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Can fighting games be casual?
- Thread starter Weiss
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Shadynasty
Member
Went to meetup.com and the closest thing in my area is LARP.
Of course.
If you ask me, if I never had to play online in a fighter again I'd be fine as long as I have enough single-player content to last me all the way through and that's a casual amount of play time. Give me Ghost Mode, Arcade, Story, unlockables and an individual ranking system per character (like Tekken usually does) and I'm good. I don't need the FGC to play fighters and honestly, I haven't looked up any specific major FGC character info since the SF4 days. Since then? I've been having fun playing casually, getting trophies, getting used to characters and just having fun like the old days. I don't need that infrastructure to have fun with the game. I love fighters and that's all I need to play casually.
If you ask me, if I never had to play online in a fighter again I'd be fine as long as I have enough single-player content to last me all the way through and that's a casual amount of play time. Give me Ghost Mode, Arcade, Story, unlockables and an individual ranking system per character (like Tekken usually does) and I'm good. I don't need the FGC to play fighters and honestly, I haven't looked up any specific major FGC character info since the SF4 days. Since then? I've been having fun playing casually, getting trophies, getting used to characters and just having fun like the old days. I don't need that infrastructure to have fun with the game. I love fighters and that's all I need to play casually.
I am a casual fighting game player. I play against people online and probably have 50-60% win rate. I have more fun playing a FG than most other games. People go into fighting games wanting to do EVERYTHING right away, when knowledge of FG's kind of slowly gains accretion over time.
It's probably my favorite genre of game now.
It's probably my favorite genre of game now.
Mass Effect
Member
Yes? Most people play fighting games casually.
Smash (Melee & 4), Tekken (Tag 2), and MK(X) as recent examples show that you can have a ton of content for casuals to enjoy and still provide a high skill ceiling for competitive players.
Smash (Melee & 4), Tekken (Tag 2), and MK(X) as recent examples show that you can have a ton of content for casuals to enjoy and still provide a high skill ceiling for competitive players.
I'd love to know what I should be classed as. I own and have played dozens and dozens of fighters dating back to SF2 and played them for God knows how many hours. But I'm a casual player apparently because out of those games only with two of them did I spend much time with multiplayer.
entremet
Member
Yep. SF2 success was based on its accessible nature.
It's only when they started to go into deep mechanics (hello SF3) that people stopped caring about that franchise en masse.
UltimateUnknown
Member
Having played a ton of fighting games, I think they can be casual if you're playing by yourself and if there's a good amount of SP content with varying difficulty settings (to suit your level). The MK games, recently Blazblue CF and Soul Caliber are good examples of this. However if you're playing MP with real people the skill gap can be very steep unlike games like COD and other FPS where time investment doesn't necessarily equate to a massive skill gap. Just by (good) fighting game design, once one person starts to put in some time in training mode and learning combos/tactics, the skill gap with someone who doesn't put in that much time will be very evident.
(Un)Fortunately, that is how fighting games are by design. They greatly reward people who put in the time to hone their execution and mind games. This can make these games very difficult for casuals to get into, who by nature may not want to go through the gruelling process of getting their asses kicked over and over against other to get better. So there can be a bit of a disconnect between casuals and playing MP in fighting games. But I don't see why anyone can't pick up and enjoy a good single player experience in fighting games. I've been having a ton of fun in Blazblue CF so far in story and other modes and I've barely even gone online.
(Un)Fortunately, that is how fighting games are by design. They greatly reward people who put in the time to hone their execution and mind games. This can make these games very difficult for casuals to get into, who by nature may not want to go through the gruelling process of getting their asses kicked over and over against other to get better. So there can be a bit of a disconnect between casuals and playing MP in fighting games. But I don't see why anyone can't pick up and enjoy a good single player experience in fighting games. I've been having a ton of fun in Blazblue CF so far in story and other modes and I've barely even gone online.
Nemesis121
Member
SF2 is the king of casuals, 6.3million units sold...highest selling SF game ever..
It was most fun for casuals because most people were casuals and outside very small circles you weren't going to find any hardcore players. The only thing that has changed is there are less active casuals playing than hardcore, and you can easily play them online. SF2 released today with online would face the same accusations as current fighting games.
They definitely can. Just use handicaps, and if you can't set a handicap from within the game, then be creative and come up with your own (no blocks, no specials, low attacks only, etc). As an experienced fighting game player that plays a lot with people who don't play games in general often, this has usually leveled the field.
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
OP said fighting games.
7DollarHagane
Banned
The basics of performing a chain combo and cancelling into a special attack is no harder than learning how to move and aim with a dual joystick controller or mouse/keyboard.
