Analysis: Why Fighting Games Are Hard

[@volaoh2.016]

The hardest thing in fighting games is being too good to play with your friends but not enough to be a competitive player

[@super2thesam]

Kinda get this, feel the same, but also feel like we both have a huge exciting journey ahead of us. I can’t wait for it to become safe again so I can go back out there and get gud.

[@drhighpinger7934]

Feel you bro

[@pank3245]

I'm in a position where I play fighting games with my brothers. And we are basically on equal ground. We all know how to do the inputs and execute cancels and combos. It all boils down to predicting what we will throw at eachother. So I can basically have the most enjoyment from any fighting game because I have two people that I can play with that are on the same level as me.

[@blorgyschmorgy7556]

i feel you bro

[@ravantgarde1899]

Lmao facts!!!!

[@danks5950]

*the hardest thing to do in fighting games is teaching your friends and beating them constantly and trying to not make them rage quit and leave the fighting game forever.*

[@invok8781]

INDEED, if you beat them over and over they'll quit and you dont have opponent

[@kiirrrkiiooo1658]

Danks EXACTLY 🤦🏽‍♂️‼️

[@lemonlimecitrus]

Friend: doesn't like losing ten games in a row. Also friend: can tell when you're going easy on him and doesn't like it. Me: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@mineclon2129]

I mean, its true that you learn by losing, but I don’t think you’ll be learning anymore once you lose for like the 5th time in a row.

[@l1fey123]

@@mineclon2129 It took my friend 6 games to start blocking my overheads in MK10

[@BenReillySpydr1962]

"It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Captain Picard

[@ElricWilliam]

"Mistakes are only personally learning steps" --myself

[@kleomenis456]

HAHAHAHA!

[@petercipra5616]

Thought that said Captain Toad for a sec

[@MichaelHarto]

"you are a mistake" -your mom

[@no_nameyouknow]

Did he say that after Data lost to that cocky space chess master?

[@aurorablaize]

The hardest thing is seriously finding people at your level. Either they're too low or they're way too high. And while losing is a part of the experience, it can still be pretty damn discouraging to get absolutely bodied by someone who is at a much, much, much higher level than you.

[@__-fi6xg]

way too high is good, thats where you pick up on new stuff, i dont like winning more than 2 times in a row because it feels like stagnation.

[@Diet_Black]

Get good kid.

[@ofilosofoouumfumante5655]

@@__-fi6xg even pro players get destroyed in fighting games

[@kaiji4788]

True. As a new BlazBlue player, I've accepted that the best way to improve is to get bodied, and learn from getting bodied, and do that for a long time. The question is how many weeks, months I would need to do this before I could reach the "fun" part. I'm starting to ask myself if it is even worth it, and I'm sure a lot of new player think the same. I've heard people say the best approach is to play fighting game because you want to learn and not because you want to win, but my god I feel like this is going to take forever. I really like Blazblue but no wonder most of my friends just prefer Smash.

[@zacarnold2970]

​@@__-fi6xgno it's not, you might pick up one new thing, but you don't get to play the game, you won't learn shit by watching yourself get bodied.

[@killer7eleven221]

The hardest thing in a fighting game is online play with a terrible connection.

[@WangerZ3291]

+Baked Sale that is true, so very true

[@JohnSmith-yi3oi]

a connection so bad that the game froze for 5 seconds and suddenly you see "ROUND 2. FIGHT"

[@PikUpYourPantsPatrol]

+Baked Sale Fighting games are hard because 90% of people online are cowardly spammers, they create a spam combo that is inescapable, I might as well drop the controller, unless they fuck up, I'm defenseless

[@PikUpYourPantsPatrol]

bennymountain1 Dragonball Raging blast 2

[@PikUpYourPantsPatrol]

bennymountain1 even in street fighter 4, they jump on your head with Bison or shoryuken spam with ken or ryu

[@kiw2792]

The hardest thing in fighting games is trying to teach my friend how to play, so I'll have an opponent Update six months later: My friend still hasn't given up and now he's pretty good

[@yellowslotcar]

i agree

[@zinelabidineaouidi3359]

Then ur friend beats u and u get salty...

[@kiw2792]

@@zinelabidineaouidi3359 F

[@BakaMangaka]

@@zinelabidineaouidi3359 F

[@Mrjmaxted0291]

This is a cosmic feel.

[@elijah_da_draggo7094]

The hardest thing about fighting games is trying to calm my friend down when he hits himself for losing in fighting games

[@gamergamer7508]

Jesus that's a bit far, is he doing ok?

[@alex-vl7yf]

gamer gamer I do it, a lotta ppl do it

[@grndragon7777777]

😬

[@nxt6341]

Yeah, I can understand him

[@RodrigoRamirez-kv7vp]

Everytime I lose I hammerfist my knee

[@wisdomcjs250]

The biggest barrier for myself was that the in-game tutorials never show you how to actually play a match. They show you piece by piece what your character can do, but then you get into a match with the freedom to do any of the 20 things you just learned any time you want, and you get your ass kicked while realizing you have NO idea how to play the game. Tutorials need to show and explain the gameplay flow of turns/knockdown game/etc

[@inv_hana]

Yeah combo trials are pretty useless

[@robotube7361]

This is why you spend time scouring the internet and watch world class players play to learn what they are doing that you arent.

[@mrosskne]

​@@robotube7361 why should he have to do that? no other type of game has this deficiency.

[@robotube7361]

@@mrosskne Because its not deficiency. Concepts like footsies. punishing and the feel of the character is not something one can teach you in tutorials. Its something you learn on your own by trial and error. Street fighter 6 actually has a very nice tutorial that explains dome of these things. If you want to get good I suggest you keep playing at the lowest of the lowest levels and once you start dominating then move higher. Fighting games take months and years to master- its not a point and click game. it requires reflexes and executions memorizations etc and once you get over those then you can think about high strategies. The genere is such.

[@mrosskne]

@@robotube7361 It is a deficiency. If you can learn it from a person, you can learn it from a tutorial.

[@BlaxeFrost-X]

Hardest thing? Making my fingers make the controller do what i want to do instead of stupidly missing that 5 input

[@dcmkflylo1603]

Same. I've been maining Skarlet in MK11 and while I can land her 270~% damage combo in practice almost half of the time, in actual battle I either miss a button so it does less damage or I drop the string entirely.

[@mr_miyagi5003]

DC, MK, & FlyLo You’re probably rushing, stay in practice until you can hit it 9 times out of 10, or even better 10 out of 10.. What I do when learning a character is learn their moves, strings/combos etc and then whack it on very hard in practice mode and keep playing until I can take 3-4-5 bars of their health before they can take one of mine, then I feel ready to go practice online in casuals against real people

[@tylarjones9281]

@@dcmkflylo1603 Stop playing MK.

[@dcmkflylo1603]

@@tylarjones9281 No.

[@moose7145]

@@dcmkflylo1603 To add on to what he said, you are also under a lot of pressure outside of practice mode. Especially in some ranked matches, and even more so at tournaments. Even if you're playing at a small tournament with close friends, if you're playing with people who are your match, you're going to feel the pressure at the highest level and mess up a lot more than you normally would. Basically, do what the guy said and practice enough until you get it 9/10 or 10/10 of the time. It'll limit the input errors in these situations. Decision making will end up becoming your only enemy later on if you truly overcome this part of it all. Good luck bro

[@munnypantz]

One of the hardest things about getting good at fighting games is in my opinion finding people near your level. Yes getting bodied by pros and wiping the floor with scrubs is a part of the learning process. But playing someone of your own ability allows you to think while you play because you are at equal standing with your foes. Conversely playing against someone who you are beating because they don't know what they are doing will usually put the winning players head in to auto mode and getting beaten by a expert most of the time means watching your character get combo'd while you look on in frustration. There is no way to really solve this problem, the ranking systems in most fighting game don't mean anything. I've lost to 400pp ryus and beat 2000-3000pp dudleys. The only real way to find people at your level is going the extra mile and looking for them on the internet or through your friends. Alot of people won't go this extra mile. Does that mean its up to the developers to fix this problem? Maybe, or maybe not. In the end fighting games take dedication,.

[@CoreAGaming]

+munnypantz This is true, and I do think developers are working on this. The Capcom Fighters Network seems pretty serious, but we'll have to wait and see.

[@YamadaUA93]

+Core-A Gaming i have to tell you a 2 little storys. 1)In our city we have a comicon like event. And we have a very little tournament in tekken 6. 2 weeks before this con, one man find me and asking about some tournaments or people that playing T6. I tell him that in our event we have a tournament. I was the best in our little community, but i dont know how to make jugles in Tekken. But i playing with smart, and punishing enemy mistakes. That guy (he play as Steve) just go in and beat everybody exept me. Just because i lose to a man that spam Asuka reversal. For this i was just not ready. Steve win this torunament and only after this he teach how to play tekken correctly. 2) I buy USF4 several weeks ago and in our country SF franchise is known but unpopular at all. So i just can find people that can teach me some things and i can play with offline to practice. And i cant play with anybody that more far from me than France. In USF4 i set up player rank in search like "Same". I found just guys with 2k pp that just killing me all the time. PS. Sorry for my bad english) PPS. I from Ukraine.

[@CoreAGaming]

Yeah, hopefully the Capcom Fighters Network thing can help people find each other to play locally.

[@SylemGistoe]

+munnypantz this, for real. I think being able to find an environment that cultivates the player properly is a huge part of the entry barrier to fighting games. I think it's bigger than "oh, it's so hard to press the buttons right!". Someone living in the middle of nowhere, or just an unpopular fighting game location may never get to play people in a casual friendly real-life environment against more evenly matched opponents, where they'd get feedback on their performance. A player in such a dead zone has little options besides jumping straight in to getting destroyed online by seasoned players (potentially, depending on how good or poor ranking systems are) and trying to analyze how best to improve off replays by themselves. Even being able to have faces to look forward to meeting and beating can keep a new player invested in the game. The fighting game world's a big ocean, and no scrub is an island.

[@t4d0W]

+SylemGistoe I get the dead zone concept of not being close to an offline community and how difficult it can be. However especially in the anime community I have heard of guys who pick up the game, aren't close to a scene but go a far reaching events and improve drastically over time. And these people really have to make twice the effort to lab up hard since they have no competent opponents so they have to watch videos and grind tutorial modes. I was chilling in an Xrd stream and some of the folks were talking about going to big events and such. And one guy wrote down simply that if you are passionate about the game and you are in a "dead zone" like situation, *make an concerted effort to come out to the big events*. You don't have to compete at a high level (of course) but treat it like its the only place where you can get as much matches as you can for your game in a few days. So what if you are free in the pools when it is the only time you can get to experience fighting someone who understands the meta game. I think the problem is people aren't taking advantages of every opportunity that are presented to them. Capcom Fighters Network may be doing the SFV community a huge favor but at the same time, people should make the direct correlation that if you don't have many options, then take online losses even against good players who are character specialists as a good thing. And be meticulous at addressing those losses rather than accepting the loss as it is.

[@JenWithThePen]

I have a weird stage fright when I attempt to play with or against other players online.

[@Lnblackberry48]

JenWithThePen I use to do that also but I just think of them as even smart AI and most of them won’t get mad or tell you terrible things and if they do , they’re not worth your time

[@CPSPD]

Laurence Cornwall-Mann do you wash underneath your foreskin regularly? I think the smegma is cutting off the blood flow to your brain

[@l1fey123]

@Soul King And in the end, without losing we dont know what winning is.

[@shade0636]

@@CPSPD Damn bro. You killed him.

[@teh_jibbler]

It goes away.

[@zylokun]

the hardest thing is finding someone willing to teach you who has the patience to actually teach and not just say "you just have to get good." god please teach me.

[@breakdancerQ]

get good nub.

[@stird.dragon9954]

get good nub.

[@jenishpokhrel2409]

There's nothing much to teach. Just look at the command list and learn. Also get good.

[@zylokun]

@@jenishpokhrel2409 Got it. Don't even bother.

[@AVeryBoredMouse12312]

@@zylokun right I have no clue how you play or why your bad, but I can tell you the first thing in any fighting game you _need_ to learn is the movement and the defensive options. Don't worry about flashy combos or how to cancel attacks, just learn how to not get hit first. For example, in skullgirls I spent a lot of time labbing out how to zone and how certain moves moves my characters about with a team of fukua/squiggly/robo fortune. I still have a lot of issues with the blocking and advanced guarding though...I have gotten a lot better at it though ever since my cousin decided to start constantly rushing me down because he noticed XD regardless, after that is learning when it's your turn, basically a lot of that comes from trial and error, but generally a good run of thumb is a simple jab after a block string ends, which often is hard to identify in a game like skullgirls. I honestly can't help you until I know what exactly the problem _is_ TBH and I be pretty mediocre, just really good at identifying mistakes

[@PR1ME98]

You cant spell life without an L

[@Trey-wl5mx]

The L is also the first thing in Life

[@Trey-wl5mx]

No wooosh here you goober

[@ONIGIRIKINGU]

Wrong comment here dude. I was supposed to post this in someone else comment

[@shoganai2545]

suigintou101 then delete it?

