Fighting Games

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

People that play online fighting games, or even if there are more advanced players here that try to compete seriously, what do you think about the actual fighting game scenario?
I ask this because i still believe we are in the 3rd fighting game golden age and although they are talked more and more and with tons of fans, the player counts isn't that high compared with many other online game types.
Why do you think this is the case? Do you not believe this is the case? There is something you would want to change about how fighting games are today?
I believe that fighting games still lack a lot in the non-online content area, specially compared with older titles, since nowadays everyone basically just hops online or maybe uses training mode. There should be more things to do besides just grind to attract more audiences.
Also, the prices are too much in my opinion. Almost all of them have a big percentage of the cast locked behind dlcs that cost the price of the game or more, you feel like purchasing the game again every new season.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

Fighting games will never have the player counts other online genres have due to a combination of a higher learning curve to play at a competent level and no teammates to carry/take the blame for less skilled players. You live and die in a Fighting game based on your own skill level and many people's egos can't handle that and quit.

I agree we could use more single player content too. Say what you will about it, but I actually really enjoyed my time with SF6 World Tour mode. Makes me wish we had a Ryu Ga Gotoku styled Final Fight game.

 

[Num]

im curious about how that league fighter project L will do. ive always thought that in the landscape of competitive games fighters have a hard time catching up to such a large degree because they refuse to embrace the free to play model that brings more interest and accessibility to the genre. i mean in a lot of ways fighting games show stubbornness in not adapting to modern standards at all but i think this especially is just the most important thing thats stunting it. i just really want fighters to reach a stage in gaming where you no longer have to join discord circlejerks just to play most games on the market

 

[DunkeyKong]

I have so much respect for every player that has the patience and determination to keep competing to the top. I've never played an online matches in every fighting games because I couldn't even win against a computer, most of the time

Especially in Tekken, King is just a nightmare. Here's a random highlight of him

 

[Boog111]

I agree about non-online content and the amount of DLC. I love fighting games but I've finally had to face the fact that I'm not that good at them. No way I could play online.

 

[naizou's iconnaizou]

Right now, Street Fighter 6 is becoming very popular in Japan.
Even people who have never played fighting games before seem to be able to get into the game easily thanks to the modern controls.
It seems like there's a lot of hate in other countries
Japan is also hated, but it is now fairly well accepted.
In order to become stronger, you will need to add commands, but in order to attract new players, I think it would be good to standardize the environment where you can choose between classic and modern controls.
On the other hand, I cannot use modern controls because they are difficult...

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

On the other hand, I cannot use modern controls because they are difficult...

I also cannot use the modern controls. It's very difficult to not fall into years of muscle memory.

 

[naizou's iconnaizou]

Fighting games will never have the player counts other online genres have due to a combination of a higher learning curve to play at a competent level and no teammates to carry/take the blame for less skilled players. You live and die in a Fighting game based on your own skill level and many people's egos can't handle that and quit.

I agree we could use more single player content too. Say what you will about it, but I actually really enjoyed my time with SF6 World Tour mode. Makes me wish we had a Ryu Ga Gotoku styled Final Fight game.

Is this what you are looking for?

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

Is this what you are looking for?

I went on a big hunt to find this so I could play it not too long ago! Now we need the reverse with a Final Fight that has a big, Kamurocho styled open city.

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

It depends on the game in question, but there are general trends and aspects to fighting games that will always keep them semi-niche.
-Higher learning curve. There are lots of button combinations to remember, then you have to get good at inputting said combinations of buttons in sequences to the point where it's second nature, all while paying attention to someone trying to stop you from doing that who can do a 30 hit fuck you combo as naturally as they breathe. Most people do not have the time and/or energy for that between their responsibilities and other hobbies competing for their time. Meanwhile, it's much more feasible for someone playing Call of Duty to be at least decent just by playing casually.
-Lack of single player content. Most fighting games are about the multiplayer aspect above all else, and to capture people that are intimidated by the sweatiness of online play, these games need good single player content, and most of them just don't compete with other genres in that regard. Street Fighter 6 has a really fun open world story mode, but it still depends on you really liking the core mechanics of Street Fighter, and there are far more content rich games with easier to grasp content for those who don't.
-DLCs. This isn't exclusive to fighting games by any means, but it certainly sticks out in this genre. To get really good at a fighting game, it helps to play all the characters enough to know how they work so that you can counter them with your main. That is prohibitively expensive for a new fighting game when the base game is 60 fucking bucks, plus every season pass of 3-6 characters is like 20-30. God help you if you're in a country where the regional pricing is fucked. Meanwhile, older fighting games where you can get everything for cheap are either deader than Capcom's love for Mega Man, or full of players that have mastered the game and would scare off casual online players.
-Social aspect. Team based games like Call of Duty, Siege, and so on make it easy to get a group together and have you all work toward the same goal every match. Fighting games are typically one on one, which can work, especially irl where everyone waiting their turn gets to feel the energy and hype of the current match, but it's not as inclusive as everyone getting to play all the time. Plus, newer players can feel like their contributing while the really skilled players carry the team, while in 1 on 1 fighters you only have yourself.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

