I wonder how many people who bounce off fighting games are really looking for a character action game they can play with their friends

One thing I like about platform fighters or just smash is the fact that even while you're getting combo'd you still have input and can change your directional influence so certain combos aren't true at certain % if you know the correct way to DI can also play a mind game on if you'll DI a certain direction so it can throw them off a bit.

One time I was with some guys I knew on middle school, and we went all together to play Call of Duty. I think I didn't get a single kill that afternoon, because I had never in my life played the game, and they played all the time. I just ran around for a bit, tried to look for them through the map, and then got shot from behind of from the side. My point is, "If you're not good, you don't get to play the game!" applies to every single game where you're playing against other people, because when the other is way better than you, you will consistently lose and don't get much chance to "play the game", even if that statement isn't true because you're still sitting in front of a screen with a controller or a keyboard in your hands, interacting with the game's systems and mechanics

Lack of agency is the main reason why people feel like they are not playing the game. And if a fighting game has poor matchmaking and a lack of learning tools, then it's going to give new players that feeling. And no, training mode isn't a learning tool, it's a research tool that requires pre existing knowledge to be useful.

4:26 funny you say this, i remember a friend of mind who i was playing a racing game with said "how to i go around this corner without hitting the wall?" to which i said "you should lay off the accelerator and hold the break." to which he said "why would i do that? this is a racing game, no?" it exists in every game, i swear. "how do i shoot this giy with out my bullets going everywhere?" "shoot in bursts and control the recoil with your mouse" "why would i lay off the trigger? this is a shooter, no?

Regarding combos seeming to not end - the metagaming of "reset" predictions in many fighting games feels very unnatural, combined with the "you cannot throw someone who is hit"

It is weird that you bring up Apex and battle royales, it is the one genre where I can't get into it because it just felt like I would run around only to be shot and have to start over/get revived. With fighting games I think you can measure playing by making progress, especially at first, like blocking a mixup or landing a hit. I think playing a fighting game means you are expected to lose a fair bit and get absolutely decimated some rounds. The hard part is getting used to that idea and accepting that the "grind" or enjoyment of playing the genre comes from playing matches and learning through playing or watching replays etc. Similar to games like Super Meat Boy or the Souls games the idea of trial and error and refining your skills is just part of the genre. That same visceral sense of accomplishment when you beat a level or boss you have been stuck on for hours feels the same as when you finally manages to beat a character that is your kryptonite online.

I don't mind blocking and playing defense in fighting games but straight up taking my finger off the accelerate button in a racing game feels like ass to me, it's a big reason I love F zero, there's a few times I make a mistake and need to slow down a little to compensate but the games almost never force you to slow down, just drift better and it feels so rewarding.

These videos are probably some of my favourite on the whole platform, as a kinda experienced player trrying to get my buddies into their first fighting game your way of explaining really helped my friends understand the basic concepts and now they really enjoy them, they started out with uniclr and now we are counting down the days until uni2 together all thanks to your videos

Great video! Really liked the you raising the curtains on the personal bit of learning at the end 🙏🙏

I though you were going to talk about seeing your replays too. Its another way to learn about mistakes and play without pressing buttons. This could be worth mentioning in another part of this kind of videos. Recently I was playing street fighter IV , I forgot about seeing the replays the same day I went online, days later I wanted to saw specific replays and it was to late because they were overwriten by newer ones, I regreted that a lot. Very good videos, Im hoping to see the next one.

We know exactly what they mean because all of the games youve shown have made changes in their design to specifically address this. Not playing the game means every match is you locked in the corner not being able to do get anything out. You have one second where you can make a decision and the rest is just you getting destroyed. That was my entire experience with Blazblue and Gg. Now in GGstrive there are multiple changes made to make it more of an active game including the tower system. All of these games youve shown are much easier in that regard. There’s no reason to pretend that we don’t know what people are saying.

I absolutely feel you with GBFVSR. This is the first fighting game I ever wanted to learn. I got a couple of characters to Rank C and feel like I absolutely do not belong there having similar loss ratios to yours. I struggle to be motivated to continue because I don’t feel like I‘m learning anything from my losses. The one thing that really helps me is going to a weekly in person FGC meetup in my city. Even though I loose almost all my matches against the way more experienced players there, being able to talk to the person beating you makes a all the difference.

