Fighting games, air juggling getting out of hand?

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Stiler

[H]F Junkie
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With the recent influx of new fighting games (SF/MVC3/Mortal Kombat) has anyone else thought that the whole move toward "air juggling" has gotten absurdly out of hand?

It seems to boil down to fights where whomever can keep their opponent "in the air" the longest and string together combo's (where the person getting hit can't block/move. A few might have a breaker that you can pull off (more luck based in MvC3's case).

Maybe I'm just jaded, but why can't they come up with something new? Where fights are less about keeping the enemy from being able to actually fight and more like a game of chess. On top of this air juggling just seems absurd and silly to me, yes even in games with freakin laser beams!

When you're fighting there shouldn't (imo) be times where it feels like you're not in control of your fighter, there should always be ways to break/counter things if you know when and how.
 
Um, a few facts.

Street Fighter 4 has far less juggles than the earlier ones. Hell 3s had more air items, and Alpha3 you could carry them in the air across the entire screen and then juggle them in the corner. It has far less.

Mortal Kombat, ditto. In UMK3 or MK2 you'd get hit in the air and juggled the crap out of. Hell in MK1 three of the characters could just hop punch juggle you straight across the screen.

As for MVC3, it has less air juggling infinites than Xmen vs SF, marvel super heroes vs SF, marvel vs capcom, and marvel vs capcom 2 by a large margin.

So no, the games actually have less bullshit when it comes to that sort of nonsense than ever before.

All that's changed is with the internet more people are learning that this was possible. In UMK3 I could get 60-80% of your life in a single juggle with Smoke or Ermac off any combo or if you were stupid enough to jump. In SF A3 I could get 60% and like 20 hits off a single juggle with Akuma from anywhere in the screen. In hokuto no ken I can kill you off a juggle or it will run out the clock, in the prior VS games from Capcom there are multiple characters that I can infinite combo you into a juggle.

It's not as bad as it was, it's just now people are being exposed to mid level or higher players who do this sort of stuff on a regular basis. If the other guy isn't able to do that sort of damage or higher, he sucks.
 
sd11 is right; the latest games in the major series have actually toned things down a little bit. I agree that it's still a little out of hand.

I prefer 3-6 moves per combo, after that it gets to be a bit much for me to remember. I prefer combo's to be quick so that I can get back to the fight instead of watching my character be a punching bag for 18 minutes.
 
The Juggling mechanic is a large reason I haven't played any beat-em-ups in decades. You remember that little orange dinosaur in Tekken who could perform an unavoidable tail whirl thing every half a second, or the bicycle kick by whatever-she's-called-with-princess-leia-hair-and-tree-trunk-thighs? Those things resulted in many a broken gamepad, AH TELL YA WHUT.
 
I was using understatement.

I think my favorite comboing was probably in the first Virtua Figher. There were some high damage ones, but they didn't just do the same thing over and over and they were over quickly.
 
Mozex said:
I was using understatement.

I think my favorite comboing was probably in the first Virtua Figher. There were some high damage ones, but they didn't just do the same thing over and over and they were over quickly.
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3d fighters never suffered the "hold my beer and watch this" symptom that 2d fighters did.

And Capcom fighters didn't always rank up to 15 second long monster combos

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+street+fighter+2+turbo+combos&aq=f

Before you'd just ice their has in 3-5 hits into super or dizzy, takes less than 5 seconds.

The thing is, these games have always been about very basic moves, ie pokes, and forcing someone to fuck up once and then, wham, it's over, you're done, GTFO here and don't come back.

It's just before, noobs didn't get to see how good players played, now with the internet they really do. So noobs thought they were playing the game right, and they weren't. It's all about small footsies to force on mistake, or a mix up to force them to guess wrong once and then you crucify them.
 
That's the thing, it's not about being ia "noob" but rather the actual gameplay, to me a fighting game shouldn't be a one-slip and you're fucked thing, it should be a tug of war back and fourth of strategy that you can use strategy to overcome virtually any situation if you know what an dhow to do it.

Imagine in chess if you made one bad move of a piece and then the opponent went and air juggled his way through your entire front row and opened a way to your king for one mishap without an ability to come back or overcome it.
 
It is a tug back and forth.

