Some people just are obsessed with “doing what the pros do”
Between cody, evil ryu, juri, and yun, sagat, sakura, ryu guile… and many more chars i can play them without 1 frame links above a “beginner level.”
When i hear complaints about 1 frame links i assume its people that want to play like pros on day one. [There are a few chars i can have sympathy with]
Here’s my idea for making the game more beginner-friendly: give every character at least two target combos they can cancel into a special/Super. You want more damage? Learn to link. Done.
True. That would help. I’d also like to see them develop a more realistic CPU mode. I don’t see why they can’t develop smarter AI that uses some of the same strategies as good players (e.g.,
a Ryu that applies crouch forward fireball pressure instead of walk up random ultra). Similarly the trials should incorporate more than combos. They should include anti airs, counter-hits, techs, etc.
I agree too many fucking characters. It’s a lot of trivial knowledge to learn. But including peoples favorite character is an easy selling point. It’s probably the most appealing aspect of fighting games.
Did you just complain about too many characters?
yeah virtua fighter perfected the art of good AI like 10 years ago by taking tendency data straight from humans. idk why Capcom doesn’t follow suit. single player could be so much more.
As for matchups, I say perfect the art of matchups by… continuing to play the person over and over again. that is why we play the game right. the element of surprise is a good thing if someone breaks out an under-used character to shock a shoto. keeps it not boring.
No offense to the OP, but Virtua Fighter has one of the best game tutorials ever created (at least for VF4) and one of the smartest AI yet the US community for the game is almost nonexistent. I think lack of resources is just one of the many excuses used by new players who don’t feel like putting up the work.
BTW: Having matchup knowledge is also a skill.
SfxT? Please…
Skullgirls also had a pretty intuitive tutorial system for 2D fighters, not sure if it’s as good as the VF ones, but it’s a start, and one from a bunch of indie developers at that. Capcom can definitely take a page out of their book.
There are about 85,000 different things wrong with SFxT. Target combos aren’t one of them.
HAve you played 2013 SFxt? or are you still salty about the “disc locked dlc” fiasco
I think most people agree that SFxT was fundamentally a really good game, marred by the stupid gem system and the fact the market was becoming saturated.
LOL ALL IT TAKES IS 5 YEARS FOR PEOPLE TO GO FROM
SF4 IS A BABY MODE FIGHTER
TO
SF4 IS NOT ACCESSIBLE TO NEW PLAYERS
INB4 1 BUTTON SF5
I doubt it; even the biggest admirers I know think it had some great concepts but screwed the pooch on a fundamental level when it came to transitioning those concepts to gameplay.
That said, the fact that anyone could pick up and play it coupled with a very smooth combo learning curve is a massive point in its favor.
This, Christ.
On top of that, Capcom should get with the times and start actually using the internet for everything. A lot of the trials in their games seem to indicate that Capcom thinks certain combos are going to be BnBs but that doesn’t end up happening in the meta. There should be an open expectation that common problems new players have that need to be addressed will be addressed, probably by patching the tutorial a month or so after release to explain simple strategies or point out some game mechanic people are overlooking.
Ideally the whole thing would take less than ten minutes. First the game tutorial, second the player picks a character he wants to play and the game tells the player a little bit about the character. Simple practical combos, what to do in common situations (eg “If you’re going to throw as Guile, throw your opponent to whichever corner is closer. Guile loves having the whole stage behind him”), and simple answers to weaknesses. The point of a tutorial is to give players a plan, once a player has a plan he is officially on the road from beginner to not beginner.
It really is sad how fighting games have fallen so much in terms of popularity, it’s crazy to think they were something like the 2nd most popular genre of video game back in the early 90’s. I wonder why their mainstream appeal fell so much. It’s nice to see platformers become so popular again though.
Bought it, played it, played the patch, hated both, sold it.
You can now jump around and mash jab with almost every character without any fear of anti-air or grabs. Yeah, Ultra sure isn’t casual friendly.
Just because the consequences of playing like an idiot are less severe than in previous games doesn’t mean a game is “casual friendly.” Do people playing the way you just described win tournaments? Or even against other players who aren’t at the same level?
