Topic: Accessiblity and the Fighting Game Genre

[ShyGuy]

Has the whole gaming community gone soft or just NWR?

[S-U-P-E-R]

Has the whole gaming community gone soft or just NWR?

Not me, I'm still an elitist jerk!! But then again I don't really post unless someone puts up the fighting games signal

[ShyGuy]

Has the whole gaming community gone soft or just NWR?

Not me, I'm still an elitist jerk!! But then again I don't really post unless someone puts up the fighting games signal

So I hear Marvel vs Capcom 3 is the bees knees...

[S-U-P-E-R]

Yeah I'm havin' lots of fun with it 

[SixthAngel]

Fighting game fans are never happy so I hope they get ignored. (sorry S-U-P-E-R).  They often hate change so much that they complain when a glitch in a game that they could exploit is fixed in the next version.

[Ian Sane]

I actually like how fighting games work and I'm not even very good at them.  Nintendo bends over backwards to make their games more accessible and those games become less and less interesting as a result.  It's nice to see a genre of games where they just try to make a great game and if you don't get it, tough ****.  Here are the rules, here are the terms.  Everyone is in the same boat.  Play on our terms or get lost.

I LIKE that a lot.  I like that attitude.  I hate it when TV shows or movies or bands always look at who isn't a customer.  How do I make THEM like me?  Fighting games don't give a ****.  They have confidence in themselves.  They exist for their own fans and customers and don't compromise the experience to include people who don't give a **** in the first place.  If you're whining about the complexities of fighting game controls, you don't give a ****, so fighting game should not accomodate you.

If you want to use a sport analogy I'll point out that NO sport worth a **** compromises itself to accomodate whiners who aren't good at it right away.  I suck at golf.  Golf doesn't change itself to allow me to be good at it.  I have to work at it if I want to be good.  No one expects the sport to change for me.  Every sport requires some core fundamentals that one may not immediately pick up in a second.  If anyone complained that swinging a bat in baseball was too hard and they should change it everyone who laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion.  But with videogames it is perfectly okay to make such a request?

This is how real life works in EVERYTHING.  You want to play an instrument?  Gotta learn.  You want to know how to read and write?  Gotta learn.  Want to work in a trade?  Gotta learn.

I had the same argument when all this non-gamer **** came up.  All this talk about changing the controls and changing the games and this and that.  Why should an entire interest change itself, at the risk of turning off the existing fans, to accomodate people who are not willing to make the slightest effort to try?

Fighting games are what they are and don't try to please people that don't want them to be themselves.  I admire that.  I agree new things could be done and completely new types of fighting games could be made.  There's nothing stopping someone from doing that.  But I can say the same thing about every genre and many of them tend to stagnate.

[SixthAngel]

I LIKE that a lot.  I like that attitude.  I hate it when TV shows or movies or bands always look at who isn't a customer.  How do I make THEM like me?  Fighting games don't give a ****.  They have confidence in themselves.  They exist for their own fans and customers and don't compromise the experience to include people who don't give a **** in the first place.  If you're whining about the complexities of fighting game controls, you don't give a ****, so fighting game should not accomodate you.

You've got a point but you are talking about individual movies and bands, not entire genres.  There are movies and music that aim at big fans and others that aim at a broader audience in all kinds of genres, while outside of Smash the fighting game genre doesn't have much right now for a large group of people. We need a new Power Stone

I would like to point out that Brood even has a complaint similar to yours but in the opposite direction becauase they changed the sequel to BlazBlue to appeal to a different group of people.  If whining because a game is becoming more accessable is acceptable it seems to me its perfectly fine to complain that a game is actually becoming less so.  They looked at a group of people and said "How do I make them like me?" leaving Brood behind.

If you want to use a sport analogy I'll point out that NO sport worth a **** compromises itself to accomodate whiners who aren't good at it right away.  I suck at golf.  Golf doesn't change itself to allow me to be good at it.  I have to work at it if I want to be good.  No one expects the sport to change for me.

Minigolf.  "Lesser" versions of sports and games are constantly being made and played because the original is too difficult for most people.  Look at the basketball games horse and 21.  I used to play these games with friends because I was so much better than them at basketball.  These games eliminated giant skill sections allowing them to compete and play a game that they wouldn't have otherwise.

