[quote=Chingachgook;d-213346]
Do we want to understand why fighting games lost their top-tier popularity over the years? As a self-avowed fighting game advocate, addict and promoter I dedicated years of my life promoting fighting games. From Street Fighter in the 80’s arcade, running tournaments in the arcades in the early 90’s I continued to build a scene for fighting games for over 20+ years. Personally building from the ground-up or involved in over 100+ tournaments produced over the course of those multiple decades.
** Judging by the complaints below, I’m going to say that I highly doubt most of these statements. If you had been playing fighting games for this long, you wouldn’t be having issues with something as simple as preforming commands. Even young gamers like my nephew are playing advanced fighters like guilty gear with ease on both controller and arcade stick. He can “Ride the lightning” out of roman cancels easily. I don’t see why you take issue with the way fighting games are made now when they were UNDENIABLY more difficult in terms of ease of access years ago. You didn’t have frame buffering like you do now, nor did those old fighters have access to advanced tutorials like fighting games do now. This entire thread can be summed up easily and cleanly. You have stopped playing fighting games and become a victim of this era’s most painful change in gaming: Games are being made easier and easier and less skill based. They’re giving out free trophies for starting up the game. No one leaves without rewards. It makes people, like you, feel like if a game isn’t rewarding you for not even trying, then it’s somehow a lesser game. **
Today I played MvC3 on PS4 and would rather played a FPS…. How low have I sunk? Did I leave fighting games or did fighting games leave me? I hope MvC:I can change things… ** You left fighting games, Period. **
I know developers, players, and even I have a hard time understanding how fighting games left me and why many people prefer other games to fighters. And I worry for my first-true-love of gaming, fighting games, that they continue down a path unsure how to solve the two issues I keep addressing, player-accessibility and player-stickiness.
** The issue isn’t player Stickiness. It’s that there’s many more high quality games these days and less reason to stick to one game and one game only. Most pro gamers play many different games to keep their skills sharp, and casual players arn’t going to binge on a game simply because that’s not the nature of a casual player.**
As I played MvC3 I wondered to myself, why? Why would I rather play a FPS right now? Because I want to help fix it for our beloved genre fighting games. Can we talk respectfully to one another to explore this taboo issue? Because if we can figure it out for myself perhaps we can help fix it for fighting games. I’m no different than your average joe, and the reason I wanted to play another game was really simple.
** Not really “Respectful” when you refuse to let other people speak their part without telling them that they’re trolling or wrong. When Novaroad said “Play another game” he wasn’t trolling or being mean. He’s saying to play a more casual fighting game. There are many. Not every game is tailor made for you, and there’s many games that are going to rub you the wrong way. **
This was the reason why I turned off MvC3 and went to a FPS:
I was frustrated that I could not access the moves I wanted. ** Are you able to aim a gun in an FPS game and shoot at the same time? With this kind of complaint I’d say no. **
Ya see on a FPS I want to shoot, it happens. I want to perform a super-move it happens. I want to run it happens.
**And when a fighting game player wants to preform a fireball, it happens. When a fighting game player wants to jump, they jump. There is zero difference here. Different motions and button combinations, but it’s all the same in method. You’re preforming QFC’s on the right stick and then pressing RT instead of O or X, but it’s literally the same thing. **
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played on a joystick for decades for fighters. I also played on a PAD for the past couple of years to get used to it.
MODERN-DAY players who purchase a console 99.999% of them are not sold with an arcade stick. Sorry to break the news to us, 99.999% of the population plays on a PAD. And fighting games that sell 1 million copies 80% of those copies over 800K are the everyday players like me. We are never going to compete at high level tournaments. However we want to have fun at the game. ** There’s nothing wrong with using a pad. People do WELL on pads. **
No fun when you can’t access the move you want.
** Again, this is less a matter of a game not letting you do the move. It’s more a matter of you being unwilling to play the game it was designed to be played. You want a “I press this button to get the win” level of easy, and that’s not viable for fighting games. You keep trying to match FPS games to fighting games, and that’s idiocy. That’s like comparing a wall to an airplane and saying “These should be the same” **
Fighting games don’t exist in a vacuum, they have to compete against other game offerings, such as FPS, strategy games etc. And the offering is that other games allow the 80% of everyday-players the ability to access the move they want to perform.
