[CP] News & Gameplay Discussion (Old)

[Darlos9D]

No, truthfully, it's not. It does a fine job of explaining a bunch of mid-level stuff, and talking about what is unique and different about P4A, for example, but even the "general fighting game strategy" section doesn't cover BASIC STUFF like Darlos9D keeps pointing out. This desperately needs an analogy, but I can't think of anything else that so thoroughly obfuscates its most basic mechanics. It's like... Call of Duty not telling you there are multiple weapons, and requiring you press Alt-F1-F10 to change them, but even that still breaks down because you can at least tell that the rocket launcher causes a bigass explosion when it hits.

I thought I did a good job with my Mario mushrooms example, where if Mario didn't actually visibly change or get bigger when he got a mushroom, even though all the same changes (can take a hit and can get other powerups) were applied to him system-wise. And nothing explained those changes either in the game or the manual.

The things is; for some games, wikis are not that good~ They aren't always well written or completely informative, or convenient.

Also, there is a MASSIVE difference between knowledge and execution. For instance, I can re-read all the details and combos for a character I want, but even after hours of training model, more hours of challenge mode, and finally even more hours of Arcade mode, I still can't do anything more than Lambda's Basic DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD combos, and spamming C and Cavalier in the corner.

Well, that's fine. I'm just trying to go for the idea of "easy to learn, hard to master." FGs definitely succeed at the second part, as your example proves, and that's okay. It's just the first part that needs work.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Darlos9D

[Hecatom]

What i want to know, how much do you want to hold the hands of the payers before encouraging them to try to figure stuff from their own?

I am not against of good tutorials, on the contrary, i think that they are essential to make the fgs more inclusive for the new players, but from the stuff that you are pointing it seems like you are trying to treat the new players like idiots that can't even use common sense to figure some stuff, like that jumping beats throws, since throws only catch grounded people :/

I agree, from the current games we, the major part of them don't try to introduce basic elements, but there are also those few that are staring to acknowledge that there is a need to it, and actually do a descent job at introducing basic info about them, like BB, P4A and SG.

They pretty much tell you what you need to know about what do you have at your disposal and what do you can do with it.

[Agni]

but from the stuff that you are pointing it seems like you are trying to treat the new players like idiots that can't even use common sense to figure some stuff, like that jumping beats throws, since throws only catch grounded people :/

The thing is, it seems like we REALLY do have to tell people this. Because most casual players really don't know this stuff. I sure didn't until I hit places like DL. I didn't know that, say, DP's are invincible and used for reversals...basic stuff like that. Because FGs are loath to explain that.

[Mightfo]

As far as I'm concerned, chip damage is a concept whose time has gone. Back in The Day it was there because blocking was a much stronger strategy than it is today (Basically no grounded overheads, for example.) so they needed some additional way to reduce the effectiveness of just blocking all the time. This really isn't an issue in most modern games.

a general difference does not preclude a character specifically from employing that strategy. there's many ways to make simply blocking a zoner scary: full screen mixup, guard crush/unblockable capabilities, being able to transition easily from full screen zoning to close range mixup, scary options of those when they get meter from zoning you, and chip damage could be incorporated into a zoner just like the others.

also throws were fucking strong in old games so it is not as simple a matter as "blocking was a much stronger strategy"

[mAc Chaos]

What i want to know, how much do you want to hold the hands of the payers before encouraging them to try to figure stuff from their own?

I am not against of good tutorials, on the contrary, i think that they are essential to make the fgs more inclusive for the new players, but from the stuff that you are pointing it seems like you are trying to treat the new players like idiots that can't even use common sense to figure some stuff, like that jumping beats throws, since throws only catch grounded people :/

I agree, from the current games we, the major part of them don't try to introduce basic elements, but there are also those few that are staring to acknowledge that there is a need to it, and actually do a descent job at introducing basic info about them, like BB, P4A and SG.

They pretty much tell you what you need to know about what do you have at your disposal and what do you can do with it.

Well, it's not like you can't grab and throw someone in real life if they're trying to jump.

[Darlos9D]

Well, it's not like you can't grab and throw someone in real life if they're trying to jump.

