That last sentence is something that I see a lot around here, and it really annoys me. That the fact that many players don’t put up with needlessly difficult execution requirements because there are better alternatives out there is instantly perceived as the player being being lazy. That’s the equivalent of an old man saying that the latest generation is way too lazy because they can just send an email instead of walking 10 miles, in the snow, uphill both ways, to the post office and then waiting days for a reply. Why would they bother with the post office when sending an email is just as efficient without being needlessly difficult? Why should a player deal with a fighting game with a high execution barrier when there are other games in the genre that are just as capable without one.
Incredibly difficult execution is completely needless and only creates artificial difficulty and depth. There’s no real need for one-frame-link combos; if you made them gatling combos instead, the game itself doesn’t change at all, and you just increase the number of people who can perform the combo. Why should you make a special move a :f::f::hcf: motion when you could just make it :hcb::f: instead?
Of course, I’m just talking about the very basic rules. There is no reason that for a player to do the most basic of SF combos he must practice for days to consistently get 1/60 second timings down flawlessly. There’s no reason that a player shouldn’t be able to access the entirety of his characters’ moves simply because the commands are needlessly complicated. The basic moves should be easy to get into. Things should only become more complicated as they start to get into advanced techniques and combos. Like a poster above me said, they should be easy to learn and hard to master.
Yes, there’s no definitive threshold for when a game’s controls become “too complicated,” as everyone picks up things at different speeds. But at the same time, there’s no reason to deliberately make the game’s basics incredibly difficult simply because you think it makes your game deeper or more “hardcore.”
We get a lot of thrill from seeing difficult moves being used and even executing one ourselves. But the real thrills come from application; when you read your opponent so well that you can mount an unbelievable comeback or take the match into your control right from the start. Application determines skill in a match, not execution.
I think I was 6 when Hyper Fighting came out and I dunno how long it took me to understand specials but I remember I could do QCF but I couldn’t charge, do DPs or HCBs…I didn’t have anyone to tell me how to do it and not being able to dp or charge was due to me not understanding what the instructions were telling me to do in the manual, I didn’t get annoyed, I just didn’t bother because it looked weird. I understood HCBs but couldn’t do it, I remember because I was always Dhalsim or Sagat.
Now I have a friends kid who visits now and then and whenever he asks how I do a fireball, I show him, he wiggles the stick angrily and then tells me he doesn’t want to do it anyway. I dunno if it’s a lack of focus or lack of motor ability but I haven’t been able to teach anyone who didn’t play a 16-bit or earlier console how to do anything. None of them tried for long. though, so I am a bit surprised that if there are 4 of them who all want to learn that none of them can.
The problem is that these input shortcuts overlap with other motions and you find yourself getting moves you didn’t want. This is partly why I dislike SF4. I can’t play certain characters because of that, just trying to combo into Rekka with Abel has become a huge pain in the ass because of input shortcuts.
I am in favor of phasing out the 360 motion though. In order to do it at will, you need to use the shortcut motion HCB+Up. So what’s the point of even doing a 360? I can understand the 720 Supers doing like 50% damage and that’s why they’re hard, but why not make it a HCFx2 (that way if you try to do it and fuck up, you get punished)? I see no reason for dev’s to keep the 360 motion.
EX attacks add depth to a game though… second part is just straw man, so meh… And since when did guitar hero = depth? There’s a hell of a lot more to a FG’s depth than how hard it is to do a combo.
Well I don’t know, I think the kids that come around to your apartment might just be a bit dumb. My brother brings his kids around all the time and I taught them how to do fireballs and ultras within an hour. The only problem is now it’s stupidly boring to watch, they just sit on each side of the screen and throw fireballs until the other one messes up :L
I think most kids these days will just bum games like CoD because they’re so easy to pick up. When I was a kid I used to play Street Fighter and Killer Instinct (Glacius FTMFW) on the SNES but could do fireballs and stuff after a couple of weeks of practicing. Kids these days are probably just lazy or give up easily. I mean how hard is a fireball motion, I have friends who don’t even game that come to mine often and can do a fireball once I show them how it’s done.
my 19 y.o. friend, who’s never played a fighter, can’t do a fireball even when I showed him how…it ain’t just kids… some people just don’t understand how to do a simple rotational motion
you’re an idiot if you think execution is arbitrary. Execution is a REWARD for practicing. The people that usually say that never play sports. It is no different than bruce lee training day in and day out so he could master the intercepting fist style. Since he trained so hard, he was given a new technique and that was his reward for training. Should I be saying its not fair bruce lee was that good cause he practiced and I should be that good cause I don’t want to practice?
