Original video by Sajam, go peep - th-cam.com/video/2b-VGx4UJVc/w-d-xo.html (also pls subscribe) EDIT: been reading comments, I'd be willing to follow up with questions and such on a stream if y'all would like! Great comments from everyone so far :)
id sincerely love a vid with you explaining what "degen wincons" are and how it makes ultimax worse than vanilla. an in-depth explanation with clear examples would evolve a lot of peoples understanding of fighting games, including myself. (i only use ultimax and vanilla cuz it would theoretically be a great way to clearly see the win condition differences, using any fighting games as examples would be dope af. also im assuming "win cons" is win conditions)
I don’t give a fuck what real guilty gear is. I just didn’t like strive so I stopped playing and I wish people who are critical about the game stopped acting like they were a deep expert on what is and isn’t “og guilty gear”
@@killermurad5933 he probably played Bayo at a pre launch event, but what occurred was Leo vs Plup I believe, Plup on Ridley and Leo on Bayo. Sakurai was front row to Bayo 0-deaths
It’s crazy Lk said it’s his dream for a dev to see him playing and be like “duuude” when hiroki, the dev he was previously mentioning, did exactly that during the world championship when he had roshi and they nuked that man. ima say because of LK’s display there they bombed on roshi
It was really Kazunoko’s play. LK’s team was top tier but his play didn’t really put him on that level but several other top players adopted that strategy like Kazunoko.
Bro I swear I can't enjoy a fighting game anymore without the community BEGGING ME to gate the game. Great topic. Lots of blaming the beasts nowadays. Meanwhile we have some of the best fighters out the to play right now.
Fighting games are inherently different to most competitive video games due to their 1v1 nature and high barrier of execution. You have nobody to blame when you lose but yourself or the game. That said the barrier of execution is still significantly lower than something like a sport, so people end up feeling entitled to winning once they learn the game. As such blaming the game and complaining becomes second nature to protect egos. People who complain like this and see others having a more positive mindset towards the same things get frustrated that not everyone feels the same. Thus the cycle of the community complaining and encouraging complaining is perpetuated.
I would've loved this aggression meta 6 years ago when I wanted to get into fighting games but didn't like playing defense. As I slowly got more experience I started to really appreciate defensive play and spacing a lot because I realized it was harder to practice defending than it is to practice attacking and converting. I felt like I had put a lot of time into getting sound defense and offense in previous games just to have my defense blown past and my offense seem not that different from a new player mashing. I am happy more players are getting into fighting games and I don't want to be negative and say that fighting games don't take skill or they are just button mashy now but, I will say the ability to express one's self through gameplay has shifted in another direction. In my opinion this is easiest to see in Tekken which I felt like had the biggest shift in direction. You see people who have been on top of tournament boards being suddenly beat 6 months into tekken 8 by players who we have never heard of. That's really cool and exciting but, it also feels.... almost artifical I guess. Either way long story short I feel like fighting games are way more accessible and popular than ever but, I am getting left with a bad taste in my mouth at the same time that I can't really shake.
@crustykeycap5670 that's fine and all. I still have my preferences though. I think you can modernize a game and add more to it without shaking up the games direction. However I think the decision they made is correct for their sales. That's not just me calling them greedy either. The game is undoubtedly more accessible than previous titles, even witb more complex mechanics in the game. I just have my own preferences.
For me, i just like Dizzy. I love the long and fast double airdash, I love the wide variety of oki you have to do with all the character specific wakeups, and I love converting jabs into knockdowns. Strive changed the systems in a way that pretty much removed all of that.
the "what type of game is guilty gear" thing gets me sometimes cause playing Xrd these days is just an endless barrage of "Strive bad" every time someone compares anything between them. There's no reason or logic to it so you can't get any meaningful conversation out of it, you just sit there and wait for them to vent about a game they supposedly don't care about until they run out of air and then you make a HARD TURN to change the conversation. Bruh.
You hit the nail on the head, never seen such a large amount of hate for a game they don't care about. Like wtf even Smash Bros melee vs every other Smash game doesn't have cross title discourse like this.
@@fenimore-2854 there's a difference between being a fan and an elitist. a fan sees the changes, recognizes that just because it doesnt necessarily work like the previous game doesnt mean its bad. like yeah xrd is a lot of fun but you can also have a lot of fun in strive. mechanicaly strive is a bit simplified, but that isnt a bad thing necessarily. you become an elitist the moment you adopt the mindset "my game good, if its not my game its bad". look i get it, personally i like the character designs in xrd way more than most in strive, but strive aint bad whatsoever, but it aint perfect either. sorry for the paragraph, i dont want to sound like im attacking anyone but its hard to properly relay a message in text form.
@@fenimore-2854I am a fan of Guilty Gear. I don't like quite a few design choices of Strive. I still play Strive a lot because I tried it out and thought it was fun. I don't think it is the best Guilty Gear game and I do think it would be nice if a lot of Xrd aspects were brought back. So that said, why can't people be like me and either simply like or dislike the game? Why do I have to let a game I wouldn't even like live rent free? Imagine if I acted this way towards modern Puyo games. My life would be a short one.
I'm no top player or anything, just been intermediate in every game I'd play but personally for me Strive got boring mad fast to me. I realized I just kinda miss the actually high speed movement that was more relevant in earlier ASW games. Little things like air dashes having increased startup, dash jump momentum nerfed (overall being way more grounded) camera zoomed in closer so there's less movement space. It just felt super toned down in elements I liked about air dashers. On top of it all how easy combos were and to improvise them, it just didn't feel satisfying to me. Stuff like removal of hitstun decay, it's just gravity scaling now which feels way easier to combo. Very easy access to insane damage. It's just less exciting to watch too to me. I'm not asking for some super hard shit but around 2010s to me hit the sweet spot. Persona and BBCF as an example (despite those games having exceptions on a character level, no game is perfect).
I dunno, combos are pretty easy to improvise in the older ArcSys games, too. If anything, I'd say they're easier. *Optimal* combos might be harder to find, but having the basic gatlings in GG and BB makes them pretty easy to just go through your gatlings into a knockdown early on and then feeling out which moves turn that into a decent combo from there isn't hard at all. I went from "ABC into special" on Ragna to "ABC>6A. Gauntlet Hades delay second hit and then go into whatever combo stuff works best in the situation" and that's not really a hard at all. Strive in contrast removes the gatlings so you don't have that basic effective combo early on, you have to be able to recognize which moves create better combo opportunities immediately. And in either case *most* players generally aren't going to find the best combos on their own anyways, they're going to see them performed by someone else or look them up and learn from that. Aside from that, I think the movement critiques are fair. it's not a big issue for me personally, but Strive did objectively slow down/tone down the movement and I can understand that being a major turnoff if that's the biggest appeal of the anime fighter genre to someone.
@@xypher6971 I get what you're saying, but it's why i brought up stun decay. In ASW games certain combo starters apply way more hitstun decay so for the rest of the combo you had to be smarter to adjust routings if you want to capitalize on the hit the best you can, otherwise hitstun scaling kicks in and you just lost your knockdown potential and damage. You'd have to have previously labbed this or have good understanding of characters combo theory or combo system. In strive since the average damage is so high I find a lot of people, including myself, just doing shit and the combos will just work. With removal of hitstun decay and air teching it's way easier to do and way less punishing to drop. It's just gravity scaling and I've always found it super easy to work with. On top of that, hits just having way more hitstop, especially the counter hits. It's just not so exciting for me to watch or play. Thanks for understanding, I half expected people to just come in and say I'm just a hater or something lol.
@@xypher6971 "I'd say they're easier" debatable the hardest aspect of the game to master, the thing that people looked up to Japanese player's ability to do with genuine reverence, and so suddenly with strive no one gives a fuck about? Yeah right man, how can you write so much about something you know nothing about
@@fenimore-2854 man what are you talking about? What do you mean "no one gives a fuck about" combos in Strive? There are tons of combo videos and clips all over the place. Just say you hate Strive and actively avoid knowing anything about it and move on Combos are not "arguably the hardest part of fighting games" that's the game sense. Combos are a lot of muscle memory and dexterity, the main difficulty hurdle in fighting games is knowing what options are good and when to use them. People don't "look up" to players with good combos now because fighting game resources actually *exist* now. Back in the early days combos and other techniques had to largely be figured out on your own through labbing or by watching a player do them directly. Now you can look up how to do combos with any character in practically any fighting game, so they're much more accessible and anyone can learn them. This is not exclusive to new games and Strive, I can look up Makoto's ToD in Third Strike and spend time time learning it just the same as any combo in a modern game. These resources are objectively good. Stop accusing others of not knowing what they're talking about when you're just saying things that aren't true.
@@Bruh-bi6yi That's fair, I guess. Juggles with gravity scaling and hitstun scaling are pretty different systems, and while I did initially struggle to understand juggle combos in games like Strive and Tekken early on because hitstun felt more natural to me after playing so many fighting games that use it, once I got over that initial confusion they do tend to feel like I have a bit more time to recognize the situation and how to do a combo. If I were to try to explain it, I guess it's that when you start a combo in a hitstun game, you have to sort of plan ahead and know what buttons you're going to press ahead of time, even if the combos are still freeform and easy to feel out. In a juggle game, the gap between hits is bigger so you have more time to think about how you're going to follow each hit up. Yeah, your comment didn't really seem like the common brand of people saying (often incorrect) things about Strive to claim it's bad, you had actual specific reasons for why you don't care for it and didn't treat it like the game is objectively bad for the way it is, which I respect and wish was more common. There are a lot of people who just hate on Strive for reasons that don't make sense because they want something to hate, but there's also a lot of people who have actual, thought out reasons for what their preferences are and how Strive doesn't fit them. I just wish the second type was more common.
It's all because people got upset about blocking, parrying, and waiting out the timer. Even, pros did this. In fact, they were the main ones...and of course fans listened and regurgitated the same sentiment while not knowing WHY said pros were saying such things. Devs listened to the non-pros and roughly said, "Let's make defense a risky option". Now we're waiting for our turn through 10 second block strings and attempting to parry or sidestep moves that can no longer work as intended (thanks, Harada). It gets crazier when i look at games like Guilty and SF6 and the amount of aggression is technically still the same as i remember from older games but damn is defense difficult there. So difficult, that seeing great defense in a major event calls for massive hype. Something had to change, but it wasn't agression. Lol
As a counter fighter, I agree the aggressive aspect is pushed a bit too hard. I think if a game has problems with aggressiveness, the movement aspects could be improved. With Tekken, a LOT more moves now have dodgy features to them too, so when people are aggressive it's even harder to counter because they moved low before kicking you in the face just as you were about to counter
I started with DBFZ, then Strive, but now I'm playing Street Fighter 6 and I agree with learning new system mechanics, coming from DBFZ to Strive felt very natural since they're both anime games but Street Fighter 6 felt so strange to me and I had to put in a lot of work to understand how I'm "suppose to think" because Street Fighter 6 forces anime fighting games player to a completely different games.
tekken enjoyer since T3 here it's correct that tekken players have not dealt with resource management of this type before, and those of us who love this franchise are learning to take it in stride and cope. we are adapting to these changes because we have no other choice. however, it does deserve to be understood that for many of us, this shift toward a gameplay style more similar to those found in anime fighting games like dbfz, involving supers, armor moves, special meter etc. is a departure directly away from what was traditionally one of tekken's greatest strengths and selling points, which is precisely the lack of those types of features. something I have found myself saying about tekken 8 is that if I had wanted to play dbzf, I would have. while these flashy features certainly bring hype to the game and attract new players, their introduction has affected the core gameplay loop of tekken in ways that to players more comfortable with 2d fighting games, anime fighters in particular, are nothing new, but for legacy tekken mains serve to dilute the experience of a gimmick-free, fundamentals oriented game with few easy panic moves or get out of jail free cards. coming from that background, tekken 8 can easily come off as being oversaturated with big cheap win buttons and forced mixup scenarios in a way that only superficially enhances the gameplay at the cost of the beautiful simplicity that allowed tekken to become such a complex and nuanced game to begin with. of course we're adapting, learning to live with these systems, but we did not choose this and we aren't obligated to like it. it isn't necessarily fair to have the mentality that tekken players just need to get used to these features that other fighting games have had for years, when one considers that the lack of those features has until recently been one of the main reasons many of us preferred tekken over those other types of games, because of the kind of gameplay that emerges from such a straightforward no nonsense system. it isn't necessarily as simple as older players preferring the game they're familiar with when the real issue is more concerned with a fundamental change to the way the core gameplay systems function. imagine you're a super turbo/3rd strike player and then all of a sudden capcom adds guilty gear style bursts, killer instinct style combo breakers and mortal kombat style x-rays and fatal blows. sure you'd learn to cope, but the real question is at that point does it even really feel like street fighter anymore? that's the kind of situation tekken is in right now, so I think it's fair for the playerbase to have our gripes with the developers over taking the series in a direction that feels contrary to the spirit of the game. most of us are sucking it up and just dealing with it, but are quietly hoping against all reasonable expectations that tekken 9 will reverse these changes and return to a form more faithful to the series' roots.
