Current Events > Why are fighting game developers so out of touch nowadays

(+) Yeah! (+)

They're all "gameplay gameplay GAMEPLAY MLG EVO" hacks who expect their community to fight each other to justify putting almost no content in their games and charge for season passes while having hilarious balance issues and becoming a paperweight if the online goes down

Meanwhile I can pop in Tekken 3 and have a goddamn blast and none of it has to do with latency or input lag or any bullshit that comes with the territory of competitiveness, just fun-ass gameplay and enough modes to keep it interesting

This is why I'll continue to throw money at Skullgirls, they continued to improve their story mode and other side stuff while simultaneously improving the online play on a much smaller budget. See? You can have it all.
---

thompsontalker7 posted...

just fun-ass gameplay

all a fighting game ever needs. after that is proper balance and decent-ish netcode.

if you expect more you deserve to be disappointed.

also, maybe you don't realize it but T3 was horrendously balanced but maybe you don't care about that because TEKKENBALLZZ!
---

same dlc drones who use its just cosmetics as a defense start foaming at the mouth when you suggest that textures on a 3d model would be just cosmetic
---

There really needs to be a balance for a successful game. Both sides need each other,. Problem with the tekken 3 example is that gamers of all types expect way more for way less.
---

AsucaHayashi posted...

all a fighting game ever needs. after that is proper balance and decent-ish netcode.

all the good fighters have this aspect plus more so that's a moot point

ModLogic posted...

same dlc drones who use its just cosmetics as a defense start foaming at the mouth when you suggest that textures on a 3d model would be just cosmetic

bet those are the same people who pay money for alternate colors on sprites

AsucaHayashi posted...

also, maybe you don't realize it but T3 was horrendously balanced but maybe you don't care about that because TEKKENBALLZZ!

no one gave a fuck back then because people weren't as sweaty in tournaments and plenty of characters were viable
---

Because that is what their fans like? It sucks for those aren't into the competition scene, but it's what the fighting community wants.

lol then these devs should accept the abysmal sales numbers

sfv hasnt sold a copy since last year lmao
---

Dash_Harber posted...

Because that is what their fans like? It sucks for those aren't into the competition scene, but it's what the fighting community wants.

Even these aforementioned MLG EVO players admitted games like SFV are boring and only worth it for the money

So who then, are these games for? Fighters can totally appeal to causals and pros alike if they tried hard enough, but people are complacent with them being as barebones as possible because "hurr durr focus on what matters"

BlazBlue has the perfect amount of online/offline modes, but the balance is horrendous, there's no English voices (supposed to rush localization for the pro players) and it costs more than every other sequel in the series. No surprise that it fucking flopped.

Tekken 7 is basically a 3-year port of the arcade version with story mode thrown in
---

ModLogic posted...

lol then these devs should accept the abysmal sales numbers

sfv hasnt sold a copy since last year lmao

I mean, if the community is small then sales are going to be small. I feel like the complaints are sort of part and parcel to the whole genre. Maybe I'm talking out my ass, but obviously they are catering to someone because the genre hasn't died yet.

Dash_Harber posted...

ModLogic posted...

lol then these devs should accept the abysmal sales numbers

sfv hasnt sold a copy since last year lmao

I mean, if the community is small then sales are going to be small. I feel like the complaints are sort of part and parcel to the whole genre. Maybe I'm talking out my ass, but obviously they are catering to someone because the genre hasn't died yet.

Smash (regardless of your thoughts on it) draws in hundreds of thousands of people a year at EVO and Apex. That proves that it's not the genre, but rather the people who play it. Most people just play Smash because it's fucking fun, first and foremost.

You mention "fun" in any other FCG and they'll go "hurr durr Practice mode and learning to git gud isn't fun for you?!"
---

Online play has ruined arcades, which is the main platform for fighting games.
---

thompsontalker7 posted...

Dash_Harber posted...

ModLogic posted...

lol then these devs should accept the abysmal sales numbers

sfv hasnt sold a copy since last year lmao

I mean, if the community is small then sales are going to be small. I feel like the complaints are sort of part and parcel to the whole genre. Maybe I'm talking out my ass, but obviously they are catering to someone because the genre hasn't died yet.

Smash (regardless of your thoughts on it) draws in hundreds of thousands of people a year at EVO and Apex. That proves that it's not the genre, but rather the people who play it. Most people just play Smash because it's fucking fun, first and foremost.

You mention "fun" in any other FCG and they'll go "hurr durr Practice mode and learning to git gud isn't fun for you?!"

Fair enough. Also, don't assume I hate Smash. They are super fun games.

I think your second point, though, sort of proves that the fighting game community is asking for games like that. They are also incredibly acerbic.

I think people Smash too high up there when it comes to skill level and other stuff (and also agree in general it's not really classified as a fighter)

But I do still believe that it's the best example of being able to have it all, at least with Melee/Brawl. Fucking Smash 4 almost went the same way of modern fighters by cutting out a campaign in favor of some stupid solo mode, but there's still things like Home Run Contest and Trophy Rush so I don't knock it too hard for that
---

thompsontalker7 posted...