I had the same argument when all this non-gamer **** came up.  All this talk about changing the controls and changing the games and this and that.  Why should an entire interest change itself, at the risk of turning off the existing fans, to accomodate people who are not willing to make the slightest effort to try?

That's because you always see it as changing what is already there instead of adding something new like it usually is.  They can and do make new games without destroying the ones they make now.

[Luigi Dude]

I actually like how fighting games work and I'm not even very good at them.  Nintendo bends over backwards to make their games more accessible and those games become less and less interesting as a result.  It's nice to see a genre of games where they just try to make a great game and if you don't get it, tough ****.  Here are the rules, here are the terms.  Everyone is in the same boat.  Play on our terms or get lost.

And this is the attitude that turned the 2D fighting genre from a successful mainstream genre in the 90's, to a small niche genre in the 2000's.  Hell, the only reason Street Fighter 4 became so popular is because Capcom pulled a Nintendo and made the game less complex then Street Fighter 3 in order to appeal to the casual Street Fighter 2 fans that left the series over a decade ago.  If Street Fighter 4 had been a continuation of Street Fighter 3 instead of a return to Street Fighter 2, it would have been lucky to sell 25% of what it ended up selling.

The fighting genre is the perfect example of what happens when you end up developing games soley for the most hardcore 10% of your audience and as a result, screw over the other 90%.  This is why I'm glad Nintendo and many other companies don't have this kind of attitude because it would basically kill the entire industry in the long run.

[that Baby guy]

Fighting games are a complete genre, yes, but not all of them follow the rules you're complaining about. Smash Bros. has already been named in this thread.  There's a massive number of games with rules similar to fighting games, but that have changes that alter the fundamentals.

As you denoted, the lesser versions of Fighting games with simplified combos and special attacks are dull.  They don't really change how the game operates, they just make attacking pretty colorless and repetitive for most experienced gamers who aren't too familiar with traditional fighters. That's probably similar to how the guys that go on the driving range and would love to play nine or eighteen holes any given day feel about mini-golf, too.  And c'mon.  HORSE is just a lame game, and we both know it.

Dumbing down the rules can create something anyone can play, but it's only fun when the game was designed for simplicity from the ground-up.  HORSE is entertaining for a little while, but once you really get the hang of the real thing, if you're a basketball person, HORSE really won't tide you over. Same with mini-golf, and bowling with bumpers. Same with flag football.  The reality is, we're applying a double-standard to fighters than we do to sports because people are more familiar with fighters, and they're broadcast to a smaller range of viewers.

That said, fighting games and tournaments are growing in popularity as they continue to grow in complexities with advanced skills, combos, and move inputs.  There are top players emerging out there who are becoming familiar names to people interested. I say let it, and in time, more fulfilling simple versions of fighting games will make it out there, just like there are minigolf courses and youth-sized footballs.  I don't think accessibility will be an issue at all, in the future.

And for the record, the fighting game genre likely died down from over-saturization and market segmentation.  Just like there's only one major basketball league, and how people show most interest in the MLB, the genre needs to have a figurehead that represents it, rather than many brands. In the fighting genre, there were a wide variety of titles all with one type of gameplay and similar characters. It's too hard to compete in a market full of clones that cannibalize each others' business.  The genre would be fine with a flagship line of titles, and lesser, simplified versions of the flagship to appeal to people who like the competition but can't play at the top level.  That's better than a few new King of the Fighters, Street Fighters, Mortal Kombats, Vs. Series, and Soul Caliburs, when no individual game stands out much higher than the rest.

[lolmonade]

If you want to use a sport analogy I'll point out that NO sport worth a **** compromises itself to accomodate whiners who aren't good at it right away.  I suck at golf.  Golf doesn't change itself to allow me to be good at it.  I have to work at it if I want to be good.  No one expects the sport to change for me.  Every sport requires some core fundamentals that one may not immediately pick up in a second.  If anyone complained that swinging a bat in baseball was too hard and they should change it everyone who laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion.  But with videogames it is perfectly okay to make such a request?