** Except that’s what makes fighting games stand out among other games. If you had one on one fighting games that had one button supers (and some games DO support that like you addressed later on) then they tend to be lesser played because even casuals feel dirty using such methods. It reduces the gameplay to mush and makes it pointless. You are no longer playing a fighting game. You’re playing a button-mashing Quick-Time-Event. **
Most responses I get when I talk to hardcore players is, well fighting games will never be able to lower the bar of player-accessibility. Sorry you have to learn the complex inputs to play that is the BASICS of fighting game play. Part of the game is the skill to perform the move (Yes for the hardcore but not for us everyday-video-game-players the 80% that buy the game) Or hardcore players try to make the argument something its not, that is im not trying to change the game for the hardcore, I’m trying to include the modern players of todays world. Trying to expand the appeal of our game to new people, but the hardcore just won’t have it.
Ok. You win hardcore. Fighting games will continue their high player-accessibility bar, and I’ll just move on to games that welcome me and the modern players of today world. We as a community of FGC are going to continue to loose players to games that are more accessible.
Sad.
** See, again, this goes against you saying you’re some 20 year vet. It’s not COMPLEX inputs. You literally do the EXACT SAME MOVEMENTS playing other games. If you want to walk backwards, you’re holding 2. If you want to strafe left while holding backwards, you’re pressing 236. Press RT to shoot. Bam, you just preformed a Hadouken without even knowing it. It’s NOT COMPLEX UNLESS YOU LIE TO YOURSELF TO SAY “OH THIS IS HARD” TO PITY YOURSELF. Anyone saying that fighting games are complex are simply lying to themselves as an excuse to not put in a small bit of mental effort **
It’s especially sad because I’m SURE developers want to sell more copies, in a perfect world developers would have a perfect offering. That perfect offering would be a product for the hardcore tournament players and the everyday-players such as me.
And this perfect offering can be achieved! There is no single silver bullet. However a robust feature-offering that enables everyday players access to the moves they want to perform easily can be included at no expense to the hardcore tournament players.
** But at HIGH expense to companies. If a single game were to try to offer every feature every fighting game has ever offered under the sun, considering that’s what it would take to make your entitled nature happy, it would probably DOUBLE the cost it takes to make a fighting game. Most companies can’t deal with that much cost, even capcom. **
Can we not be obtuse about the ability to have two competent offering in the same game? Many games today have a PvP offering and a campaign offering, such as The Last of Us, Call of Duty, Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid… But fighting games now just cater to the PvP aspect and no PvE offering.
** …Okay this is a blatant lie. Most fighting games that come out these days have robust single player modes, such as Street Fighter V, Guilty Gear Revelator, Nitroplus blasters, Blazblue, Skullgirls, and so on. The only fighting game that hasn’t really featured a story of any type in recent memory is MVC3, but neither did MVC1 or 2 Or SFvXmen, ect. The capcom crossup fighters are made to be fighting games, not story driven experiences. That’s like asking for a cohesive story from smash brothers or mario kart. It can be done, but it’ll be so contrived and stupid that it would be pitiful and in the way. **
It’s not all negative, fighting game companies realize that a healthy PvP environment has to be continually nourished, new additions, updates, new characters. A step in the right direction to be sure! However ignoring the PvE aspect, no campaigns (NAMCO used provide campaigns), and these PvE aspect also need to continually nourished… However this is not even been conceptualized for fighters in the modern world. It’s like talking about a aliens, not even a real concept to people and if you talk about it your crazy!