[@ONIGIRIKINGU]

@@shoganai2545 why I posted as wrong. No need to

[@Racnive]

The most important thing that a fighting game can do to help a newbie get into the game isn't necessarily teaching them how to play. It's telling them why they're losing. When you get punched in the face, what you did wrong is straightforward. When you're missing a timing window to counter a move but have no idea whether you were too soon, too late, in recovery over a prior ability, in hitstun, in blockstun, or what have you, you get stuck unable to make progress. You turn from practicing to flailing.

[@colmecolwag]

I kinda feel like that's what Extra Credits was going for with it's explanation for an expanded Single Player mode. It's not about having a safe space to teach people how to be good at the game but more a safe space to teach people how a game /works/, so that when playing with actual people and getting totally bodied by them they actually have some sort of understanding as to /why/ they got bodied instead of just staring in disbelief.

[@fabianoyaga8610]

Although giving like a small tutorial of basic controls is not bad, though.

[@KuraIthys]

Yes. I feel like fighting games do an absolutely atrocious job of teaching you the fundamental concepts. What gets me is the stuff you have to learn not to be GOOD at the game, but to just be able to play it in a functional way. Button mashing can work, but you're not really playing the game if you do it. It's like playing an FPS by holding the trigger down and hoping you'll hit something just through dumb luck. But if you don't know the moveset of your character, you're already at a massive disadvantage just from that alone. And this can involve 60-70 unique moves that have arbitrary button combos that you can only really learn by memorisation. For all this, all that fighting games have done here with this moveset and the input schemes that activate them, is take a game design that basically demands having 75 buttons plus some directional control, and somehow mapped it onto a controller that only has 6 buttons. Thus, memorising a bunch of input sequences not because that makes sense, but basically just because your controller doesn't have enough buttons. And meanwhile, even though it's almost a pre-requisite to be good at the game that you know this moveset, it isn't by itself teaching you anything about how to actually play the game. Knowing how to pull off moves is the least important part, but also one of the most time consuming. And the stuff that is actually important to getting to be any good at the game, meanwhile is stuff you rarely if ever get taught. It's really kind of insane.

[@alexmaganda5827]

I got streetfighter 5 played it 3 weeks and was like i dont get the fighting mechanics of the game its just weird i used to be really good at doa 5 and 4 but i just dont get behind streetfighters fighting mechanics after playing doa for years streetfighter feels mashy idk guess i need to watch more videos

[@fabianoyaga8610]

If you're looking for a game that ACTUALLY teaches you how to play, then try out Guilty Gear Xrd. The tutorial is long as shit, but it teaches you properly every concept of the game.

[@masons4425]

Fun fact - Fighting games is placed second last on the sales statistic chart for the most played genre's in the U.S. The fighting genre only just made it above Strategy games which is placed last (A genre that is equally difficult for beginners to get good at).

[@U9B]

Sounds good to me

[@bigballzmcdrawz2921]

The 90s were when fighting games were at their most popular. My friends and I after school would always rush to the local arcade to play the latest Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or Tekken. Good fucking times😁😁

[@umt6429]

@@bigballzmcdrawz2921 that's because local multiplayer meant you were Onyl playing people as good as yourself msot of the time. As kid you could button mash other kids and have tonne sof fun. Online play just isn't as fun when your trash and learbigb curve is high

[@no_nameyouknow]

@@umt6429 You just have to get good enough to not be trash. Be willing to lose for a week and you will at least be as good as most people you fight. And you will be playing the game somewhat properly, rather than mashing.

[@Tom-jw7ii]

um t it would appear that a keyboard also has a learning curve

[@maclo4]

I realize this is an old video, but the idea that “you have to lose a lot at the start” really just reflects that the communities are small and have few new/low level players compared to many other games. Imagine playing league of legends and when you’re new there’s just not enough other bronze players for you to play against.. so you have to learn against platinum or above players. People would probably feel the same about lol as they do most fighting games

[@baresize]

this is a very good point

[@JesseLegend149]

You'll learn quicker when you fight someone that is better than you.

[@xidjav1836]

@@JesseLegend149 this is the same sentiment as "Get gud bruh" the "learn from your mistakes" only applies if you fight against someone equally shit as you and have less moments of frustration over not playing the game.

[@teaalc]

@@JesseLegend149 Yeah but you'll be more inclined to quit too, which is not a good business model when you think about it

[@xidjav1836]

@@2ch921 it's not about complexity or how hard it actually is, it's about who you fight or learn against, like no shit you can't learn from your mistakes if against someone that optimized to the point you cant play to even process or make a move. If your learning, its a snowball of learning from vague mistakes to pinpoint mistakes to know how to do better. You ain't learning if every move you choose is a mistake. Me and my friends snowballed to super platinum mostly by practicing against each other as shitty players learning from vague mistakes to learning how to read people. Plus you ain't dropping it if people are at your skill level instead of matching a bronze v Diamond

[@pjayx7320]

Mortal Kombat 11s complete tutorial gives a basic introduction to pretty much every mechanic there is in most fighting games. I've been casually playing MK for 6 years and in that tutorial I learned somethings I never even heard of all this time.

[@kohai-kun9261]

@DeadMemes NeedToStayDead are you daft? He was just saying that the tutorial in MK is good, and that it teaches you certain fundamentals (like frame advantage, basic mixups and how to defend against them, etc) that most older fighting game tutorials had historically skipped out on. Like he wasnt complaining or implying that MK was the best game, or that Guilty Gear was bad (or any other FG was bad). Like holy shit you went bananas for no reason, learn to express yourself online, good grief

[@lyricchristopher503]

@DeadMemes NeedToStayDead lmao loser u got bitched out by a reply and didnt even make a comeback, baby ass manlet, or should i say baby ass weeb lolol

[@PantsMasterPlays]

@@lyricchristopher503 in their defense, KZbin does a shit job notifying people about replies, so it's entirely possible they don't even know lol

[@michaelvaldivia2891]

@DeadMemes NeedToStayDead I was gonna play GG but because of this comment, now I'm not.

[@jjr3alz788]

PJayX killer instinct has a pretty in depth tutorial also, and I learned a lot from it

[@Luigidagreen13]

I think the hardest part for fighting games for me is finding competition in your local area. I just want somewhere I can go to locally to practice against real people. Most of my friends don’t play fighting games though

[@gc3k]

The life blood of any fighting game is Player 2

[@danielculp1046]

I don't know ur age but I too miss playing on the arcade at the "video store with 5 of my friends blowing rolls of quarters a day made us better players challenging each other.

[@gaming1zanagi-1999]

For me I think it is the button mash aspect plus not knowing how to do it since most instructions are not exists at all or hard to understand

[@magosexploratoradeon6409]

Yeah, it's hard to look for an opponent with a less popular Fighting game. Like legit I think I'm the only dude in my area where I can properly play Skullgirls.

[@QuasiELVIS]

@@magosexploratoradeon6409 Why not just switch to playing SF? Pretty much the same thing.

[@lvl99paint]

I think your point about tutorials is a little off. Yeah I get that simply knowing how the game works won't make you good at the game - but it will ALLOW you to get good at the game. In Tekken for example, the idea of a low block punish is an integral part of the game - the opponent goes for a risky attack, you predict or react to it and accordingly punish this. There is nothing in the games telling you how to do this or why it is important. The games story mode has a 'story assist' button, which makes you able to do complicated moves much easier - but nowhere does it tell you about movement, whiff punishing, pressure tools or the all important frame advantage which is one of the core concepts the game balances on. Just getting bodied by some FG god won't help you learn the game if you don't know how the game works. Having some kind of basic learning tutorial that tells you the concepts would be very beneficial to fighting games.

[@MaxLoafin]

portl "walk before you run" comes to mind. Basics are the foundation upon which advanced technique is built until that advanced technique feels basic to u. I agree tutorials are very useful to new/inexperienced players. I also feel they should be totally optional. Like... I hate mandatory tutorials lol

[@Pacemaker_fgc]

I absolutely agree with you. I’m terrible at fighting games but I recently won a match against a player who’s been teaching me the game because a friend who was spectating our matches taught me about advanced concepts like pressure and frame traps. If he wasn’t there I would’ve never learned how to deal with my opponents strategies. It doesn’t help that even games with great tutorials like Skullgirls or Guilty Gear didn’t teach me about this.

[@Horatio787]

I bought Skullgirls partially because I heard it had a great tutorial. The information is really good, but kicking me out of the tutorial as soon as I successfully block three hits does not teach me good blocking ability. I'm kind of surprised a god tier tutorial fighter hasn't come out yet.

[@lo-rez]

That's what I love about Skullgirls. A lot of what you mentioned, was never taught I just kinda learned from practice, but never gave it a name; from yearrrrs of playing Tekken since the first. Skullgirls surprised me with how in depth and helpful their tutorial system is.

[@steeledminer616]

Exactly this. Now, I'm a newbie at fighting games. I'm absolutely dreadful at most. But I played skullgirls which by and large is a classic 2D fighter. Yet despite this, after completing a lot of tutorials, I felt like I actually KNEW how to play.

[@SJNaka101]

God, a very simple feature that would make fighting games much easier to get into would be the ability to *slow down time* in practice mode. For a beginner, it's really rough to learn combos because you first have to memorize the inputs and then you have to learn to execute the combos in the appropriate rhythm. It would be sooo nice if a beginner could slow the game down to the point that they can read and execute the inputs at the same time. In the same way a musician slows down a piece they're learning, fighting games would benefit tremendously from this feature. Shoot, this is actually a feature in real fighting lol. First, you gotta learn how to punch with good form, and you practice that in slow motion to train muscle memory. Another feature that would be nice is ripped straight out of rocket league. Most fighting games have some kind of combo practice mode, where you gotta execute a combo to clear a challenge. In rocket league, they have that mode where you practice hard shots, but the kicker is that users can craft and upload their *own* practice shots, creating a community where people are actually sharing the ways that they practice and lifting the skill base of the entire community. Do that for fighting games too! If players could upload their own combos for people to mimic, or blockstrings they practice *against* to get better at escaping, it would be tremendous.

[@mysticmonogatari]

What's cool is Uniclr has the feature where you can slow down time in practice mode. I used it a couple times when a combo got to complex for me and it was satisfying to see my combo go from only able to do it in slow mode into seeing it being done in real time. I don't know any game which does the latter statement but i think it would be cool if we did had a share community tag in game where you can share combos instead of just looking at combo tutorials on youtube or seeing that one guy on twitter post specific combos.

[@vram1974]

The best in game tutorial I've come across (imo) was in Dead or Alive for PSOne. It showed you the combo and it showed the correct button presses as you were tapping them out.

[@bananacakesmckanzee7290]

YES

[@stird.dragon9954]

Skullgirls 2nd encore have the 2 options you just mentioned, in training mode you can slow the game and it comes with a "challenge" mode that teaches you combos for the character you want. Sadly the game is not that popular. Edit: the game also have other features in the training mode like hit and hurtboxes.

[@supremechaosbeing2696]

Smash bros (ultimate) may not have the most reliable training mode unmodded, but it can slow down the game!

[@gab_gallard]

Better tutorials won't hurt, though.

[@Waterking001]

Play Blazblue/Under night in birth

[@Account-1536]

Lascell Taylor or Rivals of Aether

[@sgtpepper91]

@@Account-1536 or Skullgirls

[@peliparado94]

Most modern fighters include extensive tutorials though, even a game as old as SF4 has a pretty good training mode and tutorials for complex combos.

[@dylzoe]

ArcSys games have incredible tutorials, but I rarely look at them because the application of those tutorials still takes a lot of practice and butting your head against other people

[@hoodiesticks]

If you want fighting games to keep the "trial by fire" approach to difficulty where the majority of your learning is done through failure, then the genre will remain niche. That's the trade-off.

[@shadowangel6359]

Mostly because throwing someone into fire and just telling them to push through it as quickly as possible doesn't make it any easier. It just makes them burn more.

[@hoodiesticks]

@@shadowangel6359 Exactly. It's really not a great environment for learning, especially if you're new to the genre.

[@shadowangel6359]

@@hoodiesticks At best, I can imagine having a tutorial for basic mechanics and then tutorials for each character would help to better understand their mechanics and how to use them to the best of their abilities. Just because other fighting game veterans became great through trial by fire does not make trial by fire a perfect mindset to train newcomers to the genre.

[@looneymar9153]

@@shadowangel6359 no amount of beating up the AI will teach you the habits, preferations and gimmicks of a real human being you're inevitably going to verse. It's been put very precisely in another core-a video that fighting games are a speed algebra+geometry competition multiplied by a battle on a psychological level. No tutorial or a training mode will ever teach you the latter - arguably most important - part

[@shadowangel6359]

@@looneymar9153 And no amount of losing to human players without being taught what you did wrong or no hint to how you can improve is no different. Your point, exactly? Can't necessarily build a house when you don't know what tools to use, what tools you need, or how to use the tools you have.

