Are Fighting Games REALLY the most difficult genre?

#streetfighter6 #jmcrofts #sf6

[ThisisKyle]

I think one thing that contributes to why fighting games were more popular in the early 2000s but not as much until very recently is because in the 2000 they were still generally played as couch games. Games that were made for bringing friends over to all sit on the same couch and share the controller. When video games started becoming online it was found out pretty quick that fighting games had terrible online connections so they fell out of favor until recently when these companies finally figured out how to fix their internet

[TWKIC]

I'm sure someone else mentioned it, but with Fighting games, its a 1v1, no teammates to help you, which means players can experience more losses. Even if you only get one kill in a team based shooter, you get the satisfaction of the win if the rest of the team carried, which can translate to the feeling of skill progression and more incentive to play.

[crash]

It's just like you said, there's too many 'barriers' to play these games.

First, the price. I'm from a third world country, a fighting game can cost half a whole month low-wage salary, which the majority of people are.

Second, If I were to buy it, it could just be sitting on dust because internet is mid at best, I can only play the offline content, and I'm sure that's not the main point of an FG in general.

Should I invite friends? Back to point 1, and their worries of point 2.

Like someone said in a comment I saw somewhere: "This genre is really good at gatekeeping itself."

[ilikestamps]

A dog performed a hadoken, a blind dude played SF4, and a paraplegic played with his mouth.

[ChiisaiRamen]

What causes people to think fighting games are hard is they're jumping into advanced play too soon. People think fighting games are all about doing motion inputs or combos when to actually learn to play properly and win in the earlier ranks all you need to do is learn which button is a good poke, which is a good punish, and which is a good anti air

[chrisolivares-tojf]

Older fighting games with no buffer and brutal execution were definitely up there. Modern fighting games not so much.

[MSlocum]

RTS is even harder than FPS, Fighters and Mobas.

[AstroVaikis]

As someone who played most competitive genres (fps, mobas, card games, you name it) and got into fgc with sf6 I felt at first it was hardest but over time what i learned is that it seemed easiest to improve, there is no variables like teammates or rng in card games, i feel like its easier to work on yourself and improve, I am low mr master sure not great, but i never went outside of like silver ranks in other games, always stayed average no matter how much time i spend in them, in fighting games there is so many spesific guides and community is always willing to help and everyone has positive look towards getting better

[joshuapaul]

4:40 I actually agree with this tweet's initial statement but I disagree with their reasoning, or maybe it's just that it's not quite the right phrasing.

Playing optimally in fighting games is all about taking away your opponent's options, and even their autonomy. You want to keep them in the combo or disadvantage state as long as possible.

This is an incredibly hard pill to swallow if you're an avid gamer in most genres but are new to fighting games. You'll play opponents that are better than you (which is not unique to fighting games) and spend the majority of the match without the ability to control your character (this part IS unique to FG)

In a sense, this does make fighting games counterintuitive to most types of gamers and provides a lack of incentive for the standard gamer mindset to try and improve.

[miguelr]

4:40 Personally, I feel this comment is EXACTLY correct. Perhaps they aren't more difficult in total, but they are famously difficult to get into(and often unable to retain people consistently) Your explanation of, "Just kill the other character" is shockingly 1 layer and two-dimensional.

The problem, like the tweet mentioned, is that a lot of titles still feel like old games, and many people find them to control unintuitively as a result. Remember, in these games, the left stick/D-Pad is you horizontal movement, vertical movement, offense, AND defense. Many often find that to be either clunky or unfun. If you gathered people who started playing fighting games around GrandBlue/SF6 and gave them an old Capcom, old Arcsys, or ANY Snk game, a lot of them would complain.

[Gnolle]

Learning league for the first time was one of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had playing a video game.

Well over 100 characters, thousands of unique builds and play styles, and on top of all of that inherent knowledge, you actually gotta play the game on top of that.

Compare that to SF6; 23 characters, with only about a dozen moves each. It’s also a lot easier to understand mistakes you made in a match that’s only 2-5 minutes compared to 40 against a character you’ve never faced.

Sure SF6 is on the easier end of fighting games, but that’s more of a testament to its design, and not how hard fighting games are.

Fighting games are hard to learn, but any inherent discourse about them being the “hardest gaming genre, ” isn’t true. Truthfully, ANYTHING can be hard to learn, especially when you’re starting out, we all learn at different paces.

Learning things takes time, it’s okay to be bad at things, but “unintuitive, ” isn’t entirely true. Most things feel unintuitive when you’re still learning them.

If you have 1000 hours to learn League, you can dedicate 50-100 to learn about a fighting game.

[saulgoodguy]

As a lifelong FPS player who has always had a interest in fighting games, I would say fighting games are harder for me.

I think each genre is difficult in its own way and my brain is just bad at the type of skill fighting games require. I will continue to watch and appreciate fighting games forever, but I dont think Ill ever be able to play them at anything more than a casual level unfortunately.

[BeanXPFoX]

I personally think it's 90% price. Fighting games are quite expensive especially with season passes, and a lot of esports are free games. I think there really is an appetite for sweaty, difficult competitive games, considering how popular games like TFT, league/dota, CS/Valorant, rocket league are. So if more fighting games were free, I think the idea that they're too hard to get into would turn out to be a myth.