I believe that fighting games still lack a lot in the non-online content area, specially compared with older titles, since nowadays everyone basically just hops online or maybe uses training mode. There should be more things to do besides just grind to attract more audiences.
Also, the prices are too much in my opinion. Almost all of them have a big percentage of the cast locked behind dlcs that cost the price of the game or more, you feel like purchasing the game again every new season.

It is of my personal belief that the reason fighting games are so niche is because NO ONE (besides Blazblue) ever thought "this fighting game doesn't have much single player content, we should give the casuals something to do so they stick around" and so they all die quickly unless there's a DLC.

I'm willing to be equivalents to Break The Targets, Stage Builder, Board the Platforms, etc would extend the life of the average fighting game. Or hell, just add collectibles! There's years worth of trophies in every Smash game locked behind different means and shit and you're telling me no one ever thought to capitalise on that idea?

Speaking of DLC, the dependence on it kills them too because they aren't Smash where hundreds of people will line up when a new character is announced, might as well make the base roster as big as possible jam packed with tons of single player content to be a REAL Smash clone

 

[naizou's iconnaizou]

Mortal Kombat puts a lot of effort into single-player.
Regardless of whether it's fun or not
It's not widely available in my country, so I can't play online matches, but I sometimes play single player.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

It is of my personal belief that the reason fighting games are so niche is because NO ONE (besides Blazblue) ever thought "this fighting game doesn't have much single player content, we should give the casuals something to do so they stick around" and so they all die quickly unless there's a DLC.

I'm willing to be equivalents to Break The Targets, Stage Builder, Board the Platforms, etc would extend the life of the average fighting game. Or hell, just add collectibles! There's years worth of trophies in every Smash game locked behind different means and shit and you're telling me no one ever thought to capitalise on that idea?

Absolutely agree. I don't really think the problem is the skill ceiling, but the lack of things to do. As i said, people love souls series and games like mobas, and they have an astronomical skill ceiling, but they have way more content and things to do, and this brings way more casual people that over time can start getting more competitive

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

It is of my personal belief that the reason fighting games are so niche is because NO ONE (besides Blazblue) ever thought "this fighting game doesn't have much single player content, we should give the casuals something to do so they stick around" and so they all die quickly unless there's a DLC.

I'm willing to be equivalents to Break The Targets, Stage Builder, Board the Platforms, etc would extend the life of the average fighting game. Or hell, just add collectibles! There's years worth of trophies in every Smash game locked behind different means and shit and you're telling me no one ever thought to capitalise on that idea?

Fighting Games on consoles pre-online often had loads of content and unlockables, such as Soul Calibur 3. I sometime feel online play has given devs an excuse to make less content.

 

[aru.aru]

I think for most casual players the scene itself is just far too intimidating. Most people really aren't interested in grinding Ranked and fighting games don't really have much else to do outside that. And for the most part outside of games like Fighterz, you're limited to the standard 1v1 which means most people don't see it as a group chat game.

I think the best investment to make in fighting games would be the single-player content especially story stuff since the characters are ultimately what a solid chunk of the player base is here for. I think that's why MK(locals sign-ups notwithstanding), Tekken, and Strive are doing well amongst more casual players despite being more technical games.

Personally, I would love for games to do more weird stuff like Tekken 6's story mode.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

Fighting Games on consoles pre-online often had loads of content and unlockables, such as Soul Calibur 3. I sometime feel online play has given devs an excuse to make less content.

Hot take: people got too used with lazy fighting game devs and started blaming the "casuals" or the "newbs that don't want to put the effort" instead.

