Street Fighter X Tekken and the FGC

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
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Street Fighter X Tekken and the FGC

Up front I just want to say that sfxt is in no way a perfect game. The game is riddled with problems that could certainly irk players, which is fine. I won’t argue that, and I’ll point out the biggest flaws in a bit. This post is to help set some things straight that have really been bothering me from the fgc’s perception of the game, and why you should not give up hope for this game because honestly there is a ton of potential in it.

**Current Perception of SFXT: **

Bad. This is the most frustrating part of the entire situation because of the hive-mind mentality behind the movement. If you take an objective look on the how things unfolded you can see what caused everything to go wrong. Going into the game people were very excited about the game. Talking to players like Mike Ross and FLashmetroid before the game came out, I was convinced sfxt was going to be amazing and everyone would play it.

The game came out and people started the training room grind. Everyone was enjoying the shit out of the game week 1. By the time the first tournaments of the game finished up things really changed. People got bodied and suddenly decided the game was garbage.

Maybe people didn’t want to lose, or didn’t want to learn all the mechanics and systems of a new game because of what had already been invested in other fighting games. But the demographic I feel would be at the biggest risk to this is also the strongest force in the fgc. Stream monsters.

Once stream monsters decide on something its set in stone for months. When 8.95 is a concept engraved in stream culture for something so arbitrary such as that, then its easy to see why this can be dangerous. Seeing an entire stream talk shit on something during a game is sure to cause a reaction through the entire whole. Sure enough, the following weeks I was witnessing people who had yet to even buy or play the game acting like sfxt killed their family. The mentality spreads and is bad for any who do care about the progression of the game and its acceptance in the fgc.

TLDR: basically the situation that sfxt is in now.
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**What does the game do right?: **

A lot.

The most important thing to understand going into sfxt is that it is not sf and it is not marvel. It’s a new game that people have to take time to learn and master.

I feel sfxt rewards skill in a very consistent manner. A person who is better than another person will win more consistently due to lack of a true random factor. No X-factor wesker comebacks that leave you feeling like a scumbag! Because of high damage output there is definitely ability to comeback, but its more rewarding and rare enough to be a true hype moment. You have two characters so getting randomed out by a lucky dp will probably not mean game over, and also two characters means you can cover your bad matchups within your team.

Footsies are very rewarding in this game because of the ability to convert so well off of them. The game is slower so the footsies are different than street fighter 4, it is easier to whiff punish more things and good pokes that are hit confirmed will get you far.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss vortex characters. Yes Ryu and Raven are too good but I’d rather take that any day over a Seth with lucky dice or a Cammy with unblockables. The ability to roll on wakeup changes the overall goal and focus of the game so there is more of a focus on pressure and footsies.

I think the person who has the best grip on the game and playstyle right now is Chris G. His team is not generic, does great damage, has cheap mixups, and is entertaining to watch. If you haven’t already, check out some of his gameplay to get an idea of where the game could go.

**Flaws: **

Oh are there flaws.

I feel like the biggest flaw right now (and Im not sure if its on capcoms part or our part) is the lack of ANY character variety whatsoever. There is only so much entertainment value you can get when 50% of teams are featuring the shoto bros. There are other characters out there with technology that hasn’t been discovered yet. Get out there and find it! At the end of the day, it was dumb on Capcoms fault to make characters like Ryu, Ken, Kazuya, Raven, and Jin so strong, but this has been a problem before. Hell, look at 3s.

-assist gems should not exist

-stages are too long

-timeouts- this one I don’t necessarily agree with. Timeouts aren’t the most hype thing all the time but at the time I feel a lot of players (and even top players) are playing the game incorrectly. This game rewards momentum soooo much and I think people will start to play more this style as the game progresses.

-jabs : Beating a dead horse. Jabs are not a problem in this game. Some characters have jabs that might need to be changed slightly (im looking at you raven) but overall there are ways around this. Backdashing, reversals, alpha counters, blocking, tons of tech and ways to deal with it. But again, momentum in this game is much more rewarding than it is in AE. So if you hate being jabbed, try to avoid situations in which you get stuck in jab pressure.

-DLC fiasco: Capcom fucked up. Honestly if they want to kindle the relationship with the fgc and this game they will have all the dlc at an incredibly honest price so that it is very affordable. But then again, my parents always told me… “Son, you will never love a women more than Capcom hates their fans.”

