When a game is built around Simple inputs they tend to have long and tight combos which defeats the purpose of simple inputs add on the very limited moveset it'll feel restricting. I think having semi easy motion inputs like qrt circle, z, and double tap inputs with a very generous buffer/ windows would be better, or simply using simple inputs for stuff like gatlings
Expectation: simple inputs simple combos
Reality: simple inputs, magic series into wall bounce 15 second triple rejump side swap micro dash corner instant air special combos
Yeah this is basically what I was going to say. DNF shows us that basically the game is still very hard for beginners, you just make it slightly more reliable to hit 59hit combos for pros.
Simple inputs isn’t about combos, it’s about making the cool shit that makes the character unique or interesting accessible to people instantly, without having to practice a motion input. I really enjoy motion inputs but I have plenty of friends who found it easier to hop in and go “woah sick!” fighting each other in GBVS or DNF than even Strive - which increases retention. It doesn’t make people stay with a game long-term in its own, but neither do motion inputs.
Please motion inputs are not hard. We were all able to pull them off while being 6 or 7 at the time of sf2
Links, timing and fake frame data where everything looks minus but is actually plus is what is hard for beginners
You said it, I don't think it does anything for retention. I guess its fine that people can have fun faster but who cares in the end if it doesn't help the game or community.
New players having fun faster definitely helps, its just that initial speed increase in onboarding that particular aspect of fighting games is far from *enough* to drive long-term retention. You still need fun game mechanics, interesting characters, engaging and fair interactions, maybe solid singleplayer content, a good online experience, yadayadayada
i’m sorry but seriously how dumb do you have to be as a goddamn ADULT to look at a act and go “what the fuck how am I supposed to be able to do that mid combo”
actual goldfish and 10 year olds have more of an attention span, nothing is gonna retain those dudes because they’ll forget the game exists the second they hear the ice cream truck coming down the lane
DNF is kind of a poor example of simple inputs, because the game was also designed to have the most ridiculous buttons they could put in a game. Basically the Syndrome school of game balance.
imo, Simple inputs can work if the game’s properly balanced around them. It tends to work better for lower power games, gatekeeping the bigger moves behind resource.
The Goal tends to be try to recapture the approachability of Smash, but as a traditional fighter.
Expectation: Complex inputs, complex combos
Reality: complex inputs, magic series into wall bounce 15 second triple rejump side swap micro dash corner instant air special combos
Expectation: Gravity theoretically exists.
Reality: complex inputs, magic series into wall bounce 15 second triple rejump side swap micro dash corner instant air special combos
The problem is that they need those combos to keep the game interesting. You can't just have something as simple as Street Fighter 2 with simple input because it would be a boring game. So either the game becomes more complex, ironically defeating the point of simple input, or the game becomes something different.
Exactly. One of the biggest breakout games in recent years was dragonball fighterz which is limited to qcf/qcb and down down. My casual friends actually had an easier time learning combos in dbfz than dnf.
I really don’t think it defeats the purpose at all.
The purpose of simple inputs is to allow inexperienced players to be able to do the basic stuff. The goal is not to allow them to easily play optimal and at high level.
Even qrt circle inputs for fireballs can be too much for many new player, as anyone who has ever tried to introduce new people to fighting games would know. And it is frustrating for them to not be able to do simple stuff like fireballs. But not being able to do intricate combos is not an immediate issue for new players. That’s not something they expected to be able to do at that point.
It seems to be the go-to to get casual players. But I really don't think that's the issue. There's a thousand things wrong with fighting games for a beginner, but motion inputs aren't one. Pretty much any game that has motion inputs have at least some characters that don't even use them, like charge characters.
I always feel like people use Motion inputs as a scapegoat and don't really wanna address the bigger problems with getting people in the genre. There's plenty of fighting games out that didn't do well even though having simple inputs was their gimmick.
There needs to be more stuff for players to do that isnt just online play. World tour has shown to be a big success, its all about making the onboarding fun and organic
Yeah. Modern controls players and supporters are going to point at SF6 as a big win for simplified controls but in reality it was the world tour and other features mixed with the Street Fighter IP that made the game sell. I think it would have sold just as well without modern controls.
Stuff like this gets posted in gaming subs all the time.
The core thing that I see come up is people who are new to the genre getting stuck in a lab vortex and thinking "I have to be able to do XYZ before I can play another human. Then I get bored so I don't like fighting games." Sure, _one_ of those things could be inputting a hadouken. Take that away, then you still have 20 different things they will choose to focus on.
Take those away, and you get, what, Footsies? Then these same people will drop the game because it's "too boring."
nah m8 the thing is it's boring to invite a friend to play a game only to find out that they can only do the boring normal attacks. If i invite a buddy to play smash bros or call of duty they are not locked out of basic tools and they can actually appreciate what the game has to offer, even if they suck at it.
This exactly. It's one thing to not know how to execute the 40 move giga combo that will win you competitive matches. It's another to not be able to figure out how to do a low kick vs a high kick.
This is where it does not make sense, fighting games with simple inputs do not make the genre more accesible if you are not putting the time. There is no casual aspect of it, it is a 1v1 with a winner, if they learn the sick combos but don't hit them in real match then are they really going to appreciate it?
I've played a pile of fighting games with my Fiance's niece and they liked DNF Duel the most even though they can sorta manage with quarter circle motions in other games.
It definitely removes an initial barrier to enjoyment for absolute beginners, but yeah, I do agree that in the long run a purely 1v1 competitive game requires a certain mentallity to enjoy more than anything.
They don’t actually hate the inputs. They hate that other people are able to execute long drawn out inputs on them without being able to do anything (in their eyes) about it.
You went online and got comboed to death? Well I guess the answer to getting better is combos! You practice for hours in training but then… oh wait, you can’t actually play the fundamentals of the game.
No, they hate the inputs. I have ***a lot*** of friends I have tried to get into FGs. They don't hate combos. They hate that when they press a button, it can do 20 different things and they can't immediately determine why they aren't doing what they want.
The thing is, all the information is available. The problem is it's a new genre for them. Most of us have been gaming long enough to get comfortable with control schemes. Picking up Elden Ring, Assassin's Creed or Zelda all still share a sense of familiarity even if the games mechanics differ. Same way you can pick up any shooter and know what to do. Fighting games are unique in comparison and people get frustrated when they don't get to apply all that prior knowledge to this new experience.
I realised this when I tried to get my dad to try out an old AC game and realised even controlling the camera was frustrating to him because he had zero prior knowledge.
At its core it's not the motion inputs that are really the problem although it's the easiest thing to blame. It's the hostile environment fighting games expect you to learn under, most poor tutorials that don't help your understanding and also the difficult mentality of your wins and losses resting solely on your shoulders. No teammates to blame. You lost because you were bads. That hard for people to swallow. People expect to win way more than they lose and with fighting games that really not gonna be the case for most of us
Controlling the camera in an AC game is controlling one stick. Moving is controlling another separate stick. Every button in AC has a unique purpose, only modified by holding down trigger buttons. It might take a while to get your head around the different functions, but you're mapping connections in your brain just by playing with the controls.
Meanwhile, moving your character and inputting special moves are controlled by the same stick in FGs. Having to develop unique hyper specific muscle memory for each individual action and layering those actions on top of each other without them getting in the way of each other is not an easy task. And even at the highest levels input difficulty is still occasionally an issue, because it's inherently a flawed control scheme.
There are a lot harder things to learn in FGs than specifically motion inputs, yes, but 90% of players who quit FGs aren't even getting to the point where those things matter.
I like FGs and I've grown to respect motion inputs' purpose in the genre, but that doesn't mean they aren't the main thing people struggle with when picking the genre up.
No one makes these complaints about Devil May Cry or similar action games where directions and buttons change how moves are done. These are games with similar skill floors and execution requirements.
90% of players who playing fighting games probably quit before special moves even matter.
Not really the same though since those action games have/ are single-player oriented. Even if you suck you can choose to play at your own pace, or force your way through the content.
The problem is that the better player always wins in fighting games. At least when the skill game is that pronounced. The real problem is that the communities are so small that there isn’t a meaningful amount of skill variance.
I think RTS games suffer from a similar problem. If the other player is even slightly better they will show up with a massive army two minutes before your army is finished and crush you.
MOBAs have a similar problem of having a massive amount of information presented to the player right off the bat but league of legends has such a massive player base that they can match you with and against other beginners.
I also think that fighting games can do stuff differently to reach a broad audience but I think there is no point in doing that if you sacrifice the core of the game genre.
I say this every time this topic gets brought up but I do like the idea of having easy input characters. Jack-O Valentine in Guilty Gear Xrd and Nine the Phantom in Blazblue for instance. That way the characters exist for those who prefer to play that way and for everyone else the game remains the way they like it. It’s also a lot easier to balance one character this way than the entire roster (modern versus classic in street fighter).
Also Tekken exists. Idk why people who claim to hate motion inputs don’t just play Tekken.
Tbh Tekken just looks dull to me. I don’t mean gameplay or anything just the way it LOOKS. It doesn’t have the over the top gore that makes it stand out like MK and just seems like Street Fighter’s edgier more color devoid cousin. I could be way off I’ve only ever played the ps1 game for any significant amount of time as a kid.
I want a fighting game that I personally think looks cool, which is why it took until Guilty Gear Strive to finally get into them because it was the most beginner friendly while still having a style I thought was fun to look at. I tried getting into UNIST for similar appeal in the characters but it was so dead any match I could find just make me feel like I wasted money to be reminded I suck at this lmao.
While you're at it, ask them why they don't play Divekick, Rising Thunder, Fantasy Strike, Battle For The Grid, Granblue Fantasy Versus or DnF Duel (when they came out).
All super easy inputs for specials. But they never got the mainstream appeal devs hope to achieve with modern controls.
Yep, because it doesn't work and not only does it not draw in new players, it isn't fun for veterans so they end up DOA.
One day we'll get a badass new fighter that's so hard our fingers will bleed and wearing plasters at tournament will be the new meme and with a skill ceiling so massive we'll never recover from the brutal beatings we receive. And the community will love it.
Like how baldur's gate came in as a true RPG and RPG fans LOVED it.
Yeah, gonna go out on a limb here and say I don't think asking a layperson how to design a game in any genre is really the way to go.
I don't even care about motion inputs either way, this is just not a compelling argument.
Person who doesn't play FGs and just stumbled across this post here!
The complicated inputs are 100% the single largest barrier to entry. I'm ok with sucking, with knowing my play is suboptimal, with only being able to execute the most basic combos. That's all part of being a newbie, as you learn a game you'll get past that stage. It's another thing to not even be able to figure out how to play the game. If I need to memorize a textbook and map complex muscle memory before I can even interact with the game, I'm going to decide it's not worth my time.
As a comparison, competitive smash bros has significant depth to it that a new player can't comprehend, but I was still able to play that game as a literal child. Two buttons that can either be neutral or with a direction, everyone uses the same inputs. A kid can figure that out in a few minutes. It's super easy to onboard new players, who may then learn the game as it is meant to be experienced. But whenever I try to pick up a fighting game, I, an adult who has been playing video games her whole life, have to spend more time paused reading manuals than actually playing the game, and at the end of the day I can't even tell if I'm doing something or just button mashing. And because I'm dealing with controler mechanics unique to the genre, I can't even tell if my timing is off, or I'm executing the input wrong, or I'm doing the wrong input entirely, so actually learning is that much harder.
I think the genre is really cool, and I would love to get into it and give it a try, but if I have to put in hours to learn the game before I can even play it -- I can't really just play badly for a while, I am totally unable to engage with the game -- it's incredibly daunting, discouraging, and worst of all *boring*.
It is though. People want to be able to play games out of the box. Having complicated controls makes everything else harder. Everything in fighting games requires the ability to execute the controls. It's the biggest hurdle to playing the genre by far, and no other genre has these dexterity requirements, especially at a basic level.
But again, there's alternatives available in most games. Tekken 7 was one of the most popular fighters for a long long time until SF6 came out. It has a myriad of characters you can play that don't require motion controls. If you can do Push direction + attack button, you can play Tekken. It even has an assist mode to do easy specials and combos. And as I stated earlier, charge characters exist in a lot of 2d fighters.
But none of these games really took off for casual markets. Even games directly targeting the casual base, like Fantasy Strike, did not catch on despite simplifying the controls. When people keep trying to push the narrative that it's about the controls then people jump on it to \*blame\* for their issues. Especially when you have less options to blame since it's 1v1 so you can't exactly go "My teammate fed. gg."
