Fighting Games: the casuals are coming for your niche and you better be afraid

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Fighting Games: the casuals are coming for your niche and you better be afraid

«‹›2392 »

interrodactyl: Nov 8, 2011; you have no dignity

learning how to compete is a real thing outside of just training the mechanics and situations of a game

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:33

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 26, 2024 00:46

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

attackmole posted:

Yeah I didn't realize that he explicitly rallies against bushido because I read the first page and thought I didn't want to read any more of this smug rear end in a top hat, whoops. OK, replace that with Art of War or whatever. Any ways my point is I think moral grandstanding and competitive philosophy is stupid and I would rather read 100 pages of stuff on game techniques than 10 on how to dominate the will of your opponent because I think that's smug neckbeard poo poo, and the latter seems to be a lot more common in fighting games than it does in other game genres.

You'd like a book called The Inner Game of Tennis, it's all about how to stop being nervous, what to do to stop bad habits, how to overcome the idea that you're playing someone way better than you, etc

A music instructor told me about it 10 years ago and it generalizes out to every competitive thing

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:35

AnonSpore: Jan 19, 2012; "I didn't see the part where he develops as a character so I guess he never developed as a character"

On a tangentially related note I hear Diego's book is actually really good and now I'm kinda sad I didn't get a copy

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:39

bad metaphors: Nov 6, 2014

The one piece of fighting game advice that's always stuck to my mind is that trick from the footsies handbook where you whiff a light to bait a counterattack, and whiff punish their whiff punish. I think there is not enough of this sort of writing

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:42

CRISPYBABY: Dec 15, 2007; by Reene

I guess I shouldn't speak in generalities. People can be as competitive as they want, I don't care, I just think when people start trying to compare fighting games to war or MMA or whatever it feels more like self-absorbed macho posturing than anything helpful to me. Everyone has their own style of how they approach games. Mine's a lot closer to Kusoru than Daigo.

Of course, you gotta learn to get good before you can do the real fun stuff. Gotta know the rules to break em, etc.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:46

Arzachel: May 12, 2012

attackmole posted:

I guess I shouldn't speak in generalities. People can be as competitive as they want, I don't care, I just think when people start trying to compare fighting games to war or MMA or whatever it feels more like self-absorbed macho posturing than anything helpful to me. Everyone has their own style of how they approach games. Mine's a lot closer to Kusoru than Daigo.

Of course, you gotta learn to get good before you can do the real fun stuff. Gotta know the rules to break em, etc.

People writing dumb self-important stuff is just that and isn't exclusive to fighting games, I once read a Dota guide on supporting that descended into paragraphs on how watching anime will make you a better player.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:51

boxcarhobo: Jun 23, 2005

Arzachel posted:

People writing dumb self-important stuff is just that and isn't exclusive to fighting games, I once read a Dota guide on supporting that descended into paragraphs on how watching anime will make you a better player.

but that's true though

in games and also in life

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:53

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

attackmole posted:

I guess I shouldn't speak in generalities. People can be as competitive as they want, I don't care, I just think when people start trying to compare fighting games to war or MMA or whatever it feels more like self-absorbed macho posturing than anything helpful to me. Everyone has their own style of how they approach games. Mine's a lot closer to Kusoru than Daigo.

Of course, you gotta learn to get good before you can do the real fun stuff. Gotta know the rules to break em, etc.

i mean i think literally comparing the two is dumb but sometimes you find a neat quote that perfectly applies to the thing you're talking about even if it wasn't literally about it

like to walk it back to my previous post, "Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are." is good dotes advice relevant to a trap a lot of players fall into in that game. you can drop that quote in, break down how it applies to dota, and help people get good at dota with relevant advice, to dota. i dont think that's really macho posturing or nothing.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 19:57

dhamster: Aug 5, 2013; I got into my car and ate my chalupa with a feeling of accomplishment.

Fayk posted:

We've gone like a year (or maybe I just missed it) without a closed-minded new person showing up with a chess analogy again.

