"Fighting Games are Just Button Mashers" and other statements

[Clashero]

I can beat my friends on Soul Calibur 9 times out of 10, perhaps a bit more. I play knowing the combos and moves, while they mash buttons. I think SC really struck the right balance with that, in that a skilled player can easily take down a button masher, while making the button masher feel like he's really got a shot at winning (which sometimes comes true!)

 

[Gigano]

Having just gotten Blazblue: Continuum Shift as a bonus, I can safely say that figuring out those mechanics (and the story...) in any greater detail would take more skill and effort than I would or possibly could ever put into it.

Still hilarious though (a "hello kitty"-like electric char attack???), but button mashing won't get you anywhere with it.

 

[Fishyash]

Well... let me add something with a little anecdote.

I used to play SSFIV with a fightstick for a month or so before my bro was like 'hey i'm selling my xbox k u wanna sell ur stuff 2 k then'. I was a little annoyed but not too big a deal. If I still wanna play it i'd probs do it on PC or something.

Well, I liked that game. On xbox live if you tried to button mash you would get stomped over. I took the time to learn all the moves of my favourite characters. That was why I bought a fight stick. It was lots of fun.

One day I managed to convince my brother to play a game against me. He is usually like 'no fighting games suck I wanna play halo,' but I managed to convince him because a friend was over and he was backing me up. He decided to do crouching fierce the entire match and I lost a round to him. I had to be a bit more careful to beat him. Button mashers, even nowdays are still dangerous if you are not good at the game. Still, superior strategy wins

Fast forward a year, when my nephews were over. I have street fighter 2 turbo on my wii virtual console, and decided to play it with them. I belive the youngest nephew I was playing with was... 5? (sorry not very good at remembering since I don't see them very often). The other newphew was not much older. They were both constantly beating me. There was the older one managing to get grabs all the time, and the younger one, also pulling off grabs and general button mashing. I could not beat them at first, until I played e.honda. What was my strategy to beating these extremely young button mashing masters of street fighter?

Sumo head butt
Jumping medium punch
Hundred hand slap.

All I did was head butt, and spam the same punch button the entire round to defeat him. I felt rather stupid. Maybe street fighter 2 turbo requires a lot of cheesy play to be successful at it? Maybe.

I decided to use these newly found skills I mastered on single player, and it worked very well.

TL;DR version. Beat my nephews who are over 10 years younger than me by head butting, jumping medium punch and hundred hand slapping. Press the same button over and over again. Basically, button mashing.

My opinion? Nah, fighting games aren't about button mashing really, if you lose to button mashing, you are just as bad as them, if not worse. If you think that you lost because they were button mashing, and if they 'played properly' you would have won, guess what that makes you? A scrub. A decent person who 'plays properly' would wipe the floor against you.

Although I will admit people probably think fighting games are about button mashing because it really works against inexperienced players.

 

[imnot]

Halo has a crappy story *sigh*
I know pwople have diffrent opinions but really?

 

[Dexiro]

I think I know why some people would make the mistake of saying that.
Say you have 3 skill levels;

A - Hasn't learn a characters moves (button bashers)
B - Knows a characters moves but not how to use them
C - Knows how to use a characters moves well

I think a lot of the time you have A going against B, and in that scenario A is a valid tactic.
And I don't think it's too uncommon for either person in that scenario to mistake B as having a significant amount of skill and come to whatever conclusion when they see A winning.

However knowing how to use a characters moves is the most important things, and I don't think A or B could ever win against C without a great deal of luck. That scenario is a little more uncommon though.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Button mashing is generally only good against new players without much skill. They have just as little knowledge as you do about the different moves of the characters, so they can't properly counter your random attacks. Up against skilled players button mashing is nowhere near as good. The only advantage you have against the other player is that they don't know what you're going to do next. They can't watch you and figure out your strategy in the long run. The thing is, they don't have too. Any powerful moves you pull off are due to luck, you have no idea what will happen when you press a certain combination of buttons. They on the other hand can pull of combos with ease and know what moves to use in each situation. Sure you might randomly pull of some really powerful move, but you could also do some weak-ass one that leaves you exposed.