Love these videos! Keep it up!

While I very much appreciate this video and the advice it provides, I think there's an element to "I can't play the game" that is more nebulous, yet just as emotionally relevant, and that is feeling like not winning means not playing, or at least a sign that you shouldn't. Unfortunately this isn't as concrete as the way being combo'd (or rushed in an RTS, or getting (constantly) headshot from nowhere in an FPS or Battle Royale game) feels like being unable to play, but I know I feel it. The best way I can describe it is feeling like I'm going to be fired from a job for incompetence...despite this being a hobby and no one paying me or otherwise relying on me to do well. I don't know if this is a North American thing, due to the work-as-virtue culture of the US making it hard to understand hobbies as distinct from jobs; or the rise of Esports creating a sense of legitimacy to a hobby plagued with moral panics and filled with people who feel like they failed life by engaging with it, but gated behind an ever-increasing bar of player skill (and also mixing hobby and job in the exact way mentioned earlier). Maybe it's a whole other issue, maybe it's purely personal, but as I've had a foot in both fighting games and RTS games for the past decade and change, I've seen fighting games and the FGC start to find a way to open themselves to the idea that there is a game to be played even if you aren't winning, as you've pointed out, which at least presents a path to healthier engagement with the genre. However, with RTS I still see the more raw emotional idea that being new means you'll lose, and that means you can't play, pretty much stated point blank by people who bounce off the genre. Sometimes there'll be discussion of APM or being rushed, but as those are pretty easily shown to be a misunderstanding and a manageable knowledge check respectively, I don't see those as anything more than an attempt to grasp onto some tangible detail to justify and communicate the more important, if vague, misaligned expectation that playing games is only for winners and that means no newbies allowed. While combos present a more solid and actionable mechanical basis for feeling disengaged, I think that thinking applies with them too. Basically, I think there's an aspect to the feeling that is "I can't play the game because I can't engage with the actions that I want to due to my opponent's actions", which this video addresses, and another that is "I can't, or at least shouldn't, play the game because I can't play it well", which is outside of this video's scope

Great points made! Well made video!

I love that racing game analogy because that is my next favourite genre, and I understand exactly what you mean

I teach a few people sf6 and one thing I tell them is “before you play the game, you need to know about drive impact. If you can’t react to it and your opponent senses it, you just die to it.” This is not fully true as no skill is needed to play but it’s the first pain point imho as it forces a reaction to make the risk reward just bad. I try to let them know I have trouble with it too as sometimes raw I don’t react in time so no shame in it. I think the game ate full lots of moments like this, and some action take lots more practice to counter than do, such as jump ins.

Man the thing about taking a break while playing it's underrated especially in fighting game , maybe they don't require physical strength, but like JYM you need to take a break to let your muscles grow bigger and restore the same your brain need to assimilate all the fight experience,even in tutorial or combo trial being obsessed start you to drop focus and potentially lowering your learning potential. Trust the process, be "confident" and don't look as fighting game as HARD.

first time seeing u, subscribed.

great video, glad it was in my recommended

I think the problem lies on how playing the game feels differently on other games compared to fighting games. The first and major issue for beginner players, is that the mechanics are not intuitive if you haven't played similar games before, what this mean is that you have to learn multiple things at once and react accordingly, while on the other games not so much. I somewhat agree that you don't play the game, at least compared to other games, people will say "if you are bad you'll play less" but that's not the case, in battle royal or fps, you can learn to play even if the other team/players are leagues better than you because there are things that you can learn even if you are losing, map awareness, map control, etc, in fighting game you learn the other characters movesets but you can't truly know if the moves are bad or unsafe until you research or lab against an specific character in a specific scenario, and that's only for defense, offense is another whole can of worms that could be also hard to learn. i think fighting game players need to stop comparing the genre with others because not every aspect can be translated accurately, if fighting games was a language it would be chinese or japanese.

I wasn't expecting to be reminded Battle Fantasia exists today. Cool!

Honestly the one fighting game people glossed over where getting hit does not stop the interaction between players is killer instinct. If new players got REALLY good at breakers they'd realize how deep the combat is in that. A predictable opponent will be doing very little damage which will encourage people to play varied.

Interesting video!

