A thing for motions is that is that it adds more to the metagame.
If i do D, DF, F + Jab - I get a fireball
if i do D, DF, F + Short - I get a standing short
If you react to me crouching and jump in anticipation of a fireball and i do s.LK, then i’ll DP you.
It’s the most basic example, but it proves the point.
Motions also add constraints in terms of human ability. How silly would it be to be able to do 720 with f+P? Even in SC5, if Ivy’s iCS was just f+P, that shit would be ridiculous. You might argue that you should then change the move itself to accommodate changes so execution isn’t a factor, but i’d argue that because difficult moves such as these have a big payoff, it makes them only useful in certain situations and in turn makes these situations more obvious for the opponent. This adds to the overall depth to the system. For example, using the command grabs again. You know that if you are against a Zangief, then it is pretty much a given that he isn’t going to walk up to you and take more than a 1/3 of your life with a 720, but you do know that he can buffer a 720 during jumps, dashes, recovery etc. So you know that when you are both at neutral around Zangiefs 360 range, the MOST he can do is a 360 without making some sort of decision in which the zangief can buffer a 720. The opponent then knows that if Zangief tries to jump in, then all of a sudden if he doesn’t react properly then he could eat that 720, but then the Zangief player can know that and if he tries to jump away, then he can tag during jump startup with an air normal instead of empty jumping and doing 720.
Same with SC5 kinda. You don’t typically want to stand around buffering iCS at neutral, because you dont really want to be buffering in every which way for a couple of seconds because the opponent can just punish you while you are stepping or blocking for ages. So the most likely option is that you are going to buffer iCS during some sort of recovery. If you buffer it during your own blockstun for example, you recover from your move, they recover from theirs, then all of a sudden you dash in and do iCS. Now the opponent might expect you t do something like this and after they recover, choose to duck or a move with crouch tech and you the Ivy player then get punished for it. You don’t get this back and forth mindgame if you could just dash in and do iCS with 1 button press, because that would mean you could do it from anywhere at anytime, so there is really nothing for the opponent to adapt to.
On to another matter.
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I think things such as tutorials seen in VF, BB and SG are needed to allow new players to have access to the information we already understand without them looking it up at places such as this. That’s a very good thing. But the thing i have been wondering about lately is why should that new player care? There is a tutorial on Skullgirls that teaches you the basics on hit confirming your combos, but why should this new player care about that? Now, i’m not looking for the obvious answer of 'Aha! it allows you to apply pressure and continue your combo if it hits and keep safe if they block!" No, i’m talking on an even more fundamental level of why.
Imagine if you were suddenly trying to teach hit confirms to your girlfriend. What you teach her could be perfectly valid and could be explained in the most clear way possible, but why would she care? Chances are, she isn’t going to give a crap about what you’re saying. It probably won’t be to react to your opponents blocks at any rate. So instead, you just give her the dick. That’s great. However, we can’t just give the dick to these new players. They are probably male so that would be pretty homo. No, instead we have to teach them - before we teach them the mechanics of fighting games - the fundamental reasons on why we love to beat the shit out of people.
Let’s face it, we are horrible people. We take joy and excitement out of beating people up. We love to completely overwhelm our foes and take extra pleasure if they haven’t even touched us once. We love to make a turn-around and decimate our opponents when they have us at inches of our life. But why? Why do we love to do those things? We do we have this drive to beat each other up. This drive is what caused us to come to sites like SRK and find new ways in which to beat people up harder. I think the whole of SRK has forgotten this drive, because it’s just become so natural to us. Once you have signed up to this site (or similar sites) then you probably already have the drive, because the only reason you would come here is so you can learn how to beat up the bullies who are bullying you. However, these new players that we are targeting our tutorials and stuff with, they probably don’t have the drive - the understanding of why we do these things in the tutorial show us.
You can bring a man a fish, you can even teach him to fish, but what’s the point if he doesn’t even like fish?
I think trying to make people who are trying out a fighting game to understand why it is that makes fighting games so compelling. It may seem silly because it is completely obvious to us why we do it, but not obvious to them. Once people start to understand and possibly get the drive themselves, they will see the need for stuff like hit confirming, because then it’s basically “this allows me to beat them up while they cant beat me up, and i really want to beat them up!” since that is the fundamental reason why do ANYTHING in fighting games. Then once they get the taste for it, they will eventually just come on their own - just like you did - and teach themselves how to beat people up.
The question then remains, exactly *how *do you convey to new players the drive that resides in all of us? How do you make them understand? I wouldn’t be able to tell you right now, because without trying to sound too anime here, it really is something you can’t see; it’s something you can only feel. But if there is something i want you to consider, then consider how did YOU obtain the drive to compete in fighting games? What made you come here? What made you want to get better when you started playing fighting games? What makes you want to compete to be the very best, the best that there ever was? You might have forgotten, but if you do know, then how can you present those answers in a way that will show someone clueless about it? Maybe the girlfriend example wasn’t the best since they aren’t exactly the same. I mean, they are at least trying the game out right? That’s at least a stepping stone, but i feel many people simply fall off the map because they haven’t explored what fighting games are about. Can we do anything to stop that from happening?
