing.
You realize people are AGREEING with you on regards to Content, right?
Also again, people aren't saying "MAKE THE GAMES HARDER!" They're asking to stop dumbing down mechanics in the hopes of attractive new players, which DOESNT WORK. Good Graphics, Single Player Content and Presentation are what helped to sell the game.
Look at Guilty Gear XRD, BEAUTIFUL game and not dumbed down for the most part, and it did fantastic.
That's still a ton of reward for simply doing a super dash.
EDT: Wait it's hard as fuck to jab people out of a super dash no? You have to have gifted hitboxes.
As far as 2hing it goes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lyLBONXYKE
What newer fighters should do is lower the skill floor, but keep the skill ceiling high.
SFV has a low skill ceiling and a low skill floor, which is why alot of people dislike it. The skill floor in Marvel 3 is pretty low IMO, but the system lets you do so much creative stuff that the skill ceiling is pretty high. If that game didn't have Zero/Vergil/Phoenix, X-factor, and infinites, I would think it's rather well balanced for both casual and competitive play.
What's missing for me in alot of the current patch of FGs is that the system doesn't allow you to create your distinct playstyle. I could point out which Magneto player is playing if the names were off screen in Marvel 2 and 3.
SFV has a low skill ceiling and a low skill floor, which is why alot of people dislike it. The skill floor in Marvel 3 is pretty low IMO, but the system lets you do so much creative stuff that the skill ceiling is pretty high. If that game didn't have Zero/Vergil/Phoenix, X-factor, and infinites, I would think it's rather well balanced for both casual and competitive play.
What's missing for me in alot of the current patch of FGs is that the system doesn't allow you to create your distinct playstyle. I could point out which Magneto player is playing if the names were off screen in Marvel 2 and 3.
Street Fighter 2, Fatal Fury, Mortal Kombst 1&2 no crazy mechanics, watched and played 109's of hours and still found it engaging. But sure, make the barrier of entry higher so that way it can sell as well.as SFV
Well, I wouldn't use complexity to mean depth if I were you because they really aren't the same thing and you'll continue to run into this scenario where people don't understand what you mean or disagree with you.
Beyond that, yeah, nothing you're saying is incorrect (well, idk about the super dash, so maybe that's incorrect, but I get you're point either way). You can't just add shit and call it a day. Like the tic-tac-toe scenario from earlier. My point is I don't believe Ultimate just has more stuff. I'm saying I believe it has more stuff and that stuff makes up for what it doesn't have because it incorporates into the core of the gameplay in ways that increase the game's depth, allowing it to match Melee via different means.
But anyway, as far as the actual topic of the thread is concerned, I mostly agree with Max. Mainly coming from the perspective of whether or not a game series is old or new. For an older series, if it was known for being at a certain level of complexity, and people who played it really liked it because of that, it would probably be good for the devs to maintain that and attempt to attract a larger mainstream audience via means such as visuals, content, story modes, etc. Whereas a new IP can go in either direction. Why not make a few easy fighting games here and there along with difficult ones?
But outside of a few exceptions I think the genre is in a pretty good place right now.
I haven't had the chance to look at the video yet but going through some of these responses... there's definitely a disconnect on defining what easy and simplified designs are for fighting games.
There's always going to be an audience that fighting games will never capture; and it's the type of players that never want to lose in a game. No amount of flashiness or simplification will get this casual player base beyond possibly buying the game for single player content.
There's that.
Now, for the rest of us... I don't like high execution barriers. They're simply a relic of an age of fighting game design. I'm all in for making inputs easier. I like that I can hit over 90% of my combos in Street Fighter V. Yet, in Ultra Street Fighter IV, I'm still dropping those few 1f link combos. Sure you can "plink" a few of them but you won't get the jab plinks unless you use a heavily modified controller. No thanks. This level of difficulty is not needed for new games.
Simplifying games sure doesn't help the newbies/casuals that much.
There's always going to be an audience that fighting games will never capture; and it's the type of players that never want to lose in a game. No amount of flashiness or simplification will get this casual player base beyond possibly buying the game for single player content.
There's that.
