Bro really made a whole youtube video essay instead of fixing the d-pad

Fighting games are not the only genre to be designed for D-pad, not by a long shot. A lot of platformers are, too - if not for feathers, Celeste would be 100% a D-pad game.

Ain't no way bro started talking about the joystick

While I respect you perspective as someone who's new to the game, most of the issues raised are not issues with the genre. They are a combination of things that can be said about all competitive games and you trying to bite off too much at one time. No one needs to learn all of Infil's glossary of terms at once to start playing and even become competent. He made it to help newer players while watching streams and such to help them learn naturally without always having to ask someone when they hear these terms. Imagine trying to talk about any competitive shooter without mentioning map control, cross hair placement, or cover usage. Imagine trying to talk about any moba without mentioning last hitting, laning, ganking, or freezing or shoving lanes. You not wanting to learn the terms used to describe fundamental skills or concepts with a given game is not a black mark against said game. Most of this is learned over time. Your perspective comes off as flawed and a little entitled in the context of any competitive genre, not fgs specifically. It really just sounds like a genre that isn't for you and I say that based only on the issues you raised and nothing else.

I agree that the game should tell you to use the d-pad but I don’t think there’s an advantage using a fightstick over using a pad. You’re probably better off using the pad if anything.

I'd also say that the interplay between bread and butter vs optimal combos is another interesting thing in fighting games: thinking after the match if you could have used meter to push for the kill is a cool thing to be able to debate within yourself. "Why wouldn't I just do the same combo over and over again?" is a seemingly simple question that opens up a whole tree of answers that can seem overwhelming, but is really fun to explore if you pace yourself

It is fine to not like fighting game. I think personally you just have different way of enjoying a game that doesn't connect with fighting game core at all. All I can say is to be able to recognise that using your keyboard instead of your analog controller is already good as hell, many people actually plays with keyboard! That is being said, this perspective is refreshing since I have been playing fighting game for at least 10 years and not good enough, but I still stick with it because I know whenever I lost, it is my own fault and truly my own fault. This is the mindset required to like fighting game, to be able to ask what is wrong, to be able to improve bit by bit and have your gameplay improving and celebrating that little moment with other friends that are playing with you.

On communication, for about ten thousand years, it's been possible to hold the buttons in SNK fighting games, and/or do negative edging,, which is how all those crazy KOF13 combos are humanly possible, but in no SNK fighting game ever, bar the first few arcade releases, is this communicated.

historically the motion inputs were intended to be a power check basically. the movie is harder to pull off- so it does more damage. the issue is people found ways to do them easier/ they got used to them/ they got consistant with them, so now the only aspect that it in theory is tied to is they take time to input, thus acts for helping limit the situations you can do that move, or sometimes input overlap is meant to prevent you from doing things that would be considered to strong in the game's individual engine. think walking forward while throwing fireballs. this is part of why shoryuken and hadoken were put on the same button at first iirc. that said my counter arguement to one's dislike of motion inputs is actually slightly different than that: Fighting games exist without motion inputs. Motion inputs might not be the easiest to learn, but any g ame that throws out motion inputs turns into a game that is much MUCH harder to get better at compartively because of what it asks for you in terms of actual dexterity when it comes to switching dirrections rapidly and consistantly. the arguement becomes "okay you don't want motion inputs, fine. but because of this the game's barrier to entry being lower the EXPECTED technical requirements are going to be MUCH higher" just by virtue of the logic "well everyone can do it so you should be expected to now" the issue is fighting games dont' really belong in the same group with other fighting games a ton of the time. there are sometoolsets that carry over yes, but the differences are what make them stand out to others. it's like playing quake and playing halo and playing call of duty have vastly different expectations skillset wise, and expecting one to be great with others just because you are good at one CAN be a tall ask. yes there are some aspects that carry over, but if you've never heard an arena shooter fan bitch and moan about call of duty and vise versa you wouldn't get what i'm getting at with this. .... Oh and about the ferry matchup thing: this is going to sound dumb but sometimes you really need to learn how to block. the issue is every time someone says this it sounds extremely dismissive, but that's a legitimate part of playing fighting games (minus a few characters who can get away with out this part, but lets' not talk about that), learning how to fight the urge to button and instead play as patient as you can..... Oh i wanna note: when it comes to getting stuck in a realm of doing a single combo- THIS is when people start to learn how to counter other situations by expanding more combos- OR by studying OTHER situations you can put yourself in at the cost of damage that cause interesting moments. I also wanna note that while this is possible in games like granblue, sometimes games don't have as much depth of combos as other games. .

It sounds like you needed a rival or community. Navigating all the intricacies and frustrations of a fighting game is infinitely harder alone. That’s part of why people suggest looking up guides or watching high level players, because there’s only so much ground you can cover alone on your own time. If you play with a smaller community, you only have to care about the matchups and mechanics that they care about, and when a fighting game essentially becomes a 4-character game, it’s immediately so much more manageable. And if you’re learning the game together, one person discovering a new tactic or term trickles down to you at a manageable rate. And if someone is better than you, being in direct contact with that person is the best way to learn all those missing pieces. Your frustrations are totally understandable and shared by a lot of the so-called FGC one way or another, but I think it’s best to remember that the real roots of the fighting game genre are at an arcade, maybe with your buddy, trading quarters to see who could do the cool special move more consistently. That magic of the fighting game is sort of lost in translation once you isolate yourself and see the entire world as a bunch of uncaring bots that sometimes are on WiFi or pull the plug. It’s unfortunate that that’s the most accessible way to play, but if you get the opportunity to find the right people to play with regularly, I hope you’ll give the genre another chance.

After seeing so many "I'm new to FGs here's a video essay of my journey" videos, it's pretty cool to see one land on a different conclusion. Props to sticking through long enough to bother doing a video on something you dislike like that. I've been playing them for 15 years and kinda outgrew my affinity for the genre. I think some of your criticisms are not really fair, but they come from a very real place. The language I would use for games I didn't like or phases of burnout ressembles the rants in the video. If I take a step back though, I could see one clear thing on my end : Problems II didn't want with Solutions I didn't want. I think you 100% touched on this without necessarily knowing. The controller rant for example was a good one for that. You didn't want the problem of your expected device being a bad option, nor were you interested or considered (within the video at least) the solution of learning the games on keyboard. So much of the new blood go through the "What's the cheapest controller I can play with" problem and settle for keyboard just fine. I don't say this to berate on this particular point, because I have the same shapes to my gripes with the genre 15 years in. Plus you were very fair in saying the appeal to the genre is heavily weighted in the grind as a solution to all problems.

As someone who's been playing FGs for like a decade now, this video is spot on. Something that basically every longtime FG player fails to account for is the upfront time cost of being minimally functional an almost any FG. They've straight up forgotten what it's like to be new. Every time I see the argument "but all competitive games are like that" I want to scream because no, you literally don't understand what a learning curve is. In order to understand when you're allowed to hit button you have to understand invisible math hidden in frame data and on top of that you have to wrestle with weird motion inputs. Unless a new player is REALLY into the aesthetic of a fighter, I'd bet they aren't getting much fun out of just smashing buttons and seeing them connect one at a time or watching your character eat shit to the same move over and over. Good shit to Xaem for pointing out the dumb shit in a genre I've spent way too much time in.

I think the big thing I disagree with here is the complaint about stuff like general combo experimentation, counter hits, what changes about your combos when you do counter hit vs not, and stuff like that. There were a couple instances while learning Strive as my first real fighting game that I'd be doing something entirely unrelated to the game, like trying to sleep, and the thought randomly struck me "if I counter hit with this move, does it launch enough to connect with this other thing?" And then I'd have to go boot up the game and test it out. In some instances, those ideas did work. Not only did that "eureka" moment feel really rewarding, but it better ingrained in me through my own discovery that I can use those combos mid-match. In some instances my ideas didn't work, but I now had a better grasp of my character and the game as a whole. There were also a number of times that the idea did work, but I simply didn't feel it was practical. In the end, all three scenarios slowly built a better understanding of my character's kit, how the game functions, and how I could bend both of those things in a way that better fit my general playstyle. Tbh I think this difference in opinion is because I've only really spent time learning one or two games while you've sunk time into several games that all feel slightly different. I spent a good chunk of time playing and enjoying GBVSR when it first came out, but ultimately went back to Strive because the input buffering felt too strict in the former and that led to frustration. Fighting games in general are like cars, all of them handle ever so slightly differently but it can make a world of difference. Overall though I think this video was really well put together, even if there are some takes I don't agree with. Wish you the best of luck with any future projects!