The difference is people want to learn one and dont have any patience for the other.
The difference is people want to learn one and dont have any patience for the other.
ProtomanNeo
Member
If developers double down on a story mode yes. A good story would keep players engaged and reward them for their practice by advancing the narrative.
bigboss370
Member
Naruto
Yep.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Any game where the only multiplayer mode is 1v1 competition will be inherently hardcore.
That's why fighting games need single player modes. Not everyone enjoys getting their shit pushed in by random people online forever.
That's why fighting games need single player modes. Not everyone enjoys getting their shit pushed in by random people online forever.
UltimateUnknown
Member
I think people take the terms "casual" and "hardcore" way too seriously. Similar to you, ever since I was a kid I spent literally hundreds of hours in fighting games like KoF and SF just beating up mindless AI in arcade/survival/time attack modes. It was just fun for me back then just throwing around fireballs and uppercuts, doing the cool moves. I have no problem in saying that I was a "casual" because I didn't care about the deeper mechanics/combos/mind games in those games. I just loved playing the game "casually" and having fun, beating up AI with little challenge and sometimes very tough ones (darn those KoF final bosses - Rugal B still gives me nightmares). There is no problem in that.
Recently I've started to really get into the nitty gritty of the fighting games I like to play online, learning advanced combos, footsies, meaties, studying character data, matchups, etc that I didn't even know existed back then. I suppose this would make me more "hardcore" as I'm heavily invested in that fighting game and many more of its deeper mechanics. There is no problem in this either.
Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that it's okay to be either "casual" or "hardcore" in these games. These are just some vague terms in the end and really shouldn't impede on the fun you can have playing however you like. Sometimes I'm just not interested in worrying about all the complicated stuff and just want to have a blast using cool moves. Other times I want to delve very deep into them.
BareKnuckle
Member
Playing a fighting game with a non-gamer is a hell of a lot easier then trying to teach someone to use two analogue sticks to move.
If you spectate a fighting game for 5 seconds you can get an idea of how it works, 2 players trade blows till the bar depletes.
It's pretty straightforward, wether it's causal or hardcore depends entirely on your opponent.
EDIT: I'm also of the belief that fighting games are classified as super hard to get in to because everyone blames their losses on others. In most games they blame their teams but in fighters you can't do that, so the finger gets pointed at other players for playing too much or being too good, rather than themselves for being bad. There's nothing wrong with losing.
If you spectate a fighting game for 5 seconds you can get an idea of how it works, 2 players trade blows till the bar depletes.
It's pretty straightforward, wether it's causal or hardcore depends entirely on your opponent.
EDIT: I'm also of the belief that fighting games are classified as super hard to get in to because everyone blames their losses on others. In most games they blame their teams but in fighters you can't do that, so the finger gets pointed at other players for playing too much or being too good, rather than themselves for being bad. There's nothing wrong with losing.
Calm Mind
Member
This is exactly why SFV got outsold by Pokken Tournament.
Platinumstorm
Member
Street Fighter 4 was a perfect casual fighter. You could learn characters and their moves pretty easily, you had time to learn how to react WITHIN a match up, and you didn't have to be combo centric to have a good time, or even perform well. This didn't mean that hardcore fighters couldn't find extreme depth, because there was extreme depth and top tier performing.
Games like Blazblue, with their ridiculous anime attacks that you have no idea where they're going to come from, and when you use them yourself you have no idea where they're going to come from, are the reasons those games struggle to find an audience, despite all of the great things that series has done.
And by "casual fighter" that doesn't mean that "casuals" aren't hardcore gamers. There are so many games out right now, that I'm personally dumping franchises left and right because there is NO time to do them. How companies can expect to make incomplete games and retain their audience baffles me.
Games like Blazblue, with their ridiculous anime attacks that you have no idea where they're going to come from, and when you use them yourself you have no idea where they're going to come from, are the reasons those games struggle to find an audience, despite all of the great things that series has done.
And by "casual fighter" that doesn't mean that "casuals" aren't hardcore gamers. There are so many games out right now, that I'm personally dumping franchises left and right because there is NO time to do them. How companies can expect to make incomplete games and retain their audience baffles me.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Given how whenever I go online in Soulcalibur V and see nothing but "Casuals Only" lobbies who get super upset if I try to play them, I don't see why any FG can't be casual friendly.
It's mainly about carving out a niche for you and your friends if you don't want to play super competitive.
If you just mean single player modes, who knows? You'd think they'd learn their lesson after SFV.
Z..
Member
Truth.
Make hdk front punch, srk up punch and TS back kick and not only will the pointless execution barrier be gone but the community will explode.
