The better player should be decided by who actually played better, not who used the input system better. If a system with less reliable inputs is ideal, then there isn’t a meaningful difference between requiring a HCB or pressing one button with a 90% chance of getting your move. I know you guys say “just practice”, and while that solves the issue individually, having to practice only adds another barrier to the actual competitive fighting for all new players. Think how absolutely HATED something like this would be in another genre: Having to input a sequence of buttons to reload in a FPS or assembling the weapons, armor, and personnel to train a unit in a RTS would be an instant turn-off for a lot of people.
As an aside, I do understand why this is a thing. If you only have 6 buttons, adding ground specials elevates the number of attacks a character can have from 18 (crouch, ground, and air normals) to 23-33 depending on if you count LP and HP Hadoken as different moves. This is better than only having a few attacks or playing on what amounts to a damn keyboard plus joystick. But, design wise, there are definite alternatives.
Look at Smash/Tekken. In Smash and most of Tekken, there are no QCF attacks; everything is a button and a direction. You can joke about Smash having no depth, but Tekken manages to up the number of moves by having attacks where you input 2-3 buttons without adding an additional motion, attacks where the additional hits are separate button presses, and moves that segue into a stronger attack by holding a button and/or direction. QCF/SRK motions are more of a genre convention at this point than a necessity.
For all of you who say “complaining about execution is scrubby”, think about this: Newer players to the genre focus all the time on combos and setplay over actual strategy and play. As pretentious as that view is, the system kinda implies that focus by having an input learning curve. Compare that to Starcraft or something where the idea of APM is alien to the lowest level players.
Um you can;t expect to be good at the game if your don’t commit to it’s demands. If you don’t play the game to its core than your only handicapping your self. That is an individual issue and no game should cater to that.
I don’t know who said a game can’t have depth base on button, every and all game has some level of depth. fucking dive kick has depth and that has less button that majority of game mentioned.
The reason Ivy’s command grab from sc1 onward has a lot of directional inputs because its one of the strongest throws in the SC series. Does more damage than the average throw and if it were to change to a simple input then it would be broken on all level’s of play (pro and beginner) with the exception of sc5 Ivy, to do it from neutral you need a modded stick or it will never work (not kidding).
The only execution barrier I have a problem with is really 1 frame links, can’t think of anything else. Why do some players on SF Plink 1 framers? Because it’s 1 framers thats why, if there wasn’t any then there would be no need to plink them. I get the whole practice makes perfect but in the heat of the moment when you’re under pressure (More so in offline tourneys) you’re not going to be landing them consecutively. Now even though SF is not totally dependent on them (Neutral game and footies are most important) why is something there where you can never master it consecutively? Not every game has them but yet i just don’t see the purpose in them
The problem is that execution is a terrible way of balancing something out. Because eventually somebody will master it and be able to pull it off consistently and the execution serves less as a tool to balance it out and more as an artificial barrier.
SFIV is a strange case since 1 frame links became prevalent thanks to plinking. You have to wonder how the game would have turned out had plinking not been discovered, or if it had been patched out.
But WHY should fighters be the only thing to have that level of demand? I would argue that having to satisfy those demands to get to the “core” only makes the genre less appealing to new players. Why make everyone suffer through learning the controls initally if the real fun of the game could be found without having to do so.
I’m not saying that fighting games are bad because they have a learning curve, for the record; I’m saying the learning curve makes it harder to start up compared to other genres and that we could remove a lot of that curve if we really wanted to.
Now to directly respond to the OP:
-Custom inputs could work, but as you said some moves are balanced around having a restriction in the input itself. Personally though, you could try for some button-holding type things ala Boxer’s Turn Punch to compensate.
-The fact that you still need a challenge mode should indicate that the inputs aren’t intuitive enough yet. I really like Xrd’s mission mode because it goes to the next level and gives you situations to confirm from and a minimum damage requirement for your punish combo.
-As, I said, there are other input systems that can work in fighting games beside the Capcom/ArcSys/SNK conventions. Smash and Tekken have a lot of button+direction type things, and MK uses direction taps instead of demanding unique motions. There are probably others that have been used and yet others that have not been used yet. I encourage you to get out there and look for fighters that have different input conventions for specials.
Wooosh. While I don’t think the OP presented the idea in the best way, his point completely flew over your head. Don’t confuse the initial execution barrier, with the much, much later execution barrier of high level play. In Smash, you can more or less pick up the game, figure out all the inputs immediately, and work immediately on strategy. After that, you can start picking up advanced techniques like wavedashing along the way. What I’m saying is the execution requirement for Smash is relatively low, while its execution ceiling is incredibly high. VF5FS is kind of similar: you can learn all of your basic moves in a couple rounds of the tutorial, integrate them into a strategy, then go from there. However you have this long road ahead in learning new tech and strategy, there’s always something new to learn.
Compare that to a game that I personally consider to have a higher execution requirement, 3S. Let’s say you start playing that game, pick up Chun-li and more or less do alright with her ridiculous normals. That’s fine, but you almost immediately need to learn how to hitconfirm low forward into SAII. That’s just something you need to know how to do. With other characters the initial execution hurdle is even harder for newcomers: where the absolute least amount of tech needed to play a character somewhat effectively takes forever to learn.
