SF 6 - modern controls, gives you basic, decent combos , special moves (but does NOT lock you out of motion input eecution), but there is still many aspects of the game that you have to work it out by yourself: defence, drive rush combos, "cash-in" combos, good punishes that cost 0 drive guage (outside of burnout) and so on. This makes skill floor relatively low , with a lot of room to grow.
Granblue Rising has a super easy entrance way, but the skill ceiling is amazingly always just a bit out of reach for most characters. You can never feel satisfied with what you have learned. Truly amazing game, sadly not as popular as some crap out there (Like sparking zero or MK1).
The older Guilty Gear games. +R and Rev2 have both very easy chain combos which lead into decent damage and good oki. The optimizations you can make though are through the roof. Something which Strive took away unfortunately in order to level the playing field more between experienced and lesser experienced players (their words, not mine. Just look up the Mahjong vs. chess analogy Daisuke made pre-Strive release).
As a spectator, many people appreciate watching high-level execution because it showcases skill and mastery. When a player pulls off difficult moves or executes strategies well, it adds excitement to the match, especially if they manage a comeback. This is similar to other sports, where athletes with exceptional skills and technique often capture the audience's admiration.
I think that's a tiny percentage of the playerbase that benefits from this positive aspect. The other much larger playerbase get bored to death in training mode, practicing basic execution when all they want to do is the fun stuff.
Modern controls really helped a lot of Japanese content creators get into Street Fighter 6 and even make it into master rank. A fair bit of why Japan has such a huge and strong scene is down to just how much more they've accepted modern controls there.
I would take a smaller scene if it meant I don’t have to fight a wave of baby control scrubs , in fact the quality of the games would improve if the whole esports content creator industry around the fgc died out all together . They need to stop pandering to that crowd and focus on the player experience.
You can balance out strong moves by other means as well. A classic example is a plain Sonic Boom in neutral that'd be too strong without charging. It's not hard to execute that yet it has its limitations in order to compensate for its strength.
Ngl, I appreciate that I can hop on Strive and get into player matches with zero practice, even after a long break. However, I had a lot more fun being bad in Xrd and +R than being decent in Strive. Looking forward to VF for this reason as well, it seems like it's easy to get a grasp on combos and moves, but there's a lot of depth to discover past that.
Yes, it absolutely does. Just because you know something is going to happen, or what you should do, doesn't mean you automatically get to decide the response with 100% success rate. Skill is the ability to execute a task consistently and without error. Just because basketball player is open, doesn't mean he's always going to make the shot.
If you want to "git gud" at fighting games you need three things imo. 1. Fundamentals 2. Execution 3. Knowledge The order of these depends on the game your playing. With a game like street fighter I would say to prioritize fundamentals because of its 2d nature. A game like Tekken on the other hand I would definitely say knowledge is the most important thing, you can have some of the best fundamentals and execution but in a game with over 30 characters, some having well over a hundred moves you WILL be knowledge checked.
This is fair, but I would add that fundamentals and execution have been significantly down played in recent times while knowledge requirements have been made the most important factor by a country mile in many games
@1Shodan130 I used to complain about that too. But I realised when I want to play fighting games with my little son. Games with emphasis on fundamentals just aren't fun for total beginners. The ones he likes the most were SF x Tekken and MvC3U. Why? They're mash friendly. Most casuals just want to mash. Unfortunate, but if you want to sell your game you have to cater the casuals. So, how do you also give challange to veteran players? Knowledge checks. Knowledge check is the "chess" part of fighting games. Just like in chess, it's actually more about memorization than real-time strategy (at least for some levels of players.) But you must learn chess knowledge if you want to even get to mid-level chess. I think it is the way. Make the game fun for every level of players.
Depends what is locked behind (hard) execution, basic stuff, decent bnb combos should have low execution requirement or modern controls option, so the new player don't have to invest too much to even see if he likes the game, while having more optimal combos, setups do locked behind execution. As Sid Meier said "Games are series of interesting decisions" and lowering initial dexterity requirement makes people reach interesting decision part earlier.
One thing that I think is important to note about execution is that it also makes the experience of losing less frustrating, at least for me. When I get boom looped by a Guile in Street Fighter 6, I'm mildly annoyed by the combo taking so long but I'm never bothered by the fact that Guile can do that. On the other hand, when someone like Bison or Akuma does a long, simple combo that takes 70% of my health, it feels pretty lame and undeserved in comparison.
You are not alone in that feeling. Part of the reason is that you also encounter way more different playstyles with the same character since their toolsets tend to be bigger and more flexible as a whole. So people pick their combo and pressure routes depending on what they can pull off mechanically on top of what suits the current context of the match in that moment. There is just so much more to player matches than just their approach to neutral which is how it is in modern fighing games currently. SF6 tried its best to introduce more situational variance with the Drive resource but that didn't help long term either. Having execution be a part of you skill set simply allows for so much more in terms of palyer expression and the overall skill ceiling at every level of play.
My main issue with doing away with execution barriers is because doing that makes every game feel samey. Most games nowadays feel like they've been intoxicated with a Street Fighter approach to fighting games. A big example of that is Guilty Gear Strive, where the combos no longer flow freely, you now have to use specific buttons for specific combos just like street fighter. Thankfully they did allow for more options than the usual Street Fighter stuff, and made it easier to learn how to use the many cancel options.
It is like life itself Do you want to get good at something? Practice! You will never improve if you don't keep improving, there is no shortcut Accept that you will make mistakes and learn from those mistakes My tip is keep playing against other players You will learn more from that than playing against the CPU
I usually like your videos, but the conclusion you reach in this one is really questionable. The fact that more accessibility BY ITSELF doesn't GUARANTEE success doesn't mean it's pointless or worthless. It just means there's more factors at play when it comes to attracting a wide player base. You can have the most accessible controls in the world, but if the presentation is weak and the characters aren't appealing and the game isn't actually fun to play, then yeah, people aren't going to be interested in the game. But that doesn't mean well done accessibility options, like Street Fighter 6's modern controls, can't INCREASE the success of a game that is actually good and appealing across the board. Because it clearly can. Stats show that roughly a quarter of SF6's very wide player base utilize modern controls. Many of those might not have stuck with the game this far. And then there's those (like me) that use classic controls now, but started out with modern and wouldn't have given the game a chance if it that option wasn't available to ease them into the series. TL;DR: No, accessibility by itself doesn't guarantee success. If your game isn't appealing overall, then having accessibility options isn't going to carry it. But if the overall package is appealing, then offering well done accessibility options can only increase your success and most if not all fighting should strive to offer them going forward.
