This seems to contradict many of the things said in this thread, but I think one strength of SF2 is that anyone can actually pick it up and play it from the get-go. No other fighting game is more intuitive. So in this sense, I feel it it is the most friendly game for casual players (when fighting other casual players). Two players without much experience can play a match that actually resembles a real match, while this is not true of SF3 or SF4.
diferent ideologies, BB is meant to be casual friendly, from the very inception of the game BB was designed to be like it is, a game more easy to play than GG;
GG is mean to be for the hardcore, in a recent interview one of the heads of ASW said that they are planning to do a new GG and it would be like the previous ones, nothing like BB
I don’t know what the big deal is. (S)SFIV is awesome. I love it. I also love it when, in American football, if a team is down by 30 points, they can kick a field goal that is worth 31. Oh…wait. (S)SFIV is all sorts of screwed up. One of the core aspects to any game, good or bad, is that the better player should win. This is not the case in (S)SFIV.
I don’t think (S)SFIV knows what type of game it wants to be. Does it want to cater to the average casual player who’ll spam Ultra on wake up, or does it want to be for the hardcore by having one frame links and Guitar Hero-esque execution?
I dunno any move in SSSF4 that lets you land free damage, for no work at all and puts you ahead by one point when you land it every time you land it. Man Ultras are dumb but people need to get the fuck over it, SF4 has more important issues with it like retarded frame data for starters.
I was under the impression VS’s focal combos tended to be tough links, is that wrong?
this is currently, by leaps and bounds, the most important thread on this forum
yeah, most characters benefit from the magic series for a basic combo into knockdown, but the more damaging combos, like some of bb hood’s, are all tough links.
Problem with the SF franchise back then is that they weren’t willing to take risks. They hung on to SF2 series of games for to long before hitting SF3 and Alpha. Alot of players especially new ones hopped onto MK and KI. I know when KI came out I could care little about SF2 ultil Alpha hit. I have an old EGM where they talked about SF3 possibly becoming multiplayer, lol. Of course SF3 didn’t come out for years after the rumor.
Interesting thread. It’s always fun to read some of those old newsgroup posts. I’ll throw out some of my thoughts on a few things:
S-Kill
First off, I’m really glad that he’s working at Capcom. You can tell just by listening to any match commentary he does that he really knows the ins and outs of many fighting games. He’s also an old-school purist at heart. I’m pretty sure he fights as much as he can to get the games tweaked in the right direction. IIRC, he was the one who got them to change the hit-boxes in SF4 to 2D. Imagine it - without him, the hitboxes would be worse in SF4 than they already are. It boggles the mind! No matter how many issues you have with SF4, it would probably be worse if he weren’t working there.
As far as his sound bytes and PR stuff goes, I don’t think it’s fair to criticize him too much. Of course he’s gonna try to put a positive spin on things, but the info he gives us is honest. And often, if you read/listen closely to how he states something, he usually leaves enough clues to give people the answers he knows they’re looking for. For example, when asked if the online would be better he said “The backend has been reworked extensively, primarily to accommodate all the new online modes (player lobbies, tournaments, etc.), but it will function along the same core principles.” . It’s clever. It allows the casual reader to go “Oh cool, better netcode!”, while more astute readers can say “Ah crap, no GGPO-stlye rollback. Well, hope the better net code is better enough.” So ya, obviously he’s gonna talk in an exciting and positive way, but I appreciate that he manages to still give us straight answers while doing so.
Systems, Gimmicks, Execution Barriers and the Evolution of Fighting Games
First, let’s acknowledge that there’s really two areas of discussion here:
A) Are new systems or gameplay features (aka gimmicks) necessary or good?
B) Are the ways that new games cater to casual players hurting the core game for the hardcore fan.
My short answers to these would be A) Yes, to an extent B) In many ways yes, but with some exceptions.
First, let’s talk about systems/features/gimmicks. Are these really necessary? I don’t think they’re necessary to create a fun, solid game. However, I do think you need *something *new to both sell the game and make it exciting to people. A large part of what makes fighting games fun is the discovery process. Imagine for a moment that SF4 was just ST, rendered in 3D and they added the new SF4 characters. Would there be a ton of excitement? Would message boards and youtube be buzzing with people finding new techniques, new combos, etc? No. It’d be boring and people would bitch about the art.
