Why do you think so few people enjoy fighting games?

[StriderShinryu]

The community is great actually, the problem is that you seem to be too entitled in your approach of it. You seem to devalue the time people have put into the game when you waltz in and expect to kick ass like it's your birthright. That's usually what people who haven't had fun experience with the fighter community usually act like.

In my experience people who are humble in their manner and know the reality of the game often do get positive treatment and are taught how to play.

I was going to mention this as well, but you beat me to it.

People always talk about how games like Minecraft are built on the backs of their supportive playerbase but, the fact is, fighting game fans have actually been doing the same thing for over a decade and never get the same credit. Outside of RPGs and adventure games (some of which, frankly, needed walkthroughs just to be played), fighting games have spawned more in depth player written guides and FAQs than any other genre. If you go to Youtube and search for a fighting game you won't find nearly as many silly parody or lame comedy videos as you'll find match videos with commentary, combo videos with transcriptions, and character/system tutorials. There are sites that have been around for decades that exist entirely to be sources of information to players both new and old.

The information and help a new player needs is out there, you just have to look for it and be willing to learn. That right there, however, is the real gate. Most experienced fighting game players love welcoming new members into the scene and showing them the ropes. Heck, one of the best ways to improve your own game is to try to teach things to someone who doesn't know what you do. It helps you break down and understand things you yourself may just take for granted. The issue is the newcomer needs to be interested and willing to learn, not just be coddled and expect to learn "how to win" in an hour. If you approach learning a fighting game with the right mindset and are willing to put in the work, the fighting game community will be there for you. But, of course, there's the stumbling block. It will take time, the right attitude and some work. Not all gamers are prepared for or interested in that, and that's cool. Different strokes for different folks and all that, but that's why fighting games aren't as big as they could (arguably should, in my opinion) be.

 

[G-Force]

I don't like the way they implement their difficulty. I don't mind putting in time and effort to get good at a game I enjoy but asking me to press a button at exactly one frame of an animation so that I can pull of a combo is a bit on the ridiculous side (looking at you SF4). I also don't like that the mechanics that separate a good from a great player are not explained anywhere in the game or manual.

I feel fighting games have the potential to be great strategy games but their notion of difficulty restricts them to a smaller audience. If fighting games are happy there, then more power to them. I'll keep buying the types of games I enjoy.

The reason why those mechanics are not explained in the game manual or in game is because the player base discovers many advanced techniques and dictate the metagame in a direction that the creators can not even predict. Take roll canceling in CvS2, when that was discovered by a player it DRASTICALLY shifted the character tier lists in addition to creating a new viable strategy, the game evolved from the current state with this glitch but Capcom had no intention of it being used. Is it really their fault that the did not include a strategy that they had no idea that they had no idea that it was even possible?

 

[garjian]

The reason I don't like them is the lack of depth, mostly. If I pay $60 for a new game I want it to last a while.

how's 3 years? that's how long I've been playing my £27.99 copy on Soulcalibur IV, and I believe i played it yesterday/day before.

 

[Bad Jim]

The handicap you want isn't fair at all to experienced players. It basically punishes them for putting in work to get better just so a weaker player can have a false sense of achievement. Also handicaps and comeback mechanics can be abused to hell and they really don't help the new player in the long run. An example is Simple mode in the versus games yeah moves come out easier yet you really have no control over them. Which in turn can make a weak player much more weaker because they'll expect something to come out on a motion it really shouldn't.

Golf has a handicap system. Go has a handicap system. Players of those games are proud of their handicaps. And those games have stood the test of time much better than fighting games. Handicap systems are not a bad thing.

If a handicap system makes a game popular among noobs, then that's all the more people who know what a good ranking is if you have one. And the extra sales mean bigger prize pools for pro matches. And more local tournaments you can win if you are good. Not punishing the good players

It is true that some handicap mechanics can be useless or open to abuse but that is because they are badly thought out. For example plain damage scaling is not terribly effective if the weaker player cannot even land a blow. But every game mechanic is likely to fail if the developers don't think them through. Someone will figure out a handicap mechanic that works well.

