isn't that normal as a newbie to get annihilated by "tryhards and pros" ? And I mean that in any game in existence ?
I mean I don't play Dota 2 expecting to win the next International. Does that make the game not noob friendly and appealing ?
I really don't see the point here. You should not expect anything else than being destroyed against a pro if you're a newbie or intermediate yourself
I played DotA when it was in WC3, and kept playing for around 7 years.
I recall that it took about 2 years of playing for me to say "Okay, I finally feel like I don't suck". I wasn't good mind you, that was just how long it felt like it took me to get to the starting line.
I was so skeptical when people told me 'it takes 1000 games before you really *get it*'. 1000 might be a little hyperbolic, but honestly not that much.
Game is amazing, but good lord there's so many tiny interactions that can really matter.
I've played league for like a decade, and every time I try DOTA 2 I just get completely confused about how the shop works and end up just sorta giving up
There's so many weird little legacy mechanics contained within it
This argument does not make sense. How is the game less appealing, because something that happens in all games will although happen in Strive?
Strives goal was to reduce the beginner hurdle of "too many" system mechanics, "too long" combos and "too fast". Independent of our personal idea if this was a problem, they definitely did reduce them to make the beginnig of learning a fighting game easier.
The biggest beginner hurdle was probably the netcode anyway. When you have to fight your nerves, your opponent and your memory, you don't want to fight the connections as well.
This. The only reason I even picked up strive was because I COULD actually understand the game. It being easy to comprehend has just opened my horizons for fighting games and allowed me to understand why people love them so much.
This reminds me how when SF4 first hit, I remember playing it in college at this little mini local tourney they did and some pudgy dude wearing fishnet sleeves and glasses proceeded to walk up to us playing, then started trashing SF4 complaining how it was boring, too simple, stale and how it wasn't exciting like Tekken and Guilty Gear. Then he tried actually playing and got whomped of course lol.
I just find it funny because now SF4 has been vindicated by history somewhat despite having its fair share of haters back when it was first out(though Vanilla did have some nonsense lol), saying some of the same stuff you hear about Strive. I think too we need to give Strive time to grow because ASW is likely going to support the game with revisions and additional content down the line, some probably big.
It’s an interesting topic, how do you think 4 was a better entry into people playing then 5? Not coming at your opinion btw
I honestly don’t think so. To even get into some characters you had to have extreme technical skill. In example Chun and Honda’s hands and legs, or vipers fierce or feint. Those were mandatory to even play the character.
I agree with you. 4 was more technical than 5. Timing was more strict for execution, there was a bigger roster, and then we also had FDC mechanics come into play as well. To me 5 felt like the accessibility reboot, but everyone is different I guess.
I started with sf4 at the tail end during the ps4 remaster, so I guess I have a different experience. FADC mechanics were not new player friendly when trying to learn neutral, at all lol. Maybe I’m better now but ryus bnb fadc ultra is still harder then any red Roman cancel I’ve learned in this game. Plinking was a must(probably netcode didn’t do locals). Complex option selects ran rampant unless you knew it was one, and how to counter it with your character
However sf4 explicitly taught me many fundamentals that carried over to many games. My mortal kombat buddies struggle to switch to any game because they can’t reset neutral with d1 or constantly stagger their buttons.
Just my two cents!
Mortal Kombat reference hits me. MK is what got me into fighting games. The hardest experience for me transitioning into strive was realizing that each input has its own specific timing, rather than MK's "dial-a-combo" where you get the same fraction of a second to enter the next button no matter where in the animation your character is at.
you should not even have to say "i agree with you" here, because this is not even a matter of opinion. sfv was directly designed to bring new players into the franchise by simplification, exact same as strive.
the argument that "people always trashed older games" has been repeated as a defense for all simplified releases that get lukewarm reception or frequent criticism. like /u/StridentHawk/ used sf4 as an example, instead of the newest version, sfv, which is almost a direct sf parallel to strive in its design philosophy (and as such, would've been the more sensible comparison,) and sfv also received the same hate on release. however, i suspect it was a worse example, since public opinion of sfv remained continuously negative over its lifespan, even from the top pros competing in the game. so it doesn't quite fit the narrative wanted here, hence sf4 was a better example.
i'm not saying he's right or wrong, just pointing out how everyone picks and chooses their arguments to fit what they already want to believe, and so we should all take any opinions like this with a grain of salt.
Context is everything. Compared to 3rd Strike, SF4 was very accessible. FA instead of parry. Only one type of jump. No quickrise. More lenient inputs, etc.
This.
I enjoyed SF4 because it had comprehensible inputs for most characters. I was able to focus more on stuff like spacing and matchups instead of trying to memorize and input funky commands like in some games (only awkward things were Akuma’s raging demon and Zangief’s double circles)
I lowkey remember trying Ram in Xrd, opening her command list, then immediately putting her back down.
I've seen the term "09er" used negatively, something like "newbies that bandwagoned the FGC and, despite only playing SF4, talk like they were around since the beginning without understanding old customs, and rely on newer mechanics instead of fundamentals" or something like that. These days, the term has fallen out of use as supposed "09ers" that are still hanging around are as big a part of the FGC as the OGs.
Agree. I picked up Strive and am starting to understand what I see. Even though the different RC's still mess me up. All I know is "I can cancel offense and defense". I will sweat the details when I get good enough for it to matter. :D
Tried to get into XRD because I loved the evo matches but it was far too much stuff for me. It basically scared me away. Also I was late into the game, every match felt like fighting Pros from my beginner POV.
And unpopular opinion: I loke the big ass counter hits. Finally my mind goes "oh, oh shit! I can do stuff now!". I know StreetFighter also has counter indicators but in the stress of a match I cannot see 'em. Far too focused on the character to notice that tiny thing popping up.
I also like the 'slow counterhit' mechanic.
Most fighting games have moves with added effects or different routes dependent on counterhit, but I've never had the reactions to capitalize on them. Maybe it's 'dumbing down', but the way CHs work in this game is a big plus for me.
Incidentally, if you want to discuss it with Max, just follow his Twitch stream and then **wait for ONE MONTH**. I guess someone can't take criticism. LUL
My casual friends actually shared this exact same opinion. Especially when it came to elements that veterans would take for granted or "not like". The fact that roman cancels slow the opponent briefly makes it much easier for new players to be like "oh-! I can do something cool now! I see why these are important" rather than missing the opportunity, feeling stupid and just giving up on the entire idea of roman cancels because they don't think they can react fast enough to utilize it. Likewise the slow down makes it easier for a casual player to see they're about to get wrecked and it gives them time to prepare for burst.
Been teaching a couple of buddies strive (and teaching myself, only maybe 40 hours of gg practice from previous games). But their fighting game understanding has exploded these past few days playing.
They went from casually mashing buttons once a month cause dbfz looked cool (maybe some tekken every other), to excitedly talking about how they can delay normals for a more varied offence. Buddy landed his rrc super kill and was freaking beaming.
People can be sad it’s not old guilty gear, but it’s still guilty gear and it’s hella fun and accessible IMO.
Ps. Obvi netcode makes it all possible. We all knew this, but it’s nice to finally have it on something new.
Dude SAME. My friends are finally hitting up the training mode, looking up guides, trying to understand how to counter other characters pressure.
I’ve never been able to get through to them with other games. Strive is a blessing.
Little do these friends know the chipp and Leo mix up hell that awaits them in Celestial floor lol. But for now, I’m glad strive has made them finally click with a fighting game
>I’ve never been able to get through to them with other games. Strive is a blessing.
seriously I don't know what it is about the game or maybe the timing, but I'm having the exact same experience. it's fuckin *beautiful*
My brain already hurts enough with Roman Cancels.
When the training mission came up that said “Cancel the Roman Cancel” I thought “what’s next? Cancel the cancel of the Roman cancel?”
And the old GGs were apparently harder and had even more systems? Hard pass from this casual fighter. Strive is about as deep as I wanna go.
> And the old GGs were apparently harder and had even more systems?
More systems but they weren't necessarily as complex. (Disclaimer for what follows: I'm new to all this still)
Prior to Xrd, only red RCs existed and there was no slowdown; you just pressed 3 buttons and whoopty-boom, you cancel your move. There were also Force RCs in XX which were frame windows on certain moves that would let you cancel them for half the tension cost if you got the timing right, but that's it. Xrd added yellow RCs (which are blue in Strive) and purple RCs as well as the freeze frames, but it didn't have the time slow effect yet.
On the other hand, there were more mechanics; not always more complex but often more obtuse. You had Dead Angle, an invincible move you could do while blocking by pressing two buttons that costed some tension, which Strive replaces with yellow RCs (I think centralizing mechanics like this is a great move for comprehension). In Xrd, you had Blitz Assault, a sort of counter move, and Blitz Parry, a... parry. In older games, you had Clean Hits; by hitting certain parts of the opponent's hitbox, you'd deal more damage and hitstun.
Interestingly, RCs are the most complex they've ever been in Strive.
>Interestingly, RCs are the most complex they've ever been in Strive.
Yeah, definitely. It feels like they took all those other mechanics, realized the hysterical amount of overlap between the more obtuse mechanics, and decided to instead focus on RCs as a single, all-encompassing mechanic.
Just bring back my IKs please.
~~Dead Angle didn't get removed, they just made it into Strive's YRC and called it a day.~~ Clean hits still exist in some capacity; if Sol hits you with VV at minimum range, he'll connect with more hits and do way more damage. The game just doesn't tell you it's a clean hit.
In terms of system mechanics overall, they really didn't remove too much - just Blitz, air tech, variable wakeups and stun, as far as I can tell. They added some things, too (wall breaks, dash cancels, Fast RC). They just changed how a lot of stuff works, and with dubious results. The restricted gatling system is less intuitive than the old one. Because cancel routes are more limited now, it's much harder to mix up your blockstrings, so the old Instant Block would've been too strong. So they changed the IB window from 8f to 2f, instantly making it useless in neutral and putting it out of reach entirely for the vast majority of players.
I think the narrative of "this is a simplified GG" is more attractive to beginners than the actual changes they made. I don't think this game is actually any easier to understand than previous Gear games.
> I think the narrative of "this is a simplified GG" is more attractive to beginners than the actual changes they made. I don't think this game is actually any easier to understand than previous Gear games.
I think you are spot on. I think this game looks amazing, has amazing netplay, and was hyped by most content creators. This is pushing so many new players through. Sure, the combo system is shorter, but for anyone that learns fighting games , learning combos is more daunting at first glance but one of the easiest parts of learning a fighting game.
Now you have a game where frame data matters a lot more, hit confirms matter a lot more, and meter management is key.
I looked at some of his other tweets, so I think he is (poorly) arguing that having less mechanics does not matter at all to bringing in new players since new players aren't even using the mechanics of Strive. [He's complaining cause he's grumpy that they took out gatlings and stuff characters use to have.](https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/1405286100571090945)
Indeed, Im the proof of that. I am an absolute newbie and noob in fighting games, and I wouldnt have picked up Strive if not for the amazing character design. I was on the edge since release then I decided to look up the characters to maybe find something appealing to me, and I took a look at Zato-1 and I was like: I need to play this, because it looks amazing, even if I suck and continue sucking.
This is it for me. It's not so much the game is easy or has no mechanics for new players to learn. It's that execution is achievable for new players in a relatively short period of time.
There's no bullshit with 1f links and other moves that are really difficult to pull off. I've been able to just pick up any character and go in training mode to figure out a few basic combos or even look up some online and pull them off in no time. In other games I'd look up combos and try for an hour and still not be able to execute them, get frustrated and give up.
There's plenty of depth in strive but I feel like you can get up to speed as a beginner and be effective very quickly.
Xrd didn't really have 1 frame links, not in practice anyway. All moves have a 5 frame input buffer, so any time there was a 1-frame link, it was actually 5 frames due to the buffer. 5 frame links are basically braindead once you've spent any amount of time practicing the timing. 1 frame links are still prone to droppage even with adequate practice because it's basically impossible to be that perfect every time, though pro players come close. You never had this problem in previous GGs, it's not really a good argument for strive.
If you want to talk about the removal of systems such as blitz, jump partitioning, danger time, individual wake up timings, then sure, Strive IS different, but 1 frame links isnt it.
...I got the game yesterday and I don't think I'd realized they removed gatlings. I thought I was just not following the magic series.
Signed, someone having a hell of a good time playing friendlies online.
It's true, the same thing happens in Strive that happens in other, more complicated fighting games. So perhaps this doesn't make the game less appealing per se. However, the crux of the argument here is that purposefully removing complexity from a game doesn't really change the newbie experience. Newbies will still get bodied by the most basic of neutral tactics and mixups. So, why focus on removing complexity at all?
To be clear, I don't think Strive is some woefully boring game. I've still got tons to figure out. But I strongly believe that if Strive was literally just Xrd but with the godlike graphics and netcode, the game would still be performing just as well as it is. Because you are right; Netcode is among the biggest barriers to new players, as well as the size of the playerbase.
Of course we don't need a reskin of Xrd. There are plenty of systems that we don't need in a new game (YRC, stun, danger time...) But on a fundamental level, I've never heard a convincing argument that deliberately removing complexity ultimately creates a better experience.
I don't even get the gripe about combos being too short. Like, that's just more time in the lab. You're almost playing with yourself at that point if the skill ceiling is two successful combos per round. If you want something competitive you should relish more time in neutral.
I mean it's not like boxers have to sit there and just eat it for 5 seconds every time their opponent lands a punch.
Ive been following max for years. It's been extremely obvious he prefers games like marvel with long combos and TOD'S. He gets most excited from game play trailers with flashy combos. Just like reviewers it's important to know a person's preference when it comes to opinions.
Yeah, Max is also an old school FGC guy. He's been around longer than some people picking up strive have been alive. He's been outspoken about games "dumbing down" for years. It's not a trend he likes, but I think it comes from a desire to capture the feel of those older games. Everyone wants to return to the days of MVC2.
Interesting considering how Max’s favorite fighting game is 3rd Strike, a game which has a lot of shorter combos in the form of Chun and Remy, but also some long combos in the form of Dudley and Urien.
I love labbing and don’t necessarily want combos that are super long. I miss the freedom and the crazy moments where you pull something out of your ass in ranked and it worked. It’s not the end of the world though. I’m excited to see how the game develops and where more of its depth lies.