I have a buddy that's won many blazblue tournaments on analog stick. It's on you to overcome cons with your preferred method.

There's one other benefit of motion inputs outside of the command vs charge dynamic (though I don't see how that would only apply to SF) that you've missed. With motion inputs, you're able to maximize the amount of tools one can give the player. If you religate special moves to just a dedicated button + direction, you take up a button that could have been used for something else. Another normal, for example. Giving every normal access to different specials allows for a greater degree of depth than one would have otherwise. You can see this with SF6's classic vs modern controls. Something is inevitably lost.

Fighting games to me are the pinnacle of competition and i love my efforts going against another's and seeing who comes out on top. You cant get that from any team game and that's what keeps me here. Tcg's are another good example of that type of competition but way less fast paced and is a good comparison just because of the vast amount of info required to know how to put together a solid gameplan. I improve and fight others and my strategies against theirs to see who is better feels much more rewarding than any team competition where I could be weighed down by one other player and lose due to nothing by my own action.

Short / More organized version: Fighting game difficulty = opponent skill + expectation. If your opponents are very skilled and you wish to defeat them, then you must learn a lot. If your opponents are unskilled and / or you can have fun losing, you don't need to learn anything. You don't actually have to spend a lot of time practicing to have fun in a fighting game. You can have fun just hitting buttons and doing things, but if you see a lot of tutorials and focus only on the competitive scene, then it might seem like you must practice to have fun. Fighting games are only as hard and only require as much effort as you need to reasonably beat your opponents (unless you're fine losing, in which case you just have to find pressing buttons fun). If you buy a game to play with a friend who hasn't played any fighting games either, then neither of you have to put in any work. The reason new players of fighting games have to learn all those things is because other people know them, and new players generally want to improve quickly, so they choose to learn those things. If your opponents (family, friends, online people of a similar rank) don't know any of that stuff, then there's no reason you NEED to learn those. And again, if a person enjoys losing, then fighting games have no barrier of entry.

So about your analog stick problem, if your on pc (judging by the analog stick graphics, it looks like you are) you could use steam input to map your analog stick to the d pad, and set the deadzones from there. That way you can have a consistent control experience between every fighting game

This isn't necessarily your fault, but I don't think you actually get what makes fighting games fun. It's not about the grind or even improving, It's about the player interactions. It's honestly hard to describe, but playing a fighting game with intentionality is one of the most enthralling experiences I've ever had. It's almost like having a conversation. And you don't have to be particularly good at a game to get this, once you're comfortable with the fundamentals even getting bodied can be surprisingly gratifying. I think you shot yourself in the foot not only be playing multiple games, but by playing multiple anime games specifically. They sort of encourage you to learn how to play backwards due to the free-form offense and wide variety character gimmicks. Literally most of the cast will have options that are difficult to deal with even once you know how they work, so there are some massive hills of knowledge and execution you need to get over before you get to the actual strategy and player to player interactions. And I think this colored your perception of the genre as a whole . It seems like you have the impression that you're supposed know and understand what's going on at all times. You're not. Even Pro players don't. Fighting games are primarily about reading your human opponent. This intangible interaction is the actual game, but like I said this is very difficult to explain. This is why fighting games have "bad" tutorials and incentives, because on some level the actual game can't be quantified, much less taught. If you do ever give fighting games another chance, I'd recommend branching out a bit more. Personally some of my favorite games are older or less popular.

i pirated strive on a whim when a friend was visiting me. we played through the whole night. Soon after we both bought a copy and it became our go to game. lerning to play it off of each other's new bullshit tricks and teaching each other new tech was genuinenly one of the most fun and interesting videogames experiences i ever had. I don't know the details of your introduction to the genre, but i can understand how lerning it by yourself can and most likely will be extremely groeling and frustrating. That's what i never really heard about from "how to get into fighting games" videos. I mean the entire genre really is just street fighter 2 fanfiction and the thing was designed to have a person you play with rigth beside you and probably somebody watching both of you other the shoulder. it was a communal experience. also fight sticks do not realy get you closer to perfect direction intentionality.

Terminology is the main thing I can get behind with this video with it being confusing. But lots of other major titles like Street fighter 6 and Tekken 8 have both had avenues for non-competitive experiences trying to help casual audiences enjoy the game. But all in all it's on you in a competitive environment to forge your path to victory not the game/circumstance. And if you don't have the desire to obtain victory when presented obstacles, obviously it is a false pursuit for pleasure.

Big agree on controller rant. I got to celestial with Happy Chaos on a GameCube controller and I felt a fair amount of losses along the way were from a disconnect between what my brain is thinking and the inputs happening.

i wanna note, i am and have been for years a big promoter of using whatever input method is most intuitive to you/ familiar to you. input familiar IS MORE IMPORTANT than most other things. the only issue is you need to be careful NOT to over rotate your analog stick is all. That said i knew people on traditional controller who alernate between dpad and analog stick. analog stick because dpad can be rough on the thumb, and d-pad for other situations. edit: and i do wanna note- many pro players do use ps4/ps5 controllers. you're right tho, it does heavily depend on the game at times for some things, but there are actually benefits to using a ps4/ps5 controller over arcade controller that isn't commonly known about outside of the nerdiest circles. Have been for years a big promotor input familiarity over anything else and i stand by it.

As someone who also didn't grow up with fighting games beyond smash, I really appreciate hearing opinions like this. Makes me feel not alone. I've put almost 100 hours in street fighter 6 this year. I really enjoy it. But so much of my time is just pure frustration, even when I'm winning

Man i connect with the controller rant. i blame my controller a lot, but ive manage to make it better via manually making my controller to register as a keyboard. the inputs became sharp as hell, so im left with only skill issues

I think fighting games are just really cool

Really good video! You def said quite a few things most people are afraid to say or find quite taboo esp for new players. I never played FGs growing up but when my friends bullied me to buy and play some their way of "Teaching" me was doing some stupid long combo then going "you got that?" Not to mention some Fgs show a quarter circle input and I used to think analogue was what you were supposed to use then learning the hard way Dpad was intended or superior. Its quite funny how we both had a similar journey as the game that helped me "get" fighting games was Pokemon close combat. So good that I moved on to Pokken Tournament. Im far from the best and fail quite a bit but its helped me enjoy them a bit more. I always hated the phrase "get good" when a new player says "i dont get it" and quite a lot of people gatekeep. The good side of this is that once you do find a game you like and friends to help, then it becomes much more managable. Id love to play a few matches with you as a newbie just to see what its like because you do have a lot of potential, overall its nice to see people try new things and not give up!

Other than spin motions, the keyboard is actually quite comfortable imo. it's like an hitbox with more buttons.... a lot more

Even though I disagree with most of what you said, I appreciate the effort and passion you put into this video. To me, it sounds like you were forcing yourself to play some games because you liked their aesthetic, but many of the "problems" you cited are very much something that's prevalent in the games you played (or at least showed in the video). There are other fighting games where combos are shorter, there are more combo options depending on the situation, and there's more emphasis on interacting or neutral, etc... The games you showed put emphasis on big combos with big set-ups; even GBVSR is now a high-damage big combo game. Maybe games like Tekken, Streetfighter, or Smash Bros (this one especially) might have been more to your liking, but some things you critiqued are inevitable in any complex multiplayer competitive game: you will have to learn the terminology, you will have to learn how the game works, and you will have to learn how to execute your moves. This is in no way something exclusive to fighting games, but you are correct that the in-game resources are terrible and often times KZfaq videos are overwhelming for newcomers, but I don't know how you could realistically fix this. Even if the game teaches you everything perfectly, the moment you go online, you will forget everything and have to learn the hard way what all those tutorials really tried to teach you, losing a lot in the process. I won't get started on motion inputs, but let me just tell you that if they removed them entirely, most people still wouldn't stick around because they are still going to lose the same amount. Maybe it will be less frustrating, but not much, and we have to consider everything that's lost by having only simple inputs. These games are not for everyone, and many are pretty niche, but there is a very large fan base that's growing that loves them. Although some of your criticisms are valid, trying to change a beloved genre to your liking won't give you a game you like and will only alienate the many people who enjoy it.

