OK so lets get like a general summary of what has been discussed. We’ve discussed how execution is a means of balancing powerful moves and mechanics and how that may or may not be a flawed design. We discussed gamed that have a very low execution barrier I.E Smash Bros series and Skullgirls. Some feel that execution adds depth and skill to a fighter and that fighters are simply a genre that demands more from a player than others, while on the other hand some feel that it’s artificial depth that makes even basics things unnecessarily harder thus alienating players. Then lastly we touched on how more combo focused fighters are harder to get into because of having to memorize combo strings, and that we should get a non fighting game player in on this thread to offer their perspective or a dev. So is there a middle ground we can reach? And the last part sounds like an excellent idea.
Hypothetically speaking, if a new tech was invented today, and by tomorrow we were playing games using just our thoughts to control them, and we could play all the same fighting games we have now using this tech, would the fighting games be changed for the worse?
In my eyes, the controller inputs are just something between my mind and what is on the screen. The controls are just a necessary step that must be learned to connect the two and reach the ultimate goal of playing the game. “Necessary” doesn’t mean it’s welcome or desirable though, so why make it any more inconvenient than it needs to be? To use a basic example, my goal is to throw a dragon punch when my opponent jumps in. My goal is not to do a f, d, df P input when he jumps in.
That input is most definitely your goal because it is the input that is going to give you a DP.
Divorcing a game from it’s controls is a fundamentally flawed mental state imo.
Also this idea that top players have perfect execution and never ever not once ever never ever flub an input is hilariously stupid, we need to track down the bastard who put this thought into peoples heads and stomp a mud hole in his ass. It sets the mindset of up and coming players back so far it’s fucking retarded. Top players are humans, and humans will ALWAYS make mistakes. They are not robots, they are not gods.
No one said they don’t make mistakes. I said it’s not a factor, or at least, not one worth considering. It’s too random. It would be more worthwhile to discuss proper sleep habits and diet than to discuss something that is only an issue upon making a mistake.
And the input isn’t the goal, the dragon punch is the goal. The input is a means to an end. If the input did nothing, would you still do it to counter a jump in attack?
Saying “It’s not a factor” is the same as saying it doesn’t happen. The fact that it happens makes it a factor. You lose a big match with someone because you made a mistake in your input means that it was a factor.
You’re gonna have to try again here’ because how this question is phrased sounds so damn dumb I don’t feel the need to answer it. Call it condescending but asking “If this thing doesn’t do the thing you want, would you still do it?” is so fucking asinine and dumb that I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not. Do I pick Guile and do DP notation in order to Flash kick?
Yea sorry man, that questions too fucking stupid to answer because the answer is incredibly apparent, and it doesn’t contribute to the conversation, it’s more a deflection then anything.
Salty scrub tears much?
“What? You want me to practice? Fucken stoopid. Why should I have to practice to git gud? Doesn’t even make sense”.
d00d, you is git’n o-o-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-d-d-d-d!
“Gotsta, re-raht mah muscle memory? Shiyat, dass b00shit!”
I mean, it’s just totally unreasonable to expect that you might have to learn new execution techniques for a new game.
“I caen plaehyz duh, streetzfahrterii, dat meanz I can play all dem fgs”.
TL;DR - takes time to learn a new character in a new game. Assume that a lot of practice for both execution and play strategy is integral to not getting your ass kicked every time. Also, getting your ass kicked is also integral.
If the input was the goal, then you would do it. But since the goal is the DP, you only do the input to do the DP. If you could do the DP without the input, like if you could do any move you could think about, you wouldn’t even need the input, but you would still need the DP. You said the input is the goal, and I just explained to you why it isn’t the goal. My question wasn’t dumb, it had a point. Whether or not you could see that point is a different story, but I (hopefully) just explained it in a better way than before.
I wasn’t really expecting you to answer the question, it was just something to think about. There is no situation where the inputs are more valuable than the moves themselves. You’re right that you can’t divorce a game from it’s controls, but I never claimed you could. I was using that hypothetical situation as an example for just how unimportant the actual inputs are in the grand scheme of things.