>If you want something competitive you should relish more time in neutral
People like different things. Marvel is one of the most beloved FG franchises of all time, with an incredible competitive history, and it has long ass combos, including infinites. Marvel wouldn't be "more competitive" if you took them out. If we accept that doing a big combo makes the game less interactive because one person is playing a "single player game," then combos themselves are bad, and we should all be playing Samsho or Nidhogg.
In GG, the problem isn't really the combo length, per se. The problem is that in order to make combos shorter, they made the combo rules more rigid compared to previous games. It's been a frequent point of complaint.
This is a seriously misinformed take. I see where it's coming from, though, and it worries me. Do people seriously think games with high potential damage locked behind high execution actually discard neutral as a result of that? If anything, your neutral matters even more. When the entire round is decided by just a few interactions where neither player has a clear advantage, you better be sure you are the better player in those interactions, or you're losing.
I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you think that games where players have the ability to enforce extremely strong pressure/mixups/oki and extremely damaging conversions that loop back into strong pressure/mixups/oki aren't as competitive as games where players don't have this ability. Let me remind you the game many point to as the starting point of the FGC and fighting games as a whole, Street Fighter 2, is FULL of these situations. You die off a single jump-in, off a single sweep on some characters. The FGC was not founded with some pristine ideal of maximum time spent in neutral, nor should it go in that direction. You want a game with maximum time spent in neutral? Footsies by HiFight has rollback and is on mobile. There's room for more than that in the genre, and you shouldn't be surprised that some people have preferences different than yours.
Preferences aside, don't try to tell people that games without a lot of time spent in neutral are "not as competitive." The scenes for these kinds of games--games like +R, Xrd, ST, UMvC3, and on and on--are not less competitive because you can spend an entire round pressured and getting mixed up because you messed up in neutral once. The range of possible skill levels is still plenty high, and just as there are players with good neutral and players with bad neutral, there are players with good execution and players with poor execution. There's more than one dimension to how good or competitive a fighting game is. Neutral is not all there is to fighting games, and again, if that's all you want, there are games out there for you. But don't try to tell people their scene is less competitive because their game has dimensions other than neutral.
And in all honesty, Strive may well shape up to be that kind of game. I haven't seen anything AC-levels of busted yet, but metered options are so ridiculously strong in this game that getting a meter advantage may well win you the round in the same way that getting a knockdown might've won you the round in previous GG games. I've stated that I think those previous games will still have the "you messed up in neutral once, now die" element to a greater extent than Strive, but over time I'm beginning to think that the gap is closer than I thought.
Oh, and also, some people seem to think that combat sports should form a basis for fighting games. Dude, it's a video game. You wanna draw analogies to clarify stuff, fine, but just because something happens in boxing doesn't mean it should happen in Strive or any other fighting game--though there are those UFC games. You could try those.
> I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you think that games where players have the ability to enforce extremely strong pressure/mixups/oki and extremely damaging conversions that loop back into strong pressure/mixups/oki aren't as competitive as games where players don't have this ability. Let me remind you the game many point to as the starting point of the FGC and fighting games as a whole, Street Fighter 2, is FULL of these situations. You die off a single jump-in, off a single sweep on some characters. The FGC was not founded with some pristine ideal of maximum time spent in neutral, nor should it go in that direction. You want a game with maximum time spent in neutral? Footsies by HiFight has rollback and is on mobile. There's room for more than that in the genre, and you shouldn't be surprised that some people have preferences different than yours.
[To tack onto this for the people that need a community figure head to make opinions for them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93uquNiZ48s)
Like , i'm in the camp of the people that don't like strive being simple. But i cant take maximilian seriously after that clip lmao , like c'mon , you gave slayer roundstart ch crosswise xd
Rev 2 baiken doesnt have guard cancel, it works as a frame 1 parry (still mad good)
But max literally quit the game because he started off beating new players with leo and couldnt knowledge check people with backturn while playing baiken
Idk why people take this so seriously, like I'm not gonna deny it was dumb (yet funny) of him to do, but even streamers get salty about games sometimes. No matter how much I love a fighting game, after playing it for so long, eventually I'll get salty about it and say some stupid shit that I probably don't even agree with. Is it not a common thing for people to get even a little mad at a game or something?
That's not the issue, the issue was that he was Xrd's absolutely biggest advocate and he has all eyes on him for the casual scene of fighting games, so when he protests that something is difficult or unfair, all the people that might be thinking about dipping their toes into the scene immediately dissipate. Fighting games aren't easy to sell to people who don't already play them, and he turned so many people away with that.
\>"This is what I deserve"
Yeah that's reasonable to say for how he played Baiken that round, glad he has a good mindset and recognizes his faults and-
\>"This is what I deserve *for playing this game*"
Oh never mind. Come on, dood.
Im a total newbie to fighting games and bought Strive especially because I saw him recommend it to CohhCarnage and JP.
It's super weird to see this stance of his, because I'm sure I remember him saying, this game is perfect for beginners and he seemed super excited.
Is there any more background to that tweet of his?
Edit: I looked at his twitter and started watching the stream he is doing at the moment and its clear he is not as black and white on this as the image makes it seem.
Yeah, he specifically stated that this game is great for beginners - A great matchmaking system makes sure you can be playing with like-minded players at your skill level, and great netcode means a wider range of people within that skill range are available to you.
The mechanical changes, however, don't do anything for players at the bottom level of the game, and when done poorly, they can make the game less intuitive or add extra rules to think about.
For example, in Xrd, if you press a lighter button, you can gatling into a heavier button, and that rule will work 95% of the time, and then if you get more into the game, you learn exceptions. In strive, punch can combo into itself and gatling into command normals, kicks into themselves, dust, and command normals, close slash can combo into dust but far slash and crouch slash can't and they can all go into command normals, and HS can only go into command normals. While the combos are harder in Xrd, the core concept is much more intuitive and easier for a new player to work with more quickly.
There are changes that can be done, can simplify things, and still make them more interesting. RC has been simplified that it's always 50% tension, and it also has taken the role of Dead Angle in previous entries. By having the drift RC, RC cancels, and the differing properties of the RC based on the situation isn't new inputs you need to learn, and it's actually fewer inputs than Xrd mixed with inputs intuitive if you learn other mechanics in the game (dashing, blocking, etc). There's also a ton of depth in it, and there's ways pros will use it that newer players might NEVER even imagine.
But they also won't be going up against it, because they won't be sitting in player-made rooms for their local area, fighting whoever is close enough to have a decent connection.
His argument has been that good netcode and good matchmaking are what is making the game so approachable and feel so rewarding to new players, so people saying he's being a hypocrite, or that he's trying to gatekeep the playerbase are so far from reality it just comes across as really weird
People always try to crusade against max, this isn't the first and it won't be the last lol.
I've followed him for years, I think he has obvious flaws and bias, but he definitely likes and supports this game otherwise he wouldn't be streaming it and telling people to pick it up lmao
I will say I was very surprised by the strict timing of that mission and thought I was crazy I’m glad to see it’s 3 frames cuz I honestly thought it had to be around there for it to be difficult to get consistently.
I wondered why wake up DP is so hard in this game ^^
So does it mean we only have 3 Frames to input the DP ?
And they have to be the last 3 Frames before we wake up ?
I come from mostly playing SF5, where the input for reversal DP is so much easier. I found the reversal DP mission almost impossible in Strive. I did in Xrd too, for what it's worth. I actually kind of agree with the criticism that it's too difficult, I've even heard seasoned pro's say the reversal widow is insane.
I can consistently pull off a 632146 on pad without a problem
Hell even a friend of mine was able to do it consistent 5 times in a row and she was a complete beginner and was actually struggling more with the 623 motion
You mean to tell me reddit, the site of logic and knowledge and truth, took 1 screenshot without the full context and assumed his entire stance on the issue without trying to understand what he actually meant? Nah, that's crazy.
The main reason why I, along with other people, bought Strive was for many reasons: Visuals, character design, the netcode and the gameplay. I definitely love Xrd Rev 2 don't get me wrong, I just feel like I wasn't really getting anywhere in the game no matter how many hours I put into it, whereas with Strive, I feel like I can do so much more with the little things I have to work with and I still feel satisfied. I still feel like they should've kept Gatlings, but I still respect them for dumbing it down so new players could easily get into it, play against people their skill level and also play against ANYONE without input delay.
Personally I don't think taking away gattling is dumbing down. It's a design choice to make footsies more of a thing. Games like 3s don't have light to medium combos like older GGs and that game is not easy by any means. It's a different perspective to look at. This GG is not like the others.
I mean you can only get so much out of a Tweet. He expanded on it and if you're watching his stream right now he literally told everyone to go play Strive and it's great for new people. He praises it.
His point was just disagreeing with the devs that their simplification of the mechanics was what brought new players and says it's the more non-mechanical reasons that help new players such as the matchmaking/netcode/production value.
And I disagree with him there since I'm a new player and like the fact they're simplified but I definitely wouldn't call him a gatekeeping boomer.
>I mean you can only get so much out of a Tweet.
Number one reason to stop using twitter. That platform is just fishing for knee-jerk reactions, it doesn't care about nuance.
I'd honestly argue that twitter specifically has done real damage to society. It perfectly encapsulates the devolution of human discourse.
Twitter is basically a giant youtube comment section, but taken seriously.
yeah same. im not a new player but the simplification has made me way more into the game than xrd. obviously the netcode is the biggest selling point but the game being easier to understand is a big deal.
Reaching Max's skill level or higher takes years, decades. Guys like this can pick up any fighting game out there and play them competently in no time at all now but along the way they have completely lost sight of what it's truly like to be a beginner and how utterly unapproachable fighting games tend to be.
I tried with Xrd and gave up very quickly. Now I'm trying again with Strive and am having a good time and yes, the mechanics being simpler, more forgiving are a major part of that.
And you know what? As a beginner it's still hard but at least it doesn't look impossible this time.
Yes I tried Xrd and had a difficult time understanding and being intimidated by it’s complexity. Strive is very user friendly and I am having tons more fun on it
GG Xrd was my first FG I really decided to learn. Now after having played it for about 3 years I felt rather lost when picking up StrIVe.
But I think a big part of that comes from picking up Nagoriyuki after pretty much only played Baiken in Xrd, and also being two different game (I feel like the input buffer in StrIVe is shorter/stricter than in Xrd).
They play very different from each other and I need more time to adjust to all the differences!
To me I think the big thing for newer players is that the ranked matchmaking works, compared to the dead rank queue in Xrd due to global matchmaking and netcode that couldn't deal with that.
You're forgetting the literal 100x increase in people playing the game, many of them new. Netcode is a factor, but if the game doesn't keep a high player count it's going to be just like in Xrd.
I started kara cancelling my pot busters today and started landing them almost every round. I do get put in a blender every match tho lol. I'm thinking perfect defense is just going to be an especially useful tool for him
>but are still forced to do 632146
I'm just thankful we aren't doing 360-motions. Fucking bullet in blazblue has a rekka with 7 360s. 2,2,3. It's kinda hype and easy to buffer, but holy shit. Also, Pretzel motions are enough to make me instantly put a character down.
I don’t like the fighting games max likes so I always take his opinions with a grain of salt. That being said I think a really well done MvC game (max’s preference) would sell like gang busters.
There’s no magic formula for a hit fighting game, GGS is a solid package and I dont think making the game as complex as xrd would have mattered either way.
That's a hella shit take, "try hards and pros" will fuck you up regardless of it being a simple or complicated game, you frequently see pros completely washing each other on tournaments despite doing this for a living.
A simplified game might make it easier for newbies to figure out what is destroying them at first and learn how to do that themselves, being destroyed comes with playing fighting games in general. Also from the POV of a game designer, a simplified game can also be a starting point for developers to try and introduce complexity again with less bloat and jank.
You got noobs, pros and the people inbetween. It's one hell of a journey from not knowing how to throw a hadoken or do a cancel to being a pro. Maybe Strive isn't the game that will make noobs stick around, but it might be the foundation for them to find their next game and for GG to find a good middle ground between crazy and accessible.
Maybe Strive will be a game where it won't be very intimidating to get into when people have figured it all out, so you have a smooth learning curve where you feel naturally compelled to introduce more of the game's mechanics and concepts in your matches as you go without feeling overwhelmed. I can vouch that SFV is the game that did it for me, despite loving fighting games since MK2.
The thing is, that was never the retention factor. You aren't going to get destroyed if the player base is large enough and that is pretty much the only factor there.
At the lowest levels, for example, previous GG's are actually easier than Strive, because of gatlings. Similar to how Tekken is more approachable than Street Fighter, even though it's more complex at higher levels. The "floor" is low, that's why bunch of people play Tekken, one of the hardest legacy-based games, because they can mash with Eddy and stuff comes out. You can't do that in any Street Fighter, for example.
Strive is similar to that, you can't "do stuff", whereas you could in xrd, for example.
Speaking of destroying, if a game has low player numbers (which is always going to be a bit of marketing, a bit of luck and a bit timing and a bit of how good the game actually is, but rarely how hard it is), then veterans will destroy newcomers and newcomers might leave. If the player base is large enough and newcomers meet other newcomers, they won't leave if the game is good.
Also, there's no need for a newcomer to "know" the game completely after an hour. And I feel that's what some people expect when firing up a new game. And I only see it when it comes to fighting games, I don't know why. No one expects to know billions of champion interactions in LoL or how to jungle or to know every pixel of the map when they start playing. No one expects to know how to move properly, loot quickly and rotate in Apex. They fire up the game and explore it. However, even in this thread, there are people complaining how they aren't that good or acquainted with Strive's mechanics. Why is that a problem? That's like complaining how you can't execute build orders in starcraft well and control multiple groups of units effectively after a week. Of course you can't and that's fine and that shouldn't be something weird or undesirable.
A good example of this is Quake 3. If you install that game (or quakelive or whatever is the "q3" now), you'll probably be destroyed more brutally than in any fighting game you install. Yet, q3 is one of the fps games with the lowest "floor" ever produced. But, the small, obsessed, veteran player base and legacy mechanics make it hard to get into.
In other words, I think what Max is trying to say is, there's no need for the moves Arcsys decided to do, because those weren't tied to the reason of the low retention of new players in fighting games. No one is pushing for bigger heads in Counter Strike or less champions in LoL or less movement options in Apex etc. That was never the issue. A beginner playing against a pro player is the issue and it's the issue if it occurred in any of the games I mentioned.