Instead of working for it people want to bitch about why other people can do it and they can’t.
and here is the kicker, anyone who has good execution @ one point had bad execution. The way I see it, the game is pretty fucking fair. I couldn’t trijump 5 years ago and I got some pretty good execution these days, its amazing what practicing can do.
Your analogy backfires on itself because that “intercepting first style” is an advanced technique. Of course he should be rewarded for putting a lot of effort into mastering an advanced technique. Using your analogy, what I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be made needlessly difficult for a person to throw a simple punch.
As a further example, take Ragna’s most basic BnB: B->C->214A->214D. It’s a very simple 4-hit combo; the timing is lenient, and the commands for it are simple backwards fireball motions. So what if we kept it as the exact same damage, and it was used in the exact same situations, but we made the execution for it more difficult. Let’s change 214A to a pretzel motion (1632143), and change 214D to 64641236D. Let’s make every hit in the combo a one-frame-link. Let’s make it so that you have to FRC in a 2-frame time window for 214D to connect (yes, FRC’s aren’t in this game, but let’s assume they are for this hypothetical situation). Oh, and because this is only the most basic of BnBs, every other combo in the game is exponentially more difficult than this. If you want even think about playing this game, you gotta be hardcore!
Does this make your game any deeper? Keeping everything the same but just making things more difficult to do?
No. It doesn’t.
Restricting people from doing the basics by making the basics arbitrarily difficult for no reason doesn’t make your game any deeper. Imagine how sports would be if simple actions like throwing or kicking a ball were so complex that only the most expert of experts could even begin to start playing the game. You have to practice a lot to get good and learn advanced things, but anyone can pick up the basics. Simple to learn, hard to master. That’s the key.
Aaaaanyway, back to the OP. I have a suggestion. It seems from your story that the information is all flowing one way. Perhaps try watching their hands when they make the input motions, and give them input based off of what you see. There’s nothing magical about a qcf. But perhaps they’re making the inputs too slow? Maybe a button is being pressed early, or late. Perhaps they’re adding an additional input when they make the motion. You should know the exact timing and motion necessary for a hadoken, so you should be able to tell when one is being performed correctly. Hopefully this helps, and they’ll be able to pick the motions up.
I’d classify learning your characters’ moveset as basic, and combos would be intermediate (except for really easy stuff like that Ragna BnB or your average flowchart Ken jumpkick->sweepkick combo; that goes in basic).
But determining what’s “basic,” “intermediate,” or “advanced” is very subjective, yes.
For pretty much all of us here, this stuff is pretty second nature. But things like one-frame-links for basic combos or unintuitive inputs like pretzel; the motion for Gamma Ray; Guile’s Ultra I; etc., are some examples of needless execution barriers that shut out newer players.
Isn’t it mostly footsies anyway?
That’s why if you’re going to do that, you change your anti-air system accordingly so that you don’t have an instant DP. For instance, make it have more startup time; the time it would have had if you have to do an SRK motion before pressing the button. You don’t just make easy specials or any other radical changes to input without making any adjustments. That’s why SSFIV3DS’s and BBCT’s easy specials are kind of stupid.
It’s easy to throw fireballs in ST. Fireball zoning and traps are powerful in ST.
OMGSTISSODUMBEDDOWN!!!
Also see above statement. And I’m not sure why “easier” always equates to “dumbed down” on SRK.
Because there’s a difference between removing needless difficulty and just plain old breaking the game. A non-fighting game example: NES Castlevania.
Removing needless difficulty: Giving you actual control over your jumps like every other platformer.
Breaking the game: Giving you unlimited flight and invincibility.
Depends on the game, in my opinion. BB and MvC3 are perfectly playable and teachable on a pad. Street Fighter, not so much. You can make it work, but it’s a bit more difficult.
D, DF, F + P, and it just made sense to me and I was able to do it just like that. What’s so difficult to understand about a short series or direction inputs, and then a push of a button?
Sure, you can do simple stuff like fireballs (which, yeah, is all those kids really want to do) on a pad, but if you actually really want to learn SF, a pad isn’t really conducive to that.
my dad’s friend comes over to our house occasionally with his kids and all they seem to do in SSFIV is
frantically spin the stick and violently slap buttons.
one kid in particular stops the match every three seconds to peep the command list even though he doesn’t understand it.
he then resumes play, and continues to mash buttons.
it’s pretty hopeless hahah.
:f::hcf: motion when you could just make it :hcb::f: instead?