Topic: Accessiblity and the Fighting Game Genre

[broodwars]

My apologies in advance.  This post is something of a Stream of Consciousness.

This is something that's actually bothered me for several years, but in recent days I've been reminded of it as I sat down to play the fairly recent BlazBlue: Continuum Shift and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.  After playing both, I'm continually baffled at how stagnant the Fighting Game genre has been over the years, and how it has become something of a "walled garden" with rules both hidden and overt that seem to serve no other purpose than to prevent people from getting into the genre.

To preface this, while I enjoy watching them I confess I'm terrible at Fighting Games.  No matter how much I practice and how hard I try, the skill to execute the elaborate contortions of the control stick and pressing the various buttons just eludes me.  I'm familiar with the typical "Haduoken"-style movement, but I can rarely ever perform the move on command (and it only goes downhill from there).  Despite this, a few years back I picked up the original BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger out of curiosity and found it both enjoyable and surprisingly accessible (gameplay-wise, anyway...there is no penetrating that convolution that Arc System Works calls a "story").  Instead of a laundry list of buttons that all on the surface seem to perform the same task, there were 4.  One of those was devoted to a single character-specific move (which could change depending on how you moved the control stick), which helped differentiate the gameplay styles of the different fighters.  The most advanced moves in the game, the "Hyper Combo"-esque Distortion Drives, were available both with regular button sequences and with Right-Stick enabled "shortcuts", making the game relatively easy to pick up and feel awesome playing while still allowing those who wished to delve deeper a more traditional format.

So why did I devote a rather lengthy paragraph to explaining this?  A few days ago, I found the game's sequel, "Continuum Shift", on sale for extremely cheap so I picked it up expecting to have more of the same enjoyable experience.  What I found makes me more than a little angry.  The Right-Stick shortcuts for Distortion Drives, which gave less-capable players even the illusion of being decent?  Gone, and researching the fan reaction to its removal the general consensus seems to be "LEARN HOW TO PLAY, NOOBS!  WE DON'T REALLY WANT YOU HERE IF YOU CAN'T PLAY IT OUR WAY!".  In the shortcut's place is a "Beginner Mode", where mashing buttons performs every combo in the game.  There's no finesse or strategy, and the game makes sure you know it.  Just mash buttons (with a lengthy time delay on the more powerful attacks), which does not help the player learn to play the game or how to defeat more advanced players.  There is also a tutorial mode now, where the game continually insults the player for daring to be anything less than a master of fighting games (while quickly ramping up the difficulty beyond what a beginner can handle).  Thanks, Arc System Works.  That really made me feel welcome.  Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 also has a similar button-mashing-focused "Beginner Mode", which is also "nerfed" to prevent the player from accessing their character's full potential.

While playing through the tutorial, it reminded me of another oddity of Fighting Games.  I don't think I've ever seen a Fighting Game where the buttons are ever labeled what they actually are on the controller.  Using Continuum Shift as an example again, in the Tutorials all the face buttons are labeled A, B, C, and D.  Marvel Vs. Capcom refers to them all as L, M, S, and H.  Here, let me just find my "D" and "H" buttons on my Dualshock 3...Oh Wait.      Why do Fighting Games still use this stupid and arbitrary way of naming their buttons, based on the conventions of old arcade cabinets that largely do not exist anymore?  How is your typical player supposed to make sense of this?

Playing these games of late, it always strikes me that the Fighting Genre is one firmly stuck in the past.  Why is there such a focus on being able to perform a move rather than on when the player uses it?  I watched my best friend's brother today playing Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 online, and despite playing the game for 2 weeks and knowing exactly how to perform things like Hyper Combos he still couldn't produce the attacks on command.  He knew what he wanted to do, but the game's arbitrary method of performing the attack made it difficult for him to perform when he needed it.  Say what you will about Smash Bros., but the one thing that series absolutely nailed is that the moves a player can perform are both relatively few in number and exceptionally easy to perform (just the B Button in conjunction with the control stick).  Instead of constantly worrying whether I can perform a given move, my focus can now be on if I have picked the right move and if I'm performing that move at the right time and location.  Given that that seems to be most of what the Fighting Game experience is, why does the execution of it need to be so convoluted and arbitrary?

Sorry, I just needed to get all that off my chest.  It irritates me to see a genre that can be so enjoyable also be so infuriatingly obtuse.  Has anyone else had such problems with the genre?

