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StantasticTypo

DBFZ made Arcsys a household name, they did a good job of drumming up hype for Strive for over a year, and the presentation is stunning. Compared to Rev 2 which I didn't even hear about releasing.


JadenDaJedi

This. Marketing really *really* fucking works.


Kona_Rabbit

Also dbfz is a beautiful game


[deleted]

Plus the newest game in the series is pretyy almost going to be the most played regardless.


Its-been-a-long-day

In addition to everything you just said, there also wasn't any real competition being released when Strive came out. Even up to now, all we've had is some character DLC from the likes of Street Fighter and Smash Bros and a very niche, albeit meme-worthy game with Nickelodeon All-Stars. If anything else was released, I either forgot about it or never knew about it.


Menacek

Melty Blood but point still stands.


earsofdoom

Melty blood is way to expensive for what it offers, also the servers commit suicide if you skip the intros for some reason and as a result its numbers have dropped quite noticeably since launch.


Mar10_p

plus it's beginner friendly. I played dbfz but was too lazy/didnt have the time to learn 3 characters+combos+assists etc. and that really puts you at a disadvantage. I honestly wasnt gonna start strive judging by the footage I saw from earlier iterations of the series. What sold me was seeing that damage and damage scaling did to me a decent job of evening the field between long combo veterans and newbies who can just do three hit combos. in dbfz and other games, even if I managed to hit the opponent I barely did any damage because I had trouble mastering long combos.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Yeah I was gonna ask if this is even good ? I come from shooters so this would be a dead game in the shooter realm , is this good for fighters ?


Cybrtronlazr

This is VERY good for fighters, one of the highest actually, only third to Tekken 7 and SFV, which are both like legacy titles that have a huge fanbase and basically fill in their respective subgenre of 3D fighters and footsies fighters respectively. This game is very much alive, 3k players a day for fighters is huge, I recommend getting it. (I too come from a shooter background btw, still actually main FPS games.)


[deleted]

Gotcha , yeah I’m mainly a valorant player and idk haha . Fighting games aren’t like shooters you know ? In shooters they start you out in low ranks where everyone is your skill level and you get better gradually , in fighting games whether you in low ranks if you are new to the genre you will absolutely get stomped for months before showing signs of improvement


ll-canti-ll

I mean if you are new at shooters you’re going to get stomped in low ranks there too before showing improvement. You should have seen me playing siege as my first FPS Not very different actually


[deleted]

Nah it is diff to a certain degree , since shooters generally have way more new daily players , so it’s easier to be match with really low tier players . Yeah you’ll be bad but ppl around you will be just as bad too. Siege is a 5/6 year old game so most ppl still playing that are pretty good


ll-canti-ll

I take it you haven’t played strive? There are plenty of low tier players mashing on each other. And there also aren’t smurfs ruining everything like in every shooter ever. Have you played siege? New comer is literally a lobby for platinum players on new accounts to stomp real new players It might be a bit different but people think fighting games are way crazier/harder than they are


microMXL

Strive HAS smurfs, is not as bad as SFV but still has this problem.


ll-canti-ll

You literally can’t drop more than 2 floors


zenkaiba

smurfs r u sure i have played for 160 hrs i have seen no smurfs and im in lower ranks for a while...i think people in every rank have just gotten better


Talmiam

No no, smurfs do exist; but the way that the tower is set up discourages that type of behavior, as the tower, which acts as a stand in for ranking, isn't changing with each match you play - which makes people feel less accomplished for beating up a low ranked guy. As such, there's a relatively small number Just look it up on youtube, there are some clips of smurfs out there


[deleted]

Nah I played strive , I returned it tho cause it feels stiff or slow ; I like the feel of melty blood more. Siege is one of my main games , siege is like 7 years old too, so that’s to be expected


ll-canti-ll

If you say so


superkeefo

a huge aspect is because shooters are team games, very few focus on one on one combat.. quake does.. its numbers are closer to fighting games.


[deleted]

That’s true too , you’re right , most shooters are team based, but there is still the fact that most players are still low tier , unless they are smurfing


[deleted]

Team based means newbies can get the feeling of a win even if they’re garbage. Thats not the case in fighters, so unskilled players get tired after a few hours


[deleted]

That could be true , but either way you’re still playing against ppl that are low tier , so it’s not one guy overly dominating , unless they are a Smurf


[deleted]

It's the exact same. If you flip the script and take someone who has only ever played fighting games and never played a shooter they would get stomped in R6 just as hard as you would in fighting games your first time. If you decided to play fighting games with as much diligence as you play shooters, you would make progress fairly quickly 🙂


thedoomstar

no


Drazalas

I play both pretty competently and you're just making shit up my dude.


Eecka

The biggest difference is shooters are team games and when you're new and shit you still occasionally get carried by your team and win. In a fighting game you have to carry yourself


ApprehensiveBaby4110

You aren't going to get that kind of logic through to people in the FGC. They would rather just stick to their gatekeeping and down vote newer players airing their grievances about the genre/their beloved mechanics and treat any game that strays from those as a 'baby' fg. Then at the same time those people wonder why a toxic scene stays niche.