I don't think a game has ever tilted me the way GBVSR does. I'm in a very similar situation. I realize I'm mashing too much and try to slow down and control the tempo the way I can with May, only to get fuzzy mashed out of my blockstrings. I've been looking for a midscreen punish that'll get people to behave but I think Yuel has particularly bad reward if you're anywhere that isn't the corner. It's super frustrating to compare what Yuel does to someone like Narm or Kata who fuzzy mash into full corner carry and a strong oki scenario or corner combo.

1:12 that's not an exaggeration. In Fort and Apex both I have survived for 5+ minutes without encountering enemy players

Yes, Battleroyale 5min is a hyperbole. Usually it takes 20min in Apex Legends. Nice vid!!

There's a distinct irony here given that one of the goals of winning a match in a fighting game is to not allow your opponent to play the game, or at least not playing your opponent's game. I can't really blame new players for feeling that way when it's the exact goal of the more experienced player: I mean, I for sure ain't letting anyone out of the corner or set up their win condition if I can help it. Doesn't help that you can and should stuff someone's win condition in fighting games way faster than most other genres.

Thanks for idea of just blocking and tries different counter attack. as a grandblue new player, i can't understand what punishable or not in this game.

Idk when I play FPS I never get to play if I fight anyone competent. They just 1 shot head shot me and my game is over. Running around is pretty meaningless, etc. When I play LoL or DotA I get completely wham slammed in the first mins and then don't get to play for 20~40 mins after that. Just walking back to lane and dying over and over. Pretty terrible compared to a FG's couple of mins at worst with the situation always "winnable" in theory. Imo the biggest barrier to FGs are the perceived gap between having access to only normals (bc new) vs normals, special moves, supers, etc. and the pricing model of the genre. It's entrenched in buy to play while still selling you years and years of DLC and costumes. May as well as go F2P and get a much larger share of the available gaming market and a healthier MM system with the increased player base if you're selling that many skins. And some people will still shell out to play the specific characters they like instead of being stuck grinding/not having access to them; as proven by GBFVS' free rotation incentivizing buying the game if you like it and find a character you like. And going back to the perceived gap stuff, ppl miss all their shots/body shot someone, or completely fail at using their utility well, or don't know how to strafe and shoot at the same time, or can't manage creating workers while micro managing their workers and attending to a complex RTS battle, or completely miss every single ability on their hero/champ despite being technically able to press the button, but simply minimize these mechanical struggles because they've already learnt all of these skills despite them also being natural barriers to learning any game.

dont forget that a big part of taking a break is SLEEPING. rest your brain so it can recompile and come at the problem fresh and upgraded.

A complete newcomer to shooters is put into a radiant lobby in valorant. Are they playing valorant, or are they just holding W for 15 seconds and dying? The issue here is the lack of a beginner population.

Weird question but what's the name of the first racing game showcased? The one with the cockpit view? I've been looking for a fun racing game with cockpit view and that looks perfect. Great video as always, btw

I'm in A5 and I'm also having a frustrating learning experience. I think it's because GBVSR isn't like any other fighter that I've played so far. Maybe the original release was but Rise definitely isn't "just SF with an anime skin" how some like to say. The game has very strange neutral. You can't walk back because your legs are broken and you can't dash back because there's no invincibility. Then on the other hand everyone has safe specials that people just buffer on autopilot without confirming. Because why not? You're safe, you pushed your opponent close to the corner and they can't really threaten a strike/throw mix because of how weak throws are. So at round start there's zero chill. It's your opponent hurling themselves at you and you need to figure out a response or vice versa. The intensity reminds me of what it feels like to play neutral in SFV when your opponent pops their v-trigger. The difference though is that you didn't have v-trigger for the first 75% of the match and you also didn't start out the round with access to EX specials. In GBVSR you're under threat of S+H specials from the first second of the first round. I think the issue is that waiting it out and blocking for a bit isn't a valid defense like in many other games. You need to figure out when it's time to block and when it's time to evade/cross-over. Otherwise you're just never getting out of the corner. This make Vira's corner pressure extra annoying because of her command grab. I also have to agree with Diaphone's latest tier list. Zooey not having a meterless reversal automatically puts her in trash tier. You can't avoid getting pushed to the corner in this game. That's my first 50h impression at least.

