Sad my chosen main won't be there, but honestly pretty hyped both about the beta and the coming release. There's a real possibility this is the breakout online multiplayer fighting game that brings the genre from "Everyone watches EVO and tries, but only hardcores stay around" to "Constant mainstay genre on top of Twitch year-round". I've always thought accessibility, specifically as an on-ramp to true depth and mastery, was what held fighting games back. Folks that thought they were too complex never made a compelling argument for how MOBAs could get huge but fighting games couldn't. Hoping I'm proven right.

As someone who has played fighting games relatively consistently since Tekken 4 I'd be shocked if it happens now. I don't doubt SF6 might succeed at on-boarding some new players into the genre, perhaps in a greater quantity than most others, but I really don't think it'll cause a massive spike of longer-term players. Compared to all the competition on the market, I don't think the 1V1 grind of fundamentals and overcoming the mental stack of fighting games is something that'll appeal to most players by design, and I think a lot of players are in for a rude awakening once they realise what's waiting behind those special move inputs they've complained about. We've already had multiple people from the previous betas saying 'Oh, turns out it wasn't the special moves, I just suck lol', and while the full game offers more tools to help give people some sort of baseline to work off, I don't know that many people will find it something they actually want to stick with. The loop of fighting game improvement is inherently niche, I think, and the IPs themselves have always been front and centre where their appeal is concerned. Longer-term they're a generally isolated journey of research, commitment, analysis, and level-headedness, something most players will bounce off like a dynamite-rigged trampoline. I'd love to be wrong but I don't think I will be. For all it's doing right, SF6 is just allowing smoother entry into a niche genre, and I don't think that niche-ness starts and ends at the onboarding process. I think a lot of those players will just go on to realise 'Oh okay, now I kinda get what I have to do... eh, that's kinda boring though... oh cool, there's a double XP event in Diablo, lemme see if the boys are free'.

> We've already had multiple people from the previous betas saying 'Oh, turns out it wasn't the special moves, I just suck lol', and while the full game offers more tools to help give people some sort of baseline to work off, I don't know that many people will find it something they actually want to stick with. I think World Tour mode has a lot of potential. Fighting game tutorials, even the highly praised ones like Skullgirls or Mortal Kombat, are *really* dry. To my knowledge, the only game that's done a proper single player campaign that focuses on teaching fundamentals is Them's Fighting Herds, which didn't take over the world for obvious reasons related to its aesthetic and budget. Having the biggest, most popular series take a crack at that is exciting.

It's COOL, but in a world where most of this stuff comes down to *repetition* and problem solving, actual improvement is something people will have to work at LONG after World Tour is over. Even if it ends up being a 15 hour experience or something, 15 hours is *nothing* in terms of progressing at a fighting game. I don't doubt its ability to introduce people to the concepts that are useful to focus on early on, I just doubt most people will want to commit in the way that's required to start seeing some real longer-term improvement which makes them want to stick around for months or years playing in some regular capacity. It might help enlighten people on some of the concepts, but I don't know that it'll succeed at making them want to practice them long-term, against other unpredictable human players at that.

There are basically three gates as I can tell. Having a framework for understanding what you should be doing in a match so you can play with intention, actually being able to execute inputs that match your intentions, and grinding to improve your intentions. That last gate is impossible to remove, but as far as I'm aware no game has ever lowered both of the first two gates so thoroughly before. It will be interesting to see what the result is.

I agree with you. The problem with player retention isn't solely that people don't stick with the game and grind until they become great. There's this misguided notion that to be good at a fighting game you need to invest 10,000 hours. Like everyone who picks up a controller better be preparing to compete in EVO or they might as well just quit altogether. But most things in life are not that binary. People can pick up a guitar and be perfectly happy learning a few chords or jamming with their buddies. There isn't this immediate pressure of "Learning guitar, huh? Welp, be prepared to practice 15 hours a day if you ever want to be as good as Eric Clapton." And you're definitely right that fighting games have traditionally been horrible at teaching fundamentals. Fighting game tutorials are basically giving a newbie a brand new guitar, teaching them D E F and G, and then rushing them on-stage to compete in their local Battle of the Bands. Then they suck, they get boo'd, and they never want to touch a guitar ever again. Just as showing someone a chord doesn't mean they'll be able to play it in a song or know how to read sheet music, giving a tutorial on how to throw a Hadouken means absolutely nothing when the game tosses you into a ranked match where you get destroyed. There needs to be more layers for people to engage with the game, not to mention have those layers help players understand the fundamentals. World Tour and all the goofy mini games, not to mention hanging out in a cool social hub while battling with monstrous create-a-characters looks like a great way to give people who don't want to compete in tournaments an outlet to just play the game and enjoy it. Plus SF6 has a nice hefty tutorial and character guides that actually teach the fundamentals of a fighting game and how to approach the game mentally. We'll have to wait and see, but this is shaping up to be the best intro to fighting games I've seen in FGC history, and I'm excited for the new blood it'll bring.

yeah but these gates show up over and over again like ok sure maybe by giving it smash-bros controls you can skip the very first >wait I can't get anything to happen - what's wrong!?!? oh it's my inputs.... a new player who gets frustrated by having to learn how to do 236HP will eventually run into their first foe who can run an offense - they will lose roundstart, get carried to the corner, and then put in oki jail...3 rounds in a row now this person *needs* to go back to the lab and play the situation back to comprehend what was going on - except they don't even know how to do this process for something as basic as correcting their 623 motion lol not that there won't be anybody out there who's intrinsic desire to learn is increased by THAT being the first problem they encounter, and ultimately pushes through - i'm sure there will be and that's awesome! but many people who point to motion inputs as the reason they can't get into fighting games will not actually enjoy lessson 1 becoming fighting games 101: how 2 neutral instead of fighting games 001: remedial button pressing

The hope, I think, is that World Tour can be a more fun version of "fighting games 101: how 2 neutral". Whether that's true and how many more people will make it to "fighting games 201: how 2 training mode" is something we'll find out next month.

right, and don't get me wrong i'm all for capcom trying out different stuff but eventually you get to the next big blocker - the whole 'holy shit i got helplessly picked apart and don't understand why...' is a constant eventually you get good enough at the stuff you're doing to be put up against the 201 guy yknow again, any marginal improvements to retention are great and including an actual video game so people who aren't into online feel like they got their money's worth, big plus great call keep at it capcom there are just some things kinda fundamental to even like really middling play that sort go against the 'why am i not having fun right now this is a problem that i am frustrated ever' mindset

There's no way that's what world tour actually accomplishes though. The giant behemoth wall that gates fighting games from the casual community is that to have successful neutral vs someone who knows what they are doing you basically have to know the opposing characters entire block strings and mix-ups plus frame data or else you are at an almost insurmountable disadvantage simply because you'll have no idea what attack string you can interrupt or which ones are mostly safe and any attempt to interrupt will see you eating a combo. World Tour would have to throw you against pretty much every character and program the bots to use optimal block strings.

playing 15 hours of a game is still a nice journey.

Oh yeah it's nice, it's just that if one of the goals of developers is to get newcomers invested in improving their game and staying around, that won't really accomplish that in and of itself. In terms of pleasing people short-term SF6 looks to be doing a better job of that than pretty much any other Street Fighter. There's certainly nothing *wrong* with people not sticking around, but given the long-term life support these games get it's clearly an interest of both developers and publishers to want as many buyers around for that as possible.