Curious to see what this is referencing. Always enjoy some good :smug:

anothergod posted:

I don't know what other people are saying itt, but my favorite fighting games are as much about having answers to other people's bullshit as boxing is about putting on gloves.

AnonSpore posted:

But having answers to other people's bullshit is really loving important in fighting games

Speaking of David "Top Round" Sirloin, he actually had a decent writeup on using bullshit to win games (if you can skim past the self-aggrandizement):

quote:

I�ll now tell the story of one of my own Street Fighter tournament victories. The tournament was called the East Coast Championships 4, or ECC4. I won the Street Fighter Alpha 2 portion of the ECC3 tournament, so I felt a lot of pressure to win again. I made it to the finals where I faced veteran player Thao Duong. Thao plays only one character (Chun Li), and he�s incredibly robotic, meaning he executes moves perfectly and rarely makes mistakes.

I was undefeated in the tournament so far, and Thao had one loss (it was double elimination format). This means Thao had to beat me 4 out of 7 games to be even with me, and another set of 4 out of 7 to win. I only had to win one set of 4 out of 7 to win.

I started by playing Zangief, my secret counter to Chun Li. Because it�s widely believed Chun Li totally destroys Zangief (but not mine!), it would be a flashy way to win. Whether it was my year of no practice or Thao�s playing skills or Chun Li�s dominance of the game I can�t be sure, but Zangief was not up to the task that day. No problem, since I would switch to my standard Chun Li killer: Ryu. I scraped together a win or two, but again my lack of practice was showing and Thao won by greater and greater margins. I then realized the horror of what I would have to do, and what I would become somewhat famous for in the Street Fighter community. I realized that the only remaining character I could reasonably play in a tournament was Rose, and furthermore that Rose, though very good against most characters, really only has one effective move against Chun Li: low strong.

This is where Sun Tzu comes in. My use of Rose�s low strong move is both a method of winning before fighting and of waiting. The low strong is an uninspiring little punch that doesn�t have all that much range, but it has amazing priority to beat other attacks. It�s also incredibly fast, allowing Rose to do multiple low strongs in a row with only the tiniest of gaps in between.

The low strong was my brick wall�my first test. The only problem is that there was no second test. And worse yet, there really wasn�t much �actual fighting� in store for Thao should he get past my �trick.� I could only hope that he�d fumble in trying to get around it, and even become frustrated enough to make mistakes. In retrospect, this is not the best approach to take against the robotic master of move execution himself, but it�s still preferable to no strategy at all, which was my alternative.

I low stronged my little heart out. Probably over 90% of my moves were low strong, done at a very particular range, and with a particular pattern of timing that I dare not reveal (let me keep some secrets). I had infinite patience to low strong forever, forcing Thao to defeat this trick. If he could beat it, we would then have to actually play, and at that point surely he would win. But fortunately, he never did beat it: he fought it head on. At times, he would decide not to attack, not to beat against a brick wall. I used that opportunity to get at the optimal range (which is one pixel farther from him than the range of my low strong). From this range, I continued to low strong forever. I wasn�t winning by doing that, but I wasn�t losing either. Even the robotic Thao would eventually tire and attack, sometimes at the wrong times out of annoyance or desperation. Spectators reported that I did an amazing 18 consecutive low strongs without either myself or Thao doing any other moves.

A side effect of my low strongs is that they create a �baseline expectation� of what I�m going to do. The sneaky roundhouse I do after the 17th low strong is pretty tricky, actually. I mean, wouldn�t you expect an 18th low strong after the 17th one? (Note: I was actually even more sneaky by doing the 18th low strong, then the low roundhouse.)

My story is dragging on as much as that match did. Each game is best 2 out of 3 rounds, and games tended to go the full 3 rounds. They went the full count of 4-3 when Thao won the first set, and all the way to the 14th and final game, where I won 4-3 in the second set to win the tournament. I collapsed in dehydration and drank a quart of red Fierce Berry Gatorade without pause. Even today, Fierce Berry Gatorade tastes like victory to me, but I digress.