**TLDR: **
Give this game a chance. If you don’t have it, go play it with other people or buy it used if you don’t feel like supporting Capcom. Look past the political issues with DLC and enjoy the game for what it is. Don’t listen to what people say about the game because chances are a lot of people talking shit on the game just don’t want to put in the time to learn it, or don’t want the games they’ve put so much work into to become obsolete (they wont). For all the problems of the game, it does more things right. Infinites will be patched out shortly and gems won’t be being used in upcoming tournaments. The game allows for a lot of creativity between team members that has gone very untapped. The metagame will improve and people will hopefully branch out to the very diverse roster of the game. Once we see more people interested in it, and a change in attitude in the community, this game could become very hype.

EDIT:
Okay, to clear some things up:

While my original post was done pretty quickly, I thought i got the general idea across. Some things might have sounded a little more offensive than they were meant to, my bad.

Im not saying people quit because they were bad, but more the over-saturation of fighting games has made it where if this game isnt fun instantly or doesnt click with you, then its easy to just go back to the game where you are more comfortable. Basically, I feel like a lot of the hate comes from conformity and cognitive dissonance.

For example: People I see who didnt buy the game do not give it a chance because they have to justify their reasoning for not buying it. Or someone is having a hard time doing well in the game when they already have an established career in mvc3 or ae, different games, so its easier to say fuck this game im gonna stick with what I know.Clearly im not saying “YO THIS IS WHY EVERYONE HATES ON THIS SHIT”. Just saying that all these ways add up.

I am not saying “hey you, like this game because I like this game.” Im saying those of you that didnt really give it a chance should reconsider, because I feel the game is fun and there is a lot of undiscovered potential going to waste. In order for it to progress the game needs more support.

Obviously the game isnt for everyone. Im not demanding everyone in the world to go buy it now. I just dont want this bad reputation from the /b/ of the fgc to ruin people’s chances to enjoy a game that has gotten way too much hate.

Hell, I personally do not enjoy marvel 3 one bit. I think that game has way too much silly shit to be considered a competitive game, but I still give it a shot and play it every now and then, and I damn well will never talk shit on it because I clearly dont have the insight a top player does in the game. Im just trying to say a large portion of the people talking shit arent really qualified to do so.

Just go into the game without any biases. I guarantee its better than the reputation its had of lately.

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Didn’t have time to read it all because I have to go somewhere, but I’ll edit in my thoughts later. It seems like you are addressing important issues though, and speak a lot of sense! Good post! PS: You wrote that sfxt isn’t sfxt or marvel. You might want to edit that.

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So you think that losing is the reason a lot of people stopped playing? WAT.

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I literally sat and watched people say they loved the game and expected to body people in a tournament, lose, then drop the game that day.

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Then fighters are the wrong game for them.

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in a perfect world everyone would long to lose and learn from it, but its not perfect :frowning:

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I’m certain that some people did drop SFxT because of this effect, but these players exist in equal proportion for every game, it’s not something specific to SFxT.

Anyways, it’s absurd to assume that everyone hating on SFxT only does so because they’re too lazy to learn it. That would be just as silly as me claiming that anyone who likes SFxT only plays it because they’re bad at other games. Things like assist gems are a very legit reason to avoid the game. Assist gems alone would have stopped me from buying it and obviously assist gems are far from the only thing wrong with it, and you even admitted as much. This is what confuses me about people who try to stand up for SFxT. The fact that even these people have to admit that the game has multiple significant flaws speaks to just how significant the flaws are, yet they turn around and ask people who enjoy AE 2012 or Marvel and find those games to have little to no flaws to just drop those games and pick up SFxT. Why should we when there’s no guarantee that the game will be “fixed” and better games already exist?

And before you say it, yes, I have played the game. A few friends bought it, although they’re now seriously considering trading it in.

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No, it’s an extremely stupid reason to avoid the whole game considering only a very small fraction of players actually use ultimate guard gem. I myself have only run into 3 or 4 players in the last week who were using those assist gems. And only half of them were actually decent.

Just avoid the players using those gems and play vs the 500 other players worldwide that are actually legit. Or play with people on your friendslist that you know are good and don’t use assist gems. It’s not really hard to find legit competition online. And there’s nothing forcing you to rematch the guy that uses auto-block. I know I don’t. If someone uses auto-block on me I never play them again. Simple as that.

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The game has many problems that need to be addressed. Regardless of gems and jabs and hiveminds and DLC and ‘character variety’, there are problems that people take to different extremes.

The balance of course (infinites being a part of this), which will get adjusted over the months. Capcom seems to be very hands on about this, for better or worse.

I personally hate the jump arcs in the game, they seem very inconsistent (as I’m sure others have noticed when a character warps to the other side when attacking, or getting hit by a crossup clearly in front of you). It seems very lazy and concerning considering how aerial footsies are punished and rewarded in this game.

I know many people who are still playing however, but yes many did return to another fighter (the variety is pretty good right now) if they had even switched in the first place. I don’t quite understand your concerns in that way, there are still people playing it. For a first release Capcom game you’d think some would know better but hell they’re deep in the trenches.