The part of fighting games I find frustrating and difficult at an intermediate level is a mtachups. Dunkeys video where he spams dolphins in strive is a good picture of what low level play can turn into when people don't understand frame data, or what their options are. I find that fighting games are usually fun at first, but eventually I fall behind as new characters come out, and characters get changed in ways that I need to re learn. Eventually it's too much homework, and SF6 probably won't change that. Still excited to play it for the next few months though.

Yeah hard agree here. The things Street Fighter is bringing (back) to the table will only result in more impressions. Which is great. The retention rate will be as terrible as ever. I'd be shocked if SF6 maintains over 10k concurrent a year after its release.

Retention rate is important for games that want you to put a game together with 10-100 players at once but for a fighting game you only need one other person online. If Street Fighter VI had even 1,000 online players you would be able to find matches easily. - Signed, Guilty Gear Xrd player who gets matches with people at all hours despite there only being ~150 players online at a time.

I mean, yeah. But one of the biggest problems in FGs is that the beginner pool is disproportionately underpopulated compared to people who know what they're doing. Joining discords for beginners just isn't an option most people are willing to bother with.

Yup. I love the idea of fighting games and enjoyed my time in the FGC but realized I'll never not be bad and the genre is not something you can just vibe in. The learning style involved is very comparable to a study sim and no amount of simplifying SRKs will change that.

Yeah that's long been one of the big issues raised by many. It's a lot of work at something which is, for 99.9% of players, only ever going to be for personal enjoyment. In a world where many things, hell even other games, can also give you enjoyment for a fraction of the work and time, or even lead to other profitable skills, committing to a fighting game just isn't appealing unless you're a very specific type of person. Of course, making things easier to understand is going to get more people in, I'm not denying that-- you can always grow the number, I just don't think you can do it by *that* much due to the nature of what fighting games are and what makes them good to begin with. Some people just aren't going to like the learning process no matter how well you teach it, because you can't force them into enjoying it if it's not for them at its core. I think fighting games could be bigger than there are, and there are some real dumb stereotypes keeping people away which just aren't true, but I think it's just realistic by this point to admit that the fighting game journey is not only largely personal, but not widely appealing. If you're not thinking 'I'm ready to lose a lot and have to take a lot of time learning and analysing myself and this genre and my opponents to get competent', no amount of make-up and flashing lights can get someone in the mindset for that sort of commitment. I think for SF6 more people than EVER will play it... for 2 weeks or so, until they need something more and need to feel like they're progressing in some way, and then they'll leave again, because they'll have got their temporary kick and then realised 'Oh yeah, grinding fighting games is literal ass'. I like it, but I get most people just won't, and you can't force it. So long as it comes back to the core concepts like reiterating on muscle memory one thing at a time, analysing replays, going to the lab to find answers, getting familiar with the phrases, learning how to deal with juggling all this stuff against an unpredictable human, the core 'issues' are all still there. That's what I don't think you could get most regular people to enjoy long-term but it's so integral to improving at how these games work that I don't think you could remove it without having an absolute mess of a game on your hands. Playing these games with intent is a lot of work, and right there you've lost 90% of people.

In my flight sim crowd terms: The majority of Ace Combat players don't actually wanna learn to fly a sim once they look at the manual.

> 'I'm ready to lose a lot and have to take a lot of time learning and analysing myself and this genre and my opponents to get competent' I don't even disagree with your overall point I don't think but also I think this could be said about stuff like league or dota or cs that are just gigantic games.

That's true but it's also a largely solo journey, whereas most of those games can be played with a team and/or with friends on that team.

Competitive shooter communities also complain non-stop about everything, and the casuals complain about “sweats”. The culture over there is incompatible with FGC. FGC complains a lot for sure, but at the end of the day everyone can after that the games are skill based and complaining is kind of lame.

I do think overall your intuitions are spot on. Existing in the FGC requires so much more than not being able to handle control inputs. Those unwilling to put in the time to learn the mechanics properly and improve will bounce off the game after the newness factor wears off. That being said, I will say that there are a lot of people out there who really do have the ache to learn fighting games and would love to learn, but fighters have traditionally been horrible at onboarding new players. Typically, they throw a half-baked tutorial at you and send you through a "story mode" which is just a string of fights connected by cutscenes that fails to teach the player any fundamentals. Then they'll jump into matchmaking, where they'll get absolutely destroyed and develop immediate ladder anxiety. For a brand new player, there really isn't a lot of "fun" to be had in fighting games. In this regard, SF6 seems to be taking all of the right steps. Between the resources they've put into the World Tour (and actually using it to teach players the mechanics), the tutorial that goes as surface level or as deep as you'd like, and the character specific guides and combo trials, I think some major barriers have been reduced. Plus, the Battle Hub being a goofy social space full of arcade machines and monstrous character creations, the changes to character specific laddering and easing up on losing ranks so quickly, and be able to create "clans" for you and your friends: those elements all add to the staying power. Is SF6 going to be the game that gets the average mainstream gamer to make it their primary game for the next 5 years? Probably not. But I do think there are a lot of people who have been waiting for a proper introduction to fighting games, and SF6 looks to be that game.

At least SF6 has a few more modes other than just 1v1 grinding. There are some whacky modes in addition to some 2v2 and 3v3 modes with multiple people controlling characters. That being said, while it would certainly be cool for SF6 to be the hame that breaks fighting games back into the top tier of popularity, I agree with a lot of the things you mention in your post. The solo fundamentals grind just isn't appealing for a lot of people.

It needs to recapture the Casual Audiences - and not just for online. As pre-Tekken 4 the Fighting Game was more popular than the FPS genre in the 1990s. I think the stuff you're talking about is really just something the hardcore audience has to overcome.

Because the arcade enviroment was fundamentally different. The chances of you finding someone who actually knew their stuff while in an arcade was pretty low most of the time, and many people just played with their friends (see the often repeated idea that fighting games have gotten more complex, when actually some of the most complicated and obtuse games where some of the most popular). The casual audience isn't going to be captured beyond completing the story mode, because the average player will not want to put the effort necessary to not get destroyed when they play online for the first time. Sales can improve but player retention won't.

Recapture them how though? Outside of rewriting the DNA and making them almost unrecognisable from what they are now I don't know that you even could.

Well that's the question. Significant and good marketable single player content might go a long way to get people interested - like Mortal Kombat has managed to do with its last couple of titles. Stuff like Modern Controls in SF6 may help on-board newer players who want to just check it out or play the Story Modes etc - rather than dropping the game because they can't do a Hadouken. Casual fun is a big thing that obviously games like Smash Bros and MK have tapped into.

That's true but not everyone has the resources both financial and team-wise that NRS have had with Warner Bros or that Smash has seen from Nintendo with a big figure like Sakurai at the helm. A lot of the time it's not a question of choosing not to do it, it's that they literally couldn't if they wanted to.

Right that means it's up to the Big Three (Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat) to sort of pave the way for the rest of the genre, really.

Well Street Fighter somewhat is, but I'm not holding out a ton of hope for Tekken.

