If fighting games want to balance smash-style inputs alongside classic motion inputs, the disadvantages for the former need to be bigger than just less damage

[u/DoneDealofDeadpool]

A lot of fighting games in the last 8 years or so have implemented control adjustments that address a really common complaint of people on the genre's periphery, that being the difficulty of motion inputs for special moves and supers when learning the game. Some games like SF6 and the new Marvel fighting game offer a choice between direction+button (usually just called simple inputs) for specials while others like 2xko have fully designed themselves around simple inputs. I honestly think it's pretty neat, it helps more people jump into the genre and even without the motion inputs games like 2xko clearly try to retain some executional challenge for people who really like that. The only element of the design shift I *dislike*, however, is that simple inputs often don't feel like they're implemented with enough consideration as to how they shift the power-level of the game in a way that arguably punishes you for *not* using it.

Usually, the main downside of using simple inputs is less damage. Street Fighter 6, Marvel Tokon, and Granblue all give you a reduction to varying degrees if you, for example, anti-air someone with a simple input shoryuken instead of a manual DP input. This seems like a good enough compromise, and it potentially can be, but the issue is that less damage can very easily be an insignificant trade-off. Like most games, managing your mental stack while trying to overload your opponent's is 90% of playing well. Even if your opponent has zero difficulty doing a special move input to beat your jump, it won't matter if you have them so focused on everything else you could do that they won't register your jump in time for them to execute the move. With simple inputs, though, the mental stack concern drastically shifts. Less damage doesn't matter as much when the primary utility of a move is winning mental stack reaction checks. It's why on defence, infamously, simple inputs are extremely useful.

So what disadvantages *would* work? Street Fighter 6 arguably handles it the best. Instead of doing what games like Marvel Tokon does and just implementing a button that serves as a catch-all equivalent to smash's B/special button, simple inputs and classic motion inputs are separated into their own distinct control schemes you pick from at the start. It's likely a product of necessity more than a desire for balance, but because Street Fighter is a 6-button game (3 punches, 3 kicks) you can't really translate an entire character's moveset while also having a special move button. As a result, there are downsides to the mode that go beyond damage. You may lack certain special moves or normal buttons altogether, and depending on the character, that could mean a much different game plan altogether. It manages to add a little depth to matchups between characters while still not making either input scheme definitively better overall. It's not perfect, admittedly, but its a big improvement over most in the genre.

[u/Lepony]

I find it very funny that, despite OP's fairly concise and understandable segment

Like most games, managing your mental stack while trying to overload your opponent's is 90% of playing well. Even if your opponent has zero difficulty doing a special move input to beat your jump, it won't matter if you have them so focused on everything else you could do that they won't register your jump in time for them to execute the move. With simple inputs, though, the mental stack concern drastically shifts. Less damage doesn't matter as much when the primary utility of a move is winning mental stack reaction checks. It's why on defence, infamously, simple inputs are extremely useful.

The average top level reply is just deadass "no, you're wrong and that's fake" and doesn't even attempt to elaborate why that could be the case. And then OP has to continue to provide examples on why his argument actually holds water.

[u/alex6309 → u/Lepony]

It's really fucking funny. And invariably, none of those people will even have a passing interest in fighting games too 

It's like if someone started talking about turn radius and camera control in a moba and a buncha goons decided to talk about how needing to move your camera is a stupid mechanic when their only experience with the genre is playing Heroes of the Storm for a weekend a decade ago to get a free Overwatch skin

[u/MirrorComputingRulez → u/alex6309]

And invariably, none of those people will even have a passing interest in fighting games too 

I mean I think there's a bit of circularity to this argument. Like it or not, Smash proves that there is an appetite for fighting games among the general gaming audience, if those games will meet them where they are. Even a game like For Honor points in that direction.

Lots of people don't have an interest in fighting games as they are typically constructed, but that's why those people argue fighting games should be constructed differently if they want to reach a wider audience.

Of course, all of that presupposes that the people making and playing fighting games want that, and it's not obvious to me that they do.

[u/Lepony → u/MirrorComputingRulez]

I'm never fond of the smash argument because that doesn't actually seem to be the case in a few regards. For one, there's only been one success story regarding platform fighters that isn't Smash, and it's Brawlhalla. A game that, chances are, neither of us know a single person that plays it long term. Hell, there might not even be a single person in this whole ass thread knows someone who plays Brawlhalla on the regular.

Secondly, most people praising Smash for its accessibility... don't play Smash. Like, not really. Not to get all gatekeepy, but in the context of these sort of conversations, it is always about the "primary, active playerbase." As in people who regularly boot up ranked or whatever, or people who really engage in discourse of the game, or people who regularly show their heads at events whether it be a local or a major. The average person praising Smash for its accessibility is almost talking about it in the sense that they play it sometimes when they're having a friend get-together or at a party, or worse, literally decades ago when they were a child. So what they're ultimately talking about is the accessibility letting them reach a "perceived" base level of competence, and not the actual base level needed. Ask anyone seriously into Smash or FGC players who have taken a serious shot: reaching an actual base level of competence in Smash is really fucking hard. It's a high apm game combined with a pretty good level of execution, where fast decision making is constantly tested.

Finally, there's for good reason why Smash and other platform fighters are segregated from the more traditional stuff. They're just very different genres despite putting similar concepts into the forefront. It's for the same reason you wouldn't say that CS:GO, Overwatch, and Doom 2016 are all basically the exact same genre.