This was a really good video, thanks! You managed to put into words a lot of things I've felt as I've tried to get into fighting games, and as an aspiring dev you gave some good suggestions for improving the experience for players! Thank you!

I love fighting games but it’s cool to see a take like this. Cool video 👍

A lot of your problems boil down to the fact that youre learning a competitive genre, that breaks traditional gaming conventions, and doesnt have a constant steady influx of new players. The issues you raised are inherent in all competitive games, the difference in fighting games is theres nothing intuitive to a newcomer, and theres not enough other newcomers past the release period of a game to just go wild without forcing yourself to learn. We knew absolutely nothing when super turbo came out in arcades, hell, to this day most modern fgc knowledge doesnt apply to super turbo because that game is a janky mess thats so weird that even just knowing frame data doesnt actually change much

One thing that I don't think you touched on in the video is that there's a range of mechanical complexity within the fighting game genre. Not every game has the 50 different kinds of cancels that anime fighters like UNI have, and you also don't really need to learn the differences between the kinds of Roman Cancels in order to succeed or have fun in Guilty Gear. My feeling is that newer players are overwhelmed by the idea that they *have* to learn every single mechanic in order to "really play the game", but as you yourself point out in the video, that's not really true! I think new fighting players would really benefit from the mentality that they're allowed to not know things and take their time learning them

I know late replay, but I want to give you my take on this whole "competitive" gaming scene. I personally think, that the true chore you talking about does not come from the need of training mode and/or tutorials. I believe that the chore in itself lies in learning mechanics. I tried many games since 2019 (Digital Card Games, Mobas, Shooters and Fighters) and to be totally honest learning any of those suck. Not because controls could be hard but more because you have to learn the "core gameplay mechanics". Yeah there are many community based resources out there in this day and age, but even then it is though to get a hang of it. I myself somehow can enjoy this chore of learning more with fighting games than any other game, and the reason is (for me) relative simple - the only thing I can blame when I lose would be myself. In a card game I often rant about the rng... "If I had card X, I could have won" in shooters and mobas I often hear that people blame the team mates. In a fighting game it's "all" my fault if I lose. Yeah that can be tough for someone to accept but that's why I said it's a simple reason for me. About the controls, I strongly believe that it could be a execution thing. Not that I am sayin' you did things wrong, more like your initial rant and salt did not gave you the chance to try and learn the execution as needed. I say that because I have a friend who is playing fighting games ONLY with analog stick, because - like you - he feels more comfy with it. And he never had any issues with the inputs in any given game. But he is a rather chilled player, I could not recall that I have ever heard or seen him tilted. But overall I can only say thank you for the time and effort you put into this video, even if one can tell, that this was also your parting with the genre.

"Should i have to get hit by a move to know how it works?" These are games with several hundreds of moves with vastly different functions, theres no way they can show you all of this so it never happens. That's the purpose of training mode, to get the knowledge to understand the unknown. "These things arent communicated properly" This varies from game to game, for example you bring up the overhead example but if you fail to block an attack the game has an indicator to show if it was a grab, overhead or low. In regards to hitstun decay, while itd be better to have the option, theres often lots and lots of math that goes into determining how much hitstun decays. Similar to how many rpgs do not give you an exact damage calculator. "The combos are repetitive" This is kinda fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of combos. Combos provide a means of choosing a reward for winning an interaction. Do i want the combo that gives me the corner? what about damage? Do i get to set up after the combo? What resources does this spend. Bnbs are the first piece of the puzzle. Also in regards to mechanics, you seem to imply the wall of mechanics is counterintuitive to the fun, but the mechsnics arent simply just a checklist of things to do, they facilitate the player vs player aspect. Blazblues overdrive system adds a risk reward between hyper offense, defense, or a comeback, and how each player uses it to a situation can drastically effect the outcome of a match. Learning the technique isnt the end of the interaction with the game system, its the utilizing it to formulate strategies

as a nerd with no personality who enjoys, full agree on the communication. a +4 on block means nothing to casuals. its not even universal. i know why +4 is good in tekken, but i couldn't tell you why its good in Guilty Gear or King of Fighters. i'm not expecting the game to explain what a KBD is on boot, but its always a feel when it feels like the opponent is cheating, then later when you're just binging KZfaq, you go "ohh, that's why they can do that" and people have already said this, but literally every 2D sidescroller is better on dpad edit: the outro...i don't love it. comparing something you get more skilled at and better with over time to pay to win or RNG mechanics always sits raw with me. you don't have the patience to get better, that's different from not having 20$ to paywall through the DLC or whatever. and you don't have to be better, but i expect you to at least own it.

I would like to thank you for making this video, as someone that has been playing fighting games for the past 5~6 years and loves the genre from the bottom of my heart I think an opinion like yours can be incredibly valuable in seeing how the genre as a whole can improve, inparticular I think you've pointed out a real blindside in the genre's lack of proper analog support and how remedying that could genuinely improve fighting games. I think persectives like yours are rare to hear about when hearing about fighting games because most of the people who are willing to put the time you did into them end up falling in love with and I'm sad you weren't able to experience that, but thank you for playing them regardless of if you actually ever play one again, and I hope you at least had some fun along the way.

Nice video. I think almost all of this can be applied to any competitive game. Fighting games aren't inherently harder to get good at than FPS or MOBA, but they do leave you more to yourself. Can never blame anyone else. I think the best part about fighting games is the community and the tourneys.

I am a player who has been playing fighting games for years. I've entered and even won tournaments. I won the Chaos Code tourney at Frosty Faustings this year and last year. I also use a ps4 controller, mostly joystick but sometimes dpad. My first fighter was Skullgirls back in 2014 and both Skullgirls and Chaos Code are two of my favorite games. This isn't me spouting how my opinion is more important, this is just so you know my perspective. I like your video and agree with some of your takes, especially your talk about joysticks on controllers even though I think your conclusion is a bit extreme. That being said, I feel like a good handful of your arguments also apply to other genres and are just overlooked there. They just get a bigger focus here because not even on a development level but on a community level, fighting games are looked at in a more competitive sense so certain aspects get a bigger spotlight. People complain about fighting game tutorials but I can find very few tutorials in other games even half as good as some fighting game tutorials OR if it is a good tutorial, it's for a non competitive game that doesn't have new people expecting to learn EVERY single piece of tech and meta dependent info to help win against top players. I could just say that people are whining and expecting too much from devs but I get it. The info is out there somewhere, why can't it also be in the game? Honestly though, it does feel unfair at times to have all these expectations placed on only fighting game devs and not other devs. Smash will sell millions with awful online, terribly tutorials and shitty controls but a small indie dev team gets told to give up because they don't know how to implement rollback or something. I've seen multiple dev teams put in so much work to add features that players care about and add in tons of info on top of constant bug fixes, online functionality, balancing, extra game modes, settings for visual impairment, etc. I'm not gonna say your wrong for wanting more info, I would also like to see a fighting game add even more stuff than that but I will suggest to try and set your expectations a little better. Like "you did all of this but why didn't you ALSO do this?" For your point on motion inputs, I love the Ryu vs Guile example but that's not the ONLY good reason to keep motion inputs. I'll admit on a subjective side, I just like them to a certain degree and enjoy getting to feel how one character controls compared to another. But beyond that, there's two big points to me. 1. Motion inputs allow for characters to have a larger selection of moves without having to resort to using more buttons than controllers have. 2. A motion input is a good way to avoid accidental inputs in the heat of a match but also add some difficulty to moves that could be important on the fly (IF the game has good input reading, I have played some that don't and I dislike those games). On an extra side note, I love complex fighters with lots of moves and mechanics, it's really fun for me to dig into them and play. I appreciate learning bnb combos but I love putting in the work to learn extra combos for special situations or ways to optimize further (and I also like that it isn't necessary to do that, people can choose to play how they want to). I also never felt like these games didn't care about my time, I just felt like they left the door open for me to invest as much as I want to and I'm happy with that. That's just other subjective things though. Anyways, that's the main points I wanted to share on my favorite genre of games (yes, I consider them games, not just mechanics lol). Again, I liked your video and this isn't me just trying to shit on you. I hope my comment doesn't come across badly, I just had a lot of thoughts on it. I mostly see where your points are coming from. I hope you're not getting a bunch of harassment for this video.

even though I could care less about fighting games, this video's a banger keep it up!

