Making Fighting Games Accessible
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- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2024
- Twitter: / darkfryyt
Patreon: / darkfry
Twitch: / itsdarkfrybaby
This time I talk about Fighting Games and how this genre that is notorious for how hard it is to get into is finally extending a helping hand and becoming more accessible, using as an example Guilty Gear Strive which I have been OBSESSED WITH since its release. Why is Strive so much more appealing and approachable for new players than other fighting games? What can other fighting games do to improve their approachability by a larger playerbase? With Guilty Gear Strive, Melty Blood Type Lumina, KOFXV, Blazblue and P4AU updates and Project L and DNF Duel on the horizon there is a Fighting Game REVOLUTION happening right now, and I hope you are as excited as I am. Enjoy!
Audio, video editing, and TV Visuals by Ntrakon: / rentrakon
TV Design, Endscreen by Mel: / mel_art_
Massive thank you to @Foxcade for lending his voice!
/ foxcade
#Accessibility #GuiltyGear #GuiltyGearStrive #KOFXV #MeltyBlood
#FightingGames #GetIntoFightingGames
What's your fave Fighting Game or the one you're looking forward to the most? TELL ME!
Twitter: twitter.com/DarkfryYT
Patreon: www.patreon.com/darkfry
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/itsdarkfrybaby
I think a great way to gamify a fighting game tutorial, would be to make a side scrolling beat em up mode. One where you start with a limited move set, slowly unlocking more as you progress, fighting enemies who are designed to be dealt with in specific ways, then fighting other characters from the roster as boss fight "tests". If done well, then by the end of the mode, you "should" know the characters entire move set, preferred play style, common tactics, mix ups and how to deal with/do with most things that can actually BE taught.
You say that but and it’s already a thing, Them’s Fightn Herds (TFH) already does this to an absolutely wonderful extent with its story mode. There’s like 6 unique enemies you fight that all teach different things. A wolf enemy for example that teaches good defense with it’s only 2 attacks being a very slow overhead and low hits. It teaches through repetition is low stakes scenarios about the value of crouchblocking and anti airs.
And this is on top of its absolutely AMAZING tutorial. Explains everything in bite Sized chunks, with frankly some really good writing including decent humor to keep it from becoming dry.
I honestly cannot give enough praise to the Mane6(yes that’s the dev team’s name) for just how absolutely good it is. Honestly it deserves more recognition.
You just described MK mythologies Sub Zero.. you must be new to fighting games or underaged
@@dbycrash Well, putting your condescending crap aside, its neither. MKMSZ doesn't count because its pretty much broken, full of cheap crap, the enemy AI sucks, you don't deal with enemies in ways that teach you anything, the progression is limited to special moves and it does NOTHING to tutorialise combat tactics.
It scratches the surface of what I'm talking about, but fails at every step.
im from the future and im here to tell u darkfry's new video is amazing, and i don't even play fighting games
That song at 8:00 is crazy catchy. I think it would work great if you made a specific upload just for that. A shorter video like that might go viral, draw more attention to your channel.
Will do so soon
@@Darkfry Still waiting.
That was an impressive musical number, good stuff man
A few months ago, I started as well despite not liking fighting games. I could understand all of what you talked about and the bar of entrance is definitely high so having more appeal makes sense.
The criminally underrated game I started with is Skullgirls, and the game feel is indeed coined like you described, that made me want to get better at it.
What really helped as well is having tournament hosted weekly by the community, adding a fun social aspect to it.
That's actually pretty impressive cause Skullgirls is BRUTAL compared to games like Strive or Type Lumina
I used to play Fantasy Strike, because I couldn't play Street Fighter too impressively, but at some moment I tried Them's Fightin Herds, and I had a blast.
Every character has an accessible combo of A->B->C->launcher, but watching good players' combos is mindblowing.
I haven't gotten into a fighting game since Melee way back and even then only casually. Your absolutely love and hype shining through on this as well as how amazing they look is really tempting!
