Let's learn about fighting games and get murdered together.

[e-mailio estevez]

I don't think games like Multiversus should be discussed in the same terms as actual fighting games. The only reason some "famous" FG players are picking it up and playing it on stream is because they're getting paid for it.

As a long-time FG player who also has normie (non-pedo) IRL buddies and coworkers who I play Smash with on occasion, I've always considered them different beasts but a lot of fighting game fundamentals carry over to the 'platform fighter' genre. Comparing it and its clones to real fighting games is like comparing Mario Kart to a racing sim. I think the games are interesting, especially considering Sakurai was some kind of KOF enthusiast and the whole series was birthed from him feeling bad about dunking on casuals in an arcade, so the story goes.

The players do not swim in the same circles, though. My IRL buddy is the same way- won't play traditional fighters or even beat 'em ups but is a complete monster in Smash. He dragged me to a Smash tournament many years ago, only tournament we ever went to, and he got 5th in a 64-man bracket and generated so much salt along the way. We were nobodies from a rural area- he was taking out people who'd traveled to compete; even made one pizza-faced, leather jacket-wearing greasy ponytail dude spike his controller, yell 'FUCK YOU' at the top of his lungs and stomp out of the venue. I am convinced my buddy would be a beast if he'd pick up a traditional fighter, but I've never been able to get him to try anything else. He's the reason I try to keep my Link somewhat practiced, even if I don't care much for the Ultimate.

--

That being said, even though they're more or less different genres and appeal to different players, I've played a bit of Multiversus and I think there are some things future FGs could learn from it other than 'free to play good, nickel and dime more'. What's impressed me the most was how seamless and well the online play works. Cross-play right out of the box. Rollback netcode. It's trivial to start pickup-groups with teammates you get paired with- me and some random were stomping everyone for 2 hours after we buddied up. From what I've read there's very little input lag, as well. And honestly, something about it just feels good to play.

I also think fighting games could do more with their 'online XP' systems. I realize these are dangerous waters, and that COD4's DOUBLE XP mountain dew bottles were the harbinger of decline. Still, having some form of online 'progression' outside of DIAMOND RANK would help with player retention. I can't help but feel that earning gold to unlock different weapons and armors in Soul Calibur 3, exploring dungeons in Soul Calibur 2 or earning credits in OMF2097 kept me playing those games longer, endeared them to me for a lifetime and those kinds of systems could be worked into online play somehow that would give the casuals something to chew on. I don't know where the line is drawn, since just the sight of neon gunskins in the new Doom games prevent me from ever wanting to touch them. But I'd rather devs appeal to casuals by giving them fun carrots to chase and alternate (well-developed) gamemodes to play rather than dumbing down core mechanics.

Sorry for blocktext.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

They did end up added some guys into Skullgirls, so it isn't an all girl fighting game anymore.

Great Deceiver Assisted Living Godzilla Generic-Giant-Spider and the other experts in this thread. What would be your top 5 old or not so old prestigious games worth labbing and trying to have some casual fun? (don´t include GGXXACPR, I dedicated a lot of time in the pandemic and want new things)

The stuff I used to play a lot was

Capcom vs SNK 2
Garou Mark of the Wolves
Street Fighter 3 Third Strike
The King of Fighters '98
Marvel vs Capcom 2
Street Fighter Alpha 3
X-Men: Children of the Atom

Was playing a lot of #Reload too.

Outside of KoF '98, there's also '96, '99, 2002, and XI. Not as old, and you probably don't need to be told KoF XIII is good, but KoF XIII is good; it's got kind of a Mark of the Wolves feel more than a KoF one. '96 probably has the most personally of any of the KoF games, and I always liked the vibe of some of those '99 stages.

The Marvel vs Capcom 3 games are nice. Always really like X-Men vs Street Fighter.