Without fail every time Sajam is trying to describe a bad game he describes my dream game. I want slow defensive play, that's my shit and there's nothing for it on the market.
Im sure there is something like it if you are willing to look hard enough Samsho is usually mentioned as a slow defensive game 3s is still being played As well as some games having defensive characters
I don't know much about the FGC and I don't really know who you are but I subscribed after the Coney reaction and will listen to you talk about anything. Great vibes all around
you can’t effectively accomodate for multiple playstyles simultaneously without making the players who like those playstyles compromise, because if there is a playstyle they don’t like in the game they will still have to engage with it. it’s like what mark rosewater (mtg designer) said, you can make a more unified design that is more successful with its target audience if you only try to please one audience
while I do agree with the point, I also agree that there should be more variety in playstyles. We need zoners, grapplers, and rushdowns in most traditional fighting games because the variety of matchups keeps things fresh for the player.
Good, fuck participations prizes. Don't like zoners? Tough luck, learn how to deal with them, zoners don't like guessing against rushown characters either
The reason games tend to favor aggression is because if aggression is strong things still happen. If defensive play is too strong you end up with 2 players not doing anything to each other.
I think a lot of people tend to get married to IP's so when the game changes away from whatever idea of the game they hold then there's just that knee-jerk "game bad" because the system and general game is different from what they're used to. Which on the one hand sure that sucks the new version isn't what you wanted but there's so many games out there that there has to be something you like.
Tbf, it is worth questioning how much you can/should change about an existing IP before you just decide to go with a different one. Like, hypothetically, could you add air dashing, short-hopping, and sprinting as universal mechanics to Street Fighter? Is the only thing that makes an IP the title? There are reasons people like to play a particular series besides recurring characters, right? (no, I don't actually think 6 is that crazy, but it definitely is different) On the one hand, I get your point that there are a lot of games, but on the other, there's not really any comparing games like UNI and SamSho (or god forbid you like something actually obscure) with the big 3 in terms of finding online matches and resources. As someone who is fond of slower, defensive gameplay, I'm a bit sad that SF, Tekken, and GG all are moving in a similar direction with faster gameplay and more aggressive universal mechanics. I still think the newer games are fun, and obviously they work better for drawing spectators and new players, but there genuinely are days when I play SF6 just because it has people and the games I prefer don't.
I used to hold the same position as @axis8396 The problem at this point is that if any new games are released they will probably follow the new model, and I also want new games. ___ Imagine if the next Tekken, the next Street Figher, the next Guilty Gear, and the next Granblue game were all first person. Imagine if this move sold really well so the next Melty Blood, the next UNI, the next [blank] vs Capcom game and the next King of Fighters game were also in first person. Imagine how it feels when the trend catches on and smaller games start doing the same thing. Imagine how it feels when the trend has gone on for so long that it's been almost a decade since a fighting game released that wasn't first person. That's the world some players live in when it comes to a fighting game that fits their taste. ___ The fact that we can still play old games starts feeling a bit irrelevant when nobody is listening to the people who just want a new game that doesn't follow the trend. A similar thing happened with shooters and battle royale. Luckily that trend has died out a bit by now, and there were still options while the trend was going on.
Actually there aren't many games if you mean new games, almost every fg that came out in this 5 years and is coming out is leaning in one direction. Simplification, more guessing
I'm one of those players that you mentioned at the beginning of the video and I'll admit I was ass at the game. I started playing gg with +R but branched out to Xrd, bbcf, and uni 2 after I quit strive. Now I'm pretty good at Xrd (not the other three lol) and when Johnny came out, I wanted to get back into strive to see if I liked him. I played him for about a week and I didn't end up sticking with the game. The experience ended up giving me some good perspective on why I personally didn't like the game but love the older ones so much. Defense options in strive are more committal then they are in the older games. That's the simple line that separates old guilty gear from strive. 1F throws and other defensive oses paired with it, fuzzy mashing and fuzzy blocking reduces the amount of times you have to guess on someone else's offense. Is that scrubby? I guess, but it feels fun to reject the notion that you have to constantly guess and it's why guilty gear players, only play guilty gear. There's a lot more guessing in strive and on top of that it IS more volatile than the older games, with characters like nago, sol, goldlewis, anji, and leo shitting out damage when the opponent makes a wrong move. I don't know who you specifically asked what makes xrd & +R real guilty gear, but drawing comparisons between the two options and saying they're the same is acting in bad faith imo. I could draw comparisons between uni & bb and say that strive plays more like those two for the same reason. Good video LK and if anyone read this, thanks!
Honestly, that's one of the things I didn't like about older GG games even though I probably do prefer them over Strive. Throws being 1f, unable to whiff, and bound to HS all combined to make them feel kind of obnoxious because they had 0 commitment. I feel like defense *should* be committal in general. There's no depth to offense if the opponent can beat all of the options with one or two strong options of their own. It ends up making the game feel shallower overall since the offense gets shut down so easily and the defense boils down to using one particular option for everything. A good example of that is how when Melty Blood Type Lumina launched, shield was *very* overtuned and basically every situation would eventually devolve into the shield RPS because any offense would eventually just get shielded, then they'd go back and forth until someone won the RPS. Obviously, I don't think anything in GG is that bad (Or even really "bad" at all, I love GG), but it is an example of why defense being structured in a way that allows you to consistently ignore offense generally isn't fun for most players. There's a very delicate balance to making sure that offense can't just be ignored most of the time, but also isn't so strong that the defender feels like they basically just have to pick one of three simple options and pray it works.
@@xypher6971 I think you're dead wrong, and you kinda just proved that modern fighting games are more volatile and some players like it that way. Why is it that the commitment always has to go one way? Would you say defense or neutral have no depth if the opponent can beat all of the options with one or two options of their own? Isn't this exactly what happens with mechanics like guard crush and wild assualt? Do you honestly think Strive maintains a "delicate balance" and doesn't tilt heavily towards offense? And I disagree with your example. The biggest problem with shield on launch was that the screen freeze was too short, so a lot of the time it was hard to react to successful shields if you weren't looking for them. But I'd argue shield was never overtuned. People grossly exaggerate it's strength, most people weren't camping in neutral waiting to shield things, shield spammers mainly used it as a reversal. Pretty much every situation you could shield in launch Lumina you can DPRC in Strive. You could argue that Shield is meterless, but successful shields still give the aggressor a chance to win, or at least not lose the interaction. It never allowed you to ignore strong offense, it just gave you a strong tool to deal with it. In the cases games did devolve into repeatedly shielding that's on the aggressors, no one forces you to press buttons. In the current version some characters have no answer to the games ubiquitous safejump pressure without meter. And fine, maybe this is more fun for most players. But don't pretend like everyone else is crazy for pointing it out. There has never been a game where defense was strictly better than offense, there are a few where zoning is pretty busted, but none where you can win with completely reactive play. Modern games aren't adressing some issue that was overlooked for decades, they're trying to appeal to a new audience. And again that's fine, but if you like this new style own it.
@@xypher6971 I can't say anything for mbtl but offense really isn't shallower because of defensive oses. You can still bait throws with throw invul moves, fuzzy blocking is countered by delays and there are still defensive options that require commitment. For me it adds more layers to the game and the game built to accommodate oses as well. To say they have zero commitment isn't true but I don't blame you for thinking that way since you only really notice if you make guilty gear your main game.
@@hijster479 I didn't say offense should be committal because it already is, so I didn't think that was necessary. Whiffing an option into losing your entire healthbar is the truest combo around in nearly every fighting game and the games that let you get around that with things like RC almost always tie it to a pretty hefty resource cost, generally one that could also be used for defense. Strive Wild Assault deprives you of burst which is an immediate huge commitment to using it. I don't think Strive is a perfect game at all (WA taking burst away on hit and block is kind of insane. I guess it was done to compensate for making burst stronger and burst baiting harder, but I think it skews too heavily in the other direction now.) and it definitely does lean towards offense being stronger, but acting like Strive has no commitment to offense isn't really much more accurate than acting like it has no flaws. It's also not accurate to act like powerful offense is something Strive uniquely has compared to the rest of the series. Guilty Gear has had negative and RC for a *long* time, and mechanics like FRC and YRC have made offense even stronger and less committal for a long time. Strive may have gone further in that direction, but it's a direction that has *always* existed for the series. I also want to clarify that when I said "delicate balance" I did not mean offense and defense are equally strong, I meant that they have to be balanced in such a way that neither completely outclasses the other to such an extent that it's helpless. The reason that commitment "only goes one way" (although I already explained that I don't believe it does) is pretty simple, in my opinion. Offense is actually engaging, while defense isn't. And I don't mean in the "fun" sense, I mean offense is *literally* engaging with your opponent while defense is *not* engaging with them and instead being reactive. Leaning too far to offense can certainly be a problem and make being in a defensive situation annoying, but that doesn't feel as egregious because being in a defensive position is always less than ideal. Leaning too far to defense leads to a game that would be almost universally considered boring, because making defense stronger than offense means you get punished for actively engaging with the game. I'll admit my understanding of MBTL may not be perfect since I never really got the chance to dive into it deeply, but while no one "forces" you to repeatedly shield, I'm not sure what your point is with that. People did it because it was a strong option and they want to win. People will always try to use the most effective strategy in a fighting game, and the fact that no one "forces" you to do it doesn't make that strategy any less strong. I also don't agree with the way you're framing this as some "new game" thing. Defensive options have *always* been committal. Parrying in Third Strike risks getting hit if you mistime it, but even on a *fundamental* level, blocking has always had significant drawbacks since the beginning. Relying on blocking too much leaves you open to grabs and gets you pushed into the corner easily, you have to be capable of recognizing when their turn ends and when to take the chance to be offensive yourself. I wasn't trying to imply fighting games have had an "issue that was overlooked" so maybe I could have articulated my point better, but yeah, games have always skewed towards offense being that's more fun. I won't really linger on that too much though because it's explained in the video and I don't think you're really trying to argue with that, the disagreement is just how far the balance should lean. I wasn't trying to act like people are "crazy" for seeing that games like Strive have added mechanics that incentivize offense or deny that that has been a trend, just disagreeing that making defense options low committal is better. I also find it a little hypocritical that you'd call that out while also making your comment to explain how I'm "dead wrong" and pretending others are crazy.
@@wobbllob3369 I was a little worried I might have come off wrong in my first comment, and it seems like that did in fact happen, so I'm sorry I couldn't phrase myself properly. I don't have an issue with OSes in GG as a whole or anything. When I said "that's something I didn't like about older GG" I was pretty much exclusively referring to the way throws work. That said, I haven't played as much Xrd as other games since it's not as popular as Strive and I generally like CF more than either, so I'll concede I might be wrong there, but I still have to ask (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything I genuinely want to know): How exactly do grabs have commitment when they literally can't whiff? If you don't get a grab, you just end up throwing out a button that may or may not catch the opponent, and if it doesn't you can often cancel into another option to try to keep yourself safe. Maybe I'm just missing something obvious, but I don't see how a grab can be committal when they work that way.
I think unique playstyles should come back in fighting games. You may think I'm capping but the most fun I've recently had with fighting games has been playing BBCF (specifically Taokaka).
I'm convinced no one at Capcom likes Dhalsim. All the returning characters get new sauce, tech, supers and gameplay changes. Then Dhalsim got his flame carpet removed.
It's funnier when you play something like Marvel for example where the name of the game is to not be in a position to get ToD'd. And you have to either hold that L, or pray to god the other guy drops their combo. It's kusoge as fuck but people love it. Same with Hokuto no Ken. and JP players fucking love that game.
