Fighting games are getting worse

[Lennysaurus]

Great read from some guy at SRK.  Be interested in hearing what people think:

http://shoryuken.com/f2/fighting-games-getting-worse-272529/index1.html

[LN]

Comparing SF4 to HF makes my mind reel.

I glossed over the AE stuff because I honestly don't care.

"Randomly" caught with an assist? Really?

[CaptainHook]

I agree in a broad sense, but i'm still too new to really have an opinion as i haven't played many games.

But as a new guy, i DEFINITELY feel like i quickly get punished for doing stupid things in MvC3. (still may take me a while to figure out what else to do, but that's for another day..) In SSF4 i felt like i was slowly beat to death with a shoe for doing dumb shit. Of course preference will come into this a lot. I do feel like he was stretching a little to try make mvc3 fit his "current games are worse than old ones" theory. But that's just me.

[Nick4now]

Comparing SF4 to HF makes my mind reel.

Exactly what I was thinking too. Imo he's exaggerating how awesome SF4 is and how not so great SSF4/AE are in comparison. I still think easily being able to  punish dropped combos by mashing is retarded.

I also find it strange that "Any character can be picked up, anyone can be used" in Marvel is a bad thing  I enjoy seeing a lot of different team combinations.

[Lennysaurus]

I guess acouple of his examples aren't that great, but I like the way he is thinking about it.  If you read the article you can really understand where he is coming from.  I don't necessarily agree with everything in it, but I think he presents an interesting argument.

I kind of agree with his stuff on SSFIV.  I still think it's an entertaining game, and great to watch.  But I'm not sure I like the direction AE is heading in.

And for MVC3, I think it feels much more like an older game to me.  Play careful.  Cover yourself and your approach.  Have to understand alot more about how to punish things your opponent does etc.  I just think that X factor kind of ruins the rest of it though. In saying that, I'd love to see the two new DLC characters that get added get some sort of get off me assist, that you cant combo into.  Would make it so that Keepaway becomes a little more viable, while not making rushdown more beast.

[LN]

I actually think he was just trolling. It's such a dumb topic.

Music has been getting worse since Bach died. etc.

[Lennysaurus]

No way, it's not a troll.

It's actually imo a really great topic.  I like his thought process.  He probably needs to have reread it and thought about his examples more, but I think the centre of his idea is pretty cool.

I also like the reply he made here:
"Think about Cammy VS Ibuki, Ibuki VS Abel, Dudley VS Abel, Cammy VS Abel etc. All of those matches are about "Whoever starts their offense going first wins." In a sense, this means that whoever can create more offense and be more random and unpredictable. It's garbage and its dumb. Look at ryu vs guile, guile vs guile, sagat vs guile. It's all about who can be more defensive and more lame. Is it dumb and boring to watch? Yeah. But its more of a thought process other than random crap. Mirror matches between offensive VS defensive mirrors is a wonderful quick way to understand why defense is better and makes more sense for fighting games. "

I don't agree that it's "garbage and dumb" though.  But it is a bit silly.  The mental matchup is completed at one exchange and the rest is hold a direction and hope with the first examples.  I kinda agree that the thought process in the latter matches would be better.

The irony is that I prefer playing the first type of character's, so I must be to dumb to play the others lol.

[moose!]

All of those matches are about "Whoever starts their offense going first wins." In a sense, this means that whoever can create more offense and be more random and unpredictable.

Sounds like 3S.

[Lennysaurus]

Sounds like 3S.

You have loads of options on defence in 3S don't you?  I don't really play it so wouldn't know tbh.  Like OS and stuff.  Also, I would be scared of just going balls out against someone that knows how to play 3S, cause of parry into asplode your face combo, into sadface okizeme guessing game afterwards.

[moose!]

I think 3S is pretty heavy on establishing momentum and the parry mechanic often is less forgiving to the defender (parrying low vs a high meaty for example) and more useful and nasty for the attacker who can cover his holes with a guess parry and prevent their footsies to gain space etc
OS is likewise, simply because there's more opportunities and options for the aggressive player (for example the MOV SGGK is usually when he has them his opponent in a corner), and crouch teching isn't really a OS option either (crouch techs in 3S throw a jab, all of which are high and low parryable, and then there's kara throws to account for as well).

[Rorooze]

I see where he is coming from but disagree with a few of his points:

1) "When SF4 Vanilla was out the player was HEAVILY punished for ANY mistake that was made. You jumped in to Sagat? FADC ultra. You’re probably dead. You missed a combo against ryu? FADC ultra. There goes half of your health. Bye! In a sense, you were punished really hard for any mistake that you made because you were CARELESS."