I completely forgot about it, but I've been thinking about this game lately, there's also Guardian Heroes. It's a Fighting Game RPG that's functionally also a beat' em up. It basically uses the Fatal Fury Line System (that thing Fatal Fury and Savage Reign do where you can jump into the background...mostly two planes, sometimes three...Guardian Heroes has three) in very big stages, and then when you're fighting a boss you're in a more normal fighting game stage. It's also got a more normal VS mode in it. If you're looking for some casual fun that'd be a good game. It's almost weird more fighting games haven't done something similar for their single player modes. There's the original Sega Sature version, and then an updated Xbox Live version from like ten years ago that's still up.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Is MultiVersus a fighting game?

It's a platform fighter. It's a sub-genre.

 

[GhostCow]

Imagine wanting to play a guy instead of looking at a hot girl
t. Sakura/Cammy main

 

[Sentinel]

If you play anyone other than Ryu you likely have a mental illness.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Was playing a lot of #Reload too.

Come home fighting man, +R on steam is alive and kicking

 

[Great Deceiver]

Assisted Living Godzilla if you don't think there's a downside to simplified inputs you clearly haven't played DNF. In other games with invincible reversal DPs there's always the possibility that the opponent will fuck up the input - even at very high skill levels. Depending on the game, it's a pretty reasonable possibility (pulling off reversal DPs in Super Turbo consistently isn't trivial). In DNF, it's impossible to miss. So it becomes a pure 50/50, and that simply means less depth.

You might think that the (ostensible and highly debatable, as I detailed in a previous post) positives outweigh the negatives, but there are definite downsides.

I also think obsessing about inflated playercounts is funny. After a certain healthy point (meaning, matchmaking is reasonably quick and has enough sampling resolution to result in skill-accurate matches), what does it matter to me if some other game has 50,000 or 100,000 people playing? Why are people getting hysterical about a game being dead a week after release if it doesn't have x amount of players playing when game y has 10x as much? It's just FOMO. I play games that I think are cool, can't be bothered about what retard stream kiddies are sperging out to.

 

[Nathir]

Another thing is if you make inputs very easy all the characters start to feel like they play the same. Guile vs Ryu feels more like playing two different characters than Kunoichi vs Inquisitor in DNF. If anything, we need more experimentation in ways to control your characters.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Simplified controls are the future. They'll bring more people in and there's not really a downside to them.

It's a lovely dream to tell yourself but it's just going to make the killers even worse. I know you have this thing where you think "if only my friend could DP he'd have won that, so simplified controls would grant him that honest victory" but you're neglecting the gigantic problem that is you've now given a pro a way to bypass the training mode execution process entirely. You've also removed a big aspect of the human factor that is the possibility of dropping/fucking up and keeps things exciting both for the players and for any spectators.

There's a reason why DNF Duel after one month has become extremely stale to both play and watch. Every interaction ends up looking the same between high caliber players and when you can visualize how the game is going to play out before the round is even over then that's a bad sign.

Every time a long-time franchise tries to go the simplistic route it is never received well. Strive is disliked by most GG fans, SFV is seen as the definitive main entry low point, MK11 is regarded as the worst of the NRS era, etc.

And they do all this for who? To try and entice your friend who doesn't want to put in any sort of effort and is surprised he gets slammed into hitting the refund button?

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Another thing is if you make inputs very easy all the characters start to feel like they play the same. Guile vs Ryu feels more like playing two different characters than Kunoichi vs Inquisitor in DNF. If anything, we need more experimentation in ways to control your characters.

This also changes fundamentally how legacy fighting games would play. KOF would have to completely change its combo structure to accommodate for command normals now being special moves or supers by default. Erasing 30 years of knowledge so we can have Godzilla's friend feel happy he can finally do a half circle motion. Cool shit lmao.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Another thing is if you make inputs very easy all the characters start to feel like they play the same. Guile vs Ryu feels more like playing two different characters than Kunoichi vs Inquisitor in DNF. If anything, we need more experimentation in ways to control your characters.

I think there are two different things to unpack here; one is that yes, certain motions create a strong sense of identity between the player and the character - for example, the Tiger Knee motion, but other unique motions as well (Chicken Wing, etc.). This leads to Sagat feeling significantly different between ST and Alpha 3, for example.