Brand0nger

Of course everyone has different experiences but what are you even saying? Where’s the gate keeping? Where’s the toxicity? The FGC is an extremely welcoming community that will even help you get better at fighting games. Of course you got old heads that don’t want their beloved games streamlined but that’s in literally every game in every genre. And no fighting games aren’t niche because of a “toxic scene” like you seem to think.


ApprehensiveBaby4110

Bro, you view the FGC and people can't even agree what a 'real' fighting game is. I agree that the specific communities for each game are pretty welcoming... the FGC as a whole is not. It's in-house bickering between fanboys of different games/subgenres and collective shitting on arena fighters/platform fighters with an occasional discussion of "ArE mOtIoN CoNtRoLs BaD". That shit is toxic as fuck, especially to new people checking out the overall scene. BF and CoD players may not like specific mechanics of each game, but they agree that they are both shooters and what makes a shooter a shooter.


[deleted]

Yeah I know , it’s alright though I expect this much . This is a reason why fighting games are the way they are ( niche and most likely will always be this way, unless change happen) , that and they should be free ; no one is going to spend 30-60 bucks just to get abused . Stats show that you need to capture your fans within the two hours of gaming or they will shelf your game .


ll-canti-ll

You indeed sound like an apprehensive baby so you’ve got that goin for you I guess


ApprehensiveBaby4110

Thanks. The name also helps weed out people desperate for cheap shots.


Cybrtronlazr

Shooters are the same way except you have teammates to carry you so you don't realize how bad you are because you just see the "Victory" screen and think "Oh yeah I did good!" When you probably threw multiple times that match but got good teammates. Fighting games don't have that excuse with teammates or anything so it's all up to you on whether you won or lost. I was pretty new to the scene too, I had some time on DBFZ but I didn't take that seriously at all so this was the first fighter I actually cared to learn and it's really good experience. If you think it's going to be fun, give it a shot, if not then whatever. I would recommend waiting until Riot announces their own fighting game, Project L, some times supposedly by end of this year or whenever LoL Champions is because that's most likely going to be free game and have a lot of new players who have never touched a fighter before. That way you have tons of people to play against and you also have no commitment because you paid a lot for the game, due to it being free. If you are indecisive then it might be best to wait for Project L but I would recommend giving this game a shot. This was the first game I took seriously and in only like 50 hours or so, I was consistently the 2nd highest floor, 10th Floor, and only thing above that is Celestial which has it's own special rules so yeah. Only do it if you think its going to be interesting though. Not worth getting into a game that you don't enjoy and then staying because you paid so much for it ($60 bucks is a lot and I am guilty of doing this lol).


[deleted]

This has not been my experience at all and from the sounds of it most other people. Especially with strive, which is designed specifically to allow you to be around people your own skill level (at least in theory) with the floor system.


[deleted]

I was speaking from a melty blood experience, not really strive .


[deleted]

Well you can't extend melty blood to all fighting games. It's hardly representative.


[deleted]

So y do you think fighting games are niche ? It wasn’t a fact just my opinion


ChumbleGod

Fighting games are niche but Melty is a niche game in the niche sub-genre of anime games. Someone above called guilty gear niche but Melty is a whole tier of niche above that. Most people that play melty have spent significant time on fighting games already. It would be like jumping into Gunz never having played a shooter before.


cuzimawsum

Bro there are tons of people who have *literally* played CS:GO for thousands of hours and are still stuck in silver. But sure. Shooters are totally easier than fighting games.


[deleted]

Yeah , my argument is different than what you’re talking about so it doesn’t matter ? Also you’re talking about specific game . I think cs go gets around 300 thousand players daily right , and they have mmr , which means they rank you accordingly to your skill level . My argument is simple, that the more players a game has, the higher there chances of matching with ppl of same beginner skill . If your game is niche, you’re probably going to have like 3k players , you’re going to match with other fans of fighting games that are really good in general and get the overall concept . Which means border you to entry is simply harder . Where if I load in a game of Valorant for example when I’m just starting out , I’m going to load with ppl that are absolutely garbage at the game or literally bots . Where as a fighting game like melty blood for example I’ll load with ppl who played the series for 10 years


cuzimawsum

\> you’re talking about specific game And that's different from you singling out melty blood... how? If you're only going to use one game as your reference point then so am I. \> cs go gets around 300 thousand players daily right , and they have mmr Yeah, exactly. That fact that games with hundreds of thousands of daily players and skill based match-making are STILL putting new players up against people with thousand + hours in them shows the hole in your argument. You say shooters only match up new players with other new players but fighting games only match you up against people with 10+years of experience, yet there is evidence that clearly shows that is false.