I'm a casual who started playing tail end of xrd and start of strive. Id argue that the xx and xrd formula lasted as long as it did because there was something to it. When the next major rolls around, I invite you to watch xx and strive side by side. I find the older games more interesting, even with the diminished competition. The lack of air mobility, relatively shorter lifebar (even when taking combo length into account) and more linear offense make strive a non-starter for me.
id sincerely love a vid with you explaining what "degen wincons" are and how it makes ultimax worse than vanilla. an in-depth explanation with clear examples would evolve a lot of peoples understanding of fighting games, including myself. (i only use ultimax and vanilla cuz it would theoretically be a great way to clearly see the win condition differences, using any fighting games as examples would be dope af. also im assuming "win cons" is win conditions)
I actually like that I have to start from zero for every street fighter. I played fortnite a lot with my friends. It as not fun. I didn't feel like I was getting that much bettet or that wins matter. Every new fighting game I start at trash, so every win even finally 2H super dash, matters to me. Ill maybe win big some day, or not but right now I'm the best I've ever been
To me heat didn't add depth, but oversimplified how around normally plays out. Literally would have preferred a standard old-school Street fighter meter that allowed you to do ex versions of certain moves. I got so tired of people round starting heating engauger
Just curious about what you mean when at high levels the games are the same except "pulling different levers"? Like I understand that people will press strong options in all these games, and then people will use the strong counter options, but inherently if a game has more "levers" doesn't that mean that there can be more varied answers with different results and outcomes? I will admit that I am a mid-level player, going like 2-2 in locals and never bothered to play celestial, but I feel like in XRD, whist YRC is broken as shit, stuff like blitz and dash dust give a ton of more interesting and dynamic reasons to go for dust, rather than more universal IAD mix. I don't know why, but defense felt stronger in Xrd or +R and meter management felt rewarding, whereas in strive it feels like there's "I have meter" and "I don't have enough meter" because there's no 25% options and positive bonus fills your meter insanely fast. Is this viewset just cause I don't play at the highest level of competitive or is it more just my personal taste of liking the levers pressed in one game more?
To me there are optimal punishes to every action so at peak level the amount levers would be the same because there is only one truly right reaction to any given action. But to the actual topic, I dont think Stive is a good example of games getting super aggressive since GG has always been on the aggressive side of fighters, maybe Strive characters have faster movement or a little meatier footsies but like its pretty similar. Its not like tekken 5 vs 8 or something. Though personally I love the aggressive push but I do think more defensive options need to be introduced to counter the heats and ults and shit added to games
@@z-rossi3672 While I agree with the sentiment that there is always an "optimal" answer, I think that the optimal answer has to be within feasibility and also is not entirely set in stone. Third Strike would "optimally" answer everything with parry because it builds meter, is more advantaged, and can even be done out of block with red parry, but that game-plan is only somewhat plausible when the entire mechanic revolves around the other player who can account for this and cause you to mess up and eat the hit. Like yes there are setups with only 1-2 answers but how often they occur and when and how that situation occurs is important too. Johnny isn't top 1 in Xrd cause he unblockables you, he's top 1 because he wins neutral 75% of the time and can fullscreen skip for 25 meter, and then bullies you into the corner, which lets him do unblockables. If the game gives you enough answers to the neutral situation then there are multiple "optimal" answers given how your opponent plays. Wheras I feel in Strive offense is even stronger and defense is a lot more committal sans burst, which is now more committal anyway because of drive rush, which does have the problem of being "optimal" in most situations for the cast, so again, is it pulling the same levers, or is there more levers to pull that are correct? Hence why I asked if it's just my taste or lack of competitive knowledge that doesn't allow me to see the point as stated.
@@z-rossi3672 "To me there are optimal punishes to every action so at peak level the amount levers would be the same because there is only one truly right reaction to any given action." this is just straight up not true in +R or really most fighting games though, because for this to be true you would have to be capable of punishing unreactable options perfectly, and to do so optimally inherent incurs risk. the optimal punish on Sol using grand viper as johnny in +R is to jump above it so he whiffs and then hit him with 6H into stepjack loops, but since you can't actually react to grand viper every time randomly jumping in anticipation of it is not the optimal action, it will in fact get you killed. this 1 interaction has a bunch of different answers depending on how much risk you are willing to take against your opponent. the way you boil down everything to 1 optimal punish per action is way too reductive to be of use, and obscures the meaningful mechanical differences between games.
@@MapOfTheLost Optimal isnt just max dmg dude, it takes into account consistency and risk of actions. If youre action risks death its not optimal ever, its gambling lol to be honest your example is more about reading which is what lays the groundwork to picking the right options
@@logiepro76 Ya sorry 100% right, when I say optimal Im not talking about the reddit elitist combos or silly frame perfect things, Im talking about an option that takes into account consistency, risks of doing it, and benefits. Ya theres shit like reads where your optimal play starts turning into do the best dmg to counter a move you can, but to me optimal gameplay will always start safe as you feel out your opponent until you can make the reads. But the whole feeling out phase is going to probably be pretty damn formulaic. But ya some pros just play 100% feeling while others pull the same levers and use the same frame traps
SFV was the first fighting game I played super seriously. At the time all the talk about how much easier the game was than SF4 really bothered me. When you're brand new and doing your best to get better it's so discouraging to hear everyone talking all day about how the game takes no skill. Having been in the community for a while now and seeing the same cycle play out it's much easier to ignore. Same shit every time a new game is out.
People in Tekken 8 saying electrics and just frames are easier because they're the same timings as 7 which they've been playing for half a decade or longer
Regarding on "whats defined as being meta", it really doesn't matter how many people can or can't do a specific tactic. Like with the whole "Snap Meta" it was only able to be done effectively by a handful of players you say but it was the winning strategy. Well just because your regular dudes in ranked or the randoms in pools couldn't do it properly then it doesn't stop it from being meta because it definitely was the meta. For example in League of Legends there are characters/strategies that are really good in Pro play but not so good in your Ranked games at home. You have your solo queue meta and your pro player meta, the same thing goes for fighting games. You have your shit that can work at home in a random match but to win a tournament against the best players you have to know your shit. Not to mention that the "snap meta" made Piccolo and a few other characters very popular because they had spammable supers to hide those 50/50's and they were very easy to execute.
13:45 honestly this somehow gets talked about a lot yet somehow nowhere near enough. So many fans of games just get their opinions from a handful of higher level players and the result is them parroting opinions in games they are mostly just a stream monster for and barely play outside of mashing with friends.
Defensive play needs to net the same rewards as offensive play in a game like strive the attacker can monkey together strings with blue cancel to outright kill the idea of committing to something punishable and defense gets faultless defense and very baitable burst… it genuinely feels like a warcrime to let your opponent act first in Strive and dare to block lmao. In the words of another commenter: Punishing people for being good at defense by giving offense so many tools that nullify defense makes offense become (often) indomitable.
games tending towards agressive play is necessary for the reasons they explained, but tekken 8 jumped WAY past the mark and defending it just silly. they have been tuning down the heat system since the beta where you had 2 heat dashes, and they just nerfed heat burst across the board last patch. it's pretty damn obvious that they went too far.
It feels as if there's no alternative to "You will die in 2-2,5 combos" or "You will die in 1,5 combos" nowadays. :( Yes, I get it, it's fun to watch and doesn't drag on. But I want my slugfest.
Which games do you think that isn't the case in? Most of the games I've ever seen, even older ones, had plenty of damage when the right situation pops up. Guilty Gear for example has *always* been a high damage series, people just didn't talk about it as much until Strive made the combos much smaller in comparison to how much health they took, but if you made a bad move, you'd get blown up in pretty much any game. Even the games like Street Fighter would have huge damage on the bigger punishes.
This is old. But i wanted to say, Arslan also plays KOF and just won a major. In fact his name is a reference to Ash so he knows about resources and stuff
I remember back in the day HGG would legit kill by attrition with a billion snaps using Piccolo and setting up with Hellzone Grenade it was really funny but really lame.
Steve Urkel is absolutely correct. In SFV they took away most defense options and forced every character to play rushdown. I'm not a filthy weeb like LK so I wouldn't know about GG but for a lot of fighting games like street fighter for example there's supposed to be zoners, neutral, and rushdown. Strengths and weaknesses like X character has a filthy mix but no projectile and mid neutral. Y character has great neutral and good projectiles but a pretty honest mix. Without that it's just who has the filthiest mix.
The main thing about strive is that combo conversion ability is the most consistent out of all the games and there are no 25 meter options. I believe this is one of the reasons they added wild assault, since managing meter in XX/XRD is mostly about meter management between 25 and 50, where strive was more linear (50 meter, and later, routing towards positive). GG has a theme of offense being fast and hard to defend against, but generally having options if you have responses. Strive has this. Passive defense is strong in older GG, it is also strong in strive. Usually when people talk about freedom in older games, it feels that way because 1- they design chars differently 2- things don't work so you have to make more choices each round 2- things don't work so you have to scramble more Xrd combo conversions are overall more stable than +R (but +R is more stable than older versions of GG). Maybe people won't like this, but I don't see fg as the freedom to do what I want, but rather, what do I have to do to accomplish the goal that I want (with the character and to win). That's why I just see it as different levers, different games want you to do different stuff at both a macro level and per situations. Everything can be built out. I /do/ think that games where you can't combo off everything have more branching choices (because of what I said before), but I don't think one way is better than the other. Hopefully that clears things up.
Respectuflly, the snap take kind of sounded like there was no Bardock meta because every team didn't have Bardock. I get that snap may not have been the end goal of EVERY team but every single player at least had it in their arsenal.
There's some weird funky things going on with the audio lol. It's probably super unnoticeable without headphones but it's tickling my brain in a bad way.
I don't think it's healthy design to just abandon a character you like just to win, picking the counter and just essentially deleting a character from the roster is not really a answer to bad balance or unfun gameplay and if you bought a game because of a character it will make the game essentially worthless. If everyone listened to your advice we would essentially get mirror matches 1/4th of the time. Not fun.
I wouldn't mind aggressive games as much if they started aggressive. The current zeitgeist is to add more mechanics that encourage aggression over time. Strive did it, granblue did it, you like how a game was, then they change the systems to something you may not like as much.
**Trailer for some obviously weird jenky hybrid character is dropped.** "I hope they know what they're doing....." "remnds me of dead shott from Injust-ASS!!!" "me sittin here tryna figure out how the new strive character isnt just completly borken 🤔 " *The Character:* But, remember to pick your shots carefully! Before Sniveling Weakling's projectiles can deal damage, he must first use [Sharpie Marking] to scribble three times on the Jordans of his opponent, and should he happen to be struck at any point during the activation of [Sharpie Marking], Sniveling Weakling will instantly be stripped completely naked, and put into his [Dead Man Stalking] state. In [Dead Man Stalking], Sniveling Weakling's walk speed is somewhat increased, and his dash is replaced with a Command Short Hop, but he sacrifices his ability to block, and the next time Sniveling Weakling is struck by any attack he will be sent straight to Hell, forfeiting the match to his opponent." **Trailer for man who punches but when he punches blue ghost fist also punches but farther away is released, and in his intro blue ghost hands straight up grab either side of the gamescreen and forcibly pull it .25 closer to the player's character's sprites.** "A little worried about how he'll fare in this hyper-aggressive meta, without having some form of anti-zoning built into his kit. Other than that, looks like my type of character. Will definitely give him a shot. 👍" "hELLO can any one please tell me dose he got a 2L nad he is s teir?" "Great opportunity for some real player skill expression, here. Getting down the optimal timing for knowing exactly when to press in order to stuff all of the different attacks in each character's moveset will take some serious grinding. If someone COULD do it, though, they'd be unstoppable. Heh."
Blah expression the most vague subjective nothing burger word in fighting games. I thought we got past that fad I don't play Fighting games to express myself, I play to hurt someone. As long as a game lets me hurt people I am good
@@boredomkiller99play to hurt people? weirdo lol I guess im glad you play fg not real sports. Anyway, Player expression is absolutely real, and not a nothing burger. Would you like me to explain it to you?
@doctordice2doctordice210 Not compared to 5, no. But SF4 you had people winning majors without using optimal combos because they were a lot more difficult. In SF5 (esp the earlier seasons) you either did the optimal combo or you just left damage on the table. 6 has more variety, yes. And more free-styling which is cool.
