the real reason is that fighting games cost money, but league, valorant, dota 2, and cs2 are free to play. Whenever i ask a friend if they want to try out a game, the first thing they ask me is if it's free/how much it costs. Fighting games are $60 plus DLC.
@@АртёмТор-к2ю I have people at my work talking more about COD than these game you mentioned, let alone any fighting game (I'm german) Plus, fighting games are WAY more popular in the US, so THAT says something
@@Doktor_Jones ok I just googled stats for warzone. 22% for USA, 5.8% China, 4.7% UK, 4,6% Brazil, 3,4% Germany. So it makes sense that Germans speak about cod. So it should be the USA, UK, Brazil and Germany. I don't include China because 5.8% compared to their population isn't a lot.
Fighting games feel a little more like a sport than a video game as far as the ratio of what you have to put in to get enjoyment out of it. I feel like it’s easier to have fun while being bad at other games, but most of what feels good in a fighting game is just winning. So if you don’t have fun getting stomped and you don’t have fun stomping someone, you need someone at your level, and when you don’t have someone on your level to play with, it won’t be fun, but when you do, it can be a really uniquely fun and personal experience
l guess for a new comer thats the important thing l guess l always loved fighting games since l was 6 years old so l can't put myself into a new comer's shoes even wen l lose l can have fun but that might be different for them l remember my First fighting game was tekken 5 and It was Fun Just pressing Buttons against the ai l remember wanting to know How to do cool moves so l would spend a Ton of hours in training mode and l spent a long time trying to get all the endings so l know How important It is to have offline content like different endings l was also Very lucky to have a best friend that was also into fighting games a lot of people Don't have a friend to play fighting games with.
That's not how you should enjoy the game tho. The route to enjoy it is by trying to apply one piece of new information at a time. Like in sf6 you'd start by trying to hit confirm in different situations, then learning to anti air, then applying frame traps, how to deal with DI, how to DR, crosscuts and so on. The dopamine hits when you start internalizing something you couldn't do before, which in turn gets you more wins. You can easily see where to improve because the losses are pointers on what you're doing wrong. For me it's way more intuitive than say proper macro on a 5v5 game where you may not have enough info to know what you did wrong.
Play more fighting games with complexity or niche features or something you can extensively practice to see results everyday. I don't give a shit about winning in Tekken, but I DO care about how consistently and reliable I can hit my Electric. I don't give a fuck about winning in MK, I play Shang so half my fun comes from being YOU. Don't care about winning in sparking Zero, I just care for epic battles. List goes on and on, on what game I can name and why I find it fun. Nah bro you just have to have fighting game passion to actually see why MFS play fighting games. It's the same reason shitty cod players play cod, it's just their nature.
i think what turns people off so much from fighting games is the fact that some people just dont wanna put in the hours to get "good". why would they spend so much time getting familiar with a fighting game when they can just turn on whatever flavor of the month f2p game is huge, and turn their brain off to have a decent time? when sf6 launched, my friend bought the game and played through world tour and barely touched the online. every time me and him fought he would just get frustrated and i would tell him to lab some stuff out, but he would always tell me he found practice mode to be super boring. in other words, i think people would rather learn the game *while* playing, instead of having to go out of their way to practice things and learn about the mechanics of the game in a less engaging way
Wait absolutely a huge point I missed. Never thought about how fgs usually have the best training in the lab. Sure you can lab in the other games but I feel like that comes later when you’re already into the game. I would lab some league characters but I never did that when I started I just played and learned the basics
Learning fighting games is HARD! As an amateur kickboxer I always end up thinking “if I’m gonna practice combos and shit for a couple hours I might as well go do it fr” that’s what stops me from getting super sweaty. Meanwhile I can play an fps for a couple hours and not feel guilty at all
This is why i like 1v1 games more. In a team based game, if my team loses, I can't tell for the most part if my team lost because of me or if I had a terrible player on my team. In a 1v1 game however, I know if I lose, it's probably because my opponent is a better player, I lack skill and need to learn and do better, or all of the above
@@markjack9772 Why should I play a game with ancient gameplay philosophy and controls if I have 1000 alternatives? SF6 feels stiff and unresponsive for a modern game. If my initial impression is "I don't feel in control" I won't invest more time in it if I don't want to. It's not the 90s anymore, where we were young and had only 2 games to play and you're stuck on console with SF2.
I think it's the other way around, other games/hobbies are just much more rewarding in the short term. A lot of people keep repeating the "the harder it is, the more rewarding it is" mantra, but I've never had that mentality about gaming, since it's just one of my hobbies. Putting in a hundred hours before you get to have fun is a VERY hard sell. I got into Tekken because one of my friends loved fighting games, and to this day, playing casually with buddies is the most fun I've had with the genre, and without a gateway like that, other genres will always be more appealing. So in short, the effort-to-reward ratio is not very appealing unless you already come in with a very specific mindset and the lack of breadth in terms of gameplay will make sure many players will drift towards other genres over time.
Facts you have to have a "it is what it is" and a real want to improve even in the smallest areas. Like knowing when to throw a jab in Tekken. Shits a small detail esp in regards to overall character mastery but in the grand scheme, it's ultra important to know when your jab can steal a turn or keep pressure on a frame disadvantage tht isn't large. Button inputs being clean, new combos, ways to punish, figuring out a problematic chars weakness. Man, there's SO many small goals in FGs that winning should never even take precedent until you put in a certain amount of time tbh.
This is why arcade mode is so important. Playing against the bots allows you to learn a character without getting absolutely destroyed every single match. My biggest gripe with GG: Stive was that the bots in arcade mode barely even put up a fight and I was able to clear it in one go on my first play of the game. Meanwhile, I struggle to clear the arcade mode on the Dreamcast version of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Given, I'm a lot older than I was when Third Strike was released in arcades, but the bots still give plenty of challenge. The new thing is giving players missions which is just an extended tutorial mode and that's not even remotely as engaging. Bot play matters.
i feel like fighting games are super fun to get into if you get into it at the same time as a friend, for me personally i always had someone my level to fight and we improved together ( played only vs him and when i finally hit ranked, i hit plat, and floor 9 in ggst )
Be me. My mate mentions "hey, SF5 is on humble-bundle, wanna play together". I'm like "sure, why not." He has minimal more experience. (600LP, Bronze) Beats me over and over again. I get frustrated, but I'm also stubborn and press rematch. I asked, "What do I wrong here?". He said "Dunno" Never played with him again. That's my experience with *playing with friends*.
I played MOBA for very long time because it was free and could play with friends, and by myself. Never played ranked, though, because I didn't want to be held accountable if my team loses, so always played casual. After having more responsibilities, I started playing more offline single player games but one days I got DOA 6 on release thinking it was easy game to rank, I couldn't have been more wrong but the tutorial and combo practice was fun and its what got me into Tekken and other fighting games in general; now I play MK, SF, SC, even indie fighting games, and now looking forward to play VF 5. Personally, I rather play fighting game than multiplayer co-op games because there is no other person to blame but myself for the outcome or the lag.....lol and there is this feeling of more in control of my time and independence. I don't have to depend on other people to advance and that when I realized that I am more of a loner than team based game. In sport I prefer one on one based games.
Games like league of legends and cs go, they are easy to get into but hard to master but fighting games, it feels like it’s hard to even get started. Like learning the game basic mechanics, learning characters basic moves/ their inputs, then learning the combos, then implementing all that into actual match and then after all that you just realize it’s only the beginning step, you still have to learn so much more. This is why fighting games seem harder than other games. Bc understanding the basics seem so difficult that it’s pretty hard for ppl to get hooked on to the game.
It's not easy to get into LoL or CS in terms of skill if you don't have related experience. You'll have to learn a lot. If you play any FG with an opponent of equal skill you won't have much problems. The thing is: in FGs you can lose interactions seconds apart, everything is quick. Your mistakes aren't as noticable in CS even with such short time to kill. And definitely not as noticable in LoL. Basically, it's about being able to handle mistakes because FGs revolve around them. People in general are not good at handling mistakes.
Absolutely agreed. As I posted below: Games on the right are immediately more meaningful and provoke decision making, while games on the left take hundreds of hours to even understand what is going on. And all this only with the immense usage of training mode.
@@a_wild_Kirillian Hardly. For LoL or CS there's learning a map, learning what 3-4 game mechanics are, and then you just focus on execution. With FGs it's learning what your 4-6 buttons do, learning combinations of buttons and their timing (specials, supers), learning combos and timing (cancels and links), learning the specific game mechanics (drive rush, fautless defense etc.), then the exhaustive list of general fighting game mechanics (oki, meaty options, fuzzy defense, neutral, footsies etc.), then you have to learn each of the matchups in the game, then you are finally ready to play the real game at the top 15-20% of the playerbase and hope that you got all of that before the game dies.
@@philovermyer6166 , oh, so yeah, you just learn what your buttons do and what your system mechanics are and then "just focus on execution". •Holding a paper sign. Can you guess what's written on it? It starts with the letter S• I've taught a person who's never heard of FGs how to play Strive at a competent level in a month after work. After the game has been out for 3 years. And I have done the same for myself before. Yes, you have to learn how to do things. If you have a functioning mind, it's a straight path, though. The way you spoke about CS sounds like you've never played CS at a high level. There are things to learn and train. And you still have to clock in hours like crazy to start feeling the things which aren't as easy to label as "facts you have to learn to play the real game". I don't play LoL, I just know people struggle all the same. Unsurprisingly, considering how many possible interactions are there.
That 1v1 aspect that makes you reflect on your own skills IS why I rather play fighting games over shooters now. You can play the best game you’ve ever played but if your team sucks bad enough you ain’t going to win. On fighting games it’s always on YOU
Man up dude like seriously this is a response I would expect from a little kid or something. You need to lose to get better and learn. Fighting games are tough and you will lose a lot. Only kids whine and complain about losing and have a problem with it
@Timothy___ I don't think a general frustration is the equivalent of whining and complaining over everything, you need to not instantly lose your mind over stuff like this lol
When I got into fighting games I had no friends who played them and no previous experience, and just picked one up on a whim because I thought it looked fun. I had no one to teach me or anything I didn't even look up guides I didn't even play online, I just sat in training and played against the AI, then when I got guilty gear I did the same thing, and actually tried online this time, and I guess 100 of hours against AI and all the training mode did something as the few seldom time I do play online I usually can hold my own and have a pretty high win rate.
What FG are you playing. Since I find most AI goofy and no matter how I beat AI I mostly get smoked online. IN other words I find the AI a poor teacher.
@@BarringtonDailey, your opponent isn't supposed to be a teacher at all. You're the one who teaches and practices by watching what you do. You can practice against a standing dummy, it's just not as fun as seeing a moving opponent. If you have trouble discovering things by yourself, a guide video/article or a coach probably can help you more. But you still need to actively watch and think what's happening.
It's funny because your average gamer thinks fighting games are too difficult to get into, meanwhile fighting game fans think the newer fighting game titles are too easy to learn and pick up now with neutral skipping mechanics (Drive rush, Heat, etc)
This is the biggest problem. Shitty people just cannot get behind 1vs1 games, because when they lose, they have no one to blame. I play Dota 2, because it’s easy to find unique matches and don’t have to play the same opponent over and over, just humbling me 0-20, this changes depending on how populated a game is and varied the skill level is. Plus last fighting game I really played other than popular SF6 (I hate the system.), was KOF XV and matchmaking was broken and the playerbase shrunk bad.