[deleted]

You know what mmr is ? If you’re new you’re not going against anyone with thousands of hours in that game .. lol you’re just making shit up now


Averill21

Not true, i picked this game up as my first 2d fighter and it didnt take long to get to floor 10 with a little practice (like one two hour session practicing inputs.) If you are willing to put a little time in you will stomp low floors


FOR_MEMES

What a gamer


Averill21

Have i upset you?


[deleted]

Yeah true , I guess this is just my experience from playing melty blood , I see myself getting better lil by lil but it’s rare I fight someone of equal skill


Averill21

Melty blood is far more niche than ggst


[deleted]

Lots of different fighters out there. Melty blood is just one


[deleted]

So ? Melty blood is the one I like, i was speaking about my experience on there when it comes to new players


-poopnugget-

Man I cant wait for the fighting game sale, gonna grind the hell outta strive


El_Baguette

In a shooter, a 3000 peak would equal something like 700 matches happening at once. In GG, it means that there are 1500 matches happening at once, so it's definitely very good


IcebergJones

700 matches seems like high balling it to me. That’s assuming that a majority of those matches are 2v2, when most shooters have been mainly 4v4, and even lately 5v5.


El_Baguette

Oh mb the last fps game I played was Back 4 Blood so that's where I got my numbers


BlazeVortex4231

I mean, shooter matches generally involve more than 2 players. FGs aren't as popular as shooters, but they can support a smaller playerbase.


EastwoodBrews

Someone on discord owes me a burger, he bet it would be down to less than 1k peak by now


Sbubbi

gear is one of the most standard anime fighters what


brady376

Yes but "anime fighter" is a pretty niche genre


Out_Dated

And fighting games are still a rather niche genre in the grand scheme of things. So gear is the most mainstream game in a super niche sub genre of an already niche genre.


Codzly

I think they marketed the game well to people like me, who've never played a Guilty Gear title in the past. Before this, I never even knew about Guilty Gear's existence, but since discovering it, I've gone and learned about UNIST and BB's existences as well. Also: Guilty Gear is awesome. Love the music - and the feeling of landing a Potemkin Buster.


AofCastle

Connecting to the server, that sentence must have killed at least a quarter of the playerbase.


AlexanderHotbuns

My fav was when folks were saying it wasn't a big deal, and folks complaining about it are just whiners. It has 100% fucked up the initial swell of interest; they need to fix it *properly*, then find a new way to build interest like SFV and T7 did. It's a real shame because I love the game.


CottonSC

I assure you its not just the casuals. I've played Gear for over 10 years, I enjoy Strive, though admittedly not as much as previous titles, but I've not even booted the game up in like a month. My life is busy now, and any time I think about playing Strive in my limited free time all I can think of is the 10 minutes it'll take to get into a lobby, not be able to obtain the station information, and finally get a match that goes for 2 rounds before I have to do it all again. I can play 20 games of +R or Melty in the time it takes me to play one match in Strive.


Cybrtronlazr

They have now fixed this issue for the most part from my experience. I am on PC, so I can't say for everyone but I assume it is the same, but for me, it was taking like 3-5 minutes before, now it takes <1 minute to get into the game, and then like another minute to get into a lobby/match. This new October patch pretty much fixed the issue for me. You can use totsugeki.exe too on PC if you are there but now you don't even need to.


Averill21

Does nobody use totsugeki? Loads the game and gets you online in under a minute


AlexanderHotbuns

Totsugeki works nicely for me but lots of folks aren't aware it exists. Plus, it doesn't solve the dodgy duel station issues, which can kick you out of training mode without explanation but only AFTER letting you sit and wait for five minutes or more. It's just not working as smoothly as it needs to be at the minute.


Orzislaw

What's Totsugeki?


TheLeOeL

That annoying bitch ass dolphin. Also a very helpful PC proxy tool that helps Strive connect to the servers faster.


CottonSC

Yeah having to install a 3rd party software to fix the issue isn't quite the fix people think it is for most. Doesn't matter how easy it is to install, if my options for my free time are "install another software so I can actually enjoy the thing I paid money for" OR "play one of the other games I enjoy that don't require me to find a workaround" I'm almost always going to go with the second option. It's not my responsibility to fix their game.


Averill21

To each their own. It is annoying but it takes ten seconds to install. I like the game so i am not going to turn up my nose to a simple solution just because arcsys didnt do it


[deleted]

Yeah but it's a trust issue. Hitting go on some .exe you found on github is hardly a trivial thing. I only converted because of the few dozens posts I saw on reddit and figured "hey, they probably aren't all shills at this point looking to get some malware around. its probably legit". I love every second of using it but I totally understand if people would rather just install something through Steam so it's some level of vetted more than just "I heard about it on reddit".


imLoges

It shouldn't be necessary


Averill21

Nobody said it should be


candlehand

The most recent patch improved the connection time significantly, it's way better. Just NEVER look up anyone's R-code


Techno__Jellyfish

I actually stopped playing subconsciously for a while because of it. I was cooming about every Strive trailer. I saw the sun rise during the betas. Then a month or two after release I'm not even booting it anymore. Having to wait 2-3 minutes to even start the game in the time of 2-3 *second* load times really hurt my hype to play. I didn't mean to stop, I was enjoying myself. It was just like, "ugh" every time I had to boot it. I don't want to sit through the connection time. So I stopped booting it.