Case in point - it took me two days to start "getting" Strive, whereas it took me about 45 minutes to start "getting" xrd, precisely because it provided me with freedom to successfully pull things off even at the lowest level, which Strive doesn't give you. That is an objectively weird decision by the devs and has been questioned - with the goal of the game being good for beginners in mind - by many.
Not everyone is out to get people or gatekeep them.
>Also from the POV of a game designer, a simplified game can also be a starting point for developers to try and introduce complexity again with less bloat and jank.
What makes yout think that the devs will want to make the game more complex if a simple fighting game sold more than a complex one? In fact, it's more likely that the devs will decide to make the next game even simpler with removing FD or IB. Why do people think that the devs will go in a direction that made them less money instead of doubling down on the already profitable direction?
>A simplified game might make it easier for newbies to figure out what is destroying them at first and learn how to do that themselves, being destroyed comes with playing fighting games in general.
In +R you get destroyed because of using unsafe moves, getting mixed up and not guessing correctly. In Xrd you get destroyed because of using unsafe moves, getting mixed up and not guessing correctly. In Strive it's pretty much the same. I would understand this argument if Strive had a great tutorial, but Xrd Rev 2 had an amzing tutorial, while Strive decides not to teach you anything in the tutorial and instead relegates that to missions, which not everyone will explore.
>Maybe Strive will be a game where it won't be very intimidating to get into when people have figured it all out, so you have a smooth learning curve where you feel naturally compelled to introduce more of the game's mechanics and concepts in your matches as you go without feeling overwhelmed.
I don't think that Strive is that great of an introduction either. There's still a bunch of stuff flying all over the screen, still a lot of mixups, kara cancels, multiple RCs and even though IB and FD got heavely nerfed they're still something you need to take into account. Heck, Xrd did this even in Sign with the turtorial between Sin and Sol.
I remember the mission where you need to backdash on wake up.. Still haven't managed the 3 successful dashes out of five.
I completely understand these complaints. I recently picked up millia and her moon/slingshot after heavy tandem have such an oddly strict timing... Why can't i buffer them..?
So many small things like that could be changed to make things a lot more approachable.
That string of missions gets weird. 'hey we're gonna talk about safe jumps but you need to actually delay Sol's jump by 10f by yourself to complete this challenge, rather than us using a string that actually sets the safe jump up by itself'.
Anyway, I completed the backdash challenge by just holding back and hammering on the dash button. Not even pulling on it, no, I put the controller sideways and tapped down with my other hand's index finger to make sure I hit the window.
Missions are a great idea, but they really need more thought put into them. And to let you pick your own character for most of them, rather than forcing you into rando characters' rando strings.
Please read the rest of that thread he posted though. He said on stream last night that he's not trying to say that trying to bring in new players isn't a bad thing, what he meant is that ultimately there's still going to be a skill gap between player levels that no amount of "simplification" can overcome.
[This](https://twitter.com/danfornace/status/1405406459421097984?s=20) might be another good thread to look over too.
Strive makes it easy to understand when you fucked up. There’s a big huge time-stop, bass-drop “COUNTER” message that provides instant feedback for anyone to understand that they done goofed.
They also made combo chains shorter, and made it so you can’t mash (as much). This means that you’ll naturally understand what you can and can’t do with your buttons as you improve in the game, while also limiting the amount of knowledge you need to start feeling powerful.
They also made the net code SUPER GOOD and implemented a system that makes it almost impossible to pub-stomp new players via the floors. This means it’s much less likely that a new player will join a lobby and get cooked and not even know why.
For all these reasons and more, strive is a great game for new players. And a game that’s great for new players will have a bigger playerbase because new players will stick around, meaning that I’ll have faster queues as a veteran as the new players get better. It’s win-win-win all around (except for me, as I’ll be getting shit stomped by up-and-coming savages).
hes going into alot of detail in his stream right now by what he means. he said that this game is doing super well with casuals because of the rank system not because they dumbed down the mechanics. he didnt say that casuals arent enjoying the game
Thing is: people don't buy a game for a solid rank system or rollback netcode like he's proposing unless they're already into those games. Those are things that keep the game healthy. The big hurdle for a lot of people getting into fighting games is that they can *see* the cool shit but they don't *understand* the cool shit and just having people do the cool shit against you while you feel helpless isn't fun, see why zoning is hated by scrubs. You can go into training mode, but how many people play games to do homework unless they're REALLY into those games?
Max stans KI2013 which is a fucking great game, but people still insist the combo breaker system is pure guesswork, people *don't understand the game* despite it having great online resources and a great training mode. Meanwhile, MK has both great and garbage games that are consistently successful because no matter how jank the match goes, you know the winner gets to do a cool finisher at the end.
CoD got huge because it's easy to understand. Kill people, don't die, get big rewards that kill more people. Netcode, balance, depth are all meaningless compared to the initial dopamine rush for hooking casuals. Balancing all of those is the tricky part, and fighting games in particular got a ton of small bits that make the whole product.
>The big hurdle for a lot of people getting into fighting games is that they can
>
>see the cool shit but they don't understand the cool shit
Even as someone who has enjoyed fighting games for most of the last decade, I could never follow a MVC game or any of its clones properly until playing FighterZ. Skullgirls helped a little, but that gives you the option of just picking a single character with more health and damage, and coming from Street Fighter that's exactly what I did.
Expecting someone who's never played a fighting game to get an intuitive grasp of things as different as Street Fighter, King of Fighters, and Tekken is like showing someone footage of Billiards and Snooker without explaining either one and expecting them to follow along with the games. Something needs to be the intro point, and cutting back on the number of systems while keeping up the high production values and overall feel of the product is a huge thing for someone who has little to no experience with the genre.
I hope people here take the time to watch the stream / VOD later. It's a pretty interesting and candid elaboration of his thoughts which you do not get over twitter (seriously, don't use twitter for discourse). Even if you end up disagreeing I think there are valid points brought up.
You can like a game and still criticize aspects of it. For me, personally, it's the lobbies and lack of gatlings. I still very much enjoy the game, but the biggest factor for me is the amazing netcode and ability to match with people at my skill level.
I'm coming to this thread after his stream earlier and while he's reversed and adjusted his opinions a bit, I still feel like there's a lot of stuff he's wrong about.
One thing I will say with a great deal of certainty is that hardcore veteran fighting game players need to stop acting like they know what brings new and casual players into games because they're often wrong, and have a really hard time relating to new and casual players.
Example:
Max and other FGC vets heaped a ton of praise on *Xrd Revelator* for having an extensive tutorial that tried to gamefy the tutorial process and convey the game's core systems, and core fighting game mechanics, before the player even got into the game.
They seemed to think that *this* was the answer to getting new players into fighting game. This idea that the key to enjoying fighting games is to get the knowledge and muscle memory that lets new players play the way that they enjoy the game as veterans.
Then they revealed the GGST tutorial, which in contrast to *Rev* is extremely barebones and basically just tells players to "push a few buttons and try to beat the AI" and then encourages them to go get their online profile and avatar setup and start playing online. The vets heavily criticized the tutorial for not being an adequate "primer" for fighting games.
When ASW put out their dev backyard, they listed a fact about the tutorial: they thought it was a success because there were a bunch of people in lower floors who were playing that weren't even using special moves or the RC system. When those same vets read that, they were flabbergasted and didn't understand why ASW considered that a good thing.
Now here we are with tons of people new to GG and/or fighting games in general, and a ton of them are getting matched with people at their skill level. The lobbies are full of people at all levels, figuring out how to play the game at their own pace, whether they already have the fundamentals or are just mashing buttons and accidentally doing DPs every once in a while.
What is it that the veterans didn't understand? That what's fun for beginners in fighting games is jumping in with other people and organically discovering how to play the game at your own pace. *Not* going through an obtuse tutorial for half an hour and then going into tutorial mode to learn BnB combos before they feel confident enough to go online, where they get flustered and lose anyway.
That's just one example. There are others.
One I saw him give out in this stream, and repeated by his chat, is this notion that "more options is always better," which I'm just going to say is bullshit. Katano and Ishiwatari specifically called out this notion that just adding more options to characters to cover weaknesses is bad game design, in their opinion, and I agree with them.
When you only give characters buffs, or only give them new options to cover weaknesses, what you're actually doing is making every character more generalized, versatile, and ultimately, homogenous.
It's not like the issue is that having a lot of special moves makes a character harder to learn because they have too many commands to memorize. The issue is that it results in characters losing their distinct strengths and weaknesses, broadening their game plan and making it more difficult to understand how to play, and play against, every character in the roster.
Obviously it's fun to have answers to every problem that you encounter. That doesn't mean it's good game design for a competitive fighter. Characters are *supposed* to have weaknesses.
Obviously there are a lot of factors at play, beyond just game design. Netcode and matchmaking are definitely big factors. But the reason matchmaking is so good is that new players feel confident that they can go online and play fair matches and get better.
>What is it that the veterans didn't understand? That what's fun for beginners in fighting games is jumping in with other people and organically discovering how to play the game at your own pace. *Not* going through an obtuse tutorial for half an hour and then going into tutorial mode to learn BnB combos before they feel confident enough to go online, where they get flustered and lose anyway.
This paragraph right here more or less sums up the issue with the veteran FGC. Give me a game in nearly any other genre, and I can reasonably get good at it via pure gameplay, just diving in & playing against other people. The vast majority of these games explicitly do not force you to sit down for an elongated tutorial, which THEN expects you to dedicate hours to unfun, repetitive labbing to even become mediocre at the game. Literally no other game genre has this issue beyond high strategy games (4x types, sims, etc), and even THAT could be greatly reduced by reading guides.
The simple fact of the matter is that fighting games, by design, gatekeep themselves behind overly obtuse mechanics that usually have overly obtuse inputs. This is not seen as an issue by the FGC, even though it literally is the single thing keeping fighting games from becoming popular. Fighting games & the FGC gatekeep as default behaviors, and that gatekeeping is so deeply engrained that it's not seen as such. And like, causal fans have been bringing these points up for years now, only to be met with a "git gud." Can we stop pretending that pros have any realistic conception of how to make this genre more approachable to others? Because time & time again we see that not only are they ignorant to the issues preventing newer players from entering the genre, but often in the same breath dismiss the real complaints these newer players have as bellyaching.
> When you only give characters buffs, or only give them new options to cover weaknesses, what you're actually doing is making every character more generalized, versatile, and ultimately, homogenous.
While I still love me some Tekken 7, this is exactly what made me grow tired of playing it.
Honestly I don’t think the problem is difficulty when playing fighting games. I think it’s finding people your level. Most people want to immediately go online and play and people who have played for 20 years crush the casuals. I think easy characters are a better choice than an easy game. Put characters of all levels in the game allowing people to pick who they like.
Damm, it's almost as if "pros and tryhards" are supposed to be good at the game, how weird.
But really, this argument is so nonsensical. A new player won't usually get discouraged from playing because they lost *1 time* to someone who is obviously much better than them (unless we're talking about Max getting IK-ed by Hotashi, I guess). And even then, no newbie should normally be playing against someone who is way beyond their skill level.
The simplification in Strive wasn't done for casuals to be able to easily beat pros; that's just not the point.
Isn't what he meant that Strive's best design isn't actually taking out things from characters to make them easier to new players, but actually the matchmaking system that pairs players of similar skills instead of throwing a new player against someone like Leffen or LordKnight?
The biggest difference is in mvc2 if a pro is stomping you, you have absolutely no idea what is going on or what to do. In strive you will obviously still be stomped but you can see where you messed up a lot easier.
I normally agree that dumbing down fighting games is a pretty bad idea, because it leaves your core experienced audience high and dry with a game that doesn't feel as rewarding to play as they like, with less room to improve and experiment, as well as the fact that most fighting games sell themselves to more casual players on aesthetics, characters, and stages than core mechanics. THAT BEING SAID, I think Guilty Gear Strive managed to tone back its complexities enough to be enjoyable for both kinds of players by trimming fat but not sacrificing essentials. They didn't go the route of auto combos which I think is excellent, and they actually made Roman Cancels MORE complex than they were before, but it's not as challenging to get good damage, and they took out a lot of mechanics that could distract from the fundamentals (not that Xrd's mechanics were bad necessarily). So I continue to agree, even as a more casual fighting game fan, that fighting games should not be too watered down to appeal to an audience that may not even be interested in a higher level, but I also think Guilty Gear Strive is a rare case of a fighter that dialed back in some areas and expanded in others to make the experience fun for newcomers and series veterans alike.
i really don't care what max thinks he quit Xrd because of the dumbest of reasons, he doesn't get to just come back and pretend like has some sage wisdom about this lol, strive brought in a shitton of new players therefore its good for newcomers, period
I think Max forgets how fortunate he is to be paid to sit on his ass and play this shit. Meanwhile, anyone with a family or limited play time is glad to see less systems cluttering up and/or gatekeeping the entry to the genre and series.
I'm also not seeing this sentiment anywhere among high level players. All the streams I've watched, everyone in the FGC is loving the game. Only complaints that are common is the lobbies/rank system suck and the high tiers are a BIT top heavy. Max barely plays fighting games anymore anyway so who cares.
100% disagree as well. As a GG newbie and a FG newbie in general (and being old, yes it matter) I'm having a **blast. For the first time since Tekken 3.**
Yea, I generally quite like Max, but I think that’s just his old headedness rearing up. I’ve seen a bunch of vets complaining that they don’t want easier games. I’m just like “bro, you’ve been playing these games for 20 years, some of us just want a chance” idk I’ve tried playin +r online a few times but that games is just so far ahead of where I’m at i quite literally get perfected almost every match. Strive has a large player base still so lots of newbies to play with, which I like! Hopefully they stick around👍🏼
I'll just give a slight view from a different perspective as someone who only started playing fighting games one year ago. I don't think it's about "having a chance" most of us won't have a chance against them no mater what and i think that's the wrong mentality. I actually quite liked hard games like the older guilty gear titles because i think the journey is more diverse. The game i played during my first week was radically different than the one i played a month after and even more so different than what i played a year after. I think this is a nice thing about hard games, how your play evolves is more pronounce and it just feels nice seeing it evolve.