[list][]**The mere act of moving a joystick or pressing a button ― that is why Execution will always be more important than any other aspect of fighting games.
[]Timing is execution. Being half a second too early or too late could cost you a big chunk of life or everything.
[]Strategy is purely mental. Strategy doesn’t win you games.
[]Execution wins games ― and nothing else. ― my motto.
[*]Strategy (knowing) is not enough. You must do (execute) ― without ANY errors.[/list]
http://i.imgur.com/TVt39CS.jpg
[list][]Execution determines whether you win or lose.
[]To do the same thing over and over until you can do it when it fucking counts ― under any situation ― under the greatest pressure imaginable.
[*]That is the essence of execution ― to do what you want, when you want, when you NEED to do it ― without ANY errors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTWcINXRfkc
"You have to keep your reflexes so that when you want it…it’s there! When you want to move, you are moving and when you move you are determined to move. Not taking one inch, not anything less than that! If I want to punch, I’m going to do it man, and I’m going to do it! So that is the type of thing you have to train yourself into it; to become one with it. You think…(snaps his fingers) …it is."
― Bruce Lee
[list][*]When I watch this, I always think Daigo is saying to himself:[/list]
"I gotta do this. This is the 10th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in fighting game history ― I GOTTA do it! FUCK IT! I’M GONNA DO IT AGAIN!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nC2D6sOrbg
[list][]Dropping combos determines whether you win or lose. All Yipes has to do is super but he dropped it and it cost him the match.
[]**One simple mistake cost Yipes everything.
[*]The day players NEVER drop combos is the day that execution no longer becomes a factor. Until then, execution can ALWAYS be improved. There is literally no ceiling for execution.[/list]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u83LQ5G5kpE
we shouldn’t settle into comfortable universal arguments as if every execution requirement affects the game the same way.
for instance, in 3s changing Chun or Ken super from double qcf to just a button press would significantly affect how the midrange game is played. it’s reasonably difficult for people to see some reversal super situations (stuff like blocked low forward in Ken mirror, or Chun reversal supering Ken’s whiff low forward). so if you’re looking for it you can do it, but that also takes your attention from other parts of the midrange game and people can exploit it. this is true at even high levels of the game - for example a recent Ken mirror set between Yuuki and Boss in Japan had a decent amount of blocked low forwards and they were rarely if after reversal super punished. so in this case decision making and execution are intertwined in a way that is interesting and probably can’t be altered without impacting the neutral negatively. like yeah you can make their super a one button and then nerf the startup, but then those tools are less fun to use. it’s super cool to see a Ken putting low forward just outside your counterpoke range and you immediately reversal punish it with Chun. looks and feels sick. and it adds an extra layer to the neutral - now Ken can start whiffing low short just outside Chun counterpoke range and if she’s super antsy for that super she might throw it out and feel stupid when her super is blocked because he only low shorted and she saw low forward. in a high pressure situation it becomes a question of whether your reactions and execution can withstand the heat of the moment as well. I wouldn’t wanna change how this all works and I’m glad it’s implemented the way it is.
what I don’t like as much is long and often difficult combos that populate many new fighting games. especially if they’re pretty much required if you want good damage off a punish or footsie conversion. in 3s or ST you can get good damage off very short and simple combos and punishes. if in one game you can take 1/3 of their life with a simple and easy to execute combo and in the other game you can do the same damage but it requires a long combo with several 1f links in it, I think the first one is a better choice. it opens up the game to more people while doing nothing to hurt the potential skill ceiling.
God damn…Bruce Lee quotes and Daigo parries in one post?
I am defeated 
But seriously, I feel like I should be doing something really awesome right now. Inspiration overload.
I made a profile to comment on this. I’m sorry, but execution barriers are one of the things I like the most about fighting games. Part of the fun is in overcoming execution challenges/coming up with cool combos that are hard to do. People who say that they would be able to win if they didn’t have to do difficult inputs are missing the point entirely. Input precision and speed IS skill.