Also damn the editing on this vid is 🔥🔥🔥
get Strive and fite me
Heck yeah make that yakko song a solo upload, it's too fun
NGL i expected a video about a newcomer who only dipped toes in the genre and talking about how they know the be all end all solution to making FGs accessible, but I actually loved this video. While I don't consider myself an old head, I was only really playing FGs for like less than 10 years, I do know share the same ideas of the older members.
I think your points here are pretty nice and is a good middle ground for both hardcore and casual players, though some people will disagree, due to these mechanics limiting combo options but I personally think don't think the same. Autocombos are really good, doe sometimes its implementation might be TOO lenient ( sometimes the air auto combo messes up my rejump combos in MBTL) but small annoyances, that will improve once devs will get used to having them. Another idea might be easier motion inputs, or alternative motion inputs. DNF and GBVS has good ideas with it, making easier inputs costs more resources or have less rewards in exchange for ease of inputs. Project L is also fine, I think there's space for FGs with traditional inputs and simpler ones. I just hope people won't start screaming how one or the other is shit and should never have existed. :)
the only real point I disagree with is Xrd being too complicated to be marketed to casuals. I think it's really not that bad.
Though, this might just be because I started playing FGs during the hey day of UMvC3 and BBCF . I do think that they could market a game like Xrd and make casual itnerested in it. Look at tekken that game complicated as shit but people still play it, casual and try hard.
I will admit changing the mechanics IS the safer choice. I do hope devs do still have confidence making games like Xrd, cause I don't want games that are all GBVS/ Strive/ SF clones.
LOL! I appreciate the song. That took effort.
*you have no idea*
I like to watch fighting games, played a bit casual ages ago. I always struggle to understand why a move is good or bad, if i watch a match i just see oh this worked or did not. thinks like blocking makes sense to me, but i am kinda missing the next 2 steps. not because i don't understand them, but because i don't "see" them when i am watching a game/character i have never seen before.
I'm a Nago main, and Strive is the first fighting game I've really enjoyed enough to play outside couch matches. The soundtrack and the way Nago feels to play are what got me there. All your points sound valid to me, and I have a high opinion of your taste.
I'm making an entire other video on why Nago's design is GENIUS at some point
@@DarkfryI'll be watching for the notification. There's not enough good videos about why Nago's great outside of the competitive analysis genre.
One of my favourite stories about fighting game design is the hilarity of the Super Smash Brothers franchise. The second game, Melee, introduced a ton of depth...by accident. Several new features were introduced: quick turns while running, short hops, air dodging, fast fall, etc. (Some of these might have been in the original, my memory of the N64 title is foggy at best. But...add that all up, and you can dash-dance to make it hard to tell when you're actually going to make your move, then short hop->air attack->fast fall->air dodge into the ground-> and you've got an extremely fast combo opener. Short hop, fast fall, and air dodge at an angle, and now you have a wavedash capable of moving you as fast or faster than a run while keeping the ability to smoothly transition into a block or a wide variety of attacks instead of a dash attack.
These unexpected synergies spawn a massively popular competitive scene for Melee. The Wii comes out, Brawl is announced, and it and several subsequent entries are effectively Nintendo trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle. It's hilarious. (And, probably, extremely frustrating to the die-hards who got invested.
Brawl was really the only one that tried to stop competitive, 4 just didn’t fix it very well
Wow, I didn't know Darkfry was the unprecedented FOURTH sibling of the Animaniacs AND had a foot fetish! Yo but for real this was a great video! This is definitely the type of content that needs to exist to make more folks play fighting games! DBFZ was the game that got me really into fighting games so I defo caught a lot of similar feelings when you were explaining how Strive grabbed ya.
Don't we all have a foot fetish to some extend?
Never played Guilty Gear but Nariyuki's coolness gave me chills just by looking at him. Gotta hit the gym
When I first got into Guilty Gear with Xrd, I went from fancy vampire man who can punch you into the stratosphere, to guitar witch, to badass one-armed ronin, to billiards assassin. The fact that my journey in finding an actual main is that diverse just going off the character designs is just insane. And then they gave me a vampire samurai in Strive & just... yeah it was game over for the rest of the roster.