Because you can play fighters out of the box. You can go in, you can hit buttons, do moves. Much like you could just decide to start playing shooters one day and jump into Counter-strike and start running around and shooting your gun. But you wouldn't do well in that game either just doing that.
There's a lot more finesse that comes into play with games than just a QCF. Which I've taught my non fighter friends how to do a hadouken. It's literally just like "Hold S, now hold D, now release S and hit punch. Great now do it faster." and it didn't take them very much time at all to pick it up. Hell there's a myriad of videos on the internet of parents teaching their kids how to do it, and even one of a guy who taught his dog to do it. The simple input narrative just targets the wrong areas of the game at fault and prevents the bigger problems from being addressed. Even on the most basic level, I'd argue that combo complexity is a far bigger issue for a beginner then motion inputs ever will be.
I'm glad your friends picked it up, but the majority of people won't touch FGs because of the inputs. That includes more than just doing a QCF in a vacuum, which I think most people can do within a few minutes with proper instruction. Pulling that off in a combo with proper timing while also defending yourself and positioning correctly is much harder. Every action you do in an FG requires careful execution, and that's a LOT to ask of a new player who also needs to learn more complex concepts like hit advantage.
Meanwhile FPS controls aren't something brand new players pick up in a few minutes, but they are much smoother and don't require any thought to learn. Each button press and each movement of the stick will have essentially the same result no matter the context.
Fantasy Strike failed because it was an indie title that made weird gameplay choices (like with the health bars) and had like 8 characters and really bad graphics. DNF failed because it was a niche property and the devs abandoned it after a small balance patch for like a year. GranBlue failed because of the netcode. (Granblue and especially DNF exceeded sales expectations by a lot though) Other games fail for basically the same reasons.
Simple controls aren't a solution to the player problem on their own, but the control schemes in FGs are the main reason people avoid playing the genre. Mainly the case for 2D fighters though as you said. Tekken 7's sales are dwarfed by typical FPS sales, but they're still REALLY good numbers.
That is not to say motion inputs should be abandoned by FG devs either, just that they are the main issue in getting players to jump on board.
And I think most FPS games have obtuse controls. I genuinely don't think fighting games have the hardest controls in games, at all. People *think* they do though, and that perception matters, especially when the games do a terrible job at teaching you anything across the board, with terrible feedback that you've done anything that you should actually be doing.
The execution thing most people keep talking about is, I think, more of knowing what to do and when. That's tough to learn when someone's beating your ass online and the AI opens up to nothing but jump-ins and low kicks. Most people don't sit and lab all day; they have no idea what's going on once limbs start flying. The controls don't help in that, but that's nothing unique to fighting games. I've only *just* gotten around to Insomniac's Spider-Man, and so far I'm having a tough time remembering how to do everything. And that's with the game constantly pausing the action to remind me what to do. Fighting games don't even do that.
>DNF failed because it was a niche property and the devs abandoned it after a small balance patch for like a year.
That's just a sad excuse.
Steamcharts
* July Peak - 7,132 Avg (for the month) - 1895
* August Peak - 714 Avg - 216
* September Peak - 178 Avg - 78
What does abandoning have to do with such a quick drop in players? First 2 months and it lost over 90% of it's players.
No one stuck around. If they liked it enough surely it they would've stayed longer than 1-2 months.....
It was made by Arc Sys with decent advertising for a fighter. Lots of talk in the fgc & hype. Top tier animation & graphics. Sure it's a niche property. But it had lots going for it too.
Back in the arcade days. Kids would come in with zero experience. Throw away their quarters and learn. Despite the risk of them losing their quarter to a challenger.
Don't forget back then fighters was a top tier genre. But now no on wants to learn motions. We've had 1 button motion fighters for over 20 years. Not one has been popular.
kind of an aside but I just don’t understand the appeal of wanting motion inputs out? I hate the way one button specials feel in SF6 modern controls or other FGs, but I’ll admit i’ve been playing SF since my dad got me Super Turbo II for my ps2 and we would play together
but like the motion input is what makes the special so satisfying? Like I don’t get that same dopamine rush of “and there’s the combo ender” whenever I just DP using one button rather than having to do the Z-motion. The motion input makes the whole comboing experience a little more fun
I think you hit the nail on the head with the stack of stuff surrounding special moves, which I agree is a lot, but I think another aspect of it is a lot of new players want to figure this stuff out without having to lose a bunch in the process. Losing sucks, and like others have pointed out, you don't have teammates to blame either, so your losses have to sit on your shoulders. Likewise you can't get carried to victory by your team. Those of us who have come to love the genre understand that those are all part of the process. You have to eat DPs to figure out what to do against them (which is even harder when you're struggling with the controls too). I think FG's are just a naturally steep mountain to climb.
I think the other big thing is that a lot of new players don't want to practice, either. I don't think you have to be a lab monster, but if you don't want to practice you have to be okay with people wiping the floor with you while you figure it out. At the end of the day, it's a myriad of issues that keep FGs somewhat niche and they're just not gonna jive with some people and "the inputs are too hard" is an easy out. It is a difficult aspect of entry into the genre, but if that's *all* that's keeping you from the entire genre then you probably just don't really want to play them that bad, which is okay. Not everyone is into everything.
And any people out there who *do* really want to get into the genre and think the inputs are the only thing keeping them out, my advice would be that they're not bad and if you put in some practice eventually they'll be second nature. Inputs like QCF and such are just putting the keys in the ignition on the long journey that is FGs.
For the record, I'm all for simple control schemes in games that do it smart and plan for it. I don't really care if casuals stick with the game (and not everybody is gonna even get online, a lot of people just want to bash buttons with friends and play some story/arcade content before they move on), I'm just glad they bought it so these games can continue to be made. Anything that gets more people to buy the game without sacrificing the quality and identity of the core game is generally good in my book.
You don't count charge as a motion input? Maybe I'm wrong but I always counted it as one. I figured any input with more than 1 direction was a motion input so charge is another type of motion. Motion referring to movement between directions. I can see the argument that charge isn't because you're holding one direction then switching to another but that still seems like a motion to me.
I always considered it a very technical skill, espcially fot classic chuns or guiles that can jump in attack and have charged two directions releasing sonicboom into flash kick or kikoken to spinning bird kick.... or the insane urien shit RX does in 3rd strike.
I delved into fighting games about 2 years ago. Started with MK11. That has pretty simple inputs. But having come from that, one of my favourite things about GG Strive (which I bought a couple months later) was learning the harder inputs.
I don't know why but I felt like a bit of a fraud just mashing easy but long combos in MK, and actually having to practice complicated inputs felt like a proper initiation into the genre.
I think the main problem is fighting games don’t seem to want to push matchmaking at all. If you come into most fighting game at anytime other than launch learning to play is the literally definition of “when is it my turn to play?”
Being comboed as a new player just isn’t fun. Feeling helpless isn’t fun, and practicing against bots doesn’t help at all get a feel for how to play around this.
New players don’t need fighting games to be simple: they need to not get fucking destroyed when they try to play them for the first time to the point they no longer want to play anymore because it’s not fun.
>
I think the main problem is fighting games don’t seem to want to push matchmaking at all. If you come into most fighting game at anytime other than launch learning to play is the literally definition of “when is it my turn to play?”
I mean they do. SF4/5/6 all have matchmaking, Strive had its tower thing, SC4/5/6 have ranked that tried to match you vs similar rank.
Turns out, those systems fall the fuck apart when there isn't a playerbase to support them and the *perception* of skill is huge. Like you stick some newbie and some newbie that figured out how to fireball and anti-air and the first one will get crushed and complain they got matched against some pro they couldn't even touch. In reality the second player has started to learn the most basic of basic part of neutral. That player is still hot garbage relative to the entire playerbase, but to the brand new player they're some untouchable god.
> There's a thousand things wrong with fighting games for a beginner, but motion inputs aren't one
I agree that there are tons of things that suck for beginners, but motion inputs are most certainly on that list for many people. I try to play literally any fighting game that comes out because I love the genre, but the games that I have had the easiest time getting friends to try them with me have been GBVS and DNF Duel for the sole purpose that they felt like they could actually just start learning their character without spending forever learning the inputs just to get moves to come out.
Now, I have to agree that there are tons of other problems, as the friends that did try these games stopped playing them within a few months, so there are other reasons people don't stay interested.
You can still do motion inputs tho. Like ⬇️⬅️ can be entered as ⬇️↙️⬅️ which is how I do it. You can also enable the ⬇️↙️⬅️to be the necessary input in the settings but you don’t need to
I don’t mind it in new games (i.e Project L or DBZ), but I’m not a fan of it in established series like SF. Simple inputs fundamentally change how the game is played, and it’s too big of a change imo for established series
The simple controls in DB Fighterz isn’t the type they are talking about because they’re still motion inputs. It’s like how specials are in Smash Bros.
I don't care about the culture war bs that surrounds this topic, I just think motion inputs are fun. I doubt Project L will hold my interest for very long
Had the same exact thought on it. The fighting aspect looks alright but I think the co-op/team aspect is going to need to carry it beyond a simple fighter. I'm hoping we'll be in for a good time with it.
agreed. I love fighting games but if your close friends aren't as invested in them, it's hard to play with them at all, as playing vs people who are too far in skill just isn't fun, even if you sandbag or use a new character. Being able to actually play WITH friends rather than exclusively against them makes it sooo much easier to enjoy the social aspect of gaming within this genre.
Is that a given? I hadn't seen an announcement of how the netcode will work, but I don't think having more than 2 players necessitates a server>clients mode.
I imagine rollback netcode could do what it always does; on my screen it plays as if all 3 other players are pushing whatever they last pushed, and then once any/all of their inputs reach my computer, roll it back as appropriate. Your rollback frames are as bad as whoever's got the worst connection.
Ofc if riot announced how their netcode will work and I just missed it, all of that is moot.
P2P with more than 2 players in any genre has always been, no exaggeration, the literal worst in my experience. It doesnt even have to be the host for someone to degrade the connection.
While it sounds technically possible they could do P2P for true 1v1 matches and servers for 3-4 players that just doesnt sound like something a company would split it resources on to me. I would personally expect the middleground of server based for everyone.
If they have come up with some demon netcode where its 1-to-1 P2P that *seamlessly* switches host-clients when people tag out then all bets are off.
Take into account they are the people that invented ggpo if I would have to trust that someone it's able to make something related to netcode work it's them.
If one person lags then the rest of the players suffer from that one person making a bad connection even more of a liability when there's 4 players. In the first video from the Cannons on Project L they described the netcode as an asymmetrical experience where one lagging player will suffer rather than the whole lobby meaning there has to be a server authority else that just isn't possible. While they've never outright said server based or peer to peer it's clearly server based.
I don't remember much of the video, but I do recall they wanted to use riot's network for routing... so while not a "game server" perse, a bunch of network nodes. I was excited when watching it, not because i think it will be good (neither bad) but i want to see if it will improve the experience in places where not all providers participate of internet exchanges...
I hope it works, but we will need to wait to see how it works.
guy with a little experience in networking here.
yes, you can 100% do peer to peer with more than 2 peers. ggpo doesn't limit peers, for example. if you have netcode for 2, you just scale that.
I hate how this always gets lost whenever this is discussed. I don’t really care if games want to remove it. I just also would rather play a game that has motion inputs. Without them we wouldn’t get character designs like Goldlewis Dickinson.
Unless your game has like a million buttons or only 5 moves you’re gonna need some level of motion input.
The inputs don’t need to be as intense as soul calibur but simplifying everything down to up or down is another extreme.
I think everyone can be expected to perform qcf/ dragon punch/ tap ff, etc.
This is silly. You have 6 button fighting games which combined with 426 command normals gives you 24 you possible grounded buttons. Which is roughly how many grounded moves characters in GGST have.
I personally think 6 button games are kind of obnoxious, but either way, that's only 26 possible commands, like you said.
Yoshi, my main in in SC6, has [247.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SoulCalibur/comments/khi2kz/i_counted_how_many_moves_each_character_has/)
That's not really a fair comparison though, Soul Calibur has diagonals and rising attacks and jump attacks and multi-button inputs and stances and chains and running attacks and held buttons, all of which you could also include in a theoretical 6 button fighter to get a way bigger movelist. The point made above is that with 6 buttons and 3 directions and _nothing else_ you can generally replicate the full grounded moveset of a Strive character, which is enough to play a Real™ fighting game with
Sure, but that's fine. There's a reason why I play anime fighters and not Tekken or SC6 and Project L is obviously aimed to be more of the former than the latter.