And watch the hardcore get mad about their game being diluted when all that's really happening is streamlining. High level play never boils down to execution.
They did it with SFAlpha 1 and SF3 1 too, so no, they will never learn.
Ya, fighting games can be casual. I still think that Tekken is probably the perfect casual fighter. You can press some buttons and do tons of cool shit while thinking youre actually good when in reality you suck. It also helps that Tekkens SP content is leagues above most other fighting games(Soul caliber would probably be comparable as well).
i do think if MvCI hopes to be the crossover hit they want, they'll need to do this.
The biggest problem facing fighting games is the misconception that learning combos and complex inputs is what makes you good.
Learning to block and control your actions (no button mashing) is enough to take you to a whole new level.
The skill disparity determines how fun the game is. In Call of Duty, you are not going to have fun if you are just getting murdered and not killing anyone. Chances are, though, that you will kill players because they are either your level in skill or are unable to see you or combating other players, etc.
In fighting games it's just you and the other player. If the skill level between players isn't close then neither is going to have much fun. That said, two people who have no idea what they are doing can have a great time playing each other, just as two advanced players can enjoy the mindgames that come from the depth of the game.
Fighting games are as casual as the people playing them.
If you really want to strip a fighting game down to its bare elements then Nidhogg and Dive Kick already exist.
My friend is not that good at fighting games and he doesn't care to try to get better. He just enjoys playing them casually with other people like myself. We got super into King of Fighters 13, which is probably his favorite, and he really does not like the auto-combo feature in KOF14. Really put him off.
So if that was an attempt to make the game more accessible to casual players then it back-fired. I think he found it insulting.
Learning to block and control your actions (no button mashing) is enough to take you to a whole new level.
The skill disparity determines how fun the game is. In Call of Duty, you are not going to have fun if you are just getting murdered and not killing anyone. Chances are, though, that you will kill players because they are either your level in skill or are unable to see you or combating other players, etc.
In fighting games it's just you and the other player. If the skill level between players isn't close then neither is going to have much fun. That said, two people who have no idea what they are doing can have a great time playing each other, just as two advanced players can enjoy the mindgames that come from the depth of the game.
Fighting games are as casual as the people playing them.
If you really want to strip a fighting game down to its bare elements then Nidhogg and Dive Kick already exist.
My friend is not that good at fighting games and he doesn't care to try to get better. He just enjoys playing them casually with other people like myself. We got super into King of Fighters 13, which is probably his favorite, and he really does not like the auto-combo feature in KOF14. Really put him off.
So if that was an attempt to make the game more accessible to casual players then it back-fired. I think he found it insulting.
Rising Thunder was really fun and a good attempt at that up until they couldn't resist putting in a Focus Attack Dash Cancel-like ability that resulted in the exact same type of excessively lengthy "get hit once and watch yourself get comboed for 10 seconds" stuff that puts off a lot of would-be casual players in the first place.
Z..
Member
Rising Thunder?
Fun game and well made but way too limiting.
It went too far the ther way.
Middle ground is easy, just take smash controls and establish middle ground as an option. Ta-da.
That isn't entirely his point though.
Due to the small player base there's just a massive disparity in skill online despite a ranking system being in place. If a total newbie went online, even with say SFV which has a bit of a larger online base, they'd still likely get put against someone better than them. I mean the person they get put against probably is still relatively new/casual, and still probably isn't very good in the grand scheme, but they're still better than someone completely new and likely to get owned.
Now a lot of people will quit after getting dominated over and over. The point is, if the player base was bigger, then the matchmaking would likely find better matches, and put them against someone more their speed. Suddenly, they may be more inclined to stick around if they aren't just getting bodied over and over and actually getting a bit of a closer match(even if they still inevitably lose).
In MOBA's, the majority of the population are actually quite "bad" at the game. Take Dota where most people are actually below 3000 mmr(for reference pro's are htting 9000). However, because the player base is larger, it can sustain those players being "bad" and matches accordingly. FIghting games just doesn't have that, and I think it's one of the biggest problems for it not being accessible online.(Not an entirely fair comparison being that it's not a team game where you can blame others to make yourself feel better, but that's another discussion entirely and I don't think that undermines the comparison)
Now yes, you can argue it's a mindset problem that they need to get better to not get bodied. However, clearly that mentality isn't working considering how niche the genre continues to be. Majority of people play games for fun, and being bodied isn't fun to them.
1st post nails it.
I mean, that's true, but I think it implies that traditional fighting games can't fill that role as well.
The Soul Calibur series has always been very casual-friendly. The early games were especially popular amongst players of all levels.
