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Fighting Games Weekly | Feb 9-15 | Mikrotransaktions™

T

Thomasorus

Member
We had a debate over tutorials in fighting games a while ago: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=840119

What I post back then still applies:

What I don't like about this video is that it asks for tutorials that are breaking the wall of things you need to learn, so you can take time to learn them, memorize them all. Many games already did it: VF4, DOA5U, Skullgirls, even MK9 and Killer Instinct. In Skullgirls you have a tutorial explaining to you that you need to jump over a projectile runing on the ground, a tutorial explaining to you what is hit confirm, etc...

The problem is : nobody likes tutorials that lasts more than 20 minutes. Nobody except for MMOs players like grinding like the video suggests. You could very well put tutorials in story modes (it already exists) but if you are not good enough or don't care because you actually like the story more than the game (hello BlazBlue), you can't continue and you stop playing the game without being able to learn how to play or how the story ends.
Of course we can have tutorials like VF4E and DOA5U where the game explains to you what, why, how. But if you did played them, you know exactly what went wrong : you forgot what you learned one hour earlier, because you didn't practice enough each mechanic the tutorial teached you and because they are too many mechanics. So the solution would be to unlock the next tutorial only if you accept to play one week of footsies so you finally get it ? But who the hell would buy a game and them accept to do this ? It will never happen.

And that's where the problem is: you can't teach fighting game with a one hour tutorial because it takes way too much time. You can give players information about how things works, but that's all. Because you can only learn this kind of game by trial and error, repetition, and by encountering situations you don't know and trying to understand them by reading again the mechanics and taking a step back about what you did.

To me teaching fighting game is like teaching how to drive. You know a wheel turn the car. You know that if you'll go too far in a curve, you'll hit the sidewalk. You'll not turn it enough or too much sometimes. But can you give people 10 hours of class just for the wheel by creating a space where all kinds of turns exists? Nope, you'll teach them the wheel at the same time they'll learn to evaluate the distances, the size of the car, how to watch in mirrors, avoid people, in the real street. The wheel, as well as the engine, the brakes, how people react, how they drive, can't be teach by tutorials/challenges. You have to do it in real life, make mistakes, and having someone near you avoiding you being hurt and explaining to you what mistake you made, why you made it, and how not to do it.

That could fun of course ! But after one hour of lessons, your ego is tormented with your poor skills and you are exhausted by concentration. It's hard, you don't want to do it each day. It's not a game, it's school. You don't "play" school when going back home and put a disk in the console to relax. And that's why people force themselves to drive but not to play fighting games : driving is an essential part of life so you endure expensive lessons, fighting games are just a game you think as something fun that should be automatic and served on a plate, but is actually a new way of thinking by taking other people in consideration, acting with or against other people, controlling yourself in high stress moments. You need a coach and real life lessons to learn fighting games.

That's why League of Legends or Dota2 have so many players. First, real life lessons are free, as the games are free. Characters are way simpler than any fighting game characters and you pass from one to the other once you mastered one. You will fail a lot at the beginning, blame yourself and you team. But you can eventually win if your team is ok, so your ego is restored, you are less frustrated.
Because the most important thing about MOBAs is that since you are not playing only AGAINST people but WITH a team, you'll eventually make a lot of friends faster and learn faster as you can ask for help and among 4 players, you have more chances to have someone explaining things to you and progress. That's the same way you progress when you learn how to drive because the teacher is all yours for one hour of play. In any fighting game because it's one vs one, it's a 3 minute match, and the single person with you is actually your opponent who will not tell you how to play, you can't really learn.

So that's it for me : you can't learn fighting games without actually fighting for real. The game can teach you how to play from a theory perspective, but the only way to progress is fighting a real opponent, not being in a single player mode where you grind, do tutorials you forgot one hour later. Instead of doing tutorial, we should have modes that permits you and your opponent to focus on specific parts of the game. For example, being able to play online without using any special move or super but only normals, having a multiplayer mode where you take turns at attacking and garding. Even a mode where the ultra would be instant kill on touch could be could, as you would have to focus on ways of landing it.

But you always have to be with a human player or a coach sharing with you your lesson.
Click to expand...
 