Expanding upon this: there is that little bit of startup on jumps where you're still on or close to the ground. The key is the fact that people don't understand that even THAT part is throw invulnerable. You might think its intuitive, but every newbie ever proves otherwise. (shit, I didn't know when I started either) Obviously once you're way in the air it's a bit more intuitive to say that a ground throw won't throw you, if not simply because you can't even reach them with it. But at the two ends of the jump arc? Not intuitive.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Darlos9D

[mAc Chaos]

More specifically in fighting games: there is that little bit of startup on jumps where you're still on or close to the ground. The key is the fact that people don't understand that even THAT part is throw invulnerable. You might think its intuitive, but every newbie ever proves otherwise. (shit, I didn't know when I started either) Obviously once you're way in the air it's a bit more intuitive to say that a ground throw won't throw you, if not simply because you can't even reach them with it.

Well, pointing out that such a thing as jump start up is even a concept that exists is more on the technical side of things.

[Darlos9D]

Well, pointing out that such a thing as jump start up is even a concept that exists is more on the technical side of things.

Well you don't have to throw exact frame data at them. You just have to say that you can't be thrown from the very moment you press up and start jumping, no matter how things may look.

[Airk]

Well, pointing out that such a thing as jump start up is even a concept that exists is more on the technical side of things.

Even setting aside the concept of "jump startup" it's still not obvious, apparently, or necessarily even LOGICAL that while you are "jumping" but still low enough to the ground for the throw's hitbox to hit you, that you would be mysteriously immune to throwing. So people can certainly be forgiven for thinking "Yeah, you can't throw me while I'm jumping but if you grab me at the beginning...". It's made even more confusing by the fact that most throws are active for a few frames, so you can land from a jump right into someone's throw, which can make it look like they grabbed you "out of the end of your jump".

Certainly, it would make more "logical" sense that as long as the character's grab animation touched you, that you'd get grabbed. But that's not true, and there's no way for a newbie to even begin to suss that out.

[mAc Chaos]

Yeah, that's what I mean. First you have to point out that you're immune from throws in the air, even if you're one pixel off the ground and the throw is still reaching you. Then you have to mention that jumping isn't instantaneous, and there's a slight period where your character is warming up to jump, and that it counts as part of the jump even if they didn't visually leave the ground yet. It usually comes up with Tager related things.

[DSveno]

Now you people make me wonder am I that bad back in the day...I don't even remember how did I learn such stuff, but I'm sure no one pointed it out for me. Probably from the KoF98 day, where I learned it the hard way against the AI in arcade. I just thought learning by experience is also a part of the FGs, but seems like it's not.

[mAc Chaos]

Well, that's how I always learned it. The people who stick with it, pretty much learn it that way and figure it out on their own. So in a way it doesn't really matter. :P

[Hecatom]

Now you people make me wonder am I that bad back in the day...I don't even remember how did I learn such stuff, but I'm sure no one pointed it out for me. Probably from the KoF98 day, where I learned it the hard way against the AI in arcade. I just thought learning by experience is also a part of the FGs, but seems like it's not.

You (like many of us) are part of a generation that used to learn by trial and error and watching other people play, i feel like an old man when i say this, but this generation of gamers want everything to be explained to them, it is like they lack the capacity to learn by themselves and experiment to try to find what works and what don't :/

[Chaoschao222]

I don't think it's so much they lack the capacity to learn on their own so much as they don't feel like they need to. I mean, it's sorta like the internet in general, you could do XX for YY to figure out ZZ, or you could just Google it and solve your problems that way. Likewise, Player A could do Action B to figure out Problem C, or Player A could just go to Website D or ask Player E and get Problem C answered that much quicker.

We're sorta in a state of self-entitlement atm.

[Darlos9D]

I personally don't consider "explaining game mechanics" as "hand holding." Just because they CAN potentially reason it out over time doesn't mean it has to be that way. There's actually no reason to do it, aside from just wanting to force people to experience things the same way you did. Which is meaningless in the long run. If reasoning out rules was the actual goal of the game, that'd be fine. But it isn't.

Going back to my mushroom example: sure, the player, after going at it for a while, could reason out through random experience that getting a mushroom lets Mario take an extra hit and makes fire flowers appear. I'm sure plenty of people are smart enough to do that, eventually. But does that enhance the game? Not really. Because figuring out what a mushroom does isn't what the game is about.

To me, hand holding is stuff like giving the player a powerup after they do badly for too long. Or context sensitive QTE style stuff where you're just doing what the screen tells you to, rather than having to actively apply things you learned earlier to new situations.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Darlos9D

[TD]

games should use the pimsleur method to teach. then no one would forget anything and everyone will be happy!

