Players Will Always Find Something to Hone (New Core-A Gaming Video)

streamed Oct. 8, 2021
Gerald is the GOAT go watch the full original video: • The Two Types of Gamer...
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#FGC #Sajam #CoreAGaming #GGST #GuiltyGear

[@aganaom1712]

Humans will go so far as to be extremely productive doing one thing just so they can avoid doing something else. It's as hilarious as it is awesome

[@noah__jd4883]

“I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done.”

[@youyoububu]

Not sure if avoiding something else is the reason why people become productive, especially when there are real tangible benefits to being productive. Seems like a pessimistic view on why people decide to pursue mastery.

[@amare7430]

@@youyoububu its just an example of one motivator for productivity. one guy in my coding class would find unique and creative solutions for the project because he liked experimenting and trying new things while programming to find better answers. another guy hated certain syntax so much he would use unnecessarily difficult, unintuitive and roundabout (but effective) solutions in his code just to avoid typing certain things. there are many motivators for ingenuity.

[@OjoRojo40]

@@amare7430 But for sure productivity is not one of them.

[@amare7430]

@@OjoRojo40 maybe not intrinsically, but in that class i made my code simple and efficient so i could finish my work early and play fighting games on the computer. productivity can be a motivator when it leads to some other benefit, like money, status, or fighting games.

[@Sorrelhas]

"I feel a lot of people will put themselves in the shoes of a Honer or an Innovator" I just steal my stuff from the internet, leave me alone

[@leithaziz2716]

Addmitedly, I do both. I'll look for a good technical combo online for my main, but mostly focus on my own combos that feel comfortable and that I can memorise. After time, once it's easy to memorise, I'll look for more optimal combos and tech.

[@treebush]

The meta slave

[@haughtygarbage5848]

Lol yeah like don't... most people do this? I thought this was normal?

[@leithaziz2716]

@@haughtygarbage5848 Actually...yeah, I thought so too. At least for older games I get it where the internet wasn't a thing.

[@iP3RFEKTIONoO]

You hone it when you go to practice the combos or shit you saw in tourney you innovative when you add your own ender or anti air into said combo

[@bluegrave4376]

Imagine the league fighting game releasing and the new players start calling you a "honer" (derogatory) lmao

[@ultimasurge]

Dont have to ,it happens in real life all the time

[@AchedSphinx]

it's called try hard i believe.

[@Geheimnis-c2e]

​@@AchedSphinx yes. it's called being a "tryhard/sweatlord" which aren't inherently bad unless you're doing it anywhere except ranked.

[@superkillrobot]

I got into fighting games because the honing/innovating cycle is so similar to learning an instrument. But I think everyone is simultaneously a honer and an innovator. I see it almost as an equation "Your Style = Fundamental Skill + Practical Application"

[@jaikuu1207]

This is a really cool comment. I'd love to watch a video on this topic in and of itself

[@SadButter]

That's kind of the reason why I didn't like the video that much. As much as I like watching Core-A Gaming, I think categorizing players as honers and innovators is just incorrect. That's because not only are all players both honers and innovators, they HAVE to be both honers and innovators if they wanna stand a chance playing against others. There's always pre-existing skills you have to hone that are determined by the rules of the game, and there are also strategies and play-styles you have to innovate to keep your opponents from reading you like a book. You can't just do one or the other, you have to excel at both.

[@crimsonwizahd2358]

@@SadButter Personally I prefer to see it as less "one or the other" and more like a spectrum, where anyone could be a honer and have some level of innovator, and vice versa.

[@Zeph_1000]

I know this is a fairly old reply, but could you elaborate with examples of your equation?

[@absoul112]

7:57 Let the record show this is comparable to Strive's IB

[@Varleran]

i'd argue the same timing window (2f for specials/supers in 3s and in strive) is actually easier to hit in 3s since usually you'll be using them against supers with canned animations instead of trying to match your opponent's manual timing in their pressure

[@Triniwn]

And the reward is so much less. Regular just decreases pushback, so yeah if you get really good at ibing s dolphin you can punish with a 5 frame p but you'll never get a 7 frame cS punish like you would in xrd. As opposed to red parry which can let you go into a full jump in punish on a parried super

[@iframes7]

If you fail an IB in Strive you just don't get spacing for a punish, whereas if you fail a Red Parry you get hit. Third strike has a system that prevents autoblocking multihits in order to avoid spamming red parries in blockstun, Strive has no such system for IBs.

[@FFmaxxx]

I like how Koreans came up with a term that is just as bad but also nicer form of boomer gamer lol

[@devilhitman24]

My wish is to start using "goinmul" in any context that requires it.

[@harrylane4]

I’d say it’s closer to calling a game solved than anything

[@tylerphaff4166]

@@devilhitman24 a

[@kongogaming]

Damn, he's innovative

[@bighex5340]

Damn, he's honed

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

He honed it.

