The hardest part about Fighting Games is the fact that your opponent is another human who potentially has as much knowledge and capability and experience at the game as you do. No matter how long you train, there's someone out there who can train just as hard, and you just have to be ok with that.

Real talk, if (as it seems) you record all these videos live on stream and then edit them down for KZfaq, without a script, you are for real one of the most eloquent and thoughtful people in the FCG.

Reducing the mental stack is the best way to learn fighting games conceptually. Learning to execute, and knowing when to reduce execution is one of the other best things to learn in order to learn fighting games. The best combo to do is the one you can do. The best time to do it is when you know it is within your available options.

New players vs the vets is so rough. Getting into a game where its a discord fighter with a small playerbase is just beatdown central. 95% of people still playing gone give you all the hands lol

To me the fundamental difficulty of fighting games comes down to three things: 1) Everyone is trying to win. 2) The games have a lot of potential surface area to be mastered. 3) The games are not fundamentally random. A more-skilled player will win more often than a less-skilled player. A lot of people focus on #2 as the main source of difficulty but that's a mistake. As long as #3 is true, it will still be hard to win in a game where #1 is true. Take Tetris for example -- Tetris is far simpler mechanically than any fighting game, but the best Tetris players will still stomp new players. If you get match-made against the best players, it'll still seem really "hard" and "unfair". Reducing #2 can make the game easier to learn, but that means that your mastery must be more complete to be competitive. In a game with many mechanics, you might only need to master 70% of them to be pretty solid. In a game with very few mechanics, you need to master 100% of them and execute all of them consistently to be competitive. You can reduce #3 (increase the randomness) and to some extent game developers have been doing this -- think higher damage (i.e. fewer interactions are needed to win => higher variance) and comeback mechanics. But if you turn this dial up too far, you just don't have a competitive game anymore. That's the "Mario Kart" approach.

Are fighting games hard? I don't know because no one even defines what they mean when they say "hard". There's no bar. Is it hard to play absolutely perfectly, execute everything with no drops ever, and always make all the right decisions? Yeah, sure. Is it hard to boot up the game and mash buttons? Not unless you're stuck on the "connecting to server" screen. There's such a huge spectrum in-between and every time someone talks about this topic it always feels like they pick some arbitrary spot in the middle, then they base everything off of whether it's hard to achieve this made up list of skills A, B, C, and D, or they compare one game/genre to some other arbitrary game/genre. The result is that no one that's talking about the difficulty of fighting games is even talking about the same thing.

LK, your eloquence and priceless encompassing knowledge in fighting games lends itself so well to videos like this. I know fans appreciate the very niche anime fighter videos like matchups, broken past chars, tech, etc., but you truly shine on the macro scale of fighting game theory and I personally hope to see more videos reflecting that on the whole. Really appreciate this, as someone with such a volatile attention span who has had tough times trying to embrace fighting games c: cheers EDIT: Like for example, your take right here on the concept of difficulty vs. constraint is the real dope shit many don't talk about, let alone showcase examples in real-time.

Wooo another banger from LK, I find wby people find anything in life hard is the “mental calorie consumption" of an activity. When starting a new activity you consume a larger amount of mental capacity thinking about every little detail, movement or. Nuance. Ect... Muscle memory is a big part of it but there is also the mental energy expenditure, which switches focus as you get better at an activity. As a guitar player of almost 30 years I'm no longer thinking OK this finger goes here, I need to press this hard. Pick softly here. use this and this part of my hand to mute strings I'm not playing. To other things such as tempo of. Song, key, ect.. I hope I'm getting my point across Balam garden theme FTW Still my favorite fgc content -poppedandwrecked

It's very funny to me that blaze blue was considered to be the easy baby mode game. Because even when it first came out, I had been playing fighting games seriously for about 5 years at that point. And doing all green on command (I wasn't aware of shortcuts for that move, and I still don't know if there are any now), since I was a litchi player like LK, is still probably the hardest input I've ever had to learn for any character that I played

I don't wanna spend hours repeating inputs over and over and over and over again with any hint of neglect in my practices leading to being unable to do the inputs connsistently, just to do inputs that are key to a characters's game plan. can't tell you how many times I knew what move I needed, and how to do it, and was able to do it consistantly in training, only for it to not work in a match cuz i overshot one little input