I'm old enough to remember the near universal hatred things like crouch teching and delayed wakeup in SFIV got, and those defensive options turned out to not even be that strong once the game aged. People bitch about the lack of defensive options or drowning in offensive options in a game, but I think the fact remains that people hate strong defense WAY more than strong offense. People will tell you they don't hate defense, or that they like strong neutral play, but they are lying. Neutral is boring af and so is defense. This is also reflected in sales. Games with strong offense universally sell better.
Too much defense can be slow and boring, but too much offense is aggravating and obnoxious. That was essentially the problem with Tek8, the previous "modern Tekken's" (5-7) had a nice balance of the both, but Tek8 had so many ways to bypass blocking,counter hits, and side stepping that the game was flat out unfun and defense was an outright detriment to you except for character and low parry's. Being aggressive is fine, but that shouldn't come at the total negligence of neutral.
You're not wrong, Offense is what gets people in the door. But if we're being honest people stick around for neutral and defense. That's why a lot of players dropped Strive despite initially buying it myself included. It was boring while I was winning and Frustrating when I lost. Although MK and injustice universally sell better so sales is kinda a moot point.
@@hijster479 >That's why a lot of players dropped Strive... I honestly don't even know what this means in light of its EVO entrants still being over 2000 people as of 2024. That's literally unheard of, and yet people still are going with the cope of "people are dropping the game". No, they aren't dropping the game. It has more legs than any previous GG by a mile.
@@matrix3509 Newer people can still pop into a game by either WoM or other aspects, but there have been folks who did drop Strive because it didn't mesh with them (Myself included), I don't know what sales have to do with anything on that notion. Let's not sit here and act like one point is factual over the other...
@@NewZen41 i mean what's strage about people dropping games? It's the most natural thing a game can have, people come and go. Do you expect the same people playing the same game 10 years straight? People have dropped xrd and +R too you know.
problem with the over aggression in new fighting games is that theres too many unga bunga characters in this game that can play like a rush down with none of the drawbacks and massive damage leaving the actual rush down characters, zoners, setplay characters and even grapplers to have to fight for their lives just to match the value of someone putting in way less effort. its just not fun to have clear drawbacks to your character archetype but then another characters has either no drawbacks or fake drawbacks like losing health or having low health
I still hate the snap change that they made, I think that the fuzzy mixup was kinda unfair but the fact that you can't get consistent PRESSURE for snapping someone feels so gross to me
im a casual player, but my thoughts on real guilty gear is.... why cant all guilty gear games be "real" Guilty gear? Its not like they stop existing after the next comes out. If you prefer XRD, play XRD. If you prefer XX, play XX. Now I get that the new game pretty much always has the most of the playerbase, so it might be hard to get matches on older titles, and that sucks. But then again, Ever Guilty gear is guilty gear. Strive oozes with guilty gear energy as much as any other title if not more. (I started playing guilty gear back in the XRD rev2 days)
Dbfz had some of the biggest nonsense in any fighting game. UI goku, rat goku, lab coat 21. Dealing with pressure in tekken and sf feels like a cake walk compared to anime fighters.
Speaking for street fighter, SF6 feels like rush down because it relies on the most “tricks”. It feels like every time a new fighting game comes out it can only go in one direction and that’s adding a new gimmick. Adding supers, adding dashes, adding parries, adding ex moves, adding red focus, adding v trigger, adding drive rush, etc. and yet what happens when you add way more than you take away? More variables. More variables likely add up to no being able to hang out in neutral. They’ve also done this on the individual character scale. For a long time dhalsim was the lone zoning character who could hit you from a long distance. Now in sf6 there are a few characters that can hit you from pretty much anywhere on the screen. So again, less neutral play because you can’t hang out there. I agree with punk that the rush down is what devs want now. It goes even deeper than that. You know what the secret sauce of successful business implementation is today? Cutting down on time. So the faster a sf6 round ends, the faster another one can begin. Just like tiktok, the faster you can complete something, the longer you’ll play/watch. It satisfies our short attention spans, raises that action and intensity and keeps us there longer.
"Snap Meta isn't a real thing, it never was" *proceeds to immediately explain Snap Meta as the viable win condition* I LOVE IT Also, only thing I hated about Strive, besides it's early lean into lane zoners who lost nothing and gained everything for free with reduced universal mobility... was actually separating K/D from Gatling... because now you have either mix-up (with K) or damage, but not both unless you're spending cash on RCs. And you don't really gain meter on your successful mixups, YOUR OPPONENT DOES.
It would seem that it is essential to the initial perceptions of new fighting games how well they massage the egos of the long-time mid-level player, because the words of top pros that are concerning a sphere of play completely unbeknownst to them will be easily manipulated/misunderstood to relegate the inadequacies they face when picking up new tasks to something beneath them (and sometimes a lot of pros are guilty of that latter part too)
I want to add; a reactive keepaway playstyle is powerful. Fighting games have a timer and if you run out the timer while having a health lead, you win. So the easiest way to win in any fighting game would be to get an early lead then make it impossible for your opponent to retake the lead. Best example I can think of is Storm MvC2. Sure you can play Storm/Sentinel and kill people off a single DHC, but before you get those 2 meters? Storm is running to the top of the screen and pressing j.HP, building meter and making it hard for anyone to contest. You have a limited amount of time to contest her went she lands and she could just choose to spend meter on Ice Storm or fly to the opposite side of the screen. Let's take a more modern game, GBVSR. In this game you can tech throws just by pressing an associated button (L, M or U) button, even when crouching, and all that'll happen is you'll take a bit of damage and be -6. So what's stopping me from doing 1 combo to you, then playing back and reacting to everything you do and fuzzy mashing 2M/2U with nearly every character? If you throw I late tech, if you mash I block, if you block I'm minus but generally unpunishable and/or can cancel into something safe, and if you shimmy I clip your feet and get a combo. And how are you going to tell I'm fuzzy mashing? I could be doing delay tech or doing literally nothing; you can't tell because my input is being eaten by your blockstring. Think about the top tiers. Nier and Seigfried have the best 2Ms in the game and some of the best damage in the game off those 2Ms. They can play defensively and build huge life leads and have great DPs so playing offense against them isn't so much "I'm winning" as much as it is "I'm trying to stop you from winning." Top 8 Nier play is literally waiting for your opponent to fuck up their offense, 2M into 6K combo, then force them to run offense on you again where 1 mistake on their end will cost them the game. Things designed to beat defensive playstyles (RS/Unlockables) are either super reactible or low reward so why should I play offense, given defensive OSes are so powerful?
Not to say that parameters or aspects could be tuned a bit, but even games with strong defensive OS can have people prefer to run offense over lame play. French Bread games like UNI and MBTL are full of this stuff. Defensive OSs are plenty and strong, so players often on offense run up and do nothing, just to scout information on what defensive OS, and what timing they do it on. Assault, Gold Throws are also good catch all tools to crush OS. I haven't play much of Rising, but I guess the best action would be to run up nothing to scout the delayed 2M, then either delay strike or low crush next time. Funnily enough though GB used to have universal low/throw crush though lol. And UNI removed one of their stronger 1AD defensive OSs, but kept the rest. So it is interesting to see how these two defensive heavy games have pushed in different directions
@@PERSONTHATISCLEVERI mean you're proving my point. If you're running up and doing nothing trying to scout player tendencies on defense before committing to an offensive plan, you're playing a reactive, defensive playstyle to get around someone else's reactive, defensive playstyle by scouting out options they're committing to. Defense is king by default. There's nothing wrong with that (reading player tendencies one of the key pillars that makes FGs fun to play), but it makes it easy to see why devs want offense to be more powerful; if FGs are all about reading what your opponent wants, then never showing your hand by not committing to anything and only reacting to what your opponent does or hiding your commits behind OSes your opponent can only guess you're going to do, then the best playstyle for both players is to sit and do nothing and hope the other overcommitts out of boredom. Having an offensive tool that forces the defensive player to commit to an option to counter it breaks the cycle.
@@Pokemonmovemaster you can scout information without running up and blocking. If you meaty the first knockdown then now you know they aren't doing frame 1 mashing. Then you can delay the meaty to check for delayed or fuzzy options. Now you can throw since their doing nothing. Obviously there are mind games involved in when or why a player switches up their defensive habits but it's important to note the the attacker is way ahead on risk reward in this scenario. Doing fuzzys or blocking are just as committal as mashing they are just a bit safer or require more active offense.
Not really true. Grapplers are only really strong like that at a low level and the way to beat them isn't really game-specific so Grapplers almost never dominate at the start of a game.
I honestly think there’s no balance to streetfighter five and six it’s too rushed down heavy the games feel clunky. Sf4 will always be the best to me with the perfect balance of offense and defense just the way the mechanics works for that game
Original video by Sajam, go peep - th-cam.com/video/2b-VGx4UJVc/w-d-xo.html
(also pls subscribe)
EDIT: been reading comments, I'd be willing to follow up with questions and such on a stream if y'all would like! Great comments from everyone so far :)
id sincerely love a vid with you explaining what "degen wincons" are and how it makes ultimax worse than vanilla. an in-depth explanation with clear examples would evolve a lot of peoples understanding of fighting games, including myself. (i only use ultimax and vanilla cuz it would theoretically be a great way to clearly see the win condition differences, using any fighting games as examples would be dope af. also im assuming "win cons" is win conditions)
I don’t give a fuck what real guilty gear is. I just didn’t like strive so I stopped playing and I wish people who are critical about the game stopped acting like they were a deep expert on what is and isn’t “og guilty gear”
REAL guilty gear is any game that lets me play as Robert Kyle
Same here bro.
this is the best take
You can stop playing it and also criticize the game. It takes two seconds.
@@friendlyghost9766 reading comprehension
5:09 LK wont tweet complaining about top tiers but he will complain about mid tier Faust being broken
It's because they saw all the comments saying "I didn't pay $60 to block"
Turned out they paid 60 dollars to get counterhit instead lol
but if the game is more aggressive, isn't someone gonna get stuck blocking
@@icecreambone nah, you don't block so you get bodied when you're not on the offense. Thems the chops.
@@icecreamboneit's a two way street, so by all means one of your opponents could be the victim of buying a game to block because of you.
Everytime Lord Knight pops on my feed I think chris rock got into fighting games
He's rocking it tho
LK would 100% parry Will Smith though.
Booyeeeee😂
Dude looks nothing like Chris Rock
@@Mr_Archer15 He very slightly favors him. VERY slightly.
16:28 its why Bayo got shot so hard in smash ultimate, MKLeo played her in front of Sakurai for a pre launch event. Bro was a martyr LOL
I thought alpharad was the one who played bayo that day?
@@killermurad5933 he probably played Bayo at a pre launch event, but what occurred was Leo vs Plup I believe, Plup on Ridley and Leo on Bayo. Sakurai was front row to Bayo 0-deaths
@@killermurad5933LOL HI MURAD
Mkleo saved the game only for steve to come out
It’s crazy Lk said it’s his dream for a dev to see him playing and be like “duuude” when hiroki, the dev he was previously mentioning, did exactly that during the world championship when he had roshi and they nuked that man. ima say because of LK’s display there they bombed on roshi
It was really Kazunoko’s play. LK’s team was top tier but his play didn’t really put him on that level but several other top players adopted that strategy like Kazunoko.
"Stupid ez zoner" is definitely an NRS thing.
Bro I swear I can't enjoy a fighting game anymore without the community BEGGING ME to gate the game. Great topic. Lots of blaming the beasts nowadays.
Meanwhile we have some of the best fighters out the to play right now.
^Happy Chaos main.
@@Khemith_Demon_Hours lol I play Vanilla man Ky
Fighting games are inherently different to most competitive video games due to their 1v1 nature and high barrier of execution. You have nobody to blame when you lose but yourself or the game.
That said the barrier of execution is still significantly lower than something like a sport, so people end up feeling entitled to winning once they learn the game. As such blaming the game and complaining becomes second nature to protect egos.
People who complain like this and see others having a more positive mindset towards the same things get frustrated that not everyone feels the same. Thus the cycle of the community complaining and encouraging complaining is perpetuated.
I would've loved this aggression meta 6 years ago when I wanted to get into fighting games but didn't like playing defense. As I slowly got more experience I started to really appreciate defensive play and spacing a lot because I realized it was harder to practice defending than it is to practice attacking and converting. I felt like I had put a lot of time into getting sound defense and offense in previous games just to have my defense blown past and my offense seem not that different from a new player mashing. I am happy more players are getting into fighting games and I don't want to be negative and say that fighting games don't take skill or they are just button mashy now but, I will say the ability to express one's self through gameplay has shifted in another direction.