Game is over before i can start to think

As a fellow analog user (still am) its really interesting to see another person talking about the topic. When you mentioned how UNI has terrible directions that actually made a lot of sense to me cuz I had a really hard time performing anything in UNI compared to other fighting games since I use an xbox controller as well. Its funny cuz I play analog on every fighting game and its fine except for UNI. I started playing Tekken 8 still with the analog and i find the game to be completely fine with it even though it is not the preferred way to play. Although just like you, I have been using the analog for more than 10 years and I have been doing just fine in matches so I don't really see a reason to switch.

I applaud your dedication to stick it out in fighting games for how long you did (I believe you mentioned a year?) just to try and make it work for you. I think by most fighting gamer standards now I'm a little older than most but still much younger than many with ten years in my pocket at this point but I recall my first year. Unlike yours, my first year was very much focused on one game (UNIEL) and interfacing with the community both locally and online (Skype lmao and then discord.) Those in the community helped me in internalizing all those details and chores while still getting to play the game. Like you during my first year I knew maybe one or two combos with my main (vatista) and most of the time I was struggling to land the hits to do those BnB's, but through playing better players and communicating with them it became less of a you have to get beat by better players and more of a learning and training session. You get beat, you talk about it, try again, stop middle of the match to ask what just happened and have a laugh. This version of the "you gotta play better players" is what most new players probably can't find, I was lucky, my local scene was filled with players willing to teach and just play. Of course, we had also tournaments the days locals happened, but after the sets there we just played more after. Fighting games may seem like the one on one all your mistakes are your own type of game, but as a community i think we understand that fighting games are inherently overwhelming. But thats most games as I'm sure people will have stated. MOBA's have hundreds of champs with their own rules, FPS games will treat damage wildly differently from BR's to tactical shooters. Rotations, peeks, farming, callouts, what hero does what what champion does this and so fourth. But because those games are team based you get the opportunity to play with friends not against them and learn with them or learn from them where in fighting games your opponent is setup to not be your teacher they are your enemy you have to overcome. I disagree with that idea of fighting games a little bit, maybe its biased because all my opponents in my first year became my friends, some became my closest friends, and most importantly all of them helped me learn what I know today, heck im still learning despite my 10 years and most people are always learning in this genre. Not sure if any of this matters, I don't want to affect your opinion of fighting games because everyone's experience is valid, what occurred as you gave this genre its honest shot is your experience and even though mine were different than yours they both are true. Maybe I'm just sentimental because for me, its never been about competition, its about the friends and community I've made, getting good was a fortunate side effect because I liked the game I played so much. Played it so much that i'm still in this community haha. Anyways, if you read this all, appreciate it, appreciate your efforts but if you didn't like fighting games after all that, i wouldn't fault you. I will say one fact though, while there are many godlike pad players, you are correct in that Pad support for many pc fighting games are wack as shit. It's been a problem for UNI ever since UNIEL steam port. So much so a community member had released a guide for using steam input to correct deadzones. If you want I think i can find and post it here, if you read this far.

I get where you're coming from on the controller thing, but there are a lot of cheap stick and hitbox options out there and keyboard or d-pad are considered to be among the best ways to play anyway. Should there be more options for adjusting analog stick though? Definitely.

I feel like it's kind of unfair for your as-stated number one complaint to center around the controller when yours was broken. A large number of professional players use Xbox/PS controllers, to the point that there was discourse about whether arcade sticks were outdated and inefficient. If you had played these games with an unbroken Dpad, would you have felt the same way, that certain input devices offer a competitive advantage? Ultimately it's your opinion, but you've made that opinion public and available to response. I think Fighting Games are really cool, and have a lot of really great things going on that make them a genre that you can appreciate and enjoy for a long long time. I also agree that there's a lot that the games themselves flop on. Tutorials generally fall behind other games (though they've improved quite a bit in some regards), and technological implementation is all over the place (God save us from SOCD). Those things, though, generally amount to something relatively minor in the face of a rich and fascinating experience with a vibrant, welcoming culture.

great video!

I actually really liked the videos and you did point out some gripes Ive had with the genre and overall it was very well constructed! Although I think there are ways to solve some of your issues with the genre or there are valid work arounds. Although Iowkey wrote a bunch, I tried addressing each issue you mentioned best I can in the youtube comment section. BURNOUT, PLAYING YOUR OWN WAY, INFORMATION OVERLOAD, FINDING YOUR MOTIVATION. thought I'd put this at the top since it seemed like it would be a bit more important. Your burnout from doing the same thing over and over stems from what you think is the only reward in a fighting game(I think... I may have misinterpreted or Im wording things badly), Winning. When playing a game you play to have fun, in my case it's doing anything that looks cool or I think is interesting, and getting better so I make it my primary goal to see how far I can get playing that way. Wins to me are just a cherry on top of improving since it isn't my number 1 priority instead I think about whether or not Im improving in the way I want at that moment be it execution or thinking through a certain situation and if I improved then Im happy. As for how much you're expected to learn, that isn't really a thing. I like to play chess casually and Im absolutely garbage, but I have fun playing at the level Im at trying to go for the same 3 tricks, but there is a bunch to learn but I dont feel like learning all that much so I just try something new when I start feeling bored. If I like that new thing I'll start doing it more, if I don't like that new thing I'll move onto thing. I don't need to know all the terminology, strategies, and whatever because I don't need them to enjoy the game at my level, anyway a lot of that knowledge will mean nothing to me because I'm not good enough to make use of them. Lastly the game's way of bringing you back is the appeal of how all these systems come together to bring wide opportunity and incredible replay value from the variety of interactions, but id be lying if I said a small portion of what it tries to make you come back for is your own improvement. Also your rant about the game not leaving you wanting to come back for more for being a game and being fun etc. I have to disagree with due to fun being subjective and at the end of the day it is a game it's just you need to play in a way YOU enjoy the game. But I have to agree that if you are completely opposed to PvP then it will be a barrier. Communication and Terminology. Im in a weird area where I played games without any tutorials, outside sources were limited and even then I didn't use them, and I just had a game to play. When I was learning fighting games I became aware of things like Oki (Okizeme), Frame-data, Reversals, the use of counter hits, Kara-cancels etc. through strategizing, noticing patterns, and testing. Your example of counter hits starts playing into the idea of game design and the flow of a match. When it comes to counter hits in Guilty Gear Strive they want combo conversion-ability from the scenario to be easier and lead to overall bigger damage but in an example like BBtag (BlazBlue Cross-Tag Battle), it is more reserved for reads because let's be honest, basically nobody is going to react to a counter hit notification off of a stray move and be able to hit their most devastating combo in that situation. In our BBtag example this pushes the player to think more about whether or not they are sure they're going to get a counter hit and what the other person is going to try doing because going for that counter hit is a commitment. If you didn't land the counter hit you missed out on potential damage from a more standard combo, but if you knew you were going to land the counter hit then your commitment payed off. These seemingly small decisions in game design lead to after effects of game flow, prioritization, strategy, and more. Oki is another example of a communication thing I've found for a lot of newcomers, it's a concept found across just about every fighting game and it's simple to understand, when your opponent is knocked down or in an equivalent state set up an attack to hit them as soon as possible. At the time I had no idea people called this Oki I just understood the concept through the thought process of "Okay, I've hit my combo, but how can I raise my chances of getting more hits in?" I didn't have anyone tell me about these things I just discovered them through thinking about particular situations and strategizing. It's less about the words than it is about the concept being understood. If not having tutorials helped me learn anything it is to learn at your own pace and don't overload yourself with info since I had to go out of my way to find the info. Also try to learn how emphasized a specific technique is, because things like Kara-Cancelling and a bunch of other tech from my experience doesn't tend to show up meaningfully in anime fighters like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. little side note on depth coming from Devs vs Players. A lot of things common place in fighting games were initially unintentional like the idea of cancelling AND EVEN COMBOS!!! It just so happened that players like these things and devs recognize that and just decided not to remove these discoveries and now because they're so loved by the community and widespread they've kind of warped into game mechanics. Expectation vs Reality. Your expectations vs Reality is heavily skewed depending on what game you're playing. Your expectation of stringing together huge combos on the fly and feeling all mighty is a thing, especially in games like Marvel vs Capcom 3, Dragon Ball Fighterz, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, and plenty more but you have to find the game for you. To go back to my old Counter-Strike vs Call of Duty comparison I personally had the vision of what you'd imagine an orchestrated raid of a building would play out and Counter-Strike brought me a lot more of that vision to reality but if I had only played Call of Duty and other fast paced shooters and never experience tactical shooters like Rainbow Six and Counter-Strike I would've had the same idea you have about Expectation vs Reality with fighting games. MOTION INPUTS vs SIMPLIFIED INPUTS. Quite the topic in the fighting game community, but to be frank I personally don't mind simplified inputs if they are bound in clever ways that don't open up silly shenanigans or if they're added to a game not initially designed for them or they're implemented sloppily but I think they can be absolutely great due to lowering skill barriers and some of the frustration you're feeling. Input method doesn't matter depending on speed, damage output, range, or whatever other things that makes a game different from another but in the case of fighting games they can come up with some fairly big repercussions. Let's look at BlazBlue and Guilty Gear for a moment, anime fighters with motion inputs. An easy example of using traditional inputs serving to be beneficial is the classical DP input (forward, down, diagonal down-forward) which is usually reserved for DPs (Attacks with invulnerability when activated but are very unsafe when missed or blocked). The DP input keeps you from holding back or down-back which are typical for your ability to block in fighting games, I bring this up because the DP input adds more mind games and an example of risk and reward. You are revoking your ability to defend for yourself to deploy this attack with defensive properties and the input can't be done instantly as you need to move the stick around to hit each direction before pushing your button. This brings the idea of exploiting gaps in-between blocked moves is if your gap is only a couple frames big enough for your opponent to do something, if they commit to letting go of defense you can likely catch them with an attack before they are able to finish the input. If we were to replace this method of inputing a DP with something like Down+Button it gets changed to "Is this a gap between moves or am I just not attacking" because suddenly you can do it instantly which makes even a 1 frame gap possibly dangerous which I would argue would be detrimental to BlazBlue and Guilty Gear because a lot of the more advanced and harder to react mix-ups do play on your opponent's hesitance to commit to trying to stuff your pressure. An example of simple inputs in a traditional fighter is DNF Duel, I actually think it works very well there as the mix-ups in that game are a lot less crazy and overall carry less depth and are simpler but by adding the mind game carried with instant DPs it adds a bit more flavor to how offense is structured and where mind games are emphasized. Of course not every input ever made has this level of impact and importance on a game but you just have to think about things from a game design perspective and how much these choices impact the quality and feel of a game. I understand where that gripe is coming from though, I had a similar issue when I'd be trying to find a character a liked and didn't understand why I'd get completely different inputs or different results per input but if you think about it for a moment it all starts to make sense. little side tangent on implementation per character. Believe it or not motion inputs weren't designed to make you wan't to destroy your controller, instead they were designed to add more moves to a character's kit. A reason why in fighting game's why one character's Quarter-Circle Forward + Whatever Button may be different from another character is because you wouldn't want every character to be the exact same because that limit's variety in every aspect of the game and makes it almost the exact same experience every single time.