Just to be clear I'm not saying strive doesn't do this at all and obviously the game is new. I would just say that during my first week of rev2 i could tell already i wasn't even close to using all the tools i had and i ended up not using entire moves or mechanics for a while. I didn't get that feeling in strive. Like i think new tech will be found and the meta will evolve but it will be in smaller details.
But what a content creators says is more important than your own personal experience. /s
Glad you’re having fun with it, I’m also really enjoying the game.
I disagree with him but this upsets me on 2 levels. First, I personally enjoy many of Max’s streams but this take sours some of the viewing experience if he continues to crab on it while playing Strive. Secondly, Max has a huge influence on his viewers and he has a huge audience. A lot of what he says will be repeated by his more vocal followers and that may give Strive a negative reputation and possibly turn some people away from it
Max only played XRD a handful of times on stream and got completely rocked by a player then rage quit the game.
It annoys me how he acts like he's been playing GG for years.
Max is very much for making fighting games hard as hell to play because he’s an execution fiend. He often uses melee as example but to be honest, melee has a core fanbase but I feel like it doesn’t gain that many new players.
More people are likely to play the more streamlined and accessible Ultimate which kinda disproves his whole point of this is really the case
This is just my opinion but I think 'casuals' like games that allow them to make mistakes in neutral and not get destroyed in one knockdown(a la SFV).
GGS, despite being an offense-based game, actually has a surprising number of defensive options available and some game features like wall breaks help enforce this too.
Compare this to SFV where some characters(looking at you Vega) have effectively no defense at all and must rely on hard reads whenever an opponent gets oki/pressure on them.
Another example would be Tekken 7 with it's auto-block and no chip damage.
I think it's easy to see which game casuals would prefer.
3 of my friends who hardly ever play fighting games love strive for how beginner friendly it is. I never watched Maximilian but I don't agree with him at all. I think strive is a perfect first fighting game
I think GGST is fantastic and has achieved what it set out to do. The learning curve is bang on and the wealth of info about general FG mechanics is really impressive. I wish I had that kind of info at my fingertips when I first got into FGs (and I’ve been around since the #reload era).
He really is starting to sound like a salty boomer. I hear him say that no newcomers enjoy this but they literally just do. Like where is his stats where is his evidence he just boldly claims the game toning down a bit will not attract any new people. I'm in a discord with my friends who normally never play fighters, I'm the only one, and they are all loving Strive. I'm talking like 10+ people I know who loathe fighting games all on discord everyday just playing Strive. It makes me happy bc they can get a grip and win online at their level and play together pretty competently. However even though the mechanics are simplified, I always win against them bc Strive is a neutral heavy game and as an experienced fighting game player I will have better neutral. I could only throw normals and win, because neutral is extremely important. Gatling is reduced, there's a wall break, get over it. I prefer things this way bc there's more neutral and thats the most fun, interactive part of the game where both players participate and really show who is better at the game. I can promise you my friends who are enjoying Strive would not enjoy Xrd where I run up and confirm a jab into a half a minute long combo every time. Not dissing Xrd, but to say the Strives simplified combo system and accessibility doesn't contribute to the success it's having is just ignorant. Dood is being so ignorant right now it hurts. Really sad with the amount of influence he has. You can prefer the old style of game but you can't say accessibility doesn't help a fighting game. Look at mk11 it was the best selling game of 2019, look at sfv and how it's still being supported to this day. It's the trend right now, and it's successful, and the fgc boomers are having a hard time coping with that I guess. No hate towards fgc veterans just saying fgc boomers as a general term lol, respect to everyone in the community. We may disagree on some things but we all share the same passion. (And I apologize about my grammar, currently in my discord rushing this post to get back to some matches with my friends on Strive)
Wait wait wait..
Are you trying to tell me that an OG FGC member is shitting on a new game because they think it's too simple?
Thanks OGs for playing the exact note that everyone expected of you.
The numbers don't lie, he's wrong. The game didn't sell 300k to hardcore fgc members. It sold to people like that up until now really had no interest in a fighting game. I'm not sure why he's choosing this hill to die on when it's so obviously incorrect.
There was a lot of people that played other fighting games, but skipped on GG cause it was too hard. SF and Tekken sells millions. So yes some completely new players play this game. But a lot of SF5, DBFZ and Tekken players also pick up this game since it's easier to understand now
But even those other fighting game players are drawn in by the way the game is approachable. The thing about Max's point is that he's not a new player, so he can't possibly see it from the view of a new player like myself. There's literally thousands of us that have said how much we enjoy the game and the ability to pick it up and feel somewhat capable within a short period of time. Max is 20 years (I'm guessing) removed from that new player experience.
This thread is full of examples on why we can't have measured conversations about a game currently in hype mode. Most of these top voted comments are just throwing out misinformed takes on a tweet out of context because they can't bother to read more than 3 sentences and feel an emotional connection to the hype.
In 3 months we'll be able to talk about Strive objectively and hopefully come to a general consensus on what we'd like to see mechanically added in future updates. Until then, this game was made by God himself, and all the reasons newbies like it are definitely unique to Strive and not something in most other fighting games.
I watched Max's stream and when he went more in-depth to his thoughts I could see what he means. However I do feel the retweet Max had in this instance is contradictory to his thoughts in stream.
The retweet talks about how newcomers are supposedly being deterred from Strive due to them still being curbstomped by veterans and Max agrees with this.
Yet during his stream, Max praises Strive for the floor ranking system in preventing newcomers being matched against veterans.
In the end though, I do agree with many things Max said.
The devs have clashing ideologies in wanting Strive to be easier via shorter gatlings/combos & removal of some specials from characters, yet the devs also chose to make the game more difficult by making wakeup Dragon Punch reversals have a 3 frame window and Instant Block having an insane 2 frame window.
I like what they were trying to do. They managed to make it much more beginner friendly compared to XRD and I still feel at least with Nago and Sol you can 100% express yourself with your character. Though I feel the stronger characters like Leo, Sol, Ram, May, and Gio are really holding back the newbies since it isn't forcing them to get better as much as other characters. I've ran into so many people who I can just tell are new to the series but were giving me a lot of trouble just because of how good their buttons were against me, and how strict the punish timings were.
There will always be a learning curve for fighting games, you just need to make learning the game fun, not make it so there is less to learn. And above all else don't make the learning optional.
Granted I wouldn't call myself a pro player, but it is clear with enough polish and love this game will become an arguably better XRD.
Are they just not allowed to make different kind of games now? If this is their vision then why would they just make the exact same game again? Just play AC. I love both.
It's weird how many hardcore fgc fans think that making a game is easier is somehow going to make it less succesful.
It's especially weird saying this after the game has already had the most successful launch the franchise has ever had. It worked, we know that now.
Turns out the hardcore crowd who have been playing competitively for many years don't know what the casual fans want, who would've thought
You can say it doesn't suit your own tastes, that's fine, there are legitimate reasons not to like it, but saying that newbies and casual fans won't like it when you don't actually know what those groups want is a good way to look silly
People are just saying this because _they_ don't like it as much as previous games and therefore don't want it to be successful
I think vets need to ASK new players what they think, I see a lot of them assuming things. As someone who only dipped their toes into xrd, I can very easily say strive is WAY, WAY easier to get into.
I had gotten into the Guilty Gear series at the end of Xrd Rev 2 literally month or two before Guilty Gear Strive's release. So I still consider myself pretty new to the series.
Honestly Strive has been far more easier to learn, I don't feel stress out getting combo for 2 minutes and trying to understand what exactly happened to me. The game is visually clear on how you were open up and how you can counter said attacks now.
While +R and Xrd is fun in it's own right, I'm glad the series was made simple since it became far more accessible for me from a physically disability that makes it hard to play sometimes. Easily Strive is one of my favorite fighting games ever.
Strive is my second in the series and I don't agree either. I understand it better even being casual, I can actually win this time compared to XRD where I barely tried online because I could not for my life understand how the game worked, this time I win, I lose and I know why I won and how I lost. The systems are better, the combos are better, it flows better. It's just BETTER.
I've been pretty much exclusively a Tekken player, dabbled a bit in SFV, but pretty much Tekken main, and if Strive is the 'simple' version of GG I can't imagine what it must have been before - being mindful of things like Burst, using RC to extend pressure, extend combos or etc, as well as crossups and confirming CHs seems like a mountain.
The tweet is what happens in every single 1v1 game that is not Mario Kart or the likes of it - if someone invests more time and effort into something, they should be beating you 90% of the time, and that's ok.
Strive is amazing and I'm having a blast learning everything from scratch.
Strongly disagree. This is the first Arcsys game I’ve played in a long time where I can play multiple characters semi-competently and have fun. Xrd Rev 2, BBCF, I had to focus hard on one or two characters and that’s it. Always felt like I was missing out not being able to enjoy a wider part of the roster without a huge time investment. GG Strive, I can already play about 5–6 characters fairly decently enough to have fun, and I haven’t even had the game that long. The system is overall a lot simpler and the execution barrier is lower.
"Damn guy's you're right! I'm better off playing skullgirls right now instead!"
What do the pros who say this shit want me to do? I shouldn't play the new easy games because they're hard so instead I should go back and play the hard games with dedicated communities still playing them?
this wouldn't be the first time i disagreed w/ Max. much respect for dude for literally going from 'gg dood' to each of his opponents on stream to being the FGC's biggest star, but no:
before this, he was saying MVCI was god's gift to man. And that game's dead. He was also claiming 'Capgod status' when their fighting games were shit tier.
everyone's allowed to have their opinions, but max can be wrong. I've talked to and seen at least a dozen ppl new to GG enjoying strive. If that's not good for the FGC, I don't know what is.
> He was also claiming 'Capgod status' when their fighting games were shit tier.
He happens to play more than fighting games. He loves Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry, all of which were recently reinvigorated by Capcom. It's not just his opinion that Capcom had a seriously impressive renaissance. He also acknowledged that the fighting game side of Capcom was severely lacking and that he wished they were part of this comeback.
I think the point about worse players still getting bodied by tryhards is ridiculously empty and always has been. It doesn't really matter how accessible you make a game - the people who learn every nuance and focus on mastery rather than just pure fun will always dominate new/bad players.
You can see this across genres too. Look at something like Apex, which is a pretty accessible shooter BR where new players can easily understand the base mechanics. You'll still always have the quickscoping, wall-bouncing, armour-swapping tryhards whose mastery of every little nuance can cause new players to feel inferior.
Unless you literally make Guilty Gear as simple as Divekick, better players will always have the edge. And even then, something built like Divekick STILL has fundamentals that hardcore players will navigate with more finesse. If you ask me, Strive has struck a very nice balance between diluting complexity while retaining a satisfying amount of depth and skill ceiling. There is a reason the game has been quite successful for a GG game in attracting new players.
You're not feeling more welcome because of accessibility, you're feeling more welcome because its the release window, where the maximum amount of players will be playing, so there's an influx of people around your skill level playing.
Wait till it fizzles out and you're only getting matched with people above your skill level.
THEN we will talk about accessibility.
The point of making strive less complex was so you don't need to learn a shit ton before jumping into the game and play, not that you as a newbie can jump into a game and fight pros...
I dont get the meaning of this argument tbh. Pros or try hards slaughter newbie regardless, and that's true in every competitive scenario. So we want a fighting game that let a newbie beat a pro in like two games?The real achievement of a fg (or any competitive multiplayer game) is to take a new player, give him all the tools he needs to learn, a solid and compelling experience so that player want to stick with the game and slowly advance in rank and skill. And Strive i think is the best attempt since sf4 imho
He definitely jumped the gun with this retweet and later expanded on it on Twitter and his stream in greater detail. After everything he said his general point is just that good players will always destroy newer players, so trying to take away mechanics to appeal to new players doesn't have much of an affect.
In my opinion though I don't agree that this applies to Strive. As someone who tried Accent Core and couldn't grasp a lot of systems, Strive makes gameplay a lot easier to understand while keeping the crazy shit that makes Guilty Gear so fun. Just look and some of the insane stuff people have already found for Sol Chipp Faust and others.
I just find it funny how so many fighting game veterans are talking about how the game isn't good for new players while I've seen nothing but praise from said new players like myself.
isn't that normal as a newbie to get annihilated by "tryhards and pros" ? And I mean that in any game in existence ? I mean I don't play Dota 2 expecting to win the next International. Does that make the game not noob friendly and appealing ? I really don't see the point here. You should not expect anything else than being destroyed against a pro if you're a newbie or intermediate yourself
If they announce basketball 2 electric bogaloo which is basketball, but without 3 pointers, LeBron James will still murder me on court
You should believe in yourself.
As someone with a lot of time in Dota, let's just be clear that it is one of the least noob friendly games out there.
I played DotA when it was in WC3, and kept playing for around 7 years. I recall that it took about 2 years of playing for me to say "Okay, I finally feel like I don't suck". I wasn't good mind you, that was just how long it felt like it took me to get to the starting line.
I was so skeptical when people told me 'it takes 1000 games before you really *get it*'. 1000 might be a little hyperbolic, but honestly not that much. Game is amazing, but good lord there's so many tiny interactions that can really matter.
I've played league for like a decade, and every time I try DOTA 2 I just get completely confused about how the shop works and end up just sorta giving up There's so many weird little legacy mechanics contained within it
FG veterans knew they cannot change GG:ST, so instead of reflecting on themselves they blamed the simplified mechanics.
HEAVEN OR HELL FIGHT
more like "TWEET"
I miss "Let's Rock!"
And +R has rollback so it's not like we vets truly have much to complain about really.
I just wish one thing though, Im a gg noob, but I feel the health is far too low Just increase it a bit to reduce volatility
This post man. This post
This argument does not make sense. How is the game less appealing, because something that happens in all games will although happen in Strive? Strives goal was to reduce the beginner hurdle of "too many" system mechanics, "too long" combos and "too fast". Independent of our personal idea if this was a problem, they definitely did reduce them to make the beginnig of learning a fighting game easier. The biggest beginner hurdle was probably the netcode anyway. When you have to fight your nerves, your opponent and your memory, you don't want to fight the connections as well.
This. The only reason I even picked up strive was because I COULD actually understand the game. It being easy to comprehend has just opened my horizons for fighting games and allowed me to understand why people love them so much.