In my opinion this is easiest to see in Tekken which I felt like had the biggest shift in direction. You see people who have been on top of tournament boards being suddenly beat 6 months into tekken 8 by players who we have never heard of. That's really cool and exciting but, it also feels.... almost artifical I guess.
Either way long story short I feel like fighting games are way more accessible and popular than ever but, I am getting left with a bad taste in my mouth at the same time that I can't really shake.
The game is different. Tekken 8 is not Tekken 7.
@crustykeycap5670 that's fine and all. I still have my preferences though. I think you can modernize a game and add more to it without shaking up the games direction.
However I think the decision they made is correct for their sales. That's not just me calling them greedy either. The game is undoubtedly more accessible than previous titles, even witb more complex mechanics in the game. I just have my own preferences.
For me, i just like Dizzy. I love the long and fast double airdash, I love the wide variety of oki you have to do with all the character specific wakeups, and I love converting jabs into knockdowns. Strive changed the systems in a way that pretty much removed all of that.
You just described my exact relationship with the guilty gear series.
Ahhh dizzy… one of my worse matchup as a justice main fighting her in +r. Good times
the "what type of game is guilty gear" thing gets me sometimes cause playing Xrd these days is just an endless barrage of "Strive bad" every time someone compares anything between them. There's no reason or logic to it so you can't get any meaningful conversation out of it, you just sit there and wait for them to vent about a game they supposedly don't care about until they run out of air and then you make a HARD TURN to change the conversation. Bruh.
Xrd elitists are actually some of the worst people in the FGC
You hit the nail on the head, never seen such a large amount of hate for a game they don't care about.
Like wtf even Smash Bros melee vs every other Smash game doesn't have cross title discourse like this.
What's wrong with being a fan of a series and wanting a sequel to be like the games you love? Generalizing fans as elitists is so weird
@@fenimore-2854 there's a difference between being a fan and an elitist. a fan sees the changes, recognizes that just because it doesnt necessarily work like the previous game doesnt mean its bad. like yeah xrd is a lot of fun but you can also have a lot of fun in strive. mechanicaly strive is a bit simplified, but that isnt a bad thing necessarily. you become an elitist the moment you adopt the mindset "my game good, if its not my game its bad". look i get it, personally i like the character designs in xrd way more than most in strive, but strive aint bad whatsoever, but it aint perfect either.
sorry for the paragraph, i dont want to sound like im attacking anyone but its hard to properly relay a message in text form.
@@fenimore-2854I am a fan of Guilty Gear. I don't like quite a few design choices of Strive. I still play Strive a lot because I tried it out and thought it was fun. I don't think it is the best Guilty Gear game and I do think it would be nice if a lot of Xrd aspects were brought back.
So that said, why can't people be like me and either simply like or dislike the game? Why do I have to let a game I wouldn't even like live rent free? Imagine if I acted this way towards modern Puyo games. My life would be a short one.
I'm no top player or anything, just been intermediate in every game I'd play but personally for me Strive got boring mad fast to me. I realized I just kinda miss the actually high speed movement that was more relevant in earlier ASW games. Little things like air dashes having increased startup, dash jump momentum nerfed (overall being way more grounded) camera zoomed in closer so there's less movement space. It just felt super toned down in elements I liked about air dashers. On top of it all how easy combos were and to improvise them, it just didn't feel satisfying to me. Stuff like removal of hitstun decay, it's just gravity scaling now which feels way easier to combo. Very easy access to insane damage. It's just less exciting to watch too to me. I'm not asking for some super hard shit but around 2010s to me hit the sweet spot. Persona and BBCF as an example (despite those games having exceptions on a character level, no game is perfect).
I dunno, combos are pretty easy to improvise in the older ArcSys games, too. If anything, I'd say they're easier. *Optimal* combos might be harder to find, but having the basic gatlings in GG and BB makes them pretty easy to just go through your gatlings into a knockdown early on and then feeling out which moves turn that into a decent combo from there isn't hard at all. I went from "ABC into special" on Ragna to "ABC>6A. Gauntlet Hades delay second hit and then go into whatever combo stuff works best in the situation" and that's not really a hard at all. Strive in contrast removes the gatlings so you don't have that basic effective combo early on, you have to be able to recognize which moves create better combo opportunities immediately. And in either case *most* players generally aren't going to find the best combos on their own anyways, they're going to see them performed by someone else or look them up and learn from that.
Aside from that, I think the movement critiques are fair. it's not a big issue for me personally, but Strive did objectively slow down/tone down the movement and I can understand that being a major turnoff if that's the biggest appeal of the anime fighter genre to someone.
@@xypher6971 I get what you're saying, but it's why i brought up stun decay. In ASW games certain combo starters apply way more hitstun decay so for the rest of the combo you had to be smarter to adjust routings if you want to capitalize on the hit the best you can, otherwise hitstun scaling kicks in and you just lost your knockdown potential and damage. You'd have to have previously labbed this or have good understanding of characters combo theory or combo system. In strive since the average damage is so high I find a lot of people, including myself, just doing shit and the combos will just work. With removal of hitstun decay and air teching it's way easier to do and way less punishing to drop. It's just gravity scaling and I've always found it super easy to work with. On top of that, hits just having way more hitstop, especially the counter hits. It's just not so exciting for me to watch or play. Thanks for understanding, I half expected people to just come in and say I'm just a hater or something lol.
@@xypher6971 "I'd say they're easier" debatable the hardest aspect of the game to master, the thing that people looked up to Japanese player's ability to do with genuine reverence, and so suddenly with strive no one gives a fuck about? Yeah right man, how can you write so much about something you know nothing about
@@fenimore-2854 man what are you talking about? What do you mean "no one gives a fuck about" combos in Strive? There are tons of combo videos and clips all over the place. Just say you hate Strive and actively avoid knowing anything about it and move on
Combos are not "arguably the hardest part of fighting games" that's the game sense. Combos are a lot of muscle memory and dexterity, the main difficulty hurdle in fighting games is knowing what options are good and when to use them. People don't "look up" to players with good combos now because fighting game resources actually *exist* now. Back in the early days combos and other techniques had to largely be figured out on your own through labbing or by watching a player do them directly. Now you can look up how to do combos with any character in practically any fighting game, so they're much more accessible and anyone can learn them. This is not exclusive to new games and Strive, I can look up Makoto's ToD in Third Strike and spend time time learning it just the same as any combo in a modern game. These resources are objectively good.
Stop accusing others of not knowing what they're talking about when you're just saying things that aren't true.
@@Bruh-bi6yi That's fair, I guess. Juggles with gravity scaling and hitstun scaling are pretty different systems, and while I did initially struggle to understand juggle combos in games like Strive and Tekken early on because hitstun felt more natural to me after playing so many fighting games that use it, once I got over that initial confusion they do tend to feel like I have a bit more time to recognize the situation and how to do a combo. If I were to try to explain it, I guess it's that when you start a combo in a hitstun game, you have to sort of plan ahead and know what buttons you're going to press ahead of time, even if the combos are still freeform and easy to feel out. In a juggle game, the gap between hits is bigger so you have more time to think about how you're going to follow each hit up.
Yeah, your comment didn't really seem like the common brand of people saying (often incorrect) things about Strive to claim it's bad, you had actual specific reasons for why you don't care for it and didn't treat it like the game is objectively bad for the way it is, which I respect and wish was more common. There are a lot of people who just hate on Strive for reasons that don't make sense because they want something to hate, but there's also a lot of people who have actual, thought out reasons for what their preferences are and how Strive doesn't fit them. I just wish the second type was more common.
It's all because people got upset about blocking, parrying, and waiting out the timer. Even, pros did this. In fact, they were the main ones...and of course fans listened and regurgitated the same sentiment while not knowing WHY said pros were saying such things. Devs listened to the non-pros and roughly said, "Let's make defense a risky option".
Now we're waiting for our turn through 10 second block strings and attempting to parry or sidestep moves that can no longer work as intended (thanks, Harada). It gets crazier when i look at games like Guilty and SF6 and the amount of aggression is technically still the same as i remember from older games but damn is defense difficult there. So difficult, that seeing great defense in a major event calls for massive hype. Something had to change, but it wasn't agression. Lol
Could you elaborate on WHY the pros did the things that they did?
I'm genuinely curious
@@blazerker1640Because it works, to put it simply.
@@blazerker1640, you get a life lead, you don't get hit because you don't take any risks and defence is effective, you win.
I remember trying to start a discussion on playstyles in the video comments but all the replies were just talking about guilty gear. Oh well.
As a counter fighter, I agree the aggressive aspect is pushed a bit too hard.
I think if a game has problems with aggressiveness, the movement aspects could be improved.
With Tekken, a LOT more moves now have dodgy features to them too, so when people are aggressive it's even harder to counter because they moved low before kicking you in the face just as you were about to counter
Most players don't like playing against reactive strategies so developers are not going to push for that kind of game play
@@TheEvolver311 that's literally how fighting works. Their neglecting important aspects then
@@NeCoruptionit doesn't make them money so it's not important
@@lordmew5 I mean if people don't want to play it because of this, than it's losing them money
I started with DBFZ, then Strive, but now I'm playing Street Fighter 6 and I agree with learning new system mechanics, coming from DBFZ to Strive felt very natural since they're both anime games but Street Fighter 6 felt so strange to me and I had to put in a lot of work to understand how I'm "suppose to think" because Street Fighter 6 forces anime fighting games player to a completely different games.
tekken enjoyer since T3 here
it's correct that tekken players have not dealt with resource management of this type before, and those of us who love this franchise are learning to take it in stride and cope. we are adapting to these changes because we have no other choice.
however, it does deserve to be understood that for many of us, this shift toward a gameplay style more similar to those found in anime fighting games like dbfz, involving supers, armor moves, special meter etc. is a departure directly away from what was traditionally one of tekken's greatest strengths and selling points, which is precisely the lack of those types of features.
something I have found myself saying about tekken 8 is that if I had wanted to play dbzf, I would have. while these flashy features certainly bring hype to the game and attract new players, their introduction has affected the core gameplay loop of tekken in ways that to players more comfortable with 2d fighting games, anime fighters in particular, are nothing new, but for legacy tekken mains serve to dilute the experience of a gimmick-free, fundamentals oriented game with few easy panic moves or get out of jail free cards.
coming from that background, tekken 8 can easily come off as being oversaturated with big cheap win buttons and forced mixup scenarios in a way that only superficially enhances the gameplay at the cost of the beautiful simplicity that allowed tekken to become such a complex and nuanced game to begin with.
of course we're adapting, learning to live with these systems, but we did not choose this and we aren't obligated to like it. it isn't necessarily fair to have the mentality that tekken players just need to get used to these features that other fighting games have had for years, when one considers that the lack of those features has until recently been one of the main reasons many of us preferred tekken over those other types of games, because of the kind of gameplay that emerges from such a straightforward no nonsense system. it isn't necessarily as simple as older players preferring the game they're familiar with when the real issue is more concerned with a fundamental change to the way the core gameplay systems function.
imagine you're a super turbo/3rd strike player and then all of a sudden capcom adds guilty gear style bursts, killer instinct style combo breakers and mortal kombat style x-rays and fatal blows. sure you'd learn to cope, but the real question is at that point does it even really feel like street fighter anymore? that's the kind of situation tekken is in right now, so I think it's fair for the playerbase to have our gripes with the developers over taking the series in a direction that feels contrary to the spirit of the game.
most of us are sucking it up and just dealing with it, but are quietly hoping against all reasonable expectations that tekken 9 will reverse these changes and return to a form more faithful to the series' roots.
Without fail every time Sajam is trying to describe a bad game he describes my dream game. I want slow defensive play, that's my shit and there's nothing for it on the market.
Unironically MK1 is the only modern fg i can think of that has a semblance of that
Im sure there is something like it if you are willing to look hard enough
Samsho is usually mentioned as a slow defensive game
3s is still being played
As well as some games having defensive characters
I don't know much about the FGC and I don't really know who you are but I subscribed after the Coney reaction and will listen to you talk about anything. Great vibes all around
you can’t effectively accomodate for multiple playstyles simultaneously without making the players who like those playstyles compromise, because if there is a playstyle they don’t like in the game they will still have to engage with it. it’s like what mark rosewater (mtg designer) said, you can make a more unified design that is more successful with its target audience if you only try to please one audience
while I do agree with the point, I also agree that there should be more variety in playstyles. We need zoners, grapplers, and rushdowns in most traditional fighting games because the variety of matchups keeps things fresh for the player.