I think people Smash too high up there when it comes to skill level and other stuff (and also agree in general it's not really classified as a fighter)

But I do still believe that it's the best example of being able to have it all, at least with Melee/Brawl. Fucking Smash 4 almost went the same way of modern fighters by cutting out a campaign in favor of some stupid solo mode, but there's still things like Home Run Contest and Trophy Rush so I don't knock it too hard for that

But Injustice 2 actually did add more modes. The Multiverse is basically a bunch of mini-stories. They also added loot, and alternate character skins. It's also always had a campaign.

IIRC, Blazblue had a pretty decent campaign mode, too. I only played one of them though and I don't recall which one it was.

Injustice 2 does have more content but I'm not a fan of their bullshit loot box that you can spend real money on, save that for the shooters please.

BlazBlue 4 had a satisfying ending to the series but of course I wouldn't know about it firsthand because I refuse to play it without the glorious dub.

Skullgirls had actually went back and fully voice acted all of the character stories in the game for 2nd Encore, that's showing you care about all aspects of your game.
---

thompsontalker7 posted...

all the good fighters have this aspect plus more so that's a moot point

uh no.

you apparently think T3 was a good fighter so that automatically invalidates the argument since it had broken characters on top of already crappy balance.

no one gave a fuck back then because people weren't as sweaty in tournaments and plenty of characters were viable

you not caring =/= everyone else not caring.

also, character viability is 100% irrelevant when certain T3 characters were broken. you wanted to win a T3 tournament, you pretty much only had 1-2 choices of character.
---

thompsontalker7 posted...

Injustice 2 does have more content but I'm not a fan of their bullshit loot box that you can spend real money on, save that for the shooters please.

BlazBlue 4 had a satisfying ending to the series but of course I wouldn't know about it firsthand because I refuse to play it without the glorious dub.

Skullgirls had actually went back and fully voice acted all of the character stories in the game for 2nd Encore, that's showing you care about all aspects of your game.

I feel like the problem is that your standards are a bit high. The priority when making a fighting game sort of has to be on the mechanics and the multiplayer, and everything else is gravy. I agree that the loot boxes/Day 1 DLC is bullshit.

Gameplay balance can be tweaked and prodded and characters can be nerfed into oblivion if the community or developers deem so (rip T7 Lili)

But you can still have a great game even if the balance isn't all the way there, and T3 is the biggest example of that

I'd imagine it's much harder to add gameplay modes and other stuff once the game is out than to go and rebalance characters, unless they're part of the overall plan like Tekken 7's season pass

Do you think anyone is gonna have any reason to go back to T7 years from now if the servers were to ever go kaput

Probably not, because Harada put so much emphasis on the online aspect that the only other way to spend your time in the game is Treasure Battle (assuming you're done with story mode)
---

character dlc is bullshit because devs have proven again and again they abuse it and its literally cut content
---

Gameplay balance can be tweaked and prodded and characters can be nerfed into oblivion if the community or developers deem so (rip T7 Lili)
But you can still have a great game even if the balance isn't all the way there, and T3 is the biggest example of that

the only way to balance a game back then was to release an entirely new game.
hence, all the SF2 versions and eventually the vastly superior version of T3 called TTT but even that didn't come close to touching the popularity of T3 despite being the better fighter in every conceivable way.

the only real difference between a bad game like SF5 and T3 is the amount of content included in the game to appease people who couldn't really care less about the actual competition in fighting games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSgA_nK_w3A&feature=youtu.be

in this video pros pretty much dissect the reason why SF5 blows and none of it is about the small cast of characters or bad single player content or how there was no arcade mode etc.
it's all about how the balance sucks, how the mechanics have been simplified and how decent players have been given the chance to beat amazing players simply by design.

if the base game had 20+ more characters on launch, a long story/arcade/quest mode and all the bells and whistles of customization and tons of endings movies and various unlockables etc, then none of the above would most likely matter and the game would have probably garnered 90+ ratings according to what "critics" look for in a game.
---

If the balance sucks ala SFV and there's nothing else in the game to keep you busy, the game is inherently worthless to keep playing. That's why I reinforce Tekken 3 as a positive example, no matter how you feel about the balance, there's still enough in there for you to have a good time, long after the competitive aspect is gone and there's no online in it to even think about.

Tekken 7 is on the border of becoming SFV because Harada doesn't give a fuck about what the fans think about roster/modes/balance and only recently gave a damn about the online connectivity after being bombarded on Twitter about it. There's no other modes to keep yourself busy besides treasure hunt and if you don't care about customization items like most of the community then you're basically SOL until they fix things. That's why online-focused gameplay is a shitty strategy.
---

Meh, I think Netherrealm fighters have plenty of content.
---

CruorComa posted...

Meh, I think Netherrealm fighters have plenty of content.

They do, but they fall on the opposite side of the spectrum with the balance not being so great (hello Deadshot)

Hell, I got a lot out of Mortal Kombat 9 on my Vita and none of it involved another person.
---

Okay.

*Goes back to playing Injustice 2*
---

I'm about to go back to Skullgirls myself while they fix this mess in T7

Did you know there's a swell mobile version as well

There's gatcha nonsense but that's the only downside
---