Take the classic Ryu vs Ken match. It actually has fuck all to do with hadokens and dragon punches. It's about spacing, ken using his standing MK and kara throws and the vast majority of Ryu's game is all around his crouching MK into whatever.

There is a crap ton of back and forth here, mind games, tricks, and all sorts of upper level meta games that goes into this.

The problem is that noobs have never had to play a proper opponent and don't see the higher level meta, and if you don't have to play against an opponent who can, and will, end your silly little world for a bad fireball or a bad dragon punch, you keep doing bad tactics that are strategically worthless unless you're playing a low level player.

High damage punish options exist to cripple stupid mistakes properly. The damage you take is usually proportionate to how stupid of a mistake you made.

If you are getting raged hard, odds are you made a move about as silly as sticking your king in the middle of the board and just left it there.

Again, back to Ken. A wiffed/blocked dragon punch or a fireball at the wrong range is the mark of a noob. And these mistakes are so utterly idiotic they leave you open to massive combos. On the flip side, a very advanced game off of mid kicks, kara throws, and crouching light punch is extremely safe, you're not going to put yourself in that many positions where the other guy has a chance to end you quickly. Those moves don't leave you open long enough to really get clocked by anything, and they apply pressure quickly enough the opponent won't have all day and night to mount an offense to open you up for a massive combo. But as soon as you pull a stupid and toss a fireball that can be jumped or go sailing up for a DP because you weren't thinking, you get clocked.

Similarly watch a top level Ryu play, you'll notice they don't really jump, at all, jumping is stupid. You will see a crap ton of light kick tatsus and rush punches for movement, not even to hit, and a metric ton of crouching mediums to maintain and control space. The only time you get a full juggle into ultra is when the other guy does something pretty silly, and it's generally 100% obvious when they screw the pooch.

Character pick can help as well, don't want to get tossed around like a rag doll in MK, don't pick Sub-zero, he's always been ass and a mid level or better player is going to wreck your day the first ice freeze you toss out that isn't in a combo or a perfect jump reaction because you just had a down syndrome brain fart. He's a low tier pile of crud that any decent player will wreck but is only popular because hes easy for noobs to pick up, but complaining about being tossed if you pick him is like crying because you drove your car into a wall, it's your own fault, you picked the scrub character and nobody forced you to do that.

The only game where getting juggled like a fool isn't a result of doing something dumb is the Marvel series, and it's always been that way, it's supposed to be broken.

Actually knowing the match up can help as well. Take Ryu, as his ultra is the easiest to juggle into. He's got two counter set-ups, off a defensive SRK, and off a double hit air MP. Solution, don't jump, jumping is a scrub tactic anyways for the most part. Next set-ups, he can combo into an FADC SRK into ultra juggle, or combo into an EX tatsu near the corner into the juggle. Don't be stupid when he get's enough meter to enable it, and realize a weaker player will try to force it when he gets it and bait that meter out of him so he can't. In all these cases, if he lands it you probably screwed up something major somewhere along those lines.

There will be a crap ton of back and forth before he commits to the combo, unless you aren't good at the game in which case you're going to screw up quick and oh well.
 
At least Marvel has air combo breakers. It can get frustrating to play against someone who is way better than you (say, air combo, bounce, super, bounce, super, etc). Hit quit and play someone else more your skill. I say this myself because I can tell I'm never going to memorize those kind of super-duper-duper-duper combos. What I find is that it is frustrating to play someone on Marvel that just does the same combo over and over again and doesn't really know much else - for a while I was really vulnerable to dudes that just jumped/teleported in over and over and over doing the same combo over and over and over. That gets very frustrating in any game.

I think SF4 is the most playable by a noob and the least at the same time. You can play it (wisely) kind of like SF2 and manage.

Every game has been victim to this to some extent. Sometimes someone pops into our Soul Calibur 4 room that does a 4-time stun/juggle combo that does like 60% health and knows a few of them for every character. I can't memorize that much and successfully pop it off all of the time - maybe one or two characters (I know a few nice ones with Cassandra).

Tekken has always had a ton of this also - if you know what you are doing, there's always been a ton of annoying juggling.
 
This is nothing new. You could air juggle in MK1 all the way up to the new one. Even Killer Instinct had it.
 
In MVC3 you really shouldn't be using the swap character function in air combos. Swap character should only be used when you are trying to tag out your own character, the same for dual hyper combos. And for the most part, characters can do more damage without the character swap out and with no risk of letting you out of the combo.