Now, for the rest of us... I don't like high execution barriers. They're simply a relic of an age of fighting game design. I'm all in for making inputs easier. I like that I can hit over 90% of my combos in Street Fighter V. Yet, in Ultra Street Fighter IV, I'm still dropping those few 1f link combos. Sure you can "plink" a few of them but you won't get the jab plinks unless you use a heavily modified controller. No thanks. This level of difficulty is not needed for new games.
Simplifying games sure doesn't help the newbies/casuals that much.
So while I usually don't subscribe to typical "GRRRR THIS GAME IS TOO CASUAL" stuff and whatnot, I think in fighting games case there are arguments to be made in that developers aren't quite achieving what they want and instead only hurt things.
Developers are trying to get more people into fighting games, to sell more copies and they believe the things that sell those copies are going to be mechanical depth which as Max said in the video just isn't the case. To take Granblue Fantasy for example; that game has no special normals. It's either ABCD, the air versions and their crouching variants. No forward A or down air D,etc. The idea is that to give you less options so that you don't get confused but there's no real reason to believe that the reason a casual player isn't buying fighting games is because they don't like being able to do special normals, they probably don't even know what a special normal is.
As a result what you have is a game that has limited its options for no real benefit. The decision doesn't affect casual players and makes the game more boring for more hardcore players, it's a net negative.
So if the goal this whole time has been to get more people into the game/genre, this doesn't seem to be the way to do it. 10 years ago the release of Street Fighter IV and Blazblue: Calamity Trigger sparked a resurgence of new blood into the FGC and while simplified mechanics may or may not have contributed to the quality of those games I'd say they were hardly the selling points that got people to buy them. Hell I think most new players aren't even aware of what is and isn't a simplified mechanic beyond "less combos" and "less inputs".
Developers are trying to get more people into fighting games, to sell more copies and they believe the things that sell those copies are going to be mechanical depth which as Max said in the video just isn't the case. To take Granblue Fantasy for example; that game has no special normals. It's either ABCD, the air versions and their crouching variants. No forward A or down air D,etc. The idea is that to give you less options so that you don't get confused but there's no real reason to believe that the reason a casual player isn't buying fighting games is because they don't like being able to do special normals, they probably don't even know what a special normal is.
As a result what you have is a game that has limited its options for no real benefit. The decision doesn't affect casual players and makes the game more boring for more hardcore players, it's a net negative.
So if the goal this whole time has been to get more people into the game/genre, this doesn't seem to be the way to do it. 10 years ago the release of Street Fighter IV and Blazblue: Calamity Trigger sparked a resurgence of new blood into the FGC and while simplified mechanics may or may not have contributed to the quality of those games I'd say they were hardly the selling points that got people to buy them. Hell I think most new players aren't even aware of what is and isn't a simplified mechanic beyond "less combos" and "less inputs".
I would bet $100 you see at least one raw super dash in every single set in EVO top 8.
We're agreeing on content only in that content has typically always increased and improved in every franchise. Fighting game sequels without new characters and new outfits aren't really worth buying again. So I don't think we can attribute content to increases in sales. That would suggest there were just hordes of people waiting in the shadows to buy fighting games until they had "just the right amount of content".
I'm saying that, while content is a factor, sure, it always will be for fighting games, the biggest change that has lead to the "rebirth" of fighting games absolutely has been improved accessibility. There is a reason smash is so successful from iteration to iteration. It's not because of the content exclusively, and it never will be. It is an easy line to draw that your game can sell better if more people can play it without massive time investment.
Removing those accessibility functions will do nothing but pull people away from the games, and make the FGC feel once again superior that they are part of an elite club that can pull off an EWGF better than everyone else. It's silly. If the game is too easy for you, stop playing it, but don't form a coalition of players who want to ruin the experience for literally millions of other players because you feel like the gap between you and them is smaller than it should be (also, it isn't, those casual people still suck).
It takes practice to jab superdash, but it isn't hard. Every character can jab super dash in the air. As far as LK's video, raw tag beats all of those scenarios. The only real broken thing about super dash, in getting a 50/50 off an assist call with it like you can with Adult Gohan's assist.
