Strategy should be the most important thing in a fighting game, with an 80/20 split strategy/execution. Every big time game, and board game comes down to strategy with the exception of darts, golf and bowling. I imagine darts, golf and bowling are 100% execution. However, sports like basketball, chess, football, soccer, hockey, etc, are split with strategy outweighing execution.
I’m glad we have some concrete numbers to use now.
Yer getting trolled just a touch 
the thing is, sf4 is far from intuitive in terms of execution but people still play it just for those reasons
Damn you mind games!! shakes fist
It’s not really that bad at a basic level, as much as I hate on the way they added links, it’s pretty straightforward to play at lower levels (although the trials would be a bit of a turnoff). As far as fighting games go, SF4 is intensely middle-of-the-road.
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Past a few months retention is about gameplay (which arguably includes aesthetic) and being able to find competition.
Having a ton of people buy in the game in the first place (which I totally agree is mostly if not entirely for the reasons you said) helps of course, especially with the latter point, but don’t think an utterly terrible to play game or a game that people find really frustrating to play will keep that many players.
Who gives a shit about retention? You don’t get a quarterly bonus by telling the rest of the shareholders that some stupid nerd is still playing the game a year after it came out.
I could’ve sworn I had put something about technology allowing them to get around stuff like that but I guess I forgot. Not gonna lie this is a nice way to go about it. Programming techniques sometimes aren’t up there to when the games were made. BlazBlue essentially has this with the button buffers.
You’re a fucking idiot if you think that what I posted was about Sirlin. Just because I addressed one his stance on issue doesn’t mean I spent the rest of the time on him.
Chillax, man. Leading with him, made it so all the discussion of your post afterwards was also about him. The name just has that power… and its one of those things you need to not do if you want your points to get across
I have a whole list of shit like that which I can’t bring up in a post because it inevitably derails when you mention it.
You can get a sequel green-lit that way, or additional DLC, or ports to other platforms.
I started with him because he was mentioned several times and I ended in a TL;DR, this thread was already dead when I decided to post in it. You got fair warning.
Please elaborate on this. I don’t see what’s so different about MvC2 compared to SF2/3/4, when it comes to two scrubs playing each other. Besides, you’re acting like what you say is fact, when if fact, it is an opinion.
Sure, everyone knows how to do them but different players have different degrees of consistency. Because Yipes has good execution (better than most), his rate of executing combos/ROM, without dropping them, is high.
Yipes does better than most people who can execute the same combos/resets as him because he can execute AND not drop them more consistently than most people.
Sure I agree with you there but the reason Yipes is able to make these better decisions is BECAUSE his level of execution allows him to do so.
The decisions you make are only as good as your execution.
And it’s not in MvC2? The same shit works in both games.
OK then, prove to me how higher execution games reduce the strategy aspect. Yes, I know you already explained it to me but all I see is a theory without proof.
Oh and this too:
This is not rare at all. It happens all the time.
I do wish you guys could quit saying ‘that’s just an opinion!’ This is an internet forum, everything not sourced and cited from a reliable source is an opinion. (Megaemphasis to get the point across) And Sirlin or MikeZ or Ono or whatever? Still opinion really, until we’re getting into Analytics. It’s all opinion, we state our opinions and then try to support them… or maybe argue that the other guys opinion is incorrect.
MvC3 is a pretty poor example too, as noted above (basic feelgood combos are soooo easy to do, especially if you pick like wolverine or Wesker), but essentially the argument is that you have to be able to do your combos in those other games, and it’ll be rapidly apparent if you’re unable to do them. It’s really a bare minimum.
the SF’s in comparison, while they certainly have some combos and difficult execution bits, you’re still essentially able to play to a degree that BB or MvC2 without extended combos really doesn’t match.
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So for instance, you can play Tekken reasonably well and forever never even knowing what an EWGF is. You’re not gonna get very far with a Mishima at high levels, but it’s not going to screw you, and you might never know (noting that in that example I think the EWGF is stupid and terrible too, but it’s certainly not the issue some of the systemic execution barriers are). On the other hand, playing Blazblue or MvC2, if you can’t do those tough combos, it’s totally obvious to you and everyone you play. To even begin to really play the game you need to practice up to that level.
And the lack of that stuff in ST or SF4 or Tekken doesn’t hurt or impede high level play. That’s the important bit. Execution barriers hurt low level play and don’t really benefit high level play (as shown by the examples noted). People will figure out something else that takes that execution, or they’ll expand their skills in the strategy/decisionmaking realm.
Are you talking in terms of competitive play or casual play? Pros vs. scrubs or scrubs vs. scrubs?
EDIT: Since you mention “basic feelgood combos”, I assume you are talking about 2 scrubs fighting each other. Really, I can’t imagine MvC2 at a basic level being so hard that scrubs have to resort to training mode.
Do people really think that’s how it works? If a game takes less execution then a person’s decision making will naturally get better than it would given the same effort in the same game where the execution was higher? Does Counter-Strike necessarily have more strategical decisions available to players than Quakeworld because the execution requirement is so vastly lower?
My argument is essentially that casual play is greatly improved by not adding barriers and competitive play isn’t actually hurt (if they do it right of course but bad design is bad design regardless of the barriers)
Naturally nothing The point is rather that if people work to improve, they’ll find a way to improve. One of the key differences between the mental and the physical game, is that the physical game effectively caps out much sooner (like I keep saying, limited returns). There are games where people have pretty much mastered the execution for their characters… does that mean that they lose the ability to increase their skill? Of course it doesn’t. They just increase their skill on another part of the graph.
Beyond that, your mental game improves from active play, and it improves naturally via active play. That’s a pretty big deal… so I guess in a way I do think what you asked. Since your mental game is best increased by playing and competing if execution requirements cap earlier, you’re spending more time playing and less time in training mode, so yeah… seems like your mental game will naturally increase faster.
I’m smarter than I thought I was!
Nope. MVC2 has been around a long time, and high level players have their combos and setups down pat. It’s possible to go an entire tournament without dropping anything. Any executional advantage that game offers can only be found when facing a new player, or a player who hasn’t touched the game in years.
Go online. Same game, higher execution requirements because of lag. Try to find examples of people gushing about how much more strategic and better the online experience is. Also try to find examples of people complaining about how much worse the online experience is. Compare your findings.
Actually the strategy changes much more than the execution does.
My point exactly. The same game, with lag introduced (making execution more difficult), becomes less strategic. Proving that:
There’s also this little bit from Marlinpie’s EVO interview:
In the early days, when Marlinpie’s execution allowed him to be the only one with easy TOD kills, he could just hold forward like a retard. Now that everyone can kill in one combo, he had to up his game and learn defensive strategies. It nicely illustrates not only that strategy suffers when execution barriers abound, but also that once those execution barriers break down you won’t be able to get the advantage again by improving your execution even more. There comes a point when everyone can kill in one combo, and at that time you better up your strategy or be SOL.
I think you are treading a thin line here. NO ONE wants super duper hard execution that only gods can achieve to be a staple of fighting games just to get to or at the beginner levels… What people do want is there to be an executional aspect that has to be practiced to be achieved… But not to go overboard with it. Different fighting games approach the issue differently… But any extreme such as horribly hard or terribly easy is in general a bad idea.
1 frame links in sf4 push it… But plinking and the fact that not all 1 framers are created equal, balances things. Balance is what i want in the end. And i also do not want anyone such as my sister who has never played fighters to be able to come in and give me a run for my money after only a month or two of playing… I want to compete against BOTH my opponents strategy AND there execution. Not just one or the other.
-dime