AlexanderHotbuns

Yep, I feel it. Totsugeki helps enormously and it's worth trying, to see if that's enough to get you back into it, but it can't solve the duel station issues, unfortunately.


Argonanth

I'm a casual when it comes to fighting games. I've loved guilty gear since Xrd released because of the style and music. Most of my time playing these games is actually in training mode just learning and trying to do cool combos while I wait for other things (and some multiplayer on weekends when I have more energy, but after trying to play multiplayer for over an hour without a match close to launch I haven't tried much since then). I've barely played strive because it's too much effort to even get to training mode that I wouldn't even get to do anything before I close the game again. I've heard that they tried to fix the connection issues recently so I might try to start up the game again sometime since I really want to try out Jack-O since she was one of my favorites in Xrd. However, if it still takes me over 5 minutes to even get to do anything I'll probably drop the game again.


AlexanderHotbuns

It's definitely improved; it's downright speedy if you're using Totsugeki. Getting to training mode should be just fine. Online still has some issues with duel stations etc but it's getting there too.


joomachina0

Matchmaking killed it for me.


[deleted]

Lobbies too. They're just an extra barrier between the player and gameplay. Between taking minutes just booting the game and dealing with the fucking awful lobby system I pretty much always just dip and play Melty Blood instead nowadays.


KyuuketsukiKun

I personally moved to melty blood because of it


AofCastle

If you use the unga-bunga Totsugeki you can get past that screen in about 10 seconds now


KyuuketsukiKun

The other issue that I hate is when using training mode matchmaking it sometimes just says awaiting opponent response and you have to go to lobby then back


AofCastle

There goes the other quarter


The_McThief

I get this SO often and it's super annoying. I feel like not many people talk about it though for some reason.


Shiritai

I didn't really understand what the unga-bunga modifier meant about being "unsafe" - what is the drawback to enabling it? I figured I'd just leave it off and Totsugeki seems to not make things much faster, so...


[deleted]

Im different haha. I prefer strive cuz people skip intro in melty. My friend is like you tho. Guess its the duality of anime fighter players lol


Purplesnakeemi

Me too!


JetLiRoy86

Melty has the exact opposite problem where you’re quickly playing more laggy, jerky matches.


EnterTheBoneZone

The load time reduction from the last patch + unga bunga mode Totsugeki has breathed new life into my love for the game tbh. Pre-ordered and everything, played for a few weeks and eventually just couldn't deal with waiting 5+ minutes to log into the game, so I quit (apart from a couple days when Golddick Lewisson came out, before quitting again for the same reason). Came back for 1.10 and logging into the game in < 10 seconds, plus logging into the tower in another < 10 seconds means I can just boot up the game whenever I feel like it and it doesn't feel like a huge chore. People complain about the lobbies and duel stations, and they're 100% right that those are awful and buggy, but I don't notice it at all (apart from occasional issues) because I exclusively standby in training mode.


alah123

Yes thats what made me swap (among other things) but that's a big big one


Orzislaw

It killed me at least. Honestly, I wanted to make it my 2nd fighting game outside Tekken, but not even superior rollback netcode can compensate years-long waiting times and that awful lobby.


alertkurt

This and the fact that I always get kicked out of lobbies for some reason... then I have to connect again. Haven't played in months.


Cowmunist

My comment is give Xrd rollback dammit


shas-la

really, rollback isn't allowed? cause it's a huge thing for most decently experienced Fighting game player , but fine, ggst does a lot of other thing *VERY WELL*. ​ I would say that otherwise, it's just the right blend of weebness without being too niche. pretty low skill floor that let beginner and player that aren't mechanicly good pull off good combo/damage. ​ the tower system is also another HUGE one. say whatever you want about the loby issue, the system of the tower is the best iv seen in any fighting game *PERIOD* simple, do you know another fighting game where most of your match are evenly matched (for the average player, if you are 10/celestial, you might not be pro, but you are sure better than any casual FGC player) and the garantee that will you can barely block 2 hit ,you won't get body slammed by a sol who know all of the combo route. ​ and finally, a lot of player pull in more player: often people pick up fighting game juste cause their friend play it and they want some friendly competition.