[@ChrisTweten]

"You'l be told to man up by an oldschool veteran who has knife wounds from winning too much in Street Fighter II in the 90's at his local liquor store." Sounds like the Chinese FGC. DO NOT RAW SUPER IN KOF

[@CasualRemy]

Reading about that shit was scary!

[@fineguy2696]

thats what sexpat does

[@armaggedonsblade]

In my neighbourhood it was the reality. I had to fight with older and bigger dudes when they tried to push me of the arcade machine. Luckily I was better at real life fighting than at fighting games.

[@figotlatenby588]

@@CasualRemy jusr read up on it, it sounded like they realized what they were doing in the end and made up. still fucked up though.

[@neotricksterzero143]

5:20 "get bodied by pros over and over again" Not the best way to convince new players into the genre.

[@user-kg6lf1op2l]

It's the truth though.

[@alexanderredhorse1297]

@@user-kg6lf1op2l that is wrong. studies have shown moderate success and loss increase the most skill over time. constantly getting destroyed or destroying others has resulted very little skill increase. look it up

[@Rex-golf_player810]

@@alexanderredhorse1297 yes there is such thing as baby steps and it works but there is that point where you need to lose to learn to get better though There is one point where you must be pushed and conditioned skillwise and mentally as well

[@user-kg6lf1op2l]

Guess you don't understand what he means by getting bodied by pros, ill explain. If a pro bodies you over and over again you are most likely with the pro and by getting bodied he will make it obvious what your weaknesses are and how to adjust. Once you do this ( will take time ) you keep asking and keep receiving until you are able to get a couple hits on them and actually defend there stuff sometimes. Then when you play your friends or anyone that isnt a PRO you will feel more comfortable than them and in most cases out right destroy them.

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

It's how it works. You get better by learning through defeat. Improve, change your strategy, learn how to counter, etc. Back in the days of MvC, i knew this guy who won by spamming Megaman's blaster and thought he was good. Then comes someone else who schools the shit out of him by doing a death combo with Wolverine. Learn how to do the inputs, how to combo and adapt to the different characters. And you can only achieve that by getting your shit kicked in repeatedly until improving.

[@paulcastillo1880]

The hardest thing is when someone asks "Are you okay?" while being 3 stocked.

[@tigergames7849]

Sounds Terryble.

[@manuelx379]

@@tigergames7849 terry-fic joke

[@Foxy_Playz05]

“No i’m not okay, I just got 3 stock-“ *BUSTER WOLF*

[@FloreyXE]

The hardest thing is when someone asks "are you okay?!?!" Then proceeds to yell "BUSTER WOLF!!!"

[@rhodes7804]

To get good at a fighting game you need to go in with the mindset that if you're not winning, you're learning.

[@containeduniverse]

Excellent.

[@Koops2245]

Oh, I like the sound of that. (° ω °) Thank you~

[@myeugbell4982]

Very true

[@alexmelendez2239]

That doesn't work. I've spent 238 hrs on Dragon Ball Fighterz and still can't land a bnb.

[@DarkCrusader27]

Alex Melendez you might be trying too hard. Make bread and butters that are consistent for you. Then start to deviate from those and extend as far as you can for strong bnbs

[@Lucarioly]

The hardest thing about fighting games is the fact they force you to accept that loss is your fault. "He spammed" Well it worked. "He took all my health in one combo" You could have avoided getting caught. Those situations don't seem fair but that's not what's important if you want to win you have to give up on the idea that the game is going to make things easier on you, people with all different playstyles manage to win in all different match ups proving that despite your lack of love for a certain playstyle or getting unga'd it isn't invincible. This is compounded by the fact that you're never guaranteed a repeat experience and learning from a replay is difficult because you're no longer in the moment. You have to work around concepts that form the basis for how other games work.

[@asiamatron]

Ifa player can't do anything to escape a one touch of death combo then there's no counter play which is kinda boring imo.

[@Lucarioly]

ToDs tend to have a necessary starting point or set up, if you can make sure that you don't allow for that opening you avoid it. The simple response is don't lose neutral. Yeah it sucks to get hit by a ToD but they're also USUALLY not always strings or combos that require precision so drops end up being likely especially in the heat of the moment. Sometimes you may get hit by it but giving up or refusing to even try isn't the way to get past it.

[@xeno4693]

Lucarioly This comment basically sums up my mindset while playing fighting games. Whenever I lose I always get upset and say "he was literally just spamming the same thing" or "that was cheap af".

[@princespazzy2489]

The hardest thing about fighting games is maintaining anger

[@faydo2787]

Keshawn Williams Seems like it’s more maintaining composure that’s the hard part

[@maaramori3404]

5:06 Extra Credits said NOTHING about high-level play. He just wanted players to be able to play fighting games at somewhat decent level when you at least understand what's going on and how to deal with new problems (where and what to look at during game). The hardest thing about fighting games is neutral game and space-time button interactions. These are obscure, non-inuitive, and practically unlearnable for a lot of people without a teacher or a LOT of external information in general. And it's the core mechanic. Yeah, enough said.

[@TheNintro7]

I agree, this is still a good video but EC was just talking about getting the player to a level were they can understand the rules enough to know WHY they're getting bodied. Some fighting games feel like playing chess without anyone telling you what each piece does, thats what has to change.

[@norock_]

@@TheNintro7 You're either talking about old games that don't have tutorials and/or command list, or missing the point, getting to a "decent level" and knowing what is making you lose are way harder than just being thought that stuff, think about the fact that people pay for coaching. It's not like you can get through a barrier set by your own understanding and mindset just by having better tutorials, a tutorial should be there to make you understand the basics of what's going on, not help you cheat out of getting bodied.

[@norock_]

Plus, in some newer games like Punch Planet, in the command list there's information about the moves' properties. Let's also mention the fact that most new fighting games don't only come with a tutorial but also mini character guides that tell you enough to start playing against people and understand a good amount of what's going on.

[@TheNintro7]

@@norock_ Ill admit that i don't know how well every new game is treating tutorials, I've played Tekken, MK11, Street fighter and Smash recently. The way i think about "decent" level is understanding the core concepts of fighting games like footsies, what tools can counters missles and area control. Whenever i get into a new game i tend to just skip the tutorial and head straight to KZbin for someone to explain it to me. If tutorials nowadays look like guilty gear's, then i can't complain

[@loubloom1941]

No, EC's video at its core was about being able to GET TO high level play. Core-A was right.

[@3seven5seven1nine9]

5:18 get out of your comfort zone on the *BEACHES OF NORMANDY*

[@wikipediamagnify]

Yes it do be like that sometimes when you try to get out of the comfort zone for fighting games, because your just being slaughtered by pro's

[@JulioMartinsVerso]

best comment lmao

[@ChargeJN]

THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL AS WE MAKE OUR WAY TO HEAVEN

[@devilhitman24]

In a fighting game, if you fail it's your fault and yours only. Except for DSP, it's always the lag for him.

[@1000aaronaaronaaron]

devilhitman24 it's the games fault many times as well

[@cpt.parasyte2470]

na i disagree you had the option to learn the games shortcomings an how to avoid being affected by the game design flaws

[@1000aaronaaronaaron]

Parasite Pro-Tips not exactly. Anyone who can block darksied's instant full screen mix up is crazy. And I just got the game at Christmas so no I haven't had enough time exactly... You can't just assume people eventually finding a way to counter something means it's okay. Sometomes there's not really a counter or the risk of a counter isn't as bad as the reward of the move.

[@XplodingTurtle]

devilhitman24 not true

[@panlis6243]

Or noob kids using scrub moves

[@RennyNanaya]

I don't often comment but I'd like to throw my two cents in as a really shitty player. I love fighting games. I suck awfully at them but I still love to play them, and I think a middle ground does need to be met. Learning to take a loss, suck it up and move is extremely important, but some games need to also make a better effort at explaining *Why* you lost. it's all well and good to play until you "recognize" why you were losing, but when a large part of the reason is you were unfamiliar with concepts or tropes of the genre, it can't be an insurmountable obstacle. I still don't really understand what a "Roman cancel" is. I barely could grasp the implications of the burst move in Street fighter IV. those need to be explained better before new players can be expected for find out how to adapt to a situation at all.

[@TheDivoture]

hyp3r4ctive I feel that man. I’ve got over 3000 online matches for injustice. So MK and tekken were pretty easy to pickup, but recently I tried to get into Street fighter and I cannot for the life of me understand it. It doesn’t really explain your move list, how to execute them, nor does it tell you what the hell vtrigger is, so I’m back to what I would call “strategic mashing”.

[@thescarvedinsect]

The hardest thing about fighting games is... *Connection with opponent lost. [40002]*

[@ACommonHero2]

There's a really ridiculous misunderstanding here during the final parts of this video. When Extra Credits, and the type of consumers their opinion reflects, say they want the game to teach them how to get good, they DON'T MEAN that they want the game to teach them how to beat professional players at tournaments. They mean that they want the game to teach them enough that they feel like they're making choices that affect the flow of the game against people (or AI) at their general skill level. They want the game to show them, at the very least, how not to button mash. And no, current fighting game tutorials don't do this. They show you the button inputs, and tell you to do the inputs correctly to beat the tutorial. That is NOT good enough. The game lacks a proper difficulty curve, and fails to reinforce the lessons it teaches, if this is all it does. You're just doing the combo once, and then you can either go into a real game (even against an easy CPU) where all of your options are available and you really don't have much better of an idea of what to do than before, do the tutorial again/go into training mode in which now you're being asked to just mindlessly and repetitively press the onscreen buttons over and over/let the AI punch you while you try to learn how to block with no real sense of challenge or enjoyment, or you can just go back to button mashing. And ideally the game should not stop at learning not to button mash/spam and blocking. A character's specific mechanics should at least be taught (THROUGH NORMAL PLAY) up to the level that the developer intended. You don't have teach the players weird tech that professional players discovered through grueling research. Most of that stuff is a consequence of systems interacting in ways developers actually might not have been able to fully foresee to begin with, and even when it isn't, is in fact at a level of skill that justifies players having to fight people well above their skill level to learn it. But what are some of the developer's intended combos? What types of moves link into other types of moves? When I get hit, do I have a response? What is this weird meter that kind of looks like a bunch of bullets that this one character has? What are a couple of useful ways to use that resource? There should be a way for players to play a mode where just by playing and having fun over the course of trying to get through a series of challenges (such as a single player campaign with multiple "levels"), the player is slowly introduced to various mechanics and encouraged to learn these fundamental things in order to beat this mode. You have to be able to reduce the complexity of how the fight works down several notches in introductory missions, and slowly introduce the complexity back in. Maybe the first few fights the enemies only do normal punches, but later on they start adding in some low punches, and even later on start varying it up in the middle of a combo. By the end of the game they're doing full on mix ups and chaotically switching their types of attacks to try and make you miss the block. Does this get you to EVO? Fuck no. Getting to the end and learning all of that shit about blocking is barely making you competent. But it's one simple example of how a game's single player might help you get to a level where you feel you have some fucking AGENCY. That's what people are asking for.

[@Vladislav888]

Exactly. I also think that one of the reasons why most games are not doing well in the learning department is that teaching, in general, is extremely hard, so they don't bother.

[@lorancoondiddles1231]

ACommonHero2 who the fucks gonna read this bullshit fuk u

[@xdeathcon]

Anyone who actually cares to read it. He made some good points

[@Vladislav888]

@@lorancoondiddles1231 I am. And from the looks of it, at least 63 people other than me.

[@yoshitsune5691]

Hey alright nice 200 word essay amigo

[@TaraRaeDev]

I think the hardest thing is how to actually learn from your mistakes (and for some: how to ask for ways to improve rather than getting salty and talking trash--blaming the game or opponent).

[@TaraRaeDev]

That's ok too

[@keonibrooks9718]

+Tkat Gameing You rralize that the FGC is more of a blanket term for all the different communities, right? Every game has a different community, so you can't just say the FGC as a whole is toxic. You have to call out the individual communities that are toxic.

[@rumfordc]

+Tyler Doak exactly, you can spot an intelligent person because instead of saying "omg, ur 2 good i give up" when they lose they say "how do you do that?"

[@TaraRaeDev]

No doubt. People are generally eager to tell you whats up as well... but unfortunately there are jokers who revel in the victory instead. So on that note, it's important to be good on both ends of the aspect. Be willing to help! Like was said: It's about getting better, it's not about winning (not all the time at least ;P )

[@Chikiba625]

it has took me at least two years of competitive ssb to get good at competitive stuff in general and the best part is no salt was needed and I learned from my mistakes, but, I encounter a shit ton of salt and people who don't know who they're up against (in the sense of trash talk and hope they win)

[@trainzen11]

"There's a benefit to losing... You get to learn from your mistakes." -Megamind

[@jojjn8272]

Most Deadest Pool of em All. Extremely underrated

[@balfanghellfire]

So... how the fuck do I learn from my mistakes if I don't know what mistakes I did?

[@deviljho4260]

Sota Steelwing do it again until you know them

[@motif_3253]

Sota Steelwing watch the replay if that game has that feature and find out since when you went fucked up

[@syweb2]

@@motif_3253 My mistake was stepping forward, and then watching as my opponent put me into an inescapable combo for a third of a minute.

