Are fighting games too hard to play for the average casual player?

Classic non-response to being wrong on the internet, good shit.

Classic response by a guy who finds reading difficult. I could read just fine at 4 years of age. Were you dropped as a kid?

Yes it is hard not because of the game but casual players come in with this mind set that you just mash buttons, and hope your mashing beats the other persons mashing. Then when they learn they gotta block and that is where you lose them.

Too hard for most? No.
Too “niched” for most? Yes.

To elaborate: it takes more practice and understanding to play fighting games the way they were “meant” to be played than is the case with any other genre I can think of. Unless you like learning combos and set-ups, a fighting game is just a beat 'em up without scrolling levels. Methinks the average player isn’t prepared to put that much time and effort into being able to hit the other guy more often and in slightly flashier ways, when that is all the reward they will get. (Whereas besting a tough boss in an action game will allow you to experience the rest of the game.)

wow

What’s harder to pull off? Shoryu FADC into Ultra 1? Or drop shotting someone with an MP5?

Settle down kid.

Fighting games aren’t hard. Stupid shit in them can be like just frames and fastest inputs.

Fighting games become harder over time when people start squeezing everything out them and maximizing, they don’t need (shouldn’t need?) things like that from the get go.

Shooters require memorization of map, particular areas and spawn locations. Depending on the game, there maybe some execution involved like in high level movement or shortening reloads.

I have this wacko theory on this subject…

I think fighting games find themselves nestled into an awkward spot between purely abstract and realistic. FPS games are very realistic, such that your natural instinct of how to play (aim and shoot) is actually the basic jist of the game. RTS’s are purely abstract, so you don’t really have any natural instinct to fight against. Fighting games are located somewhere in the middle, and peoples natural fighting instinct manifests itself in mindless mashing, which happens to be generally counter productive to winning. I don’t think fighting games are exceptionally difficult by any means, but I do think this natural inclination to play in a moronic way is a unique challenge.

Actually i think the fighting game genre is one that is simply not meant for casual players. By their very nature, fighting games ARE competitive and require a lot of time and effort to get proficient at them. The total opposite of what casual players are looking to do.

Perhaps if all they ever went up against were other casual players, then it would be ok. That is highly unlikely though.

Let’s just agree once and for all, that fighting games and casual play just don’t mix.

It’s very hard for people to get into. Partly due to scrub like ways of thinking and whatnot but also because unlike other games there’s no realy “easing in” system.
With renowned hard games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, God Hand, etc there’s a way for even the most casual player to ease into the game; start off on easy mode, then go on to normal mode and when you’re confident enough take on hard mode.
With fighting games it can be hard from the get go depending on the community. As much as one person may value the idea of getting better with each loss, some people just don’t find constant loss fun and there’s really no reason to play a game if you’re not having fun now is there? At least in my opinion. And of course the idea of having to work in order to have fun is completely asinine to some people.
Yes I’m aware fighting games have difficulty systems
Yes you’re aware that those don’t mean much when facing real people.

Fighting games aren’t necessarily not for casuals as I know tons of people who are willing to master Ninja Gaiden II on the hardest difficulty, it’s just not for COMPETITIVE people. The thing with Ninja Gaiden and such is that beating hard mode or perfecting your scores are purely personal achievements.
In fighting games it’s more of a dominance kind of thing, your joy comes from the fact that you bested another human being.

If fighting games were half as unforgiving and inaccessible as people make them out to be, no kid would’ve spent endless quarters in the Arcades, and them 90’s kids wouldn’t have gathered to play Tekken together on one guys playstation.
Of course; if you want to dig, you can go very deep in any FG. But if you’re a casual playing other casuals, mashing some buttons and learning how to do that sexy cinematic ultramove are more than enough.

I think all fighting games can be enjoyed on a casual level as with the 90’s kids above, but the casual crowd is doomed to fade out once the competitive part of the community flourishes.

Unless they only play against the cpu, or other casuals, there is otherwise no place for them in the scene.

Fighting games are easy vs computer for scrubs, but that’s not even half the game. There are no end of casual scrubs online saying “This game sucks. I beat it in a half hour just using the same move over and over”. These same players who think they’re such hot shit change their tune after playing someone who actually took the time to learn how to play “Wtf this game sucks! I couldn’t win a single round. The other guy was cheating or something!! He wouldn’t let me get back up/touch the ground after knocking me down/throw him/win!!!”. Anyone can be a good single player mode player. The true test of the player is them against other players.

I don’t think a rational human being thinks the way of "this game sucks, I can’t win a single round"
I think it’s more.
"wow I haven’t won a single match online. I pretty much suck at this"
As I said, there has to be some form of progression. In most other games the difficulty is scaled, you start off with easy enemies, get a little better and fight harder enemies and so on and so on.
Fighting games tend to drop you right into the harder enemies pit and thus it’s discouraging for most people to go on when it seems that everyone else is THAT much better then you. Emphasis on the everyone else part. In a fighting game it’s another human being who’s better then you. Not a team of people or a computer but another human being. It’s pretty discouraging when it seems like for every step you take everyone else is taking 50 more steps.
It’s a competitive nature and you need to be a competitive person if you’re going to enjoy fighting games. It’s not like a FPS where you can dick around with your team on a roll the dice server or in an action game where you can go to your favorite chapter or go back and fight your favorite boss.
Fighting games and RTS’s by their one on one nature are very unforgiving.

Personally I don’t want any of this to change. I prefer if a game just tries to be good for it’s niche crowd rather then try to appeal to everyone all the time no matter because GOD FORBID someone not like your game.

Further building on the above, not only is the fighting game genre not for casuals in the end, but developers trying to make their games more casual friendly only results in things being a lot more broken.

Take Marvel 3 for example and the hard knockdown mechanic, which i can only assume was put in to make things easier. So that even a casual could get lucky and launch an experienced player into an air combo, OTG into super, and feel good about themselves after (sigh).

However, by doing this it just opened up a bigger can of worms once the community learned ways to abuse this. Now TOD combos are rampant, casuals have long since gotten scared off with the knowledge that they can die in one mistake, and the rest of us are left playing Ultimate Rock/Paper/Scissors 3.

In the future developers/companies should work more on things like presentation, story mode, and or marketing to expand their audience. Compromising the actual engine just to make things “casual friendly” only results in disaster.

Let’s just make every game into GG. World saved.

I think you’re reinforcing my point. not refuting it. Macro is tactics. Micro is “execution”.

Which again means that the bad execution these people have isn’t their major obstacle in getting better at SC. The bad execution new players have IS a major obstacle in getting better at fighting games.

Edit: Anyway, I think we’ve reached pretty much the correct conclusion in this thread.

FG players underestimate the feeling of being trapped in a cage and having to react in that situation to another human being and the consequences of failed actions that FG players love. Just the simple reflexes in that are hard enough. Long combos and cutscenes don’t help. Although I admit, watching the other guy get hit and having to sit there like an asshole in games like Marvel, SGKOF XIII, ArcSys games is always funny.

I believe that this was the intention, at least after the folks at CapJP/8ing read fanatiq’s article (already confirmed that Seth/CapUSA sent that article all the way to Japan).

Basically, the approach seemed to be, to take what was pointed out in the article (the high-stakes nature of Marvel) and then make it so that you don’t have to overcome as much as you did to just be access high level tools as you had to in MvC2. This then begs the question of whether allowing access to high level tools to less skilled players is a good/bad thing.

That explains why the 3 series is boring to watch.

Again, you’re simply mistaken. Macro is very much execution/mechanics. I’m not sure you have a good enough handle on RTS basics to make a relevant comparison.