Simple mode is not a handicap system it's a control system . . .

Macros are a BAD idea period because if you allow unskilled players to have and use them in tournaments you have to allow them for the experienced players as well. Trust me on this the gap between the weaker and stronger player would just increase.

Why would it be a bad thing for pros to use macros in high level tournaments? Usually they are banned because the underlying games are designed for non-macro play. But they don't have to be. Long distance runners aren't allowed to drive to the finish in cars, but that doesn't mean racing cars is not exciting. I think pro matches with macros would still be worth watching.

Back on Simple Mode, it does make absolute noobs worse because plain button mashing makes special moves come out, which usually leave you vulnerable if you do them at random. The same would be true of a macro system. But it is reasonable that they have to learn what buttons do what. Once they have learned what buttons do what, they will play better because they have access to all the moves, not just the ones that don't require double quarter circles or bullshit like that.

Blazblue sorta had this kind of thing, they allowed you to just randomly mash one button and get the same combo over and over regardless to your timing. You know what's the thing...when it's like that you're always too predictible, you can't actually pick the moves you want to use to punish something and most importantly you never improve at all.

Seriously, people who used that method of play (beginner mode it's called) could indeed play better than they would, back when it was their first day, but beyond getting accustomed to blocking stuff a bit better and learning when to do which of the 5~ pre-programmed combos they didn't EVER develop any of the characteristics you list above such as mindgames or mixups or the ability to read their foes. The reason for that is the simple fact that they got high rewards in the combo automation for 0 work therefore the amount of work they'd have to put in the game to get the much slighter rewards of knowing when to bait a DP and when to just mash, for example, never seemed all that appealing to them. It basically cultivated this negative attitude that while at first was helpful towards their having fun eventually led them to being bored at the game and finding little reason to seek improvement, which is one of the worst things a core feature of a fighting game could ever do.

I think it is just an unavoidable fact that the vast majority of people will not work very hard just to get good at fighting games. But those who work hard to master difficult control systems today would improve anyway. You either have the will to win or your don't.

But just because the majority will never be good, does not mean that accomodating them is a waste of time. They're still spending money, which leads to more fighting games. There would be bigger prize pools for pros. There would be a higher chance that you could whip out a fighting game during a party and the guests would be familiar with the game.

 

[Axyun]

I don't like the way they implement their difficulty. I don't mind putting in time and effort to get good at a game I enjoy but asking me to press a button at exactly one frame of an animation so that I can pull of a combo is a bit on the ridiculous side (looking at you SF4). I also don't like that the mechanics that separate a good from a great player are not explained anywhere in the game or manual.

I feel fighting games have the potential to be great strategy games but their notion of difficulty restricts them to a smaller audience. If fighting games are happy there, then more power to them. I'll keep buying the types of games I enjoy.

The reason why those mechanics are not explained in the game manual or in game is because the player base discovers many advanced techniques and dictate the metagame in a direction that the creators can not even predict. Take roll canceling in CvS2, when that was discovered by a player it DRASTICALLY shifted the character tier lists in addition to creating a new viable strategy, the game evolved from the current state with this glitch but Capcom had no intention of it being used. Is it really their fault that the did not include a strategy that they had no idea that they had no idea that it was even possible?

I see where you are coming from but your example indicates a glitch with side-effects that should have been patched. That's like someone discovering that zerglings in SC2 can be made to deal 3x more damage under certain conditions and Blizzard does nothing about it. Heck, Blizzard continues to patch SC2 as the meta-game evolves due to shifts in balance.

The difference between the SC2 meta-game and the SF4 meta-game is that, in SC2, there is a shift in mindset/approach over time as new strategies using the known mechanics develop. I don't see my SF4 manual discussing frame data, combo input margins, linking inputs, negative edge, etc. even though they are valid mechanics intended for use by the developers/designers.