As for "the same combo", well some combos do more damage than others, you always want to maximize the damage you get per combo. You need to learn how to get the most out of it.

Some common cases of extremely easy yet practical options to continue. Dante can do his dive towards the ground after a combo, relaunch, hit twice, fire wheel back down and into super. This simply deals more damage than any other combo he has and leaves him with the option of dual hypering out. There is no reason outside of some very situational items to run with anything else. Or Sentinel, he can finish any air combo with an off the ground rocket punch into super, and dual hyper out if needed, there is no reason to go with anything else. Wolverine, can end anything with a drill claw, to dive kick, and then punt you back up into the air.

Good players aren't going to bounce you to other teammates in combos, it's really silly to do so. You can get more damage in other ways and do not risk a break. Even if your character, unlike the examples above, does not have an option to off the ground or relaunch you should already have an assist coming and be back on them as they get up for a second mix-up attempt to keep the pressure going.

Good basic combos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUZNveLAlQU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKlO-jruTH0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDC0VdTvOsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_pCeiTiLSE

If the other guy is doing a "bounce" ie a tag, for the purpose of a combo and not switching out an injured character, it's a sign that he sucks and doesn't know what he is doing, don't play scrubs playing bad people makes you worse, leave scrubs alone to continue to suck and don't develop bad habbits which is all playing low skill players will do. Those are all very basic "do it every time" combo's that just scratch the bare minimum of what you should be able to do on a technical level.

Would you try to get good at soccer by playing a 4 year old with no legs and down syndrome? Probably not, so don't play scrubs in fighters.

This is nothing new. You could air juggle in MK1 all the way up to the new one. Even Killer Instinct had it.
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Yeah, MK1, LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uct8bj_BwjY Cage, Kang, and one more top tier. Subzero and Scorpion utter shit tier and for noobs.

I again blame the internet. Back in the day not everybody knew you could pull this sort of stuff, so noobs and scrubs didn't have to deal with it. Now mid or high level players post their stuff online and anybody who is remotely decent at the game can see it and pick it up, and people complain when they get rolled by it.
 
Unreasonable punishment for mistakes such as being able to die to a string of combos because you made 1 mistake is the mark of bad game design.

That said most fighting games appear to be made to appeal to the masses and the masses aren't pro, that is to say that fighting games aren't really well tailored for high end competition, in fact most games that are well tailored for pro play are games which get continually refined based on the way pro players play the game. For example counter strike 1.6 is a highly competitive and well balanced game but that's on the shoulders of many years and millions of players all helping refine the core game.

The proper place for fighting games is places like the LAN we had this weekend, the new Mortal Kombat on a 100" projector screen with 6-7 guys all button mashing while having a laugh. If you're playing "pro" or competitively on a fighting game you've lost before you've started because they're so fundamentally unrefined for that kind of play.
 
I found a way to air juggle Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat 2. I had it down to a science. Worked on SNES and arcade. Too damn easy.
 
I dunno, I thought that Tekken 6 took the series in the wrong direction as they essentially doubled the duration of juggles. But I know that's not one of the games you mentioned.
 
Unreasonable punishment for mistakes such as being able to die to a string of combos because you made 1 mistake is the mark of bad game design.
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That only applies if you make really major, jaw droppingly, stupid mistakes. If you seriously have an issue where you are just getting rolled and unable to push the opponent you are bad at fighting games and should stop playing them, playing something easier.

That said most fighting games appear to be made to appeal to the masses and the masses aren't pro, that is to say that fighting games aren't really well tailored for high end competition, in fact most games that are well tailored for pro play are games which get continually refined based on the way pro players play the game.
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That is exactly what has happened with the street fighter and blaz-blue series, and to a lesser extent marvel. And they have been refined and tweaked for far longer than CS has even existed.

The proper place for fighting games is places like the LAN we had this weekend, the new Mortal Kombat on a 100" projector screen with 6-7 guys all button mashing while having a laugh. If you're playing "pro" or competitively on a fighting game you've lost before you've started because they're so fundamentally unrefined for that kind of play.
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Mortal Kombat is scrubby and if you are playing fighting games like that you should quit, and stick to FPS games. The games are refined for top level play, far more than most genres.
 