[@CivilChev]

Getting my wife into fighting games was actually pretty difficult, but the smooth animations and aesthetic of Skullgirls won her over and she's been practicing everyday to master the in-game tutorial. During that time I've been teaching her how to properly hold her controller and have been going over some of the struggles she's been having learning how to land combos. At the same time, I'm also still learning the game and still trying to clear the Trials mode with three different characters. So far Filia is the only character I've cleared Trials with. We haven't played any matches against each other, yet, but that's because my cousin is closer to her skill level, so I'm letting her have the satisfaction of training to beat him, first.

[@raelvillanueva2352]

Nice I wish I could get my wife into fighting games.

[@jeppyjep]

Yeah im into Skullgirls too Obviously for the gameplay, not the waifu

[@juan-ij1le]

How’s the progress?

[@CivilChev]

@@juan-ij1le Sadly her hands have been flaring up so she's taking a break from Fighting Games, but she's been interested in watching me play Dragon Ball FighterZ and I think 02K0 would be a great game for her to play.

[@MonkeyBiznessFGC]

You have a thorough understanding of why this genre is so fulfilling. The only additional comment I can make, is the fact that damn: no genre brings so much pride to its players, deservedly. In the end, all together, we fight alone. It's amazing. There's no one else to blame. Also, we're indie AF-

[@MrOzzification]

+AmazingGamingChannel Your victory (& in your contrast defeat) is yours & yours alone. Not because of some perk, item, rank or stat build. In fighting games its all down to your skill (a combination of some physical prowess, mental ability & emotional discipline). A round is like a challenge that requires problem-solving to overcome & not much else is as satisfying to the human brain as out-smarting your opponent.

[@guycitron5479]

+jay kj Very well-said. That is the essence of it.

[@KThyme]

+AmazingGamingChannel maybe not quite as indie as speedrunning since they still don't get that e-sports $$, but point made

[@erigor11]

+AmazingGamingChannel There is pride on defeating an equal to you: another human. But defeating something much superior to you... that's real fulfillment. Try, for example, ninja gaiden :P. It still can also be played against other people.

[@vialgyy]

+jay kj The same happens in a lot of games even in team oriented ones or games that use items since items are part of the problem, the only difference bettween games with or without items is that in games without them you can't affect your character stats. (but it still has a defined ones that define your play)

[@ThugitMcNugget]

Hardest thing about fighting games is being on the right side of the screen :( lol

[@crowns9966]

Thugitmcnugget Yooooo lmaoooo

[@helmiboboy]

Indeed, I'm so used to playing at the right side. It's weird to input from a left side since I wasn't used to it..

[@Zeromaru42]

I'm better at playing left side than Right. If I'm on right my playstyle especially in dragon ball fighterz takes a hit. Thankfully I got pretty good at coming up with either side mixups but they still throw me off when the person jumps over me. Especially if there's anything more than a 3 frame delay. There is nothing more satisfying when you get a comeback that absolutely destroys your opponent.

[@namenotfound8747]

get gud

[@forestlink6673]

Hahaha

[@paullamieux9718]

You don't take into account that there's literally no learning opportunity in getting thrashed in the corner by a pro...

[@Cunt143]

Getting trashed in the corner means you let him trash you in the corner which means you lost footsies. Learning how to deal with specific strategies in footsies is probably the most important part of the game.

[@paullamieux9718]

Well that's kinda my point though, like, there's no opportunity to learn when you can't grab the opportunity to even land a hit.

[@TosshiMayo]

''Getting thrashed in a corner'' is one of the most common problems when playing a match against a good player in a fighting game. But learning is possible yet. If you are closed in corner you can try to block each attack, waiting for an opportunity to counter. Or, you can just wait for an moment when you can jump above the opponent to the other side...Well, the point is: after losing, you gonna start to think on a plan to not being cornered and think more before acting, because you had passed that situation so many times that you got experienced to what you can't do. What makes an player good in a fighting game is the capacity of not give chance to opponent find an oppening and think before acting, not commiting excessive errors. This is acquired after losing many times and learning with your errors. If you lose on a regular match, the only culprit is yourself.

[@guesswho180]

Then learn how to not get pushed into the corner.

[@paullamieux9718]

You can't learn to not get pushed into the corner if you aren't given the opportunity to learn to not get pushed into the corner. Fighting games are the worst games for conveying to the player as to how to play.

[@HadoukenSpammer]

The problem is always time. The older you get, less time you have to invest in videogames. If the game demands an insane amount of hours for you to simply start having fun, it will quickly become a niche game.

[@FoxyPiratess]

Well said ... I took the time to be okayish with Street Fighter 2 ... come SF4 there was just so much more in the way of supers, ultras, etc. that I would have to learn as well, and am just not that ready to commit to learning all that ... why not learn something actually useful in life with all the time you need to 'get good'?

[@gre8000]

See this how I know that I'm getting older for video games by the fact that nowadays I prefer casual and simple games compared to hardcore or niche games that require time investment just to be able to enjoy the game.

[@ofilosofoouumfumante5655]

@@FoxyPiratess unless you have the health of a obese person, you can afford to spend some time daily to get better

[@CephlonMayngrum]

Just don't have kids or a significant other and you'll have plenty of time

[@Suika_Ibuki_The_Drunk_Oni]

The fact of the matter is that Fighting games are simply a genre that will NEVER be crazy popular. During the golden age of arcades it was, but that was a different time. The reason is quite simple actually. It all comes down to time Needed to be put into the game in order to mastery it. In order to get to a level you can be considered ''Decent'' will require hundreds of hours Practicing in training mode, Hard wiring moves and combos to muscle memory, Getting beat up by experts, learning about matchups and game mechanics so you can master every single manouver in your arsenal, Et cetera et cetera. Then you need to learn how to use all of those to actually win against someone who also knows about them. The problem is, None of this is fun. Doing the same combo over and over again against a dummy foe in training is not fun, staring at the same screen is not fun, going on a never ending losing streak is not fun, reading up on matchups only gets you frustrated, and so forth. And while you're doing this, you know that there is an avalanche of other genres you know you'd enjoy much faster. Many, many who try just say ''fuck it''. fighting games are not the only games that have this problem. Like dark souls, as it also has a learning curve and the game will kill you until you start to physically get ill, but you learn it AS you play through it. Someone who has beaten dark souls definetly knows how to play, and even has a chance against every foe who happens to invade his game. Alas, Fighting game can never have this luxury, as Computer simply, not matter how hard it's difficulty is, cannot replicate how an actual human being fights, because every player is different. Heck, the player might even know of a mechanic or an exploit the computer does not! You can tip the odds against the player when dealing with A.I. but this is a very bad idea, making the match feel unfair. And every battle in Fighting game is fair. Or at least mostly. You could simplify the game. But in doing so you also remove depth. I once asked when i was very young ''Why don't combo's just happen when you hammer the same button?'' Which is because, then every combo is the same, which is boring to play, and even more boring to watch. There is of course fighting games that have comboes you can do with one button, But that's only the first part. removal of mechanics that exist in every fighting game Hardly works, because if you do, the game feels boring. Thus, Fighting games are a genre that 75% of gamers do not have the time, patience, or desire to learn them. 25% of people who do, half succeed, other give up. I myself belong sadly to those who tried but failed. I do however, Find fighting games extremely interesting, fun to play with friends and Watch experts play.

[@jinchuriki7022]

su

[@Kjernekar]

I agree with your argument, but personally I find any pratice that pushes me to my end-goal to be really fun. Practicing electrics for 2 hours straight? Sure why not. It's fun getting better.

[@HawooAwoo]

So combos are the hill you say fighting games should die on? A hill that interrupts a multiplayer game (you fighting the other guy) with a single player game (you fighting the game mechanics that make comboing hard)?

[@Suika_Ibuki_The_Drunk_Oni]

Shane Vincent Combos are not the only hill. Heck, i would more compeare it to a mountain range. There is a lot more than just Combos to fighting games. Combo's however, i consider the the first hurdle. street fighter comboes i consider the most shortest and easiest, but they are still extremely difficult for anyone who has never really played 2D fighters before. And next you have to be able to pull them of consistently against real human opponents.

[@HawooAwoo]

***** Well how about this. Partly repeating an idea expressed in this video, keep the difficult combos, but also add easy to execute combos. And make it so that learning the hard combos is not necessary to be good at the game. It sort of makes me thing of Counter Strike: Global Offensive; a competitive game that I have logged 858hrs in. In the game, the only offline training you could do (outside aim training) is recoil control. Most of the weapons in CS:GO have a predictable recoil pattern that can be controlled. And if you can control it, they you can maintain high accuracy even while going full auto. But the way the game is designed is that fully learning the recoil pattern is not necessary. Maybe like for the first 5 or so shots (which is the easiest part; the recoil pattern gets significantly harder to control as it runs its course) is a good thing to learn. But you don't need to go fully auto in that game to be super good. Instead it turns into a sort of playstyle choice. You'll find people who base their gameplay and aiming around tap shooting. And then you'll find people who prefer burst fire. And then you'll find people who prefer full auto. And you'll find people from all three of these groups in top level play.

[@AceStarThe3rd]

Incredible video

[@randullVO]

Hi Ace!

[@CoreAGaming]

+AceStarThe3rd Thanks, man. Your channel is helping me figure out Wii U Smash :)

[@MetroAndroid]

In a lot of fighting games, my fingers can't move fast enough to do basic combos even when I know what I'm supposed to be doing. (There's a move in BlazBlue where you have to jump and buffer two quarter circles and a face button before your character starts the animation to jump; it's ridiculous. And that's in the easy training part. No hope.)

[@theSleepingSaxon]

BB veteran since Calamity Trigger, reporting in! ^.^7 Which character and which move is giving you trouble? Assuming it is still giving you trouble that is...

[@Ferdoe]

For example in my case: Many characters in Injustice 2 end combos with the throw input. (light+heavy) These though are very precise in timing. Most frustrating though. I go into practice and can execute perfectly. Any normal match for some reason. Even with the same timing just doesn't work out.

[@PooFaceMcButt]

I know this comment is old but hopefully you see this or someone else does who struggles with this. Do you mean that the move is a double quarter circle forward while airborne? The way you wrote it sounds like it's done during pre-jump frames but I'm not sure if that seems right. Very weird motion if so. Anyway, if you want to do this quickly it's not much different from doing it on the ground. Any motions done on the ground will also count while you're going into the air, as long as you do the motion during the buffer window for all special motions. So you can just do a regular grounded double QCF but just end the motion at up-forward. While you're jumping from the up-forward input, you can press the button and it will work.

[@Koronaut]

Just keep practicing.

[@NoisyyCricket]

Honestly, your thumb is probably swinging up too high when you try to perform the quarter circle motions. That used to happen to me all the time and I had to watch my thumbs movements before I could do it without looking.

[@thatshadowguy1005]

My answer would be that fighting games are hard because you're expected to both know enough about game mechanics to be able to form strategies, and have good enough reflexes to be able to apply that knowledge in real-time. Reflexes without strategy just makes you a button-masher, strategy without reflexes makes you really easy to read and unable to react or adapt, and precious few people have skill in both areas. It's basically speed chess on steroids.

[@scartissuefilms]

Yep. They are not fighting games, they are Rock, Paper and Scissors played at an insane speed...a speed that's physiologically impossible for all but the extreme outliers.

[@paracosmic1066]

From my experience as a professional tutor, I've found persistence to be essential to learning anything but the lowest of hanging fruits. However, it is also possible to guide a student or player with a logical progression of difficulty (not necessarily linear) that will allow them to reach higher levels of competency more efficiently. Once a degree of competence is established, persistence comes much easier. The line between hand-holding and guidance can be subtle, and it varies from individual to individual. I believe Extra Credit's main point was that with better guidance, players who would otherwise stop playing can attain some degree of competence. One may see this as coddling, but the end result is what is important. Expression of competence is rewarding. That psychological reward makes them want to play more. If more people can be made to reach a level of competence, the player-base increases, which hopefully creates better communities. Edit: A quick addition, I do think there is something to be synthesized here. You are right that single-player tutorial is a poor replacement for multiplayer. There is likely a good discussion on the utility of a good matchmaking system and its effects on skill acquisition to be had. TLDR; Brute-forcing skill acquisition is viable, but not optimal.

[@onesonicguy]

After this video, I feel much better about getting my ass kicked in USF4 and UMVC3. Thanks!

[@fishywtf]

dafuq you feel better about losing after watching this video. u should be disappointed in urself that you didn't put enuff time into practice mode.

[@ki9980]

fishywtf he basically said im order to learn, you have to grt beaten to learn your mistakes.

[@steventurous9000]

onesonicguy I remember you dude. what brings you to these parts?

[@onesonicguy]

Stephen Lyord Nothing much. Video games. And the fact that I kinda suck at most of them...

[@ThisIsGlamboy]

u cant be that bad.