I started learning about this stuff because I wanted to give SF4 a chance to get me into fighting games but, not only is it a hassle to become informed to play correctly, the performance requirements on behalf of the player are too much for me. They are not impossible as, clearly, there are people that can pull them off. But inputting and failing the same combo 49 times in training mode and then have it work the 50th time because I pushed the button on the right frame despite the fact I personally felt no difference in execution is ridiculous. And this is without the pressure of an opponent trying to cave my face in.

Maybe I picked the wrong game to try to get back into fighters but I'd rather the game be a bit more strategy and a bit less twitch/muscle memory. The last fighting game I genuinely enjoyed and continued to play on my own accord for some time after purchase was Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast 10 freaking years ago. A decade later and fighting games have improved little except for graphics. Soul Calibur managed to have depth and rewarded skilled players without having to rely on these crazy-borderline-glitch mechanics.

Maybe I'll try again when the next Soul Calibur comes out. Haven't played any game in the series since. Hopefully they've stuck to their core principles.

 

[him over there]

Mostly it's because of the wall that is required to be scaled in order to become part of the community. It sort of reminds me of the competitive pokemon battling community too. a constantly changing metagame with player regulated rules(see: tiers)to make up for unbalanced characters. The problem is not everyone likes competitive metagame, do theres the rest of the game to be content with in pokemon. In fighting games you get the high stakes high entry metagame and that's it. plus the game barely tells you how to do most of the things to do like margins or frame windows. Plus the ability to do these things is incredibly hard. What I'm trying to say is Pokemon is a fighting game for people who suck at fighters but can understand and expand upon already known concepts. That could have been put better but I'm not smart enough to do it.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I started learning about this stuff because I wanted to give SF4 a chance to get me into fighting games but, not only is it a hassle to become informed to play correctly, the performance requirements on behalf of the player are too much for me. They are not impossible as, clearly, there are people that can pull them off. But inputting and failing the same combo 49 times in training mode and then have it work the 50th time because I pushed the button on the right frame despite the fact I personally felt no difference in execution is ridiculous. And this is without the pressure of an opponent trying to cave my face in.

Not to call the quoted poster out or anything, but this is another issue that seems very commonly brought forward by those who have trouble playing fighting games. I can't say I totally fault them for it as the "training" modes in most fighting games that have them don't do much to counter the assumption, but fighting games aren't about combos and perfect execution of insanely difficult things. Being able to do those training mode combos won't help you win fights if your fundamentals aren't there and many of the combos you see in training modes just aren't practical or useful in an actual match.

To win at a fighting game you need to understand:
- how the game engine works
- how your character works
- how your opponent's character works (or at least have a sense of their preferred play style)
- and, most importantly, you need to know how your opponent works

If you don't understand the game engine and the basic level play of your character, you'll be too busy getting hit to do any fancy training mode combos. You'll also never be able to do anything beyond what the training mode tells you to do because you're not understanding why it works.

If you don't understand how your opponents character works, you'll never know when to attack or defend. For example, you'll never be able to do any fancy training mode stuff if you keep attacking when they can safely block.

If you don't understand how your oppoent themself works, you'll never be able to find success at all. At the most basic level, fighting games are about predicting what your opponent is going to be doing, or even baiting them into doing something when you want them doing it. It's no different than chess except you're playing and thinking in real time.

People tend to see things like some insane combo video or something like the infamous Daigo parry and get the impression that that's the sort of thing they need to do to be successful. They then boot up the game and see the terrible "training challenge" modes that most fighters provide and see nothing but reinforcement of that ideal. They don't see the fact that, if you have good fundamental skills and understanding, you can actually win in almost any fighting game without using any combos at all. They also don't see that being able to hit that final training mode combo every single time will do them no good if they don't know how to create the chance to use it in a real match.

As much as I hate to use MK as an example of anything good relating to fighting games, I think the results of the MK tourney at the recent Socal regionals is a quality example. The winner, 16Bit, repeatedly stuck to using a single short and simple combo almost every time he had a combo chance because he said he knew he could execute it perfectly every time. It wasn't that he didn't know anything more powerful or resource heavy, he just had enough belief in his fundamental play to trust he could land the weaker combo enough to work without having to risk anything more challenging.