I really like Fighting Games too, it's peak competitive gaming. No one to blame but yourself, and looking at your improvement is very satisfying. However, fighting games are VERY expensive. 60$ off the bat plus dlcs and tons of microtransactions. I stopped playing them after Sf4 because i can't really keep up this way
My brother used to kick my ass in fighting games I never played them because he did, it was only until 2 years ago my friends got me to try them and though they were much better and didn’t hold back, having the mentality of finding new things to try and use, seeing your improvement in smaller areas helps so much more and builds, like if you couldn’t ever stop being cornered and find ways out, it’s progress. I think if we look at our progress within sessions it might motivate you to play more
Fighting games are absolutely too hard to get into. Look at Street Fighter 6. Nearly all the new design elements are added to appease old players and only truly useful to them like Drive Rush or Drive Impact. For newer players it's just another hurdle of learning to get past to absorb the next level of information and "getting good" takes almost the life cycle of the game. Meanwhile if I've learned to aim and shoot I can play any new FPS game without even worrying about the minutiae even at top ranks.
I think that platform fighters do this right because you can also do co op fights, plus they are much more intuitive, even if at a higher level, games like rivals of aether or melee can be much harder than traditional street fighter. Guilty gear isuka was a weird experiment and maybe it can work… if redone in a modern key. But I think that the problem is that fighting games are not intuitive enough. For example in smash or even guilty gear sometimes it’s easy to understand what comboes into what, but in SF6, which is heavily based on links, it isn’t as easy without looking up frame data
I think that platform fighters are still too difficult, I learned Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6 a lot faster than I'm learning platform fighters. People try fighting games, they find them too difficult, they drop them so you are left with only veterans or people who love playing the genre and you get stomped often and you fight the same players all the time.
I agree, I've been playing melee for years so I'm biased. When you look at an unbiased source like Sajam, he found platform fighters to be more unintuitive to lean
Fighting games are for people who likes to improve more than they like to win. Since most people doesn't function that way, less people play them, and then that creates a negative loop. IMO, by their very nature, nobody should play them, so having so many people still sticking there is proof of how amazingly superior they are for the few ones that are resilient enough to enjoy learning without excuses.
@markjack9772 Sure it sounds like that, but there isn't any discrimination included in the idea. Anyone can join: no closed doors, no exclusive clauses, no preferential lines, no birthrights needed. Sure, there are some people with a natural talent for FGs, but practicing and losing are non negotiable anyway.
I used to play fighting games as a kid here and there, but I was never super into the genre. This year, I decided to get Tekken 8 since one of my favorite streamers was playing it and loving it. I didn’t find it too hard to pick up although I struggled a lot in the beginning (and this was not in ranked matches but in quick match). Eventually, through a beginner’s guide by PhiDX, I finally understood what I should do and how I should play, and his guide made Tekken 8 so much easier & enjoyable. I’ll be honest in that I only touched the ranked mode a few times for the achievement and never again since I’m not really interested in playing the game at a competitive level, but I’ve been absolutely loving quick and player matches, and I’ve learned a lot since then. I lost quite a bit at the beginning (first 5-10 hours I wanna say but I’m not sure), but now, playing Tekken as a beginner feels no different than playing any other online PvP game casually. I really love it, but I’ll admit that it can definitely be rough in the beginning but once you get adjusted, it’s super addicting. Lastly, I think the biggest issue is the pricing scheme they use honestly. These games don’t even need to be free, necessarily. They just need to be priced reasonably and you should be able to lab/use DLC characters you don’t own in practice mode. I find it crazy that Apex Legends, a free-to-play title, allows you to do this with its characters and even allows you to unlock them just by playing the game. That’s really how it should be in Tekken given its price, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.
They don’t need to be free I agree. Monetization practices gotta be looked at. Also it feels like it takes a while for these fighting games to get content I’m sure it’s difficult. I see people just want new costumes it’s been 1 year since sf6 got costumes for the characters
Why are free to play games with generous monetisation more popular than pay to play games that are known for having bad netcode, few features, bad optimisation, no rigional prices and predatory monetisation 🤔 It has to be because they are hard fr fr
bad optimisation, bad netcode and few features are untrue and have been for a long time. fightcade 2 has all old school games with rollback netcodes for 100% free. your living under a rock or your lokey garbage at fighting games an are coping
They got really good netcode almost universally nowadays, but now it causes community in-fighting where if someone says, "Yeah I'd have to run an ethernet cable across the living room, two flights of stairs, a busy hallway and multiple doors if I wanted to use it so I just use Wifi. I still get like 100ms of ping" the popular response is to say, "How dare you, never play online ever."
with 2xko i really think the game will do well and make the fgc grow more than any recent game has. it doesn't get rid of the hard parts, only the things that scare new players. it being a riot game is also going to pull in potential players from some of the most popular games in the world even if they just try it once. fun cooperative modes do sound like something that more fighting games need and they should be shoved in the players face if they do to because that's going to remind people they're there i dont know how much i can say about this conversation because as a kid fighting games were always cool and when i discovered motion inputs at like 11 years old i felt like i completely understood the games from then on. every concept and mechanic was something i understood naturally but that's something that i haven't seen with a single other person yet
basically i hope 2xko is like an entry point for a huge amount of people into fighting games. i feel like strive was something like that where there's an entire generation of fighting games players who were introduced to the community through that game, except this would be a much bigger scale
Yes, they are too hard to get into. This is a genre made to be played or arcades. You go with friends, and you learn together. What you don't know, other guys coach you there on the spot. I lived through this in the 90s. Notice that other competitive genres are team based. Which means they are mostly played with friends. If you are learning a fighting game by yourself in your room, it will be very frustrating. There's really no way around, i think they should make arcades great, at launch they should refrain from releasing versions for home consoles and PC and just make them avaiable on arcade machines to get people to leave their homes and make friends on the arcades. Japan still has this culture which is why they are always very good.
It's starting to feel like people don't want to play other's that have no life & also don't want to end up wasting thier time with 100 hours of practice when you could just play a shooting game or something instead.
I love fighting games, i have played many genre before in my teens up until now and the one i never leave is fighting games. The reason being that it is the most fair and rewarding genre out there for the player that plays it. Everything has a way to play around and deal with. It completely obliterates my ego and i became the calmest person among people i know. It brings me the best bunch of friends in my life ( all of them are from the FGC) that have literally almost monk level of emotional control and no matter what happens they stay positive. It build up so much of my mental stamina and i learn everything fast in life. Now whatever i touch and wanna be good at, i can. I have no resistance towards big pile of works because i have trained to play fighting games. I got some of my dudes into fighting games. After months those dudes went from FPS, LOL janks that only play games to dudes that improve their skills to get job, work harder, try to have future, wake up early, finish work on deadline, quit throwing works to others in group project because fighting games show them that they can and they wanna be best version of themselves. I am really glad i show them fighting games Fighting game is not just a game, it’s a life changing experience ( at least for me)
Some of my thoughts: - People have to LIKE the game theyre trying to learn. For example, I spent like 90hrs getting my ass whooped in SFV but I really enjoyed the characters/mechanics so it helped me push through with motivation to learn. Same with Tekken as I loved the franchise, getting my ass kicked repeatedly meant nothing as long as I could play Lee Chaolan. The motivation to learn and play the game comes from actually enjoying/liking a game. - Some people dont know WHAT to learn as they start. I had to search these things on my own what an anti air is, what is footsies, how to anti air etc. The tutorials USUALLLY arent the best and people dont go to play them, they just hop online and get smoked without direction for the first 2 hrs they play then they jump off. If there was a way to teach them the fundamentals in a fun way (like world tour in sf6) this can help. Like you said it takes a long time to get good in these games before you can start enjoying it. - Some people dont like being the reason they lost. In team games even if it was your fault, you can still blame team and take some of the pressure of yourself. If FGs you are solely to blame and there is little to no rng in these games so you just literally got outplayed. Having this done repeatedly is not fun/motivating, makes people quit before they understand whats happening in the match. We dont like taking responsibility for our losses. - Playing by yourself is not really an option for some people as they enjoy being with friends or teammates and prefer learning together. As you said, there is limits to learning together but i feel like starting together on a game with someone is the best way to learn it. You guys can train and learn things together, share tech etc but again people prefer doing it in a team environment with less spotlight on their misplays. - Its hard to explain the beauty of FGs once you get good, the feeling of mind games and outplaying the opponent. Also the execution satisfaction and dopamine rush when you do certain things. Its hard to convey that to someone who can only see the surfae level of " hes just hitting buttons but that looks cool ". If they knew this feeling, they would be motvated to learn FGs. I used to get excited when i predicted someone would do wakeup shoryoken and i blocked it. TLDR; You dont know WHAT to learn in FGs, the learning experience CAN be isolating, losing/learning with a team is less crushing, they dont know WHAT theyre getting good for (the payoff) of their training so why bother? They have to LIKE the game too and finally the price tag on these games sometimes its hard to justify the Ls you will take for the price. All in all, its a niche genre thats hard to get into but VERY rewarding if put the time and effort to do so.
Shooters are easier to get into because its easier to "look at person then click" than "learn setups, combos and neutral while getting you handed to you". I think fighting games are more comperable to chess. You can learn what the pieces do fairly easy, but using them effectively is hard. Someone playing with an opening and knowlage will always beat someone who is just placing pieces. Except in fighting games, you dont get time to think.
let's be honest 80-90% of the time most people's fun gets suck out of them before they can understand the mechanics of the game and how to play around it most of the time while thinking they just wasted money only to be hard stomped by smurfs so they just uninstall and refund the game the best solution to this was 2XKO because they won't think they wasted money because they didn't pay up front to get their ahh whooped 20x in a row
there is also granblue. People arent promoting enough the fact granblue has a free to play version that can go in casual and ranked matches and still gain rewards from playing that carry over to the full version.
Similar thing happened to me when I tried street fighter V. Got stomped so hard by smurfs for hours and couldn't even learn anything. Going into training and practicing stuff means nothing if you can't land anything against experienced players and I'm not trying to be free wins for 10s or 100s of hours for smurfs when there's other games that respect my time more. ( Solo BR games for example, before someone mentions team games )
SF6 was my first fighting game, and I got into it because I liked the music, and I loved watching people play Jaime. I started playing in September, but had tons of visual knowledge from watching YT and streams. With that being said, getting into the game was hard. There's not enough noobs like myself to cater to the hyper casuals or green as grass players. HOWEVER, once I started playing modern controls my enjoyability SKYROCKETED because many of the things I find cumbersome and difficult were now mitigated by game design. And because of that I eventually learned how to do more input combos. So now I can mix input combos with modern buttons for not just quality of life, but for some really decent reaction set ups and mind games. The fact that I can do that at all as a brand new fighting game player is testament to how valuable the function is. Veteran players might read that and hate how easier I had my experience, but I believe that's prestige, and nostalgia speaking. If you want your community, and games to flourish they HAVE to have a healthy new-player player base. This is true across all genres. I still get whipped from time to time, and decimated by players with more game knowledge than me, but that's okay because some days I beat even master players. Some days I'm food, some days I eat. If more fighting games focus on making control layouts easy and approachable like sf6 did then I think there is a very healthy future for CASUAL fighting games. The competitive will come naturally but the casual playerbase keeps the numbers lively. Also someone commented that most good fighting games (or most popular) aren't free. So do you want to pay sixty bucks to suck ass and get beaten for months until you learn? Or do you want to play some free fortnite es game? I would be really interested to see if they made sf7 into f2p (they should with how pricey their store is). shoutout to aquacustom to making that comment.
note * I've just a filthy casual so don't freak out in comments. I think one of the reasons is fighting games are not as popular is they look and feel nothing like actual fighting while other sport games and shooting games at least resemble reality. or what is general thought it is to laymen. You can play fifa, then go watch football and be like 'oh shit i know what went wrong, i've done the same thing`. You can play cod, then watch news of the fat cops trying to take down someone and be like 'yeah those guys are amateurs'. Actual fighting like UFC and MMA looks lame compared to fighting games so there's not even an incentive to watch the wider sport. The fans of reality and the game side are also totally different. One seems like they'd put the others in lockers but also struggle at basic math. It doesn't help that the better people are at fighting games, the more boring it is to spectate for casuals. All you see is some guy in the air for 10 seconds then the game is over. At a certain point pro play starts to converge until everyone looks the same. Really once you've got the game for a week and played every character and seen animations for special moves, that's like half the joy gone for casuals. Bad matchmaking is another issue. Unlike Fifa or Cod, where at least beginners can contribute somehow, fighting games is straight up waiting for your enemy to let you hit once for minutes. If i lose a game 10 times in a row when i first play, that game has to have a lot variety and other things to keep me interested. At the very least, I'm not playing online single player, i'll play with mates around the same level. But after a couple of rounds we'll probably switch to fifa or cod. Lastly, it's not a popular opinion, but the asshole autisitc gamer trope is heavy with fighting games. Spending 20 hours learning what is basically a university course on a single series or maybe even just a version of a fighting game....I'm not doing that. And i'm not passionate to play against people doing that. At least I can avoid these people in cod. I'm happy with a couple of kills or goals in Fifa. But i'm not about to be bum-rushed by Kyle in his mom's basement school of infinite combos.
