I Got Dragged On Twitter Because Of Neutral Skip

[@fabledredeyes]

To be fair ABI, if you said "Aggression mechanics are fun" then Twitter would've said "So you hate neutral?"

[@migueeeelet]

"Aggression mechanics ruined Tekken! All these noobs are getting their assists and shit, mfs can't EWGF! They don't deserve to play ree!" This kind of elitism in the FGC is why these games suck to me. They're already hard enough, the pretentiousness around them is insult to injury.

[@Zer0_TrueMoo]

So thouest hateth waffles?

[@ursmarrings27]

Waffles!

[@GokaikillerTobi]

​@@migueeeelet they don't play neutral themselves

[@YourHumbleNarrator]

And the moral of the story is, never have an honest opinion on Twitter, just act smug and superior to those who do.

[@syncthedingus1306]

Or just don't post anything on Twitter.

[@Elec.Balloon]

Or just don't have Twitter

[@KoylTrane]

@@Elec.Balloon Twitter is the place to follow hentai artists

[@kiroukasai]

Cringe

[@Turquoisekitten9]

Yeah, what is it with Twitter where you can give a very normal opinion on something there and people drag you through the mud for it and the most batshit insane opinion that's really tone-deaf on something gets rewarded with like 50k likes on that platform.

[@kaleeshcalledjericho8379]

I was wondering where ABI went. Turns out he was stuck attending Twitter court.

[@coolgreenbug7551]

Hopefully this video will help Phoenix turn the case around

[@JEtronful]

More like kangaroo court

[@Motorata661]

Yeah i was thinking that he was gonna be doing street fighter 6 analysis and then this. I hope now he can focus on his own work

[@skaven969]

@@Motorata661 the fact this even effects his work is laughable

[@Motorata661]

@@skaven969 hey everybody has problems if the most important figures of your comunity started discussing something that you said i bet It would mess you Up dont be a dick

[@ott0ma71c]

The true neutral skips are the tweets we made along the way. Also as a KOF player we were discussing how KOF hasn't added any aggression mechanics only for SNK to announce advance strike on us, and that made me laugh.

[@patrickreyna9869]

welllll, old max mode made you basically go unga bunga mode. and it’s still present in new kofs you just can’t cancel specials into specials like in old kof max modes

[@ott0ma71c]

@@patrickreyna9869 Fair, I should have specified XV. While quick max can still effectively be a neutral skip, it's currently expensive enough that no one wants to use it as one. And because of that people use it more as a neutral enhancement for better returns for good neutral. Been at work all day so I haven't gotten a chance to lab the new mechanic, but I'm sure we'll see how dumb it gets to be soon enough.

[@patrickreyna9869]

@@ott0ma71c one thing’s for sure, that new mechanic will add to the mental stack

[@tcchip]

Yeah, I'm very divided on the advance strike mechanic as it is. KOF already has 3 levels of jumps, a proper run mechanism and forward/backward rolls and MAX mode which can be easily triggered on hit confirm on top of a faster base game than SF. Does it REALLY need another offensive mechanic? If it's Samurai Spirits, that'd actually make sense.

[@BlueSparkMid]

The funniest shit was noticing I had a new update on Steam. "Oh, KOF 15, lemme check the patch notes"

[@DandyRaytona]

SugarPunch single handedly supplying the entire FGC with content for an entire two weeks just goes to show how powerful they are

[@ppprime98K]

And how much moral damage the FGC done to him. But is his fault trying to make such a take with such little research while still good because we get content like Justin Wong which has the experience to talk about it and offered far better insight.

[@ZawaOnYoutube]

There's no good insight for these dumbass style of mechanics where people just get to "unga" past everything, as they said. There's literally no benefit for it besides people who don't wanna learn turns and structure and just skip everything.

[@joedatius]

@@ZawaOnKZbin how about just learn the game better rather then complaining that said game doesn't fit your exact ideal of how people should fight each other. every time big changes happen to a series people go crazy and think its the end of the world but in reality people always just adapt over time

[@ZawaOnYoutube]

@@joedatius of course people adapt. Doesn't make the shit any less shit.

[@joedatius]

@@ZawaOnKZbin no it just means it wasn't shit in the first place. Not the games fault that it doesn't fit your exact desires.

[@novriltataki]

Your mistake was that you did not apply "social media skip"

[@ButterStick64]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@orangepeel5661]

FGC twitter has a very weird issue with people pointing out the differences in how modern fighters are designed, I swear I see so much of this insecurity over new games on there, I can't fathom why so many people seem to have such a complex over it

[@djoshawott2850]

Ah, the classic "old game good, new game bad" approach.

[@TehUnHolySkittles929]

​@@djoshawott2850Case and point.

[@orangepeel5661]

@@djoshawott2850 Not exactly, no. The issue I see is when players lament over the direction newer games are taking, FGC twitter has a tendency to call them boomers and do what's described in the video, posting barely relevant clips from older games of things only individual characters can do, completely missing the point that these are things that are universal to most characters in these newer titles. They have such a complex over new games being criticized for this that they responded so angrily to ABI's tweet even though it wasn't even negative. It's not "new game bad, old game good" it's "new game good and immune to criticism, if criticize new game then you boomer idiot who don't know anything"

[@sonofdeleniel007]

​@@orangepeel5661part of it may also be a classic case of Retro Gamer Elitism, too.