But I don't agree that all DNF characters play the same. This is one positive aspect of the game - most characters feel reasonably distinct. Grappler plays differently from Inquisitor, and Swiftmaster (broken though he is) plays significantly different from Kunoichi. Crusader is pretty unique.

However, the game does feel stale for other reasons that we discussed - it's systemically poor with very few defensive options, a weak neutral game and bad jumps. This more than anything is what leads to every match feeling samey, not the characters themselves.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Simplified controls are the future. They'll bring more people in and there's not really a downside to them.

It's a lovely dream to tell yourself but it's just going to make the killers even worse. I know you have this thing where you think "if only my friend could DP he'd have won that, so simplified controls would grant him that honest victory" but you're neglecting the gigantic problem that is you've now given a pro a way to bypass the training mode execution process entirely. You've also removed a big aspect of the human factor that is the possibility of dropping/fucking up and keeps things exciting both for the players and for any spectators.

There's a reason why DNF Duel after one month has become extremely stale to both play and watch. Every interaction ends up looking the same between high caliber players and when you can visualize how the game is going to play out before the round is even over then that's a bad sign.

Every time a long-time franchise tries to go the simplistic route it is never received well. Strive is disliked by most GG fans, SFV is seen as the definitive main entry low point, MK11 is regarded as the worst of the NRS era, etc.

And they do all this for who? To try and entice your friend who doesn't want to put in any sort of effort and is surprised he gets slammed into hitting the refund button?

Don't be fucking stupid. I never said the dumb fucking shit you're saying, I didn't say simple controls would let some new player beat a pro. I'm simply saying it will let them do things, and do things consistently. Being able to do shit, and do it consistently, will be more fun for said person having problems getting whatever move out. You're also all over the fucking places with your points. Before when this came up you were saying simple controls would be bad because it would allow unworthy new players to compete against people that know what they're doing and how that isn't fair or some dumb bullshit, and now you're saying it'll make pros too good and so won't matter anyways. It'd probably be unlikely said person would be having matches with these pros anyways. Simple controls also wouldn't remove needing to leaner combos, so your weird training point is just wrong.

The DNF Duel thing your talking about has nothing to do with simple controls. That problem, if it is a problem, wouldn't just go away if their was only motion inputs.

Street Fighter 5 is not Street Fighter going the simplistic route, nor is Mortal Kombat 11. Street Fighter 5 has way more weird system shit that a first time player isn't going to understand than probably any Street Fighter game before it. Street Fighter 5 is funny in that they tried to make some things simpler, and they tried giving you quick customization options, but they did it in a needlessly convoluted way, and no first time player is going to be able to pick up that game and know what the different V Gauge options for a character do. It's very weird, because SF5 is their first Street Fighter made with the home console in mind, it's the first one that wasn't an arcade release first, but the V Gauge system with selectable V-Skills is very much a quick for arcades way to go about adding customization; but you're at home, it doesn't need to be quick, you could have a whole move customizable section apart from the match where someone can dick around in there for however long like they might in some RPG. Anyways, Street Fighter 5 definitely has more systems for a player to learn, and options for a player to pick than any version of Street Fighter 2...which is their biggest Street Fighter. In comparison to any of the original Mortal Kombat games, the Mortal Kombats of the 2010s are all more complex. MK11 is also their best selling MK game, sold more in two years than MKX did in four, so I'm thinking NRS is OK with some people not liking 11 as much as X. It kind of funny to even bring up complexity with regard to a Mortal Kombat game, given the series has never been about that, and that its always been a casual friendly series that was more about being cool than actually gameplay.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Assisted Living Godzilla if you don't think there's a downside to simplified inputs you clearly haven't played DNF. In other games with invincible reversal DPs there's always the possibility that the opponent will fuck up the input - even at very high skill levels. Depending on the game, it's a pretty reasonable possibility (pulling off reversal DPs in Super Turbo consistently isn't trivial). In DNF, it's impossible to miss. So it becomes a pure 50/50, and that simply means less depth.

You might think that the (ostensible and highly debatable, as I detailed in a previous post) positives outweigh the negatives, but there are definite downsides.