Hi. Controller player here. ALSO an analogue stick user. By choice. I know D-pad is prefered by many people, and I also own a cheap fight stick because I wanted to see how cool they are. Sadly they destroy my wrists so I can't use it. Here is the thing though, many games AREN'T designed for a D-Pad, they are designed for a fightstick. Today arcades might be rare but all fighting games used to be arcade first. And many of the design pointers used back then are still used now, so everything is done with a similar stick in mind. Mind you it has differences of course, like the square gate, and the fact it's an on/off rather than a range as you point into the video Also, mind you. I don't play UNI, so I can't tell you if it's indeed the fact the input wasn't read why you missed the combo. What I will tell you is that the attempt you succeeded at you did i almost 10 frames later than the other 2 tries. IDK if that's a link or a cancel, but if its a link you might have just straight up missed the window. Many games these days have shortcuts to inputs, UNI... mostly doesn't, and just like you are having problems with it on analogue I know people in keyboards (and possibly as an extension on hitboxes which are just big keyboards) have trouble inputing half circle motions because in most games just pressing the 3 buttons in order registers as a half circle while in UNI you need to be precise with doing the whole 63214, so everyone can have trouble with the inputs, even fight stick users can accidentally be using shorthands that the game doesn't register, I know I did at times While I'm down for more options for controllers... eh... I'm mostly fine with the defaults in most games. Sure some games control worse than others but that's all games. But I'll say, I never once felt I was being held back by my choice of equiment. Not truly. Every time I play the reason I lose are the 50 mistakes I made in neutral, not baiting that DP despite them having bar. Being predictable on my patterns or getting caught up on the footsies to forget to set up my shit (I like trap characters). Not having an answer to certain kinds of pressure or if I do, making my answer too predictable, autopiloting the wrong combo route instead of going for the one that would've killed. Wake up super-ing for the memes and so on. Equipment issues? maybe double taps for dash are kinda tough, but like many games rn have dash macros so... what else? Yeah that's about it. I'm not a master by any means so I'm far away from something optimal being the reason I lost. But then again. Many huge tournament winners won without using the "optimal, high execution" option simply because they can't do it mid important match!. So y'know... can't relate.

First off, this is a great video! Solid editing, good pacing and you explain your points well. I really enjoyed it. That being said, I, like many others, take issue with the way you're presenting your problems with these games. Really, the only thing i agree with you on is that FGs could have better solo gamemodes, tutorials and controller support. For the sake of time, I'll just speak on the thing that irked me the most; the bit at 28:57 where you essentially say "If you want a grind, play FGs, if you want a fun game that respects your time, play something else". In my experience, those aren't mutually exclusive. Fighting games ARE, by definition games and they DO respect my time. The amount of time that i put in directly correlates to the amount of fun i can have. To imply otherwise as some sort of objective statement feels patronizing. It all comes down to expectation. If the genre doesn't reach your expectations (outside of single player content), then either your expectations are too high or it might not be for you. That doesn't mean the genre is going to die anytime soon.

So, I wanna start by saying that I think the video is well made good job! But it also really feels like you shot yourself in the foot/ went in with a bad mindset when starting this. First why did you pick 6 different games? Trying to learn and get comfortable with one as a newbie is hard enough let alone 6. You also picked 6 anime fighters, which if that's what you like that's fine, but anime fighters are generally more complicated to learn. As for the analog stick being bad, yeah it is. It's imprecise, slow, and can feel really clunky. But most people would agree you should use the dpad if you use a controller. Just cause you use the analog stick for most games and is the most comfortable doesn't mean it works well. Some games are designed with certain control schemes. That'd be like me playing dwarf fortress with just a gamepad and complaining its really cumbersome. Fight sticks aren't objectively better than pad it's just preference. I prefer stick but I can still play just fine on a pad. Did you actually not look up any guides, tutorials or whatever when playing these games? If so why? A big part that makes fighting games "difficult" to learn is that likely when you play your first one you actually have no idea what you're doing. You don't understand fundamentals, or hell sometimes don't even know they exist. One of the great things about the FGC is the amount of information available from different creators. If you like learning on your own that's fine, but you'll likely get way more frustrated and angry than if you had someone help you learn. You also had some conflicting ideas for information in the game. For one you said you wanted the game to tell you more, how moves work, any properties on counter hit, ect... which I think is fine to an extent. You also wanted the game to teach you about things like Oki and stuff, which again is fine. But then you complained about the glossary that blazblue had that explained these concepts that it felt like homework. Wouldn't that apply to the game explaining all the extra cases to each move too? I also want to comment about when you said that its like devs just kept slapping these things on to make it a "fighting game" instead of it developing naturally. Stuff like 50/50s, mix-ups, Oki, meaty and so on did develop naturally. Like, people realized after you knock someone down you could time an attack to land the moment they get up, or that if you're right on top of them when they wake up they can either throw you or hit you and you have to guess. Combos getting stale is easier to go over. Most characters have a bnb but then you have ones that focus more on damage, others that focus on corner carry, Oki, meter gain and so on. If you were getting bored of the same combo over and over learn a new one for a different purpose. If you really don't enjoy fighting games then that's fine. Not everyone is going to. But I would encourage you to maybe stick to fewer games to try and learn, use dpad or keyboard instead of analog stick if that's not working for you, look up some guides and the like for games or characters you play (I highly recommend core-a gamings button mashing video for fundamentals), try to enjoy the process of learning new things in the games, and just simply try to have fun. Win or lose it's just a game, you don't always have to focus on improving you can enjoy the skill level you're at and just have fun.