Had I ever actually fought Thao �normally� with Rose, he would have killed me easily. Instead, in an amazingly boring and non-crowd-pleasing show, I attempted to prevent actual fighting through my �brick wall trick� of low strong. Furthermore, I bored my opponent into attacking hastily at times, and generally frustrated him, or at least think I did.

It�s interesting to note that early rounds of Street Fighter tournaments are often dominated by �tricks� like the ones I�ve described. Few players have the will to keep those brick walls up forever, though, and eventually resort to �actually playing.� Also interesting is that the last rounds of Street Fighter tournaments�especially the finals round to determine the top two players�very rarely operate anything like I�ve described. Far more often, the players good enough to get the final two are also good enough to easily avoid the kind of roadblocks I�ve been talking about, even if they have to devise countermeasures on the spot. The usual case at such high levels of play is �actual fighting� right off the bat, the very thing I try to put off as long as possible in a tournament match. So it seems that (my own exploits excepted!) tricks will only get you so far. Above a certain level of play, you must actively try to win the game, not just wait for the opponent to hand it to you. To the benefit of the spectators, when the best face the best, there are more often two bloody, clashing swords than a sheathed one.

In other words, if you test some bullshit on a player and find that they don't have an answer to what you're doing (throwing them over and over again, etc), you should probably keep doing it until they figure out how to stop you

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:01

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

anothergod posted:

lol, sorry guys, I guess ya'll never forget.

Ya kids who wanna believe that fighting games are about finding "answers" to "questions" keep believing in that, tho. It's real cute.

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding answers to questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

Booyah- posted:

Yes and advertise this more please

This. I'm trying to find a challonge or something. Will it be Twitch streamed?

Create a challonge and post it here and on the Discord. If you want, I can stream the tournament and give commentary.

punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jul 22, 2016

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:05

dhamster: Aug 5, 2013; I got into my car and ate my chalupa with a feeling of accomplishment.

punk rebel ecks posted:

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:12

AndyElusive: Jan 7, 2007

dhamster posted:

In other words, if you test some bullshit on a player and find that they don't have an answer to what you're doing (throwing them over and over again, etc), you should probably keep doing it until they figure out how to stop you

You didn't reference Sun Tzu so your summary didn't make any sense to me.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:18

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

fight when you are full and your enemy is empty

of bullshit

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:20

dhamster: Aug 5, 2013; I got into my car and ate my chalupa with a feeling of accomplishment.

AndyElusive posted:

You didn't reference Sun Tzu so your summary didn't make any sense to me.

"'Know yourself, know your adversary, and you hold the key to victory' -Sun Tzu" -Dexter, Ash Ketchum's Pokédex

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:23

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

dhamster posted:

"'Know yourself, know your adversary, and you hold the key to victory' -Sun Tzu" -Dexter, Ash Ketchum's Pokédex

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:25

bebaloorpabopalo: Nov 23, 2005; I'm not interested in constructive criticism, believe me.

punk rebel ecks posted:

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding answers to questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 20:32

Ventana: Mar 28, 2010; *Yosh intensifies*

dhamster posted:

Speaking of David "Top Round" Sirloin, he actually had a decent writeup on using bullshit to win games (if you can skim past the self-aggrandizement):

The only thing I learned from this is that I should drink red Fierce Berry Gatorade and then I'll win every tournament.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:07

GabbiLB: Jul 14, 2004; ~toot~

punk rebel ecks posted:

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding answers to questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:12

bad metaphors: Nov 6, 2014

punk rebel ecks posted:

This. I'm trying to find a challonge or something. Will it be Twitch streamed?

Create a challonge and post it here and on the Discord. If you want, I can stream the tournament and give commentary.

I'll reuse the challonge I made last time. :siren:

Here's the KOF98 signups and brackets, and don't forget to mark your calendars for 7/27 (Wed) at 10:00PM EST :siren:

Please use your SA username!

