I fail to see what, if anything, this has to do with why the execution barrier exists. But just as an aside, note that there are no threads complaining about lack of accessibility in Dive Kick.
Depth and execution do not go hand-in-hand. You could take the game of Tekken, change every move into a just-frame, and that would not result in a deeper game. The discovery of plinking did not reduce the depth of SF4, even though it effectively changed most one-frame-links into two-frame-links.
You are correct. What does matter is the competitive player who is already heavily invested in other games, and won’t pick up a new fighting game because he concludes that he is unwilling or unable to invest the time required to get good at it. Your Tekken players who don’t have time to learn SF4, or your Starcraft 2 players who don’t have time to pick up any fighting game at all. That kind of thing.
This isn’t about competitive vs non-competitive. It’s about accessible vs non-accessible. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about playing or not-playing.
A lot of competitive players I’ve tried to get into fighting games don’t mind endlessly grinding a game to get better, but they do mind grinding training more to get better at the game’s controls. That is, they wouldn’t mind losing because they made the wrong decisions and got punished. They do mind when they make the right decision, but the game’s controls are so finicky that the wrong move came out and they got punished for that.
I say this all the time: in any genre other than fighting games the “execution barrier” would just be called “terrible controls”. Even driving games and rhythm games, which are pretty much all about controls, do not have the kind of dexterity requirements that fighting games require just to get good enough to play. Not to win, but just to get to the point where the actions of your character accurately reflect the decisions you are making in your mind.
The casuals can do whatever they want. I am more concerned with growing the competitive community so I have people to play against. If casuals also like the game, that is a nice bonus.
IMO, this is one of the situations where the game’s vaunted Infinite Prevention System actually hurts it, especially with the addition of undizzy burst in Encore which basically does the same job of keeping stuff from going too long. Instead of just doing the same series for 2 to 3 reps/relaunches (which is all you’re gonna get in with undizzy), you’re forced to think of variations of each series (i.e. air chain 1: j.HP, j.HK, air chain 2: j.LK, j.MK, j.HK, air chain 3: j.MP, j.HK, QCF+KK) which adds to the difficulty.
That said, the game’s is an interesting case since alot of it’s “execution barrier” (as far as there is any, considering how much Mike has gone out of his way to remove any arbitrary ones) comes from all the stuff you need to mentally keep track of - which normals have you used up, how much undizzy you have left before they can burst, when should you reset, etc.).
Terrible controls, huh? That fits. That really fits. That’s exactly how other genres would describe it. To use the ever prevalent FPS example, imagine of instead of pressing square or x to reload you had to enter a quarter circle motion. It’s easy for us, but plenty of people would be turned off by it. You see this often when games try be “innovative” by adding horribly designed mini games that control as well as Resident Evil 1 characters.
The funny thing is, FPSs have their own execution intensive stuff. Bunny hopping in CS, reload cancelling in some CoD games, quick-scoping, etc. Heck, back during Counter-Strike’s beta back in 2000-2001, the standard over here was to have no buy time. Back then, you quickly developed the execution to be able to buy your selected loadout, while running forward out of the buy zone.
Charge moves can stay as they are. Nothing too taxing about holding a direction and then pressing another with an attack button. Plus that would be broken. This is like the 3rd time someone has mentioned Sonic Boom. I stated this in the first post and people cannot seem to quiet down about it. And them old Counter Strike days do bring back memories of that. Back to the terrible controls thing, we could have stuff like instead of Hakumen’s Supercounter being double qcf d, it could be forward forward forward d or something like that. Better yet would be custom inputs, with restrictions to balance out things like charge moves.(Please do not mention Sonic Boom again). The very best would still be a better training mode and online matchmaking.
Charge moves are okay though I am not fan of charge/ pretzel charge super. But at the same time i dislike how capcom handle charge. other company seem to handle them better imo. Liek breaker revenge have same command set but charge time is vastly shorter than SF series and the charge move are really good.
The problem with that hakumen command it’ll over lap with another command. The reason Game have certain commands is to make sure player can do them when they want to, or desighn the comand input base on its ultility ( not an ideal way to balance). Hakumen counter super is well balance version of command inputter due to how it works. its command that you use with minimal risk due to near instant start up and the situation it covers. double QCf doesn’t seem bad but then I play pads so we can do those with minimal effort. Stick not so sure. at teh same time BB known for having a erogenous command buffer so the strain still isn’t their.
I was juat using charge moves as an example. There are many other examples like Darkness Illusions ( I call raging demons darkness illusions ) or SPDs. Do you have any idea how game breaking such moves would be if they were single button or some other easy input? I’m all for reducing the execution barrier for basic stuff because the basics by default should be easy. But simplifying the advanced techniques and moves? No because also by default advanced tactics and moves should be more difficult. But if the basics are easy to pick up, then it wont be long before one can start learning advanced tech and inputs. But screw pretzel motions, that’s just silly.