[@ScaredEz]

Tbf, people develop complexes over it because other people develop complexes about the perceived superiority of older fgs over new fgs.

[@MarcioCosta-zr9sw]

This conversation even got dragged to the Brazilian side of the FGC, with some people (with the same misinterpretation) getting mad just at the "age of footsies vs age of unga" part, ignoring the fun discussion about agressive universal mechanics. Its a topic that a lot of people have "ready to fire" answers to anything resembling the topic. What I noticed, while I was doing some damage control on this (I hate misinterpreted tweets), is that some people was seeing this tweet as some sort of attack on SF6 specifically (specially guys unsatisfed with SFV). SF6 was being "critizised" by some people for been too agressive and these doods going: "every fg in hisory was agressive and have no neutral, actually". Keep doing the good work friend. I love your FGs Martial Arts videos.

[@devforfun5618]

that is because of the word unga, which is usually associated with button mashing and lack of skill, but when everybody is unga, nobody is a more _neutral_ nomenclature like defensive and offensive mechanics would clear the confusion

[@alicepbg2042]

"brazillian side of the FGC"? a gente tem um lado? :P

[@originalscreenname44]

When it comes to trying to express an opinion on Twitter, I am reminded of this quote from the movie WarGames: "The only winning move is not to play." That's why I don't have a Twitter account and never will.

[@3rdstrikestan930]

Facts

[@russell5292]

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[@russell5292]

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[@russell5292]

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[@russell5292]

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[@NeoBoneGirl]

I think the problem in the first place is that nowhere in the original tweet does it really say "this is fun", so it reads like a tweet saying that the new games are dumb and unga, but also irritates older players as well because they KNOW their game is not "pure footsies fundamentals". This is also expounded by the wording making generalizing statements and conflating a lot of games together, especially since the highest consensus on when games started to "get unga", if ever, was WITH SFV, and for what it's worth, I think most new games are being made with SFV's design principles in mind (the rise of the soft knockdown so high low occurs less often, offense is toned down significantly but the reward for guessing right on it is far larger, defense has become simpler to execute technically but the lack of nuanced options leave it mostly down to simplified RPS of strike, throw, and throw bait). I think these design principles are definitely expressed even in games like GBVSR and such, with the only current studio not making games like this really being JUST French Bread and other assorted indie devs.

[@AkuniLesare]

It doesn't really read negative or positive. By wording alone, it is a very neutral tweet. But people will always assume a certain tone when reading things and therefore respond accordingly. Which is exactly why you should ask if something is meant to be as you interpret it. But people aren't smart or considerate. And yes, that is meant to sound negative.

[@L_O_V_E_L_A_I_N]

@@AkuniLesare "Age of unga" sounds kinda negative to me.

[@Jking44th]

@@L_O_V_E_L_A_I_N Agreed it does. Especially if you played strive and kept hearing that Leo is an unga character so you don't know how to play since you use him. They couldn't beat Testament either so I guess their unga now too.

[@NeoBoneGirl]

@@AkuniLesare Unga is already considered an insult, though. It means thoughtless and play that is not considerate of what the opponent is doing. This is again, what the consensus on the term "unga" is. By saying we're entering an age of unga, it's implying that the newer games take less considerate thought to play than the older ones, which of course people who play them would take offense to. To most fighting game players, the tweet reads as "We are moving from an age of neutral, to an age of stupid in fighting games", and even if he likes that, you can see why people took it the wrong way pretty easily. Or at least, you *should* be able to

[@CanalBillCast]

​@@L_O_V_E_L_A_I_N that's it, for YOU! For me, a non-native english speaker, "unga" just sounds like a funny word that means "AGRESSION".

[@LuckyImpling]

To me the most interesting situation is where the mechanics that are supposedly "skipping" neutral end up becoming part of neutral and influencing the decision making. Just taking SF6 for an example: Drive Impact blows up most uncancelable pokes, so you shift to poking with cancelable buttons until you're reasonably sure your opponent won't press DI. Similarly with Drive Rush, look at some of the recent top 8s of SF6 and you'll see how players are spacing themselves and poking so that they can stuff a DR attempt from their opponent. In the end, those mechanics aren't skipping neutral, they're shaping neutral. You just have to decide if you like the shape or not. And some food for thought: Jumping is the original neutral skip. And if your opponent can't anti-air, it's broken!

[@bronze6877]

as someone who likes playing manon and wants to use my Drive meter for things other than Drive Rush i dont think SF6's shape likes me

[@JakeTheJay]

Exactly! I may not like sf6 neutral that much, but to say all neutral skips are the problem is silly! When I tried pointing this out, someone misread my poin and asked if I thought jumping should be removed just because it was universal. ._.

[@ButterStick64]

I wanna like this comment more than once.

[@nik700]

Credits to jmcrofts for being one of the few people to really analize the tweet in question

[@Raxyz_0]

No he didn't, lol. I like the guy too, but that video was the standard misinterpretation of "look at all these neutral skips game had and look at the footsies new games have" while explaining what every new mechanic does. It really didn't add much to the discussion at all.