Good, fuck participations prizes. Don't like zoners? Tough luck, learn how to deal with them, zoners don't like guessing against rushown characters either
yeah but that shits boring.
The reason games tend to favor aggression is because if aggression is strong things still happen. If defensive play is too strong you end up with 2 players not doing anything to each other.
Smash Brothers Melee 8 min timer matches was painful
@@aquilleswinkler5051 Those are outliers though, and not common at all.
I think a lot of people tend to get married to IP's so when the game changes away from whatever idea of the game they hold then there's just that knee-jerk "game bad" because the system and general game is different from what they're used to. Which on the one hand sure that sucks the new version isn't what you wanted but there's so many games out there that there has to be something you like.
Tbf, it is worth questioning how much you can/should change about an existing IP before you just decide to go with a different one. Like, hypothetically, could you add air dashing, short-hopping, and sprinting as universal mechanics to Street Fighter? Is the only thing that makes an IP the title? There are reasons people like to play a particular series besides recurring characters, right? (no, I don't actually think 6 is that crazy, but it definitely is different)
On the one hand, I get your point that there are a lot of games, but on the other, there's not really any comparing games like UNI and SamSho (or god forbid you like something actually obscure) with the big 3 in terms of finding online matches and resources.
As someone who is fond of slower, defensive gameplay, I'm a bit sad that SF, Tekken, and GG all are moving in a similar direction with faster gameplay and more aggressive universal mechanics. I still think the newer games are fun, and obviously they work better for drawing spectators and new players, but there genuinely are days when I play SF6 just because it has people and the games I prefer don't.
I used to hold the same position as @axis8396
The problem at this point is that if any new games are released they will probably follow the new model, and I also want new games.
___
Imagine if the next Tekken, the next Street Figher, the next Guilty Gear, and the next Granblue game were all first person.
Imagine if this move sold really well so the next Melty Blood, the next UNI, the next [blank] vs Capcom game and the next King of Fighters game were also in first person.
Imagine how it feels when the trend catches on and smaller games start doing the same thing.
Imagine how it feels when the trend has gone on for so long that it's been almost a decade since a fighting game released that wasn't first person. That's the world some players live in when it comes to a fighting game that fits their taste.
___
The fact that we can still play old games starts feeling a bit irrelevant when nobody is listening to the people who just want a new game that doesn't follow the trend.
A similar thing happened with shooters and battle royale. Luckily that trend has died out a bit by now, and there were still options while the trend was going on.
@@munchatize_me Ship of Theseus, basically
Actually there aren't many games if you mean new games, almost every fg that came out in this 5 years and is coming out is leaning in one direction. Simplification, more guessing
I'm one of those players that you mentioned at the beginning of the video and I'll admit I was ass at the game. I started playing gg with +R but branched out to Xrd, bbcf, and uni 2 after I quit strive. Now I'm pretty good at Xrd (not the other three lol) and when Johnny came out, I wanted to get back into strive to see if I liked him. I played him for about a week and I didn't end up sticking with the game. The experience ended up giving me some good perspective on why I personally didn't like the game but love the older ones so much.
Defense options in strive are more committal then they are in the older games. That's the simple line that separates old guilty gear from strive. 1F throws and other defensive oses paired with it, fuzzy mashing and fuzzy blocking reduces the amount of times you have to guess on someone else's offense. Is that scrubby? I guess, but it feels fun to reject the notion that you have to constantly guess and it's why guilty gear players, only play guilty gear. There's a lot more guessing in strive and on top of that it IS more volatile than the older games, with characters like nago, sol, goldlewis, anji, and leo shitting out damage when the opponent makes a wrong move.
I don't know who you specifically asked what makes xrd & +R real guilty gear, but drawing comparisons between the two options and saying they're the same is acting in bad faith imo. I could draw comparisons between uni & bb and say that strive plays more like those two for the same reason. Good video LK and if anyone read this, thanks!
Honestly, that's one of the things I didn't like about older GG games even though I probably do prefer them over Strive. Throws being 1f, unable to whiff, and bound to HS all combined to make them feel kind of obnoxious because they had 0 commitment. I feel like defense *should* be committal in general. There's no depth to offense if the opponent can beat all of the options with one or two strong options of their own. It ends up making the game feel shallower overall since the offense gets shut down so easily and the defense boils down to using one particular option for everything.
A good example of that is how when Melty Blood Type Lumina launched, shield was *very* overtuned and basically every situation would eventually devolve into the shield RPS because any offense would eventually just get shielded, then they'd go back and forth until someone won the RPS. Obviously, I don't think anything in GG is that bad (Or even really "bad" at all, I love GG), but it is an example of why defense being structured in a way that allows you to consistently ignore offense generally isn't fun for most players. There's a very delicate balance to making sure that offense can't just be ignored most of the time, but also isn't so strong that the defender feels like they basically just have to pick one of three simple options and pray it works.
@@xypher6971 I think you're dead wrong, and you kinda just proved that modern fighting games are more volatile and some players like it that way.
Why is it that the commitment always has to go one way? Would you say defense or neutral have no depth if the opponent can beat all of the options with one or two options of their own? Isn't this exactly what happens with mechanics like guard crush and wild assualt? Do you honestly think Strive maintains a "delicate balance" and doesn't tilt heavily towards offense?
And I disagree with your example. The biggest problem with shield on launch was that the screen freeze was too short, so a lot of the time it was hard to react to successful shields if you weren't looking for them. But I'd argue shield was never overtuned. People grossly exaggerate it's strength, most people weren't camping in neutral waiting to shield things, shield spammers mainly used it as a reversal. Pretty much every situation you could shield in launch Lumina you can DPRC in Strive. You could argue that Shield is meterless, but successful shields still give the aggressor a chance to win, or at least not lose the interaction. It never allowed you to ignore strong offense, it just gave you a strong tool to deal with it. In the cases games did devolve into repeatedly shielding that's on the aggressors, no one forces you to press buttons. In the current version some characters have no answer to the games ubiquitous safejump pressure without meter.
And fine, maybe this is more fun for most players. But don't pretend like everyone else is crazy for pointing it out. There has never been a game where defense was strictly better than offense, there are a few where zoning is pretty busted, but none where you can win with completely reactive play. Modern games aren't adressing some issue that was overlooked for decades, they're trying to appeal to a new audience. And again that's fine, but if you like this new style own it.
@@xypher6971 I can't say anything for mbtl but offense really isn't shallower because of defensive oses. You can still bait throws with throw invul moves, fuzzy blocking is countered by delays and there are still defensive options that require commitment. For me it adds more layers to the game and the game built to accommodate oses as well. To say they have zero commitment isn't true but I don't blame you for thinking that way since you only really notice if you make guilty gear your main game.
@@hijster479 I didn't say offense should be committal because it already is, so I didn't think that was necessary. Whiffing an option into losing your entire healthbar is the truest combo around in nearly every fighting game and the games that let you get around that with things like RC almost always tie it to a pretty hefty resource cost, generally one that could also be used for defense.
Strive Wild Assault deprives you of burst which is an immediate huge commitment to using it. I don't think Strive is a perfect game at all (WA taking burst away on hit and block is kind of insane. I guess it was done to compensate for making burst stronger and burst baiting harder, but I think it skews too heavily in the other direction now.) and it definitely does lean towards offense being stronger, but acting like Strive has no commitment to offense isn't really much more accurate than acting like it has no flaws. It's also not accurate to act like powerful offense is something Strive uniquely has compared to the rest of the series. Guilty Gear has had negative and RC for a *long* time, and mechanics like FRC and YRC have made offense even stronger and less committal for a long time. Strive may have gone further in that direction, but it's a direction that has *always* existed for the series.
I also want to clarify that when I said "delicate balance" I did not mean offense and defense are equally strong, I meant that they have to be balanced in such a way that neither completely outclasses the other to such an extent that it's helpless.
The reason that commitment "only goes one way" (although I already explained that I don't believe it does) is pretty simple, in my opinion. Offense is actually engaging, while defense isn't. And I don't mean in the "fun" sense, I mean offense is *literally* engaging with your opponent while defense is *not* engaging with them and instead being reactive. Leaning too far to offense can certainly be a problem and make being in a defensive situation annoying, but that doesn't feel as egregious because being in a defensive position is always less than ideal. Leaning too far to defense leads to a game that would be almost universally considered boring, because making defense stronger than offense means you get punished for actively engaging with the game.
I'll admit my understanding of MBTL may not be perfect since I never really got the chance to dive into it deeply, but while no one "forces" you to repeatedly shield, I'm not sure what your point is with that. People did it because it was a strong option and they want to win. People will always try to use the most effective strategy in a fighting game, and the fact that no one "forces" you to do it doesn't make that strategy any less strong.
I also don't agree with the way you're framing this as some "new game" thing. Defensive options have *always* been committal. Parrying in Third Strike risks getting hit if you mistime it, but even on a *fundamental* level, blocking has always had significant drawbacks since the beginning. Relying on blocking too much leaves you open to grabs and gets you pushed into the corner easily, you have to be capable of recognizing when their turn ends and when to take the chance to be offensive yourself.
I wasn't trying to imply fighting games have had an "issue that was overlooked" so maybe I could have articulated my point better, but yeah, games have always skewed towards offense being that's more fun. I won't really linger on that too much though because it's explained in the video and I don't think you're really trying to argue with that, the disagreement is just how far the balance should lean.
I wasn't trying to act like people are "crazy" for seeing that games like Strive have added mechanics that incentivize offense or deny that that has been a trend, just disagreeing that making defense options low committal is better. I also find it a little hypocritical that you'd call that out while also making your comment to explain how I'm "dead wrong" and pretending others are crazy.
@@wobbllob3369 I was a little worried I might have come off wrong in my first comment, and it seems like that did in fact happen, so I'm sorry I couldn't phrase myself properly. I don't have an issue with OSes in GG as a whole or anything. When I said "that's something I didn't like about older GG" I was pretty much exclusively referring to the way throws work.
That said, I haven't played as much Xrd as other games since it's not as popular as Strive and I generally like CF more than either, so I'll concede I might be wrong there, but I still have to ask (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything I genuinely want to know): How exactly do grabs have commitment when they literally can't whiff? If you don't get a grab, you just end up throwing out a button that may or may not catch the opponent, and if it doesn't you can often cancel into another option to try to keep yourself safe. Maybe I'm just missing something obvious, but I don't see how a grab can be committal when they work that way.
great timing for punk and arslan to win evo in these games that supposedly undercut their playstyles
Hahaha
Cool man! So we’re mot gonna acknowledge how punk struggled pretty damn hard for an entire year ?
No? Good 👍
I think unique playstyles should come back in fighting games. You may think I'm capping but the most fun I've recently had with fighting games has been playing BBCF (specifically Taokaka).
Sometimes the universal mechanics are so strong that I takes away from the design of existing characters , some get left behind by this (dhalsim)
I'm convinced no one at Capcom likes Dhalsim.
All the returning characters get new sauce, tech, supers and gameplay changes.
Then Dhalsim got his flame carpet removed.
@@bing-chilling-42 all the returning characters huh? *All* of them?
*Cries in green hand*
Re: Arslan Ash, he comes from KOF as well
Daigo has always been a proponent of rushdown which I find interesting. He's not the most rushdown heavy dude out there.
Punk has dealt with new systems, he didn't start with SFV. Played SF4.
Why do you look so young but you have gray hairs, like dayum your skin is smooth as fuck
Cocoa butter is magical.
It's funnier when you play something like Marvel for example where the name of the game is to not be in a position to get ToD'd. And you have to either hold that L, or pray to god the other guy drops their combo. It's kusoge as fuck but people love it. Same with Hokuto no Ken. and JP players fucking love that game.