G

gutabo

Member
smurfx said:
so my mom passed away today. she had been hospitalized since dec 28. the cause is most likely a heart infection caused by her sepsis. at least she won't be suffering anymore.
Click to expand...

I'm so sorry smurfx. My condolences to you and your family. A big hug and a prayer for you.
 
A

Azure J

Member
TheChits said:
Oh my days this match on the newest Excellent Adventures
KuGsj.gif
Click to expand...

"Just grab him"

*magic happens*

iszZZbJ0HT2gC.gif
 
T

The Light

Member
I agree with motivation being a key part in wanting to learn a fighter proper. I did the xrd tutorial yesterday and it did indeed provide good explanations, but yea I did not retain most of the info as it was around 2 a.m so I will probably go through it again today.
 
J

Juicebox_FGC

Member
Marz said:
He just like lost interest one day or some shit I was looking forward to Duo Lon and the Iori's but Nah.
Click to expand...

I did lose interest.

I know that there are people out there that would benefit from them, but I have far less free time nowadays so I can't justify putting work into fighting game tutorials at the moment.

I still urge people to ask me questions directly, because it helps me to ascertain their skill level and I can teach them the right things. It's very helpful when a student -wants to learn- (which is what you guys have been talking about in this thread for the past couple pages).
 
Kalamari

Kalamari

Member
I think Dota and LoL also have so many players partly due to their tournaments promising large monetary prizes. It's very attractive to young and impressionable kids who think if they try hard enough they could have a shot at winning . The motivation seems to come from the prize money.

I guess I am saying if LoL and Dota had pots the size of most fighting game tournaments, the players wouldn't be as motivated to play.

Of course this is my own opinion, because I don't really think MOBAs are very fun to begin with.
 
A

Anne

Member
My experience with ASW stuff and anime games in general is that yeah, there's no point unless people wanna learn. A pretty large majority of the anime community doesn't wanna directly learn past a certain point, which is somewhat frustrating. All the low level content in the world is starting to pop up but mid level tutorials are hard to find and that's more or less because people aren't too interested at that point.

That's why I'm doing the FT10 stuff with Persona. It's interesting and more fun, and people learn a lot while seeing crazy matches. It also helps teach people to have critical thinking going on when watching videos, which is super useful >.< I feel like people picking up on that skill is worth it.
 
K

Kimosabae

Banned
How do you think you get people to "Want to learn" Juicebox?

I feel it's by making the community front and center. Put tournament footage in your trailers featuring the personalities and crowds. Make the hype visible for the average joe that's just renting your game off Netflix to give it shot with his buddies over a few beers. Have Daigo featured in your tutorial or speak about why he's passionate about FGs after your idle demo footage. Interweave this shit into the presentation of your game. Let them see the excitement. Let them taste the hype.


If you market the competitive community of your game, it gives the impression that just by virtue of playing the game, you're involved in something bigger. Dedicating yourself to "Gettin' gud" isn't resolving to being sequestered in your parent's basement but brings you that much closer to something larger than yourself.
 
M

Marz

Member
Juicebox_FGC said:
I did lose interest.

I know that there are people out there that would benefit from them, but I have far less free time nowadays so I can't justify putting work into fighting game tutorials at the moment.

I still urge people to ask me questions directly, because it helps me to ascertain their skill level and I can teach them the right things. It's very helpful when a student -wants to learn- (which is what you guys have been talking about in this thread for the past couple pages).
Click to expand...

Yea completely understandable.
 
H

Holy Order Sol

Member
Meh. Making things about "the community" is the current approach which doesn't work. Rather than making people want to learn, it breeds stream monsters who seek hype without understanding why things are considered hype in the first place. Then you see those people not have any respect for effective but seemingly boring play because it's unlike the entertainment they've been sold which they mistook for instruction.

Focus should be the games themselves.
 
J

Juicebox_FGC

Member
AnneIFrank said:
A pretty large majority of the anime community doesn't wanna directly learn past a certain point, which is somewhat frustrating. All the low level content in the world is starting to pop up but mid level tutorials are hard to find and that's more or less because people aren't too interested at that point.
Click to expand...

This has been my experience with KOF13 as well. Once someone learns how to have a generally good offense and can turn hits into good damage, the rest of the game gets much tougher and mindgame-oriented, which is why you don't often see really good defense in a run-of-the-mill KOF match. It happens often in high level play but people struggle with identifying the why and the how.