CVS2 is among the most executionally strict games I have ever played. You have to roll-cancel everything. It’s like having to plink everything in SF4 only much harder to do.
Before roll-cancelling it was quite easy to get into, but kind of a boring game because the design encouraged spamming high-priority normals like Cammy’s hp or Sagat’s c.hp.
All good choices. I play Fukua/Filia/Double and Peacock/Filia/Double myself. Also Squiggly/Filia/Double.
In the real world, a player with equal intelligence and mental capacity but worse execution would simply never play to the point where he gets equal knowledge. You wouldn’t be facing that player in the first place because he would be playing LoL, not SF4.
Even in the case where that player really likes fighting games specifically, he’s most likely going to pick the most executionally simple character to eliminate the disparity. For example, in UMVC3 you might have way better execution than an opponent, but he would be rocking Wolverine/Wesker/Sentinel and it would count for nothing. Even if we were to assume that this hypothetical player with worse execution that loves fighting games also loves to play high-execution characters, he would be grinding his combos in training mode and arcade mode, not tournament or even online matches (you certainly won’t run into me online before I am at least reasonably consistent).
The chance of execution being a major factor in tournament match outcomes is quite small, and gets smaller the deeper you get into the bracket. At some point everyone will be mostly consistent with their execution, and even in the case where execution actually decides the match it will be quite random and based on normally consistent players falling victim to uncharacteristic drops.
And all of the above is beside my main point, which is that the skill level and work put in by players who are worse than you doesn’t matter. ChrisG beating me 97-3 in 100 matches of UMVC3 counts for nothing. When I started Tag 2 I went on a win streak of over 70 games online before I started coming up against players good enough to beat me, and those wins counted for nothing also. The only matches worth anything at all, are the matches between players with comparable strength. Thus, those matches where execution has a major impact on the result are just a waste of time (competitively speaking).
The only thing that matters for a competitive player is maximizing the number of possible opponents who are at a level where they can actually compete. A lowered execution barrier lets competitive newbies level up faster, and entices a bigger pool of players to keep playing fighting games until they get good at it. It increases sales of fighting game titles, which helps stave off another “dark age”. It increases the proportion of time spent actually having fun in the game, as opposed to dicking around in training mode. All of these aspects are all-upside-no-downside to me as a competitive player myself.
Oh it’s mindless. That’s the point. If you’re still thinking through your BnB, you need to go back to the lab until it becomes muscle memory. A reflex. The entire point of developing execution is to make controlling your character as mindless as possible, so you can devote your thinking to more other things like yomi and strategy.
Rewarded with what? A high win-rate against newbies and casuals? How is that going to help at a top 8 against other players who also have good execution? Does it even help in online ranked matches once you’ve ground through the chaff and are facing off against relative equals?
Everyone has a different threshold. For you it was strings. For someone else it might be special moves. For someone else it might be just-frame moves. For me it makes no difference. You will be just as absent from online lobbies as someone else who quit because he couldn’t consistently control Makoto’s hold-release D button or Carl’s puppetry. Someone of relatively equal skill has the same benefit to me whether he trained for two weeks to learn Ragna or two months to learn Taokaka.
This is precisely the problem I have been discussing this whole time. The learning curve wouldn’t be much of an issue if you could actually play as you learn.
I don’t know if execution will always be more important than any other aspect, but it’s certainly a pretty big deal at the moment.
The difference between Bruce Lee’s situation and ours is that he was talking about a physical endeavor, and we are talking about a simulated one. There is no way to learn how to kick well other than by practice. This is simply how the real world works. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Fighting games do not have this limitation. They can be designed to be as easy or difficult to control as needed.
Did you have to practice 10,000 crouching forwards with Ryu? Did you practice 10,000 roundhouses with Sakura? If you didn’t, I don’t see how Bruce Lee’s thoughts on learning martial arts in real life have much bearing on learning a simulated martial arts game. Are we supposed to compare the training a soldier goes through to the practice a COD player does? Should early car makers have simulated the eccentricities of managing a living horse when they designed the controls for a mechanical car?
