From what I can tell they really don’t need to “change” honestly.
Sad but true, not every town has a local arcade scene nowadays although you could still go to your friends house and play fighting games online. I don’t know if I would say that online is inferior to local community, there are many players form all over the world and a fraction of them are as good as you say. I don’t live in a town where there is an arcade scene so I cannot say for sure how good I am and rankings don’t help too much either.
Didn’t SF4 and Skull girls have this feature already? Unfortunately, I was one of them until I invested some time in the games I was playing. I do agree that games need somewhat more accessible.
What many other games do, but FGs have historically utterly failed to do, is to disguise the “work” part of the game as “fun”.
Practicing combos in training mode for 10 hours, for most people, is “work.” Or at least it seems like it. Sitting through a wall-of-text tutorial mode for an hour before even playing the game? Definitely work.
Whereas killing monsters for 10 hours in a beatemup game like God of War or Devil May Cry, is “fun”. Having some easy levels in the beginning that introduces mechanics gradually, is “fun.”
(Of course, for experienced gamers, we dont even bother with the tutorial, so we get annoyed at being forced to play through the simple tutorial levels. “Give me all my abilities from the start!”, we cry. Similarly, we want to practice our combos and experiment with things in Training Mode. When a FG doesnt have training mode, like the PS3 Naruto game, we complain and wish there was one. So the needs of veterans are different compared to beginners.)
BB and other FGs that have a detailed story mode are trying to capture this effect, but not very well because the gameplay doesnt progressively teach you skills and mechanics, unlike those games.
Actually, VF4EVO provides a shining example, just like it does for so many other things. It’s “I’m a virtual player in a virtual japan competing in a virtual competitive gaming scene” mode, where you unlock & visit progressively higher-skilled arcades, level up your Dan rating, and also have the option to fight in novelty battles with bonus conditions (that teach you mechanics) like “reversal a move 5 times in one round”, is probably the best solution for this problem that has ever been implemented in a FG.
Its been done before though in Soul Calibur, MK and Tekken now with the fight lab.
Sports are games too.
Additionally, some games are considered sports e.g. chess (has been brought into the discussion already).
Now think about something that makes it easier to use normals and fireballs to zone, and it also rewards the player excessively. Next, add the fact that this reward was made possible by being disadvantaged and you have XF, Ultras etc.
This is what people like shoultz and thats mind games are arguing against (correct me if I’m off).
There ought to be no connection between the two variables, but I just want to point something out for you:
If you were given the dichotomy presented, what would you decide on?
- Less input lag, more sound bugs
- More input lage, less sound bugs
I hope you would choose 1. The developers more or less presented this dichotomy, and it is also present with netcode like GGPO. Sound bugs are related to input lag in GGPO.
Let me start with this statement: I agree that Capcom should listen to their customers (especially their best ones). The community formed by their games offers a good source of feedback. Your assertion here does display a blaring issue though.
If the popularity of the game is also a big issue, do you think Capcom should listen to people that are going to play the game for 2 weeks after release and then ditch it? Capcom makes good moves by listening to scrubs about not only netcode (plausible to listen to everyone), but game play mechanics as well then. This way, the game will be more popular. Is this true? I’m just clarifying.
That would be considered bad design. And that’s kind of the core problem, people are equating accessibility with bad design, and that’s just not true. Everything has to be carefully worked out and balanced. In the same way, XF isn’t bad because it’s a comeback mechanic, its bad because of its insanely poor implementation.
i dont think anyone is deliberately equating accessibility with bad design, considering some of the games with the best design, like hyper fighting, are incredibly accessible
Well that’s kind of what he’s implying in the post I quoted though. It’s kind of the whole basis of the ‘dumbing down to appeal to casuals’ argument really, that they can’t make a game more accessible (and thus more appealing to casuals) without ruining the deeper gameplay elements of the game.