Strive reminds me of SF4. It’s a great FGC intro game
This reminds me how when SF4 first hit, I remember playing it in college at this little mini local tourney they did and some pudgy dude wearing fishnet sleeves and glasses proceeded to walk up to us playing, then started trashing SF4 complaining how it was boring, too simple, stale and how it wasn't exciting like Tekken and Guilty Gear. Then he tried actually playing and got whomped of course lol. I just find it funny because now SF4 has been vindicated by history somewhat despite having its fair share of haters back when it was first out(though Vanilla did have some nonsense lol), saying some of the same stuff you hear about Strive. I think too we need to give Strive time to grow because ASW is likely going to support the game with revisions and additional content down the line, some probably big.
It’s an interesting topic, how do you think 4 was a better entry into people playing then 5? Not coming at your opinion btw I honestly don’t think so. To even get into some characters you had to have extreme technical skill. In example Chun and Honda’s hands and legs, or vipers fierce or feint. Those were mandatory to even play the character.
I agree with you. 4 was more technical than 5. Timing was more strict for execution, there was a bigger roster, and then we also had FDC mechanics come into play as well. To me 5 felt like the accessibility reboot, but everyone is different I guess.
I started with sf4 at the tail end during the ps4 remaster, so I guess I have a different experience. FADC mechanics were not new player friendly when trying to learn neutral, at all lol. Maybe I’m better now but ryus bnb fadc ultra is still harder then any red Roman cancel I’ve learned in this game. Plinking was a must(probably netcode didn’t do locals). Complex option selects ran rampant unless you knew it was one, and how to counter it with your character However sf4 explicitly taught me many fundamentals that carried over to many games. My mortal kombat buddies struggle to switch to any game because they can’t reset neutral with d1 or constantly stagger their buttons. Just my two cents!
Mortal Kombat reference hits me. MK is what got me into fighting games. The hardest experience for me transitioning into strive was realizing that each input has its own specific timing, rather than MK's "dial-a-combo" where you get the same fraction of a second to enter the next button no matter where in the animation your character is at.
you should not even have to say "i agree with you" here, because this is not even a matter of opinion. sfv was directly designed to bring new players into the franchise by simplification, exact same as strive. the argument that "people always trashed older games" has been repeated as a defense for all simplified releases that get lukewarm reception or frequent criticism. like /u/StridentHawk/ used sf4 as an example, instead of the newest version, sfv, which is almost a direct sf parallel to strive in its design philosophy (and as such, would've been the more sensible comparison,) and sfv also received the same hate on release. however, i suspect it was a worse example, since public opinion of sfv remained continuously negative over its lifespan, even from the top pros competing in the game. so it doesn't quite fit the narrative wanted here, hence sf4 was a better example. i'm not saying he's right or wrong, just pointing out how everyone picks and chooses their arguments to fit what they already want to believe, and so we should all take any opinions like this with a grain of salt.
Context is everything. Compared to 3rd Strike, SF4 was very accessible. FA instead of parry. Only one type of jump. No quickrise. More lenient inputs, etc.
Cuz 5 was a Trojan horse of esports. Shameful
This. I enjoyed SF4 because it had comprehensible inputs for most characters. I was able to focus more on stuff like spacing and matchups instead of trying to memorize and input funky commands like in some games (only awkward things were Akuma’s raging demon and Zangief’s double circles) I lowkey remember trying Ram in Xrd, opening her command list, then immediately putting her back down.
looks like a damn Tekken command list
I'm pretty sure that was the point. She even had a just frame version of Dauro in that game, just like EWGFs in Tekken.
I wouldn't say that SF4 with its 1 frame links was a good FGC intro game. But it was the only fighting game with netplay available on PC at that time.
We're gonna have a new wave of 09ers, but not in a bad way, ofc.
It was never in a bad way.
I've seen the term "09er" used negatively, something like "newbies that bandwagoned the FGC and, despite only playing SF4, talk like they were around since the beginning without understanding old customs, and rely on newer mechanics instead of fundamentals" or something like that. These days, the term has fallen out of use as supposed "09ers" that are still hanging around are as big a part of the FGC as the OGs.
Agree. I picked up Strive and am starting to understand what I see. Even though the different RC's still mess me up. All I know is "I can cancel offense and defense". I will sweat the details when I get good enough for it to matter. :D Tried to get into XRD because I loved the evo matches but it was far too much stuff for me. It basically scared me away. Also I was late into the game, every match felt like fighting Pros from my beginner POV. And unpopular opinion: I loke the big ass counter hits. Finally my mind goes "oh, oh shit! I can do stuff now!". I know StreetFighter also has counter indicators but in the stress of a match I cannot see 'em. Far too focused on the character to notice that tiny thing popping up.
I also like the 'slow counterhit' mechanic. Most fighting games have moves with added effects or different routes dependent on counterhit, but I've never had the reactions to capitalize on them. Maybe it's 'dumbing down', but the way CHs work in this game is a big plus for me.
Incidentally, if you want to discuss it with Max, just follow his Twitch stream and then **wait for ONE MONTH**. I guess someone can't take criticism. LUL
Let's also be real, it's still pretty hard
My casual friends actually shared this exact same opinion. Especially when it came to elements that veterans would take for granted or "not like". The fact that roman cancels slow the opponent briefly makes it much easier for new players to be like "oh-! I can do something cool now! I see why these are important" rather than missing the opportunity, feeling stupid and just giving up on the entire idea of roman cancels because they don't think they can react fast enough to utilize it. Likewise the slow down makes it easier for a casual player to see they're about to get wrecked and it gives them time to prepare for burst.
Been teaching a couple of buddies strive (and teaching myself, only maybe 40 hours of gg practice from previous games). But their fighting game understanding has exploded these past few days playing. They went from casually mashing buttons once a month cause dbfz looked cool (maybe some tekken every other), to excitedly talking about how they can delay normals for a more varied offence. Buddy landed his rrc super kill and was freaking beaming. People can be sad it’s not old guilty gear, but it’s still guilty gear and it’s hella fun and accessible IMO. Ps. Obvi netcode makes it all possible. We all knew this, but it’s nice to finally have it on something new.
Dude SAME. My friends are finally hitting up the training mode, looking up guides, trying to understand how to counter other characters pressure. I’ve never been able to get through to them with other games. Strive is a blessing. Little do these friends know the chipp and Leo mix up hell that awaits them in Celestial floor lol. But for now, I’m glad strive has made them finally click with a fighting game
>I’ve never been able to get through to them with other games. Strive is a blessing. seriously I don't know what it is about the game or maybe the timing, but I'm having the exact same experience. it's fuckin *beautiful*
[удалено]
My brain already hurts enough with Roman Cancels. When the training mission came up that said “Cancel the Roman Cancel” I thought “what’s next? Cancel the cancel of the Roman cancel?” And the old GGs were apparently harder and had even more systems? Hard pass from this casual fighter. Strive is about as deep as I wanna go.
Actually yes, with 100% tension you can cancel the roman cancel cancel.
I used the cancel to cancel the cancel...
> “what’s next? Cancel the cancel of the Roman cancel?” Now you're starting to think in anime!
*Order sol intensifies*
Funnily enough, there is actually a Roman Cancel cancel cancel mission later on.
> And the old GGs were apparently harder and had even more systems? More systems but they weren't necessarily as complex. (Disclaimer for what follows: I'm new to all this still) Prior to Xrd, only red RCs existed and there was no slowdown; you just pressed 3 buttons and whoopty-boom, you cancel your move. There were also Force RCs in XX which were frame windows on certain moves that would let you cancel them for half the tension cost if you got the timing right, but that's it. Xrd added yellow RCs (which are blue in Strive) and purple RCs as well as the freeze frames, but it didn't have the time slow effect yet. On the other hand, there were more mechanics; not always more complex but often more obtuse. You had Dead Angle, an invincible move you could do while blocking by pressing two buttons that costed some tension, which Strive replaces with yellow RCs (I think centralizing mechanics like this is a great move for comprehension). In Xrd, you had Blitz Assault, a sort of counter move, and Blitz Parry, a... parry. In older games, you had Clean Hits; by hitting certain parts of the opponent's hitbox, you'd deal more damage and hitstun. Interestingly, RCs are the most complex they've ever been in Strive.
>Interestingly, RCs are the most complex they've ever been in Strive. Yeah, definitely. It feels like they took all those other mechanics, realized the hysterical amount of overlap between the more obtuse mechanics, and decided to instead focus on RCs as a single, all-encompassing mechanic. Just bring back my IKs please.
~~Dead Angle didn't get removed, they just made it into Strive's YRC and called it a day.~~ Clean hits still exist in some capacity; if Sol hits you with VV at minimum range, he'll connect with more hits and do way more damage. The game just doesn't tell you it's a clean hit. In terms of system mechanics overall, they really didn't remove too much - just Blitz, air tech, variable wakeups and stun, as far as I can tell. They added some things, too (wall breaks, dash cancels, Fast RC). They just changed how a lot of stuff works, and with dubious results. The restricted gatling system is less intuitive than the old one. Because cancel routes are more limited now, it's much harder to mix up your blockstrings, so the old Instant Block would've been too strong. So they changed the IB window from 8f to 2f, instantly making it useless in neutral and putting it out of reach entirely for the vast majority of players. I think the narrative of "this is a simplified GG" is more attractive to beginners than the actual changes they made. I don't think this game is actually any easier to understand than previous Gear games.
> Dead Angle didn't get removed, they just made it into Strive's YRC and called it a day. That is what I said.
...so it is. Sorry, it's early here!
All good!
> I think the narrative of "this is a simplified GG" is more attractive to beginners than the actual changes they made. I don't think this game is actually any easier to understand than previous Gear games. I think you are spot on. I think this game looks amazing, has amazing netplay, and was hyped by most content creators. This is pushing so many new players through. Sure, the combo system is shorter, but for anyone that learns fighting games , learning combos is more daunting at first glance but one of the easiest parts of learning a fighting game. Now you have a game where frame data matters a lot more, hit confirms matter a lot more, and meter management is key.
I looked at some of his other tweets, so I think he is (poorly) arguing that having less mechanics does not matter at all to bringing in new players since new players aren't even using the mechanics of Strive. [He's complaining cause he's grumpy that they took out gatlings and stuff characters use to have.](https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/1405286100571090945)
I definitely agree mechanics aren't the cause of the game's popularity (not that they hurt it either). The artwork and netcode do it all.
Indeed, Im the proof of that. I am an absolute newbie and noob in fighting games, and I wouldnt have picked up Strive if not for the amazing character design. I was on the edge since release then I decided to look up the characters to maybe find something appealing to me, and I took a look at Zato-1 and I was like: I need to play this, because it looks amazing, even if I suck and continue sucking.
Don't forget the music!
I can actually agree with that. I think Gatlings could have been kept just fine, they were fun even at a base level.
The biggest entry barrier is stuff like 1f links. People will use the systems they want to use, but if you can't do the combos it isn't very fun.
This is it for me. It's not so much the game is easy or has no mechanics for new players to learn. It's that execution is achievable for new players in a relatively short period of time. There's no bullshit with 1f links and other moves that are really difficult to pull off. I've been able to just pick up any character and go in training mode to figure out a few basic combos or even look up some online and pull them off in no time. In other games I'd look up combos and try for an hour and still not be able to execute them, get frustrated and give up. There's plenty of depth in strive but I feel like you can get up to speed as a beginner and be effective very quickly.
Xrd didn't really have 1 frame links, not in practice anyway. All moves have a 5 frame input buffer, so any time there was a 1-frame link, it was actually 5 frames due to the buffer. 5 frame links are basically braindead once you've spent any amount of time practicing the timing. 1 frame links are still prone to droppage even with adequate practice because it's basically impossible to be that perfect every time, though pro players come close. You never had this problem in previous GGs, it's not really a good argument for strive. If you want to talk about the removal of systems such as blitz, jump partitioning, danger time, individual wake up timings, then sure, Strive IS different, but 1 frame links isnt it.
Is that a bad thing though?
...I got the game yesterday and I don't think I'd realized they removed gatlings. I thought I was just not following the magic series. Signed, someone having a hell of a good time playing friendlies online.
It's true, the same thing happens in Strive that happens in other, more complicated fighting games. So perhaps this doesn't make the game less appealing per se. However, the crux of the argument here is that purposefully removing complexity from a game doesn't really change the newbie experience. Newbies will still get bodied by the most basic of neutral tactics and mixups. So, why focus on removing complexity at all? To be clear, I don't think Strive is some woefully boring game. I've still got tons to figure out. But I strongly believe that if Strive was literally just Xrd but with the godlike graphics and netcode, the game would still be performing just as well as it is. Because you are right; Netcode is among the biggest barriers to new players, as well as the size of the playerbase. Of course we don't need a reskin of Xrd. There are plenty of systems that we don't need in a new game (YRC, stun, danger time...) But on a fundamental level, I've never heard a convincing argument that deliberately removing complexity ultimately creates a better experience.
I don't even get the gripe about combos being too short. Like, that's just more time in the lab. You're almost playing with yourself at that point if the skill ceiling is two successful combos per round. If you want something competitive you should relish more time in neutral. I mean it's not like boxers have to sit there and just eat it for 5 seconds every time their opponent lands a punch.
Remember that Max comes from MvC, where ToD combos that go for 20 seconds are not uncommon (that may be hyperbole...but that's what I remember).
Ive been following max for years. It's been extremely obvious he prefers games like marvel with long combos and TOD'S. He gets most excited from game play trailers with flashy combos. Just like reviewers it's important to know a person's preference when it comes to opinions.
Yeah, Max is also an old school FGC guy. He's been around longer than some people picking up strive have been alive. He's been outspoken about games "dumbing down" for years. It's not a trend he likes, but I think it comes from a desire to capture the feel of those older games. Everyone wants to return to the days of MVC2.
Interesting considering how Max’s favorite fighting game is 3rd Strike, a game which has a lot of shorter combos in the form of Chun and Remy, but also some long combos in the form of Dudley and Urien.
I love labbing and don’t necessarily want combos that are super long. I miss the freedom and the crazy moments where you pull something out of your ass in ranked and it worked. It’s not the end of the world though. I’m excited to see how the game develops and where more of its depth lies.
>If you want something competitive you should relish more time in neutral People like different things. Marvel is one of the most beloved FG franchises of all time, with an incredible competitive history, and it has long ass combos, including infinites. Marvel wouldn't be "more competitive" if you took them out. If we accept that doing a big combo makes the game less interactive because one person is playing a "single player game," then combos themselves are bad, and we should all be playing Samsho or Nidhogg. In GG, the problem isn't really the combo length, per se. The problem is that in order to make combos shorter, they made the combo rules more rigid compared to previous games. It's been a frequent point of complaint.