It's mentally challenging when playing a 1v1 than it is in a team based game. You can sometimes depend on someone on your team to pick up the slack if you aren't in your A-game. You can't do that in a fighting game or any 1v1 game. Also, losing in a 1v1 feels a lot tougher than when you're on a team.
My idea for different ways to play w/ friends is to add in a side scrolling beat em up mode to your 2d fighter. I know its been done before but I wish another new fighting game would do it again. Also good video, glad I watched it.
I feel like the real reason fighting games are hard to get into is the fact people see giant flashy combos and think that's the main part of fighting games
Yes that but it's also because of how complicated even basic actions are in fighting games compared to other genres. Blocking for example, in games like Smash Bros, it's one button and it's a bubble so it guards from in front and behind you, you're truly standing your ground negate an attack and you can do many simple defensive actions from block like rolling, sidestepping and jumping all being very simple to do and understand. In traditional fighting games you need to hold back to block which always puts you at a disadvantage whether or not you block an attack or not and people new to fighting games probably won't realize walking back into the corner of the screen is a bad idea until it's far too late.
I agree with people about can't get carried in fighting games. But that's not the only point. The other thing is it is just harder than other games. Shooter has less steep learning curve because you don't have to be constantly guessing what your enemy will do every split second. A lot of decision making in street fighter has to be done in super short timeframe. Not only in trying to whiff punish, but there are lots of decision to be made in super short timeframe when deciding to use resources or not (for example we have drive meter and super meter). In shooter, of course having fast reflex and accuracy (mechanic things) will carry you a lot. But you don't have to constantly be aiming and do fast reflex. You may hide on the corner, make up strategy on what you wanna do, throw flashbang or do something else? In term of timeframe, it is much forgiving than fighting game. At least that is what I think on what makes fighting game hard to enter. Sure once you are good at fighting games, those stuff you must decide in very short timeframe might become intuition, and become enjoyable. It's just the BAR TO ENTRY is the one that is high and normally you will suck a lot in fighting game when you are just starting.
My friend says "im not playing a game that i will get boddied" And yes, its easier to see other people mistakes and be ass about it than correcting your own. Is either laziness to learn about something or just they cant blame someone else for a mistake (except 2xko)
My answer is no/yes. Literally just depends if the game rewards raw hits well enough compared to fancy stuff. So street fighter, yes but say Skullgirls no. Basically the more devs punish "playing lame" the harder it is for new people to have fun because new players usually just do slap fights.
Games on the right are immediately more meaningful and provoke decision making, while games on the left take hundreds of hours to even understand what is going on. And all this only with the immense usage of training mode. That's it.
A lot of newer fighting games lean heavily into prescribed combat, which isn't for everyone. That is to say, they design problems such that you need to do one specific thing to answer it. Which also makes it a harder sell. Having to look up, "Oh, I do x to counter this move" then still fail because you're getting the timing wrong so you have to go into training mode to try it out - and this happening multiple times trying to learn the game. You can lose an entire set for no reason other than failing a knowledge check. A lot of popular games DO have prescribed gameplay but they also generally have fewer options and the answers are way more obvious. In Simon Says game design that is popular with AAA, it's "The guy flashes red, so do the one thing that you always do when someone flashes red." In fighting games it's, "How do I beat this one move on a character with dozens of different moves all of which are causing me a problem?" "Oh, you have to do the barrier block but only if you're standing because crouching blocking has different frames that make it so you won't get out also the guy might tick throw so it's not even really an answer." This also makes it harder to try out a different character so you have to lock in a main early and if you ever feel compelled to try something else or even if you just want to pick a different character for novelty you need to basically learn the entire game from the ground up again. If a patch completely changes the way your character plays - even if it's via a buff - in a way that you don't enjoy you have to make the decision to either drop all the hours you put into your main or deal with playing something you don't find fun.
It's really hard to say, because a lot of different things have been tried already. Granblue not only has a free version with a rotating roster, they also have gran bruise, which is a casual fallguys like mode with rewards and all that for playing it too. Do people really care about Granblue like that? Doesn't seem like it to me. Modern controls in sf6 has done wonders for it in Japan it seems, where there are a healthy amount of players who got into the game because of those controls and stick with it, but if you look over in the US, mad people bitch about modern and give people who use it all sorts of shit, so no one wants to put up with it. The viewership for events in Japan go crazy too, so whatever they did, it seems to be working very well over there if nowhere else. You could say making the games free to play would help, but Tekken tried this in the past with Tekken Revolution and that ultimately didn't work out, and there's naturally the issue with monetization like we see with multiversus. Free to play will not be cheap by any means. So I don't really know what the answer is.
The fall guys mode is cool and all but it’s not the base game. But yea sf6 in japan is huge right now I think sf6 reaches it’d peak when the Japanese people are playing
Tbh we over think the answer, it’s labbing, in other games you can watch and learn, but because fighting games have so man different setups and frames, a lot of interesting things come out of it.
The answer is actually incredibly simple - they are free to play. Fighting games not only are paid, but they also have paid dlc with characters releasing constantly throughout the game's lifespan, which can cost you a LOT. On top of the fact that these games also usually don't have regional pricing. So already just that cuts out a big big chunk of potential players. And outside of Granblue none of the current big fighting games even tried to have some sort of f2p version. Really looking forward to 2XKO shaking this situation up.
There are a million reasons really. It’s different reasons for different people. I got the itch for a competitive game that didn’t require me to sit for too long and also wasn’t team based. After watching some SF6 tournaments and high level replays I was mesmerized and just thought it was cool as heck.
One of the major problems is that the big fighting games right now kind of suck ass competitively so even if you get better you're just rewarded with the game getting worse. That's why you should try to get your friends into rivals of Ather II which is an excellently designed competitive platform fighter that only gets better
i think 1 of the main reason is you cant blame someone if you lose in a fighting game while on moba if you lose you can blame someone if you lose a game.
The way new fighting games are made easier and have gained more players than ever shows that it was too hard. Games like League is very complex but it's very easy to play.
I'm gonna guess the reason why people don't want to spend time going into fighting games is because they only don't want to go beyond the basics that is required to be at least good at them.
Street Fighter cross Tekken also did 2 players playing at the same time it unfortunately didn't get to work out Tho 4 players fighting could be one of the reasons Smash is such a popular fighter
I played starcraft 2, then tcgs, then got into fighting games in my 30s. I do sort of feel they're harder, it took me longer to be 'master capable' than it did in sc2 or card games, learning from scratch, and that's after having competitive experience where with sc2 I was really starting from scratch. It's a conundrum but I think, tied to the friend thing, I think it's also that there's so much in fighting games you can't learn from watching. You just have to feel it. There's no fighting game comparison to scouting in sx2, or to knowing the decks that are popular in a tcg. You have to read the individual you just matched and never heard of before. It's unique! A unique genre imo
People prefer the feeling of being in a field making small-to-large contributions to something bigger that others are working towards. Compared to being locked in a box fending for their life and reputation.
I think the biggest reason the fgc sees a huge lack of growth isnt because of lack of single player content, motion inputs, or lack luster onboarding. I think 2xko and multiversus(for all its faults) proved that people will gravitate to a game because its free and they can play with their friends not against them. SF6 in Japan has gotten really popular due to the amount of streamers doing these team battles vs each other. Its entertaining to watch and the SF league in Japan is massively popular in Japan possibly as a result. But saying FGs are hard to get into compared to other games just makes no sense.
I think the next step is for tekken to release “tekken tag 3” or just put a tag ranked mode and it be essentially a team of three and people have to strategically have teams. That way you’d have to have an anchor, an infantry, and a a Calvary type role for each team of three. It works online as well because it allows for players to play with people better than them and learn.
I think it’s the social aspect. Many people game with groups of friends in party chats, and fighting games just aren’t really intuitive when it comes to gaming with friends. Me and my friends love fighting games but it gets boring trying to play in a group and having to wait your turn. I can run a 1v1 set for hours but group sets start to get boring quickly and I usually just suggest playing something else that we can play at once, like a shooter or rocket league etc.
i can't get my friends to play fighting games with me bc they don't want to vs me, or it's a group of friends and ppl don't wanna just watch or w/e. It's frustrating to learn, i get it
I've been playing games since I was at least 7 years old. I've played a few fighting games as a kid then dropped them and usually played either LoL or shooters. I only recently got back into fighting games and imo being at least somewhat decent at a fighting game is easier than being decent at a shooter. I almost always finish last on the scoreboard in shooters... regardless if I'm playing with friends or not. I just can't have good aim and movement unless I play and train hard every day (even then it's just ok at best). Imo, the biggest reason we don't have more people playing fighting games is because there's no free to play games that actually offer a lot. Granblue is too limiting, so really all hope is in 2XKO right now.
In league even the worst player can have a high impact moment. FGs if your worst you are never going to have a good moment. Examples SF6 if you don’t know you can mash through Ken’s 2MK+ M Jinari into overhead follow up. You are going to get smoked by a knowledge check. In league. You can put a noob on seraphine support. They can int the whole laning phase. Then at 25 minutes Seraphine presses R through 5 people at the baron fight. Graves and Yone kills everyone. Enemy FFs. The 0/8/2 seraphine help set up the winning play for the carry Top/JG.
Amazing explanation and content bro. I have been playing fighting games since I was around age 9 or 10 with SF2 on snes. What I can say is that it gets easier over time, the more variation of fighting games you play there is a level of understanding or approach that you can apply to all fighting games, it carries over actually. I am not good at FPS shooter games no matter which I try, but my friends who are really good at it, they make up the next FPS as if it were nothing. Fighting games as well there are no rewards for losing, for example you can land the best combo ever and still lose the game, it was for nothing. Where by in FPS games you land a sweet shot and still probably not leader on the kill board and win or lose it was something special, it is also a shared reward, I play titan fall 2 and I’m not that good but the game is fun, there are times I have the least kills but my team still wins, I’m happy 😂, fighting games are just something else man but I love them and have a pretty large collection of them. Great Content again bro, and I appreciate the Chrono Trigger music.
It's too hard to get into, absolutely not. But hard to stay with, yes. Because the average casual forgets that a competitive game is competitive, which means losing is part of the fun. Fighting games have been made so easy, heck even "Divekick" proved a point with a literal two button system that no matter how easy you make it, it was never about the control schemes and that people didnt want to put in the effoet to get better and they just want to win. Marketing teams knew this, and its why most games show how accessible they are, like when SF5 did the Daigo versus Lupe Fiasco match to advertise how easy SF5 was.