[@kdawg3484]

One of the things I've seen recently that provokes both honing and innovation in an interesting way is the Strive mirror tournaments that Octopimp has hosted on his channel, and it's a really cool thing to watch. He hosted one for Goldlewis and one for Jack-O about a week after they dropped. Not enough time to discover everything nor hone everything about the characters. But mainly, making the tournaments entirely one character made players have to hone and innovate on the fly. You'll come to unsatisfactory stalements doing the exact meta stuff to each other when it's the same characters. So, over the length of a whole tournament, you'd see players often play these characters very differently from each other. And you'd see the players adjust their approaches between matches and even between rounds. I remember one guy killing it with Goldlewis just mainly through well-executed behemoth typhoons and normals, but he wasn't utilizing the drone enough and enough to apply pressure. Eventually that caught up to him when he couldn't get close enough get clean approaches to his opponent, and he got knocked out. Players started using the the Burn It Down special to push their blocking opponents towards them, and then that stopped working as people wised up. Everybody was innovating and honing and innovating and honing the whole time, because there was no matchup advantage. The Jack-O tournament had even more madness to try to keep track of. I highly suggest check both of those tournies out, because they were a blast. And it was fascinating to watch these two process happen in real time.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

Yeah I think that the barrier of entry comes from the amount of Honing you have to do before you can start to be creative or I guess, start 'innovating' in the game. I think everyone *wants* to be an innovator at some point, but the difference between players is how much honing they want to do or are willing to accept before getting to that point. And people want to Innovate because if you innovate something effective then you can be the first to hone something. I think the two concepts are much more intertwined than it may first appear it's just how often a player is willing to go back and forth between the mindsets or how long they want to stay in one phase or another. But I still think a core problem is just the tools for players to understand how to hone. I think that more people are willing to hone skills for games than it may seem at first, but if a game doesn't make it easy to understand how to hone skills without resorting to 3rd party tools, then the player shouldn't be the one blamed for not being willing to hone their skills.

[@mmmk6322]

Go is probably the game that satisfies both Honers and Innovators. But everyone in the west knows chess but they've got no idea that Go is just 3 rules to play and was a much longer run for machines to start beating humans.

[@Sg6CrossOver]

Also a game much more creative, you can drop a bad position only using to force a opponents response, while, making up for a mistake on other side. Such underrated game.

[@livelife5763]

THIS. Hoping there is a go Renaissance like there was with chess to bring it to the western mainstream

[@nedinnis6752]

@@livelife5763 Maybe y'all can get more people to see Hikaru no Go. That's the only reason that I know about it.

[@sleepinbelle9627]

I'm not really experienced enough to be finding good tech, but fucking around in training mode and seeing what I can make of it is one of my favourite things. I guess that puts me more on the innovator side. I think you can probably enjoy older games as an innovator if you don't expect yourself to invent something unheard of. Just make your own combos and mix-ups and set-ups and don't pay attention to what's optimal. You're probably not gonna be the best in the world like that, but that's not why most of us play these games anyway.

[@cylondorado4582]

I think it's funny that pepole optimizing and trying to be the best is a problem in Esports but not regualar sports. People who sell sports equipment aren't worried about attracting people who want to be able to win even though they only want to play casually. But I guess you also don't have to worry about randomly getting matched against Michael Jordan. But if you COULD, that would be kind of awesome actually.

[@matrix3509]

Frfr getting dunked on by Jordan would probably be the highlight of my life.

[@Skybot437]

Final destination, no items was some sorta innovation.

[@alejotomasortega547]

We all know that chess is to old and there are no new players to chess. It takes you forever to find a match in the lobby, and boy, dont let me start on the netcode

[@alejotomasortega547]

@@SolidFake bro, they gotta nerf that queen thou, it can make literally every move in the game. Buff the pawns, they're wack

[@themonoloco8245]

Delayed based net code yuck

[@flikkerflash]

@@alejotomasortega547 pawn go brrrr tho. Also it can move twice at the start. That's busted.

[@LeadAntagonist]

Can I say that even Artosis' smile was still downturned LMAO

[@skyefox]

14:30 Watching Idra rage to Huk's literal phantom army is one of the greatest Esports clips of all time.

[@dj_koen1265]

Its a classic

[@Noelle808]

An advantage of a game like Starcraft is that there's so much to do for players who aren't immediately interested in 1v1 competitive play (which is super intimidating), or even just for those who are temporarily burned out from grinding the ladder and want to give their honer brain a break for a while. Meanwhile, fighting games tend to be extremely stripped down in their multiplayer modes, and even the "good" singleplayer modes tend to only be considered good for their cutscenes, but are still ultimately the equivalent of an RTS campaign where every single mission is just a 1v1 skirmish vs the CPU. SC2 was the first 1v1 competitive game I was willing to put any effort into, but I happily spent months playing more "casual" modes before even dipping my toes into the ladder. That wouldn't really be possible with any fighting game besides *maybe* Smash. Honing is great, but a lot of players are going to bounce off of a game before they decide that getting good is worth investing real practice time into.

[@brobzoid]

I remember being flabbergasted at SC2 releasing with one campaign (out of three) and competitive ladder, and damn near nothing else. Which is another problem: launch is when most people might look at a game, but that is also when it is hardest to have a high variety in game modes finished. SC2 now has a very popular co-op game mode, would have been gang-busters at launch, I bet. Of course SC2 was big enough anyway, but a lot of fighting games are very small in comparison and really need all the edges they can find.

[@boislap]

Babe wake up, Sajam dropped another analysis of the analysis.