[@suneenough]

I'll be honest - the "you shouldn't need a good tutorial to get good" attitude is probably a misunderstanding. There's a difference between being a good player and understanding how to play the game. If you honestly think getting bodied over and over again is going to teach you how to play, you probably shouldn't be making a video about why fighting games are hard. Imagine playing any game with complex controls and no tutorial for the first time.

[@tortture3519]

SuneEnough Exactly, I hoped people would be calling him out for that in the comments.

[@GarethXL]

Tortture I don't know about you guys but when SF 2 or tekken first came out there was no tutorial, the closest would be a small piece of paper stuck on the cabinet as a reminder and sometimes some info are incorrect or hard to understand. hell with tekken case unless you buy the official guide book you will get just about 5% of the total move list for half of the rosters. and those games were pay to play and are popular enough to last up until now.

[@tortture3519]

GarethXL Just because x can be succesful without y, doesn't mean that you shouldn't add y to the x.

[@Alex_Logan22]

+GarethXL SF2 and Tekken didn't need tutorials like modern games do

[@animelytical8354]

Spot on

[@jazzwell]

The hardest thing in fighting games for me isn't all that stuff you were talking about, it's the very basics. Getting a grasp on the movements, learning how to perform certain moves, and understanding how to combo different moves into eachother. When I started fighting games, those were the things that were hard for me. Literally just moving in a fighting game is hard. The walk is slow and you can't walk while attacking, the jumps aren't very precise, all that. Then on top of that, learning all the commands is tedious and I still find them hard to do with my regular console controller. Then, most of the moves don't naturally combo into eachother, they're all like seperate things and it feels a bit jarring to learn how to combo.

[@Doktor_Jones]

Thank you for not making me feel alone.

[@Bluelikeasquare]

I never realized how little time that was until you said a 32nd note at 150 bpm

[@afrohero9]

The hardest thing about fighting games 2 me is putting in the actual work to get gud at the game. going into training mode by yourself and practicing combos sounds easy but if you don't have the mind set Or dedication to practice you'll never be gud and your going to be frustrated when you go to tourneys and lose

[@Symbiote7872]

+Eric Nobles I'm with you dude. I love fighting games so much, winning, losing almost all of it. that salt after taking a hard L gets me mashing buttons to start the next match like never before. But I get no joy from training mode, I just cant get motivated to sit and drill combos. It's weird because i can do it for other games. rhythm games (GH,RB), time trials in racing games, some platformers i find myself doing a run back on tough levels to do it zero deaths or just a few sec quicker. But i cant stand training mode

[@afrohero9]

+condoriano exactly! I love fighting games but training mode is such a turn off. I'm just not patient enough for it

[@afrohero9]

I'm pretty decent in most games other MvC I can't with that series

[@afrohero9]

***** but I know need to practice, I been forcing myself to for Smash and KoF

[@familydude-lq7ec]

+Eric Nobles Perhaps start involving yourself in the community. Check out some Discord groups. Or delve into streams like Maximillian's channel. I'm sure he has a fan Discord channel where you can not only discuss strategies, but also acquire new training buddies. I understand how you feel, training mode is pretty much the same as locking yourself in a loony bin. It's maddening after a while.

[@realinho]

Hey, cooking instant ramen is VERY gratifying!

[@randymartinez1113]

Realinho Exactly

[@danielwappner1035]

Almost as much as eating it

[@grathlar]

Especially when you put jus the right ammount of water XD💯

[@TheBestWanderbug]

Someone gets me

[@marcogarcia7944]

Realinho yeah but burning your ramen a 100 times isnt worth it

[@beebop1936]

The hardest thing in fighting games is having no friends or partners to play with.

[@BauliusTorvoltos]

This. I want to get into FGCs but I dont have anyone who can teach me. It's all good looking at guides on YT but they only go so far.

[@SomeoneThatIsHappy]

Most of my friends are playing fortnite sadly

[@IWantToStayAtYourHouse]

Learning a fighting game legitimately feels like work sometimes. Its hard to convince someone to play and learn a fighting game with you

[@236Doodad]

This is why Discord is amazing.

[@ellie8272]

I'm sorry but getting "bodied" does not teach you how to play, the closer you are in level of skill to the person you beat the more you learn. "They're just as good as me so what did I do wrong" or "What did they do right" being closer in level makes that aspect so much easier to pick up on

[@HsmAsTa]

Getting bodied doesn't teach you anything only if you're tilted about getting bodied. I used to get 4 stocks by a guy in my town in melee when I started to play, at first that just discouraged me, but then I started to accept the fact that I was getting bodied and started to think about what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. I learned how to recognize and punish his mistakes, and now guess what ? After a year of playing I don't get bodied anymore, and I can even beat him sometimes. And now when I play against other ppl, I can see their mistakes much easier than if I played and trained against a player of my skill. In other words I learned faster by getting bodied.

[@Summer_Tea]

Both of you are right to an extent. If you're playing ranked matches or something and you just get destroyed by someone who you play 2 fights against and will never see again, you will learn nothing. But if you go up against someone way better than you in an unranked set and they don't mind beating the pulp out of you for 20-30 fights, then you will almost certainly be better against them towards the end of your set.

[@hydaragaming4125]

Natsu you are absolutely right. That happened to me. After getting destroyed by my friend numerous times, i was able to beat him.

[@fabianoyaga8610]

Basically practicing with a friend that knows way more than you.

[@AirahsELL]

ADAM4NTE it's still a problem because half the time you don't know what you're doing and even when you figure it out the other half the time the other player has the perfect answer and you end up thinking that you did something wrong when what you ended up doing was actually a correct response. Losing to a pro teaches you nothing. There's a reason why you don't fight a black belt your first day of a martial art.

[@AirMan928]

I love your videos dude. As someone who enjoyed fighting games before, this channel has made me appreciate them in an entirely new way.

[@CoreAGaming]

Thanks for watching!

[@rabielougmani1974]

I definitely agree with you.

[@PomLamb]

Have you watched the movie real steel? Real steel sorta reflects how new players approach fighting games.

[@AzinuHarru]

I have bad timing and rhyme in fighting game.

[@empress6875]

rhyme? do you mean rhythm?

[@IzzyHackworth]

Losing to a good player because they're just technically better than you (but you can see at least some of why they're better) can be fun, because you're learning the game as you lose, and you can steal some of their techniques. Losing to a good player because some shit happened to your character that you can't yet comprehend (because you don't have the baseline experience required to understand) is kinda trash. I mostly like the videos you make, but there's a difference between "I can't beat the best players in the world and I'm gonna cry about it" and "literally what the fuck just happened to cause my loss" and fighting games generally have problems teaching new players to see what actually just happened to lead to their loss, possibly because of the short rounds and emotional investment which make high level play so fun, which is why extra credits suggested slow mo training modes and such. The pity is, because of fighting games's high tactical and technical skill floor, a lot of potential players just bounce off the entire genre, so they never get to comprehend the skill ceiling. Evo Moment 37 means literally nothing to someone who doesn't know enough about the game's mechanics to comprehend what a parry is, why that was the best option, and how Daigo influenced the match to force that situation, even before they learn how technically challenging that sequence of parries was.

[@coolman123icool]

Really late but I agree with you. I love playing a set where I get demolished because I can understand why I lost. If you’re a new player constantly getting tick-thrown in the corner though, you’re gonna be tilted. you

[@massterwushu9699]

Joel Hackworth An hr or 2 in practice mode is really all you need to beat an AI opponent in most fighting games. The online PVP is really just one mode out of many. Games like Mortal Kombat have great story modes, Arcade Ladders, Krypt, Customizations, Weekly Towers and a wealth of other single player content which well worth the $60 base price. You’re really just upset that you can’t beat a human opponent(consistently), and that you can’t tell why you lost sometimes......That takes time and a deeper understanding of the games mechanics. We all want easy wins, but keep in mind that , for every “easy win”, there is crushing defeat on the other side of that tv screen. And the one who gets the most wins, is usually gonna be the one who took the time and made the effort to learn..

[@massterwushu9699]

Simon Farre Dude, you’re a clown and you don’t know jack shit about fighting games. Are you seriously implying that 2d fighting games are inherently less technical than 3D ? How the fuck did you draw that conclusion?

[@cyanure1320]

@Simon Farre nope mk has one of the best tutorial and training mode in fighting games however it don t teach you how to adapt to an opponent because it s up to you, if you play poker or tennis nobody will tell you always go all in when that happen or always do a smash when that happen, you can do it in pve mode but not versus a real oppenent you will become predictable . what they teach you however it s perfect , it s what you can do what is the risk of doing it if this don t work what is the reward if it work, but the situation where you have to do or not do something is up to you and same thing for your oponnent but i agree on one of your point, it s true that you have a little more defensive choices and defensives possibilities in some 3d games than in some other 2d games (it depend some 2 d games have a lot of defensive options too) and 2d games seem to rewarding more often the ofensive player than the defensive player, however at least in the case of 2 average players

[@superheriber27]

No tutorial will ever prepare you against another human

[@Phloxix]

Fighting games feel like this to me: Okay kid, today your gonna learn how to swim! *Throws kid in 8 ft side of the pool with no floaties*

[@joshuaowens2418]

Play story for basics Arcade for battle sense And then play ranked(if available).

[@night1952]

Fighting games are Heihachi and newbies are Kazuya.

[@klickklack_pron9504]

@Awhol Lotta Whoopass did you learn to swim still?

[@teeemo3445]

My dad told me that's how he learned to swim.

[@yisuselgarza3496]

@@teeemo3445 besto way xD

[@cookerlv]

This is why Smash Bros is possibly the most unique fighting game out there. On the beginner level, there is basically a casual gameplay mode that anyone can enjoy because it doesn't require much skill to play. But higher up, Smash can be just as complicated as any other fighter requiring just as much skill to win.

[@themacattack671]

+CookerLV Honestly I would argue that Melee is the most in-depth and complex fighting game ever created.

[@shadow0416]

+themacattack671 The fact that we're still discovering new tech in a 15 year old game is astounding.

[@maciaga]

+themacattack671 idk about that but I'd definitely argue it's the most complex party game. #Kappa

[@TheGreatUtopiaCat]

+CookerLV beginner level? Wtf is that...u mean just like playing noobs? Smash is the hardest fighting game at higher levels it involves way more spacial coordination and vertical gameplay not to mention off edge gameplay

[@octaviogonzalez8794]

+TheGreatUtopiaCat He meant that beginner mode is playing Hyrule with items on. We know how deep the game goes.

[@Cheezmonka]

Having the technical skills floor being as high as it is, to the point of some games either requiring that you literally only play that one game all the time and/or own a fightstick to make inputs easier, is also what holds a ton of people back. Why should they have to burn another $80 on a new controller or turn practice into a job just to get to the skill floor, let alone to be "competitive"? I play fighting games, I'm only OK at them, but at least I generally sort of know what I'm doing, but it's only because I started playing them in middle school and had a ton of free time to just grind away at learning how to play BlazBlue as my first back when CT came out. If I hadn't spent so much time back then and just tried to learn it now in my twenties, there's no way I'd get into them.

[@FoxyPiratess]

I get you ... I did learn the basics of Smash Bros. Wii U/3DS and Ultimate ... won some matches online ... but, in person? Got wupped. I just want to have fun with my mates like in the old days on the SNES ... I don't want to spend hours to learn not just moves but every tiny detail of the game AND try to figure out my opponent's strategy too ... or deal with the CPU cheating, although that was certainly a thing back in the 90s too.

[@pickledparsleyparty]

I swear to God, every time someone says "To get better at fighting games, you just have to keep playing, man. Lose to players better than you over and over, and you'll just get it, eventually," they're right.

[@jamierose9095]

Bullshit.

[@pickledparsleyparty]

Actually, it is a little bullshit. You don't simply get your ass kicked over and over until you learn how to win by intuition. At a certain point, you do have to know how to figure out why you lost and then understand your character well enough to combat the reason you lost. But, starting from 0 (a new player), simply playing a bunch will strengthen your intuition. Your "heart" according to Laugh's taxonomy. Without even thinking critically about the game, that will at least take you to the point at which you can beat other new players reliably. Just using your gut feel during a fight. So it is a way to break into the FGC competitive space--a way to get past the new phase when you feel helpless and you expect to lose every fight. After that, losses will feel like something that was avoidable, not something that was inevitable. You'll be in the FGC, and then the game becomes getting better at the game, not winning the game. But you definitely won't make it to Killer on "just play" alone.

[@blackpants7385]

True that.

[@pickledparsleyparty]

"or if i'm too early with my combo or too late (and if I missed a button on top of being too early or late)." I completely know how you feel, here. Learning target combo systems is laborious for exactly that reason. There's all this doubt and possibility when we're new that it makes diagnosing dropped combos a real pain in the ass. IMO, this is one of the reasons MKX and KI are serious alternatives to SF and Guilty Gear. MKX replaces strict target combo timing with intuitive juggle timing. Instead of wondering whether or not you're inputting the second button on the correct frame, your goal is understanding your move's startup and then timing it so that your move hits the other guy in the air. That makes so much more sense than the arbitrary frame-tight timings in target combo systems. And KI replaces combo timing with combo rhythm and mind games. Openers, linkers, autos, manuals and enders create a rhythm you can feel, so they don't depend upon timings you have to memorize. And what really makes the combo system engaging is that your opponent is still interacting with you while you combo them. They can break your combo if they're good. This means, while you're in combo rhythm, you're also concerned with tricking them into a lockout or baiting/feeling a counter breaker opportunity.