 

[Suicida1 Midget]

As a guy who played soul calibur at parties, its not that i dont like them so much as that ****** who plays astrogth (That big guy with the huge axe, cant spell his damn name) and just button mashes and spams cheep ablities. Thats probably the thing that kills most fighting games- the whorey play style of some people.

 

[StriderShinryu]

As a guy who played soul calibur at parties, its not that i dont like them so much as that ****** who plays astrogth (That big guy with the huge axe, cant spell his damn name) and just button mashes and spams cheep ablities. Thats probably the thing that kills most fighting games- the whorey play style of some people.

As an Astaroth player, I know first hand that he is dead meat to being guard impacted or parried. Heck, most of his big hitters have such bad recovery that you don't even have to do anything fancy on defense, you just need to block and you'll have time to punish with a fast move of your own. Also, he has some very blatantly linear moves that are total side step bait and can be seen coming from a mile away. There are some characters in SC that are made to find some success with just mashing (*waves to Maxi*) but Astaroth definitely isn't one of them.

As to the "whorey" style of play, that's just a silly way of looking at things. The Astaroth player (or, more commonly given that complaint, the Ryu or Ken in SF player) found a move or three that worked. It's your job as their opponent to find a way around it (and, in pretty much every fighting game these days, there is a way around it). It may not necessarily be fun for you, depending on your intention of play, but look at it from their perspective. Should they have to coddle you, stop using things they know will hit you, or essentially lose on purpose just to make you feel better and not see that "you lose" message so often?

 

[Gasaraki]

)rStrangelove]You're talking about Tekken/Mortal Kombat i take it?

Because

1. there are hardly any fighting games on pc
2. they have evolved into fighting-games-with-big-worlds like AC / Skyrim

Wha... Games like assassin's creed and skyrim are about the furthest thing from a fighting game you can get.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

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The community is great actually, the problem is that you seem to be too entitled in your approach of it. You seem to devalue the time people have put into the game when you waltz in and expect to kick ass like it's your birthright. That's usually what people who haven't had fun experience with the fighter community usually act like.

In my experience people who are humble in their manner and know the reality of the game often do get positive treatment and are taught how to play.


As for explaining certain things, it's not as much the people who explain them badly as it is the games being really deep and complex. It's funny how people complain it's always the same dull thing but once they get exposed to all the various things you could do in the game they recoil with disdain. Which is it, are fighters too complex for you or not?

No, the community is really nice to people who are already part of it. I've been humble, I've asked politely, I've read the guides for new players on forums, I've sat through tutorials that make Final Fantasy XIII look reserved, I've spent hours trying to learn basic combos and I don't insult or trash talk people online. Despite this, no one will give me the time of day. I don't think it's necessarily their fault. After all, if I'd spent that long getting good enough to have real matches I probably wouldn't enjoy trouncing some newbie that doesn't know what he's doing any more than I enjoy being that newbie. They're not all jerks about it, but as a new player I wasn't able to find any group of people I was able to play with while I was learning and that did a lot to turn me away from the game. Most good fighting game players really are terrible teachers, but they don't really have any obligation to teach anyone, either. I would never want to devalue the work these people have put into developing the skills they have, but it does serve to make the genre very difficult to approach.

I would also never accuse fighting games of being overly simple or lacking in depth. If anything, the sheer number of features is part of what turned me away from them. You see, the difficulty curve in fighting games isn't just steep, it's fundamentally different from any other activity of comparable complexity. Fighting games have been accumulating new features and systems for decades now and the result of that is that new players get everything thrown at them all at once with no option to figure out and grow accustomed to the individual pieces. I really like the complexity, it's one of the things that most attracts me to the genre, but I think the way it's presented at this point is the equivalent of walking into your first day of language class and being handed a sheet with every grammatical rule on it and the expectation that you'll know and be able to use them all by the next class.