On the other end of the "how I chose a main" spectrum, P4AU giving me the chance to fight as the TEAM NAVIGATOR aka the party member who just gave out buffs/debuffs/scanned the enemies was enough to make me a Rise main just out of a "how did they pull this off" curiosity. And then they gave her a super that is literally a rhythm game & the blatant disrespect I could give my opponent by forcing them to watch me play some music to build up damage just made that choice stick.
Loved the mechanics song and headbanger mashup. I’ve always loved the genre, I’ve just never been able to dedicate the time to them. It’s great so many cool looking titles are still coming out 😃
Strive if my first serious Guilty Gear and I lovvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeee the online experience even if I only win 50% of the time. Waiting for KOF15 on PC, haven't played kof since 98.
Also if you're on mobile, Vita Fighters is waiting for you.
Nice video DarkFry! Smash Melee is the game out there for me, and maybe I need to pick it up again hehe
For what it's worth, Fantasy Strike has a lot more players on console, and since it has full cross play you can still find matches on any version. Though now that the devs have pretty much abandoned it, who knows how long that will last.
Wow the song :'D
Great job dude!
The "newer" Virtua Fighter games were/are a blast to play despite it being described as "super hardcore" and me being pretty bad at it. Something about how fluid the gameplay felt was something I haven't seen anywhere else. And for a game series known for being complex, the surface is still basic enough for a fool like me to dunk multiple dozen hours into VF5. All the character designs may not be Hall Of Fame Greatest Of All Time in quality, but the relatively compact and clean designs were a really nice breath of fresh air after the odd doldrums of the PS2 MK games and their oversized MUGEN folder of a character roster.
Also, Kyanta 2 is really goofy and I adore it and all its MS Paint glory.
The fact that VF doesn't have ANY kind of resource management meaning it's all spacing & reading your opponent's moves makes it fun in its own way as well. You don't have to go "can they just pop a 'fuck you' attack?", just "will they go for a sweep?"
I played fighting games when i was young with my family in the ps2 (mainly mk and budokai tenkachi 3) i remember in dbz i didnt really do the hard combos till my brother tried them and i said "i want to try those; they seem so cool" so i learned a couple of those. It did help the fact that while the combos remained similar they looked different. Also jahirobe was OP with his full heal
The song you Made Is pure gold
The biggest barrier in fighting games for me is the timing, I have an awful sense of time and timing, any game (Fighting or otherwise) that relies on good timing is a nightmare of frustration for me.
Fighting games are Rhythm games in disguise so I get that
Eh, hard disagree on the part about Fantasy Strike. The skill gaps in that game are big, because there are a lot of ways for you to get better, as in, high skill ceiling. Those skills are just not about mechanical execution or having lots of mechanics. The failings of Fantasy Strike lie somewhere completely different than it's core gameplay not being complex enough. Not the least of which is that it's hard for new kinds of things to make it in the fgc.
The segment on the patch notes made me remember why I stopped playing strive a couple of weeks after I bought the game. I was new to the genre and I spent a week to learn a basic combo. Then the path drops and the combo doesn't work anymore, I wasted my time. In no other game I played what you learn and practice can be nullified like that... so I left :(
awesome video love all the work you put in and I see and apricate it man
When is that banger going on Spotify?
Did this man just diss Ram...
IM A FUKIN KILL AM !!!
I'll go further than that. Ram is the most character in the game
6:53 "You might win some games"
That is, in itself, *extremely* generous. I lab an hour before playing SFV and can't beat other 0lp players (genuinely 0lp, not even smurfs). Some people are so, so much further under the skill floor than anyone would like to admit.
11:45 Indeed, no one gets into fighters for the story, because they all suck. Where's the Halo, the BioShock, hell, even the CoD campaign of fighting games? Most people screw around playing babby games before ever playing *casual, silly* online matches in the FPS genre. There are steps leading up from the actual skill floor. Imagine if someone who could barely move or aim properly could only hop into CS:GO defuse lobbies.