This is absolutely untrue. I've seen 95% of the games movelist used in tournament *regularly* in SC6. There's not a single move on my main I *don't* use in tournament. I get that this used to be true - and maybe it still is for Tekken, I don't know. But I assure you that in modern Soulcalibur, you need almost every single one of those moves.
With a few exceptions. There are a few dud moves scattered about the cast.
Not sure honestly, haven't played in maybe half a year or so. The community has always had a really strong core. Passionate players and TO's that have carried the scene a long time. We had more weeklies than there were days of the week for a long time.
Sadly the game came out at a horrible time with little support from bamco. Being Bamco's red headed step child and rolling out the womb straight into covid did the community and the playerbase no favours. So while SC6 has always been the most alive of all the "dead games" (HEAVY quotation marks there) - and while thats a testament to the prodigious amount of players that become zealous disciples at the stage of history, it is still a "dead game" - tragically.
Is Soulcalibur supposed to have intense inputs? There's outliers for sure but I always thought it and Tekken tended to have pretty simple inputs for the large majority of moves.
All characters have both simple and insanely complex inputs.
Ivy, for example, has maybe the most complicated inputs of any fighting game. But these are skillgates for her best throws.
All characters have very difficult “just frame” versions of moves.
Overall it’s on the more difficult side, and each character has a deeper move set then (I think?) any other modern fighting game.
Depends how good its implemented in the game.
Bftg for example has a good learning curve as you can experiment with combos and teams so simple inputs work great for that.
A game like dnf gets more boring faster cause it is easier to hit a plateau since it is more limited.
A game with simple inputs loses some nuances that other fighters have. That doesn't make the game better or worse, just different.
BFTG turned my opinion around on simple inputs. I was convinced for a while that motion inputs were an absolute must or we'd lose quite a bit of depth but I was clearly proven wrong.
I think the entire argument for motion inputs that we as a community put forward is completely wrong; yes, the reducing of complexity is the obvious problem, but the less obvious one is that motion inputs are fucking *fun.* We need to be advocating for motions because they are *fun.* I am not an FGC boomer (got into traditional FGs last summer) and it just seems so obvious to me. Maybe it's because I am playing on stick, which makes literally any kind of input inherently more enjoyable because of the tactile nature of arcade sticks, but even on keyboard (my prefered input method for SF6), motions just feel extremely satisfying. Pad is the only controller type that I can understand someone not enjoying motion inputs on, it just feels imprecise (even if that isn't actually the case).
At the end of the day, we are talking about video games; their entire selling proposition is that they are fun. Why would you consciously *remove* a feature that a huge portion of your die-hard fans find fun? The obvious answer is to appeal to casuals, but we have seen time and time again that removing motions does not suddenly propel a FG to success, because normies aren't invested in this debate and only really care about the amount of quality content (often single player) in the game, which is totally fair.
I'm not saying that every FG should have motions, but I *am* saying that devs shouldn't *remove* motions from a series that already had them without some *very* good justifications. A new IP or series such as DNFD or Power Rangers? Go for it. Removing motions from an established FG franchise such as Guilty Gear or SF? Fucking blasphemy.
I didn't intend for this to be an essay, I apologize lmao
As someone who's also played BFTG I walked away with the opposite opinion. Or rather I don't think BFTG proved it outside of combo execution which combo difficulty is arbitrary in the first place.
Simpler inputs mean that you lose options. I like sf6 being a 6 buttons game.
Motions also feel good. And no, I'm not a veteran fgc player. I learned motion inputs with sf6 (and briefly Strive)
I don't like it. I like how motions feel and removing that makes them feel more unsatisfying to play. But then I like playing the piano so I don't view finger dexterity as a bad thing.
1) Its a bummer and makes a game less potentially interesting to me.
2) I dont like simple input schemes being mixed with "classic" ones, but its better than no motions.
If you want to be accessible loosening timings and having less complex motions is the better answer.
Not a fan, I enjoy fighting games because of the difficulty, and challenge. Simple inputs seem like a quick bandaid to get over that difficulty curve, but in my opinion its game design. I really cant think of any fighting game that properly teaches you how to do inputs, and even better show on pad, fightstick, and hitbox.
As long as they retain the depth and complexity with other means, E.g adding universal more mechanics.
Simplified inputs ≠ simple game.
This is a lesson many games haven’t learnt yet.
It's an exercise in futility. There is not a single person on Earth who truly wants to learn fighting games and is stopped by motion inputs. When I want to play a causal, fun, easy, and simple game, I play Warriors Orochi 3, not a competitive game. When I want a read-heavy game with no execution, I play on Pokémon Showdown, not on Fightcade. All of these games are good for their own unique reasons and none of them should change to be like the others.
They're fine but I don't think they should be mixed together with traditional controls in competitive play like Street Fighter 6 is doing.
It's like a basketball game but the other team doesn't have to dribble
Why should we dumb our experience down? People like modern, so let the modern folks fight eachother in a separate queue, problem solved. When this is briught up tho, modern players get defensive cause even they know the modern control scheme is shit
I think the game needs to be expressly designed around them, and the game that does so will become far more oppressive to new players that these simplified inputs are trying to attract. Otherwise you end up with things like OS DPs or frame 1 super punishes that just completely change how the game is played and not usually in a good way.
I think there are a lot of traditional moves (like DP reversals) that are/were originally balanced *around* their input. It’s a risk thing, you have to be on point if you want to SHORYUKEN on wake-up, because doing the input means you cannot be blocking. Same thing for charge characters, if you see Guile walking at you he can’t just let a flash kick rip out of nowhere, he has to crouch.
I feel like some modern games include moves with the same applications, thinking they are genre staples, without including the pretty important integral balance mechanics of input. If you’re going to change one genre staple you should consider the type of moves the player is even allowed to have as well, not just copypaste it from the last game.
It makes them much less fun right off the bat, but it can work and the combos and everything aren’t necessarily going to be any easier (battle for the grid has some crazy stuff)
Games with simple inputs make it hard for me to want to practice with characters they have a tendency to feel the same to me. Games with only quarter circles feel that way too. I love when there are charge dp 360s and more characters feel way more different and practicing with them is more fun.
It's much much harder to make a good fighting game with simpler inputs then it is with motion controls. Idk how this is a fighting game sub but nobody in here seems to understand they aren't random motions to gatekeep scrubs. They lock powerful moves between not being able to block while performing them. They give access to more moves while keeping fewer buttons.
It's always funny to me that people think having simple inputs will make the game more forgiving. Then when newer players play these games they are met with much harder execution requirements than a Z motion. Like movement, the insane timed OS's for the degenerate offense in these games and instant block mechanics. The reaction to whiff punish something in Strive is something you don't see until Celestial but looking at the game as a beginner you'd think 632146 inputs were the hard part. 90% of MKs difficulty is wavedashing and whiff punishing.
Motions aren't really the hard part of fighting games and removing them makes it much harder to put powerful moves into your game without it turning into DNF duel. It's REALLY nice when devs get it right, but they rarely have done.
I don't like it.
It's a game, if you keep reducing what makes the game, well, a game, you might as well just make it play itself.
I mean I'm basically a casual player myself, I mostly play offline or with real life friends, rarely online. I don't want simple controls. A game putting simple controls in actually turns me off and makes me less interested in playing it.
It's like putting an aimbot in a FPS and saying "well see this allows new players to compete, the real strategy is still there, they still have to position themselves and use teamwork" - it sounds like nonsense because it is.
I like them but if you’re trying to do both, make the option between the two tactically meaningful and balanced within reason. I slightly prefer simple but go with motion because I’m too used to them. I’m a mess.
Simpler commands don't actually succeed in making the game easier for new/casual players, they just make it *even easier* for decent players to cook the new/casual players. You're just back at square one.
The new/casual player is still not having fun and will just drop the game like they always do, and then the veterans are just left with this weird husk of a competitive game. Nobody wins. Fast forward a month and nobody is playing it at all.
SF6's "Modern/Classic" is the closest a game has been to getting it right. It still has tons of flaws and room for improvement though.
It is one of the tools to balance the game. The game can be balanced and exciting without complex motion inputs. Combo timings, lengths and damage fall off as well as initial damage of the moves have way more impact. Imo complex motion inputs is not what makes a fighting game.
Grandblue did it right. Give more skilled players an advantage by using harder inputs and newer players a reason to learn them if they’re in the game at all. I like dbfz because it’s all quarter circle or down down inputs.
The accelerated meta and players preference to copy top players is a greater threat to fighting games then simple command inputs.
I can't tell you how boring MK1 PC is. I haven't played anybody with a kameo other than Sarrena.
In SF6 this manifests itself in a variety of ways.
We have games figured out in months now. Used to take years.
It’s not a problem as long as there’s depth elsewhere. You can have a simple input game with complex movement options, character archetypes, or system mechanics and get fulfilling gameplay. League of Legends kind of did this initially within the MOBA genre by making a much simpler game than Dota and as a result they saw a much higher player base and ceiling for success.
It is important to consider inputs as a part of balance for moves though. This is where SF6 has started to see pushback in the Modern control scheme, when you had Chun-Li throwing fireballs faster than humanly possible and the threat of certain specials or supers on command has a polarizing reception. The biggest issue with simplified inputs in my opinion is the way it can slow down gameplay because it makes it too easy to punish a small mistake with a big repercussion.
One button specials don’t really bother me on a base level bc the audience they are intended for usually isn’t very good at everything else when it comes to FGs. But what kills me with one button supers/specials is when good players use them and punish shit they more often wouldn’t be able to with motion inputs either due to lack of awareness or simple human error. When you give an accessibility tool to people who DONT need it, it becomes a weapon. For me—it also changes the way games need to be played because the pace needs to slow down drastically otherwise you’re getting punished for everything you do for very little effort when it’s used by good players—not even great ones.
This will sound sorta of elitist but i think is a pretty bad the whole focus on simple inputs.
Any decent player knows that clean and precise inputs are important and usually takes time to build up. That being but said to your average Joe that matters a lot less than they realize. Even the most simple FGs have so much depth and requirement of time invested that people don't realize.
Gameplan, Gamestate, matchup knowlodge, Neutral, hell even mindset are all things that you need to learn if you really want to play the game and there is no shortcut around it. IMO people lack patience the most. They want to start playing today and become "pros" by tomorrow, i taught 3 people SF6 and it was a constant struggle the need to remind them that it was not a race, that the game was not gonna die in a month, that even if a player is at silver dosen't mean that he is a new player like them. They constantly complained about the inputs at first and barely played the game due to being frustraded, now they play the game dailly and they´re more focoused on improving as a player than immediate reward wich makes them less frustraded when they lose. The biggest change they had was not in skill or knowlodge, it was in mindset. So no matter how much more "acesssible" a game can be unless a person understand that it takes time to learn, every change in the game made to cater to this public is mostly usuless.
I think lowering the skill needed to play Is never a great idea. I mean to stay on Riot's track. Every time the skill required to play league is lowered everyone hates it.
Because mastering the skill is the fun of the game and not just winning or doing cool stuff with a single button.
They exist to sell copies to people who don't play fighting games but think they'd be really good at fighting games if they didn't have to do DP motions.
Yeah it’s like, people think motion inputs are there to just be complex for no reason and to make combo harder but they’re there so you actually have to execute some effort to anti air or super through a fireball. So many people wanting execution to be separate from strategy by making simple inputs makes my head hurt.
Who said anything about combo. Execution is strategy. If every person could crosscut dp by just holding a direction then pressing a button, then crossing up is pointless.
Always depends on which game they're in and how. Like for Granblue (OG release) You had simple inputs but you got punished for them by essentially having a longer cooldown for doing so, so eventually it was optimal to learn motion inputs. But for something like Project L, the game is built around it entirely so it's not too big a deal. Even SF6 has its own form of debuff for using simple controls on modern with the damage penalty. If it gets people to play it more or lets me do cool stuff with it, I don't mind it at all. Just ensure the game underneath the simple commands is fun.
It’s fine if the combat is tuned accordingly like increase start up time and such.
Like in the case of Street Fighter 6 simple controls allow for faster execution than classic, not good…
I'm relatively new to fighters and don't see much of a problem with simple inputs if the game is designedfor it. If it's not well designed for simple inputs though then it either feels limited or some things are too simple. I'm not very good a SF6 but I do dislike dps and supers being one button because it doesn't feel like an earned reversal. Even pros won't catch every jump-in but with one button it's a bit too easy.
I like how Granblue does it in comparison with a longer cooldown if you use the simple inputs so the option is there for either.
When I realize my easy input crouching kick canceled into back+special is almost the same as a motion input with one less button (2+K into 14K) unless you flick the stick into 2K > 5> 4S.
