On Fighting Game Skill Floors

Me: https://twitter.com/ScrubQuotesX/status/828750016097329152
Friend: In all fairness, using obscure inputs for various attacks is a terrible control design
Me: in all fairness, you really can't do it any other way
Friend: smash managed it
Me: smash has less moves
Friend: It's almost like that's a good idea or something
Me: and a totally different movement and fighting system
Friend: directional ABXY would work pretty well I think for a lot of players who aren't already into fighting games
Me: Directionals are used for command normals
Friend: A large part of the learning curve for new players to that kind of game is even being able to do the standard attacks on command
Me: Have you played Pocket Rumble and Rising Thunder?
Friend: The difference between winning and losing should be decisions the player makes, not an input too hard for incoming players to even do
Me: or Fantasy Strike?
Friend: Also no, but you mentioned the latter like 20 times
Me: there's 3 of these games with easy special moves now, and none of them work nearly as well as regular fighting games
Me: though rising thunder doesn't exist anymore
Friend: And Street Fighter had how many years to get the formula down right? Rising Thunder had what fraction of the budget and how much less time/iterations?
Me: Street Fighter 2 got it right
Friend: And how big was the team/budget compared to Rising Thunder?
Me: and the problem isn't the team or budget
Me: the problem is the method of approach
Friend: If you had only played Street Fighter 1, you would be saying the same thing
Me: No. I certainly would not
Friend: k
Me: the problem isn't budget, team, time, etc
Friend: I'll make this conversation a lot shorter for both of us - fuck fighting games! >:3
Friend: Fighting games are terrible
Friend: There, already escalated as far as it can go
Friend: If Rising Thunder didn't succeed, then fighting games are fundamentally flawed
Me: fighting games are fine as what they are
Me: That's my whole point
Me: It's not a bad design
Me: it's a design that works for those games
Friend: For the people who already know them, they're fine
Friend: And that's the problem. They only work if you already know what to do.
Me: It makes them harder to learn
Friend: For new players, it's terrible
Me: and that's the price they pay
Friend: Right. Which isn't good design. A game being won or lost should not come down to the input being too hard to do what you know you need to do
Friend: In no other game genre on earth will someone flub an input 20 times in a row and lose the game
Friend: When they know what they need to do
Me: I don't agree with the idea that it's all about the decisionmaking in the first place. I don't believe that good game design is purely about decisionmaking
Me: I think that including things that are low affordance or require execution skill can be a boon to particular games
Friend: I didn't say it should be all about decision making.
Me: Because it allows players to diversify themselves in terms of what skills they master
Friend: All I said is that the game should not come down to the input being too difficult. That's not mastery of anything, that's not a skill of any sort.
Me: yes, it is
Me: it literally is a skill
Me: the ability to perform an action consistently is a skill
Me: these inputs are not too difficult
Me: no game uses pretzel inputs anymore
Me: the input read algorithms across the board are very well developed by this point
Friend: On a controller? Where people actually play these games?
Me: Yes
Me: I play on a controller
Me: I play better on a controller
Me: people win evo on controllers
Friend: And again, your perspective is skewed. You already know how to do it. I'm not arguing that it doesn't work for advanced players, but that it doesn't work for any newcommers.
Friend: Fuck evo, it's irrelivent, and the complete opposite of the point I'm trying to make
Me: I am aware this makes it harder for newcomers
Me: I am very aware, however that's the price you pay for the depth you gain
Me: it's possible to strike a balance like smash bros
Friend: There is no depth to be had in artifically making controller inputs more difficult
Me: but that requires investment in other areas
Me: They're difficult for a reason
Friend: If I can reduce the skill ceiling of your game by using a keyboard with a fuckton of macro keys, that wasn't skill
Me: If Zangief's command throw was 1 button, what do you think that would change?
Friend: The skill floor!