What the heck is a scrub tactic? Are you sure you're playing fighting games and not just listening to TLC albums all day?
 
Stiler said:
That's the thing, it's not about being ia "noob" but rather the actual gameplay, to me a fighting game shouldn't be a one-slip and you're fucked thing, it should be a tug of war back and fourth of strategy that you can use strategy to overcome virtually any situation if you know what an dhow to do it.

Imagine in chess if you made one bad move of a piece and then the opponent went and air juggled his way through your entire front row and opened a way to your king for one mishap without an ability to come back or overcome it.
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You want chess? Well some of the fighting games are more like checkers, all it takes is a bit of patience for the right setup and you can combo a whole lot. Chess doesn't allow you to make multiple moves, so if you want turn based fighting try an RPG :D

As for me... I find in MVC 3 Wolverines dive kick has lots of priority.... I used to be one of the better players at my local arcade (older games) , however I got online to play nowadays and get stomped.
 
sd11 said:
That only applies if you make really major, jaw droppingly, stupid mistakes. If you seriously have an issue where you are just getting rolled and unable to push the opponent you are bad at fighting games and should stop playing them, playing something easier.
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Elitist nonsense. Some people play games simply because they are fun and entertaining. Most people don't give a shit about "being pro." Some games are fine for the hardcore and casual gamers and those games aren't always the same. Some of us will play BFBC2 and others will play Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Whatever floats your boat. But that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't do well online should just not play the game. I know people that are plenty happy just playing the computer.

sd11 said:
That is exactly what has happened with the street fighter and blaz-blue series, and to a lesser extent marvel. And they have been refined and tweaked for far longer than CS has even existed.

Mortal Kombat is scrubby and if you are playing fighting games like that you should quit, and stick to FPS games. The games are refined for top level play, far more than most genres.
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More elitist bullshit. Mortal Kombat is a fun game. If you don't agree then whatever. I don't give a shit if the pros like it or not. I also get sick and tired of "it takes no skill to win" arguments. That's absurd. People who have more skill in a given game will always beat those with lesser skill on a consistent basis. What it may mean is that your l33t Street Fighter skills don't translate well in playing Mortal Kombat. Sometimes games in the same genre are so different that you have to learn entirely new skills and play styles to win. That's usually people who think they are skilled who get their asses kicked at something different whining about how shitty it is because it doesn't work the way they think it should.

Oh and the air juggling is actually not as bad as it once was. In Mortal Kombat II I could practically keep you off the ground once I got going and you'd be pretty much screwed. Combos in most of the newer games are easier to break than they were in say UMK3 and Killer Instinct, even Street Fighter.
 
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sd11 said:
That only applies if you make really major, jaw droppingly, stupid mistakes. If you seriously have an issue where you are just getting rolled and unable to push the opponent you are bad at fighting games and should stop playing them, playing something easier.
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No, a good competitive game will always let players fight back to try and mitigate damage done from them making a mistake, getting pummelled continuously for 1 mistake is bad game design, full stop.

That is exactly what has happened with the street fighter and blaz-blue series, and to a lesser extent marvel. And they have been refined and tweaked for far longer than CS has even existed.
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What you mean those games on consoles which never get updated? Rubbish. CS goes through countless hundreds of patches to refine gameplay and actually remove degenerative gameplay mechanics which pro players eventually manage to figure out (usually unintended bugs, and alike). That's the making of a good pro game, and no amount of developers testing can protect against this, developers will balance only so far but it takes pro gamers years and years of constant competitive play to find all the little bugs and exploits and whatnot.

Mortal Kombat is scrubby and if you are playing fighting games like that you should quit, and stick to FPS games. The games are refined for top level play, far more than most genres.
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Up yours, we played like that because it was FUN, we had some drinks and a dos about and it was a good laugh, we did the finishing moves which gave us something to cheer and shout about and we could all pull of strings of combos by simply button mashing, we had fun.

The fact that console games tend to get just 1 release and no tweaks to gameplay after that is really the best indicator that they're not refined at all, that takes many years of constant feedback from the pro circles and many revisions of the game to inch closer to a well balanced game. All this I read about player X being cheap and player Y being unbalanced and combo A + B being best etc, shows that the games are inherently not balanced.