Hnk is a great game
The silky tods aside
I'm a casual who started playing tail end of xrd and start of strive. Id argue that the xx and xrd formula lasted as long as it did because there was something to it. When the next major rolls around, I invite you to watch xx and strive side by side. I find the older games more interesting, even with the diminished competition. The lack of air mobility, relatively shorter lifebar (even when taking combo length into account) and more linear offense make strive a non-starter for me.
id sincerely love a vid with you explaining what "degen wincons" are and how it makes ultimax worse than vanilla. an in-depth explanation with clear examples would evolve a lot of peoples understanding of fighting games, including myself. (i only use ultimax and vanilla cuz it would theoretically be a great way to clearly see the win condition differences, using any fighting games as examples would be dope af. also im assuming "win cons" is win conditions)
"you're not drunk anymore" jokes on you.
I actually like that I have to start from zero for every street fighter. I played fortnite a lot with my friends. It as not fun. I didn't feel like I was getting that much bettet or that wins matter.
Every new fighting game I start at trash, so every win even finally 2H super dash, matters to me. Ill maybe win big some day, or not but right now I'm the best I've ever been
Pretty funny that both Punk and Arslan won evo in these games they previously (or maybe still) didn't like
It's cuz they complained so much and devs curated the games according to their choices
Arslan was right. That’s why heat was nerfed significantly and the game is much more varied now. IMO much better
To me heat didn't add depth, but oversimplified how around normally plays out. Literally would have preferred a standard old-school Street fighter meter that allowed you to do ex versions of certain moves. I got so tired of people round starting heating engauger
This is still wrong
Isn't much better. Almost all major changes from t7 to t8 are bad, chip damage, heat system, armour changes
Just curious about what you mean when at high levels the games are the same except "pulling different levers"? Like I understand that people will press strong options in all these games, and then people will use the strong counter options, but inherently if a game has more "levers" doesn't that mean that there can be more varied answers with different results and outcomes? I will admit that I am a mid-level player, going like 2-2 in locals and never bothered to play celestial, but I feel like in XRD, whist YRC is broken as shit, stuff like blitz and dash dust give a ton of more interesting and dynamic reasons to go for dust, rather than more universal IAD mix. I don't know why, but defense felt stronger in Xrd or +R and meter management felt rewarding, whereas in strive it feels like there's "I have meter" and "I don't have enough meter" because there's no 25% options and positive bonus fills your meter insanely fast. Is this viewset just cause I don't play at the highest level of competitive or is it more just my personal taste of liking the levers pressed in one game more?
To me there are optimal punishes to every action so at peak level the amount levers would be the same because there is only one truly right reaction to any given action. But to the actual topic, I dont think Stive is a good example of games getting super aggressive since GG has always been on the aggressive side of fighters, maybe Strive characters have faster movement or a little meatier footsies but like its pretty similar. Its not like tekken 5 vs 8 or something. Though personally I love the aggressive push but I do think more defensive options need to be introduced to counter the heats and ults and shit added to games
@@z-rossi3672 While I agree with the sentiment that there is always an "optimal" answer, I think that the optimal answer has to be within feasibility and also is not entirely set in stone. Third Strike would "optimally" answer everything with parry because it builds meter, is more advantaged, and can even be done out of block with red parry, but that game-plan is only somewhat plausible when the entire mechanic revolves around the other player who can account for this and cause you to mess up and eat the hit. Like yes there are setups with only 1-2 answers but how often they occur and when and how that situation occurs is important too. Johnny isn't top 1 in Xrd cause he unblockables you, he's top 1 because he wins neutral 75% of the time and can fullscreen skip for 25 meter, and then bullies you into the corner, which lets him do unblockables. If the game gives you enough answers to the neutral situation then there are multiple "optimal" answers given how your opponent plays. Wheras I feel in Strive offense is even stronger and defense is a lot more committal sans burst, which is now more committal anyway because of drive rush, which does have the problem of being "optimal" in most situations for the cast, so again, is it pulling the same levers, or is there more levers to pull that are correct? Hence why I asked if it's just my taste or lack of competitive knowledge that doesn't allow me to see the point as stated.
@@z-rossi3672 "To me there are optimal punishes to every action so at peak level the amount levers would be the same because there is only one truly right reaction to any given action." this is just straight up not true in +R or really most fighting games though, because for this to be true you would have to be capable of punishing unreactable options perfectly, and to do so optimally inherent incurs risk. the optimal punish on Sol using grand viper as johnny in +R is to jump above it so he whiffs and then hit him with 6H into stepjack loops, but since you can't actually react to grand viper every time randomly jumping in anticipation of it is not the optimal action, it will in fact get you killed. this 1 interaction has a bunch of different answers depending on how much risk you are willing to take against your opponent. the way you boil down everything to 1 optimal punish per action is way too reductive to be of use, and obscures the meaningful mechanical differences between games.
@@MapOfTheLost Optimal isnt just max dmg dude, it takes into account consistency and risk of actions. If youre action risks death its not optimal ever, its gambling lol to be honest your example is more about reading which is what lays the groundwork to picking the right options
@@logiepro76 Ya sorry 100% right, when I say optimal Im not talking about the reddit elitist combos or silly frame perfect things, Im talking about an option that takes into account consistency, risks of doing it, and benefits. Ya theres shit like reads where your optimal play starts turning into do the best dmg to counter a move you can, but to me optimal gameplay will always start safe as you feel out your opponent until you can make the reads.
But the whole feeling out phase is going to probably be pretty damn formulaic. But ya some pros just play 100% feeling while others pull the same levers and use the same frame traps
Arslan is one of the best KOF players in the world actually, he does play other stuff. Also Sf6
I'm actually very curious about what you were alluding to at 26:51
SFV was the first fighting game I played super seriously. At the time all the talk about how much easier the game was than SF4 really bothered me. When you're brand new and doing your best to get better it's so discouraging to hear everyone talking all day about how the game takes no skill.
Having been in the community for a while now and seeing the same cycle play out it's much easier to ignore. Same shit every time a new game is out.
People in Tekken 8 saying electrics and just frames are easier because they're the same timings as 7 which they've been playing for half a decade or longer
But the games are getting easier. But more importantly more homogeneous which is lame af
SF4 required plinking for high level execution, SF6 plays a lot like Mortal Kombat 9
@@Vanity0666SF6 plays nothing like MK9 what
@@arbyw.1889Johnny cages fireballs are pure DR energy
Regarding on "whats defined as being meta", it really doesn't matter how many people can or can't do a specific tactic. Like with the whole "Snap Meta" it was only able to be done effectively by a handful of players you say but it was the winning strategy. Well just because your regular dudes in ranked or the randoms in pools couldn't do it properly then it doesn't stop it from being meta because it definitely was the meta.
For example in League of Legends there are characters/strategies that are really good in Pro play but not so good in your Ranked games at home. You have your solo queue meta and your pro player meta, the same thing goes for fighting games. You have your shit that can work at home in a random match but to win a tournament against the best players you have to know your shit. Not to mention that the "snap meta" made Piccolo and a few other characters very popular because they had spammable supers to hide those 50/50's and they were very easy to execute.
LK, where did you get that "yes sir" soundboard clip
13:45 honestly this somehow gets talked about a lot yet somehow nowhere near enough. So many fans of games just get their opinions from a handful of higher level players and the result is them parroting opinions in games they are mostly just a stream monster for and barely play outside of mashing with friends.
Defensive play needs to net the same rewards as offensive play in a game like strive the attacker can monkey together strings with blue cancel to outright kill the idea of committing to something punishable and defense gets faultless defense and very baitable burst… it genuinely feels like a warcrime to let your opponent act first in Strive and dare to block lmao.
In the words of another commenter: Punishing people for being good at defense by giving offense so many tools that nullify defense makes offense become (often) indomitable.
Something funny about 15:55
When Hook put Kaz in Hellzone snap loops, she started laughing her ass off
I wish someone took a picture of it
games tending towards agressive play is necessary for the reasons they explained, but tekken 8 jumped WAY past the mark and defending it just silly.
they have been tuning down the heat system since the beta where you had 2 heat dashes, and they just nerfed heat burst across the board last patch. it's pretty damn obvious that they went too far.
The funny thing is that mk1 went the opposite route and became less aggressive but mk is known for aggression
This video is just Leon Massey apologia in disguise
It's been a exactly 1 year since I played a fighting game and it was SF6. I gotta get back into the grind. I've been focused on single player games 😅
It feels as if there's no alternative to "You will die in 2-2,5 combos" or "You will die in 1,5 combos" nowadays. :(
Yes, I get it, it's fun to watch and doesn't drag on. But I want my slugfest.
Which games do you think that isn't the case in? Most of the games I've ever seen, even older ones, had plenty of damage when the right situation pops up. Guilty Gear for example has *always* been a high damage series, people just didn't talk about it as much until Strive made the combos much smaller in comparison to how much health they took, but if you made a bad move, you'd get blown up in pretty much any game. Even the games like Street Fighter would have huge damage on the bigger punishes.
This is old. But i wanted to say, Arslan also plays KOF and just won a major. In fact his name is a reference to Ash so he knows about resources and stuff
I remember back in the day HGG would legit kill by attrition with a billion snaps using Piccolo and setting up with Hellzone Grenade it was really funny but really lame.
i really want adjustable life meters for casual play like in tekken 3. you could even adjust them separately for a handicap, if you want to.
Steve Urkel is absolutely correct. In SFV they took away most defense options and forced every character to play rushdown.
I'm not a filthy weeb like LK so I wouldn't know about GG but for a lot of fighting games like street fighter for example there's supposed to be
zoners, neutral, and rushdown. Strengths and weaknesses like X character has a filthy mix but no projectile and mid neutral.
Y character has great neutral and good projectiles but a pretty honest mix.
Without that it's just who has the filthiest mix.
I don't get how your a top player and you don't see how much more freedom you have in xx and xrd compared to strive
Please explain so I may see if you have a point.
Gatlings, character uniqueness and more moves in total. Faster air dash, more hp, better defense, a better lobby system, IK’s. Like wym?
@raekwonchambers2297 throws not having a animation the screen space is way more in ghe old games
The main thing about strive is that combo conversion ability is the most consistent out of all the games and there are no 25 meter options. I believe this is one of the reasons they added wild assault, since managing meter in XX/XRD is mostly about meter management between 25 and 50, where strive was more linear (50 meter, and later, routing towards positive).
GG has a theme of offense being fast and hard to defend against, but generally having options if you have responses. Strive has this. Passive defense is strong in older GG, it is also strong in strive.
Usually when people talk about freedom in older games, it feels that way because
1- they design chars differently
2- things don't work so you have to make more choices each round
2- things don't work so you have to scramble more
Xrd combo conversions are overall more stable than +R (but +R is more stable than older versions of GG).
Maybe people won't like this, but I don't see fg as the freedom to do what I want, but rather, what do I have to do to accomplish the goal that I want (with the character and to win). That's why I just see it as different levers, different games want you to do different stuff at both a macro level and per situations. Everything can be built out.
I /do/ think that games where you can't combo off everything have more branching choices (because of what I said before), but I don't think one way is better than the other. Hopefully that clears things up.
It's because he blindly defends Strive as it's the game that made his channel pop off compared to before with niche games
Honestly I feel like fighting games were always pretty aggressive. But theyve for sure added more offensive options then defensive over the years.
Respectuflly, the snap take kind of sounded like there was no Bardock meta because every team didn't have Bardock. I get that snap may not have been the end goal of EVERY team but every single player at least had it in their arsenal.
There's some weird funky things going on with the audio lol. It's probably super unnoticeable without headphones but it's tickling my brain in a bad way.
I don't think it's healthy design to just abandon a character you like just to win, picking the counter and just essentially deleting a character from the roster is not really a answer to bad balance or unfun gameplay and if you bought a game because of a character it will make the game essentially worthless. If everyone listened to your advice we would essentially get mirror matches 1/4th of the time. Not fun.
Casuals dont care about defense. Forced 50/50 mechanics gives them an extra week or so of mashing and hoping for the best lol
I didn't like Strive until Testament came out, now I can play midrange in my friends favorite fighting game.
Damn I missed LK’s takes, so refreshing. Thankful I found this channel! 🙏
These reaction videos are fye i need more ngl
I wouldn't mind aggressive games as much if they started aggressive. The current zeitgeist is to add more mechanics that encourage aggression over time. Strive did it, granblue did it, you like how a game was, then they change the systems to something you may not like as much.
**Trailer for some obviously weird jenky hybrid character is dropped.**
"I hope they know what they're doing....."
"remnds me of dead shott from Injust-ASS!!!"
"me sittin here tryna figure out how the new strive character isnt just completly borken 🤔 "
*The Character:*
But, remember to pick your shots carefully!