Yeah, it could've been articulated better, but the conclusion is not really that accessibility is pointless or worthless. It's more along the lines of what you said. Lowering the barrier can open the door for a chunk of new players, but only when the game itself presents and gives them something that's fun to play for dozens or hundreds of hours. However, to achieve that, the mentality behind changing things should be "how do we guide the player on their journey from A to B" instead of "Players want to reach B, so let's make the path as short as possible," which devalues the journey.
Honestly, there's room in the market for both high execution and low execution games, just stop trying to make THE SAME GAME work for both kinds of players. I also think damage is a huge factor. High execution can work with either high or low damage, because there's always the tension of, "will they drop the combo?" Low execution fighters almost certainly need to be low damage fighters, because that's the only way you retain that tension. The biggest problem with the current titles, and with early DnF Duel, was the combination between lower execution with higher damage. That said... I think there may be an appeal for a low-execution version/alternative to a high-execution title; sort of like a "tournament player simulator" that lets players imagine what it feels like to hit high-execution stuff with actually low-execution inputs; but only really as a gateway to get them to invest in the higher-execution counterpart and to somewhat tutorialize them.
I remember watching sf4 tournaments every weekend and getting hype when someone pull a really hard combo or even things you didnt know was possible it was inspiring something to strive for. I dropped strive and 6 for KOFXV and third strike. Fighting games are fun because it requires effort, it requires commitment. its not for everyone, games should expand in tools to teach the game instead of simplifying it
Nice video and you brought up multiple very valid points. Devs need to stop pandering to the instant gratification mindset by adjusting the core gameplay of a fighing game. There are other ways to achieve that and get casual content like single player modes, or generally rewards to earn and stuff to do outside of online competitive play. But for gods sake, please stop treating the playerbase like toddlers and streamlining the characters and gameplay to accomodate that for short term profit and "big sales". Further simplifying the executional aspect of fighing games (improving in execution pretty much becomes obsolete around intermediate play in modern games now) just leaves you with less aspects to improve in and thus reduces the overall skill ceiling.
I say it does, companies that make fighting games just need to stop focusing on normies and focus more the core fighting game audience. Making all moves easy to execute will make fighting games less fun and more boring.
Popularity is not the same as quality. If you want a wildly popular game, take a very known franchise, add basic gameplay, invest three fourths of your budget in marketing, and contain your shareholders greed for a couple years. Execution can be super hard or inexistent, it doesn't really mean nothing here. If you want a quality competitive game, make gameplay that is easy to grasp, hard to master, with transparent rules, simple balance tools, tons of player expression, and a focus on the players challenging each other, not the machine. Execution is important here, but it must be truly integral to the system, and can't be a crutch for bad design and poor balance. Non contrived inputs don't make more popular games. But they do makes more fun, aproachable, balanced and overall better quality games.
Taking away one frame links , super jump cancels, etc removed the core part of what made the game fun to me. Exploring the limits of human execution and having players that excel at it such as Sakonoko inspired me to play the genre. Now that every kid off the street can do the most optimal Evo top8 combo this entire dimension is lost and so is my inspiration to practice and play the game. The game was my playground to actually test my execution after I learned it in the lab, what is there to test now when I can do everything blindfolded? the entire reason for the creation of my chnel WAS execution. It was a place specifically to share my achievements and findings specifically of execution. Do you see how many videos I had for sf4 and now 0 for sf5 and 6. Why do you think that is? I simply don't have the motivation for street fighter anymore. Give back ibuki tsumuji loops, eryu loops, viper seismos then I'll play sf6. Bro I still remember sako styling on people in tournaments, he'd add unnecessary command dash cancels and would do the hardest insane combos. I still respect the guy like 2 decades later. He's like a hero to me, all of it was enabled by differentiation of the execution levels.
*tl; dr* As a fighting game enjoyer too good to play amongst friends and not good enough to compete, I'd say we definitely can do better in making the first steps softer for newbies without crippling all complexity like some individuals seem to think is the right idea. 🤔 I'd say that there's no need for the skill floor to be quite so high just to play the game. If a fella wants to throw a fireball, they should be able to whenever they so desire, if they feel the time is right. Fighters shouldn't have to fight the game just to play how they'd like, and making the game difficult to play should not be a factor in the game being "complex." Execution is not and should not be what separates the boys from the men or the Dans from the Kens; being good at fighting games hinges on your neutral, predictions, adaptation, and decision-making. Moves can be balanced around frame data and properties without one slip-up meaning "Oops, sorry! You don't get to anti-air this time," even if you made the right call. 😮💨 HOWEVER, I do love motion inputs and performing cathartic combos like puzzles, so I kind of want to keep such commands anyway. I'd miss that feeling a lot. 😅 There can be compromise without complete annihilation of complexity. You can give players full access to their moves when they want to while still keeping tight links, re-jumps, juggles, etc. Characters can still vary in ease of use and handling via tech and cancels and charge moves and archetype and gameplan without literally limiting how players can even control them. Yes, there might be stance dash cancels and one-frame links discovered by the community that they can't do without much practice, but such elaborate movements are ways of expression created by players who do have that skill in execution as opposed to redundant skill requirements put in place by the game. Tough combos often mean more damage and better enders, and I'd say that the number of interactions you have to win should be on you to improve in that sense. Land that hit, then show what you're capable of. 😌 Let players simply steer their avatars as they wish and do with them what they want to. Let them learn why and when they should use their specials instead of needed to teach them how. Actual skill in playing the game should come next, yes? 😉👍
Why does nobody want to actually play games anymore. Of course execution matters. If you want to improve in anything you have to practice. Dumbing things down has never helped new players. Providing them with the necessary information to learn is what keeps new people engaged.
I mean I am having more fun rising through and getting stuck in tekken 7 ranks than getting high ranks in tekken 8 quickly without much effort.(Easy purple rank in t8 to struggling in yellow in t7 with same characs_
In case of Tekken, that is because the heat system in T8 manage to help you push that far and not because you had execution issue before in T7. I ain't say it's a bad thing. People play T8 share the same ground for that, being good at using heat system is part of the game mechanic.