You could probably write a novel with the patch notes for every single patch from a highly competitive game like CS with hundreds of patches since it started as a mod and thousands of individual changes, similar for other highly competitive games like StarCraft 2, this game was in the making for like 5 years and was released highly polished, it's a sequel to one of the most furiously competitive RTS games of all time, despite all of the effort before hand it still has a MASSIVE list of bug fixes to stop exploits, balances between units and improvements to gameplay to aid competitive play.

The idea that console fighting games are refined for competitive play is amusing at best. The simple fact is that fighting games are largely console games and the scope of competitive play on the consoles is a tiny in comparison to the PC, there's so many newb games on the console that in comparison beatem ups appear really sophisticated.
 
juggling has always been around. i think its more that online has allowed it easier for juggle combos to perpetuate among general gamers, unlike before when you used to just game with your buddies in somewhat isolated communities that may not have been exposed to those juggle exploits.

But I personally hate it too. I miss when fighting games were played more like a chess match, now many matches feel like mindless juggle contests.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Unreasonable punishment for mistakes such as being able to die to a string of combos because you made 1 mistake is the mark of bad game design.
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Wrong.

sd11 said:
That only applies if you make really major, jaw droppingly, stupid mistakes.
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Right.

Most air tactics in MvC3 (for instance), you cover yourself either with a teleport, assist, or a safe move. People who don't do that are setting themselves up for a beating, especially if they're playing someone who knows what they're doing.

Out of all the MvC3 matches I've played on Live, maybe 10% are what I'd call "SRK lurkers". They go to Shoryuken, see stuff, and repeat it. See also: Dante BS. The other people I've played generally play (IMHO) "legit", they pick more than the same 3 people every time, they don't rely on a single strategy the whole match (and die or win by it). Even the real nasty stuff "making the rounds" lately like the Magneto flight combos still eventually drop you, and the damage scaling is pretty harsh. You might lose 1 character if they nail you with one and end it with Gravity Squeeze (level 3 super), especially with X-Factor, but eventually you will drop to the ground and you're given the chance to nail them with your own strategy. I've played a few people trying to pull those off that can't get the timing right, and then I end up destroying them (with a smile). :D

MvC3 is the fairest Vs. game since MvC1. XMvSF had plenty of infinites, MSHvSF had some....MvC wasn't too bad. MvC2 was ridiculous. MvC3 is more "practically everything is broken so no one's too powerful" or something to that effect. People are finding more crap in 3 but it's still a far cry from 2.

It's not old school SF, but it's still an enjoyable game (IMHO).Don't forget that ST (Super Turbo) had juggles also.
 
Oh and the air juggling is actually not as bad as it once was. In Mortal Kombat II I could practically keep you off the ground once I got going and you'd be pretty much screwed. Combos in most of the newer games are easier to break than they were in say UMK3 and Killer Instinct, even Street Fighter.
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Everybody has agreed on this other than the OP.

Elitist nonsense. Some people play games simply because they are fun and entertaining. Most people don't give a shit about "being pro."
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Nor do most of the people I play against. But there is a difference between playing to win and pushing the game, and just futzing around. I play offline with other locals. Some of them go to EVO in Vegas or SBO in Japan, some go to major regionals, the majority do not. I haven't posted a single combo that is "hard" (other than HNK which really doesn't count as the game is broken beyond belief) and I can safely say the weakest people I play against are all capable of performing that sort of stuff consistently. That's what I'd consider average skill for drinking beer, order a pizza and play some games. Anything below that I'd consider low skill. It would be roughly as serious as the guys that play a PC FPS with a controller and can't hit the side of a barn.

If you don't agree then whatever. I don't give a shit if the pros like it or not. I also get sick and tired of "it takes no skill to win" arguments. That's absurd. People who have more skill in a given game will always beat those with lesser skill on a consistent basis. What it may mean is that your l33t Street Fighter skills don't translate well in playing Mortal Kombat. Sometimes games in the same genre are so different that you have to learn entirely new skills and play styles to win. That's usually people who think they are skilled who get their asses kicked at something different whining about how shitty it is because it doesn't work the way they think it should.
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I do just fine in MK. However that doesn't change the fact that MK is pretty much the bottom of the pack when it comes to skill in the major 2d franchises. It doesn't stop me from having fun with it.