[Xirbtt]

4:55 I don’t agree with this. Recalling my first few times playing 2d fighters the movement is NOT intuitive and easy to figure out and I’ll be honest, most 2d fighters feel bad to move around in. 3d fighters can feel better, be this because of the zaxis or being able to run easier, I’m unsure. I just know Solcalibur 2 feels better to play as a casual than SF3S.

5:50 I agree with the commentators. Speaking as someone learning fighting games going online and losing doesn’t make anyone better, because the knowledge of how or why you lost is not apparent or easily discernible. There are allot of fundamental ideas and concepts that when looked up and known about will take you further than playing for 10 hours in floor 3 of GGStrive or in Bronze in SF.

[matiaspereyra]

5:00 okay I disagree with the tweet too but this answer is kinda dumb, imagine this being all the coaching you give to someone, intuitively knowing what the objective is Is not the same as intuitively knowing how to actually play, that person is saying that the emergent gameplay is not intuitive and while that's kinda correct i don't think that's what makes fighting games inaccessible
5:41 idk if I like that one either, people have lives you can't really expect someone new to fighting games to brute force fighting gaming, we were able to because a) everyone was in the same boat and b) we played with friends that did the same as us, secondly I remember back in the day when Minecraft told you nothing, I played back then, I liked the game but I have to say, it was cheeks, discovering new crafting recipes felt nice and was exciting to tell your friends about it, sure, but when they added the glossary the game became better as a matter of fact (not saying that there's a 1:1 equivalent, combo trials are as close as you're gonna get and that's not always the best but it is something) TLDR this is a type of answer we old people tend to land on that sort of forgets context as a concept all together

[wawayoung]

One of the reasons I am reluctant to commit to fighting games is that they would release a new version every few years and I hate that I have to buy the game over and over again because the community will obviously migrate to the new game and leave the old game behind and I do not want to play where there are no players online.

[kumonojuza]

Shmups are the hardest genre and it's not even close

[ireallydontknow]

I've played pretty much any genre there is. I got to diamond in league, ancient rank in dota, don't really like fps games but I played those as well and I finally reached master rank in sf6 after putting in the hours
On one hand, I have to say it wasn't as hard as people might think. I barely had 100 hours when I got my first character Jamie to master rank and I was Platinum peak in sfv (I kinda stopped playing once I achieved that feat), then I got Ed to master rank in 1 week, and recently got Akuma to master rank in 2 days.
I have 2.5k hours on dota, definitely the same amount in league and only 400 hours or so in sfv and sf6 combined, yet I achieved higher ranks in street fighter than in mobas (which were my favorite genre back in high school).
Despite all of this, I can easily say I had a way harder time learning street fighter than either dota or lol (dota was pretty hard to learn though). I think it's down to the fact that you are 1v1, like you're not gonna have an experienced or semi-experienced player on your team carrying you, it's all you, if you make a mistake you answer for your actions alone. There is only so much you can do in a moba to win, but in a fighting game, you have to do everything in order to win.

[Sahipkıran]

Surprisingly, that "fighting games are hard" argument comes from shooter game players, strategy game players, soulslike players etc. No one talks about these other genres' difficulty. As a fighting game enthusiast, whenever i see a fortnite player running, jumping, shooting and building at the same time, or a csgo player doing headshot in 0.1 milisecond when they see enemy, my anxiety level goes up.

[EmberGyaru]

Here's my take:

I've been playing fighting games (and video fames in general) since the first iteration of Street Fighter 2 in arcades. Used to be a mall rat at the arcade, too. Most fighting games that release, I buy them. I have City of the Wolves pre-ordered.

I can kick asses in From Soft games (I love most of them), which are often considered some of the hardest.

For me, fighting games ARE on a different level. I said I've been playing them for a long-ass time; I didn't say I'm good at them.

I can understand the controls and pull off special moves, sure. But playing on a level that is actually enjoyable doesn't exist for me.

I don't want to button-mash. I want to pull off calculated, purposeful strategies when I want to. I DON'T want to memorize 1458993 moves and angles, and crazy-motion techniques to get to X game's meta under-the-hood deep-knowledge-dependent gameplay.

Training modes and frame data are boring af. And believe me, I've spent hundreds of hours in training rooms over the years.

Concisely, fighting games are very quickly boring for me because I can't competently do fun stuff.

Further, getting to the level of what I would consider fun seems to take a different, possibly more complex skill set that will never be worth my time and bashing my head against to learn.

It's just not rewarding enough to continue, and I'm not sure fighting games can ever really find a good middle ground to truly get me pushing forward. And that might just be the way I'm built, but perhaps others feel this way too and understand.

*Also, before you tell me to get a training partner, I'm a loner. I play games alone, and I like it that way. The best parts of fighting games for me end up being the skill trials. And if you think that's my problem, because I prefer learning and gaming alone, I'm sure hordes of people have gotten great at fighting games without partners. And also, if having a partner is a barrier to entry into, "the fun, " wouldn't that show some shortcomings or that fighting games do, indeed, require a different, more limiting way to learn and have fun with them?

**Freaking love your chanel btw, JM. Been watching for years 🤟