[@nik700]

@@Raxyz_0 While he didn't agreed with ABI on the whole "age of footsies" thing, his video noted (and exemplified) that a single character having a neutral skip isn't the same as an universal mechanic that let's you skip neutral, which is (imho) the main point of the tweet

[@Cassapphic]

The original tweet I feel by being worded neutrally gives off more of a "so you hate waffles" energy, because footsies is used as a buzzword to try to claim a game has deep thoughtful neutral and is therefore better, especially because the prior times this comes up its always some pro of the prior game complaining about some new mechanic they dont like. While this comment probably sounds victim blamey to go "you should've said in the tweet that the modern style is fun", I think its interesting that complaints are so common that missuse of words and destruction of language can lead to perceived attacks like this.

[@HellecticMojo]

Words do have meaning after all. He really should've worded his stance better.

[@jeffreybogard2713]

I'm reminded of the first time I played Guilty Gear XX, and discovered that the vast majority of the cast had both air dashes and running. Also the Negative Penalty mechanic, which would take your bar away if you weren't aggressive enough. It was the fastest game I had ever played, and gave me the impression that Guilty Gear was a game that heavily emphasized offense. I didn't know as much then as I do now, but it was my first exposure to how universal mechanics can drastically change how a game can be played. And the fact that certain characters don't have the same movement abilities made it abundantly clear which characters can't just go all in, and which ones have to. You can't play keepaway with Chipp, and you can't dash in and smash face as Potemkin. Some games just don't have a lot of neutral, and that's okay.

[@BootsThaRareBirb]

XX was so real for that

[@Alaadassa]

I wouldn't say its that some games don't have a lot of neutral, its that their neutral is different.

[@jeffreybogard2713]

@@Alaadassa If a game deliberately emphasizes offense and rewards aggression while penalizing keep away, it minimizes neutral

[@Hurtdeer]

twitter doesnt create dialogues. it games short laconic statements out of people. and those statements will tend towards being being ambiguous and ill-defined. But people think twitter is for dialogues, so in an unconscious attempt to create context, they'll just fill that ambiguity with whatever pre-defined biases and ideals they came to the table with, and then credit you as having said those things i feel like this was less of a problem when the character limit was even shorter. Now statements are just long enough to give the impression of depth, while still not giving any space to actually portray it. I don't know. People on there would be better off if they just posted jokes or poems or whatever it is they had for lunch

[@q-b6885]

Exactly why I hate twitter

[@lususnaturae881]

LEgitimately Tumblr is better.

[@sergioescobar1391]

Ironic how you can't even have a neutral stance on the neutral skip. It's like as soon as you state an opinion on Twitter, a voice cries out "CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER!" and you are in for the fight of your life.

[@Bulju]

I love how Infil tried to say you were wrong about this being a new thing and then proceeded to list character-specific mechanics and not universal system mechanics. What a way to miss the point.

[@WeavileGuy]

lordknight did this too, in fact i think he made that clip compilation specifically for the qrt 💀💀

[@nurkadurka]

Gotta say this is peak "content creator." OPs tweet was misleading, because god dammit he only has 180 characters to work with, and it's twitter, ofc he's gonna be a little hyberbolic! Everyone else reacting and replying on twitter in the exact same manner however? Drive rushed past the context! And yeah, sure, he's got a list of games that go against his point, including arguably one of the biggest games of the time, but didn't you consider that street fighter two is a bad example?!?!?!?!? Checkmate, rolled and smoked, shake my hand B) Also gonna say, that is a neckbreaking 180 at the end there. Unga bunga is/has been used mostly to tongue and check talk about/make fun of mindless aggression and button mashing, but saying we're leaving the age of footsies and in the age of unga, it's literally everyone else's fault for not getting your obbbbvious compliment, you didn't phrase a tweet poorly, oh no never, clearly you just got too poetic for for the unwashed masses to understand. Just take the L, you posted something people thought was dumb and got made fun of on twitter, it happens. It's really not a big deal, and really only content creators whine like this when not getting validated for dumb takes.

[@third-ratedude4234]

Some people already mentioned this, but if your tweet is meant to be just an observation, why not say so? Why do you feel the need to add "we're past the age of footsie and into the age of unga"? You can just tweet "hey, many fighting games now have a similar aggression mechanics, what a funny coincidence" or something

[@KingNerdius]

Do you know who this man is?

[@CUTIE_POXX]

Because we all have different ways to word things, and that there was no way for ABI to know his tweet would make half a million views over a simple fighting game opinion of all things.

[@wispyone3702]

I thought the only real problem with the tweet was the ages part of it because it makes people who play new games feel attacked because they're unga and people who play older games feel like you dont know anything because they know their neutral skips. That only further supports the theory justin pushes as well. Also clarification of the time frame because I thought the frame of time was larger which didn't support. But really it's nothing to worry about, twitter just chooses to get mad at something every week and you were a victim for once so congrats on that I guess.

[@Tokioka]

Agreed. I feel the tweet is too ambiguous and comes across as being negative. If he had added "... and into an age of unga, which I fully embrace and approve of." then I don't think he would have received the same level of backlash.

[@eduardoserpa1682]

​​@@Tokioka It only comes across as negative if you already view "age of unga" as something negative, and "footises" as something sacred. It's a descriptive term.

[@Tokioka]

@eduardoserpa1682 I'm pretty sure "unga bunga" already has negative connotations within the FGC. When commentators say a player has gone full unga then it suggests they have become a mindless caveman and are no longer reacting to the other player. Hence why many people would view this tweet as negative if there is no clarification that the OP actually enjoyed the age of unga.