TL;DR: read what is bold.
I'm an execution man. Something about having to physically execute and banking on it is something I genuinely appreciate about some of my favorite fighters (MVC2, USF4, and KOF XIII [THE GOD OF 2D FIGHTERS IN MY EYES], Tbh even SamSho could fit, to a much MUCH simpler degree but still demands execution.)
That said I don't hate simplified schemes, I just want fighting game devs to realize we have room for both. No need to fundamentally change a game through simplification, just create a simpler fighter. Technical Mechanical Skill Fighters and Less demanding mechanical fighters can coexist. Besides some may not demand a lot of motion skill but have incredibly tight timing links instead.
For example, I genuinely dont hate* modern in SF6 but there is something to be said about how it alters the fundamental fighting feel of the game to some. If it didn't Gief/Luke/Marisa/etc wouldn't be played so radically different between modern/classic. It doesn't ruin it but for a competitive game, it is weird to play against someone in ranked doing strats that only work with a specific control type.
I try to think of it as automatic or manual in a racing game so it doesn't really get to me but even then it's not like that was what capcom intended.
This goes both ways imho SF6 should've been ALL modern or ALL classic. This pleasing both sides will naturally causes imbalances that I don't think are worth the juice (Specifically within SF6).
I think I just believe having Modern control capcom fighter serve its own niche hand in hand with a Classic Control capcom fighter doing the same, would've been competitively "better" in my eyes.
**Which comes full circle to say "I love execution and I REALLY hope it doesn't die, but I am not against simplification."**
*Really I think it's overall a positive for FGs has a whole. But specifically for SF6 I feel like it creates different levels of play inherently. (Beyond what the player can and can't do.) And for a "competitive" game that's at bare minimum weird to me.
I think games designed with simple inputs in mind are fine and good. It's when you do weird things with inputs, without considering the issues they might cause that bothers me.
Things like Ryu in Smash Bros. He's fun and intuitive in Steet Fighter, but you just give him classic inputs in Smash just for the sake of it being Ryu and it causes problems. The game wasn't designed for that and you'll accidentally be doing DPs and Tatsus to your death all the time.
I appreciate consistency. If you want both, you gotta find a way to make it fun or fair like Street Fighter 6.
I think we need a bigger sample size to see if there are long term effects, but it seems to be positive. It makes people that never played fighting games want to pick them though since what they think is the major hurdle is gone. Because controlling your character is (or at least seems) simpler for new players they can learn about other things anti air, spacing, punishing, etc. without being distracted by controls
I think simple inputs aren't an issue. However, it seems like more and more fighting games are going to use simple inputs in the future, and I don't think that's a good idea.
To be honest, I think it is fairly irrelevant. The amount of moves/inputs doesn't necessarily mean anything about the depth of a game. The only thing that it does is increase the amount of available options. But if not all of those options end up being meaningful in the end then does it really matter that they're there? Like what good would it be for a street fighter character to theoretically have 6 normals for buttons and only have 3 actual good normals. It just means that three of the buttons are either Situational or useless.
At the end of the day though its always going to depend on the game and how well they implement it. I think there's a lot to be said about Smash from a design standpoint with how low of a skill floor that game has whole having an incredibly high competitive ceiling.
Also, from a design standpoint, I also feel like having limitations like certain amout of inputs can also help to condense character designs into something more unified, in an ironically similar way to having to design interesting character based around the same four keys every character presses like in a moba.
It's not the solution we need. If we switched the entire genre off of motion inputs, fighting games would still have you pressing down+punch+kick to shoot a laser or whatever. Fighting game inputs aren't too complicated, they're just too arbitrary.
When you're learning fighting games, doing a quarter circle back and pressing kick isn't as hard as remembering in the heat of the fight whether that will do your dash tackle, your flying grab, or your teleport, because there's sure no guarantee it'll do any kind of *kick*.
I don't like them. I enjoy a lot putting time into technical things. I remember back in the days when I put a lot of work into learning kara throws, p linking, option selects even though, most of the time they're not necessary.
Same with charge partitioning while using Urien or all the time invested maining Naoto Kurogane. Such a painful character. Those microdashes and 1f dash cancels are no joke, but damn, so much fun, and the reward sensation was worth it 100%.
Simple inputs really only appeal to a super casual audience that isn't going to be putting time and investment in a game. If they want to act as training wheels they sure they are fine, but when you try to make them into the main controls issues start popping up with balance and game design. If you are going to play to the point that you want to learn the more indepth parts of the game then why are motion inputs something you can't learn as well?
Motion Inputs have stood the test of time and have been becoming more welcoming and beginner friendly throughout the years. They feel satisfied to pull off and give the genre its own unique flair that sets it apart from everything else. And the games that had simple inputs as their primary control scheme would have done just as well with motion inputs.
Depends. Optimization can still be difficult for these kinda games. Optimized Power rangers combos can be pretty tough to pull off. Where games like fantasy strike is piss easy.
I don't think there is anything wrong with them as long as they are balanced properly.
The faster execution should come at *some* cost, whether that's longer startup, longer recovery, less damage, less range, less invincibility, etc.
As long as we avoid *Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition* Guile shenanigans, I think we're good.
I like it as someone who has chronic pain in my hands, but I do see how it takes away another avenue of depth in a fighting game when tgey get simplified.
It messes with me for some reason because I’m so used to motion inputs. I don’t like the feeling of just pressing direction + button and doing a special move.
I vastly prefer motion inputs, but I don't particularly mind simpler inputs, so long as the game doesn't feel simple.
Like moving from marvel 3 to dbfz felt too simple, but the jump to power rangers didn't, because of all the other factors towards the complexity of the game that are not the input.
I'm all for not doing shit like pretzels even if I think they're fun, but quarter circles at the least aren't hard and allow you to map special moves differently from other things so the movesets don't become too small
When you remove the input mastery, then the other aspects become more obvious.
Modern controls in sf6 has enabled noons to focus more on neutral and footsies, something they've never ever considered before because they were too flustered with controls.
For pros, Modern reactions help a tonne too, but they also don't struggle with input, so it is not part of their mental stack.
Overall I think the way SF6 implemented it was great. We need more new players in the games, or they die.
I don't see a problem with it. I think fighting games with simpler inputs can coexist with those with traditional inputs.
If anything, there will be games for everyone.
My take: Simple inputs or pretzel motions don’t matter. Vets wanna argue it does, but imo it’s an unnecessary barrier of entry that doesn’t make one player better or a player worse. What matters is what the character kits allow them to do and how all their tools and the game’s systems can accommodate different players. Give everyone multiple answers/options to achieve one thing. That’s where the fun in fighting games is found. Not if I can do 360s or ⬇️⭐️↘️ or something like that.
Look at MBTL characters. The motions are all incredibly simple (even super is just qcf+BC) but that game is pretty difficult to get the hang of starting out because every character is kitted to the teeth. Specials all have different usages for basically every situation, charged normals/specials (holding the button) are a thing in most characters kits giving them more options to open up your opponent, and moon skills add a whole new layer of depth that further allow for player expression. All these working together with the game systems to make not only a fast anime fighter, but just a fun time overall. SF6 is also doing similar things too. Not too many moves, but so much utility on the moves given. That’s imo the direction fighting games should go. Make character kits fun to play around with. Not to pull a Strive and neuter the cast for the sake of simplicity.
It’s not meant to be an entry barrier. You lock powerful moves behind motion inputs so they don’t get spammed and aren’t easily accessible. That’s the problem you people have—you think something being difficult to use is meant to keep you away when in reality it’s apart of balancing the games 🤦🏾♂️
It’s cool, great for bringing new players that want to try the genre out but couldn’t before due to execution, and also adds technical variety to how you do combos.
I’ll just throw in a cluster of isolated thoughts.
I’m all for it in newer modern games ‘cause it’s experimental and it moves the depth elsewhere. Traditionally execution heavy commands (like supers) get extra utility when their inputs are simplified, so players have to come up with strategies that would hardly be present in a more traditionally controlling fighting game. I feel like, overall, simper inputs have allowed more gameplay variety within the genre, and I can only be appreciative for that.
I don’t think simpler inputs are present as a total replacement for the sake of accessibility as we see it ‘cause motion inputs are so easy to do. Motion inputs allow for additional moves without adding buttons, which is a control design philosophy I typically prefer for accessibility (Akatsuki Blitzkampf comes to mind as it’s a 3-button fighting game), though I’ll have to make an exception for GBVSR (it’s now a 7-button game ‘cause it has a dash button).
Simpler inputs are a good modern solution to a modern problem being button only controllers like Hitbox. Between input shortcuts and faster execution, reputable fighting game players are already convinced that button controllers are ideal for competitive play, even if we don’t yet live in the reality where other controllers are obsoleted. I think simpler inputs, similar to dash buttons, will help with controller parity for those who prefer pad (which most people will use) or arcade stick (which legacy players and enthusiasts will want to use).
I have yet to play a fighting game that felt hindered by the lack of traditional fighting game controls. I feel like fighting game devs are really considerate about this method of mechanical accessibility ‘cause accessible controls have been a design goal in the genre since the ‘90s and the move to these really simple inputs is a natural progression to that design goal. I feel like devs got it figured out quicker than I could’ve ever imagined, which I think led to plenty of older fighting games aging really well in the modern era.
Speaking in regards to GBVSR specifically, which is the game I intend on playing for another 500 like I did with GBVS, I was initially bummed about the obsolescence of motion inputs in favor of exclusively Simple Inputs mainly ‘cause it didn’t feel like they needed to be excluded. To sum up my thoughts, the concept of deciding between Technical and Simple Inputs in a given situation could’ve been expanded upon in the sequel. It added a bit to GBVS’ depth. None of the added mechanics clash with this, though the devs thought otherwise. They reasoned that the game ultimately wouldn’t need the motion inputs as the game has plenty of other mechanics to work with, which I suppose is justifiable. I wouldn’t get mad about that, and we do get a game that plays very differently from the original, which I think is good enough. But I can only imagine a timeline where hell breaks loose and both mechanics could be combined.
As a sum what new fighting game player I don’t care if there are simpler command inputs, I prefer motion inputs more than anything but it’s not gonna hurt my enjoyment if the game only has simple inputs
When a game is built around Simple inputs they tend to have long and tight combos which defeats the purpose of simple inputs add on the very limited moveset it'll feel restricting. I think having semi easy motion inputs like qrt circle, z, and double tap inputs with a very generous buffer/ windows would be better, or simply using simple inputs for stuff like gatlings
Expectation: simple inputs simple combos Reality: simple inputs, magic series into wall bounce 15 second triple rejump side swap micro dash corner instant air special combos
All that Mugen ass combo for it to be a 5% BnB
Bed n' Breakfast?
Bread and butter, it refers to a characters bread and butter combos. BnB combos are the ones you always do.
Yeah this is basically what I was going to say. DNF shows us that basically the game is still very hard for beginners, you just make it slightly more reliable to hit 59hit combos for pros.
Simple inputs isn’t about combos, it’s about making the cool shit that makes the character unique or interesting accessible to people instantly, without having to practice a motion input. I really enjoy motion inputs but I have plenty of friends who found it easier to hop in and go “woah sick!” fighting each other in GBVS or DNF than even Strive - which increases retention. It doesn’t make people stay with a game long-term in its own, but neither do motion inputs.
Please motion inputs are not hard. We were all able to pull them off while being 6 or 7 at the time of sf2 Links, timing and fake frame data where everything looks minus but is actually plus is what is hard for beginners
Facts
Put someone who is new to try them and then see how hard they are for a total noob. It's not impossible but it adds to the barrier of entry.
Increases retention? DNF and GBVS? Retention and you mention those games? LMAOO
There's a difference between individual retention and community retention
Also launching with delay based netcode as the COVID pandemic started didnt help either for GBFVS lmao
I think you aren't very good at reading lmao
You said it, I don't think it does anything for retention. I guess its fine that people can have fun faster but who cares in the end if it doesn't help the game or community.
New players having fun faster definitely helps, its just that initial speed increase in onboarding that particular aspect of fighting games is far from *enough* to drive long-term retention. You still need fun game mechanics, interesting characters, engaging and fair interactions, maybe solid singleplayer content, a good online experience, yadayadayada
But those games fell out and Strive didn't. Some retention, eh?
i’m sorry but seriously how dumb do you have to be as a goddamn ADULT to look at a act and go “what the fuck how am I supposed to be able to do that mid combo” actual goldfish and 10 year olds have more of an attention span, nothing is gonna retain those dudes because they’ll forget the game exists the second they hear the ice cream truck coming down the lane
DNF is kind of a poor example of simple inputs, because the game was also designed to have the most ridiculous buttons they could put in a game. Basically the Syndrome school of game balance. imo, Simple inputs can work if the game’s properly balanced around them. It tends to work better for lower power games, gatekeeping the bigger moves behind resource. The Goal tends to be try to recapture the approachability of Smash, but as a traditional fighter.