FADC meant you could mash out and be safe, you didn't have to commit to a move that was unsafe if you had 2 bars. This severely reduced the effectiveness of putting pressure on your opponent in turn making characters with good reversals/projectiles that much better. Jumping in on Sagat and getting DP'd for 15-20% was more than enough punishment for a careless jump-in (and losing positioning, etc).

2) "The problem is though, its simply not competitive on any level. Any character can be picked up, anyone can be used, and just apply constant pressure."

Rubbish.  Especially as he later goes on to say that the only characters worth using are characters that can DHC glitch. A balanced game or a game that is easy to pick up doesn't make it non-competitive. Case and point would be an FPS game where every person basically has access to the same weapons and movement, or an RTS game which has a very low entry level but huge room to develop as a player.

I'm fairly certain I have heard on these boards and other fighting game sites that SF2 had a low entry level and didn't take long to "get to the good part". I don't see how MVC3 is any easier to pick up (more characters to learn, more moves, longer combos, etc).

3) "Just take a look at the progression of video games in general and just how much more accessible and easy they are all getting. Halo I to Halo II and III. Smash Brothers melee to Brawl…Blaz Blue to CS, and just any game in general. Games are getting less and less competitive. Think about Third Strike, Counter Strike, The original NES games and how HARD they were compared to Wii games, PS3 game difficulty compared to PS1. ETC. "

Blergh. This is a dumb argument. There are still heaps of games which are difficult these days and at the end of the day in a competitive scene you are playing against another person, not the computer..

[Chocobuny]

Meh. Maybe if punishing took more effort than mashing SRK during a block string I would agree with it. Last thing I want to see is more guile players, jesus christ. Damage being toned down doesn't really mean agressive characters have it easier, as they have to work harder for their damage as well.
Matchups like Guile vs Cammy are still going to be in Guiles favor because he gets to down back and do nothing, with sonic booms for free chip and flash kick / crouching fierce for anti air. Being agressive in SF4 means taking risks. If there is one character I think is stupid it's abel, because the risk/reward factor for him is out of fucking whack. But If I do an unsafe divekick or something like that with Cammy then I'm going to lose about 20-25% of my life. Same with even characters like Yun and Yang, they still have to be careful about how they apply it.

It was fucking retarded in vanilla when you could get hit once by a mashed uppercut and then fadc ultra and lose 70% life. It's not a skillful thing when you have such huge reversal windows and on top of that we have a fadc mechanic to make it safe. I'm really just rambling about whatever pops in my head first but.

If you want to play HF then go play HF. Just because the game has changed doesn't make it worse, it's just a different game.

[Lennysaurus]

I see where he is coming from but disagree with a few of his points:

1) "When SF4 Vanilla was out the player was HEAVILY punished for ANY mistake that was made. You jumped in to Sagat? FADC ultra. You’re probably dead. You missed a combo against ryu? FADC ultra. There goes half of your health. Bye! In a sense, you were punished really hard for any mistake that you made because you were CARELESS."

FADC meant you could mash out and be safe, you didn't have to commit to a move that was unsafe if you had 2 bars. This severely reduced the effectiveness of putting pressure on your opponent in turn making characters with good reversals/projectiles that much better. Jumping in on Sagat and getting DP'd for 15-20% was more than enough punishment for a careless jump-in (and losing positioning, etc).
computer..

I don't entirely get what you are saying here.  He is saying that defence is better in Vanilla, as your safe reversal etc has the potential to also net you a ton of damage.  While you still get all the other benefits in later iterations of the game, you can nolonger basically end the round with upeprcut FADC ultra anymore.  Are you saying that you should save the meter to mash out of a string as opposed to using it in that situation?

It was fucking retarded in vanilla when you could get hit once by a mashed uppercut and then fadc ultra and lose 70% life. It's not a skillful thing when you have such huge reversal windows and on top of that we have a fadc mechanic to make it safe. I'm really just rambling about whatever pops in my head first but.

I honestly think that if the reversal windows were like a normal SF game, that SFIV would have been so much better.  But in saying that, could you imagine trying to deal with rufus divekicks, and cammy repeated cannon strikes without them.  I guess its a tradeoff, that could go either way.  Mashing on SRK to reversal stuff, or endless mindless pressure.

The thing that bugs me with the reversal system in SFIV is that you can mash to wanton abandon, and if you mess it up you still block.  That is my issue.  If they had made it so that mashing during a tightblock string got you hit, then I think it would have been heaps better.

[[NIUE] BIRRY WONG]

You're all bad.

[Chocobuny]

The thing that bugs me with the reversal system in SFIV is that you can mash to wanton abandon, and if you mess it up you still block.  That is my issue.  If they had made it so that mashing during a tightblock string got you hit, then I think it would have been heaps better.

This. Even though I suck so hard at Marvel, I still think that that the game not auto blocking if your mashing is such a good mechanic.

You're all bad.

No u : (