Current Events > Are the inputs the only thing that makes Fighting games competitive/difficult?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I play like 1-2 of them occasionally but I'm not invested in the genre or anything. But whenever you see cases of games lowering the "execution" bar people seem to think the game immediately becomes uncompetitive.
---

that's just people being mad that they are losing to people that have better fundamentals than them
---

No.
---

execution is the least difficult thing about fighting games unless you are playing with a character that requires 1-frame links. Most of the difficulty from fighting games stems from learning character-specific matchup strategies and unwritten meta techniques
---

FightingGames posted...

execution is the least difficult thing about fighting games unless you are playing with a character that requires 1-frame links. Most of the difficulty from fighting games stems from learning character-specific matchup strategies and unwritten meta techniques

this isn't true at all.

Legions of people couldn't even do an FADC in SF4 and that was required to be even a moderate level player. And there are still tons of people that can't play charge characters/do charge motions.

execution is a much bigger hurdle for the majority of people than that other stuff.
---

Not entirely. There's a lot of mental mind games that take place. Once you remember a fighter's moves, you then have to figure out how those attacks/combos will work against your opponent. You have to consider your spacing, poking, footgame, positioning, ect.
---

Are complicated inputs what make them difficult? Yes, often so. In some fighting games with a high learning curve, executing the toughest inputs can be a significant hurdle that some players simply can't get past to break into the competitive level. But are complicated inputs what make them competitive? They can be a factor, but not the main factor. Matchups, spacing, defense, combos, prediction... there's so many more factors to take into account than just doing your moves right.

Inputs that are too difficult can be a barrier to keep certain players from becoming competitive level players (which I don't think is a good idea to begin with) but between players at the competitive level, being able to do the inputs right isn't as important as a lot of the other stuff.
---

Nope, learning the actual strategies needed to beat another person and getting good at actually using them in the moment, as well as working out how specific characters interact with one another, are the real difficulty.
---

_Squirtle_ posted...

FightingGames posted...

execution is the least difficult thing about fighting games unless you are playing with a character that requires 1-frame links. Most of the difficulty from fighting games stems from learning character-specific matchup strategies and unwritten meta techniques

this isn't true at all.

Legions of people couldn't even do an FADC in SF4 and that was required to be even a moderate level player. And there are still tons of people that can't play charge characters/do charge motions.

execution is a much bigger hurdle for the majority of people than that other stuff.

execution is definitely difficult but it's something that anyone can learn with time. It's generally some linear slope between successful execution and training; you improve after each training session. On the contrary, studying match-up knowledge has a very steep learning curve because of the character roster size multiplied by their respective strategies. Learning counter-strategies is mostly theoretical and doesn't always translate to success
---