I can make a similar point with 3d fighters, Dead or Alive takes far less skill than Tekken or Virtua Fighter, this is a known fact. It doesn't mean you can't be good at DoA, but it simply doesn't have the technical or strategic ceiling that Tekken or VF have.

That doesn't mean the MK and DoA aren't fun games or you can't have fun playing them, but if you take them as "skilled" games within their respective genres fighting games probably aren't for you.

But that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't do well online should just not play the game.
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If a person is getting "bounced" all over the place by low level tactics and basic combos in MVC3 than it's probably not the correct game for them. And if they think fighters are combo prone or intensive now than they obviously never played anybody who was remotely proficient at them.

At a certain point you should just hang up your joystick and admit that you're in over your head and you suck. You can either deal with the games as they are and get better, or accept that your incapable of playing them on a decent level and toss in the towel.

And I take my own advice here. I don't play RTS games because I frankly suck at them. I know what's possible to do with macro and micro I just lack the skills to do it and have no intention of bothering to learn or practice to get in that situation. So I don't play them vs people because I know I suck and I'm wasting other peoples time and it's something that I simply won't be able to do. I'm also not going to kid my self that DoW is a more strategic game than SC simply because I prefer the GW mythos and find it's characters more interesting. It is what it is.
 
I too suck at RTS games. I also don't enjoy them all that much with the rare exception of the dumbed down ones like Command & Conquer.
 
CS goes through countless hundreds of patches to refine gameplay and actually remove degenerative gameplay mechanics which pro players eventually manage to figure out (usually unintended bugs, and alike). That's the making of a good pro game, and no amount of developers testing can protect against this, developers will balance only so far but it takes pro gamers years and years of constant competitive play to find all the little bugs and exploits and whatnot.
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Current fighting games are patched like crazy, both the arcade and console versions and the patches are all based off competitive matches and tournaments, this is old news for fighters and has been for a while now.

The fact that console games tend to get just 1 release and no tweaks to gameplay after that is really the best indicator that they're not refined at all, that takes many years of constant feedback from the pro circles and many revisions of the game to inch closer to a well balanced game. etc, shows that the games are inherently not balanced.
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Again, you either have no idea what you are talking about or are bold faced lying through your teeth. Pick one! Hell, the most recent MVC3 patched fixed glitch combos, tweaked Sents health, and removed bugs found only after tournament testing by top players, and was on the front page of fighting game websites with developer commentary.

You are completely and utterly wrong here.

Here are fixes from just one MVC3 patch

1. Sentinel’s health reduced. Originally 1,300,000, he’s now at around 900,000
2. Akuma’s hit stun on Hurricane Kick decreased, removing infinite.
3. Spencer ground glitch removed. The strange hangup combo reset is gone now.
4. Haggar ground glitch removed. Same as Spencer’s.
5. Dormammu’s Jumping Medium Attack does 70,000 damage, up from 50,000.
6. Supposedly, Spencer’s corner loop has been removed.


Fighters are also arcade games, not console really, and yes arcades can be patched.

Though I don't find it at all shocking that people who think mid level tactics and combo's are cheap would be completely and utterly unaware that games are patched due to competitive events or would flat out deny it in the hopes of justifying their opinions.
 
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They need to fix the DHC damage scaling glitch and then the game will be even better (and I'm sure the groaning from SRK will be heard around the world). :D
 
sd11 said:
Mortal Kombat is scrubby and if you are playing fighting games like that you should quit, and stick to FPS games. The games are refined for top level play, far more than most genres.
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Dan_D said:
More elitist bullshit. Mortal Kombat is a fun game. If you don't agree then whatever. I don't give a shit if the pros like it or not. I also get sick and tired of "it takes no skill to win" arguments. That's absurd. People who have more skill in a given game will always beat those with lesser skill on a consistent basis. What it may mean is that your l33t Street Fighter skills don't translate well in playing Mortal Kombat. Sometimes games in the same genre are so different that you have to learn entirely new skills and play styles to win. That's usually people who think they are skilled who get their asses kicked at something different whining about how shitty it is because it doesn't work the way they think it should.
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Bravo
sd11 said:
It doesn't stop me from having fun with it.
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Seriously? :rolleyes:

sd11 said:
Mortal Kombat is scrubby and if you are playing fighting games like that you should quit
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:rolleyes:
 
I love reading about the high level stuff that goes into these fighting games from you guys who are good at them. I never was and never cared to be, so it's cool to know about this whole other aspect of the genre that I just had no idea existed.