I was really hoping you would talk more about how you went from "I press the wrong buttons half of the time and shit happens too quickly for my brain to register what's happening" to "hey I'm actually having fun even if I lose 95% of the time". That's the gap I really can't comprehend. The second half of this video is already getting into shit that's, like, ten skill levels beyond where I'm at. I don't get how tf to walk forward without just getting punched again.
11:10 Felt so called out. I really just got into GG Strive because of Testament.
Great video! I'm personally not interested in fighting games (except for the occasional game of smash with friends) but this was a really fun and interesting watch. Also, as others have already said, that song was really well done! The occasional yelling was a bit much for me though.
Loved the video but I'll add a little of a constructive criticism here, be careful with adding music to the videos on the 1:20 mark you added a music that is way too louder than your voice so a guy whos wearing headphones that changed the volume up suddenly suffers from the giant audio spike that happens, besides that a great video overall :)
Took me too long to find this video. It was great.
My godness this should have more views.
I agree
As someone who's been playing fighting games for years, im still like "What the fuck is a Moon Drive, Arc Drive, Moon Skill, Blood Heat? And Magic Circuit? Huuuh?" Im sure, alot of fighting games these days make me feel like im looking at Yugioh cards, yet im good at Yugioh
My favorite fighting games are Tekken and skullgirls.
Basically because I play those with my friends and while we enjoy a lot the waifus, cool moves and that things. In both games I got to be their final Boss because I am the one who really gets into learning a character or group of characters enough to crush them. I wish I could play online and get more into the competitive experience because my brother even stopped playing skullgirls with me because he just kept losing to me and didn't have the time or patience to learn.
The person’s picture you used as John Carmack is John Romero
Don't be silly..😁😇
indeed. You may have also noticed that John Carmack didn't actually say that lol
@@Darkfry I didn't notice lol but I don't really put it pass any game dev to say something like that
There are way too many fighting games and they don't fit with a "patient gamer" mentality. By the time a game is cheap or had time to develop, it's also dead. That's why I'd rather play single player in these games, but I don't have the motivation to improve.
Amazing video. Makes me want to buy Strive and Melty.
Great video. This made me want to look into picking up a fighting game again. I've struggled with the concept like you before. I like the *idea* of fighting games, but not so much the actual process. I picked up Tekken and had great fun, then I went online once and that was it because the matchups were fucking terrible and shortly after that I hit a point where I couldn't really progress further in the single-player either so I stopped. I had a lot of fun with Skullgirls but it's very fast-paced and eventually being autistic I hit a point where my information processing speed cannot keep up, it also doesn't help that they gate a lot of the tutorials. Like if you can't complete one step of the tutorial at the speed they demand of you - they're not showing the rest. After that I decided that I can enjoy the idea, but probably shouldn't actually play them. But this gives me reason to give it a go again. Strive is much too expensive now to buy (so is Melty blood), but I'll wishlist them and keep them around for the future. Thank you.
I'm not a fan of basically anything pvp, so fighting games aren't really up my alley. That said, I have found myself enjoying the single player experiences, I remember Brawl fondly for it's single player. I haven't played one in /many/ years though, Brawl might've been the last one. lol
I really love your passion and enthusiasm for fighting games shown here, made for a great video.
My favorite fighting game is smash bros ultimate because I'm dorry I tried to get into guilty gear strive and its just too hard to master. I don't have fun playing the game and have no intention of touching it again. Even if I did brought the dlc pack. I don't get anything. How do you do it
10 out 10 for that song. I gave it a like.
I dunno if the fighting game genre is anything for me. They just look so exhausting to play, with a million particles flying across the screen that are going to make me have a sensory overload moment. I get that the visual effects are there to make it look cool, but I just take one glance at it all and get a headache.
Another +1 for the amazing song!