[@naejimba]

"Worthy of the grind." This! Fucking this man. I couldn't put my finger on it until now. I remember playing SFII/Hyper/Super on SNES with my brother all the time when we were little and wanted to get back into it by playing ST and Vampire Savior all these years later. I've tried newer games but these two are just what I feel the most hype to watch and play, and that's what you have to chase. There is no wrong answer unless you don't chase something you are passionate about. I'm an idiot, so of course I wanted to get a stick when I couldn't afford one, and learn how to play with it (completely new form of input, but what I really wanted to do), while also really wanting to do the sorts of grapplers I couldn't when I was little, that are usually super low tier (couldn't do 360s on a SNES controller)... oh! and add on another old ass game I had never heard of before with it's own low tier pick to boot that I fell in love with. I try to practice at least a little every day, and I struggled just learning the stick for FAR longer than I would like to admit. Going from not having to think about nailing a DP as a kid, to not being able to reliably get one out to save my life for months and months on end is a rough feeling. It was brutal. I'm just now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel; and while I'm still not as consistent as I want to be, in training I can start to get out the things like the oh so dreaded 360 (that is sooo much easier on the stick and makes me happy), sako ticks, 720s, standing 360s, etc. For the first time I feel like I can confidently say "oh hell yeah... I just proved to myself this is possible. I can do this." I still have an absolute mountain to climb, and I know for myself, who originally learned very slow the first time, it will take me a lot longer than other people... but I don't want to stop.. and I don't care that the games are old as hell and there's jank, that not as many people play them, that some of these people have never stopped playing since the game came out, or that I will end up getting bodied over and over, that everything I want to play is low tier and difficult, and I'm actively choosing by far the hardest and seemingly ass backwards way to go about all of this. Why? Why do this to yourself? Well I couldn't explain why until now and I thought I was losing my mind. "Worthy of the grind." I know the games are good and I know it's what I really want to play. I know I take a longer time than others just with the way I learn, let alone my goals. I accept that.

[@wizard5552]

Speedrun is the same you have to hone and innovate to be fastest. When people come up with new strategy there will be people learning and hone it to become better.

[@x7VI7VJAv]

7:32 But parries are easier due to how many frames you get. An IB in Strive is a red parry in 3S. Way harder

[@matrix3509]

And yet people can still red parry consistently.

[@limitedlistener6460]

Strive also has a very wide attack-cancel window that goes well beyond just 2 frames, so it's very easy to vary your timing as an attacker in block strings so that the defender will just not get IBs if you're aware they're doing them. Meanwhile, Chun-Li's super is always going to be the exact same timing every time you see the super flash.

[@shun2293]

I think this is why many musicians(including myself) get into fighting games cuz of these similar aspects

[@TheFortySeventhPlatoon4700]

See what I love about people like Sajam is how real and grounded they behave when they react to information, like I’m honestly sick of the fuckin fake hype to things

[@ohnoo4468]

Me too man, I’m so picky with what content creators I watch anymore. I just want down to earth people with real reactions

[@ArclinusCastoral]

I'm so proud of Core-A of using footage of the guy who got to level 99 in the first area of FF7(PS1) for the xp graphic.

[@Splozy]

What makes Melee interesting and I think Gerald kinda misses it and is wrong about it, is that it's a great example of a fighting game that appeals to both. The main reason the ruleset is the way it is because the base game systems are already very appealing to 'innovators' and playing the vanilla way rewards very shallow 'honer' play that leaves no room for innovation or intense honing. Zain in particular is impressive because he innovated the game and pushed it in another direction away from what the Goinmul players had been practicing for years. That's what's cool about Melee, the systems are very analog and the defense is very proactive. Combos and moves that work now, might not work in 5-10 years because when you getting hit Melee, you are pressing buttons and affecting the outcome.

[@qedsoku849]

Ooh, Soku would count as an old game that got mastered to a ridiculous degree! Still, there is a lot of things that aren’t implemented yet, so the meta still changes.

[@zurrag9798]

The background when Gerald says the future is from punch planet.

[@zatharista]

Alpha? Beta? Sigma? Forget all that fam, we on that HONER grindset now 😎

[@MH3Raiser]

I think the really important thing to remember when you consider the idea that people have gotten 'too good' is that in order for that in and of itself to be a red flag for a game, you have to value the game on whether beating them is all that matters. I can get my ass handed to me on my favourite fighting game playing my favourite character in a matchup I thought I totally understood and still have fun, because in that specific scenario I'm blown away there was something I missed, and I'm curious as fuck as to what that was. At the end of the day, regardless of what gets people into fighting games, by far the biggest thing they can get out of them is the simple joy of improving for improving's sake, just to feel like you're better with each angle for improvement you find. When I see J Anson, arguably the best Hazama player in Blazblue history performing some insane mixups or confirms that I never even considered and would probably take a lot of practise to do, I don't think, "Oh no, I'll never be able to beat J Anson, there is no point in playing Hazama anymore," I think "Oh my god that looked sick! I really wanna lab that so I can use it in a match." At the end of the day, whatever gets you up in the morning is completely up to you. If the only thing you get out of fighting games is the joy of beating other players, you do you. I just feel a little that that sort of mindset is missing the greatest joy these games can provide, and more than that... it entirely depends on whether you suck or not. You scrub.

[@yellowslotcar]

I definitely feel like I'm a bit of both here. I love labbing new shit but also love getting good at old ones

[@MikeScarbro]

I propose a third kind of player: one who neither hones nor innovates. I call these the "scrubs".

[@bennymountain1]

No, scrub is a specific term. I neither hone nor innovate. But I make no excuses for my losses either.

[@happycamperds9917]

@@bennymountain1 I think that's just known as a casual player.

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

If a game is unhoneable a honer will hone themselves

[@leithaziz2716]

1:20 DMC3 would like a word with you.

[@zaphero5518]

I have def discovered myself to be a honer through Character Action/Stylish Action games and that helped me determine that fighting games would be my thing, but I think I might be atypical in the sense that I just don't care how fast I'm moving or how long "you will have to take to get good". I jump around games a lot with my ADHD and as a result it can take a long time for me to get back to a game to hone it more, but I just find playing with depth and getting better as inherently fun. Sure I'll get rekt for a while but I'm patient, I know when I'm getting better, and I love having more and more game for me to have fun with; and that's all I need.