But,

Do you all have to sound like such assholes when you talk about it?

You rock at fighting games: Big. Fucking. Whoop. I understand passionate discussion and all, but I'm with Dan and Frosty here, most of this just smacks of elitist bullshit talk.

How about a "To each, their own" maybe?
 
This sd11 guy seems more interested in informing everyone that he's good at fighting games and using the word "scrub" like some /v/-browsing bore than actually discussing anything.
 
Seriously?
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Yep, it's fun. Just like Halo is fun. But if you think Halo is a good shooter and that's what to base a shooter off of you should quit shooters, MK is the Halo of 2d fighters, and I'm being extremely unfair to Halo here.

You rock at fighting games: Big. Fucking. Whoop. I understand passionate discussion and all, but I'm with Dan and Frosty here, most of this just smacks of elitist bullshit talk.
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I wouldn't even say I'm that good. I would say that anybody who can't do the type of combos I posted in those videos completely sucks balls and is horrible at fighting games. Like the lowest of the low, and nobody should play against someone on that level because it will make you worse. And that's point blank the truth of it. I play against people that go to Evo and tournaments, and I've done the same. I also play against people that don't do that and just hang out for the get drunk and play fighters, and every single one of them can do that sort of V-ism combo in Alpha3 or massive infinites in the earlier MVC series, they can all FADC in SSF4, and they are all going to get 60% of your life in a combo in the newer MVC, that's called being "OK" at the game. It means you aren't a complete fool at it, have some strategy behind you, don't pick shit characters, and have the technical skills to land some of the basic combos to shove out your damage, you are passable.

And like it or not, tons of people can actually play at that level, it doesn't make them great.

I'd also note Dan brought up the fact that he could pretty much do the same crap back in MK2, so it's not like he doesn't agree that pulling this sort of stuff off isn't common once you get to mid level skill, it's the bare starting point for not sucking.

This sd11 guy seems more interested in informing everyone that he's good at fighting games and using the word "scrub" like some /v/-browsing bore than actually discussing anything.
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I'm decent, but the OP sucks at them and never learned them, that's obvious from his post claiming this is a new trend, when it was worse before. The dude who claimed they don't patch them is a bold faced liar.

Here is the issue, the "skill" on this forum for fighters, seems to be about the "skill" on an xbox360 forum for shooters, and I'm being very, very, very cruel to the 360 crowd here, they aren't that head up ass.

Go to SRK, Dustloop, Zaibatsu, or any of the other fighting game forums and try crying about how games are more combo prone now, or got harder, and you'll get laughed off of there in a nano second. Because they haven't, they've been dumb'd the fuck down, and I mostly blame SF4, and the fact that those idiots released it on the PC and the type of gamers on it, who in general, aren't really hardcore gamers when it comes to games like this.

Fighters were great when it was arcade 100%, consoles screwed it up a bit because of the gamers on it, PC gamers took out all the skill and dragged it into scrub land, which was to be expected.
 
The elitism amongst fighting games like this is incredibly strong though, it's unlike anything I've ever seen in any warp of gaming, and I've played games many years now, everything from being a complete newb to pro.

This reminds me of that how not to be a scrub article which some fighting gamer wrote a while back, it's the most horrifyingly written piece of garbage ever, about how basically winning is everything and nothing is cheap and if you don't do cheap moves to win then you're basically a scrub. There's no sense of sportsmanship there, which is at the heart of gaming.

I'll see if I can dig out the link that article, ugh...

here we go, read at your peril - http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

I did actually debate this article on the forums a long time ago by introducing the notion of doing anything to win, such as doing things outside of the game logic, it turns out that the author and many of his cohorts simply play by an entirely different set of mentally defined rules which they consider superior, such as you're not allowed to pull out the other persons controller cable, no physical attacks like punching your opponent in the face, or using cheats etc. Completely incoherent with his article where apparantly scrubs have arbitrary rules etc.

This just goes to show how deep the elitist bullshit in fighting games really go, basically do anything to win, no sportsmanship, belief that being better at the game makes your arbitrarily set of rules to be the "real" ones and that other peoples arbitrarily set of rules are inferior. Ugh, disgusting and offensive to me as a gamer I have to say.
 
