admittedly came here after seeing MoMo post…figured it must be something interesting
Firstly all fighting games except for like Mortal Kombat you could blindly throw the “for weeaboo people” card at. Get over that shit already.
Secondly…I really hate when people try to associate chaos control with “random”. Marvel has always been a game of chaos control. Those who don’t understand it or care to understand it just throw out the random card on it…but all of the situations that are random you can do something about whether it’s through your team composition or using general tactics to stop a situation before it starts.
Coin Flip/Random like the word cheap is used when people stop caring to understand. I’ve pretty much mained fighting games that others have labeled as “random” for years and yeah you just get fucking tired of it after a while. It’s funny that the OP brought up 3S because that was the original “random” game that I first started playing seriously in tournaments. Dead or Alive was another game of “random” also, but obviously it was better to play 3S over DOA at the time. Even with 3S…although parries change the dynamics of how SF normally plays, it’s still your fundamentals via footsies and whiff punishing that will take you the farthest in that game. It’s just learning some option selects, anti parry strings and mind games inbetween to keep your chances of getting parried down lower.
I like games like 3S and Marvel 3 because you can’t have excuses for those games to compete at the highest level for them. You will never be able to win at the level you clearly should be at believing they are games of coin flips and random. Marvel 3 especially is simply a game of “win before they win”. Losing a character is basically like getting hard knockdown in 3S off a super or in SFIV off a sweep. Now you gotta take the mix up that you’re not really going to be able to see on reaction and it might cost you even more. A lot of Marvel 3 is just about winning from the front and that requires putting a team together that can deal with a lot of situations from the front.
Of course with XF involved the games run by a bit too fast, but that’s why the game is gravitating towards 3/5 for tourneys any ways because the game has no rounds so it doesn’t really play under the rules of most other fighting games. Even talking with other top players about Marvel 2, they pretty much said the same thing about how 2/3 in Marvel 2 wasn’t exactly the most solid deciding factor ever.
I’ve been maining the “random” games (3S, Marvel 3, possibly Skullgirls now even depending on how the meta goes) for years and I love them because I feel it’s more about controlling chaos and having more of a presence of mind than typical A+B=C fighters. Other people wanna call it coin flip/random but I say it’s more about learning to control stuff that you can’t just write down on paper. Bruce Lee feel over thinking. Think before the match, feel during the match. If you’re fighting somebody who feels out everything that you have to think about to do…you’re probably not going to beat them. It takes less mental resources to feel than it does to think. It’s just it takes a while to condition to mind to feel everything rather than think about it and that’s where most of the top top players stay consistent from. Being the best at the feel part of fighting games.
Thinking is important but at the highest level of fighting games you honestly don’t got time to think if the opponent is also at the highest level of play. It’s all about doing what you think about so often that you feel everything you think about…instead of think about it.
As for why everybody pops off about Marvel…it’s a game where if you think it is random or coin flippy, it’s because you probably got your shit stole from you by some guy mashing on Hulk or Wesker one time and went “WTF…I’m a smart player, if this game is smart I would have won etc.” People go through the same shit in every game it’s just in Marvel because of the resources you lose just for losing even one character (despite XF), you can go down through a domino effect. Yeah sure XF can bring you back…but the person that holds on to their XF (the guy that landed the first hit most likely) will have more ways to counter your XF and win the match any way.
In general the game forces a lot of these situations where you see people react to “what is impossible to react to”. In Marvel 2 you always saw Sanford blocking down just frame high/low mix ups from Magneto and that’s really just from having the the feel aspect of blocking those mix ups down to such a degree that he was able to do it consistently (at least seemingly). Marvel 3 forces a lot of these situations also like how Kusoru was regularly blocking rapid slash mix ups and teleport/assist call mix ups that other players normally call bullshit or impossible to react to. Seeing stuff like Marlin Pie reaction air throw stuff like level 3/4 XF Dark Wesker Teleport H mix ups is pretty much around that level also. The game gives you the tools to deal with the “coin flip/random”, it’s just whether you care to take the time to learn what team composition and game mechanic options you have to deal with it.
That’s why people are gonna pop off when they win because your “feel” has to be on a stronger level than in pretty much any other fighting game. If you don’t have feel you’re going to pull out the random card. It’s just anyone who truly plays this game on a level where they are winning consistently…the last thing they would most likely attribute it to is “I was better at coin flipping/random pulling”. I’m sure everyone would rather play matches out of Marvel 3 than literally flip coins to decide winners and that’s where you have to buckle down and figure out why you are losing.
Long story short…it’s just a game where when you make a mistake…you get set into a domino effect of being choked up for more mistakes and of course mentally this takes a lot out of people. It just forces you to have to be on what is the highest level of fighting games which is feel over thinking. How much of what you know can you turn into feel in a match? You have to be on your shit from round 1 fight or potentially lose it all right there. Which means you have to have your reactions, anti random/coin flip strategies/spacing, team composition and everything else all down to a science and to a level where it is pretty much on feel as soon as the announcer says fight.** Of course when you win or lose having to do all of that at that speed…the last thing you’re going to do is be like “yeah so um…i won”. **