[Caliban]

It's just a matter of sold numbers declining and I bet they will change up the game. The thing is there still is somewhat of a big hardcore fighting culture that I don't see any changes happening soon.

I do wonder about what the ratio of casual fighting gamers, like me, is compared to the hardcore fighting gamers. How long are they going to tolerate such developer choices.

[lolmonade]

As a fan of the genre, I completely sympathize with your plight.  There are definite steps that could be taken to improve the accessibility of these fighting games, the problem is that with every bit of compromise to the mainstream, hardcore players will begin to abandon the franchise.  Hell, even for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, there have been complaints about it being far too easy in comparison to the earlier versions. 

I agree with the confusion regarding button labeling in comparison to the controllers.  I believe my biggest complaint with every fighter I've played is that it takes far too long to go between practice mode and opening up a specific character's set of moves.  I'd like to be able to practice a character's move set and get a feel for him without having to pause, go to the menu, select character moves, select the character i'm using, and then scroll through their move list to find the specific move.  I can't see why maybe there could be a minimized list at the top of the screen while practicing, and then you could assign a button to press in this mode to expand the list, and it would bring up the character you are specifically playing with.  Completely infuriating, and an example of how bad UI can ruin a player's experience.

With that being said, the only fighter I know that has made major concessions to introduce accessibility in fighting games is Super Smash Bros.  As far as I know, it's the only game which is easy enough to be accessible to the mainstream, but deep enough to encourage tourney play (for Melee, I'm not sure about Brawl).

[leroypantweather]

@lolmonade your second paragraph hit home to me as that has been my complaint for years.  Luckily tatsunoko has the exact feature you described it seems, which is to say it allows you see a small command list during gameplay, and the list switches depending on which character you have out.  the game also couples the feature with the ability to see you control inputs as you play to see where you went wrong. 


Also on the main topic... arcade stick arcade stick arcade stick.  it makes alot of moves wildly easier to do giving you more time to worry about what to do and when to do it and where to do it and less focus on execution of a tricky Z shaped pattern or some such crap

[that Baby guy]

Fighting games are an odd beast.  Truthfully, they're meant to be played more closely to sport than typical games.  When you realize that there's tournaments where these things are played with money on the line, you have to understand, it can't be entirely too simple.

I'm not saying the genre is flawless as it is, but with professional sports, players dedicated much of their waking lives to perfecting their game. It's difficult to throw a football with a great spiral and incredible accuracy like the pros do.  It's tough to have great accuracy when you shoot a basketball at the three point line.  Do you think baseball players don't have to go through quite a few side-effects when they take steroids to play the game so well?

The point is, while they're not directly comparable, they are similar.  In this sense, a fighting game designed to be played in tournaments needs to be complicated and challenging, so that the participants have a chance to show skill.

[KDR_11k]

I'd guess the button naming comes from the ability to rebind the keys easily but then again computers can easily replace the displayed button too. Maybe it's supposed to give people a common terminology no matter how they bound their controller or whatever.

While I can input most regular special moves (I consider anything more complex than 3-5 directions stupid, it's just a barrier to entry, not a skill) even that isn't enough to understand most fighting games. They vomit a list of convoluted mechanics at you, stuff like Roman Cancels, desperation moves, crossover combos, various breaks, etc. Most of which the manual just mentions as existing but never mentioning why you'd want that. Shmup scoring these days is similarly convoluted with various combo systems and stuff. It's what happens when you make your games for an extremely small niche that does not want changes to the core mechanics even after 20 iterations and instead wants stupid **** bolted on. Having extremely simple core gameplay doesn't help, in most games your player character can do way more than move left, right, jump OR attack.

The basic elements of fighting games are so primitive that they have to tack stupid **** on there to add some variety. In an FPS you can move and shoot but you have 3D movement and completely analog aim so both elements have many nuances to them. In Super Mario Bros your jump can do so many different things. In fighting games none of that is there, everything is digital and adding depth merely means adding more states to the finite state engine that is the player character.

In football all you can do as a player is run around the field and hit the ball (or people if you're Dutch) but since there are many players in play, the ball can be in many positions and hitting the ball can move it into many other positions there's a lot of depth to the sport. Simple rules, complex gameplay, good tournament sport. Fighting games have insanely complex rules with very limited applications each.