With that said, I think there’s a right and a wrong way to make the game seem new and exciting. For many years fighting games took everything that came before it, kept it, and then added even more stuff on top. That’s the wrong way to go for multiple reasons. For a newbie, it’s just straight up intimidating. For seasoned players, all it means is that half the cast and options will be found to be worthless because other things are WAY better. So, IMO, I think the right way to go is to use something like HF, ST, or A2 without CCs as your baseline and then add a clever system/mechanic or two on top of it that makes it fresh. Or, alternatively, make it just as simple as something like HF/ST/A2 but play completely differently. Killer Insinct, for example, was almost as simple as HF but it played quite differently and was fun.
Now onto catering to newbies. There’s really two sub-categories here: execution and overpowered/cheap tactics. I won’t dwell much on execution, since that’s been worked over in a hundred threads already. I’ll just say this. To me, the perfect level of ease/difficulty of execution should be that new players can pick a character, look at his move list, and be able to perform all of his moves pretty consistently in the first day of play. Training, IMO, should be for “advanced” things like combos, how to counter specific tactics, etc. Not for doing the game’s basic moves.
Ok, so on to overpowered/cheap tactics. Here’s where I think most games have gone down the wrong path ever since ST. Let’s step back for a second and look at this from a high-level view. What’s the real problem? The problem is that while a game may be very well balanced for Daigo vs Valle level play, most people aren’t at that level. And most fighting games are fucking horribly balanced for low-mid level play. And that’s the real problem. While some of our favorite fighting games can claim to be pretty well balanced for tournament play, almost none of them are well balanced well for low~mid level play.
The problem with so-called overpowered tactics/characters isn’t that they’re too good. It’s that they have lopsided properties. They may be lopsided in terms of ease-to-do vs ease-to-counter, they may be lopsided in terms of risk vs reward, or they may be both. Tick throws in SF2 are a great example of a tactic that’s lopsided in both areas. At high-level play, we all know they can be dealt with and are just a mix-up to apply pressure. Fine. But now look at it from the perspective of someone who’s learning the game. The guy performing the tick-throw only needs to know how to mash a fast move and then hold forward and mash the throw button. If he screws up his timing, he’ll get a combo or block string instead of a throw. Easy! No advanced knowledge needed, easy to do, and big damage in most cases, cause SF2 throws do real damage. Now consider his equally newb opponent. First, this guy needs knowledge that certain special moves are invincible and can beat throws. He needs to know that he must do this move on a precise reversal frame. And it wouldn’t hurt if he knew about the piano technique that makes that extremely hard to execute counter easier to pull off. Where will he get this info? It’s not in the manual. So this guy will need to really invest himself in the game. He’ll need to seek out knowledge outside the game, learn about the details of the game system, and then practice up to beat his friend who’s mashing a retardedly simple and strong tactic. While it may be balanced at high-level play, that’s just bad game design IMO and unbalanced for 90% of the players.
So, how can we fix these moves/characters/combos/etc? Let’s take a tour from ST up to SF4 to see what Capcom tried to do to fix tick-throws. They:
- Made throws softenable, and later tech-able
- Made throws do less damage
- Made the throw range smaller
- Made throws require a unique, non-option select, input
- Gave missed throws a whiff animation
- Gave throws a non-instant startup time
- Made reversals easier to do
- Allowed throw-techs to be done with an option select
Unfortunately, the problem with these fixes is that they went about things the same way they did with adding features. They kept their previous fixes and added more and more fixes on top until you end up with SF4, where it’s hard to land a throw, easy to accidentally whiff one, and even if it works the damage sucks. In other words, instead of keeping what was an effective pressure tool at high-level play and making it balanced for low~mid level play, they just made it suck. And not only did they make that one tactic suck, but these compiled “fixes” also caused changes to other areas of the game.
I believe that catering to new players is needed. Not only needed in terms of sales and enlarging the community, but needed in terms of raising our standards in game design. However, I believe the trend we’ve been seeing has been to erode the core of the game away to achieve those goals. I believe the Keep it Simple Stupid adage applies here. Instead of applying umpteen fixes and counter-fixes to a problem, I believe designers should go back to the early games and find more elegant solutions to balance moves and characters out across all skill levels.