You make some good points, and as a fighting fan, I'm not going to dispute the merits of the game having a decent learning curve.

I just don't think the sports analogy works well.  Sports have already reached critical mass.  People wanting to change the rules of sports like you mention would  be laughed out because they are an institution with history and for the most part set rules.

Fighting games are a re-emerging market after being stagnant for a few years.  Companies like Capcom have strayed away from the more complex systems such as Street Fighter 3 because it scared away the casual market that will buy the game to play with friends, but will never truly be good at them.  While loyal, the hardcore market for fighting games (or any genre, for that matter) isn't a large enough group for most companies to cater to completely unless it is relatively cheap to do (example being the PS3/Xbox 360 port of MvC2). 

I would say the Street Fighter IVs and MvC3s of this world are a good compromise.  Letting the casual player jump in and enjoy the flashiness of MvC3 and seeing the crazy moves they can pull off.  But there will be a definite ceiling of where all the professional level players reside that the casual player will never penetrate.  It also gives Capcom the opportunity to make concessions to more casual players while paying lip service to the more serious players who were fond of the prior games.

[that Baby guy]

If you want to use a sport analogy I'll point out that NO sport worth a **** compromises itself to accomodate whiners who aren't good at it right away.  I suck at golf.  Golf doesn't change itself to allow me to be good at it.  I have to work at it if I want to be good.  No one expects the sport to change for me.  Every sport requires some core fundamentals that one may not immediately pick up in a second.  If anyone complained that swinging a bat in baseball was too hard and they should change it everyone who laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion.  But with videogames it is perfectly okay to make such a request?

You make some good points, and as a fighting fan, I'm not going to dispute the merits of the game having a decent learning curve.

I just don't think the sports analogy works well.  Sports have already reached critical mass.  People wanting to change the rules of sports like you mention would  be laughed out because they are an institution with history and for the most part set rules.

Fighting games are a re-emerging market after being stagnant for a few years.  Companies like Capcom have strayed away from the more complex systems such as Street Fighter 3 because it scared away the casual market that will buy the game to play with friends, but will never truly be good at them.  While loyal, the hardcore market for fighting games (or any genre, for that matter) isn't a large enough group for most companies to cater to completely unless it is relatively cheap to do (example being the PS3/Xbox 360 port of MvC2). 

I would say the Street Fighter IVs and MvC3s of this world are a good compromise.  Letting the casual player jump in and enjoy the flashiness of MvC3 and seeing the crazy moves they can pull off.  But there will be a definite ceiling of where all the professional level players reside that the casual player will never penetrate.  It also gives Capcom the opportunity to make concessions to more casual players while paying lip service to the more serious players who were fond of the prior games.

Rules of sports change all the time.  There's changes to how the clock works, what's legal, what's not allowed, use of performance enhancers, how many games are played, how a team reaches the playoff bracket, and so much more.  Rule changes are a part of sport.  The fundamentals of the game, however, don't change quite as swiftly, though.  Still, if you were to look at American Football today and compare it to football twenty or thirty years ago, a lot of things would have changed, but on a small scale.  Likewise, newer fighting games are working on small-scale tweaks to make a game that functions better on a competitive level, while still allowing people to go "Throw the ol' Hyper Combo" around. Personally, I believe the next step to advancing the fighting game movement is to make a more expensive title that's developed for use in a competitive circuit, which would actually reduce how many people would play it.  The more expensive competitive title would be followed by a less expensive version of the game for general consumer use, but a few features might be switched, as would character balance, so characters would be less balanced, but more in line with the power suggested a character has in his or her background.

[lolmonade]

If you want to use a sport analogy I'll point out that NO sport worth a **** compromises itself to accomodate whiners who aren't good at it right away.  I suck at golf.  Golf doesn't change itself to allow me to be good at it.  I have to work at it if I want to be good.  No one expects the sport to change for me.  Every sport requires some core fundamentals that one may not immediately pick up in a second.  If anyone complained that swinging a bat in baseball was too hard and they should change it everyone who laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion.  But with videogames it is perfectly okay to make such a request?

