Any stubborn anti-fighting game players out there?

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Fighting games have one major flaw. Whenever one person is winning it means the other person has little to no control over their character. Stun locks and other mechanics that take control away from one of the players and gives it to another is a flawed mechanic. It creates an environment where you feel powerless to do anything and in a medium that is basically fully interactive creating situations where you are powerless is a very very bad idea. It would be about the equivalent of going to a movie and the screen flickers black every time someone is enjoying the movie more then you. Or it would be like if you were reading a book and the book would randomly delete words and sentences.

That is the reason that so many people enjoy Smash Bros. it's a fighting game that has the same fun competition of any other game but you only ever lose control of your character for a short duration (unless you are fighting in the 64 version or Melee and dealing with a pro). But hardcore fighter geeks love to be able to take control away from the other person by stun-locking them and creating huge combos.

I've never been a fan of stun locks and big combos. Once you get them into a lock it isn't really a 2 player game anymore, it becomes a game of Simon basically. Now I love Simon, but I would never force one of my friends to sit and watch while I play a game of it. Basically playing fighting games is like forcing your friend to watch you play Simon then punching them in the balls. It's not fun.

The point is to not want to be in that state. That is supposed to drive you to play better, not get hit and WIN.


I thought something like that was obvious.



Now, if you're a quitter or lack willpower, I can see how simply not playing the game may work for you, however if you have any semblance of pride about you, you'll stand your ground and play better so you won't get hit any more.

Lol someone likes to talk smack and be a complete git. The fact is that at one point or another no matter how good you are you will at one point be in that state where you lose control and can do absolutely nothing about it. It's not a matter of getting better it's a matter of creating an environment where one player will always been in a situation where they have no power. In an interactive medium this is a horrible horrible idea. I love competition games and I do play to win and I try to get better, but I don't like games that take away my power to do anything. Most fighting games are based around a flawed premise and instead of thinking about a new premise you say that people should just suck it up and get better.

Why do you think interactivity and empowerment are interchangeable and inseparable? Weakness is quite the experience and experiencing successfully implemented interactive humiliation is quite the accomplishment for a medium.


Just because you don't like, it doesn't instantly make it flawed.


Even if I were to look at it from your power-hungry perspective, do you know how powerful one feels if their foe is reduced to nothingness and loses all control to them? Wouldn't that huge empowerment be worth the few moments that you yourself are without power? When you're good, these empowering moments are much more than the powerless ones, thus they add to a wholly positive total far surpassing something like an FPS where a single victory is split between 16 people and the guy with the most frags can very well be on the losing side.

Motivate, no, teach, YES.

If I take it easy on you, you won't learn what actually happens in a serious match so when you encounter one such match you'll be lost. While if I utterly crush you and you slowly but steadily begin faring better, when you go and face someone online who doesn't know half the stuff I do, you'll be so much better than them that all the pain will have been worth it.


So yea, when you get destroyed, take it as a learnign experience, not as a motivational attempt. We've all been there, we all took it, it's a part of getting good.

I understand what you mean, and your technique is probably pretty effective at actually increasing skill level, but it assumes that I'm going to want to learn, and if you don't motivate me to continue, I'm just going to want to go back to playing Rock Band. What you're suggesting is increasing the punishment of a loss by demonstrating your high level of skill, which is more likely to communicate that the road to acquiring the skill to stand toe to toe with you is so long and arduous that I might as well not bother.

That's not my job, you must like the game enough yourself to be motivated to play better.

When I was learning, I looked with awe when truly skilled people played, I felt I wanted to be that good. I'm not there yet but the road has been fun so far. If you lack such an inspirational desire, I can see how you may not wanna bother.


The job of each member of the community is to push each-other into desiring to be better through being better themselves. All I can do is show you what you could be doing, if you don't care for that no matter how much I make it fun for you you're guaranteed to not put in the time necessary for you ever come close.

 

[Eldarion]

If something like Blazblue doesn't cause those people to salivate with excitement (beginner mode for easy execution of moves if you suck, multiple hour long tutorials teaching you everything you need to know, 20+ hours of storymode, the most unique and full of personality chars in any fighter ever except maybe Guilty Gear (though GG's were more one-dimensional)) then fighting games are simply not for them and they should focus on other genres.

^This.

Honestly, I don't understand why other fighting games continue to be made. No one will ever be able to do better than Blazblue: CS until they make Blazblue VS Guilty gear. On that day, humanity might as well just stop because no one will ever achieve that level of awesome ever again.

I'm not a fanboy or anything. Not at all.

 

[Frozengale]

Why do you think interactivity and empowerment are interchangeable and inseparable? Weakness is quite the experience and experiencing successfully implemented interactive humiliation is quite the accomplishment for a medium.


Just because you don't like, it doesn't instantly make it flawed.


