Current Events > Why Are Most People Bad At Fighting Games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

They seem pretty easy to me.

Because the controls suck

There are a handful of fighting games where the controls are actually good/intuitive though

I been playing fighting games now for like 25 years. My favorite series being street fighter and mortal Kombat. But in the recent few years all fighting games have become.more difficult to me, since I have a memory issue in my mind, so I forget a lot now easily. So to try to remember a characters moves, to remember combos for the characters, and when worst if multiple characters,it's quite tough now. I literally start forgetting movies after a few mins. It's why street fighter is my favorite still because the character moves in that game are legendary and easier to remember. For ryu and ken and any them ones. I mean can't forget a hadouken after all

Damn_Underscore posted...

Because the controls suck

There are a handful of fighting games where the controls are actually good/intuitive though

Name them.

How often do you play them? Do your friends move on from games very quickly?

DBZ Budokai is one I thought of. You dont have to enter a cheat code to use the ki moves

MedeaLysistrata posted...

How often do you play them? Do your friends move on from games very quickly?

Who, me?

Damn_Underscore posted...

DBZ Budokai is one I thought of. You dont have to enter a cheat code to use the ki moves

Jus play Multiversus bro

Rikishi posted...

I been playing fighting games now for like 25 years. My favorite series being street fighter and mortal Kombat. But in the recent few years all fighting games have become.more difficult to me, since I have a memory issue in my mind, so I forget a lot now easily. So to try to remember a characters moves, to remember combos for the characters, and when worst if multiple characters,it's quite tough now. I literally start forgetting movies after a few mins. It's why street fighter is my favorite still because the character moves in that game are legendary and easier to remember. For ryu and ken and any them ones. I mean can't forget a hadouken after all

These are my feelings almost exactly. But, I don't think I'm gonna slip on my Bowser skills in Smash quite so soon as a few minutes.

combo inputs seem easy to you? have you ever played another type of game?

Because not all of us devote our lives to them.

fighting games are the second worst genre of game

DarthDemented posted...

Because not all of us devote our lives to them.

This.

You need to spend hours in Training mode labbing out the right combos, and then find people around your level to test out what you practiced as well as learning even more stuff to lab out later. For most people, that's too much work.

Plus, they may be intimidated by the controls of the games, where you have to do certain inputs to pull off a single special move. Some people can't even do the Hadoken motion.

Because there's a long and steep learning curve for even rudimentary competitive play, and it's easy to get discouraged with it

Solar_Crimson posted...

This.

You need to spend hours in Training mode labbing out the right combos, and then find people around your level to test out what you practiced as well as learning even more stuff to lab out later. For most people, that's too much work.

Plus, they may be intimidated by the controls of the games, where you have to do certain inputs to pull off a single special move. Some people can't even do the Hadoken motion.

Well with me I just pick my character, check over the move list, then just practice as I play. When I've seen all endings, completed the story mode, or just gotten bored then I just move on.

Most fighting games tend to have higher barriers of entry that don't lend to the "easy to learn hard to master" as most other genres have. Sure that barrier of entry has been reduced with a lot of modern games now, but I'm just speaking of generality and especially in the past.

Some barrier of entry include: Full price tag upfront if you want to be matched with people around your skill level. The longer a fighting game is in circulation, the more likely you're going to be pitted against people who've played the game for almost all of their life. This also means you can't just "try" a game to see if you like it or not, you have to commit to it or return the game which is an additional step. Second barrier of entry is: most games being 1v1. Playing 1v1 just means more anxiety, any mistake you make is on you and the only thing you can either blame is the online if it "lags" on you. You notice the most popular multiplayer games tend to have either a battle royale element where there's a third party that can get between you and your enemies or team base where it takes some of that anxiety away from you. The third barrior of entry is the controls like motion inputs: if you don't commit to memorizing and learning how to play the game it's super difficult to get into. The final barrier of entry is the thing I fucking hate the most: garbage netcode like DBFZ and Smash Ultimate.

Like I said all of this barrier of entry stuff is being solved more and more with future fighting games, which is absolutely a good sign for things to come. Project L will be the testament to see if F2P traditional fighting games can be viable or not.

Trickfinger posted...

Name them.

To be fair, the power rangers battle for the grid game uses simple inputs for special moves but is still able to capture that MvC style team-based insanity. And then there's games with easy inputs or Auto combos like persona 4 arena where you sacrifice flexibility in execution and exchange for ease.