@standheaykic66 Used to main law in t7 he had requires dss which I would always drop even after 300h dropped him in t8 and picked lee coz of dss ez execution. Pc broke down went to t7 on old pc(never played t7 on it) still drops b2 loops of lee hell alot tried law once again in t7 and can do dss stuff super ez consistently turns out it was a keyboard problem for law one not the execution also for b2 loops yeah its execution issues. Random rant
@standheaykic66 Used to main law in t7 he had requires dss which I would always drop even after 300h dropped him in t8 and picked lee coz of dss ez execution. Pc broke down went to t7 on old pc(never played t7 on it) still drops b2 loops of lee hell alot tried law once again in t7 and can do dss stuff super ez consistently turns out it was a keyboard problem for law one not the execution also for b2 loops yeah its execution issues. Random rant
I will agree that Execution matters a lot in fighting games because it affects the player's ability to perform combos, and moves effectively. Especially if you're playing against the CPU. One wrong move and it is game over for you. The fighting games i mostly play are MK and Tekken. I recently got back into Tekken 6 on the PSP after 9 long years, Was 14 when i first played it, now 24. The game becomes impossible after reaching a certain rank and the AI's block timing is ridiculous. I once went through a fight without landing a single hit on the CPU and got destroyed in seconds. If you're playing against the CPU and you get their health bar to a small junk, don't think you can win. The CPU will mount a crazy continuous 15 hit like combo and totally finish you i.e Tekken 6 from my experience. Difficulty in video games don't really do anything nor does it matter. I think it heavily dependent on how well you know the combos of each and every characters which requires a lot of memorization. Even if you put the difficulty on easy mode, the game will still be hard which kinda makes sense. Tekken 6 on the PSP is still hard even on easy mode and it can be frustrating when the CPU just beats the crap out of you non-stop and dropping non-stop combos. Street Fighter Alpha 3 max is also another example. I suck at the game so i figured let me play at one star, Lost the very first arcade match This is my opinion on Fighting games. Let me know what you guys think
Yeah execution should definitely matter and be rewarded. If you have to do high execution stuff that can be dropped easily just to be as good as someone with no execution barrier like Ryu or MVC3 Wolverine or Wesker, then what's the point of playing a more difficult character like C Viper? If someone wants to compete in something that does not have execution at all, they can play something turn based like non timed chess or a card game imo
Have you ever heard of fun? You're not going to evo and even if you did it'snot like you get bonus points for licking hard characters, just pick the character you like lmao
Actually, my experience goes against this. I joined back in Soul Calibur VI, then MKX, and sucked absolute ass. But the game was so fun I kept playing. MK11 took away a lot of execution but that's also where I saw my biggest strides in execution. It wasn't frustrating anymore, it was fun. Now I play mk1 on a regular bases. Though when I played sf6 I actually used classic controls. Also, no hate for mortal kombat, they're simply the best in audio design for blind players. lol. Edit: with that being said, I think it's totally fair there are things I can never do. I think the barrier of entry should be low, but the ceiling high. Give the pros special mechanics that are really hard to use, and let the rest of us scrubs have dial-in combos and comeback mechanics.
It doesn’t matter if you can hit a 720 if your neutral game is ass and you’re not punishing anything. Execution should be a factor, but I feel like learning punishes, spacing and neutral are far more important in the long run. Anyone can learn any combo if you give em enough time. A good neutral game, however, takes far longer to gain
Why do you say that as if execution and good neutral are mutually exclusive? That's never the case but the strawman you are trying to pull. Having execution allows for players to have more areas to improve in and hone their skill. Neutral comes on top. But in most modern games it almost always comes down to just grinding your "neutral" in the form of matchups and decisionmaking if you want to improve. In the more executionaly demanding games you have all that as well as execution you can choose to optimize if you want to.
Much more interested in game depth and interesting mind games player vs player, than a big execution barrier leaving the vast majority of the player base fighting the game more than their opponent. Just got into vf5 with the recent pc beta and it was amazing how quickly I could actually have meaningful experiences vs other clearly new players as we adapted to each other. I play classic controllers for sf6 because I've been used to it for so long, but modern has shown that even motion inputs aren't necessary for balance and can coexist. As far as skill floor vs skill ceiling I think it's a misunderstanding to couple them to execution so much, motion inputs and 1 frame links in combos don't meaningfully effect the ceiling imo they just push up barrier to intermediate and lock away the games depth for most players. (I think motion inputs with generous modern input detection is a pretty low barrier but can't argue with how much removing even that small barrier has helped bring in new players)
Modern controls was the main thing that killed my interest in Street Fighter 6. I was so disappointed that Capcom added that to the game. I feel like I'm getting cheated and taken advantage of when going up against a modern player who effortlessly pulls off cool stuff without putting any practice or effort into the game at all. I also hate drive impacts. All of those mechanics were put into the game to help beginners be able to beat people who are better and much more skillful at the game than they are. It's effed up. A complete nincompoop is able to compete with me because they're able to mash buttons with no thought process behind them. I played Street Fighter 6 for like the first 2 months when the game was released and quit after that.
@j.i.nthenobody54 execution is like 70% of Street Fighter. Only 30% is strategy. Modern controls make it so that most of the hard work of the game is done for beginners. It's whack.
@ph43draaa yes, you're not wrong, but the point here is, the masher has more advantages. Imagine you play shooting game and your opponent has auto aim. You might beat him with strategy but still you need to put extra effort than your opponent. Switch to modern control also not helping for some people cause it messing their muscle memory.
@@shaolinprince777your just wrong, outside of A3/SF4, execution was never that important in sf. Sure modern is a shit idea but fg execution was dying way before then, 5 removed one frame links and any hard combo routes, 4 destroyed the input buffer, 3 removed the reversal window and turned it into a joke. Sf has been leading to this for over 20 years
Can confirm I have no interest in cs go either way, love the fast paced decision making in fighting games tho, especially now the lower execution barrier is releasing the deeper game to more and more players
Fighting games are notoriously inaccessible and the fgc has a difficulty fetish. Talking abt how fighting games are too casual when it took until tekken 8 to actually be able to get frame data in game is crazy, imo. The talk abt removed skill expression sounds logical on paper but all the top pros that have dominated evo for years are still there. So much of playing fighting games is locked behind esoteric barriers because the communities are hostile to newcomers, if lowering execution barriers gets more ppl into the games so be it! Like I know a lot off ppl complain abt simplified Jin, but it's literally just good game design. Why would you want your marquee character to be inaccessible to new players? Imagine if there were an "execution" barriers to jumping in Mario, or if your dodge roll in an action game had a 2 in 5 chance of not coming out, no one would play it! That's not to say everything fighting games are doing rn is correct, but some ppl need to get a grip.
They are not inaccessible the mjaority of casuals are just a bunch of cowards and scrubs who refuse to accept taking losses and learning from experience. Every experienced fighting game player once took a beating from an expert before they became good. That's how it is in sports too. Why should we do away with it just because casuals are entitled pricks who want in on the fun without challenges?
Fighting games are not inaccessible. Gaming is just a lot more popular now and with that comes an influx of people interested in the fgc who think they deserve to win just for playing, despite not having learned “how” to play.
what sf6 did really well was the training mode options the tutorials,character guides and all the frame data right in the game. I think modern controls are a good idea. They might be a bit overtuned on low levels but I still having fun playing in bronze with classic controls.