[@duaneblommaert976]

Thats why he said that when you lose you should rewatch the tapes and see what you did wrong and why it was wrong. Trial and error my friend. You can actually get good by trial and error. I am by no means good at fighting games, but I fight at a competent average level in them and im just okay with that :) I know the terminology and I know combos. I know what to do a bit. Its fun.

[@A432Hz]

0:30 “I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick”

[@chileanguyfleegman]

Only those who can tame their ego get good. By looking at what you did wrong without emotions you find the best and most logical way to go.

[@Nkodtb]

Chilean Guanaco well said

[@shampoo768]

I agree. Enjoy your losses. You need to train with better people to become better otherwise you will plateau. The fun part is figuring out how to beat someone better than you.

[@Donzaloon]

Chilean Guanaco real shit. you can apply that anywhere in life

[@KingGruesome74]

words of a veteran gamer respect

[@ROFLHELIPWNS]

Chilean Guanaco i didnt know alpacas played sf4 o:

[@javierzelaya717]

Hardest thing about fighting games to me is learning the terminology and how to apply it.

[@logandunlap9156]

that’s literally the easiest part

[@javierzelaya717]

@@logandunlap9156 nah mane. For example, even if I know the term or definition doesn't mean I can identify it or apply it either. Like what the F*** even is an option select? Another example, I'm playing with a friend and I press a crouching button knowing I can dodge their projectile. They say "didn't know you can low profile that. That was really good" and I'm like "nani?" Lol

[@webbowser8834]

@@TetraBui low profiling and crouching are two different things actually. Low profiling is when you lower your character's head WITHOUT crouching. For example, Little Mac in Super Smash Brothers lowers his head significantly while running, allowing him to dodge moves that would hit him if he were standing or walking. I highly recommend looking at this site for fighting game terms. It just came out and it's SUPER useful. glossary.infil.net/ (yes I am aware this didn't exist at the time you posted, useful resource is still useful)

[@burningsnow9870]

The problem I face is the playstyles I have fun with are almost always the weakest ones as most players tend to gravitate towards low risk characters with the exceptionally good picking whomever. Unless it's mortal kombat or Street fighter (even them to a degree) some playstyles and characters are flat out unplayable despite skill. So all the effort the new player puts into understanding a playstyle that resonates with them is washed away in favor of more popular or "meta" options. Which can turn experienced players and new players away.

[@-TPLT]

To me, it feels like this is one of those things like writing or drawing. Fighting games involves a bit of suffering through studying and practice if you want to feel satisfied doing it.

[@sladejosephwilson2300]

Good comparison

[@ZS05]

The hardest thing for me in fighting games is memorizing combos. Plus making a whole list just to remember all these moves and then feel the pressure to try out combos even against CPUs is hell for me.

[@DryTEKGI]

memorizing combos and then your side gets switched and I am like a fish out of the water.

[@happypunky4129]

I just feel like I can't do the right thing at the right time. I wish there was some hidden tech, but obviously thats not a thing, I grew up playing shooters like tf2, Siege, csgo, battlefield, halo, and cod... Especially the first three of those, so playing other shooters like paladins, overwatch, and other random games comes relatively naturally to me, and I have friends who don't play shooting games who I've played with- who sound very similar to my issue, "I just can't aim fast enough or move." So I guess it kind of goes both ways? I hoped that'd make me feel better but it doesn't, its demoralizing to play Strive- a simple game, and not even be able to perform consistent combo's, or block, dodge, or even grasp the limited amounts of mechanics, sometimes I feel like I just can't.

[@Azure9577]

Get your neutral game together Neutral game refers to playing without any special moves or flashy combos

[@WeedSmoker69]

@@Azure9577 that's not what neutral means

[@Azure9577]

@@WeedSmoker69 I know now lmao, that was 9 months ago

[@TheUltimaFortuna]

Mortal Kombat 11 has the best tutorial ever. It even explains frames to beginners and has character specific tutorials.

[@icheatinexam5606]

MK11 has great tutorials,but ArcSystemWorks did it first with BlazBlue & Guilty Gear.

[@Spider-K]

@@icheatinexam5606 ikr

[@PaladinOfSpirit]

Mk11 does have an amazing tutorial but it can be very broken at times and I wish it went over how to choose your options more in neutral and all that

[@davidj2074]

Yes MK 11 shows the guts of the fighting game mechanics, but when it comes to character specific tutorial it feel a little short. What can I say I liked Street Fighter for the character knowledge and linking combos.

[@LTDLetsPlays]

UltimaFortuna sorry lad but guilty gear and Undernight in birth has superior tutorials and explains Almost everything except frame data

[@SarabandeGreens]

It has a lot in common with why people, especially as they get older, give up on learning an instrument. There's a big stretch initially where you aren't good enough to do anything enjoyable, and don't have the preexisting musical education to know how to formulate simple but nice sounding sequences. it's really miserable grinding away at something that isn't rewarding in the least with the anticipation of someday being able to play something even okay sounding.

[@Ana-vn1dx]

I feel like the "you get better by playing against people better than you" is a half truth. You get better from playing the game with the desire to get better. Whether that be putting time in a training map with a sandbag to practice combos, against a cpu to practice against a moving target, or against a real opponent to practice your reads. Playing against an opponent that is much better than you rarely results in getting better. This is usually a fallacy i hear repeated by smurfing people who just want an excuse to play against low ranked players.

[@keenanbothma228]

There's a bit of a gap between 'a better player' and someone who can kick your ass into the dirt without a sweat. I think fighting someone who knows a bit more than you gives you a chance to see what you could be doing differently. But yeah, I agree that if your opponent is so far out of your league that you can't even decipher what he's doing, then you ain't gonna learn shit.

[@TheKorbi]

I think it's best when you play against/with a variety of people. You can learn behavior from better people, or just people with a different playstyle. You can see how things actually work in a competitive environment, or why certain things aren't that good even though they seemed good at first glance, when you play against better people. Also worse players than you are useful partners (as Ramsey Dewey has put it: You need to spar with wimps), because with them you can practice certain moves and combinations.

[@joshuaowens2418]

Nah it depends on how much better they are. It teaches how to act under pressure. Only fighting cpus teaches bad habits because a CPU doesn't fight like a human. Fight low-skill opponents for learning but fight higher-skill opponents for the experience of applying what you learned. Watch your replays and watch pro matches look at what you did wrong and look at what they did wrong. Also find people who love the game enough to teach you stuff

[@jeh8944]

You get better by playing people of the same skill level in my opinion Edit: I mean slightly better but don’t play against people who will clap you

[@bonerpants7203]

You should think of it in weight lifting terms. You need to lift weight that you can handle, but still struggle with. Once you don't struggle with that weight anymore you move on. Occasionally you need to max out. See what the heaviest weight you can lift right now is to gauge where you are. Find out how strong you are at your best, then plan your training with that limit in mind. Repeat until your at the desired strength. Sometimes your strength will plateau, but you gotta keep grinding. Eventually you'll rise above plateau. Now just replace everything I said with fighting game terminology. Practice against bots til the bots are too easy, then play casual online matches. Occasionally in these casual matches you'll run into someone who's far above you in skill, and then you see where your limits are. Once you're winning really often in casual, move on to ranked.

[@bombtail]

I personally find that the hardest part about learning fighting games is overcoming the long history I have with single player games. I have conditioned myself to expect to win, and that's been a HUGE barrier to overcome for me.

[@NemtYT]

"It's not hard you just suck" -every gamer every time anyone says any game is hard

[@NemtYT]

There's also "you only dislike it because you suck at it"

[@fakedeltatime]

+nemt and that's in most cases true. Some people can't enjoy a game if they can't play it properly.

[@cius2112]

+nemt There are two types of gamers, those who start bad, practice then become good and those wo start bad and complain about it. We aren't dumb, we actually put in the work so we know someone just sucks and is just crying out for attention.

[@OnEiNsAnEmOtHeRfUcKa]

+Pass_the_M Not always, my friend. Sometimes the game is actually obtuse, and extremely unfriendly to new players. Sometimes the players start bad, practice and just aren't capable of becoming good no matter how hard they try. And sometimes, players legitimately need help when it comes to grasping how to play. Shunning these people and just labelling them all as a bunch of crybabies does nothing but hurt fighting games as a whole. Plus I've seen way too much legitimate criticism shut down with an ignorant deflection of "lol git gud scrub".

[@spootot]

'git gud'

[@mushmak]

people just wana be good with out practice or training

[@t4d0W]

+bennymountain1 *True. But maybe there has to be a way to have fun while not good yet?* The process to being _good_ is never subjectively fun. It takes a lot of lab work, combing through resources and making sure you do enough repetitions to get that idea in your head when you do play. The idea of all this is that when shit DOES go south, your brain doesn't go in panic mode. You accept the scenario and you through all the practice and repetitions, you use your best judgment to get out of the situation. In MOBAS its even worse since you can be as "helpful" as you can but if the weakest link feeds the other team through their coordination, it doesn't matter how good you can be. At least in fighting games, believe it or not your work ethic speaks for the goals you strive and the results you attain.

[@t4d0W]

bennymountain1 *are all things people don't look for in entertainment* Which is why fighting games are pretty niche because the fact you have people who willingly do those activities to be able to get better at playing a fighting game means it provides them entertainment, to an extent. A lot of hobbies also doesn't call for constant self evaluation and self improvement to attain goals. Besides there is no competitive spirit in learning how to play guitar. You can do it on your own pace and not have someone reinforce you at how sucky you are in the beginning. The mentality is just different.

[@SonicDMonkey]

+bennymountain1 In MOBAs you can get chain-stunned or bursted down by 2-3 spells in seconds, which is an equally hopeless feeling. Hell when you're new in a MOBA you're getting ganked all game long because you don't know jack about positioning yet. So, lousy analogy.

[@SonicDMonkey]

That's something else. It's true, but unrelated to the other point.

[@gateofbabylon9177]

+Yui Karica Oh gee star craft is nothing but learning build order and muscle memory, easiest competitive game ever. See how your analogy is bad? Also as someone who has 1500 hours in dota 2 I strongly disagree; fighting games are harder as you need to perfect your execution, the match up knowledge and reading your opponent. In Mobas you just need to learn the characters and some strategies but often you can blame your team mates; a fighting game you have no one to blame but yourself

[@Arkanthrall]

Thank you for convincing me that I'd rather learn how to play the violin than a fighting game.

[@theoutlier35134]

Why not both? :)

[@harveydent1731]

The Outlier One is cooler

[@khary30]

Probably a more productive activity haha

[@boitahaki]

Learning a fighting game is much, much more fun than learning how to play an instrument, trust me, I tried.

[@toocoolforskill3523]

boitahaki sorry I am biased but I love learning everything and I learn both

[@RexPhalange]

The hardest thing is the lingo. Tutorials are filled with technical terms I can't understand. Damn it.

[@fieryfist3150]

For me it’s the CPU. Specifically the older games, they always pull off some dumb mechanic or cheat or buff themselves to win. I don’t have friends to fight against so I just don’t play the game.

[@judith4987]

there are plenty of videos out there to help! Core A Gaming's "Why Button Mashing doesn't Work" has explanations for a lot of the key terms in a digestible format :)

[@RexPhalange]

@@judith4987 I've watched that vid before. It is not digestible. 😁😁 When he talked about the frame thing, he sounded like he's speaking northern Martian to me.

[@IronicHavoc]

@@RexPhalange It basically just boils down to "is this action faster or slower than my opponents action, and can I do something before they're able to act again". Plus frames mean your move is faster, minus frames mean your opponent's move is faster, a frame trap is when one person's move is so much faster that the other person has no followup move that could respond in time. Even if you don't totally grasp it I think that video still sums it up in such that you get the gist of it. And even if you don't get the frame stuff the rest of the video is still totally digestible IMO. Enough for you to at least get a semi competent understanding of the terminology. Just because something is digestible doesn't mean it's going to be entirely effortless to understand, or that you should tune it all out the moment if it becomes challenging to follow at some point.

[@AndyBrixton999]

I think concepts are way more important than their names. My gameplay is based in footsies and I found out the name of that concept just yesterday. Also I've performed several 'meaty' hits without even knowing they were called that lol y just called that 'timing'

[@artstsym]

"This mentality of 'new game companies better help us get good, or you won't get as many sales' fails to understand that getting to high level play is up to the player, not the game companies." The explosive reemergence of the roguelike market would beg to differ. Design (in general, everywhere) isn't about lowering the ceiling, it's about raising the floor. You can't avoid falling while skating, but you can wear protective equipment and choose where you skate. Fighting games should INCENTIVIZE players to play multiplayer, but the idea that they're anywhere near meeting players halfway on the information exchange is laughable. Also, pointing prospective fighting game designers to Capcom's financial success with an already established brand is meaningless. "Just think, with hundreds of millions of dollars in development and marketing, and a name synonymous with fighting games, you too can match their profits!"