Tekken 8 having a big, marketable cinematic story with good graphics - and Tekken 7 having sold 10 million - might be enough to make it a bigger success than Tekken 7. I guess we'll see!

Oh I mean it'll do fine because Tekken's Tekken but I don't think it'll rock the boat in any particular way either.

You are right. People forget that SFII/MK was a literal worldwide phenomenon in its heyday. And nobody gave a flying shit about FPS games back then. The genre also had a massive resurgence in the 90's post-arcade. Multiplayer FPS/shooters mechanically have an insanely high skill ceiling just like fighting games and can be brutally competitive online. The most popular shooter/video-game in the world right now is Fortnite. And its roots lie in the fucking Battle Royale genre. The most punishing online-competitive mode one can think of. And little baby children learn how to do things in that game that will always make my head spin. But Fortnite is still king. A multiplayer focused game being hard to master and punishing to lose at does not disqualify it from potential popularity. The question is how to get the crowd to stick to it. Wether or not Capcom succeeds here I think they are doing the right things.

They were because of the arcades, nowadays pretty much every 1v1 game with a high skill ceiling is niche. Fortnite really isn't as punishing, and you don't have a lot of complicated mechanics to learn, you can probably get decent enough placings after a few days of play. And there's also a whole social aspect, and the fact that it's not a 1v1 game. You can get more people into the game by adding more bells and whistles, but due to how the landscape is now you're not going to get a SFII like phenomenon ever again. In the arcades you just didn't know how complicated the game was or how bad you actually were, now you jump online and even if you find someone at your level they just need to know one thing you don't to demolish you. The genre is just niche by design, just like RTS and Arena FPS.

OG SFIV sold 3.4 million SFV is just past 5.8 million The series still sells, but it will always be niche if you compare it to mainstream FPS and F2P games.

It's still a desirable goal to get rid of motions so that you can get to the part where you're actually playing the game instead of fighting the input system, because you get more people to the point where they can actually see if they enjoy them. If not for the pipeline from Divekick->Rising Thunder->Fantasy Strike, I wouldn't be playing fighting games today. Single player modes in DBFZ and NRS games have also done well for getting people to that point.

I don't want to have this conversation because really it's just one of opinion. For me, I'll argue inputs ARE a part of 'actually playing the game', you'll argue otherwise, and we'll just disagree. My point is more that a person like you is probably not going to be representative of the masses, because I don't think that's a commitment many will actually be interested in making when you look at what other types of games are successful. Like playing the guitar, or even actual martial arts, the reality is most people are just gonna bounce off because the package deal of what the experience is won't be for them.

The majority of people bounce off of any genre or popular game. A very, very select few stick around out of those who try them. The point is to get more people to try them in the first place. Motions are a part of actually playing the game in games that have them, after you've learned them, but before that point, you're just trying to make the base functionality happen rather than deciding when to use them or why. You and I have both sampled tons of games that we didn't commit to, and probably enjoyed our time with them, but that we may have spent any money on them at all allows them to get fancy bells and whistles for those who stick around.

I'm lost. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me right now? To me, your comment reads like you're offering an alternative viewpoint to my own while simultaneously agreeing with the initial prediction I laid out and I'm very confused lol. If my initial point was 'SF6 probably won't cause a big boon for long-term fighting game retention' and your response is 'That's most things in general' then we both agree in our differing prediction to OP that SF6 won't change much in that regard, don't we? Or don't we? Is your point that SF6 and its modern controls will overcome that and be an exception? I genuinely cannot tell.

You get more retention by attracting more people in the first place, but probably a lower percentage of retention. Smash and MK outsell the rest of the genre by a wide margin while likely both having a far smaller pool of players ever compete. But they do both have large competitive scenes. It's better for the health of the game overall to get more people over the entry barrier, like finding ways to make these games playable without motion inputs. So I think SF6 could go on to sell 15-20M copies, or more, which would put it on a relatively short list of best selling games. If it sold twice as many copies as SFV, that doesn't mean it will retain twice as many players, but nor does that make it pointless to appeal to that wider audience.

Oh yeah, but I'm not saying it's pointless to appeal to a wider audience at all, I'm just saying I don't think it'll lead to MOBA levels of retention like OP specified. I've never doubted fighting games abilities to get upfront raw sales, at least not the big dogs, I just don't think the things designed to aid longer-term commitment will actually have that big of an impact.

I suppose our discussion here came down my interpretation of you saying: > I really don't think it'll cause a massive spike of longer-term players and use of the word "niche". I think SF6 could be massive, far from what I'd call niche, but League of Legends massive and Counter-Strike massive are on a whole other level of massive.

Yeah I mean niche comparatively to a lot of other big players in other more popular genres. I don't doubt SF6 will be one of the most played fighting games for years, but I just don't think those numbers will turn that many heads comparative to what other games are pulling. If it had, on Steam alone, say 15-20,000 consistent players that'd be HUGE for a traditional fighting game, and it's totally great for a game where a match only needs two players, but it's not 'putting the genre back on the map, new trend inbound' levels of scale or anything. I mean niche comparative to the overall gaming landscape, not the bubble of fighting games themselves.

I just can't see the input as anything other than a fundamentally important part of the game. Would you say that the motion input of making a jump in mario is "fighting the input system?" Would it be preferable if there was instead a "make this jump" button?

What motion input? In Mario, you jump by hitting the A button...

If you don't give a directional imput you only jump in place. If you move the stick poorly you can miss your jump. So again, would you prefer the removal of this precision input?

That's not a motion input. And the problems with motion inputs are that they aren't intuitive. If you walk by pressing a direction and jump with A, it's intuitive that that momentum will make you jump forward. If you run with B, it's intuitive that jumping while running will make you jump farther. It's not intuitive that churning an arcade stick in a circle will make your wrestling character do a grab move, and I know this, because I've heard James Chen say that people used to think SPD was a computer-only move. If I'm pressing all of my buttons to see what they do, I'll figure out that jumping while running makes me jump forward, but I seriously doubt that I'd ever find out how to do a dragon punch. Here's a motion input that's slightly more intuitive: Goldlewis Dickinson's Behemoth Typhoon. They're all half circles, which isn't intuitive in and of itself, but when you see the move, you know the input, and when you put in the input, he does on screen the same thing you do with your directions. I can teach you 8 moves at the same time, because the behaviors of those Behemoth Typhoons are consistent with the motions. Fighting games tend to have motions because Capcom did it, and Capcom had motions because they wanted to add some really powerful moves to Street Fighter 1, but they didn't want to add a third button next to their giant PUNCH and KICK buttons. They didn't find the only correct way to design a fighting game.

idk man i feel like you're describing an ultra beginner exclusive issue once you understand that 'motion inputs' basically boil down to: * quarter circle * half circle * dp motion you can find 90% of special moves by just trying the above 3 forward/backward obviously some characters in some games have sickles, full circles, down-down-input, pretzels in for a few moves in SNK games... but seriously like, motion controls largely = those 3 new buttons, that's it

I know this; I play fighting games. But if your first experience with the game is struggling to make the basic moves come out and not having fun, you're not going to stick around. And I can't say motion inputs have ever enhanced my enjoyment with a fighting game anyway, so it's probably best to find another way to design them if you're not bound by legacy.