I also think obsessing about inflated playercounts is funny. After a certain healthy point (meaning, matchmaking is reasonably quick and has enough sampling resolution to result in skill-accurate matches), what does it matter to me if some other game has 50,000 or 100,000 people playing? Why are people getting hysterical about a game being dead a week after release if it doesn't have x amount of players playing when game y has 10x as much? It's just FOMO. I play games that I think are cool, can't be bothered about what retard stream kiddies are sperging out to.

I played the beta.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Don't be fucking stupid. I never said the dumb fucking shit you're saying, I didn't say simple controls would let some new player beat a pro. I'm simply saying it will let them do things, and do things consistently. Being able to do shit, and do it consistently, will be more fun for said person having problems getting whatever move out.

Yeah, hey retard, you do that by practicing the move until it comes out consistently for you. Everyone had to learn this shit at some point, don't know what makes it so much more difficult to do it today with more lax inputs as opposed to back then when it was much more strict.

It always comes back around to wanting to put in the effort yourself. I don't like battle royale games but how much of a total fag I'd have to be to play one, get rinsed, then start posting about how BR games need to change and do this and that and all because I want to feel good and win more.

Anyways, Street Fighter 5 definitely has more systems for a player to learn, and options for a player to pick than any version of Street Fighter 2...which is their biggest Street Fighter.

You have such an odd way of framing things. Yes, Godzilla, congratulations -- you figured it out: a game released in 2016 might have more things going on for it mechanics-wise than a game released in 1991. You're acting like SF2 jumped straight to SFV and therefore it is more advanced while completely glossing over SF4 which had way more player creativity and expression while SFV makes characters much more linear and in some cases like Juri, undisputedly worse in how woefully incomplete they come off as. Like it or not, SFV is seen as a step back for the series and a disappointment.

MK9/MKX -> MK11 is the same way. There's a whole video I linked in this topic that does well to explain why MK11 is by far the weakest entry of the NRS-era MK games and I'll even go one further and say it doesn't even feel like you're playing an MK game half the time. Auto-regen bars, krushing blows, fatal blows, how prevalent throws are, extremely limited combo structure that runs into the same pitfall SFV did in regards to player expression, being able to delay meter burn to make things safe, general slower pace to movement, etc.

NRS also tried to push MK11 as more of an e-sports game than any other of their titles with the effort they put into things like making a whole league and everything. So I'd say yes, they may have had a slight revelation that MK11 isn't very good when the year following its release it wasn't even slated to be at Evo until the pandemic hit and it got on purely because it had rollback netcode.

 

[Shadowfang]

No player left behind philosophy in action ruining everything for everyone.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Games with a low execution bar are both boring to watch and play exactly because

there's always the possibility that the opponent will fuck up the input - even at very high skill levels

This is a good thing, execution on the spot is a gameplay mechanic, not a "wall" or some shit.

 

[Shadowfang]

Games with a low execution bar are both boring to watch and play exactly because

there's always the possibility that the opponent will fuck up the input - even at very high skill levels

This is a good thing, execution on the spot is a gameplay mechanic, not a "wall" or some shit.

Even long time players with good execution, sometimes let it slide, missing 1f links, screwing the St HP after Makoto's command grab, etc., which all add to the game.
Do i want to go for a high execution/risk high damage/reward or go for a low execution/risk low damage/reward? Why would you want to take this out from a FG?
Sure, execution is not the only factor determining if a move is risky or not, but then you would be reducing it to just frame data.

And if simple inputs are already the wall these players are facing, imagine what they are going to complain next!
They are going to cry that the game has many moves, and that these moves have way too many status, and that okizeme is unfair, etc.
They will never stop complaining until you make a shitty game that hardcore players won't like and the pandered casuals will leave after two weeks when they move on to the next game.

Or worse, imagine if you succeed and you create the COD of FG.
May God have mercy on our souls.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Or worse, imagine if you succeed and you create the COD of FG.

God knows they are trying

 

[Shadowfang]

Skull Girls is at € 2,09 on Steam right now, for whomever is interested.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Don't be fucking stupid. I never said the dumb fucking shit you're saying, I didn't say simple controls would let some new player beat a pro. I'm simply saying it will let them do things, and do things consistently. Being able to do shit, and do it consistently, will be more fun for said person having problems getting whatever move out.