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For many people competition is fun.

No fault with enjoying games on a super casual level, but personally, if I start to get good at a game, I get hypercompetitive. Concepts like cheese go out the window. The only thing that matters is that W.
 
I'd rather be sporting and win because I then know I won based on skill and not how well I used exploits or cheesy bullshit. I could propel my KD BFBC2 by being a CG-whore or boost my KD in COD by camping in a corner with my noobtoob and scrub-perks but there would be no satisfaction and my KD would not reflect any kind of real skill. A lot of the pro-level gamers I've seen online in fighting, RTS and FPS games also follow the same mentality, so I think the so-called pro players who insist on using "gay" moves/tactics/weapons/units/etc are more like wannabe-pro.

Having sportmanship shows you actually have some kind of morality in the real world. I often observe that how people play games is similar to how they approach other aspects of their lives.
 
Exactly, I made this argument on their forums as well, that a good player plays to win but a BETTER player can accept some kind of handicap and still win. If 2 players fight and one person avoids cheap moves because they think it's sportsman like and goes on to beat someone who basically abuses those moves then that player is better without a doubt.

The term scrub is stupid, it's not defined well at all, it basically means to play with artificial rules, but no where is it established with any kind of authority what the "true" rules are, which makes the term useless, it's also derogatory, it's basically an excuse to unsportsman like and try and get away with it.
 
My understanding of a scrub was someone who couldn't play worth their shit and only ever succeeds by cheesing it up.
 
I can't really speak for the Marvel games (I don't like 'em or care about them), but I *do* think juggling has gotten a bit out of hand in the Tekken series...and I mean that at all levels. You can even see it in the world tournaments.
Spacing, poking, etc. is all still key - but the launchers have gotten quicker and more prevalent and the sequences have gotten longer to the point of just trying to attract attention. Damage from a 8-9 hitter in Tekken 6 isn't even as high as a 3-4 hit juggle in Tekken 3...it's just there for the sake of being there.
Moves that used to simply be pokes now lead to a 50/50 mix-up with a half dozen hits following. Hell, the entire arsenal of Bob seems to be heading in that direction.

In SF I'd say juggles are a pretty minor part of the game. The only character that really gets out of hand with 'em is Rufus. He can link into his ultra off of 5-6 different juggles including one from a fairly safe target combo that starts off of a LK. I'd say that can be a bit much.
 
Plague_Injected said:
I'd rather be sporting and win because I then know I won based on skill and not how well I used exploits or cheesy bullshit. I could propel my KD BFBC2 by being a CG-whore or boost my KD in COD by camping in a corner with my noobtoob and scrub-perks but there would be no satisfaction and my KD would not reflect any kind of real skill. A lot of the pro-level gamers I've seen online in fighting, RTS and FPS games also follow the same mentality, so I think the so-called pro players who insist on using "gay" moves/tactics/weapons/units/etc are more like wannabe-pro.

Having sportmanship shows you actually have some kind of morality in the real world. I often observe that how people play games is similar to how they approach other aspects of their lives.
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What you're describing isn't the same type of competitiveness that's in fighting games. FPS (any team game, I guess) has two types of competitiveness. There's the personal accomplishment of having a high K/D ratio, and then there's competitiveness in terms of actual game win/loss achievements. A truely competitive person wouldn't be hiding in corners noobing to get a high K/D ratio. They'd be on a team of likeminded players trying to defeat other teams of equal skill.

Fighting games are different because they're 1v1. There is no way to hide in the corner and be a little bitch racking up kills while not contributing to the team effort. That's why I reject a lot of complaints about fighting game cheese. It's not cheese, it's how the game plays. If a tactic seems cheap, that's probably because it's good, and if you want to be good, you have to use it. Your opponent probably will. Are you going to handicap yourself out of some misguided sense of game honor?

It's totally valid to enter competitive games with a laser focus on winning. If that means sweeping the leg, then I'm gonna put your ass in a body bag. Strike hard, strike first, no mercy.
 
Yeah, in general if you're going to play - you might as well play to win. It's why there are usually competitive/ranked vs. casual modes in most games. If you want to play around (nothing wrong with that - I do it), just stick to the casual modes.
I'd say the only exception would be if there's a full on unintended exploit in the game...a la the old Guile invisible throw/handcuff/blackout or something similar.
 
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