8:36 lmaoooo the controller rant had to be my fave section. really enjoyed your breakdown of the mechanics. the on screen visuals were clear, and watching the evolution of your editing style has been great. every vid is better than the last! nicely done!!

22:50 let me explain this point in a simple way in most games sometimes players use these inputs to option select certain situations for example in BlazBlue grab and Barrier inputs overlap so if player uses the option select correctly they can tech grab or block depending on the situation without taking much risk there are also different sytems in place to create mind games or counter plays around these option selects in older Guilty Gear roman cancel also worked in a similar way to prevent or create certain Option selects in strive they gave RC a true input and basically made it easier to use but they also took some options players might take advantage they also changed grab system in a similar way so i am pretty certain it was an intentional change for new commers

The reason you prefer other genres is why I like fighting games personally. Playing games that try to give me a sense of accomplishment feels fake, when I can actually work to prove myself against a real opponent. Though communication is undeniably a sore spot

I got the new GBF free demo when it came out, I toyed a bit with arcsys stuff before but still didn't ever even thought about okizeme Game asked for FG experience for ranked I selected "I know a bit of fighting games" Little did I know "knowing a bit of fighting games" meant "I've been actively playing FGs for at least 5 years" Dropped that crap, but I'll say one thing : That lil loli saying how I suck with a big smile after losing 100% of my matches against frame data nerds... she's lucky it wasn't Mortal Kombat.

No duh certain equipment will give you an advantage especially if the equipment you are using is BROKEN. If people can play dark souls on a ddr dance pad, then you can play fgs with an analog stick.

I do think the beginning is a little misleading. Though true the game is open from the start, it's really not the brick wall people think it is. The game is to fight and improve overtime if you so desire. Although I will say that getting wrecked by someone better than you is bs, when you're starting out. It's best to play with friends or try and look for a social platform with beginners. It's alright to be a noob and press buttons. Once you get into it more, that's when you start learning mechanics. You learn 1-2 combos and just fight people. The more you play, the more you learn. That's ideally how you'd get into it and not get stuck in tutorials and training mode. Fighting games are pretty unique in the fact it's very much a social game. You can learn the game solo but it's a lot more miserable.

If you're on PC there are at least plenty of ways to tweak your analog deadzone range and shape to better fit any game. I've been using analog on all fighting games since SF4 and I used to be a dpad player. I had the same thought process that if I used analog on everything else, why not try it on fighting games and lo and behold I found it much more comfortable after I got used to it. I also have a Qanba crystal stick I rarely use but have as a backup. The main reason i just don't feel comfortable with that mostly is because my diagonal inputs are really sloppy because of the square gate. Instead of hitting a clean up forward (important for airdashing) or down forward (important for EWGF) I tend to just barely hit up THEN forward or down THEN forward.

this is my favorite content to hate on, you should join glue eaters and have a conversation with us so we can debate on other coping topics such as bat vs knife and why any controller works great if you're comfy

The controller rant was funny lmao 😂

5:37 Oh hey. It's me.

Overall really interesting and insightful video, learnt some things about how non-fg players might (or do) view the genre and some issues I never considered (for example how combo limit implementations are weird and hard to understand intuitively, which I'd say is a quirk of how each FG functions differently on a fundamental level). I feel that most recent fighting games have been trying to be more accessible, like BB or GB having term dictionaries ingame and introducing simple inputs, but I'm not really the best person to talk about this since the majority of my experience is in strive and rising. But the section at 23:00 felt a bit one-sided here, these characters' gameplan is keeping you out as best they can which is also why they feel infruriating to play against, especially if you dont know how to. In exchange for this these characters crumble when you actually get in on them and most characters have options to deal with their zoning to an extent. Regarding the monotony of combos, you generally do different kinds of combos depending on your situation, sometimes you want to do your optimal combo to cash out all your meter or you want to setup into a situation where your opponent is forced to deal with even more pressure/mind games and depending on where you hit what, if it's a CH or not, if your cooldowns are there (in the case of granblue) you'll wanna do different conversions. Anyways I'm probably yapping a lot but ty for this video ^^

Alot of stuff here is legit criticism that we will all agree on, another part of it its basically "skill issue", but still a great watch ! If you are watching this, and want to get into the grind, fighting games are not for everyone, and thats ok !

Oh man, some of what you are asking for would not be taken well by new players. If you had to read a design doc entry for half circle back forward for super input that gave an actual breakdown including average input speed, with game state analysis for balancing I don't think a single casual soul would read that. Trying to really explain how the point of vulnerability from raw inputs introduced compares to it being alleviated when buffered because of different characters' points of strength throughout the course of the match and positions on screen would make even the eyes of some vets gloss over. I think it's perfectly reasonable to want that information just so we are clear but that topic alone is a whole KZfaq video. Guile v Ryu is really just an easily digestible analysis. It's akin to "just make my reload speed way faster" in a competitive fps. Sure you can do that but you have to design your whole game around that.

Analog stick with fighting games is fun. I'm honestly looking into other weird ways to play such as the stickbox which seems fun for negative edge mixup characters like Zato. But I understand the execution struggles of the analog stick. Edit: *I would look into Fantasy Strike. You seem like you would like it because the game was built from the ground up to be very accessible. A KZfaqr by the name Core-A did a video on the simplest fighting games and he describes Fantasy Strike very well.*

I definitely agree that fighting games just have terrible new player onboarding processes. i guess my experience as a new player that has only been playing for a little under a year was almost the exact opposite of yours likely exclusively BECAUSE i went online to look stuff up and learn things (also that i'm used to keyboard so i never had any trouble with motion inputs at all). I think a big part of fighting games can be the communal aspect of it and info sharing between players, it's pretty hard to go at it alone without community resources at the very least. also motion inputs are fun thats the only reason they need to be in the game. I'm sorry your experience with them was so ass because you didint know that analogue stick is dog but they genuinely are just super fun to do, if everything was just a single button it would not be nearly as enjoyable to do in the heat of a match. also to push back on your controller complains the only control method that has such a massive disadvantage is analogue stick, if you did any other control method (keyboard, hitbox, arcade stick, d-pad) there is little to no advantage besides arcade stick having a very VERY minor disadvantage of travel time, but it's still all preference.

its crazy that the only fighting game ive seen come close to satisfying everything the average consumer wants (fun story mode that actually has interesting gameplay that doesnt just end up tutorializing everything about fighting games but also doesnt just throw you at level 3 cpus, good online, good lobbies, good whatever else) is the my little pony fighting game. everything this dude complained about in the last 5 minutes just had me thinking "damn. why is the my little pony fighting game the only one that did all of this" i love fighting games a lot, but all of the critiques at the end are completely valid. if you dont enjoy a lot of the learning aspect and the feeling of getting better than others then youre not gonna enjoy things a lot. i also think something interesting is the clear feeling that a lot of people from the outside dont really see what makes fighting games so fun to play. its never really been the combos for most people, even though those are sick and a lot of people love them. people who play fighting games usually love the neutral, playing and interacting with your opponent and getting used to their characters specific tools and building gameplans around them to beat them. this is also why i think its interesting that a lot of new players are so dismissive of assist modes that give premade combos and blockstrings to the player. to people like me, it makes my brain go "oh thats good, the new person wont need to worry about stuff that might be a barrier to entry to playing fun neutral or games by getting to live with mediocre combos and actually focus on what its like to play neutral and play footsies" (this is a take that depends on games, i think street fighter 6's modern mode knocked it out of the park in doing this but i can definitely see some other games "assist" modes like xrd stylish being worse for things like giving the player a health penalty or other dumb things) but its really interesting to see that the usual take from new players is that they dont want to use these modes because they arent "learning the game properly" or "it wasnt how the game was designed". it kind of proves just how poorly these games actually display the most fun part of fighting games, and how even people who can sink into these games for a while can struggle to find the fun in that. pretty good video all things considered, fighting games are hard and can feel like a massive chore to get into if you dont already have friends or a community around you willing to sit down and help you through the basics and help you find the fun. its sad that only 1 game has ever really accomplished the important goal of "actually being a game" that regular people expect to play for enjoyment, and hopefully at some point in the future this changes. if you can bear to put up with my little pony character designs, id recommend trying them's fighting herds. like ive said above a few times, its the only fighting game that has a somewhat real and innovative story mode that doesnt just throw textboxes at you and doesnt just give you baby cpus that you just mash through mindlessly to beat. id also recommend if you ever have continued interest in the genre only playing games with rollback netcode, since games with bad internet (i think the only one on this video that actually has bad netcode on pc is uniclr, but now that uni2 is out that doesnt matter anymore since uni2 has rollback) are notoriously delay based and way more difficult to get into without a local scene.