TLDR: S-Kills cool. Capcom should stop iteratively adding features and fixing problems.
While I see your reasoning, I disagree with some of what you said.
Firstly, I disagree that games should cater to newer players. Much in the same way tier lists aren’t based on what two scrubs think about Ryu v. Ken, fighting games should not rely on flashy cut scenes or long, pointless (due to damage scaling) combos. To me, it would appear as if those things, among others, cater to players who really don’t want to be good at the game, but just want to play for fun. SFIV tried to be more user friendly with horrid consequences (as mentioned in the frame data post earlier). Furthermore, I’m not so sure that SFIV wouldn’t have sold just as well if it had ST gameplay with the current roster and production values but with the randomness, infinite throwloops, etc. taken out.
Just to be contrarian, but do we honestly need to grow the community? Unless the community grows by adding more hardcore players, the casual user is just going to leave when the new Halo or Modern Warfare comes out. Should we honestly sacrifice a potentially good game and dilute it with senseless B.S. just for a couple of bucks?
Fixed.
SF4 has made the community grow counting hardcore players. It is ridiculous to pretend that casual and hardcore players are completely different people. Some casual players become hardcore.
Cool. I was hoping people would take the time to read my wall of text and that it’d get some discussion going.
Whether you agree that they should or not, the fact is, fighting games have been catering to new players ever since SF1. IMO, I think the real debate isn’t *should *they cater to new players or not, but what is the best way to do that while keeping the core mechanics that us hardcore players love so much. I think most people on this board would agree that moves in SF1 are too hard, making it almost impossible to do your moves, while the inputs in SF4 are too easy, causing you to do the wrong move when you go to do your move. Other things have been tweaked over time, like move inputs overlapping, effectiveness of fireballs, throws, how supers are used, how much guesswork vs reading your opponent, etc. But at it’s core, throughout the evolution of SF, most new games have responded to casual players complaints. To me, the question is, were the solutions they put in place the right ones or should we explore how to go back to basics and re-solve those complaints in a smarter way?
My question to you is, are those two two things mutually exlusive? Does having fancy animations make the game more dumbed down? Or is it just visual polish? Imagine if ST played the same way it did now, but whenever you landed a super it did a big fancy animation. Would that really detract from it’s gameplay? I think that some people’s perception of the flashiness of moves are more intertwined to the goofy come-back ultra mechanic of SF4 than they should be. Looking flashy doesn’t necessarily mean regarding how skillful or well-balanced the move is.
It may have sold approximately as well, if it was as visually good/bad as SF4 is, but I don’t think it would’ve kept as many players around if it were as brutal as ST. I think people in this community often forget just how large a barrier of entry there are in these games. We take for granted that people can do SRKs/SPDs/etc. We take for granted that people know how to block crossups, know how to deal with tick-throws, know how to 2-in-1 moves, know the difference between chains and links, etc. There’s a HUGE amount of things to know just to become a mediocre run of the mill player. While I don’t agree with all of the choices made for SF4, and find much of the game to be sloppy, mashy, and inconsistent, it did succeed in making a game where newbs feel like they’re not completely being run over like a freight train just for jumping online. I think it went too far, and in the wrong directions, but I do think it succeeded in bringing in new players.
I’ll answer that with another question. Do you think it would be good if 23 people got together once a year to play ST on a laptop running it in emulation? If so, then no, we don’t need to grow the community. But, if people would like old games ported to modern consoles, new games to be made, and a thriving scene, then yes, I think we do. To be blunt, there was a reason why no new Capcom games were made for almost a decade. And while Japan continues to enjoy new fighting games, it’s not like everyone in the US moved onto GG, Arcana Heart, etc. No, most people just continued to play the same old games (myself included). What do you think the eventuality of that behavior is? A thriving scene or things fizzling out?
That’s exactly what my post was trying to address. I think we can do both. I don’t think that creating a game that’s welcoming to new players necessarily means having a watered down game at high level play. I think it’s possible to keep the core of old-school hardcore fighting games while *also *making it accessible to new players. I just think that Capcom, in particular, has been going about addressing this issue in the wrong way, for the most part. I don’t think it’s true in all cases. Removal of overlapping motions, removal of some of the goofier inputs in most games, some (not all!) of the changes to throws, etc. was a step in the right direction. But at the same time, they’ve made numerous bad choices (too complex, moves so simple that it’s hard to do the right one, more option-selects, more karas, etc) that they’ve made things more simple, more complex, and more dumbed down all at once. I think better solutions are possible.