From the perspective of someone who struggled to get into fighting games for a long time but just recently managed to succeed. Here are my thoughts on some things why I think they are so hard 1. Movelists. Fighting games as a genre have a truly extraordinary number of ways to just "attack" someone. This is good and part of what gives them their qualities. But from the perspective of a new player just getting into things, it's extremely overwhelming and new players will just mash buttons because they don't know which ones are better than others in that situation. It can take a long time to just figure out a basic attack plan. This is often not helped by the fact that often the most visibile fighting game gamplay is often the high level stuff, and the high level stuffoften doesn't translate well to new players. For contrast lets take an fps, in an fps you have a clear primary weapon and maybe some secondary stuff that's it. While said tools have their intricacies to them, your concern as a new player is not "what do I use" it's how do I use it. 2. Motion inputs are a barrier and something that is really unique to the genre. Putting basic functions of your character behind execution barriers is going to make things harder when you are starting off. In addition the things locked behind motion inputs are often the most unique aspects of the characters, the things that can meaningfully differentiate away from mashing. They aren't difficult to overcome with patience, but it is yet another barrier that is coming in on top of the many other barriers as a new player. Again taking a look at other genres, while the controls give room for skill mastery, rarely are they presented as an obstacle to basic functions of your character. Often they are gateways to higher level techniques and optimizations. 3. Terminology. Fighting games basically have their own dictionary and it can often make some information transfer difficult. For a simple example take okizeme. It conveys a simple meaning, attacking an opponent getting up from the ground, but is communicated by a word that has no innate meaning to someone outside of the genre. There's a lot of stuff like this that can make learning new things hard for a new player as information I am trying to learn can either be incomprehensible or require me to go look stuff up online just so I can understand the tutorial. 4. Lack of low level/singleplayer engagement. Fighting games are probably the genre that leans into multiplayer the hardest. There's nothing innately wrong with that. However it does create an environment that is difficult for learning as the engaging content is stuff that requires you to be able to play it against other players. Singleplayer can be important for teaching new players as it can introduce concepts one at a time and also provide a place to practice and improve. Fighting game singleplayer content is largely limited to matches against bots (that are otherwise identical to multiplayer) and tutorial modes that are often just simon says with little application. I haven't seen many fighting games that take the care to craft singleplayer modes in the ways other games do by slowly introducing things over the course of the game and teaching you about individual mechanics. And the limited capcity of fighting game ai's is going to make any single player mode difficult. What finally got me to break into fighting games was a tutorial that told me the following. Disregard everything about the movelist, here are the 5 basic functions for moves you need to know: jab, poke, anti air, overhead, low. Press random buttons until you find a move that can do each of those. From there play some games then look back and try to learn something new, like a basic combo off your poke. Just take things slow, disregard what you don't feel like learning at the time, and focus on playing with intentionality above all else. Learning things one at a time and then applying them in a way that wasn't just simon says really the key for me.

Fighting Games require probably the greatest amount of time investment to get to a point where you feel like "I really know what I'm doing", and the struggle with that is from the fact that most modern online competitive games often aren't "fun" until you reach that point as a minimum. Fighting games also have a pretty unique skill level curve in that your low to high elo levels are mostly determined by how much of the game you're actually capable of executing, whereas in most genres the execution of most mechanics exist at all levels and it's more a matter of how well you can do them, not whether you can do them period.

People are very willing to help. My new roadblock is after playing FGs since Strive dropped, I've recently stopped seeking help because I feel like I'm wasting the time of anyone who tries.

I think what makes fighting games really hard and by extension niche is the amount of self-motivation you have to do before you start having fun. You have to put in lots of hours where you don't even know if you enjoy the game because you haven't even experienced what it's really like to play them. You can give someone a short 15 minute introduction to Counter-Strike and they'll get to experience the game, sure it gets a lot more complicated and deeper, but do you like clicking heads? Yes? No? At that moment they can decide if they like it or not, they don't have to gamble whether or not to put in time because they've tasted the reward. Imagine someone playing Street Fighter for the first time. They've just spent 15 minutes learning the controls and how blocking works. They start a match.. And their opponent starts throwing out hadoukens like there's no tomorrow. Now they have to go into training mode and spend AT LEAST an hour(because they're new) learning how to deal with projectiles. Cue the same thing for Grabs, Jump-ins etc. Before you can deal with projectiles, you're not playing fighting games. Before you can anti-air, you're not playing fighting games. Before you know who's turn it is, you're not playing fighting games. Playing fighting games for the first time is like playing an infinitely more complicated version of rock-papper-scissor where someone else sits across the room and tells you who won without elaborating. You have to go out of your own way to learn how to play "fighting games", to understand the rules. Luckily though, when you've gone through this once you don't have to do it again because almost all of it is transferable from one fighting game to another and you've built up intuition so if there's something you don't know you'll still have a good guess on how to deal with it. And most importantly you know you like the genre so spending hours in training mode feels rewarding. I think this is why execution is always brought up as the casual limiting factor because it is the thing that everyone has to learn whenever a new game comes out whether this is your first or 100th game. But I don't think execution is what gatekeeps new players, at least not modern ones. Execution has just become a meme nowadays. No one goes "Oh, I think that beginner dislikes fighting games because he tried to punish but failed because either 1: The normal just isn't fast enough. 2: It doesn't reach. 3:He didn't time it correctly. and he has no idea which one it is and what the possibilites even are." Instead people go "Oh, fighting games are really execution heavy something something evo moment 37"

I'm going to answer,and THEN I'm going to watch the video,(not my standard order,I promise) the reason fighthing games are "hard" is that you don't enjoy that much while learning,it is something that strategy games and FG have in common ( "my genres"). As opposed to SP shooters,or action/adventure games, fun and learning don't really go thogether in this genre(and sorry for being an asshole, people who have been playing strategy/fighting for long time,your views are skewed,you are too used to it,I call it the "math teacher syndrome", when something complicated just FEELS way easier because you have been doing it for a long period of time) you guys recall playing god of war,or the new tomb raiders, GTA ,or bioshock,and having to PRACTICE for days/weeks BEFORE getting to enjoy the game at its fullest? hell no. so before the fun comes the chore, the homework if you like,and we all know/recall how hard to get motivated to go through it that is. as simple as that.