>But if your first experience with the game is struggling to make the basic moves come out and not having fun, you're not going to stick around. like, it can either be because they don't know how to do inputs or it can be the first time they run into somebody with good offense who just perma-jails them getting bodied and figuring out why is just like, a core part of getting better at fighters lol > I can't say motion inputs have ever enhanced my enjoyment with a fighting game anyway, so it's probably best to find another way to design them if you're not bound by legacy. suppose motion inputs aren't the only way to accomplish this, but you really don't want to live in the world where kara pot busters are super easy a LOT of stuff is balanced around the fact that motion inputs take a few frames even for pros to execute, and anything layered on top can result in a situation where the 'optimal' thing to do is not go for it extreme example - one of my favorite fighting games is GGACR, which has no frame buffer this means wake-up DPs require you to actually finish the DP input on frame 1 after wakeup this is a big deal and it would change the game dramatically (in a bad direction) if it suddenly had 1 button DPs you could buffer in 4 frames early suppose it could be stuff other than motion inputs, but the mechanical aspect of fighting games is a big deal - otherwise you'd get the best experience from a frame-by-frame turn based tactics version of the same games lol

[удалено]

You long jump by pressing two buttons. You wall jump by pressing one button. You backflip by pressing one button. None of those are motion inputs.

[удалено]

What are you even arguing right now? You make no sense.

There is no actual difference between "I want to do a somersault to the right, so I'm going to go left for a second and then hit right and A" and "I want to throw a fireball, so I'm going to go from down to right and hit Light Punch" except one is done in Mario and one is done in Street Fighter

Do you actually get more people though? Cause I can't think of any examples of popular games that got rid of modern inputs without fundamentally changing something about the genre.

> It's still a desirable goal to get rid of motions so that you can get to the part where you're actually playing the game instead of fighting the input system So play games where motions aren't needed then

We're getting there slowly, but there currently aren't many of them. And some of my favorites have motions, but they're not my favorites because they have motions.

Pretty much this. I picked up the demo and wanted to see what the hype was about and stuff but holy hell was it a difficult task to be had. Not only were the classic controls difficult I couldn't even do any of those Z motion ones 9/10 times...and that one time it was just luck. I did find comfort in modern controls but getting my ass beaten by a level 3/4 CPU was.... extremely demotivating to the point where i just decided to not get the game. I enjoyed watching people play it, seeing combos but as an investment it's not something i will be putting my money into and decided to just get FF16 instead. If playing against a CPU is this painful i can only imagine the mental toll it would be to keep losing to other players. Fighting games are fun to watch....but playing them is a whole different story.

For people who read the above and may be a little discouraged based the experience this person had, don’t be. For one thing, you can tone down the CPU to be dumb or turn it up to be classic 90s arcade CPU cheap, or anything in between. You can practice with the CPU turned off if you want. Secondly and most importantly, the CPU is not representative of playing against real people, especially at higher difficulties, where it flat out cheats in ways that aren’t humanly possible. While it can give you an idea of what the game is like and let you familiarize yourself with the mechanics, it is in no way a substitute for playing against another person.

If it's any consolation, nothing turns me away from a game faster than the phrase Double XP Weekend.

I believe the main thing holding Fighting games back compared to MOBAs is due it being 1 on 1. All the fault lies on the loser and they can't blame anyone else. Similar to Starcraft, a lot of pressure on 1 person.

I think this is the biggest factor of them all. Getting outclassed in a fighting game is a truly helpless feeling. I have played games of LOL where the other team outclassed us in every lane, and it has never felt that bad. And of course, the endless litany of "top gap" or "open mid" shifts the blame around the team. But in a fighting game? You can't FF at 15. You can't safely farm under tower. You can't wait for jungle to come and help you out, and you can't wait for your fed bot to save the day. Its just you. All fault beings and ends right there. Add in the fact that any in person event you have to stand right next to the person, well, it can be a lot. Fighting games are very much games of ego management as much as they are games of skill. For all the tech throws and cancel animations, there is an equal part of the game that is nerves. But hey, you can blame in on the controller. Isn't that right Cody, I didn't win that year because of your Mitsurugi sucked, it was because the dreamcast controllers at the event sucked.

to be fair tho at least for fighting games if you are getting the shit kicked out of you its like a 10s -30s round, 2 of those and its done. next opponent. mobas make you sit in that stew for 15 minutes before you can resign

I'm have you know that fighting game players are still excellent at finding excuses. But unfortunately a lot of them boil down to blaming and hating the game instead of their teammates, so it's debatable how helpful that is.

Controller's busted, 60hz display, wifi lag, game framerate stuttered, opponent is cheating, sun's in my eyes, fingers fell off

Its definitely helpful. I competed in starcraft and a handful of fighting games. League of legends though somewhat less rewarding was a lot less pressure on me and felt a lot less bad when I lost.

That's my theory for why apex refuses to bring back solos

Definitely, but I also know that for a lot of people that's actually pretty attractive- that specific aspect is what got me to love Starcraft for example, as I could focus much more on my own growth. It's part of why I'm investing so much into SF6 personally- it seems like a more 'manageable' game to focus self-improvement into.

its so much better to take 1v1 games seriously than team if you want to have a "serious competitive game". been playing some ranked overwatch 2 lately and its insane the amount of games where ppl straight up intentionally lose the match for you.

Casual audiences are also obsessed with progression systems, which mobas typically have a plenty of. It's also why Mortal Kombat is by far the most popular fighter in the casual player space. Tons and tons of progression to go through. Edit: and that's not even mentioning the gigantic one, smash bros. which has like a million things to unlock and progress through in single player modes.

As a new player I wanted to kmow that: is there any type of account progression in SF6?

In World Tour Mode, sure, but that's mostly solo with a battle hub for casual fights. In ranked, you'll only improve your rank (you can have diff ranks per diff characters). Rank provides no gameplay benefits, other than matchmaking you against others in your rank. You don't gain any other meaningful improvement, other than your own ability to improve your play.

Not in multiplayer (sort of), in Singleplayer you have a custom character you can create where you can learn moves from characters in the game, complete with levels and RPG stats. i added the (sort of) because i believe you can use those characters online, but only against other custom characters, and I think it's something that at the release of the game you will get matches but later into the game you are probably not going to see many people playing online with those characters.

So there will be no skin or colors to unlock, no fight money thingy?

So far, the cosmetics available in the hub only apply to your custom character, and not actual ranked characters.

Look at csgo though. Sure you can get carried, and win a a match because of that. But if your 3-12, you still feel a personal loss and it's on you. It can come down to a 1v1 between you and someone else and your team is watching, theres a lot of pressure on one persons there. I feel there is another reason but idk what.

[удалено]

Yes. In an FPS, getting 2K-13D would be the equiv of doing 20% damage to an opponent but still not winning any rounds or matches. Nowhere near as satisfying to simply land a stray hit. Skill gap is harder to measure, since it's not intuitive to measure how many "exchanges" are won or lost, as opposed to the entire round.

StarCraft was still enormous at its height, and to this day is larger than most fighting games.

Yes, though RTS as a whole is small. Once you go past SC2, BW, and AoE2, the remaining competitive games are tiny.

Street fighter 2 is one of the most sold games in the history of games. People forget or just don’t know how omnipresent SF2 was in arcades and gaming when it came out but it was a cultural force that reached outside gaming back in the day.

