GAMES YOU HATE OR DISLIKE?

author=LightningLord
In a fighting game, even in training mode, there's a great deal of difficulty to execute the moves at all - I can only really execute the quarter circle forward and the dragon punch thing myself, even then only when I'm not facing left.

Dude...this is your fault, not the games.

I'm not saying that as an insult, but like I said before, the basic movesets of most characters in fighting games are absolutely possible for almost anyone, even a novice of a novice with a little bit of practice. If you can't do anything but a quarter circle forward and a Shoryuken input, that's definitely user error at work. It doesn't get any easier than that.

author=LL
It doesn't help that fighting games are largely balanced around top-level play, which means that the balance will snap in half when played by less skilled players,

The opposite is usually true. Things like character tiers normally don't apply until you start getting into the nitty gritty high level play.

author=LL
Now add on that you're not only expected to be able to execute individual moves, you're also supposed to know the combos, which include things like having 1/60 of a second to follow up a certain move, exploit glitches not listed in the manual (Kara Throws, Option Selects, Wavdashing etc.) and even throw in some moves that don't do anything but allow you to continue the combo.

Knowing basic bread and butter combos (which really, just knowing those alone are tools enough to get you pretty far) is really easy for most games, and execution is just a matter of speed and difficulty. Just doing basic moves like canceling, for example, is easy to learn. The aspect of competitive play comes from, like Sated said above, executing these tactics under competitive pressure, getting harder and harder with more techniques being utilized by skilled players.

Obviously top level players, as in, people who pay their rent via Street Fighter tournaments and shit, are not going to be the metric that the average player compares themselves to. And even then, the skill gap there isn't as high as RTS genres, which is frankly some next level shit.

Like I said before, people who aren't familiar/bad at fighting games really, really overstate the difficulty of play. Obviously, if your only metric for fighting games are looking at high level tournaments, you're going to get a false impression of an entry barrier, but it's really not that hard to jump in the beginner circle and play some friendly matches with people. I know a lot of us are RPG fans who are used to playing games with very little player demand for quick and dexterous input, but come on.

Other than that, Sated is nailing it.

author=Craze
A lot of my friends and I were excited for Persona 4 Arena... and then we all sucked at it because we couldn't do quarter turns despite really practicing. I can still only do them successfully abut 70% of the time in Skullgirls. Is it meant to be better with the dpad or something? Because the actually moving around feels so much better with an analog stick and so that's what i use for quarter turns.

A joystick is the premier way to play fighting games. Outside of that, a controller, a D-pad, or an analog stick is definitely doable, it's just user preference.

Like I mentioned before, it's not meant as an insult, but the basic movements of the quarter circle scheme are relatively easy to get down with practice. I've taught my 5 year old cousin to execute Hadokens on command and I've seen old ass men pick up and play fighting games with a little practice.

author=Craze
I CAN execute the inputs sometimes, but I really don't feel like they're good design, mog.

With some exceptions like Tekken, or maybe Smash if you want to count it, almost every single traditional fighting game that has tried to deviate from the traditional 'quarter circle' control scheme has failed miserably. Not because of some stubborn resistance to change, but because fundamentally, a lot of rich and deep fighting game techniques built up and developed over the past few decades just do not work that well outside of the quarter circle design; chain combos, command throws, parrying, cross ups, and other techniques are incredibly cumbersome to perform without it. Games that do deviate from the 'quarter circle', such as Mortal Kombat, are fun, but the level of play ceiling is far lower because the 'dial a combo' system fundamentally doesn't mesh well with a lot of fluid techniques.

The quarter circle design is what it is preciously because it's an incredibly versatile, flexible, and fluid design crux for almost any type of fighting game that you can imagine to design. That sounds like good design to me!

If someone wants to design something that can make a dent in 20+ years of dozens of games and millions of players, by all means, but people will always by and largely flock back to the original design, because it works so well. Like I mentioned before, it's like fundamentally altering a sport. There's no reason why you can't try to do something different, sure, but the original design has been around for so long for a reason.

I don't like to repeat myself, but:



DEATH FROM ABOVE!

