Vanilla SF4 WAS a bit more beginner friendly and honestly, when I watch match vids, that game is a lot more fun to watch than Super and on. But Capcom doesn’t even try to explain or teach anything. They know they don’t need to because an SF game will always have tutorials and such online because it’s GOING to get played at least until something newer comes out regardless of whether it’s good or not.
SF is one of the more simple fighting games that gets a lot of press, so naturally that’s going to be most people’s first game. But if they’re new to the genre, not sure whether fighters are for them or not, CApcom’s lack of direction doesn’t help. I’ve played for almost 20 years and found SF4’s Challenge mode to be pretty piss poor. For situational/corner combos, there was no indication of the situation/position the opponent needed to be in, there was no mention of the tight links, so you’d be hitting buttons wondering why your second move wasn’t coming out.
Granted, you’re always going to have people who want to be the best without doing any work, but the games don’t really explain WHY the motions need to be the way they are or why they work. I don’t think people would have as much trouble with the motions and execution if they were explained better. But in most cases, they aren’t. And because we’ve all been playing fighting games for a long time, we can fill in the gaps, but someone who’s only played FPS games isn’t going to have the knowledge to be able to do that.
Arc has done a great job with the BB & GG tutorials, and while I think they could be explained better in some places, at least they’re trying and doing a damn good job. Capcom however doesn’t seem to care at all. I’ll be interested to see if they improve this come SF
And speaking of FPS, I’m the same way with most FPS games that some are with fighters. Unless it’s a game I dig like Unreal, I just want to be able to pick it up and play it. I don’t care enough or like shooters enough to want to put work into them. So I get where a lot of people are coming from.
Yeah I know I’m bringing in another game series into the mix, but I think Metal Gear Solid 4 did it best at the very damn start: The difficulty settings and other things were based on which one of the choices you were given at the very start of the gamecinematic experience.
SF and a few other fighters could benefit for, upon starting up the game totally new, pop up with selections like:
–> This is my first Fighting game!
–> This is my first Street Fighter game!
–> I have played at least one Street Fighter/Fightin game before!
–> I have played multiple fighting games before!
And then give you a tutorial/appropriate difficulty vs CPU based on your choice.
But it’s still in the developers court to at least give a small description on what the hell one’s doing. I’ll admit, I have not went through any of the tutorial of BlazBlue (because I felt I didn’t need to, honestly. Game was easy enough for me to pick up and do dumb shit). The only fighting game I know of that had a damn extensive tutorial was Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. That mode alone showed me soo damn much that, years later it still carried over to VF5 and Final Showdown, and most of those lessons STILL resonated and helped my ass out.
You are merely saying that new players are not very good yet.
It’s amusing that you think consulting ‘supplementary material’ is somehow a prerequisite for playing. I was only joking about passing a test before you can play but you, it seems, are serious about this? ‘Hey you! What do you think you’re doing on that machine? Do you even plink? Show me your fighting license!’
Seriously though, while looking up strategies and combos and all that is great entertainment, and part of the appeal for some, it’s a huge mistake to say that players need to do this. What you mean to say is merely that fighting games are deep and complex.
Consider that the large majority of players never consult ‘supplementary material’, and you might see how silly the notion that you are entertaining really is. Or do you mean to say that these people are not really playing?
Rest assured, for those who have considered this matter sufficiently there can be no doubt, that everything there is to learn about these games can be learned quite adequately trough nothing but consistently playing sufficiently strong opponents. Nothing else is required. The barrier is a myth.
My man, what could possibly be easier for two novice players than picking up SFIV and start fighting each other? It baffles me to think you imagine they need one frame links or option selects, or anything like that, when they need not even know what they are, their entire lives, to enjoy a good bout of Street Fighter.
The only thing that’s hard is a novice trying to beat an experienced player, which is to say, the game is not completely retarded.
Forget the 1 frame links, frame data and set-ups.
Were I to compare Smash and Mortal Kombat to SF4, novice players would have issues with charge and grappling moves. Also 2xQF and 3 buttons Ultras are uncommon. Akuma and Oni are far from novice friendly. Raging Daemon? 720 motion Ultras? Chun-li, Guile and Blanka’s Ultras? Controlling Vega? They require some months before you get the grasp.
But if you pick Mortal Kombat, there’s instant fun and gratification!
As for the novice vs experienced player, SF4 is more guilty than most in favor of the former…
With that old music example, the difficulty here is that you can hear your music not sound like a heaving walrus. You can’t really feel yourself get better at fighters. It’s a slow process with no indication. When you do suddenly feel it playing against others it’s great, but there is no “see-able” reward, so to speak. For an analogy, look at Skyrim. You go from junky iron gear to badass Daedric and Dragonbone stuff. You can see the difference and easily be proud in your own achievement. And then there are other series that go “Welcome to Ninja Gaiden bitch, prepare to die!”. Those series too, it takes forever to get good, but when you realize you just took out those swarms of ninjas and bosses that were giving you so much trouble earlier, it feels great. Now tell me, which has more players, Skyrim or Ninja Gaiden/Dark Souls? I really don’t see a way to fix this, this seems like an intrinsic design of these older, harder type games, but it does turn away new players. I think Keo-Bas was right, this thread might have split in two.