I have noticed that fighting games are going through a "golden age." I've never been into them much outside of Smash and a little bit of Soul Calibur II and Pokken Tournament DX here and there, but I'm enjoying playing more recent offerings, and looking forward to more. KOFXV is my most anticipated; playing the first beta was fun even though I lost A LOT due to it being my first one (and to being bad at most fighting games except Smash and Dead or Alive, in which I'm just average).
Didn't like Strive at first, but you've inspired me to give it another go. Nagoriyuki is my favorite in that game, too; definitely one of the most well-designed characters I've seen in a while. Ky is a close second, though.
Now, the only problem is that there are so many good fighting games out now, it's hard to pick just a few. Of course, depending on how you see it, that might be a good problem to have.
it's absolutely true that we're in a FG Golden Age, I say just pick one and have a blast!
I gotta admit, I've always appreciated fighting games for their mechanical expansiveness, but I've never thought they could be for me. But honestly, even though I know for a fact I would massively suck if I ever did, this video's enthusiasm has made me honestly want to try something like guilty gear. Don't know if I actually will, but I will defiantly commend this vid for imbuing me with that desire I don't think I've ever honestly had before. Nice work! :)
Being bad at them shouldn't discourage you from playing any game. Embrace your suck and have fun with it!
I don't play fighting games, but I still enjoyed the video! The complexity certainly doesn't help, but even outside of the complexity, the things you mentioned that work to keep new players invested just don't work on me for whatever reason. Great video!
“Accessible” aka easy enough for gen z to play. Kids with 30 second attention spans so lazy they can’t even take the time to learn how to throw a fireball
If you think Fantasy Strike has low skill ceiling, you have no idea what Fantasy Strike has to offer
I don't doubt it
Nice vid. 👍🏾
I like fighting games but I can never get into them. Dyspraxia sucks. :(
This is a good vidyo.
I can't get through this video because the audio levels aren't consistent. If I've got it loud enough to hear and understand, then I've got it too loud for when you yell. If I'm constantly adjusting the knob to make sure I'm not irritating my housemates then I just won't watch. It sucks because I want to watch a video on this exact subject. I want to play these games and am up against this barrier. Wish I could finish the second half.
INB4 "Wear earbuds." That doesn't solve the problem of varying audio levels.
need money to buy guilty gear that game looks sick ζωζ
I tried fighting games and hated them. I only like platform fighters and arena fighters. Fighting games used to be just two people facing off in a 1v1 in a simple goal to drain the opponents health bar, now it's full of overly "complex" unessacary bullshit just to do one fucking thing.
The only time I will play a fighting game is when it looks cool and has good pve content. Other than that there is no reason for me to play fighting games.
Fighting games were always a bunch of “complex” unnecessary bullshit.
>using the melty blood tutorial as reference for long tutorial
BRUH Melty blood tutorial isnt even big and each one of those only covers a very small thing they are literally each just
"press left or right to move > COMPLETE > Next tutorial" thats pretty much the length of each section of the melty blood tutorial
You’re not allowed to critique games cuz you’re not a game dev!
I AM a gamedev. You fucking dingus. You absolute moron. You buffoon. You stupid bastard
Imagine being sick at marvel btw 🤣
So the game that I love and enjoy should be more boring and with a lower sealing just so a guy that would still left the game after a week cause is a 1v1 would buy it, even though you also say that a guy can fall into the genre rabbit hole just by simply liking a character that he finds cool. At the end of the day making a game worst for an audience that from the beggining wont enjoy or doesn't like the product at the expense of old players and fans is ridiculous, more if we think that even if simpler games encourage some people to finally try fighting games, with time they would try harder games and they could even like them more, proving that they could bare with complexity. So if we want to make simplier games let's do it, but at least make new franchise, don't ruin existing ones.
In a niche genre, only the recognizable established IPs, or new games with widely popular IP like DBZ, can make any impact.
The genre flagship game HAVE TO be the ones that bring in the broader audiences. The games that appeal to the hardcore niche are the lower budget iines that can actually afford the lower sales that result from catering to the hardcore FGC. There's no two ways about it.
But a rising tide lifts all boats.