Love your vids, as always. The presentation, the facts, the Balamb Garden OST in the background.

Starting fighting games is the hardest part about them. The skill floor is pretty daunting. Just controlling the basic functions of your character and making them do what you want them to do is much less intuitive than moving a character around a 3d space with an analog stick, which basically anyone can do within minutes of picking up a controller.

I think fgs are easier than people make them seem but at the same time I think alot of experienced fg players dont realise how much our legacy skill helps us learn

Motion inputs are not really insurmountable, but they frontload the challenge. As in they are at their most hardest when you start and continuously get easier. Also practicing motions alone isn't that interesting, so new people will likely get bored more easily and just leave. So imo motions can be a legit barrer for new people.

The fundamentals of fighting games are not that difficult. The problem is I don’t want to dedicate time to learning them, because I don’t find them to be that fun. I do enjoy watching content on them though.

A lot of things in this video I've been saying for more than a decade on forums - since SRK lol. "Fighting Games are like going to the gym" is basically my tagline lol. If the developers and publishers understood this, they'd have better marketing strategies for their games.

a lot of people dont want to work to have fun at something that is entertainment related

I agree with the comment that learning fighting games is like working out. I train in martial arts very regularly and there are many connections you can draw between fighting games and learning fighting irl. It's difficult no matter how good you get. For me personally, I find more motivation and benefits to drive me to workout such as health reasons and learning a new skill. For fighting games the only thing that'll drive me is ego or to do the cool shit. With so many other cool games out nowadays that are easy to pickup, it makes it very easy to drop a fighting game , and im less interested to play them.

"I recognize my limits on execution and I build my strategy around that. I'm still doing what I have to do, I'm just not doing the hardest things; I don't need to and I don't want to mess up" I needed to hear this shit. Sometimes I get down cause I can't consistently do KBMF combos well enough to use them in matches, so I just decided I wouldn't and I'd use simpler combos that I know I can execute 100% of the time. For whatever reason, I felt like I was a scrub for doing this.

I know smash isnt considered a fighting game, but it's the only fighting type of game I played for years until Strive released. And I got strive on a whim. Moving from Smash to Strive took more brain cells then I had. And I used to think "Wait I have a resource to actually manage now?" That being tension. The fact I can use burst or tension midcombos now? The me from before Strive would think that I was a madman. But it's just daunting to see stuff that you're not inherently used to. Like I wanna learn crosstag battle, and man I am not ready for what that has to offer. But I'm gonna learn.

It’s interesting to me that people focus so much on combos. I’ve always been terrible at execution and hated spending a long time in the lab, so I’ve always focused on finding traps, and winning neutral/footsies situations. I didn’t know combos like the rest of my group in SFIV at first, but I could win a lot with just simple vortex setups and punishing with easy hit-confirms. I had to win a few more guesses, of course. I need to learn how to unlearn my ways, though… I think to some extent it is good to be able to fight and win with reduced damage output, but after 20+ years of this, I really need to figure out how to up my game. In games I threw hundreds of hours at like SFIV and BBCT, I naturally learned some real stuff, but it means I don’t ever get good damage now, when there’s great games to swap to so often.

One of the hurdles when it comes to new players with no FG experiences learning fighting games is getting advice from experienced players, and it's NOT that they won't help you It's how they try to help you A lot of slightly or more experienced FG players lay out what is essentially a college thesis with notations that the new players are not accustomed to (236S, DF2, FNDF4, 632146HS, 8675309, etc), and new players can be so overwhelmed by these influx of alien language that either they drop it right then and there or get confused for few more weeks and then drop there. Ideally, those trying to help should break it down in a more digestible format (use move names more, explain situations in more simplistic terms, etc) in order to guide new players better

Also LK you've been pumping out so much good youtube KZfaq content in the last few months , appreciate it boss