Attention spans are shortening too, I think another point to the argument is the actual player base not wanting to put in any actual effort/see any value in grinding in a fighting game
I think we also have to start considering the price tag of fighting games. On your thumbnail all the non-fighting games you listed are free. Them being free gives people more of an incentive just to try it out and more often than not it leads them to becoming a long time player. Another reason to add is there is no other gaming genre that plays like fighting games. If you've played an action adventure game in the last couple of years, you're probably familiar with aiming and moving in 3d environments using mouse and keyboard or controller. Just knowing how to do that means you have some understanding of shooter fundamentals. But there is no modern genre outside of fighting games which asks you to do combos by buffering motion inputs during your normal animation to cancel into a special or super.
i learned league by myself...and i remember using the left hand to move the camera with the arrows and clicking all my skills with mouse xD somehow it worked for me back then.
Fighting game simply offer no incentive to play them. Remember when you unlocked characters, costums, modes by doing the arcade modes or other modes with characters ? Now fighting games are launching with everything unlocked and are just a store for DLCs. I see no reason to waste my time playing them if they offer nothing for me to look forward to.
Ok, hear me out. Fighting games are easy to get into. They are just hard to improve at. I play fighting games with my friends, and we love playing together for hours trying to improve and beat each other. For example, we play gulty gear, and he has 900 hours over me, so he would clearly be better, but i have the same understanding of the game and ik how to play it at a high level. But he will still beat my ass with a ratio of like 16:4, and i dont understand why. This is what i consider my bottleneck in terms of improvement and this is what i think a lot of people have once they get to a certain point in any type of game, its just that people reach this bottleneck in fighting games way quicker than in any other type of game is what i think puts people off.
I think generally people like to play games and be somewhat competent. Fighting games are really not too hard to learn, but many gamers have little experience with fighting games. If FPS were niche and someone tried one for the first time, I would imagine it would be hard to control the analogs or KBM movements.
@@hikarihakai1285there aren’t many. Cod? The ONLY reason people play that is because of nostalgia. The brand name carries that game SO hard, it’s insane. If a game identical to Cod came out under a different name and from a different company, nobody would play it. The same is true for ANY sports game. Fifa, 2k, Madden, etc. The most popular games are, in fact, free. Free = low commitment. In an economy where pinching pennies is necessary, people don’t want to risk spending $60 on a game they might not even like. It’s also appealing to kids who don’t have their own money, ao it’s a lot easier to download and play free games than asking mommy and daddy for $60 (again, for a game they don’t even know if they’ll like). So games like League, Fortnite, Valorant, Rocket League, and Roblox are the most popular right now because of how accessible they are. This problem doesn’t stop at fighting games, but for any bought game in general.
@@MyNameIsIisan there are some other too but that is why I said it is only a factor rather than saying it is not the reason entirely And idk why you feel the need to talk something so obvious like free game being popular I already know that like most as I myself play them all the time and the argument for being free playing huge factor really is depend on the genre still The problem fighting game have is more so still the entry barrier making it hard to commit and being free is only a factor into it since there are free fighting game out there one with good marketing and already a fan base before release like idol showdown but at the end of the day it is still not that popular Even something like 2XKO will have this problem, it is hard for these game to have people commit to them even if they are free, it will mainly be a party game for most since unlike in FPS where you have teammate in fighting game it is 1vs1 making it rather boring and frustrating for some after a while outside of playing with friend
People are too good at games in general now for fighting games to be enjoyable, there's a reason fighting games started declining after its arcade death.
I typically have 1 of 2 experiences after introducing a friend to a fighting game. The more casual ones ask things like "so what do I get for winning?" and the more competitive ones usually think fondly of the game but don't really get why they should invest time in it.
1.most fighting game aren’t free to play and all the DLC are expensive as hell 2.theres no obvious direction for where you’re going to do or get in fighting games, in fps games u expected to pick up a gun and shoot and that’s what you get, fighting games are confusing as hell with all the options for new players. fighting games isn’t hard, it’s just confusing at first, and if people doesn’t have fun from the start, they sure will drop the game after a while.
I just wish arcade fighting games gave the option for more western controls like mortal kombat......I just can't hit those diagonal inputs on my d-pad....its frustrating where i can't even relax when playing cuz im gonna drop a combo every 2 minutes
9:47 Well actually, there's the Extreme Battle on SF6, which is...a more casual way of playing the game I guess ? I guess it is, because I sometime get my brother to play some Streets with me, and he enjoyed way more the Extreme Battle than the classic 1v1 Probably the only thing keeping the dev to do more casual friendly stuff is because it just get forgotten by 99% of the player base... like I tried once to go on the battle hub to play some Extreme Battle, and I struggled to get paired with someone because no one goes to the dark corners of this place xD
I forget it exist sometimes 😭 glad to know it helped with your brother wanted to play but I think casual games modes can still work if they do it right
I will always say that the reasons FGs aren't as popular as other PvP games is because most people can't take a loss that's 100% on them. A lot seems to need to blame someone or something else.
fighting games are easy to get into. It is literally the best option as a game genre when you want to have fun with your friends. but they are maybe the hardest to master. you need to invest thousands of hours to achieve a level of mastery, and this mastery is "game" specific. it does not translate to other games. for instance I m good at street fighter generally, I can fairly say I am (was) a master sf4 player, but I am not that good at sf3. I suck at tekken, bad at mortal kombat. but I can probably beat casuals after a few hours of labbing. fighting games also require a high level of dexterity on top of a high amount of knowledge. You cant downplay it like "it is just motion inputs!". I have also been playing guitar for over 25 years. I have the dexterity, I also have the knowledge. If I were to touch a piano I will surely play it better than a beginner who s been taking lessons. finally...I also have over 2000 hours on dota. in fps games or mobas you play as a team. you always have someone to blame other than yourself when you lose. but in fighting games it is all on you. so losing makes you frustrated, and you stop playing after a few losses.
YOu say they are easy to get into but you have 25 years of playing guitar and then say you need 1000s of hours for mastery. Also a big problem people have is that no one else wants to play them out of friend groups. So yea if you have the dexterity built up over years of playing music and a friend group who's interested maybe then they're easy to get into!
@@BarringtonDailey you dont need to be a master to enjoy fighting games. getting into does not mean achieving master level. it means figuring the basics out and having fun playing it. if you are just getting into street fighter you will not enjoy playing against daigo, but you will when playing with friends or people at your level.
Skill issue, fighting games are for the most part entirely dependent on your decision making..mfs just don't want to pick up the sticks and go through the multiple ass beatings it'll take in an FG before you even remotely "get it". That's why for people I get into any Fighting Game I play, I teach then fundamentals first, then fighting game mentality (why play like this vs that), and punishes that are easy to understand. Like dp punishing in SF, seeing your turns, etc.
People like easy stuff. FGs are THE most mechanically deep, complex and intricate games in the entire gaming industry and it's not close I have a group of friend who play shooting games and fighting games, they unanimously agree FG are unbelievably more difficult
I disagree with your initial statement. Casual gamers aside, people like challenges, otherwise they get bored fast. The best case scenario is a game that is easy to learn and hard to master. Tetris would be a good example for it. Few pieces, cristal clear objectives. But it's super hard to compete against really good players who are lightning fast, know about openers, T, S, Z, L, J, I spins (in modern Tetris), back-to back-chaining etc.. But fighting games are hard to learn and hard to master. It's a fascinating concept and I think I'd really enjoy being good, but I am not. And to get there will take a good amount of time. I believe it's worth it in the end, but you have to endure a lot of frustration until you know what you're doing. And that's something not too many people are willing to accept.
Fighting games are complex but these other games get just as complex to be honest. League is known to have a huge learning curve yet tons of people play it
This is just amazingly wrong. First of all how are you gonna claim “people like it easy, fighting games are hardcore dude” when fighting games have nuked all their execution requirements off the earth, hardcore gamers can’t do a dp motion but “casual” FPS players are expected to master spray control, movement techniques WHILE GAMES LIKE TEKKEN GOT ITS MOVEMENT NUKED Fighting games are more neutered than any other genre, is filled with the least skilled players for the most part. In 2024 they are a watered down experience while every other genre is adding depth But even if they weren’t…. Has mans ever tried brood war ?
@@Havokerino league has a learning curve like most well created games. But fighting games learning curves are not only MUCH steeper, but requires different levels of different aspects of skill to even start playing let alone getting good. Comparing them mechanically, it's not close
Guilty Gear Strive also just added a 3v3 mode. It is far more casual than 2XKO, but still seems like a decent place to learn moves and basic mechanics.
Its simple. Most gamers would rather camp and engage other players at a distance instead of upclose and head to head. And the loss in shooters is swift vs getting juggled for 2 minutes. Theres a reason why the casual audience prefers the likes of Injustice and Mortal Kombat vs other fighters because you can run away with projectile heavy characters for the w instead of throwing hands.
Those Souls-like players will preach into your ears that high difficulty makes their games appealing and rewarding yet they won't even touch a fighting game 1nd their games keep having millions of players and FGs remain a niche
You can fight for fifth place in a racing game go for kills in a shooter even if you teams are losing in a fighting game it's just you lose on top of that if you are losing you aren't playing
The worst part about modern fighters, and racing games, is that they are dlc sims, and then the fanboys even defend it. No, we don't need to buy Akuma in every game to Dave the small multi-billiinmdollar company. Just add him to the base roster already. They will make more than enough green numbers even with new characters in a season pass. But nope, let's defend paid frame data...or pay 2 win characters, or removing customisation to add it to a battle pass... Man Tekken really fell off
Instead of reflecting on themselves they blamed the beast
Heaven or HELL
the real reason is that fighting games cost money, but league, valorant, dota 2, and cs2 are free to play. Whenever i ask a friend if they want to try out a game, the first thing they ask me is if it's free/how much it costs. Fighting games are $60 plus DLC.
people still play COD
@@Doktor_Jonesyou'll be surprised how unpopular cod outside usa. And Cs2, dota2 and lol got majority of their player base outside usa
@@АртёмТор-к2ю I have people at my work talking more about COD than these game you mentioned, let alone any fighting game (I'm german)
Plus, fighting games are WAY more popular in the US, so THAT says something
@@Doktor_Jones ok I just googled stats for warzone. 22% for USA, 5.8% China, 4.7% UK, 4,6% Brazil, 3,4% Germany.
So it makes sense that Germans speak about cod.
So it should be the USA, UK, Brazil and Germany. I don't include China because 5.8% compared to their population isn't a lot.
@@Doktor_Jonescounterpoint: COD Mobile
Fighting games are literally peak gaming
and this is coming from someone who’s loves all genres of games
They’re so good man
FACTS, we're finally getting the love we deserve with all the new fighting games coming out
That's your opinion. Peak gaming to me would be playing something like Elden Ring.
@@Kai-jn7pn So souls-like. And I'm pretty sure he knew that it was his opinion, he was just stating it. Everything on the internet is an opinion bro🤙
after you spend 100 hours in the lab
Fighting games feel a little more like a sport than a video game as far as the ratio of what you have to put in to get enjoyment out of it. I feel like it’s easier to have fun while being bad at other games, but most of what feels good in a fighting game is just winning.
So if you don’t have fun getting stomped and you don’t have fun stomping someone, you need someone at your level, and when you don’t have someone on your level to play with, it won’t be fun, but when you do, it can be a really uniquely fun and personal experience
l guess for a new comer thats the important thing l guess l always loved fighting games since l was 6 years old so l can't put myself into a new comer's shoes even wen l lose l can have fun but that might be different for them l remember my First fighting game was tekken 5 and It was Fun Just pressing Buttons against the ai l remember wanting to know How to do cool moves so l would spend a Ton of hours in training mode and l spent a long time trying to get all the endings so l know How important It is to have offline content like different endings l was also Very lucky to have a best friend that was also into fighting games a lot of people Don't have a friend to play fighting games with.
That's not how you should enjoy the game tho. The route to enjoy it is by trying to apply one piece of new information at a time. Like in sf6 you'd start by trying to hit confirm in different situations, then learning to anti air, then applying frame traps, how to deal with DI, how to DR, crosscuts and so on. The dopamine hits when you start internalizing something you couldn't do before, which in turn gets you more wins.