You make some good points, and as a fighting fan, I'm not going to dispute the merits of the game having a decent learning curve.

I just don't think the sports analogy works well.  Sports have already reached critical mass.  People wanting to change the rules of sports like you mention would  be laughed out because they are an institution with history and for the most part set rules.

Fighting games are a re-emerging market after being stagnant for a few years.  Companies like Capcom have strayed away from the more complex systems such as Street Fighter 3 because it scared away the casual market that will buy the game to play with friends, but will never truly be good at them.  While loyal, the hardcore market for fighting games (or any genre, for that matter) isn't a large enough group for most companies to cater to completely unless it is relatively cheap to do (example being the PS3/Xbox 360 port of MvC2). 

I would say the Street Fighter IVs and MvC3s of this world are a good compromise.  Letting the casual player jump in and enjoy the flashiness of MvC3 and seeing the crazy moves they can pull off.  But there will be a definite ceiling of where all the professional level players reside that the casual player will never penetrate.  It also gives Capcom the opportunity to make concessions to more casual players while paying lip service to the more serious players who were fond of the prior games.

Rules of sports change all the time.  There's changes to how the clock works, what's legal, what's not allowed, use of performance enhancers, how many games are played, how a team reaches the playoff bracket, and so much more.  Rule changes are a part of sport.  The fundamentals of the game, however, don't change quite as swiftly, though.  Still, if you were to look at American Football today and compare it to football twenty or thirty years ago, a lot of things would have changed, but on a small scale.  Likewise, newer fighting games are working on small-scale tweaks to make a game that functions better on a competitive level, while still allowing people to go "Throw the ol' Hyper Combo" around. Personally, I believe the next step to advancing the fighting game movement is to make a more expensive title that's developed for use in a competitive circuit, which would actually reduce how many people would play it.  The more expensive competitive title would be followed by a less expensive version of the game for general consumer use, but a few features might be switched, as would character balance, so characters would be less balanced, but more in line with the power suggested a character has in his or her background.

Fair enough.  I'll openly admit that I don't follow the seemingly minute changes in rules & regulations in sports, but the core concept of them stays pretty similar as far as I'm aware. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that fight game professionals have already received what will probably be the closest thing to a highly competitive game in Street Fighter III: Third Strike.  Companies' main objectives are to get as much as the potential market to purchase their product, and the majority of the time, making a game that is highly technical with a stiff learning curve will scare away potential customers, therefore lowering the sales and the likelihood that they'll cater specifically to hardcore fans in the future. 

[Ian Sane]

You've got a point but you are talking about individual movies and bands, not entire genres.  There are movies and music that aim at big fans and others that aim at a broader audience in all kinds of genres, while outside of Smash the fighting game genre doesn't have much right now for a large group of people.

That makes sense about it being the entire genre.  The thing is who is to stop someone from making a different type of fighting game?  There is no barrier there.  But should Capcom, SNK, Sega, Namco or any other big player in the fighting game field change?  Should there be changes made to the existing franchises?  I say to leave Street Fighter alone and let it be Street Fighter and if someone wants to make something more accessible, then go for it.

[S-U-P-E-R]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that fight game professionals have already received what will probably be the closest thing to a highly competitive game in Street Fighter III: Third Strike.

Hrm. Care to explain why you picked 3S?

[lolmonade]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that fight game professionals have already received what will probably be the closest thing to a highly competitive game in Street Fighter III: Third Strike.

Hrm. Care to explain why you picked 3S?

Because that's the only version of Street Fighter III I own, so I can't really state an opinion of the other ones  : , but I will also say I thoroughly enjoyed Street Fighter Alpha 3...I still have the PS1 Disc somewhere.

On a side note, I wish they would release another Guilty Gear.

[broodwars]

On a side note, I wish they would release another Guilty Gear.

BlazBlue is pretty much the successor to Guilty Gear.  It uses something similar to that series' combat system, has a similar art aestheic, and supposedly similar tone.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Because that's the only version of Street Fighter III I own

I was gonna say it's a bad choice for being the best "highly competitive game" since it's pretty unbalanced (Chun Li wins all the major tournaments). Just because a game is hard to play doesn't really figure into whether or not it's a good competitive game.