I’m not saying there has to be no initial execution barrier whatsoever, but ideally, your game should be “easy to learn, difficult to master.” Not “tough to learn and tough to master.” Plenty of new folk get turned off from pretty much having combos and such shoved down their throats at the start and so try to be training room heroes, then just burn out too fast. Instead of learning fundamentals, reading your opponent, strategy
In the end I consider execution a necessary evil to some extent, but still an evil because execution is you practicing to play the computer. Your opponent has no input during your 27 hit combo, unless you drop it, which means you didn’t practice that combo enough. It’s why when I play SF at home I greatly prefer playing online, or not playing at all, to grinding out stuff in training mode, because I’m here to outwit an opponent. Not to have the greatest execution in a game. If I wanted to do that I’d play a single player game with a high skill cap. I’d try and to become a Tetris Grand Master.
If you can’t adjust to the game, you simply can’t adjust to the game. Thier no need to dig any further than that. With that said that doesn’t mean I actually promote future fighter be design with execution in mind we have enough of those as it is imo.
Thing is their plenty of fighter that has done this. Its why I advise the OP to look at other fighter instead of sticking to the main stream/popular fighters.
I find the execution barrier issue is only relevant in a game like darkstalkers/vsav or maybe I-No in GGAC. To really shine in this case you have to dedicate yourself, and that is part of the draw for some people. Just like the guitar analogy someone used earlier.
People giving up because it’s too hard isn’t good from a customer retention standpoint; but you have to draw the line somewhere. Lots of people appreciate the technical finesse required to pull off the trickiest of combos, and I am one of them.
If these games were easy then they wouldnt be worth playing for years and delving deep into them. Hell its easier nowadays to learn fighting games than when games were harder back in the late 90’s. Yeah people give up playing guitar, but the point I was making was that learning guitar is harder because you have to stick to how the song writer wrote their song. With fighting games you can play differently every round. So theres freedom here that isnt in music. I didnt write my point well. Whats really hard is trying to beat people, and a lot of times all you have to do to beat someone is press less buttons.
To the OP’s merit from an objective standpoint theres a bit to be rethought when it comes to execution.
Personally I think NRS games have it about right
universal 2 button supers
3 input specials ex ample 26+lp as opposed to 236+lp (I would rather specials be something like 6+lp+mp but I digress its a happy medium)
Juggle based combo system, gives you a lot of time for confirms doesn’t screw you over as hard as dropping a link (weve all messed up jab,jabXDP) but still allows with proper execution to push the game to a higher level
Breakers Revenge is like, the perfect game for you.
You got chain combo’s, all special moves are either QCF, DP, charge back/down, 3 Button Inputs and the classic 360, which is easy as hell to do compared to any Street Fighter game before SF4. Supers are all double fireball motions save for on Rila and Dao Long since they are chargers. There are charge pretzel commands, but honestly, they are super lenient and easy to do unlike most games that have those. Hardest moves to do are probably Condor and Maherl’s command grab supers since they are a 720, but even those are way more lenient than your typical fighting game. The window to cancel into moves is huge, and you are given alot of leeway with anywhere juggle properties.
The execution requirements in Breakers is so low, anybody can pick up and play it easily if they’ve ever played a game of Street Fighter in their life. It’s that easy.
Actually playing good in Breakers is another thing though.
Honestly I don’t think it’s the execution barrier that keeps people away from fighting games(though I’m sure it is for some). Jump roundhouse >> sweep with the occasional hadoken was all I needed to have fun when I was younger.
The main reason I think people stop playing fighters is because people hate losing in an 1v1 environment. For example in Fps games you can always blame your teammates if you lose. Actually most people I know that play fps games don’t even care about winning, it’s all about that k/d ratio.
I believe the people that do stick with fighting games tend to have a strong competitive nature. So when this person loses to someone 1v1 they do whatever they can to get better so they can whoop that dude the next time they play.
Basically fighting games brings out the salt and some people can’t admit they are not as good as someone else so they blame the game and quit.
dont blame just fighting games.
Platformers like the notorious Super Meat Boy are for many people impossible to finish. Less than 5 % of players finished it.Shmups like Ikaruga as well.
This does not mean those games are not worth a play.
Not all games are supposed to be easy. You improve by overcoming the difficulties. Even if you dont beat a game or be proficient due to difficulty, it is you who will decide when to enjoy a game or not.
Execution barrier isn’t the biggest problem with getting new players in honestly. Its more so content rather than execution. Most fighting games when it comes down to it only have a small amount of content usually vs and arcade. Many players don’t care for online/competition and they want a game where they can play with friends and just press buttons. So you take away the competition of a fighting game what do you have left? Basically nothing, so what is the point of getting a fighting game? There is no point, Mortal Kombat takes a step in the right direction due to all the content that it gives the player. So the solution is to add more content rather than making the game less execution heavy. Take Marvel 3 for instance they dumbed down the game significantly taking away separate punch/kic buttons and making it l/m/h plus alot more leniency with the combos and the special attack inputs and people still complained it was too hard. Same for Mortal Kombat and Tekken.