Knowing basic bread and butter combos (which really, just knowing those alone are tools enough to get you pretty far) is really easy for most games,

yeah, I am going to have to go with Craze on this one. The finger gymnastics of basic fighter moves is hard on its own. Even at the top of my FF6 game, Aurabolt was still a 85%~90% chance of going off correctly. That's why I like Smash - the controls are easy, straightforward, and the same scheme for every single character. After playing through Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat on the SNES and Soul Edge (yes Soul Edge), and having decent enough fun, playing Smash Bros on the N64 was a revelation. I no longer had to fight the controls. I could concentrate on fighting my opponent(s).

I have short stubby fingers with stiff joints. Like, I can't cross my fingers. I can't even get them to overlap. I should have gone into MMA or something, because my fists are like hard lumps of ham. I mean, it worked well in hockey.

A dragonpunch is almost impossible for me to pull off.

KentoMMA

Turns out that different people have different gaming aptitudes, and what is easy for one person may not be easy for someone else! Which is why I do not, say, look down on people for not enjoying Professor Layton or Tetris.

ETA:

author=Ratty524
Games like Smash Bros. prove that you can make a fighting game that doesn't have an overly complex control scheme and still have a level of depth to make it competitively viable, so why bother?

Because there is a market for them? I mean, just because it's possible to NOT do it and make a cool game doesn't mean it should be completely abandoned. I am happy in a universe where both Smash and Street Fighter exist, even if my only real enjoyment of the latter is watching someone else play it.

author=Feldschlacht IV
It's just that it seems that I'm seeing a bit of 'I'm not good at them, so they suck' attitude in this topic, which to me is unfair.

Like I totally understand the feeling, but this is the "games you hate" topic, so it's a little silly to want fairness in a subject that's about stuff that drives people to frothing rages for whatever reason.

I mean, it's not like anyone here has the power to totally remove non-Smash games from existence. It's just people with opinions, which don't have to be that fair in the first place.

author=Sooz
Like I totally understand the feeling, but this is the "games you hate" topic, so it's a little silly to want fairness in a subject that's about stuff that drives people to frothing rages for whatever reason.

Fair enough, but like I mentioned before, there's a difference between 'I'm not good at this, so I don't like it' and 'I'm not good at this, so it objectively sucks'.

But yeah, frothy rage! I get what you mean.

Not really. Like I mentioned before, it's been tried a bit, but many advanced maneuvers aren't really possible without the D-Pad input, so it never really caught on.

Tekken and Virtua Fighter are really the closest you are going to get.

i'm gonna echo kentona with the "like the games, hate the controls" thing. i just hate being able to envision doing something in a game and knowing the buttons in my mind, but then not being able to press them in time. that's not what gaming's about, for me! i like gameplay complexity, not external device complexity.

but we've probably gone on about it long enough that unless somebody else has a major contribution to the subject we can give MOG a break

GAME I ACTUALLY HATE: Tales of Legendia. Great music, but everything else is total shit.

GAME I DISLIKE: Puzzle & Dragons. Tower of Saviors is better in every conceivable way. I played a lot of PaD for about a year, and then karsuman tried Tower of Saviors. We both switched completely within, like, a week. I've logged over 570 login days now (not including some breaks, so about two years since I first installed it, probably). It does EVERYTHING better, from art to balance to generosity to a well-rounded gacha. I love Tower of Saviors. It's easily in my top 10, probably top 5 favorite games. Puzzle & Dragons barely even has dragons in it... what the heck.

I miss the PaD sound effects sometimes, but I bought the 3DS version of PaD so nostalgia got covered...

author=Feldschlacht IV
It's just that it seems that I'm seeing a bit of 'I'm not good at them, so they suck' attitude in this topic, which to me is unfair. It would be one thing if Street Fighter and other traditional fighting games were some esoteric, niche genre that only a few people understood in arcane hidden libraries or something, but traditional fighting games have been going strong for more than twenty years, with millions (if not just under a billion, seriously) of active players, an incredibly robust international competitive scene, immense cultural impact (everyone and their mother knows who Ryu or Chun Li are), and a pronounced design inspiration for many genres of games.

Good point, but then it makes me wonder why people hate Bubsy 3D and like traditional fighting games. After all, but types of games involve a tussle with the controls to perform basic actions.

Meh, at least fighting games are fun for me to watch. I wish I could be anywhere near the level of skill the Smash tourney players demonstrate, but the "burden of knowledge" bullshit that comes with competitive gaming just feels like a chore to me. :P