[@kenamada5451]

​@@eduardoserpa1682 This! If you already have preconcieved notions and biases against unga being a bad thing then you tweeted based on that. Then yea, you baited yourself. Characters who are simple I call glue eaters and you know what I play sometimes? That elmers glue be hittin'. The speech is flowery, but he's not wrong... And nor am I wrong for saying simple characters eat glue. There is a point in there.

[@NeoBoneGirl]

@@eduardoserpa1682 Yes, and that's what the word means. "Unga" is a term basically meant to call people or characters fucking stupid. It's not your fault if you get mad if I called you fucking stupid just because "you already view it as negative", it's my fault for using a negative term, because the point of the term is to be negative.

[@heavymetalmixer91]

Note: GGST came out in 2021, the GG that was in the "Era of Footsies" was GGXrd.

[@MrOtus]

Genuine question, why not just tweet "I think these universal aggression mechanics are fun" instead? Especially knowing that you only have a limited number of characters to express your opinion.

[@L_O_V_E_L_A_I_N]

Right? I left the video thinking "Man, if you wanted people to understand that you like something, why did you write a tweet that contains nothing positive about the subject?"

[@abbymems]

I actually read the tweet really positively, but I also tend to have fun talking like that. Sounded like he was acknowledging that the new games do feel more aggressive, which i think was a discussion point in another tweet's discourse recently, and that he was happy with it. I feel like it only reads negatively if you assume he's being sarcastic or saying one is better than the other, which I bet a bunch of people did because being genuinely positive without putting something else down on social media is a rarity. Most people assume you're being a critic of some kind.

[@FigAndFriends]

@@L_O_V_E_L_A_I_N Yea, same here. I mean, I get that you can write something like "Fighting games are so fun right now :)" and some cynic is going to take that sarcastically or passive aggressively, but that's on them. This tweet was just saying something else entirely though >.>

[@diodamke1007]

Yeah I think he's right about how FGs are including more universal aggression mechanics, but it's lame the way he tries to dodge responsibility for how his words were interpreted and blames everybody else for not being a mind reader. When you describe the changes using the term "unga," there is no real way to interpret that as a neutral statement, it obviously sounds negative. It has connotations of the games encouraging players to play like brainless apes. Now it might be an affectionate kind of negativity, like describing a really off-the-wall game as "kuso" even though you really like it, but it still sounds at least mildly negative, and nothing in the tweet sounded positive at all. Clearly it was meant to be positive but ultimately the reason it wasn't interpreted that way is simply because he worded it poorly, and he should own that and not try to fall back on muh 180 characters.

[@elmonke6154]

He realistically didn't put much thought into it and didn't expect his tweet to become the weekly drama or discourse or whatever. He wanted to state an observation about fighting games becoming more aggressive and didn't think many people would care or argue. This is a literal worst case scenario lol. Under normal circumstances a few people might respond disagreeing and he would just elaborate more on what he meant in replies.

[@CrimsonWolfStudios]

Ok, I don’t have a pot to piss in on this, and I don’t have twitter. But your post reads very vaguely. There is 0 indication of whether or not you liked or disliked the direction of fighting games being more aggressive. I really don’t want to be cynical, but it definitely *looks* like a tweet meant to farm some engagement from. It is left so vague that anyone could interpret it any number of ways, positive AND negative. Maybe it was just poor choice of wording, but you literally could have just said what you said in this video; that the aggressive mechanics are fun, and you like the direction fightings games are going. If it was an honest mistake/misunderstanding, then i feel you should know it’s not really unreasonable that people responded how they did. Twitter is a cesspool, but this statement was inevitably going to ruffle feathers from across the net

[@KingOfDarknessAndEvil]

Imagine if most modern fighting games started focusijg their universal mechanics on zoning, allowing the entire cast to play most of the match at full screen, and people tried to act like nothing changed because 1-2 characters per game used to do that before.

[@Ice-Climber]

That's Injustice

[@edfreak9001]

they'd never do that because playstyle A is Good and Wholesome and playstyle B is Toxic and Grounds For Execution

[@bronze6877]

@@edfreak9001 ALL HAIL ~~HYPNOTOAD~~ SHOTO

[@kevingriffith6011]

I do feel like the wording of the tweet did really get in the way of the point you were trying to make. FGC twitter is overflowing with scrubquotes and "back when fighting games were good'-isms from people who got drive rushed to death that sound a lot like the post you made. I think the only way you could really make the point you were trying to make would be to say something like: "I am legitimately enjoying the new, more agressive gameplay direction modern fighting games are taking."... because it's a scrubquotes minefield out there and even saying you like something can be read as you hating it unless you pick your words very carefully.

[@JustSoji]

I didn't even think it was a controversial tweet. I kinda understood what you meant by more games getting a universal "GET TF IN THERE" button and honestly I'm in favor since they're all different and interesting. As a casual player it feels like this is aimed at people like me and utilized by pros

[@michielkroder4031]

Never realized that was your comment. I love your channel and have been subscribed for ages, but I'm sure you see how (paraphrasing) "moving from the age of footsies to the age of unga" can easily be taken as anything but a compliment..? Get well soon!

[@Just.Kidding]

Every day that passes further convinces me that there is no reason to ever use Twitter.

[@Diyomaro]

“Laura standing M.kick” That was a crazy good button. I miss Laura.