Fighting game fans are worse than the people who like **** like the limited queue sizes and lack of zoom in Starcraft. You should be fighting your opponent, not the interface.

[SixthAngel]

I always thought the different joystick moves and button presses were there just because there weren't enough buttons.  I remember Soulcalibur had extra buttons that you could map to whatever you wanted and I always mapped them to make the special moves easier.  Combos are there for people to master while the special moves are supposed to be regular things your character can do so it pisses me off when they require something like two full rotations followed by pressing three buttons at the same time.

This is probably one of the reasons Smash is so popular.  When playing Streetfighter 2 or Mortal Kombat most people only picked one or two characters and it was usually because they had the easiest moves to perform.  When I played Mortal Kombat back in day nobody ever picked Kano because he had moves that required the thumbhurting 360 spin.

Keep an eye on Street Fighter 4 for the 3DS.  It has a mode where the special moves for your character become buttons on the touch screen.  This has caused some people to bitch about it but I think its a great addition.

[that Baby guy]

In football all you can do as a player is run around the field and hit the ball (or people if you're Dutch) but since there are many players in play, the ball can be in many positions and hitting the ball can move it into many other positions there's a lot of depth to the sport. Simple rules, complex gameplay, good tournament sport. Fighting games have insanely complex rules with very limited applications each.

How about putting spin on the ball?  The rules about cards?  How does extra time work, again? The referees just decide a number to add onto the end of the game?  Why does the goalie get to use his hands?  But wait, he can only use his hands where?  Seriously, does anyone even know what officially is ruled as offsides in that sport?  So a player can't use his hands, but he can pound the ball with his head?  What's the deal with the ball going out of bounds?  How do players earn penalty kicks? Why is there such a limitation on using your hands? It just seems to be a convoluted mechanic I just don't understand.

Even I have limited knowledge of the sport, and I can see a whole lot of rules, politics, and things that add difficulty to the game with no reason except to add difficulty, which makes sense, given it's a competitive sport.  Players don't have to be able to do backflip kicks at will to play soccer, no.  The one who does, however, may just be able to use the angle at just the right time to win the game-winning goal.

Yes, some games have technical issues that limit what the players can do, as in StarCraft, but players react to the limitations by developing new strategies and skills.  To me, that's mirrored in soccer, as people have developed a myriad of ways to perform while unable to use their hands to move the ball.

[KDR_11k]

Except not using your hands is a fundamental rule that would completely break the game if ignored while the things that annoy me about Starcraft are arbitrary restrictions that exist merely to appease the pro players and hamper newbies. Removing the queue and zoom restrictions from starcraft would not alter the game at high level play, removing the no-hands rule from football would turn it into handball.

[broodwars]

Also on the main topic... arcade stick arcade stick arcade stick.  it makes alot of moves wildly easier to do giving you more time to worry about what to do and when to do it and where to do it and less focus on execution of a tricky Z shaped pattern or some such crap

The problem with that is that if Capcom/Arc System Works intends for me to use an Arcade Stick with these games, then they can pack it in with the game at partial cost to them like Nintendo does.  I'm not paying upwards of $50 extra at the least (with the upper tier being in the hundreds of dollars) to have a specialty controller just because the developers couldn't be bothered to make the game perfectly playable on the console's standard controller.  If you release a game without a pack-in accessory, I know I'm old-fashioned in this era of plastic guitars and bathroom scales but I fully expect the game to be perfectly playable without it.

[KDR_11k]

To be fair you can play them fine without a stick but I agree, the genre as a whole needs someone experimenting with how it can be developed further and the answer is not to staple a ton of mechanics and bars onto the game.

[Dirk Temporo]

This is why Smash Bros. is the only fighting game I play and am any good at. It's entirely based on what individual move you choose, how you position yourself when you execute, and the timing with which you execute it. It's the epitome of easy to learn, hard to master.

Most fighting games (Blaz Blue included) are all about that, but then as soon as you execute a successful move, you're expected to hammer out some long-ass memorized combo to actually do any REAL damage. A more balanced game based on the Smash Bros. style of fighting and moving would be the perfect fighting game to me, to be honest, and may be one that I would sink some time into in an effort to get good at.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Jesus christ, where do I even start with this thread?