[destruction_adv]

I personally don't consider "explaining game mechanics" as "hand holding." Just because they CAN potentially reason it out over time doesn't mean it has to be that way. There's actually no reason to do it, aside from just wanting to force people to experience things the same way you did. Which is meaningless in the long run. If reasoning out rules was the actual goal of the game, that'd be fine. But it isn't.

Going back to my mushroom example: sure, the player, after going at it for a while, could reason out through random experience that getting a mushroom lets Mario take an extra hit and makes fire flowers appear. I'm sure plenty of people are smart enough to do that, eventually. But does that enhance the game? Not really. Because figuring out what a mushroom does isn't what the game is about.

To me, hand holding is stuff like giving the player a powerup after they do badly for too long. Or context sensitive QTE style stuff where you're just doing what the screen tells you to, rather than having to actively apply things you learned earlier to new situations.

I agree with everything up there. I'd go more in depth, but this post'll probably get deleted for being off-topic.

Maybe tutorial discussion should be moved somewhere else (possibly Beginner Mode)

[Darlos9D]

Yeah, I kinda ran this off the rails a bit. Sorry.

[BladeOfJustice7]

Doesn't seem off topic to me. Flame wars= off topic. You guys are talking about how to potentially increase people playing FGs/BB more and consistently. Which is progressive.

[MetalMaelstrom]

Progressive, but not strictly on-topic

OT: Tokyo Game Show can't come soon enough. Neither can Thursday (Bururaji at BlueFes part 2).

[GEKKA]

Progressive, but not strictly on-topic

OT: Tokyo Game Show can't come soon enough. Neither can Thursday (Bururaji at BlueFes part 2).

For sure... Atleast it is only a day or so left to go lol. I can only imagine the news from the (last part?) of BlueFes?

[Narroo]

You (like many of us) are part of a generation that used to learn by trial and error and watching other people play, i feel like an old man when i say this, but this generation of gamers want everything to be explained to them, it is like they lack the capacity to learn by themselves and experiment to try to find what works and what don't :/

So, you played in an arcade then? Growing up, there were no arcades to go to; no machines to play on. So I suspect that for many people, like me, that wasn't an option. The way we get to play is by buying it for consoles-by yourself-, and if you get really into it, going to a scene, if one exists near you.

[SoWL]

I'm getting used to provoking long-winded discussions that are barely on-topic with a single post. But hey, this one's actually good and constructive, so I regret nothing.

Personally, I believe that the game should have as much hand-holding as possible, as long as it stays the same game you play in Versus mode (so no power-ups and stuff like that). Especially since the BB scene is pretty barren (you American bros can't imagine how lucky you are: your BB playerbase is bigger than our SF one). Thus, it's important to keep the new players in the game for as long as possible, beyond the first game or even the story mode. The lack of shame after your first game against a human opponent would be very nice, too.

tl;dr - better tutorial mode means more new players, which mean healthy playerbase.

[Manta]

A well made tutorial mode is good. Post match analysis with a better replay system would be ideal.

Think about it, if you could set the replayer to pause an indicate when specified events happen (Overhead was blocked low and thus hit, Throw missed because of jump startup, player mashed throw too early and got a TRM, attack got stuffed, etc) so that it not only shows stuff you can see if you know what to look for, but also stuff that you can't see (Maybe just display both player's inputs or at least outputs) as well as having much greater control over the flow of time, it would mean you can really break down what happened in those key moments and let you learn from them so much more easily.

[Airk]

A well made tutorial mode is good. Post match analysis with a better replay system would be ideal.

Think about it, if you could set the replayer to pause an indicate when specified events happen (Overhead was blocked low and thus hit, Throw missed because of jump startup, player mashed throw too early and got a TRM, attack got stuffed, etc) so that it not only shows stuff you can see if you know what to look for, but also stuff that you can't see (Maybe just display both player's inputs or at least outputs) as well as having much greater control over the flow of time, it would mean you can really break down what happened in those key moments and let you learn from them so much more easily.

Yes please to enhanced replay functionality - I really don't understand why I can't even rewind my replays in the current version.

A "match analysis" function would be interesting, but probably difficult to create unless you do something useless like the SFxT one. I guess it would be easy enough to highlight points where you did something "wrong" defensively and got hit for it, and then explain what you 'should' have done, but it gets a little more complex, if, say, someone got hit because they were in recovery for an unsafe move, or even more messily, a move that's only "kinda" unsafe but their opponent IB'd it. Might be doable, but good luck persuading a company to actually write such a thing.