Kimosabae said:
How do you think you get people to "Want to learn" Juicebox?
Click to expand...

I agree with this post.
 
S

Sayah

Member
Gif posted by Grayfox. Really cool. Should share it here too.
giphy.gif


Wang's parry, damn. I suddenly want to use this character.
 
petran79

petran79

Banned
@Thomasaurus

I like your driving analogy. But notice there is normal driving and there is also race driving. The former is for everyone, the latter is not.
Fighting games are closer to race driving.
 
A

Anne

Member
Juicebox_FGC said:
This has been my experience with KOF13 as well. Once someone learns how to have a generally good offense and can turn hits into good damage, the rest of the game gets much tougher and mindgame-oriented, which is why you don't often see really good defense in a run-of-the-mill KOF match. It happens often in high level play but people struggle with identifying the why and the how.
Click to expand...

Hey, this sums up pretty much exactly what I'm experiencing. Kind of comforting to know it's not just me and ASW stuff. TBH I'm kind of lost on how to go about improving the situation orz. I'm working on Persona stuff, but for these things specifically you can't just teach it outright, especially to people not too interested in going that much further. I'm just focusing on critical thinking and option selection and interaction focus atm, hopefully people catch onto that.
 
K

Kimosabae

Banned
Holy Order Sol said:
Meh. Making things about "the community" is the current approach which doesn't work. Rather than making people want to learn, it breeds stream monsters who seek hype without understanding why things are considered hype in the first place. Then you see those people not have any respect for effective but seemingly boring play because it's unlike the entertainment they've been sold which they mistook for instruction.

Focus should be the games themselves.
Click to expand...

Except it's not. At least, not the way I've described it. Yeah, Capcom is kinda heading in that direction, but it won't be until SF5 releases that we get to see how far it goes.

Post is cynical. "Stream monster" is such a nebulous nonentity, it's not even worth bringing up, really.
 
J

Juicebox_FGC

Member
AnneIFrank said:
Hey, this sums up pretty much exactly what I'm experiencing. Kind of comforting to know it's not just me and ASW stuff. TBH I'm kind of lost on how to go about improving the situation orz. I'm working on Persona stuff, but for these things specifically you can't just teach it outright, especially to people not too interested in going that much further. I'm just focusing on critical thinking and option selection and interaction focus atm, hopefully people catch onto that.
Click to expand...

What you have to teach is the act of "considering the opponent".

In KOF, once you understand offense, your goal is to create blockstun then get mixups off of it. Many players would say that hyperhops are better than full jumps for creating offense, because they are faster and harder to react to. More or less this is true. But it becomes untrue -if- your opponent is good at preventing you from hopping.

Being good at stopping hops has little to do with tools. It has to do with spacing yourself in such a way that if you were predicting a hop it would not be difficult to stuff with a normal or with a buffered special. This can vary from matchup to matchup (Iori's hop D is harder to stuff than Andy's, for example) but the principal is the same. This is something that intermediate KOF players simply do not do. They are focused on creating their own offense or avoiding their opponent's, but they are not thinking about countering certain approaches outright.

In order to do this you have to start making predictions on what the opponent will do in the neutral. So if I'm focused on stopping your hops and I am a Kyo player, I can simply buffer qcf/qcf/qcf/qcf repatedly and stop any hop in the game by simply pressing LP when I see the hop (A dp will come out on a down-forward or forward input). But this means I have to take the step of not following my own gameplan, but instead creating one based on what I think the opponent will do.

Ultimately this is the "footsies" of KOF.

It can all be summed up as "critical thinking", but I like to call it "considering the opponent" because the crucial step to take is to stop trying to play the match your own way, and instead focus on forcing an opponent to play a certain way.
-----
And if people don't want to go that far, there's nothing that can be done about that. That's just the way things go :'(
 
A

Anne

Member
Hmmm I see. I dig it, that's a cool approach. In ASW games it tends to get a bit weird because the character options can get really wild and heavily varied, but the same thing still applies.

Yeah I feel you on that last bit :< The thing here is people tell me they do want to go that far, I'm just unsure on whether they don't actually mean it or they don't understand what they need to do.
 