[broodwars]

Jesus christ, where do I even start with this thread?

"Having a point" would generally be a good start.   

[S-U-P-E-R]

broodwars posted:
After playing both, I'm continually baffled at how stagnant the Fighting Game genre has been over the years,

Stagnant being 5 million copies of SF4/SSF4 sold, MVC2 being in the top 10 XBLA games even though it was re-released last year, etc. Or do you mean in terms of design?

and how it has become something of a "walled garden" with rules both hidden and overt that seem to serve no other purpose than to prevent people from getting into the genre.

SF4 and MVC3 are the simplest to play in their respective series. I dunno if BlazBlue is simpler than Guilty Gear but I'm guessing maybe!!

Instead of a laundry list of buttons that all on the surface seem to perform the same task, there were 4.

I guess five or six buttons is a "laundry list"

In the shortcut's place is a "Beginner Mode", where mashing buttons performs every combo in the game.

I doubt it lets you do "every combo"

There's no finesse or strategy, and the game makes sure you know it.  Just mash buttons (with a lengthy time delay on the more powerful attacks), which does not help the player learn to play the game or how to defeat more advanced players.

So don't use it? It's for children.

There is also a tutorial mode now, where the game continually insults the player

Yeah man, yesterday my copy of Tekken called me a bitch, I cried for two hours

for daring to be anything less than a master of fighting games (while quickly ramping up the difficulty beyond what a beginner can handle).

Learning is hard. Seriously though, it takes time and effort to get good at fighting games. If it didn't, they wouldn't be fun or interesting.

While playing through the tutorial, it reminded me of another oddity of Fighting Games.  I don't think I've ever seen a Fighting Game where the buttons are ever labeled what they actually are on the controller.  Using Continuum Shift as an example again, in the Tutorials all the face buttons are labeled A, B, C, and D.  Marvel Vs. Capcom refers to them all as L, M, S, and H.  Here, let me just find my "D" and "H" buttons on my Dualshock 3...Oh Wait.      Why do Fighting Games still use this stupid and arbitrary way of naming their buttons, based on the conventions of old arcade cabinets that largely do not exist anymore?  How is your typical player supposed to make sense of this?

There are still arcade releases. Some people don't use standard controllers. Some people like to reconfigure buttons. Some people play the same game on DIFFERENT SYSTEMS. I'm trying to bear with you here, really, but this is not a complicated, arcane thing designed to keep you out of the genre. Actually, complaining about this is pretty stupid.

Playing these games of late, it always strikes me that the Fighting Genre is one firmly stuck in the past.  Why is there such a focus on being able to perform a move rather than on when the player uses it?  I watched my best friend's brother today playing Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 online, and despite playing the game for 2 weeks and knowing exactly how to perform things like Hyper Combos he still couldn't produce the attacks on command.  He knew what he wanted to do, but the game's arbitrary method of performing the attack made it difficult for him to perform when he needed it.  Say what you will about Smash Bros., but the one thing that series absolutely nailed is that the moves a player can perform are both relatively few in number and exceptionally easy to perform (just the B Button in conjunction with the control stick).  Instead of constantly worrying whether I can perform a given move, my focus can now be on if I have picked the right move and if I'm performing that move at the right time and location.  Given that that seems to be most of what the Fighting Game experience is, why does the execution of it need to be so convoluted and arbitrary?

Believe it or not, myself, top players, and certain prominent designers agree with you that inputs and execution should be easy. And it is, compared to the fighters coming out a few years ago. I mean, MVC3 is dead easy compared to MVC2, SF4 is really easy compared to CVS2/Alpha, etc. If you and your friends still can't do a hadoken motion, well, I don't know what to tell you. It's pretty easy.

Caliban posted:
I do wonder about what the ratio of casual fighting gamers, like me, is compared to the hardcore fighting gamers. How long are they going to tolerate such developer choices.

Hilariously, a lot of hardcore fighting fans are kind of unhappy with what we percieve as casual baby friendly elements creeping in, such as the extremely generous input latiency in SF4...

[S-U-P-E-R]

The problem with that is that if Capcom/Arc System Works intends for me to use an Arcade Stick with these games, then they can pack it in with the game at partial cost to them like Nintendo does.  I'm not paying upwards of $50 extra at the least (with the upper tier being in the hundreds of dollars) to have a specialty controller just because the developers couldn't be bothered to make the game perfectly playable on the console's standard controller.