I totally agree with most of what you’ve written in the past couple of posts SweetJV - excellent stuff. One thing that stood out to me was this though was this. Do you know how few games that applies to when it comes to fighting games?
I’ve been teaching some total novices to play SF2 recently, and none of them can even do all the moves pretty consistently even after weeks or months of play. For me it took many months I think. Fans of fighting games just seem to have no idea the execution barrier motion commands are to general folk. And these are people that are already gamers.
I also don’t feel you NEED new gimmicks/systems to attract people. Not the majority of people when a game’s going for greater ‘mainstream appeal’ anyway - I don’t think many casual players were excited by Focus Attacks… Personally I usually have to tell new people that they even exist! (and how to do Ultras/Supers… and what the difference is etc.). I think you just need graphics & the right marketing for the vast majority of people. Maybe sex and violence? Anyway, there’s tons of things far more important than any gameplay system sadly!
Don’t you feel this is what good matchmaking could do just as easily as changing the actual game engine though? For example, I suck pretty badly at Starcraft II, but I’m happily placed in Copper league and I can win around 50% throughout the life of the beta so far. Even when I feel overmatched, I can watch replays and often realise I actually had chances to win if I’d done something differently that is within my abilities.
(although it does worry me the skill level even at Copper league is WAY too high for most ‘true’ casuals - but then it is the beta, and there will be many more players and many more modes of play and ways to learn for those even bigger newbies than me).
tl;dr: Hyper Fighting is the best game ever, everything should play like it forever.
Yeah, but (S)SFIV has pretty much everything sans throw loops that ST/HDR has, but it adds more stuff to keep track of as well. New players will have to learn how to charge/DP/FB/SPD to be even mediocre at (S)SFIV as well. However, (S)SFIV goes even further and adds ultra moves which are pretty hard to execute (if you don’t have a “PPP” or “KKK” button mapped). Plus, EX moves and FADCs don’t really make it that much easier. Oh, and the links, you can’t forget about the links. I would think that you’d agree with me that the execution barrier to (S)SFIV is much higher than ST/HDR. I would even argue that HDR is one of the easier games in terms of execution with all of its control changes. I think Capcom, to counterbalance the high execution barrier, made turtling and running away a viable option and called it “new-user friendly”.
This.
I sincerely hope you’re being ironic
This is a great point. I actually think calling SF4 “new user friendly” with regards to execution isa flat-out lie. It is only new user friendly in relation to perhaps 3S, and a few specific things that are easier (mash DP, reversals etc).
Overall, it’s much much harder to execute. Again, try and teach some total novices - there’s no way I’m trying to teach them SF4, you have to have a good basis in SF2 to even consider it. (Bonus - they get to play a better game as well 
)
perhaps not fundamentally, but technically it is. the fighting game engine was built completely new from the ground up. look how many revisions it took capcom to get from the original sf2 to st. i think capcom did a pretty good job with vanilla sf4, considering this. of course they’ve had many many years of fighting game expertise coming into sf4, it was still a brand new project. sfa got revisions, sf3 got revisions, and now sf4’s got one. will it get any more? and if so, will these revisions be enough to make sf4 a worthy fighting game? or are you telling me tweaks won’t fix sf4, rather they need to rework the systems/engine or even just make a new one?
excellent points. along similar lines, but more relating to my original point of sf4 being a different game than sf2: i don’t think sf4 was ever meant to replace sf2. i believe that sf4 was meant to be a different game that can be played alongside sf2, and not a “you can stop playing sf2 now, because sf4 is here” game. this is unlike game revisions, i.e. “you can stop playing sf4 now because ssf4 is here”. people have criticized sf2 for having sooooo many revisions instead of making a new game. sirlin snake shirt, are you telling me that you want capcom to just continue to make revisions to sf2 for the next few decades? personally i don’t think it would be a bad idea except for one problem, and that is they are a business and they need to keep making money to keep making revisions.