Why must fighting games have such bad controls?

(Heatth) To your point about the character inputs being the same across the board for Super Smash Bros. compared to Street Fighter, I have to again point to what I said about their normals. Every character has around thirty normals that are performed using a simpler method than Brawl's control scheme. Every character shares those exact same inputs and you can pick any character and have a fair idea of how to pull off thirty of their moves quickly and reliably off the bat. They also share focus attacks and throws and while command normals may be different per character, they all have around the same method of being found out, so someone through about a minute of experimentation could find the characters command normals out. If they also know how blocking works, they know enough to start playing the game and doing okay.

A LOT of the characters share inputs for specials as well, a ton have the QCF, DP and QCB for their moves. The best way to think about it is that there are several "classes" of characters that have fighting styles that are performed in similar ways, the shotos use the standard QCF, DP, QCB motions for their moves, while the Charge characters use back-forward and down-up and the grapple characters use 360s. The reason, that I'm bringing up again, that they have different inputs is partially for flavor, to further separate the characters and give the game some variety at the basic control level, which also can help appeal to certain people. For example, I like charge characters and am glad there are some to pick from. And yes it helps balance the game, since it makes Charge-characters more vulnerable to cross-ups since they suffer more from being forced to change direction and they usually have better-than-average normals to make up for the fact that their specials aren't easily spammed, and it is a difficulty curve that only matters if you ARE PLAYING COMPETITIVELY for learning their moves. It makes things require work and therefore more skill to pull off. If you only had to press forward and a button to do Guile's Super and then his Ultra into that, that would not be impressive or even very challenging. But if someone does it now on the console or arcade version, that's reasonably impressive and shows they put some effort into the game and was rewarded.

And don't kid yourself about Brawl being the friendliest to pick up and play. The two things that come to mind when a friend tries out a new character is that they try a down-air and OH NO! They are G&W and now they shoot to the downwards blast-zone and DIE! They had played characters who didn't do that before and were caught off-guard and punished by losing AN ENTIRE LIFE. Oh well, they'll try out a new character. Cool, this move let's me go really fast! I will hit you! Ah! I went off the edge because Fox's Side-b, unlike other side-b's like Luigi's or Marth's put's you in helpless state and so you die. Other characters have additional aspects or things about them, like Snake as a whole (he plays NOTHING like any of the other characters and you will get owned hard if you try to play him like one). But wait, you might argue, that's not what I was saying, those are only a few examples. At a basic level all the characters share basically the same inputs and similar enough properties to just pick up and play. At a basic level? You mean the same level in street fighter where it's NOT important to be able to accurately pull off every single character's individual special moves and just the 34 moves they all share inputs for? Yes.

Ranting is fun.

Also to Badwolf, I retract my earlier statement about parties not being a genre. They are, I was wrong, but versus multiplayer games are usually not classed as such.

edited 24th Sep '11 9:54:35 AM by The_Omegod

One thing I never understood was how it's possible to do half or god forbid full circle motions on a key bord when ever you want. I would rather play on a consle where I can do and move I want without having to get really lucky.

I should point that not only are the controls of a fighting game tricky to work with, but if you intend to play the arcade version of a fighting game on the PC, then you had best make sure it's a powerful system.

I say this because I have played arcade versions of Virtua Fighter and Tekken, and were they ever slow! I'm not sure why. Maybe I need a better processor, more space, or a better graphics card. Maybe fighting games are suited more for the arcade machines than the PC.

edited 24th Sep '11 10:54:15 AM by TiggersAreGreat

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

Mostly Smash players trying Street Fighter for 30 minutes and completely misunderstanding it...

Except [condescending response follows]. Because [sarcasm here]. You do understand [snark], right? POTHOLE TO SARCASM MODE

They're not designed for the PC at all. I don't know where you get the idea that they ever were. Even now, most of them have arcades in mind, since they are based on series that started in arcades. Street Fighter, Tekken, etc. were all arcade games first, and console games later.