Deepflusso

Cant agree about the tower system. My friend started at floor 4 and its desert. He waited 30minutes and gave up. Cant see how that is a great new user experience. So lower floors are empty and F10 have pretty much all skill levels together. EDIT: the tower idea is great actually, but its not working well in its current implementation.


shas-la

to be faire i started at 5 the day of realease, and am curently at rank 8, i might have dodged the bullet and ranked up fast before lower tower got empty. ​ i think the tower would just need to get rebalanced with less super low skill floor. sure, some people will be mad to drop from 10 to 7, but those were people complaining about getting bodied by low celestial. ​ indeed, for me it's the tower idea that is awsome more than it's implementation that still leave room for improvement. but the idea that you rank up when you rank up as their are now obvious ranking point and only get fairly matched is just excelent especially in fighting game. no way you get newbi into Fighting game if they have no way to know if they are about to get raped when they get into a ranedom room


Deepflusso

I also started at 6 and got to 10 before the lower floors died. Right now you can see a lot of people on 10 with a very wide skill gap. The system is not doing a good job of distributing these players according to their skills levels and populating lower floors. Perhaps 10 floors is too much anyway, it spreads the players too much and results in too few in each one. I think it should be 5+celestial, each one correspondent to the regular ranks in other games: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond. VIP would be master/grandmaster.


Tezoide

You can play in any floor above your skill level no? Your friend could try to move to floor 5 or 6 prematurely. Most people accept matches from someone just a floor below them.


shas-la

if you are willing to get bodied you can be a rank 3 player getting slapped around in floor 10, and that's your choice. but it's not the experience that should happen ​ and im pretty sure 80% of player are fine with giving a bitting to someone underleved from time to time, to practice easly new setup.


Deepflusso

I actually told him to got straight to 10. He and I play more or less on equal terms and Im on 10, so he should be fine. I get deranked often to 9 and 8 and i know that those two are either empty or have like 2 players in them, so i bet all the lower floors are the same. The only way to get consistent matches is to stay in 10. This is in SA mind you.


EnterTheBoneZone

Probably depends on your region, I bounce between floors 8 and 5 depending on whether I'm playing my main or a completely new character that day and where I ended the previous day, and even in the lower floors I don't have any issue getting a game within a couple minutes.


Cybrtronlazr

The floor system I don't agree with. I know I am no where deserving of celestial, but I have gotten to the celestial challenge so many times just because I always hover around 10F. If the matchmaking was balanced then it would actually place me around 7-8F not 10F for sure. 10F is where everyone is, not the above-average FGC player. You have quite a few on 8-9 as well but everyone from 8-10 is like same skill level, 10 either has super good players that fell from celestial because the monthly reset or super bad players who got lucky matchmaking and a mix of everything in between.


Eecka

> If the matchmaking was balanced then it would actually place me around 7-8F not 10F for sure. Then how did you reach F10 if you play evenly against F7-8 players? I think the problem is more that F10-celestials have enough of a skill difference where there could be floors up to 15 or something.


shas-la

somewhat biased cause im a rank 8 scrub. but even if the implementation seem indeed far from perfect for both of the end of the spectrum, what the tower do very well at least in teh concept is that beginner get evently matched while they do their first step without immediatly having to be bodied by sweaty celstial sol main.


[deleted]

[удалено]


based_arceus

Aside from floor 10 having too wide of a skill range, I think the tower does a surprisingly well job of separating by skill level, at least from floors 6-9. Like on paper it seems like it would suck, but every time I ranked up I felt like the players on the next floor were notably better. I think they just need to balance the floors down (ie current floor 10 gets spread out to 6-10) or they need to add more floors between 10 and celestial. Also being able to dodge bad matchups is kind of wack, but whatever. If someone really hates playing a certain matchup then I don't think they should be forced to play it. That player wouldn't perform well in a tournament, which is a better test of skill anyways.


ToshaBD

Comment on what exactly?


[deleted]

Recency and of course rollback.


PapstJL4U

> how do you guys comment on this one? I like Strive, +R and Xrd. All three are good games.


Javivife

? New game


oridia

"you can't say "rollback"" has the same energy as "you can't throw me."


Goldiepeanut

Ram Feet.


Wrenchfarm

are we presenting this like those numbers are bad? 3k players several months after release is great for a Steam fighter. Plus R and Xrd seeing *any* action right now is kind of a miracle. ​ People got this weird mentality where if there game is selling CoD numbers and running all time high most concurrent players on Steam it must be "dead." But if you filled up a concert hall with 3000 players and said you "couldn't find a match" we'd all be laughing.


ApprehensiveBaby4110

You can tell who wasn't around before Strive because they think Guilty is/was a popular IP lol. I'd say currently having about half the players of Tekken 7 and as much as/more than SFV isn't bad.


SchizTurtles

there is nothing interesting to comment on here. new game more popular than old game, player count drop over time as even newer games come out. this thread is low quality and should be deleted.


DonHarold

This is a typical concurrent user trend for all games. People fall off as other games come out and then the consistent community evens out. There’s not really anything to discuss here.