Friend: It would change exactly that
Me: his command throw by the way is a huge amount of unblockable damage with a reasonably large range
Me: and the input is a 360 spin then punch
Me: if you change that, then it actually changes the tactics during the match
Me: it makes that move WAY more powerful
Me: because the amount of time it takes to input that, is a factor in the tactics of the match
Friend: Cool. Do it. Don't balance your game around raising the skill floor as high as possible
Friend: That's idiotic if you do
Me: There's easier characters than Zangief in the game
Me: he is a hard character to play
Friend: This is the exact stuff that stops fighting games from being as popular as any other game genre
Me: and he is in the game because people like playing hard characters
Me: sure
Me: I agree with you
Friend: The skill floor is too high and the game is balanced around that
Me: but if you got rid of it, then they would be worse games
Friend: People literally cannot play it
Friend: They try, they fail, and they move on
Me: and I'd place the blame there on the tutorials
Friend: It's a disservice to the game by denying new blood to the community
Me: It's a bigger disservice to the game to neuter it in favor of attracting a larger audience
Friend: Not if you find a way to have both
Friend: Smash showed it's possible
Me: Yes, it did
Me: but it also did a lot of stuff differently
Me: and it has the same difficult inputs fighting games do
Me: but you don't need to know them until you're a tournament player
Friend: Smash's inputs are simple enough that I can teach it to a 4 year old in a minute or two
Me: teach him to wavedash
Friend: If I try to show an adult the street fighter controls, I need a chart
Friend: Wavedashing isn't the skill floor, I got pretty damn good without learning it
Me: I've taught a ton of people how to play street figher with no visual guide, nothing but my words
Me: You're correct
Me: I was not disagreeing
Me: The thing is, smash is very very different from other fighting games, it gains its depth in different ways
Me: and you cannot translate that to existing fighting games very easily
Me: or possibly at all
Friend: Teaching somene what a dragon punch is actually requires effort to make them comprehend it, since nothing else on earth uses it
Friend: Criken found JC3MP
Me: teaching someone to perfect split in startcraft requires effort too
Me: it's a part of the game
Friend: Not the skill floor
Friend: You can play Starcraft competently without that
Friend: And becuse of how it's designed, you pick it up on your own eventually
Friend: Instinctively
Friend: "I need units here and here, I'm just going to go do that"
Me: perfect splits? ehhh, not necessarily, but I can't disagree
Me: fighting games have a huge investment up front they require from the players, and that limits the growth of the genre
Me: however there is no way to change this without compromising what makes fighting games worth playing
Me: or requiring them to change into something completely different from what they currently are
Me: like smash bros
Me: in order to compensate for this, I think they need better, gamified, tutorials
Me: like skullgirls
Me: and guilty gear
Me: which is what RTS have done
Me: like Starcraft 2's tutorial missions
Me: that have you practice simple scenarios
Me: or the RTS tactic of having the campaign be an informal tutorial, slowing showing you each unit in a context where it's useful
Me: fighting games have never had an equivalent to that, and Guilty Gear perfected the formula with its mission and combo trial modes
Me: That and a quarter circle forward or a dragon punch input are not that hard
Me: especially in modern fighting games
Friend: Oh and even worse, some games like Blazblue call the buttons ABCD and confuse players in the tutorial
Friend: For no good reason
Friend: Making system specific button pictures is not hard
Friend: It's not even hard to change it depending on the input method
Friend: Games in other genres do it all the time
Me: that's...
Friend: Where the tutorials update depending on if you use a keyboard or 360 or ps4 controller
Me: they're trying to get you on their system
Me: because it's not square, triangle, or XYBA
Me: it's ABCD
Me: some fighting games let you show either the buttons on the controller or the in-game button it's associated with
Me: like the guilty gear tutorials do
Friend: A new player playing the tutorial doesn't need to know that
Me: Yes, they do
Friend: They just need to know what to push
Friend: It doesn't matter to a new player if they call it Y or B, they just need to know what button to push
Me: SFV's tutorial shows you both icons at the same time
Friend: It adds another layer of shit to push through for new players just trying to get through the very first tutorial
Me: the reason is because it's rebindable, and fighting game control schemes are patterned the way they are to make a mental metaphor for the relationships between the buttons
Friend: "PUSH THE D BUTTON" *looks down at controller* "I don't have that button?"
Friend: So what? If it's rebindable... show what it's currently bound to!
Friend: Problem solved
Friend: PC games do this all the time
Friend: Vast majority even
Me: except that's harmful to the learning process of figuring out what the buttons are supposed to be across characters
Friend: They're all the same though! If you bind A to triangle, it'll be triangle to all of them
Friend: It's not going to be per-character keybinds
Friend: And if you just show the triangle button, you know to just push that button
Me: But you want to know that it's A B and C, not triangle, square, or circle
Friend: Why?