This vid raises a lot of interesting points but I think LK generally misses the mark of the topic, that being why fighting games are perceived as hard. And fwiw, I just watched the vid from Akaraien and he missed it too (which is funny because Akaraein's video/clip was a product of someone else basically saying it when they made the comment on labbing for 10 years before playing the game). I think both LK and Akaraien are too focused on explaining why the games are hard for players at all skill-levels or high-levels, and not taking the time to realize that these comments are coming from players who are newer to the genre (which should be super obvious when you see comments about labbing for 10 years). So really the topic is "Why do newer players think fighting games are hard", not "Why are fighting games hard for all skill-levels". I don't want to use LK's comment section as my soap box, but I will briefly say that, as someone who is relatively new to fighting games (on and off over the past like 6 years) but has played games in other genres at the like top 1%+ level, I found fighting games hard to start playing (and still do) not due to all the technical things that define the meta game for high-level players like the things LK/Akaraien touch on or due to the game systems themselves (like resource management that LK touches on), but instead due to the barrier of entry on executing even the most simple of things. Even if we propose that all you really need to be able to start playing a fighting game is to learn some char's basic bnb, that is still quite a big investment for new players. Combo execution is definitely a relatively difficult skill for new players. Things like knowing what button does what (which isn't always intuitive) and motion inputs themselves are a barrier to entry. It's really easy to dismiss this and say "Oh just keep playing and you'll get used to it" but that right there is a concession that for newer players things aren't necessarily easy and require practice (the labbing in 10 years comment). And if you have to practice basically anything... then yeah it's kind of a hard genre by modern competitive game standards. Take something like shooters where you... left click the enemy player. Or mobas/mmos where you... press the ability button. Nobody says that these are the easiest games around - they have competitive scenes for a reason - but doing basic things in those genres is simple. In fighting games, it takes practice, and even after practicing you still might mess up after sinking in hours of practice. Again don't want to make a soap box out of this, but I think perhaps higher-level fighting game players have been playing for a while and don't realize the skills they take for granted over the years when making comments about how the games aren't hard for the "barrier of entry on execution" reasons that newer players cite.

its like going to the gym but instead of getting a healthy body you get carpal tunnel

People who are good at fighting games shouldn't ask this question because they can't answer it. They can't understand how a person can be bad, and if you're bad you don't get to play at all.

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, as someone who got into fighting games a few years back and have since stopped playing to focus on university. The reason I think people find it hard to get into fighting games (to the point where you understand the game beyond just pressing buttons) is that you have to change your life to a some degree. If I play any general video game, I can just play it myself and maybe occasionally watch a guide on KZfaq if I’m really stuck. To play a fighting game and keep growing at it, I have to become part of the community on some level, even if it’s just in the periphery. Once I started playing a fighting game, huge chunks of my days revolved around watching fighting game players content, checking their twitters, watching tournament matches etc. It really changes a big part of your life, and consumes a lot of time when compared to your life before. For me I found it was just getting in the way of other things I wanted to do in life, but I still had so much fun to the point where now and then I’ll come back and watch an LK video.

It blows my mind that fighting games still don't teach you fundamentals (or just the concept of it) in their tutorials. Tutorials should include sections that teach you to find good normals or to keep your opponent in the corner. IMO that's the hardest thing for a newbie, fundamentals and the archaic nature of the concept.

What makes it hard is that good players don't know what to tell new players because a lot of the stuff they do they just do automatically and take for granted. Spacing, whiff punishing, knowing when you can stop blocking and attack because some one is negative, anti-airing, these are arguably the most important things but good players just know to do these automatically so they don't even think about giving those as tips, they just tell new players to learn combos and most players can lab them and learn easy combos but have no idea when to use them or when to switch from defense to offense. Good players also go like oh when their knocked down you can oki them and then hit a meaty, and its like bro wtf does that mean, just speak in normal english. Also most fighting games have terrible in game help in tips, generally just combo trials which as I have said is just not helpful. And also execution isn't an issue in some games but some games like KOF have hard ass execution and it definitely is a barrier to entry.

I like your content dude, keep it up

It's crazy that the way people can perceive your gameplay vs what you know about your gameplay can vary so much, even if you're not trying to hide a lack of techskill/mechanical ability, just based on the combos or ideas they see you perform.

Been trying to get some friends into fighting games and I think the input barrier is 90% of it. Seems hard to get past for a lot of people

14:30 what song is that? - Edit: Beneath the Mask (From Persona5?)

For a beginner, execution absolutely is the hardest part of a fighting game and that's why it comes up all the time when people talk about fighting game difficulty. They cannot even begin thinking about conversionability until they can do a combo, and they can't properly reason about neutral if they can't do motion inputs. Difficulty is a moving window.

The hardest part for me is inputs, the amount of time and effort you need to put into game to control character without thinking is insane and even after 200hr in i am still missing my inputs, and this is really gets me frustrated and makes me want to quit for good.

Legitimate question: Do you think that as a pro player your view/perspective of thinking something is easy is because you're already well versed in it? I remember asking skullgirls peeps about if that game was easy, yes' all round, and I'm not a complete novice to FG's. I could not get it - I tried for about 2 months, I personally found it so difficult I put it down and started questioning whether they told me wrong info and it's legitimately difficult, or whether I'm just really really really bad. (Keep in mind, I'm not saying all FG's are easy or all FG's are hard, it's somewhat in the middle imo, but more challenging how people's perspectives can skew things - hence why you'll see lots of newbies all have a general view/idea/feel about something being difficult when starting out after probably being told it's easy)

The execution and knowledge barrier. I would never say we need all fighting games to be baby tier smash bros., but smash is always fun because you don't need to practice for weeks just to participate with friends, and you don't need to win to have fun in fighting games you just need to be able to have interactions. FGs require a lot of practice to even get started, no amount of watching guides will substitute having to sit down and practice just so you can actually do damage, and that can be a lot to ask for some people. I like doing combo challenges for fun, but put me in a real match even against friends and the sheer amount of decisions you have to make is immediately overwhelming.