You can easily see where to improve because the losses are pointers on what you're doing wrong.
For me it's way more intuitive than say proper macro on a 5v5 game where you may not have enough info to know what you did wrong.
Play more fighting games with complexity or niche features or something you can extensively practice to see results everyday. I don't give a shit about winning in Tekken, but I DO care about how consistently and reliable I can hit my Electric. I don't give a fuck about winning in MK, I play Shang so half my fun comes from being YOU. Don't care about winning in sparking Zero, I just care for epic battles. List goes on and on, on what game I can name and why I find it fun.
Nah bro you just have to have fighting game passion to actually see why MFS play fighting games. It's the same reason shitty cod players play cod, it's just their nature.
i think what turns people off so much from fighting games is the fact that some people just dont wanna put in the hours to get "good". why would they spend so much time getting familiar with a fighting game when they can just turn on whatever flavor of the month f2p game is huge, and turn their brain off to have a decent time? when sf6 launched, my friend bought the game and played through world tour and barely touched the online. every time me and him fought he would just get frustrated and i would tell him to lab some stuff out, but he would always tell me he found practice mode to be super boring. in other words, i think people would rather learn the game *while* playing, instead of having to go out of their way to practice things and learn about the mechanics of the game in a less engaging way
Wait absolutely a huge point I missed. Never thought about how fgs usually have the best training in the lab. Sure you can lab in the other games but I feel like that comes later when you’re already into the game. I would lab some league characters but I never did that when I started I just played and learned the basics
I think this is the case where modern controls and auto combos actually do help onboard new players to help them feel like they are doing something.
Learning fighting games is HARD! As an amateur kickboxer I always end up thinking “if I’m gonna practice combos and shit for a couple hours I might as well go do it fr” that’s what stops me from getting super sweaty. Meanwhile I can play an fps for a couple hours and not feel guilty at all
It's easier to blame others than to deal with yourself.
This is why i like 1v1 games more. In a team based game, if my team loses, I can't tell for the most part if my team lost because of me or if I had a terrible player on my team. In a 1v1 game however, I know if I lose, it's probably because my opponent is a better player, I lack skill and need to learn and do better, or all of the above
Thats not the reason
@@CyrusIsntthen what do you think is the biggest issue
@@markjack9772 Why should I play a game with ancient gameplay philosophy and controls if I have 1000 alternatives?
SF6 feels stiff and unresponsive for a modern game. If my initial impression is "I don't feel in control" I won't invest more time in it if I don't want to. It's not the 90s anymore, where we were young and had only 2 games to play and you're stuck on console with SF2.
but it's also easier to blame the game before you blame yourself
I think it's the other way around, other games/hobbies are just much more rewarding in the short term. A lot of people keep repeating the "the harder it is, the more rewarding it is" mantra, but I've never had that mentality about gaming, since it's just one of my hobbies. Putting in a hundred hours before you get to have fun is a VERY hard sell. I got into Tekken because one of my friends loved fighting games, and to this day, playing casually with buddies is the most fun I've had with the genre, and without a gateway like that, other genres will always be more appealing.
So in short, the effort-to-reward ratio is not very appealing unless you already come in with a very specific mindset and the lack of breadth in terms of gameplay will make sure many players will drift towards other genres over time.
Facts you have to have a "it is what it is" and a real want to improve even in the smallest areas. Like knowing when to throw a jab in Tekken. Shits a small detail esp in regards to overall character mastery but in the grand scheme, it's ultra important to know when your jab can steal a turn or keep pressure on a frame disadvantage tht isn't large. Button inputs being clean, new combos, ways to punish, figuring out a problematic chars weakness. Man, there's SO many small goals in FGs that winning should never even take precedent until you put in a certain amount of time tbh.
This is why arcade mode is so important. Playing against the bots allows you to learn a character without getting absolutely destroyed every single match. My biggest gripe with GG: Stive was that the bots in arcade mode barely even put up a fight and I was able to clear it in one go on my first play of the game. Meanwhile, I struggle to clear the arcade mode on the Dreamcast version of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Given, I'm a lot older than I was when Third Strike was released in arcades, but the bots still give plenty of challenge. The new thing is giving players missions which is just an extended tutorial mode and that's not even remotely as engaging. Bot play matters.
i feel like fighting games are super fun to get into if you get into it at the same time as a friend, for me personally i always had someone my level to fight and we improved together
( played only vs him and when i finally hit ranked, i hit plat, and floor 9 in ggst )
only when you are both starting at the same time tho
i agree! i got into dbfz that way even though the game had been out for some time we both got it at the same time and learned it together
Be me.
My mate mentions "hey, SF5 is on humble-bundle, wanna play together". I'm like "sure, why not."
He has minimal more experience. (600LP, Bronze)
Beats me over and over again.
I get frustrated, but I'm also stubborn and press rematch.
I asked, "What do I wrong here?". He said "Dunno"
Never played with him again.
That's my experience with *playing with friends*.
I think having a team mode to play together would help alleviate this. It helps take the pressure off of winning and lets you learn during the match.
I played MOBA for very long time because it was free and could play with friends, and by myself. Never played ranked, though, because I didn't want to be held accountable if my team loses, so always played casual. After having more responsibilities, I started playing more offline single player games but one days I got DOA 6 on release thinking it was easy game to rank, I couldn't have been more wrong but the tutorial and combo practice was fun and its what got me into Tekken and other fighting games in general; now I play MK, SF, SC, even indie fighting games, and now looking forward to play VF 5. Personally, I rather play fighting game than multiplayer co-op games because there is no other person to blame but myself for the outcome or the lag.....lol and there is this feeling of more in control of my time and independence. I don't have to depend on other people to advance and that when I realized that I am more of a loner than team based game. In sport I prefer one on one based games.
Games like league of legends and cs go, they are easy to get into but hard to master but fighting games, it feels like it’s hard to even get started. Like learning the game basic mechanics, learning characters basic moves/ their inputs, then learning the combos, then implementing all that into actual match and then after all that you just realize it’s only the beginning step, you still have to learn so much more. This is why fighting games seem harder than other games. Bc understanding the basics seem so difficult that it’s pretty hard for ppl to get hooked on to the game.
It's not easy to get into LoL or CS in terms of skill if you don't have related experience. You'll have to learn a lot.
If you play any FG with an opponent of equal skill you won't have much problems.
The thing is: in FGs you can lose interactions seconds apart, everything is quick.
Your mistakes aren't as noticable in CS even with such short time to kill. And definitely not as noticable in LoL.
Basically, it's about being able to handle mistakes because FGs revolve around them.
People in general are not good at handling mistakes.
Absolutely agreed.
As I posted below: Games on the right are immediately more meaningful and provoke decision making, while games on the left take hundreds of hours to even understand what is going on. And all this only with the immense usage of training mode.
@@maaramori3404 , that is rather hyperbolic.
@@a_wild_Kirillian Hardly. For LoL or CS there's learning a map, learning what 3-4 game mechanics are, and then you just focus on execution.
With FGs it's learning what your 4-6 buttons do, learning combinations of buttons and their timing (specials, supers), learning combos and timing (cancels and links), learning the specific game mechanics (drive rush, fautless defense etc.), then the exhaustive list of general fighting game mechanics (oki, meaty options, fuzzy defense, neutral, footsies etc.), then you have to learn each of the matchups in the game, then you are finally ready to play the real game at the top 15-20% of the playerbase and hope that you got all of that before the game dies.
@@philovermyer6166 , oh, so yeah, you just learn what your buttons do and what your system mechanics are and then "just focus on execution".
•Holding a paper sign. Can you guess what's written on it? It starts with the letter S•
I've taught a person who's never heard of FGs how to play Strive at a competent level in a month after work. After the game has been out for 3 years. And I have done the same for myself before. Yes, you have to learn how to do things. If you have a functioning mind, it's a straight path, though.
The way you spoke about CS sounds like you've never played CS at a high level. There are things to learn and train. And you still have to clock in hours like crazy to start feeling the things which aren't as easy to label as "facts you have to learn to play the real game".
I don't play LoL, I just know people struggle all the same. Unsurprisingly, considering how many possible interactions are there.
That 1v1 aspect that makes you reflect on your own skills IS why I rather play fighting games over shooters now. You can play the best game you’ve ever played but if your team sucks bad enough you ain’t going to win. On fighting games it’s always on YOU
One of the best parts about fighting games
It’s always on you unless it’s to do with the 50 other reasons people blame for losing lmao
1v1 is the best for competitive people to improve but most people like playing with their friends.
I get my ass kicked online too much to have fun. Im fine with losing but when you get on that 20 loss streak its like damn.
man i know the feeling gotta try to find the joy in learning but it can be hard to do that
20 loses is not that bad for an absolute begginer. But, as I say, FGs are for people who values improvement more than winning.
Man up dude like seriously this is a response I would expect from a little kid or something. You need to lose to get better and learn. Fighting games are tough and you will lose a lot. Only kids whine and complain about losing and have a problem with it
Getting beat just makes find the solution more savory
@Timothy___ I don't think a general frustration is the equivalent of whining and complaining over everything, you need to not instantly lose your mind over stuff like this lol
When I got into fighting games I had no friends who played them and no previous experience, and just picked one up on a whim because I thought it looked fun. I had no one to teach me or anything I didn't even look up guides I didn't even play online, I just sat in training and played against the AI, then when I got guilty gear I did the same thing, and actually tried online this time, and I guess 100 of hours against AI and all the training mode did something as the few seldom time I do play online I usually can hold my own and have a pretty high win rate.
What FG are you playing. Since I find most AI goofy and no matter how I beat AI I mostly get smoked online. IN other words I find the AI a poor teacher.
@@BarringtonDailey, your opponent isn't supposed to be a teacher at all. You're the one who teaches and practices by watching what you do. You can practice against a standing dummy, it's just not as fun as seeing a moving opponent.
If you have trouble discovering things by yourself, a guide video/article or a coach probably can help you more. But you still need to actively watch and think what's happening.
It's funny because your average gamer thinks fighting games are too difficult to get into, meanwhile fighting game fans think the newer fighting game titles are too easy to learn and pick up now with neutral skipping mechanics (Drive rush, Heat, etc)
CAUSE NO ONE PLAYS THEM MFS
I keep getting the same Vikala player in grandblue for 3 DAYS now
i was having that issue on strive like last month i was just playing the same guy
This is the biggest problem. Shitty people just cannot get behind 1vs1 games, because when they lose, they have no one to blame.
I play Dota 2, because it’s easy to find unique matches and don’t have to play the same opponent over and over, just humbling me 0-20, this changes depending on how populated a game is and varied the skill level is.
Plus last fighting game I really played other than popular SF6 (I hate the system.), was KOF XV and matchmaking was broken and the playerbase shrunk bad.
I really like Fighting Games too, it's peak competitive gaming. No one to blame but yourself, and looking at your improvement is very satisfying. However, fighting games are VERY expensive. 60$ off the bat plus dlcs and tons of microtransactions. I stopped playing them after Sf4 because i can't really keep up this way
My brother used to kick my ass in fighting games I never played them because he did, it was only until 2 years ago my friends got me to try them and though they were much better and didn’t hold back, having the mentality of finding new things to try and use, seeing your improvement in smaller areas helps so much more and builds, like if you couldn’t ever stop being cornered and find ways out, it’s progress. I think if we look at our progress within sessions it might motivate you to play more
Improving is forsure an aspect that I liked in fighting games
Fighting games are absolutely too hard to get into. Look at Street Fighter 6. Nearly all the new design elements are added to appease old players and only truly useful to them like Drive Rush or Drive Impact. For newer players it's just another hurdle of learning to get past to absorb the next level of information and "getting good" takes almost the life cycle of the game. Meanwhile if I've learned to aim and shoot I can play any new FPS game without even worrying about the minutiae even at top ranks.