Honestly, I'd really like a fighting game where I didn't have to worry about five different gauges and three different types of cancelling while trying to make sense of all the jargon that makes up guides and advice (even those intended for new players) and might as well be martian for all I can get out of it. Obviously no one is obligated to provide me with a game like that, but I think it would be much more helpful to people trying to get into fighting games than all this simplified button input nonsense.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

snip

The community is great actually, the problem is that you seem to be too entitled in your approach of it. You seem to devalue the time people have put into the game when you waltz in and expect to kick ass like it's your birthright. That's usually what people who haven't had fun experience with the fighter community usually act like.

In my experience people who are humble in their manner and know the reality of the game often do get positive treatment and are taught how to play.


As for explaining certain things, it's not as much the people who explain them badly as it is the games being really deep and complex. It's funny how people complain it's always the same dull thing but once they get exposed to all the various things you could do in the game they recoil with disdain. Which is it, are fighters too complex for you or not?

No, the community is really nice to people who are already part of it. I've been humble, I've asked politely, I've read the guides for new players on forums, I've sat through tutorials that make Final Fantasy XIII look reserved, I've spent hours trying to learn basic combos and I don't insult or trash talk people online. Despite this, no one will give me the time of day. I don't think it's necessarily their fault. After all, if I'd spent that long getting good enough to have real matches I probably wouldn't enjoy trouncing some newbie that doesn't know what he's doing any more than I enjoy being that newbie. They're not all jerks about it, but as a new player I wasn't able to find any group of people I was able to play with while I was learning and that did a lot to turn me away from the game. Most good fighting game players really are terrible teachers, but they don't really have any obligation to teach anyone, either. I would never want to devalue the work these people have put into developing the skills they have, but it does serve to make the genre very difficult to approach.

I would also never accuse fighting games of being overly simple or lacking in depth. If anything, the sheer number of features is part of what turned me away from them. You see, the difficulty curve in fighting games isn't just steep, it's fundamentally different from any other activity of comparable complexity. Fighting games have been accumulating new features and systems for decades now and the result of that is that new players get everything thrown at them all at once with no option to figure out and grow accustomed to the individual pieces. I really like the complexity, it's one of the things that most attracts me to the genre, but I think the way it's presented at this point is the equivalent of walking into your first day of language class and being handed a sheet with every grammatical rule on it and the expectation that you'll know and be able to use them all by the next class.

Honestly, I'd really like a fighting game where I didn't have to worry about five different gauges and three different types of cancelling while trying to make sense of all the jargon that makes up guides and advice (even those intended for new players) and might as well be martian for all I can get out of it. Obviously no one is obligated to provide me with a game like that, but I think it would be much more helpful to people trying to get into fighting games than all this simplified button input nonsense.

What game was that? I've had new people lose to me 80 consecutive times in a single blazblue training session and leave saying they had fun and they wish to do that again soon. I'm afraid you've just been unlucky in your approach or just something weird happened with you that doesn't always happen. That, or you did get a negative attitude somewhere in there and it tainted the learnign experience. I'm not saying you definitely did but to me it sounds more likely than the alternative of you honestly being unable to have fun and learn the game with a proper attitude and time investment.



As for the systems, here's a bit of wisdom I impart to all people I teach; ignore them.


Just focus on playing the game without any of them for a week, then include the super meters for another week, then the guard primers or barrier gauge or the general whatever guardbreak/stun mechanic, then get into the combo system.


Sure, trying to do ALL of the things at once in a new game is suicide, even I don't do that. I recently tried the KoF13 demo, it was my first KoF game ever. What I did was simple, I played it like SF2. I completely ignored all the stupid bars and drive meters and w/e else until I had the basic system down. I didn't lose online (yes, the demo even has online XD) until my 40th game and the foe was a really good player, he knew combos and stuff with the neo supers.


That, was my signal to try and look into the other mechanics, so I did, and grew used to them too in time, much faster than I would have if I tried to do them in the first round.




