Why SF Is Getting Worse And The Problem With MVC3 Over MVC2
I?ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and have been taking a look at fighting games in the past few years and really looked at a few very important titles to the competitive gamer. I want to focus on the new MVC title and the SF4 series in general.
First off we all know that SF4 Vanilla was a very defensive title similar to its SF2 Hyper Fighting version. It was a very defensive, projectile based, heavy damage output game. Everyone did INSANE amounts of damage (Sagat) and people died to dumb shit. Lol. When SSF4 came out Sagat was nerfed, Ryu was nerfed, and balance changes were made and the addition of 10 new characters. (Most of which were built to be offensive. IE. Ibuki, Dudley, Cody, Makoto) Now, with the announcement of SSF4 AE to console we now have even more balance changes and more new characters (Yang, Yun, Evil Ryu, Oni)
Now, what?s the problem with this? The problem with SF now is that the game is slowly turning into an aggressive title. When SF4 Vanilla was out the player was HEAVILY punished for ANY mistake that was made. You jumped in to Sagat? FADC ultra. You?re probably dead. You missed a combo against ryu? FADC ultra. There goes half of your health. Bye! In a sense, you were punished really hard for any mistake that you made because you were CARELESS. (Remember that word)
With SSF4 coming out damage reductions were made so now people could play a bit more CARELESS because damage output is not as bad. So basically, you could make more mistakes in a match. When a company introduces offensive characters and decreases damage output overall what does that scream to you? They want to make the game more accessible to people who do not want to learn and develop. By decreasing damage output it makes the game more fun and enjoyable to the casual player. If I play some random kid online and beat him with ryu in Vanilla SF4 on 3 mistakes?.hes probably not going to want to play often, right? But if he can make 8-9 mistakes?.it?ll be more appealing and fun. He can be more CARELESS and have FUN. But how is this BAD for SF? What does it say about the games direction if they do this? It simply means that people are lazy and do not want to take the time to learn, in a sense. People are complaining about damage output? They?ll patch it in a second because it won?t make $ if its not easy and more accessible to the general public. No offense, but the competitive community is NOT priority AT ALL guys.
Now lets finally take a look at AE. AE looks like it?s going to be more aggressive in comparison to the original SF4 Vanilla. Yun, Yang, Fei, Gief, Ken, and all AGGRESSIVE characters running around doing dive kicks, kara throws, shoryukens, EX palms, building meter full screen to spam safe stuff, and a bunch of crap. Dudley is getting better, Ibuki has better bnb, Makoto is better, Dee jay, etc. What?s happening is that it?s creating a random game. By making a game that?s offensive with lower damage output (Abel, E Honda, Guile) you?re creating a game that?s more random. If defense is bad in a game than it will be a battle of who has the better offense and can be more random. By defeating defense you?re just not going to ?care? and just be more ?Careless? because you won?t be punished as hard now?so why not?
When you destroy defense in a video game you destroy thought process and thinking and actually reading someone and knowing what they were ?planning?. Take older video games for example. In Mario, do you just run around and hop on every pipe and zip through the level? In Contra, do you just run through the game and shoot everything? In final fantasy do you just use use random attacks all the time and win every battle? In Checkers do you randomly advance? No. You WAIT and see PATTERNS and react. Those of you who played Nintendo back in the day?you know EXACTLY what I?m getting at.
Is there a high level of game play for SSF4 and AE? Of course. You bet. But it?s BETTER as a defensive game. Anything is better if its defensive because you think before you do something.
Defense and punishment incorporates thinking. If you?re not going to be punished hard, throw that shit on.
Marvel:
Now onto Marvel. I think MVC3 is probably the most fun game I?ve played in a long time. The problem is though, its simply not competitive on any level. Any character can be picked up, anyone can be used, and just apply constant pressure. Any character that cannot apply solid pressure sucks imo. I seriously think Arthur is one of the worst characters in the game. The entire game is built around who can create a better offense. So in a sense, who can be more random and come up with the most unblockables and crap. The punishment is there just like old SF but EVERYONE in the game can dish out amazing damage. So I?m just going to pick the characters that can build meter, not need to burn it, can play offense and defense, and spam random crap because you can?t punish me. (Wesker, Amaterasu, Zero, Wolverine, Dante, Doom) How many times do people lose because of X Factor? How hard is it to kill someone while in X Factor? Shits simple. How many times are you RANDOMLY caught with an assist and lose because of some random lucky combo they caught you in? How many times do you work sooo hard and do so much work and lose because of X Factor? The height of the meta game is aggressive characters (Wesker, Doom, Amaterasu, Zero, Magneto, Wolverine, Akuma, She Hulk, Taskmaster) and abusing the DHC scale reset glitch to get max damage. That?s where that game is right now. Defensive characters CAN BE viable but your fucking Chris Redfield, Trish, and Dormammu aren?t going to win majors. You don?t see a team of Chris Redfield, Dormammu, or Trish winning anymore. It?s slowly turning into a more aggressive and random title. If you agreed with what I stated about the SF4 series than you should probably start to see why MVC3 is a joke. It diminishes thought process and is nothing but a game made to appeal the newcomers.
I don?t know much about mvc2 as a title but I did know you just couldn?t pick up random characters and win against any character. That?s the core problem with fighting games now. People think that creating ?balance? in a game makes it ?better.? It doesn?t. Creating ?balance? for people makes it easier for people to play and win and detracts the whole learning process and player development of why they are losing so fast. Yes, it sucks that most fighting games have really skewed tier lists?but that is not why the game should be looked at as ?bad? to new players.
What I?m getting at to wrap this up is that fighting games are not getting better?they are getting worse, because people are getting lazier and less willing to develop and learn. Not to sound pessimistic?but its true. Just take a look at the progression of video games in general and just how much more accessible and easy they are all getting. Halo I to Halo II and III. Smash Brothers melee to Brawl?Blaz Blue to CS, and just any game in general. Games are getting less and less competitive. Think about Third Strike, Counter Strike, The original NES games and how HARD they were compared to Wii games, PS3 game difficulty compared to PS1. ETC.
Hopefully this sparks some discussion. Cheers.