@BLSBeeListSoldier I disagree with that notion. Just like in something like Basketball or any competitive event. The indication of progress is seen when you compete and realise you’re not making the mistakes you use to, or that certain things are becoming 2nd nature and more consistent. I.E A noob keeps getting jumped in on. He then goes to training to work on his anti air game. He gets jumped in on still bjt responded with a few anti airs. He keeps working on it then all of a sudden, it clicks and he’s now perform anti airs consistently to the point where foes are hesitant to jump in. In fighting games, you the player improves, not the character. But it seems people perfer the latter hence why most prefer RPGs and MMOs over fghters.
Execution is a problem for new players. Most want to mash and see results. this is a fundamental problem with all fighters. All you can do is make the game as accessible as possible - think mvc3, not Tekken.
Next barrier is too many characters, too many moves/frames to memorise. Having 40+ characters helps sell the game but again too much homework and dedication needed to be competitive.
I forgot to mention the biggest barrier of all. The Competitive scene. If your game has no decent online capabilities then it’s virtually an off-line game and people won’t bother playing it. The way I see it most fighters are left behind when it comes to online play and this is why Fighters will be niche games nobody cares about. I want to be able to fire up my ps4 and play an online game with little to no lag.
I’m not sure how to feel about the first comment. Execution becomes problem fr every for every person. from noob even to advance players. I still have problem with execution so that’s why i stay away from game that thrives on “excessive” execution (Vampire savior, kof) or memory (Most 3d fighters, vs series). MvC3 and tekken make some thing easier but other harder.
As runningwild suggested, Breaker revenge is decent game for the teaching fighters.
Just to name a few.
Capcom: SF2, Cyberbots, Vampire hunter.
SNK: entire Snk library outside of KoF. Maybe Kof 98 um
ASW:Battle Fantasia, Power instinct series…XRD???..
Examu: Aqua Pazza
Frenchbread: Denki Fighting Climax
Namco: Tekken 3, Soul Calibure 1, Gundam Battle assault 2??
Sega: Virtual Fighter 2…maybe 3?, Rumble Fish series
NRS:MK2
Treasure: BleachDS,
Misc: Yatagarasu, Akatsuki Blitzkampf, Vangaurd Princess. Shin Kohime
It took me a while to figure out why I found this post so intriguing, even though what you’re saying is simple.
The OP’s question has already been answered with this. Keywords “reward”, “process”, and the phrase “playing against others”. I’d bet five bucks that “Execution” is a fan-made word and not a developer one. Some of these developerss didn’t even know players were using moves in advanced ways, and had no intention of including these strategies and elements until WE came up with it (wave-dashers for instance).
I’m willing to bet it’s the players who came up with the idea that things that are hard to do in games = incredible feats that can be used in-battle and will reward them with something awesome, and that became a key element in this genre. And then the developers realized “oh, we should make it even more advance and add even more elements, they’re getting too good at this and our games will get boring to them”.
And then they up the anti (Unless I’m wrong and fighting games are getting easier, not harder? Yeah no, not at high level anyways) and now we look at fighting games where the very least you need to know is how to use a special/super command, if not prepare to die just as you spent all your patience on normal-poking. lolol
They aren’t worried about the people who can’t get into the games, they are worried about making the game even more beast than before. It’s hard to put focus on the new folk when there’s so much to develop in being the next big thing. So in a sense, this ‘execution barrier’ is proof that fighting games are going through a boom.
I don’t have an answer to the execution barrier, I doubt the developers even know. More than likely the fans will come up with an answer to it just like before. In my opinion though, being new to fighting games means you should play an older fighting game. So perhaps games that go back to the roots are best for learning.
What I am saying is that developers need make fighters with easier inputs so that new player don’t get turned off. Pulling off a super with qcf+two buttons is better than qcf twice and all punch buttons. Dev’s are better off making the game accessible and flashy like mvc3 than hard like Tekken.
There a reason nobody plays games like VF outside of Japan. Have you tried moving characters in this game? Even Tekken gets complaints about characters being “stuck in mud.”
I’ve been playing FG’s for a decade and have retired ages ago. Unless this genre invades into the PC arena with God-like netcode there is no future outside of being poverty games in the shadows of DOTA/LOL/SC. It’s sad because the pro-gamers in the FGC have put so much effort and dedication into their game but their rewards are terrible compared the aforementioned PC titles.