BlazBlue is pretty much the successor to Guilty Gear.  It uses something similar to that series' combat system, has a similar art aestheic, and supposedly similar tone.

It's also not nearly as good!

[broodwars]

BlazBlue is pretty much the successor to Guilty Gear.  It uses something similar to that series' combat system, has a similar art aestheic, and supposedly similar tone.

It's also not nearly as good!

Besides my own problems with Arc System Works making Continuum Shift less accessible, what's the problem with BlazBlue?  I rather enjoyed the first game, despite the incomprehensible storyline.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Guilty Gear ^Core was pretty much perfect in terms of balance and design, BlazBlue had a lot of issues like a bad throw system and barfy character balance. Maybe they tightened it up in CS, but I don't really know anyone who plays that game seriously.
 
Check out the EVO2k9 Guilty Gear finals, really good matches and a wide variety of characters (6 different ones in the top 8 I believe)

[broodwars]

Yeah, V-13 is pretty frickin' cheap in Calamity Trigger.  She's pretty much the "Sentinel" of the game, and she was supposedly extremely toned down in Continuum Shift (along with Rachel and the parasite guy).

[Stogi]

I just want to jump in here and say I've always loved fighting games. SSF2 Turbo was my **** and same with MvC2.

That said, I think fighting games have become too fast. I like to play methodically and attack when I have the least risk of retaliation. That's how real fighting works. But in these games, almost always the person who is the most aggressive wins. And that's not how fighting works.

If I were to design a game, I would make each blow hurt that much more so people become wary of losing health. I would also make it more realistic and lessen the fantastical moves. Players would have moves, but they would be toned down. And each move wouldn't have a strong, medium, or weak. It would just be the move. For example, Ryu's shoruyken (the jumping uppercut) would still be there but it would look like his weak uppercut, but with the recovery of his medium uppercut. If you connect, it's deadly. Every move in my fighting game would be incredibly easy to pull off, and every characters move set would be executed the same.

I've always wanted a more slow pace methodical and I thought SF4 brought that back for the most part, but it's still just a bit too quick.

[ymeegod]

"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"

Have you played any of them on the WII?  It's one thing Nintendo did was make sure everyone can play there games and Super Smash Brothers is a great example of this and Capcom followed suite with TVC.  Want to do a special move?  Hold Down 1 button and pick a direction it's that easy--and for an Ultra attack all you have to do is shake?  My 5 year-old nephew can play it even.

My only gripe about TVC was why did Capcom pick some Japanese show that us Americans don't have a clue about?  It was have been killer if it went with Nintendo vrs Capcom--now there's a game I'm willing to buy.

[broodwars]

Have you played any of them on the WII?  It's one thing Nintendo did was make sure everyone can play there games and Super Smash Brothers is a great example of this and Capcom followed suite with TVC.  Want to do a special move?  Hold Down 1 button and pick a direction it's that easy--and for an Ultra attack all you have to do is shake?  My 5 year-old nephew can play it even.

No, aside from Smash Bros. I really haven't played a Wii fighter.  Tatsunoko vs. Capcom was tempting for a while, but that roster just kills any interest I would have.  I was born in the early 80s and grew up mainly in the 90s, so I never watched Battle for the Planets (though I did watch Robotech when it was re-ran on Cartoon Network).  Pretty much none of the fighters on the Tatsunoko side interest me, simply because I've never seen the shows they came from and 80s TV animation has aged so badly that it's realistically too late to watch them now.

[ThePerm]

the fighting genre has always been one I've enjoyed probably more than others. People wonder how I kick their ass in Wii Sports Bowling. Thats always been one drawback to being a Nintendo fan, the genre has never been as robustly represented as in the other systems. My favorite 3 fighting games are Soul Calibur 2, Mortal Kombat 4, and Smash Bros. Melee. All of which have similar learning curves and lend themselves to tournaments.

[Morari]

My favorite 3 fighting games are Soul Calibur 2, Mortal Kombat 4, and Smash Bros. Melee.

So one of your favorite fighting games is literally the worst installment of the Mortal Kombat franchise?