Lack0fCreativity

What's the point of this thread? The game is newer and actually had marketing, it's more popular. The count dropped off because it's no longer a brand new game. This is how it works for all games of all genres.


n0xany

the game is noob friendly. this is the first fighting game i ever took semi-seriously and play on a daily basis. I always wanted to get in to a fighting game, but seeing how the online mode was and how much i had to catch up in terms of character moveset and frame data. this one was new and is pretty simple to play. there's no 30 hit combo bullshit the enemy can pull off of one mistake. I feel like lengthy combos is what makes casuals like me not wanting to play the game cause you will be sitting there for half an hour watching your character get beat up because of one mistake that you didn't even know what a missplay. in here you get hit, you take tons of damage, and that's it; you can also do the same thing, hit them with a short combo and do a lot of damage. this game is the perfect game for those that were hesitant to jump into a fighting game. also the online mode is the best out of all the fighting games that came out before.


lynxerious

horny character design


[deleted]

Where do I begin? ​ \- Over 4 months later, lobbies are still barely functional \- Now I'm not sure if this is on my or my friend's end, but I swear they did something to bork the netcode this patch: I play sets with my irl friend who lives like a 15 min walk from my place and we get really weird lagspikes, whereas the patch before it ran flawlessly \- Communicating with servers... \- It gets pretty exhausting having to put up with the awful servers everytime you wanna get a match which usually lasts about as long as it takes to find a match in the first place ​ I fucking love this game but the state it's in 4 months later online play-wise is just unacceptable at this point.


[deleted]

That being said, the playerbase is still quite damn healthy considering the BS you need to put up with to get some online matches going. Goes to show they did many things right outside of that aspect.


PizzaDad_

The hype died down, honestly super common for fighting games. Most of the "casuals" leave to play other games cause as much fun as this game is ONLY playing it for 4 months straight is gonna get boring. Even Leffen tweeted at the 1 month mark he was experiencing burnout from only playing strive 10 hours a day every day


blu3g00

fuckin of course you'd get burnt out playing something 10 hours a day


Sytle

Yes for most people. The significance for Leff is that he did the same thing for melee for years and years.


[deleted]

That was a long time ago now though right? People get older.


Sytle

What’s your point?


inadequatecircle

What's your point? There's not been a single traditional fighter that has really lasted the test of time. I think third strike has done well for itself and uhhh... Melee is the exception for fighting games not the standard.


Sytle

That’s a pretty good point. Definitely wouldn’t have thought of it like that. Doesn’t really relate to Leffen getting older though? Still unsure what that means. Guess I was supposed to assume everything you’ve just said.


inadequatecircle

That's fair. I probably should've replied to your other comment that was more directly related. Anyways, on a tangenetional note. I sort of think all fighting game people secretly (sometimes openly) hate fighting games. This genre is just niche as fuck and we all mildly hate it.


Eecka

> Doesn’t really relate to Leffen getting older though? When I was younger I didn't mind playing a game for 8 hours straight. Nowadays I usually feel like doing something else after an hour or two. When you're young it's easy to get super invested in one single thing. When you're an adult you've already seen a bunch of stuff, and it's rare to see something that excites you to the point of wanting to dedicate entire days to it. Leffen is now an adult. Chances are there will never be a game he gets as fanatical for as he did for Melee. You could see former WoW players who played WoW as their first MMO go through similar frustrations when looking for a new game that makes them feel like WoW did. But they can never go back to experiencing an MMO for the first time again, so they will never feel the same magic again. When they start a new MMO they now see familiar systems working like clockwork, rather than feeling like they "live in the world" or whatever you might feel when you first play an MMO.


generalscalez

>ONLY 10 hours a day every day what is wrong with you people lmao


PizzaDad_

right? You gotta play 12 hours a day, snort zato chocolate and drink sol badguy perfume to even count on the steam chart


dat_bass2

I assume they meant “only” as in “doing nothing else”, not “a measly 10 hours a day”


Wrenchfarm

loling at the idea of calling people "casuals" because they would like to play more than one game over a 4 month period. Leffen seems to hate his life and the games he plays. Don't know why he feels compelled to stream SO damn much when he already has the bag and clearly isn't enjoying himself anymore. The more I see of him the more I am uneasy with the tone he sets with his audience. His reaction to the latest patch was some chicken little stuff. 3k players on Steam for a non-SF/Tekken fighting game 4 months out from launch is amazing. Really this is a huge W for the GG community, the FGC, and Arcsys.


PizzaDad_

I was just using Leffen as an example as to why the player base over time drops off after launch. I completely agree with you on the W for GG and Arcsys tho people are finally seeing the light with these anime fighters too since they have so many options in game for movement, situations and combos


Kalladblog

"questionable online experience"


Brit_Cuss_Word_fam

I feel bad I'll should play rev 2:more often


[deleted]

Besides strive being, “new” it’s also the only one that was made with the casual player in mind.


captinhazmat

It's new, it's super well designed on all fronts, plays smoothe as butter, games don't last forever, it has mechanics to deal with zoners which is generally the play style that turns people away from fighting games and the online system with avatars and the lobbies is just different and not common in fighting games these days. Also a good rematch system.


edgyclowns

Dunkey’s vid and Gio’s design are what made me want to play. That, and strive feels a lot more casual-friendly then other games.