Me: because it's easier to store the information that way
Friend: Bullshit, DMC did it with the buttons and it had no problems
Me: I mean in your brain
Me: like in street fighter, it's LP MP HP, LK MK HK
Friend: How? In the age of QTEs, where EVERYONE can push whatever button on reflex by thinking of it, how is changing what you're trying to push help at all?
Me: you want to know that these buttons go upwards in ascending order of strength
Me: and there's one row of punches on top, and kicks on the bottom
Friend: Step 1: Find the damn button. Step 2: Find out what it does. You're missing the step 1 here!
Me: you don't want to know, "triangle, square, R2"
Friend: When I first picked up Marvel, I had to actually turn off the game and READ THE PHYSICAL MANUAL to figure out wtf the S button was supposed to be
Me: because then you can't relate together that they're in the same category
Me: ABCS
Friend: Right! It's not even consistent!
Me: you want to know that they chain and S is special, the launcher
Friend: Between games, there's no standard!
Me: guilty gear has P K S H D
Friend: Why is it D on one game and S on another? And why should I care and not just call them A like a normal person?
Me: because it's played on a fight stick primarily
Me: It's not A
Friend: Whenever going through the Marvel tutorials, you know what I had to do first?
Me: it's S
Friend: I had to translate them
Friend: ASBNDFPIOUJASBK:LHFJAE
Friend: WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK? YOU CAN CHANGE WHAT IT SHOWS ON THE INPUT METHOD
Friend: SHOW THE ABCD BULLSHIT ON THE FIGHT STICK, BUT ABXY ON A CONTROLLER
Me: Because you want to think of it as the function it performs, not the physical button on the gamepad!
Friend: WHY IS THIS SO HARD
Friend: Not when I'm learning it!
Friend: I don't CARE about what function it performs IF I CANT FIND THE BUTTON
Me: Then that's the problem with the tutorial, and other games have solved the tutorial issue
Friend: That's like showing someone an FPS for the first time and telling them to push the shoot button! WHO FUCKING KNOWS WHAT THAT IS WITHOUT ALREADY PLAYING ONE BEFORE
Friend: Is the shoot button A? Right trigger? Right bumper? B? X? Every game has a different one
Me: It's not the same in an FPS, because the buttons don't have relationships with each other
Friend: Just show the button
Me: because the buttons don't have a chaining order
Friend: Lies! People got things like the BXR in Halo 2 just fine
Friend: There are cases where it can be proven that people can pick up on it if you give them the chance
Me: and because every game has the buttons do different things that are the same across all the characters in that game
Friend: Know what buttons you need to do for the BXR? B... then X... then R!!!
Me: with P K S H, that's different for every player on every control scheme
Friend: Calling something low kick or high kick doesn't make a degree of sense, since "low kick" and "high kick" ARE the same for every character
Friend: Whatever, fuck it, I have to make dinner and get to class
Friend: Out of time to discuss this
Friend: I made my point, you just don't give a damn
Friend: Just know that at this rate, fighting games will literally never grow
Me: whenever I play guilty gear, on a new PC, I need to switch it back to showing PKSHD or I can't tell what the fuck they're trying to tell me to do
Me: the notation they have is fucking sensible
Friend: And if you're fine with having an isolated community of hardcore players that is inpenetrable for newcommers, then be my guest
Me: the tutorials just need to show new players both the button and its label
Me: Dude, if they change it, it won't be worth playing anymore
Me: it'll be like smash 4
Friend: hahaha
Me: They're presenting things in the way that makes it easiest to understand the game in the long term
Friend: You have so little faith in the game if you think changing it from S to A is going to make the game literally unplayable
Friend: What a pathetic, fragile genre
Me: I'm talking about all the stuff, not that
Friend: k
Me: they're teaching the player better by labeling the buttons this way
Friend: Which is why new players struggle to make the right inputs
Friend: Because it's for their own good
Friend: Just like how it drives them to drop the game
Friend: It's for their own good
Me: Guilty Gear built better tutorials
Me: so did skullgirls
Me: capcom games need to catch up
Me: but SFV did show you both the button and the label for the button in the tutorial
Friend: If you're 'teaching the player better' by making the game harder to learn, you're fucking up in a major way
Friend: Somewhere along the line, you failed
Me: it's harder to learn, but easier to understand
Friend: Not at first it isn't
Friend: And first impressions matter
Me: at least we're not tekken, they call the buttons 1 2 3 4
Friend: You mess that up, you lose the player forever
Friend: Dammit I'm wasting too much time, I need to get dinner going now or I'm not eating tonight