I started playing in 2021, I started with SFV and I was incredibly frustrated by having to input DP to anti-air. I never had to struggle so hard with the controllers when I was learning SC2, MOBA's, shooters, etc. I was really mad at the game at some point because I felt like the gameplay was locked behind having to spend one hundred hours in practice mode practising DP, so I wouldn't get jumped. After 100ish hours, I stopped playing. Then strive came around and I've played much more, I like being able to anti-air with 6p that was a huge difference for me because I stopped feeling like the game was locked behind the controllers as much (I was also much better at inputs at this point). I think motion inputs are a bit archaic and a big barrier to doing all the fun and cool stuff that a fighting game promises. Also, the whole +/- on buttons is very difficult to know sometimes, and I think it's something fighting games should do a better job of communicating in game. I think if +/- was communicated more straight forwardly to players, that would go a long way in making new players feel empowered to take control of fights. That's my experience and the frustrations I experienced unique to fighting games.

i'd say it's a combination of information you are presented with up front alongside the fear and/or act of making mistakes as you play that get punished

love the intro says it all, hard at all levels need some nice peeps to help you just like any other endeavor in life

There are no shortcuts, and that is the beauty of it.

I think what makes a fighting game hard (when it comes down to execution) is when the buffer window varies. Like having to be incredibly fast for some inputs to having to be slower on others or having a strict window to when something can be chained or converted off of is what makes it really hard for me. Like I get it it’s all a muscle memory type thing and I have to deal with it but like it’s so difficult to be able to even attempt to get my brain to learn that “ok so you have to be fast here but be slow here” or “you need to do it exactly at this time or it won’t work” is just so much for me to be able to get used to

I agree with the whole people will help you at any level. For some reason, there's this idea that fighting game players are gatekeepers and will call you scrubby for any reason but I haven't found that to be the case. As long as you're not coming in blaming the game for your problems, they'll gladly help (similar to Dark Souls Players) you get better

LK: fighting game is like workout. Plus on that, my personal experience is that workout does help me improve my fighting game skill. Workout not only gets me more stamina, strength, but also concentration, so I can play with more focus, and longer. Workout let me know my muscle better, for example I had struggled to do instant dash towards left, cuz that input need the muscle on my left arm, which part I didn't use often enough, and workout on it solved my issue. Now when I do dashing, I can feel which part of my arm is doing the work, and it's doing well.

0:55 👏🏽 bravo well said this is actually the real real real truth. They are hard. But as long as you get started and can do a few things it just becomes easier to play and getting better becomes easier. Just get something started.

Curious who does fall on your list of characters who do require high execution just to be able to play the game. Only examples that come to my mind are Carl Clover and a handful of and maybe some 3rd strike Urien charge partitioning stuff

I have gone around in many circles on this topic, both with myself and others. Past me would have taken issue with your takes but now I feel I have reached a whole other conclusion as to why FGs are perceived as hard. Two things really. First, FGs are unintuitive. A lot of things about them makes no sense when you don't understand the underlying design. Take some of the 6P animations in Strive. They don't even remotely look like they would hit a jump-in yet they're the go to, universal AAs. In a time when video games are making fewer and fewer technical concessions, FGs are still saying "I know the move looks like it's touching the opponent but actually it's not". Don't get me started on frame data which has zero visual representation in almost every FG out there. The second issue is a byproduct of the first. The majority of people playing online already know these intricacies and it's why they can steamroll newer players, even if they themselves are trash. I know this well because I'm also trash yet I can tear apart fresh players by simply knowing a few principles. For sure my experience plays a role as well. The point, though, is that the majority of new players don't find these intricacies easy to accept.

I do think games made around 2000 have restrictively difficult execution for certain characters But if you are complaining about execution for modern fighting games, thats just cap

Because they are, kabooom

The difficult part of learning FGCs is the lack of direction. Players will spend hours learning difficult things so long as there is a clear feedback loop telling them when they did something right, look at celeste or the dark souls series. An insane 5% of celeste players on steam have 100% the game, which involves spending hours on single screens, because the tutorials built into the levels and clear difficulty curve make it feel like you're always progressing. Even ridiculously complex games like mobas have millions of players, because when you start, all you have to do is just go support and try to harras the enemy and you'll learn how to use spells, move, and what gets you killed, and then in the later parts, just follow people around and spam your spells during team fights. Since fighting games are all about adaptation, theres no clear feedback. You press all the buttons, and at the end you either win or lose and most of the time you have no clue what was working and what wasn't. You know you pressed a button and got hit but you have no clue what you were supposed to do in that instance. I think the brilliance of GGST is the focus on providing clear tutorials.to introduce the concepts you can think about applying while playing and the clear feedback with the giant COUNTER whenever you get hit, highlighting that you really should have blocked that. FGs don't need to be simpler, they just need a clearer inroad for beginners to have a sense of progression.

I still remember trying to learn C.Viper in SF4 and the execution requirements stopped me from learning her pretty fast. I guess you didn't NEED to get good at all her cancels but if you couldn't do them quickly you couldn't really fake people out and she became way less scary.

I whole heartedly agree with the working out analogy.

I just don't know how to start with fighting games.I always get overwhelmed with everything and I don't now where to exactly start if you know what I mean.