Before Sniveling Weakling's projectiles can deal damage, he must first use [Sharpie Marking] to scribble three times on the Jordans of his opponent, and should he happen to be struck at any point during the activation of [Sharpie Marking], Sniveling Weakling will instantly be stripped completely naked, and put into his [Dead Man Stalking] state.
In [Dead Man Stalking], Sniveling Weakling's walk speed is somewhat increased, and his dash is replaced with a Command Short Hop, but he sacrifices his ability to block, and the next time Sniveling Weakling is struck by any attack he will be sent straight to Hell, forfeiting the match to his opponent."
**Trailer for man who punches but when he punches blue ghost fist also punches but farther away is released, and in his intro blue ghost hands straight up grab either side of the gamescreen and forcibly pull it .25 closer to the player's character's sprites.**
"A little worried about how he'll fare in this hyper-aggressive meta, without having some form of anti-zoning built into his kit.
Other than that, looks like my type of character. Will definitely give him a shot. 👍"
"hELLO can any one please tell me dose he got a 2L nad he is s teir?"
"Great opportunity for some real player skill expression, here.
Getting down the optimal timing for knowing exactly when to press in order to stuff all of the different attacks in each character's moveset will take some serious grinding.
If someone COULD do it, though, they'd be unstoppable. Heh."
This is very good discussion.
Fantastic topic to talk about. People will hate on you for it, but you ain't tell no lies.
Tekken and SF are more rushdown oriented. There's little expression compared to older games on SF.
Blah expression the most vague subjective nothing burger word in fighting games. I thought we got past that fad
I don't play Fighting games to express myself, I play to hurt someone. As long as a game lets me hurt people I am good
@@boredomkiller99play to hurt people? weirdo lol I guess im glad you play fg not real sports. Anyway,
Player expression is absolutely real, and not a nothing burger.
Would you like me to explain it to you?
Compared to 5 lmao???
There’s a debate if we’re talking 4 (both games allows you to style with their meter-related mechanic) but honestly that’s it
@boredomkiller99 Expression can be read as combo variety (in levels of difficulty).
@doctordice2doctordice210 Not compared to 5, no. But SF4 you had people winning majors without using optimal combos because they were a lot more difficult. In SF5 (esp the earlier seasons) you either did the optimal combo or you just left damage on the table.
6 has more variety, yes. And more free-styling which is cool.
I'm old enough to remember the near universal hatred things like crouch teching and delayed wakeup in SFIV got, and those defensive options turned out to not even be that strong once the game aged.
People bitch about the lack of defensive options or drowning in offensive options in a game, but I think the fact remains that people hate strong defense WAY more than strong offense.
People will tell you they don't hate defense, or that they like strong neutral play, but they are lying. Neutral is boring af and so is defense.
This is also reflected in sales. Games with strong offense universally sell better.
Too much defense can be slow and boring, but too much offense is aggravating and obnoxious.
That was essentially the problem with Tek8, the previous "modern Tekken's" (5-7) had a nice balance of the both, but Tek8 had so many ways to bypass blocking,counter hits, and side stepping that the game was flat out unfun and defense was an outright detriment to you except for character and low parry's.
Being aggressive is fine, but that shouldn't come at the total negligence of neutral.
You're not wrong, Offense is what gets people in the door. But if we're being honest people stick around for neutral and defense. That's why a lot of players dropped Strive despite initially buying it myself included. It was boring while I was winning and Frustrating when I lost.
Although MK and injustice universally sell better so sales is kinda a moot point.
@@hijster479 >That's why a lot of players dropped Strive...
I honestly don't even know what this means in light of its EVO entrants still being over 2000 people as of 2024. That's literally unheard of, and yet people still are going with the cope of "people are dropping the game". No, they aren't dropping the game. It has more legs than any previous GG by a mile.
@@matrix3509 Newer people can still pop into a game by either WoM or other aspects, but there have been folks who did drop Strive because it didn't mesh with them (Myself included), I don't know what sales have to do with anything on that notion. Let's not sit here and act like one point is factual over the other...
@@NewZen41 i mean what's strage about people dropping games? It's the most natural thing a game can have, people come and go. Do you expect the same people playing the same game 10 years straight?
People have dropped xrd and +R too you know.
I see the "kazunoko finals" getting mentioned here and there can we react to that some times maybe? 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Xrd lover here...Strive is simply way less fun for me. Just isn't as enjoyable. (shrugs)
24:19 your opponent reversaled? with what? why would they reversal with something clearly not invincible?Was it just a mistake?
It is literally true with Tekken.
happy almost birthday bro
I wouldnt mind aggressive games if they weren't being made at the sacrifice of execution
problem with the over aggression in new fighting games is that theres too many unga bunga characters in this game that can play like a rush down with none of the drawbacks and massive damage leaving the actual rush down characters, zoners, setplay characters and even grapplers to have to fight for their lives just to match the value of someone putting in way less effort. its just not fun to have clear drawbacks to your character archetype but then another characters has either no drawbacks or fake drawbacks like losing health or having low health
'Self sabotaging' in *FGC* Confirmed V
ok these react andy contents are pretty fucking goated
I still hate the snap change that they made, I think that the fuzzy mixup was kinda unfair but the fact that you can't get consistent PRESSURE for snapping someone feels so gross to me
pure facts on this video
im a casual player, but my thoughts on real guilty gear is.... why cant all guilty gear games be "real" Guilty gear? Its not like they stop existing after the next comes out. If you prefer XRD, play XRD. If you prefer XX, play XX. Now I get that the new game pretty much always has the most of the playerbase, so it might be hard to get matches on older titles, and that sucks. But then again, Ever Guilty gear is guilty gear. Strive oozes with guilty gear energy as much as any other title if not more. (I started playing guilty gear back in the XRD rev2 days)
the xrd and plus r we're built from the original guilty gear, strive feels like it's ashamed of it's origins
Dbfz had some of the biggest nonsense in any fighting game. UI goku, rat goku, lab coat 21.
Dealing with pressure in tekken and sf feels like a cake walk compared to anime fighters.
Speaking for street fighter, SF6 feels like rush down because it relies on the most “tricks”. It feels like every time a new fighting game comes out it can only go in one direction and that’s adding a new gimmick. Adding supers, adding dashes, adding parries, adding ex moves, adding red focus, adding v trigger, adding drive rush, etc. and yet what happens when you add way more than you take away? More variables. More variables likely add up to no being able to hang out in neutral. They’ve also done this on the individual character scale. For a long time dhalsim was the lone zoning character who could hit you from a long distance. Now in sf6 there are a few characters that can hit you from pretty much anywhere on the screen. So again, less neutral play because you can’t hang out there. I agree with punk that the rush down is what devs want now. It goes even deeper than that. You know what the secret sauce of successful business implementation is today? Cutting down on time. So the faster a sf6 round ends, the faster another one can begin. Just like tiktok, the faster you can complete something, the longer you’ll play/watch. It satisfies our short attention spans, raises that action and intensity and keeps us there longer.
Old game good, new game also good.
Turns out multiple games can be good, who would have thought?
Man. I just dont like the Drive Gauge.
SF6 is cool, but i hate its system mechanics.
for the first 4 min I thought u were talking in a call w Sajam
"Snap Meta isn't a real thing, it never was"
*proceeds to immediately explain Snap Meta as the viable win condition*
I LOVE IT
Also, only thing I hated about Strive, besides it's early lean into lane zoners who lost nothing and gained everything for free with reduced universal mobility... was actually separating K/D from Gatling... because now you have either mix-up (with K) or damage, but not both unless you're spending cash on RCs. And you don't really gain meter on your successful mixups, YOUR OPPONENT DOES.
Also, because nobody else has guessed yet: it's Battle for the Grid
I mean GG has negative penalty but if it didn't we would all play hella lame
Me, a Zappa main in XX:
Guilty Gear is about the most cracked lore in any fighting game like wtf is Bedman actually
It would seem that it is essential to the initial perceptions of new fighting games how well they massage the egos of the long-time mid-level player, because the words of top pros that are concerning a sphere of play completely unbeknownst to them will be easily manipulated/misunderstood to relegate the inadequacies they face when picking up new tasks to something beneath them (and sometimes a lot of pros are guilty of that latter part too)
There are transferable skills in fighting games though, more so in 2d
28:15 Ah yes, P4A.
I want to add; a reactive keepaway playstyle is powerful. Fighting games have a timer and if you run out the timer while having a health lead, you win. So the easiest way to win in any fighting game would be to get an early lead then make it impossible for your opponent to retake the lead. Best example I can think of is Storm MvC2. Sure you can play Storm/Sentinel and kill people off a single DHC, but before you get those 2 meters? Storm is running to the top of the screen and pressing j.HP, building meter and making it hard for anyone to contest. You have a limited amount of time to contest her went she lands and she could just choose to spend meter on Ice Storm or fly to the opposite side of the screen.
Let's take a more modern game, GBVSR. In this game you can tech throws just by pressing an associated button (L, M or U) button, even when crouching, and all that'll happen is you'll take a bit of damage and be -6. So what's stopping me from doing 1 combo to you, then playing back and reacting to everything you do and fuzzy mashing 2M/2U with nearly every character? If you throw I late tech, if you mash I block, if you block I'm minus but generally unpunishable and/or can cancel into something safe, and if you shimmy I clip your feet and get a combo. And how are you going to tell I'm fuzzy mashing? I could be doing delay tech or doing literally nothing; you can't tell because my input is being eaten by your blockstring. Think about the top tiers. Nier and Seigfried have the best 2Ms in the game and some of the best damage in the game off those 2Ms. They can play defensively and build huge life leads and have great DPs so playing offense against them isn't so much "I'm winning" as much as it is "I'm trying to stop you from winning." Top 8 Nier play is literally waiting for your opponent to fuck up their offense, 2M into 6K combo, then force them to run offense on you again where 1 mistake on their end will cost them the game. Things designed to beat defensive playstyles (RS/Unlockables) are either super reactible or low reward so why should I play offense, given defensive OSes are so powerful?
Not to say that parameters or aspects could be tuned a bit, but even games with strong defensive OS can have people prefer to run offense over lame play.
French Bread games like UNI and MBTL are full of this stuff. Defensive OSs are plenty and strong, so players often on offense run up and do nothing, just to scout information on what defensive OS, and what timing they do it on. Assault, Gold Throws are also good catch all tools to crush OS.
I haven't play much of Rising, but I guess the best action would be to run up nothing to scout the delayed 2M, then either delay strike or low crush next time.
Funnily enough though GB used to have universal low/throw crush though lol. And UNI removed one of their stronger 1AD defensive OSs, but kept the rest. So it is interesting to see how these two defensive heavy games have pushed in different directions
@@PERSONTHATISCLEVERI mean you're proving my point. If you're running up and doing nothing trying to scout player tendencies on defense before committing to an offensive plan, you're playing a reactive, defensive playstyle to get around someone else's reactive, defensive playstyle by scouting out options they're committing to. Defense is king by default. There's nothing wrong with that (reading player tendencies one of the key pillars that makes FGs fun to play), but it makes it easy to see why devs want offense to be more powerful; if FGs are all about reading what your opponent wants, then never showing your hand by not committing to anything and only reacting to what your opponent does or hiding your commits behind OSes your opponent can only guess you're going to do, then the best playstyle for both players is to sit and do nothing and hope the other overcommitts out of boredom. Having an offensive tool that forces the defensive player to commit to an option to counter it breaks the cycle.
@@Pokemonmovemaster you can scout information without running up and blocking. If you meaty the first knockdown then now you know they aren't doing frame 1 mashing. Then you can delay the meaty to check for delayed or fuzzy options. Now you can throw since their doing nothing. Obviously there are mind games involved in when or why a player switches up their defensive habits but it's important to note the the attacker is way ahead on risk reward in this scenario. Doing fuzzys or blocking are just as committal as mashing they are just a bit safer or require more active offense.
I disagree with your "always a punch guy or easy zoner" statement. It's always a grappler at the beginning
Not really true. Grapplers are only really strong like that at a low level and the way to beat them isn't really game-specific so Grapplers almost never dominate at the start of a game.
Do you like uni2?
I honestly think there’s no balance to streetfighter five and six it’s too rushed down heavy the games feel clunky. Sf4 will always be the best to me with the perfect balance of offense and defense just the way the mechanics works for that game
Hes not talking about gg