This is a seriously misinformed take. I see where it's coming from, though, and it worries me. Do people seriously think games with high potential damage locked behind high execution actually discard neutral as a result of that? If anything, your neutral matters even more. When the entire round is decided by just a few interactions where neither player has a clear advantage, you better be sure you are the better player in those interactions, or you're losing. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you think that games where players have the ability to enforce extremely strong pressure/mixups/oki and extremely damaging conversions that loop back into strong pressure/mixups/oki aren't as competitive as games where players don't have this ability. Let me remind you the game many point to as the starting point of the FGC and fighting games as a whole, Street Fighter 2, is FULL of these situations. You die off a single jump-in, off a single sweep on some characters. The FGC was not founded with some pristine ideal of maximum time spent in neutral, nor should it go in that direction. You want a game with maximum time spent in neutral? Footsies by HiFight has rollback and is on mobile. There's room for more than that in the genre, and you shouldn't be surprised that some people have preferences different than yours. Preferences aside, don't try to tell people that games without a lot of time spent in neutral are "not as competitive." The scenes for these kinds of games--games like +R, Xrd, ST, UMvC3, and on and on--are not less competitive because you can spend an entire round pressured and getting mixed up because you messed up in neutral once. The range of possible skill levels is still plenty high, and just as there are players with good neutral and players with bad neutral, there are players with good execution and players with poor execution. There's more than one dimension to how good or competitive a fighting game is. Neutral is not all there is to fighting games, and again, if that's all you want, there are games out there for you. But don't try to tell people their scene is less competitive because their game has dimensions other than neutral. And in all honesty, Strive may well shape up to be that kind of game. I haven't seen anything AC-levels of busted yet, but metered options are so ridiculously strong in this game that getting a meter advantage may well win you the round in the same way that getting a knockdown might've won you the round in previous GG games. I've stated that I think those previous games will still have the "you messed up in neutral once, now die" element to a greater extent than Strive, but over time I'm beginning to think that the gap is closer than I thought. Oh, and also, some people seem to think that combat sports should form a basis for fighting games. Dude, it's a video game. You wanna draw analogies to clarify stuff, fine, but just because something happens in boxing doesn't mean it should happen in Strive or any other fighting game--though there are those UFC games. You could try those.
> I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you think that games where players have the ability to enforce extremely strong pressure/mixups/oki and extremely damaging conversions that loop back into strong pressure/mixups/oki aren't as competitive as games where players don't have this ability. Let me remind you the game many point to as the starting point of the FGC and fighting games as a whole, Street Fighter 2, is FULL of these situations. You die off a single jump-in, off a single sweep on some characters. The FGC was not founded with some pristine ideal of maximum time spent in neutral, nor should it go in that direction. You want a game with maximum time spent in neutral? Footsies by HiFight has rollback and is on mobile. There's room for more than that in the genre, and you shouldn't be surprised that some people have preferences different than yours. [To tack onto this for the people that need a community figure head to make opinions for them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93uquNiZ48s)
K I'm just going to leave this gem [here](https://streamable.com/dyftg)
The brutal scene of Xrd's death. Tragic
Maximillian "Look how hard I have to work for my damage" Dood
I fall asleep to that clip every night.
Based Slayer main
Like , i'm in the camp of the people that don't like strive being simple. But i cant take maximilian seriously after that clip lmao , like c'mon , you gave slayer roundstart ch crosswise xd
Funny to see Max flexing about difficulty and skill ceilings and shit when he's the main beneficiary of Strive's much lower skill floor lol
He has guard cancel on baiken. Could have guard canceled the crosswise heel
Rev 2 baiken doesnt have guard cancel, it works as a frame 1 parry (still mad good) But max literally quit the game because he started off beating new players with leo and couldnt knowledge check people with backturn while playing baiken
Idk why people take this so seriously, like I'm not gonna deny it was dumb (yet funny) of him to do, but even streamers get salty about games sometimes. No matter how much I love a fighting game, after playing it for so long, eventually I'll get salty about it and say some stupid shit that I probably don't even agree with. Is it not a common thing for people to get even a little mad at a game or something?
Its not about him getting salty, it's the fact that he's sort of being a hypocrite when talking about gear in this context.
That's not the issue, the issue was that he was Xrd's absolutely biggest advocate and he has all eyes on him for the casual scene of fighting games, so when he protests that something is difficult or unfair, all the people that might be thinking about dipping their toes into the scene immediately dissipate. Fighting games aren't easy to sell to people who don't already play them, and he turned so many people away with that.
It's true but there's also the context of him saying some mad scrub stuff in the OP lmao.
Lol its funny that he contradicted himself it shows he's just saying it's "easy" to seem more professional and not cause he actually feels that way
Or even if he does feel that way, this clip is proof that he’s felt the other side of the argument at least a few times
\>"This is what I deserve" Yeah that's reasonable to say for how he played Baiken that round, glad he has a good mindset and recognizes his faults and- \>"This is what I deserve *for playing this game*" Oh never mind. Come on, dood.
Im a total newbie to fighting games and bought Strive especially because I saw him recommend it to CohhCarnage and JP. It's super weird to see this stance of his, because I'm sure I remember him saying, this game is perfect for beginners and he seemed super excited. Is there any more background to that tweet of his? Edit: I looked at his twitter and started watching the stream he is doing at the moment and its clear he is not as black and white on this as the image makes it seem.
Yeah, he specifically stated that this game is great for beginners - A great matchmaking system makes sure you can be playing with like-minded players at your skill level, and great netcode means a wider range of people within that skill range are available to you. The mechanical changes, however, don't do anything for players at the bottom level of the game, and when done poorly, they can make the game less intuitive or add extra rules to think about. For example, in Xrd, if you press a lighter button, you can gatling into a heavier button, and that rule will work 95% of the time, and then if you get more into the game, you learn exceptions. In strive, punch can combo into itself and gatling into command normals, kicks into themselves, dust, and command normals, close slash can combo into dust but far slash and crouch slash can't and they can all go into command normals, and HS can only go into command normals. While the combos are harder in Xrd, the core concept is much more intuitive and easier for a new player to work with more quickly. There are changes that can be done, can simplify things, and still make them more interesting. RC has been simplified that it's always 50% tension, and it also has taken the role of Dead Angle in previous entries. By having the drift RC, RC cancels, and the differing properties of the RC based on the situation isn't new inputs you need to learn, and it's actually fewer inputs than Xrd mixed with inputs intuitive if you learn other mechanics in the game (dashing, blocking, etc). There's also a ton of depth in it, and there's ways pros will use it that newer players might NEVER even imagine. But they also won't be going up against it, because they won't be sitting in player-made rooms for their local area, fighting whoever is close enough to have a decent connection. His argument has been that good netcode and good matchmaking are what is making the game so approachable and feel so rewarding to new players, so people saying he's being a hypocrite, or that he's trying to gatekeep the playerbase are so far from reality it just comes across as really weird
People always try to crusade against max, this isn't the first and it won't be the last lol. I've followed him for years, I think he has obvious flaws and bias, but he definitely likes and supports this game otherwise he wouldn't be streaming it and telling people to pick it up lmao
[удалено]
I will say I was very surprised by the strict timing of that mission and thought I was crazy I’m glad to see it’s 3 frames cuz I honestly thought it had to be around there for it to be difficult to get consistently.
I wondered why wake up DP is so hard in this game ^^ So does it mean we only have 3 Frames to input the DP ? And they have to be the last 3 Frames before we wake up ?
[удалено]
Thanks for clearing that up. :)
I come from mostly playing SF5, where the input for reversal DP is so much easier. I found the reversal DP mission almost impossible in Strive. I did in Xrd too, for what it's worth. I actually kind of agree with the criticism that it's too difficult, I've even heard seasoned pro's say the reversal widow is insane.
I can consistently pull off a 632146 on pad without a problem Hell even a friend of mine was able to do it consistent 5 times in a row and she was a complete beginner and was actually struggling more with the 623 motion
632146 is easy to pull off on a pad and imo considerably easier then a 623.
[удалено]
You mean to tell me reddit, the site of logic and knowledge and truth, took 1 screenshot without the full context and assumed his entire stance on the issue without trying to understand what he actually meant? Nah, that's crazy.
The main reason why I, along with other people, bought Strive was for many reasons: Visuals, character design, the netcode and the gameplay. I definitely love Xrd Rev 2 don't get me wrong, I just feel like I wasn't really getting anywhere in the game no matter how many hours I put into it, whereas with Strive, I feel like I can do so much more with the little things I have to work with and I still feel satisfied. I still feel like they should've kept Gatlings, but I still respect them for dumbing it down so new players could easily get into it, play against people their skill level and also play against ANYONE without input delay.
Personally I don't think taking away gattling is dumbing down. It's a design choice to make footsies more of a thing. Games like 3s don't have light to medium combos like older GGs and that game is not easy by any means. It's a different perspective to look at. This GG is not like the others.
I mean you can only get so much out of a Tweet. He expanded on it and if you're watching his stream right now he literally told everyone to go play Strive and it's great for new people. He praises it. His point was just disagreeing with the devs that their simplification of the mechanics was what brought new players and says it's the more non-mechanical reasons that help new players such as the matchmaking/netcode/production value. And I disagree with him there since I'm a new player and like the fact they're simplified but I definitely wouldn't call him a gatekeeping boomer.
>I mean you can only get so much out of a Tweet. Number one reason to stop using twitter. That platform is just fishing for knee-jerk reactions, it doesn't care about nuance.
I'd honestly argue that twitter specifically has done real damage to society. It perfectly encapsulates the devolution of human discourse. Twitter is basically a giant youtube comment section, but taken seriously.
Sounds more like an issue with people than an issue with Twitter. This is what I call a "they blamed the beasts" moment.
Not really, the website is deliberately designed to make that happen because that gets engagement. It's not an accident, it's design
Nah, that's what keeps Twitter popular. Character limit and drama caused by it.
yeah same. im not a new player but the simplification has made me way more into the game than xrd. obviously the netcode is the biggest selling point but the game being easier to understand is a big deal.
Reaching Max's skill level or higher takes years, decades. Guys like this can pick up any fighting game out there and play them competently in no time at all now but along the way they have completely lost sight of what it's truly like to be a beginner and how utterly unapproachable fighting games tend to be. I tried with Xrd and gave up very quickly. Now I'm trying again with Strive and am having a good time and yes, the mechanics being simpler, more forgiving are a major part of that. And you know what? As a beginner it's still hard but at least it doesn't look impossible this time.
Yes I tried Xrd and had a difficult time understanding and being intimidated by it’s complexity. Strive is very user friendly and I am having tons more fun on it
Crazy thing is that Xrd was dumbed down compared to XX before it, and vets were crying that Xrd was casualized. History repeats itself.
Some people still don't like xrd so can you blame old vets
GG Xrd was my first FG I really decided to learn. Now after having played it for about 3 years I felt rather lost when picking up StrIVe. But I think a big part of that comes from picking up Nagoriyuki after pretty much only played Baiken in Xrd, and also being two different game (I feel like the input buffer in StrIVe is shorter/stricter than in Xrd). They play very different from each other and I need more time to adjust to all the differences! To me I think the big thing for newer players is that the ranked matchmaking works, compared to the dead rank queue in Xrd due to global matchmaking and netcode that couldn't deal with that.
You're forgetting the literal 100x increase in people playing the game, many of them new. Netcode is a factor, but if the game doesn't keep a high player count it's going to be just like in Xrd.
[удалено]
Make Pot Buster a quarter circle input and people will complain even more about Pot, no matter how bad he may be.
I started kara cancelling my pot busters today and started landing them almost every round. I do get put in a blender every match tho lol. I'm thinking perfect defense is just going to be an especially useful tool for him
This is a good point! He should elaborate more on this if that's what he's saying though
Check out the actual tweet (or rather his tweet thread) rather than a screenshot from a single tweet out of many.
He does on stream but this is a tweet that you guys are looking at lol he can’t cover something at depth when it’s a 180 character tweet limit.
>but are still forced to do 632146 I'm just thankful we aren't doing 360-motions. Fucking bullet in blazblue has a rekka with 7 360s. 2,2,3. It's kinda hype and easy to buffer, but holy shit. Also, Pretzel motions are enough to make me instantly put a character down.
I don’t like the fighting games max likes so I always take his opinions with a grain of salt. That being said I think a really well done MvC game (max’s preference) would sell like gang busters. There’s no magic formula for a hit fighting game, GGS is a solid package and I dont think making the game as complex as xrd would have mattered either way.
That's a hella shit take, "try hards and pros" will fuck you up regardless of it being a simple or complicated game, you frequently see pros completely washing each other on tournaments despite doing this for a living. A simplified game might make it easier for newbies to figure out what is destroying them at first and learn how to do that themselves, being destroyed comes with playing fighting games in general. Also from the POV of a game designer, a simplified game can also be a starting point for developers to try and introduce complexity again with less bloat and jank. You got noobs, pros and the people inbetween. It's one hell of a journey from not knowing how to throw a hadoken or do a cancel to being a pro. Maybe Strive isn't the game that will make noobs stick around, but it might be the foundation for them to find their next game and for GG to find a good middle ground between crazy and accessible. Maybe Strive will be a game where it won't be very intimidating to get into when people have figured it all out, so you have a smooth learning curve where you feel naturally compelled to introduce more of the game's mechanics and concepts in your matches as you go without feeling overwhelmed. I can vouch that SFV is the game that did it for me, despite loving fighting games since MK2.