[@artstsym]

I know it sounds like I just came here to rag on your video (I didn't, I've watched and enjoyed quite a lot of your library), but this is kind of a high level player misunderstanding that you see in a lot of genres. No, it's not the game companies' job to make you good at the game (and no amount of mechanical innovation on their part can do that, anyway), but it IS their job to make you WANT to be good at the game, and most fighting games are atrocious at this.

[@rebelbeammasterx8472]

Real Number one reason to not get into fighting games: Huge amount of special moves which are just walls of text.

[@RedOphiuchus]

I think you're misunderstanding what Extra Credits is talking about in regards to tutorials, and single player gameplay. The point isn't that it should train a player to reach high level competitive play, everyone is aware that that is impossible. Rather, it should give people a taste of competitive play. In many fighting games the single player, like you demonstrated, can be overcome with cheesy tactics, and often button mashing. When people low level players lose in a single player fighting game, they often feel like the computer was cheap, the character they were fighting was cheap, or they simply got unlucky. If the game did a better job of illustrating what options they had and how they could have overcome the challenge, they could instead change tactics and go in again with a new strategy. This is a smaller version of what high level competitive fighting games are like, thus equipping the player with the tools needed to improve against real players once they're done with single player. Teaching them how to learn high level play, rather than teaching them high level play straight up.

[@623masterchief]

Thank you I really don't see how so many people misunderstood that. Or at least seemed too.

[@maxben3391]

They didn't misunderstand, the misrepresented on purpose to make a point. Otherwise known as a strawman

[@ALPHAHXCORE]

Actually, hes also not talking about high level competitive play. No knowledge of mechanics prepars u for mashing kens even in bronze leauge. its simple to beat them, but u actually need to feel what it feels like to play a person moreso than to know any 1 mechanic. Instead u need to learn about mechanics 1 by 1 slowly incorportating it into ur play, while trying to win against human players. If u go online learn every mechanic and then try to play a match, ull piss urself from not being able to incorporate all of that shit into your play.

[@tortture3519]

Maxben especially the "You don't get to high level play by doing multiple choice quizzes" proves that he's strawmanning the argument. Who was talking about multiple choice quizzes?

[@Suchega_Uber]

I absolutely hate this idea. Fuck competitive play. If you have to hate yourself to pretend you enjoy a thing, you are doing it wrong. How about a real reason to play like compelling stories and interesting characters?

[@nonocere]

The reason why it's so hard for me to get into Fighting Games is that, unlike any other genre I play, if I get destroyed, I often learn nothing at all. If I play something like idk Rocket League, if I get destroyed, I can clearly see and learn through the things I did wrong, maybe I need to be more aggressive, maybe I need to improve my defense, simple stuff like that. While in Dragon Ball FigherZ for instance, everything happens so fast and with so many flashy effects and movements that look so similar to one another that the only thing I see clearly is my health bar melting while I can hardly move at all.

[@losthope6935]

You get it. I also don't learn much from fighting games if I lose. I learn more from my chess wins and losses since I can see what I did right or wrong.

[@lunk642]

Would be really nice if there was a single player mode that taught you these concepts so you didn’t have to figure them all out yourself

[@Yuberz]

I think that if DBFZ too fast paced for you, try a slower paced game, since DBFZ is one of the fastest games people play. In something like SF6 it is very easy to identify where you went wrong for example. It IS possible to get into DBFZ but you have to find someone on your skill level. It was my first fighting game and I had a training partner who grew alongside me until I mastered the fundamentals which helped me into loving the whole genre!

[@truboricua]

Fighting games require something that almost no other genre does: training. Getting good at fighting games literally requires hours and hours playing training mode, staring at the same screen and practicing combos and moves over and over and over again. Fighting game players (at least those who are good) are the video game version of real life fighters (as goofy as it sounds). The training mode is their version of a real life gym and like a real fighter, it takes days and weeks and months and even years to get very good. Most gamers simply don't have the time or patience to spend hours a day simply tinkering around in training mode or going through tons of ranked matches playing the same character on the same stages for hours at a time. Take a look at fighting game website like shoryuken.com and you'll see articles harping on the tiniest little detail like a certain character's crouching medium kick has different frames or whatever and it's a huge deal for them. Fighting games have a huge learning curve if you're playing against good opposition. I myself get bored spending a long time in training and I get much of my enjoyment from playing the computer or my friends. Online is something of no man's land for me since I don't put in half the time online guys do since I"m usually at a real gym training myself. These games require a lot of investment to compete and if you're like me and mostly play story-based action games, fighting games offer little aside from a few game nights with friends.

[@t4d0W]

+truboricua Its the reverse for me. I only feel motivated when I'm getting my ass handed to. Because then I have material to comb over and see where my habits are coming up against human opponents. So I use this get better and address my in game weakness so I can track my progress. But I do agree with your assessment about training and getting better. IRL work ethic also translates strongly in people who get themselves involve in competitive fighting games.

[@vietthepirate]

+truboricua i didn't do training room first 3 years of playing the game, you get to a certain level, and then the stuff you find in training room is sometimes mindboggling, and it's fun.

[@t4d0W]

vietthepirate yeh. Its ironic because the training room mode was always there. Yet newbies would willingly dive to online matches or just play cpu all day to get comfortable with the game. Even when training room modes improved like dummy AI programming, position reset and being able to other things, people never paid attention to it.

[@androidmetroid9131]

+truboricua this is exactly my point. A game like SF4 is all about how many hours you spend in the "lab" and how much you can copy to your muscle memory. The amount of time needed to master the game vs the fun ratio is not balanced. Many people on steam have logged hundreds to thousands of hours in SF4 and have yet to achieve the level of perfection of pros like that of diago. People have other things in life, gaming is not their profession nor are they getting sponsored in doing so. This is what makes fighting games especially SF4 unreasonably hard. Them 1 frame links and difficult combos, many of them require muscle memory are naturally barriers to entry to many people. some already commented of not being able to perform specific combos after so many years of playing SF4.

[@vietthepirate]

+BludAardvark online is a different game. i think my point is.... there's friends to be had at the low level. i know a few people who hated losing and spent a lot of time playing by themselves and missed out on a lot of friends. arcade i think is where it's at... or even local community casuals. ok, this is easier to understand, k: you don't start basketball by going to basketball school, k, you start basketball by.... you and your cousin or something, it's summer time, there's nothing to do, you're like 10 years old, you're playing 1 on 1, or 2 on 2 at the park or in the cul de sac. like.... there's a lot of fun to be had, and that's the point, the point isn't being kobe as soon as possible. or is it. lol.

[@jamminjelly117]

I think you may be underestimating the argument raised in the Extra Credits episode. Fighting games are challenging to learn because there is next to no feedback outside of messing with the options in the training mode. Take Skullgirls for instance, it drastically improved the ability to learn fighting games with some design choices like the infinite combo reader and input prediction for unintuitive moves but it really shines by having a tutorial that actually spells out complicated techniques for you. But even having all that the game didn't have a combo list built into it for whatever reason. Plus the tutorial never covered important things like the block push, which is required to play zoning characters well. Newcomers can't learn because they are literally not being given the information in a way that's readable, and having a community that is built on shit talking isn't very conducive to newcomers. I'm all for the hype and the tension and the camaraderie but it sure as hell ain't easy to pick up a new fighting game like I can a team based shooter or a deep tactical game. Still, great video and you make some great points but that's just my $0.02.

[@GangurEXE]

I came here for answers, but I'm leaving with a bitter taste in my mouth

[@kohlrak]

If you want answers, I can help. Are you wanting to get better at playing, or are you wanting to get better at teaching? The answer is similar, but the perspective i give depends on what you're playing and what you're trying to do.

[@jojolaexperiencia7070]

kohlrak What game do you play?

[@yanb5121]

Can someone help me? I'm trying to play mk x but it's all I can do is smash the buttons. Even in story mode I get beat up by the AI the difficult setting is on easy btw

[@kohlrak]

I don't play anything. I occasionally smash, but that's just a mess with nintendo's online matching, and VF, the game i feel most comfortable with at this point, is so dead (SEGA, why?) i don't bother playing. MKX, never played it. I have it on steam, but my computer can't handle it. @yan andrade, if you find a way to talk to me in private, i do know how to figure out how to teach yourself the game.

[@taejoonkim5122]

yan andrade pick a main...preferably an easy one, such as scorpion. Learn the fundamentals of the game such as when to block and check out tutorial videos for beginners. And I'm pretty sure the AIs on easy barely block in mkx...so u could straight up win by zoning or just uppercutting repeatedly. U mentioned that u couldn't beat the AIs even with them being on easy. If so, then the problem probably has to do with u simply not blocking enough. Edit: im guessing this is ur first fighting game. Because the story mode in mortal kombat x have u play through different characters, try vs mode instead.

[@ethanalspencer7294]

Some of the coolest moments in playing fighting games online were going really long sets in Soulcalibur VI where I kept losing, but then finally learned enough to win a game, and the opponent (having no voicechat) crouched a few times in recognition like 'yeah, good job kid, nice win'. Then being able to do that for someone else later down the line. It's such a good feeling, taking the time to learn a system and improve at it and get to places you thought you wouldn't skill wise just by keeping at it.

[@justsomeguy8385]

I think staying positive is the hardest thing. It's easier to keep playing in team games, not because you can blame your teammates when you lose, but because they are are there to keep playing with. It's a support structure that doesn't really exist in online fighters. It sort of exists in person, but only if people are actively trying to motivate each other.

[@duckyedits6753]

Yeah

[@dwnpour4122]

Very True.

[@Method2k5]

+Kwyjibo O_o Thats true, but I think when it comes to online it again comes down to the player and how much they want to reach out to others and how far they are personally willing to go. When I started vanilla I would play endless, and beg people to stay in my room so I could learn what was going wrong, ask people who beat me to play in a FT5, or go to online forums to get tips. Eventually I got good enough to go to local tournaments and surprised some people since I was decent, but had never been seen before. Support is just as big online as it is locally, but the player has to be willing to take the steps to get out of their comfort zone and find that help.

[@justsomeguy8385]

+Method2k5 I'm not saying that people who play online don't want to help. In team games, you can play with friends or meet people and put together a team. If you get salty, you have 4 other guys who want you to keep playing. You don't even have to want it, you just have to want to keep playing with your friends or be part of a team.

[@Method2k5]

+Kwyjibo O_o I didn't say you did. I was only saying the support players have online in comparison to offline comes down to their comfort zone and how willing they are to find people. Of course with friends playing with you instead of against staying positive is easier, all I'm saying is those players have to seek out that support when they get negative and be more proactive.

[@aytug3431]

"beating the right person at the right time can start your fighting game career" thats what happened to me. while i was 7, my 11 years old brother was beating me in all games like chess, card games, running etc. one day his friend bring a Mortal Kombat III cd to home. That was the first time i beat his ass down in a game lol.

[@chillaxboi2109]

Do you go to tournaments?

[@legendarynoob4862]

I dont think blind trial and error is the solution and EC wasnt saying we give everyone a participation trophy. Its after you, to use Yahtzee's analogy, slam your head in into a brick wall, the game needs to be understandable at your level so you can understand why you lost and learn to get good. Its about the gamr helping someone get good and not you being fourced to find it out on your own.

[@cacintron]

Memorizing combos, doing the moves fast. I mean somehow I’m expected to remember the 3 to 5 button combination to press flawlessly to counter something that takes the character a second to do.

[@sludgecased]

just go to training mode and practice the combo to build muscle memory, then it will be much easier

[@MrTubeStuck]

Its the competition... I remember when I started playing tekken, I was always getting bodied by this one guy. No matter what I did was working (i didnt know a lot to begin with) but I was starting to understand what Im doing in the game. Then, I started understanding what he was doing, i was getting some success but was still not winning. Then I started trying out the stuff that dude was doing. Then it finally happened, my first legit win, but was still getting bodied. after a few more weeks, the games were starting to swing into 50/50 range. There I realized that I was getting good enough but wanted to learn more. What I wanted to say is that fighting games will always have that kind of wall, whatever innovation comes into play. If a person is not willing to learn from a loss, that person would not be willing enough to play the game long enough to learn it.

[@roderickmayfield895]

i think u just answered a question that i posted to GUNNAR 1 day ago.

[@CurlyHairedRogue]

I know this is old, but the most frustrating thing I face in fighting games is the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing wrong most of the time. That was kind of what Extra Credits was getting at with the single player. Obviously, it’s not as fast paced or as intense as a REAL person. But that’s not what I ask for in a tutorial. I don’t go to a tutorial to learn how to be competitive, I go to a tutorial to figure out what my tool-belt contains, what resources I have, what moves I can make, etc.. Most fighting games don’t even provide that much, and when they do, they usually ask you to perform everything at max speed right off the bat. Instead, what SHOULD be provided is a sense of: “I know what tools I have, and how I need to apply them, and I have ways to gradually learn to use them faster and faster until I know how to do it to a human opponent.” In other words, I don’t want the game to play itself for me. But I would also very much appreciate it if it gave me more to go on than: “Here are the hit-people buttons, the move-switch and the stop-hit button. Here is a list of things you can do with them. Go get ‘em champ!”

