This is the main issue with ALL fighting games made today with maybe one or two exceptions. You can put all the tutorial modes you want into any fighting game and it still won’t bring in new players or keep them interested when they have to “study” to play what they consider a “mashing fighting game.” (as you said, on a basic level)
Skullgirls has one of the best tutorial modes out there and yet I have 5 friends who all tried the game, and still with the tutorials didn’t fully grasp what they were trying to be taught until I explained it to them. A good example would be the tutorial where you need to “hit confirm” with Filia’s L.mk. My bud was telling me on his mic repeatedly “I’m doing the combo it wants me to but the counter keeps resetting” and probably would have stopped playing right then and there if I wasn’t around to explain what it was actually trying to do.
Just because we are familiar with gameplay mechanics and terms makes it seem like a very good tutorial system to us, but to beginners it’s still all greek to them no matter what game it is.
It is easier to learn games in person imo. For example I learned during my break that captain America can be thrown out of his super in MvC3… I don’t use tutorials and plus its a bit boring to use tutorials.
SSFIV was released a year later with 10 more characters (and a lot more content) as a full game for 40 dollars
AE was released in 2011 with 4 more characters and more content as a DLC for 15 dollars
AE2012 was released as a FREE update in 2012
Where are all those “paid patches” and “upgrades”??
Would you prefer the MK9 route, with characters costing 5 dollars each? Or the BlazBlue route, with 4 different versions, all at full price plus DLC characters? Or the FIFA/PES/Madden/CoD model of yearly iterations, that way in 2014 we could had the fifth version of the game, each one at full price?
It seems to me that you started with a valid complaint, the lack of better in-game tutorials, altough is something I don’t necessarily agree, I can see the reason behind it, but now you’re just talking crap.
I think it was done for the sole purpose to force/familiarize beginners to learn the concept of linking, though it was never explained. I actually find linking the last chainable move often to be more difficult than just linking to say a medium or heavy button. Overall i would have like to see more target combos and no 1 frame links in basic hitconfirm combos. Never played Alpha3, but did’t that game have alot of chains and target combos as well as links though alot less emphasized?
Like scrubs couldn’t mash through a 284 frames link. Who cares 1fr or a hundred frames.
if you can’t execute what you’re so smart to think about. Odds are you’re not so smart to begin with.
It’s an execution game, you win by outplaying the opponent with brain or fingers.
You know the guy have enough resources to kill you, it’s blinking on the bottom of the screen “ULTRA/SUPER READY”. Maybe you could take it into account and adjust.
This is fucking old. Yet people still complain about shit left and right, pushing true concerns out of sight.
I agree in that since the updates to SF4 are all essentially paid expansions that Capcom should feel obligated to update the engine. There’s no reason the netcode couldn’t have been quietly updated in each iteration. Lots of companies update their games so much that the final version has little resemblance to the original, like Company of Heroes. They could also have fixed the input lag in the PS3 version so that it is at least as good as the 360 version.
On the subject of tutorials, though, yes the game should have a tutorial that tries to ingrain certain concepts in your head (like what a meaty is and what the significance is). But more importantly, there does very quickly come a point in every video game where it’s just plain up to the gamer to start using his brain, and make the connections that his human brain is so famous for being good at. You have to make this reasonable expectation on the part of the gamer, or there won’t be any learning process of any kind no matter how complete of a tutorial you make. Then there’s the practical issues. Most newbies mash out their first ultra in training mode while just going wild with the directions. You can’t “tutorial” this away, they have to just play the game against a variety of people for this kind of thing to improve, and they’re going to feel as though it’s an annoying obstacle until they get it down. Either they’re of an attitude where it’s okay to be inhibited by something that can be solved or they’re going to go play LoL or CoD. Unless you want CoD’s audience then that’s just the way things are. Target gamers that aren’t so easily put off.
Sure they could, but even the worst executioners wouldn’t mess up a 284 frame link. Therefore it wouldn’t matter. In EVO top 8 u saw Haitani mash Ultra through a messed 1 frame link by opponent. If pros mess up 1 frame links, and lose half their life through opponent mashing an ultra (which is built up through receiving damage) cause of it…well that doesn’t seem like good design to me.
My personal guess is that they added them because they had no fucking idea how to add actual depth, since they just threw shit at the wall in hope something sticks, so they catered to the casual scrubs who mistake hard execution as depth.
The way capcom handles DLC on SSF4 should not even be a discussion. Its like literally just bitching about anything. Arcsys and SNK have done much worse. The fact that i can still upgrade my disc from 2010 in an update in 2014 speaks for itself. Highest possible price being 40$/15$ since 2010.
1f links are dumb and need to be removed.
But seriously, what it a tutorial going to do for the scene really? Even after teaching basics it is still gonna take months of work to be decent, no one has the patience for that anymore. FGs are niche currently, though it could change. Maybe we should just except that.
-Vanilla: completely new game. worth the money. (lots of dedication)
-Super: overhauled vanilla with new content. worth the money. (lots of dedication)
-AE: 4 new characters (copied animation and models for oni and e ryu) and balancing. milking. (little dedication)
-2012: free balance patch. key word is free. (little dedication)
-Ultra: we’ll wait on this one. we don’t know how much it’s been changed.
so, they’ve milked us for 1 (one) version of the game so far and gave us one version for free.