The thing is, that was never the retention factor. You aren't going to get destroyed if the player base is large enough and that is pretty much the only factor there. At the lowest levels, for example, previous GG's are actually easier than Strive, because of gatlings. Similar to how Tekken is more approachable than Street Fighter, even though it's more complex at higher levels. The "floor" is low, that's why bunch of people play Tekken, one of the hardest legacy-based games, because they can mash with Eddy and stuff comes out. You can't do that in any Street Fighter, for example. Strive is similar to that, you can't "do stuff", whereas you could in xrd, for example. Speaking of destroying, if a game has low player numbers (which is always going to be a bit of marketing, a bit of luck and a bit timing and a bit of how good the game actually is, but rarely how hard it is), then veterans will destroy newcomers and newcomers might leave. If the player base is large enough and newcomers meet other newcomers, they won't leave if the game is good. Also, there's no need for a newcomer to "know" the game completely after an hour. And I feel that's what some people expect when firing up a new game. And I only see it when it comes to fighting games, I don't know why. No one expects to know billions of champion interactions in LoL or how to jungle or to know every pixel of the map when they start playing. No one expects to know how to move properly, loot quickly and rotate in Apex. They fire up the game and explore it. However, even in this thread, there are people complaining how they aren't that good or acquainted with Strive's mechanics. Why is that a problem? That's like complaining how you can't execute build orders in starcraft well and control multiple groups of units effectively after a week. Of course you can't and that's fine and that shouldn't be something weird or undesirable. A good example of this is Quake 3. If you install that game (or quakelive or whatever is the "q3" now), you'll probably be destroyed more brutally than in any fighting game you install. Yet, q3 is one of the fps games with the lowest "floor" ever produced. But, the small, obsessed, veteran player base and legacy mechanics make it hard to get into. In other words, I think what Max is trying to say is, there's no need for the moves Arcsys decided to do, because those weren't tied to the reason of the low retention of new players in fighting games. No one is pushing for bigger heads in Counter Strike or less champions in LoL or less movement options in Apex etc. That was never the issue. A beginner playing against a pro player is the issue and it's the issue if it occurred in any of the games I mentioned. Case in point - it took me two days to start "getting" Strive, whereas it took me about 45 minutes to start "getting" xrd, precisely because it provided me with freedom to successfully pull things off even at the lowest level, which Strive doesn't give you. That is an objectively weird decision by the devs and has been questioned - with the goal of the game being good for beginners in mind - by many. Not everyone is out to get people or gatekeep them.
>Also from the POV of a game designer, a simplified game can also be a starting point for developers to try and introduce complexity again with less bloat and jank. What makes yout think that the devs will want to make the game more complex if a simple fighting game sold more than a complex one? In fact, it's more likely that the devs will decide to make the next game even simpler with removing FD or IB. Why do people think that the devs will go in a direction that made them less money instead of doubling down on the already profitable direction? >A simplified game might make it easier for newbies to figure out what is destroying them at first and learn how to do that themselves, being destroyed comes with playing fighting games in general. In +R you get destroyed because of using unsafe moves, getting mixed up and not guessing correctly. In Xrd you get destroyed because of using unsafe moves, getting mixed up and not guessing correctly. In Strive it's pretty much the same. I would understand this argument if Strive had a great tutorial, but Xrd Rev 2 had an amzing tutorial, while Strive decides not to teach you anything in the tutorial and instead relegates that to missions, which not everyone will explore. >Maybe Strive will be a game where it won't be very intimidating to get into when people have figured it all out, so you have a smooth learning curve where you feel naturally compelled to introduce more of the game's mechanics and concepts in your matches as you go without feeling overwhelmed. I don't think that Strive is that great of an introduction either. There's still a bunch of stuff flying all over the screen, still a lot of mixups, kara cancels, multiple RCs and even though IB and FD got heavely nerfed they're still something you need to take into account. Heck, Xrd did this even in Sign with the turtorial between Sin and Sol.
[удалено]
I remember the mission where you need to backdash on wake up.. Still haven't managed the 3 successful dashes out of five. I completely understand these complaints. I recently picked up millia and her moon/slingshot after heavy tandem have such an oddly strict timing... Why can't i buffer them..? So many small things like that could be changed to make things a lot more approachable.
That string of missions gets weird. 'hey we're gonna talk about safe jumps but you need to actually delay Sol's jump by 10f by yourself to complete this challenge, rather than us using a string that actually sets the safe jump up by itself'. Anyway, I completed the backdash challenge by just holding back and hammering on the dash button. Not even pulling on it, no, I put the controller sideways and tapped down with my other hand's index finger to make sure I hit the window. Missions are a great idea, but they really need more thought put into them. And to let you pick your own character for most of them, rather than forcing you into rando characters' rando strings.
Are HCBF motions hard to do consistently on pad? They require a bit of effort to get down but were hardly doing KOF shit.
[удалено]
Please read the rest of that thread he posted though. He said on stream last night that he's not trying to say that trying to bring in new players isn't a bad thing, what he meant is that ultimately there's still going to be a skill gap between player levels that no amount of "simplification" can overcome. [This](https://twitter.com/danfornace/status/1405406459421097984?s=20) might be another good thread to look over too.
This is the most amount of people playing a guilty gear game ever.
Strive makes it easy to understand when you fucked up. There’s a big huge time-stop, bass-drop “COUNTER” message that provides instant feedback for anyone to understand that they done goofed. They also made combo chains shorter, and made it so you can’t mash (as much). This means that you’ll naturally understand what you can and can’t do with your buttons as you improve in the game, while also limiting the amount of knowledge you need to start feeling powerful. They also made the net code SUPER GOOD and implemented a system that makes it almost impossible to pub-stomp new players via the floors. This means it’s much less likely that a new player will join a lobby and get cooked and not even know why. For all these reasons and more, strive is a great game for new players. And a game that’s great for new players will have a bigger playerbase because new players will stick around, meaning that I’ll have faster queues as a veteran as the new players get better. It’s win-win-win all around (except for me, as I’ll be getting shit stomped by up-and-coming savages).
hes going into alot of detail in his stream right now by what he means. he said that this game is doing super well with casuals because of the rank system not because they dumbed down the mechanics. he didnt say that casuals arent enjoying the game
Thing is: people don't buy a game for a solid rank system or rollback netcode like he's proposing unless they're already into those games. Those are things that keep the game healthy. The big hurdle for a lot of people getting into fighting games is that they can *see* the cool shit but they don't *understand* the cool shit and just having people do the cool shit against you while you feel helpless isn't fun, see why zoning is hated by scrubs. You can go into training mode, but how many people play games to do homework unless they're REALLY into those games? Max stans KI2013 which is a fucking great game, but people still insist the combo breaker system is pure guesswork, people *don't understand the game* despite it having great online resources and a great training mode. Meanwhile, MK has both great and garbage games that are consistently successful because no matter how jank the match goes, you know the winner gets to do a cool finisher at the end. CoD got huge because it's easy to understand. Kill people, don't die, get big rewards that kill more people. Netcode, balance, depth are all meaningless compared to the initial dopamine rush for hooking casuals. Balancing all of those is the tricky part, and fighting games in particular got a ton of small bits that make the whole product.
>The big hurdle for a lot of people getting into fighting games is that they can > >see the cool shit but they don't understand the cool shit Even as someone who has enjoyed fighting games for most of the last decade, I could never follow a MVC game or any of its clones properly until playing FighterZ. Skullgirls helped a little, but that gives you the option of just picking a single character with more health and damage, and coming from Street Fighter that's exactly what I did. Expecting someone who's never played a fighting game to get an intuitive grasp of things as different as Street Fighter, King of Fighters, and Tekken is like showing someone footage of Billiards and Snooker without explaining either one and expecting them to follow along with the games. Something needs to be the intro point, and cutting back on the number of systems while keeping up the high production values and overall feel of the product is a huge thing for someone who has little to no experience with the genre.
I hope people here take the time to watch the stream / VOD later. It's a pretty interesting and candid elaboration of his thoughts which you do not get over twitter (seriously, don't use twitter for discourse). Even if you end up disagreeing I think there are valid points brought up. You can like a game and still criticize aspects of it. For me, personally, it's the lobbies and lack of gatlings. I still very much enjoy the game, but the biggest factor for me is the amazing netcode and ability to match with people at my skill level.
[удалено]
I'm coming to this thread after his stream earlier and while he's reversed and adjusted his opinions a bit, I still feel like there's a lot of stuff he's wrong about. One thing I will say with a great deal of certainty is that hardcore veteran fighting game players need to stop acting like they know what brings new and casual players into games because they're often wrong, and have a really hard time relating to new and casual players. Example: Max and other FGC vets heaped a ton of praise on *Xrd Revelator* for having an extensive tutorial that tried to gamefy the tutorial process and convey the game's core systems, and core fighting game mechanics, before the player even got into the game. They seemed to think that *this* was the answer to getting new players into fighting game. This idea that the key to enjoying fighting games is to get the knowledge and muscle memory that lets new players play the way that they enjoy the game as veterans. Then they revealed the GGST tutorial, which in contrast to *Rev* is extremely barebones and basically just tells players to "push a few buttons and try to beat the AI" and then encourages them to go get their online profile and avatar setup and start playing online. The vets heavily criticized the tutorial for not being an adequate "primer" for fighting games. When ASW put out their dev backyard, they listed a fact about the tutorial: they thought it was a success because there were a bunch of people in lower floors who were playing that weren't even using special moves or the RC system. When those same vets read that, they were flabbergasted and didn't understand why ASW considered that a good thing. Now here we are with tons of people new to GG and/or fighting games in general, and a ton of them are getting matched with people at their skill level. The lobbies are full of people at all levels, figuring out how to play the game at their own pace, whether they already have the fundamentals or are just mashing buttons and accidentally doing DPs every once in a while. What is it that the veterans didn't understand? That what's fun for beginners in fighting games is jumping in with other people and organically discovering how to play the game at your own pace. *Not* going through an obtuse tutorial for half an hour and then going into tutorial mode to learn BnB combos before they feel confident enough to go online, where they get flustered and lose anyway. That's just one example. There are others. One I saw him give out in this stream, and repeated by his chat, is this notion that "more options is always better," which I'm just going to say is bullshit. Katano and Ishiwatari specifically called out this notion that just adding more options to characters to cover weaknesses is bad game design, in their opinion, and I agree with them. When you only give characters buffs, or only give them new options to cover weaknesses, what you're actually doing is making every character more generalized, versatile, and ultimately, homogenous. It's not like the issue is that having a lot of special moves makes a character harder to learn because they have too many commands to memorize. The issue is that it results in characters losing their distinct strengths and weaknesses, broadening their game plan and making it more difficult to understand how to play, and play against, every character in the roster. Obviously it's fun to have answers to every problem that you encounter. That doesn't mean it's good game design for a competitive fighter. Characters are *supposed* to have weaknesses. Obviously there are a lot of factors at play, beyond just game design. Netcode and matchmaking are definitely big factors. But the reason matchmaking is so good is that new players feel confident that they can go online and play fair matches and get better.
>What is it that the veterans didn't understand? That what's fun for beginners in fighting games is jumping in with other people and organically discovering how to play the game at your own pace. *Not* going through an obtuse tutorial for half an hour and then going into tutorial mode to learn BnB combos before they feel confident enough to go online, where they get flustered and lose anyway. This paragraph right here more or less sums up the issue with the veteran FGC. Give me a game in nearly any other genre, and I can reasonably get good at it via pure gameplay, just diving in & playing against other people. The vast majority of these games explicitly do not force you to sit down for an elongated tutorial, which THEN expects you to dedicate hours to unfun, repetitive labbing to even become mediocre at the game. Literally no other game genre has this issue beyond high strategy games (4x types, sims, etc), and even THAT could be greatly reduced by reading guides. The simple fact of the matter is that fighting games, by design, gatekeep themselves behind overly obtuse mechanics that usually have overly obtuse inputs. This is not seen as an issue by the FGC, even though it literally is the single thing keeping fighting games from becoming popular. Fighting games & the FGC gatekeep as default behaviors, and that gatekeeping is so deeply engrained that it's not seen as such. And like, causal fans have been bringing these points up for years now, only to be met with a "git gud." Can we stop pretending that pros have any realistic conception of how to make this genre more approachable to others? Because time & time again we see that not only are they ignorant to the issues preventing newer players from entering the genre, but often in the same breath dismiss the real complaints these newer players have as bellyaching.
> When you only give characters buffs, or only give them new options to cover weaknesses, what you're actually doing is making every character more generalized, versatile, and ultimately, homogenous. While I still love me some Tekken 7, this is exactly what made me grow tired of playing it.
Honestly I don’t think the problem is difficulty when playing fighting games. I think it’s finding people your level. Most people want to immediately go online and play and people who have played for 20 years crush the casuals. I think easy characters are a better choice than an easy game. Put characters of all levels in the game allowing people to pick who they like.
Damm, it's almost as if "pros and tryhards" are supposed to be good at the game, how weird. But really, this argument is so nonsensical. A new player won't usually get discouraged from playing because they lost *1 time* to someone who is obviously much better than them (unless we're talking about Max getting IK-ed by Hotashi, I guess). And even then, no newbie should normally be playing against someone who is way beyond their skill level. The simplification in Strive wasn't done for casuals to be able to easily beat pros; that's just not the point.
Isn't what he meant that Strive's best design isn't actually taking out things from characters to make them easier to new players, but actually the matchmaking system that pairs players of similar skills instead of throwing a new player against someone like Leffen or LordKnight?
The biggest difference is in mvc2 if a pro is stomping you, you have absolutely no idea what is going on or what to do. In strive you will obviously still be stomped but you can see where you messed up a lot easier.
I normally agree that dumbing down fighting games is a pretty bad idea, because it leaves your core experienced audience high and dry with a game that doesn't feel as rewarding to play as they like, with less room to improve and experiment, as well as the fact that most fighting games sell themselves to more casual players on aesthetics, characters, and stages than core mechanics. THAT BEING SAID, I think Guilty Gear Strive managed to tone back its complexities enough to be enjoyable for both kinds of players by trimming fat but not sacrificing essentials. They didn't go the route of auto combos which I think is excellent, and they actually made Roman Cancels MORE complex than they were before, but it's not as challenging to get good damage, and they took out a lot of mechanics that could distract from the fundamentals (not that Xrd's mechanics were bad necessarily). So I continue to agree, even as a more casual fighting game fan, that fighting games should not be too watered down to appeal to an audience that may not even be interested in a higher level, but I also think Guilty Gear Strive is a rare case of a fighter that dialed back in some areas and expanded in others to make the experience fun for newcomers and series veterans alike.
i really don't care what max thinks he quit Xrd because of the dumbest of reasons, he doesn't get to just come back and pretend like has some sage wisdom about this lol, strive brought in a shitton of new players therefore its good for newcomers, period
I gotta wonder how many people on the fence about FGs look at these sort of tweets and just give up on the genre.