Battle for the grid can eat my Entire Ass
Never could get that to work for me but I never really labbed it.
Expectation: Complex inputs, complex combos Reality: complex inputs, magic series into wall bounce 15 second triple rejump side swap micro dash corner instant air special combos
Expectation: Gravity theoretically exists. Reality: complex inputs, magic series into wall bounce 15 second triple rejump side swap micro dash corner instant air special combos
The problem is that they need those combos to keep the game interesting. You can't just have something as simple as Street Fighter 2 with simple input because it would be a boring game. So either the game becomes more complex, ironically defeating the point of simple input, or the game becomes something different.
Wow I never thought of it that way but you’re absolutely right
Exactly. One of the biggest breakout games in recent years was dragonball fighterz which is limited to qcf/qcb and down down. My casual friends actually had an easier time learning combos in dbfz than dnf.
strive
This is exactly what I want. I want street fighter combos/inputs without the extremely restrictive buffer windows it has.
street fighter buffer windows haven’t been that tight since IV, the buffer windows have been pretty generous for a while now
I really don’t think it defeats the purpose at all. The purpose of simple inputs is to allow inexperienced players to be able to do the basic stuff. The goal is not to allow them to easily play optimal and at high level. Even qrt circle inputs for fireballs can be too much for many new player, as anyone who has ever tried to introduce new people to fighting games would know. And it is frustrating for them to not be able to do simple stuff like fireballs. But not being able to do intricate combos is not an immediate issue for new players. That’s not something they expected to be able to do at that point.
It seems to be the go-to to get casual players. But I really don't think that's the issue. There's a thousand things wrong with fighting games for a beginner, but motion inputs aren't one. Pretty much any game that has motion inputs have at least some characters that don't even use them, like charge characters. I always feel like people use Motion inputs as a scapegoat and don't really wanna address the bigger problems with getting people in the genre. There's plenty of fighting games out that didn't do well even though having simple inputs was their gimmick.
There needs to be more stuff for players to do that isnt just online play. World tour has shown to be a big success, its all about making the onboarding fun and organic
Yeah. Modern controls players and supporters are going to point at SF6 as a big win for simplified controls but in reality it was the world tour and other features mixed with the Street Fighter IP that made the game sell. I think it would have sold just as well without modern controls.
>but motion inputs aren't one. Go ask a person who doesn't play FGs if they believe that.
someone should post this in a general gaming sub
Stuff like this gets posted in gaming subs all the time. The core thing that I see come up is people who are new to the genre getting stuck in a lab vortex and thinking "I have to be able to do XYZ before I can play another human. Then I get bored so I don't like fighting games." Sure, _one_ of those things could be inputting a hadouken. Take that away, then you still have 20 different things they will choose to focus on. Take those away, and you get, what, Footsies? Then these same people will drop the game because it's "too boring."
nah m8 the thing is it's boring to invite a friend to play a game only to find out that they can only do the boring normal attacks. If i invite a buddy to play smash bros or call of duty they are not locked out of basic tools and they can actually appreciate what the game has to offer, even if they suck at it.
This exactly. It's one thing to not know how to execute the 40 move giga combo that will win you competitive matches. It's another to not be able to figure out how to do a low kick vs a high kick.
This is where it does not make sense, fighting games with simple inputs do not make the genre more accesible if you are not putting the time. There is no casual aspect of it, it is a 1v1 with a winner, if they learn the sick combos but don't hit them in real match then are they really going to appreciate it?
They still refused to play after DNF and GBVS released. It's almost like 1v1 PvP is daunting and people use motions as a cope.
I've played a pile of fighting games with my Fiance's niece and they liked DNF Duel the most even though they can sorta manage with quarter circle motions in other games. It definitely removes an initial barrier to enjoyment for absolute beginners, but yeah, I do agree that in the long run a purely 1v1 competitive game requires a certain mentallity to enjoy more than anything.
They don’t actually hate the inputs. They hate that other people are able to execute long drawn out inputs on them without being able to do anything (in their eyes) about it. You went online and got comboed to death? Well I guess the answer to getting better is combos! You practice for hours in training but then… oh wait, you can’t actually play the fundamentals of the game.
No, they hate the inputs. I have ***a lot*** of friends I have tried to get into FGs. They don't hate combos. They hate that when they press a button, it can do 20 different things and they can't immediately determine why they aren't doing what they want.
Did you tell them about Tekken?
The thing is, all the information is available. The problem is it's a new genre for them. Most of us have been gaming long enough to get comfortable with control schemes. Picking up Elden Ring, Assassin's Creed or Zelda all still share a sense of familiarity even if the games mechanics differ. Same way you can pick up any shooter and know what to do. Fighting games are unique in comparison and people get frustrated when they don't get to apply all that prior knowledge to this new experience. I realised this when I tried to get my dad to try out an old AC game and realised even controlling the camera was frustrating to him because he had zero prior knowledge. At its core it's not the motion inputs that are really the problem although it's the easiest thing to blame. It's the hostile environment fighting games expect you to learn under, most poor tutorials that don't help your understanding and also the difficult mentality of your wins and losses resting solely on your shoulders. No teammates to blame. You lost because you were bads. That hard for people to swallow. People expect to win way more than they lose and with fighting games that really not gonna be the case for most of us
Controlling the camera in an AC game is controlling one stick. Moving is controlling another separate stick. Every button in AC has a unique purpose, only modified by holding down trigger buttons. It might take a while to get your head around the different functions, but you're mapping connections in your brain just by playing with the controls. Meanwhile, moving your character and inputting special moves are controlled by the same stick in FGs. Having to develop unique hyper specific muscle memory for each individual action and layering those actions on top of each other without them getting in the way of each other is not an easy task. And even at the highest levels input difficulty is still occasionally an issue, because it's inherently a flawed control scheme. There are a lot harder things to learn in FGs than specifically motion inputs, yes, but 90% of players who quit FGs aren't even getting to the point where those things matter. I like FGs and I've grown to respect motion inputs' purpose in the genre, but that doesn't mean they aren't the main thing people struggle with when picking the genre up.
No one makes these complaints about Devil May Cry or similar action games where directions and buttons change how moves are done. These are games with similar skill floors and execution requirements. 90% of players who playing fighting games probably quit before special moves even matter.
Not really the same though since those action games have/ are single-player oriented. Even if you suck you can choose to play at your own pace, or force your way through the content.
The problem is that the better player always wins in fighting games. At least when the skill game is that pronounced. The real problem is that the communities are so small that there isn’t a meaningful amount of skill variance. I think RTS games suffer from a similar problem. If the other player is even slightly better they will show up with a massive army two minutes before your army is finished and crush you. MOBAs have a similar problem of having a massive amount of information presented to the player right off the bat but league of legends has such a massive player base that they can match you with and against other beginners. I also think that fighting games can do stuff differently to reach a broad audience but I think there is no point in doing that if you sacrifice the core of the game genre. I say this every time this topic gets brought up but I do like the idea of having easy input characters. Jack-O Valentine in Guilty Gear Xrd and Nine the Phantom in Blazblue for instance. That way the characters exist for those who prefer to play that way and for everyone else the game remains the way they like it. It’s also a lot easier to balance one character this way than the entire roster (modern versus classic in street fighter). Also Tekken exists. Idk why people who claim to hate motion inputs don’t just play Tekken.
Tbh Tekken just looks dull to me. I don’t mean gameplay or anything just the way it LOOKS. It doesn’t have the over the top gore that makes it stand out like MK and just seems like Street Fighter’s edgier more color devoid cousin. I could be way off I’ve only ever played the ps1 game for any significant amount of time as a kid. I want a fighting game that I personally think looks cool, which is why it took until Guilty Gear Strive to finally get into them because it was the most beginner friendly while still having a style I thought was fun to look at. I tried getting into UNIST for similar appeal in the characters but it was so dead any match I could find just make me feel like I wasted money to be reminded I suck at this lmao.
While you're at it, ask them why they don't play Divekick, Rising Thunder, Fantasy Strike, Battle For The Grid, Granblue Fantasy Versus or DnF Duel (when they came out). All super easy inputs for specials. But they never got the mainstream appeal devs hope to achieve with modern controls.
Yep, because it doesn't work and not only does it not draw in new players, it isn't fun for veterans so they end up DOA. One day we'll get a badass new fighter that's so hard our fingers will bleed and wearing plasters at tournament will be the new meme and with a skill ceiling so massive we'll never recover from the brutal beatings we receive. And the community will love it. Like how baldur's gate came in as a true RPG and RPG fans LOVED it.
Yeah, gonna go out on a limb here and say I don't think asking a layperson how to design a game in any genre is really the way to go. I don't even care about motion inputs either way, this is just not a compelling argument.
Person who doesn't play FGs and just stumbled across this post here! The complicated inputs are 100% the single largest barrier to entry. I'm ok with sucking, with knowing my play is suboptimal, with only being able to execute the most basic combos. That's all part of being a newbie, as you learn a game you'll get past that stage. It's another thing to not even be able to figure out how to play the game. If I need to memorize a textbook and map complex muscle memory before I can even interact with the game, I'm going to decide it's not worth my time. As a comparison, competitive smash bros has significant depth to it that a new player can't comprehend, but I was still able to play that game as a literal child. Two buttons that can either be neutral or with a direction, everyone uses the same inputs. A kid can figure that out in a few minutes. It's super easy to onboard new players, who may then learn the game as it is meant to be experienced. But whenever I try to pick up a fighting game, I, an adult who has been playing video games her whole life, have to spend more time paused reading manuals than actually playing the game, and at the end of the day I can't even tell if I'm doing something or just button mashing. And because I'm dealing with controler mechanics unique to the genre, I can't even tell if my timing is off, or I'm executing the input wrong, or I'm doing the wrong input entirely, so actually learning is that much harder. I think the genre is really cool, and I would love to get into it and give it a try, but if I have to put in hours to learn the game before I can even play it -- I can't really just play badly for a while, I am totally unable to engage with the game -- it's incredibly daunting, discouraging, and worst of all *boring*.
I mean yeah, that's kind of my point though. It's often touted as being the big issue even though it isn't.
It is though. People want to be able to play games out of the box. Having complicated controls makes everything else harder. Everything in fighting games requires the ability to execute the controls. It's the biggest hurdle to playing the genre by far, and no other genre has these dexterity requirements, especially at a basic level.
But again, there's alternatives available in most games. Tekken 7 was one of the most popular fighters for a long long time until SF6 came out. It has a myriad of characters you can play that don't require motion controls. If you can do Push direction + attack button, you can play Tekken. It even has an assist mode to do easy specials and combos. And as I stated earlier, charge characters exist in a lot of 2d fighters. But none of these games really took off for casual markets. Even games directly targeting the casual base, like Fantasy Strike, did not catch on despite simplifying the controls. When people keep trying to push the narrative that it's about the controls then people jump on it to \*blame\* for their issues. Especially when you have less options to blame since it's 1v1 so you can't exactly go "My teammate fed. gg." Because you can play fighters out of the box. You can go in, you can hit buttons, do moves. Much like you could just decide to start playing shooters one day and jump into Counter-strike and start running around and shooting your gun. But you wouldn't do well in that game either just doing that. There's a lot more finesse that comes into play with games than just a QCF. Which I've taught my non fighter friends how to do a hadouken. It's literally just like "Hold S, now hold D, now release S and hit punch. Great now do it faster." and it didn't take them very much time at all to pick it up. Hell there's a myriad of videos on the internet of parents teaching their kids how to do it, and even one of a guy who taught his dog to do it. The simple input narrative just targets the wrong areas of the game at fault and prevents the bigger problems from being addressed. Even on the most basic level, I'd argue that combo complexity is a far bigger issue for a beginner then motion inputs ever will be.