No. Never did. Fighting games to me have never been about execution. I don’t care if you feel that it matters. What truly matters is if the game is fun to play & experience whether it’s hard or easy. Edit: I understand some folks say that execution is an important factor in PVP gaming. But this is why the FGC struggles to bring in more people. A lot of diehard legacy players are gatekeepers and want fighting games to not evolve or change their older methods.
If you don't like execution in fighing games you are playing the wrong genre. Maybe try round based strategy games instead? They can also be about "mindgames" but without the executional requirement.
i think that execution is a bad way to balance a move. it simply forgoes balance for lessening the amount of people who experience it since it will be done less. I feel that a move should either be balanced or not there at all. Locking it behind execution just means that people who can do it suddenly have an overpowered move.
Not necessarily, charge moves and super inputs are necessary restrictions to keep moves from being used on reaction. SF6 took multiple steps to prevent this but some pro players still pick modern for easier punishes and confirms. This is the worst of both worlds, now no one has access to certain tools at all.
What you said is factually just wrong? What you said can be applied to certain strategies or setups in a game, but not individual moves. Like @hijster479 pointed out, moves have been balanced and designed around their executional requirements for three decades now, so that argument is just invalid.
@@hijster479 i think there is a difference between moves that are hard to do and moves that take time to do. charge moves aren't necessarily hard to do, pressing punch within a 2 frame window of the last move connecting is unnecessarily hard. Id like to see input windows increased and and long directional inputs done away with.
@@lallnutt11 There hasn't been a fighting game with specials this strict for decades. SF6 isn't like this, neither was 5. SF4 had waterfall kick but this was one move on one character that eventually got patched. The only instances where near perfect execution was practical were in niche combos and punishes. If you didn't know the matchup well you wouldn't have the chance to do these even if they were easy, so how did this negatively affect beginners? SF5 added an input buffer for normals and also largely did away with esoteric super inputs. As of 6 Modern controls are legal in all modes. At this point the only way to significantly simplify execution would be to get rid of the Classic controls altogether.
The bit about simpler games being failures feel just like a pointless shot towards smaller games. Like yeah, small fighting games like fantasy strike have small player numbers. You can look at any indie fighting game and make up whatever reasons you want why they don't have Street Fighter or Tekken numbers. Also criticizing Granblue for player numbers is definitely throwing rocks in a glass house, if like 800 daily users on average is a failure then whoo boy like the whole genre has failed except a handful of biggest ones. Like Xrd and +R are significantly below Granblue even after their rollback revivals. High execution requirements are just one flavor which some people like and some people don't. Don't try to put down games people like for no reason.
Yeah, but we don't have many flavours now do we? The games which had some form of executional expression all took them out in their modern releases so it doesn't matter once you are past the beginner level.
@Nyagro I feel this is kinda half true. Even these modern releases like strive snd sf6 have those high execution scenarios where it is really rewarded. Like some extremely specific punishes in sf6 require like frame perfect microwalks to have enough drive gauge to make them work. Happy Chaos used to be really execution intensive, but to be fair, not anymore. Sol functions at a very basic level, but you can optimize him a ton to make everything hurt like hell. But it is true that hard execution isn't really part of most common interactions. I personally think hard execution is in the grand scheme of things fairly niche interest, so maybe making specific characters mechanically hard is the way. Like looking at Kazuya in Tekken or Akira in VF.
@@Cambiony I have close to 1k hours in both Strive and SF6. And while I didn't play SFV for long, I played Xrd and +R extensively even before Strive released. And you can't tell that Strive has executional difficulty beyond a beginner level. Sorry, that's just not true. Your HC example fits but is only the exception that proves the rule and as you mentioned, that version of that character doesn't even exist anymoreas it was an oversight by the devs they didn't want in the game. In SF6's case, there come only *some* executional techniques which are worth doing to mind, like Ed's dream combo for instance. But even that one is only truly hard in the modern context. Tricky for sure but that's the upper echelon of "modern difficulty" already. And that application is only for a single technique on one single character. Your mentioned microwalks aren't very hard at all. Most microwalks which are worth doing for the extra Drive Rush opportunity are close to a 5 frame walk followed by a (often) standing normal. Again, only "hard" at a beginner level. But beginners also can't always do a quarter circle motion. Doesn't mean it's a reasonable example to take for executional difficulty and expression in our conversation here. In order for your Drive meter to regenerate slightly, you need to walk forward at least for two frames. Characters that literally only have a 2 frame window to walk forward, followed by a back or down normal are the hardest executional things in that game as it means you have to walk forward for exactly two frames, and then hit back/down + button for the follow up on exactly the same frame. And these niche scenarios aren't worth it most of the time. On top of that, character unique mechanics are a common critique of SF6 in general. And just to be clear, "having executional difficulty and expression" isn't doing a situational Twitter combo. Just had to say that before someone brings out clips of Odawara doing silly Twitter clips. Funny, but not the point here. Looking back, I think +R and Xrd had it how most people describe the ideal solution: having super easy combos which lead into a knockdown for good damage and oki and the more character specific and executionally harder ones to optimize. But clearly the devs thought this was too much seeing how much Strive homogenized and streamlined, even disregarding the simplification of the mechanical execution.
Why not? Can we please stop with the hypocrisy? As if the freaks who play those games don't consistently put the more traditional games down for having command inputs that they refuse to learn
To you, which fighting game presents a perfect balance between skill floor and skill ceiling?
Marvel Super Heroes or Street Fighter Alpha 3. Maybe Tekken 5. And gimmicky as it might be, Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax.
SF 6 - modern controls, gives you basic, decent combos , special moves (but does NOT lock you out of motion input eecution), but there is still many aspects of the game that you have to work it out by yourself: defence, drive rush combos, "cash-in" combos, good punishes that cost 0 drive guage (outside of burnout) and so on.
This makes skill floor relatively low , with a lot of room to grow.
Granblue Rising has a super easy entrance way, but the skill ceiling is amazingly always just a bit out of reach for most characters. You can never feel satisfied with what you have learned. Truly amazing game, sadly not as popular as some crap out there (Like sparking zero or MK1).
The older Guilty Gear games. +R and Rev2 have both very easy chain combos which lead into decent damage and good oki. The optimizations you can make though are through the roof. Something which Strive took away unfortunately in order to level the playing field more between experienced and lesser experienced players (their words, not mine. Just look up the Mahjong vs. chess analogy Daisuke made pre-Strive release).
Samurai Shodown 2019
As a spectator, many people appreciate watching high-level execution because it showcases skill and mastery. When a player pulls off difficult moves or executes strategies well, it adds excitement to the match, especially if they manage a comeback. This is similar to other sports, where athletes with exceptional skills and technique often capture the audience's admiration.