Me being a fighting game lover, but not actually being able to play because they're so extensive in my country. I get why new people get stressed about defense. From the release of Granblue rising, i started playing in the free version to get a feel for the game and if was worth to buy it. And oh boy, i love the game, and as a newbie, yes it can be tedious to watch someone combo you from a crunch, but if you like the game, the best thing to do is to not care that much. If the combo looks cool, try to laugh from yours mistakes and try again.

You just made me lose the game. Thanks a lot.

Me personally I never consider the opinion of someone who doesn't even like the game in the first place. Like if they're not a part of the community and don't buy the games at all I just don't bother. We got plenty of people playing these games already, but good on you for tackling the misinformation people have been feeding themselves about "limitations" that actually exist in any competitive game.

What game is that at 6:40 ?

That's a great analogy with the racing game. You're ""not playing"" for basically the entire rest of the match if you have a bad crash, that's just a mistake being punished. But if you stop trying to put things in boxes of "playing" or "not playing", you see it's all part of the game.

If im in the match just to lose over and over again not understanding what im doing wrong or why nothing seems to work, then yes, im not playing, im just being someone elses punching bag. If im in a tennis match and i don't have a tennis racket, so i can hit the ball back, then im not playing tennis, im just in the court.

When i look at the granblue footage it really doesn’t look like a game i would enjoy because it looks like everything just blurs into eachother Liking one game in a genre doesn’t mean you have to like all of them And maybe some of them are not for me or just aren’t great but idk

Title: Excuse meWUT Must watch...

0:55 Hmm...

While this is a nice video, I feel you have utterly missed the point of the "If you're bad you don't get to play" complaint, defending is, while often disparaged by novices(I didn't pay 60$ to not hit buttons etc etc), different from the "I got to do nothing" experience of getting combo'd at round start, given a mix you couldn't begin to understand, and getting combo'd again to death, where you feel you didn't have a chance to take game actions, you were just outmatched to the point of futility, and that is truly a miserable experience, and one thats hard to dig your way out of, because the two likely causes of it are hard to overcome Either A: The game is old enough that most people in community spaces or matchmaking are veterans, skill-based matchmaking, if it even had any, breaks down in this situation because its unlikely other novices are playing at the same time, a number of games I like(eg Skullgirls) are in this scenario and it makes deciding to just Get Into Some Matchs hard because while I'm not a blind novice anymore, I'm both rusty and pretty unskilled so I often just get exploded by people with real combo routes and significantly better neutral and struggle to learn much beyond "Wow okay so Parasoul does some shit huh?" Or B: You have a buddy who plays X, so you got X, and then you rapidly realized THEY PLAY and you don't, and so you either get washed, or you have to sit with them trying to play handicapped and thats often emotionally negative for folks

Sf6 was my first fighting game, i loved the trailer and i was like, i wanna get good at that, i picked up modern ken, kinda had fun just mashing and getting all that flashy combos, i climb up to silver, but there people where reacting to my mashing and i just couldn’t win anymore, i got very frustrated, took a break for a bit, played mk11 with a friend of mine, then i came back to sf6 because i just love the game, picked up classic marisa, the game was a bit harder, but them i got use to do the quarter circle moves, learn some combos, went to rank, i try to implement new thing in my gameplay every day, i implemented those into my gameplan and now, i was able to break the plateau i was at, and i was able to get to gold. If i was to start this journey again i would say to my self, get use to losing, try to learn everyday a new trick, because you can’t just get all the information that an veteran or a pro player of fighting games has, basically take each step at the time, if your friends don’t wanna play fighting games with you, no problem, join a community, fgc is really friendly community, they really want new players to come and enjoy what they have been va va enjoying and puting so much time into, and you will get hooked to it. And the most important thing is, have fun. P.S. learn neutral, because none cares that you can do the most flashiest combo if you can’t get a hit in 😉