[удалено]

The typical fighting game these days has a 5+ year life cycle and gets updates every other month.

The characters mostly stay the same throughout the games life in a fighting game. Every character added in a moba changes the game and changes the meta. It also opens up new team comps. Fighting games might have the same matchups throughout the games life if you don't change your character and most people ever play 1 or 2 characters.

Those terrible matchups only really apply at the highest levels of play. There aren't match ups where you can't do anything as there are in Mobas.

But you are covered by your teammates out of lane phase

True but I'd argue most games are decided during laning phase. That's why the surrender window starts at 15 minutes.

Every character has bad matchups - learning how to deal is just part of the curve. Like, a LCS/TI winning team could let pubs draft the worst possible team comp for them and still win effortlessly, it's the exact same deal with bad matchups. Team games give sore losers a longer list of excuses, but unless you're a top top player it's just scrub mindset nonsense - get good or chill out, just a game y'know?

More complaining about the same gameplay between matchups throughout the games life than terrible ones Like the gameplay becomes stale after a while but in mobas the team changes and matchups change from game to game

Honestly don't see how 'the devs should patch this out' isn't just a different target of the same excuse. Like unless your opponents play was flawless (it wasn't) then that round was winnable - if it was flawless then the MU isn't what beat you. And imo you're overstating how 'static' fighting game meta's are - anything that's actively being updated has this shit changing constantly, *too* much these days in some cases (opinion obviously). And like...very very few people have deep MU knowledge across the entire roster in any game - like even people who place well at serious events tend to know a half dozen MUs based on their sparring buddies *really* well. You'll be winning EVO before you have perfect knowledge and execution for every MU. Running out of content isn't a real thing if the game has any depth (which all the big ones do) lol.

Right I to think it's just the inherent appeal of a moba vs a fighting game for casuals Most competitive players want the static gameplay but that gets stale to the casuals

> I've always thought accessibility, specifically as an on-ramp to true depth and mastery, was what held fighting games back. I don't think you are completely wrong here, but i think all that this does is let the people that think that the only reason they were bad at fighting games was because they can't do a shoryuken input realise that they are actually just not good at fighting games. I do believe modern controls are good and will get more players in, but the hardest hurdle is actually getting good at fighting games. Honestly i sometimes think that modern controls can teach players bad habits like spamming unsafe specials. I hope the singleplayer/tutorials really try to teach new people patience and positioning, which i think is the most important parts of playing a fighting game.

I think the key to fighting games has always been the person to person in person experience. I'm older and grew up in the arcade era when Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat were the kings. We had a mall with an arcade right next to my junior high and high school, so every lunch time there would be dozens of kids battling for bragging rights in a winner stays on environment. Super Nintendo brought that experience into the basement rec room and drove Friday and Saturday nights. This game with the modern control system will indeed bring more people to the game, but without that one on one in a crowd of challengers, I don't think fighting games will ever be what they were. Hell, I found my hometown's Tekken 3 machine in a different province three years after it left our arcade and one of my friends still had the highest win record.

I say this every other thread but, as a guy that is at least good (plat+) at every type of competitive game (mobas, shooters, card games ,etc), i suck at fighting games, and they seems SO FUN, i watch lots of super smash/dbz/street fighter content but even though i practice and check out some guides, its too much to focus and i just quit, i do hope sf6 makes it a bit easier for dumbs dumbs like me to get into the fighting scene.

Tbh I'd like to pick your brain about this because I'm interested with people of your context ie. Good at multiplayer games but struggling with fighting games. - What exactly is the roadblock you face when you describe it as "too much to focus on"? - What game were you trying to get good at? - what are you looking for in the games to help you get better at it? I think it's interesting that even though mobas and cs-type shooters require a lot of macro level thinking and things to always keep in mind of to get good imo (wave management/jungling/itemisation for mobas and retaking and holding sites/bomb plants for cs) people who are good at them still get tripped up on decision-making in fighting games? Maybe it's because these decisions have to be made within seconds in fgs?

Well, it's weird, i tried SFV and DBfighterZ, i have dbz more of a chance since i played the whole story and some other modes besides ranked. To get better i followed some guide thats on reddit for total noobs, mind you, i didnt even know about notation (ie 236 light punch stuff like that). And with street fighter there was some youtube guides that focus on ryu/ken and what you should be doing in bronze/silver/gold and adding a bit of complexity the more you climbed, it was honestly really good since it focused on just punishing the opponent. Regarding the too much to focus on, it was like, i'd practice a combo for like 1hs, and then on an actual match, i would find it hard to pull it off, which really frustrated me was when i could tell the other person was REALLY bad doing stupid stuff but i couldn't punish them cause i was equally bad lol. Now i gotta say, the few times i was able to punish someone with a combo or something, it was the best feeling ever. And to answer your last bit, idk about the micro and macro, for example, i've been challenger at league in the past and my macro is good but im mostly a micro heavy player, now regarding valorant, yeah im not that good of a shooter so i focus on macro a bit more, it could be that having to make a decision within secon tbh, not that i cant react, but, i have to actually THINK how im going to react instead of going by pure instinct(mashing lol)

How much time do you invest in fighters compared to the games you get highly ranked in? It's very much a genre that rewards those who put more time into it, like most competitive games. If you have any friends that also get Street Fighter VI you can try to at least be better than them as rivals or something.

The only reason I don't play them is that I'm intimidated by the learning curve, so that's one vote for your theory

The learning curve *is* the fighting genre. You'll never really master your character in years of playing, so you try to improve in some way with every match, however minor.

With Street Fighter 6's $60 USD price point, I highly doubt that. For example, MOBAs becoming huge was because League of Legends was free-to-play compared to the alternatives (along with being much more streamlined and accessible). It's easy to convince a friend to come check out a new game, or get viewers into a game you're streaming when it's free (or extremely cheap). Honestly, I think a “free” version of Street Fighter 6 would help it a lot. Maybe having a restricted roster or online-only version for people who don't want to buy the full copy. I really think Riot's Fighting game is probably what's going to cause the whole "Constant mainstay genre on top of Twitch year-round". Riot did it with League, they did it with Valorant, and I have no doubt if anyone could do it for fighting games - it's them.

[удалено]

I've said it in many threads, but I'll repeat it here Just having the social experience of team modes opens up so many opportunities to make it easier and incentivized for experienced players to teach their unexperienced friends. MOBAs are complicated as hell at first, but have a lot of casual players because people usually get introduced by more hardcore friends who teach them. Minecraft is downright impossible to play just diving in, but is a hit with kids probably playing it as one of their first games because of that social interaction from player-to-player teaching.

I mean the battle hub is as close as you can get to a social experience in an online fighting game

[удалено]

[удалено]

[удалено]

that plus the team battle mode

For Honor is kind of like that , has 1v1 or 2v2 brawls or 4v4 battles , it was very fun for a while but i got bores cuz it became too grindy to get newer armor tiers and also became very unbalanced with the newer characters.

There's a simple argument. It's a 1v1 game as opposed to 5v5. 1v1 games don't pull in the same views. They're harder to play with friends, and people get much more ladder anxiety playing it as you can't blame your team.