I think that's a tiny percentage of the playerbase that benefits from this positive aspect.
The other much larger playerbase get bored to death in training mode, practicing basic execution when all they want to do is the fun stuff.
@@thesazbak5342 If people are starting to get bored of practicing in a game and gave up, then society is doomed
Modern controls really helped a lot of Japanese content creators get into Street Fighter 6 and even make it into master rank. A fair bit of why Japan has such a huge and strong scene is down to just how much more they've accepted modern controls there.
I would take a smaller scene if it meant I don’t have to fight a wave of baby control scrubs , in fact the quality of the games would improve if the whole esports content creator industry around the fgc died out all together . They need to stop pandering to that crowd and focus on the player experience.
"Gerber Mode" should not be allowed in ranked. Or they should only be able to play each other. "Make it easy because I want to play too."
Execution is important for moves that are extremely strong. Making them easy to do makes the gameplan brain dead
FACTS!
I disagree
Making any move "extremely strong" is stupid in the first place. Difficult execution in such cases is just a bandage for a bad design.
You can balance out strong moves by other means as well. A classic example is a plain Sonic Boom in neutral that'd be too strong without charging.
It's not hard to execute that yet it has its limitations in order to compensate for its strength.
@@ardidsonriente2223If theres no execution theres no point making it a fighting game. Might as well play chess instead
Ngl, I appreciate that I can hop on Strive and get into player matches with zero practice, even after a long break. However, I had a lot more fun being bad in Xrd and +R than being decent in Strive. Looking forward to VF for this reason as well, it seems like it's easy to get a grasp on combos and moves, but there's a lot of depth to discover past that.
Yes, it absolutely does. Just because you know something is going to happen, or what you should do, doesn't mean you automatically get to decide the response with 100% success rate. Skill is the ability to execute a task consistently and without error. Just because basketball player is open, doesn't mean he's always going to make the shot.
If you want to "git gud" at fighting games you need three things imo.
1. Fundamentals
2. Execution
3. Knowledge
The order of these depends on the game your playing. With a game like street fighter I would say to prioritize fundamentals because of its 2d nature. A game like Tekken on the other hand I would definitely say knowledge is the most important thing, you can have some of the best fundamentals and execution but in a game with over 30 characters, some having well over a hundred moves you WILL be knowledge checked.
This is fair, but I would add that fundamentals and execution have been significantly down played in recent times while knowledge requirements have been made the most important factor by a country mile in many games
@1Shodan130 I used to complain about that too. But I realised when I want to play fighting games with my little son.
Games with emphasis on fundamentals just aren't fun for total beginners. The ones he likes the most were SF x Tekken and MvC3U. Why? They're mash friendly.
Most casuals just want to mash. Unfortunate, but if you want to sell your game you have to cater the casuals.
So, how do you also give challange to veteran players? Knowledge checks.
Knowledge check is the "chess" part of fighting games. Just like in chess, it's actually more about memorization than real-time strategy (at least for some levels of players.) But you must learn chess knowledge if you want to even get to mid-level chess.
I think it is the way. Make the game fun for every level of players.
Depends what is locked behind (hard) execution, basic stuff, decent bnb combos should have low execution requirement or modern controls option, so the new player don't have to invest too much to even see if he likes the game, while having more optimal combos, setups do locked behind execution.
As Sid Meier said "Games are series of interesting decisions" and lowering initial dexterity requirement makes people reach interesting decision part earlier.
honestly master chef cooking 🗣🔥
One thing that I think is important to note about execution is that it also makes the experience of losing less frustrating, at least for me. When I get boom looped by a Guile in Street Fighter 6, I'm mildly annoyed by the combo taking so long but I'm never bothered by the fact that Guile can do that. On the other hand, when someone like Bison or Akuma does a long, simple combo that takes 70% of my health, it feels pretty lame and undeserved in comparison.
You are not alone in that feeling.
Part of the reason is that you also encounter way more different playstyles with the same character since their toolsets tend to be bigger and more flexible as a whole. So people pick their combo and pressure routes depending on what they can pull off mechanically on top of what suits the current context of the match in that moment.
There is just so much more to player matches than just their approach to neutral which is how it is in modern fighing games currently. SF6 tried its best to introduce more situational variance with the Drive resource but that didn't help long term either. Having execution be a part of you skill set simply allows for so much more in terms of palyer expression and the overall skill ceiling at every level of play.
My main issue with doing away with execution barriers is because doing that makes every game feel samey. Most games nowadays feel like they've been intoxicated with a Street Fighter approach to fighting games. A big example of that is Guilty Gear Strive, where the combos no longer flow freely, you now have to use specific buttons for specific combos just like street fighter. Thankfully they did allow for more options than the usual Street Fighter stuff, and made it easier to learn how to use the many cancel options.
It is like life itself
Do you want to get good at something?
Practice!
You will never improve if you don't keep improving, there is no shortcut
Accept that you will make mistakes and learn from those mistakes
My tip is keep playing against other players
You will learn more from that than playing against the CPU
I usually like your videos, but the conclusion you reach in this one is really questionable. The fact that more accessibility BY ITSELF doesn't GUARANTEE success doesn't mean it's pointless or worthless. It just means there's more factors at play when it comes to attracting a wide player base. You can have the most accessible controls in the world, but if the presentation is weak and the characters aren't appealing and the game isn't actually fun to play, then yeah, people aren't going to be interested in the game. But that doesn't mean well done accessibility options, like Street Fighter 6's modern controls, can't INCREASE the success of a game that is actually good and appealing across the board. Because it clearly can. Stats show that roughly a quarter of SF6's very wide player base utilize modern controls. Many of those might not have stuck with the game this far. And then there's those (like me) that use classic controls now, but started out with modern and wouldn't have given the game a chance if it that option wasn't available to ease them into the series.
TL;DR: No, accessibility by itself doesn't guarantee success. If your game isn't appealing overall, then having accessibility options isn't going to carry it. But if the overall package is appealing, then offering well done accessibility options can only increase your success and most if not all fighting should strive to offer them going forward.
Yeah, it could've been articulated better, but the conclusion is not really that accessibility is pointless or worthless. It's more along the lines of what you said. Lowering the barrier can open the door for a chunk of new players, but only when the game itself presents and gives them something that's fun to play for dozens or hundreds of hours. However, to achieve that, the mentality behind changing things should be "how do we guide the player on their journey from A to B" instead of "Players want to reach B, so let's make the path as short as possible," which devalues the journey.
💯...in response to the video title question.
Honestly, there's room in the market for both high execution and low execution games, just stop trying to make THE SAME GAME work for both kinds of players.