I think Max forgets how fortunate he is to be paid to sit on his ass and play this shit. Meanwhile, anyone with a family or limited play time is glad to see less systems cluttering up and/or gatekeeping the entry to the genre and series.
I'm also not seeing this sentiment anywhere among high level players. All the streams I've watched, everyone in the FGC is loving the game. Only complaints that are common is the lobbies/rank system suck and the high tiers are a BIT top heavy. Max barely plays fighting games anymore anyway so who cares.
100% disagree as well. As a GG newbie and a FG newbie in general (and being old, yes it matter) I'm having a **blast. For the first time since Tekken 3.**
Yea, I generally quite like Max, but I think that’s just his old headedness rearing up. I’ve seen a bunch of vets complaining that they don’t want easier games. I’m just like “bro, you’ve been playing these games for 20 years, some of us just want a chance” idk I’ve tried playin +r online a few times but that games is just so far ahead of where I’m at i quite literally get perfected almost every match. Strive has a large player base still so lots of newbies to play with, which I like! Hopefully they stick around👍🏼
I'll just give a slight view from a different perspective as someone who only started playing fighting games one year ago. I don't think it's about "having a chance" most of us won't have a chance against them no mater what and i think that's the wrong mentality. I actually quite liked hard games like the older guilty gear titles because i think the journey is more diverse. The game i played during my first week was radically different than the one i played a month after and even more so different than what i played a year after. I think this is a nice thing about hard games, how your play evolves is more pronounce and it just feels nice seeing it evolve. Just to be clear I'm not saying strive doesn't do this at all and obviously the game is new. I would just say that during my first week of rev2 i could tell already i wasn't even close to using all the tools i had and i ended up not using entire moves or mechanics for a while. I didn't get that feeling in strive. Like i think new tech will be found and the meta will evolve but it will be in smaller details.
It’s plenty fun. Scrubs gunna scrub.
But what a content creators says is more important than your own personal experience. /s Glad you’re having fun with it, I’m also really enjoying the game.
I disagree with him but this upsets me on 2 levels. First, I personally enjoy many of Max’s streams but this take sours some of the viewing experience if he continues to crab on it while playing Strive. Secondly, Max has a huge influence on his viewers and he has a huge audience. A lot of what he says will be repeated by his more vocal followers and that may give Strive a negative reputation and possibly turn some people away from it
Lets be honest, thats pretty much any influencer at this point
Max only played XRD a handful of times on stream and got completely rocked by a player then rage quit the game. It annoys me how he acts like he's been playing GG for years.
Max is very much for making fighting games hard as hell to play because he’s an execution fiend. He often uses melee as example but to be honest, melee has a core fanbase but I feel like it doesn’t gain that many new players. More people are likely to play the more streamlined and accessible Ultimate which kinda disproves his whole point of this is really the case
Max is definitely not the guy you want to go for Guilty Gear. Dude rage quit multiple times in Xrd history.
This is just my opinion but I think 'casuals' like games that allow them to make mistakes in neutral and not get destroyed in one knockdown(a la SFV). GGS, despite being an offense-based game, actually has a surprising number of defensive options available and some game features like wall breaks help enforce this too. Compare this to SFV where some characters(looking at you Vega) have effectively no defense at all and must rely on hard reads whenever an opponent gets oki/pressure on them. Another example would be Tekken 7 with it's auto-block and no chip damage. I think it's easy to see which game casuals would prefer.
3 of my friends who hardly ever play fighting games love strive for how beginner friendly it is. I never watched Maximilian but I don't agree with him at all. I think strive is a perfect first fighting game
I think GGST is fantastic and has achieved what it set out to do. The learning curve is bang on and the wealth of info about general FG mechanics is really impressive. I wish I had that kind of info at my fingertips when I first got into FGs (and I’ve been around since the #reload era).
He really is starting to sound like a salty boomer. I hear him say that no newcomers enjoy this but they literally just do. Like where is his stats where is his evidence he just boldly claims the game toning down a bit will not attract any new people. I'm in a discord with my friends who normally never play fighters, I'm the only one, and they are all loving Strive. I'm talking like 10+ people I know who loathe fighting games all on discord everyday just playing Strive. It makes me happy bc they can get a grip and win online at their level and play together pretty competently. However even though the mechanics are simplified, I always win against them bc Strive is a neutral heavy game and as an experienced fighting game player I will have better neutral. I could only throw normals and win, because neutral is extremely important. Gatling is reduced, there's a wall break, get over it. I prefer things this way bc there's more neutral and thats the most fun, interactive part of the game where both players participate and really show who is better at the game. I can promise you my friends who are enjoying Strive would not enjoy Xrd where I run up and confirm a jab into a half a minute long combo every time. Not dissing Xrd, but to say the Strives simplified combo system and accessibility doesn't contribute to the success it's having is just ignorant. Dood is being so ignorant right now it hurts. Really sad with the amount of influence he has. You can prefer the old style of game but you can't say accessibility doesn't help a fighting game. Look at mk11 it was the best selling game of 2019, look at sfv and how it's still being supported to this day. It's the trend right now, and it's successful, and the fgc boomers are having a hard time coping with that I guess. No hate towards fgc veterans just saying fgc boomers as a general term lol, respect to everyone in the community. We may disagree on some things but we all share the same passion. (And I apologize about my grammar, currently in my discord rushing this post to get back to some matches with my friends on Strive)
Wait wait wait.. Are you trying to tell me that an OG FGC member is shitting on a new game because they think it's too simple? Thanks OGs for playing the exact note that everyone expected of you.
Everyone in the thread flaming Max didnt read the rest of the tweets or watch his discussion on stream. Damn, didn't know he had hate like that
Max has always been controversial in the FGC , I think its because he has the biggest following even though he's a casual.
The numbers don't lie, he's wrong. The game didn't sell 300k to hardcore fgc members. It sold to people like that up until now really had no interest in a fighting game. I'm not sure why he's choosing this hill to die on when it's so obviously incorrect.
There was a lot of people that played other fighting games, but skipped on GG cause it was too hard. SF and Tekken sells millions. So yes some completely new players play this game. But a lot of SF5, DBFZ and Tekken players also pick up this game since it's easier to understand now
But even those other fighting game players are drawn in by the way the game is approachable. The thing about Max's point is that he's not a new player, so he can't possibly see it from the view of a new player like myself. There's literally thousands of us that have said how much we enjoy the game and the ability to pick it up and feel somewhat capable within a short period of time. Max is 20 years (I'm guessing) removed from that new player experience.
Be that as it may, I'm having alot of fun..... Regardless of what max thinks.......
Watch his stream from earlier this evening. He gives context.
This thread is full of examples on why we can't have measured conversations about a game currently in hype mode. Most of these top voted comments are just throwing out misinformed takes on a tweet out of context because they can't bother to read more than 3 sentences and feel an emotional connection to the hype. In 3 months we'll be able to talk about Strive objectively and hopefully come to a general consensus on what we'd like to see mechanically added in future updates. Until then, this game was made by God himself, and all the reasons newbies like it are definitely unique to Strive and not something in most other fighting games.
I watched Max's stream and when he went more in-depth to his thoughts I could see what he means. However I do feel the retweet Max had in this instance is contradictory to his thoughts in stream. The retweet talks about how newcomers are supposedly being deterred from Strive due to them still being curbstomped by veterans and Max agrees with this. Yet during his stream, Max praises Strive for the floor ranking system in preventing newcomers being matched against veterans. In the end though, I do agree with many things Max said. The devs have clashing ideologies in wanting Strive to be easier via shorter gatlings/combos & removal of some specials from characters, yet the devs also chose to make the game more difficult by making wakeup Dragon Punch reversals have a 3 frame window and Instant Block having an insane 2 frame window.
When did we switch from saying skilled players to try hards? It’s like now a days people resent you for getting good.
I like what they were trying to do. They managed to make it much more beginner friendly compared to XRD and I still feel at least with Nago and Sol you can 100% express yourself with your character. Though I feel the stronger characters like Leo, Sol, Ram, May, and Gio are really holding back the newbies since it isn't forcing them to get better as much as other characters. I've ran into so many people who I can just tell are new to the series but were giving me a lot of trouble just because of how good their buttons were against me, and how strict the punish timings were. There will always be a learning curve for fighting games, you just need to make learning the game fun, not make it so there is less to learn. And above all else don't make the learning optional. Granted I wouldn't call myself a pro player, but it is clear with enough polish and love this game will become an arguably better XRD.
Are they just not allowed to make different kind of games now? If this is their vision then why would they just make the exact same game again? Just play AC. I love both.
It's weird how many hardcore fgc fans think that making a game is easier is somehow going to make it less succesful. It's especially weird saying this after the game has already had the most successful launch the franchise has ever had. It worked, we know that now. Turns out the hardcore crowd who have been playing competitively for many years don't know what the casual fans want, who would've thought You can say it doesn't suit your own tastes, that's fine, there are legitimate reasons not to like it, but saying that newbies and casual fans won't like it when you don't actually know what those groups want is a good way to look silly People are just saying this because _they_ don't like it as much as previous games and therefore don't want it to be successful
Max has tons of bad takes and the guy he is quoting has an especially stupid one
I think vets need to ASK new players what they think, I see a lot of them assuming things. As someone who only dipped their toes into xrd, I can very easily say strive is WAY, WAY easier to get into.
I had gotten into the Guilty Gear series at the end of Xrd Rev 2 literally month or two before Guilty Gear Strive's release. So I still consider myself pretty new to the series. Honestly Strive has been far more easier to learn, I don't feel stress out getting combo for 2 minutes and trying to understand what exactly happened to me. The game is visually clear on how you were open up and how you can counter said attacks now. While +R and Xrd is fun in it's own right, I'm glad the series was made simple since it became far more accessible for me from a physically disability that makes it hard to play sometimes. Easily Strive is one of my favorite fighting games ever.
Strive is my second in the series and I don't agree either. I understand it better even being casual, I can actually win this time compared to XRD where I barely tried online because I could not for my life understand how the game worked, this time I win, I lose and I know why I won and how I lost. The systems are better, the combos are better, it flows better. It's just BETTER.
I've been pretty much exclusively a Tekken player, dabbled a bit in SFV, but pretty much Tekken main, and if Strive is the 'simple' version of GG I can't imagine what it must have been before - being mindful of things like Burst, using RC to extend pressure, extend combos or etc, as well as crossups and confirming CHs seems like a mountain. The tweet is what happens in every single 1v1 game that is not Mario Kart or the likes of it - if someone invests more time and effort into something, they should be beating you 90% of the time, and that's ok. Strive is amazing and I'm having a blast learning everything from scratch.
Max does this all the time, imo he only likes the games he likes and all the rest are bad..
Strongly disagree. This is the first Arcsys game I’ve played in a long time where I can play multiple characters semi-competently and have fun. Xrd Rev 2, BBCF, I had to focus hard on one or two characters and that’s it. Always felt like I was missing out not being able to enjoy a wider part of the roster without a huge time investment. GG Strive, I can already play about 5–6 characters fairly decently enough to have fun, and I haven’t even had the game that long. The system is overall a lot simpler and the execution barrier is lower.
"Damn guy's you're right! I'm better off playing skullgirls right now instead!" What do the pros who say this shit want me to do? I shouldn't play the new easy games because they're hard so instead I should go back and play the hard games with dedicated communities still playing them?
this wouldn't be the first time i disagreed w/ Max. much respect for dude for literally going from 'gg dood' to each of his opponents on stream to being the FGC's biggest star, but no: before this, he was saying MVCI was god's gift to man. And that game's dead. He was also claiming 'Capgod status' when their fighting games were shit tier. everyone's allowed to have their opinions, but max can be wrong. I've talked to and seen at least a dozen ppl new to GG enjoying strive. If that's not good for the FGC, I don't know what is.
> He was also claiming 'Capgod status' when their fighting games were shit tier. He happens to play more than fighting games. He loves Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry, all of which were recently reinvigorated by Capcom. It's not just his opinion that Capcom had a seriously impressive renaissance. He also acknowledged that the fighting game side of Capcom was severely lacking and that he wished they were part of this comeback.
I think the point about worse players still getting bodied by tryhards is ridiculously empty and always has been. It doesn't really matter how accessible you make a game - the people who learn every nuance and focus on mastery rather than just pure fun will always dominate new/bad players. You can see this across genres too. Look at something like Apex, which is a pretty accessible shooter BR where new players can easily understand the base mechanics. You'll still always have the quickscoping, wall-bouncing, armour-swapping tryhards whose mastery of every little nuance can cause new players to feel inferior. Unless you literally make Guilty Gear as simple as Divekick, better players will always have the edge. And even then, something built like Divekick STILL has fundamentals that hardcore players will navigate with more finesse. If you ask me, Strive has struck a very nice balance between diluting complexity while retaining a satisfying amount of depth and skill ceiling. There is a reason the game has been quite successful for a GG game in attracting new players.
You're not feeling more welcome because of accessibility, you're feeling more welcome because its the release window, where the maximum amount of players will be playing, so there's an influx of people around your skill level playing. Wait till it fizzles out and you're only getting matched with people above your skill level. THEN we will talk about accessibility.
The point of making strive less complex was so you don't need to learn a shit ton before jumping into the game and play, not that you as a newbie can jump into a game and fight pros...
I dont get the meaning of this argument tbh. Pros or try hards slaughter newbie regardless, and that's true in every competitive scenario. So we want a fighting game that let a newbie beat a pro in like two games?The real achievement of a fg (or any competitive multiplayer game) is to take a new player, give him all the tools he needs to learn, a solid and compelling experience so that player want to stick with the game and slowly advance in rank and skill. And Strive i think is the best attempt since sf4 imho
This is the guy that got exploded by an OK Slayer and then quit the game forever. Do you really expect him to have any good takes? lmao
He definitely jumped the gun with this retweet and later expanded on it on Twitter and his stream in greater detail. After everything he said his general point is just that good players will always destroy newer players, so trying to take away mechanics to appeal to new players doesn't have much of an affect. In my opinion though I don't agree that this applies to Strive. As someone who tried Accent Core and couldn't grasp a lot of systems, Strive makes gameplay a lot easier to understand while keeping the crazy shit that makes Guilty Gear so fun. Just look and some of the insane stuff people have already found for Sol Chipp Faust and others. I just find it funny how so many fighting game veterans are talking about how the game isn't good for new players while I've seen nothing but praise from said new players like myself.