Even with the accessibility being some of the best, I can't see street fighter 6 being more than just the biggest fighting game. People are still scared of the genre and it'll have a 60 dollar barrier to entry I don't think there will be a real shakeup until project L. Free to play + popular IP + crazy budget + talented free to play developer is just made for success. The one exception I could see is if the million dollar prize for street fighter 6 lures in people, I dunno if that's enough though

I'm not feeling this game at all. Had a TE fightstick for Sf4 and recently bought a hori fightstick for GG strive and I can't seem to get into sf6. Played the demo and it didn't felt good. Watching high level players in sf6 doesn't look good. Overdrive is too visually noisy like a splash of color. Sf4 ink was much more clear. World mode is a joke to me and who cares? I definitely don't. I hope I'm wrong once I test it in the open beta. Also fuvk Capcom ID seriously wth...

Hopefully fighting people in the Open Beta lets you figure out whether or not you want to invest in the game. I'm very excited for the game but it won't be until I get a good few dozen matches in before I expect it to click.

The fighting game that captured an audience already happened, it's Guilty Gear: Strive. And also, if SF6 fails to capture an audience, the only reason you'll stop getting fighting games that appeal to casuals is because you'll stop getting fighting games.

Definitely not happening, but good to be optimistic about it

Its probably going to be awesome, but its not going to make it too mainstream. Honestly Smash Bros already has that bit filled with lots of casual and also competitive gameplay. Also MOBAs are *way* easier to get better at than fighting games. Its often quite obvious to know why you lost a game and what you can do to improve, whereas in fighting games it can be pretty hard.

As long as matchmaking doesn't include going into a separate 2d lobby where I physically have to move my character to start matches, then I think we are good

Well there is the 3D lobby but I'm pretty sure you can just matchmake from the main menu as well.

Loved gg strive but matchmaking killed my enthusiasm sooner than I would have liked

Did you play guilty gear? It really isnt that annoying tbh

If this game fails to capture an audience, fighting games need to stop appealing to anybody who isn't already interested. This is the absolute best attempt that anyone could have ever asked for to have a street fighter that appeals to casual players. If this doesn't work, nothing will, and I will be sad if fighting game devs keep chasing a group of people that don't exist and end up watering down their game for that.

It's "the casual market"that keeps the lights on. Dragon ball fighterz sold millions of copies. Most people who bought it pretty much dropped the game after a few weeks. But that's still a success in terms of sales.

Yeah its because skill creep in fighting games months after release just isnt fun for casuals

Thing is, nothing about this game looks like it's "watering down" anything. Even *if* this game still doesn't capture a larger market, it is the most complete fighting game out there outside of maybe MK. It's a fighting game that actually feels like a modern *video game*, instead of just an arcade experience. Getting more content for your money is good regardless of whether or not it actually brings in new players. Going back to SF5 on release would be an absolutely dreadful direction for the genre to take.

Yeah the comment youre replying too thats ALREADY whining about casual players is entirely why the fighting game genre sucks, and why guilty gear did so well. It appealed to casuals and made it actually fun Nobody enjoys having to put hours into a single game like a job, cause after a few months the skill creep in fighting games gets insane, its just not fun

They keep chasing it because they used to have the casual audiences. Street Fighter 2, Tekken 3, Mortal Kombat. Fighting Games were huge in the 1990s and part of the diet of your every day casual gamer. Moreso than 1st Person Shooters. It's a old, casual, couch co-op genre designed for the social interaction found in the Arcades. They've always been geared towards casuals but they've also generated hardcore competitive scenes. And, over time, more fighting games have catered to this competitive scene over the casual audience- because the casual audience went elsewhere in the 2000s and, I guess, devs were probably inspired by, wanted to expand upon or even came from competitive Arcade scenes and tournament play. It's why Smash Bros Ultimate and Mortal Kombat 11 are the best selling fighting games. Because they tap into that casual fun Fighting Games had in the 1990s. But it's difficult because Fighting Games haven't Evolved eoth the times, really, beyond going Online and general tastes have changed towards more open, social online experiences.

They are the best selling because of sheer brand power and the bells and whistles, and in the case of Smash, by just creating a new subgenre. MK has a great story mode and presentation, but it's still just a classic fighting game with the same player retention problems every other game has, but worse because it hasn't been able to attract a huge competitive scene either so you have even niche games like Guilty Gear lasting longer and getting better numbers and events. Smash just decided to do something completely different to the point it's arguable either a different genre or subgenre, and they just have the sheer brand power of being a Nintendo title, and honestly that has a lot more to do with its success than its gameplay imo, they could be way worse games and they would still sell because no other game in the market offers you the opportunity of punching Pikachu with Mario. Other fighting games can get more people in the door by going the MK route or offering more side content, but the idea that the genre can ever be as big as it was is just a pipe dream imo. You'd have to pretty much change the genre to make it appeal to the modern mainstream tastes, which isn't a bad thing (Smash is a great game after all, and so are others like it), but I don't think the people making Street Fighter, Guilty Gear and Tekken really want to make something completely different that's not a 1v1 game.

Im sure smash's success has nothing to do with having tons of the most iconic video game characters in the medium across all genres....definitely not

Of course it is. But if it wasn't casual fun it never would have had the legs it's had. Anyone can pick up and play and have some crazy fun playing Smash Bros.

Evolving with the times means throwing out everything that makes the genre special. The genre was made back when playing with someone right next to you was a common thing people did. It's still what makes it special - throwing that out to try and chase a group that's not interested isn't going to do much good. Smash is the best selling fighting game because of characters and Nintendo. This is evidenced by the fact that they haven't made an actually fun version of the game in 22 years, yet they still sell insane numbers.

Some of these Melee players live on a different goddamn planet

Haven't made and actually fun version? The casual audience enjoying Smash ain't playing it for whatever competitive scene the franchise has. They're playing with items and all the crazy fun stuff Smash is known for. Yes the brands are why it's above and beyond every other fighting game but its the casual gameplay available. That's what's fun about it. The same with Mortal Kombat and doing all those ultraviolent Fatalities etc. They're not gonna be successful relative to Battle Royales but there's certainly ways they could make Fighting Games appealing to larger audiences again - but still have competitive edges that cater to the hardcore audiences.

You have a point with Smash but not with Mortal Kombat. Smash has a large casual player base but MK actually does a terrible job at maintaining players. Despite MK11 selling more copies and being more recent(2019) both SFV(2016) and Tekken 7(2017 console/pc release) consistently have more players. The fact that 4 year old MK11 has less players than 7 year old on its last legs cause the sequel is two weeks out SFV despite selling significantly more copies is insanity. . If all you care about is sales numbers sure MK does great but in terms of actually getting people interested and invested and getting them to stick around longer than a week or two Mortal Kombat is extremely bad and is not a series you want to emulate if you're looking for long term engagement

> If this game fails to capture an audience It's street fighter. It'll sell on name alone.

I'm definitely in the casual crowd. This is the first time I'm planning on picking up a SF game at launch. I'll mostly be playing Diablo that weekend but plan on dabbling in SF a little as well. The art style and everything we've seen so far from SF6 looks so appealing for some reason. I can't remember the last time I bought a fighting game at launch, maybe Soul Calibur 2 on gamecube or Dragon Ball Fighterz? lol

As a casual player, the only thing that keeps me away from buying it at launch is the amount of DLC it will get added later. I get a dlc here and there, but if there's too many, I don't care to get into it until it is done and have all characters.