If you like this kind of video, check this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fpqGa6yL05O6o3k.html These 'words of wisdom' are a sample of years of discussion produced by the one & only Patrick Miller (writer, streamer, & organizer of the still-kicking NorCal GG Xrd scene). The archives of his insight are great...and you can't find anything like them 🌠

while making no money so its like damn like this makes sense actually but i need to learn it

I never used to be an "execution" player, I would play the Zangief, the Hulk, the big puncher with the least frantic input requirements of the game almost always. When MVC3 came out I was such a Dante fan that I just set my mind to making him my main even though he had some of the most frantic motion and button input requirements in the game to move smooth and combo with him. I just stuck to it until it become second nature muscle memory. so I can backup this take

Fighting games are not for everyone

The weightlifting analogy is so godlike. It really is hard at all levels. It's about having fun, and perseverance. Difficulty is an illusion. You can do it all if you put into the time. And if you're having fun that time will fly by. So as long as you're having fun difficulty fades away.

People think fighting games are hard because they are lmao. No other game has the feel of the entire game change so much character to character. Playing a new character is like starting from 0 every time.

I like and agree with the content of this video BUT I'm new on the Fighting Game scene(floor 7 scrub in strive) and got deterred from playing Pots cuz LK said he's braindead (and I agree that he's easy)...so I picked up Nago now, finally getting into my groove...and now he's also cheese...I don't know who to pick anymore

I picked up Goldlewis the other week, and this is my first fighting game. After a week of doing 684H confirms, this character is easy and the inputs will no longer be a problem for me

As someone who is new to the fighting game genre, the hardest part is the inputs. It feels like learning a new language or a new instrument because no other games require the same kind of input and muscle memory as fighting games. In FPSes and most action games, the controls are mostly mouse for the aim/camera and WASD for the character movement. So if I switch from csgo to apex, although gameplay style and pacing vary drastically, the fundamentals skills carry along. It's like picking up base after playing guitar for a long time, although the two instruments require different technics, the fundamentals are somewhat similar. While learning fighting game is like trying to learn the flute instead... Totaly different beast.

My issue is that I don’t feel fast enough to do the right moves and chain my combos together

All this is true. In my case the only people I run into that have malice towards fighting games are the ones who rate how they feel about a character or game after ONE GAME OF BUTTON MASHING. I have a friend that plays fighting games and will find out what kind of character he wants to play after only playing one game with them. Doesn’t sit down and learn any combos, no mechanics of the game, nothing. It hurts seeing people do stuff like this and don’t have the patience to sit down and learn. But at the same time people learn differently, everyone doesn’t have the same patience level, and everyone doesn’t like the same thing. But when you say “This character is trash” because you didn’t win against someone who has A LOT OF EXPERIENCE, regardless of who you pick, that person will still have the experience advantage. Some of this was probably worded wrong and didn’t have a point but I just wanted to rant 😰.

i think people look at fighting games from the outside and see big flashy combos, a whole wall of terminology, and think that if you aren't playing optimally then you aren't playing correctly. they create a crazy set of expectations for themselves and bounce off fast. i dont think most people coming to the fgc know to appreciate the learning and discovery process which is a huge part of the fun in fighting games.

This man got me wanting to try naoto again in CF so that I can fail miserably 🤣

Maybe show us in a video these said random inputs in other games that are harder? 👀

Motion inputs can be hard. I know people who still struggle trying to operate both hands at the same time in different ways. Its like an instrument. There's a lot more naunce involved in these seemingly simple inputs. Its like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. Its mad uncomfortable at first but you get used to it after a while even though it doesnt really feel natural. I think gamers like us forget just how hard these can really be. Youre not just doing a motion input youre doing multiple in sequence with different buttons and games like SF theres now 3 versions of each move with different properties and damage. Then add things like command normals and people just get lost fast. With just 5 attack buttons you get 15 attacks minimum plus what ever specials/command normals and supers you get. Then you got to learn when where and why all 20+ moves are needed, what the lead to, and nuances like your BnBs not working on certain characters and learning new combos and neutral applications for just 1 character in a roster of 16-50+ characters that also have their own 15+ movelist. Before long they have to learn around 240+ moves to even play at all and then they have to learn how to combine those all together for almost thousands of different combinations of usages and interactions.

It's really easy to explain why: All competitive games are supposed to have as close to a 50% win rate as possible for each player. This extends beyond games beyond the fighting genre like Puyo-Puyo or League of Legends. Because of this, fighting games statistically set you up for victory just as much as failure. Single-player games don't have to account for this. Additionally, by virtue of facing another human being, someone is going to find the game hard because one half of the playerbase will lose matches. It doesn't matter what skill level any player has due to this because someone is always on the losing end.

Honestly I think the tedious timings and inputs are unironically hard and really annoying, not that I can't do them a majority of the time. they're just tilt me more than anything else in fighting games.

like ive played fighting games for a long time and i dont even get it and i have to explain to myself everything so its like

When I hear people talk about how satisfying it is to beat a Souls or Souls-like game or beat a boss in that game, I hear very similar things of what it takes to be decent to good in a fighting game. For me, I get a higher high or lower low from beating a human player vs an A.I. and the satisfaction is greater in fighting games. IMO a lot people who hold the challenge of Souls in such high regard have not really experienced or given a real shot at being decent/good at a fighting game.