I think that platform fighters do this right because you can also do co op fights, plus they are much more intuitive, even if at a higher level, games like rivals of aether or melee can be much harder than traditional street fighter.
Guilty gear isuka was a weird experiment and maybe it can work… if redone in a modern key. But I think that the problem is that fighting games are not intuitive enough.
For example in smash or even guilty gear sometimes it’s easy to understand what comboes into what, but in SF6, which is heavily based on links, it isn’t as easy without looking up frame data
Ohh that’s a good point yea in smash you can get idea of a combo you don’t gotta know what moves special cancellable or not
I think that platform fighters are still too difficult, I learned Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6 a lot faster than I'm learning platform fighters. People try fighting games, they find them too difficult, they drop them so you are left with only veterans or people who love playing the genre and you get stomped often and you fight the same players all the time.
I agree, I've been playing melee for years so I'm biased. When you look at an unbiased source like Sajam, he found platform fighters to be more unintuitive to lean
Killer instinct is the goat because it takes 2 second to explain how to do combos and start playing and it offers so much depth out of the box
Fighting games are for people who likes to improve more than they like to win. Since most people doesn't function that way, less people play them, and then that creates a negative loop.
IMO, by their very nature, nobody should play them, so having so many people still sticking there is proof of how amazingly superior they are for the few ones that are resilient enough to enjoy learning without excuses.
Even though I agree with you that sounds elitist as hell
@markjack9772 Sure it sounds like that, but there isn't any discrimination included in the idea. Anyone can join: no closed doors, no exclusive clauses, no preferential lines, no birthrights needed. Sure, there are some people with a natural talent for FGs, but practicing and losing are non negotiable anyway.
I used to play fighting games as a kid here and there, but I was never super into the genre. This year, I decided to get Tekken 8 since one of my favorite streamers was playing it and loving it. I didn’t find it too hard to pick up although I struggled a lot in the beginning (and this was not in ranked matches but in quick match). Eventually, through a beginner’s guide by PhiDX, I finally understood what I should do and how I should play, and his guide made Tekken 8 so much easier & enjoyable. I’ll be honest in that I only touched the ranked mode a few times for the achievement and never again since I’m not really interested in playing the game at a competitive level, but I’ve been absolutely loving quick and player matches, and I’ve learned a lot since then. I lost quite a bit at the beginning (first 5-10 hours I wanna say but I’m not sure), but now, playing Tekken as a beginner feels no different than playing any other online PvP game casually. I really love it, but I’ll admit that it can definitely be rough in the beginning but once you get adjusted, it’s super addicting.
Lastly, I think the biggest issue is the pricing scheme they use honestly. These games don’t even need to be free, necessarily. They just need to be priced reasonably and you should be able to lab/use DLC characters you don’t own in practice mode. I find it crazy that Apex Legends, a free-to-play title, allows you to do this with its characters and even allows you to unlock them just by playing the game. That’s really how it should be in Tekken given its price, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.
They don’t need to be free I agree. Monetization practices gotta be looked at. Also it feels like it takes a while for these fighting games to get content I’m sure it’s difficult. I see people just want new costumes it’s been 1 year since sf6 got costumes for the characters
The best part of fighting games is that you've been practicing combos for hours, and then you get bodied by a hot woman.
Maybe that’s why I stayed 🤤
Why are free to play games with generous monetisation more popular than pay to play games that are known for having bad netcode, few features, bad optimisation, no rigional prices and predatory monetisation 🤔
It has to be because they are hard fr fr
Right? 😂
bad optimisation, bad netcode and few features are untrue and have been for a long time. fightcade 2 has all old school games with rollback netcodes for 100% free. your living under a rock or your lokey garbage at fighting games an are coping
Nobody outside the FGC circle jerk does know about the netcode issues.
They got really good netcode almost universally nowadays, but now it causes community in-fighting where if someone says, "Yeah I'd have to run an ethernet cable across the living room, two flights of stairs, a busy hallway and multiple doors if I wanted to use it so I just use Wifi. I still get like 100ms of ping" the popular response is to say, "How dare you, never play online ever."
@@Zetact_ it's a response in everything competitive game.
Fgc can't play other games proven once again
with 2xko i really think the game will do well and make the fgc grow more than any recent game has. it doesn't get rid of the hard parts, only the things that scare new players. it being a riot game is also going to pull in potential players from some of the most popular games in the world even if they just try it once.
fun cooperative modes do sound like something that more fighting games need and they should be shoved in the players face if they do to because that's going to remind people they're there
i dont know how much i can say about this conversation because as a kid fighting games were always cool and when i discovered motion inputs at like 11 years old i felt like i completely understood the games from then on. every concept and mechanic was something i understood naturally but that's something that i haven't seen with a single other person yet
basically i hope 2xko is like an entry point for a huge amount of people into fighting games. i feel like strive was something like that where there's an entire generation of fighting games players who were introduced to the community through that game, except this would be a much bigger scale
@@StSteel14it’d be amazing if it’s an entry point and then everyone branches off. I’m sure lots of companies are looking at how 2xko will do
Yes, they are too hard to get into. This is a genre made to be played or arcades. You go with friends, and you learn together. What you don't know, other guys coach you there on the spot.
I lived through this in the 90s.
Notice that other competitive genres are team based. Which means they are mostly played with friends.
If you are learning a fighting game by yourself in your room, it will be very frustrating.
There's really no way around, i think they should make arcades great, at launch they should refrain from releasing versions for home consoles and PC and just make them avaiable on arcade machines to get people to leave their homes and make friends on the arcades.
Japan still has this culture which is why they are always very good.
It's starting to feel like people don't want to play other's that have no life & also don't want to end up wasting thier time with 100 hours of practice when you could just play a shooting game or something instead.
I love fighting games, i have played many genre before in my teens up until now and the one i never leave is fighting games.
The reason being that it is the most fair and rewarding genre out there for the player that plays it. Everything has a way to play around and deal with.
It completely obliterates my ego and i became the calmest person among people i know. It brings me the best bunch of friends in my life ( all of them are from the FGC) that have literally almost monk level of emotional control and no matter what happens they stay positive. It build up so much of my mental stamina and i learn everything fast in life.
Now whatever i touch and wanna be good at, i can. I have no resistance towards big pile of works because i have trained to play fighting games.
I got some of my dudes into fighting games. After months those dudes went from FPS, LOL janks that only play games to dudes that improve their skills to get job, work harder, try to have future, wake up early, finish work on deadline, quit throwing works to others in group project
because fighting games show them that they can and they wanna be best version of themselves. I am really glad i show them fighting games
Fighting game is not just a game, it’s a life changing experience ( at least for me)
Some of my thoughts:
- People have to LIKE the game theyre trying to learn. For example, I spent like 90hrs getting my ass whooped in SFV but I really enjoyed the characters/mechanics so it helped me push through with motivation to learn. Same with Tekken as I loved the franchise, getting my ass kicked repeatedly meant nothing as long as I could play Lee Chaolan. The motivation to learn and play the game comes from actually enjoying/liking a game.
- Some people dont know WHAT to learn as they start. I had to search these things on my own what an anti air is, what is footsies, how to anti air etc. The tutorials USUALLLY arent the best and people dont go to play them, they just hop online and get smoked without direction for the first 2 hrs they play then they jump off. If there was a way to teach them the fundamentals in a fun way (like world tour in sf6) this can help. Like you said it takes a long time to get good in these games before you can start enjoying it.
- Some people dont like being the reason they lost. In team games even if it was your fault, you can still blame team and take some of the pressure of yourself. If FGs you are solely to blame and there is little to no rng in these games so you just literally got outplayed. Having this done repeatedly is not fun/motivating, makes people quit before they understand whats happening in the match. We dont like taking responsibility for our losses.
- Playing by yourself is not really an option for some people as they enjoy being with friends or teammates and prefer learning together. As you said, there is limits to learning together but i feel like starting together on a game with someone is the best way to learn it. You guys can train and learn things together, share tech etc but again people prefer doing it in a team environment with less spotlight on their misplays.
- Its hard to explain the beauty of FGs once you get good, the feeling of mind games and outplaying the opponent. Also the execution satisfaction and dopamine rush when you do certain things. Its hard to convey that to someone who can only see the surfae level of " hes just hitting buttons but that looks cool ". If they knew this feeling, they would be motvated to learn FGs. I used to get excited when i predicted someone would do wakeup shoryoken and i blocked it.
TLDR; You dont know WHAT to learn in FGs, the learning experience CAN be isolating, losing/learning with a team is less crushing, they dont know WHAT theyre getting good for (the payoff) of their training so why bother? They have to LIKE the game too and finally the price tag on these games sometimes its hard to justify the Ls you will take for the price. All in all, its a niche genre thats hard to get into but VERY rewarding if put the time and effort to do so.
well said.
Shooters are easier to get into because its easier to "look at person then click" than "learn setups, combos and neutral while getting you handed to you".
I think fighting games are more comperable to chess. You can learn what the pieces do fairly easy, but using them effectively is hard. Someone playing with an opening and knowlage will always beat someone who is just placing pieces. Except in fighting games, you dont get time to think.
In my experience with fighting games you really need like a family member who already knows it to get into it
let's be honest 80-90% of the time most people's fun gets suck out of them before they can understand the mechanics of the game and how to play around it most of the time while thinking they just wasted money only to be hard stomped by smurfs so they just uninstall and refund the game
the best solution to this was 2XKO because they won't think they wasted money because they didn't pay up front to get their ahh whooped 20x in a row
there is also granblue. People arent promoting enough the fact granblue has a free to play version that can go in casual and ranked matches and still gain rewards from playing that carry over to the full version.
Similar thing happened to me when I tried street fighter V. Got stomped so hard by smurfs for hours and couldn't even learn anything. Going into training and practicing stuff means nothing if you can't land anything against experienced players and I'm not trying to be free wins for 10s or 100s of hours for smurfs when there's other games that respect my time more. ( Solo BR games for example, before someone mentions team games )
SF6 was my first fighting game, and I got into it because I liked the music, and I loved watching people play Jaime. I started playing in September, but had tons of visual knowledge from watching YT and streams. With that being said, getting into the game was hard. There's not enough noobs like myself to cater to the hyper casuals or green as grass players. HOWEVER, once I started playing modern controls my enjoyability SKYROCKETED because many of the things I find cumbersome and difficult were now mitigated by game design.
And because of that I eventually learned how to do more input combos. So now I can mix input combos with modern buttons for not just quality of life, but for some really decent reaction set ups and mind games. The fact that I can do that at all as a brand new fighting game player is testament to how valuable the function is. Veteran players might read that and hate how easier I had my experience, but I believe that's prestige, and nostalgia speaking.
If you want your community, and games to flourish they HAVE to have a healthy new-player player base. This is true across all genres.
I still get whipped from time to time, and decimated by players with more game knowledge than me, but that's okay because some days I beat even master players. Some days I'm food, some days I eat.
If more fighting games focus on making control layouts easy and approachable like sf6 did then I think there is a very healthy future for CASUAL fighting games. The competitive will come naturally but the casual playerbase keeps the numbers lively.
Also someone commented that most good fighting games (or most popular) aren't free. So do you want to pay sixty bucks to suck ass and get beaten for months until you learn? Or do you want to play some free fortnite es game? I would be really interested to see if they made sf7 into f2p (they should with how pricey their store is).
shoutout to aquacustom to making that comment.
note * I've just a filthy casual so don't freak out in comments.
I think one of the reasons is fighting games are not as popular is they look and feel nothing like actual fighting while other sport games and shooting games at least resemble reality. or what is general thought it is to laymen. You can play fifa, then go watch football and be like 'oh shit i know what went wrong, i've done the same thing`. You can play cod, then watch news of the fat cops trying to take down someone and be like 'yeah those guys are amateurs'.