Shy goon here -_-; is there really that many people who lurk the discord or the sister FG threads but not this thread? Also I don't ever intend to stream but you can if you want to.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:13

WorldIndustries: Dec 21, 2004

Smoking Crow posted:

You'd like a book called The Inner Game of Tennis, it's all about how to stop being nervous, what to do to stop bad habits, how to overcome the idea that you're playing someone way better than you, etc

A music instructor told me about it 10 years ago and it generalizes out to every competitive thing

theres also an inner game of music written as a followup to that

but i dont apply my emotional abilities to fgs, i just play

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:15

Cinroth: Dec 11, 2008; Has it never occured
to you that this club
is overpopulated?

punk rebel ecks posted:

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding answers to questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:23

Pomp: Apr 3, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

punk rebel ecks posted:

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding answers to questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:32

interrodactyl: Nov 8, 2011; you have no dignity

hello please look at this piece of fighting game community history

http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/119260/empire-arcadia-ep-1.jhtml

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:34

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Ventana posted:

The only thing I learned from this is that I should drink red Fierce Berry Gatorade and then I'll win every tournament.

gatorade tier list:

God: Lemon-Lime
S+: Orange, Lime Cucumber
S: Fruit Punch, Citrus Cooler, Grape, Fierce Berry
A: Cool Blue, Tropical Mango
B: Strawberry Watermelon, Glacier Freeze, Icy Charge
C: Arctic Blitz, Blue Cherry, Tangerine, Watermelon Citrus
D: Strawberry Lemonade, Glacier Cherry, Green Apple
F: Strawberry, Melon

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:35

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Endorph posted:

gatorade tier list:

God: Lemon-Lime
S+: Orange, Lime Cucumber
S: Fruit Punch, Citrus Cooler, Grape, Fierce Berry
A: Cool Blue, Tropical Mango
B: Strawberry Watermelon, Glacier Freeze, Icy Charge
C: Arctic Blitz, Blue Cherry, Tangerine, Watermelon Citrus
D: Strawberry Lemonade, Glacier Cherry, Green Apple
F: Strawberry, Melon

this is incredibly wrong, lemon-lime and fruit punch are both at god-tier

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:43

ZenMasterBullshit: Nov 2, 2011; Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

Smoking Crow posted:

this is incredibly wrong, lemon-lime and fruit punch are both at god-tier

Strawberry Watermelon is also god tier.

And Lime Cucumber is piss water.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:45

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Booyah- posted:

theres also an inner game of music written as a followup to that

but i dont apply my emotional abilities to fgs, i just play

I'm the kind of person who gets emotionally invested in my hobbies so it appeals to me

Your mileage may vary i guess, diff'rent strokes, etc

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:45

Dias: Feb 20, 2011; by sebmojo

Gatorade is like Capcom, they got it right with lemon-lime then just kept fuckin' it up.

I did quite like the passion fruit one tho.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:47

yo mamma a Horus: Apr 7, 2008; Nap Ghost

limon pepino is not piss water, u butthole

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:53

Brosnan: Nov 13, 2004; Pwning the incels with my waifu fg character. Get trolled; Lipstick Apathy

Gatorade tastes like salty butthole.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 21:59

dragon enthusiast: Jan 1, 2010

Brosnan posted:

Gatorade tastes like salty butthole.

You would know!!

# ? Jul 22, 2016 22:01

Dias: Feb 20, 2011; by sebmojo

Brosnan posted:

Gatorade tastes like salty butthole.

god, wager matches in tekken are HARSH

# ? Jul 22, 2016 22:02

Fayk: Aug 2, 2006; Sorry, my brain doesn't work so good...

dhamster posted:

Curious to see what this is referencing. Always enjoy some good

I really wish I could point to a specific post, but the tl;dr is it's a bad analogy that breaks down very quickly because the games are very dissimilar.

The problem is we would see this pop up from a new poster every six months. Certainly not every new poster (not even close) is like this, and similarly the community could be more understanding, but the problem is when you would occasionally get someone who would show up, frustrated with fighting games that thought they had THE SOLUTION, not realizing that this is a recurring pattern. They would argue in bad faith, acting like they were open minded but accepting neither the arguments made by others in the thread, nor at least hesitating given the vast gulf in skill. Argument from authority is certainly bogus, but there is a time and a place to listen to experts if you can't find fault with their arguments, either.

