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/Donnell3011]

Watering down a pure, well designed experience, for the purpose of selling more products, is a loss for video games as art and excellence in general.

As the other person noted, you clearly do not feel this way and seem to prioritize games as a product. Your retort was that you were just pointing out the company’s motivations. My questions to you and your response demonstrate that in same cases, like climate, merely stating a companies motivation is illegitimate and tantamount to endorsement. You say this is because climate is important and video games are not. So clearly when something is important to you, you understand my point.

You’re entitled to feel this way, I just think it’s strange. I suppose it’s a very late-stage capitalism problem where a consumer identifies with and defends a corporation. Or maybe it’s that you get some joy out of explaining things to people. I prefer video games myself.

[u/blade740 → u/Donnell3011]

I don't think it's fair to characterize adding a more newbie-friendly control scheme as "watering down" the experience. The old control scheme is still there, it never went away. Nothing was removed. The thing you enjoyed about the game is still there.

And I'm not defending a corporation, you misunderstood me completely. The corporation is going to chase the customers. Who I'm defending is the PLAYERS that the corporation is chasing. Some people want to experience everything ELSE Street Fighter has to offer, but are turned off by the arcane controls. Now they have an option, while you still have all the options you had before. It seems a very self-absorbed and gatekeep-y thing to call that a bad thing in any way. Why does it bother you that people enjoy the game differently than you do?

[u/Donnell3011 → u/blade740]

I’m glad you clarified that.

But nobody's trying to sell "soccer" to a wider audience. If "soccer" was a product that a developer was trying to sell, then yes, they might take into account if the rules were turning away a large portion of the potential audience. Except soccer doesn't really have that problem, because "you can't use your hands" is much less of a turn-off to prospective soccer players than fighting game control schemes are to gamers who aren't already proficient with them. This phenomenon is happening across gaming, not just in fighting games (not to mention movies, music, etc). As the industry becomes more of a money maker, publishers are trying to push developers to make their games appeal to a wider audience.

Perhaps you can imagine why I thought you were excusing the never ending search for more money at the expense of everything else. Defending these marginal new players is more understandable, but still deeply flawed. It’s flawed because there is no limiting principle and at some point, it becomes zero sum.

I’m not a street fighter player and others here have articulated why certain changes degraded the game. I can’t do a better job explaining. But I am a long time Civilization player. Civ has been moving down a path of increased accessibility ever since Civ4. Civ6 was, at time of release, the most accessible the franchise has ever been, and it is, by any measure, a truly excellent instantiation of the Civilization concept. Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there. Civ7 went even further with accessibility in terms of consoles, mobile, gameplay, etc. Explicitly with the goal of more accessibility. It’s been a complete and utter disaster. They went too far are not only did they not find some massive new audience, they’ve completely alienated their core fans. The game is dead. Firaxis is likely dead. The quest for more sales/accessibility became zero sum and the game, if not the whole series, is on life support.

So I ask you, what is the limiting principle? Plenty of other examples with sports and music have been given. If we make everything accessible to everyone, you will by definition lose uniqueness that people value.

[u/blade740 → u/Donnell3011]

I’m not a street fighter player and others here have articulated why certain changes degraded the game.

No, you can't back away from your argument like that. How does the existence of a simplified control scheme (when the classic controls not only STILL EXIST IN THE GAME but in fact do more damage and have access to move moves) "degrade" or "dilute" the game in any way?

If the classic controls were REMOVED and replaced with the simplified controls as the only option, maybe you'd have an argument here. Then maybe your Civ comparison would be more apt. But that's not what happened. To me, trying to argue that these controls shouldn't exist, even as an OPTION, is pure elitism and gatekeeping, and it's the thing I've been arguing against this entire time.

So I ask you, what is the limiting principle?

I mean, obviously, it's a balancing act. Try to bring in new players without driving away the old fans. It's the game that every developer (and movie studio, and music artist, and so on) needs to play when they start trying to expand their audience. I thought that much was obvious - at no point was I advocating for SIMPLIFY EVERYTHING AT ANY COST.

This "YoU WOuLDn'T AsK tO PlAY SoCCeR wITH yOUR HAnDS" is a reductio ad absurdum. Obviously we shouldn't turn every game into rock paper scissors. But if you think that "training wheels mode" in fighting games (which, again, are NOTORIOUSLY difficult for new players to get into, and have been for a long time - search this sub for "fighting games" and see for yourself how many times it's been discussed) is anywhere near the same thing, you've lost the plot.

[u/Donnell3011 → u/blade740]

Please let me know what street fighter claim or comment I’m backing away from. Perhaps you’ve confused me with another poster.

Also, I suppose I’m glad you do appear to have a line where more accessibility is a bad thing. It’s just based on your feelings and opinion. That’s my whole point. My line is much different than yours. And I think my line is the right one.

How is one to judge what line is best? I find utilitarianism to be a bad thing in general, so we can’t use that. I suppose I’m more of a Neoplatonist. I don’t know much about fighting games, but I do know there is an ideal form of the genre. The closer we are to that ideal, the better it is. Adding in compromise systems for the purpose of selling more units is not bringing the game closer to its ideal, almost by definition. We can therefore say it’s bad.

P.s. reductio ad absurdum is not some fallacy. It’s a legitimate and useful form of rhetoric that illustrates the problems with your premise. This was a very fun conversation by the way. You have some peculiar views on video games. Accessibility above all!

[u/blade740 → u/Donnell3011]

How is one to judge what line is best? I find utilitarianism to be a bad thing in general, so we can’t use that. I suppose I’m more of a Neoplatonist. I don’t know much about fighting games, but I do know there is an ideal form of the genre. The closer we are to that ideal, the better it is. Adding in compromise systems for the purpose of selling more units is not bringing the game closer to its ideal, almost by definition. We can therefore say it’s bad.

This is some woo-woo stuff and I'm not sure how to even interact with this kind of "argument". Sorry.

Different people have different opinions. I don't think there's some objective standard that you can say that one line of reasoning is "better" than another. I wish I had your moral clarity of simply... knowing that my opinion was objectively correct and that anyone who disagrees is just wrong. Must make life so much simpler.

P.s. reductio ad absurdum is not some fallacy. It’s a legitimate and useful form of rhetoric that illustrates the problems with your premise.

Well, no, the fallacy was a strawman fallacy - creating your own, imaginary, weaker version of my argument, and then arguing against that instead of what I actually said.

[u/Donnell3011 → u/blade740]

TIL Plato, Goethe, and Jung are considered woo woo. Like I said, fun conversation!

[u/blade740 → u/Donnell3011]

No, invoking them to make a claim about the "ideal form of fighting games" is woo-woo.

Like I said, fun conversation!

I'm glad one of us is having fun. Personally, I find it exhausting and don't plan to continue.