Even if I were to look at it from your power-hungry perspective, do you know how powerful one feels if their foe is reduced to nothingness and loses all control to them? Wouldn't that huge empowerment be worth the few moments that you yourself are without power? When you're good, these empowering moments are much more than the powerless ones, thus they add to a wholly positive total far surpassing something like an FPS where a single victory is split between 16 people and the guy with the most frags can very well be on the losing side.

Do you even read my posts or do you just graze them for things you don't agree with? I have felt that powerful, you don't get it do you I DO PLAY FIGHTING GAMES! I love games with competition and I hate the ones where it just becomes me beating up a guy that can't do anything about it because I might as well be playing a game of Simon by then. And yes it is FLAWED it's taking away the FOUNDING ELEMENT OF A GAME! I'm not the power hungry one, if anyone is it's you and all the other people that like to play games based around stunning the other person and stopping them from being able to do anything while you mercilessly beat them.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Why do you think interactivity and empowerment are interchangeable and inseparable? Weakness is quite the experience and experiencing successfully implemented interactive humiliation is quite the accomplishment for a medium.


Just because you don't like, it doesn't instantly make it flawed.


Even if I were to look at it from your power-hungry perspective, do you know how powerful one feels if their foe is reduced to nothingness and loses all control to them? Wouldn't that huge empowerment be worth the few moments that you yourself are without power? When you're good, these empowering moments are much more than the powerless ones, thus they add to a wholly positive total far surpassing something like an FPS where a single victory is split between 16 people and the guy with the most frags can very well be on the losing side.

Do you even read my posts or do you just graze them for things you don't agree with? I have felt that powerful, you don't get it do you I DO PLAY FIGHTING GAMES! I love games with competition and I hate the ones where it just becomes me beating up a guy that can't do anything about it because I might as well be playing a game of Simon by then. And yes it is FLAWED it's taking away the FOUNDING ELEMENT OF A GAME! I'm not the power hungry one, if anyone is it's you and all the other people that like to play games based around stunning the other person and stopping them from being able to do anything while you mercilessly beat them.

The important part is how you initiate the combo, not the actual beating part. If you watch any high level game you won't see people exclaiming at the awesome combos that killed someone in 1 go, you'll find them jumping out of their seats for things like great mind-reads, great reactions, initiating combos off of improbable hits and whatnot. The actual act of performing a combo is much more mundane than you're describing it. It's all about the mental game.

 

[ChocoFace]

Mortal Kombat is a game not designed for actual high level fighting tournaments. It's more something you play to have good old fashioned blood-spattered fun. Remind them that. Basically it all boils down to getting those flashy X-ray moves and fatalities off. Plus there's the challenge mode, which can add hours of gameplay.

We're not dealing with Tekken or Virtua Fighter here.

 

[Frozengale]

The important part is how you initiate the combo, not the actual beating part. If you watch any high level game you won't see people exclaiming at the awesome combos that killed someone in 1 go, you'll find them jumping out of their seats for things like great mind-reads, great reactions, initiating combos off of improbable hits and whatnot. The actual act of performing a combo is much more mundane than you're describing it. It's all about the mental game.

Oh yeah because it's so much fun to have a game be determined by a split second decision or fluke, instead of a match that displays consistent skill and ability to think under pressure. Look, the OP asked for reasons why people don't like fighting games and I gave them to you, and so have others. And you people saying that the reasons we don't like fighting games are the reasons they should be glorified. There's a reason lots of people don't like fighting games but hardcore fighter fans don't want to change.

 

[G-Force]

Oh yeah because it's so much fun to have a game be determined by a split second decision or fluke, instead of a match that displays consistent skill and ability to think under pressure. Look, the OP asked for reasons why people don't like fighting games and I gave them to you, and so have others. And you people saying that the reasons we don't like fighting games are the reasons they should be glorified. There's a reason lots of people don't like fighting games but hardcore fighter fans don't want to change.

Fighting games reward consistency as the better players do win. One of the reasons why many matches are best settled 3 out of 5 are there to make sure that lucky fluke victories do not decide the entire flow of the game. Diago is one of the best players in the world and the fact that he consistently wins tournament after tournament shows that that fluke loses are not a huge factor in the fighting game world. The reason why so many people are arguing is because many of the reasons why people don't like fighting games are baseless claims that are obviously incorrect. Statements like "I can button mash and beat anyone" or "There are no tactics" brazenly clash at the very fundamentals of many fighting game systems. It would be like me going to a FPS thread and saying that the genre is horrible as camping is such an overpowered strategy. Statements like this make us jump out and make us respond.

Fighting games have one major flaw. Whenever one person is winning it means the other person has little to no control over their character. Stun locks and other mechanics that take control away from one of the players and gives it to another is a flawed mechanic. It creates an environment where you feel powerless to do anything and in a medium that is basically fully interactive creating situations where you are powerless is a very very bad idea. It would be about the equivalent of going to a movie and the screen flickers black every time someone is enjoying the movie more then you. Or it would be like if you were reading a book and the book would randomly delete words and sentences.