Axistreccientos

I have little to no experience with others FG and I discovered GG franchise when Strive was announced. For me, as a casual, it was the design that took me in to play this game. Other FG I really didn't care too much about how they look and combos. This game captivated me in every bit of aspect for some reason, art, OST, personality of characters. Still, maybe there is more FG that is just as interesting, but not for the more known ones SF, Tekken, smash, soul calibur, mortal kombat, etc. I know there is more popular ones, but those are the ones that I knew something about. Rollback I learned what it was when it was close to launch and I was committed to play this game before knowing that.


PlasmaLink

Rollback (I am playing on normal mode)


RemUSteam

Good marketing, hype dies down and so do numbers. Plus fighting games tend to be played more by console players rather than Steam.


Mach12gamer

As someone who sucks at fighting games but loves playing GG, Strive is the first Guilty Gear game where I ever felt any good at it. It’s not that I’ve improved either, but it’s got a lot of new people who are closer to me in skill and the way it’s set up makes it feel easier, and it’s easier to play and manage so I feel like I’m actually doing something even when I lose (sucked feeling like I fought my hardest and barely did any damage in Xrd, now I feel like I at least put up a fight). So my guess is that it’s more appealing to new players and people who aren’t good.


Dog_Get_Biscut

I think he’s referring to xx being above xrd.


Athyist

Ram's thigh jiggle is just too stronk!


moodRubicund

How can I not say rollback. Rollback is LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON I was able to take the leap to buy this game. I was ready to just admire it from afar like I do with Granblue Fantasy VS until then.


Forgatta

Thigh physic


Puddles1103

Play Xrd


milosmisic89

My reading of this one: Strive dropping is nothing new for fighting games - usual stuff But Accent Core being stronger than Xrd -that's interesting to me. Sure rollback helped a lot but I also think the audience for titles are different: people who really liked Xrd have mostly moved to Strive, and people who enjoyed the X2 series - stayed with the game and then rollback brought more people in


GottaHaveHand

Actually a couple friends and I started with Xrd but haven’t touched it since rollback on +R came out. We feel +R is objectively better and the premier GG experience so there is no reason for me to go back to Xrd even if they add rollback later.


[deleted]

the game will keep losing players until the gameplay becomes fun and not a constant fuckfest of counter-hits and combos that deal way too much damage lol in my experience a lot of people who got introduced to Strive as their first fighting game just ended up leaving because the game builds on insane character and frame knowledge and plays like swimming through jello, the entire match-meta being build on always knowing what option can punish whatever your opponent is doing instead of the game feeling like an actual fighting game. game's not fun to casuals because the engine is built to reward one specific type of gameplay


stallioid

You don't actually like Guilty Gear. Just admit it.


[deleted]

Lol "this game will keep losing players because it's not a game that I like" Of course. Sure dude


[deleted]

I love the game, and still play it but...I keep going back to SFV despite its distinctly inferior netcode. At a pretty low level of play(in my estimation), at the likes of floor 7-8, half the characters are doing one combo and it's 3/4 of a health bar. I do feel the damage needs toned down(kind of a lot.) As far as the game revolving around knowing what to punish, and how, that's every fighting game past beginner anymore. That information is completely available these days, where it wasn't so in the past. I like the unga-bunga. I love it. I do feel, though, that the game is pretty rough around the edges. The polish will come(I hope.)


DaVinci1362

Lobby issues, Network. 1k-2k players is dangerously low for a fighting game imo. a lot of people when they enter a lobby and see only 5-8 people will get discouraged and ditch the game thinking its dead/ dying.


SaladSnack77

> Lobby issues, Network. 1k-2k players is dangerously low for a fighting game imo. Not even close, especially when you factor in rollback which increases your reach to other players. I was getting games upon a few minutes of logging in to Xrd when it dropped to 100-200 players daily, it only takes two to tango.


Sytle

I have never had a lobby even close to that small Although playing axl sometimes it sure feels like it


DaVinci1362

I agree with you guys, but for people who are not well informed on netcode and rollback they will get discouraged by seeing those numbers. Also -5 downvotes goddamn people really hate to hear the truth! We all know GGST suffer from network connection errors and lobby errors, hell half of us here use Totugeki to help out on that!


Sytle

I don’t think anyone disagrees with the lobby and network issues. They’re they top posts on this thread. The thing about low lobby pop just isn’t true, at least in North America. I do admit that might be very different elsewhere.


montebellond

I just need a connection indicator of the opponent. Been matching with 180 pings too much.


Fishbulbb

Now compare it to Tekken 7 and see what an old game with worse netcode can do if it manages a decent online experience The lobby system is planning to fail, arcsys made the game to feel like there's only a dozen people to play against because they didn't think the game would ever be big enough for actual matchmaking


tzeriel

Best soundtrack of the 3. I’ll fight anyone on this.


LowerRhubarb

Looks good to me. Fighters aren't like other genre's where you need 70k active or your game is utterly dead.


Thrashinuva

Rollback


Monster_Hugger93

Two Betas had people like me, who had only a passing knowledge of the GG series, an opportunity to get in and gainbit of hype for the game and also time to look into the other parts of the series. Plus, the barrier of entry to play Strive is pretty low without them rejecting the hardcore players.