No one here thinks that fighting games couldn't do a better job of communicating, training mode is a loving joke for absolutely-new players in 99% of games. Having to try to explain things like cancels and links etc to a new player is pretty difficult without a loving presentation. (Aside: Best tutorials offhand are probably VF4:EVO and Skullgirls - but even these still don't give a player all the tools they need.) Look how 99% of tutorials or combo training don't even give ap layer hints WHY they are failing.

Where by contrast, in this thread, pretty much any poster knows that - for links, for example:
1) Move happened, but didn't combo: you did it too late
2) If move didn't come out: you did it too early

But I'm not sure I've actually seen a fighting game tutorial effectively teach this or have any way of doing proper drills with feedback.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 22:06

WorldIndustries: Dec 21, 2004

Smoking Crow posted:

I'm the kind of person who gets emotionally invested in my hobbies so it appeals to me

Your mileage may vary i guess, diff'rent strokes, etc

yah i admire that, and would be better if i did

# ? Jul 22, 2016 22:08

dragon enthusiast: Jan 1, 2010

Fayk posted:

Where by contrast, in this thread, pretty much any poster knows that - for links, for example:
1) Move happened, but didn't combo: you did it too late
2) If move didn't come out: you did it too early

But I'm not sure I've actually seen a fighting game tutorial effectively teach this or have any way of doing proper drills with feedback.

Skullgirls has the frame data crawl in training mode, so they could technically be able to provide this kind of feedback in combo trials, but for whatever reason they don't even at least provide the option to enable it for the player.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 22:21

Reiley: Dec 16, 2007

punk rebel ecks posted:

To be fair when I played your game I certainly felt it was about finding answers to questions. Questions such as: Where is my character? Why do I keep getting lost? What is the point of this game?

Unfortunately I never received any answers.

��

# ? Jul 22, 2016 22:57

boxcarhobo: Jun 23, 2005

Munsun posted:

limon pepino is not piss water, u butthole

this and lemon lime are the two most thirst quenchingest drinks made by man

# ? Jul 22, 2016 23:02

Maluco Marinero: Jan 18, 2001; Damn that's a
fine elephant.

Fayk posted:

But I'm not sure I've actually seen a fighting game tutorial effectively teach this or have any way of doing proper drills with feedback.

Im just a beginner, but KI's dojo lessons are really good. They don't exhaustively drill each concept, but they do explore much of the toolset of the standard character with a reasonable amount of repetition and how it relates to fighting game fundamentals. Then they back that up with Combo Breaker training for the most reaction based/time sensitive mechanic in the game. The CPU AI is also very serviceable at pressuring if you dial it up.

Thing is I've practiced to get decent at Starcraft before so I'm well aware that to even discuss practical strategy you need mechanical execution to be at some sort of reasonable level, and I think this cuts to the heart of where a training mode best spends it's time.

If it can at the very least mould you to the point where
- you survive genuine pressure long enough to retaliate
- punish what's meant to be punished
- are forced to consider how you're going to open up the defense
- forced to make every combo opportunity count
- other fundamentals I'm probably missing

...then a CPU player/tutorial is doing its job as far as preparing a player for actually choosing a character for its toolset/play style and making it work online.

As an aside, this is why 'Playing to Win' is important to a lot of beginners and beginner communities. It spells out the basic realities of being competitive, so while it is super basic stuff when you really look at it, some people just need to be told that this (mechanical proficiency before strategic thought) is just the way gitting gud is.

# ? Jul 22, 2016 23:04

dangerdoom volvo: Nov 5, 2009

If you can do those things you're like, a good player. Can't really expect any tutorial to get you that far

# ? Jul 22, 2016 23:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 26, 2024 00:46

inthesto: May 12, 2010; Pro is an amazing name!

Lime cucumber is the only flavor of gatorade worth drinking, the rest of it is garbage

# ? Jul 22, 2016 23:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Fighting Games: the casuals are coming for your niche and you better be afraid

«‹›2392 »