Great video, always neat to see what other people think about fighting games. It's kinda of funny to me, though fighting games finally just came around to more content and better online due to covid, but to newcomers like yourself, it still feels incomplete. I'm out here losing my shit over Granblue Rising having skins cause no ArcSys game has them but GBVSR. We get hype for so little lmao

Dont work for every game, but i know people who play guilty gear strive on using the analog stick but bind the "up" to r2 so they dont get unintentional jumps

i agree with you. your controller matters. fingers and wrists are gonna be better for a majority of humans intuition. hitbox/stick is always gonna be better for MOST people.

Hi. Fighting game lover/enjoyer since he fell out the womb here. You're criticisms are Completely valid. Good day sir.

I remember some time ago, whatching ppl on twitch or youtube, pulling out some cool combos and thinking: damn, I wanna do that. Then I've had the chance to dip my toes into the genre, and now I don't want to have anything to do with it.

communication is horrible in fighting games. why cant i see frame data and hitboxes in training mode? whats the reason?

YO! Amazing video! I absolutely love fighting games. It's my favorite genre, and I agree with MOST of what you say (You've shown you understand that someone might enjoy the aspects you find annoying. I just don't relate with a lot of the things you do find annoying is all). You have a very well thought out video, and I appreciate it! :D In terms of the grind as well though! For me the rigors that come with playing over a long period of time are influenced with who your playing with (Obviously). Lol I've had the benefit of finding a play group I've played with for years now that has a very mixed bag of players. 1. Asked me to teach him fighting games, then after maybe a year of beating him 40 times in a row and going through videos. Now beats me 40 times in a row in everything we play. LMAO 2. Someone I can beat in every game except Tekken, because he refuses to play any fighting game that isn't Tekken. Mostly because he hates the genre in general, but for some reason likes Tekken. xD 3. Someone who tends to play everything that comes out, and stays at a very average skill level. Has the most time in fighting games. Me. :3 4. Someone who literally buys the new game that's out so they can play with us. "I enjoy fighting games at the most, when it's fresh and everyone is playing it." drops the game when the group doesn't play it. And people who play other games and sometimes participate. ^^ One of the players (#1). After making it to Masters in Street fighter 6, and making a trip to EVO. All the sudden has been questioning whether he even likes fighting games anymore, and has been exploring new genre's. He claims his interest dissolved because it was less about playing the actual games, and more about the social interaction. Something that went away ever since he, and myself moved away. It's different playing in person for sure. Especially with a group of people you've played with forever. Kinda like Dungeons and Dragons. Anywho! Tangent over. Great video. If anyone asks me to teach them how to play... I'm DEFINITELY showing them this video. Certain friends and family get excited about fighting games only when I come visit for awhile. The play group will show up and we'll all play a fighting game. We get loud and obnoxious. Laughing and bantering. People join in and express they want to get better; then all the sudden I'm being asked to teach them a genre of game they have expressed HATING, or disliking. They're enjoying the moment, and I feel like this video is a great reference! Thank you for making this. ^^

I had a similar learning process.... but with more video watching. And I've been using the analog stick to play in tournaments I don't do great but I've won a fair share of games in tournaments.

I love fighting games, I suck at them, but I still love them. I enjoy motions inputs, especially if the motion matched the move you executed. I love the huge move variances of a character in comparison to all other genres, where stuck with the same moves/animation sometimes in a specific context. I like you have to think for your input and yes from time to time I want to play without thinking my inputs or my opponent and then I play a simple singleplayer game. Fighting games give me want other genre can't deliver and I enjoy a lot of the stupid BS that can happen in those games. But yes the biggest problems of fighting games are the arcade roots, where almost every FG still stuck in (not really good or enough singleplayer content, you don't get enough informations; in old FG you even got all the special moves for you character you had to "find" them), that's nothing to appeal to everyone and that should be fine, not every game must be enjoyed by everyone or even genre. What I liked from the video is the joystick section. I use the joystick too, because I could hit diagonals more easer, but I now that some games feel better to play with stick than others. Now I know why, thanks for that. 👍 I tried a arcade stick, but I don't like to play with those. What I hope and want to try next is a leverless controller. No sticks, only buttons, diagonals are two buttons and are also usable for other games too.

You drew me in with the Title and I LOVED hearing your experience and your conclusions. I still hold out hope that Fighting Games will become "Games" once again, but I am not going to lie that I do enjoy doing the "chores" that fighting games offer.

I love the way the video is edited honestly one of the better looking videos and I think its entertaining but a lot of your issues are sort of self imposed. There is no right way to play fighting games you simply think there is one and you don't want to learn and use those things as an excuse to not develop discipline also the comparison of all fighting games into one genre is fair but that's like treating all rhythem games the same, all fps games the same, hell all puzzle games the same i can tell you a lot of good players I mean fucking great players don't have dustloops or whatever memorized talk to any tekken player you think they know every fucking move they don't. most people don't. learn what you need to learn and don't think that's what holding you back and most games not even fighting games shouldnt be there to hold your hand you're not entitled to it when you boot up a competitive game because that's what it is a competitive game caring about the story is like getting made seige doesn't have a 40 hour single player mode that's your fault for expecting that not the games. you are holding yourself back and that's fine smash exist literally for that reason sakurai saw people sucking at kof . also fix your fucking controller

The controller thing is big. I struggled with d-pad for a few months before switching to keyboard, and immediately feeling the difference in comfort (a year or so later I got a hitbox, and it was about the same price as an official PS4 controller). That being said, it's not uncommon that people (even at very high level) use the analog stick instead of d-pad or a combination of the two. The other points are valid for any competitive hobby, and your mistake was trying to learn multiple niche games at the same type (most by Arc Sys, which is known for complexity and speed) instead of focusing on one or two that actually have a playerbase for matchmaking to work properly (namely, Strive and Granblue). Or choosing Street Fighter if you wanted something more straight-foward. BlazBlue is my favorite of all time, but I would never recommend it unless you have a friend to spar with or you're already in love with something about it (which for me was the visual novel story of Calamity Trigger). Edit: On that note, it's really funny that Tekken (and probably Street Fighter) is probably the closest to what you apparently want in terms of mechanics, inputs, pace, ability to react, and visual clarity. Instead, you went with all the games that are designed specifically for crack-heads with ADHD (except maybe Granblue, but even that changed a bit with Rising).

18:36 what does that mean? the explanation is literally on the next sentance (making it easier to connect combos)

7:00 Oh hey I recognize that name

What i find the most optimal is to use a keyboard instead of controller, its easier than the arcade stick to use, a lot cheaper and everyone has one, controllers are very tough indeed

Most of the players in my local scene for dragon ball fighterz use analog

While watching and listening to your perspective I was going to suggest what I always do to new players AND players already in the FGC: Just play Soulcalibur, it's literally the best designed fighting game. The more I learn and play other fighting games the brighter it shines, illuminating WHY other fighting games don't 'feel' right and why even players who love those other games constantly complain about specific mechanics or characters: because the designs of those (usually 2D) games have inherent limitations which require a band-aid solution, which creates a problem, which requires a new solution, which builds into a different problem and so on and so on to form a web of design choices that create a system which will fall apart if a jab is 1/60th of a frame too slow. But... then you showed a solitary clip of Soulcalibur and you wrote that you loved playing it but don't find it (and DoA and MK) fun or interesting in a competitive sense. I'm a bit confused. Could you explain why you love playing Soulcalibur if you don't find it fun or interesting?

I do agree in some of the points presented. Fighting games do have some really poor user interfaces mixed with the fact that they also have hidden mechanics that are not fully explained. They simply do not comunicate these things. In granblue fantasy versus rising for example, characters have different health pools. Nowhere in the game this is communicated to the player. Something as simple as health segments like in mobas could have been implemented but they simply choose to keep quiet? Am I supposed to guess the big guy has more health and the skinny one has less? The same with bravery points. If you have less than 2 you start taking extra damage. Where is that information explained? I do not understand the need of fighting games to keep mechanics hidden from view.