Yeah, hey retard, you do that by practicing the move until it comes out consistently for you. Everyone had to learn this shit at some point, don't know what makes it so much more difficult to do it today with more lax inputs as opposed to back then when it was much more strict.

It always comes back around to wanting to put in the effort yourself. I don't like battle royale games but how much of a total fag I'd have to be to play one, get rinsed, then start posting about how BR games need to change and do this and that and all because I want to feel good and win more.

Anyways, Street Fighter 5 definitely has more systems for a player to learn, and options for a player to pick than any version of Street Fighter 2...which is their biggest Street Fighter.

You have such an odd way of framing things. Yes, Godzilla, congratulations -- you figured it out: a game released in 2016 might have more things going on for it mechanics-wise than a game released in 1991. You're acting like SF2 jumped straight to SFV and therefore it is more advanced while completely glossing over SF4 which had way more player creativity and expression while SFV makes characters much more linear and in some cases like Juri, undisputedly worse in how woefully incomplete they come off as. Like it or not, SFV is seen as a step back for the series and a disappointment.

MK9/MKX -> MK11 is the same way. There's a whole video I linked in this topic that does well to explain why MK11 is by far the weakest entry of the NRS-era MK games and I'll even go one further and say it doesn't even feel like you're playing an MK game half the time. Auto-regen bars, krushing blows, fatal blows, how prevalent throws are, extremely limited combo structure that runs into the same pitfall SFV did in regards to player expression, being able to delay meter burn to make things safe, general slower pace to movement, etc.

NRS also tried to push MK11 as more of an e-sports game than any other of their titles with the effort they put into things like making a whole league and everything. So I'd say yes, they may have had a slight revelation that MK11 isn't very good when the year following its release it wasn't even slated to be at Evo until the pandemic hit and it got on purely because it had rollback netcode.

Is this intention? Are you intentionally being a fucking moron? I said that Street Fighter 5 has more system things going on than any Street Fighter game before it. I also said, the most simple of Street Fighter games is Street Fighter 2, not Street Fighter 5. You said: Every time a long-time franchise tries to go the simplistic route it is never received well. The point with me bring up Street Fighter 2 was, that of all the games in the series, it's the most simplistic, and it's also by for the most successful. If some modern Street Fighter went all the way back to some version of Street Fighter 2 I'm sure there'd be being about that too, but it also might do better than 3, 4, and 5 too. On the other hand, Street Fighter 5 has such convoluted systems behind it that it's going to probably turn off a lot of first time players. On the point of Street Fighter 5 being the most simplistic...I disagree. My guess would be that your average person is going to have a harder time jumping into SF5 than any Street Fighter before it becomes of the V system stuff. SF4 was definitely an easier game to just jump into than SF5.

I don't give a fuck about Mortal Komabt. Did people bitch about whatever? Yeah. I'm aware, and I've been aware of some people's feeling on the game since it came out. It's also NRS's best selling MK game, so I doubt they give one single fuck what the tournament crowd and people that watch YouTube videos think about it. Mortal Kombat games were never meant for the hardcore fighting game fan anyways, it's a fighting game series that's big because of its aesthetics, because people like none gameplay related things about it like the story, the blood, and the shit you can do after the match is over. On a list of most important things in a Mortal Kombat game, the actual gameplay is pretty low in the pecking order. I just find you grasping at Mortal Kombat of all things in this way kind of funny given the series isn't even kind of about gameplay.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Another thing is if you make inputs very easy all the characters start to feel like they play the same. Guile vs Ryu feels more like playing two different characters than Kunoichi vs Inquisitor in DNF. If anything, we need more experimentation in ways to control your characters.

This also changes fundamentally how legacy fighting games would play. KOF would have to completely change its combo structure to accommodate for command normals now being special moves or supers by default. Erasing 30 years of knowledge so we can have Godzilla's friend feel happy he can finally do a half circle motion. Cool shit lmao.