Now hold on a sec, even shooters have their fair share of niche installments don’t they? Ones that are hard as hell I mean. What’s wrong with us having a few? Sometimes you’ve got to be hardcore.
I personally love KOF XIII for what it is, and I’m hoping their next installment is just as hard. I don’t even plan to play competitively and I’ve still found myself practicing combos for the hell of it, alone and having loads of fun. It’s the challenge man, that’s going back to the roots. Like how Galaga was practically unbeatable(for me), and was more about the high score than actually beating the game. lol
I know it may not benefit the entry-level folks much, but sometimes you’ve got to fill the niche, because it’s what you’re good at. I think KOF XIII filled their niche just fine, could have had a better netcode though.
Being confined to a niche doesn’t make money or gets lots of people playing. And if a dev feels a game can’t be a hit with the masses, it stays on the shelf. Like my beloved Darkstalkers
The truth of the matter is there is always going to be a barrier of some kind and as players its mostly pointless for us to worry about it. I mean even if they dumb down the inputs there’s going to be stuff the holds people back, like TKing air moves to do them as close to the ground as possible, because they don’t want to practice.
Everything worth doing requires practice, nothing in life is going to be handed to you, might as well figure that out now and start developing good habits. I mean really ask anyone who is good at anything how they got good at that thing and they will tell you, lots of practice.
So find a game you like that is fun for you to play and then start playing.
^This
It first help to find game you like to play and not just follow what every one else is playing. I only got good at the game i wanted to get good at and subtle play other games to gauge my abilities.
I can stress this enough but make sure the game your playing is game you really like, even if it frustrates you. IF you wind up doing the opposite you’ll only grow bitter over it. Its why i had to drop certain games, if try to play them but knew i prefer to play something else, it just make the experience not fun.
Edit:
It saddens me how so many people who get interested in fighter thinks only the game the FGC play are worth playing. Admittedly you do play fighter for competition but doesn’t mean you have to start where the competition already flourish.
As much as there always will be a barrier, IMO we should still be looking at the question of how high should the barrier be (and to an extent, where does this come from, i.e. is it abitrarily added by the developer, or is it an emergent factor driven y the players).
The first question can’t be answer because their far to many factors to be considered. The best we can do is game by game case. For popular example we can use USF4. Personally I find this game execution in bad taste, but then i find the whole game in bad tast but i can;t see where thing either make sense or complement each other. Now Guilty gear make sense because thing complement each other from character designs to mechanics.
question 2 is pretty obvious. most game developer who gets inspire to make game follow whats popular, and weather good or bad they choose sf as its template. Or the other case they get feed back from people to see what they want.
Their is also scrutiny game gets for trying to simplify few things. The term “dumping down” is the culprit here. Why this has become thing is beyond me but if anything i hold the FGC and gaming culture responsible for the turn of events.
@d3v as I said before I think the high lever players are the ones responsible for the difficulty curve in a fighter’s gameplay. When a fighter is first released, it’s easy to get into because no one knows shit. But after sometime, the more advanced playefs figure stuff out and use it in tournaments and upload combo vids etc. Intermediate players learn from these guys and begin utilising those tactics as well. The gameplay now becomes defined by these tactics and strategies with most using them. And now noobs and casuals can’t have fun mashing like they use to because most got gud and know what they’re doing now. They don’t want to take time learning the new gameplay that naturaly developed via the competitive players so they quit. This is why I advocate for a seperate game mode that is casual friendly.
While this has some truth to it, we don’t need to segregate player base either. Just because smash made game that can split it’s player base doesnt mean its the go to solution. Look at Gundam Vs, J Star vs,Mortal kombate, to lesser extent DBZ games. They manage to find compromise with out changing the game to much.
If we harp on this than we just dividing the player base more. Look at the FGC relationship with Smash its rocky at best.
Developers need to make learning their game fun.
FGC needs to not be elitist and self center.
Casual: Need to be aware that Fg are design this way to compliment both dynamic and competitive environment.
@keo-bas No one really plays Gundam vs or DBZ games all that competitively, but I’ll give ya Mortal Kombat. That series always struck a balance between accessable and fun while still being competitively viable. Well The trilogy and MK9 at least. But some people just don’t want to deal with higher level players. That’s where the phrase “try hard” comes from. Casuals who feel like others ruin the game by taking it more seriously than the average player. Like for example you have some guys playing a pick up game of basketball, everyone’s having fun but then the guys who practice everyday and are more competitive show up wanting to play. They play and the less skilled and conditioned guys get wrecked and now they don’t feel like playing anymore. That’s why I feel that seperation is needed.