I disagree. i am a casual and execution is really making me quit this game. The characters i like all have brutal execution barriers. Axl has axle bombers, if you cant do them you do no dmg. and goldlewis has neutral up behemoth. I droped axl and started playing goldlewis only to realize that neutral up behemoth is the best move in neutral and without being able to do it, i will never really be good with the character. Execution is definetly turn off for casual players like me. I dont say it should be hard, but this super hard techniques (for me) should not be esential to be able to play the character.

3:35 that’s what a broken move should have as an input! XD

I've kinda seen from the casual perspective that they got turned down by the idea of inputting 236 + P to throw Fireball Not to mention they will have to deal with data frames and what not

i wanted nago's blood gauge to be hard to manage

It is a difficult genre to learn in general compared to other genres, but I think it isn't objectively hard, but it FEELs hard because the responsability of victory is entirely yours and yours alone. I can download Counter Strike or League of Legends right now and not only play it right away and have some fun, but I can also win because it's team based and because those games, at least on casual level, aren't hard. If you are stuck on floor 10 in Strive you are still a massive casual yet the level of skill you need to consistently stay on this floor is way above other competitive genres. The solution to that, I think, is finding a way to make team play possible, to shift part of the responsability from an individual to a group. It's hard to imagine how to do such a thing without ruining 2D fighters though. I think games like Varvarian will be the way.

I'm gonna make a fighting game with a character that has pretzel motion backdashes.

"random inputs" remembering dizzy IK [2]8462P+H

yea cool i can do this

Very long rant incoming, I'm sorry, but I wanted to explain where I'm coming from and had more to say than I initially thought. Regarding motion inputs being perceived as hard I have a weird take on it. I'm fine with most of the ones used in modern games are for the most part fine. Quarter, half circles, charge moves, those are cool if they fit the strength or the move, and they are for the most part intuitive, you just roll your thumb in a way that you start with one direction and end in another. But I just don't like the DP (623) motion. It is my opinion a noob killer. Not so much because it's hard (it isn't w/ practice and time, like anything) but it's obnoxiously unintuitive, the game systems has to accomodate for them and the worst part is that they don't communicate how (or even worse if) these accomodations work. In my personal experience starting SF with Alpha 3 in the PSP (please don't say "why did you play in the PSP?", it was what I had at the time), DP motions were extra unconfortable for a good while 'cuz I started w/ the thumbstick. I could sometimes do it but others it didn't come out or a half circle one would. Then I started using the pad and, while I could hit them better after getting used to the pad I still had problems, but I gained more control on my inputs overall, but those DPs were still missing me. Then I looked up on the internet for tips and learned that SF has specific shortcuts to make DP work with 636, which was actually easier to hit 'cuz you don't flail your thumb as hard and avoid what I think my issue was (that I rolled my thumb a little bit too much and did 6236, btw Alpha 3 doesn't have the option to show inputs). HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT. The game tells me 623, I will do 623. I still had/wanted to look up other stuff 'cuz I wanted to learn and get better at the game but how was I supposed to know 636 was a valid input? A while later I start playing GG Accent Core Plus and mfw I realize I can't use 636 for DP moves. It wasn't a game ender or anything but was a bit sad that I couldn't really translate the muscle memory I developed and and now was dropping more often than not again So yeah, I can sympatize with the some struggles regarding motion inputs. And I can see why new players trying to pick up Goldlewis can feel walled by the BTs considering how key to playing him and relatively taxing on the thumb they can be in relation to other motions. And then, like LK mentions, stuff like raw BT684 can be another struggle 'cuz you risk jumping if you don't put the time into doing the input well, especially in an actual match. And that's the other issue. Time. New players of everything, really, for the most part I assume, don't get into a game expecting it to take from then on a dedicated spot in their schedule. It tends to just happen 'cuz they like the game (live service games be damned). And fighting games have the unfortunate feature of having to spend time in them to actually have an informed opinion on them. And it is the reason why I'm very against mechanics or key aspects of any game having (relatively) tight frame windows, saving exceptions. Because, really, they're not actually difficult, they just take time to develop the muscle memory to hit them in some way consistently, and then another good while to hit them in an actual match. Time most players aren't willing to put and/or other players were willing to put into and now have to deal with. Which feeds into one of the last points LK had. The older a game gets, the more time has its established playerbase had to practice those tigh frame techs, the harder it will be to level themselves to a point where they actually can compete. Which means a lot of losses that can demoralize new players, which devs don't want, and is the reason all the bad comeback mechanics even exist. And the reason why it still baffles me that Strive had IB have a 2 frame window. Might as well not exist or be an RNG mechanic for low-to-intermediate players IMO. They ain't hitting that 2 frame window in any consistent way. Which means more "unfair, no-way-out" scenarios for most players, which means more losses, which devs want to avoid, which means Strive's damage has to be high or moves can't have frame advantage.

simple, because they want to play games that as soon as your start playing them you can feel comfortable and say that you will get good very soon. In comparison to fighting games where that feeling is almost non-existent to those that are new to the genre. fighting games have the same structure to the way how we work in the real word. In order to get a decent or good lifestyle you have to work your ass off for many years to see a change to your life and witness the improvement that you have made throughout those years.