So, if the flagships can bring in players that niche-catering games are incapable of, a portion of the new blood WILL get curious about the more niche offerings. And a portion of the curious crowd WILL fall down the rabbit hole, finding a game that they like but would never have found if the big budget fighting games never drew them in by being mpre casual-friendly.
That's how it works in all the genres that haven't already faded into obscurity, and to obvious benefit.
The FG hardcore just need to get the heck out of the way and let that arrangement, which would benefit every one in the genre, actually come to be instead of fighting against change.
Nuff said.
@@s_factor_sam You just confirm what I said about fighting games stopping being what we like to appeal to people that don't like them in first place, and as I said the people that stick are gonna be less that the ones that leaves and there is gonna be two types, the ones that try other games and hit a brick wall cause the game that got them into is so different of the rest so they come back to that original game, or people who can pass through all the bullshit this games offer, something that they could do no matter the game they start into.
Also the flagship tittles of any genre no matter what never are the ones that appeal more to casuals, they are the ones that better represent the genre, and sorry but if a game appeals more to casuals immediately stops being niche. Also you really don't understand how the world works if you think there still gonna be games that appeal to hardcore fans, yeah maybe 1 or 2 but no more, cause every company will see how much money brings stop being niche so they will appeal to casuals, something that is already happening. And then even the new players wont have anything new to play that is more niche that isn't 10+ old games that nobody plays anymore. Sorry but this doesn't benefit anyone.
Say all you want we are gatekeeping but we simply ask people to understand what and where they are getting into, nothing more, no one is asking people not to come. Flash news for you, NOTHING IS FOR EVERYONE, and that doesn't mean nobody is welcome. Try to appeal to everyone and watch how you fail and get forget. There is a point where change is not longer good, there is a point where the change is so big that the game starts to stop being from that genre, cause if a shooter stops being a shooter then what's the point; we aren't against improvement we are against the opposite
I'm not asking you to stop playing fighting games neither saying you are a newbie that doesn't know anything, you may even being here for longer than me, but please, stop trying to sound like the good one appealing to everyone while ruining everyone's fun.
Also love how you complain about us supposedly not letting people get in while excluding us well done.
@@Martorfunk
MOBAs - Approachable: Pokemon Unite. Mid-ground: League. Hardcore: DOTA2.
Shooters - Approachable: Cod, Battlefield, Fortnite. Mid-ground: Apex, Halo, Overwatch. Hardcore: Valorant, Counterstrike.
The hardcore and casual CAN and DO healthily coexist in other competitive genres. Some who onboard with a casual-friendly title do get into a more hardcpre title.
So, why can't the same happen with fighting games?
Because we want the vast majority of the genre to ignore the rest of the gaming landscape and resist change to the point that all which remains are low budget titles, due to being unable to sell nor be seen as worth no more than $10-20 products due to having so little value to exponentially more people than the total of the hardcore niche?
But at least the genre will still cater to us hardcore fans, right? Even though the result is still that the hardcore-centric titles have to be low budget and fewer in number but without any FGs with widespread popularity to bring in a steady flow of newcomers diving down the rabbit hole.
Just look at the Shmup genre and you'll see exactly what lies in store for fighting games if the faces of the genre don't shake the stigma of being unapproachable to mpre people than they already appeal to.
On the inverse, look at Monster Hunter World and Rise to see what happens when an unapproachable niche series eliminates and streamlines design elements that made the games unapproachable to the majority while still keeping the game's core conceit intact.
I want the success and player retention of Monster Hunter World and Rise for the fighting game genre, not the obscurity and resulting forced low budgets of staying niche like the Shmup genre.
After all, if you truly love the genre, you should want what's best for it rather than being selfishly possessive over it. I know it sucks, because it's something I'm having to deal with, but for different reasons. But at least I can use logic to acknowledge why the reality is the way it is, even if I don't like it.