 

[Octopus]

Like a lot of people have said already, I think the biggest hurdle is that the genre is rather hard to get into for a beginner. There's obviously the whole combo and control aspect, but even just the concepts involved can be hard to grasp for someone who doesn't already know about them. It's one thing for a beginner to hop into training mode with Ryu in SF6 and eventually get down the basic S.HP>DRC>S.HK>S.HP x H.Shoryken BnB with enough practice, but then try explaining what a mix-up to them is or what an option select is (or since it's SF6, what a throw loop is). There's a lot of refined very abstract concepts that people already 'in the know' take for granted, while that stuff can be another obstacle for someone trying to get into fighting games over the usual combo practise. Some of them you don't necessarily need to know to play at an intermediate level of course, such as option selects or fuzzy guards, but even some of the basic ones can be hard to grasp.

I think the fact we're in the third golden age of fighting games comes down to a lot of the more recent big releases finally getting accessibility right. I'm coming mainly from being a SF6 player (think I'm at like 500ish hours before I stopped playing when Terry came out, few characters in Diamond and Honda in Masters) but the game is the most approachable Street Fighter yet for someone new. There's the obvious Modern controls of course, but even the system mechanics of the game themselves are easier to grasp then previous games, while being deep enough to attract higher level play still. 'Easy to learn, hard to master' kind of thing. A lot of earlier games leaned either didn't have enough approachability, or they overcompensate and don't have enough meat anymore to support higher level play and turned too casual. In SF6's case, this has kinda made the game stale a little bit (at least to me), but that's a different discussion.

Also, single player content I think is actually important to have even for hardcore fighting games.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

Like a lot of people have said already, I think the biggest hurdle is that the genre is rather hard to get into for a beginner. There's obviously the whole combo and control aspect, but even just the concepts involved can be hard to grasp for someone who doesn't already know about them. It's one thing for a beginner to hop into training mode with Ryu in SF6 and eventually get down the basic S.HP>DRC>S.HK>S.HP x H.Shoryken BnB with enough practice, but then try explaining what a mix-up to them is or what an option select is (or since it's SF6, what a throw loop is). There's a lot of refined very abstract concepts that people already 'in the know' take for granted, while that stuff can be another obstacle for someone trying to get into fighting games over the usual combo practise. Some of them you don't necessarily need to know to play at an intermediate level of course, such as option selects or fuzzy guards, but even some of the basic ones can be hard to grasp.

I think the fact we're in the third golden age of fighting games comes down to a lot of the more recent big releases finally getting accessibility right. I'm coming mainly from being a SF6 player (think I'm at like 500ish hours before I stopped playing when Terry came out, few characters in Diamond and Honda in Masters) but the game is the most approachable Street Fighter yet for someone new. There's the obvious Modern controls of course, but even the system mechanics of the game themselves are easier to grasp then previous games, while being deep enough to attract higher level play still. 'Easy to learn, hard to master' kind of thing. A lot of earlier games leaned either didn't have enough approachability, or they overcompensate and don't have enough meat anymore to support higher level play and turned too casual. In SF6's case, this has kinda made the game stale a little bit (at least to me), but that's a different discussion.

Also, single player content I think is actually important to have even for hardcore fighting games.

Every time you type something in a thread is only textual bangers, you big chad

But yeah, i think the skill ceiling is a problem, but i think investing in better tutorials is a good way to go. Guilty Gear Strive and Xrd did a way better job with the tutorial/mission modes and it made the games way more accessible in my opinion. And it's more intuitive than going to youtube or a website to find guides for it, since you are doing right there with a clear goal and rewards for when you do things right.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Fighting Games on consoles pre-online often had loads of content and unlockables, such as Soul Calibur 3. I sometime feel online play has given devs an excuse to make less content.

I gotta play Soul Caliber one day and this just gave me another reason to do so

 

[Octopus]

Every time you type something in a thread is only textual bangers, you big chad

But yeah, i think the skill ceiling is a problem, but i think investing in better tutorials is a good way to go. Guilty Gear Strive and Xrd did a way better job with the tutorial/mission modes and it made the games way more accessible in my opinion. And it's more intuitive than going to youtube or a website to find guides for it, since you are doing right there with a clear goal and rewards for when you do things right.

Aw, shucks.