What made me instantly drop Gold lewis was his Nuetral nothing else. I needed someone with buttons that go places lol

like guys we're back

Facts brother

Fighting games make me cry. I just suck 😔

Actually Es loops are kinda keeping me from playing Es.... I just can't do them consistently

I think inputs are still a way to scale difficulty for a character, there are certain levels and categories of execution. Recent fighting games have sort of taken away certain aspects of core mechanics in a fighting game, main one is whiff punishment. Sure whiff punishment exists in strive, but when was the last time you whiff punished nago 2S or gio 2D? Also, in 3D, People don't play mishima for the sole purpose of them being hard to use at high level. You hear it all the time "damn, i really want to play mishima, but i know my execution isn't good enough." I'm not talking about some online netizen mixing people the fuck up with hellsweep. Has tekken 7 made that easier to manage, sure. In tekken, the reason people don't play mishima isn't that ewgf is hard, but that you have to do ewgf to whiff punish and with jin, if you mess that up, you don't get a combo, i think that would fall into the category of execution though as well. Qudans, arguably the best devil jin in the world, still messes up ewgf and not just in tournament either. This man broke his hands to play devil jin bro. Now, doing ewgf in training mode when the other player isn't there, sure, I don't think that's an issue. Perhaps you were talking solely about 2D games,(?) but said games after 2010. Again, I think that there's levels to execution- at a high level, everyone is expected to have it. Overall, i think you were mentioning 2D and not 3D games, which in that aspect, i think that there's discussion there, but i can agree with most of it.

I think it’s because FGs are possibly the most inherently competitive game genre and that is what the real negator for people getting into them is, the whole control scheme with multiple buttons each representing one type of attack and demanding muscle memory and the reflexes in order to make combos with them, that and it’s a 1v1 game so your on your own unless you have a tutor with you, that and tutorials on frame data and videos of the combo meter going to high numbers can be a lot I’m not even saying competitive games are bad, if you like being competitive be competitive all you want the market caters to you in multiple genres, comp is just a different type of hurdle compared to games that are seen as highly difficult like souls-likes and other games and not everyone is gonna or even want to jump it

The first half of the video sounded like a hitpiece on Naoto K, not gonna lie.

fighting games have a fraction of the population of other genres such as mobas and shooters. This means that when you join as a beginner, the gap between you and the skill floor of the population is huge, so you'll have to get bodied for way too long before you can have fun. whereas in valorant for example, it can literally be your first shooter ever and you'd have evenly matched lobbies in less than 20hrs of playtime simply because there are so many players and a decent chunk will be just as bad as you. So yeah, small + old(experienced) + super competitive population + 1vs1 = steepest and most demoralizing learning curve for beginners

Honest question I swear. Do you believe that some people are born winners? I started believing this more and more in recent years, that I dont have this "heart of a champion" that others might. maybe it doesnt exist. I fail to visualize myself succeeding and my fears of failure materialize in its place. My opponents make comebacks that seem unwinnable. I feel the win escape my grasp more often than not. and I dont just mean winning the round or game. little things like reversals, meaties, safejumps, setups, etc. It hurts when your hands betray you in these moments. I just practiced this? Why cant I do it? I cant tell you how many times ive started a round just watching the air and see the opponent jump at me. I can SEE him in the air. He is coming straight for me. and what do? I do nothing. I block with my face. I looked for one thing, he gave it to me on a silver platter and I couldn't stop it. Im exagerating here but I rarely feel happy in whatever victories I do find. "wow you finally hit the bread and butters for once" is how I often feel about it. im getting off topic While I dont think its literally inherited from birth I strongly believe that certain behaviors encouraged in children at a young age can have a significant impact on the way we see ourselves in the world and what we are capable of. Maybe im just mindlessly believing other peoples ideas. maybe my expectations are too high for myself. maybe competitive stuff just isn't for me. or would that mean that I dont have this innate "winner". I dont believe that this idea cant be overcome, but I do think that it would take a great effort to do so and even if you do it will still be there at least in some small capacity. It is hard to be truly good at anything. I am certain of that. I have done a very bad job writing this as I dont know how to articulate my thoughts. inb4 you just need to practice more, just believe in yourself, you dont even play fighting games, stop being a bitch

Can't wait to show this to my non fighting game friends

New players think they have to be able to do the crazy stuff. But they don't understand you need the basics (if your new,basics for fighting games are punishment, footsies,spacing,maybe bnb combos) they want to skip what makes ppl win and just focus on doing cancels and huge weird very situation heavy stuff that will probably never happen in a real game...instead of getting angry at a problem like someone has a really good move focus on how not to get into that situation...

Under night is lower damage? Tbh i consider under night to be high damage, you get good combos off any confirm. Big difference in under night is that the upper cieling of damage isn't that impressive.