[@v312ym34n_is_very_mean]

I kind of want to see Sajam do content like this for other things, like it would be interesting to watch him do a reaction/analysis for movies, anime and music.

[@Shining4Dawn]

19:39 I think +R came out very close to the end of the Playstation 2's life cycle. Honers typically had more time to invest in vanilla GGXX or Sharp Reload. I also think GGXXS pushed a lot of people away from the game since it had ridiculous pushback in the corner.

[@flashbackfrank8781]

There is 5d chess with time travel. Also I'm 100% an innovator and proud of it. My fun comes from finding new tech, not mastering it.

[@n00blord14]

I love how you can level up through physical and mental means in fighting games. There’s always something to learn or improve at.

[@limitedbom2206]

Does the game have a boko bar? Is there a croc with a glock? Imma hone the shit out of that game.

[@arabidllama]

This applies 1000% to speedrunning, too

[@webe9008]

« But what if there was a akuma for chess ? Hear me out… » 😂😂

[@DctrBread]

by the way, lei player here. it is in fact that complicated. I've mained a few tekken characters and lei has more difficult strategies and execution requirements than any other character I've tried. Even just playing him basic and solid is pretty difficult imo.

[@gcavrubio]

"People will always find a way to optimize the game" Looks at Stardew Valley e-sports.

[@jirehtheprovider]

simply, all of the revealed tech that has been discovered over the years can be applied on casual co-op or single player mode. One cool example is the chair glitch where growing Mahogany seeds for hardwood on year 1 makes a massive difference to wood supply and unlocking the true finale of the game.

[@nikoreiesu]

1:20 "But what if there was?" *sweats in Chess Evolved Online*

[@crimsonwizahd2358]

Funny thing, I've seen the Game Grumps play a goofy chess parody game where you play as a Black King piece wielding a shotgun fending off the opposing White pieces, except all of the movement is actual chess movement, so it's secretly a decent chess tutorial, lol.

[@lordtraxroy]

Fighting games require more muscle memories while StarCraft require more knowledge memories

[@UNOwen-hx7ol]

wake up babe, new core-a video just dropped

[@Venom272X]

Whenever you hear that rising thunder theme u know some serious facts are about to be spit

[@gallowpole9455]

This video doesn't go over how players innovate in old games. Pokemon Smogon single still host old generation where player are still building new teams with new innovations, moveset and strategies.

[@sylascole5254]

I think you kinda missed the point. They cited what you mentioned pretty clearly; innovating happens in old games, it just takes a lot of honing on the front end to get there. The Mango clip with Zain was to point that out.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

yeah he never said you couldn't innovate in older games, but the problem is that you can only innovate after reaching the upper levels of play. Some random pokemon fan isn't going to be able to waltz into a tournament with a new team strategy and do anything but get their face stomped in unless they spend a long time honing before getting to that point.

[@astrangeriremain]

Interestingly enough, I don't like a game at its early stages. I love being able to learn from the best and improve skills that are certified to be good and cool. This is a big reason why I'm not really enjoying the new Melty Blood. I think the game is sick and a lot of fun, but I just can't really sink my teeth in until it gets figured out a little more. For me a fighting game isn't best on release, its best after a month or two.

[@LysDiethyl]

I totally feel that. I love Melty and I've been doing my best to learn from matches and come up with my own stuff but I feel like part of the fun in fighting games is the learning process, especially when it's backed up by countless hours of experimentation and discussion. There's nothing wrong with some adaptation and improvisation now and then, but characters only really start making sense when people start figuring out what their true potential is.

[@wr41thx29]

I find the urge to innovate leads to the path of honing. Maybe that's just me though. (Ha, I wrote this before finishing the video).

[@LieseFury]

I am 100% an innovator. My two first fighting games were Touhou Hisoutensoku and UMvC3, which are wildly different from each other but similar in flashiness and combo variety. I picked the weirdo characters like Suika in Touhou and Super Skrull and Phoenix Wright in Marvel, and I rarely won matches even against other noob friends but I always had a blast figuring out what I could do that looks cool. I can't get into games like Street Fighter 4 or 5, or AC+R because while there is variety and flashiness in those games' combos they require learning frame-perfect links and FRCs, which are frustrating to me for multiple reasons but most of all because when I'm sitting there for hours in training mode with no feedback on what I'm doing wrong, I could be playing against my scrubby friends instead. Honing is fun to me only if I can innovate at the same time, which is hard from a game design perspective.

[@leithaziz2716]

To be fair, no one is advising you to use frame-perfect links or FRC's if you just wanna play the game at an intermediate level. I might be missunderstanding what you're implying, but if you just wanna goof around and do cool stuff, you don't need perfect timing or hours in training mode. I say this for Strive and +R, but I don't know about SF.

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

@@leithaziz2716 If your playing a game under five than your a honer 100%

[@leithaziz2716]

@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 What? English is my secondary language. Sorry if I'm not getting it. ("playing a game under five")

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

@@leithaziz2716 any street fighter game under street fighter five is a complete honers game while SF5 is a way more innovator type game (as much as you can in a street fighter game anyway)

[@BlazeMakesGames]

@@leithaziz2716 the problem I think is that fighting games are full of honers and in my experience at least, no matter how many times people say things like this, it's never actually true. IF I just boot up a fighting game and wanna fuck around and try new things, that means doing nothing but losing for hours straight unless I'm specifically playing against friends doing the same thing. And I don't have many friends that are into fighting games. So if you play online with the intention of not getting too deep into the important stuff for that game and just fucking around, that means losing constantly, which is disheartening.