Just because you get crushed and obliterated it doesn't mean you're not using enough systems or mechanics, you would get crushed anyways. Knowing that you should be freed from any pressure to do well at the game and slowly start getting used to things, one at a time.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

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What game was that? I've had new people lose to me 80 consecutive times in a single blazblue training session and leave saying they had fun and they wish to do that again soon. I'm afraid you've just been unlucky in your approach or just something weird happened with you that doesn't always happen. That, or you did get a negative attitude somewhere in there and it tainted the learnign experience. I'm not saying you definitely did but to me it sounds more likely than the alternative of you honestly being unable to have fun and learn the game with a proper attitude and time investment.



As for the systems, here's a bit of wisdom I impart to all people I teach; ignore them.


Just focus on playing the game without any of them for a week, then include the super meters for another week, then the guard primers or barrier gauge or the general whatever guardbreak/stun mechanic, then get into the combo system.


Sure, trying to do ALL of the things at once in a new game is suicide, even I don't do that. I recently tried the KoF13 demo, it was my first KoF game ever. What I did was simple, I played it like SF2. I completely ignored all the stupid bars and drive meters and w/e else until I had the basic system down. I didn't lose online (yes, the demo even has online XD) until my 40th game and the foe was a really good player, he knew combos and stuff with the neo supers.


That, was my signal to try and look into the other mechanics, so I did, and grew used to them too in time, much faster than I would have if I tried to do them in the first round.




Just because you get crushed and obliterated it doesn't mean you're not using enough systems or mechanics, you would get crushed anyways. Knowing that you should be freed from any pressure to do well at the game and slowly start getting used to things, one at a time.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try doing that next time a fighting game comes out that I think looks cool.

The game in question was the second Blazblue. I played through all the single player stuff, then I tried going online. I expected to just get annihilated in the beginning, obviously, but once my win/loss ratio got bad enough I started having serious trouble finding people who were even willing to play me. The only other guy I know who tried playing it had the same problem. On top of that, the skill gap between me and the people online was so big that I couldn't really learn anything from playing them. They were playing on such a completely different level I couldn't even figure out what they were doing half the time.

I realize I would still lose a lot if all the systems weren't there, I just think it would be a lot easier for me to figure out what was going on. What really bugs me is how awful the tutorials are. It feels like no one working on these games knows what teaching is, let alone how to do it well, and unlike the other players, I feel like the designers actually do have an obligation to explain their game to anyone who buys it. I can think of a lot of ways to make the single player modes in a fighting game do a much better job of preparing people for the online play without much effort, and anyone with even a passing knowledge of teaching could do the same. I always feel slightly ripped off when I buy a game and it feels like the people who made it don't really care whether or not I'm having fun with it.

 

[mysecondlife]

My friends play it days/months before I join in. For others like me, it would make it hard for newcomers to join in and have fun.

But one game I felt like I fit in in terms of skill was DBZ budokai something for PS2, where I got to play as Broly (apparently an over powered character) and others got to play as Chaotzu, Goku, the guy with the sword, etc.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try doing that next time a fighting game comes out that I think looks cool.

The game in question was the second Blazblue. I played through all the single player stuff, then I tried going online. I expected to just get annihilated in the beginning, obviously, but once my win/loss ratio got bad enough I started having serious trouble finding people who were even willing to play me. The only other guy I know who tried playing it had the same problem. On top of that, the skill gap between me and the people online was so big that I couldn't really learn anything from playing them. They were playing on such a completely different level I couldn't even figure out what they were doing half the time.

I realize I would still lose a lot if all the systems weren't there, I just think it would be a lot easier for me to figure out what was going on. What really bugs me is how awful the tutorials are. It feels like no one working on these games knows what teaching is, let alone how to do it well, and unlike the other players, I feel like the designers actually do have an obligation to explain their game to anyone who buys it. I can think of a lot of ways to make the single player modes in a fighting game do a much better job of preparing people for the online play without much effort, and anyone with even a passing knowledge of teaching could do the same. I always feel slightly ripped off when I buy a game and it feels like the people who made it don't really care whether or not I'm having fun with it.