Dead or Alive, too.
I don't think so. A more traditional fighting game that is successful and is super casual is Mortal Kombat. I don't know very many hardcore FGC players that take MK very seriously. Of course those players exist, but the communities just aren't as big as they are for Smash/Street Fighter.
Regardless I think MK's cheesy story mode and fatalities really draw the casuals.
People are letting the online scene define the game's potential for them.
They should just pretend it's 1992 again and play local.
Mortal Kombat's appeal has always baffled me. It is violent, but it's cheesy looking as fuck. It plays terribly. MKX is like, the first good Mortal Kombat IMO. It still has problems.
Nostalgia seems to be really important to the mainstream appeal of fighting games.
Street Fighter and MK have always been mainstream because they were there at the beginning and people have fond memories. While SF remained legit, MK stayed shitty. Street Fighter became more technical and drew people in with depth, MK kept the casuals by appealing to cheap thrills and "edge."
Smash Bros. has a ton of Nintendo characters that people love. Would Smash be as mainstream and popular without the Nintendo franchises? I doubt it, despite it being a fantastic game.
Injustice isn't a great game, IMO, but it has DC characters so it sold very well. Marvel vs Capcom has tons of nostalgic properties. I think anything else is doomed to be pretty niche.
CommandThrower
Member
Any competitive game can be casual. Even most MOBAs have casual modes these days.
I suppose the concept of "casual" fighting games are under the radar right now because of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite's polarizing reception, but really, any fighting game can be casual, you'll just have to seek out the like minded individuals who share your casual mindset and play with them as opposed to the tournament goers who really study these games in order to play competitively.
I suppose the concept of "casual" fighting games are under the radar right now because of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite's polarizing reception, but really, any fighting game can be casual, you'll just have to seek out the like minded individuals who share your casual mindset and play with them as opposed to the tournament goers who really study these games in order to play competitively.
Yup.
I think this notion that games have to have high level concepts and techniques removed for casual players is false. I don't think a casual should mind losing to a competitive player. In anything in life, someone that does X activity more than you will beat you at X activity. Trying to remove that is just silly. Brawl was designed to be SUPER CASUAL and there are still really good Brawl players, lol.
Developers need to just focus on making great systems that are super fun to play. (The reason why Melee is still drawing over 50,000 viewers for their regional tournaments.)
That's pretty silly. There weren't really hardcore people to appeal to at the time.
Rhazer Fusion
Member
Rarely, but it really depends. The vast majority of fighting games imo are for the hardcore an dedicated and most casuals do not fit that description. Sure, you can still have causal fun out of them, but I feel to get the most out of them, you really have to invest quite a lot of time into it and challenge your reflexes or skill sets. Most fighting games are for professionals and the casuals who love to play then either get intimidated by the professionals and leave or try to find other players on their level which is typically rare because they also stopped playing the game due to higher skilled players.
It's actually pretty interesting how the community drove the evolution of the genre by exploiting the unintentional mechanics of the early games. As a result, developers built around these concepts and then players would continue to exploit unintentional designs in a cycle that would give us the insane amount of systems and mechanics we see in games like Blazblue.
The current evolution is very intimidating, so developers are trying to get back to basics to appeal to a new audience but without alienating the players that made the genre what it is today. It's a tricky line to walk.
I do think Single Player content and tutorials that are actually fun to play and actually explain how to utilize concepts practically, rather then just giving you trials, is the key. An SP campaign that is also an in-depth tutorial should be the heart of every fighter if they want mass appeal.
For example, create a story scenario where one character must reluctantly fight another and does not want to hurt his opponent, so the player must survive 30 seconds without being able to strike back. Teach them blocking.
Or a fight where a low, spiked ceiling will damage the player if they try to jump. Teach them control.
The Soul Calibur Edgemaster stuff was kind of like that, but most of the fights weren't trying to teach you practical skill, they were just silly modifiers for a fun challenge. Build story-driven scenarios that teach fundamentals by restricting what the player has access to.
Seriously, me and my sister played the shit out of that, and she was only 6-7
Exactly. The problem is that when you get online it feels like everyone is a pro. These days people just don't play local and local is really where fighting games shine.
Scrub Mcgrubb
Member
You can play anything casually... so I'm not sure how that's a question?
Can a fighting game sell well to a large casual audience? Sure... Smash and MK have proven that.
Can you expect to win more often than lose without putting in any work to learn the game? No... it's a game of skill, not a game of luck.
Can a fighting game sell well to a large casual audience? Sure... Smash and MK have proven that.
Can you expect to win more often than lose without putting in any work to learn the game? No... it's a game of skill, not a game of luck.