[@pumkinswift8263]

I feel like honing skills you don't understand is a type of innovation. Youre discovering new game mechanics.. At least it feels that way to me. Maybe other people feel differently.

[@Setteri_]

Wouldn't honing something be doing it over and over to perfect it instead of branching out and trying new things like an innovator would? Sorry if it doesn't make sense.

[@pumkinswift8263]

@@Setteri_ I just mean in the sense that just because a strategy is known doesn't mean you understand it. Practicing a strategy and honing your skills can, to me, feel like a form of innovation as I discover new dimensions of a system that I didn't understand before.

[@Setteri_]

@@pumkinswift8263 Got it.

[@PoppySquidJr]

I'd say learning/understanding is really neither. It's the ground floor for you to then either hone or innovate off of. You're not innovating by learning specifically from other people, but it's not quite honing either to simply come to understand it. What you do *with* that knowledge is typically either honing or innovating

[@maxdawes73]

4:32 real smart chatter proposing an alternative to one of the most solid openings to ever have been developed

[@Vitz_atelier]

I think I'd go a step further and separate Innovators in two groups: 1. Actual Innovators: The people who have the mindset of an innovator and actually manage to innovate despite the odds. 2. Creative people: People who don't necessarily innovate, but still come up with stuff on their own because that's where the fun is for them. I align more to the second group. I really don't care for what people came up with in terms of combos and stuff like that, but I get massive thrills if I manage to get something I came up with alone by just playing the game no matter how optimal it is or not. It's more about self expression and less about honing or innovating in the game for me.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

yeah that's a huge part of it for me imo. I wanna play a game to have fun and just do things I like to do. It's less about trying to come up with some never before seen strategy that will top the charts in years to come, and more just me wanting to figure something out for myself without having to look up a millions guides and practice for hours before I understand what's happening.

[@peerlessvillain]

im dissapointed the CoreA video didnt even mention Gunz. Literally the epitome of both honing and innovating wrapped up into one little accidental package. If gunz released today as it did then, with modern graphics. it would be on the absolute top. or people would cry about not being able to get good and patch all the fun exploits ;-

[@gatsuberserk4227]

I'm a 100% a honer.

[@zolntacLoL]

I dont know if you ever have to hone to innovate. You DO NOT need to be able to execute in order to analyze and optimize executions. Macros even exist to be used in practice areas if you really just need to see it in game. You dont ever need to hone in order to innovate. I think there is a conflation here with the fact that someone who doesnt "hone" is less likely to be invested heavily in the game, and therefor innovate. But its not a requirement at all. Aswell as the false presumption that the reason people will ever play a game is to win. That assumption then resulting in them thinking that unless innovating alone will help you win people wont do it.

[@zolntacLoL]

I also know this because I literally do this myself. One of the best innovators within certain domains in a game. And I play very little and dont care about winning, rank, or anything like that.

[@blastfire21]

It's fun to try to innovate in a lot of games but it's hard to really hone in more than 1. I think that's why so many people have a main game and side games they enjoy.

[@El-Burrito]

When I used to play new shooter games regularly, I would probably consider myself an innovator. The first few weeks of a game is always the funnest when you can bring your natural honed skills and innovate on strategy and play style. But as soon as a meta gets figured out, the game is basically stale and it's time to move on to the next thing.

[@scrappydrake4683]

I'm not opposed to honing as long as I feel like I get to be creative. What I hate is any game where all you do is learn how to execute the strategies other people have come up with and never do any innovating yourself.

[@Hedonkeviik]

Play 3rd strike or mvc2

[@SJNaka101]

I'm a simple man. I see Core-A, I click

[@aruretheincomprehensible20]

20:12 Can't Escape from Crossing The Watcher

[@Permafrost1]

Babe, wake up, new Sajam video about Core-A-Gaming's video

[@kaleidoslug7777]

I stand by the +R new player thing, including me

[@angryii5411]

Gatling Honer/ Honer Gatling Is a fire DnD character name

[@Cambiony]

Also there are some types of honing that fighting games don't really take advantage of lot of the time imo. Like in FS because characters are easier, it has become reasonable for very good players to become great with most or all of the cast, without the characters being somewhat homogeneous like in DBFZ. It could be interesting of other games went down this path, ofc there needs to be ways of that kind of broad skill be rewarded.

[@HJayZ91]

Get honed on son!

[@Adamzychu]

7:30 Bruh, 3s parry is often brought up as this "cool but hard" mechanic, but it has nothing on how strict strive IB is. 3s parry is 10f(mentioned at 6:36) so it doesn't even compare. I would totally prefer 'worse' IB, but with more reasonable window so you can aim for actual consistency and not merely "whelp, yesterday I played on ps4 and now I'm PC so my 1 out of 5 IB will be 1 out of 10 for the next couple hours" or "I'll maybe try to do it on wakeup to maybe IB a meaty". I was super hyped when following early info on strive as I never played gg before and hoped that IB is something like parry... but unfortunately it clearly isn't. 3s parry is in a great spot where "hardness" comes from actually reading when your opponent will press what, and knowledge how many hits some moves have in what rhytm, but it's much more fun to me than IB because it clearly feels doable to parry a move you expect or see incomming(projectile), while in Strive the windows is literally smaller than game version inconsistencies. Strive IB is much closer to red parry.