[@rhenevers5229]

Sometimes I miss going on twitter everyday for that dopamine rush. But then I get reminders how antagonistic and unecessarily aggressive it could be. People are always frothing at the mouth of the possibility of starting another pointless argument. FGC Twitter in general is always complaining about something every week on a new dumb hot take topic. Honestly it reminds me of sports media in general. A player says some quick random statement at a post game interview and then for an entire week and a half; every talk show, podcast, commentator, and sports news show has to gossip and offer their two cents. I guess it's just the nature of the business of having discussions and generating content to drive those clicks and engagement. Just glad that I'm so detached from the FGC drama nowadays that this video was the first time I heard about this brand new "controversial topic."

[@ODDiSEE_]

So moral of the story. Twitter is a cess pool and you should never use it.

[@hailthequeenFM]

This is why I stay the fuck away from the FGC. I've been playing fighting games for half a decade. If you say something they don't like, you'll get harrased and passed around like a Christian girl at a frat party.

[@ButterStick64]

I would mention that you used “unga bunga”, which is usually used when there’s a distain toward offense-focus or rushdown, but Twitter users would still have a problem even if you talked about this in a Twitlonger.

[@ZatotheFiend]

I said it before, and I'll say it again The worst people you can have a fighting game discussion with, is the FGC itself

[@SomeAndroid]

The choice of the (in this instance) inflamatory words of "age of footsies" and "age of unga" is definitly what set people off. Given that people all the time talk about how moder fighting games are getting dumbed down compared to older fighters I'd say the most likely conclusion someone would have from reading the tweet is that older fighting games = good, while newer fighters = bad. Nice video to elaborate on your intention with the tweet. It can be easy to misscomunicate our thoughts when we ourselves understand what we intend with the wording used, while someone reading it naturally doesn't know the thought process/intent that went into the text.

[@neonthunder3261]

Lately I've been conflicted on if I prefer footsie or unga and I think I fall in between ala Neo Geo Battle Coliseum.

[@omarzaragoza9173]

Yeah I'm sorry you were misunderstood, but try seeing the tweet as an outsider. This was the culmination of a lot of people being annoyed after not knowing how to fight back new mechanics (happens on every new game). And by itself, it really sounds like a complaint.

[@Magnetismi]

I don't think this is the same as that "so you hate waffles" tweet because "We're moving past the age of footsies into an age of unga" really doesn't sound like a compliment. Also, your "age of footsies" was really poorly defined

[@sebbyq4064]

I mean respect for making this video and clearing the air but imma be real, twitters character limit is not the reason why you kind of just worded the tweet poorly. Nothing in that tweet seemed like you were trying to make an argument so people are dumb for picking it apart, but nothing in that tweet suggested the message of "I like new mechanics" either.

[@cctz_1]

yeah, interpreting the tweet as anything beyond neutral is a reading comprehension issue on the part of fgctwitter

[@austinreed7343]

Maybe we need anti-neutral-skip mechanics added. AoF3 for example has forced resets.

[@morzathoth919]

Really, you just screwed up the wording, because it is easy to read that tweet as you being one of those old arcade boomers longing for an age of Fair Honest Footsies that never really existed. Without that final sentence or something like "I think it's interesting to see fighting games shifting towards universal aggression mechanics" people would have agreed, because you're right. Still it really did create some interesting conversations that you may not have gotten if you had written a more agreeable tweet so maybe it was worth it.

[@FOREEAL]

FGC Twitter can understand the entire fighting game glossary but not a tweet under 50 words somehow

[@EmmanuelMarin07]

0:30 you're kidding right? THAT got you roped up in drama? I haven't finished the video yet but wtf

[@TheBreaker3333]

I love your videos man, and this video is good, but come on that tweet was worded like shit. It reads at best like a neutral take and at worst, it *does* sound like boomerish complaining. I personally knew you probably weren't actually complaining *because* I know your content. You can't really fault anyone who doesn't for misinterpreting that vague ass tweet.

[@TheBreaker3333]

(Also I mean this about content creators who tried having a good faith discussion about it, namely Justin, JM and Sajam. Chuds on twitter will act chudly regardless even if you praise their favorite game)

[@OmeletteGirl]

This is why you should only use twitter as an ironic shitpost site behind 13 layers of irony rather than an actual virtual social space.

[@greengaleproductions]

Did not know that was you. *Finishes video* Really well-made video, and I love how there are some really good screenshot-able moments with the big text on screen.

[@whizthesugoi]

i disagree wholeheartedly with 85% of what you said in this video sure won't change that i love your content though, great video

[@AndreEndo]

The true neutral skip are the friends we made along the way

[@gogadantes8699]

The first time I read that Vega flip argument I immediately thought it is stupid. That is a character's special move, while your post talked about core game mechanics, i.e. everyone can do Drive Rush, Heat Engage, etc. Not the same thing at all.

[@lordknightfgc]

honestly you should have just said age of fun instead of age of unga and that tweet would not have taken off imo. that being said, I agree with the end of the video though, it's always interesting to look at different parts of the game.

[@evilded2]

I've never seen the original tweet (even though I follow you) but, i can see why someone would see unga bunga, which is a historically derogatory term, and assume you were against it.

[@2centstudios]

As a smash player, it's been quite interesting seeing FGC twitter implode over this. Mainly because the things I keep seeing called neutral skips are just called burst options for us.