Actual fighting like UFC and MMA looks lame compared to fighting games so there's not even an incentive to watch the wider sport. The fans of reality and the game side are also totally different. One seems like they'd put the others in lockers but also struggle at basic math.
It doesn't help that the better people are at fighting games, the more boring it is to spectate for casuals. All you see is some guy in the air for 10 seconds then the game is over.
At a certain point pro play starts to converge until everyone looks the same. Really once you've got the game for a week and played every character and seen animations for special moves, that's like half the joy gone for casuals.
Bad matchmaking is another issue. Unlike Fifa or Cod, where at least beginners can contribute somehow, fighting games is straight up waiting for your enemy to let you hit once for minutes. If i lose a game 10 times in a row when i first play, that game has to have a lot variety and other things to keep me interested.
At the very least, I'm not playing online single player, i'll play with mates around the same level. But after a couple of rounds we'll probably switch to fifa or cod.
Lastly, it's not a popular opinion, but the asshole autisitc gamer trope is heavy with fighting games. Spending 20 hours learning what is basically a university course on a single series or maybe even just a version of a fighting game....I'm not doing that. And i'm not passionate to play against people doing that. At least I can avoid these people in cod. I'm happy with a couple of kills or goals in Fifa. But i'm not about to be bum-rushed by Kyle in his mom's basement school of infinite combos.
It's mentally challenging when playing a 1v1 than it is in a team based game. You can sometimes depend on someone on your team to pick up the slack if you aren't in your A-game. You can't do that in a fighting game or any 1v1 game. Also, losing in a 1v1 feels a lot tougher than when you're on a team.
My idea for different ways to play w/ friends is to add in a side scrolling beat em up mode to your 2d fighter. I know its been done before but I wish another new fighting game would do it again. Also good video, glad I watched it.
Interesting mode! That’s be super cool maybe they can add a rogue light element to it like you only start with certain moves
(pre-watch take) Not anymore. But they still have the stigma.
I feel like the real reason fighting games are hard to get into is the fact people see giant flashy combos and think that's the main part of fighting games
Yes that but it's also because of how complicated even basic actions are in fighting games compared to other genres. Blocking for example, in games like Smash Bros, it's one button and it's a bubble so it guards from in front and behind you, you're truly standing your ground negate an attack and you can do many simple defensive actions from block like rolling, sidestepping and jumping all being very simple to do and understand. In traditional fighting games you need to hold back to block which always puts you at a disadvantage whether or not you block an attack or not and people new to fighting games probably won't realize walking back into the corner of the screen is a bad idea until it's far too late.
I agree with people about can't get carried in fighting games. But that's not the only point. The other thing is it is just harder than other games. Shooter has less steep learning curve because you don't have to be constantly guessing what your enemy will do every split second. A lot of decision making in street fighter has to be done in super short timeframe. Not only in trying to whiff punish, but there are lots of decision to be made in super short timeframe when deciding to use resources or not (for example we have drive meter and super meter). In shooter, of course having fast reflex and accuracy (mechanic things) will carry you a lot. But you don't have to constantly be aiming and do fast reflex. You may hide on the corner, make up strategy on what you wanna do, throw flashbang or do something else? In term of timeframe, it is much forgiving than fighting game.
At least that is what I think on what makes fighting game hard to enter. Sure once you are good at fighting games, those stuff you must decide in very short timeframe might become intuition, and become enjoyable. It's just the BAR TO ENTRY is the one that is high and normally you will suck a lot in fighting game when you are just starting.
My friend says "im not playing a game that i will get boddied"
And yes, its easier to see other people mistakes and be ass about it than correcting your own.
Is either laziness to learn about something or just they cant blame someone else for a mistake (except 2xko)
My answer is no/yes. Literally just depends if the game rewards raw hits well enough compared to fancy stuff. So street fighter, yes but say Skullgirls no. Basically the more devs punish "playing lame" the harder it is for new people to have fun because new players usually just do slap fights.
Games on the right are immediately more meaningful and provoke decision making, while games on the left take hundreds of hours to even understand what is going on. And all this only with the immense usage of training mode. That's it.
A lot of newer fighting games lean heavily into prescribed combat, which isn't for everyone. That is to say, they design problems such that you need to do one specific thing to answer it. Which also makes it a harder sell. Having to look up, "Oh, I do x to counter this move" then still fail because you're getting the timing wrong so you have to go into training mode to try it out - and this happening multiple times trying to learn the game. You can lose an entire set for no reason other than failing a knowledge check.
A lot of popular games DO have prescribed gameplay but they also generally have fewer options and the answers are way more obvious. In Simon Says game design that is popular with AAA, it's "The guy flashes red, so do the one thing that you always do when someone flashes red." In fighting games it's, "How do I beat this one move on a character with dozens of different moves all of which are causing me a problem?" "Oh, you have to do the barrier block but only if you're standing because crouching blocking has different frames that make it so you won't get out also the guy might tick throw so it's not even really an answer."
This also makes it harder to try out a different character so you have to lock in a main early and if you ever feel compelled to try something else or even if you just want to pick a different character for novelty you need to basically learn the entire game from the ground up again. If a patch completely changes the way your character plays - even if it's via a buff - in a way that you don't enjoy you have to make the decision to either drop all the hours you put into your main or deal with playing something you don't find fun.
It's really hard to say, because a lot of different things have been tried already. Granblue not only has a free version with a rotating roster, they also have gran bruise, which is a casual fallguys like mode with rewards and all that for playing it too. Do people really care about Granblue like that? Doesn't seem like it to me. Modern controls in sf6 has done wonders for it in Japan it seems, where there are a healthy amount of players who got into the game because of those controls and stick with it, but if you look over in the US, mad people bitch about modern and give people who use it all sorts of shit, so no one wants to put up with it. The viewership for events in Japan go crazy too, so whatever they did, it seems to be working very well over there if nowhere else. You could say making the games free to play would help, but Tekken tried this in the past with Tekken Revolution and that ultimately didn't work out, and there's naturally the issue with monetization like we see with multiversus. Free to play will not be cheap by any means.
So I don't really know what the answer is.
The fall guys mode is cool and all but it’s not the base game. But yea sf6 in japan is huge right now I think sf6 reaches it’d peak when the Japanese people are playing
Tbh we over think the answer, it’s labbing, in other games you can watch and learn, but because fighting games have so man different setups and frames, a lot of interesting things come out of it.
The answer is actually incredibly simple - they are free to play. Fighting games not only are paid, but they also have paid dlc with characters releasing constantly throughout the game's lifespan, which can cost you a LOT. On top of the fact that these games also usually don't have regional pricing. So already just that cuts out a big big chunk of potential players.
And outside of Granblue none of the current big fighting games even tried to have some sort of f2p version.
Really looking forward to 2XKO shaking this situation up.
There are a million reasons really. It’s different reasons for different people. I got the itch for a competitive game that didn’t require me to sit for too long and also wasn’t team based. After watching some SF6 tournaments and high level replays I was mesmerized and just thought it was cool as heck.
One of the major problems is that the big fighting games right now kind of suck ass competitively so even if you get better you're just rewarded with the game getting worse.
That's why you should try to get your friends into rivals of Ather II which is an excellently designed competitive platform fighter that only gets better
Rivals of aether II got a terrible onboarding system but the game is great! I haven’t been playing too much with all the games that are out right now
i think 1 of the main reason is you cant blame someone if you lose in a fighting game while on moba if you lose you can blame someone if you lose a game.
When i asked my friends why they don't play fight games, they told me they just dont like the game dynamics
I think a lot of people feel that way
The way new fighting games are made easier and have gained more players than ever shows that it was too hard. Games like League is very complex but it's very easy to play.
But these new fighting games aren't retaining players.
Bro who? I'm barely seeing new players play them
I'm gonna guess the reason why people don't want to spend time going into fighting games is because they only don't want to go beyond the basics that is required to be at least good at them.
Street Fighter cross Tekken also did 2 players playing at the same time it unfortunately didn't get to work out
Tho 4 players fighting could be one of the reasons Smash is such a popular fighter
Learning is alot harder in fighting games, learning mobas is also hard.
Learning fighting games alone can attribute to it being harder too
I played starcraft 2, then tcgs, then got into fighting games in my 30s. I do sort of feel they're harder, it took me longer to be 'master capable' than it did in sc2 or card games, learning from scratch, and that's after having competitive experience where with sc2 I was really starting from scratch. It's a conundrum but I think, tied to the friend thing, I think it's also that there's so much in fighting games you can't learn from watching. You just have to feel it. There's no fighting game comparison to scouting in sx2, or to knowing the decks that are popular in a tcg. You have to read the individual you just matched and never heard of before. It's unique! A unique genre imo
People prefer the feeling of being in a field making small-to-large contributions to something bigger that others are working towards. Compared to being locked in a box fending for their life and reputation.
In Street Fighter X Tekken it was possible to play 2vs2, each person with a character.
I never knew! I wonder if net code was an issue
I think the biggest reason the fgc sees a huge lack of growth isnt because of lack of single player content, motion inputs, or lack luster onboarding. I think 2xko and multiversus(for all its faults) proved that people will gravitate to a game because its free and they can play with their friends not against them. SF6 in Japan has gotten really popular due to the amount of streamers doing these team battles vs each other. Its entertaining to watch and the SF league in Japan is massively popular in Japan possibly as a result. But saying FGs are hard to get into compared to other games just makes no sense.
I think the next step is for tekken to release “tekken tag 3” or just put a tag ranked mode and it be essentially a team of three and people have to strategically have teams. That way you’d have to have an anchor, an infantry, and a a Calvary type role for each team of three. It works online as well because it allows for players to play with people better than them and learn.
I think it’s the social aspect. Many people game with groups of friends in party chats, and fighting games just aren’t really intuitive when it comes to gaming with friends. Me and my friends love fighting games but it gets boring trying to play in a group and having to wait your turn. I can run a 1v1 set for hours but group sets start to get boring quickly and I usually just suggest playing something else that we can play at once, like a shooter or rocket league etc.
The biggest problem has always been entry cost. Everything else is just people's excuse.
i can't get my friends to play fighting games with me bc they don't want to vs me, or it's a group of friends and ppl don't wanna just watch or w/e. It's frustrating to learn, i get it
love fighting games, can't play them tho. the AI kicks my ass on the easiest difficulty
You're weirdo
I've been playing games since I was at least 7 years old.
I've played a few fighting games as a kid then dropped them and usually played either LoL or shooters. I only recently got back into fighting games and imo being at least somewhat decent at a fighting game is easier than being decent at a shooter.
I almost always finish last on the scoreboard in shooters... regardless if I'm playing with friends or not. I just can't have good aim and movement unless I play and train hard every day (even then it's just ok at best).
Imo, the biggest reason we don't have more people playing fighting games is because there's no free to play games that actually offer a lot.
Granblue is too limiting, so really all hope is in 2XKO right now.
All eyes on 2XKO right now
Modern fighting games are easier to get into, but older fighting games are a lot harder to get into.
In league even the worst player can have a high impact moment. FGs if your worst you are never going to have a good moment.
Examples
SF6 if you don’t know you can mash through Ken’s 2MK+ M Jinari into overhead follow up. You are going to get smoked by a knowledge check.
In league. You can put a noob on seraphine support. They can int the whole laning phase. Then at 25 minutes Seraphine presses R through 5 people at the baron fight. Graves and Yone kills everyone. Enemy FFs. The 0/8/2 seraphine help set up the winning play for the carry Top/JG.
The only way to learn is being beaten over and over. You can try the cheese from time to time but its only going to get you far.