[@s_factor_sam]

I find this topic fascinating and learned a bit about my game preferences: 1. In single-player or co-op PvE games, I'm cool with all sorts of depth and open-ended gameplay design. I can be a ' 'Honer' type. 2. In competitive PvP (both 1v1 and team-based), my preferences lean heavily in the opposite direction to the 'Innovator' side. I much prefer for things to be toned-down and reward a more patient methodical approach. Not turn-based, but far more time spent in Neutral/player interactions than in blockstun, hitstun, stunlock, etc. More mindgames with the other player, rather than required memorization of minute matchup details and optimization of pressure/long combos. As such, I have firsthand experience of a shortcoming that this video's thought process highlights: The fighting game genre doesnt have as much variety as then FGC likes to say it has. In fact, it actually has very little to offer pure Innovator types, genre devs rarely even try to cater to Innovators, and the FGC is largely responsible for that lack of effort as well as forcing out those who don't enjoy the Honing part of playing. - Those who want more than the "honer's paradise" of standard fighting game 1v1 have to play NRS games (which are treated the worst by FGC majority), platform fighters ("Smash is not a fighting game" 😧) or arena fighters like Gundam Extreme Vs. - Innovator types don't often have ways to enjoy solving new problems without first being forced to go through the processes that are fun for Honers, which defeats the whole purpose of a pure Innovator trying to have a rewarding experience. But God forbid a fighting game try to require less Honing before getting to the mindgames, else the hardcore audience will outrage and call it shallow, slow, boring, and doomsay it into 'discord fighter status. Just look at Guilty Gear Strive, Samurai Showdown 2019, there are people who even say Virtua Fighter is slow. 😒 - If you don't want to grind and do homework in order to start enjoying the game, "That's just scrubby", as one of Sajam's viewers in this video said, prompting a response from him. And we know how the FGC treats "scrubs", evidenced by the public mockery platform called Scrubquotes, helping earn an 'unwelcoming' image. - Enthusiasts like myself, who lean heavily towards Innovator type and don't enjoy the popular pressure-heavy gameplay elements, are offered even less by the genre. Heck, I've been playing fighting games for almost 2 decades and I just don't have the time nor energy for games that require grinding execution in training mode and studying for kniwledge checks in order to have more fun. But the games that I do enjoy are a smaller niche within a niche genre, and so don't like getting on discord to MAYBE find some matches because the majority of people have a 7-12 second attention span and the only popular fighters are those that cater to that. In comparison, when I picked up Monster Hunter Rise it hooked me for over 200 hours and I'm nowhere near done with it. MonHun even has similarities to fighters, in that you don't really level up your character but just craft better gear and level up in player skill. It's just far more popular than fighting games because Capcom chose NOT to pander to change-resistant Honers unlike most fighting game devs and even their own FG department. Personally, I'd like to see a traditional fighter designed to require less Honing upfront give the games favored by the FGC a run for their money. I mean, Smash and Brawlhalla have already done that, but the FGC refused to acknowledge them. Because of course. Lol

[@KeshavKrishnan]

There are some fighters that require less honing up front, games like footsies and fantasy strike come to mind. I think the big problem with those games is that their option space is very small so for innovators you have less fun tools to play with and try. Fighting games can be fun for innovators but the way most people play is not that style I think. If you want to enjoy the innovator feeling in fighting games imo the best way to do it is just hop online or start playing other new players and try to figure out what moves are good, what playstyle a character has, etc instead of just looking it up or labbing combos in training mode. That's not to say traditional fighting games aren't mosdtly geared towards honers, they for sure are, but there are ways to have fun with it as an innovator I think. In a game like strive, as sol I can jump bandit revolver and then roman cancel into a dash to the ground to do some fun stupid stuff. It's not necessarily optimal or a good use of meter but it's a fun way to express myself with the tools my character has. In a game like fantasy strike, even though I get to the mindgames very quickly, I can;t do anything "special" or spontaneous in that same way. Training mode isn;t necessary for pressure in most games, but it is for things like combos and practicing reactions. You could look up how + or - a move is, or you could block it and press a button and see if you win or lose, and figure things out that way. I also don't necessarily agree about rise, I feel like it focuses more on the honing than the previous title world did, but it does do away with a lot of the more slow or clunky elements that monster hunter games had before world. I will say tho I think MH Rise is a banger that innovators and honers can both really enjoy that game is incredible.

[@s_factor_sam]

@@KeshavKrishnan I absolutely agree about FS. For me, that game is unsatisfying to play because there are so few tools available to each character and versatility juat doesn't exist, so it boils down to nothing but knowledge checks (which is a Honer thing). IMO, the closest in the genre to balancing Honing and Innovating is Virtua Fighter, with older SoulCal at second. In those games, you don't need to do complex inputs to fight efficiently nor does it grant a massive advantage, but you still have a wealth of tools per character. Also, the gameplay design doesn't bottleneck you into playing certain playstyles (a trend that SoulCal 6 and Tekken 7 have sadly fallen into). But, just as I said, those are far from the most popular games in the genre, while the entries that have deviated are more popular than the entry directly before. And the thing about Rise is that it's gameplay flow allows for gradual intuitive learning. So, the Honing comes WITH the innovating. For example, I love Zinogre. It's such a cool monster and the hunt is so fun. So, while hunting it to craft it's full armor set, I ended up honing my skills against it through natural muscle memory. I dont study it, I don't consciously analyze patterns. I just fight it and I do well because I've already fought it so much. I never even played a meta build. I'm rewarded for playing how I want, and the rewards are both in-game and player skill. No study and no labbing needed. But most fighting games do such a poor job at pairing Innovator appeal alongside Homer appeal. Like Gerald said, the Innovating is usually gated behind Honing first and, for an Innovator who is turned off by the homework aspects of Honing, they never get to the Innovating aspects they actually want. I'd venture to say that, in the wider gaming audience, there are far more people who are turned off by the homework of Honing than the amount who are turned off by the open-ended nature of Innovating. That's why fighting games are super niche and sandbox games are mega popular.