[@rafaelzamot42]

Basically : FIGHTING GAMES ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE

[@plotylty]

Rafael Zamot but that is exactly the point. they should be. that is why we now have arena brawlers, like smash bros, brawlhalla, and rivals of aether. their learning curve is much lower, and they can be called "fighting games for everyone".

[@totalymew]

No, not every game should be for everyone.

[@Angelcas2]

(cough) Super smash bros

[@CrustyCYA]

Platform fighter* "Arena fighters" would be for stuff like Dissidia or the Naruto Ninja Storm games

[@sel2230]

Plotylty This doesn't apply to smash bros. melee.... The learning curve for that game is bigger than any other fighting game I've came across.

[@tanzolo4487]

As a competitive fighting game player it boils down to this : in order to get to a level in wich you can truly enjoy and understand fighting games, you need to be able to understand and own up to your own mistakes. Mentality is a big thing. I feel like in most cases, people who lose a lot will eventually want to stop playing. Because they feel like they are not rewarded for their efforts, while in fact each loss is an opportunity to learn. And once you get that. And you are willing to get beaten 100 times in a row, (preferably with someone experienced explaining you why you lost or got hit) and still continue, you will notice with every game you are improving. Even if you only managed to anti air your opponent 1 time in a match, and you’re able to view that progression as your reward instead of straight up winning the round. That’s when you’ll succeed. Patience is everything. Not only in a match, but also with your progress.

[@yoshitsune5691]

Facts! I even hit master rank with that mentality, and also I had a lot of free time to practice anti airs and the fundamentals. Mentally a lot of people don’t want to practice the boring stuff like the basics. Yet for me it was kinda like meditation, practicing anti airs and wiff punishment ect. Forcing on my breathing while doing it. Shits fun

[@Danielgil28893-x]

I want a reward now, not in 6-12 months!!! You even read what you wrote 2 months ago? "Even if you only managed to anti air your opponent 1 time in a match, and you’re able to view that progression as your reward instead of straight up winning the round" Do you thinkg "anti-air an opponent" is enough reward for hours of watching the signal of LOSER??? It's basically like telling people after a few months your victory was jumping in mario bros or reloading in a shooting game! It's ridiculous!

[@tanzolo4487]

@@Danielgil28893-x sigh. I just made Diamond rank. It’s the 2nd highest rank in street fighter I have the game 2 weeks. It is my first street fighter. Don’t act like it would take you years. You’re just impatient. That is why you fail. You see I feel like that is a generational issue. You are numbed by all the validation you get in life. Everyone telling you that you are the special snowflake while in fact you are not. Social media giving you constant validation. Everyone. Not just in life. In video games as well. You get a little victory jingle after every fight in a single player game, you get a level up or some new loot rewarding you constantly. While in fact your character ingame is improving, not you. You are not used to humbling yourself and not getting what you want when you want it. Bro it’s fine. I’ll tell you my opinion : With that mentality you won’t get far. Not in games nor in life. Try the lottery. It’s not that you can’t improve. It’s that you don’t want to. Then why bother looking up videos like this.

[@Danielgil28893-x]

@@tanzolo4487 your first street fighter but not your first fighting game.

[@tanzolo4487]

@@Danielgil28893-x no it wasn’t. My first fighting game I played when I was 7 and got my first playstation one. It was Tekken 2. Like you are going to sit here and tell me you haven’t played fighting games 10 years ago? Ofcourse you have. Unless you’re 15 or something. See the difference is with fighting games, most people fight AI press some buttons get a win. There you have it: your reward. So you train your brain to just “press some buttons = get reward” then when you get online and it doesn’t work like that you blame the game, the genre, everything but your own ability to learn. Are you going to tell me when you play a shooter online or a racegame online you are always on top of the leaderboard? If so then you found your niche and that’s great for you. It also means you took your time to want to learn those games. But If not why are you complaining about this genre? Only difference is that it’s 2 people. Can’t rely on a team to get you the win. If you have a playstation 4 or 5 and street fighter I’d be happy to teach you fighting games. But you gotta promise to commit. I’m sure many other people would take the time as well. Just gotta have patience and find the right people. Toxicity is everywhere online. That is sadly not just a game thing. So whenever you want to learn hit me up. 😊👍🏻

[@Little_Lepus]

When I was a kid with time, I would spend entire days just memorizing some combos for one soul calibur character, go online, and still get my ass beat.

[@BartasRapowanie]

Try learning the game not only the combos

[@xxsideouz8953]

One of the biggest reasons I don't like or play fighting games anymore. Too much time goes into learning a single character only for me to have my ass kicked. There is so much to pay attention to in a fighting game, yet it's so fast paced and too stressful for me. Spending days learning a character and getting bodied is a really shitty feeling, and makes me feel like no matter how much time I put into it, I'm still trash.

[@aeoncalcos7830]

A common mistake for a child, I did that too back in the day, until I learned mix-ups. After finding my best characters and creating my own mix-ups, I started winning a lot.

[@halfstrike721]

it’s hard because of the execution required period. Footsies spacing and everything else is secondary if you can’t get your character to do what you want to do nothing else matters.. if you read your opponent and know exactly how to punish and are in the perfect space for that punish it doesn’t matter if you can’t do the link ,jump cancel, etc..for the combo you need to punish it doesn’t matter.

[@somnorila9913]

Execution and info you learn by playing a lot or researching the crap out of it. I mean there are plenty of hidden stuff that have nothing to do with logic, bugs, exploits, features call them how you want. But i agree, complex combinations that require precise execution are the worst. I played these type of games very little. Probably my most time spend was in MK4. And i have to say that MK4 felt complicated but manageable because the only stuff i had real issues were not important. Who cares if i can't perform some fatality when i have already won? Played a bit of Street Fighter 4 and wasn't that bat either. But man, i remember being amazed by Tekken 3 so i got T7 for good old times. Sheesh! Those combinations are painful to my hands. Even got a decent controller so no way i can blame that now. I don't get why, even simple and easy combinations, don't work every time. I have tried different speeds and still nothing, but mashing buttons, every now and then, the combo kicks is. I mean this is just crazy. Makes no sense whatsoever to me.

[@MrTombombodil]

The number 1 reason fighting games are hard *to learn* is because they're mostly targeted at enfranchised players and so have woefully enadequate tutorials for new players.

[@bartymatrix7]

Willie Gross Definetly not SFV.

[@ThePreyBrigade]

Case in point, Tekken. The game is designed with legacy in mind and not much else. There's no tutorial, barely an introduction, and if you do want some sort of introduction you have to play story mode, which isn't great at doing so. Also many of the characters break the rules at different points of the game. Claudio has no projectile, yet in story mode he does. Most characters have at least 100 different strings and if you're new you don't know which one's to remember, let alone have that ability to. Over time you remember but that initial overwhelming feeling of seeing such a large list is daunting.

[@joelyolo1032]

I am a die hard fighting gamer since I was 5 and I am now 13 but I play UFC for 1 year and I played the ufc 3 beta and I was killing it

[@nemamiah7832]

Tekken is notorious for having zero stuff in terms of tutorials, but shit, man, this game is so easy to just pick up and play. It's not like it's Tekken or Tekken 2 with stiff movement and odd hurtboxes. But since Tekken 3, if you're new, you could just pick any character you like and go at it against AI. Sure, you won't "git gud" for player vs player matches, but there's no FG that i'm aware off that will prepare you for proper pvp in offline pve environment.

[@monchete9934]

Blazblue and Guilty Gear say hello

[@KamenRider1]

My girlfriend and I are Martial Artists and we grew up with fighting games and play them occasionally now as adults.. We know the pain of having to lose to the likes of Omega Rugal in KOF 95 and to people who play fighting games with us as much as we do losing in tournaments for our respective Martial Arts.. I would equate getting better at fighting games to the (neverending) journey you take as a Martial Artist. Afterall people often neglect the fact that a black belt, despite being something you earn, is but the beginning of your journey... Hence it being called a "Shodan" in Karate. So in both Fighting Games and Martial Arts it's ultimately up to YOU and no else to reach that level of skill you wish to attain. 🙏👊🥋❤️

[@burningsnow9870]

To be fair we don't have lag in the real world. The issue i see in comparing martial arts to fighting games is that fighting games offer a complete range of playstyles completely separate from each other with plenty of variation in between. In a some of the fighting games I've played I've noticed a big issue. Developers and/or players favoring a certain playstyle due to a low skill ceiling, low risk high reward, or typically safe kits. You then have new players who like a certian characters kit getting absolutely mulched because easier or stronger characters exist in the roster. It would be like you suddenly having to go up against someone who's practiced HEMA for years (Historial European Martial arts). While you could possibly win, it almost has nothing to do with skill and more to do with the equipment and natural advantages they have against you. Fighting games with assists (for example Bandai Namcos My Hero One's Justice 2) some characters can get much more out of assists than other characters. Giving them an extreme advantage that those less familiar with assists can get. You may see both assists work well for character x but no assists combo works well with character y. You then have to contend with poor winners/losers who may berate you or abuse report functions as a petty form of revenge or in extreme cases "Keeping scrubs away from the game" granted such extreme situations like that are rare, but the toxicity with ranked and online games is not.

[@jp3813]

The key to enjoying a fighting game is finding opponents at your own skill level. When SF2 first hit the scene, everyone started out exclusively doing normal moves. And guess what, that was enough to experience the satisfaction of fellow noobs beating each other. Only after it became routine that people began fully exploring special moves. The spirit of competition took over from there and motivated everyone to improve their skills. Fighting games need to have reliable matchmaking systems. Ones that can't be exploited by trolls pretending to be noobs. As well as way better AI that can accurately simulate different skill levels. Low level play can actually be fun.

[@omrizubary]

finally someone understands

[@BlaximilianD00d]

You know I was told that when I asked how to get better at MK 11. Thwy told me to find people to play that are on my level. And I agree. You can't git gud overnight. It takes time.

[@cb-se6td]

fighterz doesnt have good matchmaking lol

[@jp3813]

@@cb-se6td Hence, "need".

[@cb-se6td]

@@jp3813 fighterz is shit bc of that idk why nobody talks about it. Everybody is afraid of getting hate. Shits stupid

[@Tboi2206]

Skullgirls had a really good tutorial mode. Made me understand some really important fighting game concepts that I had never grasped before.

[@hankhill7055]

fighting games online are mostly annoying with input delay

[@JoeyY333]

Hank Hill especially with smash

[@DarKiRage.13]

jaywolf bird Truuuuuuuuuuuuuyuuu

[@yoshinpixels9924]

Hank Hill The amount of times I anti air DP or something and I get fucked hurts my soul

[@torvamessorem6686]

For me personally is because it's waaaaaaaaay too much of a time investment to get good enough to enjoy the game. I simply don't have that time as an adult, nor the willpower.

[@Nice_Boy_555]

Thats fair but you don't have to be to enjoy fighting games imo

[@pixelthis950]

I can't even remember one fucking combo I've spent 8 hours in practise mode

[@Amfibios]

i feel u, same here.... sux xD

[@andrel.a1242]

Tekken right?

[@ksporty15]

MK?

[@obeythemelon]

The hardest thing for me is that most fighting games focus on combos. I have good reaction time and reflexes, but I struggle with memorizing and stringing together all those inputs. That's why I stick to games like Smash Bros. Any situation, I can react with one quick input, so my skill is dictated by smartly I can approach my foe minus all those crazy combinations.

[@julliansabulao4091]

I agree, you can entirely avoid camping in Super Smash Bros. easier than other fighting games.

[@waluigi3515]

Tho movement in smash bros sucks for me. I keep accidentally doing long jumps instead of short hops and moving on stage to fight neutral can reallllllyyyyy suck

[@zeroomega3781]

What also differentiates scrubs and pros is how much you can capitalize on opportunities, a.k.a hit confirm. I suppose fighting games are really not for you.

[@aagh8714]

@@zeroomega3781 just punch the other dude irl when he goes into a combo

[@NepheneeGyattRizz]

Tbh it's all muscle memory, even if you naturally aren't good at remembering the inputs and which attacks string together that doesn't matter if you practice the combo enough. You basically need to reprogram your mind into telling yourself to do those combos subconsciously when u hit the combo starter

[@PedanticTwit]

Your response to the Extra Credits position presents, I think, a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between doing nothing to teach new players on one hand and getting them to high-level play on the other. There are near infinite gradations between Total n00b and Tournament Grinder. All EC was advocating for was a mechanism or two to get new players "over the hump", to the point that they can learn from success and failure on their own.

[@goncalocruz708]

Offline content is a must for people to get into fighting games, mortal Kombat 11 does this best by having a lot of unlockable stuff ever-changing towers to win rewards, the best story mode out of the big three(Mk,sf, Tekken) and the Krypt.