Better tutorials definitely help for sure. Never played Guilty Gear, but I've heard Strive being called a good beginner game from a bunch of people. MK11 has some really good tutorials too, they walked you through some of the abstract stuff such as frame data, frame traps as that game was all about them frame traps, when it's 'your turn', stuff like that. They explained the concepts well too, it wasn't just like "perform 5 frame traps" or something and they actually elaborated on them without getting too into the weeds. Great game.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

I gotta play Soul Caliber one day and this just gave me another reason to do so

They're (mostly) all great, just be wary of Soul Calibur 5

 

[kanesha]

It's one thing for a beginner to hop into training mode with Ryu in SF6 and eventually get down the basic S.HP>DRC>S.HK>S.HP x H.Shoryken BnB with enough practice

Nobody in their right mind will ever do that. People play games to have fun not to feel like they are back at school learning formulas by heart. In most other games you can get better by just playing, and not practicing. Practicing is only necessary if actually want to compete, not merely enjoy the game. Fighting games are games where you can only compete, so they stay niche despite the constant new entries and hype and marketing.

I'm a total noob who can't beat the brood war (one of the most mechanically demanding games ever made) compaign, I never practiced anything, but I can still watch and enjoy professional tournaments, and even learn from them, because the basic game mechanics are accessible and understandable to me, I can do exactly what the best of the best do, they just do it bajillion times faster than me and that's what's impressive. Will someone ever make a fighting game where you can do the combos slowly and doing them faster just gives you an advantage (like not letting the opponent interrupt you)? Will someone ever make fighting game with a natural fighting system that makes sense (not press this random button combinations that feel like cheatcodes) and that one can learn and fully discover by playing single-player? Learning curve? There is no curve it's a learning brick wall, and nobody is even trying to make it any better.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

Nobody in their right mind will ever do that. People play games to have fun not to feel like they are back at school learning formulas by heart. In most other games you can get better by just playing, and not practicing. Practicing is only necessary if actually want to compete, not merely enjoy the game. Fighting games are games where you can only compete, so they stay niche despite the constant new entries and hype and marketing.

I'm a total noob who can't beat the brood war (one of the most mechanically demanding games ever made) compaign, I never practiced anything, but I can still watch and enjoy professional tournaments, and even learn from them, because the basic game mechanics are accessible and understandable to me, I can do exactly what the best of the best do, they just do it bajillion times faster than me and that's what's impressive. Will someone ever make a fighting game where you can do the combos slowly and doing them faster just gives you an advantage (like not letting the opponent interrupt you)? Will someone ever make fighting game with a natural fighting system that makes sense (not press this random button combinations that feel like cheatcodes) and that one can learn and fully discover by playing single-player? Learning curve? There is no curve it's a learning brick wall, and nobody is even trying to make it any better.

I agree. Fighting games hate innovating and prefer to stagnate in the same concepts. I think the studios and companies are too afraid to try different things and lose the little but passionate playerbase they have. The only company that somewhat tried to innovate things was capcom over the years with Street Fighter games, but is still too little incentive for a casual player.
Fighting games are basically being produced to be consumed by the same people who are already playing fighting games every day, and they dictate the way the genre should be.

 

[Octopus]

Learning curve? There is no curve it's a learning brick wall, and nobody is even trying to make it any better.

Pretty much, yeah. It's something you're either into or at least open to trying, or you're not into. Some games do attempt to make it easier to approach, but ultimately fighting games are always a niche genre that filters a good amount of people. I'm obviously biased by being a pretty big fighting game player, but I don't disagree with what you're saying; it is what it is. There was the Fight Night boxing games on the 360/PS3 era, they were serious minded boxing games that didn't have esoteric button commands and just used the right analog stick to throw punches. The recent UFC games continue that I think, everything is more or less just single button presses and the game comes down to counters and stuff like that rather than combos.

Fighting games are basically being produced to be consumed by the same people who are already playing fighting games every day, and they dictate the way the genre should be.

Pretty much, yeah. But there's been some good progress toward accessibility like we've talked about.

 

[aru.aru]

Fighting games are basically being produced to be consumed by the same people who are already playing fighting games every day,

I think one of the unique problems that the genre faces is that there really isn't much of a way to placate casual players completely from a mechanical standpoint. Sure, you can add auto combos or modern controls but ultimately the core game still needs to be designed around people who actually like fighting games. Otherwise, the game will die 1000 deaths.

There is no curve it's a learning brick wall, and nobody is even trying to make it any better.

I feel like fundamentally the wall can't be torn down without sacrificing what makes these games fun in the first place, it would be like removing the option to drive manual in a racing game. That's how you end up with something completely different like Smash Bros.