[@KeshavKrishnan]

@@s_factor_sam I think rise (and mh in general) has a rly good spread of weapons for different kinds of players. Some weapons care less about what monster you fight, like lance, and some care more, like gs. It's such a good game for both honers and innovators it's wild. I never really played Virtua fighter to be honest. I do enjoy honing though so the direction the fighting game genre is in is enjoyable for me, but I wish there were more fighting games that catered to more types of players. Most of the games that try to reduce honing just simplify instead of doing what Virtua fighter did. If Im not mistaken that game is super super hard bc of how large the idea space rly is

[@s_factor_sam]

@@KeshavKrishnan That's exactly it, though. MH Rise enables player expression for almost every type of playstyles and personality types rather than only for a narrow, limited audience like pre-World entries and modern fighting games. That's because player expression is actually about variety of choice in viable offensive AND defensive options as often as possible. But most people seem to think that player expression is only about having freedom while on offense and in doing combos, and for that to be difficult to wall out on defense. VF is certainly a unique case, as the depth is crazy but not everything thats strong is execution-intensive. It's much more about HOW you use your character, not whether you can execute most stuff. At base level, it's just Punch, Kick, and Guard buttons. The rest is combinations of a direction (sometimes double tap a direction) and one or two buttons simultaneously. Aside from the occasional half circle or quarter circle grabs, most of the execution difficulty comes from timing and sometimes just frames. There's no comeback mechanics, sidesteps succeed or fail based on binary properties (which prevents the hank hitbox-hurtbox interactions also common to Tekken), backdashes have more travel and are useful for whiff-baiting without needing to do a KBD-like input, crouch dashing is universal and as easy as pressing down-forward (3) repeatedly, and best of all the round timer is short and offense is NOT overtuned like most modern releases. This game allows you to win off of defense if you're good enough at it and it's on the other player to open you up rather than the game itself punishing you for playing defensively via mechanics like Guard Crush meter and Negative Penalty nor by designing frame data and high-low mixups to make blocking a massively disadvantageous position. There are even strings that are not guaranteed and the followups can be ducked or blocked unless a counterhit occured. However, this is balanced by throws being the fastest moves of the game, so they're super strong against a turtling player. But they have counterplay, as strikes make you intangible to throws. I think thats the main reason VF is so good. Nothing is truly OP, everything has counterplay, and the game feedback is clear on most interactions while the rest is taught in the tutorial. It makes for intuitive learning that only gets really hard if you want to play at higher skill levels and are playing certain characters. In fact, on my channel, I've been uploading videos of myself, my brother, and my best friend playing VF5US when my friend visits. We all used to play VF5FS a lot, back in the day, and my friend hadn't played a fighting game in years. He also doesn't play any on his own time. But after just a couple hours of warming up, he was able to keep it close in a proper set with my brother and beat me in a set when I let my hard down and messed around too much. Mind you, of our both my bro and I have played varied fighting games regularly for the last 19 years, on top of playing most genres for even longer, and are slightly above average (at worst) in most fighters within the first couple hours. Virtua Fighter is just that well-designed and intuitive to improve in through just playing. My friend never labbed a minute of his life and you can see his improvements in each subsequent set I've been uploading. Each character is also so versatile that you really don't NEED to play multiple characters, not required to use all of your character's moves, and you don't even have to use your characters most difficult moves, and it STILL allows for so much player expression. For example, I played in a round robin tourney hosted by GovPancakes and you can see in the VoD that I play Vanessa differently from him. I'm more defensive while he's more aggressive, because the game actually allows both playstyles to be viable for most characters and we naturally focus on different aspects of her kit. The same applies to everyone. You can really see a player's personality and style come out in how they play their character, at all skill levels. It's truly a gem of fighting game design, among the whole genre. I believe it to be the best fighting game available on a modern consol. It's just a shame that, because VF5US doesnt have rollback netcode, is only on PS4/5, is just a graphical remaster of VF5FS with minimal changes to gameplay and presentation, and because the gameplay doesn't favor nor enable the majority who just want to press a lot of buttons per second to get gimmicky wins or do long and flashy single-player combos, it doesn't appeal to modern tastes as much as other titles.

[@KeshavKrishnan]

@@s_factor_sam I'll check out the videos you posted and maybe give the game a shot, it sounds really interesting

[@djhero0071]

I feel like the closest I’ve seen a fighting game be to innovative is Dragon Ball FighterZ’s Arena mode. So many different options to choose from on how to play. Sure, at the end of the day you’ll still have to contend with honed, optimal combos but I feel like it’s similar to the randomized back row discussed in the beginning.

[@angryii5411]

I'm fucking honing rn Omfg i honed

[@UhScout]

Sa "I see all" jam

[@hobg5786]

i think the knight in chess should get a dp personally

[@АртёмТор-к2ю]

Ffs try block for once

[@ellagage1256]

Knight being able to jump over pieces is kind of like a DP

[@lijnat]