Why would it have to change its combo structure? You could have simple controls in a KoF game and still keep the four attack button layout of a KoF games, it wouldn't have to erase that 28 years of knowledge of King of Fighters that I doubt you have anyways. Controllers have more than four buttons, arcade sticks have more than four buttons, your fucking keyboard definitely has more than four buttons; you could still have the normal traditional four normal attacks of a KoF, and combats that use those four normal attack buttons, and still do some kind of simplified move input system. I found it pretty funny when you were bitching about this in the Street Fighter 6 thread and then brought up KoF; I mean, I love KoF, but it's got two less normals than Street Fighter, which could be said to be part of the kind of simplification you're railing against. You can also have the simple controls and the normal controls at the exact same time.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

The point with me bring up Street Fighter 2 was, that of all the games in the series, it's the most simplistic, and it's also by for the most successful.

Okay, you clearly don't understand that if we put ourselves in the timeframe of 1991, SF2 coming out didn't seem so simplistic and for its era wasn't simplistic. Is it simplistic by today's standards? Nobody would dispute that. But back in the early '90s an arcade game of SF2's magnitude was an extreme step-up from any fighting game that came before it. The whole thing became so big it blew up huge and started a whole phenomenon. Going by your ultra retarded belief of, "the simpler it is, the more successful it is" then that means Street Fighter 1 should be the biggest thing out there. It wasn't then, it sure isn't now.

But by today's standards, SFV -is- a simplistic entry into the series and it most definitely doesn't have the same depth that SF4 did (you're making the V System out to be this amazingly complex thing when it isn't anything like that) and that is why it is not seen in a favorable light. It's simplistic due to how linear its design is across the whole game. There's no player expression because you're expected to play every character a certain way or else you're doing it wrong. SF4 by comparison had much more diversity in how you could approach a match and sadly, the less diversity your gameplay has in a fighting game to mix things up to throw your opponent off = your character becomes one track = you begin to feel tier power disparity more than ever. SFV thought by making things easier to grasp it would be pulling in more casual players when all it did was leave an ugly black stain on the mainline series.

Why would it have to change its combo structure? You could have simple controls in a KoF game and still keep the four attack button layout of a KoF games, it wouldn't have to erase that 28 years of knowledge of King of Fighters that I doubt you have anyways. Controllers have more than four buttons, arcade sticks have more than four buttons, your fucking keyboard definitely has more than four buttons; you could still have the normal traditional four normal attacks of a KoF, and combats that use those four normal attack buttons, and still do some kind of simplified move input system. I found it pretty funny when you were bitching about this in the Street Fighter 6 thread and then brought up KoF; I mean, I love KoF, but it's got two less normals than Street Fighter, which could be said to be part of the kind of simplification you're railing against. You can also have the simple controls and the normal controls at the exact same time.

Can you imagine a guy saying he loves KOF, advocate this hard for simplified controls, and doesn't realize that even if you used all eight buttons on a controller you'd still end up with a layout that realistically only leaves one button free. All the controller face buttons = A, B, C, D. All four shoulder buttons = C + D, A + B, Meter/Max Mode activation mechanic, one possibly free button.

So what is this button going to do, act as a modifier for easy specials? What about SDMs or climaxes? How do you cancel from super to super? What happens to EX moves? What if a character has multiple command grabs, how does it know which one to use? How are you going to even balance 1 frame command grabs being spammable? What about other easily abused moves that will come to light once you see them able to be spammed endlessly? How about charge characters like Heidern or Leona? How do you even simplify a character like Angel?

And then, my favorite part is that while you're likely thinking of all the ways you can address these problems and make it so a lazy new player can have fun too they still won't be able to do something core to the KOF experience like short hops/knowing how to use mobility to their advantage. They'll still get blown up. All while you dumbed the game down for everyone else that is playing this Rainbow Edition fucktarded mess.

 

[Nathir]

+R side event at EVO live now: https://www.twitch.tv/guiltygearacprdiscord

 

[Shadowfang]

Why the fuck are these people still wearing masks?!

 

[Sarathiour]

Stream quality is pretty shit, seems to be an issue on their side.