[@migueeeelet]

One game with big footsies that I recall and had fun with is Soul Calibur 2. The mix of proper movement and short combos makes for a heavily neutral game. I personally prefer that to the current iteration (I know it was more or less the norm before too, but it definitely is now) where games are heavily combo centric and you just spend 5 minutes being juggled and kicked if you're playing Tekken. Hell, lemme add to Tekken: I miss Tekken 4 and 5's slower animations. They have impact, they have weight. Tekken 7 feels so odd in comparison.

[@Mankey619]

I really love the fighting game community, and seeing everybody's love and dedication clearly shows how much they care about any of the franchise they play. You delivered so much research on the fighting games you've played.

[@Zap.execute]

As someone that started fighting games in the "footsie era" I don't really enjoy the fact that universal aggresion mechanics are everywhere now ^^'. However to counter balance that I just play zoners now instead of "neutral" characters like chun-li and stuff.

[@ellagage1256]

If no one else got me I know Winter Mantis got me! Can I get an Axl Bomber?

[@Zap.execute]

@@ellagage1256 j.236H

[@lot8113]

i get how it must feel, but the tweet definitely read like you thought that the process you were describing was a bad thing. Also, I had the same reaction watching the vega clips, and I was also disappointed at how un-neuanced the debate was rendered by people, even well known fgc people.

[@blooddumpster3427]

The Daigo Parry is not a footsie moment. That super goes full screen.

[@homemovelha4173]

Fr, that was a defence moment

[@CrappyBlue]

the entire leadup to justin popping the super is him trying to bait daigo into overextending and daigo trying to bait justin into using the super at a time and spacing he can react to. they do this *with footsies*. the moment doesn't happen without the tension before it of who is going to get any amount of advantage as it happens

[@FigAndFriends]

@@CrappyBlue I think I remember Justin saying that he did super because he just wanted to end the match. I'm pretty sure it wasn't an attempt to get Daigo to overextend

[@davidespanti]

​@@FigAndFriends yeah I remember that too, he just wanted to end the match by killing Daigo with chip damage. He thought he was in a checkmate situation and didn't think Daigo would parry the whole thing

[@HellecticMojo]

Yeah, he kinda lost me there. JW did that in attempt to neutral skip with a fast high chip damage yolo move. It's not like it's predicated on Daigo or JW spacing it out. It was purely an execution miracle.

[@GyanbuSF]

This reminds me that some ppl just can't read properly or naturally have ill intent toward any randoms that don't agree with their take.

[@matheuszache7943]

I think qualifying the new mechanics as unga was the trigger word for everyone. MK11 does not let me lie when I say that there is dumb stuff about defensive play. Being defensive isnt necessairly being smart. And Marvel 3 is proof that there is smart to offense too. Your video suggests that wasn't your intention but... is hard to derive something other than a critique from it. Other than that, every game has neutral but fr old games neutral was played much less considering how oppressive okizeme was and how there was almost no universal defensive mechanics. On a sidenote: You mentioned WA on Strive but that was added to balance out the fact that burst is much, much stronger now than it ever was in Strive's lifespan. Once again, that probably wasn't your intention but it read like devs weren't putting much thought into it and were just like "Hey aggressive mechanics fun. Lets do that".

[@allengordon6929]

For anyone who wants footsies, hellish quart goes on sale often

[@livingcorpse5664]

Literal proof that people don't care and just want an excuse to be assholes.

[@garretwoeller7669]

You didn't say anything wrong in the tweet yeah a lot of new games do be having a fuck load of neutral skips as system mechanics. Just like how now a lot of fighting games use a lot of more mix up moves now then in older games.

[@MaoriGamerDood]

The very definition of. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Glad to hear you speak on this.

[@katherinedickerson2334]

Dear lord, this sort of nonesense is why I refuse to even *consider* being active on Twitter. Hopefully this passes so you can get some peace.

[@jevonsw1]

Such a good point about the way games update and we can’t go back to those builds. The point about STRIVE being able to make such dynamic changes to their game to remain competitive year after year is impression from product design standpoint. They are not only refining frame data and bugfixes, they are releasing a new game with mechanics that change the meta

[@dingusdangus9299]

No don't you understand, this one character in this old game can jump on the wall, therefore the entire game was one giant neutral skip!

[@Umanabro]

Imma say this and i don't want to be rude about it..... The issue here......Twitter. That's it.

[@FawwazMuhammad-Yusuf]

Looking back at the original Tweet, I can definitely see why it was misconstrued. In the FGC, "neutral" has always had a more positive connotation than "Unga", so when someone sees a Tweet like that it's definitely understandable that they'd think you were pining for a time long gone. Add to that the fact that complaining about the current state of fighting games is what everyone seems to do on social media... and for once I can't actually blame the Twitter mob for misunderstanding. With that said I can also understand if you got frustrated over the whole situation. Kind of speaks to one of the numerous reasons why I don't use Twitter.

[@kenamada5451]

Twitter loves their logic fallacies I've noticed. On sept 4th, when the stars aligns, at round start, this character can use the follacal of their foreskin to instant command grab you across the screen. If you are on ground when super flash, you get foreskin grabbed. This is neutral skip. So neutral never existed!

[@neonthunder3261]

what a noob, doesn't even know the circumcision parry

[@MainlyMortal]

The moral of the story: twitter bad

[@durandol]

Social media is a net negative for humanity.