I also think damage is a huge factor. High execution can work with either high or low damage, because there's always the tension of, "will they drop the combo?" Low execution fighters almost certainly need to be low damage fighters, because that's the only way you retain that tension. The biggest problem with the current titles, and with early DnF Duel, was the combination between lower execution with higher damage.
That said... I think there may be an appeal for a low-execution version/alternative to a high-execution title; sort of like a "tournament player simulator" that lets players imagine what it feels like to hit high-execution stuff with actually low-execution inputs; but only really as a gateway to get them to invest in the higher-execution counterpart and to somewhat tutorialize them.
I remember watching sf4 tournaments every weekend and getting hype when someone pull a really hard combo or even things you didnt know was possible it was inspiring something to strive for. I dropped strive and 6 for KOFXV and third strike.
Fighting games are fun because it requires effort, it requires commitment. its not for everyone, games should expand in tools to teach the game instead of simplifying it
Nice video and you brought up multiple very valid points.
Devs need to stop pandering to the instant gratification mindset by adjusting the core gameplay of a fighing game. There are other ways to achieve that and get casual content like single player modes, or generally rewards to earn and stuff to do outside of online competitive play.
But for gods sake, please stop treating the playerbase like toddlers and streamlining the characters and gameplay to accomodate that for short term profit and "big sales".
Further simplifying the executional aspect of fighing games (improving in execution pretty much becomes obsolete around intermediate play in modern games now) just leaves you with less aspects to improve in and thus reduces the overall skill ceiling.
Most of them, but the fighting games where you have to manage assist characters more so (DBFZ, UMvC3, MK1, etc.)
In TEKKEN 8
Nina is the only character that benefits from her execution
The risks are low and the rewards are huge.
I say it does, companies that make fighting games just need to stop focusing on normies and focus more the core fighting game audience. Making all moves easy to execute will make fighting games less fun and more boring.
Popularity is not the same as quality.
If you want a wildly popular game, take a very known franchise, add basic gameplay, invest three fourths of your budget in marketing, and contain your shareholders greed for a couple years. Execution can be super hard or inexistent, it doesn't really mean nothing here.
If you want a quality competitive game, make gameplay that is easy to grasp, hard to master, with transparent rules, simple balance tools, tons of player expression, and a focus on the players challenging each other, not the machine. Execution is important here, but it must be truly integral to the system, and can't be a crutch for bad design and poor balance.
Non contrived inputs don't make more popular games. But they do makes more fun, aproachable, balanced and overall better quality games.
Taking away one frame links , super jump cancels, etc removed the core part of what made the game fun to me. Exploring the limits of human execution and having players that excel at it such as Sakonoko inspired me to play the genre. Now that every kid off the street can do the most optimal Evo top8 combo this entire dimension is lost and so is my inspiration to practice and play the game. The game was my playground to actually test my execution after I learned it in the lab, what is there to test now when I can do everything blindfolded?
the entire reason for the creation of my chnel WAS execution. It was a place specifically to share my achievements and findings specifically of execution. Do you see how many videos I had for sf4 and now 0 for sf5 and 6. Why do you think that is?
I simply don't have the motivation for street fighter anymore. Give back ibuki tsumuji loops, eryu loops, viper seismos then I'll play sf6.
Bro I still remember sako styling on people in tournaments, he'd add unnecessary command dash cancels and would do the hardest insane combos. I still respect the guy like 2 decades later. He's like a hero to me, all of it was enabled by differentiation of the execution levels.
*tl; dr* As a fighting game enjoyer too good to play amongst friends and not good enough to compete, I'd say we definitely can do better in making the first steps softer for newbies without crippling all complexity like some individuals seem to think is the right idea. 🤔
I'd say that there's no need for the skill floor to be quite so high just to play the game. If a fella wants to throw a fireball, they should be able to whenever they so desire, if they feel the time is right. Fighters shouldn't have to fight the game just to play how they'd like, and making the game difficult to play should not be a factor in the game being "complex." Execution is not and should not be what separates the boys from the men or the Dans from the Kens; being good at fighting games hinges on your neutral, predictions, adaptation, and decision-making. Moves can be balanced around frame data and properties without one slip-up meaning "Oops, sorry! You don't get to anti-air this time," even if you made the right call. 😮💨
HOWEVER, I do love motion inputs and performing cathartic combos like puzzles, so I kind of want to keep such commands anyway. I'd miss that feeling a lot. 😅
There can be compromise without complete annihilation of complexity. You can give players full access to their moves when they want to while still keeping tight links, re-jumps, juggles, etc. Characters can still vary in ease of use and handling via tech and cancels and charge moves and archetype and gameplan without literally limiting how players can even control them. Yes, there might be stance dash cancels and one-frame links discovered by the community that they can't do without much practice, but such elaborate movements are ways of expression created by players who do have that skill in execution as opposed to redundant skill requirements put in place by the game. Tough combos often mean more damage and better enders, and I'd say that the number of interactions you have to win should be on you to improve in that sense. Land that hit, then show what you're capable of. 😌
Let players simply steer their avatars as they wish and do with them what they want to. Let them learn why and when they should use their specials instead of needed to teach them how. Actual skill in playing the game should come next, yes? 😉👍
If you wanna get good, sure.
Otherwise, your free to mash all you please, if it works for you.
Woah Blazblue the start
Stylish mode doesn't come up much
they should if not is it even A fihgting game?-GG00
Once again
Casual players ruined the fun
I hate that trend of trying to appeal to everyone
Why does nobody want to actually play games anymore. Of course execution matters. If you want to improve in anything you have to practice. Dumbing things down has never helped new players. Providing them with the necessary information to learn is what keeps new people engaged.
Execution hasn’t been a factor in the majority of games for over 10 years at least
I don't even have to watch the video. The answer is yes. If you remove execution, you might as well play chess.
Yes but they already removed execution lmao
I mean I am having more fun rising through and getting stuck in tekken 7 ranks than getting high ranks in tekken 8 quickly without much effort.(Easy purple rank in t8 to struggling in yellow in t7 with same characs_
In case of Tekken, that is because the heat system in T8 manage to help you push that far and not because you had execution issue before in T7.
I ain't say it's a bad thing. People play T8 share the same ground for that, being good at using heat system is part of the game mechanic.