I wonder why people would prefer playing games ALONG SIDE THEIR FRIENDS than play a game ALONE. I wooooonder why
Amazing explanation and content bro. I have been playing fighting games since I was around age 9 or 10 with SF2 on snes. What I can say is that it gets easier over time, the more variation of fighting games you play there is a level of understanding or approach that you can apply to all fighting games, it carries over actually. I am not good at FPS shooter games no matter which I try, but my friends who are really good at it, they make up the next FPS as if it were nothing. Fighting games as well there are no rewards for losing, for example you can land the best combo ever and still lose the game, it was for nothing. Where by in FPS games you land a sweet shot and still probably not leader on the kill board and win or lose it was something special, it is also a shared reward, I play titan fall 2 and I’m not that good but the game is fun, there are times I have the least kills but my team still wins, I’m happy 😂, fighting games are just something else man but I love them and have a pretty large collection of them. Great Content again bro, and I appreciate the Chrono Trigger music.
It's too hard to get into, absolutely not. But hard to stay with, yes. Because the average casual forgets that a competitive game is competitive, which means losing is part of the fun. Fighting games have been made so easy, heck even "Divekick" proved a point with a literal two button system that no matter how easy you make it, it was never about the control schemes and that people didnt want to put in the effoet to get better and they just want to win. Marketing teams knew this, and its why most games show how accessible they are, like when SF5 did the Daigo versus Lupe Fiasco match to advertise how easy SF5 was.
Attention spans are shortening too, I think another point to the argument is the actual player base not wanting to put in any actual effort/see any value in grinding in a fighting game
I think we also have to start considering the price tag of fighting games. On your thumbnail all the non-fighting games you listed are free. Them being free gives people more of an incentive just to try it out and more often than not it leads them to becoming a long time player.
Another reason to add is there is no other gaming genre that plays like fighting games. If you've played an action adventure game in the last couple of years, you're probably familiar with aiming and moving in 3d environments using mouse and keyboard or controller. Just knowing how to do that means you have some understanding of shooter fundamentals. But there is no modern genre outside of fighting games which asks you to do combos by buffering motion inputs during your normal animation to cancel into a special or super.
I mentioned the price tag in the video!
i learned league by myself...and i remember using the left hand to move the camera with the arrows and clicking all my skills with mouse xD somehow it worked for me back then.
Fighting game simply offer no incentive to play them. Remember when you unlocked characters, costums, modes by doing the arcade modes or other modes with characters ? Now fighting games are launching with everything unlocked and are just a store for DLCs. I see no reason to waste my time playing them if they offer nothing for me to look forward to.
Ok, hear me out. Fighting games are easy to get into. They are just hard to improve at. I play fighting games with my friends, and we love playing together for hours trying to improve and beat each other. For example, we play gulty gear, and he has 900 hours over me, so he would clearly be better, but i have the same understanding of the game and ik how to play it at a high level. But he will still beat my ass with a ratio of like 16:4, and i dont understand why. This is what i consider my bottleneck in terms of improvement and this is what i think a lot of people have once they get to a certain point in any type of game, its just that people reach this bottleneck in fighting games way quicker than in any other type of game is what i think puts people off.
I think generally people like to play games and be somewhat competent. Fighting games are really not too hard to learn, but many gamers have little experience with fighting games. If FPS were niche and someone tried one for the first time, I would imagine it would be hard to control the analogs or KBM movements.
They just don't have a way to meet, talk, and make new connections in the game.
Its because they're not free.
consider how many of the big multiplayer fps still cost money i wouldn't say so
it is a factor for entry but not as big as you think
Overwatch used to paid and it was popular af
@@hikarihakai1285there aren’t many. Cod? The ONLY reason people play that is because of nostalgia. The brand name carries that game SO hard, it’s insane. If a game identical to Cod came out under a different name and from a different company, nobody would play it. The same is true for ANY sports game. Fifa, 2k, Madden, etc. The most popular games are, in fact, free. Free = low commitment. In an economy where pinching pennies is necessary, people don’t want to risk spending $60 on a game they might not even like. It’s also appealing to kids who don’t have their own money, ao it’s a lot easier to download and play free games than asking mommy and daddy for $60 (again, for a game they don’t even know if they’ll like). So games like League, Fortnite, Valorant, Rocket League, and Roblox are the most popular right now because of how accessible they are. This problem doesn’t stop at fighting games, but for any bought game in general.
@@MyNameIsIisan there are some other too but that is why I said it is only a factor rather than saying it is not the reason entirely
And idk why you feel the need to talk something so obvious like free game being popular I already know that like most as I myself play them all the time and the argument for being free playing huge factor really is depend on the genre still
The problem fighting game have is more so still the entry barrier making it hard to commit and being free is only a factor into it since there are free fighting game out there one with good marketing and already a fan base before release like idol showdown but at the end of the day it is still not that popular
Even something like 2XKO will have this problem, it is hard for these game to have people commit to them even if they are free, it will mainly be a party game for most since unlike in FPS where you have teammate in fighting game it is 1vs1 making it rather boring and frustrating for some after a while outside of playing with friend
@ i hear what you’re saying. My bad for making it seem like you were saying something else
People are too good at games in general now for fighting games to be enjoyable, there's a reason fighting games started declining after its arcade death.
Fighting games are more popular and bigger than they've ever been
I typically have 1 of 2 experiences after introducing a friend to a fighting game. The more casual ones ask things like "so what do I get for winning?" and the more competitive ones usually think fondly of the game but don't really get why they should invest time in it.
Interesting do they invest time into other competitive games?
1.most fighting game aren’t free to play and all the DLC are expensive as hell
2.theres no obvious direction for where you’re going to do or get in fighting games, in fps games u expected to pick up a gun and shoot and that’s what you get, fighting games are confusing as hell with all the options for new players.
fighting games isn’t hard, it’s just confusing at first, and if people doesn’t have fun from the start, they sure will drop the game after a while.
I just wish arcade fighting games gave the option for more western controls like mortal kombat......I just can't hit those diagonal inputs on my d-pad....its frustrating where i can't even relax when playing cuz im gonna drop a combo every 2 minutes
sf6 has modern! but if you talking strictly arcade then yea i dont think theres any work around
9:47 Well actually, there's the Extreme Battle on SF6, which is...a more casual way of playing the game I guess ?
I guess it is, because I sometime get my brother to play some Streets with me, and he enjoyed way more the Extreme Battle than the classic 1v1
Probably the only thing keeping the dev to do more casual friendly stuff is because it just get forgotten by 99% of the player base...
like I tried once to go on the battle hub to play some Extreme Battle, and I struggled to get paired with someone because no one goes to the dark corners of this place xD
I forget it exist sometimes 😭 glad to know it helped with your brother wanted to play but I think casual games modes can still work if they do it right
really happy to hear the chrono trigger ost
I will always say that the reasons FGs aren't as popular as other PvP games is because most people can't take a loss that's 100% on them. A lot seems to need to blame someone or something else.
fighting games are easy to get into. It is literally the best option as a game genre when you want to have fun with your friends. but they are maybe the hardest to master. you need to invest thousands of hours to achieve a level of mastery, and this mastery is "game" specific. it does not translate to other games. for instance I m good at street fighter generally, I can fairly say I am (was) a master sf4 player, but I am not that good at sf3. I suck at tekken, bad at mortal kombat. but I can probably beat casuals after a few hours of labbing.
fighting games also require a high level of dexterity on top of a high amount of knowledge. You cant downplay it like "it is just motion inputs!". I have also been playing guitar for over 25 years. I have the dexterity, I also have the knowledge. If I were to touch a piano I will surely play it better than a beginner who s been taking lessons.
finally...I also have over 2000 hours on dota. in fps games or mobas you play as a team. you always have someone to blame other than yourself when you lose. but in fighting games it is all on you. so losing makes you frustrated, and you stop playing after a few losses.
YOu say they are easy to get into but you have 25 years of playing guitar and then say you need 1000s of hours for mastery. Also a big problem people have is that no one else wants to play them out of friend groups. So yea if you have the dexterity built up over years of playing music and a friend group who's interested maybe then they're easy to get into!
@@BarringtonDailey you dont need to be a master to enjoy fighting games. getting into does not mean achieving master level. it means figuring the basics out and having fun playing it. if you are just getting into street fighter you will not enjoy playing against daigo, but you will when playing with friends or people at your level.
Skill issue, fighting games are for the most part entirely dependent on your decision making..mfs just don't want to pick up the sticks and go through the multiple ass beatings it'll take in an FG before you even remotely "get it". That's why for people I get into any Fighting Game I play, I teach then fundamentals first, then fighting game mentality (why play like this vs that), and punishes that are easy to understand. Like dp punishing in SF, seeing your turns, etc.
some people don't like trying, they find effort cringeworthy and failing an impassable blocker. I had all that beaten out of me by fromsoft.
People like easy stuff. FGs are THE most mechanically deep, complex and intricate games in the entire gaming industry and it's not close
I have a group of friend who play shooting games and fighting games, they unanimously agree FG are unbelievably more difficult
I disagree with your initial statement. Casual gamers aside, people like challenges, otherwise they get bored fast. The best case scenario is a game that is easy to learn and hard to master. Tetris would be a good example for it. Few pieces, cristal clear objectives. But it's super hard to compete against really good players who are lightning fast, know about openers, T, S, Z, L, J, I spins (in modern Tetris), back-to back-chaining etc..
But fighting games are hard to learn and hard to master. It's a fascinating concept and I think I'd really enjoy being good, but I am not. And to get there will take a good amount of time. I believe it's worth it in the end, but you have to endure a lot of frustration until you know what you're doing. And that's something not too many people are willing to accept.
No, you're not more intellectual and smarter because you play fighting games
Fighting games are complex but these other games get just as complex to be honest. League is known to have a huge learning curve yet tons of people play it
This is just amazingly wrong.
First of all how are you gonna claim “people like it easy, fighting games are hardcore dude” when fighting games have nuked all their execution requirements off the earth, hardcore gamers can’t do a dp motion but “casual” FPS players are expected to master spray control, movement techniques WHILE GAMES LIKE TEKKEN GOT ITS MOVEMENT NUKED
Fighting games are more neutered than any other genre, is filled with the least skilled players for the most part. In 2024 they are a watered down experience while every other genre is adding depth
But even if they weren’t…. Has mans ever tried brood war ?
@@Havokerino league has a learning curve like most well created games. But fighting games learning curves are not only MUCH steeper, but requires different levels of different aspects of skill to even start playing let alone getting good. Comparing them mechanically, it's not close
Guilty Gear Strive also just added a 3v3 mode. It is far more casual than 2XKO, but still seems like a decent place to learn moves and basic mechanics.
New fighting game players aren’t online sweats, they need casual content
Man I really hope I like 2xko when it comes out.
I played the play test and I’m not the biggest fan of tag fighters but it was fun with friends. I hope it does well too
Its simple. Most gamers would rather camp and engage other players at a distance instead of upclose and head to head. And the loss in shooters is swift vs getting juggled for 2 minutes. Theres a reason why the casual audience prefers the likes of Injustice and Mortal Kombat vs other fighters because you can run away with projectile heavy characters for the w instead of throwing hands.
Those Souls-like players will preach into your ears that high difficulty makes their games appealing and rewarding yet they won't even touch a fighting game 1nd their games keep having millions of players and FGs remain a niche
You can fight for fifth place in a racing game go for kills in a shooter even if you teams are losing in a fighting game it's just you lose on top of that if you are losing you aren't playing
They make fighting games braindead these days and people still complain how hard it is to
The worst part about modern fighters, and racing games, is that they are dlc sims, and then the fanboys even defend it. No, we don't need to buy Akuma in every game to Dave the small multi-billiinmdollar company. Just add him to the base roster already. They will make more than enough green numbers even with new characters in a season pass. But nope, let's defend paid frame data...or pay 2 win characters, or removing customisation to add it to a battle pass... Man Tekken really fell off
Ya funny thing is the only reason i play fighting games because i suck at aiming and shooting
Tekken Tag let you pay 2 v 2 with 4 players and Tag 2 flopped hard. It almost killed Tekken
Did it flop because of mechanics or netcode? I’m surprised to hear the 4 played method was attempted