R

Ryu1999

Member
SixMachine said:
I remember seeing this yesterday. It was pretty funny when you got the O. Ryu tatsu setup going or the Thawk throw loop. I usually see people play normal Ryu, so it was interesting to see O Ryu going.
Click to expand...

I actually felt a little bad abusing unblockable tatsu on Art, but then I remembered that he destroyed me during SF4 pools at Evo last year and instantly the remorse was gone.
 
S

Sayah

Member
QisTopTier said:
That's why I play him when I do play tekken. Shit's hilarious. Can't touch that Wang
Click to expand...

Oh nice.
Sad he probably won't be in Tekken 7. Maybe one of the characters could take his cooler animations and dat parry.

BakedYams said:
Never touched the character, how does his parry work?
Click to expand...

It parries mid and high attacks but not lows from what I remember. I believe the input is b+1? I haven't really used Wang at all......ever. But now maybe I will.
 
J

Juicebox_FGC

Member
AnneIFrank said:
Yeah I feel you on that last bit :< The thing here is people tell me they do want to go that far, I'm just unsure on whether they don't actually mean it or they don't understand what they need to do.
Click to expand...

In my experience, many people will -say- that they want to, but when pressed, most will admit that they're not looking to be -that- competitive. I have noticed many SF4 and KOF13 players who have played since their games were released that still do not do these things even though I've told them all about it. In my opinion this is because they don't need to in order to win consistently (online).

It can be depressing to know that the better you get the harder it is for you to have gainful (or at minimum, enjoyable) matches.
 
B

BigBadShamoo

Banned
Wow I've played a shit ton of TTT2 and I've never seen that Wang parry. There's not a lot of Wang players online I guess.

On a side note Justin Wong might be my favorite FGC person.
 
Q

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
Sayah said:
Oh nice.
Sad he probably won't be in Tekken 7. Maybe one of the characters could take his cooler animations and dat parry.



It parries mid and high attacks but not lows from what I remember. I believe the input is b+1? I haven't really used Wang at all......ever. But now maybe I will.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's B+1 you get a free launcher with a successful parry as well :D
 
A

Anne

Member
Juicebox_FGC said:
In my experience, many people will -say- that they want to, but when pressed, most will admit that they're not looking to be -that- competitive. I have noticed many SF4 and KOF13 players who have played since their games were released that still do not do these things even though I've told them all about it. In my opinion this is because they don't need to in order to win consistently (online).

It can be depressing to know that the better you get the harder it is for you to have enjoyable (or at minimum, gainful) matches.
Click to expand...

Yeah. In ASW games especially you get so much reward off of a lot of things that people will just learn all that and not actually invest in the time to develop the mental and defensive and opponent-based (my friends and I say things like "player interaction") aspect of the game. Especially online and against mid level players, there's not much need to develop further because somebody will get a hit and then just run it until they win, and when they run into somebody who can understand what they're doing and stop them or mitigate it, they don't understand and decide that's where it's time to stop. At least that's what I usually run into :/

That last line is ahhh. It's been a frustration of mine and a few other people lately. I'll admit I've been kinda ahhh and unfair about it at some point, but I've gotten better and just go with "eh can't fault people for having their fun". I'll voice that I see it happening, but I don't wanna sound like I'm forcing people to get there, I just wanna play and help where I can.
 
Q

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
Playing Makoto in BBCP was pretty helpful overall for me since she is such an honest character you had to learn the ins and outs of everything haha

Then I pick Mu and laugh at how much easier it is to win
 
A

Anne

Member
I don't wanna say it's all about the character, there are plenty of people who play "honest" characters who still miss out because they'll still get hits into damage + KD. It just seems like a really common trend. Tbh I ran into that in Persona and worked to get over that hump T^T

I don't enough about KoF to say if it really is that much different, just talking about my own experiences.
 
R

Rhapsody

Banned
QisTopTier said:
Playing Makoto in BBCP was pretty helpful overall for me since she is such an honest character you had to learn the ins and outs of everything haha

Then I pick Mu and laugh at how much easier it is to win
Click to expand...

Mu is like the character that represents netplay to me. Full screen dash up throw/overhead.

What's it going to be!?
 