@standheaykic66 Used to main law in t7 he had requires dss which I would always drop even after 300h dropped him in t8 and picked lee coz of dss ez execution. Pc broke down went to t7 on old pc(never played t7 on it) still drops b2 loops of lee hell alot tried law once again in t7 and can do dss stuff super ez consistently turns out it was a keyboard problem for law one not the execution also for b2 loops yeah its execution issues. Random rant
@standheaykic66 Used to main law in t7 he had requires dss which I would always drop even after 300h dropped him in t8 and picked lee coz of dss ez execution. Pc broke down went to t7 on old pc(never played t7 on it) still drops b2 loops of lee hell alot tried law once again in t7 and can do dss stuff super ez consistently turns out it was a keyboard problem for law one not the execution also for b2 loops yeah its execution issues. Random rant
I will agree that Execution matters a lot in fighting games because it affects the player's ability to perform combos, and moves effectively. Especially if you're playing against the CPU. One wrong move and it is game over for you. The fighting games i mostly play are MK and Tekken. I recently got back into Tekken 6 on the PSP after 9 long years, Was 14 when i first played it, now 24. The game becomes impossible after reaching a certain rank and the AI's block timing is ridiculous. I once went through a fight without landing a single hit on the CPU and got destroyed in seconds. If you're playing against the CPU and you get their health bar to a small junk, don't think you can win. The CPU will mount a crazy continuous 15 hit like combo and totally finish you i.e Tekken 6 from my experience.
Difficulty in video games don't really do anything nor does it matter. I think it heavily dependent on how well you know the combos of each and every characters which requires a lot of memorization. Even if you put the difficulty on easy mode, the game will still be hard which kinda makes sense. Tekken 6 on the PSP is still hard even on easy mode and it can be frustrating when the CPU just beats the crap out of you non-stop and dropping non-stop combos. Street Fighter Alpha 3 max is also another example. I suck at the game so i figured let me play at one star, Lost the very first arcade match
This is my opinion on Fighting games. Let me know what you guys think
Yeah execution should definitely matter and be rewarded. If you have to do high execution stuff that can be dropped easily just to be as good as someone with no execution barrier like Ryu or MVC3 Wolverine or Wesker, then what's the point of playing a more difficult character like C Viper? If someone wants to compete in something that does not have execution at all, they can play something turn based like non timed chess or a card game imo
Have you ever heard of fun? You're not going to evo and even if you did it'snot like you get bonus points for licking hard characters, just pick the character you like lmao
Actually, my experience goes against this. I joined back in Soul Calibur VI, then MKX, and sucked absolute ass. But the game was so fun I kept playing. MK11 took away a lot of execution but that's also where I saw my biggest strides in execution. It wasn't frustrating anymore, it was fun. Now I play mk1 on a regular bases. Though when I played sf6 I actually used classic controls.
Also, no hate for mortal kombat, they're simply the best in audio design for blind players. lol.
Edit: with that being said, I think it's totally fair there are things I can never do. I think the barrier of entry should be low, but the ceiling high. Give the pros special mechanics that are really hard to use, and let the rest of us scrubs have dial-in combos and comeback mechanics.
MKX does this kinda well. MKX rewards execution with insanely damaging combos
Maybe it's should only be an offline thing, idk. Or if you want to play with your friends. But it's needs to go from ranked. Idk.
It doesn’t matter if you can hit a 720 if your neutral game is ass and you’re not punishing anything. Execution should be a factor, but I feel like learning punishes, spacing and neutral are far more important in the long run. Anyone can learn any combo if you give em enough time. A good neutral game, however, takes far longer to gain
Why do you say that as if execution and good neutral are mutually exclusive? That's never the case but the strawman you are trying to pull.
Having execution allows for players to have more areas to improve in and hone their skill. Neutral comes on top. But in most modern games it almost always comes down to just grinding your "neutral" in the form of matchups and decisionmaking if you want to improve. In the more executionaly demanding games you have all that as well as execution you can choose to optimize if you want to.
Much more interested in game depth and interesting mind games player vs player, than a big execution barrier leaving the vast majority of the player base fighting the game more than their opponent.
Just got into vf5 with the recent pc beta and it was amazing how quickly I could actually have meaningful experiences vs other clearly new players as we adapted to each other.
I play classic controllers for sf6 because I've been used to it for so long, but modern has shown that even motion inputs aren't necessary for balance and can coexist.
As far as skill floor vs skill ceiling I think it's a misunderstanding to couple them to execution so much, motion inputs and 1 frame links in combos don't meaningfully effect the ceiling imo they just push up barrier to intermediate and lock away the games depth for most players. (I think motion inputs with generous modern input detection is a pretty low barrier but can't argue with how much removing even that small barrier has helped bring in new players)
Modern controls was the main thing that killed my interest in Street Fighter 6. I was so disappointed that Capcom added that to the game. I feel like I'm getting cheated and taken advantage of when going up against a modern player who effortlessly pulls off cool stuff without putting any practice or effort into the game at all. I also hate drive impacts. All of those mechanics were put into the game to help beginners be able to beat people who are better and much more skillful at the game than they are. It's effed up. A complete nincompoop is able to compete with me because they're able to mash buttons with no thought process behind them. I played Street Fighter 6 for like the first 2 months when the game was released and quit after that.
Modern controls don’t play neutral for you. They make combos easy but ya still have to actually learn the game
@j.i.nthenobody54 execution is like 70% of Street Fighter. Only 30% is strategy. Modern controls make it so that most of the hard work of the game is done for beginners. It's whack.
If you're getting beat by mashers thats on you
@ph43draaa yes, you're not wrong, but the point here is, the masher has more advantages.
Imagine you play shooting game and your opponent has auto aim. You might beat him with strategy but still you need to put extra effort than your opponent.
Switch to modern control also not helping for some people cause it messing their muscle memory.
@@shaolinprince777your just wrong, outside of A3/SF4, execution was never that important in sf. Sure modern is a shit idea but fg execution was dying way before then,
5 removed one frame links and any hard combo routes, 4 destroyed the input buffer, 3 removed the reversal window and turned it into a joke. Sf has been leading to this for over 20 years
I dont know why this discussion still exists. Would you be hyped watching cs go if everyone had aim assist?
ppl watch cod on console and get hype
Godlike comment
Can confirm I have no interest in cs go either way, love the fast paced decision making in fighting games tho, especially now the lower execution barrier is releasing the deeper game to more and more players
@@fitzciaran so you are saying you would be more interested in FPS games if they had aim assist ?
Every time a new wave of people join the genre with every new release some of those always bring this topic up.
Fighting games are notoriously inaccessible and the fgc has a difficulty fetish. Talking abt how fighting games are too casual when it took until tekken 8 to actually be able to get frame data in game is crazy, imo. The talk abt removed skill expression sounds logical on paper but all the top pros that have dominated evo for years are still there.
So much of playing fighting games is locked behind esoteric barriers because the communities are hostile to newcomers, if lowering execution barriers gets more ppl into the games so be it!