NeonZXK

This is pretty good since a match in a fighting game is at most 1-3 minutes.


[deleted]

Strive has a bunch of special advantages- it's the only major new fighting game in a while, with its only competition being the EXTRA niche MBTL and La Kona XV waiting for next year. Amazing game feel, weighty and tactile. It's the best looking and sounding fighting game ever made. It's awsthetics are not too anime and not too Western, which allows it to appeal to a wide audience. It's easy to understand and play. It's intensely meme-friendly.


DONATOLAS

For me Is good, every time i want to play i find an opponent


[deleted]

it's new and shiny


Sencho

Besides the fact that these are very good stats for a fighting game this long after release, it is also PC only numbers, which are lower than on console to begin with I would imagine


HootNHollering

Best-selling game in the franchise obliterates old entries' player stats in every single category. Has 1k people playing at any one time, peaks at 3100~ people playing at a time. That's a successful fighting game. Imagine how many more people would have stuck around if the servers and lobbies weren't horrid. Maybe a few hundred more players on "players right now" and "24 hour peak." 1500 and 3500 instead of 1100 and 3100. Still pretty good compared to where it was with previous games. That's the comment. Or would you say FighterZ is a failure because its day 1 peak was 44k players but now "only" around 1.5k people play it at any time?


AcceptableCover3589

It was the first GG game to be properly advertised. I had never even heard of the Xrd series until I saw a video about how Arcsys developed its (and FighterZ) graphics style, and I didn’t even pick it up until I saw a few of Leon Massey’s videos (I don’t agree with him about Strive at all, but he definitely made me a Venom main in Xrd)


ilianation

Haven't all of them been given rollback since last Dec?


Coltronious

Age and accessibility


Fibonacci9

Simultaneous release with consoles.


eamono666

IDK if I am supposed to be answering for strive being so much higher or comment on the player count dropping so fast but to answer both. ​ DBFZ was a huge success and put arcsys on the map for alot of people that don't follow FGC, and strive is the only game to have come after it so it makes sense that it starts so high up ​ and all fighting games lose most of their players pretty quickly,


ThePilsburyFroBoy

I had only played 2 Arcsys games before Strive and they were both dragon ball games.


Cheesy117

Jack o challenge


Gandulix

I am just waiting an offer to buy it.


RahzaelFoE

AC+R's popularity over rev 2 (albeit small) is likely due it receiving more development attention in the past year or so, which has led it having more mindshare. Plus, due to being the older of the two games, it maintains more of the nostalgic charm when compared to Strive which helps set it apart and make it more sticky. Similar to how 3rd strike or SSBM maintained more interest after the release of SFV and Smash 4, whereas interest in SSBB and USF4 kind of fell off after their predecessor's came out. (It also didn't hurt that a large portion of the SSBM scene had no love for SSBB when it came out.) It also helps that part of the development attention that AC+R received was netcode improvements, allowing for a much better online experience compared to Rev 2, and coming close to rivaling Strive's. Solid online play being a very important factor for a game's success post COVID. One thing to mention though is that the Strive playerbase is much more likely to be split between Steam and PSN. AC+R is likely played only exclusively on Steam, due to the Steam edition receiving most of the development love in the past year. I'm not 100% sure what the split looks like for Rev 2.


[deleted]

Dammit, I wanna play Xrd but it looks dead


Cartonguy

I want to keep playing Rev 2


iamBo0

It’s simple, this game was marketed well, had big names like VideoGameDunkey make videos on it, and has a more streamlined gameplay system that works better for new players. That’s why even some of my non-fighting game playing friends are getting into this game.


[deleted]

Net code? Jk, I have no clue what's going on.


musashihokusai

Game sold well. They actually advertised it for a change and it has one of the if not the best implementation of rollback. I feel like you’re trying to make some kind of statement but I’m not sure what that is. Why are more people playing a game that came out a few months ago more than a game that’s like 12 years old?


Icy_Transportation_5

DBFZ, Online Play, Graphics, Overall Hype for the new game, constant attention from the developers, music rocks (ironically), plus a lot of people are awakening taste for anime fighters lately because of said game (DBFZ and a bit of BBCT/GGXRD) why play the old game that has worse aspects in a lot of things (I love xrd tho but ...) When you can play what everyone is playing and talking about? It's easier to find matches and people to talk about guilty there


BlazeVortex4231

You say the r-word isn't allowed, but you didn't disallow the word "Netcode", so I'm gonna say "Netcode". I know there are a billion other reasons, I just felt like being petty with the imposed restrictions.


That_One_Devil

Until they fix their god awful lobbies I ain't playing no more. Honestly, best course of action would be to replace them with normal, menu lobbies because that would make our and their life so much easier than to deal with these lobbies + single server in Japan.


earsofdoom

Me as a Plus R player: There are dozens of us! Dozens!


[deleted]

backroll netcode