I wouldn't take that bet because no shit you will see raw super dashes, my point is that it isn't going to be the sole factor that wins a match, nor do I agree that damage converted off of it is anything super significant without over extending resources like meter, assists, or sparking.
As a very casual player, I think what I want most from fighting game is to simply play a match without needing to read a lot of guide or framedata, just trying out different moves and maybe found a simple combo or 2 by accident that I can later use reliably.
I think Tekken is probably the most user friendly fighting game I've played. I can pick any character that look, play a couple match just trying button combination to find a simple hit string, look for juggle opener and then experiment thise hit string and see which work and not. Basically I can find a simple juggle combo by myself without needing to look for combo guide.
I think Tekken is probably the most user friendly fighting game I've played. I can pick any character that look, play a couple match just trying button combination to find a simple hit string, look for juggle opener and then experiment thise hit string and see which work and not. Basically I can find a simple juggle combo by myself without needing to look for combo guide.
I think if you want complicated inputs as your point of skill, maybe go to an arcade and play a rhythm game.
Reducing the barrier to entry allows more plays to enjoy it.
Reminder: 3rd strike and shit still exists, you can go play those games you want to play, right now, its not hard.
Let people make things for people who wouldn't get into those in the first place, but might get into these
Don't be exclusionary.
Reducing the barrier to entry allows more plays to enjoy it.
Reminder: 3rd strike and shit still exists, you can go play those games you want to play, right now, its not hard.
Let people make things for people who wouldn't get into those in the first place, but might get into these
Don't be exclusionary.
I think Max is wrong about how he's defining making a game easier or harder tho. That's my point. He thinks that adding easy to do combos, auto-combos, and big buffer windows make a game easy. I think he's wrong on that front because people still drop combos in those games, people still find harder-to-do optimal combos to do in those games, and people even seek out easier characters or easy teams to play to mitigate the difficulty and risk of dropping combos ( see top players playing Ruby/Gord in Blazblue Tag as an example).
He also seems to think that having more stuff and more mechanics is what's going to make a game more challenging skill wise and proposes that many new fighting games are stripping away mechanics and thus are getting easier. This is false. Maybe some games have but there's a ton of games on the market right now that have a ton of mechanics baked into them. BlazBlue, Blazblue Tag, UNIEL, Dragon Ball Fighterz, etc. all have a lot of mechanics and stuff in them but Max doesn't seem to be championing those games at all.
Furthermore adding more stuff doesn't increase skill ceilings or depth or whatever word you think applies. We seem to agree on that point tho. What makes a fighting game truly complex is its nuances and details. How weak are these options? How strong is this option? whats the risk/reward in doing this? what's the counter play to this? These are the important questions.
Harder and easier is nothing like simpler and complex. I hope you are misspeaking here because that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what is being discussed.
More complexity leads to more sales because people will be less bored with the gameplay. The way that complexity can be expressed can be wildly different as Smash, MK, Street Fighter and Tekken are radically very different in terms of accessibility just like how Call of Duty, Fortnite, Halo and Counterstrike are significantly different from each other despite being part of the same genre.
The more simpler the game is the harder it is to hold onto them because they would have explored all the options and at that point content is the primary thing to keep them going.
I think the more important thing is even when a raw super dash isn't happening, it's such a strong option that counters so many other options that its existence largely defines DBFZ's neutral game.
I'm not arguing that super dash is broken just that the reward for doing it is high versus the risk of it failing. So the application of Super Dash establishes player presence versus the threat of doing it.
I don't know if that's exactly true since he mentions Samurai Showdown and doesn't seem to take issue with it. But I don't know much about him so maybe other video of his show this attitude in more clarity.
As for the last paragraph, yeah, that's clearly true.
this definitely fits my definition of "easier" better than something like more complicated inputs
it's also true that a higher lvl player plays around it and that there is generally an interesting mindgame around that's difficult for a viewer to parse, this includes baiting an sd/tag to jab it. ppl jump back so much in the game that it can be difficult to tell when a player is preparing to bait an sd, it's actually prtty fun lol