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

Gauntlet… Thrown? FT10!

That would also explain why I always hear the dumb question form my non-fg-playing co-workers “Which one is the best person to pick?”

I don’t think that’s a dumb question at all. They’re just playing to win.

I wouldn’t call it dumb, just cliche. It makes sense. It’s natural to think that since there are choices one must be the best.

Not dumb at all. People always want to gravitate towards the most powerful characters in the game. It’s inherent to want to maximize the chance of you winning.

Of course, the “best” character is an extremely subjective term, and depends on which character is best in the hands of a skilled or unskilled player.

Fighting games were hard to learn in the 80’s and 90’s, but not now. It’s just that with the internet and the fact you dont have to pay $1 every time you want to play(i’m adjusting for inflation bitches) people are getting better faster at these games that when someone comes home with their used copy of UMvC3 and play they come against a supposed beginner who has reset his battle records for the 25th time and has really got 2000+ matches under his belt

I think it was easier. Yeah it was more expensive over time, but your first taste was way cheaper, and you didn’t have the negative pressure of the internet fucking up your expectations.

Being allowed to feel you’re making progress is a powerful learning tool sometimes.

This whole thread seems dumb as a “Casual Gamer” wouldn’t really play a fighting game would they? Unless you meant newbie but for some reason used the worst term ever created to define a gamer instead…

No, seriously guys: they’re looking for a character that is better than ALL the other characters. They then ask me who’s on the front of the game, and pick that person. They think the people on the cover are supposed to be the end-all, be-all (Recoome: The BELIEVE-all! Rhio: Dude…no.) unbeatable bastards. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on the cover. I keep trying to explain to them about balance, and each character having different tools. They also give me shit about playing as “bitches”. I have to explain to them lots of times:

Me: Dude, this game is primarily for guys. The women are there for variety, and a lot of the time have cooler moves due to being more agile and flexible.

Them: Man, naw, you crazy!

Me: Yeah? What do your girls play?

1: Mine doesn’t play games…
2: Um…she play the wii Mario tennis.
3: Netflix

Me: Uhn-huhn. strokes imaginary Pai Mei beard

Them:…but in real life, no bi-

Me: It’s a game, man. Chill.

The layers on layers of subsystems on subsystems on top of more subsystems…keeps most away. it was a simpler time when no Isms an focus atacks an magic series and abcluancher x strekken,x juggles or counter counters, tekken becomeing a jugglng game , more subsystems to counter that subsystems, we need more subsystems , i just want the next game to be title subsystems lol . they put to much shit in the games now that are not needed,

You have been fadc ultra ISM combo breakerd from my xbox chat pad

That and I just think games were purposely made difficult in the 80s and 90s. Having a difficult game would artificially create a sense of “wow, this game takes forever to finish!” due largely to the way arcade games were designed. This kind of hellish game design produced some hardcore players, and about ten times as many people who were turned off from video games.

All true. But I think that first step of learning a fighting game can be a pretty daunting task, since most players aren’t aware of what a mistake looks like when they play. This is usually why I try to teach newer players to really watch their own match footage and try to critically analyze it on their own, before going to ask for help. This develops a very self-motivated and independent way of finding help when struggling with certain obstacles, even beyond fighting games.

Sounds like you got some retarded friends, lol. But you’re right, people think that the person on the cover is sort of the “hero” of the game, as is often the case for many other games, and therefore are the most powerful.

Usually, if they don’t understand that different characters have different strengths, just pick a girl and whoop their ass. That usually gets the point across their thick skulls. If not, you can make fun of the fact that they’re getting beat by a “bitch” character. Win win.

Evil smile that’s what I do. Then I get

Them: Man, how in the fuck is a bitch gonna fuck a dude up like THAT?? One hit and her ass’ll be outta there.

Me: Maybe…but I got a perfect on you…

Them: That’s just cuz you wouldn’t let me DO anything. You just jumped all OVER me.

fighting games are a challenge for casual players… all you need is effort and experience to get better and win… just be determined in playing and you will get to that point where it’s not hard for you anymore

And then you tell them that if it was so easy to hit her just once, they should be winning a lot more. So I guess they just suck. If the nice way doesn’t work, just embarass them in front of their friends and talk MAD shit. Either a) they get mad and decide they want to improve to win more, or b) they get exposed for the bitch that they are. Again, it’s a win win.

Any competitive game is a challenge for casual players. You don’t see people complaining about playing Farmville or Wii Tennis. Competitive games can bring about hardcore players that will make it hard for people to improve at the game. That’s kind of the point.

And fighting games are always difficult as long as there’s good competition around. That’s kind of the point. Competition drives you to become better and better since you should never really be happy with your current level of skill.

smash brothers doesn’t have this problem
you just kinda get good and no one really complains
well besides the tourney guys that play on stage and want no items, or the guys whining about melee, them people complain about them making their game boring.

Nintendo has always been accessible like this
"oh sure you can just beat the game , but if you wanna be awesome you can beat the game 100%"
its like a pool
you can go as deep as you want to
as long as you have fun,

if more fighters were like this , or rather presented like this, maybe their wouldn’t be this problem.
but then again there are always pretentiousness reviewers who have never played fighting game who brush them off presenting as unbeatable sexed up walls of games.

Interestingly, I would answer the question “Yes, absolutely” - but for exactly the same reasons. Psychological hurdles are absolutely an important consideration when labeling something “hard.” Is it hard to stop smoking if you are addicted? Clearly so, even though there is nothing physically demanding about not holding a cigarette.

If the question was “are fighting games so physically demanding that most humans cannot learn to play them” then I would say no.

Actually, Smash Bros. probably has this problem more than any other fighting game. There are a lot of details that are never identified in the manuals or in the game such as teching/ukemi. Then, when it comes to disabling items or banning certain stages, a lot of people don’t understand why those things can affect the flow of the game negatively. Take Rumble Falls. Because the stage is constantly moving with so many hazards all over the place, it becomes more of fighting the stage than the opponent(s). Or they may not understand why randomly falling items are not good for a tournament environment.

As for the pool analogy, this only applies to their single player games for the most part minus Pokemon and Smash Bros. A Mario game can be 100% completed in the game but truly getting 100% in Pokemon or Smash Bros. is impossible thanks to how the metagame plays a huge role in them being played.

The way I see it, you need to make the competitive environment more appealing to look into.

i am not trying to be a compete douce nugget, but my 5 year old cousins got the basics of smash with 5 matches
she didnt really dodge , but jumping and hitting and moving out of the way
she understood
also they have a tutorial, all smashes have tutorials they are super simple and then let you exspand on the basics
why would a newbie even need to tech
they are playing the game to beat stuff up, your confusing " tournament knowledge" with "basic knowledge’
people get smash, not everyone want to play smash on a professional level
and if they do, smash will teach you . if you dont beat people up.

i dont see what your seeing , i dont even think what you are seeing even exists

What you’re talking has been done already in every Neo Geo fighting game.

that isnt the only thing that makes fighting game accessable

There other things like notoriety and character design aesthetics ect

These things are why KOF is relatively unknown to , well a lot of people.
And this why tekken, street fighter and the whatever current anime arch system fighter, are more accessible fighters.
I could go on and on about whats wrong with king of fighters, for right now i am going to just say

Learning curve and spend some money to up your graphics, you look like lazy c***s over there, do you see street fighter they are doing the 2 and half d thing,you see arch systems, they are doing the anime thing and you see tekken then going realistic.

pick something, because you look horrendously outdated, you could at least look nice while having a severely f***ed up and a forgettable roster you twats.

ahem
sorry off topic