Stop posting the same tired shit and read the goddam thread.
For the most part we’re not talking about combos. We’re talking about basic shit, special move inputs. etc.
Yes, games will always have execution intensive stuff, but that doesn’t mean that we need to have a high barrier to entry.
I believe it’s because developers focused too much on combos for the past decade or so. It’s only now that we’re seeing some pushback against that (i.e. GGXrd bringing up the damage to #RELOAD levels again).
Personally, I dont think it’s too much to ask that capcom gets rid of/adjust some of the more annoying and unneccasry elements of SF that only make it that much harder for new players to get into it. I’ve only been playing fighters for a couple years myself. Here’s what I’d like to see done:
-make simpler inputs for certain moves
-less strict timing for links
-get rid of focus attacks
-ADD A FUCKING TUTORIAL
Seriously, “How to Play” should not bring up a layout of the fucking controls. That’s not how to play, thats how to control.
Look, I’ve put like 300 hours into SF4. That may not be very much, relatively speaking, but damn it, that’s still 300 hours of my time that I spent playing this game and trying to become better at it! So dont fucking tell me I’m too lazy to learn how to play. Someone mentioned before that this whole thing is being discussed by people who are already deep into fighting games, so it’s harder to understand what it’s like for new players. Well, I’m still a newbie, and I’m more than happy to tell you guys how frustrating it can get. I may not have played fighters that long, but I’ve played nearly everything else my whole life. Just from experience alone, I can easily relay to you the perspective of an outsider looking in (more or less).
The execution is a part of the goal. Doing those motions are the steps to get to your goal so they are as fundamental to the goal as the goal itself thus becoming part of the goal. Your goal is to pull off the motion correctly, whatever the motion may be, because the reward is a DP. I felt the question was stupid because you removed the reward of pulling off the motion correctly, or even more so, removed the incentive to even do the motion, if there is reward for it, there is of course no reason to do it.
I feel like this is turning into an argument of terminology and semantics at this point tho so I’ll drop it.
To finish on a personal note, I think making a fighting game 0 physical, and 100% mental is a terrible goal, and removes a lot of the fun of playing, which is pitting your full repertoire of skills against another person. Making it so all you do is think of the move (the same as one the button dp examples imo) and you’ve made the game really binary and defensive. No one is going to want to do anything because you’ll get blown up for doing anything, there has to be a margin for error, there has to be a human element to it. Making these games so damn easy to play just turns them into robotic reaction fests. You might as well just put the A.I. on and watch it fight itself it will be the same thing.
But maybe that’s just me, I think anything worth doing requires work, if any one can pick it up and be great at it, chances are it’s pretty fuckin crap and not worth much of anyone’s time. Easy things are for lazy people, hard things are people who like to actually accomplish things. Where that limit of difficulty lies is gonna be different for everyone, which is why a lot of this thread has been fucking pointless, because whats hard for you may not be hard for me and vice verse. I find combos quite tough, doing a sequence of button and stick presses in order is pretty hard for me, but doing individual moves is fucking easy. I don’t run into too many fighters where I straight can’t pull off moves consistently after a few hours of training. Give me a Marvel Combo and I’ll be here all week. Same for Skullgirls. People keep saying Skullgirls is easy to get into but I thought it was hard. Yea sure doing moves is easy, but the damage is piss poor, you have to do a long combo to deal worth while damage, my friends got bored of playing it because the damage was so fuckin doodoo unless you memorized a long string. That’s a game where it legitimately doesn’t start until you’re doing long combos. There’s also the issue of pretty much needing to learn more then one character to really play which doubles to learning quotent. so yea sure, the moves are easy to do but the games hard as hell to actually get into. The new GG tho was a lot easier to get into because a 5 hit string does pretty good damage, even single hits do really good damage, matches are fast. It was a shit load easier to get into then SGs was by a long shot. Even Accent Core was easier to get into because you only had to learn one person and how to maximize the potential of their gimmick.