J

Juicebox_FGC

Member
AnneIFrank said:
I'll admit I've been kinda ahhh and unfair about it at some point, but I've gotten better and just go with "eh can't fault people for having their fun". I'll voice that I see it happening, but I don't wanna sound like I'm forcing people to get there, I just wanna play and help where I can.
Click to expand...

It leaves me bitter.

I wanna climb Everest but all I see are people congratulating each other and patting each other's backs about getting to the top of a jungle gym.
 
M

mbpm1

Member
I'd say not to be discouraged and that when you're at the top you can laugh at those people all the way down there...but I am one of those people down there lol
 
D

Doomshine

Member
BakedYams said:
Never touched the character, how does his parry work?
Click to expand...

It parries almost every single high and mid attack in the game, including Alisa's rocket punch and tag crash. He has 4 (or 5 if you count doing nothing) options after he parries and depending on the recovery of the move he parries they might be free.
 
A

Anne

Member
I'd rather not do that, I'd like to have more people to play the games with pushing to get better and playing at that level. It sounds like a really fun time and is what I look forward to the most, so it's hard to not get discouraged when that is hard to find or isn't usually the focus.

Again, that's just the main thing I enjoy from the hobby.
 
A

alstein

Member
Sayah said:
Oh nice.
Sad he probably won't be in Tekken 7. Maybe one of the characters could take his cooler animations and dat parry.



It parries mid and high attacks but not lows from what I remember. I believe the input is b+1? I haven't really used Wang at all......ever. But now maybe I will.
Click to expand...

I thought Wang was in some art for the game already.
 
A

alstein

Member
Juicebox_FGC said:
In my experience, many people will -say- that they want to, but when pressed, most will admit that they're not looking to be -that- competitive. I have noticed many SF4 and KOF13 players who have played since their games were released that still do not do these things even though I've told them all about it. In my opinion this is because they don't need to in order to win consistently (online).

It can be depressing to know that the better you get the harder it is for you to have gainful (or at minimum, enjoyable) matches.
Click to expand...

As you climb up the ladder- it takes more and more work to get less and less improvement. Eventually most people, including myself, say it's not worth the effort. It also doesn't help that I completely lack the dexterity needed to do anything advanced combowise.
 
T

Thomasorus

Member
petran79 said:
@Thomasaurus

I like your driving analogy. But notice there is normal driving and there is also race driving. The former is for everyone, the latter is not.
Fighting games are closer to race driving.
Click to expand...

If you can't use a wheel or manage to use a gearbox, you're not gonna get into competitive driving. Basic driving is like knowing triangulars and understand why you were hit, or simple knowing how footsies works and how to apply some classic footsies game.

So well. Learn to drive before considering going on race driving.

Juicebox_FGC said:
What you have to teach is the act of "considering the opponent".
Click to expand...

That's what I meant with the driving analogy. It's not that much about winning but admit that you are not alone and you need to take the others into consideration.

Edit : finally changing my avatar, yay!
 
K

Karsticles

Member
Kimosabae said:
How do you think you get people to "Want to learn" Juicebox?

I feel it's by making the community front and center. Put tournament footage in your trailers featuring the personalities and crowds. Make the hype visible for the average joe that's just renting your game off Netflix to give it shot with his buddies over a few beers. Have Daigo featured in your tutorial or speak about why he's passionate about FGs after your idle demo footage. Interweave this shit into the presentation of your game. Let them see the excitement. Let them taste the hype.


If you market the competitive community of your game, it gives the impression that just by virtue of playing the game, you're involved in something bigger. Dedicating yourself to "Gettin' gud" isn't resolving to being sequestered in your parent's basement but brings you that much closer to something larger than yourself.
Click to expand...
I feel like it's more about a person's character than his or her interest in fighting games. If someone half-asses fighting games (go in and push buttons), I bet the rest of that person's life is half-assed, too. It's a reflection of the kind of person you are. There are really two groups of people we want to address here:
1) People who want to get good, but don't know how, or don't even know you can get what we call "good".
2) People who just want to press buttons and "have fun", whatever the hell that means.

I'm skeptical that it's even possible to reach group 2. It's like asking how to get people who exclusively enjoy Visual Novels into fighting games. It just isn't who they are and what they care about.
 
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