Fundamentally though, most people are bad at fighting games because they're being taught the wrong lessons about how to play them. Everyone is so focused on command execution and chaining long combos together that they're putting no attention towards really critical fundamentals like spacing, "learning to be patient during a block string", or "the importance of hit confirming into slower moves". I would say 99% of the people that get crushed online in fighting games aren't losing because they can't reliably do a shoryuken motion. They're losing because they're trying to mash buttons and getting comboed out before they can even get to a point where their failed input would matter.

I really only play as Kasumi against Helena because I feel there is some hatred there and it seems easier to play and I suggest finding a rivalry you can get into.

Oubliettes posted...

fighting games are the second worst genre of game

Sounds like a skill issue

Trickfinger posted...

Sounds like a skill issue

yeah im too good

Most fighting games are easy to me, but that's because I've been playing them literally since I was 3 years old. I had Mortal Kombat 3 when I was kindergarten. Got Power Moves (Street Fighter rip off) too. I dominated my family in Tekken 3. Like legit no one could win a single match against me with Law. I was pretty unbeatable in MK3 as well.

Jupiter posted...

Most fighting games are easy to me, but that's because I've been playing them literally since I was 3 years old. I had Mortal Kombat 3 when I was kindergarten. Got Power Moves (Street Fighter rip off) too. I dominated my family in Tekken 3. Like legit no one could win a single match against me with Law. I was pretty unbeatable in MK3 as well.

u cant see me in FGs tho

Most other popular genres have you either feel like you've made gains/progress, or at least contributed to an effort. Even if you get negative K/D, just killing one person at all feels like you did the "right" thing, like you did adequacy.

In fighting games, unless you're one of those weirdos who cares about story mode beyond a fling, the main goal is to play with, and beat people. And unlike in in an FPS or RPG or Mario Kart or Madden, you can't immediately gain a usable grasp of how to play. It feels like "okay, I can kick and punch and do a fireball sometimes", and then, if you play with anyone who actually plays fighting games, you get your shit stomped in in 10 seconds. It happened right in front of you, but you can't actually parse how it happened. This is the experience for casuals.

I love fighting games, right down to the core of my digital soul, but this was my initial experience. I just happened to want something I actually had to try at, so now I'm a lobby cycling jerk, and everyone loves me.

Also with online gaming taking over, no casual gamer thinks they're the best at everything anymore. I love the universal ego check.

EDIT: Sajam did a video on why this isn't true, but it just completely avoids acknowledgement of the experience so many describe. I've played every genre of game, but fighting games, chess, go, and poker are the ones that feel incredibly sink or swim.

Because most people don't have as good a hand eye coordination as they think they do.

Trickfinger posted...

u cant see me in FGs tho

Probably can't. >_> Haven't played in a while lol. What are your games? MKX is probably my best game. I was honestly always trash at Street Fighter though. I was decent in Tekken for casuals. Dead or Alive, I'm sorta decent.

I remember someone brought Tekken or mortal kombat and I beat everyone in the room without ever playing the game before lol.

The newer smash bros is pretty nerfy though.

Because with most fighting games people figure out pretty quickly that the game sucks, so they don't bother trying to get good at it.

Guide: "okay so the basic move you wanna learn is up-up-down-left-right-b-c-z-up-down-start, not to be confused with up-down-right-down-left-right-b-a-z-up-down-start"

Me: *mashes buttons*

It's because nobody wants to put in the effort to learn a game/character, they want to hold button and do cool stuff. Which they can do now. But then they get bored quickly because it's "easy to fight"

Fighting games are fun to mess around with, but as soon as one of your friends starts talking about start up frames and shit like that you already lost the game.

1) High barrier to entry
.
2) Establishment of meta (spamming best character/moves leaves some people behind because they either don't know or don't want to play those characters).

3) Poor matchmaking systems result in fewer games with greater disparity in skill, making the matches more akin to beatdowns than fights

4) Shit internet

5) More people are getting into the genre and thus more people are shit at them

6) Terrible hitboxes and/or animations

It's a strategically and mechanically complex genre.

Because most fighting games suck, require players to memorize moves that have a dozen inputs, and then be able to flawlessly pull off said inputs under extreme pressure and with perfect timing. Usually against AI opponents which have no such restrictions placed upon them.