Re: Why don't games explain why motion inputs are chosen for specific moves. It's because the answer can often be very technical and in-depth and not something that can be explained without understanding other fundamentals, so it'd just sound like gibberish to newer players. Even surface level explanations such as "Oh, 360s are designed so you can't use them without canceling into another move" is technically not true, depending on individual games, how they handle buffer windows, etc. For example, it's possible to do walking 360s in BB, for example, just very very hard, whereas it's usually not possible in SF as far as I'm aware, so you'd have to explain nuanced details that, as you put it, "are homework". Or, another example is that charge motions are usually designed as a handicap to balance moves that are powerful elsewhere, but then you have to explain the nuances of "powerful in what way". So you'd have to explain what frame data is, usually. You'd have to explain the Hadoken kill situation with Guile vs Ryu, things like that. Similar ideas with stuff like DP motions (changes how you buffer it during different situations, etc.). You also pointed out, for example, Grab macros being inconsistent where you would do attacks if you can't grab. This is intentional because this is a benefit in some situations (usually for option select reasons). But, you'd have to go into detail about option select stuff, which is on the advanced end of complexity. It's why a lot of FGs have moved to allow people to try the game with easier motion inputs first recently because the problem is more getting them hooked first, and *then* the explanations can occur later if people are more interested.

Hey Hey, Im a fighting game enjoyer, when I was a kid i used to play MK at home and then saw tekken at an arcade and was amazed by it. I think you put together a wonderful video about your complaints about fighting games, and took the time to explain your thoughts pretty well. That being said. I do have only somethings I would like to actually say. 1: The terminology glossary Isnt that important, though it is a good tool to understand and learn about the many, many, many things people will do. You're sometimes just better off playing against people and learning the game from that perspective instead of understanding it deeply. 2: Fighting games are niche, and your point about the assist mode though true has some negatives or sacrifices IE: DBFZ you have massive damage scaling from your auto combos. SFVI you sacrifice a lot of your moveset for easier execution. Tekken is the worst offender currently since you can do Perfect Electrics with 1 button press no more difficult inputs if you wanna abuse it. Those are the only 2 things I would say I have a different opinion on. Other than that I find your criticisms very fair and very honest. Although I enjoy them as much as I do, it is only because none of my matches ever play the same. So thank you for at least giving fighting games a shot even if your conclusion was you don't enjoy them.

FTL soundtrack whips though

TBH, your unintentional jump (14:47) is you being inaccurate with the stick. The input zones are a legit complain tho.

As someone who has been playing fighting games for 20 years now, you're doing it. You've reached the point where you can fight on an intermediate level and just be able to well......fight. Welcome to to genre. Keep playing

HEY I LIKE THOS VISUAL NOVELS edit: for context sake, a bunch of the games with visual novels tie ins come FROM visual novel pasts. MANY of the niche fighting games started as fun fighting games made for their community who bought into their visual novel and decided to outsource another fan development company into making their characters into fighting game characters. we're talking melty we're talking fate we're talking eternal fighter zero. a bunch of these games inspired other games and were inspired by other games design wise, which is why games like blazblue with a massive visual novel exist, because they're meant for that audience more than a grander audience. imma say it again: blazblue is a niche fighting game series. Their focus, at least at the time of it's creation, wasn't to grab everyone and pull them in, it was to grab fans already in the industry and give them a game they'd be willing to pay for (for more context this was when arc sys lost the rights to guilty gear stuff temporarily , which is why a bunch of blazblue characters RESEMBLE guilty gear characters in function/style/concept)

"Over what's right". Dude, just use the d-pad in the controller you already have.

Im sorry, but the gamepad is more than viable. Having a bad controller is hardly a fair argument against a genre of games. The only controller option that may be better is hitbox, but pads are often used at the professional level. It's really just personal preference.

Yeah the stick sucks, but there's a high level player use it, believe it or not. There's Broski, AKI main on SF6, and he got close to beating MenaRD recently. I don't why or how he does it, but he still rolls with it while admiting it's shit.

Yeah these opinions dont really hold much weight when you only play arcsys games

I’m seeing whole 5 paragraph essay’s in here. I make videos myself so Uhh, I’ll save it for a video topic and you time. But what I will talk about is be transitioning from D-Pad and joining the psycho club of analogy users like me and you. And this all started because of fighterz. I watched a lot of Lotus and Doto play Fighterz when I was first getting into the game around the start of season 3, and seeing people do jump cancel combos and trying to replicate on a Dpad is stupid to say the least. It’s way easier and more comfortable and it feels the intended way when it’s not. And it kinda sucks. And then in GGS, ya know what you get? A QUICK SPRINT OPTION! You know where that option is? ON THE MOVEMENT ANALOG STICK! Which again, fighting games love 8 directions not 16, SO WHY!? WHY ENCOURAGING IT!? JUST MAKE IT OF A MORE INTENDED OPTION PLEAAAASE! Also Tekken 8 does a lot of your complaints right and it’s 10x clearer that you should be using the Dpad in that game. And even if it do t got the greatest tutorial, it will always teach the player what they did wrong in replays and I’m a huge fan of.

Bruh, how is an anime fighter having a visual novel story mode a bad thing? It's a game that was made by the doujin scene so thats kind of part of its whole thing lol. Everything else with I can see your point and agree with, especially on the tutorials and such. It's just I think you might not be playing the right fighting games for you. You're like me in the sense you prefer to find your own answers to things, and use creative and out of the box solutions to express yourself in game. You need to play a fighter with lots of expression and movement, something like melee. I've seen you touched on it from time to time, but I'm not sure how much you've played it. Getting a couple of friends to learn and play melee with is a blast, because the game has little in the way of frame traps or any real frustrating noob killers besides falco (yes the entire character). Idk, I think game choice matters a lot.

I think this is a good critque on fighting games but i do have a few critques of my own: About motion inputs in anime fighters. Take this example in a shooter the game dosen't need to tell why this assault rifle is a burst rile to the other rifles which are automatic. For the expectation segment at the start you showed only zoner gameplay which is there whole gameplay make you mad and do something dumb, yeah it sucks hacing to play their game but thats what they are designed to do. and for the bnb combos i feel you aren't going into matches with the right mindset. You should be trying new thing and experimenting. The fun of fighting games is just trying something new and seeing if it works. Not going for the same bnb you know whats going to happen try fitting different attacks For the grind part about how fighting games has some shitty things, yeah what game dosen't i feel you are being to harsh with what you want especially since the fgc has been trying to fix those shitty parts. Bad online Rollback netcode, shitty story mode look at world tour and tekken, But what i didn't get the most was bad tutorials fighting games have had the best tutorials yet with ggst having some of the most in depth. As a closing statement i think your right fighting games is not for everyone with the amount of things you have to learn, you can still play one without learning but if you want to get into the genre you need to learn and thats why this genre will forever be niche. Also wanted to say that with the way YOU play video games i feel you are not the intended audience for this. You want to learn for yourself without outside knowledge fine but if you do your going to have to put in more work finding your own combos then everyone else and when someone who just watched one video on how their character works wins against you then it puts into question is this genre right for you because with the amount of things you say you hated about these games its the reason why us the hardcore fans love these games thats why we have the fgc and is tightly knited because we all love the things you hate about theese games. but anyways i do think your right about the analog stick issue but i do think this genre isn't for ya mate but if you do persist if you do keep getting better maybe maybe you see from our eyes why getting we put up with some of shit we have had like past shitty story modes and such. I'll give you a hint its because theres always a light in form of competitions -A anonymous 16 old kid who got into fighting games in 2022

God it feels so good to see someone echo the idea about controllers for fighting games after getting told I just need to practice while using an XBox controller. I always thought I was just dog shit but then the moment I picked up a cheap PS4 knock off and had a DPad in comfortable spot to use my play got drastically better.

12:08 dude, you just need a working dpad. thats not special equipment thats just a working controller

Fighting games (or any competitive game for that matter) always has a bouncer in front of the game to enforce their rules, their barrier to entry. From how it sounds, you tried to sneak into the game without going past the bouncer, refusing to look up guides and only using in game references to mechanics. While I do agree with you that fighting games have terrible tutorials, it’s on you to educate yourself on other mechanics. You kept trying to reinvent the wheel when more experienced people have already documented these concepts for us