This thread is trying to solve a problem that is different for everyone, and it’s never going to satisfy. Instead of trying to coddle people and guide them to shit that is easy to get into, encourage them to practice, yea they don’t want to, fuck I don’t want to, but I know i have to in order to play well because I understand that being able to perform is just as important, if not more so, then the mental game is. Teach people how to run the match with their normals, they will be using them more then their special anyway, when they learn how to handle themselves with just a solid normals game then integrating those special moves into their game plan is gonna make them feel great because now they have a powerful new option, and it’s going to motivate them to practice.
Instead of making the games easier, we should be doing a better job of encouraging people to play, giving them the right mind sets, and finding better ways to teach and figuring out better ways to encourage practice. A really good first step would be coming up with way better ways of writing shit down because this shit “896321478P” is not fucking easy to read, you guys dump this shit on new players a lot when they ask for combos and I garan-fuckin-te 75% of them look at it go “WTF?” and walk away. We have gotta come up with better ways of explaining things.
How we do this? I don’t have a fuckin clue, I really don’t play fighting games anymore outside of super casual Xrd stuff with my brother and friends. My Evo dreams are gone and done with, so I don’t even really care anymore, I know how to play fighting games. You guys seem to care a lot more then I do anymore, so I hope you realize sooner rather then later, that making these things easier to play isn’t going to have the effect you think it is. Those guys who leave fighters for call of dookie left because fighters require work and mental capacity, and they went to call of duty because it requires 0 work, and 0 mental capacity. Those people aren’t going to play fighters no matter what you do. As for people who leave for MOBAs and Star Craft, those people where going to leave anyway because fighters didn’t grab them enough to stay, MOBAs aren’t easy, they require teamwork and team work is tough, it’s a whole different kind of execution, and Star Craft is fucking impossible. Difficulty had little to do with them leaving, lack of interest had a lot more to do with it.
So yea making these games easier isn’t going to keep these people around, it’s only going to make these games worse.
yeah this is what I mean. to me Skullgirls and Marvel are really egregious examples of this. not the kind of game that’s going to appeal to new players.
FWIW I think Mike Z seems to have some good ideas about fighting game design, stuff I’d like to see implemented in a game that doesn’t have super long combos
You’re taking what I said too literally. I was merely speaking in terms of an analogy.
Isn’t that a simple problem to fix? Just make it so that the game has a normal mode and easy mode. Don’t make easy mode TOO easy ― like MvC1 or CvS2: EO. Make easy mode more like SF4, with lenient inputs. That way, everyone is happy.
The thing I hated the most about SF4 was that you didn’t have an option to disable SF4’s input system or at least pick stricter inputs. For me, stricter inputs are better because at least I don’t have to worry as much about accidental inputs or fucking up an input due to increased leniency
The problem with this is that you create a split between those playing Normal mode and those playing Easy.
Better to just make it so that specials are easier to do instead.
Skullgirls was meant to be a Marvel-like game, so of course it was going to have longer combos and stuff. But at the same time, Mike realized this and made sure that the basic stuff (special moves and basic chains into specials) was accessible.
Prime example, I-no was a character that had unnecessary inputs for most of her combos so nobody played her. Arcsys realized this and changed the inputs to help non-hermits and all of a sudden she is one of the most played characters in the game. There is a difference between inputs that are for more advanced combos and inputs that are barriers for entry. I guarantee you if piano techniques were the inputs instead of 5 Gen, Chun, Decapre and Honda would become some of the most played characters overnight.
Lets not pretend Bruce Lee was talking about fighting games, or equivocate fighting game players to martial artists. Physical ability is essential to martial arts, but physical ability being a key skill in fighting games is only because they have been designed that way, and it’s not a huge strain to imagine a fighting game that requires virtually no rote execution practice, distasteful as it may be to some.
And while I do enjoy grinding out combos a bit myself, I think fighting games would be really dull if they always favored the player with better execution like you claim they do (they don’t).