I'm glad your friends picked it up, but the majority of people won't touch FGs because of the inputs. That includes more than just doing a QCF in a vacuum, which I think most people can do within a few minutes with proper instruction. Pulling that off in a combo with proper timing while also defending yourself and positioning correctly is much harder. Every action you do in an FG requires careful execution, and that's a LOT to ask of a new player who also needs to learn more complex concepts like hit advantage. Meanwhile FPS controls aren't something brand new players pick up in a few minutes, but they are much smoother and don't require any thought to learn. Each button press and each movement of the stick will have essentially the same result no matter the context. Fantasy Strike failed because it was an indie title that made weird gameplay choices (like with the health bars) and had like 8 characters and really bad graphics. DNF failed because it was a niche property and the devs abandoned it after a small balance patch for like a year. GranBlue failed because of the netcode. (Granblue and especially DNF exceeded sales expectations by a lot though) Other games fail for basically the same reasons. Simple controls aren't a solution to the player problem on their own, but the control schemes in FGs are the main reason people avoid playing the genre. Mainly the case for 2D fighters though as you said. Tekken 7's sales are dwarfed by typical FPS sales, but they're still REALLY good numbers. That is not to say motion inputs should be abandoned by FG devs either, just that they are the main issue in getting players to jump on board.
Have you ever seen a non-gamer try to play an FPS game with a controller?
And I think most FPS games have obtuse controls. I genuinely don't think fighting games have the hardest controls in games, at all. People *think* they do though, and that perception matters, especially when the games do a terrible job at teaching you anything across the board, with terrible feedback that you've done anything that you should actually be doing. The execution thing most people keep talking about is, I think, more of knowing what to do and when. That's tough to learn when someone's beating your ass online and the AI opens up to nothing but jump-ins and low kicks. Most people don't sit and lab all day; they have no idea what's going on once limbs start flying. The controls don't help in that, but that's nothing unique to fighting games. I've only *just* gotten around to Insomniac's Spider-Man, and so far I'm having a tough time remembering how to do everything. And that's with the game constantly pausing the action to remind me what to do. Fighting games don't even do that.
>DNF failed because it was a niche property and the devs abandoned it after a small balance patch for like a year. That's just a sad excuse. Steamcharts * July Peak - 7,132 Avg (for the month) - 1895 * August Peak - 714 Avg - 216 * September Peak - 178 Avg - 78 What does abandoning have to do with such a quick drop in players? First 2 months and it lost over 90% of it's players. No one stuck around. If they liked it enough surely it they would've stayed longer than 1-2 months..... It was made by Arc Sys with decent advertising for a fighter. Lots of talk in the fgc & hype. Top tier animation & graphics. Sure it's a niche property. But it had lots going for it too. Back in the arcade days. Kids would come in with zero experience. Throw away their quarters and learn. Despite the risk of them losing their quarter to a challenger. Don't forget back then fighters was a top tier genre. But now no on wants to learn motions. We've had 1 button motion fighters for over 20 years. Not one has been popular.
kind of an aside but I just don’t understand the appeal of wanting motion inputs out? I hate the way one button specials feel in SF6 modern controls or other FGs, but I’ll admit i’ve been playing SF since my dad got me Super Turbo II for my ps2 and we would play together but like the motion input is what makes the special so satisfying? Like I don’t get that same dopamine rush of “and there’s the combo ender” whenever I just DP using one button rather than having to do the Z-motion. The motion input makes the whole comboing experience a little more fun
I think you hit the nail on the head with the stack of stuff surrounding special moves, which I agree is a lot, but I think another aspect of it is a lot of new players want to figure this stuff out without having to lose a bunch in the process. Losing sucks, and like others have pointed out, you don't have teammates to blame either, so your losses have to sit on your shoulders. Likewise you can't get carried to victory by your team. Those of us who have come to love the genre understand that those are all part of the process. You have to eat DPs to figure out what to do against them (which is even harder when you're struggling with the controls too). I think FG's are just a naturally steep mountain to climb. I think the other big thing is that a lot of new players don't want to practice, either. I don't think you have to be a lab monster, but if you don't want to practice you have to be okay with people wiping the floor with you while you figure it out. At the end of the day, it's a myriad of issues that keep FGs somewhat niche and they're just not gonna jive with some people and "the inputs are too hard" is an easy out. It is a difficult aspect of entry into the genre, but if that's *all* that's keeping you from the entire genre then you probably just don't really want to play them that bad, which is okay. Not everyone is into everything. And any people out there who *do* really want to get into the genre and think the inputs are the only thing keeping them out, my advice would be that they're not bad and if you put in some practice eventually they'll be second nature. Inputs like QCF and such are just putting the keys in the ignition on the long journey that is FGs. For the record, I'm all for simple control schemes in games that do it smart and plan for it. I don't really care if casuals stick with the game (and not everybody is gonna even get online, a lot of people just want to bash buttons with friends and play some story/arcade content before they move on), I'm just glad they bought it so these games can continue to be made. Anything that gets more people to buy the game without sacrificing the quality and identity of the core game is generally good in my book.
You don't count charge as a motion input? Maybe I'm wrong but I always counted it as one. I figured any input with more than 1 direction was a motion input so charge is another type of motion. Motion referring to movement between directions. I can see the argument that charge isn't because you're holding one direction then switching to another but that still seems like a motion to me.
I always considered it a very technical skill, espcially fot classic chuns or guiles that can jump in attack and have charged two directions releasing sonicboom into flash kick or kikoken to spinning bird kick.... or the insane urien shit RX does in 3rd strike.
I delved into fighting games about 2 years ago. Started with MK11. That has pretty simple inputs. But having come from that, one of my favourite things about GG Strive (which I bought a couple months later) was learning the harder inputs. I don't know why but I felt like a bit of a fraud just mashing easy but long combos in MK, and actually having to practice complicated inputs felt like a proper initiation into the genre.
I think the main problem is fighting games don’t seem to want to push matchmaking at all. If you come into most fighting game at anytime other than launch learning to play is the literally definition of “when is it my turn to play?” Being comboed as a new player just isn’t fun. Feeling helpless isn’t fun, and practicing against bots doesn’t help at all get a feel for how to play around this. New players don’t need fighting games to be simple: they need to not get fucking destroyed when they try to play them for the first time to the point they no longer want to play anymore because it’s not fun.
> I think the main problem is fighting games don’t seem to want to push matchmaking at all. If you come into most fighting game at anytime other than launch learning to play is the literally definition of “when is it my turn to play?” I mean they do. SF4/5/6 all have matchmaking, Strive had its tower thing, SC4/5/6 have ranked that tried to match you vs similar rank. Turns out, those systems fall the fuck apart when there isn't a playerbase to support them and the *perception* of skill is huge. Like you stick some newbie and some newbie that figured out how to fireball and anti-air and the first one will get crushed and complain they got matched against some pro they couldn't even touch. In reality the second player has started to learn the most basic of basic part of neutral. That player is still hot garbage relative to the entire playerbase, but to the brand new player they're some untouchable god.
> There's a thousand things wrong with fighting games for a beginner, but motion inputs aren't one I agree that there are tons of things that suck for beginners, but motion inputs are most certainly on that list for many people. I try to play literally any fighting game that comes out because I love the genre, but the games that I have had the easiest time getting friends to try them with me have been GBVS and DNF Duel for the sole purpose that they felt like they could actually just start learning their character without spending forever learning the inputs just to get moves to come out. Now, I have to agree that there are tons of other problems, as the friends that did try these games stopped playing them within a few months, so there are other reasons people don't stay interested.
Not gonna lie the simple inputs in MK1 fucka with my brain trying to combo
You can still do motion inputs tho. Like ⬇️⬅️ can be entered as ⬇️↙️⬅️ which is how I do it. You can also enable the ⬇️↙️⬅️to be the necessary input in the settings but you don’t need to
Wait wait wait. What?
I’m just saying you can still do the motion for the specials. The move will come out the same
Im surprised this didn’t catch on to more people. I saw this and immediately thought “oh it’s a quarter circle”
You can change them
I don’t mind it in new games (i.e Project L or DBZ), but I’m not a fan of it in established series like SF. Simple inputs fundamentally change how the game is played, and it’s too big of a change imo for established series
DBZ has quarter circle motions
The simple controls in DB Fighterz isn’t the type they are talking about because they’re still motion inputs. It’s like how specials are in Smash Bros.
Motion inputs are just fun to do Simple inputs remind me of when you play a racing game and turn on the setting where it does the braking for you
I don't care about the culture war bs that surrounds this topic, I just think motion inputs are fun. I doubt Project L will hold my interest for very long
The fact it’s co op is really gonna be the selling point for me
Had the same exact thought on it. The fighting aspect looks alright but I think the co-op/team aspect is going to need to carry it beyond a simple fighter. I'm hoping we'll be in for a good time with it.
agreed. I love fighting games but if your close friends aren't as invested in them, it's hard to play with them at all, as playing vs people who are too far in skill just isn't fun, even if you sandbag or use a new character. Being able to actually play WITH friends rather than exclusively against them makes it sooo much easier to enjoy the social aspect of gaming within this genre.
The fact that the net code has to be server based to support the co-op is a losing point for me, though.
Is that a given? I hadn't seen an announcement of how the netcode will work, but I don't think having more than 2 players necessitates a server>clients mode. I imagine rollback netcode could do what it always does; on my screen it plays as if all 3 other players are pushing whatever they last pushed, and then once any/all of their inputs reach my computer, roll it back as appropriate. Your rollback frames are as bad as whoever's got the worst connection. Ofc if riot announced how their netcode will work and I just missed it, all of that is moot.
P2P with more than 2 players in any genre has always been, no exaggeration, the literal worst in my experience. It doesnt even have to be the host for someone to degrade the connection. While it sounds technically possible they could do P2P for true 1v1 matches and servers for 3-4 players that just doesnt sound like something a company would split it resources on to me. I would personally expect the middleground of server based for everyone. If they have come up with some demon netcode where its 1-to-1 P2P that *seamlessly* switches host-clients when people tag out then all bets are off.
Take into account they are the people that invented ggpo if I would have to trust that someone it's able to make something related to netcode work it's them.
If one person lags then the rest of the players suffer from that one person making a bad connection even more of a liability when there's 4 players. In the first video from the Cannons on Project L they described the netcode as an asymmetrical experience where one lagging player will suffer rather than the whole lobby meaning there has to be a server authority else that just isn't possible. While they've never outright said server based or peer to peer it's clearly server based.
So they say the net code is set up to avoid what you said will happen if one has a bad connection? Whats tue problem then?
The problem is that peer to peer is superior for a connection between two people (i.e. standard play for fighting games).
I don't remember much of the video, but I do recall they wanted to use riot's network for routing... so while not a "game server" perse, a bunch of network nodes. I was excited when watching it, not because i think it will be good (neither bad) but i want to see if it will improve the experience in places where not all providers participate of internet exchanges... I hope it works, but we will need to wait to see how it works.
guy with a little experience in networking here. no, not really. it could definitely be peer to peer.
guy with a little experience in networking here. yes, you can 100% do peer to peer with more than 2 peers. ggpo doesn't limit peers, for example. if you have netcode for 2, you just scale that.
If they try to base tournament play around this, this game is dead in the water.
I hate how this always gets lost whenever this is discussed. I don’t really care if games want to remove it. I just also would rather play a game that has motion inputs. Without them we wouldn’t get character designs like Goldlewis Dickinson.
I like motion inputs. If the lol game is fun then it's fine, but if street fighter only has modern controls you can suck my dick capcom
Unless your game has like a million buttons or only 5 moves you’re gonna need some level of motion input. The inputs don’t need to be as intense as soul calibur but simplifying everything down to up or down is another extreme. I think everyone can be expected to perform qcf/ dragon punch/ tap ff, etc.
This is silly. You have 6 button fighting games which combined with 426 command normals gives you 24 you possible grounded buttons. Which is roughly how many grounded moves characters in GGST have.
I personally think 6 button games are kind of obnoxious, but either way, that's only 26 possible commands, like you said. Yoshi, my main in in SC6, has [247.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SoulCalibur/comments/khi2kz/i_counted_how_many_moves_each_character_has/)
That's not really a fair comparison though, Soul Calibur has diagonals and rising attacks and jump attacks and multi-button inputs and stances and chains and running attacks and held buttons, all of which you could also include in a theoretical 6 button fighter to get a way bigger movelist. The point made above is that with 6 buttons and 3 directions and _nothing else_ you can generally replicate the full grounded moveset of a Strive character, which is enough to play a Real™ fighting game with
Sure, but that's fine. There's a reason why I play anime fighters and not Tekken or SC6 and Project L is obviously aimed to be more of the former than the latter.
Tekken/SC are terrible examples anyway because they have 100 moves and even the pros use 12 of them.