Sad. ** Again, blatant lie. Yes Namco had arcade modes and a few story cutscenes, but you’re acting like every other game made since hasn’t had a story mode when they have, and I’d say that most games these days rival some RPG’s in terms of story content, just delivered in a different light and at a brisker pace to prevent fatigue. **
Am I the only one that feels that some important aspects of fighting games are stuck in the past? That some of these aspects are not even addressed? Such as:
Simple-mode was a step in the right direction for MvC3, but it did not go far enough. Stylish mode for Guilty Gear was the step in the right direction but it did not go far enough. (Yes macros for special moves should be allowed for everyday-video-game players/casuals) NAMCO used to offer side scrolling “campaigns” for their fighting games… no longer. Competing for high-scores used to have a level of fun and respect. Survival mode was a fun challenge and could be improved. (But computer A.I. is never addressed to be built upon and improved) And my biggest gripe of all fighters never developed a team aspect that could laser-focus a solution for “player-stickiness” that again is alien to the community and the genre. Fighters used to be progressive in new features, but now give the hardcore exactly what they want, scared to try something so new and radical that it offends the hardcore and thus hurts their product.
** So you want people to stop playing fighting games and play more Quick-time-events. You were literally given what you have been ranting about for the past half-a-post and it “wasn’t good enough” even when these games are giving you ONE BUTTON COMBOS and ONE BUTTON SUPERS. You couldn’t make it easier for you unless they just programmed an “I win” button, and that would be stupidity. How entitled are you? Jeez. **
I write this as a hopeful fan, enthusiast, a person who loves fighting games and I know if positioned better fighters can have a revival!
I have answers to these problems, so do other people in development, and other people in the community. I would hope this just gets the discussion going.
This is not an attack on the hardcore, I consider myself hardcore for over 20+ years… but the things that drew me to fighters, specifically progressive additions to game-play and progressive features, are no longer the normal, they are the dinosaurs. Today it’s only about the PvP aspect, an aspect I will continue to enjoy and play. But I do so with my eyes wide open to how other products on the market are providing solutions and features that broaden the appeal and deepen the game beyond just the deep game-play mechanics.
** You keep saying that you’re a hardcore player, but yet you complain that easy mode isn’t easy enough. You arn’t hardcore, you’re the farthest from hardcore you can be. You’re self entitled and everything that you’ve said so far backs that up. You keep harping that things are “sad” because they arn’t tailor made for you. If FPS games are more fun to you, then more power to you. But fighting games are BUILT around challenge and skill. They were NEVER intended to be multi-hour epic RPG’s in terms of story and single player features, and some fighting game companies are even going to great lengths to flesh out their single player options these days, and that’s STILL not good enough for you. In a honest phrase: You’re a spoiled brat. You don’t care about fighting games, you don’t care about playing them. You want games to require 0% input for 100% reward. If one-button combos and specials isn’t easy enough for you, then you need to stop and rethink what games are, and maybe switch over to being a movie fan instead. **
Please don’t hate, I don’t hate, or go ahead and hate, that’s fine too. Because sometimes things don’t change unless there is a fight. Hopefully this at least will have discussion and help change things somewhere out in the ethos… that ethos being MvC: Infinite. As they are obviously trying to solve the player-accessibility issue, I say to that bravo.
** “Hate” must be disagreeing with you, considering the state of the comments. When you come to a fighting game community and say “Setting the game on the easiest possible setting is too hard, change everything for me”, you arn’t going to be met with “Sure, this is a great idea!”. Nor should you expect that. Fighting games are where they are now -BECAUSE- they respect the wishes of the players. It’s not just the hardcore crowd that enjoy fighting games. Casuals are being given the tools to enjoy fighting games.
Street fighter V has large frame buffering windows so that you can be less accurate and still preform special moves, as well as having tutorials on preforming combos, A character based AND Full fledged story modes, survival with items and rewards, and challenges, daily missions, and more.
GG Xrd Revelator has character based story modes, a full fledged story ontop of that afterwards, M.O.M RPG mode, FISHING for gods sakes, Ungodly amounts of character customization for your avatar and cards if you’re into that, as well as METAL mode where you can preform supers with a single button press, ontop of the auto-combos, and JACK-O was designed from the ground up to be there for people to ease their way into fighting games, with her single button special drive attacks and minions. Oh. AND CHARACTER SPECIFIC TUTORIALS WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?!
Blazblue has Abyss mode, Story modes galore, ect.
Skull girls has a story mode, tutorials, ect.
Nitrotitan has a 3 button system, much like MVC3 and each character plays differently to give a lot of players a lot of different choices when picking a main, rather than having all the characters feel like standardized frame-boxes.