(same here, welcome to the old ppl club)
I think you might have expanded a bit too much there. The pro-gamer effort/reward ratio has more to do with sponsorship than anything. Even if we did get on the PC market(perhaps the biggest key/ticket to AAA tournament value) there’s not a huge demand for fighting games in the first place on the PC market, and creating that demand takes time…and lots of sales (comparatively), very fewer scrubs, teams of folks who know what they’re doing (by the masses) and plenty of companies who pay attention to the fgc.
Cuz that’s what DOTA/LOL/SC probably have that we don’t.
So basically you’re asking people to be better at fighting games, which would create better demand on the PC, more sales, fewer scrubs and teams of folks who know what they’re doing(by the masses) and plenty of companies who pay attention to the fgc.
I can’t imagine what’s stopping a simple PC release, so why is a certain next gen fighter ONLY for PS4? Obviously there is very little trust in the PC market. Meaning they don’t trust US, the people who were (or weren’t) playing on PC, and if it really is that important we’ll hear something about it (and we probably won’t). And that’s because of a second flick of the controller?
Come on, I really doubt that’s the problem. But I agree with part of your point. To be honest, everything can do better on PC (can, not will). Market priority won’t be the death of us though.
issue is that their game that does this but for one reason or another the FGC ignore them.
Phantom breaker is that perfect blend of FG and accessibility…How ever not every game needs to be like this.
Not sure what the VF complaint is all about, are you saying vf not played because they couldn’t adjust to it? Preference?
FG genre is doing fine for the most part. We may not be e-sport yet but that not what this discussion is about.
Edit:
As I said execution barrier is an individual problems, game don;t need to cater to this unless that game was made for those type of player in mind. their are game for each individual. just gotta look.
Like you know…Phantom breaker…because…you know…ITS A GOOD GAME.
@RECESSIONTIME It depends on what you want out of the game. Most fighters are pretty accessible. 30min- an hour in training and you’ll know the basics with a character to play with your friends. The issue most new comers have is that they want to play on-line but get stomped by the more competitive players who take the game more seriously. If we could make it so that a noob doesn’t have to face good players until they’re ready, or just never. That’ll ge a start.
Next those who wish to become competitivr aren’t stopped by execution barriers in most fighters, but by the learning curve for the gameplay and no real idea for how to learn it. A intuitive tutorial mode that teaches basics and concepts like Anti airs, spacing, whiff punish etc would solve that. I.E Guilty Gear XRD. Character’s and frame data etc. Maybe fighters could stand to lessen the roster. But what you mean “Too much homework and dedication” needed to be competive? In anything competitive, he who puts in the most work tends to win.
@RECESSIONTIME As for on-line, yeah most fighters need to step it up. There’s no excuse for bad net code. Good net code is a mandate now. But tournament wise Off line will always be prefered. No chance of lag and the hype and human element of being around other avid fighting game fans and players can never be replicated on-line. S
@Keo-Bass I agree with that EXCESSIVE execution is a problem, not execution itself. Like how you mentioned Vampire Savior. I love that game. And actually basic offense is pretty accessible. Just cancel one normal into the next just like MVC3. Supers/EX moves are pretty simple with most being a simple fireball or DP motion with two buttons. But the execution required to perform advance guard, guard cancels and more advanced offense, which are crucial at higher level play are a bitch to master. If you can’t consistently do tye former two, you will have no chance against even intermediate players who will pressure you all day when they see you don’t know how to use the game’s defensive options. Also the game’s fast pace forces players to play more on reaction than strategy, which can be overwhelming. But if adv guard, guard cancels and shit like canceling into Morrigan’s Darkness illusion weren’t so tough. The game would be more accessible even with its fast pacing.
There is no demand for FG PC titles because the net code can not accommodate new generation console FG titles. I know for a fact net code for Tekken has been hot garbage since the T5DR days and hasn’t improved much. It’s simply difficult to impossible to provide a net code for graphic-heavy games to the point where it can run 60fps games perfectly. Note that games like Tekken aren’t playable if there is any lag and frames get skipped. I’ll acknowledge that SF4 was much better in this regard but not enough to make it perfect for playing online.
Many will argue that the FGC players are poor and have to buy console over an overpriced PC but I personally don’t believe this to be true. There just isn’t demand for PC FG titles it simply hasn’t been possible to make the net code work (where is this GGPO net code, Why isn’t it being used?). Nobody wants to buy a online fighter that will only frustrate consumers. Whether this gets fixed or not, I cannot know, but I know for certain if FG titles continue to stick to being offline they will continue to lose out.
Some more gloom and doom. Many notable pro-gamers in the FGC are already migrating to PC games. Some have stopped coming to tournaments all together in the hope of making pro in a PC title like DOTA/SC that actually compensates them for their blood and tears. Playing FG as anything other than an expensive hobby makes no sense.
No dude, its the cost of being up to date with graphics, not to mention learning whats a good deal on pc and what you actually need to run stuff, then setting up your computer and making sure everything works and then get it working…for one game.