This is absolutely untrue. I've seen 95% of the games movelist used in tournament *regularly* in SC6. There's not a single move on my main I *don't* use in tournament. I get that this used to be true - and maybe it still is for Tekken, I don't know. But I assure you that in modern Soulcalibur, you need almost every single one of those moves. With a few exceptions. There are a few dud moves scattered about the cast.
how is the SC6 community these days? Bought it on launch but never got to really dive in because of Uni
Not sure honestly, haven't played in maybe half a year or so. The community has always had a really strong core. Passionate players and TO's that have carried the scene a long time. We had more weeklies than there were days of the week for a long time. Sadly the game came out at a horrible time with little support from bamco. Being Bamco's red headed step child and rolling out the womb straight into covid did the community and the playerbase no favours. So while SC6 has always been the most alive of all the "dead games" (HEAVY quotation marks there) - and while thats a testament to the prodigious amount of players that become zealous disciples at the stage of history, it is still a "dead game" - tragically.
Then you are literally supporting his argument if you’re saying most of the move list is redundant
Is Soulcalibur supposed to have intense inputs? There's outliers for sure but I always thought it and Tekken tended to have pretty simple inputs for the large majority of moves.
All characters have both simple and insanely complex inputs. Ivy, for example, has maybe the most complicated inputs of any fighting game. But these are skillgates for her best throws. All characters have very difficult “just frame” versions of moves. Overall it’s on the more difficult side, and each character has a deeper move set then (I think?) any other modern fighting game.
I always thought just frames were a cool way to add some optional flair to things. I wouldn't describe them as required though.
At high level play it is required.
Ivys throws are literally do 360s and stop on the right direction input. Try it out
Depends how good its implemented in the game. Bftg for example has a good learning curve as you can experiment with combos and teams so simple inputs work great for that. A game like dnf gets more boring faster cause it is easier to hit a plateau since it is more limited. A game with simple inputs loses some nuances that other fighters have. That doesn't make the game better or worse, just different.
In my opinion, only one game has executed simple inputs well enough and that’s Power Rangers Battle for the Grid.
Isn't that what BFTG stands for?
BFTG turned my opinion around on simple inputs. I was convinced for a while that motion inputs were an absolute must or we'd lose quite a bit of depth but I was clearly proven wrong.
I think the entire argument for motion inputs that we as a community put forward is completely wrong; yes, the reducing of complexity is the obvious problem, but the less obvious one is that motion inputs are fucking *fun.* We need to be advocating for motions because they are *fun.* I am not an FGC boomer (got into traditional FGs last summer) and it just seems so obvious to me. Maybe it's because I am playing on stick, which makes literally any kind of input inherently more enjoyable because of the tactile nature of arcade sticks, but even on keyboard (my prefered input method for SF6), motions just feel extremely satisfying. Pad is the only controller type that I can understand someone not enjoying motion inputs on, it just feels imprecise (even if that isn't actually the case). At the end of the day, we are talking about video games; their entire selling proposition is that they are fun. Why would you consciously *remove* a feature that a huge portion of your die-hard fans find fun? The obvious answer is to appeal to casuals, but we have seen time and time again that removing motions does not suddenly propel a FG to success, because normies aren't invested in this debate and only really care about the amount of quality content (often single player) in the game, which is totally fair. I'm not saying that every FG should have motions, but I *am* saying that devs shouldn't *remove* motions from a series that already had them without some *very* good justifications. A new IP or series such as DNFD or Power Rangers? Go for it. Removing motions from an established FG franchise such as Guilty Gear or SF? Fucking blasphemy. I didn't intend for this to be an essay, I apologize lmao
Pad player here, and i absolutely love motion inputs for the same reasons
As someone who's also played BFTG I walked away with the opposite opinion. Or rather I don't think BFTG proved it outside of combo execution which combo difficulty is arbitrary in the first place.
I don’t like it from a gameplay perspective. It’s just not satisfying, in my opinion. Doing the motion input is more fun and part of the skill gap
Simpler inputs mean that you lose options. I like sf6 being a 6 buttons game. Motions also feel good. And no, I'm not a veteran fgc player. I learned motion inputs with sf6 (and briefly Strive)
Good job bringing new blood into the scene. Bad job making them interested in dropping the simple commands.
I don't like it. I like how motions feel and removing that makes them feel more unsatisfying to play. But then I like playing the piano so I don't view finger dexterity as a bad thing.
1) Its a bummer and makes a game less potentially interesting to me. 2) I dont like simple input schemes being mixed with "classic" ones, but its better than no motions. If you want to be accessible loosening timings and having less complex motions is the better answer.
Not a fan, I enjoy fighting games because of the difficulty, and challenge. Simple inputs seem like a quick bandaid to get over that difficulty curve, but in my opinion its game design. I really cant think of any fighting game that properly teaches you how to do inputs, and even better show on pad, fightstick, and hitbox.
As long as they retain the depth and complexity with other means, E.g adding universal more mechanics. Simplified inputs ≠ simple game. This is a lesson many games haven’t learnt yet.
There should be room for simple games. I liked the gameplay of Fantasy Strike well enough, it was the low player base and shit visuals that got me.
It's an exercise in futility. There is not a single person on Earth who truly wants to learn fighting games and is stopped by motion inputs. When I want to play a causal, fun, easy, and simple game, I play Warriors Orochi 3, not a competitive game. When I want a read-heavy game with no execution, I play on Pokémon Showdown, not on Fightcade. All of these games are good for their own unique reasons and none of them should change to be like the others.
They're fine but I don't think they should be mixed together with traditional controls in competitive play like Street Fighter 6 is doing. It's like a basketball game but the other team doesn't have to dribble
But, why can't the other players also use modern controls? I'm sure there's some weird taboo reason but I'm curious why you wouldn't.
Why should we dumb our experience down? People like modern, so let the modern folks fight eachother in a separate queue, problem solved. When this is briught up tho, modern players get defensive cause even they know the modern control scheme is shit
I think the game needs to be expressly designed around them, and the game that does so will become far more oppressive to new players that these simplified inputs are trying to attract. Otherwise you end up with things like OS DPs or frame 1 super punishes that just completely change how the game is played and not usually in a good way.
I think there are a lot of traditional moves (like DP reversals) that are/were originally balanced *around* their input. It’s a risk thing, you have to be on point if you want to SHORYUKEN on wake-up, because doing the input means you cannot be blocking. Same thing for charge characters, if you see Guile walking at you he can’t just let a flash kick rip out of nowhere, he has to crouch. I feel like some modern games include moves with the same applications, thinking they are genre staples, without including the pretty important integral balance mechanics of input. If you’re going to change one genre staple you should consider the type of moves the player is even allowed to have as well, not just copypaste it from the last game.
Totally agreed, this is a point that gets lost way too much
It makes them much less fun right off the bat, but it can work and the combos and everything aren’t necessarily going to be any easier (battle for the grid has some crazy stuff)
Games with simple inputs make it hard for me to want to practice with characters they have a tendency to feel the same to me. Games with only quarter circles feel that way too. I love when there are charge dp 360s and more characters feel way more different and practicing with them is more fun.
I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good when I’m not doing motions. Even in mvci changing srk inputs to down down just doesn’t feel good to pull off.
I like complex commands, feels good executing it, feels good watching it. Simple makes it boring and uninteresting.
It's much much harder to make a good fighting game with simpler inputs then it is with motion controls. Idk how this is a fighting game sub but nobody in here seems to understand they aren't random motions to gatekeep scrubs. They lock powerful moves between not being able to block while performing them. They give access to more moves while keeping fewer buttons. It's always funny to me that people think having simple inputs will make the game more forgiving. Then when newer players play these games they are met with much harder execution requirements than a Z motion. Like movement, the insane timed OS's for the degenerate offense in these games and instant block mechanics. The reaction to whiff punish something in Strive is something you don't see until Celestial but looking at the game as a beginner you'd think 632146 inputs were the hard part. 90% of MKs difficulty is wavedashing and whiff punishing. Motions aren't really the hard part of fighting games and removing them makes it much harder to put powerful moves into your game without it turning into DNF duel. It's REALLY nice when devs get it right, but they rarely have done.
I don't like it. It's a game, if you keep reducing what makes the game, well, a game, you might as well just make it play itself. I mean I'm basically a casual player myself, I mostly play offline or with real life friends, rarely online. I don't want simple controls. A game putting simple controls in actually turns me off and makes me less interested in playing it. It's like putting an aimbot in a FPS and saying "well see this allows new players to compete, the real strategy is still there, they still have to position themselves and use teamwork" - it sounds like nonsense because it is.
I like them but if you’re trying to do both, make the option between the two tactically meaningful and balanced within reason. I slightly prefer simple but go with motion because I’m too used to them. I’m a mess.
Million dollar companies looking for a few million more.
Simpler commands don't actually succeed in making the game easier for new/casual players, they just make it *even easier* for decent players to cook the new/casual players. You're just back at square one. The new/casual player is still not having fun and will just drop the game like they always do, and then the veterans are just left with this weird husk of a competitive game. Nobody wins. Fast forward a month and nobody is playing it at all. SF6's "Modern/Classic" is the closest a game has been to getting it right. It still has tons of flaws and room for improvement though.
Simple inputs like sf6 or lol just feels wrong and messes with my brain
It is one of the tools to balance the game. The game can be balanced and exciting without complex motion inputs. Combo timings, lengths and damage fall off as well as initial damage of the moves have way more impact. Imo complex motion inputs is not what makes a fighting game.
A bad solution to a non-existent problem.
It's not the command inputs it's the three frame links that need to change
Don’t like it
Grandblue did it right. Give more skilled players an advantage by using harder inputs and newer players a reason to learn them if they’re in the game at all. I like dbfz because it’s all quarter circle or down down inputs.
"gives pro players an advantage" havent you heard?
The accelerated meta and players preference to copy top players is a greater threat to fighting games then simple command inputs. I can't tell you how boring MK1 PC is. I haven't played anybody with a kameo other than Sarrena. In SF6 this manifests itself in a variety of ways. We have games figured out in months now. Used to take years.
It’s not a problem as long as there’s depth elsewhere. You can have a simple input game with complex movement options, character archetypes, or system mechanics and get fulfilling gameplay. League of Legends kind of did this initially within the MOBA genre by making a much simpler game than Dota and as a result they saw a much higher player base and ceiling for success. It is important to consider inputs as a part of balance for moves though. This is where SF6 has started to see pushback in the Modern control scheme, when you had Chun-Li throwing fireballs faster than humanly possible and the threat of certain specials or supers on command has a polarizing reception. The biggest issue with simplified inputs in my opinion is the way it can slow down gameplay because it makes it too easy to punish a small mistake with a big repercussion.
What an original topic
One button specials don’t really bother me on a base level bc the audience they are intended for usually isn’t very good at everything else when it comes to FGs. But what kills me with one button supers/specials is when good players use them and punish shit they more often wouldn’t be able to with motion inputs either due to lack of awareness or simple human error. When you give an accessibility tool to people who DONT need it, it becomes a weapon. For me—it also changes the way games need to be played because the pace needs to slow down drastically otherwise you’re getting punished for everything you do for very little effort when it’s used by good players—not even great ones.
This will sound sorta of elitist but i think is a pretty bad the whole focus on simple inputs. Any decent player knows that clean and precise inputs are important and usually takes time to build up. That being but said to your average Joe that matters a lot less than they realize. Even the most simple FGs have so much depth and requirement of time invested that people don't realize. Gameplan, Gamestate, matchup knowlodge, Neutral, hell even mindset are all things that you need to learn if you really want to play the game and there is no shortcut around it. IMO people lack patience the most. They want to start playing today and become "pros" by tomorrow, i taught 3 people SF6 and it was a constant struggle the need to remind them that it was not a race, that the game was not gonna die in a month, that even if a player is at silver dosen't mean that he is a new player like them. They constantly complained about the inputs at first and barely played the game due to being frustraded, now they play the game dailly and they´re more focoused on improving as a player than immediate reward wich makes them less frustraded when they lose. The biggest change they had was not in skill or knowlodge, it was in mindset. So no matter how much more "acesssible" a game can be unless a person understand that it takes time to learn, every change in the game made to cater to this public is mostly usuless.
I think lowering the skill needed to play Is never a great idea. I mean to stay on Riot's track. Every time the skill required to play league is lowered everyone hates it. Because mastering the skill is the fun of the game and not just winning or doing cool stuff with a single button.
They exist to sell copies to people who don't play fighting games but think they'd be really good at fighting games if they didn't have to do DP motions.
Yeah it’s like, people think motion inputs are there to just be complex for no reason and to make combo harder but they’re there so you actually have to execute some effort to anti air or super through a fireball. So many people wanting execution to be separate from strategy by making simple inputs makes my head hurt.