[@FigAndFriends]

M8, I'm a fan of you, and I'm glad to see another video from you, but what you wanted to say and what you posted are two totally different things XD. It's not even a case of poor wording clouding the message, the message was just straight up not worded. I'm with you though, all these new games are great and I'm having a blast too!

[@gustavopereira6949]

I understood the tweet from the first moment, maybe the problem of the FGC is textual interpretation

[@eduardoserpa1682]

The wording was bit dramatic, but that's pretty much what I understood from the tweet. There was a clear shift in the SF5 era to strip back on speed, aggression and complexity for "accessibility" and every single community complained about it at the time. Even DBFZ could be included in this trend if you compare it to the insane movement and pressure from the Versus games that came before. Assist calls have long cooldowns (specially in blockstrings), and the game even resets to neutral whenever a character dies.

[@Jsunmile]

C'mon man. Your tweet didn't imply anything positive. You can't say people misinterpreted your meaning when you literally did not say what you supposedly meant. You can't blame twitter for responding to what you actually said.

[@freeRKelly885]

Right? My first thoughts after this video (which is the first time I saw the tweet) was "that wasn't very clear"

[@miscellaneouscam953]

Dude, you didn’t do yourself any favors by the way you phrased your tweet. It’s kinda your fault other people “misinterpreted” it. Read back what you wrote and seriously ask yourself if what you said sounds like a compliment. You just sound butthurt.

[@ZioSerpe]

I am just gonna collect my W for having understood exactly what the original tweet meant, since I replied to LK's retweet with the exact same explanation you gave in this video.

[@NihongoGamer]

Bro I’m so sorry you had to experience this. You did nothing wrong. It’s cool that you made this video to clarify what you meant but really everyone who used your tweet to clown on you (indirectly or not) really just publicly demonstrated their lack of civility by picking holes in what you said while knowing full well that QRT and the way it functions gives you, the poster, absolutely no way to defend yourself. Keep being you and never feel you have to apologise for your opinions. Your videos are always thoughtful and insightful, keep up the sterling work.

[@OreoTheWolf]

While it does really suck to have your words taken out of context, there was nothing in your original tweet that said that you find aggression mechanics fun. And you used the word "unga", which is an almost exclusively negative connotation if not a straight up insult. So while things were blown out of proportion for sure, there was no reasonable way that people could intuit what you were trying to say. You actually kinda wrote the exact opposite of what you meant unintentionally.

[@matheusgomespinto4915]

I also like all this mechanics to make easier for the players to get in safely. The solo reason why the fgc need to develop a strategy like footsies is because many old games lack a wsy to do so. If wasn't for footises or a "neutral skip" mechanic, we would need to poke the opponents to death .

[@theuzi8516]

Dude ngl, you chose those 180 characters horribly if this is indeed what you wanted to say. You're well into the FGC, you know the sanctity of footsies in the community; so, saying we're leaving the age of footsies into unga, a term used for mindless rushdown, is ofc going to be perceived negatively.

[@Danielss250]

You're not even wrong tho. When the new version of gran blue versus launched, the first video recommended to me was "the raging strike problem". Where the guy just said that raging strke is bad because it's 28 frame and thus it is easy to dodge. In a game where almost every character has multiple neutral skips and you can use the same resource of raging strike to do 3 parries per round so that you don't have to defend at all or even risk a dp, it can also be used to convert almost any stray hit into a full combo, and so on and so on, but the fact that a guard break move that equals at least 40% hp combo isn't reliable is a problem. It's just an example but you get the idea. The FGC in general, or at least those that use twitter, have some issues with things simply being state or pointed out, they act like insecure children, it's very strange.

[@MFIBCN]

Your videos are always top tier content. I still like the one you made about phoenix wright being translated to mahvel and the one about Kim's pants on TKoF 13. Keep rocking!!!

[@BlackDT]

What got me about this is people (not you) acting as though a mechanic being universal means it can’t be character specific both in implementation and use. I can’t speak about Tekken and Granblue since I don’t play those, but Drive Rush and Wild Assault vary from character to character. For wild assault, there are 3 types: blue, white, and orange, each with different properties. And the only one that’s really good in neutral is white wild assault, which is only on 4 characters. For drive rush, the speed and length differ for each character. And their use is going to differ based on the play style of those characters. Cammy’s drive rush kinda sucks, so she doesn’t use it much in neutral. But that’s balanced by the fact that she has other tools in neutral. Meanwhile Dee Jay’s drive rush is incredible and he uses it in neutral all of the time. On top of that because of playstyles and archetypes the way each character uses drive rush is different too. If everyone had Dee Jay’s drive rush, characters like Dhalsim and Guile would use it differently from Gief or Manon.

[@libertarianvoter]

Jumps and dashes are universal mechanics too. They are also "neutral skips". People just don't like change.

[@thomasthecoolkid7228]

Do jumps or dashes give you armor/invincibility/stupid amounts of plus frames/any combination of the above?

[@esosaodiase4482]

@@thomasthecoolkid7228I was just about to say that

[@psycholuigiman]

Classic Twitter moment. Even billionaire Elon Musk owning it and renaming it to X can't make that place enjoyable.

[@WeavileGuy]

i'm glad you mentioned the vega thing, it really bugged me that people somehow misunderstood aggressive *system mechanics* as aggressive *character specific moves.* i feel like that should've been obvious

[@HellecticMojo]

Because specific aggression not having universal answer is still a systematic issue. Especially if the offender isn't forcibly removed.