Most people don’t have an idea of how to get better by playing the game. They have to go to external sites, watch tutorials, and discuss on forums to get better. And if you do that, you’re not a “casual” player anymore. Yes, it’s easier to “do stuff” like throw Shoryukens in SF4 compared to previous games, but most people had to have an expert tell them, in plain English, “hey, if you’re trying to do a combo and the move doesn’t come out, that means you hit the button too fast. If they block, that means you did it too slow.” A “casual-friendly” game means that a player can get better at the game, and understand precisely how and what it means to get better, just from what’s in the game. Most people can’t do that with fighting games, and it has nothing to do with their level of dedication or desire. If someone wants to get better at a game, you don’t tell them, “alright, then go to this website and read a bunch of shit and try to figure it out.”
If a new player loses over and over and over again and has no idea why without going online and reading some 50-page document about something called “footsies,” then that is a failure of the game, not the player. Now I know someone is going to deliberately misinterpret what I’m saying here and act like I’m the idiot because this is the Internet and somehow being completely fucking obtuse is considered a legitimate means of debate, but allowing the new players to get torn to shreds without giving them any in-game means of understanding WHY they’re losing is bad game design and nobody would tolerate it in any other type of game. I know we as a community love to stroke ourselves off for being battle-hardened, grizzled veterans who never gave up even when we lost 100 times in a row, but that’s what makes our community so small. That shit nearly killed us off in the pre-SF4 years. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a world that I want to go back to.
Look at it this way: there are three possible futures of fighting games.
Take your pick. I know which one I’d prefer.
Hence the term “casual”. No casual will ever win a tournament. No casual will consistently win against someone with a higher skill level. These things won’t happen because those people have a casual approach, mentality or interest in said fighting game.
Why build a game that’s inherently competitive and then gear it towards folks who will only lose interest after a few months? I mean, most fighting games don’t start with complicted meta games (footsies) mechanics (kara cancels) and set-ups (vortex/fake cross-ups/oki) in mind, rather, it’s those who are truly drawn to the game that develop and discover elements (on their own time) that later become integral in the few instances they run into someone who plays the game with the same amount of passion and dedication. The outcome of all that research and dedication is that they’ll happen to body anyone who hasn’t shown the same amount of interest. Why punish the game or those passionate about it by continually trying to dumb it down? You get as much as you put into anything, and just because this is a “video game”, that doesn’t mean that it’s exempt from that train of thought.
I mean, why would a causal need to learn about kara throws and other unintended mechanics when they just happen to be an outcome not intentionally included by the programmers? Why would casuals need to be hand-held through footsies when the concept itself is so ambiguous and expansive that it’ll take longer to learn than the attention and time they’ll be willing to invest? They don’t…unless they want to learn more, and in that case, maybe they don’t want to be casuals anymore…but if they don’t want to be considered a casual, then they need to stop being so godamn lazy and put in the time instead of asking the game to exclude/disallow/lock the depth at which a game can be played and explored.
In the end, they demand for casuals to make a game more accessible and casual friendly is like the war on terror. Terror isn’t a thing. It’s not tangible. It’s a concept that comes in many forms. Similarly, the high-level concepts in fighting games aren’t built in, rather, they are a result of a group of people who want to take things to another level and fuck shit up. You can war on their approach, and you can keep trying to level the playing field, but terror will rear it’s head no matter how much you try to handicap it. Nuke or box cutter, execution or footsies, casuals will find a reason to picket against both…or demand they be accessible to everyone.
Allowing casual players to win tournaments isn’t the object of making a game casual-friendly. The purpose is to get a lot of people interested in your game and give them the tools necessary to improve. You want people to make the jump from casual to hardcore, but not many people are going to do that if they keep getting pulverized without knowing why or how to even play smarter.
I will repeat: making your game casual-friendly is just making an inviting entry-point and giving new players the tools to make a jump to being hardcore players. Look at the current state of the FGC. Most of these tournaments are people in their 20s and 30s. We need an infusion of new blood. Making the game more casual-friendly gets new players interested and provides them the tools to improve without needing to seek them out from external sources.
Casuals are not the endgame. They are the entry point.