Like I know a lot off ppl complain abt simplified Jin, but it's literally just good game design. Why would you want your marquee character to be inaccessible to new players? Imagine if there were an "execution" barriers to jumping in Mario, or if your dodge roll in an action game had a 2 in 5 chance of not coming out, no one would play it!
That's not to say everything fighting games are doing rn is correct, but some ppl need to get a grip.
They are not inaccessible the mjaority of casuals are just a bunch of cowards and scrubs who refuse to accept taking losses and learning from experience. Every experienced fighting game player once took a beating from an expert before they became good. That's how it is in sports too. Why should we do away with it just because casuals are entitled pricks who want in on the fun without challenges?
Fighting games are not inaccessible. Gaming is just a lot more popular now and with that comes an influx of people interested in the fgc who think they deserve to win just for playing, despite not having learned “how” to play.
what sf6 did really well was the training mode options the tutorials,character guides and all the frame data right in the game. I think modern controls are a good idea. They might be a bit overtuned on low levels but I still having fun playing in bronze with classic controls.
No. Never did. Fighting games to me have never been about execution. I don’t care if you feel that it matters. What truly matters is if the game is fun to play & experience whether it’s hard or easy.
Edit: I understand some folks say that execution is an important factor in PVP gaming. But this is why the FGC struggles to bring in more people. A lot of diehard legacy players are gatekeepers and want fighting games to not evolve or change their older methods.
u speak like a single mode player , what’s fun and braindead for one guy can be an utter cancer hell for their opponent , so yes execution matters,
Yeh it's like saying shooters shouldn't require you to aim and just get easy hits just by having line of sight. Execution matters in any pvp game
ew no. Execution and fighting games go hand in hand. Cant have one without the other
If you don't like execution in fighing games you are playing the wrong genre. Maybe try round based strategy games instead? They can also be about "mindgames" but without the executional requirement.
Yes
i think that execution is a bad way to balance a move. it simply forgoes balance for lessening the amount of people who experience it since it will be done less. I feel that a move should either be balanced or not there at all. Locking it behind execution just means that people who can do it suddenly have an overpowered move.
Not necessarily, charge moves and super inputs are necessary restrictions to keep moves from being used on reaction.
SF6 took multiple steps to prevent this but some pro players still pick modern for easier punishes and confirms.
This is the worst of both worlds, now no one has access to certain tools at all.
What you said is factually just wrong? What you said can be applied to certain strategies or setups in a game, but not individual moves.
Like @hijster479 pointed out, moves have been balanced and designed around their executional requirements for three decades now, so that argument is just invalid.
@@hijster479 i think there is a difference between moves that are hard to do and moves that take time to do. charge moves aren't necessarily hard to do, pressing punch within a 2 frame window of the last move connecting is unnecessarily hard. Id like to see input windows increased and and long directional inputs done away with.
@@lallnutt11 There hasn't been a fighting game with specials this strict for decades. SF6 isn't like this, neither was 5. SF4 had waterfall kick but this was one move on one character that eventually got patched.
The only instances where near perfect execution was practical were in niche combos and punishes. If you didn't know the matchup well you wouldn't have the chance to do these even if they were easy, so how did this negatively affect beginners?
SF5 added an input buffer for normals and also largely did away with esoteric super inputs. As of 6 Modern controls are legal in all modes. At this point the only way to significantly simplify execution would be to get rid of the Classic controls altogether.
The bit about simpler games being failures feel just like a pointless shot towards smaller games. Like yeah, small fighting games like fantasy strike have small player numbers. You can look at any indie fighting game and make up whatever reasons you want why they don't have Street Fighter or Tekken numbers. Also criticizing Granblue for player numbers is definitely throwing rocks in a glass house, if like 800 daily users on average is a failure then whoo boy like the whole genre has failed except a handful of biggest ones. Like Xrd and +R are significantly below Granblue even after their rollback revivals.
High execution requirements are just one flavor which some people like and some people don't. Don't try to put down games people like for no reason.
Yeah, but we don't have many flavours now do we? The games which had some form of executional expression all took them out in their modern releases so it doesn't matter once you are past the beginner level.
@Nyagro I feel this is kinda half true. Even these modern releases like strive snd sf6 have those high execution scenarios where it is really rewarded. Like some extremely specific punishes in sf6 require like frame perfect microwalks to have enough drive gauge to make them work. Happy Chaos used to be really execution intensive, but to be fair, not anymore. Sol functions at a very basic level, but you can optimize him a ton to make everything hurt like hell. But it is true that hard execution isn't really part of most common interactions. I personally think hard execution is in the grand scheme of things fairly niche interest, so maybe making specific characters mechanically hard is the way. Like looking at Kazuya in Tekken or Akira in VF.
@@Cambiony I have close to 1k hours in both Strive and SF6. And while I didn't play SFV for long, I played Xrd and +R extensively even before Strive released.
And you can't tell that Strive has executional difficulty beyond a beginner level. Sorry, that's just not true.
Your HC example fits but is only the exception that proves the rule and as you mentioned, that version of that character doesn't even exist anymoreas it was an oversight by the devs they didn't want in the game.
In SF6's case, there come only *some* executional techniques which are worth doing to mind, like Ed's dream combo for instance. But even that one is only truly hard in the modern context. Tricky for sure but that's the upper echelon of "modern difficulty" already. And that application is only for a single technique on one single character.
Your mentioned microwalks aren't very hard at all. Most microwalks which are worth doing for the extra Drive Rush opportunity are close to a 5 frame walk followed by a (often) standing normal. Again, only "hard" at a beginner level. But beginners also can't always do a quarter circle motion. Doesn't mean it's a reasonable example to take for executional difficulty and expression in our conversation here.
In order for your Drive meter to regenerate slightly, you need to walk forward at least for two frames. Characters that literally only have a 2 frame window to walk forward, followed by a back or down normal are the hardest executional things in that game as it means you have to walk forward for exactly two frames, and then hit back/down + button for the follow up on exactly the same frame.
And these niche scenarios aren't worth it most of the time. On top of that, character unique mechanics are a common critique of SF6 in general.
And just to be clear, "having executional difficulty and expression" isn't doing a situational Twitter combo. Just had to say that before someone brings out clips of Odawara doing silly Twitter clips. Funny, but not the point here.
Looking back, I think +R and Xrd had it how most people describe the ideal solution: having super easy combos which lead into a knockdown for good damage and oki and the more character specific and executionally harder ones to optimize. But clearly the devs thought this was too much seeing how much Strive homogenized and streamlined, even disregarding the simplification of the mechanical execution.
Why not? Can we please stop with the hypocrisy? As if the freaks who play those games don't consistently put the more traditional games down for having command inputs that they refuse to learn
Execution is important in ALL aspects of life.😂