[@Josh-Yu]

maybe neutral skip was the friends we lost along the way

[@tang620]

It's so good to hear that voice again, and getting to see someone actually point out that the vega clip is stupid to keep pointing out. Glad to have ya back man

[@jacksypher3403]

Theres also defensive mechanics at least. Drive Parry, Faultless defense, that also have perfect parry and IFD versions. So even if someone dragonlashes or spinknuckles at you its generally easy enough to time a parry or Drive impact to reverse the situation. Just adding this not as an argument against neutral skip but as a french toast option to the pancakes and waffles we were given on Twitter. Love this channel by the way, keep it up guys

[@austinreed7343]

Yeah they exist but they’re not quite anti-neutral skip tools.

[@1wayroad935]

Your first mistake is trusting Twitter to react reasonably

[@HellecticMojo]

That was the second mistake. The first was the tweet itself. It was poorly worded.

[@CUTIE_POXX]

This is proof that the Twitter meta is full unga, no neutral.

[@trappercap]

I actually didn't think the response would be that bad. I saw the tweet before it went viral and thought, "yeah, I definitely agree."

[@cothrone3651]

easy solution to this problem, avoid twitter like the plague

[@arthurpprado]

The real villain of this entire story: TWITTER

[@doctordice2doctordice210]

People want slow and honest neutral unto two guile show up on screen

[@Antifrost]

On second thought, let us not go to Twitter. It is a silly place. The funny thing is, what you've described is an observation I've made as well, the major difference is you have a following and I'm almost literally nobody so it's easier for people to paint their grievances onto someone recognizable. I'm more of a spectator than a competitor when it comes to fighting games, so I recognized the trend less as a 'neutral skip' and more as a way to telegraph important information to the casual viewer/player. There have been times when I've watched tournaments for games I was unfamiliar with and one player will land a move that will get the commentators excited, but it'll look the same as the previous several moves that player threw out (it gets even harder with anime fighters where a player might throw half a dozen or more moves on block only for one to suddenly connect). Nowadays, when a player lands a Drive Impact or a Heat Engager, I don't need to be intimately familiar with the game mechanics to recognize that the attacking player just made a move that'll give them some sort of advantage. It's flashy, and it serves a purpose. Also that note you mentioned about Justin Wong's video at the end reminds me of competitive ARMS. Early in the game's history, I remember players complained that the timer was too short and that the game overly relied on defensive play. Later into its history, matches were flying by at a blistering pace. Defensive play wasn't gone, but people started to learn how to play more aggressively.

[@briansilva3765]

Internet have a really short term memory, in the period of time you mentioned most fighting games were called nothing but footsie games, or Esports games with focus on footsies, yet nowadays they act it like it never happened. Same thing as people saying that SFV had a better launch than VI or something garbage like that some weeks ago, it's insane. Also twitter is garbage, why the heck that entire website haven't burned to the ground yet?

[@briansilva3765]

@@balmung7599 Exactly, Max Dood had to make a video about that, it's insane how any human being had that thought process.

[@mas8705]

Honestly I’m more offended that I didn’t know your Twitter tag before now. Hitting followed over there and going to enjoy this video. Thank you for the content you make.

[@nurannahadiislam7940]

How is evo moment 37 a "footsie moment"? Justin decided to go for sa2 BECAUSE it was a perceived neutral skip at the time since nobody knew that it was possible to parry that and he could get guaranteed chip kill.

[@Goomenstein]

At the most absurdly simplified level, Justin threw out a poke and got punished on block. That's footsies

[@nickkiller-0710]

practicing how to parry supers was a very common thing in Japan at the time, people absolutely knew it was possible, it didn't help that Justin did it from pretty much max range so Daigo had even more time to do the initial parry, the whole thing pretty much boiled down to a very difficult block and punish

[@strykah92]

Well Daigo’s hard read on the timing of parrying the first hit of SA2 was exactly that, a hard read. Obviously the real big brain aspect was then parrying every subsequent hit and the stakes involved, if he messed up on just one of them, he loses the game and it’s the difference between being 1-0 up or down in losers finals at Evo. I think the conflation between that and footsies is the tendency of playing footsies of players at the highest level and easily dispatching of relatively aggressive plays at a mid-level or lower that torments entry-level players, especially in the post-SF4 FGC. So emphasis on footsies was then considered objectively ‘higher IQ play’ than aggression. As a result a lot of people’s affinity for ‘footsies and neutral’ is merely pseudo-intellectualism. And I personally do kinda hold the SF4-era accountable for it.

[@SoftwareNeos]

I actually wanna know why its fun. These new nuetral skip options. Cause... dont identities if each character kinda ... dissapate if everyone can just do the same thing for pressure and distance?

[@pian-0g445]

Well, probably by giving everyone an ‘easy’ system that incentives aggressiveness, the more casual or less comp players can have more fun. Because even at high levels with games that have neutral skips, they’re still gonna play patiently. Well, more than the average player. And clearly it’s working as these games are selling. Not that it’s just because of the neutral skip, but it’s definitely seen as a large factor on why more people are picking up these games. At the very least if someone doesn’t enjoy the current trends in design, these companies have been mostly good at porting older titles to new consoles or just have them on steam available to get any time.