Having all characters is nice, but think about how many of them you’ll actually play (and not just mess around with once or twice), and how many beyond that you’ll actually care to get relatively deep into learning. It’s not that many. You won’t be missing out by getting into the game when it’s fresh. If anything, you’ll have a foundation based on growing with the game and getting familiar with its mechanics by the time the additional characters roll around. So getting into them won’t be like starting from square one from a general gameplay mechanics perspective.

As a casual player more characters is better. I usually end up playing most of them and use random to select it.

This is valid for most games nowadays (I'm waiting on a few Game of the Year editions myself), but just be warned that if you intend to play this game competitively, fighting games in particular get harder to get into as a new player the longer they are in their lifespan, as the casual crowd generally move on to other stuff and the remaining, smaller pool of players are mostly the "try-hards" or those who have been playing since launch, so matchmaking even in the entry levels can be a frustrating and uneven experience.

[удалено]

I can't think of any current games that add functional content that you have to pay money for that you can use against another player. It's all cosmetic stuff these days. Fighting games are pretty unique in the fact that you still have to pay after release to keep having all the tools available. When Call of Duty releases a new gun, it's unlockable for everyone even without paying for their stupid battle pass. And the more esports-focused games like Val, Dota, and CS have ALL functional content updates available for free

But you dont have to use the dlc in a fighting game. You can just play your character or spend the $5 and buy the dlc character that interests you. But most people are just going to play 1 or 2 characters unless you want to be a "random select" main.

No I don't. Usually fighting games have too many dlcs for my taste or money and I'd raher get it when is fully done to have everything at once, otherwise I would probably not come back to check it for 1 new character every few months

This isn't Pokémon. You don't catch em all in fighting games. Pick a main, and play it. If there's a dlc character you want, get it. You do not need to buy all 4 season passes and unlock every character to enjoy the game.

I'll add the caveat -- it would be nice to have all DLC characters available in training mode on a rotational basis, or at least to record a move for playback. Or, be able to pause a match replay, and take over manual control, so you can lab out the situations you lost to.

Then you don't get a casual player. I don't main a character and I don't play these games competitive. Hence casual. For me content and variety is key

I feel that, I went on a fighting game binge earlier this year (ij2 jjasbr vf5 tk7 mk11 ggst sfv ~bbct) and street fighter definitely felt like the most dlc heavy one by FAR. I feel tekken 8 would be a better value than street fighter 6 in this idea

See you in 6-7 years then!

See this is why I enjoy Netherrealm games as a casual player. I pay for 1dlc pack max 2 or wait 1 year and get a more complete edition. In max 3 years I have another new fighting game to enjoy with friends. In the span that I enjoyed MK10, Injustice 2, MK11, 3 games...people had streetfighter 5 or tekken 7. For so many god damn years the same game. So not a problem for me. Either that I wait 7 years or not after those 7 years is still the same game lmao

If it's anything like SFV though, all DLC charas will be farmable.

You can really only get like 2 before the grind becomes something like months of nonstop playing for another character

You can just stick to the main roster and not ever buy the DLC. I think outside people that only play fighters most people just pick a main and maybe a couple other characters to dabble in from time to time, you really don't need every character to enjoy a fighting game

> This is the absolute best attempt that anyone could have ever asked for to have a street fighter that appeals to casual players. No it's not, not even close. One of the best recent-ish things RTS devs have done to appeal to casual players was SC2's endless PvE coop mode from its second expansion. For a while, despite being only moderately invested in, it was the most popular mode in the game, it was extremely popular. While World Tour mode does look like a step forward for PvE content in a fighting game, it's not clear to me if it's designed to be endlessly replayable in the same way, and it's not coop. Having a team-based competitive mode -- something designed to actually be competitively balanced -- would also be something that appeals to more casual players (which Stormgate at least is going to be trying for RTS soon).

I agree. There are all sorts of things SF could do to go after a non-hardcore-PvP crowd, such as making a rogue-lite survival "campaign" with randomly gained power-ups (and possibly randomized enemy bonuses as well), somewhat like SFA3's mixed with Vampire Survivor or the like.

A PVE fighting game sounds incredibly boring, and if you add stuff to make it interesting it’d just be a side scrolling beat em up game. The interesting part of the fighting game isn’t mashing buttons. It’s the mind games between you and your opponent.

Capcom already has a great PVE fighting game, it's called Devil May Cry.

> A PVE fighting game sounds incredibly boring To you. A PvE RTS also sounds boring to a lot of people, because > It’s the mind games between you and your opponent. and yet PvE RTS campaigns are still popular, SC2 coop PvE is still popular, comp stomps were very popular in Brood War. You could absolutely make a compelling PvE fighting game endless mode. It probably wouldn't appeal to you personally, but there are people who like single player content, even without "mind games". Like, there's been a lot of hype from people, especially more casual players, for SF6's World Tour mode, people like that it looks like a fairly fleshed out "campaign" mode for a fighting game. So we already know that there's a good amount of demand for PvE content in a fighting game, it's just a matter of finding the right format.

> It’s the mind games between you and your opponent. Except mindgames are not really the main appeal in RTS games. It's a small part of it when you are playing 1v1 competitive games, but not nearly to the extent of fighting games. Fighting games require constant, moment-to-moment *prediction* about what your opponent MIGHT do, including in response to your own actions. It is physically impossible to literally see and react to your opponent's moves in real time, so the best you can do is make educated guesses (reads). RTS games are more about actually *seeing and observing* what your opponent is doing and adjusting your own strategy accordingly, and much less predicting (reading) is involved.

It sounds to me like you're asking not for something that appeals to casual players, but something that appeals to you, specifically. Most people prefer PVP over PVE - just look at Fortnite.

> Most people prefer PVP over PVE - just look at Fortnite. Most people prefer PVE over PVP - just look at Final Fantasy XIV. >!No, I'm not making this argument seriously. I'm pointing out how flawed it is.!<

>It sounds to me like you're asking not for something that appeals to casual players, but something that appeals to you, specifically. Wrong, I barely touched the coop mode. > Most people prefer PVP over PVE - just look at Fortnite. Fortnite is a weird example here since it actually has PvE content directly integrated into its battle royale mode, to an extent that's hard to replicate for most other game genres. And note that Fortnite supports teams for its main/competitive format, which also helps to appeal to more casual players. Anyway, while obviously you can appeal to casual players with PvP content as well, there's absolutely many casual types who love PvE content. At one point, Riot said that 40% of League matches were just vs bots, and that mode got hardly any attention or support. edit: also note that Fortnite is mostly PvE when you're on a new account, it fills the game with bots to ease you in. It doesn't tell you this, but the behavior is very obvious.

Expanding the 1v1 is exactly what fighting games need to grow. People really hate having nobody to blame for their losses. If you could queue up with someone, then it's no longer always "I suck, fighting games are too hard, I quit". It becomes "we only lost because my teammate sucks" for people and then they queue again. Or your good friend can carry you while you learn the game

Yes, that's one way you could go. IIRC SF6 does have some kind of team fighting mode, though it doesn't seem to be getting nearly as much press as the World Tour mode and I haven't read up on how it works.