The way I see it, fighting games work a lot like card games. In trading card games, part of the challenge is finding/buying/trading rare cards that flow well into your deck. Likewise, fighting games is all about pulling off really hard moves/attacks and using them effectively.

Really, all the good fighting games don't have "hard" controls as much as they have "challenging" controls. This is why Super Smash Bros., with such a simple control scheme and design to focus on party play, has such a divided tier list.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

You're right, fighting games are not designed for the PC at all. Of course, when you live in an area where arcade games are hard to get to, and there are emulators that let you play those arcade games on the PC without even having to pay any money for them, I just sit there and wonder "Why shouldn't or wouldn't I play this game on the PC and spare myself a lot of grief and hassle?" Uh, no offense to anyone here.

edited 24th Sep '11 4:56:27 PM by TiggersAreGreat

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

Learning the treacherous, painful, high-damage combos in a fighter is neat, yes, but takes a backseat to learning the mind-games layer of a fighting game. I used to main Hakumen back in the first version of Blaz Blue, and actually saw pretty good success by simply paying attention to my opponents and noticing which moves they did or didn't follow up with which others - having one-button counters is fun like that.

Would I have gotten curbstomped against tourney-grade players? Of course - but that's the work of their superior zoning and mind games, not one or two flashy combos that they can learn to perform under no pressure and record for a combo video.

I've played Tekken for years, always with Law and I just use his basic attacks. Dragon tail, flip kick, junkyard combo, etc. Even though I only use 10 or so different moves, he's so fast that people have trouble.

Maybe OP should give Tekken a try, its a very respectable Fighting Game, and has an easy learning curve. Plus, if you actually learn how to play as Eddy people won't know what to do.

> mindgames

And that's something I simply cannot do when things happen in a matter of a few 60ths of a second. I'm just really slow with taking the time to analyze my opponent on the spot instead of Button Mashing.

edited 25th Sep '11 4:10:13 AM by TsundeRay

http://twitter.com/raydere | http://raydere.tumblr.com

Yeah, I have this too, which is probably why I don't use many special moves. That and quarter/half-circular movements can be tricky to pull off even with proper controls. There is just too much room for failure.

I think the biggest problem is that controls can be become very convoluted easily. If it's hard to remember and nearly impossible to pull off then I don't see why I should even bother with a certain move. Blaz Blue is quite good in that regard. It doesn't go totally crazy with the inputs but isn't as simple as SSB. It also doesn't seem to have too many moves, although some are still questionable for other reasons and make me wonder if anybody even bothers with them (I'm thinking of Ragna's Blood Kain here).

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

I play fighting games better on a keyboard than on a controller, it just takes a little practice and a good setup, I used to suuuuuuuck before I started mapping the control stick to the WASD keys and my buttons to the Numpad. (UNLESS you use grapplers with 360º+ motions, dear god, if you can use them on a keyboard without using macros, you're a hero.)

Then again I'm probably not the best example since I've been playing Street Fighter and the likes since I've been able to hold a controller. It is just second nature now.

edited 26th Sep '11 4:07:16 PM by RunoEddie

Blood Kain jacks up your damage pretty significantly to allow for actually finishing opponents instead of leaving them at That One Sliver Of Health That Just Won't Die, and also enhances the lifesteal of D moves. I've seen tourney-grade players pull shenanigans that involve wedging Blood Kain's startup into the middle of a combo and actually manage to come out ahead on life, even after factoring in the steady drain. I think rapid cancel may have been involved.

Um, Ragna's Bloodkain move is probably THE easiest distortion move in the entire game. Its two quarter circle turns followed by "D". Its only slightly more complicated than a good-old fashioned hadouken from Street Fighter.

edited 27th Sep '11 7:36:42 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

It's a Shinku Hadouken motion, actually.