I think that’s entirely up to the skills of the designer.
here’s a thing to consider: within the last half of a decade or so people often talk about “accessibility” but what they really mean is “being able to play on a competitive level”. lots of people have this weird idea that by learning “how to play” a game they are entitled (despite them not outright saying it) to be on the same level as someone who might have hundreds of hours of practice and matches logged. the problem with this is that it completely ignores the idea that there can be a wide range of skill levels possible within a game’s design
reading over a lot of these “accessibility” and “how can we make idiots self aware enough to enjoy good design” threads i think you’ll find that once again, despite not outright saying it, a problem that a lot of people have is holding themselves to some standard of “i put in [self-determined amount of effort to have something “figured out”] and i’m not even an intermediate competitive player?”
these are people that would probably take tennis lessons and be alright with the idea that after years of playing they still couldn’t come close to like, roger federer or someone but they’ll play a videogame and because there’s this idea (though it’s not something people who perpetuate it are self-aware of) that videogames just should not have such a high skill ceiling so as to bar someone who’s “dedicated” and “willing” from the intermediate or highest levels of play
does anyone really, genuinely believe there could be another successful commercial fighting game that had the same mechanical skill requirement and complex decision trees that MVC2 has?
does anyone really, genuinely believe there could be another successful commercial shooter that has the same mechanical skill requirement and complex decision trees that quakeworld, CPM, or warsow has?
etc
See, that’s our other difference, I explicitly reject what you’re saying there. I don’t believe people actually want to be instantly top-level competitive.
They want to be able to feel that they’re actually able to play at some level out of the box, but that’s different… and more importantly they want to see their skills grow as they put time into the game. Just about every game is designed around those concepts now.
It really is the same as Tennis or Basketball or whatever. Most people get into the game and play up to the level they’re comfortable putting the work into. They don’t expect to be able to play against Michael Jordan or Federer or Kasparov, they know that’s a whole different levels. Gamers are exactly the same, there’s no reason to believe they’re different.
*although I should add there are probably some, its the internet age after all… but they’re a vanishingly small minority of the players.
MvC2 is a good example though, if you take it when it was brand new, its actually absurdly accessible. Special and super inputs, hell even magic series chains are all absurdly lenient. The trick is that now we view the game through the filter of 13 (?) years of play and now an exceptionally high level of skill and execution is required to play at any level… but that’s the community development not the base game.
please notice that i said people don’t outright say that they want to get to an intermediate competitive level without sufficient work but that’s certainly the impression that you could get from all of “these” threads over the course of the last half of a decade
There might be some, but again I think its an idea that’s been overblown and warped in the course of these discussions. People are alike regardless of what game they play or their level of involvement in that game.
While I honestly tend to agree, there’s absolutely no way that we can know that. Development of a game is up to the community, and beyond that ST and 3S both have been on the scene as long or longer than MvC2, aren’t remotely as complex, but still measure up very well.
There’s more to making a game good and deep than complexity.
I wish we could choose one when we actually play online =/
That is a false forced choice, but I’ll play along.
I would choose null. Any game that can not meet minimum acceptable requirements is not worthy of my time. The fact that they presented this as a choice is far more offensive to me than actually shipping a broken product.
I reject your usage of the term “scrub” for a non-tournament level player, but yes, they should listen to all their customers. If low level players consistently complain about, say, a specific character being seen as unfair, then Capcom should do something to deal with that situation. If they deal with it through balance tweaks, that’s fine with me, because the high level will adapt. If they determine that the character is not unfair, then the game is not teaching players how to overcome the challenges presented by that character, and they should look into how information is being presented.
Regardless of skill level, a company needs to take input from their customers seriously.
jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaj.
so because some lames that cant even play the game think that a character is op, they should nerf it, despite that he could be a low tier char in reality? you never, and i say **NEVER **should try to balance your game based on the opinions of the uninformed lowest denominator, they will always find something to complain for, specially if said thing its to “hard” for them to overcome because they are not going to put their effort on learning how to deal with it
Sentinel Nerf.
Sentinel got got constant complaints because be had a lot of health, multi hitting normals, and armor and because no one knew how to play the game yet.
The thing is the people complaining and the people finding the answers aren’t the same people. They weren’t losing because Sentinel didn’t have any weaknesses, he has a ton, they were losing because they kept trying to hit him out of armored moves and eating big damage for it. You don’t nerf a middle of the road character because because people keep trying to hit him when they shouldn’t be trying to hit him, thats the exact reason you gave him armor in the first place. And whats worse is even after it bacame accepted that everyone was wrong about Sentinel they didn’t give the health back.
Phoenix needed to get nerfed because she was too powerful
Sentinel got nerfed because people are too stupid
Reading comprehension is hard, kids, but in the long run, it’s totally worth it.
Said this, but counterpoint: ST is substantially more limiting than MvC3 is, and it’s probably the longest running successful competitive fighter out there.
I believe I said that they should do something, not that a specific nerf was a good idea. In the case of the Sentinel nerf, they didn’t even address the core of the issue people were having, so I obviously don’t think that was a good idea.