I’d be more worried about a drop after EVO.

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The problem is… we want Capcom to know that what they are doing with SFxT on multiple levels is really dumb (assist gems, strictly-better DLC gems, various interface flaws, 360 having fewer features, etc). But at the same time, many of us want to overcome the game’s flaws because what’s underneath is genuinely fun. Because Capcom chooses not to have open discussion with the community, it’s hard to get our message across without entirely forsaking the game. But if we forsake the game, they won’t fix it in that case either.

The other thing to realize is that this is the first iteration of a game with promise, and never are those games worth playing for any period of time longer than a year. Absolutely 0 of the fighting games that have seen long-term tournament success in the last 20 years were the first iteration of a game. So people judging Capcom so quickly on balance and such is unfair, IMO, especially for such an ambitious project… Tekken characters in a SF universe, tag mechanics, and other things new to the SF series. However, this wouldn’t be a problem if we could be sure Capcom had their heads on straight and were able to deliver smart game engine and balance changes in 6 months. Most people look at the DLC and see the direction Capcom wants this game to go… how can we trust them to deliver a ver2012-style rebalance of the game when they would rather take the game in another direction?

I thought assist gems would ruin online… they certainly have the potential to (and still do), but there seems to be some sort of unspoken gentleman’s agreement in place and very few good players are actually using them. They should still be removed from the game, of course, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how few people are using them. Maybe it’s different in Japan and everyone is using them. :lol: And, as far as I can tell, assist gems will never, ever be allowed in any tournament worth attending, or in offline casuals against players worth playing, so that’s good.

BTW, I’m still really choked about no online pair play on 360. I’ve had so many opportunities come up where I wanted to use it… and PS3 online play is terrible for a number of reasons (fewer players, worse matchmaking due to the inability to change your console’s location, etc) so there’s not really any alternative. :frowning:

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I didn’t stop this playing because I got bodied. I stopped playing it because it’s boring.

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There’s character variety in the game, people just aren’t using it.

I think the DLC characters will be hard to use and people will run back to shoto bros half the time. No character variety? More like no balls to learn.

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I’m having fun. That’s all I care about.

I did see what you were talking about with people quitting after they got ruined or the “X doesn’t play like SF4 at all… this is trash!”

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The game mechanics are non-issues, I love everything about the gameplay so far and think the gripes that others have are non-issues.

However, gem-milking is the larger crime since it encroaches on a pillar of fighting game philosophy: equal access to tools. You might as well make the game subscription-based if you need DLC revenue that badly.

Now I don’t think the exclusive $1 gems make a huge difference, but its the damn point, you know? Any advantage gained by making micro-payments is a terrible, terrible philosophy.

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…yeah but Capcom won’t ban assist gems at their own event, will they? Isn’t that admitting that they are broken.

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I view this as one of the biggest flaws of the game. Just about any hit leads into a highly rewarding combo, so the entire neutral game revolves around players trying to land their strongest poke for a full combo. The risk/reward of trying to get close to land a throw or some shorter normal with frame advantage is greatly reduced in comparison. Zangief, for example, has some very strong pokes, notably 5LK and 5MP. Traditionally, these moves would not do much damage but would allow him to gain ground and get into the range of his Spinning Piledriver. In SFxT, he can just chain these moves into a launcher and tag to a character like Xiaoyu or Raven for something like 400 damage and possibly even a good okizeme situation. As it stands, many of the good characters are the characters who are good at abusing this, and the neutral game feels very homogenized as a result. The only reason not to go for this all the time is that your 2nd character might have gray health that you don’t want to lose by tagging them in, but this situation doesn’t come up very often.

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What’s their own event, EVO? I dunno the tourney scene too well.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they did ban them. Assist gems, as their name implies, are meant to assist newer players in learning things like cancels, mixups, etc (do they do this? Well that’s another discussion entirely). No reason for them to be in tournaments that are supposed to showcase the very best the game has to offer.

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…the mystery event that they keep talking about:

…it’s not EVO. They talked about giving away 5 billion dollars in prizes or whatever it was.

You have to remember that this not a photoshop, lol:

Spoiler

http://fast1.onesite.com/capcom-unity.com/user/gregaman/blog_photos/a3e11df68a47b47f5a9f66f1539b4bee.jpg?v=202200

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I agree here, and this along with the 360 Pair Play issues are my bigger issues with the game, along with Assist Gems.

But outside of that, the actual game is very enjoyable for me personally, and a lot of it is for the reasons stated in the OP.

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this is how i feel about sfxt

i still think that its hot garbage, but it can be actually fun when playing 2 vs 2