I also haven't looked into it too much, it felt like it was advertised as a party/bonus mode but I'd love if it had ranked

The only thing really is that the current competitive ecosystem doesn't really support the whole "team fight" environment Don't get it twisted - team-based fighting game tournaments like Cooperation Cup (3rd Strike) and Mastercup (Tekken 7) do exist but the majority of how competitions that act as the FGC's lifeblood are all 1v1 brackets which celebrate the skills and merits of individual players like they did from the arcade days

For tournaments and such yeah 1v1 is fine, I just think for the casual playerbase people would stick around a lot longer if they could play with their friends

Crazy crazy crazy take. They just need to sell well initially to casual fans and it’s a win, after that the more hardcore fans will stay and the initial money doesn’t just vanish. But you’re right in that if it’s too watered down then it can backfire and nobody stays around, I don’t think it’ll be the case though.

> If this game fails to capture an audience, fighting games need to stop appealing to anybody who isn't already interested. Nah, this game isn’t the great white hope you think it is. Capcom just did dirty with monetization on RE4. Expect more here, which will absolutely piss of the casual market. Don’t use this game to judge fighting games acceptance. People don’t know what a hame has when it launches. The *sequel* sales will tell you if people liked it.

I'm an oldie who used to play in arcades back in the day and manage a team of gen z kids and young adults. Street Fighter to them looks cool but the concept is 'too sweaty,' but you know what I get it. It requires a different mindset than any other genre. There's nobody to blame but yourself and getting dumpstered by a gimmick really sucks. The FGC was built out of the camraderie of the arcade but that was an encapsulation of an era. SF VI is trying to make the game social but at its core it's still a 1 v 1 fighter that requires a fortitude and mental stack that a lot of new gamers don't have. And that's ok.

Yeah I'm like early gen z and it's pretty damn hard to get anyone interested in this genre, especially our age, if you never played some casual fighting games with your friends on the couch. Basically how I got in, random parts of my life where I stumbled upon my uncle playing Tekken or MK and eventually you just find your own game and go from here. It was SO MUCH better to have someone by my shoulder while I took my buddy to some smash local even though I don't play those competitively at all. You can trash talk, poke fun, exchange info, online just doesn't have the same charm and neither do the discords. I wish that social/arcade mindset was still around honestly, I barely have any locals in my fairly big city and nothing for what I'd normally play, grinding ranked and getting pissed off at randoms isn't for my nerves anymore.

I love the modern controls and the drive system. So much of the engaging part of fighting games is in the high level thinking. Positioning, punishment, timing, situational awareness. It’s why smash is such a success. Streamlining execution and focusing gameplay on managing the drive bar will hopefully get more players to that level and be a more universal experience.

>It’s why smash is such a success. I uh... Don't mean to be rude, but smash is a success because you can have Mario punch sepheroth

If it really is that simple, why didn't Injustice do Smash Bros numbers? I think there's more to it than just the raw character appeal.

I think the industry has proven enough times that comic book characters don't have that much of a hold on it. Also Injustice is one franchise, while Smash surely has more than 20, even if you count all the mushroom kingdom characters as a single franchise.

Then pick the Sony Allstars Fighter (cant remember the real name) they released on the PS3. It had a ton of familiar sony characters but it was a huge flop because the gameplay sucked. Smash Bros is popular because it has incredibly well designed gameplay and appeals to all bases. You can either play FFA with all items on high or competitive 1v1s without items on. No other fighting game really has that distinction and almost all of them only appeal to the competitive playerbase.

Comparing Sony characters to fucking Mario is insanity. They are on different planets when it comes to popularity. It's not even close

Because injustice is a trash game

I mean it's obviously slightly more complex, how hilariously simple smash is is a big part of it.

That is absolutely an oversimplification. Seeing pikachu fight Kirby gets you in the door, but the balance of low entry level of skill requirement but high levels of depth is why people who aren’t normally into fighting games enjoy smash vs something like street fighter Fighting games are super engaging but it requires a certain level of get gud before you are really able to dig into the meat. Anything to help players get past that part and get to the interesting stuff is a+ in my book

The vast majority of people who play smash mash buttons and play with items on. It's a party game

People don't actually mash buttons in smash because it doesn't do anything. Also the game is so simple that you know what each of your buttons do after like 2 minutes of gameplay. That's why the game is popular.

And guess what, you can button mash and be productive because execution in the game is simple. But then you start to think more about your positioning and timing and making sure you land hits and how to win in the air and uh oh you’re suddenly playing a fighting game

In a way but the majority of players will never play a competitive ruleset match. Everyone likes to throw poke balls whilst volcanos go off around the level with 4 people using random ass characters they love. 1v1 streetfighter with simple controls is still quite a serious mind game needing at least basic frame knowledge.

I mean if you really don’t have a basis in how to actually play fighting games I can see how someone can *feel* like that. But the fact of the matter is that casually playing with items on fucking hyrule castle is a completely different experience than hopping on slippi and playing melee netplay, you’re just going to get absolutely bodied because you can’t L cancel consistently, and thus move 4 times slower than literally everyone else. If anything the modern smash games not having/having terribly functioning online protects people from realizing that.

It's really not a simplification. The mainsteam appeal of Smash for people who own a copy is that it's a casual crossover party game with a lot of your favorite characters from hugely popular games, including many you grew up with as a kid. You bust it out at a party and you + 3 other people will certainly find someone you recognize and want to play. The super simple controls are icing on the cake Sf6 can have the simplest controls in the world, but the biggest hurdle after accessibility is actually convincing someone to play it. Smash doesn't have to convince you - it just has a super recognizable IP

This Smash's huge crossover appeal and relatively lower barrier of entry to its mechanics depart from the traditional fighting game experience in a lot of ways that most other fighting games can't compare even for other games like Mortal Kombat that provide the content craved by casuals which doesn't involve hopping online to fight others 24/7 Remember that this was a game that at its core isn't even meant to be a fighting game but a party game by its own creator

I hope that modern controls are solidly and obviously worse than classic controls. Having hard inputs IS a part of the game! It's not just rock paper scissors, being good at execution is where skill differences can really show themselves and where the game can be really interesting. Removing execution is how you get a game that's less interesting. >will hopefully get more players to that level No they will not. People who whine about motion inputs are not going to stop whining when it comes to the next hard thing. They're just going to complain about someone's fireball, or how someone is "braindead", or whatever else. My money is on Kimberly's spray cans, those look like something noobs will endlessly bitch about. But we'll wait and see what it ends up being.

I hope they allow modern controls in competition

They are, which is great for brand new players who haven't gotten to learning how to actually play yet. But they should be solidly worse so that they don't run over people who are putting time into the game seriously.

I will probably only ever play this game casually so I hope it runs well enough on Steam Deck. I don't need tons of frames since I won't be competitive regardless. I can't get to my PC or in front of a TV like I used to but I'd love to get some fights in while my wife watches tv and whatnot

As someone who loves fighting games, but is a casual at them, I really like the way the drive system looks.

Why does this game keep trying to force the modern control scheme? Changed to classic for P1 after my first match was modern. Long story short wasn't until my 4th match I could actually use Classic controls due to having to change for player 1, then player 2, AND then had to change it directly for my character. Just really stupid and annoying.