I've always found control stick inputs to be horribly unintuitive. Don't know if those controllers where all the directionals are buttons would be any better, but that's probably the only way I'd ever be able to do it properly.

HylianFox posted...

Because most fighting games suck, require players to memorize moves that have a dozen inputs, and then be able to flawlessly pull off said inputs under extreme pressure and with perfect timing. Usually against AI opponents which have no such restrictions placed upon them.

People always say this and then when you get a dumbed down fighting game with no inputs they change their tune.

The simple matter is that when you lose in a fighting game you have nobody to blame but yourself. People can't handle that so they just shit on it and then go 0-50 in LoL or something and say it was their teams fault they lost.

Holy_Cloud105 posted...

People always say this and then when you get a dumbed down fighting game with no inputs they change their tune.

The simple matter is that when you lose in a fighting game you have nobody to blame but yourself. People can't handle that so they just shit on it and then go 0-50 in LoL or something and say it was their teams fault they lost.

Thank you.

I was about to check that stupid post, but you got to it first.

Learning to play a fighting game with a similarly skilled and motivated group of friends can be quite fun.

Learning a few moves that can cheese mid-level AI then getting destroyed online without having any idea what's going on is less so.

It's certainly possible to stick to it and eventually become good, but it is a significant barrier of entry.

Trickfinger posted...

Thank you.

I was about to check that stupid post, but you got to it first.

Those kind of comments really get on my nerves. I liked the old style of fighting games with input motions and combos longer than 3 hits. Fighting games are dumbed down to baby's first combo specifically for them and they still whine and bitch about them being too hard. Literal children have no issues going to tournaments and competing with the old school control style.

TheShadowViper posted...

1) High barrier to entry
.
2) Establishment of meta (spamming best character/moves leaves some people behind because they either don't know or don't want to play those characters).

3) Poor matchmaking systems result in fewer games with greater disparity in skill, making the matches more akin to beatdowns than fights

4) Shit internet

5) More people are getting into the genre and thus more people are shit at them

6) Terrible hitboxes and/or animations

The first 2 are the main issues for me. I just don't have the patience to get good at them. I suppose it also hurts that I'm not really a PvP gamer. I'm not very competitive, and prefer to take things at my own pace.

Man, I can't wait for you to tell us what you're bad at.

I changed my mind.

@Trickfinger (who apparently turned @ off)

I'm calling you out. Where you at? Hop on the sticks bruh. Pick your poison. I got most fighting games on Steam. Only a few on Playstation and apparently I gave my playstation Tekken 7 to my sister a couple years ago. Explains why I couldn't find it.

Primal Rage was way ahead of the game. It was a fighter that anyone could pick up and play, but it also had a deeper metagame. It's a shame the series isn't still going.

Honestly seeing people talk about fighting games like math problems just ruins the experience. Like I'd rather play Chess.

Solar_Crimson posted...

Some people can't even do the Hadoken motion.

I'm a scrub fighting game player that just uses the hadoken motion in every game to see if it does something because that's about all I can master lol

Depends on the fighting game really. Even if you mean just the 2D ones.

Some like Arksys and Netherelm fighters are easy to pick up and play with some basic combos before getting into more advanced stuff.

Others you really gotta figure out the timing in order to string together a combo.

This kinda makes me feel like we should do a fighting game general and we should stream fights between users. >_>

Probably because team-based games allow the player to blame their team, so it's easier to pick up again and keep blaming your team so you at least get better by repetition.

Fighting games, however, you lose and it's YOUR fault you lost. It's demoralizing for a lot of players so they put it up and never really get better :x

It's all fine and all. Team-based games just kind of foster an intrinsically positive incentive to keep going.
It's why I used to love watching coaching videos for team-based games, because the second the player blamed their team the coach shut them down and immediately starts showing why THEY'RE screwing up xD

lennethsoki posted...

Fighting games, however, you lose and it's YOUR fault you lost.

Some people don't actually get that though.

Because You need to invest time into learning character movesets and bnb combos. People would rather play games where the controls and commands are easy to learn.

only fighting game Ive been decent at and have been able to do combos consistently and feel like I have full control over my character was tekken.

cant do street fighter or MVC. Those are difficult for me, the quarter circle movements throw me off