They are perfectly playable on a standard controller. Just ask snakeeyez (Evo2K10 SF2 HDR champ) or wolfkrone (evo online champ)!

[Caliban]

Caliban posted:
I do wonder about what the ratio of casual fighting gamers, like me, is compared to the hardcore fighting gamers. How long are they going to tolerate such developer choices.

Hilariously, a lot of hardcore fighting fans are kind of unhappy with what we percieve as casual baby friendly elements creeping in, such as the extremely generous input latiency in SF4...

Yeah I can see that being a problem for the fighting game enthusiast. How is SF4's input latency compared to MvC3?

[S-U-P-E-R]

KDR_11k posted:
While I can input most regular special moves (I consider anything more complex than 3-5 directions stupid, it's just a barrier to entry, not a skill) even that isn't enough to understand most fighting games. They vomit a list of convoluted mechanics at you, stuff like Roman Cancels, desperation moves, crossover combos, various breaks, etc. Most of which the manual just mentions as existing but never mentioning why you'd want that. Shmup scoring these days is similarly convoluted with various combo systems and stuff. It's what happens when you make your games for an extremely small niche that does not want changes to the core mechanics even after 20 iterations and instead wants stupid **** bolted on. Having extremely simple core gameplay doesn't help, in most games your player character can do way more than move left, right, jump OR attack.

>extremely small niche
>sells millions

The basic elements of fighting games are so primitive that they have to tack stupid **** on there to add some variety. In an FPS you can move and shoot but you have 3D movement and completely analog aim so both elements have many nuances to them. In Super Mario Bros your jump can do so many different things. In fighting games none of that is there, everything is digital and adding depth merely means adding more states to the finite state engine that is the player character.

What's the difference between 'stupid ****' and fun features? I'm not getting your point here. I find being able to use roman cancels and crossover combos, etc, very fun.

In football all you can do as a player is run around the field and hit the ball (or people if you're Dutch) but since there are many players in play, the ball can be in many positions and hitting the ball can move it into many other positions there's a lot of depth to the sport. Simple rules, complex gameplay, good tournament sport. Fighting games have insanely complex rules with very limited applications each.

I don't get your football analogy here. Fighting games don't have "complex rules" any more than football does. Simple rules: beat the other guy or have more life left when the timer runs out. Complex gameplay: combos, cancels, tags, complicated setup into infinite combo glitch, whatever. Oh yeah, and moves generally have more than one use each. :3

Fighting game fans are worse than the people who like **** like the limited queue sizes and lack of zoom in Starcraft.

[citation needed]
As someone who is very much in touch with fighting game fans, I really don't agree. Having to practice **** more than we should really isn't that fun. But on the other hand, we really love to see and do very impressive things. I believe the popularity of fighting games has exploded in the last several years due in large part to improved accessibility... (and fun!)

[S-U-P-E-R]

Yeah I can see that being a problem for the fighting game enthusiast. How is SF4's input latency compared to MvC3?

MvC3 feels 'just right' on the goldilocks porridge scale, if you ask me.

Also my problem with SF4 easy inputs isn't that they're easy - I want everyone to be able to shoryuken right away, and I really like the easy reversal timing. It's the unintended consequences something like walk forward and hadoken becoming shoryuken - I have to let the stick go to neutral so I have to deliberately slow down. :S

[Caliban]

I was playing Mission mode in MvC3, and I was shocked at how fast I had to press some of the combinations so that it wouldn't reset. Not that I'm complaining.

[Caterkiller]

I wanted to be good at Tatsunoko, I really did. As a kid I hated playing SF or MK with everyone because I just could not do it. I really thought things would turn around with Tatsunoko VS Capcom, especially since I really got the hang of 3D fighters. But no... every complaint in the OP is exactly what I deal with today.

[KDR_11k]

KDR_11k posted:
While I can input most regular special moves (I consider anything more complex than 3-5 directions stupid, it's just a barrier to entry, not a skill) even that isn't enough to understand most fighting games. They vomit a list of convoluted mechanics at you, stuff like Roman Cancels, desperation moves, crossover combos, various breaks, etc. Most of which the manual just mentions as existing but never mentioning why you'd want that. Shmup scoring these days is similarly convoluted with various combo systems and stuff. It's what happens when you make your games for an extremely small niche that does not want changes to the core mechanics even after 20 iterations and instead wants stupid **** bolted on. Having extremely simple core gameplay doesn't help, in most games your player character can do way more than move left, right, jump OR attack.