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad

"Two quarter circle turns" makes it sound like a Hadouken motion followed by a reverse Hadouken motion. Haven't played Blaz Blue yet though, meaning to.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Just two hadouken motions, but in the opposite direction.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

It's a Shinku Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku motion then. QCB x2, I presume?

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad

"Shinku Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku"

.....ok, its two quarter circle turns away from the opponent, followed by the "D" button. Yes.

edited 27th Sep '11 9:07:48 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Don't worry about memorizing that move name. I just have the lingo on my mind since I play SF a lot.

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad

Guilty Gear can have some rather complicated moves, although most of them comes from the later versions. One, I think, is QCB QCB+S PKSHKS HCB F H, I think.

One of the most useless moves in the game, Dizzy's Instant Kill attack, was also one of the most difficult moves to perform if I remember correctly.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

@anathame: Amen to that. Law is the perfect example of a "simpler" Tekken character. Most of the moves worth using with him are easy to learn, chaining them together and playing mindgames properly is the hard part.

I've seen users post here about how Tekken is hard to learn because of 15-hit combos or something, but they're kind of missing the point that learning those combos is completely irrelevant for players new to the series. When learning a character, you don't jump straight for the combos, you learn the feel of the character, see how he moves, which moves work best for you, learn a few stances (maybe even how to use them somewhat effectively). When playing casually, mindgames and a few moves can take you far, and the few combos you'll learn (on your own) will be 3-5 hit combos at best.

If you are then inclined to move on to a more advanced playstyle, then learning longer, more complex combos is more appropriate. And even then, memorizing combos isn't as effective as it sounds, due to walls, and enemies who can dance around any attempt to start one.

This rings even truer for Soul Calibur, where players being able to DI out of anything makes juggles impossible to rely on. There's a reason why every move can be canceled in that series, the inputs are easy to learn, it's utilizing them properly that's the hard part (and don't give me that "Ivy's grabs are insane" argument, those are the only moves in the whole game that require insane inputs, and Ivy hardly needs them)

The Omegod hit the nail on the head. Fighting games are similar to musical genres in a way: casual listeners complain that they're unintuitive, arbitrarily complicated and that there's too many of them, not knowing that the sheer number and fine detail reflects the interest and convenience of hardcore listeners and scrutinizing audiophiles. While it could be argued forever that both sides have their merit, it's probably best left alone; I'm confident that making the two sides to see eye-to-eye is close to impossible.

Non-Fan: This is too complicated!
Fighter-Fan: Get over it.\

edited 28th Sep '11 4:57:15 AM by Alucard

As a PC player, I can say that unless the game is badly programmed, unrefined or the motions have to be really precise (emulated Last Blade 2 in particular is very anal about super moves for some reason), the special and super moves are easy to execute on keyboard (the worst controller for fighting games) after one day of practice, the exceptions being Capcom-style full circle grappler moves and the early SNK craziness.

Using them efficiently is trickier, though, but thats keyboard for you.

edited 28th Sep '11 9:13:02 AM by Shinr

I play M.U.G.E.N with only Guilty Gear characters, and having a bit of experience I'll say that the keyboard is not practical at all: when I tried half-circle or dragon-punch motions, there was a screw-up since my keyboard can't handle down-right being held at any moment (you were talking about Bullet Hell, I abandoned Touhou because of this inability to move down and right at the same time).
I had to think God I'm playing MUGEN and change the commands myself to make them a bit easier (aka D Ps can be executed with forward, down, forward [instead of a mandatory down-forward last input]), but once these little technicalities were changed, the only moves that are annoying to pull off are charge moves (plus holding back for 45 frames [3/4ths of a second] isn't fun at all).

This is to mean that the motions themselves aren't hard. Even Justice's Gamma Ray is not too hard to do after you understand the command (and it's back, forward, back, forward, down-forward, down, down-back, back + heavy slash). It just sounds complicated and he who doesn't manage the commands just let the hard impression get to him, because with a bit of practice, that gets a lot less complicated than it sounds.