You know what's the funny thing, that's my game so I know exactly what you're talking about. Here's a few insider things you might find useful in explaining your experience.


Blazblue: Continuum Shift has been out for a while and isn't as big as something like MvC3 but the people who play it are either random anime fans who like cute stuff and suck at fighters or super hardcore ex guilty gear players. I'm somewhat of an anomaly since I'm kinda both. Anyways, due to that, you have the really good people who seem leagues beyond the average gamer since they've been playing GG accent core for the past 7 years and they don't really mind training new people but only if they actually see you as worth training and don't perceive you as someone who would use Rachel simply cause she's a gothic lolita and isn't really all that much into it for the fighting. Being a newcomer into the series with CT and not actually having played GG at all (I got into GG after being into BB) I had a lot of people help me train with my Bang early on because despite my love for his super saiyan antics and his love for booby ladies I also played the game with a competitive fire in my belly.



As for the tutorials, they do teach you everything but this is a game where experience matters more than actual knowledge. You can't be taught muscle memory, you just need to develop a feel for it. Talks of strategy are cheap when you can't block a low-high mixup or break a purple grab. Even if you memorize everything you still will need to put it to work and that skill is something you develop by yourself. Challenge mode is a great addition though, especially the CS2 patch version of it, it shows you viable BnBs in the 6-10 levels of it for most chars. It's the best example of combo tutorials in a fighter ever.

Lastly, who was your character of choice? The new blazblue will be out Febuary so if you ever get the desire to get back in the game (or even if you wanna play some continuum shift, I still play that) we could play and I definitely like being a teacher.









(random; even Captcha plays skyrim...FML...this is what I had to type "Falmer, udivides")

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try doing that next time a fighting game comes out that I think looks cool.

The game in question was the second Blazblue. I played through all the single player stuff, then I tried going online. I expected to just get annihilated in the beginning, obviously, but once my win/loss ratio got bad enough I started having serious trouble finding people who were even willing to play me. The only other guy I know who tried playing it had the same problem. On top of that, the skill gap between me and the people online was so big that I couldn't really learn anything from playing them. They were playing on such a completely different level I couldn't even figure out what they were doing half the time.

I realize I would still lose a lot if all the systems weren't there, I just think it would be a lot easier for me to figure out what was going on. What really bugs me is how awful the tutorials are. It feels like no one working on these games knows what teaching is, let alone how to do it well, and unlike the other players, I feel like the designers actually do have an obligation to explain their game to anyone who buys it. I can think of a lot of ways to make the single player modes in a fighting game do a much better job of preparing people for the online play without much effort, and anyone with even a passing knowledge of teaching could do the same. I always feel slightly ripped off when I buy a game and it feels like the people who made it don't really care whether or not I'm having fun with it.

You know what's the funny thing, that's my game so I know exactly what you're talking about. Here's a few insider things you might find useful in explaining your experience.


Blazblue: Continuum Shift has been out for a while and isn't as big as something like MvC3 but the people who play it are either random anime fans who like cute stuff and suck at fighters or super hardcore ex guilty gear players. I'm somewhat of an anomaly since I'm kinda both. Anyways, due to that, you have the really good people who seem leagues beyond the average gamer since they've been playing GG accent core for the past 7 years and they don't really mind training new people but only if they actually see you as worth training and don't perceive you as someone who would use Rachel simply cause she's a gothic lolita and isn't really all that much into it for the fighting. Being a newcomer into the series with CT and not actually having played GG at all (I got into GG after being into BB) I had a lot of people help me train with my Bang early on because despite my love for his super saiyan antics and his love for booby ladies I also played the game with a competitive fire in my belly.



As for the tutorials, they do teach you everything but this is a game where experience matters more than actual knowledge. You can't be taught muscle memory, you just need to develop a feel for it. Talks of strategy are cheap when you can't block a low-high mixup or break a purple grab. Even if you memorize everything you still will need to put it to work and that skill is something you develop by yourself. Challenge mode is a great addition though, especially the CS2 patch version of it, it shows you viable BnBs in the 6-10 levels of it for most chars. It's the best example of combo tutorials in a fighter ever.