>extremely small niche
>sells millions

How much of that stuff is actually in SF4? How many of those millions of people know how to use every system in the game? How many just mash buttons and are proud if they manage to do one hadouken?

[that Baby guy]

How many people just kick the ball as hard as they can and hope something good comes from it?

Except not using your hands is a fundamental rule that would completely break the game if ignored while the things that annoy me about Starcraft are arbitrary restrictions that exist merely to appease the pro players and hamper newbies. Removing the queue and zoom restrictions from starcraft would not alter the game at high level play, removing the no-hands rule from football would turn it into handball.

Seriously.  Yes, adding the ability to use your hands considerably changes the fundamentals of soccer. Yes, changing how a majority of fighting games work would considerably change their fundamentals as well.  Smash Bros. is a great example.  The method to fight was changed, and the fundamentals were entirely different.  There's fighting games out there that do this, just as there's different sports that do this.

And while I'm not keen on arguing about StarCraft in terms of fighting games, a limit to queue sizes, earlier, was a hardware restriction.  Now you've made it a thing to inhibit newer players from succeeding. It's clear it is a hardware restriction, but the best players can easily get around it by growing familar with hotkeys and the nuances of selecting and deselecting units in the game.  In reality, the game of StarCraft and its sequel aren't games where they prohibit new players from playing due to nuances in the rules and tricky matters of control.  Suggesting so represents a gross misunderstanding of the genre.  Instead, it's all about resource control, fantasy military strategy, and the brutal, incredible speed at which players can control resources and utilize their militias.  Top players in games like these reach hundreds of actions per minute. Truly meaningful actions. They build new units, cloak, decloak, attack and move in certain patterns.  An unlimited queue selection still doesn't mean much if your opponent can outmaneuver you in all other ways. While the interface does prevent players from acting as quickly as they can think, there's no more accessible and speedy an interface out there at consumer-ready prices, than a keyboard and mouse.

Anyway, the point is, you don't like traditional fighting games because the games have a lot of barriers to entry that have to be practiced in order to be a very skilled player in them.  That's fine.  No one is making you enjoy the genre.  However, their existence isn't forcing the genre to become stale, either.  Smash Bros. clearly defies that logic, and there's a vast number of combat-related games out there that do, too.  Even Tekken and Soul Calibur don't have quite the same combo-based mechanic.  Sonic Battle was released on the GBA using something closer to Smash. Bros.'s engine than most other fighters. Then, there's Power Stone and Ergheiz.

Truthfully, it is a lot like you suggested, though, with your reference to football/soccer.  If you add in the ability to use your hands, it becomes another game.  What is Virtual On, if not a fighting game where players utilize cockpit controls to fight giant mechs against each other?  How about Call of Duty?  It's a game where a team of players use guns to fight it out.  There's a number of titles out there where players fight against each other in non-fighting game conventional means.  Pokemon's another example.  We identify games as titles in the fighting game genre mostly because they stick to certain conventions, with combos, small arenas, and special button inputs being some of those.  Some games defy the conventions but stick closely enough to the genre to be included, but change enough of the rules, and you have a different genre, just as if you change enough rules in a sport, it really becomes a different sport.

[KDR_11k]

Street Fighter and Smash Bros are the mainstream fighting games, the games Broodwars was complaining about were MvC3 and BlazBlue. Pretty sure that especially BB is a fairly niche fighting game. I guess we derailed the thread a bit by talking about SF4 and Starcraft.

Anyway, the Bleach DS games let you use special moves with touchscreen buttons, the only drawback is that moving your thumb over there can take longer than inputting the move.


Oh and speaking of Smash Bros, remember "no C-Stick" rules?

[S-U-P-E-R]

How much of that stuff is actually in SF4? How many of those millions of people know how to use every system in the game? How many just mash buttons and are proud if they manage to do one hadouken?

Well, SF4 has focus cancels, which are actually *more* complicated than Guilty Gear's roman cancels and similar systems. I can't measure the number of people that know how to do it, but:
- You have to learn how to do it to pass trials
- I expect every person I play online to know how to use it