The issue with honing game design is that there's often excess/unnecessary barriers to intermediate/higher level play. I'll use Tekken as an example. The advantage you get from knowing frame data is pretty huge depending on the character and player match up. But even knowing and recognizing your most commonly played against characters top 15 moves is alot to remember. Then you also have to consider things like which direction moves are step-able or what moves are duckable... where often the animation of the attack doesn't help identify (some highs look like mids, some mids look like highs, many attacks you simply accept that they are stepped in one direction or the other or both or none at all regardless of how they animate). But the only reason you need to remember this info is because the devs either want you to or Namco leaders are too cheap to have devs implement a solution. The solution already exists in the game. The expensive solution would be to create more unique block animations, like what you might see in a guard break or when a sweep is blocked. I imagine this would never happen due to cost. So the other simple and cheap solution is have block/hit sparks of a different color and/or intensity or an easily distinguishable unique effects for how negative/plus a move is. Say anything between -10 to -14 share the same effect and anything -15 or worse share the same effect and anything that's + would share the same effect. The extreme version of this is somewhat in most training modes of games where characters are tinted with some color depending on what state they are in (start up, active, recovery, neutral). But I assume my explanation showed how the solution would be different. A system like this gives observant players a way to learn and adapt during matches. If they retain the info awesome. If not, they can always keep relearning and adapting every match. The honer gamer still has the advantage for memorizing frame data as they will know how to punish their opponent from the very beginning of a match. Their opponent will start by not knowing how to punish them, will probably use unoptimized punishes, and there can be a "delay" between applying info you know well and info that's fresh, so odds are even f they know what to do, they'll miss opportunities that a practiced player wouldn't. IMO such a solution is fine for ranked and tournament play. It's subtle and requires the player who hasn't memorized everything to divert some of their brain power. It can replace or work in conjunction with popups we see like "punish" which reward or simply confirm what a player has experimented with when overcoming frame data they do not know. (I'd keep both systems in the game) The biggest advantage of this solution is that innovation is not impacted in any negative way as the solution is purely cosmetic and changes none of the games functionality. In fact the solution promotes an easier but very similar way to how people used to innovate and hone fighters. Just by trying stuff in matches and learning through experimentation + observation. (Arcade player life). One layer was removed, the initial question "Is this punishable?". Either way you're probably starting with a 10f punish and working your way up as you experiment. The only people who would be upset with such a system would be... gatekeeping gamers who place too much pride on the fact that they memorized relatively pointless info and feel others should as well and the gamers who just want advantages over weaker players to abuse and justify it with their legacy status makes them entitled to it. But honestly... in my humble opinion, screw those people. They'd look down on a system that fundamentally does not change the game at all and has near zero impact to top honer vs honer matches as the info would have already been memorized.

[@bookbagman7012]

I also think that Tekken's competitive barrier of entry is unreasonably high but thankfully it hasn't stopped me

[@lijnat]

@@bookbagman7012 nice. I feel anyone who really wants to level up their game will do so such as yourself. I feel addressing all the homework that's eventually needed would improve the overall quality of players in the game. But its great that people are still willing to put in the effort regardless

[@Yaxye.]

Lei is not that complex lmfao 😂 🤣. You'll scare people away

[@Archersrevenge]

The same way Gerald refers to everything as "Studying". Like we're trying to get a FG Thesis going lmao.

[@EnormousKingCrab]

I think I'm the third kind of person, maybe even the fourth

[@godskitten49]

I'm definitely more of an innovator, finding your own combo or pressure strings is much more fun than watching a youtube video on the most optimum routes. It's one reason why I dislike the new MB, I predicted it before launch, but only a week in and the optimum combos and bnb have already been found, whats the point in that? Although there is alot more about FGs that I love, I personally want to get to the point of full understanding as soon as possible, not to say that learning cant be fun, as I've already said, but once you are fully competent, and your opponent is fully competent, that's where the poker side of FGs shines, and that part I really, really, fucking love.

[@thatoddtenant4844]

Impressive name

[@Makr0ss]

Chessplosion

[@scottybassman]

4:30 QGD playing trash in chat, ban that guy

[@oscarwentzel3274]

Whoever said that D5 is better at 04:34 is just plain wrong, Bb4 is a considerably better move.

[@Firjiwater]

I think they were being sarcastic cause of the pawn

[@kennykrool74]

You cannot assert your play in GG Strive says every non Sol, Ram or Zato player.

[@myboy_]

15:05 huh?

[@AdamJorgensen]

What do we call someone who can neither innovate nor hone?

[@zenheretic]

a scrub

[@tipnrear7494]

This still aint magic pixel

[@peteryang8189]

🎮

[@myboy_]

Ay fuck a balance patch, imma spend 20 years grinding a nintendo children's party game for the gamecube

[@electricgoose4691]

nothing like watching someone else's content and calling it your own

[@SkyTowerKurogane]

I can see this when it comes to fighting games, but sweating that much over fall guys, I don't get it. I agree with the other dude calling the guy a tryhard, it's fucking fall guys.

[@ZsNOTCute]

420th like.

[@kingofthegrapes]

I personally feel like trying to divide players into specific kinds or types is pointless. No person falls perfectly into a specific box.

[@ZeludeRose]

does anyone in this video ever state that all people are either 1 or the other with no mixture? you're shadowboxing bro

[@tongpoo8985]

@@ZeludeRose that's a good way to say someone is strawmanning. I will steal it.

[@LieseFury]

look up Johnny, Timmy, and Spike. you probably fit into one of those categories more cleanly than these ones, because while honing and innovating are two behaviors that most players do a little of both, Johnny, Timmy, and Spike describe different approaches and motivations for playing, which are much easier to distinguish.

[@danknstein6504]

@@LieseFury johnny gang was here, shoutouts to kiki jiki

[@AkibanaZero]

I think a better way of interpreting theories that categorize people is to see them as a spectrum. In this particular case you LEAN towards being one while having a bit of the other.

[@thatd00doverthere]

Sajam should learn actual 5-D chess for a new challenge

[@MrERLoner]

"mmmhmm" "Ive been strike.invincible 17 times in my life" "Good ol.Bobby Fisher" The quotable.Sajam