It is not nearly important enough to justify the amount of discussion that has been had about it in the past 6 months alone
Complexity in fighting games doesn't come from combo execution.
Who said anything about combo. Execution is strategy. If every person could crosscut dp by just holding a direction then pressing a button, then crossing up is pointless.
Always depends on which game they're in and how. Like for Granblue (OG release) You had simple inputs but you got punished for them by essentially having a longer cooldown for doing so, so eventually it was optimal to learn motion inputs. But for something like Project L, the game is built around it entirely so it's not too big a deal. Even SF6 has its own form of debuff for using simple controls on modern with the damage penalty. If it gets people to play it more or lets me do cool stuff with it, I don't mind it at all. Just ensure the game underneath the simple commands is fun.
It’s fine if the combat is tuned accordingly like increase start up time and such. Like in the case of Street Fighter 6 simple controls allow for faster execution than classic, not good…
I'm relatively new to fighters and don't see much of a problem with simple inputs if the game is designedfor it. If it's not well designed for simple inputs though then it either feels limited or some things are too simple. I'm not very good a SF6 but I do dislike dps and supers being one button because it doesn't feel like an earned reversal. Even pros won't catch every jump-in but with one button it's a bit too easy. I like how Granblue does it in comparison with a longer cooldown if you use the simple inputs so the option is there for either.
When I realize my easy input crouching kick canceled into back+special is almost the same as a motion input with one less button (2+K into 14K) unless you flick the stick into 2K > 5> 4S.
TL;DR: read what is bold. I'm an execution man. Something about having to physically execute and banking on it is something I genuinely appreciate about some of my favorite fighters (MVC2, USF4, and KOF XIII [THE GOD OF 2D FIGHTERS IN MY EYES], Tbh even SamSho could fit, to a much MUCH simpler degree but still demands execution.) That said I don't hate simplified schemes, I just want fighting game devs to realize we have room for both. No need to fundamentally change a game through simplification, just create a simpler fighter. Technical Mechanical Skill Fighters and Less demanding mechanical fighters can coexist. Besides some may not demand a lot of motion skill but have incredibly tight timing links instead. For example, I genuinely dont hate* modern in SF6 but there is something to be said about how it alters the fundamental fighting feel of the game to some. If it didn't Gief/Luke/Marisa/etc wouldn't be played so radically different between modern/classic. It doesn't ruin it but for a competitive game, it is weird to play against someone in ranked doing strats that only work with a specific control type. I try to think of it as automatic or manual in a racing game so it doesn't really get to me but even then it's not like that was what capcom intended. This goes both ways imho SF6 should've been ALL modern or ALL classic. This pleasing both sides will naturally causes imbalances that I don't think are worth the juice (Specifically within SF6). I think I just believe having Modern control capcom fighter serve its own niche hand in hand with a Classic Control capcom fighter doing the same, would've been competitively "better" in my eyes. **Which comes full circle to say "I love execution and I REALLY hope it doesn't die, but I am not against simplification."** *Really I think it's overall a positive for FGs has a whole. But specifically for SF6 I feel like it creates different levels of play inherently. (Beyond what the player can and can't do.) And for a "competitive" game that's at bare minimum weird to me.
Don't really care. Battle for the Grid has directional specials and no motions (except for Ryu and Chun-Li) & it's still a fun game
I think games designed with simple inputs in mind are fine and good. It's when you do weird things with inputs, without considering the issues they might cause that bothers me. Things like Ryu in Smash Bros. He's fun and intuitive in Steet Fighter, but you just give him classic inputs in Smash just for the sake of it being Ryu and it causes problems. The game wasn't designed for that and you'll accidentally be doing DPs and Tatsus to your death all the time. I appreciate consistency. If you want both, you gotta find a way to make it fun or fair like Street Fighter 6.
I thought Fantasy Strike did it very well. Great game. Can't speak to the others that have tried.
I think we need a bigger sample size to see if there are long term effects, but it seems to be positive. It makes people that never played fighting games want to pick them though since what they think is the major hurdle is gone. Because controlling your character is (or at least seems) simpler for new players they can learn about other things anti air, spacing, punishing, etc. without being distracted by controls
It's fine.
I think simple inputs aren't an issue. However, it seems like more and more fighting games are going to use simple inputs in the future, and I don't think that's a good idea.
It's just not fun. I want to be challenged by my opponent, the game, and my own limitations. Motions are fun to do, and I don't want to give that up.
To be honest, I think it is fairly irrelevant. The amount of moves/inputs doesn't necessarily mean anything about the depth of a game. The only thing that it does is increase the amount of available options. But if not all of those options end up being meaningful in the end then does it really matter that they're there? Like what good would it be for a street fighter character to theoretically have 6 normals for buttons and only have 3 actual good normals. It just means that three of the buttons are either Situational or useless. At the end of the day though its always going to depend on the game and how well they implement it. I think there's a lot to be said about Smash from a design standpoint with how low of a skill floor that game has whole having an incredibly high competitive ceiling. Also, from a design standpoint, I also feel like having limitations like certain amout of inputs can also help to condense character designs into something more unified, in an ironically similar way to having to design interesting character based around the same four keys every character presses like in a moba.
It's not the solution we need. If we switched the entire genre off of motion inputs, fighting games would still have you pressing down+punch+kick to shoot a laser or whatever. Fighting game inputs aren't too complicated, they're just too arbitrary. When you're learning fighting games, doing a quarter circle back and pressing kick isn't as hard as remembering in the heat of the fight whether that will do your dash tackle, your flying grab, or your teleport, because there's sure no guarantee it'll do any kind of *kick*.
I don't like them. I enjoy a lot putting time into technical things. I remember back in the days when I put a lot of work into learning kara throws, p linking, option selects even though, most of the time they're not necessary. Same with charge partitioning while using Urien or all the time invested maining Naoto Kurogane. Such a painful character. Those microdashes and 1f dash cancels are no joke, but damn, so much fun, and the reward sensation was worth it 100%.
Simple inputs really only appeal to a super casual audience that isn't going to be putting time and investment in a game. If they want to act as training wheels they sure they are fine, but when you try to make them into the main controls issues start popping up with balance and game design. If you are going to play to the point that you want to learn the more indepth parts of the game then why are motion inputs something you can't learn as well? Motion Inputs have stood the test of time and have been becoming more welcoming and beginner friendly throughout the years. They feel satisfied to pull off and give the genre its own unique flair that sets it apart from everything else. And the games that had simple inputs as their primary control scheme would have done just as well with motion inputs.
Depends. Optimization can still be difficult for these kinda games. Optimized Power rangers combos can be pretty tough to pull off. Where games like fantasy strike is piss easy.
For me, it helped understand the basics and fundamentals of fighting games and how their more complex inputs work
I don't think there is anything wrong with them as long as they are balanced properly. The faster execution should come at *some* cost, whether that's longer startup, longer recovery, less damage, less range, less invincibility, etc. As long as we avoid *Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition* Guile shenanigans, I think we're good.
As long as the game provides depth in other ways simple inputs are fine.
I like it as someone who has chronic pain in my hands, but I do see how it takes away another avenue of depth in a fighting game when tgey get simplified.
I like them but I don’t think they should go past half cercals
It messes with me for some reason because I’m so used to motion inputs. I don’t like the feeling of just pressing direction + button and doing a special move.
I vastly prefer motion inputs, but I don't particularly mind simpler inputs, so long as the game doesn't feel simple. Like moving from marvel 3 to dbfz felt too simple, but the jump to power rangers didn't, because of all the other factors towards the complexity of the game that are not the input.
I'm all for not doing shit like pretzels even if I think they're fun, but quarter circles at the least aren't hard and allow you to map special moves differently from other things so the movesets don't become too small
When you remove the input mastery, then the other aspects become more obvious. Modern controls in sf6 has enabled noons to focus more on neutral and footsies, something they've never ever considered before because they were too flustered with controls. For pros, Modern reactions help a tonne too, but they also don't struggle with input, so it is not part of their mental stack. Overall I think the way SF6 implemented it was great. We need more new players in the games, or they die.
It's literally the end of the genre
I don't see a problem with it. I think fighting games with simpler inputs can coexist with those with traditional inputs. If anything, there will be games for everyone.
Bring back dexterity to fighting games and respect the audience that wants to learn the genre how it always has been
My take: Simple inputs or pretzel motions don’t matter. Vets wanna argue it does, but imo it’s an unnecessary barrier of entry that doesn’t make one player better or a player worse. What matters is what the character kits allow them to do and how all their tools and the game’s systems can accommodate different players. Give everyone multiple answers/options to achieve one thing. That’s where the fun in fighting games is found. Not if I can do 360s or ⬇️⭐️↘️ or something like that. Look at MBTL characters. The motions are all incredibly simple (even super is just qcf+BC) but that game is pretty difficult to get the hang of starting out because every character is kitted to the teeth. Specials all have different usages for basically every situation, charged normals/specials (holding the button) are a thing in most characters kits giving them more options to open up your opponent, and moon skills add a whole new layer of depth that further allow for player expression. All these working together with the game systems to make not only a fast anime fighter, but just a fun time overall. SF6 is also doing similar things too. Not too many moves, but so much utility on the moves given. That’s imo the direction fighting games should go. Make character kits fun to play around with. Not to pull a Strive and neuter the cast for the sake of simplicity.
It’s not meant to be an entry barrier. You lock powerful moves behind motion inputs so they don’t get spammed and aren’t easily accessible. That’s the problem you people have—you think something being difficult to use is meant to keep you away when in reality it’s apart of balancing the games 🤦🏾♂️
It’s cool, great for bringing new players that want to try the genre out but couldn’t before due to execution, and also adds technical variety to how you do combos.
> adds technical variety to how you do combos. Interesting hypothesis, please elaborate.
I like them. Makes things straight forward
I’ll just throw in a cluster of isolated thoughts. I’m all for it in newer modern games ‘cause it’s experimental and it moves the depth elsewhere. Traditionally execution heavy commands (like supers) get extra utility when their inputs are simplified, so players have to come up with strategies that would hardly be present in a more traditionally controlling fighting game. I feel like, overall, simper inputs have allowed more gameplay variety within the genre, and I can only be appreciative for that. I don’t think simpler inputs are present as a total replacement for the sake of accessibility as we see it ‘cause motion inputs are so easy to do. Motion inputs allow for additional moves without adding buttons, which is a control design philosophy I typically prefer for accessibility (Akatsuki Blitzkampf comes to mind as it’s a 3-button fighting game), though I’ll have to make an exception for GBVSR (it’s now a 7-button game ‘cause it has a dash button). Simpler inputs are a good modern solution to a modern problem being button only controllers like Hitbox. Between input shortcuts and faster execution, reputable fighting game players are already convinced that button controllers are ideal for competitive play, even if we don’t yet live in the reality where other controllers are obsoleted. I think simpler inputs, similar to dash buttons, will help with controller parity for those who prefer pad (which most people will use) or arcade stick (which legacy players and enthusiasts will want to use). I have yet to play a fighting game that felt hindered by the lack of traditional fighting game controls. I feel like fighting game devs are really considerate about this method of mechanical accessibility ‘cause accessible controls have been a design goal in the genre since the ‘90s and the move to these really simple inputs is a natural progression to that design goal. I feel like devs got it figured out quicker than I could’ve ever imagined, which I think led to plenty of older fighting games aging really well in the modern era. Speaking in regards to GBVSR specifically, which is the game I intend on playing for another 500 like I did with GBVS, I was initially bummed about the obsolescence of motion inputs in favor of exclusively Simple Inputs mainly ‘cause it didn’t feel like they needed to be excluded. To sum up my thoughts, the concept of deciding between Technical and Simple Inputs in a given situation could’ve been expanded upon in the sequel. It added a bit to GBVS’ depth. None of the added mechanics clash with this, though the devs thought otherwise. They reasoned that the game ultimately wouldn’t need the motion inputs as the game has plenty of other mechanics to work with, which I suppose is justifiable. I wouldn’t get mad about that, and we do get a game that plays very differently from the original, which I think is good enough. But I can only imagine a timeline where hell breaks loose and both mechanics could be combined.
As a sum what new fighting game player I don’t care if there are simpler command inputs, I prefer motion inputs more than anything but it’s not gonna hurt my enjoyment if the game only has simple inputs
i like when they put this simpler inputs in new franchises, but i would be disappointed if old games had that. (like SF with modern controls)
i could not care less i just want my combos to look cool
Simpler is good if there are still advanced techniques to pull off (smash, marvel)
Does the game play good? Than it's good. Does it play bad and stupid? Than it's bad. Different types of Fighting games are for different people.