OP makes some interesting points and some people replying might want to improve their reading comprehension skills and check their backpacks for an excess of worn out, counterfeit Sirlin/Kilian-isms.
Meanwhile:
There are other fighters out there, namely the arcsys ones (P4U, Blazblue) which work hard to create a full package and welcome customers/players drawn from a wide pool to the game.
These games have superb tutorials and do an excellent job of explaining the implicit complexitities of the game. In SFIV it’s not always obvious “why” somethings work the way they do. It took me more than a year of playing before I realised the full potential of FADC as a cancel rather than heat eater/pseudo parry mechanic.
The story (offline) modes (of Arcsys games) have an intenal, stylisitic narrative coherence light years ahead of Capcom. Their stat systems are far more comprehensive and overall presentation is much better.
Which is not to say I think SFIV sucks as a game (I believe the OP says the same). It’s just as an overall package, given what some of the competition are achieving on much smaller budgets, is bare bones and definitely belongs in an earlier period of gaming.
Personally, I’d love to see training mode properly updated to feature all characters (Yun, Yang, Oni, E.Ryu where are you?), be consistent with the latest version of the actual game, have a few more explanations about key features (can it really be that hard to add a few lines of text and an “example” in video/replay data form?).
This last one would be great. Capcom could utilise online replays and add a collection (as free DLC or on disk) of some of the best articulations of certain moves/concepts to the training room menu.
Little stuff like this is what turns the causal customer into a dedicated, repeat customer. Especially here in Japan. When people feel like they are getting value for money they tend to be happier about spending it in the same channels in the future.
The truth is anything that isn’t 1F is piss easy, and you can play several characters at a decent level without using the. Seth, Sagat, Ken, Yun and Bison comes to mind. For most of the cast 1F links are used to maximize damage, it’s not on their main bnbs.
I understand the complaints about the Ultra system, it doesn’t make sense that you can make 5 good consecutive reads and a mashed Ultra can even things out. But crying about links in general is pitiful, it’s def not the biggest problem with SSF4.
even ibuki, evil ryu, cody sakura dont need 1 framers for their main combos despite people claiming they require 1 framers everywhere and are impossible to play without being able to hit 1 framers. half the time your adding 2-3 i framers for like 30-60 more damage. stick to the easier combos if its that hard.
vega is one of the few chars that i can understand the complaints with his 1 frame jab links
My goodness.
It doesn’t seem at all to be an exaggerated stretch to say that the entire criticism laid out here can be laconically and accurately summed up by saying that*** the training mode is in some ways too vague*** and the game would do better to include a “demo replay” like Kof, or something along those lines to help illustrate nuance mechanics.
I have nothing to say about the criticism itself only a request to the OP…
the conclusion drawn is sloppily stated; there is too wide of a generalization made(I think mistakenly) that would easily entice and upset more people than intended. -_-
**Not to mention would lead some users to misinterpret you, proceed on non sequitur arguments, derailing the thread into several meaningless directions none of which have much to do with what you personally had in mind.
>.<
**
To be precise, It’s claimed that because things like the game mechanic of “Linking normals” or the existences of “Z” motions with their less than obvious conversion to literal stick manipulations, are not explicitly spoon fed to beginners, that it says something about “THE GAME DESIGN”.
It doesn’t
Game Design refers to the actual game and how it flows, NOT the in-game tutorial for teaching people -_-
No hostility though
The praise for the game within your disclaimer saves you from being ridiculed at least from me.
Please choose your words more carefully when drawing conclusions that involve excessive generalizations about something as important as “Game Design”, especially when they’re negative.
I would also like to add that some of you claim that links, FADC and such are the biggest obstacles for beginners, which isn’t true. Most people I know who play casually have problems with projectile spamming, turtling, run away strategies, uppercut mashing etc…
How can you do combos if you can’t even touch your opponent? Good luck opening up a Guile player as a beginner, that’s more frustrating than simply practicing links in training mode.
Or learning to use normals instead of full screen special moves, or internalizing that you can’t block after they block a DP, or blocking air attacks regardless of direction, or blocking low during normal pressure, or remembering which direction it is for tatsu, or just walking around instead of jumping everywhere…
True beginners, especially those who come into SF4 as their very first fighting games, will run into a lot of those obstacles. However getting better at that through play experience and experimenting is a lot more fun than sitting in training room to tediously work out the exact timing of 1 frame link combos.
Links started out as things that players discovered on their own. A good number of combos are stuff that the devs never really thought about. The problem with SFIV is that they arbitrarily put them in to the game.
The problem is that no one knows how to properly play these games when theyre released. Because theres going to be people who come along and find new things to do, new combos to do and they start to beat people who were good at the beginning. Capcom cant come up with an explanation for everything that can possibly happen in a fight. Just learn your characters moves and try to counter other characters. It does sound like you want there to be too much information on the game than can be said because the makers of the games dont know everything that other people are going to find. Hence patches and upgrades are made. People who dont play fighting games just think that AE and Vanilla are the same, but theyre worlds apart.
Vanilla SF 4 is shit total fucking garbage, at east AE had more good characters and stuff in it.