Lastly, who was your character of choice? The new blazblue will be out Febuary so if you ever get the desire to get back in the game (or even if you wanna play some continuum shift, I still play that) we could play and I definitely like being a teacher.









(random; even Captcha plays skyrim...FML...this is what I had to type "Falmer, udivides")

Thank you very much. That's actually some of the most helpful and understandable advice about fighting games I've ever gotten.

I'm currently as far away from my PS3 as I can be while remaining on Earth and will be until the end of next summer, so it looks like I'll be a bit late to the party on the next Blazblue who thought a silent "z" was a good idea, anyway?). I played Lambda CS because I'd never seen a character in a fighting game who played like that before (it helps that I'm also a big ZOE fan), but I switched to Makoto after the first DLC because I enjoyed playing her more (shame about the costume, though).

I know that the tutorials technically cover everything, but they basically amount to a voiced instruction manual. I've done some work with teaching as part of studying languages, so it just really irks me when I see people dropping the ball on it so much. I mean, I'm sure it's more important for the designers to be working on balance issues or net code or whatever, but there are just so many better ways to teach people something than just reading it all off like that.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Thank you very much. That's actually some of the most helpful and understandable advice about fighting games I've ever gotten.

I'm currently as far away from my PS3 as I can be while remaining on Earth and will be until the end of next summer, so it looks like I'll be a bit late to the party on the next Blazblue who thought a silent "z" was a good idea, anyway?). I played Lambda CS because I'd never seen a character in a fighting game who played like that before (it helps that I'm also a big ZOE fan), but I switched to Makoto after the first DLC because I enjoyed playing her more (shame about the costume, though).

I know that the tutorials technically cover everything, but they basically amount to a voiced instruction manual. I've done some work with teaching as part of studying languages, so it just really irks me when I see people dropping the ball on it so much. I mean, I'm sure it's more important for the designers to be working on balance issues or net code or whatever, but there are just so many better ways to teach people something than just reading it all off like that.

Ah, Makoto, yeah, she's simple to use but her drives are quite tricky for a newcomer. If you don't master getting them to lvl 3 every single time you won't get far with her since her average BnB relies on about 2-5 lvl 3 Ds being landed perfectly. It's something which will seem initially impossible and then 3 hours later pathetically easy.


As for Lambda, she's a zoner with some good damage potential but she has a unique playstyle not often found in fighters so you need to play her completely differently to everyone else. Blazblue is like that where you may know how to kick ass with one guy and completely suck with everyone else cause they're so different, it's why picking a main is strongly advised for new players.


As for the teaching thing, I can see how it's more of a personal peeve to you but take note how Rachel talks to you during it, she's basically torturing you during the tutorial, that's a tongue-in-cheek joke of the game. It's not the best way to do a tutorial, for sure, but if you're already a fan of the game you'll go through it regardless just to hear Rachel explain stuff and belittle you in her favorite way. She often jokes about how the player is a masochist and for other such things.


Lastly, there's no silent Z unless you're pronouncing it in Japanese and if you are you should know that they didn't actually type a Z in there in the first place lol. (it's called "burei-buru", not "bureizu-buru") In english it's pronounced like "blaze-blue", it doesn't have a silent "z", it has an invisible "e". XD

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

To be fair SC isn't really that difficult when compared to pretty much any 2D fighters or games like Virtua Fighter or the Fate/Stay fighters. You can just mash buttons and do real damage in SC. As for the parry, I'd swear it was "hold block button + tap direction", not "tap block button and direction at the same time" but I haven't played the game in 3~ years so I could be wrong.


As for Mitsurugi being nigh invincible, not really, that I do remember. I used a lot of people in SC4 but my main was the rather underused Yoshimitsu and I remember making quick work of cheesing Mitsurugi users.

 

[Supah]

My guess is they haven't picked up King of Fighters XIII, I wasn't much into fighters but now that I got it I'm going to pick up the future blazblue title and mortal kombat probably