@@s_factor_sam You list games that don't struggle with the main problem that makes this games niche by default, they a team games, games with even more variables to blame before yourself. All those games continue to appeal to their communities and also casuals, CS:GO is played by thousands of casuals while being one of the hardest game in it's genre, some of them that even do crazy and complicated shit in that game, cause they are more streamline and also more accessible in ways fighting games will never be, all because the genre is 1v1, that's why those games work. And you are misunderstanding cause the hardcore fans of fighting games not only play the most difficult ones, if not street fighter and other games like it wouldn't be played, and casuals can still like or play games like Teken. The thing is not divide between people better or worse, is divide between people that like the genre and people that don't.
I never said easy games can't exist, I wont stop the developers to do what they want, but of course if I don't buy their game for using and IP I love don't get surprised. And you really just say KOF, Guilty Gear, MVC, Tekken, Blazblue, Street Fighter between others low budget? Man you are crazy.
Monster hunter as an example don't work at all, first the things that those games streamlined are things that just made all slower without necessity, like the pickaxes and bug nets, but also they water down so many things, even the difficulty making the original fan base not happy, and some even prefer the older ones, even me, who due to never have the consoles started with World, and now that I tried the older ones I prefer those, that's what I mean. Sometimes people don't know what they want so they prefer simpler things instead of things that make them enjoy more their time. Want examples of game that were so different nobody wanted or like it, RE6 and DmC, it can go both ways. Also Shmup genre is also another bad example, just watch the beat em up genre, they never were seem as unapproachable and were loved by everyone, and still you barely see 1 or 2 low budget games a year.
Fighting games would always have the appearance of unapproachable unless we teach people the opposite, not by making them worst, because unless you strip a fighting game of everything they still gonna face a wall of bullshit, just let a new guy play Strive and see how much he can handle mix up, being punished, zoning, rushing, or simply grabs, I tell you, not too much people will stay. Or I have to remain you of DBFZ 80% loss of player base in less than a month. What we really need is teaching people that you don't need hours and hours in training doing sick combos to be good or play, even less enjoy this games, but we are more focused on making every game easier without trying to make players good.
Is not that no one can see why this happens, is that is not necessary neither acceptable, even less if we think that there is better solutions.
@@Martorfunk You focus so much on the details that you seem to be unable to apply the principles. Seeing the trees but unable to see the whole forest.
1v1 makes fighting games niche? There's a way to fix that but, as I said, it would require change.
Very few fighting games implement team tag/elimination modes, such as SFxT, DBFZ, KoF 14, and SFV. So, how about one of these flagship games try making team play the competitive default mode? Imagine if KoF 15 ranked play was the usual 3v3 elimination style, but each character was a player instead of 1 player controlling all 3 characters. The core of KoF wouldn't change, but making it would reduce the unaproachability effect of 1v1 by introducing the approachability inherent to team-based games.
Tag fighters and Project L could easily do the same, to similar effect. Things like the Tekken Master cup team tourney already exist, but that's the players externally making it into a team game and its not treated as nearly as important as 1v1 competition. For team play to have a positive effect on the genre's approachability, it would have to be implemented in-game as the default mode of play and across many games around the same time. But I'd bet that the FGC would fight, kicking-and-screaming, against that simply because its a change from the arcade roots. "If it's not 1v1, its not REAL fighting game competition", and so on. Tbh, I can legitimately see fighting game players being more toxic and blaming teammates even more than in other genres.
In any case, the thing about principles is that they apply to all. You just have to think about how to apply them.
So, looking at good game design principles, there are quite a few things that FGs to poorly but to change the, would incur the wrath of the FGC.
- Execution of fundamental universal and character specific actions must be mechanically simple.
Shooters, MOBAs, etc. all have simple actions at their core. Point and click. Press key/button. Press one and then another. Press two simultaneously.
The difficulty comes from timing and precision, not the act of doing the fundamental action itself, as in fighting games historically.
- Learning should be fun and intuitive, not work nor a grind.
This can be achieved through the gameplay being uncomplex enough that it can be learned via the main game loop or via non-competitive game modes that are well-designed and compelling to play while teaching applicable skills through their design. But that would require the FGC to be ok with devs taking time away from competitive focus in order to create more variety of polished ways to play the game.