I mean, the fact there is a solution to it by getting better doesn't mean it's not there and it's not frustrating. You're faced with a game design criticism and answer with "that's how it is, deal with it" which isn't super constructive. I think it's more interesting to discuss what beneficial things a long combo can bring, if that's worth it, and what ways there'd be to shorten combos without losing the benefits of longer combos. I think one obvious benefit is that it gives time to collect yourself after making a mistake, rather than racking up mistakes over and over. Say combos were 1hit but still did 60% of your health, you would get hit and immediately have to guess again, which could be a bit much since you're still thrown off by your previous mistakes. There are also the benefits of longer combo giving decision points as to when to expend ressources. So there are good reasons for combos to be extended. But I still feel like a lot of combos could be shortened by a lot with moves dealing increased damage instead and it wouldn't affect decisions much, it would make the execution of the combo easier but honestly I see that as a plus. Like, one other issue with combos is that they basically ask you while you do the combo to stop playing the game and start playing a rythm mini game that will decide how much damage you do. And like, that's cool, but how is it standard? It sounds like a one off game gimmick not a standard for a whole genre. Imagine you had the same pitch but for your damage in an rpg, it would sound like a unique gimmick for a game not "this is just how damage work in rpg's" and yet it's the standard in fighting games. I would kinda like to see a fighting game that removes execution from combos entirely. Like, when you hit someone you get a bullet time and it asks you how much ressources you want to expend, telling you how much damage you'll do and it does the (short) combo for you. That's a bit of an extreme fix but I'd really like to see how it would work out, I suspect it would make the game play pretty much identical on a competitive level while also being a lot more accessible. But obviously a subset of the playerbase that really likes the rythm mini game would hate it (and that's ok). You would lose some nuances and obviously you would lose the discovery of what's even possible since it'd be set in stone so I'm not saying it's 100% better but I think such an experiment would have a lot of value in developping fighting games game design, similar to how an experiment like divekick has probably been genuinely useful for the genre to understand itself.

obligatory if youre not having fun dont play the game

5:20 KI disagrees.

Honestly, I hate fighting games recently gave my last shot to SF6 from launch to now barely hit gold 2 and was hard stuck and honestly my old issue was they aren't games they have no content but now well the same issue stands it's very hard to learn a fighting game especially if your only hope to really learn is KZfaq... I mean for some they can learn for me maybe i'm too stupid but it ain't for me so I quit.

Playing the game, but you're not gaming. Its the same as D&D where the Barbarian makes 2 attacks then waits 8 minutes to take a turn again, where more often than not you're just doing the same thing you did last turn. Some players would find this boring, but even the players that think its fun to just attack every turn get bored by how long it takes to get back to their turn.

I always found it kind of strange that people were frustrated by the lack of agency in combos (I mean, look at this cool thing they get to do to you, that teaches you about the game's systems - what more could a new player want?), and yet new players don't often complain about the lack of agency in neutral. In some games especially, there are situations or matchups where you don't really get to make decisions (tag games, as much as I love them, have lots of true-unreactable mixups and safe pressure due to assists). Something about the way that the information is presented - maybe the fact that they still technically have control of their character, even if the only choice is between doing nothing and getting hit - makes it much more palatable? But then again, there is a point where information overload becomes its own frustration for new players, when they can't figure out what they have to do in response to multiple things onscreen at the same time. Still, new players aren't going to complain about getting stuffed with a jab, even if that outcome arguably denies them more options than the threat of a combo on their punishably-minus options would.

I call them corner fighters. Games where the goal is to get the opponent in the corner and bully them via 50/50’s, long block strings and the such. This is where the complaint comes from. The average new player to fighting games should not play these kinds of games because they garner frustration. Why? Because they are unintuitive. One does not naturally learn how to escape rams pressure in strive, these are things players have to search up. Or in general it is nearly impossible for a new player to know where small frame gaps in an opponents pressure is, unless they go out of their way to research how to deal with said pressure. But by then they already quit the game (a major quit moment). Casuals should be playing slower games like Samsho or even slow 3d fighters, but unfortunately the most popular games right now are fast paced 2d fighters. The complaining will not end until these games become popular.

with about as much respect i can muster, people who have already invested thousands of hours into this genre straight up do not have the perspective to understand why people bounce off of it so hard and it REALLY shows once they fall back to the ancient, dumb as hell argument of "other competitive genres are also hard when you don't know anything about them therefore fighters aren't any different!"

Trying to escape the corner, blocking mixups, teching throws, etc, is playing the game. Scrubs gonna whine. HOWEVER: Long combos are boring and bad for games.