That is the reason that so many people enjoy Smash Bros. it's a fighting game that has the same fun competition of any other game but you only ever lose control of your character for a short duration (unless you are fighting in the 64 version or Melee and dealing with a pro). But hardcore fighter geeks love to be able to take control away from the other person by stun-locking them and creating huge combos.

I've never been a fan of stun locks and big combos. Once you get them into a lock it isn't really a 2 player game anymore, it becomes a game of Simon basically. Now I love Simon, but I would never force one of my friends to sit and watch while I play a game of it. Basically playing fighting games is like forcing your friend to watch you play Simon then punching them in the balls. It's not fun.

Every strategy has a counter and just because you are being in a combo it doesn't mean you're not playing. With the mention of burst systems that allow you to escape from combos you're still engaged in the game. When you take a combo you now have ample time to replay the previous exchange you had in your head. What did you do wrong? How did the opponent outsmart you? What's your next step. When the combo is finished you then have options based off of where you're knocked down, how close the opponent is to your character and even HOW you're knocked down. Essentially taking damage is the result of you making a mistake and your opponent capitalizing on your error. Ever good player is still engaged in the game because taking one combo does not mean instant defeat. If there are games like that then that simply means that they're just bad games.

Let's look at it in another way. A character with 10 health will do just as much damage to their opponent as someone with 80. What this means is that your offensive potential is never powered down if you take damage. Unlike games like Starcraft where losing units and buildings is a huge drain on your time and resources. The possibility for combacks and upsets is still present, it's just that many players lack the mental toughness to truly take advantage of the situation. When opponents are near victory they might play overly cautions or aggressive in order to clinch their victory and when players alter their strategies new openings surface as the rhythm of the match has completely shifted

 

[chronobreak]

It seems like the matches go too quick for me, in terms of taking damage, and not enough diversity in some cases. I play wrestling games, and I like the ebb and flow of matches. You never see any 30-minute long SSFIV matches or anything.

 

[imagremlin]

Fighting games is one of my favourite genres. I was completely blown away the first time I saw Virtua Fighter on an arcade, and got hooked. I could not wait to own a Saturn and have VF at home; you can imagine the dissapointment when I finally did.

A group of friends at work used to sneak to a nearby arcade and play Tekken every time we could get away with it. Eventually we ran a championship, which I won, and still have the throphy, it reads "The King of the Iron Fist Tournament".

I was never into the 2D ones, or their current incarnations, so its mostly VF, Tekken, SC and DOA. My copy of the Tekken 10th anniversary pack is actually signed by Katsuhiro Harada.

 

[imagremlin]

(double post)

 

[imagremlin]

1) I suck at them.

2) They are way too repetitive with all the button mashing, etc. It's just the same punches and kicks, no matter what character you're playing.

3) There is no thought or strategy involved, for the most part. I prefer a game that will challenge my intellect, not my button mashing speed.

You only think 2 & 3 because of 1. They're not true.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The reason why so many people are arguing is because many of the reasons why people don't like fighting games are baseless claims that are obviously incorrect. Statements like "I can button mash and beat anyone" or "There are no tactics" brazenly clash at the very fundamentals of many fighting game systems.

^^^ More truth well worth quoting. ^^^

As a fighting game fan myself, it's actually easy to see why someone may not like them. Often when at their best, they are punishing experiences. By virtue of the short nature of each match and the fact it's only you out there playing for your side, it's a given that in learning to play a fighting game well you are going to lose a lot before you ever start to really win. Fighting game fans, however, find worth in almost every hit we take and every loss we accumulate. It's not just someone pointing out something you did wrong, but often it's seeing your chosen avatar getting smashed to the mat. That can be a powerful learning aid if you choose to see it as one.

The better and better prepared fighter will win, period. This is how fighting games have been since the beginning. While change isn't always a bad thing, and I appreciate innovation as much as the next guy, I'd say it's actually rather arrogant to say an established and loved genre should change the way it works just because it doesn't fit the way you personally want to play it.

Let's look at it in another way. A character with 10 health will do just as much damage to their opponent as someone with 80. What this means is that your offensive potential is never powered down if you take damage. Unlike games like Starcraft where losing units and buildings is a huge drain on your time and resources. The possibility for combacks and upsets is still present, it's just that many players lack the mental toughness to truly take advantage of the situation.

*inserts link to Daigo EVO comeback video*

Indeed, and it happens in almost every single tourney that gets held. In fact, systems like Supers, Ultras, Rage, X-Factor, etc. were all created by fighting game developers specifically to make those comebacks even more possible... if you have the mental toughness to take advantage of them.

Very few games allow the sort of one and done situations that are getting complained about here. Even if a game does allow infinite or 100% combos (most don't realistically have them at all or at least make them extremely situational and/or input precise), the fact is you still have to get hit by whatever starts it.