Frontloaded or dense tutorials are actually counterintuitive, because they make the game look like a job or college course and scares away more people than it helps.
- Players should have in-game incentive to keep playing.
Aside from NRS games and platform fighters, the genre forgoes rewarding a players' time with in-game progression unlocks and the like. But this is so easy to implement that this is literally nothing but a failure of the part of the devs for not doing it.
Extrinsic rewards ALWAYS do better at motivating than solely intrinsic. It's just how the human brain works and those in the FGC who don't care are outliers due to being conditioned to not care.
These are just what I can think of, off the top of my head. These game design principles are universal and the genres that follow them thrive while the ones that don't are fighting games, Shmups, RTS, and arena shooters like Quake...all niche, obscure, or dead. 😅
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. In this case, genres in a vacuum, that don't learn from the past and present successes or failures of other genres and adapt accordingly will see a fitting result.
I really dislike how you misrepresent the older fighting games to fit the narrative.
How so?
I've been playing the genre since 2002 and everything he said tracks pretty well.
Though, I do try to look at all genres logically and objectively rather than with biases common in the FGC.
I don't remember exactly why I said so by now, but I think the gist was that he would exaggerate the barrier to entry of older games and imply like you couldn't play the games unless you can do this hard combo, when in reality you could start having a game plan and have fun as soon as you learn a simple bnb, with the upside of having much more space for progression compared to modern games.
Think he also claimed that once you're in the corner in older guilty gear you're done, when in reality the situation will never ever be so cut and dry if you have ever actually played the game, you've got so many defensive options to help yourself get out when being cornered just denies a few of them. It's also ironic since in strive there's even less options than older gear for what you could of done.
The obvious lack of research on any games but strive made me feel like he's mentioning these "old" games more for supporting the narrative than anything else. I don't like this because this will create more people who write off those game he misrepresented.
@@KnigJTR406
I understand where your coming from, being as I've played the genre for as long as I have.
Though something I don't allow myself to forget is that, to the inexperienced (as players) the way he represented older fighting games IS how they seem.
What we know, in our deeper understanding of the genre, doesn't matter nor apply to newcomers. And the games themselves do a factually poor job at offering a fun, engaging experience that's intuitive to learn and contains content which equates to value in the post-arcade gaming landscape.
The gameplay design, lacking content/game mode offerings, and reliance on the player community to onboard and teach new players are what's at fault. Which means that it's on devs to figure out ways to do what every healthy genre has done, adapt their design sensibilities and apply universal objectively effective game design principles to hook newcomers within the first 30-120 minutes WITHOUT external information sources and feel intuitive (for the majority of player types/circumstances to learn through playing rather than labbing.
Unfortunately, due to the roots and nature of the genre, there's no effective way to do that without genre-spanning changes. But look at the Shmup genre, to see what lies in store for fighting games in the case of failure/unwavering resistance to change, while Monster Hunter World and Rise is an example of a niche series adapting and becoming more approachable.
@@s_factor_sam I agree that first impression and outside appearance matters to new players alot more than facts, however, from personal experience as a 'new' player, more recent games like xrd and unist have both offered very good tutorials for to get new players to start understanding the game, and I struggle to find the difference between their tutorial and modern games tutorial apart from the fact that there are just less mechanics to teach in new games due to simplification. If fighting games are to achieve this 'intuitive to learn' by simplifying games and sacrificing depth and long term playability, don't you think something is wrong with this trend?
On the topic of appearance is what matters to new players, since you can make an uninformed video based on appearance of old games being hard and have new players believe it, you must be able to market a game like xrd, bbcf, or unist and say that they're beginner friendly and easy to get into and have new players believe it as well. I am willing to bet money that if asw has kept their design direction from xrd and gave the marketing that strive had, that hypothetical game would not be considered a failure, it would be way more successful than xrd with the newly obtained reputation and exposure that they got from dbfz and gbfv while not losing it's essence as a long time series of fighting games.
26:52-26:54 Ah, I see that you, too, are one of culture. ;)